SEO|The Full Insider SEO Details Exposed

Are you going to submit your site to the search engines the right way or the wrong way? To do it right, you need to know what youre doing, and your site needs to be optimized before you take it anywhere near a search engine.

How can you know if your site is ready? You consider these things before you submit. Have you included your keywords in your title tag, description, and content? Make sure youre tightly focused on only one or two keywords. You should also check for broken links, as these can cause big problems with search engines spiders.

Once youve submitted your site, you need to be prepared to wait. The chances that you won’t be added to any engine’s database for at least a month.

The Rules of Submission.

1. Theres no need to submit more than once. Despite the hype, you should never resubmit your site unless it gets dropped entirely. This doesnt apply to new pages, however. If you have created a few hundred pages in the last month or so and you dont think that they will be indexed quickly enough via links to them it is a good idea to submit them manually rather than waiting for your site to be indexed again. If you are using a Google Site map, simply adding them to this document will get them indexed pretty quickly.

2. Do it right the first time: be thorough when submitting, especially to directories. Take the time to research and find the most appropriate category for your site. If your site would fit into multiple categories find out what the policy is on multiple submissions. Some directories want you to submit to every relevant category, others want no more than one submission or they reject all submissions. Some want every page, others (most) want your index page and nothing more.

3. Be brief when you describe your site: get right to the point in two short sentences. Most directories will actually restrict the number of characters that you can use. If they dont it is still a good idea to try to wrap it up within twenty-five to thirty words. This is one of the largest differences between directory listings and search engine listings. In the directory you only get a short line to attract visitors; this is static for every visitor.

4. Be as accurate as you can. Dont try to trick people into visiting your site, as itll only backfire. Most directories are actually monitored by a team of editors. These editors will visit your link and red flag you if you are trying to deceive visitors or if you are trying to cheat in any other way. When it comes to directory listings, there are even less avenues for cheaters than there are in search engine listings as directories are checked out by hand.

5) Make sure that all your information is relevant, and try to make it appealing to humans as well as dense with keywords. Directories dont care about your key words very much. If your site isnt attractive to human beings it will be listed poorly. When human beings edit, human beings rank, and human beings get what they want.

6) Be patient: good things come to those who wait. Let the search engines take their time.

7) Dont submit any more than your homepage. The crawlers are quite capable of following your links and indexing your whole site from just your homepages URL.

If youre submitting you site to the DMOZ directory, follow these steps. If one doesnt work, wait a while and then do the next.

1. Submit your site.

2. Write a follow-up email to the categorys editor, explaining that youve been waiting and would like to know your sites status.

3. Email the next category editor up, in case theres a problem with your categorys editor.

4. Seek assistance at the Open Directory Projects public forum.

5. Email DMOZ senior staff seeking help. This is pretty much the last resort.

Submissions can be time consuming at first, but youll quickly get it down to a science. If you work hard on your SEO before you submit your site then you can get to the top more quickly than youd think.

1. Add every meta tag that you can.

Take a look at the code of a few websites out there. Many sites have silly amounts of tags far more than they need. Remember the old adage: keep it simple, stupid. Dont add tags unless you know what youre doing and dont make up your own tag names, because no-ones paying any attention to them. Most of these tags are skipped over by most search engines anyway. The only crucial tags are the description tag and the keywords tag which are both utilized occasionally. Many other tags are there just for the sake of crediting the webmaster, author, etc. These kinds of tags are there mostly for the sake of other webmasters if they need to know who to contact about the page itself.

#2 Have lots of keywords.

Using the keywords meta tag correctly is good, but dont get too hung up on it. Many search engines now ignore it altogether, including Google and AltaVista. Remember that putting too much in this tag could be considered spamming make sure you dont put anything in more than three times, and keep the keywords related to your site. As previously stated, many of your meta tags will be skipped over anyway, but you should keep to your primary key words and not worry too much about assembling a gigantic list. Be descriptive, be honest, dont be excessive.

#3 Keyword lists must have a formula.

