Top 12 Search Engine Optimisation tips for public sector websites for 2007

Public sector websites are no different to any other, when it comes to driving up usage. Online marketing is essential to getting usage, and Search Engine Optimisation is one highly crucial tool in the armoury for any local authority or central government websites. Here, SEO expert Gary R. Beal advises on 12 top tips to maximise online reach in 2007.

1. Content – Regular, frequent and high quality content produced by people with knowledge in the field, or people that you can trust to do their homework before jumping headfirst into writing it. This is crucial both at the search engine algo level and the PPC campaign design level.

And its not just a fresh article once a month. If you examine your log files you will see how often the SERP’s comeback to visit. Once you are in good with them, they hit your site 1-3+ times a day. It will only do this if it sees fresh content, via your navigation.

There is a point at which the bots will and won’t come back and crawl. They won’t if they don’t see fresh content. They will come back to your index (homepage) to find the fresh content, if they don’t find it they will leave. If they do find fresh content they will continue to navigate throughout your site via the ‘proper’ navigation mentioned in this list below.

Fresh content throughout your entire site is costly and time-consuming, but will separate you and elevate you from the rest.

2. Inbound links to your site from relevant and trusted sites – Links from trusted sites; links from pages with a higher PR(4+) and less than 50 outbound links; links from pages with a lower PR and less than 10-25 outbound links (Keyword-rich anchor text as well).

Preferably forums and blogs (or Viral Marketing) are some of the strongest referrers. This needs to be a permanent, ongoing project, and the links should be in place for at least 12-18 months for optimal effect. Getting 50 or 1000 this month, then dropping to just a few next month is a huge red flag for all the SE’s. A steady link building scheme is required to earn top rankings. This means no link farm’s.

Let me quickly explain about link farms and the way that the SE's see them.

If you are actively and voluntarily participating in a linking scheme you are trying to manipulate their results. They value natural linking in their algorithms highly so they do not look on link farms kindly now, or anytime in the future. It is one of the possible methods they have to value a website. This is why you hear so many of the pros say "content is king".

One way or the other you need to attract traffic naturally or the least make it look like you have.

3. Individual Title and Descriptions - The argument is alive and well, and continuing as it has and will for several years. Title tags are how the SE’s identify the relevancy of your page (compared to the end-users search query), not just in Organic ranking but in Paid Placement as well.
Descriptions are how (organically) the SE’s place a relevancy rating on your page.

4. Site Architecture/Navigation – This includes menus, all the way to how each section on a site’s pages are interlinked with each other.

5. Keyword Terminology - In your content, use 2 or 3 word keyword phrases that are likely to be searched for by users. Don’t over-do-it, but be sure everything is in line and included - Keyword Title; Keyword phrase in description (1st line); Internal navigation keyword links; Fresh keyword rich content.

6. Universal XML Sitemaps - Providing an XML sitemap is one of the easiest things you can do to help search engines traverse your site. Google, Yahoo and MSN have all adopted this “standardized” tool. Having a sitemap and then submitting it through WEBMASTER Central will tell you not only when the crawl (usually 1-2 days) is complete, but also if there are any errors that the bots found.

7. Rich Media – Or concentrating on utilising video, image and audio search. Google is and I believe Yahoo and MSN will be offering big incentives to move into these areas, provided you can utilize this according to your current ad structure, demographics and product or service. Flash builders are a dime-a-dozen. Utilize them to create interactive ads.

8. Web 2.0 - Utilising blogs and forums more to improve search such as www.flickr.com , www.myspace.com , www.technorati.com, www.simpy.com, and others. Also put these “public bookmarks” buttons (AddMe to Google) in your site and your articles.

9. Mobile Web - Google, Yahoo and MSN mobile are nearing and making your site accessible to all mobile web browsers is increasingly important.
Remember when Firefox and Opera came out and everything didn’t work or look right? (kinda like today on a much smaller scale). That’s all there is to becoming mobile compliant.

10. Content Relevancy - ensuring everything is neat and relevant across a site. Irrelevant links and content could be detrimental. Map your entire site in a hand-written tree and link them accordingly. Then use this to create a sitemap, and add a link to it to your homepage, and/or your navigation.

11. Constant Monitoring of Paid and Organic Analytical Information - Re-evaluation and improvements based on user stats and new industry changes.

Having an expert in this field is vital. (e.g. If you have a PPC account with a few thousand keywords that are working for you that is proving successful, great job. If you want to double the traffic whilst cutting your costs in half, then you’ll need an expert to know what these analytics mean)

12. Become a More Trusted Site – Links are great but links from trusted sites are KING. If you need to work 10 times as long writing articles, creating Charitable Ebay auctions, endorsing a football team or a fraternity, do whatever you have to do to get links such as from a .edu or .gov.

This will almost instantly boost your trust and especially your organic rankings. Other potential trust issues include GeoTrust and HackerSafe certifications or even going to a secure server.

A Word About Website Popularity - Yes, this is measured by all the search engines, and always has been. (Remember when you open your Google PPC account and it asked you about providing behaviorally statistical
information?)

Whether you use analytical and tracking tools or not, all the SE’s do. This is part of the method they used to use before the more advanced algorithms of today. Unfortunately, you can’t directly control this, but with the rest of these tips you can definitely improve it.

