7 Powerful Keyword Marketing Tools

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If you are among those who are trying to earn a full-time online income (or one of the lucky ones who are already doing it) you will probably have noticed that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, primarily Google.

That statement has to be refined even further: it is all about obtaining top keyword rankings and keeping them at the top. You must consistently keep your keywords in the top spots on that all important first page of search engine results pagaes (SERPs) since your keyword rankings can make or break your online marketing.

If you are targeting extremely competitive and profitable keywords you will have your work cut out for you; unless you have tons of money to buy your way (i.e.: links) into the top spots, expect to spend months, if not years, getting to those coveted top listings. Google does not like link buying and has taken steps to fight it, but this practice is still widespread throughout the web.

Most beginning and honest webmasters want to take the proper route and earn those top rankings by providing good quality content that web users will actually find helpful and useful. They build those links the natural way by offering viral link bait in the form of videos, ebooks, articles, reports...all branded with backlinks to their sites.

Over time, these links will build up and your keyword rankings will go up in the search engines. People will find your content and bookmark it in social bookmark sites like Digg, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon... and your rankings will climb even faster.

However, since keyword marketing has become extremely competitive, you do need a little help with achieving those top rankings. Over the last couple of years I have tested and used many keyword tools and I have listed some of the best ones below. (Just Google to find links to these tools and programs.)

Internet Success Spider

One of the first keyword tools I ever used was The Internet Success Spider by Neil Shearing which is now available for free. The Internet Success Spider is a very simple, yet powerful keyword tool that shows you the major players in your keyword niche. It slowly works in the background to give you valuable information on your keywords. I realized very quickly, with marketing (like most things in life) that information is what separates the losers from the winners. Note: You have to sign up if you want to use this tool.

Keyword Elite

A little later, I tried and am still using Keyword Elite by Brad Callen. It is easy to use and remains one of the best keyword research tools on the market.

Brad Callen simply creates some of the best marketing tools for online webmasters and marketers. Keyword Elite is no exception. It will do some very comprehensive keyword research for you and let you easily arrange that information. Keyword Elite has earned a well deserved reputation as a very useful marketing tool.

Brainstorm It - Site Build It

Another, perhaps even more powerful keyword tool is Brainstorm It! which is offered through the Site Build It marketing/hosting system run by Ken Evoy. This is a powerful keyword analyzer and finder, which is currently in its third version.

Site Build It creates many tools for webmasters, and Brainstorm It Version 3 is simply one of the best. This keyword tool will do both Vertical and Lateral keyword research to give the most comprehensive array of information for your marketing online. Only drawback, you only get so many Wordtracker credits and you have to pay extra when those run out. Actually, Wordtracker should be at the top of any keyword tool list, but most people use it in conjunction with other programs like Brainstorm It.

Google Keyword Tool

Then again, there is Google's very own keyword system run through its AdWords program. Like everything Google does, this keyword tool can be very helpful especially for the novice online marketer.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

MSN Commercial Intention Of Keywords

Not to be outdone, another helpful tool is Microsoft's Online Commercial Intention tool, which tells the probability your chosen keyword has a commercial value to it:

http://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx

SEOBook Online Keyword Tool

For very quick keyword references, I like using the keyword tool on Aaron Wall's SEOBook site. It is quick and prvides very good stats for your chosen keywords.

SEOQuake

Yet another SEO (sort of related to keywords) is the SeoQuake Toolbar which you can run on Firefox. It will slow down your browser but it will cough up valuable information about your site and more importantly, it will give you valuable information on your competitors' sites. One feature that I find very helpful is the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Rank and SEM Price, which tells you how much your Search Engine keyword traffic is worth.

Plus, you must not ignore your website stats and traffic logs for they can supply you with the most valuable keyword information regarding your site. Closely examine which keyword phrases are bringing in the traffic and/or sales. Develop these keywords with your marketing, especially any “long tail” keyword phrases visitors are using to find your site or products. These longer keyword phrases have proven to be the most profitable because many times consumers using these phrases already have their minds made up on what they are going to buy.

Why Should You Be Using All These Keyword Tools?

Simply because obtaining and keeping top rankings for your chosen keywords makes your livelihood. Unless you can keep that focused traffic coming from these keywords via the search engines, it is game over. Therefore, you should use all the tools and information you can gather in order to keep those keywords at the top.

