Website Traffic Articles

Everyone wants to have a lot of traffic to their website. In order to get this traffic many people try to work on their Meta tags or even do tricks trying to get more visitors to their website. One of the simplest and most solid ways to increase the flow of traffic to your website is to offer more content. It has often been said that on the Internet, content is king. It is important to understand how more content can bring more visitors to your site and how to generate content that is related to your particular web site.

Why do you need more content?

Many websites are actually company brochures that have been adapted to the web. They merely describe a bit about the company or service and then add some contact information. Such websites usually have about 5-10 separate html files. If these pages have a good amount of text it is possible to optimize them for several keywords and web surfers may find the site.

However, if these sites are in highly competitive fields then it may be difficult to build a decent amount of traffic because search engines try to find the most important web sites that can answer a search query. Search engine robots look for keywords in the meta tags and in the text on the pages to determine what the site is all about. However the search engines also look at the links on the various pages. If your main page is about bicycles, for example, and you have links to other pages on your site relating to the same theme, perhaps, racing bicycles, mountain bicycles etc. then the search engine will conclude that the site is about bicycles, and if you have a lot of pages on this theme, your site should rank higher than someone with a company brochure site of a few pages.

In addition, as I have pointed out in a previous article each page, with its content on your particular theme, stands out alone as a mini website in itself and may come up in searches on the Internet. Thus people will often enter your site through the side or back doors and not the main page. The more pages you have the more chances of being found in searches, and the more different keywords you can optimize your site for.

So, by building a content rich site on a particular theme, you will boost the chances of your main page to come up in searches and you will increase the likelihood of overall traffic through your other pages coming up in good positions in Internet keyword searches. In addition to this, the more content you have the more respect your page gets from human-edited directories (such as dmoz -Open Directory Project), and other webmasters. If you have quality content then you swill gets more link requests, requests for permission to reprint your articles in ezines, more links to specific pages on your site. All of this will result in more traffic.

How to build more content?

Depending on the type of products or services you are offering, there are several ways to build quality content for your site. Here are a few examples:

Product Reviews- If you are selling other peoples products, through an affiliate system, rather than just listing a link to the product, you can write a full review of the product, explaining how the product helped you and what are its strengths and weaknesses. This kind of content actually pre-sells the product, as well as being interesting reading in itself. If you have your own products you could give background information on it or get satisfied customers or users to write the reviews.

Background information- Every product or service exists in some kind of context. Suppose you have a hotel in a particular city. Instead of only listing information about your hotel, you could give some pages about the history of the city where the hotel is located or information about popular tourist attractions in that area. The possibilities are enormous.

Questions and Answers- Let your web visitors help you in the process of content creation. Start a questions and answers section on your website or in your electronic newsletter. Not only will you get insight into what your clientele is thinking, but by answering these questions you will generate useful content for your site and for your newsletters.

Bulletin Board Forums- Your web visitors can also directly write the content on your site through a bulletin board. Some bulletin boards are searchable by search engine robots, while others are not. If you have good content on the bulletin board you can also re-publish it on the main sections of your website to insure inclusion in the search engines.

Articles by others- There are no need to recreate the wheel or spend a lot of time writing, if that is not your cup of tea! You can also publish the articles of other people. There is a lot of quality content that is available free of charge. While you usually have to provide a link back to the author of the article, this is a small price to pay considering that some of these articles may pull in tons of traffic.

By Donald Nelson

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Web Traffic Analytics, Redundancy, Analytics, and You So, you’ve got a web site, right?

Of course you do! You’re reading this article. All day long it sits on a server, sending what you told it to people you’ll never meet. Who are they? Where are they come from? How do they get there? What do they do while they’re there? When are they doing it? Where do they go? In the paragraphs that follow, I’ll help you find more than you ever wanted to know about your web site between the various tools on the market.

The Webalizer

The Webalizer is by far the most common statistics software found in Linux web hosting environments, so we’ll start here to lay down the most common features. Webalizer shows its users the total number of hits, files, page views, unique visitors, and unique locations in monthly, daily, and hourly graphs and tables.Webalizer then keeps running monthly totals for error codes, URL’s accessed, entry pages, exit pages, unique sites, referrers, web browsers, and search strings used to reach the web site – also providing a “top 10″ to “top 30″ representation of each angle in a text format. Finally, Webalizer peaks your international awareness by display of a table and pie chart of your visitor’s nation of origin; although this tool is not always completely reliable as the nation of origin is frequently unresolved.

Advanced Web Statistics (a.k.a. AW Stats)

AW Stats is another fairly popular host-based tool; although a bit less common due to the heavy system resources required by the web server to generate its far more elaborate statistics. Stats generated by AW Stats are far more colorful, graphical, and easier to follow; with common browsers, search engines, and spiders names translated to plain language.AW Stats adds functionality where Webalizer leaves off by providing the duration visitors spend on each page, summation of the types of files sent out, and fully expandable lists of all values instead of ‘top 10s’. In my own experience, when run alongside Webalizer, AW Stats has a tendency to recognize significantly more search strings.

Analog 6.0 Statistics

Analog is another host-based option with a very pure “hands on” look and feel, and a simple layout delivering a lot of raw data. Although it produces less interpreted and really less overall information than AWStats, it provides a very useful array of visual aids through pie charts for all the important numbers, unseen in other tools, and a very nice angle to have on your site.

