An excerpt from Marketing Sherpa’s report:

“One of the most challenging obstacles to marketing is the time span from lead generation to sales conversion. These long sales cycles put pressure on marketers to streamline the lead nurturing process… We also wanted to know what percentage of leads at each stage of the pipeline were likely to advance to the next stage. We found that on average, nearly four in 10 leads move from initial inquiry to being sales-ready and the same ratio advance from sales-ready to qualified prospect.”

This should serve as encouragement to not give up too soon in your marketing efforts, and to put more emphasis on lead nurturing. This report is focused on B2B, however, the same advice would serve for B2C, although the sales cycle should be shorter, depending upon the service or product being offered.

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You know what you sell and you know the topic of your website. Are you sure that Google puts your website in the right category? If your website is about shoes, Google still might think that it is about frogs and toads.

If Google puts your website in the wrong category, it will be very difficult to get high rankings for your keywords.

How to find out what Google thinks about your website

To find out what Google thinks about your website, perform a “similar” search for your domain. Enter the following in Google’s search box:

related:www.domain.com/ ~domain.com

Replace domain.com with your own domain name and make sure that there is no spacer after the colon. On the result page, Google will show you websites that it finds related to your site.

If the websites on the search result page are related to your website then everything is okay. If the websites are about totally different topics, then you have a problem and Google probably won’t display your website in the search results for the right keywords.

Why does Google put your website in the wrong category?

Suppose your website is about selling shoes. If your site is linked by other websites that link to your website and other websites that are about frogs and toads then Google might think that your website is related to frogs and toads.

It’s important that the other links on the web page that links to you are related to your site. If you’re listed in the “Shoes” category of an Internet directory then all web sites in the same category are usually also about shoes.

When search engines look at this page and check the links to other sites they will think that your web site is related to shoes. That means that it will be much easier to get high rankings for search terms that are about shoes.

Is your website in the right co-citation category?

The other websites to which your link partners link influence the ranking of your website on Google.

Here’s an example: web sites 1, 2, 3 and 4 all link to the web sites A, B, C and D. Although A, B, C and D don’t link to each other, Google thinks that A, B, C and D are related to each other because the same web sites link to them:

If A, B, C and D are all linked from 1, 2, 3 and 4 they might be related to one another, even though they don’t directly link to each other.

If A, B, C and D are all linked by many other web sites, they have a strong relationship. The more web sites they are linked by, the stronger the relationship.

If you are the owner of website A, you should make sure that web sites B, C and D are related to your site.

What does this mean for your website?

When you build links, make sure that the page that links to your site also contains other links that are related to your website topic. The more pages of the other site are about your topic, the better.

If the link to your website is in a good neighborhood then it will be much easier to get high rankings for your keywords.

The backlink tools in IBP will help you to get more related backlinks to your website. Related backlinks and optimized web page content will bring your website on Google’s first result page.

This article is reprinted with permission: copyright Axandra.com – Web site promotion software

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Here are some tips and tools to help you discover your niche. Possible niches can be found by using these websites and tips.

1. Magazines There are at least 2000 magazines which are published for niche enthusiasts. There are also trade publications to read and trade organizations to join. Take the time to browse through the magazines, there is surely something which will capture your interest.

2. Amazon Amazon sells absolutely everything and it offers lists of the hottest sellers. Glance at some of the items for which people are searching. Allow yourself to move from topic to topic, since there are some categories which are not as appealing as others. Write down anything that captures your interest, be it a mandolin or a history book.

3. Technorati See what subjects and topics are being offered at Technorati. This site offers a top 100 blog list which will give you a listing of the most popular blogs in the world. You can find out about the possible competition at Technorati.

4. Ebay Pulse Ebay Pulse gives you listings of the hottest topics based on the number of searches done at the site. The Pulse will show you the most watched items in Ebay’s stores. Delve into the numbers and find a niche.

5. Google Trends Google Trends will show you the most popular searches that people are conducting on Google. By inputting your words, you can get an idea of the way that it has trended over time. Are there certain seasons which others are looking for a specific item? This site will inform you.

6. Google Adwords Using your Google account, you can create a Google Adwords account. Google offers many free tools which can help you ascertain the level of competition that you’re facing and get the number of keywords in the field. You can find out how many searches are done on your favorite topics and get an estimate of how much advertisers pay Google per click. Once you have a list of potential niches, here are some things that you should keep in mind.

