Thursday, July 26, 2007

What You Need To Know About Seo: Basic Facts

Exposure could mean a lot for different firms, organizations or groups seeking a wider venue to make their views heard, accepted, and patronized. The main term used for this web-positioning method is the seo, or the Search Engine Optimization.


What exactly is Search Engine Optimization?

The Internet age has spawned a phenomenon of new terms, new jobs, and new career paths. The growth of the Worldwide Web is creating a new realm, where new types of internet-savvy folks engage in careers that require the skills of an intrepid explorer, searching for new worlds to discover. Among these new tasks are those that require the faster, more strategic placement or positioning of company adverts, documents, products or issues, in order for these entities to have the most maximum level of exposure in the web.

Exposure could mean a lot for different firms, organizations or groups seeking a wider venue to make their views heard, accepted, and patronized. The main term used for this web-positioning method is the seo, or the Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization is the terminology used to define, or describe the action of gaining a better position within a search engine or internet directory system based upon a selected key word or a group of key words. With well over 4 billion documents already on the internet, the prominent search engines are all flaunting that they can locate most of them and show you a link from within their systems, and each of the search engines or directory providers have different guidelines by which a listing within their system is accomplished.

* Achieving Maximum exposure

As web-updated consumers, we are constantly on the lookout for sites that address our specific interests, goals, or products at a specified time and day. Most of us do not always know the URL (Universal Resource Locator) for all the types of businesses that can fulfill that interest, so we use a search engine or directory service to find them for us.

For example, I plan to go out and take my girlfriend with me to a bar, but I haven’t got an idea of which place to go to that I haven’t already been to yet. The next most probable step for me would be to go to a search engine and type in something like: “bars and restaurants pasadena ca"; I put in the quotation marks to make the search more specific, to get me closer to what I am looking for. The phrase I wrote, "bars and restaurants pasadena ca" will be used represent my main key word phrase.

Once I write those key words, I am, hopefully, going to get back a list of the restaurants within the greater Pasadena area, and I indeed got well over 500 or so choices too. What makes it more helpful is that I could find those assorted choices in the local phonebook listings. However, if I wish to make my list of choices much shorter, I would type in, or enter a new search maybe like: "jazz bar pasadena ca”.

Once the search engine has done its job, then I probably will get a shorter list with these new, more precise characteristics. However, the list created will be made in an order that is determined by the search engine. The first one may or may not be starting with the letter A or a number like the one on the phone directory.

From the bar and restaurant viewpoint, if they could be in the top 10 or 20 and get a lot of “hits” or visits by web users, they will have a chance of being seen by the searcher. This is what Search Engine Optimization is all about: gaining a position as close to #1 as possible and then staying there on top, and to achieve maximum exposure.

* It’s all about location

For those who own businesses, then the primary name of the game is profits. Revenue of course, comes from people who spend their incomes with you. The more people spend their money with you, the richer and more successful you become.
In today’s business environment, it is all about LOCATION, and the next important word that comes is “ADVERTISE”.

The way the worldwide web works is the same as in the world of advertising or the directories: It’s about location in the search engines and directory systems, and advertising. If your listing is something less than the top 100, you stand an excellent chance of never being seen, or viewed. Most people are notoriously impatient, and they do not wish to wade through tons of listings. This simply means that you really need to be near, or on the top of the lists for the key words that you feel your prospective customers are, or will be using to find you.

* How Search Engine Optimizers Do This

Improving your position on the web could be done through a wide variety of methods. An easy way for this is to hire a professional Search Engine Optimization firm that can do the job for you. You could check their fees and price ranges on the web or the phone book. The process is definitely a labor-intensive one, and definitely doesn’t come cheap.

But anyway, you too can do it yourself. All you need to do is to get the rules for listing within each of the engines and directory systems where you wish to be listed, the register with them. If they allow you to point to secondary pages that also discuss specific topics, then be sure to do that by pointing to the pages within your site that cover that topic. You may also need to check on your position every month within each of the engines and directories to see how you are stacking up, and sometimes you may need to modify your site to improve your position, as well as your exposure.

