SE0 - One key to success

Increase Web-Site Traffic with an Article Directory

2006-04-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

To increase web-site traffic is a time consuming JOB, unless you think smart and use an article directory or multiple article directories.

Only Two Methods Needed To Increase Web-Site Traffic

There are several different ways to increase web-site traffic, but only one is the best and this article will explain in full detail how to accomplish this. First and foremost, forget everything you've ever read on increasing web-site traffic. Only the best and smartest concepts will be learned from this article. Only relevant backlinks and relevant reciprocal links are needed. Why are these the only two concepts you should focus on to increase targeted web-site traffic. These two methods will kill four birds with one stone, search engine rankings, link popularity, pagerank(PR), and targeted web-site traffic. There is no reason for me to explain why these increase your targeted traffic, but only how to utilize them.

Relevant Backlinks Increase Web-Site Traffic

Backlinks are the heart of search engine rankings and can dramatically increase web-site traffic alone. Why? Backlinks carry more importance then any other form of links, because the search engine feels, that if there is a backlink or one-way link to your site from another without linking to them, that your site is more important. 50 Backlinks are more important than 500 reciprocal links. Search engines are aware that webmasters trade links, so to have multiple backlinks from highly important sites tells the search engine, this site is important regarding this particular niche, this is why your backlinks must be relevant. How do I acquire high pr backlinks with out paying hundreds of dollars. Articles! An Article Directory can be your savior in your backlink crisis. Almost all article directories will have at least a PR4 ranking. Why? Unique content and all the article pages providing a backlink to the article directory.

An Article Directory Can Increase Relevant Backlinks

You are going to exploit the article system by creating lots of article pages with a one-way or backlink to your site or several sites if you choose. Most article directories will allow you to insert three links in the resource box of an article submission form. By writing artices and submitting to a directory or directories, you will gain three backlinks for every article published. One article can expand. I had to show you the power of articles, so I published one 6 days prior to this one, "The Full Adsense Formula." Google search it within the quotations. Now I only submitted it to 150 article directories, and in 6 days I have twice as many backlinks from this published article. Why are there twice as many links as article directories I submitted to? An article directory is not just for publishing articles, but also for webmasters with a high demand for content. These webmasters can reprint or publish your article, with your permission of course, on their site as long as they keep the article intact, including the backlinks to your sites. Now, for a webmaster to want to reprint your article it must be relevant to their site. Relevant Backlinks! An article I wrote last year now has been published on 8,000 pages. A lot of relevant backlinks for thirty minutes of typing. This will increase your PR within weeks and you will see the increase in web-site traffic in days. This article exploit is used more for the search engines rankings and backlinks, not long term web-site traffic. The reason for this is because the NEW article itself will only generate traffic for a month or so.

Articles Increasse Search Engine Rankings

Now these articles in the directories will be indexed in the search engines on their own page, with your link at the end. So 5,000 pages with your article increases your chances of a search engine user locating it, reading it, and visiting your site afterwards. Why? They want more info or have come to the conclusion that you know what you are talking about, if it is a very informative article. While these pages move up in the SERP's(Search Engine Results Page) over time the page they are linked to will move up also. For Search Engine purposes, the backlink that follows the article shou;d not have the article on it. Why? Search engines like unique content and the visitor doesn't want to read the same article over. They want more relevant info that wasn't included in the article.

Use Articles To Gain Reciprocal Links

Write an article on reciprocal links and inform your readers that you will be exchanging links, leave your email address and the topics of your pages and you won't have to spend enourmous amounts of time looking for links to increase your web-site traffic. They'll email you. Once the pages are in the search engines. I have used these methods many times to give new domains at least a (PR5)PageRank of 5 in 30 days time. I have a new article directory myself, I will try to obtain a PR8 in no time.

To learn more visit my SEO and Web-site Traffic pages.

If your are truly attempting to increase your targeted web-site traffic, post articles at my Article Directory.

Looking For Relevant PR6 Reciprocal Links?

2006-04-10T05:47:00.000-07:00

Hi to All! I am the webmaster of a PR6 domain and I am looking for relevant links to my PR6 site.

Online Income Guide - Top Domain
Direct Sub-pages:
Affiliate Programs
Get Paid for Online Surveys
MLM/HYIP Investments
Adwords Secrets & Tips
Adsense Secrets & Tips
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
Website Traffic - Increase Targeted Traffic

All Reciprocal Links will be placed on top domain and direct sub-pages. Direct sub-pages range from PR4 - PR5.
Please contact me at Instantcashflow.org if anyone is interested in trading relevant reciprocal links.
You can check my PR here and here Guide To Online Income, if you have google's toolbar. Thank You for your time invested in reading this announcement.

