Google Algorithm Change Predictions in 2012 – Prepare your Website for the New Year

In order to predict 2012 Google Algorithm changes we need to first look at 2011. Starting from January 2011, Google started making algorithm updates to help weed out poor quality and duplicated content, scrapers and spammy websites.

Some big players such as overstock.com and JC Penney were hit with penalties in January and February respectively. The (content) Attribution Update at the end of January affected 2% of search queries. This gave us a very solid clue on what Google was going to be focusing on in 2011 – content.

Content

We’ve always known content is king, even before all the 2011 algorithm updates, Google has always favoured websites with vast amounts of content.

When you type a search query into Google, you are not looking for WebPages full of keywords or rehashed articles, you are looking for unique and useful information on your subject. Google knows this. They are always trying to provide you with better results – not an easy task by any measure. The best way to make these improvements is through search algorithm updates.

With all these recent changes, Google is trying to put more emphasis on good content; not just a lot of content – but a lot of well written, unique content. It’s not often I find myself doing this, but I actually agree with Google on this one. Content farming and scrapers represented the dark side of the internet, the sooner they are gone, the better. To combat this Google has named this set of algorithm changes Panda.

Panda

2011 for the Google algorithm was the year of the Panda. We saw no fewer than 11 Panda updates. During January a few algorithm updates were released to give clues as what 2011 will be about, it wasn’t until February we saw the first Panda update – affecting 12% of all search results. It cracked down on content farms, poor quality content, and high ad-to-content ratio websites. The effects weren’t instant either, only coming to Europe in April.

• Panda 1.0 – Feb 23, 2011 – Initial panda algorithm release, affecting 12% of search results.
• Panda 2.0 – Apr 11, 2011 – Rolled out to English search queries worldwide, integration of new signals.
• Panda 2.1 – May 9, 2011 – Minor changed not discussed by Google.
• Panda 2.2 – Jun 21, 2011 – Continued updates to Panda algorithm, updates were separate from main index and not in real-time
• Panda 2.3 – Jul 23, 2011 – Minor update to the Panda ranking factors.
• Panda 2.4 – Aug 12, 2011 – Rolled out to non-English search queries. 6-9% of sites affected in new countries.
• Panda 2.5 – Sep 28, 2011 – Changes unclear, huge ranking losses reported on some sites.

Minor panda updates affecting roughly 2% of search queries.

• Minor Panda updates – Oct 5, 2011
• Minor Panda updates – Oct 3, 2011
• Minor Panda updates – Oct 13, 2011
• Minor Panda updates – Nov 18, 2011

I don’t see panda as another update to the main algorithm, rather a branch on its own, I can certainly see more updates to Panda in 2012, content will always be important and this is what Panda is all about.

Whether we like it or not, as SEOs we will never know exactly what Google will do next, but we can prepare. So here are some things to watch out for and prepare your website in anticipation of 2012.

2012

2012, in my opinion, will see a decent proportion of Google’s updates refining the Panda update. Google is putting more and more emphasis on brands, with bigger brands getting more favourable results. Especially after the Panda updates – with similar content, we saw rankings drop for smaller brands (the review centre), while big brands remain untouched (trip advisor).

Here are a few things you can do to prepare your websites for 2012 algorithm updates.

1. Work on your brand, this is going to be big – in 2012, if it’s not going to be more content updates for Panda algorithm its going to be brand. Brand has been talked about for a while now, but the panda update really put an emphasis on this. Work on your own brand and Google will love you.




2. Review your website for duplicate and poor content – it’s not too late. Remove the large amounts of poor content you created to take advantage of Google before the Panda update. Replace them with quality pieces that are unique, helpful and engaging. More Panda will follow in 2012 to see how good you’ve been.




3. Engage socially – in 2010 everyone was talking about how social is going to affect SEO in 2011, who knew content was going to be the main focus? However, Social is not going anywhere, if not next year it will be the year after. Start early to avoid disappointment later.




4. Quality over quantity for links – An old one, but a good one. Google will eventually crack down the back link game, the first ones to go will be those with spammy back links and sites with enormous back links to referring domain ratios. Go after a few quality links and spend more time acquiring them.




5. Kept yourself up to date – Last but least, keep yourself up to date from the official source. Two websites you need to add to your RSS feeds or visit regularly are from Google themselves, the Inside Search Blog and Official Google Blog. The more you know, the better position you will be in to make changes.

Source: Google Algorithm Predictions in 2012 – Prepare your Website

Google’s Updates and the Effects on Blogging in 2012

One of the best ways to plan for online success in the coming year is too look back at many of thealgorithm changes that Google has made and the effects they will have on blogging in 2012. This year has seen well over 500 algorithm modifications, primarily coming from the Panda and Freshness updates. During this period of time, Matt Cutts and fellow Google folk did their best to help a lot of webmasters understand the implications of the various patches and updates that they have uploaded.

But quite frankly, many small internet marketers and niche websites got hit pretty badly. After Google’s Panda updates were first applied, many bloggers lost thousands of visitors per month and often dropped out of first page results that had netted them steady organic traffic. This is not something you want to be caught up in again, so make sure your blog is getting the time and effort it needs to boast user worthy content and see increased traffic from Google next year.

Main Reasons for Lost Google Rankings in 2011:

• Duplicate, scraped, or copied content – Panda hit this hard and does a great job of identifying “spun content” through N-grams and other techniques.
• High outbound links – link farms and sites associated with them got devalued a lot, if you had a lot of backlinks coming from these sources you may have been penalized.
• Stale content – the Freshness algorithm demands regular updates in 35% of keywords, depending on your market and online competition, you may want to add new content on a weekly or daily basis.
• Low content volumes – Matt Cutts has said that Panda also targets websites that have very low user worthy content, it is recommended that you update any pages/posts on your site that do not have competitive quality. (i.e. most posts should be 300+ words, a 50 word post could hurt your sites overall integrity)

Many people vilify the Panda update because it was such a problem for their own personal sites. The idea behind changes like Panda, are to improve the search results for Google users. Duplicate content and blogs that offer no value should never rank well in the SERP’s. Blogs that were affected by the update were usually low quality affairs that never deserved first page rankings to begin with. Many of these sites relied on backlinks from article databases to rank well. One of the side effects of removing scraped and duplicate content was the de-valuing of these link sources. Blogs that did not have strong link diversity suffered the most. Article marketing was a very popular method to get strong search results fast. Unfortunately, many bloggers relied on this technique for a majority of their backlinks. After the Panda update bloggers who used article marketing as the backbone of their backlink profiles dropped sharply in the rankings.

