Are you using keywords that give you excellent returns?

Hopefully you already know that traffic is the secret to Internet success. Keywords are the easiest and the most effective way to attract hordes of traffic to your website. Why? Simple. Search engines crawl through your content and pick up your keywords. So, if you happen to use a popular keyword, you will be listed as often as the word is searched.

Next, how many keywords do you need per website? I’d say roughly 80-100! Your Blog or site is a collection of pages and each page should have a different set of unique keywords. The obvious advantage: each of your pages will be working to pull traffic, instead of just the index page or the “About Us” page doing all the work.

Using multiple keyword phrases will give you more numbers of filtered traffic.
Hint: Including your most relevant keyword or keyword phrase in your title works wonders in getting your pages ranked and listed.

So, what’s the secret behind selecting keywords that pull traffic?

Selecting targeted keywords or keyword phrases is a little tricky because of two things:

• You obviously don’t want to use words that nobody is looking for, unless it is a high-priced specialty item. So you have to devise a way to know what ‘phrases’ people are looking for. For example, using a word like ‘natural Isapgol Fiber’ will not pull many hits. Swap it for something like “Diet supplement for speedy weight loss” and you will see a drastic increase in web traffic. Why? Because that is the phrase people search for.
• You need to keep away from the top 10 generic keywords in your niche. Ranking among the top 10 for the most competitive keyword/keyword phrase in your niche may be impossible. For instance, using a keyword phrase like “Make money online” is highly competitive. It is extremely difficult to feature in the top 10 in this category unless you are doing solid work.

So, you want to select a keyword or phrase that gets a decent slice of traffic without being too competitive. A nice keyword that has low advertiser competition is something worthy of exploitation. This way, the keyword bids for paid searches through search engines like Google could be low.

Experts suggest that you should try to build 8-10 websites around certain keywords and go back to those sites that click. You can use a number of tools like Wordtracker or Google Keyword Selection Tool to find the half a dozen or so keywords to optimize for your webpage.

Type in your keyword in the service of choice. This will give you a list of total number of daily searches. Just multiply the figure with 30 for the average figures for a month. Try this with every tool you have, so you can filter your list down to the choicest few.

After that, it is time to dig deeper to collect a crop of related keywords. You can search for your keywords in Google and Yahoo listings. Then, look for keywords and phrases that your competitors are using in their meta tags and articles.

As you can see, keyword research is an important part of your duties if you want to make money online.

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While keyword optimization plays a vital role in getting you access to those coveted “top positions” in search results, competition analysis is an equally important factor too. Once we know exactly what our competitors are doing, only then can we figure out how to do it better than them! Therefore, the 3-step program to success is:

1. Search for your competitive websites
2. Analyze the competitive websites
3. Surpass your competitive websites

Now that we get the big picture of what we need to do, let us look into the details of each step.

Searching For Your Competition

This step is fairly easy. If you have already read “The #1 Keyword Secret That You Always Wanted To Know“, then you must have already worked out the most competitive keyword phrases in your particular product segment. So you must already be familiar with the list of keyword phrases that seem to be doing the trick for your competitors.

So simply search for those exact keyword phrases on various search engines, and make a list of the top websites displayed in the results. These are your competitors - the ones you have to beat, in order to get their traffic directed towards your website. You have to work your way up, to a position higher than these websites. How? Read on.

Analyzing the Competition

Analyzing the competitive websites in your market segment is probably the most difficult and the most time-consuming part of the process. That’s because you have to go through each of your competitive websites individually, for a whole set parameters, like:

• The design and layout of the site (color scheme, fonts, positioning of important page elements, level of interaction with the users)
• The keyword combinations on which the site pages have been optimized
• The content of the top ranking pages, and the positioning and density of keyword phrases in those pages
• Finding and analyzing the link partners of your competitive websites (how high they rank, the kind of content on their pages, their traffic, what kind of content pages on your competitive websites are they linking to)
• The product range of your competition, and the ways they have used to encourage their visitors to take action and become customers

As you can see, this is a mammoth task, requiring several man-hours of hard work per website you analyze.

Surpassing Your Competition

Once you have completed this process however, that’s when you reach the stage where you can actually work out ways to make your website better than your competitors in all respects mentioned above.

