Forget SEO Its All About Conversion!

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Forget SEO Its All About Conversion!


Which SEO hat do you wear? Is it white or black? Or perhaps its a subtle shade of gray. Well, wherever you are on this spectrum, if you are like 99% of the SEO-fixated webmasters out there, you are doing all you can to get visitors to your site. Where you used to optimize your keywords meta tags, you now worry about anchor text and XML site maps.

So, you finesse your site, schmooze the algorithm du jour and begin to climb the slippery search engine rankings pole. But this is where you have to leave your SEO tricks behind and start thinking conversion.

Whoa there! Conversion? Thats all about making sales on shopping sites. My sites a forum! I dont sell anything. What has conversion got to do with me?

Everything, my friend. Everything.

SERP Conversion

You want visitors to come your site, right? Thats why you climb greasy SERP pole, after all. (And why you lay awake at night wondering when the next Florida, Hilltop or Bourbon algorithm earthquake is going to hit.) But what does it matter if you reach the peak, but no one clicks through to your site anyway?

The fact is that you have to convert prospective visitors even before they arrive. You have to pique their interest, tweak their curiosity and make sure they click your link and not the other guys. And all you have to use are words. No technical tricks will help you now your only tools are plain ol words.

The SERPs will show words from two of three places. Two of these you can control and one you cant:

1.Your title tag.
2.Your meta description tag.
3.A directory description.

(For example, Google is known to use DMOZ descriptions in their SERPs, and Yahoo uses their directory descriptions in theirs.)

Now, theres not much you can do about how Yahoo or DMOZ editors describe your site, so dont worry about number 3. But do what you can do: Place your value propositions clearly in 1 and 2, and use them to lure searchers into your website.

So you have to convert people before they even get to your site. But thats not all. You want them to stay, right?

Flash Conversion

No, this has nothing to do with being blinded by bright lights on the road to Damascus. Nor am I telling you to go and make a 100% animated website.

This flash is that split second, that tiny window of opportunity that opens up when a searcher arrives at your site and decides whether they have actually found what they are looking for or not.

Typically, youll have a couple of seconds to persuade the new visitor to stay and hang out. Thats all you get. Its the ultimate in speed-dating. So, how do you wow your date? Do you show him a page of scraped content interspersed with Adsense ads? Not if you want this to be a lasting relationship.

Follow these tips and be sure to impress your date:

1. Have a clear theme

Ranking high for blue widgets? Then be sure your visible title, copy and images are clearly focused on them.

2. Have a clean design

Imagine you are taking a first date to a movie. Do you pick her up wearing your pajamas in a dirty, trash-filled car? Or do you clean the car, wash your face and dress to impress? Of course you want to impress her, so you make sure you look (and smell) good.

Its the same with your site: Clean design, a nice text size and pages that dont scroll from here to eternity are going to float your first-time visitor-dates boat.

3. Write clearly and focus on your date

Waffle on about yourself and your date will get bored. She wants you to be interested in her. And in terms of your site, that means giving her what she wants to know as quickly and succinctly as possible. This comes down to your ability to write and communicate. So, if you are like Steve Martin in Roxanne, make sure you get a someone else (a copywriter) to compose the lines to wow your date for you.

OK, so lets say you have successfully wooed your first-time visitor date. Hes here and he has decided to stick around. Youre going steady, getting to know each other a little more. Thats all you want, isnt it?

No, it isnt! You want to pop the question, of course!

Getting hitched

Youve made all this effort and spent money on getting your date this far, so you want to get the most out of your investment, right? You want to hear those sweet words, I do:

I do want to click your Adsense ads. I do want to become a forum member. I do want to buy that cool digital thingy.

So how do you turn a whirlwind romance into a successful proposal? Try these ideas for size:

Have clear navigation

You want to make your date dizzy with excitement, not frustration! Make sure you have clear, consistent, well-labeled navigation and make your visitor-dates time with you a pleasure, and not a reason to reach for the Advil.

Have a clear proposition

What do you want your visitor to do? Buy something? Sign up for something? Join something? Whatever the point of your site is, it does have a point, right? So dont beat about the bush, and dont hold back waiting for the right moment: Make your proposal, and make it clear and direct.

Happily Ever After

You thought that was the end of the story? Wait a minute, its not over yet! I thought you were in this for a long-term relationship, not a one night stand?

I know, you were thinking that having made all that effort while you were dating, you could ease off now that youre married. But dont you know that the real rewards start here?

So what are the secrets of a long, blissful relationship with your visitors?

1. Feed them!

You convinced him to come visit once. But how often will he come back if all you give him are the same old leftovers? Cook him up something juicy and delicious, and have him salivating for more:

Enliven your content with new, relevant pages and, not only will you set the search engine robots drooling, but you will also find you have a hoard of visitors coming back for seconds. And in this age of fast-(visitor)-food creation tools called blogs, theres really no excuse anymore.

2. Shower them with gifts

Everyone likes a gift - and not just on birthdays, anniversaries and at Christmas:

Money talks, and if you are selling anything through your site, then discounts and other offers to previous visitors and customers will draw them back like magnets. Throw in tempting freebies as well and you will have a potent marketing mix.

3. Send them love letters

Anyone who has been in a long-distance relationship (like my wife and I were for a year and a half), knows that if you cant be together, the next best thing is a letter or email. For your website, this means an interesting ezine that is light on sales pitch and rich in information.

4. Start a family!

Not literally! But you can create a family atmosphere by adding a forum where your visitors can interact with each other not just with you and your site. People are social animals, so use a forum to keep them coming back.

OK, so perhaps I overstated it a little in my title. SEO is not dead, so dont forget about it quite yet. Just remember that it will only get you so far: If you want to actually achieve anything with your site, then you need to focus on conversion like a laser.

About the Author

Stephen Munday lives in Japan. His most recent project is a Japanese name translation website where you can get your name in beautiful Japanese calligraphy.

This article is Stephen Munday 2005. Permission is given to reproduce this article in whole with the URLs correctly hyperlinked.

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Finding the Right SEO Company


I often talk to people who have lost faith in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms because of bad experiences. Either they saw no results, felt that they were tricked into subscribing to a service that could not work, or that they wasted money on a firm that did them no good. Although I agree that there are bad SEO firms out there, I know that there are also many good ones. Its your job to make sure you find an SEO firm that will work for you.

