Search Engine Optimization, also termed “SEO” isn’t about improving or optimizing a search engine it’s about optimizing your website, video, or other digital offering you have published to the Internet. More specifically it’s about making changes to get your offering to appear on the first page and in the one of the top three spots. Learn about SEO and what it can do for you in this short article.

Depending on what you are looking to accomplish with your website being on the front page for your specific keywords isn’t always the holy grail you may think it is. There are other factors that come into play depending on what you consider success.  For instance if you are interested in spreading the word about a worthy cause and you have a website dedicated to that, it may be enough just to get a visitor to the site.  The fact that you have done the work to optimize your site or page to come up for the relevant term or terms may be enough in this case.

One the other hand, let’s say your defining success as an incoming lead for a venture capital company.  In this case the value of a pure visitor isn’t as great, you need them to DO something, probably either call you directly right then or fill out a contact form requesting more information.  The value one would measure here would be the number of opt-ins or leads generated.  Improving the quality of prospects can be streamlined through various incoming search terms.

Search engine optimization has many uses and can create many results that can be very beneficial to small businesses, non-profits, professional service providers and anyone else who is looking to get the word out about  something or someone.  This brings to mind another important factor of SEO and one that plays a big part in the SEO industry, and that is reputation management.

Using SEO as a medium of reputation management is very effective way to influence what people read about you, your company or your products.  While marketing materials, testimonials, positive feedback, and specials are all great ideas, they don’t do much good if people searching don’t see them.  In a sense reputation management could be looked at as brand management.  Implementing a solid search engine strategy targeting your specific company name, or trademark products is best implemented early on, as age of web pages does play a role in what results tend to rank higher in search engines.

You know your business better than anyone and right now you likely see a unique way that ranking well for certain searches could make a major difference in your business.  I wanted to share some of the most common reasons people seek out search engine optimization services and how SEO can make a big difference in your business.

It was only about 6 years ago that I first asked myself, “What is SEO?” , since then I’ve mastered a “way of doing things” that is really just a SEO friendly  web publishing system.  I’ve been very successful in obtaining top three first page rankings for some of the most competitive terms on the Internet.  Needless to say some of the highest search (and traffic generating) words are general search terms and they are very competitive.  What do I mean?  As and example, it would be much harder to rank for the keyword “John Deere Tractor” than it would be to rank for “ John Deere Tractors in Indiana”.

The most important thing I’ve learned about search engine optimization is that I don’t need to know everything.  I just have to know how to get results.  Technology is amazing and wonderful, it can also be very frustrating.  The SEO industry is overflowing with technical jargon, different programming languages, and information on site structure that really doesn’t mean anything to me.  The CMS or content management system that I use for all of my own sites takes care of all the technical stuff for me. Literally all I do go to the site and type or use my word processor on my laptop and the paste it to my website.  I can make any changes myself (and so could you) and it doesn’t cost me a penny and I’m free of any headaches. It’s important to know that you don’t need to be an expert at this stuff, and steer clear of someone trying to bury you in information you don’t understand because it’s the most common way I’ve seen used to drive cost in search engine optimization.

Get your business and career propelled to the higher level through Propeller.com. Our lesson today will be about getting propelled through the use of the popular news site- Propeller.com. Formerly known as Netscape.com, this amazing site is a news generating site operated by AOL. Members can vote which stories are to be included in the front page. Users may comment on the posted news too. So if carefully planned and written, this quite formal website could be a launch pad to your success.

Propeller.com is a cool website where people post their own news stories. You may expect quality and read-worthy submissions in this site. So it will be best to post news articles that are somehow good to read. When you do, you will have a lesser chance of getting denied in the site. Yes, you may want to be a little conservative when dealing with this site, because they will quickly close your account if they suspect spam or too much self interest promotion.

Like Squidoo and HubPages, Propeller is also free. But you will have to earn it the hard way. Contrary to the previous websites we talked about, Propeller is different in such a way that you will need to come up with something interesting and good, so that the whole community of eager minds can check and follow you.

Considered as a social news portal, where most news and updates is done by users, you will need all the effort. Members will be posting links to stories of any kind. Although not a free-for-all website, it is a moderated site, which means that your post will be reviewed and monitored before it is considered for posting. But your hard efforts will soon pay off. Once posted, your strategic article will be viewed by honest users who might consider your proposal seriously. Plus! getting inside propeller means that you have a strong referral through the site. You will have no problem dealing with false accusations about your site and your product. So users and viewers can now find your amazing article with your link on it in the search engines. Propeller.com will really propel you to greater heights.

So how do we get ourselves propelled to this site?

