Traffic Secrets Revealed

2005-11-14T17:39:00.000-08:00

The Single Most Misunderstood Concept in Search Engine Positioning by Michael Buck

On April 27th, we shared with you our article entitled "Is Search Engine
Positioning Dead?" (If you missed it, visit
for the archive)
In this article, we presented several compelling 3rd party statistics
suggesting that search engine placement remains by far the most powerful
method for driving large amounts of targeted traffic to your web site.

As a result of this article, we received lots of great feedback, and many
pertinent questions. But when the dust settled, one topic rose to the
top of the list and seemed to cause a great deal of confusion and mystery:

"Why is keyword selection so important and
how do I select the best keywords for my site?"

Let's break this down into bite-sized pieces and clear up the mystery,
by answering our most frequently asked questions regarding keyword
selection:

"What's the difference between a keyword and
a keyword phrase? And which should I use?"

Put simply, a keyword is a single word such as "Maui." While a keyword
phrase is a more descriptive string of two or more words such as "Maui
vacations." Your specific approach to keyword selection will vary,
depending on your industry. For certain niche markets, single words can
be a good strategy (as long as they are specific to your product or service).
But regardless of your industry...

Well-researched keyword phrases will attract quality, targeted visitors
to your website who *specifically* want what you are selling.

Let's assume you sell Maui vacations, and your website is listed at the
top of the search results for the keywords "Maui" and "Maui vacations."
Let's look at the characteristics of two groups of visitors you'd attract.

Those who perform a search on "Maui" are searching for a wide variety
of topics. Such as Maui's history and culture, snorkeling, botanic
gardens, hiking trails, sailing, golfing, and yes - some will be looking for
Maui vacations. But only a small percentage of the people who perform
a search on the keyword "Maui" are qualified prospect for your vacation
packages.

Now think about the prospects who find you by searching for "Maui
vacations." Every prospect who performs this search is a qualified
prospect for you. And by getting a top ranking with this more
descriptive keyword phrase, you attract people who are more likely
to become paying customers!

You see, someone who wants to take a vacation to Maui is not likely
to search for "Maui." They're not going to search for "Vacations." And
they're not going to search for "Hawaii" either. They're much more
likely to enter a keyword phrase like "Maui vacations."

Today, more than ever, your ideal prospects are going to enter precisely
what they want to find, rather than general, open-ended terms. Which
means your keyword selection must target your ideal customer with
laser-beam focus.

At the same time, the search engines and directories themselves are
also becoming much more strict with the pages that they'll accept and
index. They'll be watching your submissions like a hawk to make sure
that they're completely relevant to the topic reflected by your keyword
phrase.

In our last article, we weighed the pros and cons of doing your search
engine positioning yourself versus hiring a reputable company to handle
this time consuming task for you. Many of you have wisely realized that
it can be much more time-effective and cost-effective to leave your
search engine placement in the hands of experts, so you van focus on
your core business.

So the most important question of all now becomes:

"If I hire a company to do my search engine placement for me, should
I be expected to provide my own keywords and keyword phrases, or
do they have a responsibility to advise me?"

Frankly, any company that doesn't provide hands on consultation in this
area is not helping you to maximize your search engine rankings.
Keyword selection is the entire foundation on which your search engine
campaign is built. Can you imagine hiring a contractor to build your
house... only to have him say, "Okay, YOU lay all the bricks and pour
the concrete - then I'll do the rest?"

If you're going to hire someone to achieve top ranking for your website,
be sure that they take on the full responsibility - not just bits and pieces.
Otherwise you run the risk of your entire promotion falling apart.

I hope it's now clear how vital it is to target the best possible keywords
and keyword phrases for your web site. And you now have the burden
of proper keyword selection lifted from your shoulders.

Sure, your expertise of your business warrants your input. But at least
you'll have the peace of mind of knowing that the search engine
specialists are doing their job, and not leaving your keyword selection
to chance.

After all, isn't that why you hire them in the first place?

About the Author
Michael Buck is a marketing consultant & Director of Marketing for
SearchEngineWebPromotion.com. To find out more about top search
engine placement and how you can attract targeted traffic with multiple
Top 20 rankings - visit http://www.SearchEngineWebPromotion.com.
You may also call Mike at (310) 798-0467.

2005-11-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

It's All in the Links! by Dale Sexton

Link popularity, big in search engine ranking of late, may be as difficult
to accomplish as the top 30 ranking itself. Using links can't fail. Even if
you don't reach the top 30 ranking, linking will bring more traffic.

You sign guestbooks, use classified ads and swap links. Keep a database of
those sites linked to you. This will become an important part of link
popularity.

You will submit this database to the search engines for a link popularity
boost. As the search engine follows the links, the pages found will be added
to the search engines database. Your link will more easily be found on the
search engines.

If you haven't already started a database, you might think this is going to
be a tough chore, especially if you have thousands of links on the internet.
It might not be as hard as you think.

You need the tools that can find pages linked to yours and put them in a
database. Here are my recommendations:

URL Spider Pro v1.92
http://www.innerprise.net/us4.asp

WebWolf 2.03
http://www.msw.com.au/webwolf/

After you have your database of links, you'll want to convert them to HTML
format. Try:

DataBox v2.1
http://www.simplewebfx.greatxscape.net/

DB to HTML Express 1.5
http://www.xlinesoft.com/db2html/download.htm

DB-HTML Converter PRO v1.4
http://www.primasoft.com/dbhtmlp.htm

A product that gathers the links and puts them directly into HTML format is:

QueryN MetaSearch v2.1
http://www.freeflowsoftware.com/freeflowsoftware/Products.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,000UBZ,.html

You have your web page with of links, now you need to submit it to the
search engines. Of course, the best way of doing this is to go to each
search engine site and submit to them individually. If you need to save
time, these submission tools work great:

Submitta Standard 1.1
http://www.submitta.co.uk/download/

CybeRat v1.4
http://www.cyberat.com/promotion/download.htm

PageCrafters Submission Services
http://pagecrafters.net/url.htm

Here is a good tool for gathering new reciprocal links. Be sure to add those
new links to your database.

Link Crafter v1.020
http://linkcrafter.bannermation.com/fc/LinkCrafter

For me, this is the 'piece de la resistance' (what ever that means). It will
copy any URL from any clipboard application till you tell it to stop. Put
this piece of software in copy mode and copy links till the cows come home.

URL Manager 2000
http://www.dlcwest.com/~sorev/downloads.htm

It's all about making the work easier, more productive. Now you can have
more time for relaxing, or maybe for more work. Sheesh!

About the Author
Dale Sexton owns & operates 'PageCrafters.net', &
publishes 'Small Business Tools magazine'. Both
focus on tools & tips for small business.
mailto:pagecrafters@pagecrafters.net
Sign up for 'SBT magazine' at:
http://pagecrafters.net/newsletter.html

2005-11-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

Website directories: More than meets the eye by Lauri Harpf

Yahoo, DMOZ and Looksmart are probably familiar names to all of
us. Many people attempt to get their sites listed in those
directories, because it is a well-known fact that plenty of
people visit them when they want to find interesting sites.
This
in turn translates into a healthy flood of visitors to the
sites
that are represented in the aforementioned directories.

While it is true that the directories themselves can produce
quite a bit of traffic, there are additional benefits that come
with a directory listing. Unfortunately, these advantages are
not often mentioned and that is why they are unknown to most
siteowners. Many are well aware that you can influence the
directories by submitting to different search engines;
for example, you can submit to Google and if you're lucky and
the keyword you're aiming at is rare enough, your site will
appear in searches that are performed at Yahoo. But did you
know that directory listings can have a massive impact on how
your site performs in different search engines?

Some of the large search engines, for example MSN and AOL, draw
their search results almost entirely from different
directories.
MSN relies heavily on Looksmart and AOL is affiliated with
DMOZ.
If your site is not listed in these two directories, it will
not
appear in searches at MSN and AOL. Since they both are very big
sites, receiving together around 100 million visitors each
month, it is very important to have your site well represented
in them.

So, we know that it is important to be listed in the major
directories in order to get into some of the search engines. Is
that all? Nope. The thing is, many search engines also rank
sites based on whether they are listed in certain directories
or not. Let's take an example: One of my sites wasn't ranking
very well at Google. I had optimized it pretty well in my
opinion and had received decent rankings under some keywords,
but it still hadn't achieved the success I was looking for.
This
puzzled me, as I couldn't point out why the site wasn't doing
as
well as I would have wanted it to.

After working on it for a while, I decided to switch my focus
to
other promotion methods and get back to optimizing my site
later. As I knew that both of them were good traffic providers,
I chose to spend the time I had to submitting the site to both
Yahoo and DMOZ. Fortunately, my submissions were accepted and
the site was added to both directories after a while. A few
weeks passed and I begun to see referrals not only from Yahoo
and DMOZ, but also from Google in my logs. I went back to check
my rankings and noticed that they had vastly improved. And then
it dawned on me..

I went back to DMOZ and managed to get another sub-section of
the same site listed. I waited for a couple of weeks for Google
to reindex and WHAM! This sub-section went from nowhere to be
found to a Top 15 ranking on a competitive keyphrase with over
half a million returns. The only thing that had changed was
that
the page was now listed at DMOZ.

This incident inspired me, so I went and looked if the same
principle could be applied to other engines as well. I noticed
that nearly all of them appeared to give weight to directory
listings, but if the search engine happened to be affiliated
with a
certain directory, it was extremely important to be listed in
said
directory in order to rank high. With Google, this directory
was
DMOZ, with Excite it was Looksmart and so on. Sites that were
listed in the right directories appeared to have a definite
advantage against sites that weren't.

My conclusion would be that the days when search engines and
directories could be treated as separate entities are now gone.
If you want to achieve high traffic, you're going to have to
tackle both at the same time. The traditional search engine
optimization methods - a keyword-intensive copy, meta tags,
link popularity and so on - are far from being dead, but there
definitely is a new major factor in play that you should
account for.
About the Author
Lauri Harpf runs the A Promotion Guide website, where he
offers free information about search engines, directories
and other promotion methods. His site can be found at
http://www.apromotionguide.com/

2005-11-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

Site Submission Services by Richard Lowe

This is a simple fact about life on the internet: if you have a web site you
must get it listed in all of the major search engines. In fact, not only
must the site get listed, but it must get listed "well".

What does this mean? It means you must spend some time designing your site
properly so the engines can make a good guess as to what it's about. You
see, search engines are robots - they are automated pieces of software which
examine your pages and attempt to decipher the subject(s). This translates
to words and phrases that the robots believe will allow best describe your
site to people who need your information.

What this actually means is for each page of your site, you must be able to
come up with some good keywords which accurately describe the contents of
that page. Once you've done that, you must scatter those keywords throughout
the page in various ways. The search engine robot will examine your pages,
see the keywords in places it likes, and determine your page is indeed about
that subject. For many engines, the better you do this the higher your site
will be in the results when someone searches using that keyword (this is
called ranking). And, as should be obvious, the higher you are in the
listings, the more hits you will receive.

Google is one of the most significant exceptions to this rule. It's primary
concern is not the keywords on your pages. No, Google actually looks at the
links to your pages and uses this information to determine your site's
ranking.

Making your pages "search engine friendly" is not difficult but it can be
tedious. The basic procedure is to pick a keyword which describes your page,
then scatter that keyword in various places: the title, description and
keyword Metatags, ALT tags on images, H1 and H2 headers and within the first
couple of paragraphs of text. To satisfy Google, you can get people to link
to the site with text including the keyword as well.

Okay, so now you've got some pages which are very descriptive to search
engines. How do you get them listed?

You submit them, of course.

Virtually all search engines have a page which allows you to submit one or
more URLs from your site. Some search engines are smart and require only a
single URL, others require as many URLs as you want to give them
(occasionally limiting the number that you can enter in a single day). All
of them have rules about spamming (making many submissions on a single day
or week, or trying to get your site better ranked using unethical means). So
be sure not to submit your site too often.

It can be a major pain to submit your site to the search engines. If you do
it manually, you have to get a list of as many search pages as you can,
visit each of them, find their submission page, then enter one or more URLs.
To be complete, you also need to do this again occasionally - perhaps once a
month or quarter. Even just submitting manually to the major 10 engines can
be a real pain.

So what do you do? I mean, a webmaster should really be spending most of his
time designing and creating his web pages, shouldn't he? Well, actually, yes
and no. Promotion is a major part of being a webmaster - a site must be seen
in order to be successful (otherwise why bother at all). Thus a webmaster
must promote his site, and he should be spending some time on this practice
every single day.

Of course, it would be silly to hand-submit your site to the thousands of
search engines and hundreds of thousands of FFA (Free for All List) pages.

One course of action is to hand submit your site to the major search
engines, then use submission services to submit it to the medium sized and
smaller ones. Don't forget about the directories, especially Yahoo,
Looksmart and DMOZ. These are very critical to getting traffic to your site.

There are many programs and services available to help you submit your site.
Some of these are good, others are a complete waste of time and money.

Submit Wolf
http://www.submitwolf.com/
This is a program into which you enter your site name, URL and details. The
program then can be used to perform automatic submissions to thousands of
search engines and FFA lists.

WebPosition Gold
http://www.webposition.com
Probably the best way to get your site listed well in the major search
engines. This product combines every tactic into one concise and easy-to-use
package.

Jim's Tools
http://www.jimtools.com/
This awesome site includes a full suite of tools to help you submit your
site to search engines, FFA lists and directories. Highly recommended.

Everything which submits to FFA pages
You will find hundreds (or even thousands) of services which claim to submit
to thousands, tens of thousands or even more "search engines". Actually,
what they are doing is submitting to FFA pages. FFA pages are completely
worthless as a promotional technique, and thus all of these services are
pure garbage. Don't even bother wasting a minute looking at them.

I know there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other site submission
services available. I look at them all with caution, as most of them are
highly overpriced and many use or promote unethical submission practices
(search engine spamming).
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at
http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read
over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

2005-11-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

How to turn 2 keywords into 1000's of keyphrases by Robert Brady

Are you happy with the hundreds of carefully chosen keywords and keyphrases
that you have included within the pages of your treasured website? Are you
thinking to yourself that there can be no more possibilities left?

Read on....

Look up the keywords used by your competitors in trade journals, Yellow
Pages, directories, outdoor advertising posters, etc. Right click and view
source on web pages to see what other people are using in their META tags.
(More information on META tags at http://www.ed-u.com/metatags.htm)

Set your target for hundreds or even thousands of keywords and phrases if
possible; your competitors will. Ask friends, colleagues and children what
words they would type into a search box to find you.

META Tags:

Use different META Tags on different pages:
In the META name="keywords" list use:

o lower case
o Capitalisation
o UPPER CASE
o iNVERTED tEXT
o Misspellings (see below)
o Hyphenation
o Join words i.e. ice cream = icecream, ice-cream
o Pluralizations = icecreams, ice-creams
o Use commas to separate key words and key phrases within your META tags on
some pages, on other pages just use spaces.
o Extensions i.e. fast = faster, fastest. Many search engines use string
queries when indexing sites.

Ask friends and colleagues how they would misspell your keywords. Children
are a very productive source for misspelling; they often come up with ones
you might not have thought of yourself. Do not under-estimate the need for
misspellings. Even the less obvious variations of words and phrases attract
traffic.

Always use the correct spelling on the META name="description" content=" and
the visible part of your site and try to repeat your most important keywords
and phrase a few times throughout the page. Include them in descriptive
sentences of what you have to offer and place the very important keywords
high on the page.

Pluralization of words is important with some search engines. It is
recommended that you use it so that you don't lose possible visitors.

Examples of keyword possibilities for META name="keywords":

ice-cream(s)
ice cream(s)
icecream(s)
ice-creme(s)
ice creme(s)
icecreme(s)
ice-craem(s)
ice craem(s)
icecraem(s)
find(ing) ice-cream(s)
ice-cream(s) for (on) sale
ice-cream(s) for (on) sale (in) London, New York etc.
ice-cream store, shop, outlet etc.
cheap(est) ice-cream(s)
ice-cream site(s)
ice cream recipe(s)
homemade ice cream(s)
home made ice cream(s)
homemade ice cream recipe(s)
home-made ice cream recipe(s)
ice cream maker(s)
ice cream machine(s)
vanilla ice cream recipe(s)
ice-cream information, info, info., infomation
buy(ing) ice-cream
buy + (all the misspellings of ice-cream)
ice-cream sundae(s)
(all the misspellings of ice-cream) + (all the misspellings of sundae)
(all the misspellings) sunday
ice-cream flavours (flavors)
(all the misspellings of ice-cream) + (all the misspellings of vanilla)
(all the misspellings of ice-cream) + (all the misspellings of chocolate)
(all the misspellings of vanilla) + (all the misspellings of ice-cream)
(all the misspellings of chocolate) + (all the misspellings of ice-cream)
choc-ice (and all of above)
ice-lolly (and all of above)

The above list has 1000's of possibilities; the longer you spend on the
keywords the more traffic you can expect.

Some words will attract no visitors while others will attract many. Even if
you operate in a very niche market and only get two or three visitors a year
on each key-word or key-phrase, that should still net you hundreds of extra
visitors. Other sites can expect thousands. Visit
http://www.ed-u.com/payperclick.htm where you will find a list of
pay-per-click directories that you can submit all of your new keyphrases to.

About the Author
Robert Brady mailto:trafficplus@ed-u.com
ed-u.com - The Education Mega-Site
http://www.ed-u.com

2005-11-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

Get Rid of Those Doorway Pages by windsong

Getting traffic to your site is the ultimate goal. Without
the traffic, you site isn't going to do much but take up
cyberspace. Now, there are many ways to do this, and you
should be doing them all. But for our purpose here, I will
limit it to Search Engines.

A while back, doorway pages were all the rage. Everyone was
scrambling to create hundreds and thousands of pages to
essentially trick the search engines into leading people to
their sites. It seemed unethical to me, and I figured that
the engines would pick up on this and bring it to an abrupt
halt. And they have. They want pages with content. So much
for all those doorway pages. It was a big waste of time and
effort.

Most web sites consist of several pages. Hopefully, each
page covers a specific, but related topic. And, hopefully,
there is already a navigational system in place, where
each page links to all other pages. This is a must.

If you have a site, for example, on Internet Marketing,
you already know that this subject encompasses many topics.
Each of those topics deserves its own page. You might have
pages on Ebook Marketing, Promotion, Ezines, Search
Engines, etc.

Each page in your site is already a 'doorway.' If you
optimize each of these pages as if it were a doorway page,
you will get a good ranking in the Search Engines. First,
make sure that each page sticks to a particular topic.
Then write your meta tags accordingly.

Here are some guidelines for top placement in the Search
Engines:

* Try to limit your meta keywords (preferably phrases)
to 3. The worst thing you can do is have a gazillion
keywords. Your relevancy will be shot to heck and you
might get listed, but you will be #3,583,204. No one
will find you.

* Do not use the same keywords on every page. Each page
is different, so make the keywords different.

* Make sure your keywords appear in the title tag, the
description tag, and all over your page, especially
near the top.

* Do not list keywords that do not appear on the page.
Again, Do NOT list keywords that do not appear on the
page. Lists have been circulated showing the "most
searched for keywords". They generally consist of words
like: sex, naked, women, gay, adult, erotica etc....
Don't even go there. Do you really want people going to
your site that don't give a hoot about what you have to
say??? They are not interested and will not buy anything.
You are wasting your time as well as theirs.

* Use keywords in comment tags, alt tags, and in header
tags. You can also use a clear 1x1 pixel image and load
the alt tag with keywords.

* The very first thing that appears on your page should
be a statement of benefits rich in keywords, similar to
your description meta tag. Some Search Engines ignore
your meta tags and print the first words on your page
as the description in their listing. If your navigational
bar is at the top of the page, that is what will show up
in their description. Not good.

* Header tags, (H1 for example) are very important. Search
Engines read the header tags. Use these for paragraph
headings instead of font tags, and load up the Keywords.

* Forget the bouncing flash and glitz. Yeah, they are fun
to play with, but the Search Engines are not impressed.
They may even be hampered by this as far as indexing
your page. Frames, flash movies, CGI scripts, javascript,
applets and image maps are all complete junk to a search
engine spider. Not only that, this sort of thing will
actually push your real content further from the top of
the page, reducing the relevancy of what the spiders
actually do see.

* Keep the spiders happy. Feed them lots of relevant
content. This bears repeating, but I won't. :)

* Get a Domain! A top 10 listing is virtually impossible
to achieve without having your own registered domain
name.

There is no secret magical formula for getting a top ranking
in the Search Engines. Currently there are over 5,000 places
to register a web site with the number increasing daily. In
reality, about 10 of these search engines will produce 90%
of your search engine traffic. The larger search engines like
Excite, Lycos and Alta Vista are visited millions of time a
week and offer the most comprehensive types of searches for
Internet surfers.
About the Author
windsong is webmaster, editor and publisher at:
http://marketing-resources.com/
Subscribe to windsong's free e-zine:
All About Search Engines!(tm) Send a blank email to:
mailto:aboutsearchengines-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

2005-10-31T17:40:00.000-08:00

How To Use Pay Per Click Search Engines Successfully by Jerry Robertson

Pay Per Click Search Engines(PPCSE) are popping up everywhere. There are over 180 and growing rapidly. Many of them are new and you will not get much traffic at this time. However, the top PPCSE can direct many interested customers to your site. The keys to being successful are as follows:
1 Advertising in the right PPCSE. The requirements are traffic at an affordable price.

2 Use specific keywords that are relevant to your web site. General terms will get your more hits and a lower conversion rate. Learn to use any tools or services that can help you with your keywords, descriptions or bids.

3 Terrific descriptions can really help you attract targeted customers to your website. The more specific your description, the higher the conversion rate. If you do not have a top bid, make your description different from your competitors.

4 Using smart bidding strategies can help reduce your expenses. Bid only a penny or two more than the position you want. Need to check your bids on a regular basis. Set a maximum bid per term.

5 Try all PPCSE that give you money to try out their accounts. They are slow and you will not get very many clicks at the beginning. However some of them are starting to grow. Once you find a PPCSE that is giving away free clicks sign up right away. Many of them are limited time offers.

PPCSE can bring instant profitable targeted traffic to your web site. Studies have shown that PPCSE traffic may be the most profitable way to advertise along with ezine advertising for your web site. If you have a website, make sure you take full advantage of the PPCSE.

About the Author
Jerry is the editor of the free bi-weekly newsletters Elrob Search Engine Tips and Elrob Online Biz Tips. Subscribe to these newsletters at:
http://www.elrob.com

2005-10-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

Three Steps To Goto.com Success by Jeff McCall

Following a mention in my free newsletter 'Success Lines'
that I was having some success generating traffic from the
pay-per-click search engine Goto.com, I received an email
from a subscriber asking for a blow by blow account of how I
did it. So, for the benefit of a wider audience here's my
response.

I should first point out that I like to keep things as
simple as possible, so I'll limit this to three
straightforward steps.

Step 1 - Find your keywords

Goto provide a useful tool for identifying the most commonly
searched keywords for the previous month. There's no guess
work here. If a search term has received hundreds of hits in
a month, it's safe to assume that it'll continue to do so in
the future.

First you need to visit the page where Goto provides its
advertising tools. This is:

https://secure.goto.com/s/dtc/center/

Then click on "Search Term Suggestion Tool". This will bring
up a search box in which you type your main keyword. In this
example I'll use the keyword "ebook". The result is a list
of search terms from "free ebook" at 13944 hits to "ebook
publish" at 49 hits.

Step 2 - Find the cost to bid

Having selected your search terms from the list, you need to
determine whether you can afford to bid for them. You're
aiming to get in the top 3 slots, as this means you will be
featured on many other search engines rather than just Goto.

Using the same URL as above click on "Get Current Bid Tool".
This will open a search box in which you type your selected
search term. I'm going to use "free ebook downloads" which
appeared towards the middle of the previous list with around
900 hits.

The results tell me there are only 3 competitors bidding on
this term at $0.06, $0.05, $0.05. So, to get a top 3 place
as cheap as possible I need to bid $0.06 to get 2nd place,
as a $0.05 bid would place me 4th.

Do this for all your search times, listing the ones you can
get cheaply. You'll find some will be very expensive. The
price you bid is what you pay for every click through, so
don't get carried away. The minimum bid is $0.05.

Step 3 - Make your bids

First visit the account set-up page at:

https://signup.goto.com/s/dtc/signup/

Complete a separate section of the form for every search
term you're bidding for. You'll need to list search term,
title of entry, description of entry, page URL, and bid.

Try to include the search term in both the title and
description and you'll get a much better response. There are
full instructions on the page.

You pay a minimum monthly fee of $20, whether you receive
$20 of clickthroughs or not. So make sure you bid on enough
terms. You'll hear back from Goto.com in about 5 days
whether or not each bid has been accepted.

You need to check back from time to time to make sure no one
has outbid you, in which case you need to decide whether to
up the bid. You also receive a monthly traffic report by
email listing the hits on each keyword.

That's basically all there is to it. Remember to be creative
with your search terms. For example, a term containing
"online" may be out of your price bracket, but one
containing "on line" may not.

Be successful!
About the Author
Jeff McCall is the librarian at The Success Library, a vast
collection of ebooks, articles and resources to help you
achieve online success. Get your library card at:
http://www.thesuccesslibrary.co.uk
Subscribe to the library's free newsletter Success Lines.
Free course for subscribing & free ebook with every issue:
mailto:subscribe@thesuccesslibrary.co.uk

2005-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Sells Its Top Positions To The Highest Bidder by Sage Lewis

In a move that caused a great deal of commotion in the search
engine optimization world this week, Yahoo has now partnered
with Overture (formerly Goto.com) to provide 3 sponsored
listings at the top of a search results page and 2 sponsored
listings at the bottom of each search results page.

This was announced Tuesday November 13 and was implemented
that Thursday. The first results page of a search gives position
1,2 and 3 from Overture and results 4 and 5 are at the bottom of
the results page. This is continued as you continue to click
through Yahoo results pages. The second Yahoo results page
gives you listing numbers 6,7 and 8 at the top and listing
numbers 9 and 10 at the bottom. This pattern appears to continue
throughout the Yahoo listings. However, if there are more listings
in Yahoo than there are the number of sponsored listings in
Overture, then the cycle repeats itself. The sponsored listings
appear in both the main directory listings and the secondary
listings produced by Google.

As an example, doing a search for the phrase 'hammock
chairs' in the Web Pages section of Yahoo (these are the
secondary results produced by Google), there are only 25
paid advertisers on Overture as of today. But there are
5630 listing in the Google-driven listings of Yahoo. There are
5 Overture listings for every 20 Yahoo listings. So at listing
101-120 it cycles back to paid listings 1 through 5 from
Overture. You can see this example by going here:
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=hammock+chairs&hc=0&hs=22

This is not typically how sponsored listings have worked
with other Overture partners such as AOL Search and Netscape
Search. The standard approach is to promote the first 2, 3 or
4 listings from Overture and discard the rest. The consequence
of this is there have been major bidding wars for these
positions.

On the negative front, consumer awareness groups, small
business owners and search engine marketers are less than
thrilled with this current trend. The arguments range from
misleading searchers, to stealing the web away from businesses
with small budgets, to just being plain lousy results.

The proponents suggest this is the beginning of a new
viable business model for search engines. The free ride
is over.

Either way, the deal between Yahoo and Overture expires in
April, states an Associated Press article. The article goes on
to say, this deal... "can serve as a short-term solution for Yahoo!
until it can develop the sales force and technical capability
to offer the paid search listings itself." Full article
can be found here:
http://www.nando.net echnology/story/169861p-1634746c.html

About the Author
Sage Lewis, founder and president of the web site
promotion firm SageRock.com. He has been employed as an Internet
Strategist and design/promotion consultant for 5 years. To
subscribe to SageRock's marketing newsletter, send a blank
message to mailto:sagerock-subscribe@egroups.com or visit the company's
site at http://www.sagerock.com

2005-10-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Product Review: Robogen by Richard Lowe

Are you familiar with the Robot Exclusion Standard? This is a way
whereby you can inform search engines and other automated spiders
(programs which scan your web sites for information) what pages
and directories are not to be examined. The standard is precisely
defined and a little obscure, and while not overly complicated it
can be difficult to understand.

There is help available, believe it or not. That obscure file
called "robots.txt" no longer needs to be hand-edited. No longer
do you need to type in server path names, remember robot and
spider names and enter strange symbols which don't seem to make
any sense.

Okay, here's a quick review. The "robots.txt" file simply lists
the spiders that you want to prevent from listing all or part of
your site. Along with each spider is the list of directories and
files that it is not allowed to examine. Wildcards are allowed.

It's not very difficult but it is time consuming if you have lots
of robots and files to specify. In addition, it's easy to misspell
something and fali to achieve your goal.

Now, someone has created a nice little piece of shareware called
RoboGen, and it's not very expensive considering the benefits that
you will receive.

I stumbled across this entirely by accident, since it never
occurred to me that someone would write a program such as this. I
downloaded the 30 day demonstration and quickly discovered how
wonderful it is. Robogen has already saved me hours and hours of
work.

Okay, here's how it works. You enter your FTP login information
and log into your site. You then select robots by name in the left
pane, and indicate which directories and/or files are to be
excluded by the robot in the right pane.

You can create a new file or edit an existing one. Even better,
Robogen will work directly off the "robots.txt" file on your web
site. It will log in, read the existing file, allow you to edit
to your hearts content, then update the file directly.

I like little specialized tool such as this which truly make a
webmasters life easy. The product is inexpensive (there is a
limited free version as well), well documented and complete.
Highly recommended.

About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets
at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to
read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

2005-10-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

Is Your Company Name Killing Your Online Business? by John Buchanan

Ahhh...your company name.

Your identity. What separates you from everyone else.

I would be willing to bet that you spent a good deal of time
coming up with the perfect name for your company. Am I right?

Something catchy, easy to remember, and unique. How am I doing so far?

What if I were to tell you that your company name is possibly the
single biggest hindrance to your business's success online.

Unfortunately, for most companies it is.

Choosing a name for your business online is much different than
choosing a name for a brick and mortar business.

You see, in the real world, a business with a catchy, easy to
remember name will get traffic simply from people driving by on the
street or walking by in a shopping center even if they have never
heard of you before.

Unfortunately, this is not how things work online. Online, there
is no drive-by traffic, no people walking in to your business because
they were next door shopping.

Online, you must be found among a pool of tens of thousands of other
businesses.

Online, people don't casually browse with friends to pass the time.

Online, people search... and unless your name is Microsoft, Wal-Mart,
or another extremely well known and well branded name, people are not
going to search for your company name.

Studies show that approximately 80% of internet users find what they
are looking for by way of search engines (i.e., Yahoo, AltaVista,
Excite, etc.), and I guarantee you, they are not going to be searching
for your wonderful catchy name, they will be searching for the topic
they want.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you own a gourmet coffee
business called "The Brewmaster" that you decide to take online.
Of course you love your name and create your online identity around
your offline name. You reserve the domain name "www.brewmaster.com",
keep your company name, and title your site "The Brewmaster".

You've submitted your site to Yahoo as well as all the other
directories and search engines. Ahhh....life is good. Orders should
start rolling in any minute now......

Guess what? Unless you have a HUGE marketing budget for banner ads,
etc., you've just doomed your business.

Let's look at why.

First, let's look at the..

*Site Title*

Whether your dealing with a directory or a search engine, the site
title is the single most important aspect of your listing. For search
engines, the text found within the title tags of the page is given
more weight than any other single factor on that page (i.e., keyword
density, keyword frequency, heading tags, etc.). In a directory, your
entire listing is comprised of two things, your title, and your
description.

In both cases, if the keywords related to your business are not found
in your title, your chances of coming up for a search are virtually
non-existent. If your site is about "gourmet coffee" then those words
or at the very least, "coffee", should be somewhere within your title.

*The Company Name*

Just as your site title should have your most important keywords
within them, so should your company name.

Why you ask??? The answer....directories.

In directories, when a visitor uses the search function (which is
what the vast majority use) you will only be found if the search
term the visitor uses is found either in your site title or your
description. Unfortunately, virtually all directories require your
site title to be your actual company name. Remember that directories
are powered by humans, not software. A human reviews the site, and
assigns the title and description that he/she decides is correct.
Yes, they all let you suggest a site title, but ultimately,
regardless of what you submit, your title almost always end up as
your company name.

Looking again at the above example, this would mean that your
title in almost all of the directories would be "The Brewmaster". This
means the only place you would have left to put your keywords
would be the description, and this again is up to the editor. This
means that any site that has the search term "coffee" or "gourmet
coffee" in both the title and description would come up far ahead of
your site in the search results, costing you the traffic and sales
that could have been yours.

*The URL*

Here is another very overlooked tool. Whenever possible, your URL
should contain your most important keywords. Many engines and
directories will give your site a boost if your keywords are found
within your URL. Also, when you submit your site to the directories,
if your URL, your company name, and your site title all match, that
will virtually guarantee that you will get the title you requested.

Let's tie the three previous areas together with an example of what
you could have named your site instead of "The Brewmaster".

Here's one possible alternative: "Gourmet Coffee Brewmaster".

The above alternative would give you a company name that includes
our most important keywords and the perfect title for your page.

You could then reserve the domain -
http://www.gourmet-coffee-brewmaster.com -

giving you a perfect trifecta. The same company name, page title,
and url, practically insuring that you get the directory listing
you want.