However, time is a crucial factor here. In today’s dynamic world, statistics tend to become “outdated” at the drop of a hat! So if it’s going to take you weeks, or even months, to go through the research and analysis of your competition, by the time you have worked out any substantial improvement methods for your own website, they would have made improvements in their websites too. You don’t expect them to be sitting idle, do you?

So the whole purpose of doing this elaborate research and analysis on your competition stands defeated if you cannot take advantage of their weaknesses right now! You have worked out what seems to be working for them and where they lack. So if you can act faster than them, and exploit their areas of weakness immediately, you can beat them at their own game.

Well then, is there any quicker method of doing the competition analysis? As a matter of fact, there is. There is a way to automate the entire process of competition research, analysis and implementation of improvements. Find out how you can do this with SEO Equalizer right now.

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All search engine optimization programs talk about increasing a website’s page ranking. A high ranking with the search engines translates into greater traffic for your business. If you’re dealing with a specialized market, like pencils, for example, the market might be less competitive- the chances of getting a good page ranking with the search engines are pretty high. In a more competitive market however, like finance, it’s a much harder proposition.

The Science Behind It

The science behind how a page ranking works is pretty simple. Large search engines like Google analyze how many ‘vote’ links point to a particular site- the more links, the higher the ranking. Most search engines use a complicated algorithm to determine page rankings. As a result, search optimization tools are often geared around cracking or finding the gaps in this system.

So how does an online press release play into this situation? In simple terms, it’s a way to bypass all the algorithms by securing high rankings the easy way. Here’s why online press releases work:

• Internet press releases are fresh, unique content which the search engines love to hone in on. This actually one of the basic, golden rules of online marketing- if your content is original and unique, it will get indexed. Online press releases work because they are based in this simple principle.
• Online press releases also provide inbound links, which point back to your website. This is another search engine magnet and is a great way to drive more traffic your way. Inbound links are the strongest way to increase page rankings.

Critics And Skeptics

There are still a number of people who don’t believe that online press releases boost page rankings. This is mainly due to two reasons- one is that, believe it or not, the online press release phenomenon is still very new. Many don’t realize its marketing potential and find it hard to believe that it can be such a powerful tool. Secondly, a number of people have complained that these press releases simply don’t translate into thousands of dollars instantly. The reason for that is simple- the press release wasn’t effective. If you write a poor press release, you can count on poor returns.

The bottom line is clear and simple. If you write a strong online press release, you can bank on the following results:

• You don’t have to wait for your site to get spidered. You can count on landing a solid page ranking in a very short span of time.
• You can generate a large amount of traffic on your press release alone. This means people will be visiting your site even before the actual product is released. This is a bit like having people line up in front of a store before a big sale- that buzz alone can generate huge amounts of traffic.

To be absolutely sure of getting the best page rankings with your online press release get Press Equalizer now.

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As we all have well understood by now that traffic means business and business translates to profits, then the most important step in promoting our business becomes finding ways to bring in more traffic to our website.

We have already been through the strategies for optimization of our web pages for the most highly searched keyword phrases related to our products. We have also been through ways in which we can find and dominate our competitive websites. What next?

What Attracts Traffic?

That’s the question we need to ask now - what kind of information are the internet surfers looking for? Most surfers are browsing the net for pages that contain how to information or where to find something it! In other words, they are looking for free resources!

For example, if your website is about pet food, your visitors may also be interested in pet accessories or kennels. On the other hand, people who do a search for pet accessories may also be interested in re-stocking their pet food at the same time! This creates a valuable possibility for you to attract more traffic to your website.

If you have well built link directories on your website (to related products, though, and not your immediate competitors) then your website actually becomes a useful resource for your visitors. It finds a place in their bookmark list, which means direct one-way links to your website! With well-maintained link directory pages, you can attract as much as 15% of your traffic per day through these repeat visitors!

Not only that, it also gives you a chance to get reciprocal links from these websites. Once you put the link of a related quality website in your directory, and then send them an email asking for a reciprocal link, your chances of having your request accepted increases many times over! When these webmasters visit your well maintained link directory page, they are more than willing to share links with you!

