SEO Expert | SEO Podcast | Beccalori.com

Want to drive more targeted traffic to your web site?

Want to do it for free?

If you answered “yes” you’re in for a treat. Use the search engine optimization and ranking techniques in this article and you will be well on your way to a front page listing in the major search engines.

Up until now, you’ve been led to believe that search engine optimization and search engine ranking strategies were something better left to an expert. But that’s not true. Any serious marketer can and should learn the simple search engine optimization and ranking techniques that can get his site listed on the first page of the search engines.

Before I begin I want to point out that search engine optimization and ranking strategies fall into two catagories. On page factors and off page factors.

On page factors you have a lot of control over. Things like content, good keywords, and the proper use of anchor text.

Off page factors, like page rank, you’ll have less control over. But it’s important that you exercise as much control as you can over the off page factors as well. These will be discussed in another article.

To get your search engine optimization and ranking strategies right you will need some tools. Some free, some payed. But regardless, if you want your site listed in the top ten results you need these tools.

Search Engine Optimization and Ranking - Tools of the Trade

To begin with, I’m not a big believer in throwing money after unnecessary tools or ebooks. After all, if you bought all the tools some gurus recommend it could easily run into hundreds and even thousands of dollars. So rest assurred, what I recommend are the bare essentials of what you will need to get it right.

The first tool you need is free. At least for now. It’s the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool. You can find it at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

You will use this tool for your keyword research. Let’s say you plan to build a site on dog grooming. Type dog grooming in the suggestion box, click the arrow, and a list of related keywords come up. It also tells you how many searches were conducted on Overture and it’s related sites for the past month. This is valuable information as it tells you which keywords are worth persuing and which don’t get enough searches to be worthwhile. You will want to print out or create a file to store these keywords on your computer because you’re not finished with them yet.

The next tool you need is Wordtracker. Although it’s not free, it is one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal. This tool is not expensive as you can order it for short time frames. Twenty four hours usually runs about $7.00 U.S.

Wordtracker takes your keyword research to the next level. For instance:

find all keywords that bear any relation to your business

tells you how popular the keywords really are in multiple search engines

shows you your chance of making the top ten

shows you the number of times the keyword or phrase has appeared in the data base

shows mispellings on searches that you can capitalize on

shows the number of competing sites

prints out a complete list of selected keywords with KEI analysis, count, hits in 24 hours, and number of competing sites.

This valuable tool will save you countless hours of trial and error trying to find the best keywords and phrases to land you in the top ten.

I once built a site based solely on results from the Overture suggestion tool. To my dismay I had few visitors. When I checked the keywords and phrases with Wordtracker, I found a completly differnt story. Wordtracker showed much lower figures for the keywords I was using from Overture. When I revamped the site using Wordtrackers results I found the search results to be much more accurate.

So use the Overture suggestion tool to get a preliminary set of keywords, then, check them with Wordtracker to identify the best keywords and phrases to build your site around.

Build Your Site Around Search Engine Optimization and Ranking Techniques

When I built my first site I used a cheap software program I purchased from my local office supply store. Needless to say, it was never listed in the search engines. I had little control over the appearance and more than likely it did what it wanted, not what I wanted. So if you intend to build a serious web site to get traffic and make money, stay away from them. I currently use NoteTab Pro. it’s relatively easy to use and gives you a lot of flexibility. Plus it’s relatively inexpensive.

If you are looking for a less expensive way to go I recommend Notetab light. Download a free copy here http://www.notetab.com. Although not as flexible and easy to use as NoteTab Pro, it will get the job done.

Search Engine Optimization and Ranking Power Points

You’ve researched and selected your keywords and phrases. Where do you use them for the best search engine optimization and ranking?

Power Point #1.This is one of the best secrets I can give you. Consider each page of your site to be a doorway into your site. Therefore optimize one keyword or keyword phrase for each page of your site. Many people try to cram multiple keywords into a page. This only confuses the search engines and hurts your rankings.

Power Point#2. Keep your site keywords and pages focused on a common theme. For example: If you have a site about dog grooming, Every page on the site should relate to dog grooming. If you were to ad a page about training your pet snake it wouldn’t fit the theme. So keep all your pages tightly focused on the overall theme of your site. Getting off theme will hurt your rankings.

