Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Reverse SEO ( Search Engine Optimization )
Reverse: Moving, acting, or organized in a manner contrary to the usual
If you came across this site, you probably already know what is meant by the acronym SEO and the term search engine optimization.
If you came here because you were looking at the search engine placement of one of our sites, you're probably trying to calculate the "scheme" we use for placement, either to duplicate it or to file a spam report with a search engine.
So we're here to tell you that we do reverse SEO, and explain to you just what that is and how you can do it, too.
First off, we're likely to surprise you by telling you that although some of our web sites do fairly well in search results, we never - and we mean never, ever, ever -- try to rank in search engine results. We absolutely do not spend one moment of our workday planning and implementing ways to place in any search results of any search engine.
We know, you think we're lying. And we know that some SEOs are so narrowly focused on search engine optimization that when they come across web sites that place well, they instantly try to uncover the "set of tricks" used to get good placement.
Well, if you're one of them, we'll save you some time and just come out with what type of search engine optimization we do, okay?
What type of optimization do we do?
Wanna know what it is? We don't do it! At all.
Do we make sites technically correct? Sure we do. Do we make them for the search engines? Of course not. Why would we? They're not our target market. I've never come across a search engine spider that booked a flight on one of our sites!
Why do we operate differently than most businesses on the web? Simple. Because we started writing and designing for businesses long before web (anybody remember magazines? or newspapers?) and have always focused on what the readers (this decade, online, they're called website visitors) want to read. It's really that simple.
We provide what our visitors are looking for.
Most of the SEOs we've come across believe that if a site places well in search results, there must be a scheme. We think that's because SEOs who imagine schemes on every site have no experience outside of search engines with promoting businesses; and without the knowledge, training, or experience promoting businesses in traditional methods before the web, they mistakenly believe the goal of every website is to place well in the engines.
We also suspect they don't have and don't understand alternative traffic sources such as direct navigation.
Our company has been reported by at least one inexperienced webmaster for "spamming" search engines when we don't even submit our sites to search engines.
If one of our sites places well in a search engine, it's because the search engine put our site there without any impetus from us.
Our best guess (since we are not and have no interest in becoming search engine engineers) as to why some of our sites have decent placement in the search engines is that our primary goal on each website we publish is also listed as the top principles and guidelines of the search engines, too.
Google's #1 principle for quality guidelines on getting a website indexed and ranked: "Make pages for users, not for search engines." ( source )
Yahoo!'s #1 description of the type of sites they want to rank well in their results: "Original and unique content of genuine value" ( source )
So there you have it. No need to copy one of our websites and try to duplicate its placement. If you design websites, just give your visitors what your visitors want, and you'll do fine. They're the ones you're trying to satisfy, after all.
Well, wait a minute, you're not done finding out how some of our sites place well, right? Okay, we hear your next question...
What about those links?
You wanna know about those links on our sites that go to other sites of ours, right?
Geesh, we've been reported for "running link farms to promote page rank" more times than a drunk on a bender pees.
Guess what? We don't even know what the page rank is for any of our sites. We never cared about one engine's marketing term ("page rank") that snowballed out of a press release.
And we've been designing sites and providing links to related sites for our visitors years before "page rank" became the buzzword for one search engine's placement algorithm.
So if we're not trying to "inflate a site's page rank" why the links from our sites to other sites we own?
Hey, that's really simple, too.
Just like we designed before web, we were earlier than others to purchase domain names in some niche markets.
For example, if we designed a city's information site and noticed that a very large percentage of our visitors were looking for coupons in that city, we registered the domain that contained the city name plus "coupons.com".
Why more than one site?
Oh, you wanna know why we didn't just put everything on one site?
We'll use coupon site above as an example... First of all, in the web's earlier days, all web coupons were in pdf format and very few people had high-speed connections, so our main concern was to not bog down our city information site with request for coupons.
Secondly, hosting and Internet backbone connections weren't nearly as stable as they are today. We realized that if we tried to serve all of a city's information from only one site, and the connection or hosting server went down, then all the information we provide would be unavailable at the same time. So we consider putting related, yet distinct information on separate sites and servers as just good sense.
Now do you think if we know a high percentage of our website visitors are looking for coupons, and we have a coupon site that will give them what they want, that we're not going to put a link to our coupon site, just because our company owns both sites?
What if we saw our website visitors were also looking for other information that was related to the area yet didn't quite fit into what we wanted our city information site to be?
If the domains were available, anyone who wouldn't register them isn't someone we'll ever understand. To us, that's like saying there's affordable, oceanfront property available but you're not going to buy it because you already have one piece of property.
Why only those links?
Wait another minute! You're still wondering about those links...
Why do we only link to official sites like city websites, chambers of commerce, and sites we own or control?
Again, really, really simple answer.
Early on, one guy we "knew" from the web emailed us and asked us to link to him because he was providing web hosting (we were hosting only a few customers at the time).
Since we had many customers ask us where to host their sites, we put up a link to his web hosting service from our web design site. Again, we were giving our visitors what they wanted, or so we thought...
Well, unbelievably, a few months later we get a call from our local chamber of commerce saying they're pulling our site's listing because it links to porn!
We immediately checked what we thought was a hosting service and, sure enough, that site owner had changed his hosting site to a porn site.
Furious at not being contacted by the site owner when he decided to peel away his hosting service to expose something else, we immediately pulled the link and contacted that website owner with a few less-than-sugary remarks.
That was our first, and our last, link to a website where we didn't know and trust the website owner implicitly. We take our business and our visitors' needs very seriously and we will never be put in that position again.
So, in a nutshell, that early experience is why we only link to sites we control, or to sites we believe will never change the context or quality of their site's content.
So no link schemes; no attempts at page rank inflation.
Just the opposite of what most people think: so we call our method of optimization reverse SEO.
If you came across this site, you probably already know what is meant by the acronym SEO and the term search engine optimization.
If you came here because you were looking at the search engine placement of one of our sites, you're probably trying to calculate the "scheme" we use for placement, either to duplicate it or to file a spam report with a search engine.
So we're here to tell you that we do reverse SEO, and explain to you just what that is and how you can do it, too.
First off, we're likely to surprise you by telling you that although some of our web sites do fairly well in search results, we never - and we mean never, ever, ever -- try to rank in search engine results. We absolutely do not spend one moment of our workday planning and implementing ways to place in any search results of any search engine.
We know, you think we're lying. And we know that some SEOs are so narrowly focused on search engine optimization that when they come across web sites that place well, they instantly try to uncover the "set of tricks" used to get good placement.
Well, if you're one of them, we'll save you some time and just come out with what type of search engine optimization we do, okay?
What type of optimization do we do?
Wanna know what it is? We don't do it! At all.
Do we make sites technically correct? Sure we do. Do we make them for the search engines? Of course not. Why would we? They're not our target market. I've never come across a search engine spider that booked a flight on one of our sites!
Why do we operate differently than most businesses on the web? Simple. Because we started writing and designing for businesses long before web (anybody remember magazines? or newspapers?) and have always focused on what the readers (this decade, online, they're called website visitors) want to read. It's really that simple.
We provide what our visitors are looking for.
Most of the SEOs we've come across believe that if a site places well in search results, there must be a scheme. We think that's because SEOs who imagine schemes on every site have no experience outside of search engines with promoting businesses; and without the knowledge, training, or experience promoting businesses in traditional methods before the web, they mistakenly believe the goal of every website is to place well in the engines.
We also suspect they don't have and don't understand alternative traffic sources such as direct navigation.
Our company has been reported by at least one inexperienced webmaster for "spamming" search engines when we don't even submit our sites to search engines.
If one of our sites places well in a search engine, it's because the search engine put our site there without any impetus from us.
Our best guess (since we are not and have no interest in becoming search engine engineers) as to why some of our sites have decent placement in the search engines is that our primary goal on each website we publish is also listed as the top principles and guidelines of the search engines, too.
Google's #1 principle for quality guidelines on getting a website indexed and ranked: "Make pages for users, not for search engines." ( source )
Yahoo!'s #1 description of the type of sites they want to rank well in their results: "Original and unique content of genuine value" ( source )
So there you have it. No need to copy one of our websites and try to duplicate its placement. If you design websites, just give your visitors what your visitors want, and you'll do fine. They're the ones you're trying to satisfy, after all.
Well, wait a minute, you're not done finding out how some of our sites place well, right? Okay, we hear your next question...
What about those links?
You wanna know about those links on our sites that go to other sites of ours, right?
Geesh, we've been reported for "running link farms to promote page rank" more times than a drunk on a bender pees.
Guess what? We don't even know what the page rank is for any of our sites. We never cared about one engine's marketing term ("page rank") that snowballed out of a press release.
And we've been designing sites and providing links to related sites for our visitors years before "page rank" became the buzzword for one search engine's placement algorithm.
So if we're not trying to "inflate a site's page rank" why the links from our sites to other sites we own?
Hey, that's really simple, too.
Just like we designed before web, we were earlier than others to purchase domain names in some niche markets.
For example, if we designed a city's information site and noticed that a very large percentage of our visitors were looking for coupons in that city, we registered the domain that contained the city name plus "coupons.com".
Why more than one site?
Oh, you wanna know why we didn't just put everything on one site?
We'll use coupon site above as an example... First of all, in the web's earlier days, all web coupons were in pdf format and very few people had high-speed connections, so our main concern was to not bog down our city information site with request for coupons.
Secondly, hosting and Internet backbone connections weren't nearly as stable as they are today. We realized that if we tried to serve all of a city's information from only one site, and the connection or hosting server went down, then all the information we provide would be unavailable at the same time. So we consider putting related, yet distinct information on separate sites and servers as just good sense.
Now do you think if we know a high percentage of our website visitors are looking for coupons, and we have a coupon site that will give them what they want, that we're not going to put a link to our coupon site, just because our company owns both sites?
What if we saw our website visitors were also looking for other information that was related to the area yet didn't quite fit into what we wanted our city information site to be?
If the domains were available, anyone who wouldn't register them isn't someone we'll ever understand. To us, that's like saying there's affordable, oceanfront property available but you're not going to buy it because you already have one piece of property.
Why only those links?
Wait another minute! You're still wondering about those links...
Why do we only link to official sites like city websites, chambers of commerce, and sites we own or control?
Again, really, really simple answer.
Early on, one guy we "knew" from the web emailed us and asked us to link to him because he was providing web hosting (we were hosting only a few customers at the time).
Since we had many customers ask us where to host their sites, we put up a link to his web hosting service from our web design site. Again, we were giving our visitors what they wanted, or so we thought...
Well, unbelievably, a few months later we get a call from our local chamber of commerce saying they're pulling our site's listing because it links to porn!
We immediately checked what we thought was a hosting service and, sure enough, that site owner had changed his hosting site to a porn site.
Furious at not being contacted by the site owner when he decided to peel away his hosting service to expose something else, we immediately pulled the link and contacted that website owner with a few less-than-sugary remarks.
That was our first, and our last, link to a website where we didn't know and trust the website owner implicitly. We take our business and our visitors' needs very seriously and we will never be put in that position again.
So, in a nutshell, that early experience is why we only link to sites we control, or to sites we believe will never change the context or quality of their site's content.
So no link schemes; no attempts at page rank inflation.
Just the opposite of what most people think: so we call our method of optimization reverse SEO.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
SEO Frequently Asked Questions
What is Search Engine Optimization?
SEO is a process of developing a website’s structure and content to enable it to achieve the best possible rankings within the results being displayed on a search engine after a search is conducted for a particular term. Today e–commerce has become the most successful form of business because of which web continues to grow at a rapid rate. Therefore search engine has become the dominant search tool for online users and so optimizing your website is essential for determining how many visitors your site attracts from these sources.
How can Search Engine Optimization affect our business?
SEO can revolutionize your business. If you are an online marketer and believe in selling and purchasing of your products online then SEO becomes indispensable for you. Your SEO rankings needs to be improved so that you can also rank in the top 10. The difference in the methodologies of the SEO services being offered affects your business to great extent. Using proper tools and technologies can really benefit you to a greater extent.
Can we take care of it ourselves?
If you are ready to put consistent effort on your website and use right techniques then you can be assured of your success in taking proper care of your website. However your patience, determination and your knowledge to handle search engine market will also count.
Are search engine rankings guaranteed?
If you trust us for your search engine results then definitely it is guaranteed. Results on popular search engine are guaranteed by us and if we fail then we will return back your money.
What do paid inclusion services refer to?
In paid inclusion a search engine company charges fees to include a website in their search database. Some of the search engine companies charge paid inclusion services but Goggle is not a part of them.
How long before the results show?
Results may start appearing within the first month itself in Search engines like MSN and may be also on Yahoo. This is because Yahoo and MSN includes your website quickly in their database listing. Google generally takes a little longer before the results starts appearing.
Why doesn't my Web site rank very well in the search engines?
Having your website rank high in the search engines is a science and the rules for search engine optimization (SEO) are always changing. Here are some reasons why you may be having poor ranking:
Incorrect usage of the TITLE tag or no TITLE tag content.
Too many occurences of the same word in a page (spamming).
Missing H1 and H2 heading tag content.
Missing ALT tag content in your graphic links.
No meaningful content in the first 250 characters on each page.
Less than 200 words per page.
Very few pages on your website.
No links from other websites to your website (link popularity).
Also, you should always submit your site to any search directories manually. Please do not use automated submission services.
How long does it take for SEO results to kick in?
The amount of time required to see results of search engine optimization work range anywhere from 30 days for existing sites in local or niche markets to 24 months for new websites in a competitive of national/global market.
What is my site ranking dependent on?
Site ranking tends to be "cumulative" and is dependent on the following factors:
1. The specific keyword phrases (search terms) that have been targeted
2. The overall competitiveness of your industry - how many players are there
3. Whether you are targeting a regional, national, or international market
4. How well ranking is monitored and the site tweaked over time for SEO improvement
5. The progress of your reciprocal linking campaign
6. Number of competitor sites achieving new ranking themselves
Does every page of my website really need to be optimized?
In a word - yes. Every page of a website can be a potential entry point for visitors. You can't predict which page or pages will be ranked the best for specific keywords. As such, each page must be individually optimized to for optimal ranking. Collectively, all pages of your website reinforce the common "theme" of the site, which also can help boost ranking. Don't assume that your home page is the most important page on your site.
Why are SEO services so expensive?
SEO is a highly-specialized craft requiring much research, forethought, skill and can be extremely time-consuming to implement correctly. However, compared to offline and print advertising, SEO is quite cheap. The cost of having your website SEO optimized is by far the best advertising dollars spent and the return on your investment (ROI) can be very great.
Can you guarantee a number #1 position in the search engines?
Nobody can guarantee a number #1 position or specific ranking for your site for a given keyword phrase. There are simply too many factors beyond anyone's control - the search engines changing their ranking algorithms, efforts made by competitors, and new sites being added to the Web.
SEO is a process of developing a website’s structure and content to enable it to achieve the best possible rankings within the results being displayed on a search engine after a search is conducted for a particular term. Today e–commerce has become the most successful form of business because of which web continues to grow at a rapid rate. Therefore search engine has become the dominant search tool for online users and so optimizing your website is essential for determining how many visitors your site attracts from these sources.
How can Search Engine Optimization affect our business?
SEO can revolutionize your business. If you are an online marketer and believe in selling and purchasing of your products online then SEO becomes indispensable for you. Your SEO rankings needs to be improved so that you can also rank in the top 10. The difference in the methodologies of the SEO services being offered affects your business to great extent. Using proper tools and technologies can really benefit you to a greater extent.
Can we take care of it ourselves?
If you are ready to put consistent effort on your website and use right techniques then you can be assured of your success in taking proper care of your website. However your patience, determination and your knowledge to handle search engine market will also count.
Are search engine rankings guaranteed?
If you trust us for your search engine results then definitely it is guaranteed. Results on popular search engine are guaranteed by us and if we fail then we will return back your money.
What do paid inclusion services refer to?
In paid inclusion a search engine company charges fees to include a website in their search database. Some of the search engine companies charge paid inclusion services but Goggle is not a part of them.
How long before the results show?
Results may start appearing within the first month itself in Search engines like MSN and may be also on Yahoo. This is because Yahoo and MSN includes your website quickly in their database listing. Google generally takes a little longer before the results starts appearing.
Why doesn't my Web site rank very well in the search engines?
Having your website rank high in the search engines is a science and the rules for search engine optimization (SEO) are always changing. Here are some reasons why you may be having poor ranking:
Incorrect usage of the TITLE tag or no TITLE tag content.
Too many occurences of the same word in a page (spamming).
Missing H1 and H2 heading tag content.
