Saturday, November 7, 2009

Search Engine Optimization Guide For Beginners - Image and Headings

In this article we will explore some lesser known tips of search engine optimization for Google. Optimization for Headings and Images is an aspect that is overlooked many times or over done by a SEO newbie.

Headings tags are used to define page organizational structure. Properly written header tags inform site visitors and helps them navigate through your web pages. Effective header tags can even increase your site ranking on search engines like Google. Heading tags are not to be confused with the HEAD section of a web page. Header tags are present in the body section where as the HEAD section is for TITLE and META tags.

Page headings are created with the tag, in which x is a number between 1 and 5. Mostly, headings are used for displaying a larger size of the default font. There are five levels of heading, each smaller then the previous. Header tags give the site visitor a visual cue that the text is important or has been used to define the hierarchical structure of a webpage.

For best result for user as well as search engines, a SEO consultant should place main keywords in h1 tags. But H1 tags should be used sparingly in a webpage. A SEO consultant should study the page structure and divide it according to the main point and sub points. Header tags should always be used where they will aid in defining the structure of the web page. A standard use of header tags should be adopted across the website.

Everybody must be aware of images in a webpage. Image tag has "alt" attribute which can be used effectively for search engine optimization. Alt attribute allows specifying alternative text for the image if it cannot be displayed due to some problem. It maybe possible that, that image has been moved to some other location and web page has not been updated. In this case the visitor will at least be aware of what the image was about. Many times, people use browsers that don't display images or images are blocked as in cases of emails. Alt if used properly can increase usability of a webpage. If an image is used as a link, then the alt text for that image is treated as anchor text of a text link.

For best SEO results, images should have descriptive names which include your keywords. Likewise, alt text should also have keywords so that your webpage may rank higher for that keyword. It's a small factor but a factor worth exploring.

These factors help search engines understand and gather more data about your website. While SEO consultants should follow the above mentioned guidelines, they should not go overboard. Extremely lengthy filenames can be counter-intuitive. Similarly, alt tags should not be stuffed with keywords and long paragraph.

This practice can be considered by search engines as an attempt to spam them for higher rankings and hence be penalized.

Looking for a sophisticated approach to strengthening your brand using SEO? contact Enovabiz Solutions today!

Dallas SEO Company / Arizona SEO Consultants

Author: Donna Nocero

Enovabiz Solutions is a professional Dallas Internet Marketing Firm offering SEO consultancy throughout USA. We provide exclusive Michigan SEO Services and online marketing. For exclusive Dallas SEO Services contact us now. Our SEO packages suit every budget and business. And we DELIVER!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donaa_Nocero

Friday, November 6, 2009

How Some Websites Attract Over 1 Million Unique Visitors a Month!

The greatest challenge of any website owner is and continues to be traffic. Many website operators, e-commerce specialists and regular businessmen and women continue to ponder new ways to attract a horde of reliable visitors. This however, continues to be elusive. There are a number of reasons why traffic continues to evade many websites:
# No updated content

# Poor design

# Poor SEO strategies (this is HUGE)

# Lack of knowledge of the target market

These and more continue to dominate the reasons why many websites continue to experience a very dismal amount of traffic when others are gathering thousands and even millions of visitors. A casual visit to the Alexa site will reveal that the sites which continue to attract the lion's share of online traffic are the usual suspects which the rest of the Internet sites continue to languish.

Traffic is the life-blood of your website or online business
This cannot be overstated. Many businessmen and women embark on ambitious website plans and pay top dollars to programmers to set up websites for them. The onset of the site is usually marked with a high degree of excitement for the simple reason that these website owners are very optimistic about the future. But their dreams are quickly dashed after a few months after they realize that other than them and their friends, no one else ever visits the site. To make it even worse, many website owners possess no tracking system of any sort. So they are completely in the dark regarding who visited their sites, when, and from where.

Million visitors is possible
A million traffic visitors in a year? Craigslist gets a billion!
This is inconceivable for many. Craigslist is one of the ugliest sites on the Internet yet it continues to outstrip the rest by far to the extent that a few major companies including Microsoft have experienced an interest in spending hundreds of milllions of dollars to buy the site. But how exactly does Craigslist do it?