1.  First, you may access the website in www.propeller.com.

2.  And then click sign up for free. Choose sign up for new account and follow the whole registration process.

3.  Once registered, you may now start posting your news-like article endorsing your product or brand in the end. Take note that you will have to be extra careful when choosing and writing your post! Or you might get your account deleted.

4.  Add up the link of your site to it strategically and it should be ready for posting. There are many ways to generate great traffic to your own site, and Propeller.com is one site you should try. It will be worth the hard effort.

On this next lesson, we will learn about using another tool that is very popular today in the internet. Today we will learn how to use HubPages to generate traffic to your site. Similar to Squidoo, HubPages is designed for sharing advertisements and contents. HubPages environment allows users to create individual pages and post specific topics in it. HubPages was officially launched in 2006. Since then, it holds its place in the top 100 most visited web sites on the internet, receiving around 21.2 million visits and 99 million page views. I can see you see the potential here? Yes, this is one powerful website!

Considered as a user-generated content site, users can submit pages in an article/ magazine style and these will be posted as web pages, or also called as Hubs. Users called Hubbers can get all intellectual property rights to their Hubs, which is why it gained so much popularity. Hubbers can post topics up to 1,500 words. Yes, if you wish to write multiple hubs, you may write separate Hubs and link them using a feature in the site. You may also add pictures and screenshots into it. Plus it has other great tools available for use in order to enhance your Hub.

It has a strong backlink, and generates traffic through the HubPages site itself. So search engines can easily find you if someone will search your post. All of these great and amazing stuff you can have for free. Yes, for free, you can advertise your own website to millions of viewers around the globe.

Here’s how to use HubPages to generate traffic to your own site. This is an overview of the whole, really simple process.

1.  First, type in www.hubpages.com and access the site.

2.  Once in the cool environment, you may click sign in or join to register. Fill up and follow the process and click    create my account.

3.  When you are done, congratulations! You are now a Hubber on the site and you are now ready to create your own hub.

4.  Post your article in the page, add pictures to it, or enhance it even more through the Hubpages tools, then post it.

5.  Don’t forget to do our finishing move which is to attach a link to your site in your hub for easy access, in case others may want to follow you to your own site or product you are trying to sell.

Here’s an example, you may be the owner of a kitten or cat web site and you wanted to tell people about how wonderful they are plus hint on a few interesting books. Since you want to draw many followers online, you have marketing in your mind. So you sign up for HubPages at HubPages.com and post an article about cats or kittens. Probably you will include in there some excellent information about cat care. You may want to present it well so that viewers would want to know more about you and your blog. Then you go ahead and make a proposal in the end and say, “For more free tips about cat care, you may visit my free website www.everythingcatskittens.com.” So because your Hub was so informative and good, other viewers will begin to click on your link. Right there and then, you will create instant traffic to your website!  Let us know how you use HubPages to generate traffic to your website.

Are you looking for a popular website that will post your own site as well – for free? Well Squidoo is what you are looking for. Squidoo is a community site that enables users to create their own customized pages, also called lenses, for various topics and subjects. Being one of the most visited websites in the internet, Squidoo is a very ideal place to market and sell your website. No need to learn html to post that page, in one simple registration in the sign-up lens, then you are ready to go. Let’s take a dive and look at how Squidoo works and find out too why this tool is in our list of the top strategies for generating more traffic to our website.

Here are some great reasons to consider using Squidoo in our own marketing arsenal: One reason is because of its popularity. Many people browse in Squidoo primarily for information purposes. Students with school assignments love to search for answers in the site’s lenses. Due to its wide range of topics, from food and cooking to art and music, users can now find their niche and post in their own creative site for others to see. Someone out there may be in need of your product. And because it is new and growing, you will be attracting not only a generation of users but everyone using this technology. Probably the most practical and important reason for using this tool is that it is free. Yes, think about it well. You are being advertised by Squidoo and endorsed to thousands of users, and you pay nothing. Just a little effort in signing up, then let Squidoo do the advertising.

How To Use Squidoo To Generate Traffic to Your Website

1.  First, type in the URL www.squidoo.com.

2.  Once the page is fully load, go to the upper right corner and click sign up. After the registration process, you are good to post in your website.

3.  Within minutes you can already set-up your own page. Probably you may want to consider where you will post your lens. There are niches to choose from in the site.

That’s easy as counting numbers. This is a very strategic way to get promoted. Oh, before we forget, once your page or lens is posted, your links will be forwarded to the various search engines in the web including the Squidoo traffic as well. So search engines like www.google.com and www.yahoo.com can post your page and its links through Squidoo. So basically what we only need to do is sign-up, create a page, link your site into, and then post. So go ahead and try this technique, this is a sure way to generate more traffic to your website and of course to generate more income and sales. Get Squidoo-fied!

