10 Costly Search Engine Mistakes to Avoid

If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.
Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.
Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want.
1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic. 2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site. 3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them. 4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine listing. 5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be considered spam. 6. Relying on hidden text. You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it invisible. 7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this. 8. Assuming all search engines are the same. Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility. 9. Using free web hosting. Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.
10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements. Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that will do this for free. This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good for your website. Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.

8 Great Tips: Selecting A Professional Search Engine Optimization (seo) Service

Search engine optimization is increasingly being accepted as a powerful and critical component of the marketing plan. With the costs involved in other forms of online marketing growing significantly, it has become almost a necessity for companies to include SEO in their overall marketing mix.



It’s thus no surprise to know that professional SEO today is big business and this industry is growing at a fast pace. There are however many different types of SEO firms out there and finding a reliable service can be a daunting task.

Search engine optimization firms employ varying methods to get high rankings for websites and not all of these techniques are considered ethical. With the increasing number of ‘black hat’ SEO firms, (companies using unethical and unfair methods and techniques to manipulate search engines), and the thin line between actual ‘black hat’ and ‘white hat’ SEO practices, it is crucial to be well informed of the methodology the company plans to use for your website before you decide to hire them.

Here are 8 simple tips to help you in your evaluation and selection of a trustworthy and professional search engine optimization service:

1.Educate yourself with the basics
Make sure to do your homework carefully before you venture out to hire a SEO service. It’s imperative you understand in advance exactly what a firm can and will do for you to enable you to evaluate them. There are several resources online dedicated to search engine marketing and search engine optimization and taking the time to understand and learn the basics will go a long way.

2.Fee structures and your budget
There are no standardized fee structures and most companies offer a range of packages instead. A package may in itself contain a variety of services like keyword research, optimization of a certain number of pages, directory submissions etc. Selecting a company should not be only about cost. A firm that charges more may not necessarily be better at SEO and likewise a firm that charges less may not necessarily be providing you the same services. Use prudence while understanding pricing models and the risks behind them. One way to go about deciding what your budget should be is to first identify your website’s and business’ unique needs, tailor a package to meet these requirements and then compare firms’ pricing models to decide a realistic baseline budget.

3.Size and specialty of the firm
Depending on the size of your website and requirements of your company, it might be a good idea to check out whether the firm is adequately staffed and what their customer to SEO team ratio is.

Another important thing is to ensure that the company specializes in all areas of SEO and has a team of professionals experienced and accomplished in each of the areas including design, development and actual coding.

4.Location
The location of the firm largely depends on your comfort level. You may favor a local company or one at least within your country or prefer to outsource completely to another country to benefit from their lower costs. There are also few companies using a blended offshore delivery model with marketing and client services offices in one country and the actual design and development work being done in another. With the combination of lower costs plus client servicing available within reach, this upcoming balanced model may be a good option to consider.

5.Client testimonials and references
References are a great way to start and should be freely available. If they haven’t been provided, ask and make sure to use them to find out exactly how credible and trustworthy the company really is based on their past client’s experiences.

6.Guarantees
Most firms won’t guarantee top position results and shouldn’t. It is justifiable for a company to guarantee increasing your traffic or rankings from its current positions; however if any SEO service is guaranteeing you a specific position/ranking in any search engine, make sure you read the fine print of the agreement.

7.Ethics / Spam
Ethics is of paramount importance when it comes to selecting a search engine optimization company. There are a variety of unethical practices a firm can use right from while selling their services to you, to, the actual methods they employ while optimizing your site (keyword stuffing, cloaking, etc to name a few). Make sure to ask as many questions as possible and specifically about the methodology they use. If the firm does not offer you ready explanations of the process they undertake to optimize websites, you probably need to look elsewhere.

8.Reporting and success measurement
Some of the key questions to ask – How long will it take to see results? What type of reports will the SEO firm furnish and how often? How will success be measured? Will a maintenance plan be included?

It is largely up to you to define the goal and success level of your SEO campaign. It may be an increase in the traffic to your site, potential leads from a mailing list subscription, or an increase from last years sales. Make it a point to discuss and articulate your goals with the SEO firm and come to an agreement before you hire them. It is however important to set realistic expectations. Unlike PPC and other forms of paid advertising, SEO is a time consuming process, both in terms of implementation as well as results.

To conclude, hiring a SEO services firm can have a significant impact on your company’s bottom line, however the decision to partner with a particular SEO firm should only ensue after a careful evaluation of the firm and after you have done the groundwork necessary to help you decide your own goals for the program.


