There is no denying that Google is the king of the hill when it comes to search engines. A fairly decent page ranking in Google is worth so much more than a better showing in other less prominent search engines. The reason for this is the overwhelming popularity of Google. A vast majority of internet users use Google’s services in looking for quality content on the internet. With the large number of people using it, a high page rank acts a great advertising opportunity for your website.
Because of the astounding amount of websites that submit their web pages to Google, the think tanks at Google decided to come out with Google Sitemaps. This service, which was started in June 2005, makes web page submissions to Google much easier but with the added bonus of getting detailed reports regarding the submitted page’s visibility in Google. With Google Sitemaps webmasters can continually inform Google about their web pages as well as any changes that they make to help improve their standing in Google. This program serves as complementary service to Google’s regular crawl, although it is considered that using Google Sitemaps can do a better job than the regular crawl.
Google decided to come out with the Google Sitemaps program as a way for the search engine to offer better search results to its users. With the current limitations of web crawling, usually not all pages are discovered. It is also difficult to determine if a page has changed. With so many uncontrollable variables, crawlers sometimes just make guesses. With Google Sitemaps it becomes easier to get a better picture of all the possible URLs in a website as well as the frequency of the changes that are made. Knowing these variables makes searching in Google a more robust and fruitful experience because users are assured that they always get a fresh index of web pages.
To take advantage of the Google Sitemap program, webmasters only need to download a free open-source tool called Sitemap Generator that helps in creating a Sitemap using the Sitemap protocol. Google hopes that webservers will eventually support the protocol so that webmasters will not take any other extra steps to in order to join the program.
Google Sitemaps also freely accepts codes taken from or generated by third party providers and even lists down all of the available third party software within the Google Sitemap pages.
XML-Sitemaps.com is one such provider that provides a free Google sitemaps generator for webmasters which will also produce a HTML site map.
Google’s software and service developers are continually tweaking and improving the Google Sitemap program to better address the needs of webmasters. Because of this, new features are continually added to the Sitemap program.
Some of the new features that have been incorporated now revolve around the reporting aspect of Google Sitemap.
When a site has been verified, Google can show webmasters the statistics and errors about the website as well as the web pages. Among the information that would be included are:
* The URLs that Google had trouble crawling including the reason why. Also included are the top queries that resulted in returns from their websites as well as those that brought traffic to their sites.
* The web page’s PageRank distribution
* The common text in external anchors that other websites used to link to their websites.
These new features, as well as others that are still being developed, brings tremendous advantages for webmasters because it makes the task of running a website so much easier. It also simplifies certain tasks that webmasters need to do to better manage their website’s page ranking. Ultimately, it gives their websites better exposure as well as the inclusion of more of their web pages in Google’s index.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Google-Sitemaps---How-important-are-they-/1383
Monday, July 9, 2007
Why is Search Engine Optimization Important
If your business is dependant on customers visiting your website, then you should take a second and ask yourself if you're happy with the amount of business you're receiving from your site. If the answer is yes and you're overloaded with work, then you probably already had your site optimized or chose other means of advertising. However, being that you're reading this article, you are probably in search of answers or suggestions as to creating more traffic to your website.
Now that we got that out of the way, let's address why optimization is important. For starters, who doesn't want more business, right? I mean business is money and almost everyone I know enjoys making more money.
So, with that being said, seo is an essential part of the online community when it comes to actually making money.
The reason I'm saying this is because the web is a vast place.
Whatever your company sells or offers as a service is more than likely offered by many others. Some of your competitors have probably already had their site optimized. My point being is that there are probably 100's if not 1000's of sites ahead of you in the search engines.
A professional SEO can rank your site and bring EFFECTIVE traffic your way. Let's use an example. Let's say you're selling candles and you want your site to come up in Google when some one types in "candles".
Now there is definitely some competition going on to rank for that key term, but not a whole lot. You're competing with roughly 7 million other sites using that term. Now you're probably saying to yourself 7 million! That's a lot! It may sound like a lot, but it's not that bad.
The term "candles" was searched a total of 2,580 times over the last 110 days. This is according to a very accurate tool we use to find key terms to use. Let's say you rank #1 for that term and you get everyone who searched for that term to click on your site. Now, assuming you get 10% of the total traffic to complete a sale, that is 258 sales.
