Three Steps for Search Engine Optimization

There are a number of ways to improve your website's popularity, page rank, and listing on major search engines. Here are three tips designed to improve your rankings.

The single most important “on page" factor affecting search engine rankings is the use of a title tag. A title tag is a snippet of code in the header section of a web page that is given great weight by the search engines.

One common mistake made when working with title tag is that a website is created from a template in which all of the title tag information is the same from page to page. This can not only get your pages thrown into supplemental results, but it's an example of extremely poor individual page optimization.

The title tag of each page should be individually optimized for the keyphrases that you are targeting for that page. Repetition should be avoided. For ecommerce websites, each product page should contain a unique title tag reflecting the specific product featured on that page.

Step #2: Publishing Rich Content

If you are not including keyword rich content on each page of your website, you again face a risk of having your pages receive a low quality score, or having your pages rank poorly for your target keywords. Be sure to include at least one instance of the keyword you are targeting for that page in the body text of the page.

A rule of thumb I use is to first go through and select the keyphrases you are targeting for each page. Then, optimize the title tags accordingly to reflect this. After that, write rich, unique content for each page, and be sure to include at least one instance of the title tag content in the body text.

Step #3: Create Link Bait

Generally speaking, the more links you have to rich content on your site, the better off you are going to be in the engines. The creation of a blog is a wonderful way to attract links. Other ideas for link bait include video, images, sound clips, press releases and the like. Contests, quizzes, product reviews, top 10 lists (or in the case of this article, a top 5 list), and how to articles fare very well. Also, the provision of useful tools can be a great way to attract links.

In the example of the real estate agency, a tool likely to attract links would be a free mortgage calculator. Offering such a tool on your website can attract the attention of other sites in the form of links, increasing your reputation and pagerank, which has a direct impact on higher search engine rankings.

Be sure to create link bait regularly through frequent generation of content, or whatever form you choose.

Using these three steps for Search Engine Optimization are sure to get your web site or blog ranked high on any search engine.

Building a Web Site the Right Way!

If you have a web site or are considering building one for your business, think about

 these important web site factors - beginning with appearance.  A look of a website can make or break yo

ur business. First impressions always count. Here are ten tips to building a better business

 website.

1. Color - A black background is not recommended. It's hard on the eyes. I don't know how

 many people have problems reading white or coloured text on a black background and with that said, don't go neon pink or glaring orange either. Genera

lly black text on white background is best. Ideally you can choose two colours, but make sure they match and use it consistently on all your pages to maintain

 fluidity and continuity.

2. Layout - Don't cram everything into one page. Cluttered websites overwhelms the visitors. Keep it clean, crisp

 and concise. I had a CMS style website before and although it looked organized because there were three columns, there were also

 a lot of text. Navigation wasn't as plain as day and it overloaded the senses. Take these three words to heart, less is more.

3. Navigation - The more user-

friendly the better and your visitors are bound to stay longer. You don't want your visitors to be jumpin

g through hoops to find what they are looking for. Make shopping carts or payment buttons visible and easily accessible. Everything

 should be just a click away. Make sure all your links are working. Finding broken links becomes frustrating and annoying.

4. Spelling and grammar - There's nothing good about visiting a website to find loads of misspelled words and poor grammar. It's unprofessional and you can bet your visitors will leave.

5. Load Speed - When it comes to website loading, no one likes to be kept waiting. They will definitely leave a site if it won't load properly. People's time is precious; don't make them wait.

6. Proper Graphics - Be careful of using big flashy graphics or banners. Too many animated and too many big banners take away a site's credibility. It also slows down the loading time of your site considerably. Not everyone uses high speed Internet. Remember people don't wait around for slow loading sites.

7. Adding Audio - If you like it and want it, change the default setting to give the visitor control if they want to hear audio or not. Make sure it's visibly accessible to the visitor. The last time I landed on a site, I couldn't find the button to disable the audio so I exited the site immediately.

8. Avoid Pop-ups - Although many people now have pop-up blockers, it may not be so much of a nuisance, but a pop-up of anything is intrusive, unwanted and annoying. Adding a form to your page in a highly visible spot is much more effective and non-intrusive.