The right strategy pays off-but few know it
Mistake number one-Many website owners build a site and then begin looking for traffic. That means that no traffic strategy has been enacted before the site is launched. Because of this, the site languishes and receives disappointing traffic. This can be easily remedied by getting back to the drawing board and producing a plan to attract traffic. While many people are ignorant of exactly how to do this, there are a few who are gifted with the right insight to attract a horde of hungry, curious visitors to their websites every single day.

Are you looking to get 1 million unique visitors to your website starting today?

Looking for information on how to get 1 million website visitors? Check out this complete guide and unleash a total web 2.0 traffic mayhem and watch as your website explodes with unique visitors almost instantly!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jimmy_Jamm

5 Incredibly Important Website Traffic Tips

When it comes to the all-important issue of SEO and how to increase website traffic, you really do need an all-around approach. You must have a strategy and your SEO strategy must address from every angle possible, the issue of the things you must do to generate website traffic.

Keyword Research

Keyword research entails studying your product/service, your visitors and the popular search terms used to find the things you offer. Then using that information to select the best possible keywords for what you offer. Keyword research should ideally affect every aspect of your web site as well as how it is developed and promoted for more internet traffic. Even the domain name should be keyword-rich. The reason that keywords are so important is because these are the words that connect you with people searching for the products or services that your web site offers; they increase your website traffic. Imagine how ineffective it would be if the majority of your potential visitors use an informal name for your product while your web site uses only the formal name for the product. You and your customers would in essence be like two ships passing in the night; you would never connect with each other and you would never increase traffic to your website.

Internal SEO

Internal SEO describes every aspect of developing and adjusting your web site to make it optimal for success on the Internet and to drive website traffic. Contrary to what many believe, the foundations of your success on the search engines and in promoting your web site and in more website traffic are laid within your actual web site. A finely tuned web site has the best chances of search engine and Internet promotion success. This principle is true even down to the actual domain name for a web site. When a domain name contains effective keywords, it will always be one of the first sites listed on results pages. Other things that fall within the realm of internal SEO and that increase internet traffic are:

* Keyword-rich domain names
* Keyword-rich meta tags
* Keyword-rich page titles
* Keyword-rich page names
* Keyword rich content

External SEO

External SEO describes the activities that take place outside of your web site in order to gain optimal results in promoting your web site, improving your website traffic and finding success on the search engines. Theoretically, you should have and need to have your web site listed on the major search engines if you want the large volumes of traffic that bring profit. Currently the most important search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN). If you manage to get your web site listed in the first few pages of results on any one of these search engines, it will often be the beginning of receiving significantly increased traffic. Several things fall under the category of external SEO and that bring traffic to your website:

* Search engine submission
* Keyword research
* Link-Ins (links to content and pages on your web site)
* Articles on article repository web sites
* Social networking
* Affiliate marketing
* Social networking

Social Networking

Social networking has become so important in the promotion of web sites and in gaining targeted internet traffic that it deserves a category of its own. The amount of free website traffic that you can get from a successful social networking campaign can be potentially explosive! Social networking in itself implies exponential growth with a single friend passing contacts and recommendations on to every friend they know, and those that respond doing the same. In an ideal situation, you want a response to your campaign that takes on a life of its own and gains an unstoppable momentum. Facebook and Twitter are the two most important social networking web sites in existence. These are the places that I recommend you begin your quest for social networking success and targeted website traffic.

Myths & Mistakes

Don't waste time investing in myths. Make it a point to know SEO facts:

Many web sites offer a paid or free service where they offer to automatic submit your web site to 100s of search engines. The bots that they use can offend the search engines and get you black-listed. In addition to this, most people use only the top few search engines when searching for web sites. A targeted approach that gets results is preferable over a broad, unfocused approach that may not bring you any success at all.

Other little-known strategies for SEO include the following:

* Make sure your web site extension matches the country you are targeting
* Store your data in the country you are targeting
* A domain name that is registered for more than one year gives credibility to the site

Author and publisher Ray Baker. Ray provides SEO services, articles, tips and reviews on SEO, increasing internet traffic and related tools. He mentions many other ways to build traffic and makes specific mention at this link of a special source of website traffic tips. If you are presently focussed on traffic, you should also read this article on website traffic fundamentals.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ray_Baker

Free Web Site Traffic - How to Attract Free Web Site Traffic Without Additional Work?

