Search Engine Optimization Tips

Incoming links are of 2 types.

(Links from sites we control)
(Links from sites we don’t control)

Links pointing to a website from other related sites is called incoming link popularity.
To find link popularity for a website or which sites are linking to our website or competitors website we need to go to Google search box and enter “link:” followed by domain name with out using “www”

For example:

Link: tipsoninterview.com

1. Links from sites we control
It is good to do cross linking of our web sites. Select keywords that describe the site we are linking to. The reason for doing this is because some of the major search engines, such as Google, place a great importance on the text used within, and close to, links.

2. Links from sites we don't control
There are two ways of finding sites to link to our website. The best way to get other sites to link to our website is to ask them politely. And the best way to find likely candidates is to ask web sites that link to your competition.

Once we have compiled a list of related sites, add a link of those website to our web site. Then send an email to each web site owner informing them that we have linked to their site and politely ask them for a link back to our site.

Another way of finding sites to link to our web site is to find web sites that accept site submissions. To find such web sites, visit a search engine, such as Google, and search for:

"add url" “keyword"

Include the quotation marks to ensure the search engine only return pages with the exact search phrases we enter. Also try replacing, "add url" with one of the following sets of search phrases:

add site +keyword
add link +keyword
Submit url +keyword
Submit site,
Submit link,

we can also find site submission pages by searching for the actual page. By replacing the "add url" search phrase with one of the following page names we get the submission pages.

addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html.

submiturl.html, submitsite.html, submitlink.html.

Add-url.html, add-site.html, add-link.html,

Submit-url.html, submit-site.html, submit-link.html,

add_url.html, add_site.html, add_link.html,

submit_url.html, submit_site.html, submit_link.html

Number of Links to and from pages within a site is called as internal link popularity. Search engine spiders find and index important related pages quicker if some pages are buried deep within the site when we do cross linking of important related pages

1.Keywords in title tag :
As per HTML specifications it is not mandatory to write something in the 'title' tag. In case if you leave title tag empty then the title bar of the browser will read as “Untitled Document” or similar, for SEO purposes it is good to use 'title' tag.

The title tag must be short with in 6 to 7 words and the keyword must be near the beginning. Keyword in the title tag is one of the most important places because what is written inside the 'title' tag shows in search results as your page title.

Search engines (including Google). Mostly display content of the 'title' tag.

For example:

The title tag of the home page for the http://see-seo-tips.blogspot.com can include something like this:

'title' Search Engine Optimization Tips – go through these useful interview tips to be successful in interviews. '/title',

'title' Search Engine Optimization Tips - Everything You Need to Know regarding interview tips '/title'

2.Keywords in URL :

Keywords in URLs help a lot in getting better position in search engine result pages.
Eg:-http://srihithas.com/webdesigning.html,

Where “webdesigning’” is the keyword phrase where we attempt to rank well. But if we don't have the keywords in other parts of the document, we don’t need to rely on having them in the URL.

The domain name and whole URL plays an important role IN SEO process. The presumption is that if our web site is about cows, you will have “cows”, “cow”, or “calf” as part of our domain name. For instance, if our web site is mainly about cow milk , it is much better to name your cow site “cow-milk.net” than “animal-milk.org”,

Because in the first case we have two major keywords in the URL, while in the second one we have no more than one potential minor keyword.

Don’t be greedy when hunting for keyword rich domain names. From search engine optimization point of view it is better to have 5 keywords in the URL.

But if we imagine the URL by using 5 potential keywords it will be long and difficult to memorize. So we need to balance keywords in the URL and the site usability. So it is advisable to use less than or equal to 3 keywords in the URL.

Directory names and file names are also important. Often search engines will give preference to pages that have a keyword in the file name.

For instance http://ourdomain.com/interview-tips.html is not as good as http://tipsoninterview.com/interview-tips.html but is certainly better than http://ourdomain.com/interview-guidence.html. The advantage of using keywords in file names over keywords in URLs is that they are easier to change, if you decide to move to another niche.

3.Keyword density in document text :

After we have chosen the keywords that describe our web site the next step is to make our web site keyword-rich and to have good keyword density for our target keywords. Keyword density is a common measure of how relevant a page is, the higher the keyword density, the more relevant to the search string a page is. Recommended keyword density is 3-7% for the major 2 or 3 keywords and 1-2% for minor keywords. We can check keyword density by Keyword Density Checker tools which are available freely.

If we make keyword stuffing there are severe penalties including ban from the search engine because this is considered an unethical practice that tries to manipulate search results.

4.Keyword stuffing :

Keyword density over 10% and above which are artificially inflated in a webpage is regarded as Keyword stuffing and there is a risk of getting banned from search engines.

5.Keywords in anchor text :

If you have keyword in the anchor text in a link from another web site, this is regarded as getting a vote not only from this web site but also from your site in general but about the keyword in particular. So it is good to have anchor text for inbound links.

6:Keywords in headings (H1, H2, etc tags) :

Keyword in header tags counts a lot. But before placing ensure that the web page has actual text about the particular keyword.

From literacy point of view headings separate paragraphs into related subtopics. From seo point of view it is good to have as many headings on a page as possible even though it may be pointless to have a heading after every paragraph, Especially if we have keywords in the headings.

Even though there is no technical length limits for the contents of h1, h2, h3,…. h5 tags.

We need to be wise with the length of headings; too long headings are bad for page readability. Another issue we need to consider is how the heading will be displayed. Heading 1 (h1), means larger font size in this case it is recommendable to have less than 7-8 words in the heading, otherwise it might spread on 2 or 3 lines, which is not good.

7.Keywords in the beginning of a document :

Placing keywords in the beginning of the document also counts, however, beginning of a document does not necessarily mean the first paragraph – for instance if we use tables, the first paragraph of text might be in the second half of the table.

8.Keywords in ALT TAGS :

Search engine Spiders don't read images but they read the textual descriptions in the tags, so if you have images on your page, fill in the tag with some keywords about them.

9.Keywords in metatags :

Placing keywords in metatags is important, especially for Google, Yahoo! and MSN as they rely on them, so if you are optimizing for Google, Yahoo or MSN, fill these tags properly. In any case, filling these tags properly will not do any harm so better to have metatags in the page.

10.Keyword proximity :

Keyword proximity measures how close the keywords are placed in the text. It is best if they are placed immediately one after the other (e.g. “puppy food”), with no other words between them. For instance, if you have “puppy” in the first paragraph and “food” in the third paragraph, this also counts but not as much as having the phrase “puppy food” without any other words in between. Keyword proximity is applicable for keyword phrases that consist of 2 or more words.

