The keyword is totally unique in the eyes of the search engines, and there are strong rules in these contests.

Some of the general important rules of seocontests.
1. No black hat search engine optimization allowed
2. No one from the official announcement website can enter this contest.
3. No Spamming of keywords and website
4. No cloaking or keyword stuffing

These contests generally are started with a time frame given to show the results in search engine results pages.

These are some of the general tips to rank better for the contest.
1. Try to get a older domain name rather than a new one, this is because there is a myth that search engines rank old domains better.
2. Never try to add the contest keyword more than 10 times to your contest webpage because this will result in keyword stuffing.
3. Add meta tags to your contest page which may include title, keywords, description and robots tag.
4. Add H1 , H2, and H3 tags correctly with the keyword in the first H1 tag.
5. Try to add unique contest to your webpage, which is totally fresh, as search engines like fresh content.
6. After the onpage seo is completed , start doing link building by exchanging links with relevant websites.
7. Add a sitemap to your website and continue with the link building.

If these steps are done perfectly , you can make sure that your webpage tops the search engine result pages.

How do you plan for future changes in search engine rankings?

It would be great to have a crystal ball, prying into the plans of the search engines and how they may change weights of algorithms and the like.

For those of little SE understanding, algorithms are formulas or rules set up by SE’s to determine ranking. Each rule then has a different weight or percentage of importance assigned to it. A good example of this is currently Google’s high weighting of linking over all other factors or rules.

So knowing this how do we get ahead of the game?

Do we simply keep up with the Jones (Google) in current time and not worry about future changes? Or do we allow for future changes in algorithms so we don’t have to go changing thousands of pages later on?

For me I will take the later…. and this is how it’s done…

We simply build in all factors that the SE’s currently rank sites on, a few they may use into the future and concentrate on ones that are the most sensible…. here is a list

domain name >> the name itself, length of registration past and future
domain hosting >> good hosting network. different ip range for mininets/virtual real estate
meta tags >> title, keywords, description
on page >> keyword density, headers, alt tags, outbound links, outbound link text, site map, less graphics, no flash or frames
visitor usability >> fast loading, good content, good navigation, search equipped, site map
html >> w3c compliant
directories >> dmoz & yahoo, local, industry specific, large generic
linking >> inbound links, reciprocal links, domain & text linking (spread), same/similar industries (semantic latent indexing), no linking for bad neighborhoods or sites, quantity & quality of links, where links are placed on the page, link density, ip class/range

I’m sure there are a few others that I could add to this list however on the whole currently this is it.

If you include all of these items into building your next web page and sites, no matter how the SE’s decide to change their algorithms by giving one factor a higher importance over another, you will be in good stead to keeping up top rankings.

Like anything else, high search engine ranking is not rocket science! You just have to know the rules and then do the work.

Start with one keyword or phrase, do the research, implement a plan, do the work, get the high ranking and then move onto the next keyword or phrase…..

And if you want a huge head start, there’s some great info out on fast SEO ranking.

Happy rankings….

Let’s talk a little more about using Text Links for better SEO placement becuase it’s a very relevant tool that you have at your disposal and something that you should consider exploring.

Working with text links to help with your SEO rankings is going to involve a good solid chunk of time. So, don’t think that this is an easy solution because it’s not, but it is solid … at least it is for now. Here’s some search term improvement techniques for you to take into account:

1. Link Exchanges

Used to be everyone was exchanging links with anyone else who give them a link. Then Google danced and bamm … doing that will get you lower placement. So, you have to be smart and ONLY exchange links with other domains that are relevant to your site’s topics. Do that and you will see your domain move up the ranks.

2. Billboards

This is something kind of new and is working for now until Google bans the companies offering this service. I’d say use it while it works my friend!

Sites using Billboards are noticing significant rank increases. One site recorded the following…

Over the last 3 months, we have added about 20 unique billboards … We did about 2 per week, and every week we would see position moves of 1 – 2 positions. This is an extremely effective tool because it gives you relevant backlink content on different IP’s. Take the time to write good article/news stories and plug your company or product. This technique will pay off. Don’t believe me? pick an obscure term without competition, and put up 2 – 5 billboards using the term as anchor text through-out your BB’s and you will see position moves within 4 weeks.

