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How to Transfer On Page Authority

By Jeffrey Smith in SE Positioning

There are many ranking factors, but when it comes to SEO, certain on page changes are more significant than others.

For example, with the lingering impression of legacy content, links, and the search engine / cloud computing bin (the cumulative summary of each page in a website since it was first indexed) certain benchmarks are built into a pages quantitative SEO ceiling. Hence, the introduction of new content is paramount for exceeding the previous topical relevance for a websites global keyword density.

In other words, Google and other search engines are transparent in their approach. Essentially, the website with (a) the most coherent amount of information on a topic (b) the most relevant and authority links from other websites and (c) the most favorable on-page site architecture (to ensure frequent crawling and indexing) has the highest propensity for long-term search engine visibility.

For a site with such magnitude (over 500 pages) ranking is more of a side-effect than an objective. In fact, developing an authority site is an endeavor that makes perfect sense in a word riddled with pay per click advertising, which is like renting when when you take away the mask.

If you are still obsessing over keywords vs. looking at the big picture of market share, it’s not too late to stop throwing away time, money and resources for short-term gains only to forgo the big picture of long-term search engine prominence.

Knowing this, if your website is light in the pants and only has a few targeting keywords appearing sparsely in context, your chances of ranking higher for select keywords diminish. In fact, each page represents another opportunity for sculpting on page relevance (which can be transferred) or leveraged across multiple pages to fine tune specific rankings for specific keywords.

Your primary naming conventions and navigation play a much larger role as far as aggregate ranking factors are concerned. A thematic page consists of (1) a clear ranking objective (2) a sufficient amount of internal links (3) a sufficient amount of external links to that page with the primary root phrase (and or link flow) and (4) the culmination of trust that occurs when you have maxed the page out as far as the tipping point is concerned.

In the past, it was possible to leverage a page within a site with hundreds of thousands of inbound links to cross the threshold. Now, with the onset of pliable content management systems, once domain authority is produced, the approach for producing top rankings has shifted from the old (80% off page factor) to (80% on page SEO / 20% domain reputation) which is somewhat divisible by links.

The objective is not TRYING to rank for a specific series of keywords as much as it is gaining an authoritative position in a market or niche. It is the websites that have clever underpinnings that refer to a much larger piece of the pie / industry that exceed the smaller GEO specific / targeted niche sites when it comes to devouring and exceeding short term keyword benchmarks.

Instead of ranking for A, B and C in a niche, why not rank for hundreds of keywords, modifiers and thematic synonyms with the same effort. Obviously the old method of applied SEO (static pages and meta tags) is still appealing for some, the new SEO method is more about using a collective series of layers to meet and exceed the necessary ranking factors exhibited by (a) the competition and (b) the search engines yardstick when it comes to assessing who is THE AUTHORITY on the topic.

Back to the subject, which is how to transfer on page authority. First creating it is the main objective, which means understanding the range of phrases a page can funnel back to itself while remaining optimal. Second, understanding that once that page has achieved its ideal synergy, how does it fit into the big picture as a hub for producing additional leverage and rankings for other key landing pages.

Each page is an opportunity to unify a theme. A theme meaning at the helm is a one word vertical market whereby once all of the silos (key phrases that stem and comprise the topic) are appeased and present, become buoyant and the site ranks for the root phrase and everything in between.

By constructing your content in this fashion and merging the themed and siloed elements with static flat site architecture (where pages are isolated deliberately). You can produce phenomenal keyword coherence and rankings for specific keywords and pages while still maintaining broad match funneling capabilities which means you capture the long-tail of search as well as the more moderately competitive keywords by default.

To funnel the on page authority a page has you simply do two things.

1) cap the outbound links to relevant anchor text. Each link leaving a page is like a leak unless the link weight moving in to the page and leaving that page are stabilized.

2) Make sure the target page is linked prominently from pages with the highest authority on the topic.

I have provided a link to an in depth post about funneling link flow to key landing pages. But the initial process begins with creating a phenomenon similar to a cross-pollination of keywords within your site by (a) identifying pages with the most on page and off page relevance and then (b) linking out from them to the new preferred landing page.

Over time, the process matures to multiple pages equally capable of enforcing SEO defense on your behalf (whereby one page fights with another for a top ranking or indented double ranking) to stave off competition on your behalf.

This tactic is also ideal for producing the double listing which can increase site conversion by 200% for every keyword nestled within this optimization tactic.

If a page ranks for a main keyword (higher up the ladder of relevance) then it is a candidate to pass on page authority to another area of the site. If that page exceeds 10 outbound links, then the chance of it passing its ranking factor is also diminished.

So, the exercise is one of (1) knowing or understanding the cycles of authority (which could be 2-8 months to produce for each competitive keyword) and then (2) knowing when to harvest that authority by going back to edit key pages in the site to stem and produce multiple pages ranking for a plethora of related synonyms or related searches.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

The Importance of (KPIs) Key Performance Indicators for SEO

By admin in Jerry Bader's Blog

When it’s time to determine how effective an SEO, advertising or marketing campaign is, the need to establish KPIs (key performance indicators) as benchmarks to measure goal conversion, time lines and tactical objectives is necessary

Performance benchmarks exist for a very specific purpose, to measure conversion and marketing objectives, but KPIs also allow us to extend beyond one-dimensional thinking and truly develop long-term strategic and pivotal advantages.

Sometimes your website has all the right ingredients, but lacks proper execution. Increasing landing page conversion by 15% for example is one KPI. Improving lead generation, product inquiries or phone calls by 43% within a specific time-line using four new marketing methods.

