SEO Rely

Will SEO Rely on Site Load Time in 2010?

Its been said that internet users have the patience of just four to five seconds for a page to load. That's not a very long time, and a lot of sites lose visitors every day for just this reason. It will always be important from a user standpoint to have your websites load as quickly as possible. It's already a challenge to get people to visit your site and the last issue you want visitors to experience is slow loading times.

How Can You Test Your Sites Load Time?

If you don't already have a Google Webmaster Tools account, create one. Log into your account and click on the "Labs" tab on the left hand navigation. From there click on "Site Performance". You will find a graph with your performance overview here.

Internet users have the patience to wait roughly four to five seconds before giving up on a page loading. Is your websites loading time causing you to lose well deserved traffic?

Fixing Your Page Load Times

Lucky for all of us, Google has already figured out an efficient way to speed up all of our pages. Scrolling a little further down to the "site performance" page, you will see "Page Speed Suggestions". Here you will see suggestions such as gzip compression, combining JavaScript, and minimizing DNS lookups. These are issues specific to each page, so make sure to look at all the suggestions.

Will Load Times Have An Effect On SEO In 2010?

Google's priority is to always give its search users the most relevant search results. One would think that it's also important to Google that all users have a positive experience when looking for websites that match their search queries. With this kept in considerations it would make sense that Google would give ranking preferences to sites that have faster loading speeds. Nobody wants to wait ten or more seconds for a page to load and unfortunately there are many sites out there that exceed ten seconds.

Whether loading time has an affect on SEO or not, it's important to keep your site loading times to a minimum. You work hard to get your existing traffic, don't let something like loading time ruin your users experience. Google has given us this tool for a reason; it's silly to not take advantage of it. If load time does become an SEO factor in 2010, lets all be ready for it!

Lead Generation

Basic Information For Lead Generation

Online Lead Generation has a very transparent cost structure. It is straightforward to see each lead's origins and quality - and companies can then pay only for data on interested consumers that meet their criteria. This makes the service highly cost-effective and gives each lead higher value. Increased data quality will help companies drive down their cost per acquisition (CPA) which is a clear indicator of ROI (return on investment).

OLG provides organizations the ability to quickly set up and gather leads; it has the advantage of being highly results-driven, which is one of the reasons overall spend is up on last year. In a difficult financial climate, companies, regardless of size, need good quality data on interested consumers in order to generate new business and revenue. We are finding now that major global blue chips are placing an increased importance on our performance-based approaches. This report looks at the wide range of digital marketing strategies - such as SEO(search engine optimization), Paid Search, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing and Online Display advertising. Clash-Media specialists in Ad-based Online Lead Generation which is highly flexible and targeted compared to many of the other methods talked about. It combines elements of affiliate marketing, email marketing and display advertising.

It is important to remember that Online Lead Generation can be used as an independent campaign - standing on its own to find new potential customers based on a specific offer that is promoted only on the Internet - or alternatively, it can be used very effectively, particularly abased Online Lead Generation, as part of a wider campaign. For example large traditional campaigns - TV, Newspapers and Posters - can be boosted by tying in an OLG campaign, because they are results driven and can give a directly measurable return for the advertising spend. Online Lead Generation campaigns are tailored to suit each advertiser?s individual requirements, allowing full control over delivery, quantity and the quality of interested consumer data received.

OLG is a critical digital marketing activity for the businesses in a wide range of sectors. SMEs, prominent charities and global blue chips all rely on Online Lead Generation to acquire potential customers and boost the performance of their marketing campaigns. Marketing budgets are scrutinized at any time, but even more so at a time when cost containment is a high priority. Because of this pressure, it is essential that any investment in marketing can show clear paths to a strong return.

Google Goggles

Another Way to Search the Web

Typically when one searches the internet, it's required to type in text to the search box to get the information that one is seeking. There is an application on the Android mobile phone platform that can actually add a new element to search the web. Instead of typing in text, one can simply take a picture of an object. From this picture the web will be searched for that object.

Technology has increased to the point where this is easily possible. If you were to find a book that you want more information on, take a quick snap shot of that book and get information on it just as if you typed the name of that book into the search engine. This can be extremely useful when you have a picture of something but just can't remember the name.

