Thursday, June 14, 2007

Is It A Dead End For Meta Tags?

The early stages of internet and the search engines have seen the power of Meta Tags in ranking a website on the top of the search engine results. Meta Tags refer to the keyword rich text inserted into an HTML page. It is visible to the search engine spiders yet remains hidden through a browser.

They are used to tell the search engine spiders about the content of a web page. It has a vital role in search engine optimisation. Because of these Web Page's Tags, websites can tell the search engine spiders exactly what their web page is all about. The three major Meta Tags are the Title, Description and the Keywords.

Are Meta Tags Still Important?

Although Meta Tags aren’t a requirement in optimizing a website, still they can make a difference in the ranking of websites on the search engines. There are still several search engines using Meta Tags as part of their algorithm. Because of this, it still pays off to have them on the pages of your website.

Other webmasters and web marketers quit the idea of creating them on their web pages due to the time and effort it requires. They worry on the stress and the time consumed creating the necessary Meta Tags for each web page – especially if there are over a hundred pages on the website.

Effortless Meta Tags Creation

Who said you need to consume a lot of your precious time in creating Meta Tags alone? With the birth of search engine optimisation tools, there is no need to stress out creating web page title, description and keywords. There are several search engine optimisation tools that help web marketers create descriptive tags less all the hard work.

Internet marketing tools like the Meta Tags Builder Tool can be a great start in creating Tags for all the pages of your website. There are still a lot of other tools available online. Smart search engine optimizers need not be worrying over Meta Tags creation since there are Meta Tags tools like the Meta Tags Builder to help them out.

Indeed, creating Meta Tags for your website is still your choice. You can forget about it and find other ways to optimise your website. But what have you got to lose? Who knows, you might be forgetting something that might be the key to your website’s higher ranking on the search engines?

This article is written by nPresence, an online web marketing agency that specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, Content Management Systems, Web Design, Conversion Tracking and Analysis. Looking for the hottest web marketing tools? Please see
Search Engine Optimisation Tools.

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The Power Of Keywords – You Won't Believe It

Targeted keywords are hard to ignore in search engine
Targeted keywords are hard to ignore in search engine optimisation. Keywords play vital roles in optimizing a website, ranking on the search engines and reaching target market. Keywords have loads of benefits if you know how to find them. With targeted keywords on your website, you will be able to reach your target market easily, appear on the search engine results pages for different search terms, generate online sales, and get higher search engine ranking. A targeted keyword is a powerful factor in the overall search engine optimisation success. Keywords and Search Engine Optimisation keywords are relevant in SEO. However, overdoing keywords on a website is against the rule of organic optimisation. It will trigger red flags from the search engines. This is what referred to as Keyword Stuffing – one of the Black Hat search engine optimisation techniques. To fully generate positive results from keywords, search engine optimizers and web marketers must adhere to the basic rules of search engine optimisation.
After all, you don’t have to engage in keyword stuffing or other black hat SEO techniques just to make keywords work for your website. The secret to get positive results from keywords is to optimise and target them. It is also important to analyze your keywords to avoid getting into keyword stuffing unintentionally. There are times when web marketers do keyword stuffing without knowing it. But intentional or unintentional, web marketers doing keyword stuffing still get penalized. Keyword Analysis Made Easy Keyword Analysis is crucial to make sure you give your website the right quality and quantity of targeted keywords. Keyword analysis is made easy with the birth of several internet marketing and search engine optimisation tools.
These online tools eased the burden of web marketers in analyzing the quality and quantity of keywords on their web pages. The Keyword Analysis Tool is a must have for search engine optimizers and web marketers. With this kind of SEO tool, you can save your precious time and effort on other internet marketing techniques. After all, search engine optimisation is not all about keywords. Today, there is no reason for you to quit analyzing keywords on your website. What is a few seconds to check your keywords quality and quantity compared to getting your website banned because of keyword stuffing and other SEO errors? Remember you can unleash the power of keywords if you know how to do it. This article is written by nPresence, an online web marketing agency that specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, Content Management Systems, Web Design, Conversion Tracking and Analysis. Looking for the hottest web marketing tools? Please see Internet Marketing and SEO Tools.

