Search Engine Optimization

Google PageRank Update August 2012 Confirmed

2012-08-03T10:11:00.002+05:30

I know you all keep a close eye on the page rank for your blogs, I have to admit I also look out for it.Google usually update toolbar page rank four times a year so around every three months.Well today we we have noticed a Major page rank update taking place.A number of my sites have seen a page rank change, at the time of writing Spice Up Your Blog is holding steady with a page rank of 5.You can quickly check the page rank of your blog to see if there was any change using our free page rank checker tool. :

Google Page Rank Tool

Remember updates take place over hours or even days so if yours has not changed yet it may still have to be updated.The last page rank update was in May this year so expect another update before the end of the year.

Has your page rank changed ?

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

How To Add Meta Description Tags to Blogger

2012-03-25T11:15:00.000+05:30

Blogger just introduces Meta Tags are HTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a web page. This will give your blog better search engine visibility. Such tags are placed in the head section of an HTML document and Search Engines might use this data to display the search snippet when they display a page from your blog. Most of the Social Sharing Tools like the Facebook Share or the Google Plus buttons will pick up this meta description to create the snippet which gets shared to the Social Networks.

How to add Meta Description Tags

Blogger has rolled out an array of SEO features and now adding Meta Tags has become so easy. You can do it easily from the Blogger’s User Interface without doing much of Template Editing or pulling your hair. So here is how to do it

Go to Settings > Search Settings and Enable Meta Tags. In the Text area give a 150 character description which will describe your Blog. This text might be used by Search engines when your Blog’s home page is displayed on Search Engines. Here is the snippet that I have given “Blogger Widgets provides you the best quality blogger tutorials.It also provides you with free blogger widgets and gadgets to build a better blog.”

Now when you make a Post, you can set the Meta Description from the Post Editor’sPost Settings Sidebar.

You can always edit the Search Description for existing posts as well

Now you have to add some code to your Blogger Template. To do that Go toTemplate and Proceed to Edit HTML . Find <head> and immediately below it paste the following snippet.

<b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription'>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='description'/>
</b:if>

That's It you have done it. Blogger rocks. :)

Blogger : Redirect .in and .com.au to .com Domain

2012-02-16T10:30:00.000+05:30

Some days ago Blogger announced country specific domain policy to its user. I think its due to the pressure from the ongoing trial in the court. Many user who do blogging on Blogger are used to blogspot.com domain extension. So this is the simple code implementation to get back with your blogspot.com domain. Now no need to surf with blogspot.in and blogspot.com.au domain extension !!!

This will give your domain back as it was before...Enjoy..!!

How to implement this code for all blogger users :-

1. Go to Template > Edit HTML (For old interface Go to Design > Edit HTML)

2. Copy below code and paste before </head> tag in your blogger template coding.

`1`	`<script` `src='http://thedigitalvilla.googlecode.com/files/getridgoogle.js'` `type='text/javascript'/>`

3. Now save your template.

4. Refresh your Homepage

5.Now you Are done with this coding.

Pros:
-No Page Rank Loss
-No Alexa Ranking Loss !!
-Uniform URL everywhere

Affiliate Marketing 101: Understanding the Basics

2012-01-27T17:19:00.000+05:30

Imagine a marketing program that can increases sales 10% to 25%--and you don’t pay a dime unless you get results. Sound too good to be true?"

That’s pretty much how affiliate marketing works. Through these online programs, you sign on with a partner that markets your product or service, often through a link or banner ad you place on their website. The affiliate then gets a commission based on sales, visits, or customers that result from those efforts. It’s the ultimate in pay for performance. “An affiliate partner will do a lot of the marketing for you. And you only owe money if they provide the outcome you want,” says Marty Fahncke, president of FawnKey & Associates, a consulting firm with expertise in affiliate marketing.

At the same time, successful affiliate marketing requires understanding some basics. Here’s what you should know:

Evaluate your affiliate marketing channels

Your affiliate can be anything from a website or enewsletter to a shopping portal, to name a few. Fahncke points to one client, a small business selling sunglasses, as a case in point. Perhaps their most successful affiliate is a website devoted to bicycling, which recently included an article about the product and a link to their site. The company pays the affiliate a 20% commission on sales. At the same time, however, the firm uses a variety of other affiliates. The bottom line: “You want a good mix of different types of channels,” says Fahncke.

How many? There’s no magic number. You can make money with perhaps twenty, or in some cases, thousands. It all depends on the quality of the partner. For example, three or four effective affiliates that specialize in search engine optimization can provide you with as much business as hundreds of mediocre websites, especially if they’re not quite the right fit for your product and demographic.

Scrutinize the affiliate marketing commission

Commissions run the gamut, from 3% to as much as 90%, although the average is around 15% to 20%, according to Fahncke. The amount depends on a variety of factors. High volume products, for example, tend to command lower rates. At the same time, you get what you pay for. Take Steven Rothberg, president of CollegeRecruiter.com, a career site for college students and recent graduates. He pays about 50% more than many other companies in order to attract the best affiliates possible. About 10% of his revenues come from his affiliate marketing program.

Focus on recruitment and retention

Recruiting high-quality affiliates is one of the toughest parts. While there are lots of choices out there, finding the right partners, getting their attention and negotiating the final details take time - as long as a year in many cases. How to find them? One possibility is to sign on with an affiliate marketing network like Commission Junction. Almost all of CollegeRecruiter.com’s affiliates, for example, have resulted from its relationship with the network, through a program in which interested affiliates that are a good fit automatically become partners. Another tack: Shawn Collins, co-author of Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants (Que, 2001) uses software to determine which affiliates his clients’ competition is using. Then he targets them with phone calls and direct mail.

That’s only the first step. Just because you’ve signed a deal with an affiliate doesn’t mean it will let you go live. To make sure you are “activated”, as Collins puts it, you also need to work constantly at staying top of mind. For example, he will send the top twenty affiliates for each client gifts, and call them at least once a month.

