The Click Depot Blog

When you are considering SEO tactics, Sitemap is one that is great for websites that have dynamic content, pages with flash or AJAX, new WebPages without many links and has a lot of archived pages that aren’t linked at all, or very well. Basically, Sitemap is a graphical map of your website in one case, which helps customers navigate your website.  The other version is done using XML.

Google gathers information about your website content by using your Sitemap, so this can help with your search engine optimization, assuming you take advantage of optimizing keywords in your text links to your web pages. Your Sitemap provides text based links to your key pages and those can be easier keyword optimized.

The sitemap not only makes navigation easier for your website visitors, but it can also anchor certain pages to certain text links. For example, if you have you several pages you want to link to new products text link, you can link them through your sitemap.

Google recommends the maximum to be 100 text links per sitemap, to make it more search engine friendly, as well as visitor friendly. Certainly, larger websites should link their main pages, but sitemap is recommended for websites, no matter how large or small, it’s a matter of layering site maps for the very large websites, since a single sitemap is recommended for 100 pages or less.

You can find a multitude of free sitemap tools and ones that charge minimal fees, to help with your sitemap creation. These sitemap creation tools can help you build your own sitemap from scratch to optimize your website for the search engines. Sitemaps make it easy for the search engines to find and index all of your WebPages on your website by putting links to every page in one spot. It also helps the search engines to clearly understand what the website is about and what contents are on the pages.

Your sitemap should maximize keywords and contribute to keyword density on the pages. They should always be able to be linked to from your home page or index page because that is where the search engines will look for it. You want links that point to every page in your site and list descriptions so that visitors and the search engines can understand what they can expect to find on each page.

Many people might not realize the importance of sitemaps, when it comes to search engine optimization. While they are familiar with keywords, optimizing them in titles and text links are important, when it come to what the search engines will look for when searching for the content of your website. Through careful planning, not only will your sitemap be a great navigating tool for customers, but will be a part of keyword optimization for your search engine rankings.

If you are unsure how to create a SEO sitemap using the creation tools, most webmasters can do it quickly and easily for you. The important thing is that you take advantage of this tool, which can help move you up the search engine results.
Image Courtesy: http://www.lastclicknews.com/

Developing the perfect link building plan for your website can require a little of digging into the purpose of your site, business, and how you plan to help others with your information. In the online marketplace, a website’s importance can come from numerous factors including:

Age of the website
Traffic flow
Popularity and Inbound Links
Directory submissions
Unique Content

But, the troubles of developing a link building plan should start with your ideas of how you want your site to grow. Many people make the misconception that owning a website automatically builds their rank in the search algorithm - it is not true. You have to work hard to develop interesting content, work with a professional firm that can handle the massive workload of keeping up your link building efforts. Before you hire a professional to manage your SEO campaign, consider researching respective sites and developing content before joining directories across the web. Use smart, targeted steps towards building your inbound links on the web.

Research Respective Websites

A respective website (or high ranking site) is one with a lot of popularity. Respective sites such as government affiliated, professional organizations, and leading authoritative websites can help boost your link building plan in an instant. If you want to capitalize on the inbound links you have, you should work with other webmasters in placing your links on their sites for traffic. Many webmasters are open to new ideas, opportunities, and partnerships with smaller website owners because they had to work from the ground up. Helping you attract customers is a way of building rapport with respective influencers in a small way; consider the possibilities of attracting more links with setting one on a frequently visited page.

Develop Articles/Blogs/Signatures

Articles are the number one reference in building authority on the web. As you have noticed, everyone has published at least five articles somewhere to get their names out there. You have to be smarter, work harder, and write more distinctive content in your niche to keep a selective audience’s attention. Consider this - you are a pediatrician interested in building clientele in your market by link building online. You can have links on your articles, signatures in social networks, and professional profiles. These inbound links can pinpoint readers to the exact pages you want them to see on your websites.  Work with a professional SEO firm in order to integrate the proper content for the right market. The more emphasis you place on a single market - the better returns you will have in your link building efforts on respective sites.

Join Highly Selective Directories

Prominent directories (ones everyone fears) are the best ones to join in order to increase your link building. Some people join highly selective directories to place their site before a loyal market of surfers that only visit those directories for information. You have to work closely in developing unique content, organizing your site, and submitting it to these directories purposefully. By organizing your link building plan, you can take advantage of many opportunities available on the web. Contact your local SEO Company for more details by visiting www.ClickDepot.com to learn how they can assist in developing your website’s online presence.

