When a tactic works, one doesn’t run out and tell everybody!

So the only reason the so called “Gurus” were offering this valuable information for sale is because the concept was played out.

What works in promotion, may only work for a time, when EVERYBODY finds out, the results get downgraded.

When Google see’s massive traffic, it investigates, that’s its JOB, to deliver results for it’s customers. When Google spots a “loophole. Google rushes in to close that loophole.

One technique to gain advantage over your competing websites, is to “know thine enemy”, look at who ranks #1, #2 and #3 and see what they did to get that way.

So… I read a ‘white paper’ put out by a much larger Search Engine Optimization firm I compete against. That white paper “poo pooed” techniques that appeared to boost page rank and higher rankings in Google, but only did so for a short time.

… I thought about this, because I use some of those tactics to gain a quick boost.

Here’s what I came up with, this is an analogy:

The market is like the ocean, waves come in, waves go out. Google is also like that ocean, trends happen, then they fade… this is how it should be. SEO tactics come in vogue, then degrade in effectiveness…

Does that mean they didn’t do you any good? Of course they did you some good… they did if you got back links!

Don’t run out and buy everything the Guru’s are pitching.

Don’t try to compete against the masters, in the master’s Do Jo. You’ll lose.

You cut your teeth in this market, the niche market of Internet Marketing? You deserve to sit on the bench, you earned the right to sit on the bench, You put the time in, made a sale or two, got a page to rank, and now what?

Go down to the little leagues and kick some butt.

If you spent some time attempting to market Internet Marketing products to other webmasters trying to do the same thing you are- you were in some pretty tough competitors. Look at it this way: You made it to the NFL, even though you’re only good enough to be a bench warmer, take those skills and go after someone that ISN’T in your weight group!

The local google advertising market.

Those guys and gals couldn’t sell their way out of a paper bag.

David Bruce Jr
http://www.articlesbase.com/sem-articles/fad-or-explosive-tactic-for-seo-741169.html

Duration : 0:3:11

Can anyone recommend a good free SEO course that can outline the basics and get me started?

Hi,

Seomoz is a good resource, as is search engine land.

Basically SEO is about attaining a ranking in the search engines. One of the ways (emphasis on the ONE), is to generate one way inbound links, which I detail below:

Try to steer clear of back link exchange sites and reciprocal links. These will just take up your time and don’t offer a great deal of value unless you can get a reciprocal link from a high page rank authority site that is.

What you are looking for is one way links, that’s links from one site pointing to your own site. Think of a link as a vote, the more votes you generate the better your chances of rising up the search engines results. It’s not all about the number of links though, generating quality, relevant links is key.

Moving on from this, try to generate this type of link from a site with at least a page rank of two. You can easily tell the page rank of a site by downloading the page rank tool bar, available on most search engines.

Methods:

Try researching your competitors. Use Link diagnosis or Yahoo site explorer. Tyr to generate links from sites pointing to your competitors sites.

Blog posts. Find relevant blogs, read the posts and comments and join in the conversation by adding something interesting, leave your thoughts, offer help, and leave a link pointing to your site with your key words as the anchor text.

Article submission: Write articles on your subject, post to article directories – leaving your link in the resource box.

Free directory submission. Generate a list of free web directories; submit your site for a free link.

Dmoz: Although not as powerful as it once was, submit your site to the open directory project.

Forums. Can be time consuming as you really need to become ‘part of the community’ before being able to generate a link, but well worth the effort.

These are just a few of the ‘free’ methods. Keep doing your research and remember it takes time and consistent effort.

Happy link hunting!

For anyone wanting to do a bit of their own Search Engine
Optimisation, there is an abundance of free online SEO tools
available on the internet. Most of them provide some pretty
impressive statistics and information to help you optimise your
website, analyse search engine positions, research your
competitors, plus much more!

There are two ways these free online SEO tools can be used: (1)
For those who are new to the area of search engine optimisation,
these tools provide excellent insight on how a website is
performing and ranking. They can quickly highlight issues and
trends with their current website and provide a good insight as
to where optimisation work is necessary. (2) For the more
experienced search engine optimisers amongst us, these tools
will act as a complement to the more specialised SEO tools, like
WebPosition Gold or SpyderOpts. They can even be used to
supplement an SEO’s internal knowledge base and experience.

