Work At Home Business Blog

There are no secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines because effective search engine optimizations are now immense. What is search engine optimization? Before we discuss that thing, you have to understand first how search engines work and a bit of know-how.

Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn’t relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.

Updating your website everyday and adding some materials will help you get noticed by the search engines. So, if you are going to sell any type of product or service online, you have to optimize your website for the search engines, in order to boost traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. And for that reason, it is absolutely important to optimize your site for search engines for you to have the greatest deals in the entire world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to augment their website’s status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business’ success.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. You’ll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.

The next significant factor for an effective search engine optimization is to include keywords and phrases within your content. To make sure that you are properly targeting your market, you have to make sure that the keywords and phrases you have on your site are the keywords and phrase that your site is actually optimized for. The more keywords you use in your content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find your site when they do some research with those words. If you are unfailing with these techniques, then your overall search engine optimization will increase, boosting your page rank.

You should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of your search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free advertising for your site, but it makes the impression that your site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each link that you have pointing back to you, that is another chance for your potential customer to find you. The more inbound links that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be ranked in the search engines.

Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to search from the internet are looking for information. The more information you provide for them and the more helpful it is, the more likely you will make the sale. Writing articles is the most effective way to build up content for your site. When writing articles to post on your site, make sure that you develop a clear means of arranging their content. You can do this by simply adding a new page to your site. This will allow room for extra articles to be added as you write them, and will allow you to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw online visitors. Make sure also that you have included your archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of your site so that the search engines will catalog your online articles.

Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are important in developing your site’s status. With that thing in mind, make sure that you write high-quality, keyword rich content and link your site to and from a deliberate family of other sites. These things will help improve your site’s popularity and coerce increased business through your online business.

How to boost your Google rank with free links (Hint: It’s not just all about PageRank!)
By Andrew Mallory

Last week, Derek wrote an editorial telling you how to get high quality links pointing to your site by registering your site with the ‘Net’s top paid directories.

This week, Derek has asked me to write an article explaining how you can expand your link network by getting FREE links from other sites.

This process is a little more time consuming… but the links you’ll get will definitely be worth it. (Not to mention all that extra traffic thanks to your improved search engine ranking!)

But before you set off in search of free links that will propel your site to the top of the search engine results, here are 5 things you need to consider:

1. Pay attention to PageRank — but don’t live or die by it!When trying to find sites to link to their site, most people tend to look for ones that have a high PageRank.(PageRank is a function of Google’s toolbar that supposedly measures the importance of a given website.)

   However, all this focus on PageRank has resulted in many people looking ONLY at PageRank when evaluating possible linking sites. They also spend a lot of effort trying to improve their own PageRank — without stopping to consider whether their actions are helping their actual ranking in Google’s listings.

   And that is not a good thing.

   The fact is, no one is really sure exactly how much Google takes PageRank into account when calculating its natural search algorithms.

   For example, sites with very little PageRank can be found at the top of the search results, while sites with a high PageRank are languishing on the fourth or fifth page… or even lower!

   On top of that, it’s hard to tell exactly what PageRank uses as its criteria to measure a site’s “authority.”

   Government sites such as FEMA, the IRS, and the FBI all have a PageRank of 8 out of a possible 10. Yet I can’t imagine there’s a more authoritative source of information on the IRS than the IRS itself!

   Finally, PageRank “addicts” should know that unscrupulous webmasters can steal another site’s PageRank and use it to manipulate their own PageRank numbers!

   (In fact, this is what lots of shady “link sellers” do — they sell links based on their PageRank, but often that PageRank has been artificially inflated!)

   So while you should still pay attention to PageRank, it’s certainly not the only thing you should look at. You need to consider what the actual rank of that site is, and how well its content relates to the content on your site.

