Sunday, October 08, 2006

Optimizing Images for Search

Optimizing Images for Search

When you think of building a search engine friendly site you probably don't think of optimizing your images. Title tags and META tags probably come to mind first, but optimizing images can attract more visitors to your site and enhance their experience when they get there. Properly optimized images will decrease page load times, allow people with disabilities that use screen readers to understand the content that they can't see, and bring new visitors to your site from image searches.

There are several important factors to consider when optimizing images on your site.

File Names:

Giving pictures an appropriate filename will help search engines determine its contents, especially for image specific searches like Google's Image Search. For example, naming a picture of a butterfly "butterfly.jpg" is better than naming it "1234.jpg".

Image Size and Quality:

The fact that both image size and quality are important causes problems for site owners. Lower quality images increase loading speed, but hurt rankings in image searches and detract from the overall user experience. Higher quality images help in image search rankings and look great, but cause pages to load slowly, which can be a problem for visitors with slow connection speeds.
I've found that the best way to get the best of both worlds is to have a small, lower quality image on the page that links to a higher quality image file. That way the page can be loaded and viewed quickly, but users wanting a closer look can click the image, and image searches will have a high quality image to index (increasing your chances of ranking high). For example, on an e-commerce site, it makes sense to place small thumbnail images next to the description of an item and then link the thumbnail to a higher quality image of the item for potential buyers looking to get a closer look.

Alt Text:

All images should include short alt text that describes the image. Alt text helps search engine spiders understand what your image contains, which will help them to understand the context of your page better, and in turn pass you more targeted traffic via search and image search. Alt text also helps screen readers tell disabled visitors what the image contains, enhancing their experience on your site.
A properly formatted HTML image tag with alt text looks like this:

img src="image_title.gif" alt="Descriptive alt image text here"

Surrounding Text and Captions:

It is important that the surrounding text and image captions are consistent with the content of the picture. According to the Google Images FAQ.
"Google analyzes the text on the page adjacent to the image, the image caption and dozens of other factors to determine the image content. Google also uses sophisticated algorithms to remove duplicates and ensure that the highest quality images are presented first in your results."

Avoid Putting Text in Images:

There are some occasions where text in an image is necessary, but in general it should be avoided at all costs. It's common practice to use images with text in headers or other important parts of the page, usually because of the background or surrounding logos. While alt text certainly helps, it's best to have the text actually readable by search engine spiders and screen readers.
A simple alternative is to create your graphic with everything but the text, write the text by itself (formatted to your liking using CSS), and then make the graphic a background image of the text (also using CSS). This makes it look like the text is part of the graphic, when in reality it is part of the HTML.

About the Author: Adam McFarland

Affordable webhosting with Granite Belt Hosting Affordable Australian domain names

Monday, October 02, 2006

Purchasing Domain Names - What You Should Know

Purchasing Domain Names - What You Should Know

There are a number of ways and locations to purchase domain names, and research and knowledge are keys to making the right decision. Therefore, it is important to know a number of things when purchasing a domain name.

1) Accredited Registrars

All domain names must be sold by accredited Registrars certified to do so by the governing body . Registrars are required to follow the procedures set forth by the governing body , giving consumers a dispute organization in the event one is needed.

Registars are required to pay a fee to the governing body for the purchase of each domain name. One of the areas that separate registars is the price charged to the consumer.
Domain name registration varies from $4.99 at the low end to $65.00 depending on which registrar you choose. And the only diference in the domain name at $4.95 to $65.00 mybe value added services.
Services offered with domain name purchases also vary depending on the registrar selected, such as DNS, forwarding, email, hosting and parked pages.

The services offered are just as important to purchasing a domain names as the name itself. If you own a .com domain name and purchase the .net name, then free forwarding would be a great deal. If you want to point the domain name by DNS then not only is free DNS pointing required, but if you have no experience with DNS the support to set up DNS records will also be required. All registrars are not created equal and some sell low cost domains but with limited support. Granite Belt Hosting offers low cost domain names and low cost hosting with full support.

When selecting a registrar look at your short term and long term needs, whether it is one domain or multiple domains. Although a low cost looks good up front, do your research and make sure all your needs will be filled. When looking for a domain contact the registrar and ask questions like: Do you have 24/7 tech support, does your support cover DNS record set up, advance record set up, what will you be expected to do and what will they do for you.

2) Domain Resellers

Resellers are partners of accredited registrars, reselling their products and services, but are not accredited to sell domain names. When purchasing a domain name from a reseller, be prepared to be patient. Most offer very little to no technical support or rely on the accredited registrar for support. Resellers like Granite Belt Hosting will give you the support you need and have a support network so if you need the support just log a help ticketThere are also times the reseller goes out of business without notifying the domain owner leaving them with little knowledge of who to contact if the domain requires DNS record changes or even simple renewals.

3) Domain Deals

Searching the Internet for a registrar will lead a surfer to many results. Beware of some of the results and domain gimmicks. Yahoo offers domains for a low price with their hosting, but is not an accredited registrar or a reseller. Yahoo uses a third party company that is an accredited registrar. Most consumers do read the Terms of Service when making a domain purchase, and doing so will allow you to see that Yahoo states that they assist you in purchasing your low cost domain.
Unless you read the Terms of Service, knowing that your domain will be registered somewhere else could lead to long term issues. These issues include domain renewal notifications or confusions when wanting to transfer the domain to a new registrar.
Check out all domain offers, read the fine print and make sure you know who your are really dealing with.

4) Domain Protection?

When you purchase a domain it is yours to use for the period your selected to register. Once purchased many registrars automatically put on a service to prevent your domain from being transferred to someone or somewhere else without your permission.
This service has different names depending on where your domain is registered, but may be called domain lock and domain protect.

