Discover The Answers To The Top 10 SEO Questions

Owning any type of online business will strongly benefit from a few SEO techniques. However, everyone and their brother has advice on how to do it. All this 'expert' advice can make the simple task of optimizing your site incredibly confusing.

Here are some straightforward answers to the most common SEO questions.

1. What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine is a tool many internet users use to find sites that are relevant to their needs. The three biggies when it comes to search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are however, hundreds of search engines available to internet users. Search engines work by sending out spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. If you have the information they're looking for, in the places they are looking, they'll find you and place you in their results when a person is looking for your information.

The task of understanding what search engines are looking for and putting it in the right places on your website and in your content, is the essence of search engine optimization. So now you might be asking…what do search engines look for and where do they look for it? The answer is keywords and links. Keywords in your html coding, keywords on your webpage content, keywords in your content, and the number of incoming links you have to your website.

2. How important is SEO?

Let's just put it this way. What's better a few visitors who stumble upon your website or hundreds of visitors that go to your website with the direct intention of learning more or making a purchase?

With more and more people searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire.

3. What are text links?

Links are just one of the tools you can use to increase your search engine optimization. The more quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. Text links are links that contain only text. Wikipedia is a great place to examine internal text links. The links are contained within a sentence and when a reader clicks on them they are taken to a different page on the same website. The kind of text links you're looking for will be text links that will take readers from your article, ebook, or web copy to your website.

An excellent tool to generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article directories, blogs, and ezines and insert text links in the copy. Webmasters will link to the content and thus to your site. Additionally, when you allow free reprints of your copy provided the links are maintained, you're encouraging links to your website.

4. What are link farms and link exchanges?

Search engines don't accept just any old link. The link has to be from a relevant and quality company. This means you don't want to participate in link farming. If a search engine suspects your links to be lacking, they'll actually penalize you. Link farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to increase your search engine ranking. A link farm is a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from another site, it had better be relevant and coming from a real web site.

5. What is duplicate content?

The definition of duplicate content is web pages that contain substantially the same content. Search engines will penalize you for this. How do you avoid duplicate content? Don't publish the same article in several locations. There are many tools available online to help you re-write your content so that it is 30%, 40%, and even 50% different. However, the best way to avoid duplicate content is to simply write new content.

6. How do I find the right keywords?

There are several steps to finding the most profitable keywords. The first step is to generally do a bit of brainstorming and come up with a list of keywords you think people will use to find your products. The next step is to research supply and demand for those particular keywords. Supply means how many other websites are using those same keywords and demand is how many people are looking for those particular keywords.

The key is to find keywords with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and useful keyword tools to help you find this information and to generate keyword ideas. Once you decide on a few keywords, it may be useful to do a bit of testing before you commit to them.

7. How do I optimize my web pages?

Placing your keywords in the right location is a good start to optimizing your web pages. Search engines look to the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your website. They also look in the content on your page and primarily focus on the first paragraph.

Try to get a domain name with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your URL it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about.

Title Tag. Your title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages that acts as a link to your site. This is a crucial element of your webpage as it describes to your visitors what your page is about.

If you view your source code, your title tag will look something like this:

Keep your title tags brief, descriptive, up to date, and keyword rich will help to increase the relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines, as well as giving your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your site.

Meta Tags have lost their importance to the search engines however it is still helpful to place your keywords in your meta tags. In your source code they look something like this:

8. Do I need to submit my site to the search engines?

The simple answer is - no. Search engine spiders are always out there doing their job and collecting information. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. However, if you want to be listed on a directory, like the DMOZ Open directory project, then you will need to submit to those.

9. What are spiders?

Search engine spiders are also called web crawlers or bot. They're basically automated programs which scan websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose of indexing or ranking them.

10. How does content help my SEO?

Content is one of the best tools to improve your search engine ranking. It is a great place to emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and increase traffic. The key to content is to make sure you're offering quality content and you're updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be provided in many forms including:

* Blogs
* Forums and chat rooms
* Articles
* Reviews
* Case studies
* Reports
* How to guides
* Tutorials
* e-books and much more.

About the Author
Jeremy Gislason - Want to know proven ways to dramatically increase membership sales? Want to take membership marketing to a whole new level of overflowing profits? Build high-earning membership sites like a pro by going to http://www.membershipmillionaire.com.

Debunking the Top 10 Search Engine Myths

We've all done it at some point in our professional lives. We search a keyword that describes our business only to scratch our head as to how our competitor's website shows up on the top of the list instead of ours. If you've gone one step further and read about Search Engine Optimization, then surely you have come across the conflicting information online.

One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe?

This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods.

So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around.

1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name:

It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly increase your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.

2) Google Partnership:

If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the opposite direction. There is no such thing as a "preferred" relationship with Google and in fact on Google's website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google.

3) Meta Keyword Tag:

It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag was given a lot of weight in the early days of Search Engine Optimization, but people abused it and now it does very little. You may still want to include your keywords here, but know that it will not do much and in fact most search engines won't even check it.

4) Bold or Italicized Text:

Adding emphasis to certain keywords like using bold or italics can make your text easier to scan for the reader if done properly, but has little to no affect on your search engine ranking.

5) Content Length:

There is no search engine rule stating that your content needs to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Any recommended length is more to assist the reader in understanding what you do than to aid the search engines.

6) Duplicate Content:

Posting specific content like an article or blog entry on your site and then on another site will not get you penalized. In the search results, Google will recognize that the content is the same and only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.

7) Avoid Flash:

Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn't mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still very successfully incorporate Flash into your site through rotating pictures or a header on the page. Just don't have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.

8) Pay-Per-Click:

Some say that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic listing while others say it will hurt. Both are false. The fact is that Google has gone to great lengths to separate the two departments of organic and paid listings to a point where the two departments don't communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.

9) Update the Site Frequently:

Updating your site often is a good idea if you have something new to say. Just don't change around a few words to accommodate the search engines as that won't help your listing at all. Regularly adding legitimate content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help though.

10) Doorway Pages:

Many companies will sell this idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page sites loaded with keywords that link to you from various domains. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. If you properly optimize your site and focus on the correct way to get listed, you will increase your ranking much quicker than these doorway pages ever could.

Of course there are many other myths out there confusing the general public about what works and what doesn't work. Some of them are spread by people who don't really know the truth and others are spread by SEO companies in an attempt to make search engine optimization confusing... mission accomplished! Regardless of where the myths come from, if you or the SEO Company you hire use common sense and do things the right way, you will have no trouble finding the proverbial Bat Cave…and when you get there please tell them that I want my utility belt back!

About the Author
Marc D. Ensign is the CEO and Visionary of Sound-n-Vision, a New Jersey web design and Internet marketing company. Marc actively teaches workshops and seminars on web design and search engine optimization throughout the New York Metropolitan area.

5 Ways to Entice Visitors to Keep Coming Back

What does a website need? The simple answer is repeat visitors, this is what successful websites share in common, and this accounts for a major part of their traffic.

Why is this?

Well, experience shows that returning visitors are much easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The whole issue of credibility disappears.

So what do you need to do to keep your visitors coming back and visiting your site?

How about checking out some of the solutions below:

1) You could consider starting a forum, chat room or shout box.

Providing a forum, chat room or shout box, allows your visitors to have a voice where they can share their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them visitors of your site.

Over time this develops into a sense of community and conversions will follow and your visitors will look forward to coming back to your site each and every day.

