Results tagged “Search Engine Optimization” from Web Design, Website Development and Internet Marketing - One Page Expert Guides

If you are thinking about going online and providing your products and services through the net then you are making an excellent decision.  The best thing you can do is hire a custom website design company.  They can help you expand your customer base and truly go global, generate revenues you never dreamed of, and create a name for yourself around the world.

The purpose of the World Wide Web is to go global and until recently people are finally realizing the big benefits.  The economy is hard to survive for businesses that have a local establishment.  Going online is the best option to take advantage of the globalization efforts.  A custom website design company can help you create a name and a brand for your copmpany that will be recognized by customers all over the world.  They can help you create pages in different languages that can be read in Chinese, German, Japanese, and more.  It is the best option if you really want to go global.

A custom website design company is the best option if you want to go global.  Depending on the local economy is proving to cause businesses to fail because too many people do not have the money to spend.  You need to target the people that have the money to spend and prove to them that you are the best company to shop for online.  You need to expand your customer base in the millions.  This way, you can have many more shoppers.  A design company can help you target shoppers all over the world.

Another excellent benefit and reason of going global is to generate more revenues.  A custom web site design company is going to help you the best they can with selling as many products on your site as possible.  They will provide many different efforts to get the word out about the business online, build a site that works well with the search engines, is appealing to the users, and much more.

If you have a local establishment, hiring a custom web site design company to help you go global is one of the best opportunities you can take advantage of today.  This will help you expand your customer base around the world and generate more revenues while creating a name for yourself around the world.  You can be successful online and the importance is taking advantage of true globalization and what the World Wide Web really has to offer.

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For more information about S.E.O, e-commerce web site design, e-mail marketing, web site design service and website development, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

 

Rat Wulf - Website Designer

7strategy Web Design Company

117 N. Cooper St.

Olathe, KS - 66061

1-888-231-3062 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              1-888-231-3062      end_of_the_skype_highlighting     

By Christian Arno| Aug 25, 2010

When it comes to creating websites for foreign language markets, a few necessities are immediately obvious.

First, the websites need to be in the native or primary language of the country you're targeting. Also, you'll need to take into account consumer behavior and culture in that country -- where's your gap in the market and what's your unique selling proposition (USP)?

You'll also need to work out your search engine optiimization (SEO) strategy, because what's the point of spending all that time and money developing multilingual websites if they aren't ranking in the search engines?

Where to Concentrate Your SEO Efforts

The tricky point to consider here, though, is that while you may be well attuned to the needs and vagaries of Google, the Internet superpower isn't the dominant search engine in every country.

You've likely heard of Baidu, the Chinese search engine, which leads Google China on searches by 52 percent to 33 percent.

There are a few theories on why Baidu is the Google-killer in China. Some pundits believe it's due to Chinese patriotism (despite the fact that Baidu started in the U.S.). But the more likely reason is because the Chinese love to search the web for MP3s (55 percent of Baidu users are MP3 searchers). Baidu is better for illegal downloading because it's held to less strict legal standards than Western search engines.

Among the other Google-beating local search engines, popularity is attributed to their being optimized for the alphabet and language of the country.

For instance, Yandex succeeds in Russia (with a 64 percent market share) where Google.ru fails, largely because it's built around the Cyrillic alphabet and recognizes Russian grammar and inflection.

Then, of course, there's Seznam, the dominant search engine in the Czech Republic. In South Korea, Naver has 70 percent of the search market (compared to Google's 2 percent). Meanwhile, the Japanese inexplicably prefer Yahoo Japan to Google.

Naturally, then, it makes sense that you if you have a Russian website, you would want to concentrate most of your SEO efforts on Yandex, and Baidu for China, and so forth.

Changing Your SEO Strategy for Market-Leading Search Engines

Sadly, there isn't enough space here to outline every difference and similarity. Extensive research can be found online that goes into SEO strategies for each search engine, but the general consensus is that they all operate in largely the same way, with a few key differences.

Baidu doesn't seem to take into account inbound links -- one of the integral parts of effective Google SEO -- so building links with Chinese websites would seem to be a waste of your time. Your money might be better spent on increasing your Baidu PPC advertising budget, as Baidu apparently doesn't take relevancy into account with PPC -- higher rankings are achieved with higher spend.

Yandex, meanwhile, counts inbound links as relevant, and also highly rates relevant geographic location. Interestingly, Yandex will also penalize you for having spam-like roll-over and pop-up ads on your site.

Fortunately, each search engine offers its own keyword research tools, so you're obviously far better off using the data analysis tools of the search engine you're trying to game, than, say, applying your Google China keywords to Baidu.

With Great Effort Comes Great Possibility

Clearly, one size doesn't fit all when it comes to SEO strategies for different countries.

The crucial lesson here: developing SEO specific to each country's dominant search engine is just as important as creating language- and culture-specific websites in the first place. Mastering the tricks of each market's search engine is the key to success.

See the full story at: www.searchenginewatch.com

For more information about S.E.O, e-commerce web site design, e-mail marketing, web site design service and website development, just visit us at www.7strategy.com 

By Kevin Gibbons | Aug 25, 2010

Most search engine optimization (SEO) agencies are now accepted as an integral part of their customers' wider marketing strategy -- and that's because it's increasingly obvious that SEO underpins every other online promotional tool.

In fact, my recent post "How to achieve excellence in joined-up marketing" showed how SEO can work with many other marketing tools in order to make marketing spend work even harder.

Despite this, some SEOs just don't get it. I was chatting to a young, bright, up-and-coming SEO at a conference recently about the strategy he was employing to boost an already-popular website.

He explained that he was writing some "keyword-heavy guides" for the site's pages, which interested me because he had no copywriting experience.

"Oh, it doesn't matter about the quality," he explained. "For this content, Google is the only customer."

Google is Never the Only Customer

Now, this guy isn't an employee at my company, so he didn't have to sit through the usual lecture I roll out at this point.

Suffice to say, in our industry, Google is never the only customer because it's humans who search, humans who visit the pages after they have been crawled by the spiders, and humans who use the content on those pages to form opinions on the company that supplied it.

It isn't impossible to create articles, guides, news stories, blog posts, and landing pages that are both useful to people and attractive to search engines. You just need skilled, informed writers with a firm grasp of SEO principles.

Google is Evolving

The most successful search engine in the world is so successful because it gives people want they want -- and they don't want keyword-stuffed garbage.

Yes, your website content needs to include relevant search terms because you need to show Google and other search engines that your page is relevant to the customer.

However, Google wants to give people useful information. Google's engineers are constantly working to refine its algorithm to make sure that's what it does.