Domain protection is a valuable service and should always be left on unless you intend to transfer your domain to a new registrar. Never allow anyone to tell you to turn off your domain protection for any reason but to transfer. Many times a hosting company or web designer will tell a client to turn off the lock so they can set up services, but this is not required to set up any service its only for transfering the domain to another registra.

5) Additional Domain Services

When going through your purchase flow you will be offered a number of additional services, none of which are required. Web hosting will be needed if you do not have your own server, but if you just plan on parking the domain or not using it then why get hosting. Email can be used for your domain with many Internet Host Providers like Granite Belt Hosting. Check with your provider and ask them if you can set up your domain and receive email using your current service. If so there is no need to buy the email service.
Domain registration with a particular registrar does not mean you must use all or any of the services they offer. You can purchase a domain with a registrar and host with a different company.

Private Registration is the only service that must be purchased form your registrar, this product will remove your personal information from the WHOIS database and make ownership of your domain anonymous.

Author: John Kinney

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Top 10 Things Every Site Should Include

While almost anyone can have a web site these days it's much harder to have a good website. From design aspects to readable content many sites fall flat. Below I've arranged a Top 10 list, because everyone loves a Top 10!
Include a detailed About Us page
The About Us page is a good place for new visitors and target traffic to find out who you are, why they should read your content or buy your products, how valuable your site can be, and also general information about your company, web site, or you.
It's a good idea to include contact information or at least a clear link to your Contact Us page. Keep concise and accurate. People want to read about you but they don't want a novel. Add important information on this page and point them to other pages for more in depth coverage.
Include a Contact Us page
Visitors (shoppers, target traffic) need an easy way to get in touch. Have a clearly marked link for contact information and include every avenue you receive communication through. Telephone and fax numbers (both local and 800), e-mail addresses, physical addresses, etc. all should appear on this page.
To help navigate further, clearly indicate which contacts go where (i.e. Admin, Tech, Sales, etc.) This will decrease frustration on both ends and allow better communication to flow. You want to show your visitors that you are competent and friendly, being easy to contact is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal.
Add a News, Press Release, Blog, and/or Articles Page
These pages inform customers of current events, products, endorsements, and other company happenings all in one place. Make sure to maintain these pages with fresh content that is reader friendly so your target traffic is more likely to come back, bookmark your page, and they may even provide word-of-mouth advertising. Free advertising!
As a bonus, search engines love these types of pages. New, fresh, relevant content is the stuff of search engines (well, there's obviously more to it than just content). Each time a search engine spider crawls your site and find new content it ups your chances of ranking higher in the organic search listings. More free advertising!
A Relevant Page Title
As uninteresting as this may sound your page title holds a lot of weight. If you're unfamiliar with a page title it is the name appearing in the blue bar across the top of the page. If your says something like "Untitled Document" I'm talking to you.
Page titles should be different for every page in your site. They should clearly and accurately describe your page, and you should try to use keywords in the page title.
Search engines display the title of your page on SERPs. The catchier and more accurate your title the better the chance you'll hit target traffic.
A Relevant Page Name
Again, not so interesting as flashy designs or up-to-the-minute content, but it's a necessity to get your target traffic to your page to see or read the goods.
It's better to have straightforward page name showing in the URL than names with ? or other symbols and numbers. For example, a search engine will go to www.yourdomain.com/about us.htm it will only go to the ? in www.yourdomain.com/aboutus?094837 . You want search engines to find your pages. You also want humans to be able to read your names. Keep it simple and clean.
Good Grammar, Correct Spelling, Complete Thoughts, Sentence Structure
Everything you were supposed to learn in grade school, use it now. Not only should your site have relevant content - the more the better - people should be able to read your content. Choppy or runon sentences that seem to go nowhere cannot provide the type of readership concise, correct sentences can.
Misspellings, wrong word usage, bad grammar are all distractions. You do not want to distract your readers, you want to captivate them. Slang and derogatory language also distracts. If your site is a business site avoid slang and offensive language all together - unless that's your selling point. Jargon is different, just don't confuse readers more than necessary.
If you aren't in command of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. or if you'd rather focus your efforts elsewhere, that's fine. It's a good idea to beg, plead, hire, or force someone else to take care of this part then as ignoring the problem won't make it go away though it may have that effect on site traffic.
Professional Design, Colors, and Images
Design should be implemented with usability in mind. Not all visitors will be as web savvy as you'd like, create easy navigation and links to all your pages. A search bar for your site is also a good idea.
Colors should be inviting, not blinding. Use colors to emphasize your brand, product or content. Don't overpower the visitor with colors. Use colors to make text pop without being distracting or hard to read.
Images should be friendly and relevant to your site. Images of people work better than objects and clip art rarely has a positive effect. Make sure your images can load within a reasonable amount of time, you don't want to lose visitors because a single image caused an incredible amount of load time, or worse froze the visitors browser.
Make Sure ALL Links Are Working Links
This should be a no-brainer, however it is always a good idea to check and double check your links. Fix any broken links A.S.A.P. Your reputation counts on it.
Think of any site you've been to with a broken link. Disappointing isn't it? You probably left or at least had a negative image about the company. Avoid this mistake and check, recheck, and check your links again
Use Your Log Files
Log files offer a plethora of information on your web site, your visitors, what works and what doesn't. You can't afford to miss out on this information - if you can afford it you shouldn't anyway.
Best idea: Get a program that converts the lengthy text into readable documentation. It'll save you time and energy while getting you the information you desire. Log files will describe customer behavior, they will show you broken links, and you'll see where customers flow freely and where they abandon the site. The invaluable information is at your finger tips. Use it!
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificates
These can be used on any site asking for sensitive information. Not every web site needs this, however if you plan to collect any visitor information it is a good idea to have some SSL pages. Though not every page need be SSL.
Pages requiring e-mail, names, telephone numbers, addresses, credit card information, social security information or any other information visitors may not readily be giving up online should be securely collected via SSL.

