Abhishek Bakshi

Tag: search engines

  • Improve Your Online Business With Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Summary:
    So youíve got that wonderful work-at-home online business up and running. Youíve got a dynamite website with easy to use navigation, a slew of well written, entertaining and pertinent articles, and more revenue-generating links than you can handle. But for some reason, the hits just arenít coming and your business isnít making as much money as you deserve. How do you turn a struggling online business into a profitable online business?

    The first thing you have to ask yourse…

    So youíve got that wonderful work-at-home online business up and running. Youíve got a dynamite website with easy to use navigation, a slew of well written, entertaining and pertinent articles, and more revenue-generating links than you can handle. But for some reason, the hits just arenít coming and your business isnít making as much money as you deserve. How do you turn a struggling online business into a profitable online business?

    The first thing you have to ask yourself is, ëHow are people hearing about my site?í In an Internet dominated by search engines like Google and Yahoo, high search engine ranking is a must. Why? Most search engines show ten results per page, ranked in order, and most users never make it past the first page. That means that if your website is going to be found, it needs to be top 10. But how? How!? Take a look at the title of this article. Thatís right. Through search engine optimization. SEO is a simple concept. Use the words that people will probably enter into search engines strategically in the content of your website. This article is using a couple of SEO keywords, like Online Business or Search Engine Optimization, the very subjects people might search for if looking for an article like this. See how easy it is? Two more keywords without interrupting the flow of the article!

    Using search engine optimization effectively may mean redesigning most of the content on your website. When youíre doing that try to keep in mind these Six Commandments of SEO.

    THOU SHALT KNOW THINE ENEMIES

    Knowing what keywords to use is the most important part of SEO. This means research. Lots of research. Start off by trying to find your site on various search engines. Chances are you wonít, at least not on the first page. Write down the top 10 results you do get. These sites are your competition. Try a few different combinations of search terms. Are there any sites that appear more than once? Check those out. What keywords or phrases are used over and over? What are the titles of pages? What is the content about? What is the web address? These are potential keywords Record them. These will be the basis for your own search engine optimization.

    THOU SHALT NOT USE KEYWORDS WANTONLY

    Keywords should be thought of as compliments; the more you give, the less meaning they have. By the same token, not giving enough wonít get you noticed. Use them wisely. Find that happy ratio of keywords to normal. A general rule of thumb in search engine optimization is 2.5-4% of your content should be keywords; no more, no less.

    THOU SHALT MAKE SURE ALL CONTENT IS SENSIBLE

    Donít fall SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION into the tempting ONLINE BUSINESS trap of SEARCH ENGINES using keywords randomly SEO in order to increase your search engine rank. Tough to read, wasnít it? Kinda made you want to scream and tear your hair out? Content above keywords. If your articles are so keyword rich that they donít make sense, users wonít return and youíll lose repeat revenue. All the search engine optimization in the world is useless if your users donít stay on the site long enough to put cash in your pocket. Search engines pick up on this tricks anyway. Besides, itís just plain dirty fighting.

    THOU SHALT VARY KEYWORD USAGE

    So youíve done your research and have a list of 25 keywords you want to use in your site. Each article has a primary keyword or two. Unfortunately, every article on the site is using the same two keywords. What about the other 23? Donít let yourself be tempted by the ease of using the same words over and over. Write articles about all 25 keywords. You spent all that time researching them, now use them! And just because one article is about one keyword doesnít mean you canít use other keywords in the article. Use the non-primary keywords like salt sprinkled over the entire site.

    THOU SHALT UPDATE

    Getting that number one search engine rank was hard. It took hours of work, and now that youíve reached the pinnacle itís time to sit back and reap the benefits. Right?

    WRONG!

    How long do you think that number one ranking will last? You know your competitors got mad when you beat them and are redesigning their sites right now. Right now, I say! Eventually theyíll pull ahead of you again, unless you manage to stay ahead in the game. Update your site constantly with new keyword rich content to make sure that youíre on the cutting edge and can keep that number one ranking.

    NEVER FORGET: THOU ART NOT ALONE

    Search engine optimization can seem like a daunting task at first, and maybe it is. But never forget that there are people out there willing and able to help you; it is, after all, how they make a living. Some writers specialize in SEO and there are websites available that do most of the research grunt work just waiting to hear from you. So no matter how daunting a task it may seem, donít ever give up on search engine optimization. In an internet where everything depends on page hits, your search engine rank can never be too high.

  • Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Summary
    Have you heard stories about legendary online entrepreneurs who hit it big after getting a #1 rank in several popular search engines? You probably wondered what it would take for you to achieve that elusive #1 spot in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in ensuring that your business gets the best possible search engine ranking, which can lead to increased sales for your online company.