Vanessa Arellano Doctor


http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/What-You-Need-To-Know-About-SEO--Basic-Facts/263859

Keyword Optimization: Why It Is Important To Online Marketers

Online marketers know that in order to be able to succeed in the vastness of cyberspace, they must be able to learn how to optimize their website’s online exposure by being able to optimize the use of certain keywords and phrases that can help with their site’s search engine ranking by improving their position in search engine results.

Since online businesses are starting to discover the complexity of marketing online, employing certain means can ensure the success of your attempts to market a certain product or Web content online, one of which is by keyword optimization.

Keyword Optimization In Online Marketing

Strategically placing keywords and phrases within your site’s content can help boost your site’s traffic immensely, thereby improving your site’s ranking in search engine results. The choice of keywords that you use, and how you optimize them, can play a role in how well you will be able to promote your website in your online marketing campaign.

Also, the places where you may situate these keywords can also affect how your site will be able to rank high on search engine results since search engines give higher relevance to keywords that are in the correct places within the web page.

Keyword optimization is such an important part of online marketing due to the fact that using the appropriate keyword in describing your site’s content helps inform online users, and potential clients, about your Web content. People will have an idea of what your site is offering them even before they actually access your site by merely reading the keywords used to describe it.

Your keywords should be relevant to the product or Web content that your site is offering, and these keywords should be prominently featured on the web page to give focus and importance to these keywords, in order to improve your search engine ranking since this will help your site receive consistent web searches over time, thereby increasing your site’s traffic.

Another reason as to why keyword optimization is such an important part of online marketing is so that you will be able to find your target potential customers online without having to exert that much effort. If you can improve your site’s ranking position in search engines, then prospective clients will be able to find your site much faster and in a more efficient manner, thereby increasing your chances of closing a sale with them.
By using appropriate keywords to improve your site’s search engine result, you can expose your site on the Internet better since your site is able to achieve omnipresence. Also, by making sure that your site is able to hit the top keywords that you aim to optimize, you can help make it easier for online users to find your site in almost all types of browsers.

Optimizing keywords will also help provide relevant information to some of your potential clients, giving them a clear idea as to what product you are selling, and making it easier for search engines to pinpoint what your site is all about. This helps avoid the problem of confusion, especially if you want to target a specific market to your site, by making sure that your site offers them with only the appropriate information and relevant links that can help them understand more about your site’s Web content.

Vanessa Arellano Doctor

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Keyword-Optimization--Why-It-Is-Important-To-Online-Marketers/263862

How To Focus Your Seo & Open Up Your Profit Margin

Your SEO should be not only a long-term strategy, it must be a focused one as well. What does that mean? First let me tell you what it DOESN’T mean.

Many sites make their main keyphrase very obvious. That’s not necessarily bad SEO. The problem cases are those that make it obvious by targeting that keyphrase on Every Single Page.

You know these sites. They have the same title – or very similar variations one one – on web page after web page after web page. You can get some use out of these sites by telling friends that you have ESP. Then prove it by telling them what the next web page’s Title will be. And what the next page’s heading will be. And what the next page’s subheading will be. And on and on and on.

Yes, that’s focused. But it’s like using a submachine gun on an archery target. It’s too much and it’s unnecessary. That’s not a focused SEO campaign. That’s a fixated SEO campaign. And it doesn’t go very far outside of that one keyphrase.

If you hit that one keyphrase you are:

1. Overdoing it. Search engines usually don’t credit you that much more for ranking on that keyphrase if you’re targeting it directly on more than 2 or 3 pages. You DO want to focus on the subject/industry/area of that keyphrase throughout the site. But not the same keyphrase over and over.

