The most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to making money online is doing good keyword research. This is the piece that so many people miss, don’t understand, or just fail to do. This is the key between failing and making money online.

When you are doing keyword research you want to look for these 3 things in a good keyword.

1. People are actually searching for your keyword
2. Competition but not too much competition
3. Someway to monetize the keyword

Number one is the one I found most difficult to figure out in my own internet marketing endeavors. You used to have to use free tools like Good Keywords, or the free wordtracker tool, or to get even more accurate results you’d have to use a paid service or buy expensive software. Now keyword research is much easier since Google itself is now providing us with that information. All you have to do is go to the Google Adwords External Keyword tool. You will see once you put your keyword in that a bunch of other keywords will come back and you will see how often they are being searched on.

Competition is tough. Everyone decides on competition a little differently. Most people look at the amount of competing pages any given keyword has in Google. To do this you just put your keyword in a Google search with quotes around it. This will tell you how many other sites are fighting for result placement for this term.

You can also check the page rank of the top sites, and see how many links there are to the site. These are also important factors in competition. The sites at the top of the listing your get when you do the search are the actual sites you will be competing against for top placement. If you can win the link building game you can take the top position, with a well optimized site no matter how many competing pages.

Monetization. You want to make sure once you get traffic to your site you can turn it into money. You can monetize your keywords with adsense, or with affiliate products, just make sure you have some way to turn that targeted traffic into money.

You will find internet marketing is much easier when you do keyword research first. Using good keywords will get your site laser targeted traffic and will make your job of converting traffic to sales much easier.

If you are using keyword research for web marketing you must stop by and learn how to do web marketing the professional way.

In the world of Web 2.0, link building has shifted to social bookmarking and social media sites. People produce high quality content in hopes of baiting social media site users to link to them. Webmasters are also using social bookmarking sites to generate easy one-way back-links. Many people quickly forget the benefits of Web 1.0 link building. Although Web 2.0 spurred the creation of many new forms of sites, Web 1.0 did not die. Website link directories, although not what they once were, are still all over the net.

Link directories organize links to hundreds or thousands of sites. The most popular of these are the DMOZ, Best of the Web, and Yahoo directories. For a long time, webmaster used this as a method of link building. Over time though, webmasters used this site format to spam links. The result is that many directories have been discounted. Many internet marketers now ignore them as a link building method.

Directory submissions should be used as one method in your overall link building plan. These links are low quality, but they are one-way keyword anchored back links. These links do not provide massive authority to dominate competitive niches, but they can provide a significant amount of juice to niche sites focusing on long tail keywords.

An important part of link building is to create a diverse link profile. Directory links allow you to increase the size of your link profile by generating links from a variety of new sites. Do not discount this age old method of promotion, because many skilled internet marketers won’t.

The most important part of directory submissions is to generate good back links. You will not be receiving any quality direct traffic from these directories. Their purpose is to generate links to improve your rankings. With this in mind, you need to evaluate the quality of the directory. Many spam directories link out and promote gambling, porn, and Viagra sites. You want to avoid these directories, since they may create a negative association with your site. Look at a directory’s pagerank, the pagerank of internal pages, the number of pages indexed, and the sites that directory supports.

There are two important tips to remember when doing submissions. First, this is for anchored links. Try your hardest to get an anchor that includes your main keyword. Second, you need to vary your anchor text. Having too many links with the same text does not look natural. You should make effort to mix up your anchor text when submitting to web directories.

Simply put though, directories are a solid option for those building links to long tail niche sites. When combined with other link building methods, they can be very effective.

Justin Briggs is a blogger who writes about topics like, getting links. He discusses various methods such as directory submissions.

Using a hosted wordpress blog is a great way to build a quick and easy website. You can use these sites for just about anything. Wordpress is not just for blogging anymore.

If you want to see your wordpress site show up in the search engine results you are going to have to do a little on page search engine optimization.

Here are 4 quick SEO tips that will make your site even more search engine friendly.

