Guide to make money online!

Marketing rules for Internet business differs slightly from that of any business of bricks and mortar. Your clients cannot see you; you cannot interact with them on a personal and face to face level. Your website is your one shot at getting them interested in what you have to offer. To do this you have to enter into a relationship with each of your website visitors. If you are unable to do business face to face then you must gain knowledge. You have to get to know exactly who ad what your potential customers are. It is not impossible to do this in a virtual medium. You just have to work clever.

Give them what they want

You have to engage your visitors; this means that once you have their attention, you have to build on from this. Profile who your web visitors are, what exactly are they looking for and why they come look for it on your website. These are the crucial aspects that go into enabling you to build a relationship with them. This is needed to lead to conversions that turn them into paying customers.

From the first second your web visitors land on your website you must grab their attention. This means that each and every page of your entire website is a landing page in reality. This involves arranging your website content in a visually pleasing and friendly manner that is both convincing and persuasive. On each of your web pages your visitors must be able to see at first glance that they are exactly where they want to be. They also need to see that you offer them the information that they are looking for.

Don’t waste their time

If you make it difficult for your visitors to understand what they can get out of your website, they will not stay long. Today people expect instant solutions and have no patience with obscure hinting. They want their questions answered and they want to know why they should buy form you and not a competitor. Make sure you spell out the benefits to them clearly.

Have clear and strong links to the pages of product information and point the way visually and sharply. People are not stupid; if your web content is aimed solely at pleasing and attracting the search engines, it will be noticed. If your web content is seen as being keyword focussed, readers will distance themselves. Once this happens, you have lost the chance to engage your web visitor. No engagement means you will lose this sale.

Visitors become customers

Search engines are not the only important thing. A competent SEO writer will know how to write content for readers as well as search engines. Visitors want to feel as if you have developed your website with them specifically as the focus. Your website must address the needs of customers; their needs, wants and questions.

Your web content and SEO practices should be focussed on making them feel like special customers whom you value. It is fatal to make them feel as if you have white-washed your website to be a generic place for casual browsers.

While we all work to beat the competitors for targeted search terms, hoping to land that top ten ranking; Google’s Universal search provides additional opportunities to increase your website’s exposure by mixing in universal search results.

Most companies are not taking full advantage of universal search and are really missing the opportunity to increase their exposure and interact with their visitors in a new exciting way. We’ll show you how you can utilize Universal Search to push your website to the top of the search results and drive more traffic to your website with this exciting addition to Google Search.

Introduction to Google’s Universal Search

While Google offers up the paid search results via Google Adwords and organic search results within the center of their search results page; they are now mixing in other types of results in attempt to give visitors a taste of everything that is related to their search. This includes:

• Products (Google Product Search)
• News (Google News)
• Images (Google Image Search)
• Blogs (Google Blogs)
• Geo-targeted Business Listings (Google Maps)
• Video (Google Video)

Benefits of Universal Search

For visitors, the benefits of universal search are that they can see various types of results without having to leave the organic search results page. Another benefit is that it breaks up the page adding images, video still shots and information in a way that is appealing.

For site owners, there are quite a few benefits. First, there are now multiple ways to have your products and services listed on the 1st or 2nd page of Google.

Second, if visitors did not select your organic listing, they may select your image, blog or business listing; offering more opportunities to obtain targeted visitors to your website.

And finally, some Universal Search results are bumped ahead of the organic listings. If your website is listed in the #12 spot on page two and you just can’t get your site to the 1st page, you may be able to have your images, videos or products listed above the organic results for specific search terms.

Users Intent

If you searched for the word “Apple” using Google in 1999, you were presented with various types of informational websites; discussing the various types of apples, how to use them in recipes and other great apple related information. But over time, people who typed in “Apple” would complete their search and then run another search for “Apple computers“. As this trend continued to happen, Google’s Algorithm learned that a trend was emerging. Most visitors who typed in the word Apple were looking for computers, not fruit.

Now when you type in “Apple” into Google, you are presented with the Macintosh Apple website, websites that review Apple computers and e-commerce stores where you can purchase an Apple computer. Google’s focus is to not only provide searchers with relevant search queries based on their search term, but to emulate the thought process that is derived from the search term itself.

When a searcher enters a query, Google’s artificial intelligence attempts to understand what the visitor may want to see before returning the search results. They have come to learn that when a visitor types in a brand name or a product, that searchers may want to:

• See Photos of the Product
• Read Product Reviews
• Purchase The Product
• Research The Product

In an attempt to give the visitor what they want they try to return the types of results related to the users intent.

To use Universal Search to your advantage, you must understand the user’s intent when they type in the search terms related to your website. The best way to see which universal search products are being used for your search terms is to search them within Google. Once you enter the search query, above the search results in the top left area of the screen you will see a listing for the products pulled into the results. For example, if I enter the search query “red scarf” I see the following Google Products listed at the top left area of the screen:

1. Web

2. Shopping

3. Images

Essentially this means that Google attempted to pull in (web) organic search results, Google Product Search and Google Images.

The Strategy

Creating a strategy to increase your rankings through Universal Search can allow you to locate opportunities that your competitors missed; giving you more exposure and targeted traffic.

In the example of the “red scarf”, you will notice that although Google attempted to pull in images, there aren’t any images displayed within the results. This essentially means that you could possibly receive a listing on the 1st page of Google via Google Images if you optimize your images and submit an Image Map through Google Webmaster Central. Additionally, you can upload your red scarves to Google Base to get them listed within the Google Shopping results.

Now if you visit the second page of results, you’ll see that they are now showing different universal search results.

• Web
• Video
• Images

Towards the top of the results you will see 1 video; however in most searches where videos are in the results, you will usually see two. This indicates that you could potentially have a video listed towards the top of the second page. As you continue to view the remaining results on page two you will again notice that you don’t see any photos on page two; another opportunity to gain exposure over your competitors.

Once you have completed this type of research and analysis for the keywords important to your website, begin creating and optimizing your shopping feeds, videos, images, blog posts and other universal search products to gain the competitive advantage before your competitors do.