Decide if you’d prefer two tier affiliations

Somewhat like the classic Mary Kay-style Multi-Level Marketing arrangements, these affiliates use a referral network to generate more sales for the company and commissions for themselves. An affiliate that is working with a particular company’s program will attract other partners to join up. It, then, receives commissions from any activity those newer affiliates generate. The system ensures more income for partners throughout the chain and greater visibility for the small business. Plus, “It saves time if you can’t do your own recruiting,” says Collins.

Find the right affiliate solution provider

You need a method for tracking traffic, sales and payments. There are two ways to go about it. One is to install software in-house and do it yourself. That can be a big job, however, especially if you’re short-handed. The other is to hire a third party to provide the technology and customer support needed to facilitate the transaction. You’ll pay a percentage of your affiliate’s commission to the firm.

Watch out for fraud and spam

There are a variety of scams out there, so be careful. One common type works this way: An affiliate earns a commission on an order that they actually place themselves, after which they return the product. Says Fahncke: “The merchant ends up paying a commission on a product they didn’t really sell.” As for spam, you can be held legally responsible for the actions of your affiliates that send out junk mail on your behalf, thanks to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Add Floating Share Buttons To Your Blog’s Sidebar (For Blogspot)

2012-01-26T00:51:00.000+05:30

Apart from working on traffic and search engine optimization (SEO), there’s a need to intergrate your blog with popular social networking platforms. A floating share buttons (social bookmarking) widget by the right of every page is just one of the gadgets you must add to your blog if you intend to get free traffic from facebook and twitter. I wrote a post last week that went viral thanks to the power of facebook sharing. The post received close to 500 facebook likes in just a week! Underestimating the power of share buttons is like neglecting a major source of traffic to your blog. I’ve already written several posts on integrating your blogger hosted site with facebook, google plus and the rest of them. These posts include adding like buttons to individual blog posts, adding google plus buttons to blog posts, facebook comment box for blogger and large share buttons under blog posts among others.

Having a floating share buttons widget makes it even easier for your blog visitors to share your blog posts they find interesting. Unlike the previous ones, it’s easy to get this done as you won’t need to do any sort of HTML editing on your template. The floating sidebar sharing widget comes with the most popular social sites. You can see the widget just at the right side of this page and it scrolls with the page, leaving your visitor no choice but to share your content.

How To Add Floating Share Buttons On The Sidebar

1. Log in to your blogger account and click on Design

2. You’re now looking at your blog’s layout, right? Click on Add A Gadget on the sidebar.

3. Select HTML / Java Script

4. Paste the code below into the box and save. There’s no need for a title.

<style>

#pageshare {position:fixed; bottom:15%; right:10px; float:left; border: 1px solid black; border-radius:5px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px;background-color:#eff3fa;padding:0 0 2px

0;z-index:10;}

#pageshare .sbutton {float:left;clear:both;margin:5px 5px 0 5px;}

.fb_share_count_top {width:48px !important;}

.fb_share_count_top, .fb_share_count_inner {-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;}

.FBConnectButton_Small, .FBConnectButton_RTL_Small {width:49px !important; -moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;}

.FBConnectButton_Small .FBConnectButton_Text {padding:2px 2px 3px !important;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;font-size:8px;}

</style>
<div id='pageshare' title="Share This With Your Friends">
<div class='sbutton' id='gb'><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like layout="box_count" show_faces="false" font=""></fb:like></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='rt'><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical" >Tweet</a><script src='http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' type="text/javascript"></script></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='gplusone'><script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script><g:plusone size="tall"></g:plusone></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='su'><script src="http://www.stumbleupon.com/hostedbadge.php?s=5"></script></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='digg' style='margin-left:3px;width:48px'><script src='http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js' type='text/javascript'></script><a class="DiggThisButton DiggMedium"></a></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='fb'><a name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript"></script></div><br/><div style="clear: both;font-size: 9px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://seoforadsense.blogspot.com/2012/01/add-floating-share-buttons-to-your.html" target="blank"><font color="black">[Get This]<font></font></font></a></div></div>

<!--SideBar Floating Share Buttons Code End—>

5. Save the widget and preview your blog.

If you already have a google plus button above or below your posts, the one in the widget might not appear. It seems you can’t have two +1 buttons on a page.

If you’re using a dark template, you can try out the code below if you don’t quite like the first one:

<style>

#pageshare {position:fixed; bottom:15%; right:10px; float:left; border: 1px solid black; border-radius:5px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px;background-color:#000000;padding:0 0 2px

0;z-index:10;}

#pageshare .sbutton {float:left;clear:both;margin:5px 5px 0 5px;}

.fb_share_count_top {width:48px !important;}

.fb_share_count_top, .fb_share_count_inner {-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;}

.FBConnectButton_Small, .FBConnectButton_RTL_Small {width:49px !important; -moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;}

.FBConnectButton_Small .FBConnectButton_Text {padding:2px 2px 3px !important;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;font-size:8px;}

</style>
<div id='pageshare' title="Share This With Your Friends">
<div class='sbutton' id='gb'><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like layout="box_count" show_faces="false" font=""></fb:like></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='rt'><a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-count="vertical" >Tweet</a><script src='http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' type="text/javascript"></script></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='gplusone'><script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script><g:plusone size="tall"></g:plusone></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='su'><script src="http://www.stumbleupon.com/hostedbadge.php?s=5"></script></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='digg' style='margin-left:3px;width:48px'><script src='http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js' type='text/javascript'></script><a class="DiggThisButton DiggMedium"></a></div>
<div class='sbutton' id='fb'><a name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript"></script></div><br/><div style="clear: both;font-size: 9px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://seoforadsense.blogspot.com/2012/01/add-floating-share-buttons-to-your.html" target="blank"><font color="black">[Get This]<font></font></font></a></div></div>

These floating sidebar share buttons will surely make you get more facebook likes. Share this post if you find it helpful.

