Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Choosing SEO Keywords

The success of a SEO strategy often starts with the right selection of keywords it will be focused on. No matter the size of your website, there's a limit on how many keywords can you optimize any page for, and you will be better focusing on a list of 10 to 15 keywords instead of trying to optimize for everything and getting only half way there. Learning how to choose SEO keywords will give you the best results for your SEO efforts.

Choosing the right SEO keywords starts with knowing your audience and what kind of keywords are they going to enter on a search engine query box when they are interested on your website products or services. The best way to start is making a list of all the words you would use to search for your products, even asking other people what they enter on a search engine when shopping for whatever you offer or looking for the information your website provides. It doesn't matter if it's a big list, since you will refine it later. At this stage, a keyword analysis tool such as the Google Keywords Tool can be useful as well, as it will suggest related terms that you may not have thought about, and you can use it later on to refine your search as well.

After you have the list you need to cut it down to about 15 words or sentences to focus on. There are two aspects that need to be considered, the competition and the number of searches for that keyword (though they are both closely related). Enter your full list of words into the Google Keywords tool, or if you are willing to invest some money use a commercial keyword research tool for even more information. This way you can see how many searches a month a keyword has, and how much money people are willing to pay for using it on a PPC campaign, which is usually a good guideline to see how competitive a keyword is.

Keep in mind that many one word keywords competition is really strong, and that most people never uses a single keyword to search for the things they need. For example, a person looking to plan a holiday will look for hotels in a particular city or area, and not just search for "hotels". Think of factors why people would search for your site, such as your location or distinctive things such as "growth locally" for food products, "quick delivery" on physical products or "direct download" for software if you offer that form of delivery. Do you offer a very specialist service, such as legal advice on a very specific area? That would be a good selling point and will improve your chances of selecting highly effective SEO keywords. Add those keywords to your existing suggested list, and look for long tail keywords (sentences as opposed to single words) that have a high enough volume of searches and not too much competition. This way you can reduce your list to about 20 keywords. You can Google Keyword Tool.

To finally choose the SEO keywords you want to focus on, take a look at the competition by doing a Google and MSN search for each one of them. There's some battles that are best not fighting over, and if you see that the top ten spots for a keyword are taken by really big websites such as Amazon or Ebay you may prefer to remove those from your list. Order your existing list of 20 keywords based on the amount of searches and how likely you are to overcome the competition that shows up on a Google search for those keywords. If all your keywords have very strong competition, you may want to go back to step two and choose different ones or think seriously about a really strong SEO strategy that would include adding lots of content to your site and a very strong link building campaign that may better be undertaken by a professional SEO agency.

After you have ordered your list you should focus on your first 15 options, and focus on about 3 for every page on your website. Since they all should be related to each other every page of your site will add value to the other pages, even if they aren't specifically focusing on the exact same keywords. After your website is optimized, remember that results can take a while to materialize. You should refine your SEO campaign by using a web analytics tool such as Google analytics and see what searches are sending you the right kind of traffic, and focus any further effort on them. The right kind of traffic is the one that actually stays on your site and fulfils the goals for your website, from registering to read your articles to actually buying your items.

Tricks to Attracting New Visitors Using SEO

Internet marketing is a vast and quickly-evolving world. One of the most prominent components of this world is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Search engine results are based on a collection of keyword phrases that bots use to determine how relevant information is according to an inquiry. SEO is a process that involves writing articles that you feature on your site that will attract the bots to your business. This is what is known as "search engine friendly." The better your SEO performance, the higher your page rank and the higher your site will appear in a search result. Many people hire experts to help them capitalize on this system, but you can learn to do it yourself with a few easy steps.

First of all, the most important thing you need to know is how to determine the importance and relevance of keywords. Not all words are created equally, and not all combinations will provide the best result. Unfortunately, the more common the phrase, the harder it is to use it effectively. Your goal should be to find unique words or phrases that are somewhat familiar, but trying to predict what people will actually search for can be difficult. Without a SEO expert, you can do this by using software like Google's Adwords Keyword tool. This is a free program that is quite effective, but for the best results, you should invest in a higher quality program.

