*Image via Wikipedia*

Do I need a Sitemap?

A sitemap is often considered redundant in the process of building a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of just having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs.

Navigation purposes

A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.

Conveying your site’s theme

When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the setup of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.

Site optimization purposes

When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page — they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.

Organization and relevance

A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird’s eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accessible and neatly organized for everyone. You will find that most website builders include a sitemap as standard but it is always worth checking to be sure.

If you are looking for a site map generator especially for Google web analytics you can find many of these on the web , just input your URL and a couple of minutes (depending on the size of your site) your site map is generated.                      Related: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

*Image by Piutus via Flickr*

How to use it to your advantage

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But remember, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:

·    Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.

·    Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.

·    Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.

·    When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.

·    Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

Or you can download this useful tool called Keyword Swarm absolutely free just click the pic below- Redirects to MaxHomeBits.com

Please do feel free to share you own experience in comments below.

You can’t just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites. There are many useful tools to help you find out what exactly is happening. As you may be aware using your browser properly will give you a lot of information about the page you visit, but here are some more very accurate resources to check out.

1. A tool which you can use to test your own website links or other websites for broken links:
Xenu’s Link Sleuth

2. With this tool you can check search engines for the number of back links to your URL i.e. other web   pages linking to your site:
Backlinks

3. It sometimes becomes important to know where the servers of your hosting company are physically located. Because, some search engines like Google have the ability to filter search results based on their physical location called geotargeting. This could be used to determine why your site is showing in only a certain country. This link can also be used to research the country location of a particular competitor’s website:
website-country

4. In order to track the location of the visitor or a customer to your website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/geovisitors/

5. In order to check the Yahoo! web ranking of your’s or your competitor’s website use :
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/webrank/

6. Here is a link to check the web ranking of a website using a Mac or Apple computer:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/pagerank-mac/

7. You need a Google AdSense account for using this. This link provides you with charts and reports which will help you analyze traffic, clicks, and results from your AdSense advertising
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-charts/

8. If you have an AdSense account, you can analyse your website address or another website address to see what Google ads will be displayed when the customer selects certain website names or keywords:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-sandbox/

9. This link will take you to a cooperative advertising network where you can join to display and
share your ads with other website owners:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/

10. You can add the Search Functionality on your website which uses Google. This works only if your site is listed in the Google Index.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/

11. Here are some links to free website counters which you can use on your website to track your traffic and hits:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/counter/
http://www.amazingcounters.com/?ref=gad033
http://www.cyber-counter.com/signup.php
http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html
http://www.free-counters.net/

You may also be interested in previouse posts & Related Links
Using RSS World Traffic Report

del.icio.us Tags: seo,web stats,location,analyse,geotargeting

If there was a way to get that PR 5 website or blog to provide a link back to your new website, Not only could it drive quality traffic to your site, but it would also provide a great back link for the search engines to find. But, unless your website is truly unique, it is unlikely that a big website will be eager to just give you a link on their main page. Their site space is just too valuable to give free links that provide little return or benefit for them.

The appeal for new website or blog owners to get back links by any means to increase their P.R can be a powerful motivator, but I can’t stress enough that caution is advisable in this practice.  In general, Google and other search engines allow websites with more links to them from other sites to appear higher in search results, considering each link as a referral for the site it links to.

Backlinks Main Benefits
The Main benefits of back links are directly related to SEO which improves your PR immensely; these changes in your popularity can be surprisingly fast. Herein lies one of the indicators that flag up on the search engines radar and draws attention. So picture the scenario; you’re a new website or blog and all of a sudden your site shows up multiple times for back links, naturally the search engines are going to be suspicious and investigate. If they find that your links have been purchased or have been produced through black hat methods, then your site will suffer appropriately and can be banned all together.
The search engines are very clever with new algorithms crawling the web to detect unfair or blackhat practices. That being said it’s not impossible; If you do purchase backlinks then it is advisable to slowly incorporate these links in a more organic way.

No Follow Rule
Google believes that a link which has been purchased or exchanged in a reciprocal manner should not benefit websites’ ranking in search results. Thus its “nofollow” rule calls on all website owners to use the “nofollow” tag when creating such links. Any website which doesn’t use the tag for a link of this type may be penalized. Some have speculated that the recent reductions in PageRank values for many websites were caused by violations of this rule.                    “Kind of defeats the purpose eh!”

