Major online directories

Like search engines, there are hundreds of different directories online. Some are general directories,
whereas others are very specific and associated with only one industry or organization. When you’re
selecting the directories to which you’d like to submit your site, be choosy. Don’t try to list your site
in a directory that’s inappropriate. You’ll just be wasting time and collecting rejection slips.

Some of the most well-known directories on the Web are:

Yahoo! Directory (dir.yahoo.com): The Yahoo! directory is one of the oldest directories
on the Internet, but when you go to Yahoo.com you actually won’t be taken to it. Instead,
you’ll be taken to a search engine, because Yahoo! changed its format not too long ago.
How ever, you can still access the directory, by going to the web site just listed. Yahoo!
directory is a general directory.

GoGuides.Org (www.goguides.org): This directory’s purpose is to be completely spamfree.
It’s a comprehensive search directory that even has image-searching capabilities.

Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org): The Open Directory Project is one of the most
widely accessed directories on the Web. Users submit sites, and volunteer editors review
them. ODP is also an open-source technology, so many other directories use this technology
as a basis for their own offerings.

Google Directory (directory.google.com): The Google directory is one of those directories
built on the ODP platform. Google is most well-known for its search capabilities, but
adding a directory takes advantage of the desire of Internet users to dig deeper into very
specific search results.

SearchSight (www.searchsight.com): Another general directory, SearchSight is one of
the lesser-known directories, but it’s quickly gaining traction in the search market.

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How Does Web-Site Content Affect SEO?

The catch with web-site content is that is must be fresh and original to be most effective. If it’s not, the
content can do more harm than good. As you’ve already seen, content is the one element that can keep
customers coming back to your site time and again. When customers return often, your site ranking
improves, because the traffic registers the site with search crawlers as a valid and in-demand site.
When your content stinks, though, your site is headed in the opposite direction. If you have content
on your site that’s not professional, the search engine crawler will register this, and your ranking may
drop lower and lower and you could possibly be delisted altogether.

How do you know if your content stinks or not? It’s mostly a game of finding the right combination
of content types and consistent updates. But before you can even get to determining the right type of
content, you need to create a content strategy.

Your content strategy is the plan by which you’ll infuse your site with the right types of content at the
right times. It starts with determining how to reach your target audience. By now your target audience
should be engraved on your forehead, but how you reach that audience is something entirely
different. If your audience is teens, the language and method with which you’ll reach them will be
different than if your audience is senior adults or stay-at-home moms, or even full-time professionals.

One more consideration as you’re planning your content strategy: what do you do that’s different
from your competition? You should already have a good idea of what your competition does, and
how it seems to work for them. But what can you do differently? What sets you apart from all of
the other web sites out there that come up when a user searches for widgets?

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Components of an SEO-Friendly Page

Building an SEO-friendly web site doesn’t happen by accident. It requires an understanding of what
elements search engines examine and how those elements affect your ranking. It also requires including
as many of those elements as possible on your site. It does little good to have all the right meta
tags in place if you have no content and no links on your page.

It’s easy to get caught up in the details of SEO and forget the simplest web-design principles — principles
that play a large part in your search engine rankings. Having all the right keywords in the right
places in your tags and titles won’t do you much good if the content on your page is non-existent or
completely unreachable by a search engine crawler.

Understanding entry and exit pages
Entry and exit pages are the first and last pages that a user sees of your web site. It’s important to
understand that an entry page isn’t necessarily the home page on your web site. It can be any other
page where a user lands, either by clicking through search engine results, by clicking a link from
another web site or a piece of marketing material, or by bookmarking or typing directly into the
address bar of a browser.

Entry pages are important in SEO, because they are the first page users see as they come onto the
web site. The typical web site is actually several small connected sites. Your company web site might
contain hubs, or central points, for several different topics. Say you’re a pet store. Then you’ll have
hubs within your sites for dogs, cats, birds, fish, and maybe exotic animals. Each hub will have a
main page — which will likely be your entry page for that section — and several additional pages
leading from that central page to other pages containing relevant content, products, or information
about specific topics.

Understanding which of your pages are likely entry pages helps you to optimize those pages for
search engine crawlers. Using the pet-store example, if your home page and all the hub pages are
properly SEO’ed, you potentially could be ranked at or near the top of five different sets of search
results. When you add additional entry pages deeper in your web site structure (that is, a dogtraining
section to the hub for dogs), you’ve increased the number of times you can potentially
end up at the top of search engine rankings.

Because entry pages are important in the structure of your web site, you want to monitor those pages
using a web-site analytics program to ensure they are working the way you expect them to work. A
good analytics program, like Google Analytics, will show you your top entry and exit pages.