Google Analytics (formerly Urchin)

When I sat down to write this article, I’d placed a lot of intent on reviewing Urchin in my comparisons (a comparable tool to AW Stats that’s remotely hosted and updated through JavaScript). After going to get the latest version to track down information, I was devastated to find that Google has stopped making Urchin available outside of exclusive invites, and apparently intends to release something for free by this new name eventually. All I can say is – keep an eye out for this, it’s got potential to be pretty neat.

ClickTracks

ClickTracks is a very unique tool that any webmaster can install themselves using either a host’s raw log files or JavaScript to pull needed information. ClickTracks provides one simple but valuable piece of information – the paths your visitors are clicking through. When used, a ClickTracks report appears as on overlay on your website, placing graphs next to each link – and starting from the referring page, shows you statistically the paths that visitors from each referring site took through your web site.

NetTracker

NetTracker is a pricey solution, but fairly popular amongst internet marketers. Although I’ve not pursued it beyond the free trial, I know enough to outline a few perks. Above all else, the product is backed by both marketing and IT professionals – giving this solution the credentials necessary for enterprise level usage. Although I was unable to find any powerfully unique features in the NetTracker trial – the company behind the software is willing to customize its solution to meet whatever feasible needs would still not be met by any options above, so if you’re looking for something still not mentioned, this could be the place to look. Conclusively, these are only a few examples in the vastness of traffic analytics, but collectively, this list does well to cover all bases with a minimal amount of redundancy. It’s possible that one of these tools will meet your needs alone, a certain combination, or even all of them, but whatever the case choose wisely – and you will have the power to shape your web site as it needs to be.

About the Author

Corey Northcutt works with Ubiquity Hosting Solutions, where he derives direct analytics experience through providing AWStats web hosting, Webalizer, Analog, raw logfiles, and other analytical tools to supported hosting clients.

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One of the best ways to improve your Web site marketing is to analyze the existing traffic to your Web site. Until you understand who is coming and why, it’ll be difficult to improve. There four ways to analyze Web site traffic:

*Install a counter on your Web page
*Use your ISP’s statistical package
*Purchase Web traffic analysis software
*Employ an outside firm to audit your Web traffic

We’ll look briefly at the first three options

*Install a counter on your Web page

A counter announces to everyone one who visits, “You are the 107th person to visit Aquatic Aerodrome Ltd.” Of course, you could tweak the odometer so it says, “You are the 100,007th person to visit Aquatic Aerodrome Ltd.” Either way, a counter isn’t very professional. You don’t want people to be embarrassed for you, nor do you want them to think you’re a liar. There are ways to put the counter where only you can see it, not the world at large, but there are much better ways to count visitors.

*Use your ISP’s statistical package

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) keeps log files which record every single “hit” (request for a Web page or graphic) on your Web site. This is a sample of a raw access log file entry in NCSA combined log file format:

cache.is.co.za – - [18/Oct/1996:02:49:22 -0700] “GET /articles/bannerad.htm HTTP/1.0″ 200 9657
“http://www.ca-probate.com/comm_net.htm” “Mozilla/3.0 (Win95; I) via Squid Cache version 1.0.17″

Here you see a Web surfer from a domain in South Africa (that is what the .za stands for), who requested (GET) a Web page (/articles/bannerad.htm – in this case, my article “Using Banner Ads to Promote Your Web Site”) on October 18. He was referred to my Web page from a link on a California Estate Planning Web page (http://www.ca-probate.com/comm_net.htm) which had linked to this article. He used a Netscape 3.0 Web browser (“Mozilla” was an early name for what became the Netscape browser) on a Windows 95 platform.While it doesn’t give you someone’s actual e-mail address (the domain name is as close as you get), the log file tells you a great deal about how people are getting to your Web site, and what they find when they get there.Your ISP is quite likely to have installed a freeware version of a popular statistical analysis package. Your ISP can program his computer so it will produce a report daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Statistics on your Web site may be posted on a Web page, or perhaps e-mailed to you. Contact your ISP and ask how to access system statistics. If statistics are not available, ask “Why not?” Insist. Business-friendly ISPs offer this service free of charge to their customers; others try to bill you for it, while smiling broadly.

Here’s some of the information that the Analog program reports about my Web site:

Analysed requests from Mon-21-Oct-1996 02:06 to Mon-28-Oct-1996 02:05 (7.0 days).

Number of new hosts served in last 7 days: 5 843Total data transferred: 522 446 kbytes
Average data transferred per day: 75 635 kbytes

Let’s look more carefully. All in all there were 94 thousand “hits” recorded for that week. But wait a moment: a “hit” is any request for a file or graphic. Since each page has several graphics, this can be misleading. Then again, the visitor may look at several Web pages on a visit. So a much more important statistic is the 5,870 “distinct hosts served,” indicating that I had approximately 5,870 different visitors that week. I say approximately, since if a person came back a second time that week, they would probably be recorded as a different entity, but this gives us a pretty good idea.Finally, you see that about 75 MB of data is downloaded every day — Web pages as well as graphics. Depending upon how much your ISP charges for “traffic” (the total amount of downloads per day or per month), this figure can have important monetary implications for you. What’s next? Analog tells me that I get the most visitors around noon and the least about 2 am, that the frequency of visitors is least on Saturday and Sunday, and most on Tuesday. (Not very vital, I suppose.) I am always fascinated by the Domain Report, though it doesn’t have a lot to do with marketing strategy. The report lists data in four columns: percent of total requests, percent of total bytes downloaded, number of kilobytes downloaded, and number of requests. First off you can see that nearly 20% of the visitors used a numerical domain address (the IP number of their ISP’s computer), and 30% of the domains ended in “dot com”. The rest are from all over the world.

