Website Traffic Articles

Choosing an SEO friendly Domain Name

Until recently, you could successfully own and operate a business without investing in a web site. The reason is simple. There was no Internet before the nineties. Then came a time when owning a piece of the Internet pie became integral to business success.

Today, it is impossible to locate a successful organization that does not have some sort of presence on the information super highway. It is no longer good enough to have a well crafted, information rich and visually appealing web site. If it is not indexed by the search engines prominently, it will sit out there in lonely cyberspace and do nothing for your business enterprise. It is precisely for this reason that search engine optimization or SEO as it is mostly referred to has become such a major prerequisite to Internet business success.

As discussed earlier in my other articles on how SEO makes an effect on generating website traffic, it is as well important to know the key elements of SEO techniques. Domain names related to your website and more importantly to the keyword that focuses your website plays one of the crucial roles in search engine rankings.

You might wonder if keyword related domains did ever make a difference in SEO or SERP. If you are still wondering try getting a domain books.com or simply poker.com. In case you don’t get those domains for yourself, which I am sure you wont, try researching if they are available for sale and at what price.

For instance website.com was sold for $750,000, chat.de for $470,000?marking the first and second highest valued domain sale this year so far.

Here is a small brief on SEO domain names, any single or 2 word domain name with no spaces, higher keyword ranked will always be the costliest. Not just because of the domain name being single or double, but more importantly the keyword search value.

You might wonder if keyword related domains did ever make a difference in SEO or SERP. If you are still wondering try getting a domain books.com or simply poker.com. In case you don’t get those domains for yourself, which I am sure you wont, try researching if they are available for sale and at what price.

For instance website.com was sold for $750,000, chat.de for $470,000?marking the first and second highest valued domain sale this year so far.

Here is a small brief on SEO domain names, any single or 2 word domain name with no spaces, higher keyword ranked will always be the costliest. Not just because of the domain name being single or double, but more importantly the keyword search value.

Traffic Generating Domain Names that are SEO Friendly

You can acquire traffic generating domain names in one of two ways. You can either buy them or create them. It is a good idea at the outset to integrate the selection of the right domain name with your Internet web site hosting as well as your SEO strategy. Carefully articulated keyword research could provide a key to the words and phrases your potential customers are utilizing to locate you. If you are serious about your Internet business and you should, we highly recommend that you consider subscribing to a reliable keyword research service to generate the most accurate keyword lists. Search engines are known to rank those web sites higher that include these first level keywords in the domain name. For instance, if your niche service is to offer people to get cheap secured loans, the obvious choice would be www.getcheapsecuredloans.com . It doesn’t really matter in which order you choose your keywords as a part of your domain name because search engine spiders are configured to parse the domain name and establish the right association.

SEO and the Dot Com Advantage

As far as possible, try to stay with a .com because search engines are known to have a clandestine love affair with .com domains. It is preferable to have a .com domain name with your keywords in the wrong order as opposed to a .biz or a .info name with the right keyword order. For instance, www.getcheapsecuredloans.com will get you a higher ranking than www.getcheapsecuredloans.info all else being equal. That is why you always hear about the dot com era and not the dot net or the dot org era in spite of the fact that all these extensions were introduced at the same time by Network Solutions Inc., Internet’s first domain registrar. It is amazing to notice how many Internet entrepreneurs choose not to cooperate with the search engines often due to ignorance when it comes to increasing web traffic on their web site. Choosing the right keyword rich domain name is indeed a prerequisite to Internet Web site hosting that is both reliable and drives web traffic to your site.

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

Are Domain Names with Hyphens and Dashes SEO Unfriendly

Although the jury has been out for over a decade on whether to use or not to use dashes or hyphens in a domain name, there is enough empirical data to suggest that all else being equal; it provides no distinct advantage to hyphenate the domain name to gain SEO mileage.

Web analytic services like Hitbox and Alexa too provide no preferential treatment to hyphenated domain names because they are configured to monitor traffic impartially regardless of whether the domain name registered with them is or without hyphens.

Search Engine Optimized Domain Names

There are at least three reasons why we believe that hyphenated domain names provide no strategic advantage in the broader context of search engine rankings. We have examined several domain directories on web hosting services to arrive at this hypothesis. First, simply explore the infinite Internet spectrum and you will notice that most of the Fortune 1000 or Inc. 100 companies do not use hyphens in their primary domain names. Is there something they know that we should and don’t? Secondly, search engine search bots or spiders as they are also known as, have become smarter over the years. They are now able to parse domain names with ease and make intelligent sense of their meaning in order to classify and categorize them appropriately. There was a time when search engines used the words and phrases in domain names to prioritize site rankings on their search results. However, this additional emphasis was quickly dropped when the system began to be misused. Finally, none of the major search engines have publicly admitted a preference for domain names with dashes. This is probably why you will notice more domain names without hyphens than names with hyphens when you closely examine a web directory such as the Open Directory Project or DMOZ.

