Search engine marketing got a new lease of life in 1995 and since then it has just grown to become one of the most powerful medium to drive your online business. The sad part is that for many, this field is still new and unexplored. You can find numerous search engine forums and newsletters posting facts, steps, and tricks surrounding search engine or internet marketing. The most questions of them all are how to look for a famous and dependable search engine marketing company. Though this question may sound clich but it holds a lot of significance. There are many website marketing companies who employ unethical or black hat Liverpool SEO techniques to gain high ranking.

Its Brick Blue, the search engine marketing company in UK that really hits the nail on the head. Being one of the budding Internet marketing companies in the UK, Brick Blue knows how to rank a website in the shortest span. However, they never overrule search engine rules and are complete ethical to what they do. Before beginning with your website marketing campaign, theyll gather every bit of information required for ranking your website. Their main aim is not just to rank your website but also generate quality traffic.

Acting as a guide, Brick Blue provides internet marketing services in the UK as well as other countries across the globe. This website marketing company is a company that educates, performs work, analyses and solves problems, makes decisions, and promotes ethics. Following the right path Brick Blue simply promotes ethics associated with this field of study. Being a search engine marketing company they follow a simple and clearly defined path so that there are no hiccups. Any search engine marketing company in UK follow a contract stuff, in which various points are clearly stated. You can get desired ranking, if you dont make changes online. So try to mention or clearly state the changes you are planning to make to their site in your contract. And do this before starting any work. If you havent signed a contract of yet, just do it now.

Many website marketing companies offering Internet marketing services in the UK are very particular about certain addition and deletion. Try to mention that the client should not change, add, or delete the new copy and HTML coding for minimum three months while search engine marketing campaign is under progress. If they still do, then you shouldnt be held responsible for any goof up occurring in the near future. It has been seen that any online change directly affects the search engine rankings of your website. If you simply want to play safe and even cover yourself, dont forget to mention that you will take no responsibility for the search engine rankings if they change, add, or delete the pages without your knowledge and approval. So, to boost your online business, contact the best and dependable search engine marketing company in UK.

For more information about Search Engine Marketing services, visit::

http://www.brickblue.co.uk

Advertising is a very important part of running any type of business. You need to advertise to reach new customers and market your products or services. Whether you run your business online or not you probably already realize how important it is to advertise but if you are running your business online you should understand there is a great deal of free advertising available in the form of optimal search engine rankings.

Well known search engines such as Google rank websites according to complex algorithms which are designed to determine which websites are most relevant for particular search terms. Therefore taking the time and effort to optimize your website for relevant search terms may result in you being rewarded with high search engine rankings for these terms. This is important because most Internet users rely heavily on these rankings. It is not uncommon for Internet users to only review the first few results when they search for a particular term. This means if your website ranks high enough to appear on the first page of the search results you will likely enjoy increased website traffic. However, if your website doesnt make it to the first page or even the second page, it is unlikely you will receive a great deal of website traffic from visitors who use search engines.

Now that you understand why search engine rankings are so important you might wonder how to achieve these rankings. The easiest way to optimize your website is to hire a Bristol SEO specialist to do the work for you. The world of Bristol SEO is complex and continually evolving making it difficult for most business owners who do not specialize in Bristol SEO to keep up with the changes in the industry. Therefore, business owners who attempt to optimize their website by themselves may have difficulty keeping up with competitors who hire a Bristol SEO consultant to optimize their website.

The algorithms used by search engines can be rather complex and include a number of different factors. Some of the common factors in the equation include keyword density, META tags, titles, inbound links, website traffic and content.

Keyword density refers to the number of times a particular keyword is used in the content of your website. The theory behind this concept is that website which use a keyword often are likely extremely relevant to that keyword, however, overuse of that keyword may result in penalties to the website if the search engine deemed the keywords are not being used appropriately.

META tags are pieces of HTML code which some search engines use in evaluating the content of a website. Placing keywords in these tags can be beneficial in some search engines. However, care should be taken to avoid placing irrelevant keywords in these tags as this may result in your website being penalized.