Of course, this is only one possibility, but I think this should
illustrate my point.

To Summarize

-Unless you have a huge advertising budget or are an extremely well
branded business, DO NOT name your online business something like
the above example.

-Use a business name that contains your most important keywords.

-Use this business name as your site title

-Use a URL that contains your most important keywords and whenever
possible, is the same or as close as possible to your keyword
laden business name.

Follow these rules and you should have no trouble in developing
a very steady flow of large amounts of traffic from the directories
and you will be well on your way in the search engine arena as well.

About the Author
John Buchanan is the author of the book "The Insider's Guide to
Dominating The Search Engines", and publisher of a FREE monthly
newsletter "The Search Engine Bulletin". Visit us at
http://www.se-secrets.com for more information or to sign up for
the newsletter.

2005-10-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

Ask Mr. D - On Search Engine Tactics by Bill Daugherty

Dear Mr. D,

My question is about getting a website
listed on the major search engines.

For the past several months I have
been submitting my website to several
of the major search engines. But, I don't
think I am listed by any of them. At least
I can find my site when I do a search
for my keywords.

Can you take a look at my site and tell
me if there is something wrong with my
site that is preventing me from getting
listed? This is really frustrating.

Signed,

Frustrated

____________________________

Dear Frustrated,

Getting listed on any of the major search
engines can be a trying adverture. But,
so much of Web traffic comes from these
engines, it is worth the effort.

The reason your site is being ignored by
the major engines is you don't have any
meta tags in your code. When you submit
your site to a search engine they send a spider
to crawl your site for all the other details. And
the very first thing this spider looks for is ...
Meta Tags!

If you don't have Meta Tags in place, things
can get ugly. The spider will move to the text
on your page, with the end result being a really
messy site description and no keywords ...
that's bad!

Meta tags should be placed between the head
tags of your sites code. They should contain
your site's title, description and keywords. If
you are not knowledgeable about building meta
tags, I suggest you consult someone who does.
Even it cost you a few bucks, the amount of
traffic increase you will see will more than make
up for the cost.

About the Author
Do you have an advertising or marketing
question you'd like to see published in this
column? Send it to mailto:MrD@epm.zzn.com
You can visit Mr. D's website at:
http://www.freeadsgalore.com
To visit Mr. D's latest project Goto:
http://www.instantez.com/wdindex.html

2005-10-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

Test Your Search Engine IQ by Dan Thies

The year 2001 saw dramatic changes in the search engine world.
Major players have either folded or stopped crawling the web,
pay-per-click services like Goto/Overture have become much more
prominent, and "theme-based indexing" has firmly taken root.

Website owners who don't understand what these changes mean for
them are missing out on tremendous opportunities to boost their
site's search engine traffic.

This little "Search Engine IQ Test" will help you find out how
much of what you know about search engines is still true today.

1. Which search engine provides "web page" results for Yahoo?
A - Altavista
B - Excite
C - Google
D - FAST/AllTheWeb
E - Inktomi

2. Which of these search engines uses "theme-based indexing?"
A - Altavista
B - Hotbot
C - Google
D - FAST/AllTheWeb
E - All of the above

3. Which search engines use META tags in ranking sites?
A - Hotbot
B - MSN
C - Google
D - FAST/AllTheWeb
E - Altavista

4. Which of the following search engines uses its own database
of web sites to provide its primary results?
A - MSN
B - Hotbot
C - Lycos
D - Excite
E - None of the above

5. In order to achieve top search engine rankings, you must
submit your site to the major search engines:
A - Once
B - Every Day
C - Every Week
D - Every Month
E - Every Year

6. True or False: Ranking in the top ten for your favorite
search phrase means you'll get lots of traffic.
A - True
B - False

Answers:
1. C
Google now provides "web page" matches for Yahoo!, which
accounts for a good percentage of the website referrals that
come from Yahoo! These used to be provided by Inktomi.

2. E
All of these major search engines now uses "themes" to rank and
categorize websites. Failing to understand how themes affect
ranking is one of the biggest reasons websites rank poorly, or
fail to get any search engine traffic at all.

3. A
While you should be aware that most search engines could care
less what your META tags say, the Inktomi database that feeds
Hotbot, MSN, and other search engines does consider them. This
means you can't ignore them, even though META tags have become
less and less important every year.

4. E
None of these search engines uses its own database of websites:
MSN & Hotbot use Inktomi, Lycos gets its results from FAST, and
Excite was recently sold Infospace, the owner of Dogpile. Among
the so-called major search engines, only Altavista, FAST,
Google, Inktomi and Northern Light still crawl the web.

5. A
But this is a trick question. Most websites get found and added
to the major search engine indexes within 2-6 weeks even if they
are never submitted. The only proven way to get in faster is
"paid inclusion," which is available at Altavista and Inktomi.

6. B
My 'Website Promotion Central' site has had top ten rankings for
"website promotion" for over a year, but most of my referrals
don't come from that single phrase. Because of "themes," I see
hundreds of 3, 4 and 5 word search phrases in my logs - these
are much more important than my primary keyword phrase.

How did you do? If you got less than half of these answers, you
probably need a refresher course in search engines. Don't feel
badly, though. Thanks to "themes," search engine optimization
has gotten easier for the do-it-yourself webmaster, not harder.

I wish you success...
About the Author
Dan Thies has been helping his clients (and friends) promote
their websites since 1996, and has become a respected authority
on search engine positioning. His latest book, "Search Engine
Fast Start," is available at http://www.cannedbooks.com
To subscribe to his free weekly search engine optimization
newsletter, send a blank email to subscribe@cannedbooks.com

2005-10-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

THE FIRST STEPS TO GETTING NOTICED IN "THE VAST AND UNCHARTERED WORLD OF CYBERSPACE" by Craig Lock

"To win, you first have to be noticed"

Thought I'd share a few hints, based on our experiences
over the past five years...

In listing our various web sites, we only concentrate on the
major (12 or so search engines) and directories, like Open
Directory, who supply their database to many of the big
search engines. We've found that we check our listings in the
search engines every two months or so and do resubmit - just
to the MAJOR search engines. Though I don't try it with Alta
Vista and especially Yahoo (as we are already high up there
with our creative writing courses). I don't dare risk them
chucking us out, though I don't think they will! We've had
some difficulty with HotBot and Lycos (especially) and Open
Directory in getting listed, so I do re-submit from time to time
and they then seem to get listed. Alta Vista seems to take a
while - about 6 weeks. Believe Lycos is "winding down" in
listing sites incidentally.

So suggest checking your listings occasionally and resubmit-
ting (INDIVIDUALLY). I don't think any of the major search
engines see that as spam.

We also submit to the regional Yahoo (Australia and New
Zealand) and find we get listed quite speedily. I bid on key words
with Go To for 'writing courses', but we've found the traffic
from them to be minimal.

A thought, sorry question, on which to end...

With all the comments and articles about search engines and
so many people spending so much time and effort "trying to
get the better of them", why don't more web marketers rather
spend their valuable energies in activities, which they CAN
CONTROL to some extent. Once you have posted to the
major search engines, monitor your positioning from time to
time (say once a month) then LET BE. You'll never beat them,
because their policies change all the time. Start concentrating
on MARKETING and carving out a UNIQUE NICHE for yourself
on the WWW with your particular products.
Be UNIQUE and "brand" yourself as an expert in your field
with your own individual "style and niche". We mainly do that
by writing articles and submitting them to article announcement
lists, like Article Announce, Free Content, Publish in Yours, Publisher
Network and Article Publish. Articles with your website in your
signature file bring traffic, which then lead to SALES...and best of
all it's free advertising and helping others at the same time by sharing
your knowledge and experiences in your field of expertise.

It's been a long learning curve for us at Eagle Products (NZ)
seeing what works and what doesn't in getting listed with the
major search engines ...like the lessons of life itself.

About the Author
Craig Lock has been successfully marketing products online
for the past five years. Craig is a writer, who believes in sharing
information, as well as encouraging and helping others to find
their talents and gifts, to strive for and accomplish their dreams
in life - whatever they may be.
http://www.nzenterprise.com/

2005-10-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

SEARCH ENGINE TIPS by Stan Narusiewicz

How to get Real Prospects Directly From Search Engines
And How to Find What You Want With 100% Relevancy

Introduction

The new Pay-Per-Click Search Engines provide two breakthrough
benefits for both Home Internet Businesses and Customers.

Customers can search and find what they are looking for
with no clutter because only up-to-date 100% relevant search results
are listed. By contrast, the traditional Search Engines are
never up-to-date and have been tricked to produce numerous
non-relevant listings.

Home Internet Businesses benefit because when a customer searches
and finds a business listing and self directs to that business listing,
that customer becomes the best prospect that any Home Business
could find on the Internet.

Home Internet Businesses also benefit in a second way because
when a customer searches and finds a business listing
and self directs to that business listing that creates
the highest Advertising ROI that any business could achieve
on the Internet.

Because of these benefits, it is reasonable to believe that
this new Pay-Per-Click Search Technology will cause a
dramatic evolutionary change in the way customers surf the Internet
and the way that businesses will deploy Marketing Strategies
in the future. This new search technology has successfully
completed its incubation period and is off to a big start with
over 50 PPC Search Engines in operation.

The purpose of this article is to inform readers both customers
and Home Business Owners how to participate and take advantage
of the benefits of this new technology.

How It Works

The Customer Perspective

For customers the procedure is identical to the way one searches
today with the traditional Search Engines. One merely types
a search term or search phrase into a search box
and waits briefly for business listings to appear.
The customer can choose any one or none of the listings
or re-type a different search term or search phrase and
review the combinations of listings that appear.

When a customer chooses any listing by clicking on that listing,
a page representing that particular business opens and allows
the customer to review that particular businesss product offerings.

Basically, from a customers perspective, there is little
change to the procedure. The customer will, however,
achieve a very real benefit because the listings will be
100% relevant to the different search terms or search phrases.
The customer will experience a very rewarding, up-to-date
and highly productive searching process.

How It Works

The Home Business Perspective

For Home Internet Businesses, the procedure is significantly different.
First of all, the business must develop a list of search terms
and phrases that relate to or describe their Businesses.
This list will become far more extensive than what is common
with submission to traditional Search Engines.
This does not make the process more difficult.
This is the step that makes 100% search relevancy possible.

Businesses are allowed to submit hundreds of all possible search terms
and phrases for free at any PPC Search Engine.
This allows your Business to be found by billions of
potential customers. Along with the submission of all-possible
search terms and phrases are a specific pay-per-click bid price,
a specific URL and a specific Description.

This permits the PPC Search Engine to create an optimum listing
for any customer search process. One reason is the information
in the listing is controlled by the Home Internet Business
and not by the Search Engine. Another reason is the bid price
is the single determinate for ranking the listings.

If the Home Internet Business wants first place search ranking,
it bids the top pay-per-click bid price. The Business can bid less
and get 2nd place or 3rd place listings; it is all under the control
of the Home Internet Business. No more of the mystical ranking
processes currently in use by traditional Search Engines.

The Home Internet Business is in complete control of the
pay-per-click bid price for each and every different search term
and phrase. The PPC Search Engine Webmasters review each search
term and phrase for relevancy to insure customer satisfaction.

In summary, when a customer self directs to a particular
listing having made a search on any search term or phrase
at any PPC Search Engine, the Business listings will appear
in the order of bid price. The Internet Businesses pay,
when and only when, the customer clicks on a particular listing
and enters a particular Business site!

Where Can You Get Help To Get Started

There is an excellent source of help for everyone who uses
Search Engines.

Since there are a large number of PPC Search Engines
and since it would be difficult to find all of them on the Internet,
Merstan Sales at http://merstan-sales.com has placed the
search boxes for 15 different PPC Search Engines all on one page.
This gives everyone the convenient and unlimited free opportunity
to search at any or all PPC Search Engines at any time from now on.

The best thing to do is bookmark this site so you can return at
any time in the future. Go ahead and test them now. As a suggestion,
type the word "free" into any or all search boxes
and see what you can get for free from the Internet today.

Where Can You Get Help To Get Started

There are two additional sources of help for Home Internet Businesses.

First is "Mastering the PPCs", a handbook and guide for Webmasters
and Marketing personal. The Index includes: What are PPCs?,
Bidding Strategies, Your Listing in PPCs, Calculating an ROI
and much more. It is available for $20 at
http://www.merstan-sales.com.

The second is the Keyword Gold Card. Keyword is just another way
of saying search term or phrase. The Keyword Gold Card is
a subscription service that every Home Internet Business needs to
obtain the benefits of the PPC Search Technology.
For $11.66 per month, The subscription includes automatic account
set up at 50 PPC Search Engines, $1,250 of free pay-per-click bid
credit to get you started, and a convenient management page
to allow access to all 50 PPC Search Engines for search term
and bid price maintenance.

The $1,250 of free bid credit can buy you up to 125.000 prospects
directly from the Search Engines. Remember, when a customer
self directs to a particular listing having made a search on
any search term or phrase at any PPC Search Engine,
that customer prospect is the best that can be found on the Internet.
As a listed Business, you pay, when and only when,
the customer clicks on your particular listing and enters
your particular Business site. Access to the Keyword Gold card
is available at http://www.merstan-sales.com

About the Author
We struggled so hard to build the site, we chose to
simplify the process for all who aspire to do the same.
Have a look at http://www.merstan-sales.com take
advantage of some of the best Ecommerce tools available.

2005-10-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Search Engines- the Worlds Yellow Pages by Jan Hordijk

Whatever your product is or your service offers, you
need to show it to the world in order to sell it.
We all need advertising and the more, the better.
But how to reach all those potential customers?

Conservative estimates indicate there are at least 70
Million(!!) Internet users online today and over
100.000 new websites being created each month.

Over 90% of all Internet users will use a Search
Engine to find the product or service they are looking
for.
Once your website can be found in Search Engines, your
exposure is second to none.

And do you need to worry about getting into the top 10
with every Search Engine?
Not really; meta tag optimization is not costly and
can greatly improve your ranking.
As does linking and the use of well constructed
doorway pages.
Doorway pages are pages that have been developed to
rank highly for a specific keyword or phrase.
But the most important thing of all is: get listed!

Due to the amount of submissions that Search Engines
receive, it takes from 2 days to 3 months for your
site to show up,
depending on the Engine.
Paid Listings are an option for site owners who want
to build visibility quickly.
This form of search engine advertising means that you
can be guaranteed to appear in the top results for the
terms you are interested in, usually within days.

So you better start submitting today, it will be worth
it; by hand or done by a professional service for a small
fee; make sure YOUR web site is in the Worlds Yellow
Pages!

About the Author
Jan Hordijk, Marketing Consultant
AWSS Website Promotion and Submission
webmaster@submit-devil.com
http://www.submit-devil.com/index1.html

2005-10-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

Essential Guide To Pay-Per-Click Advertising by Michael Low

Which Engines Should You Use?

Following Goto.com's (now known as Overture) phenomenal success
with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, more than 160 PPC startups
have sprung up.

Out of these 160 PPC engines, only a few may actually have the
search volume to generate a respectable number of clicks for your
site.

Most PPC startups require between $10 to $25 of setup fee which
can be applied to clickthroughs. They offer low minimum bids of
$0.01. But with limited search volumes, they may bring you only a
few clicks each day!

My recommendation is to go for established PPC engines with high
search volumes that can generate higher clickthroughs. The big
boys are Overture (previously known as Goto) at
http://www.overture.com, Sprinks at http://www.sprinks.com,
FindWhat at http://www.findwhat.com.

Overture is the best because they serve over 2 billion search
queries monthly through their partnership with major search
engines such as America Online, Lycos, Altavista, Netscape,
Hotbot and InfoSpace.

You can test the startup PPC engines but commit only the minimum
setup fees. If they generate decent traffic, you can always top
up your account. That way you minimize your risk to only $10 to
$25 per PPC engine. For a list of over 160 PPC engines, see
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com

How To Find Relevant Keywords?

Since you are paying for each clickthrough on your bid, it makes
good sense to ensure that your keywords are relevant to your
target audience.

One of my favorite tools is Overture's Search Term Suggestion at
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Enter a keyword and it shows the number of times the word was
searched - which indicates its popularity. The more popular the
keyword is, the higher are your clickthroughs. Overture also
generates a list of similar keywords and their search counts in
the previous month.

Overture's tool is one of the best ways for finding good keywords
to bid on. Another alternative is to download Good Keywords at
http://www.softnik.com/products/gkw/index.htm

Enter a keyword into this free software and it will display a
list of relevant search terms and their search counts across
multiple PPC engines.

You can also try JimTools' Keyword Toolkit at
http://jimworld.nu/keywords.html

JimTools can generate a list of related keyword possibilities,
some with search counts, from Goto, Google, Magellan and
WebCrawler.

How Much Do I Bid?

The bigger PPC engines such as Goto and Sprinks require a minimum
bid of $0.05. Startup engines have lesser minimums of $0.01.

How much to bid depends on your return-on-investment (ROI)
calculations.

For example: If you bid $1.00 per visitor, and 1 in every 10
visitors buys your product, your cost-per-sale is $10.00.

So if each sale of your product produces a gross profit of $15,
then your net profit will be $5.00 ($15 gross profit minus $10
cost-per-sale).

Your return-on-investment (ROI), before non-marketing expenses,
is 50.0% ($5.00 net profit / $10 cost-per-sale). Always price
your bids to achieve a positive ROI!

A great tool that you can use to compare bids for a specific
keyword across multiple PPC engines is at
http://www.compareyourclicks.com

To read about how you can maximize your returns from PPC engines,
go to http://internetmarketingfocus.com/article.php?sid=53

You'll learn how to reduce your bids while still maintaining the
same ranking or get a top 3 position for maybe just 1 cent more!

How Do I Track Clicks?

Most of the time, you'll notice that the number of clicks tracked
by yourself is between 15% to 30% more than the clicks the PPC
engine reports.

This is because reputable PPC engines such as Overture have
installed anti-cheating mechanisms that prevent your competitors
from repeatedly clicking on your listings and wasting your bid
fees!

They will count multiple clicks within a specified timeframe from
the same computer as only one clickthrough while your own log
will usually register the multiple clicks.

There was once when I noticed that my log was registering less
clicks than Overture's reports. They were experiencing some bug
which prevented clicks from being properly delivered to the
advertiser's website.

Because I was tracking my clicks, I notified them of the problem
and they credited my account for the bad clicks. Tracking your
clicks give you a more reliable picture of how well your PPC
campaign is performing.

If you have access to your CGI directory, I recommend LnkinLite,
a small yet powerful tracking software that can track clicks to
your site in the background. Get it at
http://www.dtp-aus.com/cgiscript/lnkinlte.shtml

Otherwise you can consider free online trackers at
http://www.hypertracker.com or http://www.linkcounter.com

About the Author
Michael Low is a widely-published marketing consultant. He
provides top-notch press release (PR) services at affordable
rates. Check out his full-range of PR services at
http://www.prbuilder.com/pr.cgi?a003

2005-10-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

How To Get Free Visitors To Your Web Site by Jerry Robertson

There are many ways to promote your site. One fantastic way is to use pay per click search engines that will give you money to test their services.

These pay per click search engines are new and very slow. The free offers will disappear once their traffic picks up. It may take a long time to use your free clicks. However, with a keyword or two, it takes a few minutes to set up.

The reason you want to add at least one keyword is to keep the pay per click from closing your account and you losing the free click money. Every month you should check the status of your account. Many of the pay per clicks will show how often keywords were researched the previous month. If you see the number of searches increasing significantly,add more keywords and check your account more often.

There are over 200 pay per click search engines and about 60 give you money to test their accounts. You can find a list of the pay per clicks that give you free clicks at: http://www.searchenginepayperclick.com

Sign up for all the pay per click search engines that offer free clicks. Remember, while many of them will be slow, a few of them could provide decent traffic for you. Go ahead, spend a few minutes and sign up for the many pay per click search engines that offer free clicks.

About the Author
Jerry is the editor of the free bi weekly newsletters Elrob Search Engine Tips and Elrob Online Biz Tips. You can subscribe and see archived issues at:
http://www.elrob.com

2005-10-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

8 Tips To Get More Traffic From Yahoo! by Vishal Rao

2002 By Vishal Rao. All Rights Reserved.

With the new Yahoo! "Pay-For-Review" model it might be
relatively easier for sites to get into the directory but
getting traffic from your listing is altogether a different
story. And now with it's new annual recurring payment policy
you have to be extra careful while submitting your site for
a review.

Here are 8 things to keep in mind while submitting your site
to Yahoo!

1) Selecting your domain name is the most vital step in
getting a top ranking in Yahoo! and also other directories
like Dmoz and Looksmart.

Make sure your domain name is "Keyword Rich". You can make
your domain keyword rich by simply inserting hyphens to
separate words in your domain name. Yahoo! gives more
relevance to sites with keywords in their domain name.

Take our domain name for example:
http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com/

It is made up of 4 different high-in-demand keywords: "Home
Based Business", "Home Business", "Home Business
Opportunities", "Home Based Business Opportunities".

While crafting your domain name, even you should try to keep
your domain name such that it is made up of one, 2-4 words
main or "parent" keyword; which in turn is made up of 2-4
high-in-demand "child" keywords.

You may or may not get a top ranking for all your targeted
keywords but you can be sure of getting one for your main or
"parent" keyword (If you do everything else right).

Even if you have to get a separate domain name for this
purpose, GET IT! It is absolutely crucial for your ranking.

2) Sites which are placed higher in directory structure are
given more relevance than sites which are placed lower or
deeper.

For example a site listed in category -
B2B/Business_Opportunities will be given more relevance than
a site listed in category -
B2B/Business_Opportunities/Directories

Here's a great tip to select the most trafficked category
for your website...

Once you have short-listed 2 or 3 category to place your
site in to, check out the cost of Sponsor Listings of those
categories.

It's really simple. Visit the following URL:
https://ecom.yahoo.com/fast/sponsor

Enter the URL of any website that is listed in your desired
category (The URL should be same as it appears in Yahoo! and
the category should be a commercial category).

-----SIDEBAR-----
Please note that Yahoo! accepts Sponsor Listings for only
certain commercial categories and so this tip may or may not
work for your category.
-----SIDEBAR-----

You'll be asked for your Yahoo! ID. Once you submit the
information, you'll be provided with the Sponsorship charges
for that certain category. Repeat the process for your
remaining short-listed categories.

Now compare the prices of all your short-listed categories.
Naturally the one with a higher price is the most trafficked
one!

3) Yahoo! considers keywords in the directory structure
while ranking.

For example, if someone is searching for "Business
Opportunities Directories", a web site listed in category -
B2B/Business_Opportunities/Directories will be given more
relevance than a web site listed in category -
B2B/Business_Opportunities

4) Yahoo! DOES NOT spider websites to determine ranking. It
ranks web sites based on keywords in domain name, title and
description. So having META tags does not make any
difference to your listing.

5) DO NOT try to stuff as much keywords as possible in to
the description. Yahoo! editors are notorious for cutting
down the description if they sense even slightest hype. Try
to avoid words such as - no.1, proven, turnkey, exciting
etc.

Also, make sure that the heading of your home page is same
as the description you provided for your site. There should
be no confusion in the mind of the editor reviewing your
site.

6) Make sure your domain name and business name is the same
since Yahoo! is known to use the business name as the title
for your listing.

7) Make sure your website is "Content Rich". This is
very critical for two reasons. One - to get your site
accepted by Yahoo! and Second - to maintain and get a higher
listing.

Yahoo! determines the popularity of a website by the amount
of time a visitor spends on your website. If a large no. of
them hit the "back button" of their browser as soon as they
hit your web site, you can kiss goodbye to your dreams of a
possible higher listing.

Once you get a lower listing, it can get very difficult to
make up as visitors will not be able to find your site
easily.

-----SIDEBAR-----
Once a site gets accepted into the directory, Yahoo! ranks
it based on the keyword popularity in domain name, title and
description. But as time progresses, it determines the
ranking based on the popularity of the website itself.

We ignored this and our listing came down drastically within
few days of getting accepted!
-----SIDEBAR-----

8) Before submitting your website, thoroughly research
websites that rank higher for keywords you are targeting
(Especially the "Most Popular" sites in the directory
section). This will give you a rough idea of what to and
what not to include in your website.

About the Author
Vishal Rao publishes an informative e-zine: iNet Profits.
Subscribe to his e-zine and get his free e-mail course:
"11 Killer Strategies To Explode Your Online Profits", by
sending a blank e-mail to => sub@inetprofits.par32.com

For a complete, STEP-BY-STEP, road-map for Internet
success, rush to => http://www.inetprofits.biz/

2005-10-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

How Can You Learn How to Achieve Top Search Engine Rankings? by Robin Nobles

How Can You Learn How to Achieve Top Search Engine Rankings?

By Robin Nobles

If you're serious about having a successful online business, you
need to spend some time studying the search engines and how they
operate.

Why? Because comparatively speaking, search engine marketing is
generally much less expensive than traditional forms of
advertising, which certainly appeals to those of us with low (or
no!) advertising budgets. Also, the reach you can gain through a
successful search engine marketing campaign can be extraordinary.

But, how can you learn search engine marketing strategies? People
learn in many different ways.

* Some folks prefer to dig for the information themselves,
hunting all over the Web hoping to find reliable and trustworthy
information. Search Engine Guide
(http://www.searchengineguide.com) is an excellent place to
start, because the site posts articles written by experts in the
industry.

* Other people like online classes, such as those offered through
a reputable company like the Academy of Web Specialists
(http://www.onlinewebtraining.com), where they can learn in the
comfort of their own homes with a trusted instructor. As you
probably know, I've taught online classes through the Academy for
years.

* Still others like to attend large conferences where they can
sit and listen to experts in the industry offer their advice on
particular topics. In my opinion, Search Engine Strategies
conferences (http://seminars.internet.com) are second to none,
and I've served on panels at almost all of them.

* However, still others want to learn on location with more of a
hands-on approach. Until now, there has never been an actual
"hands on" workshop designed to build your expertise in person.
These people want to meet the instructors in person and have the
opportunity for personal, one-on-one interaction about their
particular Web sites and their unique challenges.

So, this is why Search Engine Workshops.com
(http://www.searchengineworkshops.com) was formed, a joint
venture by John Alexander and Robin Nobles.

When you attend one of our workshops, you'll bring your laptop
and your "Web site" with you. You'll actually be doing exercises
that will help you become a more effective search engine
marketer.

For example:

* Do you have a difficult time choosing keywords that really work
for your business or your clients? John Alexander, one of the
leading authorities in the use of WordTracker, will demonstrate
ways to use WordTracker that you've never considered.

* Do you have a difficult time writing Web site content? I'm a
professional writer and author, and I'll be working with you on
how to create Web site content that will appeal to your human
audience.

* Are you having problems taking your Web site content and making
it search engine friendly? Because this is a "workshop," a hands-
on method of learning, you'll create a page of content and
optimize it yourself, with your instructors standing by to offer
suggestions and guide you.

* Are you a professional search engine optimizer who plans to
work with clients? At the workshop, you'll discuss guarantees,
contracts, how to get new clients, how to service your clients so
that you'll continually exceed their expectations, and more.

* Does your Web site have challenges that are keeping you from
achieving top rankings? Learn work arounds for those challenges,
from the very simple to the powerful and complex, depending on
your unique situation.

* Are confused about how to use WebPosition Gold? Have you been
introduced to Search Engine Optimizer (GRSeo)? Do you need a Web-
based alternative to reporting? At the workshop, we'll actually
demonstrate the various tools of the trade and offer tips for
using those tools as well as showing new tools you may not have
considered.

* Are you interested in having a personal appointment to talk
about your Web site and any challenges or concerns you are
having? Besides the training and personal help that comes through
the workshop itself, each participant will meet with an
instructor for a 30-minute private consultation.

Who can benefit from this workshop?

* If you have an online business, or if you're considering
starting one, this workshop is ideal for you.

* You may have taken a search engine marketing course in the past
but haven't kept up with the current strategies.

* Maybe you're a Web designer who needs to learn how to design
search engine friendly sites.

* Maybe you have a large company who needs a stronger online
presence.

* Or, maybe you're ready for the "next step" to a successful Web
site - what to do "after" you achieve top rankings? If so, this
workshop is exactly what you need.

In order to offer personal attention to each attendee, enrollment
is limited to around 35. Because the group is small, it quickly
becomes very friendly and open. We share experiences and
expertise, so that no matter what your level of experience is,
you'll leave with an abundance of new information and things to
try on your own Web site.

So, give this new way of learning search engine strategies a try.
Visit Search Engine Workshops
(http://www.searchengineworkshops.com) and look over the agenda.
Read some of the testimonies from a past workshop. Learn more
about the workshop leaders by visiting the About Us page.

Then, make arrangements to attend our next workshop to be held at
the Opryland Hotel in Nashville on May 1-3, 2002. It will be a
learning experience you'll never forget!

About the Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists,
(http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). She also teaches 3-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

2005-10-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

Ask Mr. D - Search Engine Keywords by Bill Daugherty

Dear Mr. D,

My partner and I have a website that puts
together all kinds of tours of Mexico for
people. I think we have great products
at great prices. We have a great website
that cost us a lot of money to have designed.
There's just one problem, we are getting
very little traffic. So, I'm sure you can guess
that we aren't making any money.

It is our understanding that search engines
can bring a lot of traffic to a site, but that
hasn't been our experience. We have listed
our site with several of the pay-per-click
engines and we have a top listing with all
of them with the key phrase "Mexico Vacation
Tours." But we are only getting a few hits
a week. We don't know what's wrong.

Signed,

Defeated

--------------------------------------

Dear Defeated,

I am surprised you are getting any hits at
all. Your key phrase is too narrow for most
surfers to find.

You need to list your site under the keywords:
travel, tours, vacations, Mexico, Mexico
vacations, Mexico City, Mexico City vacations
and several other keywords and phrases along
those lines. I wager you can come up with forty
or fifty good listings for your site, if you put your
mind to it. Just be sure each keyword or phrase
is relevant to your site.

When you list a site with any search engine,
the key (no pun intended) is to come up with
as many words and phrases that a searcher
would possible use to find a product or service
like yours. The more keywords you are listed
under, the more traffic you will draw.

Now, go back to those pay-per-clicks and add
as many new keywords and phrases as you
and your partner can come up with and I can
assure you that your hit counter will jump
overnight.

Best wishes,

Mr. D
About the Author
Do you have an advertising or marketing
question you'd like to see published in this
column? Send it to mailto:MrD@epm.zzn.com
You can visit Mr. D's website at:
http://www.freeadsgalore.com

2005-10-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Seven Search Engine Similarities by Judith Tramayne-Barth

It's true -- search engines are a royal pain when you try to
optimize your web pages for them but you can reduce the pain by
analyzing their similarities.

==> Similarity #1

Search engines do not like frames so don't use them or put in
the
tag.

==> Similarity #2

Titles should have key word in it and not be longer then 75
characters. Less is even better. Make sure your title starts
with the key word if you can.

==> Similarity #3

Each web page should have a different key word in the title but
be part of a theme. Search engines look for consistent keywords
throughout your site.

For instance, Golf tips by Butch Harmon at
nationalgolfer.com on one page, Free golf
putting tips by David Leadbetter at nationalgolfer.com
on another page or even Golf products to improve your
golf game at nationalgolfer.com on a third page. Each
title has the word golf so the search engine spider knows the
site must pertain to golf -- which it does. Hey, nobody ever
accused these robots of being smart.

==> Similarity #4

Meta name description and keyword tags are accepted by some but
not all; therefore, keep your description to a minimum length
and
the keyword tag to only one or two. Spend your time on a pithy,
short one line description sentence which includes your keyword
at the start of the sentence but will also entice the person
viewing to click on the link.

==> Similarity #5

Search engine spiders or robots like the keyword or phrase at
the
top of your page between the codes. So make sure
the first table cell on your page has your pithy one line
description in it using the opening and closing tags.

==> Similarity #6

Content with keywords in the top portion of your text. Some
search engines like short pages and other pages like longer so
creating an average length of 250 words should help you get in
all major search engines. Or, you might even want to create
short pages for one keyword and a longer 500 or more word page
for another keyword thus satisfying all the major search
engine's
requirements.

==> Similarity #7

Link popularity. This means looking for sites that complement
yours and asking for reciprocal links. Be creative when
describing these links by using keywords.

Large sites also want your link so don't be afraid to ask. Why
do you think they offer affiliate programs? It's not just for
the visitors that might click through from your site but also
the
link you put on your page. They know this community of links is
what the search engines now consider the most important.

Besides, as more and more search engines require pay before they
even consider sites, your reciprocal links might be the only way
your small business gets visitors or is listed.

So create web pages using the seven search engine similarities,
submit them to all the search engines you can find and see if
the "targeted" visitors to your site improves. It should but
don't expect it to happen overnight.

About the Author
Judith Tramayne-Barth has "A Good Read Art & Book Club" you
have to see to believe. Members get free ebooks, paintings,
1000 link ebook & more. Visit: http://www.agoodread.com or her
art site at http://www.trabar.com

2005-10-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

Meta Tags Are Not A Magic Solution by windsong

META TAGS ARE NOT A MAGIC SOLUTION
by: windsong

Meta tags are useful in getting better listings in the
search engines. However, not all search engines support
meta tags. This means that some search engines ignore
them. But include meta tags in your document for the engines
that do use them. It will significantly increase your rating.