7. Start with something you enjoy While you were doing research, was there something which stood out? Pick something which fuels your imagination. You will need to put a lot of work into the blog and it is better to be writing about something exciting. Chances are, you also have ties to the community surrounding your interests.

8. Look for the money Look around for potential affiliate programs associated with your niche. Be aware of the rates that advertisers pay. You want to find a lucrative niche.

9. Know about your audience How passionate are the readers within your niche? Do you notice that they congregate at a certain site or forum? Is there anything that you can add to the conversation? Look for an audience who is passionate about their niche.

10. Find the forums There are forums for nearly every niche, but some are more active than others. Join the group in your niche which has the greatest number of members. You want to have more of an understanding about your potential niche as well as use them for marketing.

Finding a great niche takes research and determination. By using all of the tools at your disposal, you will have your blog set up in no time.

During his time as a staff writer for a well know supplier of ink cartridges, James has focused his work to cover news in the design world and reviews of new releases such as the HP 300XL ink cartridge.

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I’m wondering how SEO didn’t increase traffic for 39% of the websites. Poor quality of optimization would mean a lower amount of traffic, but even so…

Very Effective SEO Objectives by Primary Market

SEO has proven to be an effective tool in achieving a number of important marketing objectives, making it a universally-beneficial marketing tactic for a wide variety of organizations, regardless of their objectives.

As you can see, increased website traffic is rated as the most effective objective for SEO and increased brand or product awareness is also rated extremely well. However, increased website traffic and awareness are soft metrics that lead to an improvement in bottom-line metrics such as increased online and offline sales revenue.

We feel the effectiveness of SEO in these bottom-line metrics is undervalued because of difficulties in achieving closed-loop tracking from website traffic source to online or offline sales revenue, or low efficiencies of conversion optimization of websites.

B2C organizations are the most likely to perceive SEO as an effective tactic in achieving an increase in lead generation and online sales revenue. This is an indication that these types of organizations are more efficient in closed-loop tracking from website visitor source to leads and online sales revenue generated.

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But what do you do when your niche isn’t gaining as many community members as it used to attract? Where can you turn to promote your niche website when you are already the big fish in your small pond? How can you get real results without vainly hoping for a front page link on major pages like Digg?

Before consulting these generic options, be sure to spend some time hunting for the Digg equivalent within your niche. Finance websites have Tip’d and Feed the Bull, sports pages have BallHype and ArmChairGM. A good strategy is to find out what references those sites use, and get yourself posted across them.

If your niche spans multiple niches, such as video games and sports, cross-pollinate your content as much as possible.

1. Metafilter
Metafilter is a great place to start promoting yourself, as long as you do so without crass self-promotion. The community is very active and lively and thrives on finding cool contents related to the subject matter on hand. If you’ve got something truly great to share, the MeFites will become both traffic and signposts to other avenues of publication.

2. Propeller
Propeller is very similar to Digg, with a more serious focus, emphasizing politics, current events, finance, and technology topics. It operates with a system much like Digg’s "digg and bury" system, but the community is smaller and more likely to get your content more traffic.

3. Mixx
Mixx is a multi-topic social news site. Any blogger can find an appropriate category for content. The best part about Mixx is that you can create groups and associate your content with other people in your niche, enabling everyone to share readers from other communities and help find new references for each other. Mixx is also a sort of social media aggregator, providing another means of integrating your content into the mainstream of social media.

4. Shoutwire
Another generic news community. You probably won’t aim to become a regular feature on Shoutwire if your niche is very small, but it is a good place to try to become the favored expert on a subject. The interface is similar to the rest of the social media news sites, and any topic stands a chance of getting strong attention.

5. Linkfilter
Linkfilter is a more free-form publication venue than the aforementioned, but it has major strengths in that your content can be ranked based on clicks, votes, age, and combinations of those points, giving you better ways to target your particular content. An older article with lots of traffic built over time will have higher ranking than a new article that became a flash in the pan, and less-visited pages with a high vote count will show up as choice options.

6. Slashdot
Slashdot is well known among the tech community, and is famous for "the Slashdot effect" of killing webpages with traffic. What it is gaining in recent years is a much broader palette for topics; while it used to be a nerdy hideout for the tech obsessed, it has since expanded into a diverse set of venues for publishing on general science topics, literature, political events, as well as its original core in gadgets and technology.

These are the big names in alternative social media. Once you’ve found your niche’s specialty aggregator, these can be used to grow your audience well beyond your initial core niche.