All in One Seo Plugin

If you only use one plugin on your wordpress site,make it this one. This one little plugin will help your site be Google friendly, and you don’t even really need to know what you are doing.

In the setting area of the plugin make sure you put your site title in, making sure your keywords are in the title.

Add 5 keywords in the meta area, that are related to your site. Do some good keyword research before you start and you will be driving traffic in no time.

Add a Footer Link

If you go to the design - theme editor area you will see a place to edit your footer area. Make sure you put a link in the footer. This link should have keyword anchor text as the clickable part of your link.

A footer link will give you an anchor text link from each and every page of your site, including all tag pages, posts and pages. As your site grows that will be a lot of links.

Keywords In Title

When you are naming your website it’s fun to be cute or tongue in cheek, but if you are trying to drive traffic to your site it’s best to use your keyword in your title.

You can add words before or after your keyword to make the title make more sense, but get the title in there.

The title of your site will be what people see in the search engine results. It also shows up in the top blue header in google. It’s one of the most important things the search engines look for when providing targeted results to a searcher.

Change Permalinks

This is one I see a lot of people, not only beginners, forgetting to do. A permalink is the link to a specific post or page that people can use to go directly to that particular page of your site.

The default permalink structure will not help your SEO efforts at all. You want to customize your permalink structure to show your post title after the title of your blog.

Just go to your wordpress admin area. Under settings you will see a permalinks area. At the bottom of the list you will see a place to check custom. Click that and then in the area provided type /%postname%/ this will get your keywords for each and every post in your permalink. Just make sure you are using keyword in your post titles.

There you have it 4 quick SEO tips to increase your onpage optimization. They shouldn’t take but a minute to do, but you will notice a big difference once it’s done.

Stop by for more web marketing strategies including how to boost your web marketing efforts and be #1 in Google.

Today the internet is most probably the most widely used information resource on the planet. In addition, email has revolutionised the way we communicate with each other. As a result of the huge swathes of people using the internet on a regular basis, online business has become a vital part of any company’s development plan. Part of courting online business requires a process of search engine optimisation. This is because the majority of internet users use search engines to find services and products by simply typing in certain keywords or phrases. The large use of search engines has meant that an entire industry has been built with the objective of placing client’s websites at the top of rankings.

Currently, internet experts estimate that there are around four billion websites online today. Understandably the chances of a potential customer finding your business amongst this gargantuan number is small, hence employing search engine optimisation services is vital in order to attract business. With some key terms returning search results in the millions, the value of effective online marketing cannot be underestimated making the optimisation process vital.

Normally the process of optimisation requires professional assistance for it to be performed effectively. Expert knowledge is vital to take advantage of the regularly changing search engine algorithms and methodology. A good SEO specialist will also make it clear that the optimisation process is not about manipulation of results, but instead complying with search engine rules so that a website or page is deemed the most relevant and hence will rank higher.

Industry insiders are certain that optimisation is the most effective online advertising strategy. Recently a survey was produced that claimed that of the traffic received by e-commerce websites, around eighty five percent came through search engine referrals, predominantly from Google. As a result, optimisation is deemed by many to be the most effective and worthy form of online marketing investment.

Search engines are here to stay as a way of trawling the internet for information, products or services. Current estimates believe that eighty percent of internet use is through engine means; subsequently, any online business strategy that does not take this into account is likely to fail in its efforts. For greater sales levels and website hits, optimisation is vital in attracting visitors and hence, custom.

The organic means of optimisation is regarded by some to be the most important although the importance of sponsored links cannot be underestimated. Pay per click advertising means that companies pay per hit from results for a specific search term. While organic methods are seen as more beneficial in some industries, paid results are a viable alternative.

As the number of websites will continue to increase, having a website that tops the rankings is rarely accidental. More likely is that a concerted effort has been made to optimise the site so that the search engines view it as the most relevant and useful place for a particular search term. Some estimates believe that most searchers do not go lower than the top three listings and hence getting in this top three is the ultimate objective. This will take a great deal of time but will be ultimately worthwhile in securing large amounts of online trade.

