SEO Tip: Becareful about removing links

SEO Tip: Becareful about removing pages

Be careful before you choose to remove a link to an important page within your site.

Orphan pages usually end up in Google's supplementary results, which means they will never show up in the top results. Are your pages suffering any penalties because a broken link you may have missed? Make sure to check your links from time to time or use a link checking service.

Use Google Webmaster tools as well as that will show you if Google cannot find any pages that you have links to on your web site.https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html

www.ontheavenues.com

SEO Tip: Optimizing for Google Local Search

SEO Tip: Optimizing for Google Local

Google Local tracks down local stores and businesses by searching billions of pages across the Web, and then cross-checking these findings with Yellow Pages information to locate the local resources Web users wish to access. In addition to local business listings and related Web links, Google Local also provides maps of the desired region and directions made available by MapQuest. This makes Google Local convenient for Web searchers and extremely useful for local businesses, if their sites are optimized for local-searches. If not, some businesses could be missing out on a tremendous increase in local site visibility and traffic.

Users are modifying their searches to include local terms, and having acknowledged that optimizing your website for these local terms will dramatically reduce the number of competing sites, where do you begin?

There are several ways to optimize your search marketing efforts for local search.
Organically optimize your site. All too often, websites will only place contact information on one page, or behind internal search functionality. This severely limits the opportunity to be visible on a search for product and location. Ideally pages will have contact or geographic information on the same pages as their targeted keyword phrases, allowing search engines to find all words in a search query on one page. If adding this information to existing pages is too cumbersome, unique pages can be created that contain targeted keywords and locations. Additionally, optimization of meta data to incorporate local terms will help your site rank on local searches.

Feed Google with details important to users. Data can be fed to Google with set parameters using the Local Business Center, or from the Froogle Merchant Center for businesses with more than ten locations. Feeding this information to Google allows the engine to populate these fields with information important to potential customers. Users are beginning to adopt new programs such as Google Earth, which combines satellite and map imagery with listings for local businesses. It follows that the more details available in these listings, the more likely a potential customer chooses your site over your online competition.

Target local keywords in your pay per click advertising campaign. Google Adwords detects users unique IP addresses to identify a location and will feed different results based on that location. For regional companies, spends are not wasted on markets that aren’t serviced. For larger companies, specific markets can be targeted.

Optimizing a site for local search can provide quick returns in terms of traffic and conversions. Users will continue to qualify their searches with local terms. By considering this while optimizing your website, you will be capturing the audience at home.

One of the most important parts of the optimization process for Google's local search feature, is the inclusion of your address on your web site pages. The address plays a very important role in this equation. Let's assume you have your address on your 'contact us' page. Fine, but can you prove that Google's (or any other) indexing spider or bot, is reaching that particular page?

Your best bet is to incorporate your address on every single page of your site to ensure it has been absorbed.

The address component has now become critical, because Google is cross referencing this information with the Keywords you have selected for your web site's main focus. Combine this fact with other key factors, namely, Meta Tags, your linking structures, and relevant textual content, and a large part of the visibility puzzle comes into view. All factors need to be considered for good SEO, but for the new 'Local' feature, the physical address and zip code have moved to a very prominent position.

www.ontheavenues.com

SEO Tip: Naming Web Pages

SEO Tip: Naming Web Pages

Be sure when naming pages after your your full keyword phrase, that you connect the words together using a hyphen (-) rather than an underscore (_)

Example: A search engine will understand: gold-diamond-rings.html but will not understand both words as well if you use: gold_diamond_rings.html

Be sure that the keyword phrase you use for the page is used on that specific page as well. Do not use a long page name: discount-wedding-rings-in-gold-silver.html No more then 3 words is just perfect.

Also, instead of just using a single page name: testimonials.html, try and expand that: diamond-rings-testimonials.html

www.ontheavenues.com

Search Engine Smackdown: The Video Game

Search Engine Smackdown: The Video Game

Go have some fun and start playing Search Engine Smackdown!

Bored? Be bored no more because we have created a video game that will keep you entertained and teach you about the search industry. Search Engine Smackdown is a fun game where you can be the Google founders (Larry & Sergey), Yahoo founders (Jerry & David), or Microsoft founders (Bill & Paul) and duke it out with each other in a wrestling ring with Danny Sullivan.

www.ontheavenues.com

Demystifying Radically Different Keyword Results

Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided by Yahoo/Overture and Wordtracker

To make my job easier...Robin Nobles (can't get a more professional SEO guru) did a through research on keywords, and Overture/Wordtracker. Written last year, but still reliable. This detail view of the ups and downs and heartache of selecting phrases.

The root of all success in search engine marketing begins with keywords. Period. Get them wrong and virtually everything about your online endeavor will fail. Only by targeting the right keywords can one expect to ride that exhilarating magic carpet
to online prosperity.

Stating the obvious you say? ...well, if so, then why is it that virtually everyone - professional and amateur alike - is oblivious to the fact they are selecting, and frequently buying, keywords based on highly skewed numbers?

The fact is that very few online marketers understand the results supplied by the two most basic keyword selection tools. These are the very same tools being used globally to hone keyword choices into supposedly laser sharp focus in an effort to keep pace with the challenges of increasingly keen competition and ever-rising keyword pay-per-click costs.

The Critical Differences — Overture's STST vs. Wordtracker's KSS

As one of Wordtracker's technical support team(http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html), one of the most frequent questions we receive these days is...

Why are the keyword search query numbers supplied by Overture's search term suggestion tool (STST) so incredibly different than those supplied by Wordtracker's keyword selection service (KSS)?

Frankly, there isn't a better search engine related question one could ask. And, now's a good time to pay close attention because the surprising answer will likely change forever how you evaluate keywords!

First: Understanding Their Motives.

To help you understand the details we're about to reveal, let's examine the motives of the services that are providing the keyword query numbers.

Motive Analysis: Purpose

On the one hand, there's Overture's STST whose purpose is to help customersbuy keywords.

On the other hand, there's Wordtracker whose purpose is to help customers select keywords.

Proposal:

Overture's STST suggests what keywords to buy from them.

Wordtracker suggests what keywords to use in your optimization efforts and/or which to buy elsewhere.

Success:

Overture's success depends on you believing there are LOTS of search queries for whatever you are selling.

Wordtracker's success depends on you getting accurate numbers upon which you can reliably base your optimization and keyword purchase decisions.

Profits:

Overture's STST is free. Overture profits by selling you the keywords that STST reports on.

Wordtracker's KSS is fee based. They profit by selling you access to accurate and impartial information. Since they don't sell the keywords, there's no vested interest in query numbers beyond accuracy.