Panda Algorithm Overview:

• Major penalties for duplicate content.
• Content quantity and quality is more important than ever.
• Black hat techniques penalized – keyword stuffing, shady redirects, spammy meta data, and others will only hurt your rankings.
• Article databases lost link value due to low quality duplicate content.

Freshness Algorithm Overview:

• Caffeine indexing – will be placing more weight on newest results and information.
• Will affect 35% or more of keywords.
• Will affect less than 35% of search results. (some keywords receive the same search results)
• Helps authority and large publishing sites due to it being more difficult for small internet marketers and bloggers to keep up consistent updates and content releases.
• Daily online activity is more important than ever; ie. Posting, commenting, tweeting, etc.

The Freshness update can thank the Caffeine indexing system for allowing new content to be crawled indexed, and displayed. The new system allows Google to crawl and index fresh information at speeds that were not possible before its development. This innovation could not have come at a better time. Users demand the freshest and most relevant search results as possible. Google thankfully had the tools available to provide this exact service.

Search terms that are time sensitive are now identified by the algorithm even if the notion of time sensitivity is implied. For instance if a user searches for “war in Afghanistan”, in all likelihood they want the most up to date information. Not news results from the 80’s, when the USSR occupied the territory. Google wants to provide this seamless search functionality for their users. People don’t even realize that the search engine is interpreting their request in order to provide the best results possible. Even though the Freshness update affected only 35% of keywords, it has changed the way Google looks at blogs forever.

How does Google see blogging currently?

Blogging has become very popular and 100’s of millions of bloggers write posts on a weekly basis. This is a lot of information for Google to crawl and index on a regular basis, but with the advent of Caffeine, they are now able to do exactly that. Google can crawl and index blog posts only moments after they are written. Even the information in the comments section is crawled and indexed now. The more information that Google has regarding your blog, the better they can associate it with specific search terms.

Blogs must make regular updates if they are to remain relevant in the search results. Quality and consistency are two features Google is always looking for and a great way to display them is through the daily release of unique, well written content.

• Must make weekly blog posts to remain current for Google search results.
• Only write quality, unique content that is related to the blog subject matter.
• Relevancy matters, many paid for services post random articles on blogs for paid links, these are usually not related to the blog subject matter. This is a spam indicator. Avoid this at all costs.

Blogging in 2012 post Panda

Google has made around 500 algorithm changes and adjustments throughout 2011. The majority of them have been done to improve the search results that Google provides. Some of the changes have crippled bloggers that were able to make a living with their blogs. But they probably did not provide users with anything of value or participated in black hat link building techniques. In any case, most bloggers should be extremely happy with the changes that Google has completed. Blogs are ranking for thousands of high traffic keywords and are among some of the most visited websites in the world. The Freshness update has only solidified the relevancy of blogs in the search results and offers more opportunity for bloggers to be found in 2012.

Strategies to get You to the Top of Google in 2011

You may think that once you’ve got your SEO strategy in place you can sit back and rise to the top of Google. Not so fast, warns Ali Husayni, CEO of the SEO service company Master Google. One of the challenging things about SEO is that search engines are always changing, therefore strategies to affect search engine rankings must constantly evolve. Here are some of the changes in SEO that experts foresee in 2011.

Unique Content: Although links and page rank are still important factors, Google’s search algorithms increasingly emphasize the performance of a website. They are looking for fresh content that engages readers and encourages feedback. Spend more time thinking about your target audience and what kind of content they need.

Interaction: Google looks for sites that get users to interact. “If you want to be on the 1st page of Google make an effort to create content that will get the users involved in a conversation,” says Husayni. Respond to every comment you get on your website. Be nice and offer guidance. When other users see how responsive you are, they will visit your website more frequently as well.

User Behavior: If your site is getting good reviews from users, it will improve your Google ranking. If it’s getting bad reviews, the reverse. Know what your users want and give it to them.

Social Media: Google has confirmed that social media is one of the factors influencing natural search rankings. They are increasingly evaluating what users click on and where they “hang out.” So, you must consider social media as part of your SEO promotion strategy. Try to get inbound links from bloggers. If you release a new product, you want to have someone influential twitter about it. Be sure you have a Facebook presence.

Targeted Websites: Be aware of how your target audience does research and try to entice viewers like more traditional marketing strategies. SEO companies like Master Google note that Google is looking for those sites that are valuable to users. You also need to find the online communities that your target consumer frequents. This will let you reach viewers as a group rather than individually.

SEO-Led Marketing Campaigns: Increasingly all marketing will be driven by SEO. Radio, TV, and print advertising will all be part of SEO campaigns to educate the users about products and services. Increasingly SEO ranking is at the heart of the campaign rather than being an afterthought.

Geography Will Be More Important: Google map results are increasingly part of its search engine results. Google is also working on ways to incorporate the user’s location into results. As more and more people use GPS-enabled phones for searches, geographical considerations will play a bigger role.

© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Master Google are credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this document is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

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Search Engine Marketing: What to Look for in an SEO Consultant

Author: Terry Stanfield

When you want to add some search engine optimized content to your website it's probably a good idea to hire a professional SEO consultant. A professional SEO consultant can help you decide what services you need in order to overhaul your existing website to make it more search engine optimized and to implement some search engine marketing. A consultant can also tell you what percentage of content you need to have on your site and what Meta tags to use.

If you have never used any search engine optimization on your site at all then you will definitely need to hire an experienced consultant to make sure that your site gets a complete search engine optimization makeover. Many consultants offer more services than just content so if you already have a professional copy writer you should ask that writer if he or she also does consultations or provides other services.

If you need to start looking for an SEO consultant here are some tips on selecting one. When you are considering a consultant ask to see previous examples of any SEO content that person has written but also ask to see websites that the person has written for. After all, the point of hiring someone is to get your website noticed, isn't it? So you need to see some of the websites that the they worked on in order to know for sure that they can deliver high quality search enegine marketing services.

A good way to tell if a web site that the SEO consultant has worked on is really doing well in search engine rankings and drawing traffic is to look on the Alexa website. You can enter the name of the website or the website address and see the search engine ranking for that particular website over a period of months, weeks and days. If that site is doing well then they are experienced enough to provide quality SEO services but if the site is ranked very low or doesn't get a lot of hits then you might want to look for another consultant.

Another way that you can tell if the consultant that you're considering hiring is of high quality is by what his or her rates are. Someone who has high rates but a poor portfolio probably hasn't been working very long and might not have the skills that you need to increase your web site traffic. If the consultant's rates are very low then he or she might be trying to build up a portfolio of work which shows inexperience.

