Are you on the first page in the search engines?

Probably not.You will be aware of your link popularity if it is enough high for a real business or not.
You would like to make profit. Your ranking is deciding factor.
But why link popularity? Because this is one of the most powerful tool in your hand and you can influence this factor.
If you learn how to measure and track this indicator, you will be able to improve your link popularity! This is the good news.

For your high page rank you need a number of inbound links, not just any links, links with high page rank and related topic as your site.
It is called relevant one way links.

Let me introduce some free SEO tools, which will help us to measure our own link popularity:

Link popularity check: this is a free and very useful software (you can download from my site).
This program checks the link popularity status of your web site on several search engines and compares it to other web sites on the Internet (for example your competitors).
LPC gets the numbers from the search engines.

Googlerankings: with the help of this tool you will be able to check your rankings in the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn) for your keywords (niche).
For example our keyword is the “perl necklace”. This tool will show us, that we are the 125. in Google and 13. in MSN.
You can make charts from the performance of your website.

Search Status: this is a small extension for Firefox browser. If you installed, you can check easily your backlinks to your site.

Conclusion: you need a lot of quality one way links, because link building is the most powerful tool to place your site in a good position in the search engines.
You should measure your results, because if you measure something you will be able to improve it.

To your success. (Nikoletta Bocz)

Discover How to Write in a Style to Increase Sales

People like dealing with those who are friendly. When interacting in person, we take visual cues from each other. Subconsciously, we note whether the other person is smiling, happy, sad, sincere, trustworthy, etc. We listen to verbal clues as well to gain insight into their personality. We do this without even realizing it. After meeting someone new, we know in less than a minute whether we like that person or not, and we may not even know why.

On the Internet, we don’t get visual or verbal cues. We can’t hear the enthusiasm in someone’s voice. Much of the information we receive there is through the written word. When I first started out, I had an experience that has stayed with me and served me well.

Shortly after starting in this business, one of my subscribers contacted me by email. He addressed me by my first name and his email was written in a pleasant conversational tone. It sounded like my subscriber, whom I’d never met and did not even recall, was writing to an old friend. Because of the regular emails that he received from me, he felt as though he was talking to an old friend.

I thought, “That’s really nice. He feels as though he knows me through the regular messages sent out by my autoresponder. And through his tone, it sounds like he thinks I know him too.”

Ever since I received that email, I make a special effort to write my autoresponder messages, sales pages, and Ebooks as though I’m talking to a friend. Notice that I didn’t say friends (plural). I want each reader to think that the information they are reading is a personal message I crafted just for them.

I start out with a friendly greeting and address them by their first name whenever possible. I use the terms “you” and “I” liberally in the body of my message. I try to use a conversational tone, similar to what I would say if I was talking to them in person. In my sign-off, except for the first few mailings, I use just my first name.

If I can make one suggestion to you, always write in a friendly conversational tone. People are more inclined to buy from someone they like and trust. Convey those traits in your writing style and you will attract friends as well as success. (Jo Mark)

5 Crucial Tips for New Bloggers

If you haven’t already become involved with the phenomenon that is blogging, then you have to ask yourself, “why not?” For most people, the answer to this question is that they don’t know where to start? For other people, the answer is that they don’t see any purpose in having a blog. However, how do they know unless they give it a try? If you’ve never tried blogging, I’d urge you to consider it. In fact, I believe so strongly that you should consider it that the following are tips for how to start a blog and what to do with it once you have started.

Choosing a Blog

Whether you decide to start a blog for money or just for fun, you should probably do so without spending any money. Web Sites such as Blogger and MySpace offer free blogs. By doing this, you can get practice at blogging and decide if it is something you like doing.

Consider and Research Your Topics

If you want to develop a readership for your blog then the topics you write about have to be ones which people will find interesting. You should also provide a different take on topics other than what the majority of other bloggers offer. Also, before you start writing about a topic, make sure you understand it and that what you’re writing is fact. The quickest way to lose readership, or never gain one at all, is to write blogs that are false or misleading.

