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Anybody who’s anybody online knows exactly what the popular term “SEO” stands for. It is an abbreviation for the hot business of “search engine optimisation”. Yeah, that′s a mouth full, so now you can see why the letters SEO are far better to use.

My interest to write this article was spurred by a piece of spam email that I had recieved earlier in the day. It was from a company that was claiming to help me build my “link popularity” by buying link packages off of them.

The email was actually well written, and it definately gained my interest enough that I figured I would check it out. There were even 3 testimonials that sounded like this was THEE place to be if you wanted top search engine rankings.

Upon visiting the site, which was nicely designed, and very professional looking, I started to “play”. Within less than 5 minutes I abruptly left the site, and will never go back….WHY?

Well, let me explain;

If you are ever contemplating paying somebody big bucks to do SEO work for you, there are few real easy tests you can run to determine if they are even worthy of you giving them the time of day. These are so easy, a 10 year old can do them, and they can save you a bundle!

You will need the Google Toolbar installed for these tests! Go to toolbar.google.com and download it for free. It only takes a few minutes to install.

The first thing I did was entered the URL of their website in my browser in 2 different formats. One with the www, and one without. The reason I do this, is because there are many sites out there that have different Google PR values with or without the www. This is simply determined on how they promote and link their site. If I am losing you here, let me show you what I mean;

‘www.domain.com‘ may show a different Google PR rating than just ‘domain.com′
I have seen sites that have a PR7 for just ‘domain.com’, and have a PR 0 for ‘www.domain.com‘. It’s no big deal to you as an end user. All you are doing is looking to see if the site has any PR at all. In the case of the SEO business in question, it was a big fat ZERO in both cases. Imagine that, an SEO bsuiness that doesn’t even have any PR…hmmmmm

On to the next step;

Since you have the google toolbar, just right click on the mouse, and scroll down to “backward links”, and click on it. This is another neat feature of the Google Toolbar. It tells you how many other sites, or pages that link to the page or site in question. Very powerful tool. The site in question… ZERO! Imagine that

Even tho this is usually enough to deter me, there is one more simple test, that really takes the cake. Just do a search at Google for the term “SEO” and “search engine optimisation″. Is this site listed in the top 10? The top 20? the top 100?

In our case, yep you guessed it… A BIG FAT NO!

Ok, so here is a site, selling SEO work, and offereng link packages to thousands of other sites, for hundreds of dollars, claiming to give YOU top search engine rankings when..

1. They have no links to their own site
2. They themselves, don’t even have top search engine listings!

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of successful SEO companies out there. It is a very competitive field, but if you are looking to pay someone to do this kind of work, you need to be informed.

Do some research, and ask some questions;

1.Do they themselves, carry top positions in the field they represent?

2.Do they have any real references? (It is not hard to get a top placement for keywords like “top used car salesman of the year award”, but it IS hard to get a top listing for something like “used cars”) if they have helped sites get great listings for top keywords, then they know what they are doing.

3. Do they offer a guarantee or some other sort of compensation if they can’t deliver?

These are just a few things that should be considered when hiring out for SEO work, and always ask for advice, if you don’t know what you are doing. Your actions can make or break your website, and your business!

About the Author
Jer Strausser is the owner of the highly popular work at home community at WorkatHomeCommunity.com. Visit them for tips, news, and articles for your home business success.

Categories : SEO Tips // Add Comment »

1. Avoid creating menu on the left-hand side of a website . If unavoidable, an alternative way is to put some text with rich keywords at the top or above the left-hand menu so that this text will be the first thing to read by search engines.

2. Headlines are rated more important than the rest of the web page by search engines . To take advantage of this, you should have your keywords in the page headline. Since the header tag (Б) is quite large, you should format it to make it smaller.

3. Every page should contain the “title” and “description” tags with good keywords to describe the page content. The number of words for the title should not exceed 9 and that for the description should not be more than 20 words in order to keep within the limits of most search engines.

4. Try not to use Flash when possible . Flash cannot be read by the search engines to date and will cause slow page loading time and makes people run away

5. Think twice on how to use graphics . Make them relevant to your content and use an Alt tag containing the relevant keyword(s).

6. Do not only use images to link out . You should always use text links to link out to important content on your web site. Spiders can follow image links, but like text links more though.

7. Avoid using frames . Some search engines cannot spider web pages with frames at all. For the other search engines that can, they can have problems spidering it and sometimes they too cannot index the web page.

8. Avoid using too complex tables when laying out your page but to keep them simple for the spiders . There are some engines which find it difficult to navigate through to the other pages on your website if the navigation bar is too complicated.

