Web site development and search engine optimization (SEO) building & promoting technologically advanced sites on the web. Build, renovate, optimize and promote web sites to Top position at all major search engines for small to medium sized corporations. Build the best, most efficient and user friendly database driven internet sites for companies with or without 1000s of products to sell, via custom search engines, eCommerce shopping carts, secure real-time credit card processing, and password protected membership sites, including discussion groups and chat rooms ... basically, build ANYTHING you can dream up and afford!    

Evaluate and test existing site's content, layout, server infrastructure; Keyword Market Research on targeted markets searching habits. Create competition analysis reports, analyzed existing data from server logs and create statistical analysis to project current search engine traffic patterns. Use ethical "white-hat" Search Engine Optimization techniques to produce solid high rankings for numerous keywords.
Develop and implement numerous company-wide SEO "Best Practices" policies/documents:
- HTML Coding Guidelines
- Theme based page / website structure
- Content Copywriting Guides
- Keyword Research (density, relevance, weight, etc ... )
- Title and Meta Tag Guidelines
Manage relationship with external SEO Company/Consultant and internal personnel.
   

Looking for Website Promotion Tools? We are dedicated to giving you the most powerful submission system on the Net. You will not find more features, more engines to submit to or a more easy-to-use system. Check out our features below and then get Signed Up for your free trial use of our Hit Generating System. Completely Automated! Set up your task 1 time and the system will resubmit your site for you on the most effective submission schedule to get your website indexed! The largest and most up-to-date submission database on the Net! We update our engines 3 times per month, so your site is ALWAYS being submitted properly No Software to Download or Learn! We are 100% Net based, meaning you never have to download any software and that it is guaranteed to work for any Operating System. Whether you use Windows, MAC, Linux, Unix or any other O/S, as long as you can access the Net YOU CAN USE Website-Submissions-Worldwide.com. Save Time and Increase Traffic! It takes an average of 3-5 minutes to add your domain to a new task. Once you've added it, the system does all the rest! Set up your submission schedule and NEVER have to worry about resubmitting your site again You control your submissions! You can add, edit, remove or add a new domain to submit at any time. You can also view reports and see exactly where you were submitted to and then verify that all in one easy step! Don't take someone else's word that you were submitted... KNOW you were!! No Autoresponder Spam! We will eliminate ALL SPAM from ever reaching your email box! Of course, if you want to view them you can as well, but we've made it SUPER EASY to divert all spam! Spider your entire domain! Our system will add each and every page from your website with 1 click! You can then choose to submit any of the pages it finds. Choose 1 or choose 200...it's up to you! Emailed Reports! Once your submission has completed, we will email your report to whomever you choose. The report will give detailed information on who you submitted to, when it was submitted and whether it was a successful submission or not. Cost Effective! You only pay for what you submit! For under $0.75cents per day you can drive traffic to your site! Completely Automated! Our Scheduler will let YOU determine how often your site is submitted. We offer guidelines on resubmissions, but we allow YOU to determine what's best for your site! Set up your task 1 time and NEVER worry about resubmitting your site again. Remember, Consistent submissions to the engines is the most recommended way to get a better listing! Automated Doorway Pages Generator! Meta Tag Generator Ranking and Reporting Keyword Analyzer Popularity Checker! Sign up for your full account right now and be submitting your site in minutes! Drive traffic to your website with Website-Submissions-Worldwide.com and never worry about resubmitting your site again! Join Now Free Trial Start Tour

Writing Articles for Ranking

Writing Articles for Ranking

I have seen the question asked so many times. How do I get links without having
to resort to reciprocals? There are actually multiple ways but for the purpose
of this article I will be discussing just one, writing articles.

The first way that articles can be effective is by choosing the sites that
you submit to. If search Google you will find hundreds of sites that accept
submissions. They will range from specialized to general but take care when
choosing your core group. Many of the sites alluded to require a lengthy sign
up process or have been abandoned by their owners who have moved onto another
project. In order to make efficient use of your time, you should narrow your
field down to the 3 major article submission sites:

Article Depot – www.articledepot.co.uk

GoArticles – www.goarticles.com

Ezine Articles – www.ezinearticles.com

On their own each of these sites offers multiple SEO benefits. Each allows
links to your site with Article Depot and GoArticles allowing Anchor Text in
the body of your article.

The next way that these article submission sites offer a way to gain links
and therefore better search engine results, is that due to their sheer size,
your article tends to get picked up by website owners looking to beef up their
sites. At times a single submission can generate more than 100 links! If you
chose to submit to hundreds of the smaller submission sites, you may get the
same amount of links but it would have taken a great deal more work.

If I could impart anything about the technique you should use when getting
the most out of your articles, it would be to use the major submission sites
to your advantage. Use the time saved by not chasing all the smaller sites to
write more articles and let the likes of Article Depot, GoArticles, and Ezine
Articles do the work for you.

About the Author

Jason Rickard is the owner of www.yourfavouriteshop.com - Europes largest reseller of White Noise CDs

8 Ways to get Free Targeted Traffic

8 Ways to get Free Targeted Traffic
By The HitsBam Team
http://www.hitsbam.com

What good is your website if no one knows about it? The reason most webmasters fail within their first year is because they overlook advertising and promotion. Just because you have a perfectly designed website does not mean that people will find it. It is not hard to produce a steady stream of targeted traffic, and it can be absolutely free if you do it right. Below are eight free ways to produce quality targeted traffic for your website.