Despite sounding convenient there are drawbacks that Google has already recognized. The application still need to be improved because some pictures don't get back the intended result just because at times there is quite a bit of information in just one picture.

SEO Tutorial

Conquer Local SEO

In this day or age local search engine marketing has become even more important as more people turn to the web to search for products in addition to services in their local area. A smaller sized business in these modern times can see huge benefits from having a strong presence in their local search results, although search optimization for local searches can differ greatly in comparison to a global search. The greatest challenge is working out what challenges to consider in a local search engine management campaign. It is also important to focus on the keywords in addition to search phrases that are going to bring you the targeted traffic you are looking for. Even more important is what is there for them to do once they are on your weblog. Without the proper "Calls to Action" your blog will not get the results that you are after. More on that in a future post, for now lets talk about what to pay notice to when looking to rank well in your area. When Google in addition to other search engines analyze this data they look at the total number of local search results plus compare it to the amount of user queries on that particular search term. Here are a few factors for you to consider:

The Size of the area defined by the target phrase search

Google’s level of trust that there is a business at the listed web address doing what it says

How Google defines the region’s center, either by keyword or map parameters

It is important to point out that you need to take into account how your own local users or potential customers define their locality or use this for your targeted keywords. Whether by neighbourhood or by geographical landmarks such as beaches, lakes, mountains, etc. Some tips for localized search marketing for small businesses; firstly, be sure that you provide unique, worthy content that is relevant to each search term that you target; Secondly, optimize your title tags and url slugs to reflect the targeted search term for that particular page; Thirdly, make sure to look for as many building link opportunities in your own local market as possible; Forth, continue to update your website on a regular basis(at least every 3 days) with fresh, new or never-seen-before content that remains relevant to your company and services; Fifth, encourage your current clients or customers to leave reviews online, either through Google(you can now leave comments or reviews next to a search result), Google Maps listing or other consumer websites. Remember - the more online content(providing that it is worthy content) that is relevant to your business, the better. and finally, pay notice that your business gets listed in the proper categories when adding yourself to Google Maps, Yahoo Maps in addition to MSN Maps(most local businesses forget about the last two giving you an upper hand by listing your company with them as over 35% of internet users use them).

After some time you will realize that optimizing a websites search marketing performance for local searches is very similar to standard sem practice, just more niche market related. Often local results are given higher precedence - but your web site may not be ranking on those variables at all. Doing well in local search engine results pages means much more than simply having a listing in Google maps. Local search search engine management is a competitive or increasingly critical space of the web that local businesses need to take very seriously. After all, in a couple of years your competitors could be dominating your local web making it harder plus harder for you to catch up to them! Don't put yourself in this predicament, go ahead and get busy with YOUR local search strategy before someone else does.

Ways to Promote Your New Website

One of the common myths new website owners get caught up in is a belief that there will be an instant flow of visitors to their new site. Keep in mind that if this is a new website with a new domain, nobody knows who you are and where your site is until you make it known. Just like a conventional storefront, you want to make sure you are actively promoting your new site at all times. The following are some channels that can be used to drive visitors to your website.

Search - The most widely used resource for anyone seeking what you have to offer is through search engines like Google, MSN, Bing, Yahoo and countless others. The most common way to get found is to make sure your website is filled with keywords, or terms that search engines use to locate your site when users type in a specific search phrase. For example, if you go to Google and type in the term "web design," you will be provided with possibly millions of results with websites that contain the search term. However, if type in "Portland OR Web Design," your results will be much more specific to relevant businesses. It is this level of specificity that your potential customers will use to try and locate your offering, so make sure you keywords accurately depict where your business resides on the international stage. Keywords can (and should) be located within the actual visible content of your site, but additionally, you will want to make sure that you create meta tag titles, descriptions and keyword lists for each of your web pages.

