Twitter is a relatively new web 2.0 site that is beginning to gather a lot of popularity. That implies that a lot of people have heard of it but it is also rather common to run into individuals who haven’t learned of it.. yet. Twitter.com is this social site that promotes users to post frequently about what they are currently doing.
Marketing & Social Networks Webinar (What You Need to Know)
What social media networks can do for your business
How social networks benefit your web presence.
Why blogging and micro blogging is important.
Learn how Bulbwired can help grow your business using social media networks
Register for our weekly Webinar and learn more about this new area of marketing.
Lots of individuals are using it to better their selling reach, by being an involved twitterer they gain followers who are interested in what they got going on. This implies individuals being exposed to their updates on a regular basis. For example, if you have hundreds of followers in Twitter and you decide to post an affiliate link, that means that hundreds of people have immediately been exposed to your offer. In this article I will discuss ways to maximise Twitter for your selling, and also a big mistake to be aware of.
In order to have a fan base per say of followers in Twitter you must be able to keep their involvement in you and what you are doing now. “What are you doing?” is the whole foundation of what Twitter is about in the first place. Make sure to post daily if not several times throughout the day updates about what you are doing. The magical thing behind this is that many of your contacts will be able to feel like they know you so much better, will trust you more, and feel much more comfortable about working with you. On the other hand, when you follow others you can learn about them and their possible needs.
The big fault to watch out for is only posting affiliate links or offers on your Twitter page. This looks like Spam and many individuals will see you as just abusing Twitter for your own personal gather. Think of it this way, if you would not want to invite your friends or family to keep up with you via Twitter then you are going about it all incorrect. As with anything you send out or provide, ninety percent should be content and ten percent (at most) advertising. So this concept is quite simple… constantly post throughout the day what you are doing.. it is usually very simple and only takes a few seconds to post! Secondly, if you write articles or provide content online, provide a link for those in your Twitter posts. You may post many things within one day, but the last thing you post for the day is usually the most crucial because it will be there the longest. This implies that your last post for the day should very well contain a link that you want your followers to see before your start Twittering again the next day!
Another part of Twitter is contributing. As with any social site it should be a give and take relationship. Notice that give comes first… the more you give the more individuals will want to work with you and the more attention you will receive. Make sure to read and follow other users in Twitter. If you read something interesting or helpful then make sure to reply and say so, or even put a link for it on your Twitter so that you are directing others to more quality content. This can also be as simple as connecting with other users, if they know you are reading their Twitter page they will be much more likely to check out what you have going on too.
To get started in Twitter you should first invite contacts who aren’t using Twitter and also find contacts who are already using Twitter so that you can start following them and also start getting individuals to follow you. Twitter has a nice invite and find feature that makes this incredibly easy. To grow your reach even more you can start following individuals who follow or are followed by the people who follow you.. or that you follow. You might need to read that sentence again.. but basically you can find other users to connect with that are already connected to other users.
Now for a big tip. If you really want to maximise the potential with Twitter, you should make sure to take advantage of any plug-ins or sites that support Twitter. Here are 3, but I’m sure there will be many more in the future if not already. Squidoo allows you to input your Twitter account info into your Squidoo account and then it can automatically post updates to your Twitter account when you create or update Squidoo lenses. Facebook has an application called Twitter, it automatically updates your Facebook status when you make a Twitter post. The other tool is a free WordPress plug-in called TweetMyBlog that allows you to create a two-way connection from your blogs to Twitter. TweetMyBlog allows you to use a widget on your Wordpress blogs that will display your current Twitter feed.. that way all visitors to your blog can look at the widget and see a running feed of your latest Twitter posts. If they click on that they will be brought to your Twitter page. In addition, when you make a new post to your blog, TweetMyBlog will automatically make a post to your Twitter page with a link to your latest blog post. Imagine the extra exposure you can receive by using these tools that help people see more of what you are doing.
