10 Best Strategies to Massively Increase Your Visibility Online

Increasing online visibility is the goal of most online business owners. After all, without visibility, you have no traffic and thus no business. However, when you start to research how to increase your online visibility, you discover so many options, yet have so little time for research and implementation. Where does an online entrepreneur turn first to get the visibility (and traffic) you seek to help you promote your online venture?

New tricks and gimmicks come out every day, but unfortunately, most of them are like so many recording artists and become one-hit wonders. In my business, I've discovered that there are a handful that are able to stand the test of time. Some have been around for as long as websites have been around, while others are newer kids on the block. Here are my 10 most effective strategies to massively increase your visibility online:

1. Press releases. Press releases are a well-known marketing strategy that has worked for years with print and broadcast media. In recent years they have found new life as an online visibility tool. Just like in the old days, your release should carry some newsworthy angle that has been optimized with a select few keywords by which you want your business to be found. Don't waste your time submitting your release to the free press release sites -- the release simply sits on the site and goes no where else. Instead, invest in a fee-based service (I prefer PRWeb.com), which will ensure your release gets the recognition it deserves.

2. Social Networking. A "johnny come lately" to the online visibility scene, social networking now ranks near the top in terms of attracting much visibility to your business for a very low cost. If you don't yet have accounts on the two most popular social networking platforms, Facebook and Twitter, today is the day to hop on board and begin to network. Choose 1-2 social networking platforms where your target market hangs out, and then begin to work it by making connections, joining groups or networks, sharing resources, and asking questions. Dedicate 15-30 minutes each day to your effort to begin to see results.

3. Article Marketing. Writing and submitting articles to major article directories has definitely stood the test of time for online visibility. Article marketing will drive traffic to your site, establish you as an expert in your target market's eyes, and give you valuable content to repurpose into information products. For maximum effectiveness, your article needs to contain a strong resource box (author's bio) that drives traffic back to your site, needs to contain useful content that solves a problem of your target market, and is written in a tips-based fashion, like this one, as they are the easiest for a website visitor to read and digest.

4. Blogging. Business blogs (a web log or journal), have gained popularity over the last few years as an online visibility tool. Blogs use RSS feed technology to immediately get new posts and updates out to your blog subscribers through a feed reader. Unlike ezines or traditional websites, search engines index blog posts almost immediately, which help you generate traffic to your website. To use effectively as an online visibility tool, you need to post 2-3 times per week to keep your readers interested and coming back.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Optimizing your site or your blog for organic (naturally-occurring) searches has been around from the beginning of Internet marketing. Use a keyword research tool and create a list of keywords applicable to your business. Don't forget to add things like "how to", "tips", or short descriptions of your target market's problems to your research. Then, take a look at your page titles, page descriptions, page headlines, and formatted text on a page (bolding, italicizing, underlining) and include your keywords in those areas, as well as sprinkling 1-2 keywords throughout the content of your page. Make the SEO appear to be natural, not forced, and the search engines as well as your visitors will love you.

6. Email Newsletter (Ezine). Regular publication of an email newsletter (weekly is most effective) will enable your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and have you be top of mind when they are ready to solve the pressing problems that fall within your line of expertise. If you make opting into your ezine list the primary call to action on your website, you continually build your list with prospective customers. Best of all, if they like what you write, they are more likely to pass along the issue to their contacts, thus increasing your visibility yet again.

7. Signature Teleseminar/Speech. Have you created your signature speech or teleseminar that you can present whenever you're asked to speak to any type of group (face-to-face or virtual)? If not, design a signature speech or teleseminar that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise without giving away the store (focus on the what and the why but not the how) that compels your listeners to visit your website or request your client attraction device and get on your list.

Then, begin to research groups that contain your target market both in your geographic area and online. Once you've landed a speaking gig, strategize your best call to action for the group -- do you want participants to sign up for your email list, purchase a product, or book a consultation? Add that call to action to your presentation.

8. Videos. With the popularity of broadband Internet connections, it's much easier for almost anyone to view online video these days. And, with high-quality yet low-cost web cams, video cameras, and screen capture software readily available, anyone can make a video today. You might record a live Q&A session on UStream.com and post it on your site. Or, perhaps you want to record a "how to" tutorial using screenshots from your computer and upload that to your YouTube.com channel. Remember to include your call to action in your video so that you drive traffic back to your site. Just think -- your video may cause you to become the next YouTube star!

