Analyzing Website Traffic

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluabletool for a number of different reasons. But before you canmake full use of this tool, you need to understand how tointerpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic webtraffic information that you then have to interpret andmake pertinent use of. However, the data you receive fromyour host company can be overwhelming if you don'tunderstand how to apply it to your particular business andwebsite. Let's start by examining the most basic data - theaverage visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, andmonthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of yourwebsite's activity. It would appear on the surface that themore traffic you see recorded, the better you can assumeyour website is doing, but this is an inaccurateperception. You must also look at the behavior of yourvisitors once they come to your website to accurately gaugethe effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonlyknown as "hits" and what is really effective, qualitytraffic to your site. Hits simply means the number ofinformation requests received by the server. If you thinkabout the fact that a hit can simply equate to the numberof graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblownthe concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepagehas 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits,when in reality we are talking about a single visitorchecking out a single page on your site. As you can see,hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the moreaccurate your interpretation will become. The greater thetraffic is to your website, the more precise your analysiswill be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smallerthe number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitorscan distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure outhow well or how poorly your site is working for yourvisitors. One way to determine this is to find out how longon average your visitors spend on your site. If the timespent is relatively brief, it usually indicates anunderlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure outwhat that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong typeof visitors to your website, or that your graphics areconfusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exitrapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors arespending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, andafter you fix those problems, continue to use time spent asa gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determineeffective and ineffective areas of your website. If youhave a page that you believe is important, but visitors areexiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could,for example, consider improving the link to this page bymaking the link more noticeable and enticing, or you couldimprove the look of the page or the ease that your visitorscan access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors arespending a lot of time on pages that you think are lessimportant, you might consider moving some of your salescopy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vitalinformation about the effectiveness of individual pages,and visitor habits and motivation. This is essentialinformation to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a finalorder or contact form. This is a page you can expect yourvisitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to yoursite is going to find exactly what he or she is lookingfor, so statistics may show you a number of different exitpages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on aparticular page that is not intended as an exit page. Inthe case that a significant percentage of visitors areexiting your website on a page not designed for thatpurpose, you must closely examine that particular page todiscern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potentialweaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content orgraphic may have a significant impact on the keepingvisitors moving through your site instead of exiting at thewrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's timeto turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particularkeywords are directing a specific type of visitor to yoursite. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that theyfind what they are looking for on your site, and evenbetter, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - themore valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are beingdirected - or should I say misdirected - to your site by aparticular keyword or phrase, that keyword demandsadjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitorsto your site who are ready to do business with you. Closeanalysis of the keywords your visitors are using to findyour site will give you a vital understanding of yourvisitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your websiteby typing in your company name, break open the champagne!It means you have achieved a significant level of brandrecognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Increasing Link Popularity