The result is that you get added traffic from their visitors too, who may be interested in buying your products or services. And, if a visitor directly lands on one of the directory pages on your website, looking for pet accessories say, he may stop to buy some pet food from you too! So it’s a total win-win situation for you! These directory pages will obviously get a high search position if they are linked to related high-quality websites.

Time Consuming Process

Well, you will need to spend considerable amount of time and effort in finding good quality websites, visiting them, adding them to your directory and then sending each one of them customized email request for link partnership!

Moreover, you will also need to maintain the directory pages properly, with proper page titles and URLs. In other words, you will have to make sure those directory pages are search engine optimized, so that people actually land on them.

Besides, you don’t want those webmasters to see a haphazard, free-for-all, poorly organized link page. You will need to organize the links on the page into proper categories and labels, so that both the webmasters as well as the search engines love the page, and of course, your visitors too!

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I’ve already discussed how effective online press releases are in boosting page rankings in my last article “Do You Know The Incredible Back Door Shortcut?“. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that internet press releases give you a number of free backlinks to your site. But why are these backlinks so important in the search engine optimization game?

Links For Sale!

One of the most expensive propositions on the internet today is buying links. Since they are such an important part of search engine optimization, people are willing to spend a lot of money buying lists of links. Exactly how much are people willing to spend? The numbers are pretty big- in fact, many people have invested so much in buying links that it’s almost run them dry. This is how important backlinks are in search engine optimization.

For those who simply can’t afford to invest in expensive backlinks lists, the online press release is really a life-saver. You don’t have to shell out loads of cash and you don’t have to worry about the kind of links that you’re purchasing. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about being labeled as spam- online press releases are completely legitimate. In fact, they are exactly what search engines love!

Why Online Press Releases Are Better

To understand why online press releases are better than buying backlinks, we need to understand how the press release works in our favor. It’s actually very simple- when you send out a press release, you also include a link back to your site. The search engines pick these up because they are original content- best of all, the links are all pointing in your direction. Having a number of press releases circulating in cyberspace is exactly like having a number of free backlinks.

Online press releases have a number of other advantages over buying backlinks:

• Perhaps the most important factor is the money factor. Releasing an online press release will cost you less than a fraction of the amount needed for a well-populated backlinks list.
• A winning edge that the press release has over other methods is the content. Since it is original and unique, it immediately makes a personal connection with the consumer. This builds a feeling of trust in the consumer. That’s something a backlinks list simply can’t do. If there’s one thing that’s as good as high traffic, it’s high traffic consisting of repeat customers!
• Online press releases are structured around one of the most important things in internet marketing- content. This means that you can use your press releases for a number of other promotional activities. Many successful online businesses archive their press releases in a separate section of their website. Others post them as blogs and still others have included them in things like eBooks.

Purchasing backlinks can drive more traffic your way but they can be an expensive proposition, especially when you have to invest in them more than once. Online press releases bring you free backlinks and far more traffic.

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Apart from the conventional tried and tested methods as an online marketer you must also keep track of new methods and concepts when it comes to traffic generation. And if it costs you nothing - even better. This brings us to Squidoo, the Web 2.0 program that’s being raved about by everyone who knows about it.

What sets Squidoo apart from similar sites is that it has quality content. Most of the pages on Squidoo, not surprisingly rank high with the search engines. The site itself is ranked seven on Google and in the Alexa rankings Squidoo is rated among the top thousand websites on the Internet.

On the Squidoo website you can set up your own ‘lens’ or web page on any topic that you are passionate about. You can leverage your lens by making a keyword rich Squidoo URL. Most forward-planning marketers create more than one lens for different topics using their primary keywords.

The keywords can also be used in the page title and scattered strategically through the content on the page. The concept of long tailed keywords, which are keywords that run to more than just 3-4 words, works effectively here, bringing in the focussed traffic that you want to grow your list and your profits.

Squidoo owes its success to the fact that its members are a dynamic community that is continuously coming up with excellent content and links. You can easily establish yourself as an expert in your area.

By optimizing your Squidoo lenses to the search engines through keywords, you will be accessing the entire Web 2.0 media tagging system. Your rankings will improve to a great extent if your links to your other sites and content are relevant.

Creating original content is the first step. It must be appealing to the visitors and the community. Since there’s community ranking, with quality content, you can be rated highly by the users. By browsing around the site, you get a good idea about how others are tapping into Squidoo and use the same methods to be successful yourself.

