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The Theory of Relative URL�s

By Robert Cerff in Featured

E=mc or e=mc2 ?

Have you ever tried to type E=mc?  Notice how difficult it is to find the funny little 2.  In fact how many people even know how to go about finding that ?  Similarly while Pi can be rounded to 3.14 the number is infinitely long and trying to remember it rounded to two decimal points is hard enough.  However, this is not a science or maths lesson.  The point I’m trying to make here is that Pi is easier to remember than 3.14… or how to find the .

Similarly we can compare the following URL’s:

www.widgets.com/purple-widgets.htm
www.widgets.com/itempage.htm?id=123

At first glance we would assume that one is a static URL and the other a dynamic URL.  Both of these URL’s could be the exact same item, but which one are you more likely to remember?  Already, by looking at the above mentioned URL’s you would be able to guess which one of those pages may relate to purple widgets.

We know that the anchor text in a link carries much weight when it comes to gaining a top rank for a specific keyword.  Indeed anchor text alone can get a site ranked for a search term that is never mentioned on that page.  This has been used and abused in the past.  Link bombs, such as the “miserable failure” Google Bomb, serve to prove just how valuable anchor text in a link can be.  While many links created on websites are displayed as “widgets.com” you can already see the benefit of having keywords in your URL.

The search engines continue to preach how you should be optimising your site for real people and not the bots that visit the website.  With this in mind I wouldn’t be surprised to find that www.widgets.com/purple-widgets.htm would be ranked higher simply because it is simpler URL and surely a lot easer to remember than a messy dynamic URL.  This could just be wishful thinking on my part, or is it?  When running a few searches I found that 7 out of the top 10 results all had keywords in the URL.

Search engines prefer the use of hyphens in domain names because they can produce more accurate search results by being able to divide and recognize specified keywords in your URL.  After all if it’s easier for us to read purple-widgets than it is to read purplewidgets why shouldn’t it be the same for a bot?

Many would then assume that the underscore “_” would be the same as a hyphen.  This is not true.  I would appear that as the underscore character is often used in programming languages it is treated as a whole other character of its own.  As we all know a hyphen simply adds words together it is read as a simple join between two words, nothing more.

It is also be worth mentioning that the URL is listed in the actual search results themselves.  While just a small single text entry the URL may give the searcher a little more faith that the page listed is actually what they are looking for.  So with a neatly put together Title, gripping description and a URL that matches both you might just find that the URL could even aid in generating traffic.

Useful Tips:

1. When picking a domain name that people will link to, use your targeted search phrase.
2. When creating directories and files use your targeted keywords.
3. Individual words in the URL should be separated as the search engines can’t recognize then when joined, i.e. purplewidget.htm should be purple-widget.htm
4. When separating words in a file or directory, use a hyphen rather than an underscore (this is easier to see as an underscore can’t be seen if the link is underlined).

As you can see, the search engines and visitors alike have very similar needs when it comes to making sense of your website.  Google have been on a crusade for as long as I can remember, trying to get webmasters to design websites that are aimed at a human audience.  Perhaps this is prime example of good structures that work for both human and bot.  Perhaps this is just a coincidence.  But while we hope that the search engines return more accurate search results, this could indeed be a step in the right direction.

Which brings me back to the original question: E=mc or e=mc2 ?
Remember to always pick one that will easier for the end user to understand be it human or robot.  As it would appear that they are a lot closer than many may think.

Author:  Robert Cerff is a search engine analyst and marketing consultant for Prop Data Internet Solutions. He has ten years experience in e-commerce, online marketing and web development. http://www.propdata.co.za

How to Get More Prospects Guaranteed When You Write Articles

By Eric Gruber in Featured

Want to get more website traffic and more prospects now?

When you write articles, you will attract more attention and get more website traffic, online publicity and profits.

