Search Engine Optimization taken on by Manufacturers

"Thomas R. Cutler","Search Engine Optimization taken on by Manufacturers

According to Dean Schmidt, Vice President of the Affinity Program for TR Cutler, Inc., ""We had to find a way for manufacturers to rapidly experience ROI from an aggressive PR campaign. 45 press releases in 90 days generates extraordinary traffic to manufacturers' websites and optimizes search engine rankings."" Schmidt acknowledged that new website traffic from potential customers often helps to quickly identify missing ""call-to-action"" messages and results in revised or updated websites.

Schmidt also noted, ""With almost nine out of ten manufacturers employing less than fifty employees, tight margins, global competitiveness, and enticing spending alternatives, PR is often relegated to the ""back burner.""

Cutler developed the PR Advantage Affinity program for manufacturing associations' members. TR Cutler suggested that, ""Due to our leadership role in the manufacturing public relations arena, we have decided to introduce a program that will allow manufacturing associations to offer their members deeply discounted PR services starting in September 2005. There is no cost for the manufacturing associations to participate in the program and offer these deeply discounted PR services to their members.""

Manufacturer neglect, prompted the development and launch of the intensive Manufacturing PR Media Blitz' program, a 90?day program allowing even very small manufacturers to tiptoe into the public relations arena driving quantifiable and measurable impacts.

""Manufacturers spent the past fifteen years becoming lean, efficient, and highly competitive while completely ignoring their marketing and public relations efforts,"" according to Thomas R. Cutler, the nation's leading manufacturing journalist and CEO of TR Cutler, Inc. (www.trcutlerinc.com) based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

In early Q3, Cutler conducted the largest North American manufacturer survey about anticipated marketing budgets in 2006. Statistically significant findings indicated that nearly two-thirds (64%) of the manufacturers surveyed anticipate a dramatic increase in PR budgets of 50% above 2005 levels; travel, print advertising, tradeshow exhibiting, and direct mail each revealed a 30% decrease in 2006 marketing versus 2005.


TR Cutler
954-486-7562
www.trcutlerinc.com
trcutler@trcutlerinc.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Professional Marketing Firm

"

An explanation of SEO Basics

"Ian Lurie","

An explanation of SEO basics: This article is a great primer if you're getting started with an SEO campaign or looking to hire a firm. If you're just getting started with:

- Selecting an SEO firm - Trying to start a search engine campaign - Reviewing your current SEO efforts

...read on. This article should provide you with a high-level review of the SEO process, dispel a few SEO myths, and help you understand legitimate optimization strategies.

What is SEO

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, defies easy definition. But here's a short version:

SEO: Using keyword analysis and other legitimate practices to gain the highest possible search engine and directory rankings, under a given key phrase, for a given URL.

I'll break this definition down a bit and hopefully prevent a hail of angry e-mails:

Keyword Analysis is the process of mining keyword search data to find the best balance between the keywords you need and the best potential search niche. More on this later.

Search Engine means an automated search engine. 'Search Engines' include Google, AOL Search, Ask Jeeves and MSN Search. A search engine obtains its results from 'bots' -- small programs that read your web site in much the same way you would: By reading the content on a page, and then moving from page to page via links. A directory, on the other hand, is built at least in part by human beings deciding where each site fits into the directory structure. Yahoo's directory area and Open Directory are both examples of directories.

Ranking is the numeric rank reflecting your position in the results list when someone performs a search on a particular set of keywords.

Highest Possible means getting as close to number one as you can. Often you just can't get that number one spot. Maybe someone else has a 400-page web site solely dedicated to the key phrase for which you're attempting to optimize. Or maybe they're paying a fortune in advertising. That's life, sometimes...

Key Phrase is the keyword or set of keywords someone types into the little 'search' field in Google or Alta Vista or any other search engine.

A URL is the address of one page on your site. Most search engines display keyword search results and provide a link directly to the page most relevant to those results, rather than your home page. It's very, very important to keep that in mind when you build and optimize your site.

Legitimate Practices is my pet peeve. A true search engine campaign will not use practices such as page or content cloaking, redirects, or lists of links (so-called 'link farms') but relies on good coding practices, well-written content, steady link popularity work and site features that will be as valuable for site visitors as for search engine ranking. Anything less is a short-term fix that will reduce your rankings.

So, the long version of the definition would be: SEO: Using keyword analysis, good coding practices, well-written copy, link popularity analysis and careful site organization to move a web page as close to the number one search results position as possible for a given key phrase, in both search engines and directories.

Hey, that's not so bad after all. But how do you get started? First, you separate reality from myth...

SEO Urban Legends

There are quite a few SEO myths out there. Here are my favorites:

The Keywords META Tag Matters. Mostly wrong. Only Inktomi pays any attention to the keywords meta tag. Do something basic, but don't bother putting in keywords that aren't supported by your page content.