You should always be willing to pay a fair rate for SEO services just like you would be for any other professional services. Don't expect to get great SEO services for next to nothing. This is your business and your business is important so it's worth investing the money for quality work.

About the Author:

Before you start an SEO Marketing campaign, go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on SEO Management and more on ppc management.

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3 Must Do to Get Your Affiliate Marketing Site to the Top Search Engine Position

Author: Kelvin Lee

Having your website shown in the top search engine position for some of the important keywords can make a big difference in your business. It can bring you tremendous amount of free traffic that can boost your sales and bring your affiliate marketing business to a whole new level.

In fact, getting a top search engine position for your site does not require a lot of experience. It can be done by any affiliate marketers irregardless of their experience level. All you need is to have access to some of the secrets and keep on putting the secrets to practice to see results. It is worth the effort as it is definitely of great help to your affiliate marketing business.

Here are some of the technique to get your affiliate marketing site to the top ten search engine position

1) Increase the number of back link: In order to get top search engine position, you ought to create as many back links as possible to your affiliate marketing site. You can do so through submitting articles to hundreds of article directories sites. Participating in a number of forum site or make use of web 2.0 methods such as Squidoo or Blogger can also greatly increase the number of back links to your website.

2) Keyword Density: For your affiliate marketing site to be ranked at the top ten search engine position, you have to write content that have at least 3 to 5% keyword density of your targeted keywords. This can help your affiliate marketing site gets better search engine position for those keywords you are interested in.

3) Content update: Beside the two above factors, if you have an affiliate marketing blog as your website. You have to make sure that your site must be constantly updated to get better search engine position. If your site is stagnant, you will not be ranked well.

As long as you keep on practicing the above 3 methods, I can assured you that you will be getting good search engine position for any affiliate marketing keywords you are targeting.

Now put this into practice and you will see your site at the top search engine position soon

5 Days Mini Audio Course: 5 Days Mini Course

About the Author:

Want to learn how you can Quit Your Day Job and become a Full Time Affiliate Marketer running your own Affiliate Marketing business like me, grab your FREE Internet Marketing Strategy Report and FREE Traffic Generation Audio Mini Courses here.

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Interview with a New York Web Design Company

Author: Scott Jason (c) 2008

As a Web optimization specialist I spend a good deal of time seeking out the best designers from around the country and around the world. We swap industry insider tips. They teach me about Web design and I show them how to get their beautiful sites to the top of Google, MSN and Yahoo. It's a match made in heaven. The most recent collaboration was a huge success that helped both of us get just what we wanted so we decided to publish our findings for anyone interested. That said; here is an interview with a New York Web design company.

What makes a New York Web design company any different from other Web design companies? That's easy... Competition. Just look at how many design firms there are out there and you will see what I mean! In the city or outside, someone seeking high quality Web design in New York faces hundreds of choices in an area of just a few city blocks. Now that's competition!

If you are not from the area it can be difficult to envision. This might help... Imagine typing "New York web design" into Google's search box and getting hundreds of pages with thousands of links of returns. Instead of clicking on those links however, you're walking into hundreds of offices; each offering their own unique flavor of Web design.

But, with the competition comes a competitive edge that is critical in a struggling economy. Of course we all want to look good on the Internet, but when you're competing with your real live neighbors in addition to those online; you have to step it up a notch.

With that said, I provide some inside advice from a successful New York Web design firm. Let's focus our attention on Website usability. This has the unfortunate distinction of being both the most important yet generally least considered aspect of design all too often and the Website owners suffer for the oversights.

First off, most people do not really read a Web page at first glance; they scan it to see if there is something worth actually reading. You need to get their attention right away and keep it. Here's how...

1.) Jump in with your most powerful content right off the bat. Grab their attention immediately and keep it. Don't save the best for last unless you have something nearly as good to lead the reader there.

2.) Make sure your functional areas are consistent, as much as possible, throughout your site. This is especially true of the navigation links (top, left, right, etc.) search fields, logins, and anything else needing user interaction. The more at ease your visitor feels working through the site, the more likely he or she is to stay for a while and go even deeper.

3.) Embed a link to your homepage within your company logo. This is expected by just about every site visitor who has been on the Web for any length of time. It's a safety net many users rely and to deny it could result in major inconvenience to your visitors.

4.) Add a search box in an easy to find, consistent location. And be certain it searches ONLY within your Website. Having a search feature that offers to "Search The Web" gives your visitors an invitation to leave your site. Why would you want that?

Secondly, keep in mind that search engines will also be looking at your site. Making it pretty is not enough. It needs to attract the search engine as much as live visitors if you ever expect those live visitors to find it in the first place. This is known as search engine optimization, or SEO. It's more complicated today than in years past but still quite doable. Here are three "must do" tasks for you to complete if you want your site on top of Google.

1.) Use keywords as anchor text (the visible clickable words) in your links throughout your page's content. This is huge! Allow me to demonstrate how powerful this one element can be.

Navigate to Google.com and conduct a search for the term "Clíck Here" (no quotes.) Take note of two things right away... Number one, there are more than 1.6 billion other (competing) Web pages. Number two, the top match returned is a link to Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Ready for a surprise? The term Clíck Here is not anywhere on the page text or META tags. The page is number one, out of 1.6 Billion pages, because thousands of Web pages supplying a link to Acrobat "Clíck Here" as their anchor text of choice. Amazíng, isn't it?

This is great news for you! You can easily take advantage of that power by linking to and from pages within your Website. Which leads us nicely into Tip number two...

2.) If you deem that SEO is a priority for your site, create a unique page for each of your main keywords. Just be sure to link the anchor text from each page to the page that has that specific keyword as its focus.

Industry Advice: If you are a blog specialist or Web designer by trade, offering SEO as part of your services is a natural fit that can double the value of your work, or more. With so many good SEO products available to help you get professional results with minimal effort, you can usually rely on reputation as a good indicator of potential success. For example, eBay, Motorola and Lexmark all stake their online success on a tool you can get for $250 at iBusinessPR0M0TER.com.

3.) Relevant anchor text should also be at the top of your mind when you are requesting inbound links from other sites. This is what Google uses as its strongest measurement to gauge the quality of your pages.

This is how you can build your brand using your words. Getting visitors there is only half the battle, keeping them is a whole different ballgame.

Now, similar to tip number 2, you want to request specific keywords be used in the anchor text leading to your pages from other sites. And be sure to request each link to the most appropriate page. Just linking to the homepage doesn't cut it anymore.

Warning: Avoid reciprocal link farms like the plague! They are so easy for Google to spot it's a joke.