BUT, if you want to write articles that get read and keep your audience coming back for more, you must follow my basic rules of writing for an online audience. If you are used to writing articles for print publications, be sure to read these rules. The online consumer is different than the print consumer.

7 Article Writing Tips to Ensure Your Targeted Audience Reads What You Write & Buys What You Are Selling:

1. Use conversational copy. Talk to your readers. Use words that people know. Absolutely, do not use jargon. It is boring. You will lose your audience’s attention immediately. So, use words that people are familiar with and can connect to. Write like you talk and let your personality and experience shine through. You will make a better connection with your readers.

2.Go active. Words have power. Find specific active verbs to paint your copy. This will make your article exciting and lively. Action verbs are more engaging and will move the reader along. And, by using action verbs, you will automatically reduce the number of words it will take to get your message across. For example, “John loves Mary” is stronger than “Mary is loved by John.”

3. Make your copy benefit oriented. Honestly, your readers don’t care how many awards you have won. They don’t care how many degrees you have or how many books you have written. All they care about is how you can help them solve their problems. So include a strong benefit in your article title. Include benefits in your article. And add benefits to your “About the Author” section.

4. Connect with your readers’ emotions. We all want to feel smarter, richer, happier and thinner. Use these emotions to connect with your reader.

For example, “Do you feel paralyzed every time you have to go shopping? Do you hate trying on clothes? Does stepping in front of that three way mirror strike fear inside you? Here are my 7 top tips to help you lose weight now…”

5. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. When your readers see articles with long sentences, long paragraphs and no bullet points or sub-headings, they will automatically skip that article.

Here’s why?

• Large chunks of information scare them.
• It overwhelms them.
• It takes too much time and effort to read that article.

And that’s the psychology of most readers online.

So make your sentences and paragraphs short. If your sentences are longer than 20 words, cut them up into two sentences.

You can also add lists and bullet points. And, use subheadings that will attract readers when they scan articles, just like I have done with this article.

6. Front-load your point. When you make readers wade through paragraph after paragraph of unrelated anecdotes before you get to your point, you’ve lost your audience’s attention.

Yes, Mark Twain pulled that stunt all the time. But, your name is not Mark Twain.

You want to tease your readers with bits of information they need to know. This way they’ll stick around to the end. They’ll then want to click on the link in your “About the Author” section and buy your products or services.

7. Simplify. Worried you’re not using the right words? Use simpler words. Worried that your sentences are not clear? Make simpler sentences. Worried that people won’t see your point? Make your point simpler.  Make things simpler and your writing problems will vanish.

That’s why every newspaper in the world is written so a sixth grader can understand.

I’m not telling you to boil everything down to “see spot run” simplicity. But, if you can’t make people understand what you write, it’s not because the world is filled with morons. It’s because your messages are not clear.

These are just some of the tips found in my Complete A to Z Article Marketing System at http://www.BroadcastYourArticles.com This easy system has helped hundreds of people just like you get articles get read from top to bottom. Follow my article writing advice and you will get more online publicity, website traffic and profits!

Author:  By revealing his top secrets to writing articles that sell fast, Article Marketing Expert Eric Gruber has helped of thousands of experts just like you boost traffic, get more leads and increase sales. Go to http://www.BroadcastYourArticles.com and let Your Article Marketing Expert take you by the hand & teach you step-by-step, how to write your way to profits!

7 simple steps to Keyword Mastery & Search Engine Ranking

By Dave James in Featured

Keyword Research has become an integral part of starting up your own business or growing your business (exponentially). Search engine marketing is here to stay for the long term, hence finding customers through keyword research should also be an integral part of your marketing.

Earlier, all you needed to do was to enter the description of your business in the title & meta tags and you were done with optimizing your web-site. Things have changed! And hence this article…

How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relate to keywords?

SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors to your web-page by the careful and deliberate use of targeted keywords and their specific placements designed to get the page to show up on the top listing for such keywords. (SEO also includes other strategies not discussed here.)

