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Think about the path that people take when they hit your site. Perhaps the visitor enters from:

Keyword Search -> Blog Post -> Another Blog Post

or

Direct Search -> Home Page -> Products Page

Regardless of the scenario, they all have one thing in common. It’s a linear relationship that ultimately leads to a dead end.

Enter the Loop Strategy

The premise of the loop strategy is that we never want to leave the visitor without telling them what the next step is. There are no dead ends because each page leads to another page.

Maybe they follow the planned path, more than likely they don’t

But the point is that we keep the visitor engaged in the site’s content until they find something that they want to buy.

In the scenario pictured above, your visitor could enter on any point. Let’s say they landed on an article that was relevant to a long tail keyword search. In a linear relationship, once they read the article, they usually leave.

In this case, the article points them to a related blog post. They read the post and decide to register for a newsletter. Upon registration they’re asked if they’d like to take a brief survey. If they do we’ll give them a white paper. In the white paper we reference (link to) other articles. And away we go.

Your traffic isn’t stupid.

They just aren’t as familiar with your site, business, or products as you are. Consider the experience of a first time visitor. They happen to find your site through a keyword search, social media, maybe even because of an off line advertisement.

The visitor may be interested in your content/product/service but they have little or no loyalty at this point.

The propensity to exit is high. I entered your site. I enjoyed your content. I’m done.

unless

you tell them where to go (not there).

How do I employ the Loop Strategy?

1) This strategy is not for every website. A content rich site is necessary to successfully employ this strategy.

• Enjoyed this post? try this one
• Like this article? look at this white paper.
  
• People who like this topic love this product/article/paper (whatever your call to action is).
  

Always tell your traffic where to go next. Keep them in a perpetual loop.

Content doesn’t have to be articles though. Let’s say you have an electronics site. So long as the site is content rich with product descriptions, testimnials etc, you can employ this strategy.

• Like this iPod? try this carrying case
• Need a carrying case? what about external speakers?
• Which external speakers are best? here’s what other consumers had to say…

2) Think about the most logical path for the consumer to take. If I enjoy this content then I’ll probably like that too.

3) Build the next step into your template. Don’t add new content without thinking about what it relates to. Link it to the next step.

Is this just usability and calls to action?

maybe

But it works.

Jennifer Osborne writer and marketer for Search Engine People.

The title tag has to be, in my humble opinion, the most important on-page factor when it comes to high rankings in the search engine results pages. Found in the head tag of a standard html page, the title is the first place that you can start placing your keywords. Surprisingly some pages don’t define this tag. Worse yet, some overlook it and omit it altogether. Here is a basic example of where the title tag fits into an average HTML page.

Web page content goes here.

Here are five points I always consider when constructing a title.

Limit the length of the title.

Google currently displays approximately 63 characters of a title. The total number of characters displayed varies from engine to engine. While it is not the end of the world to exceed this by a slight margin, (I don’t believe there are any penalties for having a long title) remember that the search engines will cut off anything that goes beyond that which they display. This would leave you with a “…” instead of a complete title.

The title tag can be useful for branding your traffic.

By adding your website or company name to the title tag you can build brand awareness and increase returning direct traffic. While many suggest doing this I would only recommend adding your company or website name to the end of your title tag. While I don’t think it makes much difference to the order, your keywords are placed in the title tag, I suggest that you ensure your keywords are towards the beginning of the tag as it reads easier. Once again don’t forget that the title tag is the first thing that is displayed from each site by the search engines.

Divide your title tag.

When branding your site, break the title tag so that it becomes obvious which is the page title and which is the site name/title. I find that by using the pipe break “|” (that’s the funny symbol above the “\” key) I am able to do this quite neatly. This is also a great way keep your titles consistent. For example:

Instead of:

As you can see it makes it a lot clearer when considering which part of the title labels the page and which part labels the website.

NEVER, I repeat never, repeat your title.

Each page should have a unique title. By giving each page a unique title you are telling the search engines that each page is indeed unique. For exactly the same reason that you don’t name every file the same, (Well, apart from the most obvious reason which is that you just can’t!) as it is easy to distinguish the contents of a file by simply scanning the title. The same principal applies to web pages. This also goes a long way to indexing the priority of each page. If every page had the same title, which page would be ranked more relevant than the next?

Keywords in the title.

