May 29, 2010 by 4 Comments

How can I get my website recognized by the search engines for free


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So you’ve got your website built but it doesn’t appear in the search engines even for your company name. Why not? Many new website owners think that once they upload their site to the net it will instantly be recognized by the search engines. This is not true. The search engines find your site through links. For example if CNN links to an article on your web page you’ll instantly receive thousands of visitors because they get redirected through the link on their site.

Should you submit your website to 1000s of search engines and directories?

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February 12, 2010 by 9 Comments

How to Do Keyword Research: 7 Steps for Generating Backlinks, Rankings & Traffic

Are you currently generating free traffic to your website?
Are people finding your website in the search engines?
Is your website search engine friendly?
How can you increase your current rankings?

These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself if you want to build a profitable business on the Internet. The best free traffic you can receive is from an organic listing in the search engines (websites listed on the left). Ideally your site should be listed on the first page for a specific keyword. If your website appears on the second page or beyond no one will see it. There’s no guarantee you’ll get a first page listing (because search engine formulas change and more competitors come online everyday) therefore you need to create a list of many keywords then integrate them into your web pages.

Step by step process on how to do keyword research:

1. Create a list of keywords

Use the free keyword research tools such as WordTracker or the Google Adwords suggestion tool to create a list of at least 100 keywords. For example here are the first 3 monthly results when you enter “keyword research” in Wordtracker..

keyword research…………….. 1,018
keyword research seo…………… 44
keyword research tool…………… 44
seo keyword research………………2

The longer your list the more keywords you can use in your website content. Your goal should be to dominate your niche by obtaining good rankings for all your keywords.

2. Select long tail keywords

Long tail keywords don’t have a high number of searches per month and have less competition than the popular keywords. Therefore it will be easier to attain high rankings for the them. In the above example you would use the second and third results instead of the first because there are less competing websites.

3. Create a list of competing websites

Enter each keyword into the Google search box with quotations around it to view the number of competing websites. The higher the number the more competitors you have.

Example

“keyword research”…………………11,500,000 (competing sites in Google)
“keyword research seo”……………41,910,000
keyword research tool………………1,410,000
“seo keyword research”……………….432,000

After doing a little more research you’ve discovered the first 3 searches have too many competitors but the fourth one has much less. You should now check the number of backlinks of the top 10 websites for this keyword. This will determine what you need to do to rank above a competing website.

4. Analyze the backlinks of competitors

These are links that point to a website. It’s one of the main factors Google uses to rank websites. The quality and quantity of backlinks will determine your rankings. If you can outnumber the backlinks of your competitors you will outrank them in the search engines.

Use Yahoo Site Explorer to check the number of backlinks for a web page or website. For example if the first website you check has 6000 backlinks you’ll need to get over 6000 to outrank them. That would take too long. If the second result only has 20 backlinks you could outrank them by building more than 20 to your own web page containing the same keyword.

5. Use the keywords in your content

Only use one or two keywords in the content of each web page. Include it in your meta tags, headings, sub headings, paragraphs and links. Don’t over do it otherwise the search engines will think you’re spamming them and lower your rankings.

6. Build backlinks to your website

Build backlinks to all your web pages using a combination of article marketing, video marketing, commenting on blogs, forums and social networking. Avoid getting backlinks from unrelated websites. Focus on sites that compliment or relate to your own.

7. Add unique content

As you add more content you increase the places visitors find your website. Instead of just finding your business through the home page they find it from other pages. Therefore make sure you optimize each web page plus build backlinks to it.

Related Article
How to Optimize Your Website for the Search Engines

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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Web Design, Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , ,
September 9, 2009 by 1 Comment

Article Writing – How to Write an Article Without Getting Distracted

Have you sat down to write an article only to get so distracted you still don’t have it done by the end of the day?

It leaves you frustrated because article marketing is the life blood of your online business. It attracts visitors, builds backlinks and boosts your web site rankings in the search engines.

Top 7 tips for eliminating article writing distractions

1. Clear your mind

It’s hard to start writing when your mind is cluttered up with thoughts going in all different directions. Close your eyes and visualize a beautiful, peaceful place in your mind. It could be a calm sea, a beautiful garden whatever calms your mind. With a clear mind thoughts will flow a lot easier.

2. Choose the most creative time of the day

This is different for each person. The morning is the most creative time for me before I delve into all the tasks for the day. If I leave my article writing for later saying “I’ll do it after I get all these tasks done”, it never gets done. If you haven’t discovered your optimal time to write try writing at different times of the day or night to see what time is the most productive.

3. Clear your desk

Have you heard the phrase “out of sight out of mind?” A cluttered desk makes it difficult to concentrate because it grabs your attention. It you clear your desk of clutter it will help you to focus your mind on the task at hand.

4. Turn off alerts

This means turning off your cell phone, email notifications or any other device that makes a noise and grab your attention. When you answer a client’s call or instantly respond to an email it interrupts the flow of your thoughts and may take 10-15 minutes to refocus your thoughts again.

5. Write from an different location

If you find it difficult to write from your home office, try another room in the house, sit outside or go to an internet cafe. When I go to an internet cafe it enables me to focus on one thing only…writing the article.

6. Handwrite your article

I wrote a whole article on a piece of paper while waiting in the doctor’s office. There’s something about writing your on a piece of paper that helps you to easily create an article. Try it…you may be pleasantly surprised.

7. Use a timer

Setting a time limit to write your article helps focus your thoughts and attention. You’ll be surprised how much writing can be accomplished in 30 minutes or 1 hour. I simply write the start time on a piece of paper then start writing. Starting is the hardest part but once you get going time goes by very fast. Another idea is to use an online stop watch such as online-stopwatch.com.

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To become an expert in Article Marketing pick up a copy of
Article Marketing Strategy

Filed Under: Article Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
August 8, 2009 by 3 Comments

Video Marketing – How to Create and Upload Videos to Increase Backlinks, Rankings and Web Traffic

Looking for a highly effective way to attract more visitors to your web site?

Online videos are common place now and many marketers are using them to boost their web traffic. My last article discussed the top 10 benefits of video marketing. Let’s now discuss how it can be done.

1. Create your video

Use a video camera (or digital camera if you don’t have one) to record your movie. Make sure your camera is steady so you won’t get jerky motions. Have plenty of light (natural is better) in the background so your subjects are well illuminated.

If you’re creating a slide show using Windows Movie Maker then you don’t even need a camera. Alternatively create your slides in Power point or Open Office Impress then capture screen shots with Camtasia.

2. Editing your video

Before uploading your video for public consumption, check for any errors then edit them or redo the movie until you’re satisfied with it. If using windows movie maker you can edit the movie within it. Save the file in MOV or AVI format

3. Upload your video

Create an account on You Tube or other video sharing sites then upload your video. It will take a few minutes to upload. Be sure to write a descriptive paragraph to attract lots of viewers. Include a link back to your web site. This will help boost your backlinks.

4. Distribute to multiple web sites

Not all people only visit You Tube to watch videos. There are many others which are visited also. Here is a list of the top 10 video sharing web sites:

YouTube
Metacafe
Break
Google Video
Dailymotion
Yahoo! Video
Revver
vidiLife
Stickam
ZippyVideos

Read Where to Upload Your Videos

Tip
Like article submission the key to attracting lots of traffic with videos is to do it consistently. Make a schedule to create and distribute a video once a week to begin with. Once you get faster and more comfortable with it increase your volume. You’ll see a nice boost in backlinks, rankings and web traffic.

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Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your website with
“Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Maryland Web Site Design

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