Web Matters

by: Joseph Pratt

Okay, you have your website and now you want more visitors. Don’t think you’re the only one, bub, but you can learn from the experience of others. Subscribing to web directories is one solution that the ICMediaDirect.com Consulting Division both recommends and executes for clients in order to increase traffic. Like any SEO task, its effort – and smart effort always works best.

1) Traffic. Close to 20% of all traffic comes from web directories. That’s either quite a heap to tap into or a massive chunk to disregard. Simply put, the choice is up to you – there are fishes in the water, do you want to cast out your lines or not? If so, let’s hit the web directories.

2) Get Linked. Search engines include link popularity in their rankings. Using web directories enmeshes your website into linkage, which increases visitors. This creates better rankings – hence more traffic to your web property.

3) Hyperlinked Keywords. Link popularity develops by incorporating keywords into the hyperlinks. Submissions to web directories should include relevant keywords. It makes your site easier to find and boosts the visibility of said links across the spectrum of search engines. More free traffic.

4) Keyword Optimization. It’s doubly important to mention keyword research as it can help you in more ways than one, so choose carefully. The links created within web directories essentially act as recommendations to search engine algorithms and the search engine will attempt to match your hyperlink keywords with search phrases entered by users. So, by harmonizing your keywords to themes related to your website, you will boost visibility.

5) Diversify. Submit to different web directories and find them through search engines. The reason being is that they already have decent standing by virtue of you finding them from the search sites. Play around, get creative, and use key words in combination with topics relevant to your site to find the best web directories. Increase your visibility by hitching on to existing and working directories - if you found it, others will too.

6) Monkey see, monkey do. Mimic your hyperlinks to appear like those seen in Google Adwords. Whatever wordings helps make those ads rank well for Adwords will only help your viability through search, and in turn, web directory ranking. Success begets success.

7) Mind your web directory manners. Treating it like a doormat (by ignoring simple rules to follow, like don’t use too much promotional nomenclature, no foul language, etc) is no good. Play by the rules, or don’t play at all.

8) Web Directory 2.0. Oh yeah! Webmasters are privy to vastly improved web directories with uniform scripts and the functionality of web directories is beginning to improve drastically. A directory can do more with your listing, like displaying logos and basic contact info. The web directory itself has become more pleasing to the eye – and, I should add, for its own good!

Web directories are there for the taking. There is little harm in trying them and with some effort, big rewards may be reaped through increased traffic. What’s more is that web directories (just like this advice column and ICMediaDirect.com’s consulting services for clients) are free. You can’t beat that.

About The Author
Joseph Pratt
Media Analyst
ICMediaDirect.com
http://www.icmediadirect.com
e: joseph@icmediadirect.com

by: Matt Colyer

Is your web site well ranked (In the top ten search results) in the results? If not, you need to read this and get the ranking you always dreamed of getting with your web site! I will show you how to get your web site a top ten ranking in the search engines with these few easy-to-do steps.

Site Design - The web site's structure will decide how the spiders read your web site and the speed of them indexing the web pages. There should be more text content then HTML content. You should avoid programs such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Such programs will add coding that isn't necessary and also they may add coding errors. The pages should validate and be usable in all of todays leading browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, etc.). Also look at your web site in a text browser, this will give you good idea of what the spiders see and if it can work with a text browser, it can work with just about any other browser.

Stay away from using Java, Flash, Java script, scripting such as that can trap the spiders, which will result in them not to index your content. Go external with scripting languages if you need them that bad, use something such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Your web site should respond almost instantly to requests. If you get into 3 to 4 seconds delay until it loads, you need to cut down on the images and overall web page size. Keep the web page under 20k if at all possible, but keep it at least at 5k. Don't use frames, neither the visitors nor the search engines like it and shouldn't be used for any reason.

Content - Web pages should have 200 to 1500 words. Put your target keywords in bold, underline, heading and italics text. Spiders reads web pages top to bottom and they also know that the main keyword should appear in the first few sentences. Which means your targeted keywords should appear high on the page, within the first few words, also they should be in the middle and towards the end of the articles. The keyword density should be between 5 and 15%, but don't lose sleep over it, just make sure you get a density of 5%.

Meta and Title Tags - Meta tags are thought by many SEO experts to have little impact, If any at all, but it's still recommended, just in case it's still a factor. The description tag is still sometimes used in the search engines as description of the web site, so try to be creative and describe your web page's content and not just for the search engines, but for the visitors as well. Also remember not to use the same description tag for each web page, some search engines may think the page is too much like the other pages and end up banning you.