11.Secondary keyword :

Optimizing for secondary keywords can be a golden mine because when everybody else is optimizing for the most popular keywords, there will be less competition (and probably more hits) for pages that are optimized for the minor words. For instance, “web designing in Hyderabad” might have thousand times less hits than “web designing” but if you are operating in Hyderabad, you will get less but considerably better targeted traffic.

12.Keyword stemming :
In English we have words that stem from the same root.

Example :- ( dog, dogs, doggy)
(KISS, KISSES, KISSING)
(JOKE, JOKES, JOKEY, JOKER)

If you have “JOKE” on your page, you will get hits for “JOKES” and “JOKER” as well, but for other languages keywords stemming could be an issue because different words that stem from the same root are considered as not related and you might need to optimize for all of them.

13.Synonyms :

Synonyms are not taken into account when calculating rankings and relevancy in languages other than English. Optimizing for synonyms of the target keywords, in addition to the main keywords is good for those sites developed in English, for which search engines are smart enough to use synonyms as well when ranking sites.

14.Keyword Mistypes :

When searching for information using a particular keyword Spelling errors are very frequent and if you know that your target keywords have popular misspellings or alternative spellings.

Examples for keyword mistypes

(Christmas and Xmas) (Diwali and Dipawali)

Targeting these misspelled keywords might get you some more traffic but having spelling mistakes on your website does not make a good impression, So it is better not to use these misspelled keywords in the content, but we can use them or try misspelled keywords in metatags.

15. Keyword Dilution :

When webpage is optimized with an excessive amount of keywords, especially unrelated ones, this will affect the performance of all the keywords and even the major keywords will be lost or diluted in the text. So don’t target more keywords in one single web page.

16. Keyword phrases :

Keyword phrases consisting of several words can be optimized in addition to keywords, e.g. “Keyword Analysis”. It is best when the keyword phrases you optimize are popular ones, so you can get a lot of exact matches of the search string but sometimes it makes sense to optimize for 2 or 3 separate keywords (“keyword” and “analysis”) than for one phrase that might occasionally get an exact match.

1.Keyword Density :
Keyword density refers to the ratio or percentage of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a web page. It is important for your main keywords to have the correct keyword density to rank well in Search Engines. Keyword density ratio varies from search engine to search engine. The recommended keyword density ratio is 2 to 8 percent. Keywords quality is very important more than keyword quantity because if we have keywords in the page title, the headings, and in the first paragraphs this count more. The reason is that the URL (and especially the domain name), file names and directory names, the web page title, the headings for the separate sections are more important than ordinary text on the web page . we may have same keyword density as our competitors web site but if we have keywords in the URL, this will boost our website ranking incredibly, especially with Yahoo search.

2.Keyword Frequency:
Keyword frequency means the number of times a keyword phrase or keyword appears with in a webpage. The more times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page, the more relevance a search engines are likely to give the page for a search with those keywords or key phrase.

3.Keyword Prominence :
Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a web page. It is recommendation to place important keywords at the start or near of a web page, starting of a sentence, TITLE or META tag.

4.Keyword Proximity:
Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. It is better to have keywords placed closer in a sentence.

Keyword proximity examples:

Example 1: How Keyword Density Affects Search Engine Rankings.

Example 2: How Keyword Density Affects Rankings In Search Engine.

In above example, if someone searched for "search engine rankings," a web page containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second.

The reason is because the keywords are placed closer together.

Keywords Levels are totally ౩త్య్పెస్

1.Low level keywords :

If the keyword competition (in Google) is <= 4 digits then it is considered as low level keyword. For low-level keyword we can optimize a website with in 3 months.

2.Medium level keywords :

If the keyword competition (in Google) is <= 7 digits it is considered as medium level keyword, For medium -level key words we can optimize our site with in 6 to 7 months.

3.High level keywords :

if keyword competition is above or equal to 8 digits it is considered as high level keyword .we can optimize these high level keyword in 1year.

1.Keywords for Search engine optimization :
Keyword is nothing but “on what we are searching for”.

Ex: - India temples, job opportunities, web development, Telugu movies, it solution, software training.

Key word should be “well define” and It must be a meaningful

Key Phrase: -Combination of 2 key words

Keywords are considered the most important in Search engine optimization. So it is necessary to see that the right keyword is optimized for your website. Choosing keywords seems easy at first but when you get into more detail, it might be a bit confusing to correctly determine the right keywords. But with a careful keyword research and thinking the problem of selecting the right keywords to optimize for a particular website can be solved.

Keywords are what search strings are matched against. when you start optimization, the first thing you need to consider is the keywords that describe the content of your web site best and that are most likely to be used by users to find you.

Choosing the right keyword is the first and crucial step to be successful in seo process, Before choosing keywords we need to see:

What the online population is searching for?

What are the keywords our competitors chosen?

What are the keywords that describe our website best?

If we fail in choosing the right keyword we will waste ours or our client’s money and time. after we have made a long and detailed list of all the important keywords that are searched by tens or thousands a day and If you have many competitors for that particular keywords we have chosen, chances are that it will be difficulty to overtake them and place our website among top ten results,

If we are not placed in the first page or on the second page or in the worst case on the third page of the organic search results, we will have very few visitors to visit our website. It is true that sometimes even web sites that are after the first 50 results get decent traffic from search engines but it is certain that you can't count on that.

We should not get discouraged if all lucrative keywords are already occupied; Low-volume search keywords can also be as lucrative as the high-volume ones and their main advantage is that you will have less competition with these keywords.

Some of the SEO experts confirm that with low volume search keywords it is possible with less effort and with in less budget we can achieve much better results than targeting for high-volume search keywords.

Before selecting a low volume or high volume search keyword we need to make an estimate about how difficult it would be to rank well for a particular keyword.

2.Choosing the Right Keywords to Optimize for search engines :
It is impossible to achieve constant top ratings for a one-word search string as the Web is densely populated with web sites; It will be a realistic goal when we achieve constant top ratings for two-word or three-word search strings.

we can include one-word strings in our keywords list but if they are not backed up by more expressions, it is waste of dreaming for high ratings.

For Example if we have a website about temples, “temple” is a mandatory keyword but we will be not successful if we do not optimize for more words, like “temples in India”, “temple visiting times”, “temple gods”.

we need to think broad when choosing the keywords, When we start optimization (seo), the first thing we need to consider is the keywords that describe the content of the web site best and likely to be used by users to find the website or service provided by the website. We should understand our users well and guess correctly what search strings they are likely to use to search our website. Synonyms can be taken into consideration.