People have a tendency to get very distracted by the keyword meta tag you shouldnt misuse it and you definitely shouldnt expect miracles from it. It gets skipped more often than not; even its used it is used in company with the content on your page. If you want to obsess with optimizing something, optimize your content.

#4 The title tag doesn’t really do much.

Out of all the tags, this one is the most important when its used correctly. Just like with your sites content, write your title tag for your audience first and the search engines second. Think about your sites branding and navigation issues as you create your title tags. Your title should be relatively long. A seven to ten word title is not out of the question. The title is the first thing that a search engine really cares about and it should be the most common thing that you want your visitors to find you for. Your most important key words should all be worked into your title.

#5 If I copy my competitor’s keywords I will do just as well.

You need to understand tags and the details of search engine optimization in general. What works for one site doesnt necessarily work for another! You do not have identical sites so you cannot work with identical keywords. Aside from this detail, a site that has been around longer is more likely to have success from its key words than a new site. If you are trying to take over a small niche, you have to expand and do something that your competitor hasnt done yet.

#6 If I repeat my keywords in a comment tag I will rank better.

There was a time long ago when this was true, but it was a really long time ago. Search engines are all wise to this trick nowadays.

#7 We need to have as many different keywords as possible throughout our site

This is an SEO nightmare. Your pages need to be focused, not always trying to cover all basis. Limit your keywords.

#8 Anyone can write a websites tags.

SEO calls for copywriting and marketing talent: writing good tags that can attract both humans and search engine spiders isnt easy.

#9 Google doesn’t rank me by the description tag, so why should I use it?

Google does still use the description tag from your site it displays it to its users in the results. If theres no description tag, theyll just see a nonsense excerpt from your site, which is bad. Dont forget that there are still plenty of uses for the description tag. Make the title and the description complement each other, as they will often be displayed together.

DMOZ is the directory where Google starts when it crawls the web, so getting listed in DMOZ is good for you. SEO with DMOZ starts with selecting the search terms youre targeting, and then finding a directory category that includes them. This can be a time-consuming and difficult task. Youll often find lots of matching categories. The trick is to find the most precise category and, if possible, a directory that does not have too many other competitors in it. You can hit a niche market simply by being placed in a category that has few competitors. DMOZ, of course, makes the final decision as to where your website will be located.

Dont choose a category thats too general for your site, as it might just get removed later on. Make your site stand out by using a unique, catchy description one for people, not search engines. Remember, you will probably get a pretty hefty number of hits from DMOZ itself. When you are trying to get listed in DMOZ, dont worry about trying to get a nice listing in the search engines that crawl here, worry about getting a good listing here. The search engines care more about where DMOZ lists your site than what you have to say about your site in your description; DMOZ cares more about how accurately described, how interesting, and how often visited your site is than where you are listed in the search engines.

A third feature to be aware of is the PageRank of the category, and the number of listings on the page. Youll do better with more specific, smaller categories, especially if they have dedicated editors. A small category with a high page rank is the best situation that you can run into. Remember that a pages page rank is split between the number of links that go out from it so if you run into a page with a rank of seven with seventy-five out links you probably arent as well off as a page with a ranking of five and ten out links. This is a constant for Google Page Ranks, not an exception for DMOZ. Your targeted keywords should appear in your sites description, towards the beginning. Dont put them towards the end, as the editor might chop them off to save space!

Remember that once a site is submitted to DMOZ, its very difficult to update its description. Give it a few days to think it over before you submit it, and be more vague about websites if you think they might change. Dont write descriptions that could become out of date easily. If you are running a monthly special you shouldnt include this in your description unless you say something to the extent of low price sales monthly. If you suddenly decide that you are going to completely transform your site into something completely different you will have huge problems with your listings. Keep this in mind before you start building your site if there are possibilities that you will choose to reuse the domain that you have purchased.