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The Battle Between Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & Pay Per Click (PPC)

When promoting a website, there are many different techniques that can be used. Ultimately, a decision must be made as to where to invest your hard earned money. As of February 14th, 2007, approximately 80% of all internet traffic comes from search engines, and there are two ways to get a share of this traffic. Traffic can be obtained via the natural listings through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or via the Sponsored listings by setting up a Pay per Click (PPC) campaign. In reality, SEO and PPC differ in many important ways; both have their strengths and weaknesses and both suit different circumstances.

There are many common misconceptions surrounding SEO and PPC. One such misconception is that SEO is free and this is often listed as an advantage over the costs involved with Google Adwords and other PPC networks. With natural search, you will not pay every time someone clicks through to your website, but it should not be thought of as free. It is strongly advised to let professional optimisers carry out the SEO on your website and this will come at a cost. The alternative DIY option may seem appealing but will take a lot of time and is still likely to cost you money when you commence your link building strategies. Added to this is the possibility that you may "upset" the search engines if you do not know the “dos” and “don’ts” of natural SEO. So, if we assume that natural SEO will cost you money it begins to look more like PPC is the winner, but with one major difference.

Natural Search Engine Optimisation takes a lot of time and effort. A Google Adwords campaign can be up and running within fifteen minutes getting target traffic to you website and generating sales from the word go. However, natural listings can take months to arrive and there is no solid guarantee that they will arrive at all. This scares a lot of people off SEO; people want results they can see and they do not have the patience to wait several months for them. Natural Search Engine Optimisation is also a very intrusive procedure. A site's position in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is dependant on a number of on-page factors such as page titles, descriptions and content. When starting an SEO campaign, you may discover that your site's navigation needs to be completely reworked or that your SEO firm is insisting that they need to add 500 words of keyword rich content to your homepage. Before you sign up with an SEO firm, you should always discuss what work will need to be done to avoid any future upsets.

So far, compared to PPC, SEO seems to be the less desirable option: It requires more effort, takes longer to achieve and still costs money. Although it is true that an SEO campaign does cost money, it is much cheaper in the long run and will give a better ROI than you will achieve through paid listings. Once you have improved your site's status and get the listings you were after, the bulk of the work is done. Although it is advisable to continue investing in link building and keep an eye on the competition, it should cost you no where near as much to maintain as it did to set up. In many cases it is possible to stop all SEO efforts altogether and still enjoy first page listings for years to come. While this may not be the reality for most commercial sites, SEO can generate huge amounts of traffic and can give an unbeatable ROI in the long term.

Although most people’s websites and business requirements can be wildly different, it is generally a good idea to invest money in both strategies. Investing in Natural Search Engine Optimisation will give the best long term ROI, while a simultaneous PPC campaign will provide a steady stream of traffic until SEO efforts come to fruition. There is also an added bonus that the on page SEO strategies are likely to increase your landing page quality score and reduce the cost of your paid ad placements in Google. Whichever methods you choose to pursue, it is sound advice to enlist the services of a professional company, chose the company carefully and make sure you know exactly what you are signing up for before you commit to anything.

Dave is a successful internet marketer, with proven knowledge in the fields of Search Engine Optimisation and Pay per Click Management. He is also the co-founder of Search Engine Oracle (http://www.seoltd.co.uk), an internet marketing company based in the UK.

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SEO Elite Review: Does SEO Elite Deliver, Or Does It Fail Miserably?

Are you keen to increase your search engine rankings? There are numerous software tools out there that can help you achieve that. The most famous of which is Brad Callen’s SEO Elite, a highly-respected software tool in the (SEO) Search Engine Optimization industry.