    Have you heard stories about legendary online entrepreneurs who hit it big after getting a #1 rank in several popular search engines? You probably wondered what it would take for you to achieve that elusive #1 spot in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in ensuring that your business gets the best possible search engine ranking, which can lead to increased sales for your online company.

    What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

    Search engine optimization is the process of modifying web page content and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags (title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags), as well as the internal (links between pages on the same site) and external (links between pages on different sites) link structure of a web site.

    Impact of High Search Engine Rank on Sales

    Internet market research estimates that between 70% and 90% of online shoppers use search engines to find a specific product or service. Let’s examine factors that influence sales to see how effective search engine optimization can boost your revenues.

    Three metrics are required to forecast online sales: the average ticket, the conversion rate, and the amount of web site traffic:

    * The average ticket is the amount of money spent by a customer on a typical transaction. Computer and electronics stores have high average tickets (hundreds or thousands of dollars), while bookstores have low average tickets (tens of dollars).

    * Web Site traffic is measured by the number of site visitors, typically expressed as the number of page views per month.

    * Conversion rate is the number of sales divided by the number of page views per month, expressed as a percentage.

    Let’s look at an example. The Ultimate Taupe Widget (UTW) store has an average ticket of $25, a conversion rate of 2%, and gets 5,000 page views per month. The estimated monthly sales are $2,500 ($25 average ticket * 0.02 conversion rate expressed as a decimal * 5,000 page views per month). Achieving a high search engine rank will increase the number of page views, and therefore increase sales. In this example, if traffic doubles to 10,000 page views a month, UTW’s monthly sales should (approximately) double as well (to $5,000).

    Keep in mind that a high search engine rank will produce a measurable increase in traffic only if there is significant marketplace interest in taupe widgets and your web site appears in the first thirty search engine results.

    However, search engine optimization is not going to produce measurable results if there is very little demand for taupe widgets. The #1 spot in search engine result pages is not particularly impressive if only two people search for “taupe widgets” each month. Role of Keywords in Search Engine Optimization

    Keywords are words or phrases users provide to search engines to locate information. Search engines examine page content to determine whether a specific page is relevant for a particular search word or phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the cornerstones of search engine optimization.

    Each keyword is characterized by supply (number of search engine result pages) and demand (number of searches). The easiest way to improve search engine rank is to select keywords that have favorable supply-demand characteristics; that is, ones with a relatively high demand and a relatively low supply. It is much more difficult to improve the search engine position of a page on a high supply, competitive keyword.

    Good keywords must be relevant to your product line, as well as your line of business. A #1 rank for “navy widgets” is worthless if you sell taupe widgets exclusively. A potential customer will find your page, quickly discover that you don’t sell any navy widgets, and promptly go elsewhere. In effect, the conversion rate for irrelevant search engine hits is very close to zero.

    Using Keywords Effectively

    Choosing a set of target keywords is the first step in search engine optimization. The second step is using them in the body, title, headings, and meta-tags of a page.

    Include the target keywords in the text of the page. Don’t overdo it, though — the keywords should fit smoothly into the surrounding text. Search engines use several techniques to detect excessive keyword density, or too many keywords stuffed into very little supporting text, and will reduce the rank accordingly. A page has too many keywords if they interfere with the general flow of the text on a page and appear to be glaringly out of place

    The title tag should contain information that describes the page. Unless you operate a multi-national conglomerate that is already a household name, your company’s name is not a descriptive title. Most search engines use the title tag as the first line of your listing in the search engine result pages. Strive to make your title tag say “click me” to a prospective customer. “Superior taupe widgets – 50% off every day” is a good page title, while “Ultimate Taupe Widgets, Inc.” is not.

    Incorporate keywords into the headings on the page, as well as into emphasized sections (bold or large text). Even though search engines are de-emphasizing descriptive meta-tags, include keywords in them nevertheless. The description meta-tag should have an accurate description of your page, and the keywords meta-tag should contain a set of keywords (separated by commas) that list key concepts mentioned on the page.

    Understanding the basics of search engine optimization is an important first step in creating an optimized, well-positioned web site.

