Search Engine Marketing - How To Use Blogs To Your Advantage!

By Fabian Tan

For many webmasters, blogging is just one part of operating a much larger website. While some people may feel that blogging is a craze that will fade, it does serve as a useful combination of other tools. As an example, if you use a public Yahoo group, or a message board for search engine optimization purposes, you will soon find that a blog is much more convenient to work with.

One of the most important aspects of modern search engine optimization is gaining access to live content. If you update your blog on a daily basis, you will be helping to meet this requirement.
Among other things, if you sign up for a Blogspot account, you may even be able to find a way to update your blog from your cell phone.

Over the years, website popularity has emerged as one of the most important factors in successfully getting your site listed in the top ten listings for a keyword. You can achieve this in a number of different ways. As an example, you can register multiple domain names and include your keywords in their names. That said, domain spamming is causing a number of sites to lose their ranking.

You can use blogs to gain link popularity without the risks associated with domain registration. Not only is this cheaper, your registration with different blog hosts will make it difficult for the search engine to determine that the same person is actually running all of the separate blogs. Considering that newer search engine spiders are being designed to thwart domain spamming, it is to your best interest to keep your website clear of it.

Fabian Tan is the author of the free 51-Page Report:

"Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!"

Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fabian_Tan

Search Engine Optimization - Website Cornerstone Development

By Zach J Hoffman

SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization, is the process of placing a website as a relevant source for a topic of information at the top of the major Search Engines, Google, Yahoo! and MSN. There are many ways to perform SEO. The following are a few of the many techniques to use to create an SEO campaign.

The first step is choosing the keywords you want to target. These should include words that you feel your target audience would type in to the search engines to find your website. If you are looking to target a city tied to your keywords please consider selecting the top 3 cities you would like to target to tie in with your target keywords.

The second step is to choose a domain name relevant to the topic of your website. Using keywords in your domain name relevant to the keywords you are looking to target will help you communicate your relevance to the associated keywords you are looking to target with the major search engines.

The third step is to map out your website. This information should have been provided to you from your website designer. The site map is the layout of your website as a hierarchical structure working from the primary pages of your website, to the secondary pages of your website, and onto the tertiary pages of your website. There may be additional pages under this hierarchy and you should categorize them as such.

The fourth step is to begin writing the meta-tags for each web page you would like to be optimized. You should start with your primary pages and work your focus down. The meta-tags should be written with three distinct areas: title creation, keyword targeting, and description. The title is what will appear in the upper left hand corner of the web browser describing what the specific page is about.

The keyword targeting will be the keywords you are instructing the search engine to mark your page as relevant for when it comes to the particular page. Description is the summary of the webpage you would like to display as the description of the website to the major search engines. Creating proper meta-tags is the cornerstone to creating a Search Engine Optimized-SEO website. The meta-tags should also all have a tightly weaved theme relevant to each other.

The fifth step is to categorize your site properly for directory submission. This means knowing how to classify your website based on the industry you know your site is relevant for. The directory will also ask which geographic area you are most relevant for and ask you to most likely categorize your website on a country level. The search engine will then most likely pull your city specific information from your meta-tags and your contact us page.

The process to SEO your website described above is a great starting point for a solid SEO campaign. SEO is a continuous process because the search engines continue to tweak their search engine algorithms (functions) to allow the most relevant websites to reign supreme. When performing SEO always remember relevancy is king.

Zach Hoffman is interested in helping people.To learn about seo services Seo search engine optimization visit: http://www.seo.cc

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Zach_J_Hoffman

Free Your Mind and Become Your Own Detective With A Reverse Cell Phone Lookup And Search

By Susan Knight

Have you ever discovered a mysterious phone number belonging to your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend? Is a number constantly harassing you on your cell phone or home phone yet it is not displaying a name on your caller id? Or, let us say that your prospected nanny is calling you from a phone number that is suspicious in nature? These cases and thousands of others are real-life situations that effect millions of people everyday.

Many phone numbers can not be traced using conventional means due to the advancement of technology. Before the birth of the Internet, you were probably left in the dark when your life was presented by one of these precarious scenarios. However, you can now use the World Wide Web to search for detailed information about the source of an unlisted telephone or cell phone number.

To meet the challenge of this post September 11th society, there are a number of database web sites that have been created to help law officials and private investigators perform reverse searches. These web sites can be very useful to you in finding long lost high school friends, researching a nanny or maid, checkup on a contractor, locating missing love ones, running a criminal background check, tracing prank calls, safe-guarding your neighborhood against sex offenders and proving if your lover is cheating on you or not. Thanks to these powerful investigative databases, you can sleep peacefully knowing that you have protected the sanctity, privacy and safety of your family.

