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• 1.	Internet Marketing Secrets what I've just described, simply copy the best and carry out an evaluation of each point noted. Shape your site to appeal to Google and other key search engines. Off - Page Optimization The final Internet Marketing Secret you must learn is the importance of off-page optimization. This refers to the number of links points to your site, the PR rank (stands for Google Page Rank) of the sites linking to you, and the Anchor text of the link. There are some understandable things you can do to begin developing an offensive link campaign for those sites that link to your competitors - for the product phrase you've selected. The best advice I can gives you however is to research SEO and links builds software on the Internet. This will afford an opportunity you to make the most of your time and target the best sites to improve your link popularity. Building your link popularity is an arduous task and in my opinion difficult. I've certainly learned over the last few years that your effectiveness in this area is ultimately determined by the tools you use and effort you exert. Take my word for it, you don't want to build your links manually, you'll never get ahead - so research options on the Internet. Once you begin develop links, you'll needs to monitor them on a continuous basis. Keep in mind that you will often have to provide a link on your website to the third party site. Be sure to create a links page where you maintain your link exchanges and monitor it regularly to insure that third party links to your domain still exist. If removed, you should remove your link as well. The Internet marketing secrets shared in this article are essential for improving your search engine results. Take your time and implement each one in a controlled and disciplined manner and you will see your rankings improve.
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  2.	Google Confusion - And Some Clarity Achieving a top ranking in Google used to be relatively simple. All it took was a lot of links, some on-page optimization, and soon you would see your site rise in the rankings. Yet after a mess of updates, a lot of speculation from 'experts', and what appears to be major changes in Google's algorithm, ranking well has entered a bit of a dark age. Google confusion reigns. Recently a thread opened on the Site Reference Forums for people to vent their frustration over Google's changing algorithms, the see-saw nature of rankings, and the reams of conflicting information on what Google is actually looking for. The thread has been a bit of therapy for those that have seen their rankings slip and those that have yet to crack Google's top rankings. It is, I fear, indicitave of how many webmasters feel when trying to understand Google. Google – An 'Open' Book Even though there has nevër been so much confusion about how Google ranks websites, Google has nevër tried harder to be more open with the SEO community about their ranking policies. In the past year or so, Google has offered more examples, more direct advice, and more pro-active measures to help website owners know what they are looking for, and more importantly, what to avoid. Between Google Sitemaps, people like Matt Cutts offering frëe advice from within the Googleplex, and Google's own program of actively informing website owners of potential problems with their site, Google is sharing a ton of information about how they work, but relatively few webmasters seem to be listening. It may partly be Google's newfound open personality that is causing a lot of the confusion. In general, website owners who either watch their rankings slip for some unknown reason, or website owners who cannot seem to get their quality site to crack the top rankings tend to be skeptical about anything Google says. When a webmaster reads that Google frowns on link exchanges, yet sees a competitor dominating the rankings with a link exchange, they naturally dismiss the advice as not true. The fact these people do not seem to want to admit to is this: Google is changing. The old ranking techniques that once could be used as a shortcut to a top ranking no longer work. Google has learned, and continues to learn, for better or worse, how to weed out websites that try to manipulate their rankings through pandering to an imperfect algorithm. The algorithm is still imperfect, and so is Google. With their increased focus on reducing the effect of algorithm pandering they have demoted some very legitímate websites and also raised some lower quality websites into the top of their rankings. But they are changing all the same – and widely accepted 'shortcut' techniques are their target. Conclusion Jumping When it comes to SEO, a lot of webmasters live on Tom Smykowski's 'jump to conclusions mat' . If they see one website that is using link exchanges that has a top ranking for a particular keyword, they assume that link exchanges must be the reason for the high ranking. If they find a single site that uses hidden text and ranks well, then it must follow that Google 'likes' these things. Conclusion jumping is easy to do – especially when a particular method works for your website, or is working for a competitor's website. Recently I wrote and published an article entitled "Valid HTML – Does Google Care?". The article raised the question as to whether Google actually preferred invalid HTML over valid HTML. Four websites were tested on two keyphrases that had no competition. The results of the test had sites with invalid HTML consistently ranking higher than those with valid HTML. The article was heavily criticized, and rightfully so (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa). A general conclusion was drawn from two very isolated cases, cases that were being tested on keywords that did not have real life competition. At best, the article could offer