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they arethe first tool that potential customers use to find theproducts and services they need. This is why linkpopularity is so imperative. If the customers do not findyour website, you have no possibilities of making anysales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular abouta link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers tothe ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywordsare entered into a search engine. So, you're probablywondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and rankingto sites that have links to their pages from related,quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very importantone. Google created the system, and now virtually all themost popular search engines employ it to rank your webpages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it willbe to achieve link popularity, but without achieving thisstep, it is almost certain your site will never rank highlyon any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there aretried and true ways of achieving link popularity using themost competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first isthat just linking up with a large number of other websiteswill not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may havequite the opposite effect. This is particularly true whenpertaining to websites that are nothing more than "linkfarms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminatelinks. Search engines may aggressively discriminate againstyour website if you are associated with a link farm, sosteer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the siteyou are linking to. Never link to a page you havereservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing youwant your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your linkpopularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme linkpopularity and improve your rankings to stellar status onall the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in thedoor, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such asOpen Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site isbusiness-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, anddespite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,it will be money well spent. If your site isnon-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will taketime and follow-up to actually get it listed. OpenDirectory is gives you a free listing whether you arebusiness-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to makea lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your sitelisted.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level ofappropriate category, and this just takes some commonsense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool froman Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, TinyState, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers fromNowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do islook a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "FineAlpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourselfwith culture and quality, but you will be listed in anational category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings isto locate other quality sites that will increase your linkpopularity. Try to find sites that are in some way relatedto yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,but your customer base may also be expanded. You want toavoid your competitors and look for sites that are usefulto your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool siteexample. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplieswould be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of theknitting supply site wanting to link up to your site arealso greater. By linking to a related site that will berelevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing bothof your site's business prospects - and both of your sites'link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will haveto do some research when you are looking for possiblelinking partners. Google is an excellent starting place foryour search. Make sure you enter keywords that you thinkquality customers will also enter to find your own site.Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at thequality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.Then check out the other sites they are linked to, anddetermine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you mustset out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a linkon your own links page to their site. This is an essentialfirst step; it shows good faith, and ups your chancessignificantly of their reciprocity. After you have addedtheir link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.Since this is almost always done by email, you want to makesure it is immediately clear that your message is not junkmail. This requires that you tell them right off the batthat you have added a link to their page on your site. Ahook like this almost always insures the reader will readon.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how muchyou appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize thatyou have actually visited their site, and that their siteis not just a random pick. Give them the address of yourlinks page, and ask them to check out the link forthemselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will notonly benefit from the increased traffic your website willdirect their way, but you will also increase their linkpopularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is soessential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don'tsound like a professor! Finally, tell them you wouldgreatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link ontheir own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites asyou can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality andnon-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevantsites, be sure to check these website frequently to see ifthey have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,and if no link appears, try another charming email. Thengive it another month, and if your site is still absentfrom their links page, it's time to remove their link fromyour own links page. The only time you want to pursue alink further than this is if you believe a site is crucialto your link popularity and your business needs. Justremember to keep all your communications complimentary andcordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in searchengines frequently to see if your link popularity hasimproved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. Itwill take some time and a good deal of work. There is noway around the labor-intensive quality of improving yourlink popularity, which is why search engines regard it withsuch importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlinedsite or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as longas it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital elementof your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways toimprove your link popularity through legitimate methods.Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands ofdishonest webmasters seeking to improve their linkpopularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that haveincreased their rankings by artificial methods. When asearch engines tracks down such a site, that site isdemoted in ranking or completely removed from the searchengine's index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completelyabove-board sites are being mistaken for these web pagecriminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up inthe "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index,even though you have done nothing to deserve such harshtreatment. But there are things you can do - and things youshould be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind ofmisperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites youare linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigningwebsite ranking, and virtually all search engines on theInternet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go aboutincreasing your link popularity, but at the same time, youmust be scrupulously careful about which sites you chooseto link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sitesthat have linked to other sites solely for the purpose ofartificially boosting their link popularity. They haveactually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot bepenalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;penalty happens only when you are the one sending out thelink to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, anddouble-check, all the links that are active on your linkspage to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pagesyou have linked to have been penalized. The most direct wayto do this is to download the Google toolbar athttp://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that mostpages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by asliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on thescale. This is especially important when the scale iscompletely gray. It is more than likely that these pageshave been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, youmay catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may bedifficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whosescale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.These sites have not been penalized, and their links maygrow in value and popularity. However, do make sure thatyou closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain thatat some point they do not sustain a penalty once you havelinked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use toartificially boost their link popularity is the use ofhidden text. Search engines usually use the words on webpages as a factor in forming their rankings, which meansthat if the text on your page contains your keywords, youhave more of an opportunity to increase your search engineranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive ofkeywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hidingtheir keywords in such a way so that they are invisible toany visitors to their site. For example, they have used thekeywords but made them the same color as the backgroundcolor of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords ona white background. You cannot see these words with thehuman eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spotthem easily! A spider is the program search engines use toindex web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, itgoes back and boosts that page's link ranking.Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, butsearch engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as asearch engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! thepage is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bitoverzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. Forexample, if the background color of your page is gray, andyou have placed gray text inside a black box, the spiderwill only take note of the gray text and assume you areemploying hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same colorto text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty iscalled "keyword stuffing." It is important to have yourkeywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes youcan go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to pleasethose spiders. A search engine uses what is called"Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying toartificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio ofkeywords to the rest of the words on the page. Searchengines assign a limit to the number of times you can use akeyword before it decides you have overdone it andpenalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpasswithout sounding as if you are stuttering - unless yourkeyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keywordis "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrasein every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site sothat the copy flows naturally and the keyword is notrepeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keywordshould never appear in more than half the sentences on thepage.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." Tothose of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept shouldbe easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is whenthe server directs a visitor to one page and a searchengine spider to a different page. The page the spider seesis "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic,and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engineranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everythingit needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of thelist.

It is natural that search engines have responded to thisact of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steeppenalties on these sites. The problem on your end is thatsometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such asprevention against the theft of code, often referred to as"pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary thesedays due to the use of "off page" elements, such as linkpopularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster isaware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make surethe webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind willput your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your linkpopularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligentto avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitoryour site closely and avoid any appearance of artificiallyboosting your rankings.

Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluableasset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specializein knowing how to raise your search engine positions,monitoring those positions on the regular basis, andadjusting their strategies to account for undesirableresults in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time,effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your bestinterest to go to an outside source rather than try tomaintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies andthere are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask andthe criteria to look for will help you in choosing anaffordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by consideringthe approach they employ to raise your search enginepositions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. Thesetechniques violate most search engine policy, and in theworst case scenario, will only get your website severelypenalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine'sindex.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisibleto the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page iscoded to detect a search engine spider and divert them tothis special page, which is set-up to artificially boostyour search engine position. Doorway or bridge pagesutilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirelydifferent server. Google, one of the largest and mostimportant search engine on the Internet, will remove yourwebsite from their index if they detect you have cloakedpages. Never, never employ any company that uses thistechnique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that thecompany you hire will not work with your competitors whilethey are working for you. Obviously, this would seriouslycompromise the effectiveness of the search engineoptimization campaign. Be aware that some companies willuse the success they achieve for your website to sell theirservices to your competitors. So get your guarantee inwriting, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want tocheck out is the company's track record of results.However, don't take the company's word for it. They willundoubtedly be slanting their results in order to selltheir services to you. To go beyond their simple statementof success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verifytheir answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best resultson. The ones that are important are the most popularengines, and these are the ones you want to see goodresults on. Since the popularity of search engines canchange with the landscape of the overall Internet, checkout the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. Youcan access this athttp://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiminggreat results with. It's easy to get high rankings withunpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes"will get high popularity ranking because no one else wouldthink of using it. What you are looking for is good resultsusing popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a freetrial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. Thissoftware rates the popularity of keywords and phrases basedon actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that thecompany claims to have successfully worked for. You want tosee a wide range of positions over a number of differentsearch engines using different keywords or phrases for theentire site. Request a report for any client the companyclaims to have done well for. This report should show goodpositions on a number of the most popular search enginesfor a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimizationcompanies, make sure they have actually done the work theyare claiming to have done. Some companies will use othercompany's results in order to get you to sign on with them.If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing youresults for, and ask for the name of their search engineoptimization company.

It's important to keep in mind that a successful searchengine optimization campaign will result in maximumexposure across a wide range of popular search enginesusing a variety of keywords and phrases. This is theformula for a successful campaign, and you should keep italways in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you areconsidering for a report that shows you rankings across anumber of popular search engines for a period of at leastsix months. Remember: search engine marketing is a processthat is continual, and you need a company that not onlyunderstands this, but keeps constant tabs on your searchengine positions. That company must also be able to adjustits strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, yourpositions must be constantly monitored. If you want yoursearch engine optimization company to do this for you,request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential thatthis report should show rankings for the most popularsearch engines. Don't be impressed by a report that onlyshows great results for a limited number of small searchengines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Alsoconfirm that the popular search engine results they areshowing you are indeed the popular search enginescurrently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in aformat that you can easily understand. For example, itcould be in the form of a chart that covers a period of atleast six months and presents data such as the top 50positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pageseach month. Then, ascertain that the company you areconsidering actually monitors these positions or pagesevery month, and that the sample report they show youincludes findings and recommendations for the specificsite. This insures that the company will actively monitorand make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basisrather than simply gather statistics on your positions. Youneed a company that is actively participant in your searchengine marketing campaign, not just an informationgatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice ofcompany, but bear in mind that a search engine optimizationcompany is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford acompany that will do a thorough and reliable job for yourwebsite, you might consider waiting until you do have thefinances in place.

If you have to find a company and can't wait for yourfinances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordablecompany that will also be able to supply quality, reliablework, such as a fairly new company. Just remember thatthere are risks involved with using a company without aproven track record - and that risk is your money! Don'ttake that leap unless the company can supply you with aleast a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a goodcompany. Don't use a company that won't show yourreferences because of any reason, confidentiality included.Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firmyou choose should provide you with a minimum of tworeferences, one that is from the past, and one that iscurrent.

When you contact these references, be prepared to askprecise, specific questions so that neither of your time iswasted. Ask them what their experience was like with thecompany, such as their availability to answer questions anddeal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Askthe reference to rate the overall performance of thecompany.

Find out if the company requested that the reference makesignificant changes to their web pages that affected thevisitors coming to their site. You are looking for a searchengine optimization company that can balance the needs ofboth search engines and site visitors without compromisingeither.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work ofthe search engine optimization company resulted in higherprofits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn'tmatter whether your positions are at the top of the list ornot.