 

3 Steps To Getting Listed In The Search Engines

You've just finished putting in all kinds of effort towards getting your website online. You're ready to take orders and make sales. The only problem is... No one can find your website! You need to get listed in the major search engines in order to get visitors to visit your website. What can you do? Follow these 3 steps and the search engines will know about your site in no time at all. 1. Write an article related to the main topic of your website. Not sure if you know enough about writing to write an article? Don't worry about being perfect. Write about what you know. Keep the article short, between 300-600 words long. When you write the article, give out general information that anyone would gladly post on their site as valuable content. Don't try to sell your product or service in this article. Remember the goal of the article is for you to get a valuable link back to your website, not to make a sale. In fact, if you try to make a sale in the article, most webmasters will not want to publish your article on their site. The whole goal of writing articles is to get your articles on as many websites as possible with a link pointing back to your site. 2. Include a resource box at the end of the article with your website link in it. If you've created a good general information article that is relevant to the topic of your website, you are ready to create your resource box. Keep in mind here to get to the point quickly. It is usually considered fine to promote your product or service in this resource box but it is necessary to keep it short. You should remember that the main point of including this resource box is to get a link going back to your website. The secondary purpose of the resource box is to get readers of your article to click through and visit your website. When including a link in your resource box, make sure that one of your links includes the main keywords of your home page. Keywords are a fancy term for the phrase or words a visitor will type in to find your website. Make the keyword the clickable portion of the link instead of your web address. Put this keyword text in between your html anchor link. 3. Submit your article to the major article directories. Once you've created your article, submit it to the major article directories to get the article distributed on as many websites as possible. Some major article directories include EzineArticles, ArticleCity, ZapContent.com and Isnare. Some services like Isnare will even distribute your article for you for a fee. Do these three steps and search engines will find, crawl, then list your website in their listings. It's as simple as that!

4 Techniques To Sell A Site With No Traffic

As more and more Internet users are coming online to generate passive income, they start to look into websites that could help them to create passive streams of income either through commissions, user clicks or page impressions. Internet Entrepreneurs are now starting to build or acquire potential sites and flip them over to the buyers for a nice profit. Although traffic is the key area when most people are considering when buying a website, other criteria are also important for the site to run and stay profitable in a long run. This article will help you to sell your site if you do not have much traffic flow. The first technique is to mention how easy it is to maintain and run the site after the ownership transfer. An ideal site would be able to update its content automatically and using unique and fresh content. Some Webmasters use RSS feeds to dynamically load their sites with fresh content so that search engine will index their sites more often. Most buyers will be more than happy to buy a site that does not require them to write content and maintain. It is highly advisable not to have a site that contains 100% RSS feeds as this will not yield good results in the search engine rankings. Another useful technique is to stress on the earning capabilities of your site. All website buyers are looking for an easy way to generate passive streams of income. For example, I normally incorporate Google Adsense, ClickBank and Amazon products review in my site and make sure that the new owner can easily change the affiliate id respectively. This is a very effective method that most buyers do not mind paying for. The third technique is the ease of transfer. Most website buyers are not technically trained and hence, some may not even know how to install a database on a web server. It is always easy to sell a site that does not require a database and the buyer will appreciate it as they may resell these sites in future as well. If the site you are selling includes database operations, you may need to provide support after the deal to make sure that everything runs smoothly. The last technique will assure the buyers that your site will proof worthy after the deal. This require you to have one or two profit generating sites with the same model of the sites that you are selling. When selling your new sites, quote the examples that you are now generating passive income from your old sites and show proof when necessary. The above techniques are extremely powerful especially when you combine them with excellent sales pitch.

4 Steps to Lower Your Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

The shoppers are on your site, they are interested in the product, but the design of your shopping cart is causing you to lose many if not most of your customers. Sound familiar? It should. Recent research indicates that the average e-commerce site is losing near 75 percent of its shoppers during shopping cart phase of a transaction. While that statistic is probably influenced upward by a few terrible websites, the fact remains that most sites are losing huge numbers of customers by not focusing on their shopping cart. Fortunately, by taking a few relatively minor steps, you can vastly decrease your shopping cart abandonment rate. Fewer Steps are Better This mantra is as old as e-commerce itself. By forcing your customers to go through multiple pages you will assuredly see some attrition. You should ask yourself, is all the information I am collecting absolutely necessary? Is there another configuration that would reduce the number of steps my customers will face? Surprisingly, however, this is probably the last step that you should take. Unless your process is particularly laborious, empirical studies indicate that this will likely affect your attrition minimally for the cost and effort required. So, I am not saying not to reduce your checkout steps, but only that you should prioritize the other steps above this one. Progress Indicators In both e-commerce and brick and mortars, the single biggest inhibitor to conversions is uncertainty. This is certainly easy to imagine when you consider some brick and mortar examples. BestBuy stores have transitioned to a single line for all of their cashiers rather than having customers pick a cashier to line up in front of. Why? The answer is simple, uncertainty hurts conversion rates. Humans have an instinctual desire to know what is coming ahead. By including a progress indicator at each and every step of the checkout process you will see some remarkable increases in customer retention. Even if you have a 10 step checkout process, letting customers know where they are along the process will ensure a much greater number of completions. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures Shoppers respond to sensory stimulation. People like to take things off the shelf and inspect them. Because that option isn’t available for e-commerce sites, you need to compensate for this deficiency as best as possible. One way to ensure better conversions is to include pictures not only in the store but also in the cart. Shoppers, especially those new to e-commerce want to verify and re-verify that they have made the correct choice. Many of these customers are lost if you force them to use their browser’s back buttons to do so. By placing a picture of the item to be purchased within the shopping cart, much of this need is alleviated, meaning lower abandonment for you. Provide Total Cost Estimates Early One of the most overlooked concerns of customers is their distrust of e-commerce sites when it comes to shipping. Maybe it’s the years of telemarketers selling garbage products for close to nothing and then making their profit on the shipping. Whatever the reason, it is important to allay fears of hidden costs as soon as possible by providing your users with a total cost estimate earlier rather than later. Is there something to be said for bringing the customer in with a low-ball lead price? Yes. But after the leader it is important to let customers know what they are really paying as early as possible so as to give a few moments to acclimate to the increase.