SEO Explained As Simple As Possible

2006-03-30T10:01:00.000-08:00

Content, Links, Relevance And Page Rank

SEO experts are constantly telling us about the importance of good quality content and good quality back links from web sites with relevant content. They also tell us that reciprocal links and page rank are of decreasing importance. They then instruct us as to how to go about getting good links by personally contacting other web sites and proposing a reciprocal link! Confusing! As is much of the advice given to prospective site designers.

Personal experience with our own web site has shown that the following is correct and works;

· Content is the key. Lots of it, with constant up dates to it, and it should be well written and informative not just a sales pitch.

· The more pages you can create the better. Upwards of 100 pages will highlight your site as an important one. Sites with only a few pages rarely appear on the first page of search engine results.

· As the site ages its importance will increase. Those who got in early generally outperform the later sites. Google also have an ageing process for links. As these links approach six months old they become of more importance.

· Reciprocal links once gone through the ageing process are still being counted, even with Google’s updated algorithm.

· Article writing and publishing will produce huge numbers of backlinks. You should be looking to produce upwards of 30 articles and aim for around 250.

· Attaching a weblog to your site which is updated daily will increase the rate at which the search engines visit your site and at the same time adds valuable content and links.

· Page Rank has still some importance in determining your position in the rankings because it is based on the links and the content of your site. However the page rank as given by the Google Toolbar is not necessarily accurate. A more accurate page rank can be gauged from using the detail supplied by the Google Sitemap statistics. Consequently generate a sitemap and submit it to Google.

The most important piece of advice is to design your site for the visitor and not the search engines. Have as much information within the content as possible and keep the graphics to a minimum.

How To Get A New Page Listed On Google In Days

2006-03-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

The idea behind this article arose from a simple observation: joining with my web page fattori arcani ( in English arcane factors ) a Seo national contest, I have been able to explode doubts and gossips about Google that have been going around for a long time in the SEO sphere and had the chance to test in a good lab what really affect Google spider (Googlebot) and what leaves it totally indifferent.

The reason why this experience revealed itself so much fruitful is very simple: normally when you work as a SEO you find yourself in a competitive and confused scenery, competitors’ pages can be studied and analysed, thus giving you a hint of what worked and what did not. Nevertheless, you must deal with a silent speaker since the competing Seos are anonymous names hidden behind their company’s logo.

The backlinks have been accumulated in years and it is difficult to state with certainty what really revealed itself effective and what did not. You go through the page code trying to grasp its secrets, but often you end up crediting some elements with an enormous weight though their influence is nearly irrelevant.

Joining a contest like this, however, a dialogue is established among opponents which work together to learn which factors produce a serp rise. They assist to the sudden expansion of the serp to thousand of results in few days where first had been only desert, and, at the same time, check the creation of new backlinks thus controlling their actual influence on the serp.

This long premise is necessary to understand the scenery in which my web site was developed: the home page has been created in just twenty minutes (as can be seen by the particularly raw look of the page) with the single purpose of conducting a test on search engines, particularly Google,which is a reference point to the positioning studies for any website because of the enormous share it draws. The result of the tests and studies has been a progressive and continuous review of the pages in the semantics and in the structure, a surgical job that slowly took it to the highest rankings on the serp of Google.

A successful experiment hence, from which arose the idea behind this article: the idea of sharing with others my conclusions, in accordance with the principle of “community” behind the contest and the net. I will try to unfold in this article the stage and the factors that have brought this site to be top ranked in Google (and other search engines).

When the contest began Google only returned a handful of results for the combination of keywords fattori arcani (arcane factors): few results in the serp and mainly pages devoted to the topics magic and tarots. It was obvious that the search engine had associated the query to the thematic (and semantic) area of occultism. Immediately, in a sort of mass hysteria, the competitors rushed to record dominions composed with the words arcane and factors. As far as my experiences are concerned, I made a false start since I was too slow to register the best dominions and had to choose a second-choice dominion.

In a couple of days the trend of the contest (and the doom of the new pages, mine included) seemed to be already set: Google showed in its serp only pages with a high degree of "seniority" and/or backlinked by high-PR-websites (obviously of ownership of the competitors), most of them related with the occultism topic. If it had all came to an end this way, there would not have been any article and in this moment I would be in some SEO forum complaining about the faulty working of Google. Fact is, in the following days the scenery changed completely and brand new pages began to climb serp: among these pages there was also my own…

But a technical digression is highly needed: what happened behind the scenes of the websites and of Google to cause such a revolution? Two essential things happened:

1) Google started expanding its queries associating the combination of the keys arcane factors to the topic of positioning and optimization as well.

