2008 - Latest SEO Updates, Online SEO Updates

Dec 28, 2008

3 Tips to Increase Adwords CTR

I thought I’d share with you a few tricks I’ve picked up along the way with Adwords. When starting a campaign, one of the most important things is to get a good CTR (Click Through Ratio). Google will give your campaign a “quality score”, part of which is the CTR. If you get a good quality score, your ad will show higher up in the Pay Per Click results, for less cash per click.

1. Use non-alphanumeric characters

Much how Eli talked about using non-alphanumeric characters in SERP results to increase CTR, we can do the same with Adwords. For instance:

Which of these two adverts stands out the most? Try running an ad rotation with the identical ad, one with “arrows” and one without. I bet this month�??s Adsense you get a higher CTR on our little arrowed friend! If you want to give the arrows a try, you could copy and paste them from here: �??�??

2. Sometimes less is…

Another interesting technique is doing something which seems totally illogical. Cut your ads off early and add a “…” at the end of the advert. This triggers a response in a lot of people, assuming there is more information will automatically be drawn to your advert.

So we’ll have something that looks like this:

3. Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Something that will really attract clicks is if you can get your title to exactly match the user’s search query. Rather than writing thousands of adverts, you can use (a sparsely documented) feature of Adwords, DKI.

You can use DKI anywhere in your adverts.. in the title, description line 1 or 2, display url and in your destination url (Usually for tracking purposes, be careful not to break your links with this method!)

Ok, how do I use Dynamic Keyword Insertion then?

You specify how you�??d like the dynamic keywords displayed, and give a default phrase which will be displayed if your dynamic keywords cannot for whatever reason. The format is below:

{keyword:defaulttext}

You can also use the following capitalization on the work �??keyword�?? to get different effects:

* keyword - no capitalization

* Keyword - First word is capitalized

* KeyWord - Every Word Is Capitalized

* KEYword - EVERY letter in first word is capitalized

* KEYWord - LIKE Above But With Each Word Capitalized

* KEYWORD - EVERY LETTER IS CAPITALIZED

Example:

{KeyWord:Widgets}

Buy your {Keyword:Widgets} here
{KEYword:Widgets} with free delivery!

User searches for �??blue widgets�??, which you have as a targeted term.

The resulting advert:

Blue Widgets

Buy your Blue widgets here

BLUE widgets with free delivery!

If anyone else has any quick tips that you don’t see everywhere else on the net, drop them in as a comment and share! Id love to hear what everyone else is doing, I’ve been pretty lucky with my Adwords success myself!

Dec 23, 2008

pay per lead

Definition

Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.

Information

In a pay per lead agreement, the advertiser only pays for leads generated at their destination site. No payment is made for visitors who don't sign up.

A lead is generally a signup involving contact information and perhaps some demographic information; it is typically a non-cash conversion event. A lead may consist of as little as an email address, or it may involve a detailed form covering multiple pages.

One risk to the advertiser is the potential for fraudulent activity by incentivized 3rd-parties or marketing partners. Some false leads are easy to spot. Nonetheless, it is advisable to make a regular audit of the results.

pay per sale

Definition

Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.

Information

In a pay per sale agreement, the advertiser only pays for sales generated by the destination site based on an agreed upon commission rate.

Paying per sale is often seen as the payment model most favorable to advertisers and least favorable to publishers. In such an agreement, the publisher must not only be concerned with the quality and quantity of his or her audience, but also the quality of the advertiser's creative units and destination site.

If possible, many publishers avoid sales-based agreements, preferring to stick to the CPM model. However, some publishers, facing weak ad sales, have little choice but to accept sales-based agreements to utilize remnant space.

For advertisers, pay per sale has some unique advantages compared to pay per click and pay per lead. There are fewer concerns about whether conversions are legitimate, and whether traffic is incentivized or of low quality.

Dec 18, 2008

The 7 Best Web 2.0 Sites To Improve Your Search

Having your website at the top search engine position can be a real boost for your affiliate marketing business. But how many of you actually know that Web 2.0 is one of the best way to get your site to the position and it is also quicker.

