I was recently doing some search engine optimization for a client which included some articles with keywords included in them. I think keyword rich (NOT keyword stuffed) articles are a good marketing tool. Most of the articles went okay. Then I got to one article in which the keyphrase was a four word phrase that was grammatically incorrect. I don't want to say what it was exactly, but to give you a fictionalized example, it was something like "Cadillac Dealership Car Oklahoma". In other words, it wasn't anything you would ever use in a sentence; it was just the result from a Google keyword search. I suggested to my client that they rethink this keyphrase as an article but they insisted because 500 people a month search for that phrase.

Welcome to the attack of the long-tailed monster. The long tail – a notion famously developed by Wired writer Chris Anderson  – is the idea that the accumulated amount of a small group of things is greater than the "short head", the total of the initial spike. So, when you add up all of the books sold on Amazon, the one or two they sell of millions of copies of books far outweighs the millions of copies of a best-seller. Thus, the long tail doesn't look to be that profitable for them but it actually is. (If that doesn't make sense, try reading this Wikipedia entry for clarification; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail).

The long tail applies to search, as well, as illustrated by my attempt to write an article with keywords similar to "Cadillac Dealership Car Oklahoma" in a sentence. In this article, over at SEOmoz, they report that the 10,000 most common search terms only account for the top 18.5% of all searches.

Let me put this into perspective for you: If you were to list the top 10,000 search terms, you'd be hard pressed to do so (but you could probably list the top 250 – 500 and then you'd dry up!) but if you could do it, you'd still not be able to only account for more than three quarters of the searches done online. This study was based on 10 millions searches done in the US. That means that 1,850,000 searches were conducted with the top 10,000 terms… and the remaining 8,150,000 searches were on different terms. That is crazy!

… It also means there's some dramatic opportunity for you to target the long tail in your business. So, even though "Cadillac Dealership Car Oklahoma" makes absolutely no sense in a sentence, it could be enough (when combined with other similar keywords) to bring in the traffic you want to bring in!

How it works in article marketing, well, that's going to be the tricky part for marketers and writers and business owners, but that's going to be the future of web marketing.

Brought to you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.

In the world of online marketing, getting people to link to your website is an important marketing strategy. Google changed the rules with this idea when they included in their search algorithm that every link to your website is a vote for your website.

Since then, website owners have wondered how to get more links to their website so they can create a higher PageRank and thus appear higher in search rankings.

There are numerous ways that you should (and shouldn’t) do this, but here are a few that I like:

1. Make sure your website contains useful tips and ideas so that people link to it (either on their site or through a social bookmarking site like Delicious or StumbleUpon). The key here is to create something of value so they will be motivated to return to your site over and over for more of the same helpful information. In my experience, top ten tips or strategies work really well. A downloadable tool might help here.

2. Be newsworthy in some way. If you report on some kind of news, people will link to you. The challenge here is finding the news and breaking big stories. But it is possible. Stick to your industry; don’t try to break the story of the next celebrity hook-up if your industry is the oil and gas industry. Instead, look through your contacts for connected people and see what they are saying and try to break stories in your own area of expertise.

3. Create badges, buttons, counters, or widgets that people can add to their site. Lots of sites do that. People post badges and buttons to show that they belong, they’ll post counters (like site visitor counters or subscriber counters, for example) to show their audience size, and they’ll include widgets in their website to increase functionality. But each of these is a link back to the creator and provider of the badge, button, counter, or widget. A great example can be found at http://www.socialmediabuttons.com/. You can embed buttons and badges from their site onto your site to promote your Twitter or Facebook profile… but in doing that, you’re linking back to http://www.socialmediabuttons.com/ and thus giving them a "vote"! This method can work for you if you have a great idea for a widget or an audience who will happily "announce" that they are associated with you.

There are other ideas but these are the best for small businesses who are looking to increase the number of links they have.

Success in getting links to your website is not an occasional effort. It requires constant thought and intentional effort. Every time you sit down to write a blog, consider how you can entice people to link to you.

Brought to you by: Contemporary VA - Run your business instead of running in circles.

From time to time we’re asked by new business owners or internet newbies: "What is SEO?". (Or, our favorite so far: "I heard there was a way to trick search engines into finding your site. Can you do that for me?"). This post is an introductory guide to answer those questions. Note: we’ve provided a really basic, simplified explanation to give some foundational knowledge.

What is search engine optimization?
When you create a website and put it online, search engines send out "bots" or "spiders" to crawl your site. These electronic spiders look at your website and do their best to interpret what it’s about. Then they report back to the search engine with their findings. The search engine then "indexes" your site according to those findings. So if you’re a pizza store and the spiders realize it, then the search engines will file you under "pizza" in their electronic database. When someone searches for the word "pizza" in the search engine, your site will come up.

But the search engines don’t just return a random search result for a searched word or phrase. Google (and now many other sites) rank the search results based on authoritativeness. They figure that the most authoritative sites should come first; and the less authoritative the sites are, the lower they should appear on the rankings. You may have a pizza site, but if you’re not showing up very high on the rankings, Google might consider other sites to be more authoritative than your site.

