SEO Hints and Tips: How to Optimize a Web Page

Search engine optimization is an activity that concerns itself solely with achieving higher rankings for specific keywords on search engines such as Google. Search engine optimization is not building brands. Search engine optimization is not marketing, nor is it advertising.

An Internet marketing scheme may employ search engine optimization as one of its tactics, but it is just that - one tactic available in an Internet marketing campaign. Many other tactics of equal or more value are also available. Creating a strong brand which consumers are able to emotionally connect with is probably one of the more important activities of an Internet marketer, and something that has nothing to do with search engine rankings.

Conversational marketing, buzz marketing, viral marketing campaigns and good old fashioned advertising are also great ways of promoting a web site. And let's not forget the single most effective way of promoting a web site; becoming the market leader. When you become the market leader, folks no longer search for "carbonated soft drink" (generic) but instead search for "Pepsi" & "Coke" (brands).

All of these other marketing techniques are just as effective or more effective for promoting your web site and should not be overlooked in favor of search engine optimization. I tend to be anti-SEO at times, but that's just a knee-jerk reaction to the common practice of ignoring more effective marketing techniques in favor of blindly chasing after search engine rankings.

Having said that, search engine optimization can make or break a business. More than a few businesses have been made and lost fortunes based on their search engine rankings. 

SEO hints and tips can inform you how to optimize a web page, and if you can understand how to carry out your search engine optimization then you can get yourself a whole heap of free traffic to your website. Not only your website, but free traffic to selected pages on your website: pages selected by you!

You no doubt understand all the basic stuff, but in case you are new to this, let's first have look at these basic SEO hints and tips, since many seem to omit them from their web pages. The most important are the essential HTML tags needed to convince the search engines of the theme of your web page.

Note the term 'web page', because many people don't realize that Google, along with most other search engines, doesn't líst websites, but individual web pages. It is essential that you understand how search engines work if you want to learn how to optimize a web page.

I am going to refer to Google, not only because it is the biggest of the search engines, but also to save the bother of referring to search engines all the time. I will refer to Google, but what applies to Google also applies to the rest. Here are the main SEO basics:

a) The TITLE tag: This appears in the HEAD portion of your html, and is not actually seen by your visitors but is the most important tag on your web page because the spiders place very high weight on it. Use your main keywords here, and also any other text that will inform Google of the theme of your web page.

b) Heading (H) tags: Your page title should be placed within H1 tags, and should contain the same major keyword as you used in the TITLE tag. Any subheadings should be contained within H2 tags. I don't use any of the lower tags, from H3 down, except perhaps H3 very occasionally. Google will regard any text with H tags as being important, with most weight given to the lower numbers. However, if you place everything in H1 tags, that will dilute its importance on your page and defeat the object.

c) Text enhancements: Use bold, italic and underline enhancements sparingly, and where you once again want to stress the importance of certain keywords.

d) Use your keywords mainly in the first third of your page. Don't use too many: I get good results with under 1% overall keyword density, by using the main keyword in the first 100 characters, once in the last paragraph and once more each 300 words but concentrated in the first third of the page. Thus, an 800 word page will have the keyword three times in the first 250 words and once in the last paragraph.

e) Meta tags: The only meta tag worth using is the description tag, which is used by most search engines in the description of your web page in their listings. Google mainly uses it exactly as you write it. The keyword tag can also be used, but few search engines are thought to use it: Google does not. Any other meta tags are a waste of your space. Anybody that claims differently is wanting to sell you something.

These are the basic hints on SEO, now here are some of the more advanced SEO hints and tips that will teach you not only how to optimize a web page, but to understand the way that search engines work. These are less obvious, and generally not used by beginners to search engine marketing.

f) Use text links to other pages on your website. Search engine spiders love text, and fancy graphics or java links might look great, but don't get you kudos from the spiders. Stick to text if you want a good listing: there's no point in fancy graphical links if you have no visitors to use them.

g) Text to Code Ratio: Try to use as much text as possible, and as little code as possible. Your code to text ratio should be minimized as much as possible because ... yes, you've got it! Spiders love text!

h) Another good SEO tip is to focus on your off-page linking: It is possible to get a #1 spot on Google with no content: just loads of links coming into your web page from other websites. Not just any websites, but authority sites, so reciprocal links to and from web pages not directly related to your niche are a waste of time, and can even harm you. Link farms can positively damage you.

i) Use anchor text for your links where at all possible: Google shouldn't have to work out what your web page is about: tell them. Hyperlink your keyword to your website, but don't use the same form of keyword from every webpage linking to yours. Mix them about so as to keep the links fresh.

j) And lastly: Keep adding pages to your website: You have more chance of a high listing from one website of 60 pages than from two of 30 pages each. Keep refreshing your content with new pages, and take time to revise some of your older pages now and again. Google detests stagnation.

These are just a few SEO hints and tips that can teach you how to optimize a web page. There are many, many more. Some quite basic, others very much more advanced than the above. However, you can't get everything free!

The Need for SEO:

Search engines are no longer just a mere tool of the Internet consumer. Search engines are now an indispensable part of the infrastructure of the world wide web. Search engines are the primary means of navigating the web. When a consumer wants to find web hosting, they search for it. When a consumer wants to know the stance of a presidebtial candidate on an issue, they google it.

Search engines, and Google in particular, wield a frighteningly huge influence over how people, political parties, businesses and issues are seen.

A first page listing on Google for "web hosting" is considered to be worth more than $30,000 per month. A listing on the 3rd or 4th page for that same term is worth hardly anything.