Such examples of performance are based on gap analysis (from existing performance levels of where you are and where you want to be) however they provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of a campaign.

For example, if it is implied that you will increase traffic, increasing traffic alone is not a (KPI) key performance indicator. If the traffic is not converting into sales, then you need to look beyond the surface level and delve deeper into the root cause (the content and the offer) that produce the effects. Often it resides in usability, how obvious navigation is, how obvious is the conversion objective is, or if the message diffused from too many competing elements.

When looking to fine-tune performance, determining metrics such as time spent on a page, the keywords used to deliver the traffic, which related keywords are relevant and overlapping. Determining the existing bounce rate or engagement metric for the page and what calls to action exists on the landing page in question.

Managing those factors allow you to create a base-level KPI analysis to improve performance individually or across all of these metrics simultaneously. However, without analytics or performance tracking, you are just grasping straws when it comes to delivering or reproducing consistent or future sales volume.

The necessity to specifics is all part of the SMART model:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Result-oriented or Relevant
• Time-bound

Combine this with the KISS model (keeping it simple) and the who, what, where, when and how factor and you can essentially craft a series of objectives for each landing page in your site by assigning unique, yet attainable benchmarks.

The real value of KPIs are the ability to reproduce the effect, or know which affect your adjustments are having on traffic, conversion and visitor engagement. Without knowing where to look, or how to measure the outcome, you are destined to repeat past performance over an over again.

The only horrible thing about that is, what if that performance (such as an exceptionally high bounce rate) could have been avoided from a simple SEO intervention from installing analytics or testing another offer.

In closing, without key performance indicators, such as a 110% increase in search engine traffic or other distinct objectives, your SEO will not reach its full potential.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

Six Simple SEO Techniques to Improve your Search Engine Ranking

By Peter Nisbet in SE Positioning

There are some very simple SEO techniques available for you to improve your search engine ranking. In the course of my normal analysis of competitors’ websites, I find an amazing number that does not employ all of these techniques, yet every one can help you get closer to that coveted #1 position.

Using these will not in itself allow you reach the top position for your keyword, but they definitely help, and there is no single factor that will enable you to hit the top. A #1 position on Google is attained by a combination of many factors, such as internal and external linking strategies, relevance of your content to the keyword and the overall look and feel of your site. Plus those detailed below.

So let’s get started on these: these are the nuts and bolts of SEO, and if they are not right then you are starting off on the back foot. These are the essential SEO techniques that you must have as a minimum if you want to improve your search engine ranking, and although intended mainly for beginners, many established web pages do not contain every one of these.

I write ‘pages’ deliberately, because Google and the other main search engines list web pages, and not entire domains. That means that every single page in your website should be optimized in the same way: each should contain every single one of the SEO techniques listed below.

TITLE TAG

The title tag is contained within the ‘HEAD’ tags of your HTML, before the ‘BODY’ tags. This states the title of the page, and must contain the major keywords of the page. The contents of your title tag do not appear in the text of the page: its purpose is to inform the search engine spiders what the topic of your page is, and what words are important (i.e. your main page keyword). For example, the TITLE tag of a page based on this article would be “SEO Techniques - Improve your Search Engine Ranking”.

DESCRIPTION TAG

The description Meta tag is used by Google, and other search engines, in the search engine listings. I have tested this with them all and Google uses it as is, while Yahoo uses part of it. You should provide a description of what the web page is about, and a simple check of the descriptions in other sites using your keyword on Google will show you how many words you can use to have the whole description included. About 20 words are fine.

KEYWORD TAG

Search engines rarely use the keyword Meta tag: Google ignores it completely. However, it doesn’t hurt, and can help in a small way. Include your brand name and your own name. That way some engines might show your pages if somebody is looking for your name. The other Meta tags have no SEO value, and do not help to improve your search engine ranking whatsoever.

HEADING H TAGS

Heading tags (H1, H2, . . .) are used by Google to determine the importance of the text contained in your headings. Use H1 tags for the main title of your page (you also use it in the TITLE tag, but that isn’t seen by readers, only by the spiders). Put subtitles in H2 tags. You can change the font size of the text within these tags.

TEXT FORMATTING

Text in bold, italics and underscored are seen by the search engines as having greater weight, and so will be used in determining the relevance of your site. Always bolden your titles, and it also helps to underline it if it doesn’t make it look out of place.

WRITING STYLE and CONTENT

Do not write for algorithms (spiders): write for your readers. Always write for humans and you won’t go wrong. If your page content reads well, and has good vocabulary relating to the topic, then it will have a better chance of a higher listing than if you stuffed it full of keywords. I rarely use more than 1.5% - the keyword densities of the terms ‘SEO’, SEO techniques’ and ’search engine ranking’ (the main keywords) of this article are 1.5, 0.87 and 0.87 respectively. Too many keywords is bad SEO, and could result in a poor listing for your page - if it is listed at all.

So there you are: six simple SEO techniques to improve your search engine ranking. It is surprising how many experienced webmasters fail to apply all of these: there is no excuse, and they are failing to get the nuts and bolts properly fitted and tightened on their web pages.

Apply these to every page and not only will you improve your SEO, but also your chances of a good search engine ranking. It is amazing how many web pages lack these basic SEO techniques.

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Peter Nisbet - If you would like more advanced SEO techniques to help improve your search engine ranking considerably, check out SEOcious where Pete show you screenshots of how got two of his sites listed at #1 in the main search engines against strong competition.

Search Engine Optimization Concepts

By Jeffrey Smith in SE Positioning

Sometimes another form of language and imagery is required in order to communicate vast ideas for common consumption. This is one of such instances where an array of algorithmic functions will be given a conceptual vehicle to map their role in the creation of a top 10 ranking.

