Keyword research is a discipline embraced and used in SEO management by experts to allow them to determine which search terms people are searching on in the search engines. At its simplest level, this research is about studying the phrases that work for your audience and it is a real art. It is one of the most effective ways to identify niche markets that others have failed to recognize. Keyword research is very important so that the content of the pages are more attractive as much for the users as for the robots. Keyword research is not an exact science and shouldn’t be discussed like it is.

I like to focus on finding long tailed keyword phrases that have a significant number of monthly searches for that exact term with 5,000 to 300,000 competing websites. Long tailed keywords, are multi-word keyword phrases. Most folks searching with a one or two keyword are just “browsing”. Most people who use long tail keywords know what they want. Remember, you want to focus each page on 2-3 keyword phrase.

There are many free keyword research tools online. Most SEO software tools include these tools as well. Google, Yahoo and other search engines have free tools also. You want a tool that will give you the number of daily or monthly searches and competing web pages. There are even sites like “spyFu.com” that will let you see which terms your competitors are using.

How many keywords you have in an article is known as keyword density. Your keyword density should be anywhere from 3% to 7%. For example, if you were to write a 100 word article you would need to write the keyword in 7 times to achieve a 7% keyword density. For a 500-word article you would need to use your keyword 15 times to get a 5% density. I use a tool called “Content Composer” that does a fantastic job of keeping me on track.

Keyword research can be defined as choosing the words, which describe your product or service as, seen from the viewpoint of your target market is the most important step in the SEO Management process.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield’s site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info about SEO Management .

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Keyword Research – SEO Management Step One

Click fraud is a risk that goes along with doing any kind of pay per click advertising as part of your Search Engine Marketing strategy. Pay per click advertising can help you be sure that you’re getting some kind of return on your advertising investment because you’re only paying when someone clicks on your ad and goes to your site but not everyone clicking on your ads is interested in your products or services. Click fraud is when someone that has no interest in your products or services repeatedly clicks on your ad just to make you pay more money. It sounds like something that petty and spiteful person would do to one another but click fraud can lead to huge advertising bills for companies who aren’t getting anything in return for that money.

Anyone that uses search engine optimization wants to advertise their website and try to get more traffic but the point of using search engine optimization is to reach your target market and get members of your target market to click on your website. Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are safer bets than pay per click advertising because of the high risk of click fraud that comes with pay per click advertising. The biggest search engines like Google and Yahoo have built automated click fraud management programs to try and combat the growing problem of click fraud but it still happens everyday to lots of companies.

A larger company might not notice the click fraud until they end up with an advertising bill that is three or four times higher than they expected. When that happens a click fraud management team from the ad company will step in and try to determine if click fraud is responsible but unfortunately the law hasn’t quite kept up with the changing technology when it comes to click fraud. There are several large click fraud cases that are still pending in the courts. Companies feel that they shouldn’t have to pay huge advertising bills as a result of click fraud and that the ad companies have a responsibility to create a click fraud management system to keep click fraud from happening and the ad companies feel that the companies are responsible for the costs incurred by click fraud.

Click fraud isn’t just done by a single person or a group of people sitting at their computers clicking on a company’s ad over and over. There are automated programs that are designed to click on an ad thousands of times per day which can mean an astronomical bill for companies without giving them any new business. The new click fraud management programs that are being rolled out by the major ad companies and search engines are alleviating some of the click fraud problem but click fraud will almost always be a risk when you’re doing pay per click advertising. Search engine marketing with just plain old search engine optimization is a safer methods to drive traffic to your website although they may or may not drive as much traffic to your website as a few pay per click ads would. A combination of SEO and PPC with the right click fraud protection can be the a great strategy.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield’s site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info about Click Fraud Management.

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What is Click Fraud

Search engine marketing is the process of using search engine optimization to make sure that your webpage consistently is at the top of the heap when customers and client do an Internet search for terms that are related to your product or service. When search engines send out spiders or bots to collect information about different websites that is then used to decide which web pages show up first in search listings these spiders and bots are looking for search engine optimized content, or SEO content. SEO content drives search engine marketing by repeating certain keywords or key phrases a certain number of times.

When the search engine spiders and bots pick up those keywords or key phrases then they put that webpage higher in the search listings then pages that don’t have SEO content. SEO has become very important to businesses in the last decade because no matter how much you spend on advertising when you’re doing business on the Web your webpage needs to be at the top of the search listings page. Search engine marketing can target the major search tools that people use like Google or Yahoo so that you can be sure your webpage will show up somewhere near the top whenever anyone searches for a keyword or key phrase that is found on your website.

SEO content needs to be original though, just copying and pasting the same paragraph over and over won’t help you with SEP. The spiders and bots are programmed to not list sites that repeat the same word or the same phrase over and over. So if you were planning on taking one paragraph or one page of content and using that for search engine marketing it won’t work. For effective search engine optimization you need to have original SEO content.

If you want your website to really be successful good SEM is the key. Lots of companies place online ads and online ads can be effective at reaching particular target markets but when it comes to sheer numbers the highest number of hits that you will get to your site will come from SEO content and using search engine optimization in creative ways to get your webpage listed higher up in the search rankings.

