Effective Web Site Promotion…

Archive for September, 2010

Tips are the one means that can be used as ready reckoner for any implementing anything. In fact, tips are made in such a way that they always remain in your fingertips when you have to consult on anything related to a particular aspect. So be search engine marketing tips, internet marketing, email marketing or any other aspect of online business, you must have all the tips handy to deal with any situation. There are certain elements of your business that may need your instant attention and this is where search engine marketing tips can be of immense help to you and your business.

You can get Search Engine Marketing Tips everywhere. However, what is important is not getting those tips; rather it is implementing the tips in proper ways to do good business. The internet is a huge storehouse for information of all types. All you need to do is type the relevant keywords and you will be flooded with lots of information. Search engine marketing tips are no exception to this and you can find this very easily on the web. There are certain common search engine marketing tips that you can implement to make a success story of your online business.

Search engine marketing tips suggest that you must undertake strategies to increase the number of visitors that come to your site on a day. An increase in the number of visitors to your site automatically increases your chances of attracting prospective customers who will buy your products and do business with you. There are several ways through which you can attract traffic to your site and just make sure that you implement those methods that guarantee the stampede of traffic to your site. After all, this is your business and you must put your best efforts to make this very successful.

Another search engine marketing tips suggest that you must make your site visible at all places on the web. The simple reason for this is that if you do not use publicity methods, how do you expect people to know about you and also about the business you are involved in. So find out what all things you can do to make your site popular on the web, and attract customers to buy goods and services from your business. Working on the design and content of your site is a good way of going about doing it.

The site must contain contents that is relevant, precise, information and optimized. Using optimized content means that you must make use of the relevant keywords at the proper places within the content. This is because search engines easily recognize sites that make use of optimized content. Another way of attracting search engine attention is through making use of the latest coding to design your site. Search engine marketing tips are meant to give you all the inputs that you will need for marketing your online business site on the web.

Steve Waganer
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-marketing-tips-must-be-at-your-fingertips-to-enhance-your-business-prospects-85922.html

Internet marketing services is all about getting your name out there. Marketing is making the customers out there know that you exist. Without a system enabling one to find your services or products online, your sales will not be very high www.podcasting-made-easy.com. If you have been in business for quite sometime now, or perhaps you are just starting out in business, internet marketing services is a complete method of saturating the market, getting your name out there and branding your name in the business world. While every form of advertising is going to give you some leads, you want to be careful in your advertising because it can add up and become quite expensive quickly.

A few of the internet marketing services out there are going to give you hints, tips and ideas about how you can improve your search engine rankings, just as we do on the pages listed on this site. We offer you a good deal of information about how you can get started marketing your web site, and how you can put the marketing efforts online to better your business overall online. Don’t forget the main purpose behind marketing is that you will add to the value of your site, you will increase traffic and visitors to your site, which you don’t already have.

Besides using the Internet marketing services that we offer, that you can implement with a few clicks of your mouse with your web site, you will also want to implement other marketing techniques. These techniques include changing the titles of your web pages. Every page on your site should have a different and unique name. If you are talking about cats, dogs, posters, music, purchases, downloads, pages, freebies, or perhaps you are

A good search engine is going to be able to give you many results in your marketing strategy and in reaching your marketing goals. Use keywords in the content and in the page titles of your site for increased market awareness. While there are many forms and plurals of any given word such as: run, ran, running, and so on, you want to stick with the keyword that is the root word of all the forms. This will be one service for your business to get better marketing exposure.

Internet marketing services include many of the services that we offer for you. This will include page counters, cookies on your site, and trackers for those who are visiting your site. If you know where people are finding your site, which search engines they are using, you can change and format pages to better your situation on those search engines to reach niche markets.

Page counters on your site, and on every page of your site is going to increase your awareness of what pages and what products people are going to purchase the most. When you know people are not going to page four through ten but they are visiting pages twenty four through thirty the most, you can look at what are on those pages, and make your other pages more appealing for the help www.squeeze-page-profits.com. Marketing to what the customer wants is more than advertising when doing business online. Your overall marketing goals are going to be giving the customer what they want, when they want it and in a manner, they can find it all easily.

inderpreet singh
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/internet-marketing-how-you-can-improve-your-search-engine-rankings-727989.html

Web site expert and author Brendon Sinclair gives some solid tips for search engine optimization for beginners.

Duration : 0:9:18

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s hope for the ‘little guys’ in the search engine ranking game, even if they can’t tell the difference between the title and keyword meta tag!

You can achieve high rankings for important keywords simply by applying certain rules that stand the test of time and even technology, the number one rule is really to., help the search engines provide relevant search results!

How do you do this? I’ll reveal the ’secrets’ soon.

While I’m far from being an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert and am just sharing experiences here, I’ve achieved some phenomenal results by following these
basic rules and without resorting to ‘tricks’. Importantly, these are rankings
that last.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t learn about SEO or use genuine software that helps, in fact you should.

For example (at this time of writing), here are my rankings for www .Marketing-Make-Money. com in Yahoo alone (remember these are extremely competitive keywords):

‘Make money online’ | rank: #1 of 33.9
‘Make money’ | rank: #27 of 85.4 million
‘Web marketing’ | rank: #4 of 113 million
‘Web marketing tips’ | rank: #6 of 10.2

How did I achieve such incredible rankings without being some SEO guru or even obsessively optimizing my site?

Recall the number one rule? It’s to help the search engines provide relevant search
results.

Now I honestly believe there are only two MAIN things which support this rule and in
the process, reward your website with the high rankings you desire.

