Good SEO Techniques to Use by wideon.net

"Every single site owner wants to be at the top of the major search engines rankings. Taking full advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques can put you on the right path to seeing this dream come true.

A common way to improve your sites search engine rankings is to title tag. When doing this you should put the keyword of the page in the title tag of the web page. You also should include a different tag for every page. The keyword should be used in the ALT tags made for text browsers that cannot view images.

Be careful when applying keywords. Over using keywords can cause you to be banned from search engines for a period of time, or even forever.

You should include your keyword in the title tag, as well as once in both heading and bold text. Also using the keyword in both first and last sentences has been known to increase search engine ranking. To increase your sites popularity with search engines you need to increase the number of links that are directed to your site. The more links your website has the higher the search engines will rank you.

Links from other sites directing to your site improves your search engine ranking. Be sure to include the keyword in the links and keep it as short as you can. You may get a request to exchange links but make sure the other site doesn't have any hidden repetitive keywords.

An important factor many people don't know is to keep the size of the web page smaller, in between 5k and 15k. This will keep the search engines and your visitors happy when visiting your site.

Search engine optimization is important for any successful website that wants to be at the top of any important search engine. Be sure to use many different techniques to see the best results."
About the Author

Written by Wideon.net. Build backlinks by submitting your website to our free SEO friendly internet directory.

Using A Blog To Connect With Your Readers by Christopher Angus

Perhaps the simplest definition of a blog is that of a journal or serial newsletter that provides fresh content for the reading on a timely basis. However what most people don't realize is that a blog is not just a virtual space where you put your thoughts or the latest news about your products or services. It is more than just an online press release or a way of announcing things. It is also a journal that can" talk back to you" as there are usually spaces for individuals to respond to what you have to say and offer feedback. This content is a natural form of SEO that will bring interested people back to your site (and also hopefully to your affiliate links) again and again.)

Obviously as a forum, the blog offers more intimate contact with your readers and is less formal than a press release or the usual customer feedback reviews forms you find on larger sites. Also you can moderate or edit any posts left on your blog so that you don't end up with a site filled with spam or undesirable comments. The ability to editorialize gives you the opportunity to also control the appearance of your site.

Blogs are usually more entertaining for people read then press releases or the usual web site copy simply because it is written in a more informal way. It also allows a writer to express a very personal or even partisan point of view, which is not something that is even found in contemporary journalism. Many people enjoy the fact that blogging is a way of taking your reputation out of the hands of journalists and critics and letting the public decide for themselves about what you have to say, what you have to offer and your credibility.


About the Author

Christopher Angus is a SEO and Website Marketer. He can be contacted at: Sales (at) Brilliantseo.com

SEO - Hot Blog Content is Excellent SEO by Christopher Angus

The most essential component of a blog is not only its keywords, but also the timeliness of its content. It is timely content that is going to attract the search engine and also readers. This means that you must have content that is unique, expert or original. When your readers add their own comments and links to your blog this expands the search ability of your content. It should also be content that is focused on one topic and that seems specialized, fresh and new.

Another essential component of Blog content is that it must be up to date, just as any news article is. This is also what marketing and advertising experts call "hot content." Cutting and pasting articles from other sites simply won't work because the search engine sites will simply ignore what you come up with. Nobody wants to read yesterday's news. Or you will get a complaint if the page is indexed in the search engines and the content belongs to someone else. When it comes to hot content, originality is key!

Another crucial reason why your content must be original and fresh is because on the blogging page, your content is arranged in reverse chronological order. The most recent content is presented at the top of the visible page and provides immediate access to topics that are most timely (meaning the blogs you have just written.)

Another great thing about a blog is that it is of a viral nature. It can be distributed for free through an RSS, Atom or XML feed that allow readers to subscribe to your entries just like they would a magazine or newsletter. This means that users can subscribe to blog content. This brings repeat business to your site and increases your chances of the affiliate links inside your blogs of being picked up and spread by other affiliate marketers.


About the Author

Christopher Angus is a SEO and Website Marketer. He can be contacted at: Sales (at) Brilliantseo.com

The Magic Potion Of SEO by Julian Hall

magic-noun 1. the art of producing illusions as entertainment by the use of sleight of hand, deceptive devices, etc. legerdemain, conjuring-to pull a rabbit out of a hat by magic. 2. the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.

If you have been scouring the net looking for that out of the box system, or automated piece of software which will help you to rake in those online pounds and dollars then you have no doubt been looking for a little bit of magic.

The more experienced of us realise that like the golden fleece-there is no magic potion for SEO. Fortunately what we do have is a number of tried and tested solutions you can apply to your business model in order drive the traffic and convert the visitors you need to realise you online goals.