For Example, in a dog site, “canine” is a synonym and it is for sure the users will use it, so it does not hurt to use it as a keyword in the content of the web pages.

But search engines have algorithms that include synonyms in the keyword match, especially in languages like English so do not rush to optimize for every synonym.

3.Website Keyword Suggestions Tools :
can help you to see how search engines determine the theme of a web site and what keywords fit into this theme. We can try Google’s Keyword Tool to get more suggestions about which keywords are hot to use.

Before choosing particular keyword or keywords or key phrase to optimize for Google or any search engine, we need to see relevancy of keyword to our web site and the expected monthly number of searches for this particular keyword or keywords or key phrase.

Some times narrow searches are more valuable because the users that come to our site are those that are really interested in our service or product. If we go on with the temples example, we might discover that the “festivals in India” key phrase also brings us more visitors because we have a special section on our web site where we give information or list of festivals in Andhra Pradesh. This page is not of interest for current visitors for temples but potentially attracting this niche can be better than attracting everybody who is interested in temples in general. So when we look at the number of search hits per month consider the unique hits that fit the theme of the website.

4.Effective Keyword Choice Strategy and Useful Tools :

The search engines will know the Web site theme while "crawling" the site pages; this is where the keyword power needs to be utilized. One correctly targeted keyword will produce a better overall search engine ranking than keywords just generally placed. The presence of that keyword placed strategically across the site is a factor in determining whether or not the web site is ranked high in a search on sites like GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN. Many users will type broader search criteria into the search engines if they are uncertain of exactly what they seek. We should try to establish what keywords are most used in the context of the web site content and theme. Choosing keywords depend on the target audience's needs, and what keywords they will use to locate sites.

Keywords will be relevant words and parts of phrases that relate to the site content.

So what kinds of keywords should we use?

For example: if you have a site that focuses on mobile phones, When any person is not aware of model and service provider and if he is searching for information like what are the best mobile deals available at present?

Some keywords might be "mobile, mobile phone, phone tariffs, cellular," etc. If the user wants to find mobile phone sites that host budget phones, he or she may type the keywords mentioned above.

If it is a movie information site, keywords could be "movies, film, movie, films, horror movies, Horror, sci-fi, action, cinema"

This positioning and choice of keywords is crucial for a site towards SEO optimization.

5.Seeing in Overture which of the keywords that are related to our web site had most searches recently and optimize for those keywords is wrong because the fact that a particular keyword is often searched does not mean that this alone makes it a worthy target. If the competition for this highly desired keyword is tough, your efforts might be useless,

Search Engine Optimization is the practice of making website to be search friendly to search engines and for those who search business through search engines webmasters make following mistakes.

Over Optimization affects your website Ranking.

1.Incorrectly Designed Websites :

Lack of proper Navigation
Using frames to save web designers designing times
Large image sizes will cause more time to download pages. If it is necessary to use large images then consider using thumbnails and open it in separate page. (This helps in creating more pages and more text which help the spiders to crave)
Using high resolution graphics (Try to use low resolution graphics)

2.Poorly Written of content :
content absolutely must have targeted keywords and phrases. If content is written properly you can make more targeted keywords and appropriate phrases.

Absence of targeted keywords and phrases can break your site. If you have not used related keyword in your body text then your site will not come in listing when user type particular keywords related to your site.

More sure to use keywords placed in the meta keyword tag is logical to your content.

People visiting your site as a result of their search would leave as soon as they see the home page is it is irrelevant or don’t match to the keyword or phrase they are searching. Use some tools such as word tracker to find what people are actually typing in to the search engines to find goods and services similar to yours and should concentrate on ranking well for those terms.

3.Replica of Content :
Using more than one page with different name, but content in page are same then search engines will consider this as trick and this affect ranking never try to copy content from other websites.

4.Improper use of Meta Tags or site without Meta Tags :
Meta Tags are used to include keyword and description of tags. These Meta Tags help search engines for quick search. Meta tags also help websites to increase ranking in search engines meta tags have to be included in all pages of the website.

Improper Metatags or without Meta Tags can misguide search engines and lead to improper listing of websites absence of page title will harm ranking of the websites.

5.Absence of Sitemap for Websites :
Sitemaps assist web crawlers in indexing websites more efficiently and efficiently. Sitemap provides the structure of entire website in one page which is very useful for search engine Optimization. Generally site maps drive search engines to go directly to the page instead of searching the links.

Google sitemaps is an easy way to tell Google about all the pages on your site; which pages are most important to you, and when those pages change, for a smarter crawl and fresher search result.

6.Improper use of Meta Tags or site without Meta Tags :

Meta Tags are used to include keyword and description of tags. These Meta Tags help search engines for quick search. Meta tags also help websites to increase ranking in search engines meta tags have to be included in all pages of the website.

Improper Metatags or without Meta Tags can misguide search engines and lead to improper listing of websites absence of page title will harm ranking of the websites.

7.Page Cloaking :

In this method the web masters deceive search engines by altering the real page content with declared description. Normally spidering robots recognized by their IP addresses or host names are redirected to a page that is specially polished to meet search engines' requirements, but is unreadable to a human being. In order to detect cloakers, spiders often come from fake IP addresses and under fictitious names. Also, users' feedback is collected to see the relevancy of content with description, the page is also revised by search engine owners’ staff and if found any difference the sites are penalized.

8.Spamming:

If the keyword density value becomes excessive it will be regarded as spam which is also called keyword damping. Some webmasters use keywords or key phrase as many times as possible to make a page more relevant for keyword or for a certain key phrase and if it is used more it looks unnatural, These pages will look odd both for search engines and also for human visitors. Search engines will penalize these type of web pages by reducing page ranking and any WWW user will hardly wish to return to this web page after having visited it once.

The other type of spamming method followed by webmasters is using colours to hide multiple keywords

9.Link farm :

Inorder to artificially increase the link popularity many site owners unite in so called link farms. this is nothing but networks where everyone links to everyone else just concentrating on the quantity of links and disregarding their quality.

Having too many links will be worthless, a page that contains links, just links, and nothing else but links will not be authoritative. modern search engines analyse the link quality in terms of web site relevancy, they rank highly if it leads to a site devoted to similar issues. Choose link excange partners whose business is similar to yours. The sites of your partners, or web portals devoted to your business issues are ideal for link exchange.

10. Don’t use Robot to write content for your Web Site:

Never try a machine to write content for your website, there are certain programs that duplicate the same content but make some small changes here and there. if Google catches your website employing this technique you are in trouble, so always write your own content.

