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How to optimize your website for the search engines

Search Engine Optimization, SEO Guide

Hello and welcome, This free in depth search engine optimization guide covers all aspects of getting a top ranking in the major search engines. Please take your time and carefully read each section of the guide. I've included some other effective marketing techniques as well.

Ask anyone with experience in e-commerce. They will tell you that your web site needs 3 things to be a success...

Traffic, Traffic and Traffic!

It doesn't matter what you are selling - you MUST bring in targeted traffic if you want to make profits. After all, you can’t make sales if no one knows what you are selling, and how to quickly find it and your site!

So, the important question is...

How do you drive targeted traffic to your site?

Buy web traffic? Yes absolutely, but thats only one method of advertising your website to a large audience and driving traffic to your website.

There must be another way of driving targeted traffic to your site - right?

There is.

Just ask yourself a question. When you are looking for anything on the Internet, what do you do? 9 times out of 10, you go to a search engine and type in something related to what you are looking for. You then browse through the results displayed by the search engine and hopefully, find what you are looking for.

Now, ask yourself another question. When your customers are looking for something that you are selling, what are they likely to do? They too are likely to go to a search engine, type in something related to your site, and look at the sites which come up.

Now, just imagine that it is YOUR site which is listed right at the top of the search results. Do you think your customers will come to your site? You bet they will! And since they are actually looking for what you are selling, in all probability, they will
end up buying from you.

This means that if you can somehow ensure that it was YOUR site which was displayed at the top of the search results, your site will quickly turn into a TRAFFIC MAGNET - drawing thousands of targeted customers every day! And the best part of this is that
you get all this traffic for FREE - you don't need to spend a
dime for getting this traffic!

The Search Engine Optimization Guide along with our search engine submission service will help you accomplish exactly this - it will take you through all the steps that are required to ensure that the search engines simply fall in love with your site.

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While this course will give you most of the techniques that we use to optimize our clients' sites, there's something that this seo guide can't give you - TIME.

Only you can provide this. You need to allocate at least 2-3 hours every day for the next few months in order to put the seo techniques described here into practice.

****************************SIDENOTE*****************************

Here's what we will cover in each of the 5 parts of the search engine optimization guide:

Choosing the keywords applicable for your site.
Creating Keyword Rich Pages for the search engines.
Submitting your site to the Open Directory.
Getting a high ranking in Yahoo!
Improving the link popularity of your site.

At the end of part 5, you will be on your way to search engine optimization glory!

Without further ado, let's begin.

Choosing the correct keywords for a site

The first step in any search engine positioning campaign is to select the most effective keywords for your site. If you initially select keywords which won't bring targeted traffic to
your site, or if you select keywords which no one searches for, all the time that you spend on optimizing your web site for the search engines will go down the drain. After all, what good does a high ranking for a particular keyword do, if no one searches for the keyword or if the people who search for the keyword are not looking for the products and services that you are selling?

Today, we focus on the correct way of finding out the keywords for which you should optimize your site for the search engines.
This article will give you the formula for the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) - a mathematical formula which I have developed to help you determine which keywords you should be optimizing your site for.

Step 1: Open your text editor or word processor and write down all the words and phrases that you might have searched for if you were looking for a company which offers products and services similar to yours.
For example, suppose your company needs to increase traffic to your website. Here's a list of phrases that I might have searched for if I were planning to generate traffic to my website:

generate web traffic
increase traffic to my website
targeted traffic
buy web traffic
how to get more web traffic
increase search engine rankings

Of course, the keywords that came to your mind may have been different. But that's not important - the important thing is to get an initial list of keywords.

You may be wondering why I have not used single word keywords.
Here's why:

Firstly, single word keywords tend to be hyper-competitive. A search for "tourism" or "travelling" in any search engine will probably generate hundreds of thousands of pages. While it is possible that you may get your page in the top 10 for such a
single word keyword, it is quite unlikely.

Secondly, because of the sheer number of pages that single word searches can throw up, most search engine users have realized that they can get more relevant pages if they search for phrases rather than individual words.
Statistical research has shown that most people are now searching for 2 or 3 word phrases rather than for single words.

Thirdly, single word keywords won't get you targeted traffic.
When people search for "tourism", they are not necessarily looking for tourist destinations in Australia - they may be interested in any other country of the world. Even if you got your site into the top 10 for tourism, you gain nothing from such visitors. However, when someone searches for "tourism in Australia", he/she is your potential customer, and hence, it makes sense for you to try and get a top ranking for your site for that keyword. Hence, whenever you are trying to generate keywords, try to be location specific.
Try to think of keywords which apply to the geographic area that your product or service
is designed to serve.

Step 2: Open any spreadsheet program that is installed in your hard drive. I assume you are using Microsoft Excel. If you are using some other spreadsheet program, just change the spreadsheet related procedures outlined here to fit your program.

Create 4 columns - one for the keyword, one for the popularity of the keyword, one for the number of sites that appear in AltaVista for that keyword and the last for something I call the Keyword Effectiveness Index (don't worry - I'll explain what KEI means
later on). In order to ensure that you can follow what I am saying, I recommend that you add the following column headers to the first four columns of the first row of your spreadsheet:

Keyword
Popularity
No. of Competitors
KEI

Step 3: A great way to obtain a list of keywords related to the ones you have developed in the first step is to use WordTracker's keyword generation service by going to
http://www.Wordtracker.com

Click on the "Trial" option at the top of the site. In the page that appears, type in your name and email address and click on the "Start the trial >>" button. In the next page, click on "Click here to start the trial". In the next page, type in the first keyword that you developed in Step 1, i.e. "tourism in Australia", in the text box. Click on the "Proceed >>" button.

Step 4: In the next page, WordTracker will display a list of keywords related to the keyword that you had typed in. (Just scroll down the left pane to see the keywords). Now, click on the first keyword in the left pane which is applicable for your site.
In the right pane, WordTracker will show a list of keywords which contain the keyword you had clicked on in the left pane.
Then in the table that you have created in your spreadsheet, copy each of the keywords in the right pane and paste them in the first column of the table.
Also, copy the number of times those keywords have been used (i.e. the figure present in the Count column in WordTracker) and paste them in the second column.
In order to ensure that you can follow me, make sure that you type the first keyword in the second row of your spreadsheet.
Of course, you should only bother adding a keyword to your spreadsheet if it is
applicable for your site.

Once you have added all the keywords in the right pane which are applicable for your site, click on the next keyword in the left pane which is applicable for your site. Once again, WordTracker will display a list of keywords in the right pane which contain the keyword you had clicked on in the left pane.
Again, copy the keywords in the right pane which are applicable for your site and paste them in the first column of your spreadsheet. Also, copy the figures present in the Count column and paste them in the second column beside the corresponding keywords.
Repeat this process for each of the keywords in the left pane.

Step 5: Once you have finished with all the keywords in the left pane, press your browser's Back button a number of times until WordTracker again displays the text box which asks you to type in a keyword.
Type in the second keyword in your original list (i.e."travel to Australia"), click on the "Proceed >>" button and repeat Step 4. Do this for each of the keywords that you
developed in Step 1.

Step 6: Go to http://www.google.com Search for the first keyword that is present in your spreadsheet using exact match search (i.e. you should wrap the keyword in quotes, i.e. you
should type a quotation mark " before typing the keyword and a quotation mark " after typing it).
AltaVista will return the number of sites which are relevant to that keyword. Add this number to the third column of the spreadsheet in the same row in which the
keyword is present.
Repeat this process for each of the keywords present in your spreadsheet. Once you have done that, your first column will contain the keywords, your second column will show
the popularity of the keywords and your third column will contain the number of sites you are competing against to get a high ranking for those keywords.

Now it's time to calculate the KEI!

Step 7: The Keyword Effectiveness Index is the square of the popularity of a keyword multiplied by 1000 and divided by the number of sites which appear in AltaVista for that keyword. It is designed to measure which keywords are worth optimizing your site
for. Higher the KEI, better the keyword.

I am assuming that you have created the spreadsheet columns in the way I recommended in Step 3 and that you are using Microsoft Excel. If you are using some other spreadsheet program, you will need to adjust the formula to the requirements of your spreadsheet
program. Click on cell D2. Type in the following exactly as it is shown:

=IF(C2<>0,B2^2/C2*1000,B2^2*1000)

Then click on the Copy button to copy the formula, select all the cells in column 4 which have keywords associated with them and press the Paste button to paste the formula.
The KEI for each keyword will be displayed.

Step 8: Use your spreadsheet program's Sort feature to sort the rows in descending order of the KEI. In Excel 97, you would click on the Data menu, click on the Sort menu item, choose KEI from the drop-down combo box named "Sort by", click on the
"Descending" option next to it, and then click on OK.

And guess what - that's it! You now know the keywords which you should optimize your site for. You can now start optimizing your site one by one for each keyword, starting with the keyword with the highest KEI. Exactly how many of the keywords you choose to optimize your site for largely depends on the amount of time that you can spare from your normal business activities.
But whatever the number of keywords that you target, it obviously makes sense
to go for the most effective keywords first.

Tying up the loose ends:

The number of related keywords that WordTracker displays in the free trial version is limited. In order to get all the keywords which are related to the keywords you have developed in Step 1, you would need to subscribe to WordTracker's paid service.

