Targeting Through Tagvertising
by Steve Rubel

Tagvertising = Blogging 2.0… Already? As you read this, millions of individuals are working under their own volition to create a new Dewey Decimal System for the internet. In the process — perhaps without even realizing it — they are laying the groundwork for a new contextual online advertising paradigm called “Tagvertising.”

The consumer phenomenon is called “tagging” or “folksonomies” (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable people to file away content under tags, but more importantly also share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.

Here’s how tagging works. Using sites such as del.icio.us – a bookmark sharing site – and Flickr – a photo sharing site – consumers are collaboratively categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags. For example, an individual can post photographs of their iPod on Flickr and file it under the tag “iPod.” These images are now not only visible under the individual user’s iPod tag but also under the broader community iPod tag that displays all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. As of this writing, Flickr has more than 3,500 photos that are labeled “iPod.”

Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the word “blogs” into Google and it can’t tell if you are searching for information about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, et cetera. But using del.icio.us you can bookmark this page or subscribe to its RSS feed. Then, everyday you will find the latest interesting links consumers are finding and sharing about blog marketing. Now imagine you run a blog marketing consultancy and you want to advertise to users who follow these tags. This is what’s we’ll see this year as tagvertising takes hold.

Already, large and small sites alike are getting on to the folksonomy train. They are rolling out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content that’s relevant to them. For example, The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, last week added tags to its news blog. Metafilter, a popular community weblog that anyone can contribute to, also recently incorporated free-form keywords that writers can use to categorize their posts. The larger news sites, particularly CNET, may not be far behind.
Of course the big search engines have tagging on their radar as well. Yahoo recently purchased Flickr. Furl, another bookmark sharing site, was absorbed by LookSmart. Ask Jeeves now has tagging. And Amazon invested in a site called 43 Things that lets people tag-based build wish lists. They might even be the silver bullet search engines need to deliver truly personalized search results. When this happens folksonomies and tagvertising will usher in the next great advancement in contextual advertising.

Here are a few ways in which tagging will create new opportunities for marketers. Some are applicable today while others are on the horizon in the near future:
Although tags are far from perfect (they generate a lot of false/positives), marketers should nevertheless be using them to keep your finger on the pulse of the American public. Start subscribing to RSS feeds to monitor how consumers are tagging information related to your product, service, company or space. These are living focus groups that are available for free, 24/7.

Folksonomy sites can be also be carefully used to unleash viral marketing campaigns – with a caveat. Marketers should be transparent in who they are, why they are posting the link/photos and avoid spamming the services.

As tagging grows and the search engines begin adding this feature to their sites, Google and Overture will allow advertisers to buy keywords across certain tags. Watch for this later this year.
Last but not least, one or more entrepreneurs will launch a tagvertising network that facilitates a keyword buy across all sites that use folksonomies.

About the Author:
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

Get Better Search Engine Rankings with RSS
by Satyajeet Hattangadi

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.

RSS allows publishers to “syndicate” their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.
It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of sp@m filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.
However, not much attention has been given to the advantages RSS provides for search engine optimization.

Why Search Engines Love RSS
Many SEO experts believe that sites optimized around themes, or niches, where all pages correspond to a particular subject or set of keywords, rank better in the search engines.
For example, if your website is designed to sell tennis rackets, your entire site content would be focused around tennis and tennis rackets.

Search engines like Google seem to prefer tightly-themed pages.

But where does RSS figure in all this?

RSS feeds, usually sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often correspond to a particular theme or niche.
By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can enhance your site’s content without having to write a single line on your own.

It’s like having your own content writer – writing theme-based articles for you – for frëe!

How can RSS improve my Search Engine Rankings?
There are three powerful reasons why content from RSS Feeds is irresistible bait for search engine spiders.

1. RSS Feeds Provide Immediate Themed Content
There are several publishers of RSS feeds that are specific to a particular theme.
Since the feed is highly targeted, it could contain several keywords that you want to rank highly for.
Adding these keywords to your pages helps Google tag your site as one with relevant content.

2. RSS Feeds Provide Fresh, Updated Content
RSS feeds from large publishers are updated at specific intervals. When the publisher adds a new article to the feed, the oldest article is dropped.
These changes are immediately effected on your pages with the RSS feed as well. So you have fresh relevant content for your visitors every hour or day.

3. RSS Feeds Result in More Frequent Spidering
One thing I nëver anticipated would happen as a result of adding an RSS feed to my site was that the Googlebot visited my site almost daily. To the Googlebot, my page that had the RSS feed incorporated into it was as good as a page that was being updated daily, and in its judgement, was a page that was worth visiting daily.

What this means to you, is that you will have your site being indexed more frequently by the Googlebot and so any new pages that you add to your site will be picked up much faster than your competitors.
How does this benefit you as a marketer?

Well, for example, let’s says a top Internet Marketer comes out with a new product that you review and write up a little article on, and that your competitors do the same.
Google generally tends to index pages at the start of the month and if you miss that update, you will probably need to wait till the next month to even see your entry in.
But, since your site has RSS feeds, it will get indexed more frequently. So the chances of getting your page indexed quickly are much higher.

