Here are some do’s and don’ts of making your website search engine friendly.

* Do create a navigation bar. A navigation bar lists the main pages of your website and links to them. The search engines will follow these links to visit other pages of your website. Be sure your navigation bar is on every page.

* Don’t use JavaScript as the only means of navigation. This is commonly seen when a site uses dynamic menus. JavaScript is difficult, and often impossible, for search engines to crawl. Instead of completely getting rid of your JavaScript, though, you can offer an alternative means of navigation. One way would be to place text links to your other pages in the footer of your site.

* Do avoid using Flash on your pages. This is a popular way to add animation and interactivity to your webpages. A Flash site can be very appealing visually, but it doesn’t give anything for the search engines to chew on.

* Don’t use a splash page. You’ve seen websites where the first page is a pretty picture but gives no real information. It might have a button that says, “Click here to enter.” When the search engines find this page, they’ll find no content to crawl, and so they’ll leave.

* Do produce a site map. A site map is a page that lists all the pages of your site and links to them. Search engines like them because there is lots for them to do, and it helps them find their way around your site. Be sure to link to your site map from every page so it’s easily found.

* Don’t keyword stuff your content. You have heard of the importance of using good keywords and keyword phrases in your website content. That’s true, but you want to avoid using them too often. Your content should sound natural. No one word or phrase should stand out because of overuse. If it doesn’t sound natural, some search engines will give your website less credibility.

* Do use unique title tags for each page. When you look at your website in a browser, you can read the title tag on the top left hand side of the screen. Very often, sites will only have the business name or the website name in the title. Each page should have a unique title tag that tells the search engines what that page is about.

* Do write unique meta description tags for each page. Each page should also have its own unique description tag. The search engines index these to learn what your page is about. As well, some search engines will display your description in the search engine results.

Creating a search engine friendly website isn’t difficult at all. When you follow the above do’s and don’ts for your website, it will become more than search engine friendly. It will be friendlier for your human visitors as well. That’s a good thing, because as important as the search engines are, your visitors are the ones with the wallets.

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However, there’s more to keyword research than basic supply and demand. KEI, or Keyword Effectiveness Index, can be an extremely valuable piece of data to help you find the most profitable and most effective keywords for your internet business.

KEI compares the number of times a keyword appears in the provided data (presently Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery both offer KEI data) with the number of competing web pages, to determine the most effective keywords for your business. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are and the less competition they have. It’s a comparison of supply and demand calculated for you.

For example, the keyword phrase, “Pet Friendly Hotels” is likely to have huge demand and huge supply, which means the ratio between the two will be very small, thus a low KEI. Conversely, the keyword phrase “Cheap Pet Friendly Hotels” or “Pet Friendly Hotels in New York” is likely to have a sizeable demand and less supply so the ratio is bigger, thus a larger KEI. And “Cheap Pet Friendly Hotels in New York,” if it has a large demand has very little supply and thus a larger KEI.

Depending on the search tool you’re using, the number will be presented differently. Keyword Discovery for example bases their KEI on a scale from 1-10 with ten being very high KEI, which means there’s not much competition for this keyword when compared to demand. Other tools present the number as the simple mathematical result of comparing supply and demand.

As with any keyword data, it’s important to assess your goals for your keywords and your website. If you’re just starting out, you probably want to optimize for the keywords and keyword phrases with the least competition.

However, as you grow and become a large business, you may want to start focusing on the keywords that have more demand and a decent supply. Why? Because at this point you may be able to position yourself amongst the big businesses who already have the top results. You’ve been around for a while and can compete effectively with them.

As you compare your keywords and analyze the data, you may find some trends in your industry. KEI information is also a great resource to generate new keyword ideas – a brainstorming tool.

KEI data is just one number to look at when compiling your keyword research and formulating your plan. It’s an extremely useful number and some businesses are able to create an extremely effective campaign using only this information. Create your strategy and your goals, analyze the data, and always test and track your results.

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Here are ten tips for effective SEO on a small budget.

#1 When researching your keywords, use any number of the free keyword research tools available.

#2 Use trends and read blogs and industry publication to find relevant and interesting topics to write about.

#3 Content, content, content. Write your own blog posts, articles and reports. Content is the foundation of any successful SEO strategy and if you write your content yourself you’ll save thousands. Even if you write some of the content yourself, you can save lots of money. And the more valuable and compelling your content, the more folks will link to it which helps your SEO ranking significantly.

#4 Use PLR. Private label rights content can be purchased at a relatively low cost and tweaked to be original and specific to your industry.

#5 Participate on social networking sites and market your website and your content. Include a link to your website in your profiles and link to new content in your posts. Links generate traffic and boost SEO.

#6 Use article directories/syndication. Article directories are free and they’re a wonderful way to generate links to your website. They also help you create an online presence and establish credibility as an authority in your industry.

#7 AdSense ads can be a frugal way to boost SEO; however, it’s imperative you keep tight control on your budget and test and track your ads for performance.

#8 Write press releases and submit them to online press release websites. They create incoming links and media attention.

#9 Get listed on online business directories like dir.yahoo.com. Business directories create quality and relevant links to your website.