So…how do you perform a free reverse phone search lookup?

Simply enter the mysterious residential, business or cell phone number in the search box and you can pull up an abundance of details such as the full name of the person or business, their current and previous addresses, court documentation, marriage/divorce records and other information depending upon your request. If you only have an address or name, a reverse address search can be beneficial to you and the police especially in cases involving an offense.
You can execute an unlimited number of searches with over 10 billion records at your disposal.
Instantly become your own detective and grab more reverse phone search tips at http://reverse-phone-lookup-background-check.blogspot.com

Job Search Strategies - Resumes That Rock - Seven Tips For Creating a World Class Resume

By Jane Trevaskis

First, and foremost, remember than a resume is used to screen out, not in. It is used to reduce the foot-high pile to a manageable handful. And this function is usually performed by someone other than the hiring manager. So, your goal is to get past this step to the person who can actually decide to hire you. Most people create a resume at the beginning of their career and simply update it from then on. Now might be a good time to take another look at yours. Here are seven tips on how to best translate your accomplishments into a resume.

1. Start with a summary. I know you think of a summary as the ending of a document. Think of this more like an executive summary at the beginning of a proposal. Most importantly, it is the only part of your resume that is almost always read. It’s the portion where you talk about the scope of your career and those capabilities that won’t fit into a specific accomplishment bullet.

2. Focus on accomplishments rather than responsibilities. You want your resume to reflect the successes you have had throughout your career. It’s much more effective to say that you brought in 150% of sales goal than to say you were responsible for sales in the southeast region. Review your career and focus in on the Situation you were presented with, the Actions you took and the Outcome you produced.

3. Never more than two pages. Most people who see lots of resumes automatically discard any that exceed two pages. If you are a recent college graduate, one page is probably plenty, but more than two is a real no-no. The only exceptions are academia and organizations that are closely related to academia. Then it is frequently called a curriculum vitae (or c.v.) instead of a resume.

4. Make it easy to read. If it’s hard to read, most people won't even try. Beginning all sections of the resume with action verbs helps. You can find lists of action verbs specific to your profession from books in the career section of your local bookstore on just google the term “keywords” and you'll get more than you could ever use. People scan resumes, they don’t read them. Most people who read lots of resumes spend less than 10 seconds on the first pass through – and that’s the one when they reduce the number of resumes that will be read more thoroughly from, for instance, 100 to 10. So, scan your resume yourself to make sure that your points get across in a less-than-thorough read.

5. References available upon request – NOT. Everybody knows that references are available and, since you have limited space on a resume, you don't need to waste the space. But you do have to have identified at least six people willing to serve as a reference and be able to provide their names and contact information within 24 hours of a request.

6. Education. The degrees you hold are important but, if your major wasn't relevant to this opportunity, don’t mention it. If you are looking for a job in a technical arena and your degree is in art history, it's better to just skip it. And if your degree is more than five years old, the date doesn’t go on your resume. However, both the institution you attended and the degree you earned are very important.

7. Optional Sections and Addendum. The final section of a resume is where you put those other parts of your background that are applicable. This section could list certifications, memberships (both professional associations and applicable volunteer involvement), awards, military experience, or technical skills. If you have an overload of one kind of optional information (patents, publications, technical skills, etc.) it can become a one-page addendum that you won’t give to everyone. However, an addendum must focus on only one subject – it is definitely not a third page of your resume. One addendum per resume.

Now, take a look at your current resume and spruce it up with these tips.

With your permission, I’d like to offer you a free report: Action Verbs for Resumes. You can download it by going to http://www.acatalystinyoursuccess.com/Report_Action_Verbs.html

If you would like to hear more about resumes and the other tools you need to conduct a successful job search visit http://www.acatalystinyoursuccess.com/Career_Home_Page.html
From Jane Trevaskis and Success-Catalyst.com

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

By Avinesh Prahladi

Search engine optimization is a method to evaluate and assess your website and it assists the search engines to read, and comprehend it. It is not all about rephrasing or altering the look of the website. It is a procedure where slight changes are made so that the content is more noticeable and the search engines can view and interpret the website easily. SEO cannot be termed as spamming as it is a method under which the search engines are assisted so that in return they can provide you assistance in the coming time.

