Would you buy a house without checking out the neighborhood and schools first? Or a car without researching its reliability and safety ratings? Of course you wouldn’t, unless you enjoy throwing caution to the wind (and in that case, you can stop reading).

Search Engine Optimization is – or at least should be – all about seeing improved results on your website. That’s why it’s crucial to ask to see an SEO company’s case study information before selecting them for your SEO efforts. While you’re at it, ask to meet the SEO staff who will be optimizing your site.

Sound a little over the top? Maybe, but here’s the thing: it’s really fashionable for businesses to jump on the SEO bandwagon right now, regardless of whether or not they actually know how to do SEO. Many of these companies don’t even have dedicated SEO staff; they simply outsource the work. Ad agencies, for instance, desperate to make themselves more relevant, are some of the worst offenders – they often claim to do SEO despite not actually having a single SEO person on staff.

What can you really learn from a SEO case study?
An SEO case study can provide a treasure trove of information, including answers to the following questions:

How does a firm approach SEO? Case studies provide a perfect opportunity for an SEO firm to show off their strengths, strategies and results, giving you a good idea of what they can do for your business. You can see what they’re most focused on: search engine rankings, link popularity, conversions, or all of the above. It may be possible for you to determine if they use ethical “white hat” strategies, or more risky tactics that could end up hurting your efforts in the long run.

Do they track and compare key statistics? You can see how thoroughly they track and compare data. And you may even be able to get a glimpse through graphs and screenshots of the kinds of tools and analytics programs the firm uses. Accurate tracking is obviously critical to your SEO efforts; if a firm can’t tell you where you are and where you’ve been, how can you trust them with where you’re going?

What industries do they serve? Or are they a generalist? You can find out if a firm specializes in certain industries, which is excellent information to know when determining if they are a good fit for your business. Maybe you have a manufacturing site and are looking for an SEO firm with experience successfully optimizing similar websites. Or perhaps you’re a local business and are looking for a firm who knows your local market inside and out.

What if a company won’t supply SEO case study data?
If an SEO company won’t supply case study data, then generally speaking that should send up a red flag. Here are some likely scenarios as to why an SEO firm might avoid providing case study data, none of which are good:

• not actually having any clients to document
• not actually doing the SEO work themselves thereby not having access to data
• not being able to produce good enough data to document
• not properly tracking data (making before-and-after comparisons a challenge)
• not wanting to divulge their clients
• not using SEO methods on the “up and up” (i.e., unethical or Black Hat strategies)

What should a good SEO case study include?
Let’s break it down a little further: a good SEO case study should give you a well-rounded picture of the challenges facing both the client and the SEO firm, as well as the strategies and results used during the optimization process:

Background/Challenges: This part of the case study may include client history, as well as details regarding the challenges facing both the client and SEO company. These challenges might include being in an ultra-competitive industry, having a totally un-optimized site, having previously been banned by the search engines, etc.

Strategy: Next, a good SEO case study should lay out how the company approached the challenges and what they did to improve the site’s rankings, traffic and conversions.

Results: A good case study will lay out documented results in key areas like search engine saturation, link popularity, search engine rankings, etc. And, of course, since SEO is ultimately results-focused, a case study should include sales and conversion information if available.

Conclusion

SEO case studies should be one of a company’s best marketing tools. That’s because if they are able to produce good, documentable results using proven SEO strategies, they’ll want to show off those results to secure new clients. The proof’s in the pudding, right?

Author: Collyn Floyd
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Credit card currency-exchange fees

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Search Engines: A Brief History III. Web 2.0: The New Internet

IV. Web 2.0: The Technical Landscape

V. SEO Linking Strategy in Web 2.0

VI. Social Media Optimization: A Piece of the SEO Puzzle

VII. Usability vs. Searchability: The RIA Search Challenge

VIII. Googles Personalized Search: The End of Traditional SEO?

IX. Search Behavior R&D: Customized Engines and Long Tail Keywords

X. Conclusion

References

I. Introduction To those of us whose passion for the growth of the World Wide Web is exceeded only by the marketing possibilities that emerge from that growth, the Internet has become a playground for the imagination. There is a large number of marketers, however, who are fascinated by the Web but approach its marketing capabilities more out of necessity than lifestyle. The Internets capacity has advanced in so many areas in the past few years that marketers playing catch-up are at a significant disadvantage. Marketing directors and account managers with traditional media backgrounds need to expand their breadth of knowledge in order to make informed decisions in todays e-commerce. This article provides clarification surrounding the fairly recent buzzword Web 2.0 and focuses on the evolution and future of the search engine born occupation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO and its implications are expanding so fast and in so many directions that it has never been more important for C level professionals and traditionally oriented marketers to fully understand the world of Internet search.

II. Search Engines: A Brief History When the first search engines began cataloging the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, obtaining a high rank on search engine results pages (SERP) was not particularly difficult or secretive. It was the webmasters who submitted URLs to the engines and communicated a pages relevancy to a keyword search through keyword meta tags in the HTML code. Early engines, like AltaVista, struggled with providing relevant search results because webmasters, who were paid on a cost-per-impression basis at the time, wrote inaccurate meta tags using high search volume keywords in order to increase visits to their websites.[1]

It was Google who finally answered the call for a more complex ranking algorithm that would greatly improve the relevancy of SERPs. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, invented the concept of PageRank, an algorithm which helps rank web pages based on the probability that a random person surfing the Internet will find a given page.[2] The PageRank algorithm assigns a numerical value to each web page by analyzing the quantity and quality of the pages that link back to a given page. Known as a backlink, each link represents a vote for the page it links to by the page on which the link appears. The significance of each vote depends on how relevant the page giving the link is to the page receiving the link, as well as the PageRank of the linking page.

Along with the changing search engines continually trying to provide more relevant search results to the user, the entire Web has been evolving to meet the needs of the massive Internet population. In conjunction with the growth of the Internet and the popularity of search, a unique profession known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was born. SEO tactics and skills have evolved alongside the changing Internet, but such changes have never been as significant as the most recent. We have entered into a second phase of the Internet, and as a result SEO is taking on a new face. This second generation of the Internet, often referred to as Web 2.0, has moved away from the old model based on static websites, clicks, and impressions and burst onto a cyber playing field built around communities, participation and open cooperation towards better products and services.[3] An unprecedented level of interaction between consumers, businesses, and interest groups exists in this new Web. Due to the existence of a new social presence, vehicles for driving organic traffic to ones website have expanded far beyond the major search engines. While obtaining high rankings on the major search engines is still an SEOs main objective, the means by which this positioning is achieved requires a much broader capacity for creativity than ever before. Many of these new tactics also provide additional avenues of incoming traffic, which has significantly expanded the big picture view of the SEO professional.

