MALAYSIA SEO KING

MSEOKING - Search Engine Optimization For Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 15:33:00 +0800

Did you run blog as your platform to earn money on internet? Looking for the seo for blog then? I do recommended you to read my article below to find out more aout Search Engine Optimization For Blogs.

Blogging software is really a simple Content Management System (CMS) that easily adds new pages and integrates them into your site's navigational structure and linkage.

Blogs and blog posts are naturally search engine friendly because they are text-rich, link-rich, frequently-updated webpages that use stylesheets or CSS, and have very little extraneous HTML.

Optimizing a blog is very similar to optimizing a website, and optimizing a blog post similar to optimizing a web page. But depending on the blogging service or software you use, the results may look somewhat different.

If you follow some simple rules for search engine optimization, your blog can rank much higher than static website pages in the search engine results pages.

Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

1. Use your primary keyword in your blog domain

Whether you purchase a separate domain (recommended) for your blog, or host it on a blogging service or a subdomain of your own site, try to ensure that your URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for.

For example, if you want your blog to get found for the keyword "RSS" get a domain with the keyword "RSS", or use the keyword in a subdomain. Getting a domain name with your own name might make for good branding, especially if yours is a personal blog.

But if you're doing it for business and want the targeted traffic to flow your way, keywords in the domain or subdomain are a move in the right direction.

2. Use your primary key phrase in your blog header tags and the title of your posts

If your primary key phrase is "business blogging" make sure that the word business, or blogging, or both, appear in your blog headers (the H1 or H2 tags) as well as the title of each of your posts.

Most blogging software will take the keywords in your post title and put them into the file name of the permalink posts it creates.

For example, if you have a blog on Blogger and title your post "Search Engine Optimization For Blogs", Blogger will automatically create a page with your post and name the file "search-engine-optimization-for-blogs.html" or something similar.

With other server-side software like WordPress and Movable Type, you may require the mod_rewrite command to save the title of your entries as a permalink.

3. Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post and pepper your blog titles or links with them appropriately. Don't overdo this or your posts will end up sounding unnatural and spammy to readers.

4. Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Keyword in links have more importance than simple text. Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages on your main site.

Link keywords where they naturally appear in the body text, but again, don't overdo it, or you'll end up with spammy looking pages.

5. Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Set up your blog so that the side navigation bar is present on all pages. Make sure your archives and previous posts are accessible from all pages of your blog so they get spidered easily.

6. Get backlinks from other blogs or websites

Links pointing to your blog or posts are essential to build pagerank and make your blog rank higher in the search engine listings. I recommend that you focus your linking efforts on the methods here.

Submitting to Blog Search Engines and Directories:

Submitting your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories is essential for getting high-quality links back to your blog.

Link Exchanges:

Many similarly-themed blogs are often willing to exchange links with other blogs and form richly interlinked networks or communities. Link exchanges with other blogs are easy to implement with most blogging software.

Trackbacks:

You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. One of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not automatically create trackback URLs that others can use to link back to your posts.

But if trackbacks are an important component of your linking strategy, I would advise using another software or system that adds this feature automatically.

Comments:

You can also get back links to your blog by posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs.

7. Update frequently

There's no better food for search engine spiders than fresh content.

Post and update your blog frequently using all the rules outlined above and there's no reason why your blog will not get you top rankings in a short period of time.

8. Stay put

Once you create your blog, try to stick to the same domain and blog host or system for as long as you continue to publish.

You could end up losing a lot of your traffic, your readers and all your search engine listings if you decide to move.

MSEOKING - How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 15:07:00 +0800

Did you really want to improve your web site conversion rate? Do read my article below to find out how to improve your web site conversion rate.

Question 1

How do keywords effect your conversion rate in terms of SEO/SEM (search engine optimization/marketing)?

Keywords are important for two reasons.

Firstly by using the keywords which relate to your reader you get listed by search engines accordingly meaning that people can find you. Notice that I phrased the last sentence carefully. I said 'keywords which relate to your reader'. It's important to understand that what you consider 'key words' might not be the keywords your visitors are using to reach you.

Secondly and from my point of view more importantly keywords help to qualify your audience after they have arrived at your web site. If you click through from a search engine to a web site and the headline or first paragraph don't strike you as relevant to what you're looking for you're likely to 'bounce' (in other words leave the site). The key words you use help to assure your visitor they are in the right place.

Good use of keywords embedded in your copy and content will firstly help you to attract the right kind of people and secondly help to effectively qualify them as being in the right place. If you manage to attract and qualify them, the reader is then more likely to click through to find out more about what your website is about. If they do that, there is a much higher chance that they will convert to your desired goal.

A good SEO or SEM company in my opinion is one that understands that it's about answering the visitors' needs, not simply packing the website with related key words and phrases.

Question 2

What Is PPC (pay per click) and is it worth the money? Does it effect conversion?

Pay per click (or PPC) is when you set-up an account with a search engine (Google or Overture for instance) and write ads which appear when a certain keyword is requested by a visitor to the search engine. If a visitor clicks your ad you pay a predefined fee to the search engine. PPC done correctly is a good way to drive people interested in your product or services to your website and clever PPC marketing should positively effect conversion.

One of our clients recently asked me about a PPC campaign (run by another company) that was converting poorly. The reason it was converting poorly is because the ad was optimized to be clicked through and not optimized to qualify the reader. To explain in more detail, the product in the ad was a mobility scooter costing $1850. The ad explained you could get great discounts on mobility scooters and therefore the click through on the ad was quite high. Therefore it was an expensive campaign for our client which didn't convert into sales.

In my opinion this particular ad should try to qualify the reader more by having the price and location in the ad. My reasoning is that a fair percentage of visitors who are interesting in purchasing an expensive item like a mobility scooter will want to see it first. Therefore a good way to actually sell this particular product is to tell the reader the price and location so they know without going to the website whether the product is for them. If they click through and look it doesn't matter if they don't purchase but then come to the physical store and buy because they know the product is in their home town. Price in the ad pre-qualifies that they have the money. So if they have the money, are in the market and are in the same city there is a much higher chance of a purchase.

Another thing you should remember in PPC campaigns is the relevance of the ad to your landing page. It's an often overlooked problem that the PPC ad doesn't relate directly to the landing page. In the case of our client they did this correctly by linking the Google ads directly to the page about mobility scooters. A common mistake however is to link the ads to a home page which expects the visitor to work to find what it is you're selling.

Too many PPC companies work on click through as their gauge of success. They see it as their job to drive the traffic rather than convert it. The idea of successful PPC marketing is simple economics. You spend less than you earn from the visitors that arrive and make a profit. However ads that use the shotgun approach aren't doing you any favors. Ads that you're paying for should bring in very interested and pre-qualified visitors that convert at a higher level than free traffic.

Question 3.

When people first arrive at your website they are a mixed crowd (coming from everywhere with different expectations) how do you cater for them all?

You can't please everyone and it's fatal to try to do so. You have to figure out your best chance of business from your audience and cater to that area of business. If you have a large varied audience or are running some kind of portal then you should have a clear strategy to attract people to dedicated sections of your website.

For instance in the field of small business there are 1000's of different wants, needs and requirements to cater for. Your landing page (home or index page) is going to have a very hard time catering for all of those people effectively.

So quite simply don't try. Figure out by measuring how people find you, what the biggest segment of traffic look for and cater for that group. Then take the second biggest segment of traffic and develop a different landing page for them, using content (and embedded keywords) more relevant to their wants and needs.

It's possible to develop big websites which cater for a variety of different audiences but not all in the same page.

For instance, a small business owner in need of a sample contract of employment isn't immediately going to be interested in accountancy services. He might be interested in a resources section which has sample documents for download and lawyers who cater for small businesses.

If therefore this visitor arrived to find a website with a plethora of choices when all he wants is a sample contract then he is likely to leave.

If however a section of your website was dedicated solely to business documents and sample downloads for small businesses and the visitor clicks through to this page from a search engine, there is a much higher chance he will browse to find what he is looking for. If then he sees that you have more resources (like an accountancy portal link) then he may even bookmark your site before leaving and that's what you want, repeat visitors.

Question 4.

I know about testing, but how much traffic (people landing on the test page) do you need to determine if something is not working?

Again the focus is where your visitors are coming from. If you have well targeted traffic arriving at your pages (i.e. PPC or strategic links) a fair sample size is when 1000 people have visited the site (or test page). At least that's the minimum we use to make any decisions with. When traffic is less targeted and bounce rates are higher then you have to make a decision based on larger numbers. If for instance one week 500 visitors arrived at your website which weren't your target audience, it's fair to say that you should discount them from your testing.

It all depends on you knowing where your visitors are coming from which requires a good measurement tool.

Question 5.

Is it really necessary to be listed at the top of the search engines? What are the other alternatives that clients should consider or is this perceived 'holy grail' really something we should all be chasing?

Being at the top of the search engines is not entirely necessary but it certainly helps. You should try to get a listing on the first page of results for your chosen keywords. Put simply if people have to look through to link number 8074 on Google to read about your products and services then you're not likely to be found.

For example if you do a Google search for 'improving website conversion' our site appears in the top position as we've optimized for that key phrase. We hoped that this is what our potential visitor will key in when doing a search. However while this was part of our strategy it was only a very small part as you cannot rely on search engine algorithms to pay your bills.

The alternative and safety net to relying on the all powerful search engine algorithm is to find strategic partners who like what you do and want to re-print your information. That is what people go online to do, find information and surprisingly not enough businesses realize this.

Strategic linking while harder work than submitting your site to search engines works very well. The subscription conversion rate average from our top strategic partners is 31%. By that I mean nearly a 3rd of the visits coming from the partners who re-print our articles subscribe.

Because the partners we're working with are well known and highly respected they are a great qualification vehicle. Upon visiting our partner website, the visitor reads what we've said (in articles, forum posts, blog entries, advertisements etc.), like what they see, click through to our site and subscribe. In this way the reader arrives warmed up to what you have to say so the conversion rate is much improved.

The added benefit of this is that the more outbound links you have pointing to you, the higher your ranking gets on many of the search engines. Another benefit is that even if you can't get listed on search engines directly for all your keywords, some of the partner sites will do so due to their own visibility, so more paths flow to you. This is a far more effective strategy than SEO/SEM alone.

Summary

This article has been about one subject, relevance. You begin with keywords which relate to and qualify your readers. This helps with search engine visibility and means your visitors feel like they are in the right place when they arrive at your website. PPC campaigns should qualify your audience initially and when clicked should land at a highly relevant and specific landing page. This means your advertisements are working for you and not simply driving traffic which isn't targeted well enough. Your web site message should not try to cater for everyone, it should be specific and relevant to a particular target market. This means that you can focus your message in relation to what your visitor wants. Finally you should find strategic partners who work in related industries with similar target audiences to your own. This means you improve your own visibility to your target audience. In simple terms being relevant means putting the right offer in front of the right people and by getting more of the right people to your website, you improve your conversion rates considerably.

MSEOKING - How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 14:59:00 +0800

Did you really want to improve your web site conversion rate? Do read my article below to find out how to improve your web site conversion rate.

Question 1

Does it help to track visitor behavior on websites through software?

Yes is the simple answer. No debate is required but I'll offer a simple explanation. If you don't measure, how do you expect to know what to improve? You can guess and hope you get it right, but if you have effective tracking software, then you simply have facts in front of you.

Effective measurement is more than simply having good software though; it's analyzing why things happen. One thing we measure is bounce, the number of people arriving at one page and then leaving without doing anything. The lower the bounce rate the better, because it means people are using the site more effectively.

One perfect example comes from a recent client. She had two pages with different articles on her site with exactly the same navigation left and centre. Most articles had a bounce rate of about 53%, but one had a better bounce of about 50% and another had a much worse bounce of around 90%.

We looked at both and found that the one with the 50% bounce was much more relevant to the reader arriving at the page. It had better and more relevant links at the bottom of the article than the one with 90%. We concluded that by being relevant on the poor page in the same way, the bounce rate would be reduced.

We would simply not have known that this was occurring at all without tracking software. So yes, it most definitely helps to track visitor behavior.

Question 2

What measurement software tools would you recommend?

We use IRIS Metrics. However apart from IRIS, I would also recommend browser-based software such as HitBox, WebTrends Live, RedSheriff, and Omniture. Generally, you get what you pay for. And while these systems are not cheap, they do provide the level of detail required to run an effective web campaign.

People have asked me if it's possible to use webalizer (free log software) to run an effective web measurement campaign. While it's possible to get a lot of useful information from free and cheap systems, you don't get path tracking, bounce rates, repeat visitor information, accurate visitor counts, accurate page counts and loads more information which is critical if you want to base business decisions on your measurements.

Question 3.

What is the difference between log-based and browser-based measurement?

Tracking tools that rely on server-based measurement are typically programs that are installed on your web server (by your ISP if your site is hosted) or installed locally on your PC using the log files taken from the server. Server-based measurement programs measure activity based on the text files held on the web server (referred to as log files).

The way that browser-based measurement (or ASP measurement) works is that information from each browser that visits your website is recorded, usually in a database, and then the data is manipulated into reports you can read. Typically, these services ask you to paste some JavaScript code into your web pages. A cookie is used to determine which user is accessing the site. This is then tracked on a remote server and you log in to view the reports.

I recommend the use of ASP measurement because it only measures how people using a web browser use your website.

The log files record everything visiting your pages. They need a number of added filters to stop email harvesters, search engines and a variety of other software generated crawlers or bots from being counted as 'visitors'; without them, you can get seriously skewed results.

Server access is often required to get log file filtering right; otherwise, you're relying on your ISP to report your tracking correctly. The log files for one of our clients had 10 times as many page counts and visits recorded than shown by using an ASP. That's a 1000% error!

Question 4.

What is an average conversion rate?

