1. Additional Exposure For Your Site.

At the end of 2003, Alexa.com’s results were being closely linked into the listings of its’ parent company, Amazon.com. This currently means that when someone reviews your site, it is linked to their amazon profile, which can be accessed when people browsing for books look to see what reviewers like them suggest. In the future, it could mean that amazon.com will integrate your web site in other ways, such as showing a list of websites related to popular topics such as marketing.

2. Alexa’s relationship with Google.com

See if you can name one major partnership that Google.com or Amazon.com has had where the other party came out worse off in the end.

Yahoo? I don’t think so. Though their relationship has soured for reasons that aren’t common knowledge, and Google.com does not supply Yahoo with search results any longer, it certainly didn’t make Yahoo.com less popular a destination online. If anything, more webmaster like you and me, who could not afford the $200 fee for a commercial review to be listed, rush to Yahoo to see if our Google listings really were coming up number one there, too. Can’t think of any other one, can you?

Let’s discuss how this is relevant to you.

This little known advantage to having a good Alexa rating is fairly new. I was doing some research on Google, at the end of last year, to see what was the fastest, cheapest way to get my brand new site good ranking and fast inclusion in Google’s database. Using Alexa.com, I was able to discover one of the biggest secrets online that showed me how to get a visit from the Googlebot spider and included in their index in under a week. The Googlebot spider now visits the home page of my site every day, re=spidering my site when I make significant changes.

While I was at Alexa, I noticed that very quietly, without a lot of hoopla or publicity, Alexa Internet began to include a Google search right in their toolbar at the end of last year. Upon further investigation, I realized that Alexa and Google were getting quite chummy. This relationship directly led to the idea I had which uncovered a way to get Alexa and Google to help me get free, unlimited traffic for any keyword related to my site’s topic.

The idea was so simple, so cheap, and so profitable that I started to write a book about it, which I finished this past January. Everything was great, I was getting great traffic. Then I woke up one morning and checked my email, and most of my online colleagues were ticked off about something called the Florida update, which caused many small commercial websites to have their listings drop in ranking or disappear altogether.

Of course, I went to check on my site.

Not only did my ranking not drop, I had additional listings and improved exposure. One of the several factors that appeared to be the reason for my improved rankings, not just in spite of, but because of the Florida update, was my Alexa ranking. Further testing on other commercial sites of fellow small business owners confirmed this.

This experience taught me to pay a lot more attention to my Alexa rating, as well as to have a new appreciation for the ratings of all my sites.

Your Alexa rating is still relevant to you because it appears to be a factor in your page rank at Google. Generally, anything that is important to Google is important to me, because I wanted to learn how to make the site an excellent source of traffic for me. And it worked.

Working to have a rise in my Alexa rating helped me in my quest for free quality traffic as well- every increase in my Alexa rating has coincided with a rise in both the number of keywords I rank for and the likelihood that my site will appear on the first page of search results, first at Google, then with other search engines.

You’d never know that I haven’t ever submitted them my link.

3.Your competitor’s awareness is increasing.

Those of us who have been online since the early 90’s, before the graphical interface we now call the World Wide Web, are well aware of the Alexa toolbar, and there are many schools of thought as to its effectiveness as an indicator of your site’s traffic.

Whether you believe it’s effective or useful, the fact remains that you can use the Alexa toolbar and the resources at Alexa.com to give your site a competitive advantage. Your competition knows this if they have any marketing savvy at all.

While not as compelling as the fact that Google is now tied to Alexa, it’s no small issue that other webmasters are beginning to show interest in Alexa.com again. Now that Alexa is being positioned to have a closer integration with Amazon, has improved their toolbar to include a free pop-up blocker and Google search results, as well as given webmasters incentive to install the Alexa toolbar, many site owners either offer the toolbar or display their Alexa ranking proudly on their sites.

So, no matter what your personal feelings about the Alexa toolbar are, it may be a good idea to gain the advantages it offers, before your rivals do.

4. Client awareness is rising

Even if you’re not a commercial website, and don’t really compete with other sites for anything other than traffic, you still have to deal with the fact that your visitors are becoming more aware of the Alexa toolbar again. Alexa allows you to customize a version of their toolbar and allow you to offer it as a free download from your site. Not only can you profit from their amazon.com purchases, but when regular visitors return to your site with the toolbar installed, it can help maintain your ranking.

The way things are going, the situation of having clients checking your Alexa reviews and ratings before they buy from you to one day be routine. Do you want to be ahead of that possible trend, or wait, and push it when everyone else finally catches on?

5. Alexa’s Perceived Importance

The whole reason for this article is that in answer to the last article I wrote about Alexa, I got a lot of feedback questioning whether Alexa Internet and its toolbar were still important to webmasters. So far, at minimum, for the last two reasons I stated, the Perception of Alexa being an important webmaster tool is increasing.