SEO Tips : Top 101 SEO Tips To Follow

2012-01-06T23:21:00.000+05:30

SEO is the process of improving a website or page visibility in the search engines. The more frequently your site appears on search engines the more visitors it will receive. It involves editing your content or your HTML coding increase its relevance to a specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

For more info on SEO related, search this site. Now let’s get started with our main list.

101 Best SEO Tips

001. Learn SEO.

002. Practice SEO.

003. SEO is not hard to follow.

004. List down your competitors.

005. Get targeted keywords related to your niche.

006. Research which targeted keywords attracts more traffic.

007. Research which targeted keywords attracts less traffic.

008. Know your competitors keywords. [View its source page]

009. Compare your keywords with the competitor’s keywords.

010. Try to use your targeted keyword wherever required.

011. Use keywords in Meta tags.

012. Focus on phrases too.

013. Don’t stuff your Meta tags with keywords. This would penalize your site.

014. Use a maximum of 10 keywords in the Meta keyword section.

015. Try not to exceed more than 400 character spaces in the Meta keyword section.

016. Use them wisely.

017. Don’t just rely on keywords.

018. Don’t sell your keywords.

019. Use Meta tags.

020. Meta tags are important. Don’t ignore them. But don’t rely on them too heavily

021. Insert Meta tags just before the head tag, so it’s the first thing scanned by search engine spiders.

022. Optimize your Meta tags.

023. Treat your Meta title tag like gold.

024. Add an index, follow Meta tag. [Not necessary]

025. Keep it short, sweet and simple.

026. Limit it to 65 characters. They will be cut down if it exceeds. And you won’t like them.

027. If you offer specific service do mention it in the title tag.

028. Make sure every page has a title.

029. Spiders hate untitled page.

030. Try to show website hierarchy for categories and other deep pages in the title.

031. Make sure every page has a unique Meta description, especially for your main homepage.

032. Make sure you clearly define what your blog or website is about in the Meta description. Also in the post pages, specify what the article is about.

033. Try to include your targeted keywords in Meta description.

034. Meta description content should be within the first 150 characters. Try not to exceed more than 300 characters.

035. Submit your blog to google, google blog search, bing, yahoo and dmoz.

036. Add your website to Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)

037. Create an HTML sitemap

038. Create an XML sitemap and submit it to GWT

039. Avoid unnecessary or excessive use of coding on a page.

040. Avoid use of JavaScript’s or AJAX in the content area.

041. Avoid using flash objects on a website.

042. Avoid inline styling.

043. Separate styling from page using CSS

044. Use style sheets.

045. Avoid using dynamic URL. [Usually random numbers or letters]

046. If using dynamic URL, avoid using too many parameters

047. Use static URL

048. Try to use keywords in the URL structure.

049. Separate keywords with a DASH [http://www.abc.com/key1-key2-key3]

050. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

051. Be sure that your site has both unique and quality content.

052. Make your title “Catchy”. Organize the body of the post into three parts. Intro > Exploit > Conclusion.

053. Make sure you write more than 300 words [search engines like long posts]

054. Make sure you use your targeted keywords in the 1st Para or 1st sentence of the content.

055. Try using synonyms of your targeted keyword in the content.

056. Maintain an average keyword density of 5% to 7%.

057. Don’t hide text in JavaScript drop-downs.

058. Don’t hide text by making it the same color as the background.

059. Don’t hide text by making it too small for a user to see.

060. Don’t stuff keywords in your text.

061. Bold or italicize important keywords or Para.

062. Use heading tags to denote important text (H1-H6).Make sure you use the H1 tag in your content.

063. Use alt tags

064. Alt tags should be relevant to the image

065. Avoid numbers for naming image. Use keywords separated by dash. [key1-key2.png]

066. Separate the keywords in alt tags by DASH [-] or PLUS sign [+].

067. Don’t use heavy large size images.

068. Interlink pages wherever required.

069. The more a page is interlinked, the more important that page will be deemed.

070. Make sure you use keywords for your hyperlinks.

071. The more interlinks for a page, the more votes for that page.

072. Avoid creating hyperlinks that says “Click Here” or “Read More”.

073. Use title tag for images eg: <img alt=”Key1-Key2″ title=”About image” />

074. Use title tag for links. eg: <a href=”#” title=”About link” href=”link”>Anchor Text&lt</a>

075. Focus on acquiring one-way links from a websites that are similar to your niche (ex: blogging sites should try to get links from other blogging sites).

076. Focus on acquiring one-way links from websites that have high Google Page Rank.

077. Link exchange is good, but don’t follow or rely them heavily.

078. Exchange links with reputed websites

079. Avoid Link Farming.

080. Submit your blog articles and other info related to your niche to Digg, SU, or Reddit.

081. Submit your RSS feed to the blogosphere.

082. Use popular forums related to your niche to link back.

083. Link your website to forum signature.

084. Leave comments on popular & related blogs

085. Create profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.

086. Use Google analytics to track result.

087. Solve queries on Yahoo answers and Google groups and link relevant articles to your blog.

088. Submit your blog to Technorati. Technorati pages rank well in Yahoo and MSN.

089. Do not submit your blog to 100 irrelevant directories. Submit your blog to directories related to your niche.

090. Submit a guest post to your related niche.

091. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site.

092. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

093. Make sure you leave call to action with your content.

094. Add new, useful content to your site on a regular basis. Fresh content can improve your rankings.

095. Create an RSS feed and optimize the same.

096. If you are offering service or selling products, get your site listed in Google Maps, Yahoo Locals…

097. Don’t kill SEO. SEO is never ending.

098. Be Patient. SEO is not a one shot process.

099. SEO is all about Text, Link, Popularity, and Reputation.

100. Give link love and Get link love.

101.And always try to create a 101 resource list.

