What are you not asking that you should be? Find out the answer and you’ll find your way to Top SEO Rankings.

SEO continues to be the talk of the town.

“Are reciprocal links good? Are one-way links better? How do I use Google SiteMap Submission? Does PageRank still count? How many blogs do I need? Who has a bigger index - Yahoo or Google? And does it matter? Which engine is more popular - Yahoo or Google, oh wait I heard MSN is gaining ground. Is it MSN?”

OK, I’m sure you see my point - there seem to be more questions out there than answers. And then if you do get answers, they sometimes conflict with what another SEO firm told you already or what you read in an article last month, or what your friend’s little brother did on his site that made him rich overnight. (Don’t laugh; we hear those stories all the time)

I’m here to answer these questions, in total and complete honesty. Are you ready? The answer is actually simple and applies to ALL of the questions above as well as any other question you may ask.

The answer is:

It doesn’t matter… because you are asking the wrong question!

OK, so what is the right question?

Don’t worry - I will tell you - the question is: Are you in the 64% or the 36% group?

Now for the answer …

I Don’t Know…Only You Know the Answer (and have to deal with the results).

Let me explain….

There was recently a study on the results of company’s outsourcing SEO (September 2005, by Jupiter). The results may seem shocking, but it is something we see every day in this business.

The study shows that 64% of companies that choose to outsource their SEO do not follow the instructions of the SEO firm they hired! I am going to repeat that again so the full impact reaches you — 64% of companies that choose to outsource their SEO do not follow the instructions of the SEO firm they hired!

They recognize the need for traffic (OK, off to a good start). They did their research and selected a company (nice, moving forward) and they plunk down the money (and if it’s an SEO company that’s any good, it wasn’t just pennies either). So far it all sounds good. What happens next -

it all falls apart.

The SEO Firm does their analysis of your site and situation, they share with you the most basic items to be fixed (which are often easy to fix with just a little attention) - they tell you this is of the utmost importance, it is the foundation of your whole campaign.

And what do you do?

That depends - are you in the 64% that does nothing and ends up asking all the wrong questions and whining months later when you are still nowhere? Or are you in the 36% that take action, treats their website and their business with the seriousness and commitment it deserves and then get to work with the SEO company to open the floodgates of traffic SEO can deliver? It’s simple and it’s your choice.

After you have made the commitment to be one of the 36% (something to ponder: how many of your competitors are in the 64% asking the wrong questions and doing nothing - and how quickly can you by-pass them when you are one of the 36% doing it right?) and you have taken the steps necessary to lay the foundation for a solid SEO campaign, you can then sit back and watch the company you hired, with their proven expertise bring in the rankings you desire.

Please understand, I write this article with a little humor to show the absurdity of the situation. I mean, would you hire a mechanic and then refuse to fix what he determined is the problem? No - you probably wouldn’t. I want you to understand not following your SEO Firm’s instructions can be just as detrimental to your business as ignoring a mechanic’s suggestion to fix that smoke coming out of the engine can be to your car.

The more SEO changes, the more it stays the same. The SEO winners are not the ones chasing each new trend and asking the wrong questions. The winners are the ones that commit to their SEO firm and their own business and follow the guidance of the firm they hired. They follow those firms right to top rankings.

So, now that you have asked the right question, made a commitment to the growth of your business and have an SEO firm diligently working for you, and you are just sitting back waiting for the results - you can ponder all you like the details of who’s database is bigger - Yahoo or Google or MSN, as well as all the questions out there people ask daily.

However, with the right SEO Firm - you still don’t need to ask these questions. Questions like is PageRank still important, how many blogs do I need and how do I use them, and all the others will all be answered. The answer will be in the results the firm got for you based on your cooperation and their knowledge and expertise.

Forget Desperate Housewives - try Desperate SEO Firms - with 64% of clients NOT doing what it takes, no wonder there are rumors of SEO insanity out there. Gain some sanity and take action today to make sure you can ask and answer the right question correctly.

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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner of EcomBuffet.com Since 1998, her expertise in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer can be reached at Jennifer@ecombuffet.com

Keyword Research has become an integral part of starting up your own business or growing your business (exponentially). Search engine marketing is here to stay for the long term, hence finding customers through keyword research should also be an integral part of your marketing.

Earlier, all you needed to do was to enter the description of your business in the title & meta tags and you were done with optimizing your web-site. Things have changed! And hence this article…

How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relate to keywords?

SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors to your web-page by the careful and deliberate use of targeted keywords and their specific placements designed to get the page to show up on the top listing for such keywords. (SEO also includes other strategies not discussed here.)

TIP: Keyword Research is very useful to you when you decide to start a pay-per-click campaign to drive visitors to your website or increase revenue using adsense.