The reason for this is, search engines drive traffic. "Traffic" being consumers, with credit cards and money. Consumers do not tend to drill down through the search results. They do a search and more often than not spend their money on web sites listed on the first page of the search results.

Search engine optimization is about getting your web site to appear in the first page, and preferably at the top,  of those search results.

Keyword Research:

Before you jump into a car, you need to know where you're going. In SEO, you need to know what keywords you are going to optimize for before you start optimizing. Spending a few hours researching keywords can make all the difference in the world.

The First Step

First, let's say that your website was www.v7inc.com. It's a web hosting related site, so let's search for web hosting on Google and see who the competition is. FortuneCity.com comes up in the first place, so take note of that and go to Google's Keyword Tool.

Click on "Site-Related Keywords" and then insert the URL of the competition. In this case, fortunecity.com. Wait a few seconds, and Google shows you over one hundred keywords for that site. You are now officially off to a good start!

The Criteria

The criteria for determining which keywords to go after and what keywords to discard is this: The keyword is must be able to produce positive return on investment. Keywords take time and money to get ranking on. Consider those resources. Will a top placement for that keyword produce positive ROI?

Broad is Bad, Specific is Good

The more specific the keyword, the better it will convert. For example, a close friend of mine sells plasma screens. The keyword "plasma screen" drives a lot of traffic, but not so much in the way of actual sales. The keyword "42 inch plasma" drives more sales, but still doesn't convert as good as "Pioneer PDP-507CMX". Consumers who have made up their mind to purchase an item usually use much more specific keywords than consumers who are simply window shopping.

Basic Thing Of The SEO Process:

Search engine optimization is important because it improves the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines. Do you want to put your website in the high ranking? Here are some tips you have to consider:

Website Optimization = Content + Links = High Ranking

1. How Google Measures Link Popularity:

Higher link popularity scores = Higher search engine ranking

Link popularity is by far the most important factor for determining your search engine ranking. You need to know what link popularity is, why it is so important, and how Google measures your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can get to the top of Google, you will raise to the top of the others search engines as well).

Link popularity - the number of links (votes) that SE have for your site.

Here is a link for a good tool that measures the link popularity from SE’s. It shows you the link popularity from Google Yahoo and MSN and lets you to see the history report so you to figure out the rise of your site.

http://googleseostrategies.blogspot.com/

2. Articles:

Consistency is the key. It is a fact that as more and more articles are added to article directories, your article will go lower in the listings, but if you constantly and consistently submit new articles, then you will continue to reap the benefits. Making articles is a great way to build up the link popularity of your website. It gives you life-time links.

• Always close your articles off with a link to your site which is relevant to the copy of the article. Hyperlink the keyword with your url. For example:

3. Control Your Words:

“Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts”.

This does not apply to our situation. In the Meta Tags, you must count every word and every keyword. Use a tool like this one to count the characters from your Meta tags.”

http://allworldphone.com/count-words-characters.htm

4. Optimize the Title Tag:

• Include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag, but don’t just list keywords.

If you just list keywords, you risk being viewed as spamming the search engines which can ultimately lead to you being blacklisted and not included at all.

• Your title tag should include your keyword phrases within a readable sentence to avoid this problem.

• Make your title appealing to humans!

Don’t forget that even if you get that top listing in the search engines, our listing still needs to say something that makes the surfer want to click your link and visit your site.

• Since the length of your title tag could cause some engines to crop it, we suggest place the keywords at the beginning of the tag when possible to decrease the risk of having them cut off.

Each page of your site should have its own title tag with its own keywords that relate to the page that it appears on.

5. Optimize the Meta Description Tag:

• Give appropriate descriptions (as some search engines display this description in the search result), make it more appropriate to your site. Put only targeted keywords in description. Do not stuff the description with more keywords. Restrict the number of words in this tag to 10 to 15 words.

• Place the most important phrases at the start of the description, so, even if any search engine omits some part of the description, the important phrases will be displayed.

6. Optimize the Meta Keywords Tag:

The importance of Meta Tags is debated these days. So this is an optional extra.

• Include only the keywords that appear in the body text, and no more than 5-7 keywords. Add alternate spelling of words (including typos) and synonyms of those keywords.

Top 10 Black Hat SEO Techniques:

Black Hat SEO techniques are methods webmasters/marketers use to get a leg up on the competition in the search engines. Whether they are fair or unfair, legitimate or illegitimate is not up for discussion here. This is a list and explanation of ten of the top black hat SEO techniques.

10. Buying Links:

Is buying links a black hat technique? Of course it is. When a marketer pays for a link, they are essentially “buying a vote” for the page they are promoting. That link would not exist except that it was paid for. This gives extra weight to the promoted page in the search engine algorithms. The paid-for link does not itself add extra value to visitors, so the technique must be black hat.

9. Cyber Hoaxing:

Hoaxing is a way of “creatively” making news. First, create a fake news website that looks real. Second, write a sensational but false news story. It helps if it is difficult to prove the veracity. Third, create multiple accounts on various social networking sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, etc., and submit your story there. Fourth, be ready for emails and phone calls from actual big-time media outlets with questions about your story. You will generate buzz and get links to your fake news story. Eventually, when it is discovered your story is false, try to capitalize on the outrage. How to monetize the whole situation is up to the webmaster, but it is commonly done with affiliate programs. 

8. Keyword Stuffing/Hidden Text:

This technique involves picking a bunch of keywords for which a marketer wants a page to be optimized, and then placing them on the page in such a way that they will be read by search engine spiders, but not by human   visitors. They can be located in a hidden div tag, colored so that they blend into the background, or even placed within HTML comment tags. This is truly an oldschool technique, and is not nearly as effective now as  it was back in the day.

