Top 10 Tips to improving your SEO

1. Keyword Research

It is essential when optimising your site, that the content is keyword rich. However, there is little point in writing keyword dense copy if the keywords are not commonly used in search terms.
It is advisable to keep keywords ambiguous when using any SEO tool, e.g. KeywordDiscovery or Google Adwords Keyword Tool. This will allow the SEO tool to return more suggestions, some of which may be surprising, and ones you had not thought of.
SEO tools will also allow you to see the levels of competition for the most popular keywords. This will allow you to optimise your campaign for the most effective keyword use.

2. Link Building

A high Google PageRank is something most sites aim for, and while the algorithm for determining page rank is constantly changing the number and quality of links into your site always features.
We suggest using reputable sites and niche directories to link back to your site. With genuine, relevant content, links back to your site can really boost your site’s PageRank.
Some SEO tools will also allow you to view the number of links your competitor sites contain, this will enable you to make sure you have more valid links therefore it is likely your page rank will increase.

3. Deep Linking

While it is important to have as many good quality relevant links as possible coming into your site, it is equality important that these go to different pages across your site. This will allow you to target more relevant links to each specific page. This will not only improve users experience more but will allow search engines to see that your site has lots of valid content, boosting PageRank. Sites that only have links going to the homepage are often viewed as shallow by search engines, or that the links are not genuine and generated by automation, reducing the sites value.

4. Sitemaps

The site map is an important tool for increasing the ease of navigation across your site. It allows web crawlers from search engines (and users) to quickly and efficiently search every page of your website. Every page of content is therefore easier to find, reducing the number of clicks, both web crawlers and users have to make before reaching the required content.
There is another version of the sitemap that is also used by search engines. XML sitemaps consist of a list of all pages and include the dates the pages were last modified. XML sitemaps are submitted to search engines to help them find and link to all of the content on your site.

5. Relevant Content

The most important part of SEO is perhaps having content relevant to your main page or site topic. The readable text on the page needs to be relevant to the targeted keywords and information in the meta tags and alt tags.
The content needs to read well, in addition to being keyword dense, in order to be useful to a reader. All information needs to be explained fully so it makes sense to the reader. The site content needs to be relevant in order for the search engine to link it to the search term. However some keyword stuffed copy can appear to be spam and put potential users off.

6. Optimise Meta Tags

The Meta tags are in the code of the site. The two most important meta tags are the description and keywords. Meta tags summarize what the site is about and are still have a role in the search rankings.
The description tag is what users will read when your page comes up in search listings and can make the difference between them clicking on your site or not. The recommended length for the description meta tag is 150 – 200 characters. The description tag should have a few keywords within it but should not be stuffed with keywords, this should read like a sentence, not a list.
Many search engines hold little importance to the keyword meta tags due to “keyword overstuffing”. However all search engines still recommend adding them. When putting your list together, you need to think of the terms people are likely to be searching for (see Keyword Research), so they are led to your site with relevant content. It is not useful to add too many duplicates to your site (e.g. SEO agency, SEO agencies, London SEO agency, etc) as these are essentially the same, it is better to pick one or two variations of each keyword.

 7. Use Alt Tags for Images

The alt tags will help SEO as a brief, descriptive alt tag can add relevant text to your source code, which search engines can see when indexing your site. A higher search ranking can be obtained with more relevant content, making these tags valuable.
The use of alt tags also helps the visually impaired who asses the site using screen reader. Whilst they cannot see the image, the alt tag describes what the image was off, so they do not miss any content from the site.

8. Social media

Not technically SEO, Social Media is a fast growing factor in getting your website noticed, and is an important element to include in plans.
Social Media is a term used to describe a variety of Web-based platforms, applications and technologies that enable people to socially interact with one another online. Some examples of social media sites and applications include Facebook, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Digg, blogs and other sites that have content based on user participation and user-generated content (UGC).
To achieve the most form social media it is important to have a give and take relationship. Helping members out with retreats, or digs or giving helpful advice will increase the effectiveness of this media.

9. Ensure Domain Name Contains keywords

You do not need to pack lots of keywords into your domain name, but a few carefully chosen keywords to highlight the topic of the website are useful. Too many keywords in the domain name can make a site look like it is spam based. Avoiding the overuse of hyphens is also a key element in getting the domain name right.