I have been doing some experimenting lately on how to get my blog posts indexed fast. So here are the results. Some of you might already know and others not. Now some of them are my own theories so I could be wrong.

1)  Add no pictures to your posts initially. For some strange reason I think you get indexed faster if you have no pictures in your posts. Obviously because pictures are harder for spiders to read so eliminate them at first. Then after the post is indexed go and add a picture!

Sometimes I can get indexed within minutes if there are no pictures in my posts!

2) Your WordPress theme can sometimes hold you back if it doesn’t post the summary of your most recent articles on your home page. What do I mean by that? I have one blog that only posts my 3 most popular categories on the home page. Now that’s just how the WordPress theme was made. So whenever I make a post to different categories that is not on the home page, it takes a longer time for those posts to get indexed. Do want to know why? It makes sense when I tell you.

Almost everyone has a WordPress plugin called ” Google XML Sitemaps ” installed on their blog. At least they should know that plugin is important to SEO.  If your using wordpress go to plugins and then “ADD NEW” and search google xml sitemaps.  Upload and activate the plugin then visits the settings, it is pretty self explanatory from there. Having a site map is a great way to let the search engines you have a new post and they should come take a look.  This will help get your blog posts indexed fast.

3) Posting more then 2-3 posts a day seems to push it. Now you could change your XML-sitemap parameters to reflect that you are posting hourly, but I personally feel any more than 2-3 posts per day kind of signals spam. Plus I wouldn’t recommend changing it to hourly either. Be reasonable.

4) Digg your post. This one is a well known method to get your blog posts indexed fast! Submit your post to the social bookmarking site called “Digg” and it will be indexed quickly. Or even just social bookmark your post to any popular bookmarking site and it works! As you probably already know why it works. It works because spiders practically live on those social bookmarking sites, so things get indexed quite quickly there!

Along with “digging” your post you could alternatively share your blogpost on any social media platform as it will also help get a blog post indexed fast on the search engines.  The process for getting a website indexed fast is similar with a few variations. I will write another article on getting your website indexed soon and link to it from here.

Service to Get Your Website Indexed Quickly

Would you hire a service to get a new website indexed quickly?  I’ve been curious about this as I’ve heard many people complaining they can’t find there new site in the search engines.  I know the process, and I’m not implying it is difficult because it isn’t.   Linking is the key, but some people who have a brand new website can’t, or don’t know where to get links from. If you have any comments on a service to get a website indexed in search engines like Google quickly let me know in the comments.

Blogs are a wonderful way of getting traffic and building relationships – either with your own blog or through other peoples.

Blog Commenting

This is one of my personal favorites and it works extremely well.

Visit other blogs in your niche and then add comments to posts which you feel you can contribute to (this can be a question, challenge, feedback, or an addition to the post).

The secret is to make your comments engaging and thoughtful, and then include a link in the box provided back to your website.

The chances are you’ll already know some popular blogs in your niche, but if you don’t then they’re easy to find using Google.

Here’s a good example:

After a while, if you regularly comment on a particular blog you can also begin to build a relationship with the blog owner, which could lead to backlinks, interviews or the chance to appear as a guest blogger. Another benefit of posting regularly is that many blogs have a ‘Frequent Commentators’ box or similar – giving you extra exposure.

It’s always good if you’re the first person to leave a comment on a particular post because that means you’ll be at the top and more likely to get read. If you sign up to a blog’s RSS feed, you will be automatically updated when a new blog post is published, so this is easy as long as you’re quick.

Another good strategy is to find posts which appear to be popular (posts which already have a lot of comments) and add an additional one. The reason for this is that people keep coming back to these posts and you can find yourself getting traffic back to your sites YEARS after the original post was made.

The best piece of advice I can give with blog commenting is to simply join in the conversation. Add your own personal thoughts to the original post and try to make your comments interesting and worth reading. Don’t just post one liners (e.g “great post”) as this is boring and people will see through the fact that you’re only doing it to advertise your website and get your link on there. Post an intelligent response to the original post and people will start to think “this person is worth checking out” and they will.

Video Traffic

Videos are great for traffic – and they are becoming ever more effective by the day.

Why not turn your articles into videos?

When you think about it, quite a few people either don’t like reading or they just prefer to watch and listen to a video.  So turning your articles into video form gives you access to these people.

The easiest way to do this is by doing a Powerpoint presentation and recording it with software such as Camtasia (which is available on a free trial.)