9. Valuable Content - Informative, resourceful content will keep a visitor coming back. No one wants to visit a site that hasn't been updated in a long time. You can add a small graphic or a simple text in red with the word "new" or a "What's New?" page to inform your visitors you have made updates.

10. AdSense ads - Too many AdSense ads on any page looks scammy and it downgrades the quality of your site. If you can handle honest opinions, have someone critique your website. It really all comes down to personal preference and you will never be able to please everyone and that's okay.

The main goal should be to build a functioning, well laid out website that is successful and prosperous to you for many years to come.

This post provided by S. McIntyre owns http://www.WorkAtHomeSpace.com, a free work at home resource focusing on telecommuting companies, daily telecommute job leads, articles, business resources and other work at home related topics.

Design Your Website For Optimal Effectiveness

The architecture and design of any Web site will play a major role in search engine rankings. A design emphasizing aesthetic values and flashy gimmickry may command an award for design, but they will seldom be indexable by search engines robots. One could potentially end up with a nicely designed site that no one else can find.

Conversely, a site that provides rich content but is devoid of any aesthetic value may not meet all the needs of Web authors or end users despite otherwise fantastic search rankings. For these and many other reasons, Web authors must take special care when designing their sites to ensure that they will be accessible to all users - mechanical or human.

Since a thorough discussion of design could easily fill an encyclopedia, this document will simply provide a list of design considerations along with simple rationale for each.

Design Checklist.

• Make sure each page is reachable by at least one static link. If a search engine cannot find your document, it will never show up in a user inquiry.
  
  
• Offer a site map with links that point to important parts of the site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, break it into separate pages. These help search engines locate all of the content on a site
  
  
• Keep URL's simple and static. Complicated URL's are difficult for people to type and hard to remember. Additionally, longevity is a factor in search ranking (more on this later...).
  
  
• Keep the site hierarchy fairly flat. That is, each page should only be one to three clicks away from the home page. This aids both humans and machines in navigating the site.
  
  
• Minimize the use of Macromedia flash as well as Java applets. Although they can add useful demonstrations and animations to a site, they are not indexed by search engines.
  
  
• Avoid the unnecessary use of frames as search engines often have difficulty indexing them correctly.
  
  
• Since dynamic page content is expected to change frequently, the relevance to search keywords will probably not be maintained. Moving content to static pages will improve indexing and lighten the load on the Web server.
  
  
• Make sure internal pages link to the homepage to aid navigation.
  
  
• Organize content by topic and divide the site into logical sections, each focusing on a given topic. This allows search engines to better target specific information relevant to keyword searches.

A Web site that is optimized for search engine effectiveness will be as easy to navigate as a good book. The home page should read like a table of contents, linking visitors to relevant information organized into useful sections.

Sites which feature dynamically generated content such as forums or weblogs should still incorporate static HTML pages to aid search engines. Images, animations, scripts and videos should be used only when text is inappropriate and they add to the value of a given page.

The Full-Proof Way To Generate Website Traffic

You no doubt recognize by now that having a website is essential for any small business in the 21st Century. A website allows your business to connect with customers, inform prospects, and gain your business’s visibility so you can earn more profits—even while you sleep.

The cornerstone of every successful local business website is traffic. Getting traffic and standing out in the crowd is hard to do. You are busy trying to run your business, you don’t have time for SEO and you don’t want to waste your money paying some “expert” who may or may not know what their actually doing. And unless you’re an expert at online marketing, you will waste thousands of dollars and hours of valuable time trying to figure out how to advertise on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN effectively.

The easy and simple way to generate traffic is to use video.

In this article, you’re going to learn an easy content creation strategy that takes less than a day to implement and will provide a steady stream of rankings, traffic, and leads to ANY website in ANY market.

I’m going to show you how to move viewers from ignorance, to becoming qualified prospects, and finally to becoming buyers. You’ll go from being a salesman to an authority, trusted advisor, and friend.