Firstly, it must be made known that SEO Elite by itself alone will not catapult your website to Google’s first page. A solid knowledge of the fundamentals of SEO helps greatly. Also, relevant content on your website also helps.

SEO Elite helps in one very important facet of achieving high search engine rankings: that of building link popularity. Link popularity is a key component of off page SEO that you should focus on.

Building your site’s link popularity involves increasing the number and quality of websites that will link back to yours. This, of course is easier said than done.

SEO Elite helps immensely in this respect. It analyzes backlinks in all the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista and AllTheWeb. This saves you a great deal of time.

Another plus point of SEO Elite is that you can check out your competition’s linking strategy. This is another invaluable feature. In a matter of minutes, you can find out a competing website’s complete linking strategy as well as any kind of SEO optimization tricks they may be implementing. You can find out:

1. All the different kinds of anchor text they are using in their incoming links

2. What is their website’s keyword density

3. What is the Page Rank of the websites linking to them

As you can see, this is valuable information that you can use right away.

You can find out whether they are using H1, H2 tags and whether they are using meta tags if any. Basically what SEO Elite provides you is a blueprint you can use to start ranking high on any of the popular search engines.

If all that isn’t enough you can also use SEO Elite to find high Page Rank sites and directories to submit your site to. The software will even automatically do your submissions for you. Again, you save time!

There are far too many benefits and features to list here. SEO Elite is really the combination of many software. Each feature is really a piece of software on it’s own. If you only buy one software for your online business, make it SEO Elite.

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SEO Advice: When To Use Subdomains

As a professional Search Engine Optimizer, I am frequently fielding questions asked by those lucky few who are new to the SEO field, and among these so-called "newbies" a recurring question often pops up - "Which of the following ways is best to structure site URLs?"

* www.site.com/subfolder OR
* subdomain.site.com

And so, it is with this recurring quandary in mind that I will attempt to answer the question, "which URL structure is best in terms of SEO, subfolders or subdomains?"

Short Answer: If the breadth of an issue or keyphrase will be covered in such detail that a new website should be constructed to best accommodate the content, or more simply, if the site’s graphical navigation will need to be altered, use subdomains. In all other cases, use subfolders.

Long Answer: To answer this question in detail, we’ll need to go over a few key facts regarding subdomains, subfolders and site themes.

Subdomains:

* Represented in the URL by the characters after "http://" and the ones before ".site.com"
* Are viewed by Search Engines as totally unique sites independent of the parent domain.
* Site Authority (in other words, the ability for the site and its subsequent pages to rank in the search engines) is not passed down from the parent domain.
* Can be listed on the first page of the SERPs along with main domain pages. Feasibly, all 10 of the results on the first page of a search engine could be subdomains of a single parent domain.

Subfolders:

* Represented in the URL by the characters after ".site.com/" and before "filename.html".
* Are viewed by Search Engines as a subdirectory within a site.
* Site Authority is passed down from the main domain.
* At most, one subfolder can appear on the first SERP from the same domain or subdomain.

Site Theme:

* As a general rule, the more focused the theme of a site the easier it is for that site to rank for keywords directly related to its theme.
* Is defined using all of the site’s pages, not just the homepage or top subpages.

So here’s the long answer:

Search engine optimization is all about driving the most traffic. Where the goal is to build an authority site with lots of great content that will be found by search engine driven visitors using laser-target search terms, as well as unique, "long-tail" search terms that most would never think to optimize for, but appear on pages in the subfolders of your site and drive traffic just the same.

Using subdomains may appear sexy because they can lead to a potentially larger number of back-links (though not if each subdomain is hosted on the same IP), or they can sway the SERPs in your favor by crowding out the top positions with your pages. But without proper promotion, a subdomain only stops potential laser-targeted as well as "long-tail" search visitors from finding your site.

My advice is only to use subdomains when the amount of content on a given topic is so burgeoning that it requires a separate navigation and design (i.e. its own website), or is of great enough quality that it will acquire links and stand on its own.