Leave Your Personal Life Out of It

Most people don’t care how you spen your day yesterday. Most people are searching blogs in order to find helpful information. A blog is not a diary. If you’re looking to keep a diary, do so offline. For your own privacy and pride, don’t air your dirty laundry where millions of people have access to it.

Keep Your Writing Simple

Don’t think of yourself as the next Pulitzer Prize winner. What this means is avoid using large words or any words that will send readers looking for a dictionary. Most newspapers in the United States write at a middle school reading level. You should too so that you don’t run the risk of alienating potential readers.

Proofread

It doesn’t matter how unique and intuitive you blog topic is. If it’s full of misspellings and grammatical errors people won’t read it and they will never visit it again. Make sure and take the time to proofread your writing. You may even consider enrolling in a local writing class in order to polish your skills.

If you find that blogging is something for you, then you will eventually find ways to build upon the tips mentioned above. In fact, you may even find yourself making money from your blog. But to keep it simple at first, just follow the tips above and work on getting people to read what you’ve written, then consider expanding upon your talents. (Codrut Turcanu)

Promoting Your Blog

Blogging can be a great deal of fun for some bloggers but for others it is a source of income. Whether this income is earned through an AdSense campaign, paid advertisements, affiliate marketing or some other type of revenue generating source one of the key elements to maximizing this profit is by driving greater traffic to the blog. This is because the more visitors the blog receives the more opportunities there are for the blogger to have visitors click through the advertisements in the blog. There are a few basic techniques which bloggers can rely on to promote their blog and increase traffic to their blog. This article will cover a few of these key concepts including participating in relevant message boards, optimizing the blog for search engines and keeping the blog interesting to visitors.

Active Participation in Message Boards

Participation in message boards which relate to the blog topic is actually one very simple way for blog owners to drive traffic to their blog. However, one caveat to using this type of promotion for the blog is to avoid violating the rules of the message board. This is important because some message boards have strict regulations regarding the inclusion of links to other websites on the message board. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in the blogger being banned from the message board and may also cause other message board users to not think highly of the blog owner.

Another careful consideration for the blog owner is to avoid posting the web address to his blog in a way which will be considered spam by other message board users. This is important because other message board users are likely to not visit the blog if they believe the blog owner is simply spamming the message board. This can be avoided by including the link to the blog in the signature and ensuring the posts made on the message board are informative and of interest to the other message board users. Building a reputation as a useful contributor to the message board will be beneficial to enticing other users of the message board to visit the blog.

Optimizing Your Blog

Search engine optimization is another factor which blog owners should also carefully consider. Optimizing the blog for search engines can be beneficial because improved search engine rankings often lead to increased blog traffic. Depending on the amount of competition on the blog subject rising to the top of the search engine rankings may not always be easy. Blog owners who have a blog with a very popular subject may face stiff competition for search engine rankings from other blogs and websites which may have the means to hire professionals in the search engine optimization industry to assist them in achieving high rankings. However, there are some steps the blogger can take to attempt to boost rankings. Some of these steps include researching and using relevant keywords naturally throughout the blog postings, incorporating these keywords into the title, META and image tags and avoiding black hat optimizing techniques which could result in the blog being penalized by search engines.

Keeping Your Blog Interesting

Finally, one of the simplest ways a blog owner can help to drive traffic to his blog is by regularly updating the blog and keeping it interesting. This is important because a blog which is interesting is much more likely to not only maintain blog traffic but also generate new traffic. This is because readers who are interested in the posts on the blog are not only likely to keep coming back to the blog but are also likely to recommend the blog to other members of the target audience. This type of word of mouth advertising can be very beneficial because those who have an interest in the content of a particular blog also typically have friends who would also be interested in the blog. Once one blog owner recommends a blog to one or more friends, these new blog visitors are also likely to recommend the blog to others if they find it to be interesting, useful or otherwise worthwhile. (Li Ming Wong)

WordPress 2.3 Simple Upgrade Tutorial

The recent release of WordPress 2.3 with new features and database changes begs the question, how should a webmaster plan and then implement the enhancement. Any upgrade that involves database changes should be undertaken carefully, and preparation is key to a successful enchance.

