Long-term SEO maintenance requires dedication to your website. There are people who think that they can throw up a web page and that people will find them, and good luck too them – but it won’t happen. Any website that wants to make money needs to get optimized, and stay that way. Running and SEO campaign once or twice isn’t enough in this market: you need to consider long-term maintenance of your SEO.

For long term SEO maintenance to be effective, you need to constantly monitor the search engines algorithms, which can change very frequently. You also need to keep track of your competitors’ optimizations and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Always consider your website as an investment – you’ve put time, money and effort into it. Your investment needs to be protected, and the way to do that is SEO maintenance. This makes sure that your website is ranked high enough to bring you the traffic you need, and keeps the sales coming. (more…)

Before you can evaluate your site’s SEO profile, you need to understand what an SEO profile is and how it works. An SEO profile for a website is just like a marketing plan or a business plan – basically, it’s a strategy document, putting your decisions into words. This is best performed on a computer program such as Microsoft Word as these programs do provide the best bang for your buck. All else aside, Microsoft does put out some excellent business oriented software so take advantage of it!

Writing your SEO profile should consist of the following:

An introduction – This should include a BRIEF description of your company as well as a purpose statement of some kind. If you can describe your company in a neat, tight format, you will be one step ahead of most in the SEO game.

Goals relating to your Search Engine Status - What do you want your page rank to be? Where do you want to be listed under specif key words? top 50? 25? 10? How many pages of your site do you want search engines to index? Do you want to pay for listings? These questions will get you started, but you must go more in-depth into your SEO goals. Also include the search engines and directories that you feel are necessities such as Google, DMOZ, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Information regarding SEO actions and achievements – This one is pretty self-explanatory. List everything that you do regarding Search Engine Optimization as well as any successes caused by these actions.

Once you’ve written an SEO profile, you can compare it from time-to-time with what’s going on with your site, before either adjusting the site to reflect your strategy or adjusting the profile to reflect a strategy change. Generally, it is wise to stick to the plan, but occasions may arise when you find that this is simply not logical anymore. In these cases, you must re-evaluate your entire plan because one change can effect the rest of your strategy. If you have an extremely intricate strategy that depends on one thing going well, you may want to diversify your strategy. Your profile should especially focus on special things you plan to do that aren’t standard SEO practice. Standard SEO work can get you only so far. Every one of your competitors is probably doing the same things so get creative. This is one place where doing something for yourself can really push you to the top. If you already have a high-ranking site, you should use your profile to document the reasons why it has happened, to help you maintain your high ranking.

Keeping your SEO profile updated will allow you to stay current not only on what’s going on with your website, but also on what’s going on in the SEO industry. The SEO industry is very fickle. It can change suddenly without warning to reflect what a search engine or directory believes to be the opinion or benefit of the market. Remember that search engines are always in competition with one another to deliver the most results of the highest quality. If you stay on top of your quality, changes in the SEO industry will have minimal effect on you. It is still important to track these changes in order to ensure that your site gets maximum exposure. Evaluating your website and profile regularly give you an advantage in the market – you should never let a profile get older than 3 months, and you should refer to it and update it every time you make major changes to your site. These changes include additions of services or removal of services as well as design changes and SEO work.

There is software available online that can help you evaluate your site’s SEO profile. Some of these software are very useful, others are very overrated. The difference that these programs will make in your fight for page rank and listings depends on your interpretation of the results nearly as much as it depends on the value of the software itself. In order to find some software simply google for SEO software. Reading the reviews and making judgement calls is the best way to determine the worth of SEO software. If you think that its worth going for look at the cost of it. If the cost seems to high, it probably is. You can generally evaluate your SEO profile on your own once you have learned what to look for in an Search Engine Optimized page.

About the Author

Luie De Von is a marketing consultant with Easy  Postcard Marketing and has been providing consumers and business owners with marketing strategies. For years he has helped businesses to have more and growing clients through Advertising Postcards , Marketing Postcard , Business Post Card.

Many SEO experts will tell you that they have specific ways of choosing the right keywords for a website. Some do it using SEO tools – software that compares possible keywords to see which are used the most. Some will give you DIY methods with spreadsheets. We say, however, that you should try every method you can in the search for keywords. Here are some steps that might help:

Identify and create a list of keywords from meta tags, research on your competitors, your highest-converting products and biggest current traffic sources. For each term (typically between 30 and 50 terms overall), narrow the field down to about 15 or 20, choosing the terms you feel are most relevant to your website. Your higher ranked competitors are probably up there for a reason so take a look at what they are providing. Make sure that everything is directly relevant and try to stretch yourself out into some unchartered water. The less common that your key words are, the more likely you are to get the search engine results for these key words.

We would recommend a piece of software called WordTracker to find out how many searches have been done on a certain term. You can choose to work with this information however you want – spreadsheets are good, but you can use anything that will make it easy reasonably easy for you to track these keywords. (more…)

As the demand for search engine marketing continues to grow, so does the demand for experts in the area. In recent months, mass emails seem to be the new ‘promise’ of top search engine rankings. How do you choose an SEO provider that will understand the needs of your website and provide quality service?