A Case Study
Bin Ends located in Braintree, Massachusetts is a discount online wine and spirits retailer who has started to stream live online videos of wine tastings with pros that consumers can view via the Twitter social network
To watch a live tasting all you need to is create a profile on Twitter, then receive notifications of upcoming events via the social network. The wine tastings also are promoted on the retailer’s web site and through social networking site Facebook.
When the wine tastings are happening, you can log into Twitter to view the broadcast of a panel discussing selected wines. Viewers can ask questions or offer comments online during the live broadcasts. The tastings are promoted at least two weeks in advance so that consumers also can order featured wines from Binendswine.com and taste along with the experts, Bin Ends says.
The first online tasting, held last week, drew 200 viewers from around the globe. About 10% of them ordered the promoted wines in advance from the company’s web site, according to a company spokesman. Shoppers who live in states that don’t permit direct shipment of alcohol to consumers can use the site’s “virtual sommelier,” which directs them to in-state retail locations where they can purchase the wine. That way no one has to miss out on a tasting, the spokesman says.
This is a great example of a small company using social networking to expand their market reach. Instead of just targeting wine drinkers in the greater Boston area, Bin Ends is able to reach potential wine buyers worldwide. They joined Facebook and Twitter and then thought outside the box on how to stand out in these social networks. A virtual taste test is very creative and I am sure that the 200 viewers was several times more than what they would have expected for an in-store event.
Lastly, have fun! Twitter is a social site… so interact and enjoy!
Link Popularity is one of key area to increase your site page ranking and search ranking. Incoming links are just like votes in election for your website however there is point as we have to emphases on quality links rather quantity. Valuable links are like 100 of poor links equals to 1 quality link. In this article, I would like to explain how differentiate quality links and how to get them which will effect and improve and strengthen your website ranking.
Mistakes in Link Building
It is never too late to focus on the right direction to get qualified incoming links. Here is few mistakes those may follow by SEOs, Link Builder or website owner and webmasters.
1- Focus on Quantity than Quality: It is the quality of incoming links that will bring your website at 1st page so always you should look for qualified incoming links rather quantity. 2- Link Exchange or Reciprocal Links: Link exchange or reciprocal links should be avoided. 3- Ignorance of Check and Balance for Links: If you don’t check and balance your listings periodically, you may lose your hard gain incoming links 4- Purchase Bulk Links: Search engines become very intelligent these days, you can’t make them fool by purchasing bulk links, because search engine check your incoming links frequency as well with time 5- Paid Links: Paid links can be very healthy but if they are used as a part of the strategy, if you have no idea of how many paid links you are going to have, that can upset your link building campaign.
Do You Have Categorized and Simplified Database?
In link building campaign, your database is your key to success; it is the backbone of your overall link building strategy. If you have a poor database, which is not categorized and simplified, you can’t be comfortable from your link building strategy.
Try to have categorized and simplified database, make a master database with following mentioned fields.
Important Fields for Master Database for any Link Building Campaign
1. URL
2. Direct Link (Direct Link of Submission or Registration)
3. Industry Type (Show Biz, Construction, Telecommunication…)
4. Link Type (One Way, Reciprocal, Paid)
5. Link Style (Anchor link, Title Hyper Link, URL Link, Vote Link)
6. Link Period (1 Year or Life time)
7. PageRank (1, 2, 3…10)
8. Title Limit (Characters Limit)
9. Description Limit (Characters Limit)
10. Keywords Limit (Characters Limit)
Insertion & Update Your Master Database!
Your master database (structure) is ready, now You need to make it valuable by inserting data to it, it requires an on-going updates. Don’t let anything go away as it can be used for your current asa for new projects
Search Engine Marketing is the hottest new career to sweep the employment sector. There are literally more jobs available than there are marketers to fill them, hence the high salaries. Traditionally, SEO/SEM has had a long, steep learning curve, so there is currently a large supply/demand gap.
The growth of the industry has underscored the need for faster, more flexible training options. The demand for trained SEO/SEM staff has accelerated the launch of online training programs in the past three years. The spread of misinformation and the growth of dodgy SEO practices have also highlighted a need for best-practice industry certification.