%reqs: %bytes: kbytes: #reqs: domain
—— —— —— —– ——
19.86%: 19.84%: 103654: 18790: [unresolved numerical addresses]
00.06%: 00.05%: 273: 58: .at (Austria)
03.15%: 03.43%: 17908: 2982: .au (Australia)
00.12%: 00.13%: 673: 115: .be (Belgium)
03.16%: 03.42%: 17864: 2988: .ca (Canada)
00.20%: 00.18%: 919: 185: .ch (Switzerland)
00.01%: 00.02%: 81: 12: .cn (China)
00.01%: 00.01%: 51: 8: .co (Colombia)
30.68%: 29.56%: 154423: 29029: .com (Commercial (mainly USA))

Don’t tell me that the Internet doesn’t promote a global marketplace!
The Host Report is next. Here are the first few, from Austria and Australia:
%reqs: %bytes: kbytes: #reqs: host
—— —— —— —– —-
0.01%: 0.01%: 41: 11: buddy.wu-wien.ac.at
0.02%: 0.01%: 66: 17: www.compass.co.at
0.01%: 0.01%: 63: 11: ibmvie.ibm.co.at
0.02%: 0.02%: 86: 17: junisoft.co.at
0.05%: 0.04%: 228: 51: logic10.allogic.com.au
0.02%: 0.02%: 96: 15: modem001.ts.comcen.com.au
0.02%: 0.01%: 77: 15: modem009.ts.comcen.com.au

With 5,800 “distinct hosts,” this goes on for page after page. Let’s say you wanted to see if your competitor was studying your Web site. You’d look for his domain name (unless he’s using only his IP number to disguise his presence).

A Browser Report reveals that fully 95% of the visitors to my Web site that week used some version of a Netscape browser. The next most popular browser was Mosaic with half a percent. Microsoft Internet Explorer came in with about a quarter of one percent, followed by the American Online browser. Guess which browsers I take most seriously in designing Web sites.

The Request Report, however, is the most helpful of all. It tells exactly how many requests or “hits” were made for each Web page, cgi program, and image file. For example, here is the report on various articles from my Web site:

0.07%: 0.06%: 323: 64: /articles/
0.70%: 3.23%: 16874: 664: /articles/12design.htm
0.31%: 0.54%: 2827: 298: /articles/attract.htm
0.24%: 0.36%: 1858: 230: /articles/bannerad.htm
0.01%: 0.02%: 81: 12: /articles/branchoffice.htm
0.08%: 0.10%: 540: 79: /articles/compete.htm
0.03%: 0.04%: 217: 29: /articles/domain.htm

My most popular article, “12 Web Page Design Decisions your Organization or Business Will Need to Make,” was requested 664 times that week, while “Billboard or Branch Office?” had only 12 requests. Why? If I knew the answer I might learn how to increase hits on many Web pages. Unfortunately, tools like Analog only allow me to speculate. To get better answers I would need to purchase special software.

Purchase Web Traffic Analysis Software
In the past six months a whole new genre of software has been produced which provides detailed analysis of Web traffic right on your desktop computer. To perform an analysis, you download the access logs from your ISP’s computer via FTP to your own hard disk. (Ask your ISP in what directory your log files can be found.) The analysis software will typically “parse” or interpret the raw log file line by line, and place the various elements into separate fields in a relational database.

Perhaps I’ll find some clues to why “12 Decisions” gets so many hits. I load up the 30-day evaluation version of Intersé Webmarket Focus 2 and begin to play. Whee! All sorts of analyses are available with the ability to filter information for any single Web page, surfer domain name, referral source, etc. I do a traffic analysis for my “12 Decisions” page to see which are the main Web sites which refer surfers to that article.

*Yahoo’s Web design and layout category, 23% (31% total from Yahoo)
*Infoseek, 4.5%

Not a complete answer perhaps, but helpful. I also learned that 51% of the people who visit my Web Marketing Info Center come from Infoseek search engine. Interesting. I also learned that American Online subscribers made up the largest single group of visitors to my Web site (5.6%, though nearly all used the Netscape browser), a clue to some of the customers I need to cater to.

While large corporations can spend $5,000 or more for high end solutions, several software packages — with varying degrees of power — may be within reach of the smaller serious Webmarketer:

*Market Focus 2 (standard edition) from Intersé, $695. An excellent product!
*net.Analysis Desktop 1.1a from net.Genesis, introductory price, $295
*WebTrends 2.1 from e.g. Software, $299

So why are Web traffic statistics important? you ask, after enduring a rather technical explanation. Just this: they make you a much more savvy marketer by telling you:

*Which Web pages are most popular, which are least used
*Who is visiting your Web site
*Which Web browsers to optimize your Web pages for
*Which Web search engines are most useful to you, and which are the least useful
*Which banner ads are bringing the most visitors
*Where errors or bad links may be occurring in your Web pages

In short, traffic analysis allows you to ask questions which help you fine-tune your Web marketing strategy. Web marketing without statistical analysis is like learning to drive blindfolded. At best, ineffective, at worst, dangerous.

