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By Nick Stamoulis in Featured

spn_exclusiveMany site owners get discouraged with their SEO campaigns very quickly. Either they are expecting miraculous results inside of three months or they seem to focus on what their site isn’t doing as opposed to how it is improving. These attitudes are the quickest way to kill your SEO campaign and hurt your online presence in 2012.

Here are four things to keep in mind as you outline your 2012 SEO campaign:

Everyone Knows “Just Enough” SEO to be Competitive

For small businesses looking to optimize their own websites, there is a veritable treasure trove of free tips, tricks, guidelines, opinions, etc. available at the click of a mouse. Mid-sized companies (with the budget) can cherry pick from hundreds of SEO consultants/experts/gurus to come in and train their marketing staff, or just outsource their SEO campaigns entirely. Building an SEO campaign isn’t like advertising in the Super Bowl, something that only the biggest brands can afford to do – everyone has access to all the information they need to create a successful SEO campaign, which means that everyone knows just enough to make it that much harder for your website to stand out.

There are billions of websites, with more being created every day. We share billions upon billions of pieces of content each day, which means there is a lot of noise for your site to contend with. The search algorithm isn’t perfect (even though the search engines are constantly seeking to improve it) and there is no “magic formula” sites can follow to guarantee their success. A little SEO goes a long way, which is why it’s important that you always try to keep your SEO campaign going strong.

Strive to be Better, Not Just a Copy

If it always seems like you are two steps behind the competition, take a good look at your campaign and be honest with yourself. Did you create this campaign based on your unique needs, wants and goals as a company? Are you leveraging your online assets to their fullest? Are you determined to find new link opportunities and opportunities for online growth? It’s very tempting to look at a successful competitor and assume that if you just do what they are doing, soon you’ll be as successful as they are. Well, you know what they say about assuming… If you want to topple your top competitors, how are you going to do that if you just focus your SEO on repeating what they have done? Following in their footsteps pretty much guarantees you’ll always be two steps behind.

Also, just because certain SEO tactics are producing good results for your competition, that doesn’t automatically mean it will do the same for you. You might inadvertently hurt your SEO and online brand by copying the competition.

You Can’t Win the SEO Race if You Don’t Try

It’s easy to get discouraged and feel like your SEO campaign isn’t taking your brand anywhere, but that doesn’t mean progress isn’t happening! Depending on the industry you operate in (such as travel, auto or legal), the competition might be extra fierce. Your SEO might be at the tipping point of producing really great results, so don’t stop now! You can never know for sure exactly what the competition is doing, so don’t assume you’re miles behind. You might be gaining on them faster than you think and pulling the plug now will just unravel all your hard work done in 2011.

Don’t Focus Too Much on the Competition

If your top competitors are engaged in implementing and executing a strong, focused, white hat link building campaign then they have earned their success! But that doesn’t mean that you can’t carve out a competitive niche for your own brand and develop your own successful SEO campaign. Constantly comparing your online success to that of your competition can be very disheartening after a while, and it makes it that much easier to set your campaign up for failure. Think of it this way -let’s say you just started running and are working your way down from a 10 minute mile to a 7 minute mile. If you measure your progress against your neighbor who runs marathons for fun, you are only going to see yourself as a failure. The same concept holds true for SEO. Don’t create benchmarks based on what the
competition is doing (They get 10,000 visitors a month, so we need to get 10,000 too!), base them on what your own site is doing and how it is improving (growing from 1,500 visitors to 1,750 this month).

With 2012 just around the corner, now is the perfect time to outline your SEO strategy for the coming year. Just remember these four things and you’ll have a much more pleasant SEO experience.

Nick Stamoulis is a Boston SEO consultant and President of Brick Marketing a full service SEO and social media marketing company. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers. Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com

By Paul M Ventura in Featured

SEO2One of the most basic things which a webmaster should understand is how to do on page SEO and the on page SEO factors to consider when both creating a new website or when adding new content and pages to an existing website.

On page SEO predominantly pertains to tweaking your site’s code, choosing the right keywords, and optimizing your content overall to make it more attractive and identifiable to Google and other search engines’ web crawling bots so that they will in turn rank your site higher in the SERPs.

