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That can�t be right! Shouldn�t ten links be better than one? It is usually the case where more is better. However, when it comes to gaining links, having more links isn�t necessarily better than having a few good links. In fact, having too many irrelevant links could possibly harm your website�s visibility within the search engines.

These days, search engines are placing more emphasis on incoming links to a website when evaluating rank. The reason being is because they are difficult to obtain from trusted sources (a “by the book” website such as the Dmoz directory) and it is a good way to partially eliminate the group of people who abuse the “on the page” factors of optimisation (page spamming). How is this so? Well, if you have someone who is abusing the “on the page” factors and they have no trusted links to their page (they will most likely not get any at all due to spam) then there is no chance of them getting a good listing. However, people have worked out ways in getting a large number of links, through link farms and other tactics, regardless of the quality of their website. As the search engines are aware of this, it brings us to the topic of how one link can be better than ten.

Obtaining one link from a trusted source can be very difficult in the sense that they do not issue links to just about anyone. If you have a good website with relevant information, then you will get them. It is for this reason one link from a trusted source can better a multiple of links from other websites. As a trusted source website is “trusted” by search engines, it will also trust the websites it links to. If you have ten links from your best friends, it will help you in some sense, but no where near as much as the one link from a source like Dmoz, unless one of your friends has a very reputable website amongst the search engines.

Having too many irrelevant links could harm your website�s visibility in the search engines. What is meant by this is having links from websites that have no relation to yours. An example of this would be a site about cars linking to another site about medicine (unless the sites are reputable and have a good reason for the link i.e. there is a relationship made between cars and medicine). Search engines will pick up on this sort of link and will give it no weight in boosting your visibility. Obtain many of these irrelevant links, then it could be seen as spam (like a link farm tactic) and that will lower the popularity of your website within search engines.

The key here is to focus on quality and not quantity. Gaining a few good / relevant links will take you much further than a lot of irrelevant links. To get these quality links, start off by placing your website in directories, but be sure to avoid any “on the page” spamming as this will not get you accepted. Once search engines have acknowledged a presence of relevant links, follow up on it and research some ways to obtain more. As time passes, you will notice that your website�s performance will increase, as the links age, provided you have carried out search engine optimisation. Avoid obtaining the irrelevant links even though it may be tempting to see fast results. It will only be a matter of time before a search engine realises the spam tactic, and as the saying goes “fast rise, fast fall”.

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In search engine optimisation, it is a crucial element to select the right keywords when optimising a website. The obvious reason being, if you have keywords with no search volume, you will not receive any traffic. Secondly, if you have keywords that are too competitive, you will find it very difficult (almost impossible) to win high ranks. So how do we find the in between balance for both obstacles? This is where keyword tools would come into place, but how accurate are they?

To start, the main keyword research tools that are found on the market today are Wordtracker, Overture Keyword Tool and Trellian Keyword Discovery. Now I bet many of you are pulling your hair out over which keywords are going to be suitable for optimisation. What makes it probably even more stressful is the varying results between the three different keyword tools i.e. one keyword tool may show a particular keyword to be very good, while another tool may suggest a whole different result for the same keyword. Well stop stressing right now! The truth is that we don�t really know how accurate these keyword tools are and we should only use their search volume figures as an indication as to whether a keyword is popular amongst search engine users.

Let�s say a keyword phrase, �dog products�, has a search volume of 5,000 searches per month on the Overture Keyword Tool. To make an assumption that �dog products� is a good keyword for optimisation, based ONLY on the Overture figure, would be a very bad assumption. However, it gives us a rough idea of the search volume for that particular keyword. The next step would be to use Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery to see if a similar amount of search volume is present for �dog products� (remember to convert searches for each tool to a common time frame i.e. monthly or daily). If we have a very low search volume in BOTH Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery, then I would be very skeptical about using �dog products� for optimisation. The whole idea is to get at least two of the three keyword tools to reflect reasonable / high search volumes before considering that keyword to be suitable for optimisation. If you have all three keyword tools returning reasonable / high search volumes for �dog products�, then the chances are that this keyword is reasonable / high in search volume and definitely worth considering for optimisation.

Once a good set of keywords have been agreed upon through the use of the keyword tools, you should then focus on the keywords that have a low / reasonable amount of competing web pages. There is no point trying to compete for a keyword that has 1,000,000 web pages in competition for it. If you are good at SEO then you could achieve high ranks for that keyword, but it would require a lot of time and investment which could be spent on better things. The lower the competition is, then the more chance of achieving higher ranks.

To recap, there is no indication to say that keyword tools are 100% accurate. Whilst the reseller of the tool may suggest otherwise, I highly doubt it. The results should be taken like a �grain of salt� as they are only useful to give you an idea as to what the search volume might be like for a particular keyword (high, moderate or low). With each tool obtaining its results using different algorithms, in some cases their results will not support each other. Provided you use two of the keyword tools to investigate the search volume for keywords, you should be able to make a good decision as to whether a keyword might be worth optimising for. With that in mind, it would also be wise to use your common sense to determine if a keyword is one that YOU would actually use in a search. Otherwise, what would be the point of optimisation in the first place?

