Designing Your Web Site to Maximize Traffic

Source: By Brendon Turner

Designing your site to maximize traffic from the search engines is not a difficult task but it does require you to think ahead and plan your SEO strategy carefully. If you have not yet built your web site and are still in the initial planning stages then you may have an easier time of it. If you already have an existing web site, then you may need to take the time to read up on these SEO strategies and make some changes to incorporate them into your web site.

I will discuss 13 ways in which you can improve on your existing web site or boost a brand new web site into the stratosphere of high rankings. These are NOT SEO tricks but rather tried, tested, ethical and true methods that we know to work effectively. We all know that in reality there are no real SEO tricks. True success is achieved through hard work, research and implementation of a thorough and complete SEO strategy.

Without further ado hëre is a checklist of important items to consider and implement into your SEO strategy.

Using Javascript or Other Unspiderable Code

If you intend to use Javascript on your web page it is best to use it sparingly or not at all. Search engine spiders cannot read Javascript and it is possible that along with ignoring it when they come across it on your page, they may also get hung up on it if you are using a lot of it. If you really need to use Javascript you can safely use it by putting the code into a separate JS file and calling it with a single line of code which you place between your [head] and [/head] tags within your web page. The code used to include your JS file looks like this:

[SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="replace-with-JavaScript-file-name.js"][/SCRIPT]

Using Style Guidelines Effectively

If you are using CSS style commands, do not include them within your actual web page source code. You don't want search engine spiders to have to wade through 100 lines of unreadable code before they reach your actual content. Instead, place your style guidelines into a separate CSS file and call them with a single line of code from within your and tags by using the following code:

[link rel="stylesheet" href="replace-with-style-file-name.css"]

Primary Keyword Layout

Examine your web site from a source code point of view and ensure that your primary keywords or phrases will be spidered first. When search engine spiders read your page they read the source code just like we would read a book from left to right - top to bottom. We know that search engines place higher relevancy on keywords and phrases which appear closer to the top of a page so it stands to reason that if you've got a large table full of graphics appearing at the top of your source code before your primary keywords, then you can achieve higher rankings by adjusting your layout and placing a well written search engine optimized paragraph above that table full of graphics.

Spiderable Text Present on Each Page

Many times I have seen some very pretty web sites, but their chances of ranking high for any relevant keywords have been dashed by the use of only graphics and very little or no text on the pages. It is very important to your SEO strategy that you make sure that you've taken the time to write some quality textual content for your pages. Don't write nonsensical text filled with blatant sp@m. Instead, take a few extra minutes and write 4-5 quality paragraphs which clearly explain the theme of your site and the particular page you're writing for.

Proper Use of Robots.txt File

On several occasions I have performed an analysis of a client's web site only to discover that they had inadvertently blocked spider access to their web site by incorrectly formatting their robots.txt file. It is critical that you know what you're doing when you use a robots.txt file. If you are unsure of the correct syntax when modifying or creating a robots.txt file, I recommend you not use a robots.txt file at all. This may sound counterproductive, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Accidentally blocking the spiders can result in a loss of all your rankings. It would almost be like starting over again to repair the damage. For help on correctly formatting your robots.txt file, visit robotstxt.org.

Dead Links and 404 Errors

If you are not checking for broken links on your web site, then you should start immediately and make this a part of your SEO strategy. You can nevër be 100% sure of your link integrity, especially when your site has 100, or more, pages. Aside from losing potential customers into a vortex of 404 errors, you risk more than that from a search engine perspective. When a search engine spider visits your web site and finds broken links, the impression left is that your site is not regularly maintained and updated. Not much is known about how the engines view this, but your crawl status may be assigned a low priority by visiting search engine spiders. In other words, the spiders may not visit your site as frequently as they visit sites with 100% link integrity. So make sure you download some link checking software and begin a regular schedule of verifying your link structure.

Using Images For Primary Navigation Links

Many webmasters like to use fancy looking navigation links but, in doing so, they fail to establish a theme for their sites. For instance, using a graphical link back to your home page does not tell the search engine spiders what that link is about unless the spider actually visits that page. If you use optimized ALT text on that graphical home page link, then that would be a step in the right direction. But to maximize the effect and clearly define the theme of your web site, you need to use a text link that has your primary keyword or phrase within the link text. This is called Link Reputation.

Home, Site Map and Contact Page Links

The Home, Site Map and Contact pages are your site's primary pages and should be your SEO strategy top priority. It is essential that these pages be spidered and exposed to your site visitors. To ensure that they are spidered, place links to them near the top of your source code on every page of your web site. Your home page is, of course, the main entrance to your web site so you want that to be the focal point in the search engines. Your site map page should (if properly optimized) have links to all of your sub pages and use primary keywords belonging to each sub page within the link text pointing to those sub pages. Your contact page is just as important because it's used by visitors who have questions or who wish to order products and services.

Redirected Pages

When a web page has outlived its usefulness, webmasters will, on occasion, redirect visitors hitting that page to another page. Search engine spiders, however, take a dim view of page redirects. If you change the content of your site and find that you have no further use for a page, do not place a redirect on that page. Instead, remove the outdated content and replace it with something relevant. Include a text link to your home page or to a new replacement page. When you remove a page or place a redirect on an outdated page, you're cheating yourself out of better rankings and search engine traffïc. Moreover, using page redirects can result in the removal of your site listing in search engine databases with a consequent loss of revenue.

Excessively Small Type Font Sizes

Text in a font smaller than font size 2 is normally reserved for copyright information and the legal jargon often seen at the bottom of web pages. Use font size 2, or greater, for the majority of text on your page. Font size is a major factor in SEO strategy because the font size used defines the relevancy a search engine spider assigns to the content it finds on your page. An example of this would be the text within heading tags (H1 through to H6). Text surrounded with H1 tags has a higher relevancy placed on it than text surrounded with H6 tags. Visit the W3.org website for a better understanding of how on-page text is viewed by search engine spiders with regard to importance and relevancy. Search engine spiders tend to follow the W3 HTML standard.