10. Use Headings

The page title will be the first thing a search engine will look at when determining what the page is about. It is also the first thing visitors to your site will see when they get to your page. Therefore it is important that heading contain one or two keywords, they are relevant to the content on the page and provide appropriate targeting.
Headings have an important role in the organisation of information on a website, they are also able to provide aesthetically pleasing aspects to a site. It is recommended to use the appropriate page heading tags through out the site as these enable webcrawlers to access the site easily.

Basic SEO Tips Every Web Developer Should Follow

1. Place Your Keywords In the Title Tag

The title tag is one of the most important things for ranking high for particular keywords. That's why it's very important to think of a title that contains important keywords and grabs the attention of people. Because when people search on search engines like Google, the title of your page will be displayed in the results and people will click on links that are the most attractive to them first. Remember that it's also very important and rewarding to have a unique title, so before you use the title, Google it and see if the title already appears in the top 10 results.
Please keep in mind that Google only displays the first 70 characters(about 8 words) of your page's title. Google does not even index the keywords in your page's title after the 12th or so word. Yahoo and MSN don't even index pages that have a page title that's too long.

2. Optimize Your Robots.txt

Having an optimized robots.txt is important because this file can control which pages of your websites get crawled by the search engine spiders. For those of you who use WordPress, I recommend preventing search engine spiders from crawling wp-admin and plugin folders.

3. Proper Use of the ALT Attribute

The <alt> attribute should be used to describe an image, not to spammed with keywords that have nothing to do with the image.
Why? Because while it's true that search engine spiders cannot read images, they can however read the <alt> attribute, and having it spammed with keywords that are totally irrelevant to the image will make Google aware of what to derank you for.

4. Anchor Text of Links

The anchor text is the text inside your <a> tags that links to other pages. Wether they're incoming or outgoing links, it's important for the anchor text to contain a description of where the link is taking the visitor. This is even more important for search engines because it tells its crawlers where the link is going.
So avoid using words like "Click Here" as an anchor text as it can hurt both your website and the website you're linking to

5. Quality of Inbound and Outbound Links

While most web developers know that having many web sites link to your can boost your rankings, a lot of them don't know that the quality of the websites linking to your websites plays a vital role in your website's page rank. Getting links for random dofollow blogs has a way smaller impact than if a website with a high pagerank links to your website in an article.
Who you link to matters, as Google warned webmasters that they can be penalized if they link to spam websites. Linking to really bad websites (malware injecting websites etc.) can easily get your site removed from Google's search engine results pages(SERPs). One thing to keep in mind is that Google's spiders might not follow all of your links if you have over 100 unique outbound links on a single page.

6. Proper Use of Header Tags

<h1>, <h2> tags etc. should be used when appropriate. Don't be using <h2> tags as a paragraph or using <div> class="title"</div> to display the title of your page or something.
Here's a few things to keep in mind when using header tags:

• only use one <h1> tag per page
• you can use as many <h2> - <h6> tags as you like in your pages
• search engine crawlers only read basic html

7. Importance of the First Paragraph

Your first paragraph is the most important paragraph in your page. This is because it's the first paragraph search engines scan and they assume that it's somewhat of a summary of the page/article. That's why it's essential to have the most important keywords of your page in the first sentence or two.
If you're using the All in One SEO Pack plugin for WordPress, the plugin will automatically take the content from your first paragraph and place it in the meta description, which is the text that search engines display under the title of your page.

8. Ensure Your Site is Accessible

An accessible website should ensure that its content can be successfully delivered as often as possible. The functionality of pages, the uptime of the server, validity of HTML elements are all parts of site accessibility. If these points are either ignored or faulty, both your visitors and search engines will select other websites to visit.
Use tools like:

• Are My Sites Up?
• Link Validation Spider

To know if your site contains broken links or when your site is down.

9. Use SEO Friendly URLs

The URL of a page should be descriptive so both the users and search engines have an idea what the page they're being linked to consists of. SEO Friendly URLs also have the benefit of serving as their own anchor text when copy pasted to forums etc. due to URL having the keywords of the page in its URL. These type of URLs usually rank higher in search engines than pages with a URL like example.com/p=981489894.
Furthermore, when using Dynamic URLs try to keep your dynamic parameters under 2 or else the chance is high than it might not get crawled by search engine spiders unless they're perceived as very important(ie. have a large amount of inbound links).

