When you're working on choosing directories for site submission, keep these ideas in mind for the best results:

• Begin with DMOZ, then look for other directories that require your site be added manually. These directories often have the highest rankings and are used by more searchers.

• Search Alexa for directories to submit to. Select the highest ranking ones first. Submit your site to as many quality directories as you can.

• Look for directories in your niche. If you sell crafts, why would you submit your site to a computer parts directory? Search for directories where visitors in your target audience could locate your site and submit to those sites.

• Don't waste your time submitting to directories in other countries, directories that don't offer SPAM filtering, that allow any type listing at all, or link farms. You can be sure no one will find you in such a directory, and it might even hurt your search engine rankings.

• Follow the rules to be included at each directory. If the site submission instructions say you must have link to the directory for inclusion and you choose not to, don't bother submitting your link. You'll just be wasting that webmasters time and your own.

• Submit your site only once. If your site doesn't get listed within a reasonable amount of time, then email the webmaster or submit it again. But it can take a few weeks to be listed, so be patient and give it time.

• A directory that ranks high in Alexa may be worth paid inclusion, especially if it's within your niche. Many people think that free directories are the only ones worth the effort, but paying for a quality listing in a popular directory could bring in more traffic to your site and be good for your SEO.

Quality is more important than quantity when submitting your sites to online directories, just as it is with other types of SEO and SEM. Select the best directories, follow their instructions, and it's very likely your website will be included.

Directories are a great way to get links to your site, allow potential customers to find you, and build your rankings in the search engines. Choose wisely, use them well, and directory submissions can make a tremendous difference in your SEO.

Knowing these three ways to use keywords will improve your SEO and make your site stand out from your competition immediately. If you want to see real results in your website’s rankings, take these ideas into consideration.

When studying keywords, there are three concepts to remember:

• What searchers are keying into the search engine to find what you offer
• Whether or not, searchers are willing to make a purchase online
• How many competitors you have for those keywords

You use keywords for three basic purposes, and before you start choosing your keywords, decide on that purpose so you can select the right words.

SEO – the aim is to appear on page one of the search engines.

SEM – the aim is to make money on the words and advertising you pay for.

Marketing with Articles – the aim is attract visitors to view and read what you’ve written.

The process to develop your keywords is the same for each purpose, but you want to know your reasons for the keywords upfront, then you can select the most suitable words.

SEO keywords should be as descriptive as possible. This helps get your site listed as high as possible in the search engine results when someone is looking for what you have to offer. Pinpoint descriptions also reduce the number of competitors. You can see how much competition each keyword has by entering “<keyword>” into Google. The results reveal how many other websites actively use that same keyword.

SEM keywords initially begin with the most logical choices for your site, but then you must analyze your results to see if the words you’ve chosen are truly giving you the best results. Use the special Google Keyword Tool to measure the standard cost per click and see what other sites are using the same keywords and how they’re doing with them.

Articles need to have “long tail” keywords, ideally, with at least three words in each phrase. This can more quickly place them on page one of Google. The number of monthly searches for your keyword phrase should be under 400 a week with only a small number of competitors, for the best results.

After placing your keywords in both the title and the article itself, submit your articles to the top directories such as EzineArticles.com. The more articles you write, the more chances you have to attract readers to your site.

When you learn these three ways to use keywords to improve your SEO efforts and make your site stand out, you can use them immediately to achieve greater results in your online marketing efforts.

Never underestimate the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to your website's success. Without it, your site is virtually useless. Search engines use a program that sends out "spiders" to trawl through every single site on the web and these are what determines your website's rankings in search results based on your keywords. 

Using keywords that are relevant to your business helps potential visitors find your site. However, since you're competing with millions of other, similar sites, relevancy is critical. But it’s also important that you don’t overuse keywords, because that's considered “spam” which the search engines don’t like at all and will affect your rankings adversely.

You have to select a small number of keywords that are the most relevant to your site and are the words you expect most potential viewers will use to search for your site. Place those chosen words strategically throughout your website as part of the content. Ensure they flow naturally when you read the content because if they don’t, the search engines will also pick up on that and react negatively. It's a fine line.

Every website should also have a site map. This is a guide to help visitors navigate to the various pages on your site. Some sites are very basic and only have a few pages, while others are extremely complex and can take hours to scour. The search engine spiders go through every single page on your site and if things don’t work correctly, the search engines may have a negative reaction, which doesn’t help your rankings at all. 

Search engine optimization is vitally important to the success of your website, so make sure your content is as accurate as possible. Your efforts may not pay off overnight, but they will pay off—in better rankings and more visitors.

Promoting your business by writing articles and letting other websites and blogs publish them free by including a link to your site—commonly called article marketing—is one of the most popular methods of free promotion you’ll find.