If you absolutely have to resubmit, you can submit a blank form that informs the editor of your former web site that your site has changed drastically and that you want the old listing deleted. From there you can submit a new form to any category (or categories) that you need to be listed on with an updated title, description, and key words.

Multiple Listings for the Same Site.

Some editors allow multiple listings for submitted sites, especially if theyre good quality sites that span multiple DMOZ categories. Its always best to request multiple listings you can use the text box on the submission page to justify yourself.

If you find a good category for a niche inform the editor as to whether or not this will be a specified category and then search for any other categories that are related. You may get a good deal of hits from your niche, but it may also be a small market for a reason. If there arent that many people who would be utilizing that particular category, you may want to submit to other categories that will provide you with more substantial results.

Being Patient.

Follow the submission guidelines and dont exaggerate. If no-one seems to be reviewing your site after a week or so has gone by then you could post a question. Be patient, though: most of the DMOZ directory is edited by hand, and theyre very busy. In many cases it can take as long as three months to get added.

DMOZ simply wasnt prepared for the sudden importance it had forced upon it. One of the biggest problems with the directory is that each site must be looked at by editors, so your site might not get indexed for no reason other than the editor not liking it, or even just losing it.

I have been on the Internet for a long time. At least I have been doing marketing a long time in relation to the Internet as a commercial entity.

Around the end of 1995 I speculated in domain names, learning about keywords and phrases and how they help the search engines find the content you are providing at your website.

I continued to learn about keywords and as search engine optimization became a necessity I was ready to use what I had learned about keywords and phrases, domain names, search engines and content.

There were quite a few people, say a couple of hundred who really knew how to use keywords to optimize websites.

However, then it was to help search engines do a better job of indexing all of the content on the web. Now it seems the roles are reversed and the search engines are in charge. At least many seem to think so.

Now there are also a lot of people, thousands, who claim to know all of the search engine secrets and some claim they can get you top listings if you just sign up with them, buy their Ebooks, buy their videos, or buy their software.

I always have a hard time with the math. If these guys can guarantee you a top 10 listing for your keywords, then 11 companies sign up for their service that are also targeting your keywords or phrases, then how do they get all 11 customers a top 10 listing?

There are a lot of things we have known about the importance of for years such as anchor text, titles for links, surrounding links with keywords in the body text to make the links more relative, alt tags, metatags, keyword count, and more.

But now almost every day I see a website or article promoting a new search engine secret and it has a name I have never heard of. Then when I investigate and read up on it I find that they have renamed anchor text something else, keyword-count something else, etc.

Just like Hollywood these days seem to only be remaking movies we have already seen and giving them new names, it seems there are a lot of people out there now renaming SEO methods that are as old as the Internet with new names and selling them as new secrets.

They sell you these new secrets on video, in an Ebook, in a Seminar, or produce software that optimizes your website for you.

Most of the SEO Gurus of today never actually optimized a website for themselves or anyone else with any good results. They simply advertised to other people that they know how to make them rich in 90 days with little or no work at all and can promise you top 10 search engine rank in all the major search engines.

There are some of us who actually do the work and will keep on doing so and remaining ethical about the business. Its just hard to sit by and see so many people bilked out of their money with promises that no one can keep.

I have clients send me stuff all the time.

Hey look at this new SEO technique I got in my email!

“Look at this website I found that can get us top listings in 30 days!

I go and read up on it for my client and find the same old stuff repackaged once again. Things I am already doing for the client is now a video or an Ebook and they cannot understand why I would recommend not spending money on it.

If you are going into business on the web and you read this article, just learn one thing from it.

There are NO shortcuts to success. Get rich quick schemes are just schemes. There is no magic formula or secret to getting top listings in the major search engines.

If there is a secret, it is that it actually requires hard work to be successful on the web just like it takes hard work to become successful with any business on or offline.

Buying an Ebook or a video or some software is not going to make you rich or get you top listings in the search engines. Anyone who tells you that work is not required to make money on the web is lying to you.

Learn how to do this for yourself or hire a professional who does not promise you the sky, but also hire one that can prove the results they have gotten for clients and for their own websites.