Power Point #3.Content is king. Give the searh engines what they want and they will give you what you want. A good listing. What they want are highly relevant sites for their search customers with good, valuable content. Methods to trick the search engines are abundant. But when they catch up with you, you’ll be penalized or worse, possibly banned. You don’t want that.

Power point #4. Sprinkle your secondary keywords and phrases throughout your content. When you researched your keywords you came up with a list of primary words and phrases to optimize your pages. You should also have an additional 50 - 100 keywords and phrases that I will call secondary keywords. If you sprinkle these throughout your page it will give you a big boost in the search engines. You’ll be amazed at how many visitors you will recieve from these secondary keyword searches.

Where To Use Your Primary Keywords To Get The Most Impact For Your Search Engine Optimization and Ranking Efforts

Keyword placement, density and proximity are the most important factors when it comes to on page search engine optimization and ranking strategies.

Domain name: Although unproven, some search engine optimization experts recommend your site domain name be your primary keyword or phrase. If I can get a domain with my primary keyword fine. If not, i just try to get a good related name. If you do get a domain with your primary phrase, be sure to seperate the individual words with hyphens. Some search engine optimization experts are now saying that Google can read the keywords even if they are not seperated. I prefer to play it safe and use hyphens. For example: doggrooming.com would be dog-grooming.com. Done this way the search engines can read the individual words.

Page title. It’s best to use your keyword or phrase once in the title of your page. Try to keep it short. Google uses a weighting factor based on the number of words in the title. The more words you use, the less weight each word has. A word of caution here. Don’t just use your keyword phrase. Google will likely consider this spamming and penalize you. Using the same keyword more than once is worth testing, but many experts believe it can hurt your rankings. Try to come up with a good title as this is what your prospects will see on the search engines.

The discription: Again, don’t over use your keyword in your discription. Once or twice is enough. Some search engines will use your discription in their listings so try to develop one that will make the searcher want to click on it.

Heading tags: Header tags are the HTML tags used to make text bigger. Typically they are used for headlines and sub heads. Some search engines use them to determine what a page is about. So try to use your keyword or phrase in your header tags.

Anchor text: This is the text used in a link. When you are linking from one page on your site to another make sure you use your keywords in the link. A good example is your home page. Most people simply put the link as “home.” Instead use website promotion strategies home. Get the idea.

Body copy: Try to use your keyword as often as you can in your body copy without sounding repetitive or being obvious. If it doesn’t sound right, it’s probably to much. Work it in wherever it fits. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to keyword density. Most experts agree that around 7% density is a good figure to shoot for. Avoid continuously repeating the keyword every two or three words. This is considered spamming.

Alt text: This is text used in place of images for those with text only browsers. It also pops up when you hold your mouse over an image. Because search engine spiders can’t read graphics, the alt text tells the spiders what the graphic is. So discribe the graphic but include your keyword.

URL’s: When using URL’s to link your pages together be sure to use your keywords in the link. Just as in the case of domain names, use hyphens to seperate the words so the spiders can read them.

We’ve covered a lot in this article. I’ve given you information that cost me a small fortune to acquire. We covered the tools and editors you will need to do the job right. I gave you power points that most search engine optimization experts don’t want you to know. Then we looked at the on page factors you can control to maximize your search engine optimization and ranking efforts. Keep in mind, this is only half of the equation. There are still off page factors that have a major impact on your search engine optimization strategies.

Well actually, linking isn’t fun at all. In fact, it’s quite tedious. Seeking, responding to requests and adding links takes time and effort. But, if you’re not actively building links the RIGHT way you are going to be left behind. In other words, your site will be “Lost in Cyberspace”. The plain fact is Google, and to a lesser extent, other important search engines, reward sites with links from relevant and important pages.

If you want your site to deliver lots of targeted search engine traffic (and who doesn’t?) there are two equally important factors:

1) lots of keyword-rich, search engine friendly content
2) lots of relevant, incoming links from the RIGHT sources

For real success you need to cover BOTH of these strategies. Don’t concentrate on one and not the other.