Search Engines can read Flash, images and video. Search engines can read one thing: Text. Anything else, while legitimate as a design tool, will not help your ranking. And relying too heavily on Flash or images may reduce your site's visibility. Google is one partial exception -- it can read some Flash links, but still cannot read Flash content.

Mirroring my site in multiple locations will improve ranking. Actually, just the opposite. Duplication of content will generally have no effect or, worse, reduce your ranking in major search engines. Most search engines now have rules against this form of 'spam' and may reduce your ranking or ban your site.

'Doorway' pages improve ranking. Pages that have lots of keywords but then automatically redirect to the main site will not help you in major search engines, such as Google. And, if someone catches you and reports you to Google or the other search engine, you may be banned altogether. A 'landing' or 'bridge' page, though, that's designed to be as useful for users as for search engines, and does not redirect the user, can help by providing real, useful, keyword-rich content.

Firms promising to get me #1 rankings in 10,000 search engines for $99.95 can help. I alternate between tooth-grinding and hysterical laughter when I see these ads. First, there aren't 10,000 search engines. Actually, there are probably 10-20 to worry about. Getting listed in the other thousand or so is largely a waste of time. Second, no one can guarantee any ranking in any search engine for a specific keyword. Period. And the price is less than half the cost for an express submission in a single directory (Yahoo). Chances are anyone trying to get you to spend the $99.95 operates a 'link farm' where they list dozens, or hundreds, of sites. To learn more about how to choose an SEO firm, check out Google's article: http://www.google.com/intl/mr/webmasters/seo.html .

Firms charging me more money and guaranteeing a #1 ranking on Google can help. This is the latest SEO scam. I can get you a number one ranking on Google, too, as long as I get to pick the keyword or can get you ranked under a fairly unique company name. But no one, and I mean no one can guarantee a #1 rank under a specific keyword. Even Google says so.

Search engines are now almost savvy enough to read your pages like a human being would, so anything that will drive away a typical site visitor will also probably reduce your ranking. Things that will increase your search engine ranking include:

- Good content - Good, clean HTML code - Useful, relevant TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags - Relevant, appropriate links from other web sites

There are some basic steps that, well executed, will do more to increase your rank than an ocean of snake oil.

The SEO Process

A typical SEO campaign starts with keyword analysis, and then emphasizes insuring your site doesn't impede search engine bots and follows up with ongoing link and traffic analysis.

Step 1: Keyword Analysis. If you say the right word enough times on your site, you'll get that coveted #1 spot, right? Wrong. Choosing the right keywords starts with a list of the keywords or phrases under which you'd like to be found, and typically ends up somewhere completely different. Selecting the best keywords is a four-step process: First, list the keywords and phrases under which you'd like to be found. Next, find out whether anyone searches on those keywords, and whether they're searching for relevant items. Third, find out how many other sites are struggling for rankings under those keywords. Finally, pick keywords with the same meaning but a better search-to-competition ratio.

Don't forget about relevance, either. If you want a high ranking under 'tires', you're going to have your work cut out for you. And in the end you'll likely end up getting found for 'bicycle tires', 'automobile tires', 'spare tires' and who knows what else. Is it worth it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But you have to do your homework to find out.

There are several tools that help you research the number of searches and competitors for keywords. Wordtracker ( http://www.wordtracker.com ) is a good one -- don't depend on their results from Overture, though, unless you're specifically preparing an Overture campaign.

Keyword analysis is the hardest part of a campaign, in number-crunching terms. It requires a lot of work and may not tell you what you want to hear. But in my experience it's critical to a successful campaign.

Step 2: Search Engine Readiness. Almost every web site we review has one or more problems that will prevent search engine bots from properly reading all content. Showstoppers include:

- An all-Flash or all-images home page - A home page that automatically redirects to another page - Pop-up ads (does anyone really read these things?) - A site full of pages with fewer than 400 words on a page - Broken links - Navigation that is generated by JavaScript - No TITLE or DESCRIPTION tags

A major step in any SEO campaign is making sure that the site will present the friendliest profile to search engines. Happily, the investment in optimizing will also pay off in a faster, more universally compatible site.

Step 3. Content and Site Preparation. You've done your research: You know which keywords match your message, and your site's HTML code is one big search engine welcome mat. Now it's time to make sure that your site contains those keywords. This is where I most often see folks get confused -- should you rewrite your web content to emphasize keywords? Yes, but with extreme caution. Should you make small, appropriate changes? Yes. Here are my guidelines for content preparation.

Don't write for keywords (much). This almost always leads to stilted, hard-to-read prose. Writing keyword-rich content that really works for users is an art form. Be careful.

Do a little careful editing. If you use the word 'car' but 'auto' is the keyword you need, chances are you can do a few replacements without marring your carefully crafted copy.

Spend time on the titles and description tags. Make sure every page in your site has a unique, relevant TITLE and DESCRIPTION tag.

Never use an automatic page generator. Tools like WebPosition Gold offer to generate optimized pages for you. Don't. They tend to hurt your ranking as much as help, and they generate ugly, ugly pages.