2) Competitors’ pages had been slowly reviewed and edited along these two thematic and semantics areas, magic and SEO positioning.

But the main question is: How was it possible that my web page was shifting from the status of search engine ghost to the highest positions of the Google serp? We have to keep in mind that I did not have any backlinks from own web sites because I did not want to soil clients and corporate pages for a personal, playful contest. Furthermore I had a brand new dominion and I had to pay attention to another issue: contents. It is very difficult to create interesting subjects in so few time, in order to induce other websites and directories spontaneously to backlink to your website. Who could take an interest in recommending a nearly empty page, featuring just a recurring and obsessive use of the words factors and arcane. I had to develop a double strategy: one for backlinks, the other one for optimization.

Studying my (visually poor) own web page I almost immediately noticed that it had a potential element of interest for the visitor: it represented, indeed, a sort of real-time surgery operation on search engines, as it was itself an experimental web page created for the only purpose to climb the serp, I could take advantage of this element, taking updated records of what had been changed. It was itself a page that can be also a storyteller producing itself information about the contest, explaining the techniques while using them. This simple idea gave me the opportunity me to create interest ( which means backlinks) from pages and directories that would have otherwise overlooked my webpage. It is a simple lesson: the cleverness of a SEO can neither be measured by his networks of connections nor by the extension of his promotional only sites. The imagination of a SEO is also of high importance, showing thus how much he is skilled in coming up with elements of real interest for pages which, originally, had nothing really captivating. I could come up with many other examples but the most important thing is to grasp the concept of creative web marketing and to keep it always in your mind.

I had found a solution for the backlinking problem (external optimization), yet I had to deal with the internal optimization of the webpage. This is a main issue when your goal is to meet the ranking standards of Google and other search engines. I had to make my best effort to optimize the page, beyond the well-known principles of the SEO’s science. The quality in the optimization of a web page is not only determined by the meta structure or by keyword stuffing. We are dealing with advanced search engines, capable, such as Google, to quickly expand the thematic area of a query deducing by the ”supply” (the web pages) associated with that keywords what the navigators’ demand should be.

Even if it is possible, at least theoretically, to deceive the search engines with technical trickeries as spam and keyword stuffing (dizzy repetition of key words), it is advisable to do more and better than that: You should present the text in a readable and grammatically correct form and, above all, you should identify the topics and semantics that fit best the search engine query .We should always keep in mind, as we tweak our page for internal optimization, that Google uses thesaurus to find synonyms and create term classes that fit the combination of keywords. In the example of arcane factors the thematic areas are two: positioning and magic. Starting from this observation I decided to get the most out of this idea and to exasperate it, playing with the synonyms and the semantic areas to positively impress Google. There is another lesson in this experiment: instead of stuffing your webpages with endlessly repeated keywords, try to understand what is the true question asked by Google, what thematic (and semantics) area it associates to your keywords.

The most peculiar thing about this test is that it exposes a lot of common beliefs such as that a webpage cannot climb or even appear in the serp of Google before a period of at least three months, that Google rewards the advertisers, that a backlink from a Pr5 page will necessarily bring you on top of the ranking.

There is, at last, another important lesson, perhaps the most important one, that can be drawn from the experiment of the contest arcane factors, a thing that should be obvious but that even the best SEO often forgets: Google has become the internet colossus that is now thanks to a good algorithm and to excellent ranking criteria that are held more secret than the Coke recipe, that in the turn of a few years revealed themselves superior to those of the competitors. It is evident that the years elapsed have not been wasted and the algorithm has grown in complexity and effectiveness. Let us write it on the computer, let us pin it on our clipboard, the important thing to keep always in mind is: It is nonsense treating Google as a antediluvian search engine degrading ourselves to childish and naive tricks. Instead we have to learn to treat Google as a serious and sophisticated engine: certainly it will reward our efforts.

Organic Search Engine Optimization

2006-03-30T09:56:00.000-08:00

The fabled tales of successfully tricking search engines into high rankings have given way to a new truth, to achieve decent consistent ranking you cannot engage in tricks but on focused optimization done in a professional ethical manner. According to search sources, with the latest Google update, there is no longer an even playing field when it comes to search placement. The new Google ranking system gives an advantage to large, established businesses that have achieved brand recognition. Does this mean small businesses should give up on the Web as a marketing model? No, of course not, they simply must develop quality content. To increase your natural ranking (search engine rankings that are not paid for) you must:

Write Good Text Copy.