Since the concept of the universe is a great model, we will borrow concepts originating from planetary forces ranging to universal phenomenon like gravity, orbits, the concept of the internet being a giant nebula of computers sharing virtual space and employing data retrieval, etc. Bear in mind, this is only an interpretation.

If you can visualize your website as a dot and each keyword as its own orbiting sphere of concentric influence, you have to create a series of eventful transactions (like creating content over time, building links, having a supportive format for internal linking) that classify and elevate your website as a candidate for relevance within the center of the sphere of influence for that keyword.

By viewing each keyword as a cumulative objective (like peeling away the layers of an onion) once you reach the center, your site radiates a beacon in all directions whenever a broad match or more general search is conducted with those keywords as search queries.

When you first start a website, since the site is empty your relevance is also at zero. As you continue to add content to your site (like filling up a glass with liquid) the site begins to take on a particular persona based upon what content is contained within the site.

As a result, your site creates its own orbit and gravitational pull where the content and subjects traversed within the context of your pages become beacons that attract similar orbiting keywords, concepts and semantic variations.

The analogies presented are to elaborate on the function of search engine algorithms which essentially consolidate each site into a type of conical tube that best describes the subject matter it contains. Then based on the vacuum created when someone actually invokes those qualities (through a linear search) the search bridges the gap and projects through all of the other spheres of influence (from the web) to extract the most relevant pieces of data and reformats them for communication via retrieval.

In order to appear as the most relevant result, your site must have enough supporting relevance from external clusters (others sites) that also contain the same type of data cloud (a collective summary of the sites content) which can change forms (like a liquid to a gas, a gas to a solid) and act as a homing signal to create continuity between its own orbit (on the micro level) and serve as a piece of the puzzle for the main theme in the index (as a part of the whole like a planet in the solar system, which belongs to a galaxy, etc.).

The Job of search engines is to be able to index, retrieve and create order from all of the orbits created from each websites signature as it occupies the cloud of online space (data shared across multiple servers), gauge a metric and then determine the usefulness of the metric and how it applies to a query (which like a vacuum) is seeking the most relevant result.

Just think of a search as pure potential that does not exist until executed, then on assembly its purpose is to seek out the most likely orbit (website) using the nebulous data cloud (the web) to bridge the gap using a vacuum that through traversing aggregate links and other sites (through assessing their relevance score) until it finds the most suitable supporting environment.

If you can use this visual map as a blueprint, then you understand that rankings are all a result of how strong the broadcast signal is, signal strength in this capacity is based on relevance, continuity and popularity. In order to produce a ranking of such magnitude (such as a competitive keyword) you must move from the outermost bounds of the keywords sphere of influence, into its center to attain the top ranking result.

The stages involved are research, planning, execution, testing, refinement, collaboration and strategy.

If any of the steps are excluded in does not mean you still cannot create top 10 placement for your website, it is just that if reproducing the phenomenon is important to you, then understanding the proper chronology and strategy behind the tactics should concern you. For example, topical relevance, site synergy / persona, authority and orderliness all impact placement for your website.

1) Research - You need to research the appropriate keywords to develop the appropriate gravity in your own site to attract the search engines crawlers (who index the content and include the site approximation of relevance score).

2) Planning - After finding your semantic base, create topical fields of information (multiple keyword-rich pages) within the site (using a content management system) or supporting site architecture.If search engines cannot retrieve the data (based on crawling errors from bots, poor site architecture or otherwise) then you is automatically excluded from participating with other forms of life contained in digital space (the web).

3) Execution - Build links, either through internal linking (if you have an authority site that is enough) or through external links from other sites (data clusters with relevance) that have similar signatures containing the topical relevance shared by your own site.

The closer the relevance between things like (a) is the site from the same industry or niche (b) is there related content between the sites (c) what keywords are used to link to and from the two sites (the vacuum) and (d) where each site resides in the overall relevance model for each of the overlapping keywords they both share, gives the target site the opportunity to receive a jolt of authority through osmosis and synergistic infusion. The bottom line is the quality of the links, but topical relevance also add even more weight to the orbit of the site receiving the link from an external site.

4) Testing - Test the results, ping the site from using a beacon in the nebula, use a search engine to determine how close to the center of the keywords your site has become. If you targeted 10 keywords for example and dedicated an ample amount of time, effort and energy to build a coherent series of pages on the site, created strong internal linking and then found at least 5 sources for links to each page (with a wide array of IP diversity) in other words not from the same series of sites, then you should have created enough orbital relevance as well as made a strong impression on the ethers in the data cloud (your sites algorithmic counterpart) to appear as a relevant result.

5) Refinement - If your website did not make the grade (is not ranking yet) then you can always (1) wait for all of the factors to settle a bit more and then re-evaluate the keyword saturation (2) build more content and shore up your main subject or subjects or (3) look for other sites with authority that can augment your sites reputation online (in the nebulous data cloud known as the web).

6) Collaboration - Moving a website closer to the center of a series of keywords requires understanding. You need to know that each time you add a page or a link it changes (1) the sites internal topical relevance and orbit / signature and (2) how other sites and keywords within the web react to it based on the search engines algorithm. The translation here is, by viewing each keyword as a cumulative apex, you can set in motion a series of events to create a chain reaction to close the gap for those keywords.

More competitive phrases may take many months to a year or more, other phrases in the nebula (the web) may only take a few hours or a few days at best to acquire. The point being, your websites orbit is entirely up to you, how others link to it and the collective blueprint it leaves on its environment in the nebula however is another part of the equation that you have to sculpt over time through releasing consistent information on a topic to reinforce the basis of its existence.