Image Courtesy:  www.seopositions.net/blog/tag/blog

By this time of your online career, you have heard of page ranks based on Google’s little tool. You may even have heard about hundreds of pages a website must have in order to get that leverage. Well, the shocking truth surrounding page ranks lies in the ability to create outstanding content as well as build inbound links from reputable websites. It sounds simple, but you need to have enough confidence in your business to invest the time in establishing a presence online. One of the biggest mistakes taken by online business owners is jumping into SEO head first with no understanding; you can overcome this flaw by learning three easy steps in building page rank.

Create a Content Plan

Content is king across the web. In fact, content can determine the strength of your company as well as your website. People want to learn new facts, information, and have a way to share it with others. By constructing a solid content plan, you can cut out the interference of not providing up-to-date reviews or information in your industry. You can begin my writing evergreen content to build a foundation on your website then focus on specific issues that are affecting your industry now. These issues can be submitted as whitepapers, articles, or blog topics on many websites.

You have to find a place to publish your information to your target market; consider the advantages of working closely with a publishing company or an SEO company with publishing abilities. The more content you produce the better return on your inbound links as well as page rank in the future. Remember, the search engine loves to find new information in order to provide it to the readers online.

Build Links with Reputable Sites

Link building with government or reputable websites can shoot your page rank into a frenzy. Sometimes it will take a very, very long time to get in touch with influencers in your industry but the wait is well worth it. It is also vital to get certified by the Better Business Bureau if you want prospects to believe in your offers. Some online business owners make the mistake of claiming outrageous offers with no proof; you can back this kind of shadow into the light by establishing a strong reputation online. Remember, it is important to create a trend or develop loyal followers who come to your website. Your content and links have to offer insight in order to increase page rank in an ethical manner.

Improve Online Reputation

Reputation can determine the possibilities for sales, losses, and eventually lose of interest to customers. How well do you rank against the competition? There are thousands of companies that want to offer the same products/services at a reasonable price - what more do you have to offer? Quality service, testimonials, inbound links from customer sites, reviews, and articles can improve your company’s reputation while increasing page rank overtime. You have to remain steady in order to leverage the competition in search engines, but you have to do it smart. Focus on one step at a time instead of attacking ten different angles at once. Once you establish your place in one sector, move on into another one with more focus.

Image Courtesy : http://bloghob.com

Do you know what in-text advertising is? You’ve probably seen it. Just about any article you read online these days is going to have a double underlined phrase or two peppered throughout the article, and you’ll notice that when you hover your mouse over these phrases, a little “pop up” advertisement comes up enticing you to click and go to another website. For example, if the phrase that’s double underlined in the article is “weight loss,” you may find that when you hover your mouse over that double underlined text, you’ll come up with a particular advertisement for a popular weight-loss program.

Okay; so that’s what in-text advertising is, but do you use it? And if you do, do you use it correctly? How do you use in text advertising correctly? Here are several key tips you should follow when you use in-text advertising.

First, when you write your copy, make sure that the text used as in-text advertising is relevant to what you’re writing. In other words, both other businesses and consumers themselves are going to get savvy very quickly if you simply try to load your copy with irrelevant keywords that have nothing to do with what you’re actually saying, just so that you’ll get more advertisers.

Second, make sure you use in-text advertising SPARINGLY. A double underlined phrase or two per paragraph is probably a little bit much. Try to go with no more than three or four very targeted phrases for every 500 words you write. Again, people are going to nix your copy very quickly and quit reading you altogether if they feel like they’re being hit over the head and simply being “sold” something.

And third and finally, write your copy as though you’re not using in-text advertising at all. I’ll say that again; write your copy as though you’re not using in-text advertising at all. That means, what you write should be interesting to read on its own merits and nothing else. That’s true for a couple of reasons. Number one, you insult your readers’ intelligence if you think you can simply “advertise” to them without giving them interesting content. Not only that they won’t click on your in-text advertising, but they’ll also quit reading you altogether. And number two, your readers are much more likely to click on your in-text advertising and go see what it’s all about if they feel good about you — which means they have to feel good about what you write, too.

So remember, don’t insult your readers’ intelligence, and write your copy as though you’re not doing any in-text advertising at all. Make the in-text advertising you do match the copy you’re writing, so that it’s relevant and interesting to your readers. And that should give you more interest and more click-throughs, so that this type of advertising does exactly what it should do – that is, make you money.

Image Courtesy: http://www.dotperformance.com/service.php?Online-Advertising-21p

One of your goals with your ecommerce site is to get high search engine rankings. Getting ranked good on search engines is a key to getting traffic to your site, which will in turn, bring you sales and profit. Improving your search engine rankings and getting a top spot is not always easy, especially when you are first starting out. With 7 easy steps, though, you can optimize your ecommerce site.