The website copy should contain relevant text. Websites that use text rather than large images will load faster and the search engines can easily spider the text of the website for themes and keywords. Search engines cannot discern the meaning of words and phrases that are presented as an image. If you do use an image, be sure to include a brief phrase or keyword as an ALT tag. The ALT tags help website visitors who are visually impaired. ALT tags also convey the meaning of the image to search engines.

Research Keyword Phrases.

Using terms and phrases that relate to your product or service is critical. It is important to use terms that potential customers would use when searching for your product or service. Often products can be described by a number of terms, for example soda, tonic and pop all identify soft drinks. One term might be more prevalent in a specific geographic region, which is fine if you are selling locally, but if you are selling globally, optimizing for a single popular term could be problematic. Consider optimizing different portions of your website for various keywords and phrases that relate to the product or service that you are promoting.

More information on Determining Keywords - http://www.small-business-software.net/determining-keywords.htm

Provide Valuable Content.

Websites linking to a website are seen by many search engines as "votes". A link typically implies quality content. The easiest and most effective way to achieve a large number of links is to provide unique quality content. This might be a free web based tool, information or other content that is unique and relevant.

Examples of free valuable content: Website RSS Button Creator - http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm Reprint Articles - http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm

Monitor.

Monitor blogs for online chatter about your product or service. If you find a product review or question on a blog consider posting a comment. Ego searches are an excellent way to stay informed and maintain a strategic advantage over competitors. Monitor keywords or phrases that relate to your product or service, and join conversations that are relevant.

More on Ego Searches - http://www.feedforall.com/ego-searches.htm

Measure.

In order to know what strategies are most effective in an industry or sector, it is important to track the results. The easiest way to track web traffic and conversions is web logs. Take a critical look at referrers, trends, and what keywords result in the most traffic. Evaluating web logs will assist a webmaster in determining what optimization techniques are most effective.

Understanding Web Logs - http://www.small-business-software.net/understanding-web-logs.htm

Ultimately its is foolish to attempt to trick search engines into high rankings, efforts are better spent on building quality, consistent, valuable, content.

On-Page Factors Affecting Your Position On Google Searches

2006-03-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

This article will focus on the factors that, we believe, affect your results on Google searches. But remember, Google does not publish its algorithms and is always changing and updating the way it views sites - so these are the guidelines for you to follow, rather than a definitive statement of the processes involved.

The major factors fall into two main types, namely, on-page and off-page factors. Basically, on-page factors are those things that you can do to improve your ranking by adapting the actual coding of your site. This article will focus on on-page factors, and a second article will cover off-page factors (those factors mainly relating to incoming links to your site).

In terms, of on-page factors the areas we will cover are:

Keywords - not just the meta tag, but throughout the site
Linking - where your site links to and who they are
Content - how big and new your content is and who is viewing it

Keywords

Funnily enough, probably the least important keywords are those that you put in the actual keyword meta-tag. This feature has become so abused that Google had almost disregarded it, whereas other search engines do pay attention to this tag.

Simple rules for the keyword meta-tag are to make sure its short (less than 10 words), make sure it is relevant (all keywords used appear on the page) and there are no duplicates. Remember search engines work on a page by page basis so always think about the specific page you are working on. We have a feeling that Google only uses this meta-tag negatively, which means that it will mark you down for breaking the rules, but not necessarily mark you up for doing a good job.

Other places where keywords are important are the actual text (see later), your domain name and the other meta tags. We have found that having your keywords in your domain name help, as long as they are not overdone. So www.seo-gurus.co.uk is good whereas www.good-search-engine-optimisation-for-google-that-works.com is bad. Again some other search engines weight the actual domain very highly, as can be seen when you do a search using their engine.

The jury seems to be out on the title tag since duplication of the same keywords here may be seen as spammy or overload by Google. Similarly the description tag should contain a meaningful sentence outlining the theme of the site without overdoing the keywords.

In the actual body of the text, keywords should be apparent without being duplicated so much that Google sees them as spam. Many people use one of the various keyword density analyses, such as the one on the Free SEO Tools site www.datacoms.co.uk, this gives you an idea of the relative density of your keywords compared with the rest of the page. Other good ideas are to have your keywords in H1 tags and also highlighted in bold, both of which Google seems to take into account.

Linking
We are not just referring here to external links, but also how you link between pages. In fact, a good internal linking strategy seems to be highly rated by Google. Whereas a complex internal linking hierarchy can mean that some of your pages just don't get found by Google. We try and keep the maximum number of clicks to reach a page down to three, and preferably two. It is worth considering using Google site maps, since Google seem to be doing a lot of work in this area which means they will probably become more prominent with time.

One last point on internal links, try to make the linking anchor text consistent, Google likes to see the same anchor text on different pages linking to a page.

