It is not at all common to see someone begin their mission in search engine optimization with great zeal, only to become overwhelmed by the vast amount of information that needs to be learned and applied to reach success. Much of this information cannot be found in a single location and it takes weeks if not months to become familiar with the entire process of optimizing a website for search engine success.

Finished from the Beginning

Unfortunately even with all of the experience in the world you will not always be able to achieve the success you desire, especially if you’re trying to capitalize in a heavily competitive market. The fact is, maybe the single most important aspect of search engine optimization is keyword optimization. If you are not targeting the right keywords then your plan is doomed form the very beginning. This means you need to do keyword research before you can actually begin your endeavor.

Once you know what keyword you’re promoting you can find all of the related keywords and begin designing your site around that list of keywords. If you have already built your site and it is based on a keyword that you cannot change, such as your physical business, then your search engine optimization efforts are going to be twice as difficult. In fact you probably won’t be able to achieve the success you are looking for without hiring a professional, doing extensive research, and/or completely rethinking your gameplan.

SEO Experts

The sad fact is many of the so called experts in search engine optimization are no more certifiably qualified than you are to optimize your website. In fact, you probably know your website better than anyone ever will, and that gives you an instant advantage as it is. If you do decide to hire a search engine optimization expert, you would be better of paying a tutor to teach you how to do it yourself, as this would yield a much greater return on your investment. This way you would be able to use the knowledge gained for your future endeavors, instead of wasting your money on an operation that is not even guaranteed to bring success.

Finding Good SEO Services

So how can you find a good service that will actually help you increase your traffic with search engine optimization? The answer is actually quite simple -You need to understand what is a realistic expectation, and you need to find a company or an individual that will help you achieve that expectation. A reliable and experienced search engine optimization expert will give you a realistic quote for realistic results, whereas the “gurus” will try to charge you thousands of dollars for results that sound too good to be true. If you use this simple method to find help, you will be able to achieve realistic goals in a relatively short amount of time.

How SEO Efforts Fail

The main cause of most failed SEO attempts is the lack of continual SEO. In other words, SEO requires patience, and it can take months before you see the results of your work. Therefore it is crucial to maintain a certain set of strategies for a prolonged period of time to see if they actually work or not. Simply executing a few strategies and then switching to a different strategy the next day is not going to help you determine what works and what doesn’t. Instead of placing all of this burden on themselves, many website owners rely upon tools to facilitate the search engine optimization process. Perhaps the most fundamental tool needed for a proper SEO is a competent web hosting plan. The following information will help you select a hosing plan that will improve your sites search engine optimization.

Web Hosting SEO

When selecting a web hosting package it is important to look for plans that offer control panels and other tools that have specific features geared towards continual SEO. These services are designed to improve the page rank of your website by formatting the coding of your website in a search engine friendly manner. These services often include open source control panels and content management systems that allow for instant expandability with web applications that are designed to enhance the SEO efforts of the website owner. An example of the SEO-oriented features of such automatically place SEO-friendly title tags and meta tags on each page.

Web Applications

Another way you can use your web hosting plan for search engine optimization is through the endless selection of web applications that can be used to extend the capabilities of your hosting control panel. There are literally thousands of these applications, designed specifically to increase the search engine optimization efforts of your website quickly and easily. An example of such an application would be one that automatically retrieves backlinks for your site by posting all of your site posts to various social bookmarking sites simultaneously. As your site gains more exposure from these social bookmarking sites, people will begin linking back to your site, which will eventually improve the search engine ranking of your site. This is just one example of the many web applications that can be added to your web hosting control panel to improve your SEO efforts.

Simply finding the right keywords and then loading your site with them is not going to get you anywhere. In order for your site to flourish, you’ll need the perfect balance between keyword density and keyword placement. But ultimately, which one is more important, density or placement?

Keyword Density

Search engines use web bots called crawlers to index your website’s information. In the process all of the keywords on your site are also indexed. The amount of keywords per the amount of content on your website is called keyword density. Keyword density is calculated in terms of percentage, for example:  5 keywords in a 500 word article would be a keyword density of 1%. While there is no exact standard for the amount of keyword density that should be used, there is a general frame that helps many people reach success. Most people find that using a total site keyword density of about 1%-5% is a great way to boost organic search engine listings.

So how do you do you decide how how high or how low the keyword density should be? The answer to this is directly related to the niche your site specializes in, and which keywords you are targeting. If your keyword is a very popular one, then you may want to go for a keyword density closer to the 4%-5% range. If you have a less popular keyword, then you may want to aim lower. Overall the best way to use keyword density is to start high, at around the 5% range, and then gradually go lower until you find a peak area. It should be noted however that optimal keyword density without proper placement is useless.

