linksman-seoplace

Landing Pages: What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company

2010-04-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,
In my last post, I talked about the need to have a well designed website to increase website traffic and boost sales.
Now, I want to touch another aspect of your website that can boost customer confidence and sales.
Go over the information below and see how you can apply it to your own website.
Many thanks to Colette Mason for this valuable info. Enjoy:

The definition of a landing page is simply "the first page
that visitors hit on your site," so it is not strictly a
certain page but any page that a user "lands" on. All
websites have landing pages, whether they like it or not,
even if it was not specifically designed as such.

Landing pages can have a substantial impact on your e-
commerce website. A poorly-developed one can hasten its
breakdown just as an effective landing page can drive
traffic to your site, respond to calls to action and make
your business website a success.

One vital measure of the effectiveness of your website is
the "bounce rate," or the percentage of visitors who
immediately leave your site without making any other click.
The bounce rate is inversely proportional to the
effectiveness of the landing page. Basically, this means
that a high bounce rate indicates that your landing page
isn't compelling enough for the visitor to pursue his
interest or take some other action.

Normally, the home page is the primary landing page of most
typical websites. But more and more, site owners are
designing landing pages outside of the home page, and for
good reason.

Most users prefer to skip information which is irrelevant to
their needs. They want to get directly to their search,
hence the need for a landing page that delivers just that.
They can avoid the delays caused by having to click through
pages and pages of information when they already have
something in mind.

Landing pages serve their purpose when the site owner knows
the kind of visitor they are targeting. This is determined
by knowing what the visitor clicked on to arrive at your
site. A visitor who clicks on an ad for your product would
not want to go through other pages to get the information
about the product. Webinars, other event registrations and
special offers make use of this same principle.

Not all visitors are looking for the same information. One
may click on your link after reading an article you
submitted to a consumer review site while another may arrive
at your site after viewing your infomercial ad.

For each specific visitor, you can design a landing page
that will cater to his needs and contain the information he
is looking for. For example, infomercial viewers can be
directed to www.yoursite.com/infomercial, while visitors who
clicked on your banner ads for this month's special will be
directed to www.yoursite.com/specials.

These landing pages should be evaluated for their
effectiveness. The bounce rate is a key measurement for
determining the effectiveness of landing pages.

Another measure for landing pages is the success of a "next
action." It might be purchasing the product, requesting more
information, signing up for a free trial, etc.

Determine your conversion rate by dividing the number of
action takers into the number of visitors. A typical
conversion rate is 3 to 5 percent for lead generation pages
and 1 to 2 percent for e-commerce sites. If your site is
successful, you should be getting twice those numbers.

A concept that is intrinsic in creating effective landing
pages is "alignment." This is the connection between your
source (where the visitor came from) and your landing page.
The more connected they are, the higher the success of
conversion.

A good example is a banner ad for a specific product from a
beauty products company. Clicking on the banner ad and being
directed to a landing page showing the exact same product
yields a higher conversion rate. If the alignment is not
present, on the other hand, there will be a significant
reduction in conversion rates.

In general, a landing page must stir these positive emotions
in a visitor for it to be effective:

Credibility

Your page must be able to capture the visitor's trust by
presenting a credible appearance. Remove anything that can
cause a negative effect in the minds of your visitors, such
as a lack of contact information, grammatical errors and
typos, buzzwords, "marketese" and jargon, fuzzy or blocky
graphics and too much use of serif fonts, like Times New
Roman.

Recognition

Your page must provide your visitor a "This is what I'm
looking for!" moment upon landing.

Persuasiveness

Your page must be able to convince visitors that your
product or service can help them achieve their goal. Keep in
mind what attracted the visitor to your product in the first
place so you will understand what he is looking for.

Action

You must highlight an action for the visitor to take while
he is on your landing page.

Techniques to Use with Landing Pages

Here are some major principles to guide you in the process
of developing an effective landing page:

Make the Visitor Feel an Instant Affinity With Your Page.

The top half of the first screen should be effective in
making the visitor feel that he has come to the right place.
The use of the right taglines, images and a position
statement (usually about 12 to 15 words) can help to
establish your declaration and inform your visitor what the
site is about.

Use Specific Headlines and Sub-headings.

Throughout your page, include relevant headings and sub-
headings so that as the visitor skim reads the page they can
see what a particular paragraph or section is all about.
This helps him decide whether he will read the text or which
section he is interested in. The longer the page, the more
you should be using sub-headings. The headline should be
aligned as closely as possible with the banner ad or
whatever the visitor clicked on to arrive on your landing
page.

Focus on a Primary Goal.

A landing page can achieve only one primary goal. Examples
of these goals are a lead capture mechanism, such as a free
demo or product trial, or to lure the visitor to go further
and view your main site. The best results come about when
you focus on your goal. However, a secondary goal is possible
in a landing page. For example, if your primary goal is to
make the visitor purchase your product, your secondary goal
would be to entice them to sign up for newsletters or emails
to receive special offers.