Here are the seven simple steps to keyword mastery that will cause your page to be indexed correctly by Search Engines and your link to be displayed at the very top on the search results page.

Step 1) Start with the most common words you use to describe your business(or your niche, if you operate in one). If you are in the automobile service business, you may have the following: Car Repair , Body Shop, Car Repair, New tires with car repair, Wax and Shine etc. If you actually have a niche business such as Jaguar Service And Repairs, then it becomes even more easier.

Step 2) Call your friend. Ask him how he would try to find your widget on a search engine if he lost your phone number and he wanted to look you up on the Internet. What if he forgot the name of your establishment? What if ….

Your perception of how people see you may be different from your customers’ perception of you. Add these new words to the list.

Repeat this as many times as you can with different people.

Step 3) Find other words related to your original list. such as names of the brands. Lexus Repair, Lexus spare-parts, Honda kit, etc.

Mix and match keywords with your original list to find even more keywords.

Step 4) Go to google and run a search for your widget. See what keywords bring up your competition and what words do not. Add them to your list .

Step 5) Add plurals and common misspellings too.

Step 6) Figure out as to how often people search using each of the phrases you have identified in your list. You can use the google adwords tool for this purpose.

TIP: Use adwords tool to see how many people have searched for each of your phrases in the recent past. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . This also suggest keywords you might want to use.

Step 7) Make sure your keywords are placed in the following locations on you web page: Page Title, Meta Keywords, Meta Description, Header Tags, Alternate Description for images, First Paragraph on the page, strong Tags, Em tags, Ordered and unordered lists, Anchor Tags, File names, Folder Names, Footer Tags, Any URLs and links in your pages.

Should I use many keywords in the same page?

Yes. Use as many keywords as it makes sense. Don’t overdo it. If your content becomes just a keyword trash-bin, users will start skipping over it and the search engines will catch on pretty fast. So avoid using too many keywords where it does not make sense. It’s best if you have multiple pages offering up different keywords.

One caveat. You need to be aware of ‘Keyword density’. Sometimes, if your usage of keywords is too high, and it looks like you have placed too many keywords, the search engine may not give you the best ranking. “Sprinkling” is the key-word when it comes to using them on each page.

You should also be aware of negative keywords. These are keywords you need to use in your PPC(Pay-per-Click) text so as to make sure that people do not click your link expecting to get freebies.

e.g. If you said : “Self Clearning Widgets- $500 and up”, you keep out the people who are looking for cheaper stuff.

Are phrases better than individual words?

Depends! If your customer is searching for self-cleaning widget, then you should use self-cleaning widget. If your customer is searching for just widget, and auto clean, you should use these words separately.

How often do I have to check my keywords?

As often as you can. Your customers react to various influences around them and search for different terms at different times. To be able to remain on top with a good ranking you need to keep on top of your keywords. Sometimes they react to an offer made by a competition and start searching for similar offers.

I know. You are saying:”But I don’t have that much time to devote to just keyword research.” That brings us to the next question.

Do I have to do it all by myself?

I have had many websites in the past few years. In the beginning I did everything manually the old fashioned way.

Lately I’ve found a few tools that help make life easier for me, though you could do it all by yourselves if you had the time and the tenacity(which I sorely lack). I suggest you find yourselves a tool to do the work for you.

I use Keyword Elite now, though I’ve used WordTracker in the past.

Pick 1: Keyword Elite tool : If you really plan to take your business to the next level, this is a great tool. From generating your own keyword lists, to analyzing pay-per-click listings, to studying your competition, this one accomplishes quite a bit. This tool works with Google, Yahoo,MSN, Ask etc. It will save you tons of hours of wasted time and effort. Also, I like the fact that it is multi-threaded(lots of more power.)

WebSite: http://www.elitekeyword.net

Pick 2 : WordTracker: Offers a free, ‘lite’ version, as well as a paid version. Features include an online management system for different keyword projects, searching for often misspelled words, a system to calculate your best keywords, and much more. WebSite:Wordtracker.com/FreeWordtracker

Pick 3 : WebCEO :From a free version to a $389/- version this company has various options available. For small business owners, the $199/- version would be suitable.Go for the $389/- version if you have multiple web-sites running and your business model is solely online. Web Site: http://www.webceo.com/cgi-bin/go/clickthru.cgi?id=linkflow

What next ?

Use keyword research to identify the most likely phrases for your business.

Master keyword research just like I outlined in this article and create a massive list of targeted keywords.

Make a list of the 5 most promising keyword phrases.

Head over to your favorite domain listing / hosting company (eg. www.GoDaddy.com) and see if you can buy that phrase in the .com domain.eg. Self-cleaning-Widgets.com

Point your existing website to this url. If you don’t have an existing web-site, create your new website using all the keywords you identified.