This post is contributed by James, a tech writer and reviewer who works at an online store offering ink cartridges in the UK. Follow their blog for new posts about design, media and marketing.

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The answer is Both.

If you have a valuable comment to make on a relevant blog, then hey, more power to you! Comments like that may get you a link, and they can also bring traffic to your site.

However, it amazes me that the people who leave comments like the ones below think they will gain anything by these. After all, who doesn’t have the Akismet plugin on their blog, which catches spam comments like these in the filter all day long.

• haha,The Subject of your blog is very Suit to me, I hope more interflow with you this Burden.
• Than it of the pillars of the community. A landlord in the community of tomorrow will be better!
• thanks i really love your blog. this is great knowledge. I wanted to let you know about some killer traffic video courses i have. just swing by and take advantage of my save the family vacation firesale. right now.
• That you post to the resurgence of my heart, you saved me a pull pull cool cool heart!
• dBNfYx slzrggbyxynx
• I like the layout of your blog and I’m going to do the same thing for mine. Do you have any tips? Please PM ME on yahoo @ AmandaLovesYou
• You are so brilliant and your blog posts amaze me! I an stunned when I read them. (Well, those may be for real – I get a lot of them!)

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Knowing a few simple, key SEO strategies will help get customers to you. Here are a few basics you should never stray far from.

1. The Importance of Keywords and Keyphrases – Adding appropriate keywords and keyphrases to your content is one of the most basic SEO practices. These are the words and phrases that people search for when looking for information online, and can be added just about anywhere on your website. The importance of good keywords can not be overlooked.
2. Link Back to Your Own Site – Linking to your own pages will boost the internal traffic on your site. Search engine spiders also look for links on a page. Try to link back to pages with quality content, such as archives or related products. Make it a habit to create new links to your other pages every time you create new content for your site.
3. Link to Other Sites – It is always a good idea to contact the webmaster of a site that you want to link to and ask them to post a link to your site in return. You will most likely get another site linking to you, and the worst thing they can do is say is no. When you link to another website, make sure that it is a well respected website, and try to keep your list of links short and useful.
4. Create an Easy to Use Sitemap – A sitemap lists all the major pages on your site and links to those pages. Not only does this make it easier for your customers to navigate your site, but it also makes it easier for the search engine spiders. They will have an easier time finding and accessing your pages. For some sites, it is crucial to create a sitemap. Sites with dynamic content or a lot of Flash will benefit from a sitemap. New sites with a relatively low number of links, and sites with archived pages that are not linked well can also benefit.
5. Clear, Concise URLs – When creating URLs for your web pages, strings of numbers and characters are not only confusing, but they make it harder for the search engine spiders to rank it. Instead, label your URLs with exactly what’s on that page. Clearly label it using search engine – and customer – friendly keywords and phrases.
6. Avoid “Flashy” Pages – Although it may look pretty, pages and sites with a lot of Flash media in them generally do not do well in the search engines since they can’t link to a single page. If you do add Flash to your pages, be sure to add text and links either underneath or above it.
7. Use Your Images – Since spiders can only search actual text, not the text in images, it is a good idea to add as many keywords and phrases as you can to an image description. Adding descriptive captions to your images can help you add important keywords to your page. Add a caption to every picture on your site.
8. Update Content and Keep Your Site Fresh – Regularly updated content can increase traffic to your site. Try to add new content every couple of days, or once a week at the very least. A good way to keep new content flowing is by adding a blog to your site. This will keep fresh contact on your site all the time, and it can connect with customers on a personal level. A blog not only adds new content, but it also adds character.
9. Track Your Progress – There’s no point in trying to improve your search engine ranking if you don’t know where you rank, or if you don’t know if your efforts are paying off. Tools like Alexa and Google Analytics make it simple for you to track your web traffic. Know where you started from, and regularly keep track of your traffic.

Some companies will help you optimize your site, but they do charge fee. Sometimes this fee isn’t very small. Paying someone else is probably easier, but if you can’t or won’t shell out the bucks, try doing it yourself first. It’s easier than you may think.

James writes about technology for a leading UK based online ink cartridges retailer. You can stay up to date with his latest writing on their blog CreativeCloud, which has some really fascinating articles about a variety of subjects that don’t seem to have a thing to do with ink cartridges. Thanks, James, for this guest article.

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Google got so many complaints, and probably confused a lot of people, so they want back to their plain white page.

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Here are six ways you can make use of the online environment to increase your brand’s exposure.

