A number 1 ranking in Google's search results for the right keyword can mean a lot of visitors and a lot of sales. That's why so many people want to be on Google's first result page.
Unfortunately, many people still don't know what it takes to convince Google that your website is more relevant than the millions of other websites on the Internet. There are four simple rules that will help you to get your website on Google's first result page:
Rule #1: Don't try to fool Google
Google wants to return the most relevant web pages for a search query. They want to provide the best answer to a search query.
If you try to get a high ranking for a keyword for which your web page isn't really relevant then you won't get good results. Actually, you might be accused of spamming. If your website consists just of ads and affiliate links then it will be extremely difficult to get good rankings.
Make sure that your web pages will answer the questions of people who search for your keyword. The better your web pages match the interest of the web searchers the better rankings you will get. It takes some time to create good content but it will pay off in the long run.
Rule #2: Your web pages must show Google that they are relevant
A website about used car parts cannot get high rankings for a keyword such as "brain surgery". A high ranking for the keyword "used car parts" would be very beneficial to that site.
The problem is that Google must be able to find out that your web page is relevant for the keyword "used car parts". For that reason, you have to optimize your web pages. Optimizing your web pages simply means that you make it easy for Google to find out what your website is about.
When Google visits your web pages, it will analyze the following elements of your web pages:
* The URL structure
* The title tag and the meta tags
* The body text
* Headline tags
* Image alt attributes
* Your site architecture and the internal linking structure of your site
* The outbound links
* Many other factors in the HTML code of your web pages
Each element can contain your keyword and show Google that your website is relevant for that keyword. This doesn't mean that you can simply insert your keyword in these tags and that's it.
You can also over-optimize a website and that can get your website banned from Google's search results. It's important that you optimize the right elements and that you insert your keywords in the right frequency. Analyzing dozens of web page elements can be very time consuming. IBP's top 10 optimizer can help you to do this quickly and easily.
Rule #3: Other websites must confirm that your web pages are relevant
In addition to optimized web page content, Google heavily relies on the links from other websites to your site. Basically, the other websites have to confirm that your website is relevant for a special keyword.
The more websites link to your website, the more visible it will be to Google. The more other websites use a special keyword as the linked text in the links to your website, the more important is your website for that keyword.
A web page that has been optimized for the keyword "used cars" can also get high rankings for the keyword "pre-owned cars" if enough websites link with that text to the page.
It is also important that the other web pages are related your site. If a website that is about vintage cars links to your "used car parts" website then this will have a bigger effect on your search engine rankings than a link from a candy shop website.
A link from a web page that only links to car related web pages is also more valuable than a link from a web page that links to all kind of pages. Getting the right links is crucial if you want to get on Google's first result page. IBP's link builder helps you to get these links.
Rule #4: Your website must have a clean history
The age of your domain and its history will also be considered by Google. A domain name that has been around for a long time will get high rankings more easily.
However, if your domain name has been used by spammers before, you might still suffer from the ranking penalties that have been applied to the previous content.
If you follow the rules above and change your web pages accordingly, your website will get top rankings on Google. It cannot be done over night but it's definitely something that can be done within a few weeks if you do the right things.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Dominate Google Rankings Quick and Easy
Does dominating Google rankings quick and easy sound too good to be true? It really isn't. Following are a bunch of surefire SEO tips that have kept hundreds of my clients' sites on top of Google for years, with new ones every month.
There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name.
Domain Names
Age:Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at:
http://www.AllWhoIs.com
Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site.
TLD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best.
Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer.
Dashes: Having a dash in your domain name might be bad for branding, but it can open whole new doors of opportuníty for your search engine optimization efforts. You see Google treats a dash as a null value (almost like a space) and can take them or leave them with equal indifference. So, if your main keyword phrase is a few words long, you can place a dash between each word. If that's taken, just try one dash separating the first and second words but leave the second and third word grouped together. You get the idea. Just keep trying combinations until you have one that works and scoop up the domain. Even if you sit on it for six months, you'll have it when you want it.
Now on to the next big item; keywords. The best keyword embedded domain name in the world will mean little if nobody is searching for that keyword. That said; let's find the best keywords possible for your site. Here's how...
Keywords:
Keywords in Demand: Let's snoop into Google's keyword database and find some winners. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for. Now click on the top header link to sort by desired search volume to see which words get the most searches.
Go Long: And don't be afraid to use longer keywords as long as they get plenty of searches. Not only will this narrow the tasks of your workload for actual optimization but it will open all kinds of new options for finding great (dash laden) domain names and even help cut back on your competition.
Narrow Your Field: Now take the top ten or so relevant keywords and phrases and líst them in order of "Approximate Monthly Searches Performed." You might want to paste the keyword into one column of a spreadsheet and the number of searches into the next column. This next part takes a bit of math so we might as well let Excel do it.
Competition:
Competition: Less is Better: "Less is better." Well that's the understatement of the year. But how do you know how much competition you will be up against? It's easy. Simple division does the trick nicely. Here's how...
Google It: Go to Google and paste in your first keyword phrase. Look in the upper right area of the page and see how many pages you will be competing against if you try to optimize for that keyword (Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for "keyword".) Now record that number in the cell to the right of "searches performed." You can go ahead and do the same for each keyword. When you have all the info you need have Excel divide the number of "competing pages" by the number of "searches performed." The lower the resulting ratio; the better your chances. Your best bet is to take the lowest ratio number with the highest number of "searches performed." This is your optimal target.
Even More: But we're not done yet! Now find the next best two runnerup keywords and write them down in order of importance. We'll need them soon.
Content:
The King Lives!: You're probably sick of hearing it but content really is king. Developing search engine friendly, well optimized content (for REAL people) is key to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person thanks to its natural text algorithm. So keyword spamming and robotic writing do not work with Google. But here's what DOES work...
Keep it Real: Call a close fríend and tell him or her exactly what you want to tell your web visitors. Then as quick as you can write it down, as close to "word for word" as you can remember. Just let the words flow. You can fix spelling and grammar later.
Fitting In: Now, with your líst of three keywords, go back through your text and fit your most important keyword as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible. Now go ahead and place your number two keyword someplace else toward the beginning of your first paragraph. Your third keyword should go into the beginning of the second paragraph if possible.
Now use only one of your keywords for each of the next three paragraphs. Try to make them fit naturally toward the beginning sentence or two of each paragraph.