7. Doorway Pages:

Doorway pages are web pages created solely for the purpose of being spidered by search engines and included in the search engine results pages (SERPs). They are usually optimized for placement in the SERPs by being stuffed with keywords and created in bulk. Often, you will see that the pages are named after the primary keyword being targeted. Also, doorway pages will likely have a form of redirection involved sending visitors to the “money site”. The redirection can be a meta refresh tag or javascript. Most webmasters using this technique will have software which cranks out doorway pages by the thousands.

6. Web Page Cloaking:

This technique goes hand-in-hand with the doorway pages technique. The idea behind cloaking is to show a doorway page to search engine spiders but the “money page” to human visitors. Both pages are accessed using the same URL. Software is used to identify the search engine spiders and serve the doorway page to them. There is a dual purpose to web page cloaking: competitors are kept from scraping the content of the optimized doorways, and human visitors are kept from seeing the ugly doorway pages (the redirect is unnecessary in a properly executed cloaking solution). I may be a little biased about web page cloaking .

5. XSS Injection:

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a technique used to take advantage of certain pages with a special security flaw. They accept input from the HTTP GET QUERY_STRING environment variable (the text after the “?” in a URL) and display it on the page. Therefor, it is possible to construct a URL to one of these pages which will be displayed as a link to the site you specify, with the text you specify as the link text. The constructed URL can be set up as a link somewhere that a search engine spider will follow, getting the XSS-generated page indexed. Very sneaky.

4. 302 Redirect Hijacking:

This technique is a really nasty black hat trick where the evil webmaster creates a web page on a high-page-rank domain with a 302 redirect to the page he is trying to hijack. Googlebot (or another search engine spider) follows the redirect to the second page and indexes it, but on the SERP, the URL of the indexed page will be that of the page with the redirect. In other words, the evil black hat webmaster will own the SERP, and the page with the content will be de-indexed. A truly evil hijacker builds cloaking into the redirect so human visitors to the page will go to his “money page”, while search engine spiders will still see the 302 redirect.

3. Scraping and Spinning:

Scraping and its cousin spinning are a black hat technique that uses software to spider websites, grab the content, mix it up a bit, paraphrase, randomize, and generate “new” content from it. Often it will contain links to sites the marketer is trying to promote. Or, it will contain Adsense or other ads which are used to monetize the content. Spinning content into duplicate-content-penalty-avoiding text is the holy grail of black hat techniques. Programmers who come up with methods for doing this on-the-fly have created true money machines for themselves. Here’s an excellent scraping and spinning story.

2. Splogs:

Close cousins to scraping and spinning, splogs are simply blogs with worthless, automatically generated content. Many splogs read RSS feeds and create blog posts for themselves from them. Splogs are the framework into which scraped and spun content is laid out to create made-for-Adsense (MFA) sites. Also, splogs can be used to get other sites indexed or their Pagerank increased, by including links to them. A large percentage (some say 20% or higher) of the blogs on the web are actually splogs. More Info…and the number one black hat SEO technique is…

1. Link Spamming:

King of black hat techniques, link spamming is just a way getting links to the websites of your choice through the use of automated software which accesses unprotected blogs through anonymous web proxies and leaves  links in their comments. Long, frequently updated lists of proxy IP addresses are necessary, as well as decent comment generation software. Blog software developers have fought back, however, such as the the development of the Askimet comment filter for Wordpress.

A Last Word

Now that you are an expert on black hat SEO techniques, go out and make your millions. But wait! I’ll through in one more technique as a freebie… “churn and burn“. This is actually not a technique, but a strategy.  Churn and burn means you have to be prepared to lose domains to penalties in search engine rankings as Google or other search engines discover they are spammy. The real secret to black hat success is to always be developing new domains and campaigns. If one is slammed, you should have two on the back burner.

Video Optimization:

1. Make sure that your video clips are relevant and informative - For starters, ensure that your video provides useful and informative information. Videos that demonstrate step by step procedures are great, videos that express an opinion about a specific topic can be useful too. Videos that have nothing to do with your brand or service offering or are general or vague in nature will just confuse your audience. Save the viewer the trouble and don’t just upload a video for the sake of uploading a video.

2. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #1: Give your video a Catchy Title - Video can be used to bring visitors to your site. One way to get users to view your video is to give it a catchy title that contains a related key phrase that is relevant to your product, service or brand.

3. Use Video as a Portal to other Content on Your Site - Upload a couple of videos to portals like YouTube and provide links back to related content and other videos on your site.

4. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #2: Optimize your video for Important Key Phrases - You might want to optimize your video for terms users are likely to be searching for. Tag your video with these terms, consider naming the file name of the video with these terms in mind.

5. Provide Transcripts of your Videos - Good old HTML content is still a favorite with the search

engines. If you want your video to rank well, you need to give the search engines something to index and rank. Surround your videos with onpage copy that can be indexed by the search engines.

6. Keep Your Videos to five minutes or less - there is nothing worse than a boring video that goes on an on. If you have video content that is of long duration, consider breaking it up into smaller pieces and tag each accordingly. Not only does this make for better viewing pleasure, it also keeps the user looking for more.

7. Make use of a Video Sitemap - For video that is native to your own website, make sure that users and search engine spiders can find your video content. The easiest way to do this is through the use of a video sitemap on your site. Use important keywords in the anchor text links to your videos featured on your video sitemap.

8. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #3: Tag Your Videos - tag your videos with key phrases that are reflective of the content.

9. Brand your Video with your Logo - Video is a great tool to generate brand awareness with your prospects. Take advantage of this by incorporating your brand in your videos.

10. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #4: Remember Inbound Linking Factors - Link to videos using important keywords in anchor text.