Hidden Text, Door Way Pages and Other Tricks

Nowadays search engines are pretty smart and trying to trick them is not a wise course of action. Take some time to stop and examine your approach before proceeding with your SEO strategy. The rule of thumb is that if it looks like sp@m or could be perceived as sp@m by the search engines, then it probably is sp@m. The last thing you need is for a competitor to report unethical SEO tactics to the search engines. Such tactics could result in a loss of existing site listings as well as a ban on future submissions. So, to ensure the longevity of your online business, stay away from any technique that looks unethical.

Using HTML Frames

In short, don't. Frames are not very search engine friendly because search engines cannot read a framed source document that tells your browser to load more than one page in your browser window at the same time. Thus, achieving a high PageRank on your home page is difficult. Frames also make it hard for search engine spiders to find all of your sub pages.

Non-Spider-Friendly URL's

If the URLs for your web site contain characters such as &, $, =, %, etc., that is they are dynamic in nature, then search engine spiders may not be able to read them. And, if they can't be read, then the search engine spiders won't be able to follow them to index your pages. However, there are solutions available to fix this problem. For example, webmasters who have sites hosted on servers with Unix operating systems can use Apache mod_rewrite to rewrite URLs that contain a session ID, or other nasty characters, into search engine spider friendly URL's.

SEO, of course, is not just limited to the 13 areas covered in this article, but if you apply the SEO strategies outlined in these 13 areas to your web site, you will find that your site rankings and traffic improve dramatically.

How to Write Title Tags for Your Web Pages

Source: By Donald Nelson (c) 2005

When it comes to search engine optimization, the single most important sentence that you will write for your website is the title tag of your main page. If you write it properly then you will have taken a big step towards getting your site well placed in search engine queries for your important keywords.
Before I give you a step-by-step guide to writing title tags, let's define what they actually are and see why they are important. When you look at a web page in your browser, the writing in the blue strip above browser's commands (file, edit, view, etc.) is the title tag. On your actual html document the title tag is in the head portion between the notation [title] and [/title] .

The title tag is important because it "tells" the search engine what the page is about, and in the case of your main page, what your website is all about. I remember back in my school days that we used to take standardized examinations in which we had to read a story and then answer the question: "What would be the best title for this essay?" Choosing a title tag is something like answering this kind of question. You've got to pick out the gist of your enterprise and highlight it in a sentence. So, take a look at your web page and get ready to begin, following these steps:

1. Make sure your three or four most important keywords or keyword phrases appear in the title tag.

The most important words should appear near the beginning of the sentence, and they can be repeated within the sentence for added emphasis. For example if I am offering low-cost web design, then my title tag might look like this: [title] Web Design: Affordable, Low Cost Web Design from the Acme Web Design Company [/title]

2. Leave your branding and salës pitch for another part of the web page.

Although it is a natural tendency to want to put your company name at the beginning of the title tag, you should remember that unless you are very famous like Coca Cola, people are not searching for you. So, put your most important keywords at the front of the title tag, and establish your brand name with your logo and other elements of the web page. If your company name includes your keywords, like our hypothetical Acme Web Design Company, then put it in the title tag, but not necessarily at the beginning.

Similarly, the title tag is no place for your salës pitch, so keep out flowery or extraneous adjectives, unless they are actual terms used in searches for your product or service.

3. Place your geographical or niche-defining term in your title tag.

If you are trying for a top ten or top twenty position for a term such as "web design," then you are really in for a difficult struggle. However, suppose the Acme Web Design Company is located in Columbus, Ohio. Then instead of attempting the almost impossible task of getting the top rankings for the term "web design," it would be far better to get a high ranking in the geographical niche using a title tag such "Web Design, Columbus, Ohio: Low Cost Web Design in Columbus, Ohio by The Acme Web Design Company".

4. The title tag can be longer than you think.

Some guidelines say that the title tag should be no longer than 70 characters. It is true that only the first 70 characters will show in the top bar of the browser, but search engine robots will read the rest of the tag and the search engines will not penalize you for going over the 70 character mark. Take a look at highly ranked sites in heavily competitive categories and you will see examples of long title tags. Write the tag according to your need to get your important words and phrases included in a sentence that best describes what your product or service is about.

5. Vary the title tags on the inner pages of your website.

Even with a long title tag, it is not possible to highlight all the possible terms which someone might use to find your website. This is not a problem if you make use of the other pages of your website. Instead of simply having a title tag that says "services" our web design firm could highlight "low cost, web design services..." on that page. The "contact" page could be used to emphasize the geographical location once again, and so on. Many websites make the mistake of repeating the same title tag on each of the inner pages of the site. Avoid this and use each of your page's titles to target important keywords and keyword phrases.

So, take a look at your website's title tags, and see if you can improve them. The effort that you make will be well rewarded.

How You Can Benefit From Google's New Sitemaps

Source: By Titus Hoskins

Has Google finally embraced RSS with their new XML powered Sitemaps program? Well, sort of, but it seems more like a hug than a strong impassioned embrace!
It does use XML technology which allows for the crawling and updating of your site's web pages. You can even include your entire web site (all urls) with this indexing program. For anyone targeting the search engines, especially Google, this program (still in beta) is a Must Have.

If you require timely updating of your most popular pages Google's new Sitemaps may prove indispensable. It's a little premature to assess the importance or impact of Google's new program but anyone wanting to give their site a competitive edge should be gearing up.

How it works:

There are several ways to set-up a XML Sitemap, perhaps the easiest way is to use the open-source Generator which you can download from Google. This is a Python file that you can upload to your webserver and this generator will create a sitemap from your 'URL lists, webserver directories, or your access logs'.

It would probably be wise to check with your hosting provider to see if they can accommodate this Generator on your webserver. It you have a small site there should be no problem but if your site runs into the 1,000's of URLs or pages - check to see how much bandwidth such a system will take up. It's better to be safe than sorry!

Once done, you have to then submit your newly generated XML sitemap to Google - the search engine will use this XML sitemap to update and index your site whenever you make changes on your site. You will need to have a Google account.

You may also submit text files containing URLs from your web site to be included in Google Sitemaps but these text files will have or will be given low priority for the time being.

