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The Last Word in PPC vs. Article Marketing

By admin in Featured

There is always a big discussion when it comes to comparing two of the best ways to advertise online: PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising and article marketing, otherwise known as “organic” or “natural” search engine optimization. There is no denying that both methods can be effective. However, which method is better? Which gives you a bigger bang for your buck?

You may get varying statistics on this issue, depending on which website you visit for information. Oh yes, this matters, because you have to consider the source of the statistics and who is sponsoring the article. For example, two sources of information (respectively, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and ComScore) recently produced studies indicating that PPC advertising was more cost-effective on average. However, did the fact that Yahoo/Overture and Google were sponsoring this major study play any role in determining the final outcome? Of course it did – those are the two biggest PPC companies on the net!

How To Play The Game Of Paid URL Inclusion

By Nelson Tan in Featured

There are many ways to promote your website and one of the most efficient ways is to use search engines. Search engines are the first stop for most people trying to find information, services, and products online. Because of this, it is essential that your website appears quickly in search results.

The Internet contains numerous search engines, some of which offer what is known as “paid inclusion.” This means that you pay the specific search engine an annual fee for your web page to be included in their index.

Can the Google Micropayments System Save Online News?

By John Sylvester in Featured

For over ten years now, when publishers first started to put their content online for free, there has been an almost continuous and fractious chorus of discontent about “giving news away for free”. Now, just as online advertising revenues have overtaken television in the UK, it seems as if this thorny issue has come to a head, with attacks on the BBC, bankruptcies, and talk of The Times of London being put behind a paywall next month, etc. But will charging for content actually work?

Many options for providing online news are being discussed at the moment, the most prominent of which is for Google to build a micropayments system for access. Taken from Google Checkout, this system would finally allow newspapers and magazines to charge for content.

At the heart of the problem are persistent threats to the newspaper industry’s bottom line. The quarterly revenue data for US dailies, published by the Newspaper Association of America, shows a year-on-year drop of some thirty percent in print revenue and almost sixteen percent online.

To address the issue, Google’s micropayments system, although still in its planning stages, aims to launch next year. According to mashable.com, it will be “fast-tracked to deliver reportedly ‘extremely simple’ merchant integration and a solution to the major problem of transaction costs that currently inhibits micropayment plans from being implemented widely on the web.”

This may prove to be a partial answer to the industry’s diminishing revenues. But just by putting content behind a paywall cannot justify James Murdoch’s recent attack on the free content provided by the BBC at the British taxpayers’ expense, as the industry reels from the loss of ad revenue. People just won’t pay.

The problem of charging for access is that although the Google rescue plan seems to have merit, most people are highly reluctant to pay for online news. A recent UK/Harris Interactive poll shows how resistant we all are to paying for reading newspapers online: results of the poll show that while a miserable 5 percent of people would be prepared to pay to read newspapers online, forty-eight percent responded that they would only pay if it was coupled with a discounted subscription to the print edition, and The Guardian has offered a novel alternative to this: that print and online news should work in tandem.

It has long been argued that people are tactile and that newspapers themselves would never be compromised. That makes sense, as it is unthinkable that people read entire newspapers online; it is far too dense to read on a screen, although with the introduction of e-readers, such as the Kindle, this is changing.

As a whiff of what is to come, The Spectator recently launched a subscription-based iPhone application, run by EE. This company has also launched iPhone apps for other major titles to alleviate the pressure in the newspaper/magazine industry. But, when the BBC tried out the app they considered it a “complete dud” as it was “pitifully slow”. The reporter tried it out and had to download the page he was reading every time he switched to another app and back. “Worse,” he said, “it’s just a facsimile of the paper version, and there’s no easy way to search it or to jump to a particular article.”

Much has been reported of late on the survival of newspapers, with several major publishers having already filed for bankruptcy, such as the LA Times. Almost all of the publications involved have blamed online. This, no doubt, prompted James Murdoch to weigh in so heavily, with his acerbic attack on the BBC, wrapping up his address with, “the only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.”