If you want to future-proof your SEO strategy, you'll make sure your pages are useful and not just "optimized" by having a bunch of keywords crowbarred in.

You Risk Damaging Your Brand

There's a real danger that having poor quality copy on your website damages your brand in the eyes of any humans who stumble across it.

Your website is the equivalent to your shop front, your office reception, even your staff's attire in client meetings -- it's how customers form opinions of your brand.

Poor quality, keyword-stuffed, useless content lowers your brand's value in the eyes of the customer. The customer is the only customer -- not the search engine that brought them there.

Poor Copy Won't Convert

Whatever your website's purpose, poor quality content won't help you achieve it.

Whether you're trying to garner support for a cause, enhance brand engagement, or simply sell a service or product, your content needs to promote that end.

You can't have some copy on the site that you hope humans won't read. Those searchers who do land on it will quickly leave your site -- often with a lower opinion of your company than before.

You Won't Get Any Link Love

A low-quality, keyword-crammed guide on your site might attract the attention of the search engine spiders, but it won't get any humans particularly excited.

However, a well-written, informative industry guide could easily be tweeted, shared, and linked to. That encourages natural traffic and aids your website's optimization, so it's a double win.

Why bother with useless, brand-damaging, short-term copy when a little extra effort could bring you all these benefits?

See the full story at: www.searchenginewatch.com

For more information about S.E.O, e-commerce web site design, e-mail marketing, web site design service and website development, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Over the last few weeks I've found it interesting that a few people thought I had a business and PR background rather than a background in SEO. The reason for this seems to be that I generally look at what my work means in terms of business performance, rather than just making web stats look good by using lots of plus signs and positive arrows.

Too often, people still think of SEO as a technical service, rather than a key marketing activity and integral part of their business strategy.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640519

There are three primary elements of website design that must be considered when you build a company site.  They include appeal, colors, and if the site is user friendly.  These things are not important for personal sites that are only for friends and family but if you want to generate customers they are very important.

One of the major elements of website design is the colors you choose to use on your site.  The most successful sites have soft colors that are pleasing to the eyes.  If you use a color like neon green and construction orange then they can be almost blinding online.  This will definitely cause users with sensitive eyes to immediately leave the site as quickly as they can click to get away.  Softer colors include white, tan, beige, and taupe backgrounds.  The text on the site that is best is black.  Many people want to get creative but with a business there are many other ways to be creative than with the colors.  Stick with professional colors even if you are trying to be fun.

 

Another thing to consider is appeal when it comes to website design.  You might think if you cannot change the colors then the appeal is gone.  This is not true.  Appeal can happen by a site that has photos that are unique and interesting, content strategically placed around the site and more.  An appealing site doesn't have too much content or not enough.  It has the right mix of everything so the visitors are happy to click through the site.  It maintains interest of the visitors also.

Another element of web design is that the site needs to be user friendly.  A user friendly site means that it is easy to click around and get through.  A visitor should know exactly where they are at all times when clicking through a business site.  At any point in time should they become confused about how to get back to the home page of the site they will leave and most likely not return.  Clickability is very important with the design of a site.

 

There are three primary elements of website design that you should consider when building your site.  These things include colors that are easy to look at and pleasing to the eyes, an appealing site that is interesting, and a clickable site that is easy to understand.  Success online is easy but you must maintain a sense of professionalism if you want to succeed.

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For more information, tips and resources about web site design, you always can visit http://www.7strategy.com, or send an email to info@7strategy.com

7strategy Web Design Company

117 N. Cooper St.

Olathe, KS - 66061

1-888-231-3062

7Strategy Thrives on State-of-the-Art Web Development Trends

OLATHE, KS -- April 22, 2010

7Strategy Web Development Company is thriving on state-of-the-art website development trends; new techniques that will forever change the world of custom web design. By blending customer service and marketing strategies with the graphics and programming of web design, 7Strategy has created a new, effective type of website development.

"Our goal is to help you achieve a perfect visual identity to achieve your vision. You get website design solutions that fit your budget constraints and technology needs," says 7Strategy, who pioneered the idea of a "visual identity"; not just a professional website, but a website that captures the essence of a company on the web. With more and more societal functions--including buying homes and meeting spouses--moving to the web, 7Strategy's innovative technology is extremely necessary. Walking into an office building, a person notices the color of the walls, the art work, and the layout. This helps new customers get an idea of the business's culture and values. 7Strategy allows for a similar experience through its innovative "visual identity" creation.

From local web design to corporate website design, the 7Strategy web development company has realized that the innovative methods they have been pioneering are widely successful. Understanding that websites are marketing tools, they've taken a public relations approach in addition to incorporating stunning graphics. The base of 7Strategy's successful technique is getting to know the customer and market before designing the website.

These proven methods will affect the future of web design and Internet marketing around the world. Providing more than a web site design service, 7Strategy guarantees that their methods will improve their customers' business.

"Embracing the fundamental efficiencies and cost effectiveness of the Internet is now essential for all organizations to remain competitive. Without proper planning, goals, marketing or design, a website is doomed for failure," says 7strategy Web Development Company.

By incorporating innovative technologies that cut out the middleman and create "visual identity," 7Strategy has thrived in their own business. Now, they are determined to give the tools for success to others.

Media Contact:

Rasvir Mustan, 7strategy LLC, (888)-231-3062, http://www.7strategy.com, info (at) 7strategy dot com

A reader recently asked me how to know when their content quality was good enough. This question is interesting because it's rooted in a mindset of "What is required to get the best SEO results?"

However, this same question can be applied quite a bit more broadly. Here are some of the ways you can evaluate that question.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640123

There are all kinds of e-mail marketers. You probably know some yourself. I speak with 50-plus digital marketers a month between client work, speaking at events, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While this is by no means scientific, here are my five categories of e-mail marketers. Which type are you?

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3640055

Small and medium-sized business (SMB) marketers are becoming increasingly convinced of the positive results of video email, social media and personalization, according to a new report from GetResponse.

Over 80 percent of respondents plan to use video emails in 2010 and over 90 percent of SMB marketers who use video emails report it delivers significant conversion rates.

See the full story at: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/03/01/more-email-marketers-using-video

There's such competition in the SEM world that few of us will ever turn down a client, but there are some companies you just don't want business from.

Unfortunately, some clients can unintentionally limit or harm the work you're trying to do on their behalf. It's frustrating. They're usually ambitious for their Web sites, but lack any real understanding of SEO methods.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640011

A website design company offers three different types of websites. These sites include transaction sites, retail sites, and content sites. There is a purpose for each type of site you might want to consider if you are thinking about making money on the Internet today.

