Constant effect

It's a dog eat dog world out there on the Internet. There is the capacity for an unlimited number of storefronts on the web that you'd never be able to find on main street. The fact is that there is even more competition for business online than there is in the brick-and-mortar world. This is only going to get more intense. It wasn't so long ago that many people were afraid to use credit cards online. Shopping online was a curiosity. Now, it's a given.

The battle of relevancy online is the battle of one site being more useful than another. In the growing virtual marketplace, it isn't nearly enough to just have a number of products and hope for the best. Look at Amazon.com reviews; they are core to what has made that site grow. A glowing Amazon review can do a lot for a product's sales. Web surfers use Amazon reviews as much as they use a review in the local paper, if not more. Reviews have made Amazon a relevant and trusted resource for a department store's worth of products.
continue reading…

Think of the alternatives to custom content: no content at all or content that has been taken from another site. If those two options seem unusable, you're getting a good idea of why custom content is so important. Looking at it another way: not having content is like designing a web site with the exact same layout as Amazon. This just isn't done; your site needs to be unique to be effective.

The two keys to custom content are uniqueness and authority. An informed buyer is an active buyer. Don't make a web surfer go elsewhere to find information on products and services. Everything a customer needs to know should be found on your site: informative articles, glossary definitions, reviews of products, answers to Frequently Asked Questions, and more. When all of this content is in place, a site will rank more highly in search engines, so a potential customer will have a better chance to come to the site and start perusing the information.

continue reading…

In an increasingly crowded web marketplace, it can be difficult to separate from the pack. Sometimes even having a good page rank is not enough. You could have a number one ranking, but if your site is uninformative or poorly designed, web surfers are going to click and run. With the number of affiliate sites now entering the field, there is even more competition for web surfers' time. To succeed on the web, your site needs to be an absolute authority in a particular field.

A website is the best promotional tool an e-business can have. The business can advertise all over the web and set up pay-per-click campaigns, but if the site itself is weak, you cannot expect web surfers to stick around or come back a second time. Custom content is all about keeping surfers on site and coming back for more.

continue reading…

All optimization is not equal. There is such a rush to optimize a website for search engines that people don't realize that some SEO techniques can be self-defeating. Either a lot of work will go into a particular type of optimization that is fruitless or it can be downright harmful for search engine ranking. A high search-engine ranking is the holy grail of search engine optimization, but make sure you put your energy in the right place.

The first two issues involve web design: don't use flash or frames when designing a website. These won't get you banned by search engines;but the site might be ignored entirely. While you can use some flash animation within a site, overuse of flash should be avoided. Search engines like text, not fancy graphics. A flash-heavy site could be passed over. The same goes for a site written with frames;frame-heavy sites confuse search engines so the sites are not properly indexed. The text on a framed site is hidden within the frame, so even if there is ample content within the frame, it will not be read correctly. Verdict: avoid it.

continue reading…

Remember the web in the old days? You could cram in a bunch of keywords at the bottom of the page regardless of grammar, and pretty much devoid of any aesthetic sense, and search engines ate it up. It's probably a good thing those days are over because websites have become a lot more professional. That still doesn't mean that people are using keywords to the best of their advantage. In fact, because it is much harder to write keyword-targeted content, many site owners avoid the issue.

This is good news for anyone looking to improve their page ranking. The market is wide open for people who use an effective keyword strategy. The main issues are both quality and quantity. A few pages of keyword-driven content just aren't going to do it anymore. If you're really looking to improve your search engine ranking, and ultimately improve your sales, you have to provide dozens of pages of content.

continue reading…

There is a mantra in e-commerce that content is king. Content isn't just a way to inform visitors coming by the site, it's a way to draw in those ever-present mechanical insects, search engine spiders. The key to knowing if you're making nice with search engine spiders is if you have a good page rank: Google page rank is the holy grail of search engine ranking.

Page rank and content go hand in hand. There is a misconception that the number of links coming in to a site is the main thing that determines page rank. While links are obviously important, content is vital as well. In fact, they are intrinsically connected. If you have quality content on your site, more sites will link to you as a respected authority on a given topic. If those sites have a good page rank, it can only help elevate the page ranking of your site.
continue reading…

Everyone likes to be popular. In a way, the web is just like one big popularity contest. It wasn't fair in high school, and it might not seem so fair now. You can have the best-designed, most informative site online, but if no one links to you, you're going to have a harder time getting a high search engine ranking. Ranking high with search engines relies on two things: content and link popularity.

Of course, if you have the most informative site online, your job is half done. One of the keys to bringing in new links is having a well-designed site. If you go after link exchanges and your site looks like it belongs in the last decade, you're going to be hard-pressed to find any takers. People don't have all the room in the world to add links on their site. You need to provide a site that is worth linking to. On the flipside, you should find link partners with quality sites of their own.

continue reading…

Here's the major reason that your company needs a solid SEO plan: profitability. Search Engine Optimization is just another way of marketing. If you don't market a product, you can't expect name recognition or sales to come pouring in. Most people surfing online go to search engines to find information or new products. Without a decent search engine ranking, your site, and products, will be passed over time and again.

There are five core reasons that SEO is important, all of which can help a business's profit margin. Let's begin with what is the basis of SEO marketing: content. The idea of providing unique content is so that the site becomes a trusted resource on a set of topics. So how does content help profitability?

continue reading…

Give visitors the information they’re looking for read more

SearchStatus is a toolbar extension for Firefox and Mozilla that allows you to see how any and every website in the world is performing. Designed for the highly specialised needs of search engine marketers, this toolbar provides extensive search-related information about a site, all conveniently displayed in one discreet and compact toolbar. read more