1. Search Engines
Search Engines are one of the best sources for targeted traffic and potential customers, so search engines should be one of the biggest factors for advertising and promotion. Did you know that most people never click past the first page of search engines? You need to be on the first page of search engines for your targeted keywords to generate targeted traffic. Getting your website to the top of search engines such as Google and Yahoo for free takes special methods called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search Engines Optimization envolves many factors, such as Meta Tags, Inbound Links, <title> tags, keywords, content, and PageRank. Since SEO is such an advanced field, HitsBam has written a completely seperate article entitled A Complete Guide to Search Engine Optimization to get you to the top of search engines for free.

2. Message Boards
Message Boards, or commonly known as forums, are great places to make partnerships with other webmasters and gain targeted traffic. First, create a signature post file with your name and URL so everytime you post a message, people will be interested in your website. Then introduce yourself slowly by posting useful information and answering questions. The more active you become in the forum, the better, because you will be known as an "expert", which gives you and your website a good reputation. Always remember to obide by the forum's rules and NEVER spam them with your website. A good signature for a forum would look something like this:

---------------------------------------------
Your Name
http://www.yourwebsite.com
"A funny or catchy quote"
---------------------------------------------

3. Email Signatures
Imagine that every email you send out is advertising for your website. This can be a reality if you utilize email signatures. Almost every email program or website has this feature. You can use it when sending personal emails, business emails, when you email your clients, in your autoresponder, or any other email that is sent. Email Signatures are perfect to keep people coming back to your website because the signature reminds them that your website exists. Remember to never spam, it just is not worth it. A good email signature would look something like this:

---------------------------------------------
Your Name
Your Website Title
http://www.yourwebsite.com
"Your Slogan" or a Short Description
---------------------------------------------

4. Content
Content, Content, Content! Search engines are so sophisticated these days that the only real way to get on the top of search engines is to have good keyword-rich content. Not only will you recieve top rankings on search engines, people will actually want to visit your site, especially if the content is for free. You could also post your articles at ezines and websites and leave your link at the bottom. This lets people know that you are knowledgable and that they should visit your website, and it works suprisingly well to generate targeted traffic for free. You can make some real money selling links on your website if you have good content. Some websites with a PageRank of 7 or more sell links for $250+ a month! Don't forget to place your keywords all over your website and in your articles. The more keywords you incorporate into your content, the better, just make sure it is still an understandable article and not just an article full of keywords.

5. Start A Newsletter
Newsletters can be a great way to keep visitors comming back to your website. It is suggested that you send out a unique issue every week to keep reminding the customers that you are still here, but make sure each issue is different and has something to offer the reader, usually free information. Once you reach about 100 subscribers, the newsletter can become an income generator, as you can sell ad space on it. You can find some great free scripts for your newsletter at www.ACJavascripts.com.

6. Awards
Submitting your site to be chosen for awards is a great way to get people to find your website. If you happen to win a big award that fits the color scheme of your website, you could display it proudly on your front page showing your visitors that the website is reliable and has won awards. You can find out more about how to apply for awards with free software from http://www.market-tek.com/awardsite.html.

7. Free Stuff
Free stuff to offer your visitors is a great way to keep them comming back or to persuade them to buy your products. There are many things you can offer, such as email addresses, games, information, tips and hints, software, ebooks, and the list goes on. You could give away something that would compliment a sale for your product. An example would be to give away free information on how dirty air can cause health problems if you are selling air purifiers.

8. Traffic Swarm
We usually do not support traffic exchange programs and click for traffic programs, but we have found an exception. A program called Traffic Swarm has been one of our biggest targeted traffic producers. It's unique way of letting the surfer choose what site they want to visit has proven successful and has reflected it's success to it's members. They do offer a pro memebership that gives you bonus credits, 2000 credits per month, a featured site link, and much more. HitsBam highly suggests joining this free program.

About the Author

This article was written by HitsBam. For more free articles and other traffic sources, please visit http://www.hitsbam.com

Keywords and SEO. The facts

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for the success of almost every website. The majority of traffic to websites is brought in by search engines. Keywords are an important part of SEO. Unfortunately, many website owners overdo it. Keywords are one of the most important tools in ranking high on search engines. Abuse them and you will suffer the consequences.

Many novices read about places to add keywords, such as ALT tags, anchors and other areas. While these are meant to be used if you want to help boost your keywords, they should be relevant to the image or the place where you are linking. Many people try to stuff keywords into every possible place. There is no benefit whatsoever in doing this.

As a general rule, I would say you can optimize one page with 3 keywords or phrases. I would recommend starting with one or two. Depending on who you talk to, your percentage of keywords in your text should be between three and five percent of the total content on the site. I have seen site tops with percentages as high as ten. There are some free online tools that can tell you the percentage of each word on your site. This one is http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php
This tool will also show under which of those words your site comes up on.

One huge mistake I see all the time is repeated keywords in the keyword tag. Here is an example: shoes, brown shoes, blue shoes, and red shoes. There are two things wrong here, Do you know what it is? First, of all, the use of the word “and” is not needed. This is called a stop word. Search engines ignore these type of words. Some common stop words are and, the, because, this, that and there. The second thing wrong with the keywords is the word “shoes”. It is repeated four times. You do not need to repeat shoes. The corrected keywords should read; shoes, brown, blue, red. The search engine will know you are offering shoes and will match the color with the word shoe. Repeating “shoes” will just penalize your site.