Last Google Pagerank Update Confirmations

2011-11-08T22:37:00.001+05:30

Last Google Pagerank Update Confirmations

SUSPECTED Google PR Update – 7 November 2011
Confirmed PR Update Ist Week August 2011
Confirmed PR Update Toolbar Pagerank Update – JULY 2011
Confirmed PR update Toolbar Pagerank Update – JUNE 2011
Confirmed Network Wide Toolbar Pagerank Update – JANUARY 2011
Confirmed Network Wide Toolbar Pagerank Update April 2010
Confirmed Network Wide - Dec 31, 2009
Confirmed Network Wide – 30 October 2009
Confirmed Network Wide 27/28 May 2009 – Google PR Update?
(Followed by what looked like and Internal PR update in June 2009)
Confirmed – 1 / 2 April 2009 – Google Pagerank Update 2009
Confirmed – 30-31 December 2008
Confirmed – 27 September 2008
Confirmed – 26 July 2008
Confirmed – 29 April 2008
Confirmed – 9,10,11,12 January 2008
Confirmed – 26 October 2007
Confirmed – 28 April 2007

Google Page Rank – A Beginners Guide

Toolbar Pagerank and Pagerank are two different, unsynchronised measurements based on the number and quality of links that pass pagerank to a particular page.
Google Toolbar Pagerank Not Visible? Just because a page has a Toolbar grey bar does not mean a page has no real pagerank – it can mean that of course, but it can mean other things. I’ve theorised Toolbar Grey Pages do not pass pagerank to external sites, and may be an indication Google has an issue with the page.
A white Google Toolbar generally signifies that the page has a measure of Real Pagerank, and that Pagerank score will be reflected in the next Pagerank update (which happens whenever Google decides will happen) – one of the most common questions about Pagerank is “When Is The Next Google Pagerank Update?
The fast way to lose PR is to openly sell links on your website. This is now officially against Google Webmaster Guidelines for inclusion.
The most common reason for a drop in Toolbar Pagerank is simply your website is recieving less Pagerank via the links it has pointing to it from other sites. This could be because the pages those links on them have less PR to give, the links themselves have dissappeared and no linger point to your site, or Google has in fact changed the way Pagerank works.
At the moment, a tangible effect when Google penalizes a site, is a reduction of visible Toolbar PR. Many sites who openly manipulated Google SERPS via paid review blogging and link-selling had their Google PR dramatically reduced in the last quarter of 2007 in Google’s opening salvo in the “war on paid links’, or so Google would have us believe.
Toolbar PR has little or no effect on amount of visitors Google will send you – believe me. Perhaps this is why bloggers who had PR devalued reported no loss of visitors from Google. A reduction in real PR however could see less pages on your site being indexed.
Many believe Google can’t find all paid links, and are using the Google Toolbar to spread FUD,
If you install the Google Toolbar you will see a green indicator in your Internet Explorer / Firefox toolbar showing you the Google Page Rank of the page. Hovering over the green bar will give you a number which is the page’s Google Page Rank.
It’s accepted that Toolbar Pagerank is more than a few months out of date as little as 2 weeks out of date by my observations. That is, Toolbar PR and Real PR.
Google Toolbar / DC PR is not an accurate representation of your current Real Page Rank and now that Google openly manipulates what you see, the integrity of the toolbar PR is very questionable indeed in some comminites like the seo community for instance – although in 2009, for most sites, it seems pretty accurate and sensible to me.
Think of Google Toolbar PR as ‘an indication of the PR of what your site might have been a couple of weeks ago.
To get a higher Page Rank for your domain, you need to get a lot of other pages with PR to link to you. I used an analogy to visualize Google PR, and used this same Google Heat analogy to get a PR 7 site until PR was apparently reduced within the SEO community, and this site fell to PR 5.
Page Rank flows, and so can be manipulated, channeled, blocked (with NoFollow) and screwed up. My Google Heat article explains how you can channel PR around a site. Just substitute “Heat” for “PR”.
Remember sites don’t have Google Pagerank, pages do. That’s why itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s possible for an internal page to have a higher PR than the home page.
The way a page gets Google Page Rank is from links to it and that’s the only way of Increasing Google Pagerank. IBLs (incoming backlinks) from high Google Page Rank pages can give you more Google Page Rank ‘Juice’ than links from low Google Page Rank pages. There is one other factor at play. The Google Pagerank they Ã¢â‚¬Å“giveÃ¢â‚¬ is spread over the number of outgoing links on the pages. You may get more Google Page Rank benefit from a Google Page Rank 3 page with only two outbound links than a Google Page Rank 5 page with hundreds of outbound links.
Google looks to be rolling out PR changes month to month recently. One thing you can be sure off: When Google revises Google Page Rank the fastest way to discover it is at Digital Point.
I’ve seen sites go from anywhere from PR 0 to PR 7 in one update although in 2009 it’s MUCH HARDER to manipulate Pagerank the way I used to circa 2007 when Toolbar PR was a joke.
One still useful aspect of PR is that when an update happens you can use Toolbar PR to monitor how effectively you have spread potential Google Juice or Google Heat through a site architecture.
I could go into Google PR being a recursive algorythim, with decay factored in, and probably pretty far removed from the original Google Pagerank paper created by Larry Page who it’s actually named after, but this is a beginners guide and I don’t know enough about the maths anyway. You don’t need to either. Just get links from other sites!
I think a page accrues REAL PAGERANK within hours….

Adsense Optimization : Getting more Clicks on your Adsense ads

2011-04-17T00:24:00.000+05:30

More CTR (Click Thru Ratio) means more clicks on your Google Ads. But, is CTR all about position and colors of your ads? No! It's a lot more than that. CTR also depends upon the quality of traffic, relevancy of ads, and even the subject of your website. Let's get in detail:

Do you own a High CTR website?

Yes! CTR varies from Industry to industry too. It depends upon the keywords you are using to make your web page. It has been observed that more technical the topic is (but not necessarily) less CTR it will give you (for example Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Network - exceptions are always there), but still works if the Ad content is well written.

However, this is only one condition; there are many undiscovered conditions that affect the CTR of keywords. At times, a particular season also has an effect on the performance of keywords. For example family of 'Turkey recipe' keyword is more active around November and December only and a quite sluggish rest of the year. It becomes really necessary to study the behavior of keywords before starting a massive website of Adsense around a topic.

