Image via WikipediaYou spent a good deal, worked hard for many days and nights and built a great website, but alas! it doesn't get enough visitors. There are millions upon millions of pages of web content out there and your website is totally lost in the shuffle, like the proverbial needle in a haystack. When search engines ignore your site, your site becomes non-existent in the cyber world. The real problem with your website is that it failed to harness the most cost-effective and powerful Internet marketing strategy: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)!

Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site appear at the top of search engine results for your domain-specific keywords and phrases. The higher your website ranks in the results of Google, Yahoo, MSN etc., the greater the chance that your site will be visited by many, which in turn would skyrocket your sales.

Simply put, Search Engine Optimization is about making your website visible on search engines. Its commercial purpose is to be the first to hit a customer base effectively.

Why Search Engine Optimize?

Everyday, millions of people search the web to find out what they look for. If your website doesn't come up top in the results, you lose your business to your competitors. SEO is important not only because it brings lots of visitors to your website, but also because it helps to increase the return on investment, if harnessed properly. Say for example, you have a website that sells mobile phones online. Optimizing the site for targeted keywords like 'low cost mobile phones' would bring it to the top results on popular search engines. This would in turn bring prospective customers to your site, which would result in higher sales.

However, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that requires patience, careful planning, and a long-term approach. Don't worry, here are 4 easy steps that will help you get started with optimizing your website.
4 Easy Steps to get started with Search Engine Optimization

a) Create traffic targeted content

Identify the keywords, i.e., words or phrases using which your potential customers will search the web. Example, if you are a hair salon, they will probably search using the keywords "hair cut", "hairstyle", etc. After identifying and gathering a set of keywords, categorize them under various themes and write web contents on those themes. That is, under the "hairstyle" theme, you can put keywords such as hairstyles, crew cut, long cut, short cut, curly cut, layered cut, etc. Using a Keyword Suggestion tool, you can see how many people search for a certain keyword. Any keyword for which the number of listings is less and the number of searches is more gives you a better chance of ranking higher than keywords for which the listings are more and the searches are less. Once you got the right keyword, use it appropriately in the page so that the page appeals to both the visitors and the Search Engines.

HTML tags such as title tags and meta tags also play a role in ranking top on search engines. These tags must contain only relevant keywords. Neither fill these tags with keywords that don't appear in the content nor leave them empty.

b) Make your pages Search Engine Ready

Check if your pages are search engine ready, i.e., are they crawlable by search engine spiders, is there something in them that will make the Search Engine neglect the page or give it a lower ranking.

To make your pages search engine ready

* Your website content must be readable. For the sake of appearing top on the search engines, do not make the content clumsy by repeatedly using the keywords. These kinds of clumsy sites may get top rank, but won't get readers.
* Add only relevant keywords: Do not stuff the website content, title tag, and meta tags with too many keywords. The keywords that are provided in the title and meta tags must appear in the website content.
* Do not add invisible text: Most of the search engines find them out and ban those sites.

c)Submit your site to Search Engines.

Now that you have made your site search engine ready, start submitting it to the popular search engines. That way, they know your site exists. Some search engines may require periodical submission. If you find the submission process tough, get a Site Submission tool available on the web. (More on Submitting to Search Engines)

d)Track your performance

Often times, people complain that their position in search engines has gone down. We must not forget that Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process for reasons like, Search Engines changing their algorithm frequently, new sites coming up for the same keywords as yours, your watch sites (competitor sites) optimizing themselves for search engines and so on. Thus, it is important you keep track of where you rank for each of your keywords in the most important search engines and constantly modify the content so that search engines know that your page is active. This enhances your rank on the search results.

Conclusion

Although Search Engine Optimization seems to be so complicated at the outset, it really is a simple and interesting process that you will enjoy doing yourself. Search Engine Optimization is the most cost-effective, easy to implement Internet marketing strategy that can get you more traffic and in effect more revenue. So go ahead, start optimizing your site. Happy Search Engine Optimizing...

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife Through my personal observation I have found that people who try to increase traffic to their websites domain will at some point attempt a whole bunch of “optimisation techniques” without knowing if any of it really has had, or is having, any effect at all.

Some of the SEO techniques I have seen people attempt are, whilst quite useless, based on a good idea. Other methods continually surprise me. Perhaps people that try such things have heard spurious rumours of how to get their site into Google’s top ten listings from certain forums. Incidentally they are probably at such a point of desperation that they are willing to try anything to gain just ten more visits.


I am regularly inundated with the same questions such as: Is it worth submitting my site to 300 search engines? Will I be penalised for cross linking my sites? Should I pay to have high ranking sites link to mine? And what exactly does Google page rank do, if anything!?

Questions such as these have driven me into despair and consequently writing this article during which i will attempt to explain definitively the more common SEO questions which many people will like to learn about. In this article we will examine some of the more common beliefs.


Before we get to the list it is worth noting that I have not written it in a particular order and at times I have explained the topic the myth concerns before answering the question.