There are many, many different meta tags. The only ones you
need to be concerned with are the "description" and "keyword"
tags. (And "title" tag, of course.) The description tag
provides a summary which appears when your page comes up on a
search. Without this "description" the search engine will create
one. It will generally use the first few lines of text at the
top of your page. Meta tags are to be placed inside the head
tags. Here is what your meta tags should look like:

Web Site Utilities for Webmasters

Search engines that read everything on your page will include
alt tags and links to a banner that is at the very top of your
page. This is why it is not a good idea to have a banner at the
top. The beginning of your page should be a title (use keywords
here) and text. The first paragraph should be heavy with keywords,
but not so heavy as to make it difficult to read or understand.
You want to work the keywords in so it sounds natural for them
to be there.

If your site is heavy on graphics and short on text, then you
need to use meta tags. Otherwise, you have very little chance
to come up on the search engines. Consider the meta tags as
tools that make up for a lack of text on your site. Your best
option, however, is to have a site that is heavy in content
and text. You will not only get a better ranking in the search
engines, but you will please the people who visit your site.
After all, isn't this the name of the game?

"Keywords" tags provide keywords for the search engine to
associate with your page. It gives your page a chance to come
up if someone is searching for one or more of your keywords.
Choose your keywords carefully. Try to imagine what the
searcher will enter for their search. Do NOT use keywords
that are not relevent to your site. Many people think that
because "sex" is one of the most common keywords used for a
search, that it is good to include it in their keyword list.
This is just another form of spam. Don't do it. You could
get a lot of hate mail.

Key words should always be two or more words, in other words,
key phrases. If you only use single keywords you are likely
to get lost in the crowd. For example, if you have a site
that specializes in 'free business opportunities', list that
as a keyword phrase instead of listing each word ie: free,
business, opportunties. It is not likely that someone looking
for 'free business opportunities' is going to type in just
'business' into their search. Can you imagine all the sites
that would come up if that were the case? You would be lost
in the crowd. Be specific with your keyword phrases. Put
yourself in the place of the person doing the search. What
are they likely to type in as their search?

It is not enough to have a list of keywords in your meta
tags. These keywords must also appear in the title tag as
well as in the text on your page. If you fail to do this,
then your ranking with the search engines will be low, no
matter how may keywords you have. It is most important that
your keywords appear in the first paragraph on your page.
They should also be in the title and headers. Some search
engines also read 'alt tags'. Be sure to use relevant
keywords there also.

Some of the search engines don't like line breaks in meta
tags. It is best to have your meta tags as one long line
rather than having it wrap. I have been told that if your
tags wrap, the search engine only reads the first line.

You do not need a mile long string of keywords. The search
engine will not read all of them. The standard is 1024
characters. The spaces between your keywords also count
as a character. Don't use spaces. Use commas to separate
your keywords. Select your keywords very carefully,
and arrange them in order of importance.

There are no 'secrets' to search engine success. Meta tags
are not a magic solution to getting listed. Using meta
tags along with other methods, such as having a content
rich site, will dramatically boost your ranking in the
major search engines.

Copyright2001, windsong

Learn how to get great ranking in the Search Engines!
Subscribe to windsong's free e-zine:
All About Search Engines!(tm) Send a blank email to:
mailto:aboutsearchengines-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Free e-book: http://marketing-resources.com/ebook_ideas.exe

About the Author
Windsong is a recognized author, publisher and editor with followers from many countries worldwide.

2005-10-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Predictions For 2002 by Kalena Jordan

Never try to predict the unpredictable. Thats advice I have been given and advice I am going to completely ignore this month, by attempting to predict the movements of the volatile search engine industry over the next 12 months. Here they are, my personal predictions for 2002:

1. Increase in Pay For Performance (PFP) Options - when you consider that a year ago there were only a couple of search engines offering PFP options, you realize how important PFP has now become (by PFP I mean Pay-Per-Click options, paid inclusion, sponsored listings and keyword buys). All the most important search engines now offer some type of PFP option and every SEO campaign should have some PFP components for best results.

I see this trend increasing, with the major engines and directories expanding on the range of PFP options they provide, whether in-house (such as Looksmarts new LookListings range for small business), or outsourced (such as Yahoos recent partnering with Overture). I also see more traditional SEOs embracing PFP for the first time in 2002, as they realize the benefits and results achievable for their clients and stop fretting over the perceived loss of 'purity' of search results.

2. Increase in Paid Submissions - Looking back to November 2000, Looksmart was the only one of the major engines and directories to demand payment to consider a site for submission to their index. Yahoo introduced submission fees for commercial sites a month later. Both directories hiked up their price to USD 299 during this year, setting a new standard for the industry and justifying the value of their service via market share (Yahoo) and the formation of new partnerships with other search players (Looksmart).

I would hope that Paid Submission fees remain static for 2002, at least for Yahoo and Looksmart. However I believe well see other engines and directories introduce a fee for submission to their commercial categories. I think Google could be the first of these.

3. Crackdown on Spammers - In their quest for relevant results, Google recently introduced the Report a Spammer page, (http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html) as well as a beta page rating tool within their latest Toolbar (http:/ oolbar.google.com/go?version=beta&hl=en) that enables people to rate the quality of sites they find in Googles index. As well as enabling people to vote for sites they find providing quality content, this rating tool gives people the opportunity to report sites using unacceptable spamdexing methods to try and obtain a high search ranking.

With engines like Google leading the way in the crackdown on search engine spammers, other engines should follow suit in 2002. As a result, there should be far less spammers and more relevant results across the search engines by this time next year.

4. Growth of the SEO Industry - Nothing too Nostradamus about this one. With the importance of search engines finally sinking in, the need for quality SEO services is booming in the U.S. and the U.K. I predict this solid demand will continue in 2002, especially in newly developing markets such as Australia/New Zealand and Europe.

5. Death of Two Majors - In any industry, there are always winners and losers. I think 2002 will signal the demise for at least two of the major search engines and directories, especially given relevancy and freshness of results are so important to the market at the moment.

6. One or More Major Partnerships - To survive in an industry as volatile as theirs, search engines often need to partner with others. I see some major rivals combining in 2002, just to stay alive. I also see some more major partnerships between online and offline firms, particularly between search engines, communications and media corporations.

7. Move away from In-House to Outsourced Services - Optimizing for search engines now involves a lot more than just traditional site optimization. It involves PPC or PFP campaign management, site copywriting, keyword research, marketing and industry consultation. As search engine optimization becomes even more complex and time consuming in 2002, more businesses will realize SEO is a full-time job and not something their marketing or IT staff can do 'on the side'.

To get results, they will have to either hire a SEO specialist in-house OR (more cost-effectively) outsource their requirements from a professional SEO that has the economies-of-scale in place to get the job done quickly and effectively.

8. SEO industry Shake-Up - With the growth of PFP & PPC, search engine specialists will have to keep their skills sharpened constantly in 2002 and keep up with industry developments to ensure they remain competitive. With consumer watchdogs keeping a close eye (see here: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=1897), developing industry standards and ethics, as well as the crackdown on spammers sure to continue, the SEO industry is sure to experience a major shake-up next year, with only the most successful and ethical SEOs left still standing.

9. New Technologies - Finally, just like in previous years (think 67 character domains, Ezula, Zeus, MS Smart Tags), Im sure there will be some significant technological developments in 2002 that will impact the search engine industry and make us all head for the forums and chat rooms in a panic. But thats the beauty of this industry - they dont call it cutting edge for nothing!

About the Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, CEO of Web Rank.
Kalena was one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia & New Zealand and is well known and respected in her field. For more of her articles on search engine ranking and online marketing, please visit http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com

2005-10-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

How Compatible Is YOUR Site With Search Engines? by Kalena Jordan

Remember those little quizzes you used to see in magazines with headlines like: 'How Compatible Are You and Your Partner?' or 'Are You Dating Mr Wrong?'. Well, we thought it might be fun to create a 5 min quiz for you to test the compatibility of your site with search engines.
Your total score will give you an idea of whether your site is destined for a "high ranking honeymoon" in the engines or headed towards separation from the indexes. Pens ready? Here we go:

Q1. The Home Page of your web site consists mainly of: a) Graphics b) Text c) A mixture of text and graphics d) Flash files

Q2. Within the HTML code, does your site use: a) A Title Tag only b) A Title Tag plus a META description tag c) A Title Tag, plus META description and keyword tags d) You dont know

Q3. The content of your site includes: a) Text based on internal sales copy b) Text containing keywords and phrases you think are relevant c) Text containing keywords and phrases based on search engine research d) Little or not text

Q4. The images used throughout your site: a) Use keyword-filled ALT IMG tags b) Dont use ALT IMG tags at all c) Use ALT IMG tags that dont contain keywords d) You dont know

Q5. Your Web Site was submitted to how many engines?: a) The top 10 search engines & directories b) The top 10, plus regional engines in your target markets c) None - dont search engines find sites automatically? d) You dont know

Q6. The links to internal pages within your web site are: a) Graphic buttons b) Text links c) Graphical text links d) Keyword-filled text links

Q7. Your web page URLs are mainly: a) Static URLs (consisting of .htm or .html extensions) b) Symbol-free dynamic URLs (e.g. .cfm, .jsp, .asp extensions) c) Symbol-filled dynamic URLs (e.g. containing symbols such as '?') d) You dont know

Q8. You track the following to your site: a) Number of visitors only b) What search engines they came from c) What search terms they used to find you d) All of the above

Q9. You track your ranking in the search engines by: a) Conducting manual searches occasionally b) Receiving detailed ranking reports occasionally (less than once a month) c) Receiving detailed ranking reports regularly (once a month or more often) d) You dont track your rankings

Q10. What is your sites link popularity like? : a) There are less than 10 external sites linking to yours b) There are 10-50 external sites linking to yours c) There are over 50 external sites linking to yours d) You dont track your link popularity

Q11.When your search engine rankings slide, you: a) Dont notice b) Re-submit your site to all engines c) Re-submit your site only to the engines where rankings have dropped d) Wait for the engines to re-index your site automatically

Q12. Of all your web site traffic, search engines provide: a) Less than 10% b) Between 10 and 20% c) More than 20% d) You dont know

Points for each question range from 0 to 3. Results are : Q1 a)1, b)3, c)2, d)0; Q2 a)1, b)2, c)3, d)0; Q3 a)1, b)2, c)3, d)0; Q4 a)3, b)1, c)2, d)0; Q5 a)2, b)3, c)1, d)0; Q6 a)0, b)2, c)1, d)3; Q7 a)3, b)2, c)1, d)0; Q8 a)0, b)1, c)2, d)3; Q9 a)1, b)2, c)3, d)0; Q10 a)1, b)2, c)3, d)0; Q11 a)0, b)2, c)3, d)1; Q12 a)1, b)2, c)3, d)0;

Add up the total points and scroll below to see how compatible your site is.

Score of 12 or less - Oh dear. There is virtually no chance of finding your site at the top of the search results, because you havent made your site technically compatible with search engines at ALL. To give your relationship with search engines a chance, you need to make some changes, FAST! If you dont know why your site is incompatible, or need step-by-step help to reverse the damage, request a Search Engine Compatibility Report: http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/small_business_specials.htm

Score of 13-20 - Lack of attention to your search engine relationship has cost you traffic and your rankings are poor or non-existent. You have one or two of the elements in place to make your site search engine compatible, but you really need ALL of them to improve your rankings and increase the number of visitors to your site. With 81% of Internet consumers relying on search engines to find web sites, it is vitally important that you keep the search engines interested in your site by ensuring it is compatible with their algorithms and indexed by their robots. If you need help to make your site more search engine compatible, request a Search Engine Compatibility Report: http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/small_business_specials.htm

Score of 21-29 - You are aware of the importance of search engines and have tried to make your site at least partly compatible. You have probably achieved a few listings for your site on the major engines, but could be doing a lot better with a little extra effort. Spend a few days tweaking your site content to make it as attractive to engines as possible. Conduct a little keyword research to ensure you are targeting the right keywords and phrases. Consider hiring a SEO specialist to boost your rankings and get more customers to your site. The engines wont pay attention to you if more compatible sites come along so do it NOW before the honeymoon is over.

Score of 30-36 - Congratulations! You have taken many or all of the steps required to achieve a high ranking on the search engines and are reaping the rewards in resulting site traffic. Your efforts to make your site search engine compatible are sure to keep them infatuated with your site for a long time. Keep it up!

About the Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, CEO of Web Rank.
Kalena was one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia & New Zealand and is well known and respected in her field. For more of her articles on search engine ranking and online marketing, please visit http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com

2005-10-09T17:39:00.000-07:00

New Meta Tag Driving Targeted Traffic to Websites by Shelley Lowery

The Aesop Meta Tag is a new standard that is dramatically
changing the way we search the Internet. This new Meta
Tag not only returns highly targeted search results, but it
also provides website owners with highly targeted traffic.

The concept is simple. The Aesop Meta Tag provides website
owners with a standardized method of classifying their web
pages into one of six categories. The Search Engine matches
the search terms with appropriate web pages according to
the classification. This enables the Search Engine to return
fast and relevant results for users -- while at the same time,
driving highly targeted traffic to the websites.

When classifying a website, webmasters can categorize each
page within their website rather than just one general
classification. This allows for precise targeting not only for
specific search terms, but also for each page of a website.

The new classification categories are as follows:

Sales

The "Sales" classification signifies that the purpose of a web
page is to sell a product or service. This includes any web
page that plays a role in the sales process or leads to a sales
page. This classification will provide those selling a product or
service with highly targeted traffic, as the search results will
display a sales icon. This icon will immediately let the user
know that this particular page is selling a product or service.
If they're in the market to buy, they'll click through.

Interactive

The "Interactive" classification includes web pages that
enable visitors to dynamically interact. This includes web
pages that provide any of the following:

Email services
Postcard services
Online games
Chat rooms
Bulletin boards
Forums
Etc.

This classification will display the "Interactive" icon within
the search results.

Multimedia

The "Multimedia" classification will consist of sites that offer
audio, video, animation, graphics or any other form of media
that isn't text.

This classification will display the "Multimedia" icon within the
search results.

Links to Information

The "Links to Information" classification will include web
pages that provide a list of resources or links to other sites.

This classification will display the "Links to Information" icon
within the search results.

Personal

The "Personal" classification will include web pages that are
personal home pages for an individual person or family.

This classification will display the "Personal" icon within the
search results.

Information

The "Information" classification will include web pages that
don't fit into any of the other categories.

This classification will display the "Information" icon within
the search results.

Although the only Search Engine currently utilizing the new
Meta tag is aesop.com, I have it on good authority that the
other Search Engines are preparing to recognize them as well.

For further information about the new Aesop Meta Tag, Visit
the official Aesop.com site. You can submit your site and
generate your Meta Tags completely free.
http://www.aesop.com/metatag.htm

The days of a "search" returning thousands of irrelevant
results is coming to an end -- thanks to the new Aesop
Meta Tag. This new Meta Tag will dramatically change the
way we search the Internet. If you haven't already done so,
it is very important that you prepare your pages now.

About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the author of Ebook Starter - A complete
ebook design kit. Subscribe to Etips, for a wealth of quality
information to assist you in Web Design, Internet Marketing
& Ecommerce. All new subscribers receive a free copy of
the highly acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing
Strategies." http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=bl1

2005-10-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

"Google Enters 'Pay Per Click' Arena!" by Merle

Google, which is used more than 150 million times per day to conduct
searches has announced its entrance into the pay per click
arena with the recent introduction of its new "Ad Words Select"
program. The old "Ad Words" Program was based on paying per
impressions of your ad, not clicks thus the addition of the word
"select."

The ads paid for are text ads that appear next to Google's search
results, in the far right hand column and are labeled "sponsored
links." Your ads are only shown to users searching for specific
words you have placed a bid on. With Google's syndication program
your ads will also appear on their partner sites, Earthlink
( http://www.Earthlink.com ) and http://www.Sympatico.ca. This is
Google's first syndication advertising relationship and it may give
Overture (formerly Goto.com) some sorely needed competition.Earthlink
had been an Overture client but decided not to renew their contract,
going instead with Google.

Registration is simple: it costs just $5.00 (US) to open an account.
You will have to surrender your credit card information for future
billing. If you were an original Ad Words customer you'll need to
re-register in order to become a "Select" customer. In fairness to
the original "Ad Words" CPM clients, "Select" customers cannot
purchase keywords unless their CPC rate is comparable or higher
than what is currently being paid for the same keywords by Ad Words
customers.

Before choosing your key-phrases you'll need to write your ads.
Titles can be up to 25 characters and you get 2 lines of text
at 35 characters each -- plus your URL. No images or offensive
language are allowed in your ad copy. Each ad is called an
"ad group." An ad group is defined as a set of ads that appear
for the same keywords and share the same CPC. You can create
multiple ads within each ad group and they will be rotated in use.
Ads that receive the most clicks eventually get shown more often
and rise in position. Changes can be made to your ad copy at
anytime.

Upon setup you select the countries and language markets that
you want your ads displayed to. You can target more than 250
countries and up to five languages: English, French, German,
Italian and Spanish.

After setting up your ads you'll need to select the key words or
phrases you wish to bid on. You'll want to choose words users
are most likely to type into Google's search box when looking for
your products/services. Options can be set for when your ads will
appear depending on what the searcher types in.For example, if
you only wanted your ads to appear when someone types in "ezine
advertising" and not "free ezine advertising" you will need to
surround your key phrases with square brackets like this
{ezine advertising}. This tells Google it must be an exact match
for your ad to appear.

You're in charge of how much to pay per click with $0.05 being the
minimum you can bid. Their "Ad Words Discounter" ensures you never
pay more than is necessary. If the cost per click you picked is
higher than what is needed for your ad to keep its place, the
CPC you're charged will be automatically lowered. You'll never
pay more than one penny over what your competition pays. This is
unlike Overture, where you constantly have to monitor and
re-adjust your bidding.

Also unlike Overture, where you must bid a set amount on each
keyword/phrase, with Ad Words Select you set a "maximum cost per
click" which applies to all of your keywords. If you want to
assign different amounts to them you'll have to set up a separate
"ad group" and set a different maximum cost per click. There are
no monthly minimums and you set the maximum daily amount you wish
to spend.

The position of your ads on the search results page is based on
two things; the maximum CPC you bid and your ads' clickthru rate.
Both of these factors together will earn you a higher position.
Keywords will be disabled if their click rate falls below 0.05%,
so you'll want to make sure your ad copy pulls.If some of your
key phrases get deactivated, you can make changes to your ad copy
and reactivate them again. There is another charge if this happens
more than once. Reports on your ads' activities can be viewed
online by logging into Google at anytime.

>From what I've seen Google's new Ad Words Select Program has
a lot of potential and great features that should make Overture
sit up and take notice. Between the "Ad Words Discounter" and
the no minimum monthly to spend, I think Google may just become
a major player in the pay per click field.

For more information or to open an account go to....(no pun
intended) https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=Login

About the Author
Merle http://www.EzineAdAuction.com
"Where some of the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made"
Buy & Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting!
Publishers sell off your excess inventory and Buyers
pick up some Fantastic bargains. Go now.

2005-10-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Sneaky (But Legal) Places To Insert Keywords For Higher Rankings by Diane Hughes

The battle for high search engine rankings rages on! The engines
themselves continually make changes which makes our jobs, as Web
site owners, much more difficult. But, one thing has always
remained the same... Keywords.

Search engines still read text. That text still has to be
relevant to the site. Keywords are text and must be placed
strategically throughout your site. Those keywords within the
text are still the determining factor on how high you go up the
search engine ladder.

While many engines now place no relevancy whatsoever on the
keyword META tag itself, there are still plenty of places - legal
ones - to insert keywords in order to boost your rankings.

Keep this list handy when writing copy for your site pages. It
will help you get the biggest bang for your search engine buck.

1. In your URL.

Putting a keyword or keyphrase within your URL (domain name)
counts for major points!

2. In your page link names.

Rather than using a link in your navigation bar like
"services", add a keyword to that page link. If you are a
marketing consultant, you could put "marketingservices"
instead.

3. In links throughout the copy.

This uses the same principle as above. Instead of writing a
paragraph about your testimonials and linking to a page named
"testimonials", create a link to a page named "marketing
successes" (or some other powerful keyphrase).

4. In the "title" and "description" tags.

The title and description tags are still widely read and used by
engines. Be sure both are enticing and contain keywords because
some engines use them interchangeably.

5. In the copy itself.

The "optimal" copy length for search engine compatibility is
between 250 - 350 words. Why? Because that gives you enough room
to use the keyphrases repeatedly and still make sense! You should
have about a 3% ratio of copy to keywords.

6. In ALT tags.

ALT tags are those little bits of copy that pop up when you hold
your mouse over a graphic or picture. Search engines read those -
because they consist of text. Use keywords in the descriptions
you assign to the images on each page. WARNING: Be VERY sure
that the description in the ALT tag goes with the image.
Otherwise you could be banned for "keyword stuffing."

Last little trick ... get one or two heavyweight keywords or
phrases in all 6 places above. It's hard to do, but the results
are tremendous!

By taking advantage of these sneaky - but legal - places to
insert keywords, you stand a better chance of getting one of
those coveted "Top 10" slots on the major engines. You also
stand a darn good shot at increasing traffic to your site!

About the Author
Diane Hughes is an accomplished internet entrepreneur and
editor of the popular ProBizTips Newsletter. Subscribe to
her newsletter for more tips, tricks, and secrets of the
trade -- plus get HUNDREDS of eBooks, software and tools
just for subscribing! http://viralmarketzone.com/diane

2005-10-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

"Secrets To Using Keywords!" by A.T.Rendon

Once upon a time, not so many years ago, if you needed
to find something all you had top do was to let your fingers
do the walking for you. And the Yellow Pages are still are
great place to look for a specific type of business or service.

But that was then.

Now we have the Information Super Highway. Finding
information, or anything else for that matter, is simply
an act of entering in the correct keywords at your
favorite search engine or directory.

Keywords are the 21st century equivalent of the Yellow
Pages and they are necessary to find whatever it is that
you seek online. But, not only do you find things with
keywords, they are also what others will use to find you.

The keywords you use on your website will determine
exactly how your website will perform in search engine
and directory searches made by potential visitors.

This can have a huge positive or negative effect
on the exposure your website receives from the
global audience of the Internet.

Traffic is essential for the success of any website.

It does not matter what the purpose of the website might
be. Without traffic, then you are creating a website that
will never be seen by anyone other than yourself.

For those of us attempting to do business online,
the proper use of keywords can make or break you.

Here are a few important points to consider:

1. Choose Proper Keywords.

If you are selling fresh fruit online, it will not do you
any good to use words that describe auto parts. The
keywords you choose must be closely related to that
subject or topic which will be found on your website.

2. Good Use of Keywords.

Not only must you choose the correct keywords to
describe your website, but you must also make use
of those keywords throughout the actual body of
the text of your website.

3. Excellent Use of Keywords.

Many people go to the trouble of researching keywords to
make their web site as attractive to potential visitors doing
searches but fail miserably at the most important element
of the entire process by naming the Title of their website
Homepage.

Make use of your keywords in your website Title!

4. Do NOT SPAM Your Keywords.

It has long been thought that repetition of keywords will
improve the ranking of your website. While this was true
many, many years ago, it is not to be used today or your
website will be penalized if not outright banned by the
major search engines and directories.

Use keywords only one time each in your Title and within
the Meta Tags of your web page HTML.

The exception to this rule is the repeated use of the same
keyword within the actual text of your website but ONLY
if the keyword is relevant. Repetition for repetitions sake
will also cause you to be penalized or banned altogether.

5. Research Your Keywords.

How would someone find you online?

Pretend you are a potential visitor to your website and
compile a list of words you might use at a search engine
or directory and research what these terms bring back
as results to your inquiry.

Is your website already among the search term results?
How about your competition?

If neither appear in the results of your search then you
need to try using other keywords.

You can even cheat a little on this by visiting your
competitor and viewing the source of their web page
to determine exactly which keywords they are using.

6. Modify Your Keywords.

Just because you finally compile a list of keywords
do not fall into the trap of thinking that they are
somehow now etched in stone.

Not on the Internet.

Review the most common search terms being used
at least once every month or two and modify, adapt,
adjust and overcome any problems by making changes
to your list.

A great way to keep tabs on the most popular terms in use
on the Internet can be determined by accessing various
FREE services that exist online dedicated to compiling
a list of the top current search keywords.

You can access our "FREE List of Keyword Services"
by sending a blank email to our auto-responder at:
mailto:keywords@emailexchange.org

Making use of these little secrets on keywords will
insure that your website is always in the top rankings
of searches done to find your unique web page content.
About the Author
A.T.Rendon is an entrepreneur and published writer.
Subscribe to FREE Business Classifieds Newsletter-FBCN
& receive FREE online access to our Password
Protected "FREE Submit To Over 2.7 MILLION FREE
Ad Sites - DAILY!" mailto:subscribe_fbcn9@emailexchange.org
Visit us at: http://emailexchange.org/?Articles

2005-10-03T17:40:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Ranking: The Real Truth by James D. Brausch

There are perhaps more myths and urban legends about
how to get your website ranked well on the search
engines than any other subject on the Internet. In
this article, I'm going to tell you how you can tell
the fact from the fiction. After reading this
article, you will know how to get the current facts
about how any search engine ranks sites.

It is tempting to go to the various newsgroups,
mailing lists and discussion forums that are
frequented by webmasters to ask questions about
search engine ranking. Many of you have done this
and been bewildered by the amount and diversity of
advice offered. Some claim that you should use
white-on-white text to stuff your page with keywords
while others claim using white-on-white hidden text
will get you banned. Some say to use keywords in
your keywords meta-tag while others claim that
search engines don't even look at the meta-tags
anymore. Some claim that you must use short pages,
while others claim that long pages are better.

In almost every case, you will receive massively
contradictory advice if you ask other webmasters.
Even worse, sometimes almost all of the webmasters
will agree on some topic... and be dead wrong.
Sometimes the information is exactly right for
February, 1999 but is no longer accurate. Search
engines change their ranking algorithms constantly.

So how can you find the correct information? First,
let me say that I rarely worry about the search
engines at all anymore. There really are much more
effective means of driving traffic to your site than
worrying about the search engines. I recommend link
exchanges with sites of a similar topic to your own
and submitting articles to newsletters in your
category as much more effective means of marketing
than worrying about search engines. You should also
be aware that search engines keep a "blacklist" of
sites they have manually banned, often because the
owners bragged about some particular ranking attained
in some particular way. So, once you use the
following methods, I recommend that you keep specific
results to yourself. So let's dive into how to get
the search engine secrets.

Why not ask the search engines themselves? Of course,
all of the search engines claim to guard their
ranking secrets with great care, but that is actually
quite impossible. By it's very nature, every single
search engine has a publicly available database. All
you have to do to access their database is to enter a
search term. The search engine will happily tell you
all of the information you need to know about how it
ranks sites. All it takes is a little analysis of
the results.

Since a course in statistical analysis would be
really boring in a newsletter article (and not very
useful), I'll skip all of the theory and get down to
an actual example of how you can find the answer to
almost any question you have about search engine
ranking. Let's take an example step-by-step. Let's
say you just heard a rumor that a particular search
engine will rank you higher if your search term is
present in the title. Here are the steps you can
take to find out if that is true:

1. Pick twenty popular search terms.

2. Enter them at the selected search engine.

3. Review the first twenty results for each search
and write down the answer. Write a 1 if the answer
to your question is true for that listing and a 0
if it is false.

4. If the answers are all the same (either true or
false), you may need to use more than twenty results
for your study. If so, be consistent with all
search terms.

5. If the answers for the second half of your results
for all search terms is zero, you may need to include
some more search terms until you have a non-zero
result in the second half of your results.

6. Total the answers for all search terms for the
first half of your results. Separately total the
answers for all of your search terms for the second
half of your results.

7. Divide the total from first half of your results
by the total of the second half of your results.

8. If your answer is very close to the number 1, then
you will need to expand your search to more than
twenty popular search terms... or review more than
the top 20 results... or possibly accept that the
answer to your question is that this particular
factor is not very important to this search engine
either way (positive or negative).

9. If your answer is significantly more than 1, then
the answer to your question is true.

10. If your answer is significantly less than 1,
then the answer to your question is false.

If your question is regarding the formation of the
title, description, domain name or URL, this method
is all you need. If your question regards something
about the underlying sites (ie: keyword density, use
of header tags, hidden text, etc), then you may have
to visit each site listed in order to answer your
question.

I find it easier to turn each question into a
true/false question, but you can also use this method
with questions that have a numerical answer.

Now the real challenge is finding the questions, not
the answers. Recently a popular search engine
started ranking sites with dead links lower than
sites that quickly removed their dead links. This
became obvious when the above study was performed.
The challenge was to come up with the question: Do
dead links on your site hurt search engine ranking?

Feel free to drop me a note at
JamesBrausch@TargetBlaster.com with any interesting
finds using this method. Happy hunting!
About the Author
James D. Brausch, is the Vice President
of Marketing for Target Blaster, Inc., an Internet
Marketing firm specializing in targeted traffic.
http://www.TargetBlaster.com

2005-10-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

"Who's In, Who's Out in the Continuing Saga of the Search Engine/Directory Wars" by Merle

There have been a lot of changes on the search engine front in
the past year. So many that it's hard to keep track of who's
still a major player and who isn't in the search engine game.
With so many turning to "Pay for Submission and Pay per Click"
models, there aren't a lot left that still accept free submissions.
And of those that do,it's hard to tell exactly which ones are
worth your time.

Let's review the list to see who's still standing, who's
charging and who isn't:

1) Yahoo: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?+Business

This is not an engine, but a directory where listings are added
by real humans. With over a million listings, Yahoo is considered
the largest directory online today. All commercial sites must pay
a $299.00 fee to submit to "Yahoo Express" per year. Adult sites
must pay $600.00 for submission. Be careful, though -- if they
don't like your site they keep your fee. Yes, you heard it right.
Even if they don't approve of your site and add it to the directory
they do not refund your submission fee.

Paying Yahoo for submission is not the only way to get listed
there. They also pull the top three bid positions from Overture
(formerly Goto.com) and display them at the top of the search
results pages. Yahoo calls those listings "Sponsor Matches,"and
also runs more Overture listings at the bottom of the page,under
the heading "More Sponsored Matches."

2) Altavista: http://altavista.com/addurl/

Reaches over 45 million visitors worldwide and one of the few
still offering free submission. However, inclusion - if you
are accepted - can take a while. But you can ensure that your
site will be placed quickly by opting for their "Express Inclusion"
service. For six months, one URL submission will run you $39.00,
with 2-10 URL's for an additional $29.00 each.

Altavista also displays Overture's top 4 bid positions at the
top of the search results page, under the heading "Products
and Services." These listings include descriptions.And Altavista
runs more Overture results at the bottom of the page. These are
just clickable links without descriptions.

3) Google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Still a Net favorite, Google is used more than 150 million times
a day for searches. Free submission is still an option. Google
also provides results to other engines and directories such as
Netscape Search, Yahoo and AOL Search. They recently launched
their own "Pay Per Click" program, called "Ad Words Select."
This allows you to bid on key phrases or words, and when someone
searches for those words, your text ad is shown in the right-hand
column on the search results page. For more on this go to:
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=Login

Ad Words Select will cost you 5.00 and a credit card number to
get your site enrolled. Google is also the exclusive provider of
sponsored links to AOL Search, pulling the sponsored links from
its Ad Words Select Program. The top 3 ads will be displayed as
sponsored links on AOL.Netscape will begin displaying Google's
Ad Words sponsored links come August of 2002.

4) Inktomi: http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/submit.html

Provides results to many engines and directories such as Iwon,
MSN, Hotbot, and more. Each URL submission will cost you $39.00
per year and only $25.00 a year for each URL thereafter.The
benefit of listing with Inktomi is the exposure your site will
receive with its search partners.

5) The Open Directory Project: http://dmoz.org/add.html

Also known as DMOZ, the ODP is hosted and administered by Netscape
Communication Corp. All submissions are reviewed by a human before
being added to the directory and each category has what is called
an "ODP Editor" who is responsible for that category.

DMOZ provides results to many search partners, such as All The Web,
DirectHit, HotBot, Google, Lycos, Altavista, etc. Submission is free,
although cumbersome. You'll have to drill down to find the appropriate
category to submit to, then click the "add URL" link located at the
top of the page.

6) Overture: (formerly known as Goto.com) http://www.overture.com/

Solely a Pay Per Click search engine, with Overture you choose key
words/ phrases that you want your site to appear under and try to
outbid the competition for a top billing. The higher you bid,the
higher your URL on the search results page. They have a $20.00 a
month spending minimum and a minimum bid of 0.05 per keyword/phrase.

The biggest benefit of being listed here is the relationship that
Overture has with some of the other major search engines /directories.
Basically, if you bid into the top 3 or 4 positions, your site will
also enjoy top listings in Yahoo, Altavista, MSN, Lycos, Infospace,
Ask Jeeves, CNET and more. Generally, these listings are shown as
"sponsored links" at the top of their search results page. Trying
to get those top bid positions is well worth it with the type of
exposure you'll receive on some of the majors. They recently lost
the contract to supply sponsored links to AOL Search, but they do
still provide search results for AOL's Europe Net properties in the
UK, France and Germany.