When you "search engine optimize" your site, you are building it and adding content in a way that helps the spiders understand what your site is about and makes it easier for the search engine to know how to file it. And, you are designing your site to demonstrate how authoritative it is.

So, here are some elements that search engine spiders measure. You should be aware that not all elements are measured by all search engines, and some put different weightings on each element in their own search algorithm. And, some search engines (like Google) keep their exact algorithm a secret.

Meta tags. Meta tags were once a popular way to optimize a site and guide the spider’s thinking. But they were abused and are now barely used. The "keyword" meta tag is probably not used by Google at all, and the "description" meta tag is used to describe your site in a search result but may or may not be used by the spider itself.

Alt tags. Alt tags are today’s meta tags! Alt tags are pieces of text that you can include with images that are embedded on your site. The thinking here is that if you are putting pictures on your site, they’re likely about your content and therefore the Alt tags will describe the picture.

Keywords. When spiders notice similar words used over and over, that helps them understand what your site is about. (If they see "pizza" again and again, it’s likely that you have a pizza site). If keywords aren’t used enough, spiders can miss it. If they are used too much, search engines consider your site "spam". Most people feel that the keyword "sweet spot" is 3% to 4%. So if your keyword is "pizza", you’ll use that word 4 times in 100 words. Unfortunately, this is abused by many site owners who will forgo readable content for "keyword stuffed" articles that barely make sense. (4% doesn’t sound like much but when your keyword is "Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Pizzeria" it can get tiresome to read that at 4% density.

Backlinks. Google was ground-breaking in their use of backlinks. When they created their search algorithm, they asserted that every link from a site back to your site is a "vote" for the credibility of your site. The more people who are linking to you, the more credible (i.e., authoritative) you are. This has been revised over the years because it, too, has been abused through link farms. However, when your site gets legitimate links from high quality websites, you’re more likely to be considered an authoritative site.

These are among the most talked about and the easiest for newbies to influence. However, there are many more factors, including site structure, site maps, valid code, and more. You can find a lot of helpful guidance here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

The bottom line is this: Start by building your site for people. Do a good job of creating high quality content. There is so much competition out there, and many of them are highly focused on SEO, you are better off to think about your human customers and then incorporate legitimate SEO practices into your site over time.

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SEO and SEM are terms frequently used in the Internet Marketing world. So what do they mean and how are they relevant to you? SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization". It simply means producing and marketing information that lets the search engines know that your content is relevant to certain search inquiries. Your content should be ‘optimized’ for the ’search engines’ so that they can display your content when a person searches for terms that are related. For instance, we hope the search engines will tell people about our site when they type in terms that are related to "Internet Marketing". But in order for the search engines to do this, we have to ‘tell’ them what it is we are producing content on. There are a number of methods to do this. One method is to ensure you are using good keywords and anchor text. Using the right keywords and anchor text says to the search engines, "hey, my site is about xxx keyword so show my site when people type in those keywords." Otherwise how can they know? SEM stands for "Search Engine Marketing". Some people use the terms SEM and SEO and interchangeably. Others would argue there is a big difference. SEM is marketing a site within search engines, frequently via SEO. You can also buy PPC ads (pay-per-click) like with Google Adwords or utilize another method of paid inclusion or paid ads which will put you on the search engines’ radar. SEM will generally cost you whereas SEO methods can be undertaken for free. Whether or not you utilize SEM, as described herein, you certainly need to utilize SEO and consistently build for it. If you don’t optimize your content for the search engines, your Internet property may not get the amount of visitors you would like. Karen J. for Contemporary VA

Article submission is a great way to get your name and expertise out there which can help to solidify your reputation and expertise in your particular industry. It’s also another way you can drive traffic to your sites. This type of marketing is generally referred to as article marketing. Write articles that are excellent in content and relative to your niche. But they key is to find a good balance of giving the reader some excellent knowledge but also leave them craving more on the subject. It can be a tricky balance so if you aren’t the best writer, hire one. There are many Virtual Assistants who specialize in this arena. You may be able to get another website owner to add your article(s) to their site by contacting them and offering your content to their site. Site owners are always seeking out new content. It’s not likely they’ll pay you for it, but that’s not your ultimate goal. Your goal is to spread your word. Do a search and find sites/blogs that are relative and contact the webmaster or owner. Don’t act like you’re doing them a favor, sharing your content with them does you both a favor. It creates a win-win situation. DO NOT blatantly promote yourself or your product in the article. The article should be informative and teach the reader or give them valuable information. Site owners will allow you a link, just ensure you make the most of that link! Don’t forget your anchor text. Article directories will also give you an outlet to publish your articles. Most of them don’t pay, again this isn’t your goal, but there are some sites that will allow you to earn money from your article visits like:

Helium which does allow you to get paid for articles that their clients are seeking and allows you to be paid according to the amount of visits your article receives. Associated Content which, similar to Helium, also gives you the option to have your articles purchased and the option to get paid per amount of article visits. Article Income