SEO/SEM - Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are great ways to market to the search channel. If you would like to undertake search engine optimization on your own, most search engine companies usually provide documentation for webmasters to help them understand how to best structure content, keywords and meta tags to increase their ability to be found by users. If search engine rank is important for your business, we recommend you shop around for companies that specialize in SEO for small businesses. They know what works and what doesn't, and their cost is nothing compared to additional revenues that could be gained from better positioning on the world's leading search engines. SEM is more of a quick and simple way to get your site noticed right out of the gate, but it can be costly if you do not have a strategy. SEM incorporates paid search, or sponsored links, to achieve instant search engine rank. You basically set up an account with a search engine company, and bid against your competitors for the top spots anytime your specific keywords are entered by a potential visitor. Most successful internet companies incorporate a blend of both SEO (also known as organic search) and SEM tactics.

Meta Tags - Meta tags, or meta information, is the behind-the-scenes content that search engines use to understand and organize your website in relation to the millions of others. This information exists within the HTML code of your page, and can be added by web developers fairly easily. The primary pieces of information are page titles, page descriptions and a short list of keywords. The best way to organize meta information is through the use of a meta tag generator. There are several free meta tag generators you can use online, which provide recommended character limits and package the information nicely for your web developer.

Conventional Marketing - Never underestimate the power of conventional tactics to help promote your new website. If you have a physical storefront, you can hand out leaflets or brochures promoting your website to existing customers, who can refer more business your way. Other methods might include sending out mailers, advertising in periodicals, phone sales, email newsletters, customer referral programs, contests, or coupons only available on your website. You can even post your products or services on free online classifieds that link directly to your side. The possibilities are endless.

Tell Your Customers - Your best sales force are your repeat customers. Be sure to inform them of your new website, as they can drive business there faster and usually for free. No form of marketing beats a personal recommendation, so make sure you are asking your customers to spread the word. You will be surprised at how effective your happy customers can be.

Incentives for Web Orders - Many companies employ special discount pricing for web orders for 2 major reasons: (1.) it cuts down on customer service time consumed by conventional order placement, therefore reducing lost time and resources, and (2.) it is a great way to "force" people to use your website. Major airlines, electronics and retail companies use these methods all the time with great success. It is human nature to be resistant to change, no matter how much it can benefit people. Give customers and prospects a reason to use your website, and it will work out better for all involved.

How do you find websites? The most powerful strategic resource you have is yourself. Think about how you look for things online. What are your search methods? What appeals to you? How did you learn about the last 3 new products/services you purchased? If you are having a hard time thinking of ways to promote your website, ask friends and family how they found out about the latest fad product and follow suit. Remember, your job is not to reinvent the wheel. It is to find out what is working and to copy it (without plagiarizing, of course). Be sure to incorporate the mechanics of this first-person consumer perspective into your marketing strategy, and your success rate will go up dramatically.

Link Building Tips

Link Building Tips For Obtaining Relevant Backlinks

Since generating links to your website is by far the most important aspect of any internet marketing campaign, it's imperative that you find ways to not only build as many links back to your site as possible, but to obtain relevant links that will generate traffic and improve rankings.

Although link building can be a tedious task that can be extremely difficult for some people, it can also be fun for other people. However one thing is for sure, you have to be in the link building mind-set. Either you're in the mindset 24/7 and are always ready to obtain your next link whenever the opportunity arises or you have to set 3 hours aside to get in the zone to build as many links possible. It's best to have both mindsets. Always look for an opportunity to get links. But also recognize that to obtain truly relevant links, it's necessary to set a special time aside to do so. After all, strategic link building is crucial to any SEO campaign competing in a tough industry, it well worth the time.

I recommend you spend some time creating a list of URL's of pages you could possible get your link on. Create this list in a spreadsheet document such as Excel so you can add columns and perform tasks such as sort and filter.

Once you have a spreadsheet ready, here are a few ways to create a list of relevant possibilities...

- Determine who your competition is and perform a link: search. [ie: link:jameseo.com] Export all results to csv. Then find all the sites linking to sites "related" (Google's related) to your competition.

- Manually visit the top 100 sites for your top 2 - 10 targeted terms and see which ones are directories, blogs or have link (resources) pages.

- Use special search operators such as intitle:Keyword Phrase "add link", inurl:directory intitle:keyword, intitle:keyword inurl:resources, etc.

These 3 techniques should help you create a nice size list. The size of the list normally depends on the competition. I aim to find at least 1,000 sites. This list will increase along the way. There are a variety of link building tools to help you generate even longer list of URL's.