2. Missing a lot of other keyphrases. And therefore missing a lot of potential profit. There are always variations, different terms, and terminology, your customers are using beyond the top 1 or 2 keyphrases.
Often these less used keywords convert better than those 2 big ones that everyone in your industry is targeting. Therefore the ROI, or profit return, is better on them. Maybe the overall traffic is lower, but the bottom line benefit is higher. It’s not hard to see why you should be hitting a few keyphrases on your site. Not just 1 or 2.

What a Focused SEO Campaign Really Is

Focusing your SEO means directly targeting any one keyphrase on 2 or 3 web pages. Hit them on those pages, then move on to your other keywords. A simple example – the traffic numbers for Winter Jacket, that a dealer might let other keyword opportunities go, like Cold Weather Jacket, Snow Jacket, Winter Coat, etc. It happens more often than you think.

This requires you do keyword research that goes beyond simple brainstorming, but it’s worth your time. It can mean finding new markets you aren’t hitting right now. That translates into new profits and a fuller bottom line.

SEO should focus on both the individual web pages and the site as a whole. The site needs to be centered on your industry or area, while the pages drill down to hit certain keywords. Remember there are different degrees of focus in SEO. You have the important details, but there is a big picture you must build as well. You can be blinded after seeing the traffic numbers for the most popular keywords. Don’t forget the Big Picture.


http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/How-To-Focus-Your-SEO---Open-Up-Your-Profit-Margin/263924

Social Search Engine: Houston Entrepreneurs Seek A Sharper Search Engine. They Say Their System Of Letting Users Rank Sites Is Superior.

Four Houston entrepreneurs are launching a search engine today that they hope will challenge the likes of Google and Yahoo.

Frustrated with the results they get from other search engines, Neal Verma, founder and CEO of iRazoo.com, and three friends with technology backgrounds have spent their evenings and weekends — and an undisclosed amount of money — over the last eight months developing iRazoo.

Now they'll have to prove it works by drawing enough users, who in turn will attract advertisers to fund the company in a business where a handful of companies dominate.

They're betting they have a better approach to search — a site designed to highlight the most useful sites by seeking input from users who can earn rewards by voting for, or against, Web sites.

Even though 97 percent of Internet searches are done on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Time Warner, according to comScore, there are hundreds of smaller search engines.

Newcomers keep trying because there is a lot of money to be made, said James Lamberti, senior vice president for comScore, which measures Web usage and ranks search engines by use.

In the U.S. alone, companies are spending $17 billion a year in online advertising, and 40 percent of that is spent on search engine sites, he said.

"There's still a ton of activity in this field," he said. "A lot of people think they can build a better mousetrap."

But it's very difficult to catch on. Hundreds of companies like iRazoo have started search engines. Not since Google emerged five years ago has a search engine really gotten traction, Lamberti said.

Those dominant search engines are always in a buying mood as they try to find niches that will catch on with users, he said.

In the technology world where paradigms can change faster than Google can find 63.5 million hits for "monkey," Verma pointed to that top competitor as evidence iRazoo can succeed.

Google may dominate now, but it, too, had humble beginnings, he said.

Last year, google — with a small "g" — knew it had arrived when it became an official dictionary entry. Members of the iRazoo team can dream of the day when their search engine makes the dictionary, but they could live with one of their targets taking notice and paying them a few million bucks for iRazoo.com.

"Either way is fine with us," Verma said.

For now they need to prove their site's features will appeal to users and return better search results.

• Users can recommend sites that come up in their searches. If a link had useful information, a user can vote to recommend it to others. If not, the user can vote against it. Sites that get good recommendations will show up at the top of future searches. Sites that get more "no" votes than "yes" votes eventually will be dropped.

• Users earn points every time they vote. When they earn enough points, they can redeem points for digital cameras, iPods and other gadgets. Each recommendation earns 2 points, and an iPod Shuffle costs 58,000 points.

• When users search for a term, iRazoo puts a thumbnail screen shot of the site next to the search result, allowing users to preview the page before linking to it.

Only once
To prevent users from manipulating the system — sometimes known as "Google-bombing" as in the recent example that got Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert listed as the top result when searching for "greatest living American" — iRazoo requires users to log in, and they can only recommend a particular site once, Verma said.