2) This probably goes without saying, but starting a blog can be a fantastic source for both new and recurring traffic.

Having your own blog is like keeping an online journal, and human beings are curious and thirsty for information. You need to keep your blog frequently updated with your latest news, both business and personal.

You will find that over time more and more people will come back to read your posts and with it you will develop credibility as an authority figure in your niche.

3) How about carrying out polls or surveys?

You will note that so far all the suggestions made have had some form of visitor interaction and conducting polls and surveys is no different. This is one that you should definitely consider adding to your site.

They are a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. It is important that you publish the results of any polls or surveys so that you keep the interest of your visitors to come back and see the results.

4) This is a little bit more innovative, but have you considered the use of puzzles, games and quizzes.

This will provide a yardstick as to how many people are willing to return to your site if you are maintaining their interest through entertainment.

You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) This may appear just plain common sense, but you need to update your site frequently with fresh content if you wish to attract multiple visits.

Although this may appear to be the most likely of strategies it is also the most overlooked with some sites seemingly looking the same for years.

If you want returning visitors to the same message over time that message needs a refresh, a different approach or angle!

Maintaining the same approach continually will have the effect of changing nothing, so don't be lazy and add new fresh bites of information from time to time to increase your visitor's interest.

About the Author
Christopher Raine - Are you ready to maximize your sales potential? If you answered "Yes", find out how you can increase your sales by 40%, even when your visitors are leaving your site! "Yes" you heard me right! Find out how this is possible with your own Virtual Sales Employee.

Accept Credit Cards Online - Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website

Selecting the shopping cart software

There is a variety of shopping cart software available that you can integrate into your site. We generally don't recommend that any business use a proprietary shopping cart system that is tied to one vendor, like Yahoo!. The problem is that if you don't like the service for whatever reason, you are stuck there, because the shopping cart is tied to their systems.

On the other hand, if you have a shopping cart that is transferable from host to host, such as the Zen Cart or OSCommerce shopping cart systems, you are free to use any host that supports their programming language - which is PHP - an industry standard language for dynamic Web sites.

If you want to accept Paypal exclusively, with a little programming, you may be able to circumvent installing a shopping cart. The transactions are handled off-site on Paypal's secure server. Paypal's website has a lot of valuable help for developers if you wish to look into that.

SSL Certificates

In order to accept credit card payments directly on your own website, you will need to have an SSL certificate. Check with your bank before buying your certificate. Some banks are very fussy about the security of your site, and you may need to buy a more expensive grade of SSL certificate.

Merchant Account

A merchant account is an organization that accepts the money from credit card purchases on your behalf, and deposits the money in to your bank account. You might get a quote from your bank for an Internet-capable merchant account. Sometimes your own bank can offer you better terms, faster deposits, etc. than a third party.

Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is the organization that manages getting the credit card information from the client, checking to be sure that the card is valid, gets authorization (or declined) information form the client's card bank, then hands the information to the organization that handles your merchant account (above) to get the money into your account.

A popular payment gateway is Authorize.net.

Paypal is also a Payment gateway. They handle all of the legwork of getting the money out of the clients account and getting the money to you. Paypal is very convenient, but usually more expensive than traditional Payment Gateways.

Another Payment Gateway that handles the secure transactions on their own server (remotely) is 2Checkout.

Final notes

Setting up an e-commerce website is not for beginners. Most people will need to find a reputable party to install the software, and set everything up. Your web host may offer development services, or can probably refer you to someone. Once the initial setup is done, a good shopping cart is easy enough for someone who is moderately computer literate to maintain and operate.

Be sure to check with your Payment gateway and merchant accounts to find out their fees. Especially if you have a very tight profit margin.

About the Author
Allen Howard is the senior Technical Support Representative for InfoServe Media, LLC. InfoServe Media is a full service Houston Website design company specializing in custom Web site design. In addition to superior website design that even a new business can afford, we also offer hosting and domain names. We can integrate a shopping cart on your website, and provide guidance for setting up your payment gateway. Or we can build a website for you from the ground up. See our website for complete website design and hosting solutions including website promotion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, SSL certificates and more.

Break Through the Frustration of Optimization

"I am an artist," the man proudly proclaimed. "I don't care," the critic proudly responded. "The frame is too large, the colors are dark and it will not match my furniture," the critic further explained.

Many times web developers experience a similar scorn but not always from humans. A site has been designed with an interface that pops with beautiful GIFs and JPEGs, dazzles with Flash and functions like a charm with JavaScript. The search engines do not care. The content, the keywords and the tags do not correspond with the criteria of the search engines. Therefore, you are ignored.

It is a struggle between art and science that frustrates many. The responsibilities of web developing -- the art -- clash with the role of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) -- the science. That is why some companies and development firms are designating web developer and optimizer as two distinctive jobs.

Yet many smaller companies and shops still have the web developer fulfilling both roles. The problem is that optimization is becoming challenging and competitive. So here is some information to help start the optimization before, after or during the developing.

Content

It's all about the text.

Remember that optimization is all about the text. Search engines are text driven but there are still some basic HTML tags to keep in mind (i.e., h1, h2, meta tags, title tag). SEO helps improve search engine results but does not guarantee top ratings.

Patience and realistic goals will keep the frustrations low. Search engines have to crawl a site to determine what a site is about. This takes time, usually about a month, before crawls and indexing are completed by the various search engine spiders.

Take time to think (a lot) about the purpose of the website. Write down a lot of stuff in a word processing program even if it sounds silly at first. Then edit what you wrote. Edit some more, get some feedback and then start working on the keywords and keyphrases that identify the unique quality of your website.

Keywords and Keyphrases

Keywords used to be easy. Those days are gone. Keywords are highly competitive. Using two-word or three-word, maybe even four-word, phrases makes optimization less frustrating. A keyword phrase (keyphrase) helps identify the uniqueness of a website.

The keyword "game" will generate about 1 billion(!) results. The keyphrase "card game" will generate about 50 million results. That is a difference of approximately 950 million. The keyphrase "magic card game" will generate about four-million results. Time will need to be spent finding unique keyphrases but the benefits of narrowing the results, with multi-word phrases, provides a better chance of being noticed.

Keyword Density

The density formula is D = WC/KC (D = density; WC = word count; KC = keyword count)

For major keywords target 3-7% density
For minor keywords target 1-2% density

Keyword density measures how relevant keywords are in a page. The formula density = word count divided by keyword count will provide a general idea of the density percentage. For major keywords try to keep the density between three and seven percent. For minor keywords keep density between one and two percent. Try to optimize between five to ten keywords per web page.

Avoid the unethical practice of keyword stuffing. You will be penalized and possibly banned from the search engines which is worse than doing no optimization at all. Keyword stuffing uses various techniques but it is basically stuffing a page and/or meta tag with several occurrences of a keyword or keyphrase.

Keyword stuffing will result in being banned from the search engines.

Meta Tags

The meta tags are important although some will disagree. Meta tags have fallen out of favor because these tags used to be the magic solution to optimization. Not anymore. Keywords and content are more beneficial in getting a web site in top rankings. However, meta tags are still important. Meta tags are a part of the HTML and are used by most search engines to find a description of your website.

Therefore, no question about it, use the meta tags for description and keywords. Place these meta tags below the title tag on your page.





