Advanced Search Operators and SEO

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In this article we’ll share with you a couple of cool hacks to use in search engine optimization called advanced search engine operators. To use this
article you must already be aware of your core keywords (the main
keywords for which you're trying to rank). If you’re not sure which
keywords you want to target, use the Google Keyword Tool or Wordtracker
for some research.

Using Advanced Search Operators - Intitle, Inurl, Inanchor

First, go ahead and open Google.com or yahoo.com
in a new window. Just follow the steps in the article and you'll learn
some new, helpful tricks. Use both to compare their usefulness.

NOTE: Keep in mind that Google doesn't share much data with SEOs, while Yahoo is more open. Google is well aware that
mainly SEOs use the commands described below, so it limits results on
purpose. Take this information with a grain of salt.

Intitle: Command

intitle:keyword

intitle:"keyword phrase"

With
this command, you will only see search results with your keyword phrase
in title. The title tag is a crucial SEO element, and all pages
targeted to a particular key phrase have targeted keywords in the title
tag. With this command you can estimate the approximate number of
competitors fighting over a specific keyword. Search both Google and
Yahoo to get an average number.

As an example, a regular Google
search for mortgage broker gives 7,440,000 results. A search with
intitle:"mortgage broker" gives 251,000 results, which is a better
representation of your competitors.

Search in Yahoo with this command gives 1,250,000 results. Yahoo's results tend to be three to five times bigger than Google's.

Inurl: Command

inurl:keyword

This
command shows websites that have your keyword phrase in their URL. The
keyword may be located in the domain name, as with
www.examplekeyword.com, or in the filename (URL), as with
www.example/yourkeyword.com.

For example, if you search with
inurl:"mortgage broker" you'll see 102,000 results for sites that have
"mortgage broker" in their URL. Chances are, the sites on the first
three pages are your competitors.

Yahoo shows 408,000 results.

Inanchor: Command

inanchor:keyword

inanchor:"keyword phrase"

inanchor:keyword1 inanchor:keyword2 inanchor:keyword3

With
this command you can see websites that have a specific keyword in
anchor text pointing to the domain. Usually this means that the site
did link building with this keyword phrase. Google shows 7,020,000
results for inanchor:mortgage inanchor:broker, which is not likely to
be a real number, while a search for "mortgage broker" gives 7,450,000
results. As mentioned above, Google distorts this data.

Yahoo
is a little bit better when it comes to the inanchor command. Its index
shows 118,000,000 for "mortgage broker" and 982,000 results for
inanchor:mortgage inanchor:broker, which is a more accurate. You'll
notice that Google's search count is a lot smaller than Yahoo's, so
don't trust those numbers too much.

The inanchor command is
very important, but unfortunately search engines don't share this
information with SEOs for obvious reasons. Linkscape and Majestic SEO
keep their own indexes of the web and allow SEOs to see the anchor text
of links. You need to pay for both, but it's worth it.

Also,
keep in mind that Google is now putting a lot of weight on domain
trust, rather than anchor text. Anchor text is still an important
factor, but domain trust is just as important

Valuable and Useful Information to Boost your Internet Marketing Career

The impact of the Internet on the perceived value of information is just as huge as anybody would ever think. Undoubtedly, Internet changed the way people learn and search for useful information. Before the arrival of the Internet culture, individuals who are looking for some valuable and useful information would be congregating themselves in classrooms, public libraries, bookstores, and magazine stands because these are the places where such information could be found.

However, it’s been about ten years since the Internet became accessible to the public and the difference it made has been gigantic.

The impact is drastic enough that the Internet changed the typical procedure of searching for information that has existed since the civilization era. If you want to learn the life of Florence Nightingale, Christopher Columbus, or even the terrorism acts of Osama bin Laden, you do not need to take a class, read a book, or purchase newspapers everyday. You can Yahoo or Google these personalities, and if you are savvy enough, you will be able to find a website that is dedicated to the study of these personalities.