Testimonials are worth absolutely nothing.

Chris McElroy is amazing! He got me a top 10 listing for my website in less than thirty days! The videos are easy to follow and in just days I was an SEO expert. I recommend everyone buy his Ebooks too! -John Doe, New York

Now dont you just want to run right out and buy my video? Too bad I dont have one to sell.

Nope, no Ebooks either.

No Software to make you rich.

But I can do the search engine optimization and promotion for your website and prove the results with weekly increases in link popularity and search engine indexing.

Over the last few years, search engine optimization (SEO) has been needed and used more and more, although it has been around for much longer than most people think. With new development tools being used to create websites that are heavy on Java, Flash and images, its important to have something that the search engines can read. If the content cant be read by search engines then they cant index it, and if your site doesnt get indexed then it wont be found when people search for it on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or anywhere else. This article will outline what SEO is, how it works, and some unethical SEO methods that you should avoid.

What is SEO?

SEO is a way of analyzing your site and modifying it to allow search engines to read and index it more easily. SEO is all about maintaining and building websites that get ranked highly on the major search engines.

You see, when people use a search engine, they generally dont look beyond the top 20 or so results. If you want to make any money from your website, you need to get ranked in the top 20 out of potentially hundreds of websites.

How Does SEO Work?

Search engines maintain a huge database containing information from individual websites. Most of the information search engines collect isnt listed on their results pages, but it is taken into consideration when it comes to deciding those results rankings.

It is very important that you encourage the search engines to rank your website in a high position, and you can do this through the keywords that you use on your website, as well as when you submit it. If the keywords you use in your submission tool dont match the ones on your site then you could harm your rankings be sure to have all the keywords you want to use on the website itself before you submit it.

Most websites dont focus on their topic well, and so keyword lists containing 50 or more phrases per page are recommended. By focusing some of the pages of your site on keywords, you will score higher with the search engines.

Free Search Engines.

The major search engines on the Internet are still free, and its not hard to take advantage of this free advertising you can do it in as little as an hour.

There are several companies that provide free SEO tools, or you can pay a professional to take care of it for you. Looking around on the web will turn up all sorts of useful resources.

What is Unethical SEO?

Unethical search engine optimization techniques can be unlawful, unscrupulous, or just in bad taste. Youd be surprised how many people use these methods. A lot of what is now called unethical SEO used to be accepted, until people went overboard and it started to have a negative affect on the web as a whole.

Keyword stuffing is when your site consists of long lists of keywords and nothing else. Don’t do it. There are ways to put keywords and phrases on your site without running the risk of getting banned.

You may have seen invisible text if youve been selecting the text on a page and found words that are the same color as the background. This text is often lists of keywords put there in the hope of fooling search engine spiders while hiding the words from visitors. This is considered unethical, and you shouldnt do it.

A doorway page is a page that isnt designed for real people to see its purely for the search engines and spiders, in an attempt to trick them into indexing the website in a higher position. This is a big no-no and should be avoided.

Even though unethical SEO is tempting, and does work, you shouldnt do it not only is it annoying to users, but its likely to get you banned from the search engines sooner or later. You sites search engine rankings just arent worth the risk. Use efficient SEO techniques to get your site ranked higher, and stay away from anything that even looks like unethical SEO.

SEO is a set of techniques used in order to attract visitors or prospective customers to your website, and the goal of a search engine is to provide high quality content to the users of the Internet. These two objectives are not in opposition, if you do SEO the way it should be done.

As the demand for search engine marketing continues to grow, so does the demand for experts in the area. In recent months, mass emails seem to be the new promise of top search engine rankings. How do you choose an SEO provider that will understand the needs of your website and provide quality service?

Lets breakdown the elements of SEO, to make it easier for you to recognize a good product. To find a good SEO provider, look for these things:

They need to be able to check your current site, evaluate it and set goals for it. They should develop a list of target keywords relevant to the site, write and insert good meta tags for you, and check all other tags to make sure that theyre alright. They should also check all your content and make recommendations on how to improve it to get better search engine rankings.