One final tip on using keywords. Make sure you use your top keywords in the TITLE of your site as well as in the description tag. Do not load the title with keywords. These are the first places the engines will scan. Your description tag is usual what is displayed on search engines when relevant keywords are typed in. So, be sure they are there. Do not just type in key word phrases. No one will know what your site is about. What is the point of coming up in rank if no one understand the description.

About the Author

For more information on SEO visit http://mr-seo.blogspot.com
Or, http://mrseonewz.blogspot.com/ for the latest on SEO news. For a free web site evaluation visit http://www.mr-seo.com
Joe is also a merger-partner of Web Presence, a full-service web design firm exclusively serving small businesses nationwide. Visit his web site at: http://www.jnb-design.com

Beware of Fake SEO consultants

Some important facts you need to know before you choose your Search engine optimization company or an SEO specialist.

=>If a Search engine optimization firm has guaranteed you number 1 position on Google, number 1 Yahoo listing, Top Msn ranking or any other top search engine position then just stop there.Either it is a Fake Seo specialist or an individual calling himself a representative of an seo company who will extract hundreds and thousands of dollars out of you and leave you with a Free for all (FFA) , search engine submission report or get you on a number 1 page ranking for a particular keyword which no surfer will ever take the effort to type in. It is very imporant to stay away from such SEO companies that do tricks which might get your site banned on search engines. People everywhere scramble from gimmick to gimmick , trick to trick to get to number 1 position for a general search term and sometimes they even manage to do that – but for how long ?.One small change at Google and they are back on page number four, rank number 44. It is therefore important to follow traditional SEO tweaks along with new and genuine techniques for website promotion like fresh content for your web or using Rss and blogs.

=>Do not do Doorway tricks or Spamming to get a high rank on search engines like Google.


Google Quality Guidelines :

1. Avoid hidden text or hidden links.


2. Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.


3. Don't send automated queries to Google.


4. Don't load pages with irrelevant words.


5. Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.


6. Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.


7. Dont use fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash.


8. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

=>It is impossible to guarantee rankings."No one can guarantee a number 1 ranking on Google - Beware of SEO companies that claim to guarantee rankings, or that claim a special type of relationship with Google or other search engines. Also note that there is no priority submit for Google.com.In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is by using the page at Google.

=>Submit only once.Your Site Needs to Be Continually Resubmitted to Get On top and Stay On the Search Engines is not true.Continually submitting to search engines will not help you in any way. It is also important to tweak your Webpage and meta tags.If you think meta tags are old then think again.If you want a decent ranking on the new MSN it is important that you give attention to your webpage meta tags.

For more information on our website promotion software and services checkout Jvw Search engine promotion and optimization page here.

About the Author

Ashish Thakkar is an Internet marketing consultant and an SEO Specialist.
He provides training and guidance on Website promotion and email marketing to individuals and top executives.Most of his Web marketing and promotion softwares are available at
http://www.jvwinc.com/internet.html .

Strategic RSS Positioning...How to Hotwire Your Site to Google!

There's no denying it, the Internet has changed. The change was so
subtle most people missed it. It was no great momentous event, just
a slight sideways flex in how information is exchanged on the web.
However, this slight shift has significant ramifications for anyone
trying to achieve top rankings in the different search engines.
So keep reading to find out how you can use this new SEO wildcard to
'hotwire' your site to the major search engines such as Google, Msn
and Yahoo.

Of course, the wildcard we're talking about is RSS!

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication.' Basically, RSS allows you to
directly deliver your content to all interested parties... don't come
to us; we will deliver the information to you or your website. It
syndicates your content. In a nutshell; it's simply a more efficient way to
get your content 'out there'.

It was first used by News sites to send updated headlines and
brief summaries to all interested parties. Many people associate
RSS with Blogs or Blogging because Blogs are usually written in
XML or RSS format (code like HTML) so that these headlines and
postings can be easily read and accessed.

Although the change may have been slight, the ramifications of RSS
may be long lasting and far reaching. As the major search engines
incorporate RSS into their SERPs and Algorithms, RSS may even play
a larger role than many people realized at first glance. However,
RSS emergence as a dominant SEO factor is not really a big surprise;
RSS presents 'raw-timely-content' for the search engines to serve up
to their patrons -- its just what the 'info pushers' ordered.

Therefore, you must optimize or position your site to take full
advantage of the RSS wildcard. RSS Positioning! Simple RSS strategies
that you can use to position your site with the major search engines
including Google.

Actually, Google has just introduced a new XML powered Sitemaps. You are
basically setting up a direct 'hotwire' -- linking your site to Google.
Any or all changes on your site can now be instantly updated and indexed
by Google.

How It Works

There are several ways to set-up a XML Sitemap, perhaps
the easiest way is to use the open-source Generator which
you can download from Google. This is a Python file that
you can upload to your webserver and this generator
will create a sitemap from your 'URL lists, webserver
directories, or your access logs'.

Once done, you have to then submit your newly generated XML sitemap
to Google - the search engine will use this XML sitemap to
update and index your site whenever you make changes on your site.
You will need to have a Google account.

You may also submit text files containing URLs from your web site
to be included in Google Sitemaps but these text files will have
or will be given low priority for the time being.