Step 1: Create Individual Pages

You will probably need to go back over your website and make some changes when you first start the process of optimizing your website. You should have a page dedicated to each of your products. This will allow you to create unique content for each product and take advantage of the ability to capitalize on more keywords.

Step 2: Unique Content

Now that you have your website set up with each product on its own page, you can begin to get into content. Content plays a large role in search engine rankings, but just having a few lines of text on a page doesn’t do it. You have to have content that is unique and that is valuable. You likely have product descriptions, but these are not unique. If you sell a common product then chances are that same description is being used all over the internet. Reword the descriptions or better; write up a short article about the product.

Step 3: Cross Referencing

When you are creating the unique content you should cross reference other products that you sell. This links the pages of your website in a very natural fashion.

Step 4: Keep Adding Content

Content is very important to your search engine rankings, so do not stop adding new, fresh content to your website. You can add a blog that will allow you to keep adding new content on your site on a regular basis. You can also just add in articles where you see fit. Whatever you do, just add content often.

Step 5: Links

Content is not the only thing that is considered during search engine rankings. You should also have good quality links to other websites. When you link up to websites that have rankings then that will help you in your rankings.

Step 6: Get Reviews

Reviews not only add content to your website, but also encourage buyers. You can ask current customers to review the product for you and give them a coupon for their next purchase.

Step 7: Go Social

Social networking sites are amazing. The potential for a business person on these sites is amazing. You should join as many as possible. Make sure you stay active, add friends and post content. This is free advertising and it allows you to link up to these popular sites.

Optimizing your website does not have to be tedious. You just need to make sure that you are doing everything you can. You have to stay with it as it is an ongoing process. The internet is very fluid and things change everyday, so stay on top of things and your website should end up on top.

image Courtesy: http://www.netlogical.com/

Okay, so you’re spending a lot of time searching for various keywords, but the SEO just isn’t coming out the way you hoped. It happens all the time and no matter how you put it, the truth of the matter is you just aren’t using the right keyword research tool. Most people don’t want to spend the money on an expensive software tool, so they’re left with the free versions.

We decided to take a little time out of our day and tell you about the top 5 keyword research tools out there. Obviously you’re going to have to put up a little money, but you should expect to, considering everything you’ve done up to this point hasn’t made you hardly any money at all. Plus, all the time you’ve had to spend for basically nothing.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If you’ve tried to take on the pay per click arena, you came across this keyword tool a time or two. It doesn’t cost you anything to use it, but just remember that you have to spend the time doing it yourself. Finding the right keywords can take hours, even days depending on the criteria you’ve put in place.

Word Tracker

You’ll find that most people turn to the Word Tracker when they don’t want to spend money on a true keyword research tool. The only problem with Word Tracker is it isn’t entirely accurate. In fact, if you compare it to Google Adwords, there are several contrasts between the two of them. Plus, it only gives you the searches, and they’re on a daily basis instead of monthly.

Utilizing Others

When we first started to give out the top 5 keyword research tools, we planned on listing all of them. Unfortunately, the more we thought about it, there isn’t #1-#5 and all of them have pretty much the same benefits and downfalls. Well, all except one. The only difference is it’s not your average keyword research tool. It’s a place where you can find all the best ones in the same place.

What they do is offer you everything from Google Adwords Keyword Tool, Word Tracker, SEODigger, and all kinds of other tools for your marketing pleasure. Sometimes it’s just a lot easier to look in one place for all the answers, then try searching all over the place. When you get to this point, we highly recommend looking into the Click Depot. It should help you get what you need from the top keyword research tools.

Image Courtesy : http://www.kortia.com/keyword-analysis.html

As the #1 ad network, Google content network commands approximately 80 percent of the global network user. Thousands or even millions of advertisers use Google to reach out to their target audience and consumer base. Virtually all websites, big or small, take advantage of Google’s wide audience share and content niche to set their message across the World Wide Web. Although Google have already introduced Google Publication, website owners are still drawn to Google Content Network to effectively establish high traffic.

The network seems to mainly work for advertisers as it aids the delivery of measured ROI, making everyone accustomed to its convenient and easy search campaigns. Although the network presents a number of challenges to demonstrate the same ROI from the ad content, more and more online retailers are continuously impress by how well Google Content Network can influence their target market share. To better understand how the network works, let us explore this practical segment of Google applications.