Google is changing all the time, you really have to stay on your game if you want to keep your keywords at the top. It all boils down to producing quality content web surfers need and want. The SEO pretty much takes care of itself as long as you keep promoting your keywords with good viral branded content like videos, articles, ebooks, PDF reports... and you must mix up your online link building to include links from such places as Facebook, Digg, Google Bookmarks, MySpace... I have always used the free “AddThis” button to all my important content and this has resulted in 100's of free links that your visitors will build for you!

I also believe you have to be careful when using viral articles to vary your anchor text (clickable part of a link) so that you do not have the same keyword phrase repeated 100's of times across the web. Just use different versions of your keyword phrase and if you can, get those keyword links in the body of the article, as near to the top of the page as you can. This will make your link building look much more natural in the eyes of the search engines, especially Google.

Overall, you need to have hundreds, if not thousands of keywords that you aretargeting with your marketing. You must constantly keep building links for those keywords from related sites on the web. Sometimes it is helpful to truly view your keywords as organic, something that keeps growing naturally on its own. But you must first build a solid foundation with good quality content and then keep nurturing those keywords with good quality link bait so that others will bookmark, recommend and link to your keyword content.

Over the years, if there is anything I have learned about keywords which always holds true, it is this: you must be persistent. You must keep at it: building links, building content... it will usually take months, if not years, to get those top rankings for very competitive keywords and it will take some further work to consistently keep those keywords in the top positions. But you will quickly learn keywords are well worth it since they can easily make or break your marketing.

Good luck!

 

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How to Control search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings

5 Free Google Tools for Researching Your Market

Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Business Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,pagerank,keywords,webmaster tools

First Steps in SEO: Sitemaps

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Creating an HTML sitemap and a XML sitemap for your website could be the easiest thing you do to improve your exposure on the web. For those among you who pay close attention to the search engine optimization (SEO) of your site, this could be the one thing that gets you onto the first page of Google´s search results. For those who do not devote a lot of time on the SEO of their site - this is probably the best place to start. By submittíng a sitemap to various search engines, you are telling them that you exist and what pages your site has to offer the World Wide Web.

There are two types of sitemaps: HTML and XML. An HTML sitemap provides a useful directory of all the pages that are in your site. XML sitemaps on the other hand play an important role in helping the search engines “crawl” the various pages of your site. This introductory article discusses the benefit of creating both an HTML sitemap and XML sitemap, and how you can go about creating them using a sitemap generator.

HTML Sitemaps

An HTML sitemap is a single HTML page that contains links to all the pages of your website. Normally, this is accessible via a link in your site footer, where it will be displayed on every page. With large sites, it is easy to get lost and struggle to find the page you are looking for. With a well organized HTML sitemap, visitors to your site will be able to use it to easily find the page they are looking for.

From an SEO perspective, as the search engine's robot (or spider) crawls your site indexing pages, it may find some pages on your site with greater ease using this sitemap, rather than through the general navigation. Therefore, sitemaps can benefit your site visitors and even play a role in enhancing your exposure on the web.

Take a look at WebAssist's sitemap to get an idea of what an HTML sitemap looks like. Notice that each page on the WebAssist website contains a link to this page in the footer.

XML Sitemaps

While HTML sitemaps are designed to benefit your human site visitors, XML sitemaps are created specifically for the search engines. All of the most popular search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com utilize XML sitemaps as part of their process for indexing the pages of a website. A good XML sitemap will tell the search engine what pages are in your site, how often those pages are updated, and when they were last modified. This way, the search engines know which pages to revisit more regularly, and are likely to do a better job of indexing them. Here is an example of the XML you might include in your XML sitemap:

<url>

<loc>yoursitedomain/index.htm</loc>

<lastmod>2009-03-05</lastmod>

<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

<priority>1.0</priority>

</url>

Notice that for the index.htm page of this website, I have provided details regarding the last modified date (<lastmod>), the frequency of updartes to this page (<changefreq>), and the priority of this page in relation to the other pages of the site (<priority>). By providing this information to the search engine as accurately as possible, they will be better equipped to index your site, and give the most important pages the appropriate attention.

TIP: Be honest about the information you provide in your sitemap(s). If a search engine finds that you are not updating your site as often as your sitemap suggests, they may come back less often.