Read This excellent article from SEO White Hats

The major search engine Google has a rule regarding use of the rel=”nofollow” tag/attribute in links, which has generated some controversy in recent months. The rule is intended to prevent websites from gaining better Google search result rankings by participating in link exchanges or sales. This is becoming more relevant in the recent weeks as Google recently performed an internet wide update of Page Rank (PR) and many leading directories and sites that participate in paid link advertising seem to be singled out by Google.

Excepting Third Party Ads
To keep Google happy they suggest adding the “no follow” attribute to all outbound paid/ad links. All the search engines (Yahoo, MSN) also encourage use of this attribute.  Checkout the WikiMedia description of No Follow Attribute.
I agree some nofollow paid links are fine as long as they are not “black listed” by google for being unreptuable. The easist thing to do is to check the website you will be linking to for 2 main things -

1. What is their page rank? If they are above 4, they are most likely quite reputable.

2. Do a search for” [advertiser name] google black list” or words to that effect and if your search returns information suggesting that the advertiser is not legit than be wary about promoting their links.

Alternatively, I have seen some sites that state upfront they are money making sites (a lot of MMO blogs fall in this category) and so they don’t really care about page rank and the whole nofollow is a non-issue.
The Big G is able to pick these up quite easily through all its bots. Actually, there are 100’s of programs available online that can break down all your link details including all the related attributes.
Generate your own Backlinks

It’s not that hard to generate hundreds if not thousands of one way links to your site; all you need is an appetite to write great articles. So then start submitting to multiple directories and watch your PR go up.   Google Search for Article Directories

So the message is tread with caution and do your research; Please feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks’ for reading

Related:Taming The Beast

Some web site owners are very hesitant to publish links to other sites from their own - and they might be doing themselves a disservice.

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What plugins do you use?

In this post I want to discuss WordPress plugins and narrow down which ones are essential and which of them are useful in other ways. As any self Hosted WordPress user will tell you, plugins are essential for many important parts of your blog from SEO to Statistics and a myriad of other uses. This list includes my top 20 plugins that i use regularly, at the time of writing this list I have 42 plugins and I dare say other WordPress users have a lot more; so I would love to hear about your plugins and how you rate this list.

So let’s kick off with what I use on my blog; I will start with the Essential plugins and list them in order of importance to me. Since this blog is in its infancy my recommendations may not suit everyone but I hope will help you decide which is more important to your particular blog. My goal is to stick with 20 Plugins that give me the best performance, tough job. Along the way i will toss out the dross and replace with them with the next best thing that comes along. Give me your suggestions, love to here from you.

1st All in one SEO I think most would agree without doubt the most important of all the plugins, once set up it is a powerful tool that sends your posts throughout the web. You can customise this plugin in various ways to fine tune your SEO campaign. (Update your keywords and phrases frequently and always check in with Google analytics to find out the latest trends)

2nd. Google XML Sitemaps — another essential element automatically generates your sitemap and notifies Google MSN and Ask.com. Set up just once and leave.

3rd. SEO Smart Links — Very useful plugin for linking your posts up throughout your blog by category or tags, great for SEO. Can be modified and tailored to suit your theme or subject. This also gives the reader more information on your blog without them having to go searching somewhere else.

4th. Psychic Search – Definitely useful for yourself and your visitor, this plugin gathers information on the top or most popular searches which are done on your blog and you have the choice to put these results in your sidebar for visibility. This is handy for gathering information which you can use to write more articles on or tighten up your SEO. *Requires Registration*

5th. W.P Thread Comment — Very useful for visitor interaction, simply put it lets commentators to your post speak to each other and reply specifically to any particular discussion.

6th. W.P Automatic Upgrade — Save yourself a lot of time and effort with this indispensable plugin, remember to always check in and upgrade all your plugins regularly. Very simple to use, it walks you through the whole upgrade process and backs up data.

7th. W.P Super Cache — A must for high traffic blogs (not quite there yet <;) and it keeps your blog running smoothly, check in to clear your cache every now and again depending on your traffic.

8th. W.P Stats — Must have an API Key to activate, great for snapshots and highlighting most read posts and pages visited on your blog.

9th. Subscribe to comments — Another great comments plugin that gives your visitor the ability to subscribe either by RSS or email and to be notified by email of follow up comments.

10. Commentluv – Parses the commentators last blog post, I think this is a must and would recommend this plugin to anybody who wants to grow their blog. Users are more likely to come back and comment more often.

