Bing is Microsoft’s latest launch in the war against Google. If you think it will blow Google away, think again. Bing will definitely attract many users, however, since it has solid relevancy as well as key features not offered by Google. Consider these 5 unique features of Bing.com you won’t find through other search engines.

1. Search Results Organized into Categories

Most significantly, Bing breaks down its results into specialized categories, rather than a lump sum. You can drill much more specialized results by clicking on the category links.

Some searchers will most likely ignore these categories, which Bing anticipated. The site also allows for a lumping of results into a central category called “web groups.” If you’re looking to provide more comprehensive internet marketing services to your clients, consider going through an SEO reseller to help increase revenue.

2. Search History

Located to the left side of the page, the new Search History area activates even when you aren’t logged in, assuming you use the same browser. The history will disappear when you manually erase your history or clean out your cookies. You can also create a Windows Live account to access your history from any computer. It’s also possible to save your history to your computer using Silverlight.

3. Quick Previews

A step ahead of just thumbnail images, Bing also lists a short excerpt of the page to the right of any listing. This is any text Microsoft thinks may be relevant beyond the short description already provided. It’s a great feature, but one that’s easily missed. When you can get a good glance of a page without clicking through, you can save a lot of time.

4. Instant Answers

Though not entirely new, Instant Answers is the spot where Microsoft truly shines. You can conveniently view Oscar results or find out who won the Kentucky Derby with just a glance at the top of the page. Not all searches require complete blogs explaining the topic when a quick answer will do.

5. Infinite Scroll of Images

The next time you go looking for images, wouldn’t it be nice to just keep scrolling without worrying about running out of page? Bing offers infinite scroll through images, so you can just keep pressing that down key until you find what you are looking for.

About the Author

Ryan Frank is an avid writer and blogger living in San Diego, CA.

(ArticlesBase SC #1785648)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Five Unique Differences Between Bing and Google

This Google tracking service is known as the Google Analytics. It is a powerful service that keeps track of your web site’s success on organic and paid search results. Google Analytics gives you better understanding on how your web site’s web visitors react on your site. It gives you no-holds barred and detailed experience of your web site visitors.

You will also be aware and know what key words users in relation to your web site frequently use. You will be educated on the best link text that brings in the most prospects.

True to its name, the Google Analytics shares with you analytical data that will help you greatly on being aware about your web site visitors and target visitors’ preferences.

Google Analytics provides free information about the way visitors to your site interact with it. By taking a good evaluation of Google Analytics, webmasters will realize how it is an invaluable tool they can and should use especially if they do not have some form of visitor tracking solution.

Google Analytics shares with you which of your SEO campaigns deliver the best ROI or return on investment. If you are not confident on the software you use in finding out your internet marketing results, Google Analytics is good in tracking down results of your internet marketing campaigns. Now alongside the Google AdWords, you can be certain of obtaining significant information about your web site.

Google Adwords is an equally powerful service for placing your web site in search results based on certain key words related to your site. Google Adwords take note of your major web site’s key words and efficiently guarantees that your web site appears in search engine results.

Google Analytics was once named as Urchin visitor tracking by Google. It was last November 16, 2005 when Google renamed this service into Google Analytics. It is free for everyone’s use and those who have signed up during its early stages are offered with a completely new set of significant and consequential information regarding your web site visitors.

Still, those who are late in signing up for this service can wait until Google offer new sign-ups to the Google Analytics system.

Google Analytics works with tracking codes that will guarantee to track down important user information for you. It uses codes in the destination URL’s that facilitates the web site visitor tracking mission by Google Analytics.

Here are some of the most important reasons why you need Google Analytics as part of your website visitor tracking and have it on your site:

1. Its functionality equals most expensive visitor tracking services, even if it is free.

2. The service is your solution to identify where visitors leave your check-out or sign-up process. Identifying this will help you make amends and modify your sign-up process that is user-friendly. You will then be prevented from losing leads

3. Utilizing Google Analytics will help you identify the pages and links your web site visitor’s click on most. You will also know which page your visitors spend most their time on. You can therefore improve these pages properly and position them and their link texts appropriately.

4. Wondering the previous site your web site visitor logged on to before coming to your site? Google Analytics will tell you all about it.

5. You will also be provided with the most popular keyword users type in the search bar of the search engine in finding web sites associated/related to your website. Knowing these popular keywords is a great boost for your SEO efforts and performance, even on other search engines.

6. Google analytics conduct visitor segmentation. It classifies new and returning web site users, their geographical information and the referral source they use. This provides you with invaluable insight if you are planning on a setting up a new online business.

