SEO, AFFILIATE AND INTERNET MARKETING

I have been so confused latley on determing the value of keywords and SEO. In the past most of my effort has been to determine and promote keywords for my website’s main page. As I surfied for keyword advice I came across this article that I found at www.envisionopportunity.com/index.html, no author was listed.”Many SEO experts will tell you that they have specific ways of choosing the right keywords for a website. Some do it using SEO tools - software that compares possible keywords to see which are used the most. Some will give you DIY methods with spreadsheets. We say, however, that you should try every method you can in the search for keywords. Here are some steps that might help:

Identify and create a list of keywords from meta tags, research on your competitors, your highest-converting products and biggest current traffic sources. For each term (typically between 30 and 50 terms overall), narrow the field down to about 15 or 20, choosing the terms you feel are most relevant to your website.

Your higher ranked competitors are probably up there for a reason so take a look at what they are providing. Make sure that everything is directly relevant and try to stretch yourself out into some unchartered water. The less common that your key words are, the more likely you are to get the search engine results for these key words.

We would recommend a piece of software called WordTracker to find out how many searches have been done on a certain term. You can choose to work with this information however you want - spreadsheets are good, but you can use anything that will make it easy reasonably easy for you to track these keywords. You’re trying to find a popular word that has a low competition rate.

Although this is easier said than done, it’s very rewarding to find an area where your site can succeed because of the lack of competition. You should remember, though, that these search databases are relatively small, and should be used for comparing keywords against one another rather than for estimating their true ‘market sizes’.

This keyword selection research should then be compared with client experience of which keywords may be most profitably optimized, as well as any current ranking on the target keywords. Data from PPC campaigns can be helpful for this. The outcome should be a focused list of, say, 15-20 keywords that are both strong performers in terms of search volume, as well as solid candidates for successful optimization.

When determining how profitable your key words are you should look into your web sites statistics and see what key words were used for what number of sales. This is called your conversion rate. The more sales that are associated with a certain key word, the more valuable that key word is. It is important to account for all of the variables, however.

If ten people come across your site through a certain key word but only one of them buys an item this key word isn’t as profitable as a key word that one person finds your site through and still orders a product. It is important to work percentages into your decision of worth of a key word. Your “conversion rate” is the number of sales divided by the number of visitors.

You probably know who your competitors are, so go to their site and open the source code of a few of their pages (select ‘View Source’ from your browser’s menu). Look for the tag to see which keywords they’re aiming for. Their keywords are often garbage, but if you look around at a few sites then you can often find keywords you hadn’t thought of.

It is not good practice to simply copy and paste a list of key words. It would even be concievable that you would be charged with copyright infringement for such activities. Whether or not you get charged, it is morally wrong. Looking through and coming across a few extra relevant key words is one thing. Steeling an entire list is something else completely.

Another approach is to type in the keywords you have in mind and look at the current top results. Analyze their pages for keywords, descriptions and content - this will give you some idea of what kind of keyword density you should be looking at for your keywords. If the sites that come up are a different kind of business to you altogether then you’ve probably chosen a dodgy keyword - remember that you’re trying to get relevant traffic, not just any traffic.

The general rules that you need to keep in mind when selecting key words are:

1. Try to select unique key words that your competitors have not thought of.

2. Optimize for your most profitable key words. How many sales does the key word generate? How much profit is made for each of these sales?

3. Make sure that the key words are very relevant to your site so that people who find your site through your key words will not immediately leave.

4. Try to assemble a list of key words that covers your site very will so that you aren’t leaving anyone or anything out.

According to SearchEngineWatch.com, a recent survey of businesses using the Internet as a primary marketing tool reported that only 11% said SEO gave a lower return on investment than search advertising. More importantly, 35% said that SEO was more valuable in terms of return on investment than paid advertisement.

This means that in 89% of businesses who could determine the relative value, inexpensive search engine optimization of page content was as valuable or more valuable than paying for advertising on Google, Yahoo, or other pages and search engines. A full third of all businesses found SEO to be the most valuable advertising tool to use with search engines.

This is remarkable news because, with patience and attention, anyone can optimize their page content for search engine placement. This means that your little computer business, with its tiny marketing budget, can compete in search engines with international corporations if you do things properly.

SEO: Making Your Page Work

So how do you harness this incredible tool to make your own page’s ROI higher? By understanding the search engines and how they work, and by taking steps to ensure your page is optimized for best usability by these engines.

First, search engines use text-based algorithms. They send out miniprograms regularly called search engine spiders, robots, or web crawlers that catalog the data contained in web pages – data in the form of text – and use that to determine where to place a page in search engine returns on keywords.