11. Offer the Option to Embed Your Video - allow other users access to the coding that will allow them to embed your video on their website or their blog. Think viral marketing

12. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #5: Add Descriptive Meta Data - optimize your video for relevant keywords and include a keyword rich description of your video content.

13. Allow Users to Rate your Video - videos that receive higher ratings from users are the ones that users tend to favorite and save. You can bet that the search engines will pay attention to this when ranking these videos.

14. Syndicate Your Video - Submit your video to RSS.

 A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic:

In September of 1999, Brett Tabke wrote “26 Steps to 15k a Day” in the Webmaster World forum. A lot has changed since then, and now is the time to consider a new 26-step plan that meets the current needs of webmasters in 2006. Some of the old ones still apply (writing new content everyday, for example), and some don’t (submitting to the search engines is no longer necessary), and we’re here to tell you which is which! As you probably already know, bringing in traffic is not easy - it takes hard work, determination and lots of elbow grease. So if you’re ready, roll up your sleeves and follow these 26 simple steps, and within just one year you will generate enough traffic to keep you busy for a long, long time!

A) Keyword Research:

Before you do anything else, use a keyword research tool and do an extensive job researching the right keyphrases to use for your site. What keyphrases are your direct competitors using? Are there any keyphrases that create a potential for market entry? Are there any that you can put a spin on and create a whole new niche with?

B) Domain Name:

If you want to brand your company name, then choose a domain name that reflects it. If your company is Kawunga, then get www.kawunga.com. If it’s taken, then get www.kawungawidgets.com. No dashes, and no more than two words in the domain if appropriate.

C) Avoid the Sandbox:

Buy your domain name early, as soon as you have chosen your keyphrases and your company name. Get it hosted right away and put up a quick one page site saying a little about who you are, what you sell, and that there will be more to come soon. Make sure it gets crawled by Google and Yahoo (either submit it or link to it from another site).

D) Create Content:

Create over 30 pages of real, original content on your site. This will give the spiders something to chew on. It will also give you more opportunities to been seen in the search engine results for a wide variety of keyphrases.

E) Site Design:

Use the “Keep It Simple” principle. Employ an external CSS file, clean up any Java Scripts by referring to them off the page in an external file, don’t use frames, use flash the way you would an image, and no matter what, do not create a flash site. Do not offer a busy site with lots of bells and whistles to your visitors. Keep things nice and simple. Make it easy for them to find what they are looking for and they’ll have no reason to look anywhere else.

F) Page Size:

The less kilobytes your page uses, the better - especially for the home page. Optimize your images and make sure the page loads quickly. Most people and businesses in the Western world may have high speed, but cell phones and other countries might not. If your site loads slowly, you may have already lost your visitor before they’ve even had a chance to browse around.

G) Usability:

Make sure that your site follows good usability rules. Remember that people spend more time on other sites, so don’t violate design conventions. Don’t use PDF files for online reading. Change the colors for visited links, and use good headers. Look up usability for more tips and tricks, it will be worth your while.

H) On Site Optimization:

Use the keyphrase you have chosen in your title (most important), your headers (when appropriate), and within the text. Make sure that your page/content is ABOUT your keyphrase. If you are selling widgets, than write about widgets. Don’t just stick the word widgets into the text.

I) Globals:

Globals are the links that remain the same on every page. They are the reference for new visitors to keep them from getting lost. Sometimes they are on the left of the page, sometimes they consist of tabs at the top. Often they are in the footer of the page as well. Make sure that you have an old style text version of your globals on every page. I usually create tabs at the top, and put the text versions in the footer at the bottom of the page. Find out what works best for you.

J) Headers:

Use bold headers. On the Internet, people scan they don’t read. So initially, all they will see are the headers. If your headers don’t address their concerns, they won’t stick around long enough to read your content. Use appropriate keyphrases when you can.

K) Site Map:

Build a site map with a link to each of your pages. Keep it up to date. This will allow the spiders to get to every page. Put a text link to the site map on the main pages.

L) Content:

Add a page every 2-3 days: 200-500 words. Create original content, don’t copy others. The more original and useful it is, the more people will read it, link to it, and most importantly of all - like it enough to keep coming back for more.

M) White Hat Only:

Stay away from black hat optimizing techniques. Black hat optimization consists of using any method to get higher rankings that the search engines would disapprove of, such as keyword stuffing, doorway pages, invisible text, cloaking and more. Stick to white hat methods for long-term success. People who use black hat optimization are usually there for the short-term, such as in porn, gambling, and Viagra markets (just look at your email spam for more black hat markets). These black hat industry sites are usually around just long enough to make a quick buck.

N) Competition Analysis:

Who is linking to your competition? Use Yahoo’s “link:” service to see the back links of your competition. For example, type in “link:http://www.yourdomain.com” into Yahoo search without the quotes). Try to get links from the same sites as your direct competitors. Better yet, see if you can replace them!

O) Submit:

Submit to five groups of directories:

1. Dmoz.org and Yahoo (local, such as Yahoo.co.uk, or Yahoo.ca, etc… if you can).

2. Find directories in your field and get into them. Pay if you must, but only if the price is reasonable.

3. Local directories that relate to your country or region.

4. Any other directories that would be appropriate.

5. If you are targeting the local market, make sure that you are in the Yellow Pages and Superpages (because search engines use these listings to power local searches)

P) Blog:

Start a blog about your industry and write a new entry at least once a week. Allow your visitors to comment or, better yet, write their own entries. This will create even more content on your site and will keep people coming back regularly to see what is new.