7. For search advertising results, Google Analytics and Google Adwords guarantees you with end-to-end visibility

8. You can even track other non-search-engine marketing media

9. Overall, Google Analytics provides you a very cheap service on gaining more customers, if you utilize its results.

Like most search engine services, Google Analytics has its own advantages and disadvantages.

• Its setup is very straightforward. You do not have to waste time waiting for results
• It is quite flexible, provides great solution and a wide range of significant and valuable reports
• You can login once and track multiple sites. You have more than one web site to track.
• Google tracking makes it possible to track campaigns even on other media
• You need not be confused of the A/B ad testing
• Its integration with all marketing media so as you can use only single portal to track multiple campaigns is ingenious
• You will get In-depth reports on site navigation of users you never dreamed you could have
• It also has Ecommerce tracking features

However, Google Analytics package falls behind two very important features most search engine marketers need. This is the ability to track down individual user activities and trace activity back to an individual user level. Another is the ability to track fraudulent online activities so as your site will be safe from it. Even if there are the eCommerce tracking features, it cannot completely provide this important tracking capability.

Mary Murtha has BLS and M. Div degrees majoring in biblical studies and ethics. For more information about Google Advertising [http://www.bestgoogleinfo.com/Articles/Google_Advertising.php] and Google Adwords [http://www.bestgoogleinfo.com/Articles/Google_Adwords.php] visit: [http://www.bestgoogleinfo.com]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mary_Murtha

Web hosting features requirement

This is probably the most important consideration to start finding a host for your site. You need to decide the technical requirements for your website, this including:

a) Server platform and hardware requirements
If you plan to set up a website that uses programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic scripts, Cold Fusion or Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL database, in this case, you will need to find a web hosting service that supports Windows platform such as Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers.

Likewise, if you plan to use programming languages such as Perl, CGI, SSI, PHP or mySQL database, then any web hosting plans that support Unix/Linux platform should be sufficient to meet your hosting requirements. Once you have these server platform and hardware requirements in mind, you can decide the best web hosting plans for your need. For more information, you can read “How to select a web server and server platform?”

b) Disk space & Bandwidth requirement
Here is another technical requirement that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting plan, i.e. disk space and bandwidth. If you intend to publish a website that does not have a lot of contents (meaning, web pages), then the disk space requirement may not be a big concern to you. In general, a disk space with 200MB to 500MB should be enough to meet your hosting requirement. In contrast, if you plan to host a website with enormous amount of graphic pictures, mp3 or video files, then you should consider a web hosting plan that provide huge disk space, for example, 500 MB to 1,000 MB.

Similarly, the bandwidth requirement will depend on your site traffic estimation. Obviously, a website that expect to attract high traffic will consume the monthly bandwidth allowance very fast. If so, you will need to find one web hosting service that offer huge bandwidth with 40 GB to 100 GB per month. Depending upon your website requirement, choosing a web hosting service that provide sufficient amount of disk space and bandwidth is crucial consideration to prevent paying extra costs in the future should you overuse the monthly disk space and bandwidth allowance.

c) Other hosting features
While the above requirements are utmost important, there are other hosting features that you have to consider too. Can web hosting provider support video clips on your website, if you have? Is the web hosting service compatible with Dreamweaver or FrontPage web authoring tool? Do you plan to set up a virtual store online? Can the host support the e-commerce features without adding extra cost to your monthly payments? On top of that, you may also want to find out the number of email accounts provided, number of FTP accounts, web statistic software (analyze your web traffic), type of control panel supported (manage your web hosting account), database and scripting languages supported and etc.

Reliability and scalability

A first-class web hosting provider offers reliable server uptime and fast Internet connection. You should only choose a web hosting service that guarantee at least 99% server uptime with high-speed Internet backbones using at least OC3 (Optical Carrier) lines (155 Megabits per second) or above instead of T1 or T3 lines. A reliable web hosting provider usually invests heavily on their data center infrastructure with high performance servers, high speed multiple backbones providers with fail-over redundancy, backup power generators and firewall software protection in place to ensure they meet the uptime guarantee specified in the terms of service.

Similarly, you should choose a web hosting service with hardware facilities that designed for scalability, so that they can grow with your business. For example, if you need to increase more disk space, bandwidth or number of mySQL databases, you should be able to upgrade as needed without any problems.

Customer service and support

The last major consideration in choosing a web hosting service is to find a web hosting providers that offers excellent customer service and support. You should always search for a web hosting provider that offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week technical support that fielded with highly experience technicians, so that any web hosting problems will be resolved within a reasonable amount of time. You may also want to consider to test how responsive is their customer support by sending few inquiry emails to the web hosting provider. In general, any response in less than 24 hours is considered acceptable. It is a sign of poor customer support if they take more than one day to response.

