Get indexed in less than 24 hrs

You created a web site over a month ago and expected Google to index it pretty quickly. Much to your dismay, however, the site hasn’t been indexed yet. When you type the name of your site into the Google search engine, nothing comes up. This is quite frustrating to you because it means that your site cannot be found by internet users. Your site is, essentially, missing. What if, however, you could get indexed by Google not in a week, not in a few days, but in 24 hrs? Seem unlikely? Well, it might be to some, but to others, it’s something that is expected and achieved regularly.

What Can I Do to Get Indexed Quickly?

A lot of people suggest to submit your site to Google by using the add link form. However, this never results in a quick listing. The reason is because the submission isn’t review for weeks and weeks due to how busy Google is. So you might as well forget about link submission because it’s not going to do any good.

What, then, can you do to get indexed by Google quickly? There are actually a few things you can do, each of which are pretty effective and can lead to getting your site listed in as little as 24 hours. Try all of them and see the positive results it brings.

Method #1: A link on an existing site

In some of our other lessons, we touched on the fact that incoming links are of great importance to being listed in Google. They can increase the likelihood of a spider going to your site, thereby getting your site listed and ranked in the search engine. When you’re first starting out, it can be difficult to get such links because your site is unestablished. Thus, you must try other ways of doing this.

One of the easiest ways is to join a forum for a relevant site and to begin posting. You don’t have to make a lot of posts, just a few quality ones will do. Put a link to your site in your signature. Search engine spiders will pick up on this quickly.

Another easy way of doing this is to go to a relevant blog and post a comment there. Now, when doing this, you should be careful to not make your comment seem as though it is spam. Write an intelligent comment and sign your name as “name here of www.mywebsite.com”. This lets blog owners know you’re not a bot, just a regular person who cares about the subject at hand.

Method #2: Create an External Blog

Blogs are well liked by Google. So well liked, in fact, that they are very quickly listed. A blog posting might be up in Google within 24 hours. You can go to any free site like blogspot.com and create a blog on there. You can then write a few posts and casually slip in a link to your site. With some luck, you site will be listed in the Google search engine quite quickly.

Method #3: Add a Blog to Your Site.

Adding a blog to your site can be a lot more effective than creating an external blog or even posting on forums. Free software like Wordpress allows you to quickly and easily add a blog section to your site. You can then add a couple quality postings (be sure to use some keywords) to the blog. Because Google loves blogs and indexes them quickly, you can expect them to take notice of your blog and your site very quickly. This is the most effective way of getting indexed quickly so do not ignore it.

Method #4

Here is how to get indexed within 24 hours using this proven system:

Step 1 - Create Keyword Rich Web Pages : If your web pages are keyword rich and targeted to specific keyword phrases, they are more likely to be indexed faster. And you're likely to get much better search engine rankings too.

Step 2 - Submit A Story On Digg: Submit a story about your website on Digg. This is one of the key steps in the system. Usually doing this alone can get you indexed, but we don't want to take any chances.

Step 3 - Use OnlyWire To Submit To More Social Bookmarking Sites: Submit your site to even more social bookmarking sites like reddit and del.icio.us by using OnlyWire. OnlyWire will submit your site automatically to about a dozen social bookmarking authority sites. This will give you a deluge of instant backlinks.

Step 4 - Submit Your Website craigslist.com : This is a given - you need to submit your website to craigslist if you want it to be indexed faster! So take this simple step now.

Step 5 - Create A Site Map: Google loves site maps, so if you have one, it will be a competitive advantage for you. Search engine spiders like to index site maps, so it will get your site indexed far quicker than 'normal'.

Well, now you might say, Adams, you missed out Dmoz. Yes you are right. But Dmoz takes lot of days to get your link approved and we are talking here about getting indexed quickly. But you should always get listed in Dmoz for further benefits.

Why Do These Methods Work?

In the case of the first and second methods, you are getting inbound links to your site. That means that when Google visits the site and sees a link to your site on it, they’ll go to yours and then list it. Links, as you know, practically always increase rankings in search engines because there are more chances for the spiders to visit your site. So don’t ignore links and how they play a role in getting listed quickly.

With the third method, you are taking advantage of the fact that Google lists blogs quicker than normal sites. By adding a blog to your site, you are opening your site up to Google listing much quicker than they normally would. This is perhaps the most important method, so be sure you use it.

7 Ways to Be Sure You’re Writing the Best Ads Possible

You may notice that writing the best ad text possible can be quite overwhelming! To make it easier for you, we’ve devised a guide or checklist to writing the best ad text.

When beginning to write from scratch or re-write your existing ad text, go through the first 7 points of the ad text checklist. Get a piece of paper and begin writing down the answers to these seven questions:

1. What are the top keywords from your ad group that should be incorporated into the ad?
2. What is the main message you want your customers to know? What solution do you provide?
3. What is the advantage your company has over your competitors? What are the top 3 benefits you offer your clients/customers?
4. What promotional offers (if any) does your company currently offer?
5. What would get you to click through this ad if typing in x keywords?
6. What answer is the searcher trying to find? i.e. Are you fulfilling the searcher’s needs?
7. In the end, why should the searcher click on your ad?

Once you’re finished answering the seven questions, you can begin to write your ad text. Once you’ve completed writing your ad text, use the checklist below to be sure you’ve written a benefit-oriented, attention-getting, call-to-action driven ad text!