They should provide link-building programs, including writing and submitting listings to directories and giving you ideas on who to ask for links from. Reports tracking search engine referrals to your site are always good, especially if they explain what they mean and how they can be improved.

Website maintenance is a very important aspect of any SEO program. Once their site has been optimized, many people dont realize that they need to keep up these methods over time. If you let your site lapse back to the way it was as you add new content, then youll need to start all over again.

What kind of price can you put on all this? Well, pricing structures for SEO vary a lot between companies. Some companies will charge more because they include a monthly maintenance fee, while other companies offer customized proposals based on a websites specific need. In general, good SEO can cost as much as $150 an hour, so be prepared for that. Keep in mind that the larger your site is, the more work will be involved. It will naturally take less time to optimize a smaller, simpler site, so keep this in mind when you consider the pricing.

After youre more comfortable with what the services offered are and how theyre priced, youll want to make sure that the company youre choosing as your SEO provider has the knowledge and skill to complete the work for you. You should talk to three or four companies before you choose one. Be sure to ask them these questions, and back off if you dont feel like youre getting an honest answer:

1. How long has your company been in business? Can you explain what your previous experience is and what principles your SEO works under?

2. What other services do you provide besides SEO? Do you provide Internet marketing services?

3. What kinds of industries have you serviced previously? Can you provide me with checkable references?

4. How will you break down the cost of your services?

5. How much will I need to do myself for this SEO project to run smoothly?

6. How much time do I need to set aside to communicate with you during the process?

7. How long does it usually take to achieve results? (SEO is a gradual process, so a reply of anything under 6 months should be a red flag for you).

8. Is it possible to have someone from your firm teach us how to maintain your SEO once its done? (If they tell you that you wouldnt be able to do it yourself, then thats another red flag).

When they do send you a proposal on the project, you will want to make sure that it contains everything you spoke about, and everything else that should be there. If the answers to any of these questions are missing, you should walk away:

1. What specific services are included in the contract? Are any omitted? Make sure that what you discussed and wanted is included.

2. What is the name or position of the person you will be working with? Are you dealing with a salesperson, a designer, or someone else?

3. Are allowances made for communication with you? Are there any additional fees for contact?

4. How will the company be providing support? By email? On the phone? Do they stop supporting you after a month or so?

5. Are there extra fees for re-optimization or additional consulting? Is it really necessary? What maintenance is provided? If not, what is the additional cost of it? When maintenance is not included with the plan you need to be careful, as there are people who will charge you exorbitant amounts of money to maintain their optimization.

6. What reports are provided and how often will they provide them?

7. What are the total charges? Are there any additional charges?

By taking steps like this you will guard yourself against bad practices, you will also have a better understanding of the service you are getting, and you can easily compare offers to find the best one. But how can you tell if your provider is operating ethically? Well, thats is pretty easy. Heres a list of the sales pitches that bad SEO providers will use on you. If you hear any of these from a company, use someone else instead.

1. Guaranteeing top-ranking placements. This is impossible to do since the algorithms of the search engines change often, and any good SEO provider will tell you that.

2. Offering a service that includes the development of doorway pages. These designs often dont take your visitors ease of use into consideration, and search engines will ban your site if they catch you using them.

3. Telling you that you need more than one domain name pointing to your website. You can get banned for domain spamming, so dont take the risk.

4. Any company that says it will get thousands of inbound links to your website they will be using free-for-alls, which are very bad for your rankings.

5. Companies that offer you search engine submission software. Good positions always come from hand submission. If they tell you that submission by hand is not the best way to go, dont stick around.

Many SEO providers use unethical spam practices because they are cheap, easy to implement, and do provide very short-term results. Beware of any provider that uses them.