Let’s breakdown the elements of SEO, to make it easier for you to recognize a good product. To find a good SEO provider, look for these things:

They need to be able to check your current site, evaluate it and set goals for it. They should develop a list of target keywords relevant to the site, write and insert good meta tags for you, and check all other tags to make sure that they’re alright. They should also check all your content and make recommendations on how to improve it to get better search engine rankings.

They should provide link-building programs, including writing and submitting listings to directories and giving you ideas on who to ask for links from. Reports tracking search engine referrals to your site are always good, especially if they explain what they mean and how they can be improved. (more…)

First, go to the search engine where you want to check your site’s ranking, and enter the keywords you want to check. Your result pages will come up, and you will need to look through them until you find your website. SEO experts recommend that if you aren’t listed in at least the top 20 then you should continue to optimize, as most people won’t look any further than that. This is simply common sense. When you are determining if your rank is high enough simply think to yourself, “Would I look for this long for this page?”

You will want to do this with each search engine and directory until you have some idea of where you are. Check your website’s rankings regularly, because changes to algorithms can affect them drastically and quickly. Keep in mind also that thousands of new web pages are added daily, and many of them are actively trying to get ranked ahead of you. That’s right. There are thousands of other in on the same game as you so you must keep sharp. Your competitors may be reading these same articles and using these same tricks! (more…)

When you analyze a competitors website, you need to make sure you’re prepared to do the job correctly. Competitors’ websites, if analyzed properly, can give you all sorts of information that you can use to increase the traffic and the popularity of your site. You can use these sites to analyze your own market. If a site gets a lot of hits it has to be doing something right. Check out where it is ranked, what key words it uses, how it is formatted, and what you can do to exemplify the good and filter out the bad. Also be sure to keep copyright laws in mind as a copyright infringement suit is never good for you, your site, or your blood pressure.

Identifying the Leaders.

You need to start off by identifying the major players – a good place to do this is Yahoo’s directory. It’s not as comprehensive as it once was, but it’s good if you’re looking for the major players. You may want to print out the directory to take a closer look. Look for large companies, as well as innovative approaches and new products. Also use this examination as an attempt to identify the niche markets that the major players have not identified and exploited. If you can find new niches you’re basically set as far as traffic goes.

Also consider that since Yahoo!’s directory is the place that you look to find the big players, it may be a good place to get listed in order to become a big player. These little associations are important if you want to start to attain more and more traffic and conquer a niche or category. Try to identify all places that the big dogs hang out and start hanging out there. It’s all about who you know in this business so bigger is better. You might not be ready to play with the big dogs, but the only way to get there is to sit down and give it a shot.

Sites like Media Metrix 500 can tell you which companies get the most traffic, and you can learn about the relative traffic by using Alexa. Alexa is a free add-on to your browser that ranks the traffic to each sire you visit, telling you whether it’s in the top 100, the top 1000, the top 10,000, and so on. This gives you a rough idea of where your competitors are in the pecking order.

Scrutinize the Leaders.

The next step is to study the top 5 or 10 competitors very closely. There is a lot that can be learned by looking at competitors website and analyzing them. These are the things that you should look for.

1. Make sure you check to see what products or services they offer, and note anything that’s different from your own offerings. Look for gaps that you could fill.
2. Think about the look, feel and functionality of their website.
3. See what advertising campaigns and offers they’re running.
4. Look at their strengths and weaknesses, from the customer’s point of view.
5. See if you can figure out their strategy.

When you’re dealing with publicly traded companies, you can often get detailed information from their SEC filings. Write down the names of their key players and then look for any interviews and speeches they might have made about their website.

Look for Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and Gaps.

Now, summarize the information you’ve found into a few sentences for each competitor, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Note strategies that are going to be necessary to counter their offering – these will depend on your own website’s strengths. If you’re small, then you’ll need to be resourceful to exploit their weaknesses.

With this research, you can create a marketing plan. Be sure to include how you intend to deal with competition, and what steps you think you’ll need to take for you site to come out on top. Once you’ve finished analyzing your competitors, you need to consider whether it would be better not to compete at all, and find a less-saturated market.

Don’t get frightened away prematurely, though – make sure you know what you’re getting into before you start, and don’t let big companies intimidate you. Remember that you can move faster than they can! All you have to do is offer your customers things they can’t find anywhere else.

About the Author
Luie De Von is a marketing consultant with Easy Postcard Marketing and has been providing consumers and business owners with marketing strategies. For years he has helped businesses to have more and growing clients through Advertising Postcards , Marketing Postcard , Business Post Card.

Finding the right SEO tools and resources can be challenging – but we’re here to make it a little easier on you. SEO forums and newsgroups can be very confusing to a person with no SEO experience. These forums and newsgroups are just so heavily populated that they can intimidate many new users.