If you are in need of quality links but don't have time to setup link partnerships yourself, you may want to try a service that facilitates "3 way linking" like the one at 3WayLinker.

It's very simple and really pretty ingenious. Here's how it works... Site 1 links to Site 2. Site 2" links to Site 3. And Site 3 links to Site 1 forming an indirect chain of one way links.

That's all for now. Good luck!

About The Author:
Article based on interview with David R. by Scott Jason. Premier New York Website Design is David Radovanovic's passion. After 10 years of success, in 2003 he opened WhatsTheBigIdea.com and more recently CreativeCrib.com . Want great graphic design in New York? See Dave.

SEO - 5 Tips To Get Your Website Indexed By Search Engines

Author: Cheow Yu Yuan

In order to rank high on search engines, first of all you need to allow search engines to find your website. Search engines use a program known as Spiders to locate new website. When spiders find your website, they will indexed your site and store it in their databases. However, for newer sites, sometimes it is hard to get indexed by them.

What many people do is to manually submit their sites to Google and Yahoo, and what I can tell you is that there is no need to do that. Let me share with you 5 tips to get your website indexed by search engines quickly:

1. Include a sitemap.xml file in your root directory. This xml file consists of the URLs of all pages on your site which will facilitate crawling of your website by spiders. Once you have uploaded it to your root directory, you should set up a Google Webmaster account and point the sitemap.xml to it.

2. Get rid of any roadblock that prevents spiders from reading the content of your site. If your website is a coded entirely on flash or frames, it is hard for spiders to crawl your website. If they do not crawl your website, your site will not be indexed and it will not appear on the organic listings of search engines.

3. Submit your site to social bookmarking platforms. The best way to get your site noticed by search engines is to let them naturally stumble across it. One way is to submit your site to popular social bookmarking platforms like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. Spiders usually visit these sites multiple times in a single day. This is why if you bookmark your site, you stand a very high chance for it to be found and indexed.

4. Get a backlink from a website with high PageRank (PR). Getting a high PR backlink to your site definitely paves the way for successful indexing and possible good organic rankings on search engines. Directory linking and submission is one of my favourite ways to get backlinks. Target those directories with high PR and submit your website to them. Some of the popular directories such as Yahoo may require you to pay, which I think will be well worth the money.

5. Write articles and submit to popular article directories. Article marketing is a great way to get your site indexed by search engines, as well as generate good traffic to your website. Include a link to your site in your articles and submit them to popular article directories like EzineArticles and GoArticles. Spiders visit these directories often and once they crawl your article, they will follow the link in it and find your website.

Getting your site indexed by search engines is definitely a must in order to have good organic rankings for your site. So, try out the tips above and get your site indexed now!

About the Author:

Cheow Yu Yuan is the co-founder of OOm, an online marketing agency providing SEO SingaporeSEO at www.optimalonlinemarketing.com

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Google Is Everything! Or Is It?

Author: Bill Platt (c) 2008 the Phantom Writers

As an article marketer, I say things that I believe will help other people accomplish their goals. As a widely published article writer, I am often criticized for the words I write. ;-)

In July of 2008, I wrote an article about meta-search engines called, "Look Beyond Google: Meta-Search Engines Can Help Online Marketers". In this article, the basic concept I was trying to share was that Internet Marketers should look beyond the presence of Google, to find more ways to drive traffic to their websites.

The Google Religion

This article apparently struck a chord of truth with a lot of people, as its reprint results are much larger than even I expected.

The article was also reprinted on the Link Referral website by someone who seems to have appreciated the article.

The first response to the post at the Link Referral website read as follows: "Thanks for the useless post. Google is everything. If you cannot be found on Google, pray for MSN and Yahoo. Anything else will give you 1 hit in 100 years. Link exchanging and buying ads would be so much more effective than buying into that article."

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not the least bit annoyed that someone criticized my article. The fact that someone criticized the article is only a testimony to the fact that my words touched the nerve of someone who worships the Google religion. I don't want to offend anyone's religion... That would be wrong...

Of course, this is not the first time I have offended those who preach the tenets of the Google religion. I also wrote about this subject in an article about Creating Page Rank, which can be read at: http://www.keywordtext.com/pudding/28.html. This article also drew criticism by those who mocked my assertion that people can truly generate substantial traffic from sources other than Google and that Google PageRank is not as important as many claim.

Answering My Critics

I will admit that if a website is not listed in Google, the task of trying to make monëy online is made more difficult.

But if a website is not ranked in Google, and it does not possess links to it from anywhere else either, then you might as well be working at McDonald's for extra money, as opposed to trying to make monëy online.

Honestly, Google is only "everything" when you have "nothing but Google" on the table.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

This is not just an opinion I hold. I can back up what I am saying with real data, from a real website that does not rely upon Google for its salvation... The statistics shown here are from my primary website: thephantomwriters.com

Even though I do not rely on Google for traffic, Google delivers a great deal of traffic to my website. I actually do quite well in the Google game. I get lots of Google Love for my website, as described here:

http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/google-love/2008/08/09

Nothing But The Facts

The following data reflects the traffic for The Phantom Writers for both 2007 and 2008 (through Aug 15th):

Total Unique Visitors
* 2007: 244,000+
* 2008: 169,000+

Total Page Views
* 2007: 1.2+ million
* 2008: 1.0+ million+

Unique Clicks from All Search Engines (59 in 2007; 58 in 2008)
* 2007: 119,309
* 2008: 129,749

Unique Clicks from Google
* 2007: 61,923
* 2008: 75,750

Unique Clicks from Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN Search
* 2007: 49,291
* 2008: 50,148

Unique Clicks from Other 54/53 Search Engines
* 2007: 8,095
* 2008: 3,851

Important Data Analysis

In 2007, with 244,000+ total visitors and 61,923 visitors from Google, I would have had to turn away 182,077 visitors or 74.6% of my traffic in 2007, if I had relied solely upon Google to drive traffic to my website.

In 2008, with 169,000+ total visitors and only 75,750 of those visitors coming from Google, I would have had to turn away 93,250 visitors or 55% of my traffic, if I relied solely upon Google to deliver visitors to my website.

With 61,923 visitors from Google in 2007 and 93,250 visitors from Google so far in 2008, it is sure that Google is important.

I wonder how many of my critics are actually seeing 61,923 visitors per year? I suspect that many of those who claim that my advice is bad would be tickled pink to see my Google traffic to their websites. And I bet they would be shocked to realize that non-Google sources account for more traffíc for my website than their Google God does.