The result of this strategy is that your customers will be begging you to sell them something.

Why The System Works
Google, Yahoo and MSN love video content.

When you upload your videos to the top video sites, they get ranked and show up quickly in the search engines (usually within 1-2 hours). Having your webpage and video dominate a search engine result page (i.e., having more than 2 listings within the top 10) often occurs within 24-48 hours. And if you upload to dozens of sites, they all get ranked separately. It is not unusual for a single video to dominate up to 8 positions on a single page. When a user sees the obvious domination in organic listings, they click.

And if a user watches your video and visits your site, they’re 5 to 20 times more likely to take action than from an ordinary link or a paid advertisement. You just need to make sure you title your videos with the keyword phrases you want to target.

The Basic Steps
The only equipment you’ll need is a computer and an inexpensive camera (like a Flip webcam). If you don’t want to appear on screen, PC users can use PowerPoint, Camtasia, and a microphone; Mac users will need Keynote and Screenflow to create video presentations. You can also create video presentations with TrafficGeyser, which has a web application.

The Strategy Step-By-Step:
1. Write down the top ten frequently asked questions about your product or service

2. Write down the top ten questions a potential buyer should be asking about your products and services

3. Record 20 short videos responding to each question. These video responses should be 30 seconds to 3 minutes in length. At the end of these videos you should direct visitors to your website to take advantage of a special web offer or to see another video that compliments the information you just provided.

4. Upload your videos to as many video sharing, social bookmarking, podcast directories, social networks and blogs as possible. It will take several days to do this manually. However, there is an affordable service that will automate this process for you called TrafficGeyser.

Once submitted, the search engines will index your videos in a few hours and you’ll have incredible exposure all over the Internet. The goal of this is to send visitors to your website for an offer, and this is where you can capture names and email and build a client list.

2 Fast Ways To Implement This Strategy

1) You can spend about 3 or 4 hours creating these videos yourself and then submitting them to dozens upon dozens of social, video, bookmarking, podcast, and blog sites through a submission tool known as TrafficGeyser. I would not recommend submitting your videos manually, it literally takes up to 3 hours to register for every one of these sites independently and then you have to sit and wait as you upload each individual video. Unless you have a spare secretary who isn’t busy, you should seriously get this done through an automated system like TrafficGeyser.

2) Should you have an issue about creating a professional looking video, or you don’t like your voice or how you look on screen, then have the pros do it. SmallBizVids.com will create professional video for your site and even submit it to all the video sharing sites. They are extremely affordable, and if you consider the time saved and the quality of work, it may actually be cheaper than doing it yourself.

Consider combining these two methods. For example, you can create the videos that drive traffic to your website and then have a nice professional advertisement on your website that can really sell customers on your service. Or perhaps you can use the professional video to advertise a special deal on your site and then have a self-made welcome video.

I’m looking forward to seeing you online soon! Don’t hesitate, make sure you get started today before your competition does.

Vernon Wharff is a small business writer and consultant based in Orlando, Florida. As a leading expert in online marketing and search engine optimization, he consults with small businesses to expand their sales and lead generation through the Internet. The methods he employs have earned small businesses millions in new business. You can find out more about his online marketing services at his website.

Article Marketing Helps To Improve Search Engine Rankings

Change in life is inevitable, and that includes article marketing. Used by millions, this marketing technique has made money for many, but for others, it just plain hasn't worked. Article marketing must be done responsibly and consistently over time in order to deliver results.

 It isn't a "get-rich-quick" technique, but those who follow the trends in article marketing can prosper. In order to get the most out of your article marketing, you'll want to stay aware of changing techniques and hire someone to help you with writing or submission if needed. 

To help get you started, I have listed the top ten changes that have taken place in article m

arketing over the years: 

1. Create - or have someone create for you - original articles for your web site and do not use them for submission. This will draw search engines to your site and you can advertise this fresh content in your byline to entice readers to click your link. 

2. Pay more attention to titles. Do your keyword research first and use your top three keywords at the beginning of the title. Use power words such as "daring," "remarkable" and "urgent." Ask an engaging question or use a top seven or top ten title. 