Assuming a candle is 5 dollars and each person only purchased ONE candle. 5x258 = $1290 Not bad right? The hard part is done. That's getting people to your site. Now all you have to do is sit back, relax, and watch sales increase. The possibilities are endless!
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Why-is-Search-Engine-Optimization-Important/1529
Now that we got that out of the way, let's address why optimization is important. For starters, who doesn't want more business, right? I mean business is money and almost everyone I know enjoys making more money.
So, with that being said, seo is an essential part of the online community when it comes to actually making money.
The reason I'm saying this is because the web is a vast place.
Whatever your company sells or offers as a service is more than likely offered by many others. Some of your competitors have probably already had their site optimized. My point being is that there are probably 100's if not 1000's of sites ahead of you in the search engines.
A professional SEO can rank your site and bring EFFECTIVE traffic your way. Let's use an example. Let's say you're selling candles and you want your site to come up in Google when some one types in "candles".
Now there is definitely some competition going on to rank for that key term, but not a whole lot. You're competing with roughly 7 million other sites using that term. Now you're probably saying to yourself 7 million! That's a lot! It may sound like a lot, but it's not that bad.
The term "candles" was searched a total of 2,580 times over the last 110 days. This is according to a very accurate tool we use to find key terms to use. Let's say you rank #1 for that term and you get everyone who searched for that term to click on your site. Now, assuming you get 10% of the total traffic to complete a sale, that is 258 sales.
Assuming a candle is 5 dollars and each person only purchased ONE candle. 5x258 = $1290 Not bad right? The hard part is done. That's getting people to your site. Now all you have to do is sit back, relax, and watch sales increase. The possibilities are endless!
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Why-is-Search-Engine-Optimization-Important/1529
Article Submitters - Are They Worth It?
There are both advantages and disadvantages to using article submitters.
Advantages:
- You can submit one article to hundreds or thousands of article directories with just one submission depending on what article submitter you are using. Submitting an article to this many directories, by hand, will take you a long time.
- With the extra time saved using an article submitter, you can develop your website and or write more articles.
Disadvantages:
- With article submitters, selecting the right category can be difficult, because not all article directories have the same categories. This can be a problem, because some directories will delete your article if it isn't submitted to the correct category.
- Another problem with article submitters is that some will not allow you to place hyperlinks in the article body. This is inconvenient, because not all article directories disallow hyperlinks within the article body and these links are often useful to the readers of the article.
I personally do not use an article submitter. I submit my web hosting articles and other articles by hand using RoboForm PRO. The only reasons are as follows: I have not found one that can select the correct category every time for every directory and I like to place hyperlinks within the article body when allowed.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Article-Submitters----Are-They-Worth-It-/1588
Advantages:
- You can submit one article to hundreds or thousands of article directories with just one submission depending on what article submitter you are using. Submitting an article to this many directories, by hand, will take you a long time.
- With the extra time saved using an article submitter, you can develop your website and or write more articles.
Disadvantages:
- With article submitters, selecting the right category can be difficult, because not all article directories have the same categories. This can be a problem, because some directories will delete your article if it isn't submitted to the correct category.
- Another problem with article submitters is that some will not allow you to place hyperlinks in the article body. This is inconvenient, because not all article directories disallow hyperlinks within the article body and these links are often useful to the readers of the article.
I personally do not use an article submitter. I submit my web hosting articles and other articles by hand using RoboForm PRO. The only reasons are as follows: I have not found one that can select the correct category every time for every directory and I like to place hyperlinks within the article body when allowed.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Article-Submitters----Are-They-Worth-It-/1588
Sumitting to Directories and Article Directories Becoming Tedious?
Maybe you are not using RoboForm. Why not? Maybe you have not heard of it. Well, it's a program that can store the titles, URLs, descriptions and anything else you need for listing your websites into directories. It can also store the information for your articles including the titles, article bodies, signatures, keywords and whatever else you like.
It does more than just store all of this information. Having already entered all your websites' directory listing information or information for your articles, just go to the directory's web page with the submission form and with the press of one button, it can fill and submit the form for you. No more copying and pasting all your directory listings and articles. With the amount of time it takes you to copy and paste just one directory listing or article, you can submit all your directory listings or articles using RoboForm.