10. Site Usability

f your website is cluttered with ads and has a terrible layout, accessibility, navigation and low quality of content, chances are that you'll get less people linking back to your site than one that has better usability than yours, thus resulting in lower page ranking.
If your website was designed in the 90s you seriously need consider hiring a web designer to redesign your website.
Take a look at the following example which I took from SeoMOZ.org.

These examples clearly show the impact a decent design has on the way users perceive the website. Users are more likely to buy from Haworth's Furniture because the site just gives a more trustworthy vibe than Workplace Office's website. Furthermore, people are more likely to tell a friend about Haworth's website because it just has better usability and seems more trustworthy than Workplace Office's website.
While a nice design doesn't have a direct impact on the rankings of a page, it will indirectly influence it due to users linking back to the site, trusting it etc.

Top 21 Tips To Increase Page Rank

1. Submit your blog to Web Directories

One of the best way to get High Quality backlinks is to submit your blog in Web Directories. There are millions of Free and Paid Web Directories available.
Some of Good Free Web Directories :

• Jayde
• Dmoz
• Hotfrog
• Somuch
• Searchsight

Some of Good Paid Web Directories :

• Yahoo Directory
• Best of the Web
• UncoverTheNet
• Business
• V7N Web Directory

2. Quality Content

In order to increase Page Rank you must have good quality content on your website. Always check for plagiarism before publishing any Guest Post to make sure that article is genuine.

You may be familiar with the quotation “Content is King” .

3. Guest Posting

One of the most popular way to get backlink from a High Page Ranked blog is to write a guest post, In return you will get two to three backlinks from his blog. Some bloggers don’t allow links to other’s blog in the post so you can only provide the link in Author Bio.
** It’s not as much easy as it seems to write a post and publish.

4. Link Exchange

Link Exchange – One of very common technique used to get backlink from a blog.
Simply what you just have to do is to put a link with proper anchor text to your blog and in return other fellow will also have to do it.
Not only by this way you will get a backlink, but Traffic too  .

5. Domain Age

Google loves aged domains.
So many people register a domain for one year ,Work on it and leave it after one year.
Google trust those domains who are aged and give them a good rank according to their age too.
But unfortunately there is no way to increase domain age . Except to pay before domain expiration date  .

6. Build Link Wheel

Building Link Wheel is one of the most advance and powerful technique to build backlinks.
The basic idea of link wheel is to create a pattern of links which flow from one website to another website which would finally link to a targeted website requiring promotion.
So you get powerful backlinks for your blog which helps to increase Page Rank.

7. Update Your Blog Regularly

Always update your blog regularly. But make sure that what you publish is unique and genuine. Google loves those website which updates regularly with unique content.
8. Direct Advertising
If you want to increase page rank of your blog than always prefer direct advertising because in this way you get a backlink from a website. Your ad can be in the form of image but will provide you a backlink.

9. Article Submission

If you want to get good page rank than always try to submit each of your post to articles submission directories.
Some of good Article Directory Submissions are :

• Ideamarketers
• Articlealley
• GoArticles
• SelfSeo
• EzineArticles
• Amazines
• ArticleDashboard
• AarticlesBase
• Isnare

10. Comment on others blogs

The simplest way to earn backlinks is to comment on others blog. Some blogs provide us Do follow backlinks which are very healthy nutrition for a blog page rank growth.
So keep commenting on blogs which are giving Do-Follow backlinks.

11. Join Forums

If your are using forums for sharing information ,helping others or getting information than must put some links in your threads. But do it safely that they well not consider your threads as spam.
Being fair with your blog, Keep your forum profile complete and provide your blog name in the website field there which makes a Do-Follow backlink from your profile.

12. Keep your blog always up

Google hates those blog which are sometime available and sometime not. So always keeps your blog up. Choose best web hosting to run your business.

13. Use Signatures

Using signatures in your email with your website URL also increase Page Rank. So add signatures in your email to earn a bonus while sending an email  .

14. Special Backlinks

Google loves those website which have backlinks from .Edu, .Gov and from Wikipedia. So considered these backlinks as special backlinks because it’s not easy to get backlinks from these websites.

15. Use Relavent Keywords

Always try to use relevant and commonly searched keywords. It not also boost up your traffic from Google but increase your page rank too.