9. Expert question sites. Most people conduct online searches to find free information that answers their questions. Many online entrepreneurs are registering as experts on an expert or answers site, like Yahoo Answers or AllExperts.com, in an effort to get visibility online. To be an effective expert on these sites, you need to seek out questions that you can knowledgeably answer as an expert. Your answer needs to be very detailed and as specific as possible. The more thorough your answer, the better chance you'll have of getting chosen as the "favorite" answer, which is the one rated highest on the site and in the search engines.


10. Viral marketing. Viral marketing involves creating a marketing piece (ebook, video, software) that gets passed along free of charge from person to person. Publicity Hound Joan Stewart does this quite effectively each year when she compiles the best tips she's written about in the previous year in a "best of" ebook compilation that she gives away free of charge on her site. She also encourages her list and website visitors to "regift" it.

You've got two options when you try to get online visibility: the "steady and effective over time" method or the "quick and short and probably get banned" method. I prefer to use methods that have stood the test of time and won't result in my site being removed from the search engines. Use one or more of these time-honored strategies to get you the visibility you deserve online.
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Local Search Engine Optimization: Proven steps to reaching a larger market

In today’s economy, local search optimization is more important than ever for businesses that serve specific communities. Many still think of it as only a way to connect with customers in their community and that print advertising or even billboards is more effective. The reality is that for a florist, a realtor, a hotel, the visitors to their site are as likely to be someone not even in their state. In fact it’s hard to imagine any business that wouldn’t benefit from having a site that is optimized for local search given the increase in online activity.

Here are some steps you can take to reach customers not just in your area, but those outside it who are also likely prospects.

Put Your Contact Information On Your Site

One would think that this would be a cliché by now, but for whatever reason, many business owners only put their contact information on a single page. Instead, it should be on every page as you never know which page a visitor might discover first or which the search engines will rank for your services.

If you serve multiple communities then develop a tag line at the bottom of each page that says “we sell widgets in Chicago, Aurora, and Wheaton.” If you’re a hotel by a historic landmark or popular attraction then add this as part of that description. Better yet, do a page about that landmark. Many tourists search for lodging close to the sites they want to visit.

Testimonials are an excellent way to instill confidence in potential customers. It’s also a great way to incorporate other locations into your site. Instead of just listing the name of the person giving a testimonial include their location. Also it goes without saying that your meta tags and descriptions should also incorporate your location.

Submit to Directories

This is different than developing links to your site, although that is also important. Granted there are hundreds of directories out there that very few people other than those in SEO visit. When it comes to local search, however, there are a number of directories and specialized search engines that it’s crucial you’re listed in. Sites that receive a significant amount of traffic.

The biggest of these are directories such as http://www.superpages.com and http://www.local.com, http://www.yellowpages.com, and http://www.truelocal.com . These engines have millions of pages views a month, which means companies, definitely benefit from appearing in these search engines. They allow for free listings, although they will attempt to get you to upgrade to a paid listing.

Business directories often appear when you search for a business on the search engines, including http://www.merchantcircle.com and http://www.hotfrog.com . Again these have free listings.

Another valuable resource is your local Chamber of Commerce. Many people moving to a community look at a chamber site to research businesses.

Reflecting the importance of local search, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com all have their own local listing services. One way to see if your business is listed on some of these sites is to go to http://getlisted.org . You simply type in your business name and your zip code and it shows if you are listed on Google Local, MSN Live, Yahoo Local, and Best of the Web’s new local service. If you’re not they have a link to these sites where you can submit your information.

Take control of your listings.

Just because your business information is listed on a local directory doesn’t mean it’s complete. It’s crucial that you take ownership of your listings. Google Local is the easiest and the most beneficial to review and revise. If you haven’t taken ownership of your listing, it might be little more than your business name, address, and telephone number. But their Local Business Center allows you to add a wealth of information, including your web site, photo, your categories, even a video. Yahoo and MSN also allow more information, although not to this extent.

Another reason to review your information is to make sure your listing hasn’t been hijacked. Google claims it has corrected the problem that resulted in local listings being manipulated by others, but it also suggests owners continuously review their data. Both Google and MSN require verification of your relationship to the business either through a phone call, a postcard, or a letter. Only after you’ve verified your ownership, you’re listings will soon be updated.

Finding the words prospects are using

The problem with many local search campaigns is the lack of data. Services such as Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery are great if you serve a large market. But for most communities, the data will be so low it might not even turn up in their results. After all there may only be a hundred searches all total in a month for a florist in a town of 50,000. Divide this over all the search engines and the data seems particularly minuscule. Yet, for a florist in that community those 100 searches could be 100 missed opportunities to sell flowers.