Beyond Google

In 2007, my website receíved 119,309 total visitors from all of the search engines combined, but only 61,923 of those people came from Google. That leaves 57,386 people who arrived on my website from the 58 search engines that are not Google. In the search category, Google accounted for 51.9% of my total search traffic.

The top five search engines accounted for 93.2% of my search traffic.

Had I ignored those unknown search engines, as my critics suggest others should, I would have been forced to turn away a full 8,095 people or 3% of all of my visitors in 2007. That is a far cry from "one hit in 100 years".

So far in 2008, Google has accounted for 58% of my total search traffic and only 45% of my global traffic.

The top five search engines have accounted for 95% of my search traffic. Those itty-bitty search engines have delivered 3,851 visitors to my website so far this year, accounting for 2.96% of all of my gross traffic in '08.

Itty-bitty is historically worth at least 3% of my yearly traffic. If you want to ignore that 3%, then that is your business. But myself, I am happy to receive traffic from anywhere that I can gain that traffic.

Beyond The Search Engines

As the owner of a professional article marketing company, who practices what he preaches, 90% of my advertising budget is spent on article marketing alone.

This is where the following two pieces of data come into play:

Unique Non-Search URL's Sending Traffic
* 2007: 9,036
* 2008: 5,811

Unique Visitors from Non-Search URL's
* 2007: 27,397
* 2008: 23,907

The remainder of my website's traffic comes from articles published in newsletters and on other websites, recommendations by other websites, bookmarks and name recognition.

In 2007, my website receíved 27,397 visitors from 9,036 verifiable links to my website from articles that we wrote or from recommendations people made for my website. Of course, I am willing to bet that many of the 97,294 visitors who were untrackable in 2007 were the result of the many articles of mine that were published in newsletters.

In 2008, my website has so far pulled 23,907 visitors from 5,811 verifiable external URLs. There have so far been another 15,344 visitors that I receíved from untrackable sources, many of which were probably from the articles that we have successfully had published in newsletters.

The article marketing that we do provides a lot of verifiable traffic to our website, and potentially a lot of our untrackable traffic was also derived from the article marketing we do.

In the end, we credít article marketing for our great search engine placement, for hundreds of keywords, and our substantial search traffic as well.

One Quarter Million Reasons Why Google Is Not God

If I believed the poster who said that "Google is everything" and I had followed his advice for the last several years, then I would have had to turn away 275,327 additional visitors to my website in the past 20 months!

OMG!!! To think that I could have turned away a quarter million visitors or 67% of all of my websites' traffic, if I had simply followed the advice of my critics.

Wow! Some of my critics are absolute idiots!

Yes, Google is important. But, is Google really "everything" ? Only if you want to fail...

About The Author:
As the owner of thephantomwriters.com, Bill Platt has been providing article ghost writing and article distribution services since 2001. In recent weeks, Bill overhauled his website format, in a way that improved navigation and simplified the process of finding the highest ranked authors and most popular articles on his website. You will also find a lot of great information in Bill's article marketing blog, which can be seen at: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com

Putting True Discovery back into Keyword Research Volumes

Author: John Alexander

Here is an article I am writing to show readers and students some of the high value that Keyword Discovery offers.

One thing that is extremely important to point out is that the KEI "Keyword Effectiveness System" is completely different in Wordtracker than in Keyword Universe. I'm not saying that one is better than the other. They are just different. KEI is only brought about as a mathematical equation and is the ultimate means for making decisions. It is just a tool. The KEI in Wordtracker is 0 (being a weaker opportunity) to 400 being a better opportunity and generally the higher the better. However, in Keyword Discovery the KEI runs from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest.

For a long time readers have wanted to be able to get more accuracy in terms of what true volume a keyword is searched for. Of course nothing is ever absolutely perfect but here is the area I want you to take a look at inside of Keyword Discovery if you are a member.

If you are not a member you can sign up for a free trial at Keyword Discovery here.

Would you like to see some pretty interesting results concerning volumes and break down of data for "industry related terms."

Then check out Keyword Discovery's Industry Terms Methodology:

* The search terms extracted are then presented in the "Query" column. * The "Searches" column reports the number of searches from the Global Premium KeywordDiscovery database for that search term. * The "Volume" indicates the percentage of clicks that all the web sites in this DMOZ category receive from each search term.

For example:

Under the heading of "recreation" I chose the term "Birds" which has a volume of 1.22% under the "recreation category." This means 1.22% of all websites categorized under the recreation category are receiving traffic from the keyword, "birds".

When I click on the word "birds" I get a further breakdown that included terms like:

* birds * pet birds * wild birds * birds of prey * humming birds * etc..etc

From this list I chose to click on the phrase "humming birds."

Keep in mind that the volume figures from the industrial terms in Keyword Discovery are calculated by analyzing actual traffic received by sites in this category. This means that it only includes successful searches. This also means that many search terms are not included in this Industry Term database in cases where successful searches, resulting in click throughs to websites that are not indexed by DMOZ. But the information is excellent.

Also note that you can literally look at historical data to analyze trends. Of course some people's search habits change and some things never seem to change. Any way you look at it, the historical data is fascinating.

Next, we click on the phrase "humming birds" again and Keyword Discovery begins showing us some mild behavioral interests such as users seem to want to know more about how to attract humming birds or pictures of humming birds or even about humming birds from a specific area...like Taiwan.

Don't forget you can dig fairly deep and for any phrase you can see the historical data or the trends too which is extremely helpful. Try it for yourself and you'll see what I mean.

What I like most about this Keyword Discovery interface is that within seconds you can identify "historical trends" very easily plus you are looking at genuine volume as opposed to just a figure generated by some math equation.

Watch for some very light revealing behaviors, but the ability to identify peak trends based on seasonally related promotions is exceptional. For this example, I chose something random from the list, but give this feature a whirl around something like Christmas or Halloween or Mothers Day or the 4th of July and I think you'll begin to see it's value for seasonal promotions.

Did I miss anything?

I am sure I did, but I intend on writing much more about many of the features available in Keyword Discovery. I hoped you enjoyed this brief tutorial on Keyword Discovery. There will be much more in the future.

About the author
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at http://www.SearchEngineWorkshops.com offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, http://www.onlinewebtraining.com. John has taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries world wide. John is also Director of Search Engine Academy http://www.searchengineacademy.com

Measure Your Search Marketing Efforts with a Weekly Googleprint

Author: Jack Deal

It's easy. Just type your subject in quotes in Google's search box. This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to test your search marketing efforts. Each week you can track which of your search marketing efforts is paying off and which isn't doing so well. The results may surprise you.

