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Search Engine Optimization Services This is the first search engine optimization course I purchased back in 1997!
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Branding Versus SEO
Branding versus search engine optimization is a marketing dilemma that larger companies will need to come to grips with on the Internet. Often companies will need to decide whether to promote their own brand name as their main keyword phrase or optimize for a more generic keyword phrase.
For instance, one search engine report states that 1.3 million visitors per month search for the term "Best Buy." This same report states that the term "electronics" is searched for by 1.1 visitors per month. The obvious choice in this scenario is for Best Buy to optimize for their own brand name first and the word "electronics" second.
But, take a competitor such as Fry's Electronics. Approximately 95,000 visitors search for the term "Fry's" every month, far short of those who search for "electronics". Does this mean Fry's Electronics (a partner with Outpost.com) should optimize for "electronics" first and Fry's (and/or Outpost.com) second?
At this writing (August 2004), a search on Google for "electronics" will show that Best Buy does not show up in the first two pages. Fry's (Outpost.com) is on the third page. But let's take a further look to see who is in the number 1 position: Sony. And Samsung is a close second.
Sony, with 450,000 searches per month for the word "sony", has managed to grab the number one spot for its brand name and the generic word "electronics". A search of the Sony homepage source code will reveal that this page is optimized for both words, "Sony" and "electronics." By optimizing for both words Sony has grabbed a lot of traffic neglected by Best Buy and perhaps even exceeds Best Buys traffic in doing this.
Another issue in branding is trademark infringement. Courts have upheld that websites using another company's branded name in its meta tags is engaging in trademark infringement. For instance, a site about cats would be infringing if it put the name Best Buy in its meta tags in hopes of gaining traffic from this trademarked word. Large companies have to protect themselves from others stealing traffic that is rightfully theirs. These companies cannot however protect a generic term such as "electronics" as that is fair game for all electronics companies.
So in order to create the largest return on investment, large companies need to optimize their websites both for their own brand names and for the generic, high-traffic keywords and keyword phrases relevant to their sites. Otherwise, they are letting tons of online business just slip away.
About The Author
Copyright © 2004 SEO Resource
Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource and has published many articles over the past 20 years.
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Keyword Research And Overture
Many of us who build websites get in the habit of using the Overture "Keyword Suggestion Tool" to do keyword research. It's convenient, and one of the few remaining such tools that is free. Be careful, though, because there are four problems you may run into with it.
7 Essential SEO techniques
1) Title Tag ? When we're talking about SEO Technique, the Title tag is one of the best and most powerful tags that you can use. Every page should have it's own title tag, each tag should include the keyword that you are targeting, along with sub-keywords associated with the main keyword that you seek to drive traffic from.
Meta Tags - What Are They and Which Search Engines Use Them?
Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are used, and by which engines. The reason is very few engines clearly lay out what they do and do not look at, and how much emphasis they put on any one factor. So, we'll start with the easy part
2 Lesser Known Ways to Brainstorm for Internet Home Business Keywords
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) doctrine states that you should always find a keyword that has little to no competition and that has high demand so that you can rise to the top of the search engine results and dominate that particular keyword. The problem with the internet home business area is that many people online are creating new websites with the typical keywords like "work from home" and "home business" so as a result it is almost impossible to rise to the top of the search engines or risking having to pay lots of money for pay per click advertising.
Make The Search Engines Love Your Site
Most webmasters have no idea on how to make a search engine friendly web site. If you are one of them this will all change by following these steps below.
Commonly SEO terms and Jargon used by Search Engine Gurus
What does all this SEO jargon mean.
Work With The Search Engines - Dont try to Outsmart the Search Engines
Contrary to the claims of high-priced SEO firms, optimizing your web site for search engines is not brain surgery. But you must first accept the fact that "spiders" - the search engine programs that read web pages - run away from non-HTML code. This is why the first thing any SEO expert does - before researching keywords or rewriting your copy - is look at your web site code.
SEO Quickstart - 3 Things You can Do to Improve Search Engine Rankings Right Now
Increasing your search engine rankings should certainly be one of your main goals if you are looking to increase your targeted traffic. The reason for this is if you improve your search engine rankings, you'll increase the amount of visitors your website receives, and when you increase traffic to your site you are going to increase customers and sales. All of this potential has webmasters spending a lot of time and money getting their pages in the top 10 results on large, popular search engines like Google. There are only 10 spots on the first page of a search and thousands upon thousands of web pages are competing for these top spots. You have to put together an SEO marketing plan and include some of the proven ways to increase your search engine rankings today. Read the following suggestions, implement them in your marketing plan, and watch your traffic increase!