I have spent a lot of time optimising websites for real estate agents. While their stock standard pages have targeted keywords in the title, headings and content, it becomes a little more challenging to do the same for each listing. This is usually where the developers come into play. With a little effort the Title can be dynamically created. In my case, it drastically changed the titles I could offer from something such as:

To a far more specific title that really does describe the listing perfectly:

Okay, so I usually go a little further than that, but as you can see the title not only makes perfect sense and describes the page but also is keyword rich for the search phrase “house for sale in suburb” or even area in this case. While this works well for this kind of website, the principles can be applied to any other dynamically created web page.

I have noticed that time and time again the search engines return results with the search phrase in the title. I think we can all agree that if a web page has been titled correctly then the page will be accurately described. However search engines will discount a title that is no more than a list of spammed keywords. I think we’ve all heard the mantra, “create pages for real people not robots,” too many times. I would prefer to change that statement:

“Make well structured, informative web pages that are relevant to what you are doing.”

When you apply the above, search engines have little option but to regard each page highly and rank it accordingly. While there are so many other factors to consider when optimising a page I believe the title to be a crucial element.

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

Tags: title tags, Website Traffic

A few months ago I wrote a post comparing various online press release services. While nobody disputed their effectiveness at building links, there were questions as to how to measure the full value of Online PR.

For fun, I’m going to take a real release that we recently did and answer each of the questions that was raised.

(Full disclosure, this is a client of ours and he agreed to share these numbers)

Here’s what we did

We had recently launched a Blog for a client and decided to give it a little boost by sending out a press release. The product is very environmentally friendly so we wanted to make sure that we got additional coverage in the client’s own state plus those states that are pro environment (like California).

Of course, we followed the basic PR Optimization best practices like making sure that the title was catchy (but contained a keyword) and that the piece included a link back to the client. We used PRWeb for our distribution (we really like the $200 option).

What to Measure?

1) In the original post I used Headline Impressions as the main comparison metric.

In this example the release generated 61,468 headline impressions. Given that the release was focused across a few states, I would consider this number to be pretty good.

2) Links Built is the most obvious metric from an SEO perspective. Our press release generated 173 links.

But of course quality is more important than quantity. Many of the links generated from online press releases are of little to no value. They were from off topic, spammy scrapper sites.

But some of these links were fantastic!

The piece made it to both Google News, Yahoo News and Business.com which provided the client with tremendous additional exposure. Plus it got picked up by local news sites, environmental news sites, and industry specific sites.

So far we’re off to a good start. But as PRWeb commented (in my previous post), the metrics that are most meaningful are those from your own operations.

3) Increases in site traffic Site traffic was up 87% over the previous month. Most of this was the result of a big spike in referral traffic. This referral traffic was coming from sites that picked up the press release.

Of particular interest, this referral traffic was quality traffic. They spent an average of 4 minutes on the site, had 4.34 pages per visit and a low bounce rate.

4) Increases in Off line inquiries from both media and prospects. It’s not unusual for media releases to lead to other media opportunities.

We got in through the back door. Traditional PR companies go through the front door and “pitch” ideas to the media. With online PR you happen to be at the right place at the right time when reporters are researching a story.

This particular press release lead to an inquiry from the Governor’s office and a nomination for an Environmental Award!

5) Increase in conversions (e.g. sales). There was one sale that definitely came as a result of the press release (the visitor came from one of the referral sites that picked the release up).

Due to other marketing initiatives (both online and off line) it’s not possible to definitively measure whether the press release drove a marked increased sales. But empirical evidence (customers saying that they had seen the release on local news sites) suggests yes.

6) Increased ranking for the strategic keywords used in the release.

The release is currently showing on spots 6, 8 an 14 (through powerful sites that picked up the release) and the client’s site itself is in spot 18.

It’s been a few weeks since the release and we are searching for their keyword phrase not a branded term.

These results can be attributed entirely to the release itself

To make this a true test we picked a release that was targeting a new product. We have not otherwise targeted this keyword before with any link building or on-page optimization efforts - all of the above metrics can be entirely attributed to the release itself.

So was there any value to the online press release beyond traditional link building? The client sure thinks so!!!!

What do I think? Like anything else, it’s all about the content. Online PR created for link building purposes only will probably only build you links. Online PR that is quality content will lead to quality metrics.

Author:  Jennifer Osborne writer and marketer for Search Engine People.

