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Most people do not think of SEO as a game. Let me take 5 minutes of your time and explain how SEO is simply a game of Chess.

I remember as a teenager learning how to play Chess for the first time. Man it was complicated. Each piece moved different ways. You couldn’t take shortcuts and get the game over with. You had to really think about your moves and watch your opponents moves as well. With each move they made, you had to analyze your next move and even the best plans of attack had to be readjusted constantly. The game was always changing depending on who you played against. But once you understood the game, once you understood all the components of the game, you were hooked.

The same goes for SEO.

The First Step to playing the SEO Game is understanding the game.

Read the rules of the game. Understand what is allowed, what is not allowed, and things you must avoid. Research how people will find you. Know what your keyword/keyword phrases are. Who will be coming into your website? Who will you be marketing to?

Google Rules and Guidelines can be found at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Yahoo Guidelines can be found at http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-05.html

MSN Guidelines can be found at http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=
SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm

Setting Up Your Chessboard (or website)

Set up your website correctly from the start. Make sure all the pieces of your website are were they belong. For instance, place your Title tags and Meta tags into your headtags. Create clean style web pages from the start. Move your javascripting and css off the page and into their own file so that the search engines can get to what is important right away.

Playing The Game

In Chess, the rook and the bishop do not move the same way on your chessboard. Understand how each piece of the game moves and works and use them to help you win the game.

The same is true for your SEO. For example, many people do not use their head tags correctly. They try to stuff as many keywords as they can think of into the Meta Keywords tag. This will not get you far in the game. Try to be focused in your keywords. Use 3-5 keyword/keyword phrases at most and never use the same word more then 3 times.

Make sure you are using all the pieces of the game. Title tags, Meta Tags, H1 Tags, Content, Links, Relevancy, etc. Some people think when playing chess that the pawns are really of no use. You can lose them, you can keep them, no big deal. The same can be said about Meta Tags. However when playing against Yahoo or MSN, they will take advantage of your pawns. More so then when playing with Google. But why would you not use these pieces in a game? Why would you not take advantage of every single piece and make each one as important as the others. Would you have a better chance of winning if you used each piece of the game instead of only a few?

Know who you are playing against.

The more information your have about your opponent and how they play can greatly increase your chance of beating them. The same can be said about search engines. Understand how they work and how they find sites. Knowing your opponent can help you to win. But also keep in mind that as time moves on, your opponent is getting stronger. They are constantly changing their game to keep up with the new breed of chess players. You may be able to beat them today, but in 6 months, they may have a new strategy. Keep a close eye on them and change your game to adjust to theirs.

Keep in mind that your opponent will never tell you how they are going to play the game. There are secret strategies that only they know. Many will guess as to what those are, but nobody will ever know their strategy 100%.

Do Not Take Shortcuts Just To Get The Game Over With

The same can be said about using spam techniques to get your site listed quickly and to the top. Spam techniques may work for a short time but once you get caught, you are banned from playing the game. Google states this about spam, “Trying to deceive (spam) our web crawler by means of hidden text, deceptive cloaking or doorway pages compromises the quality of our results and degrades the search experience for everyone. We think that’s a bad thing.”

Basically spamming is a way of cheating the game to win faster. Remember chess is not a quick game. It takes time and patience. No one wants to play with a cheater….NO ONE.

Capturing the King - CHECKMATE

Content is King. Content is the way to win the game. Without capturing the content, you will lose the game. Each of the search engines look for relevancy within your page. If you state that your page is about red dogs with hats, and you have a page written about blue cats with shoes, it does not work. Keep your pages focused. If you are writing about red dogs with hats, write about those red dogs with hats only. If you also have red dogs with boots, then give them their own page and write about them boots separately.

Keep the pages focused and on track. The title tag would be about the red dogs with hats. The meta tag keyword would be about the red dogs with hats. The meta tag description is a nice 250 character description about the red dogs with hats. Use a H1 tag high on the page that has red dogs with hats. You can use css tags to make the h1 tag match your site. Then write clear, focused, original content about the red dogs with hats. Start out with 3 paragraphs and mention the red dog with hats once in each paragraph. Watch your rankings. Add additional content if necessary but do it slowly. Make notes of all the changes that you make. If something does not work, go back and undo it.
Keep adding fresh and unique content to your site.