Throw in a Curve: Now use a reverse order for the very last paragraph. Put your least important keyword (number 3 pick) at the beginning of the paragraph and your best keyword at the end. This shows consistency (at least as far as Google is concerned.)
Last but not least, do not repeat any keyword more than three or four times on a page. I stick with a 3 x 3 method and it works great (3 keywords each mentioned 3 times over the course of about 9 paragraphs.)
Getting Links and Monitoring Your Site:
Inbound Links: Having high quality inbound links can account for more than 75% of your search engine ranking success. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top. At the same time you need to monitor your progress and your site's status (how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you not just where you are - but where you are likely to be. In the old days, we had to do all of the link work and monitoring by hand. And believe me, it took a long time (I averaged about 16 hours per week; per site!). My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do the tough and repetitive work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it's the best money you'll ever spend.
I started out with WebPosition Pro and used it for a couple years but switched to another tool that has automated linking, which I find to be the most time-consuming and now most important aspect of SEO on Google. This was probably a good call since Web Position was recently banned by Google for abuse.
Anyway, here are my results for both...
SE0elite Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)
Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks - Mostly 1's and 2's.
Best Features: Finds best link partners; Automates link process; Finds "Google "authority sites."
WebPosition Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)
Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3's and 4's.
Best Features: Site Monitoring (recently banned by Google); Great reporting; Site Critic
Now you're ready to dominate Google. Good luck!
About The Author
Michael Small is the founder of the free SEO (search engine optimization) blog SEOpartner.com and author of a dozen search engine optimization books and whitepapers including the SEO Notebook, available at theSeoNotebook.com .
There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name.
Domain Names
Age:Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at:
http://www.AllWhoIs.com
Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site.
TLD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best.
Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer.
Dashes: Having a dash in your domain name might be bad for branding, but it can open whole new doors of opportuníty for your search engine optimization efforts. You see Google treats a dash as a null value (almost like a space) and can take them or leave them with equal indifference. So, if your main keyword phrase is a few words long, you can place a dash between each word. If that's taken, just try one dash separating the first and second words but leave the second and third word grouped together. You get the idea. Just keep trying combinations until you have one that works and scoop up the domain. Even if you sit on it for six months, you'll have it when you want it.
Now on to the next big item; keywords. The best keyword embedded domain name in the world will mean little if nobody is searching for that keyword. That said; let's find the best keywords possible for your site. Here's how...
Keywords:
Keywords in Demand: Let's snoop into Google's keyword database and find some winners. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for. Now click on the top header link to sort by desired search volume to see which words get the most searches.
Go Long: And don't be afraid to use longer keywords as long as they get plenty of searches. Not only will this narrow the tasks of your workload for actual optimization but it will open all kinds of new options for finding great (dash laden) domain names and even help cut back on your competition.
Narrow Your Field: Now take the top ten or so relevant keywords and phrases and líst them in order of "Approximate Monthly Searches Performed." You might want to paste the keyword into one column of a spreadsheet and the number of searches into the next column. This next part takes a bit of math so we might as well let Excel do it.
Competition:
Competition: Less is Better: "Less is better." Well that's the understatement of the year. But how do you know how much competition you will be up against? It's easy. Simple division does the trick nicely. Here's how...
Google It: Go to Google and paste in your first keyword phrase. Look in the upper right area of the page and see how many pages you will be competing against if you try to optimize for that keyword (Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for "keyword".) Now record that number in the cell to the right of "searches performed." You can go ahead and do the same for each keyword. When you have all the info you need have Excel divide the number of "competing pages" by the number of "searches performed." The lower the resulting ratio; the better your chances. Your best bet is to take the lowest ratio number with the highest number of "searches performed." This is your optimal target.
Even More: But we're not done yet! Now find the next best two runnerup keywords and write them down in order of importance. We'll need them soon.
Content:
The King Lives!: You're probably sick of hearing it but content really is king. Developing search engine friendly, well optimized content (for REAL people) is key to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person thanks to its natural text algorithm. So keyword spamming and robotic writing do not work with Google. But here's what DOES work...
Keep it Real: Call a close fríend and tell him or her exactly what you want to tell your web visitors. Then as quick as you can write it down, as close to "word for word" as you can remember. Just let the words flow. You can fix spelling and grammar later.
Fitting In: Now, with your líst of three keywords, go back through your text and fit your most important keyword as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible. Now go ahead and place your number two keyword someplace else toward the beginning of your first paragraph. Your third keyword should go into the beginning of the second paragraph if possible.
Now use only one of your keywords for each of the next three paragraphs. Try to make them fit naturally toward the beginning sentence or two of each paragraph.
Throw in a Curve: Now use a reverse order for the very last paragraph. Put your least important keyword (number 3 pick) at the beginning of the paragraph and your best keyword at the end. This shows consistency (at least as far as Google is concerned.)
Last but not least, do not repeat any keyword more than three or four times on a page. I stick with a 3 x 3 method and it works great (3 keywords each mentioned 3 times over the course of about 9 paragraphs.)
Getting Links and Monitoring Your Site:
Inbound Links: Having high quality inbound links can account for more than 75% of your search engine ranking success. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top. At the same time you need to monitor your progress and your site's status (how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you not just where you are - but where you are likely to be. In the old days, we had to do all of the link work and monitoring by hand. And believe me, it took a long time (I averaged about 16 hours per week; per site!). My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do the tough and repetitive work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it's the best money you'll ever spend.
I started out with WebPosition Pro and used it for a couple years but switched to another tool that has automated linking, which I find to be the most time-consuming and now most important aspect of SEO on Google. This was probably a good call since Web Position was recently banned by Google for abuse.
Anyway, here are my results for both...
SE0elite Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)
Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks - Mostly 1's and 2's.
Best Features: Finds best link partners; Automates link process; Finds "Google "authority sites."
WebPosition Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)
Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3's and 4's.
Best Features: Site Monitoring (recently banned by Google); Great reporting; Site Critic
Now you're ready to dominate Google. Good luck!
About The Author
Michael Small is the founder of the free SEO (search engine optimization) blog SEOpartner.com and author of a dozen search engine optimization books and whitepapers including the SEO Notebook, available at theSeoNotebook.com .
Using Internal Linking To Get Better Search Engine Exposure
Anyone who runs a website should be aware of a few basic search engine linking tactics. Used properly you can interlink your website so that Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines will rate you higher in both page rank and search engine results for your keyword/key phrase niche terms. If you're unaware of what internal linking means, here's a basic overview.