Typically, most webmasters install custom themes and extra plugins, and of course they upload extra files such as images to their /wp-content/uploads folder. All of these files need to be backed up and stored off server prior to undertaking the enhancement process. The database itself also needs to be backed up.

Backing up the particular site information is first achieved by installing the BackUpWordPress plugin and selecting the default backup options which will create a compressed file of the complete site including files and database. If anything does go wrong it should be relativelyeasy to restore this and import the particular database into MySQL using phpMyAdmin or the particular host’s preferred database manager.Once you are certain the particular site has been backed up, you’re ready to start preparing for the enhancement.

Are the plugins and chosen theme complying with WordPress 2.3? Most modern themes shouldn’t cause any problem except that non v2.3 themes may not take into account the tags code needed to make use of the new tags feature of WordPress 2.3. This is at least simple update to make, and only involves adding extra php code to the theme’s index.php and single.php.

Open up index.php and single.php in your favorite text editor and hunt for the following code, and just add the following code ‘); ?> before or after depends on where you want the tags will be displayed (before or after the document).

The plugins used in the site will need to be inspect against the list of complying plugins. Any plugin that isn’t complying will likely not work correctly or at all. You may need to contact the plugin author for an update or discontinue using that plugin until an update is available.

You should now be ready to enhancement the particular installation to WordPress 2.3, and if your host provides wget functionality only copy the zip file to your server then unzip them directly into the WordPress folder. If wget isn’t available to you, then you’ll need to download the zip file and use an ftp client to upload the unzipped files.

Once you’ve installed your WordPress files, make sure your WordPress 2.3 complying theme is uploaded to /wp-content/themes. Did you need updated plugins? Upload these to /wp-content/plugins. You should now be ready to initiate the WordPress update script.

Navigate to the admin section of the particular site, WordPress 2.3 will automatically discover that an transformation is required. Once completed, and if all has gone to plan, you should be able to login to Dashboard without any difficulty. Good luck. (Ivonson Kwee)

28 SEO Steps to Win Search Engine Rankings

Search Engines are built to help the searchers. Search Engines strive to put the best fit/standard websites on top rankings so that searchers get their required info within few clicks.
How do Search Engines know a website’s standard and its relevance with searched keywords? What are the steps you should follow for a complete SEO to improve your website’s rankings?
This article covers Search Engine Optimization in two levels – the first is On-page optimization, and the next is Off-Page Optimization. An effective On-page optimization together with good Off-page optimization will improve your Search Engine Rankings.
On-Page Optimization

1. Define your Business& Target Audience

The first step in any business starts with analysis. Determine what kind of services your website is to provide and what kind of audience you want for your website?

2. Don’t Purchase a New Domain

If you already have a good domain name don’t try to purchase a new one, as some search engines look for the age of the website as a ranking factor.

3. Choosing your Domain Name

If you are planning for a new website, try to get a domain name with keywords included. If you target regional customers, you can have your domain based on the region, say for example .uk or .au or .in

4. Make your Website look Clean & Simple

Now you have a domain name and you know whom you want to target. Website design is the key factor which keeps your visitor to stay for a while in your website and navigate your services. Make sure your website design has a good feel & look, clean and simple.

5. Evaluate your Website

If you have an existing website, and now you want to do SEO for it, then evaluate your website:
Navigation structure – think in a visitor’s point of view – Can someone navigate and reach the product/services they are looking for? Make your navigation user friendly, no visitor should leave your website due to confused navigation.
Check for W3 compatibility of your website.
Check for any broken links in your website and fix if any.
Your website should load fast so that it doesn’t check on your visitors’ patience.

6. Observe your competitor

Find your competitor websites. Analyze and gain knowledge on their tactics, the keywords they use, the techniques applied. With the help of this analysis you will learn what is working and what is not working, which will help in your SEO process.

7. Research on Keywords

List the Keywords your target audience would search for and the ones used by your competitors. Make use of keyword research tools like Overture to know more on your related search terms. Now refine your list and make your final list of target keywords.

8. Structure File name

If you have control over your file names – modify file names with your keywords included.