This gives you an advantage over the competition, as your review will show up sooner in the search results than theirs.
Imagine what an entire month’s advantage could do to your affïliate salës!

Why Javascrïpt Feeds Are Not Effective
Some sites offer javascrïpt code that generates content sourced from RSS feeds for your site.
These are of absolutely no value in terms of search engine rankings, as the googlebot cannot read javascrïpt and the content is not interpreted as part of your page.

What you need is code that parses the RSS feed and renders the feed as html content that’s part of your page.
This is achieved using server side scripting languages like PHP or ASP.
A good frëe ASP scrïpt is available from Kattanweb.
An equally good PHP scrïpt is CARP.

So in conclusion, besides optimizing on page and off page factors, adding RSS feeds to your pages should be an important part of your strategy to boost your search engine rankings.

About The Author
Satyajeet Hattangadi is the CEO of Novasoft Inc, a software solutions provider, that specializes in affordable customized software solutions. Get the Free Email Course RSS Riches and learn how to use RSS to get high search engine rankings and monetize your website.

The Google Toolbar and SEO
by Alec Duncan, LilEngine.com

The Google Toolbar is a must have for any serious search engine optimizer and anyone who searches the internet on a regular basis. Here’s why…

The Google Toolbar has improved significantly since its introduction and now offers a number of useful features. The main focus of this article, however, is on those that aid in search engine optimization. So without further ado, here’s the Google Toolbar unfolded.
PageRank

Upon installatïon of the full Google toolbar you will notice a small bar near the center that may or may not be partially filled with a green color as displayed in the image below.

http://www.lilengine.com/images/googletoolbar/toolbar1.gif

This is the Google PageRank indicator. PageRank is one of the ways that Google rates your website and plays a role in the position of your site in Google’s search results. Site ranking is determined by several variables, including PageRank value and the number of inbound links. Sites with a higher PageRank generally have better rankings than other sites, all other factors being equal. I have personally noticed a significant improvement in the search engine placement of our Search Engine Optimization site (LilEngine.com) whenever our Google PageRank has risen.

The Google toolbar enables you, at a glance, to view the PageRank of your website as well as your competitors’ sites. This feature can aid you in your link-building strategy since links from sites with a higher PageRank than yours help to raise your site’s PageRank. Although some websites prefer to link only with those sites that have a PR 4 or higher, LilEngine accepts links from any useful and related resources. Links from sites with a PageRank of 4 and above are an added bonus. To initiate a link exchange with LilEngine, write to: info@lilengine.com.

A Side Note
———–
There are times when the Google Toolbar will display your website as having a PageRank of zero. If your site previously had a PR greater than 0 and you notice this, watch it for awhile or close your browser and reopen it to double-check. At times, this feature appears to be a bit buggy, possibly due to updates, etc. at Google.
———–
Cached Version

When Google spiders your site, it records the latest version of your site which can be viewed by using the drop down menu associated with the Google Toolbar Page Info button and selecting “Cached Snapshot of Page”. To see the cached version of a specific page, your browser must be on that page when you use this toolbar feature.

http://www.lilengine.com/images/googletoolbar/toolbar2.gif

How Can This Help You With Your SEO Campaign?

If you have optimized your website in the hope of increasing your search engine placement in Google, the “Cached Snapshot” will indicate whether or not Google has updated their database with the new version of your page. If the Googlebot visits your site regularly, the cached version of your site will be updated more frequently than otherwise.

Backward Links

The Google Toolbar also has a pretty useful feature that displays all the web pages that link to your web page, which Google counts towards your PageRank. This information isn’t regularly updated and it may take between 1 – 3 months before changes are seen. Backlinks deal with quality and not quantity. A site with 1000 mediocre backlinks may not have as high a Page Rank as a site with 800 high PR backlinks.

Highlighting

You have the option of adding a highlight feature to your Google Toolbar that highlights all instances of your search term on the web page reached from your search. This can help you see how many times your competitors use specific keywords on their pages and you may modify your SEO campaign accordingly. You may also use this to chëck your own pages and see if you are or are not using enough of your target keywords on your page for optimum search engine placement. Besides those features listed above, there are also some other cool tools on the Google Toolbar such as:

Popup Blocker: This only works in IE 5.5 or later but is a great addition as we all know that there are many sites on the web that bombard you with popups. Some of these even go as far as to prevent you from going anywhere else. Annoyance factor 10/10.

Google Web Search: You can easily search the web using the Google Search Engine via the Google Toolbar by typing in your search terms in the search box area and then clicking enter or clicking the ‘Search Web’ button on the toolbar.

Translate: Easily translate sites into English that you may be interested in for one reason or another.
Unfortunately there is no version of the Google Toolbar for browsers other than Internet Explorer 5.0 and greater but hopefully they will be adding this in the near future.

There are many more features available with the Google Toolbar. Learn more and download it here.

About The Author
Alec Duncan is the founder of LilEngine.com a Search Engine Optimization resource site. Visit http://www.LilEngine.com for search engine optimization tools and strategies. Get a frëe Google ranking tool RankDetective.com on your site.

