How To Shout On Digg Without Getting Shot Down

How To Shout On Digg Without Getting Shot Down

Source: Neil Patel is co-founder and CTO of ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company's blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let's Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

Tons of people have been using the Digg shout it feature lately. A shout is a message that can be sent between two or more users on Digg, making it a very powerful tool for getting many people to take notice of content, and potentially garnering lots of Diggs.

Some Digg users consider the shout out feature to be the most effective way to get a story on the Digg homepage. Others, however, feel that it's nothing more than an easy way to spam others. I personally see it as a very effective feature. Here is how what you need to know to use the feature optimally.

First, grow your Digg user profile to 300 plus mutual friends. The more mutual friends you have the more people you can shout to. If you have fewer than 300 mutual friends the feature is still effective, but your chances of making the homepage decrease.

Before you start shouting, think about the importance of the story you are promoting. Some users will get irritated if you shout too often, which is why you need to use this feature only with your most important stories.

Once you submit a story or someone else submits a story that you want promoted, you need to think about the timing. Timing is very important when shouting because the quicker you get votes, the faster you are going to get to the homepage. I recommend shouting right after a story is submitted—and, more importantly, during working hours, because that is when people browse Digg.

The last step in the process is to start shouting. The easiest way to shout your friends is to shout to all of them at once. The problem with shouting to all your friends at once is that only 100 of them will receive the shout. Digg did this to help prevent spamming and gaming, which is why you need to shout 100 of your friends at a time. I usually shout my first 100 friends, then my second 100 friends, and then my last 100 friends.

If you have not tried the shout it feature I highly recommend doing so. Although some may see it as spam, Digg is the one who created this feature. Moderate use of the shout it feature should not be considered spamming. Yes, abusing it should be considered as spam, but if Digg did not want people to use the feature they would have never released it.

Neil Patel is co-founder and CTO of ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company's blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let's Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.



Source: Neil Patel is co-founder and CTO of ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company's blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let's Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

How To Optimize Your E-Commerce Site For Top Search Engine Rankings

How To Optimize Your E-Commerce Site For Top Search Engine Rankings

A very well explained and detailed article that is well worth the read. This is by Yaro Starak

People who run e-commerce sites - sites that are focused on making sales of a product - have a history of great difficulty when it comes to search engine optimization. We are told to build links to improve search engine rankings, yet why would a person link to a site that is essentially a glorified shopping cart?

One of the most common ways that e-commerce store owners have gone about an SEO campaign is to add a content component to their site, hoping to attract links for the content, which in turn will raise the overall ranking of the entire domain. Unfortunately this tactic tends to impact the ability of the e-commerce site to do what it is meant to do - make sales - because the addition of content creates a “mixed message”, confusing visitors and reducing conversion.

Search engine traffic can be the difference between success and failure for many e-commerce sites, and since it’s free traffic, there isn’t a single store owner out there who wouldn’t want to capture top rankings. Many millionaires are created because of their ability to optimize for product related search terms in Google, Yahoo and MSN, so what is the secret to their success?

In this article I’m going to demonstrate one technique, a fairly extensive technique - a secret weapon - that search engine optimizers use to help one main site dominate rankings for both top level keywords and long tail phrases. This is powerful stuff, so if you own an e-commerce store or any website that you want to rank number one for a specific term, it’s time to pay attention!


Note I can’t take full credit for the ideas in this article. Most of what I am about to present to you comes from education I’ve gained from expert sources, such as the team at StomperNet, who have an automated system for their members to work together to implement what I am about to teach you, and also various presentations I’ve watched on DVD and in articles I’ve read at blogs, websites and in ebooks.

This is my interpretation, simplification and summarizing of what other people are currently teaching and implementing online today to raise their search engine rankings. This is cutting edge stuff - you won’t find too many people revealing techniques like this because they don’t want their competitors taking advantage. I hope no one comes after me after revealing this to you .

Prior Study
Before this article is going to make sense to you, you need at least a rudimentary understanding of search engine optimization (SEO). I suggest if you have not read my two part series on the The Top 8 Search Engine Optimization Techniques you go do so now. The articles will introduce you to some basic SEO principles, including a discussion of on-page SEO (internal elements of your website) and off-page SEO (external elements - other websites).

Off-page SEO is generally considered more difficult because you have to manipulate elements that other people control. It centers around your ability to generate links pointing to your site and this article specifically deals with how e-commerce sites can build high quality incoming links to raise rankings.

Related Categories
One of the key determinants of high search engine rankings is not just the number and quality of the links pointing to your site, but also the theme - the neighborhood that these sites live in. When talking neighborhoods online it’s all about categorization and niches. Your ideal outcome is to have sites that are relatively well ranked in related categories link to your e-commerce site, but as stated previously, there are not many enticements for a person who owns a niche content site to link an e-commerce site unless they are financial (paid links and affiliate programs).

If SEO is to work, links should be natural. It’s well known Google frowns upon links purchased purely for SEO sake and in most cases affiliate links do not pass on pagerank because of the structure of the links (although some affiliate programs have figured out ways around this).

Your goal if you want to push your e-commerce site up in the rankings, is to obtain links from sites in your neighborhood using organic methods.

Build Your Neighborhood
Advanced search engine optimizers conduct a process known as clustering to attract neighborhood links. To put it simply, clustering is a process were you own the neighborhood, but the search engines don’t realize it.

To establish a cluster you first have to build category-specific content sites, each existing independently and “owned” by an entity not related to your e-commerce site. There can’t be any public linkage between your e-commerce site and the niche content sites. That means all public information - domain records, company records - anything that a search engine could get a hold of and then realize that your e-commerce is related to the niche site, thus reducing the SEO value of links between the sites.

Here’s an example. If your e-commerce site sells gym equipment, then you could build a series of niche sites focused on topics like how to build muscle, dieting, strength training, athletics, sports, competitive weight lifting and other similar sites. You can branch out into niches that are not quite as specific as my examples, as what is considered in your neighborhood is quite broad. Topics such as male hair loss, dating, gay communities and other demographically related niches work too, as long as the theme is generally congruent.