On the Internet, by the end of the day, it’s all about traffic, and more so, it’s all about relevant traffic. Relevant traffic is the lifeline of your online presence and you need to make a continuous effort to keep getting good traffic to your website. Now, you can get targeted traffic from:

• The search engines: The search engines are the primary source of your relevant traffic, in most of the cases. It doesn’t cost you tons of money to get traffic from the search engines. Millions of users conduct billions of searches every month.
• Pay-per-click programs: They are not as hot as the search engines but they are your way to instant targeted traffic. Sign up for a pay-per-click program like AdWords and you’ll be getting traffic within fifteen minutes. Pay-per-click advertising options are present on independent content publishing websites too.
• Inbound links from other websites: If you publish compelling content then many website owners put your link on their websites to add value to their existing content. Such links can be put their voluntarily, or through link exchange. Link exchange is discouraged these days, so the best way of making others link to you is to produce high-class, linkable content, on a regular basis. You can even interact on various online forums to increase your link visibility.
• Emails: Up till a few years ago email marketing was considered the most effective advertising tool the world had ever witnessed. Spam killed its charm but in some quarters it still performs well, especially the opt-in email newsletters. Email advertising campaigns, provided they are done properly, are still the best way of getting highly targeted traffic.
• Blogs and RSS Feeds: Only the most ignorant can discount blogs and RSS feeds as highly productive tools in terms of generating targeted traffic. Blogs are a constant source of quality information and hence they get instant traffic from other websites and the search engines. RSS feeds, without being intrusive like emails, instantly notify people whenever you publish something new on your blog or website.
• Social media and bookmarking websites: Some of such websites are: Digg, Netscape, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.
• Offline sources: If you prominently display your URL on your visiting cards, letter heads, brochures and other stationery you can get some good traffic from there too. I have seen people printing their URLs even on their T-shirts and vehicles.

In order to get traffic from all these sources, you have to take care how you create your website and how you organize your content. Given below are a few things you should constantly keep in mind while creating and maintaining your website, and while writing content for your website.

Stick to your central theme as much as possible; The more you stick to your central theme, the more expert content you’ll have. Don’t try to create content for every interest under the sun (or the moon, or the stars). Think vertical if you want to get high-value traffic. Cover all the topics that belong to your central theme. It acts like fodder to the search engines. The search engines love specialized content; give it to them and they’ll give you loads of traffic in exchange.

Sticking to your central theme also earns you great respect and loyalty, and also hundreds of inbound links. When you keep generating content on your subject, people take you as an expert and linking to you becomes a prestige factor. It also increases your keyword-density across your domain.

Provide information that helps your visitors; This is what keeps them coming back to your website. You cannot always be selling this thing or that thing. More than that, develop a bond with your visitors. Show them their happiness matters to you. Make your website a resource of useful information. Publish content that adds value. This is a sure-shot way of increasing traffic as well as loyalty. Information that provides help, for instance, how-to articles, get linked to a lot by other web masters and blog publishers, and this leads to higher rankings on various search engines.

Conduct a thorough keyword research before generating content; Most SEO campaigns fail to zero-in on the right keywords. You’ll be surprised to know what all keywords and key expressions people use to find businesses such as yours. Target a few wrong keywords and you can bid good bye to an effort of six months of SEO. It’s not always necessary to use keywords that your competitors are using. First of all, they might themselves be optimizing for the wrong keywords, and second, there might be a slew of keywords that are being used by the users but are being ignored by your competitors. Use your keyword research to find out such keywords and optimize your web pages for them. This will increase your traffic manifolds.

Create a simple, accessible but elegant design; When you create fast-loading, elegant and accessible web design you accommodate the entire Diaspora of your prospective market — you don’t exclude particular sections of the society. Even search engines prefer accessible websites because almost all accessible websites conform to the W3C web designing standards. Good design also means using the right colors (that cause no eye-strain) and right contrasts to assist seamless browsing. The navigation bar should be designed in such a manner that all your important pages should be reachable within 2-3 clicks. A well-defines sitemap of all your pages help your human visitors as well the search engine crawlers.

Do well-organised onsite optimisation; Onsite optimization means using your keywords at all the right places like within the header tags (

), as anchor text (, and especially in the navigation) and with the bulleted lists ( and ). Also, try to highlight the occurrence of the keywords here and there, but don’t overdo it. Although this is not necessary, use the keyword at least once in every paragraph.

Create a title (the text that comes between ) that not only carries your keywords, but also represents the true highlight of your page content. Never try to deceive your visitors with a title that does not completely represent the content of your page. Your title shows up on the search engine results pages when your link appears on them. A compelling title makes people click it, and having those keywords in your title that people are looking for increases their probability of being clicked.

Regularly create new, relevant content; People come to your website again and again if they are expecting something new there. Similarly, the search engines index and re-index your pages with greater frequency if you update your website regularly. Having many pages increases your chance of at least few of them getting ranked higher by the search engines.

