SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process by which the quality and volume of traffic can be improved on a search engine on the Internet. Normally when we search for a particular piece of information or data on any top search engine ranking the results we get, are presented in a serial order by the particular search engine. This presentation of the results is derived from what is called the ‘Algorithmic’ basis and the results that figure at the top of the order are the ones that would be visited more often.
A number of times the process of SEO could focus on searches that broadly range from ‘vertical search’ to ‘horizontal search’ or could be a very specific search. The process of SEO depends to a great extent on how the search engine has been designed to respond to specific searches. A search engine may have a particular set of search words or ‘Keywords’ that has been used by a very large number of visitors to a particular site on this search engine. In this case the designers of the search engine would invariably give a very high priority to this particular set of keywords that would display the website in a privileged position in the top three or top five results on the search engine.
Now, although certain search engines do have somewhat different algorithms that are liable to change sometimes, it has been found that all engines more or less similarly appreciate the information that searchers look for, such as:
Simple, clean and implicit search engine friendly web site design
Carefully prepared, perceptive direction
Descriptive and well-written text
Tag content that that optimizes identification of relevant keywords
Accurate links that extend the scope of the search
It is true that good content that provides relevant information to the visitor to the site utilizing keyword phrases should be the objective of all contents that makes its way to the World Wide Web. Therefore a professional content writer and not SEO, is what is vital for that aspect of the job. In fact most people would rather be presented with information they require in clear, concise language, right on the main page of the site they are visiting.
Normally a decent search engine strategy takes up to a year to work although it might also work with minimal effort for a long time although it might not perform well in the beginning. If the site does not provide the visitors with what they want then it might never perform at all. Therefore while designing a site, it is important to remember that for the site to be up on the World Wide Web it will first be read by search engines that are machines. On the other hand, any content designed specifically for machine-readability could turn off a real visitor who is not interested in how the pages appear to a machine. Hence SEO is basically a question of balance.
SEO - An overview
How to Maximize your Page Rank
Why care about the Page rank?
As mentioned in previous articles, Page Rank is one of the familiar variables in determining appearance in SE results. Although today the importance of page rank has been descended, and sometimes we see pages of PR 3 or 4 getting to first places in Google, Page Rank is one of the variables SEO's often deal with because this is the variable we know a lot about and can approach sensibly. The second good reason to learn about PR is using it to emphasize important pages of your website, like the Homepage ( you know how annoying it is when SE presents some negligible page of your website higher than the Homepage)
What is PR?
PR ranges from 1-10 and indicates the number and quality of page incoming links.
Page Rank is calculated as follows:
PR(A) = log10((1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))) when :
0<1 usually set to 0.85
PR(T1) – Page rank of page T1 linking to page A. T1, ….,Tn
C(T1) – number of outbound links in page T
Notice that the 1-10 scale is accepted because of logarithmization of the equation. Therefore , each group of page rank ( PR1,… PR10) is not equal in size and getting to higher PR group is getting harder with every step.
This article deals with page rank maximization techniques:
PR0 – Page rank zero
This rank is usually given to:
new pages
pages with very few incoming links
websites being caught using Black Hat Strategies to promote their website.
Webpages with PR0 can harm your website in case that one of your pages links to PR0 page. Although, if PR0 page links to your page , your pages is not hurt nor benefited because Google assumes you don't have absolute control over your incoming links. Even so , you may exchange links with PR0 page in case that
The PR0 page doesn't contain hidden text or other forbidden elements of black hat SEO
The page is new and therefore gets zero ranking.
PR leakage
Although PR depends on your incoming links, linking to other websites can cause you PR leakage, therefore use only necessary links to other websites.
Linking to pages inside your website does not cost you PR therefore you can do it freely.
Make sure every page in your website links to other important pages since every link has its contribution. Leaving Dead end pages wastes this contribution.
Use PR to emphasize important pages:
Creating links smartly to most important pages of your website, like Homepage, gives it PR boost and helps emphasizing its importance in front of less important pages in the website.
This is the most popular and beneficial link scheme emphasizing your homepage:
All pages in the website link to Homepage (first priority page)
Page of x priority is not linked to other pages of x priority but only to Homepage, page of x+1 , and X-1 priority. (for example, categories are not linked between them).