#10 Finally, partner with other business owners in your industry to link to each other, guest blog or article swap, or to swap advertisements. Partnering with others is a great way to get exposure and increase your SEO for next to nothing.

When it comes to boosting your SEO or creating a budget-friendly search engine optimization strategy, you can’t go wrong with good quality content. It’s the foundation for any website and when you write the content yourself is extremely inexpensive – it simply costs you your time. If your budget allows, you can also outsource your content or purchase PLR to fine tune for your website. Reviews, lists, resources and informational articles are all valuable content types.

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Yahoo is the largest Internet search engine provider. Followed closely by Google. therefore more companies want to advertise their businesses using these top search engine providers to expose their business. For example if you wanted information on statistics or recipes you could type in just the portion of the information you want and the Search engine will generate specific links to sites which provided the information requested.

Businesses rely on this functionality of the search engines to expose their business and generate more patron to their services. Google as well as Yahoo offers a variety of search engine packages to fit many business needs. However all packages offered are created for the specific amount exposure for the business is priced upon the amount business are welling to spend for search engine advertisement and therefore using the most widely used search engine providers will greatly benefit new businesses to the web.

The purpose of search engine marketing as well as the registration of your website’s URL is to increase traffic to your website. When you use the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your site, search engines are your best tool, your most invaluable tool, in marketing your site.

Why some search engines are more popular than others is a confusing topic. Google, MSN, and Yahoo do get more media attention than say Ask.com and that may be the reason why they are used more often. It is important to choose the more commonly used search engines first and foremost when registering your URL. However, you would be remiss to completely overlook the lesser known search engines as well. Sometimes consumers are sick of the same old result pages when searching for a key word and will most likely turn to a lesser known and lesser used search engine for a fresh new look at the answers to their search query.

So be sure to also register with as many search engine sites as possible. The most common and lesser known search engine websites are listed below to help get you started!

All the Web.com

Ask.com

Direct Search

Excite

Gigablast

Yahoo

Google

MSN

AskJeeves.com

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Public forums or industry specific forums is another method of search engine marketing. First and foremost, forums are the communication between people who share common goals or understanding of a specific topic or products. Forums are also used as methods to get answers about certain aspects of business and/or services as well as a means to keep abreast of the latest products/services’ announcements. Because forums are used to correspond between Internet users and consumers, they can also be used as an effective method of search engine marketing.

You must first begin by generating a list of discussion boards, or forums that best fit your websites “personality”. For example, if your site is selling a service that is of a more entertaining value you wouldn’t want to post details of your business on a technical-like forum. Choosing forums that succinctly sum up the features of your website is also advantageous. Choose a discussion board or forum, for example, that grasps the main concept of your services. Doing so assures you that your readers are already consumers interested in your type of product or service.

Be sure too that your posts are knowledgeable, well researched, and most of all, flow smoothly. Nobody wants to read four paragraphs that sound like an obvious advertisement. The better the quality of the article post, the more likely your consumer will be eager enough to follow your links and visit your site.

Generating traffic to your website can be hard work but if you are looking to seriously increase your traffic, postings keyword-rich and informative articles on discussion boards and forums is a great way to do so on a budget. Posting on discussion boards and forums offers your prospective new costumers insight about services and products as well as allows them the ability (and convenience) of directly linking to your website if they feel inclined to do so.

Utilizing a forum as a means of advertising has been considered to be most effective when marketing a service or product. There are numerous message threads throughout a discussion board in which people are sharing their ideas, opinions, and concerns. Most importantly, they are also looking for help. If you are able to obtain a good working rapport with these types of consumers you may be able to turn these Internet users into customers.

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By Joshua Mabilia

Blogging gets its name from the term ‘blog’, itself a short form of ‘weblog’, which again is a blend of two words, ‘web’ and ‘log’. A blog is a repertoire of web publications stored in reverse chronological order, which means that a new entry comes on top of the one just preceding it. Anyone who looks after a blog, writes for and maintains it is said to be ‘blogging’. Blog-posts are articles posted on a blog by a ‘blogger’.

Since early days, blogs have focused on particular subjects, for example web development, learning craft or estuarine fishing. Blogging is like an online diary, being constantly updated, that can contain both images and texts.

A typical blog-entry or blog-post will consist of title of the post, main content of the post, the URL of the full article called ‘permalink’ (article appears in a separate page), the date when posted, the blogging category of the post, comments if made and, finally trackback URLs’ (which are URLs’ of those pages that link to the blog-post).

Should you be blogging? Why not? But remember thousands of blogs debut everyday only to die soon after. So while blogging is surely an addiction (and perhaps a necessity), it is incumbent upon a would-be blogger to prepare a fertile ground for it to succeed.

Blogging Signposts

Blogging has become popular in a relatively short time. Here is a ‘trackback’ to sequence of events that together shape up today’s blog scenario:

1. The term ‘weblog’ was first used in December, 1997 by Jorn Barger. From ‘weblog’ to ‘we blog’ to ‘blog’ – a short journey before Peter Merholz coined the term ‘blog’ in April, 1997.