So, how do you go about building your links? It’s not rocket science, but as I said, it does take time and effort. From my own experiences, here’s what you should do:

1) Download and install the Google Toolbar:

http://toolbar.google.com/

This will show you the PageRank of the page you are viewing. PageRank is a measure, rated from 1 to 10, of the “importance” that Google gives to that page. There has been a lot written about PageRank. You don’t need to become obsessed with it but it IS an important consideration when determining WHO to link to. A link from a PR-5 page is worth FAR more than a PR-0 page.

2) Establish a resource or links directory for your site. This lets potential link partners see that you are willing to exchange links. You should make it clear on your links pages what your linking policy is i.e. under what conditions you will agree to exchange links.

3) Your aim should be to build a resource directory that is relevent to your business. Don’t try to build a mini Yahoo with umpteen different categories. Keep your directory focussed on your site theme. When you first start out you will be inclined to link to anybody in exchange for a link FROM anybody. This is a mistake. Be patient and choose your link partners carefully.

4) Before requesting a link from another site, add that site to your directory. Contact the webmaster and tell them you added their link because you believe their site would be of interest to your visitors (and so it should). Give the url where your link is located and ask for a return link, along with instructions on how you would like your link worded. NEVER demand by saying things like “if you do not link to us we will remove your link”.

5) If you have not received a reply after 2 - 3 weeks send a polite follow up. Again, don’t demand. No one is under any obligation to link to you. If you do not receive a reply to your second request it means that the webmaster does not want to link to you, or they are simply too busy to respond. In that case, leave it and move on. I receive dozens of link requests a day. Sometimes it takes me many weeks to get around to responding. You’ll go mad worrying about links that have not been reciprocated. Your time is better spent.

6) When you receive a link request visit the site and check that it meets with your requirements as set down on your link pages. Is it a quality site with good content or just a “link farm”? If it doesn’t meet your requirements don’t link to it.

The webmaster SHOULD have already linked to your site but be prepared to overlook that breech of linking protocol if it’s from a good quality, high PR site.

7) Beware of webmasters who add your site to their “directory” which turns out to nothing but a link farm i.e. has no useful content, just a bunch of links, and asks you to link to an entirely different site, one that HAS good content. These webmasters are playing you for a sucker. The benefit is all theirs.

8) As I said in point #1, links from high PR pages are worth more than links from low or no PR pages. Seek out high PR linking partners but keep in mind it is the PR of the actual page your link is on that matters, NOT the PR of the home page. In other words if the home page PR is 5, but the page your link is on is several layers deep in the directory, it will probably have a PR of 0 and be of little benefit to you. Check the PR of the actual page your link is on, or is going to be on, before agreeing to exchange links.

Each page on your links directory should be no more than one click away from your home page, and your linking partner’s site should be the same. If your link is placed on a page which looks something like this - directory/category/subcategory/subcategory with your link - you will derive NO value from that link.

9) Be prepared to negotiate your links. Savvy webmasters understand the value of links from high PR pages. If you add a link to a PR-0 page on your site don’t expect your link partner to put your link on a PR-6 page, and your link partner shouldn’t expect the same from you. Exchange value for like value.

When you first start out your site may not have any PR due to a lack of incoming links. This reduces your bargaining power. However, you can overcome this by getting your site listed in as many large business directories as possible. Some of these you will have to pay, such as Yahoo and Microsoft’s Business Directory, but many others are free. You’ll find a good list here:

http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

10) Be specific about how you want your link partner to link to you. It is MOST important that the link to you contain your targeted keywords in the anchor (linked) text. When I ask for a link to my site I don’t want the link title to be:

Steve Pronger Web Business Solutions

Instead, I ask for:

Website Designer Australia

or whichever keywords I am targeting at the time.

11) And finally, here is an excellent resource to help you find quality link partners. It’s called Value Exchange, and will put you in contact with like-minded webmasters:

http://www.stevepronger.com/value_exchange.htm

Keywords aren’t just some words that allow search engines, like Google, to find your web site. They are also key elements for creating attractive language to use in your marketing or advertising material. For instance places such as: brochures, business cards, flyers, and ads. Keywords can also fit well into speaking engagements scripts or audiotapes scripts as well as audience handouts.It is important to create a keyword list for each product or service you have. The keyword list might even change slightly if there are various groups or audiences for that product or service.