External links should be used with caution. We saw a site with had an address book that a Russian porn site added its URL into. This led to Google banning the site because we it was deemed to be linking to a bad neighbourhood - sometimes you only learn from your mistakes. It is also worth checking periodically that all the links on your site still work. If you have broken links, Google is more likely to hold your site back in the search results. We also believe that Google rates link stability highly, so don't keep churning the links of sites that you link onto.

Content
Google likes big, old sites and that's a fact. A large site that has been around for 5 years is always going to out-gun a small, new site in the results page takes. So as a new site, you have to keep Google interested, and one way of doing this is new well-written content. Try and put up at least a few new pages a month, all nicely linked to the rest of the site. Avoid having no new pages for 3 months then 100 new ones on one day, we have a feeling Google prefers to see a gradual increase in content. Again suddenly increase of content or links may be seen as spammy by Google and your site devalue in its eyes. Google is trying to see if your site is genuine and growing organically.

We have seen sites with pages that run for miles. Short, well-themed pages are again a big attraction to Google, this also allow you to do more clever internal cross linking with consistent anchor text. It is also better for human readers who can be put off when they see how small the scroller button is on the scroll bar - keep pages short and focused.

In the second part of the article we will look at how off-page factors can affect your Google ranking.

Revelant Backlinks - Not All Links Are Created Equal

2006-03-30T09:50:00.000-08:00

Reciprocal links add value to your web site, let your web site visitors return to your site, and you'll get targeted traffic from clicks of your links on other web sites.

As a positive side effect, you'll also benefit from increased search engine traffic if you have good incoming links.

Almost all major search engines rank your web pages based on the number and the quality of links that point to your web site (link popularity).

Google uses link popularity as an important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi and others also use link popularity in their formulas.

Developing and maintaining high quality links to your web site is essential to the success of your business.
Not only the number of links to your web site is important but also the quality.

But not all links are created equal.

Don't fall for services that offer 'thousands of instant links to your web site'. These links won't have any positve effect on your site. Only the right links will have a positive effect on your web site.

It's important that the links to your web site are related to your own web site and that these links have value to web surfers. Only high quality links will bring you targeted traffic and increase your search engine rankings.

Focus on your web site visitors. Search engines try to find web sites that are useful for web site visitors. If the linking structure of your web site indicates that it is a useful site, your site will get great search engine rankings as well as targeted traffic from your link partners.

You'll get visitors that are interested in your site!
Visitors that come in from your link partners were already on a web site with a similar topic.

They'll already have a good idea of what type of site you have. They'll come to your site because they're interested in what you have to offer. These visitors are more likely to buy something from you than visitors that come to your site by accident or through a trick banner.

The perfect way to get high search engine rankings!
Building reciprocal links with high quality link partners is worth the efforts.

Not only send they targeted traffic to you for free, your search engine rankings will improve, too! The more quality web sites link to your web site, the more your link popularity improves. You'll never have to worry about your search engine rankings. They'll take care of themselves.

Solutions for 50 Free Backlinks with PageRank 2 (PR2)

2006-03-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

Today, no one can deny the importance of backlinks in Search Engine Optimization, especially in Google Optimization. In this article, you can find some solutions for the goal of 50 backlinks with PageRank greater than 2 for new websites. When this goal is archived, I'm totally sure that the pagerank of your website will be boosted to at least 3 in the next update of Google.
There are two main solutions for this goal:
- Finding links on our own, not spending money.
- Buying text links (backlinks).
1. Finding links on our own, not spending money

*Methods in this solution include:
- Find relevant, quality websites and request for link exchanges.
- Submit to quality directories.
- Submit testimonials on websites where you have purchased any services or products.
- Write articles or posts to submit to other websites, blogs, press and forums.
*Pros in this solution:
- No money.
- Robust, stationary links.
- Accepted by search engines.
*Cons in this solution:
- More time and efforts.
- Two-way links (reciprocal links).
- Difficult to determine the time to achieve goal.

*References for this solution:
- Link Exchange programs: linkalizer.com, linkmarket.net, freelinkcentral.com
- Automatic link exchange programs: belinked.info, onewaytextlinks.com, build-reciprocal-links.com, linkdash.com
- Quality Directories: businesspages.org, a2z-free.com, alphabiz.org
- Article Directories: goarticles.com, articlealley.com, article99.com, ezinearticles.com

*Tips:
- You can find more sites for link exchange from studying your competitors' link popularity. Use search engines to perform this check, the keyword in many cases is: link:your_competitor_url.
- When visiting some directories, pay attention to Directory category. You may find the others directories there. For example, in Directory category of businesspages.org, you can find some other good Australian directories.