I have been using several web 2.0 sites to boost my search engine position and have got quite good results from them and I would like to share with you some of those sites that I am using to get me on the first page of Google for several keywords I am targeting.

Here are my top seven favourite web 2.0 sites

1) Squidoo
2) Hubpage
3) Weebly
4) Wikidot
5) Wordpress
6) Blogger
7) Digg

These sites above have always performed pretty well for my search engine optimization purpose and I recommend any one of you who are interested in using search engine as your traffic generation tool to use the above seven sites. Getting to the first page of Google using these site is not that tough but to maintain at the first page of Google for a long period of six to 12 months can be pretty tough.

Personally, I have learned some special techniques that can worked together with the above sites to get me lasting spot in Google. If you are serious about using search engine as your income generating tools, you should take some time to learn how to do that.

There are numerous products online that are about to teach you that but you got to study and put them into practice to see results.

Dec 17, 2008

The Best Traffic Generation

Although search engines have been around since the beginning of the Web, many businesses (large and small) are just now waking up to the gigantic benefit search engines provide. What other medium gives you - at absolutely no cost whatsoever - a way to drive unlimited traffic to your site? None. Thats why, once people understand search engine optimization (SEO), they get hooked!

I want to give you some basics to follow in order to help get your site ranked at the top of popular search engines like Yahoo! and Google. I also want to provide you with some exceptional resources so you can further your SEO education in the future.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is the process of creating a Web site that fosters the design, coding, copy, and link-building elements search engines most like to see. Through the process of SEO, you can develop a site (or alter an existing site) so that the engines will move you up to the top of the search results. That means people who are actually looking to find what you have to sell will click to your site before your competitions.

How Does SEO Work?

There are three fundamental parts to the SEO equation: coding, copywriting, and link popularity.

Coding is the manipulation of your HTML code so that it is clean, uncluttered, positioned correctly, and easily accessible to the search engine spiders and bots. You want to be sure the most important information to the spiders is located up top where they can quickly and easily find it. You also want to ensure that java scripts and other such coding are moved out of the spiders way.

Copywriting relates to the text on your site. Search engine copywriting pertains to being able to write in such a way that you include your primary keyphrases in strategic places so that you get the most “points” from the engines.

Link popularity deals with how many sites have links that point back to your site (and vice versa). The theory is, that if others think highly enough of your site to link to it, your site must be of good quality.

When you have a good combination of all three primary elements, you stand a much better chance of ranking high with the engines.

Doesn’t SEO Depend On META Tags?

It used to… a long, LONG time ago. When the Net was first founded, just about all you had to do to get high rankings was to shove a bunch of keyphrases into your keyword tag. Now, however, the engines are smarter. They pay no attention to the keyword tags and very little attention to the description tag. The only tag that carries much weight anymore is the title tag. It is extremely important.

Isn’t SEO Copywriting Just Using Keyphrases As Many Times As You Can?

No! Not only does that put you at risk of spamming the search engines, it makes your copy sound horrible to your human site visitors. What good are high search engine rankings if your copy doesnt convert those visitors into paying customers?

You need to find creative and strategic places to use keyphrases so that you maintain the balance between natural language and keyphrase use.

Dec 16, 2008

Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites

The number of social bookmarking sites has exploded in the last year, leaving someone new the space probably a bit overwhelmed at where to start. If you are new to social networking understand that each social networking site is different, it attracts a different audience with different interests. Thus what interests someone on Reddit might not appeal to anyone on Digg.

So who are the main players in the social bookmaking space? And what is the profile of the typical user of these social bookmarking sites? The answers below might surprise you!

Digg.com

Digg is the most popular and notable of the social bookmarking sites. Quantcast estimates that that Digg has about 25 million unique visitors a month. The audience is predominantly male (65%), between 25-34 years of age, with a household income between 30k and 100k. Digg’s demographics have changed as it has become more popular (mainstream). Not to long ago the Digg profile was male, under 25 who made less than 30k a year. Social media topics that do well on Digg include interesting photos, anything anti-Microsoft and lists (top 10, etc).