Advantages of a Career in SEM
Here are the major advantages of having a career in search engine marketing:
1. The search industry is hot, hot, HOT!
2. SEO considered one of four jobs on the cutting edge
3. The pay is (usually) fantastic
4. You can learn it all online
5. You can be your own boss
6. Search marketing has the WOW factor
7. The demand is strong and growing
8. The industry is hip and groovy
9. The skills are portable and global
10. Job satisfaction is high
SEM Training Options
If you decide to start that career in search engine marketing, you have numerous training options open to you:
- Do It Yourself (DIY)
- E-books and online manuals
- Books and offline manuals
- Conferences and seminars
- In-person training
- Online courses
Let’s go through these training options one by one.
Do It Yourself (DIY)
You could try to learn search engine marketing on your own, by conducting your own research, reading widely in webmaster forums and honing your skills on your own sites via trial and error.
The advantages of learning SEM on your own are:
- You can set your own timeframe
- It’s generally inexpensive
- You have the satisfaction of acquiring skills on your own
The disadvantages of learning SEM on your own are:
- There is a very long lead time
- You will be faced with conflicting and unreliable information sources
- There is only a limited ability to network with peers
- Research is time-consuming
- You won’t know what works and what doesn’t until you trial it
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired
E-books and Online Manuals
There are plenty of e-books and manuals about search engine marketing available online.
The advantages of learning SEM via e-books and manuals are:
- They are generally inexpensive
- They are readily available
The disadvantages of learning SEM via e-books and manuals are:
- They are generally considered lower quality than training
- There is no interaction with your peers
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired
As with online versions, there are just as many physical books, CDs and offline training manuals available to persons wanting to learn search engine marketing.
The advantages of learning SEM via books and offline manuals are:
- They are usually inexpensive
- They are readily available
The advantages of learning SEM via books and offline manuals are:
- The information dates quickly
- There is no interaction with your peers
- You’ll have no proof of skills acquired
Examples of SEM books and offline manuals include:
As search engine marketing has grown as an industry, so too have the number of conferences and events dedicated to it.
The advantages of learning SEM via conferences and seminars are:
- They offer cutting edge information
- They often provide access to search engine staff
- They give you the ability to network with peers
The disadvantages of learning SEM via conferences and seminars are:
- You must travel to the venue
- They generally provide no training material
- They can be more expensive than other options
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired
Just as the number of conferences relating to search engine marketing has grown, so too has the demand for in-house training in SEO and SEM subjects.
The advantages of learning SEM via in-person training are:
- It generally includes step-by-step instructions
- Training material is usually provided
- Verification of subjects studied is provided
- You have the ability to network with your peers
- Some form of certification is generally given
- University credits are sometimes available
- Certification may be recognized by potential employers
The disadvantages of learning SEM via in-person training are:
- You must travel to the venue
- The information can date quickly
- It can be more expensive than other options
It’s not always viable or affordable for webmasters to attend conferences or training sessions at a venue other than their home or workplace. For these reasons, the demand for online training in search engine marketing subjects has skyrocketed.
The advantages of learning SEM via online training courses are:
- Courses are available 24/7 from any location worldwide
- Training materials are provided
- They are usually cheaper than venue-based options
- They generally include step-by-step instructions
- Courses are self-paced and interactive
- Certification is provided
- A knowledge benchmark is required to qualify for certification
- Verification of subjects studied is provided
- The lesson materials are updated regularly
- University credits are sometimes available
- Certification is usually recognized by potential employers
- Training institutions can assist graduates with employment
The disadvantages of learning SEM via online training courses are:
- They can be more expensive than other options
- There is only a limited ability to network with peers
Providers of online training courses in search engine marketing include:
Search Engine College – http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=291_1_aaid_2
Benefits of Industry Certification
When it comes to industry certification, there are various schools of thought in the SEM industry. Some suggest certification is simply not necessary, others state that SEO/SEM has no official industry standards, so any certification is meaningless, still others insist that certification is becoming increasingly important to potential employers and persons seeking careers in SEO and SEM.