Author
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Web Marketing Today

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People who are trying to create successful internet marketing plans often ask themselves, “How can I increase my website traffic?” This question can be a bit frustrating, especially for people who are not familiar with how the search engines operate and are therefore unable to secure top placement with keyword phrases. People who are hoping to gain more web traffic through the incorporation of keywords can avoid the frustration others have experienced by following these 3 simple rules:

1. Consider Your Users

The very first thing you should do when developing keyword phrases to get web traffic is to think like your users. You should make a list of words you believe your users would use to find your website. For example, let’s say you own a furniture store in Miami and that you want to market your products online. Try to imagine that you are your potential customer. What keywords would you use to find your store?

Chances are you would use keyword phrases like “furniture store” or “Miami furniture store”. While these keyword phrases are a good beginning, you will want to be more detailed. Make a list of all the keywords that come to mind and then expand upon your phrases. Instead of using the word “store”, be creative and use similar words like “shop” or “retailer”. Instead of just using the word “furniture”, be specific on the type of product you sell and use phrases like “leather couch” and “dining room table”. Also, if you sell brand names, specify it by using a keyword phrase such as “Bosch kitchen appliances”.

You can effectively increase website hits by simply expanding on your keyword phrases. Additionally, by being more specific with your keywords, you will have a keen advantage over your competitors who may be targeting generic search terms.

2. Target a Specific Geographic Location

This is a very simple tip that will help you immensely as you try to increase web traffic. As you are developing your keyword phrases, remember to include the location of your business. If you live in a very populous city, make a list of the specific regions you service. For instance, if your business is in Los Angeles, think on a smaller scale and list areas like: West Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Fernando Valley or Mid-Wilshire. Using the furniture store example, simply append the geographic location and utilize keyword phrases such as “West Los Angeles furniture store” or “Santa Monica kitchen appliances.”

3. Think 4 Words

Research shows that the most effective keyword phrases consist of 4 words. In fact, in a recent study by One up web, it was revealed that higher conversion rates stem from longer keyword phrases . The firm discovered that websites conversion rates increased based upon the length of the keyword phrase being used, but ultimately peaked at 4 words. It is also known that users who type in 1-2 keywords tend to browse through the search results, whereas users who search for 4 keywords are more serious about their inquiry and will be more likely to click on natural listings. When you are developing your keyword phrases, you should stick to four specific words that identify your line of business, your product and the areas you service.

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Are you planning to become an SEO expert? Perhaps you are simply trying to understand and appreciate the multitude nuances of search engine optimization so that you can promote your website on the search engines. In order for you to do so, you will need a working knowledge of the various terms and key phrases that are specific to search engine optimization or SEO.

Algorithm: An algorithm is an exceptionally well guarded secret formula much like the formula of Coke or Pepsi which tells the search engine indexing system how to behave and rank websites when a website is being indexed. It is the axis around which the cat-and-mouse game between SEOs and the search engines takes place in a ceaseless guessing game frenzy.

Anchor text: This is the text your site visitors will click when they wish to explore a link on your web page. Anchor text can also link to an external web page. Anchor text should always bear some relevance to the page to which it is linking and should use descriptive terms instead of saying “click here for more information.”

Content network: An Internet content network is a group of websites that have agreed to display advertising on their web pages for a fee. This is usually sponsored and coordinated by the major search engines. Examples include Google AdSense, Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) and Microsoft MSN Ad Center.

Contextual advertising: In this form of advertising, clickable advertisements are served based on an intuitive understanding of the content on the web page on which these advertisements appear. For example, a page on golf will display only companies which deal in golf equipment or golf shirts. The three ad networks mentioned above all use contextual advertising to generate targeted traffic to the websites of their advertisers.

Geo-targeting: These advertisements are exclusive to the geographic location of the site visitor visiting the search engine and looking for either a product or a service. This facility permits advertisers to indicate where advertisements will appear in accordance with the searcher’s geographic location. For example, if a searcher in Los Angeles types “health spa” in Google, sponsored advertising under the Google AdWords program will feature mainly those health spas which have opted for local display.

Please visit the next part in this series for more definitions of interesting and illusive SEO and SEM terms as you slowly but steadily proceed to your next website optimization milestone.

Resource Box

James Thill is the Vice President of Business Development at Blue SEO, a Los Angeles based search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) company which believes that an educated client is a long-term client. Visit him at: www.blueseolosangeles.com for more informative articles and resources on search engine optimization and Internet marketing.

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Web Hosting SEO and the New Paradigm

Part Six: The Perfect Combination of HTML and CSS

The KISS Adage

”Keep it Sweet and Simple”… That is the magic mantra when it comes to your web site design. You will probably be given the choice of using one of many scripting and markup languages by your web design team. However, your audience for your web site is two-pronged—your site visitors and the search engine spiders.

In order for the search engines to properly index your web site and perform what is called a “deep crawl,” the edifice needs to be barrier-free. These considerations will help you to generate organic and targeted traffic to your web site and significantly increase your web site traffic.