Inbound links are also used by some search engines to rank websites. Inbound links refer to links on other websites which point to your website. In evaluating the worth of these inbound links, some search engines consider the rank of the website providing the link to your website. This means you should ensure the website providing inbound links to your website are high ranking websites to receive the most benefit from these links.

Finally, the content on your website can do a great deal to bolster your search engine rankings. Most Bristol SEO firms retain a staff of writers who are skilled at providing quality content which is also optimized for relevant keywords. If you hire a Bristol SEO firm who does not providing copywriting services you should invest in hiring a professional writer yourself. This will help to ensure the copy on your website is not only valuable to your visitors but also considered valuable to search engines.

A Search Engine Optimization firm can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to highten your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for unwanted results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of effort, time, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine’s index.

No matter what kind of website you run it is vital that you are not of the opinion that only certain topics would benefit from paid optimization. A website about Tea might benefit just as much as one about marketing or even loans.Why would tea being the subject matter? Well quite simply paid optimization could benefit any subject.

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company’s track record of results. However, don’t take the company’s word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Also, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes” will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company’s results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record – and that risk is your money! Don’t take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember – even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

Well now you are armed with the relevant facts take the bull by the horns and your website about Tea, marketing or absolutely any kind of subject could end up with a totally new lease of life and your stats counter could start to rise like a thermometer in a heatwave.

Pay per click engines as the name suggests, webmasters have to pay
a fee for each click coming from search engine results. Depending on
how much the person bids for a keyword over his competitor his
website will be positioned in the search engine results.

How pay per click search engines work?

For example if a webmaster bids $0.07 on the term ‘tennis shoes’. If no
other webmaster bids more than this, he will stay in 1st position. If
second webmaster bids $0.08, then second one goes to 1st position.
Basically this is like auction procedure for No.1 position.

So what are SIX Golden tips to work with Pay per click search engines?

RULE No. 1: Keywords:

Select your keywords carefully so that every keyword reflects your
product. General keywords bring general public.

For example if you are offering search engine optimization service to
webmasters, ‘search engine’ will be a general keyword for you.
‘search engine optimization’ , ‘good search engine ranking’ etc,. will
be your good target keywords.

Another thing you have to remember is targeting your keywords. Like any
geographical locaton specific to your product or any specific
language…Some search engines like Google offer this feature to target
the keywords based on the countries and language.

RULE No. 2: Write a compelling ad:

Most of the times the pay per click search engine services limits your
ad characters and length. So try to keep the keyword in the ad headline
and the body.

By doing so, you will get higher click thrus for tha ads. This will be
very useful with Google, which determines your position not only by
your bidding amount but also click thru ratio. Google editors won’t allow
you to use keyword more than once in your ad. It is to make use of
your ad space more efficiently.

See the example below-

“Ebay ebook: Every thing about How to make money on ebay!
An Easy to follow Guide!!”

“Ebay ebook that Stands in numder ONE position in
Clickbank Market place as a Top Seller. See the Proof!”

Certainly anybody can say that the second one pulls traffic than the
first ad.

Try different ones and see what pulls more traffic for you. Check your
spelling and grammer twice before submitting your ads.

RULE No. 3: Don’t enter in to Bidding war:

Keep an eye on your Return on Investment. (ROI) It is not that easy to
resist the temptation of being number one on pay per click engine listings
especially for the beginners. Always decide an amount how much you are
going to spend on advertising campaigns. Depending on that devide certain
percentage to Liverpool PPCs.

With reasonable bidding amount you can get good amount of traffic
from Liverpool PPCs.

RULE No. 4: Monitor your bidding amount:

Most of the people bid once and don’t remember about it for weeks. Monitor
your bid amount after logging in to your accounts. Do this atleast once
in every 4-7 days.

For example, If you go to overture.com and search for some of the the
keywords, you can find the first positions paying $0.87, $0.85, 0.35 for
the first three rankings. Don’t you see who will be benefited by this?
You can get the first and second position for $0.37 and $0.36 respectively.

So always keep an eye on your bidding amount.