Write more stuff. More content is almost always better. If your site is just missing a specific keyword or phrase, but you think it's important, then your potential customers probably do too. By adding a few more pages with content focusing on those absent keywords, you'll likely help visitors and improve your keyword ranking at the same time. And, the more text-rich your site is, the better the odds that you'll catch longer, stranger but really important key phrases that you can't anticipate.

Step 4. Link Analysis. Quite a few major search engines (Google, most importantly) weigh your 'link popularity' when ranking your site. A more accurate term, though, is 'link analysis', because these engines don't just count up the number of links to your site. They look for links near and containing relevant text. So a page full of links, one of which happens to be yours, won't help very much. But a link from a related site, near a short paragraph that contains relevant keywords, will probably give you a boost. Having keywords in the link itself is even better. A quick example:

'http://www.portentinteractive.com' doesn't help much.

'For search engine optimization, visit http://www.portentinteractive.com' is much better.

There are a few ways to build your link popularity:

- Contact sites that relate to yours and request a link exchange. This works really well, but obviously takes a long time.

- Syndicate your content. If you can provide an easy way for interested webmasters to link directly to relevant stories on your site, you provide an instant link popularity boost, and get your message out to boot.

- Start an affiliate program. If you sell a product, consider setting up an affiliate sales program.

Step 5. Submit your site. Many search engines, Google included, allow you to submit your site for free. Generally you can submit your home page and let the search engine crawl the rest of your site. Some directories and engines offer paid 'express' services, and some, like Teoma, require that you pay for URL submission. Which engines you choose depends on your budget and campaign.

Step 6. Review, Revise, and Keep Going. Think you're done? Wrong -- search engine optimization is an ongoing project. At least once per month, review your rankings, site traffic reports and link popularity and tweak your site as necessary. The tools you need to measure results are:

Site traffic reports. Any hosting company should provide you with a site traffic report, and most of the reporting tools in use today provide a 'referrals from search engines' section. Take a look at this section for a good measure of results.

Link counts. Use the link: command on Google to determine your link popularity.

Your keyword list. Search on the relevant search engines to see if your ranking has improved.

Your brain. You have to interpret what you see, and decide whether changes are warranted. There's magic formula for this. Sorry about that...

So now you'll get instant results, right? Well, not quite...

A Word About Expectations

SEO can take time. Even Google only refreshes its entire index once a month, so don't expect instant results.

If your work doesn't generate increased rankings within a month or two, don't panic. Look at your site traffic and search on the keywords you chose. Make sure that the search engine you're checking actually includes your site -- most likely the bots just haven't gotten around to 'crawling' your site.

Still stumped? Find a professional. Sure, we cost money. But you may have missed something about your site that's preventing a good keyword rank, and a second set of eyes can help.

A Solid Marketing Strategy

If you follow the basics and keep at it, you will get results. What's really important is to make sure you don't award too much weight to one area (such as link popularity) at the expense of the others. A well-rounded campaign will provide solid, long-term results.

About the Author

Ian Lurie is an Internet marketer in Seattle, WA. He started his web design and marketing firm, Portent Interactive, in 1995. Portent offers complete Internet marketing support, including search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, and web site design and development. Recent projects include SEO and production for www.princesslodges.com, SEO, marketing strategy, design and production for www.dessy.com, and, on the more whimsical side, frida.filmateria.com. Ian has a law degree from UCLA and has successfully avoided practicing law for almost ten years.

"

Google SEO Tactics by Abe Smith

"Abe Smith","In Google SEO (search engine optimization), you, the webmaster, wage war with Googlebot, Google's listing spider. Only this war has no weapons. Instead it is your content veruses the army of Googlebot's other sites to rank.

To win this war there are things the webmaster must do, and things the webmaster must not do, should he stand a chance in winning the war and claiming a position on the top 20 results of Google.

There are many things a webmaster must do to take the edge of Googlebot. First and foremost, create the website. Let it be something unique, or better than the rest. Add pages on top of pages of content. You could put articles, information, anything. With one exception. It MUST be relevant to your website. After you have about 10 pages worth of content, get some links to your site. Submit to directories, loads of them. Try to submit to directories without a reciporical link requirenment. Also use word-of-mouth advertising to get a view visitors. As soon as you have some links, some visitors, and loads of content, hit your view visitors with a boom. Offer rewards for who could refer the most members, or who could submit the most articles, or anything to promote your site. Also remember to squeese in possible keywords in your content, and DO NOT forget meta tags, they are the key to SEO.

You may have noticed, I never mentioned when to submit your site to Google, that's the thing, don't. If google picks up your site before you submit it, you get a way better rank.

Now you have come up with a very good SEO website. Now you need to make sure not to blow it. Whatever you do, DON'T:

1: Have link exchanges with non-relevant sites, this will hurt you.

2: Do not cheat. Cheating is placing ""invisible"" keywords on your site. (white text on white background) Googlebot picks it up, and boom, no more rank on Google.