16. Internal Link

Always try to link your old post in your current post. Google loves those websites who are rich with internal link building. More internal links building gives more traffic to your blog from search engines and increase Page Rank too.

17. Increase Page Load Time

Google hates those websites which open slowly. So you sould optimize MySQL tables usingphpMyAdmin to increase page load time and always use optimized images.

18. Remove Website field from Comment Box

Giving more external links than backlinks you have decreases your blog popularity, Page Rank and SEO of your blog. Whenever someone comments on your blog he puts a link in website field box to earn a backlink along with commenting on your blog. You may know some of blog which have removed website field box because they don’t want to give backlink to blogs.
Removing website field from comment box also causes decrease number of comments because 90% bloggers do comments to gain backlinks.

19. Search Google Your Website

If your blog is popular enough than it may be searched on Google even by placing the whole link. Google consider these blogs as popular blogs and give them a high Page Rank.

20. Social Media sharing

Share your each post to top Social Media Sharing websites like Facebook, Twitter. Make your blogpage in Facebook and share your new posts there which increases interest to your blog.
Some of Social Network Sharing Websites are :

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Myspace
• Google +
• Deviantar
• Livejournal
• Tagged
• Pinterest
• Cafemom
• Ning
• Meetup
• Mylife
• Badoo

21. Stop Palying Tricks with Google

Last thing I want to share to all my readers, Don’t try to cheat Google by playing illegal tactics, Keep in mind you may be smart person but Google is more smarter than you can ever think. Playing illegal tactics not only decrease your traffic but can also remove your URL from Google search results so be fair with your blog and NEVER try to cheat Google.

TOP 10 SEO TIPS FOR BLOGGERS

As president and CEO of Submit Express, I personally oversee the operations of several company blogs and often author industry-related articles. From years of experience in operating mainly WordPress-based blogs, I have learned valuable lessons on how to optimize blogs for search engines and increase traffic to the sites. Here are my Top 10 SEO tips for bloggers; I hope these insightful tips can help improve your blog’s SEO.

1. Conduct proper keyword research and use keywords in your title and content. The title in your home page is the most important place to feature your most important keywords. When you post new articles, keep in mind that most blog platforms will make your article title the HTML title tag as well. Therefore, create your titles with keywords you want to target.

2. Be familiar with your blogging platform to use built-in SEO features. Install additional SEO pluggins. For WordPress, "All in One SEO" or "Platinum SEO" is recommended. They offer many settings that help to create a more SEO-friendly site.

3. Use SEO-friendly URLs. Basically adding keywords in your URLs is a good idea. In WordPress, this is done by turning on a function called "Permalinks."

4. Write original content. Do not copy content from other sites, and if you do, make sure to rewrite it completely to make it your own. More often than not, duplicate content gets filtered by the search engines.

5. Write blog posts on a regular basis and cover the latest topics and trends, which tend to get more traffic while they are hot. Fresh content is part of Google's algorithm.

6. Optimize your image names and alt tags to include keywords for better placement in the image search portion of the search engines.

7. Publish links to your posts on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Also, submit them to social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon and Reddit. Social media involvement and links are good for SEO purposes.

8. Build links to your main page and internal posts. If you own several blogs, try to find similar posts and link them to each other.

9. Write guest blog posts on similar sites for link building purposes. A good way to do this is to ask other bloggers to exchange articles, with guest blog credits. You can also participate in link exchange with other bloggers from blogrolls, but in general try to not have too many outgoing links from your own blogroll, as it may reduce the value of your website.

10. Go easy on importing RSS feeds into your blog. While it could be a good source for additional content, you want the majority of your content to be original. If you’re going to use RSS feeds, I recommend keeping it to less than 10 percent of your overall content. If your regular content does not keep up with that ratio, then remove old RSS posts regularly. There was a time when the "Autobloged" plugin for WordPress was being used by many bloggers, or I should say spammy bloggers, with great success. Sites would receive a massive amount of content in little time and would end up getting hundreds of rankings. However, the Panda update makes this difficult.

Top 10 Directories to List on for SEO

Online directories are online guides that organize websites by subjects. Submitting your website on these online directories can influence your SEO results. The following takes a look at the top 10 directories to be listed on for SEO purposes

What is a Directory?