Q) Links From Other Sites:

Simply submit your website to appropriate sites, asking that they link to your site as a reference because it will benefit their visitors. Don’t spend too much time on this, if your content is good and original, they will find you and link to you naturally. Remember that Linking is Queen (http://www.redcarpetweb.com/promotion/0409.html#feature). Stay away from bad linking partners, links farms, link scams, and any other unnatural links. They may not necessarily hurt you, but Google tracks when you get a link, how long you have had a link, who links to the site that links to you, where you live, what you had for breakfast, and more (not really… but kind of).

R) Statistics:

Make sure your server has a good statistics program. Use it! If you don’t have access to a good program, then pay for one. Without the knowledge of who is coming to your site, from where, and how often, you will be missing out on some essential tools to improve your site.

S) Pay-Per-Click (PPC):

Sign up for Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Spend money getting people to your site. Use it for branding too. This will create a steady flow of visitors to your site, and will make your site more accessible   to your potential clients. You don’t have to be #1, you don’t even have to be #5… just make sure you are on the first page of search results for most of your keyphrases, when the cost is right.

T) Look Ahead:

Stay informed of what is coming up in your market. If a new product will be out next season, write about it now. Take advantage of being a first mover. The search engines, and linkers, will reward you.

U) Articles:

Write an article once every week and get it published in as many online publications as you can (with a link back to your site). Include the article on your site. Not only will this create many links to your site, but it will also get people to click to your site, and most importantly you will become an expert in the eyes of your visitors. They may even begin looking for your site by querying your name!

V) Study Your Traffic:

After 30 to 90 days you will have enough results to analyze in your statistics program. Go over them with a fine tooth comb. Get the answers to these questions:

- Where are your visitors coming from?

- Which search engines do they use?

- What queries do they type in?

- What pages on your site do they visit the most?

- What are the entry pages on your site?

- What are the exit pages?

- What path do they follow when they browse your site?

Use this information to tweak your site.

- Use the most popular page to encourage the visitors to make you money.

- Adjust the paths they use to send them where you want them.

- Figure out why they leave from the exit pages.

Also, see what search terms people use to find you, and fine tune your keyphrases. If you targeted “green widgets”, but your visitors are finding you with the query “green leather widgets”, then start creating content about “leather widgets”!

W) Verify Your Submissions:

After 3-4 months, check that you got into Dmoz.org and all of the other directories that you submitted to. If you have not been included, then submit again, or better yet, write a polite email to the editor and ask why. Also, find any new directories that would be worthy of your submittal time and submit to them.

X) RSS Feeds:

RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is becoming a powerful tool for Internet marketers. You can quickly and easily add fresh content to your website. Article feeds are updated frequently, so you can give your visitors (and the search engines) what they want - fresh content! You can use RSS to promote any new content, such as new pages, articles, blogs, press releases, and more!

Y) Press Releases:

A press release is a written communication that you submit to journalists in the media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines) which are used to make announcements that are newsworthy. Create press releases announcing publication of any new articles or new company information or products. If it is interesting/original enough, a journalist may pick it up and write an article about it. Before you know it, your website address may get published in the NY Times.

Z) Keep Your Content Fresh:

Remember to write a new page every 2-3 days. I only mentioned it briefly, but it is probably the most important point in this article. Keep writing! Without fresh content, your site will gradually drop in the search engine results. To stay on top, your content has to be the most up-to-date, freshest, and most interesting and original content in your field.

Follow these 26 simple steps and I assure you that within one year you will call your site a success. You will bring in a massive amount of traffic from within your industry and watch as your business grows!

So start writing, and write yourself to the top!

Link Building SEO:

In the old days before Google, search engines based their rankings on the text found on the webpages and meta tags. An article on bobsledding by the inventor of bobsledding could easily be outranked by an article on   bobsledding by a webmaster who had never even seen a bobsled, simply by repeating the keyword "bobsled" over and over. Search engines weren't pretty back then.

Then Google came along with its links based ranking algorithm, and links became the deciding factor in most SERPs. There are many places to get links, but how you get links does have an impact on how those links will impact your search engine rankings. Google has developed extremely advanced algorithms to evaluate links.

Where To Get Links

Free Directories

One of the nicer things on the Internet is a free submission web directory. There are hundreds of these web directories, usually generating revenue by displaying Adsense ads. Go submit. Now. You can read the rest of  this later.

Topical Directories

One of the better quality links that may give you targeted traffic is a listing in a topical web directory. If you sell widgets, go over to widget-world.com and get listing.

Related Sites

Do a search on your favorite search engine. Note the top ten websites ranking for your search term. Report these sites to Google for spamming. Then offer these website owners a small annual fee to have your link appear on the index pages of their websites.

Reciprocal Linking

Exchange links with a few of the better quality sites which deal with the same topics as your website.

Press Releases

New product line? Company going public? Acquired another company? Any newsworthy event you may have, do a press release and submit it through PRweb.com.

Link Conducive Content

Create useful informational pages which attract links. Offer a free tool, or advice. Forums often attract free links.

Free Stuff in Exchange for Links

Ever wonder how phpBB.com got a PageRank of ten? They gave away a script for free, with a link back to phpBB on every page. We gave away free hosting and saw some sweet PR, too.

Paid Stuff in Exchange for Links

The vast majority of vBulletin’s backlinks come from paying customers using their software. Ask your customers, politely, for a link.

It doesn’t have to be web related, either. Even if you sell lumber, you can ask your contractor/customers to link back to your website from theirs.

Writing Articles

Write articles. Include a link in your byline. Offer articles to related websites. Voila. Linkage.

