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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Making Your Site Search Engine Friendly - Spiderability

Making Your Site Search Engine Friendly - Spiderability

By John Buchanan (c) 2007

One of the keys to obtaining top rankings, or ANY rankings for that matter is making sure that the search engines can properly spider and index your site. This means doing whatever you can to make sure the search engines are able to reach each page of your site as easily as possible.
When I talk to my clients about spiderability, I'm generally referring to two things...


1) Are all the links in the site true hyperlinks that can be picked up properly by the search engines.
2) Are all the pages within the site reachable within 2-3 clicks from the homepage.




So let's go over the above two areas of concern.

1) Hyperlinks. This may seem almost silly, but you would be amazëd at the number of sites I run into when doing consultations and website analyses that have non-standard hyperlinks. By "non-standard", I'm referring to javascrípt generated hyperlinks or hyperlinks embedded within flash files.

There is nothing inherently wrong with javascrípt or flash when used properly, but the simple fact is that javascrípt and flash are NOT search engine friendly. Google is pretty much the only engine that is able to pick up links within javascrípt or flash code. At this time, I have seen no evidence that either Yahoo or MSN have this ability.

While Google may be able to pick up links, it is unclear as to whether or not Google places any VALUE on the links it finds in this manner. Remember, much of a page's ranking in Google is determined by links, so you want to be absolutely sure that each and every link is valued.

So, be absolutely sure that your links are true hyperlinks (by "true" hyperlinks, I'm talking about hyperlinks coded with the normal href tags) if you want to make sure they are found, followed, and counted by all the engines.

2) Distance from Homepage. Ideally, you want your visitors and the search engines to be able to reach any page within your site within a maximum of three (3) clicks and preferably two clicks. The more clicks it takes to reach a page, the less chance there is that the search engines will index that page.

It is for this reason, that site maps have become so popular. By utilizing a sitemap, you are able to link from your homepage to a page that lists all or most of the links to the various pages of your site. The search engines (and visitors) are then able to get to virtually any page of your site within just a couple of clicks.

You'll notice I've mentioned not only the search engines but the visitors as well in the above paragraphs. By reducing the number of clicks it takes to get from your homepage to any page on your site, you will find that you also íncrease the overall usability of your site.

While site maps can definitely help to íncrease the spiderability of a site, it is important to remember that they are not a total fix for bad navigational structure within a site. As mentioned, all of the search engines utilize page link popularity in one way or another in their algorithms.

In general, the homepage of a site will have the highest link popularity of any page within the site. This is because most inbound links to a site are pointing to the homepage. It's from the homepage that all the internal pages derive their link popularity from a sort of "trickle down" affect.

A site map will only derive a certain amount of link popularity that it can pass on to the pages it links to. To understand this best, think of the homepage as a large river with each link on the homepage a smaller river branching off from the main river. Each river will be fed a similar amount of water by the main river. Alone one branch of the river will nevër be able to deliver as much water to the various areas as all the branches of the river can combined.

The site map is one branch of your sites link popularity river and it has value, but it will nevër have the same impact as a well thought out and implemented links structure that makes use of all the rivers of link popularity within your site.

To make the most use of the link popularity of your site, you should try and setup your sites navigational structure so that even without a site map, the search engines and visitors are STILL able to reach any page on your site within 2-3 clicks.

So...to make a long story short...Always be sure to utilize true, standard hyperlinks throughout your site and be sure that your sites navigational structure allows any page of your site to be reached within no more than 3 clicks. See you at the top!

Friday, May 25, 2007

What You Need to Know About IP Addresses

What You Need to Know About IP Addresses
By John Buchanan (c) 2007


If you are new to the internet, often times things can seem quite overwhelming. People throw around terms like IP addresses, name servers, hostíng, ftp, etc.
In this article we are going to cover IP Addresses. You'll learn exactly what they are and how they apply to search engine optimization (SEO).

IP Address stands for Internet Protocol Address and is currently made up of four "octets" or numbers separated by a period. Each octet can be a number from 0 to 255 .