The keyword meta tag helps you keep track of the keywords and having these meta tags give a small boost to search engine ranking. While it is true that meta tags do not perform the magic they once did it is better to have the tags than to have none. Think of meta tags like vitamins. Vitamins are not necessary for being healthy but vitamins do provide a healthy boost.

Title Tag

The title tag should be unique for every page because every page will or should have different information regarding your website. Therefore, some pages will have some but not all of your total keyword list. For example, let's say that your web site provides information about card games; one page has data about magic card games and another discusses bridge card games.

The title tag of the page with information about magic card games could have a title like Magic Card Games available at ourwebsite.com. The bridge card games page would likely have a title of Bridge Card Games at ourwebsite.com.

The name of pages should also have keywords like magic_card_games.htm or bridge_card_games.htm.

Developing websites is fun. Optimization can be a chore. Yet by focusing on content, keywords and tags you have a good start to decreasing the frustration of optimization. Granted there is more to optimization than the items addressed in this article but these are the items that can be and should be tackled first.

About the Author
Lawrence Roth in an independent web developer who owns and maintains rothline.com. Lawrence has worked on various e-commerce and website projects. Lawrence writes articles and stories to submit to online publications.

7 Steps to Building a Successful Web Presence

Doing business in the 21st century will eventually require every company to have a website in one form or another. Whether your site is interactive or simply informational, there are steps you can take to ensure you're on the right track to creating a successful web presence, seven to be exact (at least from our humble perspective).

While following these steps will not guarantee a successful website, it is certainly an intelligent place to start.

1. Perform a Business Analysis.
What is a business analysis? Simply put, review your business requirements and your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? How does your website fit into your overall business plan? What... no business plan? Develop a business plan first before you go any further into the process.

Your business plan will be your roadmap to success, so make sure the objective of your website fits into your overall business plan. I'll say it again, BUSINESS PLAN, don't have one? GET ONE!

2. Perform some research, also known as, the Research phase.
Research your competition and industry sites. See what kind of competition is out there. What kind of marketing does your competition engage in? Don't look to "reinvent the wheel", take a look at how the current market works; develop a list of pros and cons about your competition and then make your web presence work better.

3. Develop a concept and a design.
Finally time for the creative and fun stuff! This involves the selection of specific content, the layout of the site structure and navigation and the overall "look and feel" of your website.

Remember to pay special attention to your navigational structure!!! If visitors can't navigate your website or feel lost when doing so, your "pretty" site will have been a waste of time; don't go there, keep the navigation simple and for SEO purposes, make sure your navigation is text based. Although Flash driven websites look cool, they are not SEO friendly and can create more problems than the "coolness" factor they express (we'll discuss Flash sites in another article ).
4. Develop your website.
When considering which technology to develop your website, think cutting edge technology, not bleeding edge. Make sure the technology you use, such as ASP, PHP, HTML, CSS, will be useful for the next three to five years.

Database driven website are ultimately the easiest to maintain through the use of a content management system, but make sure the CMS you use is SEO friendly. An SEO friendly CMS will utilize real URLs, not strange looking query strings with lots of strange characters and question marks. Search engines despise query strings and rank these site accordingly.

5. Choose a host provider and implement your website.
When deciding on a host provider, make sure the host is not only reputable, but has been in business long enough that you can be sure they will be in business next year. Also, ask about site uptime. If your site is down for any reason, this will not only affect your potential and current customers, but the search engines as well. If the search engines decide on a given day to spider your site and it is unavailable, it could cost you your rank.

6. Promote and market your website.
Register your site with the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Initiate other marketing activities such as an email blasts to prospective customers. Consider "Pay per Click" advertising with the major search engines and don't forget about a long term SEO campaign to drive targeted traffic to your site. 7. Finally, maintain your website.
Probably the most important long term step is continuing to provide current and relevant information on your website. Keep your site content current to encourage return visitors and give them something to return for! Related to SEO, search engines just LOVE sites which provide new content on a regular basis and rank such websites accordingly.

Overall, remember, your website is not just a marketing tool, it's a business tool, and it should be generating a revenue stream for your business.

About the Author Matthew Mckernan - About the author, Website Design, Search Engine Optimization/SEO, Web Development.

How to Begin Keyword Research

What is a keyword?

It's anything people type into a search engine. It could be made up of one word or several keyword phrases joined together. Every person uses their own method of searching, and that makes anticipating those keywords that will connect their websites with the right visitors very difficult. Keyword research starts with the understanding that finding lots of related keywords that deliver targeted traffic is the ultimate goal of any keyword research.

Sending thousands of visitors to a site who have no interest in your product, let alone in buying it, is just wasted effort and doesn't do any good for your business. If possible, we want to find the customer who has a clear knowledge of what they want and is close to buying something soon.

We would ideally want a few visitors who are seriously looking to buy in the near future. In order to achieve this, we want to find the least competitive keywords with the highest number of searches that are the most relevant to our website.

If you are just starting out, it definitely would be to your advantage to target lower competition terms. Having success with low competition terms will lead to increased confidence to target more competitive terms with higher search volumes.

Thinking like your customers

Thinking like your customers is easier said than done.

All merchants are guilty of thinking in terms of features and specs of the products and not thinking in terms of benefits it can provide to the customers.

You know your business and market too well. The industry jargons and slang are in your every day language. No wonder when you start your keyword research you have a very narrow keyword focus. You become your own worst enemy in exploring other ideas.

Here is an example: what is the most popular search term, "cheap flights," "cheap seats," "low fares" or "discount fares"?

As you can see it's not that simple to pick the best keywords, is it?

The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can't get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often.

There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.

Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages.

This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We'll cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.

Keyword research is like a job interview process

In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widenet first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it's almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.

Where and how to look for keywords

In order to find the best keywords for our website we need to gather information from a variety of resources. Some of these resources may include:

Brainstorming: Getting your brain to go on a magic carpet ride is one of the best ways to find relevant keywords for your website. Don't just settle for asking the obvious question, what does my website sell? Ask questions such as: "What is this product made up of?" or "Who is using my services?" or "What problems do my products solve?"

Finding the main and secondary keyword phrases should take less than a month for even 2 or 3 websites. This does not mean your keyword research has ended forever, but finding the 4-5 word long secondary key phrases can be done with the free keyword research tools if your budget is tight.

Free keyword research tools: You can gain access to the powerful and free Google external keyword tool to expand your keyword list. Unfortunately the Google external keyword tool only gives a search volume indicator instead of the actual search numbers. Another very valuable feature in Google external keyword tool is the "Site-Related Keywords" finder. By simply entering the website URL of your competitors, you can find out in seconds which keywords they target on their web pages.

Another free keyword research tool available without creating an account is the Overture keyword inventory . As of now, August 2007, this tool only shows the January 2007 search volumes as it's being phased out, but Yahoo! is promising a replacement. If you have a Yahoo! Search Marketing account you can still gain access to their keyword tool albeit without the search volume numbers.

Related search terms suggestion tools: One of the fastest ways you can find hundreds of related keywords is to use online lexical or thesaurus tools.

Creating a large initial keyword list that includes a large number of synonyms and acronyms is essential to effective keyword research. Discovering related phrases that are not simply stemming from the original keyword term is a cornerstone of semantic latent indexing . Semantic indexing can be described as the grouping of related documents based on not only direct relationship between words, but the meaning of the words as well.

