Want to Build a New Search Engine Optimized Website?

Before spending any time or money on a website, there are some major factors that will directly impact your Search Engine Optimization strategy that must be considered. This list includes the six most important items to be considered prior to developing of contracting to develop a new website if you will be interested in SEO for that website. Here are the top six questions that must be answered during the planning phase:

1) Who is the real target audience for the website? SEO is useless if you do not have a clear plan on who you want to bring to your site. Thinking you site is for EVERYONE would be pretty outlandish, unless you are looking to replace Wikipedia or Google. You must really drill down and figure out details on the niche of your target audience before moving any further. There are plenty of general "marketing resources" to help with this, please use them. Most people fail in this very simple task because they genuinely feel the target audience is much bigger (or much smaller) than it really is.

2) What content will your target audience find useful to READ? SEO is about helping other find the information THEY want on YOUR site. It is not a bunch of tricks trying to get visitors to your site. So, the MOST IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION in the planning phase is establishing a plan to develop all of the content that will meet your target audiences need and a plan to continue to develop new and fresh content over time.

3) How will you incorporate the content to meet your target audience's needs? Developing the content is not the same as the layout of the site, but once someone is at the site, it is very important to make sure they can easily find the other information they need. This means it should be easy to get from some content to some other content, products, etc. A plan on how to "move" a site visitor from some content to other content, allowing the user to "interact" with the site is essential. This strategy should include a degree of flexibility as not all visitors will land on the home page (especially true of a site with good SEO) and not all visitors will want to go from page 1 to page 2 to page 3, they will want to find their own path to the content most important to them. The strategy of getting visitors from some content, through some other content, to a particular product will have a great impact on SEO. Assuming a potential new customer will land on a page and proceed directly to a purchase within the first 30 seconds would be quite inaccurate. Most potential customers will "browse" through a site in some depth prior to making a purchase or deciding to fill out a contact form, so providing an easy way for visitors to access the content they are looking for is essential -- which points back to the question number two, is there ENOUGH content to fill the potential customers need for information to result in a buying decision?

4) How will you update content over time? You can pay a full time webmaster, have a team of developers, have a part time independent contractor or do it yourself (using a CMS perhaps), but regular updates are a very critical component to long term SEO. Waiting to figure out that strategy until AFTER the site is created could be a DISASTER. If a single developer hand coded each page, it could be a very big undertaking to update that site, while a Content Management System (CMS) could be much easier for an individual to add new content. (Note: while not directly related to SEO, it could be a solid marketing strategy to capture willful visitors email addresses on the website then email them when updated information is posted on the site. If you intend to employ this strategy it could have a significant impact on the method used to develop the site as it will need a component to handle this.)

5) How will you ensure the site structure and code will be "clean" and easily indexed by the search engines? Again, this is not about fancy tricks, but it could be about avoiding unnecessary items on the site that do not help SEO (such as flash, etc). It is VERY IMPORTANT to make sure your site developer understands proper SEO design techniques and if not, hire a consultant to ensure these are "built in" to the site. Many people build a site first thinking optimization can happen later, but this could involve "redesigning the site" because much of the fixes could be simple cleaning up of code. The number of people that can build a SEO website from scratch if far less than the number of people that can just give you a pretty website.

6) How will the site obtain incoming links? Since Link Building will eventually be a necessary component of your SEO strategy, you must also consider who might want to link to your site and how the site can be built in a way that would help facilitate this process. Consider who you would freely link to from your brand new website. What type of content would they need to provide for you to deem it useful to link to them? Again, more than likely people will not be lining up to link to your site unless you give them a compelling reason to do so... unless you want to make the compelling reason a dollar value by PAYING for every link, making useful content for others is the best way. This generally means USEFUL INFORMATION in general, not just USEFUL INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTS.

There are of course other Search Engine Optimization considerations, but plan for these first, than you can start the "fine tuning" process of an overall SEO Strategy.

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

Will Social Bookmarking Improve Your Website Traffic?

Ever hear the phrase "A link is a link?" Wonder what it means? In short, it means any link pointing to one of your website pages is beneficial to your site. Instead of spending countless hours on search engine optimization blogs reading the latest theories on what the search engines are going to do next, why not help yourself to a few more links to your websites pages?

All links are not equal but all links are beneficial. Some links carry more weight than others. For example, a link from a PR4 or PR5 page on a website with only a few links pointing out will do your website a lot of good. But just how are you going to get that link?

You can spend hours writing huge amounts of content and just hope another webmaster finds your site and is so impressed with your excellent information that he or she will, without being asked, link to your website. What are the chances of that happening? Has it happened for you yet?

If you are like most people, you will have answered "No" to that last question. For most of us, we have to go out and get our own links. Social bookmarking is one way to accomplish that, along with article submissions, directory submissions, public service announcements, and leaving comments at blogs. All of those link building methods will increase the authority of your website, and therefore your website traffic will increase as more searchers find your website in the search engine listings.

There are quite a few social bookmarking sites with high PR, but a lot more bookmarking websites with PR 0. Do not discount low PR, but make it your goal to get as many links as you can from all bookmarking sites, regardless of page rank.

You can submit manually to social bookmarking websites, but if you are really intent on making money from websites, it is prudent to automate this process. Webmasters have several choices of automated social bookmarking software. Rather than waste your time with reviews, I will just tell you outright that the best bookmarking tool is Bookmarking Demon. This software is robust and has many features which enable submissions to get the same value as manual submissions. Read a Bookmarking Demon review by an experienced user.

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

How to Optimize Your Website

When you have a website that you are using for a business it is important for that site to be found within the search engines. It can be difficult to compete with so many other websites on the internet so optimizing your website in order for it to get brought to the top of the search results is a necessity. You may be wondering how, exactly, does that task get accomplished. It does not have to be complicated, but knowing a little bit of html is required.

When viewing the html code of your website it looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo at first, but when you learn what the different symbols stand for it makes it a lot easier. All the tags start with

<tag> and end with </tag> So, for the title of your website it would look like this <title>Title Goes Here</title> When choosing your title you want it to have the keywords you want to optimize your website for. Choose keywords that are longer and not too competitive.

You can use tools like Overture or Word Tracker to choose your keywords. These tools will tell you how competitive your chosen keywords are and how many times they are searched for each month. Take the keywords you chose and place them in the title, h1, h2, alt, and meta keyword tags. Sprinkle those keywords throughout the body of your website making sure they are at the beginning and end.

Try to keep the menu on the right side of the page. Search engines read a website from the right down, center down then left down. You want the majority of your keywords in the body of the website not the menu, Keep the density of your keywords between 2%-6% for maximum benefit. You can check this with a keyword density tool on the web. Just do a search and it will come up.

The alt attributes are within the image tag. When you put a keyword within these attributes it will show on the webpage when the cursor is hovering over that image. Using your keywords in some of the text links on your website will also help the optimization of your website.

Some basic html knowledge is needed when optimizing a website but there are plenty of places on the internet where you can learn the basics. Doing the things described in this article will give you the best chance of getting to the top of the search engines. This helps bring targeted visitors to your website and eventually sales for your business.

When you get the hang of all this you can add other keywords to your site and start ranking high in the search engines for those terms as well. It takes time to learn and it takes time to rank highly for your chosen keywords but it is possible to do without having to be too difficult.

Tara Martindale specializes in helping people find the best work at home business opportunities available. Visit Tara's Work at Home Business Opportunities site for details.

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

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/988009

The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you're going to sell any type of product or service online, you're eventually going to have to optimize your Web site for the Search Engines, in order to boost traffic and sales.

Many years ago, it was quite easy to draw effective traffic, as a good content-driven site, with good products, was enough to get a Web site ranked highly in the Search Engines. The competition has increased one thousand times over since then, with billions of Web sites existing online now, making for some very stiff competition in the area of Search Engine placement and rankings.

This increase in competition has given rise to many different styles, and many different methods of Web site optimization. Optimization is simply the method of making a Web site "Search Engine friendly", by using methods of enhancement that will increase rankings and placement by placing the Web site higher in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).