If you’re skeptical about the value of industry certification, ask yourself these questions: Will you be looking to hire search marketing staff over the next 12 months? Would you prefer to hire search marketing staff that hold industry certification? Will you be seeking a job in the search industry over the next 12 months? Do you think holding industry certification would give you an edge over applicants applying for the same jobs?
Here are some advantages to having industry certification in search engine marketing:
For Staff:
- Proof of subjects studied and skills acquired
- Ability to promote certification on web site / CV
- An edge over other applicants when applying for SEO/SEM jobs.
For Employers:
- Ability to hire based on a proven skill set (e.g. ability to set up a Yahoo! SEM campaign quickly).
- Ability to impress clients with certified status of staff.
- Reassurance that search engine-approved methods are used.
- Less on-the-job training is required.
To Sum Up
Everyone has a different learning style, so don’t assume one method will work for you. Don’t rely on a single source of training for your search engine marketing needs. Attend conferences, purchase books, take a course, network in forums and DIY when you can to acquire a broader knowledge base.
Finally, remember that training should always be supported by hands-on SEO/SEM experience so get those hands dirty!
About the Author:
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College – http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=291_1_aaid_2
- an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses
and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and
other Search Engine Marketing subjects.
If you are a work at home beginner then being an affiliate is THE most lucrative means to start making money fast. But being an affiliate and being a successful affiliate who’s making money are two different things. You’ll be surprised that 87% of affiliates don’t make more than $175 a month. Are you one of these struggling affiliate marketers? Here are 7 reasons why you could be among those who don’t make money.
1) Saturated Market
One of the most common mistakes that many affiliates make is to join an affiliate program that promotes a product that targets a highly saturated market. That means that the target market you are trying to sell to is full of others who are trying to sell the same thing. Areas such as “internet marketing” and “website traffic” are areas that relatively new affiliates should be weary of since it’s very hard to sell anything in these markets unless you’ve already made a name for yourself. Stay away from these highly saturated markets and find “niche” markets that you can easily dominate and promote to. This will greatly help you make a profit.
2) No interest in product
This is a mistake that many affiliates do without knowing it. They simply join an affiliate program because it’s “cool” or because someone else told them to. And they figure that by being an affiliate they will get the same benefits. Don’t be fooled. If you don’t have a personal interest in the product you are promoting you won’t put in the effort to actively promote it. And this will ruin your chances of success. If you like what you promote, then it shows through your websites or your written words and this positive influence is transferred to your prospective buyers as well. Make sure you join an affiliate website that promotes a product that interests you.
3) Low profitability
Many affiliates join an affiliate program simply because the payout per sale is huge. Often a single sale might pay you $99.00. And you think it’s a good product to promote. But you forget the fact that to earn $99.00 you have to sell a product that’s $299.00. Thus a single sale could be hard to make as compared to a much lower priced item. Therefore concentrate on joining an affiliate program that pays a higher percentage yet has a product price that is low or moderate. A 50% commission of a product that costs $50 is a good deal because you will be able to sell more of that product that the high priced ones.
4) No pre-selling
Many affiliates simply advertise their affiliate URL. They put their entire faith on the main affiliate website that they are sending people to. Thus your success is in someone else’s hands. Why take the risk? Why not pre-sell the idea of the product and get the prospect into a buying mood by preparing them for what they will find at the affiliate main site? A well constructed product review can be the ideal pre-sell for any product. Advertise your website that reviews the product and let the prospect visit the main site via your website. Once you “prep” them up, the sale is far more easier to make.
5) No Link cloaking
As I mentioned before, many affiliates use their affiliate URLs in advertising. This means that their affiliate Ids are plainly visible to anyone who wants to replace it with their own and thus steal a sale from you. Thus you must employ some form of link cloaking or encryption so that your affiliate links don’t get stolen or hijacked. Why chance it when you can prevent link theft?