Your Ad Position and Color: Old, but very effective

Google heat map helps improve the CTR (Clicks Thru Ratio) of your website by suggesting you the most converting areas for your Adsense Ads. You can have a glance at the Google's Survey that illustrates the ideal placements of ads on your web page.
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html#17954

Darker the area, better will be the performance of your ads. Your visitor tends to click on these darker areas more often than the other areas of the web page. Ads placed near rich content usually do well because users are focused on those areas of your web page. For example, on pages where users are typically focused on reading an article, ads placed directly below the concluding part of high quality content tend to perform well, as the visitors are left with no other choice except clicking the Ad block.

Get Targeted Traffic - The Most Essential Part

Traffic that is interested in your content (also called targeted traffic) is interested in your ads too. Thus, there is every likelihood that your ads will be clicked more frequently. Targeted traffic means more CTR, more earnings, and enhanced ad convertibility. On the other hand, the untargeted visitors are not interested either in your content or your ads, so keep your website's traffic targeted.

You can gather highly targeted traffic for your website by web promotion strategy and effective optimization of your web page structure. Effective web promotion strategy requires an appropriate Anchor text and more back links from relevant websites. And, to develop an effective web page structure, you have to optimize your Title Text, internal linking of your website, and most importantly your web content, in the best possible manner.

Choose the Right Anchor Text for Back Link Campaigns

Choosing the right anchor text for back links promotes your website to the traffic you exactly need from the search engines. Choose the Anchor text that directly speaks to your visitors and pulls the traffic that your web page requires. Targeted traffic results in increased CTR of ads. It helps promote your website to that segment of traffic, which is precisely searching for your content (or you can say the traffic that is most profitable to you). Targeting irrelevant keyword reduces your CTR by gathering the traffic which is not interested in your content or ads.

Wisely Choose the Title Text of Your Web Page

Title text of your webpage appears in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) as the Title link to your web page. Therefore, it is the title Text that directly speaks to the surfer on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) about your content's theme. It acts like a Free Advertisement Link to your website. If your title text does not interest the surfer, you lose considerable amount of much-needed traffic. Figure out a Title text that directly communicates with your potential visitors, brings targeted traffic, and enhances the CTR of your AdSense Ads. Don't overdo your title text, and use less than ten keywords in your title text.

Help Google Detect the Theme of Your Web Page

There are many on-page and off-page elements that affect your ad relevancy. Better targeted ads increase both your CTR and EPC. Here is how to optimize your ads:

Meta Tags

If there is NO CONTENT on your web page, the Google Mediabot will consider the Meta Tags while displaying ads. Meta tags have a considerable affect on the relevancy of your ads. It is advised never to leave this space empty. Also, try to make it as easy as possible for Mediabot to understand the theme of your web page.

Title Text

Google Mediabot gives good weightage to the keywords used in the Title text, which in turn gets reflected in your ads. Choose effective keywords for your Title text. Even the order of words in a keyword can affect the ads that are appearing on your web page. So, choose your keywords wisely.

Headings

Google Mediabot gives importance to the Heading text enclosed in <H1>, <H2> tags present in your web page. After Title text, here is another chance for you to dictate keywords to Google Mediabot.

Boost Relevancy Artificially - Use Google's Section Targeting

Now, you can enhance Ad relevancy by using Google's Section targeting. Using this technique you can advise Google mediabot about the areas of your content which should be considered or ignored while matching the Ads with your content.

For more information on the same topic, visit:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&topic=371

Use Channels for Analyzing Your Ads' Performance

Try to relate your traffic logs with your CTR stats. You will get to know which Traffic source is giving you what CTR. This will help you recognize the traffic segment which is most converting for your website. Channels allow you to analyze your ads' performance, so that you can pin point the changes that your website needs to boost your AdSense income. There are two types of channels available - URL Channels and Custom Channels. You can use the URL channel to track your performance, without modifying your Ad code. Through URL channels, you can analyze the performance of individual page or a group of pages, based on the directory system of your website.

Custom channels can help you measure the performance of different Ad formats presented in your web pages. And, by pasting channel-specific ad code into your pages, you can track CTR, Impressions, number of clicks each individual ad format is generating, and compare its performance with other web pages.

Block Junk Websites and Competitor Websites from Showing Ads

There are many junk websites that might be displaying ads on your website. These websites steal the traffic from your website and recycle it on their own Adsense ad blocks. Recognize such websites and stick them in Adsense Competitive Ad filter. Also, you can block your competitor websites using this competitive filter.

This trick can sometimes double or triple your Adsense income, augment user experience, and makes look your Google ads more genuine. For more information about this tool, visit:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=21593&ctx=sibling

To study the behavior of high CTR keywords, there is no better place than
http://www.keywordcountry.com/adsense/. Go-ahead and snatch the highest CTR keywords that exist on planet earth for Adsense

Search Engine Optimization: 10 SEO Tips Which Will Make Difference

2011-04-10T09:59:00.000+05:30

Every business with a Web site should make Search Engine Optimization -- trying to get your site as high up as possible on Google and Bing search-results pages -- a part of their growth strategy.
At its most basic, "SEO" means finding ways to increase your site's appearance in web visitors' search results. This generally means more traffic to your site.
While intense SEO can involve complex site restructuring with a firm (or consultant) that specializes in this area, there are a few simple steps you can take yourself to increase your search engine ranking.
All it requires is a little effort, and some re-thinking of how you approach content on your site.

Monitor where you stand

You won't know if your SEO efforts are working unless you monitor your search standings. MarketingVox suggests that you keep an eye on your page rank with tools like Alexa and the Google toolbar.
It's also important to check your referrer log regularly to track where your visitors are coming from and the search terms they're using to find your site, according to PC World.

Keywords, keywords, keywords!