Use Multiple Calls to Action.

Using multiple calls to the same action supports the one
primary goal principle. This holds true on a long landing
page. A page that doesn't go below the fold may need only
one call to action. Overall, one call to action above the
fold and another at the bottom of the page are good.

Pay Attention to Your Layout and Graphic Design.

To make them easy-to-read, keep text columns narrow - about
80 characters or so wide - and left-aligned, not centered.

Place an image of the product (commonly called the "hero
shot") and make sure the quality and clarity are good.

Images are attention-getting, so put your key text, such as
your offer, below the product image or other appealing
graphics.

If your offer requires the visitor to fill out a form, it
will be more effective if placed on the landing page rather
than needing a click-through to another page.

Layouts and graphic designs depend on the products and their
market and can be very diverse. In spite of the variety,
however, they can all use the same design principles to help
them be effective in achieving their goal.

Driving traffic to your site will require an investment on
your part, so it is only sensible to maximize the impact of
that traffic for a quicker ROI. Increasing website
conversions is also an important consideration.

Developing effective landing pages for your business website
only requires the simple implementation of changes, yet their
impact is significant to the success of your business and
the user experience of your website.

15 Important Web Design Tips

2010-04-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

Hi All,
I want us to look into an aspect of our online business marketing campaign that we often overlook. What am I talking about you may ask? Our website!!! That's what I am talking about. We often forget that the look and feel of our website determines if we are going to be taken serious or not.
Our website in a way determine whether we are seen/perceived as professional. Hence, can inspire or turn off would be clients/customers to do business with us or not.
Take a look at the tips listed below, and see if you got everything locked down when it comes to our website design.
Many thanks to Sharon Housley for the wonderful tips.

1. Custom 404 Pages

Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will still be provided with navigation options for your site (instead of getting nothing but a "Page Not Found" error message, which is neither friendly or helpful).

2. Redirect Non-www. To www.

Website visitors will often leave out the "www." portion when they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your domain urls (http://domain. com) to the www version (http://www.domain. com) of your website.

3. Properly Sized Graphics

Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they don't require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed up the page loading time.

4. Favicon

Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added level of professionalism.

5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery

If you provide an RSS feed for any content on your website, be sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the visitor that it is available.

6. Alternate Domains

Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website, simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering alternate domain versions will help protect your brand.

7. Consistent Navigation

Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier for visitors to navigate your website, and become more comfortable as they move through your site.

8. Home Goes Home

The main graphic, company logo, or "header" at the top of the site should be included on every page in the site, and should always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the main top graphic from any page within the site.

9. Copyright Notice

Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.

10. Meaningful File Names

Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages. Many search engines look at file names as part of their search algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve search engine rankings.

11. Hyphens vs Underscores

When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.

12. Alt Tags

Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.

13. Spell Check

Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words just shouts "unprofessional". Take the extra few minutes necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your website.

14. Test

After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities, only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing, they have "broken" something somewhere else. Make testing a habit after making even the most minor changes!

15. Keep It Simple

Simple is good. Eliminate unnecessary clutter and distractions from a website and navigation menu.

10 Important Inbound SEO Link Tips

2010-04-19T03:27:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,
Today, I found some simple tips for inbound links to your website. This will help generate more traffic to your website. many thanks to Donna Gunter for the info.
Hope you enjoy and implement it. Let me know how it works for you by dropping me a feedback comment here. Cheers all.

1. Directory Links

Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized by category. Links back to your site from directories like Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are very valuable. DMOZ.org is edited by human editors, and while it's free, it may take awhile for your site to be added. Getting added to Yahoo's Directory costs $299/year.

2. Press Releases

If you're writing press releases, make sure they are optimized for keywords that someone would use to find a business like yours and include links back to your site, as well. Once written, you can have your press release distributed through a service like PRWeb.com, which will create links from high traffic news sites back to your site.

3. Article Directories

Writing and distributing articles through high traffic article directories, like EzineArticles. com, is a great way to get valuable inbound links from a high traffic site. By crafting an effective resource box at the close of your article, you can drive traffic back to your site!

4. Social Bookmarking

Similar to web browser bookmarks, social bookmarking sites store individual pages (bookmarks) online and allows users to tag (with keywords), organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources as well as share them with others. If you bookmark your content on these sites (like Digg.com, Reddit.com, Del.icio.us. com), you get a link from the service. By producing content that your readers love and then bookmark to their friends, the link increases in SEO value.

5. Blog Comments

To find blog posts on which to comment, you can use blog-specific search engines like Google Blog Search. Make sure these are blogs read by your target market, not your colleagues. Brand yourself by always using the same name and remember to link back to your site. Always leave a comment that adds to the conversation that's happening within the comments.