Chapter 2, will tell you how you can create pages which are designed to get top rankings in the search engines for these keywords. Before you read Chapter 2 of the search engine optimization guide, it is essential that you develop the list of keywords which are applicable for your site using the techniques described. Without the list of keywords, you won't be able to use the strategies present in Chapter 2.

Making your website search engine friendly
Top search engine placement doesn't require you to lose your appealing design. While "content is king" for high search engine rankings as well as good link and site popularity, your imagination and creativity with designing an eye catching website can still be possible when you know the search engines rules.

Design around your content, not the other way around.
Smart clients often provide a long list of what they want on the main page, or what they have in mind. If high search engine rankings are on that list, as they usually are, you'll need to create your design around keyword rich content (about 250 words), especially for your main page.

This tutorial provides a broad overview of ideal approaches, what can still work, and what you ought to avoid if search engine rankings are important. There are times when we forego the ideal for various reasons, so I'll try to steer you around the roadblocks on the way regarding graphics, Flash, frames, splash pages, and other potential perils.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Website designers must design for search engines, not just for browsers. But the absolute best way to be listed is to have really good content."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Splash Pages that sink your site rankings!
A client of mine last year asked for a splash page that would provide a specific mood before going into the main contents of the site. Animated introductions using Macromedia Flash are also very popular right now. But how does a splash page or a Flash intro impact search engines indexing your site?

If your client wants higher rankings, search engine experts, all agree that for the best results a site needs to be content rich with carefully placed keyword phrases, especially the main page.

"Oh-No." That doesn't describe the typical splash page, does it? Since splash pages and Flash intros may have very little (or no) HTML text, they are not helpful for search engines and could potentially inhibit indexing. If your main page has little or no text, there's very little content that the crawler will index... which means your site won't show up when people do searches.

There are also search engines that only index your main page, so if it happens to be a splash page with very little text, your site has little or no chance of showing up in any search results. META tags can help for search engines that recognize them, but without rich content, your odds of getting listed at all, much less achieving top rankings, are tremendously reduced.

[See also: Flash section below for providing text alternatives for Flash 5 META Tags section for the myth about their sole purpose.]

What does all this mean for site design? For starters, ideally your main page will be content rich with plenty of keyword phrases. The next section will head into the ideal and what's needed to steer around the potholes.

Designing for Text
What about graphics? What about that beautiful Flash intro? What about the collage another client wants on a splash page? Well, you won't have to steer off the cliff. There are plenty of possibilities for reaching the heavens and great search engine rankings too if you keep focused on working with the content.

You already know that the main page is typically the most important page of your entire site, and not just for search engine optimization. A recent study shows that visitors often decide within a few seconds whether or not they'll stay, and search engines also rely on your main page to index your site, in addition to many of them only allowing the main page to be submitted.

Let's keep it simple here. Search engines will read text. How can you work with that? It's similar to working with accessibility guidelines.

Here are some recommendations:
Provide text-only alternatives for your content that can't be read by search engines (such as JavaScript, image maps, Flash and other multimedia)
Include text for your image ALT tags
Consider how you use HTML tags, such as header tags and their order and use
at least 250 words of rich search engine friendly content on your main page (search engines generally give more weight to content higher up on the page, too)
Site navigation and architecture should be easy to follow (uncluttered)
Effective TITLE tags and META tags
The above is probably nothing new to you in terms of elements for site design. These are also important parts of having your site or your client's site appear at the top of the search engine listings.

Great Content
Whether you are a content developer, or your client provides the content, it needs to be written with search engines in mind and with the internet in mind. Since the top 250 words of your main page are critical to help your search engine results, the job as designer is to create a design to allow for this to work well. You may need to advise your client to turn over the job of writing keyword rich content to a specialist for the best results with both search engines and for interesting reading. There are also very helpful tools, such as Wordtracker to help you research the most popular keyword phrases for the site you're designing.

Laying out the copy with percise sentences, short paragraphs, bullets, and 2 or 3 columns are a few of the possibilities for formatting the rich content needed. How to Write a Keyword-Rich Home Page the Search Engines Will Love.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Not only is it easier to write keyword-dense text when you keep your page length to at least 250 words, search engines tend to adore copy with some 'beef.'

(Hint: Are you afraid that your 250+ word copy will look like an endless scrolling text block? Tricks like writing short paragraphs [this works great for multiple-column layouts], including subheadlines and integrating keyword-rich bullet points, will help enhance usability while satisfying the search engines.)"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Site Navigation
Search crawlers will follow links. So if you have good internal links within your site, there's a far greater chance that crawlers will follow the links. This is one way of encouraging "deep crawling."

The creation of good internal linking is also part of an effective, user-friendly site. When developing your site design, consider the user-friendliness of the navigation, which if high will also make it easy for spiders to crawl through your site without getting their legs caught in somebody else's web.

While text navigation is the most search engine friendly, graphic images for navigation and JavaScript mouseovers can still be search engine friendly. Here are a couple of possibilities.

If you use graphic navigation links, remember to use the ALT tags for the images so that the search engines that read ALT tags will pick up those keywords, too. As mentioned above, there are many correlations between using accessible code and optimizing your design for search engines, with the ALT tag being no exception.

<img src="images/ourlogo.gif" width="300" height="60" alt="Your company name and keyword rich slogan" border="0" />

If you use JavaScript mouseovers for your navigation, be sure to provide HTML links within the code along with including text for the ALT tag, too. Here's an example:

(In your external JavaScript file)

if (document.images) {

imageon2 = new Image
imageoff2 = new Image

imageon2.src = "images/yourimage.gif"
imageoff2.src = "images/yourimage.gif"
}

else {

imageon2 = ""
imageoff2 = ""
document.image2 = ""
}

(In your HTML document:)

<a onMouseover="document.image2.src=imageon2.src" onMouseout="document.image2.src=imageoff2.src" href="who/index.html"><img name="image2" src="images/whoweareoff.gif" width="80" height="18" alt="Who We Are" border="0" title="Find out about the people behind the company" /></a>

Here are some samples on the Web.

JavaScript navigation: To view a sample of this type of JavaScript navigation implemented live on the Web, check out the main page of SKDesigns.

Graphics navigation: Exceptional Smiles and WebsiteTips.com above are both samples of using graphics for navigation.

Text navigation: LinkwareGraphics.com Super BladePro Presets has a similar design to WebsiteTips.com except using text navigation.

Flash
By now, you may be realizing why Flash intros or splash pages typically don't help search engine rankings. This doesn't mean not to use Flash within websites, though. It's not the tool itself -- it's how it's used that makes the difference.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A Flash animation of bats flying around in the center of the page. Necessary? One could argue for or against that. Personally, while I think it's amusing, I found the movement in the center of the page distracting from reading about their products.

What about search engines reading Flash files? Well, there's progress being made, although there needs to be more. Using the Macromedia Flash Accessibility Kit with Flash 5, you can now provide a text version of the Flash information enclosed in an ALT tag within the <noscript> tags. This approach could potentially be read by search engines that read ALT tags. The Kit also provides a script to detect the presence or absence of the Flash player.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Since search engines are generally like old, non-JavaScript browsers, the text you put in a NOSCRIPT tag is actually text you are explicitly trying to make them see.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Does it really matter if search engines can read Flash files? The answer to this depends on the site and the content of the Flash file(s). If you have a Flash file on the main page that's potentially full of key phrases and information that you'd love to pull in visitors for, then it could help. Many ingredients go into providing good search engine results, though, with text alternatives for Flash potentially being one of the many ingredients.

As of the date of this tutorial, there doesn't seem to be documentation available about whether or not this NOSCRIPT tag alternative in Flash is being read by major search engine spiders. However, the Atomz Flash FAQ explains how Flash files are read by its popular hosted website search engine. The technology is available, and hopefully we can stay tuned for these being read in the not too distant future (if they aren't already beginning to read the Flash 5 text alternative described above).

JavaScript
If you're using JavaScript within your page between the HEAD tags, for example, consider moving your JavaScript code to an external .js file. Otherwise some spiders will read your JavaScript code first, giving this greater importance than your content.

[Need some tips on writing an external JavaScript file? WebsiteTips.com JavaScript section provides annotated links to some of the best tips and tutorials at WebReference, WebReview, JavaScript Primers, and more.]

Frames
Framed websites are often loaded with problems, with one of the negative aspects being complications with search engines. Either the search engine indexes an orphan window outside of the frameset, leaving the visitor stranded and unable to link into your site, or the search engines won't even enter a site with frames at all. Neither of these scenarios are very pretty, are they?! With a few snippets of code and a little planning, that can be changed so that search engines can still index your site and also not link to dead end orphan windows.

There are two main points to allow for:

Always provide links from your individual pages back into your site. Minimally, include at least one link to the site's main page (logo). Optimally, include the site navigation so visitors can click into various parts of your site as they wish.
Additionally, you can add some JavaScript to force pages into a frameset. This prevents visitors from inadvertently accessing an orphaned page. So, if a search engine links to one of the content frames, for example, the JavaScript will call all pages in the frameset, eliminating a stranded orphan site. (This doesn't exclude the need for navigation links, though. They're still important.)

If (top.location.href == self.location) {
top.location.href = "URL";
}

where "URL" is the URL of the frame file.