Writing Testimonials

One great way to get links and make people happy is to give other webmasters testimonials. Do you like your web host? Neither do I, but it doesn’t stop me from offering a testimonial to my web host which includes a link back to my website.

Supporting Good Causes

A few of the better links we’ve acquired for v7n were acquired by donating to good causes, such as MozDev and Evolt.org

Blogs & Forums

Contribute intelligently to blog or forum discussions. Include a link to your website in your signature.

Interviews

Interview people who have friends. Their friends will link to the interview you place on your website. Or, if people like you, give interviews and make sure the interviewer includes a link to your website on the interview   page.

Professional Organizations

Do you belong to the AMA, the MRI or the BBQ? Most professional organizations have websites. They may already include your name and address - ask them to include a link to your website.

Free Hosted Doorway Pages

Create a two or three page doorway site on Geocities. Include your keywords in the page titles. Include several links to your real website with your keywords in the anchor text. Provide doorway pages with limited number of links from dubious sources.

Awards

Selling widgets? Have a Best Widget Resource Site Award. Give the award to every widget resource site on the Internet. Get them all to link to you. Schweeet!

Contests

Have a contest. Create publicity. Get links. Even better if you can tick off a pompous windbag. More publicity.

Friends

Seventeenth-century English author John Donne said, “No man is an island”. I really have no idea how that ties into this discussion, but I am sure you know people. Friends, family, people who think you are friends - these folks may have websites, and you may be able to force them into linking to your website. Who knows; it’s worth a try.

Organic Links – Link Worthy Content

Organic means natural. In SEO, an organic link is a free link. In this article, organic is used in reference to links which are not paid for.

Each website is different, one effective strategy is to create link-worthy content such as an original and legitimately insightful article, and then promote that article via Pay Per Click services such as Adwords. If the article is genuinely useful, the chances are that you will reap a wealth of links after just a few weeks of pay per click promotion.

Online Marketing Home Study Course:

Taking an online marketing home study course when you are fully aware of the most effective marketing methods and tools online will make all the difference. There is no doubt that a number of people are quietly making millions of dollars from blogging and their secret is simply the fact that they are online marketing experts, self made or otherwise.

So what are the most effective online marketing methods that you should be aware of before enrolling in a home study course? Forget banner ads, they hardly work and in most cases you will need millions of impressions for you to get any significant results. The three most effective online marketing methods are PPC ads, articles marketing and email permission marketing. Do your own careful research and you will quickly find that all the leading online millionaires are making their money using one of these potent tools.

Any online marketing home study course you take that focuses on any one of these methods will give you great returns and enable you to join the exclusive club of high earners in a very short space of time. Things get even more interesting when you select an online marketing method that is possible to execute for free, meaning that once you’ve acquired the skills, you pay nothing. Articles marketing and permission based email marketing both fall into this category and would therefore make excellent subjects for an online marketing home study course.

Internet Marketing Success:

Internet marketing success could be defined differently for each and every person online, although I think that there are some very specific guidelines by which we can measure internet marketing success.

I think that internet marketing success has a lot to do with the original intent of each individual marketer. When you get online and decide you want to do something online, then that is your personal measure of success in your life, at least as it pertains to internet marketing success.

When you get started online, you might be thinking that internet marketing success is to make an extra $100 per month. Or maybe you think that internet marketing success is just getting a web site live and online – and that is a perfectly good measure of success online!

For me, online marketing success is that I can work 100% from the freedom of my own home – and with wireless internet, I can literally work anywhere my laptop gets a wireless signal. For me, that is success.

So you have to define for yourself what is your definition of success online. Is internet marketing success to have a web site live, or is it to have some set number of pages online. Or is internet success to you some amount of income? Or maybe internet marketing success is some combination of all of these. Maybe for you it  is the freedom of working for yourself, but also incorporates a measure of income also.

What is internet marketing success to you?

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide’

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): is a set of methodologies aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of SEO consultants that carry out optimization projects on behalf of client sites.

History of Search Engine Optimization

SEO began in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Many site owners quickly learned to appreciate the value of a new listing in a search engine, as they observed sharp spikes in traffic to their sites.

Site owners soon began submitting their site URLs to the search engines on a regular basis, and began modifying their site to accommodate the needs of search engine spiders, the software programs sent out to explore the Web. Special features such as Meta tags became a common feature of sites that sought out high-ranking listings in search engine result pages (the so-called "SERPs").

In India also Consultant firms arose to serve the needs of these site owners, and attempted to develop an understanding of the search engines' internal logic or algorithms. The goal was to develop a set of practices for search engine friendly copywriting, site coding and search engine submission that would ensure maximum exposure for a website.

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Controversy of SEO:

As the industry developed, search engines quickly became wary of unscrupulous SEO firms that attempted to generate traffic for their customers at any cost (the most common problem being search results' decreasing relevance). One frequent practice, called keyword spamming, involved the insertion of random text at the bottom of a webpage, colored to match the background of the page. The inserted text usually included words that were frequently searched (such as sex), with the goal of getting rankings, and thus access to large streams of traffic. The search engines responded with a continuous series of countermeasures, designed to filter out the "noise" generated by these artificial techniques. In turn, several SEO firms developed ever-more-subtle techniques to influence rankings.

Reconciliation about Search Engine Optimization

In the early 2000s, search engines and SEO firms attempted to establish an unofficial truce. There are several tiers of SEO firms, and the most reputable companies employ content-based optimizations which meet with the search engines' (reluctant) approval. These techniques include improvements to site navigation and copywriting, designed to make websites more intelligible to search engine algorithms.

Search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community.