About the author:

Gary R. Beal has been in the Search Engine Optimization field for 10 years. He attended Ohio State University in the US and holds a Masters Degree in Biometrics and Mathematical Statistics. Gary turned his hobby into a new and successful career, playing around with Search Engines from practically day one! Working as a Freelancer in the United States, Gary came to Stickyeyes last year to “close the gap” between the US and UK in search engine optimization techniques. He has been instrumental in the development of many SEO and PPC tools as an analyst and consultant. Gary is well known in the SEO/SEM/PPC forums (a.k.a. GaryTheScubaGuy) and a Moderator at SEO Chat. He was a speaker at the most recent Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in London, and specializes in Search, Pay Per Click, Affiliate Management and Email Marketing. He has worked for many years in lead aggregation for highly competitive industries such as Online Gaming, Banking and Finance, Insurance, Travel and Investments.

Source : http://www.publictechnology.net/

Link Building Service successfully builds up your business

Link building explained in simple term means spreading word about your business on the web. On the web, the more you are visible the more popular your business will be. To become popular on the World Wide Web, you will have to make use of different strategies. The number of links that you create through link building on the web will enable search engines to give your site higher rankings. Link building service is one of the components of search engine optimization service that one can use for popularizing their business on the web.

Link building is one aspect of search engine optimization that can turn out to be the crucial factor for either the success or the failure of a search engine optimization campaign. Not everyone would be interested in doing link building manually as this is a time consuming and tiring job. But this is an important aspect of search engine optimization and needs to be done at every cost. What you can do is get an outsider company also called a third party to do the link building work for you.

There are several companies and firms that provide link building services to clients based on their requirements. Getting link building services from outside will be a great boon for your business. You may not be aware of this, but doing link building dedicatedly can work wonders to your online business. To get hold of good companies that provide link building service is not a difficult task at all, if you know how to go about it.

Word of the mouth is as good as recommending something to another person. So talk around and find out if any one you know whether it is family, friends or neighbors. If they have used link building services earlier, they will surely guide you in getting the work done in the best possible manner. You can approach the company which has done the work for them and find out if they will be able to do the work for you or not.

Remember every business is different and thus promotion means are also different. So do not think that just because a particular link building strategy has worked for your friend does not mean that this will work for you as well. Talk with the professionals who will provide link building service to you and find out which strategy will best suit your business.

Hiring link building services from a third party will benefit your business in many ways. First, you will get professional services for your business. All link building service providing companies give customized services to clients. So you can have a talk with the professionals and tell them exactly what type of link building services you require for your business.

Link Building Service has been preferred by several companies because this is one method in online marketing that can be done without investing a huge sum. Link building does not need one to be technically very highly qualified. An individual with basic computer knowledge can do the work for you and this is the reason why link building service offered by companies will not cost you a fortune. About the author
Steve Waganer has specialization in Web Marketing. He is expert in Search engine optimization,Affiliated Marketing,Link building services and Social media optimization.To get his expert advice for your website to get high rank and top position in major search engines visit www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com

source : seoarticles4u.com

Do's and Dont's on SEO

as webmaster know, search engine optimization is a tedious job and process for a long term goal. Creating or optimizing site to rank high is a challenge. Different and thousands of questions left unanswered like how can one maintain the rank on search engines. As for thoughts on seo do's and dont's here are some points to consider.

DO's on SEO

1.Natural Link Buil-Up. Creating links on natural way means having links to your site on a long term not in a thousand link on a snap or a blink in of an eye.
2. Creating a search engine friendly url or links. This clearly indicates good points where search engine bots can easily crawl your site without those long url or session id attached to the page being optimized.
3. Quality backlinks or related backlinks. Meaning if your site is about food, webmaster should have links pointing to their site that is related or close to related on food topic.
4. Avoid linking to sites you think and considered to be spam sites.
5. On links pointing to your site. Be sure that your site is on the page where links are enough and cannot be more than 100 site on one page.
6. Links signature should be the keyword you want your site to be optimized.
7. On the issue of keyword. A varying keywords also helps on site optimization. Not just a single word for keyword but a phrase help. Say you want your site to be optimize for word "actress", you can try combination that have actress on it, taking an example like, "site for actress" or the like.
8. Be sure that sitemap is accessible on your site on both grounds. From search engine bots view and human view. Site should be accessible by bots meaning bots can crawl your site without a blockage unless you want your site not to be crawled. Human readable sitemap helps on visitors navigation to your site.
9.Utilize the power of article submission.
10. A descriptive title of your site or pages that meets the quality guidelines of search engine like title not greater than 30 characters.
11.On content. A fresh and relevant content is basically a must have on a site. Sites not updated for a long time make it look like dead on human view and on search engine view.
12. On site description. Be constructive on your site description. Having your keyword on your site description repetitively can hurt your site on search engines.

DONT's on SEO

1. Building links in a glance. Too early links like a thousand links in a short span of time can put your site on the sandbox of penalized.
2. Avoiding link farms.
3. Redirect site to other pages can also hurt site integrity.
4. Hidden text to fool search engines to rank high is also being pick up by bots thus considering your site out of their quality guidelines
5. Avoid submitting your site using automatic submission service.
6. DONT SPAM.