It's important to note there is no good-guy, bad-guy here - just two companies that provide information and do so with different incentives in mind.

Second: Understanding The Artificial Skew.

In researching the search term "keyword," Overture's STST indicates there were 180,468 searches for the 30-day period ending the last day of December '03. Of course, when we divide this number by 30 (days), one naturally assumes that's an average of 6,016 combined searches per day for the term "keyword" - (180,468/30=6,016).

Now, if you happen to be in a business that sells keywords (like Overture) then 6,016 pairs of eyeballs per day is a pretty encouraging number indeed! The problem is, there isn't anywhere even close to 6,016 per-day queries for the search term(s) "keyword(s)". In fact, the actual number, which we'll share with you in a minute, will no-doubt shock you!

But, for the moment, let's look at why that number is skewed.

Reason #1 — Artificial Searches

Overture's STST numbers are increased upward by automated queries. These include automated bid optimizers, position and ranking monitors, page popularity analyzers - anything other than a real person manually performing a search is considered an automated query. Monitoring a site's positioning at, say, AltaVista for the search term "keyword" tallies a "hit" within Overture's STST system for that search term. That's in spite of the fact that it was actually automated software that generated the hit. The same holds true for page-popularity checkers, pay- per-click bid optimizers or any other machine generated monitor
or tabulator that queries an engine for a "pet" keyword and generates a hit in the process.

Then, when the same positioning query is done at, say, MSN (another Overture partner), STST records yet another hit. Understandably, STST cannot differentiate between automated and human queries. Neither can they tell when the auto-query has already been queried at another partner's site.

Now, when we take into consideration all of the position monitoring, page popularity checking and pay-per-click bid analyzing - there are well over 15 automated and semi-automated bid checking software programs alone - it's staggering to realize the significant effect these automated queries are having on the overall search term query tabulations.

However, artificial searches are only one aspect contributing to the artificial skew (defined as: the inflation of actual search queries for specific keywords performed by anything other than
humans).

Reason #2 - Duplicate Searches

As you most certainly must know, Overture's strength as a viable advertising medium for online businesses lies in the fact they provide results to "tens of thousands of Web sites" which include AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN Search, HotBot, and AllTheWeb just to name a few. They claim to reach more than 80% of active U.S. Internet users.

Potentially, this is great for advertisers! ...yet this very same structure is what so greatly contributes to the artificial skew leading to extremely over-inflated reporting of keyword queries.

According to Overture itself, statistics on searches in any previous month are compiled from Overture's partner search engines. To further understand how partnering tends to facilitate skewed query counts, let's examine what happens when a visitor conducts a search at AltaVista.

What's actually happening is that two searches are being conducted at one time - one at AltaVista, and another that lists the SPONSORED MATCHES supplied by Overture's pay-per-click engine.

Although it is next to impossible to know the exact figures, suffice it to say that a single human often generates multiple queries when doing a single search as calculated by Overture's STST. In some cases that same human could even generate additional "hits" for a given keyword simply by conducting the
same search again on a different engine if such engine is also an Overture partner.

For instance, searching Yahoo, then searching again on MSN, then searching again on AltaVista, then again on AllTheWeb.com would tally at least five "hits" for the selected search term. In comparison, if Overture (like Google, for instance) counted only the searches that were done "on-site," such duplicate searches would not be counted and their search query numbers would be far
more accurate.

This scenario, combined with the myriad artificial duplicate searches conducted by the various softwares (explained above), severely pumps up the number of queries for virtually every legitimate search term imaginable.

Reason #3 - Plurals and Singulars

Remember our STST example (above) regarding the 180,468 "searches" for the term "keyword"? Well, another factor to consider is that Overture's STST combines both the plural term (keywords) and the singular (keyword) in compiling that number.

And, Overture's STST not only combines the plural and singular versions of "keywords," they also combine upper and lower case searches as well. Obviously, these two factors also exert an upward effect on the query count tabulations.

Third: Examining The Alternatives.

So now the obvious question - Is there a "better" way to tabulate search term query counts? ...let's examine the alternatives.

Meta-engines - a better way to accurately tabulate queries.

Obviously we'd like to eliminate artificial and duplicate searches from our tabulations, and fortunately there is a way to do so. The solution is Meta-engines.

Composite (Meta) engines, like Metacrawler and Dogpile, are search engines that query all the major engines simultaneously. One of the key differences is that the ratio of human queries to automated queries for a meta-engine is much higher than for a major search engine. That's because it doesn't make sense for
anyone to point their auto-bots at meta-engines.

Position monitoring, bid-optimizing, popularity checks, etc., are typically conducted directly at the search engines themselves. It would be pointless to conduct such automated queries on a meta- engine because meta-engines do not "add-url's" nor do they offer pay-per-click options. They are simply a search engine that queries other search engines. And, since there is no
"metacrawler" of meta-engines, the search query counts are unlikely to be artificially skewed by such artificial searches.

Furthermore, duplicate searches are eliminated because the query counts are being tabulated from a single source instead of combining results from myriad partners.

Therefore, query counts taken from meta-engines are far, far more representative of the number of searches conducted by actual people - but even this is not yet a perfect solution due to a relatively obscure form of keyword spam.

Keyword spam (in this case not to be confused with word stuffing or repeating keywords within a Web page) refers to the practice of using cgi-scripting to manipulate the Metaspy metacrawler voyeur to artificially promote certain products or services.

By entering a flow of terms or phrases at predetermined intervals, such spammers hope to inflate the importance and significance of certain search terms thereby artificially increasing the value of such terms related to their products.

In a perfect world, adjustments should be made to filter out this flavor of spam. In a minute we'll share with you how such filtering is done but first, let's address the issue of combining plurals with singulars and upper with lower-case searches.

Plural, singular, upper, and lower-case searches represent a decision-point for search engine optimizers because sometimes it's good to combine the search query numbers while other times it isn't.

For instance the search terms "keyword and keywords," whether singular, plural, or in upper or lower-case, are similar enough in meaning that they could arguablybe combined into one search query number.

However, the search terms "tap, taps, Tap, and TAP" can have entirely different meanings. Take a look at the results for the search term "tap" on Overture. The following references were all found within the top ten sponsored listings:

Machine threading taps,
Tap / Rap support software
Beer taps
Tap Dancing
TAP A Stock
TAP Terminal Phone Numbers

Note that none of the above has any relation to the others! Obviously if we are selling any of these items, we'd want more specificity regarding the search queries than the simple 10,485 searches that STST reports were conducted in the past 30 days.

The example above illustrates the importance of obtaining search query tabulations for each version of a selected keyword independently of the other.

