Notice what I did with keywords. I carefully chose keywords for the title and the url (note that I used “change” in the url and “changing” in the title). The categories on my post (“How to” and “Linux”) give me a subtle way to mention Linux again, and include a couple extra ways that someone might do a search–lots of user type “how to (do what they want to do).” I thought about the words that a user would type in when looking for an answer to their question, and tried to include those words in the article. I also tried to think of a few word variations and included them where they made sense (file vs. files, bash and bashrc, Firefox and Mozilla, etc.). I’m targetting a long-tail concept where someone will be typing several words, so I’m probably in a space where on-page keywords are enough to rank pretty well. I don’t need anchor-text for “linux default printer” or similar phrases; in the on-page space, I’d recommend thinking more about words and variants (the “long-tail”) and thinking less about keyword density or repeating phrases.
The meta-issues I’d mention would be:
1) The utility of an article is paramount. If you write 2000 words about mortgage loans and never discuss the industry landscape or impart some useful, concrete knowledge to your reader, that should set off a warning flag in your head. So use this advice only for good (high-quality articles), not for evil.

2) Be sure to study your niche. I just spent 10-15 minutes to tackle the “default printer in Linux/Firefox/Mozilla” space. Is that niche worth writing an article about? Well, it was for me, because I was looking for this information myself. In general, any time you look for an answer or some information and can’t find it, that should strike you as an opportunity.
But the larger point is that if you put in time and research to produce or to synthesize original content, think hard about what niches to target. My advice is not to start with an article about porn/pills/casinos/mortgages–it’s better to start with a smaller niche. If you become known as an expert on (say) configuring Linux or hacking gadgets, you could build that out with things like forums to create even more useful content. Look for a progression of niches so that you start out small or very specific, but you can build your way up to a big, important area over time.

Article by http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/

SEO Tip #1 – Get Quality Backlinks

Getting quality backlinks or inbound links to your website is one of the key ingredients to search engine optimization. The more backlinks you have to your site from other reputable sites, the more Google will favor your website. Try to get as many links to as many pages to your site as possible. When other websites are linking to your site, it tells the search engines that your website is valuable. The higher the page rank from these other websites, the better.

SEO Tip #2 – Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking has become a great way to gain exposure in the online world. Make it simple for readers to bookmark your pages by creating important links that major search engines value. In addition, you can submit your website to these social bookmarking sites to get some added exposure. Places such as digg.com or stumbleupon.com are a great start.

SEO Tip #3 – Article Directory Submissions

Submitting articles to article directories is one of the best ways to market your website, and gain valuable backlinks. Writing articles for these directories is useful in two ways. First of all, most of these directories allow you to include a link to your website in an author’s resource box at the end of your article. This will allow the reader to link to your site from high ranking article directories like EzineArticles.com.

Secondly, webmasters from other sites may publish your article on these sites, along with the link to your website. Not only will you get links from the original article directory, but you will get links from these other sites as well.

SEO Tip #4 – Website Directory Submissions

This is another way of gaining exposure, and getting linked from many sources, which is exactly what search engines are looking for. There are literally hundreds of website directories out there for you to post your website on. Many of them are free, while others charge a small fee. Try to stick to the directories with higher Google page ranks.

SEO Tip #5 – Create a Sitemap

Sitemaps are a great way of letting the search engines know about all the pages on your site. You simply create a sitemap (through various sitemap generators available online), upload it to your public HTML folder through your web host, then submit your sitemap to the search engines, such as Google. This will make it easier to let Google know that your site is out there, waiting to be crawled by its ’spiders’.

Search engine optimization can take many forms. These are just some of the many ways in which to get your site ranked high, and gain valuable traffic. Be creative, put in the work, and eventually you should see your site crawl up the charts.

Lisa has been writing articles for many years. Come visit her latest website that reviews the best outdoor electric grills, the best stainless steel grills, and other info related to these and other types of grills.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Simonelli_Rennie

The question must be asked at least once, does size really matter?

