Improve Search Engine Rankings With These Article Writing Secrets

The basic copy writing mantra is to come up with a headline that will grab the attention of the reader and entice them to read the first line of your search engine optimization copywriting article.Include your keyword or phrase within the title as your anchor text and this satisfies SEO requirements.

Article writing is a key internet marketing tool and you must get your search engine optimization copy writing strategy right. In this piece we are going to look at the steps in preparing an article for use with your SEO campaign and look at some of the tools and techniques available to maximize search engine impact as well as deliver interesting content for human readers. By following this step by step guide you will improve your search engine optimization copy writing.

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The first point to remember is, "Who are you writing for?" ultimately, human readers will determine whether your SEO campaign is a success simply because they spend the money on your site and not a web crawler. Whenever you prepare content, human readers should have priority over the content and not the search engines; on the other hand, search engines will determine how many human readers are going to actually land on the content so we have a chicken and egg situation.

The answer is simple; cater for both human readers and the search engines by striking a balance between interesting content relevant for users while also achieving the aim of promoting search engine rankings for the web site and content.

By following this step by step guide you will improve your search engine optimization copy writing.

Step One. Headlines are there to get someone to read the first line of your article and more!

If you are targeting "London hotel" as a key phrase, look at how this can be incorporated into an attention grabbing headline: "London hotel deliver best deal for tourists!", "The cheapest London hotel reviewed", "Best London hotel for business users"

Step Two. Generate interest with the first sentence of your search engine optimization copy writing article

You've gained a user's attention with your search engine optimisation copywriting headline, and now you have to suck the user into the body of your piece by activating their desire.

You can do this by a variety of methods such as promising to save money by following the article's advice or solving a problem the target audience is likely to have. At the same time, ensure you use the search engine optimization copy writing keyword within the first sentence to satisfy SEO requirements.

Using our example of "London hotel", we can create an opening line such as:

"How does a London hotel generate the highest levels of repeat business when the rest of the sector is experiencing difficulties?"

"We reviewed the cheapest London hotel for tourists and had a fantastic surprise in store; "cheap" can mean high quality and hard to beat value when stretching your holiday budget and here's how you do it."

Step Three. Use your headers to give structure for improved SEO copy writing

Using headers and sub-headers will give your search engine optimization copy writing structure and allow your users to focus on the relevant content for them.

Users scan internet content and tend not to read it from start to finish so use headers as mini-headlines which make your key information stand out at a glance to a human reader. Look at this article and the use of sub-headers to split up the piece and highlight key points.

Use the keyword or phrase in the sub-header as well as when you come to upload the content to your site, you can use the h1,h2 and h3 tags to further underline the importance of your keyword to the search engines.

Step Four. Review your search engine optimization copy writing for human users

You've finished your SEO copy writing article and now you are ready - almost!

Read it through and edit it; best advice is to leave the article alone for a day and return to the piece and read it through. The reason for this is as a writer, you will be too wrapped up in what the content has to say and not the actual English language such as the grammar and typos. Seeing the piece with fresh eyes will allow your mind to concentrate firstly on the standard of English (or other language) and secondly, you can assess whether the piece actually makes sense and runs together as a fluid piece of writing.

Specifically, look out for jarring use of keywords and phrases where the writer has inserted keywords in places which make the search engine optimization copy writing appear disjointed and written by a ten year old. Keyword stuffing is not good practice and will deter human readers from following through on your advice or call to action.

How long should a search engine optimization copy writing piece be?

The answer is "How long is a piece of string!", however between 500 and 1,000 words is probably ideal depending on the subject matter and the purpose of the search engine optimization copy writing in respect of human readers; sales copy should be short and snappy while instructional or technical pieces will be discursive and lengthier.

Step Five - Review your SEO copy writing for search engines

Finally, review your search engine optimization copy writing for keyword density and use of anchor text and tags where appropriate.

Do not overdo the keyword insertion; too much and the search engines will recognize you as keyword stuffing and discount you in the rankings while too little and you may be deemed as not relevant enough to warrant high rank. Typically, keyword density between 2% and 4% is recommended - but more importantly you should use synonyms and variations of the keyword as the search engines are becoming quite savvy and assess your 'theme' words as well. The best policy is to write an article organically then integrate the words appropriately.