   (More about that in a moment…)

2. Looking for links from a commercial site? Make sure its products are complementaryThere’s no point in trying to get a link from a site selling something that has no relation to your business! You need to look for commercial sites that sell things that go well with your product.If you sell the cola and I sell the glasses and ice, it could be the beginning of a beautiful joint venture relationship that provides great value to both your customers and mine.
3. Look for web pages with content that’s closely related to the content on your pageI would argue that this is just as important as a site’s PageRank, if not more so.You want your links to come from pages whose content is as focused on the content on YOUR page as possible.

   It’s not just a matter of getting links pointing from another site’s homepage to your homepage! Try to go deeper and more specific than that.

   If you sell used tennis rackets and you find a site that talks about tennis topics in general, try to get a link on a sub-page that talks specifically about tennis rackets.

   And if it talks specifically about used tennis rackets, even better.

   Also look for web pages that have content related to your product or service, even if the site itself doesn’t have any real relation to your business.

   For example, if a popular blogger who typically writes about her daily life writes a post that directly relates to your product in some way, ask her if you can get a link on the page that has that particular blog post.

   Or maybe a general information site has an article that relates to your product. THAT’S where you want your link — right on the article page itself.

   Links from general information sites can still be valuable, provided they’re heavy traffic-sites with a great search engine rank.

   But in general, it’s more effective — and in many cases, much easier — to try and get a link on a web page whose content directly relates to your own, even if that site is lower down in the search engine rankings and doesn’t get the same volume of traffic.

4. Is this a good page for a link? Consider it from the user’s perspectiveWhen you’re debating whether a web page is a good link source, think about it from the perspective of the visitors to that site.They’ve come to a page, and on it they see a link to a site they’ve never heard of before. It’s got intriguing anchor text and it’s embedded in content they’re interested in.

   Now… if they click on that link, are they going to be happy?

   If they don’t find what they expect to find — based on the content of the page that led them there — they’re going to be disappointed, and they’re going to leave. And they’re going to think less of the site that sent them there.

   So if you’re going to try and get links from other sites pointing to yours, make sure the people who click on that link are going to find something valuable to them!

   Offer them free information — maybe something they can download, like a free report. Because if you don’t send them to a page that makes that click truly worth their while, you’re just gaming the system.

5. When you ask for links, emphasize what’s in it for THEMThe days when you could email people and ask, “Please link to me” are long gone.When you approach other sites owners to ask them to link to your site, what you’re really asking is for them to share some of their traffic with you.

   Smart website owners are jealously protective of their traffic. They’re not going to share it with just anybody. The sites they recommend reflect back on them. If they tell people to go to a low-quality site, their visitors aren’t going to like them very much for it!

   That’s why you need to emphasize the benefits of linking to your site — both for their visitors and for them.

   How will you provide value to the visitors they send you? Are you a great source of information? Will your product help their visitors solve a problem you know they’re experiencing? Do you offer something the other site owner simply can’t provide — something you know their visitors want?

   That’s what you need to tell them in order to convince them to link to your site.

   Never forget: when you ask for a link from a site, you’re essentially borrowing that site’s credibility, and you need to be respectful about that.

Building a network of free links definitely takes some time… but you have to remember the benefits…

Not only will you enjoy the indirect benefit of better search ranking and the traffic it’ll bring you, you’ll also get the traffic sent directly from the links themselves!

And all that extra traffic will make all your efforts worthwhile.

[Ed. note: Andrew Mallory is one of the top Internet Entrepreneur Club experts.]

Copyright © Jeff Houdyschell
http://www.eSmartJob.com

Using a custom permalink structure for your WordPress blog not only enhance the look of your posts URL but will also help search engine rankings.

One of the first things to do after installing your WordPress blog should be to customize permalink structure.
Follow these steps for a more SEO friendly WordPress blog URL structure.