No jumping between pages in non hierarchic order : for example Page priority 1 doesn’t link to page priority 3 , and page of same priority are not interlinked.
If we count the relative distribution of PR between all the pages, in this scheme, Homepage gets the highest rank.
If we link the categories , Homepage rank descends and category PR raises a little.
If we link all the pages at the website to each other, all of them get the same but low PR.
To get the highest Homepage PR we must link all the pages to Homepage only and Homepage must link to all the pages.
Exchanging/ Purchasing Links
Incoming link is more effective if it comes from high PR page.
Page with few links is better contributor than page with lots of links (in case they are of same PR)
Exchange links only with well ranked websites because exchanging links cause PR leakage. This leakage must be weaker than link contribution otherwise the exchange is not beneficial.
Don't exchange pages with PR0 pages because in best case scenario it doesn’t help you. (Unless you expect this page to be very popular in short period).
More Adsense Tips in Blogging
When I first made a “real website” by buying my own domain (Blogging the Internet), I started to tinker with various content management programs to build my site, and later learned that blogging is the easiest way. Now I’m sticking to it.
But at first I was one of the million newbie webmasters who are lured to the “get rich quick” paranoia” that abound in the internet and also tried my best looking for internet programs that will take me to that paranoia. I was utilizing various pre-hosted sites (my favorite is Freehostia in doing the test-and-try website building trying to find my own niche on the cyberspace and the same time hoping that I will earn somehow through it.
I joined pay per click programs (PPC) where you click banner and text ads and then pay you cents and worse joined a High-Yield Investment Program (HYIP) and was cheated. I lost a couple of dollars joining the site and I swear to myself that I will not join one again.
My frustration is getting worse when I also joined affiliate programs such as Commission Junction, Linkshare and SFI and expected to earn but to avail. These site as good in their own way but my skills in affiliate marketing is very poor and my highest earnings was about $20.40 from CJ when I used my own affiliate link to purchase my own domain.
I share some dilemma with people who say that “internet income is just a false dream”.
I am not a risk-taker especially on the internet. The last thing that I will want myself is to be a victim of internet fraud and loss my hard-earned money and like most cybercitizens I want money and if possible free from the internet.
Then I meet the leader of contextual advertising – AdSense.
AdSense program is 100% free and I have applied to it the moment I wonder why most sites I have visit has that ads powered by AdSense. I applied four times, three times rejected and finally allowed to post ads to my sites using their script code. It took me quite awhile to be able to put AdSense ads in my site considering that I am still learning how to make a site and my knowledge about PHP and HTML is limited.
Since I decided to focus on having a blog, I tried to invest an ad placement on my blog placement, having that trial and error process on making a good and professional looking blog and took a longer time finding a suitable Adsense Friendly template (I’m using Wordpress).
Adsense, like any other contextual advertising program uses your blog content and keywords to place related and suitable ads on your site in a way not to confuse your readers of what is your site all about and irritated for placing blatant advertising banners. The ads put by Adsense have a better chance to be click and earn money from it.
Though Adsense doesn’t allow you to select what ads will appear in your site, you can still exclude ads from your direct competitors (sites that have the same topic or products that you have).
How Adsense know what Ads are to place in your site?
Google uses bots (Google bots), an engine that regularly visits your pages and read your site content, keywords, structure and formatting of pages, language you use and tell Adsense to display ads related to what it sees. The bot also tells AdSense what IP address you use (your location) to display related ads near your region.
The longer that your site is up, the more the bot will access your site and later a tighter match f ads related to your blog will show up. Google bot mostly uses keywords as its tip to Google, so there is a need to use proper keywords on your post because for some reason Adsense prefers post with less picture and larger or bold text in zeroing the subject of your blog.
However, be careful in suing too many keywords. You may make Google Bot understands more quickly your site content but at the same time distracts your readers. A good post that is informative will surely attract readers and make them come back to your site, but you will, but using irrelevant and annoying keywords will drive them away from your site and instead look for other blog that is more useful to your read. Losing a visitor will also results to loss of your Adsense earnings.
Treat your readers by giving them useful information, and not to make them feel that you are just using your blog to make money. There’s nothing wrong in pleasing Googlebot and your readers at the same time. Why not hit the two birds with one big stone?