PDF version of SEO White Paper at http://www.bkv.com/search-engine-optimization.jsp

III. Web 2.0: The New Internet

Defining or labeling the new Internet is often met with a considerable amount of critique due to the expansive reach of such a description. There are so many different things that have changed about the Internet in the past several years; a concise definition is difficult to come by. In addition, the term Web 2.0, while perhaps the most accurate term, is typically scoffed at by the skeptical industry veteran who is wary of a vendor or brass employee attempting to sound Internet savvy. The World Wide Web has existed for almost twenty years. What is so significant about the changes in the last few years that distinguish the current Web as an upgrade from its previous omnipotent self? The simple answer to this question is you. Web 2.0 represents the users needs, hopes, and desires finally manifesting into a definable force of voluntary motivation.[4] The blogosphere, social networks, wikis, and other new forms of expression on the Internet have captured the Web population by harnessing their goals, skills, and interests onto a platform of collaborative creation and production. Websites are reflecting an up-to-the-minute common voice rather than a collection of static informational documents. The Web has never before experienced this level of effective interaction between its users, and that reason alone warrants its 2.0 designation.

Ease of self-expression, now apparent on the Internet through the popularity of websites like MySpace and YouTube, is generating massive amounts of original content. Critics of this tremendous increase in creativity and public opinion complain about the dilution of reliable quality content on the Internet. Many social networks, however, naturally weed out undesirable content, and promote popular, well referenced content to the top of searches. In Web 2.0, popular content emerges via a user-generated ranking system that determines the positioning of articles by the number of user votes they receive. This model was made most popular by Digg.com, which joins several community-based popularity websites like Slashdot.com and Reddit.com in providing a user-edited resource for finding news stories, blog entries and other websites. In Web 2.0, up-to-date, reliable content is produced by the editing abilities of the wiki. Wikipedia, the Internets user-written and -edited encyclopedia, boasts an accuracy level not far from the widely accepted Encyclopedia Britannica. In a study that compared forty-two science entries in both resources, Wikipedia had only four inaccuracies per entry compared to Britannicas three.[5]

Social network websites in the new Internet also have a way of allowing like-minded people to find each others favorite content through a system called social bookmarking. Del.icio.us.com is the most popular example of a social bookmarking website. This system of classification, known as folksonomy, involves users assigning labels, or tags, in the form of keywords, to content on the web. Through this collaborative form of tagging, web content becomes grouped by recognizable categories. Continuous tagging and creation of categories by users increases the contents ability to be searched by a wider range of people. This social phenomenon happens because stable patterns emerge in tag proportions [allowing] minority opinions [to] coexist alongside extremely popular ones without disrupting the nearly stable consensus choices made by many users.[6]

IV. Web 2.0: The Technical Landscape

Aside from the collaborative aspect of the new Internet, there is another reason the Web has earned its 2.0 upgrade. The users interaction, not with other users but with the interface of the Net itself, has changed significantly. Technical advancements in web navigation and design, as well as increased penetration of high-speed and broadband connection, make the new Web a foreign landscape compared to its older version. Web applications have continued to improve, providing a profoundly different user experience. The implementation of rich internet applications (RIA) is gaining ground. RIA technologies, such as Flash, Ajax and Java, are leading the Internet in the direction of a Web without web pages. Websites are traditionally made up of networks of static pages linked together by text in the form of the computer language HTML. These pages behave in a synchronous manner. That is, after the user clicks on a link, there is a short period while the server processes the input, in turn triggering the browser to download the requested page. RIAs operate in an asynchronous fashion, allowing response time to be much faster. RIAs increased responsiveness results from the following five factors: [8]

Information can be obtained from a server by anticipating certain user input.

The screen can be refreshed in pieces instead of all at once, eliminating the need for entirely different pages to load when navigating content.

More than one users input can be collected and validated before it is sent to the server.

Some responses to user input can take place without any server communication.

Certain processing that was once handled on the server end can be stored on the user desktop.

Growing implementation of RIA has important implications on search engines and optimizers alike.

V. SEO Linking Strategy in Web 2.0 The Blogosphere & RSS The common SEO adage continues to be valid in the 2.0 world: content is king. It is the content boundaries and means for dispatching content that have truly taken SEO to another level. Since the inception of the blogosphere a term that describes all blogs as a social network of public opinion rumblings of the peoples voice via the Internet have quickly risen to a powerful roar. Beginning in the form of an online diary in the mid 90s, the blog has since developed into a simple vehicle of communication for anyone who desires to send content across the Web. The dissemination of information through blogging has become so mainstream that one can find a blog from an authority source on virtually any topic. The blogosphere, centered on the concept of original content, has provided a link rich venue for the SEO to plan his or her linking strategy surrounding good content.

So what is good content, and what does it have to do with good linking strategy in Web 2.0? In this new era of the Internet, good content is viral. Whether this content is a written article, a homemade video or a podcast, if it grabs, provokes or tickles the user, it will travel, and it will travel fast. From the contents eye-view, the Internet has become much easier to navigate following the advent of Really Simple Syndication (RSS). RSS allows for a program called an aggregator (or feed reader) to notify users of new content added to a website, retrieve that new content, and present it to the user in an easy-to-use interface. RSS and blogging go hand-in-hand because of the constantly updating nature of the blog. As a result of RSS, people are discovering new content on the Internet, passing it along, and linking to it at an unprecedented rate.

Baiting the Link

The SEO practice of producing content in hopes that people will link to it from their own website is known as link baiting. Good link bait has the same qualities as good content. From a well written controversial article to a video clip of a bulldog on a skateboard, website owners will link to any and all content as long as it is interesting and catches peoples attention. There are no boundaries surrounding the types of content one can use to bait a link. In fact, the very name of a new kind of link baiting suggests an indefinable quality. This new link baiting tactic is called widget baiting. Nick Wilson, CEO and senior strategist of the social media market agency Clickinfluence, declared that the holy grail of linkbaiting in 2007 will be the widget.[9]

In reference to computers, a widget is an element of user interface that displays information or provides a specific way for a user to interact with an application. A widget could be a calendar, a stock ticker, a quote of the day, or an icon that collects the most popular YouTube videos. To get an idea of the limitless widget possibilities, check out Yahoo! Widgets (http://widgets.yahoo.com/). In its most basic form, a widget is a downloadable interactive virtual tool made up of simple bits of code that can easily be added to a webpage. When a widget is added to a webpage, if coded correctly, it will act as a crawlable link pointing back to its page of origin. These links can help to boost a site in the search engine rankings, but they also represent great potential for organic traffic.

Creating a popular widget could, in some cases, outweigh traffic from the major search engines. One example of traffic generated by a widget is a blog editor Firefox extension created by the professional blogging company, Performancing, that received close to half a million downloads when it was first released.[10] The brand awareness that widgets can promote has also made advertisers extremely enthusiastic. One would be hard pressed to find a better method of exposure than a logo attached to a button that sits in front of a users eyes daily.