Optimizing Images

You can increase the chances of your images showing up for relevant search queries by optimizing your images. There are a few key areas that will help improve your ability to increase rankings for your images in Google Image Search, as well as where images are shown in Google Search.

Although these tips are for Google Images, these examples can be used throughout various areas of your website; to improve all of your universal search results.

File Names - Give your images accurate names rather than defaulting to what your camera or image editor provides. If the image is of a cashmere red scarf, then consider naming our image cashmere-red-scarf.jpg. This help to further classify the image and show relevancy to the search terms you are targeting.

Image Alt Attribute - Ensure that you have provided a quality description for your images using the image alt attribute. Try using product colors, sizes, materials, brand names, textures, manufacturer names etc. Remember not to overdo it, but provide an accurate description of the product to assist with increasing relevancy for desired search terms.

Captions - Include a caption for your image that describes or relates to the product. The text that surrounds the image helps Google to understand the subject matter of the image.

Anchor Text - The text you use when linking to the image helps to describe and classify the image. Try using descriptive anchor text rather than words such as “click here”, “larger image” or “more photos” when describing the link.

Google Image Labeler - While you can do your part in helping to optimize your images, you can also increase your chances of having your images appear in Google Image Search by allowing others to help classify your images through Google’s Image Labeler. By simply enabling the Google Image Labeler from the Google Webmaster Console, you allow Image Labeler users to provide words and phrases they believe accurately describe your images in a fun online game. As users are shown images from your website, they type in a few words they feel accurately describe the photo, which is later used to further classify the subject matter of your image.

Summary

Google has provided many new opportunities for you to reach searchers in the ways they want to be reached. Search engine optimization has been taken to another level; it’s no longer about who has the most number of pages, the best density; or who has the most inbound links. It is about who is utilizing the all their available opportunities.

Almost every aspect of your website is being analyzed and classified; use it to your advantage. Now is the time to take advantage of these opportunities and increase your visibility in every area of universal search; allowing you to increase your traffic and exposure in new and exciting ways.

Are you tired of searching the web for the best wordpress plugins for your wordpress blog? If so then today is your lucky day because what I have you here is what I think to be the best wordpress plugins every wordpress blogger should be using for there blog or blogs period.

I’m sure once you go through the list I have put together below and read through what each of these wordpress plugins can do for your blog you’ll soon agree that these are the best wordpress plugins you’ve been searching for.

I’ve spent countless hours searching the web for the best wordpress plugins for my blogs because with them they can simplify a lot of tedious work giving you more time to do what you need to do with your blogs.

My suggestion to you is if you want to reduce the time involved with searching the web for the best wordpress plugins then make a plan now to read through the rest of this article.

Okay, that is enough talking, let’s get to the heart of the best wordpress plugins every wordpress blogger should be using.

Below is the list I have put together with some brief descriptions and hyperlinks to where you can download these wordpress plugins.

#1. Akismet -

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blogs “Comments” admin screen.

#2. All In One SEO -

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

#3. Broken Link Checker -

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/

This plugin is will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found.

#4. Wordpress Database Back Up -

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

#5. Exec-Php -

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exec-php/

The Exec-PHP plugin executes PHP code in posts, pages and text widgets.

#6. Google XML Sitemaps -

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog.

#7. MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer -

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maxblogpress-ping-optimizer/

Save your blog from getting tagged as ping spammer by installing this plugin.

#8. MaxBlogPress Favicon

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/maxblogpress-favicon/

Help create brand awareness by displaying a little favourite icon (favicon) in the title of our blog next to the URL.

#9. WP-Cache

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cache/

WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make you site much faster and responsive.

#10. Auto Hyperlink URLs

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/auto-hyperlink-urls/

Auto-hyperlink text URLs in post content and comment text to the URL they reference.

#11. No Ping Wait

- http://onemansblog.com/2007/04/15/no-ping-wait-wordpress-plugin/

The purpose of the No Ping Wait plugin is to prevent Wordpress authors from having to wait for all of the update services to respond to new post pings.

#12. FD Feedburner Plugin

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedburner-plugin/

Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed to Feedburner.com.

#13. WordPress.com Stats

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks.

#14. What Would Seth Godin Do

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/what-would-seth-godin-do/

Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and much more.

#15. Popularity Contest

- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/popularity-contest/

This will enable ranking of your posts by popularity; using the behavior of your visitors to determine each post’s popularity

That’s quite the list isn’t it? But they each serve a purpose as you’ll see when you look into each further.

If you wish to search for more wordpress plugins you can at - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Now if you want to get the very best out of Wordpress then you need the best wordpress plugins, so keep these ones handy.

As a small or medium business owner, you may want to advertise and promote your website as economically as possible. In recent years,Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has emerged as one of the surest and cheapest way for long-term business promotion.

A typical business owner is not expected to be knowledgeable about SEO and its benefits. Even if the owner knows SEO, he/she may not be surehow to choose an ethical SEO who can get the job done at the best rates and within timeline. Choosing a SEO consultant or company for your website can be a tiring and overwhelming experience. Many SEOspecialists will boast about adopting the latest path-breaking SEO techniques, use testimonials from clients and guarantees of #1placements on Google. But how can you, as a non expert, select agenuine SEO consultant? Listed below, are a few of the main pointers used to detect 'fake' SEO consultants.

#1 Google ranking for Website:

If any company guarantees you that they can place your website in the number one position on Google, then take my advice - RUN in the opposite direction. It's obvious this company is desperate to get business and is willing misleading you to get your hard earned cash. No company can make such claims. Google's algorithms are one of the best kept secrets. What SEO companies can do is optimize and promote the website according to widely known principles, intelligent guess work,best practices and lots of hard work. At most a company can claim that they can acquire good rankings such as top 10 results. But even then,verify their past track record to measure how they fared with other clients.

Very Low Prices:

Many companies charge ridiculously low amount of money for a lot ofservices. As an astute business person, you can intelligently deduce that any work that requires hours and hours of hard work, research and analysis by a team of experts cannot come cheap. Most of the times,specialists from various fields such as programmers, content writers,SEO analyst, link builders etc. pool their resources to make a site successful on Google. Therefore quality services cannot come as cheap as many companies charge.