Here is a selection of some choice tools for both the novice and
the experienced search engine optimisers:

Keyword Research Tool

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/keyword-research-tool.shtml

This helps to research appropriate words and phrases to include
in your webpage’s body text to aid promotion. It’s simple and to
use and requires the user to enter the sort of word of phrase
you wish to be found under, the tool will then suggest some
additional words and phrases you can think about using. One of
the great things about this tool is that it gives you the option
to select from a range of top search engines, e.g. Google,
Yahoo, MSN, Teoma, etc.

Keyword Analyser Tool

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/keyword-analysis-tool.shtml

This tool reads the body of the page you specify and gives a
report on what words are used, and how many times they are used.
This is a valuable tool as most engines will rank your site
depending on your keyword density (which typically ranges
between 3% and 9%).

Search Engine Position Checker Tool

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/search-engine-position-checker.s

html This tool checks whether your website appears in the first
fifty results in major search engines for your chosen keyword or
phrase. If the URL is present, it will output what position it
occupies. As an additional feature, the tool also informs you if
any other URLs from your domain appear in the search results.

Link Popularity Tool
http://www.instantposition.com/link_popularity_check.cfm This
tool measures the total number of links or “votes” that a search
engine has found for your website. This is a pretty cool tool
because as well as tabulated data it also produces a nice graph
of the resulting data. One final key element of this tool is its
ability to compare your website to your competitors to help you
with your overall marketing strategy.

Meta Tag Generator
http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/meta-tag-generator.shtml This
automatically generates a Meta Keyword tag by reading the page
you specify, removing common words from it, and picking the most
used words on the page. Extra weight is given to words in a
heading tag

Search Term Suggestion Tool

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Displays how many times a certain keyword was searched for at
Overture.com. Shows all related searches for the entered
keyword. A good measure to use in determining frequency of
search among related keyword phrases

Search Engine Optimisation Tool
http://www.instantposition.com/seo_doctor.cfm. A very impressive
tool that tests the performance of a web site, by analysing a
page on the important elements of web page creation, such as its
title and content. It then scores the page against given
criteria for the top search engines, followed by some valuable
SEO advice to improve overall ranking. The report produced is
well laid out and easy to follow for anyone doing their own
optimisation. A freebie tool that works better than many costly
SEO tools I know!

The area of online SEO tools is an exciting area of growth as
SEO developers come up with more and more tools to represent
website positions on the internet. No doubt we will be
revisiting this area again….

Arif Hanid
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/free-online-seo-tools-2362.html

SEO services address the inherent mechanism of the world’s most popular online search tool, the search engine. Access to the secrets of a search engine assists companies to improve the search rankings of their websites, helping boost traffic and attract relevant traffic. Quality traffic can significantly improve a company’s conversion rates, fueling sales and profitability. With Internet surfers using search engines as their primary online information source, SEO services can help companies tap into a large portion of their potential market.

SEO Services: What to Include?
Whenever one thinks of SEO services for a website, the only service that comes to mind is researching for keywords that are appropriate for the business. These keywords are the words and phrases used by web surfers to search for a product or service and act as the first step to attracting traffic. However, SEO services encompass much more than simply researching for the appropriate keywords. Whenever an organization hires an SEO company, it can make use of any of the following services to improve rankings on search engines and enhance visibility, popularity, sales and growth:

Site review and modification: These services involve reviewing and refining content, website architecture and backend site coding in order to make every page more compatible with search engines.

RSS Feeds: Search engines such as Google prefer RSS feeds. Creating an RSS feed, with the targeted keyword in the title of the feed, and submitting them to as many RSS aggregators as possible would significantly help improve the rankings of a website.

Blogs: Blogs, especially posted at Blogger, Squidoo and WordPress, are given preference by search engine like Google. Creating blogs, the content of which is focused on target keywords, and posting them on popular blog sites can have a highly favorable impact on the rankings of a website. These blogs can also be converted into RSS feeds and submitted to make the maximum impact.