If I insert a H1 that is size 7px at the top of a page, will Google and other major search engines index this H1 as normal or will it devalue the H1 or even possibly penalise a websites rankings. When you think it about from a logical perspective, a H1 should be like a newspaper heading, whereby the title is the largest text on the page. You never see a newspaper heading that is smaller than the body content.  If Google has not caught up to this greyhat technique, they shall will eventually.

If we really need to decrease a h1 in size, why should Google and other major search engines index you highly in the SERPs, you obviously cannot display a bigger size heading that is relevant to the content and in which you want the readers to read. Imagine the sunday telegraph without its huge frontpage heading. The whole point is to catch the viewer from the first word and thus helping them to make a decision into buying the paper. I guess I will leave the end conclusion to your own opinions until part 2 of the article is brought out with the results.

Stay tuned for Part 2 when the results will be determined.

Yelp has raised a little over $30 million over several funding rounds. Revenues are heading toward $50 million according to several sources. If the price suggested by TechCrunch is correct, it would be about 10X estimated revenues.

There has been an imbalance between Yelp’s success as a consumer brand and destination and its ability to “monetize” among small business advertisers. However that $50 million in revenues, if correct, would be very respectable.

Buying Yelp would be a different sort of acquisition for Google — a major one — because it’s not really a technology platform so much as a local brand, community and sales channel. If Google does buy Yelp, what exactly does it get?

It gets a local-social network with roughly 26 million users across the US, Canada and the UK. Yelp reportedly has 8.5 million reviews. This is a huge amount of content that Google can’t generate itself and which it is already leaning on pretty heavily on its Place Pages as part of its increasing focus on local. But Google is also doing things on Place Pages that potentially threaten sites like Yelp longer term (e.g., sentiment analysis).

The Yelp brand is stronger than Google in the local market in many respects (see my post: Berkeley Salon: ‘80% of New Biz from Yelp’). And this would be the closest Google has gotten to buying a “sales force” with a meaningful “on the ground” presence in the form of local editorial people in market and telephone salespeople.

If this does happen many “Yelpers” (as they call themselves) will be unhappy, as many YouTube users were when Google acquired that site. It would also be a major (read: MAJOR) threat to many of Google’s local reseller publisher partners and others in the local space. The ad options for Google here are many, including:

* Distributing geotargeted display and text ads on Yelp

* Using Yelp as an “onramp” for Local Listing Ads, which will reappear next year

In some ways this would be as dramatic or more dramatic than the recent AdMob acquisition announcement. Google is increasingly serious about the local market — from both a content and advertiser/small business perspective (extending into mobile). Yelp helps fill in several gaps for Google on both sides.

If this does happen it will reverberate through the entire “local ecosystem” for many months to come. No, it would be an earthquake.

Article By http://searchengineland.com/google-to-buy-yelp-for-500-million-32174

Imagine that!

Yes, imagine an Internet world where no search engines exist, and anyone trying to make a living online selling a product or service has to be found.

Where would you start? Where would you list your site(s)? How would you get your site found by your potential customers?

This is the mentality you should always take when promoting your website. Sure, it’d be great to have top rankings in the search engines, and get all of that free targeted traffic coming to your site. But just as easily as you achieve that ranking, you could lose it overnight – with a simple filter change in the algorithm.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the “Florida” update that caused many site owners panic attacks as their previously highly ranked sites fell off the face of the Internet. They lost sales, traffic and dreams of Internet riches.

Why?

As I heard someone famous once say: “Don’t place all your eggs in one basket” – yet too many website owners do. They are obsessed with a top ranking in Google instead of building a brand name people will recognize and trust. Top rankings in the search engines should be part of your Internet marketing strategy, but dedicate only a portion of your efforts to that. You should equally spend your time pursuing partnerships with other non-competitive sectors of the Internet.

I’m sure you’ve seen a web-ring. To refresh, they are a group of related sites that link to each other. Internet marketing is the same concept, but on a much grander showcase. You can advertise your site in the costly Pay-Per-Click Arena, and if you have the budget to do so, by all means, that is the quickest way to get found. But keeping in mind that search engines don’t exist, what would you do to get the word out?

1. Press Releases - While they should be reserved for newsworthy purposes (new product/service, acquisition, attending Trade Show or Convention, etc.), they are a great way to get people to visit your site when they are looking for information relating to your product or service. It’s also a great way to build your brand name and to become known as an authority of information in your field.