To get started on your own Google Sitemaps Account you can click here:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

But Google's new Sitemaps is just the latest way to use RSS positioning,
its not the only way! You can further optimize your site by
using the following RSS strategies:

Build RSS Feeds and Blogs for Your Keywords.

One of the best ways to use RSS is to set up a Blog and RSS feed for
each of your major keywords. Any major topic or subject on your site
must or should have a Blog and RSS feed to compliment your site's content.

To optimize fully, it is best to have a separate IP address for each of
these Blogs, different from your site's IP address. You can even use Free Blog
sites like Bloglines (owned by Ask Jeeves) or eBlogger (owned by Google).
To take full advantage, it's best to use 'unique content' in these blogs
and make sure you link only to high PR quality sites.

Ping Your Blogs Regularly

Pinging your blog posts regularly will alert the search engines new
content has been added to your site or blog. Most of you have probably
noticed by now that using sites like 'MyYahoo' to ping your blogs
and RSS feeds is a great way of getting your sites spidered and
indexed quickly in the major search engines.

Pinging is simply sending out a signal to all the weblog tracking
sites that your site/blog has been updated.

Here's a site http://pingomatic.com/ that will 'ping' you blogs
automatically.

Add RSS Feeds to Your Site

Another way to attract the search engines is to place high quality RSS
feeds on your site related to your subject area. Use these feeds to provide
valuable content to your visitors.

And it's quite simple to do; just add "&format=rss" at the end of the
URL in your Msn search engine query. For example, to get an RSS Feed for
'tsunami relief' you would use this url:

http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=tsunami+relief&format=rss

In Yahoo the URL would be slightly different:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=tsunami+relief&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&x=wrt

Of course, you can change 'tsunami+relief' with the keyword or phrase of
your choice to suit your website's content.

Conclusion

Trying these RSS positioning strategies will give your site added
visibility on the web and a greater presence in the major search
engines. It will create dynamic links to and from your site and this will
result in faster spidering/indexing of your sites. You should be using
RSS to basically 'hotwire' your site or sites to the major search engines
such as Google, Msn and Yahoo -- in fact, it should be your number one priority.

RSS is still relatively new; despite the popularity of blogging,
podcasting, MyYahoo and the RSS featured Firefox Browser, it hasn't totally gone
mainstream. Many webmasters have not yet optimized their sites for RSS,
so you can give your site a slight competitive edge if you act quickly.
By taking full advantage of this new technology you will see a marked
improvement in your site's traffic, not to mention a noticeable increase
in your site's rankings.

So don't delay, 'hotwire' your site by utilizing the RSS factor and you
might be pleasantly surprised where it takes you!

About the Author

To add RSS to your Site within minutes, download this simple

RSS and Blogging Guide.

9 Ways to Keep Google Happy

by Rick Hendershot, Marketing Bites

A recent Google patent application has the SEO community buzzing. At a bare minimum this document reveals the direction Google is taking its future search criteria. Changes in the way Google will be evaluating pages for search rankings are intended to address two major problems:

- Search engine spam, and
- Ensuring that "fresh" documents score higher than "stale" ones

Here is a summary of some of the general principles outlined in the document. Most SEO
specialists agree these are reasonable principles, and it is only a matter of time
before they are adopted.

1. Anchor text of links is still very important. Focus on your anchor text. It should contain your most important keyword.

2. Google expects that anchor texts will vary. A lot of identical anchor text suggests an "unnatural" linking pattern. Anchor texts should vary, but contain related phrases.

3. Google will record when specific links were first discovered, and watch how they change over time. Links with a long life span are considered more valuable than links with a short life span. This adds support to the link delay theory -- that links do not start "counting" until they have been in place for a few months. So get working on those links right now, but don't expect immediate gratification from Google.

4. If a new website gets a flood of new inbound links, this will be an indicator of possible spam activity. Links should be introduced gradually and according to a consistent pattern.

5. Google acknowledges that there may be link "spikes", and so an influx of new links will be interpreted as legitimate if some of the links are from "authoritative" sites. Go after links from authoritative sites.

6. If a stale webpage continues to receive new incoming links, it will be considered fresh. Keep adding links pointing to important pages.

7. Links from fresh pages will in some cases be more valuable than links from "stale" or old pages that have not been recently updated. Get links from pages that are active. If you have high value links from important sites, develop a strategy for keeping those links fresh.

8. Google places more value on a site where link growth remains constant and slow. Slow and steady wins the race. Keep getting those links.

9. Pages with many inbound links will require proportionately more new links in order to remain fresh. The assumption is that the more links a page has, the more it should be getting in the future. Otherwise it starts slipping into the "stale" category. Focus more attention on your most important pages.

Regardless of whether of not Google implements all of these criteria, the general direction is clear. More importantly, these points make good SEO sense, and provide a very good place to start when planning a link strategy.

About the Author

Rick Hendershot publishes the Linknet Network, a group of more than 35 websites and blogs offering advertising and link opportunities to web owners.

How to create a good links directory

Every webmaster is spending a serious amount of time online in order to promote a new site or even an older one. We are all talking about quality of content and layout and the truth is, for a site traffic is also important. If nobody has got the chance to see your work, then it just doesn’t count. This is why we all try to index our sites in as many search engines and directories as possible. The good news is there are plenty of them to chose from, but are they all good?

In this article I will try to highlight some of the details we should have in mind when creating a web directory or just a small link section in our site. Since we all submit our links to big or specialized directories, I’ll redirect my advice to people who are already running one or have the intention of starting such a project.