Surviving Google’s Aging Delay
By Lawrence Deon

Google has always been the search industry’s innovator and that’s just what Google’s aging delay symbolizes, the evolution of search innovation… yet another significant step forward for Google.
Google’s success as a search engine can undeniably be attributed to its ability to consistently return the most relevant search engine results. That’s what kept the search giant on top of the pack and leading the multi-billion dollar search industry & that’s what’s going to keep them there!

That said, is it any wonder why Google incorporated the infamous aging delay into their ranking criterion? The simple truth is, Google’s aging delay is a full frontal assault on artificial link inflation.
With the induction of multiple clever off-page reciprocal-linking strategies engineered to artificially inflate link popularity and PageRank, Googles aging delay wasn’t only necessary and long overdue; it was the next logical step in the evolution of search.

The confusion and misunderstanding of the aging delay among site owners is nothing short of amazing. Many of my clients are confounded because their new sites are well positioned in Yahoo, MSN & the other large search engines while their sites are no where to be found in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs)… except for perhaps on the most obscure search terms.
Current and unconfirmed speculation has been misplacing the blame on Google’s ‘sandbox’ effect. While this is a possibility I believe it’s also highly improbable.

The sandbox holding period is typically anywhere between 90 to 120 days, the aging delay appears to be much longer. I’ve seen new sites delayed for up to 6-8 months.
The premise of the sandbox delay theory suggests that new sites are being penalized for gaining too many links too fast. To date I haven’t seen a scrap of evidence to support that claim.

The sandbox theory is further disproved by the fact that newer sites engaged in procuring relevant links experience the same delay in climbing Google’s SERPs as other new sites utilizing scores of purchased text links. This lends credibility to my thought that new sites are not being penalized on the premise of acquisition or quantity of inbound links and; supports my theory that it’s the reciprocated links that are being delayed by an aging filter.

It just doesn’t seem ‘reasonable’ for Google to penalize sites for acquiring legitïmate directory listings & building an optimized reciprocal link based network. In my opinion, mainstream SEOs are confusing the existing sandbox effect, with Google’s new ‘aging filter’ that arrived on the search scene earlier this year.
It seems more likely that Google’s aging filter is weighing the ‘maturity’ of inbound links and not the new site itself. Meaning that in addition to the traditional ranking criterion, the age of a site’s inbound links are also considered.

My own theory is that newly acquired inbound links are placed on a ‘probationary’ status until they’ve ‘matured’ before they’re considered. For example, a new and relevant inbound PR 6 link would not be given the same weïght or consideration as a ‘grandfathered’ PR 6 link until the aging delay expired.

By placing newly acquired links on a probationary period and delaying the ranking of newer sites Google has effectively offset the immediate frëe ride to the top of their SERPs. Purchasing volumes of brokered links to that end is today a moot point. After all, your site will still be delayed regardless of the amount of links you purchase and you won’t see any return on investmënt (ROI) for at least 6 – 8 months.
Existing Site owners interested in immediate (ROI) are now strongly motivated to build new pages or expand existing sites in order to avoid Googles lengthy aging delay. With the ‘all-the-rage’ mini-network strategy shifting to more of a long-term commitment, it seems likely that’s exactly what will happen!
Whether by clever design or not, the only alternative to riding out the aging delay that produces immediate results in Google’s SERPs is to advertise through Google’s AdWords Program. So it seems that Google’s solution vis-à-vis the aging delay has turned out to be an excellent vehicle to promote Google’s own AdWords Program as well. Hmm…

How do you survive Google’s aging delay? By taking pro-active action!
I haven’t seen any new sites with new domains appear at the top of Google’s (SERPs) since early to mid 2004. I’ve consulted with and tracked many of my clients’ new sites and despite the fact they have hundreds of number 1 positions in Yahoo, Alta Vista, AllTheWeb & MSN for their keywords, I’ve yet to see any remarkable results in Google until the 6 – 8 month period.

The trend I’ve noticed suggests that new sites are initially indexed; ranked accordingly in Google’s SERPs for a week or so and then literally vanish from the SERPs for several months. In most cases they can’t even be found with the most obscure search terms… including their own name and address.
If you’re launching a new site don’t panic. Once you’ve registered your domain name and configured the hostïng, you should set up a few temporary pages. Obtain links to them from other sites in Google’s index to start the aging delay count down. I recommend launching a site immediately with enough content to set up and facilitate the requirements for directory listings to start. The sooner Google is aware of your domain the better. Just don’t hold your breath waiting to see results… It could be as long as 6 – 8 months!

Gauge your optimization efforts by where your site ranks in the other search engines. Provided you’re not engaged in unethical practices and followed Google’s Webmaster’s guidelines this should give you a ballpark indication of where Google will rank your site after the aging delay, just be patient.
To that end, don’t keep tweaking and changing your pages source code and trying to manipulate your rankings until your site has been in Google’s index for at least 6 – 8 months. In other words, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel because it doesn’t seem to matter what you do, your site will still be delayed regardless.

Don’t keep submitting your pages to Google either! It won’t make any difference.
Examine your server logs to confirm Googlebot’s crawl and then forget about it. Googlebot will find your site again if you’re actively reciprocating links so your time would be better served building an optimized reciprocal link network to get your site out there and linked to as early as possible.

