The more the better - You can have a single web page and fill it with 300 key words and phrases but it probably won¹t get a high ranking on any search engine because the actual “relevance” of each individual key word is low. Far better to have 300 web pages on your site, with a few key words repeated three times on each. That way, the relevance of those particular key words is high for the specific page on which they appear. Better still if a key word appears in the page title, the meta key tags, the first heading and as the first emboldened word.

Each page should also contain sentences which are relevant to its subject, amounting to at least 100 words, otherwise a search engine is likely to ignore it or consider it to be “spam”. This “rule” is especially applicable to your Index page. If it contains only a heading and the words “click picture to enter”, for example, a search engine will not give it a high ranking and may even ignore it completely!

One at a time - How can you create *three hundred* pages? Easy: one at a time. You don’t have to write them all at once; consider it an ongoing project. One hundred words per page is sufficient. For example, consider a site that sells Satellite Television accessories. There are lots of key words that people might search for in order to find such a site. You need to create a specific page for every one. Here are a few:

Title: Satellite Television Accessories. Repeat this key phrase..
Title: Satellite Dishes. (dishes.htm)
Title: Television Aerials. (aerials.htm) etc.
Title: TV Distribution Amplifiers.
Title: Satellite Cable.
Title: Satellite Receivers.
Title: Remote Control Handsets.
Title: Satellite Decoders

.. and so on. Each page gives some information about the specific item or subject and repeats the key word or phrase a number of times. In addition, common misspellings of the word can be added to the meta tags and put at the bottom of the page. Don’t try to hide them by making them the same colour as the background - some search engines see this as “spamming”. Put them in full view under the title “Common misspellings” or “For the search engines”. For example: “Sattelite, satalite, satallite, statallite, antena, arial, aeriel, ariel, reciever …”

Adding misspelt words like this can often put your page at the top of the “found” list when the person searching is not able to spell. (Whether you want to attract illiterates is another question! However, in my experience, such people are usually rich brain surgeons and company directors who normally employ a clerk to do their typing).

Foreign words - In Europe it is especially important to include non-English words, too, since you don’t want to exclude potential sales in Germany, France, Spain….For example, the word for “Remote Control Handset” in German is “Fernbedienung”. If you want to sell to countries whose first language is not English then it will be worth your while to look up the most important words and add them to your page. If you are in the USA or Canada, remember that not all Hispanics and French Canadians are poor!

Contents Page Link - Every page should have a link back to the contents page. Imagine searching for a subject and finding a page with a brief mention of it. “This looks promising, but how do I find the home page or contents page of this site? ” Sometimes it’s obvious but sometimes it’s impossible to find, particularty if the web site uses a “phantom URL” or a redirect system. Be sure to put a “Back to Contents” link on every page.

Pages within a frame can be especially problematic since the search engine can link you direct to an inner page without the frame page that contains the contents list! However, if the pages are within a frame, make sure you add the “_parent” tag to the “Contents Page” link, otherwise you could end up with a frame inside a frame - very annoying for the visitor.

Some of your pages may be created *only* to attract search engines. You may want the visitor to click on “Back to Contents” immediately. You won’t want a visible link from the Contents page to that page but you must have some form of link, otherwise the search engine is unlikely to find the page in the first place.

For these pages, it’s usually best to have a single pixel image that matches the background colour. Use this pixel image as the link. It doesn’t matter if somebody clicks on it but you don’t want it to be an obvious link that distracts the visitor from the main contents list. However, it’s better if every page contains really useful information in the form of sentences, rather than a jumble of key words to attract the search engines.

Search engines page - Another invisible link to a “search engines” page can be employed. Create a page that lists every search engine that you can find, with proper links to each. Put an invisible link to that page from your contents page. In fact, you could make the link visible if you wish. Many search engines like to find a link to themselves and such a link will increase the ranking of your site.

For a list of some search engines, look at this page: http://www.satcure.co.uk/searchit.htm

Never delete a file - If a web page has been registered with a number of search engines, you’d be crazy to erase it, wouldn’t you? Well, there must be a lot of crazy people out there! Every time I do a search I find at least half a dozen links to files which “no longer exist”.

If I decide that a page is no longer relevant, I remove links TO it but I leave the page intact (apart from removing offers for sale, prices or anything else that’s out of date). I make sure there’s a “This page is no longer updated” (or similar) notice and a “Return to Contents” link. This page continues to attract visitors to my web site, even though it is no longer specifically relevant. NEVER delete a file. Likewise, never delete a web site if you can possibly avoid it. I have my own “personalised” URLs now but I still maintain my original web site because its pages are registered with hundreds of search engines.

Advertise in News Groups - Many search engines monitor the USENET News Groups. Most News Groups do not permit advertising but there’s nothing to stop you from replying to somebody’s posted question with a suggestion like: “I had this problem, too, and I found the answer at http://www.netcentral.co.uk/satcure”. Having your web site URL appear in a number of News Groups can increase its ranking with some search engines.

Add it to your signature - Whenever you send an e-mail message, make sure your signature includes your web site URL. This is advertising at its cheapest and, often, most effective. Even if you are writing to an existing customer, he/she may have mislaid your web site URL or may be thinking about getting around to ordering something else, maybe, sometime, if he/she can be bothered! With your URL in front of them, all they have to do is click on it. Repeat business is the easiest to get so make it easier still.

Put it on your stationery and vehicles - Print your web site URL in as many places as possible. It represents FREE advertising. Put it on your company stationery, your vehicles, free gifts, products, brochures and anything else that people see. I am continually amazed to find companies that do not do this!

