Month: June 2008

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Posted on by Admin

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective methods of Search Engine Marketing and is defined as is the process of increasing and improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from the search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN via natural (organic) search results for specific and targeted keywords.

In fact, SEO is so powerful that can bring a lot of visitors to your website. It is, by far, the most effective methods because of these 3 obvious reasons:

1. The Traffic is FREE.

You don´t need to pay a dime for getting visitors through this method. So, this traffic is not based on pay per click, pay per impression, pay per view or anything like that. You will get tons of visitors at absolutely no cost.

2. The Traffic is Unlimited.

Actually, there is not any limitation for the volume of traffic. Because the search engines are the most popular places for people to find websites, so there is a big crowd looking for your website via search engines. Since you won´t have to pay anything, then there won´t be any budget restriction that would limit the traffic volume. The traffic is there and most of it can be yours.

3. The Traffic is Targeted.

Like I said before, people usually go to the search engines to find something by searching a specific keyword and see the results. So, if you optimize your website in a way that would come up in the search results, then chances are that people would see your website and find what they wanted. So, this traffic is called targeted and converts better. It is your visitors that decide to visit your website and are aware of this fact.

With that being said, it is too important to know the basics of SEO and implement this strategy when you are building your website. Although, this step is a part of marketing a website, but it should be started from the very first steps of building a website. It might even begin at the Brainstorming phase.

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

First off, I need to admit that SEO is not a simple technique. In fact, it can be regarded as a complicated technology being instructed by professional experts and adopted by industry consultants. Since the rules are always changing, there need to be authority resources updating the needed information and strategies. So, you need to know that SEO is a very complicated science.

OK, I know that you may have been a little bit confused or disappointed. Well, don´t be! Basically, you don´t need to be a guru in this case. I promise if you know the basics of SEO and implement them properly, you will get great results. While learning the latest SEO strategies is always recommended, but it would not be necessary to know every single technique in order to get a lot of traffic to your website from this method.

All the SEO you will need to know is about a few points. Just learn the basics and implement them. Period!

SEO Basics:

1. The fist step is in the Brainstorming phase. Do you remember that I told you to choose some keywords that are high-demand and low-supply? Well, if you have done it properly, you have already passed the first step of SEO. You need to optimize your web pages around those keywords and key phrases, terms that are not too competitive. If you choose a very competitive keyword, you will have minimal chances to come up in the first page of search results. Bear in mind that showing up in the first page is too vital.

As you may remember from the Niche Finding step, you´d better choose keywords with a reasonable amount of demand meaning more than 100 searches per day and also zero-to-low competition meaning under the 30,000 web pages. That way, your job will be much much easier. Choose the most high-demand keyword as your main keyword and write down the other relevant keywords.

2. Next job is to register a domain name including your main keyword. Remember, it helps search engine find your website better and figure out the main keyword of your website. They would index it in their database, connect your site to those keywords and display it in the search results.

If the domain name is taken, don´t panic! There is still hope. You can use your keywords in the URL Address or Sub-Domain. It would work, as well.

3. Putting the main keyword of a web page in its “Title Tag” is the next step. The Title Tag is the name of your page and looks like this in your website HTML code in the “Head” section:

<title>The Title Of Your Web Page</title>

Title Tag helps both visitors and search engines figure out what your web page is about. So, it plays a very large role in the SEO technique.

4. Inserting your keywords in other HTML Meta Tags is another SEO basic. As I said before, Meta Tags are some HTML codes inserted in the Head section of your web pages. The most popular ones are Meta Description and Meta Keywords. Put your keywords in the Meta Tags in the right way.

5. Now, it is time to put your keywords in the body of your web page. The first element is your Headline. Adding your keyword in the Headline and at the very beginning of your website is a good sign for your visitors and search engines. Then, use your keywords in the text of your content. You can and should put it as bold, italic and other colors, too.

6. Finally, you have to get some backlinks from other websites with an Anchor Text. Anchor Text is a visible hyperlinked text on a website. For instance, instead of inserting https://www.makeawebsitenow.com, you could use an Anchor Text like this one: Make a Website Now and point it to that URL Address. That way, both people and search engines would get a better picture of the inserted link and follow it right to the web page.