Some examples of valid IP addresses are - 1.123.150.243, 35.35.36.10, 240.216.1.80

There is also a new standard for IP addresses that is slowly being launched called IPV6 (IP version 6). IPV6 numbers look quite different from our current IP addresses.

An example of an IPV6 IP address is -
2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

You will notice each is much longer with MANY more possible variations. The new IP system is designed to give us enough IP addresses so that we will not run out of unique IP addresses any time in the foreseeable future.

So why do we need IP addresses? Quite simply, an IP address is like your physical home address. It designates a specific computer that is connected to the internet. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address. This is necessary for it to send and receive information.

When you type in a website name, for example mine, http://www.sesecrets.com, that name is translated into an IP address that is then used to "find" my site. In the current set of IP addresses, going from left to right, the first "octet" is the most broad, with each successive octet getting more and more granular or specific.

To explain that a bit better.

134 - is VERY broad
134.125 - is still quite broad, but getting more specific
134.125.244 - is getting more specific and probably refers to a specific web host
134.125.244.1 - is as specific as you can get and refers to a specific computer

You will often hear of different classes such as class A, class B and class C talked about when dealing with IP addresses. Below I've given some examples of what people are referring to when talking about classes.

Class A
134.###.###.###
240.###.###.###
22.###.###.###

Class B
134.254.###.###
36.36.###.###
36.37.###.###

Class C
254.210.135.###
36.36.1.###
36.36.2.###

It's often easiest to think of IP addresses as physical addresses, with the Class A octet being similar to country, Class B, being a city in that country, Class C being a street in that city, and the last octet being a specific house on that street.

So, by looking above you should be able to see that when someone talks about a Class A IP address they are referring to the first "octet" and when they say that two IP addresses are on different Class A subnets, it simply means the first set of numbers are different.

So for example

255.123.124.255
34.123.124.255

are on different Class A's. While the rest of the IP addresses are the same, because they are on different Class As, they are VERY far apart (remember, Class A is the most broad).

The same goes for Class B. Class B refers to the second octet of numbers. When someone says that two IP addresses are on different Class B's, it simply means that the the second octet's of each IP is different. The IPs may be on the same Class A or it may be different, but the second Octet of numbers is different. To better explain...look below.

255.123.124.255
255.34.124.255
34.34.124.255

In the above example, the first two IP addresses are on the same Class A, but different Class B's. The third IP address, has the same Class B number (34), but because the first Octet is different, it is also on a different Class B ( as with physical addresses, two countries can have the same city names, but they are still different cities).

For class C we are looking at the third octet.

255.123.124.255
255.123.34.255
34.42.124.255

Again, the first two above are on different Class C's, while the third has the same class C number as the first, but it's first and second octets are different, so it's also on a different Class C.

I hope the above makes sense to you. I've tried to give plenty of examples to make it clear no matter what your tech background is.

The good news is, that you hardly ever have to mess with IP addresses. When you get a web hostíng account for your domain name, your host will assign your domain name and IP address. You often don't even HAVE to know it. Generally your host will set all this up for you without you having to understand any of it. From that point on, when someone types in your domain name, that name will then be converted to your assigned IP address and voila...your visitor winds up at your site.




About The Author
John Buchanan is a veteran search engine optimization specialist with over 9 years experience. For more information, visit his site at SESecrets.com or his newest site SEOVideoanalysis.com where he will provide you with a professional SEO Video Website Analysis of your site.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - A Few Good Linking Strategies

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - A Few Good Linking Strategies



So you know that link farms don’t work and in fact can get you penalized in the SERPs. But you also know that you need to have links if you want to build your position in the SERPs. Link farms may get you lots of links fast, but the links aren’t relevant – and relevant links will ultimately do far more for you than large quantities of junk links.