some insight into how Google ranks websites for keywords with no competition, but to draw any largër conclusions would be a logical errör. (As a point of interest, there has been information that while Google does not give additional weíght to valid HTML, they do encourage it to ensure crawlability – invalid HTML can certainly make a website impossible to crawl. Of course, there is no penalty for valid HTML.). The point of all this is simple: few SEO rules are going to hold true in every example. Search results have both macro-environments and micro-environments. To draw conclusions from a single micro-environment, or even a handful of micro-environments, about more general SEO theories is often a big mistake. Just because you see one example of a link exchange working well, that does not mean that Google wants to encourage link exchanges or that they are unable to stop link exchanges. What We Do Know There is only one real certainty about Google: they are changing and will continue to change. For the past few years, Google has been refining their algorithm and rebuilding their index. Anyone who thinks "Big Daddy" is the last of the major updates has not been paying attention. Google does not sit still and will constantly change to more efficiently find what it is they are looking for. We know that Google is looking for content – good original content. They want websites that are linked to naturally from reputable resources. They want to be able to trust your website, which means that websites that they already trust and that are related to your industry must 'vouch' for you. They want websites that are easy to use for visitors, websites that visitors are actually looking for. We also know what Google is not looking for. They are not looking for websites that pander to an algorithm, nor a site that tries to fake its way into popularity through bogus links. The time is coming when outright abuse of the system will no longer be a valid option. All this is very vague – so how about some specifics? Link exchanges for SEO is a bad idea. There is a big difference between link exchanges for SEO and two sites that happen to exchange links. Using automatic link exchanges, having highly unrelated links, massive amounts of links regardless of the quality, etc should be avoided at all costs. Purchasing links is definitely a bad idea. Some argue that Google could nevër find out who is selling links. The fact is, though, that purchased links, at least at the most basic level, are extremely easy to detect. Thousands of links do not mean what they used to. Links must be related. If you want to see a significant effect, they should also come from highly trusted websites in a natural way. It is possible to be hurt by bad links. Obvious SE sp@m, such as hidden text, redirects, etc will eventually get you banned. Being a careful webmaster is important. Innocent and careless mistakes can and will cost you. Setting up a website with broken links, multiple URLs for the same page, poor navigation, etc will scream poor quality. Rehashing content does not work. Google wants one of two things: 1) completely original content 2) content conglomerated in a completely original fashion. This goes along the duplicate content filter that is talked about so much. How do we know these things? Because Google has been open about what they are looking for. These are not theories based on observations, these are things that Google has discussed openly through employees, at conferences, through the tools they offer us. Unfortunately many webmasters simply do not want to listen.
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  3.	Simple SEO Truths According to the 1998 Georgia Tech GVU User Survey, 85 percent of respondents found Web pages from search engines. Since then, other studies have reported 50 to 80 percent of Web site traffïc comes from search engines. Searching is second only to email as the most popular online activity. Unfortunately, there are many marketers who simply do not put enough effort into preparing their web site for the search engines. The following guidelines will help you to start seeing results in the search engines. Your first step is simply choosing the right keywords. Choosing the Right Keywords Often times, people make the mistake of optimizing for very general keywords like used cars or online marketing. Although these terms get lots of traffïc, it is very unlikely that you will be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type of traffïc produces very low conversion rates because they are not targeted prospects. For example, if you are selling hiking backpacks, it would be much more beneficial for you to target the phrase 'hiking backpacks' rather than the extremely competitive keyword 'backpacks'. It would be even better to target the phrase 'camelbak commander'. This is a specific type of backpack and therefore will attract more buyers than searchers. In fact, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, 28 percent of searchers will type a product name into a search engine. Nine percent type in a brand name and 5 percent type in company names. The more targeted your keyword phrase, the more likely they are to buy. A person who types in 'backpacks' may be looking for school backpacks or snowboard backpacks. This lends to useless, un-targeted traffïc. However, a person that searches for a specific brand of backpacks knows exactly what they want and they are much further along in the buying process. Once you have determined the best possible keyword phrases to target, you must nöw optimize your page for those specific keywords. Optimize Your Page for Targeted Keywords There are many factors that will determine how your web pages rank. However, one of the most important ones is that of a good title. The title tag appears at the very top of the head section. The words in the title tag will appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP). Your title tag should contain targeted keyword phrases that reflect the copy on the page. The most important keywords should appear near the beginning of the title tag, You must also keep in mind that this should be a compelling title that would attract searchers to want to know more. Your title tag should focus on your primary keyword, but it should also deliver a message. Use your title to mention benefits, make an attention-grabbing statement, ask a compelling question, or anything else that would set you apart from all of the other pages competing against you. Your title should include the main keyword you are targeting on that page as well as entice visitors to clíck on your link. Following the title tag are your Meta description and Meta keyword tags. You have probably heard that meta tags are dead and for the most part that is true. However, you should still include them in your web site because they allow you to control the description of your listing in some of the search engines. Your meta description can make the difference in someone clicking on your link or choosing your competitor. The meta description tag should be used for marketing purposes, enticing people to clíck on your link as opposed to one of the other 9 search results. Meta keywords tags are a different story. Google pays absolutely no attention to this tag: a result of spammers. As for the rest of the search engines, meta keywords may be taken into account, but they are still of very little importance. I would advise that you use this tag for misspellings, technical acronyms and synonyms. Using this technique, you may be able to bring in some additional traffïc for people looking for related, but less popular keywords. Creating Quality Content Next, you will want to focus on the visible content of your page. Many people online today are creating content that is written specifically for the search engines. However, I would advise you to optimize your content for your readers. Your readers are the most important. To rank for your targeted keyword phrases, you must include them within your copy, but you must first ensure that your content is appealing to your visitors. After you do this, you can then weave your keywords into your copy. You'll especially want to have your targeted keyword phrase in the very first paragraph of your text. Some other places you will want to include your keywords are in the image alt attributes and within your heading tags. Place all of your subtitles into header tags with your targeted keyword phrases. Internal Linking Creating quality content for your visitors is crucial. However, proper navigation and site structure can be just as important. The search engines cannot fully index your site if it is not properly linked together. Every single page on your web site should be no more than 2 clicks away from the homepage. Before you create your site, decide on which internal pages are the most important in terms of ranking. Once you have gathered 15-20 of your most important pages, you will need to place them at the side and bottom navigation of each one of your web pages. This will ensure that the most possible pagerank is transferred to those pages. Each of these links should contain descriptive anchor text, preferably targeted keyword phrases that you are wanting to rank highly for. You should nevër make your web site visitors guess what's on the other end with a link that says, 'clíck here'. Be as descriptive as possible and your visitors will thank-you. One of the best ways to structure your site is through the use of hub pages. This is very similar to hubs on a spoke. At the center is your homepage. On the homepage, you have a link to each of the hub pages. The hub pages are basically small site maps that are built into the navigation. Each hub includes a set of information on a particular keyword or phrase. This is often referred to as content layering. You can layer your site through the use of sub-folders. Inbound Links Once you have finished optimizing all of the on-page factors, you must focus on some crucial off-page factors. To have a truly successful search engine optimization campaign, you have to go beyond on-page factors. Your overall link popularity is a crucial ranking factor. Some of the best techniques for getting quality in-bound links are syndicating articles, exchanging RSS feeds, submitting your web site to directories, syndicating your podcast, sending out press releases, and simply having a link-worthy site. When you have a site that is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will start naturally linking to you. You have probably heard that content is king on the internet. However, this is simply not true. QUALITY content is the true king. In review, keep in mind that the most important places to use your researched keyword phrases are in your title tags, the visible body of your text, and in onsite and offsite links. Successful SEO takes time. If you continually put all of these strategies into action, you will begin to see the benefits in due time.
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  4.	How Google Image Search Helps SEO Google has a dedicated version of its search engine called Image Search which helps find images. Claiming to be the most comprehensive image search facility on the web, it has billions of images from websites already within its index. When searching for images, you can tailor the search for various sizes and choose a specific type of image you're looking for, such as a photo, clipart or head shot. When clicking on a image, the image will load as a preview in one frame, whilst showing the website the image is from in a frame below. This gives you the option of visiting the website or enlarging the image to full size. Google Image Search is popular. It actually gets more traffic than Yahoo, Window Live Search and Ask Jeeves.