9. Use external Cascading Style Sheets and Java Script files to reduce page size and make the download time much faster . It will allow the spider to index your web page faster and can help your ranking.

10. Use standard HTML . Software such as FrontPage, Dreamweaver or a WYSIWYG editor will often add unnecessary scripting codes that will make the page larger than it needed and make it harder to crawl. It will sometimes add codes that can’t be read by search engines, causing the spider not to index the page or not index the whole web page. If to use, you should use those web page creator software wisely with a good understanding of html.

About the Author
Siuchu Suga specializes in website design and Internet marketing. She is also the webmaster of About-webdesign.com.

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The Search Engine Optimization Quality guidelines have a direct impact on how search engines rank your website in search results and your website’s page rank. While they are listed as “suggestions” wise people are advised to listen REAL CAREFULLY when Google talks search engine optimization guidelines. Failure to follow them may have their website from being removed from Google. Worse than death (at least you have a grave stone) banishment removes your site from Google’ and partner sites. Here are search engine optimization techniques to stay friends with Google and sleep soundly at night… (while thousands of people visit your website)

Enhance Content

First of all, forget search engine ranking and website design and concentrate on website content. Create a enough web pages to give a sense of what visitors will experience on your site. Email pages to people for their comments and feedback on your subject. Soon you′ll have a sense of what you have to offer and how to design your website. With the emphasis on content useful information to people, website design is logical and quick.

Site Maps

How will people reach the pages on your website. A proven SEO approach is to provide a simple hierarchy and text links for your website along with a site map. If you don’t have one, Google offers an online site map generator. It seems like an obvious search engine positioning technique, but worth repeating – a visitor should be able to reach each page from a static text link. Your site map point to the right page and also boosts your search engine ranking – not a bad deal. For large site maps… over a hundred links, create smaller site maps.

Web Page Hierarchy An important search engine marketing tool is the proper placement of titles on your web page – H1, H2, H3, and so forth. These title tags guide the search engine though you page and help it determine what to read first, second and so on. The main subject of the page should be identified with an H1 title tags and secondary subject with an H2 tag and so forth. The proper use of titles benefits both the reader and search engine optimization.

Meta Tag Mania – Search Engine Marketing

Do you just go nuts trying to write the perfect meta tags? Join the club! While what’s in the meta tags are important.. how should we say, “It’s what’s in the bun that counts! In other words, search engine positioning techniques such as meta tags are secondary to what’ written on the page. Create useful, useful, entertaining content and your meta tags will write themselves. Be sure that your pages have the words listed in the meta tags and display important names, content, or links in text not pictures. Got that? See you in Google Heaven!

Compucall provides Search Engine Marketing services for B2B and B2C companies through the deployment of search engine optimization, pay per click, leading Web Analytics tools, and other reliable SEM techniques.

About the author:

Johnny Mayer is a content writer for Compucall.USA Web Marketing, LTD.

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About a month ago, I started a new website as a little experiment to see if I could get a simple SEO strategy to work. Part of the strategy was to write several articles related to the website and post them on article sites and Ezines to get some back links. It’s no secret that writing articles is a proven part of a successful SEO and online marketing strategy. Much has been written on this topic. In my case, it has worked well, so far, to generate traffic.
But, in the process, I discovered other benefits that are probably just as important. Here are some of the other benefits I gained from article writing:

1. The simple enjoyment of writing – I think there is a distinct psychological benefit to focusing the mind for the half hour or so it takes to think through and write down some thoughts that have been rolling around. It is a form of release, of catharsis. It’s also fun.

2. Writing enhances creativity – When you commit to writing several articles about the same subject or area, you are forced to examine that subject from different perspectives. That is what creativity is – thinking about something in a new way, from a new angle or making an association you, or perhaps no one else, has made before. When your mind gets moving in this direction, ideas emerge and thoughts that were previously buried somewhere come to the surface.

3. It takes away the fear of making your thoughts public – The great thing about writing articles is that the public, not your boss, or teacher, or client, decides if the article is worth reading or not. Some articles will get read and some will be ignored. Either way, the consequences tend not to be severe. This is a very freeing kind of environment.

4. A sense of accomplishment – It really doesn’t take that long to put 500 or so words together about any subject of interest. Often just a half hour spent on my laptop while I am watching TV will produce an article. So previously wasted time is used to accomplish something done.

5. A new appreciation for your subject or area of expertise – I started writing about golf, something I had never done before, and I certainly don’t consider myself an expert on the game. Much has been written about golf, by people who play the game and understand the game a lot better than I do. My interests tend to be more the human side of the game, the relationships, the psychology, the humor and the social aspects. Exploring these areas of the game has given me more ideas for articles within my realm of expertise.