Remember, this is not specifically about attracting traffic to your e-commerce site from the niche sites. While click-through traffic from your niche site neighborhood is certainly an added advantage, your goal here is to build up quality niche sites and use these to send links to your e-commerce site.

One Way Links
It’s critical to note the importance of one way links. Reciprocal linking has long been a beginner SEO technique, but frankly it doesn’t work, especially if your end goal is to dominate top level keyword phrases. If you want to rank highly you have to attract one way links from authoritative content sites and that’s exactly what this technique is all about.

If you can’t convince others content sites to link to your e-commerce site then you have to create content sites yourself and send links from these sites to your e-commerce site.

Step One: Build Independent Content Sites

Clearly this is not a task that can be accomplished in a matter of days or even weeks. You can outsource the creation of your sites and the content for the sites and then upload them to the web, but that is only half the equation. Next you have to build the niche sites into authority sites by attracting links to each niche site (yes there is a lot of link building in this method!).

Step Two: Market Your Niche Sites
The next step in the process is to go to work using all the usual tools of the trade to build links to your niche sites. Since each site is built on a niche content model, it should be easier to attract links. People link to content, not products in a shopping cart (well in most cases anyway), hence this is why you go to all the trouble of building completely independent content sites.

Given today’s social media dominated world, I would recommend using blogs for the niche content sites, build them up over time and then use them as the linking power source for your e-commerce site.

To build links to your niche sites you can use some or all of the following techniques, and this is far from a comprehensive list of options:

Article marketing
Social bookmarking (digg, propeller, reddit, del.icio.us, etc)
Social networking (facebook, linkedin, myspace, squidoo, etc)
Blog posts and comments
Content seeding
Forum posts
Video marketing
Podcasting
Publicity

And all the usual linkbait techniques out there. Some techniques are easy and can be automated, some take more time but bring in higher quality links.

In my opinion if you are in a hurry or you are very busy, I’d complete this process using one, or a combination of, these three methods:

1. Hire a professional blogger to handle each niche site and have them build up the site over time using as many of the techniques he or she is capable of implementing. This can be a costly option, but you only have to deal with one person per niche site.

2. Purchase sites outright that already have authority - By far the quickest method and there are hundreds of bargains out there, so it’s probably the cheapest method too, especially because you are buying sites for links and not revenue. See these articles for advice on buying websites -

Buying and Selling Websites The Ed Dale Way
How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
How I Generate $1675 Per Month Passive Income From Buying Websites

3. Outtask to individuals to perform each marketing technique - This method is more specialized as you have one person, usually a freelancer in a country were the cost of labor is cheaper, perform each task. You hire someone to write articles, one person to do article marketing, another to post in forums, etc. There are also outsourcing companies that will perform these roles for you for a fee.

It all depends what systems you are prepared to work with and how much time you want to spend managing everything. If your e-commerce site is significant in scope and a few number one rankings would mean hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in sales, then hiring a person to oversee the development of your cluster network is a smart idea.

Here’s how the structure takes shape after you implement step two (note the circles represent only a small sample of the link building techniques you should apply):

Build A Massive Neighborhood
Now you have the basic structure of the cluster neighborhood method for optimizing a website. The next step is to go work and replicate this process many hundred or even thousand times over. If you want to dominate the search engines in a competitive industry - and most product categories are very competitive and will become more competitive over time - then your cluster network of sites must be extensive.

If your e-commerce site has many thousands of one way links from niche content sites perceived by search engines to be sites of quality, then it will be hard for the competition to beat you. Top level keyword phrases can bring to your e-commerce site thousands of daily visitors and despite the obvious work involved in establishing so many niche sites, the benefits are obvious.

Remember too that this is not a technically challenging venture, you simply need content and marketing. Automated processes can be set up to implement content creation and marketing for you and if you manage a serious online business, this is a process that you should expect will become mandatory for success online.

Opportunities For Entrepreneurs
The techniques in this article represent an opportunity for any budding entrepreneur who would like to help e-commerce businesses conduct SEO. Every step of the cluster site building process could be completed by an outsourcing service or business.

You can build niche sites for companies and/or conduct online marketing for the niche sites, delivering a comprehensive search engine optimization service. Combine niche-site creation with savvy link baiting methods and you have the formula for an industry leading search marketing firm - of course, that’s easier said than done!

One thing is clear, simply attracting links to one site may not be enough in the future if you want to dominate search results. Companies will go to work building huge networks of content sites that exist purely as anchors to help raise the profile of a few key income generating sites.

This does represent a fantastic opportunity for people who own niche sites as they may become the target of buyouts regardless of whether their sites are profitable or even revenue producing.

That is good news for all you niche bloggers out there - even if you don’t make big money today, you might pocket some nice cash when a company comes knocking at your door to buy your site just for the links and authority you have, further cementing the small business reality I discussed in one of my very early blog articles - You may never make real money until you sell your business!

Source: Yaro Starak

SEO QA Checklist & 20 Hard Core SEO Tips

SEO QA Checklist

1. For dynamic pages does each page type have a unique Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords tag formula?

2. For static pages does each page have a unique Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords tag?

3. Inspect your robots.txt file and make sure that only URLs that you don't want the search engines to see are listed. Examples of pages you probably don't want indexed include login, email to a friend, printer friendly pages, most footer pages, etc. If you see "Disallow: /", this means you are blocking all robots from crawling the entire site. This is not good.

4. Run a report of all dynamic page types that have a "noindex" tag and confirm that only page types that you don't want the search engines to see have this tag.

5. Test all URL redirects. Make sure the following redirects are in place
a. Non-www version of every URL 301s to www version (or vice-versa)
b. URLs that end in / 301 to version that has no / (or vice-versa)
c. All mixed case URLs 301 to lowercase versions
d. Test version subdomains (e.g. alpha.site.com) either 301 to root domain or else are password protected.

6. Make sure any URLs that are being eliminated 301 to the new version of the URL or if there is no new version that they 301 redirect to the root domain or a related directory on the site.

7. If you are using a sitemaps xml file to update Google, Yahoo & MSN sitemaps has the xml file been updated to reflect the new changes?