To get started on your own Google Sitemaps Account you can go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

What's great about it:

Besides seeing Google finally grab the RSS wildcard, it gives you better control of how and when the search engines update your web site pages. Perhaps, the most important aspect for Internet Marketers, you can now assign the importance that's given to any of your particular pages. As most marketers know, certain pages on your web site are more important than others; these pages earn money, build your contact list, or direct your site's visitors in the right direction. In other words, you can place more emphasis on your web site's 'bread and butter' pages. A Big Plus!

With Google Sitemaps you can decide the importance placed on these pages by using the priority XML tag. This rating system is relative - it only relates to the pages on your own site.

Likewise, you can also indicate how frequently your pages change by using the changefreq XML tag. More or less instructing Google when your page will be updated or changed. This is a win-win situation for everyone - Google gets the freshest content for its users and you gain more control of the frequency of the updates done with your site or web pages. This may have a direct influence on the profitability of your web site.

For those who are actively marketing thru the search engines and keywords - Santa may have come a little early this year. Of course, the jury will be out for awhile but Google Sitemaps will probably have a positive impact on your bottom line.

What it means for Google:

For those of us who have been following and watching the RSS wildcard for the past couple of years - it takes away some of the frustration and a little of the puzzlement from Google's seemingly total disregard of RSS.

RSS is not a fad, it is not a trend and it's not going away. Instead, its importance is growing. It is fast becoming 'the' way data is moved on the web. One could even speculate that in the very near future all web pages will have an RSS component - perhaps a hybrid of 'XML/HMTL' or an embedded XML code that will work with all browsers, search engines and servers.

For Google to ignore the growing importance of RSS, blogging, podcasting, broadcatching, the RSS featured Firefox browser, MyYahoo, not to mention all those orange XML logos popping up on most of the major sites on the web - is beyond comprehension. Why Google does not have an RSS search on its main search engine page still seems baffling. Bringing out a homepage and not including an RSS feature is just foolhardy (They may introduce this feature later).

For those firmly in the RSS corner, Google's continued disregard for RSS became more than a little frustrating to observe. It was downright rude! Perhaps Google was waiting to incorporate RSS in a program like this new XML sitemaps? Can this mean that Google has finally accepted the importance of RSS and they're starting to make amends? More importantly, could there still be a few more RSS goodies in the Google Jar left to be announced?

One can only speculate but when it comes to RSS and Google, let's just hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

Link Building 2005

Source: By Brett Hart

Success in life comes through building and sustaining both personal and professional relationships. As human beings, we strive to be at the right place at the right time in order to make the right connection. We quickly learn that each right connection links to another and before we know it, we are part of a network.
Do you wonder why your site does not receive the traffic you believe it deserves? The only people visiting your website are current customers. Where are the new customers the web designer promised you? One of the most overlooked steps in creation of a website is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We like to think that search engines will crawl our website and shazaam, like magic, we appear at the top of the results for our keywords. Unfortunately, it rarely works that way. We need to build relationships or "links" to our sites. While this can be a daunting endeavor, it can be very rewarding.

We are going to look at link building theory and practice. How do you let the world, more accurately the web, know you are open for business? Where do you begin building links? What about link building software? What are directories? Who are your top competitors? Who links to them? How do you ask for a link? Do you want reciprocal links? How many links do you need? These are the questions all website owners and link builders need to answer.

Search engines look at links as votes. The more links your website has, the more votes it has to be number 1, or the "authority" on your subject matter. Not all links are created equal. Links from more popular websites are weighted heavier then links from less popular sites. Search engines are smart enough to know that content is related, so, links from relevant sites are more important then links from sites which are irrelevant.

The link text will help you rank better for your keywords. If possible get into the major directories. Avoid FFA's or "Free For All" link farms.

How Do You Let The World Know You Are Open For Business?

PR or public relations. The way most link builders will approach this is to create a press release that is disseminated to the right people. How do we know we reach the right people? In a recent talk with Eric Ward, the father of link building, I learned that most of the press release web services allow a person to subscribe to items that interest them. If a person runs a widget website and is interested in widgets, they will receive any press release that is related to widgets. Often, they may list the new widget information on their own website. That's an easy link. The press release itself is another link. Yes, it may cost a bit of money to draft and the service may not be free, but you have built several links with a simple press release.

Link Building Software

Link building software automates the task of collecting relevant sites and their contact information, based on keywords. Many of the available software packages include an automatic contact manager that allows you to contact sites with very little effort. It is generally excepted that you should not use the automatic contact features. Instead use the software to identify sites and contact them manually. Many webmasters feel the automated emails to be sp@m and will reject, with prejudice, any site that asks for a link using them. Software should be used in addition to other link building strategies.

The Directories

The major pay for inclusion directories include Yahoo and Business.com. These directories charge to be included in their database of websites. They are often used by major search engines to help determine rank. Don't forget the free directories such as the ODP and joeant.com. The ODP (Open Directory Project) is at http://dmoz.org. They are selective on the sites they include. Not all websites will be able to obtain a link at the ODP. joeant.com on the other hand is very easy to get into. You will have to join to enter your site into their database, it's very easy to do, and is a super easy link to obtain.

Who Are Your Top Competitors?

It is important to seek out your top competitors, the websites that are ranking on the first page of search results for your keywords. Knowing who is at the top, and who links to them is the first and foremost part of link building.

Who Links To Them?

Returning to our link building is like life analogy, imagine you operate a linen laundry. As a linen laundry owner, you wouldn't want to network with people who are involved in high technology or manufacturing. You would want to network with people who are in the hospitality or closely related industries. Restaurants, hotels or people who interact with them on a frequent basis. That is if we have a website that deals with the latest widgets and widget reviews, we wouldn't want to waste time seeking links from automobile manufacturers (unless the widgets are automobile related). We want links from other widget and widget related websites.

The easiest way to determine who is linking to your top competitors is to use the link: command in your search engine of choice. The Google link command seems to be broken, so use a search engine other then Google. For an example we will use a fictional company Widgetreviews, with the URL of http://www.widgetreviews.com. Widgetreviews is at the top of the search engines for your search term "widget reviews". Because of this, we want to see who links to Widgetreviews. Just enter "link: www.widgetreviews.com" (without quotation marks) into your favorite SE, other then Google of course.


