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How do you get Links � and how do they benefit SERPS Search Engine Result Page

There are 5 key things you can do in terms of improving ranking:

Article Distribution

Submit article to article directories

Directory Submission

Provide listings, there are thousands of directories out there, both free and paid.

The Press Release

Don’t be afraid! This is a great opportunity to gain website exposure, new service, new product, new employee and the list goes on….

Social Media

Face book, Twitter, yes these do assist in generating traffic.

Link Bait

Most effective method, when people link to you especially when you have clear good content.

Back Links and the significance in SEO

Relevance is a key component when back linking; just back linking to any old site will not help your site ranking.

So how do you check backlinks ?

GOOGLE :

Type Link: followed by the URL

e.g. Link:http://www.apple.com

Note: Quality of back links is better than volume.

This has to be done consistently, and should be an ongoing process over time, and over a period of years you will start to work your way up!

Free SEO Tool

There are many free SEO tools that can assist your website ranking, one of these being http://spyfu.com.

You may also want to watch

Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google?

Those businesses using online video are going to want to maximize their YouTube efforts by employing some easy strategies to gain more visibility.

A few factors to remember when including videos on the internet:

- Use Keyword Rich Descriptions and Tags

- Include the word “Video” in your titles because people do search for it.

- Use a link for the very first thing in your descriptions.

- Make sure and utilize your thumbnails.

- use meta data

- use captions and subtitles

- use watermarks

Avoid attempts to manipulate search engine indexes

Simplify page layout. Complex layouts don't work well with search engine crawlers.A point to remember is if you can read the page easily, and navigate around the page, then search engine crawlers will too.

It's important to avoid certain activities often referred to as 'black-hat' search engine optimisation techniques, which search engine operators consider to be attempts to manipulate their indexes. Attempting to use any of these techniques will most likely get the site banned by major search engines.

The best way to avoid this is to remember that websites are for visitors rather than for search engines. Things to avoid include:

websites that automatically redirect visitors to pages

hidden text on pages (i.e. same color as the background)

pages with nothing but keywords and links to other websites

content intended only for search engines (content that makes no sense)

links from websites that replicate content belonging to other sites

Benefits and Drawbacks of Outsourcing SEO

SEO has become a focal part to successful businesses, and more significantly maintaining a good online traffic base. Yes its time consuming, and can even side track business owners from their normal day to day activities. I’ll present a number of advantages of outsourcing or doing it yourself.

Do it yourself:

1. Cost effective especially if you’re starting of a small business

2. Provides you ample opportunity to better understand your competition

3. Challenging, but provides an opportunity for you to get your feet wet with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Outsource:

1. You can better spend your time focusing on your business, and managing the core part of daily operations.

2. You don’t have the time to do keyword analysis.

3. Limited technical knowhow to be able to optimize your web site.

Goodbye 2009! Welcome 2010 - Google and SEO

Googles Emphasis on Slow Websites, and the Implications of Website Ranking...

Google will be placing greater emphasis on filtering out fast and slow websites. Think about it, who wants to sit and wait for a slow website to load? Let’s face it. A slow website can turn off potential customers and harm its popularity and credibility. In today's world, anyone visiting a website is looking for something in particular, be it information, products or services, and more significantly want access to the content quickly.

Google, the leading search engine, will be placing greater emphasis on slow and fast websites, thus resulting in faster websites (along with other SEO factors) being ranked better than slow websites.

So, what can be done to increase the speed of a website? Website Developers, Website Designers should follow some key rules;

Avoid too many graphics and too many color

- A major factor why websites can be slow is the use of large, or too many images that have not been optimized.Using the same image over and over again can reduce the download time, as a graphic image is only downloaded once, and stored in

the computer’s cache and doesn’t have to be downloaded again.

- Secondly, reduce the number of colors used in the graphics. Using fewer colors will bring down the size of the graphics significantly, and will allow you to save images as

gif's as opposed to jpg formats(GIF or JPEG image by 40% to 50% without losing any significant definition or sharpness).

Negative Keywords

Including appropriate keywords is always the core of gaining better search exposure.