Today search engine optimisation is an important part of any online business strategy worth its salt. As more and more businesses utilise SEO services, the importance of having an effective and efficient team of specialists cannot be underestimated. In a cutthroat world, topping the rankings means that your site will be chosen over competitors’ regularly, resulting in greater profits.

Internet marketing expert Thomas Pretty looks into the importance of search engine optimisation in the world of online business.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of building a website that is technically suitable for search engines to read and index it. With a website that is technically suitable for indexing, it will rank higher on search engine result pages for target keywords or key phrases that you are optimizing for.

Organic traffic from search engines usually occupies the biggest pie of a website overall traffic. Therefore, it is extremely important for you to know how to optimize your website to achieve high rankings for various search terms. So how to SEO your website and achieve good natural search results? Let me share with you the 3 most important SEO strategies that must be put in place:

1. Proper on-page optimization. Although it is important to create a website that is aesthetically pleasing for human visitors, you should not neglect the underlying coding and content of your site. This is because in order to obtain good natural search rankings, the coding architecture and content of your website are extremely important. You need to ensure that the basics are in place for each page of your website. Every page of your website should be optimized for target key phrases that are relevant to the content of the page itself. Make sure that the relevant HTML Title, H1, H2, Alt, and Meta tags contain your target key phrases. On your page, do place navigation text links for spiders to follow so that it can index other underlying pages.

2. Optimized content. When it comes to SEO, content is king. Keywords should be littered within your content so as to make your pages more relevant to search engines. You should also keep the content of your site fresh so as to facilitate indexing by spiders. One thing to note is that you should not place too many keywords within your content just for the sake of ranking well. Google will view this as keyword spamming. Also, ensure that your content is unique. Never repeat or copy & paste content from other websites.

3. Get more backlinks. Another important factor for your website to rank well is to have good link popularity. To obtain good link popularity, you need to get websites to link back to your pages. You should add it to directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ to get valuable link juices. Additional thing that you can do is to write articles and submit them to article directories.

SEO is a complicated topic and we have just scratched the surface here. However, I still hope that you have benefited from the points that I have shared with you here.

Cheow Yu Yuan is the co-founder of OOm, an online marketing agency providing SEO Singapore services.

Check out more about SEO at www.optimalonlinemarketing.com

To get high natural search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo, getting back links to your website is something that you cannot afford not to do. Although there are a lot of people that use SEO black hat strategies to obtain many back links, search engines nowadays can easily detect those folks. To get back links, you do not need to use any black hat strategies at all. Let me share with you some of the top link building strategies that will increase the link popularity of your site:

1. Directory links. Directory links are important one-way links for your site and you ought to include this type of link into your link building strategies. Some of more popular directories like Yahoo will require you to pay a certain amount of money to get listed. Many others are free of charge and you just need to spend some time to add your website to the right categories. However, do not go overboard with too many directories per month, as this may sometimes cause search engines to see you as a spammer. Making your directory linking more natural is the key to SEO success.

2. Article bio links. This type of link can be obtained by writing articles and submitting them to various article directories. If the content of your article is good, you will stand a chance of getting your articles syndicated to various websites. This will further increase your back links. You can also approach industry authority sites that accept submissions from guest writers. This is definitely a good way to get good authority links from high profile websites.

3. Press release links. Look for sites that offer press release submissions and syndication services. These sites usually have a large pool of sites to syndicate your press release to. By submitting a keyword optimized press release, you can be sure to get some good back links to your website. However, do prepare to spend some money for this type of service.

4. Reciprocal links. Although there have been a lot of talks that say reciprocal links are not important anymore, I beg to differ. By exchanging links with sites that are reputable and relevant, you can still get pretty good link juices for your site. Make some friends and look for strong links that are complementary to your site. When you are asking for a link exchange, make sure that you make known the benefits to the webmaster and do it sincerely.