In addition, a web hosting provider with excellent support should also provide multiple support channels, such as toll-free phone support, 24/7 email support, live chat, online knowledgebase, Interactive flash tutorials and FAQ.

Above are few major considerations before you choose your web hosting service. In addition, how long has the web hosting provider in business and the number of customers that they currently have are also a good indication of the quality of their hosting products as well as the stability of the company. Even though cost of the web hosting service is also important but it should not be your major consideration. Because the price of a web hosting service has been declining over the years due to competition, as a result, the price of most of the web hosting services offering quality hosting features has been converging to less than US$10 per month. If you can’t afford less than $10 per month, you probably isn’t in the online business for the long haul. Therefore, price should not be a major deciding factor.

On the other hand, it is more important to ensure the web hosting service that you choose is able to meet your website hosting requirements, guarantee your website is always accessible with satisfying speed, provide scalability to grow and expand your website as well as offer excellent customer supports. Depending on your web hosting requirement, you can take advantage of our site, Cheap Web Hosting Review to find the recommended web hosting services that can match the three major criteria above. Good luck to your search.
Andrew is the owner of Web Hosting Services, a website that provides complete and detail reviews on web hosting services. You can visit his website at:http://www.lowest-price-web-hosting.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Webb

There are thousands of seo optimization firms that masquerade as copywriters – which can put them in the lead as far as search engine saturation and rankings. SEO optimization indisputably brings in the traffic to your website. Without it, you’d be lost in the never ending ocean of websites. It’s tempting to hire an seo firm to simply set up your keyworded content, submit your website, and let it go. This is a sad mistake for online businesses to make – once the traffic is delivered, they lose sales. A healthy dose of marketing awareness is the true goldmine when it comes to seo-savvy copywriting services.

Look at the work of some of the top seo optimization firms. Do it now. Google ‘seo optimization’.

SEO firms tend to be rather wordy – they’re pressing the limits of search engine ratios. They know that as an seo firm, their goal is to get a website into the top of the search engine results. Once they’ve done that, they’ve completed their job. They aren’t there to write sales copy or think of a catchy, brand-building slogan. They are there to help you feed machines – not brains. Unfortunately, an seo firm just doesn’t have the marketing savvy to create website content that draws in the essential components of marketing: emotional draw, a compelling message, and an irresistible offer.

Would you ask an seo optimization firm to write your print brochure? Help you plan a script for your tv commercial? Would you ask them to compile a media kit for potential investors? Of course not – that’s not what they specialize in. SEO optimization companies specialize in communicating with search engines – not people.

If you are looking for the “sell factor” – that’s where good copywriting comes in. A techie that knows how to blanket a website in keywords doesn’t specialize in creativity and ingenuity. That’s bad for you because those are the things that make your products stand out, increase your response rate, and drive sales. SEO optimization firms rely on keyword saturation – an often complicated algorithm that checks to see how many of your keywords are being read by Google. Keyword saturation is a great tool to tinker with search engine results – but it’s not necessarily the tool you want to exploit when you’re trying to persuade consumers to truly connect with what you’re offering. (And connect with them in such a way that they come back for more.)

So, what do true seo copywriting services do for my website?SEO copywriters focus first on the message, then the translation to Google. They are expert translators that make a smooth transition from search engine language to customer-centric language. They write your copy with seo keywords in mind (a 2-7% keyword ratio, which is the standard) but they still add style and voice to what you’re selling.

A good seo copywriter steers clear of cookie-cutter product descriptions but still manages to slip your keywords in there for Google and Yahoo to read. They know how to build your brand and your company image using professionally written, believable copy. They are the essential component of a true search engine marketing campaign – they give your company a voice that stands a cut above the rest.

Your website has a voice, and seo copywriting services should build a clear message

The voice of your company is the language on your website – all of the words, product descriptions, link hover text, and meta data that the search engines pick up and deliver – and humans end up reading. A seo copywriter will strike a balance between using keywords and promotional words effectively. They don’t sacrifice quality for the sake of a higher saturation rate. They want copy that is exciting to read – and pulls sales. They want to keywords to simply be integrated into high-pulling content.

A good seo copywriter will know that headings and titles are just as important to the search engines as the people that visit. They know the importance of bold and bullets to make reading easier on the eyes for your computer-weary customers. They also know that Google finds it easier to read as well.

An seo copywriter is a hybrid of both creative ingenuity and tech-savvy – satisfying both search engines and the curiosity of your prospects. They want results that convert into high search engine results, as well as higher sales volume.