If you have ever wondered how to attract free web site traffic this article will touch base on some of the methods you can use to create residual traffic and have it come on autopilot without further work. That is the dream of anybody working online! So let's dig into some of the ways that you can drive traffic that will keep getting you residual traffic without any additional work!

First of all, you will need to find good keywords to work with in order to get ranked in Google and have enough search volume for that keyword in order to make it worth your time. If too few are searching for your keyword, then there is no reason to spend time working to rank your website in Google for that keyword, but if the keyword on the other hand is highly targeted, has a lot of searches and not too many competing pages in Google odds are you can use these methods to rank high in search engines.

The first method is article marketing. Submit your articles to websites such as Ezine Articles with a keyword rich and VALUABLE article that people will want to read. Don't spam their service or this will not work! Be of value and give away a few quick tips people can take advantage of right away.

When you do article marketing try to find long-tail keywords that have a few more words in them, so don't go for "dog training", but maybe try going for "puppy training tips" or something a little less competitive that still has a good amount of searches!

Another free web site traffic promotion method I use is video marketing. What you do here is a little bit different. In this case you want to go for the biggest most searched for keywords. A good example is "six pack abs". Try posting valuable videos that will help people get closer to their goal. It can be a few "quick tips" on losing weight or whatever, then you tell them to visit your website for further information.

The third method I'd like to show you is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. With this method you find a high search volume keyword that you want your website to rank high for, such as "puppy training books", and put this keyword a few times on your website and build a site around this specific keyword and get a lot of valuable keyword rich content on that web site. Then you use the 2 above strategies to build incoming links to your site. It will slowly, over time increase in rankings on Google! Good luck!

Discover how Chris Stigson got over 51,987 free targeted visitors to just 2 of his 60+ niche websites: http://www.FreeTrafficMethod.com - And how you can turn your website into a free traffic magnet like never before!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Stigson

Finding Traffic - The Common Sense Approach

OK, you built your site, it's even indexed on Google's search engine, but no one's coming. This is what most new internet marketers are facing everyday. Follow these simple steps and I guarantee you will be better off than you are right now.

Look at it this way, the internet is just one giant container of website real estate. They are all lined up with the best websites at the top and the weaker ones as you go down the list. Your job is to become better than your competitors so that you can be on the top of the list. The good news is that all of the really hard work has already be done for you. You don't have to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on some system or company to get you ranking high on Google. You just have to do your homework. Yes that's right you do have to do some work. If you are not ready to do that then you can stop reading this is not for you. Now if you are still here just follow these steps and you will be amazed.

Step 1

Pick your main keyword and some long-tail keywords to go with it. Then do a Google search and find the top ten sites that are coming up for your keywords. These site are your competition. They have already done all the hard work for you, because they are showing up in the top ten of Google's organic search.

Step 2

Start a stats sheet for each website. On this stats sheet you are going to take notes on everything and anything you can find out about these websites. First thing you want to do is right click on the websites home page and select view source. Study this data it contains a lot of important information. Things like keywords, description's, meta tags, how many headers and alt tags to name a few. Write everything you can find out from this data.

Step 3

Read the content. Pay attention to the keyword density. Is the keywords used a the beginning of the sentence? Is it in the URL? Things like that. How many words on the page? You get the point. You want to gather all the things from this site that obviously is getting it a top ten ranking. It is all there right in front of you and its free information they have already done the hard work for you. Do this for all ten sites.

Step 4

Build or rebuild your website using the data you have gathered. Make sure your content is original. Make sure your content contains everything your top ten sites contain. This way your website will be ten times better than your competitors. Make sure you follow what they used for keyword density. Make sure you follow the same format. Pay attention to the titles and headers and so on.

Final step

OK, your finished with your site and its up and looks good. Now I want you to write two articles a day for the next seven days. These article can be about anything. They do not have to be about your new website. We are only concerned about getting back-links and not traffic from the articles themselves. I repeat we are not writing the articles to generate traffic themselves, we just want the back-links. You see since you have done the other work. Your website is most likely ten times better than the ten sites you researched. Google loves excellent content and with your new back-links that you are adding you will start to climb the list and beat your competitors. It is important that you place your keywords from your website as anchor text linking back to the pages that contain those keywords in the resource box of your article. Do not just link to your home page unless that is all your site has. If you have done the work you were suppose to do then most likely you will have many pages.. Also I didn't talk about the about page, sitemap and private policy page. Google really likes websites that have those.