6) No focus
A common mistake of an affiliate is to join an affiliate network and start promoting ALL of the network’s products at once. This “shot gun” affect can shoot down your profits simply due to the fact that you have no focus and thus your advertising efforts are wasted. Always pick one or two related products and maintain your focus. This way you can tune your marketing efforts without the other product cannibalizing your profits.
7) No targeted traffic
And lastly the most common mistake is to have no targeted traffic. Website traffic means nothing unless you get targeted traffic. Simply joining click exchanges or traffic exchanges will not make your affiliate checks soar. You simply MUST employ methods of FREE targeted traffic generation and keep generating traffic in this manner if you want your profits to increase as well.
There you have it. If you can avoid those 7 mistakes, then you will become a Super Affiliate that finally earns the kind of money you’ve always dreamed of.
About the Author
Khemal Dole owns and operateshttp://www.PaychecksDirect.com, a completely FREEservice that teaches many beginners and evenexperts how to work at home. Sign up for his FREE 14 day Work At Home Beginner’s Course and learn how real people make money from the internet.
Does anyone else find it surprising that so many site owners are reluctant to provide outgoing links on their website. Somehow they have come to believe that providing relevant outgoing links from their site can be harmful to their results in the search engines.
When you send your visitors to a relevant resource, this is not a bad thing. This is a good thing.
Relevant sites does NOT mean competitive sites.
Definitions of Relevant on the Web:
Having a bearing on or connection with the subject at issue; “the scientist corresponds with colleagues in order to learn about matters relevant to her own research” wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Evidence or information that has enough value to prove something significant to a case.http://www.attorneykennugent.com/library/r.html
If you write an article and would like to provide evidence of what you are saying, you should provide your resources within the article. Those MUST be credible resources. For example, if I write an article about website credibility, the site I point to in order to back up what I am saying must be an EXPERT on the topic, such as the Stanford Guidelines for Website Credibility. This method (used properly) gives your pages MORE value, not less. It also adds to the relevance of your page to the topic.
Incoming and outgoing links are not just about making pages filled with links. It is something that can be blended into your website in multiple ways, as it pertains to the specific page.
Think about the common interests of your target visitors and you will have no trouble deciding if a link is relevant to your site.
Wolfram Alpha is a search service being released this month that some feel is a Google killer. The jury is still out, however,it does hint at the possible future direction of search services. Wolfram Alpha hasn’t been launched as of yet. The major difference between Wolfram Alpha and existing search services is that it answers questions, as opposed to returning a list of pages.
Last weekend, Wolfram Alpha, unveiled a new “computational knowledge engine” based on the work of Stephen Wolfram. Some have dubbed Alpha a “Google killer,” but, in reality, it is very different from the standard search engines that we are all familiar with today.
Here is a public demo Wolfram gave earlier this week.
The following post is just a few thoughts about On-the-Page Optimization …
… and an attempt at a checklist.
Links vs On Page SEO
When optimizing a page for competitive terms, the bulk of the ranking algorithm will be based upon link analysis and site authority. Effective link building has no limit to how much it can help your rankings for competitive keywords you are targeting. Good on page optimization helps you rank for a wide array of less competitive keywords.
Keyword Density (KD) is Overrated
Some people think that more is better, and more is better, and more is better. This is not true with on-the-page keyword density. The algorithms for grading page copy are based on a bell curve. Some pages will have near-perfect term weights. But after some point, added placement of certain words does not make a page any more relevant; in fact, it can make a page become less relevant and appear more likely to be spam.
Why Focusing on Keyword Density is a Waste of Time
About half of all search queries are unique. Many of the searches that bring visitors to your site are for keyword phrases you never would have guessed. If a site is not well-established, most search traffic will be for long, multiword search phrases.
When webmasters start thinking about keyword density, many of them tend to remove descriptive modifiers and other semantically-related terms. Since some of those terms will no longer appear on the page, the “optimized” page no longer ranks well for many queries it once ranked for.
People write, search, and use language in similar ways. Thus, if you write naturally, you are going to be far better optimized for long-tail searches than some person who wastes time on keyword density will be.