Remain active on the Internet; Known people get more traffic on the Internet. Keep the buzz alive by maintaining an active blog, participating in the comments sections of other blogs and various subject-specific online forums. Blogs are a great way of getting high-quality traffic both from the search engines and from other blogs and websites. If you continuously generate quality posts and encourage productive conversations on your blog more and more people gradually start coming to your blog and some of that traffic gets spilled over to your actual business website. Another benefit of maintaining a popular blog is that if you put your business website link their it gets extra point when the search engines rank your website.

Link to others; Link to them and they’ll link to you. Linking on the Internet is a two-way activity especially if you are not a celebrity (if you are a celebrity people link to you anyway). If you select the outgoing links with caution it also tells the search engines that you link to quality information sources. People who are looking for such links will visit your website repeatedly knowing that you constantly add new links.

More often than not people to whom you link, link back to you.

Well, I could have written a 101 Ways of Increasing Traffic To Your Website but my main purpose was to give you exactly the pointers you can use to increase traffic. Follow the steps mentioned above and you’ll definitely notice a surge in your online traffic.

Author:  Gary Mattoc is the CEO of Peterborough Web Design Company Doublespark and also the Chief Editor of SEO Blog.

SEO is nice for popularity, but conversion is even better. So, before you go out and start snatching up more keywords than you can shake a stick at, make sure your offer is up to the challenge of enlivening customer attention and viewer retention or your marketing efforts will be nothing more than an exercise in futility.

Are you playing it safe with keyword blinders?, or have you diversified your Search Terms?

It’s better to be safe than sorry as a result of “having blinders on” when it comes to search engine optimization and selecting the best keywords for your offer. Instead of thinking in terms of “the money phrase”, or, as soon as I hit the top 10 for “my ultimate competitive keyword”, that floodgates of website traffic will open, sales will inundate our sales team and we will have to hire 20 people to scale our sales department to keep up with the surge of orders and traffic. This is not to say that things like this do not happen, they do, but rarely as a result of one keyword alone.

Don’t believe keyword hype

The misconception typically originates as a result of assumption, or misinformation gleaned from data mining tools / keyword research tools (it says this phrase gets 20,000 hits per month, so it must), which is understandable. I can assure you, we have dominated multiple rankings in top 10 competitive keywords with double organic listings, only to be disappointed by the lack of traffic that resulted. Yet, on the other hand, been completely surprised when you write or optimize something (supposedly less competitive) and experience surges of traffic for weeks from one keyword you may or may not have expected.

It is important to be clear what search engine optimization is not, in order to know what it truly is. SEO is not the answer to conversion, it is just a tool to rouse the masses to investigate your offer, but ultimately the responsibility lies within the realm of the individual or individuals structuring the offer, to determine just what the anticipated end result will be.

Are your Pages Eye Candy? or do they Own a Focus

The internet is full of hungry eyes with agile minds attached, so many in fact, that your pages may just be another snack along the way. In order to change the menu and make your site the main course, nine times out of ten, some changes need to occur to make the transition from pages with an idle online existence to a page that for lack of better terms, offers you a deal you can’t refuse.

What Can You Learn (and apply to your own site) from a Squeeze Page

First, the headline - Conversion Starts Here. When you look at a typical squeeze page, once you get there, there is no question what the page is about, in fact they make it hard to see anything other than what the topical relevance is when you first set eyes on the page, but why? Because the headline takes up 25% of the screen, is usually in a ridiculously loud color, with quotes and highlighted in yellow. Anyone who fails at that point to surmise what the contextual relevance is for being there, should have their internet license suspended for surfing blind without emotional attachment.

In any case, the point being, the pages, despite how obnoxious they are serve a very fundamental purpose, which is to set the tone and funnel the reader’s attention to the meat and potatoes of the document (typically found at the very bottom alongside a pay pal purchase button). This is were the old adage of (A.I.D.E) attention, interest, desire, execution comes into play in it’s sublime simplicity.

Next, the testimonial, but why? Because they know you are skeptical and they know they need to subvert your defenses in order to engage the rational mind behind the emotional response when you shop (do I need this or do I want this, can I ignore or suppress the urge to purchase, or am I genuinely interested) all the while thousands of queries such as this race through the subconscious and either lead your to (a) move along (b) read further, since your there or (c) take the plunge and purchase, because, what the hay, it’s only money right.

Next, the problem / solution, which is usually built on the premise of using questions to preface it’s significance. Are you tired of? “the problem” Do you get frustrated when? Now you can be free of, by using our super duper X,Y,Z solution for mere chump change (only $39.95) for the ultimate answer to your prayers.