User-friendly Domain Names

Since the primary purpose of your web site is both to generate and increase web traffic and not to merely display a URL on your business card, your domain name should be one that can be easily remembered and used by your site visitors and prospective customers. Hyphens in a domain name tend to pose some difficulties in this regard. Your customers need to remember exactly where to put the dashes and hyphens when keying in your web address directly into a browser. One misplaced hyphen and your customer just might end up on a competitor’s web site. The keyboard placement of the hyphen also tends to irritate many. Search engine services have recognized this for a long time and have judiciously refrained from using dashes in their own domain names. However, in order to cover all your bases, we recommend that you register your company’s name as a single word domain name as well as a hyphenated domain name. This will prevent competitors from picking a slice of your online revenue and provide you with long-term protection. Capture the .net and .org extensions also if possible for further protection. Domain registration costs are no longer as expensive as they used to be as recently as ten years ago. With a small investment, you can protect your Internet property securely for many years to come.

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

SEO Copywriting

The key to effective SEO copy writing is to remember that content is king. Your websites popularity and visibility depends upon your writing effective interesting and targeted content. Quality content and effective copywriting helps in generating more website traffic, by attracting more users, giving you an advantage over your competition and also helps search engines target your website.

SEO copywriting should accomplish two fold objectives; it should be compelling enough for the reader as well as appealing enough for the search engines.

What exactly is SEO copywriting?

It may be described as the skillful art of writing content for your website so that it appeals to your targeted traffic / users as well as conforms to the search engine’s requirements for greater visibility on the internet.

For example, your text should contain commonly searched keywords, so that your site is picked up by the search engines. At the same time, however, you have to be careful, that you do not stuff your text with keywords, without bothering about its readability. This might entail your content as being labeled as spam by the search engines and getting banned from them.

The solution lies in writing unique and interesting content, with just the right number of targeted keywords inserted , so both the purposes are served: of rich compelling content as well as a appealing to the needs of the search engines.

How do you write the most effective SEO copywriting?

A helpful suggestion for effective SEO copywriting would be to base your text in the form of an upside down triangle. The base of the triangle should contain your most vital text with key words, while the tip of the triangle should contain information that might not be so important or relevant. The base (the first 200 words of the text) is very important.

It should contain your target keywords as well as an overall overview of the content matter you are writing. The user usually decides to read on the rest of the content only after he feels that the first 200 words are worth while.

Now we come to the art of writing the actual text itself. There is no magic formula for the same, but SEO experts would advice that the ideal number of words per page should be around 250- 500 without around 1-4 keywords placed at strategic points within the content. Avoid stuffing keywords as they might make the language forced and unnatural.

It is also advisable to keep the sentences short and direct and avoid verbose language. At the same time you cannot compromise on the content. It is important to remember that readers usually scan the content for keywords and then read on only if the accompanying text strikes them as important. Therefore it is necessary to strike a balance between rich content and keywords.
Writing shorter paragraphs, and utilizing a lot of white space, enhances the readability of your text.

Also, using bullet points, and emphasizing important points either in bold or italics will make your content reader- friendly.

The skillful use of keywords is important. You should research your target key words before writing your text, rather than inserting them later in pre- written content. This might make the text sound awkward.

Since search engines consider the first 200 pages more important, it is important that the keywords are used near the top of the page and then in proportion later. As head lines are considered by search engines in their rankings of a website, it is extremely important to use key words in the head line.

Last but not the least; you should remember that both your reader and search engines are looking for quality content that is frequently updated. Fresh, relevant updates will draw the readers back to your site and will make you r site more visible on the internet as they will be regularly scanned by search engines.

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

The question is do you need an SEO

Trying to look out for a good SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) might be a little tough these days. With all the people committing you to rank #1 or top 10 is a bit hard to digest. Everyone’s an expert, but still you don’t see some very good results happening at the end of the project.

But there are some, who would get you what you might be looking for, A good Search Engines Ranking Position in (SERP) on your top rating keywords.

Now, why is it important to get there?

Well consider this, you have a amazing product which people want, and you have a right shop to sell and process it to the customers who visit your shop.