Studies have shown that a majority of people will never click past the first page of search results when they search for a certain keyword or phrase so you have to make sure that your webpage is at the top of the search results page in order to get the most visitors to you site who are looking for the product that you sell. Using search engine optimization can be tricky until you get the hang of writing SEO content and using search engine marketing but once you figure out how it all works or hire a professional to show how it all works you’ll be amazed at the increase in traffic to your website that you will see.

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Search Engine Marketing – Search Engine Optimization is Important

You’ve probably come across a doorway page before when you were surfing the Web. Doorway pages are similar to landing pages except doorway pages are practically empty. Doorway page are created specifically to utilize search engine optimization techniques and search engine marketing to get listed in the highest spot possible on search engine results page. Sometimes the person who stumbles onto a doorway page will need to click through the doorway page to get to the actual website that they were trying to get to and sometimes the page uses a Meta refresh, or an HTML code that instantly redirects the reader to another website.

Doorway pages often use a sneaky form of SEO strategies where the text on the page has nothing to do with the actual product that the company is selling but uses popular search terms in an effort to get a higher search engine results.

Doorway pages are essentially a form of the old bait and switch technique. For example if you were looking for a site on natural dog food and you did a Google search for natural dog food and you clicked on the first link at the top of the search engine results page because the description of that site that is listed under the link said that page was about the best kinds of natural dog food. Then after you clicked on that link you were taken to the web site of a nationally known pet food manufacturer who was trying to sell you their new line of natural dog food. That company is using a doorway page as a method of search engine marketing. By using search engine optimized text on the doorway page the company was able to get ranked very high by the search engine spider and was able to draw you in with a search engine marketing article but instantly sent you to their page hoping that you would buy their new dog food line.

Because a lot doorway pages are set up to act essentially as spam and to use any method available to get a particular website to the top of the search engine results page search engine spiders now are on the lookout for doorway page. The search engines will sometimes ban pages that use doorway pages from being indexed or showing up on the search engine results page. Doorway pages that have an instant Meta redirect or Meta refresh are usually not banned by the search engine spiders. Websites that use doorway pages will often use a redirect so that the webpage will still show up on a search engine’s search results page. Some website creators try to get around the ban by creating search engine optimized and content rich doorway pages but the search engine spiders are adapting are now learning how to spot doorway pages that are set up to try and attract web traffic using black hat SEO that has nothing to do with the actual content of the website.

Search engine marketing is a great tool and most play fair. For those who do not beware, the search engines engineers sit around all day figuring out how to stop the cheaters. If you stumble across some “top secret” strategy that someone is trying to sell you, be assured that the search engines already know about and have adjusted their algorithms to deal with it. Instead of wasting time and money, just do it right.

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Search Engine Marketing – Are Doorway Pages Bad

The landing page design that you use on your website can make a big difference in how many customers or clients that you attract. It’s very important that the landing page design be specifically set up to accomplish a goal. You can use search engine marketing to get new clients or customers to click on the website’s landing page but then what happens? A strong landing page design can close the deal, but a weak landing page design will send your clients and customers surfing away.

There are two different types of landing page designs that most websites use. A reference landing page is usually not a hugely profitable design. You can place ads on a reference landing page that might bring in some revenue but overall the point of having a reference landing page is to give the customer some kind of information or draw the customer further into your website. You can also use some search engine marketing and search engine optimization on a reference landing page to draw the customers to another part of the site.

The second type of landing page design that is used by many websites is a transactional landing page. As the name implies a transactional landing page design is set up to get something from the customer. Sometimes the transactional landing page can be used as a sales page to convince the customer to buy your product. Other times a transactional landing page is used to get information or help a customer sign up for something. For example on a transactional landing page there might be an advertisement for a newsletter or information packet about your product or even a coupon or discount offer for your product that customers could sign up to receive in the mail or in their email which will give you the opportunity to collect valuable customer data and to follow up with customers which lead to more sales.

Transactional landing page is focused on have some type of direct contact with the client while reference style landing page is more focused on giving the customer something. You will have to decide what type of landing page is a better fit for your business or you can set up different landing pages that use each type of landing page design.

Search engine marketing is still the most effective way to get clients and customers to your web page. The best landing page design in the world won’t be effective unless you get customers and clients to the landing page. Use search engine optimization strategies on your landing page design by building tags into the HTML coding on the website that use words and phrases related to your product. That way you will draw more customers to the landing page because when the search engine spiders are out searching for web pages with that particular word they will find the tags on your web page and add your web page to the search engine results page.

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Search Engine Marketing – Use the Right Landing Page

If you run a business that operates on the Web you’ve probably heard that you need to do some search marketing but you might not know what search engine marketing is. Search marketing is the process of getting listed higher on search engine result pages so that your website is more visible to potential customers. Studies have shown that people are most likely to click on the top three or five sites listed on search engine result pages and probably will never look at the other pages that are listed. So you need to get your site listed on those pages in order to increase web site traffic that you need to really be successful. You can use search engine marketing to get your website listed higher on search engine result pages and get more customers.