The use of Billboards is currently a very good way to get your website relevant positioning in a shorter period of time and you can do so for reasonable fees. You only need to pay for Billboard space on another’s IP for 30 days, by then the search engine will have found you. Make sure the IP is spidered by all the major search engines regularly. After 30 days, you can remove your page and go on to the next IP. Keep doing this and you will build a repository of text rich backlinks to your own domain. Very yummy search engine food!

3. Text Link Advertising

Text link ads are very affordable for those not wanting to dedicate all the time it takes to getting relevant backlinks. Okay, here’s what I think is the best strategy with regards to buying text links. Most likely that PR8 website isn’t going to get you any higher placement than the PR4-PR6 will. That’s my opinion, others will disagree. My own testing is showing Google really doesn’t pay much attention to their own PR system … who knew?!

So, buy links that are PR4-6 and don’t pay over $25 for them … unless of course they happen to be mine … lol. Here again, I’d recommend you use Linkworth and use their set of tools to determine the worth of any link you might be considering … those tools will even help you with domains that aren’t in the Linkworth repository … hint, hint!

These types of one-way links will really help your placement. If you can get one-way links from other sources for free, go for it and make sure they have better PR than you do!

4. Content Development

Well now here’s a novel idea, the more content you ad to your website, then better your rankings will be … and go one step further, you must do so on a consistant basis … like every two weeks ad a new page.

Ad pages with 250-500 words of relevant content and relevant links.

And, this is really important … make sure all your webpages have different content by at least 40%. Google is so smart it actually knows if you’ve got the same page up on the domain … and it knows if you’ve got the same domain mirrored on other domains. You have to do the work!

5. Menu Structure

Make sure the search engines can easily spider every page on your website. I prefer to hard code all my links … including the domain name info. Taking short-cuts only hurts you.

Make sure you use keywords in your menu links and make sure the search engines can easily follow your links from the top level to the second their third levels.

6. Website SEO

Use the H1, H2 tages and relevant keywords through out the site. Keep keyword density around 2-5% … going over will cause you to drop in the ranks. I speak from experience on that one.

7. Schedule Regular Updates

Like I said, you must consistently add new content to your website to keep the search engines well feed and happy. You must get down and dirty and do this part, if you don’t … those purchased links aren’t going to help you get all the way there.

8. Hurry Up and Wait

It takes time to make all these things happen and with each step you have to sit back and see what result it had, if good then you step again. It’s like a chess game … really think about your next move and you can get to the top.

And while you’re waiting, put up a page that offers your viewers text links and graphical links back to your website … create a “link to us” page. It’s free! And, if your website is interesting, you’d be surprised how many people will link to you as a result.

The Issue:

The Content Management System (CMS) heralded a new age. Adding information to the web was no longer the realm of a solitary webmaster and in theory, anyone inside an organisation could update content, post press releases and evolve the company’s online presence easily. It was a revolution.

Using a CMS not only makes it so much simpler to update content and create new pages, it allows for the constant site-wide tweaks needed to coast through search engine algorithm changes. And once you have a dynamic URL rewriter, nothing should stand in the way of getting your unique compelling copy into the search engines and attracting all sorts of traffic. Content is “king” after all.

There is one major issue however. By de-centralizing the editorial process and giving multiple people the ability to add and change the website’s copy, your content may actually suffer. Diluted keyword density (effecting search engines results), poor readability (incorrect grammar and sentence structure) and uncertain intent (not sales driven enough in tone) can lead to disastrous copy. Bad writing is jarring for the user and detracts from your business acumen. Even with an Editor to oversee new content, there may be inconsistencies between writers and the process of editing and optimising content can be time consuming, bringing your “instant” CMS process to a standstill.

A Solution?

Designers of bespoke content management systems for large ecommerce websites know the many benefits of CMS and are not prepared to go back to the “dark ages”. The challenge for the designers, developers and day to day users of content management systems is to ratify the search engine and syntax issues, while continuing to empower web writers.

The answer to this challenge may come from re-centralizing the final steps of the edit process while still giving individual writers the flexibility to add content themselves. Internet savvy companies are looking at ways to standardize their copy and make the output search engine effective, by evolving their content management platforms.