This post provided by Anton Stoutjesdik who is an MBA lecturer, professional SEO copywriter and the director at New Frontier Ltd, a multi lingual SEO copy writing agency, helping website owners generator better business leads. For more tips and advice visit our website for a free 30 minute copy writing consultation.

Search Engine Optimization: Keep It Simpleh

There's no question that search engine optimization is both art and science. As competition to command search rankings has exploded, SEO strategies have become increasingly elegant and complicated. Most marketers and business owners these days end up toiling over complex SEO solutions in pursuit of the-next-best-thing. Progress has its drawbacks, though. Many seasoned business owners actually overlook simple, yet highly effective, SEO strategies that could skyrocket their business in the search rankings.

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One such strategy is to use popular key words that are relevant to your business in your Web site's or landing page's URL. Given that SEO experts and business owners regularly research, then pepper their Web pages with top key words and tinker with their placement, simply using the words in the URL may sound too easy. Don't be fooled by its simplicity, though. This strategy works. It has been incredibly effective for MP: Creative, a recently launched marketing arm of the Portland, OR-based business plan writing firm, MasterPlans.

Simple strategies still require due diligence. With MP: Creative, we started by performing extensive key word research. “Portland,” “Oregon,” “marketing” and “advertising” were among the most active key terms relevant to the business. We then purchased the domains portlandoregonmarketing.com and portlandoregonadvertising.com, and placed landing pages on both sites that were also keyword-rich. The outcome was astonishing. Even though Portland is home to some of the top marketing and advertising firms in the nation, our start-up sky-rocketed to number one on Yahoo! in searches for such businesses within a week.

So why was such a simple strategy so effective? Again, one of the primary reasons is that advanced SEO marketers and business owners regularly overlook like the simplest approach. This is a great opportunity for a smaller business to elbow in on the big guys. Another reason is that this particular strategy's simplicity is actually its edge. By placing top key words in the URL, spiders from sites like Google and Yahoo don't have to crawl through an entire page of content before locating these words. That means that such a Web site will get noticed more quickly by these search engines, which could result in your page moving up in search rankings for those particular terms more quickly.

While there is tremendous allure in developing complex SEO tactics, case studies like these demonstrate that it's important not to forget simple strategies.

This post provided by Bryan Howe, founder & CEO, Masterplans.com

Incredible New Tool For Launching Profitable PPC Campaigns

Good afternoon everyone. If you're a loyal follower of this blog, you know that from time to time I do pitch new and innovative products that I personally use and have seen results from. It's been over 3 months since I recommended something in the area of PPC or SEO. The reason is that it's been slim pickings. I've tried more than a dozen products, none of which were any good.

That's all changed. Why? Because in an effort to improve my PPC effectiveness, I found a tool that guarantees a profitable, fully optimized PPC campaign, at the moment of launch. If you're doing PPC now, you know how difficult it is to make money with PPC ads.

This product, PPCbully, kicks major *&^%$#@. As you already know, pay-per-click campaigns take a lot of trial and error. You set up your keywords, write your ads and track conversions until you find just the right combination that works the best.

PPC Bully, an advanced keyword research tool, allows you to know *up front* what works - and what doesn't. You get to see exactly what your competitors are doing, cash in on their "test" and launch with the most lucrative combinations possible.

To better understand how PPC Bully works, check out the demo video on their homepage. It walks you through the basic process. After you take a look, I promise not to say "I told you so". You'll save lots of time and expense for next to nothing - ensuring successful PPC campaigns.

Enjoy,
Michael

Make Your Site Accessible to Millions

Did you know that a lot of websites out there turn away 47 million people in the U.S. and miss out on a niche market? It’s true! More than one trillion dollars in spending power is getting forgotten about for just one simple reason.

Their website is not accessible to people who have disabilities

That’s right. If you make your website accessible to people with disabilities you will be opening the door on a new market of over 47 million people out there. According to the U.S. Census Bureau over 47 million people in the United States have disabilities, 73% of people with disabilities are heads of households, and $13.6 billion is spent on 31.7 million trips made by people with disabilities.