About the Author: Kristen Owen, CEO of ContentWorth has written quality, unique articles for years. For information on articles and other services please email Kristen.
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Sunday, June 18, 2006

Link Popularity vs Relevancy

Link Popularity vs. Relevancy

I was contacted recently by an online directory. The woman who phoned me began by telling me that they didn't have a web designer listed in my area and they had 20-30 people every week who were looking for a web designer and were unable to find one. As I listened to this sad story tears started to form in my eyes as I began to realise that in the 21st century there are still people in the world who are having to go without a web designer.


Of course I quickly realised that this sob story was intended to soften me up in an attempt to sell me something, so I interjected by saying: "So you're looking for someone to advertise on your website?"


Oh no it's not advertising, she said, We're looking for one exclusive web designer in your area to handle all the enquiries we are getting...



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She went on to tell me that this fantastic opportunity would only cost me £1 per day and that they would be able to get me listed on the first page of search results in all the major search engines.


Now there's one thing I don't like and that is when people use a promise to try and sell you something knowing full well they cannot deliver on that promise.


"So if I go to Google and type in web design wiltshire, will I find your company?" I asked.


To my amusement she replied with one of the funniest lines I have ever heard in telephone marketing: "Oh no," she said, "we don't use Google anymore - we use Yahoo instead."


Once I had stopped laughing I pointed out to her that nearly 60% of all Internet searches were made through Google and if you were in business online you would not deliberately 'stop using Google'. What she was saying of course was that it was harder to get a top ten listing in Google than it was with Yahoo.


Now the point of all this is that when she was busy making excuses for not being listed in Google she did say something rather interesting and that was that 'Google does not always show you the websites that are the most relevant to your search phrase'.


Now this is quite interesting. Because Google uses a different formula from Yahoo and MSN when calculating search results, you get a different set of results from each search engine for the same search query.


MSN appear to give more weight to keywords than they do to link popularity, whereas Google places a high importance on the quality and quantity of incoming links but also takes into account a whole host of other factors.


The more success I had with getting top ten search engine results the more I advertised those successes on the SEO page of my website. Every so often I would check the results to see if I was still on the first page. What I began to notice was that on MSN the SEO page of my website was getting to number one for a phrase that I had listed on that page. For example, I built a website for an acupuncturist in Swindon, Wiltshire and wanted to advertise the fact that I had secured a number one slot in Google for the search phrase 'acupuncture treatment wiltshire', so I listed it on the SEO page of my website. A week or so later when I went to check the MSN rankings for the acupuncture site I noticed that the SEO page of my site was at number one for the search phrase 'acupuncture treatment wiltshire'.


Now the problem with this of course is that the search phrase is not relevant to that website. So in terms of relevancy MSN has failed: it has not delivered the most relevant websites for that search phrase because it has put a web design company at the top instead of an acupuncture website. This is one of the pitfalls of placing too much emphasis on keywords.


But why was my site at the top instead of the acupuncture site (which was coming in at number 2 or 3)? Presumably because my site is more established, has more incoming links and a higher Page Rank. Presumably, although not definitely.


So do these problems occur with Google? The answer to that is yes and no.


Google does get irrelevant sites mixed up in it's top ten from time to time but they are more likely to be there because of Page Rank than because of keywords. An article about SEO and linking strategies that I published on a high ranking website turned up in the top ten for a completely unrelated search phrase because I had mentioned that phrase once in the article. The reason was that Google placed more importance on the PR of the site the article was on than the keyword density of that particular phrase.


As Page Rank is based largely on link popularity the end result in this case was that link popularity beat relevancy hands-down. This is the main bone of contention that many webmasters have about Google: link popularity does not necessarily equate to relevancy and ultimately it is relevancy that is most important to the user.


Some may argue that a more popular site is more relevant. But if you were looking for a web designer in Marlborough you wouldn't want to find a listing for a hotel in the top ten just because it had more incoming links and a higher page rank than the site of a local web designer and happened to have a link to another web designer at the bottom of the page.





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Part of the problem of course is that whatever system is in place some people will try to cheat the system. That leads to companies like Google having to change the way they evaluate the web pages that their robots crawl. This inadvertently leads to some website owners finding that their sites have been devalued because they have accidentally done something with their site that is frowned upon by Google because it was once used by the cheats to artificially boost their search engine rankings.


Until such time as a telepathic search engine is invented it seems unlikely that such problems will be eliminated. Perhaps in the coming years some kind of global directory will be used in conjunction with domain name registration, whereby each website could be registered in a maximum of two categories (web design and SEO for example) and some kind of system could be used to make sure that websites could only show up in search results for search phrases related to those categories. It would probably be too expensive and labour intensive to implement but I'm sure if someone could find a way of making money from it we might well see it happen!






About the Author: Rob Butler is a web designer in Marlborough Wiltshire and specialises in securing top ten search engine rankings for small to medium sized companies.