7) Excite: http://www.Excite.com

Once a major player, Excite now resembles more of a Portal since
being bought out a few years ago by @home, which subsequently went
bankrupt. Search results are now pulled from Overture and Looksmart.
As you can no longer submit directly to Excite, if you want to be
listed here you'll need to open an account with one of the above to
make an appearance.

8) LookSmart: http://www.LookSmart.com

A directory compiled by humans providing results to MSN, Iwon,
Altavista, and others. Some of Looksmart's listings come from
Inktomi as a back up. Now strictly a Pay Per Click directory,
it will cost you a $49.00 set-up fee and .15 per click thru
with a minimum of $150.00 account deposit. Looksmart angered
a lot of its users when they announced this change. It remains
to be seen if this policy shift results in the death of
Looksmart or turns out to be a smart business decision.

A new agreement has just been signed which will allow LookSmart's
listings to appear on InfoSpace's meta-search product over at
Excite and WebCrawler.com . Looksmart also provides results
to InfoSpace's other sites http://www.Metacrawler.com and
http://www.Dogpile.com

9) AOL Search: http://search.aol.com/

Recently signed with Google to use their search results and to
display their sponsored links from their "Ad Words Select Program."
Listings also come from The Open Directory Project. You can submit
at ODP, or search through the categories at AOL and find the best
fit and click the "submit a site" link at the bottom of the page,
which will take you over to the ODP for submission. The top 3
sponsored links on AOL's search results page are pulled from
the top 3 ads in Google's Ad Words Select Program.

10) Hotbot http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp

Hotbot is owned by Lycos and is presently making some changes to
their free submission page - how they will affect you remains to
be seen. Results on Hotbot also come from Direct Hit and some from
Inktomi and the ODP. You can also add your listing here by
submitting to Lycos at http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/

You can still submit for free, but you'll have to sign up as
a member of Lycos first before they'll let you have the privilege.
Hotbot also displays the top 3 results from Overture on their
search results page.

11) MSN Search: http://search.msn.com/

MSN Search pulls results from Looksmart, then when no more listings
are found they pull from Inktomi's database. They also pull some
results from Overture.com which they display at the bottom of
the page called "Web Pages."

You can't submit directly to MSN; you'll have to submit to
Looksmart at http://listings.looksmart.com/?synd=zdd&chan=zddresults
to show up here.

12) Ask Jeeves: http://askjeeves.com/

A different sort of directory where you perform searches by
asking a question. There are two ways to get listed. The free
way is to send an email to url@askjeeves.com with a URL and
a brief description of your site. The other way is to go to
http://ask.ineedhits.com and pay for inclusion. The first URL
will run you $30.00; 2 or more only $18.00. The subscription
period is 15 months. Since Ask Jeeves also owns Teoma, paying
for submission will get you listed there, too.

Ask Jeeves also displays "Sponsored Links" on their results
pages, with the top 4 bid positions from Overture being
displayed there.

13) Netscape Search: http://search.netscape.com/

Results on Netscape come from The ODP and Netscape itself. Starting
in August of 2002, the "Partner Search Results" that are displayed
will be pulled from the top bids at Google's Ad Words Select Program.
Overture had the contract to supply sponsored links but recently
lost out to Google. However, you'll still see Overture's links being
displayed until August.

To get your site listed you can submit at The ODP http://dmoz.org/add.html

14) Teoma: AKA Direct Hit http://www.teoma.com/

Formerly called Direct Hit, this is now owned by Ask Jeeves and
renamed Teoma. These guys are now positioning themselves to give
Google a run for its money. Teoma also provides search results
to Hotbot. Sponsored results are also pulled from Overture and
displayed at the top of their search results pages.

The only way to submit directly to Teoma is to pay for submission
at http://ask.ineedhits.com/ The first URL will run you $30.00,
2 or more URL's only 18.00 each for 15 months.

15) Lycos: http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/

Lycos also owns Hotbot. Some of their listings come from The ODP,
Fast Search/AllTheWeb with sponsored listings shown at the top
of the search results pages coming from Overture.com.

You can submit for free at....
http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/lite_step1.aspor
or opt for "Lycos InSite Select" pay submission, with an annual
membership fee of $18.00 and annual cost per URL of $12.00. If
you go the pay route you are guaranteed inclusion within 48 hours
of submission.

16) AllTheWeb.com: http://www.alltheweb.com/

Owned by Fast Search, you can still submit your site for free with
no guarantee of inclusion at http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
Some of AllTheWeb's search results are pulled directly from
The ODP and Fast Search.

There you have it, the who's and what's of who's still playing in
the search engine games. Search engines /directories are always in
a state of flux and it's quite possible by the time you read this
some of the information I've gathered for you may have changed.
To keep abreast of the changes I strongly suggest these sites
and subscribing to their newsletters:

Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Search Engine Guide http://www.searchengineguide.com/
Search Engine Headlines http://www.searchengineheadlines.com/

Bruce Clay has an excellent chart that shows the relationships
of the search engines and who's feeding off of who that is
continually updated at:http://bruceclay.com/searchenginechart.pdf

You need to be quick to keep up with all of the changes in this
field so pay attention, because "Times they are a Changing" FAST!

About the Author
Merle http://www.EzineAdAuction.com
"Where some of the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made"
Buy & Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting!
Publishers sell off your excess inventory and Buyers
pick up some Fantastic bargains. Go now!

2005-10-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Keyword killer Tips by Shahnaz Rauf

Though there may be more than a thousand ways to
generate traffic to your website, keywords are
extremely critical to blasting your website into the
limelight. Stats prove that almost 90% of targeted
ready to buy traffic comes through search engines.
So here are a few more killer tips that will have a
dramatic impact on your e-business:

1. Optimize each of your pages for a different
keyword.

2. Prepare your page for submission to the popular
search engines such as Alta Vista, InfoSeek,
excite etc. as follows:

Go to the respective search engine and make a search
for your targeted keyword selected through the
procedure described in section `About Keywords..`
http://www.snzeport.com/dlarticles/keywords.htm

For each of the top ten sites that come up do the
following:

-Click `View` on your browser.

-Select `Source`.

-Save in Word Pad or your word processor.

-Check the keywords in the `Meta Tags` at the page
top.

-Use the `Ctrl plus F` function of your keyboard /
browser and do a find for the keyword. In fact it will
help if you can print out the source document saved
in your word processor. Then highlight on your print
out with a red pen each time a keyword or a
variation / mis-spelling of it appears.

-Note the keyword density ( how many times each of
the keywords is repeated).

-Note the approximate location of the keywords on
the page.

-Repeat the above for the top ten sites, compare and
zero out on the common factors.

-Replicate the density, locations and variations on
your page.

3.A word of Caution - Double check that your keyword
is relevant to your content. Also make your site
content rich.
About the Author
Shahnaz Rauf Author. For Powerful
Marketing tactics, Incredible articles, Free
customizable viral ebooks, And High Impact copy
writing. Visit The House Of viral E-books at
http://www.snzeport.com

2005-09-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimized Site Maps by Dan Thies

If you want visitors (and search engines) to be able to find
your whole site, the easiest way to do this is with a site map.
The more content you have on your site, the more helpful this
is, both for visitors and for search engines.

Unfortunately, a lot of folks miss out on a big opportunity when
creating their site maps, which is to ensure that their site map
is contributing as much as possible to their search engine
positioning.

Here are a few simple tips for optimizing your site map:

1. If you optimize each page on your site for a particular
keyword or search term, you should use those keywords in the
links you set up for each page, including the link you put on
your site map.

2. If your site covers certain distinct subjects, make sure you
include the primary search terms for these subjects as headings
on your site map page. I like to use H2 tags for each subject
area, above the links for that subject.

3. No matter what navigation scheme you use, your site map
really needs to use plain old text links - search engines have
trouble following CGI navigation or image maps. This includes
creating a plain text link to your site map from your home page,
so the search engines can find it.

4. If you have the ability to set up a customized "404 error
page" on your server, to display when visitors find a broken
link or missing page, use your site map! This way, anyone who
linked to your missing page in the past (or just mistyped the
URL) is sending visitors (and search engines!) to your site map.

Site maps are a vital part of any good website marketing
strategy - if yours isn't quite up to the job, it may only take
a few minutes to fix it.

I wish you success!
About the Author
Dan Thies is the author of "Search Engine Optimization Fast
Start," a step-by-step guide to search engine positioning for
the beginner to intermediate level webmaster - available now at
http://www.cannedbooks.com

2005-09-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Pay per click search engine guide by David Callan

Pay-Per-Click Guide

What are pay-per-click search engines?
Pay-per-click search engines (also called pay-for-performance, paid listings among other names) are engines which allow site owners to determine their sites ranking in that particular search engines results by bidding on keywords. Usually the first 3-5 search results are used by a network of partner search sites. The result for the site owner or webmaster is a lot more highly targeted traffic and a lot more sales.

So the underlying idea to pay-per-click search engines is that you find keywords related to your website and then you bid (how much you are willing to pay for each visitor that visits your site through the search results) and buy high positions on your chosen engine. The more times a word or phrase has been searched for the higher you will have to bid to get high rankings. The only limitation is that your site must be at least vaguely relevant to the keyword you want to bid on. These engines allow you to skip all the search engine optimization stuff and simply pay for visitors.

Pay-per-click engines have a number of benefits to any webmaster.

Only pay for visitors, unlike banner advertising where you have to pay each time someone sees your ad, on pay-per-click engines you only have to pay when someone clicks on your listing. So you are getting guaranteed visits.

Pay-per-click engines provide highly targeted cheap visitors. Often you can buy a good ranking on a decent keyword for as little as 1 cent or 2 cents per click. Overture has of late installed $.05 as the minimum bid however. Popular search terms can cost much more on the big pay per click search engines most notable overture.com and findwhat.com. Even still PPC engines are one of the most cost effective way of driving targeted people to your site.
Hopefully you will agree now that using pay-per-click engines is a great way to increase traffic and profit. OK lets talk about how to use overture.com, findwhat.com and other PPC's to make to most of your money.

Relevant terms are the ones that will bring you the highest quality traffic. Basically this means only bid on terms that are directly related to your site. For example if AKAMARKETING.COM decides to use overture or any of the other PPC search engines in the future, it would be bidding for terms such as "Internet marketing articles" and "website promotion articles" because they are the main focus of the site. Imagine if you bid for terms that were not really directly related to your website, the people that come from these terms are not likely to buy or sign up, but you still have to pay for them, it's like giving the PPC's free money so ALWAYS STAY RELEVANT.

Bid on as many low-cost relevant terms as you can. The cost of a top position with overture or any of the other big PPC's depends upon the keyword you are bidding on and how many people search for it. If you have to bid on a popular word such as 'Internet marketing' be prepared to pay around $2 - $4 for a decent position. But what if you went for "Internet marketing articles" it costs less than a quarter of the price, it will produce far less visits of course, but is much more cost effective. Imagine doing this on a wide scale basis, securing lots of low-cost positions, the combined traffic from these positions will add up to the level produced by a popular keyword - but at a fraction of the cost.

It used to be a good idea to bid on all relevant terms (if you could), however some of the big PPC's now require a $.05 minimum bid. This means some terms will not be worth it, terms that are worth it will contain several words and are highly targeted, meaning that the searcher who clicks through is really interested in your page and more likely to buy/sign up.

Most pay-per-click search engines allow you to link directly to the relevant page of your site. This means that you are giving the searcher exactly what he or she is looking for. This way you are more likely to make a sale as the visitor is in the right mind-frame to buy and will not get lost or give up before finding the page that he or she is looking for.

If you have read the articles on search engine optimization you will have learnt that it is more likely visitors will click through if their search term is in the title and description of your listing this is because it appears to be exactly what they were searching for. So always try to include the exact search term in your title or description. Furthermore make your title and description as descriptive as possible. This has a few benefits.

Searchers are much more likely to click on a link if they know where it's going.
It saves you money because the people that click through are really interested in your page because your title and description is very 'descriptive'. If your title was not descriptive they would click through and investigate, if you didn't have what they wanted they would leave and you have just lost money.
Remember with pay-per-click search engines you are only paying for actual visitors and not views of your listing, so being listed in the top 1-3 positions, is not always the best strategy because the quality of people who click on top listings might not be of the highest standard. This is because a lot of searchers seem to click on a high listing without actually reading it, again if you didn't have what they wanted they would leave and you have just lost money. Whereas if someone clicked through on a site ranked 19th after scanning through all the descriptions briefly they would be a much higher quality visitor because they have hunted down exactly what they wanted and are genuinely interested in that site. These people are the visitors you want as they are much more likely to buy your product or sign up to your newsletter.

Bidding on a top 3 position is a good strategy however on less popular words and phrases as this means they will show up on partner sites. (Overture.com partners with Yahoo and MSN among others) These words are far cheaper than more searched for general words and have a better visitor to sale ratio. A PPC search engines partner sites will help get the search count up on these words.

Get specific - generally the more words a keyphrase you bid on has the more likely a visitor will become a customer. Once again you only pay for clicks not views so you don't lose money if no one clicks and if they do the chances are good that they'll buy from you. It's very hard to lose money on really specific keyphrases.

Well that's it. I hope you can use this information to make you a bit of money, by the way OVERTURE.COM and FINDWHAT.COM are the pay-per-click engines I recommend the most.

----------------------------------
Article by David Callan
David is the webmaster of http://www.akamarketing.com
Visit his site for free internet marketing articles,
advice, ebooks and more.
About the Author
----------------------------------
Article by David Callan
David is the webmaster of http://www.akamarketing.com
Visit his site for free internet marketing articles,
advice, ebooks and more.

2005-09-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

How to Get FLASH Indexed by the Search Engines by Robin Nobles

How to Get FLASH Indexed in the Search Engines

by Robin Nobles

Note: The example portions of this article have been removed.
However, you can view the article in its entirety at:
http://www.academywebspecialists.com/newsletters/0702.html

Perhaps you can relate to the involuntary groan elicited by
search engine optimizers when a client presents an expensive new
Web site featuring high quality FLASH movie content.

Of course, the client (or maybe your boss?) is thrilled with the
dazzling presentation, and they rarely fail to mention what a
"small fortune" it cost to produce before adding "it's worth
it!...don't you agree? All it needs now is for YOU to optimize it
for findability in the search engines."

Isn't it funny? ... how they fail to notice the color rushing to
your face as you suppress the urge to scream and opt instead for
the tactful approach, patiently explaining (once again) that
FLASH doesn't score well in search engines.

Don't panic -- there IS a solution!

Here's a solution you can use to get the best of both worlds -
search engine findability and the professional image enhancement
that FLASH can provide.

The strategy involves using an absolute positioning technique
called Z Order within your Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). For this
to make sense, you must first understand what Z Order is.
Microsoft's MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com) site explains...

The Z order of a window indicates the window's position in a
stack of overlapping windows. This window stack is oriented along
an imaginary axis, the z-axis, extending outward from the screen.
The window at the top of the Z order overlaps all other windows.
The window at the bottom of the Z order is overlapped by all
other windows.

In non-technogeekspeak, Z Order allows you to place content
partially, or even fully, on top of other content. Since only the
content on top is viewable, it's entirely possible to place an
unintelligible-to-search-engines FLASH movie on top of an easy-
to-index-layer of relevant text content. And, by doing so, your
site visitor sees only the FLASH movie while the engine sees only
your relevant keyword-laden text.

How to create Z Order using CSS

To accomplish the magic it's helpful to first understand what a
very basic CSS using Z Order source code might look like. To view
the basic example, visit the complete article online at:
http://www.academywebspecialists.com/newsletters/0702.html

Source of the example: http://www.htmlref.com/examples/Fig10-
14.htm

Notice that the highest value -- -- is the
"window" that lands on top. This is important to understand
because that's how we're going to perform the magic.

FLASH over, RELEVANT CONTENT under = SE indexability

By now you've probably deduced we're going to layer our relevant
content exactly beneath our FLASH movie. By doing so, the site
visitor will see only the FLASH movie in their browser while the
search engine will find, and index, the "relevant content"
because search engines "view" only the source code of the page
(not the browser version) and they index only the TEXT they find
within that source code.

To better illustrate how this might look, we enlisted the help of
Web designer Dave Barry of SmartCertify Direct --
http://www.smartcertify.com/. Dave was kind enough to create an
example site employing a transparent FLASH movie to help us
visualize the effect. As Dave explains...

"This flash movie was made transparent so you may see the effects
of putting text behind flash. Using Dynamic HTML, you can
absolutely position a flash object right over top of your
existing html code. Search engines see copy and text while
visitors see your dynamic flash movie."

To see Dave's example, visit the complete article found at the
below URL, and look for "Flash Sample." Once there, click
anywhere in the browser window, hold down CTRL and hit "A" on
your keyboard (Ctrl+A = highlight all) to see how this sample
FLASH movie would otherwise "hide" the text were the FLASH not
transparent.

(To view the Flash Sample, visit this article online at
http://www.academywebspecialists.com/newsletters/0702.html)

Dave was kind enough to share with us the source code he used to
create the effect, which can also be found the above URL.

It should be noted this effect works only in browsers that
support HTML version 4.0 or greater. This is only a minor
concern, however, as the vast majority of browsers that are being
used today are compatible.

Yes, but will the Search Engines tolerate the "trick"?

Obviously the most pressing question is whether or not the search
engines will accept, or reject, pages that make use of this
strategy. After all, the possibility of layering irrelevant
content under, or even entirely off the page (by assigning minus
positioning coordinates) is a distinct possibility.

To anticipate how the search engines might view this strategy,
once again, we consider the issues of "intention" and
"relevancy."

Perhaps Stephen Baker, Director of Business Development and
Marketing at FAST, said it best when he remarked, "Our position
is pretty straight forward...it's not the technique that we are
concerned about, it's the intention. If we index the text in Z-
Order and CSS and it's relevant to the content, then we're all
happy. But, as you know, we do have internal systems that trip
wires all of the time. If a particular technique becomes heavily
abused over time, we'll definitely stop indexing information
through said technique."

As we've said countless times before, certain legitimate Web site
enhancements, like FLASH, frames, dynamic content, etc., are a
nightmare for the engines to index. They simply have never done a
very good job on complicated HTML page, and FLASH poses, perhaps,
the greatest indexing challenge of them all.

Regardless, sites that use these upscale tools have as much right
to be found as any others within their selected keyword
categories. Projecting a professional image to your potential
customers is important, and using Z Order within your CSS gives
enables you to obtain that professional image without sacrificing
search engine findability.

Copyright 2002 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists,
has trained several thousand people in her online search engine
marketing (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) training
programs. She also teaches 3-day hands-on search engine marketing
workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine
Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

2005-09-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Add 500 Targeted Keywords to Your Site in Three Minutes by Bill Platt

How often do you visit the search engines looking for the
information that you seek? Twice a week? Every day?

According to SearchEngineWatch.com, seven of the top search
engines process over 300 million searches a day! Additionally,
Search Engine Watch documents an item called the GVU Survey
Results from the Georgia Institute of Technology which shows
that 85% of all web users admit to regularly using search
engines to find the web sites they visit.

The truth is, if you are seeking sales at your website, then
you should be looking for traffic too. While sales is your
true goal, no sales can take place until traffic occurs.

A lot of people scream to the high heavens that search engines
do not work. The fact is that search engines do work. It is
just that the people who are shouting do not understand how
to make search engines work for them.

We will not go into great detail right now about how to make
search engines work for you. We will only touch on the
differences between the search engines of which there are
three types: Pay-Per-Clicks, Directories and Spiders.

Pay-Per-Clicks require that you open cash accounts with them
before you will be listed. While there are often ways to get
into the PPCSE's without opening an account, we will not
discuss that here.

Directories limit your submissions to page title, link and a
short description.

For this discussion, we will be speaking about Spider Search
Engines. Spiders are in fact software that visits your site
and gathers the data from your website to determine how to
tell people about your website.

While some Spiders gather a limited number of words from each
website, others gather all of the words listed within your
website. This is where we come to our point today.

Spiders gather data from your site to provide a title and
description for your readers. Additionally, Spiders gather
the words from your website and rank those words to determine
which sites to return to their users.

The words they gather from your website are referred to as
keywords. Search engine keywords exclude pronouns, prepositions
and other very common words. All others provide rich fodder to
the Spiders.

To get the best use of Spider search engines, you must feed
them what they want --- you must feed them lots and lots of
keywords. It is important to note that the best use of keywords
on your website is using keywords that are relative to your
products and services.

In a recent study by Yahoo, most site visitors are looking for
information of some kind when they go to a site. By creating
the kind of information for your site in an easygoing article
style that your visitors want, you can significantly increase
both traffic and user time on your site.

While your site does already contain these keywords in your
sales copy, it should be noted that providing free information
for your visitors is the ideal way to attract new visitors and
to strengthen the positioning of your website in the Spider's
databases.

When you do not have the time or creativity to provide that
information on your own, you could realistically tap into the
free-reprint market to attain the content you want and need.
To browse what may be available to you in the free-reprint
market, you can browse the archives at:

http:/ opica.com/lists/FreeEzineContent

Here you will find over 800 articles available for your use.

The only drawback of using content created by another for the
free-reprint market is that the terms for using these articles
is to set up a hyperlink to the website of the author as given
in the resource box attached to the article. The resource box
serves as a small advertisement for author of the article which
must appear with all articles used. This is actually a small
price to pay for getting high quality content for you to use
on your website without cost.

If you feel that printing someone else's resource box is simply
too high of a price to pay in order to provide content to your
visitors and keywords for the Spider search engines, then you
should strike out on your own to develop your own content in
this format.

However you cut it, any article placed on your website will
generate 300 to 500 specialized keywords to feed the Spider
databases. In turn, as time progresses, you will discover more
and more people flocking to your website from the Spider search
engines.

That is what you want isn't it? Traffic that can be turned into
sales? Of course it is.

The time has come to start developing your website to take
advantage of the power of the Spider search engines.
About the Author
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to
helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote their
businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles. Through
June 1st, 2002, you can save up to 75% on our normal prices. All
articles will be distributed to 6,500 publishers and webmasters
as part of the package. http://PathTrax.com/x.pl/BP121,26

2005-09-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Google Wealth Pyramid by David Cameron Gikandi

The absolutely fortunate thing about the Internet is that you can guarantee yourself a certain level of traffic, and certain profitability. This is usually impossible with many other businessesbut not the Internet. Here, we shall look at one sure-fire way of not only guaranteeing your profits, but pyramiding them, starting right now.

We shall proceed step-by-step.

1. Monthly unique users: Analyze your server log files using a good server log analysis software package that can tell you how many unique users come to your web site every month. Some web hosting service providers already give you log file analysis. Ask your web hosting provider whether they do. If your provider does not, download one from Download.com. For our example here, let us assume that you get 1,000 unique users a month.

2. Number of sales per month: Next, you need to find out how many sales you make per month on average. This is the number of units that you sell, not the sales value in dollar terms. For our example here, let us assume that you sell 50 units per month of whatever product or service it is that you sell.

3. Conversion ratio: Calculate your conversion ratio by dividing your monthly unique users by your monthly sales units and converting that into a percentage. In our example, that is 50 divide by 1000 multiplied by 100 which is equal to 5%.

4. Next, write down your gross profit on sales units. For example, if you sell downloadable software for $80 per unit, and your per unit costs are $15, then your gross profit per unit of sales is $65.

5. Now you know that for every 100 people that visit your web site, five percent of them by something on your web site that has an average value of $65 and that brings you a gross profit of $65 x 5 = $325. This means that you can afford to spend a maximum of $3.25 per visitor if you were to pay someone to bring you visitors to your web site ($325 divided by 100).

6. Find out what keywords people used to search for your web site. Again, analyze your server log files to find out what keywords were used to find you. That kind of information is there. Also, go to http://inventory.overture.com and see what keywords related to your web site are popular.

7. Go to Google.com and click on the AdWords Select link. More than 150 million times a day, people use Google to find what they're looking for. You can buy adverts on Google that appear whenever your chosen keywords are searched for. You pay only when a customer clicks on your ad, regardless of how many times it's shown. And from our research above, you know the maximum you can afford to pay and remain profitable. In our example, that was $3.25 per click (per visitor). Googles system is very easy. Set up your ads, select the keywords you wish to have them appear, and select the maximum amount you are willing to pay per click. Often, you will discover that you need far less than your maximum amountperhaps just $0.07 to $0.80 per click, meaning your profitability is high. To increase your ads effectiveness, make an ad for each keyword and place that keyword in the title of your ad. For example, if you are buying an ad for the keyword wedding gowns make a specific ad for t!
hat keyword and make sure that your ad title contains the words wedding gowns so that the user mentally associates it with a good find.

8. As soon as you are all set up, your ads start running within minutes! You can do this in the next 30 minutes! And your card is only charged after you reach your pre-selected daily limit, so you actually get started without having to place any money up front. A true no cash down start!

9. You are guaranteed profits if you did your calculations correctly in the steps above. And as your money rolls in, increase your daily limit on Google until you reach the maximum point for your keyword. For example, you may find that your keywords are being searched for 9,000 times a day but initially you can only afford to pay for 500 clicks a day. As your profits roll in, increase your daily spending on the ads until you reach the 9,000 a day limit. Then, increase your keywords to cover other related areas. For example, if you are selling wedding gowns, the keywords bridal registry may also be good for you. When you have fully exhausted Google, move to the other big fish of the pay-per-click game: Overture.com (formerly GoTo.com). repeat the same process there. You may also do well to look at services such as www.keyword-bid-optimizer.com and www.gotoast.com. These services will save you considerable time and money and point you to may good pay per click engines.

10. As the money rolls in and you keep pyramiding the advertising as we have seen above, it will be time to move on to ezine ads. Find newsletters and ezines that run articles related to your sites topic. Contact their owner and see whether you can run advertising on these newsletters. Ads in ezines usually have a very good return because they are targeted at people with a keen interest in the subject, people who have gone as far as to subscribe to the ezine. Pennmedia.com lists all newsletters that accept advertising and also places ads in them for you. Other similar services and sites include Postmaster Direct, e-zinez.com, liszt.com, ezinestoday.com, ezine-universe.com, and topezineads.com.

There you have ita way to start from nothing and pyramid your wealth by pyramiding advertising that can be specifically calculated. If you would like to know more, see The Complete Internet Marketing Outline and other titles at http://www.ImagesOfOne.com.

About the Author
David Cameron Gikandi, CEO ImagesOfOne.com
and author of A Happy Pocket Full of
Money: Your Quantum Leap into the Understanding,
Having and Enjoying of Immense Wealth
and Happiness. Available for download
at http://www.ImagesOfOne.com.

2005-09-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

FFA's are a waste of time..........or are they? by Cas Amato

According to a new survey carried out by Alliance & where ID_NUM=9270;
Leicester, one in five small business owners view tax as
their greatest concern. The Chancellor has announced in his
last budget that companies with profits below œ10,000 will
not have to pay any corporation tax with effect from 1 April
2002. The question to be asked is: does that announcement
make incorporation a more attractive option compared to
being a sole trader?

The answer is that from a tax point of view, it is
advantageous to trade through a limited company as long
as the income is drawn from the company by the owners as
dividends from their shares and the amount of dividends
drawn is restricted below the 40% band rate (i.e. œ31,063
for tax year 2002/03). That way, the owners have no further
personal tax ("income tax") to pay. Moreover, dividends are
not subject to national insurance contributions. This is
excellent news of course. But, if dividend income falls
within the higher rate bracket of income tax (i.e. above
œ34,515), they will be taxed at 22.5% on the excess, which
of course will increase the tax burden. The company profits
are subject to corporation tax rates. Those are lower than
income tax rates.

The most catastrophic scenario is when the director takes
his reward from the company as salary. Then his/her salary
is taxed at income tax rates (like a sole trader's income).
That is because, unlike sole traders, the tax system treats
companies as separate from their owners because a company is
a separate legal entity. The problem is that the income
taxes are higher than corporation tax rates. On top of
that, they will be subject to employee and employer national
insurance contributions, which of course increase the tax
burden and render his position worse than even an
unincorporated business ("sole trader"), because NIC Class 1
on payroll are higher than NIC Class 2 paid by self
employed.

In contrast, a self employed person ("sole trader") is taxed
at income tax rates on the profits from his business, which
are added to his other sources of income. As it has already
been mentioned, income tax rates are overall higher than
corporation tax rates. On top of income tax, national
insurance contributions class 4 are payable on the business
profits within a specified band (7% on profits between
œ4,615and œ30,420). National insurance contributions Class 2
are also paid by self-employed people, although those are
lower than those payable by company directors on their
salaries.

To illustrate the above, let's take a simple example. We
have a limited company and a sole trader. They both make
œ60,000 profits each in the tax year 2002/03. We assume that
the company director takes a salary equal to the amount of
his personal allowances (untaxed income) of œ4,615 and the
balance as dividends. The company will pay corporation tax
at 19% equal to œ10,523 and nothing else. The sole trader
will pay income tax œ16,542, National insurance Class 2 œ104
and National insurance Class 4 œ1,806. Total œ18,452. The
bottom line is that the person that has incorporated his
business into a limited company will make a tax saving of
œ7,929 compared to a sole trader! Isn't that fantastic?

Somebody might be wondering: why is this entire happening?
The official explanation is that, this government, to help
the economy grow, encourages people to leave as much profits
within their businesses to be reinvested, instead of being
taken out and spent.

The "unofficial line" is that, as a matter of fact, for
years the Inland Revenue has tried to reclassify the
self-employed. The 1% in NIC hike on staff salaries above
the NIC threshold from next April adds to both the
employees' and employers' tax burden and may more than
offset the saving from the corporation tax zero rate on the
first œ10,000 of profits.

Aren't there any other matters to consider in deciding
whether to incorporate or not?

Higher administration costs to comply with company law,
payroll and bookkeeping is one factor. Another issue is
pension planning. Extracting profits out of the company as
dividends rather than salary means that there will be no
"net relevant earnings" and therefore pension contributions
can't be made. But the advent of stakeholder pension plans
has meant that contributions up to œ3,600 per year can be
made without the need for any earnings. If a person does not
wish to transfer funds in existing plans into stakeholder
because of high charges, there is a way out: the best net
relevant earnings (i.e. salary) in five consecutive years
can be used for making contributions for the next five
years, even if there were no salaries in the remainder four
years. It is comforting to know that entitlement to basic
state pension is not affected by taking a salary from the
company at the level of a person's personal allowances i.e.
œ4,615.

Furthermore, an individual may decide not to bother with
pension plans and instead invest in ISA. Often, these can be
more efficient than pensions but that's beside the scope of
this article. If that option is taken, no salary is
necessary.

Another factor is business motoring. It might be tax
advantageous for an unincorporated business that owns many
cars not to incorporate because if these cars have some
private use there will be benefits in kind taxed on the
users. These are generally higher than the straight
apportionment between private and business for all car
running costs in the case of sole traders.

The conclusion is that there can be considerable tax savings
waiting the sole trader who decides to go down the
road to incorporation. But, one needs to proceed with
caution and careful planning. And don't forget the biggest
advantage of incorporation, which is Protection
from Personal Liability. Incorporating is one of the best
ways to protect a business owner from personal liability.
Shareholders of a company are generally not liable for the
obligations of the company. Creditors of a company may seek
payment from its assets, but not the assets of the
shareholders. This means that business owners may engage in
business without risking their homes or other personal
property.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Article. I hope
you've found it useful. If you have, please drop me an email
and let me know what you think.

You can email me at...

constantinesavva@accamail.com

Alternatively, you can visit our website at
http://www.tax-accounting-london.info and read a series of
other full length articles that present the complete picture
on a variety of interesting topics.

If you would like to know how to save tax and make sure that
more of your hard earned cash stays with you to expand your
business and increase your profits, we have a Free Special
Report addressed to small businesses either starting up or
already in business. This Exclusive Free Special Report is
available automatically when you subscribe to our regular
series of Free Newsletters on finance advice and tax
planning by visiting our subscription area on our website
www.tax-accounting- london.info. It is complied from real
life situations dealing with small business tax affairs for
over 10 years and it is loaded with down-to-earth advice and
practical, understandable examples.

LEGAL NOTICE
Whilst every care has been taken in the preparation of this
article, the author cannot accept responsibility for any
errors or omissions. Proper professional advice should be
taken at all times.

We retain copyright for the contents of this article. Any
unauthorized copying or onward distributions are prohibited
without our consent.
About the Author
Cas Amato, Internet Marketer:
Grab your share of the Online Casino Billions.
http://www.roibot.com/w.cgi?R22292_Articles

2005-09-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

Link Popularity Explained by Shannan Hearne-Fortner

Link popularity is becoming hard to understand. It is different for many
different search engines. And the whole concept is still relatively new, in
internet terms.

Let's look at three search engines that factor link popularity into their
overall search term rankings.

AskJeeves.com and their new search engine, Teoma, consider what they term
general popularity. They consider similar sites and then note whether they
have one link coming in or multiple links coming in from other web sites.
Higher consideration is given to web sites that have what AskJeeves deems
more quality sites linking in rather than lower quality sites. Weight is
also put on sites that appear to bear authority within their given content
communities. Management of a portal site would be a great way to become a
recognized leader in your knowledge content community. Ultimately, for good
ranking, you must have recognized authority sites in your outgoing links;
sites of quality content among your incoming links; and numerous sites with
large amounts of links among them.

FAST, or All The Web, and Lycos which it powers each look at the quality of
the sites you are linking to and that are linked to you. The integrity as
well as the content of the sites within your link community are evaluated in
the overall value given to your links.

