Spring is a wonderful time of year but it might not be so wonderful for our online business. The weather is getting nicer and people are spending more time outside, away from their computers. One way to get more people to come to your website is to do some spring cleaning and I do not mean your house! Our websites can get stale and outdated if we do not clean them up periodically.
There are lots of things you can do to freshen up your site and bring new life and new customers to your online business.
1. Add a new section filled with resources, information and maybe even some special deals for your customers. Use relevant keywords to improve your ranking. For example: if you own a home decor business, offer decorating tips and advice. Show people how to decorate on a budget or how to redecorate with things they already own. By providing information and resources along with your products, you are giving people a reason to keep coming back. This is how you build trust with your visitors and get more sales.
2. Remove all dead links, outdated information and products. Nothing is worse than going to a site and finding links that do not work or information and/or products that are no longer useable or helpful. Go through all the links on your site and freshen up the content to offer up to date information!
3. Give your homepage a facelift by adding new graphics, text, etc. Redo your banner and give it some new life. Take out the old graphics and add some fresh new images. Research your keywords and revamp your text with some effective keywords. Write a new introduction to your site detailing all your new additions.
4. If you have not yet tried blogging, read up on blogging and zap some life into your site. Some free blogging sites are Blogger and WordPress. Blogging is a great way to improve your search engine ranking while expanding your network.
5. Update your product line. Add some fresh new products and offer the old products at clearance prices. Have a Spring Sale and liven up your sales! Keep those customers coming back for more!
6. Add a what is New page so you can let everyone know about all your updates now and in the future. This feature could get more people to return to your site to see what is New?
7. Research the colors used on your site. You may find changing the colors of your site can bring a whole new life to your business.
8. Put a small survey on your site. Ask your visitors what they would like to see and what type of products they are looking for. Offer your visitors a small gift for answering the questions on the survey.
9. Renew your goals! Make new goals and write out a new business plan. Learn from your experiences, good and bad, and improve your plan for success.
Spring is a time of renewal, revitalization and reenergizing! Our online businesses are no exception!
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
How Much SEO Do You Need To Get Top Rankings?
Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions, perpetuated by industry SEO experts, is that a website must follow perfect SEO strategies to get top rankings. While adhering to simple common SEO standards does help the search engines both find and index your site more quickly, it does not guarantee by any stretch of the imagination that following those SEO guidelines will propel your site to the top of the rankings.
If only search engine optimization was that easy!
No doubt, there are some SEO faux pas that will do harm to your site's rankings, especially in Google, the ultimate hall-monitor all puffed up and ready to pounce on any misbehaving webmaster. Things such as keyword stuffing, keyword spamming or linking out to bad neighborhoods such as link farms, pharmaceutical or gambling sites may get you blacklisted.
But how much SEO do you need? How much search engine optimization do you need to get top rankings? Do you need a whole lot or do you need very little SEO?
The answer to that question varies depending upon what you are trying to accomplish with your SEO efforts. If you are operating an online business in a very competitive (read lucrative) market, SEO will be high on your agenda as you go about annihilating your competition.
Even if you are an ordinary webmaster or website owner you are probably fussing over your rankings in the search engines. The higher the rankings you achieve for your chosen keywords; the more traffic you will get. Good quality traffic that converts well into loyal subscribers and fans of your site.
Many webmasters and companies spend thousands of dollars each month in order to get their keywords and sites up to the top of the list. If you are into affiliate marketing, your daily income will rise and fall almost parallel to your rankings. Now, if my earnings go up, I know automatically my rankings have gone up, usually in Google. If my earnings go down, I know my rankings have gone south. Some times even a drop or rise of one place on the first page SERPs will affect how much you earn.
Obviously, because of this fact, SEO or how well I am optimized for the search engines is extremely important to me. I am constantly building quality links and quality content for my sites. Some keyword battles you win, some battles you lose.
But how much SEO is enough? How much SEO should you do with your sites? Many webmasters make sure all their on page set-up or lay-out is done exactly to what the SEO experts say you should do. This is not a bad idea. Make sure your Title, URL, Headlines, Keyword Density are all laid out right. These are things we can control and adjust to meet the SEO standards.
Other SEO or ranking factors are much harder to predict, many of them are simply out of our control. How other sites link to us, what they put in the anchor text, what they say about us simply things we can not control.
I believe the over-riding reason why your site is listed at the top of any rankings has to do with the number, the quality and the quantity of sites linking back to your page. The higher the number of related quality one-way links you have flowing back to your site, the higher it will perform in the rankings. Your anchor text is very important (underlined part of a link); it must contain your keywords or variations of it. The content on the linking page should also be related to your chosen keywords.
Get this part right and you will get high rankings.
Or at least this has been my experience - all the other ranking factors do count but this is the over-riding factor in my opinion.
Another major ranking factor lately, has been the importance Google is placing on social media links. Get your content to the first page of Digg with lots of diggs and it will rank high in Google. This is not surprising when you consider the nature of these social bookmarking sites it really is an actual "vote" for the quality of your content. Getting Delicious bookmarks has a similar positive effect.
Another prominent factor, from my observations, is having your major keyword in your Domain Name. Use hyphens if you want but having those keywords in there, does help rather than hinder your rankings.
Now if you are wondering about how Google ranks pages or your keywords. Google has around 200 ranking factors (with filters and penalties thrown in to make all our lives interesting) which it uses to rank your keywords/pages. This is still the best online resource that lists all of Google's ranking factors: www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm
Now the question still remains, how much SEO do you need? How much time should you spend at optimizing, building links, worrying your head off over the latest Google Itch?
The answer always comes back to quality content. Create a site that has quality content and the SEO will take care of itself. People will link to your site, you will get bookmarks in all the social media sites, Google will find your content and rank it. Your SEO will grow naturally as your site grows. Keep building more pages, keep targeting more and more related keywords in your niche or subject area and you will get higher rankings.
Now, of course, some webmasters are a little more aggressive in how quickly they want their rankings to rise to the top of the search engines. Here is something you can do if you want to go into the SEO battle full-force.
1. Download SEOquake and place this free SEO toolbar plug-in on your Firefox (or I.E.) browser.
2. Go to Google and type in the keyword or keyword phrase you are targeting with your site or content.
3. Select the number one ranking and observe how many pages it has indexed, PageRank, how many backlinks it has, age of the site and so on.
4. Then use the page info button and study all the on-page factors this site has and notice what it is doing with its page and keyword density lay-out.
5. Check all the backlinks this site has in the different search engines. Copy or try to get the same backlinks for your site that your competitor has acquired. Then get more backlinks and/or higher quality backlinks than your competitor.
6. Watch your rankings rise
Just a few more words of wisdom and we are done. Some battles will be too tough to fight, the competition will be so stiff you just can not compete. Other battles will take a long time; months, even years before you rise to the top. Your best bet is to choose long-tail (multi-worded) keywords that have little or no competition. You can rise to the top within days, even hours. The sweet thing is this: long-tail keywords are often the most lucrative and bring in the most sales. For in the final analysis, you just do not want SEO, you want smart SEO. And you will quickly learn, most times you can often out-smart your competition, even if you can not out-rank them.
Source From SitePro News
If only search engine optimization was that easy!
No doubt, there are some SEO faux pas that will do harm to your site's rankings, especially in Google, the ultimate hall-monitor all puffed up and ready to pounce on any misbehaving webmaster. Things such as keyword stuffing, keyword spamming or linking out to bad neighborhoods such as link farms, pharmaceutical or gambling sites may get you blacklisted.
But how much SEO do you need? How much search engine optimization do you need to get top rankings? Do you need a whole lot or do you need very little SEO?
The answer to that question varies depending upon what you are trying to accomplish with your SEO efforts. If you are operating an online business in a very competitive (read lucrative) market, SEO will be high on your agenda as you go about annihilating your competition.
Even if you are an ordinary webmaster or website owner you are probably fussing over your rankings in the search engines. The higher the rankings you achieve for your chosen keywords; the more traffic you will get. Good quality traffic that converts well into loyal subscribers and fans of your site.
Many webmasters and companies spend thousands of dollars each month in order to get their keywords and sites up to the top of the list. If you are into affiliate marketing, your daily income will rise and fall almost parallel to your rankings. Now, if my earnings go up, I know automatically my rankings have gone up, usually in Google. If my earnings go down, I know my rankings have gone south. Some times even a drop or rise of one place on the first page SERPs will affect how much you earn.
Obviously, because of this fact, SEO or how well I am optimized for the search engines is extremely important to me. I am constantly building quality links and quality content for my sites. Some keyword battles you win, some battles you lose.
But how much SEO is enough? How much SEO should you do with your sites? Many webmasters make sure all their on page set-up or lay-out is done exactly to what the SEO experts say you should do. This is not a bad idea. Make sure your Title, URL, Headlines, Keyword Density are all laid out right. These are things we can control and adjust to meet the SEO standards.
Other SEO or ranking factors are much harder to predict, many of them are simply out of our control. How other sites link to us, what they put in the anchor text, what they say about us simply things we can not control.
I believe the over-riding reason why your site is listed at the top of any rankings has to do with the number, the quality and the quantity of sites linking back to your page. The higher the number of related quality one-way links you have flowing back to your site, the higher it will perform in the rankings. Your anchor text is very important (underlined part of a link); it must contain your keywords or variations of it. The content on the linking page should also be related to your chosen keywords.
Get this part right and you will get high rankings.
