Manual Directories Submissions; Your Key to High Rankings and More Traffic.

Getting inbound links to your website is a great way to boost your search engine rankings and the most effective way to do it is by submitting your website to directories. This gives you more links pointing back to your website and a higher status in the search engines. However, getting listed with directories is a skilled job, so manual directory submission is the way to go.

Directories are like indexes or libraries of links to web sites with appended descriptions or summaries. By searching through categories, searchers can find websites covering the topic they're interested in. While this is one way to get traffic, the real benefit of being listed in good directories is that you will get a link (or links) back to your web site. The search engines see these links as a vote for your site. So the more links you have, the higher your page rank (PR) and the higher your ranking in the SERPS. And the higher you rank, the easier is it for people to find you.

However directory submission is a complex procedure. For one thing, the better directories often ignore automated submissions and your site may be banned. Plus there are thousands of directories of varying types, standards, and procedures for requesting inclusion. There are many different steps in manual directory submission. For one thing, you need to place your web site in the most suitable category and subcategory of the directory. If you get this wrong, your request will get rejected.

In addition, directory submission requires knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). For example, the choice of anchor text is important in determining the weight which the search engines give to the link. Specifically, the text that the directory uses to describe the link should include the keywords that you wish to rank for. Automatic submission can crop this text to fit the space, and effective keywords may be lost.

Then it's important to consider to which pages on your web site the links in the directories point to. If all the links are to your home page, it looks unnatural. So getting a range of links to other pages in your site (deep linking) is a sound strategy, but one that requires an expert's touch. Plus it's a good idea to vary your link title and description for each submission.

For these reasons, manual submission is the only way to go and it makes sense to outsource your linking campaign to a firm offering manual directory submission services. Manual link submission is a labor-intensive, time-consuming procedure that requires specialist knowledge of the prevailing policies of the directories. A quality firm will handle the whole procedure for you and leave you free to get on with activities that are more productive.

Link Exchange Q and A

Here are some of the most common questions webmasters have when the topic refers to incoming links and link exchanges: Q: How many links do I need to rank high in the search engines? A: This is a tricky question that cannot get a definite answer. If your website is dedicated to some deep ocean bacteria with a very long and strange name, chances are that you can rank first on Google with only a couple of links. On the other hand, if your website is dedicated to losing weight, chances are you will need thousands upon thousands of high quality links to even get a chance to rank high on such a competitive topic. Q: Which is better – manual or automated link exchange? A: Before automated link exchange directories started offering complete control over link exchange parameters and partners, manual exchanges were better. Today, however, there are websites offering unprecedented control and flexibility over how to conduct your link exchange campaign. Automated link exchanges are the top choice. A great resource to start linking to other websites is: o http://www.MyLinkMachine.com Q: How can I get even more links to my website? A: Design a visually appealing website and fill it with interesting and unique content – this will trigger a good response from fellow webmasters and they will be more open to link exchanges. Q: What’s all the hype about when it comes to getting high PageRank website links? A: PageRank (or PR) is the algorithm used by Google to rank websites. If your website receives a link from a high PR page, your website will also become more popular. Since Google is the leading search engine at the moment and all the other Search Engines are using relatively similar algorithms, PR is a good indication on how well a website is doing on all the major search engines. Q: What’s the difference between one-way links and reciprocal links? A: One way links are considered to be more valuable than reciprocal links, but they are also much harder to get. Search engines use both one way and reciprocal links to determine where your website will appear in a search, so it’s important to run link campaigns that aim for receiving both kinds of links. Q: I hear that link anchor text is important. Why? A: The anchor text is basically the series of words that will become hyperlinked when you insert an HTML link code into a webpage. Anchor text is important because it allows you to insert keywords and key phrases in the link anchor, thus increasing the popularity of the web page the link is pointing to. Q: Apart from link exchanges, what other things should I do to get more traffic? A: Link exchanges are just part of the online promotion strategy. You will also need unique content and you will have to keep your website updated. The site navigation should also be intuitive and the graphics should be visually pleasant but not too demanding and slow-loading. Press releases, article submissions, contributions to other websites – these are all things that will gradually help you increase traffic numbers. A great resource for article submissions is: o http://www.MyContentBuilder.com Article submission can be tedious, which is why you may want to consider an automatic article submitter. It will submit one article to over 30 directories in half an hour. To watch a video on how to accomplish this, go to: o http://1trac.com/dt/t/Article_Submitter_Video.php