*Estimated time: 2 months

2. Buying text links

*Methods in this solution include:
- Buy text links (backlinks) directly from sites (in case they don't accept link exchanges)
- Buy text links from text link brokers.
- Buy text links from link auction sites.
- Pay fee to be included in big, quality directories (Yahoo, Overture, LookSmart...)

*Pros in this solution:
- Less time and efforts to get links.
- One-way links (better than reciprocal links)

*Cons in this solution
- Money. We must pay fee every month (or year) for some links.
- Buying text links (many in the same time) from text link brokers isn't encouraged by search engines. They can penalize us.
- Some links are volatile (not permanent).

*References for this solution:
- Advertising on sites: iwebtool.com/pagerank_checker (PR5 - $10.00 per month)
- Text link brokers: textlinkbrokers.com (5 Permanent Links PR0 – PR4: $175 /month), textlinkpopularity.com (10 Links from PR 3 Pages: $150 - Pay only once for permanent links - no recurring charges)
- Link auction sites: linkadage.com
- Big, quality directories: Yahoo! Directory (1 link - $299/year - your site will be reviewed first)

*Tips:
- When buying links from brokers, be sure that you can preview the pages in which your link will be included. Besides the PageRank, there are other factors to take into consideration such as: relevant links in this page, how many links in that page, whether your link is static, ...

*Estimated time: 1 week (some directories need more time to review our request)
3. Conclusion:
It seems that the goal of 50 backlinks with PageRank greater than 2 for new websites is not an easy one. Improving link popularity is a long, patient but obligatory process. It's up to you to decide which solution is better or the combination of these two ones.

Does Pagerank Really Matter?

2006-03-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

This is an eternal question. Search engine optimizers would remain glued to their computer screen to take in the first hint of any PageRank update as and when that occurs. And when it occurs, it will be an anxious wait till the dust settles, before scurrying off to rework ways to claw back in ranking in case the new PR reduces.

Why so much bother? Does PageRank really matter? The short answer is yes, PageRank does matter, but not as much as it is made out to be. Let us talk things over.

What we know

The first lesson on PageRank will be an unquestionable reference to what Google says. According to Google [http://www.google.com/technology/], “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value.”

Elaborating, Google says 2 things. One, more the number of incoming links to a webpage, more is the ‘number of votes’ for that page. But then comes the second rider. According to Google, it also analyzes the page that sends links and attempts to figure out how ‘important’ or ‘relevant’ this page (rather its content) is vis-à-vis the page which it links to.

Broadly speaking, links between 2 travel-related webpages make much sense in the eyes of Google than that between a travel-related webpage and another concerning, say a watch manufacturing company.

A succinct yet clear explanation of PageRank Technology is provided by Google here [http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html]. The underlying idea is to provide surfers as accurate search results as possible. The ‘life of a Google query’ though lasting barely a second, is a mind-boggling go-between through several stages before an answer is delivered.

What we do not know

Howsoever revealing may Google’s explanations be, the bottom-line remains that for most of us, calculation of PR continues to be an enigma. Does any one know for sure how PR works? Ian Rogers of IPR Computing has in this essay [http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/] explained fairly well as to how PageRank is calculated by Google.

However, even if the mathematical equation to calculate PR is known, what is not known is which set of its data Google uses from its databank for finding out the PageRank of your webpage. This essentially translates to no more than second-guessing as to what the next PR would be. It would therefore be not wrong to say that most of the users (and indeed the so-called SEO experts) do not know what their PageRank would be next time. (Having said that, I must not consciously deny readers of this article to know what their supposedly Future PageRank [http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/future-pagerank/] will be.)

Why the hype

And herein lies a superb marketing strategy. Ever wondered why Google thought it pertinent to let PageRank displayed in its toolbar? On the face of it, there is no need really, except to ‘stoke’ the fire of chasing a mirage. You see a mirage as much as you know how PR is calculated. But try as best as you would, you cannot decide your PR.

In the process Google gains. An enormous volume of writings (like this one) centers around Google. Whatever Google does is news in an instant. There is a whole lot of ‘pure’ Google-watchers out there whose job it is to only report on the giant search company. Publicity sans cost, not bad that.

The link companies

Google’s wish notwithstanding, there is no denying that PageRank mystery has given birth to thousands of link-related business. Since Google is explicit in explaining at how it looks at links, it has been easy for link-making companies to work out their preliminary business strategy. Beyond that it’s purely rat race of garnering share of link-hungry websites. All the time, Google remains unfazed, except occasionally churning it topsy-turvy to keep PR mystery alive.

