BWMagic’s Marketing Tools

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BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News


How Much Do You Know About SEO? Some SEO Basics

One of my biggest problems in trying to help other webmasters or marketers
- I naturely and wrongly assume they know all about SEO. I forget these
webmasters have not spent the last 10 years battling it out with other
online webmasters and marketers for some very popular and lucrative keywords,
in the process, homing their SEO skills with other like-minded individuals.

I forget that many beginning webmasters may not be familiar with all the
SEO jargon and SEO techniques which I mention in my small online marketing
emails or newsletters. Now, I don’t get much direct feedback on this but
in a lot of questions I get from webmasters, I can tell they are missing
or misunderstanding some basic SEO tactics.

There’s nothing wrong with that, if I were to take up a new hobby or explore
a new subject, I am sure I would be just as clueless. For instance, I think
I have played around one or two rounds of golf in my life… someone asked
if we should play Ball Four Golf and I didn’t know what the heck they were
talking about, nor did I realize it shouldn’t be confused with Ball Fore
which nearly took my head off!

So every sport, hobby or subject comes with a lot of terms/phrases which are
unique to that subject. SEO is the same way so maybe a little background or
warm-up is needed in regards to understanding the basics of SEO.

First, you must understand that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization…
which means you optimize your website and content so that it ranks high in
the major search engines such as Google and Bing/Yahoo. This optimization
can take the form of following a strict formula or layout of your website
content with the proper meta tags, keyword density, linking structures and
so on. It can also mean off-site optimization with link building, right
anchor text, keyword positioning and so on.

SEO has become a major industry simply because getting top rankings for
lucrative keywords means big bucks for companies or individuals. We are
talking about billions, if not trillions of dollars, exchanging hands with
the sale of products, services and business transactions. Get a top ranking
for your chosen keyword phrase and it means a flood of targeted prospects/buyers
coming to your website or company, ready to do business.

Now, because there is so much money involved, a whole SEO industry has
sprung up with consultants, experts and companies offering their services
to get you or your company into those top rankings in the search engines.
These SEO services could include link building, link buying, social media
positioning, onpage optimization, pay-per-click management… all with the
goal of bringing targeted traffic/customers to your site or business.


White Hat vs Black Hat SEO


You may also have heard other webmasters talking about White Hat SEO as
opposed to Black Hat SEO. And as the names suggests, White Hat is strictly
above board proper site optimization, while Black hat is using underhand devious
cloaking methods and system to raise your rankings. For obvious reasons,
always go the White Hat route and you won’t be disappointed and you will
feel better knowing you’re doing the right thing in regards to your site.

Perhaps the next concept or term you should know is Algorithm. Search engines
create complicated algorithms or list of rules which determines not only how
web pages are listed but also which web pages are listed first in their index
or SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). These rules or ranking factors are
used by SEO experts and webmasters to help move their keyword rankings up
in the search engines. You open a web browser, go to a search engine such
as Google, type in a search query for “top corporate lawyers” and the search
engine returns a list of organic results along with a list of paid listings.
Now, getting to that top spot means a lot of potential traffic/clients would
be coming your way.

This is just one example, but most people would quickly realize how lucrative
getting to those top spots would be for any individual or company. They would
also realize that understanding how the search engine algorithms work and how
to manipulate them would be a valuable skill which many clients would pay big
bucks to have on their side. This SEO industry also consists of SEO software
which help webmasters/marketers get their sites into the top positions in
the search engines.


Most SEO experts break up your search engine optimization into TWO TYPES:


On-Page and Off-Page Optimization


On-Page Optimization means getting right all the factors which influence your
rankings in the search engines. Keep in mind, the whole web is “keyword based
and keyword driven” which means you must optimize your domain and site for your
chosen keywords. Your main keyword should be in your Domain Name, in the title
of the page, in the main heading for that page, in the URL and it should appear
(with variations) throughout the page. Try to keep the keyword density to around
2%-5%, although like many things to do with SEO… there are varying opinions on the
exact percentage. But what most experts agree on: the layout or structure of your
web site or pages must be easily reached not only by your visitors but also by
the search engine spiders which crawl your site. Keep it simple, have no links
more than three clicks away from your homepage and many webmasters include a
link back to your homepage on EVERY page of your site.