Paid Inclusion for SEO

Paid inclusion is a fee-based model for submitting website listings to search engines. Historically, search engines have allowed webmasters, as well as SEOs and the general public, to freely submit sites for search engine marketing consideration. However, a pattern of abuse began to develop among less-reputable SEO firms, who flooded the engines with non-stop submissions of pages. Analysis of these submissions strained the search engines' capacity, necessitating the creation of artificial limits, including fees.

The fee structure is used by search engines as a filter against superfluous submissions, and also as a revenue generator. Typically, the fee covers an annual subscription for one webpage, which will automatically be cataloged on a regular basis. Search engines still offer free submit forms, but make no promises as to the timeliness of the cataloging process through this channel.

Google has a particularly ethical way of handling paid placement. Their main results are uninfluenced by payments, but paid "AdWords" drive small, visually distinct text-only ads, so the user is able to tell which matches were the results of a payment. Google also uses various methods to prevent paid placement of truly irrelevant content.

Ethical SEO Methods and Unethical SEO Methods

Ethical Techniques for Search Engine Optimization:

To obtain maximum search engine visibility, it is essential to understand how the target audience is searching for actual information on a web site. When the target audience uses a search engine to find products and services, they type a set of words or phrases into the search box. This set of words is commonly called targeted keywords or phrases.

For the target audience to find a site on the search engines, the page must contain keyword phrases that match the phrases the target audience is typing into search queries.

When a search engine spider analyzes a web page, it determines keyword relevancy based on an algorithm, which is a formula that calculates how web pages are ranked. The most important text for a search engine is the most important text for the target audience - the text your target audience is going to read when they arrive at your web site.

At its worst, SEO becomes spam indexing, the promotion of irrelevant, chiefly commercial, pages through taking advantage of the search algorithms. Indeed, many search engine administrators say that any form of search engine optimization used to improve a website's page rank is spam indexing. However, over time a widespread consensus has developed in the industry as to what are and are not acceptable means of boosting one's search engine placement and resultant traffic by web designing services.

Arguably, the most ethical method is to have worthwhile content on one's Web site, to which many other Web sites will voluntarily link. There are also few who would question the ethics of informing other relevant sites around the web of one's own content and asking for links, although as relevance diminishes this becomes a more dubious practice.

Equally, virtually no one would question the ethics of choosing the vocabulary of your site (and especially of your page titles) to emphasize words that you know are often searched for by people in your market. Again, the ethics of this becomes shadier if the words in question are not relevant.

It is certainly ethical (in fact it is highly recommended) to add a "site map" page to your site, linked either from  the home page or from every page on your site. Such a page guarantees that once a spider has found your site, it will be able to traverse and index the entire site.

Link Spam: — Occasionally a problem for some search engines such as Google, which can be fooled into assigning higher relevance to a site based on thousands of inbound links that weren't properly "earned" by the site. Google's sensitivity to linking makes it susceptible to webmasters who solicit or place links randomly on other sites, placing a desired keyword into the hyperlinked text of the inbound link. Commonly called "Googlebombing", it can be a prank (type "miserable failure" into Google to demonstrate), or a deliberate attempt to influence ranking for commercial gain.

Unethical Techniques for Search Engine Optimization:

Mirror Sites: - An alternate Web site or datacenter that contains the same information as the original. Mirror sites are set up for backup and disaster recovery as well as to balance the traffic load for numerous download requests on the Web. Such "download mirrors" are often placed in different locations throughout the Internet.

Doorway Pages: - These web pages that are created to rank high in search engine results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending you to a different page. They are also known as bridge pages, portal pages, zebra pages, jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names.

Cloaking - Any of several means to serve up a different page to the search-engine spider than will be seen by human users — is one of the most controversial methods of website designing with search engine optimization. To wit, cloaking can be an illegitimate attempt to mislead search engines regarding the content on a particular Web site. On the other hand, it can be used to provide human users with more or less equivalent content that a search engine would not be able to process or parse. Another ethical use of cloaking is providing accessibility to Web sites for blind people and people with other disabilities. A good benchmark on whether a given act of cloaking is ethical is precisely whether it enhances accessibility.

Googleating: - Googleating pronounced Google-ating describes the increasing practice of constructing a website primarily for the purpose of appearing high in the search engine Google. With the importance of a high Google ranking becoming more apparent, the majority of experienced SEOs (search engine optimizers) know the many tactics used to manipulate the Google algorithm.

Keyword stuffing - Keyword stuffing is considered to be a unethical Search engine optimization (SEO) technique. Keyword stuffing is when you load a Web page up with keywords in the Meta tags or on the Web page's content. The common techniques today for keyword stuffing are repeating the same word over and over again in the Meta tags, which is why many search engines don't look at the Meta tags anymore and also on the page with text that's the same color as the background, also known as invisible or hidden text.

        

  These are all widely acknowledged as being spam, or "black hat".

Mission - Search Engine Optimization:

The mission of topranker.in is to demonstrate techniques to increase traffic to your web site. You will find that offsite Optimization is now more important as onsite optimization. We will not make judgments as to what is ethical or proper. It's up to you to pick and choose your tactics. Review the information on this site, find what your are comfortable with, and go for it. The competition is tough and you need to be tougher and smarter than your competitors.

Increased Usability:

A higher search ranking is what many website owners dream of. What they don't realize is that by optimizing their site for the search engines, if done correctly, they can also optimize it for their site visitors.

Ultimately this means more people finding your website and increased sales and lead generation. But are search engine optimization and usability compatible? Aren’t there trades-offs that need to be made between giving search engines what they want and giving people what they want?  We are using the following detailed technical research frequently?