Google Network is actually composed of a large group of websites and other products, emails and blogs that partnered with Google for their page rank and increase traffic campaign. One thing that makes the network appealing to advertisers is that they run on all Google Network with no extra cost. Taking advantage of such opportunity to reach out to millions of web surfers all over the world is something that a smart advertiser will never miss.

Google Network has two basic components; the search network and the content network. To cater to the ever expanding and increasing number of websites and products that needed to be advertised, Google concentrated postings of AdWords in its content network. That way, all websites and products will be reviewed and monitored to make sure that they comply with Google’s rigorous standards. As the content network grows, the stricter the standards and rules on advertising become.

The effectiveness and popularity drawn by a particular ad will greatly depend on the content theme of the website. Its popularity may be triggered or influenced by its keyword use of keyword placement. Through contextual targeting, a website that contains high-quality content will surely become relevant especially when it comes to the rankings of Google search results. With the right approach to keyword-targeted campaign, Google Content Network may improve the Google page rank or increase the relevance of a particular product or online retailer site.

Aside from keyword use, there are other factors that affect how ad campaigns operate in Google Content Network. Since Google has already partnered with a variety of websites, it supports virtually all categories of online networks. For instance, it works with Reuters and CNN to bring out relevant news by the hour. It also works social networks as well as small niche sites, which practically make Google ad pages accessible to all. Also, ad formats plays a vital role to increasing a website’s relevance in all Google Network. By making the ad page brief, straightforward and engaging ensures the delivery of the message to the right user.

Altogether, the practical applications of Google Content Network help online retailers to bring out the right ad to the right people. It gives full control over some parts of the network so their advertising pages can reach the right audience. As a result, websites can better establish their relevance to the business, product or service they represent in the highly competitive world of World Wide Web.

Image Courtesy : http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4184E54D3B439FB9

Yahoo may only be second rank to Google but it holds a significant volume of web surfers. It is considered one of the major players when it comes to search engine and web crawling applications. For someone who is in quest of keeping his website on its top search engine ranks, working out his Yahoo rankings is not as difficult as it seems. To the eye of an SEO specialist, maintaining the top ranks in Google page ranks is never enough. No website can ever dominate the popularity race without working doing something to optimize his popularity in Yahoo.

For people who have worked on their Google ranks, dealing with Yahoo page optimization should be a breeze. Not because Google and Yahoo are tight rivals, they deliberately work the opposite of ways. Contrary to the common belief, Yahoo and Google work with similar algorithms. However, it does not necessarily mean that a top ranking Google page will get the same marks with Yahoo. Here’s where their differences start.

Similar to other search engines, Yahoo also works with web spiders. It is called, the Yahoo! Slurp or the Yahoo spiderbot. This spider helps the search engine do indexing and database management by performing a specified mathematical operation to produce the pages that appropriately goes in every search result. Actually, Yahoo spiderbot is one of the most active spider crawler in the web. It works with just the same elements that Google web crawlers do. If it happens that your page misses an important SEO element, then it will be rendered not spiderable. This means that your page will never get top position, not yet. Compared to Googlebot, Yahoo spiderbot handles more pages and does more indexing. For someone who wanted to optimize his page, it takes a month or two to make all your SEO efforts to take effect in Google search results, but shorter with Yahoo.

The keywords in the title and in the URL also affect Yahoo search ranks. Similar to Google, keyword placement is also crucial to your SEO efforts with Yahoo. Having the most popular keyword on both places might earn some improvement to your Yahoo search ranks. However, you must remember that you can only place no more than 3 or 4 keywords on both URL and title. Putting your keywords everywhere might turn your webpage into a search derivative. Basically, that means not good. Since Yahoo is first and foremost a directory for submissions before a search engine, a website that carries the listed keyword in the search box stands a better chance of securing first page placements on the search results. In addition, keywords in filenames also work with Yahoo.

Another thing with keyword is keyword density. Keyword density sure makes a big difference. The higher the keyword density, the greater your chances of making it to the top ranks. However, you must not overdo and overuse keywords. Reaching above 7 to 8 percent keyword density, your web page may be classified into the keyword-stuffed category or be banned from the search results.

With Yahoo, it’s relatively young algorithm were found to favor some elements such as title tags, meta description tags, keywords in URLs, headings, Alt text images, inline links and site structure. Making slight changes on these aspects of your website can gain mixed results. You only need to have enough to find out which move works and which changes do not.