1. Title
   1. Does the ad title grab your audience’s attention?
   2. Does the title contain at least one of your keywords?
   3. Does the ad title initially answer a question?
   4. Does the ad title differ from your competitors?
2. Description
   1. Does the description contain at least one keyword?
   2. Does the description answer the searchers question?
   3. Does the description engage users to read on?
   4. Does the description contain a call to action?
   5. Is the description limited in any way?
   6. Are there any promotional offers in the description?
   7. Is the description different from your competitors?
   8. Can the searcher tell the benefit from reading the description?
3. Display URL
   1. Is the display url contain sentence caps?
   2. Does the display url match the destination url?
4. Destination URL
   1. Does the destination url take users to the correct page?
   2. Does the destination url need any tracking?

If you find it helps, use this guide and checklist every time you write or re-write your ad text to ensure you’re targeting the right customer and gaining a competitive advantage over your competition.

You Will Never Write the Perfect Ad Text, but Here Are 3 Ways To Keep Getting Closer

This week we have been exploring how to catch more clicks and conversions by writing better ad texts. Our tackle box has been filled the tools to help (just to name a few):

• Write benefit-driven ad text
• Use promotional offers and calls-to-action
• Qualify our leads as much as possible

But let’s be honest; even with all of these tactics at your disposal, you will never write the perfect PPC ad text. It’s a hard fact to face but it’s true. However, you can get pretty close to perfect (hopefully this blog series will help!) and I will tell you 2 ways to get closer to PPC ad text perfection.

Test. Test. Test. You can utilize every tip, insight and nugget-of-truth that we have discussed this week on writing better ad text but you need to continuously test your ad variations. You need to test every aspect of your PPC ads to determine which message appeals best to your audience, including:

• Headlines
• Ad Copy
• Calls-to-action
• Promotional offers
• Display URL

Review your ad serving method. Now that I’ve convinced you that you need to continuously test your ad text variations, you have to give each ad text a chance to prove it’s salt. To do this you need to alter your ad serving method:

• In Google, there are two delivery methods; optimize and rotate. Optimize is the default setting and when this option is chosen all of your ads are not being equally displayed because AdWords chooses which is the “best” performer and focuses on it. You can change this setting at the campaign level, and I suggest you do so.
• In Yahoo, the setting is called “optimize ad display.” However, if you want to evenly test your ads, you need to make sure that ad optimizer is not selected. You can alter this setting at the ad group level, under the tab ‘General Information.’ Select ‘no’ for the option of “Optimize Ad Display.”

When you write multi-variant ad texts, and alter your ad serving method so that each ad variation is displayed evenly, then you’ll be on your way to increasing your clicks, and conversions! Remember; this process NEVER ENDS. You may find an ad text that appeals best to your audience, but you need to continuously test against it. You never know what you’ll find out there in the open waters of the PPC ocean!

How to Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to Hook Customers

We have discussed the best practices for writing great PPC ad texts. The ideas presented have thus far focused on writing techniques, not necessarily search engine provided tools. However, today I’d like to discuss one of the most powerful tools provided to advertisers: Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI). DKI is a way to write your ad so that a user’s actual search query keyword will be inserted into your ad text.

The basic idea here is that if your ad contains the actual text the searcher entered, they will view your ad as the most relevant and will click on your ad! Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing both use very similar operators for this tool. By entering {KeyWord:Your Default Text Here} into the headline, body text or display URL, the searcher’s query will be automatically entered into your ad. The caveat, of course, is that the keyword must fit within your ad’s character limits. If the keyword is longer than the space allotted in the headline or body text, the default text you enter will be displayed instead. Google’s example shows this quite effectively:

Actual Ad in Your Account	Brand New {KeyWord:Phones} Huge selection of phones. Great prices. {Keyword:phones} in stock. Free shipping! www.BestDealer.com http://www.bestdealer.com/?kw={keyword:nil}
Ad 1 - Keyword: nokia n90	Brand New Nokia N90 Huge selection of phones. Great prices. Nokia n90 in stock. Free shipping! www.BestDealer.com http://www.bestdealer.com/?kw=nokia%20n90
Ad 2 - Keyword: samsung d500	Brand New Samsung D500 Huge selection of phones. Great prices. Samsung D500 in stock. Free shipping! www.BestDealer.com http://www.bestdealer.com/?kw=samsung%20d500
Ad 3 - Keyword: motorola razor silver	Brand New Phones Huge selection of phones. Great prices. Phones in stock. Free shipping! www.BestDealer.com http://www.bestdealer.com/?kw=nil

In most cases, using DKI in your ad text can increase click-through-rate (CTR) within your PPC campaigns. But I should point out a few considerations before you go and put DKI in all of your ads. Many advertisers use DKI as a crutch for poor PPC management. In other words, they put as many keywords as possible into a single ad group and use DKI to tailor the ad for each searcher (like shooting fish in a barrel). Sounds great, but it just simply won’t work. All of the major PPC search engines have quality based initiatives in play that will “punish” your campaign for this type of thing. So, before you put DKI into every ad, try taking a look at your account structure and find ways to group similarly themed keywords together. This will make writing relevant ads much easier and at that point DKI will become a tool to use for increasing CTR instead of a crutch for writing poor ads.

One last tidbit to consider: a lot of advertisers have the mindset that using DKI in their ads will automatically increase CTR. I’m here to say that this isn’t so! As with everything in the world of PPC, testing is your greatest weapon! Pit your DKI ad against an ad written with plain text and see which one performs the best. In some cases, the plain text ad will be victorious. If you are running a PPC account and do not currently use DKI, I suggest you give it a try starting today. It’s really simple to implement and really simple to test. Let us know if you have any questions!