Propeller.com

Propeller (formely Netscape) is comfortable the second biggest social bookmarking site behind Digg with over 5.8 million monthly uniques, of which 3.6 million (62%) are in the U.S. Netscape also attracts a male biased audience (54) , that is slightly older (45-54 is biggest age group), and 55% of Propeller.com visitors have an household income over $60k.

StumbleUpon

Stumbleupon.com reports over 4.5 million members and Quantcast classifies it as a top 5,000 site that has about 1.5 million unique visitors a month from the U.S. The audience is male biased (56%) and between the ages of 45-54 (22% of visitors). The older demographic also skews the household income with 51% of visitors having a household income of over $60k.

Reddit.com

Reddit is becoming a very popular social bookmarking site with about 1.2 million unique visitors in the U.S., making it slightly larger than Del.icio.us. Reddit attracts a predominantly male (57%) audience that is between the ages of 35-44 (25%). With 65% of the audience having a household income of between $30 and $100k, Reddit is a mainstream social networking site. As a result, political, environmental, business and entertainment news does well with this audience.

Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is the oldest social bookmarking site and Quantcast classifies it as a top 5,000 site that gets about 1.1 million unique visitors a month from the U.S. The audience is male (53%) and about 47% of them are over 45. Similar to StumbleUpon, 51% of visitors having a household income of over $60k.

Newsvine.com

Newsvine is a top 10,000 site that reaches over 362K U.S. monthly uniques. The site attracts a slightly male slanted audience (54%) and 51% of the users have a household income under $60k.

Fark.com

Fark.com is a much more trafficked site than people expect. With 1,972,698 monthly unique visitors in the U.S., it is bigger than StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us and Reddit. The Fark audience is heavily male (69%), between the ages of 25-34 and a household income under $60k (52%). The Fark audience likes interesting, bizarre and amusing news stories, along with regular photo manipulation contests.

Blinklist.com

Blinklist.com is a top 10,000 site that reaches over 353K U.S. monthly uniques. The site appeals to a more male group (59%) who are between the age of 25 and 54. About 54% of the audience earns over $60k a year.

Clipmarks.com

Clipmarks reaches over 205K U.S. monthly uniques. The site appeals to a male biased audience (58%) with a household income of $30-60k. The site attracts almost equal amounts of people between 25 and 54.

Shoutwire.com

This site reaches approximately 70,742 U.S. monthly uniques. The site appeals to a more male (60%), younger audience (38% are under 24).

So what does the demographic data tells us? One is that the typical social bookmarking site user is male, between the ages of 35-54 with a household income of $60k or more a year. Is this your target audience? If it is not, then these are probable not the main social networking sites that you should be focusing on.

Note that Digg attracts more users than all the other social bookmarking sites combined. Similar to how MySpace dominates the social networking space (and gets the lion share of advertising dollars), Digg is the dominate social bookmarking site. If you are trying to reach this audience, then you have to include Digg in your marketing efforts, simply because the audience is so large, relative to everyone else in this space.

Dec 14, 2008

SEO Tips

Be bold. Use the tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking. Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site.

Become a foreigner. Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Newsletters. Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served. If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won’t follow additional links to the same page.Â

Multiple domains. If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges. You’ve heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else’s article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links. Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text. Don’t overdo the anchor text. You don’t want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, “Gumbo Pudding Pop” occasionally, “Get gumbo pudding pops” as well, “Gumbo-flavored pudding pops” some other times, etc.

Site map. A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It’s called the navigation bar.

Dec 9, 2008

Life of a Google Query

The life span of a Google query normally lasts less than half a second, yet involves a number of different steps that must be completed before results can be delivered to a person seeking information.


3. The search results are returned to the user in a fraction of a second.			1. The web server sends the query to the index servers. The content inside the index servers is similar to the index in the back of a book - it tells which pages contain the words that match the query.

	2. The query travels to the doc servers, which actually retrieve the stored documents. Snippets are generated to describe each search result.

