There can be several reasons why your SEO campaign isn’t a success yet:

Reason 1: you set the wrong goals

If your website doesn’t have many high rankings yet then you cannot expect that Google will display your site on the first result page for keywords such as “mp3″ or other very competitive one-word keywords.

You have to start with more targeted keyphrases first. Optimize your pages for many different keywords with lower competition. The more high rankings your website has for keywords with lower competition, the more likely it is that your website will also get high rankings for more competitive keywords that belong to the same topic.

It’s like running a marathon. You have to run smaller distances first before you can run the full 26 miles and 385 yards.

Reason 2: you don’t take SEO seriously

Search engine optimization isn’t set-and-forget. It takes some time to make things happen. Search engine optimization is an investment into your company and it should be treated like that.

If all you do to ‘promote’ your website is to submit it to search engines then you won’t be successful. You have to invest time and effort into the optimization of your site. Tools can help you to save a lot of this time and effort but you still have to work with your site.

Reason 3: you focus on the wrong elements

Some webmasters are obsessed with the length of the title tag. Others submit their website every few days to search engines. Other webmasters insist that a particular part of their website links must use the rel=nofollow attribute.

You don’t have to chase the latest search engine optimization trend. These trend topics usually make the difference between position 8 and position 9. If your website isn’t listed on the first result page at all, you have to get the basics right.

The most important factors that will get your website on Google’s first result page are optimized web pages with good content and good backlinks. The Top 10 Optimizer in IBP will help you with the fine details such as social mentions. However, it will also inform you when you have to focus on the foundation.

Reason 4: you chose the wrong keywords

This is an extremely popular mistake that many webmasters make. If you choose the wrong keywords, you will waste a lot of time and money.

The best keywords for your website are not the keywords with the biggest search volume. The best keywords also aren’t the keywords that will boost your ego and it’s also not the “obvious” keywords that will work best for SEO.

The best keywords for SEO are the keywords that deliver targeted visitors who will buy. It does not matter if a keyword has thousands of searches. If none of the visitors who find your site through that keyword will buy, then this keyword won’t do you any good.

Details about the different keyword types and information on how to find the best keywords for your site can be found in this PDF file.

Reason 5: you get the wrong links

To get high rankings on Google, your website must have good backlinks. Automatic links from link building schemes don’t work. Actually, that kind of links can even get you in trouble with Google.

You must get the right kind of backlinks to succeed. Use professional link management tools or backlink analysis tools to get the best possible links to your site.

Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem.
1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.

21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.

26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.

28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.

29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.

31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.

32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.

36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.

39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.

40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.

41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:

(1) Log out of Google

(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar

42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.

43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.

47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.

48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.

54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.

55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.

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The inbound links to your website are counted as “votes”. So the more votes you have, the higher PageRank your earn. You can view a website’s (including yours) by installing (if it is not already installed) the Google Toolbar that resides in the upper part of your browser once the Google toolbar is installed. In the Google PageRank button there is a green bar that ranges from 0/10 to 10/10. As a said, the websites sending you inbound links should also enjoy higher PageRanks (PR). The more links you get from higher PageRank websites, the less links you have to garner in order to attain a higher PageRank.

People have written complete research papers on how Google calculates PageRanks but if you are reading this just to search engine optimize your website, then the only thing worth knowing is that you should get inbound links from trusted websites that get lots of targeted traffic — this is the only thing that matter as far as your PageRank goes.

PageRanks used to be taken seriously a long time back, but not now. They do matter, but not to a great extent. You can enjoy top rankings in the search pages even with a PageRank 1.

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 For more information about SEO , please visit our site : http://www.imarketing4you.com , thanks!

META Tags- Sorry, but Google doesn’t read META tags. That includes the KEYWORD tag. Some search engines, however, still use them.

URL- Having a keyword or words in URL will help you somewhat. Having a key word in your URL is not by any means a guarantee, but it never hurts.

TITLE Tag- This is an important step, use this tag wisely. Place your top keywords here. Remember, your page is indexed starting from the top of the page. Make this one count.

Site content- The first paragraph of your site is a crucial part of your optimization. This will also be used as your site’s description. Be careful not to overdo it on the keywords. Make sure your content makes sense. Your keywords should make up a total of 6% to 8% of your page content. An average of three hundred words is a good rule of thumb.

Header Tags- Header tag should be considered important. Make headers uniform on your site. I like using them on the top of my page just before the first paragraph.

ALT Tags- These tags are great for adding keywords to images, so take advantage of them. I also use mouse over text with linked text.

Links- Any links you have on your site should have key terms in them. Never use “Click Here” or other unrelated words when creating links.

Bonus tip: When exchanging text links, use key phrases as the actual links. This will certainly help you out.

For Example:

Affordable Search Engine Optimization & Web Site Marketing
Mr. SEO is the leader in SEO. We handle targeted traffic, marketing and more. We also offer Web Site Marketing Articles to help you get more traffic to your site.

Links exchange- This will help boost your overall ranking. It’s actually better to be linked from another site (one way) than reciprocal (both sites linking to each other). Being linked one way is a huge bonus. However, the following should be kept in mind.

A: The site you are linking to needs to be related to your site.

B: Google’s page rank of the site should be higher than yours; the higher the better.

C: Avoid linking to sites that have too many links. A site that has forty or more links will only hurt you.

