Photo by dullhunkAs someone who makes a living improving search engine rankings, I can tell you that there is a lot of bad information out there about SEO. What if I were to tell you that the road map for achieving top rankings was within your grasp? The holy grail of rankings is not imaginary. As is true with any major success, it leaves clues.

By working with literally hundreds of small and medium sized websites, I have found that top ranked sites have a number of factors in common. What are they? I’m about to share these factors with you and explain what separates those in the top Google positions and those that are never found on page one of search results.

The first search engine ranking factor has to do with the anchor text of all inbound links to your website. Google and other search engines use the anchor text from other sites linking in to determine what your site is about and what it should rank well for. If websites link in only using a URL, and not your keywords in the anchor text, email them and ask them to update your link. The link should always appear with your most important keywords.

The second most important ranking factor is using keywords in your title tag and other meta tags. Meta tags still have an impact on your search rankings. Although the weight of meta tags may be minimal, they are effective in categorizing your page and identifying what search engines should expect to find when they spider web site pages. Make sure your tags are constructed properly and include you keywords.

The third ranking factor to consider for your web site is link popularity. This phrase has been talked about in search engine circles for a while but can be equated with Page Rank. The concept of Page rank or link popularity for that matter take a number of factors into consideration to identify the quality of web pages from an external perspective. The largest factor that influences search engine rankings is the number and quality of links that are pointing to a web site or web page.

The fourth ranking factor is the diversity of domains that link to your web site. For many search engines, it’s not only what links you have to your site but making sure they are from different domains. This represents more popularity associated with you web site and therefore is judged to be a better search result. When link building, try to focus on generating inbound links from different websites.

The final ranking factor is keyword use in root domain. Although it’s possible to use subdomain or dedicated pages to get your keywords in a URL, nothing beats having them in your root domain.

All of these factors are important for top search rankings. Don’t overlook any of them if trying to improve your search rankings for particular keywords or keyword phrases. Also, be sure to continually read up on the subject or consider any one of a number of SEO training programs that can show you how to have more impact with your optimization efforts.

Michael Fleischner is an SEO consultant and author of SEO Made Simple, revealing strategies guaranteed to improve search engine rankings. Learn more about Michael’s hands-on SEO training program, Internet Marketing Forum, and SEO consulting at MarketingScoop.com or contact him via the Marketing Blog at marketing-expert.blogspot.com.

When I tell you what these 4 words are, you will most likely be surprised for a couple of reasons. First, they seem innocent, and second, they are used on many, many web sites. It wouldn’t do much good though if I did not tell you why they are so bad, or what you should do, so I will cover that too.

What are those 4 words? They are, “Welcome to our website.” Even more surprising is how many professional web designers use these performance killing words when designing web sites for their clients. This common error runs rampant across the Internet.

Why is this so bad?

The first reason is that it violates a rule that every professional web designer should be aware of. This is commonly called the 8 second rule, and here is what it means. When a visitor first lands on your web site, they make a decision about whether to stay or leave in an average of 8 seconds. A welcome message squanders those precious few seconds.

Remember, people are visiting your site anonymously, virtually, and they are looking for content. The friendly greeting that works well in face to face reality is counter productive on your web site. Leaving your site is a simple mouse click away, and visitors don’t need to return your courtesy by saying excuse me or goodbye.

In those first few seconds, that web site visitor is only interested in knowing if you have what they are looking for, and if it will be easy to find. There are ways to let them know they are in the right place, but, “Welcome to our website,” is not one of them.

The second reason is that these words lack something critically important to your web site–uniqueness. I mentioned already that many, many web sites use these words. Just out of curiosity, I did a search to see how many. I chose Yahoo! for technical reasons, and they showed over 8 million results using the exact quote. By removing the quote marks, the results were over a billion! Google shows different (lower) numbers, but I’ll spare you the details on why they filter results and don’t show actual totals.

No matter how you run the numbers, those 4 useless words are way over used, which is reason enough to avoid them. Your site will never stand out if you make the same mistake so many others have made.

What should you do instead?

Well answering that question completely would fill a book, so I’ll simplify it down to the basics. Perhaps most importantly is getting immediately to your point. The visitor should get a good idea what your page is about at a glance. Page titles, headings and subheadings, first and last paragraph, and navigation structure all play an important role.

Have someone from an outside perspective look at your page. If you gave them 5-10 seconds, could they get a general idea of what the page is about? Do all the page elements support the message without causing a distraction? Could the visitor be visually overwhelmed or over stimulated? Keep it simple and clean.

Obviously, you can’t give visitors everything in 8 seconds, but you can give them enough so it “pulls them in” to keep them on your site longer. Make sure your site is easy to figure out and use. Plan and organize your content in a logical way. You can, and probably should, go into detail about your product or service to inform your buyers, just don’t violate the 8 second rule.

Even if you don’t use those 4 naughty words on your web site, I trust the principles here have been helpful in evaluating your web site’s content to make it more effective.