2. Directory Listings - Quite simply, this is the easiest way to get your site indexed by search engines. There are many free directories that you can get your site listed in, and there are many fee-based directories that are worth the price of adding your site. The added value is that since your site is listed categorically, it helps to re-enforce what your site offers, since it will be found with similar sites.

3. Articles - Expose your expertise! While article writing is not easy, it is an extremely valuable asset to your site. By writing, you are creating unique content found nowhere else and we all know how much search engines love that! It also gives you another way of explaining a product or service without coming off as a sales pitch. Another added benefit of writing articles is that it’s a great way to naturally grow the size of your site in an organic way, and will in turn, make your site become a “hub” of relevant information in regards to your industry.

4. Newlsetters - This should be your site’s bread and butter. The people who have signed up for your newsletter already feel that your site was worth their time to give you their email address, so these people have already place some trust and value into what you have to say. The newsletter is where you can promote new products and services to interested users without risking any intrusiveness factors. This is the best place to make a sales pitch to your perspective readers!

5. Blogs/RSS Feeds - While to some people this is already old-hat, there are many users out there (think AOL users) who have no idea about how to customize the content they want to read. There are many areas to get your blog listed, and it gives an inside point-of-view into the inner workings of your company or personality, thus giving yet another way for a user to identify with you or your site.

I think it’s safe to say that the search engines will always be around, but to focus entirely on them and ignoring the other resources could be a costly business mistake.

Just remember to keep your eye on the prize of online success, and customers coming from various outlets, not just the search engines.

Article By http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/sales-without-search-engines.cfm

By Daljeet Sidhu
The Internet provides a huge platform for all kinds of businesses to market their products and increase their revenues. Having an online presence provides enhanced visibility and access to innumerable consumers on the web, from all over the world. Every industry has a plethora of websites already that have stiff competition amongst them. Your website would need to compete with others to figure higher in search results.

Search engines use complex algorithms and ranking systems to determine the outcome of a web search. A website is ranked higher if there are other websites that contain links to it. Having a large number of links to your website would improve your search engine ranking tremendously.

Link Building needs good research, is tedious, and time consuming process. Link building service providers assist websites attain better ranking in search results by implementing ways to increase links to them.

Businesses that do not have much exposure to internet are not very sure of how link builders work, and how this overall process can increase their profits. Text Link Building Service providers apply various approaches to create links to your websites. Some of these techniques are discussed here:

1. Link builders write and submit articles related to your business to different content directories regularly. This increases the number of incoming links to your website. Providing useful information has an added advantage of building a good reputation for you and your business.

2. Company news generally contains keywords that are relevant to your industry. Link builders write and submit press releases on behalf of your company to news directories. This increases the chances of getting better search results.

3. Link builders add interesting material, as a bait, to attract people to your website. This is referred to as link bait. Link baits may include writing some interesting material on your website, adding some useful tools, giving away something valuable free and so on.

4. Many popular websites contain quality material and keywords pertaining to your business and industry. Link Builders find out the most appropriate and highly ranked websites belonging to your industry and figure out ways to add links of your websites in them.

5. Link builders search for websites that have large number of visitors. These include many media and news websites. They create articles and other media content that they publish regularly on these sites.

6. Link builders increase the online visibility of your website. This is achieved in a number of ways. For example creating profile for your business on social networking websites, leaving comments on blogs related to your industry, contributing to ‘wiki’ and other open knowledge bases, providing advice and suggestions in forums etc.

Text link building is a tedious and a long term process which requires a lot of involvement, devotion and experience. Link building service providers help in this process. It is a full time job for link builders to figure out ways to get links, which in-turn improves ranking and visibility for your website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daljeet_Sidhu

By Jason G Gervais
Bing is doing its best to differentiate itself from Google. Attempting to claim some high ground, Microsoft is positioning Bing as the world’s first “decision engine” as opposed to its predecessors, the search engines. Differentiation requires using different algorithms and a new design on the search engine results page. New design or not the SERP’s on Bing do resemble Google’s at first glance.