Do not let your site go into stalemate.

Once you look at SEO as simply a game, it makes it that much more exciting to play. And it’s even more fun TO WIN!

Shawna Fennell is the owner of 1 Choice 4 YStore. A company dedicated to
helping Online Stores. Please visit http://store.1choice4ystore.com for free advice and tips on SEO, Marketing,
Design, and much more. You can also sign up for daily tips at
http://blog.1choice4ystore.com

Want to market your business more effectively online? Consider these three website design changes that may immediately improve your search enginge rankings:

Flash

1. If you have a 100% Flash website, consider changing it. Don’t get me wrong, Flash is nice. The problem is that search engines don’t like Flash … at least not sites that are 100% Flash. Flash handles text differently than a standard HTML page, so most search engines have a hard time properly indexing 100% Flash. Think about it … when was the last time you did a Google search and the #1 ranked site you found was a Flash site?

If search engine rankings are a goal, reconsider your 100% Flash site. Try a hybrid site instead. Make your pages HTML, or ASP based. Include great content, appropriate meta tags, anchor text, structured headings, and then embed your cool Flash elements into the page. You are likely to see dramatic improvements in your rankings.

Frames

2. If you have a frame-based website, consider changing it. Search engines have a hard time properly indexing sites with frames. You should not use frames, if there are other alternatives.

People often use frames to display the same header and navigation across their entire website for consistency. While consistency is good, this can be (and should be) accomplished without using frames. If you have a small site, you can hard code the header and menu into each HTML page. If you have a larger website, you might use an INCLUDE file to keep your maintenance work down. Eliminate frames from your website, include great content, appropriate meta tags, anchor text, and structured headings. You are likely to see dramatic improvements in your rankings.

Embedded Text

3. If your home page text is embedded in a graphic, consider changing that design. Search engine spiders are hungry little varmints that eat up text. If your text is embedded in a graphic, they can’t read it and they go away hungry. This is bad for your rankings. Not sure how to tell if your text is embedded in a graphic? Go to your web page and try to highlight the text (like you would in a word processor). If you can highlight it on the page, then it is text (which is good). If you cannot highlight it on the page, then it is a graphic (which is bad … at least from a search engine perspective).

If you minimize graphic embedded text on your home page and replace it with real keyword rich text, include great content, appropriate meta tags, anchor text, and structured headings, you are likely to see dramatic improvements in your rankings.

Sandra Waggett is the founder and principal designer of MSW Interactive Designs LLC (MSW-ID) major products and websites. MSW-ID provides custom website design, hosting, ecommerce and online marketing solutions to nearly 400 small business clients nationwide. MSW-ID helps small business professionals achieve an effective Internet presence.

Prior to founding MSW Interactive Designs LLC, she spent nearly 5 years working as a Senior Engineer for BAE Systems on the Lockheed Martin Mission Systems Team in Colorado Springs, CO.

While with BAE, she was the training lead for the proposal phase of the Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) program. In this role, she authored the 10 year training plan for the proposal and developed web-based training prototypes for presentation to to the Government decision makers.
Sandy earned her Master of Arts of degree from the University of CO, Colorado Springs, in Curriculum and Instruction, Corporate Track. Her specialties include web design, interface design, instructional design, and computer-based training development.

If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably discovered that simply building a website is not enough to ensure success with your small business. Competition on the web is fierce. Rising to the top of the search engines is often a combination of web-savvy marketing, link trading, and understanding the intricacies of complex ranking algorithms for search engines. You may have already spent a great deal of time optimizing your pages, creating content, and building your email lists. It’s easy to get overwhelmed in your web marketing endeavors, especially if you’re a small business or a business moving online from a brick-and-mortar location.

Don’t worry - the marketing tools that you’re about to work with will enhance your search engine rankings AND attract more visitors, and they don’t require any extra coding or hard core marketing. You can accomplish a lot in three days - maybe enough to take the rest of the week off!