Missing ALT tag content in your graphic links.
No meaningful content in the first 250 characters on each page.
Less than 200 words per page.
Very few pages on your website.
No links from other websites to your website (link popularity).
Also, you should always submit your site to any search directories manually. Please do not use automated submission services.
How long does it take for SEO results to kick in?
The amount of time required to see results of search engine optimization work range anywhere from 30 days for existing sites in local or niche markets to 24 months for new websites in a competitive of national/global market.
What is my site ranking dependent on?
Site ranking tends to be "cumulative" and is dependent on the following factors:
1. The specific keyword phrases (search terms) that have been targeted
2. The overall competitiveness of your industry - how many players are there
3. Whether you are targeting a regional, national, or international market
4. How well ranking is monitored and the site tweaked over time for SEO improvement
5. The progress of your reciprocal linking campaign
6. Number of competitor sites achieving new ranking themselves
Does every page of my website really need to be optimized?
In a word - yes. Every page of a website can be a potential entry point for visitors. You can't predict which page or pages will be ranked the best for specific keywords. As such, each page must be individually optimized to for optimal ranking. Collectively, all pages of your website reinforce the common "theme" of the site, which also can help boost ranking. Don't assume that your home page is the most important page on your site.
Why are SEO services so expensive?
SEO is a highly-specialized craft requiring much research, forethought, skill and can be extremely time-consuming to implement correctly. However, compared to offline and print advertising, SEO is quite cheap. The cost of having your website SEO optimized is by far the best advertising dollars spent and the return on your investment (ROI) can be very great.
Can you guarantee a number #1 position in the search engines?
Nobody can guarantee a number #1 position or specific ranking for your site for a given keyword phrase. There are simply too many factors beyond anyone's control - the search engines changing their ranking algorithms, efforts made by competitors, and new sites being added to the Web.
25 Top SEO Job Interview Questions
1. What do you know about our company and can you define who we are?
2. How would you define SEO and SEM?
3. What is your previous SEO history like? Can you give examples of rankings you’ve achieved.
4. What is your biggest mistake and biggest success in SEO?
5. What are the most important initial SEO steps on a website?
6. Which methods would you use for link building?
7. What is your strenght in terms of SEO?
8. How would you monitor rankings?
9. Which verticals have you worked on before?
10. Which side of SEO would you like to be involved? Either link building, coding or whatever?
11. What if your client is not open to ideas to make changes on their website, what would you come up with?
12. Which blogs and websites do you follow daily to keep up-to-date and why?
13. Do you know who Matt Cutts is?
14. Which Google products do you use?
15. Which SEO tools do you prefer?
16. How is your copywriting skills? Can you give some examples?
17. Do you use any type of web analytics?
18. What is a pagerank?
19. What is “nofollow”?
20. How do you see the future of SEO?
21. How do you define your HTML hand-coding skills?
22. Why is a sitemap important and how would you make search engines find it quickly?
23. Do you know anything about robots.txt?
24. What is your opinion about paid links?
25. How would you track the number of outlinks of a website?
2. How would you define SEO and SEM?
3. What is your previous SEO history like? Can you give examples of rankings you’ve achieved.
4. What is your biggest mistake and biggest success in SEO?
5. What are the most important initial SEO steps on a website?
6. Which methods would you use for link building?
7. What is your strenght in terms of SEO?
8. How would you monitor rankings?
9. Which verticals have you worked on before?
10. Which side of SEO would you like to be involved? Either link building, coding or whatever?
11. What if your client is not open to ideas to make changes on their website, what would you come up with?
12. Which blogs and websites do you follow daily to keep up-to-date and why?
13. Do you know who Matt Cutts is?
14. Which Google products do you use?
15. Which SEO tools do you prefer?
16. How is your copywriting skills? Can you give some examples?
17. Do you use any type of web analytics?
18. What is a pagerank?
19. What is “nofollow”?
20. How do you see the future of SEO?
21. How do you define your HTML hand-coding skills?
22. Why is a sitemap important and how would you make search engines find it quickly?
23. Do you know anything about robots.txt?
24. What is your opinion about paid links?
25. How would you track the number of outlinks of a website?
SEO Best Practices: 20 Questions
There are all sorts of tried-and-true SEO (define) tactics that can be used to ensure your site is successfully crawled, indexed, and positioned in the major search engines. Though SEO tactics evolve with the technologies used to render Web sites, certain fundamentals remain constant.
How can you tell if your site adheres to current SEO best practices? Let's start with some honest answers to the following questions:
* Are the keywords you're targeting relevant to site content?
* Are targeted keywords popular phrases used in search engine queries?
* Do page titles start with your targeted keywords?
* Does your site employ H1 header tags for prominent content titles?
* Is your permanent body copy contextually sufficient and keyword-rich?
* Do text links include targeted keywords that point users to pages within your site?
* Do you use CSS (define) image replacement in graphical navigation on the site?
* Do graphics used in the site have descriptive, keyword-rich alternative attributes that are useful for visitors?
* Does your Web site have a site map with text links?
* Do the URLs of your dynamic, database-driven pages look simple and static?
* Does your site have a flat directory structure?
* Do your site's home page and other key category pages have PageRanks?
* Is your site listed in Open Directory?
* Do you routinely list your site in other trusted, human-reviewed online directories?
* Do all the pages in your Web site have keyword-rich meta descriptions?
* Does your site have a custom error page?
* Do the site's filenames and directory names include targeted keywords?
* Does your site avoid using pop-ups?
* Is the exact same content visible to both users and search engine spiders?
* Do you avoid free-for-all linking offers?
If you answered "yes" to all or most of the above questions, your Web site embraces some of the most common elements essential to SEO best practices. If you're unsure about some of the answers, consider the following additional information.
There's no point in angling for high rankings on keywords and keyword phrases no one searches for. If you're not certain what keywords your site's well positioned for, start digging through your referrer logs or Web analytics data to determine which search engines send your site considerable traffic for which phrases.
If you can't access your log files and search engine referral data, use a tag cloud generator to get some visual clues as to how the search engines interpret your pages. You might be surprised as to what any particular page in your site is actually optimized for.
Most subscription-based keyword analysis tools offer a free trial period. You can readily compare keyword popularity using tools such as WordTracker, KeywordDiscovery, and Yahoo's Keyword Selector Tool before deciding what phrases could send you considerable search-referred traffic.
Despite the popularity of individual words, it's best to target two- or three-word phrases on a page-by-page basis. Because of the vast number of Web pages indexed by the major search engines, competing for a listing or two on the first or second SERP (define) for a one-word keyword is a losing battle. Trying to make one page optimal for a multitude of unrelated keyword phrases is almost equally fruitless.
It should go without saying, but the keywords you select to target should be relevant to your business and your site's content. Permanent body text should consist of at least two to three sentences on every page, ideally more. Opportunities vary from industry to industry. At the very least, try to build about 250 words into key category pages.
Of course, site structure plays a large role in how well your site's indexed. The search engines have improved their ability to crawl through dynamic URLs, yet static URL structures tend to rank better. Flash and AJAX (define) present additional search engine visibility issues that can't be addressed in this brief column.
If you have an all-Flash site and answered "yes" to visible text links, you may want to reconsider your answer. Use the control-A function in your browser to see what words are really visible on a page, or use Zippy to take a deeper look at what any particular page or site is actually optimized for.
Better rankings come with better linking. Better linking starts within your site. Having a site map is a no-brainer, as are nongraphical site-wide navigation, footers, and related deep links.
Pursuing well-ranked inbound links is an art form and an ongoing endeavor for nearly every Web site. Just make certain you execute on the fundamentals first, which should include submissions to key directories. Once your site is listed in DMOZ, the Yahoo Search Directory, Gimpsy, JoeAnt, and the like, continually grow you inbound links with vertical directories, local listings, business partners, vendors, and so on.
Implementing the 20 most fundamental elements of SEO best practices (or at least most of them) and avoiding the dregs of worst practices should provide you with a straightforward approach to better visibility for your Web site in the major search engines.
How can you tell if your site adheres to current SEO best practices? Let's start with some honest answers to the following questions:
* Are the keywords you're targeting relevant to site content?
* Are targeted keywords popular phrases used in search engine queries?
* Do page titles start with your targeted keywords?
* Does your site employ H1 header tags for prominent content titles?
* Is your permanent body copy contextually sufficient and keyword-rich?
* Do text links include targeted keywords that point users to pages within your site?
* Do you use CSS (define) image replacement in graphical navigation on the site?
* Do graphics used in the site have descriptive, keyword-rich alternative attributes that are useful for visitors?
* Does your Web site have a site map with text links?
* Do the URLs of your dynamic, database-driven pages look simple and static?
* Does your site have a flat directory structure?
* Do your site's home page and other key category pages have PageRanks?
* Is your site listed in Open Directory?
* Do you routinely list your site in other trusted, human-reviewed online directories?
* Do all the pages in your Web site have keyword-rich meta descriptions?
* Does your site have a custom error page?
* Do the site's filenames and directory names include targeted keywords?
* Does your site avoid using pop-ups?
* Is the exact same content visible to both users and search engine spiders?
* Do you avoid free-for-all linking offers?
If you answered "yes" to all or most of the above questions, your Web site embraces some of the most common elements essential to SEO best practices. If you're unsure about some of the answers, consider the following additional information.
There's no point in angling for high rankings on keywords and keyword phrases no one searches for. If you're not certain what keywords your site's well positioned for, start digging through your referrer logs or Web analytics data to determine which search engines send your site considerable traffic for which phrases.
If you can't access your log files and search engine referral data, use a tag cloud generator to get some visual clues as to how the search engines interpret your pages. You might be surprised as to what any particular page in your site is actually optimized for.
Most subscription-based keyword analysis tools offer a free trial period. You can readily compare keyword popularity using tools such as WordTracker, KeywordDiscovery, and Yahoo's Keyword Selector Tool before deciding what phrases could send you considerable search-referred traffic.
Despite the popularity of individual words, it's best to target two- or three-word phrases on a page-by-page basis. Because of the vast number of Web pages indexed by the major search engines, competing for a listing or two on the first or second SERP (define) for a one-word keyword is a losing battle. Trying to make one page optimal for a multitude of unrelated keyword phrases is almost equally fruitless.
It should go without saying, but the keywords you select to target should be relevant to your business and your site's content. Permanent body text should consist of at least two to three sentences on every page, ideally more. Opportunities vary from industry to industry. At the very least, try to build about 250 words into key category pages.
Of course, site structure plays a large role in how well your site's indexed. The search engines have improved their ability to crawl through dynamic URLs, yet static URL structures tend to rank better. Flash and AJAX (define) present additional search engine visibility issues that can't be addressed in this brief column.
If you have an all-Flash site and answered "yes" to visible text links, you may want to reconsider your answer. Use the control-A function in your browser to see what words are really visible on a page, or use Zippy to take a deeper look at what any particular page or site is actually optimized for.
Better rankings come with better linking. Better linking starts within your site. Having a site map is a no-brainer, as are nongraphical site-wide navigation, footers, and related deep links.
Pursuing well-ranked inbound links is an art form and an ongoing endeavor for nearly every Web site. Just make certain you execute on the fundamentals first, which should include submissions to key directories. Once your site is listed in DMOZ, the Yahoo Search Directory, Gimpsy, JoeAnt, and the like, continually grow you inbound links with vertical directories, local listings, business partners, vendors, and so on.
Implementing the 20 most fundamental elements of SEO best practices (or at least most of them) and avoiding the dregs of worst practices should provide you with a straightforward approach to better visibility for your Web site in the major search engines.
Q: What is the difference between submission and placement and when will my first page paid placement list on the search engines?
A: With search engine submission, we do not guarantee that a search engine will place your web site. With search engine placement, we ask for you to allow ten days for placement on the search engines. You will receive a ranking report at the email address you provided on your order form.
Q: When will my Submissions appear on the engines?
Every engine and directory is different. In some cases, your submission will appear within a few days. In some cases your submission may be much longer and in some instances, your web site may never get listed by that submission. Because of this, the idea is that the more engines you submit to, the better your visibility will be and if you submit regularly (every month), you have a better chance of getting added to the engines that didn't add you the last time. Many engines and directories put you in a queue. Some will manually add you when they get a chance. Some will wait to check your site out for content.
Q: What does the Submission Process Actually Do?
A: The SUBMISSION programs send your web site address, "URL" to search engines and links using what is referred to as add-a-URL strings. After receiving the URL, engines use a "spider" to then parses through the HTML code looking for tags that begin with "a href=". After the entire page has been parsed, a small "Web BOT" travels the links it found, searching for more links using the same procedure until all of the pages at that URL address have been found.
Q: What is link popularity?
A: Link popularity refers to the number of web pages on the Internet which are recognized by a search engine to have a hyperlink reference to your site, or in other words are "pointing" to your web site as a reference.
Q: What is "body content relevance"?
A: "Body content relevance" is the written "non-image" text on the page of the web site which is descriptive in nature and relates to the title, description and keywords. It is not mandatory to have relevant body content, but it most definetly will assist your ranking on the search engines.
Q: What is a Description?
A: The "Description" of your web site also resides within the "head" of your html and is usually a sentence or two containing approximately 15 words which best describe your web site.
Q: What is a keyword?
A: A "keyword" or "keyword Phrase" is the word or words a person types into the search box on a search engine to look up subject matter on the Internet. If you are looking for a flag for your home or office, you might type in "American Flags". The Search Engine screens its database for those web sites it has obtained and looks for the words, "American Flags". Through programming, it then finds and places in order those web sites which it believes to be a match and displays them in order of relevancy. With proper design of a web site, you should have a keyword meta tag area within the head of your html to list the words or "keywords" which best describe your web site. It is important to reflect carefully when choosing your keywords. If you sell boats, but you are only licensed to do so in Maine, then your keywords might best be "boats for sale in Maine" or "Maine Boats", etc.
Q: What is a Title?
The "Title" of a web site is probably the single most important element for natural search engine positioning. The Title is placed within the "head" of the html, is generally 12-15 words long and should be descriptive in nature.
Q: What is a search engine and how does it work?
A: On the Internet, a search engine has three parts:
1. A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") which travels to every page or representative page on every searchable web site, reads it, then using hypertext links on those pages, travels throughout the other pages linked by
that web site.
2. A catalog or Index which is created by programs compiling the pages read
from those web sites, and...
3. A program which receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns the results to you. An alternative to using a search engine is to explore a structured directory of topics. Yahoo, which also lets you use its search engine, is the most widely-used directory on the Web. A number of Web portal sites offer both the search engine and directory approaches to finding information Not all search engines are created equal, but all of them have a few basic components that are essential to their use. Some components are more visible than others to the average user, but all of them must be working in tandem to create a high performance search tool. The three basic actions that have to be performed for a search engine to be useful are: Gather information, analyze information, and display information. The only major difference between major search engines is how these tasks are performed and how often they are performed. Gathering information Spiders are the programs that search engines use to collect information about web sites on the Internet. These programs traverse the world wide web gathering the content of web sites and store that information for later processing.
There are two basic ways that spiders can find your web site. You can tell the search engine about your web site, or let it find your site on its own. Typically search engines will have a place on their web site which allows you to suggest a site to them. After a site has been suggested, the search engines spider will visit that web site to collect information about it. Spiders also follow the links on each web site to find linked sites to visit. This is how a spider will find your site by itself. The more web sites that link to your site, the more likely a spider will find your site without you telling it your sites URL.
Usually search engine spiders will revisit your site when you submit your URL again. When the spider finds a link to your site, or after a specified amount of time has passed since its last visit. Depending on the number of web sites that the spider needs to visit and the resources that the spider has at its disposal, it can take days or months for a spider to visit or revisit your web site.
Displaying information
Search engines take a search request from a user and display a list of web pages that relate to that topic. These returned sites give clues to the algorithm used to analyze the web pages in the search engines index. When a search engine displays the file size of the web page or a percentage next to the web site, it can be used to help figure out how to optimize your web pages better for that search engine. Some search engines return results in the order of relevance, others mix up the results to make sure the web sites returned are from different sites. No matter how a search engine displays the information requested by a user, this result is typically the first impression of your web site. It is important to follow any guidelines that search engines give and do research on how each search engine analyzes web pages so that you not only get a good ranking for your search, but the description of your site is accurate as well.
1. A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") which travels to every page or representative page on every searchable web site, reads it, then using hypertext links on those pages, travels throughout the other pages linked by
that web site.
2. A catalog or Index which is created by programs compiling the pages read
from those web sites, and...