For example:

* If you have a 15 page site about your lawn-care service, and 10 of those pages revolve around a special fertilizer you’ve developed, you may consider creating "specialfertilizer.site.com" so that you can market your fertilizer separately.
* Take my company’s domain "objectwareinc.com". Recently, we built a subdomain "palm.objectwareinc.com", because we had so much information regarding our wireless application development solutions that it only made sense to create a separate site for it.


In this example, the focus is narrow but there is still an extensive amount of content. So we’re sending visitors to the subdomain using targeted keywords while visitors are also finding us using "long-tail" searches and landing on the pages of palm.objectwareinc.com subfolders.

The overall lesson here is to create subdomains ONLY when you have the quality and/or quantity of content to support them. Remember that subdomains are independent sites in the eyes of the search engines, meaning that in order for them to rank, they will require promotion and link building efforts.

This article was written by Mike Bradbury. Mike is an SEO Analyst for Objectware Inc, an Atlanta Web Development, Atlanta Search Engine Optimization, and Washington DC Web Design Company.

http://www.articles-hub.com/Article/139892.html

Page Rank Importance

Getting a new site page indexed and ranked are two things everyone should take into account. With all the competing web sites out there the importance of page rank becomes a top priority so that you can get free traffic and thus make money online.

There is no use to have the most informative website & unfortunately no one knows about it. Have you ever thought why your competitors always on the top positions and your website every time getting into the flux.

What is Page Rank?

Page ranks are defined numerically, from 1 through 10 - 10, being the highest. Very few pages have a page rank of 10, and anything above a 6 is considered very well. There are many factors that determine a page's rank, but the main variable seems to be based on how many websites link to your page.

Search engines rank Websites based on two major factors:

• Very exclusive content with related keywords in the body
• Link popularity - number of back links on your Website.

Importance of Page Rank:

Page rank is extremely important, in that it determines how high you get on search engine results. And just as it's helpful to have your incoming links be from reputable, trusted, relevant sites, your outbound links will also be more valuable to those pages you do link out to.

The higher your page ranking, the more desirable a link from your page will be to others - Including those willing to pay for said link.

Various ways to increase your page rank:

• Build more pages: Make sure to have at least 8 relevant pages including the main page, in order to have a healthy amount of content.

How To Generate More At Cost: Getting a high ranking site to link to you isn't always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes it is necessary to buy that privilege via ads.

• Create Internal Links: Not only are you creating another link for the crawler, you're also making it convenient for your guest to find that page right then and there, if they so desire.

• Utilize Free Directory listings: They may not always be big high ranking sites, but they are an easy way to get your name out there.

• Avoid Dead-end Links: Make sure every page has a door out, other than a back button

Google uses a number of patented algorithms to determine the exact ranking of every indexed website. They also attempt to index as many websites and pages as they can possibly find. In order to do this they utilize tens of thousands of different hosts and over a dozen data centers.

Other important factors that determine your ranking are the architecture of the site, relevant keywords, title, underlying code and content of the site for making your site more appealing to the search engines.

Page rank is not the be all and end all, and people should not become too angry if they are not able to for example obtain a page rank five straight away. I believe hard work pays off and that a website should be seen as a long term project.

Page rank is a very real and vital aspect of web development that should always be kept in mind. Without it, your chance of being found easily on search engines is compromised. With it, you'll be on your way to a highly successful website.

Steve Buchanan writes articles on many topics including Website Submission Services, Article Submission Services, and Honda Generators.

http://www.articles-hub.com/Article/140452.html

The Real Value Of Link Builhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=509534821990831325ding

The biggest misconception of link building is that it is solely intended to increase your rank within the search engines. The majority of us who use this train of thought would then proceed to get as many links for their site from any sources available, without understanding the real value behind carrying out this time consuming project. Not only do you obtain a large number of irrelevant links that will not benefit you, but you have wasted precious time and missed out on a lot of targeted traffic.