The iRazoo site also tracks users by the unique address on their computers, and one user can only vote for a site once per computer, Verma said.

"You'd have to have a lot of time on your hands to get around it," he said.

Doubts if it's enough
If there's anything the Internet has shown, it's that a lot of people have too much time on their hands. Todd Mintz, a Portland, Ore.-based Internet consultant, suspects iRazoo's checks and balances won't be enough to prevent efforts to move sites into the top spots mostly likely to be seen by users.

"There are very smart people out there who will figure out how to game it," he said.

Depending on recommendations can be risky because the site can't account for how smart users are, said Scott Hendison, another Portland Internet consultant specializing in search engine marketing and optimization — the practice of getting one group's site to come up higher in search results than another.

Moving up the list
Search engines rely on algorithms — mathematical formulas — to find the best search results. Basically, the engine looks for keywords on sites across the Web.

As Internet marketing has evolved, people such as Hendison have figured out ways to get their clients' sites listed higher in search results on popular search engines, in turn driving traffic to their sites.

"Commercialization has kind of taken over the algorithm a little bit," Lamberti said.

Mintz said the algorithms' recommendations are better than those of strangers.

"The Google or Yahoo algorithm may not be perfect, but I'd trust them more than someone I don't know," he said.


http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Social-Search-Engine--Houston-entrepreneurs-seek-a-sharper-search-engine--They-say-their-system-of-letting-users-rank-sites-is-superior-/263960

Finding The Right Niche - Finding Your Alternatives

Ironically -- or perhaps appropriately -- the quickest way to find out about alternative search engines is to search on that phrase in Google. The first site that comes up is Search Engine Watch, a regular stop for anyone who does SEO. After all, they’ve been covering the field since 1996. If you visit this page on the site, it takes you to a list of links. These links take you to specific categories of search engines, such as news search engines, shopping search engines, multimedia search engines, kids’ search engines, specialty-related search engines, and more. If you have a fascination with knowledge in general and a few specific areas in particular, you might want to line up a number of pointed queries, get comfortable with this site, and spend a day or two poking around. Depending on how lucky you’ve been finding that kind of information on Google, you just might find some new favorites.

Another web site worth checking is altsearchengines. The entire site is devoted to coverage of alternative search engines, though it does cover the majors as well. You can subscribe to the site via email or RSS feed. While the site definitely has the feel of a professional blog (which is what it is, essentially), it’s better organized, making it somewhat easier to find things. There are colorful tabs labeled “alts,” “majors,” “updates,” “in beta,” “newcomers,” “news” and “verticals” to help you navigate. There are also ads from alternative search engines on the site. Each month, they compile a list of the top 100 alternative search engines; it seems to have turned into a mission for Charles Knight, the man doing the compiling. Here’s a link to the list for April 2007.

To coin an analogy, think of Google as the biggest department store in the world (I know, that’s either Wal-Mart or Amazon, but bear with me). For most of your needs, you’ll probably be able to find the right item at that department store. But say your portly Aunt Edna just fell and did something nasty to her knee, for which she now needs a custom-built brace. You wouldn’t go to the department store for that; you’d go to a hospital, which would be able to refer to you to the right place to have that made.

By the same token, if you’re looking for the most up-to-date medical information on a particular condition, you might go to Google if it’s a well-known and much-discussed condition such as breast cancer, but not if it’s something that’s more rare and unusual. For that, you’d be wise to consider some of the vertical search engines that explicitly cover the health and medical field.

Yet another site to check is About.com. Of course, it’s an alternative search engine itself these days. It has a guide, Wendy Boswell, for the Web Search topic. One of the areas she covers is search engines. The link I gave will take you to articles that review and discuss the alternatives. She even has an article titled “Web Search 101,” which gives you answers to frequently asked questions about search and helps you zoom in on the kind of search engine you want based on your needs.


http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Finding-the-Right-Niche---Finding-Your-Alternatives/264113