As webmasters and online internet marketers, we sometimes lose sight of what the real goal in marketing is to sell products/services. It often happens that we end up writing most of our content to please the search engines. Let me tell you, search engines do not buy shoes! Where am I going with this?

Simple, let us talk about using more graphics on your site!

Graphics placed in webpage s are frowned upon because search engine spiders cannot read graphics, therefore the thought being graphics have no SEO value. To an extent that can be true but there are several ways in which a graphic can be represented with good keywords and keyword phrases. In addition, there are several techniques that can be utilized that will somewhat offset the negative effects of having graphics on your website.

1. Make sure to provide alternate text representations for every single graphic on your website including horizontal lines, bullets and background images. You can do this by manipulating the ALT tags. Make sure you use short descriptions for the graphics on your webpage. Many people abuse ALT tags and actually stuff 10 20 keywords and keyword phrases behind graphics. This is not only bad SEO technique, but it may get your website banned when it comes time to submit it to the search engines!

2. You can insert a small 8pt or so keyword rich description just below your main graphics. For example, if you have a picture of an ebook on your website, you can put a small sentence below the picture saying Website Marketing Bible Get Years of Internet Marketing Experience in One Ebook! As you can see you get the keywords; Website, Marketing x2 and Internet.

To offset the negative effects a graphic can have you should implement some of the following techniques:

1. Many copywriters think that they must have all of their keywords written in the copy to be effective and end up with a full page of text. Remember people like a sense of things being real , they like to be part of something. That is the benefit of graphics. I often think of graphics to have the same effect of having an office with a window. It gives you a break from work. Well, graphics give the customer a break from the text.

What you can do is break up your copy and insert keywords in other areas of your website. This will please the search engines as well as give your readers a break from seeing a full page of text.

For example, you can delete maybe a whole paragraph of filler and just add the keywords from that paragraph to a sub-heading below the main heading of your page. You may want to move some of your keywords to table headers or page footers. Either way the search engine will find your keywords.

2. Add keywords to regular phrases! This is my favorite. Adding your keywords to regular phrases that may be table headers, footers, categories, departments etc can add up to huge keyword targeting. Here are two examples:

Instead of saying Sign up for our newsletter , you can say; Sign up for our affiliate-marketing newsletter.

Instead of having the table header for your navigation say Navigation , you can change it to say Marketing Navigation.

As webmasters and online internet marketers, we sometimes loose sight of what the real goal in marketing is to sell products and services. We must remember that we are here to provide the best products and the best services to the best customers. Let us not drown them in sheets and sheets of text. Break up your text with images and give them a break!

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Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.