Perhaps the search engine with the most weight given to link popularity is
Google.com. Google has always attempted to use a human, or logical method to
determine whether or not a site has value related to the particular keywords
associated with the site.

Google goes at least one step farther than most search engines. Google
evaluates the continuum of linking relationships within the internet. The
links that come into your site an the links that come out of your site as
well as the links which come into and go out from other web sites with data
related to your web site. The links that make up this mix must be utilizing
relevant keywords and be comprised of high quality websites.

To do your best to win this link popularity game, the following tips are
good rules of thumb.

Do not link with sites just for the sake of having links.

Do not link with sites that are made up mostly of affiliate links.

Do not comprise your site mostly of affiliate links.

Do not link with any site without carefully looking at the content of the
sites they are linked to.

Do not allow just anyone to link to your site.

Do keep a sitelifelong activity of setting up quality reciprical links.

Do continually explore the sites you are linked to.

Do continually explore the sites linked to you.
About the Author
Shannan Hearne-Fortner is the President and Wizard of
http://www.SuccessPromotions.com
Marketing Your e-Business Better through creative marketing and knowledge.
Guerrilla Marketing. One-to-One Marketing. Relationship Marketing. Your
Marketing.

2005-09-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Keywords & Meta Tags by Shannan Hearne-Fortner

Keywords are the words and phrases used by people when they search for web
pages. For example, if I am looking for free web editing programs, I would
type something like "free web editor" into a search engine. Those are
keywords.

Meta tags are descriptive words and phrases that you attach to your web
pages and are invisible to the visitor to your site. However, anyone can
view your meta tags if they right click on their mouse and choose "view
source". These meta tags help search engines find your site. Make sure that
you use meta tags and use them wisely. If someone has designed your site for
you, ensure they have placed meta tags on your web page; you'd be surprised
at how many sites I've seen that have few or no meta tags.

Meta tags include:
Keywords - These are descriptive phrases and words separated by commas
attached to your index page. You should focus more on using phrases because
that is usually how people enter keywords when they do a search for a web
site. To be considered search engine friendly, you should not have more than
875 characters in your keywords and you should not repeat any word more than
three times.
Description - This is a description of your site that is attached to your
index page. Use descriptive words and avoid filler words such as the, at,
in, etc. Your description can be up to 150 characters long to considered to
be search engine friendly
Title - Your title should be descriptive and contain your keywords. A title
is attached to each page in your site. Choose your titles carefully, search
engines use these readily to index your site. For example, if you sell
educational books, titling your page "Jennifer's Resources" will not bring
you a lot of traffic. However, a title like "Educational Books - Science,
Math, History for Children" would serve you a lot better. Think: what is my
product and who is it for?

Note: This does not mean that you cannot use "Jennifer's Resources", or
something like that in
the headings that your visitors will see on the page. We are strictly
talking about meta tags here.

Also, if you are selling a recognizable brand, use that name in your title.
Titles can be up to 60 characters long to be considered search engine
friendly.

Maximizing Meta Tags
In order to maximize your meta tags, you should choose words and phrases
that people actually enter into search engines. You can find out what people
are entering at:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

It works like this. You enter the keyword you would like to use and see how
many times people entered those keywords in the last month. This tool also
gives alternate keyword phrases and tells you how many times they were
entered in one month.

Great! You type in home based business and 92,534 people entered those
keywords last month, so you figure you should use those keywords. Here's the
problem...go to Google and enter Home Based Business and what do you find?

On May 15, 2002 there were 4,030,000 sites listed. That's a lot of
competition!

You may need to target some of your keywords a bit better. Pick more
specific keywords that don't have as much competition. Think about your
target market. This is a bit of work but may well be worth your time.

In the end, choose a few general key word phrases like "home based business"
and then choose a few specific ones.

About the Author
Shannan Hearne-Fortner
President and Wizard
http://www.SuccessPromotions.com
Marketing Your e-Business Better

2005-09-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

Are The Search Engines Censoring The Internet? by Richard Lowe

Every single day I surf through about a dozen sites, looking for
interesting articles and message board posts. I do this for many
reasons: for my job, which requires that I stay up-to-date on
current technologies, and for my hobby, which allows me to write
articles about the internet and the web.

A big portion of my daily routine involves visiting forums
related to all facets of the internet. These forums often have
some incredible information not readily available anywhere else;
the best of these (WebMasterWorld, JavaScript City, Spider Foods,
WebDev Forums, Lisa Says it all and the Web Site Abstraction
Forum) are tightly monitored and are heavily trafficked by
knowledgeable people.

I find them very useful not just for ideas, but to occasionally
post something of interest to others. You know, that's something
that I truly enjoy. Stumbling across a post which asks a question,
responding and finding out that I really did help someone solve
an issue. There are few better feelings than that.

Anyway, today I was looking through some posts on these boards
and I noticed a very common concern and theme. Virtually every
webmaster on the boards is concerned above all else with one
thing: getting traffic to their site. And to get traffic
virtually all of those same webmasters was convinced they have
to get high rankings in the search engines.

I'd seen this before, of course, but today I noticed something
that actually made me angry. I realized that the search engines,
especially the larger ones, are causing people to self-censor
their own sites.

One lady stated she had a painfully built set of links for
quilt sites. She believed it was the most complete set of quilt
links on the internet, and seemed quite proud. However, she was
disturbed and even was considering removing the links because it
might hurt her rankings in Google.

I continued looking over the posts on that and other forums and
found similar posts scattered throughout. One person was afraid
because he included pages of content not related to the theme of
his site. Would Google drop his ranking and thus cut his income?
Yet he really wanted to include those pages ... but felt he had
to remove them because of this search engine.

You see, what's happening is Google and other search engines have
to work very hard to create very intelligent robots to scan the
web for sites. Until recently, these robots considered each and
every page as a separate entity. Now, however, a change is
occurring. Google is attempting to group pages together into
sites, and then judge all of the pages as a group. The
implication of this is apparently sites which are "tightly
themed" will be positioned higher in the results pages than
those that are not.

I guess the theory is that a tightly themed site is somehow
better than a site which has lots of information about many
different subject.

Google also ranks pages (and now perhaps entire sites) based
upon the number and quality of sites that link back. The thought
behind this is that if a site is linked to by other quality
sites (sites related to the theme), then that site is somehow
better than other sites and deserves to rank higher.

So what's seems to be happening is many webmasters are very,
very concerned about every move they make. Every change to their
site is measured against the question, "what will Google or
Altavista or whatever think of this change?" Will making that
change drop their rankings? Will it get them removed from the
engine? Will the Earth come to an end simply because a link to a
site with different content is included?

Other questions I have seen include: will using Flash drop me
out of the engines? Should I use tables or will that hurt my
page ranking? If "low quality" sites link to mine, will Google
get annoyed and kick me to the second page?

This is, in my opinion, utterly and completely ridiculous. The
purpose of the web and the internet is communication. People
write articles, create graphics and multimedia and place them on
the internet because they have a story to tell or some
information to impart.

Of course it is important to promote your site, because part of
communication is finding someone to communicate with. However,
there are many, many ways to promote a web site. There are as
many ways and places to promote as their are stars in the sky or
electrons on a wire. Just use your creativity and your brain, and
you will figure out how to get people to visit your creation,
without selling your soul to a search engine.

One of my objections is the idea of "theming" a web site. That
is not the way that the web is intended to work and it is not in
the interest of surfers. When I search on a keyword, I want to
find the best pages that I can find. If someone wrote a page
about their cat but placed it on their site about quilts, then I
still might want to see it. In fact, it's possible that this one
page has better information than a site devoted entirely to cats.

I have a great example of a site which is one of the best on the
internet by a good man named James Huggins. I'd bet that Google
wouldn't appreciate this site very much because it would have a
very difficult time figuring out the theme. Yet it is by far one
of the most entertaining and informative sites on the entire web
(in my opinion, of course).

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/

A major problem with the idea of basing the ranking of a site
on it's popularity is that new or smaller sites tend to drop way
down the list, even though they are often much better than sites
higher on the list. It simply is not true that a site which has
lots of incoming "quality" links is any better than those sites
which do not have as many of them.

Websites are very personal creations, and they should reflect
the unique viewpoints, opinions and background of the authors,
artists and creative talent. There is no need to make every site
on the web look or feel the same; There is certainly no need to
force every site to fit a set of rules in order to be found by
other people.

My advice is to create a web site in which you can be proud. Use
all of the tools and skills that you have, and use whatever
techniques you enjoy. At the same time, explore ALL of the
methods of site promotion, including search engines. But don't
place too much weight on the engines - they change constantly
and they are very fickle. You might sell your soul to get a high
ranking one day only to find out the next morning that you are
gone entirely.
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets
at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to
read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

2005-09-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

YOU'VE GOT TO PAY TO PLAY by Jennifer Johnson

You design a killer site, submit to all the major search engines
and directories, and you wait...and wait...and wait...

Submitting to search engines/directories is a smart idea, but it
seems like an eternity before you see the results of your
efforts. Meanwhile, you're anxious to get traffic and make
sales, right?

I have just the site promotion technique for you: pay-per-click
(PPC) search engines.

PPC programs work like this: you bid on keywords related to your
site's content/products/services. The higher you bid, the higher
your link appears in the search results. One of the great things
about PPC is that you don't pay unless someone actually clicks
your link - in other words, you pay only for results. PPC
campaigns can be surprisingly affordable, even for sites on a
limited budget.

Another benefit of utilizing PPC is that you begin generating
traffic almost immediately. There is no 6-8 week waiting period
for your site to appear in the index - it's usually more like
2-3 days.

Before you rush off to open an account, though, there are a few
basic things to do beforehand to maximize your campaign's
effectiveness.

First, calculate how much you can afford to pay for each visitor
to your web site. If you have a product that sells for $100.00,
1 out of every 100 visitors buys the product, and you pay $1.00
for each visitor, you'll break even on the campaign ($1.00 x 100
visitors = $100.00 spent/$100.00 sale). If you pay more than
$1.00/visitor, you'll lose money and if you pay less than
$1.00/visitor, you'll make a profit.

Know what you can afford to spend per visitor (per click) before
making your bids. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be better
equipped to execute a profitable campaign.

Second, create a list of keywords related to your
site/product/service. Develop a list of at least a few hundred
keywords; preferably 1000 or more. I realize that's a lot, but
as a general rule, a list of 10-20 keywords won't net you much
traffic.

If you're having trouble brainstorming keywords, many of the PPC
engines have tools to help you. GoTo's Search Suggestion Tool
generates a list of search terms related to keywords you enter
and ranks them in order from most to least popular. Try the GoTo
Keyword Wizard at JimTools.com (http://www.jimtools.com) too.

A third step to take before launching a campaign is to produce
effective ad copy for the "title" and "description" of your
listings. Make no mistake - your description and title ARE ad
copy - or they should be if you hope to maximize traffic.

If your listings don't pull as well initially as you hope, don't
worry; you can always tweak them until you achieve the desired
results.

Finally, carefully select the URL where your listing will point;
in other words, your landing page. This doesn't have to be your
"home" page - oftentimes, it's better if it's NOT your home
page. Instead, consider linking to the page that contains the
content/product/service related to the keyword for which you're
bidding.

Don't make your visitors jump through hoops; give them what
they're searching for as soon as they click to your site if
possible. For each additional step in the process, you're losing
a certain percentage of visitors. Granted, there are legitimate
reasons to have visitors navigate a series of pages. Your goal
is to eliminate the *unnecessary* clicks.

Now that you have the basics covered, where will you open your
PPC account?

I recommend GoTo (http://www.goto.com). There is a $0.05 bid
minimum and a $20.00 minimum monthly spend, but the volume of
traffic generated can be significantly greater than traffic from
other PPC engines. GoTo Premium Listings (top 1, 2, and 3 spots)
appear as search results on America Online, Lycos, Netscape,
AltaVista and other large sites.

Here's a list of a few other pay-per-click engines you might
want to consider:

FindWhat.com (http://www.findwhat.com) Sprinks
(http://www.sprinks.com) Kanoodle.com (http://www.kanoodle.com)
Brainfox.com (http://www.brainfox.com) Bay9 (http://www.bay9.com)

Once your campaign begins, it's important to monitor its
progress. Since your rankings are based on bidding, you don't
want to be outbid and lose traffic. The other side of the coin
is you don't want to pay more than you should for your ranking.

For example, let's say you have the #3 spot for a keyword and
you're paying $0.10. The #4 spot is going for $0.09, while the
#5 spot costs a mere $0.05. If, for whatever reason, #4 drops
out of the listings, you're still occupying the #3 spot BUT
you're overpaying by $0.04/click (you could maintain your #3
rank with a $0.06 bid). Not a huge amount, but with hundreds of
listings, it's easy to see how it can add up over time.

That should be enough information to get you started on your PPC
campaign. Now that you know the basics, what are you waiting
for? A PPC campaign could be just the shot in the arm your site
needs!

About the Author
Jennifer Johnson is the owner of Logo Design Zone. She can create
a 100% unique, totally memorable logo for your business - for
UNDER $200! Does your current logo make the grade? Take Logo
Design Zone's free logo quiz and find out!

2005-09-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

How to Improve Search Engine Rankings by Herman Drost

You finally got your web site listed in the major search
engines, however it is buried amongst millions of others and you
still have not seen an increase in traffic to your web site. Why
not? You need to improve your search engine rankings.

Here are the steps to increase your search engine rankings:

1. Check your listings
If you are going to see an increase in traffic to your web site,
you need to be listed in the top 20-30 sites.
Go to http://www.marketleap.com to see if you are listed
in the top 30 sites on the major search engines. If you are not
listed in them, you should at least submit your site to the
major search engines (read How to get listed in the major
search engines. http://www.isitebuild.com/majorsearchengines).
If you are already in the top 10, then keep monitoring your
site's rankings to maintain your position. If you are not in the
top 30, continue with the next step.

2. Select the right keywords and phrases
Go to www.wordtracker.com or the overture suggestion tool
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion) to
find the most popular words and phrases that suit the theme of
your web site.

Weave these words and phrases into your meta tags (title,
description and keyword tags), web copy (particularly the first
200 words of your web page) and links (i.e. if your site is
called camping.com and you have a page for camping tools, name
the link www.camping.com/campingtools.htm, instead of
www.camping.com/generic.htm).

Optimize each web page with different keywords. Visitors can
then enter your site from different pages, depending on what
keyword they entered in the search engines.

3. Exchange reciprocal links
Search for other sites that compliment your own site and ask for
a link back to your site. Ideally the site should have the same
keyword phrase as yours and already have a high search engine
ranking. These are quality links.

Having many sites linked to yours, will increase the popularity
of your site in the search engines, resulting in a higher
ranking.

4. Write articles
Choose your best keywords and weave them into
the theme of your articles. Include a link to your web site in
the resource box at the end of your articles. Submit your
articles to ezine publishers and article announcement lists.
This gives your article the potential to be read by thousands of
ezine subscribers. Your article will become linked to many web
sites, resulting in higher rankings.

5. Participate in forums
Find a forum that is related to the theme of your web site.
People visit these forums to look for content that answers
their questions. Once you have provided helpful information,
you can leave a link to your site in your signature file.
If this is a highly trafficked forum, leaving your link there,
will increase your site's popularity.

6. Monitor your rankings
The best way to check how your site is doing in the search
engines is to check your web site statistics.
A high quality web hosting service will show you which
pages receive the most traffic (hits and visits) and where
it is coming from (which search engines).

7. Exercise patience
Search engines typically take one to three months to spider
your web site, so your changes will not be seen immediately.
Think of the steps outlined above, as a long-term marketing
strategy for your web site.

Tip
Generating a massive amount of traffic to your web site,
doesn't guarantee sales. Here is a short list of factors that
will also help convert your visitors into sales:

Professional site design
Well-written web copy
Fast loading times
Simple navigation
No broken links
Optimizing for different screen resolutions
Optimizing for the main browsers

As you can see, improving search engine rankings that result in
sales means the continuous monitoring and refinement of your web
site. Since 85% of your sites traffic (this is very targeted
traffic) comes from the search engines, it is well worth the
investment.
About the Author
Herman Drost is a Certified Web Site Designer, owner and author
of iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Site Design, Hosting and Promotion Packages
http://www.isitebuild.com

Subscribe to his Marketing Tips newsletter for more original
articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his
in-depth articles at: www.isitebuild.com/articles

2005-09-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Increasing Profits For Small Businesses Through Search Engine Marketing by Dale Goetsch, Search Engine Marketing Consultant

Increasing Profits For Small Businesses Through Search Engine Marketing

The Problem: Increase Profits

As a small business owner or manager, you have one principal goal: increase your profits. Whether you are a sole proprietor looking to increase your own income, or a corporate manager looking to increase shareholder equity, your bottom line is the bottom line. Whether you need to move more widgets or provide more services, ultimately you need to increase your income by expanding your revenue while decreasing your expenses. You need to reach new customers, and keep your current customers coming back for more.

How do you solve the problem: Communication

If you want people to purchase your goods and services, they need to know that you exist, and what you can do for them. You need to communicate information about your products and services to as many potential customers as possible. This requires more than just broadcasting your message. To be truly efficient, you need to tell your story to those who will actually want to do business with you. You need to focus your efforts.

How do you communicate: Advertising

There are several media available to you for getting your message across. The most basic is simple word-of-mouth. This costs you nothing, but you also have very little control over how your message is communicated. For a small, local business, this may work fine, but in the Internet age, where your customers probably don't come from a small neighborhood, this is not enough.

Traditional electronic media are available to you. Local radio and television spots can reach a great number of people in your community. The question here, however, is just who your message is reaching. These ads are focused on a rather broad demographic: sugary cereals on Saturday mornings, razors and fast cars on sports shows, and so on. If this is sufficiently focused for you, you may be in good shape, except that these spots can be fairly costly. A 30-second radio spot can cost $100 or more, depending on the market; a television ad can cost over $1000 for the same spot, with network spots going for much more. In addition, there are production costs, with professional actors, editing, and so forth. They are also pretty ethereal--when the ad is finished, it goes away.

Print advertising has the advantage that it doesn't disappear when the reader has finished looking at your ad. They can go back and look at it again. For local coverage, print advertising can be pretty inexpensive. A four-line classified ad in the local newspaper costs practically nothing. Even display ads can be fairly inexpensive, given that you will reach a large number of people. For national coverage, print can become quite expensive. The rate sheet for a respected national new magazine charges over $200,000 for a one-page color ad in their national edition!

In all these cases, you have to look at who is being targeted. In print ad, you are looking at everybody who reads the magazine or newspaper. Does everybody who reads that publication want to buy your product? If not, then this is probably not the most efficient use of your marketing dollar. Even with focused traditional electronic media, you may be reaching a broader segment of the population than you want to--you may not be interested in all women in the 18-49 group, for example.

What about the World Wide Web? We've all seen banner ads on websites. These may get your message to a more focused group, but there are problems that come with banner ads. Banner ads have become so ubiquitous that many people simply ignore them. Or worse, they have software that will actually remove them from web pages as they view the pages. Your message doesn't get to anybody that way.

Pop-up ads and their newer incarnation, the pop-under ad, are often not appreciated by users on the Web. Having several browsers opened on a user's desktop can be quite disconcerting for them.

What is the most cost-effective, focused way to communicate with your market: Your Web Site

You probably already have a website; otherwise you are probably looking seriously at creating a presence on the Web. Your website works for you 24/7; people can always come to your site to see what you have to offer. You reach people who want what you have, because they come looking for you. They want what you have, and they want to hear your story.

How do people reach your website: Search Engine Marketing

If you have a famous brand, people will have an easy time reaching your website. If, however, you aren't a Fortune 500 company, it may be a bit tougher. Search Engine Marketing may be just the thing for you. You want your website to have high visibility, with the goal of leading qualified traffic to you. How much more qualified could your prospects be than to have them actually looking for you?

Marketing via Search Engines may be the most cost-effective techniques available to you. Many Search Engines will list your site for free; others for a relatively small fee. Just because your site is listed on the popular Search Engines, however, doesn't mean you're home free. Have you ever done a search and seen that there were a million matches for your search terms? Have you ever tried to look at the one-millionth match? Usually people are interested in only the first page or two of results--typically the first thirty matches or so. If you happen to be number 31, you are out of luck.

How do I get on top: Search Engine Promotion

We know how to get you to the top of these lists of Search Engine returns, and to keep you there. While nobody can guarantee results, we can greatly improve your site's ranking on the major Search Engines. If anybody tells you that they can guarantee you a #1 ranking, don't believe them. There are no tricks to achieving a better ranking, but there is hard work, combined with experience, that will move you up into the coveted "top thirty" spots. We have that knowledge; we have that experience.

Search Engine Promotion: How we do it

We want you to achieve a sustainable high ranking in Search Engines that people actually use, and to do so at a price you can afford. Our Code of Ethics is your assurance that we will put all our efforts behind your site. The details are important to you, and they are important to us. We can work with you and your website developer to make sure your site ranks as highly as possible.

Working with your small to mid-sized website, we can:

Prepare an initial ranking report, to help you better understand how you are already positioned in the Search Engines.

Work with you to select appropriate keywords to incorporate into your site.
Select an appropriate category for your inclusion in the human-edited directories.

Perform a thorough website review, to let you know which parts of your site could be made more Search Engine-friendly.

Make suggestions for additional content you may wish to include on your site.

Verify the usability of your site.

Getting people to your site is important; keeping them there, helping them to find what they are looking for is vital.

Test the functionality of your site.

Perform an analysis and review of websites of your competitors. If you want to rank higher than them, you need to understand the strategies they are employing.

Provide a complete set of Search Engine optimization components for you to include in the pages on your website.
Provide detailed instructions for you or your website developer on how to implement the suggestions and components.

Submissions to the major free Search Engines and Directories.

Submissions to the major paid Search Engines and Directories.

Re-submit your site as necessary.

Provide a follow-up ranking report, to see how your site's ranking has increased through implementation of these recommendations.

Link popularity strategy campaign, to assure that other sites are pointing toward you.

Ongoing traffic analysis to find out how site visitors are finding you.
We look forward to the opportunity to put our experience to work for you. Drop us a note at info@searchinnovation.com and see how we can help increase your ranking in the Search Engines and Directories.

When you are ready to put your website to work for you, it's time to contact us.

Search Innovation
Your Search is Over
http://www.searchinnovation.com
info@searchinnovation.com

Copyright2002 Search Innovation. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author
Dale Goetsch is a Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation, a Search Engine Marketing company serving small businesses. His background includes over twelve years as a software tester, as well as Perl, JavaScript and ASP programming.

2005-09-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Basics by JC Anderl

Search engines and directories are one of the best ways to
round up some targeted traffic to your website. Here are
the basics of search engines and directories.

Search Engine Vs. Directories

The main difference between engines and directories is the
way they index sites. Although search engines vary in the
way they index, they all basically use a "spider" to crawl
from link to link and index the meta-tags, keywords, and
page words to get their relevancy when a user searches their
index.

Directories, on the other hand, have actual people look at
a site and decide if they will add it to their directory,
and where they will add it.

Directory Submission

Submitting to directories involves a different process
because it more closely involves people. Although
definitely not the only ones, two very important directories
are Yahoo! and Open Directory.

If your site is commercial in nature, Yahoo! charges $299
for a review that doesn't even guarantee that you will get
listed. It is the single most important engine or
directory, so if you have the money, it is definitely a
great idea to submit.

To submit to Yahoo! go to
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?+Business.
Just fill out the form and they editors will take care
of the rest.

The Open Directory is based on a large group of volunteer
editors. It is free to submit your site. To submit, go
to www.dmoz.org, the web address for Open Directory, and
find the category that your site would fit in. Take some
time and look around, you want to be sure that the category
that you pick is definitely the best one for your site.
Once you have found the right category, click on the add
URL link in the top right corner.

Search Engine Submission

Crawler based search engines compile their listings by
automatically searching the web with spider programs.
Google is the top search engine on the web. Submission is
free at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.

Google and other search engines are now paying special
attention to link popularity. An effective linking
strategy will help your ranking on Google. Another engine
that has been around for a while is Altavista. To submit
go to http://addurl.altavista.com/sites/addurl/newurl.

Conclusion

Despite a trend towards paid listings and reviews, search
engines and directories are still one of the best sources
for targeted traffic, and lots of it. Read up on the
specifics of each of the important engines and directories
and try your best to get listed in as many of them as you
can.

Best of luck to you,

JC Anderl
www.Redlionbooks.com, JC@Redlionbooks.com

Visit my site or email me if you have any questions about
marketing or website promotion.
About the Author

JC's website, Redlionbooks.com, specializes in advice about Internet marketing and web site promotion. Free access to articles and ebooks, learn how to market your product or service online at Redlionbooks.com

2005-09-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

DOES SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC MATTER? by Bob McElwain

The short answer is, "Sure." And it likely always will.
But the amount of free traffic search engines now deliver to
many small online businesses doesn't amount to much. And what
there is of it continues to decline in importance. Pay-for-
submission models are rapidly eliminating free options.

These trends will continue. And many have been aware of
this for years. My own site provides a good example of the
results.

A Question Overlooked

A fellow called a while back asking about the services I
offer. When he asked how my web pages ranked on the search
engines, I said I didn't know, that I had never checked. I
guess that wasn't what he wanted to hear, for he hung up.

But it is fact. Why would I care what positions I have?
My log files show I'm getting less than 20% of hits from the
search engines. Given the competition for keyword phrases
such as "site promotion," it is no surprise I don't get more.

Answering The Question

Still, the call triggered action of sorts. I ran Web
Position on my major keywords. The results were startling.

I asked the program to go 99 listings deep. It found only
4 pages of over 700 on my site listed for the keywords entered,
and none at all above the 50th position. So how am I'm getting
hits?

The Mystery Of Search Engines Unanswered

All the above report means is that I am not getting many
hits on keywords I felt were appropriated for a particular page.
For example, site promotion brought up my Tips page as #86 at
AltaVista. And this in itself is startling, for the page
changes every week! (It's also entirely in size 1, something
some experts believe AltaVista considers spam.)

Web Editorial Service was #73 at Lyris, but the page is not
an article I wrote. Web Site Promotion Services was #52 at
Google. Site Promotion Services was #6 at Overture.com, but
I paid for this position.

In opening STAT, I followed advice that proved to be bad
info. I developed a massive set of targeted keywords for the
site. Most of the terms I began with have disappeared since
exploring with them. And with but few exceptions, I now have
only clues as to the keywords on a given page that actually
bring a visitor.

Still, the site initially brought pretty good free traffic
from search engines. It peaked about the end of 1998 at about
40% of total traffic, and has steadily been declining since.

More Non-Answers From The Horse's Mouth

Given such "spectacular" results as noted above, I was still
puzzled, for I was getting hits. Where were they coming from?
So I checked out a couple of search engines and, off the top of
my head, did some searches.

Things like "site services," "website performance," "site
improvement," and so forth. Oddly enough, a few of my pages
came up in the first 30. And since I know the content of most
pages at the end of the links offered, I could see there was at
least some degree of relevancy.

My Conclusion

The search engines algorithms are smarter than we generally
acknowledge. They do a pretty good job of sorting out page
content. And they're getting better every day.

So I will continue as I have been doing. That is, submit
new pages as they are completed. And I'll continue to try to
include keywords as possible. But essentially I'm content to
let the search engines do whatever.

For one thing, my page views continue to increase. Slowly,
that's true. But the key lies in the increase. Thus I'm not
drawing too much off-target traffic.

The Best Strategy For You

For some sites, position on the search engines is critical
to success. In such a case, my forget-it approach would be
totally inadequate. In fact if your site is seriously dependant
upon traffic generated by search engines, it may be best to hire
a professional service and make sure this task is done right.

This aside, the power of search engines to draw free
targeted traffic is weakening. Which means that in setting
priorities, most should spend less time in obtaining good
positions.

As with my site, the better plan may be to focus promotional
efforts on other strategies to generate the targeted traffic you
need.

Sure. Submit new pages as completed. Possibly take the
time to create search engine friendly content pages. But look
elsewhere for traffic.

The ability of search engines to deliver free targeted
traffic to your site is diminishing. Some may find the emerging
pay-for-submission models profitable. But most will find other
avenues more rewarding. And soon enough, you won't be able to
count on free search engine traffic to any significant degree.
About the Author
Bob McElwain, author of "Your Path To Success" and
"Secrets To A Really Successful Website." For
info, see
Get ANSWERS. Subscribe to "STAT News" now!
mailto:join-stat@lyris.dundee.net

2005-09-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Google's Groundbreaking AdWords Select Program by Lee Traupel

One of the absolute best online marketing processes available to any business
today is Google's AdWords Select advertising program. It produces immediate
results within minutes after being setup, drives highly qualified traffic via
selected keywords and can be monitored and modified on a 24/7 basis via Google's
excellent online interface. There are no hidden fees - it costs a mere $5. USD
to setup a campaign and requires a credit card submission at startup. We highly
recommend this interactive marketing process to all of our clients and
incorporate an AdWords Select component with all of our marketing campaigns.

Google's Pricing Model

Google charges you on a CPC ("Cost per Click") basis - you only pay for each
clickthrough to your web site from Google's, no more no less. You don't pay for
"impressions" (number of times someone views your add) like many first
generation Internet advertising models - it's truly a results driven marketing
process.

Keywords costs can vary tremendously ranging from $.05 to $11. USD or more per
keyword - Google assigns a "minimum cost per click" for specific keywords based
on "market value" and "performance history" via Google's AdWords Select program
history. Be prepared to pay a much higher rate for very popular keywords and
this is a moving target all of the time - the more popular this program becomes
the more you will be forced to pay for selected popular keywords.

Creating your Sponsorship Ad

Your Ad's position is based on a combination of the CPC ("Cost per Click") you
selected and relevancy of your ad - if your ad and keywords are relevant and
drive clickthroughs, then your ad will rise in position on the sponsored column
versus your competitors. This is an innovative feature and helps to distinguish
Google's program from all other PPC ("Pay per Click") campaigns (Overture and
their primary competitors) - most of these programs have an "economic bias"
built into them; i.e. whoever pays the highest fees gets the top placement.

Dynamic Ad Placement

Google's unique AdWords Discounter keeps track of your costs per click versus
your competitors. You select the maximum amount you want to pay for your
keywords and the ranking algorithm keeps track of your keyword costs, ensuring
you only pay one cent above the CPC ("Cost per Click") cost you specified when
you setup the campaign versus your competitors.

Setup Process - Sponsored Link Ad and Keywords

AdWords Select is based upon driving highly targeted traffic to a web site via a
set of keywords that are selected via Google's account management interface.
There are two primary components to the setup process, creating your "sponsored
link" ad and selecting your keywords. You start by creating a "sponsored link"
ad that is subsequently inserted into Google's search results on the right hand
column - targeted by keywords that you have selected. It only takes a few
minutes to have your campaign go "live" after you've completed the setup
process.

It's very important to spend quality time creating your sponsored link as this
is the "online ad" that people will view in the midst of search results and
competing sponsored links (in some cases). You have the ability to create a
short headline coupled with two lines of text with approximately 35 characters
per line - the headline must be succinct and hard hitting and the related text
should backfill the headline with supporting words that convey what goods or
services your company provides.

Keyword selection can be the most daunting task for setting up a new campaign -
be prepared to spend some focused time working through multiple keywords to find
those that you can afford. It typically takes 1-3 hours to find 10-20 keywords
that are relatively low cost - however, if your budget is open-ended and you
have sufficient marketing funds to pay $1-8. USD per keyword then it can take
much less time. Your market focus is also another important variable that can
impact the keyword selection process - if you're in a narrow market niche with
only a small number of competitors then it is much easier and faster to setup a
campaign.

Finally, be aware you can find some keywords that are very inexpensive, but
Google will disallow these if they don't drive a minimum clickthrough amount of
roughly less than 1% - you can start off with them, but they will be turned off
after 7-14 days if they aren't driving sufficient clickthrough volume.

Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool

You may want to utilize other keyword analysis tools that will give you a
broader selection and help you to understand what keywords are popular and
searched on, which in turn ensures the keywords you do select will drive traffic
and will not be disallowed by Google. Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) is an
industry standard keyword analysis tool that those of us in the online
advertising world (and many others) have used for years to help us understand
what keywords are popular - their service is very low cost and easy to utilize
via their web site.

About the Author
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of marketing experience - he is the founder of
Intelective Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com, a marketing
services company which provides strategic and tactical marketing services
exclusively to small to medium sized companies. Lee@intelective.com Reprinted
with permission from Intelective Communications - this article may be reprinted
freely, provided this attribution box remains intact.

2005-09-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

Should You Submit your Web Site to Yahoo! ? by Alan Grissett

By even the most conservative estimates, Yahoo! is the single largest search directory in terms of overall quantity of searches. This is due to a number of factors including its early entrance onto the Web (1994), the popularity of its value added services (e.g. Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and My Yahoo!), and the overall quality of its directory listings. So what does the large quantity of searches performed at Yahoo! mean for sites that are listed in the directory? It means that, with a good listing, a Web site can expect to receive a good amount of targeted, keyword-specific traffic. In fact, Yahoo! is so confident that it can generate traffic for Web sites that it now charges submission and annual listing fees for commercial sites listed in its directory. (Yes, you read correctly, annual listing fees).