6. Social Media

Now, Google also indexes your Twitter updates and your social networking profiles. Add that to Web 2.0 hubsites like Scribd or HubPage and you've got the option of creating many, many inbound links in a very short period of time.

7. Blog/Podcast Syndication

Submitting the RSS feed of your blog and podcast to syndication services will give you a link back to your site. In some cases, each time you publish a new blog post, the post itself will also get a link.

8. Video Syndication

YouTube is one of the most visited sites online, and the number of sites that syndicate videos is growing each day. These sites often allow you to link to your site either in your video's description or on your profile page, or both.

9. .EDU and .GOV Links

Search engines place a great deal of credibility in government and education web sites, and the links carry a great deal of weight. Frankly, it isn't easy to get inbound links from these sites.

10. Internal Links

Remember, if you have more than one web site, or a web site and a blog, be sure and link one to the other. You can do this by linking one article to other related articles, or link to categories or archives of information.

Creating a sound inbound linking strategy is a key component of your search engine optimization efforts. Try a few of the strategies listed above and see how your traffic and rankings grow.

Lets Talk

2010-04-08T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,
Top of the day you and yours. Hope you all had a splendid easter holidays.
I am always open to your suggestions, comments and even new ideas. I know a lot of people find it tasking dropping a comment on my spot after reading some of my posts. the truth is, I would very much like to know what you think concerning search engine optimization and it's different applications.
So, I have gone a step further to install my yahoo chatbox on this page so that we can exchange ideas. Now you can chat with me directly and privately in real time. what ever we discuss is not seen by anyone else. it's totally private.
Now, Lets talk SEO, share ideas and learn. But most importantly, lets have fun as well.
All you have to do is enter a name/word in the "nickname" box, click "ok", and you are on to me live and direct.
What are you waiting for? hit me up NOW!
Cheers,
Festus

Free Search Engine Submission

2010-03-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,
Here's another free gift from me to you all.
It's called Addme.com
This is a site that helps you to submit your website url to major search engines for free. Yes folks, you better believe it; it's FREE!!!
Just click on the "search engine submission" link at the top left side of this page to take you to the site.
So, what are you waiting for, start submitting your website URLs now!
Please don't forget to send me a thank you note later.
Cheers,
Linksman

SEO Cheat Sheet for Quick Results

2010-03-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

Hey People,
How are you doing putting to test some of the simple tips I have been giving out concerning optimizing your website/pages for optimum search results?
Here are more tips to help you get started on the right path.
Many thanks to Wesley Williams for this useful tips. Enjoy as always.

If you're looking for the best in SEO tips to get you started down the path towards quick results and efficient website strategy then here’s your Cheat Sheet! I've put together the best information, gathered from years of hands-on experience, testing different tactics and trying various strategies. These are the best practices that will enable you and your website to reach a new level, or to get off the ground running right away.
Now I’m calling this a Cheat Sheet because I’m not trying to produce a book but provide a list that you can go down and check off each item and say, “Yea, I’ve got that covered”.
Here we go:

1. Keyword Basics: The most important thing with keywords for your website is that you have to begin the process with proper research. Take advantage of free tools and services at your disposal such as the Google Adwords tool, and consider paying for more advanced and detailed programs.
Remember that keyword density is a thing of the past, there is no density you should be opting for. Instead, focus on natural inclusion of your targeted keywords, working them in where possible without doing it excessively.
Note: The fastest results are seen in targeting a larger number of lower level competitive terms.

2. Create Great URLS: There are many steps that go into creating great URLs. Starting from the beginning, you should pick a domain name that is short, memorable and includes your most important keyword phrase. While hyphens are acceptable, more than two begins to get excessive and spam-like.
For your individual page names, also include a relevant keyword, so that each URL looks something like www.your-main-keyword.com/targeted-page-keyword.html. When possible, avoid using session IDs and other dynamic page variables that add a lot of unnecessary junk to your page URLs.
Note: If you already have a site that you cannot adjust the page structure to accommodate keywords in your URLs, then consider buying additional domains (building mini sites) to support various segments within your niche. These additional mini sites will drive traffic to your main domain.

3. Find Long Tail Keywords: Long tail keywords often are the secret to great search engine rankings. Long tail keywords include at least three words, and when you find ones related to your niche you will be facing much less competition. Additionally, the traffic you see as a result will be much more effectively targeted, ensuring you see better results.
Note: Add longer tail keywords into your URL will help as well (see #2). Do a quick search and you will see most “experts” agree that the buyers are found with the Long Tail Terms. Boost your earnings through driving more of the right type of traffic….buyers!

4. Use Latent Semantic Indexing: Latent semantic indexing, or LSI, is the process of including related keywords and phrases to your main phrases in order to boost your site's value in the search engines. So if your site was about coffeemakers, you can include other related words, ranging from coffee makers to iced coffee and organic coffee and on down the list to help boost your rankings. This will also keep your site from appearing as spam, as you won't just be reusing the same keywords over and over again.
Note: The more content you have on your site about the general topic, the better your site will do for the specifics within that niche. That’s how a site becomes an authority on a topic.