So how do you get these relevant links? There are a number of articles here on SEO Chat that cover link building and link trading. And if you want a good general approach, you’d be wise to follow the advice of Larisa Thomason, Senior Web Analyst for NetMechanic. It’s every bit as relevant now as when she first gave it in 2002. She emphasized four points:

Stay with your theme. Make sure that all of the links that appear on your site are relevant to your site’s topic.

Hang out with the popular crowd. Search engines look at the relative importance of your links, not just their number. According to Thomason, “It’s far better to have 100 good inbound links from popular pages than 1000 links from a link farm stuffed with spam sites.”

Avoid automated link generators. This doesn’t mean you can’t trade links with other sites, but if you do, don’t send automated emails. Do your research on the other site – and make sure anyone who sends you an email for a link exchange has done their homework about yours.

Put links in context. This helps the search engine algorithms work in your favor. As Thomason explains, “Links that are included in page content and contain the page's keywords are more valuable than links exiled to a site’s ‘Related Links’ page.”
If you’re looking to grow your web site’s popularity, don’t do it with link farms. All you’ll harvest is search engine penalties and annoyed visitors. Keep it real, and keep it relevant. Remember, most things of value – including a good web site – take time to grow.


http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Link-Trading-Help/Link-Farming-No-Good-Harvest/3/

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - Link Directories vs. Natural Linking vs. Link Farms

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - Link Directories vs. Natural Linking vs. Link Farms



Is there an obvious way to tell the difference between a link directory and a link farm? And how do you avoid link farms? The question has particular relevance since it can be easy to fall into a link farm unintentionally. Alice Seba on Internet Based Moms mentioned a link program her friend Tara was once involved in. While she’d never participated in that kind of program herself, she “still didn’t realize it was a link farm. It was just a group of moms in business trying to find a way to help promote each other.”

The key, as with so much of SEO, is relevance. Say you’re a Star Trek fan, and you have a web site devoted to that interest. You can legitimately link to other fan sites, stores that sell Star Trek memorabilia, professional or personal sites for the actors in the series, and so on. These would all naturally be of interest to anyone visiting your web site. (Sorry, links to toupee sites would probably be stretching it, even for the Shatner fans).

What does not work is signing up with a company that promises you hundreds of inbound links if you promise to add the same number of outbound links. That’s a link farm. The links you get will probably not be relevant. So if you get an email that appears to have been automatically generated, and is requesting a reciprocal link exchange, be very suspicious. If you check out their site and it doesn’t seem to be remotely relevant to yours, run the other way. In particular, if they’re asking you for a link on your links page, and you don’t have a links page, you can bet this is an automatic solicitation, and they didn’t do their homework.

Now as it is, there are some who would argue that link directories are becoming obsolete. Some of our own writers, in fact, think they’re on their last legs. Many SEOs seem to think that at least DMOZ is still worth it, though, and that there are a few good directories still out there.

Incidentally, if you check your back links one day and find that a link farm is linking to you, don’t panic. Google won’t kill you for it. The search engine assumes that you can’t control who links to you. On the other hand, it also assumes that you control what sites you link to, so don’t link to link farms or other “bad neighborhoods.” (And it doesn’t do any harm to check the sites you link to every so often just to make sure they’re still there – and still relevant to your site).



http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Link-Trading-Help/Link-Farming-No-Good-Harvest/2/

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - Some Background

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - Some Background



While most sources I’ve seen date link farms to Google’s arrival on the scene, Wikipedia puts their origins a bit earlier. They were supposedly used in 1999 by SEOs to take advantage of Inktomi’s algorithm, which depended on link popularity. Back in the day, Inktomi’s primary index included only 100 million listings. Pages that didn’t have a lot of links regularly fell out of the primary index; link farms were supposed to help stabilize listings for web sites that had few natural inbound links.

When Google came on the scene, the link farmers had to adjust their techniques some, because it didn’t weigh votes the same way. Not every vote was equal. Still, link farming continued to prosper for a while, and eventually became automated. Link-finding software emerged, designed to hunt down potential link partners, send template-based emails, and build directory-like web pages containing the links.