However, the ongoing rant of the publishers is unhelpful, as subscriptions are still a barrier that most people are not willing to breach unless, as seobook.com sees it, “a true micropayment system would operate invisibly and simply accumulate charges on the user’s monthly bill without an explicit confirmation for every click. That’s exactly how electricity bills and long-distance telephone bills work…it would be as simple as a click of a button, and tracking and billing would happen in the background.”

Maybe, but one of the major hurdles yet to be overcome is cultural. Newspapers have not adapted adequately to online news provision, sticking firmly to replicating their print editions. As Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC World Service, has already argued, mass broadcasting doesn’t really work.

Microsyntax.org makes the same point: “We are seeing more fragmentation and specialisation.” This concurs with Mr Horrocks’ findings that “newspapers need to figure out what they do well and report on that.” And publishers need to focus far more on presenting their information in multiple formats rather than rely exclusively on their newspapers/websites and
start building online communities.

It would certainly make a lot of sense if the print media started to branch out into other directions so as to work out new, potentially successful business models that revolve around social networking. And perhaps while they’re at it, one of most obvious requirements in this new paradigm would be to value the public far more than they do through greater interaction.

It seems as if there are many more questions than answers at the moment. The Spectator seems to have made a mess of its subscription launch and News International’s knee-jerk plans to lock out some Sunday Times content behind a paywall is likely to falter also.

It will be interesting to see how plausible it is to charge for news, as Murdoch Jnr. may yet rue the day he treats readers of online news as mere freeloaders. It is certainly interesting times ahead for online news provision and its social media fallout.

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John Sylvester is the media director of V9 Design & Build and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies.

Outsourcing the Recession: Home-Baked Protectionism Makes No Business Sense

By John Sylvester in Featured

Like politics, business seems to have joined the growing ranks of protectionists as the economic revival in America and Europe shows signs of sustained weakness. But in doing so, to my mind and that of many others at least, this makes no sense whatsoever when companies are looking at ways to reduce their costs. Online, the cheapest and potentially the most effective method of all marketing/PR models, should be left intact and strengthened during this recession.

Indeed, in “Economic vandalism: A protectionist move that is bad politics, bad economics, bad diplomacy and hurts America. Did we miss anything?“, the Economist this week pointed to Barack Obama’s decision to “break a commitment he, along with other G20 leaders, reaffirmed last April: to avoid protectionist measures at a time of great economic peril” citing the president’s decision to slap a 35% tariff on imported Chinese tires. Obama is not alone; what is on the menu in many American-led editorials regarding outsourcing is equally obstructive to free
trade.

Five years ago we set up a new company in Thailand offering web design services. At first we thought our work would come from the capital, Bangkok, but how wrong we were: most of our web design and SEO services are for companies overseas, from Europe to the US and in almost all developed countries in Asia. What we offer is an equally professional service at a quarter of the
rates being offered in the West.

Indulge me for a moment but during the aftermath of the dot.com crash at the beginning of the millennium, many companies decided that the “bottom line” needed to be cut, and that is exactly where the internet stood at the time: online services were slashed – but somehow not burned. As of now, with the world’s economies picking up slightly from the devastating effects of the credit crunch, 2009 for us also witnessed a short four-month downturn in enquiries.

However, according to Search Engine Watch, under the sub-head Buy American: “Just as many businesses, however, find it fundamentally wrong. Sure, the labor is cheap and can help keep a company profitable, but it takes a job away from someone here. That just doesn’t sit right. And cultural differences make this conversation even harder.”

Well, protectionism is not the answer. I am English; I worked in a web design agency for five years in London before moving to Thailand; I also worked in journalism there for ten years. So yes, while it is true to say that labour is far cheaper over here and perhaps is “taking a job away” from someone in the US or the UK, it doesn’t quite “sit right” with me either, especially when you consider that London-New York pricing models are up to four to five times more expensive.