3. A program which receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns the results to you. An alternative to using a search engine is to explore a structured directory of topics. Yahoo, which also lets you use its search engine, is the most widely-used directory on the Web. A number of Web portal sites offer both the search engine and directory approaches to finding information Not all search engines are created equal, but all of them have a few basic components that are essential to their use. Some components are more visible than others to the average user, but all of them must be working in tandem to create a high performance search tool. The three basic actions that have to be performed for a search engine to be useful are: Gather information, analyze information, and display information. The only major difference between major search engines is how these tasks are performed and how often they are performed. Gathering information Spiders are the programs that search engines use to collect information about web sites on the Internet. These programs traverse the world wide web gathering the content of web sites and store that information for later processing.
There are two basic ways that spiders can find your web site. You can tell the search engine about your web site, or let it find your site on its own. Typically search engines will have a place on their web site which allows you to suggest a site to them. After a site has been suggested, the search engines spider will visit that web site to collect information about it. Spiders also follow the links on each web site to find linked sites to visit. This is how a spider will find your site by itself. The more web sites that link to your site, the more likely a spider will find your site without you telling it your sites URL.
Usually search engine spiders will revisit your site when you submit your URL again. When the spider finds a link to your site, or after a specified amount of time has passed since its last visit. Depending on the number of web sites that the spider needs to visit and the resources that the spider has at its disposal, it can take days or months for a spider to visit or revisit your web site.
Displaying information
Search engines take a search request from a user and display a list of web pages that relate to that topic. These returned sites give clues to the algorithm used to analyze the web pages in the search engines index. When a search engine displays the file size of the web page or a percentage next to the web site, it can be used to help figure out how to optimize your web pages better for that search engine. Some search engines return results in the order of relevance, others mix up the results to make sure the web sites returned are from different sites. No matter how a search engine displays the information requested by a user, this result is typically the first impression of your web site. It is important to follow any guidelines that search engines give and do research on how each search engine analyzes web pages so that you not only get a good ranking for your search, but the description of your site is accurate as well.
Here are some of the best interview questions for SEO
SEO is best Promotion and Marketing I can think of and so instead of putting this into Search Engine I thought this would be better place to have this.
Here are some of the best interview questions for SEO and if you are looking to answer them read SEO FAQ's and you would not have difficulty in answering most of them if not all.
1. If a website's search
Engine saturation with respect to a particular search engine is 20%, what does it mean?
a. 20% of the webpages of the website have been indexed by the search engine
b. Only 20% of the pages of the website will be indexed by the search engine
c. 20% of the websites pages will never be indexed
d. The website ranks in the first 20% of all websites indexed by the search engine for its most important search terms
2. 10 people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the 10 people choose one particular link. That link then has a __________ clickthrough rate.
a. less than 30%
b. 30 percent
c. more than 30%
3. Which of the following factors have an impact on the Google PageRank?
a. The total number of inbound links to a page of a web site
b. The subject matter of the site providing the inbound link to a page of a web site
c. The text used to describe the inbound link to a page of a web site
d. The number of outbound links on the page that contains the inbound link to a page of a web site
4. What does the 301 server response code signify?
a. Not Modified
b. Moved Permanently
c. syntax error in the request
d. Payment is required
e. The request must be authorized before it can take place
5. If you enter 'Help site:www.go4expert.com' in the Google search box, what will Google search for?
a. It will open up the Google help pages applicable to www.go4expert.com
b. It will find pages about help within www.go4expert.com
c. It will only find page titles about help within www.go4expert.com
d. It will direct you to the request page for re-indexing of www.go4expert.com
6. What is Anchor Text?
a. It is the main body of text on a particular web page
b. It is the text within the left or top panel of a web page
c. It is the visible text that is hyper linked to another page
d. It is the most prominent text on the page that the search engines use to assign a title to the page
7. Which of the following free tools/websites could help you identify which city in the world has the largest search for the keyword - "six sigma"?
a. Yahoo Search Term Suggestion Tool
b. Alexa
c. Google Traffic Estimator
d. Google Trends
e. WordTracker
8. What term is commonly used to describe the shuffling of positions in search engine results in between major updates?
a. Waves
b. Flux
c. Shuffling
d. Swaying
9. Are RSS/Atom feeds returned in Google's search results?
a. Yes
b. No
10. Which of the following statements regarding website content are correct?
a. If you have two versions of a document on your website, Google recommends that you only allow the indexing of the better version
b. Linking to a page inconsistently does not affect the way Google views the page/s. Examples of inconsistent linking could be http://www.go4expert.com/page/ and http://www.go4expert.com/page and http://www.go4expert.com/page/index.htm.
c. Syndicating your content could lead to Google viewing the material as duplicate
d. Placeholders for pages which do not have content are never viewed as duplicate content by Google
11. What does the term Keyword Prominence refer to?
a. It refers to the fact that the importance of choosing high traffic keywords leads to the best return on investment
b. It refers to the importance attached to getting the right keyword density
c. It refers to the fact that the keywords placed in important parts of a webpage are given priority by the search engines
d. It refers to the fact that the keywords in bold font are given priority by the search engines
12. What is the term for Optimization strategies that are in an unknown area of reputability/validity?
a. Red hat techniques
b. Silver hat techniques
c. Grey hat techniques
d. Shady hat techniques
13. Which of the following statements is correct with regard to natural links?
a. They are two way links (reciprocal links)
b. They are from authority websites
c. They are voluntary in nature
d. They are from .edu or .gov extension websites
14. Which of the following can be termed as good keyword selection and placement strategies?
a. Targeting synonyms of the main keyword
b. Targeting the highest searched keywords only
c. Copying competitor keywords
d. Optimizing five or more keywords per page
15. What does the 302 server response code signify?
a. It signifies conflict, too many people wanted the same file at the same time
b. The page has been permanently removed
c. The method you are using to access the file is not allowed
d. The page has temporarily moved
e. What you requested is just too big to process
16. Which of the following statements about FFA pages are true?
a. They are greatly beneficial to SEO
b. They are also called link farms
c. They are paid listings
d. They contain numerous inbound links
17. What is the name of the search engine technology due to which a query for the word 'actor' will also show search results for related words such as actress, acting or act?
a. Spreading
b. Dilating
c. RSD (realtime synonym detection)
d. Stemming
e. Branching
18. What will the following robots.txt file do?
User-agent:Googlebot
Disallow:/*?
User-agent:Scooter
Disallow:
a. It will allow Google to crawl any of the dynamically generated pages. It will also allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
b. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated pages. It will also disallow the altavista scooter bot from accessing any page
c. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated pages. It will allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
d. None of the above
19. Which of the following statements about RSS are correct?
a. It is a form of XML
b. It stands for Realtime streamlined syndication
c. It is a good way of displaying static information
d. It is a microsoft technology
20. Which of the following statements are correct with regard to using javascript within the web pages?
a. It uses up the valuable space within the webpage, which should be used for placing meaningful text for the search engines
b. Search engines cannot read Javascript
c. It is a good idea to shift the Javascript into a separate file
d. Most of the search engines are unable to read links within Javascript code
21. Which of the following options are correct regarding the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) of a particular keyword?
a. It is directly proportional to the popularity of the keyword
b. It is inversely proportional to the competiton for the keyword
c. It is directly proportional to the chances of the keyword ranking on the first page of the Google search results
22. What is the illegal act of copying of a page by unauthorized parties in order to filter off traffic to another site called?
a. Trafficjacking
b. Visitorjacking
c. Viewjacking
d. Pagejacking
23. Which of the following search engines offers a popular list of the top 50 most searched keywords?
a. Google
b. Yahoo
c. AOL
d. Lycos
24. Which of the following search engines or directories provides the main search results for AOL?
a. Lycos
b. DMOZ
c. Google
d. Yahoo
e. Windows Live
25. Which of the following can be termed as appropriate Keyword Density?
a. 0.01-0.1%
b. 0.1-1%
c. 3-4%
d. 7-10%
e. More than 10%
26. The following robots meta tag directs the search engine bots:
META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow"
a. Not to index the homepage and not to follow the links in the page
b. Not to index the page and not to follow the links in the page
c. To index the page and not to follow the links in the page
d. Not to index the page but to follow the links in the page
27. What is Keyword Density?
a. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word count on page - (MINUS)the total words in HTML on the page
b. The number of times the keyword is used X (MULTIPLIED BY) the total word count on page
c. The number of times the keyword is used in the page description
d. The number of times the keyword is used in the page title
e. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word count on the page
28. Which of the following are examples of agents?
a. Internet Explorer
b. Search engine spiders
c. Opera
d. SQL Server database attached to a website
29. If you search for the term "iq test" in the Word Tracker keyword suggestion tool, will it return the number of independent searches for the term "iq"?
a. Yes
b. No
30. Cloaking is a controversial SEO technique. What does it involve?
a. Increasing the keyword density on the web pages
b. Offering a different set of web pages to the search engines
c. Hiding the keywords within the webpage
d. Creating multiple pages and hiding them from the website visitors
31. Which of the following facts about Alexa are correct?
a. Alexa provides free data on relative website visitor traffic
b. Alexa and Quantcast provide information on visitor household incomes
c. Alexa is biased towards US based traffic
d. Quantcast only tracks people who have installed the Quantcast toolbar
This is the last question of your test.
32. Google gives priority to themed in-bound links.
a. True
b. False
33. Which of the following methods can help you get around the Google Sandbox?
a. Buying an old Website and getting it ranked
b. Buying a Google Adwords PPC campaign
c. Placing the website on a sub domain of a ranked website and then 301 re-directing the site after it has been indexed
d. Getting a DMOZ listing
34. A Hallway Page is used to:
a. Attract visitors from the search engines straight onto the Hallway Page
b. Organizes the Doorway Pages
c. Helps people navigate to different Doorway Pages
d. Enables search engine bots to index the Doorway Pages
35. Which of the following options describes the correct meaning of MouseTrapping?
a. The technique of monitoring the movement of the mouse on the webpage
b. The technique of monitoring the area on which an advertisement was clicked
c. The web browser trick, which attempts to redirect visitors away from major websites through a spyware program
d. The web browser trick, which attempts to keep a visitor captive at on a website
36. What is the most likely time period required for getting a Google page rank?
a. 1 week
b. 3 weeks
c. 2 months
d. More than 3 months
37. All major search engines are case sensitive.
a. True
b. False
38. Which of the following website design guidelines have been recommended by Google?
a. Having a clear hierarchy and text links
b. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link
c. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you should break the site map into separate pages
d. Keeping the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)
e. Use less than 30 images or graphics per page
39. How are site maps important for the search engine optimization process?
a. Site maps help the search engine editorial staff to quickly go through a website, hence ensuring quicker placement
b. Google gives credit to the websites having site maps. The GoogleBot looks for the keyword or title "Site Map" on the home page of a website.
c. Site maps help the search engine spider pick up more pages from the website
d. None of the above
40. Google looks down upon paid links for enhancing page rank. If a website sells links, what action/s does Google recommend to avoid being penalized?
a. The text of the paid links should state the words "paid text link" for Google to identify it as a paid link
b. Only Paid text links to non profit websites should be accepted
c. Paid links should be disclosed through the "rel=nofollow" attribute in the hyperlink
d. Paid links should be disclosed through the "index=nofollow" attribute in the hyperlink
Here are some of the best interview questions for SEO and if you are looking to answer them read SEO FAQ's and you would not have difficulty in answering most of them if not all.
1. If a website's search
Engine saturation with respect to a particular search engine is 20%, what does it mean?
a. 20% of the webpages of the website have been indexed by the search engine
b. Only 20% of the pages of the website will be indexed by the search engine
c. 20% of the websites pages will never be indexed
d. The website ranks in the first 20% of all websites indexed by the search engine for its most important search terms
2. 10 people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the 10 people choose one particular link. That link then has a __________ clickthrough rate.
a. less than 30%
b. 30 percent
c. more than 30%
3. Which of the following factors have an impact on the Google PageRank?
a. The total number of inbound links to a page of a web site
b. The subject matter of the site providing the inbound link to a page of a web site
c. The text used to describe the inbound link to a page of a web site
d. The number of outbound links on the page that contains the inbound link to a page of a web site
4. What does the 301 server response code signify?
a. Not Modified
b. Moved Permanently
c. syntax error in the request
d. Payment is required
e. The request must be authorized before it can take place
5. If you enter 'Help site:www.go4expert.com' in the Google search box, what will Google search for?
a. It will open up the Google help pages applicable to www.go4expert.com
b. It will find pages about help within www.go4expert.com
c. It will only find page titles about help within www.go4expert.com
d. It will direct you to the request page for re-indexing of www.go4expert.com
6. What is Anchor Text?
a. It is the main body of text on a particular web page
b. It is the text within the left or top panel of a web page
c. It is the visible text that is hyper linked to another page
d. It is the most prominent text on the page that the search engines use to assign a title to the page
7. Which of the following free tools/websites could help you identify which city in the world has the largest search for the keyword - "six sigma"?
a. Yahoo Search Term Suggestion Tool
b. Alexa
c. Google Traffic Estimator
d. Google Trends
e. WordTracker
8. What term is commonly used to describe the shuffling of positions in search engine results in between major updates?
a. Waves
b. Flux
c. Shuffling
d. Swaying
9. Are RSS/Atom feeds returned in Google's search results?
a. Yes
b. No
10. Which of the following statements regarding website content are correct?
a. If you have two versions of a document on your website, Google recommends that you only allow the indexing of the better version
b. Linking to a page inconsistently does not affect the way Google views the page/s. Examples of inconsistent linking could be http://www.go4expert.com/page/ and http://www.go4expert.com/page and http://www.go4expert.com/page/index.htm.
c. Syndicating your content could lead to Google viewing the material as duplicate
d. Placeholders for pages which do not have content are never viewed as duplicate content by Google
11. What does the term Keyword Prominence refer to?
a. It refers to the fact that the importance of choosing high traffic keywords leads to the best return on investment
b. It refers to the importance attached to getting the right keyword density
c. It refers to the fact that the keywords placed in important parts of a webpage are given priority by the search engines
d. It refers to the fact that the keywords in bold font are given priority by the search engines
12. What is the term for Optimization strategies that are in an unknown area of reputability/validity?
a. Red hat techniques
b. Silver hat techniques
c. Grey hat techniques
d. Shady hat techniques
13. Which of the following statements is correct with regard to natural links?
a. They are two way links (reciprocal links)
b. They are from authority websites
c. They are voluntary in nature
d. They are from .edu or .gov extension websites
14. Which of the following can be termed as good keyword selection and placement strategies?
a. Targeting synonyms of the main keyword
b. Targeting the highest searched keywords only
c. Copying competitor keywords
d. Optimizing five or more keywords per page
15. What does the 302 server response code signify?
a. It signifies conflict, too many people wanted the same file at the same time
b. The page has been permanently removed
c. The method you are using to access the file is not allowed
d. The page has temporarily moved
e. What you requested is just too big to process
16. Which of the following statements about FFA pages are true?
a. They are greatly beneficial to SEO
b. They are also called link farms
c. They are paid listings
d. They contain numerous inbound links
17. What is the name of the search engine technology due to which a query for the word 'actor' will also show search results for related words such as actress, acting or act?
a. Spreading
b. Dilating
c. RSD (realtime synonym detection)
d. Stemming
e. Branching
18. What will the following robots.txt file do?
User-agent:Googlebot
Disallow:/*?