These two things are Keyword Rich Content and Targeted Back Links which we’ll talk
about later…

Here then are 7 powerful secrets you can use to model your website after to explode
your high search engine rankings!

Step 1: Determine Highly Searched Keywords
Determine highly searched and targeted keywords/keyword phrases related to your
site and put them into a list. Here’re the tools to use.

Step 2: Register Keyword Rich Domain Names
While there’ve been contrasting arguments about whether having keywords in your domain helps, I strongly feel it does. The same goes for dashes between words in the domain.

Step 3: Use Your Targeted Keywords In Your Copy
Use the list of keywords in step 1 within your website copy, especially in the title, headline and first paragraph. The important thing is to make them flow smoothly within the context of the copy so prospects will not find it weird.

Step 4: Insert Keyword Rich Relevant Content
Next, build up your site’s content with relevant topics containing your keywords. Don’t worry, here are some ways to get instant content:

Step 5: Aggressively Acquire Targeted Back Links
This is the second most important (some say it’s the first) factor to note after targeted and relevant content.

Step 6: Hand Submit Your Site To The Top Directories and Search Engines
There’s no point in using those ’submit to millions’ services as only a few search engines really matter.

Using those services may actually cause your site to be penalized by these major
engines.

Step 7: Tune Your Site For Maximum Optimization

The final step would be to constantly monitor and analyze your website traffic against rankings. This is so you can review and tweak for further improvement in your
rankings.

I hope this article will prove highly useful to you. Do not be scare away by SEO, it’s simple once you follow the above system. While these steps are not everything you can do, it’ll be enough to get your site ranked very well for the targeted keywords you chose.

Again, remember the number one rule of giving relevant content and establishing good back links. Help the search engines provide relevant results for their customers and your rankings will automatically skyrocket to the top!

John Pawlett
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/7-secrets-to-top-search-engine-rankings-96732.html

Copyright (c) 2008 OnlineBizU.com

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process getting your website ready to be found in organic webs searches. By organic searches, I’m referring to web searches that appear naturally as the result of a search for a particular keyword or phrase, rather than appearing in the sponsored links (pay-per-click advertising) section of a search page.

Frankly, for the first few years I was online, the thought of doing my own SEO made my eyes cross, and I was overwhelmed at where to start. I even toyed with the idea of hiring a specialist to do this for me, but never got around to it. However, over time, I slowly began to see a pattern emerging, and started to optimize some of my sites accordingly. One of the best days of my business was when I recently ranked #1 for a particularly competitive search term.

I’m not a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, nor do I play one on TV. However, even a new business owner who creates and updates her own websites can implement some very basic SEO strategies to make her website appear higher in the organic rankings on certain keyword searches.

Here are the 11 strategies that I regularly implement on my sites for better SEO positioning:

1. Page title tags. This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing | Web Marketing.

2. Domain name: If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. Example: http://www.yoursite.com/internet-marketing.htm if your keyword is Internet marketing.

3. Meta tags. These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description metatags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites, that is no longer the case. However, you shouldn’t ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.

4. Header tags. Header tags are the HTML code that indicates a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword one time in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags.

5. Alt image tag: The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image isn’t able to be displayed. The best use of any tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions.

6. Content formatting. Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website.

7. Keyword density. Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% – 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.

8. Anchor text. Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to “click here” in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in “click here for dog training tips.”

9.. Inbound links. Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I’ll link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submit articles to high traffic article directories and submit press releases to paid press release services.

A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listing your site in search engine-friendly directories in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process.

10. New content. Content is still king, so one way to increase your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry.

11. Site maps. There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps, http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/, to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites.

Search engine optimization strategy is not a difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you don’t have to?

Donna Gunter
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/search-engine-optimization-11-basic-seo-strategies-for-beginners-670954.html

Every small business owner knows the importance of a high search engine ranking. SEO experts and internet marketing professionals have built their careers around figuring out how to help their clients achieve top rankings, and small business owners draw on that expertise every day. But whether you’ve done your own search engine optimization or had a professional do it on your behalf, things sometimes go wrong. If search engines believe that you’re spamming or using any other off-limits methods of optimization, you will be banned, often without even realizing it. Here are 5 sign that you’ve been penalized by Google.

1. You Have a PageRank of 0. PageRank is Google’s method of ranking the popularity and relevance of websites. If Google had previously ranked you, but you noticed that your current PageRank is 0, you can almost guarantee that Google has penalized you. Before you panic, remember that new websites always begin with a PageRank of 0, so you should only worry if you once had a PageRank above 0 and currently have a PageRank of 0.

2. Your Website Isn’t Indexed. If your pages no longer show up in Google’s index, then chances are you’ve been penalized. Think of a keyword for which your site has ranked in the past and plug it into the search field on Google. Where is your site? If you’ve dropped from the first page of results to the second, don’t panic. Just make a note of it and improve your search engine optimization. But if your site doesn’t show up at all for that particular keyword, then there’s a problem. Remember also to ensure that your homepage isn’t the only page appearing in the search results. A minor penalty will sometimes result in only your homepage appearing rather than your homepage plus other subpages.

3. Use Your Tools. Google’s Webmaster Tools is a great way to see how often Google looks at your website. If you use Webmaster Tools and notice a red sign next to your domain name, Google has penalized you. Webmaster Tools will also tell you how many inbound links you have from other sites. Don’t forget to check on all of your pages. If Google isn’t seeing some of them, be sure to resubmit them.

4. Use Analytics. Search the web for free analytics tools to tell you whether or not Google has banned you.

5. Google Search Your Domain. Using Google, type in “site:http://www.yourdomain.com.” The results you see will tell you how many pages within your website Google has indexed. When you’re typing in this request, use a lowercase “s” since using an uppercase “S” will cause the request to work improperly.