5. Get Smart with Internal Links: Many websites don't properly use their internal links to their own advantage. However, it's an easy way to help each of your pages gain a higher and more targeted ranking in the search engines. Be sure to include each page's main targeted keyword or phrase in internal links pointing to it, and always be sure to reference your other pages with links within your site's content when appropriate.
Example: You sell a type of Coffee maker. Make sure that anyplace that keyword is found on your site that it is linked to the specific product profile page. This helps the individual profile page rank higher in the search engines.

6. Dive into PPC: Whereas other SEO strategies take time to work, pay-per-click advertising is a great way to see instantaneous results. Start running a campaign for your website, backed up with all of the keyword research you have already done. Begin small, as costs can quickly get out of hand if you don't know what you're doing. Experiment with different ads, different bidding strategies and different targeted keywords until you start to see consistent results, then pick up the pace and run larger campaigns.
Note: One sure way to confirm that the keywords you’re targeting with your SEO efforts will drive the right type of traffic is to pay to get them their 1st. If they don’t buy then target a different keyword phrase.

7. Optimize your Images: Always include an ALT tag for your images that describes what the image is - with targeted keywords and phrases. This ensures that people who can't see images see something in their spots, but this also helps you get found in image based searches. Additionally, try naming your images with a keyword in the filename, as in, targetedkeyphrase1.jpg.
Note: Don’t overdo it. Some people will read that and then force a bunch of keywords in every image on their site. The idea is to do what you would typically do but this time do it “right”. If the image is relevant - name it something relevant. Oh, and also, if it is a button or something else that isn’t relevant to your niche, name it something with numbers, as in, 1010101.jpg.

8. Optimize your Title Tag: Many people think that anything they put in their title tag will be sufficient but this couldn't be farther from the truth. Your page title provides an excellent opportunity to boost your rankings, as well as draw people into your site to see more visitors.
To begin with, your title should be kept short, no more than 60 or 70 characters in length. Also, ensure that every page has its own unique title, instead of merely listing your site's name on all of them. Work your targeted keywords into the title and be sure to be more descriptive and exciting than just labeling a page as "Home" or "About Us".
Note: When giving each page its own title, try and include product model or product names to help drive targeted traffic.

9. META Tag Notes: The META Keywords tag is no longer used by Google for ranking, although other search engines may still make use of it. More important are the META Title and META description tags. Keep your title to 70 characters or less, and keep your META description to 160 characters or less, anything more will just get cut off by the search engines. Of course, remember to include your targeted keywords in these META tags.
Note: The META description is what the searcher will read in the organic listing so try and make it sound compelling and give the searcher a reason to click on your site.

10. Link Building, What Not to Do: Many people go in the entirely wrong direction when it comes to link building. For example, buying links or participating in a link farm is a strategy that's doomed from the get-go. You should also avoid low quality, spammy directories and you must understand that tactics like link exchanges, blog commenting and forum posting have all been devalued as compared to how they used to be viewed. Also remember that when you build thousands of links in a few days, you will stand out as unnatural.
Note: It’s best to build links over time from high value sites. Think of sites that are in your niche that you consider the highest value and work directly with them to get a link to your site (can link out to them – see below).

11. Link Building, What you Should Do: Submitting to high quality, respected directories such as DMOZ, Best of the Web and others can pay huge dividends. You should link out to your niche authorities to help boost your own reputation, and you should focus on providing catchy, unique and engaging content that serves as "link bait" for your site. Social networks can be beneficial when used in the right fashion.
Note: Link Bait is content that is so good that people want to talk about it. One way to do this is provide content that is controversial.

12. Don't Forget Canonicalization: If you want to maximize your search engine results while also improving your ability to track your site's traffic, then you need to ensure that your pages aren't being counted more than once. Your home page may be coming up in different ways as http://yourdomain.com, http://www.yourname.com and http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html. This can confuse the search engines and impact your tracking stats. Use 301 redirects to move your pages to one home page, and fix any issues with other pages on your site as well.
Note: Talk to your techie about implementing this strategy.

13. Stick with HTML: The benefits of JavaScript and other program languages are lost when they aren't searchable in the search engines. Everything you do you want to be helping your cause of ranking highly, which means sticking to easily accessed HTML for your website. Avoid overcomplicating your site with excess forms, frames of any kind, or any code that isn't searchable.

Simple Seo = Quality Search Traffic

2010-03-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hi All,
I found a really informative write up on how easy it is to apply and practice search engine optimization techniques to your websites/pages.
I just had to share it with you. many thanks to Mary Laww for this wonderful info.
Like i always say, "simple makes life easy". Enjoy

Why being a 'Simple Simon' and keeping SEO simple is the best way to 1st page results.