Traditionally there are three different ways that you can use search marketing to get a better place on the search engine result pages. You can use SEO content or search engine optimization to make your site show up higher on the search engine result page or you can use ad placement or ad inclusion in search marketing. Paid placement ads are also known as pay-per-click ads and paid inclusion ads work in a similar fashion although they are different than paid placement ads. Most businesses choose to use the search engine optimization method.

In order to get great results when using search engine optimization to increase your search result page status you need to make sure that the SEO content you put up on the website is original and uses the keywords or key phrases that are related to your business the right number of times. If you use the keywords too much then the search engines will think you are stacking your webpage with copied content and your site will be dropped to the bottom of the list. If the keywords or key phrases are used too little then your page will end up not being on the first page of search engine result pages and if your business isn’t listed on the first page you might as well give up because chances are very high that no one will see you website.

Search engine marketing might seem sort of difficult to figure out at first but it’s just a necessary part of doing business on the Web. It would be nice if your next YouTube video went viral and millions of people found your website but unfortunately you can’t count on that. But if you learn more about search marketing and use a lot of search marketing to drive customers to your website you’ll see you a large increase in the amount of traffic that your website gets. And since the main thing that you need to be successful on the Web is to increase web site traffic, if you can successfully use search marketing you will start to see great results for your business in no time. Search Engine Marketing is really the best way to get noticed on the Web.

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Search Engine Marketing – What is Search Marketing?

Are you confused by all the talk about SEO services and how you need to make your website search engine optimized in order to increase the amount of web traffic that your web site gets? It can be confusing at first to know what SEO services are all about and what SEO services you need to implement some search engine marketing into your website and to increase your ranking on the search engine results pages. If you have never worked with a consultant before you’ll find that working with a qualified consultant is the best way to make sure your website is 100% search engine optimized.

SEO services are more than just writing search engine optimized content. An experienced consultant can change your website and increase your web site hits almost over night. SEO services range in price but how can you put a price on success? You should be willing to pay for experience when you’re hiring a consultant because the right services can make your business successful or take an already successful business to the next level. If you don’t know what SEO services you need the best thing to do is to have a consultation with an SEO expert. Show them your website and ask for a written proposal documenting all the services that you need to increase the traffic to your website and to make sure that your site ranks higher in the search engine results pages. Be willing to pay the SEO consultant for the consultation but many will offer new clients a free consultation so you might not need to pay anything. Once you have a better idea of what services you need you can plan a budget for the project of overhauling your website and making it more search engine optimized.

Not sure that you need any SEO services? Well search engine optimization and search engine marketing are more than just buzzwords. These days the Internet is overflowing with millions of websites and blogs. The only way to make sure that your site gets noticed and gets traffic is to use search engine optimization and search engine marketing. If the cost of SEO services or hiring an SEO consultant seems high think of the cost in terms of advertising. Every business needs to advertise. Would you rather spend your advertising budget on proven SEO methods that are almost sure to drive more traffic to your site and to reach your target market or would your rather spend your advertising budget on an a blanket internet ad campaign that might not bring in any web traffic at all? Spending the money to hire an experienced SEO consultant to provide SEO services is well worth the cost. Your website will only be successful if you are bringing in daily web traffic and getting an SEO overhaul for your web site is the best way to bring in that traffic. When you see your daily website traffic double or even triple after hiring an SEO consultant you’ll be glad you spent the extra money.

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Search Engine Marketing: What SEO services do I need

Getting your webpage ranked as high as possible on a search engine results page is one of the goals of search engine marketing and using search engine optimization on your website. But do you know how the search engine actually ranks and indexes web pages? Most search engines use a complicated process to index and rank the web pages that the search engine spiders find when they are scanning the web. Using search engine optimization and putting articles written with search engine marketing in mind will get the search engine spiders to your site but once the search engine spiders find your site they have to index your site and then assign your site a ranking within the thousands of other sites that contain information on the same topic that your site has.

Different search engines use different methods to assign a weight or rank to each web page that the search engine’s spiders find so using different methods of search engine marketing and using different percentages of search engine optimization is a good idea. If you do several different types of search engine marketing and utilize more than one kind of search engine optimization tool then it’s more likely that a search engine spider will find your web page and assign it a higher weight or rank.

One of the ways that search engine spiders determine the weight or rank of a particular web page is to index the number of times that a particular word or key phrase appears on a site. The search engine spider will assign a weight or rank to the web page based on how many times that word or key phrase appears within the web page. This is a very common method of assigning rank to web pages that is used by a lot of the most popular search engines so it’s important to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to make sure that those search engine spiders give your site a high ranking or weight.

Another way that search engine spiders assign a weight or rank to a web page is to take note of where in the web page a particular keyword or key phrase is located. For search engines that use this kind of ranking system just using standard search engine marketing or traditional search engine optimization techniques might not be enough to get your website noticed by the search engine spiders. In order to draw the spiders of search engines that rank web pages based on the location of the keyword or key phrase on the page it’s necessary to use those words to tag your page. Tagging a page is putting that particular keyword or key phrase in the meta tags of your site, using them in the heading or home page of your site and using those words or phrases systematically through the rest of the site. If you think of your website as a tree in order to get the attention of spiders from the search engines that use this type of ranking system you have to have a particular key word or key phrase on every branch of the tree in order to get a higher ranking.