When you build the frameset for your site, include the <noframes> </noframes> tags to allow for non-frames capable search engines to spider your site (which is the same as for non-frames capable browsers). Here's a sample below:

<html>
<head>
<title>Descriptive title </title>
</head>
<frameset>
<frame src="nav.html" name="nav">
<frame src="main.html" name="main">
<noframes>
<body>

<p>Include text here that the search engines can read as well as for non-frames capable browsers. Sometimes people place their entire body copy here in lieu of building a separate no-frames version of a site.</p>

</body>
</noframes>
</frameset>
</html>

PDF
Google is the first major search engine to index PDF files, a long overdue feature. Google actually provides text-only versions of over 10 million PDF files, or you can view them with Acrobat Reader.

The other good news is that Acrobat 5 will allow you to add meta tags to PDF documents.

"Create custom search criteria--Create and embed metadata in an Adobe PDF file, thus expanding the ways the file can be searched. eBook publishers can add a metadata field, for example, that enables digital books to be searched by ISBN numbers. Metadata is written in XML, which means the metadata in Adobe PDF files can be indexed by Internet search engines.

I think we can anticipate other search engines to follow Google's lead. Right now, though, keep in mind that only Google is indexing this format, so don't put too much weight into them for search engine rankings until more search engines and directories list them.

For website search engines, companies like Atomz will already index PDF files. So if you use Atomz or other website search programs with this feature, your visitors will find the PDF files indexed in their searches, too. If you wish to see Atomz's PDF search feature, run a search at WebsiteTips.com (try using "border background").

Creative Style Sheets
With some careful thought, it is also possible to use style sheets to your advantage when coding pages, too. You may already know that search engines pay attention to header tags and other tags as ranking in importance to each other (in addition to giving more weight to text closer to the top of a page). Style sheets provide more flexibility to determine font sizes, weight, line heights, and more.

For example, you could have your main header tag, <h1> </h1>, as your page header, but change the font size and default padding above and below this tag within your style sheet code if you wish. You could also try wrapping some of your important keyword phrases inside header tags so search engines rank their relevancy higher. I also suggest a conservative approach so that search engines don't think you're trying to trick them.

Additionally, if you use an external style sheet, you'll eliminate a fair amount of code for search engines to read through. Here's an example of the difference.

Using font tags:

<h1><font face="Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#000080" size="6">Document Title</font></h1>
Using external style sheet:

<h1>Document Title</h1>

Dynamically-Served Content
One of the fairly common problems with dynamic page creation and search engines indexing them is the ? (question mark) symbol within its URL. Search engines may stop at the ? symbol within a URL, thus not indexing the proper URL. For example, this URL:

http://www.wholesalewebsitetraffic.com/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?name=fonts

may actually be read by a spider as:

http://www.wholesalewebsitetraffic.com/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi

As a result, the search engine attempts to retrieve an invalid URL and fails to index any of the content served by that script. It's not a hopeless situation, though! There are workaround solutions and software solutions designed to make the URLs more search engine friendly for environments based on Apache, ASP, and Cold Fusion.

For Apache:
Apache Docs: mod_rewrite URL Rewriting Engine

For ASP:
PortalPageFilter, by AlphaSierraPapa.

For Cold Fusion:
Spiders and Dynamic Pages Thread via Allaire Forums

An alternative is to use software designed to mirror your dynamic pages into static pages, such as:

Convert dynamic content to static pages:
UniT Text Generator

How to transform CGI-generated URLs into meaningful user interfaces:
URLs! URLs! URLs!, by Bill Humphries

META Tags
There are still plenty of people who think that meta tags are the one and only answer to achieving high search engine rankings. The reality is that....
1) not all the major search engines read meta tags, and 2) they're important but they're not the sole means of search engines and directories listing or indexing your site.

<head>
<title>your descriptive key-phrase rich title goes here</title>
<meta name="description" content="meta tag description goes here" />
<meta name="keywords" content="keywords go here" />
</head>

A Word to the Wise
There are plenty of techniques that will hide keyword-rich "content" from users while making it accessible to search engines. Two commonly used ones are:

Creating hidden layers
Using <font> or a style to set text to the same color as the background color of the page
However, this approach of hiding machine-readable (but not human-readable) keywords can be put under the heading of "spamming," which an increasing number of search sites are starting to ban (or at least avoid). The chances are that you will be best-off avoiding these approaches altogether.

Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
It can't be emphasized enough that all the above tips in combination tend to be most effective. In other words, don't count on META tags as your sole means of gaining high rankings, especially if you don't use other critical points in helping your rankings. Utilize as many of the optimization points as possible.

It's also a frequent practice to remind clients that while search engine rankings can play an important role in bringing visitors to their sites, there are other sources to be included for bringing in visitors to a Web site, such as traditional advertising, word of mouth, networking, and many others.

Designing with search engines in mind can still allow you to be creative and shoot for the moon while also achieving better search engine rankings, too.

Now it's time to figure out how you can get a high ranking in the search engines for those keywords. The solution is to create Keyword Rich Pages (KRPs) - pages which
provide good content and in which a particular keyword is repeated a number of times so that the page gets a top ranking for that keyword.

****************************SIDENOTE*****************************

I am assuming you have a working knowledge of the different HTML tags like the Title tag, the Meta Description tag, the Meta Keywords tag, the Heading tags, etc. If you don't, just go to http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html
for a good introduction to such tags:

Now, let us assume that your company sells packaged tours to Australia, and that you are targeting the keyword phrase "travel to australia". Here's how you create the KRPs:

The Title Tag:

The first and most important tag to consider is the Title tag.
You should always begin the Title tag with the keyword that you are targeting. Also remember that the search engines are going to display the Title tag while they are displaying the results of a search. Hence, you need to make the Title tag attractive to
humans as well.

Here is one Title tag that I may have used: "Travel to Australia and discover its scenic beauty". Have a look at the Title tag it uses the keyword right at the beginning and also tells people how beautiful a place Australia is.

Of course, all Titles need not be like the one I used. The Title that you use depends on the subject matter of your site. However, you should follow all the general rules that I have outlined here.

Meta Description Tag:

The Meta Description tag is used by many search engines to provide a short description of the page that is listed in the search results. Hence, like the Title tag, it is important that
the Meta Description tag be keyword rich as well as attractive to humans.

The rules for the Meta Description are more or less the same as those for the Title tag. However, the content of this tag will generally be longer than that of the Title. Here's what I may have used in the Meta Description tag:

"Travel to Australia - We take care of all the details of your trip so that you can travel with complete peace of mind."

Note how this description repeats the keyword and also the benefit that it stresses - it says that the customer will be able to travel without having to worry about the intricate details of
the trip - you will take care of them.

Meta Keywords Tag:

The Meta Keywords tag has become less and less important as far as search engine optimization is concerned. In fact, you can get top rankings without having anything in the Meta Keywords tag at all. However, just to be on the safe side, you would want to
include some keywords in the Meta Keywords tag. You should also include some of the common upper/lower case variations of the keyword. The rules for the Meta Keywords tag are pretty simple - don't repeat any keyword in the Meta Keywords tag more than three
times and don't repeat any keyword one after the other. Here's what I may have used in the Meta Keywords tag:

"Travel to Australia, tourism, travel to Australia, Down Under,
TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA"

Note how I have introduced "tourism" and "Down Under" just to
separate the different instances of the keyword.

Body of the page:

Now we come to the actual body of the page. Begin by getting hold of a nice (but not too large) picture which is applicable for the page that you are creating. In the present case, I might include a picture of the lotus shaped Sydney Opera House. Place this
picture at the top of the page. In the Alt tag for the picture, just mention your target keyword once, i.e. the Alt tag would be "Travel to Australia". You can include other words in the Alt tag, but it should start with the keyword you are targeting.

Once you've put up the picture, it is time to create a Heading for your page. Use the H1 tag to do so. Again, in the H1 tag, mention your target keyword once, i.e. like the Alt tag for the
picture, the H1 tag could be "Travel to Australia". Again, like the Alt tag, you can include other words in the heading, but the heading should start with the keyword you are targeting.

Now it's time to create the actual text of the page. The way you create the text of your page would depend largely on what you want the visitor to do after reading this page. In some cases, you may simply want the visitor to go to the home page or another
specific page in your site after reading this page.
In this case, you should write the text in such a way that the visitor is attracted to the page that you are targeting. You would also want to provide links to the home page or the specific page that you are targeting at strategic places in the KRP. Or, you may want
the visitor to click on the link to an affiliate program that you are a member of. In this case, you would stress the benefits that the visitor gets by purchasing the product or service that the affiliate program is selling.
You would also want to provide links to the affiliate program at strategic places in the page
and/or at the end of the page. Whatever it is that you want your page to do, there are some general rules to follow:

1) The first thing to remember is that some search engines don't recognize the Meta Description tag. These search engines will often simply take the first few lines of text in the body of your page and display that as the description.
Hence, you must ensure that the first few lines of text in your page are attractive to
human beings.

2) Ensure that as many sentences as possible in the page contain your target keyword once. The keyword shouldn't just be placed on an ad hoc basis - the way the keyword is placed in every sentence should actually make grammatical sense and the repetition should be such that your human visitors do not feel that you have deliberately repeated a particular phrase throughout the page.
This is not only important from the point of view of ensuring that your readers don't get a bad impression of your site, but also from the point of view of search engine optimization - the search engines may penalize your page for spamming if they find that you have randomly repeated the keyword throughout the page.
Also, while repeating the keyword in the page, try to repeat the keyword once near the top of the page and once near the bottom.

3) Make sure that your paragraphs are not too long - each paragraph should be no more than 3 or 4 sentences long. This is because people on the web simply don't have the time or the inclination to read long paragraphs.