11th. Akismet — Perhaps I should have put this plugin further up the list, never the less a very important spam management system. You can even call it Dusty Bin if you like <;

12th. BlogRush Click Maximizer — Increases your click through rate if you have a BlogRush widget on your blog, this might not be for everybody but is another source of traffic. (Early days for me) Needs to be Registered. ***RIP***

12. Max Banner Ads. Very handy plugin that places ads pretty much anywhere on your blog, I have decided to use it for the side bar widget. This is very handy if you have limited space, you can rotate 3 ads at a time which cuts down on ad blindness.

13th. DoFollow Give some link juice back to your visitors who leave comments, very simple to set up.

14. FeedBurner FeedSmith — Absolutly essential, I don’t think i need to explain much about this plugin, If your new to RSS Feeds then checkout FeedBurner.com. There are far too many options to mention in this post; check out this previous article.

15. MBP Stripe Ad — You can see this plugin in action at Pure SEO. It has many options including an ad rotator with up to 10 ads at a time; you can also change the font couler or size to blend in with your WordPress theme. *Registration Required*

16th. Add to Any Subscribe Button — Lots of these available always handy and you never know somebody might actually use it (Hint_<;)

17th. Twit This adds a small twitter icon after each post, This social network micro platform is gaining huge popularity, so that’s why I have included it on my blog. ***Sticking with the Add to one for all button***

17. RSS FOOTER ,, You can place a custom message at the foot of your RSS feed, so it’s a good idea to give some thought as to which message you want to promote about your blog, perhaps a notice about your newsletter ect.

18th. Top Commentators Widget — Involving your visitors and encouraging them to post comments regularly to your articles gives them that stickiness, and hopefully brings them back to your blog more often. I am a great believer in connecting with likeminded people and like to reward input as much as I can.

19th. WWSGD (What would Seth Godin Do) Good for welcoming your visitors with your own custom message with a gentle reminder to subscribe to your RSS feed. Just started using this plugin, so I will see if I like it in the coming months, I suppose it comes down to personal preferences. **Replaced with Referrer Detector**

19. WP Super Edit is a WordPress plugin designed to give some control over the visual / wysiwyg editor and add some functionality without modifying the WordPress source code.

20th. Template WordPress Widget — This is just a shameless plug for a great affiliate program that I am part of at the moment, you can find out more on Template Buzz. This plugin can be set to show snapshots horizontally or vertically and with or without prices. ***no longer in use*** 01/12/08

20th.From Daily Blog Tips
Many bloggers and website owners like to greet visitors coming from specific websites with a tailored message. There are many plugins that will make this for you on WordPress, but a cool one that I came across recently is called Referrer Detector.

“I agree this is a niffty little plugin and i have started using it in place of (WSGS) Thanks for the Tip”

So that’s my top 20 WordPress Plugins; I dare say I have missed one or two so let me know which ones you would include. This list will undoubtedly change in the coming months as I streamline and configure my blog. Although this list is primarily for WordPress Plugins I also make use of other applications like Zementa and Kaalga which I am beginning to see more and more value from. Any application that helps you to be more productive is alright in my books. Here is another great list from Quick onine tips

One for another list; Need a Favicon for your blog? Click here to get your own identity.

Update 30/10/2008 : Amazon Rocks My Boat

Image via Wikipedia

Well some of the top marketers make it look easy don’t they, but one of the main attributes to this success is just plain old hard work. It all depends on your work ethic and attitude and what methods you use. So with this in mind let’s look at some of the options available.

Affiliate and SEO Tactics

First and foremost we begin by searching for the product to sell; there are a few choices that you can use like ClickBank, Paydot.com or RegSoft, these are all loaded with thousands of digital products. Make your choice with careful consideration, for this example we want to find a more *niche* orientated product. Once you have made your choice join the affiliate program and check to see what promotional materials are available.

SEO
So you have your product, next comes the SEO which is probably the most important element in the whole process. A good idea is to set the domain name to match your product with the magic word FREE; example: (yourproductforfree.com). You can see what an impact this process makes in the search page itself. People who land on this search page are more likely to click your ad than say a sponsored one. If you look for products that *aren’t as popular* you have a better chance of ranking higher for that product with little competition. Do a bit of research on your keywords with Google keywords tool, put in your exact phrase to see what the competition is like. You will want to see low search results for your exact keywords or phrases to make your campaign more feasible.

Point to remember, make sure your product offers a free version; obviously you will make your commissions when a customer upgrades.

Promotion
You can use a variety of banners and text ads to display on your own sites, blogs, lenses and Hubs.