How Content Can Really Increase Your Sales

Search engines don't buy products and services. People do. To sell your products and services online, you need targeted traffic. Search engines will send you targeted traffic, and a lot of it, if you take certain steps. The first step in your search engine marketing campaign isn't search engine optimization. Your first step is to understand the internet and how to effectively use it to promote your products and services. The internet is a content driven medium. Searchers are looking for information. They don't want to be sold to. They want value. You can provide this value through the content you write for your website, as well as content you write for your promotions. Therefore, you need to develop a complete, content management strategy. Your content management strategy needs to be customer focused, content driven, and optimized for the search engines. Your content management strategy should consider on page and off page optimization factors. On page factors include optimizing your page for keywords relevant to your page, titles, and descriptions. Off page factors include link exchanges and backlinks. Once you've chosen the topic for your site, you need to develop your website. Decide what content you will write. Your content should include articles, press releases, and product reviews. You can also create free ebooks, reports, and white papers provided the information you include will be useful to your site visitor. Before developing your content, you need to do your research. Find out what your readers are searching for. There are plenty of free tools and software on the internet to help you accomplish this task. Simply search for a keyword phrase like "keyword suggestion tools". When you're ready to write your content, choose two to three keywords and/or keyword phrases in the text for your page. Write your content and then optimize your page for these keywords. You can use free software like Web CEO. Although on page optimization will help you if you don't have a lot of competition for your keyword phrases, it is not enough if you are targeting high competition words. To raise your rankings, you will need to link to high traffic sites with high page rank. Building backlinks from other websites will also help you raise your rankings. Do a search in your favorite search engine to find sites you can link to. Study these sites. Check to see what keywords they use to optimize their pages. Find out if they exchange links and request a link exchange. The key to success in search engine marketing is to do your homework BEFORE you create your website. The bottom line is that no matter how many links you have pointing back to your site, or how well you optimize your page for the search engines, you won't rank high for keywords that are too competitive. If you still insist on building a website on a highly competitive topic, then I would recommend you use other techniques to promote your site. Article writing, forum posting, press releases, pay per click ads, and offline classifieds. The bottom line is you won't succeed in any business you aren't passionate about. Choose a topic you like that has a market and then build a content rich search engine friendly market. Get your name out there and keep branding yourself. You will succeed.

Why Choose SEO Services ?

Implementing SEO services in your marketing strategy is a very wise thing to do for the following five reasons : * The Absence Of Risk – often, paid advertising is subject to click-fraud risks and competitor’s unfair techniques ( examples of these techniques would be the usage of software that will click your ads for hundreds of times without any noticeable profit to your site; however, you will pay for each and every single click to ). Pay-for-performance programs like Google AdWords have advanced protection against this harmful behavior but the risk will never be eliminated. However, SEO is free of any potential risk unless you make obvious mistakes like spamming. * Reliability – paid search engine placement or banner ads work right until the moment when the marketing budget depletes. After that moment the site disappears from the listings and the returning customers will not find you again ( nor will the new visitors ). SEO services will help buffer this process so you can gradually minimize the advertising budget as you will be increasing your results that are obtained from the organic search engine listings. Another advantage of this would be the fact that consumers prefer purchasing from a site that is ranked high in the search engine results rather than purchasing from an evidently placed advertisement. * Brand Awareness – a website that has a high rank among search engine listings means that more people will see the company’s name and become more and more familiar with the products as well as the company although they still haven’t made one single purchase. A recent survey clearly shows that consumers are twice as likely to recognize businesses that are ranked high ( top three ) in the search engine listings in comparison to those that are appearing in the regular banner ads. * Targeted Traffic – the SEO services will bring paying customers right to your door step. These customers that we are talking about have entered your websites keywords or phrases into the search engines and the results showed your business. The SEO services will help you transform regular visitors into real buyers by analyzing their behavior once they locate your site. By utilizing the content of your website you will learn how to transform these visitors into buyers in the most effective and efficient manner possible. * Affordability – comparing banner ads with SEO services in terms of costs, the money that you will pay for these services won’t reach staggering sums like $15,000 that people pay for banner ads. Now we are going to offer you a small list of techniques that should be avoided at all costs: * Keyword stuffing * Automatically generated doorway pages * Misspelling of well-known websites * Hidden text or hidden links * Cloaking and false redirects * Duplicated content on multiple pages * Other methods that try to trick search engines All in all, SEO is highly recommended if you want to make your business popular because popularity over the Internet is crucial as you will attract more visitors and if you play your cards the right way, these visitors will be transformed into first time buyers and with a bit of luck, customers.