Off-Page Optimization means building backlinks flowing back to your web site or
web pages. Regardless of what anyone will tell you, getting quality keyworded
links from other high quality keyword related sites is the most important factor
in achieving top rankings in the search engines. So link building should be a
major part of your SEO efforts and something which will bring the fastest results.
These links must appear natural and organic so varying the anchor text (underlined part)
in your links is important. Also, the web is quickly changing, links from social
media sites such as FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter are becoming more helpful to getting
top rankings. So too, are links from blogs especially those from Blogger and Wordpress
because these are optimized for keywords. Don’t forget other media forms such
as videos since links from sites such as YouTube can also boost your rankings.

Tip: SEO experts sometimes like to complicate matters, one easy and simple way
to get hundreds, if not thousands, of links from the different social media sites
is to add the Free Addthis.com bookmark to all your pages/content. Let your visitors
bookmark your content for you. Simple, yet effective SEO technique that doesn’t
cost you anything. Other webmasters simply place bookmark logos for Twitter, FaceBook,
Google Buzz… on their sites. If a page goes viral in one of those networks, you
can get hundreds/thousands of backlinks flowing traffic and SEO link juice back to
your site.

Along those same lines, the key to SEO has been and always will be quality content.
Never forget the web is a very smart place, remember it holds all our collective knowledge,
users will find your quality content and promote it. Produce quality articles and
webmasters will place them on their sites with backlinks to your site. Produce
quality blog posts and bloggers will link back to your posts. Produce quality
videos and viewers will recommend them to their friends.

Now that’s not to say you shouldn’t do any SEO promotion or work. One of the best
ways to succeed is to constantly promote your site or links: do press releases,
write articles, make videos, create quality blog posts… get involved in online
forums related to your topic and leave your sig links at the end of your comments,
do the same for all your email messages by including your signature tag.

Many webmasters make the mistake that just because they have created a well
optimized site – it will automatically rank high in the search engines and you
will get plenty of quality traffic. Now if you’re extremely, extremely, extremely
lucky and by word of mouth your site catches on and becomes popular you will get
that traffic. However, in my experience, you can build an excellent site and have
it indexed in all the search engines but unless you do some SEO promotions it
will go nowhere.

With one of my nine or ten sites, I have done very little in regards to SEO and it has
done exactly that; it gets very little traffic and is nowhere to be seen in the
rankings. This is a site which I have not worked mainly because of lack of time
and it’s not closely related in theme to my other sites. Now if I wanted to promote
this site and build up my rankings… I would do all of the above… write articles,
do press releases, do viral videos, join related forums and get involved, do blog posts,
and so on. Now, from past experiences, I know if I work/promote this site for two or
three months consistently, the rankings would go up and the SEO would improve. Give
it six months to a year and this site would be highly ranked in the search engines
and bringing in a lot of quality traffic.

SEO is not some mysterious process that only a few skilled individuals know how to do,
rather it is a simple process of consistently promoting your site and content by
building quality backlinks from related sites on the web. It is the simple process
of connecting your content with the steady flow of traffic on the web by becoming
involved in forums, blogs, social networks and like-minded communities. SEO is simply
placing your site/content into the whole mix of things so that the search engines
can’t ignore your site. By consistently using SEO you will make your site an authority
on your chosen subject and you won’t look back.

…..

Handy SEO Dictionary

Here’s a very helpful dictionary of all the terms
related to SEO which you should know:

SEO Dictionary

Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

Did you find the above information helpful? If so, why not
help spread the word – recommend this content by using
the social bookmark sites below. The SEO Gods will Thank You!

……………………………………..
F’r'e’e for All BWMagic Subscribers
- DATEwise Desktop eCalendar and Planner
Never miss another important Meeting or Birthday
Again! Takes only minutes to Download and Install.
F’r'e’e Download:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com/Free_Desktop_Calendar.htm
……………………………………..

BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News

Keyword SEO Backlinks Checker

If you’re a regular reader, you will know, lately I have been
talking about “backlinks” and how important they are
to getting higher rankings, especially in Google. But sometimes
it is extremely helpful to know how many backlinks your competition
has for a certain keyword.

Keep in mind, it is not always “how many” backlinks a site/page
has for a certain keyword, but the quality of those backlinks.

If you want to beat your keyword competition you simply have to
get more backlinks then they have. Of course, on-page optimization
and quality content does count towards your rankings, but it’s
the number and quality of those backlinks which is the deciding
factor.

Anyway, here’s a free seo tool at this site which will let
you type in your keyword and they will tell you the top
ranked sites and how many backlinks each site has.

So check out your favorite keywords here:

http://backlinkseotool.com

Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

Did you find the above information helpful? If so, why not
help spread the word – recommend this content by using
the social bookmark sites below. The SEO Gods will Thank You!