Some of the search engines provide a related search command list in their search results. Try Clusty by entering a search command and take a look at the "clusters" side bar. You can get dozens of ideas from the keyword clusters by playing with different combination of keywords. You can also visit Technorati a well known blog aggregator and social media tagging site to help unlocked your brain and generate new keywords. Enter a search term and observe the "Related tags" section directly under the search results.

Visitor statistic reports: These can be generated from web server log files or from script based visitor statistic programs. This can help you uncover new keywords for your website by discovering what the visitors are typing into the search engines to find your websites. In some cases, you'll find keywords you didn't expect to come up for in the search results. You should further research those keywords and uncover new keyword niches.

Site search engines: This can be a great source of new keywords and a potential data mining source. As well as further analysis of the average number of keywords, keyword length and other important keyword metrics.

Top ranking competitors: These websites are already well optimized and contain keyword rich web pages. Why not leverage their efforts and harvest the best keywords for your own website? With the help of the SEO Studio keyword analyzer you can extract hundreds of keywords from their META keywords and HTML page content in seconds.

A few examples of good keyword selection practices

Selecting the best keyword takes experience and a little know how, but it's always helpful to see how the pros do it, so here are a few basic steps for keyword selection.

Using your favorite keyword research tool Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or the Keywords Analyzer, type in the main keyword phrase. Start with the broadest possible search terms, this way there is less chance of missing keywords that might otherwise be overlooked.

Look for 2-4 word key phrases that have at least a daily search volume of 200 or more. Since the top 3 sites will receive 60 of all searches, it follows you can expect at least 120 or more unique visitors for those keywords phrases. In some cases, you may want to lower the minimum search volume threshold to as low as 50 if the search term is well targeted for your business.

At this point you should have at least 20-30 really good secondary keywords in your basket.

Hopefully most of the keywords you have selected will have little competition. Some of the keyword tools we have recommended will also tell you the amount of competition for each keyword, but you can also verify these numbers manually by typing the search terms into the search engines with quotes.

It's very important that you use quotes around the keywords to let the engines know you are looking for an exact match. The rule of thumb we use to assess keyword competitiveness is around "100,000" websites. Anything above a hundred thousand results is fairly competitive and requires a fair amount of optimization and link building.

About the Author
Charlie Hearns is a website promoter and SEO professional for TOP Promotions based in Sacramento, CA. See more articles from his forum: http://charliehearns.freeforums.org.

10 Ways To More Website Traffic

Every website needs more traffic. This traffic needs to be as targeted as possible to the site you are promoting, whether it is your own web site or an affiliate program. This is the lifeblood of the business. No traffic - No business, More traffic - More sales

The question is - How do you get this highly targeted web site traffic.

I will list some of the most popular methods.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Of all the pay per click search engines, Google Adwords is the largest and most popular.

This method, when done correctly, will increase your exposure, and give fast results. You must keep up to date with Google's rules, so be sure to read them. You pay a one off fee when you register and set up your campaign. You can have your campaign up and running in minutes. There is a minimum bid, but of course you will have to pay more than this. But the beauty of Adwords is you can set a daily budget of how much you are willing to spend.

You can create as many campaigns as you want, and then test your ads (changing the headline for example).

Google provide tools to help you with your campaigns, and have exellent tutorials that walk you through everything from signing up to creating your Adwords campaigns.

Link popularity

This is achieved when other sites have links to your site. If a high traffic site has links, the search engines perceive both sites must be popular. The important thing is to have quality web sites linking back to your site.

Why should anyone want to link to your site? If you have quality content, this adds perceived value and makes your site popular, so others will want to link to you.The type of content could be:

Free downloads
Free reports, articles, ezine or newsletter
Video
Links to other good sites

Reciprocal Links

This is where you exchange links with other quality sites. You can create a links page on your site. This create a resource that visitors will want to return to. Find quality (there's that word again) web sites related to your subject and contact the webmaster about exchanging links.

Ezine advertising

Most ezines accept advertising. Ezines are online or email newsletters. They are used to build a relationship between a webmaster and a web site visitor, with news, updates, special offers etc. But as always they should have quality content. You place an ad in ezines that are highly targeted towards your niche. Prices depend on the ezine, and also the position of the ad. The most expensive is the solo ad, where yours is the only ad.

Article Submissions

Submitting articles is a great way to build back links and web site visitors. Your articles can become 'viral' when others want to re-publish them on their sites, or use them in their newsletters and ezines. You include links to your site in the author resource box offering more free information. The resource box is your chance to convince the reader to visit your web site.

Two of the most popular places to post your articles are http://www.goarticles.com/ and http://www.EzineArticles.com.

Forum Posting

In order to be successful using forums there are some things that are required. Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion's primary sales market. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this. Choose forums that allow sig tags. Read the rules before joining and pay attention to them.

You've Joined: now what?

Keep your sig tag short and update it regularly. The ideal thing is to limit yourself to one link, preferably to your main website. Never create posts that are nothing more than an advertisement. This is a universal rule. At best this kind of post will be deleted by the monitors, at worst, you will be banned. Be an active member on the forum. Plan to spend at least an hour each day there. Get to know the users. Iintroduce yourself with intelligent questions depending upon the forum's topic.

Use Your Sig file to the best advantage and within the rules. Some Forums have places where you can advertise and give special deals to members.

Social Bookmarking

In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are both accessible to the public or a specific network, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tags, or even randomly. Some allow for privacy on a per-bookmark basis.

Social Bookmarking can bring immediate traffic to your website, as web 2.0 community websites such as Technorati, Digg, Reddit and Tailrank provide almost immediate information on various topics. These type of Bookmarking sites index and categorize content usually faster than the major search engines. People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services.

Bookmarking Accounts to check out:

http://digg.com/
http://technorati.com/

You can increase your Bookmarking using the free submission site http://www.OnlyWire.com to bookmark many accounts at once. When you signup to OnlyWire.com you can use many bookmark accounts and with one simple procedure bookmark your blog post to all your accounts at once.

OnlyWire.com interfaces with:

Backflip
Bibsonomy
Blinklist
Blogmemes
Blue Dot
de.lirio.us
del.icio.us
Diigo
Furl
Jots
Linkroll
Looklater
ma.gnolia
Markaboo
Rawsugar
Shadows
Simpy
Spurl
Wink

If you don't have a Bookmark Account for the ones listed go and sign up.

Viral Traffic using free reports - ebooks etc.

Directory Submissions

Submit your website url's to the search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization, (SEO), is making web pages attractive to the search engines. The better optimized your web page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in the search engines. Most people searching the internet only look at the first couple of search results.

So optimizing for the search engines focuses on techniques such as making sure that each web page is using the appropriate title tags and meta tags, and that the keyword or key phrases for the particular pages are distributed throughout the content. Search engines find and catalog web pages using spidering software.

These are just a few ways to get more web site traffic.

About the Author
John Leigh is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher, with a passion to help others. If you have your own affiliate program or web site and you want loads of people promoting your website or product and take your business to the next level, then visit http://www.yourvirtualaffiliatetrainer.com and take a look at the FREE comprehensive online training video, and http://yourvirtualaffiliatetrainer.wordpress.com/.

Chocolate Vs Green Tea - Which Offers You More?

Chocolate has always enjoyed a comfortable spot on most people's list of favorite foods and desserts. This is why recent studies on chocolates are focused on the health benefits of this "food of the gods." According to researchers chocolate contains up to four times the antioxidants found in tea. There are more than 300 chemicals found in chocolate that have different health benefits. One of these is flavonoids (also called flavonols) which found in gourmet chocolates. Flavonols is a type of polyphenol antioxidant which helps reduce risks of cardiovascular diseases. Another element found in chocolate that is similar to tea is called cathechins which is a primary bioflavinoid antioxidant. Cathechins is found to help reduce risks of heart attack and cancer as well as help repair damaged blood vessels by reducing inflammation.