What would you do

You need not overly bother about PageRank. Do not get me wrong! PageRank is very real. What is not is your ability to alter it any sooner. There should not be any express-effort to ‘acquire’ links. Instead, maintain focus on adding and enriching your web content, for that and that only would create a permanence of interest among your viewers over a period of time.

Emphasis must be on creating value to your viewers’ time, so that there is always something new to learn, something more to know. Along the way if you pick up a good link or two every now and then, that will be more than welcome.

What, if you are in hurry

Not everyone is destined to wait for a hike in PageRank. Then again, even a high PR may not instantly lead to bigger traffic. So pretty soon, you may ponder how long it will be to profit from your web venture. Profit may be to earn publicity (blogs for example), to make your readers giving consent to your paid newsletter, to sell your products or services (or even selling others’ products or services), or suchlike.

If indeed you want to cut short your long wait so as to profit from your web venture, Google has a ready solution. It is about targeted keyword advertising program, called Google AdWords. In sharp contrast with PageRank, Google lets AdWords users to actually control their accounts in order to attain more visibility. But that is another story for another day.

3 Steps To Getting Listed In The Search Engines

2006-03-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

You've just finished putting in all kinds of effort towards getting your website online. You're ready to take orders and make sales. The only problem is... No one can find your website! You need to get listed in the major search engines in order to get visitors to visit your website. What can you do? Follow these 3 steps and the search engines will know about your site in no time at all.

1. Write an article related to the main topic of your website.

Not sure if you know enough about writing to write an article? Don't worry about being perfect. Write about what you know. Keep the article short, between 300-600 words long. When you write the article, give out general information that anyone would gladly post on their site as valuable content. Don't try to sell your product or service in this article.

Remember the goal of the article is for you to get a valuable link back to your website, not to make a sale. In fact, if you try to make a sale in the article, most webmasters will not want to publish your article on their site. The whole goal of writing articles is to get your articles on as many websites as possible with a link pointing back to your site.

2. Include a resource box at the end of the article with your website link in it.

If you've created a good general information article that is relevant to the topic of your website, you are ready to create your resource box. Keep in mind here to get to the point quickly. It is usually considered fine to promote your product or service in this resource box but it is necessary to keep it short. You should remember that the main point of including this resource box is to get a link going back to your website. The secondary purpose of the resource box is to get readers of your article to click through and visit your website.

When including a link in your resource box, make sure that one of your links includes the main keywords of your home page. Keywords are a fancy term for the phrase or words a visitor will type in to find your website. Make the keyword the clickable portion of the link instead of your web address. Put this keyword text in between your html anchor link.

3. Submit your article to the major article directories.

Once you've created your article, submit it to the major article directories to get the article distributed on as many websites as possible. Some major article directories include EzineArticles, ArticleCity, GoArticles and Isnare. Some services like Isnare will even distribute your article for you for a fee.

Do these three steps and search engines will find, crawl, then list your website in their listings. It's as simple as that!

Getting to the Top of the Search Engines

2006-03-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

If you have surfed the web then you have most likely used a search engine. Search engines are a great way to find what you are looking for in an easy manner. 85 to 90% of people online use search engines to find information for which they are looking. When you do a search on a search engine you get many pages of links, but most people only look at the first three pages. This is why it is very important to get your website at the top of the search engines list.

The first step in getting your website at the top of a search engines list is to understand how they rank websites. The criteria for ranking websites vary between search engines and has changed in many ways over the years. There are two basics rules, though, that most search engines follow.

1. Content. They want good content, meaning something a person would want to look at or read. It should be well written and put together. This also includes links to other sites.

2. Optimization. Making good use of META tags is important. Using the title and description META tags is a must. Be sure to use keywords, but keep it readable and content driven. An example of this is linking all your pages together, like in an index on each.

The best way to see what a search engine wants is to look at some their top ranked websites. See how they have used content and optimization to get to the top of the list. Use these websites as a loose guideline on how to set up your website.

On the other hand of things there are some things that search engines do not like. These things should be avoided because not only will it hurt your ranking, but could get you banned from the search engine.

1. Do not use keywords unnaturally. This means loading pages down with keywords or throwing them into content in hard to read ways.

2. Do not use hidden messages. Hidden means that the text is written in the same color as the background. This makes it unreadable to the naked eye, but can still be picked up by the search engines.

3. Do not submit multiple address for the same site. Simply submit your main page and leave it at that.

4. Do not use gateway pages. Search engines are starting to look down on these. Some people use them as a hidden-type of optimization where they submit a gateway page to the search engine that has been filled with keywords, but when the user clicks on the link to the site they are redirected to the “real” home page. This practice is called cloaking.

It is best to avoid anything devious when designing your web page.