But you don’t have any visitor’s / traffic to your shop. It can be due to plenty of reasons,

1) Location of the shop

2) Popularity of your shop

3) Offers that you provide to your customers

4) Pricing of your product

5) The entire process of selling the product (if its easy enough for a novice to purchase it in just few seconds)

6) The makeup / looks of your shop

7) Your Marketing and product analysis

8) Feed back to and from the customers

If you haven’t yet figured it out, that’s what is keeping you behind other sellers / resellers to make money.

Its almost the same way for your online shop. The entire analysis of your store / website / services that you want to sell or simply reach out to more and more people. Its the analyst who studies and gives you report on the entire process and then makes it happen for you. How ? Now consider all the aspects to be taken in consideration to a physical shop

Your online shop / website / portal / company

1) Location of the shop – SERP (search engine ranking) – Based on

Keywords of your website, Content and placements, design and functionality, page linking, atl tags, all that drives website traffic to your website.

2) Popularity of your shop

How many people know about you or your website or services or products that you want to showcase, what’s your link popularity….

3) Offers that you provide to your customers

Any special offers advantage and why? what’s your analysis to sell something free and to whom. Attracting returning customers to gain more and more website traffic A free visitor or a genuine one. Maybe you have a surplus to waste around, but think again, for HOW LONG?

4) Pricing of your product

What’s your analysis of the product and its pricing. Any comparisons? Did you know the store or service provider sitting next to you offers More, Better, Cheap and reliable service / product. Now what do you have to offer and that too FREE?

5) The entire process of selling the product (if it’s easy enough for a novice to purchase it in just few seconds)

Is your selling process a lot easier, even for a novice and just click and buy. If not why? What drives your customers away, the process or product, most of like to think product, naturally we have a physiological impact of thinking of something more simple to blame. Just imagine, it might be just a simple error not letting your customers click that button, BUY NOW?

6) The makeup / looks of your shop

Hmm, Website Design, that’s tricky, I though most of the times even ugliest looking websites made more sale. Don’t know why? Well then read on and find out what you need, how you need and who to hire.

You will find all these answers and much more for FREE at my website at More Google Traffic where you shall see the masters of the trade tell you what to do to make all this happen in a right manner. Imagine, its just a bit of your time and nothing more. No money, just your time. After all your time is money too, so lets put it to a earning, so come share and learn a free guide to More Google Traffic.

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

Role of a Search Engine optimizer to increase website traffic

Search Engine Optimization can be defined as the means of optimizing your website or page to increase web traffic, thus improving it’s ranking in the search results of a search engine. Search Engine Optimization can be considered as a part of search engine marketing aimed at increasing website traffic.

Search Engine Optimization has become extremely important tool for increasing website traffic. Why should we opt for search engine optimization? This can be explained with the help of an example. If I have a shop, my aim would be maximize my sales.

This can be achieved only if more and more customers visit my shop and there are more footfalls. More footfalls are possible if my shop is strategically located in front of a city mall or a commercial centre where thousands of people walk by in minutes. More the footfalls in my shop, more will be the number of visitors to my shop and the number of potential customers. In the same way, all owners of websites both commercial and personal would want to have the maximum possible visitors to their site.

Therefore, all website owners would like to be placed on the top ranking of a Search Engine Result page where it is more likely that the internet users will click on their site thus increasing their website traffic.

The process of Search Engine Optimization involves the identification of those keywords that relate to your website and are placed strategically on your WebPages. When a user types those keywords on search engines, your website through Search Engine Optimization is placed high on the Search Engine Results Page where it is more probable to be visited by the users thus increasing your website traffic. It is common practice that users do not click through the millions of sites on a Search Engine Results page but rather on the top listings.

At the same time, website owners must consider to make their products, services or information to be relevant to the point, and attractive to the end user. Search Engine Optimization has become important because if you are not better placed at the point your consumer is, you can lose him to your competitor, therefore reducing your chance for increasing website traffic. In the world of Search Engine Optimization, search engines are the market makers and the website’s position in the SERP is therefore directly proportional to an increase in website traffic. Thus Search Engine Optimization helps in achieving this objective of increasing website traffic to your site.

To put it simply, no one knows you exist, but they do know when you worker harder and smarter to beat the race. The requirements for Search Engine Optimization to increase website traffic are not very simple, but of applied strategically can they can work wonders.