Online directories systematize websites into subject-based categories and list them in an alphabetical manner in order for easy viewing. Editors evaluate the content of websites and organize them into sub-categories that will then be placed within the directory. The editors that categorize the websites look at various factors before placing them within the directories. Online directories take into consideration the commercial versus non-commercial and geographical components of a selected website. In short, a directory is a database that contains information that has been optimized for reading. These directories also contain search portals for traffic to browse and search for keyword look-ups.

SEO and Directories

The process of SEO involves the evaluation of your existing website. Tweaking of content and text within web pages is carried out in order to make your website more visible on search engines. SEO optimizes your site by using high-quality keywords in your web articles. By doing this, search engines can recognize and trust your website enough to place it in a higher page ranking. By getting your website listed on high ranking directories, your site has a better chance of obtaining high-quality traffic, ultimately leading to more purchases and an increase in your return on investment (ROI). Some directories require payment to list your site.

1. Librarians’ Internet Index (PR9)- A very high-quality free link, but very difficult to get. Websites must go through a thorough review and must contain alot of informative content.

2.DMOZ (PR8)- The Open Directory Project is a great authority link and its free. Unfortunately it can take up to a year to be indexed depending on the editor for the category you are submitting to. Don’t keep resubmitting your site, it only puts you at the end of the line.

3. Yahoo Directory(PR8)- Another great authority link if your site is not commercial inclusion is free but can be slow. Commercial listings are $299 a year.

4. Business.com (PR7)- Great link for business sites submission cost $299 a year make sure to get the standard listing not the PPC which is a redirected link.

5.Best of the Web (PR7)- Free link for non-commercial sites. Otherwise its $69.95 a year or $199.95 for a permanent link. Many of BOTW’s category pages have high Google Page Rank without that many outgoing links making this a solid backlink.

6. JoeAnt.com (PR6)- $39.99 one-time fee, free for editors guaranteed review within two business days.

7. The Hot VS. Not Directory(PR6)- High Page rank directory $60 for a year $200 for a permanent link.

8. Directory World(PR5)- Professional web directory for 24.95 annually.

9. GoGuides (PR5)- Websites are instantly included $69.95 per site.

10. Rubber Stamped(PR4)- Solid link from an up and coming directory $29.95 one time review fee.

Web Directory Facts

• Web directories existed before search engines came into being.
• Online directories contain mass amounts of links to sites, these are arranged alphabetically.
• The directories are edited by humans; therefore URL's are not gathered or spidered. Rather they are submitted by site owners.
• The advantage of the directories being edited manually is that you do not have to worry about being classified under the wrong categories.
• The only disadvantage of directories is that the information available for traffic to browse may be outdated.
• The directories do not have spiders so you will need to submit your URL to a search directory.
• By your site being listed on a directory, you will have backlinks and your site will be visible for spiders to index.
• Dmoz is a very popular directory as it accepts links of all types of sites. It is however extremely difficult to list your website on Dmoz and can take a very long time. Dmoz also only lists sites with noteworthy content.

Conclusion
Online directories help in optimizing your site for visibility within search engines. They also give your site a good starting point in terms of exposure and provide the needed information for traffic to get hold of your business and possibly make purchases of your product or service.

3 Tips For Off Page Optimization Techniques For SEO Success

So today, I’ll discuss 3 tips for Off Page Optimization Techniques For SEO Success:

1) Link Building:

The most important part of Off Page Optimization is Link Building. You should try to get as many backlinks as possible from other websites. The number and quality of backlinks is crucial for your PageRank to increase and ultimately to rank higher in search results. PageRank is directly proportional to the no. of unique pages that are linking to your site. If you have high no. of backlinks from the websites with good PageRank, you will have a high PageRank. So, spend some time in getting those backlinks.


Here are some tips to get backlinks:

- Guest Blogging on sites related to your blog niche.
- Press Releases
- Forum Posting related to your blog niche.
- Article Submission to sites like Ezine, Hubpages, etc.
- Blog Commenting on ‘DoFollow’ Sites
- Image Sharing on sites like photobucket, flickr, etc.
- Video Sharing on sites likes YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
- RSS Feed Creation & Submission
- Directory Submission such as Dmoz.org, Technorati.com, etc.
- Use of Social Media: Share and promote your content on all the major social media sites such as Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Tumblr, Google Plus and Pinterest. All these sites can bring a huge amount of traffic to your site and also helps in link building.