Or at least this has been my experience - all the other ranking factors do count but this is the over-riding factor in my opinion.
Another major ranking factor lately, has been the importance Google is placing on social media links. Get your content to the first page of Digg with lots of diggs and it will rank high in Google. This is not surprising when you consider the nature of these social bookmarking sites it really is an actual "vote" for the quality of your content. Getting Delicious bookmarks has a similar positive effect.
Another prominent factor, from my observations, is having your major keyword in your Domain Name. Use hyphens if you want but having those keywords in there, does help rather than hinder your rankings.
Now if you are wondering about how Google ranks pages or your keywords. Google has around 200 ranking factors (with filters and penalties thrown in to make all our lives interesting) which it uses to rank your keywords/pages. This is still the best online resource that lists all of Google's ranking factors: www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm
Now the question still remains, how much SEO do you need? How much time should you spend at optimizing, building links, worrying your head off over the latest Google Itch?
The answer always comes back to quality content. Create a site that has quality content and the SEO will take care of itself. People will link to your site, you will get bookmarks in all the social media sites, Google will find your content and rank it. Your SEO will grow naturally as your site grows. Keep building more pages, keep targeting more and more related keywords in your niche or subject area and you will get higher rankings.
Now, of course, some webmasters are a little more aggressive in how quickly they want their rankings to rise to the top of the search engines. Here is something you can do if you want to go into the SEO battle full-force.
1. Download SEOquake and place this free SEO toolbar plug-in on your Firefox (or I.E.) browser.
2. Go to Google and type in the keyword or keyword phrase you are targeting with your site or content.
3. Select the number one ranking and observe how many pages it has indexed, PageRank, how many backlinks it has, age of the site and so on.
4. Then use the page info button and study all the on-page factors this site has and notice what it is doing with its page and keyword density lay-out.
5. Check all the backlinks this site has in the different search engines. Copy or try to get the same backlinks for your site that your competitor has acquired. Then get more backlinks and/or higher quality backlinks than your competitor.
6. Watch your rankings rise
Just a few more words of wisdom and we are done. Some battles will be too tough to fight, the competition will be so stiff you just can not compete. Other battles will take a long time; months, even years before you rise to the top. Your best bet is to choose long-tail (multi-worded) keywords that have little or no competition. You can rise to the top within days, even hours. The sweet thing is this: long-tail keywords are often the most lucrative and bring in the most sales. For in the final analysis, you just do not want SEO, you want smart SEO. And you will quickly learn, most times you can often out-smart your competition, even if you can not out-rank them.
Source From SitePro News
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Must Have Tools for Webmasters
Here is a collection of what we consider "must have" tools for web masters These tools will benefit any webmaster, both novices and experts alike. Arm yourself with these tools in order to achieve a more professional online presence.
1. Custom 404 Page
Use a custom 404 page, so that if a user incorrectly types a webpage URL, they will still retain navigational options within your site and be provided alternative solutions. When a domain is correctly entered, but a specific webpage's URL is entered incorrectly, it is possible to display your custom error page to the visitor. By providing users with a navigational bar and further assistance, rather than leaving them with a generic "page not found" error screen, you can often keep prospective customers on your site by providing them with navigation alternatives.
2. UrlTrends
UrlTrends is a service that shows historical trends, so that web masters can see how their SEO efforts are affecting websites in the search engines. UrlTrends should be used in conjunction with web-logging software.
UrlTrends - www.urltrends.com
3. Favicon
Polish your website by adding a Favorite Icon. When a "favicon" is available on your site, and the site URL is entered in the user's web browser URL box, the favicon will be displayed beside the URL. This gives the website a more professional and polished look.
Favicon HTMLKit - www.htmlkit.com
4. Color Matching
Match the primary web colors with those used in your logo. Simply choose a preferred color using the ColorBlender service below, and a 6-color matching palette and blend will be automatically calculated for you.
ColorBlender - www.colorblender.com
5. Online WYSIWYG Editing
Online webpage editing allows for collaboration, so that different users can log in and edit web pages.
Edit - www.edit.com
6. RSS Feeds
No longer considered to be just a nice addition, RSS feeds are now a "must have" for popular websites! Create RSS feeds for newsletters, press releases, educational articles, product tutorials, new product promotions, or just about any other sort of web content.
FeedForAll - www.feedforall.com
7. MaxEmail
MaxEmail is very affordable Internet fax and voicemail service allows a fax message to be delivered to an email address as a PDF formatted attachment. This allows fax messages to follow you regardless of your location. And, it also eliminates the need for a costly extra telephone line and a dedicated fax machine.
MaxEmail - maxemail.com
8. Royalty-Free Images
Locate stock photos to incorporate into your web design. Use royalty-free stock photography to add professional, high-quality images to your website.
Photo Wizard - www.photo-wizard.net
9. Submit Corner Web Assessment Tools
These web assessment tools help you use search engines to effectively monitor who links to your website, how many links, and who your competitors are. The tools include search indexing, link tracking, and competitor identification.
Submit Corner - www.SubmitCorner.com
10. Ranks.nl
This service assesses keyword density and prominence of a domain. The tool parses keywords and assesses the number of times a keyword occurs, and then discerns the density of the keywords.
Ranks.nl - ranks.nl/tools/spider.html
11. Webmaster Toolkit
The Webmaster Toolkit is a collection of webmaster tools developed to help web masters with daily webmaster chores. The suite of free tools and resources included continues to grow, and contains something useful for the beginner and the advanced webmaster alike.
Webmaster Toolkit - www.webmaster-toolkit.com
12. HTML Web Templates
Make it clean and professional. Use easy-to-edit HTML web templates for web design.
Web Design - www.webmaster-templates.net or www.webdesign-elements.com
13. TrafficZap
This website includes script, page rank checker, link popularity checker, and more.
TrafficZap - www.trafficzap.com
14. Compete.com
Web Analytics - Stay on top of rivals with site metrics and audience profiles for the top 1,000,000 web domains. Identify rival search marketing strategies to take your SEM and SEO efforts to the next level.
SiteAnalytics - siteanalytics.compete.com
15. Thumbshots
Easily add thumbshot images to your webpages. Integrate website thumbnails by simply copying and pasting HTML code. Additional software is not needed.
Thumbshots - www.thumbshots.org
Use top-notch tools to make web maintenance and management a little easier.
Source From SitePro News
1. Custom 404 Page
Use a custom 404 page, so that if a user incorrectly types a webpage URL, they will still retain navigational options within your site and be provided alternative solutions. When a domain is correctly entered, but a specific webpage's URL is entered incorrectly, it is possible to display your custom error page to the visitor. By providing users with a navigational bar and further assistance, rather than leaving them with a generic "page not found" error screen, you can often keep prospective customers on your site by providing them with navigation alternatives.
2. UrlTrends
UrlTrends is a service that shows historical trends, so that web masters can see how their SEO efforts are affecting websites in the search engines. UrlTrends should be used in conjunction with web-logging software.
UrlTrends - www.urltrends.com
3. Favicon
Polish your website by adding a Favorite Icon. When a "favicon" is available on your site, and the site URL is entered in the user's web browser URL box, the favicon will be displayed beside the URL. This gives the website a more professional and polished look.
Favicon HTMLKit - www.htmlkit.com
4. Color Matching
Match the primary web colors with those used in your logo. Simply choose a preferred color using the ColorBlender service below, and a 6-color matching palette and blend will be automatically calculated for you.
ColorBlender - www.colorblender.com
5. Online WYSIWYG Editing
Online webpage editing allows for collaboration, so that different users can log in and edit web pages.
Edit - www.edit.com
6. RSS Feeds
No longer considered to be just a nice addition, RSS feeds are now a "must have" for popular websites! Create RSS feeds for newsletters, press releases, educational articles, product tutorials, new product promotions, or just about any other sort of web content.
FeedForAll - www.feedforall.com
7. MaxEmail
MaxEmail is very affordable Internet fax and voicemail service allows a fax message to be delivered to an email address as a PDF formatted attachment. This allows fax messages to follow you regardless of your location. And, it also eliminates the need for a costly extra telephone line and a dedicated fax machine.
MaxEmail - maxemail.com
8. Royalty-Free Images
Locate stock photos to incorporate into your web design. Use royalty-free stock photography to add professional, high-quality images to your website.
Photo Wizard - www.photo-wizard.net
9. Submit Corner Web Assessment Tools
These web assessment tools help you use search engines to effectively monitor who links to your website, how many links, and who your competitors are. The tools include search indexing, link tracking, and competitor identification.
Submit Corner - www.SubmitCorner.com
10. Ranks.nl
This service assesses keyword density and prominence of a domain. The tool parses keywords and assesses the number of times a keyword occurs, and then discerns the density of the keywords.
Ranks.nl - ranks.nl/tools/spider.html
11. Webmaster Toolkit
The Webmaster Toolkit is a collection of webmaster tools developed to help web masters with daily webmaster chores. The suite of free tools and resources included continues to grow, and contains something useful for the beginner and the advanced webmaster alike.
Webmaster Toolkit - www.webmaster-toolkit.com
12. HTML Web Templates
Make it clean and professional. Use easy-to-edit HTML web templates for web design.
Web Design - www.webmaster-templates.net or www.webdesign-elements.com
13. TrafficZap
This website includes script, page rank checker, link popularity checker, and more.