You can get ahead in this rat race for Search Engine Result Page with the help of a Search Engine Optimizer or specific software that will help you to increase website traffic. If you are a do- it – yourself, you have to remember that Search Engine Optimization involves time, patience and lots of strategic planning. If you feel you not have the time Search Engine Optimization requires, and you cannot spare much of it, you need professional Search Engine Optimizers who can accomplish such projects quickly and with expertise. Search Engine Optimization Projects which they handle efficiently and with expertise will help you to understand and gain confidence in their projects and work experience. It would be extremely helpful if you could read my last article, “Do Search Engine Optimizers attract or distract traffic” if you skeptical of handing your projects to someone you do not know of.

Blue SEO is one such company offering Search Engine Optimization services for you. Our services guarantee you optimum page ranking and our internet marketing services are unparalleled.

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

On page Optimization and off page Optimization

On-page Optimization and off- page Optimization are a part of the Search Engine Optimization process to increase website traffic. There is a big difference between the two. Understanding these Optimization techniques is of vital importance if Search engine Optimization is the preferred tool for online promotion of business to create more website traffic.

You should consider two factors before choosing On-page Optimization or off- page Optimization. The first is that you should be able to provide search engines what they need and also provide the required information to the users. The type of on- page and off- page.

Search engines evaluate websites based on a number of on- page and off- page Optimization factors. On-page Optimization is the process by which elements of a website are so designed such the website qualifies for a high ranking when specific keyword(s) or keyword phrases are typed. On page optimization is just a part of the optimization process and will not guarantee your website a good ranking unless off –page optimization is also in place. Therefore, both on-page and off-page optimization techniques have to work in tandem with each other. On-page optimization should also occur in each and every page of the website.

The first step in on-page optimization would be to identify the target keyword(s) or keyword phrases. Keywords should be then inserted in the web page URL, title tags, Meta tags, headlines, sub headlines and body text. The factors to be considered in on-page optimization are keyword density, whether keywords lie at the beginning of the page, page content, boldly highlighted words, words in the links, site navigation and the structure of links among others. However in the On-page Optimization techniques for increasing website traffic there is a risk of over optimization resulting in your website getting qualified as spam. Therefore stuffing of keywords in the content of your website should be strictly avoided.

Off- page Optimization are the techniques employed by a website which are done “off the web page” to improve its search engine page rank and therefore increase its website traffic. There area number of off-page factors to be considered in off-page optimization. There are three main areas in off page optimization, namely, IBL- inbound links to your site, directory Listings- which directories feature your site user statistics. You can check the number of sited linking to your own site by using an IBL checker. These checkers enable you to see which sites have linked to you as recognized by the search engines like Google, yahoo and MSN. However the links identified by Google will be different and smaller. This is because Google feels that just the total volume of links is not an indicator of the attractiveness of your website as web owners can buy hundreds of links from link farms leading to spamming.

Therefore, Google has other criterion with which to judge the inbound links to your site. Page rank is one of them. There are a number of factors considered in a page rank for it to be considered attractive enough by Google for potential users. A page rank of 4 and above is good and can get you a good ranking. So, if you get links from sites which have a page rank of 4 and above, it would greatly improve your site’s overall ranking. The Google page ranking is logarithmic; therefore every higher page rank is many times more powerful than the previous. Getting links with sites of page rank 4 and above would be wonderful, especially if those websites have a similar theme to yours. However, care should be taken not to build links too fast as they can be considered spammy by Google. The best way to get good inbound links is through interesting and good quality content.

The second important factor o keep in mind is to get sites to link with you with consistent anchor text.

The third most important facet of off-page optimization is directory listings. DMOZ is the most big and powerful with a page rank of 9. A listing on Dmoz almost guarantees an improvement in your ranking as considers a DMOZ directory listing as important. Yahoo is the second most important directory listing but has a fee of $ 299 a year. There are numerous other directory listings also. They may be free, asking for reciprocal links or a fee. A SEO directory is also a must to see and have good reciprocal linking or one way linking from EO directories usually are the ones with optimized pages for each category accordingly and proper url’s for each category that links back to your site in-turn increasing more value in the eyes of a search engine.

The last aspect of off page optimization would be to have high quality, informative and organized content for the web browsers to which they have easy access. In short words ‘content is king!’

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

The Evolution of Link Popularity

Anyone who has developed a website hoping to quickly achieve a high ranking in the search engines, especially Google, has probably discovered that the task is much more daunting than they originally thought. That is because new websites and even existing websites must prove to Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines that they are worthy of being ranked high.

There are many factors involved in getting a website ranked high in the search engines, including good, relevant content that gives visitors the information they are searching for along with strong link popularity.

What Exactly is Link Popularity?

Many people think link popularity equates to the number of incoming links a website has linking to it. In other words, how many other websites are linking to your website.