Follow this procedure for the top 5 or 6 sites that use your keywords. Compile a list competitor websites and their incoming links. We will use the list as a source for our link building strategy.

Asking For A Link

We now have a list of website pages that link to widgetreviews and so can see if we can get our site listed on the page as well. You will need to visit the pages listed. It is important that when you write an email to a webmaster that it is obvious you have visited the site yourself and that it is not a machine generated email (sp@m). You will need to determine the email address of the person you need to send your request to. Be sure to state why you deserve to be listed on their page, as well as a few compliments about their website, and your contact information. Be courteous and succinct. Most webmasters have little time to deal with their daily tasks. Most important, ask for link text that uses your keywords, not your company name. Using our widget example, you would ask for a link with the text "widget reviews", or in HTML
Widget Reviews.

Reciprocal Links

Generally, reciprocal links are not weighted as heavily as non reciprocal links. I usually only offer a reciprocal link if I really want a link from a high traffic site that demands a reciprocal link.

How Many Links Do You Need?

Your work at link building will never end. The good news is that as your site becomes an authority on your subject matter, websites will link to you on their own.

Your Options

You have three options when it comes to link building. Hire someone, don't worry about it or Do It Yourself.

The first option is a good option, but, it can be very expensive. Professional link builders often charge $20 a link + the cost of the link (yes, websites sell links). As you can see, this can add up quickly. Building a hundred links through a professional link builder could easily cost $2,000!

The don't worry about it option doesn't cost a thing. But, don't expect any traffic. The World Wide Web is a collection of links. Each site pointing to other sites. Without links, your otherwise brilliant and insightful website will slowly die a horrible lonely death.

This article is written with the DYI'er in mind. I wish you good luck in your link building adventures!

Great Site Ranking in Google The Secrets Out

How many years did you register your domain name for?

If it's only one then that's a point against you in Googles eyes.

Why?

Because the majority of Spam websites only register a domain name for one year. A domain registered for a longer period implies that the owner is more likely to be legitimate and serious about their web site.

This is just one of the unusual factors now considered by Google when indexing and ranking a website. Factors you could never even have guessed at in some cases.

How do I know this?

Google have recently filed United States Patent Application 20050071741 on March 31, 2005.

In which many of the search giants secret ranking criteria is revealed and it makes very interesting reading. You have got to read this if you're serious about ranking well in Google. The days of Spaming Google are drawing to a close. With this patent they reveal just how hard they're coming down on Spam sites. You Do Not want to get caught out.

Below you will find the hard facts, I recommend you bookmark this page now. You will need to reference it each time you optimize a new site.

- First of all Links. It's common knowledge that Google relies heavily on inbound relevant links to rank a site. Now they explain exactly how it works. :)

This is a major factor so I'll take a few paragraphs to explain what is going on.

As well as the number, quality and anchor text factors of a link. Google seems to also consider historical factors. Googles 'sandbox' or aging delay begins countdown the minute links to a new site are discovered.

Google record the discovery of a link and link changes over time. The speed at which a site gains links and the link life span.

With this in mind fast link acquisition may be a strong indicator of potential search engine Spam.

Gone are the days of pages and pages full of link farms. You must grow your links slowly to stay below the radar and be careful who you exchange links with. That means no more buying hundreds of links at once or other underhand tactics.

PR is now very valuable.

Your link anchor text should vary but remain consistent with your site content. No more using your main keywords on every link exchange you gain. That's 'anchor Spam'. Instead vary them around your top five to ten keywords.

Link exchanges are still very important but you must work and utilize them ethically. If you don't and you get caught the recovery from a ban can be months in coming and your host and IP may also be recorded.

Softly softly seems to be the message. The fact is fewer but better quality links will benefit you more anyway and likely to be more long-term which is good to.

- Site click through rates (CTR) may now be monitored through cache, temporary files, bookmarks and favorites. Via the Google toolbar or desktop tools. Many have suspected for some time that sites are reward for good CTR with a raise in ranking. Similar to how Adwords works.

CTR is monitored to see if fresh or stale content is preferred for a search result.

CTR is monitored for increases or decreases relating to trends or seasons.

- Web page rankings are recorded and monitored for changes.

- The traffic to a web page is recorded and monitored over time.
- Sites can be ranked seasonally. A ski site may rank higher in the winter than in the summer. Google can monitor and rank pages by recording CTR changes by season.

- Bookmarks and favorites could be monitored for changes, deletions or additions.

- User behavior in general could be monitored.

As Google is capable of tracking traffic to your site you should closely monitor the small amount of copy returned in search results. Ideally you want to integrate a call to action in there to increase CTR.

Clicks away from your site back to the search results are also monitored. Make your site as sticky as possible to keep visitors there longer. As mentioned above it may also help if you could get your visitors to bookmark you.

- The frequency and amount of page updates is monitored and recorded as is the number of pages.

Mass updates of hundreds of files will see you pop up on the radar.

On the other hand to few or to small updates to your site could see your rankings slide. Unless your CTR is good. A stale page that receives good traffic may hold it's own and not require an update. So don't update for the sake of it.

Depending on your market fresh content may not be a requirement. If the information your pages contain does not go out of date then updating may not be necessary. If your market is more news based for example then changes regularly are a must. In general changes don't necessarily have to mean fresh content. They could involve simple edits to current content.

A further indicator that Google is really cracking down on Spam is made clear in the following extract from the Patent. Mention is made of changing the focus of multiple pages at once.

Here's the quote -
"A significant change over time in the set of topics associated with a document may indicate that the document has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable.

Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate Spam. For example, if a particular document is associated with a set of one or more topics over what may be considered a 'stable' period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of topics associated with the document, this may be an indication that the document has been taken over as a "doorway" document.

Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the original topics associated with the document. If one or more of these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data associated the document."

There's still more to look out for:

- Changes in on page keyword density is monitored and recorded as are changes to anchor text.

- The domain name owner address is considered, most likely to help in a local search result.

- The technical and admin contact details are checked for consistency. These are often falsified for Spam domains.

- Your hosts IP address. If you are on a shared server it's possible somebody else on that server is using dirty tactics or Spaming. If so your site will suffer since you share the same IP.

The impression I get here is that Google have learned from the Spam attack they suffered in early 2004 and are determined to eradicate it.