One of the most common types of sites today is a content site. This type of site includes a few web pages that only have content on them and embedded links that may take a visitor to other sites around the web. The company doesn't offer a product or a service. Instead they make money by the integrated affiliate links that pay the site for the amount of visitors they can generate to make purchases. They may also make money by integrating pay per click ads only. These sites focus strictly on content that is useful and interesting for the visitors of a site. A web site design company can easily make content sites and have them up and running for you in as little as a couple of days.

Transaction sites are very popular on the web also. A site like this on the web allows a visitor to make a transaction in expectations they receive something in return. This may include a membership to the site, the ability to make postings on the web. A transaction site will require the users to click on a button for something to happen. They may have to pay a fee or just fill out forms to become a part of the site. Using a website design company to design transaction pages is the best option because they know what the visitors want to see and how to properly make the site function.

The third most common site provided by a web design company is a retail or online store. These are also known as ecommerce sites. To some people they are considered to be a virtual catalog for shopping and others they are the primary shopping source. Retail sites offer products for sale. There must be a purchasing functionality and a shipping functionality. These sites contain databases to hold the shopper's information for shipping, billing, and more. They must be secure so hackers cannot steal personal information of the shoppers and more.

There are three primary types of sites offered by a web design company. Before you contact a company you should be sure the type of site you are considering to start.

Resource Box

For more information, tips, and resources about website design, visit http://www.7strategy.com/ or send an email to info@7strategy.com

7strategy Web Design Company
117 N. Cooper St.
Olathe, KS - 66061
1-888-231-3062

SEO continues to rapidly evolve, and with it so do bad SEO ideas. Focusing on keyword meta tags, keyword stuffing, and hoarding PageRank are some of the bad SEO oldies but goodies. Here's another golden oldie: buying links from hundreds of cheap directories.

All of these ideas may have worked at one time, but that was when the search engines were newborn babies and those who didn't cheat were at a real disadvantage. Over time, the search engines have grown up and now they do a much better job of dealing with spam techniques. These sorts of bad ideas have fallen by the wayside, except among those who know little about SEO.

see the full story at:http://searchenginewatch.com/3639869

 

 

 

SEO or PPC, which is better? That was one great debate at SES London which included excellent arguments from the SEO camp, followed by a strong defense for PPC - before Fantomaster decided that there's no need to worry about the rules, as black hat is the way forward!

There's a growing divide between online marketers who enjoy organic search and those who prefer paid search. So what do your preferences say about you?

Do you enjoy hours spent analyzing search terms and bidding on long tail PPC keywords that squeeze an extra 20 percent return out of your budget? Or do you prefer to add lasting value to a Web site over the long term, gradually building authority through clever content and inching your way to the top of the natural search results?

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3639692

I was reading a blog post from John Andrews about a test that Google is running in the Nordic regions, and the news was a bit shocking...at least, initially.

If you're in the region, and have a Google Webmaster Tools account, you can submit a request to be included within an SEO site clinic that Google staffers will provide. Right now, they are only looking for four participants/Web sites.

Here's what is mentioned on Google's "Inside AdWords" blog post for this region:

A site clinic is where we go through the website you submit, provide feedback on them and share tips on how they can improve. This could make them better geared toward search engines, which will give better results in such as Google search. Hopefully, the work could lead to increased visibility for their website.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3636505

As a search engine marketing company, we are often asked by clients and prospects if there's a basic philosophy when it comes to organic search engine optimization and paid search advertising.

"Is one tactic more favorable than another? How do I know which channel to pursue? Should I do both?"

Without a hard look at your company's goals and unique situation, there really isn't a concrete answer to these questions. The true test of pursuing either an SEO campaign or PPC advertising (or both) is knowing that it all boils down to your company philosophy, ROI objectives, budget, and countless other monetary and marketing factors. To determine which, or what combination of both, might offer the most bang for your buck, let's examine five types of "models" that my search engine marketing company often deals with.

See the full story at: http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Internet-Marketing/Search-Engine-Optimization-and-Paid-Search-What-Should-Your-Philosophy-Be.html

During your SEO studies, you might have come across the term universal search or blended search. Not sure what it means or how it works? Then this article is for you.

Universal search has been around since 2007 when Google announced a significant change to its search engine. Soon after, Ask announced their Ask 3D platform and Microsoft Live announced their new Live Search. Yahoo followed up with what they called the new Yahoo Search.

Search is Universal

• Add a press release about your product and post to PR sites for promotion
• Add a blog post about your product
• Produce a short video about the product and post accordingly
• Go beyond your Web site and push this content into various social media channels

Now all the major search engines use a new form of search results designed to bring a better user experience to searchers. So what is universal or blended search?

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3636341

When teaching your clients to fish for SEO, some clients that would like to manage this tactic underestimate the amount of work or expertise associated with it. Remember, it's OK to teach your clients how to do your job if it's in their best interest.

However, agencies must understand how SEO plays into the overall search strategy, even if you're handing over the keys to the castle to the client. SEO shouldn't be simply looked at as some technical stuff you do to improve a site. Let's stick with this theme of not taking things for granted and really differentiate between best practices and SEO.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3636318/print

Microsoft/Bing has released what amounts to one of the most powerful free server-side SEO (search engine optimization) tools available.

The IIS SEO toolkit, which caters to Web developers, hosting providers and Web server administrators, aims to "improve discoverability and user experience" for websites and it's going to be a game changer.

The IIS SEO Toolkit includes a Site Analysis module, a Robots Exclusion module, and a Sitemaps and Site Indexes module. These tools let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing files.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2010/01/25/bing-s-iis-seo-toolkit-now-available.aspx

When it comes to big teams (and just as frequently with one-man shows), all marketing initiatives earn the distinction of being a priority, which normally denotes something that's important enough to jump on right away. But with dozens of other projects hanging in the air, a further hierarchy is required. Individual action items (or at times, the entire list) becomes a high priority, on top of which it's more than likely that the team has three or four top priorities.

When you have a project in mind that can make a huge difference to your bottom line, like SEO or PPC, hearing that it's a top priority and then watching it languish as a line item in weekly and monthly staff meetings quickly becomes a top annoyance with a high incidence of face palming as a result.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3636181

If you're involved with SEO in any way, you've probably heard about duplicate content. If you're not exactly sure what it is and how it affects your SEO efforts, then this article is for you. This topic can be rather technical and have some advanced features, but I'll try to keep it basic and won't get into technical details here.

What is Duplicate Content?

In the basic sense, duplicate content is when two or more Web sites have the same content on their site. This isn't just the same subject or headers, but the exact same content word for word or maybe almost word for word.

This may happen for several reasons. You may have written an article and another site or blog picked up the article and posted it word for word.