After all, it's easy to manually combine the numbers while it's impossible to break them out into their own categories once they've been compressed by Overture's STST into a single search term regardless of potentially different meanings.

Finally: Making sense of the numbers (here comes the shock).

Ok, now that you understand the artificial skew and the alternatives that can correct for it, let's move on to analyze the numbers given by Overture's STST and Wordtracker's keyword selection service (KSS) using the search term(s) keyword(s).

An in depth look at Overture's STST numbers...

Overture's STST shows 180,468 searches were conducted. This represents the combined count of the search terms keyword, keywords, Keywords, KEYWORD and KEYWORDS - the combined total of all singular, plural, capitalized, upper and lower-case searches.

When we divide Overture's count (180,468) by 30 (because Overture's figures are for a 30-day period), the inference is there are 6,016 searches per day that meet this criteria. In actuality, they receive just 40-60 per day total (are we shocked
yet?).

Here's how we're crunching the numbers.

Fact: Overture's STST suggests a combined average of 6,016 page views took place between Overture and its major partners - e.g. AltaVista, Yahoo, and others - each day for the month of December '03. We're referring to search result pages like: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=keywords&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

Fact: Each of these results pages lists between 10 and 40 URLs
with descriptions.

Factor in Zipf's Law which predicts that traffic for any particular keyword on a search engine will be proportional to its popularity rank.

Factor in how the title and description affect a user's propensity to click on a Web site.

Factor in the Penn State University's findings that 55% of users check out one search result only, and 80% stop after looking at three results.

Factor in known elements leading to an estimated, but educated, conclusion as such...

Since it's a fact that Wordtracker's Web site appears in the top- ten of Overture's results throughout their partner realm, they should be getting a guesstimateed 10% of the overall click- throughs from all major engines, pay-per-clicks, and directories.

That would equate to about 602 visitors per day.

However, Wordtracker is currently ranked 1-10 on only about 25% of the major engines, directories and pay-per-click portals for the search term, keyword(s)... Calculate the estimate...

...therefore, the Wordtracker site should expect roughly 25% of this predicted click-through traffic, which is 150 visitors per day.

Compare calculated estimate to known facts...

In fact, Wordtracker receives 10 - 15 visitors per day for the search term(s) keyword(s). In fact, Overture's STST overestimates this search query by a factor of 10.

Furthermore, since Wordtracker is estimating they receive approximately 25% of the total traffic then that would put the total traffic generated at 40 to 60 per day (25% of 40 to 60 = 10 to 15 visitors a day).

In fact, Overture's STST overestimates the total search query count by a factor of 100 ...based on 6,016 being more than 100 times greater than the 40 to 60 figure suggested by Wordtracker's actual visitors.

Experience shock and awe at the difference between the numbers!

Wordtracker's service provides very different numbers...

Using the same search term(s) keyword(s), we pulled a representative result from the Wordtracker database (on January 13, 2004) that predicts searches per day conducted throughout the major engines, directories and pay-per-clicks on the Internet.

The results were...

keyword - 93 searches (lower case, singular)
Keyword - 39 searches (Capitalized, singular)
keywords - 187 searches (lower case, plural)
Keywords - 184 searches (Capitalized, plural)
KEYWORD - 115 searches (UPPER case, singular)
Total Predicted Daily Searches for all Engines = 618

This figure - 618 - Wordtracker compiled directly from results taken from Meta-engines, Metacrawler and Dogpile in order to eliminate the artificial skew.

Wordtracker further adjusted the number downward by filtering out keyword spam (as defined above) based upon a proprietary formula used to identify search terms that are being searched at intervals too regular to have been conducted by actual humans.

These suspiciously regular and assumed to be artificially generated searches are therefore discounted in arriving at the final number - 618.

Even when taking into account such dependent variables such as position, title, and description, we would expect (logically guesstimate) the website to receive about 10% of the total traffic due to top-ten placement, targeted title and relevant link-description.

And finally, we should expect no better than 25% of that total traffic, due to the fact that Wordtracker has top-ten placement in only 25% of the relevant engines.

So the calculations show...

618 x 10% = 61.8 x 25% = approx 15 visits per day.

This is more in line with Wordtracker's actual 10-15 per day average number of visits generated by the 5 variations of the search term keyword across all of the major engines.

So, whose numbers should we trust?

When it comes to trusting the numbers, you should take into account what you are using them for. If you're looking to determine relative popularity of a given item, service, topic, or category, then Overture's STST can fill the bill nicely - and for free!

For instance, Overture's STST returns the following numbers for
the following searches...

58,312 home insurance
57,315 home owner insurance
233,854 auto insurance
570,337 car insurance

This tells us (for free) that car insurance gets about twice as many searches as auto insurance. It also tells us that home insurance gets about the same number of searches as home owner insurance ...and that searches for car insurance is TEN times more popular than home owner insurance.

No doubt about it, when researching what to sell online, this is valuable preliminary information that Overture's STST provides for free.

However, based upon what we now know about artificial skew, we'd want to get a third-party-review of the search terms - one that adjusted the numbers for skew - before we bought advertising on a pay-per-click engine or spent good time and money optimizing a site for organic (think Google) Web search results.

After all, if Overture shows 6,016 "hits" per day out of which Wordtracker is experiencing 15 visitors, then reality suggests we should do the math (i.e., apply the information) that distills the raw numbers into useful data. Let's first decide if "15" visitors per day will pay the advertising bill (duh!) ...and, if the reality count is anywhere near 6,016, we'll be ecstatic, right?

Always remember it's the amateurs that believe optimistically romanced numbers just before they lose their wallets on the way to bankruptcy. Professional marketers learn to err on the downside of expectations and then smile when the pleasant surprises shower down riches.

They know that nothing beats accurate

ontheavenues

SEO Tip: Converting Performance Pages

SEO Tip: Converting Performance Pages

Are you using the little credit card logos on your page above the fold where the visitors can see them easily without scrolling? These logos as well as the verisign logo or security logos all instill a sense of trust in your visitor.

Do everything you can to make your page "feel safe" and friendly to your visitors. Your site is finished and your online store is up and running, but your work is just beginning. Your next task is to optimize your site to maximize sales and focus on customer conversion.
Here are a few suggestions on converting click-throughs to purchases

Design

Clean design and easy-to-understand navigation is key to a successful e-business site. Your customers need to be able to find your merchandise quickly and get around your site easily. If customers don't find what they are looking for quickly, they may leave your store before making a purchase.
Site Copy

Compelling copy can also help you optimize your sales. Spend some time fine-tuning your site’s content to make sure that it is appealing and helps sell your products. Good copy is informative, short, and to the point, listing all of the key details of your products in an easy-to-read format.