"Simple Simon met a pie man going to the fair...", a lovely nursery rhyme I tell my little one each day. And how apt. to the SEO industry, even today in March 2010. Because simple is key to SEO; and yes although there are hundreds of different factors to a good search engine ranking, and you could beat yourself up reading, analyzing and looking into every 'nook and cranny' of every possible factor, actually keeping it simple gets the best results.

But, to put a bit of relevance to this, and to adapt the nursery rhyme; you as the webmaster are Simon, and the search engines are the 'fair', and so you need to keep it simple, and try hard not to get caught up in the over-complication of SEO.

Lets take a look at how 'some' people in the industry complicate things; and not to put to finer point upon it, those that claim wildly that Google, Yahoo, Bing have had an algorithm modification (to 99.9% of readers this means the search engines have just decided to change a few things, and it makes some sites appear a little higher and some sites a little lower) then I simply say, stop looking at ‘algorithms’ and just concentrate on what worked back in the day, because it also works today, and its all about just keeping it simple.

Yes, of course, over the years there have been changes, but keeping it simple has always been the key. Anyone remember Inktomi? The 48 hour paid for inclusion service that got you into MSN in 2 days. That was a lovely tool, and if you were happy to pay for it you would get refreshes of your website every 48 hours as well. If you don’t remember that then you are probably a bit newer to the search engine ‘game’, so you might remember how in years gone by it was a tad bit easier to get your website ranked well in Google. BUT, was it really that much easier, no not really, so I must emphasize ‘the tad’ part.

What else has changed over the years? For Google not much really, well when I say not much, what I mean is – from the perspective of a webmaster, from a business owner – squarely focused on wanting to get more visitors to her website, nothing really has changed over the years.
Yes, yes, we all know the ‘gurus’ who will say A has changed, T has changed, ZZ has changed etc, and yes they may be right – but who really cares, because from the webmaster and business owners perspective all is ‘as was’. And again, back to the theme - SEO is a simple approach, but there are many that will deliberately attempt to over-complicate it.

Simple SEO 1 - Get yourself a nice title tag for your website, fill it with some nice keywords but obviously so it makes sense for your business.

Simple SEO 2 - Now add a nice description and a set of keywords; all part of the meta tags.

Simple SEO 3 - Make sure your pages have plenty of content, with keywords splattered about that match up with the title, the description and the keyword meta tags.

Simple SEO 4 - Get some lovely websites to link to yours.

Before I go on I would like to stress how a lot of SEO’s might tell you “to ignore the keywords and description tag…blah blah blah” and yes you can ignore them, of course you can. You can also not build a website, not sell anything online and really why did you even bother any of this to begin with, can you even remember?
Sarcasm aside, yes most search engines do ignore them, we “think”, but some still take some note of them which means I recommend you include them, just like back in the day. It will not hurt, and it can only help

Wonderful Seo Gift

2010-02-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,
Yesterday, I gave away a wonderful scoop about a free seo software called Web Ceo.
As I write this, I am totally blown away by the fact that this wonderful software is actually FREE. I have seen a lot of other seo software that are not free and yet deliver very little in terms of performance and functionality.
Believe you me; I was very skeptical about this product (Web Ceo) when I first found out about it. But the I decided to take a chance anyways; besides what have I got to lose?
Now I can say without a doubt that I am gaining more than what I ever imagined a good seo product could provide whether free or paid for.
1. Web ceo is actually showing me how easy it is to optimize webpages without stress.
2. I am learning the basic fundamental principles in effective search engine optimization techniques.
3. I have access to large database of seo related real life issues. And online technical support with sound professional advice.
4. I get free training on internet marketing where I study at my own pace and convenience at Web ceo university. This is the online training facility that comes with your free download of Web Ceo.
5. The presentation is very plain and simple to follow and understand. You don’t need to be an expert in marketing to grasp the simple concepts of Web ceo. There are tons of training videos and audio materials to help you get the “do it yourself” feeling that Web Ceo breeds.
6. I now have a better understanding of how search engines like Yahoo, Bing, Google etc work when it comes to website/page rankings. The true meaning of keyword research, its value and implication in search engine optimization process are now crystal clear to me thanks to Web Ceo.
The benefits that I am deriving right now using Web Ceo are too numerous to start listing. What I find most attractive about this product is the endless possibilities it presents to me as an online entrepreneur to broaden my client base and offer new professional services to my clientele thanks to this wonderful product.
So what are you waiting for? Grab your own FREE copy of Web Ceo and start enjoying what so many people like myself have come to cherish.
Download your own Web Ceo HERE