3. Do not submit articles too often - or not often enough. Article directories have less restrictions, but keep in mind that individual publishers can get easily overwhelmed. Submit two to four articles per month and keep doing it. 

4. In the past, article marketers were told to educate their readers. While this still holds true today, you will get more responses when you identify the problems of your potential audience and then solve these problems. 

5. It is now common to find article marketers rewriting their title, article body and byline part

way through their submission list. This is a reliable way to get published more often, but realize that it can be time-consuming. Get help rewriting if needed. 

6. Some new article marketers are offering publishers customized articles to fit their audience, or giving permission for publishers to edit the article so long as the byline remains untouched and all links are made live. 

7. In the beginning, article marketers submitted their articles to thousands of article directories. Now, savvy article marketers submit their article to the top ten or twenty article directories that provide more traffic than a thousand low-quality directories. 

8. A submission list used to consist of article directories, e-zines, newsgroups and individual sites. The new submission list should also include blogs, social networking sites, niche topic sites and news sites (turn your article into a tipsheet). 

9. Once your article is included in a well-ranked article directory, submit that page to social bookmarking sites where you have accounts. Do the same for the original articles on your site. 

10. Consider offering an original, exclusive article to target sites with a large audience who will relate to you and what you have to offer. Ask to be paid or negotiate advertising space in their newsletter or on their site. 

Some things about article marketing have remained unchanged. Never use document spinner software, mass distribution to thousands of sites, a submission list that isn't targeted and automated submission tools. Article marketing is not dead, but it has changed. To be a successful article marketer, you must keep informed and stay up to date on changes in the technique. Keep an eye on blogs and web sites dedicated to the subject so you can keep reaping the benefits of article marketing. 

Post provided by Davis Virtual Assistance. Reprints welcomed so long as the article and byline are kept intact and all links are made live. Bonnie Jo Davis is an article marketing expert who uses the technique daily for herself and her clients. 

If you use article marketing or would like to learn how visit her site at http://www.articlesubmissionsites.com While you are there you can download the free e-book "Writing For Publicity" a compilation of her articles about article marketing and submission. 

SEO to Deliver Results

To make your web site generate revenue, it has to get good web traffic. By checking your web stats you can quickly observe how many visitors your web site is getting and even how many people stay long enough to browse the website.

Most programs have analytics that show how those web visitors came to you. Did they click through from a search engine? If so, what keyword brought them to you? Or, did they come from a particular website that links to yours? Your stats will reveal all.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Of great interest to most webmasters is the keywords used by visitors who find your site through the search engines. In the past few years "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO) has evolved into a business model that specializes in making sure your web site gets a strong flow of business from people who look for your niche of goods and services using Google, Yahoo or one of the other big search engines. The key to great traffic from a search engine is your "search engine ranking".

That all sounds very complicated but it isn't. When you search for something on the Internet, Google (or your favorite search engine) comes back with lots of web sites for you to consider. The ones it comes back with first are called the first page. And usually there are dozens of pages of web sites that the search engine shows you.

Experts tell us that the majority of web shoppers use a web site shown on that first page of links that the search engine returns. So if your web site is among that first one or two pages, you have a good search engine ranking and you will see more customers than a business that is way down on page 54 where customers never go.

One of the primary ways to get on that first page is by using good SEO. Search engine optimization is the science of working with search engines so your web site gets a good ranking. SEO is also a fairly complicated science because it involves how your web site is programmed, the kind of text you have on each page and a good SEO expert has specialized tools and software to monitor your SEO on a daily basis to see how you are doing.So how do we go about improving our web site's SEO?

If you go talk to your web programmers, they will be aware of the terms we learned here today but they may not be equipped to do a professional job of improving your SEO. That is why most businesses that do well at improving SEO for their web sites do so using a professional outsourcing company that specializes in this kind of thing. There are good reasons for you to outsource this function as well.