I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

About the Author
David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.

Sometimes, though, you would be further ahead to use the services of a credit card processor. This is especially true when you are first starting out and have more limited resources. In this way, you may process credit card transactions without the high front-end costs and requirements of a merchant account.

Here, then, are just a few ways of accepting credit cards without a merchant account. I personally use all of these vendors and can recommend them wholeheartedly.

1. Clickbank

If your product is downloadable (such as electronic books or software), you might consider ClickBank.com . For a $49.95 initial fee, you can process credit cards and on-line cheques for $1.00 per transaction plus 7.5% of sales.

You receive additional exposure through free listing on their website and through the search facilities of other websites, such as CBMall.com.

As an added bonus, you have your own built-in affiliate program. You decide what commission (from 1% to 75%) you would like to pay your affiliates.

2. PayPal

PayPal.com has no initial fees. For just 2.9% of sales and $ .30 per transaction (and sometimes less), you can receive money from anyone.

Also, you can pay others by credit card or chequing account without supplying your personal credit information to the payee. PayPal can be used to collect money from your auctions, website sales, or even from friends or clients.

3. PaySystems

PaySystems.com can handle either intangible (downloadable) or tangible (shippable) products. For an initial fee of $49.00, you can accept all major credit cards as well as online checks. Fees are just 3.95% of sales and $1.00 per transaction. Alternatively, you may pay 5.5% of sales and $ .35 per transaction.

For this, you receive shopping cart, integration with third-party affiliate programs (such as ClixGalore.com ), fraud screening, multi-currency transactions, toll-free support, marketing tools, and more.

For more information on how to accept credit cards without a merchant account, visit: http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/creditcards.html

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc.,
http://www.popeconsultinginc.com/ has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty years.

For more valuable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit:
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/

Subscribe Free to Work at Home Small Business Ideas at:
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/subscry.html

And it is one of the most common questions I get asked by new subscribers and visitors to my site - “Do I have to know HTML?” I went through the same anxiety and reservations when we were first considering taking our business online. I took a look at the HTML that made up some of the web pages and said WOW, what the heck is that!

HTML or HyperText Markup Language is one of the major languages on the Web used to write web pages. It gives you the ability to combine text, pictures, sounds and links all in one page.

I had no background in programing or even an inkling of what HTML was or how it worked. It seemed like an obstacle that I wouldn’t be able to get around. But I was determined to get my online business up and running and I didn’t have a budget that would allow me to contract out my web page development.

So I started asking around about HTML on different discussion boards and did some searches and was surprised at the amount of information that was available free. There are many sites out there with lessons on how to use HTML to construct a web page. Likewise there are many sites with free graphics, free cgi and java scripts. So it wasn’t long before I had a basic web page put together and it also wasn’t long before I started understanding some of the coding and could mess around with it to make a page look different.

I want to digress a bit here in discussing my learning curve. During my research about HTML, I found out that there were a number of software products that made working with HTML in constructing a web page relatively simple. These programs actually allowed you to construct a great web page with out really knowing HTML at all. The one that I started out with was called “Hot Dog” available at www.sausage.com.au (I am not kidding about the name, that’s what it’s called) and its cost is just under $100. I have been using it since mid-1998. I don’t sell it so I am not looking for a commission. I found it easy to learn and use even though I had little or no experience with HTML. I subsequently purchased Frontpage2000 but I still use Hot Dog because I find it simpler. If you are interested in Frontpage you can find some tips and how to tutorials at www.microsoft.com/frontpage

This type program basically creates the HTML code for you. You enter the text and use drop down lists to select what action you want to take in respect to creating the HTML code. It really is great and as you use it, you are learning the actions that each piece of code can do to or for your page.

I mentioned earlier that there are many sites where you can get free information regarding learning how to build your own web pages.

Here are a few:

HTML Tutorials in Web Design
http://www.bfree.on.ca/HTML/index.htm

HTML: An Interactive Tutorial For Beginners
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html

A Crash Course in HTML http://www.w3-tech.com/crash/HTMLMenu.html

HTML Help http://www.htmlhelp.com

Those are just a few of the many sites that offer free help. As indicated above, there are also sites where you can get other resources you can use to design your own site/page. And they are all free. If you would like links to free cgi scripts, java scripts, banner generation services, graphics and more just visit our free resource page at: http://www.homebizlink.com/freeserv.htm

Don’t look at the HTML of some page you think looks great and let it scare you or deter you from your goal of getting your business online. It looked awesome to me too when I started but now I do all my own web pages and my site now has over 50 individual pages. Play around with it, change it, test it and you will learn it! AND you will be online before you know it!

About the author:
Joe Reinbold, Publisher of Home Income Quarterly E-dition, a
free weekly online marketing newsletter. To subscribe just
mailto:subscribe@homebizlink.com with “Subscribe” in the
subject. Or visit The Entrepreneur’s Home Business Link where
you will find the solutions to your home business needs at:
http://www.homebizlink.com

If you have decided to invest in a website for your business it is important that you have some understanding of the Web terrain.

So Now You Have a Website

When a website is built for your business you must register a “domain,” which is the address of your website on the Internet. Technically speaking, the actual address is a set of numbers, but just imagine how impossible it would be if your prospects and customers had to remember a 12 digit number in order to visit your site! To make this easier, a system was devised that allows you to choose a word or phrase to represent these numbers. For example, “www.yourcompany.com” is a whole lot easier to remember than “218.19.351.43.”