So, now that you have a huge list of URL's you have to set a few hours aside to manually go through this list. Depending on what stats you have on each URL, the order you go in is up to you.

Because the list was generated by analyzing relevant sites, no matter how much time you spend on it, it will help your rankings (assuming onpage SEO is intact).

After you visit all the sites on your list or just need to take a break from THE LIST. Here are a few other ways to get more relevant backlinks;

- Contact other webmasters and let them know about your site. These webmasters should be websites in your industry with a lot of visitors

- Notify forums. Every industry has forums. Letting visitors that participate in these forums know about your site can generate buzz.

- Find blogs in your industry with huge RSS subscribers. Ask them to review your site. Normally all their visitors/commentators will review your site as well.

- Convert all your text content to podcast using text to voice software (Or you can record someone reading it). Then submit your podcast to podcast directories.

- Do the same with PDF's and ebooks by simply adding table of contents and converting the file type to a PDF. Then you can submit them to free ebook and PDF directories in return for links.

- Write a press release. Your website can get picked up by a major site with high PageRank. Helping rankings or sending traffic your way.

Once you've performed these techniques and you're still not on top, it is recommend you find long term, passive link building strategies like creating badges or pictures for people to add to their site. [ie: page counters with backlinks, Wordpress blog theme footer links, etc.]

Furthermore, if you are linking to any sites, make sure that they know. Good luck!

Get Ranked by Google Quickly

There's a lot of information on the Internet about SEO and it all leads to information overload. It's tough to choose one segment of SEO over another and stay focused. This is the nature of the Internet, supplying information in such large chunks, which leads to paralysis by analysis. Frequently, what happens is we jump from one source of information to another and end up not benefiting from any in full. Well, that system of learning now stops here. To truly succeed at SEO, your attention needs to be laser targeted to just one area of study. With that said, the most important detail of SEO campaigns often overlooked is speed.

You may ask, why speed? The explanation is obvious. Speed is at the core of ecommerce. Today, niches prosper on the speed of the Internet marketplace to showcase and sell products. Think about the main events from the past ten years that have shaped online traffic, altered buying habits, and changed Internet surfing behavior. These changing patterns are taken for granted today. All you have to do is login to Twitter and see the hot topics for the day or go over to Google and check out Insights and Trends.

The Internet provides information at lightning speed. If anything critical happens in the world the communication of the Internet brings it to light within minutes. Speed is the essence of the Internet. Topics come and go at the speed of light. That's why speed is such an essential part of SEO. It's human nature to place more value on current content than old and stale content. Because of instantaneous communication online, content does not stay fresh for long. If fact, compared to the offline world things move over ten times faster online. Your content must keep pace with the rapidly changing trends of the world so your product or service won't be viewed as out-dated.

Why is this critical for SEO? If your website is not up to date with current industry trends then you may be missing out on large amounts of traffic provided by search engines. Without this free organic traffic source you will certainly miss out on lots of potential sales opportunities. Speed is the fundamental element that must be incorporated into your overall Internet marketing strategy. Otherwise, you'll never be able to sustain a top position within your niche and will end up chasing after the crumbs left by swifter competitors.

When you plan your next SEO campaign, make speed an integral part of this strategy. Trying to get a top ranking with ultra competitive keywords against well-established players is more than likely a waste of your time. Those websites have been on top search page results for years. If you explore your own path, taking into account new trends, then it will not be so difficult. Research secondary keyword phrases with good levels of traffic and commerciality that people use to search for products in your niche. Everyday, the value of keywords go up or down depending on social trends. By going through this procedure you can maximize your speed and position your site as the leader in your niche. It's a fact, the longer you stay at the top of a keyword results page that's trending up, the more products you will ultimately sell.

Are you ready to get there? Remember, the marketplace waits for no one. What's fashionable today may be forgotten tomorrow. Monitor trends and make speed a priority with your next SEO campaign strategy by pouncing on hot markets as soon as they occur.