This is a very good question and is the topic of serious debate. In other marketing industries they don't guess. They have standards that everyone follows. It's what's needed in online marketing before any real answer can be given.

Analytics companies, the big research companies, and digital media associations are going to have to come together to define these standards and then people are going to have to follow what is agreed before accurate numbers can be delivered consistently.

Currently, we're in the process of trying to establish a worldwide benchmark with a number of other prominent people (The Web Analytics Association and the IAB to mention two) in the industry who also want to know the answer to this question.

But meanwhile, here are some statistics we've gathered from different sources published both recently and over the last few years. I have figures for 3 types of websites: sales (e-commerce), lead generation, and subscription-based websites.

Generally, sales sites seem to range between a 0.5% and 8% with the average rate being 2.3% according to FireClick statistics published this year and figures published in 2003 by e-consultancy.com. In 2000, the average figure for sales conversion as published by shop.org was 1.8%.

The high-end figures, I hasten to add, are the top e-tailers according to all sources. My own experience shows sites hitting between .5% and 5.3% so this seems to correlate with the published figures. Of course since there is no defined standard, these numbers have to be taken as a rule of thumb.

The only source we have for lead generation sites is e-consultancy.com. They quote 2-3% of users completing an optional or free registration process, with 5% being best in class. Our own experience again falls within the same ballpark.

Subscriptions to sale conversion is typically between 1 and 7% again the source is e-consultancy.com

We don't have figures for visitor to subscription conversion, but our own experience with clients has been between 1 and 8%. Our own site has consistently hit 15% for 6 months though the traffic is pretty well targeted and our methods very well tested.

Question 5.

How do you go about consistently improving conversion?

This is the million dollar question. What it really boils down to is treating web marketing as a science. We do it by consistently measuring how people use a website. Over time you will learn what works and what doesn't and stop wasting your time on the things that don't work.

First we look at the technical aspect of the website. It's amazing how many people overlook and ignore thousands of people who don't use Windows XP with Internet Explorer at a screen resolution of 1024x768. First make sure that you develop something that works for everyone.

One of the next areas we look at is where the traffic comes from. It allows you to concentrate your efforts on your best chance of generating converting traffic. Then we get into reducing the average website bounce rate.

The lower the average bounce, the higher the number of people surfing your website and seeing the value of your offer. The higher the number who see your offer, the better the chance of a sale. Checking bounce rates also usually brings up some juicy problems to be solved.

Then look at testing and improving copy and graphical content, running split tests and measuring bounce rates on copy or simply testing the click-through on links. We do much more, but the basic premise is this: test and measure, follow up with experimentation, and then with more testing and more measuring. Sounds like science class doesn't it?

Summary

In part three of this series of articles we'll be looking at where traffic arrives from and how that effects conversion, specific search engine queries, PPC issues and other general topics. To summarize, I am suggesting that if you begin to scientifically measure and improve your websites based on facts and findings, not guesswork and theory, you will begin to improve your conversion rates.

MSEOKING - How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 14:48:00 +0800

Did you really want to improve your web site conversion rate? Do read my article below to find out how to improve your web site conversion rate.

Question 1.

What do you mean by conversion? Do you mean getting someone to answer the simplest call to action such as "read more here" or actually selling a product or service?

What you're talking about here are two different ways to measure your website. "Read More Here" is what I would call a variable affecting your conversion rate. I call these kinds of variables "Micro Conversions" because they are all small (microscopic even) steps toward a full conversion.

A micro conversion is something that you should test and measure. "Read More Here" might get a worse click-through rate than "Click here to find out how to win a month's supply of vintage wine." So by improving this click through, you get the person browsing to take another small step toward your final website goal. By doing this, you improve your overall conversion rate, which in this case is to get someone to register or subscribe to win a month's supply of vintage wine.

Micro conversions can be tracked by measuring the click through of links, or the read time for content, or the bounce rate for headlines and copy. Full conversion is persuading your visitors to do what you want them to do. In my example, it would be registering to win wine, but it could be subscribe to a newsletter, download an audio file, buy a product, sell a service or whatever, but it should reflect what your website's business objective is.

Question 2.

What strategies would you suggest when there is no "online" conversion possible? I need them to call me for more info, to learn more and to eventually give them a proposal.

There is no such thing as "no online conversion". You're looking for leads who will eventually phone you but the visitor is the one with the power. If you don't give your visitors a reason to let you continue to have a dialog with them, then they won't. Using opt-in is one answer.

If, for instance, you ask for a name, email address and telephone number from your visitor so that he can then get useful information from you in the form of a free report or audio file, you do two things. First, you qualify the visitor as someone who is interested in your services, and second, you get permission to contact him/her again.

You need to build into your website a powerful reason for your visitors to give you permission to email or talk to them rather than expect someone to pick up the phone. In your case, you say they need to ring you to learn more. Put what they need to learn into some form that they can opt in to get, such as a white paper, report or audio file.

Then you have a conversion rate that is the percentage of people who give you permission to continue the dialog with them by giving you their email address or phone number so that they can learn more about your offering. People visit a website to get information, so give them the means to get it.

Question 3.

What if the product you sell is also sold by several others on other websites? How do you get someone who is browsing the Internet to notice your site and want to order from you?

In offline marketing, a successful tactic is differentiation. It's no different online. If you stand out from your competition, then you get noticed. What makes you different (not necessarily better, just different) from your competition?

A USP makes an enormous difference to conversion rates. We improved subscriptions by 11% per month for six months by differentiating ourselves. The second point is that your site should be of use to your visitor.

The one thing that all people online have in common is that when they browse they are looking for information. So give your visitors what they want in the form of education.

If your potential customers become educated about your offer and take away something useful from your website, they will remember you over your competition.

Question 4.

How do you get the address, telephone number and name of the owner of any company that you're trying to get in touch with to see if they would be interested in what you sell?

You need to get permission from the visitor to get that information. It can't be done with any tracking tools available. There is a very good reason for this and it's called privacy.

If you or I went online and could have our names, addresses and phone numbers tracked by software, it could be potentially dangerous. Imagine if you were online and were talking in a chat room about going on holiday in a faraway land for the next few weeks and your personal information could be gathered.

The person who sees that information then knows when to go to your address and rob you while you're away. It's OK to track browser behavior because no personal details are ever tracked. I for one hope it stays that way.

Question 5.

What should one look for in the web logs to determine conversion rates?

Web log files are a problem because they record everything. Web logs record every request to your site's pages from search engine indexes, to email harvester software, link harvesters and visitors. So first you need to filter out from log files the information that isn't relevant to visitors.

Then you're looking for unique visitors (not visits) or unique sites. Once you have that filtered figure, you have the approximate number of visitors coming to your site, still not close to 100% because of proxy servers recording multiple visitors as one browser, but it's as close as you can get with log files.

Then you divide the number of people who complete the conversion action by the total visitors. That is your conversion rate. If you can get software that doesn't use logs like IRIS Metrics or log software that works out the filtering like Web Trends, it makes your job much easier.

Question 6.

What factors have the biggest impact on conversions on my web site?

The short answer is differentiation, target marketing, your site's relevance to your desired audience, measurement, experimentation, and most importantly trust.

Differentiation is the first step in the process. You must find a way to stand out from the competition. It should start with the domain name, and continue throughout your entire website's strategy.

Then in your content, your copy and your design, you must smack your target audience between the eyes. You have to find out exactly what it is they want and answer the wants and needs of that audience.

Relevance is hugely important, too. If you're running a campaign on Overture or Google with certain keywords, your audience should land at exactly the right place after typing those keywords and finding your website.

So if the audience types "Red Vintage Wine" into Overture and your link appears, on clicking through they should be taken to the page on your site talking all about and selling red vintage wine. They shouldn't land at the home page of your website which has a small link to the red vintage wine section and 5 or 6 other types of wine for sale.

Measuring and experimenting is then the key to improving conversion rates. You can't improve conversion without measurement unless you're making educated guesses or you're just plain lucky. So get a good measurement system, learn what it's all about, and test your changes.

Finally and most importantly trust. You can't sell anything if your audience doesn't trust you. You can help them to trust you by prominently displaying your privacy policy, your shipping procedure, the fact that you use SSL encrypted protection for the forms on your site, that hundreds of satisfied customers have already bought from your store, that you make it very easy to find contact information such as a name and address as well as support via email. You could educate via your website with articles and 'how to sections' or newsletters and instill trust over time. In short, your prospect must trust you to part with his or her money.

What's next?

In part two of this series, we'll be looking at measurement software tools, the pros and cons of logs versus ASP vendors, average conversion rates, why it helps to track visitor activity using the software which is available, and what you should test and tweak to improve conversion rates.

MSEOKING - Without Conversion Rates You Don’t Know If You’re Mickey Mouse Or Mickey Mantle

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 14:40:00 +0800

Did you know, that without a conversion rate you will not able to know what are your customer want, demand on the world, how to find out what they want and you are not miss to sell it? Read my article below to find out more.

I couldn’t agree more with the headline of this article and it’s one I’m afraid I can’t take credit for. I found this line in Paco Underhill’s book, Why We Buy – The Science Of Shopping, and found myself comparing many of the things he has measured in the retail world to the tests I’ve done with online, visitor-based activity. The conversion rate on a website is easy to measure.

Unfortunately, businesses too busy concentrating on their bottom line most often overlook it. The point of this article is to define what a conversion rate is and show you how you can begin to start improving your own website’s conversion rate and therefore your bottom line. At the same time, I will relate my observations to Paco’s on offline retailing.

In Cyberspace No-One Can Hear You Shop

According to Paco, the main problem with websites is that, owing to media attention and the love of technology, retailers went online without knowing why. It’s true that in the late 90’s businesses were going online because their competition had, or because they feared that they would be left behind by not embracing the new technology. Not great reasons to spend time, money and resources on a website.

he painful thing is that, since going online, most of these websites have not changed much for the better. Yes, they look nicer now, but the number of glorified poster sites I still see never ceases to amaze me. In order to combat this lack of purpose, I propose you look at four goals and adapt them to your own business requirements. One of these goals should be the primary focus of your entire website design.

1) Prospect Acquisition

To deliver qualified leads and prospects through the website.

2) Sales/E-commerce

To sell products and services online directly through an e-store.

3) In-House Cost Saving

To cut costs, usually resources such as printed material or time, by automating in-house processes online such as timekeeping systems and human resource procedures.

4) Customer Service

To improve customer service by providing answers to queries and complaints online automatically where possible.

With the goal clearly defined, it is easier to measure the effectiveness of your site because you know what to look for. Conversion is defined in relation to the goal you’ve chosen.

So measure prospect acquisition as the percentage of visitors who give you their details out of the total number of visitors to your website. Measure conversion on sales as the percentage of people buying a product against the total number of website visitors.

Conversion on in-house cost saving is simply the number of people using the system as a percentage of the number of people supposed to be using the system. A good internal policy here will mean this is a 100% conversion rate. The number of people using the resources and systems you have put in place as a percentage of total visitors to the support web pages can give you your customer service conversion.

So why measure conversion? Because it allows you to accurately measure the impact of changes you make by measuring the performance of your website before and after the change. With that valuable information in hand, you can make adjustments accordingly.

The Butt Brush Factor

In many instances in his book, Paco refers to ‘The Butt Brush Factor’ — the way people, women in particular, don’t like enclosed spaces where other people constantly bump into them from behind. It usually led to the prospective shopper feeling frustrated or feeling uncomfortable and leaving the store or going somewhere else. You might be thinking, “well how does that relate to an online experience?”

It is true that no-one usually bumps into you from behind while you’re sitting in front of a computer, but how many times are you made to feel irritated, uncomfortable or just downright frustrated by a website? How often do you leave one and look at another because the first one doesn’t have what you’re looking for? This ‘Butt Brush Factor’ is incredibly relevant to websites, more so I think than even in ordinary retail. Here are some examples of common online ‘Butt Brush Factors’ that you will see in many business websites.

1) Latest News.

The landing page has the latest news about the company links. What exactly is the point of having a bunch of latest news links on your landing page? What good is that to a browser arriving at your landing page knowing and caring little about your company? A browser wants to know what you can do for him right there and then, not how your company stock is doing. An ‘About Us’ section is a much more reasonable place to put these links.

2) Awards.

A landing page with awards screams, look at us, look at what we’ve achieved, aren’t we clever? It also completely wastes space on the most important page of your website. It can be compared to what Paco said when he talked about going into a car showroom and seeing manufacturer awards. That is unlikely to make much of an impression on the average shopper.

3) Poor Headlines.

‘Welcome to Company Name’ is the most common waste of a headline I ever see. Probably the company is unknown to the visitor so you’re wasting his or her time. A headline, which communicates the need of the target audience and how you can solve that need, improves reading and click through by up to 35% in recent tests we made.

4) Submit Buttons.

Why tell the visitor to ‘submit?’ Submit actually means “To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another” according to dictionary.com, so why ask innocent web browsers to do that in order to read your monthly newsletter? Subscribe to our newsletter is much more friendly, I would say.

5) Bad Use Of Flash.

This is a common problem with media companies in particular. I understand why they do these all singing all dancing interactive flash websites, which often are works of art and showcase their ability. However ‘skip intro’ is a common link on the majority of these websites. That is because some people find them a waste of time. Why have an intro at all? Why not just have a showcase of what you can do on a normal fast, efficient website which tells me what I need to know quickly? If I decide I have the time to look at flash animations I will.

6) Poor Use Of Imagery.

I’m guilty of this myself. We used to have a picture of a squirrel flying through the air with ‘what’s your objective’ on our landing page. It might have worked had we been selling nuts or seed, but a company improving website conversion? Not really relevant! It was more a result of my ego, pride and photographic luck in capturing said squirrel with my digital camera, and then thinking of a way I could use the picture, than thinking of a good picture which was relevant to what we were trying to say and using that. This kind of thing is repeated on many websites — people with briefcases, bridges, animals and other general graphics, which can be turned with words into anything you want the image to say. But on first glance, they don’t really show any relevance. All communication should be relevant and, ideally, persuade the user to do something.