Introducing: Web Ceo

2010-02-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,
I have been doing some research work on how best to achieve optimum results using different techniques to improve one's website/page ranking by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. And I came across this wonderful product that takes away all the stress out of search engine optimization work.
The product is called Web Ceo. It is very easy to use, very robust and most of all, has so many cool tools/features that you can use to ensure that your website is "search engine friendly". This product allows you to view your website rating in real time, edit and make changes that will ensure that your website page ranking is kept high. There’s a tool that allows you to view your competitor's website search engine properties, which you can then use to edit your own webpages and have a comparative advantage over your competitors.
The thing I like most about this product is that it is very easy to use. You don't have to be a guru/expert in search engine optimization to use it. there is a comprehensive built in help guide/knowledge base that takes you by the hand and shows you how to go about using web ceo from the scratch to get your desired result.
In a nutshell, web ceo teaches you how to find your niche, promote your site, analyze your site and maintain your site.
Qualities of web ceo:

Build highly targeted Web site traffic

* Get the list of keywords and keyphrases that will bring most targeted visitors to your site.
* Optimize your Web pages for top-10 positions and superior visibility in major search engines all over the globe.
* Submit your site to search engines that bring so much traffic to your competition.
* Analyze and build links by performing a profound link research and then finding and contacting the best of potential link partners.
* Manage pay-per-click campaigns from a single unified workspace.

Unfold the mystery of Web site traffic

* Track your positions in search engines and know for sure how effective your Website promotion efforts are.
* Get a ground-breaking insight into site, its visitors, and the origins of traffic. Who are they? Where do they come from? And 100 more reports!

Keep your Web site trouble-free

* Get rid of errors on your sites Pinpoint all errors with the detailed breakdown of problems by page. Find bad links before your visitors do. Get an excellent overview of site quality.
* Easily edit your Web pages in Visual and HTML views. Get instant access to important tags without striving through HTML. Change anything on your pages with one click.
* Upload any file or folder to your host without getting through sophisticated FTP routines.
* Monitor the availability of your website to know when your server or host goes down to immediately react.
What's more, enjoy the benefits of the latest version of web ceo (version 8.1):

General enhancements Scheduler

* The program will let you know if the default time for a task has been changed.

Data Guard

* In case you set up Web CEO to create backups automatically and such a backup is successfully created, Web CEO will launch automatically.

KB Updates

* Automatic installation of the Knowledge Base updates is supported now.
* The billing procedures have been improved.
* We fixed some minor bugs, updated and enhanced a lot of interface elements.

Find your niche

In this version, the Keyword tool supports multiple currencies on the “Analyze competition” tab. If you live outside the US dollar zone, you are likely to appreciate this innovation.

The number formatting is regular and convenient – digit orders are separated and the numbers are aligned to the right.

Promote your site

Partner Finder will test if your link partners are using cloaking techniques. To make such tests, the program accesses your partners’ sites under different User Agents.

Now you can limit the number of bulk emails to send. In this way you’ll ensure that your partnership requests do not seem spammy.

Your partnership requests can be sent not only as plain text, but also in HTML format. In addition, you’ll be able to edit HTML there.

New filtering system is now available on the ‘Summary’ tab. It enables separating partner groups by their status.

A lot of minor interface changes – in the “Site details” dialog and “Detailed report”, during the site removal operation, and in many other areas of the Partner Finder – have made the program more intuitive and convenient.

Analyze your site

The Ranking tool allows the Professional and SmallBiz users to export the ranking history data (“My Site” and “Competition” reports) in a .csv file so that it can be opened in a spreadsheet software program. As a result, you can sort and analyze the data in any custom way you may think of.

The default setting in the profile is displaying the three major search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!) always on top of the search engines’ list – with the only exception when the search engines are sorted in the reverse order. The charts are updated in both Ranking and Links tools.

The Quick Navigation pane in Ranking and Links has been removed, so you can see more useful information on the screen.

Now for the coolest part of this discovery, you can download a FREE copy of the latest version of web ceo. And also get free training in SEO and internet marketing. Yes!!! This product is just too much. You get the software and also get schooled in the latest SEO and internet marketing techniques.

The key features of this free SEO software:
• No time limits. Not a “trial” or “evaluation”—just the free software as it should be.
• Unlimited websites. Promote as many websites as you need with this software.
• Free training with every copy. Your login details to the online self-study environment are sent to you as soon as you register.
• Tech support. Get free and fast technical support even with the Free Edition of this SEO Software.

