SEO, Search Engine Optimization, marketing online

When you are optimizing your website to get a top Google ranking, you have to be patient. Most webmasters are very eager when it comes to optimizing their website for a top Google rank and they go overboard with the use of keywords. If you do this wrongly, not only will you not rank highly on Google and the other search engines, but you may also end up getting banned from their list.

Getting a top rank in Google may be your dream but you need to understand the keyword density for each of your article. The calculation for keyword density is critical. As a rule of thumb the keywords used should not be more than 5 % of your article. This to me makes perfect sense. Imagine reading an article with so many of the same words being repeated. It turns the readers off and is not good for your marketing. A naturally written article attracts more readers who would likely read to the end of the article before they decide to buy whatever it is that you are selling.

There are many tools that you can use to assist you in getting a top Google rank. Without a doubt, the most essential of all is Google Keyword Tool, a free web-based tool to help you find the right keywords and the number of searches made for that keyword in a 12 month period so that you can use the information to optimize your articles for a top rank in Google. There are also several paid keyword software tools that you can purchase but I find the free Google Keyword Tool is a great tool to start with before you progress to other multiple use software tools.

Original and informative content is what Google and the other search engines value highly. Why would they want to publish something that has already been written by someone before. The search engines are providing a service to the mass public on finding information and the more original and informative your information is with the right amount of targeted keywords, the higher is your chances of getting a top rank in Google.

Besides articles and information, your website has got to look like a normal website and not a sales page with just good copywriting. A normal website has the “about me” page, your contact details, privacy statement, categories, and pages. The more pages you have with the right keyword density, the more the search engines will love your website because they love content. The search spiders eat your content and will push you up the Google ranking if they love eating what you have to offer.

Once the spiders have crawled and you are listed by the search engines, you will need to optimize your site even further. Usually, you won’t rank on Google’s first page on the first crawl. Fine tune your articles with keyword density and build backlinks to your website. Backlinks that point back to your website are extremely valuable because it shows that your website is popular. You can build backlinks by marketing articles with your hyperlink in the resource box, joining forum sites and doing some social bookmarking on popular platforms such as Facebook, Digg and Twitter.

As a website owner, one of your top priorities is going to be getting your site indexed and ranked by Google. People perform over 235 million searches a day with Google, so the potential to receive significant traffic from this search engine should be enough for you to invest the time to make sure it’s done right.

Google wants to fill its index with quality, error free websites that are beneficial and targeted to their searchers. Enter Google’s Webmaster Central Tools ….. http://google.com/webmasters . If you’ve never heard of it, it’s Google’s way of helping you with your website’s indexing. Not too long ago, it went through a redesign and upgrade process which made it more useful and easier to use than ever.

First thing you’ll need to sign in with is a Google account. Google requires an account to be able to use all of their free services, including Blogger and Analytics, so if youdon’t have one, now’s the time to register.

If you have multiple websites to list, that’s no problem. Up to 500 sites can be added all under one roof. You will need to perform what Google calls “site verification” for each site submitted. This proves to Google that you are the owner of the site before they release detailed information to you. At one time it was a lengthy process of cutting and pasting code into the head section of your index page or uploading a separate HTML file. Now they’ve streamlined the process and it’s all done with one click of an email.

If you use Blogger.com, “Webmaster Tools” can be enabled from within the Blogger dashboard under tools/resources. Once your sites have been submitted, you’ll have access to a whole suite of useful tools. The website is broken up into three main sections.

1. Site Configuration (Information about your site)
2. Your Site on the Web (Google data re: your site)
3. Diagnostics (Any problems Google had while indexing your site)

If your website has never received a decent ranking with Google, these numerous reports will help you in tracking down the problem. It’s truly an “eye opener” to see your site through the eyes of a search engine.

On the “Crawl Errors Page”, any errors Google encountered while crawling your site are revealed. The url’s not listed, and the types of problems such as restricted by robots txt, url’s that timed out, and unreachable url’s will be uncovered. If numerous pages of your site are not indexed, Sitemaps can also be submitted to help Google find and crawl all of the pages of your site.

If your website is not showing up in Google’s index, or you think it’s being penalized for some reason, you can contact Google from within the “tools interface” with a “reconsideration” request. This will ask Google to take another look at your site. Before submitting, make sure you’ve cleaned up any errors, and that you’re not in violation of any of Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Here’s a small sample of some other tasks that can be performed.

* Keyword Research: The keywords page lists the most important words Google found when indexing your site. So you know what keyword/phrases your site is ranking for.
* Who’s linking to your website.
* Page rank for individual pages can be reviewed.
* Change of address feature, which is useful when moving domains to let Google know.
* Data can be downloaded in spreadsheet format in order to be analyzed and tracked.
* Any RSS feeds can also be submitted as sitemaps.
* Parameter Handling- Allows you to tell Google which url’s you want them to ignore.
* Emails from Google’s Webmaster Tools can be forwarded to any email address you specify.