And while protectionism may ring true with home-grown American businesses and outsourcing is seen by many to be a dirty word, according to Bloomberg world leaders made this commitment following the recent G20 meeting: “Global leaders pledged to avoid protectionism, repeating a promise made at earlier summits of the Group of 20…At the conclusion of a two-day meeting in
Pittsburgh, the leaders said…they would also redouble efforts to reach by next year a new agreement to cut tariffs and subsidies in the World Trade Organization as part of the so-called Doha Round. ‘We will fight protectionism,’ the leaders said. ‘Continuing the revival in world trade and investment is essential to restoring global growth.‘”

So, let’s leave the thoughts of SEW alone for a moment and concentrate on the empirical issues, taken from the experience of running a web design company in Bangkok for the past five years: SEM has changed dramatically over that period; the requirement now is for writers rather than data entry clerks who used to find and build up links on directories and other related websites. While this practice has not ceased entirely, SEM work now has a much higher emphasis on social networking and article writing, so the Google Caffeine update has led us to believe. So outsourcing to an English native in this area is not such a bad experiment.

There is a caveat, though: cutting costs and delivering quality work is key but there are projects where outsourcing is inherently dangerous. If I asked my developers to produce a top-grade design template, there’s not much difference between their work and that of a graphic designer in London, except maybe for the time spent on it (I remember a few years ago a design template taking three months to refine in London).

However, when the bar is raised to design and produce large, complicated websites, it has been my experience that outsourcing is not the answer. SEW is right; there are conceptual issues here, and in many cases modules are often scraped together with existing, non-compliant code (not my developers, but jobs I have been asked to oversee). My recommendation, for example, in developing a Facebook look-alike, would not be to outsource it to Asia but to give it to our English/NZ developers in France.

The SEW article talked of these “cultural issues”. They have a point, but the issue is easily sidestepped when discussing general site builds in that correspondence with clients is undertaken by a European, namely me, and I make sure that dialogue is comprehensible to both parties. As SEW commented in conclusion: “you can’t offshore morale or vision“. I entirely
agree.

It would make sense that, depending on the level of services required from outsourcers, it should be the way to go. More importantly and economically speaking, if a company can reduce costs by outsourcing, they can then pass savings on to their clients and outpace the competition on price; that is, if the quality of service is on a level playing field.

We are living in economically challenged times, where the share of the pie is diminishing fast and companies need to refocus to become ever-more competitive. In addition, money saved from outsourcing can be directed into online marketing efforts. I believe that as the tough times get tougher, companies that resist changes to working practices will be left behind: they simply cannot afford to be nationalistic protectionists.

In an article titled, “No Easy Answers on Offshoring” by IT the question was asked: “Is offshoring good or bad for America? It may be a moot point. In this highly charged debate, many experts conclude that broad business trends will make it extremely difficult for US companies to reverse the flow of jobs going offshore, even if they want to.”

They go on to say that in an interview with Forbes, Robert Kennedy, director of the Global Initiative at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, outlined several of the broad business trends leading to an increase in “offshoring”. Kennedy said that while “offshoring” will be “disruptive” in the short term, he believes the United States will benefit in the long term.

In the same article, the Hackett Group’s Michel Janssen and Erik Dorr predicted that by 2010, about one in four jobs in IT will be located offshore, with more than $16 million in annual savings by “offshoring” back-office operations, more than half of which is money saved on IT. They said it is likely that number will grow to nearly $30 million by 2010.

So while the protectionists rally to keep US jobs at home, perhaps it is the smart business operators who will seriously look at outsourcing their web design and SEO to competent companies overseas. This would help them with competitive cost savings and to bring prices down so that they are able to take advantage of gaining a larger slice of a diminishing pie.

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John Sylvester is the media director of V9 Design & Build and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies.

Reverse SEO Is A Core Element Of Online Reputation Management

By Julie Ann Ross in Featured

Reverse SEO has become critical for all types of organizations. Throughout history, it has never been easier for your customers, competitors, and employees to publish items online that can have a negative impact on your business. If those items gain exposure in Google, Yahoo!, and other major search engines, their effects can last for years. Regardless of whether you operate a small firm with less than ten employees or a multi-billion dollar company, bad publicity can decimate your business.