Day #1: Use Craig’s List. (http://www.CraigsList.org)

This is a simple, but rarely used, tool for those that are not so tech-savvy. If you’re not familiar with Craig’s List, here is a bit of information: it is one of the most highly-trafficked websites for thirty-something’s and twenty-something’s on the web. CraigsList announced last year that they were currently serving over 75 million page views per month. The site is ranked among the world’s 125 busiest websites (Alexa). Almost all ads are free (only employers pay to post “help wanted” ads in some areas), and highly trafficked in major cities such as San Francisco, New York, and DC. Craig’s List adds instant link popularity - a friend of mine started a literary website and found himself with over 800 hits a day from several well-constructed CraigsList ads that were “googled”.

How to Do It:

Step 1: Write the ad first. 50-100 keyword-rich words work best, along with a link using your target keywords. Craig’s List accepts html tags and allows you to upload images. If you are an online retailer, consider advertising one product as a test with a link to your website’s entrance.

Step 2: Decide which region you are posting in. If you are a national company, try out a major metropolitan area. If you are regional, stick to the area you service.

Step 3: Find the appropriate category for your ad. Don’t spam the forums, the Craig’s List Counter Culture will resent you! If your website advertises a massage business, choose “therapeutic services”. If you offer classes, choose “lessons”. If you don’t fit into a specific category, choose “small business ads”.

Step 4: Write a specific, keyword-minded headline - don’t try to be too vague or clever. If you offer freebies or coupons, mention this in your ad.

Step 5: Post! And make sure you check your email to confirm the ad. (You can always tweak the ad as long as you keep the email.)

If you have time, create an additional ads. You’ll have to change most of the content. CraigsList’s software is intelligent with recognizing duplicate content. If you are compelled to place a second, third, or 30th ad, change up your keywords and rewrite the ad. Craig’s List erases ads after 30-60 days, so be prepared to post again in a month or so. It’s worth the effort - if not for the direct response, then at least for the link popularity. Craig’s List is one of the first websites in line for the infamous “Google dance.”

Day #2: Become a Vendor

Okay, you’re probably thinking, I already AM a vendor. My question to you is, “Why aren’t you listed as one?” I’m not talking about the internet directories or link exchange websites that list thousands of vendors under the term “resource directory”. What I’m referring to, specifically, is what associations, trade publications, and commerce websites term as a “vendor list”. (Sometimes also called a “vendor directory”.)

Vendor lists and directories are great tools to market your website, services and products to a specific niche. The best part is that most of these places don’t require a link-back and your listing is permanent. The resources listed are provided as a service to their members. In fact, many of these companies will also send out a yearly print version of their vendor list. Your link popularity will be affected as well, since associations and other professional organizations are typically linked to by their members.(making them a “popular site” in the eyes of the search engines…) It really doesn’t matter what you’re selling - a quick Google search will turn up links to a plethora of vendor lists in various industries and niches.

How to Do It:

Step 1: Using your keywords, prepare your descriptions ahead of time. If you’ve worked with link exchanges, you’ll probably already have a few descriptions in mind. The link title should contain your primary keywords. (Not necessarily your website or company name!) for example, if you sell magic supplies, you’ll probably want to use the word “magic supplies” in the title.

Step 2: Find the directories. Keep in mind, a lot of government website use these terms as well, which is great if you have a service or products to sell to the government - you can print out the paperwork to do later. Otherwise, ignore the .Use Google (of course!) to find specific niches. The following terms will help you find what you need. Substitute your market or service for the word “keyword” to find the directories you need.

- “vendor list” keyword

- “keyword” vendor list

- “keyword” supplier list

- “supplier list” keyword

- “vendor directory” keyword

- “keyword” vendor directory

- “supplier directory” keyword

- “keyword” supplier directory

Some of the website will require you to email the information, while others simply have a form to fill out and wait for approval. It may seem a bit tedious, but if you turn on “auto fill” through your browser, you’ll find it easier to fill out a lot of forms in little time. Remember, a permanent link from a respected authority is a powerful thing!