Image Courtesy : http://www.nddw.com/yahoo-optimization.htm

Becoming more popular as a way to get more exposure to your website, 3 way linking originated around 2007. The problem is that 3 Way Link Exchanges can be confusing so it is easiest to think of it as triangular linking.

The way that 3 way linking works is that website A links to website B, website B links to website C, and website C links to website A. The reason for this linking structure is that Google and the other search engines see all of the links as one way links, so it doesn’t appear you are trying to move your website up the search engines with excessive links. This seems to work for a short period of time, at least until the search engines run their algorithms and get suspicious.

The thing that has been emerging lately is a new kind of 3 way link exchange, where you don’t even know you are being involved in a 3 way link exchange. Where it used to be that you might want to link to a relevant subject website, and then they would link to yours, now they make it appear that way, and the next thing you know you are linked to a site that is just a 3 way link site.

The bad thing about this is that the search engine algorithms may pick this up as manipulating and not only move you down the page, but might cite you for bad behavior and you end up with less exposure than you had before.

Many of the webmasters are not that crazy about 3 way linking, primarily for this reason. They believe in good, old-fashioned search engine optimizations, and there is something to be said for that. If you are legitimately coming out with a good website that is search engine optimized, you don’t have to worry about manipulating your positions.

The other thing about 3 way link exchanging is that there is typically a monthly fee that goes on and on. Some think it is worth the $50 or so to participate in the 3 way link exchange, and sometimes it is if it drives that much in business to your site that you would not ordinarily get.

The most dangerous part of 3 way link exchanging is if you don’t want to be affiliated with a 3rd party link that has a bad reputation, that is not relevant to your site, or worse, may be a lewd or questionable site that would actually steer people away from your website by association or calling your trustworthiness into question.

When it comes to 3 way link exchanging, always be sure you know the sites that you will be 3 way linking to, or it could hurt your online business instead of help it. There are rights and wrongs to everything in life and a wrong move in 3 way linking could get your site suspended from the search engines.

Maybe the webmasters are right-build a good website that is search engine optimized and you will work your way up the search engine results without the cost or hassle of 3 way linking.

When it comes to Twitter applications, there are so many of them that many new users can become confused as to where to start.  There are a few that stand out and should be considered the top five to utilize if you are new to Twitter.  Based on findings by Compete, monthly traffic chose the top five applications by unique visitors, versus tweets and they are:

• Twitpic lets users share their pictures and it is the number one application on Twitter, with over a million unique visitors per month. 
• Next came Tweetdeck, with about a fourth of the volume of Twitpic, but impressive nonetheless.  Tweetdeck streamlines notifications and tweets. 
• Digsby got third place, which wasn’t far behind Tweetdeck, and it centralizes email, IM and social networks into one desktop program. 
• Twittercounter had over 200,000 visitors,
• Twitterfeed was next with over 149,000 visits and it automatically tweet posts on a user’s blog using RSS.

Of course, everybody that has used Twitter clients and applications has come to find their own personal favorites depending on why they use it.  There is a wide selection of Twitter application databases like Twitdom, Twitter Fan Wiki, Twapps, TwitTown and Twitstat. 

Twitterholic and TWhirl are popular and they come in at number six and seven, for those that are feeling slighted by this consensus.  Many frequent Twitter fans use these two, it’s just that the unique visitor count is lower, and they are frequented repeatedly by the ones that like them in a month.

The other thing to consider is that some think it should be based on the number of tweets and not the number of unique visitors, which makes it a different list, with Twitter.com, Tweetdeck and Twhirl coming in the top three by number of tweets.

Twitter.com was founded in March of 2006 with $55M by three entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on the Facebook and MySpace phenomenon.  Since that time, it has spurned a whole number of different applications to use on Twitter and it seems that everybody has their favorites, even if it is not any of the ones we mentioned.

Some like Twitter Atlas, Squawk, Twitticious, Remember the Milk Twitter, Social Comic Book, Twapper, TwitBin, TwittyTunes, Flotzam and Twitterment.  All of these are popular and offer some neat features. 

When it comes down to listing the top five Twitter apps, it’s hard to know what criteria to use and no matter what, you risk leaving out somebody’s favorite.  It just goes to show that Twitter offers something for everybody, and the best thing to do is to find the ones you like the best to fit your own purposes.

Since Twitter has become a popular way of networking personally and for business and promotional purposes, it only stands to reason that it serves different purposes for different people, so everybody is entitled to their own opinion when it comes to the top five applications.

The only statistical thing you can do is to go by Compete’s list of unique visitors which indicates different visitors in a month versus repeat ones over and over.

Image Courtesy Of: http://www.rickysays.com/