This article will introduce you to the fundamentals of reverse SEO. We’ll explain how it works and the advantages of using it. We’ll also describe a seldom talked about strategy of leveraging reverse SEO as a preventative approach to online reputation management (ORM). You will discover why many companies are rushing to SEO specialists to enlist their assistance for damage control. If you are not currently using reverse SEO to limit the effects of bad publicity, your company may be vulnerable.

Hey Bloggers! Let’s Hear It For Government Regulation!

By Catharine P. Taylor in Featured

There was a certain air of inevitability to the Federal Trade Commission’s edict earlier this week that bloggers have to disclose when they have a relationship with advertisers. And, even though there are those who would prefer that the industry self-police, I’m with the FTC on this one: Just as ads dolled up to look like editorial or infomercials dolled up with sets to make them look like “The Larry King Show” have to disclose their true nature, bloggers need to account. Many do, many don’t, and thus, the FTC needs to be involved.

I know that’s not what everyone wants to hear, but we’re now living in a world where we are all, prospectively, endorsers, and where industry self-regulation starts to get much more complex than it was when there were a limited number of media outlets. (I’ll leave to one side, for the purposes of this column, how the FTC will actually pull this off from a logistical point of view – although no doubt a few good algorithms will help.)

If self-regulating were entirely up to advertisers, that would be one thing – I’m normally a supporter of self-regulation. But in social media, as we’ve learned time and time again, the message is essentially out of advertisers’ control, and while one would hope, via self-regulation, advertisers would monitor those with whom they have a relationship and what they are saying about a product or service – indeed that’s the point of having such a relationship in the first place – the actual endorsement is out of their control. Can an advertiser actually reach into someone’s blog post and add in disclosure where it doesn’t exist? With the exception of adding a comment into the discussion thread, the answer is no, unless I’m missing something.

The onus has to be put on bloggers to an extent, and with the advent of these new endorsement guidelines, it is. (While, we’re on the subject of disclosure, I admit I didn’t wade through all 81 pages of the FTC document, but you can right here if you want to.)

People I know, and like, don’t necessarily agree with me on this, but I don’t view the guidelines as really being about what we generally consider to be the marketing/social media/advertising industry. To us, the fact that bloggers should disclose that they are paid by an advertiser, or gets free product from one, is obvious. To not do so shoots down one’s credibility, which is the coin of the realm in social media.

But the people who read this column have all grown up being schooled in this tradition. As social media tools come into broader use, more and more people without that grounding are going to become part of the conversation. If the history of so-called “mommy bloggers” is any guide, advertisers will reach out to them.

That said, I still think there’s ample room for some of the initiatives already out there to help develop a code of conduct for blogging, such as Blog with Integrity. (I tried to get in touch with Liz Gumbinner, who is one of the bloggers behind it, to get a few thoughts, but she is currently out of the email sphere.)

There’s still a need for bloggers to let it be known that not only do they play by the FTC’s rules but also are being honest and transparent, no matter what the topic. Thankfully, that’s something no government organization can regulate.

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Catharine P. Taylor has been covering digital media and advertising for almost 15 years. Contact her here.

Top 5 Website Analytics Programs

By admin in Featured

The future of most businesses has become information analysis. And being that a strong online presence is taking first position in today’s business marketing strategies, you must analyze your website aggressively to understand its contribution to current and future profit generation.

Maximum online profit generation can only occur if you take an analytical approach There are a number full website traffic statistics and analytics systems available, but are you using any of them? And aside from Web Analytics, there are also comparison resources and performance metrics that should be considered. Do you know what paths visitors are using to gain access to your website? What is the ratio of new vs. returning visitors? Which keywords are drawing visitors to your sites? Which Search Engines? What is your bounce rate? Where are most of your inquiries coming from? Is your Home Page customer-focused? How do you compare to your competition?

What exactly will keep your business mojo running? Take a look at our Top 5 Web Analytics Resources. Some offer better information than others for user behavior and some are stronger when it comes to facts and figures. With your research and once you have done your own needs analysis, it should become clear to you, which will suit your situation the best. Enjoy!