I have come to the conclusions I’ll describe after spending some time doing promotion work for my sites and having to get in touch with a variety of directories and search engines. Some of them were a pleasant encounter, but there were also projects that offered me a lot of frustration. After this I came with a set of ideas I also try to apply in a small webmaster directory I own.

1. The way the site/directory looks

In our daily life we have come to the conclusion people tend to respect us more when we are wearing a costume or a nice outfit in general. Unfortunately, although we are sure it’s just a sign of superficiality, people tend to rate our sites just as they do with our person. A nice looking site will always attract people and gain the respect we want to receive for our work. Having a good directory is not a layout creation feat itself, but the collection of links has got to be presented in a pleasant manner.

Some quick tips for a better look for our directory site:
• As in a “normal” site, use a nice color theme and try to put an image or two of good quality, crisp and clear. From the start your directory will remain simple and fast loading, but it will be also nice looking
• Try to make the links change color on mouse hover. It’s a simple CSS trick, but it’s so nice and easy to manage. It immediately gives your visitors a sense of a “dynamic” site
• Make sure all the elements look good and the page is constructed logically and easy to see and read.

As a conclusion, spend some minutes trying to get the best color theme you can come up and take care of the details and afterwards you’ll be ready to work on the content and promotion of the new directory.

2. Have a clear navigation and categories

The best directories are easy to navigate, with clear categories and links. This is what your directory needs to achieve too. Whether it’s a specialized directory or a general one, you have got to make sure people can find ALL they need in there. A good idea would be to visit some similar projects and try to understand how they are constructed and what the category organization is and perhaps why the author has made the directory that way.

It is important to have your own ideas and principles, but this could help you organize your job better and perhaps won’t let you forget some other categories that would be suited for your site.

For a directory site, categories and links are the content and the most important section, this is why this problem has got to be dealt with great care. You should make sure people can find their way through the site. Place the “add site” link on a good spot so that people are able to see it.

3. Submission ways

This is the part you have to think about seriously: do you want to be paid for the indexing or do you provide this service for free? There are some directories that offer only one of the two solutions and some others that have blended them. If I was to give you advice on this I’d say it’s better to keep it free and validate the links as soon as possible. It gives people the sensation that it’s reliable and good. You can make some money by placing ads and perhaps some “sponsored” links.

In the end it’s your decision, but make it clear for the visitors. The problem is you’ll have less sites indexed if you ask for payment, since many people won’t pay for this, and having an empty directory won’t help with the success either. Since there are literally hundreds and thousands of directories online, people might go with the free ones only. I have done the same thing and I cannot complain about the traffic either. Even in Yahoo I have indexed my site for free and it gives me relevant results.

4. Make it simple

This is the most important thing to have in mind when trying to make your visitors add a site. I have prepared a list of some tips for this “make it simple”:

• Don’t make people create an account just to have the site indexed.

Reason: any webmaster knows the SEO work means having the site listed in as many locations as possible. That means having to submit the link (personally it’s better that with auto submitters) and you are working with 400 or more directories and search engines. Now imagine having to create accounts in all of them just to place a link!
Result: people tend to leave to other places where they don’t have to surpass so many obstacles.

• Don’t ask for too many details

As a webmaster myself I just hate the directories that ask me for all information possible: age, location, address, shoe number and so on. Keep it simple, again. To index my link you need the following: the URL (you could do the rest by yourself with the crawler you have on your directory) or some more information: site name, a short description, some keywords (if you really think it’s necessary) and perhaps the category in your site you think my site can go. That’s all.

You don’t need my address, phone number, fax and all the other info some ask. A very complex submission form can have again the result described above: I leave to another place and you lose a link or more.

• Don’t make people have to send an email to submit the site

The greatest mistake of all. Making visitors open the mail client and send the mail. I don’t think 10% would do this .. the percentage could be smaller. Provide people with an online form they can fill in 1 minute the most and then let them go. Everything that’s more complicated than that means they’ll just leave.

I’ll repeat this again: we have to visit many similar projects and unfortunately many of us are too lazy and occupied to go into too much detail. I usually open 10-15 directories in separate tabs and look for 2-3 seconds on them. I look foe fast, easy and free site submission. Everything that’s paid, too complicated and too detailed as information I need to provide goes, just gets closed and forgotten. In this way I can keep up with my schedule and get fast and good results.

5. The indexing itself

We are at the point the submission form has been received and I wait and wait … still nothing. Again .. you need to work this aspect too, if your “clients” have to wait for more than a week. I can understand there are some huge directories that could have such a delay, but we are not all DMOZ. So let’s speed it up a bit.
The solution could be a script that can offer you the listing to be viewed and validated and 3 important buttons: visit (so that you can go directly to see the site), add and delete.
This is how it works for me:
• I log into my admin account into the 2 directories I own once or twice a day.
• I see “new listings”.
• I visit the pages listed, takes me 2 seconds to know if it’s OK or not, “add” link when I’m pleased with it and “delete” if I know the site doesn’t belong to my webmaster resources directory or the Martial Arts one.
It takes me 10 seconds to validate a link. That’s all.
I don’t keep people waiting for days or weeks, usually the site is indexed in a matter of hours. When you cannot cope with the crowd anymore, get 3-4 people to help, give them access to the validation section and you’ll be again fast and reliable.