An SEO company will have those specialized tools and software resources to do the job right. They understand how search engines work and they can prepare specific suggestions to your web team to improve your search engine ranking. And they can employ internet traffic specialists who have that expertise to take your web site from where it is and turn it into a successful money maker for you. By learning the terminology and what SEO is as we have started to talk about today, you are on your way to finding a good SEO contractor who can help your web site find success and get lots of profitable traffic.

Use good common sense in finding a SEO company and check references and employ someone who can really do the job. It will cost you a bit to get the best expertise there is to improve your SEO. But when you see the flood of business and sales that come from the effort, you will know you made a wise investment in using them.

You will also want to make sure the articles you purchase from private label sites or ghostwriter services are optimized for your site's keywords as well. If you purchase a set of private label articles, for example, on the subject of weight loss it will be a good idea to re-write them using your own site's keywords.

If, on the other hand, you are outsourcing custom articles to a ghostwriter you can specify the articles be "SEO" ready for your chosen keywords upon delivery. This will ensure your articles will rank well in the search engines. These are just a few ways that using good SEO will create traffic to your website.

This post provided by Linda Van Fleet. Ms. Van Fleet is a freelance author and SEO expert who has been using the power of the Internet to promote online businesses since 1996. Do you need private label articles? We have private label article packages and custom articles for your website content.

Keyword Secrets: Expand Your List to Include Words That Perform!

The Primary objective of a business website is to attract potential buyers and convert them into paying customers. Relevant keywords allow you to fulfill this primary objective. They help you attract relevant traffic that want to buy the types of products you have to offer, however, the more relevant keywords that you rank well for, the more business you will do. By effectively expanding your keyword lists, you expand the potential market for your business.

There are two fundamental ways of expanding your keyword lists:

Long tail keywords that give you depth and allow you to dominate a particular market - so, moving from “chocolate”' to “chocolate gifts” to 'corporate chocolate gifts. These long tailed keywords tend to have a smaller advertiser competition, therefore you get a better PPC price, also, you dominate that specific niche market.

Related keywords that allow you to broaden the range of market sectors that you can target. So, if you're selling gourmet chocolate, you may find opportunities in related keywords such as 'truffles', 'fudge' or 'luxury foods'. Related keywords can make you aware of markets that you might now have considered. So in building your online business, you need to make sure you have an effective sales process in place. Do that and you will have real benefit from expanding your keyword lists.

You need to convert people who arrive at your website into paying customers. If you don't do that, then it doesn't matter how extensive you keyword research is, or how effective your optimization efforts are in drawing new visitors to your website. If you can't convert a visitor into a customer then your efforts will be doomed to failure.

Only when you have got an effective sales process can you get the real benefit from expanding your keyword lists. And when you have that sales process in place, like any business you will want to expand. You could add new product lines, associated products and other ways to expand your potential income from each of the customers you attract.

Before you start on the path of product development you need to be sure that you are getting maximum return from what you have already. Let's suppose you've got a website that performs well - you get 100,000 unique visitors per month and you have a conversion rate of 3%. That equates to 3,000 paying customers per month. Not a bad business situation to be in.

Now look at your log files or traffic software. From these you see that 30% of your traffic comes from search engines. Dig a little deeper and you find that 80% of this comes from around 20 good keywords. Here's a quick calculation of what this means:

30% of your traffic comes from search engines so that's 30,000 unique visitors per month. 80% of these come from your top 20 keywords - that's 24,000 per month. With a conversion rate of 3%, those 20 keywords bring you 720 paying customers every month. Now, if you could find another 20 keywords that perform just as well, then you could add another 720 customers, giving you a total of 3,720 customers per month - an increase of 24%.

And if you could achieve this growth once, could you do it again? Of course, the answer to that depends on the potential in your marketplace but the underlying principle is that good keywords will bring additional revenue to your website and you really can't get too many of them.

This post provided by Darren Jennings - Expert in Business Building, Coaching, Mentoring. Find out why so many people are having huge success in Darren's Business opportunity: http://www.successfulincomestrategies.com

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Managing Your SERPs

Many large companies suffer from bad press. Often times these articles are incorrect or attempt to damage the market leader. If a significant publisher posts such an article, it can end up near the top of the search results for that company.