Do you lose a customer when a person with disabilities visits your site because the readers that they use or the colors of the site make it impossible to use it? Did you know that Google has an accessible web search for the visually impaired? It can be found at Google Laboratories over at http://labs.google.com/accessible/.

Imagine what it would be like if Google developed a search engine that only allows accessible websites. That would narrow down the list in a hurry! If you want an overview of accessible solutions from Google you can check it out at http://labs.google.com/accessible/overview.html.

Here are some problems that people who have disabilities face when visiting a website.

• Certain color combinations prevent them to seeing the web site properly
• Readers are not able to pick up text that is used in images
• No ease of navigation of site for people that cannot use a keyboard or mouse
• Tables used on websites can be a problem for readers to read in the right order
  

You can avoid missing out on all of these customers or even possibly avoid a lawsuit by structuring your website by certain guidelines.

Here are some ideas that can be done to make your website more accessible.

• Have proper alt tags for all images on your website. (I don’t mean keyword stuffing the alt tags.)
• Make sure the tables in your website are set up so that readers can read it for the disabled in the right order.
• Make use of quick keyboard shortcuts to navigate the pages easily.
• Add the "longdesc" attribute to images to direct people to a text based description of the images if an alt tag is not enough.
• Keep in mind while designing your site that people may be using screen readers, voice browsers, and screen magnifications to view your site with.
• Add ‘Skip over Navigation’ links to make it easier to skip over sections of a website.
• Make sure you use accessible .html forms and .pdf forms.
• Use default font types rather than specific fonts.
• Use relative font sizes and try to avoid specifying exact font sizes.
• Be careful how you use JavaScript on a page.
• Make sure each page has a meaningful element to describe the page.
• Don’t use font colors that do not contrast well with the page background. You can test out your website at http://colorfilter.wickline.org/.
• Limit Flash usage to trivial stuff.
  

If you do use Flash as a rule of thumb the newer the version the more likely it will be able to make an accessible website. You can provide text equivalents to portions of your Flash program to help people with disabilities.

Why should you make your website accessible?

• You can gain a niche of over 54 million buyers that most other websites do not even take into consideration.
• Increase your revenue.
• It may become the law. It is already a law for government sites and many state sites.And for the most important reason . . . BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!
  

This post provided by Michael Rock who founded The Internet Presence (http://theinternetpresence.com) on 7/11/2003 where you can learn how to make your own website and offers SEO Consultation services at http://rocksolidseo.com.

Determine Your Website Page Rank

There are actually websites that will measure the ranking of your website. For those of you that don't know what page rank is, it's a tool put together by Google that determines the effectiveness or efficiency of your Web site.

The higher your page rank, the higher your Web site is listed in the various search engines, and that means more traffic to your site. This, in essence, means more people are looking at your site, your products, your services, thus putting more money in your pocket in the form of paying customers.

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If more people are going to your Web site then less traffic is going to your competitors' Web site. Unfortunately most people don't even know what page rank is but those visitors that do will place your website in a higher esteem than your competitors and feel that your content is much more valuable and insightful.


Now you are probably wondering how page rank determined? And more importantly how do you increase your page rank?. Well, let's look at the first part of that question.

One way to help determine your page is when another site links to your page with a back link. The more back links you receive from other pages the higher your page rank. It's a good idea to make sure the back links are coming from sites that have content on the same theme as yours.

This process can get quite involved and a little messy because all back links don't carry the same weight or force. The higher the page rank that a link is coming from the more beneficial it is in terms of boosting your page rank. So if you get links from a lot of pages with low page ranks it will not have as strong an impact as a few pages with higher page ranks.

Now this is the complicated part: If you have a page that has a page rank of 7 and it is already linked to 10 or 15 other pages then it will not be any more beneficial to you than a page that has a page rank of maybe 3 or so. There is only so much linking that a page can do. It's almost like the law of diminishing returns, in other words after awhile it begins to have the opposite effect.


