Tuesday, November 11, 2008

1. ALL ABOUT SEO

I'll try to be as non-technical about this as I can. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization (just in case you didn't know). It means optimizing your website for search engines. Why search engines? Every new internet user is first introduced to search engines to find stuff on the internet. Then even as the person becomes a seasoned or an expert internet user, he continues to use search engines to find what he wants. I started off with Yahoo in 1997. Then somewhere down the line Google caught my fancy and I use it till date.

Coming back to the subject, it is estimated that almost 85% of web users use search engines to find what they want. Now, every business that exists on the internet wants a percentage of those 85% of people to come to them and turn into customers. However, the first pre-requisite is that the customers should be able to find you. There are millions of websites on the World Wide Web. How would a potential customer find you even using a search engine? No, it isn't as simple as you think. This is where SEO comes into the picture.


SEARCH ENGINES AND SEO

In order to help people find what they are looking for, search engines have created a set of complex algorithms to scan a website. Every time a user enters a search term and clicks on search, the search engine sends out a 'spider' or a 'crawler' (another name for the algorithm) that scans through the millions of websites that are created everyday. Now the websites that are optimized using SEO tactics are the ones that turn up first in search results pages and the user naturally goes to those sites.

So where does copywriting come into the picture?

SEO based copywriting involves creating content that has the right amount of targeted keywords. It is these keywords that will help you get listed in the top search results pages.

Sanjay is a freelance content writer. He likes to twiddle around with words and ends up weaving out readable, compelling articles ! To peek into his world of articles, visit http://www.sanjaynair.com now!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sanjay_Nair



Search Engine Optimization & The Forgotten Art of Keyword Research

Search Engine Optimization SEO, is about keywords - finding the right keywords, the ones that bring targeted traffic, visitors who're likely to buy - and in decent quantities.

Actually, really & truly SEO is about bringing targeted search engine traffic - but this can only be achieved if you get the keyword research right in the first place!

Quite some time ago now, Google (and most of the other search engines) began to take less & less notice of the keywords meta tag. Now, you don't really need a keywords meta tag, I always use them out of habit, but it's not actually a necessity for most search engines. However, it seems to me that many website owners, web masters, even possibly some people who're offering search marketing services, have took this to mean that keywords are no longer as important.

Nearly every client that approaches me has a website that is suffering from lack of keyword research and sometimes the client has already paid someone who's supposed to have done SEO work on the site! So it appears that there is some kind of a confusion about keywords, whatever the reason is many people are completely neglecting keyword research.

Keyword research is at the very heart of search engine optimization, doing it or not doing it can literally mean the difference between a website doing fantastically well, and a website making no sales whatsoever - and the difference between good keyword research and poor rushed keyword research also makes a huge difference to the end result.

So if you're doing your own SEO, or SEO for someone else make sure you pay a LOT of attention to the keyword research it's of supreme importance. If you're hiring an SEO consultant - ask the consultant how much research they've done into the keywords, if they've not done much & only have a very small list of keywords, you need to have a word with them, especially if they're just working on the few keywords you gave them initially.

Kevin John Lewis is a professional search engine marketing/SEO consultant.

Based in Cheshire, UK (Close to Manchester) - Kevin delivers effective SEO services, and prides himself on the increases in the quantity & quality of search engine traffic that he achieves for his clients.

For more info on SEO consultant Kevin John Lewis & his SEO services, Visit http://www.searchengine-promotion.co.uk

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_John_Lewis


Companies & marketers put in so much of effort to make their visibility in the search results appreciable. Reputation is a vital factor for every organization. It may even cost you millions of dollars. With the vast usage of Internet, blogs products and brands reach the customers at the faster rate never as before. Henceforth, online reputation has become a basic necessity.

With so much of attention being given to reputation and steps taken to bring it up, yet it so happens that sometimes the page rankings given by search engines (SERPs) become unsatisfactory. With the massive increase in the companies in the market, their websites and customer expectations, you are always on the urge to have a cutting edge over your competitors and win over your potential customers.
Gossips, Unnecessary rumors, dissatisfied customers can highly damage your company reputation. Many companies see that poor brand building are a public relation issue, while its actually held up with the PR firms. They form the basic cause for such brand issues.