You can check my site here ituloy angsulong About the author
I have in the internet for some reasons. ituloy angsulong this is my entry to Ituloy Angsulong seo contest in cooperation with Article Submission and ituloy angsulong.

Source : seoarticles4u.com

Search Engine Optimization Basics That Everyone Should Know

By Jeff Lawrence

An idea formulated in your mind and you acted on it. You started a company and soon you created a website. How do you go about promoting the website to generate traffic to come to your website? You need to engage in search engine optimization (seo) to cleanly help generate traffic to your website. Clean seo revolves around making changes to your website to better help google and yahoo in particular index your site, and get into the top spots for specific keywords. The first step in seo is to add yourself to every known search engine available. This includes google, yahoo, dmoz, and every other search engine you can get into. submitting to more sites than those is fine, but don't expect a lot of hits. You can do this first because it sometimes takes weeks or even months for the bots of the various search engines to come around to index your website. The next is to create accounts for google sitemaps and yahoo explorer. Both of these are places where you will need to create a sitemap of your website. A sitemap is a simple xml or txt file that lists all the available pages on your website. It helps the bot going around to your site index it properly. once you have done that you need to work on your site.
You need to make sure that the keywords that you're trying to obtain are really worth your time. Trying to get a #1 spot for the keyword "clothing" probably isn't worth your time and effort. Instead you should use a keyword selector tool like overture's. It will let you type in a specific keyword like "clothing" and then see alternatives that people are searching for. Once you find out the keywords that you're interested in head over to your web files and start editing your files. You need to insert the < meta name="keywords" content="purple hats, velvet hats" / > on every page. You can adjust the keywords depending on the product and what you're specifically trying to target. Once you have completed this you need to do the same for your title and description. no one is probably going to search for your specific company name, so you need to create a catchy title and description that garners genuine interest in your website. Avoid putting your company name at the front of the title; instead put it at th end. For your description describe what your company does in a unique way. avoid descriptions that focus on, "cheap clothes here." Instead appear professional in your description, while utilizing the space to wisely describe what you have to offer.

Once you have that you have the absolute basics down. you will now want to focus on creating content to drive customers to your site. Can you write an article that is unique to the industry that you're in? Do you offer a blog? Do you have some insight that others would find interesting? What you're trying to do here is drive customers to your website, and then link to your website on their own. Google and Yahoo in particular find that reciprocal linking is a good way to track the effectiveness of a website. If 10k people are linked to a website then obviously there is something there that is worth seeing. You will subsequently move up in the search results for those various websites. For more detailed help about seo suggestions see self-seo which offers a wide variety of tools and articles. If you have any further questions that we haven't clearly addressed, or just need some advise feel free to email us at info@sonicko.com or visit us at http://www.sonicko.com About the author
Jeff Lawrence is the owner of Sonicko Consultanting. This article may be reused provided that the full content is published. Sonicko focuses on web analytics and Google Analytics in particular. They provide Google Analytics installation and implementation, training, and support among other services. Based out of Los Angeles, CA you can reach them at their website: http://www.sonicko.com

source : seoarticles4u.com

Nourish your website with Search Engine Optimization to get better Returns!

By jumphigher

A new website is just like a newborn baby requiring proper care and attention for getting better results in the upcoming years. Our motto is to generate revenue whenever a new website is created for business purposes. Generating revenue through a website is not an easy task as it takes lots of hard work with proper techniques in a right direction.
There are ample of ways for getting returns through a website but the most popular and reliable way is Search Engine Optimization. We all know that a website is reachable for a layman just because of search engines. Search engines play a vital role in online marketing. If your website is in good position on the major search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and many more, then nobody can stop the growth of your online business. To get the top positions on search engines, your website should be made according to the search engine algorithms.

Search Engine Optimization, a vast area to work upon....

Search engine optimization is not a small thing to work for; there are plentiful things which are required to be done for better rankings on the search engines. Search engine optimization is the combination of two techniques viz.:

1. On-page Optimization. 2. Off-page Optimization.

On page optimization is putting the Meta tags on the website pages; these Meta tags have some keyphrases on which we want our website on search engines. Some of these Meta tags are the following:

* Title tag * Description Tag * Keyword Tag * Robots Tag

Off page Optimization is another technique for enhancing website rankings. In off page optimization link building (link exchange), RSS feed submission, Blog submission and article submission are some of the commonly used techniques. It's like giving a support to your website pages through links (anchor text) which also plays an important role in getting Page Rank by Google.

There are several other techniques to make your website visible on search engines like Pay Per Click Advertisement, Paid submission, Banner Advertisement and Affiliate marketing. In all these techniques you will have to pay some money as fees as per the competition. Ethical search engine optimization is only the way for getting revenue in a proper manner and for a long time period that too free of cost.

So nourish your website with search engine optimization today and enjoy the benefits lifelong.... About the author
A new website is just like a newborn baby requiring proper care and attention for getting better results in the upcoming years. Our motto is to generate revenue whenever a new website is created for business purposes. Generating revenue through a website is not an easy task as it takes lots of hard work with proper techniques in a right direction.

source : seoarticles4u.com

Top 10 SEO Strategies to Implement

By Jeff Lawrence

1. Identify the main competitive keywords (4 or 5 for organic, 200 to 400 for PPC). These can be found via Wordtracker, which offers one day worth of detailed keyword information for $8. Look at keywords from log files.
2. Create a website title that grabs user's attention. Most successful use important keywords and should be descriptive, and provocative.