Contrary to popular belief, Google wants you to succeed online which is why they give you the tools needed to fix any problems, and make your site a search engine’s indexing dream. That’s not just good business for Google, it’s good for your website too.

First, let’s define the term Explosive Results for our usage.

A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.

An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.

Read more...

When looking at Google, one is struck by the somewhat Orwellian nature of entering a search term and being watched by Big Brother in a dispassionate, detached yet interested manner. When looking at the patterns people use in searching, it does come close to that totalitarian character from the George Orwell novel, 1984, but that is the truth of our times. Google is neither good nor evil. It just IS, and with that realization, people should adapt to the new SEO frontiers and how to not only deal with but capitalize on the wealth of information that search engines collect.

Let’s drop the Big Brother analogy, because when we started looking for things on the Internet, that became just another part of our paradigm shift towards the belief that anything we searched for on the Net was just out of our reach in the search results. Collecting data and disseminating it is a fact of life. As a business, one should rapidly get used to the idea and seek constructive, professional ways to harness this power. Because, in this case knowledge is truly power, and if you or a company that you hire can get a handle on the niche you want to control and dominate to deliver your sales message or well-placed, online advertising, then you’re ready to watch your sales double, quadruple and more.

The true value an SEO expert on staff or a firm that understands the value of search engine optimization can transform your company. The concept is really very simple: put your company, product or service in the traffic or search results of people who are looking for your product or service. That’s it. Success on the Internet.

When you look at it that way, it doesn’t appear to be so hard to conquer. What you may fail to realize is that there are millions of companies and businesses out there that have already realized this fact and have gone on to seek their fortune in that realm. You will need an edge, something that most of your competitors lack.

This is where the basic principle of personalized search comes into play. You see, whether you’re a millionaire or Joe-Nobody surfing the Net, every time you query Google or any other search engine for information, that query data is stored in a database. It is then tabulated, and cross-tabulated with other things you and others have searched for. On a personal level, the search engines build a profile of your search habits over time. Like artificial intelligence, the search engines long to understand you, your interests and habits. As you search and surf, you will begin to see an eerie thing happen - more and more relevant search results will begin to pop up as you type.

Before you run screaming back into the dark ages, this is a good thing. For example, if you’ve shown an interest in fishing while our neighbor searches for musical instruments. When you search for “bass”, the search engine will begin to return fishing results, while your neighbor who searches for the exact same term, “bass” will get back musical instruments that are relevant to him - bass fiddles, bass drums, etc. This is personalized search results.

Now that you understand the concept, let’s talk about how you can use it in your business in order increase sales in your business. These personalized search results, you need to either learn or hire an SEO firm that is familiar with this major shift in how search engine optimization is going. Google is currently testing the waters with this form of personalization, and you need to be signed up with one of their services in order to get this kind of personalization. Theses services include: Adwords, Google Toolbar, Gmail and the like. Through these various forums, Google is learning about you and your preferences.

When you search through Google, it places a cookie which is a unique identifier on your machine. It doesn’t do anything, but identify you as a user of their service. No biggie, right? It will be just as easy for them to use this technology to collect user data in order to personalize your search. Right now, they’re waiting to see if there’s screaming in the streets from users who abhor any kind of data collection. More than likely, it will go by unnoticed by most. As a business, you need to be on the cutting edge of this new technology and have either an expert or a firm working towards utilizing this major upgrade in order to take you to the next level of the Internet.

Truly good search engine optimization firms are already preparing for this major shift, using things like “clean” machines for data collection and in how they report on Google’s ranking of data to their clients. Clean machines are one’s that have had no Google programs or cookies dropped on it. This will be a baseline machine with results for the client that are delivered as a snapshot of what they user would see if their machine was Google-less.

First, the good news. Account holders with the search engine giant will probably not be deluged with certain products based on their profiles, but their entire surfing and querying history will be reviewed and results will be skewed toward the user’s industry.

Then, there’s the bad news. Search engine optimization firms will have a rough time trying to demonstrate these results because the client will more than likely be using a Google program on personal machines, so the results won’t match with the SEO firm.

What all this means is that the company needs to establish a level of trust in the professional skills of the firm they choose. In return, the SEO firm needs to take the time to explain in detail how the new search engine results work showing how these results can appear totally different from machine to machine and why this happens. As well, the firm needs to have the technical skill to be able to delve into the client’s machine, look at the current cookies onboard and explain how this is affecting what results they’re getting.