Here I’ve expanded on the major techniques which you should implement on your site if you want to rank and rank well at that.

Keep in mind that the weight which search engines place on these techniques is subjective as no one knows for sure the algorithms behind Google’s and other engine’s ranking practices. No one factor is ever been unanimously considered to be more paramount than all others, so don’t overlook any of these techniques. Most of them are quick and simple to implement, so there’s really no reason not to, either.

Editor’s Note: For additional information on the techniques noted below, and in some cases an alternate viewpoint, read Jill Whalen’s article “16 SEO Tactics That Will NOT Bring Targeted Google Visitors”.

By Joseph Baker in Featured

spn_exclusiveMany businesses have a strong focus on their advertising campaigns, integrating pay-per-click ads, targeted email marketing, social media, and traditional advertising to broadcast their products and services to potential customers. One critical area that many businesses fail in, though, is SEO.

On-page SEO in particular tends to fall by the wayside or is tacked on almost as an afterthought. This would be fine if the majority of users went directly to the website, but most find a website through use of a search engine, even if they already know the URL of the site they’re visiting. The rules for on-page SEO can seem daunting, but in reality the basic on-page rules are fairly simple. Producing quality content that people will want to see should be one of the main concerns, and providing a friendly, functional user interface will improve not only the experience of those using the site, but also the website’s ranking in Google.

Content

Google’s Panda updates have added a new dimension to Google’s algorithm, allowing it to judge content similarly to a human. This is consistent with Google’s attempts to refine its algorithm to the point where every searcher will find the exact result they want as the first result on their first search. Because humans desire content, not filler or ads, the Panda update emphasizes that. Sites that want to rank well on Google must make sure that all of their pages have deep, well-written content.

Before Panda, some sites attempted to fool search engines by posting a well-written paragraph followed by several paragraphs of keyword-stuffed unintelligible text. Now, though, Google can see through that. Content must also be unique, because every time it is reused Google values it less, lowering the rank for the page. Including relevant keywords throughout the text will make the context of the page and site easier to determine, resulting in a higher rank. Going too far, though, will hurt rankings, so keywords should only be used in situations where they might naturally occur. By updating the website’s content–not the overall design–frequently, businesses show search engines that their site has new, up-to-date content that will provide something fresh for users, resulting in higher search rankings.

Site Architecture

Making the website easy to navigate for users will also increase its chances of ranking well on search results. Every page should navigate back to the home page and to the most popular pages or categories, while the least popular pages should be accessible through a standard menu. Page titles should be unique, short and readable. Some businesses include the full business name on every page, but that is an unnecessary and unwise policy. As with the content of the site, search engines favor unique titles and descriptions. Reusing titles and descriptions for unique pages is a red flag for search engine crawlers and will likely result in a lower rank. Links within the site, whether in the menu or within the content of the site, should be optimized. Appropriate, simple anchor text should be chosen in order to help search engines properly categorize links and pages.

In the past, optimizing a website for search engines was very different from building a positive user experience. While keyword stuffing and cloaking used to be capable of quickly raising a site’s position on search results pages, those tactics are now singled out and penalized. Instead, websites should be built to provide users with a positive experience and useful, unique content. As search engines continue refining their algorithms and creating newer, more intelligent crawlers, building for SEO and building for users will increasingly become indistinguishable.

Joseph Baker is a freelance writer living in the Midwest. He enjoys working on his novel and drinking large amounts of Earl Grey tea. He writes this article behalf of American InterContinental University.

By Mike Little in Featured

SEO2Search engine optimization has come a long way over the past two decades. When I entered the field in the mid 90′s most SEO was just entering a few lines of Meta tags and making sure your keywords were prominent on the page without overdoing it. Of course, back then there were maybe 25,000 to 50,000 competing web pages for any given keyword. Today typical competition ranges from 800,000 to 1,100,000. That’s a big difference! Go ahead and type in any keyword phrase into Google, Yahoo or Bing to see what I mean. Crazy, isn’t it?

OK, so we know that SEO has become a lot more complicated than it once was, while also becoming much more competitive. This is not exactly new news to most of us.

We already knew SEO was a big deal. Even if we did not know exactly how big a deal, it becomes apparent that it must be both valuable and difficult when you see how much it costs to pay an SEO company.

