Basics of SEO

What do you get when you combine complex algorithms, self-proclaimed experts, thousands of unreliable resources, and a confusing line between best and shady practices? The perception of the current state of search engine optimization. If you find yourself perplexed and overwhelmed at the thought of SEO you are definitely not alone. In fact a lot of businesses shy away from the practice all together. But the truth is that a business can benefit significantly from quality SEO efforts. Whether you are looking to tackle your company's SEO efforts on your own or if you are looking to outsource, the best practices outlined below should help clear the water for you.

1. Optimize for people, not robots. The goal of your online presence should be to provide quality information to your current and potential customers in order to increase your sales and market share. By optimizing your site for the search engine robots (spiders) rather than your visitors will often add confusion and decrease the likelihood of them visiting your site again. A #1 ranking is only good for your business if it is converting visitors into customers.

2. Results take time and effort. Because you are optimizing for people, and because search engines can tell the difference, the SEO too good to be true deals are no longer effective. The "#1 ranking in 2 days" deals are actually much more likely to get you penalized than to help you. Producing quality content, interaction with your target audience and building valuable links will take time but will prove much more beneficial to your rankings.

3. Social matters. Until recently social efforts were separate from SEO. However, search engine developers are realizing that the links you are sharing through social media networks should account for something. By sending a link in a tweet, liking an article with your Facebook account, or hitting +1 you are indicating the link's relevancy and therefore increasing its SEO.

4. Algorithms adapt. As long as the Internet is evolving, so are search engine algorithms. The best way for you to adapt is to stay up-to-date and involved with the online mediums that people are using. If Google+ makes Facebook a thing of the past, transition more of your efforts to Google+. When the next online technology makes its way to the top of Internet usage, spend some effort analyzing how it can fit into your online marketing strategy.

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The Basics of Building Profitable Websites for Beginners

Lots of people start themselves a website every day in the hope of making a little bit (or a lot) of extra income on the internet. There is nothing too difficult in doing this if you are prepared to put in quite a bit of work, learn about how bring traffic to your website and also how to then monetize that traffic. This article deals mainly with the basic decisions you should be making before you ever actually get a site up and running.

A Free Website or Should You Make an Investment?

The most common mistake that I have come across for new marketers is the fact that they often choose a free website over something that they actually pay for and own for themselves. WordPress.com is one place that will allow you to do this but don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can just monetize the site after you have built it. There are some pretty strict rules with regards to what you are allowed to do on a WordPress.com website.

You still could build a website for free; a BlogSpot at Blogger.com is good for this but you have to bear in mind that the website is never truly your own. While free is of course good, it is not necessarily better! Where would you be left if you spent months or even years building out a great website on BlogSpot only to find that Google shuts down the site at a later date? You would have lost all of your hard work overnight.

A much better option than either a WordPress.com or Blogger.com website is to have your own hosted website. Yes it costs a little but it gives you the peace of mind of knowing that this website is your own and nobody can take it away from you. Hosting comes very cheaply these days, especially for the first year and during this period you can see how you get on with the site and then make a decision as to whether you will keep it running or not depending on the level of both income and enjoyment you get out of it.

Keywords, Traffic and Competition

Secondly, you are going to have to learn a little bit about how to get traffic to your site. You might have some of the most fantastic articles on the internet on your chosen subject but if nobody ever sees it then you are dead in the water.

The name of the game here is to analyse what people are actually typing into the search engines, analyzing the competition from other websites for these keyword phrases and then making a decision as to whether or not it is viable for you to compete for these keywords.

Most of those who are serious about earning an income online use some sort of keyword tracking tool which not only helps you decide on which keywords are worth targeting but also keeps a track of your rankings over time so that you can monitor progress as you rise (or fall) in the results on the search engine results pages.

WordPress, a Great Option for New Internet Marketers

Once you have made a decision on what type of keywords you are going to target, it's time to look into buying a domain name, purchasing hosting and deciding on how you are going to present your website to the world. Many beginners and experienced online marketers choose to use 'WordPress' to build their websites, this is a very easy method to get going quickly but as with anything, there is going to be a bit of a learning curve involved. Don't let this put you off however; there are a multitude of websites out there offering WordPress tutorials for beginners, intermediate and advanced users.

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