So when your potential customer types in “butterfly handkerchief,” the placement and frequency of your keyword phrase “butterfly handkerchief” is one of the main things a search engine pays attention to when deciding where to rank your page. If you are the only “butterfly handkerchief” site that is clearly demonstrating you offer these by placing the keyword phrase in the header, metatags, and text of your page, then you’ll get first ranking. If Billy Bob’s Hankies does a better job of this, he will get top ranking, bumping you down.

But that’s not all the search engines look for.

Content Has An Expiration Date?

Because there are so many billions of web pages search engines are trying to organize, some sites are going to do equivalently good jobs of inserting those keyword phrases. There has to be a way of organizing pages beyond that phrase.

One way is cataloging regular fresh content. A website that delivers different content on a regular basis containing the same keywords is a site that will rank higher in the search engines. So if you rotate your “butterfly handkerchief” articles frequently while Billy Bob gets lazy and leaves the same one up for a year, you’ll regain that top spot you lost.

A second advantage to using continual fresh content is that it gives your customers something to come back for. Repeat customers are among the most valuable. If you continue to provide excellent content to this customer base, you’ll find them returning to – and spending money at – your site on a regular basis.

Not everyone has the time to create continual fresh content, of course, especially content optimized for the search engines with good keyword placement. One way to always have fresh content on hand is to purchase private label articles to place on your site. These are articles pre-written and pre-optimized for the search terms you need. You purchase all rights to the articles – once you’ve paid for them, they are yours to use as you see fit. You can edit them, add or delete information, personalize them to your content, and even list yourself as the author if you like.

Reciprocal Links

A third item the search engines look at when cataloging you is linking. If you have great content and lots of other web sites link to you, this will boost your ranking. That’s why the New York Times is placed high in a search for “The New York Times,” even though their name is mentioned infrequently on any given page; the search engines see other sites linking to the content contained there. This helps the engines, which are really big programs with very good logic and artificial intelligence, determine that the New York Times website is the primary site for this term.

Your little site will probably never have the name recognition of the New York Times. But if you make agreements with complementary websites to link to one another, particularly if you link within articles or at least not on “My Favorite Links” pages, you can boost your ranking quite a bit.

And if you offer great information on your site, other sites will be more eager to link to you. After all, when they link to you, they’re recommending you to their customers. They wouldn’t want to recommend someone who won’t reflect well on them.

If you trade reciprocal links with another webmaster, check occasionally to ensure that your link is indeed posted, and posted correctly. And do the same courtesy for them – be sure you have their link up and active somewhere it will be noticed on your website.

Cody Moya writes about Article Marketing in his free 50 parts course on Internet Marketing. You can sign up for his Free Internet Marketing Course and get additional information at his website: http://www.marketing.us

by Vlad Paiu

Here’s an article for you people out there that like the “do it yourself” approach when it comes to SEO. Sure, you’re going to get less results than a pro company, but you’ve still got the bucks.

So here are the tips.

#1 Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to !
Don’t expect to rank high very fast if you choose a new domain.
#2 Your target visitors are more important than search engines
First take care of your customers, and take look after search engines.
#3 Carefully pick your keyphrases
Know what your visitor look after, and take advantage of that.
#4 Make your website crawler friendly
No flash, javascript or session ID’s
#5 Label your internal text links and alt tags on images as descriptively as possible
Pick the right anchor text for your links.
#6 Keyword rich content
Write fresh and unique content.
#7 Take special care of you pages’ title tags
Be careful on the most important meta tag of them all.
#8 A little bit of on-page SEO
Bold and italic text, headings as well as folder and files name, all need your attention.
#9 Make your site link-worthy
Build a good image among other webmasters.
#10 Quality link building
One way links are what you’re looking for. Reciprocal links are less valuable, but don’t refuse them. Stay away of link farms.

That’s just about it. Follow these guidelines and you should do better in your optimization.
About the Author

More detailed information about these seo tips on the chml srucnoc website

Google use a very complex function to determine which search results to return, Google is always changing and Modifying that function to better Serve the Search Engine User. The one constant is quality back links. These are pages linking to you without you linking back to them.

1 - Post to Newsgroups

Many Newsgroups will allow you to post links especially if they are related to the topic or question being asked.

2 - Post to Forums

Forums are Similar to newsgroups but they are typically broken down by topic

3 - Add Comments to a Blog

Many Blogs will allow you to post comments. Find 10 or so blogs a day that are related to your web page and post a comment about your web page. Be sure and use Pingomatic to ping the Blog after you post your comment

4 - Give Testimonials

Send in unsolicited testimonials for products and services you use. Make sure and say You have permission to use the above testimonial.