Once your copy is written, analyze it to make sure it is optimized for search engines. The best way to ensure you get your fair share of traffic from search engines is by placing appropriate keywords throughout your pages.

When search engines index sites, they go through pages looking for keywords and rank Web pages accordingly. If you have popular keywords throughout your copy, search engines will include your Web site in search results for those terms.
Special Offers

Now that the mechanics are out of the way, you can focus on increasing the appeal of your products by offering free gifts or running specials. The best way to entice a new customer to purchase from your company instead of your competition is by offering them something that they can't get anywhere else. Here are a few examples.

Sales. The old standby, the sale, works just as well online as offline. If your business is seasonal, offer a discount during a traditional slow period. Alternately, if you have too much inventory of a particular type, you can mark it down dramatically in an attempt to move it.

Free shipping. Instead of offering a discount on your products, you can discount your shipping for a limited time, or offer free shipping for purchases over a certain amount. Offering free shipping on orders over $100, for example, may encourage a customer to add to his or her order to get free shipping.

Coupons.

Coupons are a proven way to increase return customer sales, which can keep a business going for a long time. If you can keep your existing customers happy, they can provide a large percentage of your sales.

E-books or newsletters. Free information related to the products you sell can be a cost-effective way to keep customers coming back. For example, if you sell home furnishings in your store, you could offer a free e-book about interior design principles.

If you don't have time to write an e-book, you may be able to find existing copy to redistribute to your customers. Try researching topics for items that you sell and see if you can find anything that ties in well with your store.

Additionally, e-mail newsletters are an excellent way to keep in touch with your customers in a relatively unobtrusive manner. Newsletters can be used to communicate information about sales, featured items, and general news, as well as deliver targeted marketing.

Updating your site regularly is critical to keeping your customers coming back. Employing the techniques above will force you to keep your site fresh, as you rotate your offers throughout your business cycle. New content lets your customers know that your online business is thriving, and will let them know you are in it for the long haul.

Is your web site trustworthy?

It's very important that your web site visitors have trust and confidence in your company. Your customers must trust you. They won't buy from you if they don't.

On the World Wide Web, you cannot speak face to face with your customer so you have to establish credibility in other ways.

1. Make sure that your web pages have a professional design

Your web pages have to look perfect. If necessary, hire a professional web designer. Don't use blinking text, funny animations or flashy banners on your page. Make sure that all links on your web site are intact.

Don't use automatically created web pages. Some software programs allow you to automatically create pages that are "optimized" for a special keyword. These doorway pages don't work anymore on search engines (its simply spamming).

In addition, human web surfers are turned away by that kind of pages. While doorway pages might look attractive to software programs, web surfers usually hate them. Automatically created doorway pages usually look ugly to human web surfers. Often, they consist of nothing more than a list of buzz-words. You won't get good results with this method because human web surfers will quickly close such a web page.

2. Tell your web site visitors who you are

Make sure that customers know that a real person is sitting behind this Web page. Include your full contact information on your web site and make it easy to find.

If your visitors don't know from whom they will purchase and how to contact you, they won't buy anything. Show your privacy policy.

3. Offer free trials and show your refund policy

The most common things to establish trustworthiness is to offer a free trial and a money back guarantee. If your customers know what they'll get, they'll be more likely to purchase.

4. Use testimonials.

Its far better if other people say nice things about you than you saying nice things about yourself. Testimonials from satisfied customers will show how your business can do a better job than your competitor when it comes to customer satisfaction.

ontheavenues SEO Firm Bonnie Burns

Pay-Per-Action (beta): Pay only for actions that you define

Pay-Per-Action (beta): Pay only for actions that you define

http://services.google.com/payperaction/

Increase your advertising reach while paying only for actions that you define. First, you'll create an ad and define the action that you want a user to perform when they visit your site, such as signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product. Then you'll set the amount that you're willing to pay when this action is completed. Finally, you'll install conversion tracking code on your website so that we can verify when an action has been completed.

Once you've completed these steps, publishers in the Google content network can choose to place your ads on their website. You'll only pay when a user clicks on your ad, visits your site, and completes your desired action.

Pay-per-action ads complement your current campaigns by providing a new pricing model that extends your reach and allows you to pay only when a defined action is completed on your site. This beta feature is currently available to AdWords advertisers in the United States on a limited basis as part of our beta test. Read below to find out more.

You create ads, define actions & track conversions
Set up your first pay-per-action campaign.

Publishers display your ads
Once you've set up your first campaign, publishers can choose to place your pay-per-action ads on pages of their site

You pay only for completed actions
You pay not for clicks or impressions, but when a click on your ad leads to a completed action on your site

Pay-Per-Action FAQs

What is pay-per-action advertising?
Pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when specific actions that they define are completed by a user on their site. Rather than paying for clicks or impressions, advertisers can choose to pay when a user makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other clearly defined action that they choose. Pay-per-action ads are eligible to appear on publisher sites in the Google content network, and publishers can choose specific pay-per-action ads that are relevant to their site to run in new ad units that they create.

How much does pay-per-action advertising cost?
Only you can decide how much you want to pay for your pay-per-action advertising. You determine how much you're willing to offer for each specific action to be completed on your site, whether it's $5 for a purchase or $1 for a newsletter sign-up. You can also control your spending by setting a daily budget.

What information will publishers see about my pay-per-action ads?
Publishers will be able to view your product name, your product description, your logo, and each of your defined actions along with their associated offers. They will also be able to view your complete pay-per-action ad to determine, whether it will be a good fit for their site and visitors.

We also encourage you to provide a URL for your company, product, or service that will give the publisher more details about what you are offering and how it might appear to their users.

Where will my pay-per-action ads appear?
Your pay-per-action ads are eligible to appear on publisher sites in the Google content network. Publishers can choose to place specific pay-per-action ads in new ad units that they create, or allow us to serve the highest converting pay-per-action ads that are related to a topic that they choose.

What should my pay-per-action ad say?
Your pay-per-action ad should clearly convey your product and/or service. Since you're paying for a particular action, make sure to promote it in the text or image of your ad.

How do publishers choose my pay-per-action ad?
When you create a pay-per-action ad, you'll enter a series of terms or phrases that will describe your product or service to website publishers who are part of the Google content network. These terms or phrases will trigger your ads to appear when a publisher searches for ads within their account. Publishers also have the option to browse (by product category or view entire advertiser inventory) through ads rather than searching.

What ad formats can I use?
You can create text, image, or text link ads for your pay-per-action campaign.