Secret and Proprietary Technique That Cannot be Revealed:

I don't think we even need to elaborate on this. As the owner of the website, you should be aware of what's happening to your site and what steps are been taken to optimize and promote it.

Recommending Black Hat Techniques:

Lot of companies recommends shady tactics known as black hat practices to get your site up in search engines. Not only do these practices have very short term benefits, but they can also be very counter productive since the search engines can eventually catch website following these practices. Many websites big and small have been heavily penalized for using such techniques. So play safe and avoid these SEO companies like the plague.

Using Outdated Techniques:
window.google_render_ad();

Once upon a time, techniques like reciprocal link exchange, keyword stuffing etc. were used to get good rankings. Google and other search engines have wisened up and rank a site for its worthiness and not just back links and keyword stuffing. Choose a company that will recommends steps to make your site useful & relevant and not take short cuts.

For a website to generate a regular flow of traffic and climb up the traffic engine rankings, it needs to be well linked into a network of related websites. In simple terms, that means that other websites will have links on them that point to your website.

Until recently, one of the most popular ways for Internet marketers to build website backlinks was to exchange links with other website owners. This is considered especially valuable if the website where the link was to be placed was highly ranked and in a similar niche. However, a lot of people focused more on quantity than quality of links, causing Google to downgrade the importance they associate to reciprocal links when calculating website ranking.

Bear in mind, however, that Google's chief, Matt Cutts, has suggested on his blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/2007/05/page/2/) that reciprocal links are not automatically bad in themselves. If you find a good quality website in a niche market related to your own, by all means link out to it from your website and contact the Webmaster to explain what you have done and request a reciprocal link.

One good way of linking out to other websites is to set up the resources page on your site with links to a range of sites that may be of use or interest to your visitors. Do not worry that this may cause you to lose traffic, because by adopting a policy of freely giving out information, including links to other sites, you are promoting yourself as an expert in your field and building a sense of goodwill with your website visitors. A useful resource page is something that will attract traffic to your website, which is exactly what you want.

Another bonus of this type of page is that it gives you plenty of scope for link baiting. Link baiting is simply a process of adding content to your website or blog that people will be likely to want to link to. So if you add a mini review or a few sentences of commentary with each link on your resource page, you will find that some of the people who visit your page will be more likely link to it on their own website.

Link baiting is a great method for building one-way website backlinks or blog backlinks, so it makes sense to approach all of your content writing with Link baiting in mind. Your articles should be full of content that is original, useful, and also entertaining. This building is just one way of making a link baiting page. Finding an unusual angle, writing with wit and humor, taking a contrary position are other great link baiting tactics.

You can also build one-way website backlinks by posting comments on forums and blogs. For this to add anything to your website ranking, find relevant blogs and forums that allow "do follow" comments. You can quickly find a whole bunch of do-follow blogs and forums by doing a search on Google.

If you follow these tips consistently, you will have no difficulty building website backlinks and improving your ranking on Google and other search engines.

I wish you the best of success,
John Baril
Copyright © John Baril

At some point, any online business owner needs to make changes to his business model in order to continue to make money online. This is because the market as well as the online business environment continuously evolves. If an online business owner is not able to adapt his business model to those changes, he will ultimately fail to make money online.

There are a number of indicators that you need to rethink your online business model and most of them are actually quite obvious. However, many online business owners choose to ignore them and refuse to act on those signs. To be successful, look out for the three most commonly ignored warning signs listed below. Once you notice them, reflect on how you can tweak your online business model to avoid failure.

1. Your Profit Margins are Decreasing

More often than not, online business owners choose to have a constant profit margin and only increase expenditure when revenues increase. If you find that your profit margins are slowly decreasing, try to find out why. It may be because your sales are decreasing or you are spending more than you should.

2. Your Sales Growth is Slowing Down

Continuous growth is the only thing that will allow an online business to thrive. If your sales growth is slowing down, it may be because you have saturated your market or your potential customers are turning to your competitors. It may also be because your old customers are no longer buying from you. Determine what it is that is causing your sales growth to slow down and act on it right away.

3. Your Response Rates are Dropping

If your online business model involves direct marketing or depends heavily on your email marketing campaign, be sure you track your open rate and your response rate. Once you notice that these are dropping, you should realize that you are doing something wrong. You may want to improve your copy or make your offer more enticing.

These are just the three most commonly ignored warning signs that an online business owner should rethink his business model. Once you observe them, act on them quickly so you can avoid online business failure and continuously make money online.

From Make Money Online Blog!

A friend who manages a store for a large retail chain recently told me that headquarters announced a companywide conference call for all store managers. Never a good sign.

The chain apparently had decided to increase its e-mail marketing efforts during this economic downturn. It implemented a quota system for store managers, requiring each store to capture 25 percent of its customers' e-mail addresses.

You might be able to guess what happened next. Unable to reach their quota by normal means, some stores started making up e-mail addresses. As a result, the chain's e-mail service provider detected a large number of bogus e-mail addresses and refused to send the e-mails.

Naturally the ESP is working with the retailer to correct the problem. But in the interim, my friend complained, they're unable to send out any e-mail marketing. The moral: Don't poison the well by using bad marketing practices.

This type of well poisoning now happens with social media channels like Facebook. As marketing on these channels becomes more tempting, it's important to begin a discussion on exactly how we safely and effectively market to these channels.

Hopefully we can at least begin the dialogue and raise awareness of the issues, if not necessarily come up with answers.

From my viewpoint, shared by many marketing professionals with whom I've had this discussion, each social network has its own role in our working lives. For many, LinkedIn and Twitter are the de facto B2B (define) networking networks, while Facebook is for personal contacts and, at best, B2C (define) marketing efforts. The vast majority of my Facebook "friends" are also industry colleagues, which adds an interesting conundrum: how much do you want your industry contacts to know about what you're doing and your personal life?

Add to this that many people use Twitter to automatically update their Facebook and you have a scenario where, as George Costanza would say, "Worlds are colliding."

I recently unfriended some people I'm otherwise perfectly friendly with. Why? These folks never provide personal information in their updates and use the channel to promote themselves, their products, and their companies. On LinkedIn, I wouldn't mind it. But on Facebook, it's as if I invited someone into my house and they tried to sell me blue-green algae.