Everything from software to increase rankings and placement, to Search Engine Management and Marketing Firms exist, with many online merchants becoming confused about what or "whom" to use and how to effectively use the various services to increase rankings and placement.

The real battle seems to exist between those that favor "Organic SEO" as opposed to those that prefer "Non-Organic SEO". The term organic itself is defined by Webster's Dictionary as: instrumental; acting as instruments of nature or of art to a certain destined function or end (Webster's: 1913: 3).

Organic SEO, also called Natural SEO, is the most time consuming, and the most tedious method of optimization for placement and rankings. However, it is prone to longevity of results, as it has a focus on content, meta-tag enhancement using proper descriptions, keyword enhanced copy within the appropriate specified densities of the Search Engines, and link exchanges. In addition, keyword dense reports, articles, and other content materials are usually added in a routine fashion to a site to maintain the densities necessary and increase rankings and placement.

Organic SEO, if done properly in a step-by-step approach, can literally promote increased traffic and rankings for years. It can also contain overall marketing costs, as the use of PPC (Pay Per Click), is not needed as much with this method. The main drawbacks with this type of SEO, however, are the length of time it takes to properly implement all the steps necessary, and the length of time it takes the Search Engines to thoroughly spider and index a site that has implemented Organic SEO.

Non-Organic SEO, also called Artificial SEO, can take many forms, and can use some Organic SEO coupled with other techniques. These techniques can include software generated keyword enhanced pages, some methods of re-directs, whereby traffic is shunted off from other sites, with their permissions, and software generated doorway pages and meta-tag descriptions. There are many different techniques that can be employed including rather controversial ones such as hidden text loaded with keywords, and tiny text.

Overall, Non-Organic SEO methods are quite popular, as it is a much quicker means to rankings and placement. Links might be purchased from "link farms" which are simply services that specialize in the promotion of links to others.

Although Non-Organic SEO can speed up rankings and placement initially, care needs to be given when using any of these methods. If keyword dense pages are automatically generated en masse, the Search Engines might view large sites, with large numbers of such pages as "Search Engine Spammers" and a risk of being banned does exist. In addition, pages may initially place very high, only to drop lower rather quickly, as the Search Engines still place a great emphasis on good content, which is not usually the focus of the Non-Organic type of SEO.

All in all, it really depends upon the overall purpose of a site, and the longevity of results desired by a Web master/site owner. It also depends upon how quickly results and sales are needed. For some seasonal sites, such as holiday-theme sites that only remain up for a few weeks or months, then the quicker method of Non-Organic SEO can be quite effective. On the other hand, if a Web master/site owner promotes a product or service to which they are committed for years, or perhaps a lifetime, then Organic SEO would definitely be the better choice of optimization method.

No matter which type of SEO methods are chosen or implemented, an ongoing campaign of optimization does need to exist, as the parameters that are used for the rankings and placement by the Search Engines, change frequently, and research into current methods needs to be done routinely.

As the old saying goes, "Different strokes for different folks", really applies to Search Engine Optimization and rankings and placement. The whole Search Engine Optimization process is really more art than science, and continues to change daily.

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Vishal P. Rao is the owner of Work at Home Forum, an online community of people who work from home.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vishal_P._Rao

The Expert's Guide to Link Baiting

We've all heard of link baiting at one time or another. Some consider it to be pure spam and can hardly say the words without their nose curling up. Others think of link baiting as their favorite secret technique. Whatever side you're on, this guide will explain how link baiting works and how you can use it to improve your traffic and search rankings.

But first, let's define what link baiting is. Most often it is referred to as posting something "viral", outrageous, useful, cool, or shocking that other websites can't help but discuss (thereby giving you a link). The first section of this guide will explain the different types of link bait and how they can be used. The second area will explore how to get other websites to actually take the bait and post a link to you.

Setting Your Bait Given that it's called link "bait" let's use a fishing example. There are two simple steps: first you set the bait and second, you get a bite and reel in the fish. That is exactly what we will be doing with link baiting. So - what types of bait can we use?

Blog Posts - Most often, the bait is a blog post that breaks some type of news, posts some viral media, or says something that is totally outrageous. This is my favorite type of bait to set. It is clearly the easiest to create and it has the biggest likelihood of success. All you have to do is write something that you know will get a rise out of people. Ideas? Break a story that no one else has, post a viral video/picture, talk badly about someone else, or make up some story. (Those last two might get you sued, but then you can talk about your lawsuit and it'll be an even bigger link bait story!

Give Something Away - People like to get things for free. If you create a quiz, blog template, or widget that they can use - they will post it on their site with a link back to you. Spend some time figuring out what people in your industry might want and then make it for them. You can easily get hundreds of links this way.

Be a Nice (or Mean) Guy/Gal - If you donated $1 million to charity, or stole $1 million from someone, you would surely get your website linked from hundreds of sites. When you do something out of the ordinary (whether good or bad), you become a story, you become interesting, you become link worthy. A common example is when someone either gets sued by the big boys or sues one of the big boys themselves. If you have a lawsuit with Google, people will link it up.

Reeling in the Catch Now we need to explain how you will get others to take your bait. The first thing you need to do is, of course, create this bait on your website. If you have a breaking story, write a blog post about it; if you got sued by Yahoo, do a press release and/or blog post; if you made a widget, create a nice download page. Getting to that point is the hard part. The rest (getting the links) is easy by comparison.

At this point, all you want to focus on is getting the ball rolling. You should Tweet your bait, send it to other bloggers in your industry, Digg it, Stumble it, Facebook Like it, etc. etc. - do everything you can to get it in front of as many people as you can. That way, you have more opportunities for Diggs, likes, Retweets, etc. The more people hear about it, the more inclined they are to post it on their own blog.

Now, you are basically done. You can sit back and watch the viral power of the internet work it's magic. Within 2-3 days, you should have dozens of links. And, if your bait was a dud (it happens to the best of us), that's fine, just rework your strategy and try it again with a new piece of bait.

Link baiting can be one of the easiest ways to get a large influx of links and popularity, especially for a newer blog looking to grow. In addition, it is one of the cheapest (you can't beat $0) ways to market your blog, website, or product. If you need more traffic, readers, followers, fans, or customers, follow this guide and give link baiting a try today.

Tried of manually submitting articles? Try Article Synergy - the instant, automatic Article Marketing service.

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

Generate Website Traffic Quickly And Affordably

Are you getting frustrated that the only visitors to your websites are your mother and your friends? Then you are probably not putting enough efforts to generate website traffic. Website building doesn't stop at designing a site and publishing great content on it. You also have to consistently drive traffic towards it. Here are a few tips that can help you get the traffic you want.

1. Write articles not to be published on your website but to be submitted to online article directories. This is called article marketing. There are a lot of advantages to using this technique. It does not only drive traffic to your website, it boosts its search engine rankings as well and builds your authority on your niche. Submitting to these directories is often free so you have nothing to lose in trying them.

2. Get into link exchange agreements with other website owners. Make it sure though that you are link exchanging with a website whose topics are related to yours. In this way, you complement each others content. The benefits of a link exchange are several. First, it drives traffic. Second, it passes link juice. And third, it makes your website look more relevant in the eyes of search engines like Google.

3. Submit your website to directories. This is even more important if your website is a blog. There are a lot of respected blog directories out there to which you can submit your blog. Some charges a fee before they include your blog in their listing but most of these directories are free.

4. Have your website optimized for the search engines. Search engine traffic or organic traffic still is the best source of traffic out there. If you do not know how to implement SEO, then find someone who does. What matters most is that you get your website easily found when people search on the engines like Google and Yahoo. Search engines are the best places to generate website traffic.

Social networking sites are now all the rage in the internet. Facebook just recently announced that their registered members are now over 500 million. Other social sites like Twitter, Foursquare and Gowalla are also enjoying rapid growth. What these mean is that there are millions of people logging in to these social networking sites every single day. Looking at it on a marketer's view, these sites are gold mines. If you are able to tap these markets and use them to drive visitors to your website or blog, you increase your site's chances of being successful by a huge leap.