Dec 1, 2008

The Value of Content for SEO

Keeping up with the constant changes in the Google Algorithm is like keeping up with a certain footballer's change in hair style. In fact they may both have a lot in common...lots of money, domination over their market and one small change can make headlines all over the world. So, what was the change this time?

If some of you have not researched or even read countless articles on the mythical algorithm, you may or may not have come to the conclusion that it ends up as searching for the golden fleece. However, with articles which you have to start listening and maybe even listening to the advice. Not only was the article a good read for the astounding 450 updates that the beloved algorithm (I shall hence forth refer to it as the Alg) had last year, but the answers from Mr Matt Cutts from Google. I like the short translations most of all, i.e. 'Yes' or 'No'.

What is important about this post was that it drove me to take a look at one of my sites in a more detailed look. I was also recently at a advanced Google Adwords seminar where one point came out that caused a real stir amongst the participants. To increase the quality score of your campaigns it is imperative that you have a landing page that is directly relevant to the campaign or ad group keywords. I.e. relevancy and content is most important. I then read a few blog posts to confirm that Google has now taken a liking to content not that it didn't before, but more so now. Content for SEO is king again.

Interested by this I took a look at one of my websites from a content point of view. Looking at some of the keywords, we had them all grouped so they were targeted towards one page in particular. Hmm, this would not do. What we needed was each keyword to have its dedicated page that was full of quality content for both the user and the search engines.

Nov 26, 2008

A listing of SEO Tools

The SEO Tools found in this section were designed to assist you in configuring your website(s) for optional Search Engine Optimization within the different search engines. Please select one of the SEO Tools from below, to begin optimizing your website(s) for top placement within the search engines.

Link Popularity

This tool will query all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Teoma), and then return the total link count for each.

Meta Tag Generator

If you're new to web development and search engine optimization, you may find this tool useful to ensure that your Meta Tags are correctly formed.

Domain Typo Generator

Enter a domain name into the box above, and this tool will generate a list of suggestion of likely human-misspellings and typos for the given domain.

Keyword Typo Generator

Enter a keyword or key-term into the box above and this tool will generate a list of suggestions for likely human-misspellings and typos.

Keyword Density

This tool will analyze your chosen URL, and return a table of keyword density values for one, two, or three word key-terms.

Keyword Optimizer

Enter a list of keywords and this tool will remove any duplicate entries and re-orders the list alphabetically.

Keyword Suggestions For Google

The keyword suggestion tool for Google will help you choose relevant and popular terms related to your selected key-term.

Keyword Suggestions For Overture

Simply enter a key-term and this tool will query information from Overture database of searched terms.

PageRank Search

Enter your google search here, and our tool will search Google and display the pagerank next to each resulting answer.

PageRank Lookup

This tool streamlines the process of checking pagerank for your sites. Enter a list of URLs and it will return the PageRank value for each one.

Future PageRank

This tool will query Google's various data-centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL.

Site Link Analyzer

This tool will analyze a given web-page and return a table of data containing columns of outbound links and their associated anchor text.

Meta Analyzer

This tool will analyze a websites META tags. Analyzing a competitors Keyword and Description META values is a good way to find ideas for keyterms and more effective copy for your site.

Google Dance

This tool will query Google's 3 main web servers, showing the different statuses during updates. Watch Google Dance.

Page Size

This tool will help to determine HTML web page size.

We hope you find these tools to be very helpful in your SEO endeavors.

Oct 31, 2008

Why Google Banned Websites?

It's a simple question... Are you asking Google to penalize your website?

I'm sure you're probably thinking; Well, of course not! Yet daily I see new people complaining in search engine optimization forums that their websites have been banned by Google and they "have no idea why".

These people claim they've done nothing wrong and are absolutely clueless as to why their site is no longer in Google. The purpose of this article is to teach you one VERY important thing.

What NOT to do when optimizing your website, to make sure you don't get banned.

How do you know if you've been banned?

First let me show you how to see if you're clearly banned by Google. Often times people think they've been banned, when in reality they've just dropped in ranking and can't find their website.