TrafficZap - www.trafficzap.com
14. Compete.com
Web Analytics - Stay on top of rivals with site metrics and audience profiles for the top 1,000,000 web domains. Identify rival search marketing strategies to take your SEM and SEO efforts to the next level.
SiteAnalytics - siteanalytics.compete.com
15. Thumbshots
Easily add thumbshot images to your webpages. Integrate website thumbnails by simply copying and pasting HTML code. Additional software is not needed.
Thumbshots - www.thumbshots.org
Use top-notch tools to make web maintenance and management a little easier.
Source From SitePro News
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Necessity Of Search Engine Optimization
The majority of businesses now understand that search engine optimization or SEO is becoming an important part of any online business strategy. Today it is only the most backward thinking companies that have dismissed the benefits of search engine optimization, or have not even heard of it.
The emphasis of search engine optimization is to increase web traffic to a website through the search medium. The process involves changing various elements of the website so that it is more visible to search engines and easier to operate for users.
Currently the market is saturated with so called SEO specialists who are simply jumping on a band wagon that started rolling over ten years ago. Hence it is imperative to have a detailed research process before entering into a contract with any SEO company. Ideally a company that can prove its worth, prove the success of it methods and its time in the industry should be found.
It is advisable, before employing a SEO company to gain an understanding of how the search engine process is conducted. Fortunately the Internet has thousands of websites dedicated to the subject of website optimization. While the worth of these websites is somewhat questionable, they do at least give an idea of the sorts of strategies the SEO company should be presenting.
As with the procurement of nearly any service it is important to gain a number of quotes from different companies. All firms will charge different rates for their services and hence looking at the quotes and assessing the value of the service is essential.
Remember that the cheapest company should not always be chosen. Like most things in life a cheaper price does not necessarily mean a good service, in some cases it may be worth paying that little bit extra for a better level of service.
One of the best strategies to help choose an SEO company is to simply type a related term into a search engine. For instance by taking terms such as 'search engine optimization' and entering this into Google it is possible to see numerous sites that offer SEO service. Understandably, by using one of the sites in the top five listings you are given a form of guarantee that they know what they are doing, after all, if a company cannot rank highly for terms related to their own industry it is doubtful they will be able to help other companies.
It is also worth avoiding companies that promise page one, or even position one rankings. Nobody outside of the Google corporation can guarantee such positions, it is doubtful even Google employees can. Search engine algorithms are extremely complex and it takes real experts to work within these algorithms to improve the rankings of a site. Any company that has the short sightedness to guarantee position one listings is probably not worth using.
It is hoped that this article has given businesses and business owners an idea of how search engine optimization can help their company to secure more online business and trade. In terms of searching for a company the search engine method is worthwhile but also beneficial can be personal recommendations.
If another company gives you information on a company that helped them improve their online profile and profits it is likely that this reference is trustworthy and could result in further profits for your own company. With the right SEO company increased online revenue and trade is a real and attainable possibility.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
The emphasis of search engine optimization is to increase web traffic to a website through the search medium. The process involves changing various elements of the website so that it is more visible to search engines and easier to operate for users.
Currently the market is saturated with so called SEO specialists who are simply jumping on a band wagon that started rolling over ten years ago. Hence it is imperative to have a detailed research process before entering into a contract with any SEO company. Ideally a company that can prove its worth, prove the success of it methods and its time in the industry should be found.
It is advisable, before employing a SEO company to gain an understanding of how the search engine process is conducted. Fortunately the Internet has thousands of websites dedicated to the subject of website optimization. While the worth of these websites is somewhat questionable, they do at least give an idea of the sorts of strategies the SEO company should be presenting.
As with the procurement of nearly any service it is important to gain a number of quotes from different companies. All firms will charge different rates for their services and hence looking at the quotes and assessing the value of the service is essential.
Remember that the cheapest company should not always be chosen. Like most things in life a cheaper price does not necessarily mean a good service, in some cases it may be worth paying that little bit extra for a better level of service.
One of the best strategies to help choose an SEO company is to simply type a related term into a search engine. For instance by taking terms such as 'search engine optimization' and entering this into Google it is possible to see numerous sites that offer SEO service. Understandably, by using one of the sites in the top five listings you are given a form of guarantee that they know what they are doing, after all, if a company cannot rank highly for terms related to their own industry it is doubtful they will be able to help other companies.
It is also worth avoiding companies that promise page one, or even position one rankings. Nobody outside of the Google corporation can guarantee such positions, it is doubtful even Google employees can. Search engine algorithms are extremely complex and it takes real experts to work within these algorithms to improve the rankings of a site. Any company that has the short sightedness to guarantee position one listings is probably not worth using.
It is hoped that this article has given businesses and business owners an idea of how search engine optimization can help their company to secure more online business and trade. In terms of searching for a company the search engine method is worthwhile but also beneficial can be personal recommendations.
If another company gives you information on a company that helped them improve their online profile and profits it is likely that this reference is trustworthy and could result in further profits for your own company. With the right SEO company increased online revenue and trade is a real and attainable possibility.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Friday, November 20, 2009
The Quick and Easy Way to Really Understand Long Tail Keywords
Have you heard of the 80-20 rule? Well, an Italian economist called Pareto noticed that 80% of land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. His work was taken up by others until it entered mainstream thinking. You have probably heard variations of what is now become known as the 80-20 rule, or the Pareto principle. They go like this: we spend 80% of our time with 20% of our friends, or we wear 20% of our favorite clothes 80% of the time.
More generally, it is a common rule of thumb in business: e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients." In business, for example, Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, 80% percent of the errors and crashes would be eliminated.
But what if you found out that - where your website is concerned - the Pareto principle did not hold up so well? That 80% of your major keywords only account for 20% of your sales? In other words, by focusing on a handful of major keywords you may be missing out on the 'real' keywords that prospective customers are actually using to find your product or service.
Most web masters apply the 80-20 rule: that the top keywords provide 80% of the business, but in practice, this has proved to be the opposite. In other words, the keywords that are most sought after are actually rarely those that provide the most business.
Put it another way: your website is far more likely to receive most of its search engine visitors through an assortment of low-volume search queries instead of a small group of keywords. And this means that by focusing on identifying the keywords which receive a lower volume of search queries you will see a jump in the overall amount of prospective customers from, say, Google, to your website.
What are these keywords? And how will they improve my visitor traffic?
Well, these keywords have become known as Long Tail Keywords. "Long Tail" because they are phrases that are usually made up of more than three words. For instance: "Paint" is not long tail, but "Outdoor paint for wooden shed" is long tail. Or, take "shoes": "Adidas running shoes" is almost there. But "Adidas running shoes for women" is a long tail keyword.
Can you see the difference between "horse training" and "quarter horse training products"? Here is another example: 'Credit Cards' is the general keyword but effective long tail keywords within this niche could include: 'good low cost credit cards for nurses', 'credit cards for people with bad credit', 'credit cards with low interest', 'benefits of corporate credit cards', and so on.
The core ideas about long tail keywords is that there is less competition for them, so it is easier to get good search engine rankings, and also the fact that people who search certain long tail keywords are much more likely to be potential purchasers. By optimizing your website and delivering content to match these search queries you will be attracting visitors who are searching for specific product information using these and other related search phrases.
And There is no doubt that long tail keywords are highly effective at attracting traffic. what is more important, there are thousands and thousands of long tail keywords which no one or very few people are pinpointing and so can easily be utilized. So here are four key reasons why you should consider using long tail keywords to optimize your website for search engines:
First, focusing on long tail keywords will slowly but surely lead to more search engine traffic because you will have many, many web pages indexed and ranked for specific phrases related to your products or services. This means higher visibility and so a greater volume of search engine traffic.
Next, long tail keywords lead to higher purchase ratios. Visitors who come to your site via long tail search queries are more likely to purchase or take up on affiliate programs. By focusing on these long tail phrases, you are actually zeroing in on a vast market of potential buyers.
Third, long tail keywords lead to higher page ranking because there is generally far less competition. There is so much more scope for variation when you start digging for the phrases that people actually use when they enter search terms.
Finally, using long tail keywords means that your sites have the potential for greater monetization. People who find your site because they used a search engine such as Google or Yahoo are high value for this reason: they are people who are looking for specific information. So they are highly likely to follow relevant advertisements or subscribe to your blog feed or ezine.
Source From SEO News
More generally, it is a common rule of thumb in business: e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients." In business, for example, Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, 80% percent of the errors and crashes would be eliminated.
But what if you found out that - where your website is concerned - the Pareto principle did not hold up so well? That 80% of your major keywords only account for 20% of your sales? In other words, by focusing on a handful of major keywords you may be missing out on the 'real' keywords that prospective customers are actually using to find your product or service.
Most web masters apply the 80-20 rule: that the top keywords provide 80% of the business, but in practice, this has proved to be the opposite. In other words, the keywords that are most sought after are actually rarely those that provide the most business.
Put it another way: your website is far more likely to receive most of its search engine visitors through an assortment of low-volume search queries instead of a small group of keywords. And this means that by focusing on identifying the keywords which receive a lower volume of search queries you will see a jump in the overall amount of prospective customers from, say, Google, to your website.
What are these keywords? And how will they improve my visitor traffic?
Well, these keywords have become known as Long Tail Keywords. "Long Tail" because they are phrases that are usually made up of more than three words. For instance: "Paint" is not long tail, but "Outdoor paint for wooden shed" is long tail. Or, take "shoes": "Adidas running shoes" is almost there. But "Adidas running shoes for women" is a long tail keyword.