On the other hand, some of my Facebook "friends" provide references to interesting articles they've read. I find this valuable, even though it's business related.

Some people keep two Facebook accounts: one for friends and the other for business associates. I'm beginning to lean toward the idea that this is the wrong approach.

Facebook requires a personal touch. As an example, my Facebook friends include jazz musicians I admire. Most of these musicians use the channel strictly to promote their personal appearances and CDs.

However, one jazz musician, Sean Jones, uses the Facebook channel effectively. One of the best jazz trumpeters on scene today, he announces his concerts and albums on Facebook, and also lets you know what he's thinking -- how he feels that day, that he's stuck in traffic, his thoughts on race. He's not just updating his fans -- he's turning them into friends.

I'm reminded of the late comedian Red Skelton. When Red Skelton traveled from town to town doing his act, he would collect the postal addresses of anyone who came to see him. Each time he played a town, he would personally write to everyone who had shared their mailing address to let them know he was coming to town again. Instead of playing to an audience of strangers, he played to an audience of friends.

Isn't that what social media is all about?

Commenting on other people’s blogs is a great way to have interesting discussions, learn from others - and publicize yourself and your own site.

The content of your comments is crucial to achieving all of these, but there’s one aspect that is often over-looked: having a good profile on blog commenting systems. Suppose, for example, that you comment on a site that requires you to login with a Blogger (Google) account. That means your comment will appear with your name - and a link through to your Blogger profile. What you have, or haven’t, done to refine that profile can have a big impact on what people think of you. Doing a nice comment but neglecting the profile is a bit like remembering to wear a smart suit to a business meeting, but then handing out a tacky business
card.

Commenting options vary greatly across different blogs: some require you to login with a particular account (e.g. Blogger or WordPress), some give this as an option but allow other comments and some don’t offer any account login options. What will suit you best depends on which blogs you frequent, but it is likely you will quite often be wanting to comment on sites that offer Blogger or WordPress account options.

Even if they offer freeform commenting too, using your account helps save you against the occasional typo in your name or web address, along with the convenience (if you remain logged in) of not having to type in
name and other information each time.

Some people prefer to type in their name and site URL to using their Blogger or other account to comment on the basis that this lets you link direct to your site and may bring some search engine benefits to your
site.

In my experience the boost is very little, whilst consistently using your account profile helps build a more consistent and credible online persona, particularly as it helps you avoid having to mix and match between sites that require an account to be used and those which allow open commenting. In addition, having an account profile page that appears in search results is itself helpful. As with most advice, experiment a bit and see what suits your own circumstances.

So what can you do to improve the appearance of your profile? Let’s take Blogger first.

Note that I’ve given my full, real name. If you consistently use, and are known by, a nickname it would make sense for that to be on display. But otherwise you want to make clear that this is really you. Hence too the photo. I do a lot of training and talks, so a simple head and shoulders photo makes it easy for people to associate the person they have met with this online commenter.

The profile page also shows those blogs I am following via Blogger. The impact of these is a bit like the choice of books on your shelves or magazines on your desk. They help give people an impression of who you are and what you know about - though if you try to fake it by putting a whole load of items on display about an area you don’t really know about, you’ll soon be found out once you start communicating with
people.

Other information about me is fairly sparse as Blogger’s options are generally for fun stuff, whilst I am going online in a professional capacity.

You can set all of these settings by logging in at www.blogger.com, which uses your Google account (free to create if you do not yet have one). Once logged in, you can use the ‘Edit profile’ and ‘Edit photo’ links to set your profile’s contents. From that initial ‘Dashboard’ page, you can also control the blogs that appear on your profile, using the ‘Add’ and ‘Manage’ buttons at the bottom.

You can also control what information appears if you comment on a site that uses Google Friend Connect, although the settings are buried a little. Once you have added at least one blog to follow, click on ‘Manage’ and then on ‘Settings’ next to the name of one blog. Although there is a ‘Settings’ link next to all the blogs listed, they all take you to the same core settings for photo and links. So click on any and you will see that you can add a photo and set of links which will appear via Google Friend Connect. I just use the same photo again. Unlike the main Blogger profile, you can easily display links to more than one of your online presences, so I have created a set for Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter and the group blog I contribute to.

There are some legitimate privacy concerns around services such as Google Friend Connect, but if you want to publicise your thoughts and presence, the sharing of data about what you are doing is an opportunity
to be exploited.

WordPress accounts are another popular option for blog comments. People often only think about creating accounts at www.wordpress.com if they want to use its blogging services, but it is worth creating an account
and refining your profile for the commenting benefits you get. You can create an account for free if you don’t yet have one.

When you are logged in, clicking on ‘Edit Profile’ in the ‘My Account’ menu at the top lets you set information that appears linked to your comments, such as your photo. WordPress.com uses the Gravatar system,
which is also used by some other blogs, so there’s a useful bonus from setting your picture through here. You can also give other useful information such as your name and website (which is where your name will
link to from comments you post).

‘My Comments’ in the ‘My Account’ menu gives you a handy list of all your recent comments made logged in with your WordPress account, along with any responses from other people. Blogs often give you other ways of keeping up with responses, but this is a handy one-stop-shop for all your WordPress account comments.

If a lot of the other people and sites you hang around are WordPress.com powered, there are quite a few other features in the ‘My Account’ menu you may find useful, such as the tag search tool which can help you find interesting stories you would have otherwise missed.

Armed with Blogger, WordPress and Gravatar settings, you can comment away with added impact. I’ve picked these three based on my experiences and market share (in the UK). You may of course find that another system is used where you comment often, in which case the same general advice applies - make full use of the options available to refine how you appear.

When we speak about website architecture, we are talking about the design & layout of the web pages. There are some things that Google has a hard time with and so avoiding them is just plain smart both from a visitor point of view (vpov), and a search engine point of view (sepov).

You want a web design that looks great and appeals to the human eye, so visitors stay a while and come back often. I understand this is necessary. The problem is that often what is appealing to the human eye is not so appealing to Google’s algorithm. This can create problems getting your web pages to rank well in the search engines.