RULE No. 5: Landing page:

After clicking on your link and coming to your website, don’t let them
search for the product for which they came to your site. Directly landing
on the product page is always a good idea and saves lot of your visitor’s
time.

RULE No.6: Track your results:

Put some source code at the end of URL. Or submit different landing page
for your product. So people coming to that URL can be tracked through a
good weblogger. More on tracking your ad campaigns is at:

http://www.webmasters-central.com/wprofits/tracking.shtml

Marketing is not something to be forgotten when delving into an online business. Marketing is in fact just as, if not even more important today in promoting a website than any offline business. So what does it take to market on online business? Well, its the newest strategy on the market and its called Search Engine Marketing.

In the same way a business would choose an advertising company to lead an advertising campaign, an online business should choose an online advertising company to lead their search engine marketing campaign. Effective marketing requires the experience and expertise of professional advertisers. For a website, this means knowledge and understanding of the internet, and more importantly, of search engines. Search Engines dictate the way people shop online.

A search marketing company is the best way to get your site some online exposure. There are a great number of tasks to get a site ready for search marketing. Keyword research, placement, and selection are all an essential part of targeting your market. Search marketing companies have the tools and the technology to select the best keywords and keyword phrases for your audience. Other important considerations for site include overall website design and theme. There are many factors in design that can affect the way search engines rank a website.

Website hosting is another important key to search marketing. Exclusive search marketing services include a complete analysis of your hosting account to ensure good service. If your hosting partner causes your site to be down frequently, it can be detrimental to your search marketing campaign. If your site is down when a search engine comes to visit, this can be bad news. Its also important that you have all day access to your files to work on the site. Most importantly, there may be banned sites on that hosts IP address, and this can cause the search engines to automatically ban your site also.

Once your site design and hosting are up to par, search engine marketing dictates a vigorous campaign to market the site. Advertising consists of tactics to increase the visibility of a site, to get it noticed in more places by more search engines. A search engine marketing company will submit the site to major search engines, and other sites used by search engines to rank sites. Once a site is submitted, it must be maintained carefully and monitored frequently to assess rankings.

The industry of the internet and the search engines is changing everyday. To make a business successful, it has to keep up with the ever changing trends. A company with exclusive search marketing services can help a business meet its goals and reach success. With marketing a website, the guidelines are specific and the results are real and the success of a business is not worth gambling with.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site – or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive – decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it.

So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven’t followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It’s hard to be objective when you are right in the center
of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your understanding of your business and your customers’ understanding is significantly different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By “quality visitors” I mean those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and
phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn’t enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword “automobile companies.” However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword “automobile body shops” would rank lower on the popularity scale than “automobile companies,” but it would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the
specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let’s look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between “Seattle job listings” and “Seattle IT recruiters” which do
you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their career,
have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. There is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better
profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work – and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your business’ rewards.

While it may seem obvious to many of us in the industry (The so-called veterans) it may not be that obvious to all.

That is, no matter what rankings you achieve or how much you are spending on your PPC UK in a month, you really should only consider one thing: Your customers. 100% of your efforts must revolve around who your customer is.

In this article I give some tips to ensure that your marketing campaign revolves around your customer.

While I was unable to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York this year (I went last year it was an incredible experience) I was surprised and glad to hear that there was an over -riding theme coming out of the sessions both from the SEMs presenting as well as the engines.

That theme is user intent.

That means, one must understand what the user their customer wants when they visit the search engine and ultimately click on a search engine result whether it is paid or organic.

I started to think about my clients over the years and some of the things they have said when I ask them, What are you looking for in this campaign?

Many of the responses include: I want to be number 1 for or, I need to lower my PPC UK costs by or, I need to beat my competitor .

What is the most important element missing from these comments (and, I think, from many clients in general)? The focus on the customer.

In the years Ive been asking the question what are you looking for in this campaign? I think I can count on one hand how many people responded to my question above with, I need to reach my target audience effectively.

While it is true that many companies are beginning to realize this now, it hasnt been that way for some time.

