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.

"

Link Trading by Joel Walsh

"Joel Walsh","Many website owners and SEOs (search engine optimizers) believe that trading links is the most effective way to build the hundreds of links necessary for good search-engine ranking. But there's another way to build links that deserves your attention: content distribution.

A time-honored way of getting one-way inbound links to your website is to distribute content, usually articles, for other websites to publish in exchange for a backlink. Most often, the backlink is included in an ""author's resource box,"" which is a brief ""about the author"" paragraph promoting the author's site.

Content distribution has usually been thought of as a website promotion strategy rather than an SEO or link-building strategy. But there are good reasons for adding content distribution to your SEO toolkit.

SEO Benefits of Distributing Content vs. Reciprocal Linking Alone

* Links come faster. You send an email with your article to a relevant website owner. That's it. No adding links to your site and then checking and re-checking for compliance. That means you can get more links from the time and resources you spend on link-building.

* Links are not always available through reciprocal linking. Many website owners simply refuse to do reciprocal linking. Content distribution is one way to reach this large segment of website owners.

* Links are one-way. Many SEO experts believe that reciprocal links may be ""dampened"" by the search engines; i.e., they will not help you rank as high as one-way links. Of course, reciprocal links are still valuable, there's a just a question of how valuable they really are.

* Links per page are fewer. Many SEO experts believe that the higher the number of links per page, the less SEO value each link has. When a website publishes an article, the author's backlink is often the only live link to another website on that page.

Distinct Non-SEO Benefits of Distributing Content

What makes content distribution a truly special method of link building is that it's the only method where the non-SEO benefits may even outweigh the SEO benefits:

* Website building. If you create special content for your link-building campaign, you can publish it on your site. As a general rule, the more content your site has, the more search engine traffic it will receive. Just publish the article and get it indexed in search engines before distributing it, which should help you to outrank your republishers in search engines for that same content.

* Traffic generation. The links in distributed content generate traffic in the form of highly qualified leads: people who liked what you had to say. Distributing content gets you traffic even when it doesn't get you a link. If your article gets picked up by a large-circulation email newsletter, you will get a flood of highly qualified traffic.

* Authority. Distributing content is the only linking campaign method that can make the recipient website and its owners appear authoritative. There are thousands of internet gurus who owe their lucrative reputations entirely to the articles they've distributed.

* Mindshare. Distributing articles is the only linking campaign method that can help you spread an idea. This makes article distribution invaluable for launching new products or services.

Drawbacks of Content Distribution

Of course, nothing good ever came easy. Any website owners who are looking for SEO magic beans will be disappointed by content distribution:

* Desired anchor text is not always available. Unfortunately, the content management systems most widely in place today make it easier for website owners to accept content as text rather than HTML. This means that many website owners simply have their content management system convert a URL into a live link, rather than taking the time to code in the anchor text. Still, an experienced content distributor can usually find ways around this problem to make sure that many if not most of the links use anchor text.

* Results are variable. Content distribution is not quite as sure a thing as reciprocal linking. The site that publishes your article has to like not only your site, but also your article. This is especially true for the passively-generated links that come from content clearinghouse websites. But results can vary the other way, too: an article that catches on will yield more links than you ever could have gotten through the same investment in reciprocal linking. In order to minimize the risk of content not catching on with website owners, you should make sure your content is high-quality, and also plan for a large content distribution campaign: the more content you try, the more likely you are to find a winner.

* Requires significant investment. You need high-quality content, expertise in content distribution, and quite a few work-hours to distribute the content and track the results. Of course, the cost has to be weighed against the cost of reciprocal linking, which is also significant. These costs can be mitigated by outsourcing the entire process from soup to nuts to a content distribution specialist. Costs of outsourcing content distribution compare favorably with costs of outsourcing reciprocal link building.

* Requires special expertise. There are numerous newbie pitfalls to distributing content, from improperly formatting articles to writing a bad introductory email to accompany content submissions. You generally have to have done numerous campaigns to truly get the feel for it. Again, this requirement has to be weighed against the real-world requirement of special expertise in other link campaign methods. Again, this drawback can be mitigated by outsourcing your project to a specialist.