VI. Social Media Optimization: A Piece of the SEO Puzzle

In this new age of the Internet, people have been quick to deviate from the title Search Engine Optimization when describing the organic promotion of a website. In August 2006, Rohit Bhargava, VP of Interactive Marketing for Ogilvy Public Relations, coined the phrase Social Media Optimization (SMO) and defined it as the following:

[The act of implementing] changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.[11] On one hand, Bhargavas point is well taken. If the tasks one is performing to drive traffic to a website are not intended to do so by improving search engine rankings, but rather by building a presence in social networks, than perhaps SEO is not the appropriate definition of their occupation. There is no doubt that SEO has undergone, and will continue to undergo, a certain level of compartmentalization. As different areas of SEO continue to experience the growth of specialized services, such as blogging, widget baiting and social networking, the future SEO will spend a large part of his or her time moderating and collaborating with more outsourcing opportunities that are not, by themselves, SEO related. In the end, however, SEO is a sum of its parts, and from the perspective of a company looking to pay for SEO services, all methods of driving organic traffic will reside under the umbrella of Search Engine Optimization. Notwithstanding the new coinage, SMO is an important component of SEO in Web 2.0. An SEOs intention in a social network is to create the illusion of natural links that occur during the interaction that takes place on networks such as Kaboodle.com, MyBlogLogs.com and Flickr.com. It is these links that search engines value the most because they happen as a result of real interests, not paid or reciprocal contracts. These links often lead to spikes in traffic, which have been criticized for only providing unqualified visitors and using up bandwidth. While these spikes continue to be a topic of debate on SEO forums, traffic after the spike does typically return to a level higher than it was before. The more authentic the illusion of natural interaction created by the SEO, the better the results. SEO in Web 2.0 introduces a new skill set of creativity that was previously not present. The space for this creativity, which ties in with the above link baiting topic of quality content, is especially exciting for the SEO of the future. The possibilities for attracting genuine links and organic traffic are limited only by the SEOs imagination.

To read the last four sections of this white paper — Usability vs. Searchability: The RIA Search Challenge, Googles Personalized Search: The End of Traditional SEO?, Search Behavior R&D: Customized Engines and Long Tail Keywords, and the Conclusion — visit the following URL to download the PDF version of the paper: http://www.bkv.com/search-engine-optimization.jsp

References

[1] Doctorow, Cory, Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia. Version 1.3, 26 August 2001. http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm

[2] Brin, Sergey and Page, Larry, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Proceedings of the seventh international conference on World Wide Web 7, 1998, Pages: 107-117 [3] Tapscott, Don and Williams, Anthony D. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. London: Portfolio, 2006, Page: 19 [4] Tapscott, Don and Williams, Anthony D. Page: 68

[5] Tapscott, Don and Williams, Anthony D. Page: 75

[6] Golder, Scott A. Huberman, Bernardo A. “The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems.” Information Dynamics Lab, HP Labs. Aug. 18, 2005. http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0508082. Cornell University Library. [8] Loosley, Chris. Rich Internet Applications: Design, Measurement, and Management Challenges. http://www.keynote.com/docs/whitepapers/RichInternet_5.pdf. Keynote Systems, 2006.[9] Wilson, Nick. 2007 Guide to Linkbaiting: The Year of Widgetbait? http://searchengineland.com/070118-074231.php. January 18, 2007. [10] Wilson, Nick. January 18, 2007

[11] Bhargava, Rohit. 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO). Influential Interactive Marketing blog. http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html. August 10, 2006.

Author: Will Fleiss
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable Pressure Cooker

The first myth I would like to focus on regarding search engine optimization is the myth that revolves around the notion that search engine optimization (SEO) is complicated.

I am always interested in the reasons people give for certain thoughts and I have heard many regarding how complicated search engine optimization (SEO) can be – especially for non-seo professionals. But I must say that I have not found this opinion to be true regarding search engine optimization.

I do not feel that search engine optimization (SEO) is complicated.

I know many people who have achieved great search engine rankings using SEO, including myself, and most have stated that using search engine optimization on their websites was not complicated. At times some stated that depending on what they were doing it took time to complete the SEO work; but seo being complicated – no.

I tend to feel that if individuals have an average amount of computer knowledge and skills and they have good SEO information that they can use to guide them through the SEO work process, they will not have any problems concerning search engine optimization.

Basically, it is not search engine optimization that makes SEO work difficult; it is the lack of access to good information concerning SEO that can make search engine optimization (SEO) appear to be much more difficult than it actually is in all honesty.

SEO work can take time to complete depending on the level of detail involved; but it is not brain surgery.

Now can anyone do SEO? the answer is no; however, the people who would have trouble doing SEO work are the same people who would have trouble completing a large variety of computer related tasks.

Generally, if an individual can operate a computer well enough to follow instructions to install software, they usually can complete seo work successfully provided they have good instructions and information.

Search engine optimization work is not as simple and/or as quick as adding a few meta tags; but search engine optimization is not nearly as hard and time consuming as you might have been lead to believe from prior discussions and/or from information you have read concerning SEO.

I feel the main reason that some people portray search engine optimization (SEO) as being complicated concerns the amount of money that is generated directly and indirectly from the utilization of search engine optimization (SEO).

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a multi million-dollar industry.

Great organic(free) search engine results literally help generate billions of dollars each year for website owners and search engine optimization is a beneficial technique in helping to achieve those organic(free) search engine rankings.

It is no wonder with billions of internet sales and advertising dollars available on a yearly bases that search engine optimization (SEO) which can provide an individual or company a competitive edge in the ultra high pace internet world will attract a variety of opinions, ideas, supporters and detractors.

Moreover, through a combination of perception and reality that highlights search engine optimization as a key to increasing internet sales, search engine optimization is a very popular topic for decision makers within many companies and frankly if these individuals along with the general internet community can be convenience that search engine optimization is complicated then many of these people will decide to outsource SEO related services, hire search engine optimization employees and/or contract consultants to complete their search engine optimization work. Thus, money is a key player in how search engine optimization is portrayed in the media, inside the seo industry and at large within the general internet community.

If used properly search engine optimization can help to achieve a higher search engine ranking for a website.

Many people are almost afraid and/or in awe of SEO because much of the information concerning search engine optimization (SEO) is not shared with the general public, which has created a cloud of mystery around the entire industry. Therefore, the average person does not understand search engine optimization and/or its benefits because of this situation.

However, the lack of good information should be expected considering the current competitive nature of business on the internet and the amount of money that can be earned from achieving good search engine rankings for a website.

Author: E Brown
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Duty tariff

In few ways RSS is pretty much identical to HTML, the language normally put in place to create websites. As is the case with HTML, webmasters opting for traditional search engine optimization techniques when creating an RSS feed will come to know that their RSS feed is getting additional exposure and interest.

Below mentioned measures can go a long way in optimizing an RSS feed for search engines:

1.) First and foremost, the title should consist of pivotal search terms.