Search engine optimization can be a tricky process, especially if you’re not familiar with its evolution and all the reasons Google has for banning certain practices. If you’re unsure of your ability to optimize your site properly, consult an SEO expert or internet marketing professional. And if you discover that you have been banned, seek the help of an SEO professional to help you determine what mistakes you might have made in your optimization process. When you’re up to your eyeballs in your own webpage, it’s often hard to see what you might have done wrong. Let someone else look for possible errors and problems. You’ll be glad you did when your site is once again receiving top rankings from Google!

Seomul Evans
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/5-signs-that-google-has-penalized-you-721375.html

Introduction

Google’s Sandbox Effect has been a matter of controversy since an article appeared on Search Engine Round Table about how new sites ranked low in Google as early as April 2004. This was before the term “sandbox” was even used to refer to the phenomenon. The term sandbox effect came into being when a guest writer on the Search Engine Round Table wrote an article entitle The Sandbox Effect. In the article the sandbox effect meant that a new site can not get high ranking immediately by depending on PR and back links. This is because the author felt that “PR and back link (pure link popularity) credit is placed in a reserve- called the sandbox- for a period of time before it is applied to ranking and has an effect” with the purpose of preventing PR and link purchasers from getting a very high rank in Google right away and dominating the field. Although the term caught on quite rapidly it became highly debated since many SEO experts considered the term sandbox as inaccurate or, at least, lacking when it comes to describing the phenomenon. Despite the differences in opinion among SEO experts on the terminology as well as its definition and scope, everyone agreed that the sandbox effect DID exist and was a matter that caused SEOs and website owners huge problems.

The sandbox phenomenon was difficult to define earlier because it affected such a wide and varied range of websites and affected their ranking for a different length of time. And since Google never officially commented on the sandbox effect the most that SEOs could do was observe and note the possible factors that could possibly be one of the reasons for being sandboxed. It wasn’t until 2005, when the sandbox effect has been in place for sometime that a good definition of the phenomenon was written in an article called 2005 Analysis of Google’s Sandbox. In the article the sandbox effect was described as:

“The observed phenomenon of a site whose rankings in the Google SERPs are vastly, negatively disparate from its rank in other search engines (including Yahoo!, MSN & Teoma) and in Google’s own allin: results for the same queries.”

This definition was more general and inclusive taking into account all the different observed sandbox phenomena that different websites experienced.

Websites Affected

The sandbox effect, as it was first noticed, affected and still does affect a large number of new websites starting from the websites registered after 2003. It has been observed that it affects entire top-level domains instead of just web pages and directories and sub-domains. The most common websites also affected by the sandbox effect were those that used search engine optimization tactics such as meta data and link building efforts. However ordinary websites such as blogs, whose owners don’t even use such tactics, were still affected by the phenomenon. It was also noticed that the sandbox effect mostly affected websites in English with only a few reports of websites in other languages experiencing the effect. Dutch and Italian language websites were particularly free from the sandbox effect. In addition to these low quality sites as well as spam sites, affiliate sites, and websites carrying AdSense were affected more frequently than sites that did not have those features. However, not all such kind of sites was affected by the phenomenon while other more organic sites were sandboxed. It was and is pretty clear that whatever kind of website was put up there was no guarantee of not being sandboxed since there was no clear cut criterion for being sandboxed. The only websites that did escape or were exempt from being sandboxed were the .gov, .mil, and .edu websites. This meant that the sandbox effect could be experienced by any commercial and private sites.

The Effects

While the sandbox effect was felt by nearly all newly registered websites with such varied characteristics, the effects of the phenomenon itself is easier to enumerate since they are very evident.

As mentioned in the definition the effect of being sandboxed on the websites is a temporary lower ranking on Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages) as compared to their ranking on other search engine results. Note that the effect ought to be temporary. Sites report being “waiting to get out” of the sandbox for anything from 1 month to a year. The sites which take longer to get out of the sandbox are generally of low quality.

The websites’ rankings are also affected, as the definition states, ONLY on Google’s SERPs. New websites that rank low as well in other search engines and has been attributing their low rank on the sandbox effect are mistaken. Website owners of such sites should concentrate on improving the quality of their site and make some SEO efforts to improve their rankings since the low rank might very well be well deserved.

There were also misconceptions that the sandbox effect discriminates according to the competitiveness of keyword phrases used with a greater effect on highly competitive keywords and phrases. This is actually untrue since the effect could be felt by many sites even for non-competitive terms.

Getting Out of the Sandbox

Undoubtedly, SEO experts have tried their very best to come up with a way to get their clients of out the sandbox. Unfortunately everyone agrees that there is no way to get out of there until Google decides to “free” a website. However here are some suggestions from the 2005 Analysis of Google’s Sandbox article aimed help prevent new sites from getting sandbox. These tips are not fool proof and do not guarantee that the resulting website won’t get sandboxed.

• Target “Topical Phenomena” & a Non-Commercial Audience

• Build Natural Links & Avoid Getting Blogrolled

• Get Noticed in the News

• Build Exceptional Quality Sites

For those whose sites are already in the sandbox there is no option but to wait. However, you can make sure that the waiting time is productive. Tweak the parts of your website that needs improvement so that when it gets out of the sandbox it’ll be of even better quality but don’t bang your head trying to get your rank to go up while still sandboxed. You can also focus on doing well in other search engines. Google is not the only search engine out there that will bring traffic to your site. For more ideas on how to make sure that the time spent by your website is productive do read David Wallace’s article on How To Play In Google’s Sandbox.