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Saturday, June 10, 2006

SEO Tips

One of the most important traffic sources your website can ever get is that from search engines. Although the traffic may not be amazing right off the bat, with a little work that can improve drastically and at no charge. Also, it is a proven fact that search engine traffic leads to sales more so than any other form of advertising. So how can you raise your rank? There are a few easy steps:
Choose a strong yet not to competitive keywordMany webmasters fail to realize the importance of choosing the proper keywords. In selecting yours, you want to make sure the market is not to overwhelming. For example, if you make a search on Google for “free files” you will see there are well over 300,000,000 results. With a competitive market like this, getting a top ranking is nearly impossible. This is why you must plan out your keywords for a less popular but still probable path. Another common error is thinking by choosing some obscure keyword with only 100 results that it will be very easy to get the top ranking. However, what are the chances of a user actually searching for that obscure word. Make sure that a potential customer actually will be attempting to find that keyword.
Optimizing for your word(s)Perhaps one very important keyword optimization techniques is including it within both your title and Meta’s. If you want a search engine to find your site as relevant as possible, it is extremely important that it be included in your title (towards the front), Meta description and Meta keyword list. However, the most essential location for the keyword placement is simply throughout your page. An optimum keyword density is about 1-5%, meaning, generally you want around 4% of all the words on your page to be your keyword. Any less and your “important” for that word will drop, any more and you may be dropped from engines due to spam. The weight of words also matters. For example, if your keyword is in an H1 tag near the top of your page, most spiders will weight that heavier than regular text as it essentially illustrates a title that the pages article is about. Also important are bolding and on some algorithms underline/italic. However, spiders may also consider the overuse of these techniques spam as well so be careful.
Keeping content freshLastly, it is extremely important that you keep your content up to date and fresh. The more often you change your content, the more search engines will feel you are providing good resources instead of old outdated information. Also, how often you change your content reflects how often spiders reindex your site and in turn add new keywords to their database for your website. Generally, although not a direct SEO technique, fresh content = the god of all SEO techniques.
Andrew Spiziri http://www.freetemplatedesigns.com
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Saturday, May 06, 2006

Search Engine Optimisation Pitfalls

Search Engine Optimisation Pitfalls


On page factors - Is your website search engine friendly?


So you have a website but where is it on Google? Have you fallen foul of a penalty or have you overlooked one of the many common search engine optimisation pitfalls when designing your site?


Understanding what works for the search engines and what doesn't when it comes to the content on your website can have a crucial impact on the relevance and/or page rank of your pages from a SEO perspective.


Here we highlight common mistakes that could affect your ranking on Google and other search engines.


Optimising for the correct keywords

Basically 'Get real' about what keywords you feel your website can be ranked for. If you have a ten page website in a highly competitive market then ranking naturally for the major terms will be close to impossible. Use the Overture keyword tool together with the number of results on Google to find out what keywords are searched for and how many other websites are targeting them. If you are lucky then you might even find a popular keyword that not many other websites are optimised for. Alternatively a good tool for this job is Wordtracker from Rivergold Associates Ltd.


Code validation

If your html code is not valid then this could make it very difficult or even impossible for a search engine to separate your page content from your code. If the search engine cannot see your content then your page will obviously have no relevance.


Frames

Even though most, if not all, major search engines now index frames and even with the use of the NOFRAMES tag you run the risk of your pages being displayed in the search engine results out of context. As each individual page is indexed separately, it is likely that your website visitors will not see your pages within your frame and will effectively be stuck on the page they arrive at.


If you must use frames then create a 'Home' link on each of your individual content pages and point the link at your frameset index page.


JavaScript navigation

If you use JavaScript to control your website navigation then search engine spiders may have problems crawling your site. If you must use JavaScript then there are two options available to you:


Use the NOSCRIPT tag to replicate the JavaScript link in standard HTML. Replicate your JavaScript links as standard HTML links in the footer of your page.


Flash content

Currently only Google can index Macromedia Flash files, how much or how little content they see is open to debate. So until search engine technology is able to handle your .swf as standard then it would be advisable to avoid the use of these. Again if you must use Flash then offer a standard HTML alternative within NOEMBED tags.


Dynamic URLs

Although Google and Yahoo are able to crawl complicated URLs it is still advisable to keep your URLs simple and avoid the use of long query strings. Do not including session IDs in the URL as these can either create a 'spider trap' where the spider indexes the page over and over again or, at worst, your pages will not get indexed at all. If you do need to include parameters in the URL then limit them to two and the number of characters per parameter to ten or less.


The best SEO solution for dynamic URLs is to use Mod-rewrite or Multiviews on Apache.


No sitemap

A sitemap is the search engine optimisation tool of choice to ensure every page within your website is indexed by all search engines. You should link to your site map from, at least, your homepage but preferably from every page on your website. If your website contains hundreds of pages then split the sitemap into several categorised maps and link these all together. Try and keep the number of links per page on a sitemap to less than 100.


Excessive links

Excessive links on a given page (Google recommends having no more than 100) can lower its relevance and, although it does not result in a ban, this does nothing for your search engine optimisation strategy.


Be careful who you link to

As you have no control over who links to your website, incoming links will not harm your rank. However outbound links from your website to 'bad neighbourhoods' like link farms will harm your ranking.


As a rule ensure as many of your outbound links as possible link to websites that are topical to your field of business.





About the Author:
John Hill - Developer, Designer and SEO Professional with E-Gain New Media offering search engine optimisation and PPC management.



posted by Granitebelt

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Benefits of Reciprocal Links