In simple terms, the title should be up to the mark and not misleading, while still pinpointing keywords. In an ideal scenario, the title should generate curiosity among the readers to read on, not mislead them.

2.) Secondly, it is of utmost significance that you display RSS feeds properly.

Theoretically speaking, majority of webmasters display their feeds as content on their website. Remember to use PHP, ASP or HTML when displaying a feed, as this can lead search engines to spider the contents of the feed displayed. On the other hand, if you are using a template to display feeds, it is advisable to use header tags to emphasize the appearance of the Channel Title and Item Titles. It is worth pointing that few search engines weight header tags with more significance.

3.) Get accustomed with the concept of internal & external Links.

According to experts, within a feed you should always opt for the full path of any links, keeping in perspective that other sites may syndicate the contents of the RSS feed. Furthermore, links that are not local to the site should be open in a new browser. This process though not specific to search engines but it will play a prominent role in keeping visitors on your site.

4.) Link text should pinpoints keywords.

There is no denying the fact that the text used for incoming links will give a boost to the site in terms of helping it in contextually defining the keywords that the site appears for in the search engines. Keeping that into account, it is quite mandatory to use keywords in any link text that roll back to your website.

5.) Concept of My.Yahoo and My.MSN.

This is very straightforward to implement but often overlooked by publishers and webmasters. In theory, the quickest way to have an RSS feed spidered by Yahoo or MSN is to include the feed on a personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. You just need to register an account on the respective search engines. Then comes the next step of customizing the home page to include your RSS feed. This is normally been implemented by inserting content and listing the URL to the RSS feed. Normally, within 1-2 days the feed’s contents will be spidered and indexed by Yahoo and MSN.

6.) What is theme feeds?

It is quite pivotal that feeds should be themed. This is pretty significant as it will help with themed links back to a publisher’s website from anyone syndicating the feed’s content.

7.) How to increase link popularity?

You can enhance link popularity by submitting the RSS feed, blog or podcast to the appropriate directories. It is worth pointing that these directories offer submissions of specific kinds of RSS feeds. Thats why, be clear in your mind to follow the guidelines of each site and choose categories wisely.

8.) What is RSS feed descriptions?

RSS feed descriptions can be termed as the general summaries or introductions to other content. Nine out of ten times, feed creators will offer additional input on an HTML site, creating curiosity among the visitors to click through for the full detail if it is a topic that is of interest to them. But for that to happen, it is pivotal that you provide number of teaser copy that the visitor can easily discern if the contents are something that is pivotal to them.

9.) Getting the feel of subscribing to feeds.

Though seem straightforward at first glance, but fact remained that a surprisingly huge chunk of publishers do not subscribe to their own feed. In an ideal scenario, this is an ideal way to get the feel of your clients and innovating with formatting and integrating HTML into feeds.

10.) Increasing your corporate identity with image ads.

It is advisable to insert your corporate logo to your RSS feed. In addition, create a brand and give the overview of that brand by including the image in the RSS feed. In simple terms, the image will increase your corporate identity as well as dress up the look of your feed by inserting your corporate logo.

11.) Alphabetical rank is essential.

Few feed readers list feeds alphabetically in the reader. Because of this reason feed channels that begin with A will normally appear in the top of the feed list in majority of feed readers. In case if you are interested in appearing in the top of list of feeds that a reader has registered to, keep this point in mind.

12.) Concept of meaningful links

It is quite mandatory that each item in your feed should consist of a unique URL attached with it. This will give direction to users to attached inputs. You can find using target URLs with the “#” symbol in the link to get accustomed with the fact that this content is very useful.

There is no denying that majority of marketers have a love-hate relationship with search engines. Search engines can make the most confident Webmaster looks insipid. But following above-mentioned steps can give you a much-needed cushion in optimizing feeds for search engines.

Search engine optimization

If you are dealing in website marketing, role of search engines is quite pivotal in your success. Theoretically speaking, they are the most crucial way to bring traffic to your website. But for that to happen, it is quite mandatory that you understand the working of search engines and their requirements.

In simple terms, there are two types of search engines: active and passive. An active engine makes full use of crawl technology that constantly searches out websites, inserts them to its database and most importantly come up with listings automatically with what it finds. On the other hand passive engines need registration of your website directly with them. In addition, they rely on editors to insert your site to their directory. As search engines have started making its presence felt, few have adopted a combination of passive and active techniques.

Definition

Search engine optimization can be defined as the utilization of techniques that will result in your website being identified and included in the database of search engines. There are tried and tested methods to search engine marketing containing website design and content adaptation, and keyword strategy. Fact remained that the main objective of these methods is to bring traffic to your site. Furthermore, the secondary objective is for that traffic to be targeted to your product/ services. In the World Wide Web marketing game, exposure is of paramount importance. Remember that marketing efficiency needs effective exposure to the right prospects.

All in all, search engine optimization is all about taking your site to the pinnacle of success in search engine rankings. In present day scenario, everyone wants and has an online site about any goods or service they are offering. As a matter of fact, if you want to sell something to the general public, it is essential that you must have a website. In this fast paced world, time is of essence to everyone. More often than not, people do not have the time to go to stores to check out and purchase any goods/ services that they required. For these people, the Internet has become the market place to buy anything. It is worth pointing that fast and simple accessibility is what people prefer when buying in the Internet. Thats why, Internet can turn out to be the best source for you to sell your goods and services.

Search engine optimization: Pivotal for online success

Though, you have a site that contains all relevant information about your business, but fact of the matter is how many people know about your site. And this is where search engine optimization comes in. Search engine optimization employ certain techniques that can be pretty helpful in popularizing your website. Remember that you have to tell everyone regarding your site as well as its features. Search engines have a crucial role to play in your quest for success in your online business.

There are plenty of things that can be implemented for search engine optimization of your site. First and foremost, link building is the most popular and the most effective way for popularizing your site very fast. But for that to happen, it is crucial to search in the Internet and identify those sites that deal with identical product to yours. In other word, this clearly emphasizes that your link will be placed on those sites, and people who visit that site can actually come to your site by following that link. Always remember that one way inbound links are more advantageous for your site.

Secondly, blogging is also an effective route for you to become visible in the Internet. However, the key to blogging is to write top-notch blogs about different properties of the product/ services that you are offering. In case if your blogs are written in very concise and simple manner, your site is bound to attain popularity. As a matter of fact, people will even start discussing about your site in various forums. You can imagine how much you can gain from this exercise. Therefore, just go ahead and start blogging and enhance the popularity of you and your site.

No one can deny the fact that search engines are the kings in the web. Thats why, if you want your site to be a success story, you have to do something to increase your reputation among various search engines. For this to happen you will certainly require high rankings in search engines. Remember that search engines give rankings to websites after judging them on various parameters set by them. Search engine spiders also termed as bots crawl my many identifies if they are meeting all search engine eligibility criteria or not. On the basis of this process, websites are given rankings by search engines. And furthermore it is this ranking that gives you an overview of how your site is doing in the web.