So even if you don’t think it is important, if your visitors feel it is, then it may be time for you to at least pay attention to the recent changes.

6. Alexa’s Actual Importance

As Alexa’s perceived importance is growing, it’s actual importance seems to be moving at the same rate. Here’s why.

It would be one thing if all the hoopla about Alexa took place and everyone installed or re-installed the toolbar, and everyone found out that both the site and the toolbar were useless. Remember when auto-surf exchanges first became popular? Everyone jumped on the bandwagon for about a month, then several articles came out about six weeks later, stating that they were ineffectual because real humans weren’t viewing the sites anymore.

Look around the Net for about an hour and see if you can find any new negative press about Alexa from webmasters since November. All I’ve seen are the same questions there were before- is my Alexa rating important, and why? Are Alexa’s traffic stats accurate?

And I still have the same answers. Your Alexa rating is important to you if you have a commercial website because it is important to Google and to your competition. And whether your site is commercial or not, it is becoming important to your visitors, which is why your site exists- to cater to them, you should make your site’s relationship with Alexa.com a priority.

As to Alexa’s statistical accuracy, I can’t say for sure. It’s a much debated topic. But it’s pretty much indisputable that getting into the top 100,000 sites is a significant achievement, though perhaps not as difficult as some think. And having a top 50,000 site is not something that can really be cheated or faked. So perhaps it is not perfectly exact as a comparison of your site to another unrelated site.

But it is the closest thing to a universal, impartial 3rd party measure of traffic we have. And more importantly, it can give your clients yet another reason to trust you enough to buy from your site. Testimonials in the form of reviews on their site, as well as fast access to your contact information from outside your site can mean the difference between a browser and a buyer.

If you haven’t had the chance to download the Alexa toolbar, you can get it from http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/alexatoolbar - or you can get the Alexa Snapshot from www.alexa.com if you have Netscape or if you’re not on a PC. It’s a free resource, and all you have to lose- or gain- is more free traffic.

About The Author

Tinu is a free traffic FANATIC. She has been offered treatment for this condition but says it just saves her too much money! For more free traffic secrets, subscribe to the Free Traffic Secrets Ezine by sending any blank email to ftdsecrets-subscribe@topica.com - bonuses for subscribers include free access to a resource that gets you free advertising for life in 9 minutes a day. Or, get Tinu’s free Google optimization guide at http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com

There are no secrets on how to rank high with the major search
engines because effective search engine optimizations are now
immense. What is search engine optimization? Before we discuss
that thing, you have to understand first how search engines work
and a bit of know-how.

Search engines are into providing their users with the most
relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term
that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which
allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a
word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if
the information doesn’t relate to the search term, or if the
results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh
information that is useful to them.

Updating your website everyday and adding some materials will
help you get noticed by the search engines. So, if you are going
to sell any type of product or service online, you have to
optimize your website for the search engines, in order to boost
traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of your business will
likely come directly from search engine results. And for that
reason, it is absolutely important to optimize your site for
search engines for you to have the greatest deals in the entire
world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which
webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to
augment their website’s status. It is certain that the internet
has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the
best search engine position has created an enormous market.
Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of
Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business’
success.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques
will improve the page rank of your website. There are many
tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most
effective method is to provide high quality content
consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are
many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find
interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting,
well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged
visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the
coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those
boring, lifeless sites then do it. You’ll surely have a step
closer to achieving high page rank through search engine
optimization.

The next significant factor for an effective search engine
optimization is to include keywords and phrases within your
content. To make sure that you are properly targeting your
market, you have to make sure that the keywords and phrases you
have on your site are the keywords and phrase that your site is
actually optimized for. The more keywords you use in your
content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find
your site when they do some research with those words. If you
are unfailing with these techniques, then your overall search
engine optimization will increase, boosting your page rank.

You should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of
your search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free
advertising for your site, but it makes the impression that your
site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each
link that you have pointing back to you, that is another chance
for your potential customer to find you. The more inbound links
that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be
ranked in the search engines.

Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to
search from the internet are looking for information. The more
information you provide for them and the more helpful it is, the
more likely you will make the sale. Writing articles is the most
effective way to build up content for your site. When writing
articles to post on your site, make sure that you develop a
clear means of arranging their content. You can do this by
simply adding a new page to your site. This will allow room for
extra articles to be added as you write them, and will allow you
to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw
online visitors. Make sure also that you have included your
archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of
your site so that the search engines will catalog your online
articles.

Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are
important in developing your site’s status. With that thing in
mind, make sure that you write high-quality, keyword rich
content and link your site to and from a deliberate family of
other sites. These things will help improve your site’s
popularity and coerce increased business through your online
business.

Author is writter for sites such as Information Today

Been hearing the words Search Engine Optimization lately? I know I have. But what is it, you wonder? Well, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.

Search Engine Optimization is a type of pull marketing that uses keywords to boost your search engine rank. What’s pull marketing? It’s what you might call passive, or viral marketing, where instead of aggressively seeking out your customer, you position yourself someplace where they can find you. The most likely place where you might be found is the first place they’ll look: the search engine listings. You know: Google, Yahoo, Dogpile… those guys! But how do you jockey for the best placement? Read on for some helpful tips and tricks.

1. Optimize Your Articles

Article marketing is one of the newest and hottest ways to boost your search engine rank. To check out SEO article marketing in action, go to Ezinearticles.com. Sign up as a member, and start writing and submitting articles that other web marketers will “receive” via an RSS article feed, and promote on their own websites. With every article you write, a link to your personal website is included.

Why does this work to boost your search engine rank? Well, if you add keywords to your web article titles and text, people who type those same keywords into search engines will find your articles before they locate those of another person who wrote about the same topic but didn’t use popular keywords.

For prime search engine optimization, your article headline should include keywords in the BEGINNING (the first 2-4 words- not at the end.) You can find out which keywords are most often typed into Google and other search engines by entering each keyword into the Overture Keyword Selector Tool. Want to know more? Paste in the link below for a crash-course in Keyword Article Writing.

http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Keyword-Article-Writing:-the-Key-to-Your-Success!&id=21236

2. Optimize Your Website

Not everyone knows about the advantages to making your website keyword-rich. But if YOU know, then that means you’re one-up on the next person! So many folks use copy/paste web design programs, paying no mind to title and header creation. As a result, their websites may look pretty, but they’re not primed for top of the search index. When designing yours, incorporate the most frequently used keywords into the HTML title tags. If you do this, web crawlers will be able to ‘find’ you through your keywords and secure you a pretty sweet location in the search engine rankings.

Use the Overture Keyword Selector Tool to research your keywords for popularity and relevance, and then add them to your TITLE, metatags and headers (H1, H2 and so forth). Meta-tags… hmm. What was that again, you wonder? Metatags are keywords used to help identify your web content. These words are listed at the beginning of each page source of your website. A visitor who clicks the page can’t see your metatags, but web crawlers can, and that’s how you get bumped up on the search engine ladder.

You should be meta-tagging EVERY page of your website, not just the homepage, so you can ensure that every section gets indexed properly. Each of your pages contains unique content, right? Well, chances are somebody out there is hunting for it. Let yourself be found.

More about page titles: web marketers are realizing they can make their websites more easily searchable by standardizing their page titles. Some examples: About Us, Services, Contact, Links. Web researchers and web crawlers both know to look for these words when searching for information on the net. Add these to your pages to make them easy to index.

A final tip on website optimization: the savvy marketer knows not to put a Flash intro on his homepage… because Flash designs aren’t keyword-friendly. If you’d like to smarten up your look with one of these, go ahead and use it on another page, but save your homepage for standard, keyword-rich content. It’s the best chance of improving SEO rank so don’t waste the opportunity!

3. Optimize Your Web Ads

Here’s a neat trick: if you advertise your URL on another website that holds a high SEO rank, you can ‘get your name out there’ by piggybacking on their popularity. This works for print ads and banners just as well as it does for the article marketing I mentioned earlier. Attaching your link to one of the top ranked websites increases hits to your site, resulting in better search engine position for you! The idea, again, is to run ads that are full of those popular keywords, so they’ll be picked up by the website indexers.

In short: Search Engine Optimization is really the snowball effect in action… momentum gaining on itself. It’s worth learning all the tricks that will bring your website up the ranks and keep the hits coming! If you’re still new at web marketing and website design, why not get a brief tutorial from someone who’s well-experienced and well-versed in the topic? After that, the only place you can go is up!

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is a New-Jersey based Copywriting Consultant with ten years of industry experience. Her current focus is web content and web marketing for a multitude of products and services although the bulk of her experience lies in retail for big-name companies like Toys”R”Us. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for rates and samples.

If you have ever been into a McDonalds you will understood the value of the Cookie Cutter Model. Every McDonalds you go in are the Same. The Kitchen’s are laid out identically, the procedures from everything to checking the toilet paper to ordering Hamburgers are all Laid out in detail. Have you ever seen a McDonalds go out of business. McDonalds is like a legal cash printing press. If you have a Good Formula you just repeat it over and over again.