Login to the WordPress dashboard, go to Options, Permalinks.
The four options are:

Default
» http://www.esmartjob.com/blog/?p=123

Date and name based
» http://www.esmartjob.com/blog/2007/05/29/sample-post/

Numeric
» http://www.esmartjob.com/blog/archives/123

Custom, specify below
Custom structure /%category%/%postname%

If you noticed I use and recommend the custom structure /%category%/%postname% this will change the URL to http://www.esmartjob.com/category/titleOfPost

With a good SEO friendly category and post title your chances of ranking higher in the search engines will increase.

If the title of your post is too long you can shorten it in the write post screen using a shorter but relevent Post Slug found on the right side just under the Post Password box.

What if you have an existing WordPress blog and changing the URL structure will lose many of your incoming links? There is a WordPress plugin for this called Permalink Redirect.

The Search Engine Journal has a recent post describing how they implemented a custom permalinks structure to their existing blog. Check out the post here: SEO Friendly URL Structure for Wordpress Blogs

Don’t like or agree with my recommended permalinks structure? Check out more permalinks customization options at Wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

About the Author:
—————————————————————–
Jeff Houdyschell provides proven income opportunities, ideas and information for the best work at home jobs, visit: http://www.eSmartJob.com

Technorati Tags: WordPress blog, search engine ranking, WordPress blog, WordPress plugin

If you have been involved with blogging then you probably have seen something about the term Social Bookmarking.

What is Social Bookmarking and what is so special about Social Bookmarking?

Social Bookmarking websites categorize and store ‘bookmark links’. Millions of people are searching for information on these Social Bookmarking sites. So to get traffic to your website you should post links back to your web page on these Social Bookmarking websites.

You will need to specify some tags (better known as keywords) that will categorize the bookmark to your site. Other people can search, and vote for your bookmarked site. Social Bookmarking is very viral and can quickly help generate traffic by sharing links.

Some benefits of Social Bookmarking are:

Highly Targeted Traffic

Since your bookmarks are categorized according to your tags, your traffic will be from those searching for those particular tags (or keywords). They will click on your bookmark link and visit your site.

Fast Search Engine Indexing

Most of these Social Bookmarking sites have high page rank. The search engine spiders visit these sites very often so your links will be crawled almost immediately!

High Search Engine Ranking

Social bookmarking is a great way to generate quality one-way incoming links, one of the main factors to higher search engine ranking. With Social Bookmarking, you can get unlimited ‘keyword’ links to your site. Having more keyword links that are relevant to your site will result in higher ranking

Better Page Rank

With incoming links from high-ranking Social Bookmarking sites will improve your site’s page rank. With a higher page rank, you can link to your sites and improve their ranking too!

Onlywire.com has semi-automated tool that will bookmark a few sites at once but you still may want to bookmark many, many more. You can also visit some of the more popular sites by clicking on the green “share this” icon and the other icons shown below this post.

If you really want to take it to the next level, and automatically signup for the most popular social bookmarking sites, and bookmark your blog posts and web pages automatically then check out Bookmarking Demon.

Technorati Tags: Social Bookmarking, Search Engine Ranking

Is your website or blog ready for the next generation Google search engine? Google has recently launched Universal Search. The next generation will blend content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News into web search results.

What does this mean to you? Your website and blog’s search engine rankings could be left in the dust if you haven’t integrated the above mentioned features into your site. If you have then you may now show up for more searches.

Here is the bottom line from a post on the Official Google Blog.

“While today’s releases are big steps in making the world’s information more easily accessible, these are just the beginning steps toward the universal search vision. Stay tuned!” Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land has a great article posted here: Google 2.0: Google Universal Search

Technorati Tags: Google, search engine ranking

Writing a WordPress Blog post is pretty straight forward. Tagging a WordPress blog post is the extra step to get more traffic, higher search engine listings and page rank.

To get started click Write on the main panel and the Write Post screen opens. Then follow these steps to write your post and tag it using the Ultimate Tag Warrior and Tagalize It WordPress plugins.