Day 3: Get Froogled (http://www.froogle.com)

If you sell a service or information product, it’s time to try out Google’s newest feature: Froogle. Froogle allows you to upload images, product descriptions, and physical store information to its search engine within 24 hours. And remember, as a Google product, your website unofficially has a chance of increased ratings - after all, Google googles Fro ogle! (say that ten times fast!)

How to Do It:

You can find all of the step-by-step information on using Froogle at its respective homepage.

If you don’t sell specific items, however, Google isn’t going to approve your listing. If you’re a service provider, you MAY be allowed to create listings. For example, you can’t list vague graphic design services but you may be allowed to use a “logo design package”. You may also be able to publish a report or eBook and market it alongside its print competition.

If Google doesn’t accept your product feed, it may be worth it to open up an eBay store. Ebay stores are automatically added to Google’s feeds, and although they cost a little extra money a month, it may be worth it considering the sheer numbers of searches Froogle is already claiming.

Once you’ve put these powerful tools into motion, keep a eye on your rankings and your website statistics to see what’s working and what isn’t. Take a breath before you get back to your enormous to-do list. Congratulate yourself for being ahead of the game. After all, up to 70 percent of small businesses are still without a web presence. Take some pride in building your business in a global market.

And get back to your weekend, instead of your work. :- )

Melissa Brewer is a freelance copywriter specializing in original web site content. Her articles have appeared across the web and she is available for hire through her website or eLance.com.

When Paypal’s official Web site no longer ranked #1 in Google on a
search for “paypal,” it was obvious that Google had become more aggressive
in penalizing sites with “unnatural” backlink anchor text. Although the
high-profile Paypal example has since been rectified, thousands of
webmasters are suffering the consequences of not ranking for even their
official company name, let alone their top keywords. It is important for
search engine optimizers to understand both how anchor text penalties
are being applied and how LSI ensures that anchor text variance will not
dilute a link popularity building campaign.

Anchor Text Penalties

In the past year, webmasters have found that the aggressive link
popularity building tactics that work well in search engines such as Yahoo!
do not fare well in Google. Google has implemented several features to
filter out sites that appear to have an unnatural backlink structure;
one of these features seems to be specifically penalizing sites with
unnatural backlink anchor text.

It has always been an SEO best practice to use descriptive anchor text
in both external and internal links. But search engine optimizers have
often focused on a single keyword phrase when choosing anchor text,
especially if their topic has one keyword that receives vastly more
traffic than any secondary keywords. Since good links are hard to come by,
they do not want to “waste” any of those backlinks with anchor text that
does not contain their main keyword.

The drawback to this approach is that it can be interpreted as
unnatural by a search engine. A site with organic, passively-obtained backlinks
will have a wide variety of backlink anchor text variations such as:
“official site title,” “keyword,” “keyword synonym,” “www.thesite.com”
and even “click here.” If the vast majority of a site’s backlink anchor
text is simply “keyword,” it is obvious to an algorithm that the link
popularity was not obtained organically.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Basics

Let’s now touch upon the myth I mentioned before, that if a backlink’s
anchor text does not contain your Web site’s main keyword, its power is
wasted. The concept of latent semantic indexing, which may be more
fully implemented by major search engines in the near future, will prove
this myth to be false.

Latent semantic indexing can help overcome the “vocabulary mismatch”
problem when a human uses a search engine. Individual words do not always
provide reliable evidence about the conceptual meaning of a document.
For instance, a Web page that is highly relevant to the term “laptop”
may never use the term “notebook,” however it is clear to a human being
that “notebook” is often used as a synonym for “laptop.”

While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the mathematics
behind LSI, its implications for search algorithms are simple. LSI can
use statistical techniques to create a semantic analysis for any given
query topic. In practice, this means that a page can be considered
relevant for a particular keyword, even if it does not contain that
keyword. For instance, a page that is considered relevant for “laptop” can
also be considered relevant for “notebook” even if it does not contain the
word “notebook,” if LSI determines that “notebook” is semantically
related to “laptop.”

