Blogging Tips on Search Engine Optimization

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Over the years, eBay has introduced all sorts of different auction types, in an effort to give people more options when they buy and sell their things on eBay. There are many people who don’t like the idea that their item might sell for a far lower price than they intend. Equally, there are people who have hundreds of the same item and don’t want to sell them individually. This email gives you an overview of the different kinds of auctions and how to spot them.

Normal Auctions.

These are the bread-and-butter of eBay, the auctions everyone knows: you bid, others outbid you, you outbid them, and the winner gets the item. Simple.

Reserve Auctions.

Reserve auctions are for sellers who don’t want their items to sell for less than a certain price - a concept you’ll know about if you’re familiar with real auctions. They work just like normal auctions on eBay, except that you will be told if your bid has not met the reserve price set by the seller. If no-one is willing to meet this price, then the auction is cancelled, and the seller keeps the item.

You can spot these auctions by looking out for ‘Reserve not met’ or ‘Reserve met’ written next to the current bid on an item’s description page.

Fixed Price (’Buy it Now’) Auctions.

Buy it Now auctions can work in one of two ways. A seller might add a Buy it Now button to a normal auction, meaning that you can choose either to bid normally or to simply pay the asking price and avoid the whole bidding process. Some sellers, though, now cut out the auction process altogether and simply list all their items at fixed price. Recently, eBay added a twist to fixed price auctions: the ‘best offer’. This means that you can negotiate a price to someone who offers their items using Buy it Now, which could be a great way to get a bargain on things that don’t seem to be selling.

Fixed price auctions are easy to spot, as they have a little ‘Buy it Now’ logo either next to or instead of the current number of bids on the search listings page.

Multiple Item (’Dutch’) Auctions.

These are auctions where a seller is selling more than one of a certain item. Dutch auctions can be done by bidding. Buyers bid a price and say how many items they want, and then everyone pays the lowest price that was bid by one of the winning bidders. If you have trouble getting your head around that, then don’t worry - everyone else does too! These auctions are very rare.

What is more common is when a seller has a lot of one item, and lists it using a combination of two auction types: a multiple-item fixed price auction. This just means that they say how many they have, and offer them at a fixed price. You can enter how many you want and then just click Buy it Now to get them.

After all this, you might find yourself facing a dilemma: when you have the option, should you bid, or should you just use Buy it Now and save yourself the hassle? That’s what the next email will be about.

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You will often find yourself facing the choice of whether to pay a fixed price or keep on bidding. This choice might be presented to you in a single auction, or you might be choosing between different auctions of the different types. So should you use that ‘Buy it Now’ button or keep on trying to outbid everyone else? It’s all a question of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages.

Buy it Now.

- The Advantages.

When you use Buy it Now, you know the asking price and you can take some time to decide whether to pay it or not - you can even negotiate. You don’t need to keeping your eye on the auction, or get caught up in the last-minute bidding frenzy that is now inevitable on any popular item. Not only that, but the seller will be happy to get a fixed price for their item, and they’re likely to nicer to you than usual. Some sellers can be a little resentful when they feel that you got a little too much of a bargain on their item.

- The Disadvantages.

You will almost certainly pay more for the item, especially with more expensive items. Also, it takes some of the fun out of eBay. Aren’t you there for an auction, after all? If you want to pay a fixed price then there are thousands of online stores you could be visiting. It’s like pressing ‘collect’ instead of ‘gamble’ on a fruit machine: it’s the boring option. But then, maybe that’s what you want.

These rules are relatively constant: there are few times when using Buy it Now would allow you to get something cheaper, or when bidding would be an easier way to do it. In the end, as with so many things in life, it’s a simple question of price vs. convenience, and it’s up to you.

There are those times, though, when the strategic use of the Buy it Now button can be a useful tool to help you outwit your competition. If the current bid is almost as high as the Buy it Now price, then why bid higher and keep the contest going? Clicking that button is a no-brainer. The same goes for times when a seller has, for some reason, set the Buy it Now price only slightly higher than their starting price for bids. Why bother to go through all the hassle of bidding?

You might also find that there are times when you should leave the Buy it Now button as a last resort: it can be a useful way of ending last-minute contests with a decisive ‘this is mine’ gesture.