So what do you do?

There's a lot to take onboard here and consider. But you can't go far wrong with your SEO if you try to grow your site as organically as possible. If you know what you're doing you can take short cuts. Carry on with link exchanges but consider each site carefully and slow down in your gathering of them. Vary your anchor text. Add small amounts of good quality content to your site regularly. Check your search engine listings and edit your site to include a call to action in them if possible. Make your site more 'sticky' to encourage visitors to stay a while. Encourage visitors to Bookmark your site. Oh and register new domain names for at least two years.

Before you do anything remember to reference the above info first. It may just save you months of misery as your site gets banned and 'Sand boxed'.

Overall keep it ethical and you can't go wrong.
Do not be tempted to Spam. Stick to the guidelines above and you are much more likely to outlast and out rank your competition.

Cosmetic Changes at Google Precede Larger Overhaul

Source: By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor

Google is undergoing some of the most sweeping changes in its short, seven year history. As of next week, Google will have finished sorting what might be its largest algorithm shift ever as the final points of the 3.5 part Bourbon Update were installed last Monday. This update has been staggered into three and a half sections in order to avoid a massive amount of dislocation in established rankings as was seen in previous major updates. While changes stemming from the Bourbon Update have not actually manifested into a full reordering of Google's search engine results pages (SERPs), many individual webmasters have reported fairly significant losses or gains in ranking over the past few days.

There are dozens of factors behind changes at Google but the greatest is the enormous valuation of the company itself. With share prices nearing the $300 mark and current market capitalization topping $80 billion, Google is considered the most valuable media company in the world, surpassing the $78 billion value of Time-Warner and rising far above Yahoo's estimated value of $56 billion. Most of Google's riches are newly found, having been generated after their August 2004 IPO. In their race to outlast, outperform and outsmart their competitors, Google has changed its PR strategy and its appearance to suit the legions of suits swirling in and out of their Mountain View offices.

While money may move mountains, it takes a community to change an institution. The search environment has changed substantially over the past three years and in that time, every major player in the search sector has changed as well. Today, Google has become a lot more complicated, so much so that it has stopped trying to look simple. This change in corporate attitude is best reflected in two places, the homepage and the About Google section.

Google's homepage used to be quite simple. Recently, Google created a personalized portal interface google.com/ig offering users instant access to several of these new features. For folks with Google accounts such as Gmail users, subscribers to Google Groups, Google desktop users and other account holders, personalized versions of the once sparse homepage presents instänt entry points to the various applications the individual uses. Many industry observers have suggested Google's adoption of so many new features and an all-in-one interface show they are moving towards presenting themselves as more of a portal like Yahoo or MSN. Google has always been a bit different than its competition. Even when borrowing and innovating on competitors' ideas, Google has, until today at least, managed to keep itself at an arm's length from the mainstream in appearance and operation. The maintenance of that image gave Internet users an alternative view of Google, one that propelled Google to a position of almost total dominance of the search engine sector. While that dominance might have slipped over the past year, Google is still the most popular search appliance in the world.

One of the ways Google has acted differently than others is in the appearance of not taking itself too seriously. Its corporate ethics policy was limited to the three word phrase, "Don't be evil". Its front page interface retains the double-entendre induced "I feel lucky" button, even though the button is rarely used. The prospectus issued during their August 2004 IPO was specifically written to appear idealistically anti-corporate. Since its introduction, Google has practiced projecting a simple, youthful image that required very little in the way of explanation, so long as their search engine lived up to users' expectations.

Google strives to live up to user expectations and, for the most part, has met and exceeded them time and time again. There is one long-held expectation that Google may not be able to live up to any longer though. Many of us assume Google's relatively informal public attitude will continue to carry over into the later part of the decade. It won't. By comparison, Google will almost certainly continue to be perceived as the search engine driven by youthful energy. Whenever competitors such as MSN or Yahoo try to appear as down-to-Earth as Google does, their efforts seem obvious and forced. Does anyone remember that poor-fellow in the butterfly suit wandering aimlessly around New York last year? Google's communication style is maturing and the best place to view these changes is on the About Google section of their site.

Google has published information about itself on pages found behind the About Google link for several years. While documents found in the About section have never been totally static, a facelift over the past few weeks has radically altered the look and feel of the section. Along with the traditional organic search engine results and highly targeted paid-ads, Google is actually a series of 30-someodd search-based applications ranging from alerts and answers to wireless search and weather information. Driven in part by an inventive entrepreneurial spirit and in part by a desire to keep up with products offered by competitors, Google has been rapidly adding new features and tools to their core search service for the past three years.

Google's About Google page was once much smaller than it is today. It has grown slightly largër every time Google adds another offering to it. The biggest changes are found behind the increasing number of links on the About page. Today's version of the About page has five boxes added to the left hand side of the page advertising Google Desktop, Blogger, Google Code, Google Mobile, and My Search History. In the center column, Google continues to show four main site sections labeled, Our Search, For Site Owners, Our Company, and More Google. Collectively, those sections contain a larger number of links than they did previously and the number of documents found behind those links has grown as well. Serious Google users should take an hour or two to tour these changes and learn more about the staggering range of features, services and search-enhancements Google currently offers.

For webmasters and SEOs, an examination of the new Google Webmaster Guidelines is a definite must. Google has recently changed its webmaster guidelines which are also considered to be a primer on "ethical SEO" practices in relation to Google placements. Google has recently updated its webmaster guidelines to include information on "supplemental listings", crawling frequencies and prefetching. Google has also posted information on its new Google Sitemaps experiment.

Google Sitemaps is perhaps the most important new feature for SEOs offered by Google in a long time. Said to be an experiment in spidering, Google Sitemaps invites webmasters to feed site data directly to Google through an XML sitemap page. Webmasters and SEOs can now tell Google exactly which sections of their sites to crawl, and providing they are keeping their XML sitemap current, when and where to look for changes to their sites. This experimental initiative will especially help webmasters working with database driven sites or large Ecommerce sites where documents are subject to frequent change and are often found behind long-string URLs. Google has been kind enough to provide detailed information on establishing an XML feed and setting priorities for Googlebot.