It should surprise no one that what one computer program can create, another can detect. Link farms leave distinct patterns. Search engine algorithms can be tuned to these patterns. Once a link farm is detected, it’s easy enough to remove it from the index. And more often than not, that’s exactly what search engines do nowadays.

There’s a very good reason for this. Take another look at the end of the last section, and how big a link farm can become. You’re talking about 100,000 sites, each with hundreds of pages made up of nothing but links. Usually, with a link farm, there is no real information about any of the sites; there may be a one sentence description, but it could just as easily include only the links without a description. The links may be in no particular order and show no sign that any of them are related to the site hosting them in any way.

If you ran a search engine, would you want that kind of thing cluttering up your index? Of course not. Your job is to serve your visitors with the most relevant results possible. Link farms don’t help that cause at all. They’re no longer necessary for helping web sites stay in primary indexes; indeed, they haven’t been needed for that purpose for years. Even as far back as 2002, Kimberly Krause Berg, writing for Search Engine Guide, pointed out that link farms were “illogical, especially if your website was trying to generate sales leads or sell products or services. The appearance of link farm pages made some web sites appear unprofessional.”


http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Link-Trading-Help/Link-Farming-No-Good-Harvest/1/

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - 1

Link Farming: No Good Harvest - 1

The SEO field is new, constantly growing, and often in flux. As a side effect, it gets a constant stream of new people who aren’t familiar with the correct practices and pitfalls of the profession. That means some of the same questions get asked repeatedly; it almost seems like they come in cycles, especially on SEO forums. One of these questions is about link farming.
It’s no surprise that the topic of link farming brings up so many questions or causes such confusion. It’s very easy to confuse link farming with link directories. One of these gets penalized in the search engines (especially Google) while the other one doesn’t. At first glance, however, the two practices may look the same. So how do you tell the difference?

A link farm is a group of web pages that all link to every other page in the group. It’s designed to raise the rankings of all the sites in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This is different from a link directory in that it isn’t just one site doing it; all of the sites are involved. They all have their own link pages that link to every other site.

I didn’t fully understand how link farms work until fathom, one of the more active members of our SEO Chat forum, recently gave a “dumb down” explanation in a thread asking whether link farming was really spam. As he puts it, “A link farm is basically no different than the phenomena known as a chain mail scheme but rather than money changing hands - links are.”

In fathom’s example, three people started a link farm; each one added a new page to their sites that contains a link to all three sites. Then a fourth person joins the farm and adds an identical page of links to her site; all four web sites now contain pages with links to all four sites.

This starts small and might even be undetectable by the search engines at first. But it can grow to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people. By the time you get a link farm that big you have hundreds of pages in each web site that are all carbon copies of each other, and all pointing to all of those carbon copies. In short, it’s a mess.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Bay Street SEO Search Engine Optimization Firm Enjoys Great Year

Bay Street SEO Search Engine Optimization Firm Enjoys Great Year


May 15, 2007; 05:50 AM


Some SEO consulting firms are enjoying strong success and a growing client base. The success of search engine marketing continues while other media suffer from ailing economies in specific industries. Bay Street SEO Company enjoyed an outstanding year in 2006 and is enjoying further growth this year. Revenues from search engine consulting projects increased 45% from 2005 with the acquisition of 5 new major clients. Substantial growth in outsourced SEO work from advertising agencies contributed to 2006's improvements. 4 new client acquisitions in 2007 have provided a further growth of 25% over 2006 revenues. New clients include two real estate agencies. Satisfied with last year's results, several clients are undertaking major new web site projects which will require complete SEO and SEM solutions. 2007 will be the firm's best year.