8. Run a crawler against your site such as Linkscan to make sure that your pages are not delivering error codes and to see if there are any chain redirects (e.g. 301 to 301 to 301). Avoid chain redirects if possible.

9. Create a list of items that have changed that could affect SEO to help quickly diagnose any issues that may result from the new release. Typical items include:
a. Addition of or reduction of links on a page
b. Rewritten page copy and meta information
c. Addition of new pages
d. Eliminated URLs
e. Redirected URLs

20 Hard Core SEO Tips

1. Redesign your Web site once or twice a year.

2. Add 5 pages of content to your site every week.

3. Change the titles on your least successful pages twice a year.

4. Use one good keyword in your url.

5. Do not stuff your title tag with keywords.

6. Find 3 SEO forums that accept site review requests and write 20 reviews in each forum before you ever ask a question.

7. Create your own SEO book by collecting your favorite SEO forum and blog posts, newsletter articles, and tech tips in a .PDF file that you review once a month.

8. Create a new SEO book once each year, replacing the one you just created in the previous step.

9. Optimize your best performing page for the exact mirror of your targeted keyword expression (turn an ABCD page into a DCBA page).

10. Find 5 low-traffic blogs or forums that are consistently active and support them through comments, links, and referrals WITHOUT being self-promotional.

11. Write 10 blocks of ad copy (no more than 25 words each) every week. Place them on the Web where they won't offend anyone.

12. Write 1 full-page announcement about your Web site each week. Post it some place where it won't offend anyone.

13. Get a text editor like Wordpad (the fewer frills the better) and use it to code one of your Web pages from scratch.

14. Learn how to write Who, What, Where, When, and Why in 4 paragraphs or less.

15. Create a 1-page listing of 20 UNKNOWN Web sites you wish you had created. Post that page on your site.

16. Create a forum signature that does not promote your Web site. Put it into every forum profile you have created.

17. Design a 5-10 page Web site about a community project or charitable activity. Promote that site to number 1. Now repeat the process without changing or building more links for your first site.

18. Find a niche directory you have never heard of before that you feel is honestly listing unique, useful Web sites. Promote that niche directory through links and comments on your own sites until you see improvement in its Compete, Quantcast

19. Find a friend or relative who has no clue about Web sites and persuade him or her to create a Web site. You must restrain yourself and ONLY give advice on how to build and promote the site.

20. Define a metric that uses from three to five factors OTHER THAN Google PageRank, Alexa Rankings, Compete Rankings, Quantcast Rankings, and backlink counts. Use this metric to track five to ten sites you don't control for six months.

Why Hidden Text On A Website Is A Problem?

Why is hidden text a problem?

Are you sure that your website is free of hidden text? There are many ways to create hidden text unintentionally. By checking your web pages, you make sure that you won't be penalized for something you did not intend to do.

Why is hidden text a problem?

Google doesn't like hidden text and hidden links at all. Here's the official text from Google's guidelines:

Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. [...]

Hidden links are links that are intended to be crawled by Googlebot, but are unreadable to humans. [...]

If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages.

How can you hide text on your web pages?

There are many methods that allow you to hide text on your web pages:

using white text on a white background
including text behind an image
using CSS to hide text
setting the font size to 0 or a negative value
If you wittingly use some of these methods on your web pages, you should make sure that you remove them as soon as possible.

Are you sure that you don't use hidden text unintentionally?

There are a few legitimate reasons to hide text on a web page. For example, you could use CSS to replace a text link with a more pretty graphical button.

Many content management systems (CMS) use the CSS display:none technique to create drop-down menus or other expandable web page elements. Although these elements are not designed to mislead web surfers, search engines might interpret the hidden texts as a spamming attempt.

Another way to create hidden text is to provide enhancements for visually impaired people. If a lot of text on your website can only be seen by screen reader software and not by regular web surfers then some search engines might misinterpret this as spamming.

How can Google discover hidden text on your web pages?

It's relatively easy for Google to find out if your website contains hidden text. However, it's difficult to find out whether a page uses hidden text for legitimate reasons or not.

Google's spam filters might be applied to your website if the following happens:

The hidden content contains keywords that are unrelated to the rest of your content.

The hidden text contains too many keywords. If a large part of your web page content is hidden, your website might look suspicious.

You overuse "legitimate" ways to hide text on your web pages. This might flag your site for a human review.

One of your competitors reports your site to Google because he detected spam techniques on your site.

Google won't ban your site if you use hidden text in a way that appears to be legitimate. They try to detect intent. Don't try to cheat search engines. If you use ethical search engine optimization methods then you don't risk getting banned from the search results.

Social Search: What It Is and Why It's Not Going Away

Social Search: What It Is and Why It's Not Going Away

Sometimes traditional search engines prove to be less than effective to searchers. To wit: 41.2 percent of users report that general search results are often not directly relevant to queries, and 18 percent leave a search engine without having found the information they're seeking, according to a recent study by JupiterResearch.

Don't look now, but social search is pervasive. It's taking hold in large part because the Web itself is changing.

What is social search? Broadly speaking, social search enables the masses to have greater influence on the results of a search, and in so doing, enables better, more interesting and more targeted search results.

Some social search services prioritize search results based on the preferences of its entire user base, while others segment users to provide results that are more closely tailored to a particular user. Still others allow users to organize content into collections which can then be found by searchers. Whatever the form, the common thread with social search services is that users themselves have greater control over the results.

Traditional vs. Social

Is social search fundamentally different than the traditional search engines like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) ? Some have drawn a clear line separating Google, et. al. and social search. However, in fact, the most common example of social search is Google. Google's PageRank algorithm relies heavily on the number of sites linking to a particular site, and the popularity of those sites that are doing the linking in prioritizing the search results. So, PageRank incorporates a form of social search, although it's based more on the explicit actions of webmasters than on the implicit actions (clicks) of the searchers themselves.

Sometimes traditional search engines prove to be less than effective to searchers. To wit: 41.2 percent of users report that general search results are often not directly relevant to queries, and 18 percent leave a search engine without having found the information they're seeking, according to a recent study by JupiterResearch. This problem also exists for business professionals: Only 40 percent of professionals are satisfied with general search engines, with just 11 percent of users reporting that they always found what they were looking for on the first attempt.