Danny Wirken
http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/google-sandbox-the-basics-54125.html

What are Sitelinks?

Sitelinks are additional links below the description and the URL of a web page in Google’s search results:

What is the problem with Sitelinks?

Google automatically chooses the Sitelinks for your website. Unfortunately, Google’s algorithms aren’t perfect and sometimes Google assigns the wrong Sitelinks to a website.

Google doesn’t reveal how Sitelinks are determined, they only say that “Sitelinks are meant to help users navigate your site.”

What can you do if your website has no Sitelinks?

Sitelinks are only shown for some searches, usually company names or other brand related searches. If your website doesn’t show Sitelinks when you search for your company name or domain name then Google might not be able to parse your web page links correctly.

a) Optimize your Flash pages

If you use a pure Flash site then it should be easy to get Sitelinks by adding a few search engine friendly navigation links to your web pages. These links should be standard text links that can easily be parsed by search engine spiders.

b) Use a clear navigation on your web pages

If you have very many links on your web pages then it can be difficult for Google to find the best links for the Sitelinks. Google usually uses navigation links for the Sitelinks.

If your website has a clear navigation, it will be easier to get Sitelinks for your website. Do not use too many navigation links and make it easy for web surfers and search engines to find out which pages of your website are the most important pages.

The better a web page is linked, the more likely it is that it will appear in the Sitelinks.

What can you do if your website has the wrong Sitelinks?

Sometimes, Google can display Sitelinks that go to dead pages or Sitelinks to web pages that you don’t want your web surfers to see.

To remove these links, login to your Google webmaster tools account and click on Links > Sitelinks in the navigation. Then you can block Sitelinks that you don’t want for your website.

Unfortunately, you can only block Sitelinks with Google’s tools, you cannot request that Google should show Sitelinks for your website.

Sitelinks can make your website more attractive in Google’s search results. However, they have nothing to do with the position that your website gets in Google. If you want to get high rankings on Google, you must make sure that your website has both optimized content and good inbound links.

Sortins Technologies

Search Engine Optimization. What is it? If you do a search in Google for the web definition of search engine optimization, you get a lot of different results. for more detail go to:www.huge-niche-keywords.com.Others get more detailed with their definition and say search engine optimization is the term used to describe the marketing technique of preparing a web site to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. 

Is it important? That also depends on which definition you believe and who you ask that question to. If you ask someone who runs a business and charges for search engine optimization, they will tell you it is the most important thing you will ever do for your website. 

At each SEO website, they will tell you they are the number 1 SEO Company on the web, even though each of them has a completely different method of optimizing your website.

If you ask many self-appointed webmaster gurus in some of the webmaster forums, they will tell you the same thing, then each one will tell you a different way to do it and they will all disagree on the most important aspects of search engine optimization.

A lot of these businesses are based on the fact that people who are new to the web and even some of those who have been online for awhile do not know what search engine optimization is. They know that with more and more people coming onto the web for the first time, their business is secure. They can continue to tell people that without their service the website will fail.

I’m not saying all search engine optimization companies are rip-offs. For more detail go to: www.the20seotools.com. Some of them really do their best to get good rankings for their clients and know what they are doing. A lot of them still really believe that search engine optimization is the key to success on the web.

It isn’t. How’s that for a statement? I know a lot of web designers will disagree. I know a lot of SEO companies will disagree. But simply put, search engine optimization of your WebPages is not the most important thing you need to do to succeed on the web.

Let’s break down some of the things that are included in the phrase search engine optimization. 

Well they also have the title tag, which is sometimes referred to as a met tag, but it is actually the only met tag you need to have.

Keyword Optimization is something the gurus will tell you is very important. Some will tell you they know the exact percentage of text that should be your keywords. Yes, keywords are very important. Do they know what percentage the search engines will want to read for the best results? No.

When writing copy for your website, you must be conscious of the keywords you wish to promote. Don’t pick too many keywords and try to optimize each page of your website for twenty different things. If you do, it will not be relevant for any of them. That isn’t guru talk, that’s just plain old fashioned common sense.

Remember that search engines crawl web pages, not web sites. If you choose just one or two keywords per webpage that you wish that page to be optimized for, then you can optimize the page easily and write text the user will want to actually read.

Write your sales text the way you would with only the user in mind and with making sales in mind. Then go back and reread the page. 

Find places where you can add in your keyword without destroying the flow you created when you wrote the text in the first place.

Now, do you need to hire an SEO company to do that? Do you know your product? Do you know how to sell your product? Then you need to write the text. If you do not wish to write the text, then hire a writer. You still don’t need a search engine optimization guru.

Some search engine optimization experts will tell you they can increase your link popularity. They use a variety of methods. They create websites where they put all of their client’s website links so you will have links to your website. The search engines call these link farms and discount any value they may have had in the past.

http://www.seo-prediction.com

http://www.sitemap-makers.com

DOGRAWONG
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/seo-different-method-of-optimizing-your-website-730608.html

A short rhyme by Woz at WebmasterWorld best describes the Google dance. It goes –

They put some pages in,

They take some pages out,

They calculate the PageRank,

Then they shake it all about,

They wait until the full moon

Then they mix the servers up,

That’s what its all about.

Webmasters have christened a concept associated with all search engines after the name of Google – the Google dance. And rightly so. Because of the sheer reach, popularity and reputation of Google as a search engine, Google has been subjected to scrutiny under a microscope by search engine analysts more often than not. So what exactly is Google Dance?