Link Building

Q)Will the more links that point to my website increase my sites placement in search engines?


Yes, It will definitely help your website as far as the major search engines are concerned. The most popular search engines (Google, Yahoo!) use the number of links aimed towards a website as an important factor in determining the sites placement. They look for a link(s) to your website to be coming from sites with; high traffic, quality content and a high page rank, amongst other things.

Do no cross link, do not spam your address in forums and on social networks and do not put it on irrelevant sites, or those that seem slightly dodgy. Take your time, aim for directories that are related to your website, aim for directories with page rank 3+ or aim for blogs or similar sites that are relevant to your content.

Q)Is it worth me buying a place on a high ranking directory?

So the idea with this is that, say, a directory has a Google page rank of 7 and is very popular. Any site on it will be getting a big rub off via a higher spot on search engine rankings. However the catch is the directory charges £50 a month for your listing. Is it worth it when there are so many free directories out there?

Personally I think it is worth it, as long as the site holds its high rank and doesn't have thousands of listings competing with yours on it. The added bonus with pay for listings is that they usually review and include your site very quickly (24hours), which by itself may be worth paying for. And if you could buy 10 spots on decent directories your site will most likely become highly ranked on search engine results.

There are problems with this though. Firstly, it is said to be against Google’s terms of service – paying to get a higher listing on Google’s organic results. (Google want their results to show the best and most relevant websites, not those with the most money behind them) They are however, unlikely to be too bothered even if they do find out.

The next problem is the cost. For a small company or personal website it is too expensive to pay monthly for many directories to list them, and possibly not worth it. Lastly, it is not guaranteed to help your website. It should, but does not always. I have paid for listings before and noticed very little difference, whilst other times it has made a huge contribution to my sites ranking. So it may be a risk, but it can pay off extremely well.


Q)Will submitting a video about my site or product to places such as Youtube be of benefit to me?

A recent link building trend has been to submit a short video describing the webmasters site or the service it provides, to as many video submission sites as possible. The theory behind this being that search engines give more weight in their results to pages with videos.

So if your site or product has a video on Youtube, when that product is searched for on the web that video will often come up in the top ten results. If this video has a link to your site in it, under it or as nearby as you can put it, it should be good news for you and your site. People find the video as it is ranked so highly in the results, watch the video, like what they see and then visit your site to perhaps purchase what they saw.

Does it work? At the time of writing, yes it does and it is probably worth doing. Make a video, even if it is just text, sound or a power point presentation, and then submit it to as many video and social networking sites as possible. People will find it and it will hopefully persuade them to visit your site.

The only real problem with this being that the search engines will not like all of the “video spam” now being posted on the internet and are likely to change (lower) the priority of videos in their results.


Google Page Rank


Q)Will having a higher Google page rank(PR) increase the number of visitors to my site?

Before we can answer that we will have to look at what exactly Google page rank is. Google page rank is a spurious form of measurement for site popularity that the company introduced fairly recently. It is unknown to everyone, except possibly Google, how exactly it ranks sites.

It is assumed however that its rankings depend upon links that are outside of your site that point in towards it. New websites may not have a page rank for many months. It is also possible to have a very successful website with thousands of visitors and sales and still not being ranked highly, if at all.

This is because Google only ranks pages once every few months, probably around once every three-four months. So if you start your website and straight off advertise heavily on high PR sites you might receive a high volume of traffic but it may still take months for Google to look at your site and rank it accordingly.

To see a websites Google page rank you can download the Google toolbar and then once it is installed right click on it and select show page rank. However this is only a snapshot taken once every quarter (roughly), so beware.

So back to the myth – Does having a higher Google page rank mean more visits to your site? Well, yes and no. No, because it alone doesn't actually have any effect on search engine placement and as such won’t increase your traffic. However, if you have a high Google page rank it means that your site has lots of quality links aimed towards it and as such you should already be ranked highly in search engine results and thus should be receiving increased traffic.



Purchasing Traffic

Q)Is it worth me buying 10000 hits for £££/$$$?

OK, we have all seen the adverts in our email promising thousands of targeted visits for an amazingly cheap cost. And at one point or another we have all been depressed enough to be tempted by them. But just say no.

The idea is, for say 100 pounds (or 200 dollars), a traffic company will direct ten thousand or so visitors to your site who are actually interested in your content. It sounds great and some companies will actually provide what they say as far as traffic to your site is concerned.

However I have never found one where the traffic is actually targeted and people even bother to look around my sites. Often it turns out to be a robot that is obviously not going to look or buy anything from me. If not it may be that thousands of unfortunate people have had a dozen pop up windows attack them as they bravely try to fight them off.

I may be generalising slightly with this, but usually the people that are directed or redirected to your website will want nothing more than to close it down.