Do email campaigns, safelist mass-submitter; if you don’t have a list then use a safelist. If you’re not sure what a safe list is then check out this previous post (Do you need a Safelist). Turn out some articles and posts to review the product then submit them to article directory’s’. Do a press release pointing out all of the benefits about the product. Join two or three forums and find a relevant thread that matches your product; spend a little time on generating a good signature box for your bio. Give some thought to the right identity when joining forums; try to be consistent with your brand and U.S.P (unique selling point).

It’s a good idea to use all the power and flexibility of the social networks especially the likes of StumbleUpon and Digg, but also MyBlogLog or FaceBook, look for high traffic networks, do some research on this.

At this point i would mix it up a bit and set up my own minisite to get maximum exposure . If this is beyond your experience don’t worry there are plenty of free ways that you can utilise mini sites by picking the right affiliate program which can help you to set it all up.

Another great resource for your promotions is Squidoo and Hub Pages theses are especially useful, make sure you surf around your category and leave comments on other lenses and Hubs to generate links back to your product. Of course find some popular Blogs like Problogger and CopyBlogger to drop some more comments; these popular blogs have huge traffic. Make good meaningful comments, don’t just leave a one liner, put some thought into it, you’d be surprised on how many bloggers click through your link if they find it interesting.

If you have some cash to spare then i would highly recommend running an ad campaign through the likes of Google Adsense or Yahoo. To give you an idea of a search page, type in *free.com* you will see some examples and variations of the word FREE in the URL and ad body content.

So to sum up the three main areas
Find your niche product
Research your keywords and phrases
Promote through multiple ways

It may seem a lot of hard work but the rewards can more than compensate, stick to your task and never waver, be prepared to change tactics if needed. Keep track of your responses and analyse your traffic and sales. Good luck and prosper.

Reccommended resources Affliate Web 2.0

Just read your very interesting post on the do follow pluggin from WordPress and I think it is a useful addon for new blogs especially for non techies like myself,uploading the pluggin is a breeze and WordPress being WordPress makes it very easy to activate. There might be some filtering to do as time goes by so I will keep an eye out and see if it slots in. But overall its great for linking traffic which can only be good for everybody.I do have Firefox as well as IE but prefer to use IE as i can just hit the write to blog button for instant replies.

Thanks again for the tip : keep up the good work

Regards Bill Masson :

How To Use Pingback & Trackback

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Grab a look at this Q & A session from Jason Lee Miller and Matt Cutts with Maile Oyhe, some revealing insights from the big G.

Recently, during a live chat Q&A, Googlers Matt Cutts and Maile Ohye, among others, faced the burning questions of webmasters around the world. Together, they put to rest some fears and myths, and confirmed some speculations.

Great post,
It’s all a matter of interpreting Google’s stance, which in its self is a challenge. The article question was fairly revealing and makes sense, this mass submission idea is unworkable today. Picking out key well known article directories and submitting quality materiel is the preferred action.
On the question of does the age of a website have an effect on the sites Page Rank; Ohye’s answer was not really decisive enough for me. It does give more weight and hope for new websites and blogs, and from what i can gather enforces to some degree the importance of trust and credibility for older domains.

“How about that Google made 450 tweaks to its algorithm last year?”

Not really surprising news, it’s like a game of cat and mouse, Google of cousre being the big bad Cat. (-:

Keywords & Ad Copy; PPC and selling your Business

Just to shift the focus onto a different subject, here is another post on SEO but more particularly about the actual tools that we use whether they are free or premium. I suppose this post is in part, a response to an article from Problogger that I read the other day, Daren Rowse writing about his recent visit to the Blog World Expo where he met Shoemoneys’ Jeremy Schoemaker and was lucky enough to receive a free account, (Yes all right I believe you Darren; ((“I don’t do a lot of PPC (in fact I’ve not done any for 9 months or more”)) Darren’s words not mine))  The PPC Tools that have been developed by Shoemoney are quite extensive and i wanted to draw some attention towards other solutions that are freely available as well as giving my own views.
First of all here is a condensed list of what’s available through Shoemoney, by all means pop over and have a look for yourself, you will need to register. And the list is somewhat more revealing, but that’s the point it’s only a list, and of course the obligatory video presentation. I can’t help feeling that I would have preferred to have a trial run before I got out my wallet, but hey that’s salesmanship for you.
There is an impressive list of referrers with a lot of letters and certificates after their names; all together very polished, too much for my liking.