Search engines are the basis of Internet existence and survival. Recent studies have concluded that over 90 percent of all web surfers use search engines to find what they are looking for. Thus, in order to be successful on the Internet, your website must be search engine friendly. If people who search the Internet for your products or services are not finding your Web site, you need search engine optimization (SEO).

Now some of you may take on the task of optimizing your own sites. For those people, there are plenty of how to articles on the Internet that can help you. If you need more help, drop me an email and Ill give you some ideas. However, many webmasters decide instead to let an SEO company handle their marketing. Search Engine Optimization is a full time job, and many companies need to hire someone to do it for them. If this is your intent, you should know what to look for, and what to watch for, when selecting the right SEO company.

1. Make Sure They, and Their Clients, are Successful and Well Optimized

If your SEO company does not rank high on most major search engines under their specific services, then they probably wont have the ability to get you high ranking on yours. For example, if youre located in Boston, your SEO company should at least rank on the first page in Google, Yahoo, and MSN under such search terms as Boston SEO, Boston Internet Marketing, Boston Web Marketing, or even Boston Web Design. If you found them through pay-per-click or sponsored listings, this only means that they do not have the ability to optimize their own websites and are forced to pay for their clientele.

In addition, it is a good idea to check the success of their clients. All SEO companies have a client listing, if for no other reason than to offer front page links to their big spenders. Take a good look at these clients sites. Check for quality of content and keywords. View the source and see how well the meta tags are structured and how well they apply to the content given. And most importantly, go to the major search engines and find where these clients land on the search terms they are targeting. If the SEO company has created a successful marketing campaign for each of its clients, chances are youre looking at a good SEO firm. However, if neither the SEO company or its listed clients have high rankings, I would recommend you find a firm that does.

2. Make Sure Someone Answers the Phone or Responds to Email

Although this may sound funny, I cant stress how important it is to find a SEO company that will be there when you need them. Before choosing an SEO company, call them. If they pick up, youre in good shape. If they dont pick up, but call back within 2 hours, youre still looking pretty good. If it takes you a handful of phone calls and emails, or a number of days to get a response, you might be in bad shape.

Say youve just received a new product that you would like to market. Say that product is seasonal, only for the holiday season, and your ability to sell it relies on the timeliness with which you can get it seen on the search engines. You need a company that you can contact to put immediate marketing efforts to your new pages and products. If it takes 3 to 4 weeks for your SEO firm to make changes and improvements, you might want to look for a company that can keep up with your fast-paced business and demanding customers.

3. Make Sure They Understand How Search Engines Work

Keeping a website at the top of the search engines has become a science. The best search engines frequently modify the way their databases list Web sites, and constantly change the search criteria used to find and present web pages.

To understand the quality of a companys search engine optimization services, you must first understand how search engines work. Search engines list websites in two distinct manners: pay per click listings and organically optimized listings.

Pay per click listings are the listings that appear on the top or right side of most search engines under the heading Sponsored Links, or some related term. This type of listing is paid for. Web sites that wish to get top search engine placement without optimization can pay a certain cost that is charged to their search engine accounts every time their sponsored link is clicked on by a prospective client. Cost per click rates range anywhere between $0.10 and $10.00 per search. Some bigger-budget eCommerce businesses can spend up to $50,000 a month on pay per click marketing.

Organically optimized listings are the listings that appear at the top of search engine pages without having to pay for these listings. This type of listing is free. However, your website must be properly optimized to appear at the top of all search engines using organic optimization. Search engines use unique programs which send agents referred to as spiders and robots to your Web site to collect data. Your website must be structured properly to aid these robots in their search for information.

A quality SEO firm will know how to properly structure your website for top organic optimization and, ultimately, top search engine placement. Watch out for SEO firms that take your money and invest in pay-per-click marketing. Although this will get you immediate results, it does nothing to optimize your site in the long run, will not be as profitable as an organic marketing campaign, and will keep you dependent on SEO companies for your success. And pay-per-click marketing is something you can easily do yourself; if thats the route you wish to take.

4. Make Sure They Follow-Up with Internet Research

In addition to knowing how to optimize correctly, an SEO firm should be constantly investigating the Internets most popular search engines in order to stay aware of the latest techniques for promoting a Web site on the Internet. If they are not giving you monthly reports on the status of your listings, the increasing quantity of your links, and the number of unique visitors to your site, you might not be working with the right SEO company. These reports should not only show where your site is ranked on each of the major search engines for each of the major terms you target, but also show you how you have improved from the previous month and where your competitors stand.

5. Make Sure You Constantly Know What Theyre Doing

The major problem most people have with internet marketing guys is that they dont see them everyday. Its not like these guys come into the office everyday, or even sit down with the boss for a daily conference call. Most of them work out of their homes, spending 12 hours a day on the computer. Now Im not saying that they will take your money and do nothing for you, but its good to keep your eyes on them like you would any employee. On the days that they work for you, have them send you day-end reports detailing the pages they optimized, the content they added, the keywords they marketed, and the links they added. This will allow you a better understanding of what they do on your clock, and allow you to keep your eye on their progress and effectiveness.

Overall, you can find a good SEO company. There are hundreds out there. But it is your responsibility to make sure you find the right one. Dont just pick the first firm you find, then complain when you see no results. Find your results before you hire any SEO company, and you will put your business on the right track for Internet success.

Nathaniel Long is an Internet marketing specialist for Allied Internet Productions, a Denver-based web design and marketing company specializing in graphic and flash design, internet marketing and search engine optimization. Visit their site at http://www.alliedinternetproductions.com, or call them toll free at 800-935-1820.

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Dont Make the Top 30 SEO Mistake

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Dont Make the Top 30 SEO Mistake


SEO consultants will tell you that you need to be in the Top 30 or you can pretty much give up any hope of getting a visitor to your web site.

Yes, there is truth in that Top 30 goal. Occasionally, a potential customer will make his or her way to the #30 position in search of a particular product or service. The odds just aren't that high.

Yet, industry research and ongoing search engine user behavior analysis shows that most people will focus on the first few results. Who can blame them? It takes a great deal of patience to wade through the rest of the options.

It's going to mean a great deal more if you can get that prized search term in the Top 10 (first screen) or even the Top 3 or Top 5 with the right SEO marketing strategies.