User-agent:Scooter
Disallow:
a. It will allow Google to crawl any of the dynamically generated pages. It will also allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
b. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated pages. It will also disallow the altavista scooter bot from accessing any page
c. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated pages. It will allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
d. None of the above
19. Which of the following statements about RSS are correct?
a. It is a form of XML
b. It stands for Realtime streamlined syndication
c. It is a good way of displaying static information
d. It is a microsoft technology
20. Which of the following statements are correct with regard to using javascript within the web pages?
a. It uses up the valuable space within the webpage, which should be used for placing meaningful text for the search engines
b. Search engines cannot read Javascript
c. It is a good idea to shift the Javascript into a separate file
d. Most of the search engines are unable to read links within Javascript code
21. Which of the following options are correct regarding the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) of a particular keyword?
a. It is directly proportional to the popularity of the keyword
b. It is inversely proportional to the competiton for the keyword
c. It is directly proportional to the chances of the keyword ranking on the first page of the Google search results
22. What is the illegal act of copying of a page by unauthorized parties in order to filter off traffic to another site called?
a. Trafficjacking
b. Visitorjacking
c. Viewjacking
d. Pagejacking
23. Which of the following search engines offers a popular list of the top 50 most searched keywords?
a. Google
b. Yahoo
c. AOL
d. Lycos
24. Which of the following search engines or directories provides the main search results for AOL?
a. Lycos
b. DMOZ
c. Google
d. Yahoo
e. Windows Live
25. Which of the following can be termed as appropriate Keyword Density?
a. 0.01-0.1%
b. 0.1-1%
c. 3-4%
d. 7-10%
e. More than 10%
26. The following robots meta tag directs the search engine bots:
META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow"
a. Not to index the homepage and not to follow the links in the page
b. Not to index the page and not to follow the links in the page
c. To index the page and not to follow the links in the page
d. Not to index the page but to follow the links in the page
27. What is Keyword Density?
a. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word count on page - (MINUS)the total words in HTML on the page
b. The number of times the keyword is used X (MULTIPLIED BY) the total word count on page
c. The number of times the keyword is used in the page description
d. The number of times the keyword is used in the page title
e. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word count on the page
28. Which of the following are examples of agents?
a. Internet Explorer
b. Search engine spiders
c. Opera
d. SQL Server database attached to a website
29. If you search for the term "iq test" in the Word Tracker keyword suggestion tool, will it return the number of independent searches for the term "iq"?
a. Yes
b. No
30. Cloaking is a controversial SEO technique. What does it involve?
a. Increasing the keyword density on the web pages
b. Offering a different set of web pages to the search engines
c. Hiding the keywords within the webpage
d. Creating multiple pages and hiding them from the website visitors
31. Which of the following facts about Alexa are correct?
a. Alexa provides free data on relative website visitor traffic
b. Alexa and Quantcast provide information on visitor household incomes
c. Alexa is biased towards US based traffic
d. Quantcast only tracks people who have installed the Quantcast toolbar
This is the last question of your test.
32. Google gives priority to themed in-bound links.
a. True
b. False
33. Which of the following methods can help you get around the Google Sandbox?
a. Buying an old Website and getting it ranked
b. Buying a Google Adwords PPC campaign
c. Placing the website on a sub domain of a ranked website and then 301 re-directing the site after it has been indexed
d. Getting a DMOZ listing
34. A Hallway Page is used to:
a. Attract visitors from the search engines straight onto the Hallway Page
b. Organizes the Doorway Pages
c. Helps people navigate to different Doorway Pages
d. Enables search engine bots to index the Doorway Pages
35. Which of the following options describes the correct meaning of MouseTrapping?
a. The technique of monitoring the movement of the mouse on the webpage
b. The technique of monitoring the area on which an advertisement was clicked
c. The web browser trick, which attempts to redirect visitors away from major websites through a spyware program
d. The web browser trick, which attempts to keep a visitor captive at on a website
36. What is the most likely time period required for getting a Google page rank?
a. 1 week
b. 3 weeks
c. 2 months
d. More than 3 months
37. All major search engines are case sensitive.
a. True
b. False
38. Which of the following website design guidelines have been recommended by Google?
a. Having a clear hierarchy and text links
b. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link
c. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you should break the site map into separate pages
d. Keeping the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)
e. Use less than 30 images or graphics per page
39. How are site maps important for the search engine optimization process?
a. Site maps help the search engine editorial staff to quickly go through a website, hence ensuring quicker placement
b. Google gives credit to the websites having site maps. The GoogleBot looks for the keyword or title "Site Map" on the home page of a website.
c. Site maps help the search engine spider pick up more pages from the website
d. None of the above
40. Google looks down upon paid links for enhancing page rank. If a website sells links, what action/s does Google recommend to avoid being penalized?
a. The text of the paid links should state the words "paid text link" for Google to identify it as a paid link
b. Only Paid text links to non profit websites should be accepted
c. Paid links should be disclosed through the "rel=nofollow" attribute in the hyperlink
d. Paid links should be disclosed through the "index=nofollow" attribute in the hyperlink
Important Factors You Must Know About SEO
Anyone who has an online business may be quick to jump into several SEO techniques, thinking that these will be a quick opportunity for internet success. If you think however that SEO can be accomplished in a jiffy, you’re bound to be disappointed. There are important factors you must know about search engine optimization. This includes the things to avoid, the things needed to generate a higher page rank, and finally the elements present in most excellent SEO services.
First of all, overloading your site with keywords is not always a smart thing to do. Sure, you want to communicate your offering or your service as much as you can, and to drive the targeted traffic back to your site. Who would not want that? However, too many keywords may end up overwhelming your market. Oftentimes, it is not always about keywords but the strategic placement of the keywords as well.
Filling your site with second-rate, plagiarized content is another way to sabotage the performance of your efforts. People are quick to recognize clichés and formulaic phrases, and if they don’t get anything fresh and useful from the website content, they will have to look for them from the next site, or the competition.
Link farming is another SEO technique that always ends up being abused. This involves a group of websites utilizing hyperlinks on their pages, all pointing back to every other site page within the group, with the goal of engendering more traffic and increased rankings in search engines. While these may work in the beginning, the long-term consequences of this strategy will be anything but beneficial for the websites.
Don’t fret, however because there are many ways with which you can increase your ranking consistently and effectively. If you have an easily navigable site that’s filled with high quality content, you are certain to attract a loyal following from your targeted visitors.
A website that is too complicated for the average internet user will limit its reach and will be able to provide for a specific niche only. As much as possible, maintain a website that has navigation-friendly features and one that people can easily maneuver. In the same manner, if the site contains relevant and well-researched content, visitors are bound to stick around a bit longer.
You can also submit high quality articles to article submission sites, so as to generate increased traffic. Well-written articles have higher chances of being accepted in these submission sites. Once you are able to provide excellent information to the readers through the articles, they will be more inclined to click on the link to your website provided at the bottom of each article.
If you want to achieve higher rankings of your web pages, you can avail of the services of excellent SEO service providers. It is always encouraged to go for one that guarantees high rankings for your site and one that has a comprehensive list of available services. Not all SEO services command high prices, so make sure that you are getting what you actually paid for.
Finally, a good SEO services company provides round-the-clock support to their clients. This is one of the important factors you must know about search engine optimization. Not all search engine optimization companies are created equal, so look for one that provides you with what need.
First of all, overloading your site with keywords is not always a smart thing to do. Sure, you want to communicate your offering or your service as much as you can, and to drive the targeted traffic back to your site. Who would not want that? However, too many keywords may end up overwhelming your market. Oftentimes, it is not always about keywords but the strategic placement of the keywords as well.
Filling your site with second-rate, plagiarized content is another way to sabotage the performance of your efforts. People are quick to recognize clichés and formulaic phrases, and if they don’t get anything fresh and useful from the website content, they will have to look for them from the next site, or the competition.
Link farming is another SEO technique that always ends up being abused. This involves a group of websites utilizing hyperlinks on their pages, all pointing back to every other site page within the group, with the goal of engendering more traffic and increased rankings in search engines. While these may work in the beginning, the long-term consequences of this strategy will be anything but beneficial for the websites.
Don’t fret, however because there are many ways with which you can increase your ranking consistently and effectively. If you have an easily navigable site that’s filled with high quality content, you are certain to attract a loyal following from your targeted visitors.
A website that is too complicated for the average internet user will limit its reach and will be able to provide for a specific niche only. As much as possible, maintain a website that has navigation-friendly features and one that people can easily maneuver. In the same manner, if the site contains relevant and well-researched content, visitors are bound to stick around a bit longer.
You can also submit high quality articles to article submission sites, so as to generate increased traffic. Well-written articles have higher chances of being accepted in these submission sites. Once you are able to provide excellent information to the readers through the articles, they will be more inclined to click on the link to your website provided at the bottom of each article.
If you want to achieve higher rankings of your web pages, you can avail of the services of excellent SEO service providers. It is always encouraged to go for one that guarantees high rankings for your site and one that has a comprehensive list of available services. Not all SEO services command high prices, so make sure that you are getting what you actually paid for.
Finally, a good SEO services company provides round-the-clock support to their clients. This is one of the important factors you must know about search engine optimization. Not all search engine optimization companies are created equal, so look for one that provides you with what need.
What Is Page Rank And Why Do We Want It?
Everyone seems to be scrambling around trying to get links on websites with a high google page rank. I see lists of people posting on freelance websites, "I need 100 inbound links with PR5 or higher!", "Inbound Links needed from PR3 and above websites", etc. etc.
I get emails from webmasters all the time wanting to trade links with me because I have a higher pages rank than they do. I have to use all sorts of filtering methods in the Webmaster Forums I manage to keep the spammers from posting links in the forum because it has a high page rank.
The spammers keep coming up with new nicknames and websites, and even new ip addresses. Getting their link on a high pr website or forum is so important to them they are like roaches after leftover cake in your kitchen at night. (I hope you don't really have roaches . . . or spammers.)
The funny thing is that I don't even see the posters on the freelance sites even adding that the links need to be from related websites. Just any link on a page with high page rank.
According to Wikipedia.com "PageRank is a family of algorithms for assigning numerical weightings to hyperlinked documents (or web pages) indexed by a search engine. Its properties are much discussed by search engine optimization (SEO) experts. The popular search engine Google to help determine a page’s relevance or importance uses the PageRank system. Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed it while at Stanford University in 1998."
However, examine search results and you will find that page rank isn't the only determining factor in search engine placement, although it has value and is part of the algorithm. Let's do a search on SEO in Google.
Site 1: PR7
Site 2: PR0 - doesn't have anything to do with search engine optimization
Site 3: PR4
Site 4: PR6 - Wikipedia reference to search engine optimization
Site 5: PR6
Site 6: PR6
Site 7: PR6
Site 8: PR4
Site 9: PR5
Site 10: PR7
Hmm a PR0 website is number 2. Now these were SEO websites, so the people there know how to get page rank so lets don't just use one example. Lets try a search for something neither as competitive nor likely to draw professionals to optimize websites for. How about Cereal?
Site 1: PR7
Site 2: PR5
Site 3: PR5
Site 4: PR4
Site 5: PR5
Site 6: PR6
Site 7: PR5
Site 8: PR4
Site 9: PR6
Site 10: PR4
While they all have decent page rank on those search terms, the websites are not ranked in the listings in order of page rank. Elementary my dear Watson, but what exactly is page rank then and why do we want it?
According to webworkshop.net, "PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.
PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determine a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.
Notes: Not all links are counted by Google. For instance, they filter out links from known link farms. Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Google. They rightly figure that webmasters cannot control which sites link to their sites, but they can control which sites they link out to. For this reason, links into a site cannot harm the site, but links from a site can be harmful if they link to penalized sites. So be careful which sites you link to. If a site has PR0, it is usually a penalty, and it would be unwise to link to it."
One correction I would make to that. A PR0 is not likely because a website was penalized. If the page rank is grayed out in your Google toolbar when visiting the site it might be because of a penalty. If you built a website today, it would have PR0 and not because you have been penalized.
This website and others also claim to have a formula for calculating page rank. I don't believe those formulas are correct. No one outside of Google has the correct formula. This is not an exact science that you can say x number of links from x number of websites with page rank of x will give you page rank of x. Any of these people with formulas claim that they can do this are simply misleading people or misleading themselves.
The facts that we do know about page rank are;
1. One-way inbound links from websites with topics that are related to your website's topic will help you gain a higher page rank.
2. Other one-way inbound links from pages with high page rank but unrelated topics do help a little, but not nearly as much.
3. The number of links outbound from the website that links to you also determines the value of the link. A related website with 10 outbound links that links to you is much better than a related website with 100 outbound links that link to you.
The website I referred to above loves to state a lot of things as fact, such as,
"Fact: A website has a maximum amount of PageRank that is distributed between its pages by internal links.
The maximum PageRank in a site equals the number of pages in the site * 1. The maximum is increased by inbound links from other sites and decreased by outbound links to other sites. We are talking about the overall PageRank in the site and not the PageRank of any individual page. You don't have to take my word for it. You can reach the same conclusion by using a pencil and paper and the equation.
Fact: The maximum amount of PageRank in a site increases as the number of pages in the site increases.
The more pages that a site has, the more PageRank it has. Again, by using a pencil and paper and the equation, you can come to the same conclusion. Bear in mind that the only pages that count are the ones that Google knows about.
I dispute both of those "facts". I cannot get a page rank of 30,000 in my article directory although I have 30,000 pages in it that have been indexed by google. Again, an elementary conclusion.
There are seo gurus who will tell you that the higher the page rank the deeper Google will crawl your website. Maybe. Google doesn't say that is the case though.
Also important to keep in mind that search engines crawl and index webpages not websites, that is why your page rank may vary from page to page within your website.
Good internal linking and navigation can help distribute page rank well throughout your website. Your index page is the most important page Google indexes and your other pages will inherit some page rank from your index page because it is linked from there.
I have one website that is a PR4 on the main page but contains several PR5 and PR6 webpages in the interior of the website proving that Google ranks webpages individually.
When you are doing your link building campaign, do it for more than just the index page. Put links out there for your interior pages as well.
Webmasters and individuals will link to quality content and quality content is the single best way to higher page rank and search engine listings. Content is still king. Links are not king.
I get emails from webmasters all the time wanting to trade links with me because I have a higher pages rank than they do. I have to use all sorts of filtering methods in the Webmaster Forums I manage to keep the spammers from posting links in the forum because it has a high page rank.
The spammers keep coming up with new nicknames and websites, and even new ip addresses. Getting their link on a high pr website or forum is so important to them they are like roaches after leftover cake in your kitchen at night. (I hope you don't really have roaches . . . or spammers.)
The funny thing is that I don't even see the posters on the freelance sites even adding that the links need to be from related websites. Just any link on a page with high page rank.
According to Wikipedia.com "PageRank is a family of algorithms for assigning numerical weightings to hyperlinked documents (or web pages) indexed by a search engine. Its properties are much discussed by search engine optimization (SEO) experts. The popular search engine Google to help determine a page’s relevance or importance uses the PageRank system. Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed it while at Stanford University in 1998."
However, examine search results and you will find that page rank isn't the only determining factor in search engine placement, although it has value and is part of the algorithm. Let's do a search on SEO in Google.
Site 1: PR7
Site 2: PR0 - doesn't have anything to do with search engine optimization
Site 3: PR4
Site 4: PR6 - Wikipedia reference to search engine optimization
Site 5: PR6
Site 6: PR6
Site 7: PR6
Site 8: PR4
Site 9: PR5
Site 10: PR7
Hmm a PR0 website is number 2. Now these were SEO websites, so the people there know how to get page rank so lets don't just use one example. Lets try a search for something neither as competitive nor likely to draw professionals to optimize websites for. How about Cereal?
Site 1: PR7
Site 2: PR5
Site 3: PR5
Site 4: PR4
Site 5: PR5
Site 6: PR6
Site 7: PR5
Site 8: PR4
Site 9: PR6
Site 10: PR4
While they all have decent page rank on those search terms, the websites are not ranked in the listings in order of page rank. Elementary my dear Watson, but what exactly is page rank then and why do we want it?
According to webworkshop.net, "PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.
PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determine a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.
Notes: Not all links are counted by Google. For instance, they filter out links from known link farms. Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Google. They rightly figure that webmasters cannot control which sites link to their sites, but they can control which sites they link out to. For this reason, links into a site cannot harm the site, but links from a site can be harmful if they link to penalized sites. So be careful which sites you link to. If a site has PR0, it is usually a penalty, and it would be unwise to link to it."
One correction I would make to that. A PR0 is not likely because a website was penalized. If the page rank is grayed out in your Google toolbar when visiting the site it might be because of a penalty. If you built a website today, it would have PR0 and not because you have been penalized.
This website and others also claim to have a formula for calculating page rank. I don't believe those formulas are correct. No one outside of Google has the correct formula. This is not an exact science that you can say x number of links from x number of websites with page rank of x will give you page rank of x. Any of these people with formulas claim that they can do this are simply misleading people or misleading themselves.
The facts that we do know about page rank are;
1. One-way inbound links from websites with topics that are related to your website's topic will help you gain a higher page rank.
2. Other one-way inbound links from pages with high page rank but unrelated topics do help a little, but not nearly as much.
3. The number of links outbound from the website that links to you also determines the value of the link. A related website with 10 outbound links that links to you is much better than a related website with 100 outbound links that link to you.
The website I referred to above loves to state a lot of things as fact, such as,
"Fact: A website has a maximum amount of PageRank that is distributed between its pages by internal links.
The maximum PageRank in a site equals the number of pages in the site * 1. The maximum is increased by inbound links from other sites and decreased by outbound links to other sites. We are talking about the overall PageRank in the site and not the PageRank of any individual page. You don't have to take my word for it. You can reach the same conclusion by using a pencil and paper and the equation.
Fact: The maximum amount of PageRank in a site increases as the number of pages in the site increases.
