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In what is one of the more bizarre stories to come out of the online poker community recently, it appears as though Jamie Gold has severed ties with ACED Poker after just a couple of months of partnership between the two entities. ACED Poker is a member of the Merge Gaming Network, which is currently ranked 17th in the world in terms of their traffic and 6th in the world amongst entities that accept players from the United States.

Facts about the case appear to be sketchy at best at the moment, as there is a verbal war going on between ACED Poker and Lisa Wheeler, the woman that was in charge of publicizing the event when Jamie Gold was signed by ACED poker. According to Wheeler, she came along for the ride against her better judgment, mostly because of the fact that Jamie Gold was involved and she understood that the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event champion was certainly a person that could be trusted.

In the end however, that proved to be a wrong way of thinking as Wheeler’s involvement with Jamie Gold and ACED Poker has caused her nothing but headaches in the two months that have passed. According to her, ACED Poker made many promises both of personal and financial matters and in almost every case, failed to come through. She described the operation as being disorganized, something that very likely ended up leading to Gold giving ACED Poker notice and deciding to leave for greener pastures.

Brandon Berndt holds the position of manager at ACED Poker and when he gave an interview, he essentially took Wheeler to task for what he felt were incorrect comments. In fact, he went on to say that her statements did not carry any water in terms of accuracy and while he did confirm the split between Gold and ACED Poker, he went on to say that his staff were attempting to fix the problem through private channels. ACED Poker has threatened to sue Wheeler for slander over the statements that she’d made, but at the end of the day only they know whether that is genuine or just a way to heat things up.

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If you not only want to promote your website, but also make money online – then you should consider how to combine SEO with blogging to provide combination for success that can’t be topped.

When you have a website or blog, you may have a focus purely on delivering information to a target audience. However, with the right search engine optimization and an understanding of how to apply it to your blog, you can also increase traffic and get a more targeted audience. Improving your traffic flow is important whether your aim is purely to inform or if you wish to use your blog and website as an extra or sole income source, which is where good design and SEO helps.

So t get to the heart of things and find out what really works and what doesn’t. If you are eager to improve the traffic to your site, then let’s begin by looking at what the latest and greatest solutions are to achieve that goal.

THE SEO FAST TRACK

How to begin managing your site’s SEO. Basically, when you create a site that is attractive to the search engines, then you have a better chance of being listed by them. To be completely realistic about this, the daddy of the search engines is Google, so if you have followed the necessary steps to rank well there, then you’ll rank well across all the rest too. Carefully select the best keyword or keyword phrase for each page on your site and carefully build each page around that word. This should include the home page and you should only aim optimize any one page for one keyword if you want to succeed.

Don’t worry about including Meta tags. This is the SEO fast track, if you have time to complete the Meta tags, great – if not, then leave it. The most essential tags for your site are the title tags and these are the ones that need to contain your page keyword. Don’t rely solely on the keyword, but integrate it in the title and you will really see it make a difference to your ranking. To include your keyword in the title if it is ‘Creating Blogs’ the look at a title such as:

Creating Blogs and Using SEO For Fast Cash

As titles go, this is a good length and you have included your target keyword phrase ‘creating blogs’ to ‘label’ your web page. Once you have done this – you then need to make sure the first heading on the page also includes the phrase ‘Creating Blogs’. This time just use the phrase and make it a H1 html tag. Ultimately, the ‘purity’ of the site html is not important, the main concern should be that it is clear to Google – so carefully select appropriate H1 and Title tags.

Always tag graphics on the site, even those such as the payment graphics Clickbank offers. Using alt tags appropriately will make a significant impact on your SEO and page ranking. Reinforce the information in your title and H1 tags with alt tags such as: < img= . . . alt=”creating blogs Image 1”>. This will drive home that the page is about ‘creating blogs’.

Include the keyword phrase in the first 100 characters of the body html, for example:

“Creating Blogs”

“Creating blogs and carrying out webpage SEO will achieve quality results for your site over and over again. If you are blogging for cash, then this will be a highly effective way of perfecting your money making online. What you need to do is strike a balance between the site visitors and search engine, working the two together to create one solid money-producing site that you will work for you on autopilot – freeing your time to begin your next money-making strategy.”