The Benefits of Reciprocal Links Revisited
There exists an endless supply of tools available to webmasters to help them in making their website a success; of these one is reciprocal linking.
The concept of exchanging links with other websites has been around a long time.
By exchanging links with high quality websites that share a common theme you help Google identify your website's particular niche and raise its value.
Google figures that if websites it has already identified as being of value, link to your website, your website must be of value also.
Unfortunately, it is still an often overlooked or under-used method today.
If you have tried to exchange links with other websites, you would have found that many websites do not even have a links page. Of those that do, few have an area on their website that actually welcomes you to request a link trade.
It seems these websites are just islands unto themselves.
Perhaps it is because it takes so long to build a quality web presence that many website owners don't bother with reciprocal linking! Some may think that linking to another website is making it easy for their hard-earned visitor to leap over to another website. While that may be correct, it is also true that the other website's visitors are jumping over to their website in return.
Little do they realize that reciprocal links would give them a big boost in the search engines. When calculating a website's page rank, link popularity is one thing that is considered by search engines.
While it is accurate that one-way inbound links are given more weight, especially in the light of the latest Google update, reciprocal links still aid in reaching a higher page rank too.
However, a critical mistake can be made by many a new webmaster.
That is trading links with every website that is willing to return the favor.
Search engines take a dim view to indiscriminate linking. Therefore if the webmaster has a dieting website; linking with a pet or travel website could be detrimental to its scoring.
For instance, in their place, the webmaster would be wise to start trading links with health food, exercise or vitamin websites for maximum benefit.
By creating a tightly knit link directory of complimentary websites, a webmaster is encouraging his visitors to see his own website as a valuable resource for browsing their favorite topic.
As a result, these visitors will bookmark the website providing the webmaster with plenty of free return visits.
There is even an additional advantage for the webmaster with limited time.
That is when a search engine robot has indexed his link partner's website, locates the webmaster's link and crawls his website. This may happen before he has a chance to submit the website directly to that particular engine.
It's like getting free website submission!
As a webmaster, you not only need to keep your website updated and fresh.
You ought to ensure its success by developing a healthy traffic-producing plan.
Certainly it is important to stay abreast of all the latest techniques of creating traffic, but it is equally important to remember some of the time-tested methods like reciprocal linking to achieve this goal.
So here are a couple of sites that will link with you
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Toowoomba Contacts
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and here is a handy little tool to have a reciprocal linking site
download from granitebelt hosting linkmachine_install.zip
happy linking

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 6

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 6

"Learn How The #1 Ranked Website In Google For

Search Engine Optimization Claims That Position

Year After Year!"

Is search engine optimization hard? No, not really, as I've shown you over the

course of the past week. In this 1 week period you probably already know more

than most of your competitors and we're just beginning to scrape the surface here.

I was reading through news articles the other day, and came across one on cnn.com

that was written about a company called seoinc.com, the #1 ranked website on Google

for the highly competitive search term "search engine optimization".

... And they've managed to hold that position for the past 3 years!

How have they managed to take the top position for such a competitive

phrase?

Let's use trusty SEO Elite to analyze why they're ranking #1 on Google for the search

term "search engine optimization". I think you'll be surprise at what will be revealed...

First, we'll go to Google and enter "search engine optimization" to be sure www.seoinc.

com is still coming up at #1.

We'll then open up SEO Elite.

We'll select radio button 1, Analyze backlinks using a specified search engine.

We'll copy their URL and paste it into SEO Elite.

Because we want to analyze as many links pointing to www.seoinc.com as possible,

we're going to select ALL search engines. This will give us a much larger list of

backlinks to analyze.

Click ok.

Report View

Once it's done processing, we'll click over to the report view and begin analyzing all of

the data that SEO Elite has returned.

Anchor Text

The first thing we need to look at is the "anchor text" column.

So, we'll click the column heading to sort the data in descending order. As we screen

down, you can see that the keyword "search engine optimization" occurs very

frequently in the anchor text of their backlinks.

We'll then click the "add a keyword" link located in the bottom left hand portion of

the screen.

Note: This will allow us to see exactly how many of their total backlinks contains the

anchor text "search engine optimization" in the anchor text.

We can see that 1,995 links contain the search phrase "search engine optimization".

This is an incredibly large amount of links to contain the same anchor text.

IP Address

Now, let's take a look at the IP Address column to see if they're getting all these links

from different websites OR many from the same website.

I'm always a bit skeptical when a website has this many incoming links, especially

that many containing the same anchor text. So, it's best to check to see exactly where

the links are coming from.

So, we'll click the IP Address column to sort the results in descending order. Hmmm...

Immediately I notice something very interesting.

In many instances, the same IP Address is listed numerous times. What does this

mean?

Well, let's scroll over to the URL column, click a link, and take a look at 1 of these

pages that is linking to www.seoinc.com

As we search the page for their link, we'll notice that on the right hand side of the

page, there is a link with the anchor text "search engine optimization" that is linking to

www.seoinc.com.

We'll also notice that above their link is some text that says "Advertisement".

Now, we'll scroll to the bottom of the page and notice another link that says

"advertise with us". Interesting...

If we click that link, it will take us to this website's advertising information page.

We can clearly see that www.seoinc.com is paying this specific website

for a link on all pages within this website.

In this case, this happens to be thousands of links.

We can then go through this same process with ALL of the other repeating IP

Addresses and can clearly see they've done the same thing with those websites.

We can now come to the conclusion that www.seoinc.com is simply buying links from

hundreds of different websites to achieve their excellent ranking.

You can clearly see by this example, that buying links DOES work if that's what you

choose to do. By combining, both getting reciprocal links using SEO Elite's email

functionality, and by purchasing links from the correct websites, you'll quickly move

yourself to the top of the rankings!

Those are just a few of the things you can quickly see by running a website through

SEO Elite. I'll reveal much more in the lessons to come!

Until next time, happy rankings!

Brad Callen

Bryxen Software, Inc.