Google looks at text when it visits your web pages. It doesn’t “see” images and it doesn’t understand moving pictures too well. It sees text content on the page and in the code of the page - not much else. Websites that make heavy use of such things as “Flash” and “Java scripts” often have trouble getting decent ranking from Google.

Now Google is starting to get a “read” on java more than ever, and in some cases using it is ok. Placing it properly in the page code is important and your web designer needs to understand how to do it. For java scripts you need to place the script itself into a file, which resides in the root directory of the server. Then a link is simply placed in the code of the page where the script needs to be seen, so the script is called up through the link from the file in the root directory of the site.

Flash should only be used on a small portion of the web page, not the entire page! Flash files should contain keywords that Google is able to read. You see a lot of intro pages that are nothing more than moving images, and they take up the entire page - stay away from these designs if you can.

Static images should be kept small so they are not driving people away because the page takes too long to load. If you have to use a large image file, create a separate page that displays the larger version of the picture and use a small image link on the original web page.

Another problem that, fortunately you don’t see so often anymore, is something called “frames”. You know you are looking at a “framed” web page when it appears there is a smaller, scrollable window embedded in the larger page of your browser window. It is actually, a separate web page.

The problem with frames is that Google has to divide its Page Rank evaluation between 2 pages instead of one. If the larger page is being optimized for a specific set of keywords, and the framed page is not, this creates what we call Page Rank Dilution. If Google gave a value rank of 4 to the larger page, and only 2 to the smaller framed page, the overall ranking of the page may only be 3.

For page text, use a color for the text that is not close to the background color of the page. Black text on white background is best. Don’t use a print font smaller than 10 or 11. Both of these issues can cause Google to think you might be ’spamming’ its search engine.

Links

Make sure your page links are text links, not image links. Remember, Google reads text very well and it’s trying to offer pages that most accurately relate to a search term. It does that by checking the page text content against the query searched on. If the relationship between the two is very accurate, it will help your pages score well.

Links should be found in your site menu (usually placed at the top, or in the left or right column of the page. It’s a good idea to also include the menu links horizontally across the bottom of each page. Links should also be added in the body text of your pages wherever there is an occurrence of a keyword or key phrase. Use these links to link to other pages of your site that contain more information relevant to those keyword links.

Summary:

Web design can sometimes cause problems when optimizing your website for Google. Strike a good balance between visual appeal and search engine appeal for best results!

Check with your web design person and make sure that care has been taken to ensure none of the above are issues with your website. If they are, edit the site so they will not be a problem in the future.

As an Internet Marketing Consultant, I know that whether using pay-per-click (PPC) or organic search engine optimization (SEO), the process begins with our research keyword.

This is true whether you’re doing your work yourself or working with an SEO Consultant.

The search engine ranking for our chosen keywords consumes us, causing ecstasy when we succeed and sleepless nights when we fail.

But increased sales happen only IF:

1. the keywords bring enough traffic to meet our sales goals;
2. the competition in SEO is obtainable (and)
3. the keywords will actually convert — they will actually result in increased sales.

Otherwise, it’s really wasted time.

And now that Google shows an estimated number of average monthly impressions (instead of just the old green bar), the Google tool can really help with your keyword research.

And it’s Free!

If you don’t have an AdWords account, you can access the tool independently (just Google: Google Keyword Research Tool).

Grabbing the Best Keywords for your Website Using Google’s Keyword Research Tool

Step 1 — Put your keyword phrase or root keyword into the tool. I suggest one phrase at a time, 1-4 words in length. Click: Get Keyword ideas and wait for the results.

Another option is to click Website Content and let Google pull suggestions from your website content.

Step 2 — IMPORTANT, change the Match Type to Phrase, which adds quotes to the keyword results. This makes the tool’s impressions more closely match organic search, ignoring the “loosey-goosey” broad match phrases for AdWords.

And under the Show/Hide Columns make sure your settings display Approx Avg Search Volume. (If you’re marketing a seasonal product or service you might change to a different setting.)

Step 3 — Analyze the results. What we’re all trying to find is the low hanging fruit: the best balance of traffic volume, ease to perform SEO and traffic that will likely convert.

I suggest targeting phrases that are at least 5,000 to 10,000 monthly average impressions. Conversely, keyword phrases with very high monthly impressions may prove too competitive in organic search. Find the best balance for your organic optimization skills and for your industry.

If your sales goals require 200,000 monthly organic impressions and you choose keyword search phrases with between 5,000 and 10,000 monthly impressions each, then you’ll need between 20 to 40 keyword phrases to deliver you that 200,000 monthly impressions.

Of course, as you discover opportune phrases that are offer greater monthly impressions and that you’re comfortable optimizing for, that will lower the number of phrases needed to reach your monthly goal.

Make your keyword list from this criteria. I like to copy and paste into my email program.

And to determine the number of monthly impressions needed, you’ll need:

1. good organic listing click-through rate data — what percentage of searchers will click on your listing? (and)
2. conversion rate data either from your own website or for your industry — what percentage of your site visitors will BUY?

You will find an experienced Internet Marketing Consultant | Coach who specializes in Keyword Research can help you formulate a keyword list that will deliver BOTH the traffic and sales conversions that you need.

Step 4 — Evaluate the competing number of pages in organic search from Google. Is this a number you’re comfortable optimizing for?

While you’re on the SERPs looking over the search results, look at the AdWords ads and the organic results.

Does your service or product sound like it belongs on this page, for this keyword? Or, does it sound out of place?

And for a search phrase to be good, normally you’ll want to see several AdWords ads appearing for the search phrase.

Make your list from this criteria, setting aside any keyword phrases from the previous step (at least for right now) where the competition is too steep. Phrases that look good but with too much competition, save for the future.

This brings up a good point: Keep good notes! Otherwise, you’ll come back for the next round of research and have to re-do things.

Step 5 — Evaluate the phrases still on your list for their likely commercial intention using the Microsoft Online Commercial Intention Tool (Google it).

If you’re using an SEO Consultant, make sure they use this tool and evaluate commercial intent for the keywords you are considering.

