Related Links

Featured Links





Recommended Products



 

 
Featured Articles

10 Web Design Tips For A Professional Looking Niche Web Site
Web site design is a critical element in niche marketing. If you want to build your reputation as a Professional in your niche, you need to project a professional image from the moment your visitors reach your web site. Like it or not, first impressions ...

Eight Tips To Create A Search Engine Friendly Website
Every website needs traffic. It is not possible for a website to continue for long period without attracting enough traffic. The basic aim behind search engine optimization (SEO) is to give enough popularity to the websites and thereby to attract required ...

Php &Amp; Templates
Much in the same way PHP can display dynamically generated content, PHP can change the whole look of your site. Through a template system and simple variable that sets a session containing the user's preferred template, you can make your site customizable ...


Custom Search
3 Easy Steps to Improve the Search Engine Ranking of Your Website
 

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a buzzword that is around for a long time. There are as many misconceptions about SEO as there are webmasters. Some webmasters are afraid of SEO, thinking it is too complex and not worth the effort. Others believe that SEO will get your website banned from the search engines and there are the few that actively practice SEO.

Fact #1: SEO can be complex if you want to compete with the big guys. SEO is all about outperforming your competitors. That means the less competitors the better your success rate will be.

Fact #2: SEO can ban your website from the search engines if you break the rules. I will not tell you the dark tricks of SEO that will ultimately get you on the blacklist of the search engines. This way you will not be able to break any rules and keeps you out of trouble.

Fact #3: SEO can be simple and effective. I will show you a few easy steps to increase the ranking of your website. You will be amazed about its simplicity.

Ok, here we go.

1. Choose your niche keyword phrase

SEO is all about being a little bit better than your competition on a single keyword phrase. You need to focus your website on a single keyword phrase. 2 or 3 words in a keyword phrase work best. Make sure that people are actually searching these phrases as well. Wordtracker and Overture are just two methods out of many to check for usability. If you optimize your website for the wrong keyword phrases you're wasting your time.

2. Set your html tags right

Your keyword phrase has to be in the -title tag. You can ignore the keyword and description meta tags for now. They are not as important anymore as they were a few years ago. Make sure to have an h1 tag with the keyword phrase. Avoid having an h2 tag with the keyword phrase. Take control over the look and feel via cascading style sheets (CSS). This way it is much easier to control your website's appearance and keeps the html code clutter free.

Sprinkle your keyword phrase throughout the webpage. Place your keyword phrase


2-3 times closer to the top, once within the first 25 characters and once in the last 25 characters of your text. Change the style variation of the keyword phrase. Make sure you have at least one underlined, one bold and one italic variation of the keyword phrase.

3. Check for errors

Spell checking is a must. Search engines don't honor spell errors on your webpage very well. Check for broken links as well. Nothing hurts your ranking more than broken hyperlinks.



Well, here you have it. The 5 minute drill to improve your website's search engine rankings. Ok, I admit it, it's not this easy. On-Page SEO is only half the battle, maybe only one third of the battle. To really dominate the search engines you need to practice a well planned and executed linking strategy. This is also called Off-Page SEO. Off-Page SEO is your most important task as a webmaster.

The details of a successful Off-Page SEO strategy are too much for the content of this article. But here's a little example on how effective Off-Page SEO is: Logon to Google and type in the keyword 'click here'. To your surprise you will see that Adobe holds the #1 position for this keyword. Now analyze the Adobe page for a minute. There is no 'click here' anywhere on the page or within the html code. How in the world can they be #1 for 'click here'? Millions of other web pages have a link to Adobe with the title 'click here' to download the Acrobat Reader. That's why.

Nothing makes me happier than if you can improve the search engine ranking of your website by just a few positions by following my simple advice. 90% of all webmasters don't bother and that's the window of opportunity for you. Of course a short article cannot explain the total picture of SEO. However it is meant to give you some ideas on how to approach SEO. Have fun while practicing SEO with your website.

About the author:

Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and successful internet business owner. Use the free tools at: http://www.online-business-idea.com to improve your website's search engine ranking.

News



With the Lure of Generous Aid, Oklahoma State Beckons
New York Times (blog)
31 brought the startling news that my CSS Profile, Princeton financial aid application, and Fafsa were all to be completed by the next day. ...
Paying for CollegeValpoLife.com (blog)

all 3 news articles »

PC World

Internet Explorer 9 Shows Up Faster, But Still Lacking
Webmonkey (blog)
Also welcome news is IE9's intention to support much of the CSS 3 spec, including advanced CSS selectors, fonts, colors, rounded corners and borders. ...
Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 9 'Platform Preview'Washington Post
Microsoft unmasked the keys to future Internet Explorer 9White Hat News
IE9 is here! ... Kinda-sortaComputerworld (blog)
eWeek -9 Computer Store (blog) -Neoseeker
all 451 news articles »

Sports Parenting: Is your athlete way too serious?
Record-Searchlight
For an athlete, CSS can be a very good thing. Kids with CSS play hard, take the game seriously and do not like to lose. But many suffer from one very ...

and more »

BBC Sport

Watford 2-1 Ipswich
BBC Sport
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your ...


CSS Basics for Web Developers: The Box Model
HTML Goodies
The box model refers to the square or rectangular boxes that are generated by HTML elements on the page. All HTML elements generate boxes. ...