1. Keyword Research:

Before you even begin building your website, you should carry out keyword research to identify which keyword phrases your site should target. Doing keyword research is also crucial for your site's usability. By using the same keywords in your website that web users are searching for in search engines, you'll literally be speaking the same language as your site visitors.

2. Content Management:

Quite simply, search engines love content - the more content there is on a web page the easier it is for search engines to work out what the page is actually about. Search engines may struggle to work out the point of a web page with proper content management with less than 200 words, ultimately penalizing that page in the search rankings.

3. HTML Size Management:

If 200 words is the minimum page content size, then 100kb is the maximum, at least in terms of HTML file size. Anything more than this and search engines may give up on the page as it's simply too big for them. Add on the time it takes for all the other parts of the page to download, such as images and JavaScript files, and you're looking at a highly un-user-friendly download time!

4. CSS Layout:

There is heavy increase in site visitors after switching from a table-based layout to a CSS layout. Search engines prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:

The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines

Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document

There is a greater density of content compared to coding

Using CSS for layout is also highly advantageous for usability, as it leads to significantly faster download times.

5. Relevant Title:

Search engines place more importance on the page title than any other attribute on the page. If the title adequately describes the content of that page then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.

A meaningful page title also helps site visitor’s work out where they are, both within the site and the web as a  whole. The page title is the first thing that loads up, often quite a few seconds before the content, so a descriptive, keyword-rich page title can be a real aid to help users orientate themselves.

6. Headings and Sub-Headings used:

Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings (in theory at least) summarize the content immediately below them. Search engines assign the most importance to <h1>, then <h2>, and so on.

Headings are also incredibly useful for your human site visitors, as they greatly aid scanning. Generally speaking, we don't read on the web, we scan, looking for the information that we're after. By breaking up page sections with sub-headings that effectively describe the content beneath them, scanning becomes significantly easier.

Do be sure not to abuse heading tags though. The more text you have contained in heading tags within the page, the less importance search engines assign to them.

7. Opening Paragraph Describes Page Content:

We've already established that search engines love content, but they especially love the first 25 words or so on each page. By providing an opening paragraph that adequately describes the content of the rest of the page (or the site if it's the homepage), you should be able to include your important keyword phrases in this crucial area.

As web users, whenever we arrive at a web page the first thing we need to know is whether this page has the information that we're after. A great way to find this out is to scan through the first paragraph, which, if it sufficiently describes the web page content, should help us out.

8. Descriptive Link Text:

Search engines place a lot of importance on link text. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say ‘click here’, search engines can't gain any information about that page without visiting it. If on the other hand, all the links say, ‘widgets’ then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.

One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, ‘miserable failure’. So many people have linked to George Bush's bio using this phrase as the link text, that now when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush's bio appears top of the search rankings!

This is some text, lots and lots of lovely text. Now, here's a sentence with a link in it. To read more about our widgets please click here. Following this, there is more text, lots and lots of lovely text. And one more sentence, containing yet more text to illustrate this point.

This is some text, lots and lots of lovely text. Now, here's a sentence with a link in it. Please read about our widgets whilst  visiting our website. Following this, there is more text, lots and lots of lovely text. And one more sentence, containing yet more text to illustrate this point.

The first paragraph isn't so good as when you scan through it, you can't take any meaning from the word ‘click here’. The second paragraph, with its link text that effectively describes its destination, is far easier to scan and you can understand the destination of the link without having to read its surrounding words.

9. Frames Avoided:

Frames are quite an old-school technique, and although aren't as commonplace as they once were, do still rear up their ugly head from time to time. Using frames is one of the worst possible things you could do for your search engine ranking, as most search engines can't follow links between frames.

Even if a search engine does index your pages and web users find you through a search engine, they'll be taken to one of the pages within the frame. This page will probably be a content page with no navigation (navigation is normally contained in a separate frame) and therefore no way to navigate to any other page on the site!

Frames are also disadvantageous for usability as they can cause problems with the back button, printing, history and book marking. Put simply, say no to frames!

10. Quality Content Provided:

This may seem like a strange characteristic of a search engine optimized website, but it's actually crucial. Search engines, in addition to looking at page content, look at the number of links pointing in to web pages. The more inbound links a website has, all other things being equal, the higher in the search rankings it will appear.

By providing creative, unique and regularly updated content on your website, webmasters will want to link to you as doing so will add value to their site visitors. You will also be adding value to your site visitors.

Conclusion:

Optimizing your website for both search engines and people needn't be a trade-off. With this much overlap between the two areas, you should easily be able to have a website that web users can find in the search engines, and when they do find it, they can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently.

On-Page SEO:

"On-page SEO" is the stuff, oddly enough, on your pages and to your site.

Search Engine Friendly URL's:

Build a site without session ID's. Build a site which either has static URLs are URLs that appear to be static. The fewer parameters in the URL, the better. After all, what's the use of optimizing a page if it's never going to make it into the search engine's index?

The Title Element:

The title element, commonly referred to a page title, is the most important of on-page SEO.

Code:

<TITLE>Web Hosting - Rated #1 by Slanted Reviews.com</TITLE>

Other factors to consider are:

Keywords in the heading tags:

Code:

<H1>Quality Web Hosting</H1>

Meta Keywords:

Quote:

<meta name="keywords" content="web hosting, cpanel hosting, seattle hosting, web host, quality hosting, webhost, webhosting, PHP host">

Meta Description:

Quote:

<meta name="description" content="Web Hosting by V7. Rated #1 by Slanted Reviews.com. We support PHP, MySQL and a bunch of other stuff.">

Hope you enjoy these SEO tips that I've outlined for you here in a brief idea of SEO and On Page SEO hints & tips to promote your site. Do not forget to comment your views.