Can you see how this is working? The keyword phrase is used in the heading, then repeated within the first 100 characters. Using the keyword immediately following the title and the rest of the page title also in the first sentence is a great way to highlight your target words. The search engine crawlers love this and right away you are making it clear precisely what your site is about.

If you continue working down the page and following this while maintaining natural and well written content, you’ll not only get the search engines crawling all over your site; you’ll have something worthwhile to show the masses of visitors this will drive your way when they get there. Look at perhaps including similar headings like “Creating Blogs and SEO” for H2 tags that further build upon the theme of creating blogs while developing further the concept of combining blogs and web pages for maximum benefit.

DEVELOP AN INTERNAL LINKING STRATEGY

Once you have completed the selection of keywords and placed them on your individual pages, then the next thing to work on is the inclusion of the other different words you need to optimize on other pages on you site. Select the appropriate keywords or phrases and then you need to start using these for internal linking of your pages to further boost your ranking for the target words. Make sure this strategy is of benefit to visitors, as site usability is also important once you get traffic to your site from the higher search engine ranking these steps will help you achieve.

Internal linking should get the search engine spider to ‘dig deeper’ and visit more of your site, but linking a greater number of pages and moving the spider through them one by one. This means more pages will be indexed and a larger number of keywords and phrases will be linked to your website. Once you have done this, you can be sure that you will rank more highly and receive more targeted traffic for the phrases you have identified as being most relevant for your site, as well as your products and services.

SUCCESSFUL BLOGGING

Create a high quality blog and you have the perfect opportunity to build your site success by demonstrating your expertise and knowledge in your field. Aim to optimize your blog for different keywords to those on your website and avoid them being in competition. Updating your blog regularly and having links to your website will keep the search engines spiders reviewing both, so you can achieve better results and drive more traffic via the combination of the two mediums.

I’ve not been able to figure out exactly the reason why, but the bottom line has been that I’ve had better results when linking a blog that is optimized for different keywords to my website. The biggest advantage that I’ve found with blog articles is that unlike articles submitted to directories, you can pretty much advertise what you want on your blog and create affiliate links and other tools that will drive more traffic to your site. One of the greatest benefits of maintaining a blog alongside a regular website is that you can promote one via the other without the fear of losing anything, as they both come under your control. With well placed links and careful strategies, it is nearly impossible to have a loss as you are simply linking two sites that belong to you.

Make sure you also send a ping for your blog to all the sites you have the blog registered with, as this too will boost the traffic you receive, generating a lot more visitors than SEO alone. Best of all, blogs cost nothing, so why not use them?

IN CONCLUSION

If you want to succeed, even the implementation of these few basic SEO tips will put you on track for greater success and a higher search engine ranking. These simple elements will boost the results you get and push your webpage higher up the list on Google and also other search engines. You can take advantage of having a blog to promote your website and to increase traffic flow to both sites. Plus if you get involved with the wider blogging community, you can further boost the results you obtain. With careful planning and implementation of SEO and a quality blog, online success can be yours much sooner than you may have thought.

Put the work in and blogs and Web 2.0 can work for you. Work smart and you’ll secure the success you desire fast.

Many new users and even those with more experience of the net will make mistakes when they are starting out in the process of boosting their site so that it ranks more highly in the search engines. The biggest mistake many of us make is listening to unfounded advice, going with the latest rumours circulating online or simply going with our instincts to our detriment. Have you ever fallen in the trap of making changes to site layout, content or backlinks only to fall in the ranks without being able to identify exactly why you were ’supposed’ to change in the first place?

The fact is, there can be many reasons why your site falls in the ranks or doesn’t achieve the success you expected from some new initiative you have undertaken. There may be things that are in your control and also things you cannot be able to manage. When the search engine changes the algorithms it uses to rank sites or when the competition changes in your field. While there will always be things beyond your control, I’d like to focus here on how to manage those things that you can do – showing you some SEO tips that you may not even know about.

Have you been in the habit of freshening the appearance and content on your website frequently? If you are and you don’t give SEO any thought in this process – then this could be one of the main reasons your site is falling in the ranks.