As of June 2011, the average cost of SEO services in the United States hovers around $9,000.- to $14,000.- per year for a typical service industry company such as plumber or electrician. It is also about the same (high-end at 14k to 18k) for accountants and even more for legal practices going after ultra competitive keywords that bring in the big bucks in clientele (20k plus!).

When all is said and done, the typical business owner will invest ten to twenty thousand dollars per year in SEO. And although it sounds steep, they would not be doing it if they were not making even more money in return. In most cases; much more money. As I guess as the old joke goes – why is SEO so expensive? Because it’s worth it.

But how does that help you? Unless you have the money to invest, it does not help you at all. In fact, it hurts your position because now you are competing against those with a huge advantage. And that advantage is helping them pull even further ahead, steal your customers and make even more money. You have heard the old saying about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? This is a great example of how it happens in business. But it does not have to be this way. They might have money but you have brains. Now if you are willing to match those smarts with a little hard work, you can take on your biggest competitor and never look back.

First of all, use a free keyword suggestion tool to find the best keywords to target. Just run a search for “free keyword tool” and try a couple out. If you use Google’s free keyword suggestion tool you can even just enter your domain name (or that of a competitor) and let it suggest which keywords are best to target.

Second, make a list of three to five keywords that you think are right up your alley. If you sell items locally, be sure the keywords include your geo… IE/ “plumber in Boston” or “Boston plumber”. Of course, make sure there is plenty of search volume for the whole keyword, including the geo qualifier (city, town, etc.)

Third, run a search for each of those keywords on Google, Yahoo and Bing to see if your site comes up. If you do not see it in the first page or two, there is no need to look any deeper because nobody is going to find it anyway. Tip: You can also look into a piece of SEO software to do this for you by running a search for “rank tracking software.”

Now, make note of the keywords that show the most promise and make this your target list.

Note: If any of these keywords show up within the top ten pages of the search engine results, then you probably do not have to do any onsite SEO like adding SEO copywriting or updating Meta tags. In fact, you can do it all by just building quality one-way inbound links so you can skip to that step.

Finally, if you find you need to update the on-page factors such as SEO copy and Meta tags, follow these simple steps.

1.) Make sure you have at least 300 words of text per page and that your keyword in question shows up at least once per 100 words (1.5 times is optimal), without going over five mentions total.

2.) Most search engines will expect to see your main keyword mentioned more at the top of the page and less as you get toward the bottom. Please note however that you need at least one mention in the final paragraph to keep it feeling legit.

3.) Pay special attention to your Title Meta tag and keep it simple. Having each keyword separated by a “pipe” is a great way to handle this tag with the company name put toward the end. Just don’t use the geo too often and feel free to follow-up with the state abbreviation and state name spelled out. For our example it might be “Boston Plumber | Boston Plumbing Company | Emergency Plumbers | Boston | MA | Massachusetts.”

4.) Get as many high quality backlinks as possible from authority sites. An easy way to do this is to register with as many directories as possible. Easy, but it can be very time consuming as it typically involves setting up a user account, writing a good title, writing an SEO optimized description, verifying your account setup through an email, submitting your request and entering a captcha code to prove you are human and not an automated bot, and finally verifying your submission via email.

There are plenty of other ways to get links, and you will need several to really succeed. If you do not mind spending $75 you can hire a link building company. If you don’t want to continue spending that money you might want to look into buying a piece of SEO software for $150 to $200. if you go this route, get one that does automatic rank tracking for you too and save a ton of time and effort.

Please note that as an SEO professional I am happiest when people choose to hire out the work. However, as a small business owner, I must say that if you can invest $150 or so, you can scoop up a tool that does it all for you. Most SEO professionals have at least this one in their toolbox; http://www.seoeliteweb.com but there are many out there.

Just shop around and spend wisely. You can save an absolute bundle on your SEO efforts, and eat your competition’s lunch, if you do.

Mike Little has been a search engine optimization professional since 1996. In 2003 he joined one of the oldest established SEO companies in the US; DotCom Pirates and has worked with over 200 companies worldwide since that time.