Something that you should consider all the time is that don´t ever try to cheat search engines by overdoing something or overusing your keywords in your text. If search engines find it out, which they definitely do, they will consider your web pages as SPAM, punish you and ban your website from their database. Then, you will no longer have any single chance to come up in the search results. That way, you would miss a great opportunity. So don´t do it!

You see, these are the basics of SEO that you should learn and implement. So, it would not seem to be hard if you know what to do. Trust me, if you take the above-mentioned tips into account and use them in your site building process, you will get tons of FREE and targeted traffic. So, don´t overlook this method!

Actually, there are a lot of tips and tricks about Search Engine Optimization that I don’t know and I don’t think I need to know. But, the choice is yours. You can move forward and learn more about this great technique. With that being said, please get the information and tools from reliable resources; places where give you the right SEO tips, advice and tools. Traffic Travis is one of those reliable resources that helps you improve your website’s search engine ranking with a powerful software. Check it out and see for yourself!

Stay tuned and get more tips and tricks by subscribing to my Blog RSS Feed. You would not want to miss any single post, would you?

See You!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Creating & Publishing Content

Posted on by Admin

Creating & Publishing Content is the core element of building a site and should be considered as a high priority task. In fact, it is the content of your website that attracts visitors to your web pages and keeps them coming back and recommending your site to other people. You may have heard that the content is king.

To be honest with you, if your content is not valuable, you would lose your audience very soon. People are looking for high-quality and fresh information, stuffs that give them value. You need to provide your visitors with helpful content. Otherwise don´t expect any success!

Different Types Of Content

Currently, there are millions of web pages on the World Wide Web in different topics and subjects. But, if you pay close attention to their contents, you will soon realize that there are only 4 different types of content:

  • Text
  • Image
  • Audio
  • Video

Each and every website may contain one or more of the mentioned content. Period!

What Is a Good Content?

A good content brings a lot of traffic to your website. But, first off, you will need to know what a good content is. Basically, there are a number of features a great content may have. If you take them into consideration, you will be able to create a good content for your website. Here are a few tips:

1. Your Content Should Be Unique.

It is the uniqueness of your content that makes it outstanding. Honestly, nothing is more harmful to a website than a duplicated content. Don´t ever copy other´s work! Your content should offer something new and unique in a way. Just copying someone else´s content may hurt your reputation. If necessary, quote other´s content and give them credit by mentioning their names and websites. If you read something valuable and want to add it as your site content, write it with your own words. That would be fine. But, never copy!

2. Your Content Should Be Valuable.

A valuable content is something that gives value. It can be a helpful article, an instructional video, an inspirational music or a fresh news. The very first question your visitors may ask is: “What´s in it for me?” Even if you are going to sell or promote something, do it in a way that your audience would find it valuable. By over-delivering great information to your visitors, you will be giving value and getting credit.

3. Your Content Should Be Relevant.

You have to deliver content to your visitors in a way that they would need or expect. If they are looking for a particular piece of information, provide them with what they want exactly. Remember, relevancy is the secret key to success in this process. Putting the right things in front of the right people is called a successful business and you should take it into account, as well.

4. Your Content Should Be Fresh.

Would you bother visiting a website that has not been updated for a long time? I would not! Both visitors and search engines love fresh content and they rush to check out websites with new updated content. If you want your site traffic to boost, update your website more frequently! An updated website is like a live web page and ranks high in the search results.

5. Your Content Should Be Accurate.

Whatever your content is, it should be accurate. Providing false information may hurt your credit. Sometimes, your content can be regarded as personal opinion, but it still needs to be correct and well-formatted. For example, if it is an article, it should be accurate, well-written and spell-checked. If it is a news, it should be well-reported and source-checked. Remember that people would very soon notice false information and ignore it.

How To Publish Your Content To The World Wide Web?

Once you are done with your site design and content, you will have to publish it to the Internet on your host. That way, your visitors would be able to see, read and use your actual website content when they check out your web pages.

Publishing a website to the Internet is not that hard. You can either use a content management system, an HTML editor or an FTP client to publish your web pages. In the next posts, I will get through each of them in more detail.

As I mentioned before, providing a great and fresh website content gives value to the audience and brings credit to the author. In fact, this step is not a separate step in the whole process and should be done in parallel with other steps. You will soon realize that even Marketing and Monetizing steps are totally dependent on creating a good content. Stay tuned, because I will be revealing more information in the next posts. Subscribe to the Blog RSS Feed right away!