http://www.seoelite.com

Sunday, March 05, 2006

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 5

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 5
"How To Skyrocket Past The #1
Ranked Website On Google For The
Term Diet Information ..."
This is the single most important thing you need to do to rank well. So, listen closely and
soak up EVERYTHING I'm about to teach you. It's very striaghtforward and may seem
simple, but it works...
Now that we've analyzed the top ranked website in our niche, we need to do the
necessary things to outrank them. As I taught you earlier, it's not the onpage
optimization factors that will give you the biggest change in ranking.
Remember, onpage factors include:
page title
header tags
alt tags
meta tags
bolding, italicyzing, and underlining
placing keyword in the correct position on the page
While onpage optimization is still something you should do, it's NOT what will get you
high search engine rankings. It's the offpage optimization factors that will.
Who links to you and how they do it
Copy the linking strategy of www.diet-i.com
Now that we know who links to www.diet-i.com (The #1 ranked website) and how they're
doing it, we can begin to copy what they're doing.
The goal here is to contact the websites that link to www.diet-i.com and copy the exact
linking strategy they're using to get a #1 ranking.
So, how the heck are we going to get hundreds of links pointing to our website, let alone
contact all the websites that link to www.diet-i.com and get them to link to us?
Now, you could just visit them all manually and ...
Search for their contact information.
Open up your email program.
Write out an email to this website and send it off to them.
Then do this another 500 times.
Or you could do this ...
Open up SEO Elite
Select Radio button 2
Select to find link partners by domain name.
Enter www.diet-i.com into the textbox
Select Google from the search engine list
Click Ok
View the Report View Tab
You'll now need to click over to the report view tab. You'll notice that there are two
frames located on this screen.
The top frame lists:
All of the websites that link to www.diet-i.com.
The contact information for the website.
The number of times you've emailed them. (This is good to know, because
emailing the same website multiple times can upset some webmasters.)
The bottom frame allows you to:
Create as many email templates as you wish. This way, you only have to write the
link request email once!
Creat custom links pages containing the websites you're going to send link
request emails to.
Note: It's always best to add their link to your website before you ask them to link
to yours. You'll get a much better response this way. SEO Elite allows you to add
everyone's link to your website with a single click of a button. It's all automated!
Blast out emails to thousands of websites at once!
To email more than 1 website at a time, simply click the row in the top frame and it will
add the website to your email list. You can literally add thousands of websites to you
email list!
From then, all you'll need to do is click "ok" and BAM!
You've just contacted 1,000+ websites at once!
It's always best to make sure you add a link to each website on your website BEFORE
you contact them. In the email to them, include the URL where you have added their link.
You will get much better results this way.
Also, you have to be careful if you just send out mass emails to people. It's always best
to personalize each email by simply stating what you liked "specifically" about their
website. It may take a little more time, but will ensure that you don't get accused of
spamming them.
Now, all you have to do is sit back and wait for them to email you back, stating that
they've added your link to their website.
You have total control over who links to you and how they do it!
Link Request template:
Here's an example link request email that typically works pretty well:
Hello my name is John Smith. I am seeking out possible link partners that our
visitors would be interesting in visiting. I've found your website to be a very good fit
for our visitors. I have already gone ahead and added your link to our website at:
http://www.domain.com/TheLinksPageCreatedBySEOElite.htm
I am contacting you to see if it is ok to have done so. Also, I would like to ask if you
mind linking back to us? If so, please use the linking details below and send me the
location of our link on your website.
Here is our linking details:
Title: (This is the keyword we want to target)
Description: Description here...
URL: http://www.domain.com
We've got several PR6 and 7 websites, so we expect this site to become atleast a
PR5 within 1 month and will eventually become a 6 or 7 in 2-3 months.
I hope this can be a way for us to benefit our visitors with excellent content. Hope to
hear from you soon.
John Smith
www.domain.com
If you do this several times, over the course of a month, I can guarantee you'll rank
VERY well for nearly any search term, period. It works, and it works extremely well.
Stay tuned for the next lesson, It's a Doozy!
Brad Callen
Bryxen Software, Inc.
http://www.seoelite.com

http://www.granitebelthosting.com.au

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 5

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 5
"How To Skyrocket Past The #1
Ranked Website On Google For The
Term Diet Information ..."
This is the single most important thing you need to do to rank well. So, listen closely and
soak up EVERYTHING I'm about to teach you. It's very striaghtforward and may seem
simple, but it works...
Now that we've analyzed the top ranked website in our niche, we need to do the
necessary things to outrank them. As I taught you earlier, it's not the onpage
optimization factors that will give you the biggest change in ranking.
Remember, onpage factors include:
page title
header tags
alt tags
meta tags
bolding, italicyzing, and underlining
placing keyword in the correct position on the page
While onpage optimization is still something you should do, it's NOT what will get you
high search engine rankings. It's the offpage optimization factors that will.
Who links to you and how they do it
Copy the linking strategy of www.diet-i.com
Now that we know who links to www.diet-i.com (The #1 ranked website) and how they're
doing it, we can begin to copy what they're doing.
The goal here is to contact the websites that link to www.diet-i.com and copy the exact
linking strategy they're using to get a #1 ranking.
So, how the heck are we going to get hundreds of links pointing to our website, let alone
contact all the websites that link to www.diet-i.com and get them to link to us?
Now, you could just visit them all manually and ...
Search for their contact information.
Open up your email program.
Write out an email to this website and send it off to them.
Then do this another 500 times.
Or you could do this ...
Open up SEO Elite
Select Radio button 2
Select to find link partners by domain name.
Enter www.diet-i.com into the textbox
Select Google from the search engine list
Click Ok
View the Report View Tab
You'll now need to click over to the report view tab. You'll notice that there are two
frames located on this screen.
The top frame lists:
All of the websites that link to www.diet-i.com.
The contact information for the website.
The number of times you've emailed them. (This is good to know, because
emailing the same website multiple times can upset some webmasters.)
The bottom frame allows you to:
Create as many email templates as you wish. This way, you only have to write the
link request email once!
Creat custom links pages containing the websites you're going to send link
request emails to.
Note: It's always best to add their link to your website before you ask them to link
to yours. You'll get a much better response this way. SEO Elite allows you to add
everyone's link to your website with a single click of a button. It's all automated!
Blast out emails to thousands of websites at once!
To email more than 1 website at a time, simply click the row in the top frame and it will
add the website to your email list. You can literally add thousands of websites to you
email list!
From then, all you'll need to do is click "ok" and BAM!
You've just contacted 1,000+ websites at once!
It's always best to make sure you add a link to each website on your website BEFORE
you contact them. In the email to them, include the URL where you have added their link.
You will get much better results this way.
Also, you have to be careful if you just send out mass emails to people. It's always best
to personalize each email by simply stating what you liked "specifically" about their
website. It may take a little more time, but will ensure that you don't get accused of
spamming them.
Now, all you have to do is sit back and wait for them to email you back, stating that
they've added your link to their website.
You have total control over who links to you and how they do it!
Link Request template:
Here's an example link request email that typically works pretty well:
Hello my name is John Smith. I am seeking out possible link partners that our
visitors would be interesting in visiting. I've found your website to be a very good fit
for our visitors. I have already gone ahead and added your link to our website at:
http://www.domain.com/TheLinksPageCreatedBySEOElite.htm
I am contacting you to see if it is ok to have done so. Also, I would like to ask if you
mind linking back to us? If so, please use the linking details below and send me the
location of our link on your website.
Here is our linking details:
Title: (This is the keyword we want to target)
Description: Description here...
URL: http://www.domain.com
We've got several PR6 and 7 websites, so we expect this site to become atleast a
PR5 within 1 month and will eventually become a 6 or 7 in 2-3 months.
I hope this can be a way for us to benefit our visitors with excellent content. Hope to
hear from you soon.
John Smith
www.domain.com
If you do this several times, over the course of a month, I can guarantee you'll rank
VERY well for nearly any search term, period. It works, and it works extremely well.
Stay tuned for the next lesson, It's a Doozy!
Brad Callen
Bryxen Software, Inc.
http://www.seoelite.com