6. Quality

Whatever you do, seek perfection and quality. Remember these tips, perhaps they will help you. A good looking, very well organized, easy to navigate and use directory will always be successful. That means a lot of traffic, respect from your visitors, some good page impressions and why not, revenue.
This article has been created based solely on my own ideas and feelings towards this. I think some hints are very important although we sometimes forget the basic rules of a good directory.
Best of luck with your project and may you have many links ...

About the Author

Ramona Iftode is the administrator of wtricks.com or Webmaster Tips & Tricks. She is a freelance webdesigner and an web development articles publisher.

For more information visit http://www.wtricks.com

SEO - What You Should Not Do

SEO is one of the economic ways to get your url listed on the top of free search engines. That is why SEO become so important. There are tons of guidance in SEO on the internet. But in the other hand, there are also misguidance in SEO. They always say to optimize, optimize and optimize your web page with keywords, without considering another factors like determining keywords or phrases keywords effectiveness, how many times you should repeating keywords on your page, etc. What I want to tell you is, that's not enough. If you want to get effective search engine optimization, then avoid these mistakes:

1) Using wrong keywords.
What I mean with wrong keywords are using certain keywords or phases that have no effectiveness in value. Using these kind of keywords will bring you thousands of competitors (not visitors) and make your site stink.

2) Keyword density exceed than 5%.
It is true that to get the top on search engines, you need to repeat keywords several times on your page. But, too much repeating keywords on your page will make your site being penalties, since search engines assume it as spam. Just follow the thumb rule: keyword density may not exceed than 5%. This is the safe way to get your url listed on search engines. If you have any difficulties about this, simply, divide the keyword with the numbers of total words. Multiply the result with 100%. Now you got it.

3) Hidden texts.
Hidden text is text that has the same in color with web page's background and this is a part of spam. Many web masters use hidden texts technique to increase keyword density. Indeed, these texts is unreadable by human visitors but, spiders can recognize it.

4) Too much images/flashes.
This is another mistakes of building web sites. Many web masters use images and animations in their web site to attract visitors. It does make their web sites dynamic but, search engines can not see even an image on their site. They don't realize that search engines are blind. If inserting an image become so important, use it's alt attribute so search engines robots can read the alternative texts. The alt attribute itself have to represent keywords you use.

5) Javascript
Like animation, Javascript does make dynamic web site but, search engines cannot recognize it well. So it is need to be avoided.

About the Author

Endar WS is a SEO copywriter. Visit his site for more information of search engine optimization and get your url listed on the top 25 of free search engines. http://www.2search-engine-optimization.info

The SEO Rip-Off

I have decide to write this article as a result of numerous emails. It seems more and more people are falling victim to bad SEO. The main complaint is that they are paying entirely too much for little or no results. Additionally, many fall prey to bad SEO practices. If you plan to hire an SEO pro in the future, I suggest you use this article as a set of guidelines.

Before going with any SEO firm or individual, do the following:

A) Find out how established and experienced an SEO firm is before you negotiate.
Do they have a sizeable client list under their belt?
Are they published?

B) Scrutinize their portfolio.
What kind of results have they achieved?
Contact a few of their clients. Were they satisfied with the work performed?

C) Consider and confirm their methods?
How will they optimize your site to reach your keywords?
Do they use organic methods? Some individuals or companies use doorway pages, hide text in the background, utilize re-directs and other blacklisted methods. Stay away from these.

D) Get a least three proposals from different SEO firms.
Look at each one carefully. Are there similarities? Proposals will help you see which companies are honest and which are trying to sell you something you don't need.
What is the cost? The cheapest isn't always the best, however, the highest price may not be attached to a comprehensive and viable course of action. Try to find find an individual or organization that will give you what you want within your SEO budget.

E) Contract, Contract, Contract.
Get everything in writing. Look over the document carefully. Be sure it covers everything you have discussed, including methods of achieving your desired results. Have the copies signed by both parties. If the job is a large one you may want to consult a lawyer.

F) Clearly state the terms of payment.
While most SEO firms will not do any work for free or agree to a results based pay scale, many competant SEO professionals will not shy away from a base plus performance incentive package. I am not a firm believer in prepaid contracts.. Most SEO professionals will abide by the 50% up front, 50% upon completion standard. Make sure all financial terms are as clearly defined in your contract as the actual scope of work. This will protect all parties involved in the event that expectations are not met.

All in all, try to do your best to educate yourself on SEO. Have a basic understanding of SEO terminology and SEO methodology. Anyone offering SEO services should not have a problem explaining how they intend to get you results. If they fail gain your confidence or raise a red flag for any reason whatsoever, keep searching. You will eventually find someone who will help you reach your goals for a fair price. Happy hunting.

To read more articles on SEO read Joe's blog http://mr-seo.blogspot.com/ His SEO services can be found at http://www.mr-seo.com For affordable web design visit http://www.jnb-design.com

About the Author

To read more articles on SEO read Joe's blog http://mr-seo.blogspot.com/ His SEO services can be found at http://www.mr-seo.com For affordable web design visit http://www.jnb-design.com

Adsense/Adwords - make a million lose a million?

The orig version of this article can be found at: http://www.HelpmeBuilda.com/newsletters/news010505.asp - and it contains graphics.

but none the less here it is:

Adsense and Adwords
Make a Million Lose a Million?
In this months newsletter I’m going to deal with the hot topic of the moment. Everyone seems to be talking about how easy it is to make money with adsense using adwords - and it is.