With so much competition, is that even possible? Yes - if you're realistic. Here's the key: don't spend an inordinate amount of time in the single keyword "cars" if you offer something more specific, such as "automotive accessories." You stand a much better chance of getting that coveted top spot with a more reasonable search phrase.

Don't ignore those single words if they really represent what you do. Generally, single words have a fighting chance if other SEO factors are rooting for you along the way, including pages with lots of content, options to include content up high, other pages featuring the same keyword, a domain name with the keyword, a page name with the keyword and plenty of link popularity built around the keyword. You just have to tie it all together.

Obviously, fewer people search for "automotive accessories" than "cars." But you'll be able to reach more search engine users - and prospective customers - if you frame most of your SEO strategy around specific search engine phrases that adequately reflect what you do. Join the Top 10 Club and reap the benefits.

Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland, Ohio-based search engine optimization firm. He authored the U.S. Manufacturers Resist Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Online Sales Leads study and a white paper, "Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game." michael@fathomseo.com

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Do It Yourself SEO


Internet surfers use search engines more than any other tool to find things online. Search engines rank their results using a complex formula that considers web page content, link popularity and other details. This is why you should Search Engine Optimization (SEO) your web site.

First before you start you need to identify your keywords. It is critical that you know and understand the search terms surfers will use to find your web site with. If your not sure yet try thinking of search terms you would use to find your site. After you find your keywords make a list of about 50 (If you can find that many) keywords and target them.

Next you need to identify your competition. Start searching with your site's targeted keywords and research the top ranked competing sites. Create a list of the top 10 to 15 sites and review each one of these web sites. While reviewing each of the competing sites look at the SEO methods that they use.

Meta tags are thought by most to have little impact, If any at all, on your site's ranking, but is still recommend to use. It's better to be safe than sorry! The meta description tag is used to describe a web page's content to the search engines. Most search engines (Google, Yahoo!, etc) get the web site's description from the web page's content and not from the meta description tag. Write a description of your site here and make it short.

The keyword tag tells the search engines what keywords are related to your site. You should place your main keywords here and add no more than 15 keywords. The Title tag is probably one of the most important SEO techniques today. Not only will the search engine's spider see this, but also the surfers. Place your main keywords in it and be creative. Don't make it longer than it needs to be.

Keyword density is a key part of SEO. On each page write approximately 200 to 500 words. Write it with your targeted keyword phrases. Remember not to over due it and get banned from the search engines for spam or make your visitors hate you. Put your keywords in bold and in the heading tag. Try to get a density of 5 to 15%. If your not sure what you keyword density is try using http://superiorwebmaster.com/webmaster-tools/page_primer.php.

Search engines will not only use links to find new sites, but they'll count each link to a site and use this to determine how popular that site is. What you want to get is quality links. These links should come from web sites that are related to your topic. Don't exchange links with every site you can. Take time to check each one before exchanging links. Make sure they are a clean and professional site. Look to see if they use spam.

Other thing to consider is to make sure HTML is valid. Spiders are somewhat like the browser you use, they read the HTML to display the web page. If your HTML code contains errors, spiders might not be able to find the content on the page. Although most spiders will try to correct minor errors in HTML code, it could still hurt your ranking. Visit w3.org to have your HTML code validated.

Matt Colyer is the owner of the Superior Webmaster. He also is a php, CGI and ASP developer.

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Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization


Search engine optimization, or SEO, is big business. If you rely on search engines to bring visitors to your business website, you need to rely on more than luck. Your business will lag far short of its potential unless your site is optimized and re-optimized for search engine results.

What is search engine optimization?

SEO is optimizing your website for search engines, acquiring inbound links, and monitoring your traffic and referring links to use them optimally. SEO is also studying and monitoring your competitors techniques.

The goal of SEO is to bring in targeted traffic that is organic, i.e., from search results. When people type in a keyword or phrase that youve optimized your site for, you want your site to appear on the first page, preferably high on that page. Good SEO results in increased traffic without the cost and time spent on advertising.

The SEO industry

Where theres a need, theres an industry ready to help you spend money on that need. SEO firms charge from a few hundred dollars up to six-figure amounts to optimize your site for search engines.

If paying thousands of dollars to an SEO firm isnt in your budget, consider using SEO packages to optimize your site yourself.

A combination of SEO tools is needed to get the best results. The SEO packages described below offer a variety of tools to help you optimize your site for search engines.

SEO tools compared

While weve listed numerous features of each SEO tool, these comparisons are summaries only.

Internet Business Promoter (IBP)

Known for their link popularity tool ARELIS, IBP also produces a three-step suite of tools to help you promote your website:

1. Page optimization
Generate, analyze, and edit keywords
Optimize for the top 10 search engine rankings
Optimize the title, link texts, and other parts of the web page
Validate the HTML
View the site via a spider simulator

2. Page promotion
Submit your site to search engines and directories
Search for sites that might add a link to your site

3. Results tracking
Verify search engine positions automatically

Price: $179.95 or $349.95.

LinksManager

Links Manager is designed to help users manage reciprocal linking. It doesnt require any software downloads, and current links pages can be imported into it. Some of its features:

Link organization and formatting
Organize your links into multiple categories, subcategories, and most popular links lists
Store the links on your own server
Highlight newly added and featured links

Link management and tracking
Remove dead links temporarily via a dead link checker
Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist
Rotate links automatically
Deny link submissions according to the criteria you set via a blacklist
View the most popular keywords on your links pages

Price: $19.95 a month.

SEO Administrator

SEO Administrator automates website promotion with tools that can do these tasks:

Keywords and site visitors
Track your sites position for your keywords in over 30 search engines
Report on the keyword weight and density of your site as well as of competitors sites
Suggest keywords that are relevant to each page
Analyze your site logs to find out about site visitors, keywords used, referrers, and more

Search engines and directories
Check which pages at your site have been indexed by various search engines
Check Google PR, the number of inbound links, and whether or not the site is listed in the DMOZ and Yahoo directories
Show the automated descriptions that search engines display for your pages

Price: from $70 to $150, depending on the version.

SEO Elite

With SEO Elite, you can find out exactly what your competitors are doing and copy their strategies. You can find out about your competitors web pages:

Keyword density and prominence
Their and headings
Their meta keywords
Whether their site is listed in the Yahoo directory
Which websites your competitors are advertising on

Concerning link partners and search engines, SEO Elite can:

Find thousands of possible link partners
Track details about pages with inbound links
Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist
Indicate which of your pages search engines have indexed
Keep a record of where your site is ranked for search terms

Price: $167.