You also get a great discount on the price if you do decide to upgrade to the full version. This version offers more functionalities/tools

I recommend you grab this wonderful product NOW!!!
Download your your web ceo HERE

How to Find Your Niche and Optimize Your Site

2010-02-22T02:42:00.000-08:00

Having a website is not just putting something up in "cyber space" for the fun of it. Or because every body else you know has one. Web sites are meant to convey specific information concerning your business/organization, product or service that is unique to you. In other words, websites carry information about your particular business, organization, product or services.
That unique information that identifies your business, organization, product or services is what is known as your "niche". Your niche helps to classify your business, organization, product or service as belonging to that particular group. For example, if your organization/business is into buying and selling of houses and other services that help people acquire landed properties. Then, your organization/business can be classified as being under the real estate niche. Consequently, your website should carry information that is related to the real estate industry (your niche).
Once you have found your niche and put up a web site; the main task will be how to optimize your site so that it can be "seen" easily when ever a search is done online for a niche that you belong to; for example , the real estate niche. In other words, making sure that your site is among the top 5 search results that are presented to a user when ever a search is done online for information on real estate related issues.
The steps to take in order to achieve this "online visibility" within your niche are: Research keywords, Get optimization advice, Edit your web pages for search engines.
Now, let’s examine them one after another.

1. Research keywords:

Before you get to optimizing your website and promoting it on the Web, you should first select relevant search terms that will reach your target audience.
In other words, you are supposed to pinpoint your Keyword Niche. It should be large enough to draw good visitor traffic, yet 'narrow' and specific enough to let you overplay your competitors and get to the top on the search engines.

Tip1:
Spy on your competition to get suggestions on the keywords related to your business, and build a list of the keywords you might be using for optimization.

Tip 2:
Narrow the keyword list by removing the terms that are not searched often enough or turn to be too much competitive.

Tip 3:
Get an idea of your potential keyword niche by studying your rivals that compete for your keywords at different search engines, both major and local ones.

Tip 4:
Analyze your competition thoroughly to weight your chances of being top-ranked for the chosen keywords/phrases.

2. Get optimization advice:

Use the following FAQs to get some good advice for your site,

How many keywords shall I use to optimize one page?

I recommend using two or three key phrases at most. Targeting too many keywords will make a page less focused and search engines will not rank it as highly as you want.

What are all these things like frequency, weight etc.? Do they matter?

Keyword prominence, frequency, and weight are measures used by search engines to check a keyword's importance against all other words in a specific area of the page.

Do you recommend reoptimizing the home page of my site if search engines have not found it for a few months?

You should first check if the search engines have already picked up your home page and included it in their indexes. Enter a snippet of text that is unique for the page in the search box.
If the search engine finds your page but your rankings for this keyword remain low, you should first see how competitive your keyword is. If the competition is too strong, the best thing to do is use a less competitive keyword.
Next you should check if the site is linked from other websites. If it is not, you should find as many link partners as possible.

Can I optimize my page for just a single keyword?

If you have unlimited funds to buy promotions and can wait years, then it is possible. However, it is tricky and might be an impossible mission. If you have limited resources and want results in a reasonably short period of time, why not find a phrase consisting of two words that are often searched for and provide good traffic.

Bottom line is, understand the changes you should make to your pages so they appear in the top-10 listings. Compare your pages to those with high rankings and see which strategies work for them.

3. Edit your web pages for search engines:

Apply recommendations stated above and any other changes that in your opinion will improve your search engine rankings.
Upload changes you have done to your servers, then begin submitting them to the most important search engines worldwide.
Your pages are now ready for getting indexed and ranked by search engines.

Search Engine Optimization Submission FAQs

2010-02-18T23:25:00.000-08:00

Hi there,
Today, I will be sharing some answers to questions frequently asked before, during and after submissions of web pages/articles to search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Do I need to submit?

It depends on the type of search engine where you want your site to be listed. Web directories will not learn about a new site unless someone tells them about it. Therefore, submission to directories is very important.
There are hundreds of smaller search engines that do not spider the Web regularly. They only go and check if the site exists based on the URL submitted and your information - this is the only way they find and add new sites to their databases. These search engines make up the majority on our auto-submission list, so submit to these if you want your site listed.
In contrast, a crawler-based search engine will find your site by following a link from the page that is already in its index. All major search engines either have their own crawlers or use the indexes gathered by crawlers. Therefore, it is important to have many links to your site from other sites so you are indexed. If the linking sites are big and established, like Yahoo! and DMOZ directories, this will make a big difference.

How do I know a Submission tool has submitted my site?

You can view the submission confirmation (or error) page. A confirmation page returned by a search engine in response to your site info submission is the best way to tell if your page was successfully submitted.

Does submission to a search engine guarantee inclusion in its index?

No, it does not. Search engines often provide no guarantee of inclusion of submitted sites in their search indices. They warn of this on their submission pages.

How do I know if I need to resubmit?

If you do not see any traffic from a search engine where you submitted your site more than a month ago, you should find out if that search engine has indexed your site. To check, you should use a unique phrase from the main page of your site as a search term for the engine. If you see your site's listing in the returned results, you do not need to resubmit. I also suggest that you only resubmit pages that you have changed.

How soon can I see my site listed by search engines?