Evaluating seo copywriting services – is your copywriter an seo firm in disguise?
So, how do you know if you are truly working with an seo-savvy copywriting service? The easiest way to find out is to read their website. Many seo firms rely heavily on search engine statistics – even in their website copy – but don’t let this alone scare you off. Statistics are how many seo firms see their end of the bargain – the results. Look at their portfolio. (If they don’t have a portfolio or links to online work, run!) Read their website text to see if sounds like a person took time writing it – is there promotional language? A call to action? A clear list of benefits? Is the content persuasive? Are their articles useful and worth reading – or do they seem to grind out information in monotone?

What to look for when choosing a professional seo copywriter:Here are a few things to look for when you choose an seo writer, and why.

• Does your seo copywriter have a portfolio or links to keyworded articles? Does it contain more than just seo-related work? (Most seo copywriters either started off in print media, or dabble with it from time to time. Experience in other advertising mediums shows that they understand how to market to people, not just machines. )
• Are their articles unique and compelling? Read a few of their seo-keyworded articles by printing them out on paper – does the copy flow smoothly? Is it exciting or informative? Do you notice the repetition of keywords enough that it kills the word flow? Oh, and while you’re at it, Google their articles and see how they rank in the search engines, as well.
• Does your seo copywriter have a name? That’s right – a name. (Will Smith. Cathy Bates. Melissa Brewer.) A lot of seo copywriting service providers farm out their work to India and other tech-saturated countries. This is great for pricing – but the quality can vary and is dependent on the English skills of each individual writer. The articles on their website should have a byline and information about their authors – experience, a portfolio, an “About Us” section – everything your own customers would want to know about you.
• Does your seo copywriter care about your marketing plan as a whole? Do they offer complementary services – both print and web, to allow your marketing collateral to intersect with your search engine efforts? Do they make referrals to trusted providers in the marketing industry?

A truly competent, creative seo copywriter is a diamond in the rough. When you find a person with a hybrid of marketing and tech skills, you have found a true partner in your online marketing efforts. Don’t sacrifice your business website to search engine feeders. A good seo writer can help your website – and your brand – rise to the top of the search engines as well as the forefront of your customer’s thoughts when they are in a shopping mood. SEO copywriters can also help you create online newsletters, e-books, articles, blogs, and any other copy where words are being used to sell products or services. The right combination of keywords and online promotion will increase sales, attract customers and grow your business exponentially – both on and offline.

Melissa Brewer is Creative Director of Capital Creative, Inc, a new media marketing company based in Washington DC. Capital Creative offers seo interactive marketing campaigns for small business budgets – that garner big results. We also provide social media marketing and consulting services – to help you maximize your ROI and build your brand.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Melissa_Brewer

I believe EVERY website should undergo a comprehensive website audit at least once a year (if not once a quarter). Whether you hire a third party to conduct the audit (which can reveal some enlightening results) or you do it yourself internally, focus on the following three areas to make sure you’re conducting your website audit from the eyes of your visitor:

USABILITY: This is perhaps the biggest area of the audit in terms of the number of things you need to assess. The biggest things to focus on here are navigation, functionality, and performance. Does the navigation clearly and quickly guide the visitor to the areas they want to see? Does the site you’ve used properly display in the most common browsers and with the various monitor resolutions? How quickly does your site load, and are there technologies used that slow down performance or distract the visitor (Flash, splash entry pages, etc.)?

CONTENT: Audit the content of your site for brand effectiveness and clarity, freshness (is it outdated), and completeness (have you covered all the areas your visitor expects to see). Specifically, does the look of your site accurately reflect your brand and does it use your brand elements (logo, colors, etc.) correctly? Has the site added new content within the last 14 days? Does the site include all the content that would be important to your visitor (company info, product info, customer case studies, educational information such as articles, etc.)?

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO): While this may seem like a no-brainer, a recent study reported that most companies do not focus enough of their marketing resources on SEO. How can this be? Given that most purchases begin with a web search, it is VITAL your site be properly optimized for search engines. There are many SEO items to check your site for, but the biggest SEO areas to focus on in your audit include a review of page titles, link text, and image use (on EVERY page).

No matter how good you think your site is, after a complete audit of these three areas, you are likely to find significant ways to improve it. After you’ve audited your site, create an action plan for how you plan to address any deficiencies you discovered. Depending on what you find in your audit, you may be able to make the changes quickly. Or, you may require a complete site overhaul. Either way, you’ll be glad you’ve removed your “internal” glasses and taken the time to review your site like your visitor sees it.

So what are you waiting for, get started on your own website audit now!
Go-To-Market Strategies is a resource center for sales and marketing professionals and business leaders. Our tools, templates, and services help companies achieve big aspirations with limited budgets.

Visit our website for sales and marketing templates and access to free downloads or browse more articles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shannon_Kavanaugh

Article marketing is a great way to promote your products and services. If you want to increase the conversion rate, you can use article marketing. Article marketing involves submitting articles to different article directories.