3. Add in a description of our website before the company name in the Page Title Syntax which is descriptive of what exactly we are.

4. Include H1, H2 heading tags. Search engines often look for clues in headings and subheads and we can include keywords here. Easily done by performing a global search and replace.

5. Remove frames from websites. Without NOFRAMES tag indexing spider may not know where to go. We should use SSIs for menus instead. Indexing spiders also can't read navigation systems built with JavaScript and Flash

6. Start to employ the use of links. Google has started to weigh the use of links heavily when determining rank. Link your site from industry hubs, and others which are highly rated in Google and Yahoo search results. Request reciprocal links with other websites.

7. Get listed in directories. Some like www.dmoz.com and others are free while Yahoo charges $299/year but is worth it and gets fast results.

8. Enhance our current website by giving away an article, submitting press releases, offer award logos, start a blog, develop a free service, and build an online forum for users to converse.

9. Setup an A/B testing service so that changes to our website can be tested to see if the conversion rate goes up or down depending on what specific changes we make. Several companies offer this for $20/month.

10. Utilize PPC advertising on both Google and Yahoo. Set up day parting time schedules and test specific keywords to see what conversion rate we're getting. About the author
Jeff Lawrence is the owner of Sonicko Consultanting. This article may be reused provided that the full content is published. Sonicko focuses on web analytics and Google Analytics in particular. They provide Google Analytics installation and implementation, training, and support among other services. Based out of Los Angeles, CA you can reach them at their website: http://www.sonicko.com

source : seoarticles4u.com

local Advertising On the Internet

By Michael Biehn

If you're a small business exclusively serving a local market, you probably think the Internet has little to offer for your local advertising needs.
While search engine advertising has been a great advertising medium for businesses capable of or interested in marketing their products and services to a national or international audience.

the effectiveness of this type of advertising was limited for businesses interested in advertising to a local market until very recently.

For example, a realtor with a web site in Minneapolis is likely interested in advertising on search terms such as "homes for sale" and "sell my home." The only problem was the realtor would have to advertise to everyone in the country who happened to type those terms into search engines.

This was wasteful and ineffective because the vast majority of visitors clicking through to the site would not be qualified visitors since they lived outside the realtor's regional market.

Targeting a known geographic location of searchers became a reality earlier this spring when Google launched their local targeting program.

So now the realtor in Minneapolis can advertise on the more general terms, then specifying a geographic area they'd like the ads to appear within.

Local Advertising works very well. There are very few types of advertising online or offline where you have such detailed control over who you are advertising to.

Basically it's pretty hard to beat advertising to people who are searching for what you sell and happen to live close to your business.

Local Advertising Tips:

Promote Your Location - You'll definitely see better conversion rates for your local advertising if you include your physical address on your web site.

We recommend including this in the footer of every page of your site to reinforce that you're local to the prospects.

Track Performance - When you use local advertising you will still have to compete against businesses willing to advertise nationally on the same search phrases.

This means search terms can get expensive but your conversion rates should support this. However, as with any form of advertising, it's important to track what's working.

Create informal alliances with other locally-oriented, non-competitive businesses in your industry. The two best sources for such alliances are first, your customer list, and second, your supplier list.

What form could these alliances take? Here are some suggestions: Joint sponsorship of online (or offline) contests, joint sponsorship of golf tournaments, joint participation in local trade shows.

Offer sponsorships or special discounts for products or services to high visibility local organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, service clubs, community sports associations -- where you are likely to get exposure for your locally-oriented services.

Be sure to insist that your LFI is prominently (and tactfully) displayed.

Register your new site with locally-oriented and industry-specific directories or link exchanges that are likely to send traffic your way. The point of these links is different from link exchanges where you want to get higher SE ranking. These links are for generating traffic.

You must build your pages and your site(s) in certain ways to maximize your chances of "scoring" well with the SEs. This is the only way you can get good ranking when people search local businesses.

Local advertising makes sense only because CONVENIENCE has changed ALL of our Buying Habits forever. You Must now play the game by the new rules or lose by the new Rules!

To Your Success!

About the author
Michael Biehn, SEO Consultant.

Affordable Search Engine Optimization Services.com

Professional And Affordable Search Engine Optimization Services Trought Natural Search Engines Results.

source : seoarticles4u.com

HOW TO CREATE WEBSITES THAT SEARCH ENGINES LOVE

By Duncan Johnson

There is no black magic or knowledge of rocket science required to building websites that are easy for search engines to navigate round and give you the best possible ranking.
Get the fundamentals right and you will be ahead of the vast majority of websites created.

Originally there was SGML (Standard General Markup Language). This was the standard to which all information was displayed on the Internet. It is still the basis to which HTML and XML adhere. The Algorithms that Search Engine Spiders use to analyze sites are designed to recognize this standard and very little has changed! It is therefore imperative that you design your WebPages with this in mind. If you use it, not only will you produce WebPages that Search engines will love but will vastly improve the chances of your site being ranked highly for your desired keywords and phrases.