There are a couple of things you can do.

Check Google's search results.
View the Google toolbar.

Check Google's search results

Go to Google and enter your entire URL into Google's search box. In this example we'll use a made up domain name. (www.jkhljkhkjh.com). On a side note, I tried www.somerandomdomain.com and www.fakedomainname.com and both were already taken. Apparently we've got some creative people out there... :-)

Anyway, we'll go to Google and enter our entire URL and click "search"
http://www.jkhljkhkjh.com

Notice that Google says there is no information available for this URL? This means that the URL is no longer in Google's database (a.k.a. index)

If you enter a brand new website into Google, you'll always get this message until the website has been indexed. But, in this case, the website we entered has been banned by Google for some reason is either banned or is brand new. If we know our website was once in Google and do the search I just showed you above, and Google says "Sorry, no information is available for URL [whatever your URL is]", then chances are... you're banned.

Another way you can quickly see if your website has been banned is by:

Viewing the Google Toolbar

Download the Google Toolbar here: http://toolbar.google.com

Once it's installed, simply visit your website. If the Google toolbar is completely gray, this may meen that you have been banned by Google.

Banned:
Banned Site

Not Banned: Not Banned Site

Ok, so now we know how to tell if our website has been banned.

Why your website banned?

There are many onpage ranking factors AND offpage ranking factors that can cause Google to ban your website. Before I begin, I want you to know that many websites still get away with doing some of these things. They DO NOT help your rankings and are simply a waste of time, so don't try them. Sooner or later Google will catch up to these websites and will remove them.

It's just not worth the risk when doing them no longer helps your ranking to begin with.

Hidden Text

Hidden Text is simply text that users can't see when they visit your webpage. Some webmasters will do this so that they can add keywords throughout their webpage without it interferring with what the visitors actually see. Yet, the search engines can still see hidden text.

For example, let's say you have a white background on your website. If you wanted to hide text, you would simply make the color of your text white (#FFFFFF) and users couldn't see it.

I did a quick search in Google and quickly found an example of a website using hidden text. Have a look below:

At first glance, you're probably wondering where the hidden text is...

Let me show you. I went to the website and clicked "ctrl + a" on my keyboard. This will highlight the entire webpage as shown below:

Now we can clearly see the hidden text at the very top left side of their website that says "fat loss body fat abs weight loss diets bodybuilding dieting tips abdominals"

These are keywords that they want to rank well for and want the search engines to see when they first visit their website. Yet, they don't want their visitors to see this text. So, they've made the text white, to blend in with the background.

Alt image tag spamming

This is another way that people will try to cram keywords into their website, allowing search engines to see their keywords, but not allowing visitors to notice any difference in their website.

The following is a website that wanted to rank well for "cabbage soup diet". What they've done is inserted a graphic of a cabbage. They've then added an alt image tag to the graphic. When a visitors visits the website, and hovers their mouse over the cabbage soup graphic, a little popup will appear.

Notice how many times they've repeated the word "cabbage soup" and "cabbage"? Way too many! It serves no purpose other than to cram as many keywords as possible into their webpage.

The real purpose of an alt image tag is if a user visits your website and the graphic will not load, or is disabled by their web browser, text will appear instead of the graphic. This is often used for blind people.

Alt image spamming is something you want to stay clear of. Using alt image tags are good, but you can overdo it, as you can see above. A good alt image tag in this case would simply be: cabbage soup diet graphic

Meta Tag Stuffing

What I'm referring to here is when people throw in thousands of the same exact keyword into their meta tags.

For example, the following website is trying to rank well for the keyword "tents".

This is obviously ridiculous. Google, and other search engines no longer use Meta Tags to rank websites.

Google WILL penalize it, and it WILL NOT help you... so, why would anyone do something like this?

Stay away from it.

Title Tag Stuffing

The title is what appears in the top left hand corner of your webpage. Below is an example of Title Tag Stuffing.

SEO Website Promotion, google banned website.

Don't do it... You only need to include your keyword(s) one time in your title tag.