When setting up a campaign, companies will have to take more into account when starting out. Having a good SEO firm onboard will simplify this latest level of complexity quite a bit. Being able to utilize personal search results and consumer profiles is just a step away, and it takes a high-level of skill to deal with it effectively.

Like anyone who’s using Google Adwords in their
online marketing, I received Google’s small booklet
in the mail entitled “Google’s Adwords Top
Tactics For Tough Times.”

In it Google lays out 6 Adwords Tactics for tough times…
helpful tips to help their Adwords users get
through these hard times and keep using Adwords
in the process.

These tactics include: (quoting directly from the
mail-out)

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.

2. Use Value-related keywords.

3. Ensure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.

4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.

5. Make it easy for customers to buy.

6. Focus your money on your high-performers.

These are all good tactics for the tough times ahead…
I especially like the emphasis on low-prices and savings.
Everyone will be looking for bargains in these rough times,
by focusing your marketing on fulfilling that need will
make your campaigns more profitable.

You can learn more here:

http://www.google.com/adwords/tactics2008

Now I am first to admit I am not a PPC expert, the majority
of my marketing is done thru SEO with first page listings
in organic search (mainly Google) for my keywords. So take
everything that follows with a large grain of salt.

My main beef with Google Adwords, they won’t send you
enough traffic. If you’re in a competitive niche market,
the big players will obviously outbid you… no matter
how good or bad your landing pages are. I know that
your quality score is supposed to lower your costs and
if your ads have high CTR click-thru-rates, your Adwords
costs should come down even more and you get more traffic.

Still, it’s difficult to make a profit especially for
an affiliate marketer who only gets a percentage of the
sale and not the full sale price. I counter this by picking
affiliate products that give you residual income, make one
sale and get paid for years or the life of that client.
Even with using this tactic, Google Adwords is very risky
for the online affiliate marketer - you better know what
you’re doing or you can waste a lot of money.

Slap Yourself Silly!

Actually, that statement is not really true because it
has been my experience that Google Adwords simply won’t
deliver the traffic you want. Unless you want to make
outrageous high bids on keywords and slap yourself silly;
Google won’t give you the traffic. Unlike Yahoo Marketing
which will supply you with traffic to meet at least 60% to 80%
of your daily PPC budget - no such luck with Google Adwords.

They simply won’t give me the impressions, let alone
the traffic! Again, I am speaking from my own experience
here, and it is wrong to make a general consensus just
based on one person’s findings. I believe the main
reason is because the competition is so stiff and
Google traffic is so highly prized. Get a high
conversion rate and throw in this quality traffic
from Google and you can print your own money.

In several proven profitable campaigns, I would like
to spend 3 or 4 hunderd dollars a day but Google simply
won’t deliver the traffic at my bid levels… you have
to raise your bids so high, you can’t make a profit.
These are not minimum bids and my ads are placed
in the second or third spot on the right hand side
in Google Search. Even if you have first page placement
in Google’s organic SERPs for the same site and keywords
you’re bidding on - it’s still difficult to get the traffic.

I know you have to pick niche markets and campaigns
that are not so competitive that you can make a profit.
But I am not so sure… I believe Google Adwords are
way too strict regarding who they do business with.
Maybe Google is used to handling clients with budgets of
3 or 4 thousand a day and can’t be bothered with the small
guys.

You Must Establish A Good Credit History

Google Adwords also uses something called a proven track
record or history… unless you can establish this good credit
history, forget about getting large amounts of traffic from
Google. It’s much like SERPs where you have to prove yourself
before they will consistently list your site. The old
SandBox issue.

To be fair, you really have to view this situation from Google’s
standing… they give out all this traffic on a “pay-later”
basis, they have to make sure any traffic delivered will
be paid for by the receiver. It could all boil down to
a simple business procedure. Again, I am no expert at
Adwords.

However, I am hoping in these harsh economic times, Google
will have to become more open and give more impressions
and traffic to the smaller fry. Obviously, by sending out
the booklet, Google must be concerned with a drop in business
in these uncertain times. Maybe their numbers have already
dropped, maybe not. Only Google knows.

Better yet, if times get very dire, competition just might go
down and this will open up new opportunities for the small
marketers out there, including in Google Adwords. Now that’s
one tactic I hope Google will adopt. There are probably thousands,
if not millions of other small marketers ready to take up the
slack, Google would just have to work harder dealing with many
more advertisers rather than centering all their efforts on
the large corporate clients with huge pockets who I am now
assuming get the majority of Adwords traffic.

In any case, it sure would be nice to have more PPC traffic
from Google. Give me the traffic first, and I’ll worry about
the other Adwords Tactics later, after I get the traffic
flowing.

That’s my response to this Google Adwords Mail-out.
http://www.google.com/adwords/tactics2008