Regards,

Hooshmand Moslemi

Designing Your Website

Posted on by Admin

Designing Your Website is the main step of building a site process meaning you have to create a site layout and publish it to the Internet. It can be considered as an art, which you will be making a website both user and search engine friendly.

You have to organize and manage the contents of your website by categorizing, dividing and labeling them. That way, your visitors can easily see, locate, find and read the information on your website and also search engines can simply find and crawl your web pages in order to index them.

Your website should be designed in a way that entices and encourages the visitors to do what you want them to do. That action can be a simple click, fast download, a signup or a sale. No matter what that action is, you want to convert your visitors to desired users such as members, subscribers or customers. A well-designed website has a high conversion rate meaning that a great percentage of the visitors are converted to desired users.

In order to design a good website, you need to consider the following points:

1. Divide Your Website Into Different Web Pages!

Dividing your website into a number of web pages is the first thing you should think about before designing your website. You would not want to put every thing on the main home page, right? That said, you should break your website into several sections, each is designed for a specific purpose.

There are 2 types of web pages you will consider:

General Web Pages: These are web pages like Home, Contact, About, Advertise, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions and so on. These kinds of web pages are necessary for any type of website. Once created, you don´t need to update them all the time. A link to each and every of these web pages should be put on every single web page.

Specific Web Pages: These are web pages that are about a particular topic or sub-topic of your website. In other words, these pages are your fresh content, something that you will be adding more regularly.

2. Build a Layout As Your General Site Template!

You need to build a layout for your website that will be followed as a template. It is an important factor for being remembered by your visitors. It would be complicated if every single web page of your website looks different.

3. Create a Nice Header & Footer!

A nice header and footer would make your website look more professional. In your header, you would put your website logo and probably other elements. In the footer, you would add other components, as well. Like I said before, you need to have a site layout and it might always contain the header and footer.

4. Make a Beautiful Logo!

Your logo would reflect your website or brand name. Spend some time and create a good-looking and meaningful logo, including your site or brand name. As you may know, people always look at the logo and it can easily be remembered, if designed carefully. Your logo could be a simple image, a nice graphic or just letters such as your site name. Remember, your logo might fit your site layout. In other words, your logo and your site template could complete each other.

5. Build an Easy-To-Use Navigation Bar!

A navigation bar is another necessary component of your website. It is the section where your visitors look at in order to locate and find the various parts they need. A typical navigation bar should contain a list of your web page URLs, a search function, and other available categories of information in a particular content area. This bar should be placed in a right position meaning that everyone could see and locate it. Your website navigation bar might fit the general template, as well.

6. Add Your Content In the Right Place!

Your content is your website core element that attracts visitors and search engines. So, you should put it in the right place of your web page. It must be both user and search engine friendly. For instance, avoid putting your main content in frames. Texts, Graphics, Audios and Videos are different types of content that you will be adding to your web pages. Try to match them all with your general website template. In the next posts, I will be talking more about creating and adding content to your web pages.

7. Make Your Website More Functional!

It is an important factor especially when your visitors are going to use your website. It should work well. If you are offering a service, it would be functional. People don´t like getting error messages on your web pages. Always check your site functionality and solve possible issues. Moreover, try to build a site that uploads very fast. Your visitors don´t want to wait too much to see your website. It might be accessed simply and quickly. Avoid using annoying elements such as Pop-Ups or Pop-Unders. Trust me, your visitors would hate them.

Designing your website is not a simple process. It can only be improved through testing and tweaking. The above-mentioned points are just a few important elements you have to consider before designing your site. But, there are more facts, as well. Since you have got only a few seconds to make a good impressions on your visitors and keep them staying longer on your website, then your site design plays a really big role in this situation.

Whether you will be designing your site by yourself or hiring someone else to do it for you, you would not want to underestimate this step of your online business. Trust me, if you put more time and money on your project particularly on this part, it will pay off. An attractive website can always help your business stand out from the crowd.

In the next posts, I will get through this step in more detail. So, stay tuned and get the latest posts by subscribing to my blog RSS Feed!

To Your Success!

Hooshmand Moslemi