But, link popularity is much more than just the number of incoming links you have coming to your website. Factors can include, but are not limited to, the quality and type of website linking to you, whether you link back to that website or not, the reputation of the website linking to you, and if it appears that you paid for the link or not. And Google has just made the distinction between quality links vs. non-quality links even more pronounced with their latest algorithm update.

On a very simplistic level, a website’s link popularity is designed to increase as the number of other websites linking to your website increases. Google’s original inspiration with this concept was based on the fact that Google believes if other websites were linking to your website, you must have something good to link to. In other words, others are giving your website a vote of confidence.

However, as in all aspects of Search Engine Marketing, website owners and SEO specialists found ways to manipulate Google’s Page Rank Google’s indicator of your link popularity.) Many website owners actively seek other websites that will “exchange” a link with them. “If you link to me, I’ll link to you.” So many times the links are completely irrelevant to the content on the two sites. The reciprocal link arrangements are simply established in order to try to increase their link popularity and thereby their Google Page Rank. There have been entire businesses built on helping websites exchange links with each other to boost their Google Page Rank.

Of course Google is not blind to this manipulation of their algorithm. So it goes without saying that they would eventually figure out a way to help stop, or at least minimize the abuse of their link popularity approach to ranking websites.

How Does this Affect My Site?

Google has adjusted and refined their Page Rank algorithm many times in the last few years. After the latest algorithm update you can pretty much count on your reciprocal links being discounted or completely ignored. Links that have been “bought” on other websites have also been discounted, so I wouldn’t bother spending the money if someone tries to sell you a link on their website to link back to your website. (The main exceptions to this statement are quality directories that charge to be submitted and added to their directory. Most quality directories are normally worth the money they charge due to the benefits you receive from the directory listing.)

“Run of the site” links are also being discounted or ignored by Google. Those are links that someone puts on every page of their site to your website to make it appear that there are a lot of pages linking to your site. Again, you’re better off just having one link to your site from a page that does not have a lot of other outgoing links on it as opposed to having a link from every page on another person’s website.

Get Quality Incoming Links

So how can you increase your link popularity and thereby your Google Page Rank? You’ll need to do it the old fashioned way – by developing a website that people want to visit and link to. Of course, there are also some good opportunities to help people (and Google) find your website so they can have the opportunity to find out just how good it is. Press releases, articles, and quality directories all provide excellent opportunities for strong incoming links to your website.

If your press release catches others attention, you can receive some strong incoming links each time you submit a newsworthy item. Just make sure you really have something to talk about in your press release or it will be ignored.

Articles help to not only build quality content on your site, but you can submit your articles to a variety of article directories that allow others to find what you have written and link to your site as an expert on a particular subject.

Quality directories not only provide good links back to your site but they can also land you a high ranking in a search engine results page. There have been many instances where a website may not be listed on the first page of Google for a search, but the directory listing for that website is listed on the first page. Having that high ranking in the directory is certainly better than no ranking at all! In the end, it’s all about bringing visitors to your website when they are searching for your products for services. And directories can help bring you that traffic.

So, bottom line, you can help boost the rankings of your website through good, quality content coupled with a strong link popularity which you can obtain naturally through your online press releases, articles and quality directory submissions. It takes time for a website to build a good reputation in the search engines, but the long-term benefits are worth the time and effort. Trying to achieve high rankings through questionable practices and shortcuts can work for a while but it will almost always come back to haunt you once your tactics are discovered by the search engines and your site is penalized or removed.

About the Author: Matthew James is an Internet Marketing expert with over 6 years of experience in search engine optimization, pay-per-click services, keyword research, quality link building concepts, and website marketing strategies. He currently works as an Internet Marketing Analyst at Xcellimark, a top Internet Marketing firm in Orlando, Florida.

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

What is Adsense and how can i make Money from it

Before looking at AdSense, I feel that it is necessary to give a brief description of pay per click advertising. The biggest and most powerful ppc system is called Google AdWords.


AdWords

You will have seen AdWords in action before. They are those little text ads that appear down the right hand side of Google’s search results. They are an amazingly powerful method of advertising. The ads you see are 100% related to the keywords that you type into a search. This means, that as an AdWords advertiser you are capable of displaying your ads in front of an audience that is already interested in your products or services. Never before have businesses been able to conduct their advertising in such a highly targeted manner.

If your internet company rented holiday properties in Spain for example, you could set up your AdWords ads to appear ONLY when someone typed in keywords like “Spanish, Spain, holiday, rental, villas, apartments, properties etc.”