We define the top 10 solutions:

1. Search Engine Optimisation - The term used to describe the marketing technique of preparing a website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimising a website, including the content and structure of the websites copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process.

2. Pay Per Click - Advertising model in which advertisers pay for click-throughs to their website. Ads are served based on keywords or themes.

3. Blogging - is the act of writing in ones blog. To blog something is to write about something in one's blog. This usually involves linking to something the author finds interesting on the internet.

4. RSS - is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

5. Website copywriting - is the art of writing sales and marketing related materials. Copywriting is used in every major area of business such as Sales Letters, Business plans, advertising etc.

6. Affiliate Marketing - is a system of revenue sharing between one site (the affiliate merchant) which features an ad or content designed to drive traffic to another site (the advertiser). The affiliate will receive a fee based on the amount of traffic generated.

7. Web 2.0 - is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.

8. Usability - efficiency with which a user can perform required tasks with a product, for example, a website. Usability can be measured objectively via performance errors and productivity, and subjectively via user preferences and interface characteristics. Web design features that affect usability include navigation design and content layout.

9. Site architecture- The structure of a web site. It reflects how information is organized, including categories, subsites, labeling and other relationships.

10. Links - The process of exchanging links with other websites is called Reciprocal Linking. Since both participating websites get an inbound link, it helps in building link popularity.
About the Author

Julian Hall of http://www.ehlonline.co.uk - SEO UK - EHLOnline - UK SEO, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

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Which Directories

For more CCNA articles

by Clare Lawrence

There are literally 1,000 of directories on the web and new ones pop up every day.
Which ones should I submit to? Well firstly, provided a directory’s pages are indexed by the search engines (e.g. Google) and each page has a definite theme, then they all are!

A few directories do however, have a strong effect on search engines rankings and have sufficient visitor volumes to warrant the effort to get a listing.
Some are free, others charge.

The key directories are:-

1) DM0Z (the open directory)

2) Yahoo

3) Business.com

4) MSNsmallbusiness

Some minor directories worth being listed in

5) Bluefind (paid)

6) Gimpsy

7) Allthebizz

8) Smallerbizz

9) Wowdirectory

10) Joeant

About the Author

Clare Lawrence is CEO of Discount Domains Ltd – A leading UK provider of Domain name registration and Web Hosting services. Please feel free to re-publish this article provided this reference box remains together with a hyperlink to http://www.discountdomainsuk.com
Clare can also be contacted on clare@discountdomainsuk.com.

There's Gold in Your Website's Server Log

By Stephen Bucaro
Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and theresource box below is included.

Many Webmasters have never bothered to view their website'sserver log. Ignoring your server log is like flying with ablind pilot. You may still be cruising along, but you haveno idea where you are or where you're headed. If yourwebsite is on a free host, you probably don't have accessto the server log. However, if you pay for your web host,or if you own the server, you almost always have someaccess to the server log.

In this article, you'll learn what kind of information atypical server log provides, how to analyze thatinformation, and how to use that information to steer yourwebsite in a direction for growth and success.

The actual data in the server log is just that, data. Datais of little use without an application to compile,categorize, analyze, and turn it into useful information.The power of server log analysis software varies dependingupon the web host, and it's not related to how much you payfor hosting service. I have seen some very low budget webhosts with powerful server log analysis software, and someexpensive web hosts that provide only a limited utility.

The importance of the server log analysis software issecond only to up-time reliabilty when it comes to webhosts. A web server log can tell you who is visiting yourweb site, where they're coming from, what operating systemand web browser they're using, what pages of your websitethey are viewing, and much more. A smart webmaster performsa regular monthly analysis of the valuable informationcontained in the server log.

Hits

Some webmasters brag about the number of "hits" theirwebsite receives, but hits themselves are not important.For example, when a search engine spiders your website, itgenerates a hit for every page it visits. There are waysto generate millions of hits on a website without anyoneever actually viewing a single page.

The important statistics are "page view hits" and "uniquevisitors". Server log analysis software should tell you howmany times each page was viewed. Anaylyzing the popularityof individual pages tells you where to place your mostimportant advertisements, and what kind of new content youshould add to your website.

The king of all statistics is the number of unique visitorsyour web site receives. When it comes to sellingadvertising or joining the most exclusive affiliateprograms, a high number of unique visitors each month isthe statistic that gets respect.

Good analysis software will tell you how many pages eachvisitor viewed and how long they stayed on your website.The goal is to develop content that gets your visitors tostay longer, a quality sometimes referred to as"stickiness".