You should be conscious of placing appropriate keywords throughout every aspect of your site: your titles, content, URLs, and image names. Think about your keywords as search terms -- how would someone looking for information on this topic search for it?
The title tag and page header are the two most important spots to put keywords, PC World notes.
BEWARE: Putting ridiculous amounts of keywords on your site will get you labeled as a spammer, and search engine spiders are programmed to ignore sites guilty of "keyword-stuffing." Be strategic in your keyword use.

Link back to yourself

There is probably no more basic strategy for SEO than the integration of internal links into your site -- it is an easy way to boost traffic to individual pages, SEO Consult says.
You should make it standard to link back to your archives frequently when creating new content. MarketingVox advises that you also make the anchor text search-engine-friendly: "The more relevant words point to a page, the more likely that page is to appear in search results when users run a query with those terms."
As with all other SEO approaches, be sure your links are appropriate, and be careful not to cross the line into excessive linking -- you don't want your visitors to get annoyed.

Create a sitemap

Adding a site map -- a page listing and linking to all the other major pages on your site -- makes it easier for spiders to search your site.
"The fewer clicks necessary to get to a page on your website, the better," advises MarketingVox.

Search-friendly URLs

Make your URLs more search-engine-friendly by naming them with clear keywords.
SEO Consult explains: "For instance, it’s easy to understand what

Avoid Flash

Flash might look pretty, but it does nothing for your SEO. According to the Search Engine Journal, "Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page... Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results."
"If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold," the post continues.

Image descriptions

Spiders can only search text, not text in your images -- which is why you need to make the words associated with your images as descriptive as possible.
Start with your image names: adding an "ALT" tag allows you to include a keyword-rich description for every image on your site. Perfect Optimization explains an easy way to do this.
The visible text around your images is valuable for SEO: MarketPosition suggests adding captions to all your pictures and being descriptive with the text in immediate physical proximity to your images.

CONTENT

Your content needs to be fresh -- updating regularly and often is crucial for increasing traffic.
"The best sites for users, and consequently for search engines, are full of oft-updated, useful information about a given service, product, topic or discipline," MarketingVox explains.
One way to ensure that your site gets new content on a frequent basis is to integrate a blog. "Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless!" the Search Engine Journal suggests. An executive blog is an excellent way to reach out to your clients, create more opportunities for internal and external linking, while giving your site a more personal voice.

Social media distribution

A CEO blog is just one element of social media distribution, an important SEO strategy according to SEO Consult. You should be distributing links to fresh content on your site across appropriate social networking platforms.
Whether displayed on your company's account, or recommended, re-tweeted, and re-distributed by someone else, this strategy exponentially muliplies the number of places where visitors will view your links.

Link to others

An easy way to direct more traffic to your site is by developing relationships with other sites.
PC World suggests that you personally ask the webmasters of well-respected sites if they'll include a link to your site on theirs. Be sure to return the favor -- then everyone wins!
Make certain that your partner has a good web-reputation, of course. MarketingVox warns against getting tied to a "link farm" whose bad SEO habits could bring you down.

Earn More with Adsense: Tips & Layout Optimization Tricks for High CTR

2011-04-05T22:37:00.000+05:30

Google Adsense is perhaps the easiest way to attract advertisers from across the globe to your blog. Just submit your blog or website to Google for approval and if their content team approves your content, you are ready to place contextual text ads on your websites. Every time a reader clicks an AdSense ad link, the AdWords advertiser pays Google a small fee and Google splits the revenue with you.

Now you know how to make money with Google Adsense but to help you improve AdSense performance (and advertising revenue), here are some of the best Google Adsense Tips and Tricks for making more money (profit) from the Google Adsense program.

Tips to Increase Google AdSense Earnings

a. Strictly follow the rules mentioned in Adsense policies. You will always earn more revenue from Adsense by playing it clean.

b. Never modify the Google Adsense HTML code. If have trouble embedding AdSense code in your WordPress or Blogger template, take help of the AdSense support forums or send an email to your AdSense account manager.

c. Never ask your friends or visitors to click on your Google ads. Google takes click fraud very seriously. Do not include incentives of any kind on your site for users to click on your ads. Don't label Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements".

d. Don't click on your own ads - Google is much smarter than you think and can discover invalid clicks through IP addresses, site navigation patterns, etc. If you working on a new design for your site, avoid reloading your pages (with AdSense) excessively. You can turn off AdSense temporarily and avoid invalid CPM impressions. Or you can use the unofficial Google Adsense Sandbox Tool that is accessible from Firefox, IE and other browsers to see what kind of Google ads will be served based on content (website address URL) or keywords.

e. Don't place ads in pop-up windows, error pages or even empty pages. Update: With the new AdSense policy change, you can probably place ads on 404 pages. Check with the AdSense support team

f. Don't start a "adsense asbestos" or "home equity loan rates" website merely to make money from accidental clicks. You will never make money out these Made for Adsense websites. Instead, write on topics what you are passionate about. Don't waste your money on high-paying adsense keywords lists. Stay away from AdSense Adwords arbitrage.

g. For short articles, CTR is best when ads are placed just above the content.

h. For long articles, CTR will improve if you place ads somewhere in middle of the content or just where the article ends - when visitors are done reading the article, they may be looking for related resources.

i. Use Text Ads instead of Image Ads as users get more options and the payout is often higher. If you still want to display image ads (for CPM), consider ad formats like the 300x250 medium rectangle or the 160x600 wide skyscraper as they support also support rich multimedia and the new gadget ads.

j. Google Ads with no background color and no borders will always perform better. Make the border color and background color same as your page background color.

k. Always put ads above the main fold. Make sure that the ad unit with the highest click through rate is the first instance of the ad code that appears in your HTML source. Since the first ad unit is always filled before the rest, you want to make sure that ad unit is located in the best placement on your page.

l. Try setting the ad link URL color to a lighter shade. If your text is black, you may make the adlink as light gray or something like #666.

m. Go Wide - The large rectangle (336x280) is the best paying Adsense format especially for text ads. Try using the 336x280 large rectangle, 300x250 medium rectangle, or 160x600 wide skyscraper.