Of course, this all comes at a price. As an advertiser, you have to pay Google every time somebody clicks on one of your ads. Not knowing how to cost their system, the geniuses at Google came up with the idea of letting their advertisers bid against each other for the value of their chosen keywords.

This means, that if I wanted my ad to be displayed the most often when someone types the key phrase “Spanish holidays” into Google, I would have to out bid the advertiser who currently comes top of the list for this key phrase.

The Internet has matured as a result of ppc advertising. The embarrassing days of the Dot Coms are well and truly behind us. The value of online businesses can now be measured because ppc advertising is a dynamic system that reflects real-world supply and demand.

With ppc advertising, Google has enabled small online businesses to flourish, whilst making tens of billions for themselves.

AdSense

With their follow up program AdSense, Google created an opportunity for everybody to get a share in this lucrative market.

AdSense is an extension of the AdWords program that allows any website owner to place AdWords ads on their site. However, the difference in this system lies in the fact that the ads displayed come not from search phrases, but from the content of your site.
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As an AdSense user, Google gives you a piece of JavaScript that has your unique id embedded within it. This enables them to track the performance of the ads on your site. You simply paste this code into the html of your website.

Then, when someone views your site, the JavaScript automatically fetches ads from the Google server and places them on your page. Google does this with its advanced content recognition technology. This technology is so clever, that it knows which country you are viewing a site from. It then places country specific ads accordingly. For example, if you had a site about fly-fishing, people viewing your site in Australia would see ads for Australian fishing tackle retailers, and in the USA people would see ads for American retailers.

When someone clicks on one of your ads, Google charges the advertiser. Google then takes a cut of the money and gives the rest to you. Although Google won’t disclose any details about their payout ratio, it is rumored that they take 32% and you get 68%.

Before you start thinking: why don’t I just click on my ads all day long and make loads of money? Google has thought of this and takes click fraud very seriously. They want their advertising system to work. They can tell if you have been committing click fraud and will bar you from AdSense FOR EVER!

Making serious money

99% of AdSense users make next to nothing. They stick the code onto their website and sit back. When the money doesn’t appear they think the system is useless. This is good for us, because those in the know can make extraordinary amounts of legitimate, Google approved money.

- The key lies in finding a niche market and creating a content rich, topical site within this market. You then fill the content of your site with high paying keywords.

- Next, through good search engine optimization and advanced inbound linking strategies, you build a high and constant flow of traffic to your site.

- Then, only after you have taken steps one and two, do you place the AdSense code into your site. You add the JavaScript whilst employing certain techniques that make the ads look more attractive. This will encourage more of your website’s visitors to click on the ads.

This strategy, coupled with careful tracking of ad performance, will guarantee that you are making serious amounts of money with Google AdSense.

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

10 AdWords Campaign Mistakes

On today’s highly competitive Google AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) search engine, it is now more important than ever to ensure that your PPC campaigns are optimized to their utmost potential.

You should be achieving maximum return on ínvestment (ROI) for the keywords or phrases that are most relevant to your business and are most likely to provide you with targeted traffïc to your website. With ever growing cost-per-click (CPC) prices throughout the various PPC search engines it is essential that you avoid certain mistakes that will undoubtedly result in poorly performing PPC campaigns.

The Mistakes to Avoid

Long list of less than targeted keywords
Not identifying unique aspects of your product or service
Lack of keywords in your ad text
Directing users solely to your home page
Creation of single Ad Groups
Utilizing single campaigns
Using broad match only
Failure to optimize Ad Serving for your ads
Not tracking results
Entering the content network without modifying bids

Long List of Less Than Targeted Keywords

When you first set out to create your AdWords campaign it is of utmost importance that you do not go “keyword crazy”. What this means is that you must not create long lists of irrelevant and generic keywords. For example, if you were an automotive dealership then it would not be in your best interest to target the keyword “truck”. The reason being is that the cost-per-click (CPC) for such a generic keyword would be incredibly high when compared to a more descriptive relevant keyword such as “T-Z783 Extended Cab”. An example of an irrelevant keyword which would not produce conversions if you strictly conducted automotive sales would be “tail light covers”. The phrase may bring visitors to your website but, if they do not find what they are looking for when they get there, they will be gone just as quickly as they arrived.

Not Identifying Unique Aspects of Your Product or Service

Before implementing your AdWords campaign you must first understand exactly what it is that makes you stand out from your competition. By identifying your unique products or services you will have a lot more clarity on how to rise above your competitors and zone in on the keywords or phrases that are unique to your business. I would recommend that you perform an analysis of your competition, have a look and see what they are doing and which phrases they are using. After conducting a competition analysis and after understanding what makes your products or services unique you will be able to come up with a strategy that will topple your competitors.