SEOToolset

The focus of SEOToolset is to provide data to help with website promotion. The toolset includes:

Your website
Keyword density analyzer
Keyword selection tool
Reports on rankings for keywords, page names, and indexed page counts
Link partner finder

Search engines and directories
Engine-specific keyword research
Traffic checker for keywords
DMOZ category selector
Search engine submission tool
Search engine ranking monitor

Your competition
Keyword research summary
Link analysis of inbound links to competitors websites

Price: $90.00 per quarter per site.

Web CEO

The 10 tools in the Web CEO package are designed to help you promote and maintain your website, improve search engine results, and analyze site visitors. A summary of these tools:

At your website
Keyword research
Website optimization
Inbound link tracking
WYSIWYG website editing and file uploading
Link checking
Website monitoring
Stats analysis to track visitors, ad campaigns, transactions, and more

Search engines and competition
URL submission to search engines
Search engine rank checking
Tracking who links to the competition

Price: $295 for one person. A free version is also available.

WebPosition

WebPosition, one of the oldest and most popular SEO tools, offers a five-step SEO process:

1. Determine your position in search engines
Create search engine ranking reports
Monitor your sites placement in search engine results

2. Research and choose keywords
Identify the most searched and least competitive keywords

3. Optimize your pages
Compare your pages to those of top-performing sites and specific competitors
Detect when your competitors pages have changed
Be alerted to changes that could affect your site rankings

4. Design and submit your pages
Use Page Builder and Upload Manager to design and maintain your site
Submit your site to search engines with the Submitter tool

5. Analyze your results
Track the correlation between search rankings and revenue
Import top-performing keywords

Price: $149 or $349.

How to hire an SEO firm

If youd prefer to hire an SEO firm instead, do your research. Youll be spending a minimum of a few hundred dollars, more likely thousands of dollars for a medium-sized or larger website.

While many SEO firms are good at what they do, the field unfortunately has its share of scammers as well. They may tell you that a variety of tricks such as hidden text or cloaking will improve your sites position in search engines. In reality, these techniques may get your site banned from search engines. More information is at these pages at Google.com:

Webmaster Guidelines
href=http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Search Engine Optimizers
href=http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

If youre considering an SEO firm, ask how they measure success. Will your site hits be organic? Look at the sites of SEO firms clients and the site for the SEO firm itself. Do the sites rank well for keywords at these sites? The search engine results for relevant keywords will indicate how successful an SEO firm is.

Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.

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DIY SEO


Part 1. Wordtracker for keywords.

A problem for all new webmasters has always been SEO or search engine optimisation.

The problem starts with the age-old question of how do I design my website so people can find it?

Lets assume that you have an idea for a website that will enable you to make a bit of extra cash, you have a product of your own or you have an affiliation you believe in and you want to make sure that the people searching for your product will find your site over your competitors. How do you start?

Step 1
KEYWORDS
Finding the right keywords for your product is vital, the right keywords on your site will mean the difference between being found and not being found. How do we find these keywords and how do we use them?

First stop is a visit to wordtracker.com Using the trial version should be enough.

Lets say that you sell widgets, type widget into the box and you will get this; 1. widget
2. apple
3. Apple
4. widgets
5. synastry
6. Macintosh
7. security

Clicking on the word widget on the top of this list will bring up another list that contains the word widget.

Lets take a look at the top 5 on that list.

Keyword Count Predict Dig
widget 154 132
widgets 120 103
widget the world watcher 26 22
desktop widgets 22 19
definition for a widget 19 16

The table contains the following information:

Count - This shows the number of times a particular keyword has appeared in our database. E.g. Our database currently holds 373 million words. A count of 147 tells us that this particular word has appeared 147 times out of 373 million (this is over a two-month period).

Predicted - This is the maximum total predicted traffic for all of the major search engines/pay per bids and directories. It is based on the current 24-hour period.

Dig - When you perform any kind of search in the keyword universe, you can now dig down to the next level. E.g. search for 'gambling'. Then, when you click on 'online gambling', just the results for 'online gambling' come up, click on 'online gambling in states' and so on. Great for focusing on niches.

Clicking on each word again adds it to your basket. The next step is to compare these keywords in order to find the best keyword for you,

You are looking for a keyword with a high KEI or Keyword Effectiveness Index, whats this?

In a nutshell: Look for the keywords near the top. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have. Which means you have a better chance of getting to the top.

Now you have found your high KEI ranking keywords you have to sprinkle them about your home page and insert them into you meta-tags. The next article in this series will discuss meta-tags, using the title tag, and basic page design that will give your visitors a pleasing site to look at.

Mark white has been involved in IT for 16 years. More information on website optimisation and for free advice visit small-website-advice.com

For affordable SEO services visit get-listed-quickly.com

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Determining the Value of Your SEO Service


Every once in a while--and probably more often than we should--we find ourselves reviewing our SEO pricing models. Pricing SEO has always been a real sticking point for me because there is no one-size-fits-all pricing metric. As I began our most recent review of our pricing something really starting to become quite obvious; search engine optimization is requiring more and more research and analysis than it ever did before.

After doing SEO for several years (since 1998) I recently put all of our regular SEO duties into a spreadsheet and noting the amount of time spent on each activity on a one-time basis, monthly basis, and a per-page basis (both one-time and monthly). This format allows me to quite easily see the man-hours and costs involved in each distinct duty that we perform over the course of an SEO campaign. It also allows me to see the changes that occur in our SEO processes.

A year ago, the bulk of our optimization occurred in the set-up phase, with the monthly optimization consisting of a few hours of link building, rankings monitoring and on-page tweaking. Now, the set-up is just a mere fraction of the hours that go into each optimization campaign. The continual analysis performed on each account every month does not exceed that of the set-up, but add a couple months worth of optimization together and it does. Expand that to a six or twelve month campaign and the man hours of research and analysis performed far exceeds the initial set-up process. And believe me, we do a considerable amount of research up front!

Differing Pricing Models Between SEO Companies

SEO providers come in all shapes and sizes. We often have potential clients come to me price shopping. They are not comparing our services with our competitors, but they are comparing our pricing with our competitors. In that battle we lose almost every time, and the reason for that is because there is always an SEO company that will work for less. With SEO, however, you usually get what you pay for. If you want a cheap service, youll get cheap results.