4) Try to ensure that the page contains links to other pages with the keyword being present in the text under the link. This can often lead to a higher ranking for your page.

5) If possible, link to other pages which have the keyword in the file names. This can again lead to a higher ranking for your page.

6) There is no hard and fast rule regarding the total number of words that should be present in the KRPs. As a rule of thumb, try to ensure that there are between 500-600 words. However, if the number of words falls a bit short of or exceeds this limit, don't
worry too much.

Once you have created the page, ensure that the name of the file in which it is saved contains the keyword and that the individual words of the keyword are separated by hyphens. In this case, the name of the file would be travel-to-australia.html.
This will get you a higher ranking in the few search engines which give a lot
of emphasis on the keyword being present in the file name.

Now that you have created the KRP, you cannot simply upload it to your site and submit it to the search engines. This is because the search engines take a rather dim view of pages which only contain outgoing links to other pages but do not contain any incoming links from other pages. The search engines may penalize sites which have such pages.

What you should do is to provide a link to these KRPs from the home page of your site. Now, you don't want people who are seeing the home page to actually follow these links to the KRPs - you only want the search engines to follow these links. However, you can't create links with hidden text (i.e. text with the same color as the background color) in your page since the search engines will almost certainly penalize or even ban you for doing this.

What you should do is to create a small transparent gif image.
Then, name this image with the same file name as the name of the KRP you have created. Hence, in this case, you should name the image travel-to-australia.gif. Then, add this image to the end of the home page and have it link to the KRP. Also, you should explicitly set the border of the image to 0 (add border = "0" to the img tag of the image). Otherwise, when you get the image to link to the KRP, a border may be visible.

That's it! When you want to target another keyword, create another KRP for it, make a copy of the image that you created for the first keyword, rename it to the file name of the new KRP, add the image to the home page and then link it to the new KRP.
Repeat this process for every keyword that you are targeting.
Once you have created all the KRPs and once you have got the home page to link to each of them, upload all the KRPs and the gif images to your site, and submit your home page and each of the KRPs to the search engines.
When you are submitting these pages, to be on the safe side, make sure that you submit no more than 1 page per day to any search engine - otherwise, you run the risk of some search engines ignoring some of the pages you have submitted. You can hand submit your site by going to the individual "Add URL" pages of each engine. Required now by AltaVista and the other major SE's will likely follow.

This completes Part 2 of the Search Engine Optimization Guide. You have learned how you can create pages which are designed to get top rankings in the search engines.

Chapter 3 of the search engine optimization guide will tell you how you can submit your site to the Open Directory in order to get a high ranking in the search engines like AOL, Google, Lycos and Netscape which take their results from the Open Directory (Dmoz).

Chapter 1 of the Search Engine Optimization Guide taught you how to select the most effective keywords for your site. Chapter 2 taught you how to create pages designed to get top rankings for these keywords.
However, the techniques described in chapter 2 will only work in the spider based engines (like AltaVista and Google), i.e. the engines which send a computer robot to visit your site and index all the pages present in it.
They won't work with the directory based engines which take their results from a human edited directory. Today, we look at how you can get a high ranking in 3 of the most important directory based engines - AOL, Lycos and Netscape - all of whom take their top results from the Open Directory ( http://www.dmoz.org ).

Getting your site an optimum listing in the Open Directory is vitally important not only because AOL, Netscape & Lycos all take their results from the Open Directory but also because Google gives a lot of importance to sites being listed in the Open Directory.
In addition to this, getting registered by the Open Directory will also help you improve the link popularity of your site which helps your rankings in almost all the spider based engines.

Today, we focus on how you can get your site an optimum listing in the Open Directory. Even if your site is already listed in the Open Directory, you should read today's lesson to find out how you can get multiple listings in the Open Directory.

Before you submit your site, go through your entire site and ensure that there are no missing graphics, no links leading to empty or non-existent pages and no "Under construction" symbols.
Also, check for typos and grammatical errors. Furthermore, your site must provide good content. If your site simply contains links to various affiliate programs, you will find it difficult to get through. The Open Directory does not mind sites containing links to affiliate programs, as long as you provide proper content.

Now, we need to review the factors that AOL, Netscape and Lycos use to rank sites from the Open Directory. You should not be too worried about the ranking of your site in the Open Directory itself - not too many people use the Open Directory for finding information. However, the algorithm that the Open Directory uses is similar to the algorithm that Netscape uses, and hence a high ranking in Netscape generally means a high ranking in the Open Directory and vice-versa.

Before we begin reviewing the factors influencing the ranking of your site, you need to select the two most important keywords for your site based on their popularity. Chapter 1 of the search engine optimization guide taught you how to develop the list of keywords applicable for your site.
In Chapter 1, I mentioned that while selecting the keywords for your site, you should look at both the popularity of the keywords as well as their competitiveness. However, for the purpose of today's lesson, don't worry about the competitiveness - select
keywords only on the basis of popularity.

Broadly, here are the factors which influence your rankings in
AOL, Netscape and Lycos:

i) Presence of the keyword in the Title and Description

If you want to rank highly for a keyword, the Title and the Description that you use to submit your site to the Open Directory should contain the keyword. Note that this Title is not the title that you have used in the home page of your web site and that this Description is not the description that you have used in the Meta Description tag of your home page. Rather, it is the Title and the Description of your site's listing in the Open Directory.

ii) Prominence of the keyword in the Title and the Description

"Prominence" means how close the keyword is to the beginning of the Title and Description. Other things remaining the same, the closer the keyword is to the beginning of the Title and the Description, the higher your ranking.

iii) Presence of the keyword in the URL

Other things remaining the same, your site will get a higher ranking if a keyword or a part of the keyword is present in the URL of your site.

iv) Presence of the keyword in the Category name

In Netscape, other things remaining the same, if the keyword is present in the name of the Category, your site will get a higher ranking. Even if only a part of the keyword is present in the name of the category, your site will get a higher ranking.
Note that this is applicable only in Netscape.

v) Number of sites in a category which contain the keyword in
their descriptions

In Netscape, other things remaining the same, the more the number of sites in a category which contain the keyword in their descriptions, the higher the ranking for all sites in that category. Once again, this is applicable only in Netscape.

Now, as you can see from points i) and ii), if your site has to be ranked at the top for a particular keyword, the keyword needs to be present in the Title. However, the Open Directory insists that the Title be the official name of your site.

Hence, unless the official name of your site contains the keywords, you have little or no choice with respect to the Title. Short of changing the official name of your site, there is not
much you can do.

Now, assuming that your target keyword is not present in the name of your company, search AOL for the keywords which you had selected and find out if the top 10 sites in AOL all have the keyword in the Title. If they do, your site will not be able to get a high ranking for those keywords.
In this case, select two more keywords based on their popularity and again search AOL for
those keywords. If the top 10 sites all contain the keyword, reject the keywords and select the next two keywords. In this way, find out two keywords for which the top 10 sites don't contain the keyword in the Title.

Of course, if the official name of your site contains the keywords, then you are in luck! This means that your Title will contain the keywords and there is a good chance that you will get a high ranking for those keywords.

Now we come to how you should write the description of your site.
When you write the description, your aim should be to make the Open Directory editor's job as easy as possible. You should not give the editor the feeling that he/she needs to edit your description in any way.
The moment an editor starts to edit your description, you risk having your keywords removed from your description.

Your description should be a single sentence which conveys what your site is all about and contains the two keywords you are targeting as close as possible to the beginning of the
description. However, your description should not just be a list of keywords - the description that you use should be a proper sentence and should be grammatically correct.

Broadly, here are the rules that you should remember when forming
the description:

i) Make sure that the description can tell a visitor what your site is all about. Things like "Have a look at our site" or "Welcome to my site" does not tell a visitor what your site does.

ii) Avoid hype of any sort. Avoid using ALL CAPS or exclamation marks. Phrases like "The best web site dealing with widgets!!" or "Offers the BEST QUALITY, CHEAPEST WIDGETS you can find anywhere" are inappropriate.

iii) Don't capitalize every word in your description - capitalize only the first word. Of course, if some of the words in the description are proper nouns, then you should capitalize them.

iv) Write the description in the third person. Don't say "We offer financial planning and credit counseling services", say "Offers financial planning and credit counseling services.".

v) Don't make your description too long - limit yourself to 15 words at the most. If you are lucky, you may be able to get accepted with a description longer than 15 words. However, longer the description, higher the probability that the editor will want
to edit it.

vi) Check your description for spelling, typos and grammatical mistakes.

vii) End your description with a period. If the editor has to add the period to the end of your description, she may also end up editing the description, which is not what you want. Your aim is to have the editor accept the exact description that you had written in order to ensure that your keywords are not removed from the description.

Now, we come to how you can select the right category for your site. Go to the Open Directory, and search for the two keywords you have established. Does a particular category come up at the top for both the keywords? If so, go to that category, and see whether the sites present in the category are similar to yours.
Also see whether that category has a Description and/or a FAQ.
Read them and find out whether that category is applicable for your site. If so, this is the category you should submit your site to.

If different categories come up at the top for the two keywords, go through all the categories and find out which is the most appropriate category among the different categories.

For some keywords, you will find that the Open Directory does not display any categories. In this case, find out which category most of the top sites belong to and submit your site to that category, assuming it is applicable for your site.