Now, this is a Microsoft tool…I use it and am glad for the data, but I don’t make decisions about any keyword phrase off data from just one tool or from just one step in my process.

Having said that, I wouldn’t select 15 phrases for optimization where each of them shows there’s not commercial intent.

Keep your list of phrases that still meet your criteria and move onto the next step.

Step 6 — Evaluate your remaining list in Google’s Traffic Estimator. What I look for is the relationship of average monthly impressions to estimated daily click throughs in AdWords. Do they make sense and suggest commercial intention?

If one phrase has twice the monthly impressions, but only 1/2 the daily AdWords clicks, something may be wrong. You may want to look closer.

The goal isn’t just traffic, it’s traffic that converts — buys, sign up to your email list, calls or emails your company and becomes a sales lead, etc.

When you complete these steps, you should have whittled your initial keyword list down to the “lowest hanging fruit”, the most opportune phrases (easiest to rank well in) COMBINED with the largest amount of quality traffic, COMBINED with traffic that should convert.

The Windows into Your Website

Keywords are the windows into your website. If you target the wrong ones for your business, you won’t have the traffic, Internet sales or sales leads that you need.

If you’re using an SEO Consultant to perform your work, make sure they do it the correct way — not the lazy way — and oversee their work. Your site, your responsibility!

If you’re doing d-i-y Keyword Research, be really educated about what you’re doing OR your d-i-y effort could cost you more than hiring a qualified company.

NOTE: Another option available from some Internet Marketing Consultants today for those watching their budget is to offering Coaching services. This is sort of a hybrid between the retail price, full-service option and the go-it-alone, time consuming do-it-yourself option.

Achieving the search engine ranking for your chosen keywords doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive if you follow my formula. And if performed correctly, the end results will be keywords that work for your business.

Page Rank (often denoted by PR) is Google’s ranking software that calculates the relevance of a webpage with its content. Page Rank is a quantity (between 0 and 10) defined by Google that provides a rough estimate of the overall importance of a web page.

Page Rank is displayed as a green bar to the left of a webpage listing in the Google Directory, and also in the Google toolbar

The basic factor behind defining a page rank is the keywords

* If your keywords are Rare and Unique, then Page Rank doesn't matter.
* If your keywords are very Competitive, then Page Rank becomes very important

There are "over 200 SEO factors" that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). There are certain google search engine optimization
rules which effects the page rank they are

1. Positive ON-Page SEO Factors.

2. Negative ON-Page SEO Factors.

3. Positive OFF-Page SEO Factors.

4. Negative OFF-Page SEO Factors.


Some of these factors are listed below:
POSITIVE ON-Page SEO Factors:
* Keyword
o Keyword in URL: First word is best, second is second best, etc
o Keyword in domain name: Same as in page-name-with-hyphens
o Keyword in title tag: Title tag 10 - 60 characters, no special characters.
o Keyword in description meta tag: less than 200 chars. Google no longer "relies" upon this tag, but will often use it.
o Keyword in keyword meta tag: less than 10 words. Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body text. If not, it can be penalized for irrelevance. No single word should appear more than twice.
If not, it may be considered spam. Google purportedly no longer uses this tag, but others do.
o Keyword density in body text:5- 20% - (all keywords/ total words)
o Individual keyword density: 1 - 6% - (each keyword/ total words)
o Keyword in H1, H2 and H3: Use Hx font style tags appropriately
o Keyword font size: "Strong is treated the same as bold, italic is treated the same as emphasis".
o Keyword in alt text: Should describe graphic - Do NOT fill with spam
o Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text): Links out anchor text use keyword
* NAVIGATION - INTERNAL LINKS
o Link should contain keywords.
o Use hyphenated filenames, but not long ones - two or three hyphens only.
o Check that all Internal links are valid or not.
* NAVIGATION - OUTGOING LINKS
o External link: Link only to good sites
o Validate all links periodically
o Less than 100 links out total
o Avoid "Link Churn"
o Outgoing link Anchor Text : Should be on topic, descriptive
* OTHER ON-Page Factors
o Smaller files are preferred, Try not to exceed 100K page size
o Use Hyphens in URL
o Freshness of Pages: Changes over time, Newer the better - Google likes fresh pages.
o Freshness of Links: Excellent for high-trust sites, May not be so good for newer, low-trust sites
o Frequency of Updates: Frequent updates are equal to frequent spidering that generates newer cache.
o URL length: Keep it minimized - use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE - less than 100 is good, less is even better
* OTHER ON-SITE Factors
o Site Age: Old is the best
o Site Size - Google likes big sites
o Age of page vs. age of site: Newer pages on an older site will get faster recognition



Negative ON-Page SEO Google Ranking Factors
* Text represented graphically is invisible to search engines.
* Too high keyword repetition (keyword stuffing) may get you the Over Optimization Penalty.
* Redirect through refresh metatags: Don't immediately send your visitor to another page other than the one he/ she clicked on, using meta refresh.
* Keyword dilution: Targeting too many unrelated keywords on a page, which would detract from theming, and reduce the importance of your REALLY important keywords.
* Flash page : Most SE spiders can't read Flash content Provide an HTML alternative, or experience lower SERP positioning.
* Use of frames should be avoided as SE has problems with frames.
* Excessive JavaScript should not be used.
* Invisible text Google advises against this.
* Gateway, doorway page Google advises against this.
* Duplicate content Google advises against this
* HTML code violations Google advises against this





POSITIVE OFF-Page SEO Google Ranking Factors
Incoming links :

* Based on the Number and Quality of links to you Google link reporting continues to display just a SMALL fraction of your actual backlinks, and they are NOT just greater than PR4 - they are mixed.
* Incoming links from high-ranking pages are better.
* Site Age - Old shows stability.
* Site Directory - Tree Structure.
* Complete - keywords in anchor text.
* PAGE METRICS - USER BEHAVIOR:
* Page traffic: trend of number of visitors.
* CTR: how often is the page clicked on.
* Time spent on page: Relatively long time, indicates relevance hit.
* If your website pages are bookmarked by user it is good for you.
* SITE METRICS- USER BEHAVIOR
* Site traffic: number of visitors are more its better.
* Time spent on domain: relatively long time indicates relevance hit.
* DOMAIN OWNER BEHAVIOR :
* Domain Registration Time: Register for 5 years, Google knows you are serious, register for 1 year, is it a throw-away domain?