TIP: Keyword Research is very useful to you when you decide to start a pay-per-click campaign to drive visitors to your website or increase revenue using adsense.

Here are the seven simple steps to keyword mastery that will cause your page to be indexed correctly by Search Engines and your link to be displayed at the very top on the search results page.

Step 1) Start with the most common words you use to describe your business(or your niche, if you operate in one). If you are in the automobile service business, you may have the following: Car Repair , Body Shop, Car Repair, New tires with car repair, Wax and Shine etc. If you actually have a niche business such as Jaguar Service And Repairs, then it becomes even more easier.

Step 2) Call your friend. Ask him how he would try to find your widget on a search engine if he lost your phone number and he wanted to look you up on the Internet. What if he forgot the name of your establishment? What if ….

Your perception of how people see you may be different from your customers’ perception of you. Add these new words to the list.

Repeat this as many times as you can with different people.

Step 3) Find other words related to your original list. such as names of the brands. Lexus Repair, Lexus spare-parts, Honda kit, etc.

Mix and match keywords with your original list to find even more keywords.

Step 4) Go to google and run a search for your widget. See what keywords bring up your competition and what words do not. Add them to your list .

Step 5) Add plurals and common misspellings too.

Step 6) Figure out as to how often people search using each of the phrases you have identified in your list. You can use the google adwords tool for this purpose.

TIP: Use adwords tool to see how many people have searched for each of your phrases in the recent past. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . This also suggest keywords you might want to use.

Step 7) Make sure your keywords are placed in the following locations on you web page: Page Title, Meta Keywords, Meta Description, Header Tags, Alternate Description for images, First Paragraph on the page, strong Tags, Em tags, Ordered and unordered lists, Anchor Tags, File names, Folder Names, Footer Tags, Any URLs and links in your pages.

Should I use many keywords in the same page?

Yes. Use as many keywords as it makes sense. Don’t overdo it. If your content becomes just a keyword trash-bin, users will start skipping over it and the search engines will catch on pretty fast. So avoid using too many keywords where it does not make sense. It’s best if you have multiple pages offering up different keywords.

One caveat. You need to be aware of ‘Keyword density’. Sometimes, if your usage of keywords is too high, and it looks like you have placed too many keywords, the search engine may not give you the best ranking. “Sprinkling” is the key-word when it comes to using them on each page.

You should also be aware of negative keywords. These are keywords you need to use in your PPC(Pay-per-Click) text so as to make sure that people do not click your link expecting to get freebies.

e.g. If you said : “Self Clearning Widgets- $500 and up”, you keep out the people who are looking for cheaper stuff.

Are phrases better than individual words?

Depends! If your customer is searching for self-cleaning widget, then you should use self-cleaning widget. If your customer is searching for just widget, and auto clean, you should use these words separately.

How often do I have to check my keywords?

As often as you can. Your customers react to various influences around them and search for different terms at different times. To be able to remain on top with a good ranking you need to keep on top of your keywords. Sometimes they react to an offer made by a competition and start searching for similar offers.

I know. You are saying:”But I don’t have that much time to devote to just keyword research.” That brings us to the next question.

Do I have to do it all by myself?

I have had many websites in the past few years. In the beginning I did everything manually the old fashioned way.

Lately I’ve found a few tools that help make life easier for me, though you could do it all by yourselves if you had the time and the tenacity(which I sorely lack). I suggest you find yourselves a tool to do the work for you.

I use Keyword Elite now, though I’ve used WordTracker in the past.

Pick 1: Keyword Elite tool : If you really plan to take your business to the next level, this is a great tool. From generating your own keyword lists, to analyzing pay-per-click listings, to studying your competition, this one accomplishes quite a bit. This tool works with Google, Yahoo,MSN, Ask etc. It will save you tons of hours of wasted time and effort. Also, I like the fact that it is multi-threaded(lots of more power.)