In fact, there are all sorts of tricks you can use on eBay, if you want to get ahead of the game. Remember that most buyers on eBay are casual, and don’t know what they’re doing: a little knowledge can go a long way in getting you an advantage. Our next email will have a few tips and tricks for you.

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Read more blogging tips and search engine optimization techniques at www.bloggingmix.com.

A number of articles and white papers have been written on this topic. Before the days of Google and Web 2.0 there was little attention paid to the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In the early days of the Internet Era you could get a site listed on Yahoo! or Altavista by merely submitting it. As long as it wasn’t too complicated for search engines to understand you could get your site listed within 2 to 3 days. But Yahoo! and Altavista couldn’t keep up with the flood of URL submissions. As web evolved, more and more companies began to embrace the online medium and the potential for using it as a marketing tool.

In the late 90’s something dramatic happened. Google introduced PageRank, a system of ranking Web pages based on their importance and other factors. Google searchbots (or spiders) crawl through the world wide web following links, indexing and categorizing pages based on their content and relevancy. The more links a page has, the more likely they will be picked up and indexed by searchbots. In order to allow spiders to understand the site content, web masters needed to follow certain rules like placing proper keywords, title tags and content in each web page. At this point search became more of an art than a science. Companies can no longer expect to simply add their sites to directories and wait for them to appear on the top of search engine results.

Why is it important to you?

The Search Engine market is fragmented, with Google commanding the majority of the market share (over 80%). If there is one search engine that you want to focus on, that would be Google. Microsoft’s announced bid for Yahoo! (subjected to regulatory approval) might increase Microsoft’s share in the search market, but I still don’t think they will be able to challenge Google’s dominance anytime in the near future.

In 2007, a survey concluded that over 50% of traffic originated at a search engine. According to a 2007 report published by eMarketer, over 20% of U.S Internet users use a search engine at least 4-5 times in a day. According to Internet Measurement firm, Hitwise, Search Engines were the highest sources of traffic during the peak Christmas shopping season, representing 57% of upstream traffic. Google alone was responsible for 18% of the upstream traffic, followed by Yahoo with 6%.

The above figure highlights the importance of SEO as a potential marketing tool in attracting visitors to your site.

How do you implement?

Analyze your current state

Before you start your SEO implementation, it is a good practice to analyze your current state. Evaluate your goals and priorities. Determine your plan of attack. After you implement a solution do not expect immediate results. Don’t be tempted to go straight for a Price Per Click (PPC) campaign such as Google AdWords or Yahoo! Small Business marketing to promote your site. As I pointed in the previous sections, what determines your site’s placement involves more than one factor.

Some companies take an easier route by hiring optimization firms that use shady techniques to increase search rankings. These optimization firms typically guarantee linking in from 50 or more sites (aka link-spamming). They are linked to doorway pages or parked domains that may work short term, but it is only a matter of time before the search spiders detect and penalize the site. Google even makes a point about this on their SEO support page.

Why links matter

As we noted in the first section, PageRank is a value that Google gives to a page based on the number of links pointing to your site. So how do you get others to provide links to your site? You can try the following methods:

• Register with major search directories (Yahoo!, OpenDirectory, MSN)
• Send press releases about your product or idea that generates free links
• Hire an expert to write something positive about your product and publish in an industry newsletter, magazine or a local newspaper
• Ask to be a featured or sponsored client in a major portal site
• Ask employees to mention you and your products
• Enlist in a local library’s site
• Make reciprocal link requests
• Mention your site in major Blogging sites, Yahoo! Answers and Google Groups
• Respond to blogs or queries in Yahoo! Answers (just don’t over-do it)
• Syndicate your content through external RSS feeds to different sites
• Use announcement sites like URLwire to announce your site
• Consider ad campaigns through Google AdWords

Re-engineer your site content

Here are a few basic things you can do to clean up your site and make it Search Engine friendly.

1. Site Hierarchy and text links

Most sites employ DHTML, Flash, Frames and other fancy objects to enhance the end user’s experience. While these objects are great to captivate the users attention, Google and other search engines can’t understand them and will have trouble interpreting them while crawling your sites. Google introduced a new concept called Site Maps. Most people overlook the power of this feature. The Site Maps feature allows Google to understand your site structure and diagnose any potential problems.

2. Server Side Dynamic Content

Many sites use session IDs to track a user’s path to the site. If the session IDs vary on each visit, Google and most other search engines simply ignore the page, resulting in it not being indexed.