Another situation is you might have multiple sites with different domains but have similar content. This is sometimes true for sites in different countries. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for having the same content. Still, it's good to understand the pitfalls.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3636001

Link building -- the process of attempting to influence inbound links pointing to a site -- is a fundamental activity of most SEO strategies, but very few people are armed with the tools to do it right. Even more people have the right tools but struggle to stay on top of their linking efforts and understand the impact of them.

Today, let's examine how you can be fully prepared for your link building endeavors by developing a comprehensive link-building toolkit that you can leverage throughout your program.

This "toolkit," which consists of contact lists, worksheets, and templates, is a consolidated repository or file of relevant references or documents required to undertake your link-building program. My link-building toolkit is typically a spreadsheet file with multiple tabs for each item or element. As you will be entering data into your toolkit throughout, I've found that Excel facilitates this most easily.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635990

Buying into SEO is a difficult process. Without at least a basic understanding of SEO, it's really tough to tell the difference between someone who knows their stuff and someone who talks a great game without backing it up with results.

Many companies looking for SEO help -- even those with a decent understanding of SEO -- try their best to shop around, but they always end up with two simple questions:

1. What is this firm going to do for me?

2. How much do they cost?

When you're hiring for a particular position in any business, you're looking at that individual's background. You aren't just hiring them based on how much they cost, or what they say that they will (or can) do. You're hiring them based on their resume, their references, and their history of performance.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635910

At last week's SES Chicago, attendees were treated not just to a staggering amount of information on search engine marketing and optimization, but also other methods of digital marketing that are über relevant to today's media strategists. Included among them was viral marketing, and a session I moderated, "Igniting Viral Campaigns," addressed some misconceptions about this nebulous subject, while also illustrating that it's a lot more manageable than you might think.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635901

Defining your business goals is one of the most important things you can do at the start of any SEO project. For example, your goal might be to increase your non-branded search traffic by 25 percent.

Once you've defined your business goals, you can then think about the things that need to happen to meet those goals, and the nature of the SEO team required to meet them. Let's determine how to measure the results of your SEO efforts.

Ranking Reports?

Frequently, our clients tell us that they want to achieve a certain ranking for a specific search term. Many products that help you set up and monitor your rankings are available on the market. However, we prefer not to focus on this way of measuring results.

First, these types of programs scrape search engine results, and this is against the terms of service of the search engines. For this reason, it probably isn't a good idea to do that in any volume.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635889

A few people at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago this week, including some panelists on stage and many influential members of our industry, made it seem like personalization will mean the death of SEO. Aside from the obvious easy jabs from paid search extremists whose model would predict growth as a result of less emphasis on organic search, others seemed to lean a little too far toward fear mongering.

There were voices of reason as well. During the "Search Industry Today" panel, SES board member (and my friend) Anne Kennedy eloquently stated something I strongly agree with: "...(SEO) is evolving, not dead. What is dead is the rankings, yet over and over people talk about top 10 rankings."

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635872

The process of SEO has changed, and quickly. Buying keyword-rich domains, writing a few articles and tweaking the titles will no longer net a top position on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

What is important to understand about search engine optimization (SEO) is that there is no constant -- no absolutes. But with a little education, there are myths that you can spot from a mile away and, more importantly, avoid wasting valuable time and resources.

The first and perhaps most damaging myth is that of guaranteed success. Keep this in mind when considering enlisting SEO help. SEO is a moving target and even some long-standing, "guaranteed" methods of SEO success have been proven ineffective.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/12/01/debunking-common-seo-myths.aspx

Last year's holiday sales season wasn't so joyful for online retailers. But early reports indicate that things are looking up a bit this year. Initial Coremetrics data from Black Friday reveals that consumers spent 25 percent more this year, with orders totaling $170.19 on average -- an increase of about $44 over last year's average Black Friday order online.

Coremetrics also reported an 18 percent increase in the average number of items purchased per order this year on Black Friday. Last year, it was 4.56 items per order, but this year it increased to 5.40 items. The upturn of $3.80 per average order isn't exactly substantial, but online retailers will take any sales improvements to the bank. After all, they worked for it, and more importantly, they planned for it.

Launch and Relaunch Planning

If you have a Web site development or redevelopment project in your strategic plans for 2010, don't ignore SEO until after the site is launched or relaunched. Just as it takes a great deal of planning and coordination to produce successful holiday sales campaigns, it takes forethought and research to produce a search optimal Web site.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635782

Clients can easily become obsessed with on-page SEO, constantly tweaking title tags, headings, and on-page content. While these activities are important at the right place and time, people shouldn't get obsessed with it. Do the necessary work up front, make some decisions, and then move on.

Tweaking on-page content on existing pages quickly begins to offer you diminishing returns. In addition, you probably have limited resources for SEO. As a result, every minute you spend tweaking (and re-tweaking) on-page factors is a minute you don't spend on promoting the Web site (collectively this includes link building, PR, and social media reference building).

Unlike on-page SEO, Web site promotion nearly always continues to offer good returns. The only exception to this is if your site is dominant in the SERPs in your space.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635670

It's important to start every Web site development project by understanding the role of SEO in the project. The team of people working on the project has limited time, and most likely they have a schedule. Focusing them on the wrong things will produce less than optimal results.

Let's focus in on the role of SEO in the project plan in the context of developing a new site. But these principles can be applied to any new SEO project with simple modifications.

Start the SEO effort before you write the first line of code. Search Engine Watch readers are probably aware of the following four points:

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635545/

Unequivocally, the biggest questions of the year are: "Where does social media fit into my search and marketing plan?" and "Where's the ROI going to come from to CYA for the spend?" Answers to these questions will be addressed during the panel session, "PR, Social Media, and Search" at SES Chicago next month. This topic has me so pumped, that I'm flying from California to Chicago in the heart of December.

Looking at major brands like Dell, Southwest Airlines, Cisco, and more, our panel explores the boomerang effect of social media on PR efforts, SEO, and all things in between. It's been stated that social media is the single biggest differentiator in the SEO world today. Those that harness unique user-generated content, the links from the blogosphere and forums, as well as the buzz created from retweets, Facebook updates, and YouTube videos, will reap benefits -- if done correctly.

Moreover, the PR impact of social is undeniable. That includes responding to erroneous attacks on your brand through a timely response on Twitter and in the blogosphere, or getting buzz about a new product launch. There's no better way to get the word out than the social media channel.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635632

The major search engines have a history of evolving their indexing capabilities to keep up with new types of digital content. First it was HTML text, then blog content, then multimedia files like videos, and more recently it was flash content. Now the search engines are indexing another type of content -- tweets!

That's right, for those of you who haven't heard, it's official -- Google has reached an agreement with Twitter to show tweets in their search results. While previously, Twitter profile pages may have been surfacing in the listings, now individual tweets can show up as a unique listing.