Jagger Algorithm Update Part-1

If there is one thing Search Engine Marketers and website owners fear - it is a major algorithm update, especially by Google. Well, much as we may like it not to happen, its here. Google has recently done a major algorithm update, nick named “Jagger” update series. Google does minor algorithm updates almost on a monthly basis and once in a while, it implements a major algorithm update. The last major Google algorithm update happened in November 2003 called the Florida update, which created quite a stir with website rankings. To know more, read our article on Google Florida Algo Update. Like the Florida update, the Jagger update has done the much feared “blender” act. It has churned the top-ranking websites and turned it into a list of unrecognizable pulp. Google has been a hot-favorite amongst the web community searching for information. Most feel that the search results have always been highly relevant. It would be therefore safe to assume that whatever algorithm Google has, works just fine. So why does Google need to re-engineer its perfect-looking algo so drastically? Has it not heard the saying don't fix what aint broke”? From Google's standpoint, the reason is simple and valid. Well, for starters, web is ever-evolving and the algo always need to be adjusted in order to provide the best of results. Google engineered an algo, which it believes will reward good sites and rank them well for its viewers. Google, like most other search engines, keeps this algo a closely guarded secret to prevent it from being exploited. However, the SEO community is constantly at work trying to rank their sites well. Using calculated guesswork, logical thinking, special tests and extensive trial-and-error methods, they gradually figure out what the algorithm likes and dislikes. Armed with this knowledge, it is not difficult to work on websites to rank them high in SERP (Search Engine Result Pages), irrespective of whether the site deserves to rank at the top or not. This kind of algorithm abuse results in ‘less than desirable' websites displacing good sites from the top ranks, contaminating the Google index. Consequently, following the Kaizen philosophy, Google needs to re-engineer its algorithms to keep, what it believes are bad sites, out of its top ranks. Naturally, major algorithm updates upset the current high-ranking websites & sends a lot of SEO professionals back to their work-bench in order to start all over again. What is interesting to note is the timing of the algorithm update. When Google updated its algorithm in November 2003, there were large scale allegations by website owners that Google intentionally upset the rankings of popular websites just before the Christmas shopping season to force them into buying Google AdWords paid advertising in order to sustain the visitor traffic. While Google claims that the algo update decisions are not influenced by the AdWords team, it is difficult to understand why they would once again choose a critical timing just before Christmas shopping season to update their algorithm. The stakes are very high and its business after all. Google earned $1.57 Billion in Q3 of 2005. If 2003 pre-Christmas algorithm update effect is any indication, I estimate that Google would record revenues of over $2.05 Billion in Q4 of 2005.