Optimize your site
The number one tactic for online success is making sure your site is search engine optimized – after all, what’s the point in being online if no one can find you? To this end, there are a number of items to tick off your checklist. First off, it’s always best to have a local domain for each local site, preferably hosted in the target country, rather than having sub domains off your main site for each individual market. This is for credibility with your audience, but also because search engines rank local sites higher for local searches.

Naturally, you should make sure to have your keywords prominently displayed in headers, intro paragraphs and as META tags – but even more important is to make sure that you’re using the right keywords for your audience. This is especially true if you have sites in multiple languages – directly translating keywords rarely results in the most popular search term.

Research your keywords for each market with a keyword tool like Google’s, then incorporate a mix of the most popular keywords and more specific, ‘long-tail’ keywords of up to three words – for instance, if you’re selling car insurance, you’d want to use both ‘car insurance’ and something more specific, such as ‘affordable car insurance USA’.

Lastly, make sure your site is regularly updated with new, relevant, original content that’s useful to your visitors – search engines are becoming increasingly sophisticated and able to recognize sites that are static or cheat with ‘copied and pasted’ content, so if your site isn’t of genuine interest to visitors, it’s going to get the cold shoulder from Google.

Play the media game
A tried and tested method of getting your brand and message out there is to maintain a steady stream of press releases to news agencies detailing the latest developments in your business and industry. Similarly, it helps to be involved with the blogosphere’s RSS feeds, blogging both on your own site and writing guest posts and articles for relevant industry blogs and publications.

The aim of your articles should be to drive traffic back to your own website, but to do this they should be useful to the reader, authoritative and also entertaining. If you’re tackling localized audiences in different countries then it’s important to do your research beforehand to find out what the most popular and credible media outlets are in each local market.
In a similar vein, you might consider signing up as an expert on an advice site such as Yahoo Answers – if you’re able to answer a specific question related to your industry in the most detailed way, your answer will be the top pick, earning you instant free exposure.

Social Media
Having a company presence on social media sites allows your company to interact immediately and directly with consumers, developing a personalized relationship with the people keeping you in business. In the case of instant-meme networks like Twitter, you can communicate new developments immediately to your followers and see the news spread organically across the web.

However, it’s important to make sure you’re using the right social network for your target audience. A bit of quick research is all that’s needed – for instance, if you want to enter the market in Hong Kong, then setting up a profile on blogging community Xanga.com is your best bet, or if you’re (bizarrely) looking at a joint marketing campaign targeting Brazil and Estonia then Orkut.com is your site.

Pay-per-click: AdWords
The bread and butter of online marketing, AdWords (also known as pay-per-click advertising) are a simple way to make sure your company’s website achieves high visibility across Google and other relevant websites, and while you should always try to climb the rankings organically with clever SEO techniques (e.g. link-building), putting aside some budget spend for an AdWord campaign is a fast way to gain online visibility.

Banner Ads
If you’re going to spend on banner advertising, it pays to make sure you’re placing your ads with the right websites for your target audience. Clothing company American Apparel is an excellent case in point for clever banner ad marketing – by carefully selecting the hippest Western music and youth culture blogs for their banner ads, the company has created a culture in which earning an American Apparel ad on one’s blog is a sign of credibility, rather than the blog giving the ad credibility.

Stay in touch
Once you get visitors to your site, make sure you stay in touch with them. Encouraging visitors to sign up for a regular e-zine or e-newsletter (in the relevant language, of course) with news and special offers will boost return traffic and your potential for future sales.

About the author

Christian Arno is Managing Director of international translation services provider Lingo24, specialists in the localization of marketing collateral.

Thanks Christian for this great guest post! ~ Kay

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They have reopened the “Get More Traffic” portion of the site for a short time, as they have a large number of blogs available after the contest they recently held.

These blogs all need more content, and they are willing to publish your content along with keyword links back to your site.

SLV will close again, so if you’re interested don’t wait too long.

How does it work?

There’s a video on the site you can watch, but here’s the simplified process:

1. Write an original article about your product

2. Paste it into their content spinner.

3. Use their spinner to change the article so syndicated articles will be different.

4. Add your keyword links.

5. Decide how many links you want to build daily. This is the number of blogs / sites that will be allowed to republish your article on a daily basis.

6. Choose your categories.

7. Publish

How do I do it?

My process is pretty much the same, except I want my spun articles to have a higher originality content than SEOLinkVine is currently able to provide. So I use Magic Article Rewriter, where I can get a 40-45% originality ratio, which is reflected on SLV as 80-95%.