The growth of search engine marketing continues to surprise many in the advertising industry. Although search engine marketing expenditures are small in comparison with overall marketing expenditures, SEM as its called is growing fast and a subset of SEM called SEO (search engine optimization) is generating sales growth for firms who specialize in improving presence in organic search engine listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Bay Street SEO Company enjoyed an outstanding year in 2006 and is enjoying further growth this year. Revenues from search engine consulting projects increased 45% from 2005 with the acquisition of 5 new major clients. Substantial growth in outsourced SEO work from advertising agencies contributed to 2006's improvements. 4 new client acquisitions in 2007 have provided a further growth of 25% over 2006 revenues. New clients include two real estate agencies. Satisfied with last year's results, several clients are undertaking major new web site projects which will require complete SEO and SEM solutions.

Two major clients including Dream Homes Magazine and Delta Hotels have enjoyed phenomenal 200% to 400% growth in traffic. This is despite setbacks in the travel and real estate industries in 2006 and with further declines expected in 2007. No reduction in Web site visits has been experienced by any of our clients demonstrating the resilience search engines possess within slowing economies. Another client, Lawyershop, has maintained its performance of 2005 becoming the top legal directory in Canada. Bay Street SEO's client's preference for search engine promotion over traditional media has proven to be wise, generating ongoing results, rather than a one-time promotional gain.

The market for search engine companies is strong and Google, the leading search engine, enjoys a search marketshare of more than 70% by some accounts and enjoyed a record 10.6 billion dollars in revenue in 2006 up from 6.1 Billion in 2006. They have reported a first-quarter revenue of 3.66 billion. That provides greater exposure for web sites listed in their search engine results pages, thus fuelling more demand for SEO specialist firms.

Bay Street SEO's clients are also expressing a greater interest in pay per click advertising. New PPC campaign development is expected to generate 10% of total revenues in 2007.

SEO consulting and services industry trends have shown a drift away from sophisticated optimization techniques toward mass linking building efforts. This is response to Google's strong reliance on link analysis to rank web sites. Yet prospects contacting us are expressing doubt and disappointment with the cost of paid link building and want to return to natural optimization campaigns. Bay Street SEO's clients with low Pagerank Web sites have seen outstanding rankings demonstrating that search engines are dealing with link spam and ranking well optimized sites. We expect the search engines to make major algorithm shifts that will diminish the power of paid text link and link exchanges. This will generate significant demand once again for on-site optimization techniques, which Bay Street SEO specializes in.

In-house SEO has been another industry trend that is not expected to limit future client base growth as new clients. The wide range of skills needed for top flight SEO is very difficult to develop. These skills include web programming, research, design, copywriting, marketing, and ingenuity in combining those skills will ensure demand for full-service SEO firms.

Bay Street SEO. Their clients in the travel, sports, software, real estate, printing, marketing, and advertising sectors have enjoyed phenomenal growth in traffic and sales.

Many of Bay Street SEOs clients enjoyed quick success in 2006 while others had to wait for "link-aging" delays to pass before finding themselves with top ranks, but their patience was well rewarded. One client saw an amazing doubling of their already high search engine referrals. Another enjoyed a 3,000% return on SEO investment ($600,000 from $20,000 fee). Ad agencies are showing strong interest in hiring professional optimizers in 2007 since they are under pressure to generate significant, not mediocre results. Bay Street SEO now provides SEO consulting services for 3 advertising agencies.

The rate of growth in prospective clients and actual clients in 2006/07 will continue to improve due to increased investments in online promotion.

About Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is a process of ensuring the web site's copy content, its keyword usage and semantics is in concert with search engine's ranking algorithms. Search engines rank web sites by way of a number of factors. It isn't the presence of keywords on Web sites or their density that creates rankings, a misconception that results in disappointment for many companies trying in-house SEO for the first time.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

14 Rules to Abide By For Search Engine Traffic

14 Rules to Abide By For Search Engine Traffic

by Dr. Deepak Dutta


If you are setting up a website, follow these simple rules to improve search engine rankings of your site. You can also follow these techniques if your website is not ranked high in search engines for certain keywords. Concentrate on the home page of your site and once you learn the techniques, you will be able to apply them to the other pages of your site that will have multiple high ranking pages.