Search Engine Rankings are the Same. Once you Crack the Code, Once you find the Formula, Once you know the Cookie Cutter, Simply repeat the Steps over and over again with different Niche Markets and Different Products. Now you can Duplicate the Exact Steps used to get a Number 1 Yahoo Ranking in less then 30 Days and Beat out T.on.y R.obb.ins.

The Yahoo Search Engine returns about 1/3 of all Search Results on the Internet. Clearly if you could achieve a Top Ranking in Yahoo for some relatively Popular Keyword Phrase your Web Page should see a Fair amount of traffic. Yahoo Tells you exactly what they want so why not give it to them

According to Yahoo here is what they want you to do to get a High Search Engine Ranking
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.html

Pages Yahoo! Wants Included in its Index

• Original and unique content of genuine value
• Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
• Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
• Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page
• Good web design in general

Unfortunately, not all web pages contain information that is valuable to a user. Some pages are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results; this is often called “spam.” Yahoo! does not want these pages in the index.

In the Same Help Section Yahoo Tells you what it does not want. The List of what Yahoo Does Not Want is Somewhat larger then what it wants.

What Yahoo! Considers Unwanted Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Yahoo! does not want include: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.html

• Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
• Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page
• Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
• Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames
• Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value
• Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
• The use of text that is hidden from the user
• Pages that give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees
• Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site’s apparent popularity
• Pages built primarily for the search engines
• Misuse of competitor names
• Multiple sites offering the same content
• Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation
• Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience

Step 1 Use Keywords or keyword Phrases in the Title

Make sure your Title that accurately reflects the contents of your Web Page, Make Sure you use the Target KeyWords or Keyword Phrases in the Title. Make sure you place your Title between the Title /Title tags in your Header

Step 2 Place Your Title Prominently on your Web Page

Place The Exact Same Title from your Title Meta Tag at the very Top of your Page between H1 and /h1 Tags. With very few exceptions your Page Title in the Header Tag should be identical to your Title Meta-Tag.

Where it makes sense you should place your Keyword or Keyword Phrases in h2 or h3 in Subtitle Blocks throughout your web Page as Sub Headings

Step 3 Limit the Quantity of Keyword or keyword Phrases Per page

It is best to pick one keyword or Phrase per page and concentrate on it. You should target a Keyword Density of about 3%.
http://www.organicseo.org/Choosing_Your_Target_keywords

Step 4 Have some Useful Content about your Keyword or Keyword Phrase

You need to have some useful content. Search engines are getting much smarter about Robotic Page Writers. One rule of thumb is don’t place anything on your web Page you Don’t want to read Yourself. The Ideal Web Page is a “Perfect Balance” between Human Readability and Search Engine Friendly KeyWord Rich content.

Step 5 Links Related to Your Keyword or Keyword Phrase

Use Links either to related Content in your own web Pages or to External Pages. If you do link to an External Page Send the Web Master of that Page a Note telling him that you linked to him and asking for a Link Back. Make sure to use your Keyword or Phrase in anchor text for these Links

Step 6 Make Your Keyword or Keyword Phrase Stand Out

As you use your Keyword or Phrase in your Web Page do something to make it stand out, Bold the Font or Make the Font Bigger.

Step 7 Use the Description Meta-Tag

Yahoo states that they want to see a Description Meta Tag that accurately reflects the content on your Page, Your Description should be between 100 and 150 Characters in length. Find some Text near the Top of your Web Page that Describes it accurately. Any Well written web page should have some text near the top that explains what is on the rest of the Page

Step 8 Link Partners

You do want some Links from External Sources to your Web Page.
http://www.createafreewebsite.net/finding-link-partners.html

Step 9 Under Promise and Over Deliver

Make sure you have other web pages closely related to your Keyword Phrase. You can either create these yourself or find 5 or 10 Articles related to your page and Post then on your Web Page.

Super User Tip:

If you do re post the article of someone else do something to make it different. Don’t change the Article itself as they would violate the Terms of use. Add a Short Paragraph before the Article telling why you like it or why it is related to your theme. Add a Short Blurb after the article with some related links.

Step 10 Create a Mini Site Digest

Build a Web Page that lists all the Web Pages that are Related. So if your Web Page is about Real Estate you may have a Group of Pages about the Following Topics

• Buying a Home
• Selling a Home
• Investment Property
• Loans and Trust Deeds
• Home Improvement
• Home Decorating

Create a Site Digest for each of the Above Topics.

As proof of how well the above steps works I achieved a #1 Ranking in Yahoo for the Phrase ‘life mastery 2006′ without the Quotes T.on.y R.obb.ins was actually #3. Go ahead do the search see if an ewguru Page appears at the top spot.

About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built an Organization of over 100,000 Members using Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods

http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html

Get Mike’s Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter

More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler The Coolest Guy in The Universe