Since using RoboForm, I have upgraded to RoboForm Pro. RoboForm Pro allows you to enter an unlimited amount of websites and articles. RoboForm Pro also offers an unlimited amount of custom fields for each website and article. Using RoboForm Pro, I can submit 10 different articles to around 200 article directories in just one day. Without the program, it could take me a week or longer.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Sumitting-to-Directories-and-Article-Directories-Becoming-Tedious-/1589
It does more than just store all of this information. Having already entered all your websites' directory listing information or information for your articles, just go to the directory's web page with the submission form and with the press of one button, it can fill and submit the form for you. No more copying and pasting all your directory listings and articles. With the amount of time it takes you to copy and paste just one directory listing or article, you can submit all your directory listings or articles using RoboForm.
Since using RoboForm, I have upgraded to RoboForm Pro. RoboForm Pro allows you to enter an unlimited amount of websites and articles. RoboForm Pro also offers an unlimited amount of custom fields for each website and article. Using RoboForm Pro, I can submit 10 different articles to around 200 article directories in just one day. Without the program, it could take me a week or longer.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Sumitting-to-Directories-and-Article-Directories-Becoming-Tedious-/1589
The Benefits of Submitting Articles for SEO
There are millions of businesses in the world. Similarly, there are millions of web sites being used to promote each and every one of them. Some get lucky enough and always appear number one in search engines. However, most get archived in the last places customers will ever look for in a search engine.
Clearly, luck can not be everything when it comes to giving your business the attention it needs. It’s a good thing there’s always SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the only way to go if you want your ads and web sites to stand out in the internet. SEO compliant articles will inevitably hit the right keywords at all times. This procedure comes from the meticulous task of picking out most probable keywords people from all over the world use in search of corresponding services.
Through hitting as many keywords as possible, a certain website raises its ranking in various search engines such as Yahoo and Google. With this higher ranking, customers gain more accessibility to the site. As we all know, it is indeed very rare for people to check out web sites in the latter pages of search results. That is why articles need to be optimized by inserting the words with most hits in terms of customers’ random typing preference probabilities.
Through search engine optimization, a web site will earn higher in the engines and remains there as long as it is kept properly maintained. SEO companies also see to it that their clients are always on top of the results page. As such, you are guaranteed continuing surveillance of your site’s ranking day in or day out. They also have keyword generators which can spare you from the laborious task of assessing which key words need to be hit and which ones are futile to include in the article. It also allows writers to hit the taste of the masses which access the internet.
Companies can now focus writing attractively for the keywords which sell the best. Other services rendered by sites can now be dissolved if the web isn’t showing an interest for it, therefore eliminating deadwood in the business. With this wonderful innovation in web writing, each article will surely be given ample attention in terms of engine optimization and accessibility. The purpose of advertising and syndication will be fulfilled, instead of stagnating in a dark and shady area with abysmally low ranking positions.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/The-Benefits-of-Submitting-Articles-for-SEO/1609
Clearly, luck can not be everything when it comes to giving your business the attention it needs. It’s a good thing there’s always SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the only way to go if you want your ads and web sites to stand out in the internet. SEO compliant articles will inevitably hit the right keywords at all times. This procedure comes from the meticulous task of picking out most probable keywords people from all over the world use in search of corresponding services.
Through hitting as many keywords as possible, a certain website raises its ranking in various search engines such as Yahoo and Google. With this higher ranking, customers gain more accessibility to the site. As we all know, it is indeed very rare for people to check out web sites in the latter pages of search results. That is why articles need to be optimized by inserting the words with most hits in terms of customers’ random typing preference probabilities.
Through search engine optimization, a web site will earn higher in the engines and remains there as long as it is kept properly maintained. SEO companies also see to it that their clients are always on top of the results page. As such, you are guaranteed continuing surveillance of your site’s ranking day in or day out. They also have keyword generators which can spare you from the laborious task of assessing which key words need to be hit and which ones are futile to include in the article. It also allows writers to hit the taste of the masses which access the internet.