In some cases, an individual may try to abuse the system by creating a ton of articles in an attempt to push the primary corporate site down within the rankings. This tactic is very difficult to fight, when a site has an overall lack of inbound links, since search engines use links to determine quality and credibility to stay in a position, in many cases for their brand and or company name.

These attacks focus on service-based companies with a very targeted offering, and normally not toward companies with a large array of offerings. Most of these single-service companies don't have enough links to dominate in their market. A company offering several services may receive links to multiple products, which will create a concrete position and make it hard to move within the search engine rankings.

Are you a victim of this type of attack? Even if you're in the number one or two positions within the results, you may have eight additional results bashing your product offering at a completely unfair level!

My suggestion is to build alternative media types, e.g., forums, social media sites, LinkedIn profiles, and YouTube videos. Every domain has a different score and has the ability to rank along with your primary domain. If you can find compelling content that can be linked to, you can clear up the majority of the unwanted press by moving it down through the rankings.

Creating these pages isn't enough to make them rank, so it's important to consider getting other sites to write articles about these pages. Without a set of high-quality links, these pages won't rank and will be a waste of time. It's important to create compelling content that may provide a level quality that someone may want to write about.

If you create video content, it needs to be interesting enough that viewers will want to share it with their friends based on reaction. No matter what type of compelling content you decide to create, make sure it's easy to share. The majority of sharing is done with social media-based applications, such as Facebook, blogs, and or any application that may provide a level of excitement or attachment.

Forums are difficult to build, but they can be very powerful if put together well. Seeding the forum with compelling questions and/or high quality content can provide data that may attract users to either take over or contribute content that will attract other dedicated contributors.

If you sell products or services, make sure to follow up with your clients to rate their purchasing experience. This data is valuable to other users and can help you tune your site for other users. Do whatever you can to make things better and not ignore them.

The Top 40 SEO Strategies of All Time!

Having now read five recently published books on Search Engine Optimization, along with hundreds of on-line articles and forums, I feel I know a little about this exhaustive topic. The problem, however, is that most SEO authors seem to feel the overwhelming need to fluff up their books and articles with unnecessary filler, leaving some of us readers wondering: why can't you just get to the point?

Those articles that do seem to get to the point, usually only focus on one narrow aspect of the picture. As a result, I have decided to share with you the accumulation of months of reading, neatly organized into three categories and 40 points.

This list is in no way exhaustive, and it does take a bit of website knowledge to know what I'm talking about. Nevertheless, this list does provide a very solid foundation that will put you at a definite advantage over the majority of website owners. It can also be very useful as a checklist for website owners looking to improve their rankings.

Before I begin, I think it's necessary to mention the importance of keyword research. Regardless if you already have a website operating, or if you are just thinking of setting one up, you must begin your SEO campaign with adequate keyword exploration. I would recommend opening up a Google Adwords account. If for nothing else, you can use this account to take advantage of their Keyword tools. Your purpose is to find relevant keywords and phrases that get adequate searches, but don't have too much competition.

When you have made a list of a few of these keywords and phrases, you should then type them directly into Google to examine your competition. If, for example, the first three pages are filled with PR (Page Rank) 4 and 5 sites all of which are competing for those same keywords and phrases, you should probably go back and try again (you can almost always see what keywords and phrases a site is trying to rank for by looking at what's in its title - first line in Google results). It could take you years of link building to compete with these high PR sites (all the while they're improving as well). Find a niche in your keyword research where there is little solid competition. For example, if the first five results have a Page Rank of 3 or less, you might just have a shot.