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SEO Page elements

Another facet of SEO to consider before you build your web site is the elements needed to ensure
that your site is properly indexed by a search engine. Each search engine places differing importance
on different page elements. For example, Google is a very keyword-driven search engine; however, it
also looks at site popularity and at the tags and links on any given page.
How well your site performs in a search engine is determined by how the elements of your page
meet the engine’s search criteria. The main criteria that every search engine looks for are the site
text (meaning keywords), tags — both HTML and meta tags — site links, and the site popularity.

Text
Text is one of the most important elements of any web site. Of particular importance are the keywords
within the text on a page, where those keywords appear, and how often they appear. This
is why keyword marketing has become such a large industry in a relatively short time. Your keywords
make all the difference when a search engine indexes your site and then serves it up in
search results.


Tags
In search engine optimization, two kinds of tags are important on your web site: meta tags and
HTML tags. Technically, meta tags are HTML tags, they just appear in very specific places. The
two most important meta tags are the keyword tag and the description tag.
The keyword tag occurs at the point where you list the keywords that apply to your web site. A
keyword tag on a search engine optimization page might look something like this:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”SEO, search engine optimization, page
rank”>
The description tag gives a short description of your page. Such a tag for the search engine optimization
page might look like this:
<meta name=”description” content=”The ultimate guide to search engine
optimization!”>

The title tag is the tag that’s used in the title of your web site. This tag will appear like this:
<Title>Your Title Here</Title>
Once you’ve tagged your site with a title tag, when a user pulls the site up, the title that you entered
will appear at the very top of the page if the user is using an Internet Explorer browser (IE) earlier
than IE7



High-level headings (H1s) are also important when a crawler examines your web site. Your keywords
should appear in your H1 headings, and in the HTML tags you use to create those headings. An H1
tag might look like this:
<h1>High-Level Heading</h1>
Anchor tags are used to create links to other pages.

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Facebook pages

Facebook
Currently, Facebook is the dominant social networking site, and it has the most features useful to the social
media marketer. It began in universities, so Facebook boasts a commanding percentage of college students
as members. Recently, however, its fastest growing segment has been users older than 35, and recent data
suggests that the 35–54 age group has become bigger than the 18–24 age group. For these older users,
Facebook presents a middle ground between the stuffiness of LinkedIn and the adolescent playground of
MySpace, and is a fun but easily navigable place where they can reconnect with old friends.

Pages

Facebook allows businesses to create public profiles that have many of the same features as a user’s
profile. Users can connect with a page and become fans. Pages can have public messaging walls, events,
photos, and custom applications. Nearly every company engaged in social media marketing should have a
Facebook page; it can often serve as a central place for the integration of other parts of a campaign.
One of the most popular pages on Facebook is the Coca-Cola page, yet it wasn’t even created by the
company itself. A Coke fan in Los Angeles made the page featuring little more than a giant can of soda, and
in a few weeks it had 250,000 fans. At the time of this writing, it has more than 3.5 million fans. Facebook
noticed the size of the group and asked Coca-Cola corporate to take it over, but the soda company’s marketing

team demonstrated its social media savvy and didn’t charge in and strong-arm the original creator
out of the picture. Instead, it assigned a team of people to help him maintain the page. If you go to that
page today and post a comment such as “Pepsi is better than Coke,” Coca-Cola corporate lets it stay. The
best social media marketing is always going to be done by your fans, not by you, so get out of their way.
When you’re setting up a page for your business, you can use a few applications to make the page
more interesting to visitors and make them more likely to return.

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Subscriptions the powerful platforms

Blog software gives you the powerful ability to syndicate your content using popular formats such as
RSS and Atom. These standards are designed to allow people to read your content—as well as their
other favorite blogs—in a piece of software known as a feed reader. Good blogging software makes
this easy by providing people with a simple button to click to add your blog to their subscription lists.
People who subscribe won’t come to your site every time they read your content, but once they have
subscribed to your feed, they will read most or all of your posts.

Hosted Versus Self-Hosted
Blogging software falls into one of two varieties: hosted or self-hosted. Hosted software, such as
LiveJournal, resides on a server owned by the organization that maintains the code. Many hosted solutions
will give you a URL to use, such as http://<example>.wordpress.com. Self-hosted software is run
on your own server. Self-hosted platforms require installation and configuration, but once they are set
up they’re completely under your control. Blogs running self-hosted software are located on a domain
owned solely by you, as opposed to the shared domains often used by hosted blogs. Hosted software
is often easier for new bloggers to get started on, but for best results your blog should appear on your
own domain. Some hosted blog systems allow you to use your own domain; take advantage of this if
you can.

Most popular blogs today use self-hosted software, and chances are good that you’ll need help installing,
designing, configuring, and maintaining your blog to get it running to your needs. Rather than hire a
dedicated in-house person to manage this for you, you should look for technical help in your industry or
location. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore recommends finding a firm or individual who would like to increase
her exposure in your niche, and offering a trade of advertising space on your site and blog for free or
discounted services.