If you have changed any of the titles of your pages or changed the name of some important directories then you will most likely see this cause a drop in your search engine rank. The most important thing if you have made mistakes in the past is ultimately how to avoid repeating them in future.

When Dealing With Google, Yahoo and MSN – Ignorance is no excuse

While you may break the ‘rules’ with the search engines unwittingly, the bottom line is that this won’t save you from being penalised. If you want to avoid this however, here are the top 5 SEO mistakes that you should avoid at all costs.

1.) Site Layout, Page Design and Usability: Be careful when you design your website that you don’t go over the top using too many fancy visual layouts and elaborate graphics that will reduce your textual content. If you do redesign your site, then make sure that you are careful in your selection and quantity of images used. Also exercise caution with embedding content and navigational links in images on the site. The content and visible links are what the search engines will use when they index your site. As a guideline, the average web page should contain at least 200 to 300 words. Use your keywords naturally in the text (without stuffing them in too much), and include navigational links that use the target keywords – especially with your internal linking.

2.) Choose Navigation Text Carefully: While using instructions such as “Click Here” will make it very clear for site visitors, then fact is that if a search engine visits your site, they will identify this as the most important words or phrase, even above your target words and phrases. The easiest way to avoid this is to use short keyword phrases that guide both site visitors and the search engines to other pages with targeted words. If your target words are “red rose bushes” for example, then you want the visitors to identify that is what you are about, so use the term “red rose bushes” in your hyper links. In the end, you want to rank for the term “red rose bushes” in order to reach your target audience – no one looking for your products is going to find you if your site just ranks for the term “Click Here”.

3.) SEO and Site Usability: If you use titles on your pages that are not focussed on your key phrases, then you will rank for the titles used, but you won’t do yourself any favours with respect to ranking for your key phrases. Clearly, this is not the result you are after. If you are reviewing your web site, then go through page by page and make sure that you have selected a meaningful, keyword rich title that will help boost your ranking for that phrase. Take some time when working on this section of your site to be sure that you have optimized the meta tags for your target keywords also. This is no longer believed to be an important aspect of the SEO for your site, it still pays to do this as it is a further chance to be sure that you have clearly identified your keywords and are ready to use them to stand apart from your competition. You should also take into consideration that this tag is the description that often appears in the search engine results that people will view in the search result pages.

4.) Work on Getting Quality Incoming Links: The popularity of your site is assessed when search engines decide where to position your site. Your goal needs to be to target relevant sites and have incoming links from keyword text. Don’t be tempted to take the easy option and use these to boost the number of links coming into your site regardless of content and keyword focus. The two major problems with this are that firstly, you are likely to be hosting all your sites on the one server, making it easily recognisable that you have linked your own sites. This is easy enough to trace, because the IP class will be easily recognisable to the search engines and this will alert spam triggers, resulting in your site being penalised. The second problem with creating links between your own sites is that you may have to use a broad range of keywords to achieve your result – which will reduce the value of the linking gains. Be careful not to use the same anchor text on a large number of incoming links, as this too can be something that alerts the search engines of suspicious activity. Remember that the web is an organic and naturally growing body, with its influences coming from a vast range of sources. People will do their own thing online, hence inbound links will arise from a variety of sources using their own anchor text wordings. If you are involved in activities such as link exchanges, using paid links or sourcing links from related website – be cautious of an unnaturally repetitive use of keywords for the anchor text as this will set off search engine spam alerts.

5.) Changes to Site Structure and Design: One thing to be careful of when making changes in your site structure is to be cautious of leaving page and directory names or orphaned pages listed with search engines. If you are changing web page names and directory names, then do so with great care. The older or more established the web pages are – the more potential for harm there is if you are not careful about how you remove or change web page URLs. There are a few straightforward steps you can take to get search engines indexing your new web pages within days, if not hours, with powerful new crawler agents. Essentially, after the new URL and its location has been registered by the search engines, this will continue to exist in the search engine database forever if you don’t rename or remove the page. Should you delete or rename a web page, then the search engine will remove that page from the index, which can include removing link popularity or Google Page Rank data. Losing this information means the benefits of this page are lost and its role boosting your website is forfeited, meaning a negative impact on site ranking and link popularity. If it is at all possible, aim to leave the URL of your page in place and rewrite the content for your page. The best option if you must delete or rename the web page is to use a “301 Permanent Redirect” to the new URL to preserve as much as possible of the past data for search engine ranking purposes.