TEXT FORMATING TAGS

OK here are the three most important tags used for formatting your text:

[H1] the Main Heading Tag, tells the SE the pages main topic

[H2] a Second Heading and slightly smaller (e.g. subheading)

[p] paragraph and the body of text and content

A typical layout of your HTML code, and therefore your text, should look like this.

[HTML] [HEAD]///////I'll explain what need to go in this bit later on //////// [/HEAD] [BODY] [H2]Title of Your Page Starting with you Keyword Phrase[/H2] [H3]Subtitle Including Some other Keywords/Phrase[/H3] [p] Lots of useful information with the odd keyword thrown in but good useful information is what really makes a site successful, after all, Content is King - I'm now starting to waffle on. [/p][H3]Next Subtitle Including Some other Keywords/Phrase[/H3] [p] Lots ore useful information with the odd keyword thrown in but good useful information is what really makes a site successful after all Content is King - and again I seem to be waffling on. [/p] [/BODY] [/HTML]

There are other basic HTML tags that you can use of course but these three are so obvious that it makes it an absolute breeze for Search Engines to look at your web page and instantly know what your site is all about and how to rank its content. OK, there is one slight problem though. If you used these tags as they are on your pages and in particular the text on them isn't going to look that good on the eye and certainly won't win any design awards. This is where Custom Style Sheets come into play in a major way.

ALT TAGS

These provide the Search Engine Robots with a description for any images you have on your page. They look as follows:

[img src="" alt="blue beach ball " width="50" height="50" /]

Place in good descriptive key words here without going over board i.e. no spamming the same words in every images alt tag 3 times each.

META TAGS - TITLE, DESCRIPTION AND ROBOTS

The Meta Tags and Title go in the Head section of your HTML and let Search Engines know what was important on a Webpage and so how to rank its importance. They can also tell the Search Engine what language it is written in and other files it needs to take into account. Typically it will look something like this:

[HEADER] [TITLE]Greek Holidays Idyllic and Very Cheap[/TITLE] [META name="description" content="Very Cheap Prices for Idyllic Greek Holidays and Vacations in Greece"] [META name="keywords" content="budget cheap greek holidays vacations europe Greece sunshine"] [/HEADER]

The Title Meta Tag is extremely important and is widely used by the SE's most importantly Google. Make it between 5-10 words and put your best Keyword/Phrase at the beginning e.g. 'Greek Holidays'.

The Description Meta Tag should be less than 150 characters in order to suit all Search Engines. Anything more than this will simply be missed out with some SE's. The "description" is what most SE's use to describe your site when listed in its results. Make sure it is ENTICING for potential customers. It should include at least 5 of your best keywords but DO NOT simply repeat all of them in your "description".

The Keywords Meta Tag should be a string of keywords and 2-or-3 word phrases that people surfing the net might use to find pages like yours. It is a very common opinion amongst many experts that the "keywords" Meta Tag is used very little if at all by SE's these days. This is very true but since some SE's do still use them to some degree DO NOT repeat your keywords more than 3 times in either your "keywords" Meta Tag or your "description" Meta Tag. Some SE's will consider this as 'Keyword Spamming' and your site could be seriously penalised.

The Robots Meta Tag is a simple instruction that goes in between the [HEAD] and [/HEAD] tags of your web page and tells any visiting Search Engine Robots whether than can index that page (INDEX, NO INDEX) or follow the links leaving that page (FOLLOW, NO FOLLOW). There are basically 4 variations of these instructions:

1. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"] 2. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW"] 3. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,NOFOLLOW"] 4. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"]

The simplest way of using the tags is to use example 1. above on every page of your website that you want the search engine seeing and then put example 4. above on every page that you do not wish the Search Engine to see yet alone index for the world to see.

ROBOTS.TXT FILE

The Robots.txt file is actually the first thing Search Engine Robots will see when they visit your site. With the use of a Robots.txt file we can tell Search Engines what areas of your site are out of bounds. There are also many other uses for the Robots.txt file but I won't talk about it here.

Using a text editor (notepad, BBedit etc) create a new file and name it, yes you guessed it: robots.txt. Place in it the following syntax:

User-agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin/ Disallow: /pictures/ Disallow: style.css

This syntax tells Search Engine that it may not look in to the folders "cgi-bin" or "pictures" (these could actually be any directories you name). Save the file, upload it to the root of your website i.e.: http://www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt and that's it.

The SEO benefit to you is not so much to give you a higher ranking but to make your site more Search Engine friendly... Think Kudos!

SITE LAYOUT - THEMED BASED WEBSITES - THE ULTIMATE SEO TECHNIQUE

Establishing a theme for your site and the contents' structure can produce a dramatic increase in your sites ranking amongst Search Engines. All of the big search engines use a 'Themed' based algorithm in their ranking criterion. This is basically essential for them in order to return the most relevant results when a user enters certain 'keywords/phrases' into their search engine. Basically a Search Engine will spider every single page on your site and index it as one. It is therefore imperative to concentrate your sites content on the around the main theme and not to diversify too much.

SITE STRUCTURE

The structure of your site, i.e. how your content is categorized and linked together, is meant to support and strengthen the overall theme of your site. Let me explain how you achieve this.