3: If you find the need to submit your site, do it, ONCE. If you submit twice then, say goodbye to your rank.

That's all and good luck with the SEO. With this, good keywords, and minimal compition, you will get within the top 20 of Google.

About the Author

Abe Smith owner of the Webmaster Forum (www.webmasterforum.buildtolearn.net/index/homepage.html) enjoys writing articles and tutorials about web programming, SEO, and computer security. I can be contacted at gametyrant2000@yahoo.com
Please contact me if you would like to use this article on your website (for free)."

Google Algorithm by Halstatt Pires

"Halstatt Pires","The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:

?A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.?

The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights that you should consider for your SEO efforts.

Update Your Site

Updating your site is important when it comes to maximizing your rankings on Google. In addition to the manipulation of keyword density and meta tags, the patent application reveals that Google places significant value on how often your content is updated. The more often you update, the timely and relevant your site will appear to Google. In turn, this leads to higher rankings.

To appease mighty Google, consider the following plan of action:

1. Update pages frequently,

2. Add new pages to your site,

3. Interlink the new pages with others on your site, and

4. Add new pages on a weekly basis instead of all at once.

When Google returns to the site, you want to make sure that there is new content. The high rankings of blog sites are evidence of this approach.

Google?s Looking at Your Domain

In a new twist, Google claims that it analyzes the number of years of domain registration as part of the ranking process. The application suggests that domains that are registered for longer periods of time are given more value because such a commitment shows the site is not a fly-by-night jump page. It is recommended that you extend all domain registrations for as long as possible as part of your search engine optimization efforts. It is difficult to tell how much the registration process impacts the ranking process, but every little bit helps.

Google claims that it also digs deeper into domain names to evaluate the legitimacy of the site. Factors in the evaluation include the web host and the ?who is? information. According to the patent application, Google maintains a database of hosts that facilitate spamming of the Google search engine. While such hosts are not detailed in the application, pray to God that you are not using one. You should evaluate your host if your optimization efforts are not producing results.

If your search engine optimization efforts for Google are failing, the patent application may provide answers. Talk about a perfect E-book!

About the Author

Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.
"

Google Digs Deeper by Joel Walsh

"Joel Walsh","The new buzz on the internet is all about getting one-way links by distributing content to other sites in exchange for backlinks. As with every other SEO or website promotion technique ever devised, there are plenty of newbie myths about it that can ruin your chance for success before you even start.

Newbie Myth 1: The ""Duplicate content penalty.""

Some webmasters worry that if the content on their sites is suddenly on hundreds of other sites, search engines will inflict a ""duplicate content penalty."" Why is this concern unjustified?

* If this were true, every major newspaper and news portal website would now be de-indexed from the search engines, since they all carry ""duplicate content"" from the news wires such as

Reuters and the Associated Press.

* Thousands of self-promoting internet gurus have proven that distributing content is an effective method of improving search engine rank.

* Even more thousands of content websites have proven that republishing this content does not carry any search engine penalty.

True, the first website to publish an article often seems to be favored by search engines, ranking higher for the same content in searches than higher-PageRank pages with the same content. But the ""duplicate"" pages do show up in the search engine results, even if lower than the original site. Meanwhile, the reprint content has no effect on the ranking of a site's other pages.

The only duplicate content penalty is for duplication of content across pages of a single website. Meanwhile, there is a sort of ""copyright theft"" penalty, whereby someone who copies content without permission can be manually removed from search engine indexes out of respect for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But that penalty is only for flagrant theft, not minor mistakes in attributing reprint content.

Newbie Myth 2: The goal is to get in article clearinghouse websites.

There are over 100 popular, high-traffic websites that act as clearinghouses for content made available for redistribution. These websites include isnare.com, amazines.com, and goarticles.com.

Many novice content-distributors are upset when the article clearinghouse websites, with tens of thousands of articles each with a backlink, pass negligible PageRank. But the point of distributing content to those websites is for other website owners to find your content and put it on their websites--not to get a backlink directly from the clearinghouse website (though this is sometimes an unexpected bonus).

Plus, to maximize PageRank-passing links, you also have to submit articles to website owners individually. It's not a small amount of work. But there's no substitute for a polite, individually crafted email recommending a website owner complement his or her existing articles with one you've written.

Myth 3: Any content will do.

Reality: It should be obvious that many website owners, jealous of their link popularity, will only republish exceptionally high - quality content. For articles, this means a unique point of view and solid information that cannot be found just anywhere, ideally presented in compelling language in a web-optimized format by a professional published writer. You can conduct a content distribution campaign with bad content, but you'll be handicapping yourself from the start.

Myth 4: Distributing content is easy. Just hit ""send.""

Reality: Content distribution campaign requires skillful planning to target publisher websites effectively.

This is essentially a four-step process.

1. You must identify the categories of websites most likely to republish your articles. These categories range from the very broad, such as internet, business, and family, and can go as narrow as family-friendly internet businesses.