Here are a few tricks on how to use social networking sites to generate website traffic.

First, choose the social networking sites that are most appropriate to the type of website you have. Just because everyone is using Twitter does not necessarily mean you will have to use it as well. Before you sign up with any networking site, you have to ask yourself the question: "What can this site do for me, my website or my business?" If you can't seem to get any solid answer to the question, then the site is probably not the right fit for your website.

Second, sign up with just a few networking sites if free time is something you do not have. If you sign up with too many sites but you don't regularly participate in such sites, all your efforts will be wasted. Hence, focus on a few social sites that you know you can spend some time on.

Third, the key to an effective social media marketing strategy is genuine participation. Don't use a social site just to generate website traffic. You have to use it the way it's supposed to be used first. Use it as a marketing tool second. So build those connections and trust before you even think of doing a sales pitch.

One of the fastest and most effective ways to generate website traffic is through dropping comments on other websites and blogs. This is especially important if you are just starting out as a site builder and blogger. The efforts in traffic-building are at its hardest during the first weeks and months of creating a website or blog. Commenting in other sites is one way to get the ball rolling.

There are however a lot of factors that you need to take into consideration before you write your very first comment. Just like any marketing technique, commenting requires planning. You can't just go around the internet dropping comments on every comment box that comes your way. This is not the right and effective way to do it.

Look first at your own website and determine what your main topics and themes are. This is very important because your comments will be much more effective if you leave comments on websites and blogs whose contents are related to what your own website has. The general rule here is that as much as possible, comment only on those sites that are on the same niche as yours. This doesn't mean you can't comment on unrelated sites; but you have to keep it to a minimum.

The key to an effective commenting strategy is the value of your comments. If your comments are composed of just "Nice post.", then you are not doing yourself any good. Don't comment just for the sake of commenting. See to it that the comments you leave provides value or meaning to what's already been discussed on the article you are commenting on.

While commenting, it is best that you use your real name or that of your website to give more credibility to your comments. Readers of your comments will more likely click on your name thus helping to generate website traffic in the process.

The success of a certain website is often measured by how much web traffic it generates. The more daily visitors it receives, the more successful it will be deemed. Your website may have the best content in its niche but if nobody visits to read it then that content amounts to nothing. As a webmaster or blogger, it is therefore a necessity that you spend some effort in traffic generation. Traffic-building can be very time-consuming most especially if you don't have the monetary budget to take advantage of automated marketing techniques. Internet people are a tough crowd to market to. They are not that easy to please. Their attention spans are very limited. In fact, various studies have shown that you only have just a few seconds to capture the interest of an online surfer.

It is best to look at your traffic-building efforts as a sales pitch. Your website and its content are your products. You are offering it out there in exchange for people's attention. What catches the attention of people these days are content that's straight to the point, helpful and entertaining. The two most common reasons why people go online is to be entertained and to get or gather data. If you can provide these to them, it is going to be much simpler building your site's traffic.

There are a lot of methods you can use for traffic generation. These include search engine optimization, blogging, article marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, PLR marketing, viral marketing and a whole bunch of other ways. You don't have to use all of them. Just pick those that you are comfortable with and of course those that suits the theme or niche of your website. Some traffic-building strategies work on some niches but are not that effective on other niches. So choose your strategies very well.

In order for a website to be successful and achieve its goals, it must have an established reader base. In the simplest of terms, it has to have some traffic. The products and services you have won't sell or the ideas you wrote won't be read if your website doesn't receive substantial traffic. Below are 3 ways that you can utilize to generate web traffic towards your site.

1. Search engine optimization - You have to make sure that your site is optimized for the search engines. Make it as easy for them to crawl and index your site. Create a sitemap for it. Make it uncluttered and navigable. And research very well your most important keywords or phrases and see to it that such keywords are used in all of your site's pages. If you do not know search engine optimization, then you either start learning it or get someone who knows to help you out. SEO is not as complicated as it sounds. Just a few hours of reading SEO resources can easily teach you the basics of it.

2. Social media marketing - Millions of people log-in to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter every day. This fact alone should be enough reason for you to start social media marketing. All you have to do is create profiles for you and your website then start connecting to people. Build trust and connection first before you start pitching them your stuff.

3. Article marketing - This is pretty simple to implement though it can be very time-consuming since you will be writing articles majority of the time. What you do is write articles that are related to the theme of your website. Include in each article a short author bio as well as a link towards your website. After that, just submit it to article directories like EzineArticles.

Follow these 3 ways to generate web traffic and it won't be long before visitors start streaming in towards your website.

What good is a well-designed and content-rich website if nobody knows it exists? Here are some very practical and effective ways on how to generate website traffic.

1. Search engine optimization - This should be the very first thing you have to be doing once your website or blog is live on the internet. SEO is not as complicated as it may sound. All it entails is basically using keywords in your content and making sure that the website can be easily crawled and indexed by search engines. Put in there some link-building tactics and you are good to go.
2. Social media marketing - Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are the hottest web properties right now. If you are not using them, then you are being left behind. But if you do, use them to drive traffic to your website as well. It's just a matter of posting links to your website on your Facebook wall or tweeting it on your Twitter page. Or you can create a Facebook Fan Page for your website. So if someone finds it interesting, he can just "Like" it. If he does, it will be posted on his wall and imagine if he has a thousand friends. That could be a thousand new visitors to your website.
3. Article marketing - This strategy may not be as effective as it used to be but it's still a great way to drive traffic, boost search engine rankings and build authority. What you need to do is simply write an article and submit to as many article directories as possible.

Buy advertising space - Sometimes, the most effective way to generate website traffic is by spending money on great ad spaces. Make sure though that the sites where you advertise yourself are on the same niche as yours. You cannot for instance advertise your online meat store on a vegan website.

If you want to learn how to Generate Website Traffic then visit http://total-traffic-domination.com

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

Build Your Own Website Directory

It seems everywhere you turn on the internet today someone has started another low-quality general web directory plastered with Google Adsense ads in the hopes of making some easy money from other webmasters who are trying to acquire backlinks and traffic to their site. These directories have several things in common that dooms any possibility of them becoming a success:

• poorly thought out or copied directory categories
• default script template installed and not personalized
• Google Adsense or other affiliate advertising is plastered all over the site
• site is poorly marketed and will never provide traffic to links in the directory
• site will accept any link to fill directory categories rather than focusing on quality listings

You can see these new directories popping up daily if you are a regular reader of any of the popular SEO forums. It seems that anyone who learns a little about search engine optimization gets the "original" idea to set up a website directory. With a market so saturated with bad content and greedy webmaster's it's hard to imagine that anyone is financially successful running a directory, but there are financially successful directories on the internet so it can be done.

To Niche or Not To Niche

There will always be a market for specialized directories who focus on one discrete topic and organize the resources within this topic logically. While search engine's are the internet user's first stop when trying to find resources, high quality website directories within any competitive industry can be found on the first page of results for popular searches at any search engine.

If you are going to start a website directory the first thing you need to decide is "what is this directory going to be about?". If you want to start a general web directory of resources you will be in direct competition with internet search engines and several directories that are already well established.

For the average webmaster that wants to start a web directory my suggestion is to pick a topic you are knowledgeable about and interested in and create a niche website directory about this topic. This approach has several advantages over starting a general website directory including:

• you are knowledgeable about the subject and will know what categories are important to people in that industry
• traffic to your directory will be targeted and industry specific benefiting the sites with outgoing links in your directory
• less competition since you are specializing your site making it easier for you to become an industry authority
• branding yourself is easier if you choose an industry to associate your directory with

If your goal is to make money with your directory make sure to consider this last, well after finalizing your directory topic, category choices, site layout and marketing plan.

Your goal should be to gain credibility within your industry first not plasture your site with advertising in the hopes of getting a few site visitors to click on the ads you have placed there.

Too many would be directory owners place affiliate ads ahead of their directory listings and above the directory categories on their main page.