What is the text link format for pay-per-action ads?
Text links are hyperlinked brief text descriptions that take on the characteristics of a publisher's page. Publishers can place them in line with other text to better blend the ad and promote your product.

For example, you might see the following text link embedded in a publisher's recommendatory text: "Widgets are fun! I encourage all my friends to Buy a high-quality widget today." (Mousing over the link will display "Ads by Google" to identify these as pay-per-action ads).

Though the maximum length of a text link is 90 characters, we've found that shorter links perform better because they allow the publisher use the link in more places on her/his site and in different context. The maximum length is 90 characters but less than 5 words is best. Even better, just use your brand name to offer maximum flexibility to the publisher.

How should I choose a daily budget for my pay-per-action ad?
Because with pay-per-action ads you'll only pay for precisely the actions you want users to take, your daily budget should only be constrained by physical inventory limits. We encourage you to set your daily budget as high as possible, since you'll only pay for the results you want.

How does my daily budget control when my pay-per-action ad will appear?
The daily budget that you set controls how often your pay-per-action ad will appear on publisher websites, and when it will stop being displayed within publishers' accounts for them to select and place on their websites. Once your daily budget has been met on any day, your ad should no longer appear on publisher's sites, and we will prevent it from being selected by publishers.

What kind of reports do you offer for pay-per-action ads?
For each pay-per-action campaign, you can view clicks, impressions, conversion rate, total conversions, and total cost.

How do I define an action?
During your pay-per-action campaign set-up, we'll give you the opportunity to identify the different types of action that you'd like to pay for. You can list as many action types as you wish, either by choosing from our pre-existing action types, or by entering your own. For each type of action, you'll need to provide a description that will be displayed to website publishers. In addition, you'll need to make an offer for how much you are willing to pay for that type of action.

Once you've defined an action, you'll need to set up tracking on your website so that we can record each time a user completes the action on your site.

How do I track my actions?
Setting up tracking for pay-per-action ads is very similar to setting up conversion tracking. In fact, if you already have conversion tracking installed on your pages, tracking your actions will be a cinch, as you can simply add a CPA bid to enable this code for your pay-per-action campaign.

Can I identify more than one type of action?
Within any campaign, you can track several different types of actions and pay different amounts for each one. For example, you could choose to pay $5 for a sign-up and $10 for a purchase.

Why might I exceed my daily budget?
With pay-per-action ads, you pay when a user, who reached your site through your ad, completes an action you've identified. Sometimes this action may be taken days after the user has first visited your site. Note that advertisers will remain responsible for conversions that occur up to 30 days after a pay-per-action ad was clicked.

How do I set up a pay-per-action campaign?
Once you've been invited to participate in the pay-per-action beta test, you'll need to set up your first campaign. To start this process, click on the link within the pay-per-action alert in your account.

As you create your first campaign, keep in mind that this should target a single product or service. You'll have the chance to create additional campaigns and ad groups later on. You can create a pay-per-action campaign by following these steps.

Create your first action. You'll define an action, such as a lead or a sale, that you would like a user to complete on your site and set the amount (also know as the cost-per-action) that you're willing to pay.

Set up conversion tracking, so that your completed actions can be tracked. You can choose to enable actions that you're already tracking with your existing conversion tracking code or define a new action. If you define a new action, you'll need to add the conversion tracking code to the action confirmation page of your website and verify the code.

Enter the name of the first product or service that you'd like to advertise. Make sure that this is accurate, as it will be shown to publishers who want to choose your ads. You'll also name your campaign and ad group (consider using the same name as your product) and choose the language in which you'll write your ad.

Submit terms and phrases that relate to your ad group, so that publishers can easily search for what you're offering. For example, we might include 'Widgets' and 'Red Widgets' as the terms and phrases for our campaign.

Select the countries where your potential customers are located. Your ad will be shown to publishers located in this location.

Create your ad. With pay-per-action, you can create our traditional text and image ads, or try the new text link ad format. Text link ads consist of a single line of hyperlinked text that can be up to 90 characters. However, we suggest that you use shorter phrases. For example, you might use 'Buy Red Widgets.'

Set a daily budget for your campaigns. The daily budget that you set controls how often your pay-per-action ad will appear on publisher websites and when it will stop being displayed within publishers' accounts for them to select and place on their websites. Though ad serving will be slowed or stopped based on the daily budget, please note that advertisers will remain responsible for conversions that occur up to 30 days after a pay-per-action ad was clicked.

Once you've completed these steps, your pay-per-action campaign will be set up.

Will you notify advertisers when they've been accepted to the beta test?
Yes. We'll let you know through a message in your account that you've been accepted to participate in our beta test. We hope to add users on a rolling basis over the next few months and apologize that we may not be able to add your account right away.

ontheavenues SEO Experts

Yahoo Widgets

Yahoo Widgets

Yes! Yahoo Widgets 4 is now available for download. This version has a lot of cool new features for users as well as developers of Widgets.

For those that think we’ve been sitting around drinking tequila and not really focusing on Konfabulator/Yahoo Widgets, today’s the day we show you what we’ve really been up to for these past months. Well, we’ve been drinking some tequila too, but let’s stay focused, shall we? What?!

Note, by the way, that our new release is called simply Yahoo! Widgets. No more ‘Engine’. It was too much of a pain to say, quite frankly. Not to mention users don’t care about engines, they care about Widgets. Developers might care about the engine, which is why as of this release we are once again calling the core engine Konfabulator! Why not? Everyone still calls it that both inside and outside of Yahoo!, anyway.

And now, without any further ado, let’s get into all the awesomeness we’ve added in this release.

Widget Dock

First and foremost is the shiny new Widget Dock. Finally there’s a way to manage your Widgets in a neatly organized fashion. This was always an area we knew we needed to work on, and in this release we were able to spend the time and get a really polished UI in place for it (and make it dock to any corner or edge of multiple monitors). Does it do everything we wanted it to? No, but it’s pretty darned close. It’ll be changed and enhanced as we move forward and get feedback from you, the home viewer. Use that ‘Provide Feedback…’ link - we really do listen.

Not only can you manage your Widgets with the Dock, but Widgets can now show you what we call ‘vitality’, i.e. live info. Basically, it’s a mini Widget. So the Weather Widget can show the temperature, etc. in a smaller, more organized form factor. As more Widgets get updated to work on Version 4, you’ll see more and more information in the Dock.

Updates and Widget Discovery

We now support automatic Widget updates. When an update is available for one of your running Widgets, you’ll get an indicator in the Dock. Click it and you’ll be running the update in seconds. While this magic only exists for our Yahoo!-built Widgets right now, we plan to make similar functionality available to third-party Widget authors as well in the near future.