But isnt SEO all about top rankings? If firm X can provide top rankings for less, shouldnt I go with them? This is standard fare from bargain shoppers, but the basic questions to ask yourself is this: do you want top rankings or do you want more business? Most SEO companies are in the business of achieving top rankings and everything else is not their problem. Even still, it is rare to find inexpensive SEOs that can achieve top rankings for competitive, high ROI terms, maintain those top rankings through constant algorithm changes, and continue to beat out your competition which are optimizing for the same keyword phrases.

If youre paying someone only a few hundred or even just a few thousand dollars each year to work on your site, how many man-hours do you really think they are giving you each month? When your site gets dropped or rankings mysteriously crash, how much time do they spend trying to find potential issues and problems? Even the best sitesand those optimized by the best SEOs in the worldcan suddenly disappear from the search engines. Sometimes its a temporary issue, sometimes its because of something the client did, and sometimes its due to other external factors. Whatever the reason, the SEO needs to thoroughly investigate so the issue can be corrected.

Continuous Optimization Services

Recently weve changed our overall outlook on the month-to-month SEO services we provide. This is largely due to the number of clients that come to us each month after having been penalized by one or more engines because of previous SEO work performed which ran afoul of the search engines. Rarely do these cases allow for a quick fix which puts them back into the top positions overnight. With the suspected Google sandbox, over-optimization penalties and aging delays, many of these sites must go through a rather lengthy period before they are placed back in the index and allowed to perform well in the search results, long after penalization issues have been resolved.

We look at what we provide similar to having an investigator on retainer. Our job, each month, is to continue to seek out potential problems that may now, or in the future, be keeping our clients sites from performing as best as they can possibly be. If our clients are not in the first page for all their targeted ROI phrases, then our job is to find out why. And then if they are not in the top 5, our job is to analyze what it takes to get them there. And if they are not in the top 3 then we need to see what the competition has going for them that our client doesnt. And if they are not in the Pole Position, our job is to find and eliminate all potential external barriers, no matter how small. And all of this must be done while maintaining the integrity, usability, and performance of the clients site.

Sometimes all this is as simple as finding a duplicate URL somewhere that we didnt know about and other times after months of research we find that a client links out to sites that link out to other sites using spammy techniques. These types of things have to be under constant analysis, even if a site performs well. Heading off problems before they occur is a big part of the SEO game, and plays heavily into pricing.

Pricing is a big deal for the average business owner and it should be. However, pricing alone should not be the deciding factor in which SEO provider you choose. Find out what services youll be getting. If you get the impression that the SEO is done after a few hours of up front work, you may not be getting enough investigation for potential or existent, yet unknown, problems. This can cost you later on.

On the other hand, just because someone charges huge fees does not mean theyll do you well either. This is a symptom of many very large SEO companies. Do your homework and find the company that will treat you as their only client. If you get that kind of service, you will undoubtedly reap a very significant return on your investment.

Stoney DeGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a professional search engine optimization and marketing firm based in Reno, NV, providing quality SEO services since 1998. Stoney has is also a moderator in the Search Engine Forums and Small Business Ideas Forum. You can read his SEM blog at (EMP) E-Marketing Performance. You can email him with any questions at stoney@polepositionmarketing.com

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Content Management Systems Eyeball SEOs


Content Management Systems and search engine optimization (SEO) used to be mutually exclusive terms. But the SEO community has been driving the developers of Content Management Systems to integrate more SEO-friendly methodology within their systems.

Content Management Systems (CMS) are a hot topic right now with many corporate websites are turning to these systems to handle thousands of pages of dynamic data that they need to update regularly. Content Management Systems allow information to be added, edited or deleted automatically over the entire website. This can save hundreds of hours in manual updates. Pages of content are generated on the fly using a template driven system.

When Content Management Systems were first developed, most had little regard for the requirements of search engine optimization. For some Content Management Systems this still holds true. Most CMS's, however, now have workarounds to accommodate those wanting to perform search engine optimization on their websites. The workarounds in the Content Management Systems involve two areas: writing search engine friendly URL's and creating individualized title and meta tags per page.

Writing Search Engine Friendly URL's

Some search engines (SE's) and directories like Google and Yahoo! can now read dynamic URL's but there are still a fair amount which can't or can only partially read them. The SE's like to see pages that have unique content per page and may limit the number of variable strings (i.e. ?, =. &) in a URL to assure unique content.

By using a web server module called Mod_Rewrite it is possible to remove the stop characters from the URL string, thus making it more SE-friendly. To do this you will need to add a rule to the .htaccess file. For more information, see the following article on the Apache website: http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Creating Individualized Title and Meta Tags

Some Content Management Systems such the latest release from Hot Banana Software boast full integration with SEO performance such as offering Conversion Tracking tool, Robots.txt and Meta Tag Management. Other CMS's such as PostNuke.com is struggling to catch up and offer workarounds to make their system more flexible and SE-friendly.

PostNuke.com says that their next version (.8 release at this writing) will be fully SEO compliant. Until then, they recommend the pnMeta module, which will give control over the title, keyword and description tags over an individual page. Dynamically generated meta tag information, however, is not recommended. For more information see: http://www.miragelab.com/News+article-sid-19.phtml

What Does CMS Mean For SEO's?

Search engine optimization experts and others using SEO techniques will need to work closely with Webmasters and developers who use Content Management Systems on their web properties. This collaborative effort is necessary to insure that URL's are SE-friendly and that unique title and meta tags are severed up for each optimized page. A large website with tons of valuable content, should rank well in the search engines according to the SE's guidelines and the CMS technology would do well not to inhibit this, but rather would do well to promote good search engine rankings for large websites.

Copyright 2004 SEO Resource Search Engine Marketing Specialists

Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource, a California search engine optimization company, and has published many articles over the past 20 years.

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Complete Web-Site Optimization For Search Engines (Part 1)


SEO or search engine optimization strategy now becomes widely popular among online business operators. Nothing strange about it as it allows to substantially increase your gross income, as a result of growing traffic or visitors flow.