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  5.	A Gentle Warning To All Webmasters About RSS RSS is fast becoming an obsession for me. I didn't plan for it to be that way. It just happened. I have been interested in RSS for a couple of years now but it was only around this time last year that I started taking a serious look at this little syndication standard that's changing how we communicate on the web. Really Simple Syndication. Simple phrase but it changes everything... I figured what better way to get to know a subject than to write about it. Going through the vast resources of the Internet, blogs, forums, ebooks to collect what information I needed for my ebook and articles. The Internet is one huge storehouse of knowledge that more than supplied me with enough material to write a hundred articles. Coming from a fine art background, I also knew the only way to really learn about a subject was 'hands on' experience. So at the same time I started to really implement RSS tactics on my own sites to get 'first-hand' evidence to prove or back up my articles and writing. I concentrated on website RSS techniques that worked with the major Search Engines; starting my own blogs and RSS feeds to enhance my sites and manipulating the search engines, feeding the spiders with very legit content to build targetëd traffíc to any keyword or market sector I wanted to promote. Experiences that have opened my eyes wider than they have been since kindergarten and RSS is still surprising me at every turn. Only after I had started researching and writing about RSS did it dawn on me that I had no idea just how Big a Player RSS is becoming and will become in the very near future. The impact will be felt in all areas of the web. Some of the major ones: Google Blog Search - Which now opens up the whole area of blog content and feeds to the one search engine that counts. Google also finally embraced RSS despite its major investment in the other syndication standard - Atom. Google bought Blogger.com a while back which promotes the Atom feed. Microsoft's Windows - The next version of Windows - Vista - will have RSS embedded into its operating system. This will open up RSS to the mass market. This will put RSS center stage for computer and Internet users. Google Sitemaps - This XML powered system lets you update and quickly index your site's pages in Google. Podcasting - The enormous popularity of sending audio files or podcasting is opening up a whole new audience for RSS. Media RSS - This will permit the syndication of all types of media, including video and TV programs through RSS, further opening up RSS to becoming a broadcasting system for the Internet. RSS Search - MSN, as well as other search engines, makes it possible to search RSS feeds for the information we need. Mozilla Firefox Browser - This RSS powered browser with its 'Live Bookmarks' is proving very popular with surfers. It also proves you really don't have to know a thing about RSS to enjoy its benefits - it can be seamlessly integrated into the background or operating system with the end-users oblivious to even the existence of RSS. Commercial RSS - Then there is the whole potential of RSS ads and advertising which would commercialize RSS and bring it into play by large corporations who are mainly interested in the bottom line. Not to mention all those orange XML or RSS buttons popping up on website after website. RSS is taking on a life of its own, gaining in popularity and growing in strength. RSS is becoming a force that has to be reckoned with by every webmaster. How about you? Is your site RSS ready? Are you taking advantage of RSS? Are you using RSS? This is a gentle warning that you will start using RSS if you haven't already and here's why... if you want your site to remain truly competitive you must have RSS on it. Without RSS you will be losing visitors and traffíc to RSS empowered sites. You will be losing traffíc to sites that are targeting keywords with blogs and feeds. You will be losing traffíc to those sites using the XML powered Sitemaps. You will be losing traffíc to sites that are RSS User-Friendly and fully optimized for RSS. You must have an RSS User-Friendly site if want your site to be competitive. Just ask yourself, when the next Windows browser comes online, how competitive will your site be without RSS? What role will RSS play in getting visitors and repeat visitors to your competitor's website? Webmasters should be gearing up now for RSS, if they haven't already. You have to prepare your sites for RSS. You have to position your sites to take full advantage of the coming RSS revolution! Take advantage of Google's Sitemaps, Blog Search, RSSMedia, Next RSS powered Windows... Get Ready. Prepare your site. RSS is not only changing the rules, it is changing the whole ball game. RSS will transform the Internet. RSS will play a bígger and bígger role in the success or failure of your website. Proceed without RSS at your own risk.
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