Every article directory has its own submission guidelines. Some article directories allow the article to be published once you submitted it. Go Articles allows article to be live after the user has submitted it. There are a number of article directories that are strict in evaluating the articles. You must adhere to the submission guideline so that your article won’t be removed by the editor.

Each article directory has its own word count requirement for the article. The standard word count for the article is 250 – 5000 words. The ideal length of the article is 500 – 750 words. You should keep your article as short as possible. Most people don’t read the full text of the article. Instead, they only skimp through the important points. You can include numerical bullet points of the important information.

The summary should briefly describe the content in an interesting way. If you don’t want to write the summary, you can use the first paragraph of the article. Writing a unique summary ensures that you don’t have duplication problem. The summary should consist of 2 – 3 sentences.

If you are not skilled in writing, you can hire a professional copywriter to help you. The professional copywriter can be hired from the freelancer site, forums or SEO company. The article must be grammatically correct. You should proofread it carefully before submitting to the article directory. In the resource box, you can include a link to your website. The resource box should not have any contact information including email address, telephone number and office address. If you hire an article writer to write the content, make sure he transfer all rights to you. You can hire an article writing service from the SEO company or individual freelancer. Individual copywriter can be hired from the forum.

The article must have a title. The title must not be presented in all capital letter to capture the attention of the reader. If you want people to read your article, you should write an interesting title.

There are hundreds of article directories that are accepting new article submission. It can be difficult to submit to the article directories, especially if you have many articles to submit. If you want to get the job done faster, you can always hire a SEO company. When hiring a SEO company, make sure it has good reputation. SEO company with good reputation are reliable and can deliver the project on time. You can also take into consideration the price of the article submission service. If you order in bulk, you can ask the SEO company to offer a discount.

About the Author

Mascar Rooney is the author of this article on directory submission.Mascar Rooney is the author of this article on  Blog commenting Service.

(ArticlesBase SC #2513968)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – How to Use Article Marketing to Promote Your Business

Many long-time SEO’s are now looking at the big picture and working with usability analysts. Some SEO are scam artists. I find it interesting that so many newcomers are given the wrong impression that there is one almighty answer to doing well in search engines. SEO are specialized techniques used to optimize your web site, to be Search engine friendly and increase your chances of placing well in searches. But SEO can also be the most profitable methods of driving leads because any leads you receive from SEO are free leads.

There are a large number of companies that adopt a fast and unethical approach to SEO known as Black Hat SEO. They employ unethical techniques that are against search engine policies. The best results from SEO are rarely achieved overnight. Black hat SEO are the techniques used to fool the search engines in order to bring in more traffic to websites. Website owners who unknowingly utilize black hat techniques of SEO are more vulnerable to changes in search engine algorithms and faced being banned.

Most hardcover books on the subject of SEO are best viewed as a vehicle to help the beginner understand the process of search engine optimization. This is because the principles behind SEO are not easy. They are very informative and most webmasters are involved in SEO and using it. White hat and black hat SEO are two opposing views of how to do search engine optimization. In a nutshell, SEO are methods that aim to improve the position or rank of a website in the listings produced by search engines. The benefits of SEO are almost unlimited.

Watch out for SEO Tools and software that is outdated and totally useless. Always research before you buy any SEO software because the search engine Algorithms are constantly changing thereby improving their search technologies to provide the most relevant results for their users. SEO tools for Google, MSN and Yahoo are numerous. SEO tools for press release optimization were also launched by PRWeb at the end of June called SEO Wizard. Search engine optimization is not easy, but with the right SEO tools, your website promotion task just got a lot easier. Blogs are one of the best SEO tools around and some like WordPress are free. Google Sitemaps’ are a powerful SEO tools which you can get free by visiting my website.

MSN has launched a suite of SEO tools to go with their Pay Per Click product Adcenter. There are many SEO tools available on the internet, some are better then others, and some are not. Header tags, proper Keyword density, proper text formatting fonts, start text key-phrase as whole phrases, alt image tag text, links pointing to your site and each page and your domain name itself are some things to pay attention too. Many specialized SEO tools can help you determine the popularity and the competitiveness of your possible keywords and can help improve your search engine ranking particularly in Google.

Writing fresh content for SEO plays a large role in keeping visitors on a web site. Let’s talk unique web page content and SEO content strategy. Finding a good SEO content writer is easier than you think. Just run a Google search or checkout elance.com. What is good SEO Content? It is unique, quality information that your visitors can use and is helpful to them. RSS feeds are an invaluable tool in the SEO content toolbox. If you scrape SEO content and end up scraping a couple spam pages, you may get noticed even more because someone is investigating the other spam pages.