In short, there are benefits to both reciprocal linking and content distribution. All things being equal, you should use both. Still, content distribution is the only one method that carries substantial non-SEO benefits as well. Plus, a professionally managed content distribution campaign may even yield greater SEO results than reciprocal linking would for the same investment.

You owe it to yourself or your clients to add content distribution to your SEO-toolkit--before the owner of the next highest-ranking site finds out about it.

About the Author

Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, offering a fully managed content distribution campaign guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way inbound links for every three pages of content: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm [requested HTML anchor/link text: website content distribution]"

Link Trading by Joel Walsh

"Joel Walsh","Many website owners and SEOs (search engine optimizers) believe that trading links is the most effective way to build the hundreds of links necessary for good search-engine ranking. But there's another way to build links that deserves your attention: content distribution.

A time-honored way of getting one-way inbound links to your website is to distribute content, usually articles, for other websites to publish in exchange for a backlink. Most often, the backlink is included in an ""author's resource box,"" which is a brief ""about the author"" paragraph promoting the author's site.

Content distribution has usually been thought of as a website promotion strategy rather than an SEO or link-building strategy. But there are good reasons for adding content distribution to your SEO toolkit.

SEO Benefits of Distributing Content vs. Reciprocal Linking Alone

* Links come faster. You send an email with your article to a relevant website owner. That's it. No adding links to your site and then checking and re-checking for compliance. That means you can get more links from the time and resources you spend on link-building.

* Links are not always available through reciprocal linking. Many website owners simply refuse to do reciprocal linking. Content distribution is one way to reach this large segment of website owners.

* Links are one-way. Many SEO experts believe that reciprocal links may be ""dampened"" by the search engines; i.e., they will not help you rank as high as one-way links. Of course, reciprocal links are still valuable, there's a just a question of how valuable they really are.

* Links per page are fewer. Many SEO experts believe that the higher the number of links per page, the less SEO value each link has. When a website publishes an article, the author's backlink is often the only live link to another website on that page.

Distinct Non-SEO Benefits of Distributing Content

What makes content distribution a truly special method of link building is that it's the only method where the non-SEO benefits may even outweigh the SEO benefits:

* Website building. If you create special content for your link-building campaign, you can publish it on your site. As a general rule, the more content your site has, the more search engine traffic it will receive. Just publish the article and get it indexed in search engines before distributing it, which should help you to outrank your republishers in search engines for that same content.

* Traffic generation. The links in distributed content generate traffic in the form of highly qualified leads: people who liked what you had to say. Distributing content gets you traffic even when it doesn't get you a link. If your article gets picked up by a large-circulation email newsletter, you will get a flood of highly qualified traffic.

* Authority. Distributing content is the only linking campaign method that can make the recipient website and its owners appear authoritative. There are thousands of internet gurus who owe their lucrative reputations entirely to the articles they've distributed.

* Mindshare. Distributing articles is the only linking campaign method that can help you spread an idea. This makes article distribution invaluable for launching new products or services.

Drawbacks of Content Distribution

Of course, nothing good ever came easy. Any website owners who are looking for SEO magic beans will be disappointed by content distribution:

* Desired anchor text is not always available. Unfortunately, the content management systems most widely in place today make it easier for website owners to accept content as text rather than HTML. This means that many website owners simply have their content management system convert a URL into a live link, rather than taking the time to code in the anchor text. Still, an experienced content distributor can usually find ways around this problem to make sure that many if not most of the links use anchor text.

* Results are variable. Content distribution is not quite as sure a thing as reciprocal linking. The site that publishes your article has to like not only your site, but also your article. This is especially true for the passively-generated links that come from content clearinghouse websites. But results can vary the other way, too: an article that catches on will yield more links than you ever could have gotten through the same investment in reciprocal linking. In order to minimize the risk of content not catching on with website owners, you should make sure your content is high-quality, and also plan for a large content distribution campaign: the more content you try, the more likely you are to find a winner.