n. Don't places images next to Google ads as that will invite a permanent ban to your AdSense account.

o. Blend AdLinks with other navigation links or place horizontal adlinks at the top of your webpage. AdSense publishers are permitted to click on link unit topics on their web pages, provided that they do not click on any Google ads on the resulting page.

p. You should try adding a unit near the comments senction of your blog. See more AdSense tweaks.

q. You can put upto 3 adsense units on a page. Try putting a large skyscraper on the right navigation sidebar of your website. That area is close to the browser scrollbar. You can also add 2 AdSense for search boxes and 3 adlink units.

r. The first few lines of your content are an important factor for determining what Ads are served on your webpage. That's the right place to put keywords in bold (strong or <b> tags) or header tags (h1, h2, etc).

s. Always select the setting to open Google Adsense search box results in a new browser window, so you won't lose your visitors. Click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox and this add target="google_window" to your form tag.

t. Maximum people think the search box is on the top right corner. So you know where to put it.

u. Always syndicate full text RSS feeds and then monetize your feeds with a 468x60 ad in RSS feeds.

v. Monitor the AdSense performance of individual web pages with Google Analytics

w. For low CTR pages, try changing titles or adding more relevant content to get better focused ads. Alse see: Get relevant Google Ads

x. Block low paying advertisers with Filters. Why to loose a visitor for an ad that will only pay you a cent. Use Overture or Google Adwords Keywords tool to discover keywords that are less popular with advertisers.

y. Learn how to implement AdSense Revenue sharing if you run a site with multiple authors and need to pay your writers based on advertising revenue generated from their articles.

z. Experiment with color schemes and layouts using split testing. You are the best judge when it comes to choosing ad formats for your own website.

Even Google doesn't offer the best advise always. For instance, in the visual heat map, Google suggests that webmasters are best served by positioning ads on the upper left-hand side of a Web page but if you go to any search page on Google, the ads the mostly in the right.

Bonus Tip: Use the AdSense Preview tool to determine what ad campaigns are currently targeted for your site in different geographic regions of the world.

Enter any keywords or a website address (URL) and choose a geographic location of the visitors to see all the related related Google Ads.

10 Best Google AdSense WordPress Plugins

2011-04-05T21:49:00.000+05:30

Are your web site advertisements not performing like they should? Would you like to have more control over your Google AdSense ads and how they are displayed in your WordPress powered web site? I have searched the Web for the ten best Google AdSense related plugins. We have plugins here that will help you manage your ads better, put them in better places, offer other adverting opportunities and much more.

Advertising Manager
This plugin will manage and rotate your Google AdSense and other ads on your WordPress blog. It automatically recognizes many ad networks including Google AdSense, AdBrite, Adify, AdGridWork, Adpinion, Adroll, Chitika, Commission Junction, CrispAds, OpenX, ShoppingAds, Yahoo!PN, and WidgetBucks.
AdSense Attachment Page
This great way to earn some money and show large images in new window. This plugin show attachments with thumbnail image, and when you click on it will show image in full size. You can setup plugin not to show image in full size if you want.

AdSense Revenue Sharing
AdSense Revenue Sharing is a WordPress plugin which allows you to easy display ads in your posts by using a quick tag and share your AdSense impressions with your friends and co-authors.
AdSense Under Image
Places specified AdSense code under the first image in a post. If there are no images no AdSense code will be inserted. Also the ads will only appear in single post pages.
WhyDoWork AdSense Plugin
WhyDoWork AdSense is a WordPress plugin that allows you to insert AdSense ads on your blog without modifying the template. More then that, you can set it up to show different AdSense ads for articles older then X days (x is the number of days you decide).
WP Simple AdSense Insertion
Use this plugin to quickly and easily insert Google AdSense to your posts, pages and sidebar by using a trigger text or calling the PHP function.
Easy AdSense
Easy AdSense provides a very easy way to generate revenue from your blog using Google AdSense. With its full set of features, Easy AdSense is perhaps the first plugin to give you a complete solution for everything AdSense-related.
AdSense Integrator
This plugin was developed to insert and manage your AdSense ads, based on the last Google rules and AdSense updates.
AdSense Now!
AdSense Now! is the simplest possible way to generate revenue from your blog using Google AdSense. Aiming at simplicity, AdSense Now! does only one thing: it puts your AdSense code in up to three spots in your posts and pages (both existing ones and those yet to be written).
AdSense Immediately!
AdSense Immediately! is a simple way to generate revenue from your blog using Google AdSense. AdSense Immediately! is a simple plugin to ad AdSense ads into the body of your content. It can add one, two or three AdSense block to your article body in any Google ads format.
There is my top ten choices for the best Google AdSense plugins for WordPress. Have another that does the job better? Let us know in the comments!

Google Panda Update Slams Content Farms

2011-04-05T21:40:00.000+05:30

Whether you call it “Panda,” as Google prefers, or “Farmer,” as the media labeled it, one thing is certain: the search engine's latest update sent shock waves through the Internet. Many sites lost their positions in the SERPs, while others were apparently unaffected. How can you maintain or regain your standing?

Before you can figure out what you need to change, it's worth looking at what got devalued. There seems to be a consensus emerging. If a site's pages are thin on content, or have a poor ad-to-content ratio, or contain content that has been copied from elsewhere, chances are they lost some Google love. So what is Google looking to reward?

Aaron Wall came up with a list of defining characteristics for “useful” content. These include the ability to pass a human inspection; not being a copy of another document, or ad-heavy; being well-linked externally; being created by a brand with a distribution channel that goes beyond the search engines; and not having “a 100% bounce rate followed by a click on a different search result for that same search query.” But how, exactly, has this change to the algorithm taught Google's search engine to figure out whether the web pages it analyzes could pass a human inspection? That's just one of many questions that Wall's suggested criteria raises.