So, what does that mean for marketers? Well, just like when new types of content have been added to the search indexes in the past and we've had to adapt our strategies to optimize for this new content, we're going to have to do the same for tweets.

Question: How do you get your tweets in organic listings?

Answer: With this agreement only being announced a few weeks ago (October 21), there isn't a ton of data on what works and what doesn't from an SEO perspective. As anyone that has done SEO before knows, there's a lot of trial and error to determine what works when it comes to influencing organic positioning. That said, there are many thoughts on how marketers can both optimize their tweets, as well as leverage Twitter from a larger perspective to improve overall SEO results.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635565

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a powerful tool to help potential customers find your site. "If you don't do SEO, you probably won't be found on Google," Tuggle said. "And if you're not found on Google, you're losing about 65 percent of your potential customers from the Internet." Currently, 65 percent of all search queries are performed on Google.

So what exactly is SEO? What's involved in doing SEO? And how can you tell if your SEO efforts are working?

SEO Basics

SEO is an ongoing process in which you proactively use strategic keywords, links, HTML tags, and other techniques to increase the chances a page or site will organically land at or near the top of search result pages.

See the full story at: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/news/article.phpr/3841381

There was a panicked discussion thread at Google Webmaster Help forums recently. The person who initiated the discussion wrote:

"Today I found that my entire site has dropped out of site in search results. I have a site that received over 2,000 search visits per day and today that has stopped."

Apparently, he had a bunch of affiliate links on his site. These are links to other sites that he would make money on if someone clicked on the link and bought something on the affiliate site.

With this in mind, it's a good time to refresh your memories on the Google Paid Links policy.

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank violates Google's Webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635229

Practitioners of SEO talk a lot about the signals search engines use to determine whether one page or site is more relevant than another. Although this topic is rarely discussed with respect to paid search, it should be considered when planning and executing your own search campaigns as well as when evaluating your competitors' campaigns. By understanding relevance all the way through the search experience -- from the moment the searcher starts filling out that search box till the time she leaves your site (assuming she got there at all) -- you can put yourself in the shoes of both the search engine and the consumer.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635150

Question: Have you had success with purchasing text links for SEO?

Answer: The short answer is no, not really, but probably not for the reason you are thinking. I've been working in SEO since 1996 and have observed sites that have improved their visibility in Google and Bing by buying text links, but the improved positioning never seems to last very long. So, it's difficult to consider the tactic successful.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3635200

One of the challenges with keyword research is to truly identify the language of the customer so we can include this language on our Web site and in our search marketing efforts. With international SEO, this challenge is magnified by localization, different languages, and cultures.

Keywords that might be popular in one language may not be in another, even through translation. Even if an experienced translator has translated correctly, it doesn't mean it's always the most popular. For example, more than 20 character combinations can be used for "anti virus" in Mandarin Chinese, with one or two being the most popular by searchers.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635187

So is SEO different for non-English sites? With roughly 63 percent of the world's online population being languages other than English, international SEO, otherwise known as global SEO or multilingual SEO, is an important component to an effective global Internet marketing strategy.

Most standard search engines and directories have a local version for different countries. Search Engine Colossus has a nice international directory of search engines.

As you would guess, some search engines are better than others and work differently, too. They also have different criteria for inclusion. Some may demand that the site be in the local language, others demand a local URL, and still others expect the company to be incorporated locally. These are some of the challenges you'll face as you conduct SEO for different country sites.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635112

Site audits are one of the most important tasks for an SEO professional, and sometimes you need to do one quickly. Here's how you can complete an audit in 60 minutes.

You should do one of these at the start of a new SEO effort, and then follow that up with a more extensive review. This can help smoke out the major issues most affecting development.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3634671

One of the biggest keys to success in the world of SEO is differentiation. The reason for this is two-fold:

1. Potential linkers are much more likely to give you a link. It will make a stronger impression on people who visit your site, and is therefore more likely to result in a conversion (i.e., they buy something, fill out a lead form, ask you to contact them, etc.).

The reason these things are true has to do with the intense competitiveness of the environment on the Internet today. Those who understand the basics of how search works are making a lot of money, and more people are investing serious dollars in their Web site marketing strategies. The result: Web sites are getting plentiful in virtually every category and subcategory you can imagine.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634895

One of the biggest challenges in SEO is the ongoing lack of recognition it plays in getting traffic to your Web site. This can be especially true in larger organizations where key members of management aren't familiar with it, and how it works. Uninformed senior managers can easily make decisions that are catastrophic from an SEO perspective.

Here are some of the most common mistakes made as a result:

1. Not Starting Early Enough

Even organizations that are aware of SEO's importance have a tendency to start the process too late.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634797

International SEO specialists like to talk about the importance of "accents," those marks that reside either above, below, or between existing characters in a piece of text in the relevant language, for search engine algorithms.

But don't search engines these days actually compensate for accents automatically? Some argue that all you need to do is directly place the character in HTML and Google will do the work for you. So what's the story?

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635055

About 9,999 times out of 10,000, companies that begin a redesign of their Web site do so with the following reasons in mind:

1. "We want to freshen the look/feel."

2. "We need to update our content, to be more relevant for where we are today."

3. "We have too much information on our Web site...we need to clean house and provide a slimmed down version."

It's rare, even in 2009, that companies will speak to things that also matter a great deal: usability and SEO.

Usability and SEO go hand-in-hand. Search engines want to rank Web sites that provide a quality user experience for the searcher. How that's defined can be somewhat subjective (every Web site is unique and its target audience will also be unique).

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634964

The number of companies performing SEM in silos is still surprising. They'll hire one agency to do PPC and another to do SEO. Or they'll have an in-house marketer doing PPC, while SEO is delegated to their IT department.

These scenarios aren't inherently bad. They can work very well -- if there's communication between the two. In Part 1, we outlined ways to integrate PPC with e-mail marketing. Today we'll talk about the key information that should be shared when integrating PPC with SEO.

Step 1: Develop a Master Keyword List

In school, we knew we had to do our homework if we wanted to get good grades. It's no different in search marketing.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634874

When a company hires a person for online promotional strategies, too often they want to put the position in a tight box. This is especially true when it comes to social media and link marketing. I prefer to think of this person as public relations as opposed to promotions.

We've all seen it. A person is hired for online promotions. Often their boss knows little about what is truly involved. The position quickly turns into low-quality link trading and trying to get to the first page of Digg.