Search Engine Keywords Selection

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potentialcustomers to your websites. But in order for visitors toreach their destination - your website - you need toprovide them with specific and effective signs that willdirect them right to your site. You do this by creatingcarefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of theInternet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, andpresto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your frontdoor. But if your keywords are too general or tooover-used, the possibility of visitors actually making itall the way to your site - or of seeing any real profitsfrom the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketingstrategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, nomatter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, theright people may never get the chance to find out about it.So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gatherand evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right wordsfor your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven'tfollowed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.It's hard to be objective when you are right in the centerof your business network, which is the reason that you maynot be able to choose the most efficient keywords from theinside. You need to be able to think like your customers.And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list ofpotential search words and phrases yourself, ask for wordsfrom as many potential customers as you can. You will mostlikely find out that your understanding of your businessand your customers' understanding is significantlydifferent.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find thewords you accumulate from them are words and phrases youprobably never would have considered from deep inside thetrenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases fromoutside resources should you add your own keyword to thelist. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready forthe next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to asmall number of words and phrases that will direct thehighest number of quality visitors to your website. By"quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are mostlikely to make a purchase rather than just cruise aroundyour site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluatingthe effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is anobjective quality. The more popular your keyword is, themore likely the chances are that it will be typed into asearch engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularityof keywords and phrases by giving words a number ratingbased on real search engine activity. Software such asWordTracker will even suggest variations of your words andphrases. The higher the number this software assigns to agiven keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect tobe directed to your site. The only fallacy with thisconcept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater thesearch engine position you will need to obtain. If you aredown at the bottom of the search results, the consumer willprobably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice.You must move on to the next criteria, which isspecificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greaterthe likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchaseyour goods or services will find you.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you haveobtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobilecompanies." However, you company specializes in bodyworkonly. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank loweron the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but itwould nevertheless serve you much better. Instead ofgetting a slew of people interested in everything frombuying a car to changing their oil filters, you will getonly those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpledfenders being directed to your site. In other words,consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who willimmediately find you. Not only that, but the greater thespecificity of your keyword is, the less competition youwill face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, thisrequires putting yourself inside the mind of the customerrather than the seller to figure out what motivationprompts a person looking for a service or product to typein a particular word or phrase. Let's look at anotherexample, such as a consumer who is searching for a job asan IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between"Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which doyou think will benefit the consumer more? If you werelooking for this type of specific job, which keyword wouldyou type in? The second one, of course! Using the secondkeyword targets people who have decided on their career,have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist youas their recruiter, rather than someone just out of schoolwho is casually trying to figure out what to do with his orher life in between beer parties. You want to find peoplewho are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requiressubtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the mostspecific and directly targeted phrases to bring the mostmotivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done.You must continually evaluate performance across a varietyof search engines, bearing in mind that times and trendschange, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your logtraffic analysis alone because it will not tell you howmany of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help youjudge the effectiveness of your keywords in individualsearch engines. There is now software available thatanalyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing youthe most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make agood keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to findkeywords that direct consumers to your site who actuallybuy your product, fill out your forms, or download yourproduct. This is the most important factor in evaluatingthe efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be thesword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffectiveor inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in betterprofits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula forsearch engine success. This may sound like a lot of work -and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put intoyour keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate yourbusiness' rewards.

Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking

The methods employed to increase your search enginerankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you haveprobably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tellyou - the time has come to face your website! A high searchengine ranking for your website is so essential that if youhave the slightest desire to actually succeed in yourbusiness, there is no way you can continue to avoid thisissue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services onthe Internet find websites through search engines such asGoogle, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pagesfor high search engine rankings is to attract targetedcustomers to your site who will be more than likely to makea purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engineresults, the greater the traffic that is directed to yourwebsite. That's what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical informationavailable online to figure out how to optimize your webpages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a fewsimple items on your pages, make some small adjustments,and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. Thefirst item you should examine is the title bar on yourhomepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.Look at the words that appear there when you access yourhome page. To increase search engine rankings, the words onyour homepage's title bar should include the most importantkeywords or phrases, one of which would include yourcompany name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars onthe pages you access. Each title bar on every single pageof your site should contain the most important keywords andphrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid verylong strings of keywords, keeping them to six words orless. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the titlebars, and make sure that identical words are not next toeach other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your websitecontent. Search engines generally list sites that containquality content rather than scintillating graphics. Thetext on your site must contain the most important keywords- the words that potential customers will be typing intosearch engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this isnot desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a highranking on search engines, this text is essential. However,the search engines must be able to read the text, meaningthat the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take yourcursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are ableto do this, the text is HTML. If the text will nothighlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case,ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format inorder to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know thissounds like something out of science fiction, but it isreally just simple code. Many people believe that meta tagsare the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality,they only have a limited effect. Still, it's worth addingthem in the event that a search engine will use meta tagsin their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you mustaccess the code. To do this, click the "view" button on thebrowser menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up awindow revealing the underlying code that created the page.If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top ofthe window. For example, a meta tag would read: metaname="keywords" content=. If you do not find code thatreads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. Thismay not do much for your search engine rankings, but anylittle boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is afactor that is extremely important in terms of searchengine rankings. Almost all search engines use linkpopularity to rank your website. Link popularity is basedon the quality of the sites you have linked to from yourlinks page.