One solution is to run a Google Adwords campaign. Why Google? Obviously because its reach is so strong. Put in any phrase you think prospects might be using - florist, florist delivery, flowers for sale, etc. Then add your community to these phrases. Chances are you can put a bid of five cents for each phrase. Make sure, however, you only run the ad on the Search campaign and not the Content. After a few days you’ll begin to see how many impressions your ad is receiving. Run it at least a month and you’ll see how much interest there is in a specific phrase.

In the end you may decide to continue with your AdWords campaign. And supplement it with Yahoo, MSN, or one of the previously mentioned local search directories.

Another way to determine how visitors can find you on the web is through analytics. Google Analytics is one of the easiest to set up and more importantly, it’s free. Once set up properly you can begin to see how prospects are finding your site. A chiropractor may discover that people in their community are typing in their community’s name and specific symptoms, such as Springfield back pain or Springfield migraine treatment. See where you rank for these phrases on all the search engines and optimize your site if necessary.

Use Pay Per Click Effectively

Running a pay per click is among the simplest things to do. You put in your information, including a credit card, pick out some keywords, write a small ad and start your campaign. Your ad begins almost immediately so you can see within a day how much interest there is in your keywords. Unfortunately in a few days you’ll find either your ads aren’t being clicked on. Or worse that they are being clicked on too much.


One third of all total online ad spending is for local ads. That being said, most local businesses set up their campaigns in manner that costs them money. For example, a realtor may think the keyword California real estate may be beneficial. It will certainly get them a lot of clicks. But if their market is Fresno, most of these clicks will be of little value. Instead establish a specific market when you set up your ad, say Fresno and all visitors within a hundred miles.

With money so scarce today no business can afford to miss out on any opportunities for a sale. Local search engine optimization can be time consuming, particularly if you serve a large community. The dividends, however, could mean the difference from surviving this economic crisis or becoming another statistic.
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3 Ways to Make Money With AdSense Using Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is definitely a powerful Internet phenomenon. However, it can be harnessed to help you make money with AdSense in at least three unique ways.

Most people who have more than a passing knowledge of Web 2.0 technology understand the magic of viral marketing very well. What they may not know, however, is how to harness that immense power in order to make money with AdSense. Here are some suggestions.

Use Your Email

One of the cleverest uses of viral marketing has always been the Hotmail example. Users of the free email service had messages asking recipients to sign up for accounts at hotmail. As a result, their sign-up message would be spread to millions and millions of people all around the world. The result was an increase in registered hotmail users and indisputable proof that viral marketing could be a powerful too.

If you want to make money with AdSense, you can do something similar. Create some type of site that requires registration and use this for your AdSense ads. For example, you might have people register to receive something for free, such as a newsletter subscription or a free ebook. Mention the site in the signature of every one of your emails. When people go to register, they will be on the same page as your AdSense ads. That’s one way to make money with AdSense.

Use YouTube

YouTube has become one of the biggest phenomena to hit the Internet ever. It’s also
a great tool for viral marketing because those great videos can be spread and shared with millions of people quickly and easily. Plus, most people don’t consider receiving a YouTube link to be spam (since they are normally sent by people who know them) so it’s more likely to be viewed than other types of links.

To make money with AdSense this way, create a fun and creative video that is going to capture the attention of your audience but which may also be relevant to whatever your site is about. Put the spot on YouTube and incorporate your URL into the clip with a message such as “To see more” or “For more information on this clip.”

Use Your Friends

Social networking has also really taken off in recent years. If you want to make money with AdSense, you can use this trend to your benefit as well. Most social networking sites have a way of compiling your friends. While some of these people may be legitimate acquaintances, the rest probably are not.

Put together some type of email message that would be appealing to a large number of the friends. Maybe the email could direct them to a fun site full of quizzes or movie trivia. Then you have that material on your website along with your AdSense ads. As a result, your site gets more traffic and many of those visitors will be likely to click on the ads to earn you revenue.

Other Tips

No matter which of the viral marketing idea you use above to make money with AdSense, be sure to test it carefully first to make sure it will work as you desire.
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Article Marketing is Better For Your Website Than SEO

Article marketing is better for your website than SEO. That is a fact. How many visitors do you get to your website? Hundreds every day? If so then you must be in the top 10 results on Google for your keyword on at least one of your pages.

The vast majority of people get nowhere, and give up before giving themselves a chance, simply because they rely on organic search engine listings for traffic. Even their blogs get few visitors - if they get any. If that is you, then there is way out of this, and an easy way to get masses of visitors without having to rely on search engines. Article marketing.