Steve Chittenden seeks to help business owners and organizations market themselves effectively and succeed. His company, Creative Business Services, provides carefully planned web design, graphic design, writing, and marketing services aimed at achieving this goal. Please visit http://www.cbscreative.com for more information.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

With local search increasing, and the use of paper yellow pages decreasing, it is more important than ever to make sure your web pages are geo-targeted. This post expands a little on a recent post I made.

When a web surfer is searching for a solution locally, they are using very specific search terms. They have learned over the last 10 years that searching for “pizza” is going to get so many results as to be useless. However, searching for “pizza in albany” or “italian food in saratoga 12866″ will get them much closer to the results they want.

The listings that come up first are usually that search engine’s local listings, which are great, but they only show the first 10 or so local listings. If your business doesn’t show up there, or you haven’t taken the time to update your local listing (shame on you), then you can boost your chances of getting listed in the organic search results (directly below these local listings) by using the techniques outlined below.

Critical geo-targeting elements you need in the title tag:

• keyword(s) in the title tag – “plumbers” or “plumbing” or “plumbing contractors”
• city/town/region – “los angeles” or “gold coast”
• state spelled out and also abbreviated
• zip code (you can target neighboring zip codes on other pages)

Here’s an example search to show you how little this is being used (and how easy it will be for you to dominate the search results!) …

This handy tool will help you to choose keywords:

http://www.5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php

I have a customer who had a competitor opening up about 15 minutes away and he wanted to make sure he was listed first. The competitor was currently listed first in google. I added a page with the keywords he wanted, and a link to that page from the bottom of every page on his website. On the new page, I just listed the directions from the competitor’s town to his location, and a map. He’s now number one (and two).

Don’t forget to put your physical address on every single page of your website. It contains most of the critical elements.

TIP: If you have a page where you list your coupons, use these same elements in the title tag for that page: “Pizza Coupons in Little Rock”. And don’t forget to add an autoresponder to your coupon page, inviting them to sign up to receive additional coupons via email.

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it’s worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the <title> and </title> portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

If you are looking for some web site templates that are really attractive and easy to use, you need to check out Open Source Web Design. They have thousands of designs to choose from. Just download, modify and upload to your server. And best part is … they’re free!

Here is some handy code to add to your website to make it easier for your customers to print your internet coupons. It allows them to print only the coupon image and not the rest of the page.

Add this javascript in between the <head> tags:

<script language=”JavaScript”>
<!–
function print_iframe(frame_name) {
var iFrm = frames[frame_name];
if (iFrm) {
iFrm.focus(); //IE requirement
iFrm.print();
}
}
//–>
</script>

Add this iframe code where you want your coupon:

<iframe src=”YOUR COUPON IMAGE LOCATION” name=”x11″ id=”x11″ width=”WIDTH” height=”HEIGHT” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ align=”middle” frameborder=”0″></iframe>
<br><a href=”javascript:void print_iframe(‘x11′)”>Print This Ad</a>

Make sure you put the image’s width and height in the iframe code so the coupon will show up without any funky borders or scrolling.

Here is an example of the script in use:
http://insideedgeskiandbike.com/retail.cfm

Give it a try. More scripts to come!

This technique works equally well for insurance professionals, financial planners, and mortgage professional, but we will be concentrating on real estate agents in this example.

In the real estate business, your name is often your brand. Your business cards have a big picture of your smiling face, all of your broker’s ads list your name.

One of the best ways to brand yourself locally is to get your own name as a domain name. You can brand yourself for the cost of a domain name, which runs about $10. The best part is, you don’t need a website!

It is also a reality that real estate agents don’t always stick with the same broker, or they leave to start their own brokerage. You might work at a few agencies before you find a place you’re comfortable with. Having your own name as a domain name allows you to move to the next level of employment, but still retain your brand.

You can still use your broker’s website to show your listings. All you have to do is point your name domain to your “page” on your broker’s site.

Registering a domain is easy and only costs about $10.  I use GoDaddy for all of my domains, and I find them to be very reliable.

Just go to http://godaddy.com and enter your name  in the box.

If your name is already taken try these ideas:

• add a “-” in between your first name and last name
• try adding your profession or state after your name (ex. johnsmithsc.com)
• come up with a memorable phrase with your name in it (ex. johnsmithsells.com, justaskjohn.com, goseejohn.com)

Follow the order process and you will get an email with your login details. Go back to GoDaddy, and login to your account. Once logged in, click “Domain Manager” on the left to see the options for your domain.

Then select your domain and you will be taken to the page where you can set up your domain to redirect to your broker’s website (or your specific agent listings on their site).  Click on the “Domain is not forwarded” link.

The window below will slide into view, and you can add the website you want to forward to.  The box is grey-out, so you need to click the “Enable forwarding” check box. Then click the “301 moved permanently” button. Click the OK button and you’re done!

If you ever have to change the website your domain name will forward to, just edit it here.

Now you can confidently brand your business cards, newspaper ads, etc. with your very own name!

Need more ideas? Click the “Need an idea?” link above.