Can you see the difference between "horse training" and "quarter horse training products"? Here is another example: 'Credit Cards' is the general keyword but effective long tail keywords within this niche could include: 'good low cost credit cards for nurses', 'credit cards for people with bad credit', 'credit cards with low interest', 'benefits of corporate credit cards', and so on.
The core ideas about long tail keywords is that there is less competition for them, so it is easier to get good search engine rankings, and also the fact that people who search certain long tail keywords are much more likely to be potential purchasers. By optimizing your website and delivering content to match these search queries you will be attracting visitors who are searching for specific product information using these and other related search phrases.
And There is no doubt that long tail keywords are highly effective at attracting traffic. what is more important, there are thousands and thousands of long tail keywords which no one or very few people are pinpointing and so can easily be utilized. So here are four key reasons why you should consider using long tail keywords to optimize your website for search engines:
First, focusing on long tail keywords will slowly but surely lead to more search engine traffic because you will have many, many web pages indexed and ranked for specific phrases related to your products or services. This means higher visibility and so a greater volume of search engine traffic.
Next, long tail keywords lead to higher purchase ratios. Visitors who come to your site via long tail search queries are more likely to purchase or take up on affiliate programs. By focusing on these long tail phrases, you are actually zeroing in on a vast market of potential buyers.
Third, long tail keywords lead to higher page ranking because there is generally far less competition. There is so much more scope for variation when you start digging for the phrases that people actually use when they enter search terms.
Finally, using long tail keywords means that your sites have the potential for greater monetization. People who find your site because they used a search engine such as Google or Yahoo are high value for this reason: they are people who are looking for specific information. So they are highly likely to follow relevant advertisements or subscribe to your blog feed or ezine.
Source From SEO News
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Blogs, WordPress and Google
It is no secret that a continually updated website with new content being added regularly stands a good chance of doing well in Google. One of the long standing methods to regularly expand a site's content is through the use of a blog.
While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can not be beat either.
Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming it is updated often with interesting and relevant material, can be one of the best things you can do to help out your search rankings. The beauty behind WordPress is that there is a wide array of totally free plug-ins you can easily install that will make your blog totally search engine friendly.
The following are some basic guidelines and essential plug-ins you should consider when you install your WordPress blog.
Template Design
The first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you achieve the desired appearance.
Most of your changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional.
Once you have your design set up, the rest of the customization is considerably less technical. The following are suggestions that most people can do themselves and you probably will not need an expert to help you here.
Settings
Permalinks
The next thing you need to do is customize your URL's. You do not want the default post URLs ("pageid=#") as they are simply not search friendly and you want your default names to have some meaning to them. While you can customize your URL's with various plug-ins, you may not always think to do this, so be sure to have a default you can live with.
Under the settings tab in your dashboard, clíck on permalinks. Here I suggest choosing one of the settings that includes the post name. Including the month and year is totally optional as it will have little to no impact on your search rankings, but you definitely do want to include the post name.
WWW or no WWW
With WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects. It is handled for you, but you do need to select which variation you want, and it is very simple to do. Under "General Settings" you will see two fields; one for "WordPress address" and the other, "Blog address". Ensure that both these fields include the "www" (or not), whichever you prefer, and that is it. (I always recommend using the "www" version of your URL as most people linking into your site will use it, and this will help keep a consistency among your site.
Required Plug-ins
There is an almost endless supply of free plug-ins out there that you can add to your site ranging from photo galleries and spam protection, to social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and others. While many of these others will benefit your blog and search rankings, the XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential.
SEO Plug-in
When setting up your new installation, the first plug-in you need to install is one that will allow for totally customized title, meta description tags, and page URL's. There are a number of tools that do this ranging from the widely popular "All in One SEO Pack" to a relative newcomer "HeadSpace2".
While I personally have yet to try HeadSpace2, it is high on my list, as it has been recommended by many industry professionals as the best WordPress SEO plug-in. For any new blog installation I highly recommend this plug-in be installed right away.
XML Sitemap Plug-in
To the best of my knowledge, HeadSpace2 does not have an XML sitemap option, and as such I highly recommend "Google XML Sitemaps". This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps for you on the fly and submit it to Google every time you add, delete, or update a page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information at all times. It is a very simple plug-in to install and configure and once setup, you can forget about it and it will do the job for you.
A well optimized site loaded with relevant content can do very well in Google if setup correctly. The power of WordPress can make this process incredibly easy so all you have to worry about is writing those great articles and selling your customers. The plug-ins and functionality of WordPress are endless and when installed correctly can make the optimization of your blog considerably easier, increasing your chances for top rankings.
Source From SitePro News
While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can not be beat either.
Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming it is updated often with interesting and relevant material, can be one of the best things you can do to help out your search rankings. The beauty behind WordPress is that there is a wide array of totally free plug-ins you can easily install that will make your blog totally search engine friendly.
The following are some basic guidelines and essential plug-ins you should consider when you install your WordPress blog.
Template Design
The first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you achieve the desired appearance.
Most of your changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional.
Once you have your design set up, the rest of the customization is considerably less technical. The following are suggestions that most people can do themselves and you probably will not need an expert to help you here.
Settings
Permalinks
The next thing you need to do is customize your URL's. You do not want the default post URLs ("pageid=#") as they are simply not search friendly and you want your default names to have some meaning to them. While you can customize your URL's with various plug-ins, you may not always think to do this, so be sure to have a default you can live with.
Under the settings tab in your dashboard, clíck on permalinks. Here I suggest choosing one of the settings that includes the post name. Including the month and year is totally optional as it will have little to no impact on your search rankings, but you definitely do want to include the post name.
WWW or no WWW
With WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects. It is handled for you, but you do need to select which variation you want, and it is very simple to do. Under "General Settings" you will see two fields; one for "WordPress address" and the other, "Blog address". Ensure that both these fields include the "www" (or not), whichever you prefer, and that is it. (I always recommend using the "www" version of your URL as most people linking into your site will use it, and this will help keep a consistency among your site.
Required Plug-ins
There is an almost endless supply of free plug-ins out there that you can add to your site ranging from photo galleries and spam protection, to social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and others. While many of these others will benefit your blog and search rankings, the XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential.
SEO Plug-in
When setting up your new installation, the first plug-in you need to install is one that will allow for totally customized title, meta description tags, and page URL's. There are a number of tools that do this ranging from the widely popular "All in One SEO Pack" to a relative newcomer "HeadSpace2".
While I personally have yet to try HeadSpace2, it is high on my list, as it has been recommended by many industry professionals as the best WordPress SEO plug-in. For any new blog installation I highly recommend this plug-in be installed right away.
XML Sitemap Plug-in
To the best of my knowledge, HeadSpace2 does not have an XML sitemap option, and as such I highly recommend "Google XML Sitemaps". This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps for you on the fly and submit it to Google every time you add, delete, or update a page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information at all times. It is a very simple plug-in to install and configure and once setup, you can forget about it and it will do the job for you.
A well optimized site loaded with relevant content can do very well in Google if setup correctly. The power of WordPress can make this process incredibly easy so all you have to worry about is writing those great articles and selling your customers. The plug-ins and functionality of WordPress are endless and when installed correctly can make the optimization of your blog considerably easier, increasing your chances for top rankings.
Source From SitePro News
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Using Long Tail Keywords to Your Advantage
A keyword is a simple word or phrase that is typed into the search engine by a user looking for information. For example if a searcher was looking for information on family photography tips, they might use some of the following common search terms. "family photography tips taking photos"
If you used a keyword research tool like Wordtracker, you would discover that these phrases are very popular search terms. In fact, if you built a web page that focused on any of the keywords above, you would have a very difficult time ranking in the top 10 on Google's search results page?
Because the competition for general keywords can be fierce. Keyword competition is defined using the term Supply. If a keyword phrase as a high supply, it means that there are many web pages out there that are using this keyword. The higher the supply, the more the competition.
Long Tail Keywords are simply the longer and more targeted phrases that people type into the search engines. In our photography keyword example above, we looked at a few very general competitive keywords. Here are some long tail keywords relating to photography.
"night time photography tips eliminate blinking from photos removing red eye from photos"
Do you see the difference? Long tail keywords are much more targeted to a specific sub topic. The nice thing about discovering long tail keywords in your particular niche is that they typically have a much lower level of competition, so it is easier to rank in the top ten in the search engine results.
Another advantage is that long tail keywords bring in much more targeted traffic. While the keyword 'family photography' may be a very competitive keyword for photography sites, the traffic brought in by such a keyword will be pretty broad.
By comparison, someone finding your site through the long tail keyword 'eliminate blinking from photos' is looking for specific information. If you can provide that information, you stand a much better chance of building trust and confidence with this visitor and converting them to a newsletter signup, registration or purchase.
Someone that gets to your site via a long tail keyword is typically ready to pull the trigger on some type of purchase or action. We say that they are "late" in their buying cycle. In addition, You will find it easier to achieve a top ten ranking at the search engines for long tail keywords.
By sprinkling them into your page copy, you are more likely to pull in traffic that converts at a higher rate. The downside is that long tail phrases will typically not generate the high traffic numbers of more general keywords. But remember, the more general keywords are much more competitive.