The more pages that a site has, the more PageRank it has. Again, by using a pencil and paper and the equation, you can come to the same conclusion. Bear in mind that the only pages that count are the ones that Google knows about.
I dispute both of those "facts". I cannot get a page rank of 30,000 in my article directory although I have 30,000 pages in it that have been indexed by google. Again, an elementary conclusion.
There are seo gurus who will tell you that the higher the page rank the deeper Google will crawl your website. Maybe. Google doesn't say that is the case though.
Also important to keep in mind that search engines crawl and index webpages not websites, that is why your page rank may vary from page to page within your website.
Good internal linking and navigation can help distribute page rank well throughout your website. Your index page is the most important page Google indexes and your other pages will inherit some page rank from your index page because it is linked from there.
I have one website that is a PR4 on the main page but contains several PR5 and PR6 webpages in the interior of the website proving that Google ranks webpages individually.
When you are doing your link building campaign, do it for more than just the index page. Put links out there for your interior pages as well.
Webmasters and individuals will link to quality content and quality content is the single best way to higher page rank and search engine listings. Content is still king. Links are not king.
Google Adwords VS Google Adsense
Google adwords and Google adsense are two services provided by Google. Let’s see both of them in detail because there's a difference between Adwords and Adsense, it needs to be clearer to people who don’t know about them but want to know.
Google Adwords Normally when any user performs any search process in google by providing any search criteria and then hit the Google Search button, he founds the desire results against his query but what are the links that are shown on the right side of the page under heading Sponsored Links, ok don’t worry, these are the Google Adwords. For the quick example, please type business in the google search box and then click the Google Search Button, at the left side of the search page you will find google Adwords under heading of “ Sponsored Links”.
Google Adwords program enable you to put your company ads in Google and their network of partner sites. When any user performs search process in Google against any keywords that are related to your ads, Google will display your ads in the search page(You normally see these adds at right of the Google when you performed any search and also in gmail too). Adwords is known as a form of pay-per-click advertising.
Google has also ratings for Adwords that ads from which company should be shown against search process related to these ads, google has ratings for Adwords due to race of competition. Every company wants from Google to display their ads when any user performs search process.
Advantages of Google Adwords
The one and main advantage of google adwords is heavy traffic that comes to your website due to the Adwords. Yeah, adwords generates heavy traffic to your website, so if you have started your business right now and you want to quickly introduce your business to the world then Google Adwords is the best resource that brings your business in the front of world so quickly and generates heavy traffic.
Google Adsense
The Google AdSense program differs in that it delivers Google AdWords ads to individuals' websites. Google then pays web publishers for the ads displayed on their site based on user clicks on ads or on ad impressions, depending on the type of ad. No one knows how many amount Google charges from Advertiser of ads against any click or ad impressions.
What languages does AdSense support?
Google AdSense supports publishers in several different languages. Applications for participation in the program can be for sites with content primarily in:
Arabic
Bulgarian
Chinese (simplified)
Chinese (traditional)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
In addition, AdSense for search is available in Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese. These languages are not supported for AdSense for content pages.
You can select your site's primary language during the application process. If you're approved, AdSense will serve relevant ads to your pages in the appropriate language, even if your site contains multiple supported languages.
Adsense can ruin your business
Yeah, Adsense can ruin your business because adsense makes your website the billboard of your competitors so it is best to use adsense if your website is providing tutorials like facility but if you are managing your business through your website then putting adsense in your website is very big mistake and adsense can ruin your business.
Complete Process: From Google Adwords to Google Adsense
If you are advertiser (A person who advertise the ads of his company using Google Adwords).You essentially create an account, insert your advertisement, pick the maximum amount you are willing to pay per click on your ad and then submit your credit card. You advertisement will then go live once the credit card is approved. Every time someone clicks on your ad, Google bills your account. Every couple of weeks or when your bill reaches a certain amount, Google will actually charge your credit card. Now for instance, any other person “ABC” wants to display your ads in his website and want to become a publisher (Publisher is a person who displays the Google Adwords in his website)then he visits the google adsense website which is http://www.google.com/adsesne and create his account in gmail, if already not made, then the process of how Google Adsense should look in your website is started and then he choose layout, different color for Ads that will display in his website. After this process google will sent email to your account and ask you to wait for approval and then normally after a day the google will sent you Adsense code , its up to you where u place this code at right at top, left or any where else you want to place, just place the code and google will show Ads there. When any user come to your website and click on the ads, google wil deduct the money from Advertiser’s account and give publisher to some percent of the money. Publisher can see the revenue that he gets through Google Adsense by logging in to his account in Google Adsense and then go to reports.
Google plays the role of Bridge between Advertisers and Publishers or Google is palying a role of bridge between Adwords and Adsense
Tip:-The ads title’s color should match the color scheme of your website hyperlink’s color.
Note:-It’s not guarantee that you will get a dollar or ratio of dollar against single click, Google counts each and every factor and then generates revenue for you. Page Impression is a big factor too for generating revenue.
What is an impression?
An impression is the viewing of an advertising banner, link, or product on the Internet
Google Adwords Normally when any user performs any search process in google by providing any search criteria and then hit the Google Search button, he founds the desire results against his query but what are the links that are shown on the right side of the page under heading Sponsored Links, ok don’t worry, these are the Google Adwords. For the quick example, please type business in the google search box and then click the Google Search Button, at the left side of the search page you will find google Adwords under heading of “ Sponsored Links”.
Google Adwords program enable you to put your company ads in Google and their network of partner sites. When any user performs search process in Google against any keywords that are related to your ads, Google will display your ads in the search page(You normally see these adds at right of the Google when you performed any search and also in gmail too). Adwords is known as a form of pay-per-click advertising.
Google has also ratings for Adwords that ads from which company should be shown against search process related to these ads, google has ratings for Adwords due to race of competition. Every company wants from Google to display their ads when any user performs search process.
Advantages of Google Adwords
The one and main advantage of google adwords is heavy traffic that comes to your website due to the Adwords. Yeah, adwords generates heavy traffic to your website, so if you have started your business right now and you want to quickly introduce your business to the world then Google Adwords is the best resource that brings your business in the front of world so quickly and generates heavy traffic.
Google Adsense
The Google AdSense program differs in that it delivers Google AdWords ads to individuals' websites. Google then pays web publishers for the ads displayed on their site based on user clicks on ads or on ad impressions, depending on the type of ad. No one knows how many amount Google charges from Advertiser of ads against any click or ad impressions.
What languages does AdSense support?
Google AdSense supports publishers in several different languages. Applications for participation in the program can be for sites with content primarily in:
Arabic
Bulgarian
Chinese (simplified)
Chinese (traditional)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
In addition, AdSense for search is available in Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese. These languages are not supported for AdSense for content pages.
You can select your site's primary language during the application process. If you're approved, AdSense will serve relevant ads to your pages in the appropriate language, even if your site contains multiple supported languages.
Adsense can ruin your business
Yeah, Adsense can ruin your business because adsense makes your website the billboard of your competitors so it is best to use adsense if your website is providing tutorials like facility but if you are managing your business through your website then putting adsense in your website is very big mistake and adsense can ruin your business.
Complete Process: From Google Adwords to Google Adsense
If you are advertiser (A person who advertise the ads of his company using Google Adwords).You essentially create an account, insert your advertisement, pick the maximum amount you are willing to pay per click on your ad and then submit your credit card. You advertisement will then go live once the credit card is approved. Every time someone clicks on your ad, Google bills your account. Every couple of weeks or when your bill reaches a certain amount, Google will actually charge your credit card. Now for instance, any other person “ABC” wants to display your ads in his website and want to become a publisher (Publisher is a person who displays the Google Adwords in his website)then he visits the google adsense website which is http://www.google.com/adsesne and create his account in gmail, if already not made, then the process of how Google Adsense should look in your website is started and then he choose layout, different color for Ads that will display in his website. After this process google will sent email to your account and ask you to wait for approval and then normally after a day the google will sent you Adsense code , its up to you where u place this code at right at top, left or any where else you want to place, just place the code and google will show Ads there. When any user come to your website and click on the ads, google wil deduct the money from Advertiser’s account and give publisher to some percent of the money. Publisher can see the revenue that he gets through Google Adsense by logging in to his account in Google Adsense and then go to reports.
Google plays the role of Bridge between Advertisers and Publishers or Google is palying a role of bridge between Adwords and Adsense
Tip:-The ads title’s color should match the color scheme of your website hyperlink’s color.
Note:-It’s not guarantee that you will get a dollar or ratio of dollar against single click, Google counts each and every factor and then generates revenue for you. Page Impression is a big factor too for generating revenue.
What is an impression?
An impression is the viewing of an advertising banner, link, or product on the Internet
Improve Your Adsense Income
One of the best ways to monetize your website is through Google Adsense. Many webmasters struggle to earn some good money through their website while others are earning hundreds of dollars a day just by having Adsense ads on their sites. However, just placing the ads on your site isn’t quite enough to earn hundreds of dollars a day, you need to think outside the box and fully optimize your website to earn a good income with your Adsense ads.
Those who are experienced in earning a good income using Adsense quite often give out some useful tips to help those up and coming Adsense income earners. It is amazing how following these tips can increase your income significantly.
Here are 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.
1. Using the format of Adsense ad that has proven to work well for the majority of people. The one ad that has shown to perform the best is the Large Rectangle (336X280). The large rectangle has the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.
2. Choose the color of your ads carefully. Set the background of your ad to blend with the background color of your site. Also set your ad border colour to the same as the background color, this way the border won’t show which makes the ad blend better to your site content. Choose the title color the same color as the headings on your website. Doing these three things will make your Adsense ads blend into your site and appear more like part of your content and own links rather than obvious ads. This will result in more clicks from your visitors.
3. Try to have as much Adsense as you can near the top of your page without overdoing it. More people will see the top of your page than the bottom of your page, as not everyone stays at a site long enough to scroll to the bottom. This will make an amazing difference to your Adsense income just by moving your ads from the bottom of your page to the top. Also having some ads near the navigation bar is a great idea as the navigation bar is one part of the page that almost always gets looked at.
4. Use relative keywords throughout the content of your website. Optimize your site well so that it will be favoured by the search engines and get a good page ranking. The higher your page ranking the more visitors you will receive to your website.
5. Drive a ton of traffic to your website. Do your homework on the different ways to drive traffic to your site and use all of them. If you want to earn a decent income with Adsense then you need to get heaps of traffic coming through your website daily. The more visitors you get, the more clicks you get and ultimately the more money you will make.
These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.
These tips are given by webmasters that have very successfully earned a good income using Adsense. If these tips can work wonders for those people then they are bound to help you out with your Adsense income too. Give them a try and see how much your Adsense earnings improve.
Those who are experienced in earning a good income using Adsense quite often give out some useful tips to help those up and coming Adsense income earners. It is amazing how following these tips can increase your income significantly.
Here are 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.
1. Using the format of Adsense ad that has proven to work well for the majority of people. The one ad that has shown to perform the best is the Large Rectangle (336X280). The large rectangle has the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.
2. Choose the color of your ads carefully. Set the background of your ad to blend with the background color of your site. Also set your ad border colour to the same as the background color, this way the border won’t show which makes the ad blend better to your site content. Choose the title color the same color as the headings on your website. Doing these three things will make your Adsense ads blend into your site and appear more like part of your content and own links rather than obvious ads. This will result in more clicks from your visitors.
3. Try to have as much Adsense as you can near the top of your page without overdoing it. More people will see the top of your page than the bottom of your page, as not everyone stays at a site long enough to scroll to the bottom. This will make an amazing difference to your Adsense income just by moving your ads from the bottom of your page to the top. Also having some ads near the navigation bar is a great idea as the navigation bar is one part of the page that almost always gets looked at.
4. Use relative keywords throughout the content of your website. Optimize your site well so that it will be favoured by the search engines and get a good page ranking. The higher your page ranking the more visitors you will receive to your website.
5. Drive a ton of traffic to your website. Do your homework on the different ways to drive traffic to your site and use all of them. If you want to earn a decent income with Adsense then you need to get heaps of traffic coming through your website daily. The more visitors you get, the more clicks you get and ultimately the more money you will make.
These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.
These tips are given by webmasters that have very successfully earned a good income using Adsense. If these tips can work wonders for those people then they are bound to help you out with your Adsense income too. Give them a try and see how much your Adsense earnings improve.
Boost Your Adsense CTR
How to increase your adsense revenue? Increase traffic or increase CTR!
Traffic and CTR, these two just like ” King ” and ” Queen “, both important! But everyone know, increasing traffic is a longtime work, you should work hard on it constantly, more unique contents, more backlinks, more exposed…, So if you want to inrease your adsense revenue of your exsiting traffic, try increasing CTR!
How to increase your CTR?
First of all: The Right Adspaces!
What is the ” Right Adspaces “, a right adspace is a position where you can extract maximum profit out of it, also we can say it’s a position where our visitors normally have a look at!
And now you should get an idea: how to find out and which part of your sites your visitors click on! Of course you can play the vistor’s role and image your clicking behaviour, but this just your action, not others! So, if you want to figure out what other vistors do, you need ” heatmap ” service! Just do a search in Google and you can find out there quit a few companies provid this service, some are free! Just sign up one and put the scripts they provided to your sites, and you can get a detail of your visitor’s activites on your site pages, also you can get an advice on where to place your ads!
Here 3 tips below can help you better increase your CTR:
1. Keywords URL
Use Keyword in your URL: you can use this trick to better target your ads! Google agree you to use keywords in your URL, but you should use the target keywords! Of course you’ll keep the keywords targeted for your site!:)
You can Achieve this by appending your URLs with ?k 1 = keyword1&k2=keyword2 .
Example:
URL before: http://www.tearsea.com/
URL before: http://www.tearsea.com/?keyword1=make money
2. Colors
This Colors inclue two sections: site color and ads color!
How to choose the color for your websites? The only one thing you should know is that vistors will stick arround the sites using lighter background a longer time than those darker and shiny colors!
And the Ads link color: Blue is always the first, cos a ” blue colored” text is always a link has already in our brain for a long time! So white or lighter background + blue colored ads = profit!
But this is just a common style, you should test this to make it work for you better~!
3. Image
Images normally catch the attention, So it’s very important to insert images arround your ads smartly~
Not only images, you can use everything that will catch visitor’s eyes, a from, a quoteblock…!
After of all, these tricks are just some tricks, you can use them to increase your adsense revenue of your exsiting traffic, but the traffic is always the King, so if your want make more and more money, you should increase more and more traffic for your sites!~
Traffic and CTR, these two just like ” King ” and ” Queen “, both important! But everyone know, increasing traffic is a longtime work, you should work hard on it constantly, more unique contents, more backlinks, more exposed…, So if you want to inrease your adsense revenue of your exsiting traffic, try increasing CTR!
How to increase your CTR?
First of all: The Right Adspaces!
What is the ” Right Adspaces “, a right adspace is a position where you can extract maximum profit out of it, also we can say it’s a position where our visitors normally have a look at!
And now you should get an idea: how to find out and which part of your sites your visitors click on! Of course you can play the vistor’s role and image your clicking behaviour, but this just your action, not others! So, if you want to figure out what other vistors do, you need ” heatmap ” service! Just do a search in Google and you can find out there quit a few companies provid this service, some are free! Just sign up one and put the scripts they provided to your sites, and you can get a detail of your visitor’s activites on your site pages, also you can get an advice on where to place your ads!
Here 3 tips below can help you better increase your CTR:
1. Keywords URL
Use Keyword in your URL: you can use this trick to better target your ads! Google agree you to use keywords in your URL, but you should use the target keywords! Of course you’ll keep the keywords targeted for your site!:)
You can Achieve this by appending your URLs with ?k 1 = keyword1&k2=keyword2 .
Example:
URL before: http://www.tearsea.com/
URL before: http://www.tearsea.com/?keyword1=make money
2. Colors
This Colors inclue two sections: site color and ads color!
How to choose the color for your websites? The only one thing you should know is that vistors will stick arround the sites using lighter background a longer time than those darker and shiny colors!
And the Ads link color: Blue is always the first, cos a ” blue colored” text is always a link has already in our brain for a long time! So white or lighter background + blue colored ads = profit!
But this is just a common style, you should test this to make it work for you better~!
3. Image
Images normally catch the attention, So it’s very important to insert images arround your ads smartly~
Not only images, you can use everything that will catch visitor’s eyes, a from, a quoteblock…!