11. Hiding keywords:

Font matching: Hiding keywords by making the background color the same as the font color. This is called as font matching. All the search engines are sophisticated at catching these frauds and they will remove any websites using these bad seo techniques.. Placing teeny tiny text at the bottom of a page also don’t help in search engine optimization.

12. Distributing Trojans, Viruses, and Bad ware:

Don’t distribute Trojans, viruses and badware, If Google finds your website distributing them then your website will be removed from the Google index, to protect the public from these bad practices., so always check the software before you agree to distribute them, we must also see our servers are secured so that hackers cant hijack the website and distribute malicious software.

13. Doorway Pages:

Doorway pages or also called as Gateway pages and these are optimized by unethical seo professionals , in this technique they make webpage designed for one key term but are really designed to be gateways to lead you to different content.

For instance by seo technique they make the "blackberry," "blueberry," and "strawberry" gateways all designed to get you to go to "fruit punch."
We should be aware of affiliate programs, because google may consider some of these affiliate programs as doorway pages .

When a website is specifically designed so that it is friendly to the tools that search engine use to analyze websites (Called spiders) is called Search Engine Optimization.

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Offline/off page Optimization
Online/on page Optimization
Position Monitoring

Offpage Optimization :

Hosting of Google sitemap
Website submission to all leading search engines having global data base.
Submission to country specific search engines having country related data base
Submission to general directories
Submission to product specific directories
Submission to country specific directories
Trade lead posting

Onpage Optimization :

Pre Optimization Report
Key word research
Competitors website analysis
Rewriting robot friendly text
H1 H2 Tags Optimization
Title Tag Optimization
Meta Tag Optimization
Key words Optimization
Alt Tag Optimization
Website structure Optimization
Body text and content Optimization
Sitemap for link Optimization

Position Monitoring :

Monitoring website ranking with different keywords
Renewal of expiry trade leads and posting new trade leads
Constant research of updated technology for better positioning
Research on current popular directories and site submission
Changing methodology with change in search engine algorithm

Spider - a browser-like program that downloads web pages.

Crawler – a program that automatically follows all of the links on each web page.
Indexer - a program that analyzes web pages downloaded by the spider and the crawler.

Database– storage for downloaded and processed pages.
Results engine – extracts search results from the database.

Web server – a server that is responsible for interaction between the user and other search engine components.

All search engines consist of three main parts:

The Spider (or worm)
The Index
The Search Algorithm.

The spider (or worm), continuously ‘crawls’ web space, following links that leads either to different website or with in the limits of the website. The spider ‘reads’ all pages content and passes the data to the index.

The index is the next step of search engine after crawling. Index is a storage area for spidered web pages and is of a huge magnitude. Google index is said to consist of more than three billion pages.

For example Google’s index, is said to consist of more than three billion pages.

Search algorithm is more sophisticated and third step of a search engine system. Search algorithm is very complicated mechanism that sorts an immense database within a few seconds and produces the results list. The most relevant the search engine sees the webpage the nearer the top of the list. So site owners or webmasters should therefore see site’s relevancy to keywords.

Algorithm is unique for each and every search engine, and is a trade secret, kept hidden from the public.

Most of the modern web search combines the two systems to produce their results

Hit
Hit is a somewhat misleading measure of traffic to a web site. One hit is recorded for each file request in a web server’s access log. If a user visits a page with four images, one hit will be recorded for each graphic image file plus another for the page’s HTML file. A better measure of traffic volume is the number of pages/HTML files accessed.

HTML
The acronym HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, the authoring language used to create pages on the World Wide Web. HTML is a set of codes or HTML tags that provide a web browser with directions on how to structure a web page’s information and features.

Hyperlink
Also known as link or HTML link, a hyperlink is an image or portion of text that when clicked on by a user opens another web page or jumps the browser to a different portion of the current page. Inbound Links with keyword-relevant Link Text are an important part of Search Engine Optimization Strategy.

Index
An index is a Search Engine’s database. It contains all of the information that a Crawler has identified, particularly copies of World Wide Web pages. When a user performs a Query, the search engine uses its indexed pages and Algorithm set to provide a ranked list of the most relevant pages. In the case of a Directory, the index consists of titles and summaries of registered sites that have been categorized by the directory’s editors.

Inbound Links
Also known as back link, backward link, or backlinks, inbound links are all of the links on other websites that direct the users who click on them to your site. Inbound links can significantly improve your site’s search rankings, particularly if they contain Anchor Text keywords relevant to your site and are located on sites with high Page Rank.

Google AdSense
Google AdSense is an ad-serving program operated by Google that provides relevant text, image, and video-based advertisements to enrolled site owners. Advertisers register via Google AdWords and pay for ads on a Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Thousand or Cost-Per-Action basis. This revenue is shared with Google AdSense host sites, typically on a PPC basis (which sometimes leads to Click Fraud). Google uses its search Algorithms and Contextual Link Inventory to display the most appropriate ads based on site content, Query relevancy, ad “quality scores,” and other factors.

Google AdWords
Google AdWords is the Keyword Submission program that determines the advertising rates and keywords used in the Google AdSense program. Advertisers bid on the keywords that are relevant to their businesses. Ranked ads then appear as sponsored links on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and Google AdSense host sites.

Graphical Search Inventory (GSI)
Graphical Search Inventory is the visual equivalent of Contextual Link Inventory. GSI is non-text-based advertising such as Banner Ads, pop-up ads, browser toolbars, animation, sound, video and other media that is synchronized to relevant Keyword queries.

Gray Hat SEO
Gray hat SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization strategies that fall in between Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO. Gray hat SEO techniques can be legitimate in some cases and illegitimate in others. Such techniques include Doorway Pages, Gateway Pages, Cloaking and duplicate content.

Hidden Text
Hidden text is a generally obsolete form of Black Hat SEO in which pages are filled with a large amount of text that is the same color as the background, rendering keywords invisible to the human eye but detectable to a search engine Crawler. Multiple Title Tags or HTML comments are alternative hidden text techniques. Hidden text is easily detectable by search engines and will result in Blacklisting or reduced Rank.

Your Web content needs to be good to high quality content that is
well-written and engaging. We talk a lot about the richness and
value of you providing useful content that hold high-interest for
your audience of visitors.

Tip: Remember the power of using nostalgia where appropriate.

By using nostalgia, you can often connect with your readers to
activate their positive memories and past experiences. After all,
regardless of what your online business is about, the Web is really
all about connecting with others.