Onsite Optimization

1. find keywords that get searched but don't have too much competition 2. select keyword and keyword phrases based on research 3. calculate competition for these words/phrases 4. acquire a domain with your keywords in it (if possible) 5. acquire fast and reliable hosting (local if possible) 6. create additional site URLs using keywords and phrases 7. create title tags using keywords and phrases 8. create description tags using keywords and phrases 9. create category tags using keywords and phrases 10. create keyword tags using keywords and phrases 11. use keywords and phrases to create headers (h1,h2,h3) 12. write content with a keyword and phrase concentration of 5-7% 13. use bold and strong tags with keywords and phrases 14. use words and phrases in content relevant to keywords 15. content topics should also be relevant to keywords and phrases 16. content should be free of spelling and grammar errors 17. include links to your own keyword rich URLs 18. create keyword rich title tags to these links 19. include pictures with keywords in picture names 20. create keyword rich alt tags for these pictures.

Offsite Optimization

21. acquire one-way back links from relevant quality sites 22. acquire one-way back links from quality directories 23. acquire reciprocal links from relevant directories and sites 24. participate in 3 and 4 way link exchanges 25. ensure keywords and phrases are in link text 26. ensure keywords and phrases are surrounding the link 27. publish articles on relevant content with author box and link attached 28. use blogs, forums, Stubleupon, Digg, etc. to acquire links 29. acquire links from sites with high PR and fewer outgoing links 30. do not link to link farms, or sites that have been banned.

Future Optimization

31. make sure you have the Google toolbar to check PR and back links 32. check your competition to see what they are doing (view source) 33. check back links of your competition through Google toolbar 34. create an account with Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics 35. monitor what sites are linking to you and act accordingly 36. monitor what keywords and phrases people are finding you with 37. update your content frequently and adjust your keywords as necessary 38. monitor your back links and PR as well as those of your competition 39. constantly search for high PR relevant sites that might link to you 40. keep your customers happy and patiently wait for more.

In all your online endeavours, always remember that onsite optimization (what you do to your site) will only counts for so much. Nowadays, with Google being god, your position in the ranks will depend almost entirely on offsite optimization. This means that getting high quality sites to link to you, and getting them to use your keywords in the anchor text, is by far more important than anything else you can do. Also remember that Google does favour sites that have been around for longer. If you do everything right, and you don't get caught purchasing links or linking to link farms, you will likely see your site slowly (or quickly) move up the ranks. Ranking well for keywords will save you a ton of money in PPC advertising, and could eventually ensure your financial success. Good luck.


About the authorJack Strawman is the cofounder of the Late Night Chat and HookUp, a social networking site.

Improve Web Site Rankings Today!

If you are like me, you will definitely love the idea of attracting hordes of visitors to your websites. If anyone has ever told you that can get all the traffic you want WITHOUT lifting your finger, then you've been shamelessly lied to. Well, here is my 12-Point "check-list" for you that could make all the difference.

1. Make sure your website is promoted every month! - Continuous Exposure and search engines will start "liking" your website.

2. Do not use "black hat" or "grey hat" tactics to trick the search engines. You may get permanently banned from search engines.

3. Strategically choose the right "mix" of promotional activities (I'll tell you more about this later).

4. Get One-way "Back-Links" from other websites to boost Your Search Engine Rankings and Positioning.

5. Write 4-5 new and original articles every month and distribute UNIQUE versions to leading article directories. (don't know how to write? there's a shortcut!)

6. Write and distribute Press Release about your website every month. Search engine robots are always lurking around these sites.

7. Try to get "back-links" from other people's Blogs and Forums in your niche. Post comments to Blogs and replies to forum threads.

8. Start writing content for other Blogs. These are not just comments but entire 'Posts' for other blogs. Of course, you'll be allowed to get a back-link for this effort.

9. Bookmark every article, blog post, video, web page on your site as well as the URLs of other sites where your content is appearing on all leading bookmarking sites.

10. Create your profiles on leading social networking sites like Squidoo, Hubpages and so on. Keep them updated with new content every month.

11. If you are not using VIDEOS, you are leaving too much on the table. Create promotional videos about your product, service or website and distribute to all leading video portals like YouTube, Google etc.

12. Imagine what it could do for your credibility and bottom-line if leading "Authority" sites (wiki sites) display a link to YOUR website? Lurk around these sites and add your unique content on high pagerank sites like WetPaint, LittleWiki etc.

There you have it. Twelve easy to follow techniques for improving your rankings today!