Internal linking involves the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Internal linking is very important because it allows the search engine spiders, those automated bots that scour the Internet looking for information, to find all of the pages on your website. In comparison, external linking are links that are on your website which link out to other websites, and there are specific tactics for those as well. In this article, however, we're going to cover a few simple tactics and strategies to get your internal linking up to speed.
When you're developing your website, you will tend to put a whole lot of pages of similar information tailored to a specific niche or subject that you want to convey to your visitors. You probably will have information, news, how-to articles, tips and sales pages, where informed visitors can buy your products or services. Your internal linking structure will not only benefit your visitors, but it will help you rank better with the search engines as well.
Having a good navigation system makes Google and Yahoo happy, and in turn, they will reward you because you are doing things to improve the visitors' website experience. So, for example, if you have an internal linking structure that is seamless, intuitive and allows your visitors to quickly find what they're looking for, search engines will give you more page rank, index more of your web pages and return higher search results for user queries.
Why? You have taken the time to help your website visitors have an excellent customer experience. As a result, your tactics and strategies should be geared towards giving arriving visitors not only the information that they seek, but have it presented in a way that they, and search engine bots, will love.
So how do you accomplish this? There are a few basic tactics, you can use that will improve your internal linking structure right off the bat.
Number 1 - use the rel="nofollow" HTML tag for pages that you don't want to pass rank to Google. For example, let's say you had a three-page site. Now, we all know that most people have more than three pages for an entire website; however, this will make it easier to follow.
The first page is your home page which gets 100% of the search engine ranking and love. The second page is an information or information/sales page, with the third being a checkout page. If you don't use the nofollow tag on one of the pages, both pages will be passed half of 50% each for the link from the home page. So, they'll each get 25% of the ranking and love passed through from the spiders. The search engine spiders will naturally give your home page the best page rank and index it first. Say, you want to link to the information/sales page and make sure that a lot of people find it, because the information page is what will sell your product or service. For ranking and indexing purposes, you consider the checkout page as useless, so you don't care if the search engines find it or not. In fact, you'd prefer it if they didn't index it all. What do you do?
When you link from your home page, you can do one of two things.
Link to the information page only from the home page. Link to both pages but use the no follow tag to the checkout page. In that way, if someone arrives who is already sold on your product, they can go directly to your checkout page and buy the product. However, if it is an uninformed visitor, they can clickthrough to your information/sales page or they click on the indexed Google or Yahoo link that's been picked up by the spider.
Two things happen with scenario #2. You give the customer/visitor the option. Because, the search engine is applying SEO love to one page and not two, the page rank passed will not be 25% and 25% for each page, but 0% for the checkout page and 50% for the information page which needs it. You maintain the search engine indexing and page rank for those pages that are important.
This is just one thing that needs to be considered when setting up your website. Professional SEO firms use this algorithm in order to get specific pages on your website to rank higher and return results in the search engine results pages that are much higher than other pages like your checkout pages which you don't care about.
Number 2 - Add extra links in your navigation area or footer area that link to important pages and main sections on your website. This extremely easy tactic is often overlooked by many websites, but it does return very good results for deep linking, and most SEO firms will review your footer links when they take you on as a candidate in order to utilize that other form of deep linking.
The reason for this is that so many people forget to do it, and many Web designers add really cool buttons, images and all kinds of funky image stuff that do nothing to improve your page rank or your results in a search engines. You should remember that search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully.
These are only two of the tactics that are covered when you hire a professional, savvy SEO firm to optimize your web layout and linking structure.
About The Author
RZ Concepts a search engine marketing company specializing in website promotíon and internet marketing.
Internal linking involves the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Internal linking is very important because it allows the search engine spiders, those automated bots that scour the Internet looking for information, to find all of the pages on your website. In comparison, external linking are links that are on your website which link out to other websites, and there are specific tactics for those as well. In this article, however, we're going to cover a few simple tactics and strategies to get your internal linking up to speed.
When you're developing your website, you will tend to put a whole lot of pages of similar information tailored to a specific niche or subject that you want to convey to your visitors. You probably will have information, news, how-to articles, tips and sales pages, where informed visitors can buy your products or services. Your internal linking structure will not only benefit your visitors, but it will help you rank better with the search engines as well.
Having a good navigation system makes Google and Yahoo happy, and in turn, they will reward you because you are doing things to improve the visitors' website experience. So, for example, if you have an internal linking structure that is seamless, intuitive and allows your visitors to quickly find what they're looking for, search engines will give you more page rank, index more of your web pages and return higher search results for user queries.
Why? You have taken the time to help your website visitors have an excellent customer experience. As a result, your tactics and strategies should be geared towards giving arriving visitors not only the information that they seek, but have it presented in a way that they, and search engine bots, will love.
So how do you accomplish this? There are a few basic tactics, you can use that will improve your internal linking structure right off the bat.
Number 1 - use the rel="nofollow" HTML tag for pages that you don't want to pass rank to Google. For example, let's say you had a three-page site. Now, we all know that most people have more than three pages for an entire website; however, this will make it easier to follow.
The first page is your home page which gets 100% of the search engine ranking and love. The second page is an information or information/sales page, with the third being a checkout page. If you don't use the nofollow tag on one of the pages, both pages will be passed half of 50% each for the link from the home page. So, they'll each get 25% of the ranking and love passed through from the spiders. The search engine spiders will naturally give your home page the best page rank and index it first. Say, you want to link to the information/sales page and make sure that a lot of people find it, because the information page is what will sell your product or service. For ranking and indexing purposes, you consider the checkout page as useless, so you don't care if the search engines find it or not. In fact, you'd prefer it if they didn't index it all. What do you do?
When you link from your home page, you can do one of two things.
Link to the information page only from the home page. Link to both pages but use the no follow tag to the checkout page. In that way, if someone arrives who is already sold on your product, they can go directly to your checkout page and buy the product. However, if it is an uninformed visitor, they can clickthrough to your information/sales page or they click on the indexed Google or Yahoo link that's been picked up by the spider.
Two things happen with scenario #2. You give the customer/visitor the option. Because, the search engine is applying SEO love to one page and not two, the page rank passed will not be 25% and 25% for each page, but 0% for the checkout page and 50% for the information page which needs it. You maintain the search engine indexing and page rank for those pages that are important.
This is just one thing that needs to be considered when setting up your website. Professional SEO firms use this algorithm in order to get specific pages on your website to rank higher and return results in the search engine results pages that are much higher than other pages like your checkout pages which you don't care about.
