Archive for July, 2008

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most discussed methods for improving traffic to your website.  Search engines, such as Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and others are all trying to help web surfers find what they are looking for.  This is harder than it sounds.  Search engine companies are always working on their advanced algorithms in order to produce better results for web surfers.  It is a very competitive industry.  SEO experts work very hard to keep up with the changes in the search engine industry.

I strongly recommend you use a professional SEO consultant for all of this.  It is a lot of work and there are special tools that make all this much easier.  You can do it yourself, but is it worth your time?  Only you can say.

Know your baseline – Make sure you have statistics enabled on your site.  I recommend Google Analytics.

Know your objectives – Are you selling something?  Looking for phone calls?  Or do you want people to sign-up for your newsletter.

Keyword Analysis – Keyword research tells you what keywords you should target in your SEO strategy.  These should be consistent with your objectives.  I recommend Word Tracker

Competitor Analysis – Search the major search engines using the keywords from your analysis.  Learn who your competitors are.  You will want to out-perform them with better keyword densities, more inbound links, etc.  I recommend Web CEO.

On-Page SEO – There are a number of on-page things to do.  Here are the most significant areas to optimize:

• Pages should have keywords in the filename. These keywords appear in the address bar.
• The page TITLE should have keywords. These keywords appear on top of the browser.
• META Tags (keywords and description) should have lots of keywords in them as well.
• All graphics should have ALT tags with keywords in them as well.
• Page content should include heading tags and emphasis tags to draw attention to key words and phrases on the page.
• Page content should have a high density of critical keywords.
• All links on your site to other pages on your site should have keywords in those links. Avoid using [click here]. Use keywords in the link.
• Create additional site content if necessary. Make sure you have all your keywords optimized somewhere on your site.
• Update your site regularly. The more updates the better. This is why blogs are so popular.

Off-Page SEO – There are many off-page SEO techniques.  We can only cover a few here:

• Write keyword-rich articles and submit them to free article sites. Write a lot of articles. Use an article submission service to get your articles out to more websites faster.
• Write comments on blogs and social networks and include links back to your site. Make sure your links always include keywords.
• Post ads on craigslist.org, ebay.com, and anywhere else you can place ads promoting your products or services.

Your ultimate goal is to have as many pages on your site as possible and for those pages to be keyword optimized.  Then you want as many links to your site from other sites and those links should have keywords in the clickable part as well.   This is a never-ending process.  Always add more content.  Always produce more inbound links.  It is a lot of work but it can pay off big.

It can take a while for your SEO efforts to be fruitful.  Just keep at it.  Watch your website work its way up the rankings.  You will thank me when you are #1.

If you spend any time at all on the internet, then you know that nearly every major website has some form of community features.  Whether it is posting a review, setting up a profile, or making friends, most websites have features that allow visitors to participate in some fashion.

While there are many fantastic communities to participate in, for this article we will focus on Yahoo! Answers.  The principles are adaptable to many other sites.  My suggestion is to start with Yahoo! Answers and then expand to other community sites based on your own niche.

What is Yahoo! Answers?

Yahoo has a service called "Yahoo! Answers".  Yahoo! Answers is a web-based service where visitors can ask questions and other visitors will answer them.  Someone might ask a question and get several responses from various visitors.   It is rewarding to answer questions for people, but done right, you can use this tool to drive more business to your website.

Visit http://answers.yahoo.com and look around.  Search for questions related to your own industry.  Even if the question already has answers, you can add your own answers as long as the question has not been marked "resolved".

Be a Good Citizen – Tips for Success

Answer questions in your niche. Stay focused on topics within your target audience for your products and services.  You are building relationships in the virtual community and your answers should help you create a reputation as a subject matter expert.

Participate Often. You will build relationships, earn a few points, and create more links to your website.  Try to answer several questions once a week.  Yahoo! Has a point system.

Always vote on other people’s answers. Vote thumbs up or thumbs down, just vote.

Contribute value and go easy on the links. People do not mind if your answer has a link to your website as long as the answer was a good contribute to the question.  Answers like, "find your answer on my website …" are not good enough.  Contribute real value and place your link in a subtle fashion at the bottom of your article or wherever it fits best.  NOTE:  To place a link, simply include the http:// along with your website address.  You will see it is clickable when you preview.  If it is not clickable, you probably forgot to put the whole thing like this:  http://www.AnythingInternet.com .

Do Not Post Commercials. This is not an advertising system.  It is a community support system.  Always do your best to provide good value and keep the marketing verbiage to a bare minimum.