Creating HTML and XML Sitemaps

Creating HTML sitemaps is as easy as creating a basic HTML page that contains links to all the pages in your site. However, you need to keep in mind that whenever you create new pages in your site, you will want to add those links to the sitemap as well.

Creating XML sitemaps manually can be quite a time consuming process. However, there are many great sitemap generators out there to help you automate this. If you google "sitemap generator" you will find that there are a quite a few free as well as paid sitemap tools that you can use.

How Often Should I Submit My Sitemap?

You should be in the habit of submittíng a sitemap to search engines a number of times a year. This allows you to update the search engine on any new pages in your site. If you create new pages on a regular basis, you may want to submit your sitemap more frequently.

Conclusion

Both HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps are a good step in the right direction to improve the exposure of your website. You will most likely find a rise inyour search engine rankings after submitting a sitemap for the first time. However, keep in mind that this is only one part of search engine optimization, and there is a lot more you can do to improve how search engines rank the pages on your site and your website's discoverability.

Good luck!

 

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Criteria for Successful Web Design

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,sitemaps,html sitemap,xml sitemap,search engine optimization

5 Free Google Tools for Researching Your Market

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Internet marketers, webmasters and online businesses have always had a love / hate relationship with Google. Whatever you may think of them, they do provide website owners with some great market research tools.

No matter what market you are in or plan to be in, you will find the following free tools provided by Google very useful when researching your market. One word of advice: You should be researching your market constantly, NOT just when setting up your site. The internet is ever changing, and if you are not keeping up with those changes you will be left behind.

Market Research Tool 1 - Related Searches and Wonder Wheel

When you start typing in the main Google search box you should see a drop down box appear showing you some alternative search terms related to the word you just typed. Note these phrases down in a Notepad file or write them on a piece of paper. They will be useful as part of your keyword list used in the next tool. You will also see more related search phrases after you click search. Scroll to the bottom of the results page and you will see “searches related to”. Write down any new phrases shown there.

Recently, Google has released Wonder Wheel which is also a related keywords tool but is shown in a mind map format. You can also click on the related phrases to find more useful search terms. To access wonder wheel: enter your keyword in the standard search screen, then at the top of the results on the left you should see a show options link. Select that and it will reveal a menu. Near the bottom of the menu you should see wonder wheel.

Market Research Tool 2 - AdWords Keyword Tool

We all know how important keywords and search phrases are. Let's face it, it is what drives the Internet. Google has provided us with a tool that tells you what keywords and phrases people are using to find what they are looking for. You are able to search an individual country, more than one if you hold down the ctrl key on your keyboard as you select, or all countries.

The AdWords tool is now more valuable due to the fact it shows actual search numbers. Previously you only had a green bar to indicate how much traffic the search term receíved. You can also see how competitive each keyword is amongst AdWords advertisers, showing you which keywords are commercially most viable.

Market Research Tool 3 - Google Trends

Now that you have an idea what keywords and long tailed search phrases your market is using you can use the Trends tool to check the history of that keyword / phrase. Google Trends supplies data for the last 5 years, thereby giving you an idea if the search term is consistent. You can also see if the search term is especially popular at certain times of the year, also known as a seasonal keyword.

Another important function of Trends is the section that tells you the popularity of a keyword by country, city and language - very useful if you are targeting particular countries or even cities.

Market Research Tool 4 - Google Alerts

Alerts is incredibly underused by webmasters. If you want to stay in touch with what is hot in your market, you easily can by using Google Alerts. All you have to do is enter the most popular phrases in your market. Google will then send you links via email depending on what type you select.

The types are news, web, blogs, video and groups. If you would like a mix of all, you can select comprehensive. You can decide how often you want to be updated by selecting either: as it happens, once a day, or once a week. I hope you can see how powerful this is if you want to be seen as an authority in your market.

Market Research Tool 5 - Google Web Search

Finally, we have Google´s standard web search which is not standard in my eyes. It provides a lot of information if you know what to look for. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of running a website. By performing a search of your market keywords, Google will tell you what type of content it sees as important.

If you see videos, blogs or images, this gives you another way to reach the top 10 of Google´s search results. If you see Web 2.0 style sites such as Digg, that could be another avenue. If there are AdWords ads on the right side of the screen, that tells you the market is commercially viable and more importantly that the keyword you entered is good enough to pay for, especially if there are 10 ads or more.