For the past couple of years the procedure of SEO has been frequently put into use. Websites are being created using Java and Flash which the search engines are not able to comprehend and overlook. In a situation where the content of the website is overlooked by the search engines subsequently they are not able to index your website. If your website is not indexed then nobody can look for it in the search engines like- Yahoo, Google, and MSN. If your website is not visited by the target consumers then there is no use of putting efforts and capital in creating a website.

Search engine’s main purpose is to provide the potential results to the visitors and if for some reasons they are not able to index any particular website they might be loosing a great amount of content that the visitors are expecting. SEO bears so much importance that Google offers rules and regulations to opt for a SEO service.

How SEO functions?
There are majority of the websites those are not well functional on their topics. The keyword directory which has about fifty or more phrases in a particular page and the business that contains four individual submissions, websites make an effort to aim at all the four in a single time. Probably the website was targeting a search phrase that nobody is searching. SEO assures that every page of your website stays centered and consequently observed as an influence on the particular topic.

Free of cost search engines
On the internet search engines are free of cost. Google itself and the websites taking services of Google’s results make about fifty percent of the internet search market themselves. If you are only targeting Google then you are loosing your fifty percent of the business profit. SEO should be for all search engines, not just Google and at the same time keep constantly evaluating the search engines so that your website (or websites) remains at a decent rank. This way you are increasing your website consumers by making minimum efforts.

Pay Per Click Advertising
The results that are displayed on Yahoo and Google are known as sponsored links. Entirely depending how much is your budget, you can appear anywhere on the lists. There are companies who provide assistance in conducting effective pay per click advertising operation.
Linking

Search engines consider that keeping a link with your website will be beneficial. If you don’t contain an inbound links then the search engines won’t list your website. Higher number of inbound links will get your website decent ranking. It is recommended that be cautious of free for all (FFA) which is exclusively made to link. Search engines block these websites those are linked with these farms.

Choosing a SEO service
It can be verified by rankings of the website in the search engine. You should opt for those websites which has a ranking in the top ten because of its keywords. Imagine if a SEO company which can place a website in the top ten ranking at the same time when the opponents are professionals in this field, now you can very well assume what treatment your website will get.
Avinesh Prahladi is a professional content writer having proficiency in writing on diverse topics at WebartSoftech. For more information visit: Link Diary

Reciprocal Linking is Dead!" says James Martell, Natural Search Expert!

By Kellie Fowler

As an Online Storefront Owner, Grace Found Out the Hard Way That Most Webmasters Gathering Inbound Links are Simply Wasting Their Time! Natural Search Expert James Martell Tells it Like it is: Reciprocal Linking is Dead! Grace owns her dream business. She makes brides-to-be dreams come true with exquisite wedding gowns that range from the very affordable to the high-end-designer. While Grace enjoys catering to the needs of a growing Santa Barbara, CA clientele, sometime last year she decided to take her business to the Net, in an effort to “grow” her local wedding gown business into a national one, reaching
an even broader audience.
As a small business owner, Grace already understood the importance of outsourcing and worked hand-in-hand with a website developer and graphic artist to create a website that really looked great. She also hired a professional copywriter, did some great keyword research, and had high hopes of getting her wedding website into Google’s top 10 search results.

Grace regularly added pictures of her new inventory and worked with the writer to create sizzling descriptions that sold. She was also sure to naturally sprinkle her keywords throughout, and even added a new article on a different topic she knew would pique her site’s visitor’s interest every week.

In a few months, a disappointed Grace found her site on the eighth page of Google’s search engine results where it seemed to remain no matter what she did.

No bride-to-be would ever find it buried this deep in the search engine results!

Sure, Grace was making enough from the website to cover it’s costs and the time she invested in it each week, but that was it.

Ready to throw in the towel and declare the large amount of time and money she had invested in the beautiful wedding gown website a waste, Grace heard about a FREE 5-Day Backlinks *Audio* Mini-Course, which she could have delivered right to her inbox, download and listen to from her iPod on her morning run, not taking up any more of her already dwindling free time.

Grace starts to see the light Frustrated and knowing she truly had nothing to lose (other than her website and the potentially huge online audience and the profits associated with this), Grace signed up for the FREE 5-Day Mini-Course, which a friend had explained was actually five 30-minute informative excerpts and commentary from natural search expert James Martell’s recent workshop where he talked about the finer points of gaining top 10 rankings at the search engines, especially Google.
The friend, who enjoyed consistently good monthly profits from his online business, had told Grace she needed “high quality backlinks” to her site to get it in the top 10 search results and in front of her target audience, where she needed to be to turn a real profit.