Valid HTML Code and Search Engine Optimization

HTML is known widely for its simplicity and SEO-friendly attributes. In order for the search engine search bots to effectively catalog the contents of your web site—a process also referred to as parsing—the HTML code needs to be clean, error-free and structured logically. Simply choosing HTML as your preferred scripting language is not enough. It needs to be qualitatively superior in order to support not only quick but also periodic search engine crawls. Standards compliant valid HTML code is crucial to timely indexing by the search engines. The most effective way to address HTML-related issues is by running your code through the W3C HTML Validator, a free HTML resource available from a variety of sources including the W3C web site

HTML Tags and SEO Performance

You should pay special attention to the presence of well-crafted HTML tags not only on your home page but on each one of your pages. Lately, this aspect of search engine optimization has been receiving some press and leading us to believe that HTML tags are no longer as important as they used to be. We recommend that you embed all the necessary HTML tags, also known as meta data, into your web pages. Search engine algorithms tend to shift periodically and the presence of HTML meta data on your web pages will never prove detrimental. Like men’s fashions the pendulum swings eternally and what is not in fashion today on your web site may well be in vogue tomorrow.

Cascading Style Sheets and SEO

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is a control file that both sets and controls several on-page elements such as overall visual appearance, font size, font color and tables on a web page. The single most distinct advantage of using CSS is that it reduces file size and thus favorably impacts the page loading factor on your site. CSS is known to improve readability and helps to enhance page appeal both to site visitors as well as search engine search bots. The best way to generate maximum mileage from your CSS is to store your CSS instruction set as an external file on your web hosting server and link all the applicable web pages to your CSS file. This will enable to organize your content logically, maintain consistency and implement wild card modifications to your web pages without having to intervene into each page individually. Moreover, using CSS correctly moves your content to the top of your web page. As a result, the search bot indexes more of your content and not your code.

Welcome Mat for Search Engine Spiders

Search engines deploy “top down” logic when they index your web pages to be featured in search engine results. For them, clean code which is used to support page content, is their focus unlike your site visitors for whom visual appeal is paramount. Strive to provide the search engines with a favorable indexing environment and watch your page position soar dramatically.

About the Author

Naveen Kapur is a senior SEO and SEM consultant with more than ten years of core experience in multimedia and graphic design, website optimization and Internet marketing. He helps organizations achieve their corporate objectives by building an online presence on the Internet.

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Web Hosting SEO and the New Paradigm
Part Five: Joomla All the Way

In our ongoing series of special reports on how your web hosting decisions tend to influence your web site’s standing in the results of the search engines, we now shift focus from the back end to the front end to tell you why using a powerful content management system (CMs) like Joomla is not only good for SEO but also well-suited to your underlying mission to increase targeted web traffic to your site.

What is Joomla?

Has your web hosting company told you about Joomla? Probably not. This is because it is not their place to recommend content management systems or to get involved with either your front end or your user interface. Moreover, since Joomla is an open source CMS which essentially means that it is a community-based initiative reflecting both the individual and combined efforts of millions of highly qualified developers, consultants and users, there is no commercial model to support advertising initiatives. Like Wikipedia, Open Office and generic Linux, Joomla has arrived at the forefront of web-based content management systems because of sheer power, functionality and a small dose of goodwill. You could visit http://joomla.org to learn more about Joomla and its bewildering features, functionality and attributes. Remember, Microsoft won’t send you a bill to visit the site or to download Joomla!

Ten Reasons why you should Build your Web site in Joomla

• Extremely easy to download, install and implement

• 100,000 developers and forums standing by to help you

• Available in forty languages

• Search engine friendly to the max

• Thousands of templates, themes and demos available

• Endless applications including personal pages, e-commerce sites, newsletters, blot-style web sites, information portals and e-learning and content-rich applications

• Robust CMS with version upgrades announced regularly

• Seamless integration with practically every critical web component including web analytics

• Fully compatible with e-commerce and SSL security standards

• Ideal for video streaming and pod casting applications

SEO-Friendly Attributes of Joomla

Joomla is intuitively SEO-friendly in that no matter which search engine optimization approach you pursue– strategic, tactical or conventional– Joomla will support it. The major search engines can index a Joomla site with great ease as long as the Site Map is in place and the internal linking structure is in order. The meta data management features of Joomla are also both user-friendly and SEO friendly. Joomla is configured to generate many of the meta tags such as the meta title tag and ensure proper placement.

If you are planning to launch a new web site, Joomla just might be the platform of choice for you.

For Joomla Website Hosting you can visit Host Gator

About the Author

Naveen Kapur is a senior SEO and SEM consultant with more than ten years of core experience in multimedia and graphic design, website optimization and Internet marketing. He helps organizations achieve their corporate objectives by building an online presence on the Internet.

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Web Hosting SEO and the New Paradigm

Part 4: Banned IP and More

After having presented a basic consideration of the role of dedicated IP addresses in the SEO equation, we will revisit the subject of IP addresses in an entirely different and yet critical context. The practice of banning IP addresses has been adopted by many web masters, forum administrators and discussion list moderators alike and has been gaining momentum as a part of their overall effort to maintain decorum and order.

You can probably live with it. However, what happens if a major search engine bans your IP address? The consequences can be disastrous and near-fatal especially if your web site is your only way of generating income and monetizing your Internet investment.