THE ABCs OF SEO
(Search Engine Optimization)
by Joanne Glasspoole
If you want to be found in the search engines, it is important that you add search engine optimization to your action list. In a nutshell, search engine optimization–or SEO for short–is the process of making your web pages “search engine friendly.”
SEO is a relatively new marketing industry. Although there are many purported experts, most of us who call ourselves SEO specialists are learning. The search engines are constantly influx, so SEO techniques that worked yesterday may not necessarily work tomorrow. As a result, it is exceedingly important to keep up with the fervent pace of the Internet, and the search engines in particular.
One of the frustrations of search engine placement is that your rankings are constantly fluctuating. The key to a successful search engine optimization campaign is creativity, perseverance and practice, practice, practice. Do not try to fool the search engines by “tricking” them with unsavory techniques (e.g., keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text) because you will risk having your web site lose favor with the search engines, or worse, getting banned altogether.
If you are developing a new web site or redesigning an old one, now is a good time to think about search engine optimization. This article will describe the process of optimizing your web pages for the search engines, as well as highlight some of the other components that are important for a successful search engine marketing campaign.
WRITING KEYWORD-RICH WEB COPY
I’m sure you’ve heard the old clich : Content is king. Well, you know what, it is! Although the Internet is graphic-rich, it is a text-based medium. Information is what your visitors are seeking. If you web site doesn’t present the information they want, don’t forget your competitor’s web site is only one mouse click away.
Search engines need copy to know what your web site’s theme is and how your site should be indexed in their directory. If your home page consists solely of a Flash movie or an image map, there will be nothing for the search engines to index. Flash is cool, but it is not so cool when your web site doesn’t come up in search engine results.
So, how do you write keyword-rich copy?
The first thing you need to do is identify the keyword phrases that are important and relevant to your web site. For instance, how would you describe your company, products and services? More importantly, how would your visitors describe your company, products and services? Although the answer may seem like a no-brainer, it really isn’t, because you need to think outside of the box. You need to get into your visitor’s head and think like your visitor. What search terms would they use to find your web site?
A good place to start your keyword research is by looking at your log files. What search terms are your visitors using to find you? Armed with this information, you can begin researching the popularity of those terms. Researching your keywords is a very important task, because if you target the wrong terms, your traffic will suffer. Although your site may rank number one for some obscure term, if no one is searching for that term, your site will not be found in the search engines.
There are a number of handy tools available online to help you begin building your list of relevant keywords. Overture (formerly Goto.com) offers a Search Term Suggestion Tool on its web site that will not only tell you how many times a particular keyword phrase was queried in the past month, it’ll also present you with a list of alternative terms to consider for your search engine optimization campaign. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
In addition to utilizing keyword suggestion tools to research your keywords, I highly recommend brainstorming keywords with your co-workers, employees, friends and family members. Better yet, ask your clients and customers what terms they would use to search for your web site. Brainstorming keywords will teach you a lot about how others think and use the Internet to find information.
Once you have identified your keywords, you will need to integrate them into the body of your web page. Your sentences need to be intelligible and grammatically correct. Don’t forget: Your web copy will be read by human beings, as well as the search engines. If your web copy doesn’t make sense, your visitors will hit their back button never to return again. Bad web copy will defeat the whole purpose of your search engine optimization campaign.
WRITING YOUR META TAGS
The most important tag in the header section of your web page is the title tag. The title tag is displayed in the bar at the top of your browser window–above the toolbar. Many webmasters do not use the title tag properly. For example, their page will be titled “Home” or “Welcome,” or worse yet “untitled,” because they don’t include a title at all. The search engines place a lot of relevance on the words contained within the title tag, so be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases when writing your title tag. This tag is generally limited to 60 characters, so choose your words with care.
The next important tag in the header section is the description meta tag. This tag is used to describe your web page. Like the title tag, many of the search engines will extrapolate this information to summarize your web site. Again, be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases.
The third and least important tag in the header section is the keywords meta tag. Because of abuse by unscrupulous webmasters, the keywords tag is ignored by many of the search engines. Even so, some do use it, so it doesn’t hurt to include it. Like your title and description tag, choose your keywords carefully. Do not include keywords that are not included in the body of your web copy or irrelevant to the theme of your site.
LINK POPULARITY
Much is said about link popularity, but what is it exactly?