Number 2 - Add extra links in your navigation area or footer area that link to important pages and main sections on your website. This extremely easy tactic is often overlooked by many websites, but it does return very good results for deep linking, and most SEO firms will review your footer links when they take you on as a candidate in order to utilize that other form of deep linking.
The reason for this is that so many people forget to do it, and many Web designers add really cool buttons, images and all kinds of funky image stuff that do nothing to improve your page rank or your results in a search engines. You should remember that search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully.
These are only two of the tactics that are covered when you hire a professional, savvy SEO firm to optimize your web layout and linking structure.
About The Author
RZ Concepts a search engine marketing company specializing in website promotíon and internet marketing.
10 Quick Tips For Making Your Large Graphics Load Faster
There's nothing worse then having to sit and wait while the images are loading on your webpages. We've become a society of convenience with microwaves, instant soup and lightening fast servers. We want things in the blink of an eye.
Your visitors expect nothing less when they land on your site. You've only got a couple of seconds before they hit that back button.... and they are gone... to a faster site that will give them the information they want instantly!
Here are 10 quick tips for decreasing the load time on your graphics.
1. Use Height and Width (Size) Attributes.
Example: width="144" height="259"
Every time a browser loads a webpage it looks for the the height and width attributes (size) of each image in your html code so it knows how to lay out the text and the graphics on that page.
This all takes place instantly behind the scenes. When the proper attributes are used, the browser loads the text before the graphics. This is good. It's faster this way.
If you don't use the attributes, it causes a delay waiting for the browser to download the images first and then lay out the text. The browser has to play catchup. It can't load text onto the screen until it has figured out the exact size of the graphics.
Make sure to use attributes on all your graphics, even those little tiny ones, like buttons and bullets.
2. Size Your Image Correctly
Lets say you're trying to place an image with a file size of 30k and height & width attributes of 300 pixels wide by 400 pixels high in a spot on your webpage that is designed to hold an image sized at 200 pixels wide by 300 pixels high.
To accomplish this you've changed the height & width attributes in your html code to 200 x 300.
You may think that since the image will be displayed at the lower size (200x300), the file size will be smaller and the image will load faster.
Not true. Regardless of what size attributes you use, that file size is still 30k and it will load at the same speed any other 30k image does.
Use an image editor to change the size of the image to the correct dimensions first. Then use the correct size attributes in your html. By resizing the image before you plug it into your html code, the file size will be smaller and the browser will load it quicker.
3. Animations
Animations are attention getters, but they quickly become annoying. They also slow down the loading of your page.
Limit the number of animated graphics on your page and set your annimation at a specific number of repetitions rather than allowing them to loop endlessly.
4. Use the Correct Image Format
If your image is simple with a small number of colors try converting it to a gif format. Good choices for this are clipart, bullets, buttons, charts and such.
A word to the wise. Not all images are suited for the gif format. Complex images, photos or those with enhancements such as reflections and drop shadows don't display well in this format.
The jpg format is suitable for complex images with lots of color variations. A good example of this is a photograph.
The png format can be used for either. The high end png format (png-24) produces a beautiful transparent image and maintains any enhancements you've included. The file sizes are generally higher so if you're at all concerned about load time, you may not want to consider the png format unless you have the software and skills to slice your images. (See Tip #5)
5. Slice Those Images
Image slicing is a technique used to breakdown a large image into smaller pieces to make it load faster.
I use the image slicer feature in Photoshop but there are also many options available to do this if you don't use Photoshop.
Search for "Image Splitter" - without quotes in your favorite search engine for líst of resources for slicing images.
6. Limit the Number of Graphics you Place on Each Page.
If your pages are loading too slow, consider removing some of the images. Keep only those that absolutely necessary.
7. Use Thumbnails
Use a java script to display a thumbnail and load the larger image only when the reader rolls their mouse over the thumbnail.
I use this technique when I have a lot of images I want to put on one page, but the page would be too big if I included them all at normal size.
I got this script from Dynamic Drive. As long as you keep their copyright notice in the html code you can use their scripts for free.
8. Browser Cache
Graphics and text are stored in what's called cache on your hard drive. This makes it easier and quicker to load files that are displayed in your browser. It loads them from the cache rather than over the net each and every time, if it's available.
To improve your visitors experience, take advantage of their browser cache. The best way to do this is by not putting identical images in more than one folder, subfolder or directory on your server. If the browser always calls the image from the same folder, it loads much quicker.
9. Optimize Your Images
Optimizing your images is a great way to reduce the load time. I generally optimize images I make for my clients to about 60%. I've found this to be the magic number that reduces the file to a reasonable size yet doesn't compromise the quality of the image.
I caution you on optimizing further. Greater percentages of optimization may leave your images blotchy with speckled blocks of color. It will often make your colors look washed-out and you may lose some of the fine details.
10. Progressive Optimization
A sneaky little trick I've learned is to select progressive settings when you're optimizing your images.
This doesn't really make your images load faster, however, they do load first at a very low resolution and continue to load progressively, with more detail, until they are fully loaded.
Your visitor at least has something to view and content to read while the loading process finishes up. This technique works with JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF 89 file types.
In Conclusion
As we progress into the Internet future there will come a time when our connection speeds are so fast the speed at which webpages load won't be an issue. News information and graphics will flash across your screen at record breaking speeds. We'll get there. Maybe not in the next few years but eventually we will. History has already taught us that the technology is here. It's only a matter of time before we see it.
But until that happens how quickly our webpages load is something we need to take responsibility for.
About The Author
Graphic Designer Heather Colman helps virtual assistants, coaches, and other professionals online bring visual impact and depth to their products with custom 3d images and website graphics. Visit her site at: CustomDesignGraphics.com .
Your visitors expect nothing less when they land on your site. You've only got a couple of seconds before they hit that back button.... and they are gone... to a faster site that will give them the information they want instantly!
Here are 10 quick tips for decreasing the load time on your graphics.
1. Use Height and Width (Size) Attributes.
Example: width="144" height="259"
Every time a browser loads a webpage it looks for the the height and width attributes (size) of each image in your html code so it knows how to lay out the text and the graphics on that page.
This all takes place instantly behind the scenes. When the proper attributes are used, the browser loads the text before the graphics. This is good. It's faster this way.
If you don't use the attributes, it causes a delay waiting for the browser to download the images first and then lay out the text. The browser has to play catchup. It can't load text onto the screen until it has figured out the exact size of the graphics.