O.k, so I was a bit over the top, but I’m sure it’s not the first time you have seen this pitch, purchased or nearly purchased something as a result of it. Most of us are conditioned not to respond to such an overtly obvious pitch, however, I must admit, I am an impulse shopper and randomly purchase e-books in this fashion and never get around to reading them (the ideal customer for squeeze pages).

Then, the close, here is where they hit you with information about the product or service with the focus is on the “how you can benefit” mentality and inevitably the call to action, ORDER NOW!, ORDER TODAY, ORDER IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES AND RECEIVE A FREE “rubber ducky, widget,etc.”, once again, it’s all about conversion.

Sure that page may get 1000 visitors that day, and from that 1000 visitors 100 order, that is more than enough to offset the other 900 that did not, so you can see the beauty in their plan. Pages like this could teach a great deal to businesses seeking conversion for their efforts instead of just visitors window shopping and burning up bandwidth, and I must admit even our pages in the main site need to take the positive benefits from such a blatant business model. The squeeze page is just that, a page that funnels their attention to a conclusion and then compels them to take action.

Have you heard of Funneling Attention for Higher Conversions?

Business models that make money are using the funneling tactic to amass massive amounts of income, using a tried and true / simplistic theme. Even though is mainly has it’s place in direct sales, affiliate programs, sales for e-books or inexpensive items. I have seen this tactic used for offers in the thousands and still convert readers (it just took more filler in the middle to build the argument and present the solution). Getting back to the basis of this article, the conclusion is SEO does not ensure conversion, it merely sets the stage.

Branding is one thing, but how many people are online just for the sake of saying ” I am the number one brand for industry X”, perhaps this is important for corporate America, sure, but,for the rest of us out here trying to make ends meet, we need conversion in some way shape or form.

Knowing this, instead of thinking narrow when it comes to using SEO, one could opt for a more holistic approach whereby they identify the behavior of the types of clients they would like to attract, thinking of individuals as opposed to demographics from a one dimensional prospective. If you think holistically, you can cover your bases and optimize entire segments of the niche as well as use multiple tactics and search engines to draw traffic from a variety of queries and implement “attention and retention insurance” for all of your respective offers.

For example, instead of one or two phrases, why not have twenty instead, it essentially takes about the same amount of effort and can be accomplished through modifying slight variations of content and how your build links.

Just having a top 10 ranking does not ensure traffic, simply because, not all keywords convert! It truly is sad to see so many people just scratching the surface for topical relevance, when in reality mosts sites are capable of acquiring heightened depth (for readership) and conversion and could achieve 400% more times the amount of traffic from just applying rudimentary steps to lead people through the “expected action for that page”. But, they have to get there first, so my suggestion in a nutshell is, to optimize root phrases with pertinent keywords instead of simple “exact match key phrases”, use strong internal links to get viewers deeper into the site and use graphics or video’s to cut the bounce rates in half.

We will continue along these lines for the next few days and covering topics related to SEO, conversion, structuring your offer and how the way you craft your content, ultimately impacts the bottom line. Stay tuned for the next post…

Author:  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.

If you have a website and you are currently selling a product on the Internet, you need to know that rss can increase traffic to your website dramatically.

Since there are million of websites on the Internet today, and you have a lot of competitors, you need to use every technology available to get higher search engine rankings.

Surfers behavior has evolved other the years, and today, email marketing is not the sole holy gray of your Internet business.

He has no fear of being subject to spam, and therefore, the visitor is happy to add your site to his reader. He thinks that he is in control and he can choose to click and visit your website when he wants.

People are usually in hurry and don’t want to waste their time, and prefer scanning instead of reading.

Furthermore, surfers want up to date information, and with the thousands of websites in any given subject, it is really hard for a busy man (or women) to find what he is searching for.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary). RSS will help you to increase traffic to your website because…

You will get better search engine position.

I use an blog with RSS feed enabled to get my sites in the top ten rankings in Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Tip: use wordpress for even better rankings (specially in Google). I don’t really know why, but Google love wordpress more than other blogging platforms like type pad and bloggers itself!

You need to use a blog for this technique to be even more effective. It is common to get first position in the search engines for low competition keywords just because you switched to a blog, or you added RSS to your website.

Another reason to use RSS to increase website traffic is that surfers are fed up with “useless” e-zines.

Today, every person who spend more than one year surfing the Internet knows that most of the email newsletters are in fact… a big sales pitch.

For this reason, they don’t give you their email easily.

Seth Godin said it best: now it’s the area of “permission marketing”, you need to gain the respect and admiration of your visitor.

When he appreciates your work, and sees that you are a real expert on the subject, he will be the first in line to buy your products or affiliate product recommendation.