Bonus Tip: See where you rank on Google by using this free tool.

http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php

This Google ranking tool will show you under what keywords you are found on. Use this to help adjust the keywords you want to be found under. Be sure to check your ranking before you start any optimization. Then do it again 3 – 4 weeks after you have made your adjustments. See if your ranking has gone up.

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This article is the second in a two-part SEO checklist specifically for small business owners and webmasters. Last week, I shared 20 “don’ts.” Naturally, this week addresses the “Do’s”—things to make sure you include whether you’re hiring an SEO company or doing it yourself.

Small Business SEO Checklist: The Do’s

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

14. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

15. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.

16. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

17. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.

18. Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.

19. Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.

20. Take advantage of the tools the search engines give you. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.

21. Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? What if your Google visibility goes away tomorrow? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. In fact, many of the DOs on this list—creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search, etc.—will help you grow an audience of loyal prospects and customers that may help you survive the whims of search engines.

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Beware of web sites that promise automatic submission of your site to hundreds of search engines.  Most of these are just scams, and the rest submit your web site to a ton of spammy link farms, which will actually hurt your sites ranking.  The best way to submit your web site for search engine ranking and inclusion is to do it yourself or to hire an expert to do it manually.

Before you start to submit your website to search engines, ensure your websites are thoroughly designed to a professional quality using the right key words and related content. Don’t submit sites that are incomplete. While submitting to a search engine, make sure to provide information about your web site, keywords and any other information that may be pertinent, including the name and contact information of your business.

Mere submission to search engines does not ensure that your website will be immediately listed or ranked high.  Since there are lots of new websites popping up every day, it might take a little time before they are able to review your website. One important factor to remember while submitting you web site, is to include a site map which makes the crawling easy for the search engine robots.  Many search engines hardly consider sites without a sitemap.

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What is the point in SEO then?

Is SEO all about gaining better rankings for your main keywords? Is it about finding new keywords to rank for? Is it about making sure that your website ranks better than that of your competitors? Or perhaps it is all of the above? Well… yes and no.

SEO is certainly about improving your rankings in the SERP’s, and being better than your competition is always a good goal. And yes finding good keywords is a great way to achieve that. But your real goal is simple: Get more traffic and hence make more money!

How to use SEO in context

Ok so now you’re thinking, “Well that’s why we need better rankings isn’t it?” And yes it is definitely. But do you think that sometimes the SEO goal of getting a couple of results higher on Google can eclipse the over-riding goal to make more money? Sure it can, this happens a lot.

Further more. When you are finding new keywords to target, are you thinking about your users and how they might want to find you (or your competitors), or are you, at least occasionally, doing SEO for the sakes of it? Be honest…

Avoiding the SEO trap

The best SEO strategies are always the ones that focus on improving ranks naturally by creating a better user experience. It is important to keep this in mind when you are planning your own SEO activities. It is all too easy to pop in an extra keyword here and there until you end up with a site that doesn’t read right.

So from now on, think in more depth about each activity you undertake. Each time you make an SEO related tweak on your site, ask yourself “How will this affect my users’ experience?”

And when you are looking at new keywords to target, think about who might be searching using that phrase. The idea of SEO is to build targeted traffic. If you sell expensive china, there’s not a lot of point trying to rank for the phrase “cheap plates” even if it does happen to be an easy one to target.

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If you think that writing and publishing SEO articles is difficult, think again. There are techniques that you can use to simplify the process without sacrificing the amount of benefits that you’ll going to get from this amazing internet marketing tool.

First step is to identify the keywords that you’re going to use for your articles. This is very important. You need to target the same keywords that your potential clients are using when they’re looking for information related to your products and services. Make it a habit to use keyword suggestion tools like the one from Google as this offers accurate data. You would want to target the most popular keywords.

Choose your topics. Choosing your topics will become a lot easier when you know the most searched keywords in your niche. For example, if most of your potential buyers are searching for the term “DIY make up” you’ll know that they want a step-by-step guide that can empower them to apply their make up on their own. So, you may want to write an article that contains steps, tips, and techniques.

Put together informative content. Research your chosen topic before you start writing your articles. It will work to your advantage if you gather additional useful information as this will make your articles sound more authoritative. Then, write your articles with the aim to help or educate your readers. Give these people every piece of information that they need using simple terms and short sentences. Make sure not to leave them with unsolved problems or unanswered questions in their minds.

Optimize your articles. Make your articles search engine-friendly by writing them based on the latest algorithms or requirements of Google and other giant search engines. These engines will most likely to properly index your articles if they contain keywords on strategic points (titles, on each paragraph, resource box, and article summary) and if they don’t exceed the acceptable keyword density. It will also help if you use latent semantic indexing technique and other white hat SEO techniques.

Distribute your articles. Due to the popularity of article marketing, there are now hundreds, if not thousands of article directories in the online arena. Identify those that are trusted by both online users and search engines. These are the best sites where you should publish your articles to as they can give your copies the kind of exposure they deserve. Your articles will most likely to be accepted by the publishers if they contain at least 300 words, if they are properly optimized (no keyword abuse please), if they do not contain inappropriate content or ads, and if they are well-written and very informative. These publishers will require article summary, keyword list, and a resource box that will contain the link to your squeeze page, sales page, or main website. It’s your responsibility to make sure that the links on your resource box are working properly.