The primary factor that will determine whether your SEO content is “good enough” is the content provided by competing websites. You need unique content that nobody has in order for it to pass duplicate content filters. That’s why it is important to get your content articles indexed before you submit them to the search engines. I think nowadays though search engine algorithms can trace back the content and see who published it first, so at least make sure you publish it to your website or blog before submitting it to article directories.

To strengthen the theme of your web site, you need keyword rich SEO content. SEO content writing tips content writer’s main aim is to create a new written piece which is original, simple, informative and also to the point. Write specific targeted SEO content for the independent pages. Unique SEO content remains king. Showing your visitors you can really write unique, compelling content, your traffic will grow very fast. Earlier it was just content writing but now it is widely known as SEO content writing. However there are some strict rules enforced on SEO content. Once you have visitors, your SEO content should be converting them into customers. With effective SEO content on your website, half of your search engine rank optimization work is done.

Ethical search engine optimization is a must or you will get banned. It’s not if, it’s when. Search engine optimization was and still is fascinating to me. Search Engine Optimization is a crucial part in a websites success. The objective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to achieve high natural search engine placement for relevant keywords or keyword phrases. Hiring an ethical search engine optimization company to rank well in the natural results is essential to long term success.

Your white hat Search engine optimization (SEO) campaign will provide you with a long term increase in targeted traffic and qualified visitors to your Web Site. Visit my site often and add it to your favorites as I update you with the latest news and rumors in the search engine optimization industry everyday. The effects of bad search engine optimization are devastating and very depressing. Each website is unique in its own way and hence your (SEO) plans differ from website to website.

My site has some tips on how to perform search engine optimization (also know as SEO) on your website. I have a free, comprehensive guide to the practice of search engine optimization for those unfamiliar with the subject if you send me an email. There’s a lot of hype out there about search engine optimization (SEO) services. Some are good and some are bad. Read through Google’s terms of service as they have some information on their site about it.

Too often, visual design and SEO are perceived as a mutual sacrifice. Pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. Pay-per-click cost money, but the clicks from SEO cost you nothing. SEO are considered as the main factors in enhancing the traffic of one’s website. Both, PPC and SEO are important. The truth is, the most rewarding part of SEO are often the slowest to reward. PR and SEO are based mostly on editorial credibility and relevance, not a direct payment for exposure.

SEO are specialized techniques used to optimize your web site, to be Search engine friendly and increase your chances of placing well in searches. There are a large number of companies that adopt a fast and unethical approach to SEO known as Black Hat SEO. The main components of on-page SEO are optimization of the title tag, the headline tag, the body text and the Meta tags. Companies interested in SEO are occasionally not very happy with how their website looks. Programmers with an understanding of SEO are in high demand. As a matter of fact, sites with excellent Search Engine Optimization are making giant leaps in rankings and getting a major boost in free traffic with Google’s new update.

Great web usability and SEO are wasted if folks who visit your web can’t tell that you are worthy of their trust. Those who specialize in SEO are in the unique position of understanding the web in a way that no traditional marketing agency can hope to. White hat and black hat SEO are two opposing views of how to do search engine optimization so if you use one, choose with great care. The second most important aspect for high SEO is the headers. Use H1, H2, H3, H4 headers.

Many of the techniques that can be used for SEO are banned by the various search engines. The benefits of SEO are almost unlimited. Bad techniques of SEO are a strict ‘NO’ – Like same color text as the background and Doorway pages can get your website banned. The five forces of SEO are relevant Keywords, unique Content, clean Code, relevant Links and proper use of Technology. Designing for users and designing for SEO are not mutually exclusive goals. There will be compromise. White hat SEO are techniques that follow precisely the rules and guidelines provided by search engines stand a better chance of receiving traffic and higher rankings than black hat techniques.

For this reason it is important to try to stay updated as far as new SEO are concerned. The off-page elements of website promotion and SEO are just as important. The majority of issues with SEO is very basic and just takes time to be picked up on search engines. Web design and SEO are two very different disciplines, but a certain degree of collaboration is required. It’s easy to see why effective SEO are now very much in demand. Black hat SEO is techniques used to trick or manipulate search engines for higher rankings.

If done properly, the results of your SEO efforts are very impressive. Those who practice what some refer to as “ethical” and “correct” SEO are called White Hat SEO’s. The most important for SEO is to follow the rules and you won’t have anything to worry about.
Patricia J Tuley is a Technology research analasis. You can visit my site [http://www.seoarticlesonline.com] for more great information on search engine optimization and products.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patricia_Tuley

Custom 404 Page: When a web server cannot find the file that the user requested, it returns a “404 – Resource not found” error. There should be a page in your theme directory called ’404.php’. If there’s not, copy it from /wp-content/themes/default/404.php to your own theme’s directory. Pretty straightforward stuff… get the most use out of that page. Suggestive sell. Add things like your Top Posts, or Most Actively Discussed Items to the 404 page to give them options to consume your content. A 404 error doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Give your visitors options.