Why do Search Engines Ban IP Addresses

The reasons why the search engines ban IP addresses aren’t few and far between. The end result, however, is that your web site ceases to be featured in the results pages of the search engines. Some of the reasons why the search engines take such drastic measures are as follows:

*Using unethical SEO techniques to gain prominence on the result pages also known as Black Hat SEO
*Pursuing fraudulent, illegal or criminal activity through the use of your web site
*Spreading malice and hatred specially of an ethnic or racial nature
*Spamming other web sites
*Using e-mail to spam the Inboxes of search engine mailing services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail
*Violating international and national statutes and policies that govern Internet usage and support fair use and best practices
*Using bots and automated tools that hamper the stability and performance of the search engines

Banned for No Fault of Yours

When you acquire a dedicated IP address from your web hosting company, there is always a remote possibility that the IP address was abandoned by the previous owner for reasons that were not too complimentary and were perhaps less than honorable. The IP address could also be on a Watch List for past dubious behavior. It is precisely for this reason that you should thoroughly research your dedicated IP address prior to paying for it. Conduct a frank and open discussion with your web hosting company prior to acquiring the dedicated IP address. If you happen to find that the web hosting company isn’t too forthcoming, take your business elsewhere. Remember, it is a buyer’s market out there and you are under no obligation to purchase something without being fully convinced.

Researching and Monitoring your Dedicated IP address

Monitoring your IP address is not a one-time affair but an ongoing activity. There are a number of tools and services on the Internet which can help you to do so. For instance, you can visit the following web sites to check the status of the IP address just in case it has been black listed:

http://3d2f.com/tags/banned/ip/list

http://recs.fraudwatchers.org/banips.php

Remember, however, that no list is ever complete and you just might have to check multiple lists. You can also visit http://DNSstuff.com to supplement your research efforts.

Doing Away with Banned IP Addresses

If you are experiencing major difficulties in achieving top SERP rankings in spite of all your best white hat SEO efforts that are 100% ethical, go back to the drawing boards and check your IP address. Perhaps there is a problem in that realm. Correct it and watch your rankings soar in no time.

About the Author

Naveen Kapur is a senior SEO and SEM consultant with more than ten years of core experience in multimedia and graphic design, website optimization and Internet marketing. He helps organizations achieve their corporate objectives by building an online presence on the Internet.

Call us today at 310-576-7600 to speak with one of our experts

Web Hosting SEO and the New Paradigm

Part 3: Managing your DNS Records

After an in-depth discussion of how the domain name of your web site and its IP address can impact your web site’s standing in the SEO universe, we now graduate to yet another critical controlling factor that is hardly understood by even the search engine wiz kids.

We are referring to the deep-rooted relationship between your domain’s DNS record and its position in the search results of the results pages of the search engines. You will be amazed how quickly your web site will rise to the front page of search engine results and gain more website traffic once you put your DNS house in order.

DNS Record Overview

The DNS record of your domain name is an important element of your Internet property. The abbreviation DNS stands for Domain Name System and refers to a specific online document which translates your host name into the assigned IP address. There are several entries in the DNS record which are closely connected with one another and each entry in the record performs a unique and critical function a detailed analysis of which is beyond the scope of this brief report. However, we do recommend that you develop a fairly good understanding of the DNS record and its functions by visiting the DNS page in Wikipedia. You can find it at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

The DNS record is like a telephone directory which helps to look up the domain name associated with an IP address and visa versa. It clearly identifies the name of the individual or organization that owns the domain name, the hosting server, the date of registration and expiration, billing information and other important details to facilitate smooth and reliable access.

Updating your DNS Record

In order for the major search engines to drive traffic to your web site effectively, your DNS record must remain updated at all times. This is specially important when the major search engines like Google attempt to send localized traffic in your direction through geo-targeted search. For instance, if your DNS record does not accurately define and pin-point your geographical locations, Google may not be able to include your site in localized search results because it wouldn’t know where you are located.

We have reliable evidence to believe that spam activity associated with your IP address is data that Google is able to capture. Hence there should not be any spam or spam-related activity associated with your DNS record. There is really no benefit-of-doubt here. If your DNS record happens to be incomplete or tainted, Google assumes that you are a spam-prone, unreliable and untrustworthy site. A clean and updated DNS record is your pathway to prime placement in organic search.

Selecting a Managed DNS Service Provider

If you own and operate a heavy traffic web site and do not have the in-house resources to manage your DNS record, it is a good idea to assign this important function to a professional service provider who can manage and monitor your DNS record. Companies such as Easydns, Zoneedit,and Ultradns provide managed DNS services. Be sure to explore their service delivery models carefully prior to signing the dotted line. In our next report, we will tell you why it is important to research your IP, especially if you have acquired an existing IP, to gain maximum search engine exposure.

About the Author

Naveen Kapur is a senior SEO and SEM consultant with more than ten years of core experience in multimedia and graphic design, website optimization and Internet marketing. He helps organizations achieve their corporate objectives by building an online presence on the Internet.

Call us today at 310-576-7600 to speak with one of our experts

Web Hosting SEO and the New Paradigm

Part 2 : Using a Static IP Address for your Website

The complex and dynamic relationship between web hosting and search engine optimization has often been ignored and misunderstood by web masters and SEO companies alike.

In our second report in this series, we examine several considerations which you should take into account when choosing a web hosting company. Remember that all web hosting companies are not alike and so it is incumbent upon you to ask the right questions and expect to receive the right answers. It is a good idea not to assume that all web hosting decisions are SEO friendly. There are many factors related to web hosting that tend to have direct repercussions on how the search engines rank your web site in search engine results.