It will be a great help that your keyword is also your title and use them on your post as well. Ex. You write about computers, make sure it is in the title and repeated in the post so that tightly match of ads will also show thus having a high click through rate from your readers.
Try not to copy content from free sites. You will not only lose your credibility as a blogger, worse risking to be accuse of plagiarism and also getting Google irritated with splogs (short for spam blogs) post. Splogs is very dangerous because it may results to the termination of your account.
Anyway who advertise to your blogs?
Google has a program called Adwords, where business or site owners like you pay to advertise their product and services and also to drive real traffic to their websites.
These guys are bidding on a certain keywords related to their site content and pays some amount depending on the keywords popularity. They post their ads on Adwords and then it is being shown in Adsense.
Marketing Via Blogs
by: Giovanni Gallucci
Have you considered that your various products can all have associated blogs? Have you considered that various departments within your organization can all have blogs?
And once you have a blog or a few blogs, do you know who’s visiting them? Who’s commenting on them? Are they even open for comments or are they just a “one-way” communication? Will you allow anonymous comments? Will you respond to harsh and negative, perhaps even obscene comments? These and other questions must be considered when branching out into the world of social media.
As always, honesty is key when attempting to market via blogs. As long as you and those in charge of posting and responding to comments on your blog are up front and polite, you can accomplish a great deal in the areas of customer service, new product releases, sales as well as
• Customer Relationship Building / Management
• Media and Public Relations
• Brand Reputation Management
• Linking and Search Engine Optimization
Let DexterityMedia.com, a leading Search Engine Optimization Company & Interactive Media Agency with offices in Dallas and New York, put a flexible plan to work for your online presence management campaign.
About The Author
Giovanni Gallucci
I provide strategy for new developments in social media, search, and technology for clients and function as a strategic representative to top Internet personalities and forward-thinking companies looking to break new ground in social media. I am also a founding partner of a Dallas-based online marketing firm called Dexterity Media.
"Pay-Per Click" Ad Campaign: Earn More By Spending Less
by: David Riewe
What is "Pay-Per Click"? "Pay-Per Click", is an easy to understand advertising strategy. There are around 300 million searches at major search engines everyday. This causes 80% of internet traffic. Placing your websites on these search engines is very important in reaching as many potential customers as possible. But in order to be seen and clicked most frequently, your website should be viewed at the top most of the search list. Most people only reach up to the third page of a search engine so the lower your rank, the lesser the chance you will be clicked. In "Pay-Per Click" advertising, you pay to be always visible on the internet. You select keywords or key phrases about your website, and the highest bidder ranks the best. There is no upfront cost. You only pay after a visitor clicks your link. This is why it is called "Pay-Per Click".
Everyday millions of people around the world click on Pay-Per Click Advertising Campaign. With the booming internet industry and the ever growing online business, an ad of virtually anybody on the planet can be seen on the internet anywhere in the world.
The "Pay-Per Click" advertising campaign is the premier growth area in online marketing. Last year, an estimated $741.2 million was spent on "Pay-Per Click" advertising. The usual search engine optimization can take weeks or even months to produce results. "Pay-Per Click" advertising can attract customers at an instant. Why? Because, this cutting edge ad campaign can be placed on any website and can be viewed by potential online customers, anywhere, anytime and all the time. The only challenge is placing the ads on proper websites that will attract possible customers for a specific product or services.
"Pay-Per Click" advertising campaign attracts the right consumers at the shortest possible time. This is the most cost effective way of marketing products or services. You can also monitor the customers who visit your site, what they are looking for and what they are buying. With the right creativity on using the right search-phrases, we can direct the right people who are willing to do business with us.
"Pay-Per Click" advertising can easily be managed 24 hours per day and 7 days a week through the internet. This allows you improve the campaign strategy by effectively responding to the activities of both customers and competitors.
So what are you waiting for? "Pay-Per Click" now and let your business take the fast route to success.
Traffic Exchange Sites
by: Bryan Quinn
Traffic Exchange Sites are websites where you get page views of your own site in exchange for visiting others. Many such sites are available. However, choosing the right one or a combination of them can be a very time consuming process.
Basically there are two types. Manual surfing and Auto surfing. Some Traffic exchanges cater for Manual surfing only, some cater for Auto surfing only and some cater for both.