This applies to the following forms of web page:

* Traditional website pages
* Blogs
* Squidoo lenses
* Facebook pages
* Myspace pages
* Any other online page that can be accessed via a URL or web address

If you have a need for visitors to any of these pages that you run or own, then Article Marketing is your answer. You can forget search engine optimization and trying to get your web page seen on other blogs or forums. You should write articles or have them written for you. Website traffic is so easy to get using article marketing.

As a professional article ghost writer I have a very deep understanding of how many different people use articles in many different ways to promote their products, services, websites, blogs, lenses and WEB2 pages, and from the amount of money that many of them pay me to write literally dozens and dozens of articles, they are doing very well from it.

Their pages are not listed in the top 100 pages on Google for their keywords, let alone the top 10, yet they make masses of money from their sites. Why? Because they get traffic from their articles. How do they get that traffic? Forget the lies and the hype. I have read it all and most untruths come from those that don't believe in article marketing because they have never tried it. Here is the truth of the matter.

READERS

People read articles on article directories. If you write an article, or pay to have them written, and then submit them to directories, then they will be read by visitors to these directories. I have read ignorant people write that nobody reads articles on article directories, but they are
talking nonsense. People do read them. I get an average of about 200 people reading each of my articles on each directory per month, and I submit two articles a week to over 50 directories - work it out for yourself.

No, on second thoughts I'll work it out for you. That's 80,000 readers a month. I get about 20% of readers clicking through to my website - what if you wrote one article a day (300,000)? Would that be good for you, or do you want to pass?

CLICKS

I get links to my website from each directory. Readers can click on my article and visit my website. Readers can copy my article to their own websites, and they do, and I get clicks from their websites to mine.

LINKS

If links are important to you, you get a link to your website from each directory to which you submit your article. You also get a one way link for each article that somebody else copies to their website as content. This happens quite frequently. For each article I write I get about 10 one way links from each of at least the five main directories I keep checking up on each month. That's 50 backlinks a month per article. I write 2 articles a week for each of my websites. Work it out.

ADVERTISE YOUR WEB PAGES

When you write articles you get to advertise at least one link, and often three, in the 'Author's Resource' section of each article directory to which you submit the article. Mine go to at least 50, though generally around 400, each time.

You can use any page in any website you want, or a Squidoo lens, or any of your blog pages, a Facebook or MySpace page or any other web presence that can be accesses by means of a URL (http://www. - - -). No matter what type of web page you run, you can use article marketing to drive traffic straight to it.

To do it successfully, however, you have to know how to go about it the right way. You need to know the little tricks and tips that the internet marketers like to refer to as 'Secrets'. It can be a lot more powerful that using SEO - in fact it generally is - but must know how to do it properly if you want to be successful. In used to pay $97 plus for SEO books or to find out how to get traffic. I do so no longer - I only need the one way, even though I can my sites listed in 2 days and get them in the top 10 these days almost at will.

Article marketing is better for your website than SEO - it's also better for your blog, your lens your . . . Check it out.
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Tips to Increase Ranking and Website Traffic

It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.

• Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
• Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
• Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
• Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
• Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
• Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
• Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your
website is doing.
• Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
• Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
• Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
• Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
• When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy.
• When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
• Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.
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Benefits of Getting Listed in Dmoz.org: Revealed and Identified

Dmoz means Directory Mozilla. It is run by a volunteer group across the globe and is one of the most important directories that you should consider when you want your web site to be listed in. It uses a variety of tools that can simplify tasks such as updating of links and editing.

Dmoz is an open directory project designed to answer the increasing demand for optimal use and advantage of the internet. It is very true that for just a couple of years, the internet has continued to grow at such a fast pace that automated search engines sometimes cannot keep up with the task of providing useful search results to the increasing number of citizens in the world wide web. Most search engines are run by commercial staffs which are limited in number as compared to the increasing number of citizens in the internet. The net result is that they cannot keep up with the submissions and provide quality and comprehensiveness all the time. The booming industry in the internet cannot be controlled; hence, Dmoz was organized to optimize, organize and provide better solutions to expected problems in the future. It is being developed by contributors and it is projected to become the ultimate and definite catalog of the web.

Dmoz is the only major directory that is free. There will never be a cost if you will get listed. This is because it was made to be free for anyone who will be agreeable to its license
and conditions.

This open directory powers major web search engines like Google, AOL Search, HotBot, Lycos, Netscape Search and others. This is because it is considered to be the most widely distributed data base of the web. It is run by editors and citizens of the net who have a better understanding of the needs of the growing population of the internet. The in-depth knowledge of these people will lead them to greater and new heights of discovery of solutions to problems expected in the future. If it is for everybody then everyone can contribute for its efficiency. You will get the benefits you ever wished for in an open directory.