You should place your top keywords in keyword tag, keep it to 5 to 15, make sure your most important keyword appears first though. The title tag is very important part of the web page. Both the search engines and visitors will see this, so be smart and creative with it. Try to have your most important keyword to appear first and keep it short, there isn't any need for 20 or 30 words to appear in the title tag.

Links - Look around your keyword sector in DMOZ or Yahoo!, you will find many web sites that are useful to your visitors and to your ranking. Try to exchange links with one web site a day. Almost every topic has an on-topic directory, go submit to them. Don't forget DMOZ, Yahoo! or other big name directories. When you receive requests for link exchanges, check the site out before giving the OK. Check to see if they are using any spam techniques and make sure they are listed in the search engines. Also make sure it's a web site similar to your web site's topic.

One way backlinks are the best backlinks a web site can get because most reciprocal link exchanges are only for link popularity and search engines are aware of this growing problem. But they are hard to get, one way to get them is by buying them or an other is by writing articles and allowing others to use them on their own web site for content, along with a link back to your web site.

Insite Cross Links - Link to on topic content across your web site. If a web page is about games, then make sure it links to PS2 games and Xbox games web page. Web pages shouldn't be no more then 3 clicks away from the home page. They should be close to the root as possible.

Submission - Once you have insured you have done all the above, you can submit to the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves. Really, if you get enough backlinks you won't need to submit to any of them and instead they will find you. There is some debate that submitting to the search engines instead of letting them find you can hurt your ranking, so you may choose to sit back and let them find you. Also note, that by submitting will not speed it up any and in fact the fastest way to get in the index, is by getting backlinks.

About The Author
Matt Colyer began as a SEO Specialist in 1997. He founded http://www.superiorwebmaster.com in 2004 as a source of articles and tutorials for Web site owners looking to improve their Web site.

by: Chesa Keane

Finally, after the hard-core efforts that are directly related to generating traffic to your website, you next step is to develop a strategy that creates follow-on, long-term traffic. Several methods exist for this Tier III strategy:

- Taking the large list of ancillary keywords that relate directly or indirectly to your website, begin purchasing keyword related domain names that will be used to create traffic driving websites that point to your money site.

- Setup satellite pages using the keyword domain names with the idea of capturing traffic geared toward those specific keywords, developing niche market traffic. As you develop niche markets for those new customers, you are going to be able to capitalize on those customers for the other products and/or services that your company offers when these sites link back to your money site as a result of informing and attracting these new customers through the niche sites.

- Create links, backlinks and cross-links between the satellite pages and your money site, improving your link popularity for all websites, especially your money site.

- Display articles or e-books related to your industry and place these articles on your websites being aware of the best location based on keyword dominance.

- For long-term, viral marketing results, create articles or e-books that you will either sell on your website or offer to public domain websites where your link information must be retained for use by anyone else on the internet; these articles will create links that go back to your money site or your niche sites.

- Follow the same steps in Tier I and II for all the niche sites as you did for your original money site; that is, design a SEO-optimized website and follow Tier II strategy to create the necessary link popularity to drive traffic to these sites.

Monitoring

In order to determine if the SEO efforts are successful, you must monitor results of for number and quality of backlinks, PR and web trend statistics. There are many sources for generating this data as well as programs that will assist in these analyses. Whatever method you choose, whether it is using specific programs or setting up a spreadsheet for entry of data, be consistent in tracking the data. There will be fluctuations from day-to-day that you should expect. You are looking for general, overall upward trends, not short-term blips. Upward progress followed by maintenance of a strong position with slow, steady growth would indicate a successful SEO campaign.

This 3-Tiered approach to SEO Strategy is very effective when implemented with the patience it takes for long-term results. Short-term "fixes" and "tricks" may have an effect in the short-run, but as the search engines change and adapt their algorithms -- as they doing almost monthly -- what worked today for quick results may actually get you banned tomorrow. This strategy is based on search engine directives: Well-designed websites, free of bad code, offering information, services or products of interest to the internet community will create their own base of popularity -- for which you will be rewarded by strong, growing traffic. When you are in it for the long haul, your strategy must utilize long-term efforts.

(c)2005. TAO Consultants, Inc. All rights reserved.

About The Author
Chesa Keane of TAO Consultants has been involved with the internet for 10 years through internet consulting, web development and search engine optimization. Go to www.computergoddess.com for a free Search Engine Optimization Checklist.