You can avoid this scenario by doing two things:

• Store session information in a cookie on the user’s computer
• If the request is made from a searchbot, you can have your web server serve pages without any session IDs, hence allowing the searchbot to navigate through your site without using any session IDs

3. Use Targeted Keywords

Create a narrow targeted keywords list that you think identifies your site properly. Check Yahoo’s Overture (searchmarketing.yahoo.com) or WordTracker (www.wordtracker.com) for ideas on selecting keywords. You can find out the effectiveness of your keywords. In WordTracker for instance, you can input your keyword to see how often people have searched for it. It also tells you how often a term is searched and how many pages appear for that term.

Once you identify the keywords, what do you do with them? One obvious thing to do is to add them inside the Meta Keywords tag. In addition, use the keywords generously throughout your page content. Search Engines love a site with fresh descriptive content filled with keywords. This means constantly updating your site with new, fresh content is vital to your overall SEO strategy.

4. Use Google AdWords

One great way to generate traffic is to simply pay for it. Since Google pretty much dominates the PPC market, you want to focus your ad campaign effort on using Google AdWords. Google’s AdWords Network not only includes Google’s site, but also About.com, The New York Times, InfoSpace, Business.com, Lycos and a few others. So paying per click (PPC) on Google AdWords allows your ad to be featured on all the sites that are part of the Google network. Keep in mind that in most PPC systems, the top bid gets the top position. Be sure to use relevant keywords when associating with search engine ads.

Combining the steps outlined above and running ad campaigns on Google’s AdWords Network will provide ultimate exposure to your site.

How do you measure?

Measuring your returns on SEO investments is crucial. Google’s PageRank feature in the toolbar can help estimate your site’s importance in the Google index. You can perform a search on Google for the word “link:yoursite.com” to see how many back links your site has. This is a good indicator of how many sites are linked to your site.

One way to track the traffic to your site is to use Google Analytics. This tool allows you to see the traffic variables such as a) Absolute Unique Visitors, b) Page Views, c) Bounce Rates and d) Average Time Spent. In addition, you can also set conversion goals to determine how many of those leads converted to an effective sale (or some other action you describe), which is a key way to measure ROI. Tracking in helps you evaluate the efforts of your marketing strategy whether it is a PPC campaign, banner ads or natural SEO. Tracking also allows you to gain visibility into your end user’s behavior and time spent on each page, which allows you to make a decision on where to place ads.

Where to go from here?

Like any other software solution implementation, SEO implementation needs to be constantly monitored and updated. A continuous enhancement to optimization techniques, tracking, keywords, content, blog entries and ad campaigns is necessary to keep your site rank high in the search results. To stay on top, you not only have to outdo your competition but also keep content fresh. This will not only bring new visitors to your site, but also the keep the visitors returning to your site.

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Most of us have heard that search engine optimization, popularly known as SEO is one of the best ways to drive website traffic. But most of us surprisingly still do not know what SEO means exactly. Let us know these basics of search engine optimization before you would want your website optimized for different search engines.

SEO or search engine optimization is a means by which one can increase the number of people visiting your website. This is done where the different search engines show your website among the search (query) results generated for a specific keyword that the user or the searcher enters.

Search engines normally include algorithms and these algorithms are devised specifically to generate results based on the frequency of appearance of a particular keyword. The search engine crawlers or spiders move through the worldwide web, fishing out for the different websites that satisfy the keyword search and if your website has a generous sprinkling of the required keyword/(s), then your website is said to be ’search engine friendly’ or ’search engine optimized’ with respect to the keyword.

So one need to make ones respective websites search engine optimized by studying about keywords, the mostly used keywords and need to make sure that the website content (the different web pages) include the hot and the performing keywords. For instance this could be in the headings, in the articles present in a website or even in the links as well. Use the keywords that are relevant for the content whether in the web pages or in the articles and never sprinkle or search engines sake alone.

Additionally, for the website to be indexed in the best search engines, it is always better if your website has a professionally looking design, with of course read worthy and informative content. Spam does not help you at all. Of course, the search engine might show your web site for a while but as soon as your spam gets discovered, the website will be removed from their indexing.