Use Qualifiers in Your Ad Text: 4 Ways to Catch the BEST Leads, Not the MOST Leads

Lead generation is one of the tougher challenges among paid search advertising. An even bigger challenge lies within generating qualified leads. This tends to be a problem within PPC because we know the more traffic we drive to our clients’ sites, typically the greater our chances are of obtaining leads. But obtaining the most leads isn’t worth spending money; generating qualified leads is. One way to qualify customers to your site lies within your ad text. By first qualifying people to your site through your ad text this increases the chances that someone that does turn into a lead is a qualified lead.
Below I’ve listed 4 ways to make your ad text qualify customers to your site.

1. Tell people what you want them to do. If you have a form you want a user to complete then say so. If you want them to download a pdf or whitepaper, then say so. If someone doesn’t want to download a whitepaper or fill out a request form, they won’t click on your ad. Don’t make these actions the main focus of your ad text, however, be sure to give benefits first and foremost. You can keep your action requests to a minimum, and say Request Info Here, SignUp Today, Download Whitepaper, etc.
2. Include Price Points: Another way to qualify your customers is by adding price points into your ad text. I usually will add these in the last line of my text or if I have room, in my ad text title. If someone is looking for a gift for Christmas and only wants to spend $50, and your item is $200, perhaps think about putting that price point in your ad. Of course you’ll get fewer clicks - but the clicks you do get should be people who are willing to pay $200.
3. Announce Your Target: If you’re a B2B (business-to-business) or a B2C (business-to-customer) then say so in your ad text! Many times I put in my ads that ‘we work with large companies’ or ‘customized solutions for companies’ so that smaller companies don’t click-through my ad. If your client sells or buys something and works mainly with customers, say something like, “We Buy Artist Paintings” or “We Sell Artist Paintings.” Be clear, concise and to the point.
4. Avoid ‘Disqualifying’ People: Don’t get in the mode where you’re taking up most of your ad text trying to disqualify customers. For one of my clients, I could easily say, we work with large companies, no job seekers please (since we tend to get job seekers fill out our forms). But adding ‘no job seekers’ takes up too much space in your ad text and doesn’t allow enough room to engage the potential customer about your business/service.

I’m not sure there is a client out there that can’t somehow use these qualifiers in their ads to weed out non-qualified traffic. Think about your target audience, and think about the people you don’t want to your site. Try to avoid sending mixed messages to customers or business’ about your services or products. Don’t be afraid to highlight exactly what you’re looking for in your ad text.

Increase Your Click-Through Rate With Tasty Promo Offers and Calls-to-Action

Every day this week we are writing about how to improve your PPC account’s ad texts! Yesterday we discussed writing benefit driven ads to lure customers to your site. So today, I’m going to take your ad writing skills to the next level by explaining how and why you should include promotional offers and calls-to-action in your ad texts.

There are millions of people using search engines everyday and every one of those individuals is inundated with PPC ads, organic search listings and display ads. This creates a crowded, murky body of water for you to begin casting your net for customers. My suggestion? Use promo offers and decisive calls-to-action in your ad copy, and the fish, I mean customers, will come to you.

Promotional offers come in all shapes and sizes:

• Free Shipping!
• Save 50% This Month Only!
• Buy 1, Get 2 Free!
• Spend $100, Get a Free Gift Certificate!

While these may seem like common sense, rest assured that many advertisers don’t utilize this simple piece of bait in their ads. Some advertisers rely on their landing pages or even worse, their homepage, to effectively convey current sales and discounts. The promo offer will increase your click-through-rate (CTR), and if your ad matches your landing page, increased conversion rates shouldn’t be far behind!

Writing an ad text without a call-to-action can prove to be a costly mistake. Benefits and promo offers are devices for increasing CTR, but calls-to-action have a three-fold affect. They not only increase your CTR, but calls-to-action also set the expectation for what the customer will need to do once they arrive at your site thus increasing conversion rates. Does your landing page ask for contact information? Should the customer buy today? Your job as the advertiser is to tell the customer exactly what they should do:

• Sign Up today!
• Buy Now!
• Request More Information!
• Discover the Best Deal of 2008!

I urge you to begin using both of these devices today! Create an ad variation for both a promotional offer and a call-to-action to add more enticing bait to your PPC tackle box. Check back in tomorrow as we will discuss how to use ad texts to catch the best leads.

The Benefits of using Benefit-Driven Ad Texts.

Let us not forget the fundamental root of search engine marketing: search. The term ’search’ also comprises these terms: query, hunt, seek, look for, ferret, chase, rummage. Users rummage through search query results looking for a service, a product, a piece-of-information, an answer. Search engine results pages (SERP) are filled with possible answers to a users’ query, but the key to a successful search engine marketing campaign is being the best answer. You can be the best answer to a user’s query by writing ad texts that are benefit-driven. Writing benefit-driven ad texts will allow you to catch more clicks and conversions!

Think of the internet as a vast ocean filled little fish, better known as users, and your ad text is your lure and your benefits are the bait! When writing ad texts you can’t just tell someone to click on your ad (I wish it were that easy!); you need to convince them to click on your ad. This is where highlighting the benefits of your service or product come into the equation.

The first step to writing benefit-driven ad texts is to determine what your core benefits are. Review your website, make a list of reasons why someone would choose you over your competitors. Hopefully, it’s a long list! This list is your tackle box of benefits and it can include:

• Prices (lower than your competitors)
• Product quality (better than your competitors)
• Shipping (faster than your competitors)
• Variety (wider than your competitors)

…and the list goes on and on. Once you have this list of benefits, you need to run a few queries on your core keywords to see what benefits (if any!) your competitors are highlighting. How can you make your ad text different; how can it stand out from all of the other lures on a SERP; how can it be the best answer to a user’s query?