Squidoo tips on tags

When you make your lens pay close attention to ‘tags’. You will be asked to choose your primary keyword or tag along with three more. Don’t stop here. Add at least 25 - 30 more tags. Why do you need to do this? Tags attract the search engines. These tags, with no intervention from you, are coded into the html of your website - so imagine the result. Google just swallows it. So when users use Google to search for your tags, chances are good that your page will come up, or at the very least, the overall tag page on Squidoo. By adding the right tags to your Squidoo lens, you can maximize the chances of your being found.

The next thing about tags is this. When visitors search on Squidoo using the tags, the results are brought up based on the tags on all the pages and then by page rank. So if your site is about affiliate marketing, one of your tags must be ‘affiliate marketing’ for you to actually receive traffic on your site. Elementary.

Keep adding tags to your Squidoo lens via the edit tags option.

Now you can see how you can use Squidoo to generate traffic and back links to your website. If you are in affiliate marketing, you can display affiliate links.

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A well designed link building campaign can rank your site high with the search engines, and also increase traffic to your website. When you link to quality sites, you will build your brand and receive a lot of exposure, with webmasters wanting to link to your site.

Back links or incoming links are links at other sites that lead to your site. They are one of the most vital components in the search engine optimization process. This is because search engines assess the importance of your website based on the quality of back links coming into your site. Link popularity tells you how many websites are linking to yours and you can check this with a free tool.

If there are a large number of links from related or complementary sites that already have a high search engine ranking, coming in to your website, then your website will also automatically rank high with the search engines.

To develop an effective linking strategy, the following will play an important role:

• The quality of your links
• The anchor text in these links
• The total number of links
• The quality of content on the page that has these links
• The number of outbound links on the page
• The page rank of the page your link is on

Search engines smile upon natural incoming links to your website. But how do you build incoming links naturally? How to make webmasters want to link to your site? There are sites that will offer to link to yours if you link to theirs, but this does not always work. Instead you need to focus on getting productive one-way links, since the idea here is to make the search engines happy. Here’s how you can add ‘link value’ to your site:

• Get related sites to link to you because your site offers value to their traffic. This is hard work but when you accomplish it, you can enjoy unprecedented traffic, better conversion rates and therefore, profits.
• Offer value to the website that can link to you by offering complementary products or services or useful information that the site can link to.
• Add special reports or guides to your website so that you can address a specific need.
• Publish articles, hints and tips based on what customers want. This material must be link worthy to your target market so that they want to link to you.

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You have probably heard and read a lot about the concept of search engine optimization. This is important for all Internet marketers in order to be found by prospective customers online. This is possible through keywords, which are identified through keyword research. Keywords must be relevant to your business since they bring visitors to your website.

For your website to rank high with the search engines that are responsible for bringing focussed traffic, some serious keyword research is essential so that you can find out exactly which ones are used by your visitors. Finding these keywords will also enable you place them in the right locations.

You can shortlist your keywords via brainstorming with peers and friends, competition analysis, and use a keyword research tool for evaluation. What we now want to share with you are crucial criteria to bear in mind when you select keywords to receive targeted website traffic:

• Select key phrases rather than keywords, as you are likely to get better- focussed traffic and appear in more specific results
• Keywords must be related to your website and be relevant to your product or service on offer
• The more specific the keywords, the better the chances of prospective customers visiting your website and the lesser the chances of facing competition
• Pay attention to the variation of keywords used in different locations across the world. Accordingly web pages must be optimized for the audience. The English say ‘lift’ while the Americans call it an elevator - so take care to use the right ones at the appropriate domains.
• You primary keyword can be used for website optimization. The secondary keywords can be used to draw traffic.
• Remember that keyword research tools are effective, but your own knowledge also counts just as much.
• The final keyword list must be tested. This may seem like a tedious process, but it is necessary in order to enable you finalize a list that is effective and ranks well with the search engines
• A variety of relevant keywords is more effective than the same keyword being used over and over.
• Keywords must be located in the title tags, header tags, ALT tags, anchor text, URLs, meta tags and comments. There are efficient tools that help by suggesting the best ways to do this.
• Also add keywords that are spelt slightly differently by users to your list since they are equally responsible for traffic
• By including a site search function on your website you will be able to monitor the keywords being used by your visitors, as well as making it easy for them to navigate your site.
• There are keywords that have a high search rate even though they are low in terms of competition. These keywords are just as important.