5. RSS, social bookmarking or blog links. These types of links are not worth a lot but when done correctly; you can still pick up a whole bunch of them. Submit your sites to social book marking sites like Digg and Reddit, post comments on do-follow blogs, and syndicate your content to RSS directories.

When you are building links for your site, balance is the key to success. Do not go overboard and build hundreds of links in a single day. Spread it out and use all the tools that you can find to help you with it.

Cheow Yu Yuan is the co-founder of OOm, an online marketing agency providing SEO Singapore services.

Check out more about SEO at www.optimalonlinemarketing.com

Search engines are the gateway for any web business, Google being the most prominent out there. It’s important to get the highest page listing possible as few people searching for what they’re looking for, will go several pages deep into their search listings. There are companies out there making tempting promises to get you on the first page often times at exorbitant prices.

Finding tried and true ways to get organic traffic meaning being found during a regular search, not by pay per click ads as seem on the right column of the listing, is the best and most solid way to build your web site’s traffic long term. Here’s what search engine optimization boils down to:

1. Content is King. You need real content on your web site; this is content that has real meaning to real people, not just keyword stuffing. Search engines send out programs called web crawlers or web spiders that index web sites. The number one thing those web crawlers are looking for is content. They determine if a web site has content by tracking keyword phrases. This is why search engine optimization usually starts by picking keywords and writing content around them; a lot of web site marketing gurus advocate keyword stuffing well past the point of sanity and effectiveness. Anything more than about 2-4% of the words in an article and the web sites will filter it out it’s too obviously “gaming the system”.

2. Link exchanges are another valuable tool to get your site ranked higher. It’s important to find websites that are willing to put your link on their website that leads back to your site. It’s best to find websites that are related in content or topic of your site. Methods vary for finding these, but some common ways are link exchanges, article writing, social networking, posting on blogs and forums are some popular choices.

3. Updated and fresh content. This is important both for your human visitors as well as the web spiders. When both see there’s new content added at least 3 times a week, they will be more likely to come back more often. It takes an average of seven visits before someone will purchase a product or post on a forum, so it’s important to give both reason to return to your site.

4. Web layouts that make sense. Your web site should have clean navigational links, your front page should have links to everything else on your site.

5. Text rules everything in web content. Search engine spiders ignore Javascript, they ignore graphics, and until very recently, they couldn’t read text in Flash animations. If the search engine spiders can’t read it, it doesn’t get used to help your page rankings.

The real trick for long haul success to search optimization is to ensure your website is as easy to use as possible. Make it simple to navigate for visitors who want to read about your site and content that makes them come back.

Most websites are challenged to choose the right keywords in order to succeed. Everything starts with the right words. After all what good is top ranking if you have not researched which keywords will drive the right traffic to you?

Avoid keyword clutter, and only choose keywords that are relevant to your services, to each other, and keep your verbiage tight and concise. If your keywords do not relate to one another closely, consider breaking them apart as you would in the Adwords Editor grouping tool, onto different pages.

Be smart about your keywords and make sure you are only using words that your likely clients, are likely to type in. After all what good is top ranking on PlacementToday.com keywords nobody types in?

The right PlacementToday.com Keywords, is Key to determining your success online.

If you were buying what you sell, what would you type in? Try asking friends, good customers, and relatives what PlacementToday.com keywords they would type to look for you.

Here’s a secret, don’t follow the beaten path, choose your own road. If you are a bank, don’t try to optimize on the keyword bank as it represents the most competition. Look for specific words, that are less competitive. The lowest hanging fruit is the easiest to pick!

Many tools are available for choosing keywords based on popular search statistics, PlacementToday.com uses the Google Adwords Keyword tool.

Your website IS your online business, give your business the care and attention it deserves and choose your keywords well.

Trying to figure out how to write more efficient, high quality articles? Youve come to the right place! Article writing can be mastered by anyone, but there are certain requirements. Be determined, devoted, and enthusiastic about learning. Good writing, much like any art or craft, is not a skill anyone is born with. It must be developed through practice. The following tips will assist you in improving your article writing skill.