http://www.granitebelthosting.com.au

Thursday, February 23, 2006

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 4

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 4
"How To Skyrocket Your Website To The Top Of
Google With Properly Planned Offpage Optimization!"
I don't know about you, but I get extremely excited when I see my new keywords at the
top of Google for the very first time. Making big changes in ranking is primarily done by
what is called offpage optimization.
Earlier I mentioned there were two types of search engine optimization.
Onpage Optimization
Offpage Optimization
We've gone over onpage optimization, so let's move on to offpage optimization which is
what really makes a HUGE difference in your site's ranking.
Properly planned offpage optimization will make the difference between your
website ranking #900 on Google, to ranking #1!
So, what is offpage optimization anyway? Offpage optimization basically consists of all of
the offpage ranking factors that the search engine look at when ranking website. These
include:
Which websites link to you
The number of websites linking to you
The Google of the website linking to you
The page title of the website linking to you
The anchor text used in the link linking to you
The number and type of links linking to the website that's linking to you.
The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
Whether or not the websites linking to you are deemed by Google as an
authority website.
Plus some other things that we'll get to later...
In order to optimize our original website for the keyword "weight loss stories", we need to
analyze the linking strategy of the top 10 ranked websites for our keyword.
Copy The Top Ranked Websites To Get A #1 Position
The goal here will be to copy exactly what they're doing, and then do things slightly
better. We want to give Google exactly what they want, by making our linking strategy as
close to the top ranked websites as possible, but as I said, slightly better to edge them
out.
Let me quickly introduce you to a very good program that I use to get my websites to the
top of the major search engines. It's a program called SEO Elite.
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather use software to do all of the work for me.
I won't go into detail about all of the features of SEO Elite because to be quite honest, I
don't have the time... Let me show you how you can easily use SEO Elite to analyze
your competitors and outrank them!
Let's change gears and analyze the top ranked website for the keyword, "diet
information" because this is a much more competitive keyword that "weight loss stories".
I think you'll be quite surprised by all of the things SEO Elite will show you. So, let's
begin...
First we need to go to Google and enter the search term 'diet information'. You'll see that
the number one ranked website is www.diet-i.com.
Next, we need to open up SEO Elite.
Select radio button 1 - Analyze backlinks using a specific search engine.
Enter www.diet-i.com into the domain to analyze textbox.
Select the search engine, Google, by checking the checkbox.
Click ok.
What SEO Elite will do is analyze ALL of the offpage ranking factors that I mentioned
above. Again, these things include:
Which websites link to you
The number of websites linking to you
The Google of the website linking to you
The page title of the website linking to you
The anchor text used in the link linking to you
The number and type of links linking to the website that's linking to you.
The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
Whether or not the websites linking to you are deemed by Google as an
authority website.
It is these offpage optimization factors that is what is giving www.diet-i.com a #1 Google
ranking. It's NOT www.diet-i.com's keyword density, prominence, and all of that other
onpage optimization stuff that SO many people think is what makes your website rank
well. That's not the case at all and I want to make this 100% clear to you.
SEO Elite will show you everything they're doing to rank well and will make it extremely
easy for you to duplicate on your own website!
Once SEO Elite is finished processing, we can click over to the report view tab as shown
below.
Report View
The report view will show us an enormous amount of important information we'll need to
know to outrank this website.
First let's look at the Anchor Text column.
Anchor text plays an extremely important roll in ranking well in Google.
Review: Anchor text is the actual text located within the links linking to www.diet-i.com.
For example, in this example:
l diet information is helpful.
"diet information" is the anchor text.
Take a look at this webpage that is linking to www.diet-i.com. Notice that the anchor text
is "diet information"
While looking at the report view within SEO Elite, you'll notice that www.diet-i.com has
hundreds of backlinks that contain the words "diet information" within their anchor text.
This is a BIG plus for them and something you'll want to duplicate!
Now, let's scroll to the left and look at the IP Address column.
* Google favors websites that have many links located on different IP Addresses.
If you think about it, it makes sense that Google gives priority to websites that have links
on many IP Addresses rather than many links all on the same IP Address. This helps
eliminate the possibility of people controlling the search engines.
If Google didn't look at IP Addresses, I could simply create 1 website with thousands of
pages and link to another 1 of my websites from all pages. I would then have thousands
of links pointing to my website and a #1 ranking...
Unfortunately, Google's smarter than that and you can't do it.
Anyway, back to the IP Addresses. As we scroll over, click the "IP Address" column
heading to sort the column, we'll notice that www.diet-i.com also has many links from
different IP Addresses. That's also a BIG plus for them.
Next, we'll look at the column titled Page Rank.
If we click the Page Rank column heading, it will sort the column for us. You can
immediately see that www.diet-i.com has 2 links from 2 Page Rank 7 websites.
This is very good, in that it will raise www.diet-i.com's Page Rank and ultimately their
ranking.
When you get a website with a high Page Rank to link to your website, it will increase
your page rank more than if a lower page rank website were to link to you. Think of the
high Page Rank website as a bucker of water. When they link to you, they poor a certain
percentage of the water into your bucket, giving you more water (Page Rank). If a
website with a lower Page Rank links to you, they have less water to begin with, so when
they poor water into your bucket, it won't be nearly as much...
Analysis View
Next we'll take a look at the Analysis View tab.
If we click on the column heading titled "Anchor Text", it will sort the column in
descending order. You can see that the 2 words that are found the most often in www.
diet-i.com's backlink anchor text are the words "diet" and "information".
98.5% of the overall backlinks pointing to www.diet-i.com contain the word "diet" and
85.6% of the backlinks contain the word "information". Also listed is the total number of
links containing each of these words.
This is just another way of showing you why www.diet-i.com is outranking their
competitors.
You will want to try and copy these percentages when you optimize your own website
and get others websites to link to you.
If your percentages are too high, Google may think you are "spamming" and may
not give you as high of a rank as you deserve.
If your percentages are too low, Google won't think your website is important
enough to rank highly.
Lastly, we'll click the column heading titled "Title" to sort it in descending order.
You can see that the word "diet" is still the top word, at 38% and "information" is still
towards the top at 7.9%.
The same thing goes for this column. You should try to match these numbers with your
own website as closely as possible.
These are just a few of the things that we can quickly see about www.diet-i.com by using
only a few of the features within SEO Elite. I hope you can see just how powerful of a
tool this can be for you.
In the next lesson I'll be showing you...
"EXACTLY what YOU will need to do to outrank them with this newly
acquired information!"
Brad Callen
Bryxen Software, Inc.
http://www.seoelite.com