The result is proactive CMS with a built-in process to standardize and optimise new content, and the dawn of a new age when it comes to adding content to your website.

Althoug MSN is lagging behind both Yahoo and Google when it comes to the ways you can get your site indexed, it is still one of the top three search engines, and it should not be ignored.

MSN offers you two different ways to get your site indexed, and you should submit to both. However, before you do that, make sure that you have optimized your website first.

You can get more information on optimizing your site for MSN, as well as tips on search engine optimization, here:

http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm

The tips that you will find here basically apply to optimizing your site for any search engine, but they are definitely worth the read so that you focus your search engine optimization efforts in a way that will get your site indexed.

As I mentioned before, there are two ways to get indexed by MSN. The first involves submitting to the Intomi index. The Intomi index actually powers the MSN search.

Inktomi is now also part of Yahoo. However, you should still submit your site here. This will allow you to get indexed by hundreds of sites if your site is accepted.

http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

You will need to use a valid email address for your site. Make sure that you use an email account that you actually use so that if there is a problem, you can promptly fix it. You may also need to confirm your submission.

Keep in mind that there are no guarantees on turnaround, and there are also no guarantees that your site will be accepted.

The second part of submitting to MSN is actually submitting to the MSN spider. Rob Benwell, of “Blogging to the Bank” fame, said that he used MSN for his searches when looking for niches, because MSN updates more quickly than either Yahoo or Google, and this was why he used MSN to test his results.

This may be good advice. However, I believe that you should submit manually to MSN for the following reason: this is the number two website on the internet. It gets an enormous amount of traffic, and the traffic that this site brings you can help you with both your rankings, as well as being found by searchers.

ComScore Networworks reports that 48 percent of MSN searchers are more likely to buy, whereas Google searchers are 42 percent likely to buy. Yahoo users are 41 percent more likely to buy. Although these statistics were released in 2005, you can get more information from this site on demographic buying habits of searchers: http://www.comscore.com/

Now, you can use the link below to submit directly to the MSN spider:

http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

A word of caution here: when submitting to MSN, make sure that you understand the characters in the verification image on this page. You must type them exactly as you see them, or your site won’t get submitted.

If your submission is successful, you will see a message that tells you your submission is successful and will ask you if you want to submit another site.

Once you have MSN crawling your site, you shouldn’t have to resubmit.

If you follow these steps carefully, you should have no trouble getting your site accepted. Create great content, build links back to your site, and target the correct keywords, and you can get very high rankings.

I started doing Search Engine Optimization very recently, at the end of December 2005, at first I could not understand anything about it, when I started, I couldn’t tell what was the difference between a Search Engine and a Directory! It was hard to believe that people has to do that much to get their website listed in Search Engines. I think all normal internet users don’t realise this, what’s important for them is that they get what they want from their searches.

Well I am still new in this field but I’ve already learned a lot and want to share some ideas and my point of view about the matter. To optimize your website you should follow these simple steps:

1. Search Engine and Directory Submission
2. Article Submission
3. Link Exchange

The motive of Search Engine Optimization is to get the maximum of links pointing to your website, that is more links pointing to you means better ranking in Search Engines. Traffic plays a big role in your ranking, there are many ways you can bring traffic to your website, posting your website to the maximum directories and Search Engines that you can. And be sure to post in the good category, if your website is not suggested in the good category, it has many chances of not getting listed. Article submission is also a very good way of getting traffic.

For those who are not familiar with these terms:
A Search Engine is a searchable online database of internet resources. Some examples are www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com, www.altavista.com, www.askjeeves.com, etc there are really thousands of Search Engines on the net but these listed above are what surfers use most frequently (the major search engines). Among these google is the mostly used by internet users then yahoo, I personally do like 80% of my searches on Google and the rest on yahoo and very rarely on msn. It’s important that you submit your website to these search engines, you can add your website to google here http://www.google.com/addurl.html

A Directory is a web page consisting mostly of categorized links to other web pages. Some examples of directories are www.dmoz.org (google directory is based on dmoz, it is important that you submit your website here, but there are very small chances of inclusion), the yahoo directory, and so on and as for Search Engines, there are many directories where you can submit your website. The submission process is very easy but the real point is whether the directory will list your website or not. The best way to get your website listed is to read the guidelines well as you would not like spending all this time and not getting listed..