WordPress
WordPress is the most well-known and widely used blogging software, as well as my personal favorite.
It is free, is open source, and has a robust community of developers and designers who’ve built
thousands of plug-ins and themes for it, making it the most customizable platform available.

Movable Type
Many of the most high-traffic blogs on the Web use Movable Type. In the past few years, Movable Type
has shifted to an open source model and now has great support for multiple blogs, but it is not as easy
to use as WordPress. The most popular paid, hosted platform on the Web is TypePad (see Figure 2-11).
Based on Movable Type software and owned by the same company (Six Apart), TypePad is simpler to
use than the self-hosted version and includes a few additional features. Some sites running on TypePad
use domains such as http://<example>.typepad.com, whereas others use their own domains.

Blogger
One of the earliest blogging platforms, Blogger is hosted software (see Figure 2-12); most sites using it
appear on URLs such as http://<example>.blogspot.com. It is very easy to use, but it lacks many of the
features available in other platform solutions. It is a popular choice for new bloggers creating their first sites.

HubSpot
HubSpot (the company I work for) sells a set of tools, including a blogging package. This paid, hosted
service allows your blog to appear on your domain and includes features for companies that want to
integrate their blogs with their lead-tracking and marketing analytics.

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Internet marketing

Affiliate marketing

    Cost per action
    Revenue sharing

Search engine optimization
    Social media marketing
    Email marketing
    Referral marketing
    Content marketing

Search engine marketing
    Pay per click
    Cost per impression
    Search analytics
    Web analytics

Display advertising

    Contextual advertising
    Behavioral targeting



Mobile advertising

Intelligent ad targeting is now the key to the development of the mobile as a reach medium. Both consumers and marketers are taking more and more notice of mobile advertising.

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Vertical Search from the Major Search Engines

The big three search engines offer a wide variety of vertical search products. Here is a partial list:

Google
Google Maps, Google Images, Google Product Search, Google Blog Search, Google Video,
Google News, Google Custom Search Engine, Google Book Search, Google US Gov’t
Search, etc.

Yahoo!
Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Images, Yahoo! Video, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo!
Audio Search, etc.

Bing
Bing Image, Bing Video, Bing News, Bing Maps, Bing Health, Bing Products, etc.

Image search
All three search engines offer image search capability. Basically, image search engines limit the
data that they crawl, search, and return in results to images.

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5 Unique Tips for Using Google+ for Marketing

1.Event Blogging As A Link Building Technique

Page Rank Calculation completely depends on the number of Inbound links. That is number of links which you got from other sites. If the number of Inbound links got increased simultaneously Your Page Rank get increases. Quality Inbound links are precious for the hike in Page Rank. If there is no Quality Backlinks you will not get any Page Rank.


2.Use Data Mining for Search Engine Optimization
There are some more Paid Tools. They charge Annually and monthly depending on their Popularity.

1.    Keyword Discovery
2.    Wordze
3.    Keyword Spy
4.    Keyword Elite
5.    SEM Rush
6.    KeyCompete

3.Using Local Search to Gain More Customers4.Site structure
5.Number of keywords on a page

Choosing the right keyword helps in optimizing the webpages in the Organic Results. New researches had revealed that about 80 percent of the users doesnot go beyond from the top 10 results from the google search engine. By considering this point we should take the analysis of top 10 sites of that keyword from the organic results in the search engine. Make sure that you good at these results.
Google follows an Page Rank Algorithm to calculate the page rank of a web page. Before Starting with the Page Calculation. We should know what are INBOUND LINKS and OUTBOUND LINKS

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How To: SEM

SEM stands for -search engine marketing.

There’s no denying the synergy between SEO and paid search marketing, and paid search marketers would do well to take away a lesson or two from the world of organic search engine optimization to improve their campaigns. 1.  Keywords! Keywords! Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, "Data! Data! …I can't make bricks without clay." And likewise, keywords are the backbone, heart and soul of all search engine marketing, paid or organic. There’s a whole mess of keywords work and reports done for organic search optimization that paid search marketers 

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Best Practices for Multilanguage/Country Targeting

Many businesses target multiple countries with their websites and need answers to questions
such as: do you put the information for your products or services all on the same domain? Do
you obtain multiple domains? Where do you host the site(s)? It turns out that there are SEO
factors, as well as basic marketing questions, that affect the answers. There are also non-SEO
factors, such as the tax implications of what you do; for some TLDs you can get them only by
having a local physical presence (e.g., France requires this to get a .fr domain).

Targeting a Specific Country
Starting with the basics of international targeting, it is important to let the search engines know
where your business is based in as many ways as possible. These might include:
• A country-specific TLD (ccTLD) for your domain (e.g., .co.uk)
• Hosting in the local country
• Physical local address in plain text on every page of your site
• Google Webmaster Central geotargeting setting
• Verified address with Google Maps
• Links from in-country websites
• Use of the local language on the website
If you are starting from scratch, getting these all lined up will give you the best possible chance
of ranking in the local country you are targeting.