It depends on the search engine. Some will pick up the submitted sites in a few days or even minutes; others may tell you that they have thousands of sites in a queue, so you can expect their robot's visit in about a year. For major crawlers, it is important that your site has many incoming links. In general, you cannot expect wonders overnight - it takes time for your site to get listed.

Do I need to submit all pages of my site?

It is not always necessary. Directories prefer only the main page of your site -- they do not like including many different listings of the same site. Crawler-based search engines will follow links from the main page and include other pages. Submission to small search engines is the only incentive for you to submit more than one page. As they do not spider websites, they only add submitted pages. This is why I recommend submitting only the most important and optimized pages.

Is it important to optimize the title and description before I submit?

Sure! I recommend this. The title and description that you provide on the website information page is used for automated submissions to some directories. Directories often rank results based on how important the keyword is in the title and description. Besides, titles are often used as text links -- this makes keywords in the title important for high rankings.

Will search engines blacklist the site for repeated submissions?

Most search engines will not. If they did, it would be a great trick for competitors to spam a search engine by frequent submissions of your site to get it blacklisted.

Is it safe to use an auto-submission tool?

As a rule, search engines do not like automated queries made to their indexes. They want human users, not robots. On the other hand, used with caution, automated tools can save a lot of time.

Why do I get so much spam after I use a submission tool?

Unfortunately, no one can control how some search engines use the information they get from you. They often mention in their Terms of Use that by submitting your site, you agree to receive their newsletters by e-mail. If an e-mail address is needed, I recommend you use a second, non crucial e-mail address for submissions.

I hope I have been able to satisfy some of your curious yearnings for an answer to those questions that have been bugging you concerning submissions to search engines.
You can get lots more useful information here

Internet Marketing Strategies Using Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2010-02-18T23:14:00.001-08:00

Internet marketing means the use of the internet to advertise and sell goods and services. It includes banner and text advertising, email marketing, interactive advertising, affiliate marketing and search engine marketing (including search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising).
The aim of using search engine optimization in internet marketing is to increase targeted traffic to one’s website from search engines via search engine rankings, paid listings and advertisements.

So, what is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of making your Web pages as relevant as possible. Here, relevance is a measure of how close your Web page is aligned to what the user is looking for. Simply, the more relevant your page is, the higher your rankings are by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista etc.
This means that if your webpage is ranked high by search engines like yahoo or google, and a user searches for information that contains specific keywords/terms associated with your webpage; your webpage is most likely to be among the top 10 search results that will be presented to the user.
The act/art of adding keywords to ones webpage for maximum relevance is what is known as search engine optimization (SEO).
Humans and search engines treat Web pages in different ways. Where people look at design and read text, a search engine will scan and detect relevant keywords that it would use to rate your webpage as having the relevant information that a user needs.
Such “key words” are strategically placed within the webpage for search engines to “see” them.
Also noteworthy is the relevance of your link popularity and theme. That is, who is linking to your page? Are they related to your site's theme?

So how do search engines evaluate your Web pages?
Search engines determine relevance of your page by breaking it into areas. Each area consists of elements, namely HTML tags. Search engines emphasize some of these tags and scan them for your keyword. If found, your page is considered more relevant.

To optimize your pages, you need to learn these three main terms: Frequency, Prominence, and Weight.

A. Frequency:
Frequency is how often your keyword appears on the page or in its elements (Title, META Description and Keywords, visible text, H1, ALT, etc.).

B. Prominence:
Prominence is how close to the start of the tag your keyword appears.
In general, a keyword that appears closer to the beginning of a page element (Title, META Description and Keywords, visible text, ALT, etc.) will make your Web page more relevant.

C. Weight / Density:
Keyword weight shows the number of times a keyword appears in an area as a percentage to all words in the page:
Keyword weight is calculated as the number of words in the key phrase multiplied by frequency and divided by the total number of words (including the keyword). To put it simply:

Weight = (Words in keyword/All words) x 100%

Logically then, the higher the weight of a particular keyword in a page, the higher the search engine ranking of the page for that keyword. However, repeating a keyword too often to increase its weight can cause the page to be penalized by the search engines.

Keyword weight is sometimes referred to as 'Density' which stands for the same notion - overall percentage of some definite word relative to all words in the text.

It is very important to balance your site’s optimization so that it is neither under-optimized nor over-optimized.
Under-optimization may get your site lost among hundreds of thousands of other sites. While over-optimization would get your site penalized or worse – banned from the search engines.
Use the link below to get free SEO training and software:

Grab Your Freebies!!!

Let's Go Optimizing!

2010-02-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

I welcome you to the place where you can get all the bare facts about search engine optimization. Here, you will get all the facts, tips and tricks on how to optimize your web pages, articles and advert listings for maximum results.
I will be sharing valuable information that you can use to become an expert in search engine optimization. you will also get solid links to free search engine optimization trainings and free software that you can use to carry out professional optimization jobs.
So, if you are ready; let's go optimizing!!!