So what can you do to get your website to the top of a search engine ranking? Monitor your site often and make sure it doesn’t slip down. This may require doing occasional maintenance to make sure your site stays in its rank. Links are now becoming the best and easiest way to get your site to the top rankings. Use links that are to sites that are related to your site. Try to get links to top rated sites. Avoid links to sites that contain questionable material or rank very low. Take advantage of the META tags. Work on good content and make your site something someone would want to visit. It will take some work and maintenance, but driving traffic to your site is highly based upon where you rank on the search engines.

How to know which SEO software tool suits your search engine optimization needs?

2006-03-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

Search engine optimization has become the most crucial element of ranking high in the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Dogpile etc. There are several websites on the internet which boast about SEO techniques & tips and guarantee top placement in days. How do you believe and invest your hard earned money in a company who does not have a background in search engine optimization believing their claims?

The question is “are you ready to play a gamble with your site?” Honestly the answer would be a big NO.
No one would like to waste their money. So, what is the way out? How about doing your own search engine optimization? It is a very long drawn and tedious process if you do it manually. So, how to go about it?

Are there any softwares available to do the SEO?

Yes! there are several SEO softwares available in the market. But, how do you know which SEO software is reliable and meet your search engine optimization needs and most importantly, whether they would live up to their claims?

SEO software is the answer to implement the major SEO techniques. What are they? SEO is primarily divided into two parts.

• On page optimization
• Off page optimization

On page optimization

On page optimization involves:

• Title Tags
• Meta Tags like meta keywords (lost its importance now due to keywords abuse) & meta description.
• Alt-Image tags
• H1, H2 tags
• High keyword density
• Quality content
• Ease of navigation
• Internal Linking and more…..

Off page optimization

Off page optimization involves:

• Link Building to improve Link popularity
• Reciprocal Linking – Two way links
• Non-reciprocal linking – In-bound links
• Use of keyword rich anchor text in linking text
• Improving Google page rank
• PPC advertisements
• Directory submissions

It is a well known fact that off page optimization has more value than on page optimization. It does not mean that on page optimization has no value and requires no optimization. On page optimization has its value and should not be ignored.

There are several SEO softwares available to implement the off page optimization by improving link popularity by building both reciprocal and non-reciprocal links. There are websites which offer monthly membership accounts to use their Link Popularity software and some other websites have their software available for one time fee. For a beginner it is always better to go with one time fee software to keep the fixed expenses low. You are here to do business so you need to think and plan every dime you spend towards business success.

So, what to expect from a SEO software selling website?

• Not a one time seller without any future upgrades
• A website with good technical support
• A website with a proven track record
• A website with a forum with quality user feedback
• Most importantly these website’s SEO software should have good product reviews.

We see many SEO software companies doing their own product reviews and it looks more like self propaganda than an honest product review. We need websites who test and verify the claims made by the SEO software companies and publish their honest feedback. This would help the newbie website owners to make an educated decision after reading the detailed unbiased analysis published on a third party website.

There are very few websites that do this and should be encouraged to test and verify more of these SEO softwares and help the website owners to learn and implement the off page optimization techniques. This would save time and money of the online entrepreneurs to improve their link popularity and increase their search engine rankings. Higher search engine rankings bring more traffic to the websites and hence more sales. It is a known fact that we can drive visitors to websites but converting them into buyers totally relies on how effective is the content and ease of website’s navigation.

We should develop effective content in the form of relevant articles linking to your website. Writing an effective article is a skill which needs to be developed by reading other articles and other e-books focusing on writing best articles. Now we should know the list of quality article directories to submit to in the right category. This would be another tedious and time consuming process and this demands an SEO software whose sole aim is article submission to various article directories.

Submitting to SEO friendly directories is another tedious process but the rewards worth the effort involved. The list of SEO friendly directories and the article directories is available at http://www.seo-softwares.com/Resources.html

Another way of getting traffic to the website is thru PPC i.e Pay Per Click. There are several PPC programs available like Google Adwords, Overture PPC, FindWhat etc. Now the question is choosing the right keyword relevant to the content of your website is very important. You might choose the right keyword which is highly competitive and may have to pay a high bid price to get the higher placement in the sponsored links. We need an SEO software to optimize the adwords campaign to choose the right keyword combo to choose for the PPC. This would save money and time and helps beat the competition.

There are several other effective methods to do the off page optimization and there are several SEO softwares available in the market. So, in conclusion read the product reviews, and see the important features of the selling website as mentioned above for the final decision as which SEO software you should get your hands on.

I hope this SEO software information is of good help and to learn more about SEO softwares click on http://www.seo-softwares.com