The principle can be applied to backlinks as well. Backlinks with
anchor text that do not contain your Web site’s main keyword, but instead
contain a synonym or related word, may still be giving your site a bonus
for the main keyword.

Link Popularity Building Best Practice: Vary Your Anchor Text

The recent increase in penalties given to sites with unnatural backlink
anchor text, along with the possible implementation of LSI, should give
webmasters motivation to vary their backlink anchor text heavily.
Rather than seeking to only obtain links using their main keyword,
webmasters should include synonyms, variations and related words. Certainly no
single keyword variation should be used the majority of the time;
rather, the text of all links should vary widely, just as they would if the
links were obtained passively. This will ensure a site’s improvement in
the SERPs, without drawing a penalty flag.

Andy Hagans is a search engine optimization consultant who specializes
in link popularity building and risk management. Visit
http://www.andyhagans.com for more information. See
http://www.andyhagans.com/link-building.php for more information on Mr.
Hagans’ link building services.

One of the most important steps in any site’s publicity campaign is the submission to the Open Web Directory (http://www.dmoz.org) as this directory provides search results for many of the most important search engines and online portals. This directory is not a robot driven spider, but a human edited directory and you must observe a few important points if your submission is to be successful.

http://resource-zone.com/ubbthreads.php .There you can ask about the status of your submission, but you must give them the date and category to which you submitted your site. You can ask questions about the procedures etc, but one more thing, don’t argue with the editors. Find out how the editors of the directory work and do your best to meet their conditions and you will be successful.

About The Author

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He has been working on the Internet since 1995 and is currently the director of A1-Optimization (www.a1-optimization.com) a firm providing affordable search engine optimization and other website promotion services. You can get his monthly newsletter “A1-Web Promotion Tips” by sending an email to subscribe@a1-optimization.com

support@a1-optimization.com

What’s in store for us in 2006? Inspired by Google’s poor search relevancy and making friends with Wall Street rather than its users, disaffection is growing apace and surfers are switching their loyalties to Yahoo and MSN. Conspiracy theorists believe that Google influenced pay-per-click and the ranking process to crank up their share price to almost double that of January 2005.

But whatever negative sentiments are shared about Google, all of the major search engines have recognised that users are demanding far more specific search, a trend driven by localised search, personalisation and increased specialisation. These three initiatives are narrowing the scope of the current problems inherent in generic search.

Today, web users are demanding far more selection and choice, with personalised content gaining the upper hand. This has been achieved with syndication through RSS. Today, the web is no longer about surfing and passive reading; it’s about creating, sharing, socialising and collaborating. Increasingly, many new websites are disseminating news and views through blogs and articles.

RSS really did make headway last year - and expect even greater take-up this. Instead of the web browser, users are increasingly looking for content via news feeds. This allows them to see at a glance what sites have added new content on any of the topics they select as being of interest. This means less time is wasted on checking to see whether or not a site’s content has changed. It also ensures a more efficient delivery platform.

But it’s not just news sites that have converted to RSS feeds, companies are increasingly offering information via news feeds using WordPress as a seamless and integral part of their website. This method of information delivery helps users evaluate new content and, as a bonus, categorised sections of WordPress blog are being indexed from the home page. This in turn increases the volume of data on the site, thus boosting PR ranking, and broadens keyword exposure.

Also, professional blogging has a very bright future. Internet search now finds many blog sites on first-page returns. Many professionals are also using external blogs, such as blogger.com. When these keyword-rich blogs are linked to the main site, it helps the site to grow. However, the blog should be fresh, as it would be foolish to merely duplicate content and get the main site blacklisted.

The third aspect of the paradigm is article writing. The aim here is to provide interesting articles that, even though they have limited time exposure on the engines, do find themselves float to the top very quickly.

So the professional blogger has a lot to look forward to in 2006. And as business blogs start to take hold as the new standard for marketing, public relations and SEO, 2006 should witness a huge increase in demand for their services.