To be successful, keywords must have a high conversion rate. This means you must be able to turn your visitors into customers.

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Two excellent reasons for search engine optimization are: high rankings with the search engines, increased traffic, letting your visitors find you easily and of course, profits.

A short note on keywords here - be ready with your list of keywords and key phrases. Basic search engine optimization starts with keyword location. Here are some tips on where to place keywords:

1. Title tag - to help the search engine know what the page is about. Title tag is right at the top of your page within the ‘head’ tags. Placing the keyword here will attract focussed traffic to your website. Since it is the text in the title tag that is visible to the traffic, use the text keyword there.
2. The keywords you use in the anchor text must be the ones used to link to that page with other pages on your website. Try and link as many keywords as possible to a specific page
3. The text in the title tag must also appear in the body of the page so that the search engines know that it relates to the title. It will also let your traffic know that they are in the right place for the info they are looking for. The same keywords must be used in the text of the content on the page.
4. Avoid using the same title tag on all pages of your website. If you do this, the search engines will assume that all pages are identical and wont index them. Use the headline of your page as the title tag. This will tell the search engines what the page pertains to and index it.
5. Keyword stuffing is bad practice. Spamming the description or keyword meta tag must also be avoided.
6. Forget about link farms - search engines don’t approve of them. when you link to another site, you must make sure that the content is complementary and relates to your site.
7. In your navigation menu, put links instead of images - search engines cannot read images. Instead, use keywords in these links so that when your visitor has the mouse over these links the title of the link is visible to them.
8. If you have to have images, describe them with the alt tag. Search engines will find it easy to index these images and find your page. it will also help view your website in any browser.
9. Preferably go for manually submitting your website to the search engines. The use of submission software could make you end up paying a penalty or even getting banned. Once submitted, the search engine robots will follow your links and index your website.

You must also use your keywords in domain name, file names and folders. Make sure you have a site map for your website for easy navigation. Good content goes without saying.

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Here is a list of methods you must NOT use to generate traffic! Why? Simply because they don’t work! Why waste your time and money on them? Here we go!

Through traffic exchanges

The concept of traffic exchanges is this: it is a website with a lot of member websites. If you look at another member’s website they will look at yours and you earn credits in the process that you can use. This does bring in a lot of traffic - you will see your counter go up, but chances of getting focused traffic that will sign up with you or buy from you are very less. Instead, focus on forums, ebook or article marketing!

Buying traffic

Many Internet marketers buy lists. Huge lists are available at affordable prices. But unfortunately, most of these lists have dead information. We already know that quite a few of these list sellers buy domains that have expired. They then use pop-overs and pop-unders to direct visitors to their customer-websites. While this looks very attractive, what if only two out of 100,000 visitors sign up? Suppose you paid $100 for these 100,000 visitors just imagine the waste of money per subscriber!

Another problem here is the authenticity of these lists. What if the list provider sells you someone else’s list and you send them emails without their consent? You will be accused of spamming and get a bad reputation.

Tricking search engines

Every Internet business must use search engine optimization as a strategy - but some try to cheat the search engines by link farming, masking content, etc. As long as there are methods, there will be loopholes. There are plenty of fly by night Internet marketers who will offer to increase your profits instantly. There is nothing ‘instant’ in Internet marketing. Everything requires careful planning and implementation and constant monitoring. “Instant automatic methods” just get you banned from the search engines. So do not think of cheating the search engines.

Be wary of traffic generation scams that tell you that they can bring you millions of visitors at negligible costs. In Internet marketing, often ‘free’ methods like using forums to generate traffic and profits works much more steadily than the so-called ‘cheap’ methods.

Online marketing and affiliate marketing are as challenging as they are interesting. Constant experimentation is required to make use of all the techniques and strategies you come across. The Mike Filsaime Butterfly Marketing Manuscript is a blueprint for both beginners and advanced marketers alike - since it is packed with all the little known simple strategies that make all the difference between a very successful business and an average one.

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