If traffïc from Google is crucial to your marketing and promotion plan, and I don’t know anyone who would argue otherwise… budget to run an AdWords campaign for a few months until the site is indexed and positioned. You might even consider running an Overture campaign as well!

If you purchase non-directory links, reallocate that budget to Adwords advertising.
It’s pointless to purchase links when you can invest in an AdWords or Overture campaign. Purchasing links is an investmënt you won’t see a red cent ROI for at least 6 – 8 months while an Adwords campaign will drive targeted traffïc to your site that can convert immediately. Keep in mind that Lycos, HotBot, AOL, Ask Jeeves, Iwon, Netscape & Teoma also receive paid results from Google! MSN, AllTheWeb, AltaVista & Yahoo receives paid results from Overture.

Do other search engines have an aging delay?
Google provides primary search results to other search engines. It only seems reasonable to expect that your site may be delayed in Google’s partner sites as well.

One-way you may be able to work around this, and I can’t emphasize this enough; is to make sure you submit your site to DMOZ, the open source directory. Google, in addition to the other major engines, receives directory results directly from DMOZ.

Yahoo and its partner sites don’t seem to be utilizing an aging delay, nor does MSN, so focusing your early efforts on these search engines might give you a competitive edge in the Yahoo network.
At the end of the day when it’s all said and done surviving Google’s aging delay is just a matter of time. The days of purchasing immediate link popularity and PageRank are over and in due course you will see Google give your site the recognition it deserves.

About The Author
Lawrence Deon is an SEO/SEM Consultant and author of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank.

The Cardew Club provides information and news releases on the latest designs from the best artists in the field, information pages, forums, an online shop and much more. For a small membership fee you are connected to the world of Teapottery and given the chance to share your enthusiasm with collectors across the globe.

Cardew Club houses a vast collection of Teapot designs including pots by Paul Cardew, Tony Carter, Gary Seymour and Andy Titcomb, among many others. You can browse these collections on the website and read biographies on the relevant creators to hear their motivations and creative techniques. The online shop gives you the opportunity to shop securely for Teapots by a wide range of designers, including Limited Edition pots that otherwise prove difficult to get hold of.

For all the latest news in the Teapot arena, Cardew Club has a ‘Teapot News’ newsletter which regularly informs on new designers, additions to the website, limited edition released and much more. Diary Of A Teapot Collector is also a newsletter that follows the habits of a regular Teapot collector, motivations, trials and triumphs. The Cardew Club forum gives everyone the opportunity to discuss all aspects of Teapot collection with other enthusiasts, ask questions of the experts, put your Teapots up for sale and buy from other collectors. This is also the best way to find other enthusiasts in the same region as yourself, as well as getting to know people with similar interests all around the world. In the words of Paul Cardew himself,

“We are proud to be able to boast that cardewclub.com represents the largest gathering of information, entertainment and news about teapots in the world.”

Membership to www.cardewclub.com requires a simple signup and a 10.00 ($19.00) annual payment, allowing you immediate and complete access to all the restricted pages and services. Access to Limited Edition releases, the online Auction pages, detailed information on each of the designers and Special Offers are just some of the benefits of becoming a member of Cardew Club, which has taken its place as the foremost and most comprehensive Teapot Club on the internet.

10 Easy Steps to a User Friendly Website
by Kalena Jordan

As a busy search engine optimization consultant, I don’t have a lot of time to manage my website. But recently I learned the hard way about the fickle nature of website visitors and the damage that having a user-unfriendly site can do to a business. Now I give my website usability much more priority than ever before.

Here’s what happened. I had written a research report late last year and was selling it as a downloadable e-book via the site. However, I was relying on an offline press release and links from other sites to lead visitors to the specific page from which the report could be purchased. Although this report resulted in considerable press attention, much of the media coverage did not include a link direct to my report page, or in some cases, even my website, meaning that interested parties were forced to conduct a search for my site.

It wasn’t until I received an email from a potential customer advising me that he had searched my home page and couldn’t find a link to the report that I had my “Duh!” moment. I had forgotten to include a link to the report page from my home page! My old website had no site map or site search tool either, so potential customers finally arrived at my site, only to clïck away in frustration after not being able to easily find information on my research report. Goodness knows how many salës I missed out on due to this oversight. Embarrassed, I quickly added a link to my home page and made a mental note to study up on website usability, pronto.

Since then, I’ve learned that improving your website usability isn’t time-consuming, it isn’t expensive and it’s certainly not difficult. It simply involves common sense and dedication to the task. Below are 10 easy steps that anyone can implement to make their website more user friendly:

1) Create a Site Map
No matter what the size of your website, you should include a detailed, text-based site map, with a link to every page and preferably, a short description of what each page offers. An excellent example of a site map can be found at: SEOConsultants.com. The advantage of using a site map is that you don’t have to link to every page from your home page, but you should link to your site map from every page. Not only are site maps useful for visitors looking for specific information on your site, but they are great “spider-food”, meaning they are a way for search engines to easily find and index every page on your site.