To learn how it works, see my article on link building with Magic Article Rewriter.

Caveat: Garbage in, garbage out. If you want to have articles online that you are proud of and that sounds professional, take your time with the spinning portion. Make sure all the iterations make sense and don’t read like English is your second language. There’s a learning curve, but there usually is with anything that is worthwhile. My copywriters get pretty good after the first two or three articles, and my acceptance rate on SLV is 100% on almost every article.

Where do the articles go?

SEOLinkVine does not provide you with a list, but I’ve found my articles on a variety of relevant sites. Some are new sites, others are sites that have been around for awhile and have PR.

Is it White Hat and does it work?

Yes, this is White Hat SEO. I’m sure some people don’t much care about the quality of the articles they write or publish, but my articles are well written and informative, and the articles I choose to publish are the same.

I’m seeing increased search engine rankings for my keywords, as well as inbound traffic from the sites publishing the articles.

This is certainly not the only way I build links, but it is a way to build a large number of inbound links over time.

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If you own websites then no one has to tell you that SEO is the name of the game. You probably also know that some people understand the challenges and seeming mysteries of SEO far better than others, perhaps better than you currently do.

The good news is that a few of them are willing to share their knowledge with anyone who wants to listen. That is when becoming a student is essential to your understanding, your progress in implementing best SEO practices, and finding success in the rankings.

In this post we’ll feature 5 SEO podcasts that will further your understanding of how to achieve the kinds of rankings you need to consistently hit your traffic and sales goals on your way to success.

1. The eMarketing Show The three hosts you’ll hear on these podcasts are proven winners, and so are their bevy of top-shelf guests. They possess the depth of experience needed to understand how to effectively market your sites across the web in all of the ways that will get it noticed. Listen and you’ll receive insightful wisdom about all facets of internet marketing including pay-per-click and cost-per-click campaigns. Advice on topics such as branding, back-linking, and generating leads is consistently given, all with a view to growing your revenues. See their podcast archives for all the goodies delivered in past shows.

2. Marketing Pilgrim Andy Beal, the founder of Marketing Pilgrim, has long been on the leading edge of grasping ways to make the internet pay. Marketing Pilgrim is a consistent top 10 rated source of advice on internet marketing and you’ll understand why when you start tuning in. Their team covers the net from end to end as well as anyone and has a nose for opportunity. They make it their job to bring those open doors to your attention. They demonstrate a solid grip on traditional targets like Google and Yahoo and also prove they understand how to make social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter work for you, too. Their content is picked up by main stream media like CNN, CNET, and the Wall Street Journal.

3. SEO Rockstars Daron Babin dubs himself the SEGuru and has backed up the boast with proven numbers. He also brings a weekly does of solid SEO tactics from his own experience and that of quality SEO leaders who have produced demonstrable results. The focus is online marketing in ways that make sense to you, assessing your personal risk tolerance. Twitter ads, affiliate links, and social media management have been just a few recent topics to help you maximize your online marketing strategies.

4. Online Marketing with RSS Ray This interview-style podcast brings solid advice to you weekly, and their archive is there for catching up or hearing it again. Online business experts cover the hottest and most profitable range of topics, including social media marketing, search engine optimization, insights on linking, email and mobile marketing, optimizing conversion rates, and advice on analyzing performance using cutting edge tracking tools.

5. Good ROI Good ROI is brought to you by the Good Karma guy, Greg Niland. He takes a simple approach – “Online profits are a good thing!” His podcast teaching and the guests he gives the platform to make that their goal. Topics you’ll hear include simplifying technical aspects of SEO, understanding how to get the best return on your advertising dollar, and what Google wants from your website.

There are a few more quality SEO podcasts we could bring to your attention, but with the fantastic archives waiting for you on each of these sites, you’ll be busy for the next couple of months, at least. Take a listen to these podcasts and take notes. Seek to find just one or two principles from each that you can put into effect for your sites immediately or can gradually work on for the long-term impact they’ll have on your SEO results. Follow the leaders and your numbers will begin to rise.

This was a guest post by James Adams, who works for Cartridge Save where he reviews products such as the HP 342 ink cartridge and helps maintain their design blog. Thank you James!

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There’s a new free content “article writing” feature on SEOLinkVine, where you can get 100% unique content written for you on whatever subject/topic you want. It is literally like hiring an article writer to write for you and publish it on your site for free! This is a great opportunity – don’t pass it up!