With a good keyword tool at your disposal you should be able to find high-volume, low-competition words. This means that you will be able to write articles that feature popular keywords that are not already recognized on many other pages. This will automatically boost your page rank.

Now that you have the right keywords for your site, you need to reconstruct your site to accommodate them. This involves writing an exclusive Meta tag, html title tag, and Meta description for each page of your site. If you don't understand this, it's ok, but you may need to hire someone who is adept in web programming to help you. Once you have these coded, you should put the main keyword or featured phrase at the top of the page, as a title perhaps, and feature it in a few places in the body, and be sure to be as original as possible without sounding contrived. You should also make sure that you do not overuse the keywords, which is called "stuffing," and is frowned upon by search engine providers. This will result in your ranking decreasing. Simply italicize or bold your keywords so the bots can find them and only feature them a few times on your page.

Follow these easy steps and you on your way to a more attractive and friendly website. Though there are more things you could learn, this is a good place to start.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

11 Ways to Outrank Websites in Google Search Results

For starters, it kind of difficult to penetrate the intricate world of search engine optimization. To learn more. You got to be doing research and stuffs and when the search engines show the results you'll find hard to gather the basics. For a beginner to catch up on the essentials can take a week or two since the most essential terms are sometimes not explained.

So if you want your website to rank first on Google, better learn the 11 basics first.
  1. Algorithm - It is the mathematical formula used by the search engines in making a decision where to rank every web pages. In ranked order, the web pages are listed on the Search Engine Results Page.
  2. Anchor Text - The text that is seen in hyperlinks. Anchor text gives the best opportunity for placement of your keywords.
  3. Crawlers/Spiders/Bots - The applications used by the search engines to crawl all the indexed websites to get the necessary and specific information.
  4. Filters - Filters are part of the software in search engine spiders which look for undesirable characteristics on a web page. A page that triggers a filter will have its ranking reduced.
  5. Inbound Links - The links from other sites going to your site. To establish your site popularity, use the technique of creating inbound links or sometimes called backlinks.
  6. Index - It is the storage of information on websites that search engines gain by means of searching the net. If a website is suspected of breaking the rules of search engines, it will be removed from the search engine's index.
  7. Internal Links - This are the links inside your site. Internal links are great help for your keywords.
  8. Keywords - Keywords can be one word or several, constituting a phrase. When someone is searching on your topic or subject, keywords are the words that are likely to be searched. They can also be related to the search terms. Keywords are placed all over the website to let the search engine crawl and know that your site is applicable to that search. Having a range of keywords is good for a website.
  9. Outbound Links - The links going to other sites from your sites. To grow your relationships with other people inside the Internet community is the purpose.
  10. PageRank - The scheme used by Google to rank the web pages on its index. PageRank is analyzed by the algorithm of Google based from a series of criteria like the quality inbound links.
  11. Visitor - The person who views your website. The most essential among all the factors since you'll be acquiring the potential clients from them. They are also called user.
Your website will outrank the other websites indisputably on Google search results page once you continuously learn and make use of these quality SEO best practices.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Make $100 a Day Writing Online

If you're a writer who hasn't yet tried the online market or someone who currently writes online and wants to discover how to make more, then this article is for you. If you have the talent and the ability, you can make as much as $100 a day writing content for the Web.

Content is critical to the Internet and the success of an Internet business. This is why it is so important to businesses to find great content and this is where you can step in as an excellent content provider. If you know how to produce the content, the next step is to know where to sell it.

Here are some ways that you can make $100 a day writing online:

• Direct clients

• Ghostwriting

• Web content

• Bidding sites

• Revenue sharing sites

• Freelance sites

You can find direct clients by writing to them, sending in resumes and other online advertising. Ghostwriting means you write for someone else without getting your name or byline and this could be anything from books to articles and more. Web content is needed for various Web sites online.

Bid sites allow you to bid on projects that buyers have posted and compete against other writers for jobs of your choosing. Revenue sharing sites give you money for page views or according to the ads that run on the site with your articles.

Freelance sites are an opportunity for you to advertise your services and apply to projects that are posted. This might also include writers' forums and similar opportunities to find jobs and earn money writing online.