Make sure to use attributes on all your graphics, even those little tiny ones, like buttons and bullets.
2. Size Your Image Correctly
Lets say you're trying to place an image with a file size of 30k and height & width attributes of 300 pixels wide by 400 pixels high in a spot on your webpage that is designed to hold an image sized at 200 pixels wide by 300 pixels high.
To accomplish this you've changed the height & width attributes in your html code to 200 x 300.
You may think that since the image will be displayed at the lower size (200x300), the file size will be smaller and the image will load faster.
Not true. Regardless of what size attributes you use, that file size is still 30k and it will load at the same speed any other 30k image does.
Use an image editor to change the size of the image to the correct dimensions first. Then use the correct size attributes in your html. By resizing the image before you plug it into your html code, the file size will be smaller and the browser will load it quicker.
3. Animations
Animations are attention getters, but they quickly become annoying. They also slow down the loading of your page.
Limit the number of animated graphics on your page and set your annimation at a specific number of repetitions rather than allowing them to loop endlessly.
4. Use the Correct Image Format
If your image is simple with a small number of colors try converting it to a gif format. Good choices for this are clipart, bullets, buttons, charts and such.
A word to the wise. Not all images are suited for the gif format. Complex images, photos or those with enhancements such as reflections and drop shadows don't display well in this format.
The jpg format is suitable for complex images with lots of color variations. A good example of this is a photograph.
The png format can be used for either. The high end png format (png-24) produces a beautiful transparent image and maintains any enhancements you've included. The file sizes are generally higher so if you're at all concerned about load time, you may not want to consider the png format unless you have the software and skills to slice your images. (See Tip #5)
5. Slice Those Images
Image slicing is a technique used to breakdown a large image into smaller pieces to make it load faster.
I use the image slicer feature in Photoshop but there are also many options available to do this if you don't use Photoshop.
Search for "Image Splitter" - without quotes in your favorite search engine for líst of resources for slicing images.
6. Limit the Number of Graphics you Place on Each Page.
If your pages are loading too slow, consider removing some of the images. Keep only those that absolutely necessary.
7. Use Thumbnails
Use a java script to display a thumbnail and load the larger image only when the reader rolls their mouse over the thumbnail.
I use this technique when I have a lot of images I want to put on one page, but the page would be too big if I included them all at normal size.
I got this script from Dynamic Drive. As long as you keep their copyright notice in the html code you can use their scripts for free.
8. Browser Cache
Graphics and text are stored in what's called cache on your hard drive. This makes it easier and quicker to load files that are displayed in your browser. It loads them from the cache rather than over the net each and every time, if it's available.
To improve your visitors experience, take advantage of their browser cache. The best way to do this is by not putting identical images in more than one folder, subfolder or directory on your server. If the browser always calls the image from the same folder, it loads much quicker.
9. Optimize Your Images
Optimizing your images is a great way to reduce the load time. I generally optimize images I make for my clients to about 60%. I've found this to be the magic number that reduces the file to a reasonable size yet doesn't compromise the quality of the image.
I caution you on optimizing further. Greater percentages of optimization may leave your images blotchy with speckled blocks of color. It will often make your colors look washed-out and you may lose some of the fine details.
10. Progressive Optimization
A sneaky little trick I've learned is to select progressive settings when you're optimizing your images.
This doesn't really make your images load faster, however, they do load first at a very low resolution and continue to load progressively, with more detail, until they are fully loaded.
Your visitor at least has something to view and content to read while the loading process finishes up. This technique works with JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF 89 file types.
In Conclusion
As we progress into the Internet future there will come a time when our connection speeds are so fast the speed at which webpages load won't be an issue. News information and graphics will flash across your screen at record breaking speeds. We'll get there. Maybe not in the next few years but eventually we will. History has already taught us that the technology is here. It's only a matter of time before we see it.
But until that happens how quickly our webpages load is something we need to take responsibility for.
About The Author
Graphic Designer Heather Colman helps virtual assistants, coaches, and other professionals online bring visual impact and depth to their products with custom 3d images and website graphics. Visit her site at: CustomDesignGraphics.com .
The 3 Types of Website Traffic
Where does traffic come from? Now I'm not talking about that stuff we all get stuck in during rush hour. Website traffic is essential, if you have no traffic to your website you are not going to get anyone buying your products or reading your articles. Traffic is one of the key components of your website and is available in these three forms.
1. Pay For It.
You can buy traffic typically using what is known as Pay Per Click advertising. The major names in this market are Google and their AdWords program and Yahoo Network Sponsored Search. There are many smaller companies around also but they all follow the same premise.
You create your account, grab a bunch of keywords and create your adverts. You can define the amount you want to spend per click or per day, what geographical areas you want your adverts to appear in and even what time they should appear.
When someone types one of your keywords into for example Google your advert will be displayed down the right hand side of the natural search results. If the searcher then chooses to click on your advert and gets forwarded to your website you will get charged for that click.
The price you pay for each individual click depends on a variety of conditions such as how many other people are competing on that keyword. The more competition the more it costs to be higher up the ranks. The position you want to occupy. The percentage of people who click on your advert, the list goes on.
Pay Per Click advertising can be very successful but has a steep learning curve, it is essential that you do lots of research into your chosen Pay Per Click vender and in the niche you are in.
2. Borrow It.
This option is not for everyone, but in certain niches it can be effective. The first method of borrowing traffic is what is called link exchange. This is where you put links to another website on your site and they put links back to you on theirs. This can be beneficial as you can get traffic from a more successful website reasonably quickly. However this traffic is not always targeted.
The second option in the affiliate marketing world is called a joint venture or a JP. This is essentially where you would contact another marketer or company who had products that complements yours. If they are interested they may send a mailing out to their list or put an entry in their blog alerting their visitors about you and your relevant products.
The key things to remember about borrowing traffic is that you have to give something in return. This can make it tricky when targeting very successful websites.
3. Create It.
Creating your own traffic is one of the best ways to start bringing people into your website. There are literally hundreds of ways to start creating your traffic but I'm just going to tell you about two of the most popular.
Articles are a great way of generating traffic. You can write your articles about your chosen niche, offering advice, definitions, explanations, news, reviews just to name a few. Once you have created your articles you can put them on your website or blog as content. You can also upload them to article directories or even assemble a few of them into a white paper or ebook to give away to visitors.
