The SEO Spiderweb

The SEO Spiderweb
By : Will Radcliffe

The SEO Spider-web basically consists of two core aspects, the Internal Web and the External Web, each web contains several key components.

Internal Web - All objects that directly relate to the site and fall under you domain name, www.your-site.com:

* Keywords, make sure your keywords within the site are befitting and do not contain "noise" by search engines, you should consider avoiding words these words, to test your sites Keywords check out http://www.websitegrader.com/, you should also take into consideration not to go overboard on your Keywords as you could potentially dilute the effectiveness of them and try to keep them to around 7-10 keywords. To get a better idea of what Keywords you should use look into SEO Books keyword research tool , try entering a term and see what comes up (I entered the term "business" and the list returned is immense).

·Odds are you probably cannot initially afford a top 10 placement keyword/term (unless you're prepared to go toe to toe with some of the major players and have some very deep pockets).

Start by looking at the top 20-50 keywords/terms and find then looking up their values using Google's Keyword tool (Select Cost and Ad Position Estimates) and since Overture decided to take their tool down, which really sucks for us, as we are starting to run out of options when it comes to "free" Quality SEO tools and beginning to see many of these helpful tools disappear (Be sure to place a high enough Bid when using the tool as it will not return a figure if the bid is too low, for example on the word Business I placed an initial bid of .25 and got zero, no surprise, but re-calculated it with and $6 bid, figures galore!!!).

·Other Keyword tools within SEO Book: Keyword List List Cleaner Master Tool List

* Image Alt Tags, search engines pick up everything now a days and tagging your images with Alt tags is another way to draw their attention.

* The Blog, having a blog within your site can drive an enormous amount of traffic to your site that would usually go unseen or unheard, of course to ensure that you do get hits on your blog means you need to provide "Quality Content", if the content is sub par, odds are your blog, just like the thousands of other newborn blogs will end up dying on the vine due to the lack beneficial information. A few tips to keep your ideas fresh and the content up to par is subscribing to an RSS feed and initially considering joining sites like Technorati, MyBlogLog & SEOmoz.

External Web - All objects that indirectly related to the site, like a link to the site found thru another blog/forum/article/etc that does not fall under your domain name.

* Web Directories, submitting your site to the top web directories can garner you some great exposure and here I've laid out a quick table of some of the webs best free & paid directories, it's currently highlighted for a "Budget SEO" scenario with a $500 limit for directory submissions which are based on their Google Page Rank and their Alexa Rank($507 to be exact). For those fortunate enough where a budget isn't a problem, I would suggest all of them and if you don't want to hit the whole lot, consider DMOZ and Jayde for the free sites, BOTW, Business.com, Yahoo Directory and Starting Point; which should create a nice surge for your sites initial backlinks, but take into account that the more credible a directory is (A higher Google PR number and a lower Alexa number) the better your chances are in an increasing the sites ranking.

* Articles/PR submission sites, play a big part spreading the news about your new/fresh content to the rest of the web. The above aspects of SEO merely just get your Domain out in the great WWW and this next part will complete the circle of information submission (The Green highlights are ideal Article Submission sites and the Yellow highlighted rows are PR Submission sites).

*MySpace News is fairly new but it is backed by a powerhouse dot com, the initial number are skewed due to the MySpace domain name, but I would not be surprised to see this aspect of MySpace grow just as fast as their user base, which is pretty fast...

As you can see by the chart it's easy to get the word out about your article without having to spend a dime, but you may spend a nice chunk of time doing so. Now the same can almost be said for most of the PR companies, but if you want to break into some of the inner circles of the web, you might want to pony up a few bucks.

* Social Networking/Blog sites, aside from providing your readers with quality content and good links, as a blogger you need to get the word out about your blog. All the steps above are primarily for getting the word out about your site time for you need to gain some credibility within the blogging community:

Technorati is a must for any Blogger, so join up, interact in their community and use their search function to help create ties & credibility to other blogs and building up your blogroll (If you can't find Blogs you're interested in at Technorati, check out Ice Rocket another blog search engine).

Now, I don't mean go and spam away your url/email address on everyone's blog within the comments section, as you'll become hated very quickly, also note that your comments should bare some useful information to the Author, not merely a "your blog is Awesome, FTW 1337 I l(_)\/z teh I/\/7@/2\/\/3bZ!!!". As far as link baiting goes, the same rules should apply, as you want to gain their trust within the blogging realm; remember everything in moderation. As far as leaving your signature in the blog comment area I would opt against doing so, especially since most comment submission boxes allow for an url; here's an older post that addresses it, but it is still a relevant issue.