As it grows, Google appears to be running into the same problem other webmasters with numerous sites or services encounter, the rapid dilution of a domain's unique topic focus. In order to keep themselves accessible, understandable and relevant, Google's teams of engineers, programmers and public relations specialists are involved in what appears to be a massive overhaul of the interface, public documents and the basic sorting algorithm that produces organic results. As in previous years, how this all plays out in the end is entirely up to the searching public. From the SEO/SEM perspective, it is a good thing Google is in the midst of this update. Web workers have been demanding a greater degree of transparency from Google for some time and perhaps these updates are the beginning of a new commitment to communication from the Googleplex.

Preparing Your Website For Visitors

Source: By Christine Stander

Designing and developing a website today is not as easy as it was let's say four years ago. There are so many elements to take into consideration and various media strategies to contend with.
Color, technology, screen resolutions and cross browser compatibility are but only a few of them. Lately you also have to contend with and create instinctive navigation, search engine optimize your site effectively and ensure that all action pages are merely three clicks away from any given landing page to ensure effective conversion.

With all these considerations, where does one start?

Starting Out Right

I have always been one to believe that if you spend enough time planning your site upfront, you will definitely reap the rewards upon its launch.

Prior to jumping straight into the development of the website, you would have

1. Established the demand for a specific product or service in a given industry.
2. Researched and documented the strategies of the nearest competitors.
3. Estimated the intended traffic and market audience the site would receive.

Only once you have established these points you turn to design.

Designing an effective yet attractive site is the most time consuming part within the production process.

Assisting the Process

It is very important that the initiator work closely with the designer(s), copywriter(s) and developer(s) ensuring that they have access to all information regarding the project, including:

1. Target audience
2. Competitors
3. Technology to be used (XHTML, Flash, Java etc.)
4. Site Map, or basic structure of site including pages and on page requirements

Once an initial design has been produced it is advisable that a web analytics or user behavior expert be brought into the discussion to ensure that the proposed design will convert as expected.

Visitors do not like to think when they are on a website. Present them with the content that they are looking for and make it easy for them to find related information or make the desired action such as purchasing, downloading or signing up to whatever it is that you wish them to do.

There are a few generic details to look out for to ensure that the design is on the right track, including:

1. Name of Site: The name of the site (and logo) should be clearly visible and legible within the header of the site. This instills brand awareness and if a catchy name and logo are chosen, you will mostly likely find that your return visitor rate increases.

2. Instinctive navigation: Is it always clear exactly where you are within a site when you are on any given page within the site?

3. Underlining of Links: Ensure that all links are underlined. This way the outgoing page path and related information is immediately determined and visible to the visitor on page load.

4. Actions: It almost seems redundant to say, but ensure the actions you would like your visitors to take are always clear. During a page heat map research project, it was proven that the most attention lies on the right hand side of the page. The top right corner being the most effective area for actions to take place.

The design is one of the first, but none the least the most important area of site production that needs to be taken into consideration. Equal parts of design, development and content are needed to effectively prepare your site for visitors.

Having previously dabbled in all three of these areas myself, I can appreciatively say that developers prefer to be handed an accurate story board of the site that they are intended to build, including a detailed page by page briefing. Just like site visitors, it is not in the developer's job description to determine where design meets copy or the initial ideas of the initiator of the project.

Ensuring that the various departments converse at least once pre-site design is vital, and will ensure that the website launched will depict the story board initially requested.

It was quite a change for me as a previous "old school" developer to change to the W3 Standards, but I must admit that it really is the best way to ensure cross browser compatibility. No more having multiple browsers open to ensure the design is always standard. I will recommend this to anyone still developing "old school".

Ensuring content delivers the most effective message, capturing the audience whilst still enticing the search engines is the third part to the equation. Also confirm that your page titles accurately convey the message of the page.

Gone are the days of writing M-amount of key-words within content to try and push your pages higher. Content is king in the land of search engine optimization. You will often find thatjust by writing relevant, on-topic content the copy is optimized by default. Both spiders and visitors will appreciate this from your site.

Bring on the Traffic

It is great watching these areas coming together and preparing for the website launch. Now that your site is built as optimally as it could be: great design, relevant persuasive content and development strategy that reaches all markets, all you require is the traffic.

Consulting with a media strategist at this time is definitely recommended. They would be able to confirm the best methods for your niche of the market. Whether you should concentrate solely on natural search or tie in with a paid search marketing campaign. A mail shot is always a good idea - especially if the site has been revamped. The latest craze is Affiliate Marketing, a very effective way to market your website with proven returns on investment. A media strategist would be able to confirm whether your site needs all four or if one of these areas would suffice.

Follow Through

Your site is launched, you have an effective media strategy in place and traffic is booming. Is this the end of the site lifecycle, certainly not!

Don't let the attention of your site slip merely because it has launched and expect it to fend for itself on the World Wide Web.

Acquire a good log file analyzer program and keep tracking and measuring the performance of your site.

To ensure that your site stays at peak performance you will constantly be required to analyze the traffic, visitor navigation through the site as well as your search engine optimization levels.

Involve your visitors. Place feedback forms on your site and request that visitors tell you where, or if they require more detailed information, or have suggestions for improvement of the experience.

It is for them that you have built this site, and without them, your site would be a lonely satellite in a populated galaxy.

Search Engine Optimized Copy - The Down and Dirty Details

Source: By Jon Wuebben Professional Website Copywriter

Today, being on the first page for your most popular keyword phrase is like having the most memorable prime time television commercial in 1973.
Essentially, that's where the power of advertising is going. It's all about Search. And Search is only going to become more important over the next ten years. If you can get on that coveted first page organically, well then, more power to you! I know you probably have read other articles about writing SEO copy and how it relates to achieving high search rankings, there are plenty of them to go around. But some of the articles are complicated; some are too long, others boring. Still others don't explain that great SEO copy is rarely effective just on it's own - in order to get those high rankings (which is the goal after all), you have to do other things too. So, we decided that what most people really needed was a "down and dirty", easy to understand, ten step method. You ask, and we deliver. Below are the official ten steps in order:

1) Check your Competitors

Who are your competitors? Do you know? If you don't, you may want to go online and do a search for your product or service. Who is on the first two pages? That is your target. Those are the companies that you want to compete with. Because right now, they are getting your customers. Take a look at their website. Notice the copy. Analyze their business. Are they successful? What are they not doing right? Look for the holes. You're going to meet the needs of their customers (that they are not fulfilling) so they become YOUR customers.