But wait a minute! Grace’s webmaster already exchanged links with a number of other websites, and she had links back to her site placed on several other Webmaster’s “link” pages.

She thought this would do the trick.

Not so, her friend had explained. “You see,” he told Grace, “Most reciprocal link pages generally consist of a bunch of off-topic links with poorly created title tags, and no real value to search engines or visitors to that site, and they have no inbound links to the link page itself.”

Admittedly, Grace was confused.
“Grace,” her friend said, “Think about it like this: the search engines, especially Google, determine where each page of your website resides in the search engine results by anal
yzing the backlinks to each page.”
This was starting to make sense to Grace. The reciprocal links to her site were being analyzed by Google and the other search engines, and because they were on pages of little or no value, the search engines simply did not give her site “credit” for these links and they really were doing her no good.

Of course, she did get some traffic from visitors to those sites, but the search engines were not impressed, and neither was she now. She certainly was not going to spend any more of her time chasing down inbound links of no value.

Backlinking: It all becomes crystal clear Grace dutifully checked her email the next day and saw she had received the session number one of the five Backlinks *Audio* Mini-Course. She quickly and effortlessly downloaded the file to her iPod and laced-up her running shoes.

Grace smiled. She was on a mission.
Just 30 minutes in length, the first audio mini course was a real opener. In it, successful online publisher, author and speaker James Martell gave an enlightening, entertaining overview of what Grace could expect from the five segments and provided details on how she could implement a successful inbound link campaign, and drive her wedding gown website into the top of the search engine returns.

Was she ever impressed! Martell really cut through the clutter (and the hype) associated with free traffic and provided information she had never heard about on the free traffic that’s available through the search engines.

Then she heard something she really liked: “Once these rankings are achieved, there is minimal maintenance to keep your site there,” Martell said. “In fact, you can usually do your maintenance work on a monthly basis. Then, every time you add a fresh page of content, you can usually see that page ranking at the top of search engines in no time at all.”

Grace was always willing to work hard, but the thought of getting everything done initially and then just performing the ongoing monthly maintenance thrilled her. Now he was talking her language.

And since top results equal higher commissions, Grace was determined to achieve this and just knew that, after listening to the first session of the FREE 5-Day Backlinks *Audio* Mini-Course, this was the information she needed to start this process and because it was all delivered in layman’s terms, she found it easy to understand and considered signing up for the full live Backlinks Workshop in Martell’s online conference room, which her friend has recently taken and given rave reviews!

Martell’s free audio summary helps Grace begin to understand what it takes to develop a successful inbound link plan – one that really works! Martell was a great instructor. What a knack he had for this, and Grace found herself anxiously awaiting the next four sessions and listening to each on her morning run. In fact, Martell shared details about his own sites and explained how his sites rank so high with Google for his keywords.

Now, this made for an interesting run and Grace began to finally understand what was needed to catapult her site past her competitors and into the top 10 winner’s circle.

What’s more, Martell explained how to identify her online competitors and answered her most nagging questions on how to for multiple keywords.

Perhaps best of all, Martell explained that links back to Grace’s website had to be high quality to get the search engine’s “vote,” and this meant they had to have:

• Well-crafted, relevant content
• Keyword-rich title tags
• Strong headlines that really pique visitor interest and serve to entice the search engines
• Strategic keyword-rich text links
• Good Google PageRank
• Quality inbound links

No wonder why all those reciprocal links were doing her site (and her bottom-line) no good at all (except for the trickle of traffic her site received from the other sites visitors). As she was learning from Martell’s FREE 5-Day Backlinks *Audio* Mini-Course, it’s all about the overall quality of a page that the links reside on and because most reciprocal linking pages are not high-quality, reciprocal linking may as well be dead, for its performance sure is.

Thankfully, as Martell progressed through the free five-day mini course, he detailed a proven solution for getting backlinks, or inbound links, as he often called them, and that is through his PAD (Professional Article Distribution) technique.

And herein is the PAD secret: By providing a quality, interesting, informative article to another webmaster who agreed to post it on their site, Grace learned she could get two to three solid links back to her own product pages.