For simplicity, I have omitted the word service and for the word product to reflect both.

Creating your keyword list can begin after you have clearly identified the buyer or audience for a particular product or service. You will need to know as much about the buyer’s demographic and charactertics as possible. I also recommend including their descriptive qualities and personalities. Here is a list to kick start your brainstorming process:

· Communicative
· Competent
· Dedicated
· Enthusiastic
· Expert
· Hardworking
· Improved
· Positive
· Negative
· Professional
· Relationship-driven
· Self-confident
· Successful
· Tranquil
· Spiritual
· Understanding
· Socially conscious
· Early adaptor
· Later buyer
· Has to see it to believe it
· Guarantee a must.
The list of keywords will describe the product and target the specific quality you have isolated as most important to those buyers. No grabbing out of midair. Take the time and research, this will help you save money and reduce costly marketing experiences.

You can complete your research with any combination of methods. Here are eight methods to help you build from:

· Brainstorming
· Yellow Pages or other indexes for services or products.
· Reviewing your company literature already created
· Checking out the competitor’s literature
· Surveying key customers
· Searching through trade publications (articles and ads), and contacting them or visiting their web site looking for their buyer statistics/demographics.
· Use a general dictionary and thesaurus
· Use a specialized dictionary like the, Flip Dictionary.
You can use resources like the yellow pages or other catalogue-type indexes listing grouping to discover keywords your product or service would be listed under.

Let’s move through an example. If you were selling a professional development product – you could be in any one of the following professions: professional speaker, life, business, or executive coach, consultant or trainer. Your buyer or audience is somewhat successful you’re your product will help them add additional success. Here is a list of keywords that could describe their characteristics or qualities:

· Able to motivate others
· Clearheaded
· Clear-sighted
· Committed to achieving excellence
· Demands excellence
· Full of character
· Has good judgment
· Has a wonderful stress-free life already
· Highly perceptive
· Lives up to her or her potential
· Life-long learner
· Sts high standards for themselves
· Stays on track
· Strives for perfection
· Strives to excel
· Takes the initiative
· Motivated to achieve
Okay, good start. Now, let’s begin to put all this together. Let’s zoom in on one of these: strives to excel. Let’s narrow down further to one word: excel.

Look up the word excel in a synonym finder, thesaurus or my preference, the Flip Dictionary and you find the following keywords that you can add to your keyword list: best, better, exceed, outclass, outdo, out rival, outstrip, shine, star, superior, surpass, take the cake, transcend, dominate, tower above, be head and shoulders above, stand out in the crowd, hold sway, lead, take the lead, lead the pack.

The list can go on, however, will stop here because the point is made.

After this, you could let your fingers travel through the thesaurus and then add those words.

Alternatively, you could continue your list by visiting a few of your competitor’s web sites and see what keywords they use. You do this by visiting their home page, right clicking the mouse on the page, and select “view source.” In the HTML code look for “keywords.” These are the keywords they use for the search engines to find them.

You will want to specifically focus on the competitor web sites that appear in first ten spots on one or two major search engines, like Google.

Next, select another method from your list of resources and continue until you feel you have enough right words.

After completing your list, you will want to review and place the keywords in priority order as best possible and eliminate any words that might be misleading. If you market globally, make sure none of the keywords mean something offensive in their language.

Chances are you have been on the Internet and have been surfing in and out of websites looking for valuable information pertaining to a favorite topic or researching a subject for school or work. As you type in keyword(s) you match the information you are searching for on Google, you come up with 10,000 pages of information. It’s virtually impossible to go through every one, so you refine your search by adding more exclusive keywords. Voila the number of pages reduces to around 1,000. Still this is a lot of pages, but you start looking through the information to find what you want.As you go through the first 10 links on the page, WHAM! The information you needed to find was in the first or second in order of PageRank. You wonder how did they get such a high rank on Google? You may think it was very expensive to get that site at the top of the heap. The funny thing is, with a little know how and about $75 you too can go for the top.