Finally you will see that some sites will jump to the top spots with just a few article submissions and some may take a lot more than a few. Its a numbers game sometimes so be patient and keep working you will see results. I guarantee it will be better than when you started.

I hope this helps someone, now get to work!

If you enjoyed this article, Tim is the author of several website specializing in reviews and helpful tips. You can check out his latest website on American standard faucets and also American standard shower faucets

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Timothy_Gray

The Best Way to Build a Massive Stream of Traffic to Your Website

There are many ways to generate traffic, some paid, some free. Needless to say, I prefer using free methods although some people might have a different taste.

I particularly love the feeling of seeing a commission com in and knowing that 99.99% of the total amount of that commission is pure profit.

So maybe I do not get 10,000 visits per day to my website, but each on I get is 100% free so I probably make more money than many PPC users who at the end of the day have to give up a big chunk of their revenue to Google AdWords.

But let us focus on the main issue I want to discuss in this article: what is the best way to build a massive stream of traffic... for free.

I know that you have probably heard about different theories and strategies designed to generate free traffic, from social bookmarking to blog commenting etc, however, although many of the usually recognized free methods do offer a certain level of effectiveness, there is only one that can truly become both a huge short term and a long term source of traffic.

This often underestimated method is no other than article marketing, and I would say it is not only underestimated it is also underused because many people discard it because they tend to think that generating traffic through article marketing is too hard, and they fail to realize a couple of important details:

1.- Article marketing provides you with the highest quality traffic money can buy, only you are getting it for free.

Indeed, think for a minute the level of conversions you can reach from a visitor driven to your site from an article. This is a person who already spent a few minutes reading your article and then he or she clicked through, meaning that up to some point he or she greatly agrees with you.

This level of predisposition can hardly be achieved through a two line ad, where the visitors often clicks through just out of curiosity and each time they do your bank account is getting hammered.

What this means is that you need a lot less article traffic than you need other sort of traffic in order to get the same number of conversions.

2.- Article marketing provides you with quality one way links to your site, which is the foundation of a higher rank in the search engines and ultimately a great source of free targeted traffic.

3.- All these effects are permanent, so the more you do, the more you will get both instantly and over time.

Now, certainly if you were to pursue the benefits of article marketing by writing 20 articles a day with the goal of building a stream of traffic and 700 on way links within the year, I would certainly agree... this is too much work.

But, if you do the same by writing just one article per day, but submitting that article to 200 directories, then you would be creating around 7,000 independent sources of traffic to your site plus an equal number of one way links that would in turn help you suck a great deal of natural traffic from the search engines. Then you can really sit back and enjoy a real avalanche of traffic with just a little work.

In order to do this however, you cannot go submitting your articles to each directory on by one, because you will be 1 month older by the time you are finished submitting just one article.

Instead, you should use an article submission software that can do this mechanical and painstaking job for you in one click, and save a ton of time and money while you get the best of both worlds: massive immediate traffic and one way links to your site.

You can watch this software in action at the Article Submitter Platinum's website and see for yourself how powerful and time saving this tool can be when it comes to traffic building. Definitely the most important investment for any marketer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alex_Cadens

23 Strategies to Improve Your Website Traffic, Google Page Rank and Alexa Ratings

Are you looking for ways to increase traffic, increase your Google PageRank and decrease your Alexa Ranking? Listed below are 23 steps that will help you achieve this goal.

1. Content - It is all about the 3 C's - Consistent, Current, Content. Post at least 5 entries a week, if you consistently post information it also attracts new visitors and subscribers.

2. Press Releases - Send out a press release announcing the launch of your site. Any newsworthy item should also be considered for a press release. We recommend a site like PRLog.org, a free press release website. Occasionally, Google News will pick up a press release off this site if it is gaining interest after posting.

3. Facebook - Are you on Facebook? If so, you can set up an account for your site or create a fan page. Then invite your friends to join. You can tie in your RSS feed (new entries) so anyone visiting will see current information. When someone becomes a fan or friend you will reach their friends and gain more followers.