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 3

7 Days To Massive Website Traffic - Day 3
"The Secret To Getting Listed In Google In Under 24
Hours - Guaranteed!"
You may or may not have heard people claim they can get listed in Google in only 1 day.
It seems that nearly 100% of the people you run across in forums act like in order to
get indexed by Google in 24 hours is some miracle feat that can only be
accomplished by doing some "top secret" marketing tactic or advanced optimization
strategy
Well, the truth of the matter is...
Getting listed in Google in under a day is quite easy!
First let's talk about what NOT to do. This drives me absolutely crazy when I see
people doing this, and is actually what I did at one time as well. The following URL
probably looks familiar to you:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
This is Google's actual website submission form. They state that you can use this form to
submit your website to their index of websites and it can take up to 6 weeks for your
website to be placed into their index.
I don't know about you, but 4 weeks is a heck of a long time to just wait for your website
to be placed in their index rotation, let alone get a top ranking!
Never Use The Google Submission Form!
You should NEVER use this form, or any other of the top search engine's submission
forms for that matter. These search engines include Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, and
Alltheweb.
So, how do you get your website indexed within 24 hours?
Let's stick with our weight loss website for now, and I will take you through the steps
you'll need to do to get indexed by Google in under 24 hours, guaranteed.
l Go to Google and enter the broadest keyword you can think of that's related to
your website. In our example, it will be "weight loss". Once you've done this, you'll
see a list of Google results.
l Browse through each website and pay particluar attention to the Google Page
Rank of the website.
Note: Remember, Google Page Rank is measured by the number of websites and the
"importance" of those websites that link to your website. In general, the more websites
that link to your website, the higher your Page Rank will be.
l So, as you're looking at these top ranked websites for the search term "weight
loss", you should try to find websites with a Page Rank of 6 or higher.
l Once you've found several websites like this, you should check and see whether
or not they have links pages. Usually you'll see links from their index page that
say (resources, links, related sites, etc.) Now, you need to search their website for
their contact information or information on getting a link from one of their high
Page Rank webpages.
l Once you find their contact information you should send them an email asking if
they will link to your website in return for you linking back to their website. If you
do this correctly and professionally, they will respond and will place a link on their
website to yours.
If you can manage to get 1 PR6 website to link to your website, you will be indexed by
Google in under 2 days. If you can get 1 PR7 website to link to you, then you will be in
Google's index in under 24 hours!
Sometimes persuading the higher page rank websites is pretty tough, so there's another
option you can pursue and that is ...
Purchasing Text Links! - But For Only 1 Month
Purchasing links from high Page Rank websites. The easiest and fastest way to do this
is to visit 1 of the many link purchasing websites. Here are a few of the better ones that I
personally use on a regular basis. I've listed them in order of which I view as the best.
1. http://www.linkadage.com
2. http:///www.text-link-ads.com
3. http://www.textlinkbrokers.com
Many times you can purchase 1 PR7 link for a 1 month time period for, say, $150. After
the month is up, there is no need to renew because you are already in Google's index!
So, basically by paying a 1 time fee of $150 you can be indexed by Google within 24
hours, with no work on your part.
Something else that I will typically do with new websites, is I will always link my older,
higher Page Rank websites to my new websites.
If you own 1 PR5 or 6 website, then place a link on the index page and point it to your
new website.
Leave the link there for 1-3 days and you'll quickly see your new website in Google's
index! Once you're in the index, you can remove the link from your higher Page Rank
website.
Stay tuned to tomorrow's lesson to find out what you MUST do if you purchase
links!
Brad Callen
Bryxen Software, Inc.
http://www.seoelite.com

My Yahoo!

My Yahoo!