If the content sounds like it was designed for engines instead of people, then less people are going to want to read it or link to it. Time spent tweaking keyword density would usually be better spent creating additional useful original content.
Over-optimizing a Page Makes a Page Likely to be Flagged as Spam
Some places try to optimize content so aggressively that the copy reads like rubbish. Traffic means nothing if people do not talk about your business or convert on your offers. Obviously, that is no good. But it gets even worse than that…some pages that are over-optimized don’t even get traffic.
Imagine a page that starts its page title, meta description, first header, first paragraph, and second paragraph all with the same word or phrase. Does that sound like natural quality information? Or perhaps more like someone trying to game the relevancy algorithms? If it looks and smells like spam then it is likely to get filtered out of the search results.
Natural On Page SEO
You have to mix it up. Sure, make the page title relevant, but don’t forget to
mix up your phrase order
use a few subheaders that are not keyword rich
use modifiers and related terms in some of your subheaders and throughout the page copy
The more your writing sounds like it was crafted for humans instead of bots, generally the better it will rank. Search engines want to rank high-quality information. Think news articles more than optimized pages. If your content looks more like a newspaper article than a piece of obviously SEOed text, you are on the right track.
Each search engine has its own algorithms, and they do not all align with one another. Thus, the most effective way to improve your rankings on all search engines will be via link building, but proper page structure and on-the-page optimization play important roles in gaining targeted traffic, especially for non-competitive keyword phrases or in search engines that rely heavily on page content.
Page Specific Relevant Content
Almost every page is going to have navigation and design elements. For search engines, the portions of the page that matter most, and that you have the most control over, are the textual content parts. Make sure that every page that you want to rank has enough page specific content on it that a search engine can tell that the page is focused on that topic. If a page consists mostly of repetitive sitewide navigation or illegible images it is hard for search engines to trust it or know what it is about.
You can create this kind of content by adding manufacturer details, editorial reviews, customer product feedback, product comparisons, and lists of recommended similar or compatible parts.
Use Keywords in Headings
Use keywords in headings and subheadings throughout the page—this heading should capture the person’s attention and tell them they are in the right place. Think of these headings like you would a heading in a newspaper; a classic, straight SEO approach might be
<h1>Optimize Web Pages – Learn SEO Copywriting</h1>
You may wish to use something with a call to action as well. That would appear more like
<h1>Learn SEO Copywriting Techniques that Drive Killer Converting Search Engine Traffic </h1>.
Heading tags go from H1 to H6, with the biggest tags being the smallest number (i.e., h1 renders the biggest font). You can change how the text appears with CSS. I usually try to get some of my primary and secondary keyword phrases and similar phrases in my page heading as well as in many subheadings.
I recommend using a single H1 tag on each page. I also try to use many H2 or H3 tags to break up the page copy and help structure the data.
Break the Page Into Pieces
h1 (consisting of primary keywords and a modifier or call to action) Only use one h1 tag per page and do not bold or emphasize it. It probably works best if it is different than your page title – different phrase order, singular vs plural, and substitute synonyms where it makes sense.
Examples of subheadings can be as follows:
h2 (similar subtopic idea with some related keyword phrases in it)
paragraph blah blah blah
h2 (another subtopic with some semantically related words)
paragraph blah blah
paragraph blah blah blah
h2 (Many subtopics do not have the same keywords as the page title and main heading. If you are writing for conversion, not all of them will, which is also good for SEO. If your page title and your headings contain the exact same keyword phrase it may look like an attempt to manipulate search relevancy. Mix it up. Keep it natural looking.)
h2 (Don’t forget to change word order and use plural and singular versions)
unordered list
paragraph blah blah
h2 (another subtopic focused on another niche)
paragraph blah blah blah
paragraph blah blah blah
Usually the subheadings will focus on a keyword phrase that is slightly more specific than the main heading.
The next example set is going to contain a bit of self-promotion, but that is not really the intent. It is hard for me to think of structuring content without thinking about a topic, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to tell people to copy any of my pages or client sites.