Then, a couple months later, the company wonders why they're getting little or no results. At that time, they realize they can outsource it to a developing nation for a fraction of the cost. This story is repeated time and time again.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634873

Our strategy team recently embarked on a study of several non-client ecommerce Web sites, analyzing dozens of factors grouped into three main areas: technical infrastructure, content, and linking. Many experts consider these to be the three primary areas of focus for SEO. Of the three, it seems as though there are only two that Webmasters and marketing teams can have full control over: technical implementation and content creation.

Navigation choices and duplication of content onto different URLs often can have a diluting effect on the strength of inbound links, but the primary driver of many of those links is often the brand's strength and history. The creation of compelling, unique content to replace boilerplate product or brand descriptions can also effectively lure people to link to deeper pages of the site.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634829

The unattainable goal for many search campaigns is the ever-elusive melding of PPC and SEO tactics for bigger and better top-line results. Theoretically, the two should go together like peanut butter and jelly.

SEO's thick and salty "peanut butter" should form a strong base and combine well with PPC's more easily transplantable and sweet "grape jelly" to form an unstoppable search/sandwich force, right? Maybe, if you try to put them together in the right way.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634537

When we create compelling experiences for users and measure them accurately, we can make incremental gains towards improving the financial return on advertising and the return on other marketing efforts like social media or search engine optimization.

Increasing site effectiveness and visitor satisfaction through on-site engagement optimization ultimately results in a higher conversion rate, which is why it is so important.

By not engaging in optimizing consumers' e-commerce experiences, merchants ultimately risk generating fewer sales over time. That alone should be reason enough to consider routine testing of page elements -- and combinations of them -- to generate more revenue from each user session.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/optimizing-the-on-site-engagement-experience.aspx

Most SEOs face challenges with a single site in English, but the challenges compound exponentially when you add multiple countries and languages to the mix.

The most common of these problems is the use of language or location detection to dynamically show the visitor the language or country site of their preference or give them the option of selecting where they want to go. While this is a convenience to the visitor, it causes problems for the spiders to access the different versions of your site.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634625

Your site's content is at the heart of what your site will rank for, and to a strong degree how well it will rank. Simply put, you need lots of it. I mean tons. Building authority takes more than a page or two, it takes a page or two or ten on every sub-topic of every category of a big idea or kind of product.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634097

Recent changes in the processing of the nofollow attribute have caused consternation and concern among many publishers. Let's talk about what has happened, and how you should adapt your SEO strategy accordingly.

A Little History
PageRank sculpting has been a hot topic since 2007. This was the idea that you could control, at a granular level, the flow of link juice in your Web site through the use of the nofollow attribute.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634387

The unattainable goal for many search campaigns is the ever-elusive melding of PPC and SEO tactics for bigger and better top-line results. Theoretically, the two should go together like peanut butter and jelly.

SEO's thick and salty "peanut butter" should form a strong base and combine well with PPC's more easily transplantable and sweet "grape jelly" to form an unstoppable search/sandwich force, right? Maybe, if you try to put them together in the right way.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634537

Have you ever undertaken a search for an SEO vendor/partner? Are you thinking about starting to look for a new partner soon?

Because Search Engine Optimization is sometimes not fully understood by clients, they often struggle to know what to look for in a partner, and what types of activities and deliverables an SEO project should entail.

When you solicit proposals from vendors, it is important to have a frame of reference for what to expect in a proposal. What are elements that should be a part of a typical SEO project? What does a comprehensive, well-defined SEO program or project look like?

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3634447

Hopefully by now you've come to the realization that the more links you have pointing to your website the higher it will be positioned on search engines. Getting links (or earning them) however is a time consuming and often complicated and costly undertaking - even for the most noteworthy professionals.

Having an SEO strategy is clearly important - despite the fact that Google and others frown upon any manipulation to improve rankings.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/06/30/seo-do-you-link-three-ways.aspx

Hopefully by now you've come to the realization that the more links you have pointing to your website the higher it will be positioned on search engines. Getting links (or earning them) however is a time consuming and often complicated and costly undertaking - even for the most noteworthy professionals.

Having an SEO strategy is clearly important - despite the fact that Google and others frown upon any manipulation to improve rankings.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/06/30/seo-do-you-link-three-ways.aspx

Many things have changed in the last few years, but the real foundation for SEO success hasn't changed much at all.

Yeah, sure, some important things work today that weren't even available years ago -- namely blog content and promotion, and social media promotion through Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Propeller, Twitter, or what have you.

Yeah, we should always find ways to add fresh content to our Web site, optimize all digital assets that we have (images, video, etc.), but the real SEO basics are still often overlooked or not understood by many.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634178

Lots of discussion centered on the importance of buzz and how to build it, but more insight is always needed about how to leverage buzz for your SEO efforts. How do you build buzz, use it to build link authority, and ultimately improve your search engine rankings?

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3634134

The typical question that gives many SEO professionals a bit of a gut-check is, "How long will it take for you to show me results?" Typically, the answer will vary based on the age of the site in question and the level of competition for high volume keywords, if boiling it down to two major factors.

However, there are considerably more elements to a fully-fledged answer. These are also split into new vs. redesigned or reformatted (URL) Web site.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634072

I saw this question posted on a message board recently:

Title: Wanted SEO/SEM Vendor Referral Message: Does anyone have a COST EFFECTIVE SEO and SEM vendor referral. I am open to outsourcing, if referral for trustworthy vendor. Thanks, "Uninformed Buyer"

I actually cringed in horror; just look at those capital letters on precisely the wrong attributes! Cost is usually the wrong question to focus on when choosing a search engine optimization professional, as it implies you are buying a commodity.

Strategic effectiveness and search marketing profitability impact are much more appropriate questions. A quality SEO is all too rare, and should be priced like fine artwork.

If search engine optimization is about organic ranking effectiveness on the web that drives relevant, converting and revenue-generating traffic - wouldn't online research of organic listings be a good first step? I'd assert it would be a good place to create a short prospect list of vendors to perform due diligence.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634113

As I stated previously, manual and automated search engine submissions are still around, but are of little to no value. Some would maintain they are a complete waste of time. So what's the alternative?

Google Sitemaps Back in 2005, Google launched an initiative called Google Sitemaps, which provided webmasters with a better tool to keep Google informed of new web pages and updates. This was a much better process than having webmasters submitting their site manually or in some automated way.

Later, Yahoo, MSN and Ask united around the XML sitemap protocol and they are all supporting it through Sitemaps.org. So if you are considering any type of submission, then this is the way to do it.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633773

Although it isn't as important as it once was, search engine submission is still a SEO best practice. Search engines prefer finding your site and associated Web pages on their own. However, submitting your site to search engines doesn't hurt, as long as you're careful not to overdo it.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633692

Many people agree that its video searching capabilities are much better than Google's. This is just another indication that video search is growing in importance.