If you use an analytics package like Google Analytics, You will actually be able to see the types of long tail keywords that people typed in to get to your site. While long tail keywords can make up 50% or more of your traffic, many of them will only be one-time traffic generators. So then, is it possible to research and target long tail keywords when writing your web pages? The answer is 'yes' and 'no.'
First off, if you write good original content that is genuinely helpful to your target market, You will automatically weave in long tail keywords without even trying. As your page content grows, visitors will get to your site through more and more of these long tail phrases. In other words, the tail will grow longer and longer. In fact, You will find visitors getting to your site using search phrases that you would have never thought of yourself. This is the value of focusing each of your content pages on a specific topic that provides valuable information to a narrow target audience.
Read Long Tail Keywords for additional tips on using the long tail to rank higher in the search engines and generate targeted traffic. All hail the long tail!
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
If you used a keyword research tool like Wordtracker, you would discover that these phrases are very popular search terms. In fact, if you built a web page that focused on any of the keywords above, you would have a very difficult time ranking in the top 10 on Google's search results page?
Because the competition for general keywords can be fierce. Keyword competition is defined using the term Supply. If a keyword phrase as a high supply, it means that there are many web pages out there that are using this keyword. The higher the supply, the more the competition.
Long Tail Keywords are simply the longer and more targeted phrases that people type into the search engines. In our photography keyword example above, we looked at a few very general competitive keywords. Here are some long tail keywords relating to photography.
"night time photography tips eliminate blinking from photos removing red eye from photos"
Do you see the difference? Long tail keywords are much more targeted to a specific sub topic. The nice thing about discovering long tail keywords in your particular niche is that they typically have a much lower level of competition, so it is easier to rank in the top ten in the search engine results.
Another advantage is that long tail keywords bring in much more targeted traffic. While the keyword 'family photography' may be a very competitive keyword for photography sites, the traffic brought in by such a keyword will be pretty broad.
By comparison, someone finding your site through the long tail keyword 'eliminate blinking from photos' is looking for specific information. If you can provide that information, you stand a much better chance of building trust and confidence with this visitor and converting them to a newsletter signup, registration or purchase.
Someone that gets to your site via a long tail keyword is typically ready to pull the trigger on some type of purchase or action. We say that they are "late" in their buying cycle. In addition, You will find it easier to achieve a top ten ranking at the search engines for long tail keywords.
By sprinkling them into your page copy, you are more likely to pull in traffic that converts at a higher rate. The downside is that long tail phrases will typically not generate the high traffic numbers of more general keywords. But remember, the more general keywords are much more competitive.
If you use an analytics package like Google Analytics, You will actually be able to see the types of long tail keywords that people typed in to get to your site. While long tail keywords can make up 50% or more of your traffic, many of them will only be one-time traffic generators. So then, is it possible to research and target long tail keywords when writing your web pages? The answer is 'yes' and 'no.'
First off, if you write good original content that is genuinely helpful to your target market, You will automatically weave in long tail keywords without even trying. As your page content grows, visitors will get to your site through more and more of these long tail phrases. In other words, the tail will grow longer and longer. In fact, You will find visitors getting to your site using search phrases that you would have never thought of yourself. This is the value of focusing each of your content pages on a specific topic that provides valuable information to a narrow target audience.
Read Long Tail Keywords for additional tips on using the long tail to rank higher in the search engines and generate targeted traffic. All hail the long tail!
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
How to Tell if Facebook is Worthwhile for Your Business
Social media is here to stay. There. I said it. It will be around in some form for years to come. Do you really see Facebook, Twitter and Web videos going somewhere?
Or do you just see them evolving and becoming part of a larger system the same way business blogs did? Great. Then we can start figuring out how to use social media to our benefit.
Now that we are past this issue of whether we are in love with MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, etc., and we realize that we are focusing on whether these tools are useful or not, (not on whether or not they give us the warm fuzzies), there is still a fundamental question. This goes for whether you are using Facebook pages, Facebook ads, or a regular Facebook profile.
How do you know if sites like Facebook are for YOU? How can you tell if a social networking site can help YOUR company?
It boils down to three things.
1. Are There Enough People on the Site in Your Interest Area for it to Be Worth Your While?
You have to think about business connections too, not just clients.
You can connect with people who send you business. Think about what the value of a new client is too, whether you think you can get one out of 100, and how long it takes. When people come to your profile, are they visiting your site? If not, is your profile set up correctly?
Experiment. There are several very subtle things you can do that maximize your exposure, not just daily clicks through to your site.
To find out if there are enough people on Facebook who need your plumbing services, search for home improvement groups. Check your regional network and look on the Marketplace page. See if you can find people in your local area to befriend who would need your services but for heaven's sake, do not be aggressive in your promotion.
Instead, create a Facebook page, run an ad, or have the type of networking conversations where "so, what do you do?" will naturally come up. And you can take it from there.
Networking at Facebook can be like hanging out at a neighborhood mixer. Yeah, you might want to mention that you are a handyman, or that you work at the bank, and give someone your card, but you do not want to turn those first few getting-to-know-you conversations into a sales pitch.
Let them know who you are, what you do, and after a few conversations, send them a no-strings coupon for them or a friend "just in case you ever need it buddy" and go on being friends. They will remember you if you keep in touch, and are a nice enough guy.
2. Does your company have an RSS-capable site that updates frequently?
If it does, a profile on Facebook gives you another place to share your RSS link. You can import your blog posts going forward, or summaries. There are also applications like Networked Blogs that will help your blog posts get exposure from interested readers.
3. Do you already have clients, friends, associates, whose signal you can isolate, or whose noise you can penetrate, using Facebook?
This has to be the most underestimated use of Facebook. My first month at Facebook I had direct interactions with ten influential people I admire. Some of them I look up to for personal reasons, others are greats in some aspect of search, the internet or technology. One actually sent me a client.
Instead of installing hundreds of applications and super-poking someone or posting spam to their Super Wall, you can be the smart person who sends a letter and gets a response, the one who sends a private message and is sent a gift in return, or just get the wonderful feeling of having a world famous personality you admire not only acknowledge you, but contact you directly.
One of the greatest things about Facebook is how it can help cement relationships between you and people you know but did not think you had much in common with. You know how sometimes, you want to write to say hello to someone, but at the same time, you do not want to waste their time?
Or when you think about some great author or celebrity you admire, and what you would say to them if you could meet them? Maybe you just want to compliment a more famous colleague and not sound like a dork.
Facebook can help with this when it functions as an automatic ice-breaker, facilitating an initial contact between you and someone you wish you had more reason to interact with, then another, and another, until you become friends who call each other on the phone and plan to visit or meet at conferences.
Those are the reasons. it is not a matter of time because you can block all the nuisance requests and there are ways around the irritating app requests.
it is not a matter of just traffic because first, you can set up a profile in 15 minutes to automatically send you traffic and you do not have to mess with it again if you like. Or you can go in and meet people every day and it can be a major traffic source.
And it is not a matter of whether you can get anything out of it - it is more a matter of whether you are willing and whether the available traffic is targeted to your topic. it is not for everyone, because let us face it, not everyone wants to do the work, or even use Facebook that way.
For some people, it is a nice little escape, like a mental, online Starbucks. For some it is a bother, and the pain of learning a new way to do things isn't worth the time. I do not mean that sarcastically if you are functioning as a CEO, you may not want to focus on Facebook.
With a little research, you can find out what kind of role it will play in your life.
Source From SitePro News
Or do you just see them evolving and becoming part of a larger system the same way business blogs did? Great. Then we can start figuring out how to use social media to our benefit.
Now that we are past this issue of whether we are in love with MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, etc., and we realize that we are focusing on whether these tools are useful or not, (not on whether or not they give us the warm fuzzies), there is still a fundamental question. This goes for whether you are using Facebook pages, Facebook ads, or a regular Facebook profile.
How do you know if sites like Facebook are for YOU? How can you tell if a social networking site can help YOUR company?
It boils down to three things.
1. Are There Enough People on the Site in Your Interest Area for it to Be Worth Your While?
You have to think about business connections too, not just clients.
You can connect with people who send you business. Think about what the value of a new client is too, whether you think you can get one out of 100, and how long it takes. When people come to your profile, are they visiting your site? If not, is your profile set up correctly?
Experiment. There are several very subtle things you can do that maximize your exposure, not just daily clicks through to your site.
To find out if there are enough people on Facebook who need your plumbing services, search for home improvement groups. Check your regional network and look on the Marketplace page. See if you can find people in your local area to befriend who would need your services but for heaven's sake, do not be aggressive in your promotion.
Instead, create a Facebook page, run an ad, or have the type of networking conversations where "so, what do you do?" will naturally come up. And you can take it from there.
Networking at Facebook can be like hanging out at a neighborhood mixer. Yeah, you might want to mention that you are a handyman, or that you work at the bank, and give someone your card, but you do not want to turn those first few getting-to-know-you conversations into a sales pitch.
Let them know who you are, what you do, and after a few conversations, send them a no-strings coupon for them or a friend "just in case you ever need it buddy" and go on being friends. They will remember you if you keep in touch, and are a nice enough guy.
2. Does your company have an RSS-capable site that updates frequently?
If it does, a profile on Facebook gives you another place to share your RSS link. You can import your blog posts going forward, or summaries. There are also applications like Networked Blogs that will help your blog posts get exposure from interested readers.
3. Do you already have clients, friends, associates, whose signal you can isolate, or whose noise you can penetrate, using Facebook?
