SEO and Web Site Traffic Tips

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Google Pagerank from A to Z

If you're a website owner and you're trying to get organic search engine traffic then you've probably heard the term "Google Pagerank". But what is Pagerank and how does a websites pagerank effect search engine rankings? In this article I'll address those questions and try to give you some insight into this often confusing topic.

What is Google pagerank? Google developed the "pagerank" system several years ago for the purpose of gauging how "important" a web page is. The higher the pagerank, the more "important" Google thinks the webpage is. Google uses this gauge as a part of its ranking algorithm.

Where does pagerank come from? Pagerank is all about webpages linking to other webpages. You see, every page that Google indexes has a pagerank value associated with it. Every time one page links to another page, a portion of that pagerank value "passes" to the page it links to. Higher ranking pages, pass more pagerank to the pages they link to.

What happens is, when one page links to another page, it's kind of like the page that does the linking is voting for the other page. So to get pagerank to your webpage, all you have to do is get other pages to link to it.

Pagerank is really just a mathematical calculation that determines how "important" a webpage is based on how "important" the pages that link to it are.

A crucial point here that is often misunderstood is that pagerank is passed on a page by page basis. Many webmasters assume that a sites pagerank is determined by its home page. While it's true that the homepage is often the highest ranking page within a website, it doesn't have to be. Any page on a given website could rank higher then the homepage.

The myth that the homepage will have the highest pagerank comes from the fact that many webmasters (especially old school webmasters) participated in reciprocal linking programs where they would exchange links to each others homepages. So, by default, the homepage wound up with the highest pagerank simply because it had the most links pointing to it.

So how will my pagerank affect my search engine rankings?Pagerank is simply not as powerful as it once was. There was a time when all you had to do to rank well was to get enough websites to link to you and you could dominate virtually any listing you wanted. Today, the ranking algorithm is much more complex. Many other factors are taken into account. However, pagerank does still play a reasonably important roll so getting backlinks is still a major task in the search engine optimization world. It's just that the way we go about getting those links has changed.

How do I check a sites pagerank?Google offers a free toolbar that you can download and install on your machine. One of the things this toolbar does is to display the Pagerank of whatever webpage you're looking at.

One final note, my recommendation is to never worry too much about Pagerank. Build your website to the best of your ability; create well written, compelling web pages and you'll get backlinks naturally. Further, take some of your better articles and submit them to a few article directories – include a resource box which links back to your site and you'll get some excellent backlinks pretty quickly. Just stay away from reciprocal linking campaigns, whatever benefit they once had is long gone.

David Olsen has been an Internet Marketer since 1999. In his career he has developed well over one hundred affiliate websites and promoted dozens of products. He is an expert in SEO and writes extensively about it at his flagship website, Affiliate Profit Center.
Visit his site today and sign up for his free SEO Success Guide!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Olsen

Labels: google page rank, pr

# posted by Cool Publisher : 1:58 AM

Long Term Search Engine Optimization Strategies

When it comes to what works in the search engines, a lot of advice you read is the latest flavor of the week or loophole that someone’s uncovered that will help you get great search engine rankings… for about a week.

It's also true that little things change on a monthly or weekly basis. These little changes can be almost impossible to keep up with.

So what's a person supposed to do to get great search engine rankings?

Simple. Stop focusing on the little things, like tweaking your keyword density, or changing your meta tags, and focus on the factors that are going to matter long term.

Fortunately, there are some basic principles that you can apply that can help you weather the storm of constantly fluctuating search engine algorithms. These are methods that have worked for years, and will work for the foreseeable future.

1) Write Great Content

Make the focus of your site on having really good content. I know that if you've read some of my previous articles, you'll know that I continually harp on the importance of having great content. Well, the reason is that the search engines want to rank the sites that have the best content the highest. Also, people will naturally link to great content. Give the search engines and people what they want – quality content. Avoid quickly thrown together crap, and if you hire writers, make sure they know the subject matter they’re writing about.

2) Update Frequently

Your website should be updated frequently. This means not just going in and tweaking what's already on your site, but having a steady stream of new content flowing into the site. I like to use blogs for this purpose since they’re really easy to use and maintain.

3) Get Links

Build up your links. You should always be seeking out quality one way links. Whether you’re using article marketing, directories, or press releases, be proactive in getting new links to your website.

Once you start focusing on long term optimization methods, you'll find that your rankings will improve without you having to go in and make little changes every time you read about what the search engines are favoring that month. Your content will rise to the top over time without you needing to constantly mess with it.

Gary Ruplinger is a search engine optimization expert. Get his free link building guide at UltimateTrafficBlueprint.com. For more tips like this, check out his search engine optimization lessons.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Ruplinger

Labels: seo, seo strategies

# posted by Cool Publisher : 1:50 AM

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Free Web Directories

# posted by Cool Publisher : 12:45 AM

Friday, October 20, 2006

How To Drive Traffic to Any Site The Easy Way! by: Cedric Aubry

Traffic is vital for any website to flourish, especially of it's a commercial one. Traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website. The additional traffic you push to your site, the more likely more people will be attracted in what you have to propose.

There are numerous different ways to develop traffic to your site, but what we'll be discussing here are the easier ways of driving traffic to your site.

1. Tell everyone

This is the easiest and furthermore, free! If you have a lot of online or real life friends, incite them to drop by your site if they can. The more the merrier, as they say.

2. Using Crawlers

Crawler-based search engines like Yahoo, Google and Ask Jeeves are the next easiest way to grow traffic. Crawlers work by picking up every website or page that matches a query. It crawls on individual pages, big websites and directories. Google in particular has a feature wherein you can instantly add your site's URL to its directory for simple recovery.