Signing up is also very easy. It is not complicated. All you have to do is visit its website at http://www.dmoz.org. You can then select a category or subcategory for which your website is classified and then submit your URL. Instructions are carefully outlined. Just read and follow what is said. Sometimes it will take a few months before your web site will show up in the directory. Just be patient and there is no need to resubmit your website as this may just pose a delay in the overall process.

One thing to remember is that Dmoz is used by Google. Many other smaller search engines also use Dmoz. This means that major search engines will give popularity credit to your website if your site is already listed. Dmoz is an important link that should not be skipping. Dmoz has been around for some time and you can expect more and better results in the future.
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Finding Keywords Yourself: How To Do A Free Keyword Search

For people to find your web page, you need high-quality keywords. A high-quality keyword is a keyword that many people are searching for but few other web pages are using. You need to battle past your competitors to get to page one of the search engines, so the fewer the competitors, the better. Once you get there, you want a lot of customers to find you. Here's how you can find quality keywords.

Go to Google's keyword tool -- just search Google for the phrase "keyword tool" and you'll find it. You want to find a good keyword for something that you are offering, so start off with some phrases that describe it. Type them in.

Google's keyword tool will ask you whether it should "use synonyms." Allow it to. Google will give you a list of keywords with their search frequencies. Download them in ".csv" form so you can load them into a spreadsheet (".csv" means "comma separated values"). Repeatedly try other phrases and download and merge the spreadsheets.

Suppose you decide to set up a free print-on-demand T-shirt store on the web. It wouldn't cost you a thing to put a NASA image on a T-shirt. How to make money is less obvious. For that you need to find keywords for the products. What products will you be offering? T-shirts, of course, but how many ways are there to say T-shirt? At least these: T-shirt (which Google translates into "t shirt"), T-shirts, Tshirt, Tshirts, tee shirt, tee shirts, tees (but "tee" often means golf tee). There are other varieties of apparel: tank, spaghetti strap, camisole, baseball jersey, sweatshirt... For that matter, you could generalize: shirt, shirts, apparel, clothing. And there are non-apparel items: BBQ apron, coaster, tote bag, cutting board, mouse pad, or generally, gifts.

Since you are interested in using NASA photos, you need to consider keywords related to space and astronomy. Here are some words people may be using: astronomy, universe, galaxy, cosmos, space, nebula, star (although this is more likely used for movie stars), stellar, solar system, planet, moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, comet, asteroid, ... and people may combine those with telescope, Hubble, photo, photograph, image, ... There are a lot of combinations to explore --- a lot of work and a lot of opportunity.

When you're ready to find the high-quality keywords, add another column to your spreadsheet. Label it "Results." Fill in that column with some huge number, 999,999,999 say. Sort the spreadsheet in decreasing order by the average number of searches. Cut off the rows at the bottom of the spreadsheet which have too few searches to be worth your consideration. If you want at least 50 searches per day, throw away rows with fewer than 1500 average monthly searches.

Go down the spreadsheet looking up each of the keywords in Google. Put the keyword phrase in quotes in Google's search field. If you don't put in the quotes, you'll get too huge a number of results to be of interest -- potentially every page mentioning any one of the words in the keyword phrase.

Google will tell you "Results 1 - 10 of about NUMBER for KEYWORD" where NUMBER is the estimate of the number of results and KEYWORD is the phrase you typed in. For each of the keywords you look up, you can copy the estimated NUMBER of results back into your spreadsheet into the results column. When Google says "about NUMBER", it is a crude estimate. For '"galaxy t shirts"', the estimate was 6,480 pages. By repeatedly clicking on the highest result page number at the bottom, I came to the end of the list of results and found that there were only 106. If however you get to more than 600 and you get a message, "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 601 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included," you should suspect Google is trying to discourage you. Maybe you'd better just go with the estimate on page one.

While you are looking at the number of results, check to see if the keyword has a special meaning that would make it unsuitable for you. For example, thinking of selling astronomy-related T-shirts, you find "la galaxy t shirts" are related to a sports team, utterly irrelevant to your purpose.

After you have gone far enough down the list, looking up the keywords with sufficient numbers of searches, sort your spreadsheet by increasing numbers in your results column. Among the top keywords in your spreadsheet should be up to three good primary keywords to optimize your page for. (It's hard to optimize a page for more than three keywords.) They have enough searches to be interesting, and they have the fewest competing pages among the interesting keywords.