Once you’ve answered these questions you can begin writing new ad texts that highlight these benefits. And you should write an ad for each benefit you’d like to highlight. You’ll find that certain benefits will appeal best to your target audience. Later this week we’ll talk about best practices for multi-variant testing for your ad texts.

The result of following these steps is that you’ll have new ad texts that are benefit-driven, and that stand-out from your competitors. Having these new ad texts in your tackle box will be the best answer to a user’s query and you’ll catch more clicks and conversions!

Why Social Bookmarking?

It can help you spread a link on 130+ of the best social bookmarking websites.

It helps you get a lot of backlinks.

It helps you increase your traffic.

Your link gets indexed by Google in a matter of minutes.

Best of all, it’s free!

Top Social Bookmarking Websites

• Stumbleupon
• Digg
• Mister Wong
• Reddit
• Technorati
• HaoHao
• LinkaGoGo
• Ma.gnolia
• Newsvine
• PlugIM

• Blinkbits
• BlogMemes
• Book.Mark.Hu
• Co.mments
• Del.icio.us
• Propeller (Netscape)
• Scoopeo
• Shadows
• Slashdot
• Simpy

• Facebook
• Fark
• Furl
• Google Bookmarks
• Gwar
• Spurl
• Sphere
• Taggly
• Squidoo
• Scuttle

Other Social Bookmarking Websites

• AskJeeves
• Backflip
• Bibsonomy
• Blabb
• Blinklist
• Blogmarks
• Bloxor
• Bluedot
• Bmaccess
• Bookmarktracker
• Buddymarks
• Butterflyproject
• Care2
• Citeulike
• Claimid
• Cogenz
• CollectFavorites
• Complore
• Connectedy
• Connotea
• Dzone
• Diigo
• Eigology
• Dotnetkicks
• Sharepointkicks
• Googlekicks
• Javakicks
• Mackicks
• Kick
• Xboxkicks
• Eatmyhamster
• Earthlink
• Eggkeg
• Excites
• Ez4u
• Feedmarker

• Feedmelinks
• Filangy
• Frassle
• Freedomslut
• Fungow
• Gabbr
• Getboo
• Givealink
• Gravee
• Hanzoweb
• Hyperlinkomatic
• Humdigg
• I89
• Igooi
• Indiagram
• Indiamarks
• Indianpad
• Indiza
• iTalkNews
• Jookster
• Kinja
• Lilisto
• Linkatopia
• Linkarena
• Linkroll
• Linksnarf
• Linuxquestions
• Lookmarks
• Lycos
• Maple
• MediaMatrix
• Markaboo
• Memeflow
• Mybookmarkmanager
• Mylinkvault
• Mypip

• Namakkal
• Netvouz
• Nextaris
• Ning
• Nowpublic
• Onelurv
• Openbm
• PennTags
• Pubsub
• Quadriot
• Rawsugar
• Recommendit
• Riffs
• Rojo
• Searchles
• Shakk
• Sitejot
• Smarking
• SocialBookmarking
• Sync2it
• SyncOne
• Tagtooga
• Tailrank
• Targetyournews
• Unalog
• Urlex
• Uvouch
• Wink
• Wists
• Wobblog
• Windows Live
• Wirefan
• Yahoo
• Yoghurt
• Zurpy

come back for more…..

SEO COURSE IN 15 MINUTES

Here is a SEO checklist of the factors that affect your page rankings with Google, MSN, Yahoo! and the other major search engines. The list contains positive, negative and neutral factors because all of them exist. Most of the factors in the checklist apply mainly to Google and partially to MSN, Yahoo! and all the other search engines of lesser importance.

SEO COURSE IN 15 MINUTES PART-1

Keywords

1. Keywords in +3

This is one of the most important places to have a keyword because what is written inside the

2. Keywords in URL +3

Keywords in URLs help a lot - e.g. - http://sureshadams.com/seo-services.html, where “SEO services” is the keyword phrase you attempt to rank well for. But if you don't have the keywords in other parts of the document, don't rely on having them in the URL.

3. Keyword density in document text +3

Another very important factor you need to check. 3-7 % for major keywords is best, 1-2 for minor. Keyword density of over 10% is suspicious and looks more like keyword stuffing, than a naturally written text

4. Keywords in anchor text +3

Also very important, especially for the anchor text of inbound links, because if you have the keyword in the anchor text in a link from another site, this is regarded as getting a vote from this site not only about your site in general, but about the keyword in particular.

5. Keywords in headings +3

One more place where keywords count a lot. But beware that your page has actual text about the particular keyword.

6. Keywords in the beginning of a document +2

Also counts, though not as much as anchor text, title tag or headings. However, have in mind that the beginning of a document does not necessarily mean the first paragraph – for instance if you use tables, the first paragraph of text might be in the second half of the table.

7. Keywords in tags +2

Spiders don't read images but they do read their textual descriptions in the tag, so if you have images on your page, fill in the tag with some keywords about them.

8. Keywords in metatags +1

Less and less important, especially for Google. Yahoo! and MSN still rely on them, so if you are optimizing for Yahoo! or MSN, fill these tags properly. In any case, filling these tags properly will not hurt, so do it.

9. Keyword proximity +1

Keyword proximity measures how close in the text the keywords are. It is best if they are immediately one after the other (e.g. “dog food”), with no other words between them. For instance, if you have “dog” in the first paragraph and “food” in the third paragraph, this also counts but not as much as having the phrase “dog food” without any other words in between. Keyword proximity is applicable for keyword phrases that consist of 2 or more words.