It's a careful balance: you need to make your target category narrowly relevant to maximize the value of the link and your chances of getting your article accepted for publication. But if you target too narrow a category, you'll lower the maximum number of links you can hope to get.

For instance, a website on web content writing has to target its content distribution to more than just sites focusing on web content. There are only so many websites devoted to web content as a topic of interest, and besides, many such websites would be competitors. Distribution should target broadly relevant categories, such as web design, webmaster issues, writing, marketing, business, website promotion, and SEO. Yet some broadly related categories, such as internet or publishing, are not relevant enough to yield good results.

2. To maximize success, you must have articles custom-created for each major category you want to submit to. ""Incorporating Content in Web Design"" and ""Marketing with Content"" would be possible titles for a web content-writing website owner targeting web design and marketing websites, respectively. An article about web design won't appeal as strongly to marketers, or vice versa, so simply submitting to websites having to do with ""the web"" would not be as effective.

3. For maximum success, articles custom-written for a category then often have to be refined for sub-categories. For instance, ""Incorporating Content in Web Design"" becomes ""Incorporating Content into Flash Web Design,"" or ""Incorporating Content into Accessible Web Design."" Sometimes the refinement is just a ""find and replace"" of one keyword for another, sometimes just in the title. Sometimes, entire paragraphs have to reworded or removed.

4. Once you've identified sub-categories of websites, you still have to be able to meet the requirements of individual websites. Some sites only publish articles up to 500 words, some only do how-to articles. Owners of high-ranking websites can afford to be choosey. To really maximize results within a sub-category, you need at least three different articles of varying lengths and focus specifically geared toward that sub-category.

In the end, distributing content for website promotion and inbound links is a marvelously effective way of promoting a website. But it's not magic beans. Like anything else having to do with achieving success on the web, it takes hard work and knowledge to be successful.

About the Author: Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content

Competition Analysis by Dave Davies

"Dave Davies","

Analyzing your competition should be the second step taken during the SEO process (right after and sometimes even during keyword selection). Looking at what and how your competition have positioned their website where you want yours to be placed will lend great insight into how to get yours there.

The above statement should not be taken as meaning that early in the campaign is the only time that competition analysis is important. Once you are holding a top position your competition will undoubtedly renew their efforts to take back what you have replaced. Competition analysis is a step that must be taken to find out what you need to do to take a top position but which also should be performed periodically to detect your competitor?s efforts to take back ?their? former positions.

In this article we will cover onsite factors which must be considered and in part two we will cover external factor analysis including incoming links, anchor text, PageRank, etc.

Onsite Factors

Onsite factors of your website are the easiest to address as they are factors which are under your complete control. You have the power to change anything within your site from the content, internal linking structure, and even the design structure itself.

Key onsite factors that must be considered in competition analysis are:

• Titles and meta tags
  
• Keyword density and content
  
• Special formats and positioning
  

There are many tools that are available to help you determine what the optimal levels are. Generally these are knows as KDA (Keyword Density Analysis) tools. Of all of them there is one that we use at Beanstalk that we have found provides better, more accurate information than the others and that is Total Optimizer Pro by TopNet Solutions (www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/top.htm). The reason we chose this one above the others is twofold. First, it provides very easy to read and thorough information that can be analyzed quickly and second, they have built in tools to analyze offsite factors to a level that don?t exist in other software. Essentially this means for you that a single tool can basically give you the recipe you will need to take and hold your position in the top ten.

Title And Meta Tags

While meta tags definitely don?t hold the weight they once did they are certainly worth adding to your site given that they take seconds to add. Titles on the other hand hold significant weight and must be created carefully to insure that they hold maximum SEO effectiveness and also that they appeal to the searchers.

In analyzing the titles and meta tags essentially you are looking for the optimal keyword density of those tags. A KDA tool will let you know what percentage of your competitions tags are made up of the targeted keywords. A good KDA tool will also display the range or average of percentages. Due to their low weight, meta tags don?t have to be given quite the attention that titles do. When you are optimizing your titles you will want to insure that you fall somewhere near the middle of the pack. Hopefully in your industry, the top ten sites have relatively close percentages in which case it is easy to determine what the optimal percentage is, however assuming that they don?t, you will want to gear your title tag to something that falls in the upper end of the range (though not over) of densities and also keep that title interesting to the searcher who will see it as the link to your site in the search results.

Google at least and probably the other major engines as well have or will be adding into the ranking algorithm a function that records the number of times a specific link is clicked when it appears in the results. If your site appears in the top of the results but is not click at a rate that is acceptable for that position your website will slip. Like any other marketing tool, your title tag is the gateway from the search engine results to your website: insure you?ve created an attractive welcome mat.

Keyword Density And Content

There has been much discussion over the years as to whether there even is an optimal keyword density or whether density even matters. While there are intelligent SEO?s out there who would disagree, the entire debate seems obvious to us at least. If the search engines are looking at onsite factors at all (which they are) and looking for relevancy then it naturally follows that there is a percentage of your content that can consist of the targeted keywords and indicate to the engines that your site is relevant for a given phrase.