If you’re reading this article, you probably have some interest in writing articles. I hope I have encouraged you to write or keep writing. There are far more benefits than stats on your hits counter.

Ron Strand is a college instructor and consultant who writes on a variety of topics including golf and fundraising.

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1. Reciprocal links! Yes they still hold value as the SE’s are constantly and will continue to change their algorithms.

2. Place your links on directories, education sites (google love them), sites not relevant (small percentage), same business relevance sites and “exact same topic sites (as many as possible)

3. Vary the pr of sites where your link is placed.

4. Make sure you have both one way and reciprocal links, not just one or the other.

5. Keep you linking campaigns constant. Add roughly the same amount of links each month to keep the SE’s happy.

6. Linking is a slow laborious job unless you have many months/years of experience actually doing it…. therefore always outsource.

7. Do not use popular linking services, most are a rip off by a long mile.

8. If using sites like elance.com, do not pick the cheapest price! The whole point of outsourcing is so you don’t have to worry about quality and the job being done properly.

The main thing is finding someone that will do the job right, is reliable and will do it at a good price.

If they do a great job, look after them.

9. Stipulate down to the last letter what your linking campaign must and must not include.

I would have to say that the few linking campaigns I purchased were unsatisfactory. I then did a fair amount of research and asking around until I found a company I was very happy with.

My last campaign was…

“100″ reciprocal links, same business area, minimum pr of “2″…

Results…

* Nearly all sites in my business field
* Very few “link” type sites, mostly decent content sites
* 10% in the exact same business field
* Pr of pages where my link was placed…. pr 2 = 57, pr 3 = 37, pr 4 = 9… plus an extra 10 links.
* All links are permanent

Cost = US$400

So if your thinking about linking, I highly suggest you outsource!

About the Author :

Chris Taylor is the director of Catdynamics, an company specializing in all areas of online business implementation, internet marketing and search engine optimization – Affordable Business Seo Small

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

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The generation of hundreds of SEO links pointing at your site is actually much easier than you think. And you can do it all legally using search engine approved methods.

Like everything else in life, all you have to do is develop a system that works and then work the system. Here is an extremely creative SEO link generation system that I have started using on one of my blogs with powerful results.

Use This Kind of SEO Link Baiting Article As A Generation Tool
All you have to do to get this fascinating SEO link generation tool working for you is get involved in the current main conversation in your particular industry or the one that is most closely related to your topic and target market clientele. There are several ways you can do this, one of them is by visiting the Technorati.com site that monitors blogs. Then you have to present a convincing argument totally disagreeing with what they are saying.

Post this article at your blog and if you’ve done your homework correctly, watch the link activity that follows.

Use These Lists As Your Secret SEO Link Generation Tool
Lists are very useful things in SEO link generation. And what’s more they are very easy to make. Just go through you recent content and you are bound to find plenty of opportunities for lists. For instance in a recent post you may have talked about the availability of software to carry out a certain task. You can easily make a list of the top ten sources for the software you are talking about. Do not link to their sites, simply mention them.

Then do a polite brief email to the 10 software people you have mentioned informing them that you′ve mentioned them in a recent post, asking them to check it out. You can then suggest to them how linking to the post can enhance greatly enhance their image in the eyes of persons visiting their site.

Don’t worry if most of the people do not reply to your email or refuse to link to you. Always remain polite and professional. Thank webmasters who decline to link to you and wish them the best. And most of all keep your lists as they are. Remember that well compiled lists are valuable resources that easily attract links from others over time.

Making lists is a powerful SEO link generation strategy. Just make sure that you are thinking lists and making lists all the time and you′ll accumulate links at a blinding speed. Do ensure that your lists are as interesting and valuable as possible.

Get other valuable SEO link generation methods used by the author in his free email newsletter. To subscribe send a blank email now to articlesrgold-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Or visit his blog.

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So what exactly is SEO?

Search engine optimization otherwise known as SEO is a popular form of search engine marketing. The main goal of which (as its name would suggest) is to improve the ranking of the site in various search engines. An entire industry of consultants has sprung up around the idea of search engine optimization. However it’s important to note that there are two distinct and disparate methodologies at work when it comes to optimization. The two categories are best known as “white hat SEO” (which is aimed at improving overall site quality, and increasing the site’s ranking through approved methods), or “black hat SEO” (often use methods such as cloaking and spamdexing to increase rankings. However, using such methods can lead to your site to being removed from search engine listings). Those in the white hat camp charge that black hat methods are not only giving SEO a bad name but are also attempting to manipulate and undermine the search rankings. The black hatters counter that argument by saying that in truth all SEO is an attempt to manipulate rankings, and therefore the particular methods one uses to increase rankings are irrelevant. In other words they take the more Machiavellian approach of using the end results to justify the means they use.