Now there’s probably more than a few of you out there who perhaps know what one of the two are but not both and I’m guessing that many of you don’t know how you can tie these two systems together in an attempt to make money – well don’t worry - that's what I'm going to explain today.

To start at the start:

Q. What is Adsense?
A. Adsense is Googles name for the system that puts context sensitive ads on to your web pages (if you’ve included their script code). The idea behind this system is that if you run a site that has content on subject ‘cars’ then the adsense adverts should be on the subject of ‘cars’ – not ‘DIY’ or ‘Mortgages’.

Q. Why would I be interested in letting Google put adverts on my website?
A. Because you get paid per click, not per result but by click. Payments range from a few cents to over $10 a click – pretty compelling reason.

So, in simple terms you now have an overview of adsense (please read the rest of the article before disappearing to register for an account). :-)

Q. What is Adwords?
A. Adwords is the opposite of adsense, it is in fact Googles system for allowing you to advertise on other peoples websites (using adsense as the delivery mechanism).



Q. Why would I want to pay Google to advertise my site?
A. There are many reasons why you might want to pay Google to advertise your site

Your site is brand new and not indexed yet
You seem to be getting little or no traffic from the search engines
You want pre-qualified traffic for your service or product
You want to make money with adsense
I’ll be explaining that last point in detail so don’t worry.

It is worth considering those first three reasons in a little more detail (because they probably don’t make immediate sense to anyone who’s not overly familiar with internet marketing).

Site Indexing. When you have a brand new site that you’re really happy with and want to share with the world you need to let people know it’s there. This is done in many ways such as link exchanges, banner ads, email, etc.

However one of the cheapest ways of getting the word out, if you’re not bothered about speed, is to get indexed by the search engines (visited by and then added to their database). This will obviously involve a large search engine optimisation effort from you and be an ongoing process (because your competition will be doing the same). This means that when people search for a certain word or phrase you might be seen (depends on your SEO).

Traffic If you are competing in a very crowded arena it might be hard or impossible for you to get on the first page of Yahoo/Googles results for your chosen words or phrase, an example of this would be the health and wellness market – there are over 120 million websites out there and some of them are VERY well done – so how are you going to beat them?

Pre-Qualified Traffic Traffic to a website is said to be pre-qualified if it has come from an advert for your subject area, a search engine search for your keyword/phrase or from a mailing list. By this example people who read my newsletter may be considered as being pre-qualified traffic on the subject of starting/improving an online business.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what they are you may have guessed how people try to make money with them, but I’ll explain anyway (just to make sure we’re all on the same page).

We buy cheap words in Adwords and display Adsense adverts for expensive words

You may think that this is an easy exercise but believe me it’s not.

Lets have a look at how this works in reality – note that word, not in our dreams, how does it ACTUALLY work.

If we develop a website with the keyword 'Mortgage' in mind (because we are selling information or products within this subject area) then from the screen shot below we see that to advertise with the keyword 'Mortgage' it will cost a fortune! (screen shot taken from google adsense - these figures change daily - this is purely as an example)

We can see that the average price per click is $12.78 - this is just for one click, not for a sale but just a visitor having clicked you advert to get to your site - and that's if we bid just over $39 a click, if you bid less you get less (if you bid 20 you get 2,400 hits and they cost $9.27).
Obviously the adsense vendor site will not see anything like this amount of money (Google doesn't say what portion of the advertiser money you will actually get).

So if you know that these keywords are really expensive (and there are keywords that cost up 8 times this value) the question should come to mind - how much could I make with an information site on this subject?

Well lets see.
If we assume that you want to target expensive words with cheap words you might use the following:

As you can see we have selected three 'cheap' phrases that will deliver targetted visitors (remember that this is only an example - don't rush off and do this as you will lose a shed load of money!).
So from the example above we see that for a total cost of $40 we can get 76 visitors and if we assume that the 'mortgage' keyword pays $1 a hit then we'll be in profit by $36 a day.

Isn't that nice, not a quick way to get rich but free money ........................dear sweet Jesus, if only it were that simple!
This is why I said DON'T rush off and implement this example.

If this was all there is to it there would be a lot more millionaires out there. There is one aspect of this example that has not been covered. We've assumed that everyone seeing the advert for the cheap keywords will want to click on the more expensive keyword adverts - they don't and they wont.

In general terms a good conversion rate for adsense is 5% (this is considered a GOOD conversion rate), so lets have a look at that example again.

Total hits = 76
Cost per hit = $0.53
Price per expensive hit = $1
Click through rate (CTR) 5%

hits * ctr * $1 = $3.80
Cost - profit = Bugger!

Oops! - you just emptied your bank account.

As yo can see from this example it's only when you sit down and really work out what everythings worth that you realise that you can lose big time.
So, this example shows you how NOT to do it, it doesn't mean that in general it doesn't work, it does mean that you need to carefully select you keywords (the ones you're paying for and targetting) and develop a site for them.

This then begs the question How do you go about choosing the right keywords and markets?
There are a couple of ways of doing this, first you can sit down and think of a few areas that seem to be really popular, for example mortgages, loans, forex trading. You can then go to somewhere like word tracker (they have a free trial service via our link - top right, completely free) which you can use to see how many people are actually searching for a given phrase - this then will tell you if there is sufficient interest to make it worth while. You then go and create your site and content.
this then allows you to zoom in on one particular area, one niche if you like - but there is a better way.