You have to stop and ask yourself, what does this say about your website? Are you more concerned that your site visitors see your paid advertising or your directory listings?

What message does this layout choice send to businesses who may want to list in your directory? It's a safe bet that no one wants to see Google Adsense results listed above the directory listing that they have paid you for and you should keep that in mind when working on your layout.

Paid vs Free Directory Type

After selecting the main topic for your directory you should choose the business model that makes the most sense to what your goals are with the directory.

There are several popular directory business models on the internet including;

• Paid Only - as the name suggests, you are required to pay to have your site listed in a paid only directory. Generally, sites in a paid directory are of higher quality since the webmaster's of these sites care enough about their business to spend money on them.
• Free Only - you will not see this type of directory anymore as pretty much every directory script now comes pre-installed with a payment module.
• Paid & Free - the most common form of directory model. Free links can be considered one-way or reciprocal since technically a reciprocal link does not cost money. Payment will usually make your listing appear ahead of other listings or with bolder styling to make it stand out over the free links.
• Reciprocal Only - a common directory type but is getting a bad reputation. Some people view reciprocal only directories as link farms used to artificially drive up link popularity for a directory by forcing a return link prior to inclusion in the directory. While there are legitimate directories that are reciprocal only I would suggest going with one of the 3 previous options so your site does not get confused as a link farm.

The choice is yours but I strongly suggest using either the Paid Only or Paid & Free model. If you choose the Paid & Free model, after your directory has been in existence for a while and has gained some reputation you have the option to switch to a Paid Only model so you don't have to wade through 100's of low quality submissions a day.

If you want to keep a free option for webmasters you can make the free links "reciprocal only" in combination with your paid options. This will give your directory the added benefit of boosted link popularity from webmaster's "linking back" to your site which will help you become the authority site in your industry that you should be trying to be.

Know Your Target Market

The key to running a successful directory is understanding what a website owner is looking for in a listing from your directory. This is especially true if you are running a paid only directory and you want to attract listings.

Most webmasters are looking for one or a combination of the following:

• One way backlink from an authority website in their industry (increasing their link popularity an important factor in search engine optimization)
• A fully indexed site that is crawled by SE's regularly and can get their site spidered and indexed
• A combination of high Google page rank + a low number of outgoing links on a webpage within the directory that is relevant to their business.
• An overall boost to their search engine rankings from the increased link popularity a backlink from your directory will bring them (why this could help a website in the search engine rankings is beyond the scope of this article)
• Targeted traffic from your directory that leads to sales
• An attractive, easy to find listing on an authority site that is related to their main site topic
• Something for nothing

The key to having someone want to pay to be listed in your directory is to show up repeatedly for keyphrases they are searching for. This means doing keyword research and creating category pages, meta description tags and page titles that are keyword rich and provide you with a good opportunity to rank for the terms webmasters in your industry are searching for.

If you don't do this keyword research and you set up your categories improperly webmasters will never find you. If they can't find you they definately won't be paying you. This is where creating a niche directory can be to your advantage. If you are knowledgeable on the subject you will have a pretty good idea of what categories to set up already and will only need to augment your experience with keyword suggestion tools.

Once your directory starts to get listings the "content" is created by the webmaster's adding their listings to your directory. That's the nice advantage of running a web directory: the user's create the content for you! You only have to create the framework for them to work with and approve their entries.

Keyword Suggestion Tools:

• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion - http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ (free, recommended)
• Overture - http://inventory.overture.com (free)
• Wordtracker - http://www.wordtracker.com (free trial, then paid)

Choosing a Directory Script

There are a number of items to focus on when making a directory script choice (assuming you do not program the script yourself). You will need to decide whether you will want to run a directory consisting of static html pages or pages built dynamically from a database.

If you choose to build your directory using static html pages be prepared to do a lot of work maintaining your directory as each page will need to be manually edited to add and remove listings.

If you choose a pre-made directory script chances are you are buying a database driven directory script. While this introduces additional complexities to creating your directory the powerful features and abilities a database system provides should not be overlooked.

Simple installation readme files are usually included with the directory script with detailed step by step instructions describing how to install the script. Make sure you read the script requirements prior to making a purchase and ensure your web hosting company supports all of the options required by the script.

Directory Script Requirements (in general):

• 1 empty mySQL database with username and password (you must set this up yourself using your hosting control panel or phpmyadmin)
• PHP support on your hosting server
• MOD rewrite support - this is an absolute must as this changes database scripts from writing ugly URL's of the form [http://yourdomain.com/index.php?cat=1&id=34] into [http://yourdomain.com/category/] . This helps both internet user's and search engine's distinguish what your webpage is about and creates a much easier URL to remember.
• fast web hosting - helps with usability and credibility
• ftp client program installed on your personal computer - used to upload the directory script files to your web host and perform any permission changes required to make the scripts function. If any permission changes are required they will be noted in the installation instructions for the script.

Recommended Directory Scripts :

• WSN Links or WSN Links Basic - http://scripts.webmastersite.net/wsnlinks/ (recommended) - mySQL-PHP driven and highly customizable. WSN links is $58, WSN Links Basic is free and features a stripped down version of the admin panel.
• Reciprocal Manager - http://www.reciprocalmanager.com -paid only script $147. Unique in that it stores information in a database but allows you to create static html pages from the database entries. Static pages in general load faster making this an attractive script on slow hosts.
• Site Sift Listings - http://scripts.site-sift.com/ - mySQL-PHP driven that is fairly easy to understand and maintain. Great option for novice webmasters. Script is free with a $50 payment to remove the copyright link.
• PHP Links Directory - free and easy to use. mySQL-PHP driven.

Script Installation Procedure (in general):

1. Download the script package from the script vendor to your local machine (or directly to your webserver if you have shell access)
2. Read the installation instructions in full
3. Create an empty mySQL database on your hosting server. Write down the database name, database username and database password.
4. Edit the DB configuration file and add the database information from step 3. The installation instructions should indicate which file will need to be edited.
5. Upload all of the script files to your web host in the httpdocs folder (folder may have a different name depending on your hosting company) using an ftp program. If you are not going to run the directory from the root of your domain you will have to create a new folder on your web host and upload the script files there.
6. Run the installation script for the directory following the on screen instructions. If you have errors consult the installation guide and /or support forum for the script.
7. Remove the installation script (so no one can re-install your directory maliciously)
8. Log in to your admin panel with the admin username and password created during installation.

Please note these steps are general mySQL-PHP directory script installation instructions. Each directory script will have specific installation instructions that fall outside of the scope of what is listed above so be diligent when reading the instructions provided by your script vendor.

Customizing the Directory Templates

Now that you have your script installed you need to personalize the look and feel of the website template to distinguish yourself from the crowd. Too many webmasters feel that their job is done once the script has been installed and choose to leave the default template in place unchanged.

Adding a professional design to your directory helps give the impression that you are working diligently on your directory and will also help you gain credibility with webmasters who may be candidates for inclusion.

If you download and install a free script, don't customize it and have the copyright link at the bottom of every directory page do you look like you care about your business?

If you can't spend $50 to remove a copyright and another $50-$100 customizing the look and feel of your business then I'm afraid you are going to have a lot of trouble getting people to pay you for a listing in your directory.

Most directory pages are built using php includes which is a fancy way of saying "build the webpage from these pieces". In general, each page in the directory is built using a header file, footer file and body content file.

You can usually find these files stored within a folder called /templates or access them through your directory admin control panel. Since each script handles building of webpages differently, describing the procedure to edit the template files falls outside the scope of this article. Please consult the documentation included with your script for tips on customizing the look and feel of your site.

Marketing Your Directory

It goes without saying that webmasters are going to have to be able to find you before you can convince them that they need to be in your directory. Marketing your directory is where you will find out if you have what it takes to be successful.

A great place to start marketing your directory is to acquire backlinks from other directory owners. From an SEO perspective it is best to acquire backlinks with varied anchor text and description but make sure the anchor text "keyword directory", "keyword website directory" or "directory of keyword resources" is used for your most important backlinks.