Discussion Settings: You want visitors to comment and interact with your blog. You don’t want the infidels to have the run of the joint. I set up comment moderation with 3 or more links (I use CommenLuv which inserts one link, their web URL is a second link, so 3 would be if they included a link in their comment. If you don’t plan to use CommentLuv, change this to 2). You can also include a list of words that are *iffy* in the box below this setting. Any comment with that word would *trigger* moderation. (Moderation just holds the comments until you stop by and approve or trash the comments). The Comment Blacklist box is where I spend my time. I include a list of words that I really don’t want on my site such as viagra, penis, enlarge, and the names of several popular drugs. I also include words of a sexual nature, including rape, porn, xxx, sex, bdsm, etc.

Create a Visitor Site Map: This is not the same as the plugin-generated sitemap for the various search engines to digest. This is an old-fashioned sitemap that provides a quick overview of the contents of your site (Think ‘table of contents’). The more ways you provide for them to find your content, the more content they’ll find. If your theme doesn’t include an archives.php file to allow this, get Dagon Design Sitemap Generator or SRG Clean Archives. Both are plugins and make this process almost painless.

Activate Your Analytics: Keep track of your users and traffic – there’s a lot you can learn from who visits, how they found you and where they go from your site. I recommend Google Analytics. Easy to use, free and comprehensive, I have never (SADLY) come close to tickling their 5M page view ceiling. Install the Ultimate Google Analytics plugin, put in your UA code and watch the stats roll in.

Keep out the Riff-Raff: There are the curiosity seekers, and there are hackers. I don’t want either accidentaly wandering around my WordPress installation. One prevention method is simple, one is not so simple. Select the method you are most comfortable with.
Method 1Create an empty text file and save (name) it index.php. Upload this file to wp-content (wherever you placed this), wp-admin, and wp-includes. The empty file will be read when they navigate to that location and display a blank white page, rather than a list of your files.
Method 2Add the following line to your.htaccess file that exists in the main WordPress installation directory. Options All -Indexes: This will turn off the auto-feature to *list* files that exist in a directory without a default page.

Make It Harder To Hack Your Site: With the explosion in popularity of the WordPress platform has come a proportionate interest in hacking WordPress. Knowing what version of WordPress you run gives them a significant advantage. I remove the little snippet of code that is present in almost every theme out there. <meta content="WordPress 2.7" name="generator" /?>
And while that’s almost enough to discourage most, you can completely remove the feature from WordPress by adding this line to your theme’s function.php file <?php remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator'); ?>
Also, check your theme’s footer.php file for references to your version.

Change The Location Of Your Upload Folder: By default, WordPress puts any photos or PDFs that you upload in directory called wp-content/uploads. First uncheck “Organize my uploads into month and year based folders”. Dashboard -> Settings -> Miscellaneous You can tell WordPress to use any folder on your webserver for the default location, but if you plan to do this, include the path to your folder, and the full URL as well. (“path” would be ‘../../images’ if you want the uploads to go to MyDomain.com/images/ The ../ tells WordPress to move up one directory))

Activate (Turn On) Akismet: Once spammers pick up your blog, they’ll never stop spamming you with comments. Akismet is THE best anti-spam plugin. Fortunately, it comes preinstalled with WordPress. Activate it and USE IT. One note: the Akismet plugin requires a WordPress API key, something you can only get by registering on the WordPress.com site (profile only, no blogs required). Once you register, they will send an email with your API key. Insert that in the appropriate box under ‘Plugins -> Akismet Configuration’ and check the box that says ‘Automatically discard spam comments…’ You’ll be glad you did.

Turn Post Revisions ‘Off’: Post revisions is a great idea that WordPress takes to an extreme (in my mind, you might disagree). The basic premise is this. Every X seconds, WordPress will create a backup of your post.Great, right? Here’s the rub. Each *revision* it saves creates a new record in your database (making it bigger) and WordPress has the annoying habit of displaying a complete list of every revision you ever made in your life, when you go in to edit a post. If you are like me, and blog via a Desktop Client, you already have a backup of your post. So, to turn off this annoying feature, open your wp-config.php file in Notepad or something similar and add this line somewhere near the other define you find in there: define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);