10. Keyword phrases +1

In addition to keywords, you can optimize for keyword phrases that consist of several words – e.g. “SEO services”. It is best when the keyword phrases you optimize for are popular ones, so you can get a lot of exact matches of the search string but sometimes it makes sense to optimize for 2 or 3 separate keywords (“SEO” and “services”) than for one phrase that might occasionally get an exact match.

11. Secondary keywords +1

Optimizing for secondary keywords can be a golden mine because when everybody else is optimizing for the most popular keywords, there will be less competition (and probably more hits) for pages that are optimized for the minor words. For instance, “real estate new jersey” might have thousand times less hits than “real estate” only but if you are operating in New Jersey, you will get less but considerably better targeted traffic.

12. Keyword stemming +1

For English this is not so much of a factor because words that stem from the same root (e.g. dog, dogs, doggy, etc.) are considered related and if you have “dog” on your page, you will get hits for “dogs” and “doggy” as well, but for other languages keywords stemming could be an issue because different words that stem from the same root are considered as not related and you might need to optimize for all of them.

13. Synonyms +1

Optimizing for synonyms of the target keywords, in addition to the main keywords. This is good for sites in English, for which search engines are smart enough to use synonyms as well, when ranking sites but for many other languages synonyms are not taken into account, when calculating rankings and relevancy.

14. Keyword Mistypes 0

Spelling errors are very frequent and if you know that your target keywords have popular misspellings or alternative spellings (i.e. Christmas and Xmas), you might be tempted to optimize for them. Yes, this might get you some more traffic but having spelling mistakes on your site does not make a good impression, so you'd better don't do it, or do it only in the metatags.

15. Keyword dilution -2

When you are optimizing for an excessive amount of keywords, especially unrelated ones, this will affect the performance of all your keywords and even the major ones will be lost (diluted) in the text.

16. Keyword stuffing -3

Any artificially inflated keyword density (10% and over) is keyword stuffing and you risk getting banned from search engines.

Links - internal, inbound, outbound

17. Anchor text of inbound links +3

As discussed in the Keywords section, this is one of the most important factors for good rankings. It is best if you have a keyword in the anchor text but even if you don't, it is still OK.

18. Origin of inbound links +3

Besides the anchor text, it is important if the site that links to you is a reputable one or not. Generally sites with greater Google PR are considered reputable.

19. Links from similar sites +3

Having links from similar sites is very, very useful. It indicates that the competition is voting for you and you are popular within your topical community.

20. Links from .edu and .gov sites +3

These links are precious because .edu and .gov sites are more reputable than .com. .biz, .info, etc. domains. Additionally, such links are hard to obtain.

21. Number of backlinks +3

Generally the more, the better. But the reputation of the sites that link to you is more important than their number. Also important is their anchor text, is there a keyword in it, how old are they, etc.

22. Anchor text of internal links +2

This also matters, though not as much as the anchor text of inbound links.

23. Around-the-anchor text +2

The text that is immediately before and after the anchor text also matters because it further indicates the relevance of the link – i.e. if the link is artificial or it naturally flows in the text.

24. Age of inbound links +2

The older, the better. Getting many new links in a short time suggests buying them.

25. Links from directories +2

Great, though it strongly depends on which directories. Being listed in DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and similar directories is a great boost for your ranking but having tons of links from PR0 directories is useless and it can even be regarded as link spamming, if you have hundreds or thousands of such links.

26. Number of outgoing links on the page that links to you +1

The fewer, the better for you because this way your link looks more important.

27. Named anchors +1

Named anchors (the target place of internal links) are useful for internal navigation but are also useful for SEO because you stress additionally that a particular page, paragraph or text is important. In the code, named anchors look like this: Read about dogs and “#dogs” is the named anchor.

28. IP address of inbound link +1

Google denies that they discriminate against links that come from the same IP address or C class of addresses, so for Google the IP address can be considered neutral to the weight of inbound links. However, MSN and Yahoo! may discard links from the same IPs or IP classes, so it is always better to get links from different IPs.

29. Inbound links from link farms and other suspicious sites 0

This does not affect you in any way, provided that the links are not reciprocal. The idea is that it is beyond your control to define what a link farm links to, so you don't get penalized when such sites link to you because this is not your fault but in any case you'd better stay away from link farms and similar suspicious sites.

30. Many outgoing links -1

Google does not like pages that consists mainly of links, so you'd better keep them under 100 per page. Having many outgoing links does not get you any benefits in terms of ranking and could even make your situation worse.

31. Excessive linking, link spamming -1

It is bad for your rankings, when you have many links to/from the same sites (even if it is not a cross- linking scheme or links to bad neighbors) because it suggests link buying or at least spamming. In the best case only some of the links are taken into account for SEO rankings.

32. Outbound links to link farms and other suspicious sites -3

Unlike inbound links from link farms and other suspicious sites, outbound links to bad neighbors can drown you. You need periodically to check the status of the sites you link to because sometimes good sites become bad neighbors and vice versa.

33. Cross-linking -3

Cross-linking occurs when site A links to site B, site B links to site C and site A links back to site A. This is the simplest example but more complex schemes are possible. Cross-linking looks like disguised reciprocal link trading and is penalized.

34. Single pixel links -3

when you have a link that is a pixel or so wide it is invisible for humans, so nobody will click on it and it is obvious that this link is an attempt to manipulate search engines.

Metatags

35. metatag +1

Metatags are becoming less and less important but if there are metatags that still matter, these are the and ones. Use the metatag to write the description of your site. Besides the fact that metatags still rock on MSN and Yahoo!, the metatag has one more advantage – it sometimes pops in the description of your site in search results.