All you have to do is pop on your headset and read your article aloud (it helps if you can somehow make it sound like you’re not reading from the page – quite easy with a bit of practice.)

If you’re camera shy then don’t worry because you don’t even need to show your face, or alternatively you could get someone else to do it.

If it helps you can put in screenshots to aid and visually enhance what you’re saying.  This is especially useful if it’s something technical where it helps to show images or diagrams to get the message across clearly.

Once you have created your video you should submit it to as many video sites and video directories as you can.  Try the usual suspects first – YouTube.com or Tubemogul – where you can submit your video to various different sites for free (and obviously these sites get TONS of traffic – the potential is absolutely huge!)

Doing this alone will create traffic for you, but with certain sites, you can dramatically up the amount of views the video gets by adding video responses to other peoples videos which you come across and find useful.  YouTube is one such site, so let’s go through what you do to add video responses on YouTube.

Firstly submit your video, then find another video that relates to yours and has lots of views to it.  Once you’ve found a related video you like, look below it for a section called “Video Responses” and on the right hand side of this will be a link that says “Post a Video Response”.

Click this link and you will go to a page where you can post your response.  In the middle of this page is a link that reads “Choose a Video.” From here choose the video and click on “Respond With This Video”.

Now you can return to the related video you chose and you will see that your video is listed in the Video Responses section.  That’s it really – it’s not only simple but this can get you thousands more views to your video, which will in turn create amazing amounts of traffic! Please however make sure you choose a video that is related to the topic of yours (and is of good quality), otherwise you probably won’t get the results you’re looking for.

Podcasting Traffic

Another way to make use of one article is to read it out and create a podcast.

I personally use a piece of software called Audacity. You can convert this file into an MP3, so that your visitors can listen to the audio on the move.

Submit your podcasts to places like http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com.  You can also find a list of places to submit podcasts to here: http://www.podcasting-tools.com/submit-podcasts.htm

This is an area that I believe will become ever more popular in the future, and it offers great traffic generation potential.

Press releases are great for getting numerous backlinks and traffic to your website fast. It’s a technique I have used numerous times to great effect – yet not many people in the internet marketing world are doing it!

Just be sure to pick a good keyword for your press release and make sure that your press release is actually NEWSWORTHY – which in my opinion is the most important thing. Ask yourself why somebody would be interested in your press release. If it’s all about your product or your company then chances are that people won’t be.

The advice offered here can help you get onto the first page of Google News with ease, but first, let’s look at the benefits of getting onto Google News:

-      A press release on Google News will send you a lot of traffic, and there is also the potential that a journalist could pick up your news story and help you spread it internet wide.

-      Your press release will be indexed all over the place. This is not only Google, but Yahoo, Ask and a whole selection of other search engine bots.

-      Google News has a Page Rank of 9, so you’ll get great link juice from submitting your press release to them. There are also lots of websites that syndicate Google News, so the potential for great backlinks and traffic is huge!

To get the best results from your press release bear the following in mind:

-      Make sure your story is interesting and newsworthy

If you want your press release to spread around the internet then make sure your story is something people will be interested in – don’t make it a blatant advertising ploy.

-      Include the key information in the opening paragraph

If you don’t grab the readers attention in the opening paragraph then the chances are they won’t bother reading any further. Include as much information about the story – who, what, when, where, why – in the opening paragraph.

-      Only use one keyword per press release

This will mean that your press release is focussed and targeted to a specific keyword that people will type in to search and find out about you.  If you want to target a number of keywords, then write one press release for each keyword.

-      Your keyword must appear in the title

This rule must always be followed as it is a vital part of SEO.  If your keyword does not appear in the title then it will be difficult for people to find your release.  When your keyword appears in the title, it stands a good chance of getting ranked on other search engines as well.

-      Put your keyword in the first and last paragraphs

This is another SEO tip, as search engines put a lot of weight on a keyword if it’s mentioned in the extract, introduction and last paragraph.  Also try to make sure that there is a keyword density of about 3 to 5%.  You can use the free software found at http://www.dupefreepro.com to check your density.

-      Always have a call to action in your press release

Make sure that you have a call to action in your press release, as this is part of the dual purpose of a press release – to get backlinks and just as importantly visitors.

The following are some press release submission sites which should get you indexed fast and onto Google News within 24 hours:

http://prlog.org

http://free-press-release.com

http://www.prfire.co.uk

http://www.fgnpr.com

http://www.pitchengine.com

Good luck!

Forum marketing is an excellent way to generate traffic for free, whilst once again boosting your reputation and making you seem like an expert in your field. Get it wrong however and you may find yourself being banned from the forums quite easily, but get it right and in my experience you’ll see some pretty good results.