Once you have selected the right category, click on the "add URL" link at the top. Type in the address of your site in the first text box, the official name of your site in the next text box, the description that you have earlier developed in the third text box and your email address in the fourth text box.
Although the Open Directory says that including the email address is optional, I would recommend that you include it - if, for some reason, your
site is not accepted, the Open Directory editor may want to tell you why your site has not been accepted.

What to do if your site is not accepted

After submitting your site, go to the category where you have submitted your site every day and see when your site gets listed.
If you find that your site is not in that category, it may so
happen that you have been placed in a different category.
Type in your domain name in Open Directory's search box and see whether your site comes up in the results. I have seen some sites getting accepted within 1 day and some sites in about 2-3 weeks.

If your site has not been listed after three weeks, then re-submit it to the same category and wait for another three weeks. If your site is still not accepted, then have a look at your site again. Does it contain any missing images or links, links to empty pages or under construction signs? Does it provide good content? Does it have any spelling or grammatical errors?

If you are absolutely convinced that your site is eligible for being accepted by the Open Directory, then the fact that your site is not being accepted may signify one of two things:

i) The editor of that category is inactive, i.e. he/she has not
been reviewing sites for a long time.

ii) He/she is your competitor, and does not want to list you.

In this case, the first step is to write to the editor of the category. Scroll down to the bottom of the category to which you are trying to submit your site and click on the name of the editor. If that category does not have an editor, go to the category above that in the hierarchy.
For instance, suppose you are trying to submit to the Computers: Consultants: Business
Systems category. At the time of writing of this lesson, that category did not have an editor. In this case, you should go to the Computers: Consultants category and click on one of the
editors there.
Click on the "Send to editorname" link, and in the Comments field, write a very polite message to the editor. Explain to him or her that you have been trying to submit your site to the Open Directory and you have been unsuccessful. Give her the complete details of your submission, i.e. the category to which you submitted, your URL, the Title and the Description that you used and the dates on which you submitted.
Ask him or her as to whether there are any mistakes that you are making and whether he or she would be kind enough to point out the mistakes to you so that you can
correct them.

If, after two weeks, you don't get any reply from the editor and are not accepted into the Open Directory, then look for another category which is applicable for your site using the method outlined earlier and submit your site to this category.

Getting Multiple Listings in the Open Directory

If you have already got your site listed in the Open Directory, you may try and get your site some additional listings in it.
Begin by selecting two keywords which are different from the keywords for which you are already ranked well. Then try and locate another category which is applicable for your site and submit your site there with a new description which contains the two new keywords you have selected.

If you are lucky, you may be able to get a listing in this new category, especially if the editor of this category is different from the editor of the category where your site is already
listed. Again, if the second category to which you want to submit your site is a regional category (i.e. a category applicable to the geographical region in which your company is located), that again improves your chance of getting a second listing.
Alternatively, if you were originally listed in one of the regional categories, then getting your site listed in one of the general categories is also possible, assuming that the products
or services you are selling are not intended for a regional market only.

However, you have a much better chance of getting a second listing if you submit one of the internal pages of your site to a different category (assuming you can locate a category which is applicable for that particular page), rather than again submitting the home page. Submitting an internal page has the benefit that the Title no longer needs to be the official name of your site. This allows you to include keywords in the Title.

Before submitting one of the internal pages of your site, you should change the title of the page (here, by "title", I mean the Title tag of the page, i.e. the Title that is displayed at the
top of the browser window when the page is opened) to the Title that you want the page to be listed under in the Open Directory.
This improves the chance that the Open Directory editor will
accept the title that you had submitted.

However, don't go overboard with submitting internal pages - you can be penalized for spamming. Don't start submitting any doorway pages that you have created - they will be rejected. Any internal page that you submit must provide some unique content and must be
relevant to the category to which you want to submit the page.

****************************SIDENOTE*****************************

When you submit your site to the Open Directory, you have got to do everything correctly the first time. If you even make one small mistake, you can bid goodbye to your chances of getting a top ranking in AOL, Lycos and Netscape.
This is because once you are listed in the Open Directory, it becomes very difficult to
change the listing of your site. Hence, you have got to do everything right the first time. Thus, it may make sense for you to let us handle your submission to the Open Directory, so that you can benefit from the experience that we have gathered after
successfully listing hundreds of sites in the Open Directory.

****************************SIDENOTE*****************************

This completes Chapter 3 of the Search Engine Optimization Guide. Today
you have learned how you can get a high ranking in the search
engines which take their results from the Open Directory like AOL, Lycos and Netscape.

Chapter 4 of the search engine optimization guide, will tell you how you can get a high ranking in the mother of all directories - Yahoo !!!

Back to Yahoo !!!

Getting your site an optimum listing in Yahoo! is perhaps the most important step in effective web site promotion. An optimum listing in Yahoo! can bring in more traffic to your site than all the search engines combined.
In addition to this, getting listed in Yahoo! will also help you improve the link popularity of your site which helps in improving the ranking of your site in the search engines. In today's lesson, we focus on how you can get your site an optimum listing in Yahoo!.

First, you should note that Yahoo! is not a search engine - it is a directory. Unlike the search engines, an actual human editor evaluates your site.

Before starting, read Yahoo!'s instructions thoroughly. Read their Help Index at http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/url and their How To page at http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ Familiarize yourself with these instructions because they mean every word of what they say.

Before you submit your site, go through your entire site and ensure that there are no missing graphics, no links leading to empty or non-existent pages, no "Under construction" symbols and no typos or grammatical errors.
Your site should be easy to navigate, should load quickly and should look professional.
Furthermore, your site must provide unique content. Yahoo!'s definition of unique content is very strict - if your site simply consists of a one page sales letter, or, if it only contains
links to various affiliate programs, you will find it difficult to get listed. For getting listed in Yahoo!, your site needs to have at least a few pages of good content in it.

Also, your site needs to be in its own domain, especially if it is of a commercial nature. Having your own domain adds more credibility to your site and tells Yahoo! that yours is a serious site which won't be taken down very soon. Getting into Yahoo! is hard enough - not having your own domain will make it that much harder.

Furthermore, if your site is of a commercial nature (i.e. it is selling something), you need to mention the physical address of your business either in the home page of your site or in a separate Contact Us page which is linked prominently from the home page. This should be the actual physical address of your business - not a Post Office Box address.
Of course, mentioning the physical address of your business is something you should be doing anyway - it boosts the credibility of your business which improves sales. Along with the physical address, you should also mention a phone number and a fax number (if you have one). Of course, you should always mention an email address.

Also, before submitting, select the two most important keywords for your site based on their popularity. Part 2 of this course taught you how to develop the list of keywords applicable for your site. I mentioned that while selecting the keywords for your site, you should look at both the popularity of the keywords as well as their competitiveness.
However, for the purpose of today's lesson, don't worry about the competitiveness - select keywords only on the basis of popularity.

Now, let's analyze how Yahoo! displays its search results.
There are 4 sections in the Yahoo! search results - Categories, Web Sites, Web Pages, and News. For the purpose of this lesson, we can ignore the News section and concentrate on the Categories, Web Sites and Web Pages sections.
When someone searches for a keyword in Yahoo!, it first checks to see whether there are any categories which contain all the individual words of the keyword.
If so, it first displays the names of those categories. It then displays the web sites in the Yahoo! index which match the keyword. Finally, in the Web Pages section, it displays sites
from Google.

Your first task is to find out whether your site is already listed in Yahoo!. Type in the domain name of your site in Yahoo!'s search box, and see whether your site comes up in the
Web Sites section. Note that for your site to be listed in Yahoo!, it has to come up in the Web Sites section. If it is listed in the Web Pages section but not in the Web Sites section, it means that your site is listed in Google, not Yahoo!.
If your site is already listed but you are not satisfied with the listing, read the last section of this lesson on changing your site's listing in Yahoo!.

Assuming that your site is not listed, your objective is to get your site a high ranking in the Web Sites section. Here are the factors which influence the ranking of your site in the Web Sites section:

i) Presence of the keyword or a part of the keyword somewhere in the name of the category or in the name of a higher level category.

ii) Click Popularity: The concept of click popularity means that when a user searches for something in Yahoo!, it tries to find out which sites satisfied the user's needs. It does this by keeping track of two things:
a) which sites the user clicked on among the sites displayed in the results and
b) how much time the user spent in those sites.
The logic behind this is that if a user clicked on a particular site and spent a lot of time in that site, that site must have satisfied the user's needs and hence, must be relevant to that particular keyword.
In this case, the site's click popularity for that keyword improves and so does its
ranking for that keyword.
But, if a user did not go to a particular site, or returned to Yahoo! soon after going to that site, that site must not be providing relevant information for that particular keyword. In this case, the site's click popularity for that keyword declines and so does its ranking for that keyword.

So, how do you ensure that your site's click popularity is high?
Some people have suggested that you can improve the click popularity of your site by regularly searching for the keywords that are applicable for your site, clicking on your site's listing in Yahoo!, and then by not going back to Yahoo!.
They have also suggested that you can click on a competitor's listing in Yahoo! and then can immediately click on the browser's Back button to go back to Yahoo!, so that Yahoo! thinks that this site did not satisfy the user's needs and hence gives it a lower ranking.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is this method unethical, it is also ineffective. Yahoo! keeps track of the I.P. address (i.e. the unique address which identifies a
computer on the Internet) of its visitors.
It ignores repeated clicks on the same site from the same I.P. address. It also uses cookies to track the activities of its visitors. Of course, if you are using a dialup connection to the Internet and your Internet Service Provider assigns you with a dynamic I.P address, you can get around this restriction by disconnecting your computer from the Internet and then again logging in and by deleting the cookies.
But, forgetting for a moment the sheer amount of time that you would need to spend doing this, remember that Yahoo! gets millions of visitors every day. How much influence can a single person have in such a situation?

