Top 5 White Hat SEO Techniques

1. Quality Content

When we first started looking at SEO as a separate entity to website build there was one phrase that we would continually hear, “content is King”, and it’s true. There is nothing more valuable you can do to optimise your site for search engines than offer unique well written content. A search engines aim is to serve up what it believes to be the most appropriate website for any given search to the end user.

Imagine we are the end user and we are searching for a portable air conditioner for hire. We go to our favourite search engine and search for the phrase “portable air conditioner hire”. In this imaginary scenario let’s assume there are only 2 websites that target that phrase,

Website 1

Website 1 consists of a single page with 3 paragraphs of text. The text tells us that the company does portable air conditioning hire and give us a phone number to call.

Website 2

Website 2 contains 30 plus pages all focusing on various portable air conditioning units that we can hire, costs and technical explanations of how portable air conditioning units work.

Which website do you think the search engine is likely to offer to the user first? It’s a rather obvious example but it illustrates the importance of good content so your priority should be good quality content.

2. Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation

Semantically structuring your mark up helps search engines understand the content of your webpage which is of course a good thing. Making proper use of heading elements is essential because search engines give more weight
to the content within the heading elements.

Using CSS to separate the design elements from the content makes for much leaner code and makes it easier for search engines to find what they’re looking for, which is content. Remember content is king!

3. Titles and Meta Data

Providing pages with proper titles and meta data is essential. As discussed in the top 5 black hat SEO techniques section the meta description and meta keywords elements have been so misused in the past that Search
Engines now regard them as less important, it’s still important to use them and use them properly. Titles however still carry a lot of weight and when we think of semantic mark up it is obvious why. The title of anything is a declaration as to what the content might be, so make sure your page titles are a true representation of the content of the page.

4. Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use

Create your website with keywords and key phrases in mind. Research keywords and key phrases you think people might use to find your site. Single words are not always the most effective target, try multi-word phrases that are much more specific to your product/service and you’ll be targeting end users that are much more likely to want what you are offering.

Use the keywords and key phrases you’ve identified effectively throughout your website. Assign each page 2-3 of the keywords you’ve identified and use the keywords throughout all the important elements of the page. Those are,

• Title

• Meta Description

• Meta Keywords

• Heading Elements

• Text

• Alt Tag

• Title Tag

• Links

5. Quality Inbound Links

Having inbound links to your website can be likened to having a vote for the good but there are good links and bad links so therefore votes for the good and votes that are bad. Good links are links from other web pages
that are regarded highly by the search engines and are contextually relevant to the content of your page. Bad links are links from web pages that aren’t regarded highly or potentially banned by search engines and have no relevance to the content of your page.

For example;

Imagine we have a website that sells telephones.

Link A: Link on the homepage of the British Telecoms website. = Good

Link B: Link on John Smiths Beer and Ale appreciation links page = Bad

The amount of quality inbound links to your site therefore have some relevance on how high up the search engine your site is placed. When sourcing links you should be thinking of quality over quantity and deep linking to pages within your website not just the home page.

Black Hat Search Engine Optimization

Black Hat search engine optimization is customarily defined as techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. These black hat SEO techniques usually include one or more of the following characteristics:

• breaks search engine rules and regulations

• creates a poor user experience directly because of the black hat SEO techniques utilized on the Web site

• unethically presents content in a different visual or non-visual way to search engine spiders and search engine users.

A lot of what is known as black hat SEO actually used to be legit, but some folks went a bit overboard and now these techniques are frowned upon by the general SEO community at large. These black hat SEO practices will actually provide short-term gains in terms of rankings, but if you are discovered utilizing these spammy techniques on your Web site, you run the risk of being penalized by search engines. Black hat SEO basically is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem, which is creating a Web site that provides both a great user experience and all that goes with that.

Black Hat SEO Techniques To Avoid

• Keyword stuffing: Packing long lists of keywords and nothing else onto your site will get you penalized eventually by search engines. Learn how to find and place keywords and phrases the right way on your Web site with my article titled Learn Where And How To Put Keywords In Your Site Pages.

• Invisible text: This is putting lists of keywords in white text on a white background in hopes of attracting more search engine spiders. Again, not a good way to attract searchers or search engine crawlers.

• Doorway Pages: A doorway page is basically a “fake” page that the user will never see. It is purely for search engine spiders, and attempts to trick them into indexing the site higher. Read more about doorway pages.

Black Hat SEO is tempting; after all, these tricks actually do work, temporarily. They do end up getting sites higher search rankings; that is, until these same sites get banned for using unethical practices. It’s just not worth the risk. Use efficient search engine optimization techniques to get your site ranked higher, and stay away from anything that even looks like Black Hat SEO.

20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing

Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for people to come together and share opinions,experiences and thoughts on a number of topics. Smart companies understand this and are using the power of social media to connect and inform their customers, and potential customers. Referred to as "Social Media Marketing", it's a smart way to open the lines of communication between you and your prospects.

Social media activities run the gamut from Blogging, micro blogging sites such as Twitter, social networking communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook, video and music uploading sites, discussion forums, photo sharing and more. With so many different sites and ways to participate, it can be difficult to keep track of all your efforts.

Participating in social media doesn't take a lot of money, but it is very time consuming and businesses want to know that all of this investment in time is paying off. Before launching a campaign, you shouldhave a firm grasp on what it is you're trying to accomplish. Is it increasing website traffic? Getting more ezine subscribers? Having more people download your free ebook or whitepaper? Or maybe you just want to work on your company's brand image. Whatever it is, you need to have a plan. As the old saying goes, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there". Have your game plan intact before gettingstarted in marketing yourself, or your company with social media.

There are many different forms of social media, so it's impossible to use them all. Pick three or four, and funnel the majority of your efforts there. Even if you won't be working them all, at the very least you should claim your name or company name on as many social services as possible. You don't want to find out later that someone has the user name that you want. If you need to see if your chosen user name is available try http://Namechk.com which checks dozens of social media networking and bookmarking sites all at once to see if it's available. Claim your name now so you won't end up being sorry later.

So how do you monitor all the buzz? How do you monitor your brand and protect your hard earned reputation? I thought you'd never ask. There isn't one fool-proof method but there are many services and tools out there that will make it easy to see who's talking about you online. Some are free and others will make you pull out your wallet.

These "online reputation management" tools, as they're often referred to, will help you to define keywords, or phrases you wish to track and then watches for any mention of your company name, products, or services. It's important to defend and monitor your online reputation. Similar to High School reputations, protecting your image online is the name of the game, and just as in real life, everyone has one to maintain.

Let's take a look at some of the measuring and tracking tools at your disposal:

1) http://BackTweets.com : A search engine for Twitter. See who's tweeting your links and more. Can also sign up for email alerts of new findings.

2) http://Addictomatic.com : A little different than the others , you type in a keyword, topic or phrase and out it goes searching the top blogs, news sites, Google, Technorati, Ask, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Topix and more. You'll be given a personalized results page to bookmark with everything it finds related to your topic.

3) http://Buzzoo.net : All about Internet buzz, it tracks several different websites to bring you what's "hot" right now.

4) http://Surchur.com : Search for the latest and greatest on topics that are popular right now. Type in a keyphrase and it searches blogs, social news sites, photo and video sites for your chosen topic.

5) http://Commentful.Blogflux.com : This service watches for comments on blog posts, Digg, Flickr, and others and notifies you of any findings.

6) http://AlertRank.com : A better way to organize and sort Google alerts. Get a daily report emailed to you in a spreadsheet format of what it finds.