Last time, we looked at keyword research, tips on video production, and landing pages for video search. Today, we'll look at distribution and keyword placement and tracking/analytics.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3634013

With Internet video on the rise and the search engines looking more favorably on video content, there's an opportunity to leverage this medium for your SEO efforts. We'll focus on five steps for optimizing for video search, many which run parallel to traditional SEO best practices:

1. Keyword research

2. Video production

3. Landing pages

4. Distribution and keyword placement

5. Tracking/analytics

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633933

Why would you go to an SEO firm for the execution of a social campaign?

As you may be able to tell, I'm also trying very hard not to use the term "social media." That term hardly reflects what is essentially modern public relations. Generally speaking, the average SEO shop is a technical resource helping clients to develop or reengineer Web pages to make them more crawler friendly. In my experience, the majority of SEO shops rarely even provide link building services. Having said that, I've always believed that link building is more of a public relations and marketing exercise than it is an SEO one.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633920

With all the recent announcements from Google I/O, Microsoft's Bing replacement of Live Search, and Yahoo's shuttering of GeoCities and Yahoo 360, it feels like search is changing in front of our eyes and that somehow SEO must be changing, too. Yet SEO has always been a moving target.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633947

A recession doesn't mean that people stop searching the Web. Searching the Web isn't a fad -- it's totally gone mainstream just like streaming media. Sales might drop and conversion rates might falter a bit, but search traffic isn't going down in flames due to the economy. However, search engines will continue to change, and with it SEO will continue to evolve.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633786

Online retailers looking to cut costs during a recession while still improving the online customer experience are advised to switch their ecommerce software to non-customized platforms and funnel the savings into functions such as search engine optimization (SEO).

E-commerce firms should consider commercial, off-the-shelf, or open source software as a replacement for current custom Web development initiatives to save up to 35 per cent of their ongoing maintenance and license costs.

See the full story at: http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3819811/Focus+on+SEO+Open+Source+to+Boost+Online+Sales.htm

Although on site optimization is only one part of SEO, it's still essential to ensure your site is built in a search-engine "amenable" way.

But is it necessary to adhere to every tenet preached by SEO experts? Are there certain processes or practices that you should definitely follow and others that are nice to have?
Companies should try to adhere to specific practices when building a Web site. There are three key areas to consider when optimizing a Web site: navigation/linking, design, and content.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633547

Buying into SEO is a difficult process. Without at least a basic understanding of SEO, it's really tough to tell the difference between someone who knows their stuff and someone who talks a great game without backing it up with results.

Many companies looking for SEO help -- even those with a decent understanding of SEO -- try their best to shop around, but they always end up with two simple questions:

1. What is this firm going to do for me?

2. How much do they cost?

When you're hiring for a particular position in any business, you're looking at that individual's background. You aren't just hiring them based on how much they cost, or what they say that they will (or can) do. You're hiring them based on their resume, their references, and their history of performance.

For some reason, these basic principles get lost for people when they search for an SEO company (or hire an in-house optimizer). By selecting an agency or employee purely on cost, you could be setting yourself up for trouble ahead.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633648

Most Web sites are not built with SEO in mind.

Tips for Using Keywords in Key Areas

The first step should be to examine your code. Certain code detracts from the way a search engine will rank a site for relevancy. Cascading Style Sheets (CCS), for instance, don't mean anything to search engines. Where possible, move the CSS code off individual pages of your Web site and into a separate folder. Then, use a single line of HTML to reference the CSS code.

At least 80-percent of your main page should be text, with the balance being code. Your site should also be W3C-compliant to ensure that people can view your site correctly--and don't use code that works only in some browsers.

The second step for new Web shop owners is to work on their site's metadata --everything that fits in between the and tags on the page--such as the Title, Description, Subject and Classification.

See the full story at: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3816911

If your paid search campaigns are in a state of disarray, then the profit levels on your paid search spending are clearly not all they could be.

I got thinking about the state of most search marketers' campaigns while reviewing the latest Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) State of the Market Survey.

Google Ad Campaigns

When new clients come on board every year, I expect the campaigns my team and I will see will be more "together" than those in prior years. Interestingly, the opposite has occurred. Accounts within Google are usually the most disorganized because they've evolved over the years.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633355

If you're still using a free analytics system on a high-volume site with a huge amount of products, it's nearly impossible to see where the traffic split is happening between typed-in traffic, free search traffic, and/or paid traffic.

This especially becomes important when you're competing in a very aggressive market and you need to expand the resources for your team. In most cases, you'll wind up having two competing teams -- one trying to drive paid search at the lowest cost versus the natural search team trying to drive nothing but free traffic.

A split between these segments is very important. A lack of clarity will really hurt your business and you won't be able to see if problems are occurring.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3632742

How many SEOs have suffered because of unrealistic expectations from clients? Sure, there are times when an aggressive commissioned salesperson can get you into situations that are difficult to overcome. But, how many of you actually spent the time before any agreement was signed and before a check was cut to have a very frank and sincere discussion with your client about what they can expect from your efforts?

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633114

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past several months, you may have noticed that the economy stinks. This isn't just the case in the United States; this is a global financial crisis.

Even those of us who work in growth industries (as I would classify the SEO/ SEM industry) are affected.

It's been said for many years that you shouldn't cut marketing budgets in a down economy, because cheaper advertising gives you an opportunity to market your services more, and actually gain market share. In all of my years in marketing, I've seen very few examples of companies doing this.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3632988

Whenever I ask a prospect what their goals are, all too often their answer is, "We want to rank in the top three results for keywords A, B, and C."

Is that really a goal?

Now, I understand that high rankings (or, rather, organic search traffic) are important. I sincerely believe that a sound organic search strategy should be the core of every business's marketing efforts.

This goes back to the old adage of running a business (location, location, location). You must be where people are actively searching for your product or service offerings.

However, imagine that you had the perfect retail location and yet your storefront was filthy. Perhaps there isn't as much as a sign with your company's name on the front of the building. Perhaps, once you get into the location, not a single item has a price tag and the salespeople are nowhere to be found.

That traffic coming through your parking lot isn't going to help much, is it?

There are three basic rules that you need to follow to have a successful Web presence:

1. Brand matters.

2. Usability matters.

3. Search engine optimization matters.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/3633239

What Is Adobe's SEO Technology Center?

The center goes beyond just Flash and refers to rich Internet applications (RIAs) when talking about optimizing for SEO. Along with Adobe Flash, RIAs encompass a variety of other technologies and platforms, including Ajax, Curl, JavaFX, and Microsoft Silverlight.

While the technology center is primarily intended for developers, it's written in a way that resonates with marketers as well. Although marketers may not understand all the technical jargon, they can interpret enough to take action and provide direction to their development teams.