The second way of getting yourself up and running with a money making adsense campaign is quicker and easier.
You start by going out and finding all of the public domain articles that you can and saving them to your hard drive - ensuring that you also save the authors ID and link text (fair is fair). Once you have a reasonable collection of documents you then apply them to you web page (you have a single page and just save multiple copies of it with different names using the free content).
Each one of these pages should have your adsense account script embedded and then it's just a case of getting indexed.

For both of these methods you still need to perform your own search engine optimisation.

This of course is also not an over night solution.
if you are the impatient type you get yourslf a piece of software that will take your content and mass produce web pages for you and perform the required search engine optimisation for you (so in other words a turn key solution). This then leaves you with only the task of getting a domain name and hosting account to perform manually.
This solution can obviously be expanded upon to include many different niche areas within one site, thus ensuring that the software does all of your SEO across the entire site and that all of your pages get listed.

Once you have your site completely up and running you can simply buy some very cheap pay per click advertising to get pre targetted traffic to your niche pages (doesn't have to be from Google - can be from findwhat or another smaller service or a big boy like overture).

For the impatient amongst you there might still be the question of cost, i.e. what does one of these all singing all dancing solutions cost? Simply put it depends, I know that there are a variety of solutions out there ranging from $50 a month up to $150 a month - and these are effectively rental systems, these systems have a variety of functionality but none seem to auto SEO for you.

If this strikes you as an interesting way to make money - but you don't want to shell out on expensive software, or worse still 'rent' software, you might like to consider the 'Cash Sense' system (which is in beta test at the moment).

More information on Cash Sense is available at http://www.Cash-Sense.com
Until the next time, have fun.

Disclaimer: Adsense and Adwords are copyrighted trademarks of Google, adwords figures are shown here as an example only.

About the Author

The author, Paul Foley, is the webmaster at http://www.HelpmeBuilda.Com and is also the author of the Page Generation Software 'Cash Sense' (which can be found at http://www.Cash-Sense.Com. Paul is an IT consultant with over 17 years in the business.

Optimizing Flash. Can it be Done?

Optimizing Flash. Can it be Done?

By: Joe Balestrino

Since the inception of Flash, it has been the programming medium of choice for many companies. Most professionals recognize the superior visual aspects that Flash has to offer. Unfortunately, Flash is also very hard to optimize. Many SEO firms would rather tell you Flash can’t be optimized than to try and optimize it. No, optimizing a Flash site is not simple by any means, but it is entirely possible. The absence of quality content that cannot be indexed is a huge factor regarding any flash presentation. You can add META and keyword tags. Unfortunately, many search engines such as Google do not use these tags.

Large companies shell out big bucks for Flash sites. They don’t want to hear that their site can’t be optimized because of the format. They love the effects of Flash, but more importantly require search engine optimization for their content. Here are some things you can do to increase a sites ranking when dealing with a flash format:

Ideally, you want to get in on the ground floor of a Flash site being developed. Try to persuade the client to have flash headers and the rest of the site HTML based. This would be the most cost effective option. The other option is to create a duplicated HTML. If neither of these is an option, move on to the next step.

Add your META, keyword and description tags to the opening page to be displayed while flash is running. While some may feel that it can clutter a page, the results are hard to argue with. Follow standard SEO protocol. Use keywords in your TITLE tag. Build your link popularity to boost your client in the search engines. Try to link with sites that are pr 4 or more. Never link to sites that have more than 100 links on their link pages. Also, link to sites that allow you to use descriptions. Use keywords in your description. Stay away from sites that only allow banners or no description in linking. Those types of links do not help at all. Remember, links pointing to your site are more important then links going out, so concentrate on those first and foremost.

The next and final tip is controversial. The infamous page re-direct. There are some re-directs that work better than others. My understanding is that Google allows redirects. Google states on their site that a using a "301" code in HTTP headers site direct is recommended if you have moved your site. So, using this to redirect an HTML page to a Flash site should not be a problem. In other words create an HTML page. Fill it with relevant content. Do not stuff it full of keywords. You will then need to create an .htaccess file. To learn more visit http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/htaccess/

and follow the directions. You will need to download the .htaccess file in the root directory of the location where all your web pages are stored.

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm

That is all you need to do. Save the file and upload it. Typically you would type in the old url (old domain name) and it would take you to the new url (new domain name). But, in this case we will change the old index file to another name. Create a new optimized HTML page. Then, name it as the old index page. Google will index the new page that is redirected to the flash page. It will look like this

redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved)

/old/old.htm (the original folder path and file name)

http://www.you.com/new.htm (new path and file name)

Basically, we are just forwarding one page directly to another. Not to another domain name. This sounds more complicated than it actually is. This is usually the best way to utilize a redirect. You could also use a java script redirect.

<script language="javascript"><!--
location.replace("url")
//-->
</script>

Never use the META tag redirect. Those have already been recognized as a blacklisted move.

I cannot guarantee that these will not get you banned. But, from my research, the 301 re-direct is the best bet. If your site is 100% Flash and you need to rank higher, this will get you results. These are your SEO options for clients with Flash sites.

About the Author

Visit Joe’s blog at http://mr-seo.blogspot.com/ to read more articles on SEO. You can also visit his other web sites www.jnb-design.com and www.mr-seo.com for more information on SEO and to try out his services.