2) Use a Logical Navigation Structure
When designing your site navigation menu, use logical headings and link descriptions. For example, “web site design services” is much more intuitive to a visitor than “Internet services”. Use Cookie Crumbs to show visitors where they are on your site at any point. These are headings you often see at the top of websites and search portals showing what category and page you are currently browsing (e.g. Home > Travel >UK > Bristol > Bed & Breakfasts). Guide Visitors to specific pathways throughout your site. You can do this using Call-to-Action links instructing visitors what page they should view or what action they should take next e.g. “Click Here to Order”, “Bookmark This Page”, or “View Our Catalogue Now”.

3) Check for Errors Regularly
There’s nothing worse than browsing a site or following a link only to find it leads nowhere. Make sure you chëck your site at least once a month for any broken links. There are low cost link checking tools such as Link Defender available to help you keep on top of this. Make sure your HTML code is designed to display correctly in different browser versions. Also ensure that your site hostïng provider is stable and reliable to avoid any unnecessary downtime of your website. Services such as InternetSeer can help you monitor your site uptime frëe of charge. Make sure your site does not contain spelling or grammatical mistakes. If you’re not the world’s best speller, have trusted friends and colleagues chëck your site copy for errors. When proofing your site, remember to take into account regional spelling usage for different audiences worldwide, e.g. British versus American English. A webmaster service such as Net Mechanic can be used to chëck for many of these errors via the one location.

4) Use a Consistent Design and Layout
Common sense rules here – make sure you use a consistent design and layout for each page on your site. This means using the same general colour scheme, logo, consistent navigation menu, header and footer in the same location and consistent link attributes (e.g. always underlined). This way you never alienate your visitor or cause them to become confused and losë their momentum to keep looking.

5) Include a Site Search Tool
A user friendly website provides the visitor with the ability to search the site for specific keywords. Thought this one was too hard? Me too. Until I discovered Atomz Site Search. This is a software program that provides site-wide search for websites of 500 pages or less, for frëe. It’s a quick and painless way to setup and customize your own site-wide search tool. They also offer a paid version for largër sites.

6) Ensure All Forms Work
It sounds obvious and it should be. If you’re going to make your site interactive with feedback forms, newsletter sign-ups, guestbooks and the like, then make sure they work! Double-check each form field is large enough to accomodate even the longest of names. Think about your international visitors when creating fields such as Zip Code. Make it clear which fields are required by marking them with an asterix. Test the form to make sure it submits correctly and displays the right confirmation message upon completion.

7) Ensure Shopping Carts are Functional
This is vital for any type of e-commerce site. Ensure you have adequate product descriptions, pictures, specifications and crystal clear pricing. Include information on shipping and freight costs and integrate any taxes within your price list. If selling internationally, include a foreign exchange calculator such as the frëe one provided by XE for visitors to compare costs in their local currency. Make sure your shopping cart pages are protected by SSL or a secure certificate to give visitors the confidence to reveal their personal and credit card information without threat or risk. Provide simple instructions for completing the online transaction, give them the ability to back out easily and provide a help email address or phone number on every page of the process in case they get stuck. For instant transactions, provide a receipt immediately and confirm their transaction was successful. As with your online forms, test, test and test again. It only takes one bad experience for you to losë a potential lifetime customer.

8) Include Obvious Contact Details
With all the scams proliferating the web these days, people are understandably sceptical when it comes to online business. To build trust, you absolutely, positively need to display contact details prominently on your site. If you’re not willing to provide a way for people to contact you, why should anyone be willing to buy from you? You should include your business address (preferably your street address and a postal address), a telephone number and at least one email address. If you are concerned about sp@m email harvesters, you can either hide your email address within a HTML encoder such as Natata or use a contact form for people to submit to contact you with (although many people, including me, find the latter annoying).

9) Use Easy to Understand Language
The Internet is no place for verbosity. People are in a hurry – they want to find what they seek quickly and easily with the least hassle possible. You can help them in this quest by ensuring your site pages use simple language and easy to grasp concepts throughout. For example instead of “brand-building web information architects”, use “website designers specialising in brand promotion”. Keep the text on each page to a minimum, using bullet points and sub-headings to get your main points across or to demonstrate your product benefits. Use the old WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) adage when composing your body copy to keep the user’s interests at top of mind. Remember your international visitors by avoiding regional word usage or technical jargon that could alienate. Want your visitor to take a particular action? Spell it out for them in plain English.

10) Make it search engine friendly
Last, but by no means least, make sure your site is search engine compatible. A user friendly site is generally a search engine friendly site too. Use body text and headings in place of graphical text. Use a text-based navigation menu instead of a graphical or drop-down javascript menu. Avoid frames, Flash or any code that could trip up a search engine spider trying to index your site. Use logical Title and META tags for each page, tailoring these to match the content found within. Scatter target keywords and search phrases throughout your body copy to give your pages better ranking potential on engines and directories for related searches. Don’t compromise the readability of your copy to achieve this – hire an expert copywriter to strike the right balance if need be.

So there you have it. 10 easy steps to making your websites more user friendly. You have no more excuses for avoiding usability. Implement one of these per week and your visitors will repay you with loyalty.

About The Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business WebRank, Kalena manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Directories As Link Partners
by Mordechai Chachamu

While traditional directories are edited by humans, search engines are pure computational sites. The billions of pages now held in the search engine databases render human intervention impractical. From the gathering of web pages using robots or crawlers to their indexing of that information and finally the ranking of those pages in the search results, it’s all done by software and computation.