When you are involved in any online business, your content becomes really important. I’m sure you already heard the famous “content is king”.

Without good content (and good products), you readers will only be one time readers, and it is the exact opposite as what you want for the success of your online business.

Now, it’s up to you to add wonderful content, and choose great headlines that will appeal to your niche market.

RSS is a technology that you need to add to your arsenal. Whether you add RSS to your site, or you decide to blog, you will increase your traffic almost overnight.

Author:  Franck Silvestre is an affiliate marketing expert and search engine optimization guide. His methods have increased traffic to his site by more than 467%%! Visit http://www.SeoseductionSecrets.com

I’ve heard it said, and even seen it written, that blogging is better than SEO for getting traffic. Are blogging traffic or SEO traffic generation techniques better for you, or does it not really matter?

Actually, a lot depends on you and which you like best: blogs or traditional websites, and also what you want the traffic for. I also wonder why the distinction is being made, since anybody serious about internet marketing and getting plenty of traffic, will use both. There is really no need to choose one or the other. However, when I hear such arguments I get the feeling that it is more academic than which provides the more traffic. Feelings, however can be wrong, so it is worth discussion.

When you think about it, the type of traffic you get from a blog could very well have different needs and interests to those that reached your site after carrying a search on Google or Yahoo using specific keywords. OK, you can get to blogs from search engines also, and through the use of keywords, but if you are looking to buy something you wouldn’t normally log onto a blog, would you?

Let’s say you wanted the best price for a gross of Titleist golf balls, you wouldn’t visit a blog site. Similarly if wanted to discuss their benefits, you would go to a blog or a forum. Sometimes it gets difficult to tell the difference these days, since blogs are becoming increasingly more interactive, but you get my general drift. I hope!

With a blog you can advertise whatever you want to, and the same is true of a website. However, you are more likely to make a direct purchase from a website, and to seek information from a blog. Hence, the traffic you get on a blog are information seekers and those on your website may also be looking for info, but might also be wanting to make a purchase. So right away we can kind of separate blog readers from website visitors.

It’s not a well defined separation, but bloggers tend not to be looking for something different to what a search engine user is looking for. If you have a blog on your website, your blog page will be likely to attract prospects that will tend to be more regular visitors than those that are checking out your website. If the latter don’t respond to your opt-in form, you will be unlikely to see them again, but a visitor to your blog page might return frequently.

However, to return to the question: what is better, blog traffic or SEO traffic, as long as each is free it doesn’t really matter I would have thought. I suppose that it could be argued that the SEO traffic is more focussed because they have used your specific keywords to get to the page they landed on ,and blog traffic could come from ezines and other sources that are perhaps not specific to any product you are selling. Me, I would accept any traffic no matter where it came from, and quite frankly once the traffic gets to your webpage it is up to you to convert it to sales.

The difference between the two is that if you don’t make an immediate impact with the SEO visitors, you could be struggling to keep them returning to your website, but you are likely to have more time with the bloggers, since they tend to keep coming back to the blog. The SEO visitors might register with your opt-in page, but that only allows you to keep in contact with them, and you still have to try to induce them to return to your website.

On the other hand, the blog readers need no such inducement, since they visit your site each time you publish a new posting. That is assuming that your blog is on your own website, and not on the blog server as many (perhaps most) are.

Perhaps I am completely on the wrong track, but I will keep tabs on it and report on my website what my findings are regarding blog traffic and SEO traffic, and whether or not one tends to buy more that the other. It is useful to know, since for a website that is designed to sell products it can determine whether or not it is worth having a blog on your site or keep trying to improve your SEO.

That is a big decision to make, and if it could make the difference between success and failure then it should be determines mathematically and scientifically rather than by conjecture and opinion. It is scientific testing that frequently makes the difference between those that are successful in internet marketing and those that fail.

So, is blogging traffic or SEO traffic generation the best? Who knows? I hope to know shortly though, and I will share it with you on my site when I finish my testing.

Author:  If you want to find out more about traffic generation, or even the result of Pete’s testing, then visit Improved Search Engine Rank where you will discover a way to generate free traffic using SEO that even blogs cannot compete with, but Blog Profits shows you how to use blogs properly.

This area of Texas seems to be inundated by various phone directories. At last count, I think we had 3 directories in addition to the one published by our local phone provider. I decided that I was tired of them taking up valuable shelf space, so I threw out all but one. Why? Because when I need a local product or service, I’m more inclined to find the local business online rather than referring to the local telephone directory.