……………………………………..
F’r'e’e for All BWMagic Subscribers
- DATEwise Desktop eCalendar and Planner
Never miss another important Meeting or Birthday
Again! Takes only minutes to Download and Install.
F’r'e’e Download:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com/Free_Desktop_Calendar.htm
……………………………………..

BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News



How Well Do You Know Your OWN Site? Your Competitor’s?
These Handy SEO Tools Will Reveal All!

Needless to say, if you have a website, you will already know
it is becoming very competitive on the web. If you’re in a
lucrative niche market you will have probably already felt this
competition, not only from webmasters like yourself, but also
from major multi-billion dollar companies who have wised up
and SEOed up to take advantage of all this free organic traffic
coming from the search engines.

The competition is getting brutal.

For example, in some of my niche markets, I am competing to
get on the first page in Google for keywords that have over
220,000,000 competing pages. Hitting those first 10 spots is
where the money is located. You have to get onto that first
page in order to see your best results. And it is becoming
harder and harder to stay in those top 10 spots.

Of course, one marketing tactic is to simply NOT compete at
all, and go for the “long tail keyword phrases” which have
less traffic but also less competition so you can get on the
first page of Google within a few days. This route will save
you a lot of frustration and sleepless nights.

However, if you’re like me and have held some lucrative keywords
on the first page of Google for over 4 or 5 years… seeing other
webmasters and especially big corporations come in and bump your
listing off the first page – totally ticks me off!

As the competition gets harder, you have to get smarter. Especially
if you have a small site with limited resources to spend on building
links and creating unique content. So you have to try and outwit your
competition.

Now if you know me, I am always pushing the “knowledge” button.
The more you know about your competition, the more able you are
to compete with them. And to a certain extent, the more you know
the more able you are to even beat your competition.

Over the years, I have used countless tools and software programs
to really get to know my competition. Thankfully, there are many
free programs you can use to discover most of what you should know
about your competition.

First, simply using the Google search engine will tell you who is
listed on the first page for your chosen keyword or keywords.
It will also tell you how many pages you’re competing against.
Now if you have a multi-worded phrase put quotation marks around
the “keyword phrase” and do an exact search in Google, which will
tell you the number of webpages which has this exact phrase
on them. This is probably your true competition.

Then you have to take a close look at your competition. Here is
one free tool that has been around since 2005 and you don’t even
have to sign-up to use it.

http://www.reactionengine.com/

Just type in your site’s URL + a keyword and this tool will analyze
the SEO factors for you. They will even give you a “grade” for your
page!

But most importantly, they will give you some very valuable
information about your own site or your competitor’s site. You
can use this information to better design your site to hit all
the proper SEO signals which the search engines use to rank your
site.

In a recent WebProNews video interview, Matt Cutts said Google
has over 200 signals which it uses to rank pages. Now these
are the ranking factors which Google uses to rank your pages.

But really they are signals… give off the wrong signals and your
page will go down in the rankings. You really want all your
on-page SEO signals to be done right – simply because this is something
you have total control over.

For example, if you use the link above, it will tell you how
well you’re using your site against a certain keyword:


- is your main keyword in the title?

- is it in the body?

All these things do affect how well your site ranks in the
search engines. So it might be beneficial to take a look at
your site and see how will it does. And make any appropriate
changes.

Once you have taken a really close look at your site or page,
then you have to examine your main competition. Take a look at
how their site performs for your chosen keyword. What are
they doing different from you? How are their pages optimized
for the search engines? See how they are ranked?

Now look at how you can improve your site to better compete
with your competition. By first getting all your on-page SEO
factors/signals better optimized will help you compete better
with your competition.

Of course, there are many different sites like the one above
which you can use to find out more information about your
competition. I also like using:

www.compete.com
www.seotoolbook.com
www.iwebtool.com

Plus, as you probably know, I am a long-time user of the
Firefox Toolbar Add-on from

SEO Quake

This handy SEO toolbar gives me all the important SEO pointers
about a site while I am surfing. It does slow down your browser
a bit, but the information you get is as they say: priceless.

When I am checking out a site – either my competitor or when I
am looking for search partners, one thing I always check out on
this toolbar is the “SEMRush SE Traffic Price” this tells me the
worth of the search engine traffic this site is receiving each month.
If they had to pay for this traffic – that’s how much it would cost
them. Someone with $500,000 worth of traffic coming in each month,
probably knows what they’re doing when it comes to keyword positioning.