So what more specifically are the methods being employed by the two camps?

White hat methods:

These methods typically involve following the search engines’ published guidelines as to what is and what isn’t acceptable. The advice typically given by the white hat SEO experts is to create more user-friendly content, and not focus so much on the search engines. That is if your site is well put together and presents something users need it will naturally climb in the rankings. Also by making content that is easily accessible to the search engines spiders it will be properly read and therefore properly indexed in the search engines. The white hatters are needed most often because a webmaster has made critical mistakes in either the design or the set-up of their websites, inadvertently “poisoning” them so that they will not rank well. The SEOs then attempt to discover and correct these mistakes, which may include unreadable menus, broken links, temporary redirects, or simply a poor navigation structure.

Here are a few examples of SEO activities which the search engines find acceptable:

• Using a reasonably-sized, accurate description meta tag without excessive use of keywords, exclamation marks or off topic terms.
• Optimizing tags, titles and other parts of the code as necessary;
• Using WordTracker or a similar database to find popular and relevant keywords and phrases to use for your site.
• Monitoring the various search engines to ensure that your URL gets indexed
• Increasing the amount of unique content on the site.
• Writing quality content for the website visitors instead of the search engines.

Black hat methods:

Whereas the white hat methods follow search engine guidelines “Black hat” SEO methods to try to improve rankings by any means necessary. Most of these methods are disapproved of by the search engines, typically because of their deceptive nature, but also hamper the ability of the search engines to provide quality content to site visitors. Search engines often penalize the sites they discover using black hat methods, by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from the search engine results altogether. These penalties are usually applied automatically by the search engines’ algorithms, because the Internet is too large to make manual policing of websites feasible. However once they are discovered, search engines may take action against those found to be using unethical SEO methods. Take for example Google’s removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany in February 2006 for use of these practices.

One common black hat method is known as Spamdexing. Spamdexing is the promotion of irrelevant, chiefly commercial, pages through various deceptive techniques and the abuse of the search algorithms. Unfortunately it often gets confused with white hat search engine optimization techniques, which do not involve deceit. Spamming involves getting websites more exposure than they deserve for their keywords, leading to unsatisfactory search results. Optimization involves getting websites the rank they deserve on the most targeted keywords, leading to satisfactory search experiences.

One example of spamdexing is link farming. Link farming can be basically defined as any group of web pages that all link to every other page in the group. Another common practice is listing popular keywords in fine print or in the same color as the background so they can’t be seen by users.

So how can you tell the difference between Black and White SEO practices?

A very easy way to distinguish between the two is though the amount of time involved in getting the desired results. White hat SEOs use methods that produce results slowly over time and only after a good deal of effort has been put into the site. Black hat SEOs offer you quick and easy results most, if not all, of which will obtained through deceptive practices.

About the Author
Jennifer Kothe is the talented marketing coordinator at Internet Traffic Solutions (http://www.itsontarget.com) which is a full service marketing agency that offers clients a profitable way to get the attention of their target audience online.

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Are shades of grey SEO really Black Hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is a strategy which gets a web page or entire site banned from a search engine.

A shade of grey is when you use a black hat strategy but your site has not been banned yet. Remember the acronym for YET: You’re Entitled Too!

There are many different opinions on the subject of Search Engine Optimization. Many folks will deliver advice which will work to get you top 10 rankings but what is really the difference between Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO?

There has been many good attempts to define Black Hat SEO. All are relevant and an example can be found at http://www.blackhatseo.com. The site contains a page of example Black Hat SEO and a directory of not recommended products and services.

But is there more to it than just keyword stuffing, hidden text and spamming image alt tags?

If you read the the Webmaster guidelines at Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html, you’ll notice that sneaky Redirection pages are not welcome. (This does not include the 301 redirect.)

What are Sneaky Redirection Pages?

Sneaky redirection pages are set up in in groups of 10 or 20. They all target similar and related keywords or phrases. The only links on these pages are links to other pages in the same family creating a false sense of related linking.

They do not contain content that any human would be interested in. These pages show up high in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). When you click on one of these pages from a search engine result, you will be redirected to another page. (Usually a high pressure sales page.)

Is this misleading? You bet. Why? Because the page you click on from the serps is not the page you actually get to read.