After your website has been built and published to your domain, you can visit it and you can let others know how to visit it by giving them your domain name. However, the search engines, such as Google, MSN Search, etc., need time to learn about your site. It’s roughly the same situation as when you move to a new city and get your new telephone number. Your friends and family can certainly call you on the new number, but it isn’t in the current phone directory, and won’t be until the new directory is published.

The good news is that unlike your local phone directory, you won’t have to wait until next year for your site to get listed. Even if you take no action at all, the search engines will discover your site, although it will probably take several months. The bad news is that even when the search engines finally list your site, it may be so far down the list that it doesn’t matter anyway.

What do I mean by “down the list?” If you search for “cars” using a popular search engine, such as Google, over 25 million listings will be displayed. If your company sells air fresheners for cars and your website is listed after 24 million others, it just isn’t likely that anyone will locate your website by these means. In fact, the likelihood of anyone finding your site drops off sharply if your site is not in the first 30 or so listings displayed by a search engine.

There are two main methods by which your odds for visibility can be improved and the remainder of this article will explain these so that you can understand what your options really are.

Search Engine Positioning & Search Engine Optimization

Search engine positioning mainly consists of 1) identification of optimum keywords (or search terms), 2) optimizing your web pages for those keywords, 3) getting links to your website added to as many other websites as possible and 4) submitting your site to the search engines. I’ll take each of these actions and describe it a bit more.

Identifying Keywords. Your business, no doubt, sells specific good and services, and the obvious keywords, or search terms, would at first seem to be the name of those goods or services. Such as “mortgage” if you are a mortgage broker. While it is important to include these obvious terms, there are easily millions of other websites also selling mortgages on the Internet, and your site needs to distinguish itself from the others as much as possible. The key here is to find a word or phrase for which, per statistics, there are lots of searches being done, but for which there are not millions of other websites being listed as a result of those searches. To make this clearer I’ll give you an example. On Google each day there are over 2200 searches for “mortgage” (very good), and the search engine will display around 17 million listings for this keyword (not so good). This amount of competition seriously lowers the chances of getting your listing near the top.

Instead, using professional analysis tools, we will identify related keywords and phrases that lots of people are searching on, such as “todays interest rates.” If it turns out that there are relatively few other sites that contain the text “todays interest rates” in their pages, this would be a good keyword to use. We repeat the keyword identification process until we have a sufficient number for use in the next step.

Optimization. Now that we have identified a number of keywords, what do we do with them? For each keyword, we will either already have a web page that primarily discusses that topic, or else we will create new pages for the purpose. Each of these pages is then carefully looked at in terms of where the keyword appears, how often, how near the top of the page, etc., and changes made to the page so that the keyword usage is optimum. This is the actual process of “optimization.” Furthermore, there is also an optimum amount of text for a page—usually around 300 to 400 words—and if the page has too little text it will not really be possible to do much to optimize it.

It is important to note that there are certain web design choices that can make future search engine optimizing difficult or impossible. These include:

·Excessive use of graphic images instead of actual text. The title of this article is actual text. However, if a fancier-looking title had been produced as a graphic image, it would make the page less optimum in terms of search engine appeal. When it encounters a graphic image, a search engine is unable to “see” what the image represents—it just knows that there is an image in that space.

·Anything contained in a Flash animation.Flash can create real pizzazz on a site, but similar to graphic images, the search engines are completely shut out of the picture (in fact quite literally). This doesn’t mean your site shouldn’t use Flash, but not to the exclusion of a sufficient amount of real text and other page elements.

·Web pages that use frames. You’ve probably visited sites where the pages were divided into separate areas, each with its own scrollbar. Those sites use frames, which in most cases completely stymie the search engines and prevent them from discovering the content of your site.

Links From Other Sites. In the good old days (a year or two ago), it was sufficient to add keywords in a few places on your web pages, submit them to the search engines and voila, top listings. However, with the explosive growth of the World Wide Web in recent years, the search engines have become much more smarter in figuring out which search results would best satisfy a particular query. One criterion that is currently very important is the number of other websites that have links to yours. From the perspective of a search engine, lots of links coming into your site make your site more important, and therefore more likely to provide the information needed by the searcher. Why would another website want to link to yours? The best reason is that your website content is so outstanding that other sites will link to yours as a service to their visitors. But, this is not as easy as it sounds, since there are so many sites out there, many with dozens (sometimes hundreds) of pages of useful information.

A commonly used method of increasing links to your site is to offer to swap links with another site. This is known as a “link exchange.” It takes a bit of work, but is generally the quickest route to improved search engine listings.

Search Engine Submission. After all the above has been completed, it is time to for your web pages to be submitted to the search engines. Although there are numerous submission firms that claim to be able to submit your site to “thousands” of search engines, there are only a few engines that actually matter, such as Yahoo, Google, MSN Search and AOL (not an exhaustive list). After working hard to get your website designed, built and optimized…now you wait. It generally takes 6 - 10 weeks after submission for the results to start to be seen. And it is vital to understand that your position in the search engine listings is dynamic. There are other websites also using these techniques to improve their position, and there is absolutely no way to guarantee a particular position in the listings, or how long your site will stay at that position. Even so, the difference these steps can make for your site’s visibility makes it a worthwhile investment.

Pay-Per-Click Listings

If you want immediate placement on the search engines, plus a better measure of control over your listing’s position, you should consider pay-per-click, or sponsored, listings. If you do a search on any major search engine you will see listings at the top or along the side of the page that have the notation “sponsored listing.” They may also be set apart with a colored background, which is the case on Google.