For instance, you might be surprised to see your Craigslist ad showing up surprisingly high in your Googleprint. Placing an ad on Craigslist not only gets your name out but also gets you site picked up by the search engines.

You can also find out what doesn't work; for instance, all those URLs you stuck on Twitter are fun but probably don't count for much. Using search Googleprints is also a good way to see what your competitors are doing. If they are buying Google search words that will turn up too.

And don't forget to click past the first page and examine other pages. Every now and then look at the first five pages to get a sense of what is happening on the lesser hits, especially if your search is a big generic one.

So how can one tell just what is going on? Much has been said about figuring out the Google algorithms or the way Google comes up with its search results. Forget it.

Even an engineer would have trouble figuring out exactly what Google is up to and Google certainly doesn't want to let the cat out of the bag. Those algorithms are Google's greatest intellectual property.

The truth is the Google algorithms change on a regular basis and if you are monitoring your Googleprint you can see how search results change when algorithms change. Sometimes these changes can be somewhat dramatic significantly changing your Google footprint. But you won't know unless you are tracking your Googleprint.

It's obviously important to remember that yours is not to reason why. Your chore is to see the application and results of the Google algorithms. If you begin to see the results, you can begin to understand the bigger picture and how that affects your search marketing efforts.

Don't expect any great revelations, but if you keep a steady finger on the pulse of the algorithms they will begin to make sense.

The basics don't change very much and they are most important; change your homepage with fresh, original content daily, focus on keywords and keyword strings and publish, link and backlink as much as possible. Avoid scams and spam.

Regular Googleprints also help you check for spammers and scammers that affect your Googleprint; in fact, you may have recourse.

For instance, a short while back when checking my Googleprint I was dismayed to see that the number one hit was a scam. This scam had lifted my name and business name and had posted it on a website that was selling porn.

I flagged and reported the site, as well as probably hundreds others also did. Within 24 hours it was gone; barred by the Google God. Or Goddess. Or their Googlenesses. The lesson here is take action and don't panic. Panic gets you nowhere when dealing in the search world.

If you are just starting out with your search marketing efforts, make a weekly copy of your Googleprint and save it for reference. Over a period of time you can review your Googleprint snapshots and see which of your search marketing efforts is more effective.

You can also check your Yahooprint and MSNprint as well. But clearly Google, as the biggest and most important search engine, is critical to search marketing and your search marketing campaigns.

Think search.

About the Author:

Jack Deal owns Deal Business Consulting and JD Deal Local Search Marketing, Monterey and Santa Cruz, California 95060 831-457-8806. Related articles, ideas, strategies, tactics and tips can be found at and www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com" .

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Blogging Will Help Your SEO Efforts

Author: Bart Icles

If you are trying to help your website reach the top of the search engines for your keywords, one of the best and most effective ways to help your efforts is to attach a blog to your website and keep it updated on a regular basis. One of the most important things to Google is how often a website is updated. To improve your search engine ranking dramatically, you should be updating your blog at least weekly, with 100% unique content.

Within your content, you need to make sure that you mention your keyword(s) frequently, just like you do on your website. You should also make an effort to link out to at least two different pages on your site or other blog posts to help build internal links. This is the juice that fuels SEO.

At this point, you might be in a bit of a panic if you don't have a blog on your website. Guess what, you shouldn't be! There are quite a few blog programs that are absolutely free for you and I to use. If you use certain blog software, you can even install plug-ins that will assist you with your SEO and help you move your website higher and higher in the search engines.

One of the best blog software that you can find today is called Word Press. Word Press is absolutely free for anyone to use. Word Press is a slick content management systems that allows the use of plug-ins to make your life easy while blogging.

One of the very best SEO plug-ins that can be used with Word Press is the "All in One SEO" plug-in. This plug-in allows you to make each of your blog posts and blog pages optimizable for the search engines, but allowing you to add a unique title, description, and keywords to everything. This very small and simple step will help you set your website and more important, your blog apart from all of your competitors that are not taking these additional steps to tell Google exactly what your site is about.

SEO is rather simple, it is all about providing the search engines with fresh, unique content that is optimized to tell Google exactly what it is and how it relates to your website. If you take the steps necessary to optimize your website properly and add an optimized blog to your marketing mix, you will be able to accomplish your goals in reaching new search engine heights.

About the Author:

Bart Icles is a Utah SEO specialist. He works for ioVentures, which is a Utah SEO Firm who markets on the internet for small and large businesses. You can also visit their Internet Marketing Blog for SEO tips and internet marketing techniques to help you business.

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How To Mix The Most Important Ingredients in Marketing Strategy

Author: Deep Arora

It is a common misconception that you need to have an extensive team of professionals that can create the ideal website for you and your business to start booming. The reality is that you know your business, your niche and how your organization fits into these better than any marketing person that you may hire to do your promotion. Of course marketing experts know lots of valuable information about getting your message out there, after all its their job and its likely that you will do much better getting an expert on board to help you in achieving your goals. However, the most crucial person that also needs to spend time promoting your business is you.

Web designers and marketing specialists can help you develop just the kind of website that will see your sales go through the roof, but they also need your input. No one knows your business better than you, and if you do not take the time to share that knowledge with the experts to help them sell your unique business attributes, then you could literally be selling your business short.

All marketing is focused on generating more sales, and for this reason you want to be involved with helping the marketer achieve this goal. Outsourcing marketing lets you get an expert to assist you in this process, but the most important thing that you can give to the marketer is your time and knowledge of your business and your products. The significance of this is that most small to mid sized businesses have three primary internet marketing options available to them; Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), or Blogging & Social Media Marketing. So lets look at why you need to be actively involved in marketing via these methods.

One common misconception is that SEO is something that your website designer will do for you, but thinking this way is a bad trap to fall into. You will need to be commited to doing ongoing work on your SEO, sourcing new keywords, updating older ones and refining which words you select. This is important because consumer trends can change over time and new developments in products may cause a shift in your business focus. All of these reasons are why you, the business owner and specialist in your area, need to be certain that your SEO remains up to date with what your business is doing. It will be worth your while to take a little time to fully understand the SEO process and how you can make it work for your business, long after your web page designers have finished putting your site together.

The most efficient form of advertising for many small to medium sized businesses is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This does not necessarily take a lot of time to implement, but a remarkably large number of people do not know how to effectively implement tracking on their PPC advertising. The key here is that as with the other forms of marketing mentioned, you need to dedicate the necessary time to get this to work. Establishing a PPC campaign necessitates you to monitor it effectively to ensure that you are tracking your ROI and are able to implement the necessary updates and fine tuning of your campaign to truly generate the sales you are looking for.