Another way to improve your page rank is through the use of web directories. Not only will this increase your page rank but it will also increase the traffic to your site. So if you submit your site to a large number of Web directories you will be able to increase your rank. There are a number of web directories you can submit your website or blog to.

There's a host of other items that will definitely help you to increase your ranking and the general traffic flow to your Web site. Also if you are curious about the page ranking of your own site you can see exactly where you stand by doing a Google search for page rank. This should help you to find some of the sites out there that measure page rank. Once you find a site all you have to do is put your own URL in the designated box and you will have your answer. A page rank of 6 or higher is very high.

About the Author: Mel Richardson - Coach, Author and Internet Marketer has been recently putting together programs for those that are new to the internet and looking to build an online business. http://www.freeonlinemarketingstrategies.com/

SEO For the Everyday Man or Woman

When talking to clients about marketing their business online I am asked "How do you get to #1 on Google?" While this article is not specially about how to become #1 - I will explain what the process is and what's involved.Despite our widespread acceptance and use of the internet - I am always surprised by how many people really have no idea what SEO (search engine optimization) is about.

They instinctively know WHY they like to click on that first listing in the natural results; but they don't have the first clue HOW it got there. Making matters worse is the fact that the internet world is largely unregulated and still being figured out - so it seems that everyone has their own "best practice" and definitions of things like SEO.

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I usually tell clients that their intuitive feeling of WHY they trust that first listing is that - simply put - it's the best result for the phrase you type in. People seem to understand that. However most people don't really understand why one site would be better than another so here goes with a layman's explanation.

What is SEO, really?

SEO is the process of configuring a website so that it has a chance to show up in a search result for a particular phrase. In other words it is our way of telling Google, Yahoo, or MSN what we think our site is about. Many of the search engines have a slightly different formula for how they determine these results. But the short version is that they look at different factors of each website page, rank them and then give those results to you.

Why is SEO Important?

One word sums it up - competition. Depending on what study you read, there are as many as 20 billion web pages being indexed at any given time. The major search engines do their best to go through these pages and catalog them so that they can tell you about it if you use their website to search. With so many website pages out there competing for similar phrases it is absolutely critical to make sure you are using every tool at your disposal to make sure your customers can find you when they are looking.

OK, So What Should I Be Doing for SEO On My Site?

The good news is that doing SEO correctly is not complicated. The bad news is that it is time consuming and requires regular attention in order to maintain results. Our advice is to ethically follow these simple guidelines for best long-term results:

Good site structure - as simple as this sounds many people overlook this. Every day we see sites with heavy flash animation, dated frame designs, pages that don't work and broken links. The bottom line is that if you can't easily navigate a site without problems chances are the search engines can't either. And if a search engine can't go through your site you have absolutely no chance of showing up for a key phrase - no matter how pretty the flash.

Good meta-data - Clients often draw a blank with this one. Meta-data is geek-speak for the page titles, page descriptions and keywords that you enter for each page. Each page on your website should have a unique title and description that summarizes what that page is about.

We often see 2 problems with meta-data. The first is that it is simply overlooked. I am stunned at how many sites have www.yoursite.com as the page title for every page - that's wasting prime online real estate.

The 2nd problem is spam. Putting in a page title or description that does not accurately match what the page is about is considered "spamming" a search engine. Doing this will get your page thrown out of the index and ruin any chance of showing up for a key phrase. Relevant content - People seem to understand that good content is really what they are looking for when they search for something. By "relevant" we mean that the content is specific to the topic in question and recently updated. More and more we are seeing sites that have regular updates or blogs showing up higher in the search results than sites which have larger quantities of older, "stale" content on them.

Our recommendation is to add well-written, grammatically correct and spell-checked content to your website on a regular basis. This ensures that, over time, your site will become a "resource" to those looking for phrases related to your business.

Responsible link building - This is perhaps the least understood part of SEO. In a nutshell search engines consider a link from another website to your website as a popularity vote. Think of it as power rankings for websites. In general the more sites which link to yours, the better; as this shows your site is relevant to the given topic.

Sadly though link building, like keywords and meta-data, have been abused by many site owners with schemes such as link farms where sites are setup simply to house links to other sites. We encourage careful and responsible link building with sites that are related to yours or through appropriate directories and article banks.