After of all, these tricks are just some tricks, you can use them to increase your adsense revenue of your exsiting traffic, but the traffic is always the King, so if your want make more and more money, you should increase more and more traffic for your sites!~
secret to increase your adsense CTR
Increase your CTR (Click Thru Rate) by removing “Advertise on this Site”
Get rid of the “advertise on this site” text links next to your Google ads. This was automatically added by Google a few months ago. You can remove “advertise on this site” very easily in your adsense admin section. Just log in to your adsense account, click “my account” and look towards the bottom of the page. You’ll see a section called “Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up”. Just click edit and opt out of displaying it. By removing the extra “advertise on this site” text link you might just increase your CTR or click through ratio increasing the money you earn.
Get rid of the “advertise on this site” text links next to your Google ads. This was automatically added by Google a few months ago. You can remove “advertise on this site” very easily in your adsense admin section. Just log in to your adsense account, click “my account” and look towards the bottom of the page. You’ll see a section called “Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up”. Just click edit and opt out of displaying it. By removing the extra “advertise on this site” text link you might just increase your CTR or click through ratio increasing the money you earn.
How to Make Dollar with Google AdSense
Reach out and grab your readers with attractive, click persuasive and winning headlines. Watch as your promotional ROI (return on investment) increases fast! Follow t
They are calling him the million dollar man. Jason Calacanis recently revealed in his blog that he is on track to earn a million dollars from AdSense over the year ahead.
And if that number doesn’t wake you up and have you sitting on the edge of your seat, consider for a moment that he reached this level in less than a year. His company only started using AdSense in September 2004.
Calacanis runs Weblogs Inc., a network dedicated to creating trade weblogs across niche industries. And he’s quickly proven that AdSense is a credible advertising partner.
As their network has grown, so has their AdSense revenue. In January 2005 they earned an average of $580 per day. In March it was $737. In May it was $1,585. One day in July, just before he made the blog entry referred to above, they earned $2,335. Remember that is just for one day. If they can take that daily average to $2,740 they’ll be earning a rate of $1 million for a year. And Calacanis predicts that reaching daily earnings of $3,000 or even $5,000 is quite achievable.
That’s quite an achievement. Keep in mind that Calacanis has 103 bloggers on the payroll and nine staffers. Even so, many webmasters would give an arm or a leg to have even a third of that.
Google’s AdSense has been revolutionary. It has become firmly established as the darling of the online advertising industry. Although rumors are heard of major competitors launching a similar service, AdSense’s premier position seems secure for now.
In essence, AdSense has made it possible for almost anyone with a web site or blog to earn some revenue from advertising, without having to employ sales people or spend precious time searching for advertisers.
AdSense works like this. Webmasters sign up for an account in just a few minutes. They receive a small snippet of code to include on their web pages. Google will then automatically serve advertisements that are relevant to the content on the webmaster's pages. When someone visits the webmaster's site and clicks on one of Google's AdSense advertisements, the webmaster earns a fee. Advertisers can pay anywhere from five cents to a hundred dollars per click, and the webmaster receives a percentage of that fee.
Many webmasters are content with earning five to ten dollars from AdSense to cover the cost of web hosting. But many, unsurprising, have higher ambitions. At a popular WebmasterWorld forum, participants share tips and encouragement on reaching a goal of $300 per day from AdSense. So it is no wonder that Calacanis created quite a buzz when he made his million dollar blog entry.
Google have proven once again that they excel at designing innovative Internet services. If you are in the web industry and have not yet used AdSense, then perhaps you should try it out. Or if you are already using it, perhaps Calacanis’ impressive results will encourage you to track the performance of your AdSense units more closely, fine tune their positions and formats, and take your earnings to a new level.
They are calling him the million dollar man. Jason Calacanis recently revealed in his blog that he is on track to earn a million dollars from AdSense over the year ahead.
And if that number doesn’t wake you up and have you sitting on the edge of your seat, consider for a moment that he reached this level in less than a year. His company only started using AdSense in September 2004.
Calacanis runs Weblogs Inc., a network dedicated to creating trade weblogs across niche industries. And he’s quickly proven that AdSense is a credible advertising partner.
As their network has grown, so has their AdSense revenue. In January 2005 they earned an average of $580 per day. In March it was $737. In May it was $1,585. One day in July, just before he made the blog entry referred to above, they earned $2,335. Remember that is just for one day. If they can take that daily average to $2,740 they’ll be earning a rate of $1 million for a year. And Calacanis predicts that reaching daily earnings of $3,000 or even $5,000 is quite achievable.
That’s quite an achievement. Keep in mind that Calacanis has 103 bloggers on the payroll and nine staffers. Even so, many webmasters would give an arm or a leg to have even a third of that.
Google’s AdSense has been revolutionary. It has become firmly established as the darling of the online advertising industry. Although rumors are heard of major competitors launching a similar service, AdSense’s premier position seems secure for now.
In essence, AdSense has made it possible for almost anyone with a web site or blog to earn some revenue from advertising, without having to employ sales people or spend precious time searching for advertisers.
AdSense works like this. Webmasters sign up for an account in just a few minutes. They receive a small snippet of code to include on their web pages. Google will then automatically serve advertisements that are relevant to the content on the webmaster's pages. When someone visits the webmaster's site and clicks on one of Google's AdSense advertisements, the webmaster earns a fee. Advertisers can pay anywhere from five cents to a hundred dollars per click, and the webmaster receives a percentage of that fee.
Many webmasters are content with earning five to ten dollars from AdSense to cover the cost of web hosting. But many, unsurprising, have higher ambitions. At a popular WebmasterWorld forum, participants share tips and encouragement on reaching a goal of $300 per day from AdSense. So it is no wonder that Calacanis created quite a buzz when he made his million dollar blog entry.
Google have proven once again that they excel at designing innovative Internet services. If you are in the web industry and have not yet used AdSense, then perhaps you should try it out. Or if you are already using it, perhaps Calacanis’ impressive results will encourage you to track the performance of your AdSense units more closely, fine tune their positions and formats, and take your earnings to a new level.
AdSense Advantages
• AdSense is simple to join without any entry cost
• No technical skills required. Just a few lines of code to be copy and pasted
• Only ads relevant to your content appear
• AdSense automatically shows appropriate ads for different sections. So it saves great deal of time and energy searching for relevant advertisers for different sections
• You're free to concentrate on providing good content and Google does the work of finding the best ads for your pages
• You can filter up to 200 URLs, so you can block ads for websites that don't meet your standards. You can also block strong competitors
• Access base of around 100,000 advertisers
Overture offers two sign-up plans, Fast Track or Self Serve. You have to select a few keywords with reference to your website. You have to then bid an amount (per click) and position in the search results for each of the keyword. If you have the highest bid for that position, Overture will display your website in the search result of the keyword selected, at the position selected, in each of the above mentioned search engines. Note that even if your website is displayed in the search results you do not get charged the amount bid by you per click. It is only when a user clicks on your website link from the search results that you get charged that amount.
The higher the position, the higher is the current bid amount. Also, in order to keep your account active, you have to spend at least $20 a month. Your account with Overture will be discontinued if the total clicks on your website amount to less than $20.
The two sign-up plans, Fast Track or Self Serve, give you the choice of expert assistance or starting out on your own. Fast Track charges an additional one-time service fee of $199 whereas Self Serve does not have any service fee.
When you sign up with Overture using the Fast Track Sign-up program, you will receive a customized proposal prepared by one of the Overture experts. When you receive your proposal, all you have to do is approve Overture's choices to get your search listings online. You can also make changes in the proposal yourself.
Two basic concepts apply to using these types of search engines (Overture and Google AdWords) to your best advantage:
• While you obviously want to pay the least possible amount for each hit you get, you’re going to have to bid more if you want a higher listing and, therefore, more traffic. You have to carefully track the traffic you get from the search engine so you know the value of that traffic. If you don’t know the value, you could be paying too much for your traffic or missing great opportunities to generate more traffic if you can afford the higher price.
In other words, let’s assume you’re selling an item with a $25 profit margin. If one (1%) percent of visitors to your website buy the product, then each visitor is worth twenty five ($0.25) cents to you. If you get the traffic for less than that, you’re making money on each sale.
• The other concept involves bidding for several hundred keywords at low prices such as one penny each. This way you get listed all over the search engine. Each keyword won’t bring you much traffic by itself, but the total may be a hundred or more hits per day. If you’re only paying a couple of pennies per hit for this traffic, then it should be profitable for you.
If you search popular terms like "business", you’ll find the cost to be number one is quite high and the position is usually held by a large enterprise like Inc. magazine or Entrepreneur magazine. Large companies are often willing to invest millions of dollars in building their brands so they’ll pay more for traffic than it would normally be worth. I strongly suggest you don’t compete with them unless you are absolutely sure your business model will justify it.
Often, you’ll be able to find a top ten ranking for a third or less than the price to be number “One”. Since you’re limited to buying only traffic that’s profitable for you, this position will be better suited for you. Even if you end up far lower in the rankings, you must stay within your proper range for investment. You’ll probably get less traffic than the number one ranking, but you’ll get traffic you can make money on. That’s far more important.
On another note, Overture is also planning to come up with its own Contextual Advertising business solution soon to compete with Google AdSense.
Searchfeed is another pay-per-click program that has gained popularity in recent times. Based on website relevancy, you bid for placement within search results distributed to leading Web portals, industry specific websites and regional Internet service providers through the Private Label Feed (PLF) program. While the program is much like any other pay per click program, the difference is that Searchfeed has tied up with several portals and high traffic websites and visitors to those websites may thus use the Searchfeed engine to find suppliers.
You select relevant keywords for your website, create a title and description for each listing and bid on select keywords based on website relevance. You pay for each targeted lead only.
You determine the value of each unique visitor to your website using the most appropriate search terms to build continuous traffic. The more targeted the pay per click search term, the higher the bid you will want to make to ensure high placement. Because you can place an individual bid on each specific keyword or phrase being displayed, the value of each lead can be determined based on how targeted the interest of a potential visitor might be.
A deposit of $25 is required to activate your account. Bid amounts can be as low as 1 cent.
Ah-Ha.com, Inc. applies unique advertising programs to join websites to potential customers. Founded in 1999 as a filtered search engine, ah-ha now offers an array of products and services to advertisers and webmasters throughout the Internet, including Distribution and Partner Programs, Paid Listings, LogoLinks™, TopLinks Creatives, Guaranteed Inclusion, and Skyscraper advertisements. The company’s programs are designed to deliver targeted traffic to websites. The advertiser only pays for traffic delivered to their website and the partner builds bottom line revenue.
• No technical skills required. Just a few lines of code to be copy and pasted
• Only ads relevant to your content appear
• AdSense automatically shows appropriate ads for different sections. So it saves great deal of time and energy searching for relevant advertisers for different sections
• You're free to concentrate on providing good content and Google does the work of finding the best ads for your pages
• You can filter up to 200 URLs, so you can block ads for websites that don't meet your standards. You can also block strong competitors
• Access base of around 100,000 advertisers
Overture offers two sign-up plans, Fast Track or Self Serve. You have to select a few keywords with reference to your website. You have to then bid an amount (per click) and position in the search results for each of the keyword. If you have the highest bid for that position, Overture will display your website in the search result of the keyword selected, at the position selected, in each of the above mentioned search engines. Note that even if your website is displayed in the search results you do not get charged the amount bid by you per click. It is only when a user clicks on your website link from the search results that you get charged that amount.
The higher the position, the higher is the current bid amount. Also, in order to keep your account active, you have to spend at least $20 a month. Your account with Overture will be discontinued if the total clicks on your website amount to less than $20.
The two sign-up plans, Fast Track or Self Serve, give you the choice of expert assistance or starting out on your own. Fast Track charges an additional one-time service fee of $199 whereas Self Serve does not have any service fee.
When you sign up with Overture using the Fast Track Sign-up program, you will receive a customized proposal prepared by one of the Overture experts. When you receive your proposal, all you have to do is approve Overture's choices to get your search listings online. You can also make changes in the proposal yourself.
Two basic concepts apply to using these types of search engines (Overture and Google AdWords) to your best advantage:
• While you obviously want to pay the least possible amount for each hit you get, you’re going to have to bid more if you want a higher listing and, therefore, more traffic. You have to carefully track the traffic you get from the search engine so you know the value of that traffic. If you don’t know the value, you could be paying too much for your traffic or missing great opportunities to generate more traffic if you can afford the higher price.
In other words, let’s assume you’re selling an item with a $25 profit margin. If one (1%) percent of visitors to your website buy the product, then each visitor is worth twenty five ($0.25) cents to you. If you get the traffic for less than that, you’re making money on each sale.
• The other concept involves bidding for several hundred keywords at low prices such as one penny each. This way you get listed all over the search engine. Each keyword won’t bring you much traffic by itself, but the total may be a hundred or more hits per day. If you’re only paying a couple of pennies per hit for this traffic, then it should be profitable for you.
If you search popular terms like "business", you’ll find the cost to be number one is quite high and the position is usually held by a large enterprise like Inc. magazine or Entrepreneur magazine. Large companies are often willing to invest millions of dollars in building their brands so they’ll pay more for traffic than it would normally be worth. I strongly suggest you don’t compete with them unless you are absolutely sure your business model will justify it.
Often, you’ll be able to find a top ten ranking for a third or less than the price to be number “One”. Since you’re limited to buying only traffic that’s profitable for you, this position will be better suited for you. Even if you end up far lower in the rankings, you must stay within your proper range for investment. You’ll probably get less traffic than the number one ranking, but you’ll get traffic you can make money on. That’s far more important.
On another note, Overture is also planning to come up with its own Contextual Advertising business solution soon to compete with Google AdSense.
Searchfeed is another pay-per-click program that has gained popularity in recent times. Based on website relevancy, you bid for placement within search results distributed to leading Web portals, industry specific websites and regional Internet service providers through the Private Label Feed (PLF) program. While the program is much like any other pay per click program, the difference is that Searchfeed has tied up with several portals and high traffic websites and visitors to those websites may thus use the Searchfeed engine to find suppliers.
You select relevant keywords for your website, create a title and description for each listing and bid on select keywords based on website relevance. You pay for each targeted lead only.
You determine the value of each unique visitor to your website using the most appropriate search terms to build continuous traffic. The more targeted the pay per click search term, the higher the bid you will want to make to ensure high placement. Because you can place an individual bid on each specific keyword or phrase being displayed, the value of each lead can be determined based on how targeted the interest of a potential visitor might be.
A deposit of $25 is required to activate your account. Bid amounts can be as low as 1 cent.
Ah-Ha.com, Inc. applies unique advertising programs to join websites to potential customers. Founded in 1999 as a filtered search engine, ah-ha now offers an array of products and services to advertisers and webmasters throughout the Internet, including Distribution and Partner Programs, Paid Listings, LogoLinks™, TopLinks Creatives, Guaranteed Inclusion, and Skyscraper advertisements. The company’s programs are designed to deliver targeted traffic to websites. The advertiser only pays for traffic delivered to their website and the partner builds bottom line revenue.
How to Create Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines
Once upon a time, there was something called SEO copywriting.
These SEO copywriters seemed to have magical word skills that allowed them to place just the right keywords in just the right places and amounts, and even in the densities that were just right for miraculous top rankings. And that’s all you needed. or at least that’s what was (and still is) advertised.
There’s no doubt that keywords still matter, especially in titles. Search engines generally prefer to key in on the words people are looking for. But as SEO pro Rand Fishkin will tell you, "Measurements like keyword density are useless, although general frequency can help rankings".
Here’s the deal. Most of what determines the ranking position of any particular page is due to what happens off the page, in the form of links from other sites. Getting those links naturally has become the hardest part of SEO, which is why 2006 saw the strong emergence of social media marketing as a way to attract links with compelling content.
That’s why any true SEO copywriter is simply a writer who has a knack for tuning in to the needs and desires of the target audience. And due to the pursuit of links, those needs and desires have to be nailed well before you’ll ever show up in the search engines.
As I’ve written, the same emotional forces that prompt us to buy can also cause us to link, bookmark, and Digg. The context is different, as are the nuances, but it’s still a matter of providing compelling benefits in the form of content.
"Ask yourself what creates value for your users," say Google. As those brainy engineers continue to diligently create better algorithms, combined with people-powered social media tagging and blog-driven links, copywriters with a flair for prompting link response and conversions will become vital members of any search engine marketing effort.
To me, optimization (at least of the white hat variety) is the page tweaking that can be done after you’ve managed to attract a healthy amount of quality links that demonstrate the value of the content. Little things can make a big difference when you’re trying to move from the third page of the Google results to the first, or from position 7 to 3, 2 or 1.
Of course the critical components of a search-friendly site should be in place. But beyond that, tweaking a page for higher rankings before you’ve established that the content is compelling to people is a little like putting on your prom dress to stay home alone and watch Desperate Housewives.