Forum marketing is a great traffic generation method. Not only can you get good backlinks from your keyword rich signature, you will also get lots of curious people clicking through your signature link, and it opens up many opportunities to network with people.

-      First, you need to determine your niche and find appropriate forums to join.  You want to find ones where posts are made on a regular basis, so don’t bother with any that haven’t had any new posts in the last week.

-      Be sure to read the forum rules, as most have their own specific policies and they can vary greatly from forum to forum.  If no signatures are allowed, then I would probably avoid the forum, unless it was very busy and could be used for networking purposes.

-      Create an interesting signature that uses your main keywords and your unique selling proposition to direct people to your website.  Always check the forum rules, as it may be that you are not allowed to have a signature until you have x number of posts. It is good to put some thought into what you want to convey in your signature. If you can make it attention grabbing but not ‘salesey’ then you should get plenty of clicks.

-      An important piece of forum marketing etiquette is that if you can’t say something nice, then tie your hands behind your back, so as not to jeopardize your forum marketing efforts!  You want to have a good standing and build positive relationships with other forum members. Avoid getting into an argument – it’s all too easy to do this and create lots of negativity around your business.

-      Before you even think about posting, take in the forum’s ambiance and atmosphere, so that you can fit right in.

-      Next, look for topics where you can reply with quality answers.  When you have done this a few times people will start to regard you as an expert, respect your opinions and be more tempted to click through the link on your signature. You will become known as someone who can offer solutions.

-      Start interesting threads on the latest hot topics in your niche.  If a hot topic is a problem, then create a thread that offers a solution in a step by step format.  Try to turn heads with your knowledge, so that you build your reputation within the forum. You want to be perceived as an expert – someone who people can turn to for friendly advice. You never want to look like a salesman.

-      Be sure to acknowledge and appreciate any forum member that has provided information or that has helped you in some way. This builds goodwill and strengthens relationships and is another way to contribute to the forum.

-      Over time, you will build strong relationships with other members on the forum.  These friendships can develop into potential joint venture partners, which is another exciting traffic generation method.

-      Lastly, you can use forums to learn more about your niche and the typical problems that your target market faces.  This information can be used to create more targeted products and increase your knowledge.

I have used forum marketing for years and I particularly recommend the Warrior forum  but remember that there are many popular forums in pretty much ANY niche that you can use to generate traffic to your sites, whilst building strong relationships and coming across good business development and networking opportunities.

I bet most people will not believe me if I said that there is just one single most important factor when it comes to SEO because the forums are filled with advice, there are $1,000 courses teaching SEO and companies charge $5,000 or more per month for SEO services.

But after several years as an Internet marketer, I can confidently say that the most important factor is: LINKS!

In basic terms, the more links you get to your website, the higher you will rank. If you get enough links you can even forget about doing onpage optimization because you will still outrank the competition. The classic example of this is Adobe’s Acrobat Reader page.

Head over to Google and search for the phrase ‘click here’. Adobe’s page comes up number one, beating sites which have the exact phrase in the title, description – it even beats the company who call themselves Click Here who I would assume optimize for that phrase. In fact, if you go on to Adobe’s page the word ‘click’ and ‘here’ don’t even feature, not in the text, not in the source code, so why is this?

It’s one of the proofs that knowledgeable SEO experts point to in order to show that back links are the most important factor in getting top rankings in Google. In this case, there must be hundreds of thousands of high authority sites like Government departments and Educational institutions, not to mention some of the largest corporations in the world, who link to the Acrobat Reader software with the words “Click Here” as the anchor text!

The anchor text is vitally important because Google and other search engines look for what keywords are included to discover the relevancy of the site. However, it’s also been shown that if you use the same keyword for every backlink you get, then search engines may ban your site for spamming. It’s best to use your main keyword about 50% of the time, secondary keywords 30% of the time and then using the site name, full URL link and stock phrases like ‘click here’, ‘more info’, ‘visit site’ to give some variation.

Another important consideration is where you get these backlinks from. Although Bing and Yahoo (which is powered by Bing) seem to consider the quantity of links a site has for the ranking whereas Google appears to be a bit choosy about which links count.

In this case, getting thousands of backlinks from directories might help you in Bing, but will have little effect in Google. Infact, getting just a few links from high authority sites or relevant sites which have a high profile in Google can help just as much as getting those thousands of backlinks, so you may want to focus your energies on getting high quality backlinks rather than relying on submissions to get good rankings.

In closing, although you should do some basic optimization on your website, don’t get obsessive over it as it’s worth your time building links rather than considering the perfect keyword density!