Again, conversion is an important measurement here. It can be applied to all of the changes you make to your site as you eliminate these ‘Butt Brush Factors’. Later in this article, I’ll explain how.

Attention All Shoppers…

“For the next fifteen minutes, in the frozen food section, free passion fruit sorbet for everyone” is a perfect way to instill urgency in shoppers to go to that section of the store and get the freebie. They know they only have 15 minutes, and they know that after that time they won’t get the lovely sorbet. This was Paco’s way of showing how stores could be more imaginative. The store knows that that section of the store is going to be jammed with people for that 15 minutes and can capitalize on impulse sales. That’s how it works in the retailing world, but what about online? Instilling urgency online is a major factor overlooked by many business websites. Some examples of how you might want to start employing this technique online are listed below.

1) Time Expiry Offer.

Just as in the above example, you could let your readers know they will miss out if they haven’t subscribed or bought your product by a certain time.

2) The First Number.

Your website could offer the first 50 subscribers a free e-book or could advertise that the first 50 items sold will be at a 30% discount. This could be combined with a counter showing the number of places/items left, so that the browser thinks “I have to subscribe before those places are taken up”.

3) The Nth Number Competition.

The website states that if you are subscriber number 1000, you get a free website makeover, again combined with a visible counter of the current number of subscriptions. This could be tied into a referral deal so that if the subscriber is not the lucky number and does not get the deal, at least he could be offered something for making the referral while his friend might still end up being the lucky number and win the prize.

So how does conversion relate to all these changes? The conversion rate should and can be measured in every instance.

The Science Of Online Marketing

There are two incredibly significant lines in Why We Buy:

“Science is by and large the study of very small differences” and “When you change one thing, everything changes”.

The first ‘very small difference ’ and ‘changing one thing’ situation I came across in my online marketing career was a complete mistake. I was working for a large press organization and one day I had to change some HTML code on a sales form. By mistake, I removed a voucher entry field from the form. As a result, people could no longer enter their voucher number to get a cheaper deal.

Conversion improved by three times. I told our editor who was amazed but instructed me to put the voucher field back on the form while they figured out what to do. There was a good reason for the voucher; in fact, it was the entire reason the page was there.

However, putting the voucher entry field back resulted in a drop in conversion to almost the identical sales that we had been getting before my mistake. The voucher idea was eventually scrapped on that page and sales sky rocketed again. The reason, we ascertained, was that visitors figured that they could get a cheaper deal with a voucher.

The voucher could only be gotten by physically buying a newspaper and that limited us to around 10% of the audience. Nine out of ten people visiting the website did so from a place where they couldn’t buy the newspaper at that time, so it was obvious that the voucher idea could only be good for the local readers.

This experience was a catalyst for me personally, and from then on, I began to understand the importance of measurement online. In particular, the measurement of conversion.

So in order to turn the online changes you make into a science, follow three simple rules.

1) Measure Conversion.

Conversion is a percentage, a calculation of the number of people who take the action you desire as a percentage of the total number of visitors to the page. Using percentages makes the actual number of people arriving at a page irrelevant. It becomes possible to compare a busy week with a quiet week.

2) Change one thing at a time.

An average page has lots of variables: graphics, headlines, paragraphs, sentences, links, testimonials and probably a lot more. By only changing one thing and always measuring for the same period of time (30 days is good), you will get a fair result. So for instance, if you change a headline, look at the page click-through and if possible the length of time an average visitor stayed on the page for 30 days before the change. Make the change and measure the results for the next 30 days. Then if conversion is higher (more people reading or more people clicking through), keep the change. If it’s lower, revert to what you had before.

3) Experiment.

Don’t limit yourself to headlines. Copy, content, graphics, adding competitions, etc. — try them all. But remember the rule: change only one variable at any one time.

Summary

I’ve desperately been trying to keep this article short; I think I could have written an epic on this subject. If I were in the same room as Paco Underhill, we would have an awful lot to talk about. However what I’m trying to say is that businesses should start waking up to the fact that online marketing is as much a science as Paco demonstrates in the retailing world. Measuring conversion rates online is the beginning of making it scientific.

MSEOKING - Five Short Quick Tips on Web Page Titles

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 14:29:00 +0800

Did you know that title of your we pages are very important for search engine ranking? Do read my article below for the quick tips for optimizing it.

Search engine spiders read and record page titles first. Here are five tips on how you can get the search engine spiders to read your titles and use them in their optimization process:

1. Character count is important: Google's maximum character count for page titles is 83. Yahoo's maximum character count is 111.

2. Don't use filler words like: and, for, the. They are dropped anyway by the search engines.

3. Remove redundant or unsearch worthy words or phrases, for instance: Welcome to, this is about, or Products Page. Anything people would not normally search on. This also uses up the limitations on character count (mentioned in #1 above).

4. Include word plurals, for instance: sales lead and sales leads.

5. Include various spellings or misspellings of the words, for example, saleslead and sales lead, could be used as one word or someone might search on them as two separate words.

MSEOKING - EMarketing Sabotage - Top 10 Steps to Kill Your Search Engine Marketing Practices

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 14:23:00 +0800

This is amazing 10 simple step for your internet marketing success using the seo technique.

We find ourselves amazed at the amount of effort people spend trying to fool or manipulate their positioning in search engines. People seem to focus on the shortcuts to success and NOT on their Web site or the true value their content provides to their prospects.

In the spirit of educating marketers about best practices, we present this list of ten things you can do to sabotage your search engine marketing project in a "New York" second.

1. Invisible (Ghost) Text

You have kept a good secret! Your visitors might not have noticed, but all search engine crawlers have been trained to be on the lookout for this obvious technique, last fashionable circa 1997. The search engines may very well purge all your pages from their index due to deceptive practices.

And, if you are feeling really frisky, you can make this technique even more effective if the invisible text has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the page it sits within.

2. Frames Usage

Search engines are not "frame-friendly". Once they encounter a pesky frame, they either stop flat in their tracks because the frame doesn't give them anywhere else to go, or they locate the pages beyond the frames and point people to that locale - which won't have the frames included with it.

There's truly no need to use frames and make attempt to justify it by believing it will improve the prospect's experience.

If your prospects can't uncover your site or they find slices and slivers of you, how much then have you actually assisted them?

3. Why Be Fresh And Original?

Why try to be unique, it's just too hard anyway? It sounds foolish, but it occurs quite often. If you find something of real interest on another site, just burning a copy and slapping your links on the top does not make you a unique force on the Net. And how many actual shopping sites selling the exact same discounted products are enough for the average Web? In my book, the more sites you mirror, the least effective you will become.

4. Chubby Web Pages (Obesity Kills)

Sites with lots of graphics, animation, Flash and music do pose many disruptive elements with the search engines. Not only can it confuse your prospects, who are looking for obvious information and links, the search engines may not feel you are very relevant because they cannot be sure what to make of your Web site.

If you have a site made up of nothing but heavy graphics and multimedia, not only will you give the search engines zero to index, you may also aggravate any prospect running with a slower connection speed. In nothing else, at the least, use ALT-tags to explain images for text browsers, the hearing impaired and search engines.

5. Redirects, Redirects, And More Redirects

You may be using "redirects" within your Web pages to track clicks for advertising and also to pull together information about your site visitors. Your Web pages may be indexed, but you may not rank well at all. The search engines may not be able to see the correlation that exist between your Web pages because the redirect code often blocks their path, unlike direct text linkage.

6. Lengthy URL's

Dynamic (ever-changing) e-commerce and shopping Web sites that use parameters and their session ID's often manifest these difficult URL's nicely.

If your Web site has lengthy URL's sprinkled with question marks, percentage signs, Session ID's, and at least three parameters, you're degrading your hopes for search engine superiority.

Lengthy URL's do not look very attractive to individuals searching and the site URL's contain calls to various databases.

Leading the way for the search crawler directly into your database may quite possibly be a sure-fire way to send them spidering elsewhere.

7. Forgotten about your No Index Tag and Robots.txt?

Have you created a plan to keep all those nasty search bots out? Do you have a robots.txt file living on the root of your site? Does this file contain the following:

User-agent: *disallow /

Or does your Web property have a Meta-tag:

<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
Be extra nice to your Webmaster. He or she may depart from your company in the future and leave this little monster behind for you to find at the end of a needlessly expensive investigation into why the search engines will not make nice with your Web site.

If you are using the special robots protocol, you will not want to forget to remove them altogether if you are going live from a beta testing process.

8. Doorway Pages

Doorway pages (also know as jump pages and bridge pages) and anything that is created specifically for a search engine and does not contain more than valuable content or products for your prospect, is not an effective search marketing tool.

If you're not providing true content, the search engines will discover this and may penalize your entire online site. If you've jammed yourself into this hole, you'll probably need to return back to start with a new domain name.

9. Identical Meta-Tags And Titles

You worried over every single unique page of the Web property while developing it, but you didn't spend a lot of concern that each page should be tagged (or classified) that way.

Imagine walking into your public library where every single book had the exact same title. What better way to tell a search bot to "take a hike" than showing them that all of your content is exactly the same. You will most likely see fewer of your Web pages indexed and much less traffic than you might otherwise.

Here's a quick checklist to consider for your Meta-Tags and Titles:

* Do they deliver a "call to action"?

* Do they use relevant keywords and phrases?

* Is your "Title" less than 80 characters?

* Do they accurately describe what the page is about?

* Are these consistent with the page?

10. Linking Networks

Did you find a service that's offering to link thousands of other Web sites to you today? Taking part in these programs may effectively indicate to the search engines that you really do not want their valuable traffic. The quality of these link pages as well as their overall content "value" to a human visitor is very low.

Most search engines do come together in agreement and can severely penalize accordingly. Sites that get marked as link spammers, may be briskly informed that they should find a new domain name and begin all over again.

I advise you to take these lessons in "eMarketing Sabotage" for what they are, guidelines to help you operate your good e-business practice free and clear of the many pitfalls and mistakes of other marketers and improve on your own level of success in conjunction with search engines strategies.

Soon, with a sound plan, a bit of smart work and a solid attention-to-detail approach, your Web pages may rank highest among today's top search engine results.

Happy Marketing!

MSEOKING - 6 Ways To Attract Search Engines To Your Website More Often

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 14:17:00 +0800

Did you want to attract Search Engine into your website more often? Still looking for the guide? I do recommended to you read my article how to attract the search engine to visit your site often.

Adding fresh, updated content to your website is the surest way to get search engines engines to spider your site more often. Search engines are known to index sites updated on a regular basis more frequently.

Updating and adding to the content on your website frequently will give you an advantage in the search results and also help you expand the number of search terms or key phrases you can get found for.

There are many tools and resources you can use to automate the process of adding fresh, updated content and creating more spider-food on your website.

Here are six ways to add fresh content to your site:

Blogs

A blog is an online diary or journal. Setting up a blog is easy and the many free blogging services make it possible for just about anyone to get started. Several blog programs allow your users to create an account and post their comments to your blog, thereby adding more fresh content for you. I use WordPress to create my own blogs.

Newsletters or Ezines

Publishing a regular newsletter or ezine is an excellent way to add content at regular intervals and get repeat traffic to your site. Archiving your newsletters online is one way of automatically updating your pages and adding new content.

Content Management Systems

Content Management Systems (CMS) allow you or your website visitors to add, edit or delete content to your website without having to create and format the pages manually. Article exchange scripts are a type of content management system.

There are many zero-cost or open-source content management systems, that are included with hosting packages and can be set up quickly. Some open-source CMS include Joomla and Drupal

Forums/Bulletin Boards

A forum or bulletin board is an excellent tool for building content and creating an online community that will bring repeat traffic. Many web hosts now provide packages that include bulletin board scripts on your server.

The best part about a forum is that it allows your visitors to build your content for you. However, it does require time and energy, and some technical knowledge to moderate and maintain forums. phpBB is a popular open-source bulletin system.

Reviews/Interviews

Reviewing and publishing a write-up on new products or resources in your field is becoming a favourite technique with affiliate marketers looking to boost their commissions. It is also an excellent way to get found for the keywords related to the product you review. You can also do regular interviews of experts in your industry and put up the transcript on your site.

RSS or Newsfeeds

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing because it allows syndication of *expert* news and content that is regularly updated at the source. Using RSS feeds you can enhance your site content without the need to write a single line on your own. Search engines love RSS feeds and are known to spider pages with such feeds more often.

MSEOKING - Got Spider?

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 21:07:00 +0800

Oh no, my article is not about living "spider", but about spider webs, or spider crawler, that every internet marketer dream are, having spider visit their blog/site.

Many internet marketers blow mountains of start-up cash on their websites just trying to break into search engine rankings. I was one of these internet marketers.

I spent cash on get-rich-quick submission services that claimed they would submit my page to thousands of search engines. . .for a small fee. I spent money to get registered with big name search engines. I even spent money on search engine optimization services.

And then I waited. . .

I waited to see SOME response--any response--from all of this work I had done. I waited for the spiders to reach my pages and rank my page for everyone to see. I waited for my blown marketing funds to come back to me in profits. . .

But they never did. The spiders took weeks. The page rankings were dismal. I was ready to give up.

And then I received this vital piece of information from a fellow marketer: the more links you have on bigger websites, the faster your page is spidered. . .

That's right: Since search engines rank higher-PR sites more often, they will find your page a lot faster if you get your link on a highly-trafficked website!

Not only will they find your site faster, but they will also return to it faster and rank it for FREE. This is all in addition to receiving a huge PR boost for having a link on a high-PR site.

So. . .