Anymore than 1 time will only dilute the effect, and if you overdo it as shown above, you may get severely penalized and drop in the rankings.

Those are just a few of the things that people are continuing to do online. These things WILL eventually get your website banned or penalized and WILL NOT help you rank well. It's just a waste of time and effort, plus it's just plain ignorant to waste your time on something that doesn't work and will get your website banned from the search engines anyway.

How to choose the Right Domain Name?

SEO Material provides few important rules to choose the right domain name. While the availability of domains which follow all of these rules may have become limited, try to follow as many of these rules as possible.

Consider naming your company and registering a domain name starting with the digit 1. Better still, choose a name starting with "1st". Why? When people create directories of web sites, they have to decide how they are going to classify those web sites. One way to classify web sites is to list them on the basis of how "good" they are. Another way is to simply list them in chronological order (and sometimes in reverse chronological order) based on the dates the sites were submitted.

The other, and far more popular classification system is alphabetic. Now, the first character in the ASCII chart which can be used as the first character in a domain name is the digit 0. The next character is the digit 1.

Normally, you wouldn't want to start a domain name with the digit 0 since it might send all the wrong signals to your customers. For instance, if we had named our domain 0SearchRanking.com, it would be telling our customers that we cannot get them any search engine rankings at all! Hence, unless you really have a good reason for doing so, you should avoid using domain names starting with the digit 0.

* Instead name your domains starting with the digit 1. More specifically, name your domains starting with "1st". This will ensure that you get a high alphabetical placement in those directories which classify sites alphabetically. Furthermore, depending on the industry in which your company operates, it may also send the right message across to your customers - it indicates that you are the first company to consider in your industry.

And guess what - the mother of all directories - Yahoo! - lists web sites alphabetically based on the Title that had been submitted. Yahoo! wants the Title to be the official name of the site. This implies that sites which start with the digit 1 will be placed at or near the top of a category. Assuming that you can get your site listed in Yahoo!, just look at what a top ranking in one of the categories in Yahoo!'s directory can do for the popularity of your site!

Furthermore, a small caveat here. If you are going to name a domain starting with "1st", also register the domain which starts with "ist". Then, have the domain containing the vowel "i" redirect visitors to the domain containing the digit 1. This is because people will often type in 'ist' when they mean '1st' and vice-versa. Also, for every email alias that you create for the domain containing "1st " (like sales@1stseo.com), you should create the corresponding email alias for the domain containing "ist" (like sales@istseo.com).

Also, this strategy of registering domains starting with '1st' is mainly applicable if yours is a somewhat new company. If you own a well established concern with a well known domain, you simply cannot change your company name and your domain in a hurry because you will confuse your existing customers.

* Don't want to start your domain name with "1st"? Consider starting it with "A", "B" or "C". Although domains starting with A, B or C will be listed after those starting with the 10 digits, you can still get a pretty high alphabetical placement with A, B or C.

*Try to register a domain which contains a popular keyword applicable for your industry. This will help your customers remember your domain name better. Furthermore, for searches conducted in Yahoo!, a higher ranking will be given to those web sites which contain the keywords in the title.

And according to Yahoo!'s instructions, the Title should always be the official name of the site. Thus, if the domain name contains a keyword, you will be able to include the keyword in the Title which will improve your ranking in Yahoo!. As a minor side-benefit, this can also help to increase the ranking of your web site in some search engines. Hence, in an ideal case, you should register a domain of the form 1st[keyword].com (without the brackets of course).

* Try to avoid using domains that contain '2' for "To', '4' for 'For', 'u' for 'You' and so on even if they seem to make your domain sound 'cool'. Your customers will easily get confused if you do so. However, if you must register such a domain, register the expanded form of the domain as well, i.e. if you are registering greatthings2do.com, also register greatthingstodo.com.

* Don't register a domain containing the digit 0 in it, unless it is going to be part of a recognizable word (like 1000 or 2000). This is because the digit 0 is often confused with the vowel O. If you feel that you must register a domain with the digit 0, make sure that you also register the corresponding domain containing the vowel O.