That said, and like the titles, it is not about cramming in keywords anywhere to boost the density in your content. Using a KDA tool to find the optimal density for your industry will give you a good idea of any content changes you may need to make. From here you will want to look at two additional areas of your competitors sites. One which you can get from an advances KDA tool such as Total Optimizer Pro and the other you can get right from the engines themselves. Which brings us to ?

Special Formats And Positioning

Special formats will be considered content elements such as bold, colors, anchor text, or any other content characteristics that sets specific text out as different when a search engine is spidering your site. Positioning refers to the position of the keywords in relation to the entire content on a given page. Aside from this type of positioning there is also the consideration of how the content and keywords are positioned relative to the code of the page (and sometimes these can be two very different things). This topic was touched on in a past article on table structures (www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/se-friendly-design/table-structure.htm) and will be covered in a future mini-series on W3C complaint and search engine friendly design, to be published in September.

Special formats such as bold, colors, italics, highlights, etc. set specific content aside as more important than the rest. The use of these formats, provided that it is done correctly, can not only help improve that rankings of your website for specific phrases but can also enhance the usability of your website in general by drawing the human eye to key content. This is not to say that you should bold, highlight and color every instance of your targeted phrase but rather use these elements to draw the eye to the key content you are most interested in getting read.

With positioning the job is a bit more difficult to assess. One of the best ways to quickly isolate how your competitors have used special formats and where they have positioned there keywords in relation to the entire page is to simply run a search for the phrases on Google and view the cache of the page. The keywords will be highlighted in a variety of colors and will allow you to quickly glance through their page and isolate what special elements they are using and where they have positioned their keywords on the page. You will want to do this for the top 10 competitors.

Conclusion

As with any competition, if you understand what those who have what you want are doing it becomes a matter of doing the same and then adding 10% to your efforts. In the case of onsite optimization you?ll simply want to duplicate the best of the top ten, in part two on external factors you will be doing the 10% more.

About The Author

Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning Inc (www.beanstalk-inc.com/). Beanstalk is a guaranteed SEO firm that insures top positioning on the major search engines. Beanstalk would like to thank Shawn and all the folks at TopNet Solutions for seeking and taking our advice when adding their newest onsite factor analysis enhancements to Total Optimizer Pro (www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/top.htm).
"

SEO Experience by Glenn Murray

"Glenn Murray","

From the perspective of a business owner, webmaster, or marketing manager, the change exhibited by the Internet is profoundly exciting, yet profoundly disturbing. The information (and misinformation and disinformation) it offers, the business benefits it promises, and the rules it is governed by change at such a rapid rate that it?s almost impossible to keep up.

These changes have led to a growing appreciation of the value of quality web copy. This appreciation has, in turn, led to an influx of opportunistic ?copywriters? promoting themselves as website copywriters or SEO copywriters. Don?t get me wrong, there are quite a few excellent SEO copywriters out there, and you should definitely shop around. The purpose of this article isn?t to scare you; it?s to help you find the SEO copywriter who?ll deliver honest service and excellent results.

So with that in mind, take a look at the following ten tips. These are the things you have a right to expect from anyone wearing a name badge that reads ?website copywriter?, ?SEO copywriter?, ?internet copywriter?, or ?web copywriter?? (See also http://www.divinewrite.com/websitecopywriter.htm and http://www.divinewrite.com/makethemost.htm.)

1) An understanding of SEO

Obviously, your SEO copywriter must have a solid understanding of the essentials of Search Engine Optimization. They must know that ranking is essentially the result of a website?s relevance (i.e. keywords) and importance (i.e. inbound links). There are a whole lot of other factors involved, but if your SEO copywriter doesn?t understand these two basics, you should look elsewhere. If you?d like to ensure your SEO copywriter knows a little more than just the basics, take a look at http://www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm, http://www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm, http://www.divinewrite.com/seotradesecrets.htm, http://www.divinewrite.com/webcopyenough.htm, and http://www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for some clues as to what you might like to ask in order to assess their knowledge.

2) Proven experience

The proof is, as they say, in the pudding. It?s not enough that your SEO copywriter can talk the talk; they must also be able to walk the walk. Ask to see some examples of websites for which they?ve obtained some good rankings. Note that it may be very difficult to find an SEO copywriter who has actually worked on both keywords and link generation, so if you find one who has, and they write well, snap ?em up! They?ll have a very broad and useful working knowledge of search engines.

3) An understanding of how many keywords to use

You don?t want to fill every page up with every keyword you?re targeting. This simply dilutes your site?s relevance and reduces readability. Ask your SEO copywriter how many keywords they would recommend targeting on each page. Hopefully they?ll suggest no more than 3, preferably 2. By targeting 2 keyword phrases per page, you can use them a lot without impacting readability.