This has to be the most underestimated use of Facebook. My first month at Facebook I had direct interactions with ten influential people I admire. Some of them I look up to for personal reasons, others are greats in some aspect of search, the internet or technology. One actually sent me a client.
Instead of installing hundreds of applications and super-poking someone or posting spam to their Super Wall, you can be the smart person who sends a letter and gets a response, the one who sends a private message and is sent a gift in return, or just get the wonderful feeling of having a world famous personality you admire not only acknowledge you, but contact you directly.
One of the greatest things about Facebook is how it can help cement relationships between you and people you know but did not think you had much in common with. You know how sometimes, you want to write to say hello to someone, but at the same time, you do not want to waste their time?
Or when you think about some great author or celebrity you admire, and what you would say to them if you could meet them? Maybe you just want to compliment a more famous colleague and not sound like a dork.
Facebook can help with this when it functions as an automatic ice-breaker, facilitating an initial contact between you and someone you wish you had more reason to interact with, then another, and another, until you become friends who call each other on the phone and plan to visit or meet at conferences.
Those are the reasons. it is not a matter of time because you can block all the nuisance requests and there are ways around the irritating app requests.
it is not a matter of just traffic because first, you can set up a profile in 15 minutes to automatically send you traffic and you do not have to mess with it again if you like. Or you can go in and meet people every day and it can be a major traffic source.
And it is not a matter of whether you can get anything out of it - it is more a matter of whether you are willing and whether the available traffic is targeted to your topic. it is not for everyone, because let us face it, not everyone wants to do the work, or even use Facebook that way.
For some people, it is a nice little escape, like a mental, online Starbucks. For some it is a bother, and the pain of learning a new way to do things isn't worth the time. I do not mean that sarcastically if you are functioning as a CEO, you may not want to focus on Facebook.
With a little research, you can find out what kind of role it will play in your life.
Source From SitePro News
Sunday, November 8, 2009
SEO: How Do I Give My Website A Quick SEO Tune Up?
Cars need tune ups and airplanes go into the hanger to get optimized for the next flight. If you are a web owner that has the "upload it and leave it" mentality, consider adding a weekly or monthly tune up to your website. Ten to Fifteen minutes here and there can only do one thing--make you more successful.
1. Start small with the meta information.
a. Examine your Title meta tag on each page. Do they describe the page contents? Do they contain the right keywords to drive traffic to that page? Is at least one part of the Title geo-specific? Example, "Attorney, Los Angeles, CA" and not just "Attorney" or "Lawyer" or "My Law Firm."
b. Examine your Description meta tag. Make sure that each page, if it is at all possible, has a different meta tag description. Google does not like repeated information.
2. Check your links.
Use a free online program to make sure you do not have any broken links. Go to your favorite search engine and type in "free link checker" and use one that looks good to you.
3. Do a little marketing.
Go to your favorite search engine and search for something you do or sell. let us say you are a dentist. Perform two different kinds of searches, global and geo-specific.
Example: 1. "dentist," global and 2. "dentist, (city)", geo-specific. Examine the back links to make sure that you are also on the same business directories as the top ranked websites. You do this quickly using a "back link checker." You can easily find one of your choice through a quick search engine search.
Steps 1, 2, and 3 can be repeated daily, weekly, monthly whatever your schedule allows. The next 2 steps go a little deeper into your maintenance plan.
4. Google Analytics.
it is free, it is easy, and it is extremely useful. If you are not paying an SEO company to handle your website, you should definitely take advantage of this amazing tool.
You sign up for it here: http://www.google.com/analytics/.
Google will give you a unique code to put on each page you want to track. You do not need to be a programmer to figure it out. it is just a few lines of script that you paste into your webpage exactly where Google shows you to do it.
You find out how many people are visiting your website, what keywords brought them to your website, what websites referred them to your website, where they are from, how much time they spent on your website and much more. This is an amazing free treasure trove of information. You will find out if the people visiting your website are, in fact, the type of visitor you are targeting. If not, all you have to do is tweak your Title meta tag and your content to let the search engine know, for example: you want people who were searching for "logo design" not "graphic design" or "child therapist" not "couples therapy."
5. Alexa.
Alexa monitors traffic levels for websites. While arguably a flawed system, it is still used as a measuring stick to gauge your website.
Why should you care?
let us say you own a flower store in Boston. You look up your competitor and find that they have an Alexa ranking of 79,000 and you have one of 4,500,000. This is a quick indicator that THEY and not YOU are getting all the flower shop web traffic in the area. Additionally, the more traffic you get, the more likely your organic search engine results will go higher. Marketing activities that increase web visitors will give you a better Alexa ranking. Across the board, SEO experts agree that if you download the "Alexa Toolbar" and visit your website once a day, encourage friends and colleagues to download the tool bar and visit each other's websites that this will increase your Alexa ranking, too. it is a simple thing to do, but do not expect dramatic results. You can also flaunt your url in Alexa forums, but the best use of your time is simply to try to get targeted visitors to your website through standard marketing channels.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
1. Start small with the meta information.
a. Examine your Title meta tag on each page. Do they describe the page contents? Do they contain the right keywords to drive traffic to that page? Is at least one part of the Title geo-specific? Example, "Attorney, Los Angeles, CA" and not just "Attorney" or "Lawyer" or "My Law Firm."
b. Examine your Description meta tag. Make sure that each page, if it is at all possible, has a different meta tag description. Google does not like repeated information.
2. Check your links.
Use a free online program to make sure you do not have any broken links. Go to your favorite search engine and type in "free link checker" and use one that looks good to you.
3. Do a little marketing.
Go to your favorite search engine and search for something you do or sell. let us say you are a dentist. Perform two different kinds of searches, global and geo-specific.
Example: 1. "dentist," global and 2. "dentist, (city)", geo-specific. Examine the back links to make sure that you are also on the same business directories as the top ranked websites. You do this quickly using a "back link checker." You can easily find one of your choice through a quick search engine search.
Steps 1, 2, and 3 can be repeated daily, weekly, monthly whatever your schedule allows. The next 2 steps go a little deeper into your maintenance plan.
4. Google Analytics.
it is free, it is easy, and it is extremely useful. If you are not paying an SEO company to handle your website, you should definitely take advantage of this amazing tool.
You sign up for it here: http://www.google.com/analytics/.
Google will give you a unique code to put on each page you want to track. You do not need to be a programmer to figure it out. it is just a few lines of script that you paste into your webpage exactly where Google shows you to do it.
You find out how many people are visiting your website, what keywords brought them to your website, what websites referred them to your website, where they are from, how much time they spent on your website and much more. This is an amazing free treasure trove of information. You will find out if the people visiting your website are, in fact, the type of visitor you are targeting. If not, all you have to do is tweak your Title meta tag and your content to let the search engine know, for example: you want people who were searching for "logo design" not "graphic design" or "child therapist" not "couples therapy."
5. Alexa.
Alexa monitors traffic levels for websites. While arguably a flawed system, it is still used as a measuring stick to gauge your website.
Why should you care?
let us say you own a flower store in Boston. You look up your competitor and find that they have an Alexa ranking of 79,000 and you have one of 4,500,000. This is a quick indicator that THEY and not YOU are getting all the flower shop web traffic in the area. Additionally, the more traffic you get, the more likely your organic search engine results will go higher. Marketing activities that increase web visitors will give you a better Alexa ranking. Across the board, SEO experts agree that if you download the "Alexa Toolbar" and visit your website once a day, encourage friends and colleagues to download the tool bar and visit each other's websites that this will increase your Alexa ranking, too. it is a simple thing to do, but do not expect dramatic results. You can also flaunt your url in Alexa forums, but the best use of your time is simply to try to get targeted visitors to your website through standard marketing channels.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
7 Things You Can Do Now To Benefit From Social Marketing
Seven is a magic number. Why? Because there are seven simple strategies every small business can employ to jump on the social marketing bandwagon. The best part: most require only a moderate investment of time and/or money.
1. Start Blogging - Blogging is old news to many. Not quite the distant past, but still not the future. It certainly does not compare with chasing a link from the front page of Digg. But blogging is alive and well! It continues to be a great way to get interactively connected with your customers. 'Dialoguing' is the reason social marketing exists. How much time you invest in your blog is up to you, but You will get out what you put in. You do not have to drive yourself crazy putting in daily entries, but you should establish a regular schedule for your blog updates. Otherwise, when people check your blog they will see the same-old/same-old so often that they will stop visiting your site, which is the whole reason you started the blog! So do not shoot yourself in the foot by creating a blog that is a visitor-repellent rather than a visitor-magnet.
Blogging is not a monologue. Your blog is not the electronic equivalent of Hamlet us soliloquy. Just the opposite! Blogging is about creating conversations and joining others in progress. Take time to read what others in your industry are saying. Get in on the discussion (and get your name out there) by posting your comments on other blogs. It is free, and again, the amount of time you invest can bring some very big returns. The beauty of blog posts is that You will almost always be encouraged to supply your name and URL when leaving a comment. This is a great way to build visibility and create a springboard to catapult traffic from other blogs to yours.
2. Take and Share Digital Photos - Flickr can be a tremendous marketing tool thanks to its incredibly active photo groups. The time and cost investment are minimal, and you can use Flickr to reach thousands of highly targeted prospects with compelling images of your product.