If you can write your own articles, as a lot of online marketers do, that’s great. But unless you’re a professional writer, or at least a passable one, hire someone to do the job for you, and do it well. Inferior writing will destroy your website and your online reputation quicker than a hungry eagle catching a jumping trout on a sunny day. It’s better to avoid this promotion method entirely—if you can’t do it skillfully—or pay someone who can to do it for you.

There are several important aspects to article marketing. One is to never write simply a sales letter and offer it as an article for free reprint to online publishers. Use the three to five-line resource box, often called a bio, that you include at the bottom of an article to do your selling. Be sure that the body of your article provide valuable content and information that a reader will be want to read, share, and publish on their own blog or website.

And be sure to make good use of white space. Keep your sentences short, your paragraphs short, and your articles—300 words is good, 500 is max. Your readers will appreciate it and keep coming back to your site for more content.

Be careful with the links as well, both in the body of your article, and in your resource box. Some of the article directories such as Ezine Articles, don’t allow internal links in an article. And most publishers who use reprint articles prefer one, or at the most two, links in your bio. Remember, less is more, where links are concerned.

The main purpose of writing articles is to provide valuable content that will attract visitors to your website. Done well, that can promote your business and increase your sales. Just keep those goals in perspective, and you’ll do well with article marketing as a free method for promoting your business online.

While we don’t want to over emphasize the mistakes and blunders that can hinder SEO and SEM efforts, there are still a couple more issues to consider when looking at what to avoid to gain the best marketing results for your website or blog.

An Abundance of Images and Animation

Since the ‘Net is basically a visual arena, some website owners believe the more photographs, images and animation they add, the better the site will be, and the more visitors they’ll attract. In truth, the opposite is more often the case.

From an SEO perspective, it’s difficult to classify websites with little text, simply because search engine spiders can’t read what’s inside all those images. Yes, using alt tags do help, but if the alt tags don’t clearly describe the actual content of the graphic, they lose any value they may have.

Add to that, a website with too many graphics and animations has a much slower load-time—which annoys visitors to no end. And your visually attractive site with all its cute images and animations is probably driving away the very people you’re trying to attract.

Graphics and animation do increase a website’s appeal, but limit their use. Don’t overdo the number or graphics or animations, or use exceptionally large ones. The idea is to invite visitors as well as search engine spiders. Website owners must be vigilant in their efforts to do both.

Lack of Quality, Outbound Links

Another issue that can quickly hinder your SEO efforts is the lack of quality, outbound links. While there are two general philosophies where outbound links are concerned, you must find the middle ground in this all-important SEO strategy. You certainly don’t want to provide links that will take your visitors away from your site and send them straight to your direct competitors. Neither do you want to link to anyone and everyone who asks for a link on your website. Both schools of thought can noticeably hinder your SEO efforts.

Search spiders look at quality, outgoing links as adding value to a site, however. So providing your site visitors with links to other websites offering complementary information on your topic can help your SEO efforts. But do so sparingly! You certainly don’t want to become simply a “link farm” filled with worthless, disconnected, or unrelated links to other sites. That’s worse than having no outbound links at all.

As in most things in life, aim for a balance in your SEO. Provide a limited number of  quality images and animation, as well as valuable links to other quality sites that don’t compete directly with your own. And do so using alt tags and anchor text that benefits your SEO. This provides value for your visitors and let’s the search spiders recognize what that value as your website grows and gains importance in the rankings.

If you’re looking for a white collar, professional, home-based franchise business that offers you a chance at true financial independence, you need this!

By investing one hour to attend this webinar, you’ll gain an inside view as to how a current WSI Franchisee owner (Kevin Dean) left the corporate world with over 20 years as a semiconductor manufacturing executive and in four short years found financial independence in a recession proof industry.

Kevin will show you how he leverages the WSI systems every day to provide high value Internet marketing-based solutions to help his clients achieve their business goals.

If you’re looking for a new career in a high growth industry, you don’t want to miss this opportunity to get an inside view of how a typical WSI franchise operates and makes money.

WSI has the credentials to back what they say. As the largest Internet marketing consulting company in the world, and holding over 1,500 franchise offices in 87 countries, WSI has been ranked by as the #1 franchise for the Internet Services industry category for the last 10 years straight by Entrepreneur.com. That’s someone you can learn from.

Since space is limited, be sure to reserve your Webinar seat now at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/229989432. Won’t you plan to join us?

Recently, we talked about common SEO mistakes that you need to avoid since they can hinder all the hard work you put into your marketing. Here are two more SEO mistakes that will noticeably hinder the success of your SEO marketing and should be avoided as well.

Not Using Meta Tag Data

Using suitable and appropriate Meta tags is extremely important for quality SEO results. Some Meta tags—such as keywords, for example—have become less valuable where web crawlers are concerned, because of their abuse, but they’re still worthwhile if used properly.