4) Clear agreement on who will provide keywords

Someone needs to perform a keyword analysis in order to figure out what words you should be trying to rank highly for. Your SEO copywriter should be able to do this for you, but it?s quite often more cost-effective if someone a little closer to the business does it. Either way, make sure your agreement with your SEO copywriter makes it very clear who is performing this task. Don?t assume the SEO copywriter is going to do it, because they may assume you?re going to do it, and then you?ll blow your budget.

5) Keywords or keyword phrases

Expect your SEO copywriter to offer some advice regarding how specific you should be with your keywords. In most industries, the competition for keywords is so fierce that you?ll be forced to target very specific keywords in order to rank ? at least at the outset. For instance, if you?re in IT, you probably wouldn?t start out by targeting the keyword ?IT?. The competition is immense (at the time of writing, there were approx 3,240,000,000 results for this search in Google.com) and the IT giants already dominate the search engines for this keyword. Instead, try using a more specific keyword phrase like ?IT infrastructure consulting new york? (at the time of writing, there were only around 4,000,000 results for this search in Google.com). The other benefit to targeting more specific keyword phrases is that you?ll generate more relevant leads.

6) Agree on word count per page

Always make sure your SEO copywriter gives you an indication of the number of words they expect to write per web page. While it?s necessary to have a decent body of words on most of your web pages, you certainly shouldn?t have too many. What ?too many? is all depends on your industry, the objective of the page, and the needs of your audience. It?s always a delicate balance, but it?s certainly possible to rank highly with only 100-200 words per page. So don?t be fooled into paying for copy you don?t need!

7) Density targets & measure

SEO of a web page is NOT guess-work. A good SEO copywriter will talk about density measures. This is a measure of the number of time the keyword phrase appears on the page. It?s expressed as a percentage of the total word count of the page. So if your page has 200 words, and your keyword phrase appears 10 times, its density is 5%. As a rule of thumb, your SEO copywriter should be aiming for a density of approximately 5% for your primary keyword phrase and 3-5% for your secondary keyword phrase. If your density measures are much higher than this, readability will be reduced, and you?ll risk being perceived as spam by the search engines. Make sure your SEO copywriter understands keyword density, is prepared to state the target density for each keyword phrase, and is also happy to be measured by that standard (should you decide to measure).

8) Where to place keywords

The question of keyword placement has been the subject of much debate amongst SEO copywriters. While it is still unclear how much impact placement has, there is a general consensus that it has SOME impact. Be sure that your copywriter is aware of this impact. Popular opinion has it that keywords are more effective if they appear in headings, bolded text, links, and generally toward the beginning of the page.

9) Some comment on structure & links

Websites are generally better indexed by search engines if their spiders can traverse the entire site using text links. This means your SEO copywriter should be linking each page to every other page using text links. If your site is complex, this may be impractical, so your SEO copywriter will need to create a hierarchical structure for your site. First, they should break your subject material down into categories. Then for each category, they should write a summary page. These summary pages should be accessible from higher level pages via text links. They should also be accessible from each other. Each summary page should link ? using text links ? to a number of pages discussing the finer details of the category. And each detail page in a particular category should link to every other detail page in that category (once again, using text links). This way the spiders are able to travel from the top of your hierarchy to the bottom, and from left to right across any level.

10) Don?t believe grand promises

SEO copywriters can play a significant role in increasing your search engine ranking. But they can?t do it overnight. By optimizing your site for your target keyword phrases, an SEO copywriter is simply declaring the relevance of your site. If you engage an SEO copywriter to write helpful articles containing a byline with a link back to your site, you can then submit these articles for publication on the Internet, and this will steadily increase your ranking. But if an SEO copywriter tells you they can dramatically increase your ranking in a matter of hours or days, be wary. NOTE: Your SEO copywriter should be able to submit your articles to various submit sites on the Internet. These sites are closely watched by hundreds of thousands of publishers of e-newsletters and article pages from all around the world. High quality articles are quickly snapped up and published prolifically. And each time your article is published, you?ve got another link back to your site, thus increasing the importance of your site (to the search engines). If you?d like to submit your own articles, your SEO copywriter should be able to sell you a list of 50 or more submit sites for as little as USD$99.

Conclusion

An SEO copywriter is a valuable addition to your marketing function. But you need to make sure you choose wisely. When you know what questions to ask, the battle is half won.

Happy hunting!

About the Author: * Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and search engine (SEO) copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at mailto:glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.

Source: www.isnare.com"

Google Sandbox by Gary E. Cain

"Gary E. Cain","Introduction

Yes, just like you, I have read numerous articles about the benefits and necessity of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization is a technique of selecting specific keywords that position your website to be found easily and quickly by web surfers. And anyone who has a website with a product or service to sell wants to attract more web surfers, i.e., traffic.

The Why

But what is the reality of reaching a number 1 position on any of the big three search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - and staying there? Somewhere between a remote possibility to impossible.

Why? Because there are well over 16 million websites battling for the number 1 position on "";any""; given day. Talk about too much competition for one, unique goal. You'd have more luck betting on the lottery, a game of blackjack, or a horse race.