9. Search Engine Friendly Sitemap

A well structured search engine friendly sitemap can help Search Engines to index all your pages. With good anchor text for your navigation links you can improve your rankings

10. Write an Attractive Title

Why is your web page title so important? The web page title is displayed in SERPs which in turn help in attracting your visitors. Web searchers do their search with a term and look for titles in the result pages that best fit their search. Hence make your title attractive, with targeted keywords included. Try to incorporate related keywords too. For example you target for Montessori School, you can write title as ‘ Montessori School, the Preschool for your Children’. (in this way you add 2 related terms).

11. Meta Description Tag

Description tag is also displayed in snippets of any SERPs. This description helps to motivate searchers to visit your website. Make an effective and optimized description tag. Snippets are also taken from surrounding text of the searched keyword. You may need to edit your content a little to make your description look good.

12. Meta Keyword Tag

Though there is saying that Search Engines like Google doesn’t look for Meta keyword tag, there are some smaller search engines, which still follow the conventional way and spider the keywords tag. So there is no harm in making of the Meta keyword tags. Your meta keyword should contain keywords that appears in your body text.

13. Have Robot tags

If you don’t want any of your files of your website to be indexed, say an image or a text file, you can write your robot file insisting the search engines not to crawl those pages.

14. Alt Tags for images

As the name infers it acts as an alternate text for any image. This tag is both user friendly and search engine friendly. Search engines cannot read images; instead it indexes the alt tag given for any image and assumes it as the description for the image. This alt tag is not so important by Search Engines, as many spammers try to put irrelevant alt tag for the images to improve their rankings. However for an image link with a proper alt tag (keywords included) will work as great internal anchor link.

15. H1 & H2 heading format

Though no one is sure on whether this helps in rankings, try applying the header options, as this practice is good for any web development

16. Improve Keyword Prominence, Density & Proximity

Keyword prominence will increase if you have your keyword at the beginning of text part of your webpage. Keyword density refers to the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total text content of the page. Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. And this is yet another factor which has not much proven records but still exist in SEO practice.

17. Make Content look rich

As many SEO experts say content is the king. Optimized content with keywords included, along with other SEO factors working well the website can rank well in Search Engines

18. Keyword Rich Anchor Text

Anchor text for both internal links and external links is powerful element for Search Engine rankings. You can notice websites which doesn’t have the keyword in their web pages rank well which is all because of their anchor text of their inbound links.
Here a good article on Link Anchor Text and Search Engine Optimization to understand the importance of anchor text in Search Engine Optimization

19. Make Flash files work for you

Its better to avoid including flash files into your website. But under compelling circumstances, you can try adding keyword rich text somewhere in your file, since Search Engines like Google can index the text part of flash files

20. Bring your PDF files on SERPs

PDF file is a good source for keyword rich content. Most Search Engines can read & index PDF files and a few search engines shows PDF files in SERPs too. Make sure you have a good title and file name for your PDF file
Have a look Google guidelines for Webmasters
Have a look at Your Practice Online Official Website http://www.yourpracticeonline.com.au & Learn how all these steps worked for them.
Off-Page Optimization
Why Search Engines give so much of importance for inbound links?
It is easy for any website owner to optimize their website with good content, navigation, title, etc. But does that mean it’s a good website and people would love to check it out?
Search Engines try to know and evaluate the standard of a website through many factors and the most significant of them is incoming/inbound links. When a website receives inbound links from related & standard websites, it obviously means that it is worth looking at.
Search Engines learn about your website through inbound links and to be precise it’s through anchor text.
So natural linking with different & targeted keyword rich anchor text works great for any website.
Here are a few ways to increase your inbound links/ backlinks.

21. Search Engines

Submit your website manually to search engines including regional search engines.

22. Directories

There are many directories available online for free submission. Submit your website into the category that best fits your services, most importantly with good anchor text. Try submitting in your own regional directories to improve your local business.

23. Forums

Participate in your industry related forums & discussion boards. Post your comments, thoughts and also provide a link to your website (without spam).

24. Blogs

Having your own official blog helps to post your company’s updates, product release, etc., and also inbound links. There are directories for submitting blogs. Submit your blog with proper keyword tags which helps in your blog listing.