Choose appropriate SEO techniques. White hat technique is always better because it is going to give a website long lasting results than the black hat SEO techniques. A black hat SEO technique is like trapping and cheating a search engine crawler without the website having the credentials.

SEO does have its own drawbacks. It cannot assure you of targeted traffic although it can help your website get many number of visitors in general.

Also, several of the Internet marketing consultants try and follow deceptive tactics and you need to know these.

You, as a Webmaster, need to know the advantages as well as limitations of SEO and then decide how to use the SEO depending upon your website objectives. Additionally, remember that search engine optimization is not one-stop solution to all drive traffic to your website. It is in fact the website design as well as content that will convert your visitors into sales.

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Content Optimization is the reorganization of your web sites’ content in the best possible way to make it more attractive to search engines like Google, yahoo, msn etc. This usually involves:

Textual Content Improvement

Search engines “read” your website but what are they looking for? Because the textual content of most websites is not written with search engines in mind your placement within the search results may not be accurate to the services you are providing. It is important to research the best possible search terms that should appear throughout your web sites’ content. The traffic volumes you can generate for each search term will depend on the level of competition and the overall rating of your pages. It is vital to be able to identify the most effective search terms and then incorporate them correctly within the content, meta and alt tags of your website.

Meta and Alt Tags

The meta tags for each relevant page need to be inserted to ensure that vital information is presented to the search engines and that the information presented is likely to secure the most relevant visitors for your website. The most important meta tags are “title” and “description”.

Alt tags on all non-textual content such as videos, images and flash are critical since without this information, search engines will ignore them. Both Meta and Alt tags play an important role in developing a search engine friendly website and help establish a more targeted online presence.

Website Structure

The architecture of a website is very important to its success. Typical mistakes made in the design of websites are poor navigation systems, undue reliance on graphics and Flash, unfriendly forms, use of frames and generally poor content ordering.

Link Building

Link Building is low cost, very effective at bringing traffic in and it can dramatically effect your search engine ranking. Persuading other web sites to link to your own could be one of the cleverest pieces of marketing you do.

Links from third party sites are one of the key measurements the search engines use to determine your web sites’ popularity. The more quality sites that link to you the better.

There are three main factors that determine the strength of your links campaign.

Number of incoming links

Online presence is generally improved by the recognition that your website is considered useful by other peoples websites. This recognition is usually indicated by a link from that other website towards your own site - a mark of recommendation that your site is worth visiting.

Relevance of pages containing the incoming links

Incoming links from other sites are of special value if the information or activity is relevant to your site. If your site is that of a veterinary practice then little benefit is to be secured with a link from, for example, a property agency. A link from The Veterinary Society on the other hand would be of great value.

Popularity of the pages containing the incoming links

Search engines each have their own mechanisms to determine the importance of a web page. For example, Google measures it in Page Rank (PR). PR depends on many factors and one of great importance is how highly sites linking to yours are recognized in your sector of expertise. Sites which themselves have a strong online presence are prized above those sites which no one gives any recognition towards - websites which are recognized as sites of authority in your sector are the sites which are most valued for their incoming links.

Therefore a number of different link building programs may be used that aim to increase and improve your search engine presence through increasing the number and quality of your incoming links. These include services such as Article Publishing, Press Release Services, and Social Networking and Reciprocal Link building.

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Now a days many organization and companies want to draw the client and capture the buyers by simple and easy way. So they make their websites, for attract web visitor and and trying to get unique and quality visitors to their site for getting maximum traffic and increasing sales.

Search engine marketing is the only way to increase traffic and attract visitors to the targeted destination. Search engine optimization is the initial and primary step for search engine marketing which includes website and web page optimization, search engine and directory submission, pay per click analysis.

Basically search engine optimization is the most important and vital process of web promotion of any website. without considering a nice optimization it is almost impossible to draw a large volume of traffic towards the website. According to my own points of view ” search engine optimization is the process of making website search engine friendly”. After a healthy work of optimization a website will be alive otherwise sites will be considered as complete wastes. This means not only waste of website but it is directly related with money, time and lastly but not least that is targeted traffic. Here targeted traffic or unique visitors means those valuable user, who directly affect the sales.

Other steps of search engine marketing is always carried after initial search engine marketing. Search engine marketing strategy, pay per click campaign and paid promotion campaigns, traffic analysis report, ROI reports and positioning analysis report are the other processes of search engine marketing.

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