1. Google Analytics – Provides full website analysis.

It is currently a free service, but it requires that you have an account with Google and that you meet specific online criteria. Once your account has been set up, Google begins to gather data on your site(s), and reports it back to you via pages and pages of graphs, maps and stats. Everything from the number of visitors to your site; to new visits vs. repeat visits ratios; average time on site; top traffic sources; top pages; keywords; and so much more, this program is a must. My two favorites have to be the map and site overlays. The map overlay tells you exactly how many visitors are coming from each area in the world; and the site overlay pops up percentages onto each link on your web pages, to show where visitors are clicking. This is definitely worth the investment in time that it takes to get set up.

2. Google Trends – Compares key words and phrases.

We all know the importance of key words and key word phrases. Here you can input two or more key words or phrases to evaluate and compare their effectiveness against each other, with the results displayed on a graph. You can drill down further to uncover results on specific target locations, and more. This is a very useful tool to help you choose the appropriate word content within your web pages, to ultimately boost your exposure and organic ranking.

3. Compete – Identifies competitive strategies.

Compete is an online competitive service that combines intelligent site and search analytics to help you improve your online marketing initiatives by identifying competitive strategies. Knowing this information can take your SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimization) efforts to the next level, and help you stay on top with site metrics and audience profiles.

4. WeWe Score – Rates your website’s customer focus.

When visitors find your website, they really only care about how well you can help them meet their needs. Your focus has to be on the customer, which is conveyed through the words you use on your site. This website counts certain words on your site that are the key indicators of whether your focus is on them, or on you. This can be helpful in better understanding the impression you are making on your prospects, and where you need to make changes in order to grab and entice customers to go deeper, when they land on your home page.

5. Trace My IP – Tracks IP addresses for traffic analysis, and much more.

Is the time coming that we will actually be able to zero in on the name of the person visiting our websites, and where exactly they are from? It appears that this kind of advanced data gathering is just around the corner, but for now, just knowing more about our visitor details through the activity reports provided here, is a great way to develop strategies; monitor results and improve outcomes.

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Leslie Lyon, President of Spas2b Inc. is a Spa Consultant, Trainer, Classroom and Distance Learning Educator, Speaker, Writer, and Advisor to number Spa-related Committees and Associations, now in 36 countries. If you enjoyed this information and wish to read more exciting, up-to-the-minute business news, log onto http://www.spas2b.com , or contact Leslie Lyon personally at llyon@spas2b.com, or 1-519-585-0626 in Canada.

Top 10 Firefox Browser Plugins

By Donna Gunter in Featured

About a year ago I fired Internet Explorer as my primary browser. Why? Because it crashed on me constantly and took forever at times to transition from one site to another. I’ve found the Firefox browser much more user friendly, especially given the number of plugins that have been developed for the browser.

The ability to customize Firefox with these plug-in extensions is what makes this open-source browser so special. However, there are so many available options for plugins, it’s tough to know what’s worth installing and what’s will be a complete waste of your time.

There are lists of Firefox plugins that have been created citing the best extensions for web developers or for a better YouTube experience. However, I wanted to create an everyday list of my best choices just for the ordinary online business owner.

How to Make a Website: Create a Website for Business or Fun

By Peter Nisbet in Featured

Knowing how to make a website is essential if you want to make a website, either for business or just for fun. There are many sites online that will explain to you how to do so, but few of them offer a good solution for a beginner. They all seem to need some form of pre-knowledge of many of the factors involved, and they make it look a lot easier than it actually is.

Sure, anybody can create a website that looks passable, but how do you make a website work for you to make money or to get visitors? These are the two reasons for anybody making a website. No matter who you are, or what the site is to be used for, it will meet one of these two criteria.

First it must get visitors: otherwise there is no point in having one. Even if you just want the site to run your hobby, or keep in contact with your family (better with Facebook!), people have to visit. If you also want to make money from it, then you still need visitors, but you have to persuade them to buy. That means keeping in touch with them: you have to collect the names and email addresses of your visitors and then keep in touch with them, making them special offers, providing information, until they eventually buy.