I think what is changing in todays world is that companies are beginning to realize that search is big business. As such, they have marketers interacting with SEM firms and not IT people. It is these marketing people who are asking the right questions or, in many cases, answering them the right way.

Heres an example: I recently sat in on a call with a client and one of the first things they said was, We have devised seven unique personas for our site and need to target each one individually.

What? Youve already done the personas? We usually do those. But you know what? They did an incredible job. After reviewing their persona information, I could put a face to the persona. I knew what that person looked like, and what his or her intent was with the site.

And that is the most important thing to consider in todays SEM world you MUST know who your customer is. You MUST understand their intent if you are going to succeed.

For example, if your customers tend to have completed the research stage and are in the buying stage, dont send them to a PPC UK landing page with product specs. Instead, send them to a landing page with pricing and shipping information.

Better yet, send them to the pricing/checkout page and give them free shipping! That will undoubtedly help encourage the sale.

Similarly, if you are finding a product specification page ranking highly for a purchase search term, try and find a better page to optimize for that term and de-optimize the product page so that the purchase page will rank higher.

This is where personas are extremely helpful. If you can put a face to your customer, you can determine their intent. And if you can determine their intent you can effectively create your entire marketing campaign around it.

Generally what you will find out, as you become more intimate with that persona, is that you probably dont need to rank #1 organically for a highly competitive term. You could probably get away with above the fold visibility and still make an impression.

Similarly, you will probably find that the knowledge of your targets intent can help you optimize your bidding strategies by cutting expensive terms, performing day parting, or whatever else you need to do to ensure that your site is visible to them at just the right time.

What many search engine marketers are learning is that the users intent, derived from an accurate persona, is more valuable than anything.

Its more valuable than a #1 ranking. Its also more valuable than an expensive PPC UK term.

In fact, such knowledge will likely impact the terms you use altogether. While you may think that the searcher will use certain terms, in fact you may find that you are way off base.

But, its not just search marketers concerned with intent. The search engines are also investing heavily in technology to help them figure out the intent of the searcher and serve the correct results.

For example, I could be searching for Manhattan and the search engine has to determine what my intent is. Am I looking for city information? Am I looking to find a hotel or book air travel? Or, do I merely want a drink recipe.

You see, simple terms like this can mean many things, therefore the search engines are trying to use their technology to figure out what the searcher wants.

And many times, when you perform a search and you see a PageRank 3 site outranking a PageRank 6 site, this is why. It is because the search engine has tried to determine that intent and is therefore trying to match the site that best suits that searcher.

But why would a search engine be so concerned about intent? Its quite simple. Right now most of us have Google set as our home page. But what does it take to switch that to MSN or Yahoo? A couple clicks of the mouse and youve just changed search results providers.

This is what scares the engines the most that one of their competitors, or a completely new black horse, is going to come along and woo away users with technology that improves relevancy to the user.

So, if you are planning your SEM campaign for 2006, my opinion is go back to the drawing board. First, determine your goals. Then, determine who it is you are trying to reach and why they would want to use your product or service. If you can determine this intent then you can effectively craft an SEM campaign that will be both successful and cost effective.

Often, sites view Leeds 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 Leeds SEO effort, a PPC campaign is a critical early step.

PPC For Testing

Lets say you have a site offering a service or product in the travel market. Youve put together a healthy budget and decided to go for broke. Yep, youre optimizing and trading links in an effort to go after keyword phrases with major traffic and competition. For instance, youve decided to have a go at Europe travel, which has roughly 400,000 searches each month and major competition for high rankings. You spend two years trading links, adding content and so on. Miracle of miracles, you pop on to the first page of search results. You start shopping for your private jet only to realize a very disturbing thing. You are getting thousands of visits, but few sales. After running calculations, you find the site is converting at 1 in 10,000.

Houston, we have a problem.

A PPC campaign should be used to test your site against keyword phrases before you spend the time and money on an Leeds SEO campaign. The best platforms to use for your campaign are Google Adwords and Overture. Yes, click fraud is a problem, but less so on these platforms.