- Article marketing: Article marketing is the process in which you need to write and submit keyword rich 350-500 words article to article ezines and directories.

Such articles should include an authors resource box at the end of the article where you can insert some information about yourself. For example, youll want to include your name, some personal information, your real URL, and information on your product.

- Be an expert: You are required to be an expertise in your field of article writing. Reader should be familiar with you and your product prior to his/her visit to your website. This will impose them to purchase your product. Pay per Click traffic has less conversion rate then article marketing traffic.

- Consistency: To ensure article writing success, make sure that your articles information can be considered truly relevant.

- Use attractive headlines: Attractive headlines are essential for good articles. A good headline will jump out and catch your readers eye. Boring headlines will cause your articles to be left unread and business will slump until you hit bottom with no subscriptions and no sales.

- Use keywords: Keyword use is the essence of a successful article. Keywords are what control search engine ranks. People search the internet using keywords. Think of which well known keywords fit into your article and then use them, especially in your headline.

- Use short paragraphs: One can easily interpret short paragraphs. Huge paragraphs can also lead reader to select another article. So use short and meaningful paragraphs.

- Use bullet points, sub-headlines or numbers: This will make article more understandable to the reader. Also it will add charm to the article.

- Resource box: A resource box is located at the end of your article. This is your space to put your name and personal URL. Use it as another chance to attract readers by including information about your product. Call action comments, like visit us at can be quite useful.

- Write more articles: Writing one article per week cant drive traffic to your site. It is necessary to write everyday. Start setting goal of writing 25 articles per week or minimum of 5 articles per day. The more articles you write, more you can attract the people.

Thus, this article can help you in writing high quality articles.

I don’t have to tell you that search engine advertising has exploded. Prior to 1997 it hardly existed. You certainly wouldn’t have called it an industry. By 2003 it had grown to $1.6 billion almost 28% of all online advertising spending.

Because of this explosion, search engine marketing services businesses are growing more rapidly as large marketers are questioning the return on traditional advertising. This represents tremendous upside for Madison Avenue among digital media, especially the online search marketplace.

With greater competition online, more search engine analytical tools, and more targeted keyword phrases, it has become much harder for companies to handle campaigns internally. In fact, studies have shown that half of all large marketers and over 30 percent of small marketers had trouble managing their own search engine marketing campaigns.

Because of this marketplace many firms have contracted with third-party companies to improve their search engine marketing. It seems to be working. Jupiter Research reports that 80% of companies that outsourced are significantly more satisfied with the performance of their campaign (compared to just 58 percent for those that handle search engine marketing in-house).

With unprecedented competition online, resourceful businesses are saving time, money and in-house resources by outsourcing their pay-per-click campaigns and search engine optimization work.

If you’re going to handle these chores in-house you’re going to need to allocate staff to stay up this ever changing technology. When you consider the cost involve with paying medical and dental; paying into 401k plan; paying the generous salary and bonuses needed for this level of employee; paying for time off; supervising another employee; setting up extensive tracking and roi proficiency benchmarks, and still paying paying search engine pay-per-click rates, It’s no wonder so many companies outsource.

If it’s an e-commerce site this important function becomes even more important.

Whether your business needs hot leads, sales orders or you’re just looking to strengthen your brand, targeted search engine traffic provides the answer. Whether they’re just seeking information or hot to make a purchase website advertising today means offering information rich pages that answer the questions these visitors need.

Search engine advertising helps companies target their ideal audience at the best possible time — when the customer is looking for them. Instead of appealing to the masses and hoping for the best, smart marketing strategies are more about being found by those needing your products or services.

If you’re finding it impossible to hire and retain search engine professionals then by all means consider outsourcing this important function. If you hire the right firm it should save you time and money. There are many search engine professionals offering their services at competitive rates to any online business. Most of them are well qualified and experienced to make a good addition to the business.