* Requires significant investment. You need high-quality content, expertise in content distribution, and quite a few work-hours to distribute the content and track the results. Of course, the cost has to be weighed against the cost of reciprocal linking, which is also significant. These costs can be mitigated by outsourcing the entire process from soup to nuts to a content distribution specialist. Costs of outsourcing content distribution compare favorably with costs of outsourcing reciprocal link building.

* Requires special expertise. There are numerous newbie pitfalls to distributing content, from improperly formatting articles to writing a bad introductory email to accompany content submissions. You generally have to have done numerous campaigns to truly get the feel for it. Again, this requirement has to be weighed against the real-world requirement of special expertise in other link campaign methods. Again, this drawback can be mitigated by outsourcing your project to a specialist.

In short, there are benefits to both reciprocal linking and content distribution. All things being equal, you should use both. Still, content distribution is the only one method that carries substantial non-SEO benefits as well. Plus, a professionally managed content distribution campaign may even yield greater SEO results than reciprocal linking would for the same investment.

You owe it to yourself or your clients to add content distribution to your SEO-toolkit--before the owner of the next highest-ranking site finds out about it.

About the Author

Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, offering a fully managed content distribution campaign guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way inbound links for every three pages of content: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm [requested HTML anchor/link text: website content distribution]"

Many people who have tried to make money on the internet in the last couple of years have done quite well using Google Adsense, myself included.

I was using several different software programs that are readily available such as Traffic Equalizer, Ranking Power, and Traffic Dynamo.

A few other programs were very promising, including one that I had high hopes for that used random text generation. Invariably I would create a new web site, put it up on a server, blog and ping it and away it would go.

The spiders would come and I would get good listings in Yahoo and Google which delivered a goodly amount of traffic, which in turn created above average Google Adsense incomes.

Alas, it was too good to be true. What always happened was that these types of machine generated sites would slowly begin to erode in ranking in the search engines therefore causing my Google Adsense income to slowly dissipate to almost nothing.

Google Adsense is still a viable and great way to go if you have web sites that generate large amounts of traffic but it is not as easy as it once was in the early days of Google. Do you know any adsense millionaires?

Most professional search engine companies agree that the green PageRank display has little to do with the actual performance of a website in Google yet many customers focus on a high PageRank as the ultimate barometer of their web presence.

Yet this barometer can easily be faked to provide the illusion of a higher page rank on a website.

How PageRank Faking Is Done

The PageRank can be faked by using a combination of cloaking and employing a 301 redirect.

1. A search engine spider visits your web page, your server is set up with a 301 to redirect the spider to aanother web page with a higher PageRank.
2. The search engine assigns the higher PageRank to your page with the redirection.
3. The 301 is then removed and you navigate to your web page.
4. The PageRank of the your web page now displays the PageRank of the faked site. It now appears as your web page has a higher PageRank when it fact it doesn't.
   

There are techniques to identifying if this practice has been employed on your site. More importantly, be suspicious of anyone that produces almost instantaneous PageRank results.

Keywork ranking is the key and the PageRank meter has little to do with the success of your rankings as related to what you actually sell.

Simple and Consistent - Search Engine Ranking Tip

It is always exciting starting a new adventure and with this blog I plan on dispelling myths about search engine mearketing. Like most, I have paid the so-called experts to help me and I have gained nothing. In the end I learned that data and facts drive the process. If a provider is providing these with their service then the quality of the data determines their worth.

To be clear here, there isn't a provider in the world that can put you on top of the search engine listings unless they do one of 3 things. First, they pay to be in the paid advertising spots. Second, they optimize to obscure keywords that know one would search for anyways. or Third, they are spoofing or participating in illegal activities (I will not comment on these techniques here).

Simplicity and consistency are the key ingredients to a successful campaign. Make sure you stick to a plan and follow through. Start small by focusing on one or two key efforts and do them consistently.

Leaving this post now I want to leave on this note. Start simple and be consistent. As the posts come I will be more technical in content and provide specific techniques that will assist you in your efforts. It is not rocket science, it is just plain hard work.