After opening accounts and laying a credit card down at the PPC alter, you need to give some thought at to how you will test your keywords. Heres a hint. The campaign should be designed to test the keyword phrases, not maximize sales. This may sound like a strange statement, but keep in mind the purpose of the campaign. You are determining whether you have picked appropriate keyword phrases for the Leeds SEO campaign. So, how does it all go wrong?

With both Overture and Adwords, you have the ability to designate the reach of your keyword phrases. Most pick the broad match option, which is terrible for testing. With broad match, your advertisements are going to appear for your keyword phrase AND variations of the phrase. Since the ad is appearing on a variety of keyword phrases, the results can give you a false impression of the value of the primary keyword phrase.

Going back to our example, we start a Google Adwords campaign for Europe travel and use the default broad match option. After a month, we are happy to find the ads converting at 1 in 70. Having validated the keyword phrase, we set off on the long Leeds SEO campaign. But are we really sure about the validity of the keyword phrase. Since Google has been known to seriously expand keyword phrases under the broad match option, how do we know that the true keyword phrase isnt European travel? We dont unless we take a few additional steps.

The first step is to limit the PPC advertisements by bypassing the broad match option. Instead, you want to limit the appearance of the ad only to searches for the exact keyword phrase. In Adwords, this is known as the exact phrase match. To designate it, you simply place brackets [] around the keyword phrase. Second, you need to track traffic originating from the ads. This can be done using tracking tools on your server or through the tracking options offered by each PPC platform. Regardless of your choice, the resulting data will give a much truer picture of the value of the particular keyword phrases.

Nothing is more aggravating then getting top rankings, but miserable conversions. The only way to beat this problem is to test, test, test. Using PPC campaigns at the outset of an Internet marketing efforts can save you a lot of headaches later on.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,
and are now on guard for “spam” pages and sites that have
increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a
search engines tracks down such a site, that site is
demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search
engine’s index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely
above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page
criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in
the “spam” net and tossed from a search engine’s index,
even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh
treatment. But there are things you can do – and things you
should be sure NOT to do – which will prevent this kind of
misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you
are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning
website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the
Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about
increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you
must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose
to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites
that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of
artificially boosting their link popularity. They have
actually labeled these links “bad neighborhoods.”

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be
penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;
penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the
link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and
double-check, all the links that are active on your links
page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages
you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way
to do this is to download the Google toolbar at
http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most
pages are given a “Pagerank” which is represented by a
sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the
scale. This is especially important when the scale is
completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages
have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you
may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be
difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose
scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.
These sites have not been penalized, and their links may
grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that
you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that
at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have
linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to
artificially boost their link popularity is the use of
hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web
pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means
that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you
have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine
ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of
keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding
their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to
any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the
keywords but made them the same color as the background
color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on
a white background. You cannot see these words with the
human eye – but the eye of search engine spider can spot
them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to
index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it
goes back and boosts that page’s link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but
search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a
search engine perceive the use of hidden text – splat! the
page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit
overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For
example, if the background color of your page is gray, and
you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider
will only take note of the gray text and assume you are
employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,
simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color
to text as the background color of the page – ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is
called “keyword stuffing.” It is important to have your
keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you
can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please
those spiders. A search engine uses what is called
“Keyphrase Density” to determine if a site is trying to
artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of
keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search
engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a
keyword before it decides you have overdone it and
penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass
without sounding as if you are stuttering – unless your
keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,
it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword
is “renters insurance,” be sure you don’t use this phrase
in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so
that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not
repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword
should never appear in more than half the sentences on the
page.

The final potential risk factor is known as “cloaking.” To
those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should
be easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is when
the server directs a visitor to one page and a search
engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees
is “cloaked” because it is invisible to regular traffic,
and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s search engine
ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything
it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the
list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this
act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep
penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that
sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as
prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as
“pagejacking.” This kind of shielding is unnecessary these
days due to the use of “off page” elements, such as link
popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is
aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure
the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will
put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link
popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent
to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor
your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially
boosting your rankings.

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