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Search Engine Marketing: How Search Engines Rank Web Pages

If you’ve tried to increase web site traffic with search engine marketing and search engine optimization but you still aren’t seeing the kind of web site traffic that you want to have it might be time to consider investing in some web advertising. There are different options when it comes to web advertising but the styles of web advertising used the most by businesses is and paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is a good option if you’ve already tried search engine marketing and search engine optimization because your site is already well set up for paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is paying to make sure that a link to your site and a description of site is placed at the very top of a search engine results page.

This is a smart move because studies have shown that people who are searching for a site will usually click on any one of the first five links at the top of the search engine results page and then they will stop. Consumers almost never click through to the second page of search engine results after doing a search. So paying to make sure that your site is at the top of the search engine results page can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website. Figuring out how to manage your paid search advertising can be a little difficult if you’re not used to how web advertising works so you’re better off hiring a paid search management company to oversee your paid search advertising. When you’re setting up a paid search to increase web site traffic the keywords and key phrases that you choose need to be chosen carefully. A qualified paid search management company can help you set up your paid search to maximize the time and effort you’ve already put into using search engine marketing and search engine optimization on your website to increase website traffic.

Using paid search to increase web site traffic can be a very cost effective way to get the most of your search engine marketing. Essentially paid search web advertising is just giving your search engine marketing a boost and making sure that people see a link to your site before all your competitors. If your website deals with a popular topic then using paid search web advertising is really like insurance that your site make it onto the first page of the search engine results page.

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Increase Web Site Traffic – How to with paid search advertising

Social marketing is a new form of advertising that is just starting to become popular. Often social marketing is a favorite of small businesses because it is virtually free although in order to use it to drive traffic to a website the company still needs to use traditional search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques. It is build around the idea of link strategies and using personal networking to drive website traffic. Before the widespread use of social networking sites social marketing really wasn’t a viable option for most mainstream businesses but now the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook has made social networking and social marketing very popular. Link strategies that are often used in social marketing involve creating free accounts on these popular social networking sites and then using search engine marketing techniques to increase traffic and network with others who interested in the same topics or with customers. Using search engine optimization to create search engine marketing content on your social networking profile pages can help get your profile listed in search engine results pages and you can use search engine marketing articles to help gain readers and friends across the net.

This type of marketing isn’t just limited to using sites like MySpace and Facebook. You can use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to socially market your blog as well. Many companies these days prefer having blogs to having traditional websites because blogs are much more accessible to people and make people feel like they have a personal connection with the company. Blogging is hugely popular. Many popular blog sites are free so you can set up a free blog to be the front page of your web page and you can put links throughout the blog that lead to other pages on your web page so that your readers can find your other search engine marketing articles and information or buy your products. The best link strategies for blogs involve taking the time to form alliances with other bloggers. Blogging networks have huge followings and many times if you join a blog network or go to the blogs of people who share your interest or sell complementary products you can leave comments on that person’s blog that link back to your own site.

Even though that type of advertising can be a little time consuming it’s a great way to use search engine marketing to reach your target audience for free. Blogging communities also usually link to one another’s blogs which means that you can use your networking contacts to help you publicize your website. Social marketing can be tricky though because it’s more than just using search engine marketing, link strategies and SEO. There are a lot of social networking etiquette rules that need to be observed and if you don’t follow protocol you could be ostracized. When you’re using social networking you should never just post links to your website on other people’s blogs, that’s considered spamming. Take the time to read other blogs and leave relevant comments. Usually then you will be allowed to post a link to your own website.

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Search Engine Marketing – What is Social Marketing?

If you start to panic when you see “HTML” and think that using HTML Meta tags is something that will be too difficult for you don’t panic. Using these tags is a big part of search engine marketing and is very important when it comes to using search engine optimization to help your website get more traffic. These tags are words, usually the same keywords or key phrases that you are using throughout your website in an effort to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to increase the number of people who find your website.

The difference between Meta tags and the keywords and key phrases scattered throughout the rest of your website is that the these tags are tucked into the HTML coding of your site. No one that visits your site will see these keywords or key phrases. The tags are put into the HTML code of the website so that the spiders or bots that the search engines send out will find your website. The spiders that the search engines use to index and rank web pages will find those tags by following a long series of other words and phrases on other websites. Using Meta tags is important to search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Some search engines will assign a rank to a website based on how many times the keywords or key phrases appear and also where the keywords and key phrases appear on a website. So it’s important to put them at the top of your website so that search engine bots will rank your site higher than other sites.

Even if you are not experienced at creating HTML code or working with HTML code you can put Meta tags for search engine marketing and search engine optimization purposes on your website by yourself. Instead of looking at the normal view of your website you need to look at the source code. Once you are in the source code you can enter in the HTML Meta keywords and key phrases that you want to use. If you are using a website design software the software will usually prompt you to enter some tags and then you can just input the same keywords or key phrases that you have used on the rest of the site.

Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are really the best way to drive traffic to your website so even if you don’t know that much about HTML or don’t feel comfortable with HTML it’s important that you learn how to use these tags because having the keywords and key phrases that are featured on your site as Meta tags can bring in a lot of traffic for your website. The best ways to make your website so popular with consumers that it starts to make a lot of money for you is to use tried and true methods like proper placement of HTML Meta tags, search engine optimization on the website and search engine marketing tools to increase your rank on search engine results pages.

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Search Engine Marketing – You still need HTML Meta Tags

Do you need to find a way to increase web site traffic? Have you used any search engine optimization on your website? Before you do any expensive web advertising or build an expensive new site try using some simple search engine optimization on your website to increase your web site traffic. Search engine optimization is the best way to increase web site traffic and increase your position on the search engine results pages. Getting into a higher place on the search engine results pages means more hits to your website and more customers.

In order to get your site high up on that search engine results page and increase web site traffic you need to use search engine optimization on your website. Search engine optimization can often be more effective than web advertising for increasing website traffic. Now you’re probably wondering how you can practically implement search engine optimization on your site to increase web site traffic. There are two ways that you increase the search engine optimization on your site.

If you have an existing site that has a lot of good content on it already you can have that content rewritten to add in some search engine optimized keywords and key phrases or you can write all new content and completely change the content that you have on the site. Even if you already have a lot of content on the site sometimes it’s a good idea to put in all new search engine optimized content just to freshen up the site a little and draw new visitor. You can write the search engine optimized content yourself or you can hire writers that are experienced in creating search engine marketing and search engine optimized content to increase web site traffic. Hiring a professional SEO copy writer is a good idea if you want to see an immediate increase in web site traffic because a professional copy writer will be able to create content for your site very quickly.

When you’re trying to build a website that is competitive in your market and will draw a lot of web traffic from the very beginning it’s a good idea to hire professional SEO writers who can make sure that the content on your site will get it listed on the high in search engine. If your site doesn’t make it on the first page of the SERP chances are good that you won’t see any increase in web traffic. Your site needs to be on the first page of the SERP in order to increase web site traffic.

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Increase Web Site Traffic – How with SEO

If you’re just starting to build your website now is the best time to start planning your search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategy. The best time to introduce the SEO planning of a website is when the site design is ready and the site is ready to be launched but there is no content yet for the site. Just before the site launches is the time to bring in an SEO consultant to provide some SEO services. After the design of the website is done an SEO consultant can give you suggestions about what keywords and key phrases you need to add into the site HTML as Meta tags and where those tags should go. Once the site is tagged and the design and navigation has been tested it’s time to add in content. Having SEO content on your site from the start will give your web site a big advantage over older websites that might already have a bit of a following but haven’t had any SEO services by a professional SEO consultant.

For a new site where that site ends up on the search engine results pages can be critical to its success. In order for the site to get a high ranking on the search engine results pages it’s imperative that a professional and experienced SEO consultant creates search engine optimized content that is ready to be part of a broad search engine marketing campaign. It just makes more sense to get all your ducks in a row before you launch the site doesn’t it? Bring in an SEO consultant when you’re ready to start putting content on the site so that when the site launches your site will be instantly indexed by the search engine spiders and can start drawing traffic from search engines immediately.

If you have an existing site that is due for an overhaul or a design revamping then you should also consult a professional SEO consultant before the site is redone so that you will have a good idea of what SEO services that you need. Cosmetic work on the site is important so that your site doesn’t look outdated but changing up the content on the site will be very important. Most of the traffic that websites get comes from searches done by people who use Google or another search engine to look for website dealing with a particular topic.

You want your site to be at the top of or at least near the top every search that is done by a search engine for the topic that your site is about. In order to achieve that you need an SEO professional to write great search engine optimized content before the site launches. If your existing site has had the same content on it for more than six months you should get an SEO professional to write new content. Changing the content is a great search engine marketing strategy to draw new web site traffic and improve your search engine ranking.

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Search Engine Marketing: Timing of SEO in the Web Design Process

Have you thought about using internet video marketing to increase web site traffic? Internet video marketing is a very trendy form of web advertising right now and many companies are using a combination of search engine optimization and internet video marketing to increase traffic and increase their customer base. These days customers want more than just a slick ad. If you want to draw customers to your website the best way is to combine some web advertising with a fun and informational internet video marketing campaign. You should still use search engine optimization on your site to makes sure that your site gets shown on the front page of the search engine results pages and you might want consider buying some paid search web advertising too but once you have lured customers onto your site pitch your product with some new internet video marketing.

Information videos are a big hit on the web, so post a short information video about your product or show someone using your product or you can even post someone giving a video review of your product. With sites out there like YouTube you don’t even have to host the video on your site. Using YouTube is a fabulous and free way to start an Internet video marketing campaign that can be more effective than any other type of web advertising to increase web site traffic because YouTube videos are so easy to share with people. If you post a funny or unique video related to your product the people who see that video and like it can instantly post it on their own websites or their profiles on sites like Facebook and MySpace that are seen by millions of people everyday. They can also email it to friends and family and submit it to sites like Digg or Current where thousands more people will see it.