Depending on the search, Bing delivers either highly relevant results or something a little less so. Searches in Microsoft’s wheelhouse of health, local, travel, and shopping are better than most others on Bing. The wheelhouse group was not arrived at by accident. These markets carry high potential for advertising revenues and have historically been among the highest revenue generators on the internet.

Bing isn’t going as far as saying that it will change search engine optimization, yet. In early June, a whitepaper released by Bing’s Webmaster Center Team stated “Ultimately, SEO is still SEO. Bing doesn’t change that. Bing’s new user interface design simply adds new opportunities to searchers to find what the information they want more quickly and easily, and that benefits webmasters who have taken the time to work on the quality of their content and website design.”

The Bing Team emphasizes that good content and SEO are crucial elements in website design so it appears that what applies to Google and Yahoo will work with Bing. It also appears that attempts to optimize for Bing will bring similar results to the other search engines as well. The Bing team hasn’t given much other information beyond emphasizing on page content and standard SEO practices and maybe that what’s important at the moment. Based on PowerSet, Bing will definitely give more weight to content, at the expense of visuals.

Still in its infancy, Bing will need to broaden its wheelhouse to avoid turning off searchers that come over for a try, find a bunch of irrelevant results and never return. Initial traffic numbers were conflicted but it appeared that Bing had attracted some significant numbers, whether at the expense of Google and Yahoo, or not.  The rest remains to be seen.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_G_Gervais

By David S Baxter
As a website owner, you’re probably familiar with the term SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization). You probably know this relates to how you set up and wrote the content for your website so that it would get high rankings on the search engines. But did you know how much backlinks contribute to the success of your website? Lots of quality one-way backlinks – meaning links from another site to yours for a legitimate reason – help dramatically improve your rankings in the search engines.

There are commercial services out there that sell and trade links between members and can generate a large number of backlinks, but doing this type of activity actually hurts your rankings on the search engines. As the search engines discovered this was happening, they started to penalize any websites that participated in this practice because it really wasn’t a relevant indicator of a website’s content or quality. So it is much wiser to generate a handful of legitimate one-way backlinks than to trade or purchase backlinks via these means. There are seven wise steps you can take to generate legitimate, organic, one-way backlinks for your website.

1. Market Articles Online. No matter what your website sells or is about, you can write-or have someone else write-informative articles that can help your potential customers with a problem or situation. People are always looking online for solutions to their problems, so these kinds of articles get lots of readers. When you write and publish articles online, you can get lots of backlinks coming to your website to learn even more.

There are numerous sites where you can place these articles where they will get lots of readers. Goarticles.com, eHow.com, and ezinearticles.com are three such sites that get lots of interest. You can write the article, make it helpful and informative, and then include a link to your website and a brief biography about yourself as the writer in a resource box on the page with the article. With some of these kinds of sites, you may also be able to embed links into the article that can add more backlinks.

2. Create and Market Videos. You can also create interesting and helpful videos about the topics you deal with on your website and then publicize your video. The more people that watch your video, the better results your website will get. And the more they pass your link to that video along to their friends and contacts, the more backlinks you can get which will raise your rankings in the search engines. You can get lots of great backlinks to your video via a newsletter, reference to it in a blog or a forum, etc. You may even be able to include your link in your signature when you respond to posts on other people’s websites and forums-just be sure you check the rules first.

You can also tell lots and lots of people about your new videos by announcing it on Twitter. This is a brief (140 character maximum) blurb announcement service many people love. It’s short, sweet, and easy-and this could generate lots of video viewers and one-way backlinks for your site if you can get a buzz started about your videos.

3. Utilize Social Bookmarking Sites. Utilizing social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, Digg.com, and stumbleupon.com, you can also generate some good backlinks. Whenever you submit a link back to your website on these services, visitors will see your link when they are looking for information and may opt to visit your site. They can also go to your videos and give you a positive mark for being a quality website with quality content. The more feedback you get, the more viewed your video will be and the better the backlinks you will generate.

4. Use Squidoo Lens. Similar to the article sites listed above, Squidoo publishes content you submit. However, in this case the content is called “lenses” and includes video, pictures, and text. You use a multimedia approach to share information and garner readers. You can create lenses about many topics-such as your business or specific products. These lenses will help generate backlinks and traffic to your website.