There are 4 main types of pages you need to be concerned with:

* Index * Sitemap - (a.k.a. Table of Contents) * Hallway Pages * Doorway/Content Pages

View your site as a Shopping Complex. The theme is "Shopping". It has an entrance (Index page). At the entrance there is a map showing you the different areas, stores, and the stores contents (Sitemap). From the entrance there are 3 possible hallways you may walk down one for "Sports", one for "Home", and one for "Toys". Each has its own description of what specific shops you'll find (Hallway Pages). As you walk down the Hallways you'll pass the doorway to each shop on which is a very detailed explanation of what is inside the store (Doorway Pages). I'll explain these pages in closer detail.

Index Page - Most Search Engine Optimization experts agree that your websites' initial page of entry (index.htm default.htm etc) will never be the definitive page that Search Engines will rank highly. Make sure it looks good, introduces your visitors to your site, and lets them know what they can expect to find deeper within it. E.G. If your site was about Holidays in Spain, all you want to say here is "Come to Greece for your Holidays - its great!"

Sitemap - A single page that is linked only off your Index page and links to every single page on your site. It should be laid out like a Table of Contents but with one or two keyword specific sentences for each and every link. This should be linked off your main page but DO NOT call/name the text in the link as "Sitemap". It's often thought that Search Engines will penalize this. Instead simple call it "Table of Contents".

Hallway Page - This is basically the first page of each Sub Category. It should give a brief summary/paragraph of each specific topic within that Sub Category. E.G. Staying with the Spanish Holidays theme Hallway1 would deal with "Accommodation" and Hallway2 "Excursions". A rule of thumb would be to focus these pages on keyword phrases containing 1-3 words.

Doorway Page - This is an individual page that is only concerned with a specific Topic of that Sub Category as mentioned in the Hallway Page. These pages are full of very specific topic related content. They will also be keyword/phrase rich focusing on 3-4 keyword phrases. E.G. Following the Hallway Page of Accommodation, Doorway1 could be "Hotel Rooms" and Doorway2 "Apartment Flats". How to Link your Pages

All linking should be done vertically throughout the site. The only exception to this rule is the Sitemap (which links to every page). Doorway Pages should be linked to the Hallway Pages above them and the Hallway Pages in turn should be linked to the Index Page.

E.g.

Click here for [a href="http://www.website.com/beach-ball-photos.htm" title="Page of Beach Ball Photos" target="Target"] My Favourite Photos of Beach Balls[/a]

Please note the use of the Hyperlink Title tag. Its another great excuse to drop a few more keywords to describe the page you are leading the Search Engine Spider too.

e.g.

Search Engine Optimisation UK

LINK POPULARITY

Arguably the most important factor in getting a high search engine ranking. This has basically been Google's little baby that most of the other Search Engines have also begun to adopt. OK the concept is simple: If Search Engines can see that other sites are linking to you, then they think that you're popular. The more other sites link to you, the more popular you look. The more popular you look, the higher ranking the SE will give you.

Not all links are equal though. If the sites linking to you are about the same topic e.g. "Holidays in Greece" then Google is going see these as highly relevant links. Further more, the bigger the site that links to you, or the greater its Page Rank, the more weight Google will give to these links and so your Search Engine Positioning will benefit greater.

SEARCH ENGINE SITEMAP

Not to be confused with the traditional Site Map or Contents page, this page is designed specifically for the Search Engines and not for visitors to your site. Similar to the Robots.txt file, this file does not so much give your site higher rankings as it does make your site more easy to navigate for a Search Engine. Search Engine Sitemaps do require some basic knowledge of xml if you wish to build one by hand but do not fear, there are many tools available online to help you build automatically. If you are new to Google Sitemaps I would recommend reading their overview: www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview.

CONCLUSION

If you can create a website that provides a clear understanding of the theme of its content with an easy to follow navigational system, you will have accomplished the fundamental basics of your onsite Search Engine Optimisation. About the author
Duncan Johnson is just one of the Search Engine Optimisation UK Experts for E2 Performance Marketing. Educating and demistifying Internet Marketing for their customers is as important as delivering the result. To learn more about Search Engine Optimisation UK visit http://www.E2performance.com

source : seoarticles4u.com

Best SEO Tips

By Avdhesh Kumbhar

The world wide web is a highly competitive market. Companies vie for the attention of billions of internet users in the search for better revenue. A lynch pin to the internet marketing war is the search engine.
Search engines are internet venues where billions of people congregate to search for information. The most prominent search engine giants are Google and Yahoo. The kind of traffic these dot-com companies receive per hour is phenomenal.

So naturally, companies would gravitate towards placing their links and sites in an attempt to garner more visits to their web sites.

In order to maximize ranking and placement, companies have used tools such as search engine optimization or SEO. Search engine optimization is the method or process of improving a web site's ranking in a search engine listing.

Legitimate search engine optimization practices focus on the improvement of a page's ranking in the search engine list by improving site content, usability and using legitimate methos of promotion through web phenomena such as viral marketing.

Search engines all use complex algorithms in keeping their relevancy in the web and to keep illegal and abusive search engine optimization methods from prospering. However, "black hat" SEO users will always be around so it is expected that search engine giant such as Google and Yahoo will continue to make more complex algorithms to filter the garbage out.