The Google dance explained

The results of a particular search on Google highly fluctuate when Google Shuffles the rankings of websites in its search engine results pages (SERPs). This concept is termed as dance. During the dance, the results for a particular search on Google vary minute to minute. The index update at Google is changed at an interval of about a month. Though the outcome of this change in the index is instantly reflected on the SERPs, the actual process takes several days to complete. It is not viable for Google to shut down operations or go offline till the updated index is transferred to all their servers. Hence the results for a particular search fluctuate or ‘dance’ till the index update is transferred to all Google servers.

It has been observed that Google has three main servers – www.google.com, www2.google.com, and www3.google.com. During an index update, the results displayed by these three servers vary to a large extent. This happens because one server reflects the updated index while the other is still showing the results of the old index.

An easy way of determining whether the dance is on is to make a search request on www.google.com and look at the blue bar on top of the page. It shows ‘pages 1-12 of about 564,000’. Then search for the same on www2.google.com and www3.google.com. If the number of total pages differs in each server, you know that the dance is on. You know the dance is over when the numbers do not vary and the order of the results is the same. 

Google’s spider constantly visits websites to check their validity and to delete non existent websites. It is, therefore, common to see nominal changes in the results of a search over a month or so. But, if there is an alarming variation in the ranking of a website, or a major alteration in the results within a few days, it can be guessed that the Google dance is on.

Is it a thing of past?

Many experts contend that the Google dance is a thing of the past. The monthly update of the index list is the result of the deep crawl wherein Google’s spiders crawl the web to update its index on a monthly basis. Regular searchers will swear that the results fluctuate more than once a month. This happens because of the fresh crawl employed by Google. This crawl is carried out almost continuously to keep the index up to date. This frequent fluctuation in the results of a search is termed as everflux. Because of the fresh crawl, determining whether the dance is on cannot be based on the variation in the total number of search pages. If the three Google servers show a different number of back links to important sites such as Yahoo or AOL, then the Google dance is on.

But this does not lessen the importance of the monthly update. Because of the continuous search of the web with the help of fresh crawl pages keep getting included in and excluded out of the result pages almost everyday. But it is the deep crawl of the web that decides the rankings of web pages by Google.

How to cope up?

It is only during the dance that the rankings will fluctuate. There’s no need to panic if your ranking suddenly drops among Google’s rankings. A 5-6 day wait will see you heave a sigh of relief as the rankings stabilize for the coming month. Others who want to know their ranks even during the dance can access the intermediate bases of Google. Knowing that the dropping in the ranking is temporary, it is important not to over compensate. Continue offering quality content through your website and you are bound to sustain any dire effects of the Google dance.

Harish Shetty
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/all-about-google-dance-90127.html

Your small business needs an appealing and professional website but that is just the beginning. If no one visits your website and — more importantly — if it does not bring in new customers and allows you to sell more to your current customers, then your site is not effective. What do you need to improve your online marketing efforts?

The first step is to decide on a primary goal for your website. Is it to directly sell products or services through e-commerce? Or is the goal to capture leads so you can follow-up and make the sale by email and phone?

For e-commerce you need a website design with a shopping cart system, that encourages people to purchase products using the shopping cart. Both the design and written content should maintain this focus.

If your goal is to capture leads, the key is to have the content that provides initial information about your products and services that interests prospective customers. It should be easy for the prospective customer to fill out a contact form and hit the submit button or call your 800-number. The form should be submitted to a contact management system such as Salesforce or SugarCRM.

Getting it Done

Your business needs a professional website, which can cost between $2,000 — $15,000 to design. This is not only more than most small businesses want to spend but also unnecessary to succeed on the Web.

For small business there is usually little need for an elaborate, expensive website. You can get an appealing and professional website design for as little as $250.

The key to a professional website design is to work with a good designer who takes the time to listen to you and translate your vision into an effective website. Your designer must be as skilled in listening as in design.

Once the site is completed there must be an easy way for you – or someone on your behalf — to maintain the website. The designer should provide you with an easy-to-use content management system (CMS), enabling you to edit your website without having to contact your designer. This saves you money.

Once you have a professional website you have the foundation for marketing online. You can build on that foundation and use the Internet as an effective marketing tool.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing can be divided into two main categories: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC).

Please do a Google search right now for something pretty popular (e.g., coffee). The results on the left side of the browser window that reach down to the bottom of the page are the organic search results. The top results are generally the more popular sites. The highest ranking sites are those sites that have the most links from other websites (especially other high ranking sites). In a sense, other people have voted for the high ranking sites by linking to them. Often, the high ranking sites are the most popular but there is also a lot of gaming of the system. You cannot, however, pay Google to increase your site’s ranking.

On the right side of your search results and, sometimes, up at the top of the page are the “Sponsored Links.” These links are paid advertising through a system called Google Adwords. Look for the “Sponsored Links” heading and compare how these links look with the non-sponsored organic links.

Search Engine Optimization

To increase your search rankings in Google (and other search engines), you can do a number of things. We will focus on Google because of its dominant position as a search engine.

The truth is that it is a crowded field out there for most keywords. Your best bet is to find some niche keywords and work on those. It would be very difficult to achieve a high ranking for the keyword “coffee” but if you have a more specific niche you have a better chance of succeeding.

For example – and this is just an example for illustration, not necessarily a good keyword combination – “Guatemalan shade grown coffee” would be an easier space in which to compete. You would have a chance of rising to the top or at least getting on the first page of results.

The primary way to increase your ranking is to have other high ranking sites establish links to your site and have those links associated with specific keywords – such as “Guatemalan shade grown coffee” as in our example. What follows is a few ideas on how to do that in an ethically and effective way. Don’t be tempted by gimmicks because Google and other search engines are becoming more savvy, and can penalize sites that try to game the system too much.