Offering webmaster's an incentive to link back to your site is also a great way to boost the visibility of your directory. Typically, this incentive would be better placement or more links in your directory for providing the link back.

Another great way to set yourself apart from the also-rans in the directory business is to add a unique feature to your directory listings template that other directories in your industry don't offer.

This has two benefits:

• you will be able to get other webmasters linking to your site more easily because it offers something original
• your directory will be more desirable to potential webmaster's because of the enhanced features. It may be as simple as adding a phone number with your listings or linking to a road map and driving instructions but this facet of directory building should not be overlooked.

In the Beginning

The temptation to fill your empty directory pages with links can be great in the beginning. Resist this urge. The listings in your directory are all you have in terms of site credibility.

Do you want your directory to be a valuable resource or a link dump? If you approve every site that applies or every site that links to your directory you will end up with a directory of lousy listings. If you have a directory full of lousy listings no one is going to use your site and acquiring unsolicited backlinks from other webmasters to your site simply won't happen.

Strive to maintain a relevant, valuable resource in your chosen field and you will have success. How much success and how quickly you achieve that success is directly related to the amount of time and energy you put into the directory as with any business.

Web Directory Tips Summary :

• Choose a niche subject that you are knowledgeable about as your directory topic
• Use keyword suggestion tools in combination with your experience to craft directory categories
• Only approve relevant, properly categorized, quality websites
• Modify the default directory script template with your own design
• Try and figure out features that other directories in your industry do not offer that would appeal to potential submitters
• Remove the script copyright from your directory pages (pay to do so if required)
• If you are using a DB driven script make sure to get MOD rewrite working so you have SEO friendly URL's
• Make sure to include a Terms of Service, Contact Page and Privacy Policy (if you are running a paid directory make your refund /review policy as clear as possible to the user prior to the payment screen)

About the Author:

Michael Lawrence offers search engine optimization services [http://www.seowebguide.com/seo-services/] and runs a Paid Directory of SEO Resources

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

PHP Link Directories: Backlinks for Website Optimization

PHP link directories are reservoirs of listed links so that you need to move in a few directory directions to find several hundreds of links, instead of moving in all directions, from one site to another with links scattered all over the net. It is a neat solution to the age-old problem of getting traffic to your site. It will do well to touch on the work these sites do as well as the use of a script and also site optimization, the crux of the matter.

A PHP link directory is a software webmasters use all over the world to organize their links, articles, and other data lists. In other words, it is a reservoir of lists and link building resources that you can tap to find good links for your site. If you get your site listed in a php link directory, you will get a lot more unique visitors to your site.

Search engines value these directories that house thousands of links under hundreds of categories, especially so, when submissions are manually checked for search engine optimization prerequisites.

You can also advertise on link directories; just research their background and find out about: how long they have been in existence, their page rank, number of unique visits, and page views per month. So bring your ads to where the traffic is!

A good link directory script enables the editor to be a gate-keeper to keep out dubious sites. This means you will get truly targeted traffic as a free directory service. Further, a directory script offers 3 money-making opportunities. If you install it on your site, it becomes a top quality money-making link directory site. Besides, it can be used as an advertising platform for banner ads, text ads, affiliate ads and Google AdWords of your products, other sites and web scripts.

Site optimization is the name of the game. If your site is properly optimized with keywords in the domain name, it gets links, If you use link-building services, especially the paid ones, you will certainly get guaranteed traffic. However why not try a free directory submission of your url and find out to what extent you can succeed using such tools?

You can get free viral one-way backlinks, Keith James Lock recommends a system in which you submit an article of which many spun versions are submitted to sites to get backlinks from them. However this many not be acceptable to reputable directories, nor to ezinearticles.com!

Kez Sze is an author, publisher and internetpreneur.

Another Traffic Puller -A New Sharp Thrashing Instrument - the Traffic Web Assault - Free Web Traffic Generator. It helps you with viral advertising and web traffic, creates ads and tracks conversion and sales.

Go to: http://www.trafficwebassault.com

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

Get Indexed by Google's Googlebot Right Away, the Right Way

Everyone in the online world knows extremely well that the most sought after traffic to one's site comes from a Google search. Folks, 80% of searches on the internet are done in Google.

In theory, it is simple - if you have something interesting to someone else, if you build a website with the honest to goodness goal to provide something useful for someone else, that someone else will find you. That is also how the creators of Google describe their main goal, to more or less have a great repository of information, and help people of our planet find useful stuff.

In practice, it is not that simple. It is not that simple because there are thousands, possibly even millions of sites like yours, because you might be running a very honest online business, selling some very useful product, but do not have unheard of, exceptionally grand 'content'. If your site is listed on page 265 of a search results set, be sure you will never get any visitors that way.

Unlike Yahoo and others, who rely on human involvement, Google does everything through automation. Websites are indexed (or crawled, or spidered - all terms refer to the same process) by their indexing software called Googlebot. Googlebot looks at websites daily, and rules programmed into the software decide which of your pages make it into the main Google index and which don't. After your site was indexed, whether it was submitted for indexing by a human or the robot just stumbled upon it, your pages are ranked, so Google knows on which page of a search to put your site on, and on what search phrases should your site even be part of the result search.

The Googlebot is very smart and works really well. Keep in mind however, that is just a piece of software, a very sophisticated one, but it's just a computer program. Consequently, it has a set of algorithms (rules) it uses to index web site content (information), a set of capabilities (as I said before, Googlebot is really intelligent) and a set of limitations. As such, there is an impressive number of ways in which one can trip up the Googlebot and make it impossible for it to index your content. Alternately, the Googlebot can index your site well, and then people will find it when searching for words it contains.

This article will try to teach you all the basics necessary to achieve consistency and persistency in Google, starting with the very basic step: getting indexed by Googlebot, Google's indexing robot.

1. Read Google's own Webmaster Guidelines

The people behind Google seem to have two main things down to a science: One, most of their algorithms (rules) are so secret, that all us non-Google employees do is speculate. Two, their guidelines are very simple, direct and precise. Following their guidelines will never hurt your site's ranking. Disregarding their guidelines can and probably will hurt you in the long run. So go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html and read what Google has to say about itself.

2. Have text links.

Make every single page on your site accessible via a text-based link, as opposed to Javascript, Flash, DHTML (Dynamic HTML), etc. Googlebot's native language is text.
Google says: "Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link."

This is probably the number one key to your site's existence in Google. Googlebot is actually a robotic, browser-like software, based on the venerable Lynx browser. The reasoning behind this approach is that the creators are trying to get as close as possible to emulating human browsing, making sure your website is actually human friendly. Consequently, by downloading Lynx on your computer and looking at your site through Lynx (http://lynx.isc.org), you will see more or less exactly the information Googlebot can read and index and the links Googlebot can follow. You will also see HTML errors on your pages and places where a robot would be stuck and could not reach the rest of your site.

I know it is very unfair to those of us who understand and love the potential of websites built completely in Flash, or other engines. However, until the nice folks who run Google figure out a good way to crawl inside a Flash file and extract the appropriate information, we are stuck with standard HTML.

This is not to say that you cannot make your site really pretty and fill it with Java Script and Flash eye candy. But you must have regular text and standard text links. Usually you can achieve the desired effect by having extra navigation menus based on standard text links.

3. Avoid frames.

Avoid frames at all cost. If you must use them (for example to make someone else's page look like it's part of your site), do not use them on your front page.

Frames are like the plague, they sneak up on you. It is incredibly easy to lose Googlebot's tracks inside a badly formatted frameset. You might hear that some of the robots, including Google's Googlebot and Yahoo's Slurp are quickly gaining capabilities to go inside frames properly. My philosophy is, until a feature becomes ubiquitous, if you're uncertain, leave it in the closet.

4. Keep the number of links on a given page less than 100.

This comes straight from Google's Webmaster Guidelines: "Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)."