Submit your site to the search engines.

Happy hunting!

Dave James is a marketer/consultant with nearly 13 years of sales and marketing experience. Get your marketing questions/doubts answered free at his website.

http://www.nobleriver.com

search engine ranking search engine traffic SEO Service seo service top search engine

Want to get into the top 5 of either Google or Yahoo? Make sure your website contains the top 10 factors for deciding a top search engine ranking.

It does not matter if you have the cure for cancer, if nobody knows about it you are not going to make any money. A top search engine ranking in either Google or Yahoo is the surest way for buyers to find your products so you can become a wealthy marketer. Google and Yahoo are responsible for about 80% of all search engine traffic in the world.

Make sure your online business or website contains these top 10 factors used for determining sites with a top 5 search engine ranking in Google and Yahoo.

Factor #1: Number of Quality Sites that Link to Yours

Google and Yahoo put a lot of significance on how many quality sites link back to yours with a page rank of at least 4 and above. This is probably the most important factor when considering a top search engine ranking.

When search engines see lots of important sites link back to yours it must mean that your site is also pretty important.

Remember the purpose of the internet is to provide information back to the end user. As someone is conducting research on the World Wide Web, sites must also participate and flow and connect to other related sites allowing those searching for your keyword terms various paths to the information being inquired.

Factor #2: Number of Pages Your Website Has

A website with less than 50 pages is really going to struggle to get a top search engine ranking unless it has more quality back links coming into it than their competitors.

Factor #3: Keywords in Your Title Tag

Google and Yahoo look to see if your keywords are contained in your page title and description. Make sure your keywords are also listed within your heading and subheading tags.

Factor #4: Keywords Showing in Links

Keywords that are highlighted within a link are considered more significant than those not at all highlighted within a link.

Factor #5: Keywords in Bold

Likewise words in bold are also considered more important than those not in bold.

Factor #6: Keywords in URL

Websites that are in less competitive markets that contain the keywords within their URL are considered more important than those sites that respectively do not.

Also keywords in the URL that come before unrelated words are considered better than a URL that follows an unrelated word within the URL. For example if your keyword is televisions, a URL with `televisions’ followed by unrelated words such as your name `Mike’ is better than putting your name `Mike’ before `televisions.’

Factor #7: More Significance Given to First 25 Words on Page

The first 25 words of each page are given more weight than all other words on the page. Make sure your keywords are in the first few words of your page. However, if you try and just list the same word or phrase 25 times repeatedly Google and Yahoo will penalize you.

Factor #8: Greater Than 300 Words on Your Homepage

Make sure you have at least 300 or more words on your homepage.

Factor #9: Keyword Density

Keyword density is not as important as it once was in the past but it still is an important factor. In order to get a top 5 search engine ranking look at your competitors sites and compare the density of their sites to yours and try and match their density.

Factor #10: Page Rank

Want to find out the page rank of your website or the page rank of another site? Download the Google toolbar and make sure the page rank indicator is activated. One major factor in determining your page rank is the first factor listed in this article. Quality back links are the most important factor for formulating your page rank.

A top search engine ranking in Google and Yahoo is decided most often by the combination of these 10 factors. If you want to get into the top 5 of the two most important search engines than make sure your website applies these major search engine ranking factors.

About the Author:
Tim McGaffin has helped many online businesses achieve their financial goals. Vist: http://www.WealthyMarketerDirect.com

optimization seo search engine optimization search engine rankings SEO Service seo service seo services

Search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved as more and more techniques are used by web promoters to help get their sites placed among the top ranked search engine results. Basically SEO means enriching a web site with key words or contents relevant and suited for search engines. But there are other features too like proper link building, tagging, Meta tags, domain and URL specifications etc. where you need the help of an seo service.

The use of SEO articles is one of the most imperative expectations and original or creative articles enriched by primary keywords and secondary keywords will give you and added edge. If your title uses most of those top five search words, your article and the web site will automatically shoot up the search engine rankings. The first three to five words of your article title determine whether your article marketing generates website traffic. Again, the use of SEO Services are needed here to make sure this is done correctly.

The search engine use spiders or BOTS to index the website. This spider reads the robots.txt file seeking permission to enter the site and also decide the pages to be indexed. Robot.txt file clearly tells the spider which page to index for the search engine and blocks access to other pages. Some search engines respect this limitation but other search engines might invade your personal and un-permitted space. To guard against these bad robots setting up a .htaccess file is imperative to instruct these bad robots to keep away or even block them from entering your site. Though there are many factors keep in mind that an seo service can provide these important bits of details to your site.