Search Engine Optimization or “SEO”, has become a standard in the web design industry, every customer of a good web designer wants to be number one in their keyword and may be willing to pay the extra money to get there. A good web designer will dress up a web sites home page to match the requirements of their client on specific keywords. The client will also pay more for the exclusivity to remain there untouched. SEO has become a niche for a lot of web companies. They know if they can get the company to the top fast, the word of mouth will be helpful toward their business.

Through specialized META tags (hidden group of keywords) the web designer will strategically place keywords multiple times in the title bar, keywords, and even as hidden text. Some search engines have figured these tricks of the trade out and have banned certain websites from their indexes. Google has become the engine of choice for a lot of people today. There is a different logic Google uses to calculate page rank and keywords is only a portion of it.

Google actually uses a specialized mathematical equation to place your site in a predetermined order. First things first, if your website is a keyword, that does not automatically give you a top spot. It will take time to move up the ranks and you should register with Google as soon as possible to drive your rank upwards. But just having the right URL (Universal Resource Locator) doesn’t guarantee the top spot either. You must also be swapping or reciprocating links with other Google users. The more you use Google websites that are indexed the faster and higher your site will go in the ranks.

A Google robot will visit your site frequently so continue to modify your code and keep checking its rank and status. Eventually, your site will drive up the ranks and land on top. It may take time and work, but you will get the hang of keeping it there once you employ the right mix of keywords with links. Some companies can charge up to $1,000 for the top spot, they employ the same techniques, even though they don’t want you to know this. Keep your META tags, title, keywords and content in line with your keywords and continuously look to optimize them. Under no circumstances take another persons keywords off of their code; this is potentially dangerous as you could be violating copyright laws.

Good Luck!!!

As with any good web developer, the ability to time the changes Google will update your website and refresh the content for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is in your favor. Welcome to the world of “Google Dance”. The Google Dance is simply that the predetermination of when the actual update will commence.

What really happens is Google sends out spiders to crawl the Internet, usually done to DNS (Domain Name Servers), upon spidering all of the available tables it begins to go through each individual site and updates the content on to Google.com. Thus if you watch your rank on the Google Toolbar, you can tell when your overall page rank has changed.

Understanding SEO and what is necessary to improve your overall ranking. Webmasters have been looking for ways to increase the odds of guessing when the next spidering would commence. There are various versions and servers that go out and crawl thousands of servers at a time, it takes time to relay and decipher this information back to the web server that Google.com pulls its information from.

Some vendors have created programs that actually go out to the data centers themselves to find out approximately when the last index was kicked off. Depending on the information returned from the trace the exact time and date are pinpointed. Is there really that much of an advantage to doing it this way? It depends, if you have a vital update that you want to optimize your site, you may want to know when the last time Google visited your site for content to keep information fresh and relevant.

There are many data centers that Google uses to spider across the world. Each center has a specific region it covers and all the information is gathered in aggregate and returned back to populate Google.com. With this many data centers the chances for continuous indexing is good, but not guaranteed.

Many internet marketers blow mountains of start-up cash on their websites just trying to break into search engine rankings. I was one of these internet marketers.

I spent cash on get-rich-quick submission services that claimed they would submit my page to thousands of seach engines. . .for a small fee. I spent money to get registered with big name search engines. I even spent money on search engine optimization services.

And then I waited. . .

I waited to see SOME response–any response–from all of this work I had done. I waited for the spiders to reach my pages and rank my page for everyone to see. I waited for my blown marketing funds to come back to me in profits. . .

But they never did. The spiders took weeks. The page rankings were dismal. I was ready to give up.

And then I received this vital piece of information from a fellow marketer: the more links you have on bigger websites, the faster your page is spidered. . .

That’s right: Since search engines rank higher-PR sites more often, they will find your page a lot faster if you get your link on a highly-trafficked website!

Not only will they find your site faster, but they will also return to it faster and rank it for FREE. This is all in addition to receiving a huge PR boost for having a link on a high-PR site.

So. . .

If you haven’t done it already, slap some metatags on your site that are optimized for your content. Make sure you use keywords that are repeated multiple times in the text of your website, so that your pages will rank higher for relevency.