Your primary keywords won't necessarily be the first three. A keyword a little further down the list may have significantly more searches and only a few more competing pages. Or maybe only one or two have few enough competing pages. It should be utterly trivial to get onto page one of Google if there are only five pages competing for the same keyword, it might take a little bit longer if there are 500, longer still if there are 5000, and if there are 5 million, forget about it.

When you get to NASA images of the planet earth, you find something like this; "Planet earth shirt" looks promising: maybe 880 searches a month and 112 competing pages (estimated). In itself, that's not large. "The planet shirt" has 880 searches/month for 388 competing pages. Together they may be worth some effort.

"Planet shirts" has 1900 searches for 1810 competing pages; "the planet t shirt" has 720 searches for 1900 competing pages; "planet shirt" has 5400 searches for 4320 competing pages. "Planet shirt" and "planet shirts" have an attractive number of searches, but the numbers of competitors make it look difficult to get to page one quickly. "The planet t shirt" may not be worth the effort.


"Planet t shirt" has 2900 searches for 27500 competing pages; "planet t shirts" has 1300 searches for 35300 competing pages. "Planet t shirt" and "planet t shirts" have way too many competitors. It's nice to know you shouldn't devote any time to them.

There you have it: a cheap and easy --- well, cheap and tedious way to find quality keywords that can bring your page a lot of hits.


This article was adapted from a book by Thomas Christopher on opening online T-shirt stores. Visit
http://www.how-to-shirts.com/
for information about the book. Dr. Christopher, a former CS Professor, loves to find out how to do something and explain it to others.
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One-Way Link Building: How To Explode Your Online Business With One-Way Link Building Strategies

If you want a proven way to get high rankings on the search engines and ultimately succeed online, then you need to know how to apply one-way link building to your marketing ventures.

Why is one-way link building an effective marketing strategy?

Because it is the only way for the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) to recognize your webpages.

You need to get as many one-way backlinks to your website, so that search engines will rank your pages higher when browsers type in your targeted keywords.

You could exchange links with other sites, but one-way links are given more weight by the search engines than reciprocal links.

One-Way Link Building Through Article Marketing

Article marketing is an ideal way to get one-way links that are proven to get lots of free organic traffic.

One-way link building through article marketing could produce effective results. Not overnight of course; but in time, you can slowly (but surely) take advantage of one way link building and article marketing to make good money online – on autopilot! How do you do that?

Write informative articles and include an attention-grabbing resource box (also called author bio) in the article. The resource box is where you will put the anchored text of your link. The anchored text should contain your targeted keyword, so that your link gets a “vote” for that keyword, aside from getting a “vote” from the article directory site too.

This is not the only merit of article marketing. It could also elevate your reputation into an expert of your niche.

Thus, before you embark on submitting articles in article directories, you may first need to research your keywords and niche extensively. Look at what issues your audience face and find solution to those problems. Then, create keyword-optimized articles to help them solve that problem. As a result, people will regard you as a specialist in your field.

Article marketing is an effective promotional campaign to get your sites known and be an authority on your chosen niche.

Other Powerful Methods Of One-Way Link Building

1) Buying Links

Aside from writing and submitting articles, some internet marketer resort to buying links from other sites, preferably those with high page rank. However, if you do not have the money to buy those backlinks, don’t worry. There are free methods you can use (see below).

2) Forum Postings

A free and effective way to generate one way links, and also improve your chances of inducing trust and respect in your niche, is by posting at forums relevant to your niche.

Find the problems your target market faces and give them the solution to those problems. You may use the link to your website as a signature, but make sure they allow sig files and that you have made some valuable contributions. Give first, and the money will follow.

3) Blogging

Blogs can likewise help you in your one-way link building pursuits. If you’re passionate about your niche, you can easily write your own comments, opinions, or viewpoints on various topics related to it. Post updates in your blog regularly and include links to your business websites.

4) Content-Sharing Sites

You may also post your content (with your one-way backlinks) on social marketing or content-sharing sites. Some reliable ones include:

Squidoo.com
Hubpages.com
Wetpaint.com
Quizilla.com
Qassia.com

5) Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in your one-way link building arsenal, but you have to be very careful. Many of them prohibit any marketing activities, so you need to be very subtle and “fly under the radar.” You could accomplish this by posting around 5 times more non-self-serving sites than your own sites.

You could also gain their trust by joining groups, writing comments on other people’s bookmarks, and be a helpful contributor to their community.