Article submission is another way to get traffic and links to your website. Write articles and submit to as many article directories as possible, try to write about things that people want to read, make them want more, well your article must reflect what’s in your website, for e.g. if your website talk about wedding your article should also be about wedding not about any other subjects, you can give tips, or explain about the particular stuff, anything that you want as long as it is interesting. It doesn’t need to be long articles of more than 1000 words from 500 words should be fine.

You can also exchange link with websites having the same subject as yours, contact only websites with good PR (Page Rank) I suggest 3 or more as exchanging links with a website with PR0 will be useless as itself is not having much traffic, how will it be able to bring traffic to your website? And the website you’ve been exchanging links with try to verify regularly if your link is still on their website as they may remove your link as you’ve added a link back to them.

You now have an idea of what SEO means, it’s very interesting and I really enjoy doing, what I find more time consuming till now is Link Exchange as you have to wait a lot until a person reply to you. You can start doing SEO for your website. Good Luck.

Traffic analysis–why you should analyze traffic of your website?

[1] You can decide what you need to change in your site.
[2] You will able to know how visitors coming on your site
[3] You will Calculate your ROI if you are advertising with any PPC sites
[4] You will be able to know Path of visitors and most preferred path of
visitors.
[5] You will decide which Keywords can work better for you and drive more
targeted traffic for your site
[6] You will be able to know Percentage of visitors country wise
[7] You will be able to know top referral links
[8] You will know page load per visitors and Visitor to sales ratio and may
improve it by changing appropriate changes in your site. changes in
Title, Description etc..
[9] Most popular pages.
[10] According to feature of every tools you will analyze like Size of file loaded in a day, no of Error pages etc..

How to analyze traffic?

There are various tools available for traffic analysis. various services like
Stacounter,google-analytics,webstats4u,ritecounter etc…available for free
to analyze your traffic

[1]Stacounter:-http://www.statcounter.com/

Stacounter is one of the most popular counter. it is invisible! its alexa traffic rank is 122 this itself shows how popular it is. the service is totally free if your page load per month is 3,00,000 other vise you have to improve log size, initially its log size is 100 and you can upgrade your logsize..

[2]Webstats4u:- http://www.webstats4u.com/

webstats4u is another popular counter but it is not invisible. everyone can view your stats. however they have added some nice features recently.

[3]Google-analytics:-www.google.com/analytics/
recently Google launched its site tracking service named google-analytics.it is really nice service and free. I have no more experience but people says it is really nice accept its low speed! you have to first register your site with them using your Google account. then you have to paste a code on pages you want to alalyze.there are certain limitation for placing codes like you have to place the code immediately after the metatags and before Body!. Then it will analyze your traffic. it is in Beta(Launched in Last December)

Rite counter:-ritecounter.com/
i have little experience with ritecounter.but I sometime shows
weird results. Some visits can’t track.however they provide large log size.this is biggest binifit for this site

There are other lots of Site tracking services. you can choose.

Webalizer:-
you can Download it from-http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/
you will be able to analyze your log file i am Happy with Their analysis. they says that “over 10,000 records can be processed in one second, through webalizer Please visit their page as i shown above. you Have to create a directory and install this program(source code). Installation Guide is written on their home page.

Awstats:-
Like webalizer awstats is also a log file analyzer which you can install for your traffic analysis,There are some unique features are available which you will find only on Awstats. you can Download it from here>http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
its latest version released just on December 2005.with lots of improved features

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimizing and refers to a set of good practices that teach you how to improve your website so that it would be easily tracked, indexed and ranked by search engines. Getting your site indexed by Google and other major search engines will help you attract visitors and increase traffic.

It is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

Basic SEO Tips:

1. Insert keywords within the title tag so that search engine robots will know what your page is about. The title tag is located right at the top of your document within the head tags.

2. Use the same keywords as anchor text to link to the page from different pages on your site. This is especially useful if your site contains many pages. The more keywords that link to a specific page the better.

3. Make sure that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page. It is unwise to have keywords in the title tag which are not contained within the body of the page.

4. Do not use the exact same title tag on every page on your website. Search engine robots might determine that all your pages are the same if all your title tags are the same. If this happens, your pages might not get indexed.