Part of the issue with traditional search engines is that they are frequently "gamed" by marketers. In other words, Web sites that do the best job of SEO (search engine optimization) -- and not those that are most popular with searchers -- rise to the top of the search results. Search engine companies actually publish best practice techniques for SEO, you can find recipes on Wikipedia and there are plenty of other places where you can learn the ropes, including a site named "Search Engine College."

So, one of the side effects of the PageRank algorithm is that clever search engine marketers often have a disproportionate amount of sway over the results. Partly in response, a variety of social search services have been launched that give the searchers themselves more influence.

Self-Made Search

Social search sites such as Squidoo allow users to organize content into collections to create a comprehensive, well organized illustration of a particular subject. Yahoo Travel Trip Planner provides a place for travelers to create and share their itineraries. For both of these services, the search results are prioritized based on the actions of the users, and the collections that are most popular with searchers naturally rise to the top.

Contrasted with the unrelated or redundant lists of search results typically presented by Google, the top rated results usually present well though-out collections of content that offer a comprehensive view on a topic (or a trip). In this regard, these types of social search results are more akin to a Wikipedia entry than a traditional results page on a search engine.

Social search can also be used to personalize results for individual users instead of providing "one size fits all" results to a query. Consider Stumbleupon, Pandora and Netflix, for example. Each of these sites employ elements of social search. Users rate Web sites, songs and movies, respectively, based on their individual preferences.

Then by tapping into the (anonymized) online behavior of similar users (or "collaborative filtering" in the industry parlance), the sites present new Web sites (or songs or movies) that are tailored to each user. Of course, the irony in this is that probably no company has better online personalization data than Google. To date, Google has been focusing their efforts on using this data to serve more personalized ads. When will Google turn their attention to personalizing search results?

Participation Inequality

For any service that incorporates social search, there exists a potential problem -- that the results are not useful without significant numbers of users providing their input. Jakob Nielsen described this well with his work on participation inequality, in which he observes that 1 percent of members of an online community are content creators, 9 percent are participants and 90 percent are lurkers. The challenge, then, is to encourage useful contributions not only from the usual creators but to also turn the 90 percent who are lurkers into "accidental" creators, getting them to share their likes and dislikes with the larger community.

Services such as del.icio.us and Foxmarks have cleverly addressed this issue by inferring popularity through their users' actions of bookmarking and tagging content. Other users can then find the most commonly bookmarked (and hence the most popular) links on any topic.

We're in an exciting time, where social search is both prevalent and rapidly evolving. Finding the right mix that returns the most representative results based on the desires of users, not marketers, is sure to win out in the long term. While only a cave dweller would count Google out of the survivors, which other services will prevail is anyone's guess. However, one thing is guaranteed -- as social search techniques continue to evolve, the searchers themselves will be the clear winners

Source: By Richard Buck TechNewsWorld
Richard Buck is the CEO and founder of Eluma, which is based in Tewksbury, Mass.

Google Releases Video Filtering System

Google Releases Video Filtering System

Google released a long-promised video filtering system Monday that is designed to give owners of copyrighted videos more control over whether their material appears on YouTube.
As YouTube's popularity has soared, large media companies have grown increasingly frustrated by the prevalence of pirated content on the video-sharing site. Last March, Viacom, which owns MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, sued Google, which owns YouTube, for massive copyright infringement and demanded $1 billion in damages.

Zahavah Levine, chief counsel at YouTube, said the new system shows that Google has been operating in good faith. For months, Google has responded to complaints by media companies that it is working to create state-of-the-art technology to filter copyrighted videos.

Media companies have argued that existing technologies were already working to filter out pirated content on other video-sharing sites.

In response to the release of the new Google system, Michael Fricklas, general counsel of Viacom, said in a statement, "We're delighted that Google appears to be stepping up to its responsibility and ending the practice of profiting from infringement."

Google had been using technology provided by Audible Magic of Los Gatos to identify copyrighted music. David King, a product manager at YouTube, said the new system goes far beyond that and matches the content of videos.

King said it is "extremely complex" and took a long time to develop. He said

engineers attempting to describe the system created a power point presentation containing 50 pages of differential equations.
Dubbed "YouTube Video ID," the system creates an abstract image of copyrighted videos and compares that to similar images that are extracted from videos uploaded to YouTube.

While the filtering system began operating in test mode on Monday, the average YouTube user is unlikely to notice anything different - at least in the near future.

That is because Google needs copyright owners to submit copies of their material to the Google database. "We need their cooperation," he said.

Levine said without a copy of the content, "We don't know who owns what."

But it is unclear whether copyright owners will be willing to turn over decades of programming to Google. Google said nine media companies, including Disney and Time Warner, participated in an initial 10-day test.

The companies were not available for comment on Monday.

Copyright owners who give Google copies their content will have the choice of blocking content if it is uploaded without their consent or choosing to leave it on YouTube for promotional purposes. In that case, they will have the opportunity to make money from advertising provided by Google

Source Mercury News

What You Can Do To Get High Rankings On Google If You Have A Brand New Website

What You Can Do To Get High Rankings On Google If You Have A Brand New Website

It's easier to get high rankings on Google with older websites than it is with new websites. Why is this so and what can you do to get high rankings on Google if you have a brand new website?

Why is it easier to get high rankings with older websites?

Brand new domain names are often used by spammers to make a quick buck. These spammers buy hundreds of domains, fill them with automatically created scraper content and hope to make some money with the ads that appear on these sites.

In addition, some webmasters use new domains to test new search engine spamming techniques.

As it is difficult for Google to find out whether a new domain can be trusted or not, Google invented a set of filters that downranks new websites until Google thinks that they can be trusted.

What can you do to overcome Google's filters for new websites?

It's very difficult to get high rankings before Google trusts your website. For that reason, do things that make your website trustworthy:

Start with the right keywords

It's not possible to get a top 10 ranking for highly competitive general search term such as "cars" for a new website. However, it is possible to get high rankings for terms such as "used car dealer atlanta".