36. metatag +1

The metatag also matters, though as all metatags it gets almost no attention from Google and some attention from MSN and Yahoo! Keep the metatag reasonably long – 10 to 20 keywords at most. Don't stuff the tag with keywords that you don't have on the page, this is bad for your rankings.

37. metatag +1

If your site is language-specific, don't leave this tag empty. Search engines have more sophisticated ways of determining the language of a page than relying on the metatag but they still consider it.

38. metatag -1

The metatag is one way to redirect visitors from your site to another. Only do it if you have recently migrated your site to a new domain and you need to temporarily redirect visitors. When used for a long time, the metatag is regarded as unethical practice and this can hurt your ratings. In any case, redirecting through 301 is much better.

SEO COURSE PART -2

List of all major quality free press release sites

• 1888PressRelease.com
• 24-7 Press Release
• AddPR.com
• BizEurope.com
• eCommWire.com
• Express-Press-Release.com
• Free-News-Release.com
• Free-Press-Release.com
• Free-Press-Release-Center.info
• FreePressIndex.com
• FreePressRelease.co.cc
• FreePressReleases.co.uk
• i-Newswire.com
• IndiaPRWire.com
• MediaSyndicate.com
• MyFreePR.com
• NewswireToday.com
• PageRelease.com
• PR.com
• PR9.net
• PR-Inside.com
• PRCompass.com
• PRlog.com
• PRurgent.com
• PRzoom.com
• PressAbout.com
• PressBox.co.uk
• PressFlow.co.uk
• PressMethod.com
• PressRelease.com
• PressReleasePoint.com
• TechPRSpider.com
• TheOpenPress.com and watch out for more to come by..
  

How to master "Local Search" to promote your business

Local search is the flavor of the day. But what is it? What is the buzz all about?

At its core, local search is simply understanding today’s consumer, their behavior and their needs, and providing a product or service where and when they want it. It’s exciting because local search works equally well for small- to medium-size businesses trying to get found, as well as big regional and national brands.

First, understand that in a search driven world there are two types of user searches: 1) consumers who are looking for your brand and 2) consumers who are looking for your type of services. For consumers, it’s all about being in control and having choices.


Brand Seekers

If users are looking for your brand, they will most likely look for you on your corporate website. But the trend is moving towards consumers entering in your brand name and a local qualifier (city or zip code) directly into a major search engine to find the nearest location: for example, “Red Lobster locations in NJ” or “Coupons for Red Lobster in Illinois.” The worst-case scenario is if it doesn’t show up at all. The second worst case is that it shows up, but takes them to your corporate website home page, meaning they have to do the search all over again. That’s not very user friendly.


Service Seekers

If consumers are looking for your type of services (a restaurant, office supply, grocery store, sporting goods) then they will most likely start their search on a major search engine. The trend is going towards consumers entering in your generic services and a local qualifier directly into a major search engine to find products and services: for example, “Crab legs Lewisville TX,” or “Seafood Luzerne PA.” Worst case is that you don’t show up at all but your competitors do.

Traditional marketing methods include print yellow pages, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, email marketing and referrals. But to ensure success in today’s highly competitive market, advertisers must embrace not only the major search engines, but increasingly an array of other relevant and effective new media platforms such as local directories, corporate websites, mobile devices and even portable navigation devices. Casting a wide net will ensure customers find you anytime or anywhere they are ready to buy.


Major Search Engines

There are three distinct areas on a search engine results page (SERP.) It’s very important to show up in at least one of them if not all three, called the Search Trifecta.

By now most of you have heard of Search Engine Marketing or SEM. It refers to the paid search or sponsored listings that show up on the top and right side of most search results. Most of the ads are Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Pay-Per-Acquisition (PPA.) The top search engines that businesses set up campaigns with are Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. You can try to manage it in-house but there are third party companies that can manage it for you.

Local search is a widely-used term, but when referring to search engine results it’s the section that’s associated with a map when a local qualifier is used.

Organic listings, (SEO, also referred to as free listings) show up after the paid and local results. If someone searches your brand, then you will most likely appear. But if they use a local qualifier then you might not. There are many companies jumping into the SEO/SEM bandwagon who want to help. Make sure to do your homework before hiring anyone who wants to convince you that it’s too complicated to explain what they will be doing for you. Local landing pages or micro-sites are key in helping out businesses with multiple locations.

For businesses with multiple locations it’s important to have local landing pages to drive this online search traffic. If a consumer searches for a local location, they won’t want to be directed to your corporate website home page. They will want location specifics. These landing pages can be used for paid search, local submission and organic search. Reporting should be set up in order to track where your traffic is coming from (what search engine and what area of the page) and call tracking to evaluate ROI.

It’s important to get listed in local directories that include Citysearch, Yellowpages, and Superpages as well as Google Local, Yahoo! Local and MSN Live since they attract significant amounts of traffic.


Corporate Websites

In this day and age every business has a corporate website. But you may not know of all the different ways to increase your foot traffic or online sales.

For retailers, it’s important that users can quickly and easily find your locations and the specific details of each. Interactive maps and driving directions (preferably without the user needing to leave your site) is a must-have these days. With Web 2.0 capabilities it’s the user experience that counts. Content such as store hours, menus or flyers, credit cards accepted, brands carried and reviews can help consumers with their search and items such as coupons or local events can add a call to action. You can also engage visitors with registration for e-newsletters or club discounts. Send to Phone/Email is a good way to track location traffic as well as provide driving directions. Remember that locator functionality is the top decision-making tool consumers use when visiting a retailer’s website. A customer who uses a locator is most likely going to walk into your local business.