Finally, if you are looking at doing social media marketing or blogging then you really need to be prepared to dedicate the time required to making these work. The unique advantage of these forms of marketing stem from the personalized nature of them, so this is your chance to get your message heard and be certain that you are demonstrating the dynamism and skills that you particularly have as a business person. Both blogging and social media are the kind of tools that require a good blend of marketing, sales, networking and writing skills to ensure success. The personalized nature of these things makes it impossible to truly outsource this, so being committed to dedicating the time necessary is again crucial to the success. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is time well spent.

There is no defined amount of time that you can nominate as the ideal or target amount to achieve success. Basically you need to focus on making sure that your time is well spent. The key element that the business owner brings is their knowledge, and the only real measure of success will come if you have implemented good measures of ROI. As a rule stay focused on what you wish to achieve, be sure that you have the necessary measurement tools in place and accept that as with many things, the more time you dedicate the more positive the results you will generate.

About the Author:

Deep Arora is an Internet marketer with over 7 years of online experience and he teaches internet marketing from his blog at HowIDid.com. Check out his blog for some amazing techniques today..

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3 Reasons Why You Need to Use RSS.....Now!

Author: Seomul Evans

Despite the popularity of RSS technology, only about 20% of internet users actually use it. In fact, many internet users don't even know what it is or how to use it. But there are three reasons why we should expect that to change very soon. Just as many devoted "snail mail" users eventually came around to the idea of using email, many email users will probably become avid RSS users.

Three Reasons Why RSS is The Way to Go!

1. RSS Allows the Use of Embedded Audio and Video:

Let's say that you're an internet marketer who wants to send an email to established clients. You envision this email containing a YouTube-like preview that the client can click on to see your expertly-crafted video. But guess what? You can't do that with email. The best you can hope for is to include a preview image that opens up a web browser to play the video when the client clicks on it.

You may wonder why that's so bad, but just think of how much easier it would be to view the video right there in the email without being bounced around. And then remember that RSS easily and conveniently allows for embedded video and audio.

2. RSS Guarantees 100% Deliverability

If you're an internet marketer, listen up. Even if you legitimately obtain the email address of a potential client or an established client, there is only a 60% chance that they will receive an email that you send to them. That means that if you have a list of 100 emails that you've worked hard to obtain, 40 of those customers won't ever get the email. What a waste!

But RSS is different. If someone has subscribed to your RSS feed, you are guaranteed that they will receive every single message.

And the advantages aren't limited to internet marketers! Customers also win with RSS. No more whitelisting senders, and no more signing up for email lists only to find a spam box filled with old email. Once users realize how convenient and efficient RSS really is, RSS will grow by leaps and bounds.

3. RSS Means NO SPAM!

Industry analysts and internet marketers are acutely aware of the possibility that email may not be free forever, particularly for large corporations that send out significant numbers of emails. Why? The answer is spam. It's time-consuming to delete, it often contains inappropriate messages, and large corporations are often burned by it. Before you dismiss the idea that email may no longer be free, know that some email providers are already researching ways to make email like cell phones that impose a sending quota.

And won't RSS be popular then for marketers and consumer alike!

If you are one of the 80% who uses RSS feed regularly, you may be stuck for awhile checking both email and your feed reader because a few key things need to happen before RSS completely eclipses email. First, users need to be able to send messages to select RSS subscribers instead of everyone who subscribes to the RSS feed. Second, users will need to have the ability to share some identifying information with the publisher so that the publisher can send content that matches the needs of the user and can utilize RSS similarly to email.

So What Will This Look Like?

Quite honestly, it will probably look a lot like email, except that instead of publishing your message to a blog, you'll actually publish it to a private spot on the internet and to your client's RSS reader. When your client checks his feed reader, he'll see that you've posted a message to him and reads the message online or in the private space where you've published the message.

Sounds easy, right? Although RSS technology has a way to go before this is a reality, it never hurts to prepare for the possibility. If it all sounds overwhelming, consider the possibility of consulting with an SEO expert to talk about how your company can prepare for the widespread use of RSS as an alternative to email.

About the Author:

Seomul Evans is a senior SEO Services with "SEO 1 Services" a Dallas firm providing SEO Marketing and free internet marketing articles .

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How To Make Your Business Viral Using Internet Video

Author: Paul Fitzgerald

Getting your business in a competitive market means you will need to invest in successful marketing, and with the technological advances of video marketing on the Internet, your business can find a wider audience.

Viral marketing can ensure that your business is getting more coverage and more information out to your future clients. Video marketing can increase your ranking on search engines, which means more people are viewing your web site and your new viral marketing videos. With the viral marketing trend increasing each day, more and more businesses are finding that video marketing can improve the density to which your web site receives views and can increase your business potential.

Advertising and marketing through conventional means can get expensive and advertisement search engines do not always grab the attention of customers. However, video marketing can ensure that your business is receiving the widest range of customers and search engines.

With so many web sites utilizing the video craze sweeping the Internet, it seems only natural that your advertising plan includes viral marketing. But not including video into you marketing, there are millions of customers that you are missing out on each and every day.

Including videos on your web site does not mean you have to be an award winning director or need to know how to edit video to stream on your site. You do not need even need to pick up a camera to do viral marketing if you don't want to! Outsourcing your viral marketing can not only save you money but it can make you money as well, by making your web site more attractive to both the search engines and to future customers.

Businesses can customize their video to showcase their business services and plans to customers. A video means that your future clients can have tangible evidence to the actual services, producing more trust and confidence in your business.

Most customers need a visual and testimonials on the business to feel comfortable, and a video on your web site can help build that rapport. Customizing your web site with viral video means you will need an effective web site follow up program, and having a web site designed to support your video can do just that.

Customizing your video to your web site can help your business be successful beyond your wildest notions. Going viral means your business can effectively get the viewing and audience you've been seeking. Having your video on several major video search engines, such as YouTube and Google Video, on major forums and blog spots means that you are gaining more exposure with each click of the mouse.

About the Author:

Video4Leads Creates Local, National, and International Business Leads for you through internet video, article marketing, follow up marketing, increasing conversion on your website and more. #1 mistake companies make is no Internet Follow up Program, We can take care of this for you. We can help you get the jump on your competition, so you Increase Traffic To Your Website

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Do Longer Blog Post Equal Higher Rankings?

Author: Bill Miller

How long should your blog post be?

Ever since I started blogging a few years ago, that is one of the questions new bloggers have asked. The blog Guru's will tell you that blog post need to be short. The theory is that if you make longer post, the reader will get bored and leave your site.

I naturally write long articles so it was hard for me to follow the 250 to 500 word blog post unspoken rule.