Always use a Dedicated IP Address

The observation that all forward-looking online organizations like yours should use a dedicated IP address sounds really formidable but exactly what does this mean? In order to explain this, we need to take you back into time to the dawn of the Internet era.

When the Internet initially came into existence, the names of web sites, also known as domain names, were created because the numerical identifiers assigned to each IP address were impossible to remember. The University of Wisconsin created the system of Domain Names in 1983 which maps text names to Internet Protocol or IP addresses. Domain names were associated with and linked to these IP addresses in a systematic manner and the practice is followed to this day. It is now regulated by an international agency called the International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN for short. IP addresses are made up of four sets of numbers. Each set of numbers ranges from zero (0) to two hundred and fifty five (255). This addressing system is also known as the thirty-two (32) bit system. To view an IP address in action, type 209.131.36.158 into your Internet browser’s address bar and press enter. This happens to be the IP address for Yahoo.com and that is why the Yahoo web site is loaded when you input this IP address.

As the owner of a web site on the Internet, you have the option of either sharing your IP address with other web sites on the web hosting company’s server or using an IP address that has been uniquely assigned only to you. The reason why many web hosting companies set you up, often without your knowledge, to share your IP address with other web sites on the same hosting server is because it saves them money in terms of administrative and other operational costs. These benefits are often not passed along to you. If you have guessed that this form of penny pinching isn’t in your overall interest, you have guessed right. Always ask for a dedicated IP address for the following reasons:

Sharing an IP Address Kills Performance

Sharing your IP with thousands of web sites on the same server reduces the efficiency of your web site and is detrimental to your service delivery model. Anytime you share a resource, its performance is compromised. Not only it effects your website individuality but also effects dramatically your search engine ranking, which off course means less amount of Website traffic.

Dangerous Consequences

If a web site with which you happen to have the misfortune of sharing an IP address on the same server happens to be black listed for spamming a search engine or a domain, your web site too will get black listed or even unindexed by the search engines for no fault of yours. Your PPC campaigns may come to a grinding halt and your site may not be featured on the search engine result pages or SERPs. This can be painful especially since you have done nothing to cause it.

Denial of SSL Certificates

The absence of a dedicated IP address will preclude you from being able to install SSL certificates since SSL certificates from industry leaders such as Verisign, Comodo and Go Daddy work only with dedicated IP addresses with a verifiable and valid paper trail. If you are accepting orders or gathering sensitive customer data on your web site, you will need to install an SSL certificate.

Say Good Bye to Visa and MasterCard

In the event that your domain is assigned a shared IP address by your web hosting company, you may not be able to accept credit cards on your site from reliable merchant transaction processing companies. Data security is compromised when you use a shared IP address. Some web masters are forced to link to the sites of third party service providers to execute their order processing functions when their web sites use a shared IP address. There are inherent risks in this approach such as link failure and access difficulties which may be experienced by your customers over which you would have no control.

Shared IPs are SEO Unfriendly

Most importantly, if you use a shared IP address, your web site will not rank high on search engine results. Back links from another web site which shares your IP won’t build search engine credits for your web site. On the other hand, back links from web sites with unique IP addresses that link to your web site (even if they happen to be your own web sites) will count as legitimate back links.

Geo-targeting Strategies to Increase web site Traffic

In an age where localized search is quickly becoming the order of the day, it has now become important to build a geographically unique identity through a dedicated IP. This helps the major search engines to notice your web site and drive qualified traffic to your web site. It is practically impossible to geo-target your web site and strategically position it for qualified traffic if it does not have an independent IP address. The minor additional expense is well the investment and there is no reason why you will regret it down the road.

About the Author

Naveen Kapur is a senior SEO and SEM consultant with more than ten years of core experience in multimedia and graphic design, website optimization and Internet marketing. He helps organizations achieve their corporate objectives by building an online presence on the Internet.

Call us today at 310-576-7600 to speak with one of our experts

Part 1: Selecting Your Domain Name

We have all heard about the explosive growth of the Internet but once we are confronted with the real facts, this growth almost seems like a miracle. The Internet continues to grow at an annual rate of more than 18% and now has one billion users on all continents.

The number is expected to double to two billion by 2020. One of the catalysts that has fueled this unbridled growth is the Internet’s unparalleled ability to provide a level playing field for one and all to pursue the radiant dream of success and financial prosperity. The Internet knows no religious, economic or ethnic distinctions and treats every dreamer that dares to carve a niche in cyber space with an equal amount and level of impartiality. As we stand at the multiple crossroads of Internet and online commerce, we are sure to notice how important considerations such as the way in which web sites should be optimized for the search engines can make the difference between a run away success on the Internet and simply a damp online squib.

Web Hosting and White Hat SEO

Among the more than a hundred factors that determine how the major search engines rank your web site on search engine result pages, the environment in which your site is hosted by a web hosting company is one of the most important. This is perhaps the most under-estimated factor when web sites are prepped for search engine spiders to generate front page rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs). There is more to healthy and ethical search engine positioning than garden variety link building and keyword research– a premise that can be easily substantiated through carefully articulated analysis and systematic execution. Implement most if not all of the considerations outlined here and you will notice how your web site quickly sky-rockets to a coveted position on the result pages of Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Before you Sign the Web Hosting Dotted Line

Before you finalize the web hosting company to which you will eventually assign the crucial responsibility to manage the hosting of your web site, there is a short check list you should run through:

Selecting the right domain name.