If you haven't done it already, slap some metatags on your site that are optimized for your content. Make sure you use keywords that are repeated multiple times in the text of your website, so that your pages will rank higher for relevency.

Now begin your hunt for high-PR websites to post your link on. You can start by going to Google and earching for your specific service or product in quotes to find high-PR sites in your category.

You'll find out quickly that there are a number of ways to get your link on these websites. Some of them will agree to do a main-page link exchange for free.

Others will allow you to submit articles along with a resourcebox that will give you a link on their website. And others wont allow you to work with them at all unless you have special qualifications or a high page-ranking.

If you have a free product, like an eBook or some software, you can give away free downloads on a high-R site. Just place an ad on the site with a link back to your website, where they can receive the free download. You can find these sites by googling phrases like "free content directory."

There are plenty of ways to bring in traffic with search engines without paying hefty registration fees. Start searching today. Find the big sites and get your link out there!

MSEOKING - Search Engine Marketing 101 For Corporate Sites

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 20:58:00 +0800

Did you looking for SEO guide for your Corporate sites? hen I do recommended to you read my article below to your search engine marketing for corporate sites.

When most people want to find something on the web, they use a search engine. Millions of searches are conducted every day on search engines such as: google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com and many others.

Some people are looking for your website. So how do you capture people searching for what your site has to offer? Through techniques called search engine marketing (SEM).

This tutorial is foundational information for anyone looking to implement search engine marketing. This tutorial will also help you understand how the search engines work, what SEM is, and how it can help you get traffic.

What is a Search Engine?
All search engines start with a "search box", which issometimes the main focus of the site, e.g. google.com, dmoz.org, altavista.com; sometimes the "search box" is just one feature of a portal site, e.g. yahoo.com, msn.com, netscape.com. Just type in your search phrase and click the "search" button, and the search engine will return a listing of search engine result pages (SERPs).

To generate SERPs the search engine compared your search phrase with information it has about various web sites and pages in its database and ranks them based on a "relevance" algorithm. Search Engine Classes

Targeted audience, number of visitors, quality of search and professionalism is what determines a search engine's class. Each search engine typically target specific audiences based on interest and location.

World-class search engines look very professional, include virtually the entire web in their database, and return highly relevant search results quickly.

Most of us are familiar with the major general search engines; google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com. A general search engine includes all types of websites and as such are targeting a general audience.

There are also the lesser known 2nd tier general search engines; zeal.com,ask.com,whatyouseek.com. The primary difference is that 2nd tier engines are lesser known and generate significantly less traffic.

There are also several non-general or targeted search engines that limit the types of websites they include in their database. Targeted search engines typically limit by location or by industry / content type or both.

Most large metro areas will have local search engines that list local businesses and other sites of interest to people in that area. Some are general and some are industry specific, such as specificallylisting restaurants or art galleries.

Many other targeted search engines list sites from any location but only if they contain specific types of content. Most webmasters are familiar with webmaster tools search engines such as; webmasterworld.com, hotscripts.com, flashkit.com and more. There are niche SEs for practically any industry and interest. Search Engine Models

There are two fundamentally different types of search engine back ends: site directories and spidering search engines. Site directory databases are built by a person manually inputting data about websites. Most directories include a site's url, title, and description in their database.

Some directories include more information, such as keywords, owner's name, visitor rankings and so on. Some directories will allow you to control your website's information yourself others rely on editors that write the information to conform to the directory standards.

It is important to note that most directories include directory listings as an alterative to the search box for finding websites. A directory listing uses hierarchal groupings from general to specific to categorize a site.

Spidering search engines take a very different approach. They automate the updating of information in their database by using robots to continually read web pages.

A search engine robot/spider/crawler acts much like a web browser, except that instead of a human looking at the web pages, the robot parses the page and adds the page's content it's database.

Many of the larger search engines will have both a directory and spidering search engine, e.g. yahoo.com, google.com, and allow visitors to select which they want to search.

Note that many search engines do not have their own search technology and are contracting services from elsewhere. For example, Google's spider SE is their own, but their directory is and Open Directory; additionally aol.com and netscape.com both use Google's spider SE for their results.

There are a few other search engine models of interest. There are some search engines that combine results from other engines such as dogpile.com and mamma.com. There are also search engines that add extra information to searches such as Amazon's alexa.com, which uses Google's backend but adds data from its search bar regarding tracking traffic to the site. Getting In

One of the most important things to understand about the SE database models is how to get into their database and keep your listing updated. With a search directory, a submission needs to be done to provide the directory all the information needed for the listing.

It is generally recommended that this be done by hand, either by you or a person familiar with directory submissions. There are many submission tools available that advertise they automate the submission process. This may be fine for smaller directories but for the major directories, manual submissions are worth the time.

Not all search directories are free; many charge a one-time or annual fee for review. Many of the free search directories have little quality control. For free directories you may have to submit your site several times before being accepted.

There are three different methods for getting into spidering search engines; free site submission, paid inclusion and links from other sites. Virtually all spidering SEs offer a free site submission. For most, you simply enter your url into a form and submit. Paid inclusion is normally not difficult, except for the credit card payment. For free site submission there is no quality control.

The SE may send a spider to your site in the next few weeks, months or never. Typically with paid inclusion you will get a guarantee that the page you submitted will be included within a short amount of time. The other standard way to get included is to have links to your website from other web pages that are already in the SEs database. The SE spiders are always crawling the web and will eventually follow those links to find your site.

Once you are in a search engine database, you might change your site and need the search engine to update their database. Each directory handles this differently; generally each database will have a form for you to submit a change request. Spidering search engines will eventually find the change and add your updates automatically. Getting High Rankings

Getting into a search engine database is only the first step. Without other factors you will not rank in the top positions, a prerequisite for quality traffic. So how do you get top positions? You can pay for placement with sponsored links that is covered in the next section. To place well in the free, organic SERPs, you will need to perform search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization is one of the most complicated aspects of web development. Each search engine uses a different algorithm, using hundreds of factors, that they are constantly changing, and they carefully guard their algorithm as trade secrets. Thus no one outside of the search engines employ knows with 100% certainty the perfect way to optimize a site. However, many individuals called search engine optimizers have studied the art and derived set of techniques that have a track record for success.

In general, there are two areas to focus on for top rankings; on-page factors and linking. On-page factors mean placing your target keywords in the content of your site in the right places. The structure of and technologies used on your website also play a role in on-page factors. Linking, refers to how other website's link to yours and how your site links internally. Search Engine's Marketing Offerings

Search engines in the early days of the web were focused solely on serving the visiting searcher. They worked to capture as much of the web as possible in their database and provide fast, relevant searches. Many early website owners learned to reverse engineer the relevancy algorithms and to make their sites "search engine friendly" to get top rankings. They were the first search engine optimizers, manipulating the search engine's natural or organic SERPs as a means of generating free web traffic.

Often times these optimized sites compromised the integrity of the SERPs and lowered the quality for the searcher. Search engines fought, and continue to fight, to maintain the quality of their results. Eventually, the search engines embraced the fact that they are an important means for marketing websites. Today most search engines offer an array of tools to balance website's owners need to market while maintaining quality for the searcher.

You can generally break search engine marketing tools into free and for-pay. Realize these classifications are from the search engine's point of view. Effort and expense is required to setup and maintain any search engine marketing campaign.

Organic rankings are still one of the most important ways to drive quality traffic. Search engines now seek to reward ethical, high-quality websites with top rankings and remove inappropriate "spam" websites.

While organic rankings can produce continual free traffic, it takes time from an experienced individual to achieve optimum results. Additionally, organic placement offers no guarantees, it generally takes months to get listed and can be unpredictable once listed.

Some search engines offer services that add more control to your organic campaign. Most of these services will list / update your site faster or will guarantee that all essential content is listed. For integrity reasons, no major search engine offers higher organic rankings for a fee.

If you need top rankings quickly, pay-per-positioning (PPP) is the most popular way to go. PPP rankings appear in normal organic SERPs but are usually designated as "sponsored listings". PPP listings use a bidding process to rank sites.

If you are the top bidder, e.g. willing to pay the most per click on a given phrase, you will have top placement. The 2nd highest bidder is two; the next is 3 and so on. While most PPP works using this model, some search engines offer modifications such as Google's AdWords where bid price and click-through rates are both factors for positioning.

Search Engines have many other marketing tools, such as search specific banner ads; listings on affiliate sites and more. Getting Started

The majority of websites have sub-optimal search engine marketing. Most sites have no effective search engine marketing and are continually missing out on valuable leads. Many other websites are too aggressive, wasting money on low value traffic or harming the functionality of their site due to over optimization.

Too many sites are even paying money and receiving no results because they have trusted unethical or inexperienced search engine optimizers.

All SEM campaigns should start with a strategic evaluation of SEM opportunities based on return on investment (ROI). You need to assess how much each lead is worth for each keyword phrase and determine which SEM tools will achieve the best ROI for the phrase.

You also have to decide how much you want to do in-house vs. retaining an expert. A qualified expert will typically produce better results faster, but the high expenses may destroy the ROI. Often it is best to work with an expert as a team, the expert to develop the strategy and internal staff to perform implementation and ongoing management.

MSEOKING - Choosing a good domain name isn't always so simple

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 20:00:00 +0800

Are you using a free subdomain for your site? hat's bad move to your site for getting ranking on search engine, then I recommended to you read my article below why you should choose yours right domain name for search engine ranking.

So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business. You may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination that will really impress your friends. Question is, is your new domain name going to help your business or hurt it?

What could be simpler than choosing a domain name right? Wrong. There are a number of things you need to consider and research before you register your favorite domain name.

First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?

A domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the internet. You see, all computers on the internet are actually referenced with what is called IP addresses. On the internet, IP addresses are four sets of numbers that serve like street addresses allowing two computers to talk over a network. An example of an IP address is the one for Google.com. It is 216.239.39.99.

If you enter this IP address into the address bar of your browser it will bring you to Google's home page in that very same way that typing http://www.google.com would get you there. Unfortunately, we humans have difficulty remembering our phone numbers let alone so many digits for all kinds of sites. That's one of the main reasons domain names were invented.

Domain names make it easy for us humans to remember how to find a site. Most people know Google.com and anyone familiar with the internet knows that to reach Google, you simply type http://www.google.com in your address bar and you are transported to their website. The same goes for Disney.com, Microsoft.com, CNN.com, etc...

Now you would think that choosing a domain name would simply be a matter of choosing something that is unique and that people would remember. The problem with that approach is that most of us don't have the money needed to turn our name into a brand name on the mass market. Most of us need to rely on our prospects reaching our website through other means. The best of these are search engines.

Choosing a good domain name for your site starts with the main keywords you have chosen to focus on for your website. Before you launch your business, you should conduct some preliminary research online to determine which keywords have the most traffic and the least number of other websites competing for that particular keyword. Some tools that help in this are the Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com. Both of these tools will give you a rough idea of how much traffic each of your chosen keywords will likely get each month. This helps to determine which keywords to focus on.

Should you choose a domain name that includes your main keywords?

In most cases, the answer is yes. Google and to some degree Yahoo both give you a small boost for your domain name. If your domain name happens to contain your targeted keywords, your domain name will help you in your quest for higher search engine rankings. Now if you do everything else wrong, having your main keywords in your domain name will not magically catapult you to the top of the listings. Many other parts of your site must be working for you as well. Other things you can do to improve rankings are beyond the scope of this article.

Choosing a keyword rich domain is a smart business move.

For some sites, it could be the edge they need to move up a few spots in the search engines. When choosing a keyword rich domain name, you may want to consider hyphens between your keywords. An example is cheap-airline-tickets.com. Current research trends for Google and Yahoo suggest that hyphens are the only way to separate keywords within a URL that will give you a rankings boost.

Why not simply choose your company name? Simple. Is your company a household name? Are you so dominant in a category that people have stopped referring to the generic name of your category and use your brand name like Kleenex has for tissue paper? If so, register your company name. If not, register a keyword rich domain wherever possible.

You may be thinking, "But I already own a domain name that is my company name. Should I go and register a new domain and point it to the same site? The short answer is no. Years ago, you could improve your rankings on search engines simply by setting up lots of doorway pages and having them all link back to your home page with all kinds of domain names. That tactic nowadays can backfire. You are better off optimizing individual pages within your existing website than you are creating a whole bunch of "fluff" sites just to increase rankings.

The technique I suggest above is really best suited for brand new business ventures. If you still have not registered your domain name for that special online business you are about to start, then make it keyword rich wherever possible. If you have already launched your business, you'll just have to take advantage of this information next time you start another online venture.

MSEOKING - Your Website Title Could Be Costing You Money

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 19:50:00 +0800

Did you title properly your site title for a good search engine ranking? Did you use your main keyword as part of your site title? Why use Main keyword as your site title? Do read my article below to find out why.

Nothing could be simpler than the title you give to your web pages right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of the websites I visit these days have absolutely terrible titles that hurt their online business. The title of your website is a very important part of getting good rankings on most of the major search engines. A good title also goes a long way towards getting your prospects to click on your listings.

If you go to Google right now, and type any search phrase you want, you get back a listing of web sites that match the keywords you entered in. If you look closely, you'll notice that each search listing' hyperlink is also the title of that website. The title you choose needs to describe to your prospects what your website is all about. It needs to be able to entice your prospects to click on your listing over any other listing. If your title is simply your company name, you are most likely losing lots of traffic. You will also find it difficult to rank highly on relevant keywords to your site.

Here are some things to consider:

1. Make sure you use relevant keywords

Keywords are simply search terms that your web site prospects will type into a search engine in order to find you. The keywords you are targeting need to be included in your title. Your keywords also need to be as close to the beginning of the title as it makes sense to do. For example, if you were selling shoes online and you were targeting the keyword "children shoes", you could have a title like "Children's shoes for hard to fit children." Notice how the targeted keywords were at the beginning of the title.