This post is the first of a five-part series that sets forth a step-by-step strategy that I’ve had success with when trying to rank well for desired primary search terms. And since every step in the process is justified from a user-value standpoint, it should bring in traffic and enhance your site even if search engines were to disappear tomorrow.
The 5 Essential Elements of Search Engine Keyword Research
Keyword research is cool.
It allows you to gaze directly into people's minds.
Being able to take a look at the words and phrases people use when looking for things online is invaluable. Rather than listening to people say what they think they might do, you get to observe what they actually did. And when aggregated, you get a nice view of the words people most often use when thinking about and searching for a certain topic.
Once armed with keyword intelligence that's relevant to your niche, you have the unique ability to create highly-relevant content that aids your site visitors and enhances your credibility. You're speaking the language of the audience after all, and satisfying their needs.
And if you get it right, you'll likely rank well in the search engines too, after promoting the content in a strategic way. It may seem strange to view search traffic as a secondary benefit in a Google-driven world, but that's exactly how you should view it. Google won't treat you as relevant until someone else does first.
The counterintuitive rule of search engine keyword research is to try to forget that search engines can send you traffic. View the data as free or low-cost market research and you'll have the proper mindset to formulate a content strategy that has a shot at ranking well. People need to like your content before Google will.
Here are the five essential things to cover when it comes to keyword research:
1. Research Tools
Some will tell you that Google's Keyword Tool is all you need for research. Another free option is Aaron Wall's SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool, which incorporates Yahoo! Search data and other useful metrics. Paid tools may be superior choices to those provided by search engines since the proprietors are not motivated to sell you search advertising, and include Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.
2. Get Specific
"Keyword" is the term that gets tossed around, but what you're really after in most cases are keyword phrases. For example, a real estate attorney in Austin, Texas would gain very little actual benefit from ranking highly for the single word "attorney" (and good luck anyway), but specific keyword phrases based on geography and specialty would yield highly targeted traffic ("Austin real estate lawyer"). And don't forget synonyms.
3. Strength in Numbers
Don't takes as gospel truth the reported number of monthly searches provided by any particular tool. But do pay attention to relative popularity among search terms. You want to make sure enough people use that phrase when thinking of your niche to make it worth your while, especially if this is one of the primary search terms you want to target for your site overall. At the same time, be realistic. If you are trying to rank in a very competitive sector, aim for something attainable first, or make sure that a certain keyword combination can rank for an easier phrase if the more competitive term ends up out of reach.
4. Highly Relevant
Make sure that the search terms you are considering are highly relevant to your ultimate goal. If you are a service provider or selling specific products, keyword relevancy may be easier to determine-you ultimately want someone to purchase the product or service. Other goals may require more careful consideration, such as subscriptions to content publications and contributions to charities, for example.
5. Develop a Resource
Here's the key element. Can a particular keyword phrase support the development of content that is a valuable resource to readers? Something that:
* Satisfies the preliminary needs of the site visitor
* Acts as the first step in your sales or action cycle
* Is worth linking to
Steps 1-4 are basic operating procedure, at least in webmaster circles.
Step 5 is what makes the difference, and that's what the next installment in the SEO Copywriting 2.0 series will explore.
How to Create Cornerstone Content That Google Loves
Imagine with me for a second... someone has just arrived at your website, and this person has no idea what you're talking about. And this is an important visitor.
Pretend further that this single visitor could make the difference between success and failure for your business. She has no time to waste poking around your site trying to figure out what you're all about, so she immediately picks up the phone and calls you, demanding an explanation.
What do you tell her?
You'd likely explain by giving her the essential information about how you can help, and why you perfectly meet her needs, right? And I'm betting you'd want to explain it in the most compelling fashion you could, given what's riding on the deal.
In a nutshell, that's what Google wants you to do with the content on your site.
When trying to rank well for the one or two topics that your entire site is built around, creating flagship content is your best bet. Whether it's a tutorial about search engine optimization basics, blogging for beginners, or copywriting, a frequently asked questions page, or an inspirational mission statement, this content serves a vital function in creating a relevant, compelling, and useful cornerstone to build a site around.
A cornerstone is something that is basic, essential, indispensable, and the chief foundation upon which something is constructed or developed. It's what people need to know to make use of your website and do business with you.
And when approached in a strategic fashion, this content can rank very well in the search engines. The key is creating compelling content that's worth linking to, and then finding a way to get the word out.
Here's a 5-step strategy that I've found useful when developing cornerstone content and getting it to rank well.
1. Keywords
Taking into account the above, and what we know about keyword research, choose the most appropriate keyword phrase for your content. In other words, what is the relevant question that searchers are asking that your content and business will answer?
Will answering that question aid a visitor to your site in getting the most out of the experience? Are enough people asking that question to make ambitiously answering it worthwhile?
2. Title Tags and Headline
There's a lot of debate among SEO practitioners about what works and what doesn't, but no one disputes the importance of using your targeted keyword phrase in your title tag. Search engines want to offer relevant results, so those results should prominently reflect the words the searcher is using in the title of the page.
But remember also, the title tag is a headline. You want to speak back to the prospective reader in their own chosen words. Plus, you want to wrap those words in a compelling headline structure that promises to answer the exact question the searcher is asking with the query.
And finally, writing the perfect headline makes it more likely that someone will simply use your title to link back to you. To the extent link anchor text is a component of a particular search algorithm, this can only help.
3. Content
Can a 500 word article rank well for a competitive search term all by itself? Absolutely, because a lot of what determines how well a page ranks depends on the overall authority and age of the website it appears on. And perhaps for some topics, a short explanation is all that's really required from a user-gratification standpoint.
But if you have a newer website trying to rank for a competitive search term, you'll need links from other authoritative sources to make it happen. That means your content must be impressive, both in quality and in scope.
Develop an awesome multi-part tutorial. Write an inspirational manifesto. Answer the question so much better and comprehensively than the competition does, and chances are better that your effort becomes worth linking to.
4. Landing Page
If you're going to be ambitious in scope with your content, it makes sense to make things easy on the reader from a usability standpoint. A landing page is designed to instantly communicate what's going on to the visitor as soon as they arrive, and also acts as a table of contents (via links to each part) that increases clarity.
Here are some of the benefits of the landing page approach:
* Retention: Keeping a reader from hitting the back button is crucial to just about every aspect of successful cornerstone content. You can't score a reader, customer, or link if the benefit of the resource is not quickly communicated.
* Bookmarks: When presented with a beneficial, if somewhat overwhelming, piece of content, the first impulse is often to bookmark the page for a return visit. When that book marking occurs at a social site like Delicious, it can lead to long-term traffic. And when a whole bunch of those bookmarks happen in a short period of time, you can enjoy a viral effect that leads to more bookmarks and lots of links due to being highlighted on the Delicious popular and home pages. Landing pages help you score the bookmark.
* Links: Likewise, a visiting blogger or webmaster might be instantly impressed with your work, and link to you based on the benefits and scope communicated by the landing page itself. The quicker you can impress a potential link source, the easier you're making it for them to follow through.
* Optimization: To the extent modifying on-page copy can boost your ranking after attracting links; a landing page is a key benefit. It's a lot easier to meaningfully tweak a landing page than your 5,000 word opus.
5. Related Content
you may have noticed that I've used the word "website" throughout this post, rather than blog. However, I would never try to undertake this strategy without having a blog involved.
Search engines favor websites that have a lot of relevant, frequently-updated content, and they also like a lot of general link authority. Given the ease-of-publishing blogging provides, it's smart to utilize blog software from a content-management standpoint. And given that active blogging allows for constant participation in the social media space, it's a critical way to build general site authority via links, delve into specific and related topics, and to reference your cornerstone content.
You will certainly feature a link to your essential content in the sidebar. And if you've done your job correctly when selecting the focus, it will be perfectly natural to continue to reference and link to your cornerstone piece from within future posts as well.
Don't go overboard, but do provide context when discussing advanced topics that require an understanding of the basics. Never assume that everyone is aware of your cornerstone resource or understands the basics. Periodic cross-reference to your cornerstone content allows for continued exposure and links, assuming it meets the needs of the audience.
In Conclusion
the first goal of cornerstone content is usefulness and relevancy to the website visitor, no matter how they arrive. The second goal is to make that content so compelling and comprehensive that people are willing-no, make that excited-to link to it.
If you focus on these two goals in a strategic manner, the search engine thing has a good chance of working itself out. Since attracting links is so important, in the next installment of SEO Copywriting 2.0 we'll look at ways to proactively get the word out about your cornerstone content.
Five Link Building Strategies That Work
We've seen that the real secret to SEO Copywriting 2.0 is creating compelling content that naturally attracts links, rather than begging for links to our keyword-stuffed "optimized" web page. In other words, SEO copywriting is now all about response-oriented copy-concepts and words that ultimately result in a favorable action from the reader.
Since the popularity of our content depends on the reaction to it off-page, it makes sense that we might also need to step outside the confines of the page itself to get the word out. Luckily, the same copywriting skills you use to conceive and create your content apply to promoting it as well.
The way to create compelling content is to focus on "what's in it for the reader." Likewise, no one is going to link to you unless doing so gives them a benefit as well.
The key is the same-understand who you're talking to and then figure out what will catch their attention and convince them to take action. Here are 5 ways to go about it.
1. Social Media Sites
The quickest way for an exceptional piece of content to get a lot of attention that results in secondary links is to make the home page of Digg or Delicious Popular. There are scores of similar sites that can drive quality traffic as well, such as Reddit, TechMeme, and Magnolia. For more offbeat content, Fark will shake your server. Plus there are dozens of aggregator sites such as PopURLS that also drive traffic based on your inclusion at the primary site.
If you've done a great job with your headline, it should magnetically draw people in. However, you need to understand the audience of each social media site. What works as a headline for Digg often won't work for Reddit. Tweak accordingly, but try to retain your keywords in the title if at all possible, because most of the resulting links will simply regurgitate that title.
Another key element for success on Digg is the summary description, because many people will vote for content based soley on the headline and the brief copy that describes it. Sometimes this may simply be your existing opening paragraph, but you might craft a specialized description that best appeals to the culture of the site.
Submitting your own content to social media sites is looked down upon (at least with your real name), so it makes sense to have a friend submit for you. When specifically targeting a social news site, you want to control the headline and summary copy, because the exact same content submitted with poor headline and description copy may go absolutely nowhere.
2. Linking out
linking out to attract links? Yep.
Engaging in dialogue with the relevant blogs in your niche is a great way to get noticed, and it can lead to links back. Bloggers definitely watch who is linking to them thanks to Technorati, and you can take the initiative by linking out first before looking for one in return.
Simply linking out for the sake of linking won't accomplish much, especially with bloggers who gets lots of links. The key is to be strategic about how you link and what your say.
It's just like any other conversation. Join in and add your two cents, but make sure you've got something substantive to say that will reflect well on you. Use a great headline to make sure you are noticed, and then deliver the goods. And since your cornerstone content is the foundation of what the conversation is likely about, finding a way to mention it in the context of the dialogue will naturally bring it to the attention of influencers in your field.
3. Networking Emails
The days of flat out link begging are fading, but you can still reach out to other bloggers as a way to raise your own profile. Again, can you figure out what's in it for them?
More than one-off link requests, networking via email and instant messaging is about establishing and growing relationships with others in the social media space. These are the linkerati-prominent bloggers in your niche, top Digg users, web journalists, and prominent web forum contributors.
Write your introductory emails from a copywriting perspective. Catch attention, gain interest, and create a desire to help you in the future by offering something that benefits them first.
4. Guest Appearances
another benefit of networking within your niche is that it creates opportunities to make a guest writing appearance. You can contribute content that not only allows you to raise your profile, but allows for links back to your own site. Once again, creating killer original content will open doors for you, especially when it's created for the benefit of someone else. And you can use that killer cornerstone content you've already produced as an example of the quality you can deliver.
Depending on your relationship with the site owner, you may be able to link to your cornerstone content from within the body of the content itself, but only if the citation is extremely relevant to the content and beneficial to the reader. Otherwise, your link will need to appear in your byline.
Most people tend to link to their site or blog URL in the byline of contributed content. Turn it around by focusing the byline on the reader instead of yourself, and feature your cornerstone content instead of your home page.
5. Article Directories
At one point in time, submitting about 20 articles to a directory like Ezine Articles with the right anchor text would get you a really good ranking for some search terms, at least in Yahoo and MSN. However, because the engines discount duplicate content, having dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of sites republish your article (and linked byline) no longer does the trick by itself.
However, a site like Ezine Articles is still excellent for creating exposure to your cornerstone content. Having a link to your multi-part tutorial displayed on hundreds of web pages drives direct traffic, and can lead to your content being referenced in other posts and articles that do pass on link authority.
The strategy is much the same as with guest posting on a blog. Write original content that does not appear on your site, and submit to one or more reputable directories. Repeat until you get results.
Conclusion
The words you put on a web page have no life of their own until they get read. And those same words will not gain prominence in search engines until the words are linked to by relevant, authoritative sources.
Search engines can still be gamed, just like offline real-world systems can be exploited. However, the goals of the search engines are similar to society at large, and they are getting very good at finding rule breakers and dispensing punishment. Creating compelling content and beneficial relationships are strategies that won't get you banned or penalized, and add value to your overall goal of converting site visits into revenue.
SEO Copywriting Techniques That Readers Love>
While the reaction to your content off-page has become the critical determining factor when it comes to search engine rankings, your targeted keyword phrase should still appear on the page itself. And while there's little consensus in this area, having your keyword combinations appear throughout the page copy generally helps search engines further identify the relevancy of the page for those keywords.
The good news is, copywriting best practices can create compelling, engaging content that also contains repeated keywords and phrases. You never want to sacrifice readability in the pursuit of rankings, but given that links are more important than on-page keyword repetition, you should never have to.
Here are a few tips for keyword integration in your copy:
1. Titles
The most important place your keywords should appear is in the title tag of the page. The nice thing about blogging software is that your post or page title will be automatically transformed into both title tags and either an H1 or H2 heading tag as well. Remember, your headline should wrap your keywords in a pithy promise that perfectly communicates what the content has to offer.
2. Opening
I've always found it useful to repeat the targeted keywords in the opening sentence, as long as it can be done in a way that is appealing to a reader and reinforces relevancy. Since many search engines use this initial copy as the description of the content, you want to make sure you are accurately selling the searcher on clicking through as well.
3. Subheadings
another important place that keywords can appear is in subheads that aid the reader in navigating down the page. A resource that matches up well with the targeted keyword phrase will find natural opportunities to restate keywords in subheads, as an introduction to the next topical section of the page. Subheads are typically created using the H3 tag.
4. Related Words and Synonyms
Good copy should naturally result in words that are related to, as well as synonyms for, the keyword phrases you are after. Rather than mindlessly repeating the same words ad nauseam, assume that search algorithms are advanced enough to look for proper contextually-related words that support your targeted keywords.
5. Specificity
one of the hallmarks of great copy is specific, descriptive words in lieu of bland general terminology. Specificity aids the reader by clearly demonstrating relevancy, allows for more dynamic copy, and provides opportunities to increase the general on-page keyword frequency. Make sure to employ your specific keywords when feasible within the context of the copy, rather than rely on generic wording.
6. Call to Action
let us not forget that we want the reader to take some form of action that benefits us. Otherwise, what's the point? Once again, your copy should conclude with a call to action that prompts the reader to travel down the path you desire. Is it to purchase, contact, subscribe or simply continue reading? Your primary keywords should naturally fit in with the next step you want the reader to take.
Conclusion
The key to good on-page SEO copywriting is crafting content that seamlessly integrates keywords in a way that doesn't offend the reader. In fact, good keyword-rich copy should never even consciously alert the reader that keyword repetition is being employed for any reason other than his or her own benefit.
These SEO copywriters seemed to have magical word skills that allowed them to place just the right keywords in just the right places and amounts, and even in the densities that were just right for miraculous top rankings. And that’s all you needed. or at least that’s what was (and still is) advertised.
There’s no doubt that keywords still matter, especially in titles. Search engines generally prefer to key in on the words people are looking for. But as SEO pro Rand Fishkin will tell you, "Measurements like keyword density are useless, although general frequency can help rankings".
Here’s the deal. Most of what determines the ranking position of any particular page is due to what happens off the page, in the form of links from other sites. Getting those links naturally has become the hardest part of SEO, which is why 2006 saw the strong emergence of social media marketing as a way to attract links with compelling content.
That’s why any true SEO copywriter is simply a writer who has a knack for tuning in to the needs and desires of the target audience. And due to the pursuit of links, those needs and desires have to be nailed well before you’ll ever show up in the search engines.