NEGATIVE OFF-Page SEO Google Ranking Factors
* Traffic Buying is not suggested
* Old links are valued, new links are not.
* Zero links to you: You MUST have at least 1 (one) incoming link (back link) from some website somewhere, that Google is aware of, to REMAIN in the index.
* Google hates link-buying, because it corrupts their PR model in the worst way possible. Please check all these points before creating links:
1. Does your page have links it really doesn't merit?
2. Did you get tons of links in a short time period?
3. Do you have links from high-PR, unrelated sites?
* Cloaking (practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines.) should be avoided as Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.
* Links from bad neighborhoods: Google says that incoming links from bad sites can't hurt you, because you can't control them.


So we can say that the page rank is the function of page,

* Strong on page gives better page rank and strong off page is added advantage
* If off page is very strong and on page is bad then page rank will be very poor
* If on page is strong and off page is poor, then PR will not be that badly affected

One of the most important ways to get website traffic is by making use of the traditional SEO marketing techniques. Search engine optimization techniques are recognized by all major search engines and this in turn increases the quantity of links to your website. While using SEO techniques, kindly ensure that you are using organic SEO tips.

One of the best ways to increase your traffic is to distribute free gifts on a random basis. It is basic human tendency to make use of something which is free of cost. The moment they see something free of cost, they come rushing towards it. Hence, many top companies offer free brochures and even free samples of their products, which can be used by their customers.

Since back-links are so important, how do you build them?

Well, one of the easiest was to start building links back to your site is to utilize website directories. There are many directory-type websites that will index your website(s) and make your business/service/information available to users who are searching for it. Not only do you get an increase in website traffic from these sites but you also get the back-links from these services to your website.

Every website always needs more traffic. You need to have targeted traffic otherwise you are wasting your time and ultimately money. Listed below are some of the most popular methods.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC). Google Adwords is the largest and most popular PPC. When used correctly it will increase your exposure and give you fast results. It is important that you follow the rules and keep up to date as they change regularly. The beauty of PPC is that you set a daily budget of how much you are willing to spend. You can create as many campaigns as you want and then test your ads. Google provides its customers excellent tutorials.

Are you one of the many marketers online who are at their wits end? Have you used up every traffic avenue available and still can't get anywhere?

You might also be wondering why your ad campaigns are not working as well as your marketing strategies.
It's all traffic, it's all about making your traffic strategy work exactly for what you want to achieve.
Remember that not everyone's is going to be the same!

Promote in ezine newsletters

This method does cost money but it is very cost effective. You can literally send out a email to a subscriber base of 50,000+ people in one ezine for anywhere from $30-$60. Out of 50,000 seeing your offer don't you think you will make money? Of course you will but the key to ezine advertising is being targeted with what you are offering. Very powerful method I use all of the time that can bring you hundreds, if not thousands of daily visitors.

Overall, while PPC marketing serves some people very well, instant free marketing tips are the best and fastest way for new site owners to start their marketing efforts while they learn how to properly use more sophisticated marketing for future growth. If done successfully, however, some will discover that free marketing tips can work just as well as expensive marketing in achieving their traffic goals.

With the advent of popular sites like YouTube, creating videos that go viral are a hugely successful way of driving traffic to a website. By creating vignettes designed to captivate viewers with a funny, interesting or emotional video that they, in turn, are compelled to share with others by email, on their blogs or on social networking sites, a person can increase traffic to their site exponentially. By providing a link in the video or on the author's profile, as these clips are passed around the Internet, free traffic is also driven back to the owner's website. A very good campaign of this nature may be passed around for weeks, months or even years while creating a steady flow of residual traffic.

Traffic generation helps you in generating revenues in two ways; firstly, if your website is about your business, your sales will automatically go up, and secondly, if you register in an ad-sharing revenue generation program such as Google Ad Sense, your revenues will get increased depending upon the number of clicks.

You may not know what you need keyword research software for at all and you may not understand the difference between free and paid for research software. The environment of the modern internet is constantly changing and evolving and develops rapidly, even daily; the modern internet is immense and your website can easily become lost among the competition. One way to avoid being buried on the last page of a search engine is to carefully identify the relevant searches that relate to your site.

Already mentioned is the very real need to maintain an edge over your competition; this is where research software becomes useful. The free software is good because there are no costs but it will not provide as comprehensive a result as a medium cost paid alternative. Paid keyword research software is developed specifically to assist website construction by finding lucrative words and phrases and gain a complete edge over their competition with minimal hassle and effort.

Free software is all very well but contains limited function and because there is no associated charge and profit there is no motivation to add extra useful features; you may still uncover to odd diamond with a free software tool but you must expect to work through many rocks to find them. Not only will you have to locate the best keywords and phrases, you will also have to ensure the keywords are not too competitive.

The majority of free software does not provide the capability to achieve this; further, you will have to input the words and analyze their competition level manually. As one person you are limited to the amount of work you can get done during your working hours so by taking advantage of Google Adwords tools, you should be able to better utilize your time and efforts.

As with the vast majority of software programs available on the market the paid-for versions offer more comprehensive functionality and extra features as well as automatic free or low cost upgrades. Most paid keyword software will not only present large lists quickly and efficiently, they will also provide analysis on the competition too.

This obviously reduces the waste of time and effort significantly; an even greater benefit available from some of the top of the range paid-for keyword software is the ability to spy on your competition, providing you with information based on profitability, competition and monthly searches.

Most of the successful websites make full use of automated software at every opportunity as it maintains more cost effective use of time, allowing faster research and site completion; faster site completion means the quicker you become indexed, ranked and begin making a return from the money invested in your site.

A true business owner makes investments in their business to help it grow and become profitable. Do yourself a favor and invest in quality keyword research software.

Search engine robots are sometime also called spiders or crawlers and their job is to find web pages. The question is what is they really do and is what they do all that important. They are essentially ‘data retrieval programs’.