These listings are really paid advertisements. The way they work is a bidding system. You, the advertiser, bid on the search terms for which you want your listings to be displayed. The amount of your bid indicates how much you’re willing to pay for a click on your link. You only pay when your listing is displayed for a particular keyword and the searcher clicks on your listing to visit your site. The highest bidder gets the first listing on the results page, the second highest bidder gets the next highest listing, and so on. Bids can be as low as 10 cents, and go as high as 10 dollars or more for a really hot keyword, such as “mortgage.” Quite often you can bid on very effective keywords for 25 to 50 cents.

There are advantages to the pay-per-click system. The most obvious is that in just a day or two your website can be displayed at the top of the search engine listings. If you’ve invested a lot in getting your site up and running you may not want to wait 2 months for your customers to be able to find you. Also, sponsored listings are targeted to those who are really searching for the information available on your site, unlike “banner ads,” which you have no doubt seen on many sites. (A banner ad is more like a billboard. The advertiser pays to have it displayed regardless of whether viewers actually click on it.)

The big downside to pay-per-click listings is that you may have lots of idle visitors who are just surfing around the Net and don’t intend to buy. If they click on your listing, you pay, regardless of whether or not they become your customer. The business owner (you) must decide what you are willing to spend for customer acquisition.

In Conclusion

I hope that this discussion has been helpful to you. If you are investing in a website or search engine positioning, you need to understand at least the basics of the game, and that is what I have hoped to achieve. It’s not as complicated as it sounds …although the unfamiliar terminology in the field of computers and the Internet often make it seem so. Never be concerned about seeming ignorant to your web designer or other Internet service providers. Before meeting you they probably had even less understanding of your field!

About the Author
Debra Bellmaine is President of Bellmaine Associates http://www.bellmaineassociates.coma web design & development firm providing website solutions for small and medium-size businesses. She is a software professional with broad experience creating custom business applications. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems, as well as various certifications, including Sun Certified Developer for the Java 2 Platform.

Mistake #1
Web page size. If your website takes longer than 10-15 seconds to load you should consider optimizing it for the web. This is one of the biggest mistakes a web designer can make. You may have cable and love to fill your website with graphics, but if your visitors don’t have cable or a fast connection at all your chances of getting them to wait that 10 to 15 seconds for your page to load is very slim.

Mistake #2
Flashy ads. Ok, so you have to bring in some cash some how
right? So you sign up to a bunch of banner ad affiliate
programs. Only problem with this is their banners are
animated and constantly flashing while your visitors view
your website. This can be good in some cases for getting
some extra cash. But visitors can be easily annoyed by
these banners.

If your trying to get customers, having these flashy
banners increases your chances of your visitors leaving.
Lots of people may be drawn into these ads (probably your
best customers) and if they click that ad, they are now
a customer to someone else thanks to your affiliate
program.

Mistake #3
Confusing Navigation. Before you build a website you should
make a sitemap for how everything is going to be setup.
Come up with a plan to have some form of contact
information on each page. If your visitor comes to a page
and wants to purchase something and they cant find a
contact link they will most likely change their mind
while searching for it. Keep your navigation consistent on
each page. If your visitor has to learn to use a different
type of navigation system on every page they will become
easily annoyed.

Mistake #4
Confusing Content. You want to make everything easy to read
and navigate. If you know someone thats in their teen years
you should come up with some questions to ask them about
your website. Like:
What do you think my site is about?
Would you buy this product on my website?
Can you understand the information on this(blank.html)page?

If you can get a teen, or even any average person to answer
these question’s honestly you can find ways to change
your setup so that anyone and everyone is drawn in to
purchase from you.

Mistake #5
Advertising. When you advertise your website the number one
thing that you do not want to do is spam. It is very easy
to advertise your website all over the web for free! You
can use forums, article submission groups, online
communities, chat groups, news feeds, and much more. If you
do resort to spam this could hurt your website sales. A lot
web surfers will go around and if they find spam they will
report it to someone that will post it on a website that
degrades or gives bad reviews on your website.

If you can avoid these five mistakes that almost every
webmaster experiences than you will be on your way to
success in no time.

About the Author
Charles Nixon - Website Designer Driven by Creativity
Building websites to increase sales, and build web presence
Did you start your business to create a website? or to run
your business? With competitive pricing and your project
delivered on time and on budget CharlesNixon.com may be the
web design firm for you!
http://www.CharlesNixon.com/

So what are web templates?

Well, to put it in a simple way, web templates are nothing but readymade web-pages that can be used to create websites in seconds! How you ask? Web templates act as html coded dummy web pages that contain model content. Now these templates can be edited with ease (to add content, graphics, logo, pictures etc) to create professional web pages in less time.

How to edit web templates

Now the next possible question that arises is as how to edit the web templates; isn’t it? That’s simple! Most web templates are editable and can be edited using popular html editors like FrontPage, DreamWeaver, GoLive and Photoshop. These html editors are easy to use and have a friendly interface. You need not be a pro to use them. Anyway in case anyone finds the editing part difficult they can always go for template customization services that are provided by most web template providers.

Are web templates really that green?

As a matter of fact, web templates can really help you save up lots of money and time and best of all help you do professional work. Just imagine hiring a web designer to design your website. As most of you must be aware, a web designer can charge you anything between $50 to $200 for designing a single web-page! And then there is the time factor. Usually web-designers take a minimum of 10 -15 days to complete a website. Here’s where web templates come to the rescue.

Using a web template to create a website would cost you anything around $20 - $40 and that’s not all; websites designed using web templates could be over within a day after editing and pasting graphics and will look professional too! So now it doesn’t take an extraordinary mind to figure out which is more lucrative.

What about Flash websites?