Putting your keywords at the front of your title speaks to keyword prominence. Prominence refers to the importance of your keyword in the title. If your main keywords are at the very beginning of the title, it is said to have a prominence of 100%. If they are at the very end of the title, they have a prominence of 0%. As much as possible, you want to have your main keywords appear towards the beginning of your title.

2. Consider using your main keyword twice in your title

If you are optimizing your site to rank well on Google, you should also consider finding a way to include your main keyword twice in the title. The trick is to do this without making the title sound stupid. One way I do this is to use the pipe character | between your main keywords. For example, if I was writing a title for a fishing website and the main keyword I was targeting was 'fishing charter' I could repeat the keywords this way, "Fishing Charter | Are you ready for a fishing charter you won't soon forget?" This example gets my target keyword at the beginning and manages to repeat it again without making it look stupid.

3. Persuade your prospect to click on your link

The link that your prospects will see when they do a search of your website on a search engine will almost always be the title of your website. Even if you get to the first page on a search engine for the keywords you are targeting, you still need to persuade your prospect to click on your link over all the others around you. If you title is not persuasive, or even non-existent, you won't get the traffic you expect even if you are number one in the listings. Your title must be persuasive.

4. Say what you want in 65 characters or less.

Almost all search engines limit the length of the title that will appear to the search engine surfer. Google for instance, only displays the first 60 to 66 characters. Sometimes, a webmaster will try to include every one of their keywords in the title in the hope that all of their keywords will be picked up by the search engines. Keep your main keyword prominent in the first 65 characters of your title. Do this while making sure that your title is properly targeted to your target market.

You can include your secondary keywords in the body of your web page, but keep them out of the title unless it makes sense to keep them in. The rule of thumb for including secondary keywords in your title is to include them only if you can still keep the title persuasive to your website prospects.

Your website title is crucial to your success online.

Your title is vital to your efforts of getting traffic online. Make sure it is descriptive, and persuasive. It needs to include your main keywords as close to the start of your title as it makes sense to do. You need to avoid repeating the same keywords over and over again. This may work for keywords that have little or no competition on them, but it won't work for any keyword that gets even a decent amount of traffic on them.

MSEOKING - Beyond Search Engines

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 19:37:00 +0800

Did you really want your site beyond search engine when people are search the niche they wanted to? I do recommended to you read my article until the last to find out more how to getting your site beyond search engines.

Some webmasters report that search engines account for 75% or more of their total website traffic. However, it's important not to become too dependent on search engines for new business. Achieving a top listing from a major search engine is becoming more and more difficult over time. The competition for top spots is intense and it's getting harder every day to get listed at all. Also more and more search engines are moving to a pay-per-click model, and paying for top listings may not be in your budget.

The major search engine companies tend to be secretive about the details of their ranking process, so you have to rely on trial and error when optimizing your site to get a higher ranking. Also, search engines change their algorithms every now and then, and when they do you might find your Web pages bumped down to a lower position. To keep up with the latest search engine ranking procedures you'll either need to spend considerable time on it yourself or pay for the services of an SEO specialist.

While search engines can be a great source of targeted traffic, the visitors they send are not always your best prospects. True, the traffic is targeted in the sense that the visitor has actively searched for keywords which your site is relevant to, but that searcher is also viewing (and presumably visiting) the links of some of your closest competitors who also appear in the search results. In other words, they're "shopping around", and your site is a contender but not the only choice. In contrast, someone who visits your website after reading your article, seeing your ad in a respected ezine, or being referred by a friend is interested in your site in particular.

For all of these reasons, your marketing plan should not rely too heavily on search engine placement. You should never become too dependent on any one source of website traffic, and search engine rankings are particularly vulnerable to sudden changes. Being bumped from the first page of results to the second, or going from the second page to the third, can mean a significant drop in traffic. You should diversify your marketing efforts and use a variety of promotional techniques to bring visitors to your site rather than putting all your time and effort into getting a search engine listing.

Here are ten other ways you can promote your online business:

1) Get your articles published in ezines and on websites. Find high quality ezines and websites that offer plenty of useful and relevant content that would appeal to your target market (but which are not your direct competitors). Contact the publisher or webmaster and offer free reprint rights to an article you've written which would be a good fit for their readers or site visitors. They get extra content and you get new leads - it's a win-win situation.

2) Exchange links with other webmasters. Go to your favorite search engine and search for other quality websites with content related to the theme of your site. Then contact the webmaster and offer swap links - you link to their site from a resource page on your website and in exchange they link to yours. You'll both benefit from the extra traffic, plus you'll be adding useful content to your site.

3) Participate in banner ad and link exchanges. Swap banner or text link ads with other webmasters who share your market. You could join a banner exchange network or just arrange swaps on your own, but either way make sure your banner will be displayed to a targeted audience (those most likely to be interested in your product or service).

4) Practice viral marketing. Encourage your site visitors and existing customers to tell their friends and colleagues about your business. Make it easy for them to email a recommendation by providing a link on your site and in your ezine that will fill in the URL and other information in a form which they can personalize and send.

5) Run ezine ads. Place your ad in an ezine that appeals to your potential customers. If your budget allows consider sponsoring a whole issue; you get several ads throughout a single issue, which increases the impact of your sales message.

6) Place print ads. Run a series of classified ads in your local newspaper or business publications. Also, seek out special interest publications and trade journals of interest to your potential customers - the cost is usually reasonable and you'll reach a highly targeted market.

7) Give away logoware. Print your URL and logo on t-shirts, baseball caps, coffee mugs, mouse pads, keychains, pens, or other promotional giveaways. Include them with catalogs, slip them into order shipments, and give them away at public events.

8) Try mobile marketing. Have you ever thought about how much time you spend on the road? Putting your URL on a car window decal or on an ad panel in a bus or taxi reaches a broad audience for very little money. Put a decal or magnetic sign on your own car and ask your friends and family members to put your Web decal on their cars, too.

9) Distribute flyers and handouts. A flyer can usually be printed up and distributed for pennies. Just have a simple one page sheet printed up with a description of your business and your website URL and other contact information. Hand them out at a shopping center or supermarket or during a fair or special events, or pay a flyer distribution company to deliver them door-to-door for you.

10) Do a postcard mailing. Get some postcards printed up with a screenshot of your website's home page or photograph of your place of business on the front and a description of your business and website URL on the back. Bulk mail them yourself or pay to have them included in a "card pack" mailer that goes out in your community.

Search engines are clearly too important to ignore, but don't overlook the many other possibilities for driving traffic to your site. Even if you succeed in getting your website listed and ranking well, don't depend on search engines alone to bring you new customers. And if you've tried repeatedly to get indexed by major search engines only to find your site rejected or ignored, don't despair - you do have other options. Don't be afraid to try something new and different. Experiment with new marketing methods and track your results to find out which methods work best for you.

MSEOKING - A SEO Checklist

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 19:19:00 +0800

Did you do a SEO checklist for your site everyday? Surely it's important to make sure your site are on the right trail of SEo for search engine optimize ranking.

Search engine optimization is on every webmaster's mind these days. Achieving a favorable ranking for the right keywords can mean a steady stream of targeted traffic to your site, and all for free - that's hard to beat. The key to high search engine rankings is structuring your website correctly, including plenty of content that is relevant to your keywords, and making sure your website is spider-friendly. You can use this checklist to make sure all of your Web pages can be found, indexed and ranked correctly:

Your website is themed. Your site deals with an identifiable theme which is obvious from the text on the home page and reinforced by all the other pages on your site. In other words, all the individual Web pages relate to each other and deal with various aspects of some central theme. The text on your home page should state clearly what that theme is and what your website is about, and the other pages should reinforce that.

Your Web pages have enough high quality, relevant content. Spiders come to your website looking for content. If a page doesn't have much content, or the content doesn't appear closely related to the page's title and your website's theme, the page probably won't be indexed or if it is indexed it won't rank well. Search engines love quality content and lots of it - content is what Web searchers are looking for and search engines try to provide.

Your website's navigational structure is relatively flat. You don't want important pages to be too "deep" within your website, meaning it takes several clicks to get there from the home page. Search engines typically index the home page first, then gradually index other pages on a site over time. Many spiders are programmed to only go three layers deep - if some of your important content is buried deeper than that, it may never be found and indexed at all.

You've created a unique "Title" tag for each page. The title is one of the most important aspects of any Web page from an SEO standpoint, especially for Google (which is the most important search engine to optimize for). Don't use a generic title for all your pages, use the keywords your targeting for that page and keep it brief but descriptive.

You use the "Description" meta tag. Contains a highly descriptive sentence about the content and purpose of your page, and contains your most important keyword phrase early in the sentence. Not all of the search engines will display this "canned" description when they list the page in search results, but many of them will, so it's worth getting it right.

You use the "Keywords" meta tag. As with the meta tag description, not every search engine will use the keywords meta tag. But some will use it and none will penalize you for having it. Also, having a short list of the keywords you're targeting will help you write appropriate content for each page. The keyword tage should contain your targeted keyword phrase and common variations, common misspellings and related terms. Make sure your keywords relate closely to the page content and tie into the overall theme of your site.

Your keywords are included in the visible page content, preferably high up on the page. You have to achieve a balance here - you want to include keyword phrases (and variations) a number of times within your text, but not so many times that you appear to be guilty of "keyword stuffing". The trick is to work the keywords into the text so that it reads as naturally as possible for your site visitors. Remember, you can incorporate keywords into any Web page element that is potentially viewable by site visitors - header text, link text and titles, table captions, the "Alt" attribute of the image tag, the "title" attribute of the link tag, etc.

Every page of your website can be reached by search engine spiders. This is critical - if your pages can't be found, they can't be indexed and included in search results, let alone rank well. Search engines use spiders to explore your website and index the pages, so every page must be accessible by following text links. If pages require a password to view, are generated by a script in response to a query, or have a long and complicated URL, spiders may not be able to read them. You need to have simple text links to the pages you want indexed.

You've included a site map. Unless your site is very small, it's a good idea to create a site map with text links that you link to the site map from your home page. In addition to a link, include descriptive text for containing the relevant keywords for each page.

You link to your most important pages from other pages on your site. Internal links help determine page rank since they show which pages of your site are most important. The more links you have to have to a page, relative to other pages on your site, the more importance search engines will assign to it.

You use keywords in your link text. When you create a text link to another page on your site, use that page's targeted keywords as the text for the link (inside the anchor tags that create the link). Make it as descriptive as possible. For example, a link that says "Premium Customized Widgets" is much better than one that says simply "Product Page", and indicates to search engine spiders what that linked page is about.

Your site doesn't use frames. If possible, don't use frames on any page you want to get indexed by search engines. If you feel you simply must use frames for a page, then also make use of the "noframes" HTML tags to provide alternative text that spiders can read (and make that text descriptive rather than just a notice that "This site uses frames etc. etc.").

You don't use automatic page redirects. Don't make any pages automatically redirect the visitor to another page (the exception is a page you've deleted for good - in which case you should use a "301 redirect", a permanent redirect which is acceptable to search engines).

Your important content is in plain text and not contained in images. Search engine spiders can't "read" content in JPEG, GIF, or PNG files. If you really feel that using an image rather than text is crucial to your design, at least put the same text in the image's "Alt" tag (or in the "title" tag if you're using the image as a hyperlink).

Your important content is not contained in Flash files. Flash is a wonderful technology, but unfortunately spiders don't have the required "plugin" to view Flash files. As a result, Flash content is mostly inaccessible to search engine spiders. Some can find and follow hyperlinks within the Flash file, but unless those links lead to pages with readable HTML content this won't help you much. Don't create all-Flash pages for any content you want to get indexed - instead, put that content in the HTML portion of the page.

Links and keywords are not hidden inside JavaScript code. If your links use JavaScript to direct the user to the appropriate page (for instance, a drop-down list) or important content is contained within JavaScript code (when it's displayed dynamically using DHTML, for instance) search engine spiders won't be able to "see" it. You can, however, use the "noscript" HTML tags to provide an alternative that can be read by spiders.

You've optimized every important page of your website individually. Don't stop at your home page. Take the trouble to optimize any page which has a reasonable chance of being indexed by the major search engines, targeting appropriate keywords for each. If you face a lot of competition it may be nearly impossible to get a top ranking for your home page, but you can still get a lot of search engine traffic to your site from other pages which are focused on very specific keyword phrases.

You didn't duplicate content. Each page of your site should have unique content that distinguishes it from every other page on your site. Duplicating content or having pages that are only slightly different might be seen as "search engine spamming" (trying to manipulate search engine results).

You provide linking instructions for those who want to link to your site. Somewhere on your site state your policies about other people linking to your site and provide the wording you'd like them to use in their link. You want to encourage other people to link to your site, preferably using link text and a description that reflect the keywords for that page. For their convenience provide the ready-made HTML code for the link - not everyone will use it, but most often they will use your preferred text as a courtesy as long as it is truly descriptive of your site and doesn't contain "marketing hype".

You provide linking instructions for those who want to link to your site. Somewhere on your site state your policies about other people linking to your site and provide the wording you'd like them to use in their link. You want to encourage other people to link to your site, preferably using link text and a description that reflect the keywords for that page. For their convenience provide the ready-made HTML code for the link - not everyone will use it, but many will use your preferred text as a courtesy as long as it doesn't contain "marketing hype".

Important hyperlinks are plain text links and not image links or image maps. Text links are better from an SEO standpoint than image links, as spiders can't read text from an image file. If you feel you really must use a graphic as a link, at least include a text description which (including the relevant keywords) by using the "title" attribute of the link tag.

Your website is free of coding errors and broken links. HTML coding errors and non-working links can keep search engine spiders from correctly reading and indexing your pages. For that reason, it's a good idea to use a Web page validation utility to check your HTML code to make sure it's error-free.