A few years ago, people were joining “link farms” to increase their link popularity, but today that is frowned upon and can actually be detrimental to your quest for higher rankings in the search engines. Now the emphasis is more on the quality of the links pointing to your web site versus the quantity.
Many of the major search engines use link popularity to gauge the relevancy of your site in its search results. Plus, links are what makes the web go-round. Many webmasters have the notion that links are bad because they are sending visitors off of their web site. Although this is true, links to and from web sites that complement yours helps to build credibility and sets the stage for making your web site an authority in your field.
Much is written about the importance of getting links from directories like Yahoo!, Looksmart and the Open Directory Project, because they are reviewed by human beings. If you want a link in the first two, however, it will cost you money. A listing in Yahoo! and Looksmart is considered “paid inclusion.” Your marketing dollars will be well spent, though, because listings here will not only generate increased traffic, it will add greatly to your web site’s link popularity.
SUBMITTING TO THE SEARCH ENGINES
Once your web page is fully optimized, it is time to submit it to the search engines. Although there are hundreds of search engines on the Internet, only a handful are truly important. Recent statistics show the top three search engines as:
#1 MSN
#2 Yahoo!
#3 Google
Although there are automated services that promise to get you listed on thousands of search engines, it is recommended that you manually submit your site to the top search engines. Some of the search engines view automated submissions as spam and will not list your site. Others put a higher priority on manual submissions. And others–such as Inktomi–required an annual fee to list your site. It can take weeks (sometimes even months!) to get listed, so again, be patient. The search engines are important to the success of your web site, so treat them with the respect they deserve. Most of all, do not over-submit!
For more information about search engine submissions, request a copy of my article “Web Site Promotion 101″ at mailto:sitepromotion101@sendfree.com
TRAFFIC REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Once you have allowed an appropriate amount of time to lapse (I usually wait six weeks), it is time to generate some reports to confirm the success of your search engine optimization campaign. Search engine positioning reports provide a wealth of information, such as your site’s position in the major search engines, how you rank on your targeted keyword terms and phrases, which sites rank above and below you, where you’ve declined in rankings, and so on.
In addition to your search engine positioning reports, be sure to regularly check your traffic logs. Is your traffic increasing? Are people finding your site with the search terms you targeted? Which of the search engines are referring visitors to your site?
CASE STUDY OF GRIEF LOSS & RECOVERY
In October 2001, my web site, Grief Loss & Recovery (http://www.grieflossrecovery.com), was averaging 98 visitors a day and 573 page views. Reviewing my traffic logs, I noted that the most popular search term for my site was “grief poems,” so I decided to optimize my site for that phrase.
Since October, my traffic has steadily climbed the charts.
In March 2002, my daily unique visitors averaged 325 and my page views 1962, an increase of 69 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
With regard to my rankings in the search engines, they have also improved considerably. For example, for the search phrase “grief poems” in Google, my site ranks number one out of 102,000 results; and for the search term “grief,” my site ranks 15 out of 1,690,000.
As for traffic referred by the search engines, Google far exceeds all other search engines in driving traffic to my site with 2,953 referrals in March, followed by Yahoo at 1,428. (In comparison, my October 2001 numbers showed Yahoo referring 535 visitors and Google 423.)
All-in-all, I am pleased with the results of my first attempt at optimizing Grief Loss & Recovery and am beginning to note similar results with some of the other web sites I have recently optimized.
When playing the search engine optimization game, patience is important, because results do not happen overnight.
CONCLUSION
To be competitive online, your web site needs to be search engine friendly. Search engine optimization is a function of Internet marketing and is the most cost-effective means of marketing to your target audience. With an estimated 84 percent of web users turning to the search engines to find information online, it is important that your site rank within the top 30 results if you want to be found. A successful search engine optimization campaign will not only boost your rankings in the search engines, it will bring qualified customers and prospects to your web site who are already on the web searching for your products and services.
For more information about search engine optimization and positioning, visit:
Search Engine Watch
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Search Engine World
http://www.searchengineworld.com/index.htm
Academy of Web Specialists
http://www.academywebspecialists.com/
Spider Food
http://www.spider-food.net/
Plus be sure to subscribe to:
Adventive I-Search
http://www.adventive.com/lists/isearch/summary.html
_______________________
Copyright 2002 by Joanne Glasspoole. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne Glasspoole is the editor/publisher of CYBER QUEST. Each issue is jam packed with original reports, news briefs, cool Webmaster tools, and more. To subscribe, send email to Majordomo@lists.kdv.com with “subscribe cyberquest” in the body of your message. Visit Joanne’s web site at http://www.glasspoole.com