Keyword Placement

Keyword placement refers to the placement of the keywords throughout your site, both within the content and design of the website. Placing keywords in the right places plays a crucial role in proper search engine optimization. Search engine optimization experts recommend placing keywords within the first and last 25 words of each piece of content. Keywords should also be placed in the middle of the content as well, with at least one instance being used per article. It also helps to surround the keyword in other sub-keywords. This will help bring more targeted search to your site. Many people search for products or services and then add more information to the search query that contains another sub-keyword. It is also important to include keywords in the title tags of every page, as well as within meta tags and anchor text.

Conclusion

In regards to which is more important, keyword density or keyword placement; many would agree that keyword placement is essential. The reason why placement is more important than density is because packing a site with keywords is easy, and search engines see this as spamming in some instances. However, packing the site with properly placed keywords is not viewed as spamming by the search engines, and instead is seen as useful content.

The Importance of Keywords

Keywords are the main focus in search engine optimization. When users type in a search query in their favorite search engine, they are actually typing in a keyword or phrase. The search engine then combs it’s database to find the most popular/useful site centered around that keyword. The search engines use a number of algorithms to calculate the usefulness and popularity of a website. It should be noted that popularity alone will not raise your page rankings, instead your site must be full of content that is useful and contains the proper keyword density.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is the percentage of words out of the total content that contain the keyword. An optimal keyword density would be about 3%-5%. To put this into perspective, you’ll want to include the targeted keyword about 3-5 times in a 500-1000 word article. The placement of the keyword is also very important as well. SEO experts note that your chances of success are greater if you include the keyword within the first 25 words of the article, and within the last 25 words of the article. You’ll also want to include the keyword at least once in the middle of the article. Keywords should also be placed in title tags,  and meta tags wherever possible.

Keyword Placement

Instead of mindlessly placing the keywords in a useless articles, it is optimal to include keywords in the same sentence as other key phrases. For this reason you may want to consider creating pages that focus on several keywords, with one main keyword being the primary focus. For example, if the main keyword is: “ keyword optimization,” then you might want to place that keyword in the same sentence with the keyword: “keyword density.” This way when a user searches for “keyword optimization and keyword density,” your site has a chance of appearing in the top results. Although this may not work 100% of the time, experimenting with practices like this are the best way to target specific search queries.

Conclusion

While keywords are important, there has to be substance within the content as well, and any clerical errors are indexed and will deduct from your total page ranking. For the best results, you’ll want your content to be useful to the reader. This will improve the overall popularity of your website, which will ultimately increase your page ranking as mentioned. Before uploading any content to your website, make sure it has been proofread and edited. It is also important to be consistent with your practices. It often takes weeks to see the results of your labor. If you give up on a specific method too soon, or if you change your methods regularly, then it will be difficult to find out what brings success.

Quality Content

When web surfers search for a phrase in a search engine, they are looking for an answer. The website that best solves this question, according to the search engine, will appear at the top of the search results. A search engine judges the usefulness of a website based on numerous factors. One of the ways search engines judge your site’s usefulness is the amount of time each visitor spends on each page. If your visitors only spend 30 seconds at your site before leaving, then the search engines will view your website’s content as relatively useless. Another way search engine’s judge the usefulness of your site is by calculating the number of links containing your website’s URL that exist on the internet. These links are called backlinks. The more backlinks in existence, the more useful your site appears to be. In order to boost your site’s search engine ranking, you’ll need to provide engaging content updated on a regular basis.

Keyword Optimization

Simply having useful content is not enough. You want your content to be based on keywords that will attract attention for your niche. Try to remember that you are targeting search engine queries, so you’ll want to include key phrases within the content of your website. Before you begin writing or buying content for your site, you’ll want to do some keyword research. Find out what the most popular current search phrases are in your niche. You’ll also want to choose a keyword that is not over-saturated with competition. You can find out all of this information by using keyword research tools provided by Google. You can even find out what the hottest keywords of the day are by using Google Hot Trends. Once you have decided upon your keyword, it is important to use the proper keyword density. Search engines frown upon spam content that is littered with over-used keywords. You want your content to have a keyword density of about 1-3%.  Make sure you place the keyword in the beginning, middle and end of each article on your website. It is also important to include keywords in the design of your website, within title tags, meta tags, and even anchor text.