MSEOKING - Beyond Hits!

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 19:13:00 +0800

Did you really want your site getting ramking and get hit beyond hits? Then you are recommended to reading my article below for how to make your site Beyond Hits!!!

Your Website visitor reports are a goldmine of information. If you don't review these on a regular basis, you can't fully evaluate the return on your Web investment. And, you could miss critical clues as to how user-friendly your site is, how effectively your message reaches your visitors, and what unmet needs they may have.

But the reports can be overwhelming - a confusing mass of graphs, numbers and URL's. How can you find the information that you really need, how do you know what to look for, and how do you make strategic decisions using the answers that you obtain?

Step 1: Knowing Your Markets

First, identify all the different types of visitor to your site, together with the reasons that they might be coming to you.

This may sound obvious, but in my experience there are nearly always visitor segments that are overlooked. Here are my starting suggestions for an association site:

• Current and prospective members
• Board members and staff
• Current and potential vendors, advertisers and sponsors
• Media
• Content seekers
• Job seekers
• Your competition!

If you don't have a press center on your site, you should consider it if you're interested in publicity. Reporters are increasingly looking for information online, and appreciate ready access to press releases, sample interview questions, and downloadable photographs of your key spokespeople.

The content seekers category describes visitors looking for content that you provide, but who are not prospective members. They might be searching your member database for a referral, or they might be interested in your information products - and so they're great
prospects for non-dues revenue.

Step 2: Knowing Your Goals

It's also key to know the required outcomes, not only for your overall site, but also for each individual section and page.

I have a mantra in my speaking programs:

"Every page of your site should have a strategy".

Too many pages on the Web give great information, and then tail off, with no clear call to action. They expect visitors to go back to the navigational elements, and decide what to do next - but instead, many of them will leave.

Step 3: Asking The Right Questions

Now that you have the audiences and outcomes for your site, you can start to make sense of all those numbers and graphs.

Based on what should be happening, you can formulate questions with which to approach the traffic reports to measure your site's effectiveness.

Here are some ideas:

Are your long pages effective?

Often, I see long pages with key content "below the fold" - below the first screenful of information. Many visitors won't scroll down the page if they're not immediately engaged by it; therefore they'll miss the lower elements.

Is this happening on your site? Look for clicks on the links that are further down the page - are you getting an appropriate amount of traffic to the inside sections that these lead to? How much time is the average visitor spending on your long page - are they clicking off to the first thing that catches their eye - if so, is this really where you want them to go?

Can you measure member benefits?

If you provide an online database for prospective customers to find a supplier, track how many searches are done, and how many click-through's your members receive. This can give you some powerful statements for your member benefits material.

What are the hot content areas?

Knowing your "Most Requested Pages" gives you some key clues about what's hot - and from that, which content might be worth developing further, either as a member benefit, or for non-dues income.

It can be helpful to design your site to delineate this. For example, instead of having a long page of different pamphlets, show each product on a separate page. Now you can track which ones are most sought after, and perhaps consider offering these as online, instantly downloadable e-books.

What are your conversion rates?

If there's a hot content area - a highly requested page that doesn't translate into its required outcome, something's wrong.

Possibilities include:

• You believe you have an exciting offering, but your visitors don't - so perhaps you should rethink your content or product.

• You do have an exciting offering, but the page copy isn't reflecting that effectively, or perhaps the price is too high.

• Something else is stopping visitors from completing the transaction - perhaps you're asking for too much information, or the shopping cart isn't working.

Your traffic reports may not tell you what the solution is - but they should give you a pretty clear idea of where your problems lie.

Step 4: Tweaking And Testing

The good news about the Web is that it's a great testing ground for new products and ideas. When you find an area on your site that isn't performing optimally, you can make small incremental changes, and immediately see the results reflected in your traffic reports. So you can keep tweaking until you hit the winning formula for each page.

Step 5: Don't Forget Your Internal Search Engine

Your internal search engine allows you to track the keyword searches that visitors perform once they're on your site. This also has some valuable clues:

You'll almost certainly see searches for content that should be obviously apparent. This proves that visitors won't work to find anything - but it can also give indications as to the usability of your structure and navigation.

Lots of searches for content that you don't currently provide will give you ideas for developing future products or services, based on visitor demand.

I think of Web traffic reports as "market research that cannot lie". They represent what your visitors do, unprompted, and really can contain some gold nuggets. Happy Mining!

MSEOKING - Are Search Engines Worth It Any More?

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:44:00 +0800

Did you think, that search engine mean every thing to your site? Are Search Engines Worth It Any More?

The "Number One" Question - the question that I (and probably every other Internet marketing expert on the planet) am most frequently asked:

"How do I get to be Number One in the search engines for widgets? After all, my company is the world's leading provider of widgets - it's ridiculous that these other nobody companies are coming up in search engines ahead of us . . . "

My response is almost always along the lines of:

"Forget that right now, and get a life!"

OK, so I am a little more tactful than that - and I do occasionally encourage an in-depth search engine optimization strategy, but usually I'll encourage clients to spend their website promotional budget in other ways.

Here are the main reasons why I'm not generally enthusiastic about free search engines:

1. You have to be really careful in choosing keywords

Many people make the mistake of focusing on very generic keywords. Not only are these even more difficult to get top placement in, but they also won't generate you targeted traffic.

A prospect approached me recently for help with a coaching site. This site promotes teleseminars to help clients implement life changes described in various motivational books. This prospect initially said that he wanted to be "Number One" on a search for "books".

I'd suggest this would be a virtually impossible challenge for any search engine optimizer. But in addition, someone searching for "books" is probably really looking for Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, and not my client's teleclasses. He could spend a lot of money for very few qualified leads.

2. You need to speak the language of your visitors

We all talk "geekspeak" - it's often second nature to us within our industry or area of expertise. And it's easy to forget that our prospects don't always use the same terminology. One of the most difficult areas in copywriting that I see is when technology sales people are trying to describe their products to a non-technical market - the result is usually incomprehensible!

But there's also the jargon that we use as a matter of pride, or because we've lost touch with how our markets think of us.

I worked recently with an association of plastic surgeons. They had their member database on their Web site, and wanted to attract visitors there to find a local practitioner.

Their "Number One" target keyword for the search engines was "rhinoplasty". Well, I can only spell this because I just looked it up for this article - but usually you and I in the general public would never think of that - of course, we'd be searching for . . . "nose jobs"!

The surgeons didn't like this at all from an academic standpoint. But they had to concede the point when I presented evidence on most common searches from the old Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool .

3. It's very passive marketing . . .

My most pressing argument for not spending too much time on free search engines is that it's a very passive form of marketing. You're relying on a prospective visitor waking up in the morning, and realizing that they need something that you might provide. Then, you're relying on them choosing the precise keywords that you've targeted for search engine optimization. It's a fairly hit or miss business.

When do I disagree with myself?

There are some exceptions to all this. I do believe that search engines are well worth it when you have a niche product or service with extremely unambiguous and well-defined keywords.

For example, an audience member in one of my recent programs was working on a Web site to sell some incredibly advanced yoyos. I did recommend a search engine strategy to him - after all, if someone puts in "yoyo" as a search term, they'd almost certainly be a qualified lead!

What do I do instead?

That's the subject of numerous other articles. To get you started, you can find twenty-three of my favourite techniques in my free tipsheet.

But in short, I much prefer aggressively seeking out sites where your target markets are likely to be reading, or searching for information. That way, you can proactively bring your ideas, products and services to them, in places where they are much more likely to be receptive and interested. And there are so many options for different budgets and campaign sizes, both online and offline.

So, are search engines worth it any more?

I'm not advocating ignoring search engines. And I do like the better paid models, such as Overture.

But I do suggest that you should be very clear about how much passive marketing you want to undertake, and whether the product or service that you're offering lends itself to this.

And if you do decide to optimize your site for search engines, pick the keywords that will be in the mindset of your customers . . . and be willing to settle for "Number Two" sometimes!

MSEOKING - What is The Google Sandbox Effect?

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:37:00 +0800

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today.

Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of "x" months.

Thus the term "Sandbox Effect" applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

However the website is not hindered as much as the links that are reciprocated from other users. Newer links that are created are put on a "probationary" status until again they pickup in rank from other matured sites or placed directly by an ad campaign.

The idea behind the hindrance is to prevent a fast ranking to occur on a new website. The usual holding period seems to be between 90 and 120 days before a site would start obtaining rank from reciprocal or back linking.

Some advice has been given to have companies you are going to reciprocate back add your link first to the website. This may help grandfather your site in, thus reducing the waiting time associated with "new" websites.

People have noticed a 0 page rank when first signing up and receiving a bolstering 7 page ranking after 4 months. Why the delay? The fact is, that if people realized how easy it would be to get a high ranking, would that take away the credibility of the engine. It depends on whom you ask, but it does seem to be happening frequently to newer subscribers. Do not discontinue back linking, your rank will eventually appear.

MSEOKING -The Budget Webmaster's 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:34:00 +0800

The Budget Webmaster's 6 Step Guide to Improving Existing Rankings in Google

You know the scenario. You get an occasional click from Google for a certain keyword. You go to find out why you aren't getting more clicks, and you find out that you're ranked in the 30's, 50's, or heaven forbid, the 300's. "Great", you think, "I finally get ranked for a good keyword and it's a worthless ranking".

Not necessarily.

If you got ranked for a keyword you wanted At All, the game's not over yet. If your site's content is geared towards that subject, you can get your ranking in search engines increased, at no cost. How?

The first thing you want to do is find out how well you are ranked for this keyword. For Google in particular, this used to be a difficult chore. In the old days of 2003, you'd spend your valuable time doing a search on your desired keyword, then a sub-search for your site, and crawling through pages of listings to find out exactly where you stood.

Now there is hope in the form of the following website. Direct your browser to:

http://www.googlerankings.com/index.php

You can use this site to find out what number you come up for in the Google listings, which can be very powerful information if used correctly. If you're ranked in the top 1000, you have a shot at raising your listing for that page by tweaking the page to be a little more relevant.

So, secondly, you have to know how good a shot you have at getting a better listing. Go to:

http://www.searchguild.com/difficulty/

I posted a tip about this a month ago, and it's also in the free optimization Guide I released the week of March 7th. It tells you how hard it is to rank well for certain keywords in Google. You'll need a free Google API key to use it.

Now that you know your chances, the third piece of information you need to know is how much traffic you can expect. Digital Point has a free tool that gives an approximation of how many hits per day a good ranking gets. Access it here:

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Okay, let's say everything checks out so far. You rank in the top 1000. The term you want won't be that hard to get, and will get you enough traffic per month to justify your efforts.

Our fifth step is to take the term you chose and optimize your page.

This site does periodic reports on the search engines, and their February report gives their analysis of what the best ranking pages in Google have in common. And as a free bonus, it will also tell you what Yahoo wants. Follow the following link for details-http://www.gorank.com

Now that you know what to shoot for, you need to know how the page you want will measure up- you need to calculate your keyword density. You can also do the sixth step at gorank.com - it has a free tool that will calculate it for you. Prepare your page with that in mind, re-upload, and you're almost done.

Great, you're all set. Now you should submit your site to Google, right?

Wrong. Absolutely not. If you can help it, you should never, ever submit any page of your site to Google. Let it find you. HOW it finds you can affect your page rank. I don't mean that there is a standard penalty for submitting. There's been speculation on that for a while but I have yet to prove it matters.

What I DO know from personal experience and testing on my member's sites, is that getting the Googlebot search engine spider to happen upon your site shaves up to 6 weeks off the standard time it takes for indexing. You can show up in Google in as little as 4 days.

Which site links to you can also affect your Google Page Rank. While this is not as important as it once was, it still carries significant weight- my site didn't start getting spidered on a daily basis until my Page Rank increased to 5.

So even if the spider comes to your site on a Monthly basis, you're better off waiting for the spider to come back by. That's the seventh step, let your page be re-discovered with it's great new changes.

And yes, there's an even faster, better way to get Google.com's search engine spider to re-index that page, but that's another article, isn't it?

MSEOKING - If Content is King, then Surely Relevance is Queen!

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:29:00 +0800

Are sure the content is King for your site? And I must make you very sure that relevance are your Queen for your site to get better ranking on search engine both king and queen must on board it is matching of Content via relevance.

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the search engine world of late and there are lots of conspiracy theories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs of intrigue.

You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts' thoughts on bulletin Boards - hey you probably even read things in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to be content and link building.

While link building is important I don't believe it makes Queen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand in hand but, without relevance, the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry I will stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is best supported by finance link exchanges. Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance content supported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while in the short term may help,...but all the signs are saying this is not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant. It is that simple.

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that are relevant to the content on your pages. Yes I am suggesting link exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.

Links pages seem to be being abused. There are rumours that pages called links, resources or partners are not passing page rank. You could be wasting your time building links that are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the future.

Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk or www.independent.co.uk. News sites have the right idea. They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to other articles on the same topic or links to internal tools that are related. These usually can be found at the right hand side of the article.

They also then have weblinks or external links to sites of interest that are related to the topic. These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site you can add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really add some value both to your Rankings and your users.

With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to add link pages or create a links directory. A five page site will need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete and even then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3 links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away.

Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close second to content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant links will not only boost your search engine rankings, but you will also add a service to your visitors.

MSEOKING - Get Better Search Engine Rankings with RSS

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:24:00 +0800

Did you know that RSS are truly give you very high chance to get better Ranking on Search Engine? Read it this my article below about how to Get Better Search Engine Rankings with RSS until the last word.

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.

RSS allows publishers to "syndicate" their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.

It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.

However, not much attention has been given to the advantages RSS provides for search engine optimization.