  • How To Trick The Search Engines

    Summary:
    How to Trick the Search Engines
    In a Zen sort of Way

    Everybody is looking for the magic formula that will get their site listed on the first page of Google. Because of this, the internet is full of search engine optimization experts that are willing to take your money once they sell you on their new theory of Googleís algorithm. You have your choice of SEO Consultant to full fledged SEO Corporations all willing to take your money and optimize your site. None of them will …

    How to Trick the Search Engines
    In a Zen sort of Way

    Everybody is looking for the magic formula that will get their site listed on the first page of Google. Because of this, the internet is full of search engine optimization experts that are willing to take your money once they sell you on their new theory of Googleís algorithm. You have your choice of SEO Consultant to full fledged SEO Corporations all willing to take your money and optimize your site. None of them will promise specific results.

    Thatís because Google is a very sophisticated search engine and their algorithm changes constantly. Googleís algorithm has one primary goal and that is to deliver relevant content. All of this effort is to identify good websites with quality content and to weed out the sites that are “optimized” to trick the algorithm. ThereforeÖ if you have a good website with quality content then ìoptimizingî your site may be counter-productive if there’s even a slight chance that Google would think youíre using tricks.

    Thatís right, let Googleís algorithm smell your website optimization techniques and your status as a good website with quality content may be in jeopardy. Google is looking for websites whose webmasters are putting their time and energy in to building and maintaining a good website with quality content not spending their time and energy trying to trick the algorithm. So, the best thing you can do is to put your time and energy in to the reason you built your website in the first place. Whatever that reason may be, it probably was not to learn and practice SEO techniques.

    Be organic. Be yourself, even be one with your website. Google likes sites that are organic and built by people with a clear purpose. Understand and embrace the algorithm. Do not fear it and try to trick it. It is there to do good.

    As Iíve said before, donít lose sleep over search engine optimization, lose sleep over conversion rate. Spend your time maximizing your site for your visitors. A good site with quality content will get top rankings naturally.

    So, the trick to tricking the search engines is to have no trick at all. How much easier can that be?

  • How to Submit Your Blog to the Top Search Engines

    Summary:
    Understand the differences between blogs and websites and you can raise your blog’s rankings in the search engines.

    Although submitting your blog to the search engines is very similar to submitting your website, there are several differences that you should be aware of. Knowing these differences can help you get your blog indexed more quickly because you have submitted your blog correctly.

    Regardless of whether you are submitting a blog or a website, if you are submitting to Google, you should create a sitemap. Although you should check your sitemap periodically to make sure Google isn’t encountering any errors with your sitemap, once you submit it, you don’t have to submit to Google again. All you have to do is keep your sitemap up to date.

    If you use a blog like WordPress, you can install the sitemap plugin. This plugin updates your sitemap automatically and notifies Google that your site has changed.

    If you don’t use a blogging software that generates sitemaps, you can create your own. Google offers plenty of free tools for creating sitemaps.

    Even if you don’t have a sitemap, you can still add your site to Google. You just won’t get detailed statistics.

    You can submit to Google here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

    Since Google doesn’t allow direct submission to its blog search, you will need to make sure that you submit your site to blog directories Google pulls results from for its blog search, and then make sure you ping these sites when you update your blog.

    You can use sites like Feed Shot, http://www.feedshot.com, to submit your site to some of the major blog directories. Then you only need to ping your blog to update it at these directories.

    When submitting to Yahoo, you need to submit your site feed instead of a sitemap. You can submit your blog to Yahoo here: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request. Instead of submitting your site, you will use the first block and submit your feed.

    You should also add your blog feed to your My Yahoo page. This can get your blog added faster and will get your blog included in Yahoo’s version of blog search.

    You will need an account to submit to both Yahoo and Google. It’s free.

    MSN, the third of the big three search engines is completely different in the way that you need to submit to get your blog included.

    You can submit directly to MSN to be included. You don’t need an account, but you will need to submit manually because you will need to enter the characters on the page to make sure your submission request goes through.

    You can submit here: http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

    MSN also offers an alternative that will help you get your entire blog included in its site results. Submit your blog to Moreover, http://www.moreover.com. If your site is included in Moreover, it should be included in MSN as MSN draws a lot of results from this news site.

    Once you’ve submitted your blog to the top three search engines, forget about it. Your next step should be to ping your blog each time that you post to it.

    Before you ping your blog for the first time though, make sure that you glance through the list of blog directories. You want to make sure you have submitted your blog to each of the directories listed. Also, some of the ping sites listed may not relate to your blog. Make sure you uncheck these before you ping.

    Ping Services
    http://www.pingomatic.com
    http://www.pingtheempire.com
    http://www.pingoat.com

    Ping your blog each time you update.

    These techniques will help you get about 80 percent coverage in the search engines. Once you’ve taken this step in your promotion, move on. Write press releases and articles and submit them to press release and article directories. Build links.

    Successfully promoting your blog or website depends on consistent promotion. Promote regularly, and you will see results.