The options to get paid via visit don’t pay much but it’s a little something on top of your exposure. Do a search and check around to find the ones that interest you most. Most article directories include a Resource Box for your promotional information; use it wisely. Check out this Article Resource Box article. You can also market yourself as an article author after your articles are published. In sales literature, you can push your article on “10 Ways to Improve Sales” or anything else you’ve written about. Other article directories:

Ezine Articles Article Dashboard Article Base Buzzle Go Articles Article Alley Search Warp Article City

Check out Top 50 Article Directories by Traffic and Pagerank to find out the top article directories and how they match up. Karen J. for Contemporary VA

Link building is one of the ways to optimize your website for search engines. However, different types of links carry different value in the search engines. Overall, Google and other search engines want quality content. The theory is that quality content will lead to more quality links which will lead to a higher rank with the search engines. In other words, a link to your website is a vote of confidence for the content it provides. Types of Links That Don’t Work for SEO Paid links (i.e. advertisements) are not quality links. Many search engines dismiss this type of link since it was put in place by you. Reciprocal links, where you exchange links with other sites, also don’t hold a lot of weight with the search engines since the links may or may not have anything to do with the content on your site. Circular links are essentially non-direct reciprocal links. One site links to another, and that site links to the next, and so on until the last site links to the first. There is no direct reciprocal link, however the webmasters at Google have the technology to locate and break these links when found. How to Get High Quality Links for SEO Directory listings can offer good links if it is a niche directory. For example, if your webpage is on flower design, a link in a directory of florists will mean more than a general business directory. Think in terms of your keywords. Find directories that cater to those keyword niches. The search engines will recognize the link and associate it with your keyword rich content. Partnership or affiliate links can boost your SEO ranking when they link directly to your site without requiring a reciprocal link. Online communities and discussion forums can all provide quality links to your site. When posting to a forum don’t go in with a heavy sales pitch. Engage with the community first. After some time, if you have a solution to a problem that is being discussed on the site, casually direct them to where they can find the answer (i.e. your site). Keyword links are better than links provided in a list. Again, this all relates back to content. When blogging, make your links to a keyword in the post or article rather than providing it in a listing on the side. Find Out Who’s Linking to You Google provides a handy tool for you to see which sites they recognize as linking to you. Google doesn’t capture all links. Links from higher ranking pages will make their list easier. To find out which links Google recognizes type “link:webaddress” in a Google search box. For example, if your website is www.widgets.com, type in link:www.widgets.com. If a number of known links aren’t appearing on the list, it’s telling you that you need to find some better quality links if your goal is to make it to the top of the search engines. Cathy Yerges Partnering in Your Marketing Success

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is all about boosting your website to the top of the search engines when a person searches on a particular keyword. SEO can be intimidating, but it really can be boiled down to two processes: 1) on-page optimization and 2) link building. Here we’ll cover some of the basics of on-page optimization. On-page optimization is all about getting the right words on the right pages. Your first step is to build a list of the keywords and phrases that reflect your product or service. You can use keyword software tools such as WordTracker or Nichebot to perform your research. Realize that the more generic your keyword, the more web pages you will be competing with for position on the search engines. Try to choose more specific keywords. You’ll get less traffic, but it’ll be of higher quality. Once you have the keywords that you want to use, you need to place them appropriately on your web pages. Ideally, each page should only use 1-3 keywords or phrases. If you find you want to put more than three keywords on a page, you probably need to break the content down and place it on separate pages. Where you place the keywords on the page is just as important as the keywords themselves. There are four areas of the page that should include your keyword: 1) The page title – this is your first level heading 2) The page headings – all headers should be in tags 3) The page text – this is your main content 4) The image alternate text – be descriptive in the image alternate text Search engines have trouble crawling tables, JavaScrip, Flash, and images. Make sure these features aren’t limiting the search engines from seeing your entire page. Use alternate attributes if the main content and keywords on your page can’t be formatted in regular HTML. When you’ve finished the page, read it over from top to bottom. If it reads like it’s been optimized, you need to remove some of the keywords. Don’t write for the search engines, write for your readers. Overuse of keywords can get you blacklisted on the search engines. After all this, you’ll want to make sure that the search engines are actually seeing your website. On Google, you can do this by typing “cache:webaddress” in the search box. (For example, if your website is www.widgets.com, search on cache:widgets.com.) This will tell you when Google last viewed your site. You can also find which web pages are indexed with Google by typing in “site:webaddress” in the search box. (Again, this would be site:widgets.com in our example.) The result will display a list of all the pages of your website that Google sees. If you have a new site, or your site hasn’t been picked up by a search engine, you can submit your site to each search engine directly. Here are the links for submitting a site to a few of the more popular search engines: Google – http://www.google.com/addurl/ Yahoo – http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ MSN Live – http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx Alexa – http://www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters#crawl_site Cathy Yerges Partnering in Your Marketing Success