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If you are unsure of precisely what is meant by the term “organic SEO” (search engine optimization), then you should know firstly that this is usually a broad term that describes almost any of the unpaid, naturally generated results that any website has gained from in particular engines. The most in depth search engine optimization consultants however, usually read more in the word “organic”. Such consultants will generally research and apply strategies that are designed to increase a sites ranking by boosting the “natural” search engine results.

When looking at SEO, there are two approaches for boosting search engine ranking. The first is known as “White Hat” SEO, which focuses primarily on content-based activities that are don’t violate search engines’ terms of service. The other approach is the “Black Hat” SEO approach, whereby a company or web master will use different technologies to drive the sites rank higher in the search engines. While both approaches can be applied, and both can achieve high rankings, you will generally find that SEO companies and consultants that are involved in ‘White Hat’ SEO feel the “Black Hat” approach doesn’t truly adhere to “organic SEO” practices.

You’ll often here the expression “content is king” when discussing SEO. While there is no doubt that there is some validity in this statement, there are also countless studies that have demonstrate that quality content is far more important. People primarily seek information when using search engines, therefore elaborate sites that provide lots of whizz-bang add-ins are not necessarily the ones that will rank the highest. Those who are adhering strictly to the principles of “organic SEO” will understand this and may very well decline working with businesses who do not want to improve content to boost their site ranking. Other firms that are less concerned about sticking with the terms of service of search engines will often happily use technical loopholes, allowing sites to contain little content to use technology that will ‘trick’ the engine into seeing content it wouldn’t otherwise find. In terms of using technology to boost search engine rankings, there are acceptable practices such as the correct implementation of relevant page titles and meta tags, which adhere to the search engines rules. There are however, a number of less acceptable technologies that may be applied, including cloaking, redirects, multiple sites, keyword stuffing, the adding of hidden links and countless other techniques. A reputable “organic SEO” company will not be willing to implement these strategies.

One of the most critical things for any website to improve their ranking in the search engines is to increase the number of incoming links. This often at the heart of a successful “organic SEO” campaign and consultants practicing true “organic SEO” will work on increasing these by methods that are acceptable to search engines. Those search engine optimization companies that practice “artificial SEO” methods will look at how to rapidly increase the number of incoming links using automated methods and adding little extra value to the site they are trying to push up the ranks. Examples of techniques used to do this include reciprocal linking schemes, link farms, purchasing text links and other linking ‘tricks’. These forms of link building are focused on fast solutions, and have little to do with creating great websites that draw others in and increase the desire of owners of other sites to link without a reciprocal link, without payment, or without asking please.

If you engage a quality SEO company or consultant, they will strive to keep your site up to date and get you listed in the most industry specific directories for your sites subject matter or area of industry. By applying genuine “organic SEO” techniques they will develop your site into a series of pages that have true value to visitors and potential customers. All quality consultants will automatically make sure your site gets listed major directories, such as the Yahoo Directory, the Open Directory Project, and Business.com. You’ll find a dramatic contrast between “organic SEO” and “artificial SEO.” I believe that the former is going to be much more beneficial in the long run, not least of all because the application of “Black Hat” methods could potentially see your site being ‘delisted’ and removed from the search engine all together.

The other thing you should know about SEO is that search engines regularly alter their algorithms and they do this for particular reasons. Firstly, they do this to improve the service and the way in which they generate results based upon regular assessment of user trends. Secondly, the algorithms are changed to find new and improved ways to sifting out the sites that have achieved artificially high ranks. Updates of the algorithms tend to create a lot of debate and often lead to many unfounded rumours within the SEO community. It is often the “artificial SEO” companies that are the most worried by such changes as their methods are the most likely to be impacted upon by such changes, particularly if the changes result in clients’ sites being taken out of the engines altogether. If you have a look on forums that are widely used by the many “artificial SEO” consultants and companies, you’ll notice such changes see a spike in the rumour mill and regularly this change will cause consultants practicing “artificial SEO” threatening to sue over recent changes.