2) Anchor Text:

 Now another important factor in Off Page Optimization is Anchor Text. Anchor Text is the text to form a Hyperlink. If you are not choosing the right anchor text, then all of your efforts of getting backlinks will not be much useful.
For example, If I want to link to this page – http://www.youngblah.com/what-is-page-rank/ and the main keyword is Pagerank.
I can use “Click Here(Anchor Text) to know more about PageRank.”
But ‘Click Here’ doesn’t tell Google Bots what the link is pointing to. So, use the link on the keyword.
Right Method(Example), “Click here to know more about PageRank(Anchor Text)”.
So, you should try to get backlinks from other websites using the right Anchor Text to make your site more relevant in Google search results.

3) Best Practices:

- Quality and Natural Links matters.
- Avoid Paid Backlinks.
- Avoid Link Exchange.
- Try to get Backlinks from High Authority Sites or from sites with at least PR 1 or above.
- Try to get Backlinks from sites that are relevant to your content.
- A link in the footer of a website is weighted less by Google than the link appearing on the top or in the main content of the page.

On-Page Optimization Tips

1. Avoid the following things which can get you in trouble with search engines:
2. 
   
   - Don't use hidden text or hidden links.
   - Don't employ cloaking or lightning fast java redirects.
   - Don't load up your pages with irrelevant words.
   - Don't create multiple pages, sub-domains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
   
   
3. Did you know that every page of your website stands on its own?
   
   
   Every page should have a unique title, description, and keyword tag. The description tag should describe ONLY that page. The keyword tag should include keywords for just that page. Include 5-6 keywords, including the main keyword phrase and synonyms of that keyword phrase.
   Don't make the mistake of including every keyword that could possibly describe what your site is about in your keyword tag. Make your keyword meta tag specific for each page.
   The keyword tag holds very little importance anyway, but be sure to make it page specific. FOCUS!
   
   
   
4. Do you have a site map on your website?
   
   
   In Google's Terms of Service, they suggest that you use a site map, so set one up immediately! There are many excellent programs that will create site maps for you. Put a link to your site map on every single page of your site, and link to your other pages using link text that describes those pages. This link building service includes Google Sitemap Generator Setup, absolutely FREE.
   
   
   
5. Stay away from “little” keywords.
   
   
   When you’re looking for terms to optimize for, especially primary key phrases, it is generally a good idea to stay away from “little” keywords, such as the, and, or, for, etc.
   
   
6. Does keyword in domain name make sense?
   
   People often seem to ask how important it is to include keywords that they want to rank for in their domain name. The answer is that it’s not essential, but it helps a lot.
   
   
7. Make title from 3 to 9 words!
   
   Page title elements are normally 3-9 words (60-80 characters) maximum in length, no fluff, straight and to the point. This is what shows up in most search engine results as a link back to your page. Make sure your Page Title Element(title tag) is relevant to the content on the page.
   
   
8. Describe your site in META!
   
   The META description tag usually consists of 25 to 30 words or less using no more than 160 to 180 characters total (including spaces). The META description also shows up in many search engine results as a summary of your site.
   
   Make sure your META Description Tag is relevant to the content on the page.
   
   
9. Insert keywords in META tag.
   
   For those search engines that are META enabled, the META keywords tag used to be one of the most important areas after the page title and page description. It has been abused by both marketers and consumers alike that there is very little weight given to the META keywords tag.
   
   Don't fret over your META keywords tag. Utilize keywords and keyword phrases from your title element, META description tag, heading tag and first one or two paragraphs of visible content. Try to limit it to 15 to 20 words if possible.
   
   
10. Don't forget about heading tag.
    
    At least one heading tag <h1> should appear at the top of your page and be well written using prime keywords and keyword phrases. You can use CSS to control the appearance of the heading tags
    
    
11. Do you know what is Alt?
    
    Alt text is the line of text you see pop up  when you place your cursor over an image. It also displays a text representation of the image when the user has images turned off in their browser (this is the intended behavior). It is highly recommended that you utilize this area as it is required under accessibility laws and, is indexed by the search engines.
    