7) Strategy - the strategy is simple, rank for as many keywords that either funnel relevant traffic to your site or overlap with a series of other keywords that have latent potential down the road. The web is all about multiple layers overlapping and linking through internalization and expression. These two dynamic attributes are responsible for moving from site to site or from page to page within a website. Depending on your ability to see beyond the immediate goal (which is to create relevance) the real goal is to create a hub where your site literally overlaps with thousands of keywords and then refines each branch to delve deep into the long-tail as well as hit the high notes with the most sought after two word phrases as well.

By using the concepts such as topical relevance, gravity, orbit, continuity, the query-based vacuum, the nebulous data cloud and information retrieval in a way that anyone can understand, creating a systemic method for creating relevance is a by product which means multiple top 10 rankings to claim as trophies that increase website traffic.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

Break Your Search Engines Habits To Get Better Information

By Bill Platt in SE Positioning

With the ever-expanding enormity of the Internet, desirable search engine results are more important than ever before. Search engines are generally an efficient way to narrow down the millions of pages of information available, to a few relevant results.

Advanced Search Features

The relevancy of results can depend on several factors. For one, the search terms used make a difference. Boolean search rules are probably the best-known and most widely used. These consist of separating specific terms with AND, OR, or NOT, to include or exclude results. To get an overview of the Advanced Search Features available in a number of search engines, check out this chart: http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/ressubj/subject/intrnt/srcheng.htm

One rule to remember is that the more specific your search terms are, the better your results will be. For example, instead of searching for “dogs”, try searching for “terriers”.

Another rule is that less is more. Be concise with the search terms you pick - putting too many search words into the engine can result in confusing or too few results. In fact, most search engines limit the number of words that can be used in a search request to ten words.

Finally, you can also add filters to whatever you are searching. For example, if you are searching full text files, you can enter title:oxygen to find only files with the word “oxygen” in the title. The same can be done for URLs. If you know “oxygen” is part of the URL you’re looking for, you would enter inurl:oxygen. I use this tool all of the time to find information provided on a government website by adding inurl:gov to my search criteria.

Organic and Paid Search Results

If you’ve ever used more than one search engine, you’ll quickly realize that not every search engine returns the same results or links. There will be similarities and differences across most search engines, especially the “Big Three”: Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The Big Three search engines tend to include sponsored results (basically, results that somehow fit the search term as defined by the advertiser, and which appear above the real search results). Usually the sponsored results will note that they are “sponsored” results somewhere, so as not to be confused with the “real” results. Except, the search engine companies actually hope - that you’ll click on the paid results instead of the real results, so the search companies can get paid for you visiting their clients’ websites.

The results from the different search engines can actually overlap. If you want to have a wide variety of relevant links, you may spend time typing the same words into different engines, only to come up with mostly the same search results.

There is a tool that makes the similarities between the search engines abundantly clear; although this search tool is not good for much other than to show you how similar search results can be between Yahoo and Google: http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html

A variation on this theme can be seen here: http://ranking.thumbshots.com/

Meta Search Engines Combine Results From Many Search Engines

Instead of relying on the Big Three search engines alone, don’t be afraid to try some different search engines. Meta search engines are a good way to be more efficient with your searches, and they will help you to get a much more diverse set of relevant search results. Meta search engines, such as http://www.Clusty.com and http://www.Widow.com are both good at returning a wide variety of results.

For demonstration purposes, let’s take a look at some different search terms in each of five different search engines - Google, Yahoo, MSN, Clusty and Widow. The three search terms used for this unscientific experiment are: unemployment, weather, and Myanmar.

Test Search: Unemployment

For “unemployment”, Google, Yahoo and Clusty first returned sponsored links. MSN and Widow both returned online encyclopedia results - MSN using Encarta’s encyclopedia; Widow returning Wikipedia.org results. Wikipedia also showed up in the other three search engines, as well, but further down in the results lists.

A similarity between all of the search engine results was they each turned up specific states’ unemployment links in the first page - primarily California, New York, and Ohio. Google and Yahoo also brought up current news items related to unemployment.

Widow.com (the meta search engine) provides additional tools in the left sidebar for related-keywords and clustered search options. For the search term “unemployment”, the clustered results offered: insurance, compensation, unemployed, rate, workforce development, benefits eligible workers, information employers, data, individuals, and welcome Ohio. All of these additional search terms are just a click away.

Test Search: Weather

The next term is “weather.” In this search, only Google and Clusty returned a sponsored result at the top. The top result for the other three engines was weather.com. The secondary results in each of the engines included, in varying order, Yahoo weather, and NOAA’s National Weather Service website.

Differences for the term of “weather” included MSN showing MSN weather in their results, as well as a UK weather website on Widow.com. Again, I was impressed by the optional clustered search engine results on Widow.com. These included options for city searches, Doppler, and the latest weather news.

Test Search: Myanmar

The final search word for the five search engines was Myanmar, to test the relevance of findings for a region that’s received a lot of media attention in the last few months since the Myanmar Cyclone. The results on Google started with several colorful maps of the area, a feature that really stood out for me.

As for similarities, each of the five search engines contained one or more Wikipedia results. The search engines also included current news links and some tourism links. Once again, many of the clustered search results on Widow.com caught my eye: travel, Burma (Myanmar’s previous name), culture, cyclone, statistics, politics, government, and tours.

Search Lessons Learned

What are we to learn from this little search engine experiment? There are several things that you can take away from this. For starters, the Big Three search engines tend to have pretty similar results. Occasionally there are differences, but not anything spectacularly different.