7) http://BoardTracker.com : A search engine for forums only. Monitor discussion boards and be notified by email when a thread matching your search terms is discovered. Free to use.

8) http://www.google.com/alerts : I've been using this "secret weapon" for years. Simply type in your name or company name and receive daily emails of results found. They do the work, you receive the links. Free and nice.

9) http://BrandsEye.com : An online reputation management tool with a real-time, concise overview of your online reputation. Multiple levels of services and pricing available. Starting at $1.00.

10) http://Twazzup.com : Another Twitter only search engine.

11) http://SiteMention.com : Type in your url and find out what's being said about you. The results returned are gathered from Google Blog Search, Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, Delicious and many more.

12) http://Brandwatch.net: This service tracks your brands, companies, even the competition. Sign up for free weekly updates on any brand. Their detailed reports break down what sites like you, your most talked about features, weekly summary of all blogs and forum activity. Very similar to the old "press clipping" service.

13) http://Trackur.com : A tool that scans many websites including blogs, news, image and video sites, forums and notifies you of any mention of your brand, products/services. Easy to use and affordable. Prices vary depending on need, a personal account is only $18.00 a month, corporate account $88.00 a month with other options also available. Try a "personal" account free for 14 days.

14) http://FiltrBox.com : This one searches online news sources, Twitter and others to find out what's being said about you or your company. Pricing is based on the number of users, but there is a free version that provides "5 filters" and 15 days of what they call "article history".

15) http://SocialMention.com/alerts : Just like Google Alerts but for social media. Enter your keyword phrase and email address to be notified of any new findings. Searches blogs, microblogs like Twitter, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news, videos and more.

16) http://BlogPulse.com : A search engine that searches only for data posted to blogs. Enter your keyword, hit submit and off it goes to gather results.

17) http://BackType.com : Billing itself as a "conversational search engine" they index millions of conversations from social networks, blogs and other social media.

18) http://sm2.techrigy.com : Industry insiders claim this to be the leading social media monitoring solution online. Choice of free or paid version. Free is limited to five searches and 1,000 results. There are three paid professional levels: Gold, Diamond, or Platinum.

19) http://ReputationDefender.com : This paid service finds out everything there is to know about you online, and if negative information is found they try to have it removed. Different types of plans are available such as "My Reputation", "My Privacy", starting at only $14.95 a month.

20) http://Topsy.com : Topsy will track your tweets that have been retweeted so you can find out who's been sending you all that "link love". Type in your Twitter user name and you'll be amazed at what you find.

If you'd like to track incoming traffic from your various social media profiles, an easy way to do it using Google Analytics can be found here http://Tinyurl.com/kuc9rL

Just as there are many ways to market your company using social media, as you can see, there's a multitude of tools and services at your disposal to track and see if all of that hard work is paying off.

Smart companies realize the importance of social media in their marketing efforts and are utilizing it on some level.

How smart are you?

20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing

Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for people to come together and share opinions,experiences and thoughts on a number of topics. Smart companies understand this and are using the power of social media to connect and inform their customers, and potential customers. Referred to as "Social Media Marketing", it's a smart way to open the lines of communication between you and your prospects.

Social media activities run the gamut from Blogging, micro blogging sites such as Twitter, social networking communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook, video and music uploading sites, discussion forums, photo sharing and more. With so many different sites and ways to participate, it can be difficult to keep track of all your efforts.

Participating in social media doesn't take a lot of money, but it is very time consuming and businesses want to know that all of this investment in time is paying off. Before launching a campaign, you shouldhave a firm grasp on what it is you're trying to accomplish. Is it increasing website traffic? Getting more ezine subscribers? Having more people download your free ebook or whitepaper? Or maybe you just want to work on your company's brand image. Whatever it is, you need to have a plan. As the old saying goes, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there". Have your game plan intact before gettingstarted in marketing yourself, or your company with social media.

There are many different forms of social media, so it's impossible to use them all. Pick three or four, and funnel the majority of your efforts there. Even if you won't be working them all, at the very least you should claim your name or company name on as many social services as possible. You don't want to find out later that someone has the user name that you want. If you need to see if your chosen user name is available try http://Namechk.com which checks dozens of social media networking and bookmarking sites all at once to see if it's available. Claim your name now so you won't end up being sorry later.

So how do you monitor all the buzz? How do you monitor your brand and protect your hard earned reputation? I thought you'd never ask. There isn't one fool-proof method but there are many services and tools out there that will make it easy to see who's talking about you online. Some are free and others will make you pull out your wallet.

These "online reputation management" tools, as they're often referred to, will help you to define keywords, or phrases you wish to track and then watches for any mention of your company name, products, or services. It's important to defend and monitor your online reputation. Similar to High School reputations, protecting your image online is the name of the game, and just as in real life, everyone has one to maintain.

Let's take a look at some of the measuring and tracking tools at your disposal:

1) http://BackTweets.com : A search engine for Twitter. See who's tweeting your links and more. Can also sign up for email alerts of new findings.

2) http://Addictomatic.com : A little different than the others , you type in a keyword, topic or phrase and out it goes searching the top blogs, news sites, Google, Technorati, Ask, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Topix and more. You'll be given a personalized results page to bookmark with everything it finds related to your topic.

3) http://Buzzoo.net : All about Internet buzz, it tracks several different websites to bring you what's "hot" right now.

4) http://Surchur.com : Search for the latest and greatest on topics that are popular right now. Type in a keyphrase and it searches blogs, social news sites, photo and video sites for your chosen topic.

5) http://Commentful.Blogflux.com : This service watches for comments on blog posts, Digg, Flickr, and others and notifies you of any findings.

6) http://AlertRank.com : A better way to organize and sort Google alerts. Get a daily report emailed to you in a spreadsheet format of what it finds.

7) http://BoardTracker.com : A search engine for forums only. Monitor discussion boards and be notified by email when a thread matching your search terms is discovered. Free to use.

8) http://www.google.com/alerts : I've been using this "secret weapon" for years. Simply type in your name or company name and receive daily emails of results found. They do the work, you receive the links. Free and nice.

9) http://BrandsEye.com : An online reputation management tool with a real-time, concise overview of your online reputation. Multiple levels of services and pricing available. Starting at $1.00.

10) http://Twazzup.com : Another Twitter only search engine.

11) http://SiteMention.com : Type in your url and find out what's being said about you. The results returned are gathered from Google Blog Search, Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, Delicious and many more.

12) http://Brandwatch.net: This service tracks your brands, companies, even the competition. Sign up for free weekly updates on any brand. Their detailed reports break down what sites like you, your most talked about features, weekly summary of all blogs and forum activity. Very similar to the old "press clipping" service.

13) http://Trackur.com : A tool that scans many websites including blogs, news, image and video sites, forums and notifies you of any mention of your brand, products/services. Easy to use and affordable. Prices vary depending on need, a personal account is only $18.00 a month, corporate account $88.00 a month with other options also available. Try a "personal" account free for 14 days.

14) http://FiltrBox.com : This one searches online news sources, Twitter and others to find out what's being said about you or your company. Pricing is based on the number of users, but there is a free version that provides "5 filters" and 15 days of what they call "article history".

15) http://SocialMention.com/alerts : Just like Google Alerts but for social media. Enter your keyword phrase and email address to be notified of any new findings. Searches blogs, microblogs like Twitter, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news, videos and more.

16) http://BlogPulse.com : A search engine that searches only for data posted to blogs. Enter your keyword, hit submit and off it goes to gather results.

17) http://BackType.com : Billing itself as a "conversational search engine" they index millions of conversations from social networks, blogs and other social media.