The best way to tell if the providers SEO practices are ethical is to ask: “Do these changes benefit visitors to my site as well making it more search engine friendly?” A good SEO provider will always say yes, as SEO is as much about the users as it is about the engines. After all, whats the point of a high ranking page if its nothing but unusable rubbish that will have people rushing for the Back button?

Dont be overwhelmed by these things, but always be on the look out to make sure that youre getting the best service possible. Good SEO companies can boost your sites traffic without resorting to unethical practices, and keep up with changes in the industry.

First, go to the search engine where you want to check your sites ranking, and enter the keywords you want to check. Your result pages will come up, and you will need to look through them until you find your website. SEO experts recommend that if you arent listed in at least the top 20 then you should continue to optimize, as most people wont look any further than that. This is simply common sense. When you are determining if your rank is high enough simply think to yourself, Would I look for this long for this page?

You will want to do this with each search engine and directory until you have some idea of where you are. Check your website’s rankings regularly, because changes to algorithms can affect them drastically and quickly. Keep in mind also that thousands of new web pages are added daily, and many of them are actively trying to get ranked ahead of you. Thats right. There are thousands of other in on the same game as you so you must keep sharp. Your competitors may be reading these same articles and using these same tricks!

If you cant find your website in a search engines results, you should enter site: your domain name in the keyword field to see whether you are listed at all. If your URL appears with the name or description of your site then you are somewhere in the search engines index. If all you get back is a blank page, then youre not in the search engines database at all you need to wait longer. This trick of typing site:www.yourdomain.com also helps you to determine how many pages you have indexed on each particular search engine. The more pages that are indexed, the more likely somebody is to encounter your site.

It you find that your website is miles away from the top 20, dont be discouraged you can change that! You may need to re-evaluate your keywords, and try to find new ones that are more relevant to your site. Many search engines have human-edited rankings for the most commonly searched-for phrases, and it is often difficult to get in that list. Good content is the best way to increase your chances of getting a high ranking for a certain topic. The more popular that your page is with the masses, the more popular it will be with search engines.

Search engines are a perfect example of the chicken or the egg. In this case, there is an answer! Search engines attempt to deliver sites that the populous has deemed important, not the other way around. This is why it is so important that you have good, relevant content and plenty of it.

If you want to check to see if a single web page on your site has been indexed, visit the search engine and enter the complete URL, like this: http://www.yourpage.com/yourpagename.html.

If the search engine has indexed that particular page then it will come back with a description of it. If it hasnt then youll see a message saying something like Sorry, no information is available for that URL.

On Google, if your URL has been indexed, this page will offer you to show the cached version of the page, or to find similar pages, as well as pages that link to your page or that contain your URL on the page.

You could go ahead and use these manual tracking methods, but we would recommend that you consider using online tools or downloadable software that will allow you to check these things more quickly. It can be a very tedious and time-consuming job to do by hand, especially if you have several sites to monitor.

Top25web.com is one such search engine-ranking tool. You can find out where your website ranks in Google, Inktomi and AltaVista for free. You can also analyze the results of a particular keyword search, to create a plan for improving your sites ranking.

URL Ranker offers instant, online reports of website rankings in 17 top search engines, including Google, Yahoo, AOL Search, MSN, AllTheWeb and AltaVista, again for free. It will tell you if your site is listed in each engine, and tell you the ranking if it is.

These tools alone offer an excellent way of checking your sites rankings. Once you know where you stand, you can continue with your SEO plan, and move on to other aspects of marketing too.

SEO Content Writing Converting Artificial Keywords Into Natural Keywords.

The Role Of Keywords Within SEO.

One of the major aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) is the use of keywords both in the Meta tags of a site and throughout the website content. In particular, the density, the placement and the actual keywords themselves are hotly debated topics. It is certainly no secret that keywords play a vital part to any good SEO program, but because search engines like Google and many others change their algorithms on such a regular basis it may seem difficult to keep up with the current best practice. However, there are some good general guidelines to follow that should always ring true regardless of how you personally approach SEO.

Keeping Abreast Of SEO Times.