4 Steps To Flip a Website Successfully

Determining a profitable website is not easy especially if you are looking to flip it for higher profit within a short time frame. However, with the correct steps and procedures, it is possible even for a beginner to pick up a good site with great potential to start off. The first step to determine if a website is worth the investment is by the number of income streams it has. Most websites have more than one income channel such as Pay-Per-Click advertisement (Google Adsense etc), Pay-Per-Action programs (AzoogleAds, ClickBank etc) or selling of own products. Basically, this step is to analyze the current profitable channels and see if you can expand or add in other sources of income. Never rely only on one income source for a website. The second step is to find out where are the traffic coming from. Most websites should have a healthy amount of constant traffic from the search engines followed by social bookmarking sites or regular visitors. If the majority of the traffic is coming from the search engines, proceed to ask the owner what are the keywords that brought in the traffic. Try out the keywords in the search engines and check out the search engine rankings of the site. You should also check with the owner what are the top search engines that direct the traffic to the site. With these information, check the on-page optimization effort of the site and you may have more ideas for improvements after you have bought it. The next step is to highlight the areas of possible improvements of the site. If you can come out with at least two quick fixes to the site that can increase the value created to the visitors, the traffic to the site will increase to the next higher level eventually. For example, if you can include an online tool to calculate the financial networth of a person in a financial blog, that would most likely benefit all your readers in a long run. The fourth step is to check for back links to the site that you are interested to purchase. It is highly recommended to use Yahoo backlink analyzer to check for backlinks since it displays almost all the pages that linked to the site. You may want to use the Yahoo powered analyzer at USESEO.com. With the above four steps, you should have no problems choosing a profitable website that can generate a stable income for some time. You are advised to check on the seller's history as well to know more about the seller's background before confirming the transaction.

4 Amazing Steps To Unleashing The Massive Profits Within Solo Ads Fast And Easily.

The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with solo ads. People endorse other products for a many reasons. Sometimes to sell affiliate products for commissions, promote a joint ventured product or other times, for an advertising space they sold. Solo ad is a single advertisement in an email published by the owner of an ezine/newsletter to his lists of subscribers. Why does it work more effectively than the others? You can fully personalize your solo ad and it’ll be sent out in only one single email, which lets the readers focus only on the solo ad. This highly increases the response of the advertisement and gives you a high edge compared to other ads which are hardly noticed. Here we’re going to mention what kind of solo ads sell and what factors are important. The process of publishing a solo ad: 1. Choose a newsletter or e-zine to send out your solo ad 2. Write a solo ad 3. Create an effective or catchy title 4. Put up the website where your visitors will go 1. Choosing the right newsletter or e-zine This is an extremely important step. Whether or not your readers will be interested in your solo ad depends on what group they are. You must choose a huge targeted list of subscribers to send out your solo ad, usually one with more than 5,000 people. If you want to find targeted e-zines/newsletters where you can advertise your solo ad, simply make a search on Google with your niche market’s keywords and go to the popular or high ranking websites. From there, find the links that say “advertising” or "advertise with us", and the rest is pretty self-explanatory. How can you put a limit on learning more? The next section may contain that one little bit of wisdom that changes everything. 2. Writing a solo ad Most people are tired of seeing advertisements over and over again, they can sense it right away on the first look followed by a click on the delete button. So how do you make a difference with your solo ads? Write a story, that’s all! Humans are drawn into stories since they were born, we’ll read any stories which are interesting. Write about how you have started before you have this experience, and what happens after. It has been said that the best solo ad never sells a thing, it only pre-sells and warm up the readers. 3. Coming up with the perfect title Ever been to a book store? If you are not attracted to the headline of a story book on its cover, will you even bother buying it next? Hardly, and that is why you need to keep your readers hooked. 4. Design the website where your visitors will go It is common that people always send readers of their solo ads right to the main sales page, a big mistake, instead. You should always let these "personally invited" visitors feel that they are special, for having the front-edge against the other normal visitors. Greet them cheerfully, and roughly tell them your success with the product you mentioned in the solo ad, and always take advantage of asking them to opt into your subscriber list! This is very crucial, every penny or effort you spent for the solo ad is to benefit as much as you can from it, but not the extent of people getting tired, of course. Again, tell the stories, interesting stories. You will realize that people will want to buy from you so much just because they feel closer to you. Do this right, and you can have an overnight success with your solo ads. If you've picked some pointers about solo ads that you can put into action, then by all means, take action and DO IT! That's all for now, All the Best.