5. Hubpages. Hubpages is similar to Squidoo in that you use it to make content-rich pages with text, videos, pictures, and links. You create an account, pick a title for your Hubpage, and add tags. Then you add content: photos, text, products, or comments. While you don’t “own” a topic on Hubpages, the more Hubpages you create, the higher your Hubpages ranking will be, and the more you’ll be seen as the expert on a given topic.

6. Submit Your Website to Directories. Similar to search engines, directories list websites based on their relevance to a keyword or keyword phrase. However, directories are more subjective because they are evaluated by real live site editors who decide how applicable a particular website and its content are and decide whether or not they will include the listing for their readership. You should definitely submit your site to the appropriate directories, being very careful to submitting it for the correct category or subcategory and to following all the rules and guidelines to be sure your website gets the best possible chance of being included. Again, listings in directories generate valuable, high quality one-way backlinks that are beneficial to your search engine ratings and will draw traffic to your website.

7. Use Social Media Sites. You’re probably already familiar with these sites. Social media sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, DeviantArt, and others. Using sites like this and creating pages for you and your business is very effective in getting backlinks and higher search engine ratings-as long as you keep them current so people don’t forget about you. Also remember that you need to stay professional on these kinds of sites even though they are often used by teens and young adults that may be very irreverent in their communications among themselves. You still need to put a professional image on your business and website.

You can get lots of one-way backlinks using these seven ideas. Begin with one approach and do it consistently and regularly. Slowly add new approaches as you are able. You’ll soon have higher rankings on the search engines and more visitors to your website!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_S_Baxter

Everyone is talking about optimization a website for Google. Sure, Google does own a big chunk of the traffic. And they tend to deliver more traffic than everyone else. But don’t forget that there are other major players around, such as Yahoo. Although Yahoo doesn’t deliver as much traffic as Google, it is still able to send highly targeted traffic. 10% of traffic coming from Yahoo is still 10%. The traffic is still worth something. For sure, 10% is better than nothing. So what do you have to do to rank well in Yahoo?

Tip 1: Well organized links.

Unlike Google, Yahoo pays a lot more attention to the internal structure of your website. External links still count, but that is not the main emphasis. You can have a site ranking well in Yahoo with just a few back links. But if your internal linking structure is disorganized, you are going to find it hard to rank well in Yahoo.

Being well organized means you must have a clear linking structure. Try to adopt the hierarchical structure. Also, include a site map to ensure that Yahoo crawls and indexes all the web pages.

Tip 2: Use anchor texts for Internal links.

When creating links, make sure you use proper anchor texts for your internal links. Your anchor texts must contain your target keywords. For instance, if you link to another page on your site, and that page is about “traffic generation”, then your anchor texts must say “traffic generation”. In addition, internal links allow search engines to find your content more easily.

Tip 3: Use primary keywords in title tags.

This works for Google as well, but it’s very important for Yahoo. Use your primary keywords in the title tags! With this little tweak, you can easily move to page 1 or 2 of Yahoo. Yahoo looks at your page title as well as your Meta tags closely to determine the theme of your site. Make it easy for Yahoo and you will be rewarded with higher search rankings.

Tip 4: Use search engine friendly URLs.

Forget about fanciful URLs with query strings. Use search engine friendly URLs that contain your main keywords. Most of the open source CMS does this for you automatically. If you are not using a CMS, just rename your static HTML files with the keywords in the file names.

Tip 5: Write naturally, and post high quality unique content.

Yahoo places a lot of emphasis on relevancy. Don’t bother to stuff keywords in your content. Instead, write naturally, as if you are writing for a human reader. The quality of the content is very important. If you can post unique content that is valuable, Yahoo will love your site!

Tip 6: Be patient.

Finally, be patient. Yahoo takes a lot longer than Google to index a site. Some webmasters have commented that it takes as long as three months for an entire site to be indexed. If you have a site with a clear and concise linking structure and high quality content, all you have to do is to be patient and wait for Yahoo to index all the pages.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darren_W_Chow