If you are to look closely at the sites that remain highly ranked during the times when algorithms change, you’ll see that with few exceptions, these sites offer genuine value for visitors, and are usually viewed and a valuable resource in that industry. The “Organic SEO” companies will have little to worry about as changes are introduced. These companies are not going to be running around trying to frantically redoing SEO work to try to quickly restore rankings for clients that have been lost due to the dependency on technical loopholes. When these loopholes are removed the “organic SEO” firms will have little to worry about and as long as they continue improving content on the sites they manage, they will be able to continue strengthening their clients’ site rankings.

It is not unusual to hear words to the effect that “we’re not trying to create a resource, we’re trying to sell products” when advised to apply “organic SEO.” Remember that when trying to sell products, you will reach prospects at different points in the buying process. In this case you may find that creating a resource means you educate the customer and move them forward in this process. Therefore it is short-sighted to only be focussed on reaching those prospects who are ready to buy. If your prospect sees your website as a resource from which they learn more about your industry and products, then when they make their decision they are more likely to come to you to actually buy those products, having built trust in your knowledge and expertise.

The thing about building solid “organic SEO” through quality content is that it makes your site more valuable not only as a sales tool, but by dramatically increasing your search engine ranking; which is after all the goal of SEO. Improving your site content to achieve better results via “organic SEO” can deliver you the best results whether you are targeting those just looking or those who are ready to buy. You’ll be easier to find when people are buying and you’ll build a degree of loyalty that will boost your results with those who are still deciding about whether they want to buy.

The other thing to remember if you use an “organic SEO” firm is that they tend to follow the lead of the search engine. The major search engines will routinely carry out studies that analyse closely what the users are looking for when placing search queries. The search engines themselves have a strong interest in getting this right and therefore many “organic SEO” firms will aim to benefit from this. A SEO company with an “organic SEO” focus will consider what they can take from these studies in order to learn how to improve their practises and why some sites remain successful in the search engines over periods of time. By taking this approach the SEO company that follows “organic SEO” practises makes their customers’ websites better both for the search engines, but also for the user. This is because they learn from search engine studies what is seen as being consistently useful for the site’s visitors. “Artificial SEO” consultants on the other hand place little value on these studies – spending more time focussing on ‘quick-fixes’ to boost rank than long term gains and the end user. Far more of their energy is put into uncovering technical loopholes that they can use to their advantage to replace the loopholes that have been closed.

Taking the approach of using “artificial SEO” can mean levels success in the search engines can go up and down. By far the bigger issue with this however is that the success of the site relies on whatever current loophole exists in the search engine rankings. If the aim of SEO is to boost your rank, then “artificial” SEO might get you quickly to the top, but in the long run it is just a bandaid solution. If you haven’t built a site that offers some real value to the user when they get there, then you’ve defeated the true purpose of a good search engine ranking. Sure, you’ll have loads of visitors, but you may well find that your visitors quickly move on to another site when they find your site to be lacking in substance. The benefit of quality content is understood by “organic SEO” consultancies who take on board the (often expensive) research the search engine conducted to understand what types of content users want from their queries.

Those SEO companies that are truly focussed on “organic SEO” practices will approach SEO in a manner that is true to the word ‘organic’. They will create a quality website that demonstrates characteristics of an organism – growing and developing through time to build upon what is offered to users. An organic website will have more beneficial content and extended growth and success while securing a place at the top of the search engine results. This will be an organism that thrives for a long period, while the artificial machine created sites fade out.

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Search engines are used by 90% of all online users to research products, services, find out information and look for things of interest.

If you have a website, then it makes getting ranked highly in the search engines an important step to take. If you aren’t sure what Search Engine Optimization or SEO is all about, then these 12 points should help you to understand it better, as well as giving you an idea of the philosophy, approach and methodology of SEO and the industry surrounding this.

Search engines are used by 90% of all online users to research products, services, find out information and look for things of interest.

If you have a website, then it makes getting ranked highly in the search engines an important step to take. If you aren’t sure what Search Engine Optimization or SEO is all about, then these 12 points should help you to understand it better, as well as giving you an idea of the philosophy, approach and methodology of SEO and the industry surrounding this.