WebSite: http://www.elitekeyword.net

Pick 2 : WordTracker: Offers a free, ‘lite’ version, as well as a paid version. Features include an online management system for different keyword projects, searching for often misspelled words, a system to calculate your best keywords, and much more. WebSite:Wordtracker.com/FreeWordtracker

Pick 3 : WebCEO :From a free version to a $389/- version this company has various options available. For small business owners, the $199/- version would be suitable.Go for the $389/- version if you have multiple web-sites running and your business model is solely online. Web Site: http://www.webceo.com/cgi-bin/go/clickthru.cgi?id=linkflow

What next ?

Use keyword research to identify the most likely phrases for your business.

Master keyword research just like I outlined in this article and create a massive list of targeted keywords.

Make a list of the 5 most promising keyword phrases.

Head over to your favorite domain listing / hosting company (eg. www.GoDaddy.com) and see if you can buy that phrase in the .com domain.eg. Self-cleaning-Widgets.com

Point your existing website to this url. If you don’t have an existing web-site, create your new website using all the keywords you identified.

Submit your site to the search engines.

Author:  Dave James is a marketer/consultant with nearly 13 years of sales and marketing experience. Get your marketing questions/doubts answered free at his website.
http://www.nobleriver.com

Boosting Your Blog With Better Content

By Andy MacDonald in Featured

As you think about ways to generate buzz around your blog, you can also improve the quality of your blog by focusing on your posting techniques. These tips may give you some good promotion ideas:

Post about current or controversial issues. This idea seems like a nobrainer, but it’s an easy one to forget. Pay attention to the news, and watch for events and issues that are of interest to your readers. When you find one, create a post or series of posts around the subject. You might want to aggregate blog postings on the subject, sum up opinion articles, or even state your own opinion.

Don’t be afraid to be critical or controversial in what you say, as long as you can defend your opinion. Good blogs don’t shy away from confrontation, although they don’t create it purely for the sake of argument. Going out on a limb definitely causes people to comment more and probably also result in more links from other blogs to your postings.

post in user groups and forums. The Web is peppered with user groups, bulletin boards, and forums about all kinds of subjects. If you have set yourself up as an expert and have valuable information to contribute to a forum, you can drive traffic to your blog.

Be very careful that you don’t come off as a spammer or someone who is trying to sell a product or service. Your postings should be on topic and provide information, opinion, or clarification that contributes to the discussion. Let your knowledge sell the blog or your company for you. Don’t try to be someone you’re not — identify yourself as being associated with a company, because if anyone figures it out and you haven’t been up-front, the backlash can overshadow your message, even if you didn’t intend a deception.

Guest blogging. Invite prominent bloggers, industry experts, and other influential people to guest edit your blog for a day or a week. You may have to provide some incentive to get them to help you out. Other bloggers, however, undoubtedly talk about their guest-blog gigs and bring traffic to the site. The real payoff is in the promotion you can do to bring readers in during that time.

If your blogger is well known, you may be able to offer an exchange: Your blogger for mine. This solution is also handy for those days when your blogger wants to take a vacation or is in some way unavailable to blog. Even an unknown guest blogger is preferable to having your blog go dark.

Tip: Be sure to talk with the guest about appropriate topics, writing style, and your expectations on the number of posts to be provided. If you plan to edit the guest blogger, state this up front as well.

Add photos to your posts. Say it with images! A blog can be a text-heavy, boring-looking page, even if the writing is scintillating. The addition of photos, charts, and other graphics can add spice and interest to any blog entry — and readers respond well to blogs that use images. Keep your images to a reasonable size, especially if you have pages that display several blog entries at once.

Author:  Andy MacDonald, CEO of Swift Media UK, a website design & search marketing company. For daily tips on Blogging, Marketing, SEO & Making Money Online, Checkout our SEO & Marketing Tips for Webmasters blog or Subscribe by RSS.

Is Article Marketing For You?