A statistic related to hits is "bandwidth". This is acomplicated statistic because you want more visitors andthat causes bandwidth to go up. On the other hand, highbandwidth consumption makes your website repond slower(and most web hosts charge extra for bandwidth beyond acertain limit). What you want is to design your web pagesso they use bandwidth efficiently, and you want to be onthe lookout for people who are stealing your bandwidth(usually by linking to images on your web site).

Referrers

Good server log analysis software will provide you with theURLs of the webpages that people clicked on to get to yourwebsite. This is extremely valuable information. If youare receiving a high volume of traffic from anotherwebsite, you can almost consider that website to be yourbusiness partner. It would be to your advantage to findways to make your website more useful to the referringwebsite. For example, learn what the topic of the referringwebsite is and place more related content on your website.

One common method of aiding referrers is to place areciprocal link on your website. However, don't botherplacing the reciprocal link on a "links" page with hundredsof other links (a link farm). If you can't provide anhonest reciprocal link, it's better to do nothing. Anhonest reciprocal link might be a page containing a reviewof the referrer's website, and that page should containonly a few other links.

Search Strings

Good server log analysis software will provide you with thekeywords and search strings people entered at a search siteto find your website. One way to get more traffic to yourwebsite is to provide more content related to the topkeywords. If getting more traffic is your single goal,there are websites that will provide you with a list of thecurrent most popular keywords entered into search engines.Then you can provide more content related to those keywords.This gets involved with the subject of "Search EngineOptimization" (SEO).

SEO is a science in itself, covered in other articles, butI will reveal a secret trick as an example of SEO tactics.Starting with a top keyword, generate every possiblemisspelling of that keyword and place those at the top ofyour webpage with the text color the same as the webpagebackground. (Note: I don't use that trick or any otherSEO tricks myself because if you get caught the searchengines will penalize your website.)

Platform and User Agent

Good server log analysis software will tell you whichoperating systems and which browser brands and versionspeople are using to access your website. At the time ofthis writing, the most common operating system is WindowsXP and the most common browser is Internet Explorerversion 6. However, you will find a wide range ofoperating systems and browsers accessing you website.Unfortunately, they are not all compatible.

The fact is, you can't design your website to be 100percent compatible with every operating system and webbrowser in use today. That would require either using onlyplain html (version 3) or using browser detection code andcreating a dozen variations of each webpage. Use yourserver log's platform and user agent data to decide whichbrowser your web pages should to be designed to becompatible with. Your statistics will probably show that90 percent of your website's visitors are using the latestor the previous version of Internet Explorer.

Country Information

Good server log analysis software will tell you whichcountries your website visitors are located in. Analysis ofthe bucarotechlp.com server logs shows that visitors arelocated in every country, village, and hamlet on theplanet. This leads to the question, should you createmultiple variations of each webpage to accomodate visitorsfrom other nations? It depends upon your business and yourresources. The fact is that the language of business andcommerce across the planet is English, and I receivefrequent email, in English, from all over the planet.

Important Ways to Use Server Log Information

Website Design

Remember when the typical website had a gray backgroundand a single image in the middle of the page? Today, thatwould be below the standard for a kids website on AOL. Doesyour server log "platform" and "user agent" statistics tellyou that most of the visitors to your website are usingWindows XP with Internet Explorer Version 6, while yourwebsite is designed for Windows 95 and Internet ExplorerVersion 4? Can you afford to be presenting a website thatlooks outdated?

I think it's a mistake to design a website that requiresyour visitors to have the latest bleeding-edge technology.On the other hand, if the rest of the web is using ASP(Active Server Pages) to generate custom webpageson-the-fly that use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to createwebpages that resemble slick magazine pages and DHTML(Dynamic HTML) to provide interactivity, it might be timefor you to investigate those technologies.

If your website is a business site or E-commerce site, thevisual style and technical level of your website reflectsthe quality of your business or service. To determine theproper visual style and technology level of your websiterequires you to monitor three things.

1. Your competitors. You want to look as in-style as theydo, but avoid following them down the road to bloatedplugins (Macromedia Flash).2. The portion of your audience using broad band InternetAccess. Less than half of U.S. Make sure your webpagesload within 20 seconds over a 56kbps modem connection.2. Your server log platform and user agent statistics. Yourweb pages need to be designed to be compatible with thecurrent most popular operating system and web browserversion.

Webhost Performance

Web hosts provide two basic kinds of service, sharedhosting and dedicated hosting. If your website is on ashared host, there may be hundreds of other websitessharing the same computer as your website. This limits theperformance of your website. Many web host providers use"bandwidth throttling" to prevent one website from hoggingall the available bandwidth.
As your website grows and attracts increasing traffic, itwill need more of the host computers processor time andmore bandwidth. Monitor your server log hits, and bandwidthstatistics. At some point, your website may hit aperformance wall and you may need to move to a highergrade of hosting, or a different web host company tocontinue growth.