It's true, my opinion runs against the tide of SEO advocates - but let your own experience speak for itself. Are you number one on any of the big three? Do you understand the Google sandbox? Most people don't. It is absolutely a waste of your online time to get caught up in this mania when there are sane alternatives available.

"";So Gary, what's the solution"";? I am glad you asked. Let's take a look at some "";realistic""; and doable activities that will bring you increased web traffic.

The How

You can ...
1) Develop or buy a valuable, high demand product to sell (Ex: Microsoft Windows software)
2) Write great, useful news content for your readers (CNN.com and USA Today.com)
3) Create a web tool with great content that people need (Yahoo.com)
4) Devise a unique business model for an old market concept (auctions on ebay.com)
5) Get a cutting edge product or service that has an absolute or near monopoly and has mass-market appeal.
6) Write content-rich articles in an area in which you are the expert and submit them to related websites.
7) Write a weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly newsletter related to your interests.
8) Ask other webmasters to exchange their website addresses with yours.
9) Submit a free ebook that you have written to other websites with your website address and contact information included in the ebook.
10) Provide a free service to your niche market and submit ads to other websites.
11) Sell hard-to-find products at an attractive price.
12) Advertise on other websites, like Dollarsforever.com

These dozen ideas are only a handful of traffic attracting solutions for your website. Choose as many as you like. The end result should be more visitors to your website who are interested in what YOU have to offer.

Good luck and success!

About the Author

2005 Dollarsforever.com -- All rights reserved worldwide

Gary Cain is a business teacher and Internet marketer. He is the author of Stop the Grammar! as well as Internet Self Defense the only Internet book of its kind designed to help fight spam, fraud, information theft, and clone web sites.
"

SEO Projects by Christian Nielsen

"Christian Nielsen","Many SEO projects involve taking a site that has already been built and changing or adding optimization elements to help the site rank well in the search engines. For a site that has already been built, the web designer is usually not involved in the process.

However, there are two situations where the designer should be very much involved in the SEO process: when a new site is constructed, or when an old site is being redesigned.

When building a new site, the SEO consultant should be involved as the site concept is being developed. The perspective of the SEO consultant is much different from that of the design team and the site owner. The SEO understands that a balance of keyword phrases and well-written marketing copy is what helps the site attract traffic and convert visitors into buyers. The SEO can also provide advice on the best way to add new content. For example, a site that is about food will draw many visitors if it has a section that offers recipes, and a site about music will see many more visitors if it also offers MP3 music files.

More importantly, the SEO can provide advice on how to best construct the site. SEO consultants understand that sites which have 100% of the content in Flash, or which use frames will pose problems during the optimization process. The consultant will also understand how to overcome some of the SEO limitations that dynamic sites pose.

When the design team is aware and involved in the optimization process from the beginning, a site can be optimized ?from the ground up? as it is being built, which will involve less time spent by the SEO consultant later. This can also provide a level of optimization that is often not practical after a site has already been constructed.

When keyword research is completed before the site construction has started, designers can use them when they create new pages and graphics files in order to derive the benefit of keyword-rich file names. e.g., Instead of using words like ?logo? and ?header,? the designer can choose keywords that are more descriptive. The SEO can also provide a basic Meta tag set which can be used for the site. By including the Meta tags in the site templates, the work of editing each page later can often be avoided.

What about redesigns?

The first and foremost role the SEO has when a site is being redesigned is to ensure that the web designer doesn't change all the page names when performing a site update. Otherwise, when the new site is launched, the traffic to the site may substantially drop off when people click on search engine listings that no longer exist.

To combat this phenomenon, the consultant will advise the designer to re-use the old page names as much as possible. If that's not possible, there are two ways to deal with this problem:

1)A custom 404-error page can be installed to inform the visitor that the page(s) no longer exist and present them with several options to continue into the site.
2)Redirection pages can be set up which use the old page name and an informative message for the visitor. The pages should offer one or more clickable links, and might include a timed-redirect that should be at least 30 seconds before taking the visitor to the page with the new name.

The second option is more desirable, since it allows the search engine to note the change, follow the link to the new page and add it to its index at some later point. And of course, if new pages are added, or the filenames have to change, it provides a chance to use filenames that can be optimized with keyword phrases.

Just as you are unlikely to turn an SEO consultant into a web designer, you can't turn a web designer into an SEO. However, SEO consultants and designers should work together to bring all of their skill sets to the table. The SEO needs to understand that graphic images can be very important in the visual appeal of a well-designed web site, just as the designer needs to understand the benefit of having a home page title that says more than just ?Home.?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Christian Nielsen is the owner of Nielsen Technical Services , which provides Internet consulting and SEO services, including the optimization of
dynamic database-driven sites, and Blog optimization.
The company maintains a policy of answering questions from clients and potential clients, even if they are just ""tire kickers"", and has a Blog that can be seen at NielsenTech.Blogger.com which deals with (mostly) search engine related-issues.

"