The first two stages (assembling and indexing) are relatively simple, but the third (ranking) presents a much higher challenge. How do the search engines determine which of the many millïons of pages that contain a particular word or phrase be shown first? Get it right and people will be using the search engine time and again. Get it wrong and the engine will be dropped like a hot potato.

The one engine that seemed to consistently get it right was Google. Its sëcret was the addition of PageRank — Google’s type of link popularity. According to Google, a link is considered a vote of confidence from one page to another. The more links, the more votes. Moreover, votes from important pages are valued higher than votes from non-important ones. A higher PageRanked page is one that has a lot of other pages voting for it; in other words, it is heavily linked to. Link popularity now plays a significant role in the ranking algorithm of all the major search engines.

The challenge for site owners and webmasters is to increase link popularity, which in turn increases the likelihood of pages from their sites appearing high in the search results. One of the best ways to start a link campaign is to get links from directories. If you put the right amount of effort (and monëy) into it, you can see your link popularity increase significantly in a short space of time. The question is: How to judge the relative merits of directories? Which ones are worth paying for? What elements do you need to look for to help you make an educated decision?

Link Types
The first and most important consideration is the link type. There are two types of links: Simple Links and Redirected Links. You cannot discover the difference by clicking on them – the outcome is identical, but from the perspective of a link campaign the difference is fundamental. As far as Link Popularity is concerned, the Redirected Link is absolutely worthless. Here is why:

A Simple Link is a link that contains the target URL of the site and directly points to it, as in this link: http://www.target-site.com. On the other hand, a Redirected Link points to a URL inside the current site, usually to a scrïpt file, and the address of the target site is passed to the scrïpt as a parameter, like this: http://www.this-site.com/jump.php?www.target-site.com. You can chëck the type of links used by a Directory by observing the ‘Status bar’ while hovering your mouse over the links.

When a Search Engine visits a Directory that uses Redirected Links, it does not get from it the ‘vote of confidence’ for the linked sites – as they do not show up as links at all! If anything, such links only ‘strengthen’ the internal scrïpt page, as there may be thousands of links pointing to it. Your site, if listed in such a Directory, will not see any of it.

Page Visibility
To gain link popularity, the search engine must know that you are listed in the directory. In other words, the search engine must capture the pages of the directory and index them. Only then can it add the link from the directory to your site to your link popularity.

Find out if the directory has good presence in all the search engines. You will soon discover that some search engines are notoriously difficult to get indexed by, while others are relatively easy. A good spread of page visibility among several search engines increases the chances of your site being picked up and indexed by them too. Thus, not only will you gain in link popularity, but also your site will be present in their index!

PageRank and Backward Links
Not all links are created equal — some are more important than others. If you have the Google toolbar installed, it will give you a rough estimate of the page’s PageRank (PR) using a scale of 0 to 10. A directory with a high PR is more important than a directory with a low PR. A directory with many sites linking to it (backward links) is more important than a directory with just a few.

The devil, as always, is in the details, so it pays to pay attention to them. Invariably, the home page of the directory will have the highest PR, but very few (if any) sites will be listed there. You should try to examine the PR of the specific category in which your site will be listed to get an idea of the strength of vote you are likely to receive from it. For example, although DMOZ has an exceptionally high PR of 9 on its home page, the deep categories may be just PR 4 or less. There is nothing wrong with a PR of 4, quite the contrary, but it is not exceptional.

In Return
While some directories provide a totally frëe, no-strings-attached submission option, many directories expect or require something in return. In most cases it’s simply monëy, ranging from a few dollars to several hundred. A few require an annual subscription to keep your site listed, but most are satisfied with a one-tïme payment.

In addition to (or instead of) payment, some directories insist on getting a link from you before they agree to list your site. Others may require you to agree to get periodic emails that include promotional material for various products. Still others suggest that your site will only be listed if you join them and become an editor. There are many variations, and some directories offer several options to site owners.
How can you make a good decision when faced with so many options and considerations? The answer lies in limiting your options and dealing with just a few directories. First, you must establish your goals for your link campaign. Is it traffïc, link popularity or both? Then compare the sites that meet your requirements and rank them according to how closely they match. Finally, add the required payment or any other condition imposed by each directory to your ranking considerations.

Once you’ve done all of the above, all that’s left for you to do is visit each of your chosen directories, follow their guidelines and submit your site!

About The Author
Mordechai Chachamu is the CEO of Gimpsy, a unique directory that classifies interactive sites according to the online activity provided by them. Submitting a site to Gimpsy entitles the user to a special extended frëe trial of the Strongest Links facilities.