Example of a Liberal Use of Subheadings
Descriptive, reader-focused subheadings improve the usability of your website, both for search engines and people. If I wrote a page about applying for a job, the page title and headers might look something like this:
<title>Search Engine Optimization Guru Looks to Help 1 Lucky Client</title>
<h1>Online Search Engine Optimization Expert for Hire</h1>
<h2>Aaron Wall: Your SEO Expert</h2>
<h3>Author of SEO Book: A Well-Known Search Blog</h3>
content
<h3>Top Selling Marketing Book Author</h3>
content
<h2>History in the Search Community</h2>
<h3>Speaker at Search Engine Strategies & WebmasterWorld</h3>
content
<h3>Directory Editor at Major Directories</h3>
content
<h3>Moderator at Many Professional Webmaster Discussion Forums</h3>
content
<h2>Search Engine Ranking Achievements</h2>
<h3>Search Marketing ROI Results</h3>
content
<h3>Client Testimonials</h3>
content
Don’t Go Crazy
Headings help structure the information, but you shouldn’t overdo it. If you start doing things like placing all your content in an H1 tag, bolding the H1 tags, or bolding all occurrences of your keywords, then you are doing things that would give search engines a reason to discount your page. Thus, the combined effect will be more likely to hurt your rankings on multiple fronts, since your content may look less appealing to search engines and site visitors will be less likely to buy from it or link to it.
Place Your Keywords Where it Makes Sense
After the headings, the rest of the page copy is usually written with sales conversion in mind, and I do not pay too much attention to optimizing it for search engines other than adding in a modifier here or there and making sure that I have mixed up the phrase order of core keywords in some spots. Natural writing should cause you to use your keywords throughout the text.
If you are struggling to get your keywords into the page here are some ideas:
Place keywords in normal body content.
Place keywords in heading tags.
Place keywords in img alt tags.
When the word is part of a small statement making a specific point, you may bold it or italicize it.
You may also want to include your keywords a few times in bulleted lists.
When possible, place the keywords in links, and don’t forget navigation.
Don’t focus on just one core keyword over and over again. Mix in many variations.
The key focus of the page should be on readability. If the page does not make sense to human eyes, then it is no good for a search engine and it will not make sales. You want to use keywords, but not to the point where it sounds like you are writing for the search engine and not the user.
When in doubt, ignore the keywords, write your article for people, and then come back to it and make sure you covered all the important topics you wanted to cover.
Use Variation
Since latent semantic indexing-type algorithms may be able to detect unnatural copy that lacks related terms and will score hyper-focused repetitive unnatural text as being less relevant, it is important to use some mixture of terms and phrases (i.e., in some spots you want to use terms related to your keywords and not just your keywords).
If you took your core keyword out of the page copy and replaced it with blanks, would humans to be able to understand what the document was about? If they could, you are in great shape.
Be Creative
There are so many creative ways to mix in your keywords. Assuming we wanted to target eat cheddar, we could write the following:
Spread Your Keywords Throughout the Page
Some of the more recent algorithms may have the ability to look for natural language patterns. In natural language, the different words in a keyword phrase will appear spread apart from one another in some occurances. To boost your rankings in these algorithms, you will want to use the word eat in some spots and cheddar in other spots.
Often your keywords will appear next to each other naturally. Some words like peanut and butter often occur together, but in general, all of your occurrences of the keywords should not be together unless that is how they would appear in a newspaper article about your topic.
Keywords Near the Beginning of the Source Code
Keywords near the top of the page, and before your navigation, may be weighted more heavily and enhance your search engine rankings. Search engines care about the order the content appears in the page code more than on the screen.
Reorganizing the text can easily be accomplished by writing a sentence above your branding images or through using a floating DIV or another CSS technique. When using tables, some people use a blank cell technique to make the search engines see the body content before navigation. If search engines weight where the keywords are on the page, then they most likely use the order of the words in the actual page source code and not the visual display of the pages.