Online reputation management has indeed become a great problem for most of the companies in the market. When you try to displace the negative search results, it becomes a only a temporary solution, not a complete cure. We need to understand that such negative search results not only come from commonly used search engines, but also occur from blog searches, video sites, news searches, etc.

One needs to understand that even negative comments can have immense affect over the brand image that companies have created over the years. They are forced to pay in protecting the brands as the customers interact with these brands.

So what so we do on for this online reputation protection?

When it comes to search engines and reputation management, we can look into some basic concepts that would help us to safeguard our online reputation. Monitoring, Analyze, Optimization and Engagement

We need to monitor the brands, products, company on the whole and its key executives. We are forced to keep track of all search results, blog searches, news searches, forums, tags, etc. You need to first be aware of what and hoe your brand is being said online. This would help you to optimize your brand accordingly to be on the top of the search results. Keep track of every alert: Google alerts, yahoo alerts; RSS feeds subscriptions, Search engine news (Google and Yahoo), Blogs, Feedster, Feed burner, technorati, tags cloud so on.

You are required to analyze and grasp things that happen around your search engines and your key competitors. Search index keep updating their indexes regularly.A negative article about your company and product seen in the first page of the search result could drastically bring down your reputation

Optimization remains the most effective method and infact acts as a preventive measure too. Most firms focus on reactive optimization to handle negative searches. It has the companies go after the brand / reputation dissenters. Companies need to optimize their website, brand, brand content and other online properties effectively in order to have their online reputation safe and high. Every means of communication, like the Public Relations, marketing, SEO, human resource, investor relations and other related means like the texts, images used, video and audio created for the brand and products all contribute to the SERP. You need to optimize your main corporate site, micro sites, blogs, forums, press releases, articles, newsletters and even the partner sites to get hold of your reputation. Also make use of free online SEO tools to optimize your site.

Active Engagement & Participation: When you have successfully identified the cause for the negatives search results, you need to deal with a few other things. You need to research on them, start thinking on the facts and the possible rectifying actions for the same. Start discussing over them and start being honest and transparent, and above all be ready to listen. Results can turn out to be anything. But continue to follow the concepts with sincerity, keeping track of the business and market trends.

Be a continuous participator in major industry networks, social events, opinion polls, social networks, blog updating and follow-ups. This should help you to gather your company image outside with the consumers and help you to act accordingly. You start being proactive and start analyzing your audiences and your brand and their interactions. Focus on the brand content. More you focus on them, lesser your negative search results.

But remember, all these steps is a ongoing process. Continuously track your reputation and consumer perception over you company and brands. And act quickly and clearly. Regular online reputation management, the secret behind your brand and organization success.

source : http://www.myseoarticle.blogspot.com/



2. ARTICLE ABOUT SEO

"MAKING CARD AND SCRAPBOOK"

One of the main things a card maker or scrapbook maker can never have enough of is paper. If you are anything like me you will have a huge pile of papers but when it comes to making a card or designing a scrapbook page you simply can not part with some of your wonderful and beautiful papers. There are so many way and procedures for making a designs of cards you can express your feelings for making a design of your cards and scrap books some are so stunning it seems a shame to cut them up and create cards from them, although the cards will be beautiful if you are like me you just do not want to part with any of your paper. A lot more to learn for making a cards and scrapbook because like me I will always make myself relaxing. It will also help my health especially my mind to discover or to create a very conducive designs.
One of the solutions I came up with was to create my own backing paper. I tried out many ideas, some worked some didn't the best way I found to create simple background papers is to use my ink pads. But First I decided what topper, cover and back page piece you want to use so that you can determine the colors you will need so that the picture and the paper correspond and work well together.
Simply stamp your ink pad all over the paper or card front, don't worry about making it even it actually looks better if it is not perfect. If you are lucky enough to have a large supply of ink pads you could always use more than one color but make sure it matches what ever you are going to place on top of it. It is important to wait until the ink has dried so that you do not smudge it. One dry you can then add your embellishment to the paper or card. Making your own backing paper will save you money and you can choose the color to match your design perfectly.
You can use this technique on both paper and card but try not to be too heavy handed with your ink pads as this can leave a thick layer of ink. I find when doing this, less is more. You can also lightly spay your paper or card with a small amount of water, this will make the ink go a lot further, again do not over wet paper or card as this can cause it to crinkle and no longer be flat making it a lot harder to work with.