===============================================================
Brief List of Shoemoney’s PPC app’s
SEO Tools   : Backlink Analyzer Domain - Marketplace- Find Backlinks- Keyword Density Tool- Keyword Tracker -Most Linked- Text Optimizer-PPC Tools : Ad Generator- Ad Manager- Instant PPC Builder- Keyword Generator- Keyword Grabber- Keyword Manager- Local Keyword Generator- Local Trademark Bidding Tool- PPC Keywords-  Local Search, enter zip-PPC local brand tool
Link Building Tools-Backlink Analyzer-Find Backlinks-Most Linked-Related Blog Posts
===============================================================
If you have a promotion coupon like “problogger” it will cost you $20.00 for your first month, then after that it will cost you $100 a month “ouch” no thanks guys. Now I am not knocking Shoemoney but I think this service is a bit on the pricey side and not in a lot of people’s budget, I mean that’s $1200 a year which is probably beyond a whole bunch of online marketers or business for that matter. Now I suppose it all depends on your own circumstances and just how serious you are about getting to the top of the search engines with your PPC campaign. But I have to say that there are a lot of other alternatives out there that don’t charge anything like a $100 per month, sure there are some that actually charge more. If you check out my main website at MaxHomeBits.com you will notice that I promote WEB CEO, now apart from getting commissions for sales, I feel it’s important to point out that the free version has many useful features that you can utilise, below is a sample of what you can do with the free version.

Increase Your Link Popularity by Finding Link Partners

Manage Your PPC Campaigns with Paid Engines’ Services

Analyze Trends In Search Engine Rankings

Improve Your Rankings by Analyzing Backward Links

HitLens Web Analytics and ROI Improvement Service (15 Day Trial)

Upload Your Optimized Pages

Monitor If Your Websites are Up and Running (Upgrades available)

Submit Sites and Pages to Search Engines and Directories

Quick competition overview in the built-in browser

Unlimited Keyword Mining from your competitors’ pages thru the ‘Get Suggestions’ tab

Unlimited Number of Web and Local Pages to Analyze

Plain English Advice for General Search Engine Compliance

Analysis of External (Off-Page) Ranking Factors (Links, Site Theme, Google

PR, Alexa TR, Backlinks’ Themes)

Keyword Density Analysis for General Search Engine Compliance

Analyze Your Pages vs. Competition

Analyze and Edit Critical SEO Parameters (Frequency, Prominence Weight) in Important Page Areas

Easy Edit and Access Important Meta Tags

Change Meta Tags on Multiple Pages at One Go

Easy Edit and Access to Page Areas Important for SEO (Page Title, Headings, Alt tags, etc)

Replace Text or Tags in Multiple Pages

Robots.txt Editor for Your Robots File

Xml, Txt, Html and ROR Sitemap Generation, Pages in the Sitemap

As you can see its quite a comprehensive list of SEO functions and to tell you the truth I haven’t used every one of these functions yet, there are so many of them. Web SEO might not be for everybody and the software does take a bit of time to get used to, but a very powerful tool it is none the less. You will also find several other free tools on MaxHomeBits which are very useful and are all available completely free.

Here are the only two sources that I use on a regular basis on the net.
Search Engine Land All the latest trends discussed by Industry experts
SEO Chat A more comprehensive selection of SEO tools you will ever find
Along with these two resources I use WEB CEO on my desktop which keeps all my information backed up and organised. So you be the judge and let me know what you feel about SEO and more particularly PPC. Whether you do it yourself or hire a company to do it for you one thing’s for sure you can’t do without it!

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your Search Engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high Search Engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective Search Engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your Search Engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most Search Engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a Search Engine’s index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a Search Engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your Search Engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, the largest and most important Search Engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. So never, never employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the Search Engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company’s track record of results. However, don’t take the company’s word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of Search Engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch.

You can access this at
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes” will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords.

Check out the software Wordtracker, available at http://www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual Search Engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different Search Engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular Search Engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out Search Engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company’s results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their Search Engine optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful Search Engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular Search Engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the Search Engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular Search Engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: Search Engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your Search Engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that Search Engine rankings drop.

Since Search Engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your Search Engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular Search Engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small Search Engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular Search Engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular Search Engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your Search Engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a Search Engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don’t take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a Search Engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both Search Engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the Search Engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

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