Now begin your hunt for high-PR websites to post your link on. You can start by going to google and searching for your specific service or product in quotes to find high-PR sites in your category.

You’ll find out quickly that there are a number of ways to get your link on these websites. Some of them will agree to do a main-page link exchange for free. Others will allow you to submit articles along with a resource box that will give you a link on their website. And others wont allow you to work with them at all unless you have special qualifications or a high page-ranking.

If you have a free product, like an eBook or some software, you can give away free downloads on a high-PR site. Just place an ad on the site with a link back to your website, where they can receive the free download. You can find these sites by googling phrases like “free content directory.”

There are plenty of ways to bring in traffic with search engines without paying hefty registration fees. Start searching today. Find the big sites and get your link out there!

You may use this article for reprint if it remains unaltered and includes the author information and resource box. - Isaiah Hull

When most people want to find something on the web, they use a search engine. Millions of searches are conducted every day on search engines such as: google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com and many others. Some people are looking for your website. So how do you capture people searching for what your site has to offer? Through techniques called search engine marketing (SEM).

This tutorial is foundational information for anyone looking to implement search engine marketing. This tutorial will also help you understand how the search engines work, what SEM is, and how it can help you get traffic.

What is a Search Engine?All search engines start with a “search box”, which issometimes the main focus of the site, e.g. google.com, dmoz.org, altavista.com; sometimes the “search box” is just one feature of a portal site, e.g. yahoo.com, msn.com, netscape.com. Just type in your search phrase and click the “search” button, and the search engine will return a listing of search engine result pages (SERPs). To generate SERPs the search engine compared your search phrase with information it has about various web sites and pages in its database and ranks them based on a “relevance” algorithm.

Search Engine ClassesTargeted audience, number of visitors, quality of search and professionalism is what determines a search engine’s class. Each search engine typically target specific audiences based on interest and location. World-class search engines look very professional, include virtually the entire web in their database, and return highly relevant search results quickly.

Most of us are familiar with the major general search engines; google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com. A general search engine includes all types of websites and as such are targeting a general audience. There are also the lesser known 2nd tier general search engines; zeal.com,ask.com,whatyouseek.com. The primary difference is that 2nd tier engines are lesser known and generate significantly less traffic.

There are also several non-general or targeted search engines that limit the types of websites they include in their database. Targeted search engines typically limit by location or by industry / content type or both. Most large metro areas will have local search engines that list local businesses and other sites of interest to people in that area. Some are general and some are industry specific, such as specificallylisting restaurants or art galleries.

Many other targeted search engines list sites from any location but only if they contain specific types of content. Most webmasters are familiar with webmaster tools search engines such as; webmasterworld.com, hotscripts.com, flashkit.com and more. There are niche SEs for practically any industry and interest.

Search Engine ModelsThere are two fundamentally different types of search engine back ends: site directories and spidering search engines. Site directory databases are built by a person manually inputting data about websites. Most directories include a site’s url, title, and description in their database. Some directories include more information, such as keywords, owner’s name, visitor rankings and so on. Some directories will allow you to control your website’s information yourself others rely on editors that write the information to conform to the directory standards.

It is important to note that most directories include directory listings as an alterative to the search box for finding websites. A directory listing uses hierarchal groupings from general to specific to categorize a site.

Spidering search engines take a very different approach. They automate the updating of information in their database by using robots to continually read web pages. A search engine robot/spider/crawler acts much like a web browser, except that instead of a human looking at the web pages, the robot parses the page and adds the page’s content it’s database.

Many of the larger search engines will have both a directory and spidering search engine, e.g. yahoo.com, google.com, and allow visitors to select which they want to search. Note that many search engines do not have their own search technology and are contracting services from elsewhere. For example, Google’s spider SE is their own, but their directory is and Open Directory; additionally aol.com and netscape.com both use Google’s spider SE for their results.

There are a few other search engine models of interest. There are some search engines that combine results from other engines such as dogpile.com and mamma.com. There are also search engines that add extra information to searches such as Amazon’s alexa.com, which uses Google’s backend but adds data from its search bar regarding tracking traffic to the site.