Why Search Engines Love RSS

Many SEO experts believe that sites optimized around themes,or niches, where all pages correspond to a particular subject or set of keywords, rank better in the search engines.

For example, if your website is designed to sell tennis rackets, your entire site content would be focused around tennis and tennis rackets.

Search engines like Google seem to prefer tightly-themed pages.

But where does RSS figure in all this?

RSS feeds, usually sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often correspond to a particular theme or niche.

By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can enhance your site's content without having to write a single line on your own.

It's like having your own content writer - writing theme-based articles for you - for free!

How can RSS improve my Search Engine Rankings?

There are three powerful reasons why content from RSS Feeds is irresistible bait for search engine spiders.

1. RSS Feeds Provide Instant Themed Content

There are several publishers of RSS feeds that are specific to a particular theme.

Since the feed is highly targeted, it could contain several keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Adding these keywords to your pages helps Google tag your site as one with relevant content.

2. RSS Feeds Provide Fresh, Updated Content

RSS feeds from large publishers are updated at specific intervals. When the publisher adds a new article to the feed, the oldest article is dropped.

These changes are immediately effected on your pages with the RSS feed as well. So you have fresh relevant content for your visitors every hour or day.

3. RSS Feeds Result in More Frequent Spidering

One thing I never anticipated would happen as a result of adding an RSS feed to my site was that the Googlebot visited my site almost daily.
To the Googlebot, my page that had the RSS feed incorporated into it was as good as a page that was being updated daily, and in its judgement, was a page that was worth visiting daily.

What this means to you, is that you will have your site being indexed more frequently by the Googlebot and so any new pages that you add to your site will be picked up much faster than your competitors.

How does this benefit you as a marketer?

Well, for example, let's says a top Internet Marketer comes out with a new product that you review and write up a little article on, and that your competitors do the same.

Google generally tends to index pages at the start of the month and if you miss that update, you will probably need to wait till the next month to even see your entry in.

But, since your site has RSS feeds, it now gets indexed more frequently. So the chances of getting your page indexed quickly are much higher.

This gives you an advantage over the competition, as your review will show up sooner in the search results than theirs.

Imagine what an entire month's advantage could do to your affiliate sales!

Why Javascript Feeds Are Not Effective

Some sites offer javascript code that generates content sourced from RSS feeds for your site.

These are of absolutely no value in terms of search engine rankings, as the googlebot cannot read javascript and the content is not interpreted as part of your page.

What you need is code that parses the RSS feed and renders the feed as html content that's part of your page.

This is achieved using server side scripting languages like PHP or ASP.A good free ASP script is available from Kattanweb http://www.kattanweb.com/webdev/projects/index.asp?ID=7

An equally good PHP script is CARP http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

So in conclusion, besides optimizing on page and off page factors, adding RSS feeds to your pages should be an important part of your strategy to boost your search engine rankings.

The Other Side of the Search God's Abracadabra!

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:16:00 +0800

Thousands of servers ...billions of web pages.... the possibility of individually sifting through the WWW is null. The search engine gods cull the information you need from the Internet...from tracking down an elusive expert for communication to presenting the most unconventional views on the planet.

Name it and click it. Beyond all the hype created about the web heavens they rule, let's attempt to keep the argument balanced. From Google to Voice of the Shuttle (for humanities research) these ubiquitous gods that enrich the net, can be unfair ...and do wear pitfalls. And considering the rate at which the Internet continues to grow, the problems of these gods are only exacerbated further.

Primarily, what you need to digest is the fact that search engines fall short of Mandrake's magic mechanism! They simply don't create URLs out of thin air but instead send their spiders crawling across those sites that have rendered prayers (and expensive offerings!) to them for consideration.

Even when sites like Google claim to have a massive 3 billion web pages in its database, a large portion of the web nation is invisible to these spiders. To think they are simply ignorant of the Invisible Web. This invisible web holds that content, normal search engines can't index because the information on many web sites is in databases that are only searchable within that site.

Sites like www.imdb.com - The Internet Movie Database , www.incywincy.com - IncyWincy, the invisible web search engine and www.completeplanet.com - The Complete Planet that cover this area are perhaps the only way you can access content from that portion of the Internet, invisible to the search gods.

Here, you don't perform a direct content search but search for the resources that may access the content. (Meaning - be sure to set aside considerable time for digging.)

None of the search engines indexes everything on the Web (I mean none). Tried research literature on popular search engines? AltaVista to Yahoo, will list thousands of sources on education, human resource development, etc. etc. but mostly from magazines, newspapers, and various organizations' own Web pages, rather than from research journals and dissertations- the main sources of research literature. That's because most of the journals and dissertations are not yet available publicly on the Web. Thought they'll get you all that's hosted on the web? Think again.

The Web is huge and growing exponentially. Simple searches, using a single word or phrase, will often yield thousands of "hits", most of which will be irrelevant. A layman going in for a piece of info to the internet has to deal with a more severe issue - too much information! And if you don't learn how to control the information overload from these websites, returned by a search result, roll out the red carpet for some frustration.

A very common problem results from sites that have a lot of pages with similar content. For e.g., if a discussion thread (in a forum) goes on for a hundred posts there will be a hundred pages all with similar titles, each containing a wee bit of information. Now instead of just one link, all hundred of those darn pages will crop up your search result, crowding out other relevant site.

Regardless of all the sophistication technology has brought in, many well thought-out search phrases produce list after list of irrelevant web pages. The typical search still requires sifting through dirt to find the gold. If you are not specific enough, you may get too many irrelevant hits.

As said, these search engines do not actually search the web directly but their centralized server instead. And unless this database is updated continually to index modified, moved, deleted or renamed documents, you will land yourself amidst broken links and stale copies of web pages. So if they inadequately handle dynamic web pages whose content changes frequently, chances are for the information they reference to quickly go out-of-date.

After they wage their never ending war with over-zealous promoters (spamdexers rather), where do they have time to keep their databases current and their search algorithms tuned? No surprise if a perfectly worthwhile site may go unlisted!

Similarly, many of the Web search engines are undergoing rapid development and are not well documented. You will have only an approximate idea of how they are working, and unknown shortcomings may cause them to miss desired information. Not to mention, amongst the first class information, the web also houses false, misleading, deceptive and dressed up information actually produced by charlatans. The Web itself is unstable and tomorrow they may not find you the site they found you today.

Well if you could predict them, they would not be god!...would they?! The syntax (word order and punctuation) for various types of complex searches varies some from search engine to search engine, and small errors in the syntax can seriously compromise the search. For instance, try the same phrase search on different search engines and you'll know what I mean. Novices... read this line - using search engines does involve a learning curve. Many beginning Internet users, because of these disadvantages, become discouraged and frustrated.

Like a journalist put it, "Not showing favoritism to its business clients is certainly a rare virtue in these times." Search engines have increasingly turned to two significant revenue streams. Paid placement: In addition to the main editorial-driven search results, the search engines display a second — and sometimes third — listing that's usually commercial in nature.

The more you pay, the higher you'll appear in the search results. Paid inclusion: An advertiser or content partner pays the search engine to crawl its site and include the results in the main editorial listing. So?...more likely to be in the hit list but then again - no guarantees. Of course those refusing to favor certain devotees are industry leaders like Google that publishes paid listings, but clearly marks them as 'Sponsored Links.'

The possibility of these 'for-profit' search gods (which haven't yet made much profit) for taking fees to skew their searches, can't be ruled out. But as a searcher, the hit list you are provided with by the engine should obviously rank in the order of relevancy and interest. Search command languages can often be complex and confusing and the ranking algorithm is unique to each god based on the number of occurrences of the search phrase in a page, if it appears in the page title, or in a heading, or the URL itself, or the meta tag etc. or on a weighted average of a number of these relevance scores.

E.g. Google (www.google.com) uses its patented PageRank TM and ranks the importance of search results by examining the links that lead to a specific site. The more links that lead to a site, the higher the site is ranked. Pop on popularity!

Alta Vista, HotBot, Lycos, Infoseek and MSN Search use keyword indexes – fast access to millions of documents. The lack of an index structure and poor accuracy of the size of the WWW, will not make searching any easier. Large number of sites indexed. Keyword searching can be difficult to get right.
In reality, however, the prevalence of a certain keyword is not always in proportion to the relevance of a page. Take this example. A search on sari - the national costume of India –in a popular search engine, returned among it's top sites, the following links:

www.scri.sari.ac.uk/- of the Scottish Crop research Institute

www.ubudsari.com/ -a health resort in Indonesia

www.sari-energy.org/ - The South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy Cooperation and Development

Pretty useful sites for someone very much interested in knowing how to drape or the tradition of the sari?! (Well, no prayer goes unanswered...whether you like the answer or not!) By using keywords to determine how each page will be ranked in search results and not simply counting the number of instances of a word on a page, search engines are attempting to make the rankings better by assigning more weight to things like titles, subheadings, and so on.

Now, unless you have a clear idea of what you're looking for, it may be difficult or impossible to use a keyword search, especially if the vocabulary of the subject is unfamiliar. Similarly, the concept based search of Excite (instead of individual words, the words that you enter into a search are grouped and attempted to determine the meaning) is a difficult task and yields inconsistent results.

Besides who reviews or evaluates these sites for quality or authority? They are simply compiled by a computer program. These active search engines rely on computerized retrieval mechanisms called "spiders", "crawlers", or "robots", to visit Web sites, on a regular basis and retrieve relevant keywords to index and store in a searchable database. And from this huge database yields often unmanageable and comprehensive results....results whose relevance is determined by their computers. The irrelevant sites (high percentage of noise, as it's called), questionable ranking mechanisms and poor quality control may be the result of less human involvement to weed out junk. Thought human intervention would solve all probes....read on.

From the very first search engine – Yahoo to about.com, Snap.com, Magellan, NetGuide, Go Network, LookSmart, NBCi [http://nbci.msnbc.com/nbci.asp] and Starting Point, all subject directories index and review documents under categories – making them more manageable. Unlike active search engines, these passive or human-selected search engines like don't roam the web directly and are human controlled, relying on individual submissions. Perhaps the easiest to use in town, but the indexing structure these search engines cover only a small portion of the actual number of WWW sites and thus is certainly not your bet if you intend specific, narrow or complex topics.

Subject designations may be arbitrary, confusing or wrong. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted. Never contains full text of the web they link to - you can only search what you see titles, descriptions, subject categories, etc. Human-labor intensive process limits database currency, size, rate of growth and timeliness. You may have to branch through the categories repeatedly before arriving at the right page.

They may be several months behind the times because of the need for human organization. Try looking for some obscure topic....chances for the people that maintain the directory to have excluded those pages. Obviously, machines can blindly count keywords but they can't make common-sense judgement as humans can. But then why does human-edited directories respond with all this junk?!

And here's about those meta search engines. A comprehensive search on the entire WWW using The Big Hub, Dogpile, Highway61, Internet Sleuth or Savvysearch , covering as many documents as possible may sound as good an idea as a one stop shopping.Meta search engines do not create their own databases. They rely on existing active and passive search engine indexes to retrieve search results.

And the very fact that they access multiple keyword indexes reduces their response time. It sure does save your time by searching several search engines at once but at the expense of redundant, unwanted and overwhelming results....much more – important misses. The default search mode differs from search site to search site, so the same search is not always appropriate in different search engine software. The quality and size of the databases vary widely.

Weighted Search Engines like Ask Jeeves and RagingSearch allows the user to type queries in plain English without advanced searching knowledge, again at the expense of inaccurate and undetailed searching. Review or Ranking Sources like Argus Clearinghouse (www.clearinghouse.net),
eBlast (eblast.com) and Librarian's Index to the Internet (lii.org). They evaluate website quality from sources they find or accept submissions from but cover a minimal number of sites.

As a webmaster, your site registration with the biggest billboards in Times Square can get you closer to bingo! for the searcher. Those who didn't even know you existed before are in your living room in New York time!

Your URL registration is a no-brainer, considering the generation of flocking traffic to your site. Certainly a quick and inexpensive method, yet is only a component of the overall marketing strategy that in itself offers no guarantees, no instant results and demands continued effort for the webmaster. Commerce rules the web. Like how a notable Internet caveman put it,

"Web publishers also find dealing with search engines to be a frustrating pursuit. Everybody wants their pages to be easy for the world to find, but getting your site listed can be tough. Search sites may take a long time to list your site, may never list it at all, and may drop it after a few months for no reason. If you resubmit often, as it is very tempting to do, you may even be branded a spamdexer and barred from a search site. And as for trying to get a good ranking, forget it!

You have to keep up with all the arcane and ever-changing rules of a dozen different search engines, and adjust the keywords on your pages just so...all the while fighting against the very plausible theory that in fact none of this stuff matters, and the search sites assign rankings at random or by whim.

"To make the best use of Web search engines--to find what you need and avoid an avalanche of irrelevant hits-- pick search engines that are well suited to your needs. And lest you'd want to cry "Ye immortal gods! where in the world are we?", spend a few hours becoming moderately proficient with each. Each works somewhat differently, most importantly in respect to how you broaden or narrow a search.

Finding the appropriate search engine for your particular information need, can be frustrating. To effectively use these search engines, it is important to understand what they are, how they work, and how they differ. For e.g. while using a meta search engine, remember that each engine has its own methods of displaying and ranking results. Remember, search strategies affect the results. If the user is unaware of basic search strategies, results may be spotty.

Quoting Charlie Morris (the former editor of The Web developer's journal) - "Search engines and directories survive, and indeed flourish, because they're all we've got. If you want to use the wealth of information that is the Web, you've got to be able to find what you want, and search engines and directories are the only way to do that. Getting good search results is a matter of chance.

Depending on what you're searching for, you may get a meaty list of good resources, or you may get page after page of irrelevant drivel. By laboriously refining your search, and using several different search engines and directories (and especially by using appropriate specialty directories), you can usually find what you need in the end."