By Dan Janal in Featured

Article marketing takes time. You have to write the articles.  Then find and broadcast your articles to relevant sites!

Is it worth the investment in time, energy and money?

Ask these questions to find out…

My Top 10 Questions to Discovering If Article Marketing Is For You

1. Do you want to grow your business?

Articles will contribute to your bottom line. One of my articles made over $10,000 in a two-month period.

2. Do you want more prospects and leads? 

Your prospects are looking online for information that can help them. When you write an information-based article, you will attract prospects who can become customers for life.

3. Are you looking to stand out from your competitors? 

When editors print your articles, you are getting their implied endorsement.. Top, targeted, high trafficked websites like About.com don’t print just anything.  So when they chose your material, you are judged at a higher level.

4. Do you want to build your brand?

Then article marketing is for you.

When you write articles and have them  printed on dozens of sites, people will start to recognize your name. The more you do this, the more branding power you get. Eventually, you will be seen as an expert. Don’t be surprised to hear prospects call you and say “I see you everywhere!”

5. Do you want maximum online publicity so you get your name out to your targeted audiences?

If you’ve ever wondered why your competitor’s article was printed when you are a bigger expert than she is, the answer is simple. She wrote the article and you did not! So, she’s getting in front of your audience, and getting your customers!

6. Do you want to improve your search engine rankings?

Article marketing will help you by offering links from credible sites back to your site. The bigger and better the site, the more clout the link has. And the more high quality links you have, the higher you climb in search engine rankings. So shoot for the moon!

7. Do you want to build your list of newsletter subscribers and blog readers?

Then write articles. People will see how smart you are and will want to read your material on a regular basis. This way, you can promote to them over and over again.

By writing articles and getting them published on sites like About.com Home Business, Marketing Profs and many more, we built our list of loyal subscribers. When we were ready to launch our A to Z Article System at http://www.broadcastyourarticles.com , we were able to sell to our list and score thousands of dollars in eBook sales in just one week!

8. Do you have a white paper or special report that can help you promote your company and sell more services and products?

Then writing articles will help you get the word out. Write an article that highlights two or three top findings from your report. People will click through to your website to learn how they can read the rest of the report. After all, articles are only 750 words long. Your report can be as long and detailed as you want. Your report can also include sales information so readers can take the path to become customers

9. Do you have info products like home study courses, teleseminars or e-books?

You can take the most important points and write an article that promotes your products. That’s a great way to get people to visit your site to look for more information and create a relationship with you. Be careful that you do not write a press release and pass it off as an article. Web sites do not print press releases. So don’t waste your time.

10. Do you want to differentiate yourself from your competition?

Do your prospects have pre-conceptions that every company in your niche is the same? Do they think if they’ve seen one product, they’ve seen them all?
Or, do you constantly have to explain your pricing?

Then write articles that differentiate your company, your products and your services from the competition. For an example, check out my special report: “How to Choose an Article Submission Service” at http://www.IWantMoreProspects.com/10questions.

Notice in my special report, how every question we tell our prospects to ask is something we include in our article submission service that no one else does. Now, we differentiated ourselves from every other article submission company. Now, you can tell that not all article marketing services are the same.

Now, one final question: Is article marketing perfect for you?

Author:  Internet marketing pioneer, Dan Janal has influenced several generations of Internet Marketers including the top executives from IBM, American Express and Reader’s Digest. If you’re ready to jump-start your article submission efforts and make more money online then go to http://www.IWantMoreProspects.com and get a FREE SPECIAL REPORT, “How to Choose an Article Submission Service.”

7 Simple Steps to ‘SEO’ the heck out of your competition

By Dave James in Featured

This article is meant for beginners who are new to SEO and for old-timers who are seeking new ways to get things done faster.

When thinking about Search Engine Optimization for your site, you must always keep in mind that the basic purpose of your web-site is to make you money. You make money when more people come to your site to purchase things they need. When your web-site has content they like, they spend money with you.