So what is the true value of link building? First and foremost, it should be intended to generate quality traffic for your business. If you keep this thought in mind when carrying out your assignment, then you are most certainly going to obtain relevant links along the way that will help to boost your exposure within the search engines, making it a win / win situation.

A good example would be this article. Once it is submitted to several article directories, people who are searching for information on link building will most likely read this information posted. At the bottom is a link to my site which is based on offering search engine marketing services and link building campaigns. If a reader was interested in finding out more, there is a high chance that they will follow through on my link and read up about my services. In this case, not only have I generated a quality lead, but I have also attained a relevant link from the article directory. If twenty people read my article each day and ten people where to click through to my website, then you can obviously see that the link building has done its job in attracting targeted visitors.

However, if I was to write up an article on the latest mobile phones and provided a link to my website, then there is a very high chance that a reader will not follow through on the link. A search engine works in the same respect. Just like a human visitor, why should it read up on marketing services if it's currently reading an article on mobile phones? From this a search engine can see that the link was placed for the sole purpose of link building and has no genuine relationship. As a result, no targeted traffic will come through to my site and the link will not benefit me in any way.

At the end of the day it all boils down to the quality of the link. Another good example is: if you were to have two restaurants to choose from and two different people recommending which one to eat at, you are most likely to take the advice of the person who has more authority on the subject of restaurants. In a similar manner, a search engine will follow and count the relevance of a link based on where the link to you is coming from and if there is a common factor between the sites.

The key to developing good linking strategies that will help your site's performance in the search engines is to ask yourself the following: will my link entice someone to click on it, which in turn generates quality traffic? Answering "yes" and using this methodology when carrying out your task will attract visitors interested in what you have to offer as well as collect you valuable links.

Every now again there are new methods on how to develop a successful link building campaign. At the same time, new loop holes are being found on how to exploit these methods. Eventually it will come to a point where these loop holes cease to exist. So to avoid getting caught up in the confusion, working toward a campaign that is totally focused on generating quality traffic is the best way to ensure that you are not wasting your time and hard earned dollars with attaining pointless links.

David Touri works for http://www.seosydney.com.au/ SEO Sydney providing search engine marketing services. His current projects include CargoWise, the world’s largest http://www.cargowise.com/ Logistics Software provider.

http://www.articles-hub.com/Article/140672.html

Get massive directory submissions for better search engine rankings

Web directories are the website that content human made categories and sub categories. Directory provides an inbound links to the website. It’s no secret that search engines, especially Google, value quality inbound links to a website for higher search engine rankings.

Link building is a process of creating relevant and quality inbound links to a website with the intention of increasing the website’s importance resulting to an increase in page rank and thus generating more traffic and return of investment. If you are part of a very good link directory then you can be sure that the other websites listed in that directory quality sites to and are bound to give you quality links.

Link popularity is a major stepping stone for any online presence. Link exchanges could greatly up your site on search engines, therefore, drive more traffic to your site

Never participate in an automated link exchange program. These programs are useless. There are several link exchange scripts that allow build many good, relevant back links within a very short amount of time. Diversify your link portfolio. As well as submitting to thousands of web directories will brings you a huge amount of traffic.

Does not use search engine submission software to submit the site. Most quality search engines will see this as spamming the site and penalize you for it. These products are good for working on your page; they are not good for actually doing the submitting. You'll find that the path to affordable search engine optimization, and even professional search engine optimization, offers no short cuts.

For more information visit at www.mywebsiterankings.com

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The 5 Elements of a Search Engine Optimized Page in 2007

One my favorite attributes of the Internet is that, if you know where to look, you can find tips, a 'how-to' or advice on just about any subject. This is certainly a valuable resource for anyone with an internet connection, and can work out very well for fairly static subjects like lawn care.