The first rule regarding these situations is to just slowly try to integrate yourself into the community. Follow these rules closely and concisely so that you do not offend anybody:

1. Do not spam the forum with your problems. If you have a few things that you would like to discuss you will probably get help, but do not try to hog all of the assistance for yourself. For one thing, most of your questions have already been answered, believe it or not. There is generally a “search” option. Always use this before posting your problem.

2. Do not “Flame.” Flaming is a term used among forum dwellers to describe the behavior of “yelling” at people via the forum. This is generally associated with cursing, constant argument, typing in all caps to try to convey anger, and dismissing other people’s posts in an undignified fashion. There are other problems that are included in flaming, but I have given you the jist of it. (more…)

There are five simple tasks that you need to do daily to keep your site on top. Here they are:

1. You need to start off by managing your links. This involves making sure that none of your current links are dead, and you should also check if there are any sites linking to you that you don’t know about. If your site consists of a large number of links you should make sure that they aren’t getting out of control and get rid of anything that is no longer relevant. Also make sure that your links are sufficiently labeled to reflect the page that they link to.

2. Re-order your links, putting the best ones first. And putting them into categories if you have a high number of links. If you have a links page with 25+ links it is a good idea to turn it into a directory of some sort. This can even help you in getting more links to your site in exchange for back links on the directory that you have created. Also check the sites that you link to and make sure that any back links that are due to you are still there as you don’t have much reason to keep a link if you aren’t getting the backlink that you deserve (if the back link was, indeed, negotiated when you placed the link onto your site).

3. Process link request emails. Whenever you receive requests for a link exchange, respond quickly. Not every mail you receive will be a good one, and you should make sure to check any site that wants you to link to it. If you are declining a link request let the web master know why. Perhaps you have an incite that they do not have. They may be able to fix a few things and then become excellent link partners in the future. It is common curtesy to inform the web master as to whether or not you are willing to exchange links within two or three days of receiving a request. Web masters will be even more impressed if you send them a personalized message regarding your approval or disapproval of the link exchange.

4. Check link exchange forums. This is a similar aspect to the above except that in this case it is more difficult to keep track of all of the people who can potentially request links from your site. There is a lot of spam on these sorts of things as well as many really terrible and useless sites. If you encounter such a site or forum member, inform them of your problem with what they are doing and report them to a moderator/administrator if they do not correct their behavior in a suitable manor. It is important that these kinds of forums be kept clean or a search engine may consider it a link farm more than an exchange service.

5. Finally, you should check each feature of your website, to make sure it’s still working properly. The dynamic content that you will probably include at some point must be delivered properly. Any messages that are generated on the fly must not be generated at misopportune times. The difference between a quality dynamic site and a subpar dynamic site is that in a quality dynamic site all content is delivered at the right time and everything seems static and planned out.

Take your time with your website and make sure that you do everything you can for it each day. Keep adding anything new that you find, because updating regularly will keep search engines coming back to spider more often. Updates are crucial and if you can follow the patterns here of insuring quality and precision, you will probably be able to come up with other ways that you can insure your visitors satisfaction and your increased traffic, link count, and search engine listings.

Never agree to link to someone’s site without asking for a link in exchange, unless they offer to pay you – even then, you should think twice. All your incoming and outgoing links need to be related to your site’s content for you to be ranked high in the search engines.

Basic Link Checks.

Some sites use robots.txt to stop search engines from indexing their links pages, in the mistaken belief that outbound links will count against them. To check, just retype their URL with robots.txt on the end (for example, http://www.website.com/robots.txt). If you see a page that says ‘Disallow’ and has the URL of their links page, then they’re not letting spiders index that page. Don’t exchange links with that site.

You should also check to see if the website is being ‘cloaked’, and report it to the search engines if it is. You don’t want to get involved with these people – better to have them banned and out of the way.

Does the site offering you a link have PageRank? Even if they do, you should look at how it drops between the front page and the links page. Be aware that new pages take a while to get ranked, so PR0 doesn’t necessarily mean a site that will never have any PageRank.

Take a look at how many links are on the page already. There shouldn’t be more than 20 links – if the site breaks this rule, don’t even consider it. Plenty of webmasters collect links, thinking they’re helping their rankings, but it just has the effect of making them look like link farms. Many of them don’t even involve linking to the big spam industries, like casinos and adult content. There’s no point in having a link from a site that takes links from just anyone.

About the Author

Luie De Von is a marketing consultant with Easy Postcard Marketing and has been providing consumers and business owners with marketing strategies. For years he has helped businesses to have more and growing clients through Advertising Postcards , Marketing Postcard , Business Post Card.

Over the last few years, search engine optimization (SEO) has been needed and used more and more, although it has been around for much longer than most people think. With new development tools being used to create websites that are heavy on Java, Flash and images, it’s important to have something that the search engines can read. If the content can’t be read by search engines then they can’t index it, and if your site doesn’t get indexed then it won’t be found when people search for it on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or anywhere else. This article will outline what SEO is, how it works, and some unethical SEO methods that you should avoid.

What is SEO?

SEO is a way of analyzing your site and modifying it to allow search engines to read and index it more easily. SEO is all about maintaining and building websites that get ranked highly on the major search engines. (more…)