If you want high paying assignments, remember that you're going to have to write high quality content. You get what you pay for and the same can be said when it comes to writing online. If you expect to make more than $5 per article you write, then it's necessary to learn to write better. It's also going to mean you need to write faster and more accurately and learn to be organized and dedicated to your work.

When you work at home, it's easy to find it difficult to stay on track and write as much as you need to but this will be essential if you want to earn regular money. Something else that will be important is your online portfolio.

Like most businesses online today, you're going to need an online presence that properly represents who you are and what you can do as far as writing is considered. Your online portfolio is what will help you begin earning $100 a day writing online.

How SEO Boost Your Traffic Website

Learning a decent amount of SEO can be worth it's weight in gold and it can definitely make all of the difference in terms of your online success. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you need to go out and buy every little eBook and course on SEO but it is worth getting to know. In my opinion SEO is a very logical thing to grasp and certainly something that can be achieved on your own if you use your own initiative. It's not easy, but consulting the right websites and forums should get you on the right track.

"In my opinion SEO is a very logical thing to grasp and certainly something that can be achieved on your own if you use your own initiative"

If I'm honest I have learnt a majority of my SEO knowledge from attending seminars. Many of the speakers at these seminars will give you small nuggets of information regarding SEO but if you bunch all of that quality information up into one SEO knowledge base you will have yourself a fair amount to work with. Similarly some beginners will look at SEO as this massive mountain that they are going to have to conquer before they see any sign of success - don't think this way. Good SEO is merely a beneficial thing for your site to have but if it is going to get in the way of building the site that you want, it really isn't worth that much. Productivity is crucial when you start out on the Internet and should come first, SEO can wait until you are up and running.

As James Schramko said in the recent interview I did with him, "I don't think you have to master SEO to have an online business but you have to recognise its importance in the business". This was very nice to hear from such a successful guy and a guy who displays such great SEO knowledge and even has his own SEO business. There are some things that you should know before actually getting started with Internet Marketing in order to gain better search engine rankings in the future, when your website is finished and they are...

1) Get a keyword rich domain name - By this I mean to basically buy a domain name that has as much relevance as possible to your online business or your chosen niche. For example if you sell an eBook which outlines exactly how to hang a door for DIY beginners, why not try and get the domain www.howtohangadoor.com - this will go down very well in search engine listings when someone types in "How to hang a door", and it is highly likely that you will in fact rank #1.

2) Think about page descriptions - Similar to the domain of your website it is crucial that you also have a keyword rich 'meta name description'. When Google's robots crawl the web and find your website your description will play a big part in determining your search engine ranking for certain keywords. Use Google's Keyword Tool to find a keyword that generally receives a lot of searches per month (over 20,000 is always a winner) and drop that keyword into your description a couple of times. Although this tip alone is not enough to get you ranked #1 for your chosen keyword it will certainly contribute to your search engine ranking.

"You want to aim to keep every visitor interested and staying at your site for as long as possible"

3) Carefully choose your keywords - The third part to my quick tips to better SEO before you have started building your website is to carefully pick your chosen keywords which you are going to use to advertise your website. Relevancy will play a huge part in this, you must choose keywords that best represent your site/blog otherwise people will find your site and very quickly click back to the search engine because your site wasn't the one they were looking for. Every time this happens you are losing a potential buyer so this is a complete disaster because you have the traffic, you just don't have the right website that answers the person's questions enough for them to want to buy your product. Although it is hard to do you want to aim to keep every visitor interested and staying at your site for as long as possible, therefore they are more likely to click on your AdSense or affiliate links.

4) Write content that search engines will love - Although this would seem very obvious and easy to do it actually proves to be a lot harder that initially expected. What I mean by this is write keyword dense content so that the search engines robots will find your page over other people's websites. This way your site will stand out as being more relevant for a certain searcher than others.

If you apply all of the above 'quick tips' to SEO you will be well on your way to achieving that #1 spot on Google before you have even started building your website. Many people who don't take the time to implement these tips within the construction of their first website will find it extremely hard to succeed online - I even did it when I started. Another great reason to follow the above steps is that, when you decide to take on PPC advertising such as Google AdWords your website/landing page will receive a much better score because your chosen PPC keywords will show more relevance to your site content - thus resulting in lower bid prices and less costs.