If your site cannot be found it may be because the search engine robot cannot find your site, or it may be more complicated such as the robot not being able to crawl your site, or they cannot understand what is on your web page.

There are certain things which block robots from doing their work, perhaps a site is built using frames or has flash movies. Robots are not able to enter areas protected by passwords and they cannot click on buttons. Their search they can be impeded if they come across JavaScript navigation and if they can be stopped in their tracks if they come across a dynamically generated URL.

How do they work?
Robots spend their day by travelling and finding links and information.’ A robot has a list of websites which it has to ‘troll’; submission of a new URL is added to a queue on this list. A website can also be added to this queue via a link which is another reason to Build Inbound Links with popularity in mind.

When it’s your websites turn, the robot checks to see if you have a robot.txt file which tells it which areas of your site are off limits, such are directories which contains information that does not need to be indexed. The robot then starts to collect information and follow links from page to page which is the only way a robot can find its way around the World Wide Web.

When a robot reaches your site it first looks at all visible text and the content contained within various Meta Tags in the pages source code. It also looks at hyperlinks. The information it finds in the text and from links helps the search engine understand what your site is all about. It is the responsibility of the search engine to decide what matters and it does this by means of algorithms.

Once the information has been evaluated it is accorded a certain value, and is ranked according to this value which is then indexed and sent to the database where it is available for searchers looking for a specific item. Once a searcher enters their query, a calculation is done and the result is that the right set of relevant results are given to the searcher. Only those pages which have been visited by a robot and in turn sent back to the database for indexing are shown.

It is possible to track where a robot has visited by means of server logs or results from log statistic programs. This information will tell you when they visited your website, which pages they visited and how often they visited. Search Engine Spiders are identified by names given them by their ‘master’ search engines. Inktomi calls their robot ‘Slurp’.

A steady flow of good web traffic increases the potential of any web-based business to make money online but many online business owners know that internet marketing can be expensive. This is why online business owners are so attracted to free web traffic platforms. However, free platforms to gain web traffic have its own advantages and disadvantages.

Apart from the fact that they save website owners a lot of money, some methods to drive free web traffic can help you increase other people's awareness of your online business. Some of them can also help you establish your reputation. Among the methods that will allow you to do this are publishing articles on free article directories and increasing your presence in forums. These will help you attract visitors to your site through your resource box or your signature links.

However, free web traffic also comes with certain disadvantages. Among the most significant disadvantages is the fact that you are unlikely to get very targeted traffic. To some extent, article marketing and forum marketing can help you target your traffic as long as you publish content that are relevant to your offerings. However, other free traffic sources won't allow you to do the same. Safelist services, for example, will help you gain free traffic but will unlikely help you generate sales and leads. Auto-surf programs won't help you gain targeted traffic either and, because you will have to surf through other sites to gain credits. These traffic never convert. In fact, they could get your AdSense account banned if you put in an AdSense site into the program. Your time may be better spent pursuing other internet marketing activities.

Keep in mind that it is not enough to gain tons of traffic for your business website. Your ultimate goal should be to make money out of your visitors and there is no way you can do that if your traffic is not targeted. This is not to say that you shouldn't make use of free web traffic methods as they can still be very useful to your online business. After all, pursuing those free methods can't hurt you because they're free. What you need to do, though, is combine those free methods with paid strategies that have proven to increase targeted web traffic.

By making use of both paid and free methods, you can attract a huge number of visitors and make sure that you generate sales and leads at the same time. Using both methods strategically will not only help you gain visitors to your site but also make your online business profitable.

Most people think that to make money online you have to join affiliate programs, pay for a high-end web site & hosting, or try to persuade people to join pointless programs. It's also very popular for webmasters to try and earn money using catchy subject lines about how you can make X amount of cash within X amount of hours. That, however, is NOT the correct way to make money online.

1.Relax and clear your mind. When you have accomplished this, think about some things you like to do. What you are most interested in will determine what your niche should (or can) be and in the end will prove that you can earn money doing what you love. In this article, our example niche is going to be sports; in particular, basketball.


2.Decide what kind of site you want to create now that you know what you want it to be about. You could write a blog talking about your favorite basketball teams, make a community website where all basketball-lovers alike could chat to their hearts' desires about the sport, or anything else you can think of that has to do with basketball. If you're the sales type of person, you could open your own sports store online or join an affiliate program for sports. However, the best, dependable source for money comes in from ads, which work best when there is a lot of content pertaining to your particular niche. Always remember...targeted advertisements make money!


3.Create your website. You do not necessarily need to get a domain name, but once your site gets more popular it would be best to have one so people know your brand. You also do not even have to spend a dime on hosting or a domain. There are many free hosting sites out there (110mb.com, byethost.com, & wordpress.com to name a few), and free co.cc domains as well. View http://totallyfreedomain.co.cc for more information on getting a free domain name. Doesn't cost a penny.


4.Add some content to your site. With whatever you have decided to make your site about, there is usually always some kind of product, service, or information that can help your visitors learn more about it. This is where the ads (and money) come in. It's time to monetize your site!


5.Choose an advertising site like Google, Bidvertiser, NeverBlueAds, etc. to put on your site. It will be up to you to decide which one you go with. The most popular, and promising, is Google Adsense, but obviously that is an opinion. Everyone has their own preferences. Add these ads to your site and pay attention to how the ads match your content. Your content is like the heart of the advertisements. If you write about basketball, they will display basketball-related ads. Same as if you were writing about another thing such as cars or fashion.


Finally, keep a watch on your site. You need to make sure your content is up-to-date and that you make any necessary changes when needed. If you have a blog, make sure you post at least once or twice a week. This keeps readers coming back for more.

If you want to increase the amount of views or visitors to your site, you could join a traffic exchange or use Google Adwords to have others display your ads on their sites. Adwords is not free so if you want to keep everything free, your best bet is a traffic exchange.

Also remember to keep your content all on the same topic. Don't create a site about basketball and then write about football. If you want your site to make it onto search engines to where people will visit your site and click the ads, you must keep the web site focused on basketball; since that is what your visitors are there to see in the first place.