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While high quality content is an important part of search engine
optimisation, SEO, it can and should be used for more. The majority of
internet users actually read the information that they find online;
therefore, there is a good chance for you that your website content will
actually be read. You should try and make your website content more easy to
understand and attractive. It is also important to note that high quality
content is likely to attract better advertisements. So make sure that
your website grabs it all.

Well, the design of your website is also important. In fact, it may be
just as important as your content. You want your website to look
professional, attractive, and appealing. You will want to go with plain,
simple, yet professional. If you need assistance with the design of your
website, you may want to think about hiring the services of a
professional web designer.

A lot of people also try setting up multiple websites that connect to
your main site. And believe me this is actually a very effective way to
build up your hit count, but only if your site’s content makes for
excellent reading or viewing. Without quality content, your site will soon
stagnate, and all the other connecting sites and blogs with it. If your
site has quality content, then this should be no problem for you.

And let me tell you that the best way to see an increase of visitors to
your site is to make sure you have a large amount of unique and
relevant content on your site. The search engines like the content that
readers will find useful and informative. Make sure and try to provide as
much value and information in your writing as possible and place
everything you write on a different page of your site. Doing this aids your
site’s popularity and results in it becoming an online “authority”
website. This can result in a massive jump in search engine rankings for your
site. The best part is that search engine traffic is completely free.

The visitors in your website themselves is a great source of
advertising, because once they visit your website they usually recommend their
friends to visit your website and spreads from there, resulting in higher
targeted traffic. For this to happen, your website should also be
attention grabbing.

Another effective way to invite targeted traffic to your website is
buying advertising space on websites that discuss topics about your
product. You can be sure that the people visiting your website are interested
and may possibly buy your product. You can do free advertising for
your website as well. And by doing such you can attract a lot of visitors
for your website.

We all know that website promotion is really important so that one can
attract as many visitors as possible.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well and
how popular your site is working for your visitors. One way to
determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your
site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an
underlying problem.
Finally, if you notice that users have started finding your website by
typing in your company name, all it means is that you have achieved a
significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of your
success!!!

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If you are looking around for a search engine optimisation company to carry out some SEO work on your website, then make sure you choose the right colour hat. There are a large number of companies that adopt a fast and unethical approach to SEO, known as black hat SEO, while there are a smaller number or companies that implement ethical SEO work, known as white hat SEO. The key to choosing the right colour, which is obviously the white, is as follows�

Before you even think of taking on a search engine optimisation company, the first thing is to shop around and see what is out on the market. The same principles would apply if you were to buy a new computer. You would look at a few models, prices and what each model has to offer. If an SEO company was to offer a service that would guarantee you top ranks, there is a very good chance they are wearing a black hat. No SEO company can guarantee top ranks since they have no direct control over the search engines and their ranking algorithms. They can however mention that top ranks are highly achievable due to their previous success with other clients.

Be sure to look at a companies� portfolio page (if they have one on their website or simply ask them) and carry out some research on their clients. This can be done by looking at the client�s website performance within the search engines for the selected keywords they have been optimised for. Another good idea would be to write a courtesy email to the client asking for a reference on the SEO company they have used to optimise their website.

The most important giveaway on a black hat SEO company is the way they would describe their services. If a company cannot go into detail on how they carry out their work (meaning they are very vague), and this involves justifying each step of their work, then it would be best to avoid their services. A proper SEO firm will be more than happy to explain their services in detail and justify their reasons for using such techniques. If you cannot quiet understand the techniques they use then be sure to do some research on the internet and read SEO articles that explain each technique. If you find that their work fits along the lines of your research and that it is all ethical, then they are a company you should put on your list.

A last point to mention, a company should stress the phrase �patience is the key to success with SEO�. If a company claims that they can achieve results very fast, then it is time to start running. In theory, SEO that is carried out correctly on a website will take time until the results start to show (most cases 3 to 6 months but could be longer).

Would you like to know what could happen to your website if you hire a black hat SEO company, regardless of how big or small your website is in terms of brand recognition? An example would be the story of the BMW German website. They hired a black hat SEO firm to carry out some work on their website and that resulted in their site being banned from the Google ranks. So it is best to do your research on SEO by reading articles such as this one and question a companies approach on search engine optimisation. This will ensure that you have selected the clean white hat and that your website will not be tarnished from the black.

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There are many ways to optimise your website and everyone has a different opinion on how to do it, but there’s one thing everyone agrees on is the two pronged approach, onpage and offpage.

Today I am going to talk about on-page optimisation, the biggest mistake many people make is that they have their website built wait around for a few month and wonder why there’s no traffic heading there way. The website should be built with optimisation in mind right from the start, it might look great having lots of Flash flying around your site (I personally don’t think so) but without your keywords spread throughout your text the web bots are not going to find it.

I think it’s important to have your title heading as an H1 and in bold, but only do it once on a page otherwise you could get penalised. The web bots/spiders read pages from top left to bottom right so I would also reinforce your title again by putting it next to the copyright logo.

There is always a discussion about Head and Meta tags, I firmly believe you must do this and definitely the Title as this does carry weight with Google.

The main ingredience for success in any business is hard work and this certainly applies to Search Engine Optimisation oh and throw in a whole lot of time for good measure!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Basic Link Checks.

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

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

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

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

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