It can be difficult to say at any given time what the keyword rules are when it comes to SEO content writing, but there are always common worst-practice factors that should be avoided completely. That is, search engines like Google will not only ignore your website content but they will actively penalize you for certain things.

Spam The Big NO!

Search engines do not take spam, or the sites that contain it, lightly. This is the most important thing you should remember. It used to be acceptable in the eyes of search engine robots for your content to be 100% keywords with absolutely no meaningful text. However, this practice of keyword cramming or keyword stuffing is now something that does not go unnoticed and you will face a penalty for using this technique. Yes, keywords are important but you also have to provide solid and informational text for your visitors.

So, What Is The Correct Keyword Density Then?

Of course, this leads to the question of how to determine what is considered spam and what is considered an acceptable level of keywords within your text and again this is a topic that leads to debate between SEO experts, webmasters and content writers alike. The general belief was that including a keyword within your text with a range of 5% to 10% was best practice. It certainly wouldnt get you penalized and it made it blatantly obvious that your site was relevant to that topic. However, some believed the figure could legitimately be taken as high as 20% without any negative search engine effects.

Err On The Side Of Caution.

While these high densities of around 20% may not have got you penalized at one time it is increasingly likely that they will be regarded as being geared primarily towards search engines. Search engines do not want to display sites that are created for this purpose; their aim is to display websites that are geared towards visitors. As such, sticking to a lower percentage is likely to produce better results for you.

Playing It By The Rules.

Keeping the keywords to this sort of level is an art, but it is not one that should elude most people. The art, of course, is to combine search engine optimization with informative content that will appeal to your visitors as well. In order to do this it is important that you use natural keywords.

What Are Natural Keywords And Artificial Keywords?

A natural keyword is one that you would use in everyday conversation relating to a given topic. In the case of your website, if you were to sit down and write 500 words of informative content you would find that certain words naturally creep into the article and appear several times. These are your natural keywords, but unfortunately natural keywords may not provide you with the results you require. For example, a little keyword research may prove that a natural keyword of divorce attorney is a very well searched phrase but there are also 2 million websites geared towards this key phrase. Further research may turn up the fact that Find Divorce Attorneys may be a little less popular with regards to searches but there are only 10,000 sites aiming for this keyword. This instantly improves your chances of being closer to the top of the search results and that coveted top spot.

Replacing Natural Keywords With Artificial Keywords.

So, you now need to go back over the content you have already written and see if the term Find Divorce Attorneys appears within your content. In all honesty, it is quite unlikely that it would appear more than once, if at all. You have to make it fit into your content and you have to make it appear to do so naturally. Find the areas where you specifically used the keyword Divorce Attorney and see if you can swap the phrases with just a little alteration of the surrounding text.

Start From Scratch With Your Artificial Natural Keywords.

Another method is to look for your artificial keywords before you begin and make sure you have them in the back (or the front) of your mind when you sit down to write your website content. Because you are already thinking of the phrase you want to use you will naturally include it within the content of your site. Its not a trick, although you may want to consider it a subliminal tactic if you wish, but it will work.

The Result Of Keyword Conversion.

By converting your artificial keywords into natural keywords you should be able to effectively optimize pages towards both search engines and your visitors and this will mean improved search engine rankings as well as improved conversion rates. Even a small increase in visitors combined with a small increase in conversion rates will show a good level of increase in your income so you should not overlook this technique.

We all want to know how keywords affect our rankings, but to find out well need to do a little work. Many say keywords are the key to good search engine rankings, although they arent at all the only factor.

If you need a tool to help you decide on your keywords, try Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool it allows you to test your keyword rankings by showing you statistics on recent searches for them. Its a great tool when you have no clue which keyword you should choose, as it can give you a list of terms that were recently searched on.

Keyword Density.

Keyword density refers to the number of the keywords contained within your text relative to the amount of text there is. Preferred keyword density ratios vary between search engines, but you should generally try to keep them between two and eight percent (major search engines prefer the lower end). Keyword analysis tools can help to optimize a web pages keyword density. These tools are good if youre not sure of what youre doing, as theyre very intuitive and explain things as you go.