1. Find keywords (or key phrases) relevant to your website. Go to the overture keyword selector tool (type key phrase overture inventory in Google) and check the popularity of the keywords you want to use. Avoid highly popular keywords. Highly popular keywords are very competitive and the least popular keywords are search engine traffic starved.

Select a dozen keywords and key phrases from the middle of the list. This is a very important exercise and you should spend at least a couple of hours, if not more, researching different keywords. While you are researching your keywords, check your competitors by doing a search in a couple of popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc., using those keywords. Keep a record of your competitors' urls and other information because you don't want to waste your time doing the same search again in the near future.


2. Use the keywords you selected into the meta tags of your home page. Meta tags are located in the head section of a web page. Go to one of your competitor's website and select View and then Source from your web browser's menu to view the html source of the web page. You will see the meta elements.

The two important meta tags are keywords and description meta tags. Don't leave them blank. You can list your keywords, separated by comma, in the keywords meta tag. Construct a catchy description using your keywords for the description meta tag.


3. Use the keywords in your title tag. The text you use in the title tag appears in the title bar of the web browser. The title tag should be less than 64 characters long. Again, the key is to use a meaningful title using the keywords. Don't just make a laundry list of your keywords for the title tag.

The title tag and your meta description may end up in many search engine listings. So, spend sometime to make these two elements interesting, meaningful, and relevant to your site.


4. Use the keywords in top heading (h1) tags of your page. Use one keyword (or a key phrase) for each h1 tag. Use these h1 tags for the headings of your contents.


5. In the home page content, use bold, using the strong html element, to highlight some of your keywords.


6. Italicize some of the keywords in your page.


7. Use the keywords in alt tags of images. You should always use the alt tag for all images.


8. Encourage others to use the keywords for text anchors when they link back to your site. Better yet, publish your own short link text with keyword anchors, bold and italicized key phrases and give it away for link exchanges.


9. If possible, use the keywords in your domain name. Try different arrangements of the keywords to come up with an available domain name that you can register.


10. If you are using php or asp or any other web programming language for your dynamic website, make your url search engine friendly using url rewrite techniques. Search the phrase url rewrite in Google to know more about url rewrite.


11. Don't use frames in your web pages. Many search engines will not crawl framed pages. For a search engine spider to crawl a page, you need a clickable url. When you use a frame, the target url is not clickable.


12. Avoid fancy Javascript menus. If you use a Javascript menu, provide a html text menu with clickable links at the bottom of your web page. Use include files for Javascripts.


13. Provide 301 redirections if you move your pages or domain after they have been indexed by the search engines. Don't use meta refresh or other Javascript tricks. Search for the phrase 'search engine friendly 301 redirect' in a search engine to get more information on this topic.


14. If you use flash in a page, provide a html version of the page and hide the flash page from the search engine crawler using a robots.txt page.



Keep in mind these simple rules every time you want to launch a website. Spending a few days upfront in the preparation of your site will pay off in the long run with better search engine rankings.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Knowing Your Visitors Through Website Traffic Analysis

Knowing Your Visitors Through Website Traffic Analysis

By Don Resh (c) 2007

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.
Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don't understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.



Traffic Analysis


There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your salës copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice an exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphics may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Powerful Press Release Distribution Tips

Powerful Press Release Distribution Tips

By Diana Barnum


While press release writing is important, press release distribution plays an equally important role in your return on ínvestment (ROI) with this marketing / public relations tool. Because without targeted distribution, many prospects, clients and other interested parties may not even read your latest announcement or hear about it via other channels; TV, radio, print publications, etc.
In order to bring your news to light with more of your targeted audience, try some of these tips for a more successful distribution:


Media Líst Management

Start a folder on your computer and in hard copy form for media lists in order to keep a líst of contacts readily available and updated. Identify media outlets - both online and off - in your targeted industries; for example: Business and Marketing. Add local, regional, national and International channels to cover television, radio, newspapers, magazines, online publications, newswire and other services.