This looks more like a suggestion and I am not 100% sure if you get penalized in any way or if Googlebot just stops reading your links after 100. I can however tell you from personal experience that I tried a page with 700 links and it seemed fine. Then one day I tried to view the page from my Blackberry PDA and I got this strange error message saying my page is illegally formatted. After I split the page into several ones with 80 links each, the pages worked on the PDA also.

Who cares about the Blackberry? Well, if you're reading this and your goal is to get visitors, then your main concern should be not to alienate anyone. Remember, today more than ever, people use different devices and different software to access the web. Every visitor is a potential customer. Every employee at a major US lawfirm and many other corporate people use a Blackberry.

Lastly, why would you need that many links on one page anyway? Let's say, for example, that you specialize in promotional products - corporate branded gifts, such as pens, caps, mints and other products (called sometimes 'premiums') imprinted with one's logo. Your name is John Doe, and you decided to name your company JDPromos (not very imaginative, but will do for our examples). You would want to have every item in your catalog as a text link, so every item gets indexed as a link and as a keyword. Also, those who run forums, ezines, blogs, might want to have standard links to their articles, as the software they use might create dynamic links, invisible to certain robots.

5. Give every page a meaningful title.

Give every single page on the site a complete and meaningful title. This is also directly from Google's Webmaster Guidelines. See Rule #1.

Incidentally, for those who are fascinated by the debates on the death of the Meta Tags, the

<title></title>
tag is not a Meta Tag, but a required element for every page.

The "title" tag is supported by every web creation tool out there, and goes in the header of a web page (between the "head" and the "/head" tags).

Google offers the 'allintitle' syntax, which lets users search only text that appears in a page title. A lot of people who integrate a Google bar into their websites allow users to get results only by title. There are over 29 million results returned for Untitled Document.

Most of us - myself included - copy and paste template pages, out of the convenience of not having to recreate all design elements from scratch. If you do so, do not forget to change the title.

Make sure your title is not just a list of keywords and that it is related to the actual content of the page. Google can and will check that, before deciding on your page's 'relevance'.

6. Do not place important text inside images.

Google says: "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images."

It is very tempting to create images with text inside them, for the very simple reason that as designers, we are not limited to the very few font (type) options that basic HTML allows. Also, different browsers tend to display things differently nowadays, so it is much easier to create a text image, which will be shown consistently and not worry about styles, operating systems, etc.

7. Use descriptive "ALT" tags.

The "ALT" tag is used as a text alternative (hence the name) for images and image links and was designed so that text browsers (such as Lynx) do not just display a generic 'Image' for every picture link you might have. If all your links say 'Image', how would a potential visitor know what they are?

Make sure that the text description is meaningful and accurate. Take our promotional items company as an example. Let's say they have a picture of a tradeshow display, as an example of a service they provide outside the ordinary imprinted mint boxes, calculators and keychains. If the "ALT" tag only says "display", that is what Googlebot will see and index. If the tag says something like "example of a tradeshow display design", that is certainly more useful and more Googlebot friendly.

Please note that although the "ALT" tag does count and Google seems to put a high price on this tag, it ranks lower than plain text.

8. Use meaningful descriptions for links

With the risk of sounding like a scratched CD, I'll have to say this again: Whether you use picture links or text links, please use meaningful text inside your tags so that Googlebot can associate that text with that href link.

In other words, let's pretend again that we are designing that website for that imaginary promotional items company we called JDPromos. If you intend to put a link to a set of sample coffee mugs promos, say something like "link to JDPromos samples of branded coffee mugs", not just "coffee mugs", or even worse, "click here for pictures". Never use link text like "read more" or "go here" or "download it", "click here", "don't click here", you get the picture - I hope.

Don't try to fool the Googlebot with hidden links or duplicate content or irrelevant pages of words like "sex" and "hot girls." The Googlebot doesn't like being played and you will be penalized, one way or another, in the long run.

9. Use a "description" tag for every page

Include a

<meta name="description" content="[insert your site's description here]">

tag in your page header to summarize your site. Use a meaningful one or two sentence description, do not keyword spam.

Even better, include descriptive text on the site's front page where users can actually read it. This text will appear as the description for your site in Google results.

Place more important content higher in the page than less important content in a page, Google does categorize text on a page based on it's position, text at the bottom of a page is considered less important, or 'relevant', to use one of Google's own terms.

10. Use short query strings

Use URLs with query strings sparingly, if at all possible. Query strings are also called dynamic pages. You can usually recognize dynamic pages by the presence of the "?" character. Keep in mind that the shorter the list of query string parameters, the better. Be aware that not every search engine robot can crawl dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

11. Never use the "&id=" parameter

If you must use query strings, or dynamic pages, never use the "&id=" parameter as part of the string.

I know this might sound ridiculous, as it might be hard or impossible for you not to use the "&id=" parameter, but if you are a programmer and you can change the variable's name, replace "id" with something else. Otherwise, Googlebot will just skip that page.

Google says: "Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we don't include these pages in our index."

12. Use robots.txt

Use robots.txt to show the Googlebot around your site. This ancient and very standard mechanism for directing well-behaved robots like the Googlebot will allow you to specify places where the robot is not welcome, whether for privacy reasons, or for reasons of avoiding Google penalties. You might want to keep the robot away from your cgi-bin directory and other places you maybe don't want available to the entire searching population of the globe. Remember this is a guideline, not a barrier, robots that are not programmed to comply, will disregard. Bottom line, use the robots.txt to guide Googlebot, but not to enforce strict security.

Google says: "Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled."

13. Make a sitemap

A site map is just a page on your website where you guide your users through the structure of your site. The most basic form of sitemap is a page that lists all of your pages, with a brief description and a link - all text, of course. When you make the sitemap, follow all the rules above and don't forget that the purpose of the sitemap is to guide your human visitor.

Google says: "Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages."

14. Use the Google Sitemaps project

At the time of this writing, the fastest, best and most accurate way to make sure your site is properly crawled and indexed by Googlebot is to participate in the Google Sitemaps project.

In a nutshell, you make a sitemap as an XML page and submit it directly to Google. Google then sends Googlebot to index your site. Besides the speedy free submission, you also get a good amount of statistics and the opportunity to fix potential errors in your site.

Please note that the XML sitemap needed for the Google Sitemap project is intended specifically for Googlebot, and is different from the sitemap described in the previous Rule, which is intended solely for human users.

Also, do not be afraid of XML, Google's sitemap is a very simple text file and they give you all the necessary information and directions at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

Good luck!

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Andrei co-owns Bsleek - a company that specializes in web design, hosting, promotional items, printing, tradeshow displays, logos, CD presentations, SEO and more. Andrei has amassed an extensive technical knowledge and experience through his career as the CIO for a major travel management company and through his past careers in military research, data acquisition and airspace engineering. He also consults for Trinity Investigations, a New York based PI firm.

---
Bsleek - Redefining cheap web hosting [http://www.bsleek.com/hosting/]

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

Getting Google to Index Your Website

When you first build a website, it can take anything from several days to weeks and months for search engines to include its pages in their indexes. Certain engines, such as Yahoo!, offer a premium service for sites to appear more quickly, whereas Google has no paid version for site inclusion.

Google's crawler is a process known as GoogleBot, which follows links on sites to discover new content and understand the connection of any given page to the rest of the Internet. GoogleBot then updates Google's indexes accordingly, and once the spider has visited your site, there's nothing you need to do to keep it coming back. GoogleBot will decide based upon your site's size, links and frequency of changing content how often to revisit to check for updates.

Contrary to common belief, there's actually no way to submit your site to Google. Even though they offer a "Submit URL" form, there's no evidence that it causes GoogleBot to view your webpages or has an impact on their crawling whatsoever. But although site submission is not possible, the simplest way to get Google to notice you is to have an inbound link from another site already in Google's index. This works because GoogleBot follows links it discovers, so if you can develop inbound links to your site, it will follow the trail and read your pages.

Another useful tool once you are indexed is Google Webmaster Tools, which allows you to register any site you administer, and provides statistics about how GoogleBot views your site. This can help uncover common problems, such as broken links, missing pages, malware and other issues that can cause your pages to lose rankings in the search engines.