And another one is Alexa.com which I like to use to see the
traffic numbers, but also to check some of the links my competing
sites have. One marketing tactic, go out and try to get the same links
as your competition. If you want to truly compete with your competition
and beat them, you have to “out-link” them.

You also have to take a really close look at their whole site and
how it is constructed. What social network/bookmark sites are they
using? Are they using Twitter? Are they using Facebook? Are they
using Adsense? How many pages do they have indexed in the search
engines?

All of these things will add to your “knowledge” about your
competition. The more knowledge you have, the better you will
be able to compete…

Anyway, this is just some of the things you can do to check out
how well your site is optimized for SEO and also some ways
you can check out your competition. Go get ‘em!

Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

Did you find the above information helpful? If so, why not
help spread the word – recommend this content by using
the social bookmark sites below. The SEO Gods will Thank You!

……………………………………..
F’r'e’e for All BWMagic Subscribers
- DATEwise Desktop eCalendar and Planner
Never miss another important Meeting or Birthday
Again! Takes only minutes to Download and Install.
F’r'e’e Download:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com/Free_Desktop_Calendar.htm
……………………………………..

BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News

After Backlinks Your Most Important SEO Factor Is?

Last week I told you about getting backlinks to your
site and how important they are for getting higher
rankings and for bringing in quality traffic. After
I sent that email I started thinking about what’s my
next most important SEO factor?

After backlinks – your SEO comes back to your “on page”
factors which will affect your rankings in the search
engines, especially Google. After much consideration,
and after years of ranking in the search engines for
popular keywords, I have to say your “Title Tag” is
the next most important SEO factor.

This really tells the search engines what your page
is about and what they will find on the page. It shows
up in the Index and it’s what surfer see in their browsers.
It is extremely important to get this right if you want
your pages to rank high.

Put your main keywords at the beginning of the title
tag and keep the title around 60 – 65 characters if you
want the full title to show up in Google. In Yahoo,
it’s exactly 120 characters so you can have a longer
title but Google won’t show it all.

Try to keep all the title tags on your site unique -
don’t use the same title for different pages. This will
not only confuse your visitors but also the search
engines.

Over the years I have been breaking up the title tag with
a “|” has worked really well for me. As in the following
title:

3D Gaming Laptops | Laptop Reviews

Don’t know exactly why it works but I believe the search
engines are breaking up the title and reading it as
two major keyword phrases. Probably puts more emphasis on
each of them for ranking purposes.

As for choosing titles for pages, what has really worked
for me is finding and using the “long tail keyword phrases”
web users are searching for on the web. Placing a popular
question in the title tag and then answering that question
on the page works for me.

Example: “Where to find cheap laptops?”

Title Tag Would Be:

Where to find cheap laptops? | Laptop Reviews


Now another key SEO element which goes hand-in-hand with
your Title Tag is your URL Tag or name… I always try
to keep these the same. For example, in the one above
I would use

www.yoursite.com/where_to_find_cheap_laptops.htm

as my URL for that page.

Notice that I am using an “_” or “underscore” to divide
up the words in my URL. Most experts suggest you use
a “-” or “hyphen” to break up the words, but the underscore
has always worked for me so I keep using it.

And for some reason, when I first started writing up my
html pages – I used “htm” instead of “html” for the closing tag
on all my pages. The only place I use “html” is in or on the
index page, such as “index.html”.

So the title of your page is very important for SEO reasons,
I also believe Google is now placing more emphasis on the
title – almost to the point where somewhat spammy titles and
descriptions are given higher billing.

I follow hundreds of keywords daily, and I have noticed
Google SEEMS to be paying more attention to keywords
in the URL and in the Title, plus description when ranking
pages… including and even repeating your keyword phrase
throughout your Title, Description, Content and your URL
seems to get you ranked higher.

I use the word “seems” because with Google drawing any
firm conclusions regarding SEO takes a big leap of faith.
Cracking how they rank their pages is a whole industry
in itself and we won’t go there.

But writing good optimized “Titles” with your major
keywords at the front, will go a long way in getting your
pages noticed and ranked by the search engines. Then follow
up your good Title Tag with your same Title keywords in
your URL for that page, will go even further to help with
your SEO.

Simple stuff but it works for me and it should also work
for you!

If you want to find out more about HTML Title Tags:

Title Tags for Search Engine Optimization & Web Usability

And if you still need more help with the SEO stuff,
I highly recommend Brad Callen’s SEO Elite – it only
costs a few bucks but it’s well worth the money.

SEO Elite

Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com