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Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.

Flash movies can be a great thing. They can help catch eyes that are otherwise bored with static looking pages, and they can help tell a story better than plain text. However the use of flash must be tempered with the ability to rank in search engines. This article describes some of the considerations and recommendations when using flash on a website.
Disney does it. And so does Oprah. Even my favorite pizza place does it. That is embed their primary navigation and important content inside a flash movie. In fact in all these cases, a good part of the sites home page is flash, rendering that section of the page invisible to search engine crawlers.
Granted these are extreme cases of sites which use flash extensively, but there are other cases where even a little flash can be improperly used. There are also cases where flash is not only appropriate, it is recommended. The question then becomes how to best use flash without affecting search engine rankings.
Much like the early settlers of the Wild Wild West we are the frontiersman (and women) of a new community - the World Wide Web community (notice the WWW analogy) - which has seen its birth in the past couple decades and has really experienced its growth happen in the last 10 years or so.
And throughout that time there have been many ways to display a website and its content. Some were more successful than others. But there is one aspect of web development which has been hotly contested between designers of websites and those who position them. That is the use of Flash.
Flash has been around for some time now and while it is pretty (for lack of a better word) it can seriously hinder a websites ability to position well in the search engines. This is because most search crawlers can not see nor effectively index flash or its contents. Therefore anything contained within the flash, including page content or more importantly site navigation, is invisible to them.
Yet flash does have it’s good points as well. As I mentioned above, it can turn an otherwise bland looking site into something unique and refreshing. So the question becomes - where does one balance the need for search engine indexability with the need for impressing customers?
Well here’s a rule of thumb for you - less is better.
Less flash occupying the page is better, as well as having as little content embedded within it as possible. Further, where the flash appears on the page can have an impact on its ability to deliver the intended message.
Let’s have a quick survey - how many of you, upon coming to a site, tune out the top 1/5 of the page, and even a couple inches on the right of the page - especially if you see flashing or movement?
Just as I suspected, most of you. I do it too. And we do this because these are the places we typically see banner ads, therefore we associate that space on many sites with advertising and tune it out.
But there are cases when sites place important messages, via flash, in these locations. But if many people tune out these locations, they are also tuning out that important message. Hence the reason the flash doesn’t do so well on the page.
So there’s tip number one: Don’t place your flash where it will be ignored - namely those spots on the page normally associated with advertising.
My second flash tip - don’ t take up most of the screen with it. Keep the screen real estate it occupies to less than the screen, preferably on the left side. There are many reasons for this:
Too often, as people are orienting themselves to the page, their eyes scan the page and are all over it for a few seconds, and then fixate on the top left of the page. If you have a flash movie running (and especially if its one without controls) they have missed a few seconds of that message. And we all know what good a message is that’s incomplete?
Another reason for minimizing flash usage: While more and more people are adopting broadband every day, still close to half of the US uses dial up. Which means everything takes longer to load. And if these users are waiting for a flash movie to load, they could navigate away from your site in frustration because the page is taking so long to load.
Some other recommendations:
Don’t use the flash to tell the story, use it to enhance the story. If you are trying to sell a product, leave the important information in the HTML of the page, but use the flash to emphasize the product by either displaying it, or pointing out the benefits. your flash should be complementary and not too overwhelming.
Finally, did you know you can also externalize the code required to display the flash? This is something that can help improve page load times which could improve spiderability.
Using a technique similar to one I described in the externalizing JavaScript article, you can externalize the code used to render the flash. You can use the same code used to create a drop down box via JavaScript to externalize the flash code (using the document.write code and embedding the HTML needed to display the flash there).
As you can see, based on this article, is that flash isn’t all that bad, provided its used properly. That means it shouldn’t be too overpowering or occupy too much of the page. It should be complementary to the message the page is intending to give, and should be located in places that people will look at, and not in places normally associated with advertising.
If you follow these simple rules, your flash can become an essential selling point to your site. One which could provide your customers the little push they need to move from browsers to buyers.
About the Author
Rob Sullivan - SEO Specialist and Internet Marketing Consultant. Any reproduction of this article needs to have an html link pointing to http://www.textlinkbrokers.com

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Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.