Can Sneaky Redirects be considered as a Black Hat SEO tactic?

I think so. The reason being is that if your page is discovered, it does get banned. These pages are smart when it comes to getting a higher search engine position but they will vanish if another marketer reports your page.

What SEO Strategy Should You Use?

All SEO strategies have value. I think that the focus of attention should be to avoid Black Hat SEO if your intention is to keep your site from being banned.

Visit SEO forums and use the ideas that you feel comfortable with. There are many SEO forums out there. Here is one to get you started: http://www.searchguild.com

Be aware of search engine guidelines. If you read conflicting information, or if the tactic does not feel 100% OK, maybe the tactic should be placed on the back burner or even avoided forever.

The author, Ed Zivkovic is based on the Gold Coast in Australia.
Ed writes and publishes home business and webmaster articles at http://www.ezau.com and enjoys going to http://www.gold-coast-beaches.com.

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When link popularity comes into play, this is a vital part of getting your website some exposure. When someone searches a keyword on a modern search engine, (particularly Google and Yahoo) it closely searches who links to your pages and how. In addition, it searches for your content. If you go to www.TheSEO-page.com they will further explain this to you. I have a website (www.kinglot.com). When I search the word “kinglot” on Yahoo and Google, I have a Link popularity of 113 and 8, respectively. The more websites that links your website within their content, the more exposure you get. In addition, it’s like a treat because each link is like a recommendation. If you want to be ranked high in the search engine, exchanging links is the most inexpensive way to get exposure. There are a lot of free and paid programs out there that you can sign up for. Trust me; it helped my website to get some exposure. Learn more about link popularity at http://www.TheSEO-page.com
About the Author
Charlie is a student at Florida International University

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Summary: Are article directories the new SEO link directories? As 1990s-era link directories fade into relative irrelevance, article directories offer new opportunities for one-way inbound links. There are currently about 200 of these directories, none of which charges a fee.

Article Directories: The New Web Link Directories?

We are witnessing a new explosion in web directories that are actually worth the investment in time to submit to them. No, not link directories–their time has passed for good. The new directories are article directories.

What Are Article Directories?

Article directories are sites such as http://isnare.com and http://goarticles.com, which aggregate large numbers of articles into massive, categorized databases. Most of them act as clearinghouses for reprint content, encouraging visitors to add the content to their own sites. The articles are screened for basic indicators of quality and relevance before being posted.

The articles each have an author’s resource box, an “about the author” paragraph at the end of the article. The directories allow authors to include a link, and often, multiple links, in the resource box.

I personally know of about 200 such directories that will accept articles on any topic–with a live link and without charging a fee. There are at least as many specialized directories that limit themselves to business-only articles, women’s issues, technology, etc. All you need is a single good page of well-written content–and if your site doesn’t have that already, you probably should give up your web ambitions right now.

Article Directories’ Linking Advantages

* Anchor text. About two-thirds of the article directories allow for the author to select the anchor text of the link in the author’s resource box. This is the primary value of the links from the article directories. The article directory pages usually have PR 0; some have PR 1-3. Fortunately, anchor text is often a deciding factor in ranking for non-competitive search strings that make up as much as half or more of all web searches. These links may also help a site that already has competitive PageRank but is getting beaten in the SERPs for want of anchor text relevance.

* Relevant links. The links are at least as relevant as links from link directories. The page on which the link is located is categorized within the site according to topics such as automotive, technology, decorating, or sports. Since most of the directories use the article title as the webpage title, you can even assure that the title of the webpage with your link has your target keyword.

* Traffic. Click-throughs on the links in the author’s resource boxes bring traffic, particularly in the early days after the article is submitted.

* Reprints. Clearinghouse websites that offer articles for reprint pack the double advantage of a link on their site and a link on any site whose webmaster chooses to reprint the article. In reality, few articles get reprinted since the competition for reprints is fierce. Moreover, fewer than a dozen of the 200-odd article directories actually get many reprints. The market is dominated, as most web markets are, by the best established sites.

* Mindshare. A click-through from a traditional link is just another visitor. But someone who has read a page of content from your site and clicked through the author’s resource box link is generally a highly qualified visitor who has been partly sold on the value of your offering. Meanwhile, even readers who do not click-through have been exposed to your message. You can help shape the market, building awareness of your product or service.

In short, article directories offer just about everything the web link directories used to, and more.

About the Author : Joel Walsh owns UpMarket Content, helping you get one-way inbound links and web traffic with syndication and development of website content: http://www.UpMarketContent.com Source: www.isnare.com

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