Counting the Keywords.

Many SEO experts will tell you that the keyword density of your text isnt a very important factor, and that you should be careful not to overdo it. So is there a limit? How many times should you use your keywords? SEO experts wont be able to answer these questions for you, because no-ones really sure of the answer. The best answer is that it changes regularly, and you can never be sure you have to experiment to see what works for you.

Location of Keywords.

When testing the effects of keyword location, we found that pages with the keywords at the top and bottom of the page ranked higher on Google than pages with the keywords in the middle.

Many other search engines also give keywords more or less weight based on their location, but keep in mind that each search engines algorithm is different. Heres a list of how most search engines prioritize keyword positions, from most to least:

1. Domain name.

2. Page title.

3. Headings (i.e. H1, H2, etc.).

4. Body text (the first 2 to 3 KB usually counts more).

5. Meta tags (especially description).

6. Links (including keywords in the URL or link text of links to you).

7. Alt text (the alt descriptions for your pictures).

Really, though, keyword density is one of those areas where youll have trouble on your hands if you try to second guess the search engines. Be cautious.

Search Engine Optimization is one way in which you can get your website in front of the search engines. But what do you need to do in the Search Engine Optimization process? And is it worth it? I will give a quick overview of some of the factors involved and I’ll let you determine for yourself if it is worth it.

KEYWORDS

First and foremost, search engines look for keywords and keyword phases in which to index your webpages. So you must prepare each page for the search engines. Thus, when you are writing copy for your website, keep four or five keywords that you want to emphasize for that webpage — then weave the words into the copy.

However, don’t blatantly use the keywords over and over again — or as they say — use keyword stuffing — or the search engines will penalize you for it. And, needless to say, your readers will click away, if the flow of the copy is so obviously stuffed with your keywords that it jeopardizes the quality of the copy. Quality of copy first, keywords second.

META-TAGS

There are several meta-tags that the search engines look at. The two most important are:

1. Title
2. Description

Both the Title and the Description Tags should have your most relevant keywords. Now, the keywords meta-tags is not used by Google, but the other search engines may utilize them. Are they important? It really depends who you are talking too. Some say, by putting the keywords into your webpage you are giving your competitors the edge. Others, feel that if your competitors want to know what keywords you are using they will find a way. (I’m of the latter’s thinking.)

LINKING

Linking is another important factor in Search Engine Optimization. Without proper linking — or establishing a linking campaign — your great site may not be found by the search engines. You need to find ways in which to allow human visitors, beside yourself, to find you.

INBOUND LINKS

Inbound links — links pointing to your website is very good for search engine rankings, and gives more ways for human visitors to find your website.

How do you get inbound links? Write articles and place them on article directories for ezine publishers, newsletter publishers, or bloggers to pick up.

Blogs is another way in which you can get one-way links to your site. Again, that same article you wrote for the article directories can be put in your blog and then submitted to a Blog Directory. Just do a search on Goggle for “Blog Directory” and you should find enough to keep you busy.

OUTBOUND LINKS

An outbound link is a url that you have on your site that points to another website. An outbound link on your site means that you feel the link has quality content for your readers — and you are redirecting them to it from your site.

So, what does outbound linking offer you? You can see what an outbound link can do for another website, right? Well, by carefully linking to other sites– relevant sites — you can increase your own relevancy.

So be careful who you link too — because outbound links figures into the entire ranking algorithm process — or restated — your page ranking.

To conclude, this overview is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO. It’s not an easy task, and it is time-comsuming. Will you see a quick return moneywise. No, but SEO will eventually give you the money you seek, as well as, offer you longevity. And isn’t that what you want–longevity? I know I sure do. I would rather be the tortoise, and not the hare — and slowly, but methodically move in the direction of my dream of a home career. If you take the wrong shortcuts, you can lose your dream and your home career. So, is SEO worth it? I think so. How about you.