When moving to a different web host company, don't trustthe specifications they provide. Check several differentweb host directories that let visitors rate web hosts. Ifseveral different web host directories have many users thatgive a web host company a high rating, that's the companyyou want to trust with your website.
Website Topic

As you analyze certain website server statistics (forexample, "page view hits", and "top search enginekeywords") and make adjustments, you may find the contentof your website drifting away from your original intent.At some point, you may have to decide, Am I going to chasetraffic and change the topic of my website, or am I moreinterested in focusing on the topic of my choice?

If the original objective of your website was to make moneyabove all else, then let your visitors steer your website'scontent. There's nothing wrong with that. Everybody's gotto make a living. But, if the original objective of yourwebsite was to be a resource on a subject that you arepassionate about, then you may need to reassess the contentof your website.
I would reccommend having the best of both worlds. Stick tocontent related to the subject of your website, butdelineate a wide enough scope of the topic so that whenyour server statistics point out an opportunity to increasetraffic, you have rules to guide you.
In this article you learned some of the types ofinformation you can mine from your web server log and somepowerful ways to use that information to steer your websitein a direction for growth and success. If you are one ofthose webmasters who has never bothered to view theirwebsite's server log, you now know that you have beenoverlooking some gold nuggets.

About The Author

Resource Box:Copyright(C) Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintainyour computer and use it more effectively to design a Website and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.comTo subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter visit http://bucarotechelp.com/search/000800.asp

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How to Sell your Website

by Matt Dobinson

There are hundreds and thousands of websites on the internet today being bought and sold and there are many places you can sell your website such as ebay and website brokers. Though this article we will explore each of these possibilities in greater details.

Ebay - Selling a website on ebay can perfect for some and completely useless for others. As most people know ebay, it gets millions of hits every minute from people looking for everything from hair nets to race cars. For starters this is a great way to get word out that your website is for sale. It has lots of people viewing your ads but keep in mind your competition is feirce as so many people post sites for sale on ebay. To sell your website on ebay it has to stand out from the rest.

Forums - Forums tend to be a great place to sell websites. They tend to ask alot more questions about statistics and revenue than most other places but if you have a quality site you can sometimes get alot more for it buy selling your website in forums. Good forums for this include sitepoint.com, geekvillage.com and webhostingtalk.com.

Website Brokers - Website brokers normally go out and try to get you the best possible price for your website. They tend to have contacts in the industry and will get into contact with people you can't or dont even know exist. They generally charge a fee of around 10%-15%. There are a few websites around where you can post your website up to brokers - kind of like a cross between ebay and a brokers firm.

Sell to your visitors - A commonly used technique to get a good profit from the sale of your website is to post a 'site for sale' link or image on the frontpage of the site for sale. This targets the audience to people interested in the topic of the site. But be warned not all of these people are or want to be webmasters.

Personal Contact - If you have a low budget, selling your website though your personal contact can be very rewarding. This takes everyone else out of the equation and you pay no broker fees or ad fees. If you plan on selling your website this way make sure you know enough people who would be intrested in the site.

Website Checklist
Before you get to putting up website for sale ads and hiring a site broker, there are a few things you will need. Firstly, find out in detail your statistics. This including unique visitors per day or month, bandwidth used per month and current and past revenue for the website. Most people who are in the industry will ask for the pagerank of the website too. You can find out your page rank by downloading the google toolbar and re-visiting your website. A pagerank is considered by most webmasters as being a large factor.

About the Author

Matt Dobinson is the owner of PageBrokers.com - A website dedicated to buying and selling websites online for the best possible price.. He also runs WebmasterFreebie.com - an online community for webmasters.

6 Key Points to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

by Kyle Dusang

With literally thousands of web hosting companies in the industry all vieing for your business, you should do your homework and plenty of research to find the one that's right for you. Carefully consider the following points to ensure you make the most well informed decision possible when choosing a host for your website.

1. Server Space

First, think about how much space your site will take up on a server. Unless you are planning on running a software repository or an image gallery, the files that make up your website will probably only use between 1 and 5 megabytes of disk space. Many companies will offer several hundreds of megabytes of webspace for a very reasonable price in attempt to out perform their competitors, but ask yourself "Do I really need that much space?". Though it's true that you should allow your site "room to grow", don't opt for what seems like a great deal on a massively sized account if you'll never use all of the space offered. Chances are you'll find an even better deal on an amount of space more suitable for your site size.