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Tying SEO to Conversion and ROI

it is important to tie your SEO campaign to the
results it brings to the business. A fundamental piece of that is measuring the conversions
driven by organic SEO traffic. Here are some of the most common types of conversions:

Sales/sales revenue
This is the one that everyone assumes is part of conversions. Sales and sales revenue (or
better still, margin) conversions can be the simplest things to track, except when you are
selling many different products at different price points and in different quantities. In this
case, the process would need to be a bit more sophisticated.
If your site is advertising-driven, you need to look at the impact of organic search traffic
on advertising revenue. If you have no financial goals for your site, you need to look at
some of the other types of conversions.

Email/blog/newsletter subscriptions
Anytime a user signs up to receive regular communications from you it is a win. Even
though there are not direct financial consequences to this it is still a conversion. Someone
who has subscribed to something you offer is more likely to become a customer than a
first-time visitor to your site, so you need to credit this type of conversion.

Sign-ups
Closely related to the notion of subscriptions are other types of sign-ups. Perhaps you offer
a service such as a tool that people need to sign up for to use. Even if the tool is free, you
should track this as a conversion.

You most likely received the person’s email address in the process, and even if she indicates
that she does not want to receive commercial communications from you, you should be
building loyalty with the tool you provided her access to (or whatever she signed up for);
otherwise, why would you be providing her that service?

Downloads
Many sites offer free downloads, such as white papers, or free downloadable tools. Even
if you do not require a sign-up of any type, you should still count this as a conversion.
You are getting your message out there with the downloads you offer.

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SEO for Mindshare/Branding

A less popular but equally powerful application of SEO is its use for branding purposes.
Bloggers, social media/community websites, content producers, news outlets, and dozens of
other web publishing archetypes have found tremendous value in appearing atop search results
and using the resulting exposure to bolster their brand recognition and authority.

The process is fairly simple, much like the goals in traditional advertising of ad repetition to
enter the buyer’s consideration set. (Read about the three laws of branding at http://www
.palgrave-journals.com/bm/journal/v16/n3/full/2550139a.html for more information on this topic.)
Similarly, online marketers have observed that being at the top of search rankings around a
particular subject has a positive impact on traffic, consideration, and perceived authority.
Here are some factors to think about when considering SEO for mindshare/branding:
 
When to employ
Use it when branding, or communicating a message, is your goal. If you do not have direct
monetization goals for the moment or for the foreseeable future, this is the approach for
you.
 
Keyword targeting
A keyword focus is less critical here—you’ll likely have a few broad terms that receive the
high traffic you want, but the long tail may be far more achievable and the better target.
Focus on keywords that are going to bring you visitors who are likely to be interested in
and remember your brand.

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Algorithm-Based Ranking Systems: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking

Understanding how crawling, indexing, and ranking works is helpful to SEO practitioners, as
it helps them determine what actions to take to meet their goals. This section primarily covers
the way Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft operate, and does not necessarily apply to other search
engines that are popular, such as Baidu (China) and Naver (Korea).
The search engines have several major goals and functions.
These include:
     • Crawling and indexing the billions of documents (pages and files) accessible on the Web
      • Responding to user queries by providing lists of relevant pages
In this section, we’ll walk through the basics of these functions from a nontechnical
perspective. This section will start by discussing how search engines find and discover content.

Crawling and Indexing
Imagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a big city subway system. Each stop is
its own unique document (usually a web page, but sometimes a PDF, JPEG, or other file). The
search engines need a way to “crawl” the entire city and find all the stops along the way, so
they use the best path available: the links between web pages

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Elements of Link Building

There are countless opportunities for link building. Everything starts on your site. Your
site should make it easy and intuitive for anyone wanting to link to it. To increase your
chances of people linking to your site, you need to provide something of value.
Basic Elements
The following subsections talk about the rudimentary elements that all sites need to
consider.

Take out the guesswork
Take out the guesswork for your web visitors by providing the HTML code fragment(s)
for people to link to your site. Create “Link to Us” and “Tell a Friend” links. Most CMS
software includes prebuilt forms for handling these simple concepts.

Run a daily, weekly, or monthly email newsletter
Running your own newsletter provides several benefits. First, you get to remind your
existing visitors of your new offerings, whether it is content, products, or services. Plus,
the recipients of your newsletter are likely to forward it to people they know if they find
your newsletter interesting.

Provide registered services
Many sites offer free and members-only content. This model offers several benefits. If
your free content is already great, many of your visitors will also be interested in your
members-only content. The idea is that the content that is provided to members only
is of even greater quality than the public content. Many sites charge for members-only
content. Providing registered services helps you build up the email lists

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