There are only two ways of improving the click popularity of your site - the description of your site in Yahoo! needs to be attractive and you need to build an excellent web site with great content which satisfies your visitor's needs so that they stay longer in your site.

iii) Presence of the keyword or a part of the keyword in the Title and Description - If you want to rank highly for a keyword, the Title and the Description that you use to submit your site to Yahoo! should contain the keyword. Note that this Title is not the title that you have used in the home page of your web site and that this Description is not the description that you have used in the Meta Description tag of your home page. Rather, it is the Title and the Description of your site's listing in Yahoo!.

An important point to note here is that Yahoo! searches for strings rather than words. This means that if one of the individual words of the keyword is embedded inside another word, this will still boost your rankings.
For instance, if the keywords applicable for your site contain the word Australia, but the description of your site in Yahoo! contains the word Australian, the fact that the string Australia is present inside the word Australian will be taken into consideration when your site is ranked.

iv) Prominence of the keyword in the Title and the Description - "Prominence" means how close the keyword is to the beginning of the Title and Description. Other things remaining the same, the closer the keyword to the beginning of the Title and the Description, the higher your ranking.

v) Presence of the keyword or a part of the keyword in the URL - You will get a slightly higher ranking if the keyword or a part of the keyword is also present in the URL of your site.

Now we come to the Title for your site. The Title is important not only because the presence of a keyword in the Title helps to boost the ranking of your site, but also because sites in the various categories in Yahoo! are listed alphabetically according to the Title.
However, Yahoo! insists that the Title should always be the official name of your site. Hence, short of changing the name of your site, there is not much you can do about the Title.

Now we come to how you should write the description of your site.
When you write the description, your aim should be to make the Yahoo! editor's job as easy as possible. You should not give the editor the feeling that he/she needs to edit your description in any way.
The moment an editor starts to edit your description, you risk having your keywords removed from your description or worse, having it changed in a way which does not reflect the content of your site.

Your description should be a single sentence which conveys what your site is all about and contains the two keywords you are targeting as close as possible to the beginning of the
description.
However, your description should not just be a list of keywords - the description that you use should be a proper sentence and should be grammatically correct.
It should also be attractive to your visitors so that they actually click on it, which will improve the click popularity of your site, and hence its ranking in Yahoo!.

Broadly, here are the rules that you should remember when forming
the description:

i) Make sure that the description can tell a visitor what your
site is all about. Things like "Have a look at our site" or
"Welcome to my site" does not tell a visitor what your site does.

ii) Avoid hype of any sort. Avoid using ALL CAPS or exclamation
marks. Phrases like "The best web site dealing with widgets!!" or
"Offers the BEST QUALITY, CHEAPEST WIDGETS you can find anywhere"
are inappropriate.

iii) Don't capitalize any word in your description - not even the
first word. For some reason, Yahoo! prefers that the first word
of your description is not capitalized. If you look at the sites
in any Yahoo! category, you will find that almost none of them
have the first word capitalized. Of course, if some of the words
in the description are proper nouns, then you should capitalize
them.

iv) Write the description in the third person. Don't say "We
offer financial planning and credit counseling services", say
"offers financial planning and credit counseling services.".

v) Don't make your description too long - limit yourself to 10
words at the most. If you are lucky, you may be able to get
accepted with a description longer than 10 words. However, longer
the description, higher the probability that the editor will want
to edit it.

vi) Check your description for typos and grammatical mistakes.

vii) End your description with a period. If the editor has to add
the period to the end of your description, she may also end up
editing the description, which is not what you want. Your aim is
to have the editor accept the exact description that you had
written in order to ensure that your keywords are not removed
from the description.

Now that you know the description that you should use, it is time to establish the category to which you should submit your site.
First of all, you need to determine whether your site is regionally specific. If your site is applicable to a specific geographic region, then you should submit your site to the appropriate Regional Category in Yahoo!.
However, if your site is not specific to a particular region, then your site should be
listed in one of the main Yahoo! categories.

Now, if your site is commercial in nature (i.e. if it sells a product or service) and is not regionally specific, it belongs somewhere under the Business and Economy > Shopping and Services or Business and Economy > Business to Business categories.
If your site is targeted towards individual consumers, then your site needs to be under the Shopping and Services category.
If your site is targeted towards other businesses, it needs to be in the Business to Business category.

If your site is both commercial in nature and regionally specific, your site needs to be under the Business and Economy > Shopping and Services or Business and Economy > Business to Business category of the relevant regional category.

With this background, let's see how you can determine the appropriate category for your site. Simply search for the two keywords which you have determined earlier. Go through all the categories which the top ranking sites belong to.
Note down the category (or categories) which contain sites which are very similar to yours. In many cases, there will only be one category which contains sites similar to yours.
In that case, this is the category to which you should submit your site.
If you find that there is more than one category which contains sites similar to yours, and if you are convinced that all these categories are applicable for your site, select the two categories which contain the least number of sites.
Your primary category will be the one with the least number of sites.
The secondary category will obviously be the other category.

Now, create a text file in which you can record the details of your submission.
Note down the date when you are submitting, the URL of your web site, the Title and the Description of your site as well as the URLs of the category (or the 2 categories) which
are applicable for your site.
Now go to the URL of the Primary category for your site, click on the Suggest a Site link at the bottom of the page and follow the instructions there. (If that category does not have a Suggest a Site link, then it means that it is a very general category to which new sites cannot be added.)
Instead of submitting your site right away, I recommend that you first use a dummy, non-existent site to know the questions that Yahoo! is going to ask you.
Note down / copy and paste the answers to these questions in the text file so that you can paste them later when you are actually submitting your site.
Of course, don't actually submit the dummy site by clicking on the final submission button - just use it to get an idea of the questions that Yahoo! will ask you.

Of particular importance is the box where Yahoo! asks for some additional information about your site. If you have identified an additional category which is applicable for your site, mention something like "My site also belongs to" and then give the URL of the additional category.

Once you have noted down the answers to all the questions that Yahoo! is going to ask you, double check everything present in the text file to ensure that there are no mistakes and that all the URLs (i.e. the URLs of the categories as well as the URL of your site) are working correctly.
It is very difficult to change your site's listing in Yahoo! once you get listed, and hence, you
need to ensure that you do everything correctly the first time.
Then, offer a prayer to Goddess Yahoo! :-), go to the URL of the primary category for your site, click on the Suggest a Site link listed at the bottom and submit your site. Make sure that you follow all the instructions that are mentioned here to the absolute letter.

Now, remember that if yours is a commercial site and is not regionally specific, it must be under the Business and Economy > Shopping and Services or Business and Economy > Business to Business categories of the main Yahoo! directory.
Yahoo! no longer offers a free submission option for sites under these two categories - you have no choice but to pay them $299 (or buy an expired yahoo domain name) for the Business Express submission option.
For more information on this, go to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/suggest.html
Read the instructions and terms and conditions of the Business Express
submission in order to ensure that your site is eligible. Paying
them $299 does not guarantee you a listing and your site is not given any preference in its rankings. Using the Business Express option merely guarantees that your site will be reviewed within 7 days and that, in case it is not accepted, you will be told why your site was not accepted.
You shall also have a chance of appealing a rejection within 30 days. Of course, all the
instructions regarding choosing a proper description and choosing a correct category are still applicable.

If your site does not belong to these two categories, you can either submit your site for free, or you can use the Business Express submission option. I recommend that you first try to get your site listed for free. Use the Business Express option as a last resort.

Once you have finished submitting, don't delete the text file - you will need it later when you want to again submit to Yahoo!
(in case you are not accepted the first time).

What to do if your site is not accepted

This section is intended for those who have used the free submission and have not been listed. In case you have used the paid submission and have been rejected, see the next section.

Unless you are very lucky, if you have used the free submission, your site may not be accepted in your first attempt. If your site is not accepted within 1 month from the time that you submitted it, submit it again using the same instructions as above. If your site is still not accepted 1 month after the second submission, some people have suggested that you write to a special Yahoo!
address - url-support@yahoo-inc.com.
However, in my personal experience, writing to this address has not been effective.

Instead, here's what you should do:

I have accidentally discovered the email address of an actual editor of Yahoo!. Her name is Rosie Skaw and her email address is rosie@yahoo-inc.com. I am mentioning her email address here with the understanding that no one abuses it.
This method works but it is not one of the familiar "back doors to Yahoo!" that one often hears of.
This email address should be used only after you have tried to submit your site to Yahoo!
at least twice using the steps outlined earlier and have failed.

After submitting your site twice, if you still don't manage to get listed, write a very polite email to Rosie. Introduce yourself, explain to her that you have been trying to submit your site to Yahoo! and have failed.
Give her the details of your last submission - when you submitted it, the URL of your site, the Title and the Description that you used as well as the category (or categories) to which you submitted your site.
If you have a unique product or service that not many other web sites listed in
Yahoo! are offering, mention it. Or, if you provide lots of articles and tips related to your business, mention that too.
You can also point her to the testimonials that you have received.
Request her (very politely) to evaluate your site and add it to
Yahoo! if she finds your site appropriate.