2. Data Transfer Allowance

This decision should be based on the same principal as above. Though you may be convinced that your site will be the next Amazon or Yahoo and receive a gazillion visitors a day, you really shouldn't need an extremely high data transfer allowance unless, as stated above, you're running a software download site or a large image gallery. Even heavily trafficked normal HTML sites usually only use a few gigabytes per month in bandwidth allowance. Don't go overboard just because it seems like an awesome deal. You may also want be wary of companies who offer "unlimited" data transfer as there are usually some fine-print stipulations that make this claim not entirely true. Be sure to read their terms and conditions very carefully before opting for this type of account. A five or ten gigabyte bandwidth allowance is usually plenty enough for a small to medium sized business or personal site.

3. Technical Support

A very important point to consider when choosing a web host is the types of technical support offered by the company and how easy they are to contact when you need them. Ideally, a company should offer 24/7 toll-free telephone support and email. I have seen companies that do not even offer a telephone number on their website. You should look for a company that is very easily accessible in your time of need. Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of working on your site and needing an important piece of information to finish the job and not being able to contact your hosting company to find it out.

4. CGI-Bin Access

No matter what type of site you are planning on running, chances are you will eventually need to install some type of CGI script. Whether it be a mailing list management script, contact form processor, or maybe even a fancy credit card processing script, your hosting account will need to allow you to install and run them. This requires access to a special folder on your server called "CGI-Bin". Some hosting accounts will only allow you to use "pre-installed" scripts as a security measure. These are scripts that the owners of the company have installed and configured so that they know that they will work properly and not adversely affect their server's performance. That may be all you need, but if you have the knowledge, it's always nice to have the ability to install your own scripts and configure them to suit your individual needs. You should also be sure that the account you choose supports the language in which your scripts are written, such as PHP, Perl, etc.

5. Up-Time Guarantee

Another very important issue in determining the value of a hosting company is how often and for how long their servers "go down". No matter how good a deal you get on server space or bandwidht allowance, or how wonderfully the company's tech support takes care of you, your site can't receive visitors or produce revenue if the machine on which it is hosted is not up and running. Naturally you want a company who can guarantee the highest up-time percentage possible. Servers are taken down briefly from time to time for maintenance or upgrading, so no company can ensure 100% up-time, but you want your site to be hosted on dependable, well managed machines that are not constantly having problems which require them to be down for long periods of time.

5. Email Accounts

Again, like data transfer allowance and server space, some companies will offer you loads more email accounts than you will ever use. Some offer hundreds or even unlimited email accounts as a selling point. This is an important factor if you are Bill Gates and have thousands of employees, each who need their own email box, but not such a big deal if you're just one person or a small company. You should be okay with 10 or 15.

6. Reputation

This is probably the most important factor to consider when choosing a web host. Do your homework. Pay attention to any negative feedback you may hear or read about a particular hosting company. There are several sites arount the Web that feature discussion forums that allow people to discuss and critique various hosting companies. Ask specific questions about any company you might be interested in using to see if anyone else has had any negative experiences with them. As a beginning webmaster, I had initially contracted the services of a particular web hosting company to host my first site, who promised very good, dependable service for a very cheap price. Then one day, for no apparent reason, decided to delete my entire site without warning or explanation. Only then did I visit some hosting forums and find that many others had similar negative experiences with that company. Don't make the same mistake I did, find out for sure from the start that your hosting company is not going to let you down.

About the Author

Webmaster: http://www.verybesthosting.com Looking for a web host? Start here. Compare plans, features, and pricing from several of the Web's most reputable hosting companies all in one place.

What is the Google Sandbox Effect?

By Jakob Jelling http://www.sitetube.com

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today. Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of “x” months. Thus the term “Sandbox Effect” applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

However the website is not hindered as much as the links that are reciprocated from other users. Newer links that are created are put on a “probationary” status until again they pickup in rank from other matured sites or placed directly by an ad campaign. The idea behind the hindrance is to prevent a fast ranking to occur on a new website. The usual holding period seems to be between 90 and 120 days before a site would start obtaining rank from reciprocal or back linking.

Some advice has been given to have companies you are going to reciprocate back add your link first to the website. This may help grandfather your site in, thus reducing the waiting time associated with “new” websites. People have noticed a 0 page rank when first signing up and receiving a bolstering 7 page ranking after 4 months. Why the delay? The fact is, that if people realized how easy it would be to get a high ranking, would that take away the credibility of the engine. It depends on whom you ask, but it does seem to be happening frequently to newer subscribers. Do not discontinue back linking, your rank will eventually appear.

About the Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.