Content, content and more content

Quite simply – high quality, professional, copywriting that is SEO focussed is one of the most crucial factors of your SEO campaign. All search engines allocate sites a rank and index them based on content placed upon each site page. Once you have a good understanding of the conventions of SEO and you have done some thorough research you can target a particular market more effectively and propel your site to the top of the “SERP’s” (Search Engine Result Pages) – using search engine approved methods to get you in front of your target audience.

Analyze Web Logs

While there are many who suggest that SEO is more of an art than a science, there are undoubtedly steps you can take to achieve success. If you take a scientific approach and methodically track the results of your efforts, this process of checking and then checking again, will help you to achieve success through an analysis of the sites logs. It really doesn’t matter how carefully you have put together your strategy for success, without measuring your results and closely analysing what is going on with your site, then you can’t be 100% certain who your site visitors are and what they’re doing on your site. Don’t be alarmed at this however, as there are a number of specialized software programs and tool out there that make this analysis easy to manage.

Ranking on Google, or any other search engine cannot be guaranteed

Such a guarantee is almost impossible to live up to – so if you’re getting SEO assistance be wary of those who make such promise. Chances are they are going to deliver a number one rank for such an obscure phrase (like, “left-handed, nickel plated asparagus peelers”) that are simply irrelevant or unlikely to ever be searched for. The other option is they simply have no intention of standing by their guarantee. They might even have some sort of ‘insider position’ at Google – but they’re not going to keep it long once someone finds out what they’re up to! Or it might simply be that they plan to take your money and then split – leaving you with nothing to show for a hefty outlay of money.

Some things are just straight out overkill!

The bottom line is that you don’t have to be listed on 50,000 different search engines. Take a good hard look at any consultancy that wants to list you in this many different places, because you want to consider if there is any genuine benefit in this. If there is a search engine that gets 8 hits a day and specialises in searches for green absinthe fairies then do you really need to be listed with them? The reality is that around 85% of the search engine traffic out there comes from just one of the four major search engines. Those four in turn account for more than 90% of all traffic. With that many results coming from just one search engine – then you’re better off working with someone that can get your site found by the major players, either through links from an established website or, even better, from a quality directory.

Pay-Per-Click is not the same as SEO

The difference between strategic SEO campaigns and PPC is that the former when implemented effectively creates results that, whilst slower, are longer lasting and continue to generate traffic and even increase the amount generated over time. With the correct optimization of a site there is only a need for a little fine-tuning from time to time – usually related to changes in the business rather than changes in the search engines. In terms of cost versus ROI, SEO continues to create results long after the consultant has been paid. PPC is undoubtedly one way of creating traffic and sales, but it is by no means the only way. The bottom line is that pay-per-click campaigns still bring in relatively low conversion rates and they cease to be effective as soon as the “pay” part of the equation is over with.

SEO is not witchcraft, black magic or hocus pocus

There are no secret societies, special ceremonies or other rituals that will create results once you are ‘initiated’ into the inner circle. Nor are there any “classified” practices that a reputable SEO consultant daren’t reveal to a ‘mere mortal’, under oath or to their nearest and dearest! The net was built in a spirit of cooperation and ease of access for everyone, free from ‘dark secrets’ that dare not be revealed. SEO equally is an open process that can be learned and if you have contracted a reputable SEO consultancy, then it is not unreasonable to expect a full list of how and why they are spending your money and the benefit of these things. If you feel the person you have hired is being overly secretive or generally unwillingness to explain why things are – then you should question why. There are some technical points that might require further clarification by the SEO expert, but if they are worth the money you are paying, then they’ll do this and help you understand the complete situation and explain why they are billing you for particular things.

DIY for site SEO

Yes, it is possible to carry out your own SEO! If you aren’t sure exactly how to put together the right strategies, then you might find an SEO firm to develop a plan for you. However, you may want to do the actual implementing of the plan yourself. Whether you have your own in-house team to manage this or implement these strategies on your own time; having clear goals and aims for your business and website will mean you build upon the SEO firms website analysis, keyword research and guidance on how to achieve a high page ranking. Once these things are in place, you can put the elements in place that are outlined in the SEO consultants strategy and using the recommendations of the experts. Doing this can save you on average 30 to 40%.