18) http://sm2.techrigy.com : Industry insiders claim this to be the leading social media monitoring solution online. Choice of free or paid version. Free is limited to five searches and 1,000 results. There are three paid professional levels: Gold, Diamond, or Platinum.

19) http://ReputationDefender.com : This paid service finds out everything there is to know about you online, and if negative information is found they try to have it removed. Different types of plans are available such as "My Reputation", "My Privacy", starting at only $14.95 a month.

20) http://Topsy.com : Topsy will track your tweets that have been retweeted so you can find out who's been sending you all that "link love". Type in your Twitter user name and you'll be amazed at what you find.

If you'd like to track incoming traffic from your various social media profiles, an easy way to do it using Google Analytics can be found here http://Tinyurl.com/kuc9rL

Just as there are many ways to market your company using social media, as you can see, there's a multitude of tools and services at your disposal to track and see if all of that hard work is paying off.

Smart companies realize the importance of social media in their marketing efforts and are utilizing it on some level.

How smart are you?

SEO Dirty Tricks vs Unconventional Website Marketing

If you are trying to get your website to the top of the of search engines, you can of course always rely on the traditional methods, but you might want to consider more unconventional methods to actually achieving greater customer numbers. There are experts out there that specialize in what some might loosely term as ‘dirty tricks’, and they could get incredible results for your website in a very short timeframe - but at perhaps a price a little too steep, and we are not talking monetarily here, after all you would not want your website to be delisted from the search engines would you!

SEO dirty tricks fall into a number of different categories, everything from spamming message board postings with certain keywords and links, to keyword cloaking and lots in between. I am certainly not advocating the use of any dirty trick, or ‘black hat’ (look up the term in Google to get a greater understanding of this rather clichéd phrase) method.

What I am recommending is that sometimes you look just beyond the fold, at perhaps some slight unconventional methods like, for example, contacting your nearest competitor and suggesting you both do a bit of a link swap, hey, some people will like your site, some will like their site – you could benefit from each other and drive traffic both ways, who knows what might be next – shared cost advertising, taking both families to Bermuda on vacation (who knows what the future holds for us).

The search engine companies themselves have become much cleverer with their ranking methods, and dirty tricks in the SEO of a website are more than often picked up upon. If you use obvious techniques to raise your site ranking, aka ‘white hat’ methods, you will certainly get to where you want to go – but do not forget that most other sites are doing exactly the same thing, so look at what else you can do outside of SEO to build up some much needed customers.
Think ‘out of the box’ (I hate that phrase but what else to use!) and when we say ‘out of the box’ what we mean is this; what car do you drive? Have you thought about spending a couple of hundred bucks to get it re-sprayed, advertising your website? Not just adding your website name to the car itself because that would just be boring, plus who actually is interested in going to a website address just because they saw the name of it, no, what we are talking about here is a full blown advertisement for your site on your car, your mates car, your dads car – who wants it, who drives the furthest, etc etc.

Think ‘out of the box’ and certainly undertake ‘white hat’ SEO but also add unconventional methods to your promotional campaigns.

Going back the dirty tricks side of things, never ever forget that Google and other search providers can see right through them. It’s all about coming at it from a different angle and finding a more unconventional way to improve your sites popularity.

One of these dirty tricks, and probably the best known is SEO cloaking; which is almost like a deceptive shifting of words or slight of hand. An ‘SEO‘ consultant can be so good in the usage of cloaking and deceptive practices that an article a consumer thinks will be about the rock and roll hall of fame ends up being about their rock and geode collection. These deceptive cloaking practices could actually make sure the website is actually about the geode Hall of Fame. You can end up thinking you are about to read new information on Bob Dylan and end up getting new information good old Britney (A Ha) Spears, thanks to SEO cloaking and its deceptive ways!
To re-cap on all of this, avoid ‘black hat’ techniques, but do not avoid ‘unconventional marketing;’ He who dares, wins!

Where to Use Keywords For Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Keywords are, simply put, the SEO fuel. All the efforts put in to fine-tune your website for top rankings on Search Engines will not pay-off if the targeted keyword is not right. The key here is to use most relevant and important keywords in different parts of the website. Instead of using all keywords at once, it is advisable to use the keywords in several portions on your website. Higher relevance is given to certain areas of the HTML documents by various search engines.

Choosing the right keyword is the first and the most critical step of any SEO Campaign.

Following are the Best Practices for how to use your keywords:

In the TITLE Tag – Search results always shows the title tag as your page title. The Title must be short and precise, say 6-12 words. The Keyword can be anywhere in the tag but preferably near the beginning.

In Anchor Text – Anchor text with keyword focus from external links is an important factor. inbound links positive not only for the site but for the keyword as well.

In Headings – The Keywords placed on the heading in H1 is an important factor but the page should have actual text relevant to the keyword. Try to keep the heading precise (7-10 words). It is good to have the keyword as the first word of the heading.

In Domain Name – Domain names incorporating vital keywords is a very important factor.

In URL – Helps a lot to rank well but keyword should be in the other parts of the document. It should not be over optimized else you might be penalized.

Density – It is a measure to check the relevance of the web content. Keep less than 10% keyword density. Upto 7-8% for targeted 2-3 keywords and 1-2% for minor or secondary keywords on a page.

In the beginning of the document – It is a good practice to have the keyword in first 25-50 words of the document. Be it a table or a paragraph, try to keep it in the beginning of the document.

In Alt Tags – Label images on your page with ALT/TITLE tag filled with some keywords as spiders do read these tags.

In other Headlines – It is a good practice to have the keywords in other headlines (h2 – h6).

In Meta Tags – Yahoo and Bing still rely on them, Google does not. Having these tags properly filled will not harm, so just do it.

Proximity – It is the closeness between the 2 or more keywords. The closer the keywords the more likely it is to rank higher. It is best to have the keywords one after the other i.e. with no words in between them. Eg : “discount perfume” is better than “discount on perfume”. In Image names – Eg : Perfume.jpg – Good to have keywords in images names.

Secondary Keywords – Targeting and optimizing secondary keywords can be beneficial as they might have a lot less competition than the most popular keywords. Eg: discount Calvin Klien perfumes will have a lot less hits and a better targeted traffic.

Synonyms – Using synonyms on web pages is good as Search Engines have algorithms to take in to consideration synonyms for Keyword match and ranking especially for sites in English but it is not taken into account for many other languages. For instance, in the perfume site, “fragrance” is a synonym, Include synonyms on the page but do not rush to optimize every synonym.

Worst Practices:

Misspellings – Spelling mistakes do not make a good impression. If you know your target keywords have popular misspellings, you might want to optimize them and they can get you more traffic. But it’s better if you do not misspell. However, if you want popular misspellings, do them in Meta Tags.

Dilution – Excessive unrelated keyword optimization will affect performance of all keywords. Yes! even the major ones will be lost.

Stuffing – Keyword density of more than 10% is keyword stuffing and puts you at risk by to get banned by Search Engines.

Purchasing Domain Names - What You Should Know

There are a number of ways and locations to purchase domain names, and research and knowledge are keys to making the right decision. Therefore, it is important to know a number of things when purchasing a domain name.

1) Accredited Registrars

All domain names must be sold by accredited Registrars certified to do so by ICANN. Registrars are required to follow the procedures set forth by ICANN, giving consumers a dispute organization in the event one is needed.

Registars are required to pay a fee to ICANN for the purchase of each domain name. One of the areas that separate registars is the price charged to the consumer. Domain name registration varies from $4.99 at the low end to $65.00 depending on which registrar you choose. Services offered with domain name purchases also vary depending on the registrar selected, such as DNS, forwarding, email, hosting and parked pages.