It's not just easier to get high rankings for more specific search terms, these terms are also much more likely to convert to sales. Take some time to find the right keywords for your site.

Get links to your website

It is not possible to get high rankings on Google without good incoming links. Try to get as many links from related websites as possible. If the right websites link to your site then Google will trust your website more quickly.

Optimize your web pages

While more links to your website greatly increase your chance of getting high search engine rankings, you must also tell search engines for which search terms you want to have high rankings. Optimize the content of your web pages to make sure that Google lists your website for the right search terms.

Search engines should be able to parse the content of your web pages easily. Consider this when creating a new website from scratch.

Wait

A website that has been online for several years is much less likely to game Google's ranking algorithms than newer sites. For that reason, your Google rankings will also increase just by waiting (given that you followed the steps 1 to 3).

If you do it correctly, getting high search engine rankings for brand new websites is possible. It's important that you do the right things in the right order.

A PR Release Can Get You Fast Exposure On Google and Yahoo

A PR Release Can Get You Fast Exposure On Google and Yahoo

Did you know that you can actually get exposure in Google and Yahoo newsfeeds within just 48 hours? Not only can you get your story published quickly but depending on how good your story is, you may actually get published by hundreds of other media outlets.

All of your SEO skills apply to working with news too!

Think about the impact of your link reputation here if it is linking back to you from hundreds of publications.

Will you be penalized for duplicate content?
Absolutely not, because news is 100% white hat. Search engines understand that news is meant to be syndicated across the Web.

Consider trying the services of http://www.prweb.com/

How Often Are You Updating Your Website?

How Often Are You Updating Your Website?

"Content freshness" refers to how often your Web content gets updated. To put it simply, the more often you add new content to your Web site, you are feeding your visitors new information.

But you are also feeding the search engines new information.

The effect of updating your content will have an impact on several things such as:

* having more visits from search engine spiders on a regular basis.
* having high quality fresh new content also gets your web pages indexed faster if the robots visit more regularly
* having a site that is consistently updated on a regular basis has benefits to both visitor behavior and search engine relevancy.

Now there is a product that gives you the ability to easily add fresh content to your web pages the easy way. It's about satisfying your viewers AND the search engines... giving them both something they love!

Fresh, original content...through RSS or Really Simple Syndication can be used or just adding new pages to your website can help keep your site fresh and up-tp-date.

SEO Tip: Using H1, H2 and H3 HTML Codes

Using H1, H2 and H3 HTML Codes

Is your website using H1, H2 and H3 HTML codes for the main heading and the sub-headings?

If not, you are missing out on one of the major techniques that will help drive your site to higher rankings.

Don't take your website designer's word for it, go to your Home page and hit Ctrl+U and you can view the source code for the page.

Scroll down the page until you get to the headings and subheadings and see if they are enclosed within H1 tags for the main heading and within h2 Subhead and so on using H2 and H3 for all of the subheads.

While you are at on the page, go back to near the top of the pageand hunt for your Title tag and make sure the words included within the has your important keywords
and phrase in it and nothing else.

Note that your Title tag and your main headline on your page are not the same thing.

Do this quick inspection and then take corrective action if necessary and you be on the road to a high search engine ranking.

Of course, you will need keywords and keyword phrases on your page and you will need incoming links with keywords in the anchor text to get the highest ranking, but take one step at at time.

OnTheAvenues has been providing Search Engine Optimization services since 1998. http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/ Bonnie Burns SEO Consultant

Guide To Linkbaiting: The Year Of Widget Bait

Guide To Linkbaiting: The Year Of Widget Bait

Source: Nick Wilson is a contributing writer for Search Engine Land and the CEO and senior strategist for Clickinfluence, a dedicated social media marketing agency.

Way back in 2005 we started talking about linkbait, a term that was coined on Threadwatch which I owned and ran at the time. Linkbait was used to describe viral, linkable content designed to attract thousands of links.

Shortly after that, I wrote The Art of Linkbaiting. It has been much cited over the last year or so. Today, though a few laggards are still blinking and looking confused whenever they hear the term, linkbaiting is recognized as the most effective way to build links for a site.

As linkbaiting enters its third year, it makes sense to revisit the topic and discuss how to succeed in 2007. The linkbait landscape of 2007 is different than two years ago, requiring some rethink and reassessment of strategies. Linkbait is the smart move everyone needs to be doing. However, the linkbait of 2005 may not cut it with today's more desensitized audiences. The smart linkbaiters will pursue the holy grail of widgetbait.

The Linkbait Mindset

Linkbaiting is hard but rewarding work. If you're prepared to make the leap, or already have done and want to improve your linkbaiting strategy for 2007, read on. If it all sounds a bit too difficult, it most likely is. Consider instead breaking out that email begging software that was soooooo cool in 2002.

The linkbait way of link building is a mindset. To do it well, you need to put thoughts of manipulating the system to one side and focus entirely on providing value to your clients users and making that value easy to link to.

Good linkbait is remarkable. There are many components to good linkbait, and infinite strategies and hooks, but at the end of the day, it boils down to this one thing. Your content needs to be amazing. If you can hit that sweet spot for your audience then the links will roll in, and in, and in, and in.

Linkbait Risk & Reward: Time Versus Success

By this point, I hope there's no doubt in your mind as to the amount of effort required to develop great linkbaiting strategies. The good news is, if you got this far, you're in good company. In 2007, the third year of linkbaiting, people need to start thinking about it in slightly more sophisticated terms.

If you're going to market linkbaiting services to clients, then you certainly have a responsibility to educate your client on the risk versus reward aspects and structure your pricing accordingly. What am I talking about when I say risk? Well, not the spammy, search engine penalties kind of risk that's for sure. Google's Matt Cutts talked about linkbaiting here. As you can see, he has a pretty good opinion of it as a marketing tool.

The risk I'm talking about is cost versus probability of success. It's not an exact science, and many factors can make or break a social media marketing campaign that utilizes viral linkbaiting techniques to generate links and traffic. Let's run through a few examples.

Textual Linkbait: Low To Medium Risk

By textual linkbait, I mean posts or any other kind of page content that takes no more technical skill than being able to type. This kind of linkbait is very accessible as the only real cost is time. With good imagination and research into a client's business, you can quickly devise a series of posts designed to attract links.