As you can see, even if you do not have money to buy the latest tools, there is a way to get some very important information using free tools courtesy of Google. Are you starting to feel alittle love for them now?

Good luck!

 

 

Technorati-Tags: market research,google tools,webmaster tools,internet marketing

Criteria for Successful Website Design

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I do not think you should start the design of a new or revised website by sitting down with the designer and coder of the website. Rather, I recommend you review the approaches, ideas, processes and other methods listed in this article to determine if they apply to your situation.

Think about your audience. Are they looking for immediate answers and solutions? I bet they are. Most likely the visitors to your website are very much like you. Chances are you use the Internet more than other types of media to search for information. If a web page does not “grab your interest” within 5 - 10 seconds after landing on it - you move on!

As a “first step” I suggest that you start by reviewing the questions listed below. I am certain that once you get to the last question you will have accumulated a list of action items that will greatly improve the overall quality of your current website. The success or failure of your site and/or business may very well depend upon the decisions you make after reading these questions and giving them a little thought.

What Do You Know About Your Clients´ and Prospects´ State of Mind?

When visitors land on your website they have very little time to read what you want to tell them. They have a need for information or a product and do not want to listen to or read wordy descriptions and comments. You have between 5 - 10 seconds to engage them and get them to take action. What is it that most visitors landing on your website want? Is it:

1. information,
2. a “quick fix”,
3. a bargain,
4. a large selection,
5. a telephone call,
6. or something else?

It is imperative to know the answers to these and many other questions BEFORE you design the pages within your website (or have them designed).

Do You Make Website Visitors Feel Like You Can Satisfy Their Wants and Needs?

Landing on any page within your website (but especially the Homepage) must make your visitors know that you understand their needs, desires, wants, and business. The more you put yourself into the mindse of the prospective visitors to your website, the better your chances of converting their visit into something you want to happen i.e. buy, complete a contact form (opt-in form), bookmark the page, pick up the phone and call you or any other method of measurable conversion.

What Approach Do You Take When Developing Pages Within Your Website?

What do you think you would want from your website if you were the prospective visitor or client? Assume you do not know as much as you want and need to in order to make an informed decision. Talk to your visitors in a language they will understand. If visitors want more insight or information, tell them to click on the more info link or give you a call. But keep in mind that they will follow your direction ONLY if you have built some level of trust or understanding.

What are You "Selling" to the Visitors of Your Website?

Are you focused on telling them about your product or service, or are you making them understand that choosing your firm will deliver that special feeling they are seeking by making the purchase? Are you sure that you communicated to the visitors that you understand their needs, wants, problems, etc.? What techniques did you implement to get your points across?

How are You Going to Get Your Visitors to Stay and Think About Your Service or Product?

Remember - they are ready to pass by your website in a blink of an eye. What are you going to do to engage them? The answer you come up with will be critical to the success you have in gaining their confidence enough to buy your product(s) or call you, etc. Make sure what you say is NOT the same old thing they are used to seeing or reading on every other website. Be boring and you lose! Address the issues that appeal to your visitors and they WILL STAY ON YOUR SITE! This is hard work – but well worth the effort.

What Kind of “Call to Action” Statements are You Placing on Your Website?

Turning a visitor into a prospect or client is one of the most critical actions of your website. How will you engage them? Once they know that you understand their needs and wants, they are more inclined to follow your CTA direction. Call to Action statements are critical to the success of any website's conversion. Guide them in a manner that is more telling, rather than just selling. Do not be afraid to be assertive.

How Does Your Website Address the “Who Are We” Issue?

Again, it is about making the website visitors feel confident that they are choosing a reputable firm or organization with which to do business. They need to read about your success. This can be done by exhibiting your affiliation with associations, awards won, satisfied client statements, client success stories, examples of your work, etc. Show them you are a “player” in your industry/expert in your field.

Are You Prepared to Answer: "What Makes You Different"?

What have clients and prospects said about you and your company? Have they applauded you for your approach to doing business? Did they say you made them feel like you understood their needs and wants? Think back to the reasons clients buy from you. How did you meet their needs and wants? Give your prospective clients reasons to do business with your firm.

A final thought...