25. Articles

Write keyword & content rich articles on your own and post in article junctions available online. There are article junctions which accept articles in HTML format, so you can include your links with good anchor text. Write fresh articles on your topic, post and see your traffic increasing.

26. Press Releases

You can post Press Releases, which also works like Article junctions & directories; however it should look more like a Press Release and not like an article.

27. Bookmarks

Social book marking – it serves two purposes: It gets you incoming links and it popularizes your website in your community. Make sure you put keyword rich tags for your bookmarks.

28. Classifieds

You can see some websites displaying free classifieds. You can put your advertisements there with link to your website.
Have a look at Your Practice Online Official Website & Learn how all these steps worked for them. (Deepthi Kumar)

The Future of Search Lies with Content Syndication and RSS

In an interview about the future of search and outdated SEO methods, Matt Cutts of Google said it is useless doing traditional SEO on a site unless you also have enough good content and the reputation in your field to be a challenger.

Building a reputation by third party endorsement is one of the most basic PR strategies and now it has to be done online. How can this be achieved? Provide content that will encourage relevant and authoritative websites to link to you.

One of the tools that helps a business build content and establish a reputation is Really Simple Syndication (RSS). Adding RSS feeds to your web content gives you the opportunity to distribute your news across the Internet, where it can be seen by new audiences and related websites.

Adoption of RSS as a preferred method of receiving content is growing by leaps and bounds and since the personalized pages of sites such as MyYahoo, My MSN, Google and Earthlink have incorporated RSS readers into the page, use of RSS has shot up.

Most PR and marketing people are not technically trained – they are not web designers or programmers. But the Web 2.0 tools now available can overcome this hurdle. 50 million Americans go online to get their news, says the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
“Distributing your news content on the Internet offers new marketing and PR opportunities,” says Sally Falkow, President of PRESSfeed, a content syndication and RSS feed service created specifically for marketing and PR purposes. “There are many untapped opportunities in online news distribution and it’s vital for PR, marketing and SEO professionals to be able to RSS enable their news content.”

A year ago Forrester Research urged companies to RSS enable their press releases. A recent survey from Jupiter Research shows that 30 percent of the companies implementing RSS are doing so because of customer demand. Making your content available in an RSS feed is no longer something you should be thinking about – it’s something your customers want. It will raise your online visibility, build your reputation and increase your search rankings. (Jayden Adams)

Keyword Research That Works

On the internet, keywords are terms or words that relate to your particular topic. Keyword research will involve various aspects, such as finding sales oriented keywords or driving maximum qualified users to increase your online sales.

Keyword research is the first step towards a successful search engine optimization campaign. You have to be very careful when selecting keywords, as it can be very tricky to select targeted keywords for a website.

The selection of keywords should always be based on various aspects such as product names, services, brands, or general terms. Often times, people forget about targeting geographical terms when they have global presence.

When doing keyword research, it’s highly recommended to do a very thorough market research analysis to find the best keywords used by search engines to find products and services online – and find out what keywords are targeted by competitors who are doing well in marketing on the internet. Run a Goggle search for your product. Take a look at the top listings for your category. Place your cursor on the web page and do a right click. From the menu that pops up, click on “Source Code”. When the code opens in notepad, scroll down to “Meta Tags”. Review the Meta tags to see what keywords this web site owner is targeting and use some or all of these keywords for your project.

The next step in finding the best keywords is to make a list of the products, topics, and services that you offer. You can also make good use of your website logs to know which keywords have brought you the traffic in the past. Then repeat what you did previously.

Be sure to select keywords that clearly define your business and products to drive traffic from the search engines. There are some websites which get high levels of traffic through general keywords although they might not end up being sales, you want targeted keywords so your know the web site visitor is a very possible customer who will make a purchase.

Today, users of search engines are aware of how they work, for searching products and services on the net. Users always look for the better products, locations, etc. Therefore, you should cover all terms for each – products, locations, etc.