Google Page Rank Updates

Many webmasters are obsessed with the Google Page Rank. Articles and books have been written about Google PR (Page Rank). Forum postings cover the topic over and over again and about every 3 months tensions are rising when a possible Page Rank update is eventually happening. Page Rank updates are an interesting experience watching a small group of webmasters go a little crazy. It all starts with somebody noticing the PR update in progress. This event will find its way into forums and newsgroups fast. Within minutes and hours the Internet community becomes aware of a Page Rank update. As Google.com uses several different data centers for its search engine services and also updates them in different intervals webmasters all over the world will see different results when looking for Page Rank results. A Page Rank update will also not complete within an hour or a day. For several days results will fluctuate. With that in mind it is a funny event watching the hype surrounding a PR update. Webmasters get nervous if the PR of their website suddenly changes. A change can mean that the PR completely disappears or that the webmaster sees different (conflicting) results. As a high Page Rank can mean higher amounts of traffic and eventually higher income from a website this event often feels like a rollercoaster ride for the people who depend on having a successful website. Imagine the website you worked for so hard suddenly going up and down in Page Rank during a PR update. Now the same people start posting questions and comments in forums and newsgroups. The more experienced webmasters know the game and react professionally. They know that the publicly visible Page Rank is just a moment in time to display a snapshot of what is in Google's database. They know that PR actually updates daily or weekly internally, but that these more frequent updates do not show up as publicly visible PR updates. But no matter how often it is pointed out that the publicly visible PR is not important - the hype around this topic by a large group of webmasters does not quiet down. "How many links does it take to get a PR 5?" - "Why does my PR suddenly went down? I added x number of back links to my site." - "I hate Google for doing this." - These and many other comments or questions will show up. But in the end it all comes down to: Public PR is just a snapshot in time of what is in Google.com's database. PR changes much more often than what is showing up in the Google Toolbar. And so it comes as no surprise that about every 3 months the tensions go high up in newsgroups and online forums when it comes to discussing Google Page Rank. If you are on the hunt for a high Page Rank for you site - don't waste time looking for the publicly visible PR. Use the time the others need to discuss PR to actually work on the Page Rank for your site. Establish high quality back links to your site. Grow these numbers slowly. A large increase in a short amount of time is not natural. Back links grow slowly and that is what Google is looking for. Be smart - be in it for the long run and not some short-term PR gain that won't last.

A Quick Guide To Google Analytics

Google, the best search engine ever built, has been famous for everything that it provides – free of course. It has even increased the size of the Email (G-mail) storage to 2.6 GB. Since then, it has started launching a huge variety of products & services, which contains 50 online services. It was in May 2005 that Google acquired a company named Urchin Software Corporation which provided a web service called ‘Urchin on Demand’. Henceforth, the service was renamed to Google Analytics. Google Analytics is an excellent solution for all the website related needs, starting from the source which brought the visitors to your site to how they interacted with your website. Hence, it provides good results as to how the site should be designed/ modified so as to attract more visitors or how to do better marketing for your product online. Some of the features of Google Analytics are given below. Firstly, it is much easier to use. With the special AdWords feature, Google provides more flexibility with the keywords and also provides you immediate ROI results. It also provides good suggestions as to which keywords can make the site or product more attractive. Nextly, it focuses on only those modifications (in your website) which will gain you profits. As the service is available in many languages (English, German, Spanish, Korean, etc.) there is a wider scope for improvement of the site along with the marketing campaign. As Analytics is powered by the same server which runs Google, it can be reliably used for even top corporate projects. Also, it is very much easy to use. For e.g. instead of purchasing or downloading some software or script, just pasting the tracking code in the web pages directly begins the tracking. Google Analytics also provides Executive summaries of the conversions, traffic directly to you so that you don’t have to hunt for the reports. You can then comfortably compare keywords, revenue & basically, the performance of the website. It also provides you the comparative reports of the performance, for e.g. if you need to compare this weeks performance with last week’s you can very well get the entire tabular data. This service extends so much that you can tally this winter’s reports with last summer’s reports. Google Analytics can also be used for e-commerce websites, as you can compare revenues, arrange & modify campaigns & get a whole view of the metrics. Another special feature of Google Analytics is the Funnel visualization. Sometimes it so happens that a visitor starts exploring your site but quits in the middle. Mostly, it is due to puzzling or maze-like data or irrelevant information on the site that confuses the visitor. Google tracks the positions of the quitting & hence provides you the opportunity of modifying that particular area of the site. Google also provides you the segmented visitor report, which includes sorting of visitor information by location, by action, by new versus returning visitor, making it easier to compare the keywords and the traffic. Geotargeting helps in tracking the location of the visitor and also gives your information about markets in various areas & their potentials. Hence, it provides you a better option of the market analysis & gives you more options of setting up or modifying your campaign in order to increase the market value of your website.