Getting InOne of the most important things to understand about the SE database models is how to get into their database and keep your listing updated. With a search directory, a submission needs to be done to provide the directory all the information needed for the listing. It is generally recommended that this be done by hand, either by you or a person familiar with directory submissions. There are many submission tools available that advertise they automate the submission process. This may be fine for smaller directories but for the major directories, manual submissions are worth the time.

Not all search directories are free; many charge a one-time or annual fee for review. Many of the free search directories have little quality control. For free directories you may have to submit your site several times before being accepted.

There are three different methods for getting into spidering search engines; free site submission, paid inclusion and links from other sites. Virtually all spidering SEs offer a free site submission. For most, you simply enter your url into a form and submit. Paid inclusion is normally not difficult, except for the credit card payment. For free site submission there is no quality control. The SE may send a spider to your site in the next few weeks, months or never. Typically with paid inclusion you will get a guarantee that the page you submitted will be included within a short amount of time. The other standard way to get included is to have links to your website from other web pages that are already in the SEs database. The SE spiders are always crawling the web and will eventually follow those links to find your site.

Once you are in a search engine database, you might change your site and need the search engine to update their database. Each directory handles this differently; generally each database will have a form for you to submit a change request. Spidering search engines will eventually find the change and add your updates automatically.

Getting High RankingsGetting into a search engine database is only the first step. Without other factors you will not rank in the top positions, a prerequisite for quality traffic. So how do you get top positions? You can pay for placement with sponsored links that is covered in the next section. To place well in the free, organic SERPs, you will need to perform search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization is one of the most complicated aspects of web development. Each search engine uses a different algorithm, using hundreds of factors, that they are constantly changing, and they carefully guard their algorithm as trade secrets. Thus no one outside of the search engines employ knows with 100% certainty the perfect way to optimize a site. However, many individuals called search engine optimizers have studied the art and derived set of techniques that have a track record for success.

In general, there are two areas to focus on for top rankings; on-page factors and linking. On-page factors mean placing your target keywords in the content of your site in the right places. The structure of and technologies used on your website also play a role in on-page factors. Linking, refers to how other website’s link to yours and how your site links internally.

Search Engine’s Marketing OfferingsSearch engines in the early days of the web were focused solely on serving the visiting searcher. They worked to capture as much of the web as possible in their database and provide fast, relevant searches. Many early website owners learned to reverse engineer the relevancy algorithms and to make their sites “search engine friendly” to get top rankings. They were the first search engine optimizers, manipulating the search engine’s natural or organic SERPs as a means of generating free web traffic.

Often times these optimized sites compromised the integrity of the SERPs and lowered the quality for the searcher. Search engines fought, and continue to fight, to maintain the quality of their results. Eventually, the search engines embraced the fact that they are an important means for marketing websites. Today most search engines offer an array of tools to balance website’s owners need to market while maintaining quality for the searcher.

You can generally break search engine marketing tools into free and for-pay. Realize these classifications are from the search engine’s point of view. Effort and expense is required to setup and maintain any search engine marketing campaign.

Organic rankings are still one of the most important ways to drive quality traffic. Search engines now seek to reward ethical, high-quality websites with top rankings and remove inappropriate “spam” websites. While organic rankings can produce continual free traffic, it takes time from an experienced individual to achieve optimum results. Additionally, organic placement offers no guarantees, it generally takes months to get listed and can be unpredictable once listed.

Some search engines offer services that add more control to your organic campaign. Most of these services will list / update your site faster or will guarantee that all essential content is listed. For integrity reasons, no major search engine offers higher organic rankings for a fee.

If you need top rankings quickly, pay-per-positioning (PPP) is the most popular way to go. PPP rankings appear in normal organic SERPs but are usually designated as “sponsored listings”. PPP listings use a bidding process to rank sites. If you are the top bidder, e.g. willing to pay the most per click on a given phrase, you will have top placement. The 2nd highest bidder is two; the next is 3 and so on. While most PPP works using this model, some search engines offer modifications such as Google’s AdWords where bid price and click-through rates are both factors for positioning.