Manual surfing - This requires your input by clicking a button after a specified time period, generally 15, 20 or 30 seconds, although there are a few other variations. With manual surfing, the surfer is expected to view each site. However, with most exchange sites, it is possible to minimize or resize the windows. This defeats the purpose because it allows multiple sessions to be run simultaneously. On the better exchange sites, security measures are often used to deter this. These are normally random prompts that require user input. For example, after x number of page views, you may be required to enter a code, select a color or image or perform some other variation of this.
Auto surfing - This requires no input. However in reality, your input may be required because of popup or frame breakers. Some traffic exchange sites require that the pages run are maximized and although you can minimize the page yourself, it will automatically maximize at the next refresh. You will also find that with some exchange sites, pages will run on top whereas with others, pages will run quite happily underneath, allowing you to do what ever you like without ever viewing the page content.
Both manual and auto surfing will bring traffic to your website, but there is a much greater likelihood of your web pages being actually seen with manual surfing.
Credits - As well as surfing, credits are usually acquired for subscribing, for referrals and for any winnings associated with exchange site lotteries, games or competitions. These credits can then be used to increase the traffic to your site. Some exchange sites will also allow you to sell your credits to other members.
Free or Paid - The majority of Traffic Exchanges offer a paid option. This option may give you a better surf ratio, bonus credits, money for referrals or other benefits. Before paying however, it is important that you test how targeted the traffic is that you receive. There's no point in paying for extra traffic if it doesn't generate any more income for you. Web Site Traffic Monitoring
Click for Credits or Buy Credits - Is it worth buying credits?
This can depend on a number of reasons. The two main ones are time and money.
Let’s take an example
At the time of writing the cost of 2000 credits for free members of a well known Traffic Exchange Site was $40. This works out at $0.02 a click. For pro members the same $40 bought 2200 credits.
With the number of clicks limited to 250 per day and page views of 20 seconds this means that in theory it will take you 250 X 20 = 5000 sec or 83 minutes 20 seconds to view the 250 pages. However in practice you must allow extra time for clicking the next button, clicking the title of the page you will be viewing and any sites worth looking at.
Since I am a firm believer in practical results, I viewed the 250 pages. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to accomplish this. During that time, I accumulated 854 credits. To buy these credits would have cost $17.08 as a free member and approximately $15.53 as a pro member. Allowing for rounding up, this equates to almost 390 credits per hour or $7.80 per hour cash value.
Now ask yourself this. Would you work for $7.80 per hour?
I must emphasize that this is only one example and that other results will differ because of the random allocation of credits. It is shown here only as an example and to give you an idea of the cost implications for one particular traffic exchange site. The cost of credits may differ dramatically for different exchange sites. If you buy or intend to buy credits from a traffic exchange site, you can apply what is shown in the example. There's no need to click on a large number of websites to find out if your exchange site is giving you enough credits for your money. A sample of around 20 sites should give you enough information to produce a rough value-for-money guide.
If you enjoy this sort of thing or want a break from train spotting, you could expand on this. Increase your sample size, increase the number of samples, select a good representation of traffic exchanges and tabulate your results. Choose enough sites and you will be able to create your own league table. There’s a market for everything.
Whether you use traffic exchange sites or not in the quest for more visitors to your site, you should at the very least know what they are and what they do. But don't totally dismiss them. They are part of an expanding market. I recommend that you try at least one traffic exchange site. You could read every book on the subject, but without active participation, you will not be qualified to comment on their worth or suitability. The time taken for a few mouse clicks is a small price to pay. If it works for you, you have learned. If it doesn't work for you, you have learned. FinalSense
Paid Surveys, How You Can Make Top Dollar!
by: Holcy Thompson
Paid Surveys Do you know that you no longer have to pay survey sites in order to make a little extra cash. Well, its true, there are a number of survey sites that will allow you to sign up and make money for free. Paid surveys are good for everyone, but they are really good for stay at home mom, college students who are looking for extra cash to pay for tuition or books, and hobbies.
How much can you make?
The amount of money you can earn depends on the paid surveys and the amount of paid surveys you participate in. Some surveys pay $2-$20 per survey and others pay $10-$100 per survey. Some surveys sites make you take a pre survey to see if you qualify for the big survey. For example, if you were to take a number of surveys, you would earn points, and when you accumulate enough points you can convert it to cash. The best way to make good money with paid surveys is to sign up with as many paid surveys as possible. In less than a month you will receive more surveys than you can handle. The more surveys that you participate in, the more paid surveys you will receive.