Apart from that, there are plenty of other factors for you to gain popularity in search engines. A recent study has clearly pinpointed that most of the people using the web take the cue from search engines to gather information about any thing in the web. Thats why, if you are in top of the ranking you will be listed at the top of search findings when someone search for information regarding your product and service. This in turn leads to popularity of your site and more selling of your products and services.
Before you opt for any search engine optimization method for your site, it is of utmost significance that you know what you are exactly doing. It is advisable to collect as much information as you can about any process that you are interested in for the purpose of search engine optimization of your website. Fact remained that this is your site and you must know everything that has something to do with your site. After all the success of your business depends on this.

Skills required for search engine optimization

Since search engine optimization is still considered to be a new thing, plenty of business organizations think it is mandatory to hire search engine optimization firms to handle the online marketing part of their businesses. But the question now arises: What if you cant afford to hire the services of search engine optimization firms? Furthermore, what if youre just entering into the business and you dont have enough funds for additional advertising? If this is the case, you have no option other than to do it yourself.
But dont treat it as a burden because fact of the matter is search engine optimization is quite straightforward, contrary to the belief that it is a hard grinding task. No denying that you have to practice hard before you can take full benefits of search engine results for your website or business but its at least a very possible and achievable task. But for that to happen, you must know the types of skills required for better implementation of search engine optimization.

What is your target Market?

If you are interested in search engine optimization for your website, it is quite mandatory that you are aware of your target market. As the Internet is such a big place to roam around, it is essential that you know your target market. This in turn leads to more visitors for your target market because they can easily get accustomed with your service and can give you a feedback.

All important content of your Ad

Lets just assume you know your target audience already and everything that is there in the site are in proper order and impressing the visitor to buy the product. But the fact remained that how do they get to your website initially? And thats where the role of search engine optimization is very important. By following this route, its a guarantee that your website would get more visitors.

But always remember that that its the content of your ad that will put your website on top of MSN and Google searches. As number of companies chooses to use text ads because of its shorter length and economic nature, its your responsibility to maximize the content of your ad. In an ideal scenario, make sure that youre able to depict your message in the shortest, precise and most efficient way possible.

The concept of Keywords

There is no denying that keyword is one of the major parameters affecting search engine optimization. In case if you are interested in optimizing searches done by MSN, Google or Yahoo, you have to ensure that the keyword list you are implementing under your companys name should be identical to the keywords of your target market.

When talking about keywords, only two things count: spelling and relevance. Theoretically speaking, make sure that you include keywords in their correct spellings and of course, it has to be relevant.

RSS Feeds helping to improve Search Engine Optimization and Ranking

RSS is fast becoming a buzzword for a proper search engine optimization. But the question now arises: What exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication or Really Simple Syndication is a type of file format identical to XML, and is implemented by publishers to make their content available to other people. The best part about this format is that everyone can understand it quite easily. In addition, RSS offers the listing of articles on third party websites, RSS newsreaders, and the like, giving rise to simple distribution of a website’s content across the Internet. In other word, RSS can be termed as a form of content syndication, using distribution lists, hyperlinks and the like to create curiosity among people, which in turn leads to increased traffic in your website.

RSS is not the new term, as a matter of fact it has been there for so many years, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming a necessity for ezine publishers that are interested in getting their message across to their members.
Despite all this, not much emphasis has been given to the benefits RSS offers for search engine optimization, until now.

The question now arises: Why Search Engines Love RSS?

Majority of SEO experts is of the view that that sites optimized around themes, or niches, where all pages depicts one particular subject or set of keywords are bound to fare better in search engines as compared to the website dealing with plenty of subjects and different keywords. For instance, if your website is specifically designed to sell gadgets, your entire site content would be focused around gadgets.

It is worth pointing that search engines such as Google seem to prefer tightly themed pages.
But million-dollar question is: Where does RSS come in all this?

Remember that RSS feeds, normally sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often pinpoint to a particular theme or niche.
And thats where you can increase your sites content without a need of writing on your own, by opting for highly targeted RSS feeds.
It will give you an impression that you have hired content writer that is writing for you but in actual sense you have not. Furthermore, you are getting all this free of cost.

How can RSS improve your Search Engine Rankings?

In simple terms, there are three main parameters why content from RSS Feeds is so much advantageous for search engine spiders.

1. RSS Feeds offer Immediate Themed Content

There are plenty of publishers of RSS feeds that are focused to a particular theme.
As the feed is highly targeted in nature, it could consist of number of keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Inserting these keywords to your pages plays a pivotal part in Google tagging your site as one with relevant content.

2. RSS Feeds offers new and regularly updated Content

Theoretically speaking, this is the most significant feature of RSS. It is worth pointing that RSS feeds from big publishers are normally updated in hourly or daily basis. Remember that when the publisher inserts a new article to the feed, the oldest article is deleted.
Furthermore, these modifications are instantly updated on your pages with the RSS feed as well. Thats why you new and updated relevant content for your visitors every hour or day. Few of the search engines like Google and Yahoo have come to a conclusion that the relevancy algorithm historically used to rank pages is not a good option. In an ideal scenario, they do no not show correct results. Because of this reason they have added parameter like freshness to judge the page rank.

A simple example can illustrate this point better. In case if you were to do a search for the key phrase “Football”, you would likely to get a large chunk of articles. In that case just take two articles for the purpose of simplification. Let’s assume both articles contain the phrase “Football” the same number of times, have the same number of inbound links, and all else is more or less identical between the two articles. As a matter of fact the only difference between the two is that one article was written 10 days ago and the other was written yesterday. In that scenario, it would be difficult to find out which one would be more likely to contain the information for which you are looking?

Well, by taking the help of relevancy algorithm, both articles will appear equally relevant. Though, fact remained that it is not the case because obviously the newer article is more likely to give you the fresh information, which you are looking for. Due to this reason the search engines have come up with a freshness component to their ranking repertoire- in an effort to offer the best results to their users, they should not only offer you relevant articles but fresh one as well. Thats why, at the moment, the most recent article (or most frequently updated website) would be listed on top as compared to the less frequently updated website.

The question now arises: Does this make sense? The answer is yes. By following this route, you can easily understand why a proper search engine optimization will include the use of fresh content such as an RSS feed, apart from an optimization for key phrase relevancy.

Author: Vipin Agnihotri
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Cool mobile gadgets

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry has grown tremendously in the past few years, and to such an extent that many SEO practices have become important components of the Internet marketing strategies for many businesses.

However, although the ever-changing dynamics between search engine algorithms and SEO techniques have evolved in complexity and in many different directions, very little has been done to actually measure the effectiveness of these SEO methodologies and processes. Significant amount of money is budgeted yearly by businesses for their website’s SEO projects, but only a few actually conduct a regular review of their SEO programs. A well-designed SEO audit is therefore a necessity. The SEO website audit is also fast becoming the norm in many companies wanting an objective assessment of the effectiveness of their SEO initiatives.