Search Engines have many other marketing tools, such as search specific banner ads; listings on affiliate sites and more.

Getting StartedThe majority of websites have sub-optimal search engine marketing. Most sites have no effective search engine marketing and are continually missing out on valuable leads. Many other websites are too aggressive, wasting money on low value traffic or harming the functionality of their site due to over optimization. Too many sites are even paying money and receiving no results because they have trusted unethical or inexperienced search engine optimizers.

All SEM campaigns should start with a strategic evaluation of SEM opportunities based on return on investment (ROI). You need to assess how much each lead is worth for each keyword phrase and determine which SEM tools will achieve the best ROI for the phrase.

You also have to decide how much you want to do in-house vs. retaining an expert. A qualified expert will typically produce better results faster, but the high expenses may destroy the ROI. Often it is best to work with an expert as a team, the expert to develop the strategy and internal staff to perform implementation and ongoing management.

So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business. You may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination that will really impress your friends. Question is, is your new domain name going to help your business or hurt it?

What could be simpler than choosing a domain name right? Wrong. There are a number of things you need to consider and research before you register your favorite domain name.

First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?

A domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the internet. You see, all computers on the internet are actually referenced with what is called IP addresses. On the internet, IP addresses are four sets of numbers that serve like street addresses allowing two computers to talk over a network. An example of an IP address is the one for Google.com. It is 216.239.39.99. If you enter this IP address into the address bar of your browser it will bring you to Google’s home page in that very same way that typing www.google.com would get you there. Unfortunately, we humans have difficulty remembering our phone numbers let alone so many digits for all kinds of sites. That’s one of the main reasons domain names were invented.

Domain names make it easy for us humans to remember how to find a site. Most people know Google.com and anyone familiar with the internet knows that to reach Google, you simply type www.google.com in your address bar and you are transported to their website. The same goes for Disney.com, Microsoft.com, CNN.com, etc…

Now you would think that choosing a domain name would simply be a matter of choosing something that is unique and that people would remember. The problem with that approach is that most of us don’t have the money needed to turn our name into a brand name on the mass market. Most of us need to rely on our prospects reaching our website through other means. The best of these are search engines.

Choosing a good domain name for your site starts with the main keywords you have chosen to focus on for your website. Before you launch your business, you should conduct some preliminary research online to determine which keywords have the most traffic and the least number of other websites competing for that particular keyword. Some tools that help in this are the Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com. Both of these tools will give you a rough idea of how much traffic each of your chosen keywords will likely get each month. This helps to determine which keywords to focus on.

Should you choose a domain name that includes your main keywords?

In most cases, the answer is yes. Google and to some degree Yahoo both give you a small boost for your domain name. If your domain name happens to contain your targeted keywords, your domain name will help you in your quest for higher search engine rankings. Now if you do everything else wrong, having your main keywords in your domain name will not magically catapult you to the top of the listings. Many other parts of your site must be working for you as well. Other things you can do to improve rankings are beyond the scope of this article.

Choosing a keyword rich domain is a smart business move.

For some sites, it could be the edge they need to move up a few spots in the search engines. When choosing a keyword rich domain name, you may want to consider hyphens between your keywords. An example is cheap-airline-tickets.com. Current research trends for Google and Yahoo suggest that hyphens are the only way to separate keywords within a URL that will give you a rankings boost.

Why not simply choose your company name? Simple. Is your company a household name? Are you so dominant in a category that people have stopped referring to the generic name of your category and use your brand name like Kleenex has for tissue paper? If so, register your company name. If not, register a keyword rich domain wherever possible.

You may be thinking, “But I already own a domain name that is my company name. Should I go and register a new domain and point it to the same site? The short answer is no. Years ago, you could improve your rankings on search engines simply by setting up lots of doorway pages and having them all link back to your home page with all kinds of domain names. That tactic nowadays can backfire. You are better off optimizing individual pages within your existing website than you are creating a whole bunch of “fluff” sites just to increase rankings.

The technique I suggest above is really best suited for brand new business ventures. If you still have not registered your domain name for that special online business you are about to start, then make it keyword rich wherever possible. If you have already launched your business, you’ll just have to take advantage of this information next time you start another online venture.