Incoming links: Incoming links can be created through active forums and Yahoo Answers. Posting keyword-targeted articles on active forums and asking questions on Yahoo Answers, while focusing on target keywords, would significantly boost the popularity of a website. Each article posted in various forums must have a link that can redirect readers to the website.

johnsantro
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/seo-services-what-are-they-752400.html

The thing a lot of people get confused about is that SEO is not done on a SITE level, it’s done on a PAGE level.

Let me explain. You’re right, most ppl link to your index/homepage. It’s going to almost impossible for you to optimize your homepage, which is just ONE page, for a bunch of different keywords effectively.

Here’s how you should structure your site. Make your homepage your most broad, general themed page. So, it should be talking about pet supplies in general. Optimize your homepage for a more general, more competitive term.

Then you have subpages on your site, one page about dog supplies, one page about cat supplies, or whatever. Then optimize your subpages for the more specific, and less competitive terms.

The reason it’s going to be pretty much impossible to truly optimize your index page for more specific terms like "cat litter" or "dog collars" is because the content on your index page is more general, not specifically about cat litter or dog collars. So your keyword density will not work out. People going to your homepage will be more disappointed that it’s filled with extra info they don’t care about, since they were only looking for cat litter, not dog collars.

Your traffic will be much more qualified (i.e. more targeted and higher converting) if you send them to their respective subpages. Ppl searching for "dog collars" are brought to the dog collars page, rather than the general pet supplies homepage. Remember, each PAGE can be optimized for a specific keyword. Don’t try to optimize your index page for everything.

So no, don’t change your meta, title, header, etc. on your homepage. If you do that, then suddenly your metadata is all about dog collars, when really the content is about pet supplies in general. So all the cat litter people will not be interested, and you lose out on that.

Rather, set up subpages and optimize the subpages for the more specific and less competitive keywords.

Homepage – broader, generic, more competitive keyword w/ highest search volume
Subpage #1 – dog collars
Subpage #2 – cat litter
etc.

To learn more about how to properly do SEO, check out this blog:

http://theinternetmarketingtools.com/

Multiple Websites Getting #1 Ranking!
The Secret?
On-Page SEO!

How Does SEOPressor Helps You?

Analyses Title, H1, H2 and H3 Tags
Analyses Keyword Density and Content Length
Analyses The Exact Placement of Your Keyword
Analyses Images and Links
Analyses Font Decorations
Intelligently Bold, Italize and Underline Your Keywords
Intelligently Add ALT Tag to Your Images
Capable of Testing and Rating Each Post and Page
Calculates Your On-Page SEO Scores
Secret Algorithm That Correlates With Google
Recalculates SEO Scores When Content Changes
One-Glance Fast & Easy SEO Management
Intelligently Gives Suggestions On What To Tweak
Pump Your WordPress Site High Up In Search Engines

Drives Red-Hot Targeted Traffic To Your Website!

Duration : 0:4:39

Most sites that can be said to have natural SEO are those that are classified as informational sites. Informational sites can be money-making monsters as it is your clients that supply most of the keyworded copy that ends up in your Q and A sections, forums and other places on your site.

The most successful informational site include magnet content authored by experts (and search engine optimized professionally if need be), a means of collaborating with another equally big or bigger site and most importantly –powerful facilities for allowing users to contribute content. After all it is crucial to the success of your site to have your web visitors constantly adding their own thoughts to your site, which in turn are then crawled by the search engine spiders and indexed as new content.

However one problem with an informational site with natural SEO is that it can become hard to manage over time. You need a means of moderating the site and also a way of identifying and eliminating problematic members of your online community who may be supplying irrelevant content or even hijacking your business.

Managing this type of site comes down to choosing the right web host. You need to choose one that will allow you to keep a database of users, keep track of who looked at your site and at exactly what and keep track of which users are costing you the most time and money with little payback. You might also need to buy software to keep track of how users are coming into the site and which external links they are selecting (clickthroughs) and keep track of which advertisers’ banner ads have been served and to whom and whether or not they were effective. This type of vigilance is typical of a successful SEO maintenance program to keep an informational community operating at its smoothest.

Chris Angus
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/seo-managing-a-site-with-natural-seo-89275.html

Getting traffic is a combination of a lot of things. The key to success is to create great content that visitors want to use, search engines will love and other websites will naturally link to. Of course, it’s easier said than done.