In general terms, the reward you get back from writing good textual linkbait is proportional to the effort you put in. Whereas it usually takes me a day to write a great linkbait post, it can take as much as a week or as little as a few hours.

The results, more often than not, mirror that effort in terms of links gained. Textual linkbait often, but not always, has a limited shelf life as well, particularly when you're working with time sensitive content such as breaking news or news reaction.

Site Based Tools & Software: Medium To High Risk

By site-based linkbait, I mean functional scripts that run on your client's website. These vary widely in nature depending on the site. A good example in the search marketing world might be a link analysis tool or spider simulator. (neither of which, by the way, would make good linkbait today.)

Again the risk is proportional to time and effort. Coming up with awesome ideas for tools and widgets is one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of linkbaiting. If you can get someone to code your ideas up cheaply, then you could well be on a winner.

The shelf life of such tools varies. Needless to say, the best kind of on-page tools, like all link assets on your site, need to be regularly updated and maintained.

Widgetbait: High Risk, High Reward

The holy grail of linkbaiting in 2007 will be the widget.

In late 2005 and early 2006, I came up with a linkbaiting concept to put my previous company, Performancing, on the social media map. That idea was the Performancing Blog Editor Firefox extension that has achieved nearly half a million downloads on Mozilla alone.

It was a high risk, high reward strategy that not only worked but worked so well that it went beyond mere "linkbait" and is about to become a standalone brand in its own right.

Widgets are small pieces of software that can be ported easily. This would include plugins for blog software such as WordPress or Drupal, modules that can be plugged into popular "start pages" such as Netvibes, PageFlakes or Live.com, desktop widgets such as Yahoo Widgets or Mac dashboard widgets and, as demonstrated above, browser extensions.

The whole concept of widgets is on a snowball right now. In late 2006, the World Wide Web Consortium drafted a specification for widgets. Why they did this is anybody's guess, but they did.

There are also several specialist companies and websites competing for your widget focused attention as well as two or more conferences on the subject, such as Widgets Live.

As for the risk of widget building, it's most often high. Abhilash Patel talked last week about how "widget bait" is an incredible form of link building but also how most site owners might not be able to pull it off on their own but rather may need to ride on the coattails of others. The New York Times also has an article about widgettailing out today.

Even if you don't code your linkbaiting widgets yourself, it takes time and money to do so, and time and money for you, the ideas person, to come up with a concept that will gain links and targeted traffic for your client over a good period of time. The rewards can be amazing though.

Pricing Linkbaiting Services

At the time of writing, there are only a very small handful of forward thinking SEOs and online marketers that are offering linkbait services. With genuine respect to the two friends who know I'm talking about them, they've got it all wrong.

As you've seen above, there is a risk of failure when creating viral, linkable content, be it textual or code based. This needs to be factored into the way you structure your pricing so that clients get the best possible deal.

Put your fixed cost price tags aside for a moment and let's think in terms of risk and reward again. If you spend a few days creating a great textual linkbaiting campaign for your client, but you fail to deliver the links you hoped to gain, should they pay? Yes and no. Your time is worth money, and after all, with the kind of pricing model I propose, there is a risk for both sides.

The Win-Win Way Of Pricing Linkbaiting Services

Sit down with your client and work out what exactly they want to achieve from a viral content campaign. Pay particular attention to what they mean, as we all know clients often say they want traffic, but the real goal is most likely increased sales.

Work out what that is worth to the client and what an appropriate fee for achieving that goal would be, including your costs of course.

Educate your client on the risk of the solution you propose, to both parties. Based on your assessment of your costs, work out a fair compensation for your time if your campaign turns out to be a dud (and it happens to the best of us, that's the nature of the game.)
Linkbait is about creativity, imagination and skill. When pricing your services, don't be afraid to put your money where your mouth is and share some of the risk with your client. Equally so though, share in the reward. With this kind of pricing model you can, and should, charge a great deal more for your services than the flat fee or (shudder) hourly rate.

SEO Means Getting Links

There's a raging debate about whether on-page SEO even works. Sure, there's a need for that. Content management systems are still catching up on search friendly page construction, so there'll still be plenty of work needed to put client sites in the right gear.

But few if any will disagree that links are where it's at. You need links to really succeed with search engine optimization. That means link building. Or don't we mean link begging?

Sheesh, rather you than me squire. I can't think of anything more mind numbingly tedious, not to mention soul destroying, than sending out hundreds or thousands of link requests. Whether you do this by hand, or (heaven spare us) automatically, it's just shit. Plain and simple.

Oh, and if the word "reciprocal" made an appearance as you read that last paragraph, then when you get to the end of this article, read it again and then once more just for luck. Seriously.

Why Linkbaiting Beats Link Building

Linkbaiting beats link building firstly as a much better use of your time. SEOs on the whole are a resourceful, creative and clever bunch. Rather than doing the digital equivalent of flipping burgers, you should be putting your creativity to good use and devising smart, viral content ideas that will gain your clients thousands of incoming links with good anchor text. Sound good? Let's make it even clearer. Take these common SEO tasks:

Writing link requests
Responding to sent link requests
Worrying about linking patterns and neighborhoods
Doing searches to find potential link partners
Building auto-submit tools for 3rd rate directories and other such horrors
And let's replace them with these more enjoyable items:

Having a beer and a jolly good think
Going for a long walk and thinking about your clients business and how you can help it
Writing really excellent posts that people will love
Creating or designing really cool widgets that people will love
Watching your idea spread in real time
Doesn't that sound better? So with the creation of cool, linkable content -- linkbait -- you get anything from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of incoming links from a huge variety of sources. The result of which, if done right, equals targeted traffic, greatly improved search engine rankings and a healthier, less fragile linking profile for the site in question.

A Final Word On The Linkbait Mindset

In future articles, I'll walk you through some of the best techniques for creating killer linkbait strategies. But I wanted to end today talking about ensuring that linkbaiting doesn't get a bad reputation.