For manufacturers, embracing the new shopping trends of “Buy Online” and “Buy Local” will give you a business edge. Compared with customers who shop only at stores, multichannel shoppers buy 12 percent more often, and spend 32 percent more every year. That’s good news, if you ride the trend. Product locators, for example, will help you tap into multiple sales channels, increasing opportunities for additional sales and expanding your brand recognition. For buy online, you need the ability to show multiple online retailers (etailers) complete with inventory and pricing, as well as the ability to take the consumer directly from your product page to an etailer product page so that the user doesn’t have to do the search all over again. For buy local, you need the same features mentioned above for retailers.

Regardless if you are a retailer or manufacturer, your corporate website needs to be SEO-friendly in order for the search engines to crawl and find the data in order to have the links show up in the organic listings.


Mobile Devices

There are now over 255 million mobile devices in the US with more than 69 million people using mobile browsing and 125 million people using text messaging.
Users are going to be searching for your products and services, so it’s imperative that you enter into this arena soon. Around 80 percent of phones are WAP enabled (versus smart phones with full internet access), so they will need reduced text for their smaller screens for finding a location. SMS text can be sent to a phone from a PC (1-way SMS) or text (for example a zip code) can be sent to a common short code CSC (mysbux) to get locations text-messaged back. Interactive Voice Response can also be used to reduce overhead costs. For example, call an 800 number, enter in your zip code to hear an automated response of the locations near you.


What are Consumers Searching For?

From Retailers

• Where is the closest location?
• Can I find locations along the way?
• What hours are they open?
• What credit cards are accepted?
• Do they offer any discounts or coupons?
• Do they have wi-fi?
• Do they have RV parking?
• Can I send the driving directions to my mobile device?

From Manufacturers

• What products are offered?
• Can I buy it online?
• How does the price compare between retailers?
• Is it in stock?
• Can I buy it locally?
• Where is the closest retail location?
• How do I get there?

Remember, today’s consumer likes to research online, demands choices and wants to control the buying process. It doesn’t matter if you’re Seiko, Darden or John’s Catering, every business must understand who they are and the needs they fill. Mastering local search is not rocket science but it’s an ever-increasing skill set required for marketers in today’s search driven world.

Write a Keyword-Rich Article to Increase Site Traffic

Want to increase traffic, build credibility, improve your search engine rankings and get people talking about your business--at no cost? Then open up your word processor, and start writing. By determining your best search keywords, writing an article that includes those keywords and getting it distributed online, you'll be putting yourself on the radar of people looking for what you provide.

Step 1: Set up your site for maximum "searchability."
Your site has to feature the keywords your potential customers use to search for your product if you want them to find you. To determine your keywords, type a word or term you think people in your market might search for into Yahoo! Search Marketing's Keyword Selector Tool to find out how many people searched for that particular term over the past month. It'll also show you a list of related words and phrases and how often they were searched over the last month, too.

Once you’ve generated a list of useful keyword ideas, you can do some more serious research. Wordtracker goes into more depth to show you not only what people are searching for online but also how many other sites are competing for the same audience. You're looking for search terms that are popular but don't have too many sites competing for them. Wordtracker is a paid service, but you can sign up for a day for less than $8 and for a week for less than $27.

Now that you have some great keywords for your market, find as many places as you can to plug them into your site. Use them in your title tags, source code, page copy, headers and subheads, and your opt-in.

Step 2: Create a keyword-rich article.
Write a keyword-rich article that relates to what you sell, then give it away to other sites--for free. Believe it or not, this is one of the best ways to drive a steady stream of eager customers to your site.

Why does it work? Well, people basically come online for one of two reasons: to check their e-mail or to look for information. Sure, some of them end up making purchases, but this isn't generally the reason they log on. They want the answer to a question or the solution to a problem--and you can provide that in a short article.

Make sure that each article you write contains rare, valuable or hard-to-find information. Not only will this increase the chances that other site owners or managers will post your article, it'll also increase the number of visitors who click through to your site after reading it.

For example, if you have a site that sells used golf equipment, you could write an article about three things to look for in a good, pre-owned putter. Or if you sell an e-book about setting up your own home computer network, why not write an article about common problems people have in setting up a wireless router?

Look for article ideas in the questions people ask you all the time or in the things you often see people doing wrong. Share hot new tips on how to use the products you sell, or talk about trends you've spotted in your industry. Your quick piece should:

• Be no longer than 400 words (not even a whole page in Microsoft Word)
• Contain a relevant keyword in the first 90 characters
• Contain the keyword in the first and last paragraphs
• Have a short, credibility-building bio with a link to your site at the end. For instance, "Joe Smith is a recognized authority on the subject of widgets. His site, www.JoesWidgets.com, provides a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you'll ever need to know about widgets."

Step 3: Get your content headed everywhere on the web.
Once you've taken the time to write one or two articles, head to one of these top online content distribution sites. Upload your keyword-rich content to:

• www.contentdesk.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.freesticky.com
• www.goarticles.com
• www.ideamarketers.com
• www.findsticky.com

These sites carry hundreds (some carry thousands) of articles on a range of topics. If someone's looking for content for their site, they can download or copy an article from the distribution site without paying a dime to use it. They can't change the text of the article, and they must publish it with the author's name and information intact.

Now people plugging your keywords into search engines will be directed to your content at these highly ranked sites, and site owners looking for fresh, search engine-attracting content will download your article--along with your bio and link--and put it up on their pages. And once visitors see that you know what you're talking about, they'll click on the link in your bio and head straight to your site.