Carrying out phased SEO implementation

Another alternative for increasing web traffic and hence sales and service requests, you may opt for a lower initial investment through phased implementation of SEO. Large businesses might have thousands available to spend each month on SEO, but for smaller businesses this is a way of increasing sales and leads without a large upfront outlay of money. If you secure a reputable SEO firm to develop a solid strategy for you, then this is a way to create a solid result by phasing in the different elements recommended. Taking the advice of an expert will save you money, so you can avoid the expensive mistakes you might make going with a trial and error approach. Instead you can implement suitable strategies, as your time and budget allows without wasting any of your financial resources.

Always remember that “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”

This age old saying is particularly true when dealing with SEO. The other saying you might remember is ’slow and steady wins the race’. You will fare better if you aim for a steady movement up through the ranks by implementing well developed and carefully planned SEO strategies over a period of time; rather than going flat out for a rapid rise followed by a big crash. Look at making solid and lasting gains and you will find this more rewarding. Competition online is fierce, so stay on course for a long term outcome – because everyone wants to make it to the top, so you need to be savvy in your planning to get there.

One more thing to think about

If you are not up to date on the latest with SEO, it pays to be careful about taking shortcuts. The search engines will look poorly upon any unethical practices to boost your website. That means taking shortcuts could only mean a shortcut to the bottom of the ranks, possibly compromising the existence of your website, business and even your reputation through these unwitting acts. As with most things, ignorance is no excuse, so you’ll bear responsibility for the actions of the SEO company or consultant you use. Be clear about the steps they are taking and if you do have any doubts, then don’t be afraid to question why – to allow unethical actions could cost you your business.

Not all incoming links hold the same weight

While having links will boost your rank and help the search engine bots find your business faster, remember that there is more than just the link that is considered. The search engines are today increasingly looking at the relevance incoming links from sites in the same field and the subject matter and page rank of the site that links to yours. Google was the first to start looking at low ranking and irrelevant incoming links, and many feel the days of simply grabbing a ton of links irrespective of relevance are over. Soc called link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software and other fad options that don’t involve the consideration of the relevance of the links and the websites sourced from is now going to do you more harm than good.

Beyond the facts and figures

For the SEO process to work as it should, the consultant should know more than just the analytics and figures that relate to the process. They should also have a solid grasp of the ethos and vision of the company they are working with. This is why the connection between any online business and SEO must become a close relationship – in order for the true spirit of the business to come out. If a SEO consultant is serious about getting substantial results for their customers, they should be using every hour of their time while on the project to understand the clients business almost as well as their client does. This is the only way they can truly position the business where it fits best and will be of most benefit for the client by drawing in more interested clients.

Anyone who is trying to make their mark online and achieve a solid measure of success understands that traffic is the key to making your website or ecommerce business work. The first thing you should look at is how much traffic you are getting from your search engine ranking. That means the natural, organic traffic that comes from search engines. There are therefore, two highly important reasons why this is the case. Firstly, this traffic is very targeted to your particular site, and secondly, this type of traffic is FREE! What makes most people unable to secure this all important traffic is confusion about how to do this and what it is exactly that gets you the top ranking. The belief is that this is hard to do – but is it? In this article, you’ll discover some straightforward, effective and above all, search engine friendly tips on you how to boost your search engine rank and hence increase your traffic.

1. Meta Tags. Let’s start with these all important tags that allow search engine bots to correctly identify your site and what it contains. Hopefully, you’ve already heard of these and are using these tags on your webpage. The most important thing then is to be sure you use them for maximum effect. To keep things simple, let’s look at the 2 most important tags – the “title” tag and “description” tag. Since the major search engines now place less value on the “keywords” tag we’ll skip this, however it is worth taking this into consideration if you wish to as there is no downside to using this as well.

To get the most from these tags, look at placing your keywords near the beginning and more than once in the “title” and “description” tags. If you have ever come across sites that simply have “sitename.com”, “Page 1″ or “Welcome ” in the “title” tag – then you can be sure they are doing themselves few favors in terms of increasing their rank for particular keywords. A good point to also remember is to try and avoid words like “and”, “or” and “the” in “title” and “description” tags.