Another conclusion that can be drawn is that you are more likely to get sponsored results when you use more general terms (unemployment, weather), as many advertisers can link their products to a wide variety of general terms.

The most pleasant feature is the availability of diverse range of clustered and related terms, available with a single click of the mouse, on Widow.com.

The potential for Meta search engines to cut down on multiple searches is there, if users are willing to break out of their typical searching habits, to uncover jewels of information within the existing data.

The Widow.com Meta search engine goes above and beyond what I have experienced with other Meta search engines. The Clusty.com Meta search engine also offers clustered search terms, but for some search terms, some of its offerings are simply nonsensical.

How I Discovered Meta Search Engines

In the course of my own work, I spend a lot of time searching on the web for information on a variety of topics. As a ghostwriter, I frequently write on topics that I know little about ahead of time, so I do loads of research to help me cover the topics I write about in a much more logical and educated manner.

I used to use Google almost exclusively. But, one day I was researching an article topic that I had written about previously. Imagine my aggravation when the only material that Google would show me on the topic was material I had written myself!

While I had written about that topic previously, I was not an expert on the subject. I did not want to simply rehash what I had written before; I wanted to write on the topic in a new and different way.

I tried Yahoo and MSN and met the same disappointment with the search results. Then I went to http://www.DogPile.com. I thought their results were awful, but I liked the concept of the Meta Search Engine.

I tried many Meta Search Engines, and then I came across the Widow Search Engine. I liked it so much that I made it one of the default search engines in the article search tools on my website. The thing I like about Widow best is the Clustered Search Listings. With Clustered Search, Widow brainstorms the keyword variations for me, so that I don’t have to figure out the related search terms on my own. As they say in the MasterCard commercials - this is priceless!

In the end, this article is not about which search engine will send the most traffic to a website you own. Instead, this article is about which search engine will give you the best information to help you find the answers you want and need.

Good luck and happy searching.

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.thephantomwriters.com article ghost writing and article distribution services. He has been helping small business owners promote their online businesses, using reprint articles, since 2001. In 2007, Bill wrote an ebook titled, “Article Marketing For Traffic, Sales And Profit”. You can get Bill Platt’s ebook here.

How To Select The Best Keywords For Your Site

By Jennifer Horowitz in SE Positioning

As more websites compete for valuable search engine “real estate,” Search Engine Optimization is becoming much more complex.

And *keyword selection* remains one of the most important (yet least understood) pieces of the puzzle.

“Why keyword selection is so important and how to select the best keywords for your website”

To clear up the mystery, let’s break it down into bite-sized pieces by answering our most frequently asked questions about keyword selection:

“What’s the difference between a keyword and a keyword phrase? And which should I use?”

Put simply, a keyword is a single word, like “Maui.” But a keyword phrase is a more descriptive string of two or more words, like “Maui vacations.” Your approach to keyword selection will vary, depending on your industry. For certain niche markets, using single words can be a good strategy (as long as they are specific to your product or service). But regardless of your industry…

Well-researched keyword phrases will attract quality, targeted visitors to your website who *specifically* want what you are selling.

Let’s assume you sell Maui vacations, and your website is listed at the top of the search results for the keywords “Maui” and “Maui vacations.” Let’s look at the characteristics of two groups of visitors you’d attract.

Those who perform a search on “Maui” are searching for a wide variety of topics. Such as Maui’s history and culture, snorkeling, botanic gardens, hiking trails, sailing, golfing, and yes - some will be looking for Maui vacations. But only a small percentage of the people who perform a search on the keyword “Maui” are qualified prospect for your vacation packages.

Now think about the prospects who find you by searching for “Maui vacations.” Every prospect who performs this search is a qualified prospect for you. And by getting a top ranking with this more descriptive keyword phrase, you attract people who are more likely to become paying customers!

You see, someone who wants to take a vacation to Maui is not likely to search for “Maui.” They’re not going to search for “Vacations.” And they’re not going to search for “Hawaii” either. They’re much more likely to enter a keyword phrase like “Maui vacations.”

Today, more than ever, your ideal prospects are going to enter precisely what they want to find, rather than general, open-ended terms. Which means your keyword selection must target your ideal customer with laser-beam focus.

At the same time, the search engines and directories themselves are also becoming much more strict with the pages that they’ll accept and index. They’ll be watching your submissions like a hawk to make sure that they’re completely relevant to the topic reflected by your keyword phrase.

In a previous article, we weighed the pros and cons of doing your search engine positioning yourself versus hiring a reputable company to handle this time consuming task for you. Many of you have wisely realized that it can be much more time-effective and cost-effective to leave your search engine placement in the hands of experts, so you van focus on your core business.

So the most important question of all now becomes:

“If I hire a company to do my search engine placement for me, should I be expected to provide my own keywords and keyword phrases, or do they have a responsibility to advise me?”

Frankly, any company that doesn’t provide hands on consultation in this area is not helping you to maximize your search engine rankings. Keyword selection is the entire foundation on which your search engine campaign is built. Can you imagine hiring a contractor to build your house… only to have him say, “Okay, YOU lay all the bricks and pour the concrete - then I’ll do the rest?”

It’s senseless.

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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com. Over the past 10 years Jennifer’s expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on SEO and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer is the editor of the popular Spotlight on Success: SEO and Marketing newsletter. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media and more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet

How To Create Your Own Perpetual Traffic Machine

By Titus Hoskins in SE Positioning

The Internet is such an unknown commodity anything is possible. One of the most intriguing questions concerns the idea of a perpetual traffic machine. Create a website and design a system of automatic programs (both interior and exterior) that delivers content and backlinks to a site that updates itself automatically and keeps growing without any help from the creator. In the process you build a flow of traffic that never stops, even if the site is abandoned or not touched for a couple of years or never again.