Some content distribution sites also offer "send to a friend" links next to articles posted on their sites, so make sure you're uploading your articles to sites with this kind of capability. Every time someone enjoys your article enough to pass it on, your audience grows. And since people don't forward bad content to their friends, they're basically recommending you as a credible source just by passing it on.

The best thing about this strategy is these visitors are quality, targeted traffic--they actually want what you're selling because you're meeting a need or giving them help with the problem they came online to solve.

Convert Customers With a Perfect Landing Page

You put all kinds of work into creating a great pay-per-click ad, filling it with exactly the right keywords to catch the attention of your target market and drive them through to your sales copy. And then what? Well, if they simply go through to your homepage, you risk losing that sale.

Instead, deliver those click-through visitors to a custom-built landing page that focuses on the exact problem your customer is trying to solve when they click through your ad!

If your potential customers arrive at your landing page and see the search phrase they were looking for, they will stay longer on your site, which means a greater chance of becoming a customer, lead or opt-in.

Always remember that your visitors are looking for instant gratification. If they can't answer, "What's in it for me?" within the first eight seconds of their visit, you will likely lose the sale.

And as PPC advertising prices climb higher and higher, you need to make the best use of each click-through to increase your ROI.

So how do you create a landing page that sells?

1. Create keyword groups for each landing page.
The first thing you need to do is some keyword research. You can do this in your PPC search engine of choice, or using a tool like Wordtracker.

Make a list of your best keywords for your subject--the keywords that your target market is searching for.

Then, group your keywords by similarity, making sure that each group solves a particular problem for your audience. You'll want to use each group of keywords to create a separate landing page.

Let's say, for example, that you sell an e-book on dog training. You do your keyword research and come up with a list of dog training keywords.

The next step is to go through this list and organize your keywords into groups that focus on specific dog training problems. For example, you might decide to focus on keyword phrases like this:

How to Train Dog
Leash Training for Show Dogs
Puppy Training
House Train Dog

Then, all you need to do is create one landing page for each keyword phrase. Of course, these keywords should also be the keywords you are bidding on in the PPC search engines.

Always make sure the content of your landing pages reflects exactly what your visitors will be looking for. If they click through an ad about puppy training and arrive at a landing page about training show dogs, they are likely to leave right away.

2. Build your landing page with a specific action in mind.
When you are building your landing page, you want to focus all of your energy on getting your visitor to take one action.

Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter? Or buy your product? Or enter a contest? Or give you feedback?

Whatever you do, don't complicate your page by attempting to do too much at once. Focus on the desired action, and use everything on the page to drive your visitor to take that action.

Make sure your navigation is not distracting or overpowering. Keep the process simple, and remove all clutter that distracts from your focus.

Imagine that your potential customer is standing behind you, reading your landing page copy over your shoulder and saying, "So what? What's in it for me?"

Every step of your landing page should drive this potential customer toward the desired action. That means including plenty of benefits, and always including a call to action that tells your visitor what to do next.

3. Optimize your landing page for the search engines.
The first thing your customers should see when they get to your landing page is your main keyword phrase as part of the headline. Of course, this is beneficial for search engine optimization, but try to make it as compelling as possible, too.

The key is to couple your keyword phrase with the biggest benefit your site has to offer. For example, if your main keyword phrase is "how to train a dog," your headline could be:

How To Train A Dog to Do Anything
You Want
-- In the Next 48 Hours!

You'll want to focus on your main keyword phrase ("how to train a dog") in your copy, too, but try to work in some of the other keyword phrases in your group. That means you'll want to use "why train your dog" and "how to train your dog" throughout your sales copy as well.

Here are some more tips for optimizing your landing page for the search engines:

• Use your main keyword phrase to name the page location. For example, the page could be uploaded to: www.mysite.com/howtotrainadog.
• Include your keyword phrases in your title tag and your meta description. You'll find these at the top of your HTML code, and the search engines generally use these tags to create the listings that show up in the search results
• Include some fun images, but don't distract your visitors from the desired action. And use your keyword phrases to name your images. Use the same phrase in your alt text as well.
• Use formatting to emphasize your keywords. Use bold, italics, and highlighting to feature your keywords. This will help improve your SEO, but don't forget to emphasize the benefits for your readers, too!
• Use your keyword phrase in your call to action. For example, your call to action could say: Click here now to order "How to Train a Dog to Do Anything You Want"!

So now that you know what you should include in your effective landing pages, let's have a look at what you need to avoid.

There are a few simple mistakes that people often make on their landing pages, and they pay for them dearly. If you can avoid these four mistakes, your landing pages will be far more effective at converting your click-throughs into sales.

Mistake 1: Don't make users have to register to see more information. Google AdWords frowns upon this practice and will usually either disallow your keyword or raise your cost per click on that keyword.

Mistake 2: Don't use duplicate content on your landing pages! Make sure all the information on your landing page is unique--not content given to you from affiliate sites or manufacturer descriptions. Duplicate content can severely damage your search engine rankings.

Mistake 3: Don't forget to have an opt-in offer to collect e-mail addresses on your landing page. Offer your visitors an incentive, like a newsletter, e-book, whitepaper or e-mail course so you can collect their e-mail addresses and market to them again and again after they leave your site!

Mistake 4: Don't forget to test your landing page. Testing is the key to the success of any online endeavor, and with PPC advertising and landing pages, it's absolutely crucial. Test different headlines, keyword groups, sales copy and different offers until you get the desired results.

Make landing pages part of your PPC campaign and watch your conversions fly!