Be sure to use a title tag, optimized with good keywords for your site, as well as a Meta description tag that is unique for every page of content on your site, and then your Meta keywords tags to fit your pages. Don't get carried away with the length of your tags, and don't use keywords or keyword phrases more than three times each. Also be sure to use only those that are truly applicable for each specific page. Your Meta description tag should be unique for every page, too. Using the same general description is of no value where your SEO efforts are concerned.

Some SEO insiders say the title tag is the most important Meta tag you can use, so be sure to use one on every single page. And make sure it contains applicable keywords for that page, and tells visitors what the page contains. Good Meta tags will make or break your SEO efforts, so use them well and use them wisely for the best results.

Unprofessional Content

You can work for hours tweaking your meta tags, optimizing your images and creating appropriate headers for every page of your site, but unless your pages contain fresh and original content that is optimized to attract your target market, you may as well close down the site and go to work at Wendy’s.

Any aspect of your website content that is loaded with grammatical errors, misspelling, or incomprehensible text can destroy your search engine standings. Ensure your content is as professional as every other portion of your website, or your site will appear amateurish and worthless, which is the last thing you want.

Quality content, suitably optimized with keywords to attract appropriate visitors who are the most likely to buy from you will skyrocket your SEO efforts. And that's what all this work is for, isn't it?

While you're most likely become skilled in proper SEO strategies, you may still need to consider these frequent mistakes in SEO that can impede your marketing efforts. Here are two recurring mistakes that can noticeably reduce the success of your marketing efforts.


Failing to Use Proper Alt Tags for Your Images

Images help improve your pages chance of being found by the search engines, but for them to work properly, your alt tags must be used correctly. First, you’ll want to add alt tags to every image on your website so that you can best catch the attention of the spiders and web crawlers.

 

Next, you’ll want to use specific names in your images, as well as specific descriptions in your alt tags. Naming images "photo.jpg" or "JAN2-10.jpg" says nothing about what your image contains or why it is on the page—and it doesn’t help your SEO at all.

 

It’s best to use names that contain your keywords such as "2010_blue_cobra.jpg" or "Internet_marketing_audio.jpg" which are applicable descriptions of the image, and will better help in your SEO effectiveness.

 

Explanatory alt tags should also be used. Rather than simply repeating the image name in the alt tag, use "Internet Marketing Audio Download" or "2010 Blue Cobra." While similar, there is a slight difference that, when added to the name of the image, will double your chances for web crawlers to spider pick up your page for specific, keyword applicable searches.

 

Failing to Use Header Tags Properly

 

Another frequent error is the poor use of header tags in HTML coding. When you optimize your pages for the search engines, the header tag codes work to establish the most significant divisions and natural hierarchy of your website’s content. Using CSS tags properly by adding simple modifications to your header tags can greatly improve your SEO success rates.

 

Develop distinct header tags for every level of content with slight changes in each. This will create a logical progression of importance in content for your site and help the search engines to better find appropriate information for web searchers

 

Perhaps the most important information and sub-heads, which should contain header tags, can be bolded, colored, centered, or even in a larger font.

 

<h1>The next level,</h1>

<H2>then, can stand out less, though still stand out by using a smaller font, and maybe italics rather than bold.</h2>

<H3> tags, progressively can be left aligned rather than centered, and remain the same color as the body text. And</h3>

<H4> tags can be in a smaller font.</h4>

 

Of course, the specific format are only suggestions, but the idea is that each tag should be slightly altered, giving each one a varying degree of importance. This will serve to catch the reader's eye as she scans the page, as well as more quickly attract search engine spiders as they browse the web looking for the most applicable content.

 

Certainly, there are many more ways to format pages for improved SEO, but these simple ideas can be easily implement and can make immediately to make a difference in how well your pages attract the web crawlers.

WSI will be hosting an in-depth Internet Marketing workshop focusing on Law Firms and companies providing Legal Services will be held on February 24, 2010, starting at 8:30AM, at the Hampton Inn in Mountain View, CA.

 

Thousands of people each day in Northern California search for divorce lawyers, business attorneys, legal aid services, and other similar services on the Internet.  This seminar focuses on how to maximize your firm's exposure on the web, gain opportunities for leads, and measure the return on your Internet Marketing investment.

 

The value of standard Internet Marketing techniques such as site optimization will be explained, traditional media, and newer Social Media avenues such as Facebook, Twitter, video and more.

 

The event's presenters are Craig Ruess and Kevin Dean.  Both are WSI Certified Internet Marketing Consultants who work with small and medium sized business (SMB) marketing techniques, successfully generating results for their clients in the greater San Francisco Bay area and throughout the US.

 

Learn more and sign up at www.BetterWebResults.com.