If you ever get bored with the Widgets you have on your machine, there’s now a much easier way to get new ones - the new Gallery Widget. With it, you can browse the Widget Gallery’s 4300+ Widgets and get new ones with one click, all without ever opening a web browser. The Gallery Widget will ship with every copy of Yahoo! Widgets 4. You’re welcome.

But for people who can’t get enough web page excitement, you can still visit our Widget Gallery page. We’ve enhanced it for this release to allow one button install and run of Widgets that catch your fancy. If you don’t like a Widget, you can right-click it in the dock and forever vanquish it from your machine. Oh, the power! Use it for good.

Improved User Experience

We’ve simplified a lot of our interface features based on user feedback and testing. For example, we used to have a series of window levels a Widget could use, but each Window level tied on extra features. In this version, we’ve broken them out into separate preferences. So now the level of the window is separate from whether the Widget is clickable, for example. It should make a lot more sense now.

To further simplify things, there’s also a new “hidden” state for Widgets. The hidden state allows the user to run a Widget without displaying its full interface on the screen. Widgets running in “hidden” mode continue to display live updates (or vitality) in their tile in the Dock. To display the full Widget again, just select the “show” control on the miniaturized Dock tile or click the tile. This feature replaces the old ‘Heads-Up Display Only’ window level for Widgets. Just hide a Widget and if you want to see it, bring up the Heads-Up Display mode or click its tile in the dock. It’s much more intuitive and straightforward now.

Improved Performance

Even with all those features packed in there, we’ve managed to reduce our memory consumption by about 40%. This number is based on what Task Manager shows as ‘VM Size’ or the Mac (under top) shows as ‘RPRIV’. This is real, allocated memory by a process. It’s the one true number an application can really make a dent in. I’ll post a tome on how measuring memory usage is not as simple as adding up ‘Mem Usage’ in Task Manager some other time.

A Powerful Flickr Widget

Another new Widget is our Flickr Widget. Not only will it stream your favorite Flickr photos right to your desktop, the Flickr Widget also has powerful drag-and-drop upload which allows you to do highly customized batch uploads without having to open a browser. You will love browsing pictures in this Widget. I can personally attest that the manner in which it allows you to browse the Interestingness category is just plain awesome. This is by far the most full-featured Widget we’ve ever created. The Flickr Widget is just one example of what this latest Konfabulator engine can do, as well as the direction we are heading.

Developer Features

For the Widget developers out there, we’ve added cool features like SQLite support, canvas support (the old puzzle blog post was done via the canvas feature), submenus, rotation of pretty much anything, and DOM-like traversal. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want the full list of new features, check out our release notes. A lot of what we’ve added is based on feedback from the current developer base. So by all means, keep posting in the forums.

And how will you get this new information into your brains? Well, along with the usual reference guide in PDF, we now have online docs for the first time in our history. It’s our first cut at it, and we will be adding certain features that you might have come to love about other online docs solutions, but at least you now have it on the web as well as in PDF. Choice is good.

One big question that developers have had for some time has been “How do I deliver my Widget and have the engine come along automatically?” Well, with our new Widget Gallery web site, you can submit your Widget, and part of the magic we have in place is to automatically deliver the engine (or upgrade it as necessary) when the user downloads your Widget. No more two-step install. Push one button, and it all happens automatically. This is a huge deal for publishing your Widgets. Just link to your Widget’s detail page in our Gallery and you’re good to go.

As mentioned above, we will soon be allowing developers to set their Widgets up for auto-update as the Yahoo!-built Widgets are. And look for a lot more to happen in the developer space over the coming months.

What are you waiting for?

As you can see there’s a lot to take in with this release of Yahoo! Widgets. The best way to find out what’s new and exciting is to just go and download it. So, have at it!

onthevenues SEO Firm

Does the Length of Your Domain Registration Affect Your Search Engine Rankings

Does the Length of Your Domain Registration Affect Your Search Engine Rankings

Does the length of your website's domain name registration affect the search results at Google? This question has come up recently and a lot of website owners have been wondering about it, especially since it was mentioned in a patent awarded to Google in April. According to the patent, "Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. For example, domains can be renewed up to a period of 10 years. Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith." According to this statement in the patent, domains that expire in 10 years are more valuable and legitimate than domains that will expire in less than a year.

Google, in general, is always looking for ways to weed out the bad (spammers) from the good (legitimate) websites. I suspect that they looked for a pattern among the good, legitimate websites and found that most good, legitimate websites have a commitment towards their business and their domain name-they register it for a long period of time. In other words, the theory behind all of this is that if you register a domain name for several years it shows Google that you're committed to that domain name. If you register a domain name for 1 year then you're not as committed to that domain name. A lot of spammers use "throw away" domain names and register them for only a year. So, Google uses the length of time that a domain is registered to determine whether the owner of that domain name is committed to it or not.

One domain name owner I talked to recently told me that renewing his domain names once each year was a part of his business plan. He made a certain amount of money each year from each domain name/website, and he didn't want to cut into the profits of each site by renewing each domain name all at once for several years. "Renewing a domain name for 10 years or even 2 years ahead of time means that I have to spend more money. If I have to come up with $50 or $100 more per year for the domain renewal fees it cuts into my profits", says John, who wished to remain anonymous. John's website is probably exactly the type of website that Google wishes to identify. Google is looking to identify quality, well-established websites whose owners are committed to their domain names. According to the statements made in Google's patent, Google thinks that websites that have been renewed for a long period of time meet that standard.

Should you renew your domain name for a long period of time? And if so, how long is long enough? If you want to stay ahead of your competition, then you might consider looking at the length of time your competitors have registered their domain names. If your competitors have generally renewed their domain names for one or two years, you might consider registering your domain name for 5 or 10 years. While putting off your domain name's expiration date might help your search engine rankings, keep in mind that this may be only a small boost (or a "tie-breaker" among two websites) when it comes to the actual search engine rankings. And, be aware that just because Google has a patent on the idea it doesn't mean that they're actually using that criteria now to rank websites. They, too, want to stay ahead of their competition (mainly Yahoo! and MSN).

I've registered the domains that I really care about for at least 10 years. Initially, I registered these domains for a long period of time because I didn't want to lose them-and I didn't want to go through the somewhat-lengthy annual process of renewing them every year. Since most domain names I own come up for renewal at different times during the year, it seemed as though I was renewing a domain name at least once a month-and renewing them for a few years put it off for a while.

Expired domain name buyers are prevalent nowadays. If your domain name expires, there's a good chance that someone watching will register your domain name within seconds after it expires. If, for whatever reason, you don't renew your domain name, someone watching a 'watch list' of expiring domain names will try to capitalize on the online business that you've built over the years. They know that there is potential website traffic they can have simply by renewing your old domain name. By renewing your domain name for several years, your domain name won't expire for a while, and it won't be opened up to expired domain name buyers.