As I’ve written, the same emotional forces that prompt us to buy can also cause us to link, bookmark, and Digg. The context is different, as are the nuances, but it’s still a matter of providing compelling benefits in the form of content.
"Ask yourself what creates value for your users," say Google. As those brainy engineers continue to diligently create better algorithms, combined with people-powered social media tagging and blog-driven links, copywriters with a flair for prompting link response and conversions will become vital members of any search engine marketing effort.
To me, optimization (at least of the white hat variety) is the page tweaking that can be done after you’ve managed to attract a healthy amount of quality links that demonstrate the value of the content. Little things can make a big difference when you’re trying to move from the third page of the Google results to the first, or from position 7 to 3, 2 or 1.
Of course the critical components of a search-friendly site should be in place. But beyond that, tweaking a page for higher rankings before you’ve established that the content is compelling to people is a little like putting on your prom dress to stay home alone and watch Desperate Housewives.
This post is the first of a five-part series that sets forth a step-by-step strategy that I’ve had success with when trying to rank well for desired primary search terms. And since every step in the process is justified from a user-value standpoint, it should bring in traffic and enhance your site even if search engines were to disappear tomorrow.
The 5 Essential Elements of Search Engine Keyword Research
Keyword research is cool.
It allows you to gaze directly into people's minds.
Being able to take a look at the words and phrases people use when looking for things online is invaluable. Rather than listening to people say what they think they might do, you get to observe what they actually did. And when aggregated, you get a nice view of the words people most often use when thinking about and searching for a certain topic.
Once armed with keyword intelligence that's relevant to your niche, you have the unique ability to create highly-relevant content that aids your site visitors and enhances your credibility. You're speaking the language of the audience after all, and satisfying their needs.
And if you get it right, you'll likely rank well in the search engines too, after promoting the content in a strategic way. It may seem strange to view search traffic as a secondary benefit in a Google-driven world, but that's exactly how you should view it. Google won't treat you as relevant until someone else does first.
The counterintuitive rule of search engine keyword research is to try to forget that search engines can send you traffic. View the data as free or low-cost market research and you'll have the proper mindset to formulate a content strategy that has a shot at ranking well. People need to like your content before Google will.
Here are the five essential things to cover when it comes to keyword research:
1. Research Tools
Some will tell you that Google's Keyword Tool is all you need for research. Another free option is Aaron Wall's SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool, which incorporates Yahoo! Search data and other useful metrics. Paid tools may be superior choices to those provided by search engines since the proprietors are not motivated to sell you search advertising, and include Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.
2. Get Specific
"Keyword" is the term that gets tossed around, but what you're really after in most cases are keyword phrases. For example, a real estate attorney in Austin, Texas would gain very little actual benefit from ranking highly for the single word "attorney" (and good luck anyway), but specific keyword phrases based on geography and specialty would yield highly targeted traffic ("Austin real estate lawyer"). And don't forget synonyms.
3. Strength in Numbers
Don't takes as gospel truth the reported number of monthly searches provided by any particular tool. But do pay attention to relative popularity among search terms. You want to make sure enough people use that phrase when thinking of your niche to make it worth your while, especially if this is one of the primary search terms you want to target for your site overall. At the same time, be realistic. If you are trying to rank in a very competitive sector, aim for something attainable first, or make sure that a certain keyword combination can rank for an easier phrase if the more competitive term ends up out of reach.
4. Highly Relevant
Make sure that the search terms you are considering are highly relevant to your ultimate goal. If you are a service provider or selling specific products, keyword relevancy may be easier to determine-you ultimately want someone to purchase the product or service. Other goals may require more careful consideration, such as subscriptions to content publications and contributions to charities, for example.
5. Develop a Resource
Here's the key element. Can a particular keyword phrase support the development of content that is a valuable resource to readers? Something that:
* Satisfies the preliminary needs of the site visitor
* Acts as the first step in your sales or action cycle
* Is worth linking to
Steps 1-4 are basic operating procedure, at least in webmaster circles.
Step 5 is what makes the difference, and that's what the next installment in the SEO Copywriting 2.0 series will explore.
How to Create Cornerstone Content That Google Loves
Imagine with me for a second... someone has just arrived at your website, and this person has no idea what you're talking about. And this is an important visitor.
Pretend further that this single visitor could make the difference between success and failure for your business. She has no time to waste poking around your site trying to figure out what you're all about, so she immediately picks up the phone and calls you, demanding an explanation.
What do you tell her?
You'd likely explain by giving her the essential information about how you can help, and why you perfectly meet her needs, right? And I'm betting you'd want to explain it in the most compelling fashion you could, given what's riding on the deal.
In a nutshell, that's what Google wants you to do with the content on your site.
When trying to rank well for the one or two topics that your entire site is built around, creating flagship content is your best bet. Whether it's a tutorial about search engine optimization basics, blogging for beginners, or copywriting, a frequently asked questions page, or an inspirational mission statement, this content serves a vital function in creating a relevant, compelling, and useful cornerstone to build a site around.
A cornerstone is something that is basic, essential, indispensable, and the chief foundation upon which something is constructed or developed. It's what people need to know to make use of your website and do business with you.
And when approached in a strategic fashion, this content can rank very well in the search engines. The key is creating compelling content that's worth linking to, and then finding a way to get the word out.
Here's a 5-step strategy that I've found useful when developing cornerstone content and getting it to rank well.
1. Keywords
Taking into account the above, and what we know about keyword research, choose the most appropriate keyword phrase for your content. In other words, what is the relevant question that searchers are asking that your content and business will answer?
Will answering that question aid a visitor to your site in getting the most out of the experience? Are enough people asking that question to make ambitiously answering it worthwhile?
2. Title Tags and Headline
There's a lot of debate among SEO practitioners about what works and what doesn't, but no one disputes the importance of using your targeted keyword phrase in your title tag. Search engines want to offer relevant results, so those results should prominently reflect the words the searcher is using in the title of the page.
But remember also, the title tag is a headline. You want to speak back to the prospective reader in their own chosen words. Plus, you want to wrap those words in a compelling headline structure that promises to answer the exact question the searcher is asking with the query.
And finally, writing the perfect headline makes it more likely that someone will simply use your title to link back to you. To the extent link anchor text is a component of a particular search algorithm, this can only help.
3. Content
Can a 500 word article rank well for a competitive search term all by itself? Absolutely, because a lot of what determines how well a page ranks depends on the overall authority and age of the website it appears on. And perhaps for some topics, a short explanation is all that's really required from a user-gratification standpoint.
But if you have a newer website trying to rank for a competitive search term, you'll need links from other authoritative sources to make it happen. That means your content must be impressive, both in quality and in scope.
Develop an awesome multi-part tutorial. Write an inspirational manifesto. Answer the question so much better and comprehensively than the competition does, and chances are better that your effort becomes worth linking to.
4. Landing Page
If you're going to be ambitious in scope with your content, it makes sense to make things easy on the reader from a usability standpoint. A landing page is designed to instantly communicate what's going on to the visitor as soon as they arrive, and also acts as a table of contents (via links to each part) that increases clarity.
Here are some of the benefits of the landing page approach:
* Retention: Keeping a reader from hitting the back button is crucial to just about every aspect of successful cornerstone content. You can't score a reader, customer, or link if the benefit of the resource is not quickly communicated.
* Bookmarks: When presented with a beneficial, if somewhat overwhelming, piece of content, the first impulse is often to bookmark the page for a return visit. When that book marking occurs at a social site like Delicious, it can lead to long-term traffic. And when a whole bunch of those bookmarks happen in a short period of time, you can enjoy a viral effect that leads to more bookmarks and lots of links due to being highlighted on the Delicious popular and home pages. Landing pages help you score the bookmark.
* Links: Likewise, a visiting blogger or webmaster might be instantly impressed with your work, and link to you based on the benefits and scope communicated by the landing page itself. The quicker you can impress a potential link source, the easier you're making it for them to follow through.
* Optimization: To the extent modifying on-page copy can boost your ranking after attracting links; a landing page is a key benefit. It's a lot easier to meaningfully tweak a landing page than your 5,000 word opus.
5. Related Content
you may have noticed that I've used the word "website" throughout this post, rather than blog. However, I would never try to undertake this strategy without having a blog involved.
Search engines favor websites that have a lot of relevant, frequently-updated content, and they also like a lot of general link authority. Given the ease-of-publishing blogging provides, it's smart to utilize blog software from a content-management standpoint. And given that active blogging allows for constant participation in the social media space, it's a critical way to build general site authority via links, delve into specific and related topics, and to reference your cornerstone content.
You will certainly feature a link to your essential content in the sidebar. And if you've done your job correctly when selecting the focus, it will be perfectly natural to continue to reference and link to your cornerstone piece from within future posts as well.
Don't go overboard, but do provide context when discussing advanced topics that require an understanding of the basics. Never assume that everyone is aware of your cornerstone resource or understands the basics. Periodic cross-reference to your cornerstone content allows for continued exposure and links, assuming it meets the needs of the audience.
In Conclusion
the first goal of cornerstone content is usefulness and relevancy to the website visitor, no matter how they arrive. The second goal is to make that content so compelling and comprehensive that people are willing-no, make that excited-to link to it.
If you focus on these two goals in a strategic manner, the search engine thing has a good chance of working itself out. Since attracting links is so important, in the next installment of SEO Copywriting 2.0 we'll look at ways to proactively get the word out about your cornerstone content.
Five Link Building Strategies That Work
We've seen that the real secret to SEO Copywriting 2.0 is creating compelling content that naturally attracts links, rather than begging for links to our keyword-stuffed "optimized" web page. In other words, SEO copywriting is now all about response-oriented copy-concepts and words that ultimately result in a favorable action from the reader.
Since the popularity of our content depends on the reaction to it off-page, it makes sense that we might also need to step outside the confines of the page itself to get the word out. Luckily, the same copywriting skills you use to conceive and create your content apply to promoting it as well.
The way to create compelling content is to focus on "what's in it for the reader." Likewise, no one is going to link to you unless doing so gives them a benefit as well.
The key is the same-understand who you're talking to and then figure out what will catch their attention and convince them to take action. Here are 5 ways to go about it.
1. Social Media Sites
The quickest way for an exceptional piece of content to get a lot of attention that results in secondary links is to make the home page of Digg or Delicious Popular. There are scores of similar sites that can drive quality traffic as well, such as Reddit, TechMeme, and Magnolia. For more offbeat content, Fark will shake your server. Plus there are dozens of aggregator sites such as PopURLS that also drive traffic based on your inclusion at the primary site.
If you've done a great job with your headline, it should magnetically draw people in. However, you need to understand the audience of each social media site. What works as a headline for Digg often won't work for Reddit. Tweak accordingly, but try to retain your keywords in the title if at all possible, because most of the resulting links will simply regurgitate that title.
Another key element for success on Digg is the summary description, because many people will vote for content based soley on the headline and the brief copy that describes it. Sometimes this may simply be your existing opening paragraph, but you might craft a specialized description that best appeals to the culture of the site.
Submitting your own content to social media sites is looked down upon (at least with your real name), so it makes sense to have a friend submit for you. When specifically targeting a social news site, you want to control the headline and summary copy, because the exact same content submitted with poor headline and description copy may go absolutely nowhere.
2. Linking out
linking out to attract links? Yep.
Engaging in dialogue with the relevant blogs in your niche is a great way to get noticed, and it can lead to links back. Bloggers definitely watch who is linking to them thanks to Technorati, and you can take the initiative by linking out first before looking for one in return.
Simply linking out for the sake of linking won't accomplish much, especially with bloggers who gets lots of links. The key is to be strategic about how you link and what your say.
It's just like any other conversation. Join in and add your two cents, but make sure you've got something substantive to say that will reflect well on you. Use a great headline to make sure you are noticed, and then deliver the goods. And since your cornerstone content is the foundation of what the conversation is likely about, finding a way to mention it in the context of the dialogue will naturally bring it to the attention of influencers in your field.
3. Networking Emails
The days of flat out link begging are fading, but you can still reach out to other bloggers as a way to raise your own profile. Again, can you figure out what's in it for them?
More than one-off link requests, networking via email and instant messaging is about establishing and growing relationships with others in the social media space. These are the linkerati-prominent bloggers in your niche, top Digg users, web journalists, and prominent web forum contributors.
Write your introductory emails from a copywriting perspective. Catch attention, gain interest, and create a desire to help you in the future by offering something that benefits them first.
4. Guest Appearances
another benefit of networking within your niche is that it creates opportunities to make a guest writing appearance. You can contribute content that not only allows you to raise your profile, but allows for links back to your own site. Once again, creating killer original content will open doors for you, especially when it's created for the benefit of someone else. And you can use that killer cornerstone content you've already produced as an example of the quality you can deliver.
Depending on your relationship with the site owner, you may be able to link to your cornerstone content from within the body of the content itself, but only if the citation is extremely relevant to the content and beneficial to the reader. Otherwise, your link will need to appear in your byline.
Most people tend to link to their site or blog URL in the byline of contributed content. Turn it around by focusing the byline on the reader instead of yourself, and feature your cornerstone content instead of your home page.
5. Article Directories
At one point in time, submitting about 20 articles to a directory like Ezine Articles with the right anchor text would get you a really good ranking for some search terms, at least in Yahoo and MSN. However, because the engines discount duplicate content, having dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of sites republish your article (and linked byline) no longer does the trick by itself.
However, a site like Ezine Articles is still excellent for creating exposure to your cornerstone content. Having a link to your multi-part tutorial displayed on hundreds of web pages drives direct traffic, and can lead to your content being referenced in other posts and articles that do pass on link authority.
The strategy is much the same as with guest posting on a blog. Write original content that does not appear on your site, and submit to one or more reputable directories. Repeat until you get results.
Conclusion
The words you put on a web page have no life of their own until they get read. And those same words will not gain prominence in search engines until the words are linked to by relevant, authoritative sources.
Search engines can still be gamed, just like offline real-world systems can be exploited. However, the goals of the search engines are similar to society at large, and they are getting very good at finding rule breakers and dispensing punishment. Creating compelling content and beneficial relationships are strategies that won't get you banned or penalized, and add value to your overall goal of converting site visits into revenue.
SEO Copywriting Techniques That Readers Love>
While the reaction to your content off-page has become the critical determining factor when it comes to search engine rankings, your targeted keyword phrase should still appear on the page itself. And while there's little consensus in this area, having your keyword combinations appear throughout the page copy generally helps search engines further identify the relevancy of the page for those keywords.
The good news is, copywriting best practices can create compelling, engaging content that also contains repeated keywords and phrases. You never want to sacrifice readability in the pursuit of rankings, but given that links are more important than on-page keyword repetition, you should never have to.
Here are a few tips for keyword integration in your copy:
1. Titles
The most important place your keywords should appear is in the title tag of the page. The nice thing about blogging software is that your post or page title will be automatically transformed into both title tags and either an H1 or H2 heading tag as well. Remember, your headline should wrap your keywords in a pithy promise that perfectly communicates what the content has to offer.
2. Opening
I've always found it useful to repeat the targeted keywords in the opening sentence, as long as it can be done in a way that is appealing to a reader and reinforces relevancy. Since many search engines use this initial copy as the description of the content, you want to make sure you are accurately selling the searcher on clicking through as well.
3. Subheadings
another important place that keywords can appear is in subheads that aid the reader in navigating down the page. A resource that matches up well with the targeted keyword phrase will find natural opportunities to restate keywords in subheads, as an introduction to the next topical section of the page. Subheads are typically created using the H3 tag.
4. Related Words and Synonyms
Good copy should naturally result in words that are related to, as well as synonyms for, the keyword phrases you are after. Rather than mindlessly repeating the same words ad nauseam, assume that search algorithms are advanced enough to look for proper contextually-related words that support your targeted keywords.
5. Specificity
one of the hallmarks of great copy is specific, descriptive words in lieu of bland general terminology. Specificity aids the reader by clearly demonstrating relevancy, allows for more dynamic copy, and provides opportunities to increase the general on-page keyword frequency. Make sure to employ your specific keywords when feasible within the context of the copy, rather than rely on generic wording.
6. Call to Action
let us not forget that we want the reader to take some form of action that benefits us. Otherwise, what's the point? Once again, your copy should conclude with a call to action that prompts the reader to travel down the path you desire. Is it to purchase, contact, subscribe or simply continue reading? Your primary keywords should naturally fit in with the next step you want the reader to take.
Conclusion
The key to good on-page SEO copywriting is crafting content that seamlessly integrates keywords in a way that doesn't offend the reader. In fact, good keyword-rich copy should never even consciously alert the reader that keyword repetition is being employed for any reason other than his or her own benefit.
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