As with any other audit, SEO website audit is a means to examine the efficiency and effectiveness of business websites. It seeks to identify the gaps between expected and actual website performance. The end goal of SEO audit is to recommend improvements and maximize the benefits from SEO investments.

SEO Website Audit in a Nutshell?

SEO audit is a means to track the performance of the various SEO activities conducted for a website. Through the SEO website audit, the status of the site as evaluated by search engines can be assessed. With SEO audit, there is now a way to examine the robustness of the website’s technical framework and infrastructure, which includes SEO keywords, content, meta tags, and link popularity, and in comparison with top competitors.

The SEO website audit is both a quality and performance review. It measures the value added to the website as a result of the SEO work done on it, such as search engine rankings, traffic volume, and conversions.

The output of an SEO audit is a report on the site’s performance. It contains the issues and problems that cause poor website performance, and the most efficient and effective SEO techniques to employ from thereon to improve performance. Moreover, the SEO audit report will identify SEO methodologies that can be removed from the SEO program altogether because they are not effective and are a waste of investment.

Benefits of the SEO Audit

What are the benefits of an SEO audit? Here are a few of them:

1. An SEO website audit can pinpoint reasons for poor ranking performance and provide helpful performance improvement advice.

2. An SEO audit can assess the extent and scale of poor performance. It can also rectify whatever damage done by past SEO methodologies by providing valuable decision-making information on whether to hire professional SEO experts to work on the problem, or continue with in-house SEO work.

3. An SEO website audit guarantees management buy-in and support, particularly when conducted by a third-party SEO auditor. When confirmed by concrete metrics, this can convince decision makers in the company that present and future SEO strategies are working effectively for the business.

Making SEO web site audit a part of the business road map should be one of the most important undertakings for a company. SEO audit ensures that the company’s SEO initiatives are well-validated and worth the investment.

Author: Debbie Everson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Benefits of electric pressure cooker

What is natural search engine optimization (SEO)?

Natural, or Organic, Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s a process of making your site more search engine friendly by optimizing the entire website design and content. Then the site will be visible in SERPs against optimized keywords or Key phrase.

Why is SEO important?

Search engine optimization is important for a number of reasons including:

• 36% of searchers attribute top organic position with brand quality
• 60% to 70% of all search traffic comes from organic listings
• 90% of organic search traffic is driven from the top five listings
• 62% of searchers view only one page of results before clicking (Jupiter Research)
• Having the No. 1 listing in both organic and paid search can increase click rates by three times

How do natural search differ from paid search?

The primary differences are:

• Paid search can be launched quickly. Natural search generally takes months to show a return.
• Paid search focuses on a large number of keywords. Natural search needs to be focused on a few high-return keywords.
• Paid search is highly measurable. Tracking results on natural search is more difficult (although not impossible).

How much time will it take to see SEO result?

Time is most important factor in SEO life cycle. Once your website cached by search engines, it will take at least 2 weeks to update the results.

Can any one guarantee a #1 ranking in Search Engine?

No. No one can guarantee a #1 placement in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), as there are simply too many factors outside our control. In fact, in Google’s Information for Webmasters, they recommend that companies beware SEOs that guarantee results.

We are, however, willing and able to make a guarantee as to our SEO ethics.

Will my website stay at the #1 position once my website is placed there?

Search Engine ranking fluctuate frequently. SEO is an on going process. However if your website is maintained by SEO Specialist month to month then it can be stay in top positions.

How long will it take to see results?

This largely depends upon how old the site is. If the site is new, you shouldn’t expect to see significant results from Google until the site has been in Google’s index for at least six months. Results for new sites can be seen in Yahoo and MSN, generally less than three months.

For sites that have been in existence for a year or more, results from on-page optimization can generally be seen within a few weeks of being placed online.

Google, is highly dependent upon links in its calculation, and prefers links that have been in existence for a long time. As a result, if the market space is competitive, it may take six months or more to see significant results.

What is SEO Copywriting?

In a webpage where the same keyword is repeated again & again, in a way that makes it very difficult to understand what the page is actually trying to say. This is SEO’ed copy.

SEO copywriting is the creation of website copy that includes heavy usage of keywords in hopes to move a page up the search engine rankings. It is generally written to a particular “keyword density”, which will supposedly perform well in the search engines.

For search engines with a heavy reliance on on-page factors, such as MSN, or for particularly uncompetitive keywords, SEO copywriting might work, at least to a certain degree. For keywords with any amount of competition on Google and Yahoo, however, it is rarely effective.

What’s more, even if the SEO’ed copy works in a search engine, it is rarely effective for the human beings visiting the site.

In addition, SEO copywriting can be very profitable for the SEO firm, as the search engines regularly change their preferred keyword density. This results in more work for the SEO firm as they rewrite the SEO’ed copy, and up charge the client.

We prefer not to use SEO copywriting. We recommend that the targeted keyword be used in the page’s copy, but used in a manner that is natural sounding and effective for readers. Our SEO efforts focus on other on-page factors and most importantly – links.

Does this mean copywriting is not important to SEO?

Copywriting is certainly important in SEO. The copy of a website should always be written to maximize the return on marketing dollars. If the visitors to a website do not convert to leads or sales, then the efforts on SEO are wasted.

The copy of a page should focus primarily on effectiveness and conversion rate. Simply use the page’s keywords in a natural manner, and optimize the other on-page factors and links.

Also, landing pages can be created to address specific keyword needs that cannot be found on other parts of the site. Each such page must have substantially unique content and not employ deceptive techniques such as redirects, or run the risk of receiving penalties from the search engines.

We offer a full range of copywriting services which can be used in conjunction with either our paid or natural search services.

Do you engage in unethical SEO?

We tend to not see SEO in ethical terms. Notwithstanding potential issues of deception, the way one structures one’s webpage is not a concept that should inspire discussions of morality.

There are, however, issues of risk management and tolerance with SEO. Certain techniques might run the risk of being blacklisted by one or more of the search engines. Typically, the more competitive a space is, the more risky the needed techniques are.

As SMO Solutions Search does not work with companies in the truly hypercompetitive space (e.g. gambling and pornography), we have never needed to resort to risky techniques to achieve the rankings our clients demand.

One aspect of SEO that can raise ethical questions is the communication between the SEO firm and the client. Some firms engage in risky techniques without informing the client. That is certainly unethical.

Another area of potentially unethical behavior can be found in firms that provide “SEO” services by building a network of their own sites that drive traffic to the client’s site. These are often sold on a per click basis. While this is a viable marketing model, many clients do not realize that the moment they stop paying, the “SEO” they’ve been buying goes away. In fact, many SEO firms will then turn around and sell this traffic to the former client’s competitors.

Apogee Search’s SEO practice is built around achieving superior results in the natural listings of the search engines. Baring an algorithm change in the search engine, the traffic does not go away if a client does not continue to engage with Apogee Search (although listings do tend to degrade over time if continue SEO efforts are not made).