First, submit your site to as many directories and other clearinghouse type sites in your industry as you can. That should probably be your first step in SEO. Again, use the keywords that you are most interested in associating with your site.

Submit your site to general directories that are organized by topic. Some sites charge money for fast consideration of your submission, and are probably worth it. For example, Yahoo Directory charges $300/year for expedited consideration of your submission. For other highly prized directories — such as the Open Directory Project — you just have to submit your site and hope it will be considered reasonably soon.

Next, talk to your vendors and people in related industries and see about arranging for link exchanges or perhaps even success stories that include a link. They link to you and, in exchange, you link to them.

Then start writing articles. The key to articles is to write about something you know and that has information that is genuinely interesting to your audience. Publish your article in publications that are related to your industry. If your article is published in web publications, you will not only get direct sales leads from your article but your article will also help your search engine position.

For example, our fictional coffee vendor could write an article on exactly why shade grown coffee is superior to non-shade grown coffee. Or, better yet, why “Guatemalan Shade Grown Coffee” is truly the best. The article would have to include facts to support this claim and not just fluff. Maybe the next article could be on how to make the perfect cup of coffee. I would be first in line to read that one.

The key thing to remember is that SEO is a long process. You rarely get instant results. It can take 8-12 months to see any significant progress. You have to keep at it.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

There are a number of PPC providers but we will focus on Google Adwords as they are currently the dominant PPC system.

First, you decide on the goal (called a conversion) of your Adwords campaign. Is it a direct sign-up? Is it capturing sales leads?

A conversion when the goal is achieved and Google Adwords keeps a running tally of your conversions and the cost per conversion. You can see the cost of obtaining a lead or the cost of getting a customer. You can determine if Adwords is working for you, and whether you should make adjustments or discontinue it completely. Generally, it takes a bit of experimentation to get it right but it can be a steady source of business for you. It is worth some effort as once it is set up well it runs and can bring in a steady stream of business.

You set a daily budget (say $35) and a maximum bid on specific keywords (say $2.75). You only pay when someone clicks on your ad click. So if you are bidding $2.75 you might only pay an average of say $2.60 per click. It depends on the keywords and how much you want to bid. Spend some time choosing good keywords. Google Adwords has tools to help you choose the most powerful keywords. You will also need to embed some special code in your website to enable Google to track conversions.

Google Adwords really works. Try it and see if it will work for you. It does not require a big investment to get started. In fact, some web hosting and design companies offer a coupon so you can get started with Adwords for free. Google Adwords is easier to use than you might think.

Permission-Based E-mail Marketing

Spammers have given Email marketing a bad name in much the same way that unethical salespeople have given sales a bad name. This is unfortunate as a knowledgeable salesperson can be an essential part of making good buying decisions. The same is true of good email marketing.

With permission-based email marketing – as opposed to spam – the receiver of the email has expressed interest. Think of spam as the wily salesman in the polyester suit — and think of permission-based email as the knowledgeable salesperson we respect.

For example, I am on an email list at a bookstore that I frequent. I look forward to the e-newsletters as they often have interesting content and good discounts. I enjoy receiving this e-newsletter and the bookstore gets more business from me as a result. I rarely go anywhere else to buy books. They have retained me as a customer and I buy more often at least in part because of their e-newsletter.

Email marketing can help you increase customer retention and help you earn more revenue from each customer by cross-selling and up-selling to your current customer base. It can also help you expand your client base.

Email marketing is becoming crucial to online marketing and – when done ethically and well — can be extremely effective. Sign up for a free trial with an email marketing service and see if it works for you. If not, try another service. Find a service that meets your needs.

You can grow your own email newsletter list with a sign up form on your website, and by asking for opt-in in your sign-up and lead capture forms.

What to look for in an Email Marketing Provider

At a minimum an email marketing service should make it easy for you to create eye-catching emails, manage multiple email lists, and place newsletter sign-up forms on your website. There should be powerful list management, robust reporting, and reliability. Your provider must also have excellent customer service.

Your email marketing service should include an easy way to track the results of your email campaigns. Who opened your email, how many times, and when? Did they click on the link you provided? Did they purchase anything or submit a lead? The service should enable you to track message reads in real time, and read detailed reports online or export them to a spreadsheet.

In addition, your email marketing service should give you the ability to manage multiple lists and divide lists into multiple segments.

Conclusion

Obtaining a website and marketing your products or services online does not have to be expensive. An economical way to accomplish these goals is to hire a company to design your website and provide you with bundled web hosting and permission-based email marketing services. It would be an added bonus if they can get you started using Google Adwords with a free coupon.

Shawn Hickman
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/a-website-is-not-enough-81377.html

There have been many debates as to whether internet marketing services that use social networking and media sharing web sites to improve search engine optimization really work. Do they actually help your website gain improved search engine rankings? These all have been referred to by terms like social media, social media marketing, word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing and web 2.0. Social websites have become the latest craze on the internet and these terms have become the buzz words.

Social media websites and networking web sites offer the website owner a straightforward approach to bond with another community of people who have related points of views or interests like you. Some social networking websites group people with common interests, but some websites are “traditional networking sites” and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. So now how do these websites really operate. In websites like MySpace users share music which was what helped rocket MYspace into the well renown place it is today and in Facebook, users create their personal information that they want shared and use pictures, software programs and audio, videos to display or depict their business environment. In websites like Fastpitch, Joe Popular and Adlandpro the users create product and sale pitches and work with each other. Promotiing your website using these new tools is termed social media marketing.