Is such a perpetual traffic system really possible?

Before you conjure up pictures of HAL and creepy talking computers in distant space… realize that question may carry more weight than it would seem at first glance. But is it like its predecessor, the perpetual motion machine - just more an illusion than actual fact?

For curiosity’s sake if for nothing else, the idea of a perpetual traffic machine does require further investigation. Such a system would have special interest for millions of webmasters whose main task is acquiring traffic for their sites, not to mention the potential for monetary gain a PTM (rhymes with ATM) would produce. Some credence was given to the idea recently when Tinu Abayomi-Paul, a well-known online free traffic expert, produced with the help of Marlon Sanders an info-product entitled “The Evergreen Traffic Machine.”

Tinu’s story is very interesting. Tinu had built up a whole array of sites and optimized them successfully for countless keywords in all the major search engines. She had built up a steady flow of traffic, resulting in thousands of visitors “a day” to her sites. This in itself is not that extraordinary, but that’s not the full story.

Because of a personal illness she abandoned or left alone most of her sites for over a year or more - only to discover the traffic systems she had put into place didn’t just dry up, they still kept producing tons of traffic even though the sites weren’t being updated.

The traffic was still coming. The traffic was still fresh.

Tinu basically built her perpetual traffic system around three major areas: High Profile Article Marketing, Exact Keyword Focus and Blogging/RSS Feeds. Tinu’s system proves you can create a traffic system for a year or two, but the real question is will it still produce traffic five years from now? Fifty years from now? How about a hundred years?

The real question: how long will such a system work without fresh input of unique content like the viral articles and blog posts now feeding it? This question is even more tantalizing when you consider it is now possible to create fresh content on your sites with RSS feeds, blog comments and user contributed content.

What’s more intriguing is the fact that all aspects of a website can be automated, including payment for all renewals: domain, hosting, autoresponders… as well as the collection of revenues such as affiliate commissions and advertising fees.

Are we at the stage where the Internet will be filled with these automated human-less web sites drawing traffic/visitors and slowly building and expanding on their own for eternity? Many cynics would argue this is already the case with the majority of sites on the web.

In case you like that idea and want to fully embrace this brave new automated perpetual Internet, here are a few tips to create your own eternal traffic machine:

1. Build lists and pre-load your AR system with follow-up messages to keep visitors coming back to your site. You can rotate these messages and ask your subscribers to opt-in to different lists on related subject areas. Always ask your readers to recommend your content to others.
2. Use social bookmark software or links so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content which brings in both new links and new traffic. Simple programs like the one offered by Addthis.com will get your visitors building your backlinks for you, bringing in fresh visitors who in turn will also bookmark your content.
3. Write viral articles, reports and ebooks that have your backlinks in the resource boxes. Likewise, viral software programs can help bring a constant flow of traffic to your site. If your content is of a high quality and your themes universal… new sites will pick up your content and build your backlinks, creating fresh traffic. The search engines will also index these new links and your rankings will increase, bringing in more traffic.
4. Use blogging and RSS feeds to get your content out there. You can also use these RSS feeds to bring in new fresh content to your site. Creating new content will be your main obstacle to creating perpetual traffic… you can get new content from feeds but will it be unique? Comments in your blogs could bring in unique content but if you’re not monitoring them, you must have solid software in place to fight against spam.
5. Have “Tell a Friend” forms on all your content. This will bring new traffic to your site, which can be self-refreshing as new people discover your content.
6. Encourage user generated content such as articles, comments, posts… you can even have a community monitoring system where your site’s members monitor this new content.
7. Form JV alliances with webmasters in your related field. Do co-registration so that you help build each other’s lists and traffic.
8. Likewise, if you have products to sell, create an affiliate program to get your affiliates to build your traffic for you. Affiliates are an excellent source of permanent traffic.
9. Automate all aspects of the running and managing of your website. Set up automatic payments for your AR system, hosting, domain renewal, PPC payments… thru PayPal or credit card. Likewise, receive affiliate commissions thru PayPal or direct deposit. Many advertising programs like Google Adsense offer direct deposit.
10. PPC Traffic - While we have mainly looked at free traffic systems, don’t forget creating a PTM is relatively easy with Pay Per Click advertising if you know what you’re doing. Target less competitive keywords to keep your costs down, tie this traffic into a good squeeze page for feeding your AR system with leads and have a good landing page that converts. You can create a system that delivers perpetual traffic and pays for itself from your affiliate commissions and advertising fees.

In summary, the argument for the existence of the PTM mainly relies upon the quality of your content or site. Is it unique enough to draw in new visitors? Does your topic have universal appeal that people never tire of? Does it solve or offer advice on a common human problem? Will or does it have a viral “word of mouth” element to it?

As we move to a more and more automated world, all the automated programs and hardware are in place for the creation of such perpetual traffic machines.

Computers, autoresponders, content management software, RSS feeds, viral marketing, direct deposit, automatic payments… and the list goes on. If we haven’t already created the perpetual traffic machine - we are getting tangibly close to doing just that.

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Titus Hoskins - The author is a full-time online marketer who practices what he preaches. Get a Free Perpetual Desktop Calendar: http://www.bizwaremagic.comFree_Desktop_Calendar.htmRead a review of Tinu’s Traffic Machine here: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/evergreen_traffic_review.htm

3 Steps to a Search Engine Compatible Site

By Kalena Jordan in SE Positioning

Is your web site search engine compatible? Despite all the misinformation out there, it’s very easy to design a web site that search engines will love. All you need to do is follow 3 simple steps:

1) Obey the Search Engine Guidelines

Nearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be “spam”. They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.