Green tea, on the other hand, is the most consumed beverage worldwide next to water. It is classified under unfermented natural tea leaf and can either be steamed or dried. All teas come from one basic plant which is called the Camellia Sinensis plant. Teas differ according to how this plant is processed. To create green tea out of the Camellia Sinensis, the leaves are slightly withered and rapidly heated to produce teas that have lower caffeine and more subtle flavors. This kind of tea produces a greenish-gold drink. However, is chocolate healthier than green tea or vice-versa?

According to studies on the health benefits of chocolate, upon using special analytical techniques to test the antioxidant content of different beverages, they found out that the antioxidant concentration found in cocoa drink is twice as strong than that of red wine, twice or even thrice as strong than that of green tea, and four to five times stronger than that of black tea. You have the option to drink chocolate any way you want, but experts emphasize that it is better to drink hot cocoa than cold cocoa. Your body will more likely absorb the nutrients and antioxidants from chocolates when you drink hot cocoa. However, the value of antioxidants in chocolate is much higher than those found in raw cacao.

Comparing the catechins from chocolate and green tea, researchers have found that dark chocolate contains 53.5 mg of catechins per 100 grams while green tea contains 28 mg to 42 mg of catechins. This indicates that chocolates are healthier than green tea. However, if you choose to take your daily dose of antioxidants from chocolates, experts say that it is better to go with the drinkable stuff. They say that a 40-gram bar of plain chocolate contains around 8 grams of saturated fat compared to 0.3 grams in a cup of hot cocoa. So sip some chocolate and feel good about what you are doing for your body!

About the Author
Shannon O'Hara has been an entrepreneur for the last 10 years. She has a number of business ventures primarily in travel and food industries. Passionate about family, travel and chocolate - Shannon lives in the Mid-Atlantic so that she can see the ocean every day! Want to know the difference between dark chocolate vs. green tea?

Search Engine Optimization And Search Engine Crawlers

There is a lot to learn when it comes to online or internet marketing and search engine optimization. That is why a lot of people hire SEO consultants to worry about their internet marketing for them.

However, if you do not want to have to pay SEO experts to help you with the marketing of your website, then you may want to think about doing it yourself! It's not that hard, it just takes some reading on the internet from trusted sources. Really, most of the SEO services that are provided online are built around one thing, and that is search engine crawlers.

Today we are going to talk more about search engine crawlers, and what they do. Soon you will find out that pretty much everything that you do, as far as search engine optimization goes, is to make these little crawlers happy. It is no longer as easy as a quick search engine submission and your website becomes popular.

As you may be able to guess by the name, these search engine crawlers are little bots that roam around the internet looking for new websites and ranking them based on an algorithm. When they come across a new website, they rank it in different ways, taking many things in to consideration. These ranks help to determine where the site is going to end up in a search done on a search engine.

The first thing that you have to do for these crawlers is to get noticed by them, and that is the hardest part of SEO, or at least that is what SEO consultants want you to think! The truth of the matter is, you can get your website noticed by simply visiting different popular search engines and adding your URL to their submission forms.

You also must get links from other web sites pointing to your web site to obtain link popularity and credibility with the search engines. This way the crawlers will know where your site is at, and find it a lot quicker. They will also consider it a relevant source of information if other sites link to you.

After that, it's all about marketing your web site on the internet through search engine optimization techniques. These little crawlers are programmed to look for certain things on your web site, these are things that SEO experts study and have an understanding for.

Using the services of SEO Consultants to help in your marketing, however they can be very costly, so you should hire a service provider that is talented and can provide a portfolio to ensure you get quality work.

Before hiring someone to work on your web site you should make sure they use ethical search optimization and marketing tactics and also make sure that they can provide results.

The first thing that crawlers look for is, of course, keywords.

Keywords in your web sites content and keywords in the links pointing to your site. When it comes to search engine optimization, use keywords wisely. Don't over-saturate your web site with keywords because you can get docked as a spammer. These keywords have to be worked into the web page and not just listed there. You should integrate them in to your content, page titles, meta tags and URL. Also, it will help the marketing of your web site if you work them into the titles of your web page as well.

Also make sure that your main page headings are bigger than that of your normal font so the crawlers can easily pick out what the main focus of your page is.

SEO consultants also worry about how many links there are out there that point back to your website. The more links, the better. However they must also be quality links from popular sites that are credible with the search engines. That is why SEO experts are always looking for different places where they can post links to your website. While crawlers are looking around, if they come across links to your website, then that helps to boost your ranking online.

As you can see, SEO services are very helpful, but if you can learn how to do online marketing by yourself, you don't need to hire anyone.

About the Author
Joel McLaughlin - DataFlurry offers Affordable Search Engine Optimization & Marketing. We are a talented Phoenix Internet Marketing, Search Advertising Online Agency.

Should I Make a Down Payment? Do I Have To?

I am considering buying a home soon. Should I save up for a down payment or should I pursue low or no money down financing?

If you are wondering this, that's a very good question! The answer though will depend on your other fiscal and lifetime strategies and goals as well as your daily and monthly cash flow and other needs. Some new families or couples starting out choose to make a small down payment or none at all. It is important to understand that for the first 2, 3 or 4 years of a mortgage loan, the home owner is paying mostly interest on their mortgage loan anyway! Very little money if any traditionally gets applied toward the principle mortgage loan balance.
However, some choose to accelerate payments by paying extra either monthly or by choosing a bi-weekly mortgage. There are other ways to accelerate your equity if that's the strategy that makes sense for you.

Many 1st time buyers expect to only stay at their new home for a short period, say between 2 and 5 years. It is also noteworthy to examine how often the average consumer buys and sells a home (how often they move) as well as how often the average consumer keeps their existing mortgage financing in place. Sometimes, when conditions allow or needs arise, homeowners may refinance their loan to change their term, lower their interest rate or sometimes to borrow additional money. So, there is no one particular answer. It's not a case of one saddle fitting every horse when it comes to down payments. Some people need the extra monthly money more than they need to accelerate equity.

Also, stay educated on the facts about down payments and mortgage financing. Many media sources and others will have some believing that no 100% financing exists anymore, that every buyer needs 20% down "just like the old days" or "just like it should be", and that is quite far from the truth! Through USDA Rural Development and the VA, 100% financing is very much alive and always will be.

In conclusion, when considering how much to put down one must fully understand their own personal and lifetime strategies, their intentions or plans for the property and its future and be on the same page with their borrowing partner, if they have one. Also, it never hurts to run it by a Certified Financial Planner.

About the Author
Jamie Woods. For more, visit http://www.activerain.com/jpsunshine

Credit Card Money Savers - Just Flash The Card and Save Money!

The credit card has been known for quite some time now. When you are on a shopping spree, this may be the ultimate gear. This little plastic card may be your best friend.

This card may be the most convenient thing to use during your shopping and when you lack cash. This card at the same times tempts you to spend a lot.

So you may be wondering if there are ways to save money when you have a credit card. Of course you can.

This little piece if plastic may be very helpful. You actually can save money with the credit card.