Getting Indexed

Once you have created your website and filled it with useful content, you’ll need to get the attention of the search engine crawlers. To do this you can submit your sitemap to Google and a few other popular search engines. You can also submit your site to a few popular online directories and social bookmarking sites. As your popularity increases the search engine crawlers will begin to notice your site, and eventually your site will be fully indexed. It is best to have a site that is heavy in basic text, as search engine crawlers index this kind of information more efficiently.

1. Get Active - You can learn a lot by playing an active role in the online forums and groups relative to your niche.  If you become popular in these communities, people will seek your advice and want to link to you.

2. Article Submission – One of the most effective ways to create quality links is publishing articles on a large variety of websites.  This could be information sites, social media sites, ezines or even article directories.  Try to focus on sites that service your market, make yourself familiar with the type of content that is published, and modify the style of your articles accordingly.

3. Publish a Newsletter – You can also use a newsletter to build good links to your website.  You can encourage readers to link by letting them know if they enjoyed the newsletter, they can link to the permanent version of the content located on your site.  Do forget to include the URL.

4. Publish Great Content – This is not necessarily new, however it works just as well as any of them.  By publishing great content on your website, people will be more likely to want to link to you.  Great content is well written and most importantly, delivers excellent value to your visitors.

5. Award Sites - An innovative way to get yourself some quality links is to submit your website to award sites. You would be delighted at the number of people who have had success with this method.

6. Get in Good with Online Directories - There are several online directories that accept volunteer editors.  This will allow you to submit your own personalized reviews of many sites, as well as your own. This also gives you the chance to better understand your market.

The Content Management Aspect

The IntelBuilder content management system is developed and maintained by software creator Vesta Digital.  Like most CMS products, the software has the ability to create and manage basic content.  IntelBuilder is geared more towards the inexperienced user, designed to be easy to use and managed.  It makes it simple for administrators to add and edit existing content, delete content and add an unlimited number of pages to a website.  Some of the most notable benefits IntelBuilder offers include:

- Built for search engine optimization with SEO-friendly URLs and meta data management.

- Cross web browser compatibility

- Automatic submission to major search engines.

- Built-in support for Google Analytics

- Integrated reporting and web statistics.

In comparison to other proprietary commercial CMS products, IntelBuilder distinguishes itself through ease of use, a rich set of features and a high level of global compatibility.  Being a new solution, it is uncertain whether IntelBuilder will evolve into the award-winning content management solution its developers think it will be, but so far, it appears to be simple and powerful enough to suit the needs of most users.

The Social Media Aspect

IntelBuilder offers a social media platform that enables users to achieve a goal that is becoming increasingly popular on the web: being able to effectively distribute content.  Once your content has been published, the platform lets you distribute it over popular social networking sites like FaceBook and Twitter as well as social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Digg.  It also allows you to send out content to major guns such as Google News and other prominent news and media outlets.  IntelBuilder gives you the ability to effectively manage your audience of readers and subscribers along with tools for monitoring your website traffic and statistics.

Price and Availability

In all honesty, the features and capabilities mentioned in this article can be obtained from a number of CMS products through various add-ons for free.  However, when going with a proprietary solution such as IntelBuilder, they will cost you some real money.  The software is available in a variety of pricing plans with the most affordable coming at $49.95 per month with a one-time setup fee of $295.  The platform is module heavy and very extensible, but the default installation comes with features such as a text editor, site map, RSS news, search functionality and Google Maps among others.  IntelBuilder could turn out to be worth every penny but before making an investment, we recommend examining the product a little closer to determine if it can suit all of your content management and social media needs.

Think SEO and User-friendly Domain - In order to be considered search engine-friendly, your domain name must be preferably short and easy to remember.  This way, users can recall it much faster and the probability of generating quality traffic becomes much greater.  In most cases, a long, complicated name will only work against you and hinder your success.

Focus on Keywords - Keywords add to the success of a domain name because they play such a critical role in the SEO process.  When implementing keywords into your URL, search engines like Google will index it faster, thus increasing the possibility of higher click-through rates and most importantly, more exposure.

Be Cautious of Hyphens - Many SEO experts speak strongly against inserting hyphens in a domain name.  This is because they can lead to complications such as users forgetting where the hyphen is to be positioned within the domain.  Because there could be many similar websites that contain domain names without hyphens, you want to be very careful that you do not direct visitors to your competition.

Optimize for Type-in Traffic – Some internet users have a habit of typing keywords directly into their browser bar instead of a search box.  To leverage this type of traffic, you may want to register a domain that contains your targeted domain in its entirety to increase your traffic through this prevalent market.