It’s not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You’ll find them at the following search engine sites as well:

Ø Yahoo terms of service

Ø Yahoo content guidelines

Ø Ask.com terms of service and spam policy

Ø Ask.com editorial guidelines

2) Don’t Use Spammy Search Engine Tactics

Often, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site’s rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner’s knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.

Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn’t use any of the latest optimization methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.

Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.

Alternatively, here is a sample email template you can use instead:

——————————————————————–

Sample Re-inclusion Request Email

Dear [search engine name],

I am the owner of [your site URL].

I did not realize that participation in [spammy method] and

[spammy SEO name] programs could cause problems for my website. I was

assured that these techniques were search-engine-friendly by [your source for using spammy method].

I now understand that the practices used are not acceptable. I apologize for having allowed them to be placed on my website. I’ve removed the questionable pages and links from the site. I promise not to repeat such mistakes.

I am asking you to please consider reinstating my website,

[your site URL] into the [search engine name] Index.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

———————————————————————-

To assist them to provide a high quality service, search engines encourage people to report search results they are dissatisfied with. If you spot some content spam or techniques that are clearly in breach of the search engine’s public guidelines, you can report it using these links:

Ø Google spam report or via search-quality@google.com

Ø AllTheWeb relevancy problem report (AllTheWeb is a Yahoo-owned company)

Ø Yahoo spam report

Ø Report spam at Ask via information@ask.com

3) Build Sites for Visitors Rather than Search Engines

The methodologies may have changed over the years, but the same principles have always applied to “good” or “white hat” SEO. Build sites for humans, not search engines. Make the site as user friendly as possible, avoid the bells and whistles and include high quality, relevant content.

Wherever possible, include text-based content and navigation menus with simple, descriptive, well-written copy designed to convert your visitors into customers. Include keywords and phrases your audience would logically type in to search engines to find sites like yours. Only link to sites that are relevant to your target audience and spend some time on usability, making sure all your forms and shopping carts work.

Remember that what pleases a visitor is almost always what pleases a search engine too.

How Does a Site Rank #1 out of 65,000,000? (and do so for years!)

By Michael Linehan in SE Positioning

This article is about a client — Fiona Raven. When we started about working on her site about three and a half years ago, we got her to #1 in Google out of about 9 million — for the search ‘book designer’. Since then, we have all gone through several Google updates. Page returns have gone well above 100,000,000 and dropped again; currently they are at 65 million. And through it all, she has sat at #1 with the occasional drop to 2 or 3.

Not surprisingly, I’ve been asked how this works. The essential answer is: do the basics and do them REALLY well.
FIRST, THE INITIAL SITUATION
Usually for a website, one would want to optimize around keyphrases that:
- Have as many searches happening as possible

- With as little competition is possible

- Are as closely focussed on what the company offers as possible.

- Are as close to a possible buying decision as we can get (e. g. black video iPod rather than iPod).
We research all this and try to balance the four factors to go for the best phrases possible. But for Fiona Raven, nothing else really mattered except book designer. So that’s what we focussed on.
You can bet that many (possibly hundreds of thousands, if not millions) of Fiona’s competitors are also optimized (to a greater or lesser extent). And probably a large number of them have much larger budgets than Fiona. So we circle back to the critical question — what is the difference that gives HER the number 1, and has given her #1, 2 or 3 continually for over three and a half years now?
HOW WE GOT THE HIGH RANK
There are no “insider secrets” or “sneaky tricks”. Sneaky tricks, of course, exist, but we don’t use them. They don’t work for long-term success. You’ll know many of these ideas. But have you implemented them yet, and are you implementing them EVERY WEEK?
For high search engine rank AND a powerful, effective website do the following.
1. ADD LOTS of relevant, thematically related content. All else being equal, a 100-page site will greatly outrank a 5-page site. One easy way to do this is to have a library of articles.
2. Don’t just present a bunch of information, craft it as an effective sales process. ARRANGE and EDIT that content to educate, inspire and ethically persuade your readers to do what you want - phone you, sign up for a workshop, whatever that is. To maximize effectiveness, divide the content into CORE and COMPLEMENTARY. For example, on our own site the Core content is just seven pages. This covers the most critical information about what we do and is the primary sales process. Then there are about 150 more pages of Complementary content.
3. Next, HIRE a specialist to optimize your site. This is important. With this Web phenomenon, there’s a prevalent myth of ease — that because the information is accessible means the work is easy. But let’s compare this to some other areas of human endeavor. On the Web, you can easily access all the tax regulations, or every yoga asana, or every mountain-climbing technique. You can have a piano and all the scores of the great composers. But you know that just having any of that information doesn’t mean you can use it at an expert level. It’s actually the same on the Web — please don’t give into that dangerous misconception that knowing a couple of small points about meta-tags will take you to the top of 100,000,000 page returns.
4. KEEP ADDING more content on a regular basis - at least each week. (Most site owners fall down badly on this.)
5. SOLICIT inbound links from thematically related sites - the bigger and more important, the better.
6. KEEP ADDING more links regularly, even if it’s just a few each month.
Fiona Raven did an excellent job of her side of the partnership. She was exceptional in that regard. I provided guidance for what she needed to do, but she did her work - sincerely and thoroughly. Her thorough application to the required work is what did the extra that pushed “very good” into “ridiculously, outrageously good”.
The combination of high ranking plus improved sales effect of the site brought her from having had no contracts for four months to a level of business success where she says, “If he can do for you half of what he did for me, you won’t be able to handle the sales”.
In summary
The “Big Three” factors in gaining search engine ranking are ongoing content addition, ongoing link addition and optimization.
Then edit your site to maximize its effectiveness to educate, inspire and ethically persuade your readers to make that phone call to you or click that “Buy” button.