By Nick Stamoulis in Featured

keywordsKeyword research may be the single most important factor contributing to your online marketing and SEO success. The keywords you select will determine who can and can’t see your site for any given search. Incorporating the right keywords into your content helps increase your online brand presence, drives targeted traffic to your site, affects what search phrases your site ranks for and more. Missing out on important keywords, or putting the wrong keywords on the wrong pages, means missing out on potential clients and customers. If your site isn’t ranking for the right keyword, you might as well be invisible online.

Sites need to choose keywords on a page-by-page basis based on two things. First and foremost, you have to choose keywords that accurately reflect the content on the page. Search engines rank individual pages, not sites as a whole. Secondly, you have to choose keywords based on the intent of your target audience. That is where the buying cycle comes into play.

When a searcher is at the beginning of their buying cycle, they are usually in research mode. They’re just “shopping around,” bouncing from site to site to gather information from numerous sources, which they will use to influence their future purchase. For instance, first time parents might spend a couple weeks researching baby cribs for their new nursery. Who are the big crib manufacturers? How much do their cribs cost? What kind of reviews have their products received? What kind of crib is best for newborns? First time parents have a lot of questions, so they turn to friends, family and the search engines for answers. They might use search phrases like “baby crib styles,” “top rated baby cribs, “nursery furniture” or “nursery design ideas” to get them started. These are informational searches.

Depending on the kind of information someone is looking for, they may or may not be looking to make a quick transition from research to buying. For instance, someone scrolling through Yelp reviews, trying to decide where to eat lunch that day is going to make a quick decision. Someone looking to make a big purchase (like cars, electronics, furniture, etc) might spend more time researching their options.

As consumers move through their buying cycle, then tend to search using more long-tail keywords. Instead of searching for “baby crib,” the first time parents search for “portable folding crib bedding set.” These searchers have a better idea of what they are looking for and are searching for a specific thing. They might search for a company or product by name or include buzz words like “buy” or “order” in their search phrase. As consumers near the end of their buying cycle, your chance for converting them goes up. They are looking to make a final decision.

So what does this all have to do with your keyword research?

You have to decide what kind of visitors you want finding your site, and then put yourself in their mindset when conducting your keyword research. How would you search to find your site? No matter where they are in their buying cycle, a visitor to your site has the potential to convert. You want to make sure they land on the right page for where they are.

For instance, let’s say you own a jewelry store and are looking to build up your engagement ring business. Someone at the beginning of their buying cycle might search for “engagement ring styles.” This person isn’t ready to buy yet; they don’t even know what kind of ring they want. However, just because they aren’t ready to buy, that doesn’t mean you don’t want them finding your site. If you can position your site as a one-stop-source where they can get all the information they want AND make a purchase, you have a better chance of getting them to convert.

However, having them land on your homepage doesn’t answer their search. Your homepage shouldn’t be targeting “engagement ring styles,” but “engagement ring store” instead. That better reflects the content of your homepage. Visitors to your site want to find the information they need quickly, otherwise they’ll leave. If your keywords don’t match up with the content, they may feel like they’ve been tricked into visiting your site.

Instead, create a page of content that focuses on “engagement ring styles” and other related keywords; build an engagement ring guide for soon-to-be fiancés. You can talk about stone cuts, setting, band types and so forth. You want to position your company as the expert in engagement ring styles, there to make the process of selecting the perfect ring much easier. To keep that visitor more involved with your site, you can link from the ring guide to various internal pages of engagement rings you sell, so they can see the finished product and possibly convert.

You want your site to include a variety of keywords that will match up with searches no matter where someone is in their buying cycle. Obviously you want to target those at the end of their buying cycle, since they are more likely to convert. But you shouldn’t forget about those just looking for information. You don’t know how quickly they are hoping to make a decision and you have the opportunity to leave a good impression on them. They may bounce around to a few sites, but ultimately settle back on yours because you were the most helpful throughout the whole process.

Nick Stamoulis is a Boston SEO expert and owner of Brick Marketing, a Boston SEO services firm. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his SEO knowledge by posting daily updates to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and Publishing the Brick Marketing Newsletter, read by over 140,000 opt-in subscribers.

By Search Traffic Pro in Featured

ppcPPC will be your greatest online marketing nemesis if you’re new to it and don’t prepare. It’s challenging to peruse spreadsheets of words, ads, and numbers and remember exactly what you’re looking at. Stop. Get an energy drink. Now take a step back – and think. Think about exactly what you’re looking at. Go row by row if you have to. Whatever helps you think about the keyword itself.