Designing a flash website is a real pain and might take lots of time and money. But in case you believe in playing it smart your best bet would be to go for flash website templates. There are many template websites that offer flash website templates of high quality at low costs. All you need to do is insert content and you are ready to go!

Hey wait a minute I need to create a copyrighted website!

No problem! Almost all website template providers offer an option of copyrighted to non-copyrighted templates. The major different between a copyrighted and a non copyrighted template is the fact that copyrighted templates are sold only once and the purchaser of the copyrighted template gets all user rights over it whereas in a non copyrighted template the rights of usage stays with the template ownership company and can be sold again and again. So in case you need to create a copyrighted website that is unique be sure to go for copyrighted website templates.

How do I find out a quality template from an inferior one?

Quality web templates have the following features;

1.) Web-templates should be editable
2.) Web templates should be compatible with popular html editors
3.) The coding should be such that there is no alteration in the layout of the template on content/graphic insertion
4.) The web template should be easy to upload
5.) The template should include a separate cascading style sheet for easy changes
5.) A webpage generated by a web template should download with ease in any browser

So in case your templates don’t comply with the above, you can be sure they are of inferior quality.

Website templates are a great and easy way to host your website. So in case you are game, go for good web template providers. Some good online website template provides are buytemplates.net, templatedepot.net, interspire.com and trendytemplates.com.     Affordable Templates

About the Author
Mukesh is a content developer and the webmaster of www.bizbrim.com which is a quality information portal. For interesting articles visit www.bizbrim.com.

Meta tags are the sections of your HTML that provide direction and nformation for search engine robots. To get the best rankings possible in some search engines, be sure to use meta tags in all every web page. Meta tags are not viewable to Internet users unless they examine the source code of your pages.

Unfortunately, many site owners have abused Meta tag usage and a number of major search engines no longer use them as a means of ranking sites. Although this may be the case, it is still important to have Meta tag statements to cover as many bases as possible.

The process of Metatag development is fast becoming a science, and this document is only a primer. Mathematical formulas are now in common use for developing keyword statements.

Copyright issues - Remember that Metatags, like all other material on the Internet is bound by copyright (whether a copyright notice is utilised or not). Be careful not to copy and paste another persons tags directly into your code without some heavy revising. People have been prosecuted for doing so.

Meta Tag statement example:

<META NAME="value” CONTENT="comments"> 

Be sure that your syntax is correct, otherwise your hours of work may be totally wasted (I speak from experience).

Metatags reside between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags of your document.

The most important tags:

Keywords Meta Tag: Example:

<META NAME="keywords” CONTENT="metatags,keywords,description,definition">

This should be a comma separated list of relevant words for the search engines to index your page. These words should reflect your site’s most important theme. Be careful not to repeat the same keyword too often - 3 occurrences is a safe benchmark and this includes word variations. Some engines percieve this to be “spamming the index”. Do not use words that are not relevant to your site. Many search engines will blacklist you if you do. Phrases such as “metatag definition,” are considered one keyword. These days, when users enter queries into search engines, they will utilise phrases to help narrow down results. So think about the phrases that you would use if you were looking for subject material such as your site has to offer.

Keep your most important keywords and phrases within the first 100 characters of this statement. Capitalisation is not so much an issue as most Internet users tend to use lowercase text when submitting queries, but it may be a consideration when it comes to locality names. This is a difficult aspect to judge as some search engines do not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase and it is easy to go over the 3 word limit by using such variations.

Some search engine optimisation professionals use commas between keywords and keyphrases, but others recommend against this practice as it takes up valuable space. As with a number of search engine optimisation topics, this is hotly debated so you may wish to experiment.

Wherever possible, try and use a different keyword statement on each page. Recommended length of 500-750 characters.

Description Meta Tag: Example:

<META NAME="description” CONTENT="A human readable description of your site. This will appear in the search engine results query">

The page description is usually produced along with the page title in the result of a search engine query. Many search engines’ robots use the first few lines of text as a description if the description tag is left out of the page’s metatags, so also ensure that paragraph one of your page is relevant.

As with the Keywords Meta Tag, be careful not to repeat terms too often to avoid rankings being penalised. This tag is not only used for search engine spiders, but also may be the text that appears as a result of an Internet user’s search engine query. Here is the challenge - to create a description meta tag that not only is attractive to robots, but also to humans.

Keep your most important terms at the beginning of each description meta tag statement and try to have a different relevant statement for each page of your web site. Recommended length of 170-200 characters

Content-Type Meta Tag: Example:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type” content="text/html; charset=charset=iso-8859-5">

Netscape uses a META tag to automatically switch fonts, but most other browsers will ignore it. The default HTML charset is ISO-8859-1 (Western European 8-bit).

This Meta tag is usually automatically generated by your web development software package.

Robots Meta Tag: Example:

<META NAME="ROBOTS” CONTENT="ALL,NONE,NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"> 

default = “ALL” 

“NONE” = "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW" 

This tag is meant to provide users who cannot control the robots.txt file at their sites. It provides a final attempt to keep their certain pages out of search engines and other web utilities to protect sensitive content or “under construction” pages. (Note, as mentioned in a previous article, if you are using a robots.txt file, please ensure that it is not empty. Some bots interpret this NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW for the entire site!

INDEX means that robots are able to include this page in search engines.

FOLLOW means that robots are able to follow links (spidering). 

A value of "NOINDEX" allows links from the page to be spidered, even though the page itself is not indexed. A value of

"NOFOLLOW" allows the page to be indexed, but no links from the page are spidered. A value of “NONE” tells the robot to ignore the page.