Nevertheless, there are certain things you can do if the Panda Farmer took a swipe at your rankings. Start by looking at your ad-to-content ratio. If your site seems to be ad-heavy, you may be able to improve your rankings by reducing the number of ads you run on your pages, or beefing up your site's content. Feel free to do both in combination.
Vanessa Fox, writing for Search Engine Land, pointed out a telling quote from Google: “In addition, it's important for webmasters to know that low quality content on part of a site can impact a site's ranking as a whole...Removing low quality pages or moving them to a different domain could help your rankings for the higher quality content.”

The third thing you can do to help boost your website, according to Scott, is get involved in social media. This way, you're interacting with customers and potential customers outside of search. That's a good idea regardless of whether your rankings fell with the Panda Farmer update. With Facebook alone accounting for one out of every ten page views in the US, social networking and social media is one part of the Internet that is here to stay.

Free SEO Tools For Quick Analysis Of Your Website

2011-04-05T21:28:00.000+05:30

Hi ! How is everybody ?

I am here with some quick links having tools which will provide you a better analysis result including-

Browser Compatibility
Page size
Load time of a particular page.
HTML errors
Java Script/ Flash/CSS/Frame – analysis.
Robots
W3C Validation

Above all are Design analysis factors.

So, once try these tools to analyze your website a little bit. I think you will get best....!!

http://tools.pingdom.com - Specially for the Load time.
http://browsershots.org - Check browser compatibility.
http://www.ranks.nl - Tools to analyze website keywords research combination and KW proximity and more.
http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com/ - Here you will get full detailed analysis of your website.
http://validator.w3.org/checklink - Free online Link Checker Tool that gives information about link errors etc.

Tell me after use, to what extent these tools are helpful for you.

Some Useful Google Commands for SEO Professionals

2011-04-04T23:48:00.000+05:30

You can use these commands on your browser using Google Search Engine Site.

These are the commands basically used in Google, by a SEO perspective these are very useful, so get ready to learn them.

Command to check that a particular page is indexed “cache:(page url)”

Type in the google search box - “cache:http://seoforadsense.blogspot.com”. Then you will look an image like below,

which shows you the information about when this get cached by Google and in this image you will two options named as “current page”- it shows the current page, but the second one “Text only version” – shows you actually how Google’s (Crawler) views your webpage and matches your keywords. This is very important for Search Engine Optimization.

Command to find backward links: “link:(page url)”

Type in the search box “link:http://www.pagetraffic.com”
this result will tell you how many sites or pages are pointing to pagetraffic.com site. In other words there are 52 web pages that have a link to www.pagetraffic.com. And this are called back links and is the big factor works behind the mystery of Page Rank (PR).

Command to find the list of pages in your site that Google has indexed "site:(domain url)"

Type this command e.g site:http://alekhverma31.blogspot.com, in the google search box.
You will now see that alekhverma31.blogspot.com has got around 6 pages indexed. Test it on your blog or site. Ok now you know quite some stuff about SEO. Its time we started the real work. You may try thse commands without "http://www." in the url part and get different but more accurate results. All these commands are also valid in Yahoo too.

Command to find the list of pages on Google's list that have some particular word or phrase in the title "allintilte:(key word)"

Type this command e.g "allintitle:MCA Result " in the google search box without the double quotes. The result that appears is the list of all sites that have "MCA Result" in their title tag. Other tags in the same category are allintext which will give you the list of sites that have a particular word or phrase in their body text. These are very effective commands to implement SEO.

Command to find the list of email addresses from any website which are public in Google database “(www.example.com *@example.com)”

For example if you are searching all the email address registered by the extension @example.com and “example” is any company then you have to make a search on Google like this *@example.com. Means you can use this command to extract email addresses from the Google database which are saved as public email addresses.

In this way you can also find Phone no.’s having specificity, like all phone no.’s starts with 011****. Means in this you will notice that continuously I am using astric (*) command.

In this way you can use this wild symbols as a Google cheat commands in your searches to find the relevant search results.

New SEOQuake Version Has Been Updated - A SEO Extension Toolbar.

2011-04-04T22:05:00.000+05:30

I think you had already heard about the SEOQuake extension - its a powerful toolbar which is very useful for Search Engine optimization purpose and for webmasters.

Few days back this toolbar only available for Mozilla Firefox but now it is also available in Google Chrome extension list, going to make search on Chrome Browser more informative for SEO's.

SEOQuake shows number of parameters to the user which helps us to analyse the website for internet promotion, but the main thing is - Seo Quake also works in SERP (Search Engine Result Page), for example see the image, in the image you will be able to notice the certain features of this toolbar, like we can compare the Search Engine results, and it makes us easy to investigate all the parameters at one place, if we are using a Seo Quake toolbar then we don't need to extract parameters from different - different tools, by the use of SeoQuake we get all these parameters at a single place and at the same time.

If you see the image clearly, then some part is encircled by red circles - that is the seo quake toolbar result, showing certain parameters on SERP of different pages at the same time, so you can compare which is very useful for SEO purpose.

If we talk about the parameters which it shows, some of them are listed below :

1. PageRank (Google PageRank)
2. Google Index (No. of pages Indexed in Google Database)
3. Yahoo Links (No. of links as per yahoo)
4. Yahoo link domain
5. Bing Index (No. of pages Indexed in Bing Database)
6. Alexa Rank
7. Age (age of the certain domain)
8. Whois (Who is information)
9. Page Source
10. SEMRush Rank (Tool useful for keyword research)
11. Density (Density of keywords on the certain page)

These are the parameters which you can see on SERP during making search as well as on the certain web page automatically if you already enabled the toolbar

So, in this way by the use of SEOQuake you will be able to investigate lot of information about the Search Results together and for the certain web page individually.

For example if you make a search in Google - Search Engine Optimization , then Google return number of results and by the use of this toolbar you will be able to get all the information about your as well as competitor webpage.

For any further query post your question here.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ?

2011-04-04T21:51:00.000+05:30

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local

search, video search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website web presence.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

The initialism "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the quality of user-experience with search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.