You Had Me at the Search Engine
by Kim Krause

You’ve likely heard of the movie, Jerry Maguire, with its famous line, “You had me at hello.” Jerry Maguire was luckier than web sites we find in search engines. Many web sites don’t attract user devotion at the first word, let alone after scanning the home page.
How many times has this scenario happened to you? You’ve performed a search in a search engine or directory, reviewed the results and found a page description that fits your needs. When you clïck on the page that looks the most promising, you often arrive at the web site’s home page, where one or more things might happen:

1. The page loads slowly due to too many graphics, dynamic applications or scripts.
2. There are terms used on the page that you don’t understand.
3. It promotes products or services that were not mentioned in the page description from the search engine.
4. The products or services are unrelated to your search.
5. The page is “amateurish” in appearance and you’re not feeling confident about things like customer service, user privacy and security, experience with the product, or other credibility issues.
6. The page is so busy you don’t know where to go to next, or distractions caused you to forget your original mission.
7. Something has turned you off, such as swimsuit models that don’t look like you do, corporate images of businessmen, not women or multiple animated things.
8. An invasive advertisement appeared that you had to clïck away so you could read the content underneath it.
9. The page loads but your scumware radar starts beeping like crazy or popup and security alerts appear.
10. You need a magnifying glass to read the content.

If a keyword search brings back an inside page, more common frustrations occur to drive people away from the web site. They include:

1. There is no navigation to the rest of the web site.
2. There is navigation, but no visible, easy-to-locate link to the main home page or main web site.
3. A link “home” is offered, but sub-navigation is missing, so that the user must start at the beginning to figure out where they landed inside the web site.
4. Link labels do not explain what the web site is about, so the visitor may not be inspired to clïck around.
5. There is no suggested clïck path to follow. For example, if the page happens to be an article, it might be useful to say “Did you find this article helpful? Hëre are more articles that may interest you.”

We often forget that search engines index more than our homepage. People often stumble into our web sites while searching for other things, linking from another web site, or receiving an email link from a friend. The starting place isn’t always home base.

So, how do you make a web site page approachable in a crowded room of search engine results? First, make sure your title tag is accurate. Every page requires a title tag unique to the content it represents. The home page is an overview page, so focus on the main goal, which is often also your primary keyword(s).

Next, write a genuine, honest description that isn’t all hype and glorified self-worship about your great website. If the site is going to sell something, what does it sell? Does it specialize? Avoid words like “unique”, “amazing”, and “special” because, frankly, everybody makes these claims.

It’s important to not “stuff” keywords in your title and description tags because these are displayed in search engines as your site or page description. When read by humans, they don’t make sense. People are getting wiser. They know that you are trying to get higher rank but it doesn’t mean your web site is any better in quality that those lower in search results.

Regardless of where the page is in your site, there are lots of ways to attract attention or generate curiosity so that your visitor becomes a potential customer, or at least finds the content interesting enough to keep browsing around. My favorite part of discount stores are the displays where they toss clearance items, or the impulse “Oh yes, I forgot I needed that”-type items. You can do the same thing with your web site. Simply place the toenail clippers, scotch tape and calling cards out front where they’re easily seen. In other words, remind your visitors you carry the items they didn’t know they needed.

Here are some other ideas to try:

1. Provide a good reason to enter your site. Don’t expect anyone to take your word for anything. Offer incentives.
2. Put a visible text link to your sitemap on every page. Even your local shopping mall has a map with a “You Are Here” pointer.
3. Be forthcoming and descriptive with pictures. If you sell shoes, show the tread. If you design and make your own crafts, show close-ups of the detail and workmanship. The sunglasses line you offer is likely filled with brand name shades, but what types of faces will they complement? I have a difficult time buying artwork online because I can’t visualize the dimensions in my head. A picture of a framed version, hanging in a room with furniture, will help me understand what I’m trying to purchase. In a virtual world, you must go to great lengths to sell things people can’t touch or see in use.
4. Place words like “sale”, “getting started”, “first-time user”, “learn more”, “try now”, “buy now”, “free”, “download”, “we deliver” and “free shipping” on your pages, above the page “fold”.
5. On your home page, provide an introduction and suggestions for where your visitors might like to go next, based on their needs.
6. Search engines can only bring a visitor to your doorstep. It’s your job to grab them by the hand, invite them inside and show it off.

About The Author
Kim Krause is the Administrator for the Cre8asite Forum, author of the Cre8pc blog , and owner of Cre8pc Usability and Search Engine Optimization. She’s a contributing writer for the High Rankings Newsletter, Search Engine Guide, ISEDB.com and WebProNews as well as other publications.

For the purposes of demonstrating the html in this post, i have replaced the opening and closing tags with quote marks. When implementing the html be sure to use opening and closing tags instead of those outer quote marks.

Website Backgrounds: 5 Cool Tricks For a Professional Look
by David Leonhardt

Most websites feature white backgrounds. Or they sit on a navy or gray background — but most of the screen is still white, like a page of paper set against the darker background. Occasionally, you might run across more interesting colors – reds and purples and greens and rust – often looking more gaudy than professional.
But every now and then, there is a website with a photo or a drawing or a pattern background. This tutorial will show you not just how to place a background on your website, but five clever tricks to spice up the background without resorting to gaudiness.
The basic html code to place a background on your web page is very simple:

“body background=image.jpg”

To place a background in a table, perhaps set against a solid color page background, the basic html code is as follows:

“table background=image.jpg”

The image file called image.jpg now becomes your background. A typical image would show up “tiled”. In other words, it repeats itself horizontally and vertically to fill the screen. This usually does not look very professional, so below are five tricks to clean it up and spice it up.