If you're only interested in attracting Social traffic, stick to making those short, concise post. Most Social readers have shorter attention spans than a 3 year old, especially if they come from Digg.

If on the other hand, you want your post to rank high in Google SERPS and bring in loads of targeted organic search traffic, you're more likely to do it with longer keyword optimized post than shorter ones.

You'll also naturally have more long tail keywords in your long blog post. Long tail keywords bring in more targeted organic traffic to your site.

If you run a content rich site with Adsense, you can increase your CTR with longer post and articles. Why? Because you'll stand a better chance of the reader losing interest and clicking on an Adsense ad. Yeah, I know, it's a pretty underhanded Adsense trick hunh? But it works.

You should also be aware that you'll probably lose a few RSS subscribers who do not like long post, but you'll also gain a few more who feel long post are more informative and detailed. They'll see you as a detailed authority on the subject.

If you're worried about losing your RSS subscribers to long post, here are a few tips that will help you keep them interested and to optimize your long post.

Use the H3 tag to break up your long post into sections. Properly constructed H3 headings also add SEO benefits to your long post.

Use bullets and numbers to break up list or for making points.

Use blockquotes when quoting others or for highlighting a resource.

Use Bold, Italics and Colored Text to get your point across and to break up your long post.

Not all of your long post have to be a War and Peace novels. Just the really important post you want to expand on and the ones you want top rankings for.

Don't worry about mixing long and short blog post. I've done it on my blog for nearly 2 years now and I reaping the benefits of knowing that longer blog post equal higher rankings.

About the Author:

The website AffiliateWatcher.Com brings you these traffic tips. He reviews affiliate programs and other money making ventures that helps beginners get started in Affiliate Marketing. See the sEO article titled:How Long Should A Blog Post Be at the blog.

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Top Five Internal Linking Tactics To Get Top Google Rankings

Author: Jason Oconnor

If you're a website owner and are not following these five tactics for correctly linking your website together then you're losing Google traffic as you read this. Internal linking is the links on your website that point to other pages within your same website. External linking is when you link to another website.

There are things you can do when developing or re-working your internal linking structure. If you carry out the following tactics, you're going to achieve two things. First, you'll make your website better from a user's perspective. Second, you'll rank better in Google. And it's no coincidence that Google rewards you for doing things that make the website user's experience easier and better. In fact, the most important thing I can recommend is that you create, design and link your website together is a way that benefits the visitor first. Your visitors are most important, not Google rankings.

And remember, links to your site (whether from other sites or from pages within your own site) help your rankings.

1) Add links in your navigation or footer as text links to all your important pages and main sections.
This is a very easy and an extremely effective tactic that not all sites do, and even less do for maximum results. This is the first thing I look for when reviewing a website for a client. Unfortunately, sometimes artsy Web designers add cool buttons, which are images, to all the main sections of the site, but neglect to include text links as well. Or a programmer decides to make the website's navigation a dynamic drop down menu in DHTML or JavaScript but forget to include text links to the same pages represented in the menus. Search engines cannot follow image links or links created in JavaScript, they can only follow simple text links, so be sure you add them to your site as well.

So if you want search engines to visit and index (or record) ALL your website's pages, be sure there are text links pointing to all the main sections of your site and to all your important pages.

2) Use of the rel="nofollow" HTML tag.
This is fairly simple. Google created this tag which tells them NOT to count the link in their search engine ranking algorithm when used on a link. There's debate that maybe Google does count them a little, or will some day in the future. But for now, this tag does greatly decrease a link's value in Google's eyes. Therefore, consider using this tag on some of your links within your site. For example, let's say you have a homepage and then create two inner pages, and that's the extent of the site. Let's further say that you add a link to both pages on your homepage.

If your homepage has some external links pointing to it, then it has some value in regards to Google's ranking system. When you link to each of your two new pages within your site from your homepage, each page gets only 50% of the value the homepage has. (This is all measured in Page Rank). Let's then say that your first inner page is the one you want to rank well in the Google, but you don't care if your second inner page even gets found by Google or ranked. You could add the nofollow tag to the second link on your homepage, thereby giving the first inner page 100% of the homepage's value.

Think of the implications. Imagine if you had a website with hundreds or thousands of pages and used the nofollow tag throughout. To understand how to implement this tag is, do a search in Google such as "how to add a nofollow tag to link".

Finally, if you have pages such as a privacy page, terms page, checkout pages or contact pages that you don't care if they rank well in Google, be sure to use the nofollow tag when creating internal links to these pages.

3) Use descriptive & different phrases to point to the same inner page
The words that are in the text of a link (also known as the anchor text) affect your search engine rankings. For example, the anchor text in the two links above is "Your Website". If enough of these links that were on quality and valuable sites, including your own website's inner pages, pointed to the same page, it would eventually rank well in Google when someone searches for the phrase "your website".

Therefore, be sure to make the anchor text in all your internal links the phrases you want the pages to be found for in Google.

Going back to the number 1 tactic above, you would be far better off making the anchor text in all your footer links as descriptive as possible. If you want to rank well in Google for "affordable Red widgets" then make the anchor text "affordable Red widgets".

Finally, vary your anchor text when pointing to the same page within your website. For instance, on some of your pages you could link to your Red Widgets page with the anchor text of "Red widgets", then on other pages link to it using "affordable Red widgets" and then maybe use "widgets that are Red". This allows you to get the page ranked for multiple terms and helps the user since you're being descriptive and making your anchor text better match the content of the page it's on.

4) Make links in your content
If you have text on your site, make some of the words within the text links that point to other pages within your website. For instance, if you have an article about Red widgets, or a page that describes how great your Red widgets are, make the first or second occurrence of the phrase "Red widgets" in the text a link that points to your Red Widgets page.

5) Create breadcrumbs at the top of every page
This looks something like this: Home - Products - Red Widgets
Each of words between the hyphens (which are also often greater-than signs) above should be links to their corresponding pages within the site. This helps your website visitors know where they are in relation to the rest of the site. It helps orientate site visitors. Anything you can do that helps your visitors' experience is something you ought to consider doing. This also helps search engines spider your website more easily as well. Finally, making breadcrumbs creates more internal links to your pages, thus helping your rankings as well.

By following these top five internal linking tactics, you'll be far ahead of the competition, you'll rank better in Google and other search engines and you'll be making your website visitors' lives easier.

About the Author:

Jason O'Connor is the owner of Oak Web Works, LLC (http://www.oakwebworks.com), a company that specializes in Web marketing, search engine marketing, Web strategy and Web design. mailto: jason@oakwebworks.com

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