So there you have it - SEO explained for people with real jobs. Like most things it's not really that hard but it requires discipline which is where most people get off track. If you would like help with SEO for your website, or other online business needs we would love to hear from you.

This post provided by Andre Savoie. President of WSI (We Simplify the Internet) who helps companies take advantage of opportunities to grow their business online. This may include search engine optimization, paid search advertising or newer tools such as social media optimization. My focus is on helping companies find the strategy that best fits their needs and budget and then establishing goals for each marketing campaign. You can visit us at www.mywsiconsultant.com or contact us via email at andre@mywsiconsultant.com.

How to Make Sure Your Site Doesn't Get Penalized

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legit methods. Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news here is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for spam and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines discover these sites, the site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine's index.

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The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such treatment.

There are things you can do, and things you shouldn't do to, that will prevent this kind of misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google created this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to.

Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods." You can take comfort in knowning that your site cant be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site. Penalties happen only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and double-check all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't initiated a bad link.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar at toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most pages are given a Pagerank which is represented by a green scale on the Google toolbar. Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized.

If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection. There is no need to be concerned with regart to linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny bit of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity.

Another trick that illegitimate webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background.

You cannot see these words by just looking at a page, but a search engine spider can spot them easily. As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text it is logged and the page is penalized. The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text.

To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page - ever!Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders.

Search engines use Keyword Density to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site. This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to go over without sounding as if you are truly stuffing the site.

Using one way links for your Web Promotion gets results. This is because link popularity is one of the most important factors in search engine performance. Increasing the number of links to your Website will get your site listed higher in search engine results, generating more Website Traffic, increasing your Google PR and improving your site's overall strength. Click here for one way links.

Building a Site Map From Scratch

Sitemaps are essential for improved search rankings and an easy to navigate website. Some people are a little reluctant to produce a sitemap for their site. The hardest part of building a website is not...

* The programming code
* The navigation menu
* Or even deciding what the website will be about

The hardest part of building a website is generating high quality niched traffic to your web pages. That's exactly where creating Google sitemaps come in so handy. What is a site map you ask?

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Here are 3 people's conceptions of what a site map is.

* A page which contains an organized listing of links to all pages within the website

* An alternate method, and quickly becoming the preferred method, of letting the Search Engine Spiders know about all the pages in your site
*"A hierarchical list of web pages that belong to a site.

Simply put, if you are interested in search engines finding every part of your website (and who isn't?); then you need to have a sitemap as part of your internet marketing strategy.

But how to you build a Google sitemap?

First, access google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard

Enter your URL in the sites box and allow some time for Google to get you setup.

When you see the hyperlinked word "add" under the "sitemap" category select it.

Tell Google what type of sitemap you are looking for and complete their small form.
Download the CSV file so that you can upload it onto your site after you have entered in all the URL's. Yup, you heard me right. You are going to enter in every single URL of your website. Not a big deal if your website only has 10 or so pages, but what if it's like mine and has 100's of pages or undergoes extensive growth?

Once you've uploaded your site with all it's URL's in place your done creating your Google sitemap. Make sure that you have a link to your sitemap from your homepage. Now the rest is up to the search engines and it can take them sometime to stop by and pay you a visit, but when they do they will have clear instructions on exactly where every single page of your website is.

Keep your sitemap updated. Be sure to revisit every few months or so. This makes your site easily accessible and can help you improve your search engine rankings.

Search Marketing Grows Up

Once relegated to a small club of tech-savvy entrepreneurs, search has gained a seat at the marketing equivalent of the grown-up table and is a standard component of advertis­ers' marketing mix. For search marketers, this makes life harder. The tried-and-true basics that brought success for the past 10 years are no longer adequate to impress sophisticated ad­vertisers, nor are they sufficient to drive search marketing success in a landscape where tactical expertise is ubiquitous.

What's next for search marketing? The answer is simple: Search needs to become strategic.