A targeted media líst is an invaluable tool for most businesses. The best way to build your líst is to carefully watch, read and listen, then track media publications and shows, and to identify reporters and producers who would be interested in your story. Contact the media outlets as needed for their most recent contact name, email address, telephone and fax number, before sending your information.

Tip: Using contact management software program such as ACT! or Maximizer for this purpose can help you build and maintain relationships with the media. Even using Excel to create your own spreadsheets helps with organization.

There are several sources online that will help you build your media líst; however, keep in mind that not all of these sources will have up-to-date media information.



Newswires

Newswires distribute your press release directly to editors, other media outlets like Reuters and they also publish the press releases on their website. Many journalists rely on newswire sites for information and story ideas. Wires are often used by larger companies and non-profít organizations. They have the advantage of immediately reaching a broad range of media outlets across the country. The cost is usually $275 - $600 to send a single release, with pricing based on the number of words in your release (a minimum word count will usually apply.)

Mail, Fax, or Email

You can send the news release directly to the media yourself, using the mail, fax, or email. When in doubt about the best option, ask the journalists you will be sending your release to. This can have the advantage of creating a more personal connection with the people you send the release to. It can also be a more cost-effective option if you are targeting a small líst of journalists.




Database Building

Newswires offer a fast way to send your press release to a large number of editors. However, you can also build your own líst of media contacts using any of a number of media databases. Most charge either a monthly, annual or per use subscription fee. Search online for "media databases" and "media lists."




Timing

It is best to send your news release early in the day and you will have a better chance of getting your story noticed if your release is not sent on a busy news day. For example, sending a news release out as a major strike or natural disaster was taking place would not be good timing. Mondays and Tuesdays are usually busy news days and by Friday most assignments have been handed out as journalists get ready for the weekend.




Helpful Tips:

1. Don't send email press releases with attachments - they will be deleted immediately upon receipt.

2. If sending an email release, make sure to write the release within the body of the message.

3. Don't bug editors. Editors receive hundreds of press releases on a daily basis. Chances are you will irritate most editors by making a second contact to ask if they received your press release. 4. Know deadlines of editors. If you are sending a time-sensitive release, don't expect a magazine editor to cover your event scheduled for next week. Find out what the appropriate "lead time" is to send your press release for possible distribution in their media.

5. If writing about a web site, make sure the site is updated before you send your release. Editors will visit the site if they have an interest in your product/service.

6. For further assistance and other helpful information visit PRWeb.com .




Resources

Here are some handy resources to help with your press releases:

- Check out Jack Humphrey's Content Desk and Content Propulsion Lab, for "Do It Yourself" companies who would love the benefits of easy step-by-step content site building, monetizing and promoting systems for the best ROI, and high-end Public Relations firms with low-end budgets, online at ContentLabInfo.com and ContentDeskInfo.com .

- For a super profít system, head to SEO (search engine optimization) expert Keith Baxter's Easy Net Marketing (EAN) Profít System at BPlanSite.com . The program has only about a one- to two-hour learning curve to get all set up and going. Articles, content and more -all-in-one.

- Learn how to write with good correspondence courses like those offered by the American Writers & Artists Institute; many are described here: PressSuccess.com .

So when you focus on getting your press releases out, focus on distribution, too. Try some of the tips above to íncrease success with your promotions, and keep a copy of the these tips around for handy reference!

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Top 10 Sources for Massive Web Site Traffíc

Top 10 Sources for Massive Web Site Traffíc

By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007

Experienced webmasters know there are special sources or places on the web which will send massive amounts of traffíc to your site. They also know, if harnessed properly, these mega traffïc sites will supply any web site with a steady stream of visitors.
Perhaps the best source of web site traffíc is Google. That's not exactly a Newsflash, but the key to getting massive amounts of traffíc from Google is to go wide and long. With this strategy, instead of targeting highly popular keywords which may be too competitive for your site to win, you create a whole multitude of lesser known long tail keyword phrases to bring in the traffíc.