Search Engine Indexing and Crawling

When user enters keywords in the search engine, a list of results are found that best-matches the keywords of the user. These results are found based on a huge amount of pages stored in the database of the search engine. To be able to obtain such results, some processes must be done first to build the database which will be searched then when the user does the search. Mainly two basic sub-processes are done to build the database:

1. Crawling: In the crawling (also called spidering or robotics) process, the search engine begins to discover the web or the pages of the overall sites on the web. It performs this by beginning to download pages from some sites. Regularly, it will begin with some small sites stored in its database. When it crawls some initial site, it will observe the links in those sites. If the search engine discovered new link that is not stored in the initial database, it will append it to the list to be crawled later. In the new links discovered, it may also discover new links that will be appended also to the list of the sites that will be crawled soon. Note that as the sites are crawled, it will update its list of sites that are discovered to be new.

These processes are repeated continuously without stopping to discover the changing content on the web. Thus every new link is discovered will lead to crawling of this page and may lead to crawling the entire site. This is because when the spider crawl a page from a site, it will looks also for a links to other pages in the same site as well as links to external sites. Thus, it is important for website owners to build such links to get visibility to search engine. The more links they build, the more frequently their sites will be crawled and updated if it was indexed.

2. Indexing: once the search engine collects the pages from the sites crawled in the crawling process, it will feed them to the indexing algorithm. Mainly, the indexing algorithm compares or ranks the related pages with each other so that when users make search for a keyword, it will extract then the pages with the highest rank. Each search engine has its own algorithm for indexing and ranking. when ranked I will be put in the database with the specified rank.

One may imagine that only the keywords on the page controls the rank but recently there are a key factor that controls hat ranking which is the backlink. Mainly the concept of backlinks is related to voting and reachability keywords because an existent link to a page mean that the page is good for that site and this it effectively votes for it. Also the page will be reachable from that site. Recently, the search engines are concerned with the concept of reachability, they say that if one browse randomly through the sites on the web, what is the probability of reaching to certain site. This probability mean a higher ranking if it is high and the reverse is true.Thus we find that the ranking depends on the backlinks also.

3. Searching: once the database is built, the user can now search and the results are extracted from the search engine database.

Building Backlinks With Directory Submissions

The Importance of Building Backlinks With Directory Submissions

Search engine optimization (SEO) experts all agree that in order to have your website appear high up in search engine results pages (SERPs) you need as many high-quality back-links pointing to your site as possible.

There are many ways in which you can drive traffic to a website, for instance buying page impressions from traffic exchange sites, buying a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign, posting free or paid classified adverts, or making sure that your pages appear high up in SERPs. Generally speaking, the best quality, most profitable traffic your website can receive comes from ordinary, every day searches. This traffic is called organic traffic.

So why is organic traffic so important, and indeed profitable (assuming your site to be commercial in nature)? The people who arrive on your site after searching for a keyword or keyword phrase are obviously already interested in the topic your page is about. If you’re selling a product or service related to that search, organic traffic is worth its weight in gold, as these people are effectively free leads I.E if they go on to buy your product or service, that sale is all but one hundred percent profit (minus your running costs, naturally).

Of course, you could consider investing in a PPC campaign to guarantee your site appears at the top of Google’s pages for a specific keyword or keyword phrase, but many smaller websites just can’t afford to compete with larger companies, who can outbid them, especially in more competitive niches. For sure you’ll make sales from PPC, but what will your profit margins be like then? Ten percent? Five percent? In actual fact, many smaller or inexperienced webmasters who do not have the benefit of a large advertising budget (even a dedicated advertising team, as in the case of large corporations) can often finish up making a loss on their investment. For this reason as well as for reasons of general economy - most webmasters who are working for themselves or for small businesses focus on driving organic traffic to their websites as the most cost effective solution to building their online presence. In other words, they look to SEO.

The basic principals of SEO revolve around making your pages appear attractive to search engines, I.E. to have metatags, titles, subtitles and headings containing the keywords you are targeting, and to make sure that your content is both original and uses your keyword phrases as often as possible whilst still being easily readable and informative for the human visitors you are obviously trying to attract.