After all, the properties of Kentucky Blue are fairly constant. But what if you walked out your front door one summer morning to a yard full of dead grass, and upon questioning your neighbor about why it died he told you, "You didn’t hear? Grass started drinking olive oil yesterday instead of water without telling anyone. Ain’t that a stinker?" Now, what if this happened every six months or so?

Such is the landscape of search engine optimization, where the search engines are constantly changing the game, and the advice you find online, dating all the way back to 2005, may no longer be relevant. With that in mind, it is important to update your knowledge base. So here are 2007’s most important elements for a Search Engine Optimized Page:

1.) The Title Tag: An oldie but goodie, the title tag is not only what ultimately gets the user to your site from the SERPs (because it is what the search engines use when linking to your page), but its one of the most important pieces of every search engine’s ranking algorithm.

Remember to place only a few closely related keywords inside this tag, and to put your keyword before your company name. Search users are impatient and looking for fast information. They’re not looking to be branded. A search user may never even get past your company name in the title if the listing below it catches their eye first.

2.) Keyword Density: Believe it or not, keyword density is still important. You may hear some SEOs tell you that keyword density is dead and they can get your site ranked using links alone. The latter half of this statement is true, the former is not. Think of it this way: Dieting alone can make you lose your gut, but dieting and exercise will get you there twice as quick. The right keyword density will give your pages the same positive result that exercise has on dieting.

Many Search Engine Optimizers will tell you that optimum keyword density is between 3-6%. That’s true, but difficult to measure (for example: are we taking into account navigational, header and footer text or just the main content?). As a rule of thumb, I try to use the keyword once every other paragraph. That is by no means a hard science, but it works for me.

3.) Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): Here’s one that wasn’t around last year. For those unfamiliar with LSI, it is a way for Google to better determine the relevancy of a page. By using LSI, Google can automatically calculate which terms are used most often along with any given keyword and score pages based upon whether or not those complimentary keywords appear on a page.

By deploying LSI into their algorithm, Google is now able to tell the difference between the animal and the automobile "Jaguar" by identifying words and phrases like "ferocious cat" or "moon roof" on the page with it.

Google can also thwart spammers who are using phrases like "Keyword is the best solution on the market to meet your needs and for more information on keyword, look no further." Spammers could previously mass produce pages with optimum keyword density but without any actual relevance by using templated phrases like these.

4.) Link Text: Onsite and off, the text which appears in a hyperlink pointing to your page is of great importance. Link text or anchor text should contain your keyword or some variation of it for best results.

Obviously, you won’t have control over your link text in every situation. You can’t control the way a blogger who finds your site will link to you. However, you can use suggestive language in your press releases or on your pages pointing others in the right direction. If you state on your page that "Dogsforeveryone.com is a Dog Health Site dedicated to…" your linker may use the same "dog health" lingo in their link.

5.) Page Focus: One of the biggest mistakes that SEOs make when optimizing a web page (especially the homepage) is trying to optimize for too much at once. My rule of thumb here is unless the words are all closely related, not only in meaning but in spelling too (like web design company and web designer companies), break them up into separate pages. I try to, at most, use three non-directly related keywords per page.

People are often drawn into optimizing one page, which they have noticed has considerable ranking power, for too many phrases. The draw is obvious, and the intent is to rank for as many keywords as possible. Unfortunately, by attempting to get to number one for too many key phrases, you’ll end up getting there for none. In the eyes of the search engines, the focus of your page will be diluted, and a more laser targeted competitor will prevail.

There you have it. These are the most important elements to optimizing a page. The rest is mostly up to original content and link building. If you successfully follow these 5 tips, you will find yourself racing up the SERPs, acquiring more visitors and more impressions, clicks, sales, sign-ups or whatever it is that you’re after.

This article was written by Mike Bradbury. Mike is an SEO Analyst for Objectware Inc, an Atlanta Web Development, Atlanta Search Engine Optimization, and Washington DC Web Design Company.

http://www.articles-hub.com/Article/140888.html