Internet video marketing can increase your web site traffic almost instantly once you post the right video. The best part of video marketing is that except for the cost of producing the video it’s all free. You can increase your web site traffic by thousands all for the cost of the video. And some videos are so low tech they can be made with a small digital camera or even a camera phone. Using an Internet video marketing campaign along with search engine optimization and search engine marketing is the best way to advertise your website and increase your web site traffic. Forget about expensive web advertising that doesn’t work.

You can use the free social networking and marketing tools on the Internet to increase web site traffic and take your business to the next level and double or triple the number of hits that you get on your website everyday. A few words of caution though – when you’re producing internet videos don’t make them too high tech or over produced. Keep in mind that some people will be viewing the video on a slow internet connection. Make a video that will load quickly and play fast so that people can view it even if they don’t have a high speed Internet connection or offer two versions of the video with one optimized for high speed connections and one optimized for slower connections.

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Increase Web Site Traffic – Discover How with Video Marketing

When you want to add some search engine optimized content to your website it’s probably a good idea to hire a professional SEO consultant. A professional SEO consultant can help you decide what SEO services you need in order to overhaul your existing website to make it more search engine optimized and to implement some search engine marketing. A consultant can also tell you what percentage of SEO content you need to have on your site and what Meta tags to use.

If you have never used any search engine optimization on your site at all then you will definitely need to hire an experienced SEO consultant to make sure that your site gets a complete search engine optimization makeover. Many SEO consultants offer more SEO services than just content so if you already have a professional SEO writer you should ask that writer if he or she also does SEO consultations or provides other SEO services.

If you need to start looking for an SEO consultant here are some tips on selecting an SEO consultant. When you are considering an SEO consultant ask to see previous examples of any SEO content that person has written but also ask to see websites that the person has written for. After all, the point of hiring someone to provide SEO services is to get your website noticed isn’t it? So you need to see some of the websites that the SEO consultant has worked on in order to know for sure that the SEO consultant can deliver high quality SEO services. A good way to tell if a web site that the SEO consultant has worked on is really doing well in search engine rankings and drawing traffic is to look on the Alexa website. You can enter the name of the website or the website address and see the search engine ranking for that particular website over a period of months, weeks and days. If that site is doing well then the SEO consultant probably is experienced enough to provide quality SEO services but if the site is ranked very low or doesn’t get a lot of hits then you might want to look for another SEO consultant.

Another way that you can tell if the SEO consultant that you’re considering hiring is of high quality is by what his or her rates are. Someone who has high rates but a poor portfolio probably hasn’t been working as an SEO consultant for very long and might not have the skills that you need to increase your web site traffic. If the consultant’s rates are very low then he or she might be trying to build up a portfolio of work which shows inexperience. You should always be willing to pay a fair rate for SEO services just like you would be for any other professional services. Don’t expect to get great SEO services for next to nothing. This is your business and your business is important so it’s worth investing the money in a highly qualified SEO consultant.

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Search Engine Marketing: What to Look for in an SEO Consultant

Have you ever wondered how exactly search engine marketing works or how search engine optimization can help your business? Search engine marketing relies on the basic principles of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization makes it possible for a search engine’s spider to find your web page and add it to the search engine results page whenever someone does a search for a word or phrase that shows up on your website.

Search engine marketing uses search engine optimized content to make your website easier for the spiders to find and for people who are searching the web to find. A search engine uses thousands of little bots called spiders to index the millions of web pages that are on the Internet. These spiders start at the most well known websites and work backwards following links and searching for common words and phrases. Every page that the spiders come across with those particular words on them is indexed and saved. Those pages are the ones that show up in the search engine results page when someone uses Google or another search engine to look for websites on a particular topic. The place where each site shows up in the search engine results page ranking is based on the content of the site, how many times particular words and phrases appear on the site and the relevance of the site to those search times. That is why search engine marketing depends so heavily on search engine optimization.

If you want your website to show up higher on the search engine results page then you use to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques in order to get the spiders to notice your site and put your site higher on the search engine results page. People who are using a search engine to look for websites will rarely click to the second search engine results page. It’s crucial that your site be on the first page of the search engine results page or people will probably not find your site. Using search engine marketing and search engine optimization is the best way to do that.

The number one rule to remember when you are planning out search engine marketing strategies or trying to figure out how use search engine optimization effectively on your website is that your website should have 100% original content. The spiders will place your site higher on the search engine results page if the content that is on your site is original. When websites duplicate copy the spiders pick up on the repeated phrases and language and will sometimes not index a site at all if the spider determines that the content is too similar to the content on another site.

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing is more than just taking one word or phrase and repeating it a certain number of times. The content on the site has to be fresh and engaging and also contain the keywords or key phrases that will bring traffic to the website.

Post from: Guerilla Marketing

Search Engine Marketing: How Search Engines Work

Paid search is a great way to get web traffic to your site from the major search engines. It also can drain your marketing budget in very quickly if not done properly. Someone is going to profit from your paid search campaign. Is it going to be the search engines or or us? Search engines make their money from clicks on our ads. The more clicks on our ads the more money they get. The real goal should be “more conversions with less clicks and lower cost”. Here are some strategies that should help.