    
12. Alt in Internet Explorer is different than in other browsers.
    
    Internet Explorer (IE) will display alt text when you hover your cursor over an element that utilizes the alt attribute. This is incorrect behavior as the alt text is designed to be displayed when the user has their images turned off while browsing. Other browsers such as Opera and Mozilla will not display the alt text on hover.
    
    
13. Traits of Alt.
    
    The alt attribute should not to be stuffed with keywords or phrases. The alt text should mirror the content of the image. If it is a graphic header, then your alt attribute should mirror the text in the graphic header.
    
    Alternative text values should not exceed 80 characters in length. If more than 70-80 characters are required one should use the longdesc attribute as an alternative to alt text.
    Make sure your Alt Attribute is relevant to the content for that image.
    
    
14. Avoid graphic links.
    
    Many web sites utilize graphic representations of links. These are visually appealing, but the text in the image cannot be indexed by the spiders.
    
    
15. Content is King.
    
    Content (visible copy) weighs heavily and is considered one of the primary areas of search engine optimization and marketing.
    
    Your content should be written in a way that grabs the users attention, while utilizing your targeted keywords and keyword phrases. There is a method to placement of the keywords and keyword phrases that will help your web site gain better placement in the search engines. Balance is essential and creating that balance takes knowledge and experience.
    
    
16. Add content regularly
    
    You should make it your goal to add at least one new page of content daily if possible. If not, then once a week is acceptable. You want to keep your website content fresh and give your visitors something to come back for on their next visit. Stale website content may not perform as well as fresh website content.
    
    Utilize last modified dates on your pages so that visitors to your site know when the page was last modified and how fresh the content is.
    
    
17. Name files with keywords
    
    Instead of naming your file pagename.asp, you would name it keyword-phrase.asp or page-name.asp. Always use hyphens (-) to separate the words in your file names, use all lower case for file naming, this includes images too.
    
    
18. Name directories appropriately
    Be descriptive with naming directories. Don't get carried away, but make sure at least one keyword or keyword phrase appears in the directory name. Don't forget to use hyphens (-) to separate the words.
    
    
19. Don't stuff keywords in title
    Don't stuff a bunch of keywords in your title separated by commas. It is one of the most unprofessional practices and it doesn't work real well for scan friendliness.
    
    
20. Define which products have the highest profit margin?
    
    A product that is less searched but has a higher profit margin would be easier to obtain a search engine ranking and would yield higher revenues.
    
    
21. Use only one < H1 > tag per page, and use your keyword phrase in the tag. Use it toward the top of the page. Make sure it captures your visitors' attention as soon as they land on your site. Also, make sure your first paragraph or the first words you use are interesting and designed to hold your visitors' attention. If you don't grab their attention and HOLD IT in the very beginning, they'll hit the back button and go back to the search results . . . it's as simple as that.
    
    
    
22. Another tip on freshening up some of your Title Tags.
    Think about this. Turn some of your titles into a question. Asking a question is a great attention getter.
    - Where on earth would you go if you had your pilot license?
    - What would you do if your career was terminated?
    - When should you submit your web pages?
    By asking a question, you create more response because it makes the reader think.
    
    
    
23. Did you know that there is some relevancy advantage in larger sites at the point that you begin to have around 100 pages or more indexed?
    Something seems to happen around the 100 page mark. Remember to focus on building quality content of genuine value to your readers.
    
    
    
24. How fast do your pages load?
    Did you know that if your page loads too slowly, you could be deterring some search engine robots from crawling your website? Try and ensure your page loads within under 30 seconds (or even faster.) If your graphics are too bulky, check out a service calledhttp://www.optiview.com to accelerate your page loading speed.
    
    
25. Prominence is best described as how close to the beginning of a specific area in which the keyword appears.
    A keyword or keyword phrase that appears closer to the top of the page or area may often be considered mildly more relevant.
    
    
    
26. Next time you are working on an important sales letter, remember to spend at least 50% of your time working on that all important headline text.
    This includes both the Title Tag and your main < H1 > Header on the page. Little changes to Heading text can make huge impacts with a little thought.
    Here is a variety of free validators you can use to check your CSS Style Sheets or HTML Validation or several other unique free tools from the W3.org. http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/
    
    
27. How compelling are your Meta descriptions?
    
    - Do you remember to use your important keyword phrase in the description?
    - Are you taking time to write unique descriptions for each of your pages?
    - How about a call to action? Do you remember to include good calls to action in your description?