There are a number of other Meta tags that can be also implemented, but it is probably wiser to invest your time in optimizing your description and keywords tags.

Related articles:

Title Tag Guidelines: http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/titletag.htm

Build it and they will come: http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/build.htm

Paragraph One http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/paragraph1.htm

This is not a good practice, especially if your site name is not relevant to your subject area. Many search engines use the title tag as an important part of relevancy and therefore ranking.

For example, my home page title was originally “Taming the Beast Online”. It didn’t describe my site at all. All my most important keywords should have been in there. I would have been much better off with a tag that read “Free Web Design Resources, online courses and tutorials at Taming the Beast”. I made the change, and at that time, suddenly shot from obscurity to No.3 on a major search engine during the next database refresh. We don’t hold that ranking any more as we constantly change our tag to give us exposure to a wider audience, (and to experiment) but our strategy remains the same

The TITLE tag should be kept between 10 -20 words (60-150 characters). I’ve read many conflicting reports on TITLE length, but a good practical guide is Google. On search results, Google currently displays only approximately 60 characters of the title - some engines display more. Keeping this in mind, keep the most important keywords at the beginning of your title.

Here’s an example:

<TITLE>Tibetan Spider Farming resources - free arachnid tutorials and tools from yougetthepicture.com</TITLE>

In this instance, Google would have cut off the domain name, but displayed the important wording.

NOTE - always remember to close your tags e.g.

In FrontPage 2000 editing TITLE tags is simple. Right mouse button click on a clear area of a page while in edit mode and select “Page properties’. Simply complete the field that states “Title”. Click OK and you’re done.

When you carry out a search via one of the major search engines, it is not uncommon for the results to show a good deal of “garbage” headings. This is because the site owners do not have a correct title tag (in some cases, none at all)… There has been something else in the content that has attracted the search engine spiders attention.

The TITLE coding can be found by viewing the html of your page…it is always located before the ‘body’ tag

Remember to use different, but suitable title tag text on each page of your site. Most search engines don’t just look at your index page. They’ll follow links (’spider’) the entire site. This will help increase your listings chances. Even if a user does not initially access your home page from these search engine results, they can quite easily navigate to your top page - as long as you have the appropriate links of course! Think of your site as a house with as many doors as it has pages.

The way that visitors find their way to your site via search engines can be on the strangest criteria. We’ve been noticing a number of hits on the term “enema” (not that we really want that traffic!). This has happened as a result of one of my articles being entitled “Site Upgrades - A digital enema”!

It isn’t wise to try and fool the search engines either by consciously implementing irrelevant titles, it will soon be detected and your page ranking will drop, or worse still, your site may be removed from the index.

Gaining higher search engine rankings with just a good title tag won’t cut it either, there is a lot more to search engine optimization than that. You can read further articles on our site that will assist you in this area. Search engines are constantly changing the algorithms in calculating page rankings, so what works today may not work tomorrow…

… but there’s nothing like a good challenge ;0)

Related articles:

Meta Tags and Zen
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/metatags.htm

FFA - The facts
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/ffa.htm

Robots who Read
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/robotswhoread.htm

Many other related topics can be viewed here:

http://www.tamingthebeast.net/article/articlemain.htm.

Michael Bloch
http://www.tamingthebeast.net
Tutorials, web content and tools, software and community.
Web Marketing, eCommerce & Development solutions.
_____________________________________________
Copyright information….If you wish to reproduce this article, please acknowledge “Taming the Beast” by including a hyperlink or reference to the website (www.tamingthebeast.net) & send me an email letting me know. The article must be reproduced in it’s entirety & this copyright statement must be included. Thanks. Visit www.tamingthebeast.net to view other great articles FREE for reproduction!

This has led to the rise of “total packages” by many hosting and Internet development companies, where everything is included: domain-name registration, software for design of a site or an online method of building a site, professional design of the site, and of course, the hosting. This is quite popular as it whittles down the process of getting a site up and running for many new to the Internet and online marketing.

However, with the convenience of Web-hosting packages of this sort, there also can be inconveniences. No road is paved “with gold” and this type of registration, hosting and design package deal is no exception. There can be problems that surface later on when purchasing a Web design and hosting package that also includes registration. These problems usually present themselves in the following forms:

1. Once a Web site becomes popular, the hosting charges may rise exorbitantly, as the “special” that was presented initially can become inapplicable once a certain amount of traffic or the size of the site changes. This is more of a problem for larger business sites than for smaller business sites or “personal” or “theme” sites.

2. Some “specials” only exist for a limited amount of time, and the charges can rise steadily after that period.

3. A Web site owner may have different needs as time goes on, and the “package” no longer suits the needs of the owner. This can include the inability to change the pages on one’s own, or the inability to effectively track traffic, as some come with traffic statistics packages.

4. Downtime (when a site is down and can’t be viewed) can be significant enough to warrant a change of hosts or domain name registrars.

5. A Web site, registration, and web hosting package company may go out of business, leaving a client with no way to contact them, and three services to quickly replace. This also leaves a site open to loss of the registered domain name, as well as loss of revenues while the site is “down”.

6. A contract may exist which states that the “special” prices are only offered contingent on remaining with a certain company for a specified amount of time (which may be years).

7. The actual “name” of your site may not even be registered to “you” the perceived “owner”, but to the hosting and registrar
company that initiated the purchase through the package deal.

This how the Web site hosting, design and registrar packages “save” money many times for consumers, as they “buy in bulk”, registering hundreds of sites per month.