Do you offer search engine submission services?

We’ll let you in on a secret, assuming a page can be read and indexed by a search engine’s search bots; all that is needed to submit to the search engines is a link from a page on another site that is in the Google index.

The automated submission services that you receive constant email spam for are, at best, a waste of money. In many cases, they can actually hurt your site’s performance in the search engines, as repetitive submitting of the same site can cause the search engines to invoke a penalty.

How do you select keywords?

Ideally, keywords for natural search are selected by using data from a properly configured and managed paid search campaign. This way, keywords that generate leads and/or sales are certain to be focused on.

Alternatively, detailed analysis can be made on a group of potential keywords to measure their relative search volume and competitiveness, but this data is greatly strengthened with the addition of conversion data from a paid search campaign.

Will you make the changes on my website?

We are not a web design firm, and don’t manage the actual pages of your site ourselves. We do, however, make specific, detailed suggestions of changes. And, if you do not have the staff to make the changes yourself, we have a number of web design firms that can do this for you.

What about link rental or purchase?

One of the dirty little secrets of the SEO industry is that many of the people at the top of Google bought their way there through paid links.

Many links can either be bought on a one time basis, or rented month to month. One of the biggest advantages of this is the ability to configure the link exactly how you want it for maximum SEO benefit (begged links often have to be accepted “as is”).

Competitive market spaces are likely going to require paid links. We typically recommend either purchasing permanent links or budgeting link rental for at least six months (preferably eight or nine months). Links must “age” before Google allocates them their full benefit.

How do we track the results?

Many SEO firms create their own fuzzy metrics, generally around the idea of “visibility”. If a particular key phrase improves from a ranking of 100 to a ranking of 20, they call that a 500% visibility. Rarely do you see such firms concerned about the traffic the rankings bring to your site.

While we certainly monitor rankings in the search engines for our targeted keywords, we are much more concerned with the traffic those rankings generate. And, we are happy to work with you to connect the traffic generated by the search engines to specific leads and sales.

Author: Shankar Soma
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Wordpress plugin Guest Blogger

As their name suggests, website inspectors examine flaws in websites in order for clients to obtain higher search engine rankings. Website inspectors carry out full SEO (search engine optimization) evaluation of websites and report suggested changes that should be made in order to make a website more search engine friendly.

Website inspectors perform in-depth SEO website analysis of website HTML code, including META tags and Alt image tags, along with SEO analysis of website design, keyword text weight, download time and other SEO features. Website inspectors then produce a detailed SEO report consisting of manually generated META tags, alt tags and suggest other website alterations.

There are a number of differences between website inspectors and other SEO companies. Most SEO companies only evaluate and report on general website HTML code and limited website design features. By contrast, website inspectors will offer detailed evaluations and SEO reports of HTML code, and all aspects of website design from textual relevance to aesthetic design. Website inspectors will offer a comprehensive SEO report consisting of workable alterations that should be made to a website in order to significantly improve search engine rankings for the long-term. General SEO companies, by contrast, will only focus on what is wrong with a website without offering many good suggestions to improve search engine rankings.

Most general SEO companies will provide customers with “cookie cutter” style SEO reports. This is to say that the vast number of SEO companies will evaluate a website using automated, report generating software and send their client a print out of a generic SEO report. Such SEO reports will provide irrelevant information to the clients website and will not provide any solid suggestions as to alterations that should be made in order to improve search engine rankings. By contrast, a website inspectors company will treat each website as a unique piece of material. A good website inspectors SEO company will refrain from using any automated software to analyse a website or to generate an SEO report.

Promoting user-friendly SEO reports and ethical, ‘white hat’ SEO practices is key to the ethos of website inspectors SEO companies. All good website inspectors SEO companies will refrain from using the out-dated practice of automated website submissions. Most generic SEO companies continue to use automated submission software although they know by now that such software submits websites to unorthodox, unethical sources such as FFA pages and link farms. Top search engines regard submissions to such sources as ’spamming’ and will ultimately result in websites being placed in the Google Sandbox for extensive periods of time, if not banned from search engine rankings entirely. Website inspectors SEO companies will only promote the ethical use of manual website submissions to discriminative sources.

Another consideration is that website inspectors SEO companies will alter their services to suit their clients needs. Good website inspectors SEO companies now offer on-site or on-page SEO website designs and SEO implementations in order to save clients a lot of time and hassle. Website inspectors offering on-site SEO website design will ask clients for access to website files in order to improve website features directly, so as to improve search engine rankings. Onsite SEO web design is a firm favourite of website inspectors clients who have limited website design and SEO implementation knowledge in order to promote their website in search engine rankings. Website inspectors SEO companies are seeing a great rise in clients opting for onsite SEO web design as they know that all onsite SEO web design implementations are performed by professionals who are well aware of effective and ethical SEO practices.

With all of these factors in mind, it is strongly recommended that clients seeking good SEO in order to improve website rankings look for website inspectors SEO companies if they wish to see long-term, positive search engine rankings. With comprehensive SEO reports and the option of onsite SEO web design at hand by SEO professionals, website inspectors are the way to go for anyone looking for strong and successful search engine rankings.

Author: Victoria Powell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Information

We’ve all heard about it-it seems like all the buzz right now in the search engine marketing industry is RSS. If you’re a website owner, than there are two ways your website can benefit from using RSS on your website-you can provide an RSS feed or, for the not-so-technically-inclined folks like me, you can use an RSS feed to keep your site’s content fresh.

RSS is a way to syndicate website content. According to Wikipedia, “RSS is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by (amongst other things) news websites and weblogs…the RSS formats provide web content or summaries of web content together with links to the full versions of the content, and other meta-data.” Wikipedia goes on to say that “A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check RSS-enabled web pages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. It is now common to find RSS feeds on major web sites, as well as many smaller ones.”

If you’re a website owner, you can use RSS to your advantage in two ways: use someone else’s RSS feed or produce your own RSS feed. 1. Install a script on your website-whenever a web page on your website is loaded the script automatically loads data from an RSS feed. If the RSS feed you choose to use is the latest news, then the latest news will appear on your website. This is fairly easy to set up and is good for search engine optimization purposes. I’ll discuss installing an RSS feed script on your website later on in this article.

2. Provide an RSS feed of your website’s content so others can use it. By providing an RSS feed of your website’s content, you’re essentially allowing people to use the content on their website or through their feed reader. In either case, you’re also providing links back to your website, which is good for search engine optimization purposes-it will also get visitors to visit your website. Providing an RSS feed of your site’s content can be tricky to set up-or it may not be appropriate if you don’t have a lot of content on your website. I’ll discuss your options later on in this article.