5 - Circular Linking

There are many strategies involving circular linking. As a simple example you own or operate 2 Web Sites, called Site-1 and Site-2. You can offer a link partner a link on Site-1 if they agree to link to site-2.

6 - Buy Text Ads

Many e-zines are not only sent out via e-mail but are posted on the Internet. By finding an Ezine that keeps that past articles online you can often buy a text ad for a few days get back links

7 - Submit Articles

You can Write and Submit Articles. This might be perhaps the most viral way to get back links. It is not unusual to have your article re-printed in 25 on 50 Web pages the same day you submit it. As other people read these 25 or 50 pages they in turn decide to reprint your article. It is like a snowball rolling down a never ending hill. The More it Rolls the bigger it get and the faster it go’s.

About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built an Organization of over 100,000 Members

Get Mike’s Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter

More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips

Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods
http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler the Coolest Guy in the Universe

Making the following changes to your title tag can help improve ranking and increase targeted traffic to your website:
- Include keyword phrases in your title tag
- Order keyword phrases effectively within the title tag
- Make the title tag appealing to the eye
- Try to keep title tags as unique as possible
- Avoid the list of common title tag mistakes

Include keyword phrases in your title tag:

Think of a title tag as the name above a shop. Imagine you are walking down a busy street with shops on either side of you. However every shop window is boarded up and all that is visible is its name. You mean to purchase a new Hi-Fi system and need to locate a suitable store. You look at all the names but are getting confused as to which one is for you. All of a sudden you see a store with ‘Hi-Fi and Electrical’ in its name. You enter and purchase your spanking new Hi-Fi system, but it is a bit expensive. And little did you know but the store next door also sold Hi-Fi systems but for a lot cheaper. However its name did not indicate this. In fact its name sounded more like a jewellery shop than an electrical store.

A search engine is rather like the shopper in the above example. It sees the title on each web page and determines whether this would be a good result to return based on its text. If you search for ‘Hi-Fi’ it is highly likely that some of the results returned will have ‘Hi-Fi’ in their title.

To be found using the search engines you should optimize your website for a set of keyword phrases. These keyword phrases should be included in your title tag. Suppose I was a website selling Hi-Fi systems, then I would like my website to appear in search engine results when searching with the phrase ‘Hi-Fi systems’. If I include ‘Hi-Fi systems’ in my title tag I will increase the chances that the search engines will find the page and my ranking will be higher. Of course you are not limited to adding only one keyword phrase to your title, I would recommend two perhaps three but be careful not to make it too long. Also remember make it easy to understand and descriptive for a human.

Order these keyword phrases effectively:

Placing a keyword phrase at the start of the title tag allows it to be seen better by the search engines. Look at the following examples:
ABCDEF Electrical - Hi-Fi Systems
Hi-Fi Systems - ABCDEF Electrical

Both of these two examples are acceptable to human eyes but in the eyes of the search engines the second is see as more relevant if ‘Hi-Fi Systems’ is searched for because it appears at the start of the title. Generally it is best to place company name or the name of website to the end of your title tag.

Make your title enticing to the eye:

Although this point does not make a lot of difference to the search engines it can help to get people to click on your link in search results.
Which is easier on the eye?
XYZ COMPUTER HARDWARE
XYZ CoMpUtEr HaRdWaRe
XYZ Computer Hardware

I imagine that most people would say that (3) is the most pleasing. (1) and (2) are harder to read because of improper captilization. In (1) you see that using all capitals detracts the importance of any words you actually want to draw attention to and also some search engines may penalise this practice. (2) is simply a nightmare to read.

Try to keep title tags as unique as possible:

As each page on your site should be unique so should your title tags. Not only do unique title tags make the site more descriptive and navigable to a person they help search engines answer queries more accurately and allow more penetration of your site’s pages in their databases.

Common title tags mistakes:

Do not leave your title tag blank, ever!
Do not use ‘Untitled’ or default text in your title tag.
If you are using a web page editing application it may place some default text in the title tag. Make sure you always check your title to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Do not write title tags that are not relevant to the content on the page.
Search engines compare text in the title tag against actual textual content on your page to rate relevancy. If the two are not related this will decrease your ranking. Also it is annoying to a person who visits your page when the title tag they saw going into your page does not relate to the content on the page. This will ensure that this person leaves your site and maybe never comes back.
Do not stuff your title tag with repeating keyword phrases.
This may be looked upon by search engines as spamming and they may penalise your ranking.