James Beswick is the author of "Ranking #1: 50 Essential Tips to Boost Your Search Engine Results" available on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1452849900?ie=UTF8&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&qid=1279571154&sr=1-1&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393177&tag=ekcy-20.

For more information, visit http://ranking-number1.com.

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

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4713221

Google Sandbox for New Websites

Webmasters or blog owners spend their precious hours, days or months to build their web pages. They prepare their content, try to set an eye-catching design, struggle with possible software and hosting problems and finally make their pages ready for the exciting launch night. However, they confront a nightmare right after they launch their brand new web pages.

The mighty Google does not help them for traffic.

The right question to ask before getting frustrated is; "Have you heard of the Google Sandbox concept?"

It is called sandbox because your website is put in an area where you are isolated from others. If you are sent to sandbox, you can't compete with old and established ones till your lovely website proves itself. You need to play with other children and you will need time; you will need to grow before playing with adults. If you grow up and gain Google's trust, then you can rank well on SERPs.

Why is Google doing that Aging Delay?

It was first observed after the update in 2004. (By the way "Google Sandbox" is not an official term agreed by Google, it is called like that by the web community) Before that change, spam websites were using Google as a ground for earning easy money overnight. There were lots of abuse, spam was everywhere. Spammers were preparing websites with copy/paste, getting good rankings for competitive words quickly on SERPs, taking huge amounts of traffic easily and search engines were helping them a lot. At that time it was getting hard for search engine users to find quality websites because of this "earn easy money online" strategies.

So starting from that update, Google changed its algorithm and started to apply some filters to prevent this kind of tricky business. New websites no longer rank well easily on SERPs.

I should also mention that older websites are also sent to sandbox if they are penalized. That is a different topic and there are lots of differences between being in sandbox as a young website or an old website. This article is only about new websites and I will write another article about older websites in future. So you may ask "Am I penalized and sent to sandbox or am I waiting in sandbox because I am a newcomer?"

How can you understand that your new website is in Google Sandbox?

These are some symptoms if you have a new website and waiting in sandbox:

• Usually this sandbox filter affects new websites which are 0-12 months old.
• Most of the time this aging delay is for new registered domains. However in some cases it is observed that using older domains are also not a solution for this delay if its content and web pages are newly created.
• When you try "site:www.yourcutesite.com" in Google, your pages will be shown in the results. That means you are not banned totally, bots can visit and index your webpages. (Also give search engines some time for indexing your new pages; search their index after 1-2 weeks from website launch)
• When you look at your analytics programs or server logs, you will see that you are getting visitors from Google only with your brand or company name as search keywords.
• When you search for your targeted keywords in Google, your website won't be in SERPs or will be between 30th-50th pages.
• Other search engines might send you traffic with your targeted keywords. (Though you can read differently elsewhere, I believe Yahoo and Bing also started to use some similar filters in their algorithms for new websites, they are also fighting with spam, right?)
• Your website will not rank well for highly relevant keywords or even long tail less competitive keywords.

What can I do, how can I get out from sandbox?

You will not like my answers for this question. Essentially the solution is time. You need to wait, wait and wait. Most likely you will wait for 3 to 12 months after your website launch. This duration is changing with the competition on your targeted keywords. If you are planning to rank well in a competitive market, you will have to wait longer.

People say this kind of filter does not exist. But in my opinion every website passes through this kind of filter. Some stays very long in sandbox since they are aiming highly competitive markets. Some does not wait, even feel a sense of waiting since their targeted keywords are not so popular and challenging for ranking mechanism.

I know it is hard to wait but be patient. Use this time for your advantage. Don't ever use black hat SEO techniques. Just try to improve your content, do your white hat SEO work, increase your brand value with marketing, use social media to promote your pages. Avoiding this filter is impossible so don't believe in some tricky articles or videos.

My ultimate advice, always try climbing the hard path, it will be worth it.

Don't forget, it is just a probationary period to prevent spam. If you are planning some good business with your website or blog, you will be glad about this sort of filter in future. Because when you pass this "frustrating" time, when you start playing with adults, this filter also will protect you from spammy competitors.

Aykut Pehlivanoglu lives in Ankara, Turkey. He is Co-Founder and CEO of PB Bilisim since 2007. His company owns a website network which includes well-known ones like Gametator, Worth Of Web and Suggest Me Movie.

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

Anchor Text: How Much Power Does It Have in SEO?

We all know the power an article may have in Search Engine Optimization but have you noticed the little aspects within the article that can make it more powerful? They are called anchor texts and you will know more about them and how to utilize them in this write-up.

Anchor text are the highlighted texts on the web page that link an online viewer to another site or page which is mostly the main page of the owner of the article. They are used to featuring the title and subject of the page and mind you, Google and other top search engines give importance on an anchor text that might come up along the way.

Anchor text consists of keywords that are related to your main page, these keywords are what people usually write that eventually lands on your site. And with relevant keywords with more clicks from online users, you are most likely to land on the top spot of high profile search engines.

One effective way in using anchor text is generating a keyword phrase in their anchor text. It must be relevant to the nature of your business or else, you will find it hard to rank on search engines with the irrelevant anchor page, or worst, you might be penalized by top search engines.

Moreover, in formulating such keyword phrase, think of what people will type to be able to land on your site. Anchor text will only serve as portal but they must have to be found out by users before they work.

Many people, especially newbies on the SEO industry, have their website name or URL put in a page or article as anchor text. It is OK, however, they are not that useful and search friendly.

Another mistake is that they usually use "click here" rather than using related keywords. Remember that it will always be effective to carefully generate right related keywords and use them as your anchor text to make it appear more professional.

In deciding what keywords you would use, also try researching what keyword phrase has the less competition with other keywords so you can dominate the search engine. After you have decided what keywords to use, then it is ok to start linking.

Without these, it will be hard for online marketers to send their viewers and prospect clients to their main page. Also, article marketing will not be that effective if people can't find the right service or goods they are looking for.

Just don't forget to explore a lot of possibilities since we are in today's internet realm that has no boundaries in discoveries. Don't hesitate to experiment as lessons from experience will be your best guideline in the SEO industry.

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Increase Page Rank with Three Simple SEO Techniques

Increasing your site's ranking in the search engines can dramatically increase the traffic coming to your website. Having your site rank in the top three slots for several highly searched key words can mean huge revenue for you. How did the top ranking spots get there? Is this something you can pay for? The webmasters who have the top ranking sites have worked hard to get there. They have kept up with SEO techniques and edged out over the competition every time.

The most important aspect of your website is content. Without informative content users will quickly exit your site and not come back. Having tons of quality content on your site's pages is a great way to develop visitor loyalty. By having returning visitors you will also increase your conversion rate because many people do not buy on their first visit. Content will get your pages ranked higher than similar pages with less quality content.

Once you have some good content on your site you will need to get some incoming links. Email other webmasters and ask if they would be willing to trade links. The more links your have coming to you from related sites the higher your page rank will be. Steer clear of link exchanges and link farms. These are being overused and the links you receive are usually worthless because those same sites link to thousands of others. Some search engines even penalize you for using these programs.

If your budget allows, pay for inclusion to a high page rank directory. I have heard stories of people who have gone from a PR 0 to a PR 5 in as little as two months just from getting listed in a high ranking directory. These directories also have lots of visitors so having a listing would also be good for increasing traffic to your web site.

Remember that increasing your site's page rank cannot be done overnight. It is a work in progress that will take a few months of hard work to get ranked highly. However, it is very much worth the effort. Imagine having hundreds if not thousands of visitors reaching your website every day due to organic search results. It is possible!

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

Getting Backlinks to Your Website As a Critical SEO Practice

For web dependent businesses, getting backlinks to your website is a top priority. Of course, backlink relationships provide one more benefit that is effectively advertising your site. But as we all know by now, their real importance is in SEO - Search Engine Optimization - the process of driving your website to the top of the search engine page rankings.

There are many components to a web relationship strategy. You'll want to employ them all, from keywords to blog posting. And all also know by now that the number of connections isn't the critical part of the gig. The critical part of the gig is the quality of those connections.