Search engines are very useful, no doubt. Right from getting a quick view of a topic to finding expert contact info...verily certain issues lie in their lap. Now the very reason we bother about these search engines so much is because they're all we've got! Though there sure is a lot of room for improvement, the hour's need is to not get caught in the middle of the road. By simply understanding what, how and where to seek, you'd spare yourself the fate of chanting that old Jewish proverb "If God lived on earth, people would break his windows."

Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engine Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 18:10:00 +0800

Did you really think, that your article are good enough for search engine ranking? I'm sure you are truly wrong until your are reading my article below about Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engine Rankings.

If you have any interest in getting high search engine rankings for your website (and who doesn't) you've probably been sold the idea that writing and publishing your own articles will do it for you.

Here's why that's not entirely true.

Imagine the following scenario...

You write an article around a keyword or keyphrase you want to rank well for.

You submit that article to all the article submission sites and directories and ezines you can find.

Your article gets published in hundreds of places.

You now have hundreds of links pointing back to your main site...

But your own site never shows up in the top ten results for that particular keyword or keyphrase.

Instead you find that there are lots of other sites carrying your article that rank better than yours.

You've completely missed out on an excellent opportunity to get high rankings for your keyword or keyphrase.

Even worse... you just handed your precious keyword-rich content on a platter to possible competitors who happened to publish your article on their website, and may have lost some of your most targeted visitors and sales to them.

So where did you go wrong?

Your mistake lay in using your precious article - the keyword-rich content you toiled for hours to write - for entirely the wrong purpose.

You failed to use the power of the medium of article publishing to give your site an unbeatable advantage over others.

Here's how to use your articles the right way to boost your search engine rankings.

1. Publish Unique Content On Your Website

When you make an article available for reprint, the article, by virtue of it being published on hundreds of other sites, now no longer qualifies as unique content.

In the eyes of search engines, those pages with higher Pagerank (and hence greater importance) than yours will now rank better than you for the keywords your article is optimized for.

Instead of making your article the main course, use it as an appetizer to direct search engines and readers to a UNIQUE, keyword-rich, well-optimized report or white paper on your website, and you'll see dramatically different results.

2. Use Your Article As Spider Bait

Think of your articles as simply the conduit that leads search engines to your website.

Publishing your articles all over the web is like leaving scraps for a puppy (a.k.a. the search engines) that follows them all the way back to the kennel (a.k.a. your website) where it can feast on the main course - your UNIQUE content.

3. Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text In Your Resource Box

Use your main keyword or keyphrase in the anchor text of the article resource box that contains a link pointing back to your unique content.

This will create hundreds of keyword-rich links pointing back to the well-optimized report on your website, and give your pages a powerful edge over other websites.

Often this factor alone is sufficient to take your website to the top of the search results, especially with search engines like Google and BING.

The guidelines above include few of the steps you need to take to get high rankings for the keywords of your choice.

How to Get the Best Deal on Your SEO Project

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 17:51:00 +0800

If you own or manage a business Website, chances are you are at least somewhat familiar with the concept of search engine optimization (SEO).

You may have read any number of books and articles on the subject and possibly given it a try yourself. Or perhaps, after exhaustive research, you decided that your time is better spent in your area of expertise. If that's the case, I have some good news for you. There is such a thing as affordable search engine optimization. In fact, when you know what to look for, it can be a real bargain.

Step One - 3 Simple Questions:

The first step is estimating some target market information. Just ask a few simple questions and write down the answers that you come up with. You'll need this information later:

1. How many people do you think are looking for what you offer?
2. What keywords are they using in search engine searches?
3. Which keywords are the most popular to meet your needs?

Step Two - Verify:

Now that you have your initial estimates, let's validate the information. Visit Overture.com's Advertiser Center and try their Search Term Suggestion Tool located at: http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/index.jhtml

Type in any term that you think is close to what your potential visitors are looking for. You will see how many searches were performed, on the Overture search system, for the previous month. TIP - Use a general search term to start with.

Now you have the single most important advantage when dealing with any trained business professional - you are informed!

Step Three - Make it Happen:

Now that you have this great information, you want to see it implemented. This is the best part. I recommend a visit to SEO Partner. SEO Partner (www.SEOPartner.com) really lives up to its slogan "search engine optimization on your terms".

They have assembled an enormous talent pool of SEO developers, who actually compete to work on your project. It does not cost you anything to post your optimization projects. To operate the service, they accept a small commission from the SEO developers (which is only a fraction of what developers would normally spend on marketing efforts alone).

Finally, there's one of my favorite features. SEO Partner protects you from those less scrupulous SEO 'experts' you read about more and more with their protective escrow payment system.

Step Four - Track Your Progress:

Finally, once you have your campaign underway, you really need to track your progress. There are some great tools available for that purpose. Here are links to some of the better products that I have worked with:

www.webposition.com
www.axandra.com
www.searchenginecommando.com

There are a lot of products out there - all at varying costs. I recommend you visit your favorite search engine and look for 'seo tools' and see what you get for a response. Then I would definitely test each one's demo version thoroughly before investing in any one of them. A good tool is worth the investment but there are so many great options out there that it's best to shop around and try before you buy.

I wish you the best of luck in your campaign!

8 Essential SEO techniques

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 17:47:00 +0800

This a simple 8 essential SEO techniques for you to use on your site to increasing your visibility site and moe powerfull in SEo world.

1) Title Tag - The title tag is the most powerful on-site SEO technique you have, so use it creatively! What you place in the title tag should only be one thing, the exact keyword you used for the web page that you are trying to optimize. Every single web page should have it's own title tag.

2) ALT Tags - ALT tags were meant to be for text browsers because the images didn't show in text browsers and the ATL tags would tell the visitor what it's about. You should put your main keyword(s) in the ALT tags, but don't over do it because you could get dropped in the results or even worse banned for life!

3) Link Popularity - Link popularity is the most powerful SEO tool out of all them. Most search engines don't even consider web sites if there is not at least one or two links pointing to the web site. Having another site(s) link to your web site is important when it comes to getting your site a good ranking. Your keywords should be in the links you get and keep the keywords short. When you receive requests for a link exchange, check the site out before linking with them, check for spam (Repeat keywords, hidden text, etc.).

4) Keyword Density - This is also vital and should be used with research. You should use the keyword(s) once in the title tag, once in the heading tag, once in bold text, and get the density between 5% to 20% (Don't over do it!). Also use your keyword(s) both low and high on the web page, keyword(s) should be in the first sentence and in the last one.

5) Page Size - Your web page's speed is important to your visitors and the search engines. Why? Because the robots will be able to spider your web page faster and easier. Try your best to keep your web page over 5k and under 15k in size.

6) Rich Theme - Search engines are looking at themes more and more. Build content (Articles, FAQ, tips, etc.) much as possible and keep the web pages around 200 to 500 words. Create content that's related to your market and link them out to other related content on your site. Try to get 200 web pages or more.

7) Web Site Design - This is also important, if you want to get indexed! Text content should out weigh the HTML content. The pages should validate and be usable in all of today's leading edge browsers. Stay away from flash and Java Script, search engines dislike them both a lot.

8) Insite Cross Linking - This will help you get all of your web pages indexed by the search engines. Your web pages should be no more than three clicks away from the home page. Link to topic related quality content across your site. This will also help build you a better theme through out your web site. On every page you should link back to your home page and your main service(s).

Owning Your Category Online - Is Our Website Broken?

noreply@blogger.com (iskandarX) — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 17:42:00 +0800

Whats mean our website are broken? Find out by reading this article below until the last to find out more about Owning Your Category Online.

Owning your business category online
is more than just a few keywords...
Is your website broken?

Let's face it, the Internet is a crowded place... and it's becoming even more crowded as you read this. Your business can't stand still online, and you can't afford to look backwards. Qualified, targeted traffic generation is what we all desire. Owning your category online goes a long way in providing just that.

It's not about just looking forward, but moving forward and taking some ownership. Every business online today is worried about being found in the Top 10 Search Engines and Directories for their products or services - and they should be! Statistics still make them (search engines) the number one stop for all surfers.

But, just for a moment let's imagine that these search engines and directories provide the most relevant results. That's right, let's just say for the sake of this article, that they all work extremely well. O.K?

Now, since we believe that our products or services are way more relevant than those companies listed above us in (today's) search engines results - we have to admit something is wrong... but remember, the search engines are perfect.

We all know you can buy your keywords in Google(TM) and Overture(TM) right? Does that make you the best? (not.) Do surfers know this? (Yes.) Does it make your business (your website) any more relevant? (No.) It does put businesses with a larger budget at the top of the pile again, that's all. Is this why many of us don't click on sponsored links? (Ahem...)

If the search engines were (are) perfect, then let's get back to something else being wrong. Hmmm, my website must be broken! Wow, somebody is actually staying with me here.. My website must be broken?

Why else would all those "other" websites be showing up ahead of my business when people search for my products/services/information? Don't these people know we are the experts? (nope.) Don't they know our products are superior? (nope.) Can't they see the skill we employ and our dedication to employee and customer service? (nope.) Haven't they read the reviews? (probably...)

So, in an effort to help you "own your category online", here's some suggestions to assist your business in getting ahead of those "other" websites and putting your business where it rightly belongs! If you already employ all these practices, we commend you. But if you find yourself behind, these tips can help your company without having to become a Webmaster or a Search Engine Marketing Professional. Pass these on to your Marketing Team and get better results and recognition starting today!

Do: Research the search terms (keywords) that people would use in seeking out your offerings. You can start with Wordtracker(TM) and the search terms you first come up with.

Wordtracker(TM) will help you locate terms that are similar to your terms in meaning and search. It is a tool that gives you an *idea of what the general terms people are using, and how many searches are taking place on these terms... * that's another book though. This is a great starting point and the trial really is free!

Tip: Do not just 'look-up' your company name, - prospective customers or vendors or partners are not looking you up by your 'company name' in Google(TM) - they don't know it yet...? Surfer's have become quite good at 'searching'. Be specific and general. You can also learn who you have to beat online! - Who's kicking your butt when people search for your product or service online? That first page of results is your market share online!

Do: Make sure you have a *keyword specific "Title" for every webpage that's relevant to the content on that page (*keyword specific, not keyword stuffed).

Page Title; Top of the screen, blue 'title' bar (in explorer). I still see thousands of websites with "Homepage" in the title bar, or "MyOneHotBusiness.com" and just that phrase or 'Title' is repeated throughout every page on their website! Each page in your website is (content) unique - make it's 'Title' unique too! Or call your webmaster with new "titles" for each of your website pages. Different values are placed on this "page title" from the different search engines and directories.

Tip: Add "Chicago, Chicagoland, Illinois" to the end of your Title (your city, state). This helps in regional search queries.

Do: Have at least 200 words of (content specific) text on the pages of importance (homepage, category pages, etc.).
This is what the engines and directories DO read, these words and links are how the engines interpret what's on this page. Images or pictures of words or "ads" are not "read" so-to-speak. Make this text content highly relevant to the topic (product or service) on this page.

Tip: Put your fancy Flash commercial on a link from your homepage and put up a content relevant page of your best text instead! Visitors will still look at your commercial if you tell us it's cool, but don't force us to watch it! - That's not what we came for. This Flash file does almost nothing for search engines and directories.

Do: Have yourself or your professional staff write articles on their specific area of expertise in product or service. Make these articles a webpage with relevant links to the product or service directly.

Short of hiring a Search Engine Marketing Consultant or a Professional Copywriter, these detailed articles if rich and full of relevant content, are the exact pages that will generate you the most qualified and targeted visitor to your business! Once these 'article pages' are crawled (indexed) by the search engines you will be pleasantly surprised to see that (now) you are a more relevant search result.

(Not to be confused with 'links' or 'reciprocal linking programs' - your (article) webpages are much more "read" and effective in sending the reader to your site, or keeping them there, not to mention the branding opportunities)

These articles not only show your business as an authority, they prove it in words and information for the reader, me, a human. These concise type articles are an excellent way to gain exposure, recognition (branding), traffic, and yes, even sales. You said you were an authority, now prove it.

Tip: Submit these articles to other online and offline publications and Ezine's. You make them available to other websites just for leaving your Author and link intact. There are businesses craving this type of content for their website's success! Your business website will begin receiving quality traffic from every website that posts your company's article(s)! Now there's a strong statement.

Do: Include your URL (www.) in every piece of material you print - every piece of traditional advertising you already pay for!

Every week I read through different newspapers and magazines - I can't believe how many businesses forget to put their web address in that Advertisement they paid for. You pay big bucks for a quarter page ad or whatever, and then never mention your website!?! Which is open 24/7/365 - and that Tribune is just around for two days! Start your marketing return on investment right there!

Tip: Offer a website only promotion or coupon in your Ads to generate further interest and traffic to your specific offer web pages!

Do: Ask visitors to "Bookmark your site" or "Tell a friend" or "Send this article to a friend"...

Your visitors don't always think of it, so just ask them? Bookmarks not only increase return visitors, but they also give you a vote of confidence in providing something worthwhile... even if that's a return trip! This does not have to be bold and obnoxious either, a simple button saying "Bookmark Us" will do on any business website.

Do: Be Patient. All search engines and directories have different timeframes for updates, changes and new submissions.
After making changes or additions to your site, allow 90 days after initial submission for realistic results to begin showing in the major search engines and search directories.
Owning your category online is more than just a few keywords. Don't just say you do all these things!

Do: Go and check!

Tip: Go and check again!

Because if you do your best with these few suggestions - your website will show up higher in the search results for those relevant terms you selected. You'll be hundreds of websites ahead, and getting more qualified visitors too. There's much more to owning your category online, but every business should be employing these "level one" marketing concepts.

There, now we can stop imagining that the search engines are perfect.

Good Luck.