Yahoo! uses human beings to organize the Web. These human editors find sites or review submissions, then, if the sites are of sufficient quality, place those sites in one or more categories that are relevant to them. Beginning in November 2000, Yahoo! implemented a mandatory submission fee for the review of commercial sites. This fee only guaranteed that an editor of the Business Express service, as it was then named, would review the site within seven business days. It DID NOT guarantee a listing in the directory, only that a site would be reviewed. At the time, a lot of Webmasters felt that this was extortion, but for many businesses, it was a relief, because the previous submission process had no specific time frame for review. In fact, the average review time before the introduction of the Business Express service was two to three months.

Now known simply as, "Yahoo! Express", this service is the sole avenue for commercial businesses to submit sites to the directory, and it initially costs $299. But, as of December 28, 2001, there is a new wrinkle in the fold. Yahoo! now charges an annual listing fee. Any commercial site submitted through the Yahoo! Express service after December 28, 2001 will be charged an annual listing fee of $299. Simply put, if a commercial site doesn't pay the annual fee, that site's listing is removed from the Yahoo! directory. Commercial sites submitted before December 28, 2001 are off the hook; They will remain in the directory but will not have to pay the annual listing fee.

So, now for the big question: Is a Yahoo! listing worth paying the initial $299 submission fee and the annual listing fee? That depends. Are you confident enough that your site is of sufficient quality to be listed? Can you afford to gamble for a year to test whether your listing is paying off? Do you know how to get a good listing - one that will generate more traffic for you? Before even considering submitting, these questions need to be addressed and answered.
About the Author
Alan is the lead developer for InfoServe Media, LLC (http://www.infoservemedia.com/), a Web development company that specializes in Web site design, hosting, domain name registration, and promotion for small businesses.

2005-09-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

The Web's Secret Traffic Source - the Open Directory Project by Alan Grissett

The importance of having targeted traffic can't be understated, and search engines can be a great source of this traffic. The first search service covered in this series of articles is a directory known as the Open Directory Project, or ODP (http://www.dmoz.com/).

First, a little background on the Open Directory Project: The ODP is a Web directory, not a search engine, and the purpose of the ODP is to list and categorize web sites. But unlike Yahoo! or the several dozen other directories that maintain a paid staff of reviewers, "the ODP is an Open Source inspired, volunteer managed initiative." In a nutshell, this means that human volunteers review, add, and remove the listings of this directory. Potential editors can elect to review site submissions in categories related to their area of expertise or interest. In and of itself, this is a pretty remarkable method for reviewing sites, because it allows for those most knowledgeable in a given area to review sites submitted to that same area. From a Web site manager's perspective though, the Open Source nature of the search service itself is the main factor in its importance as a traffic source.

Because the ODP is an Open Source initiative, the listings and the search engine software are freely available for other portals and search sites to use. In fact, the ODP listings are used by over 200 other sites and directories, including AOL Search, AT&T WorldNet, Netscape.com, and to a certain extent, Google.com. This greatly extends the possible exposure of a Web site with a listing in the ODP, and makes it a must have listing for any site that's serious about building traffic.
About the Author
Alan is the lead developer for InfoServe Media, LLC (http://www.infoservemedia.com/), a Web development company that specializes in Web site design, hosting, domain name registration, and promotion for small businesses.

2005-09-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

How to Submit to the Open Directory Project (ODP) by Alan Grissett

The ODP (http://www.dmoz.org/) is organized into categories and subcategories, and as simple as it may sound, the key to submitting is finding out where your site should be listed. There are two good ways to determine where your site belongs. You can perform a keyword search, then "drill down" to find the category that sites returned by the search belong to, or you can manually find the right category by drilling down from the home page. I would recommend manually finding the right category, because some sites returned as search results may not belong to exactly the same category your site should be submitted to.

For the sake of illustration, let's say you run a for-profit, defensive driving school, and I need to find the correct category to submit to. From the ODP home page, I would probably select the broad category of "Business", because after all, I am out to make a profit, so that seems like a pretty logical choice. The next page I'm presented with has around fifty subcategories. "Training and Schools" sounds right, so I'll choose that one. I'm then provided with the various categories of training schools, and "Traffic Schools" is among them, so I'll choose it. This is probably the category where I need my site to be listed, so I'll submit here.

The category selection process just described would apply to any site, and the more specific the category you submit to, the more targeted your traffic will be. After finding the right category to submit to, click the "add URL" link at the top of the page that the category is presented on. The add URL page has three mandatory fields and one optional field to fill out in order to submit a site. The first field is the "Site URL" field, and the site's URL should be entered here exactly as it will appear in the directory. The second field is the "Title of Site" field. For this field, your company or organization name should most likely be used, but if possible try to throw in a keyword or two. For example, if the name of my hypothetical business above is "No More Tickets", I would do well to add the phrase, "Defensive Driving School" to the end of it. The reason for this is that search results for the ODP are based on keywords in the title and description (and to a certain extent in the URL, e.g. http://www.keyword-keyword-keyword.com/). With this in mind, try to add some keywords when filling out the last field as well, "Site Description".

The site review and addition process can take anywhere from several weeks to several months, depending on the amount of submissions to that category and the category editor's responsiveness. It is slow process, but it's definitely worth the wait if you get a listing in the ODP.
About the Author
Alan is the lead developer for InfoServe Media, LLC (http://www.infoservemedia.com/), a Web development company that specializes in Web site design, hosting, domain name registration, and promotion for small businesses.

2005-09-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

A new Web Marketing ROI Calculator - Part 1 by Robin Nobles

In the beginning, search engine marketers were only
concerned about top 10 rankings. Do you remember those
days? Then, as things progressed and we began to work
"smarter," we began to take note of how those top 10's were
actually converting to traffic and sales.

After all, in any marketing campaign, the true bottom line
should be your ROI, the return on your investment. That's
how you'll know if your marketing efforts are really
working, or if you need to go back to the drawing board and
try something new.

Recently, I was introduced to a new ROI calculating service
called KeywordTool. It covers both pay-per-click engines
and regular engine results.

To write the article, I interviewed Chris Genge of
KeywordTool (http://www.keywordtool.net), and he took me on
a tour of the service itself.

Question:
Please explain what KeywordTool is and what it really does.

Chris:
"Deciding which keywords best suit each Web site and
which ones specifically will generate
sales/conversions is perhaps the toughest job in SEO.
Tools like Word Tracker are a great help in narrowing
down keyword selection, but then what?

"In the past, decisions were not based on facts but
mostly speculation. This gave people no alternative
but to promote or bid on larger keyword groups. We
used a shotgun approach in hopes of increasing sales,
with no way of telling which keywords were adding to
our bottom line!

"A common saying in advertising is: `In any good
campaign, 50% of all advertising dollars are wasted,
but which 50%?' KeywordTool can answer this question
for keyword promotion campaigns.

"KeywordTool's tracking service tracks the conversion
or sales performance of keywords on search and pay-
per-click engines, showing which keyword phrases are
actually converting into customers and from which
search engines. It is not a visitor tracker; instead,
it determines keyword performance.

"With this keyword referral/conversion rate
information, one can then fine tune their keyword
choices and streamline promotion and bidding expenses
to increase efficiency, sales, and profits, or in
other words...the bottom line.

"KeywordTool is an online service that gathers
information about your Web site referrals and
sales/conversions. Using your private user name and
password, you can then access the stats so you can
review the information and make informed decisions
about how to continue your online promotion.

"KeywordTool is designed for use with SEO and Pay-Per-
Click (PPC) campaigns. It's well suited for both."

Question:
Is there a way that we can see a demo of how the service
really works?

Chris:
"Go to http://www.keywordtool.net At the top of the
page, you will see the log in. Use the username of
"keywordtool" and password of "demo" to access the
demo.

"The first page is the list of search engines that
have sent referrals to the specific Web site you wish
to have monitored. Only search engines that have sent
a referral will appear on the listed sites. New search
engines will appear as referrals are sent.

"The `Create details' or `Edit details' in the first
column is where you would click to configure your
search engine settings. This is where you tell
KeywordTool what your average cost per click is for
each search engine you want to calculate. This can be
filled out after some data has been gathered.

"The search engine column is the list of only those
search engines that have referred visitors to your Web
site. You will notice that KeywordTool will also
differentiate between regions for those search engines
that are regionalized.

"The Column marked "Clicks" tells you the total number
of referrals sent by each SE.

"PPC is the average price per click you have set for
yourself. For those using this for SEO, this can be
left blank. The PPC can be changed or added at any
time, allowing you to re-calculate your PPC using new
information.

"CONV is the number of conversions you have received
from that particular search engine. The details about
the number of conversions are at the next level.

"You can define what a conversion is:

-A "SALE"
-A subscription
-Downloading a file
-Filling out a form
-Or anything you consider to be an acquisition

"The CONV% is where KeywordTool calculates the
percentage of conversions based on the number of
referrals received from that search engine. It's
really just a performance guide of the search engine
for the keywords you have listings for.

"PPA is the `price per acquisition.' It tells you how
much each new customer costs you for that particular
search engine. The number indicated is rounded to the
closest dollar.

"ROI is your potential return on investment. It's
based on the information provided and the referrals
and conversion rates recorded.

"Some of the rows don't have information, because we
haven't defined the cost per click or estimated profit
on that particular search engine. This can be added or
updated at any time.

"Start the next section by clicking on the column
marked `Clicks' to sort the SE's from highest
referrals to lowest. Yahoo US has the highest number
of referrals, so it comes to the top of the list.

"Click on `Yahoo.US.' It will then take you to the
next screen where there are 2 sections marked `search
words' and `categories.' Search words are referrals
from SE', and categories are from directories. Yahoo
displays both so KeywordTool separates the results.

"Click on `Search Words.' The next screen will display
the exact results and performance for each keyword
phrase. Click on CONV to sort to the highest
conversion keywords in this section. This is the
section where you can start seeing which keywords are
working well for you and which ones are not.

"The keywords that work well are ones that you can
focus on to ensure they are also listed on the other
search engines. You can quickly see which of your
initial chosen keywords are working well and which you
might want to consider dropping or reviewing. You can
then work to get improved listings on other search
engines for a small select group of keywords that you
are confident will give you the highest ROI. The
numbers provided in KeywordTool's reports could be
used to make better, informed decisions.

"If a keyword phrase is not working well, it might
either be the wrong keyword for the product offered or
the sales presentation is not working well on that
page. Knowing that this keyword is not working well,
you can then start to make changes to improve
performance. For anyone who has tried tweaking your
Google AdWords Select based on your copy and click
performance, this works in much the same way. With
KeywordTool, it's fairly easy to know which keyword
phrases to work on and which ones are working well for
you already.

"The information KeywordTool provides will tell you
how much potential a keyword phrase has, allowing you
to know how much to invest in SEO or PPC.

"All the information in KeywordTool sections can be
exported to Excel easily so you can manipulate the
data and quickly determine what your strategy should
be for getting better returns from your work. If you
notice the Expert to Excel link at the top right of
the page, it's a very handy little tool."

(Continued in Part 2)

About the Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web
Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has
trained several thousand people in her online search engine
marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com).

2005-08-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

A new Web Marketing ROI Calculator - Part 2 by Robin Nobles

(Continued from Part 1 -- an interview with Chris Genge about
KeywordTool.)

Question:
What if you have a lot of clients?

Chris:
"Each client would have their own account. You would
want to keep the information separate and private. You
can have multiple accounts under your main account.
There is no limit to the number of accounts or the
number of domains you monitor. Each account does
require a separate license though."

Question:
What do you mean by a separate license?

Chris:
"Pricing for KeywordTool is based on a license fee and
a click-tracking fee."

Question:
So if you use the tool for multiple domains/accounts, you'd
have to purchase it separately for each domain/account?

Chris,
"Yes, you can run all your accounts under your main
account, but they are purchased separately."

Question:
Is there a special setup fee for the main account?

Chris:
"No setup fee. The set up takes about 20 minutes and
just requires adding a small JavaScript into the head
of your entry pages and a small piece of code into
your conversion page. Then it goes live right away and
starts gathering info."

Question:
How much does the service cost?

Chris:
"The service usually runs from about $200/month per
account and up depending on how many search engine
related clicks you are getting per month. There are
several examples of pricing at:
http://keywordtool.net/pricing.asp."

Question:
If I have 20 clients now, what would the cost be per month?

Chris:
"The first client is $150; 2-5 clients is $135 each up
to 20. All clients after 20 are $60 each. It's
progressive pricing."

Question:
If I start with three clients, then add two more later on,
does the total subscription rate get adjusted to 5 clients,
etc.?

Chris:
"Yes."

Question:
If it uses JavaScript and someone has their JavaScript
disabled, they wouldn't be counted? Is it a cookie? What if
someone has cookies disabled?

Chris:
"Yes you are right about the JavaScript. There is also
a cookie place on their browser that keeps track of
people that come take a look and return later to buy."

Question:
What if someone is using both PPC and SEO program. How is
the cost is distributed? Do we have to plug in the cost for
each program to calculate ROI?

Chris:
"If all you want to track is SEO, just don't put the
code into the entry pages you use for PPC or use
separate PPC entry pages. The same is true for PPC.
You can separate these by only placing the code into
unique pages you use for PPC."

Question:
So for the conversion, we need to create two conversion
pages: one for PPC and one for SEO?

Chris:
"No, just differentiate the entry pages. You can use
the same conversion page."

Question:
How do we know if it's the right keyword that generated a
lead since people browse from page to page?

Chris:
"The entry code is placed in all pages the search
engines are referring visitors to. This way Keyword
Tool will track the entry and watch to see if it
converts into a sale. You can place the code in just
one page or as many pages as required--there is no
limit. You can even have the same code in an include
file in your template. This way KeywordTool watches
refers from all your pages."

Question:
Do we need to do the data entry for keywords and PPC?

Chris:
"There is no data entry; KeywordTool looks for the
keywords as they are used on search engines, not how
we think they should be used. This way you can
discover good keywords you got listings for and didn't
know it."

In Conclusion

If your ROI is important to you, which is should be!,
KeywordTool (http://www.keywordtool.net) will certainly
help you determine your conversions rates and the return on
your investment for any traffic through the search engines,
directories, and pay-per-click engines. It's a sharp
program with a lot of handy features.
About the Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web
Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has
trained several thousand people in her online search engine
marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com).

2005-08-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

Google And Duplicate Content by Richard Lowe

I've been following the discussion about Google and mirrored
information for some time. It is "common knowledge" that Google
penalizes page rank when it determines that content is
duplicated somewhere else. In fact, I've read many experts
stating that there should be no duplicate domain names and no
duplicate content anywhere.

On the face of it the arguments appear to be sound. Google
obviously has several billion pages in it's database and could,
it appears, easily determine if content is duplicated. It also
seems, again on the face of it, that it's reasonable to check
for duplicate content, as this is the "mark of a spammer" and
not necessary on the web with hyperlinking available. At least,
this is the common wisdom.

However, sometimes what seems reasonable and possible is not:
not by a long shot.

Let's begin with the technical side of things. You've got
domain x and domain y with exactly the same content. How on
earth would Google be able to figure that out? Let's say Google
had 3 billion pages in it's database. To compare every page to
every page would be an enormous task - quadrillions of
comparisons.

Now, if site x had page "page1" which linked to site y which
also had "page1", then it would be possible for Google to
determine the duplicate content. Conceivably, it could check
this out.

Not only is the task enormous, but the benefit is so tiny as to
be insignificant. Duplicate content does not imply in any way
shape or form spamming. In actual fact, a duplicate site is
generally going to lower page rank of BOTH sites. Instead of
having 100 links to one site, there will presumably be 50 links
to one and 50 to another. This would tend (all things being
equal) to lower the page ranking of both sites. So Google gains
nothing by this incredible expenditure of resources.

There are several reasons for duplicate content which have
nothing to do with spamming. Sometimes the content is actually
duplicated, and sometimes it's just that there are several
different domains (at least the www and non-www versions) for
the same website

Mirroring a site for load balancing - This is very common. The
purpose is to split up the traffic between two copies of the
site.

Mirroring for region - Sometimes site mirroring is done simply
to make it more efficient on the internet backbone itself. You
might put an identical copy of a site in Europe, for example,
to reduce traffic across the Atlantic, which should make it
faster in European countries.

Viral marketing - It's extremely common to allow other sites to
republish articles in return for a link.

Different domain names - Sometimes a site might be referenced
on many different domain names. You might want to allow the
.com, .net and .org versions of the name to all work the same,
you might allow for common misspellings or you might cover
different keywords (sewing-tips and sewing-secrets are examples
of possible combinations).

Different domain names for different markets - you might also
want to reference your site by different names in order to
target different markets. You could, for example, have a site
about search engine optimization and want to target both SEO
and web designers. Thus domain names like seo.com and
webdesign.com would make sense.

www - Any good webmaster knows his or her site needs to be
referenced with and without the www.

Okay, so what's the smart thing to do? Well, it is possible
that search engines do compare a limited number of pages to
check for duplication. They could certainly check if someone
reported something, and they might check directly linked pages
(although this is still a heck of a lot of overhead for very
little benefit).

Of course, Google and the other search engines can account for
a hefty percentage of the traffic received by a site. In fact,
sometimes the number can exceed 70 percent. So it's wise to
spend some time ensuring that you are totally clean when it
comes to search engine optimization. In other words, a
technician from any search engine should be able to examine
your site down to it's smallest detail and find no evidence of
any kind of search engine spamming (attempting to get higher
rankings by unethical means). This is absolutely critical to a
site's survival for the long term.

Keeping that in mind, here's what I tend to do.

Multiple domains - Using multiple domains to the same site has
a tremendous number of advantages. Thus, I tend to follow the
advice given by others: take advantage of permanent redirection.
In other words, set up a redirection (a 301 status code) which
simply tells the browser "this page has moved, proceed to this
page, and the move is permanent. This tells the spider about the
redirection with no possibility of misunderstanding, yet allows
for the multiple domains.

Republished articles - I allow others to republish many of my
articles, and at this time I have records of over 10,000 of
them all over the internet on thousands of web sites. This is
not a problem, as these articles are sent in text format. The
webmaster must then drop this text into his site, which requires
some reformatting and shuffling around. Thus, the finished
articles may have the same text but the formatting is very, very
different. This is a highly respected method of gaining a large
number of incoming links: I give you something (an article,
i.e., content) and you give me something (a link back to my
site).

Mirroring - I haven't needed to do this yet, so I have no advice
as to what to do if a site requires actual, physical multiple
versions of itself. I would tend to just do it overtly (out in
the open) and not worry about it.

About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets
at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to
read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

2005-08-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

A Look at Ask Jeeves and Teoma - Part 2 by Robin Nobles

Question: In your FAQ's for Ask Jeeves/Teoma's pay inclusion
program (http://ask.ineedhits.com/faq.asp), it states that you
can't change URL's. Why?

Jim: "Because it's considered a new submission. We're not able to
put enough resources against it yet."

Question: So in the future, we'll have the ability to swap out
URLs?

Jim: "We'll see, but I hear you. We are aware of Inktomi's
program."

Question: What's the difference in traffic between the premium
listings and the "regular" search results?

Jim: "Do you mean between Premier Listings (Featured Sponsor) and
Paid Inclusion? There are two differences: 1) You are guaranteed
that your listing will show up; 2) You are guaranteed that it
will show up in a specific location on our page."

Question: Are Premier Listings twice as likely to be clicked on,
for example?

Jim: "Premier Listing is really just an ad. With Paid Inclusion,
you aren't paying for anything other than being included in the
index and then being subjected to the same relevance algorithms
that give us our other results, but with the other benefits that
I mentioned earlier.

"In terms of click ratio, I suppose it depends on how relevant
your site is to a given query. The match rate of a site that buys
ad space on our site is much more significant than one that
purchases via paid inclusion for now."

For more information about Premier Listings, visit:
http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/advertise/premier.html.

Question: Let's say that I have a Web site:
http://myownwebsite.com, and let's say that my goal is for it to
become an "authoritative" site in Teoma. Could you give us some
tips on what we can do to try to be considered by Teoma as an
authoritative or expert site on a particular subject?

Jim: "Our recommendations are as follows: 1) you allow people to
link to you; 2) you offer quality content so that you become
popular among other sites of the same subject (i.e., experts).
Basically, that's it. None of our expert sites or authorities are
manually decided. It's based on our algorithms."

Question: On Teoma, are Teoma and Ask Jeeves results combined?

Jim: "Well, there really is no such thing as an Ask Jeeves
result. There are pre-fab, editorially selected `answers' to
certain queries that may appear at the top of the page if we have
a high level of confidence that we have the right answer. But as
far as the actual search results go, it's all Teoma...and we'll
layer in the Direct Hit click-pop at some point soon."

Question: But Teoma results ARE being shown at Ask Jeeves?

Jim: "That's exactly right. The part of the AJ page that says,
`You may find these search results helpful' has the Teoma
results. They were launched in January (and by no coincidence, we
immediately saw a 30% increase in picks to those results.)"

Question: The "Featured Sponsor" section of Ask Jeeves, is that
the Premier Listings?

Jim: "Yes it is."

(End of interview/chat session)

Let's take a longer look at Teoma

If you haven't visited Teoma yet and performed a few searches,
you need to do so (http://www.teoma.com/). It's a really cool
engine with some very interesting and helpful features.

For example, it's a no-nonsense engine like Google with one
purpose only: search.

When you search at Teoma, you're given three sets of results:

* Results, which are relevant Web pages from the Teoma index;

* Refine, which are suggestions for narrowing your search;

* Resources, which are link collections from experts and
enthusiasts.

So with Teoma, if your search results are too broad, you can
immediately narrow them down by choosing one of the suggestions
in the Refine section.

And, in the Resources area, you'll find "experts" in that
particular focus area. This is an excellent place to find related
and important sites that might be good candidates to contact
about swapping links.

More on Ask Jeeves

Ask Jeeves is the "question answering" search engine, which puts
it into a class of its own. (http://www.askjeeves.com)

At the top of the search results, you'll see a "featured sponsor"
section, which is their Premier Listing advertisement that we've
discussed previously.

With some searches, you'll see a "sponsored links" section, which
are results currently being provided by Overture. However, on
September 3, Ask Jeeves will be switching to Google for their
paid listings.

Then, you'll find search results from Teoma, followed by a
section called, "Other people with your search have also asked:"
In that section, you'll see additional questions that may help
answer your initial question, with results coming from Ask.com.

Like at Teoma, you can narrow your search down by choosing one of
the search terms on the right-hand side of the page.

Ask Jeeves recently entered into an agreement with Google to
display their Google AdWords in Ask Jeeves results effective
September 3, 2002. Those results will be shown at both Ask Jeeves
and Teoma as "sponsored links." For more information, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline echnology/AP-Ask-Jeeves-
Google.html

In Conclusion

Teoma has taken over the old Direct Hit site, and I believe we'll
see some big things out of this fascinating engine in the future.

Ask Jeeves is as it's always been: unique - a place where you can
go and ask a question and be presented with several possible
answers.

If you haven't submitted your site to Ask Jeeves/Teoma, and if
your site isn't found in the Teoma index, I strongly suggest that
you consider their pay inclusion program and become a part of
their index.

About the Author
Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists,
(http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several
thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses
(http://www.onlinewebtraining.com).

2005-08-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Part 2: 5 More Pay Per Click Tips by Richard Baker

Pay Per Click tips will help you target specific audiences, reaching over 85% of all Internet users in a cost effective and immediate way.

Over the last 3 years we have seen a growth in the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engine model. This was initially fashioned by Overture, but has quickly been followed by a whole host of Pay Per Clicks.

The concept is extremely simple. You bid on words that surfers who would be interested in your website's content would use to search on. For example, if your website was about gardening...you may bid on the words "garden care" or "lawn care" etc. When someone searches on the words "garden care", the search results are returned in the order of the bids placed; so a website with a 60 cents bid would rank higher than one for 55 cents and so on.

Obviously, you will want to make sensible bids that your business can sustain. The best way to know what is affordable is to look at your website stats of visitors against your sales. If your profit last month was $1,000 and you had 400 unique visitors your profit per visitor (PPV) would be $2.50. If you had 20000 unique visitors your PPV would drop to $0.50. This is a rule of thumb as not all visitors are equal - some visitors are more qualified than others and visitors from PPC Search Engines are often the most qualified around. these Pay Per Click tips will help you.

PPC Search Engines are the best valuable advertising currently available. If you write a good website and expert title and descriptions with your listings, qualifying your visitors is a relatively direct task. How can you make the most of PPC search engines...great question and here are 5 more excellent tips!

1. Watch for Bidding Gaps
What's the point in bidding 25 cents for position 1 when 12 cents will do? Not a lot is the answer, but I see it every day. In fact the worse gap I saw was $11 when $1.03 would do. Make sure the bid you make is sensible by closing bidding gaps. You can save a considerable amount of money by closing those bidding gaps. In fact this can save (or stretch) your budget by up to 70%.

2. Premium Listing...as easy as 1,2,3
PPC Search Engines often engage in alliances with "free" search engines so results are displayed across a "family" of search engines. As of writing this, Overture had numerous alliances, including with Alta Vista, Ask and Yahoo!. The catch is you need to show up in the top 3 on Overture to be displayed on other search engines. You only pay for clicks directly with the Pay Per Clicks you go with, so all the other clicks from Yahoo! or Alta Vista etc. are free. Consider it a bonus.

3. Increasing Your Return On Investment ("ROI")
We have already said that writing relevant titles and descriptions will filter the qualified from the unqualified surfer. However, there is one other thing to consider. When searches are returned many surfer will instantly click the number one bid; it's a habit I suppose. Often the number one bid is not relevant to their needs or they wish to compare two or more web sites. The result for the webmaster of the top ranked web site, is a high number of clicks and a lower ROI compared to position two and three. Positions two and three can be a fraction of the price of the most popular term. Provided you bid on a lot of the slightly less popular terms, you usually can get just as much traffic, and sometimes more, as if you bid on the leading term - and for a lot less money too.

4. Landing Pages
Think about the keywords you are bidding on and give the surfer what they want. Don't just let them land on your home page. The surfer is less likely to get distracted when you give them what they want rather than leave them to their own devices. It you are promoting a particular product, make sure the surfer is taken straight to it. This is an important Pay Per Click help tip.

5. Don't Delay
The sooner you start Pay Per Click advertising, the sooner you'll start getting traffic. With most Pay Per Clicks, the bids are rising not falling. Again, with most Pay Per Clicks including Overture, when two or more bids tie, the first bidder is given priority. This is especially important if you plan on bidding on a lot of terms or when 3 or more bids are tied.

And there you have it. These 5 tips build of the first 5 tips from Part 1 of this article.

Happy bidding.

----------------------------------
Resource Box

Richard Baker is Director of Blue Fruit Ltd - a specialist Pay Per Click placement consultancy.

"...overdelivering solutions at affordable prices"

http://www.bluefruit.com
----------------------------------
About the Author
Richard is an expert in pay per click (ppc) management and optimization techniques. He overdelivers affordable solutions for clients.

2005-08-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

The (Not So) Shocking Truth About Getting A High Search Engine Ranking by Elizabeth Piotrowski

I have seen my site hit #3 at Google, and some of my fellow entrepreneurs are
wondering how I did it. Well, it's no big secret, and it won't cost you anything but
your time. Here's what I did:

1. I searched online for information about the title and description tags to
get a better idea of what they should say. http://www.selfpromotion.com is a
great site for this kind of information. It's all about search engine
positioning, and it's free to sign up. However, your account only stays active
for 4 weeks, after which the webmaster asks that you donate
money to his site to keep your account active.

2. I used Overture's free keyword tool at
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. Just enter
keywords that are relevant to your site, and Overture will generate the most
popular search terms that people are using. I picked the most popular terms
(making sure they were relevant), and made a list of keywords for each page of
my site in Notepad.

2. Next, I visited http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/meta-check.html. This handy
tool will check your meta tags and tell you if there are too many characters
in your title, keyword and description. The above site is just one of many
meta tag analyzers available on the net, so beware - every analyzer says
something different when it comes to how many characters your meta tags should
have. My advice? Pick one and stick with it, at least for a while. Otherwise, you
will just get frustrated.

3. As soon as I uploaded my pages with their new meta tags, I resubmitted to
the search engines using (the former) World Submitter -
http://www.worldwidepromoter.com/?strategy. Note: there are some search
engines that require you to submit your site manually in order to get listed.
Selfpromotion.com has great information and articles about how to properly
submit to these engines. I wouldn't suggest submitting to the search engines
more than once or twice per month, unless you want to run the risk of being accused
of spamming them.

4. If I see the opportunity to add my link on a relevant site, I go for it. The more
links your site has to other sites, the higher you will rank in the search
engines. However, you will want to avoid linking with sites that are your direct
competition.

You may just find that selfpromotion.com is the only place you need to
go for information about search engine positioning. I did quite a bit of
research and found several sites with great information, so I just tried to
combine them all. Am I a glutton for punishment? Probably ;) But even though
it took hours to redo all of my meta tags from scratch, it was well worth it
to see my site in Google's Top 10!

Elizabeth Piotrowski
------------------------------------
Powerful ad copy is the key to producing the visits and
sales you want. Drop by http://www.strategyadservice.com/?alp
for low-cost, effective solutions!
About the Author
None

2005-08-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

The Benefits and Risks of Pay-Per-Click by Barry Harrison

Many companies have been "buying their way to the top" of search engines using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. Should you promote your Website with PPC? There's no simple answer. But in this REDiTIPS we offer an introduction to PPC so you can make an informed decision.

---------------------------------------

What Is Pay-Per-Click?

Google AdWords Select (http://www.google.com/ads) and Overture (http://www.overture.com) are the two leading Pay-per-click players, but there are over 400 search engines using this model. They all work in more or less the same way. You bid on keywords and phrases that your target audience may use to find your site in the search engines. When they do a search for those keywords your ad or "sponsored listing" appears in a special section near the top or side of the search results.

The position of your ad depends on the amount you bid and the competition for your keywords, so selecting the best keywords is essential. You pay only when someone clicks through to your site.

What Does it Cost?

You can set up your PPC campaign with Google AdWords Select for just $5.00, with no monthly minimum. Overture requires a $50 setup fee and a $20.00 monthly minimum. Both allow you to set a maximum monthly budget. The cost is a function of your keywords, your bid amount, and your click-thru-rate.

Make sure that the cost of acquiring a customer through your PPC campaign is less than your average profit from each sale. Overture has a return on investment (ROI) tool to help with this calculation.

Here's an Example

As of 3/11/03 the top bid in Overture for the term "professional website design" is $3.86. Every time a searcher clicks on that ad, the company pays $3.86. For "web design consultant" the top bid is $1.05. In January 2003, Overture tells us 5,955 searches were done for "professional website design" and 3,522 for "web design consultant." Assuming a 1% click-thru-rate (CTR) that translates to about $230 for the first term, and about $37 for the second.

Let's say 1% of the people who click through to your site from the "professional website design" ad become customers. The cost of acquiring one customer is $460. For the other ad the cost is about $106. That may be OK if you're offering an expensive product or service, but if you sell duct tape it's a losing proposition.

Use a Common Sense Approach

When you bid on multiple keywords the cost can increase quickly and there's no guarantee that clicks will convert to customers. We advise our clients to avoid the most competitive keywords, create ad copy that speaks to your specific target audience, and make sure that when they get to your site they can find what they're looking for-- quickly.

Is PPC More Effective than Search Engine Optimization?

It isn't an either/or proposition. PPC listings should not be considered a replacement for high ranking in regular search results. Ideally you should do both..

Next Steps

In our next REDiTIPS we'll offer specific suggestions for creating an effective PPC campaign and avoiding some common mistakes. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, or you'd like help setting up your PPC campaign please contact us:

email: barry@resolvedigital.com
phone: 415. 642. 3624

About the Author
Barry Harrison is the author of "REDiTIPS" eMarketing Newsletter and a partner in Resolve Digital,
Web Strategies for the Real World.

Engaging Web design
Effective Internet Marketing
Essential Content Management Tools

Visit his site at http://www.resolvedigital.com or
mailto:barry@resolvedigital.com

2005-08-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

How to Make Sense of Your website's statistics? by Donald Nelson

In the early days of the Internet it was common to visit a web site and see a counter informing you that "you are the 118,456th visitor to this site", and various webmasters would proudly talk of how many "hits" their sites were getting. Now, things have changed and you will mostly find counters on amateur sites, and wiser webmasters now know that the term "hits" doesn't really mean much.

The term hit refers to a request for a file on your web site. When someone visits your web page, they request your URL, but in order to see the page, they also have to get all the graphic files that are located on your page. So, one visitor to your page may be requesting 25 different files, and thus you have 25 hits.

The counters of the Internets early days only measured whether someone requested a particular page where the counter was located. They did not give any indication of what the visitor activity was like on the other pages of the site. Those counters often did not differentiate between a "unique visitor" and total visitors. The number of unique visitors is the number of different people (as measured by their computer's distinct IP number) as opposed to total visitors, which could even be only one person visiting the page many times. (I used to visit my first site a few times a day to see how I was doing!)

So what then is the professional and up-to-date way of gathering statistics and what are the statistics that really count?

Web servers keep logs of all visitor activity. When someone visits your site, he or she requests the various files on the site. The log records all of these requests and records other vital information as well including: the referrer page (or the last page where the surfer was prior to entering your site), what operating system the surfer is using, what screen resolution he or she is using, what search terms he or she made to request your site and a lot of other vital data that could be crucial to your ability to have Internet success or failure.