Search Engine Optimization is the process which improves the amount of traffic that a website receives naturally from the search engines. A website gets traffic from search engines when it ranks high for its targeted keywords. A ranking in the search result is not permanent as search engines frequently change their algorithms in order to provide the best search results and so, an individual needs to work consistently on his site so as to maintain the rankings and also, to improve the rankings.

However, it can take some good amount of time to see the desired results as there are already a number of websites on Internet and new ones are being launched at regular intervals. So, you need to work consistently without getting deviated from your target as you're competing against a large number of websites.

On-page optimization and off-page optimization are two forms of Search Engine Optimization and both of them are to be considered while optimizing a website. In on-page optimization, you've the control over the page and you modify the internal aspects of the page so as to optimize it. In off-page optimization, you don't have the control over the page that is linking to your website.

There are a number of factors that are to be considered while optimizing a website so as to improve its ranking. Title, keyword density, unique content, interlinking, anchor text, backlinks, sitemap are some of the key factors that are to be considered while optimizing a website. Each factor has its own importance and it needs to be properly used in order to rank high in the search results.

What's a Sitemap and what are its Benefits: Using a sitemap is one of the tricks that are usually underestimated while optimizing a website. If you're wondering what's sitemap then a sitemap is the map of the site as it's a page which displays the different sections of the website, articles and how the different sections are linked together.

A sitemap is very important as it is used to communicate with search engines. However, XML sitemap is used for search engines whereas HTML sitemap is used for human beings. Sitemaps inform search engines about changes to your site and this helps in faster indexing of the changes when compared to the site without a sitemap. In addition to faster indexing, sitemaps also helps an individual to fix the broken internal links. A website without a sitemap can also achieve high rankings as it's is not a strict requirement for achieving high rankings. Although having a regularly updated sitemap helps in improving the rankings at a better rate when compared to a site without one.

Now, if you're wondering how a sitemap is created and where it is placed then you can use sitemap generator tools to generate a sitemap for your website. Once you've the sitemap ready with you, you need to upload it to the server. Before uploading the sitemap, make sure your sitemap is absolutely perfect as an improper sitemap can cause de-indexing of the website. You can use online tools to check whether the sitemap is properly created or not.

Also, adding a link to the sitemap from the website's page helps in improving the rate at which the sitemap is crawled by the search engine spiders. You should also add the sitemap to your Google Webmaster account as this decreases your reliance on external links for improving the indexing rate. So, a sitemap is a very important aspect that should be considered appropriately while optimizing a website.

Dynamic Content
Dynamic content is web content such as Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) that are generated or changed based on database information or user activity. Web pages that remain the same for all visitors in every context contain “static content.” Many e-commerce sites create dynamic content based on purchase history and other factors. Search engines have a difficult time indexing dynamic content if the page includes a session ID number, and will typically ignore URLs that contain the variable “?”.Search engines will punish sites that use deceptive or invasive means to create dynamic content.

Flash Optimization
Flash is a vector graphics-based animation program developed by Macromedia. Most corporate sites feature Flash movies/animation, yet because search engine Crawlers were designed to index HTML text, sites that favor Flash over text are difficult or even impossible for crawlers to read. Flash Optimization is the process of reworking the Flash movie and surrounding HTML code to be more “crawlable” for Search Engines.

Gateway Page
Also known as a doorway page or jump page, a gateway page is a URL with minimal content designed to rank highly for a specific keyword and redirect visitors to a homepage or designated Landing Page. Some search engines frown on gateway pages as a softer form of Cloaking or Spam. However, gateway pages may be legitimate landing pages designed to measure the success of a promotional campaign, and they are commonly allowed in Paid Listings.

Geographical Targeting
Geographical targeting is the focusing of Search Engine Marketing on states, counties, cities and neighborhoods that are important to a company’s business. One basic aspect of geographical targeting is adding the names of relevant cities or streets to a site’s keywords, i.e. Hyde Street Chicago

Geographic Segmentation
Geographic segmentation is the use of Analytics to categorize a site’s web traffic by the physical locations from which it originated.

Crawler
Also known as Spider or Robot, a crawler is a search engine program that “crawls” the web, collecting data, following links, making copies of new and updated sites, and storing URLs in the search engine’s Index. This allows search engines to provide faster and more up-to-date listings.

Delisted
Also known as banned or blacklisted, a delisted site is a URL that has been removed from a search engine’s Index, typically for engaging in Black Hat SEO. Delisted sites are ignored by search engines.

Description Tag
Also known as a meta description tag, a description tag is a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a page’s content for search engine Index purposes. The description tag is not displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the search engine’s listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less importance to description tags in lieu of actual page content.

Directory
A directory is an Index of websites compiled by people rather than a Crawler. Directories can be general or divided into specific categories and subcategories. A directory’s servers provide relevant lists of registered sites in response to user queries. Directory Registration is thus an important method for building inbound links and improving SEO performance. However, the decision to include a site and its directory rank or categorization is determined by directory editors rather than an Algorithm. Some directories accept free submissions while others require payment for listing. The most popular directories include Yahoo!, The Open Directory Project, and LookSmart.

Doorway Page
Also known as a gateway page or jump page, a doorway page is a URL with minimal content designed to rank highly for a specific keyword and redirect visitors to a homepage or designated Landing Page. Some search engines frown on doorway pages as a softer form of Cloaking or Spam. However, doorway pages may be legitimate landing pages designed to measure the success of a promotional campaign, and they are commonly allowed in Paid Listings.

Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)
Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) is a return on investment model in which return is measured by dividing total click/marketing costs by the number of Conversions achieved. Total acquisition costs ÷ number of conversions = CPA. CPA is also used as a synonym for Cost-Per-Action.

Cost-Per-Action (CPA)
In a cost-per-action advertising revenue system, advertisers are charged a Conversion-based fee, i.e. each time a user buys a product, opens an account, or requests a free trial. CPA is also known as cost-per-acquisition, though the term cost-per-acquisition can be confusing because it also refers to a return on investment model.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
Also known as pay-per-click or pay-for-performance, cost-per-click is an advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad networks in which advertising companies pay an agreed amount for each click of their ads. This Click-Through Rate-based payment structure is considered by some advertisers to be more cost-effective than the Cost-Per-Thousand payment structure, but it can at times lead to Click Fraud.

Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM)
Also known as cost-per-impression or CPM for cost-per-mille (mille is the Latin word for thousand), cost-per-thousand is an advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad networks in which advertising companies pay an agreed amount for every 1,000 users who see their ads, regardless of whether a click-through or conversion is achieved. CPM is typically used for Banner Ad sales, while Cost-Per-Click is typically used for text link advertising.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate is the percentage of users who click on an advertising link or search engine site listing out of the total number of people who see it, i.e. four click-throughs out of ten views is a 40% CTR.

Contextual Link Inventory (CLI)
Search engines/advertising networks use their contextual link inventory to match keyword-relevant text-link advertising with site content. CLI is generated based on listings of website pages with content that the ad-server deems a relevant keyword match. Ad networks further refine CLI relevancy by monitoring the Click-Through Rate of the displayed ads.

Cloaking
Cloaking is the presentation of alternative pages to a search engine Spider so that it will record different content for a URL than what a human browser would see. Cloaking is typically done to achieve a higher search engine position or to trick users into visiting a site. In such cases cloaking is considered to be Black Hat SEO and the offending URL could be Blacklisted. However, cloaking is sometimes used to deliver personalized content based on a browser’s IP address and/or user-agent HTTP header. Such cloaking should only be practiced with a search engine’s knowledge or it could be construed as black hat cloaking.

Conversion
Conversion is the term used for any significant action a user takes while visiting a site, i.e. making a purchase, requesting information, or registering for an account.

Conversion Analytics
Conversion analytics is a branch of Analytics concerned specifically with conversion-related information from organic and paid search engine traffic, such as the keywords converts used in their queries, the type of conversion that resulted, landing page paths, search engine used, etc.

Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the next step up from Click-Through Rate. It’s the percentage of all site visitors who “convert” (make a purchase, register, request information, etc.). If three users buy products and one user requests a catalogue out of ten daily visitors, a site’s conversion rate is 40%.

Algorithm
An algorithm is a set of finite, ordered steps for solving a mathematical problem. Each Search Engine uses a proprietary algorithm set to calculate the relevance of its indexed web pages to your particular Query. The result of this process is a list of sites ranked in the order that the search engine deemed most relevant. Search engine algorithms are closely guarded in order to prevent exploitation of algorithmic results. Search algorithms are also changed frequently to incorporate new data and improve relevancy.

Algorithmic Results
Algorithmic results are the ranked listings search engines provide in response to a Query. They are often referred to as Organic Listings in contrast to Paid Listings because their rank is based on relevancy rather than advertising revenue paid to the search engine. However, paid listings do appear alongside algorithmic results in many search engines, provided they are relevant. Improving a website’s unpaid algorithmic results is known as Natural Search Engine Optimization.

Alt Tag/Alt Text
An alt tag is the HTML text that appears while an image is loading or when a cursor is positioned over an image. Alt text is useful in Search Engine Optimization because it can include keywords that a search engine looks for in response to a query.

Analytics
Analytics refers to all the technology, programming, and data used in Search Engine Marketing to analyze a website’s performance or the success of an Internet marketing campaign.

Anchor Text
Also known as link text, anchor text is the visible, clickable text between the HTML anchor and tags. Clicking on anchor text activates a Hyperlink to another web site. Anchor text is very important in Search Engine Optimization because search engine algorithms consider the Hyperlink keywords as relevant to the Landing Page.

Backlinks
Also known as back link, backward link, or inbound links, backlinks are all of the links on other websites that direct the users who click on them to your site. Backlinks can significantly improve your site’s search rankings, particularly if they contain Anchor Text keywords relevant to your site and are located on sites with high Page Rank.

Banned
Also known as delisted or blacklisted, a banned site is a URL that has been removed from a search engine’s Index, typically for engaging in Black Hat SEO. Banned sites are ignored by search engines.

Banner Ad
A banner ad is a rectangular graphic advertisement. Banner ads are one of the commonest forms of online advertising. Their sizes vary, but most measure 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high. Clicking on a banner ad will direct you to the advertiser’s website or a designated Landing Page.

Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO is the term used for unethical or deceptive optimization techniques. This includes Spam, Cloaking, or violating search engine rules in any way. If a search engine discovers a site engaging in black hat SEO it will remove that site from its Index.

Blacklisted
Also known as banned or delisted, a blacklisted site is a URL that has been removed from a search engine’s Index, typically for engaging in Black Hat SEO. Blacklisted sites are ignored by search engines.

Broken Link
Also known as a dead link, a broken link is a link that no longer points to an active destination or Landing Page. Search engines dislike broken links. Keeping all of your site’s links active is an important part of ongoing optimization.

Click Fraud
Click Fraud is the illegal practice of manipulating Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) revenue sharing agreements. There are numerous types of click fraud, but in a typical scenario the webmaster of a site that earns money from each click of the advertising links it publishes pays individuals a small fee to click those links. Companies thus pay for advertising to clients who had no intention of buying from them. Some companies have filed class action lawsuits alleging that ad publishers such as Google and Yahoo! have failed to aggressively confront click fraud because they benefit from increased CPC revenue.

Click-Through
Click-through refers to a single instance of a user clicking on an advertising link or site listing and moving to a Landing Page. A higher Click-Through Rate (CTR) is one of the primary goals of Search Engine Optimization.

1. Understanding Business.

# What is your business all about?

# How is it going to Operate?

# Target audience (Global/Local)

# Opportunity

# Compitetor study operating in same business.

# Core competence

2. Target Keywords.

# Getting a good list of keywords.

# This is something that will directly reflect your efforts(targeting wrong keyword will get all your efforts in vain)

3. WEB Designing.

# Navigation

# Page Size

# Look & Feel

# Inter Linking

# HTML Code Validation

4. Meta Tags & Content.

# Title# Description

# Keywords

# Content

5. Directories.

Search engines need a starting point. That's why human edited directories are important to be listed in. There are 3 major web directories at this moment:

DMOZ - Free listings.

The Yahoo directory - Free listings for non-commercial sites.

Looksmart (Zeal directory) - Free listings for non-commercial sites

6. Link Building.

When setting up the linking architecture of your site keep in mind that links are of two kinds:

1. Internal links 2. External links

Internal links are the constituent elements of the way your web site is organized. They are the bridges by which one page of your site connects to the other & more importantly outlines, which page of your site will connect to which other page/s.

External links on the other hand are the community tools by which the online community votes for you by linking to you. The more popular you get is a function of more incoming links into your website. This in turn is interpreted by search engines as a measure of your online value creation.

To enjoy a good pagerank for the pages it is imperative to have proper linking amongst various pages within the website as well as having good quality external links coming into the page.