All the above seem simple enough to rectify. Simply “switch” the Web site, hosting, and domain name registrar to that of other companies.

This is the point, however, in which “trouble” can rear its ugly head. Some hosting and domain name registrars seem reluctant to “hand over” a site to any other company, as it does mean the loss of a customer and therefore, revenue, for themselves. The current hosting company and registrar may likewise delay a transfer, or refuse to provide sufficient information to a new host or registrar to effectively conclude a transfer. It becomes even more tangled, if the name of a site has been registered to them.

This is where it is possible for a “nightmare” of subterfuge
regarding a site to begin. Sometimes, after numerous contacts, with no reply, a Web site owner will realize that the switching of the site has become a real battle.

Here’s an actual real life example of a friend of mine, Katheryn:

After much downtime had occurred, Katheryn wrote to the initial hosting company, and domain name registrar, stating her disappointment in the service. A rather nasty letter was received in reply, telling her that she could either “like it or lump it” and that there was not anything they could do, as a
contract was in place that could not be “broken” by any means.

The language of the e-mail correspondence was rude and uncalled for, and a phone number was not provided anywhere for more personal contact, neither was the name of the support person that wrote the e-mail.

The site remained down consistently, as well, over the next few weeks, forcing Katheryn to sign up for a different hosting plan with a different host, and also re-register the domain with another registrar. Luckily for Katheryn, the registration of the site was in her name, and a new name did not need to be purchased. At the time of import, however, the previous
“problem” host refused to initiate a transfer, claiming that the contract remained intact, and therefore the site could not be transferred. The new hosting company had to “maneuver” the site onto it’s own servers without the cooperation of the previous company, costing the client more time and money than was necessary.

For months afterward, Katheryn was billed repeatedly by the previous hosting company for monthly hosting, even though a site no longer existed on their servers, and they were in essence hosting “air” at this point. Copies of all correspondence had to be sent to the billing service to “dismiss” this recurrent billing, which was the only option left to Katheryn at this point.

I’m sure there are many people like Katheryn who at one time or the other have gone through such ordeal.

Some possible methods of avoiding the “trap” of packages such as this:

1. Read all paperwork and contracts thoroughly. The fine print is indeed, very “fine” sometimes, for a reason, and reading everything thoroughly will save frustration and misunderstandings later.

Above all, make sure that the registration will be done in “your name”, as the loss of a popular name, with a large amount of traffic, is a HUGE loss. Or better still, register your domain name yourself. With so many online domain registrars, it’s very simple to register a domain name online. The only thing you need to do once you have bought a hosting package is change the “name servers” through the control panel provided by your domain registrar.

If at all you are not satisfied with your hosting company and would like to shift to a different company, simply change the name servers to point to the new company. That’s it!

2. Make sure there is a contact phone number and physical
address for correspondence with the companies if the need should arise. As in the case of Example #1, the lack of a phone number and physical address was detrimental to effective correspondence and resolution.

3. Take the time to research different plans and different
companies. If at all possible, ask to speak to some of their other clients to ensure that they are indeed sensitive to the needs of their own customers and are flexible enough to adapt to changes in a site over time.

4. Take the time to correctly ascertain your own needs and the needs of any site you’ll be building. The package needs to “fit your needs” explicitly.

5. If at all possible, use different providers for each stage of
a Web site: hosting, domain-name registrar, site building. It does take longer to get a site up and running with this method, but the overall control that you will have over the site is well worth the extra effort, usually. If one provider proves to be a disappointment, it is easier to replace one service, rather than try to replace everything at once.

As you can easily see, sometimes “time saving” strategies are not really that, and can lead to heartbreak and headaches. As with everything else, “slow but steady” wins the race, and it does pay to take the time to initiate each stage of a Web site individually.

About the author:
Vishal P. Rao is the editor of me-based-business-opportunities.com A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the http://www.work-at-home-forum.com - an online community of folks who work at home.
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But with literally hundreds of choices, how do you pick the pay-
per-click engine with the best visibility that has the potential
of giving you a higher return on your investment?

And, just as important, what are some strategies for working
with the pay-per-click engines, and how do they operate?

How do Pay-Per-Click Engines Operate?

With pay-per-click engines, you bid on keywords that describe
your business, your products, or your target audience. Then,
you’re charged your bid price every time someone clicks on your
ad, which is displayed when a searcher types in the keyword
you’ve chosen into the search box at an engine. Whoever is
willing to pay the most for the keyword or keyword phrase will
be at the top of the rankings.

There are many benefits to working with pay engines, which we’ll
cover in this article.

Important Pay-Per-Click Engines and Directories

Overture: http://www.overture.com

Overture is certainly the pay-per-click engine that most people
recognize. It’s also one of the most expensive and competitive.

However, the visibility of Overture is impressive, to say the
least. It provides the top two or three results to “big boy”
search engines and directories like Yahoo!, Lycos, HotBot, and
MSN Search. In fact, Overture claims to reach 80% of all
Internet users.

Overture listings are generally found at the top of the regular
search results in an area called “Sponsored” results or sites.

Overture’s pay-per-clicks operate under one premise: whoever has
the deepest pockets and is willing to pay the most gets on top.

The minimum bid is $.10, and there’s a minimum charge of $20 per
month. A $50 initial deposit is non-refundable and will be
applied to click throughs or to the minimum monthly spend. When
your account is depleted, they’ll contact you to see if you want
to add additional funds to your budget.

Google AdWords http://www.google.com/ads/

Google AdWords have fast become extremely important in the pay-
per-click arena, with results being shown at search engines like
Google, AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, and Teoma.