Some of the more famous bookmarking sites include:

Digg.com
Stumpleupon.com
Del.icio.us
Technorati.com
Reddit.com
Fark.com
Propeller.com
Kaboodle.com
Mixx.com
Furl.net

6) Video Sharing Sites

Video sharing sites can also provide valuable one-way backlinks. When you submit your videos to video sites such as youtube.com or dailymotion.com, you could put a hyperlink to your site in the video description.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

While one-way links help your sites rank higher on the search engines, you could also get top rankings by optimizing your webpages with your keywords.

You can do this by strategically putting your keywords in the title tag of your site, in the headings (H1, H2, etc.), in the alt tags of images, meta tags, and of course, in the content of your site (especially effective if you put the keywords in the beginning of your content). Selecting a domain containing the keywords would also help.


Keywords help web spiders to crawl into your webpages, and this will help you rank well in the search engines.

Aside from one-way link building and SEO, don’t forget that your main purpose is to help your target market solve their problems. So positioning yourself as an expert and having a truly quality product, combined with the right link building and marketing strategies, could skyrocket your profits to new heights. Read more...

SEO Myths and Facts

n the decade or so since the search engine was first invented, the field of Search Engine Optimization has evolved. Some obsolete information and old wives' tales still persist, and these can damage your standings.

The myths and obsolete techniques fall into a few broad categories:

- Keyword density: There are many number of magic formulas touted on the internet, claiming that if you reach the perfect number of keyword instances per page, your rankings will go up. While you do need to have the keyword somewhere in your text in order to have your stated keywords considered relevant, artificially inflating the number of instances is a bad plan. First, it simply decreases the quality of your content. Second, the search engines may begin classifying your site as too spammy, and actually downgrade your rating.

- Tags and META: Loading keywords into your page headers and the meta data of your site is also an old trick that's now likely to get you classified as spammy. Only keywords that are relevant to your content and specific to what your users are searching for should be included.

- Links: Some fraudulent SEO services, and some outdated pieces of advice, will associate your website with link exchange systems and link farms. Since the search engines keep track of these farms and exchanges, and using them is considered trickery, being part of them can actually significantly downgrade your rating.

- Submission to search engines: Once upon a time, submitting your site to search engines was a long and arduous process, which was nonetheless necessary to get a good place in the rankings. These days, search engine submission is generally not needed at all, since the engines automatically search
for new sites. If they don't find yours quickly, manual submission is quite easy and there are a few top search engines that have most of the market share.

Conversely, there are a few relevant and current strategies for climbing the ranks of search results. (It should come as no surprise that these are broader and more difficult or time-consuming to implement than the myths would suggest.)

- Unique content: Consistently offering high quality content that is valuable to your users, unique on the web, and from original sources is by far the best way to attract users – and search engines – to your site. If your site consists of copy, providing a unique value in information filtering, commentary and analysis, or other user-friendly services.

- Voice of authority: Along with unique content, offering an authoritative voice is a good way to increase your links and therefore your page ranking. Either become an authority yourself or offer interviews, quotes, or guest content by noted authorities in your field. If well-respected people and organizations recommend or reference your site, your popularity will rise.

- Professional networking for link sharing: As a web master, blogger, marketer, or business owner, professional contacts matter for a wide range of activities. Additionally, you may ask these people to link their sites with yours, or to provide expert and authoritative content for your site.

- Crawler files: Having a robots.txt file that is updated, accurate, and properly configured can make your site easier to catalogue correctly. Building the site's architecture in a crawler-friendly manner can give your site a slight edge that may be worth pursuing. Do remember that search engine developers are concerned with their users and serving them appropriate content. They're smart enough to outwit most technical tricks Read more...

Four Simple SEO Tips for Good Search Engine Rankings

Four Simple SEO Tips for Good Search Engine Rankings

Making simple changes to a website to improve search engine rankings and drive traffic is not as complicated as it sounds. This article details the factors that can be simply manipulated yet produce big improvements if implemented correctly.

They are worth bookmarking or printing so they can be used in the future as a checklist when creating new pages or reviewing your website.

1) Keyphrase Research

Before you can begin implementing any of the optimization techniques mentioned in the rest of this article, you will need to know which keyphrases you are going to optimize your site for. Once this is decided, everything becomes a lot clearer.

You should be able to get a rough idea of target keyphrases from the content on the pages within your site. At the end of the day, if there's not any content at which to target optimisation, achieving good search engine rankings will be very difficult and ultimately pointless! Visitors will leave immediately if they are not provided with the content they are searching for.
A frequent mistake is to target the keyphrases that drive the largest search volumes. It's important to target keyphrases that directly relate to your websites content, and the more defined the keyphrases are the better.