Through the Internet, such valuable and useful information is readily accessible. In addition, retrieval of information is free. You do not have to suffer purchasing Da Vinci Code for several dollars cheaper than what you would have to pay in a brick and mortar bookstore. The search and retrieval of the manuscript of the book is instantaneous (in short, instant!), no wasting of time, and definitely there is no need to spend for transportation.

In other words, searching and retrieving information on the Internet is cost-free, except the purchase of your personal computer (if you do not have any) and the Internet connection fee.

Almost every kind of information could be found on the Internet, historical accounts, answers to personal problems, and information about business opportunities. In other words, every online-based business opportunity related information can be accessed through the Internet.

Nothing more, nothing else. Why purchase marketing strategy books or business newspapers if all information that you need is stored on the Internet and can be read for free.

However, unlike other information on the Internet, information related to Internet marketing are not entirely for free. In fact, there are marketing gurus who sell such information to Internet marketing neophytes.

The basics of success on Internet marketing starts with learning the basics of this lucrative industry. Such basics could be learned through various Internet marketing-related information scattered over the Web. If you want to acquire information that is proven to be useful for your online business, definitely you will purchase such information from different Internet marketing gurus.

To get the real worth of your money, you can look for the following categories of valuable and useful information for your online business outlined below:

•    The content of the information package must be controlled and distributed by licensed and well-known personalities on Internet marketing. Verify the individual behind the personality—check if he is really a marketing genius or not. With so many ‘bogus gurus’ out there, there is a need to check on your information resources first before handing out money.

•    Such information must be on its updated status. What is the use of information gathered in 1980 on a 2006 market? Ask for some sample excerpts or initial information that you can see for yourself if it is updated or not.

•    Look for the “money back guarantee” condition of paid information. If you are not satisfied by the results or the results are not what you expect, you can have your money back. There are many experienced Internet marketers who are willing to give your money back if you are not satisfied with the information you have acquired.

If you cannot afford to purchase premium information sold by different Internet marketers over the Web, you can still look for free information. You may visit different article directories over the Internet that publishes hundreds to thousands of articles related to Internet marketing.

Some of these articles are written by the Internet marketing gurus themselves, thus you are assured that the information is valuable and can be applied to your online business. There are also business sites wherein they give away free information guides that you can use for your Internet marketing career. Just be resourceful and creative enough to locate this free yet useful information.

The Internet is the information superhighway—whether free or paid information, make sure that these will help you learn the ideas and basic strategies to make your Internet marketing career a successful one.

Brought To You By - Mark Felix
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Optimize The Wrong Keywords And You'll Likely Never See Results

Note: Before you begin, if you're NOT 100% serious about getting your website to the top of Google, don't read another word. Only read on if you plan to put into action,

everything I will be teaching you. It's best to print each lesson off on your printer, highlight areas and take notes as you learn the exact steps needed for a top Google ranking.
Ok, on to lesson 1...

If you're anything like me, you've probably created a brand new website. Submitted it to a few search engines and hoped that people would mysteriously show up at your site and buy whatever it is you were selling.

After a couple of weeks go by and only a few stray people show up at your website, you decide to try and "optimize" your website around your main keyword in hopes that you just might rank well in 1 of the millions of search engines. Another couple of weeks go by and still no luck.

At this point you probably give up and decide to either build another website around a different target market or just lose all hope and quit. Well, news flash, as you've probably figured out by now, this is not the way to go about doing things.


Let me give you a specific example of what your very first steps MUST be when creating any website.

In our example, let's create a weight loss related website. Before we start creating and collecting content for the website we need to do a little keyword research. This is VERY important and should not be skipped. To do our keyword research we need to visit a few websites.

The first of which should be http://www.goodkeywords.com/.

They have a very good keyword tool and best of all, it's free! Once we've downloaded this software, we can enter the most generic keyword for our website into the software. In our example, our keyword would be "weight loss".

You'll notice that in the screenshot below, Good Keywords will return a list of related terms. The "count" column will then show us how many times the specific keyword has been searched for the previous month within the Overture.com search engine. Generally, you can take that number times 8, in order to estimate the number of times that keyword has been searched within Google for the previous month.




You'll notice that weight loss was searched 1,592,607 times during the previous month.


Do NOT start off by optimizing for the keyword "weight loss"

Why? you ask... If a keyword is searched that many times in Overture, then 100 times out of 100, the competition you will have to outrank will be extremely fierce. This is not something you should try to take on right away.

Let's take a quick peek at Google so I can show you exactly how many websites are competeting for this keyword.



If you were to optimize your website based on this keyword, you'd be competing against over 45 million other websites! I don't know about you, but that's an aweful lofty goal to start with.

By the end of this course, you will be able to eventually target HUGE keywords such as "weight loss", but it's always best to start off on the keywords with less competition. Get some traffic with those keywords, and THEN you can focus on the larger keywords.

Ok, so back to finding which keywords we want to target.

If we scroll down, we can find some more specific keyword phrases like "weight loss story", "weight loss picture", and "safe weight loss".




These could be possible keywords we should target to begin with. Once we have our list of 3 to 4 keywords, we need to go to Google and check out the competition to see exactly how hard it will be to optimize for the specified keyword.

We'll begin with the keyword "weight loss story"

You'll notice that the #1 ranked website for "weight loss story" is:
http://www.runwalkjog.com/weight_loss_success_story.htm which is not a top level webpage, meaning it's not simply http://www.runwalkjog.com/




This is good news for us because, typically, if a website's subpage is ranking well in Google, we have an immediate advantage if we choose to target the same keyword with our homepage (i.e. www.domain.com). For now, just take my word on this, as I will go into more detail why it's usually easier to rank well for your homepage than any other webpage on your website.

You'll also notice that the website has a Google Page Rank of 5.



Note: Here's a quick definition of Page Rank. Page Rank is Google's way of giving a specific value to how popular your website is. It is based on the number of "votes" other websites cast for your website. A "vote" is simply when another website places a link on their website that is pointing to your website. Generally, the more "votes" or links you have pointing to your website, the higher your Page Rank (PR) will be. Page Rank is 1 of the many factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites.

In order to see your own Google Page Rank, as well as others, you must have the Google Toolbar installed on your computer. You can get that for free here: http://toolbar.google.com/

Seeing that the #1 ranked website for this keyword only has a Page Rank of 5 is also good news for us, because a Page Rank of 5 should be reasonable to obtain. Remember, the ONLY way to increase our website's Page Rank is by getting other websites to link to us. Later, I'll teach you the right way to get thousands of links pointing to your website in a matter of a few days.


View The Source Code

Next we need to view the source code of this website by clicking "view", then "source" within our web browser as shown below:




This will open up a text file for us to have a look at and see if this website is actually optimizing their "Onpage Optimization factors".

* Side Note: There are 2 types of optimization, onpage and offpage optimization. We'll cover offpage optimization in the following lessons.

As we view the source file from this website, we need to look for a few things.

Whether or not they are using

header tags and are placing the keyword "weight loss story" within those tags. In this case, they are not... AND they aren't even using

header tags at all! Another great thing for us!
Whether or not they are using their main keyword in the

Introduction to Autoresponders

Being Creative:

If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up
with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to
bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn
about autoresponders.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their
email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to
work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough
people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're
eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news
is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free -
method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs
do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as
they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different
reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices
give you their feedback about your website - for free!
However, if you spend all your working hours answering
these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?
The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders
are programs that automatically respond to your emails
without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an
autoresponder besides just answering your email. For
example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to
send information about your services or products, price
lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across
large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site
visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or
relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an
autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your
business and then build stable relationships with your
customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with
your email program to a specialized script that runs on
your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may
use a web page form or simply operate with your email
account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a
standardized message whenever an email is received. The
message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out
standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited
number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval
of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to
send out a new message every day for as long a period as
you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free
of charge. Your website hosting company often provides
autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case
with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies
who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge,
providing you attach an advertisement for their company to
your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach
a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business
cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact
numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that
is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your
business identity every time a customer sees it. The more
they look at your signature, the more likely your company
will spring to mind when your particular service or product
is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee
in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every
staff member create their own personal signature. Of
course, like everything in life, there are some rules and
guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines
of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line.
Make sure that your email program does not cut off your
text! The content should include your name, your company
name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact
details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a
short personal message about your company. It should be a
subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly
your company's reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create
courses that you can then offer your site visitors for
free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert
and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into
a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site
visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a
different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a
welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation
about what is to follow. Your explanation should be
enticing, getting the point across that you are offering
free, quality information that your target audience will
find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the
topic title, information about your company and its
services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs
about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue
on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable
information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more.
Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can
offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the
material carefully, employing a professional writer or
editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your
autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try
http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or
go onto Google and you will find a long list of free
autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen
autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions
as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and
it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing
your email address carefully. Your website should contain
different email addresses for different contact requests.
For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information
requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about
sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such
as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in
a personal, approachable light and insures that direct
contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing
tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of
potential customers. This is an invaluable asset
considering how many potential customers you usually have
contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially,
an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your
marketing campaign.

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Profitable Ways to Use Autoreponders

Being Creative with your website:

An interested visitor who has been strolling through your
site has finally come to just what she is looking for and
is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and
her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the
visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree,
suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.

In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and
your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to
utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email
address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can
then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the
sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her
precious bonsai.

Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do
so much more than just automatically answer your email.
Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and
productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual
visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder
to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders
will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested
prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed
about your services or products, while building your
reputation as a credible expert in your particular
business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform
them of current sales you are running and of promotional
material that your affiliates can use themselves to
increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and
techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go
out and promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books,
movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder.
Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your
affiliate's page in your autoresponder.

4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing
targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business
credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your
sales potential. If your articles contain valuable
information, many editors will print what is known as a
resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and
a brief description of your service or product. It can also
contain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've
written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder
accounts and create a master list that contains the titles
of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief
abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally,
include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can
add their articles to your list, increasing the number of
writers who are represented in your article list.

5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your
articles when you've written new ones that they may want to
publish in their own newsletter or website.

6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure
repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to
effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your
autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to
numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances
of converting visitors into customers. For example, if
you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about
how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a
detailed, enticing description of your product.

7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising
on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your
autoresponder to send the information about rates and how
to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email
addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can
also send notification of any special deals you are
currently offering.

8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your
autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that
each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your
content will do the selling for you, and will do it much
more effectively. You can include tips centered on a
different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your
product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible
benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.
Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each
lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a
purchase.

9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after
a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the
possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your
course but are dragging their feet about actually making a
purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new
products or services, and the products and services of your
affiliate programs.

10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an
idea of the type of information you can provide and the
quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports
are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a
potential customer than gain a sale.

11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the
answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be
motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have
a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your
quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter
send their responses to your autoresponder. Your
autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of
their entry.

12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your
prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software,
membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste
often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture
their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from
your website. Set up your autoresponder to give
instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then
make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.

13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For
example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that
contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links
that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors
that they may have free access to your affiliate page by
simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather
a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your
affiliates.

14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request
form for visitors to be notified of special offers or
discounts in the future. This creates a very effective
mailing list that contains the names of people who are
already your customers.

15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should
contain up to fifty links that would be of particular
interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own
promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used
creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant
ideas of your own!


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Blogs and your Business

Many businesses are blind to the possibilities that emerging online
trends such as blogs can offer them. The challenge lies into how you
use them and integrate them into your business. Someone once said that
blog stands for Better Listings On Google! However there are many other
business advantages which we will look at. The challenge is in
determining how a blog best fits your business goals. Your goals may be
marketing focused, or they may be about project management, or they may
be about customer relationships. Whatever your business goals are you
should determine whether a blog can help you meet them.

There are 600+ corporate bloggers at Microsoft. They use blogging as one
of their greatest marketing assets, generating an astonishing amount of
online and offline word of mouth interaction. Microsoft takes blogging
seriously and these blogs are all linked to the corporate site. They
help put a human face on the corporation by injecting individual’s
passion for the company. What they are really involved in is building
relationships on behalf of Microsoft.

A blogs or 'weblog’ is a regularly updated internet journal of organized
personal thoughts made usually by an individual. In the business world
this may be either as an official corporate blog or in an unofficial
capacity. Business blogs usually incorporate news, issues, and ideas
and speak to customers, vendors and employees. What makes blogs unique
is that they link with other blogs and websites and solicit comments
making them the ideal platform for an ongoing dialogue. Blogs are
inexpensive, easy to set up and use, and require no technical skills
such as HTML. The collective term for blogs is the blogosphere.

The blogosphere continues to grow. Technorati the leading web search
engine is currently tracking 19.6 million blogs. About 70,000 new blogs
are tracked every day. The total number of blogs continues to double
every 5 months or so. There are between 700,000 and 1.3 million blog
posts made every day. Both Google and Yahoo are introducing blogs
search engines. Yahoo is currently showing a beta version of blog
search results alongside their news results.

News travels fast through the blogosphere. In times of disaster such
as Hurricane Katrina or the London terrorist attacks, blogs were
instrumental in getting news, photos and opinions out at a remarkably
fast rate. They often beat journalists for the scoop on news or scandals.
In fact you can be sure that these days’ journalists keep a close eye on
blogs and use them as a source for stories.

What does this growth in blogging mean for your business? It means that
you should give serious consideration to adding a blog to your business.
However you should also consider whether a blog would fit in with your
business objectives. Because of the different tactics that blogs can be
used for you may want to weigh up the options as to what benefits it can
offer you and your business.

Increase your Web Presence

If you have an established online business you can add another vehicle to
communicate your message and pass information on to your clients. Because
blogs continually have new content they are indexed regularly by the search
engines. It is another way to get your name and your products out into
the search engine space. You can also use your blog to target additional
keyword phrases.

Interactions with Customers

Your blog can be used to build stronger ties with your customer base. The
opportunity to exchange information and expertise is one of the main reasons
that explain why corporate blogs have grown in popularity in recent years.
Corporations have recognized their customers are using blogs to self publish
their opinions about products and services. This has led to customers getting
actively involved in business situations such as product development.

Branding Tool

Use your blog as a branding tool for your business. It’s an effective way to get
your brand message out there. Your brand represents an exchange of ideas between
you and your audience. It is a relationship. Brands exist in the mind of your
customer therefore brands that aren't in touch with their customers miss out on
innovation opportunities.

Corporate Communications

You can use your blog to speak directly with the media. There has been an ongoing
debate as to whether blogs should replace the press release as the main corporate
communications vehicle. As far as I am concerned both will do a good job and
each has their own unique value.

Business Marketing

Blogs are being utilized more and more as a business marketing tool. And this is
creeping into more and more business areas. Word of mouth advertising and independent
testimonials are two major benefits of running a marketing focused blog. This is a
great alternative to advertising. Blogs can also attract and develop a regular
audience for your message and foster an atmosphere of trust.

CEO Blogs

A CEO blog is a way to speak directly to customers and vendors. And it can be used
to advance industry issues. There are pitfalls of course. Saying something
controversial may be picked up and reproduced in many locations. However some
controversy is good as it gets people engaged.

A blog does require a commitment from you. Remember that writing and maintaining a
blog take time. You should really have an interest in writing and communicating
with your readers. A blog also requires an injection of personality.

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Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company

Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable
asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize
in knowing how to raise your search engine positions,
monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and
adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable
results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time,
effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best
interest to go to an outside source rather than try to
maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and
there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and
the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an
affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering
the approach they employ to raise your search engine
positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,
doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These
techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the
worst case scenario, will only get your website severely
penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's
index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible
to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is
coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to
this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost
your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages
utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely
different server. Google, one of the largest and most
important search engine on the Internet, will remove your
website from their index if they detect you have cloaked
pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this
technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the
company you hire will not work with your competitors while
they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously
compromise the effectiveness of the search engine
optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will
use the success they achieve for your website to sell their
services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in
writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to
check out is the company's track record of results.
However, don't take the company's word for it. They will
undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell
their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement
of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify
their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results
on. The ones that are important are the most popular
engines, and these are the ones you want to see good
results on. Since the popularity of search engines can
change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check
out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You
can access this at
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming
great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with
unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes"
will get high popularity ranking because no one else would
think of using it. What you are looking for is good results
using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,
available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free
trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This
software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based
on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the
company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to
see a wide range of positions over a number of different
search engines using different keywords or phrases for the
entire site. Request a report for any client the company
claims to have done well for. This report should show good
positions on a number of the most popular search engines
for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization
companies, make sure they have actually done the work they
are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other
company's results in order to get you to sign on with them.
If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you
results for, and ask for the name of their search engine
optimization company.

It's important to keep in mind that a successful search
engine optimization campaign will result in maximum
exposure across a wide range of popular search engines
using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the
formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it
always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are
considering for a report that shows you rankings across a
number of popular search engines for a period of at least
six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process
that is continual, and you need a company that not only
understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search
engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust
its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your
positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your
search engine optimization company to do this for you,
request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that
this report should show rankings for the most popular
search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only
shows great results for a limited number of small search
engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also
confirm that the popular search engine results they are
showing you are indeed the popular search engines
currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a
format that you can easily understand. For example, it
could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at
least six months and presents data such as the top 50
positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages
each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are
considering actually monitors these positions or pages
every month, and that the sample report they show you
includes findings and recommendations for the specific
site. This insures that the company will actively monitor
and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis
rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You
need a company that is actively participant in your search
engine marketing campaign, not just an information
gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of
company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization
company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.
It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a
company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your
website, you might consider waiting until you do have the
finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can't wait for your
finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable
company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable
work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that
there are risks involved with using a company without a
proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't
take that leap unless the company can supply you with a
least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good
company. Don't use a company that won't show your
references because of any reason, confidentiality included.
Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm
you choose should provide you with a minimum of two
references, one that is from the past, and one that is
current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask
precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is
wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the
company, such as their availability to answer questions and
deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask
the reference to rate the overall performance of the
company.

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Search Engine Keywords Selection

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential
customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to
reach their destination - your website - you need to
provide them with specific and effective signs that will
direct them right to your site. You do this by creating
carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the
Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and
presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front
door. But if your keywords are too general or too
over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it
all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits
from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing
strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no
matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the
right people may never get the chance to find out about it.
So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather
and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words
for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't
followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.
It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center
of your business network, which is the reason that you may
not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the
inside. You need to be able to think like your customers.
And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,
your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of
potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words
from as many potential customers as you can. You will most
likely find out that your understanding of your business
and your customers' understanding is significantly
different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the
words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you
probably never would have considered from deep inside the
trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from
outside resources should you add your own keyword to the
list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for
the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a
small number of words and phrases that will direct the
highest number of quality visitors to your website. By
"quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most
likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around
your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating
the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:
popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an
objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the
more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a
search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity
of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating
based on real search engine activity. Software such as
WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and
phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a
given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to
be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this
concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the
search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are
down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will
probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice.
You must move on to the next criteria, which is
specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater
the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase
your goods or services will find you.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have
obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile
companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork
only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower
on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it
would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of
getting a slew of people interested in everything from
buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get
only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled
fenders being directed to your site. In other words,
consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will
immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the
specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you
will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this
requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer
rather than the seller to figure out what motivation
prompts a person looking for a service or product to type
in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another
example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as
an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between
"Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do
you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were
looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would
you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second
keyword targets people who have decided on their career,
have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you
as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school
who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or
her life in between beer parties. You want to find people
who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires
subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most
specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most
motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done.
You must continually evaluate performance across a variety
of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends
change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log
traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how
many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you
judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual
search engines. There is now software available that
analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.
This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you
the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a
good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find
keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually
buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your
product. This is the most important factor in evaluating
the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the
sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective
or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better
profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for
search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work -
and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into
your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your
business' rewards.

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