If you would look a the raw logs of your site you will see a long text file with the date of each entry and would see a few interesting items but you would not be able to put them together very well due to the volume of information. (a line of text for each file requested). There are log analysis programs that do this work for you. One way of using them is to download the log file from your server. Your host should be able to tell you where the file is located, and you can retrieve it using an FTP program. The log file is then fed into the analysis program and the results are generated. There are many programs that do this work. I got started with a simple program (open web scope-and there is free version available). Alternatively, your host may have an analysis program preinstalled on the server, and the results may be able to be seen online (some hosts have the Webalizer program installed for their client's use)

So what are the things to look for when analyzing the logs?

You should look for the number of unique visitors per day. This will give you an idea of how many people are viewing your site and will give you a broad overview of how you are doing.

Another indication of overall activity on the site is the number of "page views" per day.. Unlike hits, page-views refers to distinct html files or pages that were requested. Suppose you get 200 unique visitors per day, and there are about 2000 page views per day, then you can infer that your average visitor is viewing 10 pages of your site.

Another indication of overall activity is the amount of bandwidth used, or to put it another way, the total of the amount of data that has been transferred per day. This will vary according to how many visitors you have, how many files they view, and of course the type of site you have. If your site is heavy with graphics, or if there are e-books and mp3s to download then the data transfer on your site will be higher than on a site with plain text. This is an important statistic to look at if you have bandwidth restrictions. If you are not worried about this, it is also a good figure to look at just to see the overall activity of the site.

After you have seen the overall activity, it is good to look at the specifics and find more about how your visitors are using your site and how they got to your site.

One of the things I am most interested to see is what are the most accessed pages, and least accessed pages on the site. There are many ways to use this particular piece of information. For example, hopefully your order page will show up in the top ten. If no one is making it to your order page then maybe that is the reason why you are not making any money from the site. Or by looking at this list you may find some pages that are unexpectedly popular, and then you can add more content of the same type.

Related to the popularity of pages is the "click path" through the site. You can see the order in which people visit the various pages of the site and this information may help you to set up your site in a better way. Related to this are the "entry" and "exit" pages. Where do people enter your website? You will be surprised to learn that many people do not enter through your main page. Your inner pages may be attracting much of your traffic, and by learning which pages are popular entry points, you can set up other pages, optimize them and use them to attract more visitors. People have to leave your site sometimes, but it is important to know where the exit points are, and the "exit pages" stat will show you where these pages are.

How did the visitors get to your site in the first place? The referrers list will tell you this information. A referrer is a web site where a visitor was just prior to reaching your site. You can see, first of all, that if you have 100 unique visitors in a day, and if 50 of them were referred, this means that 50 of them probably typed in your URL directly or clicked on an e-mail link or used a bookmark, while 50 of them came from search engines or links on other web sites. Here you will find out which search engines are sending you traffic. You will find out which of your links on other sites are performing well. By carefully looking at your referrers you can go to work on improving your overall promotion strategy.

Another interesting piece of information related to the referrers are the search terms that were used in the various searches. This statistic gives you an idea of what people are looking for when they visit your site. This information can give you an idea of whether you are getting the right kind of audience for your particular product or service.

Finally there is also technical information about your visitors. What type of browser are they using, what operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux) are they using? What screen resolution do they use? You have to make sure that your site can display well to fit the needs of the majority of your visitors.

This information can be obtained using many of the log analysis programs, and also some of the trackers which you can put on your site (for example www.extremetracker.com ) give some of this information. But remember that trackers often only give you the information about one page (where the tracker has been pasted in) If you want to get the total picture, the best way is to analyze the logs. By gathering and understanding this information and making changes to your site based on it, you may be able to increase the profitability and success of your web site.

About the Author
Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He has been promoting web sites since 1995 and now runs A1-Optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com) a company that provides low-cost search engine optimization and submission services. He can be reached at support@a1-optimization.com

2005-08-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Emerging Methods for Effective Search Engine Ranking by Lee Traupel

Search Engine traffic has always been and continues to be one of the best ways to drive qualified traffic to a web site - it presents information about goods and services when the interest level is high and it can be acted on immediately. Up till now opt-in e-mail marketing has been an effective complement to search engine ranking campaigns; but the never-ending deluge of Spam is rapidly ruining the effectiveness of opt-in e-mail and helping to add luster to the value and cost-effectiveness of search engine traffic.

Unfortunately, the increasing popularity of search engine ranking methodologies is helping to raise the barriers to entry - as more businesses, ad agencies and SEO firms concentrate their efforts on creating highly optimized web sites, the competition for keyword rankings and qualified traffic is increasing significantly. The rules are changing rapidly and if you expect to succeed you must deploy a sophisticated methodology that blends technology and processes. Here is a list of five bottom line requirements that must be adhered to if you expect to generate qualified traffic:

Link Strategy: The web is maturing and search engines are putting more and more emphasis on link popularity or page rank or "PR" in Google's vernacular; i.e. the number of web sites pointing back to your own. If you are to be successful you must develop and deploy a systematic process to establish links to your web site with others that are in your market segment and setup an outbound "link to" resources page via your own site. This takes an investment of time and resources - typically you need between 400-800 links back to your web site to achieve a good "page ranking." Here is a link to an excellent detailed article on setting up an effective link popularity strategy:
http://www.website101.com/arch/archive143.html

Keyword Fundamentals: Keywords are the fundamental building blocks of any search engine ranking campaign - many/many companies waste significant resources optimizing for keywords that are either wrong; i.e. not targeted for their market or there is too much competition and rankings will never be achieved. You must utilize keywords that are targeted for your market and find those that can effectively drive page 1-3 rankings - WordTracker www.wordtracker.com has rapidly emerged as the defacto industry standard technology tool for researching keywords - we've used it for years and highly recommend this cost-effective and comprehensive service to our clients and business partners.

Keyword Saturation: Search engine "spiders" or "bots" are automated software applications that constantly roam the web to assess what is called "keyword saturation" via web site content (pages) to identify how a site should be listed in a search engine database. They typically look for 3-7% usage of keywords versus the text on a specific page - you must adhere to their standards if you want to achieve keyword rankings for your selected keywords. And, to further complicate matters, top tier search engines all have different rules for keyword saturation - we highly recommend and use this software application to help us ascertain and setup the correct keyword saturation for our client's web sites:
http://www.se-optimizer.com/

Optimized Content: Highly optimized content is still very important as far as search engines are considered - the more search engine optimized content on a web site the better. Search engines prefer content that is thematically grouped, loads fast, is textual with minimal graphics, is highly optimized for keywords (keyword saturation fundamentals are addressed) and incorporates one or two of your primary keywords for a specific page in the page title.

Site Maps Essential: Site maps are frequently overlooked when search engine ranking processes are deployed. A site map not only serves as a quick reference and/or navigation guide for anyone visiting your web site but it's also used by search engines to "crawl" (the action a spider or bot takes to review your web site) your web site to find pages and links. Make sure you include a basic site map in your optimization plans, it's very important to help search engines navigate through your site.

About the Author
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com, a marketing services company which provides strategic and tactical marketing services exclusively to small to medium sized companies. Lee@intelective.com Reprinted with permission from Intelective
Communications - this article may be reprinted freely, provided this attribution box remains intact. (c) 2002-2003 by Intelective Communications, Inc.

2005-08-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Invisible web content? Yes it exists! by jim Peters

A great deal of the really good content on the www is contained in
databases, so what, you say. Well, most search engines are unable to
access these databases in their search process. In other words, this
is data you'll never locate unless you know it's out there and you
know exactly how to access it.

As I said in the above paragraph search e-sources for the most part
are unable to access information contained in these Web-accessible
databases. They are however able to access the search e-source or
interface associated with these databases, if you know how to search
for them that is.

Here is an example (a picture is worth a thousand words they say, or
should that be changed in this new millennium to "a screen shot is
worth a thousand bits of data")

The trick is to search for the specific topic you're interested in
with the Boolean "and" together with the word "database" in your
query.

Searched the web for medicine.

Have a look at the results produced using only the word medicine for
our search. Results 17,900,000 documents found, but no databases.

Now perform that same search using medicine and database.

Now we look at the search string "medicine and database. First
you'll notice that the search e-source tells us that our "and" is
not necessary (see article "Search with the power of Boolean
operators" in the OU Interactive Library)

We have returned 1,390,000 results. (More than 16 million less than
the above search) Not only have we eliminated many millions of
useless data references, but we have produced a much narrower search
field with highly pertinent information to be found in the hundreds
of databases we are now able to peruse.

This type of searching will produce highly targeted results without
having to dig through millions of rag tag commercial sites, message
boards and discussion lists. You'll generally find that these
results come without all of heavy graphics and hype you'll fine with
a wider search method.

"Your Success Is Our Success"

jbp
About the Author
[ jim Peters is Manager of NSI "SOLUTIONS". NSI
specializes in custom website design,promotion, maintenance, domain
registration ,site
hosting ,site and graphic design, as well as e-commerce
packages for small to medium sized companies. In other words
"SOLUTIONS".]

2005-08-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

Identify your Target Market by Tracking and Exploiting Profitable Search Engine Keyword Phrases. by Jhonny Papas

There's a very lucrative "marketing formula" to targeting prospects on the Internet with "laser-beam"-like precision. Unlike savvy marketers, most Internet businesses focus on generic "single-word" keywords, other than keyword phrases (constituted by 2 or more words).

If you're not using a keyword tracking software to correlate your customers with the search engine keywords that motivated them to visit your web site, read your sales letter and submit an order, you're missing bits of very critical information.

One known method to track your referrals via search engines is by using a cgi/php script. All you need is to place a snippet of HTML, JavaScript or SSI code onto your web pages to track referrals and keywords. You also need to place a tracking code to the "Thank You" page to track the sale and identify the customer.

Most Internet customers use two or more keywords to find products / services on the Internet. Critical data can be extracted from keywords that your customers used to visit your web site...

How to make Best Use of Keywords to Improve your Sales Letters and Boost ROI...

Let's assume that you already have a database of customers and in a database-field (let's name it field "K"), the keywords (or keyword phrases) they used to order your product.

Now print the "K" field and start studying the keywords. Evaluate your web site and discern the strong points of your sales letter. You can make appropriate adjustments in your sales copy by reinforcing the conceivable value of your product and using the "K" field as a compass.

You'll also discover that prospective customers use a variation of keyword combinations. Once you discover your most profitable keywords that customers use via search engines to visit and order your goods, your promotions will start reaping more fruit.

Another technique you can use based on keyword metrics, is the addition of "alluring incentives" that compel prospects to take action now! It's almost like reading your prospects' mind! Can you see the power behind this methodology?

That's the focal "golden concept" to using the Internet as an "Ultimate Sales Genie".

Hint: Some forceful marketers use Search Engine Keyword Tracking, to produce even more compelling infomercials on TV as well.

A Crucial Internet Keyword-Research Tool to Discover what your Prospective Customers are using Now, to Buy Products on the Internet...

Stop targeting the wrong keywords to promote your web site on search engines. There's a powerful keyword researching tool which is very accurate and immensely crucial for your online business.

Did you know that the "most popular keywords" are the ones that are will drain your budget on pay-per-click search engines? It is a statistical fact that popular searches are conducted by "freebie" hunters and accrue too much competition.

Here's where "Word Tracker" comes in to automate your researches for the most profitable keywords. You can use this tool to optimize your web site, discover "new buying trends" and even outperform your competition on the search engines.

Hint: Don't rely on Overture's keyword researching tool. It's often too bamboozled.

Here's the URL for Word Tracker :
http:/ raffic-engine.net/keywords

If you were asked to describe your product with just one word, that wouldn't be feasible of course.

A "description" is always constituted by a phrase and that's where your most profitable keywords originate (from a multi-word phrase). On the contrary a single word cannot describe a product or service.

For instance, if you were offering "car quotes" this keyword-phrase would characterize your online business (not just "cars", or "quotes" - but "car quotes", or "new car quotes"...etc).

Recapping the entire methodology to leverage your productivity and ROI (Return On Investment):

* Use Referral Tracking Software to Target your Customers Create a Database and match Referrer Sales Information with the correlated keywords to Optimize your Advertising Campaigns.

* Automate your researches with keyword metrical tools (like Word Tracker).

* Improve your sales copy and literature by succumbing emphasis on the most profitable keyword phrases entered in search engines by your customers.

Once you start implementing the "exposed" methodology you'll start harnessing biggest "bangs" on your advertising dollars... better ROI and high conversion ratios. More targeted traffic and highly-optimized marketing campaigns.

You can even match your optimum keywords with demographic variables using sophisticated databases. The Internet is fairly considered an "Unrivaled Weapon" in every marketing arsenal. Use it wisely and watch your customer base skyrocket!

About the Author
Jhonny Papas is the author of http://www.Traffic-Engine.NET and eCommerce Analyst.

This article may be freely distributed / republished, as long as it contains the author's credits and the precise entirety of the provided article, titled:

"Identify your Target Market by Tracking and Exploiting Profitable Search Engine Keyword Phrases".

2005-08-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Google has a flaw? Didnt think it was possible. by John Romano

First off, Google is king. Yahoo buying Inktomi and Overture puts them back on top for now, but Google is clearly the Yahoo of the 00s. However, we do have a few particular beefs with the mighty and mostly benevolent Google.

Google has a problem with one of their ad products, AdWords. AdWords is the revolutionary keyword buying tool that lets small, and now big, businesses buy keyword terms that show up in ads alongside Googles organic search results. Studying and utilizing the Google system has reaped some interesting facts and a few flaws. Here are a few things we learned.

A.A technique for getting the most traffic and clicks (Sorry, not going to reveal that, as this isnt a hackem and robem article.) Oh, and: WARNING - NO KEYWORD CLICKS WERE HARMED OR STOLEN in the writing or researching of this article.
B.How to find amazingly robust and cost effective search terms (Again sorry, that technique separates a mediocre ad buy from a great one and everybody who finds good words should keep them as close to the vest as possible.)
C.A glitch in Googles system that can unfairly penalize top performing search terms. Thats the focus of this piece.

Picture this: Johnny T-Shirt Co. spends time doing keyword research for terms suitable for marketing their business. JTCo is diligent and finds a few ripe terms that larger competitors missed, like lets say Gold T-shirts. JTCo then sets up an AdWords campaign on Google with a budget at $175.00 a day with a cost per click of $0.25. The ad goes live. Customers see and click on JTCos ads at a 1.8% click rate. Pretty good. Business goes along for a few months, Google makes some nice money and JTCo grabs customers ahead of the competition. Now here is the glitch.

Google expects all ads within the AdWords system to garner 5 clicks per 1,000 impressions. Fair enough. JTCos ad for the term Gold T-Shirts is rolling along at a 1.8% click rate (18 clicks per 1,000) so not a problem. But, if JTCo fails to get 5 clicks per 1,000 ad views just once, Googles default programming will trigger the disabling of the word and give JTCo no clear way of making a case for reinstating the word. Its akin to a father being wonderful to his children then being late for dinner by ten minutes once and the community ostracizes him as a neglectful father - FOREVER. We studied a real world company, www.threedayweekends.com, which had paid Google $1,092 over a month long period for a specific word. The word had received a large number of clicks and hundreds of thousands of impressions, yet when the term missed the five click threshold just once, late on a typical Thursday night, the term was shut down.

Contacting Google about this problem, sad to say, has been akin to dealing with the phone company before competition. Headache, heartache and misunderstandings. Calls to the Google AdWord call center were met with either sympathy or apathy. One Googler said they felt bad and that others had complained about the same problem but his proverbial hands were tied. Another just couldnt get her head around the issue and kept telling us you need to re-write the ad, re-write the ad which was answered with it has worked for months without a problem; the five missed clicks are clearly a fluke the response you need to re-write the, re-write the ad. Lastly, a Google Phone Supervisor when asked out of frustration who her boss was replied Im not telling, find out for yourself if you can, but Im not telling you. What? Now we have the name and ID number of the said employees, but we wont reveal them even if Google were to contact us. Why? Because, overall Google is a great company with good customer service and sharp products. Also, no reason to get involved with Google HR issues, the folks all seemed nice - just not helpful. Okay, the Phone Supervisor was a little craggy but no big deal.

Instead of waiting until Google solves this issue on their own, here is a simple solution that can satisfy all, further lining Googles pockets while earning small and large businesses qualified clicks. Google should institute a system where ads that have performed well over time are given a little leeway in regards to the 5/1,000 rule. Much like a credit card, ads that have consistently performed well over a set period of time would be given a higher line of credit perhaps a minimum of 25 clicks over 5000 impressions. The click rate Google wants is the same but the buyer is given a little room when an anomaly occurs. Missing 5 clicks over a thousand impressions is a fluke, missing 25 over 5,000 could be deemed more of a pattern. Also, 1,000 impressions on a high volume search term on Google can literally happen in four or five minutes. So even if youve had months of success with Gold T-Shirts, five minutes can change everything. The weird part in the www.threedayweekends.com case - the real example we studiedis that Google is turning down literally $75-125 a day in business. Now we all know that the brains behind Google could solve a math and programming issue like this quite quickly. In the meantime, smart marketers like www.threedayweekends.com will have to search for other terms and other places to spend the money Google doesnt want.

About the Author
About the author: John Romano is a former Analysis and Optimization expert for i-traffic and SFInteractive. He now runs a company that manages keyword ad buys. Please contact him at westplants@yahoo.com or 310-281-1199.

2005-08-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

Is Search Engine Submission Necessary? by Partha Bhattacharya

Recently, a customer of ours was insistent on announcing his new website to big search engines. Otherwise, he argued, *...how would the world know that I exist...*. Indeed, the belief that one *must* submit his/her website to search engines has spawned growth of umpteen agencies (some with questionable intentions) that promise *guaranteed inclusion in search engines* for hefty fees. There are others who promise *guaranteed top placement* in search engines. But that's a different story.

So then, what takes..! Let's first separate grains from the chaff. It's worth looking at a few apparently contradicting, yet important aspects.

Google is the king

Recent reports suggest Google presently is the most popular search engine in the US. A May, 2003 research finds Google's share of *search-pie* an overwhelming 76% among US web surfers compared to MSN's only 15% (reference: article by Danny Sullivan on Aug 1, 2003 at Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156431).

In continental Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK), in June, 2003 the average viewership of Google (about 29.06%) was very close to (in fact a little less than) MSN's nearly 29.43% (reference: article by Danny Sullivan on July 31, 2003 at Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156441).

With rapid-fire developments like Yahoo's acquiring Inktomi and Overture and MSN's plan to float its own crawler, none is sure what would happen one year hence. There are even talks of 3rd generation search engines taking over soon. At the time of writing this article though, Google remains firmly atop the surfers' list of most preferred search engines.

Do not submit to Google

Yeah, you need not submit to Google. Google will find you. It has been Google's long-time practice to extensively crawl the Web so as to build its own comprehensive database of webpages, no matter whether you submit or not. In the process it has *outsmarted* others in producing the most relevant search results. Surfers love Google. Since Yahoo presents Google's search results and the fact that Looksmart has changed its listing procedure, it is obvious that their paid-listing programs are just not working.

Google's famed robot, *Googlebot*, crawls millions of webpages everyday and it's quite probable a new website will be automatically crawled sooner than one may imagine, whether *submitted* or not. One may also expect periodic visits by AltaVista's *Scooter*, Inktomi's *Slurp* and numerous other crawlers after you're *known* to Google.

Google's uppishness

Google doesn't like *orphan* sites. To quote Google's own words (at http://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html), *The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites. Google's robots jump from page to page on the Web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more likely it is that we'll find you quickly*.

Dilemma indeed. Getting in Google is a MUST, yet if you want your website to be liked by Google, it'd need *fingers* (meaning links) pointing at it.

The way out

ODP (Open Directory Project http://www.dmoz.org/) is the first choice. But there it takes a long time, being human-controlled initiative (consider consulting Seotie http://www.seotie.com/ to monitor your website's inclusion in DMOZ directory, in case you've submitted to ODP).

Another factor to think over is once listed in ODP, it is very difficult to alter your listing. Even a small change of a webpage url may render your ODP listing unworthy.

In comes therefore the necessity of submitting to other search engines, the relatively smaller ones, yet important ones at that. There are in fact quite a few of them with decent traffic flow. An advantage here is most search engines list websites in relevant categories and therefore once listed, links from them are what I call *highly-targeted-link-sources*.

Where to find them

A handy list of nearly 50 search engines and directories according to their Alexa Traffic Rank is maintained by FreeWebSubmission http://www.freewebsubmission.com/, refreshed on the first of every month. For example, Google's Alexa rank is 5.

Other important ones in this list are AltaVista http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new (Alexa Rank 58), AllTheWeb http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php (Alexa Rank 199), What U Seek http://www.whatuseek.com/addurl-secondary.shtml (Alexa Rank 2523), ScrubTheWeb http://www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html (Alexa Rank 2555), ExactSeek http://www.exactseek.com/add.html (Alexa Rank 2471), SearchHippo http://www.searchhippo.com/addlink.php (Alexa Rank 3041), EntireWeb http://www.entireweb.com/eng/basic/ (Alexa Rank 3667), GigaBlast http://www.gigablast.com/addurl (Alexa Rank 6860) and Gimpsy http://www.gimpsy.com/ (Alexa Rank 7222).

FreeWebSubmission http://www.freewebsubmission.com/ also offers free submission to 20 search engines at one go. [Note the Alexa rankings given here are for August, 2003]. To know how Alexa ranks webpages, go here http://pages.alexa.com/exec/faqsidos/help/index.html?index=1.

Here is an interesting article by Barry Lloyd http://www.searchengineblog.com/columns/optimising_for_inktomi.htm. He proffers that optimizing for Inktomi can later translate into Google success. Don't forget to look at it http://www.searchengineblog.com/columns/optimising_for_inktomi.htm.

The bottom line

Search engine submission is but one small part of web success. If you stay put on the Web taking good care of your core business, chance is you'll be *discovered* sooner than later. Pause awhile now and then and renew your *friendship* with smaller search engines. The surfing traffic may seldom find you there, but Google surely will. And that's important.
About the Author
Author of this article, Partha Bhattacharya, owns and operates EzyPost.Com offering reasonably-priced nicely-designed website templates and also website designing and promotion tips. CopyrightPartha Bhattacharya, Webmaster, Www.EzyPost.Com, http://www.ezypost.com/.

2005-08-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Target Online Prospects with 'Laser Beam' Precision by Jhonny Papas

There's a very lucrative "marketing formula" to targeting prospects on the Internet with "laser-beam"-like precision. Unlike savvy marketers, most Internet businesses focus on generic "single-word" keywords, other than keyword phrases (constituted by 2 or more words).

If you're not using a keyword tracking software to correlate your customers with the search engine keywords that motivated them to visit your web site, read your sales letter and submit an order, you're missing bits of very critical information.

One known method to track your referrals via search engines is by using a cgi/php script. All you need is to place a snippet of HTML, JavaScript or SSI code onto your web pages to track referrals and keywords. You also need to place a tracking code to the "Thank You" page to track the sale and identify the customer.

Most Internet customers use two or more keywords to find products / services on the Internet. Critical data can be extracted from keywords that your customers used to visit your web site...

How to make Best Use of Keywords to Improve your Sales Letters and Boost ROI...

Let's assume that you already have a database of customers and in a database-field (let's name it field "K"), the keywords (or keyword phrases) they used to order your product.

Now print the "K" field and start studying the keywords. Evaluate your web site and discern the strong points of your sales letter. You can make appropriate adjustments in your sales copy by reinforcing the conceivable value of your product and using the "K" field as a compass.

You'll also discover that prospective customers use a variation of keyword combinations. Once you discover your most profitable keywords that customers use via search engines to visit and order your goods, your promotions will start reaping more fruit. Another technique you can use based on keyword metrics, is the addition of "alluring incentives" that compel prospects to take action now! It's almost like reading your prospects' mind! Can you see the power behind this methodology?

That's the focal "golden concept" to using the Internet as an Ultimate Sales Genie.

Hint: Some forceful marketers use Search Engine Keyword Tracking, to produce even more compelling infomercials on TV as well.

A Crucial Internet Keyword-Research Tool to Discover what your Prospective Customers are using Now, to Buy Products on the Internet...

Stop targeting the wrong keywords to promote your web site on search engines. There's a powerful keyword researching tool which is very accurate and immensely crucial for your online business.

Did you know that the "most popular keywords" are the ones that are will drain your budget on pay-per-click search engines? It is a statistical fact that popular searches are conducted by "freebie" hunters and accrue too much competition.

Here's where "Word Tracker" comes in to automate your researches for the most profitable keywords. You can use this tool to optimize your web site, discover "new buying trends" and even outperform your competition on the search engines.

Hint: Don't rely on Overture's keyword researching tool. It's often too bamboozled.

Here's the URL for Word Tracker : http:/ raffic-engine.net/keywords

If you were asked to describe your product with just one word, that wouldn't be feasible of course.

A "description" is always constituted by a phrase and that's where your most profitable keywords originate (from a multi-word phrase). On the contrary a single word cannot describe a product or service. For instance, if you were offering "car quotes" this keyword-phrase would characterize your online business (not just "cars", or "quotes" - but "car quotes", or "new car quotes"...etc).

Recapping the entire methodology to leverage your productivity and ROI (Return On Investment):

--> Use Referral Tracking Software to Target your Customers Create a Database and match Referrer Sales Information with the correlated keywords to Optimize your Advertising Campaigns.

--> Automate your researches with keyword metrical tools (like Word Tracker).

--> Improve your sales copy and literature by succumbing emphasis on the most profitable keyword phrases entered in search engines by your customers.

Once you start implementing the "exposed" methodology you'll start harnessing biggest "bangs" on your advertising dollars... better ROI and high conversion ratios. More targeted traffic and highly-optimized marketing campaigns. You can even match your optimum keywords with demographic variables using sophisticated databases. The Internet is fairly considered an "Unrivaled Weapon" in every marketing arsenal. Use it wisely and watch your customer base skyrocket!

About the Author
Jhonny Papas is the co-author of http://www.Traffic-Engine.NET and eCommerce Analyst

2005-08-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

How to Get Your Web Site Ranked High in Search Engines with Free Link Exchanges by Barry Stein

Free link exchanges got my web site to the first page of Google
and free link exchanges can do the same for your web site.

A couple of weeks ago one of my web sites,
http://www.BarrysBeanies, was ranked number 33 on Google for
one of my most important keyword phrases "Beanie Babies."

I was determined to get my web site on the first page on Google
searches for the keyword phrase "Beanie Babies."

About that time I had received a newsletter from Sean Burns,
search engine expert and the author of Rankings Revealed - How
to Get Your Site to the Top of Search Engines. The information
provided was just what I needed to get back on the first page of
Google for the keyword phrase "Beanie Babies."

I learned from Sean that there are basically two options to get
a high rank on Google for your web site keyword phrases.

Option #1
Do free link exchanges with other web sites that have the same
theme as your web site. You can target any keyword phrase you
want to improve your rank with. This is importantthe title text
link you exchange with other web sites should be the keyword
phrase you want to target.

What I also like about the free link exchanges is that you can
target one web page for many different keyword phrases. So once
you get the rank you want for one keyword phrase then you choose
another keyword phrase to target and use this new keyword phrase
in the title text link that you now exchange with other web
sites.

It is also important to try and do all your free link exchanges
with web sites that have a high Google Page Rank (PR). Go for
link exchanges with sites with a PR3 or higher. Web sites with a
higher Page Rank are viewed by Google as being more important
and links to your web site from these high PR sites will help
you more than doing link exchanges with a site with a PR1 or PR2.

You can download the free Google Toolbar at
http:/ oolbar.google.com/, which will display all the Page
Ranks of the web pages you visit.

Also, if you go into the Google directory,
http://directory.google.com/, and locate the category of the
sites you want to do your free link exchanges with, the web
sites will be listed with the highest Page Ranks at the top.
Most of the sites near the top of the list will be PR5 or PR6.
These are the web sites that you will want to start doing your
free link exchanges with.

Here is a copy of the e-mail I send to other web site owners to
request free link exchanges with.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,

I wanted to see if you'd do a free link exchange with me.

Many of the top search engines use reciprocal linking to rank
your web pages. In order to have high ranking web pages you need
links back to your web site.

Here is my information:

Title: Beanie Babies
Description: You'll find over 500 different styles of Beanie
Babies at BarrysBeanies.com. Many at up to 59% off retail. We
also wholesale Ty Beanie Babies.
URL: http://www.BarrysBeanies.com

Please send e-mail to BarrysBeanies@aol.com after you place
my link on your web site with the URL address of where it
is located along with the information for your listing on my
web site.

Your information:
Title:
Description:
URL:

Once I receive your information I will place it on my Links
Page and I'll e-mail the URL address where you'll be able
to view your link.

Thanks,
Barry Stein
BarrysBeanies.com
----------------------------------------------------------------

Option #2
Optimize your web pages for keyword phrases. You'll want to
target one keyword phrase per web page. If you have great
content and have targeted a keyword phrase then eventually
Google will index your web page and rank it higher.

You should really use both these options, but of the two I like
the free link exchanges best because I can quickly see the
progress I'm making.

Do free link exchanges work?

Well, as I stated above, my web site www.BarrysBeanies.com
was ranked number 33 for my most important keyword phrase,
"Beanie Babies."

I then started doing free link exchanges. Prior to that time I
only had about 10 link exchanges on my web site with other
web sites. Now I have about 100 links and my rank on Google
for "Beanie Babies" is number 5.

So free link exchanges do work!

Searchengine ranking is one of the most important parts to
your overall Internet success if you have a web site. In fact,
it may be the most important thing you can learn how to do in
order to have a successful Internet business.

About the Author
Barry Stein is the owner of www.aWebBiz.com where he offers
cutting-edge tips on all aspects of Internet business. To find
more advice, tools and resources to help you succeed in online
business, visit: http://www.aWebBiz.com

Send a blank e-mail to awebbiz@autorespond-it.com to receive
the free aWebBiz Newsletter. It's all about Internet Business.

2005-08-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

Getting Listed and staying Listed In Search Engines by John Horsch

Creating High Ranking Search engine results is not a game, although many companies try to fool the search engines and make it one.

Search engines are very completive and, it seems, everyone wants to know the latest tricks or secret. Forget all that.

CONTENT-CONTENT! Yes, content is what matters to the search engines. If your pages are keyword relevant and packed with valuable content your rankings will reflect this. If you try to trick the search engines you could very well find your site banned.

One of the things you can do is write short articles that contain the content the search engines want. Help the search engines don't try to trick them.

Relax and become a content provider, not a trickster. This is a much easier way to obtain higher search engine ranking without all the games and tricks.

1. Use Keyword Phrases You Want To Use
Use hot industry keywords that are relevant to your web site. Notice I said "Use Keyword Phrases". Keyword phrases are much more effective at getting the customers you want to your page. Most people will type in search phrase, not just one word.

2. Use Focused Content and Research
Rework different resources articles and make them your own. Taking from one source is plagiarism and will get you in trouble. Reworking from 5- 10 different resources is called research. You simply want to write a short article, your not looking to write a book. Use concise content and you could find your rankings creeping up.

3. Keep articles in 300 to 500 word range Break up your articles, as I have done with this one. Search engines don't search long pages anyway.
Web visitors are usually in a hurry and this format will suit them better as well.

4. Use the Keyword in your Title
The title of your article should be in BOLD print and larger than the rest of the article. Search engines recognize this bold print and the keywords contained in it.

Make a killer headline that really draws interest. Try to keep the relevant keywords in the first few words of your headline for best results.

5. Use your Keyword Phrases in your Article. Try to use your keyword phrases at least 3 times in your article and not more than 7 throughout the body of your article.

6. Place A Link to Your Web site in the article. Don't forget to place a link to your web site in your article. This will act like a doorway page to the search engines.

You should submit your web site to the search engines no more than once a month. More than that could get your site banned.

The steps above wont take you long to master. Before you know it you will have a lot of articles and a lot of traffic due to these articles.. what was the cost to you?

Not a dime...just your time.

About the Author
A 3+ year veteran of Internet marketing, John Horsch publishes
The Workhome1.com Ezine, http://www.workhome1.com/services.htm
and owns and operates Workhome1.com. Workhome1.com has a full complement of advertising to meet the daily needs of Internet Marketers.

The Workhome1.com Ezine was established in Dec. 2001 and continues
to offer relevant and timely Internet Marketing news to it's 17,788 Subscribers.

2005-08-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

Team Up With Your Competitors by Terence Tan

Pay per click search engines are a great way to get targeted traffic quickly. The only problem is that as the search terms get more popular, the price of each click through rises. It is very sad to watch your top ranking fall off the first page into obscurity as the cost per click rises out of your budget.

One way to get around this is to team up with a few of the "competitors" you find bidding on the same term. The idea is that if 10 people agree to cooperate to create a new page listing their ten web sites prominently, sort of like another search results page (which you can call a directory of top 10 sites in your topic), you can pool your resources and pay to get this page listed as the top search result for your desired keyword.

This will price the top ranking spot out of the budget of other bidders for the keyword and ensure a top ranking for this page. Provided you make the description of the new page interesting, most surfers will definitely click on the top ranked listings in each search and see all ten of your links.

So while you have to share the top ranking with 9 other webmasters, you are assured that you won't be squeezed of the top search results page by the thousands of other people trying to bid for the same keyword.

Cooperate with some competitors for an unfair advantage over the rest.
About the Author
Terence Tan is the founder of HugeAffiliates.com, a website dedicated towards the development of Multi Level Affiliate Programs as an alternative system of business.
Visit http://mlap.net to learn how MLAPs can multiply your affiliate referral commissions.