Apparently I’m not alone. In fact, an August 2006 Nielsen//NetRatings/WebVisible survey reported that 70% of a group of Internet searchers used the Internet to search for local businesses; 46% of them searched for local businesses in the last 90 days.

So, what is local search, anyway? Local search refers to using geographic location terms to find a local business online, i.e. using Google and searching for “dog groomer” + “Houston.” If you’re not yet taking advantage of local search options to help you get local traffic to your website, you are missing out on a substantial amount of business.

Here are some ways you can drive local traffic to your website:

1. Local search engines. Most of the major search engines permit you to list your website and attach it to a specific geographic area. These locally-focused websites include: Google Local, Yahoo Local, MSN Local, InfoUSA, Merchant Circle, TrueLocal.com, Local.com, and CraigsList.com.

2. Other local directories. Many times local media, organizations, or businesses offer locally-based directories where you can list your business for free or for a fee. Places you might check in your local area include regional or local newspapers, televisions stations, regional or city magazines, independently owned local directories, city guides of major search engines (like Yahoo City Guide), profession or industry directory, regional/state sites, and chamber of commerce or visitor bureau sites. Ask your local clients where they look online for local goods and services to give you an idea of the sites your target market actually uses.

3. Recommendation/review sites. Many of the locally focused websites noted above offer visitors the opportunity to post testimonials or reviews about the products or services of a business. Take a few minutes to ask your local customers to go in and review your business. These recommendation sites include: AOL City Guide, JudysBook.com, InsiderPages.com, AngiesList.com, and Yelp.com.

4. Optimize your website for local search. There are a number of tweaks you can add to your website to optimize it for local searches. These include:

• Local terms in your page titles (i.e. don’t use home page as your home page title but Seattle Professional Organizer as the title of your home page).
• Local terms in your anchor text, which is the visible, hyperlinked text on a web page that’s often underlined and/or a different color than the rest of the copy (i.e. don’t use your business name, Aamco Financial Services, but use New York City Financial Planning Services instead).
• Local terms in your H1 and H2 tags (headlines) (i.e. those headlines that are flanked by H1 and H2 header code in the HTML code of your page)
• Local terms in the body of your pages (i.e. mention “Houston professional dog groomer” rather than simply dog groomer or your business name in the content of your pages).

5. Location map on your site. Make it easy for locals to find you. Google Maps makes it very easy to embed a map of your location on a page of your website.

6. Physical address. Including your physical address on all pages of your site gives the search engines yet another reason to index you to be found locally.

7. Inbound Links. Request inbound links to your website from other local businesses. Search engines especially favor one-way inbound links from highly trafficked sites, so if you don’t have to list a reciprocal link back to the linking site on your site, the linking strategy becomes even stronger. Instead of using your business name as the anchor text, use a geographic description of your business as described in strategy #4 above.

If you have business with local clientele, it’s not too late to make sure that your business can be found through local search. After all, you don’t want to send your target market to the competition, do you?

Author:  Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

Search Engine Optimization service encompasses everything from consultation, keyword research, copy writing, redeveloping the Website, creating incoming links, submitting to search engines and finally, reporting on its results.

You can’t just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites. The following are 25 online safest techniques, suggestions and tips to avoid losing potential visitors:

1. Set a goal. Figure out how fast you can do it, then create a plan to increase and improve your Page Ranking. Start your own Marketing Linking Campaign;
2. Update the pages on your website frequently. Use your time collecting valuable information on your site, and then tell everyone you can! Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites’ readers can’t live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource! You can even put a date counter on the page to show when it was last updated
3. Think carefully about key terms that your users will search on, and use those terms to construct your page.
4. Offer additional value on your website. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and products and ask them to do the same for you. You can also advertise their books or videos, if these products relate to your industry and are not in competition with your own product.
5. Write relevant articles and publish them for free. Make sure to include a Bio Box that includes a link to your site. Stipulate that the article may be reprinted for free as long as the Bio Box is included. This will instantaneously provide extra links to your page when people reprint your work.
6. Choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to websites that contain related information that readers will enjoy.
7. Email other webmasters and simply ask for a link and provide a pre-coded HTML link for them to cut and paste to their page.
8. Place a link on your site to invite customers to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons. Use a “description” meta-tag and write your description carefully.
9. Add a link to your primary page with a script ‘Book Mark or Add this site to your Favorites’.
10. Add a link ‘Recommend this site to a Friend’ so that the visitor can email your website link
11. Use a distinct list of keywords for each page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords on every page.
12. Keep relevant text and links in HTML. Placing them in graphics or image maps means search engines can’t search for the text and the crawler can’t follow links to your site’s other pages. An HTML site map, with a link from your welcome page, can help make sure all your pages are crawled.
13. Avoid stuffing pages with irrelevant words and content. Also don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with significantly duplicate content.
14. Use ALT text for graphics.
15. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with hardly any original content.
16. The robots.txt file on your web server should be current and should not block the Googlebot crawler. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled.
17. If you want to improve your Page Ranking try to do not link to sites that are irrelevant to yours and avoid sites that have a “Links Page” that is hard to find.
18. Building links is another way to improve how high you rank on a search engine index. Links consist of your hyperlink of your web site that is posted onto another web site. The more links of your web site that can be found throughout the internet on other sites, usually the higher you will rank in the search engines.
19. Use consistent colors, logos and slogans and always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on each page.
20. Create a FAQ page which addresses most of the doubts and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.
21. Create a ‘Our Policies’ page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site.
22. Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate titles and keywords Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites’ readers can’t live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource!
23. Try to please dissatisfied customers as much as possible.
24. Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails.
25. A site map is required to help the users go around your site and in case the site map has more than 100 links, then it is advisable to break it into several pages to avoid clutter