The sole reason you need to show up on search engines, is to let people spot you among the multitude of competitors. To be the first among the few sites a user actually visits, you need to come up among the top few. This is why you use Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

So when you prepare your site, remember that your site should cater mainly to human tastes, not just that of the Search Engines. To have a web-site that is great for search-engines but unbearable to humans is just waste of your time.

Most important : Get your web page in shape. Remember, people have tastes, likes, dislikes, emotions. Build a site for people.

Then,

1) Research your keywords thoroughly. Put your keywords in all the right places like Title tags, Meta Tags, Alt for images etc. Make sure your links are properly formatted. Read up on keyword Mastery and keyword research as well as how to place your keywords on the page.

2) Create great content. Search Engines provide you better ranking if you have better content. People visit your page for the content you have. Search Engines think that you have better content if you have ever new/updated content. The articles you have should reflect the title of your page. It should be about your core business or somehow affiliated with it.

You could either have content written by yourselves or republished with consent. The idea is to have people spend more time on your web-site. The more time they spend on your site, the better your chances of making a sale. If you are not very good at writing articles, you can get others to write them for you. There are quite a few websites that provide you with cheap content.

3) Create a google sitemap for use by google. This is a small xml file with the following values for each of your pages that you would like Google to index: url, last modified, change frequency, and priority. Make sure you submit this sitemap to google.

4) Publish your articles with article submission sites. Always have links within your articles to link back to your own site. Search Engines look for inward pointing links to your site. The higher the PageRank of sites your links appear, the better for you. There are tools available that find such sites for you.

5) If you are into email marketing (and I am yet to see a single instance where you should not be), always link back to your site from your email. Give your reader the opportunity to visit your site by clicking the link on the email.

6) Some websites have made it easy for others to link back to them. Scripts are available free all over the internet to accomplish this. Like I said before, Search Engines love a site that other people love to link to. It is pretty easy to provide a link.

7) Read up on google’s suggestions. http://www.google.com/webmasters/ . You will also find various tools here to help you with preparing your site for submission to google. These include tools to check which pages on your site have been indexed.

Very Important: Study your competition. See what they are doing to get to the top. ( There are tools that help you do this; see footnote.)

Bonus tips:

• Add title tags for text links. These are similar to Alt tags for image links.
• Study your PageRank religiously.
• Add your navigation menus to the top and the bottom of the page.
• Consider affiliate linking to sell your products(More links pointing to you plus more people selling for you).
• Consider advertising on other web-sites(More links pointing to you).

Now that you are on your way to SEO heaven, let me add a few words of caution:

• Avoid using the same title tag on all pages.
• Avoid using link farms to get inbound links. Search Engines catch up soon enough and you end up being shunned.
• Avoid using “Click here to…” as anchor text.
• Avoid using Submission Services for submitting to search engines.
• Remember that any attempt to “over-optimize” your site in an effort to cheat the search-engine spiders could get you banned too.

Of the various tools we have used in the past, two stand out.

#1 Pick: SEO Elite Website: www.eliteSEOtool.com Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees) Top Features: Finds best link partners with authority ranking; Automates link process; Monitors existing inbound links; keeps a watchful eye on your competition; Provides great Site Optimization Comments; Test Results: 100+ rankings mostly 1s , few 2s in 5 weeks : Good for beginners as well as experts. Very cost effective. 8 week trial period.

#2 Pick: WebPosition Website: www.webposition.com Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either) Test Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3’s and 4’s. Top Features: A little out of its depth when it comes to automatic linking capabilities. Reporting is nice. 4 week trial period.

Either tool is pretty easy to get started with & should pose you no problems.

You are all set to SEO your way to the top!

Happy hunting!

Author:  Links to SEO Tools tested: #1 Pick: SEO Elite( http://www.eliteSEOtool.com ) #2 Pick: WebPosition (http://www.webposition.com )