1. Do not use Content Network in Google when you first set up a campaign default setting is set “on”. There are two things that you need to consider before turning on the content match. The first is: “The website that is hosting our ad gets paid every time someone clicks on the ad”. Most click fraud happens is when an owner of a site clicks on these ads. The second is: “Individuals who click on these ads are most often, at the research end of the buying cycle. Limit those who click on your ads to those who are on the buying side of the cycle.

2. Search Terms. The more general the term, less qualified the lead and the more the cost. What I try to think about what terms are going to get my ideal customer to my site.

3. Keyword “types” There are three types of keywords “Broad”, “Phrase” and “Exact”. The rule of thumb that I use is: for single word phrases, use exact match and for search phrases that are two to three words, used “phrase matching”. I am also experimenting with using “exact” matching for these terms as well. The more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is, the more qualified to lead will be. Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Just a couple thoughts on writing copy for ads. When you write your ads put the following in your “headline” box: {keyword: “your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline. Your ad should be specific enough to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer). Your ad should contain at least one of your “unique selling propositions”. This can be very challenging because of the space limitations. Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Landing Pages. You need to put a lot of thought to your landing pages. Your landing page has to do one thing, that is, answer the questions are up that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his key words. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution and is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. The last thing a searcher wants to see see how great you are. They just don’t care. You must show them that you possess the answers to their needs. Don’t just send them to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action. It can be a “buy now”, “for more information contact us”, “contact us for a free evaluation” or “free consultation”. You must be very specific and clear about the next steps. Have your “phone number” or “contact us button” on every page.

6. The most important thing to remember are three words: tracking, tracking and tracking. Track everything. Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your campaigns at least weekly in order to catch market changes. Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

There is good money in paid search, if done correctly. If you are new to this or do not have several hours a week, it might be a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing to help you rather than lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.

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Making Paid Search More Effective

Effective article writing and publishing as part of online marketing. You can increase link popularity and drive traffic to you site. This article is intended to help us get started.

Once the article is written, you can us one of several resources to get it published online.

Some sites require that you register with them and provide a user name and password. I would you use the same user name and password with each site. Make a template using Notepad so that when you are ready to entering in your articles you will have everything in one place.

Use the following outline as a template. These tips come from having several articles rejected. That’s no fun. Article Title: Make sure that you have your main keyword phrase in this title. Author Bio: Limit your bio to about 200 characters some allow more, but I think shorter is better. Add at least, one link to your website in the bio. Have the link pointing back to the page on your site where the article resides. Some sites do not allow you to have a link to your website in the content of the article. If you are allowed two links, make one to the page with the article and the other to your homepage. Sample Bio: Terry Stanfield is a SEM consultant with over 15 years of sales and marketing experience. His company, ClickAdvantage, manages PPC and SEO efforts for his lead generation and ecommerce clients. For more information: http://www.clickadvant.com/se101.htm In some article directories, they do not have a place for a box for your bio. In those cases, you can put your short bio at the end of your content. Keyword List: It is best to start with one or two keyword phrases. Think of the questions behind the search than write your article to answer the questions. Make a list of two or three keyword phrases that you want your article to be found on. Make sure that those phrases are in the content of the article. Limit yourself to 2-3 keyword phrases. The keyword phrases should be the core topic of your article. Keeping these terms in the forefront of your mind will keep you on track. Article Content: This is the content of your article. Do not include the title of the article in this box. The articles should be about 500 to 550 words. The minimum number of words, allow in the vast majority of the article distribution sites is 500. If you are new to writing articles, let me suggest the following outline: Introduction: First one or two sentences introduce the problem that you’re going to solve by writing this article. The next sentence states the three areas that you’re going to cover or the top five reasons or the five things you should look for or the six misconceptions about, you get the idea. Meat of the article: Point1 Two or three sentences Point2 Two or three sentences Point3 Two or three sentences Conclusion: You might start this paragraph like: “We just looked at three ways around the problem of … The challenge is, what are you going to do from here.” Make some suggestions on what to do next. Invite them to look for upcoming articles on this topic or related topics. Finally: It is important that you edit your article for spelling and grammar, but most importantly, key words and phrases and their positions in the article. Create Meta tags for that article so that you can have them when that page is added to your website. Add the content to your website and have it on your site for about a week before you publish the article. The reason you want to do this is to establish that your site had the content first.

It is time for you to go to the next step: start writing. Effective article writing and publishing will only be beneficial after you do it!

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How To Write Great Articles For The Internet

In part one we discussed the need to have your site indexed by the major search engines and ordered to be found in the search results. In this article we’re going to discuss three ways to have your site indexed, get into the search engines database that are safe and will not get you banned by the search engines.

Have another website (that is already indexed) link to your site

Once a site is indexed or put into the search engines database, the search engine spiders go out to those pages anywhere for once a month to several times a day. You could get a one way link back to your website from a site that is already indexed the search engines will follow that link back to your site and index it. The challenge care is to put your link on the site that is related to what you do. Ideally, the link back to your site is on a site that is already considered an authority in your field. It is not a good idea for a plumber to swap links with a web designer. Speaking of swapping links, try and stay away from reciprocal linking and buying text link ads, more about that at a later date.