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. The fastest and most powerful way to make your website known is to submit it to as many relevant web directories as you can. Directory submission is the BEST way to gain targeted traffic to your site. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines.

Concentrate of giving the search engines what they really want - great content, well-organized, well-published and linked to other relevant material. Concentrate on that and you will be rewarded.

Author:  Anne-Marie RONSEN is the author of many wealth and self development books for women. Download FREE e-books and software from http://www.e-bestsellers.com , http://www.PLRbestsellers.com or http://www.UniversalPublishingltd.com… You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth. You’ll also discover how you can get a top position that will mean loads of traffic, recognition and sales

With increasing competition in online visibility it is imperative that you employ the right methods to list your site on the top ranks of search engines. An authority site status will give you a definite edge over others in your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.

Following are the five important tips as how to get the best traffic for the authority sites.

Traffic Tactic #1. Article Syndication

With article syndication the authority sites can easily increase their traffic. Always keep in mind that the article syndication most often attracts the visitors and generates brand consciousness.

Most of the time, visitors examine the articles on the websites and then click on the link to the authority sites in order to find further related information on that very topic. Once they enter into the authority site, the quality of the content of the articles should be fit their demand fervor.

Brand consciousness is another important expression for the authority sites and article syndication can no doubt boost that up. Don’t forget that once the impending customers take notice of your site on various websites, your profile will be elevated and gradually your site will be regarded as an authority on that very subject matter. You can also add point scores along with the search engines. This will further improve your site rank. These points will help raise more links in your site along with the increased number of visitors.

Traffic Tactic #2. Press Releases

Press releases are excellent methods of advertising for an authority sites. You can keep a news section in your site beginning with the press release of the initiation of your site. This can be regularly updated whenever you add certain new features to your authority site. These releases can be easily submitted to various news sites like the PRWeb which will act as organic feeds to advertise your site.

Traffic Tactic #3. Viral Marketing

Link building, which is very important to the ranking of the authority sites, now gets easier with viral marketing. The links are normally found in the content of the relevant articles, stories or even in the blog posts. Link building market has now been taken over by the optimizing viral marketing. These links are of soaring quality as these can not be spammed. The more links made, the more traffic you get in your authority sites.

Traffic Tactic #4. RSS Syndication

RSS syndication is an expertise that dispenses the content throughout the web, where the same very thing gets repeatedly published by the third party web sites. With RSS Syndication you can posit your site’s content in all corners of the web. This will result in thousands of links from applicable sites to your content and shall raise the traffic of your site. When RSS syndication is made on a site, other sites are then entitled to organize the contents and the visitors can also subscribe to the site. This subscription is no doubt a positive vote for your content.

Traffic Tactic #5. SEO and Page rank

Most of the chief search engines use links to verify the importance of the website. Whereas Google uses the links to establish the Page Rank. The more the number of related links to your site and vice versa, the better are your chances of getting slotted in the top rankings of Google. The basic aim of all search engines is to get the appropriate results to a search request. A good page rank will increase your chances of being the top contender immensely.

Of course, you also need to make sure that your links with these other sites are with similar authority sites so that there is no devaluation in the quality and content of your site by association.

Author:  Cory Threlfall is an Internet Marketer and website developer. He publishes a blog called Strategic Online Business and Marketing Tactics on a weekly basis at - http://www.corythrelfall.com . If your looking for a service that builds Authority Sites go to - http://www.corythrelfall.com/recommends/ASC.html