1. Use “strip” graphics. Strip graphics are simply very long images that stretch across the screen. When they repeat, they repeat one below the other. To see this in action, view my page at TheHappyGuy.com. The yellow strip along the left side looks like it is part of the top banner image. But it is a 650 by 20 strip image, mostly white, with a touch of yellow along the left side. This works well with patterns that vary only from left to right.

2. Hold the background in place. When a visitor scrolls down, the text rolls over the image. I used this trick at my personal website: LeonhardtOnline.com (Please forgive the mess – I just don’t seem to find the time to clean it up.) The html code to do this is:

“BODY background=”image.jpg” bgproperties=”fixed”"

This works for patterns, but it works best for photos or drawings, such as a faded image of your company logo or a faded scenery shot or a faded photo of people interacting. (Remember that the background should not stand out at the expense of the foreground text and images, which is why you want faded images.)

3. Another great background trick is to place a smaller picture in the background, such as your company logo or some other image that you do not want to take up the entire screen. This works best against a white background. Below is the html code:

“BODY background=”image.jpg” style=”background-repeat: no-repeat;”"

If you want the image to show up just in a table:

“table background=image.jpg style=”background-repeat: no-repeat;”"

I used this function in just one cell of a table by inserting it in my “td” tag for my navigation menu at Vitamin-Supplements-Store.net. Notice how the faded bottle is in the background behind the navigation links, but it does not repeat down the page.

4. You can further control the position of the background image. Consider the following code:

“table background=image.jpg style=”background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: top right;”"

We now have a background that fills the top right corner of the page. Depending how big it is, it might cover most of the screen or just the corner.

5. Another way to use background images are as navigation buttons. While search engines can easily follow image links, they don’t carry the same relevancy as keyword-rich text links. A background button image can make a text link look like a button. Each navigation link would have to be placed within its own table or cell, then apply the code used in the previous example.

Used properly, background images can greatly enhance the appeal of your website. If you are looking for a way to spice up your website, these five tricks can help.

About The Author
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer and SEO specialist. Contact him at Info@TheHappyGuy.com or visit his website at TheHappyGuy.com. Read more webmastering and online marketing articles at http://www.thehappyguy.com/marketing-articles.html.

Pay Per Click Advertising Can Be Very Risky Business
by Kirk Bannerman

Click fraud is an unfortunate byproduct of the pay per click advertising business. Many people with an online business spend large amounts of money on pay per click advertising only to discover that many of the people clicking on their ads weren’t really interested in their products or services.

Bogus “visitors” to a pay per click ad represent click fraud. This is a serious scam that threatens the viability of the pay per click advertising business which has become enormously profitable for all of the major search engine operators, namely Google, Yahoo/Overture, and MSN.

Click fraud has different forms, but the end result is generally the same. Advertisers are billed for fruitless traffic generated by someone who repeatedly clicks on an advertiser’s ad without any intention of ever buying anything.
The search engine advertising market is currently about $3.8 billion per year and estimates vary widely on how much click fraud is actually going on. Clearly, the search engine operators would like to downplay the extent of this problem. Some industry experts claim that a little click fraud exists but that it is overblown by advertiser paranoia, while others estimate that ten to twenty percent of all clicks are false (made by someone with no legitimate interest in the ad itself).

Virtually everyone involved with pay per click advertising sees click fraud and knows it’s there, but no one is quite sure what to do about it.

Both Google and Yahoo/Overture acknowledge that the click fraud problem exists, but claim improved internal controls will prevent the problem from escalating. Their stated position seems to be that they are concerned about click fraud, but that it is not a material issue so far. Both of them are touting their increasing internal actions aimed at detecting and combating click fraud.

Such reassurances from search engine companies certainly aren’t surprising, given how much they stand to lose if advertisers cut back on advertising spending. The stakes are huge and the search engine companies are actively involved in public relations campaigns. Industry research firm eMarketer expects $7.4 billion to be spent on search engine advertising by 2008, up from only $108.5 million back in 2000.

The incentives for click fraud have increased along with the money devoted to search engine advertising. Advertising on search engines has turned into a fast-spreading craze as more and more marketers have realized substantially higher returns on search engine ads than on more traditional marketing campaigns conducted through print media.
Most pay per click advertisers set a spending limit and once the spending limit is reached, the ads cease to appear in the search results. Click fraud is a very unethical competitive tactic where someone repeatedly clicks on a competitor’s ad until the spending limit is reached and the ad then disappears from the search results. It seems that it’s only a matter of time before some advertisers become so exasperated with click fraud that they file a class-action lawsuit against a major search engine.

The success of search engine advertising has substantially raised prices that advertisers pay for top spots. Unfortunately, these higher prices have turned click fraud into a dark little industry of its own. Some crooks have hired cheap overseas contractors to just sit in front of computers and constantly click on targeted ads and others are developing sophisticated software to help automate and conceal click fraud.

If you use pay per click advertising it would be wise to carefully monitor your traffic to determine if you are the victim of click fraud. In any event, it’s probably safe to say that pay per click advertisers are going to have to accept a certain level of click fraud as just a cost of doing business.

About the Author:
Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.