“Negative keywords are a core component of a successful keyword list. Adding a negative keyword to your ad group or campaign means that your ads won’t show for search queries containing that term. By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help you reach the most appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), and increase your ROI. ” Source - http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63235

Check out which keywords would benefit your business by using the Google Keyword tool

Adding a video spokesperson to your website is one way to captivate your website visitors

A video spokes person is a technology that presents website in a way similar to famous TV shows, where real people communicate offers/information to your visitors.

This powerful technology has proved itself to increase the ratio of conversion sales and divert quality towards a website utilizing this technology. It is a common fact that people are inspired by real people . When you incorporate flash video spokesmodel in your website you create same feeling. They feel as if a person is representing your products and services. The technology makes it easier to convince the customers.

Video Spokes Person starts from around $400, and is one way of attracting customers that just tend to move on.

Is it possible to overuse links?

It is quite possible to overuse links to the point that many users become confused and leave even leave the site. I have encountered web pages that I felt had too many links and some of the links aren't even necessary for navigational or functional purposes. The page was difficult to use and needless to say I did not revisit that site again. Having tons of links on say just the home page seems very plain and tacky to me, the viewers most likely dont know what half the links are intended for.

Linear: Linear structures are a great format for simple sites not needing lots of links. This structure is very similar to a book from left to right and helps avoid confusion in simple sites.

Hierarchical: This structure is formated to fit individual topics and ideas. There are links from the main ideas/topics to specific details along with links back to the home page. More suited for larger pages with vast topics.

Mixed: This is just like the name and is a mixture of the various other structures to provide every type of mobility needed to navigate the pages, dependent on what is needed for the site.

Protected: This structure allows for password encryption to be required to access certain parts of the site.

Some problems asscoiated with adding new pages to a carefully created hierarchy occur with proper link flow and the best solution to this is incorporating a site index along with a mixed structure.

E-Commerce Websites ~ Product Descriptions

Ensuring that product descriptions are precise, yet short and simple get the message accross!

Product Descriptions that sell require:

1. Know your audience, and for who you are writing to.

2. Get your customers attention. Use strong words like real,perfect, new... also ask questions to your audience like "walk into a room and make an impression"

3. Persuading your customers is the core component of making that sale, this includes:

a. Make the customer understand.

b. How would the product benefit them.

c. What's so special about the product.

Benefits of ALt Text

Alt tags are the words or lines of text that appear when you move your mouse ("mouse over") a graphic, or link. Since search-engine spiders don't recognize images, if a major part of of your website is made up of images, you're not leaving it much to go on without alt tags.

A typical example of the code for alt text would be:

IMG SRC="images/website-designer.gif" refers specifically to the image file and

ALT="Website Designer" is the text that appears during the mouse over.

Alt tags should be used with all images. Remember, browsers allow Internet users to surf with their graphics feature turned off for faster loading, so if you do not have alt tags and no other distinguishing text, a visitor to your site under these conditions would see virtually nothing.

The inclusion of keywords in these tags will ensure a higher keyword ration, thus allowing the improvements in better ranking.

In addition to the above advantages, Alt tags also allow people with vision problems to more easily access and navigate your web site

Will my website be placed high in the search engines?

Will my website be placed high in the search engines? It all depends how much direct competition exists on the internet. Although there are no guarantees, everything will be done to optimize your website by embedding meta tags and keywords, as well as utilizing alt tags, headers and placing special wording in strategic places on your webpage so that you have a good chance of ranking high in the most popular search engines.

Benefits of Title Tags - Web Page & Website Ranking

Title tags is a line of text that is displayed at the top of the browser window. They are a must for any web page, and should be considered carefully for each page.

The length of these is usually between 50 – 70 characters. Any thing greater than this will result in the title being chopped off.

So how does a good title tag help with the ranking? Well, search engine spiders use these titles to determine the topic. Hence, why it is recommended that titles with topic keywords are placed as close to the to of the page.

Search engine results also use titles as links to your website.

Unique titles for each page are recommended, which in turn improve the effectiveness of the tags, and will increase the search engine ranking.