Companies can now focus writing attractively for the keywords which sell the best. Other services rendered by sites can now be dissolved if the web isn’t showing an interest for it, therefore eliminating deadwood in the business. With this wonderful innovation in web writing, each article will surely be given ample attention in terms of engine optimization and accessibility. The purpose of advertising and syndication will be fulfilled, instead of stagnating in a dark and shady area with abysmally low ranking positions.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/The-Benefits-of-Submitting-Articles-for-SEO/1609
Profitable Key phrases
If you target the wrong key phrases you might as well give up and go home now......
Keywords are the first thing you need to consider when approaching the subject of internet marketing and search engine optimisation and if not properly selected will loose you copious amounts of targeted traffic.
I would hazard a guess that probably 99% of websites are not targeting the keywords that would be most profitable for them and so are losing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds by ignoring this important part of Search Engine Optimisation.
Most businesses when asked “So how did you decide on the keywords you wanted to target” will say one of the following two:
1.“They are the keywords my competitors use so I used them”.
2.“Well it obvious they are the keywords I should use isn’t it”.
Do these comments sound familiar to you? To 99% of you they will and if that’s the case then you need to read on.
Keyword selection is an easy process but many people overlook it and target keywords that they would expect to be profitable and find out to their peril that they were not.
First of let me clear one thing up that not a lot of people seem to realise and that is that a keyword is individual, So for arguments sake the key phrase “great keyword” is different to the key phrase “keywords that are great”. This sounds strange I know but if you are optimising for a specific key phrase you need to keep your eye on that key phrase (this is important to remember).
There are now many tools that make the process of keyword selection very easy. One example of this is Yahoo marketing’s (formally known as overture) keyword tool that’s free to use and will quickly tell you all the different variations of the keywords you are targeting and exactly how popular they are.
I always recommend the following when deciding the best keywords for a campaign:
1. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes (what would you search for if you were looking for your product or service?).
2. Research your competition and see what they are doing but don’t just do what they are doing because they are.
3. Write down all of your suggestions and ideas for keywords (you will need them next)
4. Go to the Yahoo marketing web page and use their free keyword checking tool and in turn type in your key phrase suggestions.
5. Take note of all of the different combinations that are suggested to you and the amount of searches done on them this is where you normally find out that the key phrase you thought was profitable are not the most profitable on the list.
6. This is where you now decide to reselect your keywords unless you are in the 1%.
Only once you know what specific key phrases you are targeting can you start the job of search engine optimisation safe in the knowledge that you are not chasing a white elephant.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Profitable-Key-phrases/1852
Keywords are the first thing you need to consider when approaching the subject of internet marketing and search engine optimisation and if not properly selected will loose you copious amounts of targeted traffic.
I would hazard a guess that probably 99% of websites are not targeting the keywords that would be most profitable for them and so are losing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds by ignoring this important part of Search Engine Optimisation.
Most businesses when asked “So how did you decide on the keywords you wanted to target” will say one of the following two:
1.“They are the keywords my competitors use so I used them”.
2.“Well it obvious they are the keywords I should use isn’t it”.
Do these comments sound familiar to you? To 99% of you they will and if that’s the case then you need to read on.
Keyword selection is an easy process but many people overlook it and target keywords that they would expect to be profitable and find out to their peril that they were not.
First of let me clear one thing up that not a lot of people seem to realise and that is that a keyword is individual, So for arguments sake the key phrase “great keyword” is different to the key phrase “keywords that are great”. This sounds strange I know but if you are optimising for a specific key phrase you need to keep your eye on that key phrase (this is important to remember).
There are now many tools that make the process of keyword selection very easy. One example of this is Yahoo marketing’s (formally known as overture) keyword tool that’s free to use and will quickly tell you all the different variations of the keywords you are targeting and exactly how popular they are.
I always recommend the following when deciding the best keywords for a campaign:
1. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes (what would you search for if you were looking for your product or service?).
2. Research your competition and see what they are doing but don’t just do what they are doing because they are.
3. Write down all of your suggestions and ideas for keywords (you will need them next)
4. Go to the Yahoo marketing web page and use their free keyword checking tool and in turn type in your key phrase suggestions.
5. Take note of all of the different combinations that are suggested to you and the amount of searches done on them this is where you normally find out that the key phrase you thought was profitable are not the most profitable on the list.