If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popularsearch engine, the search engine will then show you whatsites are linked to your site. In the case that therearen't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sitesthat are linked up have low search engine rankings,consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially,this entails contacting quality sites and requesting thatthey exchange links with your site. Of course, thisrequires checking out the rankings of the websites you wantto link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not onlyboosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs morequality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for asuccessful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go outand hire a search engine optimization company, try takingsome of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can'tboost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore thisall-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, thehigher your search engine ranking, the more qualitycustomers will be directed your way.

A lot of web pages will find an SEO sitemap useful in improving their performance. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, the process that aims to create or revise Internet sites so that it can be better found by search engines. The objective of SEO campaigns is to have websites appear in the top listing or first results page of search engines.
Internet search engines, such as Google and A9, maintain a very large database of Web pages and available files. To do this, they devise a program called a web crawler, or spider. This software automatically and continuously surfs and hunts content in the Web. Pages that the spider finds are retrieved and indexed according to text content, giving more weight to titles and paragraph headers. Spiders never stop navigating the web from page to page, to index the relevant content of the Internet. Besides looking at the text of titles and headers, some programs are able to identify default tags and keep a library of these page keywords or key phrases in the index.
When a user connects to the Internet types a query, which is automatically interpreted as keywords, the search engine scans the saved index and creates a list of web pages that is most appropriate to what the user is searching for.
SEO will use all the combined techniques of keyword analysis, smart code, good content literature, link popularity study and website organization to place the subject web page as high as possible in the list of search results in search engines. Web pages displayed on the top of results pages are assumed to get the most attention, and therefore, opportunity for earnings for web businesses and pages with sponsor links.
Search engines usually return a list of results ranking pages according to the number of Internet sites linked to them. Results can be classified as organic, or sponsored links. Sponsored links are shown prominently because their creators or agents paid the search engine. Sponsored links are the main source of income of search engines. “Organic” search results are the lists of actual results from the engines index and are directly related to the keyword typed in the request. One of the more effective techniques of SEO is the creation of a well-organized site map in a website. Since the site’s main page and other content are directly linked to a site map, spiders can more easily move through the website, identify the key words of the content, and index these for a search engine. This is where the SEO sitemap helps the website creator or administrator.
Site maps are usually pages filled with links. These are shown as tables or lists, although lists are generally more effective. Writing code for SEO sitemaps is very easy and simple to format and maintain. These are ideally basic HTML pages with default tags, logical titles and keywords scattered in the Meta description. Introduction areas can contain more of the keywords. The site should have a main heading for every directory.
A simple list layout helps reduce unnecessary tags that might “hide” your keywords. Some spiders give more weight to the following, than text in the normal body of the webpage: heading text, content within link elements, text nearer the top of the page and the text written for a link. Therefore, writing the keywords and links in these areas could somehow move up the web page’s ranking. This goes for SEO sitemaps as well.
Web sites should be designed consistently, so navigation models should follow the flow of the site map. Therefore, the first section in the site map should be the first link in the navigation bar.
In an SEO Sitemap, and most pages, the headings contain title attributes where more key phrases in the site map can be added. Keywords are generally well chosen and written in the body of a webpage. However, in an SEO site map with little text, key words should be added as much as possible. As much as possible, web links should follow web page titles, and must undergo SEO during coding. Care must be exercised not to cram the page with keywords and links, or the page will be interpreted as blatant spamming and not receive any traffic at all.
There is no way to guarantee that a website will be shown in the topmost ranking of "organic" search results for an extended period of time. However, smart and responsible SEO sitemap techniques can be used to place the website high up in the search position. Regular monitoring and adjustment of the SEO Sitemap and search results would ensure that a website is kept near the top ranking and receiving lots of web user traffic.