If you really want to stay ahead of the competition, you might consider registering or renewing your domain name for 100 years. Currently, Network Solutions (www.netsol.com) is the only registrar offering the 100 year option, which costs $999.00. GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com), currently offers to renew or register a domain name for 10 years, at a discount of $6.95 per year. Dotster (www.dotster.com), another leading registrar, offers domain name registration and renewals for up to 10 years at a cost of $129.95.

What's the bottom line? If you're committed to your online business, your website, and your domain name, then renewing your domain name for a long period of time will not only stop expired domain buyers from registering your domain name when it expires, it will show Google that you're committed to it-and that may give you a boost in the search engine rankings, as well.

Source: Bill Hartzer
Contact Ontheavenues for your SEO Needs

Blogger Secrets: Things You Probably Didn't Know

Blogger Secrets: How To Use Google's FREE Blogger

Blogging is a pretty popular activity online these days. It's a great way to connect with your audience on the Web and create a sense of community.

There are many ways to start your own weblog but one of the easiest is with a frëe service called Blogger. Owned by Google, it's a feature-rich service that makes it simple to start a blog of your own.

If you think blogging is just about typing text, think again. There are many fun things you can do once you're up and running with your very own blog

1) Photo Blogging: Post photos to your weblog with this frëe software called "Hello." Get it at Hello.com. It makes it easy to upload photos to your blog.

2) Audio Blogging: Post to your blog by telephone. Once registered, you'll receive a special number. Call it, leave a message and it's immediately posted to your website as an MP3 audio file. To sign up, go to AudioBlogger.com.

3) Email Posting: Post to your blog by sending an email from any email application. To set it up, you'll need to log into your blogger account and go to "settings" then "email." You must specify if you want your posts to publish automatically or be saved as drafts for later publishing. The subject of your email will be the title of your blog post, with the email body making up the rest of it.

4) Team Blogs: This allows groups of people to contribute to one blog. One person must create the blog, then invite others to join in.

5) Templates: Blogger has over 30 templates to choose from. Make sure you back up your blog before attempting any changes. There are also third party template providers you can choose designs from. See:

BlogSkins.com
BlogDesigns.com

6) Blogger Toolbars: Google has one built into its toolbar that makes it a snap to post to your site while visiting any webpage you might want to comment on. Firefox also has a toolbar of its own with blogging components. See it at FireFoxToolbar.com or Google's at Toolbar.Google.com.

7) Feeds: Blogger users can syndicate their content via an Atom Feed. Former Blogger Pro suscribers can choose between Atom and RSS formats. You can find this feature in your Blogging account under "settings," then "site feed." If you'd rather syndicate in RSS, your only choice is to use an outside service like FeedBurner.com.

8) Comments: If you'd like your readers to participate on your Blog, you'll want to turn on "comments." Found under "settings," you can choose from preferences like allowing anyone to post a comment, allowing only regular users to post comments, or allowing only members of the blog to post (if it's a team blog).

9) TagBoards: Different from comments, TagBoards also allow your blog readers to post comments. These act more like a discussion board or chat room for your blog. However, they're not aimed at individual posts but attached to your entire site. You'll find frëe providers of this service at:

Tag-Board.com
ChatterBox.com

10) PhotoBlogs: If you'd like to share a lot of photos with your readers on a regular basis you may want to add a "photo album." You'll find many sites that offer this frëe service such as:

Shutterfly.com
Ofoto.com
DotPhoto.com

11) Polls: Do you know what your readers think? Running polls on your site is a great way to get inside your readers minds and get them involved with your blog. A few frëe poll service providers are:

FreePolls.com
PollHost.com
WebPollCentral.com

12) Advertising: If you'd like to run ads on your blog and get paid per clïck, you'll want to look at Google Adsense. Since Google owns Blogger too, they make it simple to add their advertising to your site. See, http://tinyurl.com/3j3k8.

13) Camera Phones: If you have a SprintPCS cellphone with a built-in camera you can send your pictures directly to Blogger. You'll need to set up an "email address" to post to. For instructions, see Blogger's Help section on "posting via email." On your telephone it works like this: you snap a picture, select "share," pick your specific blogging email address, then ok. Your picture is uploaded.

14) Keyboard Shortcuts: Blogger has many different keyboard shortcuts you can use while making a post.

cntrl + B= Bold
cntrl + I= Italics
cntrl + shift + A= Link
cntrl + d= Save as draft
cntrl + s= Publish Post
cntrl + shift + P = Preview

15) FTP: You can host your blog on Blogger's server, or host it on your own via FTP access. You'll find this option under "settings", then "publishing."

16) Email Posts to a Friend: If you'd like to allow your visitors to email your interesting posts to their friends you can enable this feature under "settings," basic tab, then where it says "show email post links?" say yes.

OnTheAvenues SEO Company

8 Basic Ways to Optimize Your Website

8 Basic Ways to Optimize Your Website

Traffïc from search engines is widely considered the best (and cheapest) way to generate traffïc to your site. The increasing popularity of search engines has led to the development of a whole industry that revolves around ways to "optimize" websites.

The end result is that many people think that only "professionals" can help their website rank high within search engines. But, the truth is that anyone can structure their site so they rank high for many keyword phrases.

Below, are 8 simple steps that you can take to optimize your web pages. By following these, you will improve your chances of increasing your rankings:

1) Target 1-3 keyword phrases for each page: A huge mistake that many beginners make is cramming numerous keywords onto every page. Instead of doing this, you should focus on one specific keyword phrases for each page. That way, you can make sure that the page is focusing on that one word without any distractions.

2) List your major keywords in the links back to your site: Many search engines, Google being the most famous, have started to take into account the words that are mentioned in the title tag of the links that point to your site. So, a great way to improve your rankings for your keywords is to place it in the title tag.

3) Make your first 100 words on the page keyword rich: Another mistake that most webmasters make is to have a menu on the left-hand side of a website. Since search engines primarily focus on the first 100 words of a website, a left side menu is a misuse of valuable space.

Instead of doing this, you should have your title, description and web copy within the first 100 words of your site. An easy way to do this is to have your menu on the right instead of the standard left-hand side

But, since the left-handed menu is commonplace, you can also choose to put your first 100 words above the left-handed menu, so this text will be the first thing read on your website.