That is why one point should be stressed out - your business return on SEO is directly proportional to the results your business have now. It means that SEO strategy, unlike marketing optimization, directed to boost quantity, not quality. If your business enjoys 1% response rate for any action you demand, whether it is sale, subscription, feedback or other it keeps on having similar response rate after SEO will be accomplished, although the response will grow in absolute numbers as a result of increasing traffic flow.

As you see SEO is not a panacea. The highest and the most efficient return on your SEO campaign as well as business investment may be reached upon one condition. Only when your current business model and marketing campaign has already been optimized and reached high level or response rate and efficiency, it is smart to grow your business "in quantity".

The reason for such attitude lies within the next speculation as well. Having inefficient business model under conducting web-site SEO will force growing number of visitors to turn your online business down for good. The obvious reason is that too few people actually return to the site once they left it for any reason, so having low response rate will substantially decrease your SEO result!

Let's draw an example. With previously mentioned 1% response rate from every 100 visitors you get, would mean that 1 visitor only takes desired action. Suppose SEO campaign increased the flow of targeted traffic to 1000. Using children's math we can easily come up with 9 new people, who would start to express their interest in your offer every month.

Now what if your, as some marketers say, "conversion" rate is 10% (10 visitors from every 100) and the SEO helped to bring the same 1000 targeted traffic. You now have 100 desired actions per month! In other words, your net SEO achievement is 90 new people. Compare this to 9 people with 1% conversion rate and it all becomes clear. That is why SEO is mainly about quantity, while response rate is mainly about quality.

I haven't intentionally mentioned about high quality of traffic search engines generate. Many experts would probably be skeptical by now for my evening-out the quality of traffic and focusing on quantity only. The explanation is simple - the quality of SE traffic is an Individual parameter.

Unlike many marketing and SE experts I cannot tell you how "quality" visitors coming from SE will be for your particular business as I don't know your present promotion methods. That is why the quality of traffic SEO campaign brings may be neutral, slightly positive or even negative. Yes, it may be negative.

I anticipate a small shock among online marketers, who were taught for their whole internet business career that search engine traffic is the most quality traffic they may have. It is not true under some conditions. If banner or classified ads were the only ways of generating traffic for you, then SEO will surely bring a quality improvement to your business response, on the other hand, imagine, that your present visitors are interested readers of your books, ebooks, reports, articles and other publications. Do you really think that "response quality" of people coming from "Description tag" of your search engine listing will be higher? Hardly, you can surely expect a slight decrease in response rate of SEO campaign, despite the unquestionable quantity growth in accordance with our previous example.

Next vital point is to understand that before anything we, firstly, should have those web-pages, otherwise there would be nothing to optimize. That basic logic will lead to another obvious conclusion. The more theme-based web-pages you have the better SEO result you can achieve. If your online business represented by 3 web-pages (main sales letter, about the author and contacts), your initial SEO "resources" are too weak to reach any substantial goal. SEs look for information, that is why, content rich web-sites may truly enjoy advantages of SEO.

Secondly, your pages should have already been listed in SEs. If you haven't submitted your web-site to SEs yet, no point to optimize the SE listing position you don't have.

An important dilemma every business operator faces is the extent s/he allows to reach in desire to get outstanding SEO results. Here is what I mean. As we all know the basic rule of successful web-site optimization is focusing on keywords with low or very low competition. In other words, the less supply of internet resources for some particular keyword or phrase is, the more chances are for your web-page of being "noticed" and ranked high.

Here is the problem, if you want to get a maximum for your web-site SE position you should be prepared not just to rewrite or edit your web-pages, but to completely change the theme structure and priority of informational content!

There would undoubtedly be web-site sections or pages with extremely high competition that would stress the popularity and importance of that topic, so if you decide to keep it "as is", optimization will raise your listing, but somewhere from 796,021 place to 545,932. Does it help you?

The extent of your "flexibility" and how far you can go to look "pretty" from SE viewpoint is what should be decided beforehand, because there are always 3 parts: you/your business, target market/consumers and search engines/directories, between which about 90% of informational preferences are common, but the rest 10% differ and it is up to you to decide what themes you should focus on. Whenever you are implementing any of the SEO tactics mentioned in this publication, keep in mind your business and consumers' needs.

Having understood these fundamental features of SEO, could we make a step further into a complete web-site search engine optimization, expanding your business to the new markets.

Note that SEO, despite all mentioned above, is all about "asking for high ranking" and there cannot be any results guarantee as no one except for SE developers themselves control ranking algorithm and determine "who is where". More than that, SEO takes much time before effecting your listing positions and this timeframe may range somewhere from week to several months, so don't panic if your optimization efforts haven't resulted in Google #1 position by tomorrow morning.

Structure

Let's start from drawing a scheme of your web-site link structure very similar to one every web-developer draws before designing a web-site. Under other equal conditions, we will speak about later, it is also clear that the more theme based web-pages or even web-site sections you create, the more chances of being ranked high you have, no matter how optimized your competitor's single web-page is.

Each web-page of web-site section should represent a particular theme or topic. This way you can diversify your "keywords market", increasing chances of high rankings. Despite obvious visitors advantage your site is more likely to win market recognition.

For now try to have "horizontal" as well as standard "vertical" link connections between pages. If one of your pages got a high ranking position (Google Page rank) it may help to improve the rankings of web-pages connected to it as well.

Keyword analysis

Next step is to determine keywords, mainly, phrases that we would like to target. Talking about mentioned dilemma, I would like to point to the other approach you should know about, that is suggested by some experts. Let's call it SE-oriented approach.

According to this approach, before creating a web-site your first step implies searching for the best key phrases via competitive analysis on main SE and then starting to develop content around these keywords. It means that your web-site will get highest SE ranking, but the informational richness will be dictated by neither you nor your consumers. Under such conditions it is SE or, to be more specific, your compe tition will determine what kind of content you will have at your web-site. As you see, according to SE-oriented approach, the more competitive some key phrase and based on it topic is, the less attention you should pay to developing that theme at your own site.

My attitude is slightly different. I offer at first to create and evaluate your current web-site content based on your business preferences and your niche-market needs and then optimize those web-pages according to keywords taken from your existed web-pages, no matter how tough the competition may be. Of course, you are free to create new pages around keywords with low competition just for traffic building purposes, but the primary accent should be focused on your business development and marketing needs.