The services offered are just as important to purchasing a domain names as the name itself. If you own a .com domain name and purchase the .net name, then free forwarding would be a great deal. If you want to point the domain name by DNS then not only is free DNS pointing required, but if you have no experience with DNS the support to set up DNS records will also be required. All registrars are not created equal and some sell low cost domains but with limited support.

When selecting a registrar look at your short term and long term needs, whether it is one domain or multiple domains. Although a low cost looks good up front, do your research and make sure all your needs will be filled. When looking for a domain contact the registrar and ask questions like: Do you have 24/7 tech support, does your support cover DNS record set up, advance record set up, what will you be expected to do and what will they do for you.

2) Domain Resellers

Resellers are partners of accredited registrars, reselling their products and services, but are not accredited to sell domain names. When purchasing a domain name from a reseller, be prepared to be patient. Most offer very little to no technical support or rely on the accredited registrar for support.

There are also times the reseller goes out of business without notifying the domain owner leaving them with little knowledge of who to contact if the domain requires DNS record changes or even simple renewals.

Domain resellers are the most unknown group of domain sellers on the internet. When searching for a registrar look at the site you are on, check to see if they list themselves as an ICANN accredited registrar. Domain sellers not displaying this are almost guaranteed to be resellers. Check icann.org and review the list of accredited registrars to see if the company you are looking to purchase your domain from is accredited or not.

3) Domain Deals

Searching the Internet for a registrar will lead a surfer to many results. Beware of some of the results and domain gimmicks. Yahoo offers domains for a low price with their hosting, but is not an accredited registrar or a reseller. Yahoo uses a third party company that is an accredited registrar. Most consumers do read the Terms of Service when making a domain purchase, and doing so will allow you to see that Yahoo states that they assist you in purchasing your low cost domain.

Unless you read the Terms of Service, knowing that your domain will be registered somewhere else could lead to long term issues. These issues include domain renewal notifications or confusions when wanting to transfer the domain to a new registrar.

Check out all domain offers, read the fine print and make sure you know who your are really dealing with.

4) Domain Protection?

When you purchase a domain it is yours to use for the period your selected to register. Once purchased many registrars automatically put on a service to prevent your domain from being transferred to someone or somewhere else without your permission. This service has different names depending on where your domain is registered, but may be called domain lock and domain protect.

Domain protection is a valuable service and should always be left on unless you intend to transfer your domain to a new registrar. Never allow anyone to tell you to turn off your domain protection for any reason but to transfer. Many times a hosting company or web designer will tell a client to turn off the lock so they can set up services, but this is not required to set up any service.

5) Additional Domain Services

When going through your purchase flow you will be offered a number of additional services, none of which are required. Web hosting will be needed if you do not have your own server, but if you just plan on parking the domain or not using it then why get hosting. Email can be used for your domain with many Internet Service Providers like Verizon. Check with your provider amd ask them if you can set up your domain and receive email using your current service. If so there is no need to buy the email service.

Domain registration with a particular registrar does not mean you must use all or any of the services they offer. You can purchase a domain with a registrar and host with a different company.

Private Registration is the only service that must be purchased form your registrar, this product will remove your personal information from the WHOIS database and make ownership of your domain anonymous.

Google's Goal of Quality Search

In their paper 'The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine' it is very evident that Google's goal has always been to be one of the best search engines there is in terms of the quality of the results it gives. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, however knew that in order to do this, Google needed to be able to store information efficiently and cost effectively and to have excellent crawling, indexing, and sorting methods or techniques. Google not only aimed to give quality results but to produce the results as fast as possible.

Google started as a high quality search engine and continues to be the best search engine today. It has managed to stay true to its original intent to be a search engine that not only crawls and indexes the web efficiently but also a search engine that produces more satisfying results in comparison to other existing search engines. To stay true to the goal of providing the best search results, Google knew right from the start that it had to be designed so that the search engine could catch up with the web's growth. According to Brin and Page "In designing Google we have considered both the rate of growth of the Web and technological changes. Google is designed to scale well to extremely large data sets. It makes efficient use of storage space to store the index". They knew that they needed much space to store an ever growing index.

Google's index size, which started out as 24 million web pages, was large for its time and has grown to around 25 billion web pages, still keeping Google ahead of its competitors. However, Google is a company that doesn't settle for just beating the competitors. They truly aim to give their users the best service there is and that means as a search engine they want to give users access to all or at least most of the quality information that is available on the web.

Google's New System for Indexing More Pages

As mentioned earlier, Google aims to give access to even more information and has been devoting time and much effort to realize this goal. It seems that the new patent entitled 'Multiple Index Based Information Retrieval System' filed by Google employee Anna Patterson might be the answer to the problem. The patent published just this May of 2006 and filed way back in January of 2005 shows that Google might actually be aiming to expand their index size to as much as a 100 billion web pages or even more.

According to the patent, conventional information retrieval systems, more commonly known as search engines, are able to index only a small part of the documents available on the Internet. According to estimates, the existing number of web pages on the Internet as of last year was around 200 billion; however, Patterson claimed that even the best search engine (that is Google) was able to index only up to 6 to 8 billion web pages.

The disparity between the number of indexed pages and existing pages clearly signaled a need for a new breed of information retrieval system. Conventional information retrieval systems just weren't capable of doing the job and just wouldn't be able to index enough web pages to give users access to a large enough percentage of the present existing information available on the web.

The Multiple Index Based Information Retrieval System, however, is up to the challenge and is Google's answer to the problem. Two characteristics of the new system makes it stand out compared to the conventional systems. One is that it has the "capability to index an extremely large number of documents, on the order of a hundred billion or more". And the other is its capability to "index multiple versions or instances of documents for archiving...enabling a user to search for documents within a specific range of dates, and allowing date or version related relevance information to be used in evaluating documents in response to a search query and in organizing search results."

With the new system developed by Patterson, Google now has the ability to expand its index size to unbelievable proportions as well as improve document analysis and processing, document annotation, and even the process of ranking according to contained and anchor phrases.

History of Google's Index Size

Google started out with an index size of around 24 million web pages in 1996. By August of 2000, Google had managed to quadruple their index size to approximately one billion web pages. In September of 2003, Google's front-page boasted an index of 3.3 billion web pages. Microdoc, however, revealed that the actual number of web pages Google had indexed during that time was already more than five billion web pages. In their article 'Google Understates the Size of Its Database', they emphasized that Google not only specialized in simplicity but also in understating their power and complexity. Google was still managing to stay ahead of its competitors and continued to surprise everyone with what they had up their sleeves.

As Google's index continued to grow the number in their front page grew impressively large as well before it plateaued at eight billion web pages. This was around the time that Patterson filed the new patent. Then in 2005, with controversies in index size growing, Google decided to stop counting in front of the public and simply claimed that their index size was three times largër than the nearest competitor's index size. Google also maintained that it was not just the size of indexed pages that was important but how relevant the results they returned were.

Then in September of 2005, as part of Google's 7th anniversary, Anna Patterson, the same software engineer who filed the patent on the Multiple Based Index Information Retrieval System posted an entry on Google's official blog claiming that the index size was now 1,000 times larger than the original index. This pegged their index size at around 24 billion web pages, about a fourth of Google's goal of indexing a 100 billion web pages. It seems then that Google must have started using the new system in mid 2005. With the new system in place, we can only wait and see how fast Google will reach the goal of a 100 billion web pages in its index. It's most likely though that when Google has reached that goal it will set an even higher goal to provide continuous quality service.