Author: Michael Linehan has been using the Web since the month it became commercially available, starting with Mosaic 1.0. He combines a love of this technology with an extensive background in marketing and strategic planning to help you focus what you are doing and why, make your site an effective marketing tool and promote it to bring you prospective clients. Michael is the owner of Marketing Alchemy and is based in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Deep Links and The Power of Anchor Text!

By Jeffrey Smith in SE Positioning

Deep links are an important strategy in SEO. Ratios, such as the number of deep links to non optimized links are a fundamental mathematical equations that determine the percentage of inbound links from other sites to pages other than your homepage.

Using deep links both internally to link to relevant content from a topical page and externally by link building or controlling inbound link anchor text in the proper context is important to define or produce relevance for your website.Everything in nature leaves a trail and similarly each form and function can be reduced to its mathematical equation. But how does this apply to SEO?

Traffic is based on two things, “links from other sites and links from other sites”. Sounds pretty straight forward right? An advertisement whether it is pay per click, a press release or an image banner is a link, a search result is a link, we navigate from page to page or site to site with links, the underlying conclusion denotes that by mastering the context of frequency, consistency, structure, site architecture and the prevalence of continuity, we can send a clear signal to search engines and humans alike about the content of our pages.

One way to do this is through building multiple links to pages other than your home page (known as deep linking or deep links). Through using deep links, you are passing on vital ranking potential to the site, which eventually transcends where the link is directed and flows link weight back to the home page.

This is why it is increasingly important to only have links that are targeted to share this vital link juice from the homepage with other areas that are an oasis for pages you wish to make pivotal in your site architectures framework.

Now for the exercise, the deep link / internal link audit.

1) determine which pages have the most link weight
2) determine which of your pages are optimized (with the appropriate anchor text)
3) consolidate internal links that are congruent with page theme
4) use deep links to give them traction in search engines for a higher relevance score

Deep links send a clear message to humans and search engines, that each page of your site is important, when harnessed properly, deep links are one of the most effective off page factors aside from anchor text relevance.

So, how do you determine what Google deems as the most relevant page for your keywords in your site when building links? Not sure, just ask with a simple link command.

site:sitedomain.com keyword or key phrase (just replace the sitedomain with your own and the keywords with the keywords you want to emphasize).

The page at the top of this search result represents the most worthy page to build links to strategically to emphasize that page as a potential landing page.

To take it one step further, you could log in to your Google Webmaster Tools account, look at the internal links tab and assess the link distribution framework of your site architecture and determine if you need to salvage some pages from starvation (orphaned pages) or use your power house link magnets (the pages with massive quantities of internal links) in a more optimized and refined manner. Personally with strong internal links right under your nose, the first thing you should do is perform a link audit.

For example, if I have a sub folder or sub page that has 1000 internal links referencing it from other parts of the site and less fortunate pages only have 7 internal links (and that is a page I want to rank in search engines) then I need to map out the flow of link weight to be more conducive to accomplish this.

The other point is, with only 7 internal links linking to an internal page, it may rank for an “exact match” phrase, but only for something on the bottom of the barrel compared to any potential keyword combination enter in a boolean search query.

To rank for a competitive term or key phrase you need two things (1) strong internal links focused on quality and relevance from related pages (think Wikipedia who has an extremely high deep link ratio) and (2) enough external links (using those same keywords) from relevant sources.

Internally (to increase relevance) just find your strongest pages or determine which pages are linking to that page, by cutting and pasting the full URL in Yahoo Site Explorer for example. Select the only from this URL drop down menu and look at the pages that link to it.

After taking note, go through those pages and determine the positioning and relevance of the outbound link and determine if you are effectively employing the most appropriate anchor text (for every link on that page).

Once you edit or audit the page (by use the main root phrase of the target page as anchor text) then go through all of the pages from the list and tidy up your internal links.

Something as simple as this can increase your internal links distribution of link weight and relevance and have multiples pages making their debut in search engines to drive even more relevant traffic to your pages.

Now you can consider that stage one in honing internal link weight, but in order to “flip the switch”, you will need to do the same using external links from other pages. However that is another topic in its entirety.

On page factors are often overlooked for their ability to impact just how visible your site is or how it impacts your hang time for competitive phrases. Through leveraging deep links (both internally and externally) you elevate your content, the pages and the site to another level, which will become painfully obvious to your competition over time.

In closing, finding the appropriate deep link ratio for your pages, ensuring that the informational structure of your content has a blueprint and that you are not simply partaking in random practices that diffuse continuity are the foundation of advanced SEO.

Reducing complex algorithms to their root functions to reverse engineer relevance falls into this category, but sometimes all you need is common sense, directive and a penchant for research to shed light on why your #20 instead of #1 for a competitive phrase.

Deep links most definitely hold a key to unlocking your websites latent ranking potential and when coupled with basic LSI (latent semantic indexing) and word stemming, it is possible to optimize a site for an entire market segment, not just a few high vertical keywords.

Just remember it’s not about who has the biggest link, it is about who distributes the link juice better than the competition. It is a competitive marketplace out there, and there is a reason there are only 10 spots at the top for the creme of the crop. Optimizing ones internal link structure and mapping the appropriate balance of external link ratios is one area of search engine optimization that any website can benefit from.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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