* Always use ".com". If yours is a serious business site, avoid using domains ending in "nu" or "to". Your business will have little credibility if you do so. You can consider registering a ".net" domain, but since most people are familiar with ".com", it is better to stick to convention.

*Should you or should you not use hyphens in your domain? Well, the jury is out on the question. While some Internet marketers will tell you that domains containing hyphens are difficult to remember, spell and pronounce, others will state that domains containing hyphens are, in fact, easy to remember, spell and pronounce. Go figure.

Personally, I would feel that whether or not hyphens are helpful has to be determined on a case by case basis. However, if you register a domain containing hyphens, make sure that you also register the corresponding domain without the hyphens. Once you do that, you can simply redirect visitors from the domain without the hyphens to the domain with the hyphens.

* Don't make your primary domain too long. Even though 67 character domains are a reality, exactly how many of your users will want to type a domain name like thisisanexampleofaverylargedomainname.com?

Register a domain which satisfies all the rules that I outlined above, try to follow as many of the above rules as you can.

What is SEO?

SEO (Search engine optimization) is simply "the use of search engines to draw traffic to a web site. It is the technique of attaining a higher ranking in search engines and directories via changes to a site to make it more search engine compatible". It is sometimes referred to more generally as search engine marketing, but in fact SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is just one facet of search engine marketing.

SEO specialists or "search engine optimizers" have sprung up to fill the need for these services over the past 8+ years. Most search engine optimizers will work either directly with the site administrator or with their web site designer to alter the site's code and content to ensure it gets the exposure it deserves in the most popular search engines and directories. The key to a successful SEO campaign is to find a specialist with a good track record, in an industry plagued with inexperienced and unethical providers.

Companies are spending tens of thousands of dollars on online and offline advertising, including banner ad, Pay Per Click (PPC) and viral marketing campaigns, so one could be forgiven for assuming that these companies do not need free traffic from the "organic" search engine listings.

However, by ignoring the most common method used by people browsing the Internet, these companies are sacrificing an enormous opportunity to attract more traffic to their sites. After all, brick and mortar companies don't refuse to put a sign up in front of their businesses just because they have put large amounts of money into promoting themselves via television advertising. Online companies, likewise, should not disregard optimizing their sites for search engines - a relatively inexpensive exercise - simply because they have put large amount of money into other marketing strategies.

Web site is a very large expense for these companies, ranging from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars. To invest such a massive amount of time, money and effort into an online presence and not ensure it can be found is like constructing a storefront without any doors.

It is obvious that companies need to invest in search engine optimization services to ensure their sites are made more search engine compatible and therefore visible to their target markets.

SEO Articles

What is SEO?

SEO (Search engine optimization) is simply "the use of search engines to draw traffic to a web site. It is the technique of attaining a higher ranking in search engines and directories via changes to a site to make it more search engine compatible".

How to choose the Right Domain Name?

Consider naming your company and registering a domain name starting with the digit 1. Better still, choose a name starting with "1st". Why? When people create directories of web sites, they have to decide how they are going to classify those web sites. One way to classify web sites is to list them on the basis of how "good" they are.

Why Google Banned Websites?

First let me show you how to see if you're clearly banned by Google. Often times people think they've been banned, when in reality they've just dropped in ranking and can't find their website.

11 Basic Ways for Website Promotion

The most important strategy is to rank high for your preferred words on the main search engines in "organic" or "natural" searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot "spiders" to index the content on your webpage, so let's begin with steps to prepare your webpages for optimal indexing and website promotion.

Keyword & its Types & Keyword Density & its importance.

A word used by a search engine in its search for relevant Web pages is called Keyword. Keyword tags are an important element in all web pages. keyword tags are one of the best ways of optimizing the number of visitors on your site.