A 0% balance transfer:

If the credit card you are using at the moment has high rates of interests, you can shift the balance to a card which has lower interest rates or may be even to those who might have no interest at all. Some of them may offer you a 0% interest rate for a while and then go on with charging you on lower rates which may be regular. If you were paying an interest of 19% you can shift down to one which provides 16.1%. this little difference will mean a lot to you in the long run.

Lower rates of interest:

Look out for those credit cards that provide you with the lowest rates of interest. This saves you a lot of money. if you do not have any savings, it is recommended that you go in for a card that has no annual fees. You will have to check on these before you make a decision as some of them who give you low rates of interest may not be affordable by you when they are combined with the fees that they take at the end of every year.

Rewards program:

Cash back programs and reward points are being offered now. Despite the fact that you buy frequently, you get a 5% off even when you are maintaining a low balance.

Increase your chance of experience:

You must always try to shun away from the drawbacks. If you are smart enough, you will head on the right track.

Make sure you have read all the details. You need to look at the penalty charges if you ever are late for the payment. Be cautious. Spending sometimes can not be avoided. Do try to make a good deal of what you can.

About the Author
Abhishek Agarwal is a financial expert and he has got some great Family Budget Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 96 Pages Ebook, "Family Budget?Demystified!" from his website http://www.Trading-Masters.com/23/index.htm. Only limited Free Copies available.

Is your competition beating you with SEO?

You have optimized your website for winning keywords, are mid-way with your link building campaign, and have been going absolutely crazy creating fresh SEO friendly content that pleases the users and search engines.

You are obviously very serious about your online business, and yet you cannot seem to cross the Rank # 12, Page 2 barrier of Google search listing for your primary keywords.

A series of questions arise from the imaginary situation above:

1. Why is my ranking for the particular keyword not going up?
2. Am I missing out on any SEO strategies?
3. Maybe I am not building enough links? How much will be enough?
4. Do I have to improve my content quality?
5. The search engine has changed their algorithm (…again)
6. Others are using illegal SEO techniques

Now while one could go over the questions in your head, read up on latest search engine algorithms, contact a SEO expert, or blindly start buying links out of desperation, there is an easier way to find your answers.

Simply ask why are the other 10 websites ranking before your website?

Now that does not mean that the above questions 1 to 6 are not relevant, but simply put, one of the easiest ways to boost your search rankings is to study the top 5 to ten websites for your keyword and then apply what working for them into your own strategies.

Now I am not asking you to copy the competition or have a strategy that just involves beating the competition at the ranking game. It never works. What is needed is a better balance between your company's SEO strategies and of those of your competitors.

Like in any business strategy, you have to know your competitors, study what strategies they are using, and then apply the best of those strategies to your own game plan.

In the same way, in defining the SEO path ahead for your website you must analyze your competition. What are they doing to rank in the top 10 that you are not doing? After all those websites are listed on the top for a reason, and they are applying SEO strategies that the search engine in particular seems to like.

Now while finding the answers to those questions in the real business world may be difficult, in the online world all you have to do is to right-click and view the source of the page.

The below simple steps will open up a world of information to you.

1. Does the domain name contain the keyword? If the link is a sub domain then does the sub domain contain the keyword?

2. In what Meta tags, title, etc has the competition placed their keywords?

3. Does the link name contain the keyword? eg. www.seo-optimization-experts.com/mumbai-seo-expert.html

4. How many keywords are listed in the keyword tag i.e. is the page focused around one or two keywords, or is it a jumble of keywords listed out.

5. Is the title and description captivating enough? How has the keyword/s been placed in the title and description and at what position?

6. Is the page graphic intensive? Is the site using a lot flash or active server pages? Search engines cannot understand graphics, only the text it can read on the page. Make sure there is a good balance between the graphics and content.

7. How long is the body text? Writing 400 to 600 words is normally fine.

8. Has the keyword (keyword weight) been used appropriately in the body content? Ideally the first 25 words of content should be keyword rich, and the keyword should appear after every 100 words in remaining content.

9. Is the content interesting to you as the reader? Does the content follow a theme? Is the content relevant to what keyword the page has been optimized for?

10. What is the page rank of the page (You can check page rank of any website by downloading the Google Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com.

11. Which is the first place in the source code the keyword appears?

12. Has the keyword been used appropriately in headline tags and link text?

13. Does the site use java script, tables, frames, dynamic content, CMS etc?

14. Is the page focused around a theme?

15. How many inbound links are there to the page? You can check the link popularity of the page on www.marketleap.com? Visit the sites that have given the link. What is their page rank? What is the link text that describes the link to the website? Has the keyword been used in the link text?

16. How many pages does the site have?

17. Does the site have a good site map that lists all the content pages, videos on the site that search engine spiders can crawly easily?

18. Are there any 404 errors on the website?

19. What is the domain name extension e.g. .com,. net, .edu, .co.in

20. How long has that domain name been in existence? Search engines rank those sites better that have been around for a while, or those that plan to be around for a while?

21. How many directories has that page/website been submitted to?

22. Has the site used any spamming or illegal SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, duplicate content and other such spam techniques? If yes you can inform the search engine of the same but do so with caution. For Google: http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

Please note that sometimes you will find no reasons why the competitors' website is ranked above yours. And that's ok. I have experienced many cases of certain sites which go against the search engines guidelines (set by search engines themselves), and yet they rank above meticulously optimized pages.

Search engines are constantly trying to remove badly optimized or spam pages which offer little or no value to the users. Our intent here is not to focus on the missing pieces/loopholes of search engines algorithms or isolated instances of sites that don't deserve it and yet are ranking high, but to work within the framework and guidelines for the long haul.

By mapping out the answers to the above questions (preferable on a spread sheet), you will find the overall patterns of what is working for those sites and why, and then figure out ways to modify your SEO strategies to improve your rankings.

About the Author
Nevil Darukhanawala - SEO Expert http://seo-optimization-experts.com/seoblog.html Zen of SEO Now what has search engine optimization and search marketing got to do with spirituality? Am sure the Big Search Engines will be laughing all the way to the very end...

Your Own Business - 7 Tips Before You Start

To have your own business often seems to be the ultimate. The grass is, however, not always greener on the other side. It is important not to be blinded by the potential rewards. Do you have what it takes? You need the right skills, determination, financial backing, etc. There are also several serious and potential fatal risks. The following tips act as a guideline before you start your own business:

1. Make sure that entrepreneurship is for you. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. If you feel safer in your comfort-zone and are risk-averse the chances are that you are better off where you are - nothing wrong with that. Entrepreneurship needs passion, a certain amount of risk-taking and the motivation and dedication to succeed when everything seems to be against you.

2. Understand the risks. Financial risk, including potential bankruptcy, is a real threat if things go wrong. Less obvious risks include social-, career- and psychological risks.

3. Build a support structure. To have your own business can be quite tough at times. The more support you have the bigger the chances of surviving these times. It is worthwhile to make an effort to get your family and friends positive about the business.

4. Get the right partners. It is often not advisable to embark on a business on your own (or even impossible). Good synergy between partners can drastically increase the potential of a business. Unfortunately many business partnerships don't work and are often disastrous. Choose your partners very careful and ensure that legal contracts are in place for any potential "divorce" in the future.

5. Prepare diligently. To have your own business generally means a lot of hard work. This should start with a proper feasibility study and business planning. Is there a big enough gap in the market that your business can fill? How will you do it? How will it be funded?