The keyword is the bread and butter of your PPC campaign.

Keywords are simply characters that users type into a search box when they’re looking for something. Keywords can be one word like “hotels”. Keywords can also be “longtail” multiple word phrases like “keeping austin weird, hotels”. Long tail keywords are longer three or four word phrases which are highly specific to your goods or services. These convert the most clicks to customers because they target a consumer who specifically knows what they want and is ready to buy. You gain access to keywords in the search engines by ‘bidding’ on specific keywords.

Keywords: The Most Important Part of PPC

The keyword is, perhaps, the most important component of your PPC account. It would be foolish then to waste your budget bidding on generic single keyword or double keyword phrases since these do not target the customer who is “late” in the buying cycle.

For example if you are a boutique hotel in Austin, TX it doesn’t make sense to just bid on “hotel” because you are going to be going up against the big guys like Expedia or Priceline. Instead hone in on a specific niche like your location and a special amenity that you offer that people will be searching for like “boutique hotel, Austin, Texas.” The competition will be less and the cost per click a lot less.

Getting Rid of Bad Keywords

This problem of non-relevant keywords is rampant in many PPC accounts. Sometimes it’s obvious like the “hotel texas”- sometimes it’s not. Here’s how it happens and how to fix it:

1) Remove Non-Relevant Keywords from Keyword Tools

Keyword tools like Google AdWords Keyword Tool are great starters for PPC accounts. Like thesauruses, you can look at lists of words that are similar to your products or services – a very useful tool.

However, keyword tools should never be trusted implicitly. Keyword tools use computer-generated lists of words and sometimes they make mistakes. Unthinking PPC managers dump every keyword they can think of into their campaign and waste a ton of cash, receive non-relevant traffic or no traffic at all.. The worst of it is the non-relevant (no: worthless) traffic will never convert or turn into new business.

Fix this issue by reviewing your keyword list. Lists can get crazy- out- of- control- big quick. Focus on one or two groups at a time and communicate with everyone who is working on the account, adding or pausing keywords. Here’s the science: Review your phrases and decide: would someone needing my products or services type these words into a search box?? No? Get rid of them, or pause them in you AdWords Editor. You can always ask someone else who is a fresh set of eyes give you a second opinion later. Your advertising dollars are too precious not to be reviewing those ad groups well.

2) Test Your Keywords

Another, equally important way to sort out keywords in your account is to determine whether they turn into the desired action. Going back to the hotel example, when you bid on “hotel, Austin, TX” does that longtail phrase yield the desired result on your website? Does it turn into online leads or phone calls? Review your web analytics to see which words people are converting on-clicking through to your website on. Though the keyword may seem relevant to you, searchers may disagree.

You can determine the effectiveness of keywords by using good tracking. AdWords Conversion Tracking or call tracking can demonstrate the effectiveness of each keyword in your account.

Proper keyword management is the single most important thing you can do to effectively manage your PPC account. To do it effectively, you need to get educated on proper online tracking, or make sure your PPC manager is doing their job i.e. TRACKING. Just make sure you are aware of the keywords costing you money and why. Wasting PPC budget is no way to run a PPC account – and pursuing keywords that are bad is the way it goes wrong.

Search Traffic Pro is a professional search marketing company. We focus on your company’s unique position in the market and seek to grow your presence online via PPC, SEO and search marketing strategies. We specialize in two things: 1. Growing Your Traffic, 2. Growing Your Customer Base.
Read our blog full of tips and tricks now at http://www.searchtrafficpro.com

By Jill Whalen in Featured

SEOptimizationNot a week goes by where a reader or a client doesn’t ask me a question based on some bad SEO advice they heard or read somewhere. Most of the time they don’t know it’s bad advice. They assume that if they read it in a blog, went to a seminar, listened to a webinar or even discussed it with a company that provides SEO as a service, the advice must be solid. Sometimes (usually if they’re a long-term HRA reader ;) they may think it sounds a bit fishy, and smartly ask for my opinion.