Make it your primary goal to understand your potential clients. Look at your website from the client´s perspective. Who are they? What makes them different? What do they individually want and need? Provide information - do more telling than selling. They will “get it” and appreciate that you have made them educated buyers/ well informed visitors. Finally, tell them what you want them to do next. Get them to take the first step and be ready to deliver on the expectations you have set throughout your website!

Finally, do not be afraid to hire Internet marketing professionals to do the job if you feel that you cannot handle it by yourself. Too much is at stake to leave this part of your business to chance!

 

Related article:

How to Make Your Website Successful

 

 

Technorati-Tags: web design,successful website,more traffic,layout

How to Make Your Website Successful

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When trying to make it on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can further your bloog´s or website´s success. Although the look of your website is important, fancy websites do not automatically become successful, nor do they make sales. There is much more to creating a quality blog or website. To make a blog or website successful, you must create content that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit your website over and over again. In addition, your website should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining your mailing list, or making a purchase, or just visiting again.

1. Selecting a Niche

The first step towards making a website successful lies in targeting it for one specific niche. For example, if you are designing a website about cars, everything within your website should relate to cars.

2. Selecting a Keyword Phrase

You must also select the most relevant keyword phrase for each webpage. A keyword phrase consists of two or more words that best describe the specific webpage. For example, if your webpage is about ‘repairing transmissions’, your best keyword phrase would be ‘transmission repair’. You should use your keyword phrase a few times within your webpage (approximately once every 80 – 100 words), as this will enable the search engines to determine what the website is about. This is maybe the most important step on your way to making your blog or website successful.

3. Using HTML Heading Tags

When you begin writing your content, it is very important that you use the HTML H1 heading tag with your main title at the top of your webpage. In addition, use the HTML H2 tags for your sub-titles. This is very important, as some search engines place relevance on the text displayed with heading tags.

As the default text for the H1 heading tag is very large, you may want to use CSS style sheets to display the heading tags in the font style and size you prefer.

4. Using META Tags Within a Webpage

Another step to help make a website successful is to include META tags between the HEAD (<head> and </head> respectively) tags of your webpage. META tags help the search engines to find out what keywords are relevant to the webpage. They are also used to tell the search engines what the webpage is about (description tags). Most search engines will display this description within their search results.

5. Backgrounds and Text

It is always best to display a webpage with a white background and black text, as this will make the text easy to read. Distracting backgrounds will make the text hard to read. A good rule of thumb is to just use common sense and keep your website simple. This alone is a great way to help make a website successful.

6. Animated Graphics

If you are using animated graphics, it is important that you use them sparingly. Graphics that continually flash are VERY annoying and may prevent your visitors from returning to your site in the future.

7. Navigational Links

It is very important to include good navigational links on every page. They should be displayed at the top, bottom, left or right side of your webpage. In addition, your visitors should be able to get to any webpage within your website within four clicks.

8. Webpage Layout

Always be consistent with the design of your website. This is a very important if you want to make your website successful. The layout for each and every page of your website should be the same. If you make it different, your visitors will become confused. In addition, it will make your website appear to be unprofessional. Your website design should include the same layout, logo, and navigation setup on each page.

9. Spelling and Grammar

Always make sure you proof read and spell check your webpages and blog posts for errors before publishing them. It is also very important that your webpage does not have any broken images or links.

10. Important Webpages

When you launch your website, it is very important that you include the following webpages:

About - The ‘About’ page is used to tell your visitors about you and/or your companyand/or the site´s goals.

Privacy - The ‘Privacy’ page is used to let your visitors know what you do with their personal information, such as their email address.

Terms and Conditions - The ‘Terms and Conditions’ page should be displayed on your website for your own protection.

Site Map - A ‘Site Map’ is used to help the search engines index your website more easily as well as more correctly.

You can learn more about all of these pages by doing a little research on the web. They are very important and will help make a website successful.

11. Website Interactivity

Another way to make a website successful is providing interactivity. This can be done by including a targeted forum that complements your website, a form in which your visitors can subscribe to an ezine, a feedback form to enable them to give their opinion, or an informative blog in which visitors can comment.

12. Web Browsers and Screen Resolutions

When you begin designing your webpage, it is HIGHLY recommended that you install the most popular web browsers on your computer. This will enable you to see how your website will display in different browsers. You will find that your website may look great in one browser and horrible in another. It would be wise to design your website to display properly in Internet Explorer, and then it should display properly in Firefox, Opera, etc.