6. Be realistic. A new business is never just moonshine and roses. It tends to take much longer than expected to breakeven and it needs much more resources (especially financially) than normally planned for. Reflect this in your cashflow planning.

7. Get expert advice. When you lack specific skills it is much cheaper to pay for it in the beginning rather than later when the business does not work. The advice of auditors, attorneys, bankers, consultants and other experts should be sought where applicable.

About the Author
Wim Venter is the CEO of Ventex Corporation, a business development consultancy. To receive more information on starting your own business and other business related topics (articles, case studies and tips) sign up for our free newsletters.

Website Creation Simplified: Brief Overview Of The Nuts And Bolts

Before you start fiddling around with HTML editors, FTP clients, and Domain registrations, it's important to have at least a basic understanding of how all this works. This Website creation overview gives you an easy to understand look at what the process of building your own Website really involves.

A website is a collection of files that work together to form a unified whole. These various files, from images to HTML documents and PHP scripts, or instructional software, are organized by a Web browser and displayed appropriately on a computer monitor.

Website creation is essentially the process arranging information in a way that can be translated by Web browsing software, such as Internet Explorer, and presented to human viewers. To do this correctly you'll need to gain a basic understanding of coding languages like HTML, CSS, and possibly PHP.

The process of coding your site is literally the activity of entering numerous individual lines of alphanumeric code that tell the Web browser how to format and display your Web page. While seemingly complex at first, the truth is learning the most basic Web development code -- HTML -- is less complicated than learning to use the English alphabet.

Once you learn what the various command codes actually do, your next step is to practice organizing them in a structured manner within an HTML document. This is not unlike the process of creating a word processing document and saving it; the only difference is that instead of sentences and paragraphs you'll be entering HTML tags and attributes.





Once your files are complete, they'll need to be added to your Web host so other Internet users can access them. The Web host, or server, is a powerful computer that operates around the clock.

It is here that all the files and data that make up your Website will be stored. And you'll need to register a domain name and synchronize this domain with your host machine so people can type an easily remembered Web address into their browser and literally navigate to your Website by establishing a connection with your host server.

In addition to learning how to create and save basic HTML documents, Website creation requires some level of proficiency in transferring files between your computer and a Web server. This is called File Transfer Protocol, or FTP for short.

To do this, you'll need a software tool called an FTP client. This utility is installed on your desktop and can instantly form a connection with your Web host, allowing you to upload files to the Web or download them to your machine.


It is also recommended that you become familiar with the directory structure and hosting control panel your Web host provides. This will make it easier for you to manage your Website.

This sounds like a lot of work. But the truth is the average Internet user can become basically versed in all of this within 30 days or less if he or she puts forth an effort to learn.

It's beyond the scope of this article to delve into the specifics of any particular technique. But I hope at this point you at least have an understanding of what is involved in learning the Website Creation process.

About the Author
Timothy Aaron Whiston - Quickly and easily learn Web design with the author's amazing online course. You'll be an ace Webmaster in no time with this full-blown Web design course at your disposal.

Focus on SEO Before You Launch Your New Website

Are you launching a new website? There's no better time to think about search engine optimization than prior to launching a new site. By giving consideration to your on-page optimization factors, you can increase your chances of achieving top organic search results.

To prepare your site for easy indexing, be sure to follow these basis guidelines:

1. Design your site in html or similar format that minimizes the use of java script and flash. The more complex you make your code, the more difficult it becomes for the search engine spiders to read your content and prescribe the appropriate Google PR to your web page.

2. Make sure that your meta tags are coded properly and include the Robots.txt tag. Many individuals downplay the importance of meta tags. Although meta tags themselves won't drastically change the organic ranking of your site, they do create the display text users will see when your site appears in search results. If your meta tags are search engine optimized and compelling, you increase the changes of improving click-throughs.

3. Apply the proper tags to your page. H1, H2, and H3 tags are a great wall to call attention to your content and promote your keywords and keyword phrases. Try to use each tag at least once, but don't force the issues. You want your text to flow and appear normal.

In addition to ensuring that you've made your page easy to access and presented text that is optimized, you also want to consider other factors that can help long-term with your SEO efforts. So often, web designers get caught up with on page factors, that they overlook the requirements for establishing a foundation that supports long-term initiatives.

In particular, consider adding pages that you can add to over time that support link building and accessibility for search engine spiders. Be sure to include:

1. An html sitemap and an xml sitemap. Including a sitemap on you site makes it easy for search engines to access all of your website pages and index your site accordingly. Your sitemap should be in both html as well as xml. Although users would not access the xml sitemap, search engine spiders use this version to crawl websites. Additionally, key search engine submission resources like Google's Webmasters Tools require xml site map versions.

2. Include a partners page. Previously referred to as a links page, the partners page is essential for reciprocal linking. This strategy isn't as powerful as developing one-way links, but until your site has been assigned a Google PR, one-way links can be difficult to acquire. So begin your link exchange program with a partners page that allows you add or remove link quickly and easily.

3. Submission pages that encourage new content. One of the most powerful seo techniques is the addition of new content. Make it easy for your users to add or submit content to your website. When search engines see new content, they rejoice. Don't underestimate how important it is to make it simple for your browsers to add or submit content.

When focusing on search engine optimization, especially with a new website, follow the basic ideas outlined above. There are a number of other factors to consider as well. However, you should always start with a strong foundation - a site design that meets basic SEO standards but one that also supports your long range search engine optimization goals.

About the Author
Michael Fleischner is the founder of the The Good Marketing Tips Blog and has more than 12 years of marketing experience. Learn how to improve search engine rankings at http://improvesearchenginerankings.blogspot.com.

How to Sell Products and Services Online

As you might already know, the internet is considered the largest and most profitable market place today as billions of people are going online on a daily basis. This is the reason why more and more marketers are considering selling products and services online. Are you one of them? Then, you'll surely find this article useful as it contains the latest 5 methods that can help you increase your online selling.

1. Showcase your expertise online. Earning the trust of your potential clients is one crucial element in internet marketing as more and more people are way too scared of online fraud and scams. You need to assure your potential clients that you are trustworthy and that you can offer them the information and products that they are looking for. You can showcase your expertise and you can build good reputation online by sharing a slice of your knowledge using cost-effective but efficient content base marketing solutions like ezine publishing, blogging, forum posting, and article marketing.

2. Build your own website. Unless you are satisfied with eBay and other auction sites, you may create your own place over the World Wide Web where you can freely talk about your products, process online transactions, and where you can build an ongoing communication with your potential clients. Ensure that your website is content-rich (so you attract more organic traffic), easy to navigate, and up-to-date.

3. Promote your products and services. This is the key to boost your online sales and revenue. You will need to utilize several marketing strategies so you can promote product awareness among your potential clients. As you might already know, the more people knowing your products, the higher your chances of making a sale.

4. Use testimonials and recommendations. Ensure that you post the testimonials of your most satisfied clients on your blog or website. You can also seek recommendations from other experts on your chosen niche who believe that your products are the best in the market today. These can help you convince online users to believe that your products are worth their time and money.

5. Offer discounts and freebies. With so many people selling their products and services online, it is much difficult to get the attention of online users. However, you can capture the interest of these people if you can offer them something for free. Consider offering discounts when they purchase from you or throw in some freebies that they will surely appreciate.

About the Author
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article writing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide' Download it free here: Secrets of Article Writing

Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click here: Secrets of List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.