4. Twitter - We have seen lots of success with people that have used Twitter to network their site. Once you learn how Twitter works and the etiquette of networking you should find some success. The "tweets" you come across can inspire articles and form relationships. These relationships you build can result in posts to your site and a "guest" appearance. Your guest can provide information from an expert in the field and be a benefit to your readers.

5. Blog Catalogs - Sign up for Blog Catalogues, it just so happens that a popular one is actually called BlogCatalog.com. This can get your name out there and introduce you to other sites that you will find helpful.

6. Article Marketing - Many of your entries will make good topics for an article. You can edit your post to appeal to a larger audience and post it on that site. If you post good content it will result in views to your article and then clicks to your site.

7. Subscriptions - Provide your readers with an email subscription service for those that don't want to miss the most recent articles. You can sign up with a service, such as Feedburner, and have it set up to automatically check once a day for new content and send it out.

8. Email blast - Email all of your contacts to introduce them to your site. Let them know what beneficial information you provide. Ask them to visit your site and subscribe to your email updates and register. Ask for feedback, do they like the layout, the look and ask them to critique to help you improve your site. Then ask them to help you pass the word and email their contacts.

9. Social Bookmarks - Tag your best posts at sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Technorati. Every time you have a tag out there, it is one more inbound link. Links to your site will improve your rating.

10. Trading links - Network with others that provide similar information and add a link to their site and ask them to link to you. You can also introduce them to your readers as someone you follow.

11. Alexa Widget - Add an Alexa widget to your site that shows your ranking. When you have this widget on your site it also improves your own Alexa ranking.

12. Default Home Page - Ask friends and family if they will add your site as their default home page on their computer. Every time they open their browser, it is one more hit on your site.

13. Forums - Find a few forums related to your site and post questions and answers. Add value to that community. Set up a signature page that you can use to sign out that includes your website.

14. Interlinking - As you add content to your site, link to other articles that you have already written that are similar. This allows people to find more articles on that subject that are on your site. Sometimes a visitor to your site may not find what they are looking for in the article they are reading, but the information may be in a related article and this leads them there. The longer a visitor stays on your site the better chance you have for them to subscribe or return to your site.

15. Site Map - Put together a site map and submitted it to Google, Yahoo and MSN. This site map includes all the blog entries as a separate page. The more pages you have on your site the more content you are providing which increases your standings.

16. Google Analytics - Use Google Analytics to track the page hits and number of visitors. Google Analytics provides reports that inform you of the most active pages, where your links come from and what keys words are being used in the search engines to find your site.

17. Keywords / Metatags - Each page on your site has a unique page description and a unique set of key words. While many pages use the same key word, no two pages have the same set. The key word list contains a long list of words related to information provided on your site. Make it a point to use those key words in your posts. This increases your keyword's density. According to Google, the greater your keyword density, the more relevant you are.

18. Guest Blog - Highlight other websites, articles, products and people on your site. This provides more content and links. This is a great way to provide your readers with access to experts in the field or wonderful products.

19. Contests - Provide giveaways and contests for your readers. This can attract many to your site. These giveaways and contests provide another opportunity for a press release and links to our site.

20. Logo / Branding - Have a logo that is memorable and eyecatching. One that distinguishes who you are.

21. Easy Links - Provide information on how others can link to your site and make it easy.

22. Kirtsy.com - This is a great site to find popular and relevant articles. Once you join kirtsy you can share articles that you find interesting and add them to their site. You can also add your best articles from your website. When you go to their home page you will see articles posted and in the green box, it shows you how many votes an article receives. The more votes an article gets the more popular it becomes and the more exposure it receives. This site can also be an indicator as to what is a popular topic.

23. ProBlogger - I found this site through networking on Twitter. He consistently provides great information to help you succeed in making the most of your site. Recently, he provided a 31 day challenge - 31 days to build a better blog. You can find this information at problogger.net.

A successful website or blog takes daily attention to finding what works and providing good content. It also succeeds when you build relationships with your readers and network with others. Try these 23 steps and see if you notice an increase in traffic and an improvement on your ranking.

Cammie's blog site http://www.MomsMaterial.com gives moms ideas they want. She talks about parenting, books for kids and moms, party ideas, school and great gifts ideas.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cammie_Moise