3. Be The Answer Man (or Woman) at Yahoo Answers - there is one thing you have to provide that no one else does - your expertise. If you are a service-based business, your knowledge is your #1 marketing tool. Yahoo Answers is a great place for you to hammer away at prospects. Imagine being the go-to person that people seek out. That is who You will be at Yahoo Answers.
There is no better way to share your expertise and make an instant and direct connection with potential customers. I know dozens of marketing pros like me who spent as little as an hour or two each week answering SEO and promotion-oriented questions there. They tell me that they have been able to track big results from even that small investment of time.
4. Get Into the Movie Business - Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but moving pictures are worth their weight in solid gold marketing. Fortunately, good video cameras are cheap these days, and a short video needs little editing/production work in today's "everyone's a filmmaker" environment. And if you have got the creative "chops" to add some sizzle to a video, go for it! Be the next Scorsese, if you can. Fortunately, the software you need to add special effects will not break the bank. For marketing purposes, however, a produced video is the way to go and a how-to video featuring your product is a good choice. If the look or location of your business is a selling point, "tour" videos - of a workplace, a restaurant, the homes you sell, the real estate you landscape, etc. - are your best bet.
Marketing videos are finding a home on local search portals like CitySearch. The find-it-in-your-town site announced that local video ads will be added to its listings. YellowPages.com is also exploring the idea of video opportunities.
Upload your videos to a unique page on your website or add them to your blog page. But do not stop there! YouTube is the most obvious - and the most active - sharing destination. And there are so many others.
5. do not Wait To Visit StumbleUpon.com - There are many so-called 'discovery' type sites in social marketing. The best-known are Digg, Reddit, and Netscape, but they are also a bit complicated. StumbleUpon requires the lowest time investment. The site's functionality makes it much quicker and easier to join groups related to your industry and add friends from those groups.
Once you have joined and created your lists, you can start to upload "sticky" (appealing to visitors) content and before you know it, other users will "stumble upon" what you have added. That's when the "magic begins". When visitors give your pages good feedback, your content is shown to even more users.
You can not sell your product or service on StumbleUpon. The benefit it offers is increased traffic, which can lead to increased profits. Those profits are just a click away because your site is just a click away. Think of StumbleUpon as a way to raise awareness, Blog readership, grow subscribers, etc. All of which ultimately feed into your profit stream.
6. Join Up - A HUGE part of social marketing is detective work. You need to find your customers where they like to hang out. Well, if your customers are like most people on the planet, it is pretty likely that they hang out at Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to share interests and opinions.
Like Flickr, the groups at Yahoo and Google are organized into interest-based lists. When you join the lists and discussions, you can provide your expertise (there is that word again) and become a trusted member of the community. Tthe person that other people will want to do business with. there is no better outcome to marketing than that!
7. Make Friends, Not Noise - As you explore social marketing opportunities across the web, be sensitive to the rules and regulations posted on various websites. As a member of a social community, it is your obligation to play by the rules, so make sure you know them and follow them! But here is one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools: do not spam the system. Flickr does not want your entire product inventory posted, and they have rules against doing so. But a few high-quality photo submissions that add to the community are fine.
Whatever social marketing you do, make a contribution to the community. Try to add content and comments of value, not an endless spew of "Buy my product" messages. In other words, do not be a leech that is merely there to suck up prospects. Give back a little. Or, better yet, give back a lot! When you do that, you are on the road to social marketing success. (Translation: more money than You will know what to do with!)
And remember, with social marketing we are not talking about any old traffic. We are talk about platinum, USDA Prime, pre-qualified, eager to do business, trusting, ready and willing prospects who do not think of you as a business, they think of you as a friend.
So be a good friend. Deliver on the promise of quality and service. If you do that, social marketing will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. So stop dreaming and start marketing socially.
Source From SitePro News
1. Start Blogging - Blogging is old news to many. Not quite the distant past, but still not the future. It certainly does not compare with chasing a link from the front page of Digg. But blogging is alive and well! It continues to be a great way to get interactively connected with your customers. 'Dialoguing' is the reason social marketing exists. How much time you invest in your blog is up to you, but You will get out what you put in. You do not have to drive yourself crazy putting in daily entries, but you should establish a regular schedule for your blog updates. Otherwise, when people check your blog they will see the same-old/same-old so often that they will stop visiting your site, which is the whole reason you started the blog! So do not shoot yourself in the foot by creating a blog that is a visitor-repellent rather than a visitor-magnet.
Blogging is not a monologue. Your blog is not the electronic equivalent of Hamlet us soliloquy. Just the opposite! Blogging is about creating conversations and joining others in progress. Take time to read what others in your industry are saying. Get in on the discussion (and get your name out there) by posting your comments on other blogs. It is free, and again, the amount of time you invest can bring some very big returns. The beauty of blog posts is that You will almost always be encouraged to supply your name and URL when leaving a comment. This is a great way to build visibility and create a springboard to catapult traffic from other blogs to yours.
2. Take and Share Digital Photos - Flickr can be a tremendous marketing tool thanks to its incredibly active photo groups. The time and cost investment are minimal, and you can use Flickr to reach thousands of highly targeted prospects with compelling images of your product.
3. Be The Answer Man (or Woman) at Yahoo Answers - there is one thing you have to provide that no one else does - your expertise. If you are a service-based business, your knowledge is your #1 marketing tool. Yahoo Answers is a great place for you to hammer away at prospects. Imagine being the go-to person that people seek out. That is who You will be at Yahoo Answers.
There is no better way to share your expertise and make an instant and direct connection with potential customers. I know dozens of marketing pros like me who spent as little as an hour or two each week answering SEO and promotion-oriented questions there. They tell me that they have been able to track big results from even that small investment of time.
4. Get Into the Movie Business - Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but moving pictures are worth their weight in solid gold marketing. Fortunately, good video cameras are cheap these days, and a short video needs little editing/production work in today's "everyone's a filmmaker" environment. And if you have got the creative "chops" to add some sizzle to a video, go for it! Be the next Scorsese, if you can. Fortunately, the software you need to add special effects will not break the bank. For marketing purposes, however, a produced video is the way to go and a how-to video featuring your product is a good choice. If the look or location of your business is a selling point, "tour" videos - of a workplace, a restaurant, the homes you sell, the real estate you landscape, etc. - are your best bet.
Marketing videos are finding a home on local search portals like CitySearch. The find-it-in-your-town site announced that local video ads will be added to its listings. YellowPages.com is also exploring the idea of video opportunities.
Upload your videos to a unique page on your website or add them to your blog page. But do not stop there! YouTube is the most obvious - and the most active - sharing destination. And there are so many others.
5. do not Wait To Visit StumbleUpon.com - There are many so-called 'discovery' type sites in social marketing. The best-known are Digg, Reddit, and Netscape, but they are also a bit complicated. StumbleUpon requires the lowest time investment. The site's functionality makes it much quicker and easier to join groups related to your industry and add friends from those groups.
Once you have joined and created your lists, you can start to upload "sticky" (appealing to visitors) content and before you know it, other users will "stumble upon" what you have added. That's when the "magic begins". When visitors give your pages good feedback, your content is shown to even more users.
You can not sell your product or service on StumbleUpon. The benefit it offers is increased traffic, which can lead to increased profits. Those profits are just a click away because your site is just a click away. Think of StumbleUpon as a way to raise awareness, Blog readership, grow subscribers, etc. All of which ultimately feed into your profit stream.
6. Join Up - A HUGE part of social marketing is detective work. You need to find your customers where they like to hang out. Well, if your customers are like most people on the planet, it is pretty likely that they hang out at Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to share interests and opinions.
Like Flickr, the groups at Yahoo and Google are organized into interest-based lists. When you join the lists and discussions, you can provide your expertise (there is that word again) and become a trusted member of the community. Tthe person that other people will want to do business with. there is no better outcome to marketing than that!
7. Make Friends, Not Noise - As you explore social marketing opportunities across the web, be sensitive to the rules and regulations posted on various websites. As a member of a social community, it is your obligation to play by the rules, so make sure you know them and follow them! But here is one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools: do not spam the system. Flickr does not want your entire product inventory posted, and they have rules against doing so. But a few high-quality photo submissions that add to the community are fine.
Whatever social marketing you do, make a contribution to the community. Try to add content and comments of value, not an endless spew of "Buy my product" messages. In other words, do not be a leech that is merely there to suck up prospects. Give back a little. Or, better yet, give back a lot! When you do that, you are on the road to social marketing success. (Translation: more money than You will know what to do with!)
And remember, with social marketing we are not talking about any old traffic. We are talk about platinum, USDA Prime, pre-qualified, eager to do business, trusting, ready and willing prospects who do not think of you as a business, they think of you as a friend.
So be a good friend. Deliver on the promise of quality and service. If you do that, social marketing will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. So stop dreaming and start marketing socially.
Source From SitePro News
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Google Optimization: Using Search Operators
The underlying premise of SEO suggests that you understand the task at hand when it comes to outranking the other 999 entrants for any given keyword. Google stops indexing a particular keyword after 1,000 results when assessing the aggregate relevance score to determine which results are spawned. By truly understanding this, you can discover a great deal from using a few basic Google search operators to determine what type of foothold a competitor has for a given keyword or niche.
Basic Competitive Analysis Metrics
1. Start with the keyword you are interested in researching. Place the keyword "in quotes" in a Google search box.
For example "SEO" returns 262,000,000 competing pages with the chronological order of the strongest sites first. Then look to the right and determine the number of competing pages you are up against "for that keyword". It will say results 1 of 10 of (the number of competing pages).