Search engines display different kinds of listings on a result page. The more common ones are pay-per-click (PPC), adverts, paid inclusion, and organic listings. Of all these listings, SEO concerns itself foremost with organic listings for a variety of keywords. This can increase the quality and quantity or visitors to a desired web site.

Organic searches are searches conducted by web users in a search engine that is free from solicitations. A study from Jupiter Media stated that 5 out of 6 commercial online purchases came from organic searches versus paid online ads.

This has made SEO much more in demand in creating revenue for companies as SEO is not a paid ad but a method of intrinsically improving content.

Here are a few tips on improving content for a much more improved result in organic searches:

1. Expertise. Follow your strengths. Sites you set up must be on subject you consider yourself an expert on. People can smell an amateur a mile away.

2. Plan the site. A good layout for the site can improve usability. This in turn will not unnecessarily aggravate the browser.

3. Research. Check out the competition and see what they have set up. See what works and what does not. If possible try to communicate with users in forums and get feedback on what should or can be improved further.

4. Decide on important keywords. Decide on the most important keywords to use for your sight. Include these keywords in the metatags, copy page, page title, and file names.

5. The Search Engine is your friend. Make friends with your search engine and don't give it a hard time. Being nice and friendly to it will make its job easier to serve your site up to your target audience.

6. Focus. Focus on the topic at hand and nothing else. The rule is one topic per page.

7. Join the directories. Directories are repositories of knowledge done by human hands while search engine are huge databases collected by mostly machine methods. The relevancy of your page when joining the right directory may shoot through the roof. Of course, make sure you know what you are talking about.

8. Start a linking campaign. A most effective SEO method. This is a must to do. Ask your allies, strategic partners, friends and acquaintances to place your site's URL link on their sites. With a short description this can draw traffic from other sites and increase exposure. Google especially ranks the importance of its sites by the number of sites linked to it.

9. Repetition is the key to victory. Keep repeating the above tips, supporting and increasing what works and killing what does not as fast as possible until the desired result is achieved.

In the world of search engine optimization, content matters a lot. If a site has amateur or worse falsified information, fewer and fewer browsers will want to visit it. They will even spread bad news faster than good news so expect a garbage site to be ignored even in a week's time.

Trackyourvisitor.com provides complete search engine marketing services.


About the author
Trackyourvisitor.com : Website TrafficTracking Solution, Analysis, Web Stats Reporting

source : seoarticles4u.com

Basics of SEO

By Avdhesh Kumbhar

Nowadays, even the smallest company uses the Internet as a main tool in building a customer base, keeping in contact with their clients and this is also their most basic means of advertising.
Designing a company web site is cheap and effective, not to mention essential because the world wide web is the only medium that offers instantaneous information access to millions of users around the globe.

Any web developer worth his salt should know about search engine optimization or SEO.

This is the key towards building an effective web site that would get a lot of hits and visitors. A web site that nobody visits is useless so the challenge lies in leading Internet users to visit your web site.

Thus, your web site need to be "found" when users type in keywords in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, AOL and others.

Once a keyword relating to the products or services that you offer is keyed into a search engine, a direct link to your web site should emerge on top of the list.

You should employ search engine optimization techniques to lead traffic your way, and get more hits that would later on lead to more profit for your company, which is your goal in the first place.

Here are some tips on how you can make it to the top of the list of search engines, and use your SEO techniques to benefit your web site and your company:

1. If you have an existing web site and domain, just optimize the one that you currently have instead of purchasing a new domain.

It will take some time before your web site will show up in a particular search engine, like Google, so it better to use the one that you currently have instead of switching to a new one.

2. Know who your target audience is and aim for them.

If you are in the manufacturing industry and a user types in your product in a search engine, then you would immediately have your target right in front of you.

As soon as the user hits the Enter button or clicks on 'Search', then the person will be lead to your web site.

Make sure that your target market will get 'hooked' on your web site. Once the search engines show the link to your web site, their job is done.

What you should do next is to make sure that your visitor will not leave your web site without them trying out your products or services, or at least leaving some pertinent information so that you can contact them in the future for marketing and advertising purposes.

When hitting a particular target market, learn about their interests, location and age to have an idea of what you can offer them in return.

Also, you can somehow link their interests to your products and services.

3. Search for the right keyword.

You should be creative, persistent and flexible when looking for the keyword or keyword phrases to use in optimizing your web site.

Google and Yahoo offer some tools and tips on how you can come up with keywords that will yield results.

Do not settle for just one keyword. You can also vary the words and phrases that you use for each page on your web site so that you can have more hits.

4. Consider your target market when designing your web site.

The design itself would include the general theme of the web site. You should also pay attention to smaller details such as color and font style and size.

Make sure that the web site is user-friendly and do not forget to insert helpful articles, tips, hints and related links that can be shared to other users.

It is a good thing to have an option to send a link or an article to a friend, which will add more users and increase your client base.

There should also be various ways to browse through your web site, to fit each user.

A person might find it to difficult use the scroll down option so you should also provide hyperlinks which are accessible to them.

5. Concentrate on the web site content.

Regularly update the content of your web site so that old and new users can find something new when browsing through your site.