Using keyphrases that may drive 120 high convertible visitors to your site each month is likely to be much better than targeting a highly competitive broad keyphrase that is only vaguely related to your business, even if it does attract 30,000 searches each month.

2) Page Titles

This is one of the key on-page elements that can be optimized. Each title should be different, and full of keyphrases related to the content of its page. Search engines often only display the first 65 or so characters of the page title, so it's important to get the most important keyphrases at the beginning of the page title. Also, the characters near the front of the page title are given more significance in algorithms.

The page title is displayed in the search engine results, so must make sense and encourage browsers to action the link. Finding a balance between readability and keyphrases density is a challenge but something that will improve with time and practise.

3) Meta Description

The meta description is not actually included in search engine algorithms, although as it is displayed in search engine results pages, it is vital it is optimised. Like page titles, the meta description should be specific to every page and contain text that is relevant to the keyphrases that page is aimed at.
The meta description is limited to around 160 characters, so it can often be challenging to fit all the required info into such a small space. However, if no meta description is entered, search engines tend to grab a random chunk of text from the page, regardless if it makes sense or is useful to the searcher. You can avoid this from happening, by ensuring every page has a meta description of some variety.

4) Page Content

Page content is viewed as the best method of attracting visitors and incoming links to a website, so it's important that it is given sufficient time and resource. Search engines thrive on content, so the more content on your site the better for search engine rankings.

Content is less important now in search engine algorithms than it has been however, I suggest ensuring every keyphrase that is being targeted is mentioned about every 100 words or so.

Beware - don't fall into the trap of keyphrase stuffing! Search engines employ advanced techniques to track this and will more than likely pick up on it immediately and you could end up with a blacklisted site that is impossible to rank.

About the Author: Tim Jones is a SEO specialist working for Hertfordshire Search Engine Optimisation agency Distinctly Digital. Distinctly Digital specialise in Search Engine Optimisation. Read more...

These 10 SEO Tactics Bring Me Over 2000 Visitors Daily

No matter how hard some people try to mystify SEO, it is not as complicated as many would lead you to believe. Despite all the techno jargon that many in the field will throw at you: SERPs, SEM, PageRank, Keyword Density, Vertical Search, Algorithms... SEO is really simple to do if you understand some basic concepts and follow some easy steps.

Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the list.

Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time. I make this clarification because you must understand search engines, especially Google, are constantly redefining how they rank pages. Here are my favorite tactics and strategies:

1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses who supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must offer quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.

2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and Seobook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don't forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting "long-tail" keywords been very beneficial for me.

3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, made sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be no more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords... are all optimized. (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters) Remember, your title and description should not only be keyword targeted but these are the first contact/impression anyone will see of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.

4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don't ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google's influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content for Google. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.

5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the 'anchor text' is related to your keywords but don't ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don't forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.
6. Article Marketing
is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffic and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters... plus other major online sites. Don't forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you're also using these articles to pre-sale your content or products. Don't forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages... to increase your rankings and traffic.

7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts - a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you're creating content to first satisfy your visitors.

8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you have no experience with installing server-side scripts. Besides search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.

9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter... media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati... you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It's time consuming but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in or I like using a simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.

10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don't want SEO - you want effective SEO. In order to achieve effective SEO you must have three things: Relevance, Authority and Conversions.

First, your content/site must be relevant to the topic or niche area you're pursuing - your content must fit in and be related to all the other sites in your niche. That's why closely themed sites do so well in the search engines, they give only relevant content to what's been searched for or discussed.

Second, your content/site must be perceived as an authority site on your subject or niche. Establish this authority position and the search engines will love you and your content. One way is to develop this authority, besides offering superior content, is to form links/partnerships with other perceived authority sites in your field. Always strive to make your site an authority site - tops in your niche - the one site everyone has to check before drawing or forming a conclusion.

Third, conversions should be your main goal of any SEO efforts because you want to convert your targeted traffic into site members, subscribers, buyers or just repeat visitors. If you're into online marketing, conversions will be the most important element of the whole SEO process because you want buyers, not just visitors coming to your site.

Most of all, you must convince yourself Search Engine Optimization is not difficult, nor is it the equivalent of the online bogeyman as many would like you to believe. Used effectively, SEO can give you the targeted traffic you're seeking, just follow some of the outlined steps/tactics listed above and you will have SEO working for you and your site in no time at all. Read more...