Once you have sent the email to Rosie, wait another month or so to see if you get listed.
If you still can't get listed, don't send her any more emails. Yahoo! provides a phone number for listing support. The number is 408-731-3333. Call this number and
leave a message mentioning your URL and the date when you last submitted and requesting (again, very politely) that your site be listed.

If the phone call does not get you listed, consider writing to Yahoo! at

Yahoo! Corporation
3420 Central Expressway, 2nd floor
Santa Clara, CA 95051, USA

In this case too, mention your URL, the date when you last submitted, the Title and Description that you used and the category to which you submitted. Don't forget to mention the fact that you are selling a unique product or that you provide lots of articles or that you have received glowing testimonials from users.

If you still can't get your site listed, and you are convinced that your site deserves to get into Yahoo! and that you have followed all the rules, you should then use the Business Express submission option.

What to do if your Business Express submission is rejected

The most common reason for Yahoo! rejecting a site when it has used the Business Express submission option is lack of original content.
If you get a message from Yahoo! that your site was rejected because of a lack of unique content, then your site may either be full of affiliate links and nothing else, or it may be
a 1 page direct response sales site. In the former case, as I mentioned, your site cannot hope to get listed. In the latter case, you need to divide up your sales message into multiple pages.
Consider adding a few articles and tips related to your site. Then, send a polite reply to Yahoo! thanking them for their constructive feedback. Point out the fact that after
receiving the feedback, you have added the articles and tips. Be specific here - tell them the exact URLs which contains these articles. Then request them to review your site again and add it, if they find it appropriate.

Another reason that they may say that your site lacks original content is that you already have another site listed in Yahoo! and are trying to get a new site listed.
If the two sites have essentially the same content, then you will definitely be rejected. However, even if the two sites have substantially different content, you may still be rejected.
In this case, there is no point in appealing the rejection - Yahoo! will definitely reject your site again when you appeal.

Instead, what you can try doing is to remove all links from the new site to the old site (and vice-versa) and ensuring that the design of the new site is also completely different from the old site and that no part of the content of the old site is present in the new site (and vice-versa).
Then, wait 2-3 months, and again submit the new site to Yahoo! using its Business Express submission.

Another common reason for the rejection of sites is that in Yahoo!'s opinion, the site is still under construction. If you are convinced that your site does not contain missing graphics,
links leading to empty or non-existent pages, "Under construction" symbols etc., then a common reason for Yahoo! stating that the site is under construction and that the site
cannot be properly viewed under Netscape.
Yahoo! editors generally use Netscape and hence, it is vitally important that your site be accessible using Netscape. You need to ensure that your site can be viewed properly in Netscape v3.0 and above. In order to see how your site looks under different browsers, go to http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html
Once you have ensured that your site is accessible under Netscape, send a polite reply
to their rejection note thanking them for their constructive feedback and then stating that the site no longer contains any elements under construction. Then request them to review your site again and add it, if they find it appropriate.

How to change your site's listing in Yahoo!

If getting your site listed in Yahoo! is tough, changing your site's listing is a Herculean task. Firstly, note that Yahoo! does not care about the ranking of your site. Hence, if you are trying to submit some minor changes to the description with a view of getting a higher ranking, you are unlikely to be successful.
You should only think about trying to change your listing if

a) the URL of your site has changed, or
b) the official name of your site has changed (and hence the Title of your listing should change), or
c) Yahoo! has accidentally listed your site without a Description, or
d) the Description contains a typo, or
e) Yahoo! has placed you in a totally inappropriate category, or
f) the nature of your site has changed and the current
description does not reflect the new nature of your site.

The URL for changing your site's listing is http://add.yahoo.com/fast/change
Read the instructions thoroughly before submitting your change request. In the last text box, provide solid reasons as to why your site's listing should be changed.

If you can't get your site's listing changed within 1 month from the time that you have submitted your request, try submitting your request again. If you still can't get your listing changed within 1 month from the second request, follow the procedures outlined in the section on what to do if your site can't get into Yahoo! using the free submission.
However, don't submit a change request using the Business Express submission - Yahoo!
specifically forbids that.

Wrapping things up:

Once you have got your site into Yahoo! (they will send you an email if you are accepted), your site will be added to Yahoo!'s What's New section. Furthermore, your site will be marked as new and will be placed at the top of the category (or categories) for
1 week from the time that your site is first listed.
This placement at the top of the category can bring in quite a few visitors to your site every day. After the first week, the position of your site in the categories will be according to the alphabetical ranking of your Title. This will generally be accompanied by a decrease in the number of visitors to your site from Yahoo!.

****************************SIDENOTE*****************************

As you can see, getting a top ranking in Yahoo! is not easy. It requires lots of research, hard work, patience, and a bit of luck.
Also, as with the Open Directory, you need to do everything correctly the first time, as getting in Yahoo! to change the listing of your site is extremely difficult.

****************************SIDENOTE*****************************

This completes Part 4 of the Search Engine Optimization Guide. Today
you have learned how you can get a high ranking in the mother of
all directories - Yahoo!.

Chapter 5 of the course (the last leg of this course) will tell you how you can improve the link popularity of your site in order to get a high ranking in the search engines.

Let's do a Final Recap:

Chapter 1 of the Search Engine Optimization Guide taught you how to select the most effective keywords for your site.
Chapter 2 taught you how to create pages designed to get top rankings for these keywords. Chapter 3 of the guide taught you how to get a high ranking in the directory based engines like AOL, Lycos and Netscape by getting an optimum listing in the Open Directory. In Chapter 4, we covered how you can get a top ranking in the mother of
all directories - Yahoo!.

Today, in the last part of search engine optimization guide, I will tell you how you can improve the link popularity of your
site which will help you improve your rankings in most of the spider based search engines.

Link popularity, i.e. the number of sites which are linking to your site, is an increasingly important factor as far as search engine placement is concerned. Other things remaining the same, increasing the number of links to your site, the higher its ranking will be.

What is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the types of sites which are linking to you. A link from a site which is related to yours is more valuable than a link from an unrelated site.

In today's lesson, I explore different methods by which you can improve the link popularity of your site. I start with the methods that you shouldn't bother using, then go on to the
moderately effective methods, and then end with the most effective methods you can use to boost the link popularity of your site.

1) Submitting your site to Free For All (FFA) pages

A common misconception among many Internet marketers is that while FFA pages may not directly bring in traffic to your site, it will help to improve the link popularity of your site, and hence, will indirectly bring in traffic through the search engines.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
Most FFA pages can contain only a certain number of links at a time. This means that when you submit your site to a FFA page, your site will be placed at the top of the page.
However, as more and more people submit their sites to the FFA page, your site will be pushed down, and finally, when it reaches the bottom of the page, it will be removed.

Now, since you can bet that plenty of other people are also submitting their sites to the FFA pages, your site will remain in these pages for only a short span of time. Hence, in order to
ensure that the search engines see your site if and when they come to spider the FFA page, you will need to ensure that you submit your site to these FFA pages on a regular basis - at least once a week.

Even if you used an automatic submission program to do it, can you imagine a worse way to spend your time and/or money?
Furthermore, many search engines recognize these pages which only contain links to other sites as FFA pages and may completely ignore them. And while I haven't yet seen any evidence that submitting to the FFA pages will actually penalize your site, there is every possibility that this might happen in the future.

Hence, when it comes to FFA pages, my advice is simple:
Don't even think about them.

2) Joining Reciprocal Link Services

Some people have recommended that in order to increase the link popularity of your site, you can join some reciprocal link services. The basic idea behind these services is that you add some pages to your site which contain links to other sites which are members of that service, and in exchange, these members will also add pages to their sites which will contain a link to your site.
Theoretically, the more members of that service, the more your link popularity will be.

However, I have plenty of reservations about using this method to boost the link popularity of your site:

i) Most of these services require that you add a visible graphical or text link from your home page to the pages containing the links. If they require a graphical link, it can completely destroy the general look and feel of your site.
Even if they require a text link, how would you feel if a visitor to your site clicked on such a link and found one of your competitors (who is also a member of this service) right at the
top of a page?
Also, while most of these services disallow adult oriented sites, I have seen situations in which some adult sites have been able to become members. How would you feel if an adult
site found its way to the top of one of these pages?

ii) Most of these services give the same pages containing the links to each of its members, i.e. the pages that you are required to upload to your site are exactly the same as the pages which all the other members of that service are required to upload to their servers. Even the file names of the pages tend to be the same for all the members. Most search engines are now able to detect such duplicate pages in different domains and may either ignore the pages or may even penalize all these domains for spamming.

iii) Instead of linking only related sites with each other, most of these services link all the members with each other. This means that lots of unrelated sites will be linking to your site.
As I mentioned before, links from unrelated sites are simply not as valuable as links from related sites.

Hence, I don't recommend that you join any reciprocal link programs.

3) Exchanging links with other webmasters

Another way of improving the link popularity of your site is to exchange links with other webmasters who have sites which are related to yours, but are not direct competitors.