It could possibly work for you if your site instantly captures people and most of your money is made off advertising that these people quickly click on before closing you down. However do not attempt to use bought traffic whilst using Google Adsense on your site as it is against their rules and your account might be terminated without warning.

Another possible benefit is that some search engines rank sites based on incoming traffic, thus 10000 more hits by anybody may actually boost your rankings. However, this is unlikely to fool search engines such as Google or Yahoo!.

Cross Linking

Q)What is Cross Linking?

Cross linking is a webmaster practice whereby a person owns many domains, uploads an identical site to each and then heavily links each domain to the others. For example, person A registers lotsofhits,com, but is not getting enough traffic. To fool the search engines into thinking it is a popular website he registers a hundred more domains, so each will have different web addresses but all have the duplicate page content of lotsofhits,com, and all of them link to one another.

This in theory should boost the pages rank, as Google, along with other search engines, determine the importance of a site based on links from outside websites pointing to it(along with a few other things). It would also mean that there are a hundred more sites on the web that sell the same product as lotsofhits, com that could all possibly be found.


Q)Will Cross Linking my site(s) be penalised by search engines?

This is not a myth - search engines often penalise or even temporarily ban sites that Cross Link. If Google detect completely duplicate content on even just two sites that link to each other, then they will at least lower your page and result rankings, if not ban both sites.


Q)I have heard cross linking is fine as long as the sites do not have completely duplicate content. Is there any truth in this?


If you are determined to Cross Link the safest way would be to own two or three domains that link to each other but each of which have completely unique content and link to other sites as well as one another. It is hardly worth creating two or more unique sites for the sole purpose of cross linking and I would not recommend doing so anyway.

SEO Software

Q.Is it true that there is no point in doing any manual search engine optimisation or search/site submissions when you can buy software that will do the job for you?

There is a little truth behind this, but not much. Whilst certain software might make for an excellent tool in assisting your SEO campaign, in the end there you will find there is no substitute for hard work. For example you can download a program that will submit your site automatically to 10000 search engines or put a link to you web page on 50 other sites.

The problems there being: only four major search engines exist and between them they take over 80% of all search engine traffic. Those search engines will find your site automatically and rank it according to, amongst other things, relevant and unique content – making the 10000 search engine submission promise redundant (even if it were true).

There are good tools available that will track your visitors (Google analytics), tell you how your site could be made more search engine friendly and software that even tracks how each of your keywords are ranked in major search engines. However, if you are purchasing such software, try to find a trustworthy independent review first so that you are sure you are not getting ripped off. Also try to make sure that any software you use does not go against Google’s terms of service.

So, whilst certain software can and will be useful to you, there is no replacement for hard work and unique content and regular updates. The search engine rankings should then take care of themselves.

Here are 8 secrets for getting noticed and gaining traffic and search engine rankings with online content postings.

Tip 1
Use a ‘link-bait’ title. The most important factor in getting read is the title of the post or article. This must be balanced by the fact that the title tag on any post or article is the most important factor for getting search engine rankings; so it is also important to use keywords.I personally recommend Google Adwords Keywords Tools
for keywords research, this has been one of the most effective free keywords research tool I have come across.

Tip 2
Give a compelling preview to the content. If you must ramble on about historical facts to set the stage for your point, provide a compelling prelude to give the reader hope that the effort will be worthwhile. For example, this article touches on a reason to read the article-the chance that the reader may be doing a less than perfect job of posting. If the reader is interested in the subject matter provided in the prelude, they may sit through your article as you build up to your point.

Tip 3
Allow the reader to participate. Anyone can make statements, but questions are more engaging, and convincing. Are you getting a good return from your posting efforts? Would you like to get more traffic? Would twice as much return for your time investment, or a thousand times more hits interest you? I have not made any outrageous statements here, I have only asked compelling questions.

Tip 4
Repeat the keywords that are in the title in the body of your message. The search engine robots need to see that the content within the article is relevant to the title in order to achieve search engine rankings.

Tip 5
Do not over-do keyword density. While the density of the keywords matters, ‘keyword stuffing’ is bad and will result in being relegated to the “supplemental index” (IE: oblivion).

Tip 6
Lead with the sexy part, and then reveal the "Main Dish" later. While ‘secrets’ is the ‘hook’ here, the real dish is a few simple formatting issues that will greatly affect your results.

Tip 7
Insert anchor text linked back to your website, containing your keywords. Many places where you can post allow a last minute edit in the html code before publishing. Add a link to your website by highlighting your keywords and clicking “insert link.” Then, after inserting the link, click HTML or Code Edit and search for rel=”no follow,” and then remove just that part of the code. Then click publish or submit, as the case may be. This creates a pointer stating to the search engines that your website is a source of information on this topic.

Tip 8
Make it personal. I was trained to ask myself, “so what?” after everything I say. Try doing this as you write. If you answer the “so what” with the benefits to the reader, they will have reason to read on. If you take my advice, you will rank higher on the search engines and get more traffic and better links back to your site from your efforts.