While it’s true that among SEO industry veterans there can be disagreement about what works and what doesn’t, there are some SEO tactics that have been known by all who have even the slightest bit of intelligence to be useless. And yet they still crop up as SEO advice — all the time!

Just last week I got an email from a longtime HRA subscriber who told me that his friend had attended a seminar where the speaker told them they should submit their website to search engines on a monthly basis, and proceeded to provide them with the name of a tool that would do so for only $99 per month!

And just yesterday, someone emailed me for my opinion when she read in another email newsletter that Google only indexed the first 100 words on a page!

By Debralee in Featured

cows_0Starting a new blog or website can be a bit of a trial, but it’s almost always more of a challenge to get people to come and visit it at first. Inevitably you end up having to go and read up on online marketing and that’s where the fun and games begin.

If you’ve ever struggled to understand the lingo when it comes to promoting a website or blog online then the following list of definitions should help you to find your way around.

Social marketing
You have a cow.
You show some friends a clip of a man being hit in the crotch.
They tell their friends who pay money to come and look at your cow.

Social media
You have a cow.
You tell your friends.
People start listening to what you have to say.

Affiliate marketing
Your neighbor has a cow.
You show a film clip of a man being hit in the crotch.
You charge people to go see your neighbor’s cow.

Traffic
You have a cow.
You put it on the side of the road.
People stop to look at it.

Spam
You have a cow.
You put it in the middle of the road, stopping traffic.
A few morons buy some viagra from you, making the initiative profitable.

SEO
You have a cow.
You put up a road sign with “Cow” in the title.
Passers by stop to look at your cow; you charge them for parking and sell them lemonade.

Content
You have a cow.
You write a novel about it.
A pig farmer copies your novel, paraphrases and publishes it as his own.

PageRank
You and your neighbor each have a cow.
You both put signs up to advertise your cows.
You pay someone to move your sign directly in front of the neighbor’s in the middle of the night.

Advertising
You have a cow.
People pay you to paint their logos onto your cow.
Your cow looks like a billboard.

ROI (Return On Investment)
You have a cow.
You pay $50 to dye it pink.
People flock to buy tickets to see your cow; you earn $1000.

Conversion
You have a cow.
You refurbish the barn.
More people pay to look at the cow.

Reality
You have a cow.
No one cares.

If you still don’t understand online marketing…

Don’t have a cow, man.

David Mercer, http://www.siteprebuilder.com, is one of the most experienced technical writers in the world today, having contributed to books that have have been translated into virtually every major language in the world.

By David Mercer in Featured

googlelogoI came across a curious issue with Google analytics the other day. I had just posted a blog entitled “Online marketing explained with reference to cows” at www.siteprebuilder.com/content/online-marketing-explained-reference-cows.

I could see that the post was generating a lot of traffic and wanted to know where it was coming from, so I went to Google.com and typed in “online marketing explained” to see if the post had already been indexed and if it was ranking highly for that keyphrase.

Sure enough, the blog post had been indexed and it was showing up in the first or second spot in Google, ranked amongst the posts indexed in the last week. Awesome! Now I wanted to know if all the traffic was coming from that keyphrase or were there others, so I headed to analytics.

As it turned out, only one visit had come from that keyword in Google. Instead, the influx of traffic was coming from social networks like Stumbleupon and reddit and not organic search.

Here’s the strange part:

The visit recorded by Google analytics for the keyword search “online marketing explained” was credited to my service provider and not Google search. But obviously, I never actually clicked through to my page because I already knew what the post was about.

I tried the experiment again, and sure enough, Google analytics was registering a visit from Google search despite there being no actual visit.

In other words, a user only has to search for a term that results in (I assume) a first page result for your site and Google will lead you to believe that it sent a visitor to your page. It’s treating a search result as an actual visit, which seems really underhanded.

The upshot of all of this is that webmasters who rely on Google analytics to determine how well their online marketing campaigns are performing, or how well their SEO efforts are paying off, are not being given an accurate picture of the traffic they are receiving.

I would have to spend more time analyzing the way the visit hits work in analytics and Google search in order to determine precisely by how much Google is inflating its search result visit numbers.

At a rough guess, if Google records a visit for every first page result for your website or webpages, and assuming a rough actual click-through rate of around 20% (which is very generous), then Google is over-representing its traffic by a factor of 5 for each given keyword.