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Fundamentally, stra­tegic search marketing is built on three elements. The first is search-centric Web design. In a world where 20%-50% of Web site traffic is driven through search engines, designing Web sites to align with searcher intent is one of the most effective, yet overlooked, digital marketing opportunities. The premise of search-centric Web design is to build content, site navigation and site experi­ences that are directly relevant to searchers' expressed intentions.

Through analysis of click-stream data, as well as qualitative information such as surveys, it's possible for marketers to gain a deep under­standing of the information most relevant to searchers. This leads to a better site-side experi­ence, increased engagement and a higher likeli­hood of converting a searcher into a customer.

The second element of strategic search mar­keting is smart measurement. Rather than focus on a single success metric (e.g., search-driven revenue), smart measurement employs multiple data points to gauge the true efficacy of search marketing investment. This includes identifying key purchase indicators and measuring search's impact in driving offline conversions. It also includes measuring search's impact on brand perception, and quantifying the value that search has in shaping a consumer's decision-making process. Smart measurement allows search mar­keters to quantify the true impact search has on driving both short- and long-term returns.

The third and final element of strategic search marketing is in expanding the boundar­ies of what we define as search and looking beyond query-specific marketing opportunities. This requires both outside-in and inside-out approaches. From the outside in, search market­ers must understand the impact their non-search marketing efforts have on searcher behavior, and optimize their media mix accordingly.

From the inside out, search marketers should apply their data-centric, relevancy-based, auction-model skills to emerging channels, such as advertising exchanges and long-tail Web site targeting. Just as strategic search redefines what we mean by “search marketing,” it redefines what it means to be a search marketer.

Through search-centric Web design, smart measurement and expanding the boundaries of search marketing, search breaks out of its tacti­cal silo and becomes an integral component of a marketer's toolkit. Marketers embracing strate­gic search efforts develop powerful advantages in customer experience, insight and action that their competitors cannot match with tactical search expertise alone. Now that we're at the grown-up table, it's time we start contributing to the conversation — I think we'll find it's much more interesting.

Matthew Greitzer is director of SEM at Avenue A/Razorfish. Reach him at matt.greitzer@avenuea-razorfish.com.

More On Link Building: Article Marketing

Link building is essential for improving your search results. But you can't stop there.

You see, ultimately one must go beyond links. Think about the actual value of the placement as far as potential traffic, branding and reach. You will find that when you do so, that the links are of better quality and the benefits greater.

Quality supersedes quantity. When it comes to article marketing we seek to get as much value as possible. This means that we don’t simply toss off a bunch of copies of the article to repositories far and wide. You need to look at what makes the most sense strategically and plan from there.

Content is content

Now, the first thing we are going to need is a writer. If you have someone in-house that is already creating content, marketing materials or managing the blog, we’re in business. If you find yourself creatively challenged then looking at bringing in a professional writer as a sock puppet staffer is also an option. Much like content for the website, cutting corners will ultimately weaken the program.

You seek to create content that would be of a quality high enough that you would publish it on your own site. Not some knock off garbage piece that is 400 words long and devoid of value. That is not going to get us what we want… and at worst is negative branding.
You are seeking to build authority, become ubiquitous in the market and hopefully get some links that do more than please search engines.. we actually get some traffic ;0)

Finding the targets

Next we want to establish some targets for content placement. Remember, article marketing is more than mere repository overload. We can generally look at a few locales for potential promotion;

Article repositories – the most common form of article marketing.

Industry media outlets – most markets will have media/news portals

Guest blogging – on first and second tier industry blogs

Supplier websites – create how-to articles, FAQ etc…

Vertical markets – websites of related non-competitors.

Basically you need to get inventive and look for those that might appreciate some free content. Some of these relationships may not happen over night; cultivation is often required. But an article is often nothing more than content…with accreditation to you. This is how the path should be travelled.

Article repositories should really only be used for posts that you feel are weaker than others and aren’t suited for higher level branding. But even these should be of at least an average quality as any distribution is still a representation of you and your enterprise.

Crafting the article

Now that we have some varied targets we can set about trying to establish some demographics for the audience. Whenever possible, don’t be shy and simply talk to the editors of your target site and ask about the people and topics that fly well. Most times they can give some great qualitative feedback which helps when crafting the tone and language of the article.