There are numerous tools available which will help you identify keywords that are suitable for search engines. The challenge here is to determine which keyword is the best to generate traffic. There are numerous tools available which will help you identify keywords that are suitable for search engines. The challenge here is to determine which keyword is the best to generate traffic. There are many software programs you can use for your keyword research, some are free and some you have to purchase. The program that I use is called Keyword Elite, it not only assist me in locating the proper keywords but also gives me some inside information on my competitors and a lot more. (Vinnie Gallagher Gallagher )

Google Duplicate Content Filter for SEO – The Good

The much maligned Google duplicate content filter is generally the bane of most sites. There is, however, one way to use it to your advantage.

Google Duplicate Content Filter for SEO – The Good

The Google duplicate content filter is a relatively new, annoying aspect. Essentially, Google now eliminates multiple listings on sites carrying the same content. This typically occurs with distributed articles. For instance, 100 sites may pick up and publish this article. Because the content on each site is the same, Google will only include a modest number of said pages in the search results it returns.

The aggravating thing about the filter is it apparently is not tuned to create an exception for the original work. If I publish this article on my site, Google may or may not include it in the index of sites, to wit, it may get filtered out. This is the particular part of the content filter that drives people crazy. Alas, there is one way to use the duplicate filter to your advantage.

Assume you have a relatively new site or simply have not achieved the rankings you had hoped for in your optimization efforts. Now assume you have a timing sensitive site such as a product line devoted to Christmas sales, Valentine’s Day and so on. You can take advantage of the rankings of other sites to get your product in front of viewers.

The key is to write an optimized article for the keyword you want get rankings on in the relevant search engine. For instance, assume I sell outdoor gifts, but have no rankings at the beginning of summer when my market gets cranking. I will go ahead and write an article optimized for this keyword phrase and including mention of my brand or product line. I am not suggesting a sales piece, just an informative article with a passing mention of my brand. The article byline should then include a link to my site.

By taking this approach, I can piggy back my article on the rankings of other sites that already appear high in Google, Yahoo and MSN. The Google filter actually helps, because it tends to focus on the sites with the best ranking. If one of my articles is on said sites, up it goes.

If this strategy sounds interesting, there is one serious downside you need to keep in mind. Once your article is distributed, there situation is set. If you obtain rankings down the line, you are going to have to really work to outrank your own articles appearing on other sites. (Halstatt Pires)

Google Duplicate Content Filter for SEO – The Bad

Many people use article distribution as a technique for building inbound links to their site. For many, this strategy has run into problems because of the Google duplicate content filter.

Google Duplicate Content Filter for SEO – The Bad

Google is often touted as the leader in search engine technology and processes. In many cases, this is absolutely true. One fairly recent change, however, has proven to be a serious goof by the boys and girls at Google.

In an interesting move, Google has begun using a duplicate content filter to eliminate excessive listings based on the same content. In practical terms, this means Google filters out many of the pages on various sites that are reflective of a single article pulled out of an article directory. If 500 people pick up and publish this article, for instance, Google will filter out a majority of the pages on these sites that publish it. Lucky me.

Personally, I don’t really have a problem with the duplicate filter as it theoretically should work. There is, however, one major problem. As any article writer knows, Google seems unable or unwilling to differentiate the original content source from those sites that pick up and publish the article. In many cases, this means your site is one that gets filtered out. This leads to the odd situation where this article on my site does not get indexed by Google, but other sites using it do! In a twist of the usual situation, Yahoo and MSN seem to be able to tell the difference.

If you are publishing articles, there is really only one way to beat this problem as far as I can tell. The articles you submit to directories should not include the keywords you are focusing on. Modified versions that focus on a particular keyword phrase then should be put on your site. Finding the dividing line between what makes these two pages duplicates is not an easy step, but it is often worth a quick re-write. Re-writing is, of course, much easier than coming up with the original content.

In truth, article writers should have been taking this approach prior to the duplication filter being instituted by Google. The reason, of course, has to do with the nature and rankings of the article directories. The big directories are valued highly by Google, so submitting any keyword intense article leads to problems with or without the filter. The primary issue is the article in the directory will outrank the similar one on your site.

At this point, the Google duplication filter is just something we have to live with. One can hope Google will make a tweak so it can recognize the original work, but this may just be wishful thinking. (Halstatt Pires)