2. Xanga.com, launched in 1996, is one of the earliest entrants on the blogging scene, having started with fewer than 100 online ‘diaries’. Today, Xanga’s community is populated by millions of users.

3. OpenDiary.com is another popular blogging site, having started in October, 1998. OpenDiary currently has nearly 450,000 users. Closely following OpenDiary came LiveJournal.com in March 1999, which today has over ten million users and nearly 230,000 posts everyday.

4. Blogging started gaining momentum in 1999 and in subsequent years, specially after the advent of hosted blogs.

5. Blogger.com is a notable blogging service that commenced in August, 1999. In Feb, 2003 it was acquired by and is now a part of Google.

6. Though reliable figure of total usage is not available, there is no doubt that blogging has arrived to share centerstage with other essential net activities, like emailing, chatting and surfing.

Free Blogging

To be sure, there are good numbers of free blogging tools to get going. Blogger.com from Google’s fold is an excellent start-up. Xanga.com has both free and paid blogging service. So are host of others like Wordpress, Nucleus CMS (both database driven), Blog-City, Blogsome, Blog Studio, Yahoo!’s Flickr photo blogging (free and paid account), Fotothing photo sharing and so on.

All free services require you to sign up for an account and proceed step-by-step to ultimately establish your blogging account. Blogger.com also permits hosting a blogging account on your own server. Wordpress and Nucleus are both rich in features, but database-supported (PHP, MySQL) software applications.

Parameters of successful blogging

Before you start your own blog, here is a quick checklist:

1. Do you know your blogging subject well enough?

2. How conversant are you in your subject of blogging? As a rule of thumb, expect to contribute yourself for a good length of time before others join in.

3. Look for a niche category for your blogging, subject of course to the conditions above.

4. Are you in a position to devote time to your blog? Unless there are regular updates and a genuine willingness to do so, it is difficult to succeed.

Blogging and SEO

For any website to rank high in search engine results, search engine optimization is needed. Search engines prefer lot of relevant contents that are added and updated on a regular basis. Blogging fills in that requirement effortlessly and automatically. If you are a frequent contributor to your own blog, and if your articles are keyword enriched and relevant to the subject of your blog, be assured that search engines are keeping track of that. Examples are many where in terms of search engine traffic, websites have prospered on the strength of targeted blogs. So get going, start blogging today!

Article by Josh at http://www.hostingfrenzy.com
Visit his site for a comprehensive web hosting directory, articles, tools, and much more.

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Consider what fonts and colors you are using for your website. You already know that all major search engines consider the ‘same color font-same color background’ as a naughty technique as it is mostly used by webmasters who either want to hide some parts of the content or are up to some tricks. Style and colors in vogue is not something that search engines consider when ranking web pages so probably you should not consider it yourself either. Same applies to color combinations. If you have a blue webpage and use a white table with blue fonts, just because you like the color effect on screen, then you will be flagged, because the web crawlers will see a blue font on a blue background. It is a common mistake that many beginners make.

Avoid overcrowding your website with too much graphic and multimedia. First of all if not well appointed your website will look like a circus and will baffle the average visitor and second it is completely useless for the crawlers, as they are programmed to read and recognize text and text only. Rich content is what you really need and you should work diligently on this. Of course you need to include some graphics also so as to make the site look better and appealing – just do not overdo it.

Unintentional over optimization of a website is also a point to consider. Usually the search engines appreciate a comprehensive usage and density of keywords and meta tag elements, which means that you need to keep some natural flow in the text and make it both readable and understandable. You will not achieve anything if you overdo it. On the contrary you may be considered as spam and thus lose your ranking. If you feel you are over doing it, try to ‘de-optimize’ your website a little. Monitoring and updating your website is something you should do anyway so as to avoid and correct the mistakes when needed.

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There can be various advantages in keeping the page on the top search results. When a user searches for some information, they may not decide to browse through a lot of search results. But if the user can find the relevant link in the first few results then they may not think of going further to look for other links. They would be more likely to open the link found first and browse through the information from there. The point of the discussion being that, having the page displayed early has its advantages if relevant search is initiated by a user. This can be very helpful for people whose websites are more than just a way of sharing information. There are websites that conduct business online and the major parts of the sales are made through the internet. If their page is not accessible and is shadowed by a host of others, they are not likely to benefit from their online existence. Worse, they may even lose existing customers.

SEO training is a training program that is used to train people in techniques and ways by which a page can be optimized for a specific search engine. Different search engines have different ways which they use to judge the importance of a page. One of the ways used is the traffic density on the page and if more people visit a page, then the ranking of the will go up and they would be visible among the top few search results.

Other than that, there are also different techniques used. SEO training aims at training the interested people so that they may apply their skills on websites and make their ranking better. A trained person may specialize in optimization for a specific search engine because different search engines employ different methods to determine the importance of a website. So a person may choose to either master his techniques on one particular search engine or if he is truly passionate about SEO as a whole , may gain knowledge about the working of various other search engines that are also slowly gaining a foothold in the industry.

A number of individuals and businesses rely on professionals to help them better their websites. Only when a person is trained and qualified will he be able to deliver the kind of results that are expected.

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