It is also important that you view your website through different screen resolutions. You can either open your webpage in your browser and then change your computer's screen resolution, or there are website's online that you can visit, such as Any Browser, to test your website.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you can make a website successful in no time.

 

 

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Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Business Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: successful website,seo,more traffic,search engine optimization,search engine friendly,website design,layout,meta tags

How to Control Search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings

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In order to get your blog or website listed at the top of the search engines keyword search rankings you need to gain a deeper understanding of the search engine spiders that crawl over your website. After all, these spiders determine the relevance of your website and decide where your site or web pages will land in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Therefore, by learning how to control the direction of the spiders, you can be certain your website will rise in rankings.

Gaining Control with the Help of Robots.txt

You may think that gaining control of search engine spiders is an impossible task, but it is actually quite easy: all you need to do is take advantage of a handy little tool called the robots.txt file. With the robots.txt file, you can give the spiders the direction they need to locate the most important pages on your website while preventing them from wasting time on the more obscure pages such as your About Us and Privacy Policy pages. After all, these pages will not do much to increase your search engine ranking and will not help your target market find your website, so why should the spiders waste their time exploring these pages when in the process of ranking your site?

Another positive aspect of using a robot.txt file is the fact that it prevents the spiders from indexing duplicate pages. This is beneficial because having duplicate content may actually reduce your search engine ranking. So, while you are making changes to your website or working on an area that is not fully developed yet, you can instruct the spiders to leave those pages alone until you are ready to have them crawled. The same is true if you have a blog (or a blog on your website), as a blog post created in WordPress (or on Blogger, Typepad, etc.) will show up in the main post page, in an archive page, in a category page and as a tag page. With the help of the robots.txt tool you can instruct the spiders to look only at the main post page.

In using the robot.txt files, you can tell the search engine spiders which pages they should and should not search through and index. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the robots.txt tool is meant to be used to prevent search engine spiders from searching certain pages. Therefore, you will only need to use it on those pages you do not want the spiders to crawl.

Implementing the Robots.txt Tool

To successfully use the robots.txt tool, you first need to determine which pages you do not want the spiders to search. Then slowly begin making the changes to your site. By using the tool on only a couple of pages at a time, it will be easier for you to identify mistakes that you may have made during the process.

To make your changes, you will need to add the robots.txt file to the root directory of your domain or to your subdomains. Adding it to your subdirectories will not work. For example, you may add the robots.txt file to a url such as

http://domain.com/robots.txt

or to

http://privacypolicy.domain.com/robots.txt

But, adding it to a subdirectory such as

http://www.domain.com/privacypolicy/robots.text

will not work. With just one robots.txt file within your root directory, you can manage your entire site. If you have subdomains, however, you will need a robots.txt file for each one that you need to manage. You will also need separate robots.txt files for your secure (https) and nonsecure (http) pages.

Creating a Robots.txt File

Creating a robots.txt file is relatively easy, as you only need to name your text file robots.txt within any text editor, such as Textpad, NotePad or Apple TextEdit. Your robots.txt file only needs to contain two lines in order to be effective. If you wanted to stop the spiders from searching the archives of the blog on your site, for example, you would add the following to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: * Disallow: /archives/

The “User-agent” line is used to define which search engine spiders you want to have blocked. By placing the asterisk (*) here, you are instructing all search engine spiders to avoid the specified pages. You can, however, target specific search engine spiders by replacing the asterisk with the following codes:

Google – Googlebot

Yahoo – Slurp

Microsoft – msnbot

Ask – Teoma

The “Disallow” line specifies which part of the site you want the spiders to ignore. For instance, if you want the spiders to ignore the categories portion of your blog, you would replace “archives” with “category” and so on. If you wanted to instruct the spiders to ignore multiple sections, you would simply add a new “Disallow” line for each area you want to be ignored. Just as you can name specific areas that you want the spiders to avoid, you can also list specific areas that you want specific spiders to view. For example, while you may want most spiders to avoid a specific area, you may want the MSN mediabot, Google image bot or Google AdWords bot to visit those areas. In this case, you can use the asterisk to instruct all search engines to avoid the area while instructing a specific spider to allow the same area. If you want Google’s AdSense bot to access a folder, for instance, you would create the following command:

User-agent: * Disallow: /folder/

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google Allow: /folder/

You can also use your robots.txt files to prevent dynamic URLs from being indexed by the search engine spiders. You can accomplish this with the following template:

User-agent: * Disallow: /*&

With this command, you are instructing the spiders to index only one of the URLs that matches the parameters you have set. For example, if you had the following dynamic URLs:

* /vintageguitars/details.php?propcode=ANCHORS&SRCH=tr

* /vintageguitars/details.php?propcode=ANCHORS&vr=1

* /vintageguitars/details.php?propcode=ANCHORS

your robots.txt instructions will tell the spiders to list only the third example because it will disallow any URLs that start with a forward slash (/) and contain the & symbol. You can use the same strategy to block any URLs containing a question mark by using the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /*?

You can block all directories that contain a specific word in the URL as well. For example, you might create a robots.txt file such as the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /gibson*/

With this command, any page with a URL containing the word “Gibson” will not be crawled by the spiders. It is important to be extra cautious when using these directives, however, as they will cause the spiders to avoid all pages containing the word you specify. As a result, you may accidentally block pages that you do want to be indexed. If you do want to block all but one or two pages with URLs containing a specific word, you need to create a robots.txt file that specifically allows the page you still want to be indexed. In this case, your robots.txt file would look something like this:

User-agent: * Disallow: /gibson*/ Allow: /vintageguitars/gibson andlespaul/details.html

It is also possible for you to instruct the spiders to avoid an entire folder on your website while still allowing it to access specific pages within that folder. To achieve this, you would write something like:

User-agent: * Disallow: /category/ Allow: /category/just-this-page.html

It is important to note that the search engine spiders will ignore general directives if you have one that addresses a specific spider. For example, if you create the following robots.txt:

User-agent: * Disallow: /category/

User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /archives/

the Google spider will still crawl and index the category page because you listed a directive that was specific to the Googlebot, and that overrides the directive that addresses all search engine spiders. So, if you list a specific spider in your robots.txt, you need to individually list all of the things you want that spider to avoid. In our example, you would have to create the following robots.txt file to get the Googlebot to avoid the category and archives sections while telling all other spiders to avoid the category section:

User-agent: * Disallow: /category/

User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /archives/ Disallow: /category/

If you want the spiders to avoid indexing certain types of files, you will need to use the dollar sign symbol ($). To instruct the spiders to avoid GIF files, for instance, you would use the following:

User-agent: * Disallow: /*.gif$

You would use the same pattern for other types of files that you may want to be avoided by the spiders, such as .pdf$, .jpg$ or .jpeg$.

Addressing Other Search Engine Concerns

In addition to blocking certain pages from being indexed by the search engines, there are a number of other concerns you may address with the robots.txt tool. For instance, if the search engine spiders are downloading your pages too quickly and causing difficulties with your server, you can add a crawl-delay directive to your file that will tell the spider how long it should wait between downloads. In general, it is best to set this directive low, such as somewhere between 0.5 and 1, and then to increase it later if necessary. This robots.txt file would look something like:

User-agent: * Crawl-delay: 0.7

Google does not follow the crawl delay directive, however, and it generally is not necessary to add this directive to your robots.txt file.

Another handy aspect of the robots.txt file is that it can help you create a path to your XML sitemap. By adding a line such as:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursitename.com/sitemap.xml

By using your robots.txt file in this way, you can submit your XML sitemap to search engines without registering with a variety of different Webmaster Tools programs. You can also store your XML sitemap anywhere you like with this tool, which can be helpful if you manage several sites and want to keep all of your XML sitemaps in one place.

Finally, it is important to realize that it is still possible for a search engine to index pages that you have included in your robots.txt file. There are a number of reasons why this may happen. For example, if someone created a link to the page, it will still get crawled through that link. To close this opening, you will need to unblock the page from your robots.txt file and then place a meta noindex tag on the page before you put the page back on your robots.txt file.

In this post I have told you how you can use robot.txt files to improve the ranking of your site in the results pages of the major search engines.

Good luck!

 

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,pagrank,search engine rankings,sitemap,search engine optimization,indexing

Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Business Website

Your Ad Here

 

Anyone can build a website. Countless companies are offering a vast array of web building solutions, some good, some great, and some quite frankly are a complete waste of time! But building a decent looking website is really only part of the story, only part of the process. There are literally millions of web pages that will never be viewed and therefore stand no chance of commercial success. Some of those sites are even quite good; unfortunately their owners have misunderstood the process and have put the cart before the horse...