This allows you to assess the competitive landscape with one brief metric. The extent of what you consider a competitive keyword depends on the website. For example, most websites can acquire a keyword under 50,000 competing pages with ease and competitive keywords start above 100,000 results and ascend into the millions (pages in index / divided by the top 1,000 results).
The next few metrics will allow you to understand where your SEO ceiling is (what threshold your website has for keyword benchmarks). Our blog for example can devour a keyword with up to 1,000,000 competing pages just from one post of mentioning those keywords (without backlinks).
So, all the talk about building website authority does have a place when you understand the implications to rank with less effort. Authority sites have the ability to zero in on a keyword and skip over hundreds of other websites and reach the top 10 results by the merit of trust and internal link weight and dynamism they possess. In keeping with the topic at hand, let us move to the next metric.
2. Evaluate your competitors domain and determine the amount of pages they have by using this search command in Google. You can use the #1 site and the #10 site to gauge an average of pages required to capture the keyword or, if you want you can use the #1st, 2nd and 3rd site that rank for the selected keyword to see which formulas they are entrenched in.
site:competitorsite.com (this shows you how many pages they have indexed in Google)
3. Next, determine how saturated their website is with the keyword in question.
site:competitorsite.com keyword
This shows you how many pages are indexed that include the keyword within their website. If the site in the top 10 is an authority domain, it can rank from one keyword alone in the title tag, description tag or having the keyword in the body text (or any combination of these three metrics).
While most websites do not have that luxury, often dozens or hundreds of pages are required to cross the tipping point of co-occurrence for that keyword within the website and acquire a top ranking. However each keyword has a threshold which is going to vary depending on the unique metrics of each website (which is why you need to look at more than one site for evaluatio).
4. Now that you know that your competitor's site contains Y amount of pages and X amount of those pages are dedicated to a specific keyword, you can go the most relevant listing returned from their site and look at the off page factors (which means finding out how many back links are linking to that page). To do so, use Yahoo Site Explorer and type the specific URL in and look at the in links tab to see how many pages are linking to that page.
For example, if the homepage is returned as the top ranking result for the keyword using the competitorsite.com keyword search command, ignore it and look for an actual page that has a title, or relevant shingle with the keyword (in the title, URL or description).
If they targeted a keyword using a broad match method (which means it was not necessarily the objective, but their site acquired the ranking based on ambient factors, then you will only see a sparse mention of the keyword). The point being, the homepage is a catch all and will not provide you with the same amount of depth when attempting to data mine deep links from your competitors.
The idea is, you want to know (a) how many pages they have indexed (b) how many pages contain the keyword (c) how many deep links (how many links just to that page) the top ranking page has (from outside the site) as well as (d) how well the site in internally linked (for that keyword).
We can determine criteria a-c with simple search commands, and you can also determine if the site is treated as an authority based on the keywords that appear in bold when using the site: command, websites start transforming into authority sites through topical relevance after 200-300 pages are developed around a topic (if they are linked and optimized properly).
5. Crunch the numbers and assess the competitive landscape of the keyword in question.
For example, if you know that the top 3 sites all have an average of 1000 pages and out of those 1000 pages 50% or more of them contain the keyword in question and your site has 20 pages, then you are not being realistic with your ranking objectives.
I am not suggesting to go add 1000 pages but rather, start chipping away at the keyword using a variety of SEO tactics.
6. Check the title, text and anchor thresholds for the selected competitors' sites.
This means finding where they rank in Google (in the top 1,000 results before the results get obscured / redundant) using the following search operators.
allintitle:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of keyword in title)
allintext:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of keyword in their body text)
allinanchor:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of anchor text / links with this keyword)
Using Google again, you can look at the competitor's on page and off page metrics, instead of breaking them out individually, you can just use NicheWatch instead, or our Ultimate SEO Toolkit, to perform this function.
The Conclusion
SEO is only limited by your imagination when it comes to determining the extent of how you use tactics for discovery and analysis. We covered a few simple metrics using Google search operators above that allow you to isolate co-occurrence and determine the global keyword density for a site.
This does provide a preliminary analysis to at least let you know what your up against (qualifying a competitor or your domain to a keyword). If you reverse engineer the averages, you can find the tipping point for essentially any keyword and craft a plan of action to acquire it. For example 1,000 pages indexed, 900 have the keyword in exact match and the main landing page has 50 inbound links from Page Rank 4 pages. Now you have a threshold to exceed. Although this is a preliminary method, sometimes looking at basic metrics such as these can provide an immense amount of insight and determine the next competitive threshold you target for analysis.
Source From SEO News
Basic Competitive Analysis Metrics
1. Start with the keyword you are interested in researching. Place the keyword "in quotes" in a Google search box.
For example "SEO" returns 262,000,000 competing pages with the chronological order of the strongest sites first. Then look to the right and determine the number of competing pages you are up against "for that keyword". It will say results 1 of 10 of (the number of competing pages).
This allows you to assess the competitive landscape with one brief metric. The extent of what you consider a competitive keyword depends on the website. For example, most websites can acquire a keyword under 50,000 competing pages with ease and competitive keywords start above 100,000 results and ascend into the millions (pages in index / divided by the top 1,000 results).
The next few metrics will allow you to understand where your SEO ceiling is (what threshold your website has for keyword benchmarks). Our blog for example can devour a keyword with up to 1,000,000 competing pages just from one post of mentioning those keywords (without backlinks).
So, all the talk about building website authority does have a place when you understand the implications to rank with less effort. Authority sites have the ability to zero in on a keyword and skip over hundreds of other websites and reach the top 10 results by the merit of trust and internal link weight and dynamism they possess. In keeping with the topic at hand, let us move to the next metric.
2. Evaluate your competitors domain and determine the amount of pages they have by using this search command in Google. You can use the #1 site and the #10 site to gauge an average of pages required to capture the keyword or, if you want you can use the #1st, 2nd and 3rd site that rank for the selected keyword to see which formulas they are entrenched in.
site:competitorsite.com (this shows you how many pages they have indexed in Google)
3. Next, determine how saturated their website is with the keyword in question.
site:competitorsite.com keyword
This shows you how many pages are indexed that include the keyword within their website. If the site in the top 10 is an authority domain, it can rank from one keyword alone in the title tag, description tag or having the keyword in the body text (or any combination of these three metrics).
While most websites do not have that luxury, often dozens or hundreds of pages are required to cross the tipping point of co-occurrence for that keyword within the website and acquire a top ranking. However each keyword has a threshold which is going to vary depending on the unique metrics of each website (which is why you need to look at more than one site for evaluatio).
4. Now that you know that your competitor's site contains Y amount of pages and X amount of those pages are dedicated to a specific keyword, you can go the most relevant listing returned from their site and look at the off page factors (which means finding out how many back links are linking to that page). To do so, use Yahoo Site Explorer and type the specific URL in and look at the in links tab to see how many pages are linking to that page.
For example, if the homepage is returned as the top ranking result for the keyword using the competitorsite.com keyword search command, ignore it and look for an actual page that has a title, or relevant shingle with the keyword (in the title, URL or description).
If they targeted a keyword using a broad match method (which means it was not necessarily the objective, but their site acquired the ranking based on ambient factors, then you will only see a sparse mention of the keyword). The point being, the homepage is a catch all and will not provide you with the same amount of depth when attempting to data mine deep links from your competitors.
The idea is, you want to know (a) how many pages they have indexed (b) how many pages contain the keyword (c) how many deep links (how many links just to that page) the top ranking page has (from outside the site) as well as (d) how well the site in internally linked (for that keyword).
We can determine criteria a-c with simple search commands, and you can also determine if the site is treated as an authority based on the keywords that appear in bold when using the site: command, websites start transforming into authority sites through topical relevance after 200-300 pages are developed around a topic (if they are linked and optimized properly).
5. Crunch the numbers and assess the competitive landscape of the keyword in question.
For example, if you know that the top 3 sites all have an average of 1000 pages and out of those 1000 pages 50% or more of them contain the keyword in question and your site has 20 pages, then you are not being realistic with your ranking objectives.
I am not suggesting to go add 1000 pages but rather, start chipping away at the keyword using a variety of SEO tactics.
6. Check the title, text and anchor thresholds for the selected competitors' sites.
This means finding where they rank in Google (in the top 1,000 results before the results get obscured / redundant) using the following search operators.
allintitle:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of keyword in title)
allintext:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of keyword in their body text)
allinanchor:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of anchor text / links with this keyword)
Using Google again, you can look at the competitor's on page and off page metrics, instead of breaking them out individually, you can just use NicheWatch instead, or our Ultimate SEO Toolkit, to perform this function.
The Conclusion
SEO is only limited by your imagination when it comes to determining the extent of how you use tactics for discovery and analysis. We covered a few simple metrics using Google search operators above that allow you to isolate co-occurrence and determine the global keyword density for a site.
This does provide a preliminary analysis to at least let you know what your up against (qualifying a competitor or your domain to a keyword). If you reverse engineer the averages, you can find the tipping point for essentially any keyword and craft a plan of action to acquire it. For example 1,000 pages indexed, 900 have the keyword in exact match and the main landing page has 50 inbound links from Page Rank 4 pages. Now you have a threshold to exceed. Although this is a preliminary method, sometimes looking at basic metrics such as these can provide an immense amount of insight and determine the next competitive threshold you target for analysis.
Source From SEO News
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