The first component of making yourself visible online is to understand which keywords are significant for your web business. Working with keywords is a juggling act: you need keywords that are commonly searched, but not highly contested by your competitors. But keyword optimization doesn't happen overnight. Generally, you'll need to work at optimizing your keyword usage.

There are many different web forums that can provide important connections to your site. Articles, directories, blogs articles and comments, press releases and social media all provide quality relationships for page rankings. Posts on these sites are more effective when built into a "link wheel", in which your posts are tightly connected to one another, thereby improving their ranking in search engines.

Any strategy to build connections to your site should encompass as many of these methods as possible. You can generate your own written material, but in many cases it's most effective to hire a company that specializes in SEO. These companies generate content within your guidelines and post it where it garners the most attention and highest rankings, and they have experience building link wheels and social media bookmarks.

Of course, however you structure your relationship strategy, content is king. Content quality magnifies whatever relationship building strategy you use, and the higher the quality of your content, the more effective your relationship strategy will be.

A crucial aspect of content quality is just that: quality. Have you ever followed a link and noticed three spelling errors in the first half paragraph? What was your response? Did you buy the product or trust the advice? What if the writing was incomprehensible and the images were blurry? Did you revisit the site?

So does your site need to be the "War and Peace" of wholesale boxer brief vendors? No, but it needs to provide the information that people involved in boxer brief vending might need. Providing a little inside humor or entertainment related to your business isn't a bad idea either. Some SEO specialists suggest providing "list" content (top/bottom ten), which lots of people seem to enjoy reading.

SEO optimization is a challenging game, but a must-do for web-dependent business. Getting backlinks is a top priority. It's doable - it's just good old fashioned hard work.

If you want to get quality backlinks quickly you need to look around a little and obtain a list of websites worth including into your SEO strategy. Thankfully, I've already done this, so you can just visit my blog and get a list of more than 30 sites you can use to get backlinks (the link earlier in the sentence).

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

SEO - How to Promote Your Website

Do you think it is feasible to endorse your company by employing the use of online methods of communication? Is this particular marketing method proficient and professional? What aspects are required to be taken into contemplation if you apply these methodologies in the advertising of your firm? These are all queries that most advertisers and marketers have dealt with themselves until the recent past, as online marketing ways and social networking have achieved more and more territory as general popularity.

The socio-demographic attributes of the potential buyers and other target groups like their age, the amount of exposure they get, location, climate and other background details must be researched with the utmost care before you start to create any sort of marketing campaign. Detailed study on the scope of your product on specific target groups is also advised. Therefore set your aims in a catchy way to set up the best promotional model and to attain the preferred results.

Just as in established methods of marketing, online promotions are based on one fact; being seen or in other words, visibility. Therefore enhancing the Search Optimization Engine aka SEO of the site is a must. This presumes the recognition of the likely keywords from your website that may grade your online store superior among other search engine outcomes. The top campaigns are warranted by the most eminent search engines, but there are also free web information banks for those that do not require too much publicity.

Text and video links ensure to raise the amount of browsers on the website, but you should pick features and images that are connected to your business profile. This will give you an edge over the rest of them. SEO's can also link other pages and help publicity of other pages related to yours which will lead to more web traffic.

The most esteemed means of online marketing and commercials are, on the other hand, the placards and the pop-up windows. These are novel inputs that entice more browsers and customers by their ingenuity and uniqueness as the web makers administer to design eye-hitting structures that drift from one side of the window screen to the opposite. This determines the number of viewers that click on the site. If you need your online promotion to be a real hit, you must join as many skills as possible and confirm that you accomplish your targeted audience. Do not overlook the influence of the Internet in product endorsement because this is a mandatory instrument in today's world for budding entrepreneurs who want to take their trade to a higher level.

Deepa Is a professional online marketing adviser at Internet Moguls, one of the leading SEO Company Delhi with a happy client portfolio of over 500 clients related to the field of hotel internet marketing and Web Design in India.

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

Why Is Effective SEO Website Optimization So Difficult?

There are many ways business owners and marketers can effectively optimize their website's search engine rankings in today's highly competitive online world. But the truth is that the vast wealth of possibilities does not make it any simpler to see natural SEO traffic results to a new comer or a company attempting to do this work on their own.

Gaining organic rankings is something that every company can find valuable, no matter the market or niche they are in. When you can maintain credible first page and #1 spots on highly competitive and converting keywords, you have a clear advantage against your competition. While others are forced to pay per click via ads, you're able to get better traffic, leads, and sales under the same keywords at absolutely no cost. This is the reason SEO companies have been growing rapidly as the need for professional search engine marketing continues to rise.

But what is it that makes effective SEO website optimization so difficult? Why do we see time and time again businesses fail to receive any rankings at all, let alone maintain them under competitive search terms? Let's take a look.

1. Competition Is Fierce

The most obvious reason that SEO ranking is difficult to achieve is because of the high level of competition all businesses face in today's world. Everyone is competing for the same sales within a market and the more companies out there, the harder it is to stand out from the rest.

2. Lack Of Experience

Proper search engine optimization is even time staking and difficult when performed by true SEO experts and typically takes 2-4 months even when done by the most seasoned professionals. This begins to make it clear why SEO company services are so highly sought after.

3. Poor Keyword Selection

One of the most critical mistakes made by business owners trying to do natural SEO on their own is the actual keywords they attempt to go after and rank highly for. It is a huge mistake for companies to go right away for the more broad and highly searched terms within their niche. The competition is too high and on top of that some of the keywords do not even lead directly to conversions. Go after more specific longer tail keywords or product name brands in the beginning to see faster results.

For the most part, SEO website optimization is a highly difficult skill to master, but at the same time is absolutely vital to the long term success of any business. Be sure to do some of your own SEO marketing and contact an SEO consultant to see what sort of options are available to you on your current budgeting.

Colin is a leading search engine marketing professional and prefers personal and corporate Website Optimization done by industry leader Stimulate Search.com

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

How Using RSS Feeds Would Increase Traffic to Your Blog?

When you first start implementing the RSS feed feature on your blog, you may feel that it is not a simple task, maybe even a little complex. Some bloggers find it tricky to figure it out, but rest assured that there are great benefits to be gained when you make it work.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and allows readers of your blog to receive instant notification every time you post new content. Another advantage which most bloggers fail to realize is that it increases the exposure of your blog. So, new readers interested in your topic can find you easily. All readers need to make this whole thing work is a RSS reader.

So, what if you do not have technology-savvy readers reading your blogs? How would you know that your readers will subscribe to your RSS feeds? Are there any consequences when you switch to a new URL or make other changes to your blog? Is there any way to determine who is browsing your blog?

The above questions may come to the mind of bloggers when implementing RSS feeds.

For starters, using Feedburner might be a wiser choice; below are the reasons:

1. Feedburner makes Real Simple Syndication (or RSS) really simple! The set up is easy to understand and the process of doing it is fast and easy.

2. Feedburner makes it more versatile,as well for readers that do not have a feed reader, having an option to subscribe via email.

3. There is a feature in Feedburner known as 'Headline Animator' which allows the broadcast of blog-posts from your Facebook page as well as from other websites which you may have. Feedburner makes it incredibly simple to embed your content on other sites of your choice.

4. Feedburner also gives easy access to information about your subscribers and what they are reading. This information can be used for market research. Also, whenever there is an issue, it can be fixed right away.

5. If you were to switch your blog to a new URL or switch to a new blog software, you do not have to fear losing all your readers!
You could simply change the web address of your blog in my Feedburner account and all your readers will be informed of the switch.
So, your time and efforts spent in building your "fans" would never be gone to waste.

As we have discussed, there are many advantages of setting up an RSS feed on your blog. In summary, Feedburner keeps your blog competitive and offers the features you would need to be an efficient and effective blogger.

You may want to as well consider the following recommendations if you're interested in using programs similar to Feedburner, namely:

1..RapidFeeds

2. Feedity

3. FeedBlitz

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