I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of targeting as that is more of the writing element and beyond the scope of this post (look at this later in the week). But what is important is that the article is set up to succeed.

Getting the links

The best links to have are what are known as editorial links; these are links within the actual content themselves. This is something that should be used sparingly and don’t fill up the article with a ton of them from one end to the other. Each post should have 1-2 nicely targeted, but relevant, links to your site.

This is also extra important with distribution via article repositories as it ensure that is someone reprints it without the author bio (no! say it ain’t so?!) that you still get a few back links from it.
If we’re targeting a specific location with our article, we’re sure to get a link in the author bio and latitude for a few editorial links within the post as well (to relevant content on your site).

Targeting Considerations

Just as we did with the directory submissions, we want to vary link text as much as possible. This means a unique author bio for each and every article repository and diversity in link texts for our other distribution channels.

What link texts should you be using? That all depends on the strength of the potential link location (re-print from repositories? Or one-off on an authority site?). Try and use your core target terms for the stronger sites and work your secondary terms with the larger distribution channels.

Also remember to incorporate targeted titles for the post and include words from your lists of semantically related support terms for effective article marketing.

This post adopted from sitereference

Semantic Search Is Generating Buzz

Semantic search has generated a lot of buzz this year, which has search marketers considering whether the future of optimization will be focused on content or keywords.

So what is the big appeal about semantic search? Take into account this scenario: Suppose you're looking for a new luxury car. You type the phrase “best luxury car” into the search engine of your choice, which results in numerous articles, consumer reports, user reviews, etc. -- all aiming to influence your decision. However, the results you really receive are for any page that has text containing “best,” “luxury,” and “car.”

Typical search engines will show you “how to choose” articles, while Web sites for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, or Audi are not listed, even though they may be relevant for the search you've performed.

Semantic search attempts to further refine your results by not just offering the generic Mercedes-Benz homepage, but directing you to the PDF fact sheet or some other relevant material that may help you make your decision or purchase.

Search as we know it today is also “blind” to the context around what you're searching for and why. For instance, if you are looking to go on a cruise and search for the term “cruise” on Google, you get results for Carnival cruises, along with Tom Cruise. In other words, today's search just isn't that good at figuring out exactly what you want based on your searches. Figuring that out is the key to targeting the proper audience with your advertising thereby driving better business (ever wonder why the engines are so insistent upon relevancy?).

To a certain degree, the major search engines are already attempting to add elements of semantic search. On Google, the more you search for a certain phrase without clicking on a result, the more you'll begin to receive alternative ads. This is because the engine assumes that the initial results displayed were not relevant to you.

Semantic search calls for the search engines (and their designers) to have a greater understanding of what the searcher is actually trying to do (buy, sell, learn); and that's no simple task when searches typically have only 1 - 3 terms.

Some engines such as Powerset (recently purchased by Microsoft) and Hakia are now making a full throttle attempt at semantic search, allowing users to search by posing questions such as “What are the benefits of owning a home?” These engines just haven't caught on yet, because in many cases results on the traditional search engines are still more relevant. A search on Hakia for “laptop computer” brings up results for reviews, comparison sites and retail sites, very similar to the diverse set of results Google has for the same query.

Since semantic search is clearly growing, albeit slowly, what does the future hold?

Imagine walking up to your computer, speaking to a search engine and getting results based on the inflection of your voice. For example, if you say sharply “credit card!” the search engine will know you're upset with your current provider based on your inflection and show you competitors, rather than information on how to choose a credit card or finding the best credit card for you.

Traditional search engines will likely continue to dominate the marketplace for at least the next decade. For semantic search to become successful, technology will need to catch up to imagination.

Should You Handle Your Own Search Engine Optimization?

Everyone is trying to save money in today's economy - but sometimes when you think you are saving money you are actually losing so much more than you save.

If you are considering handling your SEO, that is only a good decision if; a) you have the time to do the work and actually get it done and b) you can get the results you need so you actually improve your traffic from top rankings.

To determine if you should handle your SEO - check out these questions.