2) Research your Keyword Phrases

Remember, Keyword Phrase research is critically important. It can also be a little tricky. Do you know what keywords or keyword phrases your customers search for when they look for you? Are you sure? See what your competitors are using. You can do this by right clicking on their home page, selecting "View Source" and then checking their keyword meta tag. Next, go on to Overture.com (Owned by Yahoo), click on "Visit the Advertiser" section, and use their Keyword Selector Tool. Its great - and its free. You can also use Wordtracker.com, but it does cost $7.50/day.

3) Write Good Copy

Now it's time to start writing. Or re-writing. And if you can't write, you can hire a website copywriter to do it for you. The bottom line is to write about benefits, not features. Don't tell them how great your company is. They will discover that for themselves when you overwhelm them with your service and deliver the perfect product that meets their every need. Make the copy to the point and snappy. Make it sure it has impact, and asks the potential customer for their business.

4) Integrate Your Keyword Phrases

After you figure out which keyword phrases you want to use on your site, you need to integrate them into the copy of your site. Think Home Page and Services page as the most important pages to use them on. Essentially, you want to them to make up 5% of the total words on the page. It's not that hard actually. Just don't use them all over the place like some stupid copywriters do - you could get de-listed from the search engines. Definitely use them in your headlines and sub headlines. That will get you extra points, so to speak.

5) Check your Links, Build if necessary

Do you have any inbound links pointing to your site? If not, no amount of awesome copy is going to get your site high rankings. Links are very important. And even more so for Google. Go to linkpopularity.com and see what you have. Also check your competitors. If they have more than you, you need to get some high quality links. You can either do that yourself or hire someone to do it for you. It can be time consuming and expensive. But you gotta do it. It makes you look important to the search engines. A good way to do it is to make sure you are listed on directories, including DMOZ and industry related sites. Go to incominglinks.com to see which ones you should be listed on. Then write articles and submit them to article submission sites. That could potentially give you hundreds of links for frëe.

6) Use Go Rank's Analytical Tools

GoRank.com is a fantastic frëe resource for SEO. They have a Keyword Density Analyzer, Link Popularity Analyzer, Top 10 Keyword Analyzer, Research, News and lots of other great stuff. It's a great tool and something I use every day. It will help you in your SEO copy efforts.

7) Submit to the Search Engines

After you've ensured that your website copy and all the other important SEO considerations have been completed, it's time to submit to the Search Engines. Do it manually. Go to the search engine and do it yourself. Definitely don't pay someone to do it for you. You may have to resubmit a few times, but eventually, your site will get noticed.

8) Tweak the Copy as necessary, Add New Content

After your site has been up for a while, go back and take a second look. Ask friends and customers what they think of it. Can anything be improved? You'll be surprised what you may hear. If something isn't working, fix it. Make it sound better. The other thing that you should also be doing is adding content regularly. Build free resources into your website. This will make your customers and potential customers happy, and it will make you appear to be more important in the eyes of the search engines. Adding articles to your site is a great way to give your customers new, frëe content. Write about things that they would find interesting.

9) Partner with a Great SEO Firm

You may want to also consider partnering with a great Search Engine Optimization firm. There are probably a hundred very good ones out there. There are also 1000 bad ones. For the good ones, check-out TopSEOs.com and MarketingSherpa.com. They both list reputable firms. Whoever you go with, make sure they have a list of client success stories complete with stats to back it up.

10) Measure Your Success!

Finally, measure your success (or progress). Get a software program that will provide you with some web metrics as it pertains to your site. WebTrends and Statcounter are great ones. There are quite a few others as well. As you can see, Search Engine Optimized copy is only part of the overall SEO story. There is a lot to it, so make sure you cover every area. After all, we want to get your web site to the very top!

Why Blogs Have Become the SEO Equalizer

Source: By Hunter Waterhouse (c) 2005 Keyword Text

Alexa Weighs In...
For those who are unaware of Alexa, it offers an interesting tool to webmasters. The service is designed to value websites based on the number of people who visit those sites and the activities of those people while they are on a site.

Keep in mind that their results are skewed to the activities of those who use the Alexa toolbar. If your website is Business-to-Business oriented, then the results may be useful to your needs. If your site is Business-to-Customer oriented, then the Alexa results are far from accurate in documenting the importance of your website.

reason why the Alexa results are skewed to the Business-to-Business market is because most people using the Alexa toolbar are involved in Business-to-Business activities, either as an user or provider of B2B services.

On May 24, 2005, Alexa's ranking of the Top Ten English Language websites were as follows:


http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.msn.com
http://www.google.com
http://www.passport.net
http://www.ebay.com
http://www.microsoft.com
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.fastclick.com
http://www.google.co.uk
http://www.aol.com
(This info came from: http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500)

What Eight Of The Top Ten Websites All Have In Common

Sure, five of these top ten sites are search oriented sites, but that is not the answer.

Passport.net is owned by Microsoft and must be accessed when someone is logging into the msn.com network. Fastclick.com is a site that helps advertisers buy advertising across a huge network of sites. These two sites do not fit the profile.

The one thing that eight of our top ten sites have in common is that they are content driven destinations and they add new, original, and exclusive content on a daily basis.

Blogs Are The Great Equalizer

Blogs are the great equalizer because they simplify the task of adding content to a website on a daily or weekly basis. They make it simple for the average joe to add content to their site on a daily basis with just a few clicks of the mouse.

What is more, the spider search engine companies recognize this and make it a point to spider the blog networks on a regular basis, sometimes a daily basis.

It may take a spider search engine up to three months to spider your site if you go directly to their submission page to add your domain to their database. On the other hand, with a blog, you can put a story about your domain on a blog with a link to your domain, and your website can generally get crawled within a week or so of putting your link on the blog.

Blogs Require A Commitment On Your Part

Daily additions to your blog should be your goal. If you do not have time to do daily additions, you should at worst do a weekly addition to your blog.

Just like in the real world of websites, if you don't update your blog on a regular basis, the spiders will save their time and resources by not spidering your blog on a daily basis. If however you do update on a daily or near daily basis, then the spiders will visit your blog with the same fervor you bring to your blog.

Additionally, it sometimes seems like the search engine spiders are giving some additional weight to the results culled from the blogs. The point in this additional weighting is that blogs are filled with personal comments and recommendations rather than sales pitches.

Blogs Are Easy To Set Up, Even For The Rank Amateur

There are in fact several blog programs available that you can either load into your own domain or that you can use from a third-party, remotely-hosted server.

To see a list of the blogging programs that are available, check-out this link:

http://keywordtext.com/redir/blog-list

My personal favorite is Blogger.com which happens to be owned by Google. Blogger allows you the ability to use the software from their servers or to integrate the blog software into your own site with very little effort on your part.

I was able to integrate their software into our own site and to customize the display of the blogger to fit our domain's format, and I was able to pull that task off in just about 30 minutes --- with most of that time dedicated to the custom display of our blog.

Add to the simplicity of setting up the blog, the fact that since blogger.com is owned by Google.com, they will always be very keen to spider our blog on a regular basis.

From launch of our website, to the spidering of our site by Google took just about ten days. Within three days of the launch of our site, Google had spidered the main page of our site. Within ten days, Google had already spidered the whole of our website.

Compared to other websites we have launched, this was the fastest turn-around time from new release to traffïc from the search engines. We believe the difference in this case study had to do more with the addition of the blog on the day of our launch than anything else we may have done to promote our domain.

Equalize Your Site With The Sites Of The Big Boys

The big sites on the internet got to be that way because they consistently add new, original, and exclusive content to their websites.

While you and I may nevër have as much content on our sites as the big boys do, we can benefit from the lessons they teach to us.

Now that you have also learned this important lesson, it is time to put this knowledge into action. Make it part of your daily or weekly schedule to add fresh, interesting content to your website. Your banker will thank you.

You Might Want to Consider Outsourcing

Source: By Merle

Running your own online business can take a lot of your time. You have to wear many hats and perform many tasks: including accounting, web design, marketing and promotion. This is not to mention constantly coming up with new content for your site or to distribute it in article format for free publicity.
There are only so many hours in the day and to be honest, one person can only do so much. So what's the answer? I have one word for you: "outsourcing." This is where you hire someone else to perform a specific job or task for you. Outsourcing frees up time you can spend on more valuable aspects of your web business.

So what kinds of things might you want to farm out? Great question! Customer service can take up a lot of time; answering emails, dealing with technical problems or billing issues. Imagine the freedom of assigning those aspects of your business to someone else. If you want to offer live customer support on your website, there are companies that will serve up 24/7 live operators to answer any questions your site visitors may have when you can't be around to answer them yourself.

How about software creation? If this is the field you're in or one you'd like to enter but aren't a programmer yourself, you can hire top notch techies to write the stuff for you. Some will work for pennies on the dollar. Imagine having a top notch software package you can own and sell -- and keep all the profits.

How are your writing skills? An online entrepreneur need ads, articles, press releases and other written items to promote the business. And if you'd like to offer free or paid ebooks and reports, you'll need to be a pretty good writer. So what if you didn't pay attention in English class? Hire someone to do it for you. There are plenty of talented writers online who are looking daily for assignments such as this. When the work is done it bears your name on the finished product.

Running marketing and ad campaigns such as Pay-Per-Click advertising can take up a ton of time, with all that testing and tracking. Again, this is another area you can farm out.

Ever have an idea for a new website but never took the time to research it? This happens to many busy entrepreneurs. So many projects, so little time. Research is another area you may want to consider letting someone else do for you.

So now that you know how outsourcing can help you to become more productive, where do you find people to hire? Fortunately, there are plenty of sites that exist for you to post your job needs -- and plenty of hungry freelancers who will come to bid on your jobs. This works especially well for those on a budget who have a firm idea of what they can afford to spend.

Let's examine a few of your options:

1) RentACoder:

Review resumes and work histories of over 96,577 registered coders. Post your needs, and coders will email you their bids. Posting a job request is free and you are under no obligation to accept any bids unless you decide to. When you accept a bid, the money is put into escrow and not released to the programmer until the job is finished.

2) Elance:

Outsource your small projects such as graphic design, logos, web development, writing and more. Select a category and describe your project. You'll need to authenticate yourself by inputting a credit card. There is no charge to post a job in the "basic level" but there is a refundable fee to post in the "select level." You'll receive bids on your job and then select a winner.

3) Smarter Work:

Post your project in one or more of many categories to choose from, such as administrative support, graphic design, translation, research, software and more. They have over 70,000 clients and service providers from over 170 countries. It's free to register.

4) PHP Career:

If you have a PHP related job then this is where you'll want to post it. Free of charge to post your job needs, but donations are appreciated.

5) Guru:
Free access to over 451,000 professionals with over 160 categories to choose from. Post in website design, graphic design, photography, writing and programming and more. Fee is 5 to 10% of project fee which is deducted from the final payment. You'll receive quotes and be able to select the applicant of your choice.

6) WorkAHolics4Hire:

With this service you'll be assigned your very own "project manager." You get to see the work in progress and review it to make sure it meets your needs. You'll need to contact them for a free assessment of your needs.

7) FreeLanceWorkExchange:

Post a project for a wide variety of jobs and get responses from qualified work-at-home pros. Post all the jobs you want with no transaction fees. You may have your listing placed higher for a fee of $20.00. Categories range from writing, web design, Internet research, data entry, programming, and graphic design.

8) FreeLance Writing:

If you need a writer, this is the place to look. Provides companies with a handful of free tools to locate freelancers. They also offer industry news, job opportunities, editorial content, and networking opportunities.

When posting your job on one of these sites you'll want to make sure you give very specific detailed instructions as to your project needs. If you're vague, you may get applicants who can't do the job or who don't meet your qualifications.

Many small businesses are outsourcing their needs in order to keep up with the many tasks and challenges they face as online entrepreneurs. If you find you can't keep pace with your many online tasks, you may want to consider it as an option.