In the online world no one just happens by your website, credít card in hand! If you have yet to build your website, or are about to create a new site, stop! You need to consider exactly what you wish to achieve with your site before you get started. “Creating a website should follow a process proven to deliver a commercial end result - or run the risk of ending up just another pretty picture in cyberspace!”

Fortunately there is a process, and I highly recommend you take a look at it - maybe you already know it...

Content --> Traffic --> Pre-sell --> Monetize

A time tested 4 step process, proven to produce websites that deliver - commercially! Ok, let us take a brief look at each step and find out why they work in this particular order.

1. Numoro Uno, as always, Content

Very, very, very, very important. Building an information-rich site is crucial. You abolutely must have high quality, unique, relevant content on your site, a) because you want to attract visitors in the first place and b) to generate long term, search engine based free traffic.

Online, people are looking for solutions and/or information that leads to solutions (not to forget entertainment). They use the search engines to hunt for the most relevant facts to reach their end goal - a practicable solution. Your job is therefore easy: Give it to them! But do not make the mistake of just plonking down any old garbage and hoping for the best - take your time, put in the effort, provide good quality information that will over-deliver and keep your visitors interested, satisfy their needs - and you will be rewarded. Over time, gradually add new fresh, useful content and you will be one your way to creating web pages valued by humans and search engines alike. In the online world, high value content is king!

2. Traffic - The Holy Grail...

Much, too much has been written on the subject, and many are making a good living providing (?) this elusive element.

Truth is, (excluding social media) there are but two ways to get it - you either pay for it, or you optimize for it. If you take the time to understand the basics you can easily do both.

Paid search, (PPC – Pay Per Click) such as Google Adwords has its place, and can provide an immediate stream of targeted visitors to your website; it is, however, a study of its own and can, if not fully understood, become very costly very quickly! If you want to go that route learn with small amounts (of money) and do not be tempted to throw good money after bad...

Safer - and arguably better – is going the route of search engine optimization (SEO) for the organic results, as reached via Google or other search engines. This means nothing more and nothing less than intelligent website construction, a process anyone can learn. It is important to note that the optimization should be built in during the creative process, at the time of your site´s construction; you are literally building your website to principles that make it search engine friendly, thus leading to high natural positions in organic search results, hopefully leading to a significant and constant free traffic flow to your site...

3. DO NOT SELL – PRE-SELL

You have created a website with value rich content and fully optimized its pages for indexing by Google (and other search engines). Folks are arriving at your site as directed by their search results. You are keen to have them buy your goods or services, ready with your pitch - but wait! There is another vital step in the process of converting your visitors into customers, and you have done half of the work already...

Pre-selling is a warming up process that allows you to develop trust and confidence in your offering. It is well known that people are more willing to buy from those they like, trust or respect. By over-delivering relevant high value information without appearing to be forcing a sale you will, almost by default, create an atmosphere that inevitably leads to sales. It is that simple!

As far as your visitors are concerned, their needs are being met, their every wish is being fulfilled, you are providing the very information that is the solution to their problem. Pre-selling creates an open-to-buy mindset that smoothly introduces your visitors to your monetization offer.

4. Monetize

Thank you for sticking with me this long, here is the home run: This is where you make your offer enticing by introducing and highlighting the many benefits of your product or service, and detailing exactly how it provides the solution to their predicament. You have paved the way with informative, relevant content and can now look to close with persuasive sales copy.

Your call to action should be strong and concise. Tell your prospective customers exactly what they need to do to order. If you have a good product, and you should, let them know exactly how they will benefit by ordering from you - today!

This is it: A formula simple, yet highly effective. Generate targeted free traffic via your highly optimized website, provide information packed content that offers solutions, warm up or pre-sell your visitors by over-delivering on the quality of that content, then, and only then, monetize by introducing persuasive, benefit focused sales copy to convert pre-sold visitors into enthusiastic customers.

I hope you found this post helpful. Please visit again for more information about promoting your business online.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

10 Essential Tips for Launching Your Business Blog

 

Technorati-Tags: Seo,search engine optimization,more traffic,free traffic,online business