6. This is where you now decide to reselect your keywords unless you are in the 1%.
Only once you know what specific key phrases you are targeting can you start the job of search engine optimisation safe in the knowledge that you are not chasing a white elephant.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Profitable-Key-phrases/1852
Some Ways to Improve The Efficiency of Your King Content
Thousands of books, articles and forum entries have proved that content is king in search engine optimisation (SEO). In this article, you can find some ways that can assist you improve the efficiency of this king content.
* Content for people first, not for search engines - Some web owners make a usual mistake that they optimise everything for search engines but forget about website visitors. The target of our web site is not only to acquire high search rankings, but also to sell our service. So you should give your web site visitors what they are really searching for. Make certain your content flows by nature and you're not just trying to stuff more keywords for the sake of search engines. If visitors don't find your content compelling they won't purchase from you.
* Studying popular search terms - High search engine position is influential if your web site only ranks high on terms no one searches for. It is necessary to ask your partners, providers, competitors, customers, ... or utilize online tools (e.g.: wordtracker.com) to determine what keywords which potential customers would use to search your website, then try to insert them to the content, in titles, and throughout the body.
* Creating a clear website organization - Build a website which is clear to navigate with a thoroughly linking structure. Every web page should be reachable from at least one text hyperlink. It's better to be sparing with Flash, image links, JavaScript dropdown menus, or other codes that are not HTML based... because the search engine crawlers cannot read text contained in these sorts of display. In case the utilization of them is needed, then make certain a text based menu or a site map is also contained in the website. In addition, you should utilize meaningful words in your URLs, use as simple a web page design and layout as possible.
* Building article directory - How can you optimise the content if your website only provides a simple service? That means there exists just a few pages in your entire website. So, in order to improve the quality of content, it is necessary to write some articles, reviews which are related to your service. A website with more web pages means there are more possibilities of different keywords that will become findable in search engines. You may consider adding free articles to your article directory. On the Internet today, we can find a lot of web sites which offer articles free for reprint. Certainly, you must accept the policy of these websites and authors before republishing these articles.
In summary, it is certain that content is king in the land of search engines. The quality of your website's content is the crucial factor which decides the success in Internet marketing. Therefore, improving your content is highly necessary.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Some-Ways-to-Improve-The-Efficiency-of-Your-King-Content/1979
* Content for people first, not for search engines - Some web owners make a usual mistake that they optimise everything for search engines but forget about website visitors. The target of our web site is not only to acquire high search rankings, but also to sell our service. So you should give your web site visitors what they are really searching for. Make certain your content flows by nature and you're not just trying to stuff more keywords for the sake of search engines. If visitors don't find your content compelling they won't purchase from you.
* Studying popular search terms - High search engine position is influential if your web site only ranks high on terms no one searches for. It is necessary to ask your partners, providers, competitors, customers, ... or utilize online tools (e.g.: wordtracker.com) to determine what keywords which potential customers would use to search your website, then try to insert them to the content, in titles, and throughout the body.
* Creating a clear website organization - Build a website which is clear to navigate with a thoroughly linking structure. Every web page should be reachable from at least one text hyperlink. It's better to be sparing with Flash, image links, JavaScript dropdown menus, or other codes that are not HTML based... because the search engine crawlers cannot read text contained in these sorts of display. In case the utilization of them is needed, then make certain a text based menu or a site map is also contained in the website. In addition, you should utilize meaningful words in your URLs, use as simple a web page design and layout as possible.
* Building article directory - How can you optimise the content if your website only provides a simple service? That means there exists just a few pages in your entire website. So, in order to improve the quality of content, it is necessary to write some articles, reviews which are related to your service. A website with more web pages means there are more possibilities of different keywords that will become findable in search engines. You may consider adding free articles to your article directory. On the Internet today, we can find a lot of web sites which offer articles free for reprint. Certainly, you must accept the policy of these websites and authors before republishing these articles.
In summary, it is certain that content is king in the land of search engines. The quality of your website's content is the crucial factor which decides the success in Internet marketing. Therefore, improving your content is highly necessary.
http://www.content-corral.com/Article/Some-Ways-to-Improve-The-Efficiency-of-Your-King-Content/1979
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