Microsoft did research into visual page segmentation, and Google hired some lead Firefox programmers away from Mozilla. As computer clock cycles get more efficient, if they can improve relevancy by looking closer at how words appear on displayed pages, they will factor that into their algorithms. But likely they have easier relevancy wins elsewhere.
Page Copy Length
Clarity and formatting are more important than shear length of copy. Rather than aiming for an arbitrary word limit or cut off, you should write pages of varying length based on the goals of the page. For example, if you want to make a page look comprehensive and use that idea as part of your marketing strategy it makes sense to make that page longer than it needs to be. If you are trying to quickly communicate an important idea it does not hurt to publish that page with less text on it.
No matter how long you make it, ensure you use sub-headers, short paragraphs, bulleted lists, graphics, and other goodies that help break up the text. Most people scan before they read.
Link building is still one of the biggest obstacles in improving your website ranking and traffic. If that is the case then the natural next question is; how do you build them?
A good place to start is to submit your site to web directories and directories in your niche. Sound simple, doesn’t it? Well it isn’t, most of us look the most obvious places, this certainly is a good place to start, however you need to look for the hidden gems inside your business category. Many of the best directories exist on sites like manufacturers you sell or buy from, or your own local Chamber of Commerce. The point here is the amount of weight Google puts on “Link Relevancy is huge. So try to avoid just blindly buying or link exchanging, etc. Be smart here and it will pay off. SEO is not for the “Immediate Gratification” folks, I wish it were. I would be gratified by now I think.
One part of your link building strategy can be “Dofollow Blogs”. If you have anything credible to say inside of your business you need to start saying it. The way to get some buzz around your product, service, brand etc is to find likeminded blogs that dofollow,
(DoFollow – This is given in the HTML page or the Robot.txt of the website, in order to direct the search engines to follow that particular web page.)
If you happen to be already blogging and commenting of others blogs by all means you should be getting some bank for your buck. Look for sites that have a relatively high page rank and comment on the ones inside your business. If you sell blue-left-handed widgets do not comment about “Things in the Solar System”. And please for goodness sake say something more than “nice post” or “kewl”, I know many guys with blogs will just delete you as “spam”. You may find some decent “dofollow sites” here. The last I’ll say about this right now is;
Don’t Be A Spammer – Be A Value Provider!
Spamming Dofollow resources will not give you results…not only that, it hurts the entire community, and forces Dofollow providers to convert their sites to Nofollow. Be sure that all of your link-building exploits are done so tastefully and honestly. If you don’t cram keywords and give an honest account of what your site is about, search engines will reward you for it!
The following is a quick rundown on what a DoFollow actually is:
Nofollow’ is a HTML attribute attached to hyperlinks in order to ensure that the specific link in question does not pass any value that will help improve the target site’s search engine rank.
It was first created by Google in 2005 as a means to combat keyword spam, particularly on webpages where users can add links by themselves. Other search engines like Yahoo and MSN Live both respect the nofollow attribute as well.
More details from Google’s official blog:
If you’re a blogger (or a blog reader), you’re painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites’ search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like “Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.” This is called comment spam, we don’t like it either, and we’ve been testing a new tag that blocks it.
From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results.
This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.
In its most basic definition, dofollow is just a way of referring to links that do not use the ‘nofollow’ attribute. In other words, these are normal links which pass value and credit towards improving search engine ranks.
The origin of the term ‘dofollow’ appears to stem from a movement by bloggers who believe that comments are legitimate contributions by readers, therefore the wholesale marking of every comment as spam by default through the ‘nofollow’ tag is not fair and justified
As such, these bloggers or other non-blog websites override the existing platform defaults by removing the nofollow attribute, making all the links ‘dofollow’.
These dofollow blogs and websites have consistently been a target of webmasters and spammers who leave keyword links with their choice of anchor text in order to enhance their search rank. You can find dofollow blogs through a simple google search. Let me wrap this up by cautioning you to not be obsessed with Dofollow’s it is just a small part of the overall picture in building a long term “Luv Presence” on the net. Long live ya! Thanks for letting me yak all over you.