Thanks to Martell’s FREE Backlinks *Audio* Mini-Course, Grace also learned:

• Three tips Webmasters must know if they are going to have a successful inbound link campaign
  
• Some of the steps Martell uses to analyze his competitor’s backlinks
• Important information on the subject of duplicate content
• A few tips on how to organize her first backlinks campaign
• How to contact potential link partners
• How to approach these webmasters with the idea of publishing content from (that is relevant to their sites) so she can finally get high-quality backlinks for her own website
• And even about a free service from Google that helps her organize and track this important data

To have Martell’s FREE 5-Day Backlinks *Audio* Mini-Course delivered to your inbox ready to hear right from your desktop or downloaded to your favorite MP3 player, such as an iPod, or even your new iPhone, go to: Enroll today, the tuition is FREE! http://www.work-at-home-net-guides.com/lp/backlinks-mini-course.html

Remember, there are absolutely no strings attached and like Grace, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, including higher search engine results, more traffic and stronger results!

About the Author
Kellie Fowler is an award-winning freelance writer who enjoys her 2 rescue dogs, kayaking, fly-fishing, reading and writing. She is the owner of DotComCopy.com, a full-service writing company that provides content packages and ongoing subscriptions for Webmasters worldwide on topics ranging from backlinks to starting a home based business. Kellie currently also freelances for several international groups, Fortune 500 companies, and well-known national magazines and newspapers.

Search Engine Optimization Tips - Super Easy Search Engine Optimization Tips

By Matt Canei

Search Engine Optimization is a lengthy process that requires a lot of patience and a lot of time. Once it is done properly the rewards of being on the first page of Google are unparalleled. Below is an assortment of SEO tips that will aid in raising your website or blog up the search engine ranks.

- Make the most use of the HTML header in your web pages. Make sure the main keyword phrase that you are targeting is present in full in your title, the first entry of your keyword meta tag, and in the first part of your site’s description.

- Do proper keyword research and after doing so do not target keywords that are too competitive or the sites on the first page have authority status or high page ranks. I believe authority status is defined by PR5 sites or above.

- Build backlinks through submissions to link directories. Also run a link query (link:URL) of the first few sites on page one for your main keyword and see what sites they have backlinks on. Get links on those same sites then get more and beat them!

- Try to write at least 5 articles startup when you launch your site in addition with a press release, then write no less than one article a day that is completely original and unique even if it is on the same topic as prior articles try to write it from scratch. Include your site’s link in the author bio as it will build both backlinks and credibility as readers become aware of your expertise.

- Submit your website and articles to social bookmarking sites like digg.com and del.icio.us for a viral effect. This will build backlinks on these high PR social networks.

- Make sure your content is unique and original and is not copied from elsewhere or duplicated from already written articles. If you want to use the articles you submitted to directories then rewrite 30-40% of the article so search engines pick it up as unique content. Search engines penalize for duplicate content so make it unique. Unique content is king!

- Include your targeted keywords within your website’s content, the normal rate of keyword density is 3-5% of your content is keywords you are targeting, and definitely include your primary keyword phrase. However, do not spam your content with keywords all over the place or search engines will DQ them.

To discover exactly how to implement these tips and maximize their potential read http://www.seofornoobs.com The contents include: how to set up meta tags, keyword research, article directory submission, link directory submission, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, adwords and much more.

Higher Search Engine Rank is Easier Than You Think

By Eric Muir

As a web developer, one of the services I offer is to I help my employer's clients achieve higher search engine rank. It brings in several hundred dollars per client per month but it has always bothered me that a good 90% of these clients could easily do search engine optimization (SEO) for their website themselves.

I'm definitely thankful that so few are willing to spend a couple of hours and learn how to get higher search engine rank on their own but I still feel a little guilty that we charge so much for something that's so easy to do. So, with lessening my guilt in mind, I thought I would give those of you who want to save a few hundred dollars a month on your SEO services a few tips on doing it yourself.

Don't Be Intimidated
SEO isn't rocket science or wicked voodoo magic. It's simply constructing your website to clearly indicate to search engines what each page on your website is about. Unless you're in an ultra-competitive industry (think mortgage leads, gambling, or "adult" websites) you don't need an outside expert to do that for you. The good news for you and your business is that the vast majority of your competitors have no clue how to optimize their websites in today's market. You're already ahead of your competition if you're working to earn higher search engine rank and after you learn how to do it yourself you'll be like a shark in a pool full of guppies when it comes to earning website traffic.

Think "One Page One Message"
The second biggest mistake (I'll get to the biggest mistake in a minute) I find most webmasters make with their websites when it comes to search engine rank is trying to include too many messages on each page. Think of a storefront window that's plastered with advertisements for accounting, investment, estate planning, and tax preparation services. Even though a business could easily offer every one of those services imagine trying to tell a friend what they offer just by looking at that window. Are they accountants, stockbrokers, or lawyers?