What Does the Technology Center Offer?

The center is made up of a series of articles that provide actionable tips and tricks and step-by steps guides for developers to follow. While the amount of content is a bit lean at the moment -- having just launched this month.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/clickz_email_experts/search/results/newsletter

What Is Adobe's SEO Technology Center?

The center goes beyond just Flash and refers to rich Internet applications (RIAs) when talking about optimizing for SEO. Along with Adobe Flash, RIAs encompass a variety of other technologies and platforms, including Ajax, Curl, JavaFX, and Microsoft Silverlight.

While the technology center is primarily intended for developers, it's written in a way that resonates with marketers as well. Although marketers may not understand all the technical jargon, they can interpret enough to take action and provide direction to their development teams.

What Does the Technology Center Offer?

The center is made up of a series of articles that provide actionable tips and tricks and step-by steps guides for developers to follow. While the amount of content is a bit lean at the moment -- having just launched this month.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/clickz_email_experts/search/results/newsletter

The issue of Flash and SEO is a never-ending one. It's an ongoing struggle between designers and SEO experts to find a solution that offers the bells and whistles that Flash Web sites deliver, while avoiding the potential SEO pitfalls that come along.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633078

For as long as I can remember, Flash and search engine optimization have gone together like oil and water - but that is definitely changing. In an effort to make SWF files a first-class citizen in the world of searchable Web results, Adobe has been recently working with search engines to make SWF content more searchable. The information resource released may help some designers overcome the inherent challenges with flash and SEO immediately.

Adobe has provided Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo! that allows their search spiders to navigate through a live SWF application - almost as if they were virtual users. The Flash Player technology runs a SWF file in a similar way the file would run in Adobe Flash Player in the browser. It returns all of the text and links that occur at any state of the application back to the search spider, which then appears in search results to the end user.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2009/03/17/flash-amp-seo-together-at-last-sort-of.aspx

In "Keyword Analysis Exercise," we took a deep dive into answering questions about the role keyword density plays in search engine results.

Using one of my favorite tools to answer the question, we determined there's no magic equation that can be factored into producing better results. However, we determined that if you want a Web page to be found for a particular keyword phrase, you better put the words on the page. While this seems like a no-brainer to most of the folks in the SEO industry, it's a concept many people fail to grasp.

Let's start looking at some of the other signals that Web pages send to the search engines that help determine the overall relevance of the content to the query. Namely, inbound links.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3633048

For several years, search engine optimizationconsultants and agencies have faced one major challenge, beyond keeping up with ever-changing organic ranking algorithms: lack of implemented recommendations. What causes this "implementation paralysis"? The answer is typically grouped into three areas:

1. Technology barriers.

2. The approval process.

3. Ownership issues within the site's organization.

Let's look at some examples of each of these results-paralyzing factors, and some ways to avoid or mitigate them.

Technology Barriers to SEO Implementations

Working with an organization that produces both HTML Web sites and major e-commerce platforms with IBM and Microsoft technologies on a regular basis has allowed me to observe and help overcome technology roadblocks frequently over the past few years. Having an internal team of more than 200 e-commerce engineers and dozens of Web designers who are eager to work with us (the search and media practice and specifically our SEO teams) in developing search-friendly sites and platforms streamlines the SEO process when it comes to dealing with technology issues.

See the full story at: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew_email/experts/sem_crossfire

It's not unusual for certain individuals within an online organization to be under the mistaken impression that natural search engine optimization efforts are free. It doesn't help that Google returns over 5 million results for "seo is free," either. Google does, however, return only 5,000 or so results for an exact match on the search query "seo is free."

Relatively speaking, this disparity in Google results could be interpreted that 99.999 percent of the people associated with an online organization believe that SEO is free. Of course, the data could be construed inversely to support the observation that that 0.001 percent of those in an online organization understand that SEO isn't free.

Of course, there's a myriad of free SEO tools and quick-hit auditing services to help people diagnose their sites' SEO performance and a seemingly infinite profusion of free advice on how to do SEOyourself. As a result, it's completely fair to say that industry players and so-called experts like myself actually contribute to the erroneous notion that SEO is free.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3632902

The use of online video for both ecommerce advertising and marketing, though not entirely common-place, is still increasing. Part of what's driving the trend is that new businesses offering affordable do-it-yourself services continue to roll out more sophisticated features.

Today we round-up some new announcements in the sector, offer an expert's view on trends for 2009 and, finally, provide some resources for optimizing your online video.

See the full story at: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/advertising/article.php/3800406

The more time you spend promoting your website, the more you find there are not actually any advanced link building methods -- no silver bullets to catapult you to top of search rankings. If you're disappointed, don't be. Consider the realization a major step in your link building education. All is not lost. Don't lose your composure; what we need is to think creatively.

Advanced link building requires you fear nothing (e.g. rebukes from others) and are willing to sacrifice everything (the efficacy of the brand) if they (the advanced methods) don't work out (i.e. penalties) when leveraging available opportunities to build links. That being said, we actually need to go beyond just being creative with link building efforts. We need to completely redefine the link building box we're thinking outside of. Remember that link building is a moving target, because search engines change their algorithm frequently, that it is a long term process, and there is no silver bullet. Moving forward all the while with traditional link building will yield the best results. As in life, there are no shortcuts - so don't expect them.

However, I've tapped my creative reserve and personal experience to share a few solid ideas you may have never thought of to build links. Some might consider these link building options gray hat (or even black hat, depending), but they do work and that is reason enough to consider them. In the end you'll find that the best, most creative link building efforts have yet to be discovered.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/advanced-link-building-tactics-and-techniques.aspx

Without further a due, let's look at some intermediary link-building techniques, and some resolutions to make it happen in 2009,

Design Website Themes & Templates For Your Industry: If you've ever designed a website on your own or paid a web designer to create one (or more) then you know how time consuming it is and in turn how valuable that work is to those who don't have those skills. This is precisely why there is value in designing website themes and templates for your clients, members of your industry and even readers of your weblog.

Develop Widgets/Plugins for Users

Purchase Existing Domains

Start an Affiliate Program

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Even in the age of hyper-personalization and geo-location in search, the number of inbound links pointing to your site is still the most important aspect of developing and securing top search engine positions. That's right, it's not about internal linking structure, keyword density or the presence or absence of title tags - it's about getting websites to link to yours. So how do you do that in 2009?

Link building hasn't really changed much over the years and it probably won't in 2009 either. Link building involves getting other Web sites to link to your site. The creativity we apply to link building however is what separates the high-rankers from the non-rankers. Think of link-building as a word of mouth recommendation; the more