Give the Folks at Google What They Want
Recent developments on the Google front have web marketers and SEO specialists talking even more than usual. What they're talking about is the changing Search Engine Optimization landscape. Some of the traditional assumptions about what gets good Google ranking have been challenged by things Google has said over the last few months -- especially by the filing of their most recent patent application.
How To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
With search engines like Google currently indexing over 8 billion pages, it is becoming more and more difficult to get a top search engine ranking. Type in a popular search phrase such as "Internet Marketing" into Yahoo or Google and you will be returned over 8 million results!
How To Find Good Keywords
Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not being targeted by many other websites (low competition). There are a number of tools out there that can help you find them.
How to Avoid the Google Duplicate Content Filter?
More and more webmasters are building websites with publicly available content (data feeds, news feeds, articles). This results in websites with duplicate content on the Internet. In cases of websites build on news feeds or data feeds you can even find websites that match each other 100% (except for the design). Several copies of the same content in a search engine does not really do any good and so Google apparently decided to weed out some of this duplicate content to be able to deliver cleaner and better search results.
Search Engine Traffic Myths, Time Wasters, and Pitfalls
Everyone wants to increase their rankings with the search engines and because of this there is a ton of information available on how to go about it. Unfortunately, while some of this information is real, there is just as much or more information that is outdated, wrong, and a complete waste of time, money and energy on your part. So, you can read the following and learn about a few of the myths and pitfalls people believe about search engines and in the future you can continue to educate yourself from reputable sites that provide accurate and truthful information.
Boost Your Website Rankings with Expert Content
The chase for a high web ranking is constantly on and is in fact very demanding given the tough competition provided by all the other websites out there who happen to be putting up material on the same subject as you. All websites with average or below average content become victims of isolation and cyber ostracism. A good web ranking while ensuring a website's popularity pays off in the form of greater earnings from advertisers on the your website.
Mindset from Yahoo!- Changing the SEO Game
Yahoo! has a developed a new concept in search engine technology - "Intent Driven Search" - allowing you to sort search results according to their commercial or informational content.
Marketing Articles: Getting A Better Search Engine Rank For All Of Your Pages!
In one of my articles, I discussed how to market your web site link twice. It detailed out how to promote not only www.yoursite.com but how you should also promote your site without the www., like this: http://yoursite.com.
Search Engines The Masters Of The Internet Universe ? Part 1
Trillions of Billions of content pages make up the wide world of Internet. Keeping a house clean and arranged with proper placement for each household item is so big a task for each of us that it is a much despised daily chore. Ever wonder who or what keeps the Internet clean organized and keep them in arms length for you when you need it? This humongous task of making sure the right set of data is kept organized and delivered as information to the right folks when they need it are done by the Search Engines (SE). There are many popular search engines that deliver search results for countless number of searches every Nano-second. The Internet is the first place folks go for obtaining any type of information. The Internet has become the knowledge warehouse of what the world knows. Well almost true. If you have not discovered the full potential of the search engines it is not too late.
PPC Advertising ? The First Step In A SEO Marketing Campaign
Often, sites view seo and PPC marketing as exclusive marketing techniques. Each marketing method has its advocates. In reality, both have a place in the Internet marketing process. If you intend to pursue a major seo effort, a PPC campaign is a critical early step.
5 Simple Steps to Great Search Engine Rankings
Having your website rank well in the major search engines is crucial to a successful Internet business. However, the information on doing so, which abounds on the Internet, can be perceived as complex and contradictive. Many website owners end up overwhelmed by all the data and simply quit and move on to other areas of promotion. By following the handful of steps presented in this article you will be well on your way to solid rankings.
Microsofts New Search Engine
I tried out Microsoft's new search engine (beta version) the other day. They have been working on it quite secretly now for almost a year. It has been rumored to be a Google killer once in full public release. They say its accuracy and ability to return relevant results will far surpass any other search engine on the Internet. That remains to be seen. I tried various combinations of single, double, and triple word/phrased searches to inspect the results.