This means that your website could be getting 5 times less organic search traffic than you are being led to believe.

The situation is made far worse when you consider that the analytics figures reported by Google are then used by webmasters to determine their traffic amount and how much they can charge advertisers.

Advertisers are then paying cash for traffic that doesn’t exist. So Google’s inflated numbers effectively lead to a situation in which, mislead web businesses end up overcharging their advertisers based on effectively fictitious numbers.

Worse, by inflating their perceived search traffic, Google gains an unfair advantage over its competing search engines, because everyone wants to go with the search engine that brings in the “most traffic”.

Now, maybe they have a good explanation (I will ask them), but it seems to me that this is a subtle, but deliberate, way to boost the perceived importance of Google search for webmasters using analytics (which is a lot of webmasters).

David Mercer, http://www.siteprebuilder.com, is one of the most experienced technical writers in the world today, having contributed to books that have have been translated into virtually every major language in the world.

By Resource Nation in Featured

When approaching SEO, there is something of a cult following which has succumbed to worshipping keywords at the Search Engine (SE) altar. The problem is that these keywords which are hailed as the end-all be-all of SE ranking are not always the most important in terms of what drives traffic. There are many ways in which you will be able to get even better results than when you have to utilize keywords for developing your website. The best thing to look at is all of the ways in which you can improve ranking without having to worry about the keywords you are using.

Along with looking at the keywords you are using, it is a good idea to pay attention to the reasons why using keywords is a bit of an antiquated system for getting SE ranking. Just like you would not want to use an 8 bit video camera for video surveillance there is no reason to keep using old technology to draw people in to your website. You will be able to get better results while spending less as long as you are willing to make some changes.

Why Keywords Can be Dangerous
When you are using a keyword to get a better search engine ranking, it is the equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket. You will have to invest a lot of time and effort into creating content for the keyword, promoting it through different social media sites and posting to different E-zines. Once you have gone through the efforts, you can only hope that you will get the results that you were looking for. If not, it is back to the drawing board to reformulate your approach.

It is also fair to remember that when you are investing in the different keywords, you are making a guess as to what the right keyword will be. Even with good research, all you essentially have is an educated guess about what kinds of keywords will get you the results you are looking for. There is still no guarantee that you will be able to get the results from the SE ranking community that you are looking for. Often this will mean running SEO campaigns on several keywords at once hoping that at least one of them will pan out and cover the losses on the other ones.

It is also a good idea to bear in mind that there is no way to be able to guarantee that even with successful SE ranking that you will get the results you are looking for. There are so many other people looking to do the same thing as you are. They might have slightly less effective methods in terms of SE ranking, but far more effective tactics in terms of directing traffic and getting higher Click through Rates (CTR). Since these are the things which it is really all about, it makes you wonder what will actually help you to get the results you are looking for.

How to Get Better Results
There are a few different ways in which you will be able to get the results that you are looking for. One of the best ways that you can do this is to stop concentrating on one keyword at a time. Instead, try to spread out your efforts among many. You can even looking to using LSI terms to get better results. The idea is to make sure that the keywords you are using are inter-related and that the LSI terms you are using are created solely for use along with the page you will be using them on.

You might also try to use long tail keywords. These are the keywords which are very specific to the subject that you are promoting and are less generic. The result is a keyword which is still highly searched, yet is not something which might show up in different kinds of websites as well as those trying to promote the keyword. You will only be competing against those who are using the same long tail keywords. These will garner more specific results to what it is that you are offering.

Play with the Analytics to make sure that you are always getting the results that you are looking for. Ignore the placement on the SE ranking and instead pay attention to the amount of people who visited your site and the reason why they found it. You can focus more attention on those which are not performing where you would like for them to be. You can also make sure to look at why the ones which are performing well are performing the way that you want them to. This way you will be able to recreate the same style throughout your site.

Resource Nation provides free tools, tips, and purchasing advice for business owners and entrepreneurs in over 100 business categories ranging from video surveillance to credit card processing. Whether it’s connecting businesses with local and national pre-screened vendors, or offering easy service comparisons on a business security system, Resource Nation empowers business decision makers by providing the information they need to make smart choices.

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