1. Can you work within simple HTML? At a bare minimum, you need to be able to add Meta tags to an HTML document. Ideally, you can also bold text, set up links, change formatting, rename images, move java script into a .js file etc.

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2. Do you have enough time to make your site search engine friendly? Plan on a minimum of 3 hours for sites that are in great shape, and up to 25 hours (or more) for sites that may need a complete overhaul. In our experience, 3 - 6 hours seems to be the norm for time spent on updating SEO friendliness issues.

3. Will you have this time for SEO friendliness work within the next week? Typically, if people don't take action in the immediate future (within the next 5 business days), the project ends up being delayed indefinitely. You need a clear scheduled start date for your SEO work - especially when the holidays are approaching! You need to get things going!

4. Can your business afford to "lend" this time to SEO without experiencing some other negative impact? If the time is not truly extra time you have, then you would be "borrowing" the time from another area of your business. Can you do that without harming another area of your business?

5. If your SEO project becomes bigger than you initially anticipated, will you have the time and attention to continue dedicating to it until completion?

6. Are you an experienced and competent copywriter? If you said no, do you feel you can quickly master writing compelling copy that is also keyword rich?

7. Is the content already on your site something you feel comfortable altering? Often people that have paid for high-end marketing copy on their websites do not want to make any SEO alterations themselves, for fear of altering the effectiveness of their current copy - and therefore affecting their conversion rates.

8. Do you have any prior SEO experience?

9. Do you have the tools or know where to purchase the tools that will help you in keyword selection, site analysis, reporting and current industry information?

10. Would you rather spend your time working ON your business (i.e., growing it) than IN your business (i.e., taking care of the nitty gritty details rather than the big picture)?

11. Do you have a plan in place to make sure you stay current on all SEO trends and changes so you can maintain your rankings on-going?

Now let's take a look at your answers and what they mean:

1: Can you work within simple HTML? On-page optimization requires that you work within the HTML on your website. If you are not able to work with an HTML document and feel confident that you will not cause any errors or malfunctions, then you simply can not handle your SEO at this time. You would need to learn HTML before you could consider handling SEO. Please note, if your site is more complex than simple HTML, you would need to be comfortable working within the code used on your site.

2, 3 and 4: Do you have enough time to make your site search engine friendly? Can your business afford to "lend" this time to SEO, and therefore experience no significant negative impact? If the time is not truly extra time you have, then you would be "borrowing" the time from another area of your business.

You will also later need to write content, alter content and handle various optimization techniques, but to get started - before you can do anything else - you need to make the time to get the foundation ready for SEO. If you don't have time to do this, your project simply won't get off the ground.

Do you truly have the time, or are you just taking it from somewhere else. If you are taking it from somewhere else, that may be fine - you just need to be sure that you aren't harming your business in other ways. Getting rankings, and ultimately traffic to your site will not benefit you if your business falls apart while you work on the optimization.

The remainder of the questions are details for you to consider. Basically, the more No's there are, the more likely it is that you should NOT handle your SEO in-house. If your results determined you can handle your SEO, here are the final details you need you consider:

1. What is your time worth per hour? Which option is more cost effective for you - hiring someone or spending your time? 2. Can you recognize when your choice is not working for you and are you willing to try the other option at that time? 3. You must commit to educating yourself and learning all that you need to know to truly run a successful SEO campaign.

Inadvertently spamming, or using a questionable technique can result in a temporary loss of results or a permanent ban from the engines. Be 100% sure you aren't endangering your business.

If your results determined you should outsource your SEO, here are the final details you should consider: 1. Make sure you know what questions to ask the SEO firm you hire. 2. Plan on spending anywhere from $300 - $1000.00 per month to run an aggressive SEO campaign. No one but you can decide - we just wanted to arm you with some things to consider. It is all in the details, and you should consider them carefully before making a decision.

This post provided by Jennifer Horowitz, Dir. of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com who has written a book on SEO and has been published in many SEO & Marketing publications. She is the editor of Spotlight on Success: SEO & Marketing newsletter. Over the past 10 years Jennifer's expertise in marketing & Search Engine Optimization has helped clients íncrease revenue. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media & more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet