Here’s an article that shows you some new keyword research tools like Google’s wonder wheel and older tools like word tracker. Check out the article - http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/development/how-to-find-best-keywords-ideas/
Here’s a SEO template that I like to share with my readers. If you are looking to optimize your site, one of the most important elements of SEO would be the title and meta tags. If you are developing a site or have engage someone to do the work for you, you might want to ask them to include this template with the site that is being developed.
This is the normal template that I use for most of my own and clients’ sites.
<title> Title Goes Here…</title>
<meta content=”keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, keyword 4″ name=”keywords”>
<meta content=”Your description goes here…” name=”description”>
<meta content=”10 days”>
<meta content=”index, follow”>
<meta content=”All”>
<meta content=”index,follow”>
<meta content=”global”>
Link building is a very important portion when it comes to off page search engine optimization. To get rankings for your targeted terms, keyword rich anchor tags from similar themed or authoritative sites is the key. However link building is the hardest SEO activity to date, as the search engines are looking for natural links instead of 100s of useless links from spammer sites. In this article, I like to provide some simple steps that my team and myself use while conducting link building for our clients and own sites.
Step 1: Set your results set to return at least 30 to 50 results. This would help you be able to go through the top 30-50 sites in one go.
Step 2: Conduct a Google search for your target keyword terms.
Step 3: Visit the sites from top to bottom, take note of sites that are of quality and jot down their contact details.
Step 4: Start contacting the sites that you had identified earlier. Be sure to send personalize emails so that your emails stand out from all the spam that is out there.
This should help you find links that would be of value to your sites targeted keyword terms. The hit rate for doing something like is normally 1-5% but getting as many emails out to like minded webmasters is the key.
When you are conducting search engine ranking position reviews has anyone face such a problem, where your competitors are ranking higher with lesser backlinks even though your website is almost similar in size, structure, keywords and Pagerank? If this is you, don’t worry you aren’t alone. Many of us are facing this within our niche. If you are wondering why, we can’t absolutely pin point the cause, but we could try to intelligently turn the tables into our favor.
As a start, I would conduct a SEO review of your competitors and your own site to ensure that you have done all you could for the on page optimization before heading out to off page. But for the purpose of this topic, I would like to assume that all else are equal and only the quality of inbound links to both your competition and your sites are the deciding factor for higher search rankings.
So you will ask how can ensure that the quality of my inbound links are really of quality and they aren’t discounted from providing link juice. The straight answer is you cant sure, but you can use the following checklist to help you determine if the site does add value to link juice.
1 – Check if the site is indexed in Google, no point getting links from a banned site
2 – If the site is indexed, check when the last date of index occurred, the more recent the index it means it does have some value
3 – Does the page have a lot of outbound links, if it has a lot of links you might want to reconsider dropping your link on the page?
4 – Where does the outbound links go to, are the sites considered as good neighborhoods or bad neighborhoods? Again if its linking out to bad sites you might want to move on.
5 – Is the content on the page relevant or complementary to your page? No point getting a link on a page that is totally way out from your site’s topic as it doesn’t help much for SEO or attracting users to click on the link as well
6 – In the past, I would normally advise marketers to pay attention to the PR of the page. But its no hidden secret Google wants to remove PR, so focusing on PR should only be a nice to have instead of a deciding factor for dropping your links on the page.
This is my checklist that I use when I conduct link building, do you have others to add into the mix? Feel free to drop a note below or email us.
One of the metrics used by search marketers is to check out how many pages a site has within the Google index. The reason, having more pages within the index means a higher probability of your site being able to rank for their targeted search term. Recently, I came across someone who asked a question “Why does the number of pages indexed in Google fluctuate from time to time and sometimes a large number of pages are dropped off”.
Well there could be several cause for something like this, here’s are some of them.
1 – Google updates their data center constantly, the drop in number of pages indexed might be temporary.
2 – You recently implemented cannonical tags to lower the number of duplicated pages. This might cause Google to drop duplicated pages from its index.
3 – Pages lack inbound links. Google might index your pages from the initial crawl, but due to resource management they might drop off pages that they deem not important. (This is normally very rare, unless you dont even have a single link to the disappearing pages.)
4 – You did something wrong that might have tripped a filter, so Google might be removing those pages.
What to do in the face of something like this. Well there isnt a 100% absolute answer, but here’s what I recommend. First take a step back, dont panic and see its a Google update or your tech team have recently implemented a canonical change. Next make sure that all your pages have at least an internal link pointing to the page. This would allow Google to constantly crawl the pages in your site so that it doesnt drop into the invisible web. Last a quick tip is to ensure that your webiste doesnt trip any penalties and update your site from time to time to ensure content freshness for the engines to come back.
Lots of professional link builders like myself spend a lot of time trying out new types and methods of link building to see what works and what doesn”t. You can just produce links on any old site now a days, all links you build must be relevant to your website in one way or another.
Relevant links are probably the hardest type of link to produce as google assigns so much weight to them and to get relevant links you will have to approach other websites in your niche.
I have been link building for around 3 years and have learnt a lot and seen a lot of changes. Google doesn”t assign much weight to irrelevant links and can actually give you negative weight for those links if it believe you have paid for them or your just producing loads of spammy irrelevant links.
Google wants to keep its search results fresh and relevant to what the user searches for and one of the ways google does this is it looks at a website and sees the quality of inbound links to that site, if it has a lot of relevant sites linking to it with relevant terms then google will know the content on that site is of some interest to what the user is searching for.
Good quality links can help your website in more ways than one, the first way that pops to most peoples mind is good quality link help improve search engine position, which they do, but these links have other benefits as well. If your inbound link structure is compiled of google reputable sites then that will help to go towards building your reputation with the search engine as well. Not only that but relevant links are the only types of links than can produce you targeted traffic that would either convert into a sale or spread the word about your business through word of mouth.
The method I want you to focus on now when link building and producing your relevant links is to approach blog owners and offer to write them a top quality unique post with the odd link back to your website. More often than not blog owners will let you write them some content, for example I am in the seo and link building field so I would write content for those types of blogs.
This method isn”t widely known but I have seen people doing for some time now and its a method we have been using for the last 6 months.
There are restrictions to being accepted by a directory and if you don’t follow the rules or guidelines set down by the directory you are most likely not going to be accepted. Affordable and effective website promotion methods considered today for internet business owners are the use of directory submissions. Some of the rules for directory submissions are in fact not written in the regulations of the directory itself and there is a right way and a wrong way to go about directory submissions. There are thousands of SEO directories available online and they all have guidelines that must be followed and you need to ensure you follow the correct steps to ensure acceptance or at least have the highest possible chance to have your submission and your website accepted. These rules apply if you are submitting to the directory yourself or if you obtain the services of a directory submission company.
1. Submission of Home Pages only.
Some of the SEO-friendly directories available to you will only allow acceptance of your home page and generally deep linking is not allowed from these particular directories. There are some directories that state they will permit deep linking with an individual page URL or using a sub-folder and generally you will be accepted if you try to use deep linking. However if it is not stated that there is deep-linking then you will most certainly find your submission is rejected.
2. Keyword targeting and website titles.
When you are submitting your entry you are generally asked for your website title. Usually three to five words are permitted in the website title field; if your website title itself is very long then this may mean your submissions are rejected regardless. This title usually will be the anchor text detail that will be used to link back to your website. This field therefore is a very important aspect in the directory submission process. Some directories will request the website title be used and others will let you use some keyword targeting as well. Either way you still need to ensure that your title and keyword information is within the guidelines or rules of the directory submission site.
3. Category selection is a vital factor in directory submissions.
You must ensure that you select the correct category for your directory submissions. This point cannot be stressed enough. If you choose an incorrect category or an unrelated category it is almost certain that your submission will be rejected. The directories generally state in their rules or guidelines that you need to select the deepest category option available. That means you need to choose the category that is most directly related to your business product or service and website. The deepest category is in fact the best option for you anyway and for your website but you need to be very thoughtful when selecting the category you wish to be listed under. Good category choice improves your acceptance rate but also is the best assistance for your website as it will allow the directory listing to provide a contextual link back to your page rather than a standard back link that may not be relevant to your business. The contextual links back to your page are much more important for your ranking and overall business visibility than a standard back link.
4. Free Email Addresses.
Using a free email address during the directory submission will often also mean that your submission is rejected. Make sure that you are using the domain email address rather than a free email address option. The directories see this almost as a non person requesting entry to the directory and can, as stated, in many cases reject your request for submission. The above pointers should give you a background into some of the requirements you need to keep in mind when submitting to directories. Following these simple guidelines can increase your chances of acceptance. Other options for increased acceptance are to use the services of a directory submission service for promotion of your website. They will be able to give you a higher acceptance rate and a much better result for the investment of time and money to create the submissions yourself.\r\n\r\nFollow these seo tips above and you will find whether you submit to the directories yourself or you are using a directory submission service that you will have a much higher acceptance rate and the aim of course is to improve the volume of traffic to your website. By following the directory guidelines you actually have a much better result because your entries will be relevant and therefore interested parties are more likely to be relevant to your product or business service therefore increasing your opportunity for profit.
About Author
Michiel Van Kets was tempted by the good weather of Phuket Island and made his move to live on a tropical island, while making money online. His SEO firm consists of Western SEO-experts and local Thai staff. The company offers directory submission service, especially deep linking. He also writes for his blog about affordable seo. The blog is aimed at anybody looking for some basic, but useful seo advice. Manual-Submissions.com
Matt Cutts just released a powerpoint presentation for Wordcamp May 30, 2009. The presentation covers aspects of SEO and its a good read as it comes from Google. The doc covers blogging, what software to use, how to setup the wordpress, what is pagerank and many more.
Check it out – http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=ddvhbrqf_126gc346qdh&skipauth=true
Search engine optimization involves many individual tasks that all combine to form one strong strategy for optimizing your web site. If you”re going to do your own search engine optimization or hire a professional firm, you”ll need to learn about keywords and why they are so important for optimizing your web site. Learning about what keywords are, how many times to use them, and where to position them on each page of content will help you to realize better SEO results.
What are keywords?
Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to search for information via the many search engines that are available. If you want to look for information on troubleshooting your computer, you might type in “computer repair” or “troubleshooting Windows 98.” These phrases help the search engines find the most relevant results for your search.
How do I find keywords to use on my web site?
Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Before you begin your formal research, talk to family members and friends to find out the terms they would use to search for the products and services you sell. Compile a preliminary list of keywords and then start your research by using a keyword research program. Many of these programs offer features that will show you how many people search for particular terms, how competitive each keyword is, and alternate keywords based on your original input. Single words are almost impossible to use for optimization, so find specific phrases that describe your products and services.
What do I do with the keywords once a list has been developed?
Once you have come up with a list of keywords you want to use in your site optimization, you”ll need to actually implement them on to your site. Keywords can be included in page titles, page descriptions, alt-image tags, and web content. The most important thing to remember is that you should not cram your keywords into every single page on your web site. You should carefully place keywords and adhere to the principles of keyword density.
What is keyword density?
Keyword density refers to how many times your keywords appear in your text as compared to the total number of words on each page. Keyword density is expressed as a percentage. If you use a keyword once out of a total of 100 words, your keyword density is 1%.
Where should I use keywords within my text for the best results?
Using keywords in the headings on each page of your site is a good start. These bigger headings and specific keywords let people know what your web site is about. Using keywords in the beginning of a page and at the beginning of each paragraph is also a good way to improve your search engine rankings. You may not have thought of using words for links before, but this is a good way to improve your site’’s ranking. Instead of having links to other pages in your site that show the page address, use keyword text to give the links an edge that will help improve your page rankings?
The biggest problem that most are running into seems to do with getting INTO the search engines. Rankings aside, you need to first get them to index you. Here are the four main ways to assure yourself fast indexing:
Indexing Tip #1: Never launch a new site with a lot of back links. Build natural links over weeks and months. Let’’s face it, there is no guaranteed method of getting indexed by Google fast, and buying links from high-ranking sites does not guarantees anything either. The most immediate red flag you should watch out for is your number of incoming links. According to Google, it takes time to get link popularity and sites should not have more than 100 incoming links.
It’’s okay to launch with a quality link or two. But beyond that, you are pushing it! Here is the scoop! It takes 30-45 days for Google to deep index new sites. Instead of sitting around during “sandbox” time, use that period to build a strong set of natural back-links with a variety of sites.
Indexing Tip #2: Register your domain name at least four months before you plan to launch the site. No I am not kidding! Whether you agree with it or not, history shows that Google takes older URLs far more seriously than newer ones. So register your domain name as soon as you plan on developing a site.
Indexing Tip #3: Blog and ping carefully. Blogging & pinging is one of the fastest ways to get into the Yahoo index – it can literally get you into Yahoo overnight ? helps with MSN as well. Will blogging and pinging help get you into Google? Maybe. But over-pinging can set off red flags on the ping servers, and if you are using automated blogging software, overdoing it can cause Blogger.com and other services to shut down your blog. Blogging and pinging intelligently can get your blog indexed in Yahoo quickly, but ping carefully. Does Yahoo de-index junk blogs? Absolutely. Especially since the creation of all this software, the search engines are watching closely for red flags (use software wisely). So what can you do about Yahoo Search? Not much? You can be smart about blogging and pinging or even better, you can create real (not by software) blogs. You still have to be careful with pinging though. In the end, blogging and pinging should be part of every beginners indexing strategy.
Indexing Tip #4: If you build bulk directory/portal sites – keep them in the 200-300 page range. We know it’’s such a blast to build those monster 1000-5000 page sites, even with growing evidence of Google bots” tendencies to stall after indexing the first 200 pages or so? So if you”re into blasting out those gigantic directories and sick of waiting months for them to get indexed, experiment with building smaller sites around more targeted niches.
In a nutshell: Divide those mega-keyword lists, spend a little time grouping your sub-lists, and build smaller sites. All in all, the best way to get indexed, stay indexed and eventually get ranked is to recruit incoming link partners. See, blogging and pinging could be gone tomorrow. But, linking is an integral part of how the internet works ? it will never go away. Concentrate on building sites and recruiting links ? the links get you indexed, ranked and even bring you free traffic from those who click the links!
Copyright 2005 Kurma Group
Anik Singal is a 21 year old successful internet marketer who has developed his own affiliate marketing system which helped him earn over $10,466 in just 60 days. Join his FREE Course at: http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com