Make the content brief and precise. Writing a content which has more than 600 words will make the users lose interest, since most of them do not actually read but just skim through the text.

Strive to be the best and most comprehensive web site and you will make your mark when it comes to information about the products and services that you offer.

It helps a lot to pay attention to detail, too.

Finally, keeping your web site's content updated is a must.

Spread the word about your web site and use the basic search engine optimization techniques and you will surely gain positive results once users visit your web site.

Trackyourvisitor.com is an company engaged in providing search engine marekting solutions.

About the author
Trackyourvisitor.com : Website TrafficTracking Solution, Analysis, Web Stats Reporting

source : seoarticles4u.com

SEO and the Bottom Line

By Eliza Maledeviz

In order to have a successful business, optimizing its site is very important. For the business site to be ranked at the top, one should optimize its site.
Let us take for an example Dr. Bolar, as soon as he optimized his site, the business site achieved the desired top 10 result in the search engines and directories for some significant keyword phrases. Traffic had enlarged considerably, and users were able to find the business site by the anticipated keywords. Now, he believes that the optimization has plays a role in the business success.

Now, maybe you're asking how efficient the site had been in attracting new patients in his office, which is the bottom line.

Before the optimization, the office had about 2-4 new patients in a week through the site. But at the moment that the business site ranked at the top, the numbers of new patients increases to 50-70 new patients. He's actually searching for new surgeon in his office right now. All of these new patients knew him through the search engines in the Internet. He even got numerous patients from other state, which drove their way just to be in his office. Because of Dr. Bolar's visibility in the Internet, he's small clinic, Georgetown Surgical Clinic, was made into a bigger institution, the Bariatric Institute of Kentucky. That's actually amazing. He's certainly believed in search engine optimization, besides he had end up with a lot of great things through SEO.

Another example who believed that search engine optimization has done great with her business is Kathy Drewien, from Atlanta Relocation. The majority of Kathy's clients find her through the site in the Internet. So Internet presence is very important to her. In 1998 before the optimization was done, she had 14 transactions that gross $100,000 in commissions. And as soon the site was optimized in 1999, it increased to 22 transactions with a gross of $121,500 in commissions. Followed by 2000, again had 22 transactions with a total gross commissions of $165,939. She definitely was willing to say great things about search engine optimization.

Yes, indeed search engine optimization can help you make your business successful. But there is still some point to consider that this is not actually enough. You have to take note that it is also important to make one's site appealing to users. Yes, search engines optimization makes your site be found to users, but you still have to sell your products and services. So it is better to make your site appealing and attractive to users. Work on it.

The main reason why our optimized sites end up getting so much is because we boost the overall appeal of the site, one way is by writing excellent and professional marketing text. These are important as to the bottom line.

Not all business can achieve the best return on investment from a successful optimization. Though, you can consider the low cost of search engine optimization compared to other marketing forms, your bottom line may boost considerably. Just take note that not all search engine optimization consultants are made equally. So search on, and look for the right specialists that can best fit to your needs.

About the author
Article Author Eliza Maledevic from Jump2top.com, a SEO Company. Visit our websites at http://www.jump2top.com, http://www.7seo.com, http://seo.xon.us

source : seoarticles4u.com

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO KEYWORD RESEARCH

By Paul R Wilson JR

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword Research is highly is a highly important step in the process of optimizing your web site and pay-per-click campaign. This step involves choosing the most applicable keywords your target group requires to improve its ranking in search engines.

In a layman's world, keywords are nothing but words and / or phrases which people may use to locate your services, products, information or brands via search engines.

Step 1: Keyword Identification

The first activity in the keyword research process is the identification of the proper keywords. Keyword identification means simply locating the keywords which are used by your target group. You look for related keywords. First, you identify the industry and then zoom into the specific field. For example, if you own this wine store, you should consider keywords like: "red wine" and "white wine".

Step 2: Locating Your Keywords

The second activity in the keyword research process is a more informed and technical search. It involves finding the keywords that people actually use and organizing them by their popularity or demand.

To locate keywords and find out their popularity, you can make use of the Alexia keyword search box to know more about the search behavior of your target audience. Learn what they call things, the way they identify subjects, how broad or how precise their search generally is. These parameters become essential in looking for the right keywords.

You may also access relevant and useful ideas for keywords from the collection of top keywords containing the top one hundred keywords of the last year or maybe a keyword directory that offers keywords organized by subject. Wordtracker is one such program that allows you to look for relevant keywords.

Step 3: Choose Keywords

The method of deciding on the right keywords involves the following steps. Copy all relevant phrases and counts onto a spreadsheet. After you have made an examination of all the individual words and phrases that might apply to your website, you will have every single important phrase on your spreadsheet.

Instead of making your search more vague and inaccurate, (which generally happens when you try to choose one-word keywords), it is suggested that you focus your concentration on only those keywords that can be easily managed. And that would typically mean phrasal keywords.

I use ClickAdEqualizer for my keyword research. Doing keyword research manually is very time consuming. With ClickAdEqualizer I am able to do my keyword research in a timely fashion. http:// clickadequalizer.301k.net

The Myths & Facts of SEO uncovered in an Audio interview with Jerry West http://reliableseo.com About the author
Paul P Wilson Jr - Internet Consulting

source : seoarticles4u.com