As for the keywords, the basic rule is to choose the most targeted phrases rather than single words for two reasons:

* Phrases could describe your web-page theme usually more precisely than a word;

* Phrases usually have substantially less competition in comparison with one-word.

Write down 3-5 the most targeted key phrases for each web-page or section we are going to optimize. Then by evaluating supply/demand ratio find the easiest keywords for SE positioning.

Standard procedure of determining your key phrase competition or, as i said "evaluating supply/demand ratio" is to look at their supply and demand at popular SEs. Supply is determined by results of searching them on SEs while demand can be found through query on PPC programs at Overture.com or Google.com's AdWords that have tool for discovering how many time keywords or phrase have been searched on them.

By doing so we are searching for the most prospective and promising for optimization key phrases. Having them allow us to go further and start optimizing the web-pages themselves.

(to be continued)

About The Author

Pavel Lenshin is a devoted Internet entrepreneur and founder of the entrepreneurship portal, where you can find discounted Internet services, FREE ebooks http://ASBONE.com/ebooks/, FREE reports http://ASBONE.com/reports/, and finally uncover innovative strategies through FREE "NET Business Magazine"

info@asbone.com

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Buzzwords vs Effective SEO Keywords


Ever see a website that seems to speak a foreign language...in English? We encounter many SEO client websites that rely on buzzwords in the page copy to get the word out about their product. The problem lies with visitors who may not be familiar with those terms. This means optimizing with buzzwords may not be the best way to gain traffic. If your prospective visitors are not searching for those terms, how do they find your website?

Start With The Obvious

You really need to know your industry. Study your prospective visitors--who your target audience is. If your prospective visitors are highly technical and work and talk in "buzzword speak", no problem. But if you also want to attract prospective visitors who may not be immersed in the terminology used in your business, you must compensate by optimizing with a wider array of targeted keywords.

How Do I Find All Those Keywords?

Start researching. Yes, it's going to take a little work on your part to take a close look at what keywords you may be missing out on. Keep account of prospective website visitors who may use other terms to find your website. Track the keywords used by visitors through your log reports. Most log statistics programs have a report showing the keywords used by searchers to find your website. Using your server logs or log statistics program for keyword information is a good way to get a better picture of how visitors are finding your website. Use Overture's keyword tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) or Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) and note the words used on your competitors' websites. Using these, or similar tools, type in your buzzwords and see what variations come up. Competitor websites may use a slightly different language than you when writing copy for their pages. Visit their websites and learn all you can about how many ways your business can get its message across. Read online articles; visit business newsgroups and forums. Find research information through industry websites and companies that specialize in producing reports about your industry.

Help Search Engine Robots Do Their Job

Search engine robots are just automated programs. Their concept and execution is relatively simple: search engine robots "read" the text on your pages by going through the source code of your web pages. If the majority of the words in your source code text are buzzwords, this is the information that will be taken back to the search engine database.

It's Obvious (the "DUH" factor)

Ok, so it's obvious to you what your industry buzzwords are. But don't discount the simpler versions of those catchy words. Focus also on some lesser used terms and make a list of additional keywords you might be able to add. Clear, precise copy that catches the visitor's attention and tells your story is generally more effective in the long run.

Compromise - Mix SEO Keywords and Buzzwords

You don't want to change the copy on your webpages? This is often a problem with business websites. Once you have your keyword list of other-than-obvious words, work at fitting them into the page text carefully. You want them to make sense with the context of the web page. Use these new keywords as many times as "makes sense" so they do not sound spammy. Read your copy out loud or have a colleague read your copy to get a sense of how it might sound to a website visitor.

The Bottom Line

It should be easy enough to see how those extra keywords are producing for you. Keep track of your log reports and see if those new terms start showing up in your reports. Test a variety of keywords, then test again to see if visitors are staying on your website, moving through your individual web pages, or clicking away. Create specific pages using those keywords as a test scenario. The information you need should be available to you in your log statistics reports for visited web pages.

Don't let business jargon get in the way of getting your message across to your audience. Yes, buzzwords may sound cutting edge, but the bottom line is, traffic and sales are what you really want to show for your hard work.

Copyright 2003 Search Innovation Marketing. http://www.searchinnovation.com - All Rights Reserved.

Permission to reprint this article is granted as long as all text above this line is included in its entirety. We would also appreciate your notifying us when you reprint it: please send a note to reprint@searchinnovation.com.

About The Author

Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing (http://www.searchinnovation.com), a Search Engine Promotion company serving small businesses. She has specialized in search engine optimization since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly & Associates, a technical book publishing company.

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Branding Versus SEO


Branding versus search engine optimization is a marketing dilemma that larger companies will need to come to grips with on the Internet. Often companies will need to decide whether to promote their own brand name as their main keyword phrase or optimize for a more generic keyword phrase.

For instance, one search engine report states that 1.3 million visitors per month search for the term "Best Buy." This same report states that the term "electronics" is searched for by 1.1 visitors per month. The obvious choice in this scenario is for Best Buy to optimize for their own brand name first and the word "electronics" second.

But, take a competitor such as Fry's Electronics. Approximately 95,000 visitors search for the term "Fry's" every month, far short of those who search for "electronics". Does this mean Fry's Electronics (a partner with Outpost.com) should optimize for "electronics" first and Fry's (and/or Outpost.com) second?

At this writing (August 2004), a search on Google for "electronics" will show that Best Buy does not show up in the first two pages. Fry's (Outpost.com) is on the third page. But let's take a further look to see who is in the number 1 position: Sony. And Samsung is a close second.

Sony, with 450,000 searches per month for the word "sony", has managed to grab the number one spot for its brand name and the generic word "electronics". A search of the Sony homepage source code will reveal that this page is optimized for both words, "Sony" and "electronics." By optimizing for both words Sony has grabbed a lot of traffic neglected by Best Buy and perhaps even exceeds Best Buys traffic in doing this.

Another issue in branding is trademark infringement. Courts have upheld that websites using another company's branded name in its meta tags is engaging in trademark infringement. For instance, a site about cats would be infringing if it put the name Best Buy in its meta tags in hopes of gaining traffic from this trademarked word. Large companies have to protect themselves from others stealing traffic that is rightfully theirs. These companies cannot however protect a generic term such as "electronics" as that is fair game for all electronics companies.

So in order to create the largest return on investment, large companies need to optimize their websites both for their own brand names and for the generic, high-traffic keywords and keyword phrases relevant to their sites. Otherwise, they are letting tons of online business just slip away.