4) Insert the keyword into your title tag: In the source code of most pages are "header tags" (also known as Meta tags), which help search engines understand the content of the page. Each page should have different Title tags and the keywords used should match the page it is on

To fully optimize your website, you can tweak the source code of the page. The first step is to insert the keyword in the title tag. (This is what is shown in the results of a search engine when your site is listed)

5) Insert your keywords in the description tag: The description Meta tag is almost as valuable as the title tag. The information in this tag is listed directly below the title tag in search engine results. As a result, a good description can make your website stand out from other listings. To get the prospect to clïck on your site, it is important to write a snappy description while using your keyword.

6) Insert them into your keywords tag: Like the title and description tags, keyword tags are used to help search engines understand the content of your web page. Although this Meta tag has become less popular, it doesn’t hurt to put your keywords hëre.

7) Place your keyword in the header: When writing the actual text of your site, the first part should be the headline. Whenever a search engine scans your site, it rates all words in the headline as being more important then the rest of the web copy. To take advantage of this, you should have your keyword in the page headline. But, since the header tag (h1) is quite large, you should format it so that it is smaller.

8) Write your keyword enriched web copy: Once you have set up the structure of your page, you can write your web copy. While creating the text, you want to include the majority of the keywords at the top and the bottom of the page. In addition, the keyword should be included a few times in the middle. Basically, the common saying is that the keyword density should resemble an hour glass shape.

The total web copy of your page should be about 300-1200 words. Also, the keyword should be about 5-12% of the total words of the page. The percentage varies according to each search engine, so you might want to play around till you find the best results.

OnTheAvenues SEO Expert

Search Engine Optimization is worth the hassle

Search Engine Optimization is worth the hassle

It is not hard to find SEO relegated to backseat.

Strange but true is the fact that small-to-medium-sized companies often do not feel the need to optimize their site due to a variety of reasons including the lack their fundamental awareness on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They happened to realize its importance once the development process of their sites is over, and they have already launched them. Their ability to reap the dividends of a website often falls short of expectation, and they desperately act in despondency for their next right step.

The heart of the matter is that web development firms often integrate SEO into the overall development package under heads such as "search engine submission" or "search marketing". They do not furnish adequate clarification as to what these heads are all about, nor does the client who is going to get his first ever website developed understand the underlying intricacies.

It is quite notable here that SEO service provided by web development firm inclusive in its overall charges is not comprehensive at all. This is rather complimentary one, and can not stand a comparison with that of stand-alone firms which tend to undertake this venture in its entirety.
Communicate meaningfully with your vendor on SEO tactics employed during web development stage

The ideal time for executing SEO tactics goes simultaneously with web development process. There is no denying the fact that you may be constrained to get your site launched within a set timeframe and within an allocated budget. But making room for more budgetary allocation for effective SEO tactics like on-page optimization, keyword research and link placement, is more than useful. It will definitely save you from undergoing extra pains at a later stage where going for such tactics will be compulsion rather than strategic choice well in advance.

Here is how you should go about SEO tactics during build stage.

Discuss with your web development vendor in pretty details as to what SEO tactics they are offering you along with web development process. The ideal tactics you should be eyeing here are basic keyword research, customized title tags and the presence of relevant Meta and ALT tags throughout the website. If your website is having dynamically generated pages (e.g., shopping cart pages), opt for search engine friendly URLs. It will help you in continuation of your SEO tactics you wish to employ henceforth. Don't forget to ask your vendor to add some SEO components to key pages of your site. Discuss some SEO tags that could be appropriate to serve your purpose for select crucial pages of your site, and get them optimized. This is right time for implementing your short term SEO strategy stating with optimization of your home page and a few key secondary pages, and track the results. Your long term strategy should be to continue to budget for SEO indefinitely. You may hire the expertise of an SEO firm depending on your target audiences and business goals.

Do not panic if you did not put SEO tactics in place during build phase

Your website has already been launched, and you did not take into consideration SEO tactics in development phase. The situation does not warrant crying over the split milk. Don't panic. The sooner you will put strategy in place, the better it would be for you.

Do not let the situation aggravate, here's how you go about it at this stage.

Start with link building strategy as it can be easily done, and benefits begin to roll in soon enough. Subsequently, you can go for optimizing a couple of pages of your website. This would, in turn, be followed by more in-depth optimization later on. Though you did not build your website with SEO on your mind, it does not mean all the features of your site will necessarily be working against SEO. A closer examination of your website's characteristics and nature of content will reveal that you do not have to start from scratch. You have just to stretch the extent of SEO friendliness. You are in possession of all the resources to implement SEO tactics. Your web developers, in-house or vendor partner, experienced copywriter, SEO expert, are all you require in terms of human capital. Your willingness is what matters the most, because such personnel are as accessible as they are affordable. More importantly, it usually takes 8-10 months for fresh domains to rank well in Google and other search engines after site launch. This is a great intervening period to formulate and execute all SEO friendly strategies, and learn a lot more about it in order to be benefited on a sustained basis.

What about SEO of existing website? Here's what to do...

Though it is beneficial to keep in mind SEO tactics since beginning, SEO for existing website is not a distant possibility either. Probably you need hired hands of expertise to bail you out. There are many SEO packages available on the market which encompasses many different components including keyword discovery and research, optimization of the site itself, search engine submission and link placement, ongoing site updates and content creation.

It is not a stage beyond redemption if have not dealt with your SEO concerns. At this stage too, it is worth the investment and time to solicit the service of an agency, consultant or in-house expert in order to push your site on its way to good rankings.

Following are the points worthy of consideration while contemplating to utilize the services of an SEO firm.

It is better to finalize an SEO firm which is knowledgeable in URL rewriting if your website is replete with deep content and variables in the URLs. Go for an expert SEO in case your website happens to be in Flash, hidden behind frames or composed mainly of images. If your website does not contain much content, you are probably in need of an SEO copywriter. The content overhaul here will ensure that your website becomes keyword-rich, and gets dished out against a particular search criterion. You have to choose a professional SEO firm matching your needs and priorities with its core expertise. Once you have made a right selection, you are in for saving your time in the long run. Strategize early, and stay ahead on learning curve

The sooner you will strive for SEO initiative, the farther you will be on the learning curve. The fact that should be borne in mind is that SEO is an ongoing process. Therefore, your marketing budget should be sliced up to keep it progressing along with other online and offline media planning

OnTheAvenues SEO firm

SEO Tip: Link Popularity and Link Reputation

Link Popularity and Link Reputation

Perhaps you've heard that link popularity and link reputation is important. Without this, you will not gain in the search engines. .

Links are important, but don't become so obsessed with linking that you build your entire strategy only "just around link building." You want to use all of the basic principles to carry your Web site through and you may want to do some linking based on the look of the "competitive landscape" for your keyphrase.