2005-08-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

Travel Your Way To More Traffic by Ken Mowery

I am not a professional photographer nor am I in the travel business. However, I stay very busy these days taking scenic photographs and featuring them on my web site because my "not so" professional travel photos are bringing serious traffic to my web pages.

I consider myself a serious hobbyist when it comes to photography. It's a hobby because so far no one is willing to pay for any of my pictures. I know it's a serious hobby because I am never totally honest with my wife when she wants to know just how much I spend on photography. Over the years I have been privileged to see and shoot a few of the spectacularly scenic locations that exist in the U.S.

When I started designing web pages I was constantly on the search for fresh images. One afternoon my search for a waterfall took me into the basement of my home where my wife had stored dozens of shoeboxes filled with hundreds of ordinary vacation snapshots. I found the perfect scene for my project among the many photographs I had taken of Niagara Falls.

I scanned several of the Niagara pictures into my computer and tweaked them slightly with an image editor. I was very pleased with the results and decided to post the images on my personal website. I made a mistake when I typed the words and the file ended up as "NiagraFalls". I didn't think that much about it because I only planned to publicize the Niagara Falls pages to a few friends and relatives so they could enjoy the pictures also.

A few weeks later I was checking the stats for my website and noticed that a number of guests had surfed in through search engines. To my surprise 30% of my visitors had come through a search for "niagrafalls". I went to one of the major search engines and keyed in that phrase and was amazed to see that my site was in the top ten returns.

I decided to see if other scenic hotspots might become "virtual" destinations of choice. I went through the same process with photos I had taken at Garden of the Gods State Park in Colorado Springs Colorado as well as a few other Colorado locations. I was pleased that "gardenofthegods" became another key search phrase that brings people to my site.

In the past I used my personal web pages to promote my web design and hosting business. Unfortunately, web design and hosting is not that relevant to my guests who come because of scenic interests. After some measure of trial and error I discovered that "entertainment" products market very well to the scenic seekers that visit my site.

I began a banner rotation on my photographic pages that link out to various entertainment sites which I affiliate with. So far the results have been very encouraging. In a future article I hope to explain what I discovered about keyword searches in the entertainment sector.

Let me summarize with these simple instructions. Get those vacation photographs out and upload them to your website. Build a separate page for each exotic location that you have been to. Be sure to enter the name of the place in your page title and in the keywords and description meta-tags. Set up a relevant banner rotation program and enjoy the traffic of virtual travel.

About the Author
Ken is a pastor, writer, composer,web designer,promoter living in Greeley Colorado with his wife and two children. His articles and poems have been published in various magazines. He writes a monthly column for the Greeley Tribune called "Faith For Dummies" which features spiritual insights gathered through outdoor sports and recreation

2005-08-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Search the Web More Efficiently: Tips, Techniques and Strategies (Part I) by Daniel Bazac

Search the Web More Efficiently: Tips, Techniques and Strategies (Part I)

By Daniel Bazac - November 6, 2003
Copyright2003. All Rights Reserved.

Studies show that after email, searching the Web is the most
popular activity on the Internet. Searching is easy; finding
what you're looking for can sometimes be difficult.
Hopefully the advice below will make your next Web search a
breeze.

Do you really need the Web?

Before using the Web to search for information, you'll have
to ask yourself if the Web is the most appropriate medium to
use to find your information. You can find a florist shop in
your neighborhood faster by using the local, printed Yellow
Pages instead of using the Web. And sometimes a library can
give you better, more comprehensive answers than the Web.

However, in most of the cases, the best and fastest way to
find information is... a Web search.

Obviously, the first thing you need to search the Web is a
computer with Internet access.

Before really starting your search, you'll have to decide
which browser you are going to use. As a reminder, a
browser, according to WhatIs.com is a program "that
provides a way to look at and interact with all the
information on the World Wide Web." You can select a
popular browser such as Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla or Opera
or you can use an alternative browser. My favorite: Avant
Browser. (I have NO connection with them)
Keep in mind that some browsers are faster or have
more options. You can download these browsers from their
companies' web sites.

Tools for searching the Web

There are many search tools available: search engines,
subject directories / virtual libraries, invisible (deep)
web databases, meta search engines, etc.

A search engine is a keyword searchable database of Internet
files that uses a software program to continually scour the
Web. The resulting information is then indexed and stored in
its database.

My favorite search engines are:

* Google [ http://www.google.com/ ]
* AlltheWeb [ http://www.alltheweb.com/ ]
* MSN [ http://www.msn.com/ ]
* Teoma [ http://www.teoma.com/ ]
* AltaVista [ http://www.altavista.com/ ]
* WiseNut [ http://www.wisenut.com/ ]

A subject directory (web directory) is a searchable
collection of Web pages gathered, selected and organized by
human editors into hierarchically subject categories. A
virtual library is a web directory that includes highly
selective links, chosen mostly by librarians.

Web directories cover a much smaller proportion of the Web
but using them will bring you more highly relevant results.
The largest web directories index a few million pages
compared with the billions of pages indexed by some major
search engines.

Remember that the web directories - like the search engines
- do not search the Web directly. Instead, they search their
own databases of indexed Web pages. Also, be aware that
directories might not be up-to-date. Some search engines are
in fact hybrid search tools because they are both search
engines and web directories. (Google, for example, has a
search engine and a directory, powered by Open Directory
Project)

Some widely used web directories are:

* Google Directory [ http://directory.google.com/ ]
* Open Directory Project (ODP) [ http://www.dmoz.org/ ]
* Yahoo! [ http://www.yahoo.com/ ]
* Zeal [ http://www.zeal.com/ ]
* JoeAnt [ http://www.joeant.com/ ]
* Gimpsy [ http://www.gimpsy.com/ ]

Popular virtual libraries include:

* Librarians' Index to the Internet [ http://www.lii.org/ ]
* Internet Public Library [ http://www.ipl.org/ ]
* The WWW Virtual Library [ http://www.vlib.org/ ]
* Internet Scout Project [ http://www.scout.wisc.edu/Archives/ ]
* BUBL Link [ http://www.bubl.ac.uk/ ]

The so-called invisible (deep) web is a collection of online
information stored in live databases accessible on the Web
but not indexed by traditional search engines. Examples of
excellent invisible web databases are:

* ProFusion [ http://www.profusion.com/ ]
* Invisible-web.net [ http://www.invisible-web.net/ ]
* Complete Planet [ http://www.completeplanet.com/ ]
* Resource Discovery Network [ http://www.rdn.ac.uk/ ]
* direct search (Gary Price) [ http://www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm ]

A meta search engine (also known as metacrawler or
multithreaded engine) is a search tool that sends your query
simultaneously to several search engines, web directories
and sometimes to the so-called invisible (deep) web. After
collecting the results, the meta search engine removes the
duplicate links and - according to its algorithm - will
combine and rank the results into a single merged list.

Because most of the meta search engines take only the top 10
or 20 from each search engine, you can expect excellent
results, "la crme de la crme."

But be aware that because some search engines and web
directories do not support advanced searching techniques -
such as quotation marks to enclose phrases or Boolean
operators - no results from those search engines will appear
in the meta search engines' results list when those
techniques are used.

Remember, meta search engines do not maintain their own
databases and therefore cannot accept web site submissions.

The best meta search engines are:

* ez2Find [ http://www.ez2find.com/ ]
* Vivisimo [ http://www.vivisimo.com/ ]
* InfoGrid [ http://www.infogrid.com/ ]
* Infonetware [ http://www.infonetware.com/ ]
* iBoogie [ http://www.iboogie.com/ ]

A special kind of meta search engine is the search utility
(also called desktop search programs or client-side search
software). Unlike the web-based meta search engines listed
above, search utilities are software programs that you
download to your computer. The most popular are:

* Copernic [ http://www.copernic.com/en/index.html ]
* Arrow Search [ http://www.rt-software.co.uk/arrow_search/ ]
* SearchRocket [ http://www.searchrocket.com/ ]
* WebFerret [ http://www.ferretsoft.com/index.html ]
* ProtoSearch [ http://www.npccenterprises.com/products.shtml ]

Meta search engines are excellent tools, but they do not
eliminate the need for search engines.

For more about meta search engines, see my article: The Meta
Search Engines: A Web Searcher's Best Friends.

Please see Part II.
About the Author
Daniel Bazac is the Search Engine Marketer for
Web Design in New York [ http://www.web-design-in-new-york.com ],
a site design, search engine optimization and promotion company.
He also maintains Bazac Weblog [ http://www.bazac.blogspot.com/ ]
a blog about the search engines and search engine marketing news and
articles. He can be reached at mailto:danielbazac@hotmail.com .

2005-08-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Using "Title Tags" With Your Web Links & Images by Martin Lemieux

2005-08-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing - Starting A Campaign by Martin Lemieux

WANT TO REPRINT THIS ARTICLE ?

You may use this article on your site as is but you
MUST send me a note support@smartads.info Thank You!

Go here: http://www.smartads.info/contact

Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing - Starting A Campaign
By Martin Lemieux - Smartads President

Pay per click advertising is an on-going and growing arsenal for all
entrepreneurs world wide. Whether your have a small business or a large
business, buying a search engine placement is definitely the way to go.

Why fight a never ending battle against some of the worlds best
webmasters who have years of experience and are deticated to search
engine placement 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Don't fight the battle, win the battle by utilizing pay per click search
engine marketing!

1st Thing 1st: Testing Your Market Place...

If you've never attempted a pay per click campaign, a good idea is to
start with a small budget in order to test your market place.

The key is to find what your potential customers are searching for.
There's no better place to test that out by going to Google. Google
allows you to pay for a small ad off to the right within a small green
box.

Huh? If you've never seen these small ads within Google, go to:
http://www.google.com

If you type in "web design" in google's search engine, you will no doubt
get the regular results on the left, as well as a list of small ads off
to the right within small green boxes.

Underneath the small green boxes, you will see a link that says; "Place
your ad here". Another route is by going here: http://adwords.google.com

Please do yourself a favor and deticate yourself to a small ad within
Google in order to learn the ropes and utilize an inexpensive way to
some fabulous research information.

You'll want to determine how much you are willing to pay for 1 month. It
could be as low as $20, but I recommend starting out with $50.00 to
start your 1st campaign.

Try coming up with an ad that's catchy and to the point!

Ex. Legal Services

Get A FREE Consultation!
Legal Services in Ontario
legalservices.com

After that you need to predetermine the "Key Phrases" you think that
your potential clients are typing in Google when it comes to your
product or service.

EX. "Legal Services".

When Google asks you to enter your key words or phrases, you might want
to try entering something like this....

1. Legal Services
2. Lawyers in Ontario
3. Law Services
4. Lawyer Services
5. Lawyer Services in Ontario

Try using as many as you can think of... Google will later show you the
most popular key phrases compared to the key phrases that don't work at
all.

Please Note: I am using Google's Adwords as an example because of how
easy it is to log into your account at any time and check to see how
many people have seen your ad and how many people have actually clicked
on your ad to visit your site.

Once you've entered your "Key Words & Phrases" now you're going to be
asked to enter the maximum amount of money you want to pay every time
someone clicks on your ad.

Ex. If someone searches "Legal Services", you enter that you will pay a
maximum of 0.07cts per click.

This will give you a pre-qualified potential client for 0.07cts.

Let's move on a little now..

Assuming that your ad is all set up and already on the way. Now you can
return to Google, log into your account and see how your "Key Words &
Key Phrases" are performing with your campaign.

It might read something like this....

1. Legal Services -- Ad was viewed 2000 times -- Clicked on 100 times.
2. Lawyers in Ontario -- Ad was viewed 4560 times -- Clicked on 9 times.

Now you will get a much better understanding at what your potential
clients are searching for and what they are actually clicking on.

KEY NOTE: Try to experiment with this as much as possible and as quickly
as possible so you can really begin your Pay Per Click Search Engine
Marketing.

Are you ready???

Now that you have your predetermined key words of phrases you want to
use, you can now start looking into pay per click campaigns. Per per
click search engines are a little different compared to the Google
Adwords because instead of getting a small ad off to the right you are
now going to bid on actual search engine placements.

1st thing you want to do is to visit a pay per click search engine. For
instance, you might want to visit: www.goto.com or www.lycos.com or any
other pay per click search engine online and test your new key words to
determine what the top placements are paying for those spots.

Ex. Let's use "Lawyer Services" again, type in that phrase in any ppc
search engine and look at the top placements! It should read something
like this...

5) Legal Services.com
Our firm is dedicated to helping you win your case each and every time.
Cost: $0.10

The key is to look at the cost. The cost is what "Legal Services.com"
was willing to pay for the 5th search engine placement.

And there you go, you now have the basic knowledge to plan out a pay per
click campaign. Always remember to lay out how much you are willing to
commit to your search engine campaign and keep yourself to it.

I recommend to all my clients to atleast master the Google Adword
program. Google's search engine is the #1 hotspot on the internet for
potential clients, why not get a slice of the pie!

Good Luck To All!

-------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Author
About The Author:

Martin R. Lemieux
Smartads - President

http://smartads.info
Affordable Web Site Design & Web Site Marketing

http://flyinggelatingames.com
Web Site Awards & Webmasters Playground

http://mindpower.smartads.info
Food for your mind & Entrepreneur Traits

Read over 200 articles on advertising!

2005-08-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

How To Create Meta Tags To Optimize Your Web Site by Martin Lemieux

2005-08-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Search the Web More Efficiently: Tips, Techniques and Strategies (Part II) by Daniel Bazac

Search the Web More Efficiently: Tips, Techniques and Strategies (Part II)

By Daniel Bazac - November 6, 2003
Copyright2003. All Rights Reserved.

Which Search Tool Should You Choose?

* If you're looking for specific information use search
engines.

* If you're looking for a unique or obscure search term or if
you want to make an in-depth analysis of what's out there
on a specific subject, then use meta search engines.

* If you're looking for general information on popular
topics, use subject (web) directories.

* If you're looking for scholarly information use virtual
libraries.

* If you're looking for real-time information or for
dynamically changing content such as the latest news, phone
book listings, available airline flights, etc., then use
specialized databases (invisible or deep web.)

There are thousands of search engines, hundreds of meta
search engines and dozens of web directories and specialized
databases. Choosing the right search tool - from the start -
can make the difference between a successful search and a
frustrating experience.

Before Starting the Search

The easiest way to find information is when you know a web
page Internet address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) such
as Fortune Magazine at http://www.fortune.com. You can find
these addresses on business cards, TV commercials or
newspapers. Simply type the URL in the browser's address
box and hit the (PC) or (Mac) key.

Be aware that in most browsers, you do not have to type
"http://" or even "www" before the domain name. You can
access a site simply typing the domain name such as
"sony.com."

Special note: Be careful when you copy and paste a long URL
from an email message or from some web sites. URLs that span
two lines have a gap (space) between the last character of
the first line and the first character on the second line.
First, get rid of the gap and then paste it in the
browser's address line.

Other times you may not know the URL but... you can guess
it. Often companies will use their name, acronym or
abbreviated name followed by ".com", such as ibm.com or
apple.com. The same thing is true for educational
institutions (add the ".edu" suffix) or government sites
(add ".gov") So, whenever you don't know an URL, you can
try to guess it.

If you do not know the URL, you'll have to find it by
searching the Internet. In many cases, a simple search on
the name of an organization within most search engines will
return a direct hit on their web site.

Tips For Searching Smarter:

* Read the search engine's "search tips" or "help" page
before using a search tool. Strangely enough, most of the
time you'll find the "search tips" link on the "Advanced
Search" page or on the "results page." Anyway, regularly
check the search tips page because the rules often change.

* Customize the output of the results. Use the search
engine's "preferences" page. Some search tools allow you
to select the value for:
* the total results per page; usually 10 by default (select
* the maximum - often 100)
* the search tool's timeout - select the maximum
* the search depth - select maximum.
Be sure to save the new "settings" or "search
preferences" for the next time you use the search tools.
Also, set the browser you use to accept cookies.

Tips To Make Your Search Faster:

If you're searching for information and you are not
interested in graphics on the pages you see, turn off or
disable graphics. You can also turn off sounds, animation,
Java, JavaScript, etc. See your browser documentation for
instructions.

If you decide to keep the graphics, in the case of a
"heavy" page, you can always press the button in
the browser, immediately after you see the text and before
the graphics are entirely loaded.

More Tips:

* Most search tools are case-insensitive which means that you
can construct a query - your search request - by typing all
the words - even proper names - in lower case text.

* If you type a long query, most of the search tools' search
boxes are not very wide so you cannot see the entire query.
Write the query in a word processor and then "copy and
paste" into the search box. Be aware that Google only
allows 10 words in the search box.

* Some search tools offer an option called "similar pages"
(Google) or "related pages" (AltaVista and Teoma.)
Clicking on that option will show you relevant results for
the page you're interested in.

* Some search engines have a function called "see more
hits/results/pages from the same domain." Sometimes it can
be useful.

* Also, some search tools, such as Google, allow you to see
an English translation for a results page that is written in
a foreign language. If you want to translate a web page and
you have the URL, you can also use:

* Systran [ http://www.systransoft.com/ ]
* Fagan Finder [ http://www.faganfinder.com ranslate/ ] or
* alphaWorks (IBM)
[ http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/aw.nsf/html/mt ]

Remember, don't expect perfect translations because that
seldom happens.

* Looking for pages in a specific language? Some search
engines (Google, AlltheWeb, etc.) have an advanced search
page that allows you to select the language from the
pull-down menu.

* If your search terms contain letters not present in the
English alphabet such as "" or "" (example fianc or
Mnchen), use Fagan Finder's (Search Engine Ultimate
Interface) which allows you to use these special letters in
many major search engines. It makes a big difference. A
search for Munchen in Google gives 570,000 results while
for Mnchen - "u" with umlaut - gives 51,700,000 - almost
10 times more.

So, let's start searching!

Most of the search tools can be searched using keywords. Web
directories and the invisible web databases can also be
searched by browsing categories and subcategories.

Start with a popular search engine such as Google, for
example.

Before typing the keywords, take your time and brainstorm
relevant words. Create a list of search terms. Write them
down. A few seconds of brainstorming could save you minutes
or hours of retrieving irrelevant results.

Advice for Searching Better:

* Select the most descriptive words. Brainstorm thoroughly.

* Use at least two keywords.

* Place the most important words or phrases first.

* Whenever two or more words can appear in exact order,
enclose the words with double quotation marks ("word 1 word
2".) Example: "United States." If you use a longer
phrase, you will achieve more precise results. With a very
long phrase, however, you may get zero results. Some search
engines allow you to select the "phrase" option in the
pull-down menu on their advanced search page or you can type
it in special phrase search box, so you don't have to use
quotes.

* When possible, use unique, rare or unusual keywords. The
more uncommon / obscure or less frequent the keywords you
use are, the fewer and more relevant results you will get.

* Use nouns and objects as keywords. Do not use the so-called
"stop words" such as "what," "where," "the," "in,"
"and," etc. Many search tools ignore them. If you need a
stop word to appear in the results, place the implied
Boolean operator "+ " in front of that word. The standard
Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT (or AND NOT), NEAR, BEFORE,
AFTER and the Boolean logic "(parenthesis)", are used to
construct complicated queries. The implied Boolean operators
"+" and "-" can replace the AND and NOT respectively. An
example of Boolean logic is (tips OR tricks) AND ("search
engines" OR "web directories"). It will find tips or
tricks for search engines or web directories. Check the
search tool's tips to see if they accept Boolean operators.
For example Google does not support full Boolean logic.

* Do not use common terms such as Internet, Web, etc. except
for cases that it is necessary. (For example, the query is
"searching the web" with quotes.)

* Avoid redundant terms and complicated query structures.

* Choosing the right words for your query is the most
important part of web searching. The more specific the
search term, the more relevant your results will be and the
more likely it is that you will find what you seek.
Remember, work smarter not harder.

* The secret to constructing a professional query is to type
words you expect to find in the matches.

Note: Some search tools, such as Ask Jeeves allow you to use
the so-called "natural language." This means that you can
construct a query as a question in plain English, such as
"What's the weather in LA?" When you have a specific
question in mind, these tools can be helpful.

Please see Part III.

About the Author
Daniel Bazac is the Search Engine Marketer for
Web Design in New York [ http://www.web-design-in-new-york.com ],
a site design, search engine optimization and promotion company.
He also maintains Bazac Weblog [ http://www.bazac.blogspot.com/ ]
a blog about the search engines and search engine marketing news and
articles. He can be reached at mailto:danielbazac@hotmail.com .

2005-08-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

Google bring Deskbar search to Windows desktop. Now any website can take advantage of this search technology. by Michael Ginzburg

Google's premier of desktop search proves that the desktop is an
extremely valuable marketing real estate. Google, which holds
about 75% of the Internet search market, just introduced
"Deskbar"a small desktop application that allows users to
search Google directly from their desktops. Google currently
rules the Internet, but positioning themselves on the desktop
gives them the power to rule not only the Internet, but also the
entire personal computer.

Unlike other interactive marketing avenues, such as website and
email, the desktop is virtually free of advertisements and
promotional materials. The desktop is competitor free and just
waiting to be claimed.

The advantages of desktop search are not limited to Google and
their major search engine competitors though. Any website with
search technology can take advantage of this new marketing
channel including e-commerce and shopping websites, reference
sites, online magazines and news sites, and more.

So, if you have content on your site that visitors or clients are
interested in searching through on a regular basis, what better
way to keep them coming back for more than offering them a
desktop search tool? If you could offer them a useful
downloadable desktop search application, you could ensure that
they will remember you and search your site before your
competitors.

Developing a desktop search tool yourself would be quite costly.
Luckily, there is a ready-made desktop search tool that can be
customized to work with any website's search.

PromoClock has developed a new desktop search technology that
turns your one-time visitors into steady traffic by allowing them

to search your site directly from their desktops. To search your
site, users simply type their search terms in the desktop search
box and click on the "search" button. Users keep the search
box
running in the background at all timesgiving them constant
reminders and opportunities to search and patronize your site.

PromoClock's desktop search box is not just a simple search
tool. It is a full marketing application that brands and
promotes your website directly on desktops. Each Search Box can
be custom designed based on your logo, website images or even
Flash presentations. Further enhance your desktop search box
with custom menu entries, banner ads and even your own desktop
icons. You may also send time-sensitive alerts for added
usefulness and advertising exposure. Alerts can include site
related tips, product coupons, company news, event notifications
and more. For sites looking to entice users with more than just
a desktop search, PromoClock is also a useful desktop alarm clock
that tells time and activates personal alarms.

So has Google claimed the desktop search? Maybe for now, but
with PromoClock's easy and inexpensive desktop search box, other
sites will be soon to follow.

About the Author
Reach author Michael Ginzburg at mailto:promo@promoclock.com
or simply go to http://www.promoclock.com/campaign/search_clock
for more information.

2005-07-31T17:38:00.000-07:00

Improve your Website Through the Proper use of Tags, Alt Tags, & Attributes in Links by Richard Zwicky

Improve Your Web Site Through
The Proper Use Of Tags, Alt Tags & Attributes In Links
By Richard Zwicky

Improved web design, and search engine performance all in one easy step! Believe it or not, it is possible, easy, and really straightforward. There are 3 extremely useful tags and attributes that most people overlook, or do not take advantage of properly. Theses are alt tags, title attributes in links and tags.

The reason you want to spend some time focusing on these 3 facets of your web site is simple. Two of them make the web site easier to understand and navigate, for people and the search engines. The third one is much cleaner than the tags, and it works really well for key phrases and terms within the search engines. This article deals with the merits and value of each of these mostly misused, or ignored opportunities.

Alt Tags
The first opportunity is the one that is most often used, and misused: The alt tag. Alt tags are comments that should be used whenever you add a graphic, or image to a web page. Pictures are worth a thousand words to you and me, but zero to a search engine. An alt tag should be a little bit of short, descriptive text which helps any user (and search engine) understand what the reference is pointing to. If you are not aware of what an alt tag looks like, here's an example:

The code to make this banner appear is as follows.

When you move your mouse over the graphic, words appear. The words tell people what the graphic refers to, what it is about, and where it leads to. Internally, if you had a hardware store, you could use an image of a power tool link to a "tools" section, with the words "Tools & Power Tools" in the alt tag. It may be obvious, but most people don't take advantage of this opportunity. Most people don't even have alt tags attached to their images, or have alt tags that look like this - alt="" - not much good, they're blank. That's all the search engines, and some old web browsers will see - blank space.

Alt tags also afford you an opportunity to give the search engines more meaningful content to work with. If you have a graphics rich web site, there's very little to no text for the search engine spiders to use to analyze your site. If you attach a relevant alt tag to each image however, the search engines will read them as your textual content, and your web site will show up in relevant searches. Even if your website is content rich, the alt tags allow you to reinforce what is highly important, the key terms, within the content. Here's the key - use relevant terms. Don't just put "About Us" Use descriptive key terms, such as "About Acme Power Tools".

Tags
Next, we have the tags. Often, when web designers are building pages they usetags, and to emphasize the page heading, and subheadings for each section. Whenever you get the chance, use tags instead. There are 5 different tags. The largest two -& should be used for the major title on each page, and then the next three - , & for subheadings. The smallest one, will look just like regularbold text on a page.

So why use them? The single most important reason to use these, aside from consistency of output, is for the search engines. The search engines weight different text within a page differently. We have found that terms used in tags are weighted heavier than regular text. This doesn't happen with using a attribute. The larger the text is (1 being largest, and 5 smallest size), the more weighty or important the key terms in the heading are viewed as being with respect to the overall document. Use the terms in these tags judiciously. Especially in the larger sizes. The search engines give these tags weight, because logically, the header for a page, and for each section of a page conveys the concept of what the entire document's focus is oriented towards. For this reason be very sure that you only use terms which you intend the web page to be found by.

Title Attribute
Different from a tag, this piece of code really should be used by everybody, without exception, just for the sake of being courteous. An example of a title attribute looks like this:

SiteProNews

Note the title="..." segment in the hyperlink. Most people never use this attribute. The reason you should use it is simple: It's there for the blind. Text to speech browsers read the title attributes aloud, so that people who cannot see can still know what the page being linked to is about. If your are linking to a web page about John Deere Tractors have your title attribute in the link say so.

Using this attribute also has the benefit of adding search engine related content. After all, the terms you use will be highly relevant and specific; you have just added one more instance of them to the page. Plus, it's one more thing in the design of the web site that will have been done right from the perspective of the search engines. The search engines look favorably on web sites that have taken the time to get all the details right. This simple addition to your web page may do little, or it may give your web site the push it needs to move to the next level in search results.

In Summary
The three features discussed in this article are all simple and easy to implement throughout a web site. If you only do one thing, make sure it's the title attribute: Anyone who is sight impaired will thank you. Getting all three right will help make your web site stand out, and your work stand out as that of a good web designer. They will also contribute to better search engine performance for your web site.

About the Author
Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software, www.metamend.com, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software is recognized as the world leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the firm's business comes from around the world, with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for their geo-locational, or GIS, along with their phraseology technology and context sensitive search technologies.

2005-07-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Choosing The Right Strategy for your Online Business: Pay for Inclusion vs Pay per Click by Richard Zwicky

Choosing The Right Strategy For Your Online Business: Pay for Inclusion versus Pay per Click

By Richard Zwicky

Back in the old days of the Internet - in 1993, - there were 284 locations on the entire World Wide Web. According to Bill Clinton, only 8 of them ended in .com or .net when he was sworn into office. As of January 1, 2003, there were 171,000,000 domain hosts in use. In 1995, the largest search engine database was Altavista, and it had most of the Internet categorized. Today Google and FASTsearch own the largest databases. Yet neither one of them has even 10% of the Internet covered. It's estimated that more than 8,000,000 web pages are added to the Internet every day. None of the search engines are able to keep up to that pace. So how will your website stand out? How will it acquire the traffic it needs to succeed? There are many ways to approach the issue of marketing an online business, but for the sake of this article, we'll concern ourselves solely with online tools, and ways to expedite success. In that vein, we'll concern ourselves with Pay for Inclusion and Pay for Placement (or Pay per Click) advertising.

Some engines, such as AltaVista, Inktomi, Looksmart and FAST, use a pay for inclusion model. What this means is that to be guaranteed to be found within that specific search engine index, the website operator must pay a fee to be listed. It's similar to the fee a business pays for a Yellow Pages listing. These fees vary from monthly to annual. Looksmart charges a listing fee, plus a fee of $0.15 per clickthrough.

Engaging a Pay-for-Inclusion service does not come with any placement guarantees. If your website is not properly optimized, but you paid an inclusion fee, it is guaranteed to be indexed and listed somewhere within that search engine. If you want to ensure success with a Pay-for-Inclusion search engine, then your website must still be optimized. Without proper optimization, which includes an analysis from the perspective of all the factors that the search engines look for, a pay for inclusion service will not deliver the desired benefits to the website operator.

When properly matched with a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization regimen, a Pay for Inclusion program will result in powerful results: Qualified Traffic, Customers, and Relevant Traffic.

Pay per Click advertising is the process by which a web site operator can arrange for a website to be placed in a pre-defined position within certain search engines, such as Overture.

Search Engine Placement is always a Pay-Per-Click solution. While advertising websites are only permitted to buy advertising in search queries that are relevant to their content, they are not sorted by relevance but rather purely based on bid value.

Pay per click services allow advertisers to bid for each visitor directed through to their web site, based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. Pay per Click search engine placement should be realistically viewed for what it is - an online auction. Advertisers bid against each other for a fixed position within a list of search results. The advertiser who bids the most is given the top spot in the list. Each advertiser bids according to their budget, and has to know his or her Return On Investment (ROI) to determine how much money should be spent on acquiring new customers.

How Do I Know Which Strategy Is Right For My Website?
For those advertisers where the ROI is sensible or worthwhile, pay per click search engines are valuable customer acquisition tools. But is it right for you? While it can be expensive, here's a way for you to easily determine the ROI for your online business, and determine if it is the right choice for you. Take out a sheet of paper, and at the top of the sheet mark down the average price of the goods you sell - we'll use $100.00 for the purpose of the example. From that number, make some simple and basic calculations, outlined here:

$100.00 Sale Amount -$ 50.00 Cost of Goods -$ 5.00 Transaction Cost (bank charges, credit card) -$ 8.50 Shipping Fees (This assumes you're delivering a product, it needs a box, label, and has a delivery cost. -$ 10.00 Customer support costs - time on phone, email, etc... supporting and processing the transaction. What's 1 hour of your time worth? $ 26.50 = Margin
Assuming this margin is correct for your website, is a Pay per Click campaign right for you? You'll need to look at your stats to judge this properly. You need to determine how many of your visitors are converting into buyers. IF your website has a 4% conversion rate, and your category is moderately competitive, you will probably need to budget at least $1.00 per click to get spot #3. Spot #3 is important because more often than not it's the top 3 spots per page of search engine results that are reserved for Pay per Click advertisers.

Assuming your website gets into the top three spots, here's how the math works if you get 100 clicks in a month. Since it's all percentage based, the same holds true if you get 25 clicks or 10,000 clicks.

100 clicks @ $1.00 per click = $100.00 cost 4% conversion = 4 sales = 4x $26.50 (margin on sale) = $106.00 Profit = $ 6.00

So, if the above were true, and IF the pay per click advertisement sent you 100 visitors per month, you would make only $6.00. Would you make much less having spot #4 instead of spot #3 ? If it meant one less sale a month, that would be worth it. You would make $70.00 more by selling less! Does spot #3 get much more traffic than relevant results in spots 4 through 10? Not at all for spot # 4, 5, 6, and only a little bit more for spot #'s 7-10. Remember, people usually look at the title or site description to see if it is relevant. Pay per Click is worth the money if your website is not found under any relevant queries in the top 20, but its value drops quickly if a website is found easily in the free listings within the search engines.

Is Pay for Inclusion Less Expensive?
If we use the same calculation as above, and your website had 4 sales from a pay for inclusion engine where you paid $39.00 per year, or $3.25 / month, your profit would have been $103.25.

What About The Cost Of Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization does not have to be expensive. You can do the work yourself, but you need to ensure that it makes sense to do so. By this I mean, is doing it yourself a cost efficient, business proposition? Any time that you as an individual put into search engine optimization is time that you take away from business fundamentals and essentials. It's time away from customer support, content creation, service, administration, product research, other marketing, etc... What is that time worth? It's got to be part of the ROI calculation too. More and more people are choosing to outsource this work. It's estimated that 70% of online businesses will outsource non-core operations this year. It only makes sense. It's smart business to focus on what you know and do well and to hire others to support you in the other areas. Not many smart businessmen write their own contracts - they get their lawyer to do it. They want to ensure it's done right. Doing it right in the first place saves money in the long run. Outsourcing means getting someone else to do the work for you, properly. It does not mean getting someone to tell you what to do, or how to do things.

What's Right For Your Website?
In the long run, a website operator that has a well optimized website will beat out a non-optimized website that concentrates on Pay per Click advertising for customer acquisition every day of the year. He may make fewer sales in a year, but he will make more profit from each sale. If the website is properly optimized, it will enjoy better placement in more search engines. This means it will survive, and prosper in the long run.

About the Author
Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software has been recognized around the world as a leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the firm's business comes from around the world, with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for their geo-locational, or GIS technology, which correlates online businesses with their physical locations.