About The Author

Copyright 2004 SEO Resource

http://www.seoresource.net

Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource and has published many articles over the past 20 years.

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Black Hat SEO and the Sneaky Redirect


Are shades of grey SEO really Black Hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is a strategy which gets a web page or entire site banned from a search engine.

A shade of grey is when you use a black hat strategy but your site has not been banned yet. Remember the acronym for YET: You're Entitled Too!

There are many different opinions on the subject of Search Engine Optimization. Many folks will deliver advice which will work to get you top 10 rankings but what is really the difference between Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO?

There has been many good attempts to define Black Hat SEO. All are relevant and an example can be found at http://www.blackhatseo.com. The site contains a page of example Black Hat SEO and a directory of not recommended products and services.

But is there more to it than just keyword stuffing, hidden text and spamming image alt tags?

If you read the the Webmaster guidelines at Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html, you'll notice that sneaky Redirection pages are not welcome. (This does not include the 301 redirect.)

What are Sneaky Redirection Pages?

Sneaky redirection pages are set up in in groups of 10 or 20. They all target similar and related keywords or phrases. The only links on these pages are links to other pages in the same family creating a false sense of related linking.

They do not contain content that any human would be interested in. These pages show up high in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). When you click on one of these pages from a search engine result, you will be redirected to another page. (Usually a high pressure sales page.)

Is this misleading? You bet. Why? Because the page you click on from the serps is not the page you actually get to read.

Can Sneaky Redirects be considered as a Black Hat SEO tactic?

I think so. The reason being is that if your page is discovered, it does get banned. These pages are smart when it comes to getting a higher search engine position but they will vanish if another marketer reports your page.

What SEO Strategy Should You Use?

All SEO strategies have value. I think that the focus of attention should be to avoid Black Hat SEO if your intention is to keep your site from being banned.

Visit SEO forums and use the ideas that you feel comfortable with. There are many SEO forums out there. Here is one to get you started: http://www.searchguild.com

Be aware of search engine guidelines. If you read conflicting information, or if the tactic does not feel 100% OK, maybe the tactic should be placed on the back burner or even avoided forever.

The author, Ed Zivkovic is based on the Gold Coast in Australia. Ed writes and publishes home business and webmaster articles at http://www.ezau.com and enjoys going to http://www.gold-coast-beaches.com.

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Beat Googles Dampening Link Filter with SEO Articles


Most Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts agree that links back to your site have a great impact on your ranking in the major search engines. Think of it like an election; your site is a candidate and every link to your site is a vote. Of course, it was never quite that simple (high ranking, relevant sites have more voting power) but now it may have gotten even more complicated.

The Dampening Link Filter

It seems that Google may have introduced something called a Dampening Link Filter into its indexing algorithm. Ill give you a laypersons overview of this filter, but for more intimate details, check out WebProNews.

More and more people are realising the importance of links back to your site (or backlinks). For some time, companies have been engaging in all sorts of link campaigns designed to generate thousands of backlinks. Many of these campaigns havent really paid too much attention to the context or lifespan of these links. And Google knows it. Because these campaigns are designed to artificially generate the perception of a sites importance to trick the search engines into thinking theyre important its been suggested that Google has decided to put an end to it. Apparently, theres evidence to suggest that Google has introduced a new link filter to dampen the effect of new backlinks. So if your link generation campaign has just created 500 links in a day from seemingly irrelevant sites, Google will suspect it of being artificial, and refuse to pass on the full effect of those links at least for a while. Well, thats how the theory goes, anyway.

It has been argued that you can avoid being penalized by this filter by generating links:

* more slowly;
* from relevant sites; and
* which have a long lifespan.

The wisdom of relevance and lifespan is already well established; the dampening filter is simply one more reason why people should start to heed it. Writing and submitting SEO articles for online publication is one way to do so.

This article explains how SEO articles satisfy each of these three conditions. (For the basics of SEO article writing, take a look at How to Top Google by Writing Articles.)

Build Backlinks Slowly

Writing quality articles takes time. Its as simple as that. Even an SEO copywriter cant just bang an article together in a morning it has to be well considered. It must be accurate, informative, interesting, well written, and topical. And once youve written the article, the real work begins. You then have to submit it to your favourite article submit sites. And as they all have different requirements and idiosyncrasies, submitting your article to 50 submit sites can take you all day!

Once submitted, even the best articles will only be published gradually. A good article can be published 2 or 3 times a day for a week or two, then interest tapers off. But still, over the course of 6 months a single good article can be published hundreds of times! And remember, each time is a link.

Build Backlinks From Relevant Sites

As soon as you choose the topic of your article, you define the type of site that will publish it. All online publishers have an agenda; they want to generate traffic. Whether for commercial or benevolent reasons, they want particular kinds of articles for very specific audiences. Your article wont be published on irrelevant sites simply because the publishers of those sites get nothing out of it.

Of course, your article may be published on sites that are only marginally relevant. For instance, this article may be published on general copywriting websites, advertising websites, web design websites, home business websites, etc. But the beauty of a well written SEO article is that you get to optimize it for the keywords that you want to rank for. So even if the keywords on the publishing site dont quite match your own target keywords, the page containing your link (i.e. your article) does.

Whats more, you even have the power to optimize the links themselves. For instance, as an SEO copywriter, I can distribute backlinks throughout my article that use my target keywords as the link text (e.g. "copywriter", "SEO copywriter", "advertising copywriter", and "website copywriter" ;-). Some submit sites dont let you do this, but most will at least in the byline.

And one other thing other people link to good articles. This can increase the Page Rank of the site containing your article, which, in turn, can increase the page rank of your own site. Its a win-win situation!

Build Backlinks With a Long Lifespan

The quality of your SEO article determines the lifespan of your backlink. Write a very helpful article, make it easy to read, and choose a topic which isnt going to go away in a hurry, and your article will stay online for years.

In any event, most publishers tend not to clear out their article libraries simply because its better for them to have lots of content available to both readers and search engines.

Conclusion

While its no new phenomenon to SEO veterans and SEO copywriters, the writing of SEO articles to generate backlinks is a tactic which offers much in the way of ranking. The possibility of a Google dampening link filter simply increases the value of that offering.

Happy writing!

* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and website copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.

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