It takes the average person 7 – 8 exposures to your product before they decide to buy it. That’s what advertising is all about: to get these exposures until the prospect finally makes a purchase. However, back to the website.

Most sites that show you how to make a website don’t tell you that once you create a website you have to make it work. It’s like buying a car. You don’t just buy a car, sit in it, and it takes you to where you want to go like a cab does. You have to learn how to drive it. Once you have learned, then you can drive it. However a website is not like that even. Why Not? Because it doesn’t come with all the bits and pieces needed to make it work. These are extras!

Here are the things you need to make your website work to make money for you:

A Web Host The host provides you with the web space for your site. That’s just like a large directory on which you can place your files, such as your web pages, graphics files, products and so on. Your host also provides the means by which you can connect to the World Wide Web.

A Domain Name Your domain name is the name of your website: the bit that comes after http://www. You need it before you can create a website and put it on the web. You can choose from those still available, and then register them with the DNS (Domain Name Service). Your domain name will cost you around $10 a year – you never own it, you just hire it with first refusal every year, though you can pay for it for some years in advance. You will also need keyword software to enable you to choose the best domain name for your site.

Site Building Software You will need an HTML text editor. HTML is the language used to make a website what it is, and most HTML editors offer wysiwyg functionality, so you don’t have to know HTML, and just type in what you want. However, if you want to link to other pages on your site or to other websites, or if you want to add graphics and anything else other than plain text, you will need to know some HTML.

Email Service You will need an eMail service with your site. Nobody will buy from you if you are using a free eMail service to run your website!

Autoresponders Unless you want to be writing and sending eMails manually all your life you will need software that can do it for you. An autoresponder can send an email to people requesting information, take orders, deliver orders for electronically deliverable goods, send invoices and receipts, thank you notes and acknowledgements, and also parts of weekly or monthly courses you might provide to your subscribers, who will hopefully become customers.

Shopping Cart If you are selling goods, even eBooks or software, you will have to provide a means for a customer to order them. You will also need a product catalogue if you sell more than one item.

Payment Processor You will require a means of accepting credit and debit card payments. If you can’t do that, then shut up shop now and don’t even start.

Traffic Analysis You will need software to analyze your traffic and find out what your most popular pages are, what keywords bring most visitors and what pages most visitors leave from without buying. You can them improve these pages to keep visitors on your website where you want them.

Other Software Other software or tasks needed to create a website that works properly include Search Engine Optimization, to make sure your web pages are listed as high as possible on Google and other search engines and once you become more advanced, audio and video software to jazz up your website, graphics software, a blog to market your website and a lot more.

All of these are essentials that you will have to purchase and will have to learn how to use when you set out to create a website. It is possible to get free versions with your cheaper websites and hosting services, but some of these can lack the functionality to make them look really professional and persuade people to buy from you or continue to visit your site.

If that all frightens you then you are right to be scared, because you are going to have to learn how to use them all. However, there is an answer that can allow you to avoid all these, because there are systems online that offer you a website with all of these extras integrated with it. Some are truly integrated with the site so that all you need do is to add the text, while others offer all of these components for you to use to make a website, but you have to learn how each is used separately.

While the latter offers you more latitude in your website design and functionality, the former allows you to create a website from scratch without knowing the first thing about the subject. With these, you can make a website by choosing templates and filling in the blanks. A bit like painting by numbers really!

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Peter Nisbet – If you are interested in making your own website, examples of each of these two different ways of making it easier for yourself are offered on How to Start a Website . Although easy to use, they provide you with a very professional looking highly functional website that thousands have used to make their fortunes.

Search Engine Strategies – How To Increase Your Search Engine Ranking

By Nelson Tan in Featured

The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you—the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your home page.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords—the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called metatags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that metatags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use metatags in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with metatags, you must access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source”. This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are metatags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a metatag would read: meta name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet Marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.

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Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center. Download $347 worth of FREE Internet Marketing gifts at http://www.internetmasterycenter.com

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