Here are some shoestring marketing ideas that can help you get the visitors you need at the least cost possible:

1. Create the best content you can with the best products you can possibly offer. Your content is your best advertisement – if visitors love your content, then they will go back and spread the word to others.

2. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important — and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools. Get a Recommend this Site script from websites such as cgiscripts.com and similar directories of scripts. Some even go as far as giving incentives to those who recommend the site to their friends. If only 10 people go to your site, but these 10 people invite 10 more – that’s additional traffic that you get for FREE!

Recommend Site Scripts (various) http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Big Nose Bird Recommend this Site http://bignosebird.com/carchive/birdcast.shtml
CGI Resource Index http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Website_Promotion/Recommend_Site/
Hostscripts http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Site_Recommendation/index.html

3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.

If you are going to read only one piece on search engine optimization, I suggest you read Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com’s "Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: 26 steps to 15k a day." http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm

4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News.

http://www.prleap.com/sign_up.html

http://i-newswire.com/

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/

http://www.pressbox.co.uk/cgi-bin/links/add.cgi

http://www.pr.com/press-releases

http://www.prfree.com/

http://www.clickpress.com/releases/index.shtml

http://www.theopenpress.com/

http://www.przoom.com/

http://www.prweb.com

http://www.newswiretoday.com/

http://www.free-press-release.com/

5. Submit articles. Write articles and submit them to websites accepting author submissions. You get exposure for your business; establishes you as an authority in your field, and allows you to get backlinks for your website. If 50 websites publish your article and it contains a link back to your website, then you easily get 50 links from a single article. The more links you have, the greater your chances for increasing your search engine rankings.

Here is a comprehensive list of where to submit your articles http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AhzreGmnCUicOoyedqypscUjzKIX?qid=1006022407481

6. Improve your conversion. Getting visitors is one thing; getting them to buy your products is a whole different story. Read the article " How To Sell More on the Web: 30 Tips To Increase Conversion Rates For An Ecommerce Site " http://www.powerhomebiz.com/092006/ecommerce.htm for tips on how to improve your conversion rates.

7. Post a link to your site for free where it is allowed (always read the Terms of Use). Examples are:

Craigslist http://www.craigslist.com
Google Base http://base.google.com
Classifieds for Free http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/…
Text Link Exchange http://www.txtswap.com/
Recycler.com http://www.recycler.com/
Yahoo Classifieds http://classifieds.yahoo.com/
US Free Ads http://www.usfreeads.com/

Search engine optimization has evolved into a competitive, growing industry. There are plenty of hoaxes and scams on the web. It seems that as the Internet grows more complex, so do the scams. Choosing an effective company can be quite a challenge. There are many factors to consider when hiring an SEO service. This article gives advice on how to select a credible website optimization service.

Assess the services and credibility of the SEO company. Customer service is always the key factor that one should look at. There are many ways of assessing an SEO service. One can try to inquire by placing a call or by sending an email to the company. Depending on the courtesy and time of response, you can initially assess its customer service. Does the company provide an “about us” page on their website? A reputable online business will provide an informative look at the personal side of their company and who they are. Look for other company details such as, the company address and location.

Avoid a guarantee of instant results or the #1 position. There are many factors to consider when optimizing a webpage. Search engines use different algorithms and their spiders can vary. Any SEO company that guarantees the #1 position in the search results should be avoided. A legitimate company will be straight forward and honest and will tell its clients that no single company can give a guarantee of the top positions in the search results. A desireable SEO service should also provide reports and details regarding the standing of a client’s website. They will be able to track the developments of their clients website in terms of keywords, links and their rankings in the major search engines.

A customer testimonial can provide a valuable insight when assessing a company’s credibility. A satisfied customer is always a good indication of the effectiveness of a company’s operations and will always be the most valuable piece of information about its integrity. If possible try to locate and contact people who have received benefits from hiring an optimization service or at least try to validate the testimonials.

It’s important to consider the cost of website optimization. Keep in mind a higher price does not necessarily mean the expensive services are more effective than the less expensive ones. The optimization rates companies charge may vary greatly. Search engine optimization is a trial and error process which requires research, hard work and dedication. Make sure the SEO service is primarily involved in search engine optimization and does not treat it as a sideline.

James Day
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/seo-services-what-to-look-for-74214.html