The same is true of your website. Even though you may offer several related products or services you simply can't get a clear message across (a message that will result in higher search engine rank) by trying to advertise each product and service on one page. Your goal is to make it easy for a search engine to take a look at your page and know precisely what it's about. Tightly focused pages allow you to do that for both your prospects and for search engines.

Start by naming your pages with text that includes your keywords. For example, if the page is focused on your dog grooming services call it "dog-grooming.html". Include your keyword phrase in the title tag of your webpage - the closer to the beginning the better. "Dog grooming in Pittsburgh" is better than "Offering the best dog grooming services in Pittsburgh".

Include your keyword phrase (and only your keyword phrase) once (and only once) in your META keywords tag. Include your keyword phrase once in an H1 tag, once in bold, and once in italics in your webpage copy. Include it early in the first paragraph and late in the last paragraph. Include variations of your keyword phrase ("dog groomer", "groom a dog", "dog service", etc.) along with several repetitions of the exact phrase throughout your copy. Looking at your webpage it should be instantly clear what the page is about. Do this for every one of your keyword phrases.

Don't Focus Your Webpages on Single Word Keyword Phrases
We had a client recently who sold tractors. When we asked what phrases a potential customer of his might type into a search engine to find the kind of tractors he offered he gave us a list that included "Ford", "tractors", "farming", etc. These are words related to what he's selling but not at all related to how someone might find what he's selling. Generic one word phrases are very hard to rank for because they occur so frequently on webpages across the internet but, when asked for a list of potential search phrases, 75% of our clients give us a list that includes these kind of worthless phrases.

Focus your webpages on industry specific terms and phrases and you'll put yourself way ahead of your competition. If you're our tractor salesman, think about the type of questions customers that call the business have or what features or information is important to them and create webpages around those terms.

Your single biggest source of keyword phrases to create pages about should be the "frequently asked questions" of your customers. If someone is taking the time to call your business to ask a question there are many more people typing that exact same question into Google or Yahoo! - people you could bring to your website if you would only create and optimize a webpage for that term.

Don't Trust What You "Already Know"
The single biggest mistake our clients make is thinking they know how search engines work or how to structure their websites because they saw a news story or read a magazine article that "explained it all".

Traditional news sources are, at best, a year or two behind what's actually going on in this industry. A recent example is the entrepreneur's magazine Business 2.0. They featured "domaining" (do a Google search if you're unfamiliar with this term) in a recent issue and touched off a firestorm of letters to the editor from people ready and willing to throw money at this "new" way to make money online.

The problem is that domaining was news three or four years ago and the easy money has already been made by those who got in first. These newbies are just throwing their money away but they have no clue that they're getting old news because they haven't done any reasearch.

It's the same with search engine optimization and earning higher search engine rank. Stuffing the META keywords tag with dozens of versions of your keyword not only won't work like it did in 1997, it will get you penalized by search engines to boot. Including hidden keyword-rich text (white text on white background) on your site, two-way link exchanges, link farms, etc. all worked to some extent in the past but are at best ineffective today.

You'd be amazed at the number of clients who just want me to "stuff in more keywords" and think that's going to make any difference to their rank at all. The reality is that, although search engine optimization isn't difficult, it does require doing a little research and self-study to learn what really works and what used to work but doesn't anymore.

It's not that this industry changes very often, just that there's fifteen years of bad advice floating around out there that you have to know to disregard if you're going to earn higher search engine rank.

The good news for you is that your competitors probably aren't doing their due diligence either.
When I research industries for clients trying to evaluate their competition I find that many of the top ranking sites are simply there by default.

They're in no way optimized for any particular keyword phrase, are using "tricks" that stopped working several years ago, and lack any kind of consistent design or focus. But, every other site in that industry is doing the same thing so they achieve their #1 ranking by default. I always smile when I find these kind of industries (it happens more often than not) because I know that we can earn at least first page rankings for the client very quickly given competition that poor.

You Really Can Do It Yourself
It's impossible to cover search engine optimization in a single article but I hope I've given you some food for thought when it comes to getting higher search engine rank. Simply using the tips here will put you ahead of most of your competition without needing to pay outrageous fees to outside consultants to do it for you.

In the interests of keeping this article short, I've glossed over many of the details but you can get more information on earning higher search engine rank here.

You really can put yourself ahead of 90% of your competition with just a little education. If you're tired of paying hundreds of dollars a month to someone like me for work you could easily do yourself click here.