Sometimes a search engine optimization company will miss that glaring question
posed by potential clients and assume the benefits of search engine optimization
are obvious to everyone. While shelling out a couple thousand on an SEO campaign
is common sense to some, others may find it hard to part with the cash unless they
know it is an investment in their business that is sure to bring a good return.

Search engines account for a huge portion of traffic to web sites. Data varies
depending on what sources you read, but the bottom line is that search engines are
used millions of times each day by consumers searching for goods and services.
And having your business displayed at the top of search results is essential if you
want to do any business from the major search engines. Nine in every ten users will
find what they’re looking for in the top 10 results and won’t go to page 2.

It’s obvious that people can make a lot of money from online sales, but how you
advertise your products has a large bearing on what kind of profit you make. If you
buy advertising space on Google AdWords or other services that charge per click,
you may only shell out 10 cents for every visitor to your site - But what if it takes
100 clicks to make one sale? If your products only sell for $10 a piece, then there is
no profit being made. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns will also never stop costing
you money. Search Engine Optimization, on the other hand, can be very affordable
over months and years.

Many SEO and Internet Marketing companies will say that ongoing maintenance is
needed to reach and keep top search engine rankings. While this is true, be careful
how the company says they do it. There is an affordable way and then there’s a way
to pad the pockets of the “experts.” For more on this issue, read my other article
entitled “What Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO Campaign?” In short, the
affordable way will involve an intense content optimization followed by work to raise
link popularity. This link popularity development should be the bulk of any ongoing
maintenance. A couple times a year keyword research should be done again and the
content should be looked at. Search trends can sometimes fluctuate so you want to
make sure your content is still aimed at the right audience.

What is affordable and what isn’t varies greatly from company to company, industry
to industry. In the bed and breakfast industry, $30 per month may be enough to
keep a top 5 ranking on Google if the market is not very competitive. A web site
competing for a top spot in a database administration field may be looking at
several hundred a week if not more. The bottom line is, if you pick the right Search
Engine Optimization company, your return on investment from an SEO campaign
can be over 1000%.

While there are other ways to advertise a web site (No, search engine optimization is
not the be-all and end-all of online advertising) very few can match the wide
targeted audience and affordability that search engines provide.

John Metzler is the co-creator of Abalone Designs, Inc. http://www.abalone.ca, a Search
Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved in web
design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs into
one of the top SEO companies in the world.

Are you fed up with Google? No good positions there even after months of work? Well, maybe you should start a little smaller and try to optimize your website for the MSN and Yahoo search engines first. Although they are a lot smaller than Google they still can send much valuable traffic and, the most important thing is, they are much easier to manipulate with some clever SEO work. In this article I will show you exactly which steps are needed to probably (of course I can’t promise you results) greatly improve your rankings on the “2nd-tier” search engines.

On Page Optimization

So called “On Page Optimization” is the part of SEO you can change directly on your website (in the html code) like the title and headings. And although Google hardly cares for them they are very important if you want to rank well in Yahoo and MSN because those search engines lay much more weight on these factors. ere is a little overview over the most important ones:

The title: You should use your most important keywords in your

<title></title> tag as it’s probably weighted the most. The best thing is to leave out any other words here.
h1, h2, h3: The headings are nearly as important, Use your keywords here again, but in a sentence structure.
alt, title, strong, b: It’s not proven that those help with your rankings, but many people claim it, and using them can certainly not hurt.

Off Page Optimization

Like with Google, the most important thing to rank well in Yahoo and MSN are also incoming links. The difference however seems to be that those two care much more for quantity than for quality of the links. This knowledge can be easily used for your advantage, for example by becoming a member of an automatic link exchange program like Link Vault. Those will build very many links to your site in no time and therefore fool Yahoo and MSN.

If you did both things, optimized your webpages and built links to your site using one of the mentioned tools you can probably expect increased rankings on the search engines. At least it always worked for me and my websites this way.

Thomas Hfter is the webmaster and publisher of the Metal Music Portal Metally.net and the Smartphone Software Directory Smartphony. You can find more of his articles and tutorials at his personal website, the Lunatic Studios.