Did you know that the top level domain name (TLD) you choose for your web site determines, in part, your search engine ranking? This isn’t a myth because all you need to do in order to verify this hypothesis is to pick any established and competitive keyword and enter it into a major search engine such as Google or Yahoo and then sit back to watch the result pages. You will quickly notice a pattern emerge. Many of the top level domain names such as .com, .net and .org which use part or all of the keywords in their domain names will be reflected. This equation also holds true for web pages, the pages that are linked from either the home page or one of the more important pages. Here is an example:

Keyword: top jobs

Result on the SERP: http://www.getatopjob.com

The presence of search terms and search phrases in the domain name and its accompanying web pages is no coincidence. They are often expertly chosen by SEO professionals after meticulously pursuing search engine keyword research using high energy paid keyword research tools such as Keyword Discovery.

The order in which search terms and phrases appear in the domain name or the name of a web page also impacts page rank and position. For instance, if “cheap secured loans” is the operational key phrase, http://www.getcheapsecuredloans.com will generate more mileage for you than cheapgetsecuredloans.com. Equally important is the “add on word” When you add a relevant term such as an action or transitive verb such as “get” the domain name becomes even more powerful. Hence, http://getcheapsecuredloans.com will generate a higher ranking for you than cheapsecuredloans.com all else being equal.

Search engine spiders, search bots and indexers have become intelligent enough to be able to parse the domain name and match it up with their hyper indexes. Therefore, it is no longer necessary or meaningful for you to register top level domain names with dashes or hyphen. It is also a good idea to register domain names with a .com extension. Acquire a domain name with a .net extension only if a .com is not available. The Search engine love affair with the first generation top level domain names such as .com, .net or .org isn’t a thing of the past yet and the second generation top level domain names such as .mobi and .biz still have ways to go. You can always read my earlier article on domain names Choosing a SEO friendly Domain Name, or Are Domain Names with Hyphens and Dashes SEO Unfriendly. The same holds true for domain names with country-specific extensions such as .e for Germany and .ru for Russia. Everything else being equal, as long as a search result with a .com or .net is available for the major search engines to display in their results, a country-specific domain name may not get preference on the global search (google.com), but will result well in the country specific searches (google.co.in) Personal experience and what might be best described as intuitive and unscientific research has also led us to believe that optimized web pages housed in sub-domains, too don’t make it to the list. If you have a set of landing pages for instance which must be indexed preferentially, try not to house them under a sub-domain. It is well worth your while to invest less then seven US dollars in an independent, search engine friendly domain name and put them out for the major search engines such as Yahoo and MSN to index them.

It is important, therefore, that you plan your domain naming strategy carefully first before registering a domain name because as Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth would say, what is done cannot be undone!

· Who on Earth is “Whois“

Before we tell you who “Whois” is, its relevance to SEO strategy and how it is related to the major search engines, we need to take a moment and tell you about localized and geo-targeted search. Over the past few months, all the major search engines have been gradually, steadily but surely moving toward serving up more relevant results by displaying local search results. For instance, if you were planning to send your son or daughter to a tennis academy in your city, type “tennis school” or “tennis classes” into Google’s search box and you will notice that many of the results displayed will link you to tennis academies in your immediate area. This intuitive ability to connect you with your local community is not the exception but the rule and as time passes, more and more search results will display local establishments in your area that offer the product or service you seek. As an icing on the proverbial SER cake, millions of results are also being indexed to street map, directions and other logistics data through Map Quest, Google Maps and other services.

Google and possibly the other major search engines seem to have established a referencing system which accesses the Whois records of a domain name. A Whois record contains complete information about your domain name including your geographical location. This is the same referencing technology currently being used by a large number of web analytics programs such as HitBox, SAS and ClickTracks. A sample record from Whois which you can access by visiting http://whois.org looks like this:

· Go Windows or Linux.

This is most certainly the million dollar question in any web hosting-SEO debate. Each platform has its own distinct advantages and flaws and this is perhaps an inappropriate forum to discuss this. The search engine spiders have, in effect, been impartial in this matter. Web sites hosted on both platforms are uniformly indexed by the major search engines continuously round the clock. The key is to use search engine friendly code, provide HTML meta tags liberally and craft a SEO friendly search map where pages are linked mostly from text links. The web hosting company should provide your web site with sufficient bandwidth with a 99.9% up time. Windows-based hosting servers have to be shut down at least once a month if not more for routine maintenance and Microsoft update installations and Heaven forbid that the search engine spider comes looking for your site at that time. The more state-of-the-art your hosting company’s system resources are, the better your site’s performance. Your minimum server configuration should be:

Hosting System featuring Intel Pentium 4 with Quad Processors and at least 1 GB RAM and 24X7 power backup

Even if your web site is on a shared hosting platform, there is no distinct disadvantage. The key is to ensure that the web hosting hardware is well maintained and all logs are preserved for administrative access.

About the Author

Naveen Kapur is a senior SEO and SEM consultant with more than ten years of core experience in multimedia and graphic design, website optimization and Internet marketing. He helps organizations achieve their corporate objectives by building an online presence on the Internet.

Call us today at 310-576-7600 to speak with one of our experts