Google will remove all search queries after 18 to 24 months

In a nod to privacy advocates, Google com. said Wednesday that they will adopting a new data retention policy so that it's harder to link users to what they search for online. Under the plan, the Mountain View Internet company will shroud the information it collects about users in anonymity, eliminating a potential treasure trove of evidence for government search warrants and subsistances.

By the end of 2007, Google expects to purge important identifying information on its computer servers about the sources of virtually all search queries after 18 to 24 months.

Subsequently, the company will have access to only partial records, so that no one can trace the queries back to individual users.

Google's move is intended to comply with various foreign laws and proposed legislation dictating that Web sites must keep user information for up to two years in case it is needed for legal proceedings. Similar rules are under consideration in the United States.

Google is the first major search engine to set a time limit for retention of search information, which can reveal a great deal about an individual such as whether they're sick (as indicated by a number of queries about cancer) and political affiliation (demonstrated by searches for certain blogs).

Until now, the company kept search logs indefinitely, raising criticism that the data could be misused by Google, law enforcement or marketers. Google said the changes are in response to feedback from privacy groups and government agencies, including the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, which raised concerns about Google's existing practices. The new policy, Google said, provides more transparency to users about data retention and better protects their privacy.

Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, gave measured praise to Google's decision, calling it a step in the right direction.

He asked that Google similarly purge information collected about users of its other products, such as YouTube. Retention of search records emerged as a hot-button issue last year after a demand by the Justice Department that several Web sites turn over query data became public.

Yahoo Inc., Time Warner's AOL and Microsoft Corp. handed over the information, to the consternation of many privacy advocates, but Google fought the request in court and ultimately got the amount it had to provide reduced.

Separately, AOL made a high-profile blunder by posting 19 million search queries online as part of a research project. Ostensibly anonymous, the information was used to identify some of the users responsible for the queries, prompting a public apology by the Web site and a series of resignations.

"By taking some technical measures to anonymize this data, there is an extra layer of protection," Opsahl said. "You can't disclose what you don't have."

As part of the new policy, Google will erase eight of the bits that make up an Internet Protocol address, known commonly as an IP address, that identifies the computer used to make a search query. It will also make cookies -- the small files that help track user visits to specific Web sites and preferences -- anonymous.

After the plan is implemented, Google intends to keep the partial records and associated search query terms, explaining that the information will help the company improve its services and help detect fraud.

Next Generation SEO Tactics

Just when you believed you had all your SEO tactics figured out, the web goes and changes on you. Not just the rules of the game but it takes the whole web platform right out from under your feet and changes it. What's a poor webmaster to do? Web 2.0 changes the whole ballgame. It not only places the Internet user squarely in the middle of things, but it gives that user the means and power to create and manipulate data. Web 2.0 dramatically changes how we view and use the web. Actually, in many respects, it creates a whole new Internet. What Is Web 2.0?Just what exactly is Web 2.0? What does it mean? Is there a precise definition that all webmasters can get their heads around and understand? Not really, many believe Web 2.0 is just another one of those contrived buzzwords, signifying mostly marketing hype!However, perhaps the simple definition can be found in the word "you"! Time magazine probably summed it up best by making reference to the "you" in user generated content. Web 2.0 is basically all the platforms that give us this brave new user-powered interactive Internet, generally referred to as 'social media'.Web 2.0 can be seen or manifested in such sites as YouTube, MySpace, Del.icio.us, Digg, Squidoo... Web 2.0 uses scripting languages such as Python, Perl PHP, RSS... to construct interactive platforms that websites can use to create all this user-generated content.

Many refer to these evolving formats and scripting platforms under the name AJAX and no this does not refer to the popular cleaning agent under your kitchen sink! This AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScrípt and XML) comes from Google and takes web based interactive programs such as Google Maps, something that's usually associated with desktop applications, but is now being applied on the web. If you have used Google Earth, you will realize how powerful and revolutionary these new applications can be, not to mention, they are a whole lot of fun.

Where Did The Name Web 2.0 Come From?Many point to Tim O'Reilly, the constant innovator of many technological changes on the web. O'Reilly has been at the forefront in discussions and conferences on the nature and substance of the 'meme' open source platforms dominating the new social media.How all this new media plays out is anyone's guess, but all webmasters should optimize their sites for this new Web 2.0 and take full advantage of all the SEO possibilities presented by this brave new Internet.Here are a few SEO suggestions you can try:1. RSS/Blogging: You must place a blog and RSS feed on all your sites. This is a fairly simple procedure to do with frëe server-based programs such as Wordpress. Having a blog and RSS feed will place your site into the whole tagging process. Each category you create in your blog will be seen as a tag by such sites as Technorati. RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' and your RSS feeds will get your content distributed across the web. A simple and easy way to tap into the new Web 2.0 universe.

2. Create some Google Juice!: Join as many of these highly interactive sites as you can: MySpace, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Digg, Wikipedia ... my favorite is Squidoo, where you can create Lenses on different topics that interest you. User driven content that's utilized by all the major social media sites. Of course, link back to your sites in your posts and creations in these user-created content havens and watch your PR ratings go way up.

3. Use Interactive Scrípts: Place interactive JavaScrípts and platforms on your own sites. Have membership forums, polls, blogs, feedback forms, user-contributions... to build unique content driven sites. Become the spider!

4. Tagging (Folksonomy): Be constantly aware of the tags (keywords) you're creating with your blogs and sites. This can have a very beneficial effect on your traffíc and rankings. Closely relate these tags to the content on your sites and build higher rankings in all the major search engines.

5. The Long Tail: Especially important for affilíate marketers, you need to cover special niches where there is less competition and content. These narrow niches make up a large portion of the whole vast web, creating content in these unique areas will get your site included in the search engines a lot quicker and keep them there a lot longer.6. Holistic Web 2.0: Be constantly vigilant in placing your sites in the whole 'Interactive Game', building links and partnerships with the important YouHubs: MySpace, Del.icio.us, YouTube, Digg, Squidoo... the more connections you have, the more your own sites will prosper.Be The Spider!No doubt, Web 2.0 will play an ever increasing role in the development and evolution of the web. Make sure your sites are optimized and in the 'You' game. Create blogs, RSS feeds, interactive forums, membership areas, user-generated content and truly make your sites interactive havens in their own right. Just remember to tag everything and your sites will reap the benefits of this new Web 2.0 generated SEO gold rush.

Google History

Google was started by two PhD students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and brought a new concept to evaluating web pages. This concept, called PageRank, has been from the start important to the Google algorithm [1]. PageRank relies heavily on incoming links and uses the logic that each link to a page is a vote for that page's value. The more incoming links a page had the more "worthy" it is. The value of each incoming link itself varies directly based on the PageRank of the page it comes from and inversely on the number of outgoing links on that page.

With help from PageRank, Google proved to be very good at serving relevant results. Google became the most popular and successful search-engine. Because PageRank measured an off-site factor, Google felt it would be more difficult to manipulate than on-page factors.

But, manipulated it was. Webmasters had already developed link-manipulation tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search-engine. These methods proved to be equally applicable to Google's algorithm. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links on a massive scale. PageRank's reliance on the link as a vote of confidence in a page's value was undermined as many webmasters sought to garner links purely to influence Google into sending them more traffic, irrespective of whether the link was useful to human site visitors.

Plus, the default search-bracket was still to scan an entire webpage for so-called related search-words, and a webpage containing a dictionary-type listing would still match almost all searches (except special names) at an even higher priority given by link-rank. So, it also became a battle of high-ranking dictionary-pages.