**A crucial thing to understand is that when the search engine bots visit your site they will consider keyword prominence, keyword weight and keyword density. These things are all included in the logarithms used to give your site a position in the search engine ranks for those words. The search engines view your page by looking at the title tag, the description tag and other text on the page. If you are not sure about what constitutes keyword prominence – essentially it means how close the keyword is to the start of your page. The term “keyword weight” simply reflects how many times a particular keyword or phrase can be found on the page. When you hear about “keyword density”, this simply means the ratio of the keyword in comparison to other words included on your site page. You need to keep the use of the keyword natural, as an unusually high keyword weight or density can in fact do your ranking more harm, appearing to the search engines that you have been “keyword stuffing” – for which most search engines will penalize a site.

2. Once you have selected keywords and placed these in your text and tags, then you should consider the placement of any navigation links and JavaScript. ) The important thing in this case is to understand that search engines “read” your site starting at the top left and working down to the bottom right. When doing this, the search engines main emphasis is placed upon the first 100 words of site text. What you want to avoid then, is having these first bits of text being the navigation links and JavaScript; so aim to include these on the right of the page or at the bottom. Your goal should be to have the heading tags which contain your keywords at the start of the page so that search engines give more weight to what is most important on your site, then look at what is contained in the links or JavaScript when they reach the end of the page.

3. Make sure after this that you include “alt” tags with each of the images on the page. Search engines don’t “read” photo and images. The reason you include an “alt” tag is that this is the only way the search engine bot knows what the picture or image is about. Using these tags correctly is another way to boost the keyword weight/density of the page and getting more keywords into the HTML of your page. “Alt” tags are simple to create and they can really make a significant difference to how your site ranks for your particular keywords. A basic “alt” tag will look like this: alt=” your keywords phrase.” These are part of the series of things the search engine bots will include in their calculation of your sites rank, so make sure you include “alt” tags along with considering keyword prominence, density and weight.

4. Aim to also include your keywords at the bottom of your web pages. The last words on your page seem to hold equal weight with the first words included on your page. It is thought that if the site is about a particular subject (summed up on the keywords), then that focus on the main points, or keywords, will not only be at the beginning of the page, but also throughout the page and shown prominently in the page ending. If you have placed the navigational links and JavaScript at the base of the page, then the keywords should be included before the HTML conclusion. One of the simplest options for including the keywords at the bottom of your page is to incorporate some use of them along with the copyright wording. An example, if you have an poker room page is by placing something like the following at the page conclusion:

copyright 2009 yoursite.com

World’s best poker room

At the time this was written, the search engines are not penalizing web sites for doing this, and really in terms of natural keyword usage – there is not much reason why they would do so.

5. Look carefully at the use of anchor text when you do any linking both on and off site. Anchor text refers to the words in which links to the site are embedded. On site, these maybe the words you use to navigate to an off-site page or another page on your website. Many people fail to include onsite linking, but in fact this is one of the easiest ways to drastically boost your site’s search engine rank for keywords. This is an easy way to boost your rank, and all that you need to do is to place links in anchor text with the target keyword or phrase. When the search engine evaluates your site and finds links externally and internally with the keywords “poker room” it then concludes that your pages must be about “poker room”. Whatever you do aim to avoid using anchor text phrases like “Click Here” or “yoursite.com”

One final thing to consider is how you manage any reciprocal linking campaigns and be careful about using variations in your text. Keep in mind that search engines will tend to see naturally occurring links as being more “weighty” than if there is a clear case of reciprocal linking. Should a search engine pick up on the fact that all the incoming links on your site are identical it is likely to give these links less weight, or even penalize your site for this. Select several keywords and phrases for more ‘natural’ linking and you will have much more impact on your targeted keyword rankings, simply by having links that are more organic or natural.

Effectively managing your SEO may seem daunting when you first get started, but as you learn a few of the ins and outs of the processes involved, you will see that it needn’t be overly complicated or require any programming knowledge. Following a few of these tips will really make a big difference on your website’s keyword ranking.