Anyhow, this method doesn't guarantee that your site will be visited by hoards of visitors. Oh no. That will be determined by your page's ranking. Page rank is a measure of how relevant your website is. It's like a range of how much support your site gets. If you get a lot of back links to your site, then this does much to increase its page rank.

3. High quality content, increase in keywords and add a sitemap

A lot of webmasters use the content, keywords and sitemap to develop their traffic. How you ask?

Content

As we've said, page ranking is how pertinent your site it. It doesn't matter if you have a hundred or so pages but they have in it nothing but spam. This is extremely irritating, specially to Google, who might even ban you from their list.

High quality content however, is the first way to go about it. Even if you've got only 5 or so pages, but possess out up relevant and well written articles, people are certain to come back and visit. A lot of times.

Keywords

For instance, your site is covering a topic like, Superman. Of course the typical person looking for a page on Superman will type "superman" on his query box.

However, some search for more distinct terms like "super man" or "clark kent" or "lois and clark". If you have pages that have these keywords, there are better chances for your site to be found. The more specific the keyword, the better since it limits the number of the competition.

Sitemap

A sitemap is effective for any website since it increases the number of internal links and pages that you have, therefore increasing the probability that a crawler will pick it up.

It's also a big help to prospect who are looking for a specific page but wouldn't want to bother browsing through the whole website.

4. Exchange links with other sites

Exchanging links with other websites will be a superb way to foster alliance and friendship. It'll increase traffic too, considering most people browse through the links page of websites, especially on fan sites.

At any rate, it wouldn't be adequate to ask for an exchange link for free or just out of the blue. Before a similar site can do an exchange with you, you must have been offering them something in return, like free content or downloads.

5. Article marketing

Submitting your articles to online publications is a great way to increase traffic too. This is a bit harder than the other methods, since the publication need to accept of your article first.

However, one approved, not only do you get to publish your work, you are also given a link back to your site. This way calls for quality not quantity so please do your best.

6. Submitting to directories

There are free and open directories like imegamall.com and searchsight.com. You can submit your site to them and it may increase traffic to your site.

This method is quick and simple but not so reliable either. It might take weeks or months before your site can be listed or maybe not at all. So it's better to try this along with the other methods for greater success.

About The Author
Cedric Aubry is the Owner of http://Your-Free-Ebook.com. To learn more about me Visit my Blog At: http://CedricAubry.com/

# posted by Cool Publisher : 10:25 PM

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Getting Your Site Indexed On The Search Engines by David Fishman

So you have had your website up and running for awhile now and the major search engines have yet to recognize the site? You aren’t alone. Many sites have a hard time becoming indexed. Sometimes it is due to being new or possibly it is just a matter of bad luck. Fortunately there are options in the quest to be indexed and one, if not a combination of a few, will get your website the attention it needs by being indexed by the major search engines.

First method to consider is search engine submission. Sounds easy right? All you have to do is sign up and your site is indexed. Not exactly. For most of the search engines simply filling in the requested information on the submission form is enough to get the ball rolling. This method is useful everywhere except when dealing with Google. As the most popular and largest search engine, they tend to be a little pickier. The key to becoming indexed by Google is to get link exchanges from other sites that are indexed by Google. Otherwise the powers that be see the unlinked site as of little value.

Another way to help your website get noticed is pay per click advertising. This one won’t actually help get the site indexed, but it may very well increase traffic to the site. That could increase revenue and make your site more appealing to other webmasters that may allow links to be placed. And that does help with search engine indexing.

While on the subject of links, these little blurbs on someone else’s website can be incredibly useful in getting attention from the major search engines. One way to receive links is to politely request a link exchange of the potential webmaster. Often you will discover that if space on the site allows, the other website owner will request that you place a link on your site back to them. While search engines have gotten wise to this practice, it will up your website’s exposure to the general population. The notion of registering with web directories will help gain the respectability needed to be recognized by the search engines for indexing. Some directories charge a fee for inclusion and others will accept payment to place your listing quickly or higher on the page. If finances are a major concern, there are some web directories that don’t charge for inclusion. It will help with the indexing issue; just not as quickly as the directories that charge.

It can be incredibly time consuming to build up the necessary links to get attention from the search engines. There are programs available that will help you set up a request letter and submit the requests to other websites with similar content to yours, saving you a lot of time. While there is a monetary charge associated with this type of software, it can save the webmaster hours of work and frustration.

While working to get your new, or slow moving existing website noticed by the search engines for index inclusion, remember to be patient and get those vitally necessary inbound links.

About The Author

David Fishman is the owner of http://linknetics.com. The link marketing software that promotes link exchange

# posted by Cool Publisher : 9:41 PM

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Why Using Search Engine Optimization by: Kanicen Nichathavan

E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.

So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.

With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Lets just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your sites existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.

You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your sites content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.

You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.

Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.

If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.

Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.

About The Author

Kanicen Nichathavan is the founder of The Trafford Networks, The Trafford Networks welcome everyone who are having ranking and optimization problem. Web presence is almost a must for most businesses today. To stamp your web presence, an effective Internet marketing strategy must be developed. Find More Info at http://www.seo-website-optimizer.com/.

# posted by Cool Publisher : 7:56 PM

Learn How to Exchange Links

This blog provides some useful tips on exchanging links with others. It explains what kind of aproaches you should take, what kind of methods you should use. Very useful info on exchanging links.

# posted by Cool Publisher : 1:17 PM