In order to get your pages up to the very top positions in SERPs you need lots of links pointing to your sites. This is because search engines ‘think’ that pages with lots of links pointing to them must be more ‘important’ (or relevant) than pages with fewer links pointing to them. Although in practice it’s a little more subtle and complex than this, as a general rule, the more links that point to your site, the higher up in the SERPs your site will appear, and the more links that contain your chosen keywords as the anchor text, the higher you will appear for those keywords when a user searches for them. This is why it is so important - especially for new sites - to research your keywords carefully and target a phrase that has both a decent number of searches performed using it, and for which the competition is relatively low. Then, as your site becomes more established over time, you can begin to target more competitive keyword phrases. Remember, if your site does not appear in the top two or three pages for your targeted keywords, very few users (if any) will find you, and you may as well not exist.

This is where directories come in, and why they are both so popular and useful. Online directories are big business. There are literally thousands of them, most general, some targeting specific niches. The best database of (just free) directories has over thirteen hundred of them on their list, and more than six hundred of these have a Google page rank of three or above. Most directories offer a free submission service, with the option of paying a premium for a better listing, a quicker review time or to receive additional ‘deep links’. Some charge a one-off fee for inclusion and offer a lifetime listing, others require that you place a reciprocal link back to them somewhere on your site. They all allow you to post a short description and (nearly all) to choose the anchor text for your link. The anchor text should of course always be the specific keyword phrase you are targeting. The traffic your site will receive from directories is negligible, the point is to get links. Lots of links.

Unfortunately, submitting your site’s information to directories is both immensely tedious and time-consuming. Even if you pay for some kind of semi-automation software that auto-fills the fields for you, submitting your sites to directories is an incredibly boring process that most webmasters prefer to avoid. For this reason, many SEO companies offer manual directory submission services as part of their consultation packages, or as a stand-alone offer. The prices they charge vary quite considerably, as do the quality of the directories they submit to. Most charge between twelve cents and twenty five cents per directory, and most also charge a little less for bulk submissions. The time and effort that using their services saves is often well worth the relatively small fee.

Link Building Secrets

Following are some major points that must be kept in mind while doing the Link Building activity. I suggest you to read this article carefully and implement each step in your activity.

Try to use your targeted keywords in anchor text as much as you can. Spread the back links all over the page like top of the page, or between the paragraphs, navigations etc, not just over the footage or any other particular location.

Link building requires patience’s. Don’t try to place tons of links at once for the new site. Gradually improves number of links. If a site has average 20 links per day then do not try to get 100 links at once. There is a chance of being banned from Google. Focus must be on quality not on quantity of links, mean try to get link from high PR sites. Avoid not have many of your back links from adult or casino sites normally these sites are known as spam.

Google is keeping a track of all the IP addresses. Try to get link from different IPs. Also keep in mind that if you have 100 links from one site then Google will consider it as one link not 100 links. So try to get links from different high quality websites.

Two ways Links or reciprocal links are also consider as a good option for link building but too many of reciprocal links may cause a problem. Also three way linking may help in this regard but not too much of it. Never underestimate the back links to your internal pages, have the back link for your internal pages too. Use targeted keywords anchor text for these internal pages inbound and out bound links.

Time limit on Back Links in the paid directories plays an important role and this is taken into serious consideration by the Google Sand box filter. So if the link is rented from high PR directory try to focus that link is rented for as long period as possible.

Its normally seems that Google descend the value of back links that have words like sponsor or advertisement. So be aware while you look for back links from such kind of sites. It’s seems that Google uses advance relation algorithm, so we need to be careful while we chose our back links. Avoid your website links from the pages that are with bad neighborhood and also the sites that they themselves link to such type of sites.

Google consider number of factors- like the IP Address, domain name, URL, language of the site etc.It is also important to show the search result in the Google country specific searches, so be very conscious about language of the site when you design it for Google.

Articles are always one of the main sources of getting quality link along with traffic. Try to write articles having links towards the resource page of your site. You can hire specialist articles writer who can write for you and also articles submission specialist for articles submission.

Own website linking is another very useful strategy that is used for Link Building like Link your sites with each other, this technique is really helpful if both the sites contains relevant pages.

It is also possible for you to rent pages with high page ranks (5-9) for various prices but remember to rent only relevant sites. Renting too many sites of high PR is not preferred.

No doubt link building still one of the most important factor in SEO. Many of us often read in blogs or forums that "SEO is not a rocket science " but still many of us not follow the fixed specify rules of link building. I suggest you to read this article carefully and implement each step in your activity of Link building.