Recently a couple of good folks in the SEO field have had their sites hacked. One such victim said that other SEOs where wondering if it was all a big linkbaiting tactic. This way of thinking about a highly skilled, highly valuable client service needs to stop.

You as an SEO have the power to make 2007 the year that SEO gets its mojo back, the year the industry puts its shady image to one side and starts becoming the respected, valued member of the social media scene it deserves to be.

Those of you already working on linkbaiting services are the rockstars of the industry, the pioneers of change, and you have a responsibility to yourselves and the industry as a whole to not let a wonderful win-win service gain an undeserved, shady reputation.

Nick Wilson is a contributing writer for Search Engine Land and the CEO and senior strategist for Clickinfluence, a dedicated social media marketing agency.

Top tips to get indexed on Google within 48 hours

Top tips to get indexed on Google within 48 hours

If you have a new website then it takes some time until Google visits your web pages. Even if you submit your website to Google via their regular submission form ( a real waste of time as it is not needed), it usually takes weeks until Google visits your site.

There are some things you can do so that Google indexes your web page within 48 hours and not within weeks.

Tip 1: Get a link from an existing site

Links are very important for high rankings on Google. The more (quality) links you have, the higher Google will rank your pages.

An easy way to get a link to your website is to join a forum that is related to your website. Participate in the discussions and sign your posts with your name and a link to your website.

Make sure that you do not spam the forums. Only participate in an online discussion if you really have something to say about the topic. If you post in a well known forum then Google will quickly pickup the link to your site.

Tip 2: Create an external blog

Google likes blogs and many blogs are indexed very quickly. Use Google's Blogger.com service to create a blog that is related to your business.

Write a few posts and add a link to your website in your blog posts. Google will quickly index your Blogger blog and find the link to your site.

Tip 3: Get as many links as you can

The more other websites link to your website, the sooner Google will find your site.

If you use all of these methods, it's very likely that Google will index your website within 48 hours.

Links on the other pages make sure that Google finds your website more quickly. The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that Google will find your site. In addition, you will get higher rankings if many other pages link to your site.

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OnTheAvenues has been providing Search Engine Optimization services since 1998. http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/ Bonnie Burns SEO Consultant

Keep Your Website Looking Updated By Making Minor Changes

Keep Your Website Looking Updated By Making Minor Changes

Have you got a few pages that still need some help? I'm talking about pages you've been working on, but they've just been giving you a few challenges in the rankings for some reason or other and you're not happy with them.

Why not look back and review the last changes you made on them and make one more single variation in just one of the influential relevancy factors? Don't make too many changes - try to just make one important change only. Be sure to record it in your log as well as record the rankings with the date of your entry.

Do NOT submit or re-submit your page using any free ADD URL. But let the robots come back and find the changes (based on their own schedule.) If you are not sure how often the robot is coming back to visit, you can use Robot Manager to find out.

Little changes (one at a time only) can make a HUGE difference in a measured exercise where you record your details and review progress systematically.

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OnTheAvenues has been providing Search Engine Optimization services since 1998. http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/ Bonnie Burns SEO Consultant

What is Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI?

What is Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI?

The term "latent" means "hidden" or "concealed."
The term "Semantic" means "interconnected system."
The term "index" as a verb means "order."

Roughly translated, LSI is a "hidden interconnected system order" that is being used in search engines to deliver a measure of "artificial intelligence" to the search engines. With LSI influences in Google, search engines are beginning to understand a whole lot more about the "context" of a message.

Not only must we remember the importance of writing excellent, high value content into our Web site, but we also need to understand that it is all based on what a search engine "knows" about a specific topic based on its overall collected data.

One easy way to find out what words a search engine "thinks" are connected to your important keywords, is to use Wordtrackers "Full Search Function" in the members area of Wordtracker.
http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html

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OnTheAvenues has been providing Search Engine Optimization services since 1998. http://ontheavenues-diy-seo.blogspot.com/ Bonnie Burns SEO Consultant

6 Psychological Triggers That Will Make Your Visitors Buy From You

6 Psychological Triggers That Will Make Your Visitors Buy From You

Psychology is an essential element of modern selling. Understanding what triggers people to buy makes the difference between a sale and a failure. A desire to buy involves more than logic - it involves emotion as well as deep human psychology.

According to master copywriter Joe Sugarman, 95% of buying decisions are subconscious and "knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy and using this information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger greater sales response - often far beyond what you could imagine."

Much of the knowledge in this tactic comes from two experts in the science of psychological persuasion. The first is Robert B. Cialdini, a Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. Cialdini's book, Influence: Science and Practice is perhaps the single most important book on business one could read.

The second expert is Joseph Sugarman, the best-selling author and top copywriter who achieved legendary fame in direct marketing and ran a highly successful mail-order company in the 1980s, JS&A (the forerunner of The Sharper Image).

Joe learned on a mass scale which ad approaches worked, and which ones didn’t. He studied the ads that achieved a high degree of success, and discovered that they were clearly successful because of certain underlying psychological triggers. He identified 30 of these triggers that activate psychological forces buried deep within the subconscious brain, and cause people to buy. His book "Triggers" is also highly recommended.

Before we build or launch any new website we analyze our business concept to see how well our idea will sell. Our framework for this discussion is based much on the works of Cialdini and Sugarman.

In this tactic, we'll share with you how we think about products and how to design websites that convert based on the understanding of human psychology. How powerful can these factors be?

In the words of Joe Sugarman:

"I recall a time when I applied one of these subconscious devices by changing just one word of an ad, and response doubled. I refer to these subconscious devices as psychological "triggers." A psychological trigger is the strongest motivational factor any salesperson or copywriter can use to evoke a sale."

The Six Factors of Influence
When designing a new site and business model we develop our site around 6 elements of influence identified by Cialdini. These are psychological factors that help make a product desirable and push people to want it.

Is it unethical to use these factors?

It depends on what you're selling. If your product is flaky and useless and you refuse to honor guarantees and refunds, then you're being unethical.

But if you sell a product that's of high quality, you provide a fair way for consumers to return the product if they are not satisfied and only make claims that you can meet - then you're being fair.