Video is currently the big thing on the internet world. Everywhere you look there are videos for everything. 50% of all web traffic is video and YouTube alone receives 12.5% of all the traffic out there. YouTube has made it possible for anyone to upload their videos for the whole world to see. Just as you can create an article about anything you can do the same thing with video. The best option is to do both: Create it in print and create it in video.
I wish you all the best of success.
About the Author: Mark Voce - I hope you found this article helpful. Check out my blog to get more advice, tips, secrets and the latest news on Google AdWords and Internet Marketing.
1. Pay For It.
You can buy traffic typically using what is known as Pay Per Click advertising. The major names in this market are Google and their AdWords program and Yahoo Network Sponsored Search. There are many smaller companies around also but they all follow the same premise.
You create your account, grab a bunch of keywords and create your adverts. You can define the amount you want to spend per click or per day, what geographical areas you want your adverts to appear in and even what time they should appear.
When someone types one of your keywords into for example Google your advert will be displayed down the right hand side of the natural search results. If the searcher then chooses to click on your advert and gets forwarded to your website you will get charged for that click.
The price you pay for each individual click depends on a variety of conditions such as how many other people are competing on that keyword. The more competition the more it costs to be higher up the ranks. The position you want to occupy. The percentage of people who click on your advert, the list goes on.
Pay Per Click advertising can be very successful but has a steep learning curve, it is essential that you do lots of research into your chosen Pay Per Click vender and in the niche you are in.
2. Borrow It.
This option is not for everyone, but in certain niches it can be effective. The first method of borrowing traffic is what is called link exchange. This is where you put links to another website on your site and they put links back to you on theirs. This can be beneficial as you can get traffic from a more successful website reasonably quickly. However this traffic is not always targeted.
The second option in the affiliate marketing world is called a joint venture or a JP. This is essentially where you would contact another marketer or company who had products that complements yours. If they are interested they may send a mailing out to their list or put an entry in their blog alerting their visitors about you and your relevant products.
The key things to remember about borrowing traffic is that you have to give something in return. This can make it tricky when targeting very successful websites.
3. Create It.
Creating your own traffic is one of the best ways to start bringing people into your website. There are literally hundreds of ways to start creating your traffic but I'm just going to tell you about two of the most popular.
Articles are a great way of generating traffic. You can write your articles about your chosen niche, offering advice, definitions, explanations, news, reviews just to name a few. Once you have created your articles you can put them on your website or blog as content. You can also upload them to article directories or even assemble a few of them into a white paper or ebook to give away to visitors.
Video is currently the big thing on the internet world. Everywhere you look there are videos for everything. 50% of all web traffic is video and YouTube alone receives 12.5% of all the traffic out there. YouTube has made it possible for anyone to upload their videos for the whole world to see. Just as you can create an article about anything you can do the same thing with video. The best option is to do both: Create it in print and create it in video.
I wish you all the best of success.
About the Author: Mark Voce - I hope you found this article helpful. Check out my blog to get more advice, tips, secrets and the latest news on Google AdWords and Internet Marketing.
10 Ways to Drive Massive Traffic to Your Website
Targeted traffíc is the lifeblood of any successful business. In this article, I'm going to show you how to get laser targeted traffíc in just a few simple steps.
1. Article Marketing - One of the best ways to drive targeted traffíc to your website is through the use of article marketing. This is one of the oldest techniques for generating traffic, but it's still one of the best.
Once you have written your article, you can then submít it to some of the top article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp. For a listing of the top article directories online, go to...
MasonWorld.com
You can also publish your website to Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, HubPages, Zimbio, and Gather.com.
For a complete listing of Web 2.0 sites, go to...
Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant
Article marketing is even more powerful when you submit exclusive articles to bloggers and owners of newsletters. This technique has sent me thousands of visitors with a single article. The key is to find the right distribution outlets.
Just imagine if you spend just one hour each day writing and distributing one article. In three months you would have 100 articles all sending you traffic on a daily basis.
So get out there and start syndicating your articles, submitting guests posts, and writing for online newsletters.
2. Viral Ebooks - Why not bundle your articles together and create a viral ebook? Giving away free ebooks is one of the best ways to generate traffic online. It's also one of the best ways to build your mailing líst.
You can submit your PDF ebooks to:
Scribd
eSnips
DocStoc
Calameo
Issuu
Yudu
FreeIQ , and
ButterflyReports
For a complete líst of ebook directories you can submit to, go to Free Ebook Directories .
Quick Tip: You can also convert your ebooks to exe files and submít them to all the different software directories online. You can convert your ebooks using a free piece of software called WebsiteZip Packer .
3. Blogging - Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business. Blogging is a great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals. A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a particular subject. They are then posted together on on blog - called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted.
This creates an excellent opportuníty to get your blog posts shared on other blogs.
There are a number of benefits to participating in blog carnivals. Not only will you generate extra traffic, but it also provides you with quality backlinks and an excellent opportuníty to connect with other bloggers.
To submit your article to a blog carnival, go to Blog Carnival - Blog Communities Publishing Magazines . For extra exposure, submit to multiple blog carnivals. Just make sure they're all relevant to your topic.
This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is one of the biggest factors when it comes to ranking high in Google.
5. Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites.
Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest ways to get extra traffic and links coming into your blog. Social bookmarking allows Internet users to save and organize bookmarks to a public website, tag them with keywords, share them with others, and browse what others have bookmarked.
Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Digg are just a few of the social bookmarking sites you can use to maximize your exposure.
You can do a semi-automated submission to over 50 social bookmarking sites at AutoPoster.com
You can also encourage your blog readers to bookmark your posts as well with a Wordpress plugin called ShareThis.
6. Ustream.tv - Ustream allows you to create your very own tv station on the Web. However, it's better than TV because it's a live, interactive experience. While you're broadcasting the video, you're also getting feedback from the live chatroom.
Ustream gives your business a human face and a real personality. This is extremely valuable, because people like to buy and interact with people, not impersonal companies.
Live video allows you to reach entirely new audiences and develop a much greater level of engagement. A deeper level of engagement almost equates to a higher conversion rate when done correctly.
It's also an excellent way to get feedback from your audience.
7. Forum Marketing - Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature.
You can put a link back to your website in your signature. It's critical that you use your signature to provide something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
The biggest benefit of marketing in forums is that they are centered around a very tight group of people who are all interested in the same subject. This is essentially a community of raving fans for a particular topic, making them extremely targeted prospects.