Lack of Keywords in Your Ad Text

When creating your descriptive ad copy it is imperative that you find a means to inject your keywords into your title and description while maintaining the delicate balance of clarity and relevance. Your ad copy should be tailored in such a way that when read by a visitor they know exactly what they are getting into when they clíck on your ad, which brings me to my next point.

Directing Users Solely to Your Home Page
Not taking the time to decide which destination URL should be designated to which ad is an oversight that I come across far too often. When you finish compiling your list of relevant keywords that describe unique products or services of your business, why on earth would you then send everyone to your homepage and let them navigate through your site in hopes of finding what it is that they are looking for. Instead why not send them straight to the page that contains exactly what was described to them within your ad copy. As an example, if you are an automotive dealership and your ad contains the keyword “T-Z783 Extended Cab”, instead of sending them to www.auto-motive-dealership.com send them to www.auto-motive-dealership.com/T-Z783_Extended_Cab.html.

Creation of Single Ad Groups

Categorizing ads that are targeting related keywords into a common ad-group will allow you to have a much higher level of control over your entire campaign. Let’s say that you run a sporting goods store, start by grouping all ads targeted towards hockey skates into a single Ad Group. You would then create another ad-group which would be targeting hockey sticks and another containing hockey gloves and so on. Organizing your ad-group structure in this manner gives you the ability to create in-depth reports on the performance of each ad-group.

Utilizing Single Campaigns

Once you have your Ad Groups sorted out into easy to identify categories you may then move on to the next step of creating relevant campaigns. From the example above you have created Ad Groups containing separate products of hockey skates, sticks, gloves etc. Now it is time to create a container for all of the Ad Groups into one campaign entitled “hockey equipment”. You would then repeat the process creating Ad Groups for tennis, one group for shoes, one for racquets etc. and then once again you drop them all into a single campaign entitled “tennis equipment”. Having highly organized campaigns is the key to determining which ads are creating optimal conversions.

Using Broad Match Only

When you do not take advantage of the phrase matching options that are available to you, chances are you are missing out on potential customers and creating a higher CPC. Broad matches are usually less targeted than exact and phrase matching. Broad matching is the default option your ads will appear for expanded matches such as plurals or relevant keyword variations. When utilizing phrase match your ad will appear for search terms in the order that you specify and sometimes for other terms. Exact matching is by far the most targeted option to use. You will appear for the exact keyword specified. Negative keyword is also a fantastic option to utilize in order to specify which keywords you do not want to appear for.

Broad match

Default option: Blue widget

Phrase match

Surround the keyword in quotes: “blue widget”

Exact match

Surround the keyword in square brackets: [blue widget]

Negative match

Place a negative character before the keyword: -blue widget

Failure To Optimize Ad Serving For Your Ads

When you take advantage of the AdWords Ad Serving service basically what you will be doing is showing your most popular ads more often. The AdWords platform will give weights to ads with the highest click-through rates (CTRs) and display them more often then keywords with lower (CTRs) within the same ad-group.

Not Tracking Results

In order to have any idea on your AdWords campaign performance you must be able to see the keywords that work as well as those that do not. Google AdWords supplies a vast array of very useful tracking tools. Google has also built into the user interface Google Analytics which is a marvelous web analytics tool that provides you with in-depth reporting on all aspects of your campaign performance. I cannot stress enough the importance of creating goals for your AdWords campaign to measure your success by.

Entering The Content Network Without Modifying Bids

Within the AdWords platform you have recently been given the ability to set different bids for the content network compared to that of the search network. If you do not set different bids on the content network for certain keywords, you will be paying more per click than you should be. After lowering the prices on certain keywords you will notice that the amount of click-throughs that you will be attaining will remain the same as they were at the higher bid.

Conclusion

The purpose for this article was to create awareness for common mistakes and to eliminate frustrations that may emerge when managing Google AdWords campaigns. The points mentioned above are compiled from management mistakes that I have stumbled upon time and time again in hopes to assist you in creating a marketing campaign that will generate dramatic increases to the profits of your business.

About The Author
Tyler Huston is the founder and CEO of SearchStrategist.com, a search marketing firm that provides professional PPC Management, expert search engine optimization, SEO press release writing and blog optimization services. Tyler takes pride in ranking clients from all over the world at the top of the search engines. He can be reached at tyler@searchstrategist.com

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Interlinking Web Pages

Many webmasters spend a lot of time optimizing their home page only. They do this by optimizing onpage factors like H1 tags, title, keyword density, alt tags, etc, and offpage factors like the number and quality of inward links from other sites. That’s fine and is something you should definitely do, but you should also take some time to optimize all of your inner web pages as well.