Seattle Web Designer

Online Marketing & a Basic Cost Structure

Online Marketing including search engine optimization (SEO) costs an additional $0 to $1000+ per site plus monthly fees. Costs depend on how competitive your market is, how large your website is, and how much exposure you're looking for. If your business is local and you live in a small town, website marketing costs may be as low as $100 or less. If your business is local and you live in a large city, $100 to $500 dollars. If your business is national or international, prices will vary depending on the nature of your business.

Google Sitemaps

I am not referring to a regular "site map" for people to visit online, but rather to a xml (Extensible Markup Language ) file that helps Google to read and index your website's overall content.

Click here to read why Google publishes a page titled, "What is a Sitemap file, and why should I have one?"

A Sitemap file is a "code" placed in the root directory of your website which captures all the information about your website, webpages, and links, thus facilitating the crawling and indexing process for Google to be much simpler.

Seattle Web Designer

Number 1 Ranking on Google, Yahoo & MSN

"I want to be #1 on Google?" is a common question I am asked. It would be unethical for any one to guarantee this, hence you should be wary about any company making such promises.

On the contrary Search Engine Optimization is a complex field, and requires a great deal of planning, and effective delivery. There are numerous ways of improving the ranking of websites, and ensuring your business is exposed effectively to potential customers. So... there is no easy way of climbing the ranks, but there are numerous steps that can be taken in improving this possibility.

Seattle Web Designer

Search Engine Placement Tips

There are numerous factors that determine your ranking and placement. The list below will asist you in improving your ranking, and allowing your website to gain the exposure it needs.

• Pick your target keywords - Choose your keywords wisely. For example, what would potential customers type at search engines?

• Position your keywords - ensure that your kewords apear in the 1st paragraph of your web page., and utilize the header tags.

• Creative content with a high ratio of keywords - Make sure that your website has a high ratio of kewords in the correct context.

Seattle Web Designer

How Do I get a Domain Name

Your domain name is like a street address. That's what everyone will use to find your webpage. Getting the right domain name is imperative and a bit challenging because your first choice may already be taken. That's why it's good to jot down 8 or 10 ideas. Make sure your "domain name" is short and catchy. It should be easy to read when printed and it should also be easy to remember when seen in an advertisement. If possible, as part of the domain name, it should have the main key word that would be used to search to find a website like yours. The cost of getting a domain name depends on where you get it (refer to pricing).

Before you get started, you may wish to look at other websites in order to get an idea of what styles you like. With your target audience in mind, think about what information is most important to have on your website. Think about colors, content, a logo, and photographs that you would like to include. If you are unsure about all that, don't worry. We will help you through the entire process.

Seattle Web Designer

The Effectiveness of Keword Phrases for your website

Avoiding single keywords must be emphasized over and over again for any new website or an existing website. Single keywords basically produce the highest volume of searches, and much less traffic.

For example lets take if "websites", this alone can result in search results much higher than a specific search such as "website designer".

The best approach in listing your keyword phrases is to first adentify the individual keywords, followed by what potential visitors would type in at search engines.

How To Make Blogging Work For Your Business

Is your business at the stage of further expansion, or the need to create a business community? If so Web Blogs are a perfect solution in "containaing" your clients (community).

Things you should not really do on a blog is to sell products, or have sales pitches. The purpose of blogs is to ensure that the community is getting the knowledge or insight to what they seek.

The Benefits of having a blog for your business...

There are specific business reasons why you would want to have a blog on your website, a key benefit to retaining customers, and generating revenue, would be to attract customers to your knowledge base (Blog), and not to interupt this.

Over time potential clients as well as existing cutsomers will build the trust, retention, and that longer term relationship your business deserves, and we all know that loyal customers are always a core part of any business when it comes to revenue generation.

Search Engine Submission Tips

Much of your business web site traffic will come from search engines. Here are some search engine submission tips to keep in mind.