Forums are also an excellent way to connect with other bloggers, meet other marketers, and gain insights into your market.
8. Interviews are another great way to generate traffic.
When you interview a fellow blogger, they will almost always publish a link to the interview on their blog. At the same time, you are also sending traffic to their website by posting the interview on your blog.
This can be a very effective technique for generating traffic and meeting new bloggers. Unfortunately, most people are just afraid to ask.
9. Build a List - If you're not building a líst, you're missing out on a major source of ongoing traffic. Your líst is the most valuable asset in your business.
Best of all, it can be leveraged at anytime to drive a funnel of visitors to your website.
10. Video Marketing - Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet, making them one of the best places to generate lots of extra traffic.
And don't worry, your video doesn't have to be a Spielberg classic. In fact, it can just be a PowerPoint presentation with audio. Even simple videos can drive thousands of visitors to your site.
Once you've created your video, you can then submit it to the top video submission sites with a tool called TubeMogul .
And finally, My Favorite...
Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to generate extremely targeted traffíc online. By following just a few basic principles, you can get lots of traffic from the search engines every month.
About The Author
To find out how I get front-page rankings within 24 hours, Grab my Free Google Domination Videos .
1. Article Marketing - One of the best ways to drive targeted traffíc to your website is through the use of article marketing. This is one of the oldest techniques for generating traffic, but it's still one of the best.
Once you have written your article, you can then submít it to some of the top article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp. For a listing of the top article directories online, go to...
MasonWorld.com
You can also publish your website to Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, HubPages, Zimbio, and Gather.com.
For a complete listing of Web 2.0 sites, go to...
Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant
Article marketing is even more powerful when you submit exclusive articles to bloggers and owners of newsletters. This technique has sent me thousands of visitors with a single article. The key is to find the right distribution outlets.
Just imagine if you spend just one hour each day writing and distributing one article. In three months you would have 100 articles all sending you traffic on a daily basis.
So get out there and start syndicating your articles, submitting guests posts, and writing for online newsletters.
2. Viral Ebooks - Why not bundle your articles together and create a viral ebook? Giving away free ebooks is one of the best ways to generate traffic online. It's also one of the best ways to build your mailing líst.
You can submit your PDF ebooks to:
Scribd
eSnips
DocStoc
Calameo
Issuu
Yudu
FreeIQ , and
ButterflyReports
For a complete líst of ebook directories you can submit to, go to Free Ebook Directories .
Quick Tip: You can also convert your ebooks to exe files and submít them to all the different software directories online. You can convert your ebooks using a free piece of software called WebsiteZip Packer .
3. Blogging - Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business. Blogging is a great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals. A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a particular subject. They are then posted together on on blog - called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted.
This creates an excellent opportuníty to get your blog posts shared on other blogs.
There are a number of benefits to participating in blog carnivals. Not only will you generate extra traffic, but it also provides you with quality backlinks and an excellent opportuníty to connect with other bloggers.
To submit your article to a blog carnival, go to Blog Carnival - Blog Communities Publishing Magazines . For extra exposure, submit to multiple blog carnivals. Just make sure they're all relevant to your topic.
This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is one of the biggest factors when it comes to ranking high in Google.
5. Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites.
Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest ways to get extra traffic and links coming into your blog. Social bookmarking allows Internet users to save and organize bookmarks to a public website, tag them with keywords, share them with others, and browse what others have bookmarked.
Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Digg are just a few of the social bookmarking sites you can use to maximize your exposure.
You can do a semi-automated submission to over 50 social bookmarking sites at AutoPoster.com
You can also encourage your blog readers to bookmark your posts as well with a Wordpress plugin called ShareThis.
6. Ustream.tv - Ustream allows you to create your very own tv station on the Web. However, it's better than TV because it's a live, interactive experience. While you're broadcasting the video, you're also getting feedback from the live chatroom.
Ustream gives your business a human face and a real personality. This is extremely valuable, because people like to buy and interact with people, not impersonal companies.
Live video allows you to reach entirely new audiences and develop a much greater level of engagement. A deeper level of engagement almost equates to a higher conversion rate when done correctly.
It's also an excellent way to get feedback from your audience.
7. Forum Marketing - Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature.
You can put a link back to your website in your signature. It's critical that you use your signature to provide something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
The biggest benefit of marketing in forums is that they are centered around a very tight group of people who are all interested in the same subject. This is essentially a community of raving fans for a particular topic, making them extremely targeted prospects.
Forums are also an excellent way to connect with other bloggers, meet other marketers, and gain insights into your market.
8. Interviews are another great way to generate traffic.
When you interview a fellow blogger, they will almost always publish a link to the interview on their blog. At the same time, you are also sending traffic to their website by posting the interview on your blog.
This can be a very effective technique for generating traffic and meeting new bloggers. Unfortunately, most people are just afraid to ask.
9. Build a List - If you're not building a líst, you're missing out on a major source of ongoing traffic. Your líst is the most valuable asset in your business.
Best of all, it can be leveraged at anytime to drive a funnel of visitors to your website.
10. Video Marketing - Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet, making them one of the best places to generate lots of extra traffic.
And don't worry, your video doesn't have to be a Spielberg classic. In fact, it can just be a PowerPoint presentation with audio. Even simple videos can drive thousands of visitors to your site.
Once you've created your video, you can then submit it to the top video submission sites with a tool called TubeMogul .
And finally, My Favorite...
Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to generate extremely targeted traffíc online. By following just a few basic principles, you can get lots of traffic from the search engines every month.
About The Author
To find out how I get front-page rankings within 24 hours, Grab my Free Google Domination Videos .
Market Research Methods For SEO Rankings
Keyword research is the first step we take towards SEO rankings but sometimes these market research methods have a poor effect on our sites because we don't fully understand the concepts. Give me the facts - I'll draw my own confusions! It is a complex subject and even when we think we know it well, we often trip over something simply because we don't know it's there. What you may not know can hurt your SEO rankings and sometimes a heavy hand with what you do know can too.
A problem that search engines encounter often is the design of websites that purely use advanced programming such as C++, JavaScript or CGI. If the navigation links within your site are powered by these advanced scripts alone, the search engine will not be able to fully browse your site. You need to provide links in basic HTML so that the engine can read your website. Its difficult to get SEO rankings for something that can't be read and indexed.