Publish an article or press release that has a link to your site

This practice has several great advantages. One is that a lot of those sites that allow you to publish your articles are free and are indexed constantly because the sites are constantly being updated with new content. Watch your article is submitted to one of the sites it may take up to two weeks to go through their editorial process and the review. When sure article is approved, your site can be indexed within a couple of days.

Sign up for paid search with each of the search engines

This is by far the fastest way to get your site indexed. When you signed up for an Adwords account in Google your website will be indexed immediately. It cost very little to set up an account. You can put in just a couple of keywords that you won a bid on and did very little so that your ad does not show up on the first few pages.

A great strategy for getting your website indexed and building links to your page

I would do a combination of first setting up a paid search account with at least the top three search engines Google, yahoo and MSN. Then I would start writing articles 500 to 600 words and start getting them published on as many publishing websites that you can.

Search engine submissions are very important but if done incorrectly can get you banned from the very search engines are trying to get into.

Post from: Guerilla Marketing

What you need to know about search engine submission, Part II

There is more business being done online than ever before. There are hundreds of thousands of new business web sites coming on every month. 70% of the US population (233 million people) are online. Over 1.2 billion people worldwide are online. The question is how do we find clients in an ocean of competitors?

Part of the answer to the above question is which number do you focus on, the number of people on line or the number of competitors? If you are focused on the number of people online, read on. If you are more focused on the number of competitors, read on.

Search engine marketing has been proven to have the lowest cost per acquisition of any other marketing medium. It is the only medium where people are actively searching for you. A successful campaign should include a web site designed around one question: “What are your clients looking for?” This is the starting point and may seem basic but it is surprising how many people have are just scratching the surface in their understanding of this.

Your clients are in need of solutions, answers or products. Do they know:

1.that you exist? 2.the unique value that you bring to the table? 3.the depth of knowledge and experience you can bring to bear in helping them solve their issues? 4.the passion that you have for meeting their needs?

SEO Management SEO (search engine optimization), is the art helping people find what they are looking for, on your site”. A well optimized website requires two elements the correct “on page” optimization so that the search engines can determine the relevancy of the information you are presenting. Yes, it is not as important as it use to be but it is still needed. Another essential piece of the puzzle is “off page optimization”. This is having web sites linking back to yours. You may think that you are important and provide a great service to mankind but if no one else does you will not get ranked well. Quality links to your web site and an on going linking strategy is absolutely vital for good rankings. SEO optimization is not a onetime deal it is an ongoing process.

PPC Management Pay-per-click is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your site from the major search engines. It can also suck your marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The goal of the search engines (and their strategies) is more clicks. The more people click on your ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible with in your budget and they are willing to do that all day long. Great for them bad for you.

The real goal should be more conversion with less clicks and lower cost. For lead generation sites this will mean lower cost per conversion. For e commerce sites this will result in a higher “return on ad spend”. It is easy to figure out: profit/ad spend=% and if that % is not over 101% you are losing money! The only way to do that is to track every thing from clicks to conversions; cost per click to cost per conversion; total revenue. PPC Management should be the process that is designed to make that happen.

Click Fraud Management Click Fraud is a fact of life in the online world. The search engines are getting better at detecting and crediting their online advertisers. The key is to find a Click Fraud program that can track an IP address even if the go to another search engine and click on your ads and give them a warning that they are being tracked. It is amazing how bad behavior stops if the they know they are being watched and tracked! Also, some click fraud caused by our clients who find it easier to keep clicking on our ad instead of book marking our page. This will give them a gentle reminder to do that.

Many Roads It is also important to examine as many roads to your site as possible. Find blogs where your clients hang out. Write articles and publish them on the web. There are hundreds of sites that will publish you articles for free. For a nominal fee some sites will push your article out to thousands of other sites looking for content, Isnare.com is a good example. This is great from three perspectives. One, you will get a tremendous amount of links back to your site. Secondly, this will lead to increase traffic and thirdly writing articles will help establish you as an expert in your field. There are newsletters, co-registration, affiliate marketing. The key is to research these and see what will work for you.

Hire or not to Hire outside help

“How do I know if I need help?”

You might need help if:

1.Your clients and customers are not able to find you on the search engines. 2.You do not know why your competitors are in the top ten search results and you are on page 10,001! 3.You can not keep up with the changing technologies and even the changes in the market. 3.You do not have the time to take away from what you do best, running your business!

If you do need help, do your home work.

1.Get references and call them. 2.Get specifics about how they have helped their clients. 3.Find out how many clients they have and how many your account manager will handle. 4.Get a specific action calendar. Know what they are going to do and when it will be complete. 5.Make sure they understand your products, services and goals. 6.Do not be afraid to get another company to “audit” their work.

Finally This is serious business and one can loose a lot of money and time very quickly if you do not do it correctly. The bottom line is, if your customers cannot find you, they will find someone else. If you do not have someone in house with a passion to help grow your business. Find someone who knows what is important to the search engines and will not get you banned.

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Finding Clients In An Ocean Of Competitors