How can you benefit and improve your search engine optimization ranking by using social media websites? When you use social media marketing and social networking , you have the opportunity to expose your website to a much larger group of people. When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. This is a form of viral marketing that is word of mouth. The additional links means that as you grow these natural links from a large number of relevant websites, your rankings improve in the search engine due to increased organic search traffic.

Another advantage is that search engines programs that roam the web are keen on social media and networking websites and typically go after links on these websites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking websites, your search engine optimization ranking is better and your website site will be indexed quickly. Getting bookmarked from different users and different social media websites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines.

Like it or not, social media websites have become an integral part of the internet because social marketing is easy to do, search engines love social links and hence your business by default will benefit. So if you are engaged in operating a website, and search engine optimization is important then you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media websites for increased traffic. To take advantage of this new method of building business you need to know what steps to perform? Well explore search engine optimization services. Also explore social media marketing and the difference to social networking websites.

Gregory Burrus
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/social-media-marketing-as-a-web-site-marketing-strategy-will-improve-your-search-engine-optimization-389270.html

So, you have finally decided to build yourself a website, but really have no idea where to start. The following 10 steps will give you some insight into what you need to address when creating a search friendly website from the ground up.

While this article is not an exhaustive líst of everything you need to know, it does touch base on many of the important aspects of creating a new website.

Step 1 – Keyword Research
Even before you choose your domain name, you should put a little time into some keyword research. Research all the possible keywords that will fit your industry and the website you plan on building. Having a clear idea of what your end targets are will make the rest of your job much easier and help things to just fall into place. Take a look at Keyword Research for SEO, written earlier this summer, for more help on this.

Step 2 – Domain Selection
If you already have an established brick and mortar business and the website will be an extension of that business, using your company name as the domain name is in most cases the best idea. If your company name is either irrelevant, or simply unavailable, you may want to consider a domain that has your target phrase listed as part of the domain.

A great example of this is if your site is focused geographically. Using the location as part of the domain when possible will give you a little extra juice with the search engines and help draw people to your site as they instantly can see the relevance in the domain.

Let’s say that you are building a website focused on your home town, “Somewhere USA”. A domain you may consider could be “Somewhere.com”; however, this would probably be already taken. Other options such as “SomewhereInfo.com” or “SomewhereGuide.com” may be good alternatives. The same goes for retail stores. “SomewhereCameras”.com or “SomewhereBakery”.com would also be good choices.

Avoid excessive use of hyphens; sometimes it is appropriate to use one, but if you can help it, avoid more than that as it can appear messy and even spammy in some cases.

Step 3 – System Back End
If you plan on having a large scale website that will grow and change constantly then you may want to consider a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla. If you decide to go this route, you want to ensure that whichever CMS you choose is search engine friendly and offers items such as unique title tags, custom URL’s, and full control over content, heading tags, image alt tags, etc.

Starting a website using a non-friendly CMS is like buying a car without an engine. Sure it may look great, but it won’t get you anywhere.

Step 4 – Site Structure & Navigation
This is really one of the most fundamental aspects of your site creation. If the structure of your site does not work well, then your site may be doomed from the very beginning.

Take a look back at your keyword research and brainstorm all the areas of your site that you may want to develop content for. In some cases you may find valuable keywords that would fit perfectly into a few pages of content for your site. If the phrase and the content would be a good match for the theme of your site, go ahead and note them as pages to create. Get a líst, or flowchart, of all the content you plan on adding and sort those pages into relevant categories.

Be sure your site files are saved in a way that makes sense – this includes both the file name, and the complete path to the file. Save files, including similar content in a relevant subdirectory, with simple file names representing each. Let’s take an example of an informational site dedicated to a specific geographic location. If you have a series of pages dedicated to recreation, you may save them as:

/recreation/parks.html
/recreation/trails.html
/recreation/beaches.html

Keeping your URL structure clean and tidy can not only help with search engine rankings, but it will give a good visual impression to the site visitor as well. Often, using each of these categories as main points for your primary site navigation may make the most sense.

Also be sure to keep your site relatively flat, with as few layers as possible. Don’t make the search engines follow a dozen links to get to the deepest levels of your site. Unless the site is literally tens of thousands of pages, there is no need to click more than 2 or 3 links to get to any deep content. The shorter the path to an internal page, the more credít by the search engines.

Step 5 – Navigation
When developing the end site, you also want to make sure that your site navigation is search engine friendly – this is critical if you ever want free organic listings.

If possible, use a text based form of navigation. You can use CSS to style the text links to fit into your graphical design. Text links are the best method, but image based navigation and even some forms of drop down menus are also search engine friendly.

If you choose to use image based navigation be sure to include image alt text relevant to the link to give something for Google to associate with the linked page. If you absolutely must use Flash, or any form of navigation not friendly for search engine spiders, be sure to supplement this with text based links on another location of the page.

Step 6 – Analytics
It isn’t ever too early to start thinking about your stats. Before your site goes live you must have some form of accurate analytics in place so you can measure your site’s traffic and progress.

There is an endless supply of analytics options out there to choose from. You can simply use the stats software that comes free with your web hosting, however, more often than not, they tend to be very basic with no flexibility. Advanced choices such as ClickTracks can give you rather in-depth statistics, but for a very small mom and pop operation it may be too expensive. Google Analytics, is a free option that can give you most, if not all the data you will need and does not require access to your raw log files.

If you do opt for an option such as ClickTracks, check with your host to ensure that you will have the raw log files you require. StepForth can also help you with your statistical analysis and offers a number of inexpensive ClickTracks service packages.