Hopefully this write-up reaches those who, like myself a few months ago were completely lost in a sea of information and for those unlucky individuals who may still be lost, floating about on their makeshift driftwood rafts, like Chris Elliot in Cabin Boy, I hope that this does find you and brings about some closure to the world of SEO. Although this is merely a quick lesson on SEO, there are still many more hurdles that await you out there, like Google Page Rank and how it works.

-Will Radcliffe
About the Author

A trio of young business savvy entrepreneurs whose passion for thinking outside the books has led them down the path of the dot com world.
http://www.AdSenseThai.Net

11 Ways To Promote Your Websit

11 Ways To Promote Your Websit
By : Harry Hoover

There are many ways to promote your website, but we often forget some of the most effective. Let's review my 11 ways to promote your website.

Headers, Tags, and Titles - Search engines continue to evolve but there are a few things you still can do to give them a clue about what's on your website. One is to include your keywords in header tags. Additionally, craft a one or two sentence description that explains the content of each page, including some keywords from the page. This should go between the Head tags. Finally, you should write short, descriptive titles for each page. Don't use the same one for each.

Keywords - Look at your website copy. Are your keywords in the first paragraph? They should be because that is where the search engines expect to find them. But don't go overboard with keywords.

SEO - The above tips actually are fairly basic SEO activities, but there are some higher level SEO tactics that will help raise you site above the crowd. Hyperlink your keywords to make them stand out for both search engines and for carbon-based web visitors. Make the linked keyword more noticeable to search engines by linking it to a page that uses the keyword in its address. For example, if you hyperlink the phrase "ad agency" the page to which it is linked would have "ad agency" in its address to raise its profile. While we're linking, let's make these linked pages truly focused on information about specific keywords. If you really want to place your SEO program on steroids, purchase one of the software packages that helps you analyze each page on your site for its appeal to search engines.

Submit - There are both search engines and directories where you will want to submit your site. Key search engines for url submission include: Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, AOL and Ask. More than 95 percent of search volume happens at these engines. So, don't bother too much with all the small fries. And it is not hard to complete free registration for these engines. Typically, they will have a link that says something like "add your URL." There are a number of directories like DMOZ.com where you will want to submit your site, too. And, I think it is worthwhile to pay the $299 at the Yahoo directory. There may also be directories specifically for your industry.

Link - Develop a linking program where you solicit links from sites that cover the same topics as you. This directs traffic from those sites. Additionally, it tells search engines that you must have something worthwhile on your site if others are linking to you.

Write - Articles, blogs, news releases - all of these can help you increase your exposure and drive traffic to your primary website. Craft your "About The Author" box to include your web address. Once your article is picked up by other publishers, this will become a one-way link to your site, possibly helping boost your search engine ranking. Submit your press releases to PRWeb. I get a ton of traffic for myself and clients using this service.

Go Email - Develop your own e-newsletter, like Think, to help drive repeat traffic to your site. I use nTarget for my email marketing. Then, archive the newsletter on your site. This solid content tells search engines that there is a reason to visit you. Try to get other enewsletter publishers to mention you, consider trading ads with other publishers, or just buying ads outright. Finally, don't underestimate the power of a good email signature to drive site traffic.

Give Yourself A Promotion - Sponsor contests or develop your own promotions and then submit them to contest directories like Contest Hound. You could give away copies of your book, e-book, or white papers for people who sign up for your newsletter. Give away your product or service to randomly selected registrants. This is a good way to build your list of contacts so you can then drive them back to your site.

Pay The Man - ReachLocal is my pay-per-click ad engine of choice. If you are truly local, this is a cost-efficient way to reach people in a specific market only. However, you also can launch nationwide campaigns, too. You deal only with ReachLocal and it handles placing and paying for the ads with multiple publishers. It works for budgets of all sizes.

Speak Up - All right, let's go analog. There is no better way to make a good impression on a large number of people at one time than to deliver a good speech. Be sure to have business cards or some type handout that lists your website. Every time I do a presentation I see a spike in web visits and enewsletter sign-up.

Go Offline - Look at every printed piece that you have. Is your web address featured prominently? Is it in small type or - horrors - not even there! Businesses with fleets of cars and trucks should have the web address on their vehicles. Think about other physical places you can promote your site.

Those are my 11 ways. Get to it.
About the Author

Harry Hoover is a partner in advertising agency My Creative Team. He has 30 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Bank of Commerce, CruisingTheICW.com, Duke Energy, Focus Four, Levolor, North Carolina Tourism, Premier, Rubbermaid, TeamHeidi, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX, and Verbatim.
http://www.AdSenseThai.Net