This is because if you can get a good pagerank for all of your inner pages, as well as your home page, it increases the chances of these pages being ranked highly in the search engines for their chosen keywords, and increases the number of visitors you could get.

So how do you achieve this? Well firstly I recommend that all of your main web pages are just one click away from your home page. You should have a well-structured navigation menu on your home page. Each link within the menu should be an anchor text link containing your main keyword(s). For example, let’s say you had an inner page about hair loss. Now you may have done keyword research and found the term “hair loss” to be too competitive, so let’s say you have decided to optimize your web page for the less competitive term “male hair loss”. In this example, your link from the navigation menu should be “male hair loss” rather than “hair loss”.

You can dramatically enhance this interlinking structure and boost the pagerank of your inner web pages further by including this navigation menu on all of your inner web pages. This means that all of your main inner web pages are always just one click away and will dramatically boost the number of inward links that each page has. This can be very powerful because with higher pagerank and more links comes higher search engine rankings, but surprisingly is something that many so-called SEO experts fail to recognize.

Another way of achieving this effect if you do not want to include a navigation menu on every page is by including a link tree on every one of your inner pages. These are those links that you often find at the bottom of pages, and are again a very good way of interlinking your web pages. As before, be sure to include your main keyword(s) within each link.

I personally include a left-hand navigation menu on all of my websites, as well as a link tree at the bottom of each web page. This ensures not only that each page of each site has the maximum number of internal inward links, which boosts my pagerank and search engine rankings, but also ensures that the visitors to the site are always just one click away from each main page of the site. This is important if they enter at one of your inner pages, because often they will then want to navigate to the home page.

To conclude, to rank highly in the search engines, you should focus on on-page optimization, and more so off-page optimization. Just as every inward link to your site from another website acts as a vote for your site, and boosts your pagerank and search engine rankings, a link from another page within your site also acts as a vote and will also have a positive effect on your ranking. A good interlinking structure within your site will ensure that every page is fully optimized and has the optimum number of links from your other pages allowing you to rank higher for all of your inner pages as well as your home page.

About the Author: James Woolley is a successful marketer who has several money-making sites in various niches. His latest site is a free internet marketing resource guide, which also includes a newsletter filled with free tips and bonuses.

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Optimizing for Rankings

Optimizing for Rankings – Things to Do and Avoid

Search engine optimization is a much-debated topic and there is a lot of different on the net. Let’s cut through the muck and discuss things you should and shouldn’t pursue to get high rankings.

The first optimization tip is the most basic and the one many people screw up. Pick the correct keywords for your site! The correct keywords are not what you personally think based on your knowledge of your service or product. They are not the phrases returned in the Overture inventory tool. The only place you will find the exact keyword phrases you should use are in Word tracker. The site gives you an analytical tool that provides the exact keyword phrases being used by your prospects, how often they are being used and which are easiest to get high rankings on. It costs a whopping $8 for a single session, but you will want to get a year subscription so you can pick up different cycles of keywords. Your prospects will search for different things in summer compared to winter.

The second thing to consider is the isolation keyword strategy. Many people will try to cram as many keywords into a page as possible. The accepted standard is 10 to 15 words. This is an old approach that works, but it will take much longer to get high rankings. Instead, you should develop a list of as many keyword phrases as possible. A single page should be made for each keyword phrase. You should never have to pick one keyword phrase instead of another for your site. Instead, you should make individual pages for each phrase.

A major third optimization tip is interlinking. The links from one page of your site to another matter a lot. When you create a link, make sure the link is the anchor text for the page the prospect will be going to. Anchor text is simply the keyword phrase on that page.

Turning to things you should avoid in optimization, well, there are a lot. Do not put your site name in your meta title, the search engines will list you high without it. Do not skimp on text, you need at least 250 words per page. Do not put database parameters in your urls because spiders have problems reading them. Stay away from flash as much as possible for the same reason. Stick to a single subject per page, to wit, do not wonder around like a drunken web designer! For the love of God, do not use frames. Finally, keep your html code streamlined so search engines can read it with ease.

The list of things to do and avoid is nearly endless. Follow these simple steps, however, and you will see marked improvement in your rankings.

About the Author: Halstatt Pires is a search engine optimization specialist with MarketingTitan.com – Internet marketing and advertising company in San Diego. Visit us to read more Internet marketing articles.

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