Choose a Fitting TLD – There are many top level domain to choose from, but you will likely have more success from SEO standpoint by choosing a .com.

Establish Inbound Links – Inbound links are another part of the SEO process. You certainly want to establish quality links that include your domain.  If your site is devoid of such links, the search engines will conclude that it lacks relative content.  Keep in mind that poor links will negatively effective your optimization efforts.  For this reason, you want to avoid link farms and questionable practices employed by questionable SEO firms.

Choose a Good Domain Name Registrar – The key to obtaining an search engine-friendly domain name is to register the name with a respectable registrar.  There are many registrars on the market but not all can be relied upon.  We recommend sticking with known and trusted brands like GoDaddy and Yahoo or opting for one with your web hosting provider.

Registering a search engine-friendly domain will not guarantee you increased traffic or visibility.  Even SEO itself calls for you to promote your site in traditional ways and most importantly, make sure it contains quality content web surfers will be interested in.   Once you come to realize this, we are confident that these tips will go a long way in helping you achieve the visibility and success you desire online.

When Specialties Get in the Way

Many larger enterprises establish specialized roles for their SEM team with the belief that it creates advantages and efficiencies for the organization.  While such methods have been effective in numerous industries and more traditional marketing schemes, applying them to the world of internet marketing is an entirely different story.  Today’s economy has seen the specialized teams of both interactive and traditional full service agencies fighting over budgets and seemingly trying to justify their sole existence.  It is very uncommon for such an environment to be able lead these teams towards one common goal.  This is especially truly in an ailing economic climate where layoffs have essentially become a regular occurrence.  Even with specialties teams that are focused with the company’s best interest in mind, the extra layer of communication that is required could actually get in the way and render management ineffective.

The Pride of Experts

There is an old saying that states when you have too many cooks in the kitchen, somebody just might get burned.  In regard to an SEM campaign, this could be the case with a company’s SEO or PPC specialists.  Although both offer exceptional value, SEO experts tend to look down on PPC professionals and vice versa.  When someone learns and becomes comfortable with a particular method of SEM, they generally become set in there ways and close minded to the suggestion of others.  Unfortunately, that lack of understanding with such vital  components could drastically hinder the performance of company’s marketing campaign.  For instance, a team member who specializes in SEO might conclude that a certain keyword is too competitive to obtain quality rankings, but lacks the knowledge or support to get around the problem.  Likewise, a PPC expert might determine that a specific keyword is to costly to target, but refuses to get the insight he or she needs from the SEO specialist.  When it comes to SEM in the specialized setting, the overall success of a campaign largely depends on upper management’s ability to facilitate proper strategy, communication and collaboration.

In order to integrate the elements of SEO and PPC in seamless fashion, a company must have a clear understanding of how all SEM tactics and strategies fit into the overall marketing mix.  If your SEM team is not thoroughly cross-trained and willingly to communicate with each, the efforts of your campaign just might come up short and result in nothing but utter frustration.

Cloaking

The term cloaking refers to having one page designed to attract search engines and others specifically made for your visitors.  While this may seem like a viable strategy, cloaking should be avoided if you want to remain on favorable terms with the search engines.  It might have worked a few years ago, but today’s search engine’s are sophisticated enough to detect this and other unethical forms of SEO.

SEO Guarantees

The web waters are infested with companies looking to bank off the prevalence of SEO.  These firms often guarantee services that will put you on the first page of Google in the number one spot.  What you should know is that no company can guarantee such rankings.  The fact that most of the top ranked sites report to having no dealings with SEO firms should be enough for you not to rely on outlandish claims.

Multiple Search Engine Submissions

Contrary to popular belief, submitting your website to search engines regularly can be a mistake.  There are some companies that offer services utilizing special software that will automatically submit your site on a regular basis.  Don’t buy into this as it can actually get you penalized and hinder your efforts.

Too Flashy

If at all possible, Flash is a technology you want to do without.  Though nice from a visual aspect, Flash can leave your site heavy and difficult to process, making it nearly impossible for search engine spiders to interpret.  The best technologies are integrated with HTML as this the language embraced by all search engines.

Moving Too Fast

Good SEO takes equally good patience.  This is an ongoing process, not something you can do just once and put to the side.  Reaching a top search engine position in two days or even two weeks is virtually impossible.  So, even though an SEO firm may claim to get you there in a short amount of time, stay away from the these bogus claims and keep your money.  Take your time and if the right methods are being employed, you will be rewarded with the search engine notoriety you seek.