This traffíc takes longer to build but because very few webmasters bother with these longer phrases, your keywords will be more stable and secure. Develop a whole líst of these traffíc generating keyword phrases and Google will reward you with a whole flood of targeted visitors stemming from these thousands of small dribbles of long tail keyword traffíc.

Turning these dribbles of traffíc into massive amounts is not a difficult task. One very effective way to tap into the entire search engine source of traffíc is to tag everything. Tags are just another name for keywords. As Web 2.0 or Social Bookmarking sites become more and more popular, tagging will become extremely important.

You must be especially careful of how you tag the content on your site or sites. If you're using a blogging system like WordPress, all your categories will be considered tags automatically. If you're creating URLs, be careful to place your keyword phrase in your links.

Another effective way to tap into the whole keyword traffíc system is to include your keyword phrase or variations of it in your articles while promoting your site. Place your anchor text in your links in the resource box at the end of each article.

Over time, as these articles become distributed all over the web, they will create a steady stream of targeted visitors to your site. Simple, effective and very powerful.

You are probably tired of hearing about Web 2.0 and the new Social Bookmarking sites but they are some of the best places for massive traffíc on the web. Any webmaster who has been Slashdotted already knows this fact all too well; if you get a listing on the homepage of Slashdot.com you will immediately start receiving thousands of visitors to your site. It can be somewhat scary.

A similar experience is getting one of your articles published in ezines run by Addme.com, SiteProNews.com, WebProNews.com, as well as others. These ezines go out to hundreds of thousands of readers and can produce massive traffíc back to your site.

However, much of this sudden traffíc is only temporary and most savvy webmasters know it would be wise to try and capture the contact information of these temporary visitors for follow-up targeting. Turn that temporary visitor into a patron of your site by offering a free ecourse or an email newsletter.

The same marketing technique should be applied to traffíc coming from all these social media sites. Don't think of your traffíc as just numbers in your website's stats, but rather as potential customers who will return to your site again and again.


Keep this strategy in mind as you target some of these Top Sources of massive traffíc on the web:

1. Digg.com
2. Netscape.com
3. Ezinearticles.com
4. Del.icio.us
5. StumbleUpon.com
6. Reddit.com
7. Slashdot.org
8. BlinkList.com
9. Furl.net
10. Squidoo.com

You should be actively promoting these social bookmarking sites by allowing your visitors to easily bookmark your content. You should be creating your own content on sites like Squidoo and placing links back to your site.

Of course, there are countless other sources of massive traffíc on the web. Press releases is another effective way of quickly drawing in massive traffíc to your site. Sites like PRWeb can deliver targeted traffíc very quickly and efficiently.

Another very effective and high converting venue you should try is Yahoo! Answers, a simple process where users post a question and other members/experts offer answers. Used correctly this can be a good source of targeted traffíc.

Don't forget other important search engines such as MSN Live. Traffíc from MSN has earned a solid reputation for converting very well. So optimize your web pages for MSN Live Search and you will probably see an íncrease in your sales as well as your traffíc.

Always keep in mind, the underlying key factor running through all these sources of massive traffíc is unique quality content. You must create good original content on your sites as well as in your articles and posts. Your content must be informative, useful or entertaining. For in the end, it is this quality content that will create the interest, the links and the massive traffíc to your site.

Don't ignore this factor or your quest for massive web site traffíc will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
Making Your Site Search Engine Friendly - SpiderabilityWhat You Need to Know About IP AddressesLink Farming: No Good Harvest - A Few Good Linking StrategiesLink Farming: No Good Harvest - Link Directories vs. Natural Linking vs. Link FarmsLink Farming: No Good Harvest - Some BackgroundLink Farming: No Good Harvest - 1Bay Street SEO Search Engine Optimization Firm Enjoys Great Year14 Rules to Abide By For Search Engine TrafficKnowing Your Visitors Through Website Traffic AnalysisPowerful Press Release Distribution TipsTop 10 Sources for Massive Web Site Traffíc | Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | PageRank