Here’s how it works…

First, go to SEOLinkVine. Click on the big blue button that says “Need Free Content?” Create your free account, then look for the “articles on demand” feature inside the member’s area under “Get Content.”

After you add your site:

1. Request a specific topic to be written on solely for you.

2. Someone in the network will write and then submit that “article on-demand” to you.

3. Set it up to automatically publish to your site, or you can manually approve the articles.

Articles will have keyword links to the writers’ sites, which you must leave in the body of the article. If you don’t want them to promote specific products in the articles you request, you can specify that you want general info articles, however, they will still have 3 linked keywords in it.

The potential here is unlimited, so go for it – start requesting Articles On-Demand ASAP.

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Apparently this is not a penalty but a change in Google’s ranking algorithm. Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. Prior to this change, Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases, basing results on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages.

If you’ve experienced a decline in traffic from Google to your website, you might have to change some of the content on your web site. Until this update, the order of keywords could vary to some degree. Now, though, if you want to be found for "dog training collars dallas" then these words should appear in that exact order on your website. If you’re using a different variation, such as "dallas dog training collars" then you’ll most likely get search result listings for that variation but not for other word combinations.

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Here are 10 unique WordPress plugins to help your blog become more search engine friendly.

1. All in one SEO Pack This handy plugin will help you take care of all your meta and title tags. It allows you to easily customize these important attributes without the need to dig into your html code.

2. Google XML Sitemaps This is a great tool that lets all the major search engines know where your pages exist. Sometimes the spiders won’t be able to find every page on your site, so it’s important to have this file so that they know they are there.

3. SEO Friendly Images Perhaps you didn’t know that the "Title" and "Alt" attributes on your images are important to search engines. Not only do these tags let the search engine know what your page is about, but they also increase the likelihood that your page will be found through alternative means, like Google Image Search.

4. WP-Super-Cache This plugin will create static html versions of each of your pages so that they will load faster in your users’ browsers. It also means that the Google spider will be able to access your site faster. Since the spider only spends a certain amount of time on each site, faster page loads mean more of your pages will be indexed. Google has also indicated that all things equal, faster pages will appear ahead of slower pages in the search engine results.

5. Robot Meta This plugin helps you to customize your robots.txt file. This is basically a file that allows you to give specific instructions to the search engine spiders when they visit your site. For example, you can prevent the spiders from indexing your category pages so that you aren’t penalized for duplicate content.

6. SEO Smart Link This is a plugin that will search through your content and automatically create links to other pages within your site. For example, if you have a post about poodle training tips, and you mention poodle training in another post, a link will automatically be created. This helps the search engines understand better what your site and each page is all about.

7. I Love Social Bookmarking This plugin will automatically insert an attractive drop-down menu so that your readers can automatically bookmark your website on any of the most popular social bookmarking sites. This helps the search engines find your content easier, and it can help boost your ranking if more people discover your site and link to it.

8. Nofollow Case by Case The "nofollow" attribute was created by Google in order to fight the growing problem of comment spam. By default, WordPress will automatically nofollow people who leave comments on your blog. Unfortunately, this has the undesirable side effect of discouraging people from commenting because they know they won’t get "credit" for their backlink. This plugin allows you to give credit to people for their comments, while at the same time discouraging spammers by allowing you to nofollow their backlinks on a case-by-case basis.

9. SEO No Duplicate WordPress Plugin If you happen to have duplicate content on your blog for some reason, this plugin allows you to specify which page you’d like Google to index. This allows you to put as much duplicate content on your blog as you wish while at the same time avoiding the dreaded duplicate content penalty.

10. Redirection This plugin lets you easily manage 301 redirects and 404 errors. Mismanaging these can have an adverse effect on your search engine rankings, and Google can even de-index you if you have too many 404 errors. Rather than fiddling with the access files of your website, you can manage these easily with this plugin.

Implement a few of these SEO plugins today, and you should see vastly improved search engine rankings in a short period of time. A few of them require absolutely no maintenance, so there is really no reason not to utilize them.

This post was brought to you by Tom Walker, a writer and designer from the UK who works with a leading online store specialising in HP supplies. For more of his writing, visit their blog where he posts about advertising in print media.

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Other than making a pancake, however, I really didn’t find the boxes especially intuitive. I spent a little time clicking on boxes, but really, I’m just to busy to monkey around with this. Stamps on my hand? Classes in my sleep? Huh?

I wonder if the pancake guy knows how to make monkeys.

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