If you’re a website owner, then chances are you want to keep your website’s content fresh. By updating the content on a regular basis, the search engine spiders will take notice-they’ll visit your website more often and index the new content and new web pages-which can ultimately bring more visitors to your website. For example, if your website is about real estate, you might consider including the latest real estate news on your website. Users typically search for topics that are related to items in the news, so if those topics and keywords are included on your website you can typically be found in the search engines for those terms. It’s like having your own real estate news staff on hand, 24 hours a day, adding the latest news on your website.

Installing an RSS Feed on Your Website

Installing an RSS feed on your website is not as difficult as it sounds. You simply install a script one time-and then anywhere you want the RSS feed to appear you simply pick a feed and copy and paste some code on your page. The first thing you need to do is figure out which script to use. If your website is using an Unix server and has PHP installed, the the easiest PHP script I’ve found is called CaRP. You will first want to visit the CaRP download page and download the file. CaRP has a free version that you can use on your website. They request that you link back to their website if you use it. Unzip the zip file and upload the files to your website using an FTP program. Then, run the setup file in your web browser, chmod the appropriate files, and continue with the directions given to you in the web browser. Once it’s installed, the script will give you code to copy and paste wherever your want the RSS feed to be displayed on your website. You can even change the font, size, and color of the feed by specifying those attributes before the code.

There are other RSS parser scripts available, but CaRP is the one that I’m more familiar with because its ease of use and ease of installation. To find other RSS parsers, you can search Google for “rss parser script”. CaRP is typically used if you have PHP installed on your website, and RSS parser scripts are available if you’re running a website on a Windows server. If you’re using the PHP version of CaRP then you’ll want to use PHP pages on your website-or you will need to parse your html pages as PHP pages.

Finding an RSS Feed

Once you’ve installed the parser script, you’ll want to find the appropriate RSS feed to use on your website. Keep in mind that a lot of RSS feeds are provided for “non-commercial use only”, so if your website is a for-profit website you’ll need to check the terms of using the RSS feed before you use it.

The best way to find an RSS feed is to search for it. Following my real estate example above, searching for “rss real estate” (without the quotes) finds several feeds. Topix.net provides a real estate rss feed. By copying that URL and pasting it into the CaRP code provided by CaRP, you can add that code to any web page on your website and the latest Real Estate News from Topix will automatically appear. Another way to find a feed is to look for a blog on your site’s topic. Most blog software includes an RSS feed, so searching Google for “keyword blog rss” might also help you find a feed you can use.

Adding an RSS feed on your web page won’t get you high rankings in the search engines. A while back I tested this theory a while back by making three nearly identical web pages-one static page, one with RSS feed content on it, and another with a live RSS feed on it. It turned out that after all three pages were indexed and ranked, the page with the live RSS feed actually ranks third-the static page without the RSS content on it always ranks the best. Search Google for “silly burlywood revenue” and you’ll see what I mean.

Although adding an RSS feed won’t get your page top rankings in Google, there are other benefits. For example, updating your web page’s content on a regular basis gets the page crawled more often-and more active crawling can contribute to other benefits, such as ranking for terms that appear in the feed on your site as well as causing new web pages on your site to get indexed faster than they were before.

Providing an RSS Feed of Your Content

Depending on your website’s content, providing an RSS feed of your content might be appropriate. If your website provides news or contains a blog, then publishing an RSS feed might work well. Most blog software automatically publishes an RSS feed of your blog, so you might want to find its URL and start promoting it. If you sell a lot of products on your website, you might consider making an RSS feed available-perhaps one that includes your top selling products along with their prices. Other websites might be interested in publishing that data for their users, and you would receive more visitors and links back to your website, something that will help your site’s search engine rankings.

Publishing an RSS feed is a little more complicated, perhaps to lengthy a discussion for this article. However, there are many good tutorials out there, including Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Watch article about it, as well as the RSS tutorial at mnot.net.

Whether you use RSS to publish your own feed or you use someone else’s feed on your website, both provide great benefits to website owners-and definitely will continue in the future to be used more and more.

Author: Bill Hartzer
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: How Electric Pressure Cookers Work

By Jason Hulott

With more and more experts and search engine enthusiasts claiming the right way and the wrong way to handle link swapping, link exchanging or reciprocal linking!

You can tell something is important when there is more than one name for it! GRIN!

There are also two schools of thought on the reasons link swapping.

The first reason for link swapping has always been to carry favour with Search engine rankings. Have a good site with lots of links and this is seen as a good thing and therefore Search Engines will rank you higher.

Sadly, like all things in life, this system can be abused and taken to the extreme. Sites are buying in hundreds if not thousands of links trying to “boost” their ranking artificially. This is fine in the short term but we are starting to see a fundamental shift in Search Engine algorithms.

My last article of link swapping , If Content is King, then surely relevance is Queen! explains my personal view of relevant linking which is still follow.

There is now a second and perhaps more disturbing reason for swapping links.

To build a useful link resource or directory for your visitors.

With working with similar themed sites, swap links to build a directory service which can share and drive traffic to sites within it. Some have even claimed this can drive more traffic that a Search engine ranking.

So how do I create this vision of loveliness.

Simple, build an on topic directory of your major site content.

There are a couple of great tools you can use to automate this process.

http://www.j2-squared.com/linking-101.htm

http://www.j2-squared.com/power-linking.htm

These tools will add new sections, manage your directory structure, and allow you to add links or even allow others to add their own links which you just approve.

This can all be run from a web browser so you can be swapping links sat on the beach or in fact from anywhere.

They are so simple to use you could get family to help out too! GRIN!

In terms of places to find links try:

www.linkpartners.com

as a good start point.

Remember, Search Engines change their algorithms all the time and you could fall out of favour at any time.

Your visitors are also getting more sophisticated and demanding at the same time. Give the visitor what they want first and let the search engine sort the rest out!

Good Luck!

By Jason Hulott

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the search engine world of late and there are lots of conspiracy theories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs of intrigue.

You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts’ thoughts on bulletin Boards – hey you probably even read things in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway….

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to be content and link building.

While link building is important I don’t believe it makes Queen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand in hand but, without relevance, the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry I will stop the analogy now!

If your site is about finance, then finance content is best supported by finance link exchanges. Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance content supported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while in the short term may help,…but all the signs are saying this is not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant. It is that simple.

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that are relevant to the content on your pages. Yes I am suggesting link exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.

Links pages seem to be being abused. There are rumours that pages called links, resources or partners are not passing page rank. You could be wasting your time building links that are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the future.

Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk or www.independent.co.uk. News sites have the right idea. They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to other articles on the same topic or links to internal tools that are related. These usually can be found at the right hand side of the article.

They also then have weblinks or external links to sites of interest that are related to the topic. These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site you can add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really add some value both to your Rankings and your users.

With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to add link pages or create a links directory. A five page site will need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete and even then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3 links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away.

Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close second to content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant links will not only boost your search engine rankings, but you will also add a service to your visitors.

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Jason Hulott is Director of Speedie Consultants Limited , leading specialists in Revenue Generation whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.

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