• Fill in the title box of the new post.
• Choose or create a category for your post on the right side under Categories.
• You should have check marks in both boxes in the Discussion options panel.
• Do not put a password in the Post Password panel! That will keep your post from displaying on your blog. Only those with the password will be able to read it!
• Under Post Slug (optional) you can create a smaller URL address for your post in here. If you don’t create a Post Slug your post title will be the URL address. Without a Post Slug your post’s URL will look something like this: www.yourdomain.com/category-name/your-post-title/ Using a Post Slug will shorten the last part of the URL to what you create in the Post Slug box. Try to make it shorter but still relevent to the title of your post
• Choose the Visual or Code tab to write your post. Clicking the Visual tab (default) will allow you to type in a “what you see is what you get” editor. The Code tab is for writing in code, you can use this to write or paste HTML or other code into your post.

The WordPress plugins Ultimate Tag Warrior and Tagalize It will play a big role in optimizing your posts and blog.

A tag is simply the term used for keywords in blogging and the above plugins help create and manage your tags as you write your posts.

If you are writing a post about work at home you would want to create a category for the tag work at home and tag it throughout your post. Shown below:

[code]work at home [/code]

The plugins used in this instance do several things.

• An optional feature will create a tag for all new categories added, if I set up your blog this will be activated.
• The tag will become a hyperlink to the category tagged, optimizing your internal linking structure helping search engine ranking.
• They will display your tags on the bottom of your post and can be easily carried into some social bookmarking sites.
• They will embed keywords in the code of the post’s page helping SEO.

More tagging options can be used by the Tagalize It WordPress plugin to tag words that pings two popular blog directories Technorati and Ice Rocket. This will alert those sites that you have content about the tagged words. A pretty easy way to get the word out about your blog. Be sure to add your blog to the those two directories also.

To tag Technorati and Ice Rocket use the followin:

[code] Word or phrase for Technorati

[Tag-Ice]Word or phrase for Ice Rocket[Tag-Ice] [/code]

Once you are done writing and tagging your post click Save and Continue Editing, scroll down to look over your post in the Post Preview box, make sure all your tags are properly formatted and closed and scroll back up to make any changes.

Update for version 2.2 – The preview box is not shown on the bottom of the write post screen but a view link is available on the top right side of the write post box, clicking it will preview your post in a new window.

You can add more tags as a comma seperated list directly below the post editor if you wish. Or look up more tag suggestions with the tags (keyword) suggestions tool.

Once you are happy with your post click Publish, if you have the WordPress Plugin Smart Update Pinger installed and activated it may take a few extra seconds for your post to publish while it pings your blog.

After your post is published click (View site) at the very top of the Dashboard. This next step is very important so be sure to click the title of your post to bring it up in its own page.

Using the WordPress plugins Gregarious and or Share This you should now start social bookmarking your post. Scroll down to the bottom of your post and click the green Share This icon. Click on as many of the sites this shows and start joining them.

If you have just the Gregarious plugin you will see a group of icons below your post. The same goes here, join as many as you can.

Now everytime you make a post be sure to click the post’s title to show it on its own page and click on the Gregarious and or Share This social bookmarking icons and start bookmarking your post.

This post was inspired by the Authority Black Book written by Jack Humphrey. If you are serious about your blog then you need to check out the Friday Traffic Report for free blog marketing and Web 2.0 promotion tactics.

About the Author:
—————————————————————–
Jeff Houdyschell provides proven income opportunities, ideas and information for the best work at home jobs, visit: http://www.eSmartJob.com

Technorati Tags: WordPress Blog, WordPress plugin, WordPress plugin, work at home, work at home, search engine ranking, social bookmarking, WordPress plugin, WordPress Plugin, WordPress plugin, social bookmarking

The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you – the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords – the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source.” This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.

More Online Business Marketing Guides

Is your website stuck on page 10 in Google? Do you need massive amounts of quality links to your websites? Click Here Now! SEO Elite Version 4.0 Free Lifetime Software Upgrades Exclusive Member’s Only Forum Mystery Bonus