Search engines look for specific titles, headings, meta tags - so it is crucial to make sure your site is "search engine friendly".

a. TITLE tags: Title tags should be 60 or so characters and include some keywords.

b. Header tags are numbered from 1 to 7: some search engines recognize Header tags. So make sure you use these tags for each of the titles on your page.

c. Keyword Meta tags: Add no more than 15 to 20 keywords to keep the search engines from flagging your site for keyword spamming.

d. Prioritize your words. The best way to submit to search engines is to submit to each search engine individually.

e.. Use keywords in the text area of each page. They are especially important at the beginning of sentences and higher up on the page.

f. To learn more about meta tags and choosing keywords, read "Effective Search Engine Optimization"

Improve Your Website Ranking via Keyword phrases

1. Research and analyze keyword phrases that potential customers would type in at search engines

2. Find alternative keywords.

3. Include an effective Meta title.

4. Include the keyword phrase in the Meta description

5. Don’t forget to add the keyword phrase in the Meta Keywords

6. Header tags are a good way of increasing keyword ratio as well as emphasizing your keywords

7. Keyword phrases should be included throughout the page content

8. To further increase the keyword ration include keyword phrases in valid images.

9. Actively solicit back links with similar sites/or pages, always using the keyword phrases.

10. Finally, it may be advisable to include such a keyword phrase at the end of the page, always remembering that it is in the correct context.

For additional information on SEO, Online Marketing, Website Design, and Website maintenance contact info@visualwebz.com or visit www.visualwebz.com

Rav Kang BSc(Hons), MSc, C & G

Online Business Strategy - Benefits of having a website

Why have an Online Business website? A feature rich website provides a online infrastructure, and the online busines provide the ability to offer bette rcollaborative customer services. Todays environment provides small business to explore numerous markets.

Todays business should be able to deliver more, at a competitive value

Successful Online Business

· Selling the value of services/poducts by offering online exposure. By understanding the needs of the customers with the needs of the business, allows effective websites to be built.

· Cutting cost - Online business websites no doubt cut costs.

· Deliver more – Allows you to build a larger customer base, increase sales volume, and build a strong repuation.

What is web 2.0 and where will 3.0 take us?

According to en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Web_2.0, web 2.0 is defined as "The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static webpages to dynamic and shareable content". That definition seems to fit pretty closely with where the users of the World Wide Web stand right now. All though it is commen now to see dynamic webpages, you sill still find many static web pages that have obviously not migrated in to using some of the new technologies. It's not always easy to keep up with it...

But in the world we live in today, the advancement of technolgy is never complete. Web 3.0 describes the feasible next step. Ideas of Web 3.0 include things such as semantic web pages, artificial intelligence, natural language recognition, along with other things. Although many of the ideas associated with web 3.0 are not possible at this time, everything has to start with an idea.

Online Refferences:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/web3point0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0

http://www.resourcefulidiot.com/2008/05/explaining-web-10-web-20-web-30/

Rate your website

There is numerous factors that need to have been met in order to ensure the functionality and features of any website. For example, Performance and usability, download speeds of the overall website, ease of locating specific information, and navigation around the web pages, and overall website.

Check what other website rating criteria will help you rate your website. Website Design Ciriteria

Rav Kang BSc(Hons), MSc, C & G

CSS and XHTML and why websites should be built around them

Using CSS and XHTML to create and update websites streamlines and standardizes the process by seperating content from presentation. One of the improvements from HTML to XHTML was removing tables and adding a stylesheet as a way to layout pages. No longer is there the need to scroll through pages of code to alter the width of a column or use the dreaded spacer gif to fill in gaps.

Website Designers / Developers must ensure that these technologies are being utilized. A great tutorial for CSS can be found on http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp

Not just Meta Keywords for optimum SEO when having a website designed

No matter what type of business your in, any online business should have a focuss on getting its business indexed on most if not all search engines. Most, because not all the demographics may apply to your business. Following are areas you need to place an emphasis on when having your website designed, or revamped:

Title tag,

Meta description tag,

Meta keywords tag,

URL,

Directory name,

File name,

At least one time in the image alt tags

Use keyword terms as links to other pages.

Rav Kang BSc(Hons), MSc. Rav teaches Computer Science & Web Development, as well as designs/developes small business websites.