A factor to keep in mind while linking is that one should focus on quality links & not always quantity. Consider that, there is a huge difference from a link, to your page from another page with a good pagerank than a page from a low pagerank.

These are common knowledge terms and the definitions and/or explanations have been gathered from various places.

GoogleBot - The name of the spider used by Google.

Google Dance - used to describe the index update of Google. A time when fluctuations in ranking appear. Google's index update occurred on average once per month.

PR or Page Rank - the actual, real, page rank for each page as calculated by Google. This can range from 0.15 to billions.

HTML - Hypertext Markup Language - the (main) language used to write web pages.

HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol - the (main) protocol used to communicate between web servers and web browsers (clients).

Yahoo Slurp - The name of the spider used by Yahoo.
Scooter - The name of the AltaVista search engine's spider

Title - The text contained between the start and end HTML head tags of the source code. The title is usually at the top of the window when viewing the source code. The Title text forms the link to the URL page from the search engine results, and search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing any page in your web site.

CPC - Cost per Click
PPC - Pay per Click
CPM - Cost per thousand

Spider Food - a term used for a site map, or another page of a web site that contains all the links in a web, allowing the search engines spider to index all the pages in a web.

Inbound Link - A hypertext link to a particular page from elsewhere, bringing traffic to that page. Inbound links are counted to produce a measure of the page popularity. Searches for the inbound links to a page can be made on AltaVista, Google and HotBot.

Reciprocating Link - An exchange of links with a web site that is similar in services.

Dynamic Content - Information on web pages which is changed automatically, by database content or user information. Search engines will currently index dynamic content, although they will not usually index URLs which contain the ? character.

robots.txt - A text file stored in the top level directory of a web site to deny access by robots to certain pages or sub-directories of the site. Only robots which comply with the Robots Exclusion Standard will read and obey the commands in this file. Robots will read this file on each visit, so that pages or areas of sites can be made public or private at any time by changing the content of robots.txt before resubmitting to the search engines.

Millions of web pages are included in search engine index. Each search engine process "keyword / phrase" queries more than million of times per day. When searching for any product or service, usually, people go no deeper than 3-4 pages. That's why its important that potential customer (or information seekers) visit your website. If your web page is embedded deep in the search results, it is unlikely that anyone visit your web page. Therefore, you need to improve the visibility of your web site (or web pages contained in your web site).

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process, in which a web page or a web site is optimized for search engines. By optimization, a search engine such as Google finds the page, includes it in the index, and displays the page when someone is searching for information.

Methods not to be used in SEO

* Hidden text or links.

* Misleading keywords or keyword stuffing.

* Cloaked pages or sneaky or deceptive redirects(keyword-stuffed landing pages that quickly redirect to the real page).

* Doorway pages made only for search engines.

* Duplicate sites or pages.

* Monthly submissions to search engines (a waste of time and money).

* Mainly Optimizing Meta keyword tags (a waste of time and money) but important for some directory listings.

SEO is not just a career to those in the business; it is literally a part of every trip through the Internet. A search for anything online frequently has me observing the listings and the sites that rank on the first page results. It can be very interesting to investigate these sites to find clues that could possibly become useful in business. After all, the best way to learn how to rank a website is to observe sites that already rank.

One of things I look at, actually we all look at, are the titles in the search listings. The words and phrases that are displayed in the search listings are pulled from the Meta Title tag in the header of all web page documents. It is this simple Meta tag that many website owners never get right. Below I have listed three of the more common mistakes website owners make with this very important Meta element.

1. Your title Meta tag should never be longer than 62 characters. Google will only display the first 62 characters of any title tag no matter how long you make it. This number varies for other search engines but Google will send over 80% of all traffic to the vast majority of all websites so meeting Google's requirements is most important.

2. Your title Meta tag should NEVER say "homepage" or your website name or address. Unless you are trying to sell homepages, the words "homepage" should never describe your website in the title. The same is true with your web address. Putting your web address in the title tag as a website title waste valuable space that could best be used to target a search word or phrase that can send searchers to your website. Besides, Google already knows your web address, if your site has been indexed.

3. Your title tag should include key words that reflect the theme or topic of that page. Obviously this would include key words you hope to rank for. Using this logic, should you find that you are ranking good for a variation of your desired key words you can greatly improve your rankings for that word or phrase by changing your title tag to include that phrase. This can be desirable if that traffic converts on your website or it could simply be a source for extra traffic that does nothing for your website's profitability.

The title tag is like a name plate pinned to your shirt. It immediately tells those who see it who or what you are. It is the first opportunity to get the searcher to click on your listing. Tying a web page's theme to key words that people search for and then putting those words into your title tag is the most efficient way to get new visitors to your site. After all, that is why we are on the net.

Search engines are no longer just a mere tool of the Internet consumer. Search engines are now an indispensable part of the infrastructure of the world wide web. Search engines are the primary means of navigating the web. When a consumer wants to find web hosting, they search for it. When a consumer wants to know the stance of a presidebtial candidate on an issue, they google it.

Search engines, and Google in particular, wield a frighteningly huge influence over how people, political parties, businesses and issues are seen.

A first page listing on Google for "web hosting" is considered to be worth more than $30,000 per month. A listing on the 3rd or 4th page for that same term is worth hardly anything.

The reason for this is, search engines drive traffic. "Traffic" being consumers, with credit cards and money. Consumers do not tend to drill down through the search results. They do a search and more often than not spend their money on web sites listed on the first page of the search results.

Search engine optimization is about getting your web site to appear in the first page, and preferably at the top, of those search results.

Keyword Research
Before you jump into a car, you need to know where you're going. In SEO, you need to know what keywords you are going to optimize for before you start optimizing. Spending a few hours researching keywords can make all the difference in the world.

The First Step

First, let's say that your website was www.ibeehosting. It's a web hosting related site, so let's search for web hosting on Google and see who the competition is. FortuneCity.com comes up in the first place, so take note of that and go to Google's Keyword Tool.

Click on "Site-Related Keywords" and then insert the URL of the competition. In this case, fortunecity.com. Wait a few seconds, and Google shows you over one hundred keywords for that site. You are now officially off to a good start!

The Criteria

The criteria for determining which keywords to go after and what keywords to discard is this: The keyword is must be able to produce positive return on investment. Keywords take time and money to get ranking on. Consider those resources. Will a top placement for that keyword produce positive ROI?

Broad is Bad, Specific is Good

The more specific the keyword, the better it will convert. For example, a close friend of mine sells plasma screens. The keyword "plasma screen" drives a lot of traffic, but not so much in the way of actual sales. The keyword "42 inch plasma" drives more sales, but still doesn't convert as good as "Pioneer PDP-507CMX". Consumers who have made up their mind to purchase an item usually use much more specific keywords than consumers who are simply window shopping.