Why would people pay you for your opinion?
Easy, when a new product is produced, big companies want to know how this product would sell before it hit's the market place. So they put out surveys for you and I to participate in and give our opinion on the product. These companies are willing to pay big money for people's opinions on these products.
What type of surveys are there?
There are all types of paid surveys. The ones that I am familiar with are the surveys on products and TV. ads. I have taken surveys on beer commercials and new television series that are now out in the market place. I even had product such as food sent to my home for me to eat and give an opinion on the taste.
Why take paid surveys?
Because it is at great way to make extra cash and to see what new products are coming to the market place.
Final Sense
How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog
by: Linda J Bruton
Building niche sites is all the rage these days.
The basic strategy is very simple. Find a niche market that isn't oversaturated. Develop a list of related keywords people are searching on. Then write an article optimized for each one of your keywords. Once you have your articles, upload them to your site. Monitize your site with affiliate links and Adsense.
For this kind of niche site to be effective and make money, it is imperative that you get free traffic, and a lot of it. And that's exactly where a blog can be your best friend.
At its very simplest, a blog is just a structure. It's the bones of a web site. A blog is a simple way to publish and display your content online. Most of us think of blogs as a chronicle of news events, or commentary on news and items of interest. Or personal diaries.
Few people stop to think that you can build any kind of website with a blog. In reality, a blog can be used very effectively to build a niche site. The fact of the matter is, a blog is the easiest way to publish your niche site content. But the biggest reason to use a blog is that it can drive traffic to your site a lot faster than a statically-built site. A niche site built with a blog is a very powerful strategy.
First, choose your niche and research your keywords. Write your first article based on one of those keywords, just as you would when building a regular site. Then set up your blog and publish that article. Your niche site is now live.
To make your site structure the most effective, be sure to choose a blog that allows the use of Categories, such as Word Press or Moveable Type. Use your 10 most important keywords as the name of your Categories. Then file all your secondary keyword articles under those Categories.
Why is this so important? If you keep building your site with keyword-rich articles, eventually you could have hundreds of pages. Each of those pages will have a link to your 10 Categories. And each of those links will use the anchor text of your most important keywords. As a result of all those internal keyword-rich links, your site will end up ranking very well in the search engines for your Category names.
Now it's time to set up your traffic strategy. This is where a blog can really shine. There are many special RSS/blog directories that are hungry for feeds. By submitting your new blog to these directories, you can start getting traffic almost immediately. Quite often these feeds will result in a lot more traffic than all the major search engines combined. This is why it makes so much sense to build your niche site as a blog. You can have twice the traffic, and get it much faster than with a static site.
Here is a list of some of the top RSS/blog directories you should submit your site to:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Once you've submitted your site to the directories, you can get it indexed by Yahoo almost immediately by adding your RSS feed to your MyYahoo page. If you don't have a MyYahoo page, just go to http://www.yahoo.com. Now click on the MyYahoo link at the top and set up your free account. Once you have your account set up, click on Add Content, then add the URL of your blog RSS feed into the Find Content box.
When you go back to your MyYahoo page, your blog plus your first post should be shown. If you go look at your web stats for your site, you'll find that the Yahoo spider has already made a visit! Your new site should be indexed in Yahoo in just a couple of days. This is a strategy that some marketers were selling for $50 just a few months ago. And it works like a charm.
Every time you add a post, you can alert the RSS/blog directories by "pinging" them. There is a wonderful site at http://www.pingomatic.com that makes this very easy. You just have to type in your blog URL and Pingomatic will send your ping to Yahoo and about 15 other large directories. That will bring the spiders back to your site almost immediately!
During the first month, I would suggest that you write and add a new article every day. Blogs that are frequently updated get the most traffic. And you'll find that the major search engines will spider your site every day. At the end of a month, you'll have a 30-article niche site that is already getting a lot of traffic. If you've monetized your site with Adsense and related affiliate programs, you should also be making money already.
Once you've started building your niche sites with a blog, you'll never go back to doing it the old way again!
About the Author
For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else) http://www.whymarketersshouldblog.com
Final Sense
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