Google AdWords operates differently than Overture in a number of
ways. Your click-through rate and cost per click together
determine where your ads are shown, so better ads rise to the
top. That means no one can lock you out of the top position.

Google AdWords are shown on the right-hand side of regular
search results in a pink shaded area called “Sponsored Links.”

Because your click through rate has an influence on the
placement of your AdWords ad, your ad’s title and description
must be captivating and designed to pull in traffic.

With Google AdWords, there’s a $5 activation fee, and the
minimum bid amount is $.05. You decide on the maximum cost per
click that you’re willing to pay and set your daily budget. You
don’t have to spend a certain amount per month, and you only pay
for clicks you actually receive.

FindWhat http://www.findwhat.com

Another popular pay-per-click engine that is generally much less
expensive than Overture is FindWhat.

With FindWhat, whoever bids the most gets on top. The minimum
bid is $.05, and they require a $25 minimum amount to open an
account.

FindWhat provides results to 200 different partners, including
many of the big meta engines like Dogpile.

Lycos InSite AdBuyer
http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/adbuyer/overview.asp

A fairly new pay-per-click program that’s displayed on both
Lycos and HotBot is Lycos InSite AdBuyer.

Again, it operates similarly to the way that Overture and
FindWhat operate, with the top results being those who bid the
most for their target keywords.

The minimum bid is $.05 with a $50 minimum to open an account.

LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com

LookSmart is a pay-per-click directory where you pay a flat $.l5
per click through. It claims to reach 77% of the Internet users
through the partners that display LookSmart results.

Some of those partners include MSN Search, About.com, Netscape,
and AltaVista.

With LookSmart, you don’t bid for listings. Everyone pays a flat
$.15 per click through, and your ranking is determined by how
relevant your site is to the search term, according to
LookSmart’s ranking criteria. To get started with a LookSmart
listing, the initial investment is $29.

Other Pay-Per-Click Engines
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/

This comprehensive site lists over 500 different pay-per-click
search engines and offers individual reviews on many of them.

Advantages to Working with the Pay Engines

The pay engines offer many advantages to Web site owners,
including:

1. If you have a brand new site with little or no visibility and
no link popularity, the pay engines are certainly a way to get
started fast while you wait for your standard search engine
marketing efforts to kick in and take effect.

2. Pay-per-click engines are ideal for holiday promotions,
special sales, or to jump start slow engine traffic.

3. With the pay engines, you have instant visibility in
whichever search engines display those results.

4. You choose your rankings, depending on how deep your pocket
book is.

5. If some of your keywords aren’t performing, you can choose
other ones.

6. You only pay for clicks to your site, so you can target your
traffic by the keywords you choose.

7. With regular optimization efforts, it’s sometimes difficult
to achieve top rankings if you’re in a highly competitive field.
With the pay engines, you pay for your rankings, and VOILA!
You’re there!

8. Purchasing keywords is certainly easier and less time
consuming than optimizing your pages.

9. With regular engines, when algorithms (or ranking criteria)
change, you can find yourself booted out of your top spot. With
the pay engines, as long as you’re willing to hand out the cash,
you’ll be on top.

10.You can target your audience based on the keywords you
choose. Most Web sites have multiple target audiences, so
pay-per-click keywords are a way to reach each of those target
audiences.

11.Pay-per-click is generally less expensive than traditional
advertising media.

12.With pay-per-click engines, you don’t have to worry about
design strategies that could mean death to a Web site otherwise.
Is your entire site one huge Flash movie? No problem, if you go
through the pay engines.

Tips for Boosting Your Chances for Success with the Pay Engines

When working with the pay engines, it takes practice to achieve
a level of success. So, start out slowly, and keep a tight rein
on your budget. As you become better at crafting titles and
descriptions and choosing highly targeted keywords, you’ll
gradually be able to increase your budget, if you choose.

Here are some additional tips:

1. It’s not always best to be #1. Many compulsive “clickers”
automatically click on the #1 result when they have no real
interest in buying your products or services.

2. Be sure to include your keyword phrase in the title and
description you create at the pay engines. Take special care in
creating a description for your site, since within the top three
slots, the best description gets the most traffic, as a general
rule.

3.Your keywords must be relevant to the content of your pages.
Overture is particularly careful about this.

4. Choose very targeted keywords so that you don’t pay for
needless click throughs. Don’t ever choose a general keyword,
because your costs will skyrocket but the traffic won’t convert
to sales.

5. Spend time researching your keyword choices at Overture’s
Search Term Suggestion Tool
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

or my favorite, WordTracker:
http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html

6. Generally, you’ll have more success if you purchase 10- 20
keywords as opposed to just a few.

7. Choose a broad range of keywords and bid prices and test the
waters. Watch your keywords carefully. Non-productive keywords
should be eliminated and new, more productive keywords should be
purchased instead.

8. For Overture, consider purchasing a “Premium Listing,” which
means that you hold the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd ranking for your
keyword phrase. Why? Because engines like AltaVista and Lycos
show the first listings only.

9. Set up a separate “tracking” page to send your pay engine
traffic. In order to show whether or not the cost is worth it,
you need to be able to track your click throughs and sales.
Don’t send pay engine traffic to your home page.

10.Write your title and description using “objective” language
rather than “subjective.” In other words, don’t say that your product or service is the best or #1 (subjective). Rather, list
some of the benefits of your service that make it unique
(objective).

In Conclusion

You’ll find many benefits to purchasing keywords through
pay-per- click engines, but you need to learn some basic
guidelines before you get started. By doing so, you’ll hopefully
find more successful when working with the pay engines.