Install Google XML Sitemaps: Google XML Sitemaps generates a standards-compliant XML sitemap for your blog, allowing the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN) to easily index your site. Every time you edit or add a post, the sitemap will modify itself unless you tell it differently (see below). This part is optional, but highly recommended! Go to Google Webmaster Central and log in with your Google Account (you do have a Google Account, right?). On the first page, there will be a link to “Verify” your site. Follow the instructions there. Once that’s done, you can then click the “Add Sitemap” link from the first page and put in the URL to your sitemap, which will be something like this (non-working) link: YouDomain.com/sitemap.xml

Install A Database Backup Plugin: WordPress is software that is driven by a MySQL database. All your posts, pages and links are stored in the database. If it crashes, your entire blog could be lost, so take a minute and install a backup plugin to protect yourself. I’ve tried six or seven (and wrote my own) – the one I like best is the WP-DBManager Plugin. Once installed and activated, just go to Dashboard | Database (it’s on the bottom) and select DB Options. Select the maximum number of backups to keep on hand (mine is 5) and skip the auto-email feature. It will send a zipped copy of your database backup to your email address – if your blog is large, that file could be quite large as well.

Change Media Settings: WordPress will auto-size your content based on when and where you insert it into a post. If your theme allows 400px for the content width, and your max width for a large picture is 1024, you have a problem. You can manually resize any photo, but taking the time to update these media values before you get started is a real time saver. Dashboard -> Settings -> MediaAdjust according to taste, but make sure your large size is no wider than your post content area as defined by your theme.

Add Your RSS Feed To Feedburner: You could use the built-in RSS feed that WordPress installs, but Feedburner is such an excellent feed delivery and tracking system I recomemnd you sign up and use them. Burn your feed with Feedburner, and then either install a Feed plugin that will force all your feeds to your Feedburner account URL, or update the theme header.php file to add the following line:

Get some Search Engine Love: It’s a fact that most bloggers don’t do this until they have been blogging a while and realize there are things they should be doing to optimize for the search engines. You can be ahead of the game if you install Headspace2 or All-In-One-SEO right away. Complete the extra fields they give you. Each offers fields for Title, Description and Keywords on the New Post screen. You should complete all three. Make sure you use your primary keyword for the post at least once in the title and description, and place 1-5 keywords in the keyword field.

Create a Contact Me Page: Do not over look this important step. You want to be accessible. You want them to feel you are a real person they can reach out to. If you don’t provide a way to “connect”, they won’t. And they will wander off, never to be seen or heard from again.

WordPress is increasing its reputation as a platform for building e-commerce websites from a simple blogging CMS, WordPress themes and back-end functionality deliver all the functionality of a dedicated website at a fraction of the cost of a customized site. WordPress’ open architecture has encouraged a host of plug-ins to provide functionality on an as-needed basis, and in many cases at very low cost and even free.

The question is, when you have different plug-ins claiming to perform the same function, how do you choose between them? Making a mistake can cost you revenue and may lead to increased support costs down the road, so you need to take a considered approach to this problem.

Easy Installation

Any plug-in should be a breeze to install within WordPress, and unless you are a complete newbie, you should be able to handle the installation process yourself to save further costs involved with hiring third-party with the skills to do it for you. The whole ethos behind WordPress and plug-ins is that you, the etailer (online retailer), can manage the site with your own hands-on, unless you want a third party involved.

Lack of Conflict and Plug-in Stability

Not all plug-ins are equal some are more equal than others because they are developed by programmers who are better at their job and have a deeper understanding of the business objective they are looking to help users achieve. Some plug-ins will conflict with other plug-ins, or even with WordPress itself which results in downtime, functionality restriction and increased frustration and costs to get the issue put right.

Look for a plug-in with a track record of use and from a source which has developed a reputation for developing WordPress plug-ins, and frequently, this will be a commercial outfit and you will need to pay for it.

Ongoing Support

Free plug-ins can result in a very high cost to you due to lack of effective support for the solution. If a free plug-in is installed and then develops an issue, or you need to overhaul the site in such a way that the plug-in needs to be tweaked, you may find the support from whoever has developed and supplied the free solution do not have the ability to support it.

Lack of support when the plug-in performs a critical function is extremely costly if it takes your site down, or customers cannot complete online purchases, you are losing a lot of money.

Shopping Cart Plug-ins

One of the most important plug-ins is the shopping cart this lets users select and deselect products they are interested in buying and takes them through the ordering and payment process. You need to make sure the shopping cart plug-in satisfies all the aforementioned requirements, but also provides an easy to administer product interface for making changes and can handle different order scenarios as well as being very fast most customers abandon the purchase (called shopping cart abandonment) due to a slow or clunky purchasing process e.g. slow loading of pages, asking too much information which is not relevant to the purchase or not able to accept a wide variety of payment options.

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