Here's how you can do it:

First, open a database program like Microsoft Access and create a new table containing fields like FirstName, LastName, Email Address, URL etc. Then, make a list of the sites belonging to your competitors. Then, go to AltaVista, and type in the following in the search box:

link:yoursite.com -url:yoursite.com

where yoursite.com is the domain name of one of your competitors.
This will give you a list of all the sites which are linking to that competitor. Then, find out in what context a particular site has linked to your competitor. If this site is an affiliate of your competitor, then your chance of getting a link from this site is limited, unless you offer an even better affiliate program.
However, if you find that this site has a Links page which contains links to other sites, one of which is a link to your competitor, then it is an excellent prospect for exchanging links. Find out the name and email address of the webmaster of the site and add them to your database. In this way, go through all the sites which are linking to your competitors, locate those sites which you think may want to exchange links with you, and
build up your database.

Once you have done that, create a Links page in your site, and add the URLs of these sites to the Links page. Then, send an email to these webmasters, introduce yourself and your site, congratulate them on building an excellent web site, tell them that you have already added a link to their sites from yours, and then ask them whether they would be kind enough to add a link to your site.
In your email, emphasize the fact that exchanging links in this way will be mutually beneficial for both of you because it will help both of you drive traffic to your sites.
Wait for a month or so to see the response. Some webmasters will agree to link to you. Others will simply not respond. After a month, remove the links to those sites who are not interested in exchanging links and using the methods outlined above, try to locate more sites with which to exchange links.

When you send the email to the webmasters, make sure that you personalize each email. Don't begin every email with "Hello Webmaster", begin with "Hello Mike". If you want, you can use email merge programs to automatically personalize each email.
You can check out some email merge programs by going to
http://download.cnet.com and searching for "email merge" (without the quotes).

The main problem with this method of improving the link popularity of your site is that it takes a lot of time. You may find that the number of links you manage to get just does not justify the time that you spend getting them.

Another thing that you can do is to mention in your Links page that you are willing to exchange links with other web sites. This allows other webmasters who come to your web site to propose a link exchange.

4) Starting an Awards Program

A moderately effective method of improving the link popularity of your site is to start an awards program. You can have web sites which are related to yours apply for an award from your site.
The sites which win the award get the chance to display the logo for your award. This logo is linked to your site, preferably to a page which contains more information on the award.

If you publish a newsletter, consider declaring the winners in your newsletter. You can also perform a review of the winners' sites in your newsletter. This adds useful content to your
newsletter and also gives more webmasters the incentive to apply for your award, since you may review their sites in your newsletter. This also gives them the incentive to subscribe to
your newsletter to see if they win the award.

Make sure that you give awards to only those sites which deserve to win. If you give your award to sites which don't deserve it, your award will have little credibility, which will, in turn, hurt the credibility of your company.
Furthermore, make sure that the logo you design for the award looks professional. If it
doesn't, not many webmasters will want to display it on their sites.

5) Giving testimonials

This may sound a bit unusual, but giving testimonials for products or services which you find useful can be another moderately effective way of improving the link popularity of your site. If you really like a product, simply write to the company and tell them why you liked the product so much and how it has helped you.
Chances are, the company will write back to you to thank you for your comments and will ask you for permission to display your comments in their web site.
Tell the company that you have no problems if they publish your comments, but request
them to add a link to your site along with the testimonial.
There is every possibility that the company will agree since publishing the URL of your web site gives more credibility to the testimonial.

Of course, please don't go about giving testimonials to every company you can locate just because it will improve your link popularity :-)

6) Posting to Message Boards and Discussion Lists

Another moderately effective method of increasing the link popularity of your site is to post to online message boards. At the end of every message that you post, you can sign off by mentioning your name and the URL of your web site. If the message board allows it, you can even include a short promotional blurb about your site at the end of your posts.
However, make sure that the individual messages that are posted to that message board are archived in static HTML pages (i.e. the URLs for the individual messages should not contain a "?"). Otherwise, the search engines will consider these pages to be dynamic pages and may not spider these pages and hence, will not be able to find your link.

Email based discussion lists which are archived on the web in static HTML pages can also be used to boost the link popularity of your site in a similar manner. In this case, the signature file that you use with your email program should contain the URL for your web site.

7) Setting up new web sites

Yet another moderately effective method of improving the link popularity of your site is to set up new web sites and have these new sites link to your main site. If you are Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com), you can afford to purchase hundreds of new domains and have these new domains link to your main site.
If you are not Jeff Bezos, you can simply set up new sites with some of the free web hosts. (Of course, your primary web site should always be hosted in a separate domain of its own). Simply add a few pages of unique content to each of your new sites, and have each of the pages in your new sites link to your main site.

If you use this technique, make sure that you do not duplicate content across multiple sites. If you do, the search engines might penalize your sites for spamming. You need to ensure that all the pages that you create for these new sites contain unique content.

The disadvantage of this method is that some search engines (like AltaVista) refuse to spider sites which are present in the free web hosts. Still, there are many search engines which will spider your site, and hence, the link popularity of your main site will improve in these search engines.

8) Starting a Link Contest

A good method of improving the link popularity of your site is to give away prizes to other webmasters if they link to you. The prizes that you give out should ideally be something which other webmasters will find valuable enough to want to link to you, but which do not cost you too much.
For instance, if you publish a newsletter, and have unsold ad inventory, you can give away some free advertisements in your newsletter to the winners. If you sell a software (or an ebook), you can give away a free copy of your software or ebook to the winners, since it doesn't cost you anything to produce an additional copy of digital goods like
software and ebooks.

Link contests work best if you run the contest on a continuous basis and if you declare new winners frequently. If you run the contest for a few months, and then stop it, the webmasters who had linked to you will all remove their links.
However, if you run it on a continuous basis, and declare new winners every month or so, the webmasters will have the incentive to keep their links to your site.

Also, make sure that you require all participants to have a link to your site either in their home page, or in an internal page of their site which is linked to their home page. Also ensure that the page which contains the link is no more than two levels deep from their home page (i.e. it should not take more than two clicks to go from the home page to the page containing the link).
If they don't do this, the search engine spiders may not index the page which contains the link to your site, and hence, may not find your link.

9) Writing articles and allowing them to be re-published

This is by far one of the best ways of improving the link popularity of your site, and one of my favorites. Whenever I write an article on search engine placement, I first publish it in my newsletter and then I publish the article in my site as a separate web page. I also submit it to the following article submission sites:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm

Many webmasters and ezine publishers frequent these article directories in search of articles. Submitting my articles to these directories gives them the opportunity of re-publishing my articles.
While I have had some success with each of the above directories, by far the best among them is the ezinearticles.com directory.

Writing articles is also an excellent viral marketing tool. As some webmasters and ezine publishers publish my articles, other webmasters and ezine publishers will read my article. Some of them, in turn, will publish my article, which will again be read by other webmasters and ezine publishers, some of whom will publish it... and so on.

Also, since only web sites related to mine would be interested in publishing my articles, all these links tend to come from related sites, which, as I mentioned earlier, are more valuable than links from unrelated sites.

Writing articles, of course, has another very important benefit - if you write good articles, it makes you known as an expert in your field. This helps to improve your credibility, which makes people more comfortable about buying your products or services.

Some notes about writing articles:

i) I have learned through experience that some webmasters will publish other people's articles and will display the complete resource box but will not link to the URL mentioned in the resource box.
In order to prevent this, you need to explicitly state that the article can be published only if the URL mentioned in the resource box is linked to your site.

ii) Your resource box should not be too long - it should be no more than 6 lines long, formatted at 65 characters per line. Otherwise, other webmasters and ezine publishers will hesitate to publish your article.

10) Starting your own affiliate program

This is another excellent way by which you can improve the link popularity of your site. When you have your own affiliate program, you give other webmasters the incentive to link to you. In this case too, since most of these web sites will be related to the industry in which you are operating, these links will be more valuable than links from unrelated sites.

Now, when you start your affiliate program, you need to decide whether you want to run the program yourself, or whether you want to outsource it to a third party. While outsourcing your affiliate program has a number of benefits, doing so will not help you improve the link popularity of your site, because affiliates are going to link to the third party's site. In order
to improve the link popularity of your site, you need to ensure that the affiliate links are pointing to your domain.

11) Submitting to the directories

This is by far the most important step as far as improving the link popularity of your site is concerned. As I mentioned before, what is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the quality of the links to your site.
No links are as important as links from some of the major directories like Yahoo!, the Open Directory etc. Hence, it is vitally important that you get your site registered by these directories.

Also, you should submit your site to as many of the smaller directories as possible. You can get a list of such directories at

http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_W
eb/Searching_the_Web/Search_Engines_and_Directories/

(If the above URL wraps, copy and paste the first line in your
browser's address box, then copy and paste the second line, and
then press Enter.)

This completes the Search Engine Optimization Guide. The guide has taught you how to select the most effective keywords for your site, how you can create pages designed to get top rankings in the search engines for these keywords, how you can get a top ranking in AOL, Lycos and Netscape by submitting your site to the Open Directory, how you can get a high ranking in Yahoo! and how you can improve the link popularity of your site.

In short, the search engine optimization guide has given you a blueprint for ensuring your success with the search engines, plus other effective ways to promote your site. If you have always been frustrated by the difficult task of getting high rankings in the search engines, this guide has given you a step-by-step guide to becoming a search engine optimization EXPERT.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of the guide, while the guide will give you most of the tactics that we use to get our clients top rankings in the search engines, there is something that the guide cannot give you - TIME.
You need to spend at least 2-3 hours a day for the next few months in order to implement
the techniques described in the search engine optimization guide. If you have the time required to do so, then you should, by all means, optimize your site yourself.

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