Step 7 – Content Creation
Now is the time to get that new, fresh content posted to your site with the SEO in mind. Make sure that the content you write reflects your industry and target keywords. You don’t need to flood the content with your target keywords, but make sure they are in there a few times. When it makes sense to do so, also include some acronyms to help Google establish the overall relevance.

If you perform a search in Google for “~keyword”, any words that Google bolds in the search results will be acronyms that Google deems relevant. Include some of these where possible.

Step 8 – Basic SEO
Ensure that ALL pages of your site include unique and Meta Description tags. This is one of the core fundamental aspects of an optimized size and it does play a significant role in your search rankings. Make sure that these tags are not only unique but are accurate representations of each page. Also be sure to place your target phrase in heading as well as image alt tags where applicable.

Step 9 – Initial Promotion / Launch
Now that you have your new site all up and ready to go, you want to give it that kick start to help drive some traffic. It will be a while before the search engines fully index your site and even longer before you start to see organic rankings for your target search phrases. It is important to start off right away to get the ball rolling.

Start off by issuing a press release to announce the launch of your new business website. Press releases are a great way to get some traffic and a rather valuable first link into your site. Submitting your press release using a company such as PRWeb will get your link in the engine’s path and should help your site to be initially indexed by Google right away.

Next submít your site to some relevant directories starting with DMOZ. It can take months, even years, to have your site listed in DMOZ, so it is important to get it submitted right away. Consider submittíng to other industry relevant directories. For some information on how to select the right directories take a look at Building Links with Directory Submissions.

Work on getting as many links from relevant industry websites as possible. The more links you can get from reputable sources, the better the overall performance of your site.

Step 10 – Ongoing Promotion
Once you have completed the site, the content looks great, and all appears finished, you’ve still got work to do. For long term success, especially for a brand new site, you need to continually promote your site. You should always be looking at ways to build your inbound links and your relevant content.

Consider creating accounts with various social media platforms to help promote your site. These can not only give you a link back to your site, but they can help you drive traffic and raise awareness about your business and product.

A site that is always growing, and always getting new links, has the best chance of getting a stable top 10 listing in Google

Anantait
http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/your-website-from-the-ground-up-in-10-steps-579497.html

Internet marketing is big business these days and it continues to evolve. Some Internet marketing systems have been used for a number of years while others are new and popular due to their freshness and promises of fast and easy money. On of the systems that have been around for a while now is viral marketing. Its definition is “marketing techniques using social networks which are already in existence to increase awareness of another businesses product, leading to sales of that product.”

Viral marketing has proven to be a successful strategy for some businesses, depending on the product or service they are trying to sell. Although the definition of it sound very cut and dry, it is often more complex in its application. The success of this type of marketing depends largely on the word-of-mouth of customers who are happy with the product they bought so as to lead to others buying the product as well. It can also refer to a virus which spreads via the Internet as information and not to destroy websites.

The definition of viral marketing will tell you that it is up to people to voluntarily spread the word about your product, which is an unusual technique in itself. Instead of having to pay for advertisement, you are relying on a person’s satisfaction with your product to do the advertising for you. It is obvious, however, that this is solely dependent on the first person being happy with your product. Supposedly, any customer who is happy with a product or service will tell an average of three people whereas an unhappy customer will relay the information to eleven. Since viral marketing is based on this principal, it is imperative that a customer be happy with the product or service before the strategy can work.

Using this marketing strategy, based on the principal of the satisfied customer, tells you that for every satisfied customer you get for your product, you should get three more potential customers. If this strategy proves to be accurate, you can expect exponential sales growth of your product. This is one of those places where “if” proves to be a very big word. You have no guarantee that a product is going to be popular with the first customer, much less with each continuing perspective customer down the line. Your product or service will have to be something that is useful to a majority of people and that is unique in design or quality before it has any hope of being the beginning of any great marketing strategy.

In some cases, viral marketing has been used with an awards program where the first customer is rewarded with products or cash when they get another customer to purchase a product or service. When you sign up for satellite service for your T.V., you may get the offer of $50 when you get a friend to subscribe as well. Although this is not by definition what it started as, it is a more effective approach in some instances.

Wayne Cooper
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/definition-of-viral-marketing-make-it-work-for-you-674249.html

http://www.powerfulvideomarketing.com

How to get more traffic to your youtube videos – This is a quick video on how you can get quick traffic to your youtube videos by sharing them with your friends in different social networks:

1. Share it with your friends in YouTube (check the video on how to do it exactly). Its recommendable you all the time add new friends to your youtube account, try to find people who comment on your videos and who are in the same industry as you are.

2. Share you video with your friends in Facebook — Facebook is one of the most active social networks and with one easy step you can easily share you video with all your friends in Facebook.

Advice — try to make video which adds value to the market place or gives useful advices. People hate sales videos, and youtube is not the right place for making a posting commercial content. With each video try to build relationship with your views, by sharing some stories or advices and therefore you will have much bigger following.

3. Share your video with your friends in Myspace — Youtube allows you to easily post your video in your Myspace blog. You need to have a profile there first obviously. This is a quick and easy way to share your video with your buddies in Myspace. Remember that Myspace blog has RSS feed which you can in turn submit to rss directories.

In addition to posting your video to your youtube, facebook and Myspace friends you can also bookmark it with these services Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, StumbleUpon and add to your profiles in msn Live Spaces, Mixx and orkut.

Hope you find this video useful, if you have any question you can post them in comment area

http://www.powerfulvideomarketing.com

Duration : 0:4:40

Read the rest of this entry »