It was time for Google -- and other search engines -- to look at a wider range of off-site factors. There were other reasons to develop more intelligent algorithms. The Internet was reaching a vast population of non-technical users who were often unable to use advanced querying techniques to reach the information they were seeking and the sheer volume and complexity of the indexed data was vastly different from that of the early days. Search engines had to develop predictive, semantic, linguistic and heuristic algorithms. Around the same time as the work that led to Google, IBM had begun work on the Clever Project, and Jon Kleinberg was developing the HITS algorithm.

A proxy for the PageRank metric is still displayed in the Google Toolbar, but PageRank is only one of more than 100 factors that Google considers in ranking pages.

Today, most search-engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to compete for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spampages from clogging those results. A search-engine may use hundreds of factors in ranking the listings on its SERPs; the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ widely: a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search-engine could rank #200 in another search-engine.

Much current SEO thinking on what works and what doesn't is largely speculation and informed guesses. Some SEOs have carried out controlled experiments to gauge the effects of different approaches to search-optimization.

The following factors are speculation on some of the considerations search-engines may presently be using or which could be built into their algorithms. A number of these are taken from one of Google's patent applications [2], and may give some indication as to what is in the pipeline. Some are pure speculation. It's also good to keep in mind that Google has over 180 patents and patent applications assigned to them at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and a number of those include possible insights into other factors, and other directions that the search engine may follow, some of which may not be consistent with this list.

• Age of site
• Length of time domain has been registered
• Age of content
• Frequency of content: regularity with which new content is added
• Text size: number of words above 200-250 (not affecting Google in 2005)
• Age of link and reputation of linking site
• Standard on-site factors
• Negative scoring for on-site factors (for example, a dampening for websites with extensive keyword meta-tags indicative of having been optimized [^SEO-ed])
• Uniqueness of content
• Related terms used in content (the terms the search-engine associates as being related to the main content of the page)
• Google Pagerank (Only used in Google's algorithm)
• External links, the anchor text in those external links and in the sites/pages containing those links
• Citations and research sources (indicating the content is of research quality)
• Stem-related terms in the search engine's database (finance/financing)
• Incoming backlinks and anchor text of incoming backlinks
• Negative scoring for some incoming backlinks (perhaps those coming from low value pages, reciprocated backlinks, etc.)
• Rate of acquisition of backlinks: too many too fast could indicate "unnatural" link buying activity
• Text surrounding outward links and incoming backlinks. A link following the words "Sponsored Links" could be ignored
• Use of "rel=nofollow" to suggest that the search engine should ignore the link
• Depth of document in site
• Metrics collected from other sources, such as monitoring how frequently users hit the back button when SERPs send them to a particular page
• Metrics collected from sources like the Google Toolbar, Google AdWords/Adsense programs, etc.
• Metrics collected in data-sharing arrangements with third parties (like providers of statistical programs used to monitor site traffic)
• Rate of removal of incoming links to the site
• Use of sub-domains, use of keywords in sub-domains and volume of content on sub-domains… and negative scoring for such activity
• Semantic connections of hosted documents
• Rate of document addition or change
• IP of hosting service and the number/quality of other sites hosted on that IP
• Other affiliations of linking site with the linked site (do they share an IP? have a common postal address on the "contact us" page?)
• Technical matters like use of 301 to redirect moved pages, showing a 404 server header rather than a 200 server header for pages that don't exist, proper use of robots.txt
• Hosting uptime
• Whether the site serves different content to different categories of users (cloaking)
• Broken outgoing links not rectified promptly
• Unsafe or illegal content
• Quality of HTML coding, presence of coding errors
• Actual click through rates observed by the search engines for listings displayed on their SERPs
• Hand ranking by humans of the most frequently accessed SERPs

Getting the Most Exposure Out of Your Articles

Using Blogs

Now a day, everyone is blogging, from grandmas to grandchildren. Since the popularity of the blog has gone up so rapidly, even businesses are using blogs. In some cases, it may be the owner blogging, but that is usually only in small businesses. Most major corporations hire someone to do the blogging for them.

There are a couple ways to use blogs successfully by helping your article marketing abilities along the way. The first way to publish your articles is through your own blog. Setting up your blog is a simple process. Most webhosting companies include blogs in the package or you can choose a hosted blog at Blogger.com or WordPress.com. If you are looking for good search engine exposure with your blog, then you are probably going to find that WordPress.com is the best. The search engines pick these blogs up very well and you will get a lot of hits if you are blogging on popular subjects.

You will also want to make sure that your blog has syndication, or RSS abilities, and make sure to allow the readers of your blog to syndicate your articles. This is a very important part of using blogs in distributing articles.

After you get your blog set up with any of the categories you want it to have, begin pasting in the articles you send out. You will want to use pinging features so that blog directories are updated each time you add content to your blog. This will really help increase the traffic to your blog.

The second way to use blog is to visit other blogs within your niche. When you find a topic that you have written about, add a comment with a link to the articles listed on your blog, inviting the readers of the blog to check out the article.

In most cases, it would be considered rude to post your entire article on another blog. Make sure to link to the article instead of copy it on to someone else's blog. The article should also be really relevant to the topic at hand.

How To Get an Edge With Forums in Article Marketing

Forums can be very useful tools for anyone doing business, on the web or not. They benefit businesses in a plethora of ways. They are used to locate products that need to be created to fill a gap in the market, to inform people about available products, to learn or to teach, to find topics to write about in articles, and even distribution of written articles.

Most forum owners will invite members of the forum to submit articles and they provide and there is a space saved in the forum for this very thing. You should take full advantage of this.

The first thing you need to do before submitting articles to a forum is read the guidelines and follow all of the rules. If you just start posting articles wherever you see fit, you will be banned from the forum. This will make you look unprofessional and desperate. That is the last thing you want when you are trying to promote your business. You want to seem respectable and professional, not like a loser who can't read directions. In Internet marketing, image is everything and you would hate to ruin yours by not reading directions.

Being active in a forum is a great idea. You will be able to submit your articles regularly but remember, do not post inappropriate things during your participation. Most quality forums do not allow advertising and others won't let you use affiliate links in your ports. Doing either one of these two things will get you banned from the site. Most of forums will allow you to use signature file at the end of your post but again, read the regulations of the site thoroughly to insure that you do not break any rules. Some forums will also have special 'rooms' just for advertising and it is a good idea to use these to market your site or your informational products.

As stated above, forums can also be used to look up topics for articles within a certain subject. People usually do not want to read what you are writing about unless you are writing about something that they really need to know. There are only two ways to figure out what a person is looking for.

1. Ask them. Maybe you could conduct a survey

2. Listen to them. You could read what kind of things they are saying.

Forums are the place to find out what people within your niche need to know or what they are talking about. This can give you some ideas for new products or material for your articles.

You can find Forums on the Internet, of course, on pretty much every topic you could think of. Use your favorite search engine and include the word 'forum' with the topic you are looking up. It will simply amaze you how many of these forums actually exist and how many subjects they cover.

SEO Tips for Digg

In case you haven't been on the Internet for the past year or so, there has been a tremendous amount of attention being captured by socially-powered sites such as digg.

So, what does this have to with the world of Search Engine Marketing?

There is something called the Digg effect, which essentially brings a ton of traffic to your site in a small amount of time. (Usually within minutes of a posting).

While digg readers despise seo-planted stories, if you do have something topical or free to use or even something that's just "cool", you won't feel the wrath of the digg community, and end up with your post getting buried.

So how can you leverage this site?

One of the key elements of getting a story on the home page is to have either a ton of people who have "dugg" your posting, or if you happen to know some of the top users on digg to vote for your story, you'll have no time reaching the front.

For the rest of us, we need to work harder. While there are sites that sell services to "digg" stories for you, at some point in time, digg will wise up and stop that.