It can take months for a website with a new domain name (.com, .org or .edu) to show up on search engines. Google has imposed an ageing delay on new websites so that it doesn't waste time on indexing websites that don't last long. If later you want to change your domain name, I suggest you rethink and use what you have instead. A cosmetic facelift of your existing web pages along with several new good quality SEO articles may serve you better in the long run for SEO rankings. When you already know all the ins and outs of your website, then it's so much easier to revise than replace because of familiarity. If you think a better domain name is called for by all means buy it and put a blog on it, linking to your existing site. Best of both worlds and extra links.
Some internet marketers make the mistake of placing researched keyword requirements above that of article quality. It is necessary to use market research methods for keyword phrases because until you know what other people are targeting and what the competition is for some key phrases you may be mistakenly optimizing for SEO rankings on something you just can't have. Once you have eliminated these saturated phrases, you have a better idea of what you may be able to use.
At first glance, it will still seem sensible to optimize an article for researched keywords rather than be concerned with artistic considerations, true relevance or honest, from the heart writing. However, bear in mind that not everyone will want to buy your product or idea even if it is suitable to everyone. You know that what you sell is saleable only to a certain target market. If you prioritize keyword optimization in your article just for SEO rankings, rather than writing the article for the sake of the product you want to sell and to provide information to your target audience, chances are you will attract buyers for a commodity that you do not have.
The keyword here is relevance. A person searching the internet for something he needs will filter out the search results by using their own theory of relevance. My suggestion is, write the article for the sake of your product and for your target customers information. Place the priority of keywords as a secondary consideration. It's all about relevance. Sure, it would be a plus for you if you manage to pull in lots of traffic even if they don't want anything to do with your site or products. But believe me, misleading a person on the internet is a risky business. Search engines analyze your hits and bounce rates and, if your traffic clicks away after seconds, they know your site isn't satisfying them by showing them what they need.
Be specific with your keywords. Don't generalize. The biggest disadvantage of internet shopping is that customers cannot scrutinize the product personally. What they usually do is find out from other sources what the product is all about, how it works, etc... When they decide to finally buy, they know in detail what they're looking for and will most likely use a specific name brand as part of their search strings. Your keywords need to be able to match those strings in terms of number of words matched and how the order of those words match.
For example, when looking for bras, women need to order by using their torso and cup size. So, the bra size could be a 36 B or a 36 C. Then there are colors to choose from like red, burgundy and black. A bit more specific is the bra classification. Is it a half-cup or a push-up, or is it a sport bra? With these factors in mind, you can conclude that a woman looking for a bra on the internet can type in "black push-up bra 36-C".
If you are selling products with criteria such as this, use this specific information for your SEO rankings. Do you have key phrases to match those kinds of search strings? Are the words in your key phrases arranged in the same order? The final consideration is the article where those keywords are embedded. If the article is just a small jumble of words full of keywords, the search engine will most likely discard your website in favor of another that has a good paragraph of relevant descriptive information. This will decrease the SEO ranking of your website for each search results page.
About The Author
Rich Niche Blogging, a website with free tutorial resources for bloggers, announces the release of Niche Market Research Methods for SEO.
A problem that search engines encounter often is the design of websites that purely use advanced programming such as C++, JavaScript or CGI. If the navigation links within your site are powered by these advanced scripts alone, the search engine will not be able to fully browse your site. You need to provide links in basic HTML so that the engine can read your website. Its difficult to get SEO rankings for something that can't be read and indexed.
It can take months for a website with a new domain name (.com, .org or .edu) to show up on search engines. Google has imposed an ageing delay on new websites so that it doesn't waste time on indexing websites that don't last long. If later you want to change your domain name, I suggest you rethink and use what you have instead. A cosmetic facelift of your existing web pages along with several new good quality SEO articles may serve you better in the long run for SEO rankings. When you already know all the ins and outs of your website, then it's so much easier to revise than replace because of familiarity. If you think a better domain name is called for by all means buy it and put a blog on it, linking to your existing site. Best of both worlds and extra links.
Some internet marketers make the mistake of placing researched keyword requirements above that of article quality. It is necessary to use market research methods for keyword phrases because until you know what other people are targeting and what the competition is for some key phrases you may be mistakenly optimizing for SEO rankings on something you just can't have. Once you have eliminated these saturated phrases, you have a better idea of what you may be able to use.
At first glance, it will still seem sensible to optimize an article for researched keywords rather than be concerned with artistic considerations, true relevance or honest, from the heart writing. However, bear in mind that not everyone will want to buy your product or idea even if it is suitable to everyone. You know that what you sell is saleable only to a certain target market. If you prioritize keyword optimization in your article just for SEO rankings, rather than writing the article for the sake of the product you want to sell and to provide information to your target audience, chances are you will attract buyers for a commodity that you do not have.
The keyword here is relevance. A person searching the internet for something he needs will filter out the search results by using their own theory of relevance. My suggestion is, write the article for the sake of your product and for your target customers information. Place the priority of keywords as a secondary consideration. It's all about relevance. Sure, it would be a plus for you if you manage to pull in lots of traffic even if they don't want anything to do with your site or products. But believe me, misleading a person on the internet is a risky business. Search engines analyze your hits and bounce rates and, if your traffic clicks away after seconds, they know your site isn't satisfying them by showing them what they need.
Be specific with your keywords. Don't generalize. The biggest disadvantage of internet shopping is that customers cannot scrutinize the product personally. What they usually do is find out from other sources what the product is all about, how it works, etc... When they decide to finally buy, they know in detail what they're looking for and will most likely use a specific name brand as part of their search strings. Your keywords need to be able to match those strings in terms of number of words matched and how the order of those words match.
For example, when looking for bras, women need to order by using their torso and cup size. So, the bra size could be a 36 B or a 36 C. Then there are colors to choose from like red, burgundy and black. A bit more specific is the bra classification. Is it a half-cup or a push-up, or is it a sport bra? With these factors in mind, you can conclude that a woman looking for a bra on the internet can type in "black push-up bra 36-C".
If you are selling products with criteria such as this, use this specific information for your SEO rankings. Do you have key phrases to match those kinds of search strings? Are the words in your key phrases arranged in the same order? The final consideration is the article where those keywords are embedded. If the article is just a small jumble of words full of keywords, the search engine will most likely discard your website in favor of another that has a good paragraph of relevant descriptive information. This will decrease the SEO ranking of your website for each search results page.
About The Author
Rich Niche Blogging, a website with free tutorial resources for bloggers, announces the release of Niche Market Research Methods for SEO.
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