5. Do not spam the description or keyword meta tag by stuffing meaningless keywords or even spend too much time on this tag.
6. Do not link to link-farms or other search engine unfriendly neighborhoods. A good rule of thumb is if your pages do not contain any words that reflect the content of the site you are linking to, do not link to it.

7. Do not use doorway pages. Doorway pages are designed for robots only, not humans.

8. Title tags for text links. Insert the title tag within the HTML of your text link to add weight to the link and the page where the link resides. This is like the alt tag for images.

9. Describe your images with the use of the alt tag. This will help search engines that index images to find your pages and will also help readers who use text only web browsers.

10. Submit to the search engines yourself. Do not use submission service or submission software. Doing so could get your site penalized or even banned.

So in this way Search Engine Optimization, is important, and helps to bring more visitors and Link Exchanging, is important because it can drive more visitors then search engines, once established. Directories ad valuable content for your customers/visitors, and this it improves your SEO.

If you are like most internet marketing entrepreneurs these days, you are taking full advantage of advertising with the major search engines to increase the amount of traffic coming to your site. After all, even if you have the greatest product around, the best website layout and design going – if you don’t have traffic coming to your site–it’s “just a pretty site”. Getting traffic to your site has to be a high priority to be successful on the internet. Advertising campaigns on the major search engines is a major strategy and technique of getting that traffic to your site. So one you’ve made that decision, you are quickly faced with the next challenge. It simply not as easy as it might sound. Sure, if you have the money, you can immediately get millions of hits coming to your site. Getting targeted traffic quickly becomes your next big challenge. After all, the secret to this type of advertising is reducing your cost-per-click (CPC) and maximizing (increasing) your overall return-on-investment (ROI). The best technique to achieve this is proper application of “keyword matching” options. There are four different methods of making sure your ad campaign is targeted to your intended audience and potential clients. These are: broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative keyword matching. A general description of each is as follows: Broad Match: As a starting place, broach matching is the default option for most of the search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, etc). When you include a general keyword or keyword phrase in your keyword list your ads will appear and return several variations of the search term. For example if a user’s query contained baseball cap, the ads would return the words baseball and cap, in any order, and possibly other terms. The ads will also automatically show up for expanded matches (including plural variations of the terms). Because broad matches are sometimes less targeted than exact or phrase matches, you should create keyword phrases containing at least two descriptive words each. You can also try the keyword tool and the other three matching options to further refine your targeting. Finally, keep in mind that other advertisers may have bid for the same broad-matched keyword combinations that trigger your ads, increasing your actual CPC amounts. Using exact, phrase, or negative matches can help you keep your costs low. Phrase Match – If you enter your keyword in quotation marks, as in “baseball cap,” your ad will appear when a user searches on the phrase baseball cap, in this order, and possibly with other terms in the query. For example, your ad will appear for the query fitted baseball cap but not for caps for baseball. Phrase matching is more targeted than broad matching, but slightly more flexible than exact matching. To ensure your ads are as targeted as they can be, you may want to include at least two descriptive words in your keyword phrases. Exact Match – If you surround your keywords in brackets-such as [baseball cap]-your ads will appear when users search for the specific phrase baseball cap, in this order, and without any other terms in the query. For example, your ad won’t show for the query fitted baseball cap. Exact matching is the most targeted option. Although you won’t receive as many impressions with exact matching, you’ll likely enjoy the most clicks, because users searching for terms in this manner typically want precisely what your business has to offer. Negative Keyword – If your keyword is baseball cap and you add the negative keyword -fitted, your ad will not appear when a user searches on fitted baseball cap. You can apply this option for a keyword at both the Ad Group and campaign level. And if you think about it – it is a “win/win” situation for you and the potential clients who are not being taken by the search engines to sites that are unrelated to what they were searching for in the first place. Since you gain no benefit from paying for clicks by internet searchers that are not interested in your products/services —it becomes an ideal situation for both you and your potential clients. Being aware of and properly applying these simple techniques will ensure that you get the greatest bang for your advertising buck, while increasing your “targeted” traffic. To learn more about the benefits of keyword matching options, look for the frequently asked question section of the search engine application you are using.

Good search engine optimizers (SEO