There is another site that allows you to alert any of your friends when you have posted on digg, called Digg Alerts.

But despite all the "gaming" that goes on, at the end of the day, you need to have a compelling story to have the readers interact with what you're saying.

As for the SEO coding and copy writing element of digg, you need to have a great title and summary to get any reader to even bother checking out your site. Another course of action you need to take is to review all of digg's categories - if your story would not fit on the site, don't waste your time.

The expectation set forth when using digg in as part of your marketing strategy should be to create buzz, build brand name and drive traffic to your site. To expect digg users to click on your Adsense ads is non-sensical - digg readers are tech-savvy and can smell that technique a mile away. Be patient, post often and become part of the digg community by also submitting great stories you find - often times it will already be posted, but every once in a while you can beat them to the punch, and you gain a little bit of credibility on the site.

Google TrustRank

There has been an ever increasing awareness to the value of Google's "TrustRank" algorithm. While there are many factors that are "Off-page", there are a number of simple actions you can take to make sure your site earns the trust from Google by employing these easy techniques.

The best way to think about Trustrank is to compare it to if you were to purchase a product or service in the real world. There are many built-in factors that we use to pre-qualify a business to see if we are willing to part with our cash for their goods or services. This is the same approach Google takes in order to measure the quality of a site, and doing this will get you out of the so-called "Sandbox" much faster than the typical 4-6 months.

While in no particular order, some are most costly than others, but all are worth doing.

• Register your domain for 10 years. If you can't afford the $70 it costs at GoDaddy then are you really serious about your site?

• Buy a SSL certificate - this tells Google that you are a legit business since they know you have to have a verified checking account to get a SSL cert. (And buy it for as many years as you can at a time, at the very least for 2 years)

• Have a privacy policy that tells in exact detail what happens to the information about the visitor that is collected from the site.

• List a mailing address (no P.O. Boxes) - Just as in real life, you feel better purchasing a service or product from a place that has a physical location.

• List your contact information - telephone, fax (if needed), email & name.

• If you have a bigger budget, use any of the "Hacker Safe" services and place those icons on your site. Again, this tells Google that you are seriously committed to protecting your visitor's experience on the site.

Those are simple techniques that you can directly apply to your site, and are signals to Google that you take your online presence seriously.

As far as the "Off-page" factors, it's really about linking to quality sites that are relevant and sometimes considered "authority sites" by Google. Also, getting links from those trusted sites will help re-enforce the quality of your site in the eyes of the Google spiders.

How Google Indexes Your Site

First off, let's describe what we are talking about. A "bot" is a piece of software from a search engine that is built to go through every page of your site, categorize it, and place it into a database.

Google has three well known bots: The Adsense bot, the Freshbot and the DeepCrawl.

The Adsense bot, as you could probably guess, is used for publishers who have Adsense on their sites. As soon as a new page is created, the JavaScript within the Adsense code sends a message to the Adsense bot, and it will come within 15 minutes to index the page so that it can serve up the most relevant ads.

But, for this conversation we are only concerned about the DeepCrawl and the Freshbot.

The Freshbot crawls the most popular pages on your website. It doesn't matter if that is one page or thousands. Sites like Amazon.com and CNN.com have pages that are crawled every ten minutes, since Google has learned that those pages have that amount of frequent changes. A typical site should expect to have a freshbot visit every 1 to 14 days, depending on how popular those pages are.

What happens to your site on a Freshbot visit is that it finds all of the deeper links in your site. It places those links into a database so that when the DeepCrawl occurs, it has a reference.

Once a month, the DeepCrawl bot visits your site and goes over all the links found by the Freshbot. This is the reason why it can take up to a month for your entire site to be indexed in Google - even with the addition of a Google Sitemap.

So, be patient and keep on adding content to your site, and work on getting valuable in-bound links to your site - Google will reward you for it.

SEO Tips For Blogs

While there are many reasons to blog, there are two primary uses that are becoming more widespread with blogging: To game Google Adsense, and to also game the search engines for better rankings.

Since Blogs are known to the search engines as daily snippets of information that are updated on a frequent basis, they get a lot of preference in the search results.

So from this, how do you optimize your blog?

Depending on the service you utilize, there are still some basics that you can apply. The two biggest blogging sites are WordPress and Blogger. If you are looking for an advantage with SEO, you should use Blogger since they are owned by Google, and you'll be indexed quicker.

Blogs aren't all that much different than a site. The power of a blog is from the frequency of the posting. If the search engines see a pattern of 3 postings per day, they will be very active on spidering that site. Depending on the topic of the blog, you may be able to boost your blog in the rankings if it's related to a hot topic on the Internet.

Now, to the actual optimization.

Since blogs are typically a few pages long, you only need to establish a few rules that will be applied sitewide:

• Use an interesting title - Also known as linkbaiting - your title should captivate the user to read more

• Try to use your blog keywords in the title - while it may be hard to always do this, by keeping the title related to the topic, your blog will always be relevant

• Use the H1 tags - All blog editors allow for custom templates, so be sure to stylize your blog title in the H1 tags

• Link to other blogs - Find other related blogs that your readers might find interesting, and ask for a link in return

• Don't forget about your archives - You may post a topic that isn't hot at the moment, but comes up later - make sure your readers can find that posting

As stated above, the key to a successful blog is frequent postings. You don't need to write up an article everytime, two paragraphs and maybe some resource links is what a typical posting should be comprised of.

How to Get Your Site a Top Ranking in Google

It's the new American dream. Your website appears in a top spot on Google for your chosen keyword. Next thing you know, orders start coming in faster than you can handle, and you are rolling in the money. If only it were so easy, right?

Well,

It can be done. I've done it many times in many different industries. There is no secret, but rather, it's just knowing what to do. I've made just about every mistake one can make with a website, but I learned from every setback. If you were only allowed to do one thing to get ranked for your site in Google, without a doubt, all you'd need to do is get links for your site.

Yes, there are many other factors involved in getting your site to a top position. But this is the most powerful way as of this writing to get a top spot in Google. It's not just enough to have links pointing to your site, but you need to have your keyword "anchor linked" to your site. Anchor linking is when you use your keyword phrase as the click-able text for a link. So, instead of saying "Click Here", you would use "Widgets" as the link text.

Now, another point of consideration is determining what keyword/phrase you want to use to get your site found. Most times, people impulsively choose a one word phrase. While this would be a great way to bring traffic to your site, would it bring targeted traffic, with people looking specifically for your product or service? Most times when people type in a one letter keyphrase, they are in the beginning of their search.

They may type in "Shoes", but are really looking for "Running Shoes". So, if you have a top ranking for shoes, do you serve that user's needs? Maybe, but they may also be looking for dress, casual, Women's, Men's, Children's, athletic, girl's, boy's, etc. This is why when you begin to optimize your site, you should focus on more targeted keyword phrases.

Suppose you sell a certain brand name of dress shoes. For this example, we'll call the famous brand XYZ. So, by getting anchor links as "XYZ Dress Shoes", you are already eliminating those users who are looking for another brand or line of shoe. Next, you need to make sure that the page that gets linked contains the on the page content with "XYZ Dress Shoes". If you would link to a page without relevant content, Google would view this link as possible spam, or more appropriately, irrelevant content.

Now, once you have compiled your list of keywords, you need to see which one are searched on the most. The best tool for this is WordTracker, and it is worth the tiny fee you need to pay to have access for one day. There are also free tools online that you can use, but WordTracker will give you the most accurate results.