These 6 factors however, can be manipulated. When you read about these tactics and understand how they work, you'll also help make yourself immune to unethical businesses that chose to use them to unfairly sway buyer behavior.

Here are the six factors of influence. As you read this, we want you to think about how each of these factors can be used to enhance your site, product or service.

Commitment and Consistency
Reciprocity
Social Proof
Liking
Authority
Scarcity
We'll discuss each factor in detail in this tactic and show you how to use them to boost your sales. Let's start with Commitment and Consistency.

1. Commitment and Consistency
The principle of Commitment and Consistency implies that people rarely go back on their word. It means that when you say you're going to do something, you generally do it.

Here's a powerful example of this principle at work: Psychologist Steven J. Sherman called a sample of residents in Bloomington, Indiana, and asked them what they would say if they were asked to volunteer 3 hours of their time to collect money for the American Cancer Society.

Of course, not wanting to seem uncharitable, many of the survey takers said that they would agree to donate the time. The consequence of this subtle commitment was a 700% increase in volunteer rates a few days later when members of the American Cancer Society came knocking on doors asking for volunteers.

Companies such as Toys-R-Us use this same principle in marketing. Toys-R-Us ran a competition for children, asking them to complete the slogan "I Like Toys-R-Us because __________."

Winners would get a 3 minute all-you-can-grab shopping spree at a local branch. Of course, given the rewards, many parents eagerly jumped in to help their children complete the slogan (or to write slogans themselves and then say these came from their 12 year old). But Toys-R-Us did not seem to mind - because it gained huge sales from this marketing experiment.

Toys-R-Us not only received hundreds of customer testimonials from parents and children alike - but it psychologically got these children and parents to commit to shopping at their local Toys-R-Us branch. After all - they had written down why they loved the store. Why shop anywhere else?

You'll notice many brand name companies running such competitions. Why? Because they work wonders in helping people commit to a brand psychologically - whether they intend to or not.

Commitment and Consistency in Ecommerce
Here are some examples of how various websites use the commitment and consistency principle.

The Upsell
Many ecommerce sites use checkout systems that offer upsells. You buy a product advertised and just before checking out you get a message "If you liked Product X, why not add Product Y to your Cart for only 30% more?"

These types of upsells can have high acceptance rates. The customer has already committed to making a purchase. Once they do, it's easier to get the customer to commit to adding more items to their shopping basket.

Free Courses followed by Promotional Emails
You sign up for a free course or download a demo software. After several days you get an email asking you if you liked the course or software. The email goes on to suggest that if you liked the product you might want to upgrade to a full version.

We've seen this type of strategy boost sales by 96%!

Soliciting Testimonials
At the end of a free course or software trial period the customer gets an email from the site not asking for a sale, but asking for the customer to respond with feedback on the product. These feedback emails are then read and if the customer says anything positive, a customer support agent sends them a pre-written email thanking them for their endorsement and offering them 10% off if they make a purchase immediately.

Because the customer has already typed out an email message stating they liked the product, a very high percentage actually act on the thank you offer. After all, if they do not act, they would be going against their own word.

2. Reciprocity
The principle of reciprocity implies that people dislike feeling indebted to someone else and have a strong desire to repay this debt. The rule requires us to repay in kind what another person has given us.

Businesses sometimes use this rule with stunning efficiency. A good example is Amway Corp. Amway sells households products and grew from a basement operation to a behemoth worth $1.5 billion. Part of its sales strategy involved a device called a BUG - which was nothing more than a basket containing free samples of various Amway household products.

A confidential Amway Career Manual instructs its salespeople to leave the BUG with prospective customers "for 24, 48 or 72 hours with no obligation to her. Just tell her you would like her to try the product...that's an offer no one can refuse."

At the end of the trial period the Amway representative is to pick up the BUG and take orders on the items the customer wishes to purchase. Since few customers use up the entire contents of the BUG, the rep can then pass the BUG to the next customer down the line or across the street.

Of course, when the customer receives the BUG and starts to use the free products they get trapped in the reciprocity rule. Orders soared. The bug created sensational sales growth for Amway with one distributor calling it "the most fantastic retail idea we've ever had. On average the customers purchase half the total contents of the BUG when it is picked up....in one word, tremendous!"

The reciprocity rule is deeply powerful and influences us in many way. A variation of it is the "Reciprocal Concession" sales tactic.

Let's use an example from the hit TV Show South Park to illustrate. The character Cartman and his friends are knocking on doors to offer snow-shoveling services. Cartman asks his first prospective customer "Ma'am, would you like us to shovel your yard? It's only $15,000." The kind lady replied, "I'm not sure I'd pay $15,000 for a shoveling service."

Cartman replied, "Well, would you pay $15 then?" and the lady agrees. $15 is a lot more than shoveling services usually charge and Cartman, delighted, turns to his friends and says "See, I told you it would work."

Cartman just applied the old "reciprocal concession" sales strategy. This works on the principle of reciprocity. By conceding to come down from $15,000 to $15, Cartman made the lady feel like he had done her a favor.

This in turn compels her to return the favor by taking him up on his lower, yet still significantly overpriced offer.

Reciprocity in Ecommerce

Free Downloads

Giving away free training courses or free software downloads works wonders partly because of this rule. Giving a visitor a few free chapters of an ebook can make the customer desire to repay you by purchasing your book at a later date.

Many ebook sellers on the internet employ this tactic.

Reciprocal Concession in Ecommerce
Many websites, knowingly or unknowingly, use this rule in email marketing. Often, when you subscribe for an online email course, you will be sent an email at the end of the course suggesting that if you liked the free course, you might want to invest in the full product. This email employs the principle of reciprocity and the principle of commitment and consistency. The next step of the sales tactic is the reciprocal concessions tactic.

If the subscriber does not buy, they get an email a few weeks later with the subject line "John, What went wrong?" The email goes on to ask why the subscriber did not take the site up on its first offer. The merchant then offers to lower the price, provide a bonus gift or offer a payment plan. This type of email usually generates further sales - often a boost of up to 20% or more.

3. Social Proof
Social Proof states that we view something as being correct to the degree at which we see others doing it. In other words, people decide if something is good or bad in a given situation by observing what others are d