Importance of Robots.txt

Robots.txt file is a very important file if you want to have a good ranking on search engines, many websites don't offer this file. A Robots.txt file is helpful to keep out unwanted search engine spiders like email retrievers, image strippers, etc. It defines which paths are off limits for spiders to visit. This is useful if you want to hide some personal information or some secret files.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising is one of the most cost-effective methods of getting leads known to Internet business owners. It gives you instant traffic, and allows you to test your business model in real time.

What is Google Page Rank?

Google Page Rank is simply Google's way of displaying how important a webpage is. Google assumes that when 1 webpage links to another webpage, it's actually "casting a vote" for the webpage. The more votes you have for your webpage, the more important your webpage will be.

How to Calculate Page Rank?

Now let's talk about "almost" EXACTLY how page rank is calculated. Over 99% of the webmasters on the internet do not understand how Page Rank(PR) is calculated. I'm going to refer to Page Rank as PR throughout the rest of this article, for the sake of not having to type it over and over.

Web directory & its importance

A web directory is a collection of links broken down into relevant categories. Think Yahoo! and their directory, the Open Directory Project or even the Google Directory (which, incidentally, is pulled from the ODP).

What is a Blog?

In 2003 blogging was a novelty. In 2004 it became a trend. Today, having a blog is a business necessity. Whether you are looking to voice your opinion on an issue you feel strongly about, or you're looking to explore your creative side, or promote yourself as an expert in your field, having a blog has fast become one of the prime markers of status and business nous.

What does Google really want?

Why Google, you ask? What a stupid question, you might also ask. Well, let me explain myself. However, while I do so, keep this question in mind and try to answer it alongside me.

What is the Google Sandbox Theory?

There are several theories that attempt explain the Google Sandbox effect. Essentially, the problem is simple. Webmasters around the world began to notice that their new websites, optimized and chock full of inbound links, were not ranking well for their selected keywords.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Rich Site Summary”, although other terms such as “RDF Site Summary” (which emphasizes the file format) and “Really Simple Syndication” (which highlights the main selling point of RSS) are also useful in defining RSS by the book.

Importance of Sitemap

Building a perfect sitemap is a lot like building a perfect website - you need to account for contextual grouping of your pages, hierarchical linking between your pages, and most importantly, a clean, concise format that provides search engine spiders with a super-fast blueprint for indexing your website.

How to increase your Website Traffic?

This question is so common though, here SeoMaterial.com briefly describe some common way to increase your website traffic.

What is over optimization?

Over-optimization happens when your website is considered “too good” by Google – either in terms of a sudden volume of backlinks, or because of heavy on-page optimization. In other words, if Google considers that your website optimization is beyond acceptable limits , your website will be red-flagged and automatically restricted or penalized.

Jul 2, 2008

Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing

Your company is unique and so is your Internet marketing solution. Your sales cycle may be many months long and there will be multiple "Touch Points" before a potential customer feels ready to contract for your products or services. Although your plan will be unique to your business, the marketing tools are common to all solutions.

The above chart includes some of the more common tools used to achieve your planned results. At Visible Shops we focus our business on developing, implementing, and managing Internet marketing solutions for Small Businesses.

Internet Marketing Strategy and Planning

Creating a good strategy for your marketing and then using that strategy to develop an executable marketing plan are key to a successful internet marketing program.

Website Design and Development
We focus on creating feature rich consumer-friendly sites for our clients. We understand that your goal is to build your business and improve both your sales cycle and branding.

Search Engine Marketing
We apply the two primary search tools of search engine advertising (Pay Per Click) and search engine optimization (SEO) as called for in your Internet Marketing plan.

Email Marketing
Email has become a critical part of any firm's communications and marketing plan. It can help retain customers, keep clients informed, increase sales, raise brand visibility, and help you grow your business.

Marketing Research
What do your customers want to see on your website? Who are your key competitors on the Internet? What are your competitors doing to Be Visible on the Internet? Our research will answer these questions and more.

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Digital Marketing

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Definition

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How do you know if you've been banned?

Check Google's search results

Viewing the Google Toolbar

Why your website banned?

Hidden Text

Alt image tag spamming

Meta Tag Stuffing

Title Tag Stuffing

Jul 2, 2008

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