Once you have run through your list of all your keywords, the obvious choice is to pick the ones with the highest amount of searches (and content relevant to your site!). The next step is to then begin the process of a link campaign. Now, I can already hear you complaining about doing a link exchange. This is only 1/3 of your campaign. The ideal method is to not only engage in a reciprocal link exchange, but to also engage in strategic linking.

Strategic linking is when you get a link to your site without having to return the favor. What's the best way to do this? Write an article just like this one. If I get one website to use this article and have it point to my site, I've just created another link to my site. Pretty easy, eh?

Since you have now engaged in a linking campaign, you should expect to see results in Google in as little as 4 days, and as far as 6 months. All of this is determined by where your links are coming from, and the popularity of the site from which the link came. Next, you need to get as many links as you can pointing to your site with your popular keyword phrase anchor linked to your site.

As I mentioned before, there many other factors that will only enhance your rankings in Google, but the implementation of a link campaign is the strongest method to get your site to a top ranking!

Why You Need Outbound Links

Just in case you've forgotten, an outbound link is a url that you have on your site that points to another website.

In today's Google PR obsessed Internet world, everyone is completely focusing on getting in bound links to your site. While you should always be on a mission to get more sites to link to yours, you must not forget their polar opposites.

Remember, by having outbound links from your site, you are in essence "voting" for the site you link to. This is part of the entire ranking algorithm process for all the search engines. The idea is, that if two sites are similar in content and design, a site with more links pointing to it would be considered more important by the search engine.

So then, why should you help out any other site? Actually, by carefully linking to other relevant sites, you are increasing the relevancy of your own site.

Pretend I have a pizza shop, and I am located in Anywhere, USA. It's a typical site that displays types of pizza, store location, hours, and coupons. I also know the power of outbound linking. For this case, I am going to link to 10 sites: Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns. Next, I link to 6 sites that are physically located in Anywhere, USA. (And their physical addresses are listed on their sites.)

Now, I will switch roles and view the site as a search engine spider. I navigate through the site, and determine that this site is about pizza. Then I find a resource page and discover some well-known links (Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns - and as the spider I know that these are major players in the realm of pizza). Next, I find 6 links to sites located in Anywhere, USA.

So, as a happy spider leaving the site, I now know that the site I just visited is about pizza (site content and links to the major players of the pizza industry), and that it is located in Anywhere, USA.

Next, I visit one of the 6 sites listed as a resource in Anywhere, USA. I find the local address, and it has the same zip code as the pizza site I was just at. Now I know how these two sites are related to each other.

Taking into account the fact that this local pizza shop has also linked to the major pizza chains, as the spider, I am lead to believe that this shop has relevancy to the zip code of Anywhere, USA.

So, as the spider returns the information to the database to be processed in the algorithm, it has pre-sorted some search results based on the links your site points to.

Another benefit of outbound linking is Geo Targeting, or Local search. There is a lot of speculation that local search is the next big trend in Search Marketing. While only time will tell, it won't hurt to have your physical address listed on your website for those who will be embracing local search.

As an experiment, I created a site with a very unique url (to avoid the possibility of people finding it by accident), and I made it only 1 page long. The only thing the page consisted of were 80+ outbound links to relevant sites in the SEO industry, tools, forums and some tutorials. When the PageRank was first updated for the site, it came out of the box with a PR of 3. It has since fallen to a PR of 2 (now that I’ve pointed a few sites to it!).

The whole point of this experiment was to see how outbound links affect your own rankings of your site. I was able to generate a PR of 2 based entirely on linking to authority sites in the SEO industry. So, take the time to link to some relevant sites, the big names (if any), and enjoy the power of the easy, outbound link.

How to Write a Better Web Page Title

Titles are everywhere. Some people are defined by titles, some people loathe titles, and others like giving titles. Why do we do this? With so much information getting processed by our minds everyday, we need a way to categorize these groups of associated content in a quick referencing way.

This is the same methodology a search engine applies when it crawls a page. When you title a page, you are telling a search engine or user what the page is supposed to be about. We've all seen the one sentence summaries of television shows on the T.V. Guide. It allows for quick referencing and decision making by telling us what the show is going to be about.

This is part of the reason why naming your page titles is so critical to getting your site ranked. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a site that had one of the following two titles throughout the entire site: "untitled" or "company name".

While having the company name on all the pages could be a potential branding strategy, chances are, most visitors to your site don't know your brand name yet and are looking for the product or service that you're selling. You could incorporate the company name into the title, but it should be placed after the main message you want to convey about that particular page.

Every page should have a unique title. While you may have a subject that needs to be explained over a few pages, you should use the page title as an index of information for the reader. Sites that sell multiple products should have a unique title for every product. If you can't make the time to make each page stand out, why would you expect that page to ever appear in a search engine?

If possible, you should try to place your keywords in the title, since this will help the search engine determine where your page should be ranked. Remember, the search engines rank each page individually, that's why it's so important to use proper naming methods.

When you determine which keywords to use, go for a 4 to 6 word title when possible. After 58 characters, the title in the search engine results page will be truncated and will not be visible to the reader. Also, the longer the title, the less weight is given to each word.

The entire time you are conjuring up titles, always keep the reader in mind first. While some phrases may rank well in the search engines, a reader may never enter that phrase and you'll lose that targeted traffic you were trying to reach. Sometimes the phrases work out well for both the user and search engine, and in those cases success is usually quick to follow.

43 Creative Link Building Tactics

Link building is an important signal for people and for search engines that the content being linked to has value. There are hundreds of reasons and ways for interlinking web content with the most common being a blue, underlined hypertext link from one web page to another. Since the links to company web site content are important both for driving traffic as well as a signal to search engines that can increase rankings and drive even more traffic, it’s important to acquire links on an ongoing basis.

If you’re grappling with ways to building links, here is a list of link building tactics to consider:

• Build and host useful tools

• Offer testimonials on complimentary services

• Widgets (and submit them to directories)

• Awards (badge)

• Contest (badge)

• Cross link web sites that you own

• Write reviews

• Promote content on social news sites

• Article Distribution

• Submit Blog & RSS Feed to Directories

• Directory Submissions

• Ads on search friendly sites

• Sponsor newsletters archived to the web

• Job listings

• Forum Signatures

• Classified Ads

• Publish comprehensive resource lists

• Post an ebook or substantial whitepaper

• Exchange links with marketing and business partners, clients

• Post surveys

• Write guest posts on others blogs

• Contributed articles to online publications

• Optimize press releases

• Comment on industry blogs

• Sponsor events

• Social bookmark your worthy content

• Speak at events and offer your PPT deck with links embedded

• Donate where a link of donors is published

• Interview industry pundits

• Transcribe video interviews to text as separate posts

• Apply for industry awards, web site & blog awards

• Ensure industry groups you’re involved with link to you

• Create a wiki and ask others to contribute

• Create microsites for causes, events, specific purposes

• Leverage your affiliate program

• Be a resource on Q/A web sites like Yahoo Answers (indirect)

• Slideshare and similar content hosting

• Monitor 404 stats and ask link sources to fix links

• Solicit links directly from sources

• Provide “link to us” content on blog and/or web site

• Leverage publicity and media relations for links

• Digital asset submissions: images, audio, video

• Social profile optimization

As long as a web site expects to attract visitors via search engines, there needs to be an intentional effort towards link acquisition on an ongoing basis. “Build it and they will come” simply doesn’t cut it when it comes to web site marketing.

TopRank Online Marketing is a specialist with link building and the process of content promotion is a large part of what SEO clients receive with our consulting services. However, if clients and TopRank SEO consultants are working together to build links in concert, the effect can be compounded and have an even greater impact on search marketing performance.