How to Know Your Child is Ready For Student Credit Cards

There is a point in every parent's life when they have to let go and allow their child to grow up and start to take on a life of their own. This often comes as a child graduates high school and takes off for college. But as a parent, you may not think they are ready for all of the things they need to know to get by in the world.

One of the important things you need your child to know before you 'let them go' is how to take care of themselves financially. This doesn't just mean making sure they know how to pay their rent and utilities bills, but also that they know how to take care of their credit so they can have a good line of credit throughout their lives.

Often college is when children get their first credit cards. But you may not be sure your child is ready. Here are three steps to getting them on the road to financial independence.

Have a Talk

You need to be confident that your child understands the importance of getting a credit card before you ever allow them one. The best way to assess this is to take a seat and talk credit cards with your child before approving them getting one. Make sure they understand the responsibility that comes with credit cards and that a failure to be responsible could follow them for years to come on their credit report.

Credit Card Light

Before you give them a normal credit card with a high limit, you may want to start a little smaller on the credit front:

Prepaid Credit Cards - You could begin with prepaid credit cards, which are cards that you charge with money, much like an ATM card. These will allow you to see if your child tries to keep going over their spending limits.

Student Credit Cards - Many of the student credit cards out there don't allow too high of limits. The best student credit cards are like starter credit cards that allow you to set the limits your child can charge to, so their credit can't get out of hand, even if they forget to be responsible.

Join the Big Boys

Once your child has proven he or she can be responsible with their prepaid credit cards or low limit student credit cards, you can move them into the bigger world of credit cards.

This is when you should also look for rewards credit cards that will reward your child with cash back or other perks for spending responsibly.

About the Author
Steve Sikes is an MBA and writes articles on credit cards and other financial products. To read other articles and compare and apply online for top credit card offers for low interest, balance transfers, rewards, cash back, business, airline miles, you will want to visit http://www.CreditCardWave.com

SEO Explained For People with Real Jobs

When talking to clients about marketing their business online I am asked "How do you get to #1 on Google?" While this article is not specially about how to become #1 - I will explain what the process is and what's involved.

Despite our widespread acceptance and use of the internet - I am always surprised by how many people really have no idea what SEO (search engine optimization) is about. They instinctively know WHY they like to click on that first listing in the natural results; but they don't have the first clue HOW it got there. Making matters worse is the fact that the internet world is largely unregulated and still being figured out - so it seems that everyone has their own "best practice" and definitions of things like SEO.

I usually tell clients that their intuitive feeling of WHY they trust that first listing is that - simply put - it's the best result for the phrase you type in. People seem to understand that. However most people don't really understand why one site would be better than another so here goes with a layman's explanation…

What is SEO, really?

SEO is the process of configuring a website so that it has a chance to show up in a search result for a particular phrase. In other words it is our way of telling Google, Yahoo, or MSN what we think our site is about. Many of the search engines have a slightly different formula for how they determine these results. But the short version is that they look at different factors of each website page, rank them and then give those results to you.

Why is SEO Important?

One word sums it up - competition. Depending on what study you read, there are as many as 20 billion web pages being indexed at any given time. The major search engines do their best to go through these pages and catalog them so that they can tell you about it if you use their website to search. With so many website pages out there competing for similar phrases it is absolutely critical to make sure you are using every tool at your disposal to make sure your customers can find you when they are looking.

OK, So What Should I Be Doing for SEO On My Site?

The good news is that doing SEO correctly is not complicated. The bad news is that it is time consuming and requires regular attention in order to maintain results. Our advice is to ethically follow these simple guidelines for best long-term results:

Good site structure - as simple as this sounds many people overlook this. Every day we see sites with heavy flash animation, dated frame designs, pages that don't work and broken links. The bottom line is that if you can't easily navigate a site without problems chances are the search engines can't either. And if a search engine can't go through your site you have absolutely no chance of showing up for a key phrase - no matter how pretty the flash.

Good meta-data - Clients often draw a blank with this one. Meta-data is geek-speak for the page titles, page descriptions and keywords that you enter for each page. Each page on your website should have a unique title and description that summarizes what that page is about.

We often see 2 problems with meta-data. The first is that it is simply overlooked. I am stunned at how many sites have www.yoursite.com as the page title for every page - that's wasting prime online real estate.

The 2nd problem is spam. Putting in a page title or description that does not accurately match what the page is about is considered "spamming" a search engine. Doing this will get your page thrown out of the index and ruin any chance of showing up for a key phrase. Relevant content - People seem to understand that good content is really what they are looking for when they search for something. By "relevant" we mean that the content is specific to the topic in question and recently updated. More and more we are seeing sites that have regular updates or blogs showing up higher in the search results than sites which have larger quantities of older, "stale" content on them.

Our recommendation is to add well-written, grammatically correct and spell-checked content to your website on a regular basis. This ensures that, over time, your site will become a "resource" to those looking for phrases related to your business.

Responsible link building - This is perhaps the least understood part of SEO. In a nutshell search engines consider a link from another website to your website as a popularity vote. Think of it as power rankings for websites. In general the more sites which link to yours, the better; as this shows your site is relevant to the given topic.

Sadly though link building, like keywords and meta-data, have been abused by many site owners with schemes such as link farms where sites are setup simply to house links to other sites. We encourage careful and responsible link building with sites that are related to yours or through appropriate directories and article banks.

So there you have it - SEO explained for people with real jobs. Like most things it's not really that hard but it requires discipline which is where most people get off track. If you would like help with SEO for your website, or other online business needs we would love to hear from you.


About the Author
Andre Savoie. President of WSI (We Simplify the Internet) who help companies take advantage of opportunities to grow their business online. This may include search engine optimization, paid search advertising or newer tools such as social media optimization. My focus is on helping companies find the strategy that best fits their needs and budget and then establishing goals for each marketing campaign. You can visit us at www.mywsiconsultant.com or contact us via email at andre@mywsiconsultant.com.

Questions to Ask Before You Start a New Home Business

In today's corporate climate of downsizing and layoffs, many people are considering starting their own home-based business. While there are significant risks, a good business plan which asks some key questions can really help.

Some major questions to ask yourself should deal with your GOALS for starting the business. Why do you want a home business (beyond the idea of just making enough money to live on?) Here are some of the reasons which may interest you:

Flexibility

Many home business owners love the flexibility of their home business which affords them the opportunity to set their own schedules. This can mean more time with family and the ability to occasionally step away from the business for other pleasures.

Income Potential

Business people have the opportunity (potential) to make more money than working for someone else. They also take on more risk as well.

Helping the Community

Business owners (even in home-businesses) have the ability to be a blessing to the community by employing others and making charitable contributions.

There are many more goals you can list which a small business can help you accomplish. I suggest writing down both RISKS and REWARDS when brainstorming about starting your own business. Take enough time to adequately research these two sides of the equation. Get information and coaching from those successful in the business you're going into before launching. Make sure you're adequately capitalized before beginning.

These are just a few tips to help you begin the process of transitioning into business ownership. There are many more details to research, but you have to start somewhere. What I have written here will help you begin thinking about the process and developing your vision. Don't move too fast and especially keep up the work of developing your dream of business ownership.

Good Luck!

About the Author
Mark Evants manages a profitable vending company of 2,200 machines in the mid west. For more extremely practical vending tips and articles on increasing cash flow and structuring your vending business visit: http://www.vendingarticles.net - Tips and Articles for PROFITABLE Vending!