On-page elements

The Title tag
This is second of the two most important elements for good rankings. Make sure that the page's search term is contained in this tag, and place it as near to the front as is reasonable, whilst ensuring that it reads well. There's nothing wrong with placing the search term up front on its own, followed by a period; e.g. "Pagerank. Google's PageRank and how to make the most of it". The target search term is, of course, "PageRank". Obviously each page's Title tag should be different to the Title tags on the site's other pages.

The Description tag
Some search engines, such as Google, don't display the Description like they used to do but, even so, it should still be included in each page for those engines that do, and for the odd times when even Google displays it. Write an appealing description for the page and incorporate the page's search term into it at least once and, preferably, twice. Place one instance of it at the start or as near to the start as is reasonably possible.

The Keywords tag
The words in the Keywords tag were never treated as keywords by the search engines; they were treated as text on the page. The tag isn't as effective as it used to be but there is no reason to leave it out. So put plenty of relevant keywords into the tag and include the search term once at the front, and a second time further along the line. There is no need to seperate keywords and keyphrases with commas, as is often done, since the engines ignore commas.

The H tag
"n" is a number from 1 to 6; the biggest heading size being 1. H tags are given more weight than ordinary text and, the bigger the H size, the more weight it receives. So include the target search term in H tags at least once on the page, and two or three times if possible. Also, place the first H tag as near to the top of the page as possible.

Bold text
Bold text is given more weight than ordinary text but not as much as H tags. As much as is reasonable, enclose the search term in bold tags when it appears on the page.

Text
Use the search term as often as you can on the page whilst not detracting from the page's readability. Make sure that you use the term once or twice very early in the page's body text and as often as possible throughout. Reword small parts, and even add sentences, to make sure that the search term is well represented in the text.

In all probability, each word in the search term will be found on the page seperate from the search term itself. This is good. In fact, if they are not there on their own, add a few of them through the page.

Alt text
Include the search term in the alt text of all images on the page. Keep in mind that some systems such as Braille readers and speach synthesisers use the alt text, so you might want to make them usable whilst including the search term.

Link Building SEO

In the old days before Google, search engines based their rankings on the text found on the webpages and meta tags. An article on bobsledding by the inventor of bobsledding could easily be outranked by an article on bobsledding by a webmaster who had never even seen a bobsled, simply by repeating the keyword "bobsled" over and over. Search engines weren't pretty back then.

Then Google came along with its links based ranking algorithm, and links became the deciding factor in most SERPs. There are many places to get links, but how you get links does have an impact on how those links will impact your search engine rankings. Google has developed extremely advanced algorithms to evaluate links.

Web Directories

First order of the day is to submit to quality web directories.

1. Yahoo! Web Directory

URL: http://dir.yahoo.com
Links: 86,967
Alexa Rank: #1
Comments: Oldest web directory on the web and one of the few that Google recommends you submit your site to.

How to add: Find the most appropriate category and click on the Suggest a Site link in the upper right. Adult sites are $600 non-refundable, recurring annual fee; non-adult sites are $300 non-refundable, recurring annual fee.

2. DMOZ

URL: http://dmoz.org
Links: 9,789,433
Alexa Rank: #313
Comments: An older, well established web directory. Google recommends submission to this web directory, but acceptance rates are low.

How to add: Find the most relevant category and click on the suggest URL link in the top right. Review time could be a year or more, but it is worth trying. No fee to submit.

3. Umdum

URL: http://www.umdum.com
Links: 125,918
Alexa Rank: #95,685
Comments: Umdum is a newer web directory, just a year or so old. It is owned by industry expert Loren Baker, a known and respected personality and operator of Search Engine Journal. Not exactly high traffic but the link juice is strong and the directory is not over-crowded.

How to add: Find the most relevant category and click on the Submit URL Here button in the upper right.

4. Aviva Directory

URL: http://www.avivadirectory.com/
Links: 332,245
Alexa Rank: #8,279
Comments: AvivaDirectory is one of the highest promoted web directories on the Internet, and consequently a very high traffic directory.

How to add: Find the most relevant category and click on the Add Link button top left. Cost is $49.95 per year.

5. RubberStamped

URL: http://www.rubberstamped.org/
Links: 15,378
Alexa Rank: #128,000
Comments: RubberStamped is the web directory of Peter Da Vanzo, a veteran SEO industry commentator. Clean directory, not over-crowded.

How to add: Find the most relevant category and click on the Add URL link at the bottom of the page. Cost is $29.95.

Free Directories

One of the nicer things on the Internet is a free submission web directory. There are hundreds of these web directories, usually generating revenue by displaying Adsense ads. Go submit. Now. You can read the rest of this later.

Topical Directories

One of the better quality links that may give you targeted traffic is a listing in a topical web directory. If you sell widgets, go over to widget-world.com and get listing.

Related Sites

Do a search on your favorite search engine. Note the top ten websites ranking for your search term. Report these sites to Google for spamming. Then offer these website owners a small annual fee to have your link appear on the index pages of their websites.

Reciprocal Linking

Exchange links with a few of the better quality sites which deal with the same topics as your website.

Press Releases

New product line? Company going public? Acquired another company? Any newsworthy event you may have, do a press release and submit it through PRweb.com.

Link Conducive Content

Create useful informational pages which attract links. Offer a free tool, or advice. Forums often attract free links.

Free Stuff in Exchange for Links

Ever wonder how phpBB.com got a PageRank of ten? They gave away a script for free, with a link back to phpBB on every page. We gave away free hosting and saw some sweet PR, too.

Paid Stuff in Exchange for Links

The vast majority of vBulletin’s backlinks come from paying customers using their software. Ask your customers, politely, for a link.
It doesn’t have to be web related, either. Even if you sell lumber, you can ask your contractor/customers to link back to your website from theirs.

Writing Articles

Write articles. Include a link in your byline. Offer articles to related websites. Voila. Linkage.

Writing Testimonials

One great way to get links and make people happy is to give other webmasters testimonials. Do you like your web host? Neither do I, but it doesn’t stop me from offering a testimonial to my web host which includes a link back to my website.

Supporting Good Causes

A few of the better links we’ve acquired for v7n were acquired by donating to good causes, such as MozDev and Evolt.org

Blogs & Forums

Contribute intelligently to blog or forum discussions. Include a link to your website in your signature.

Interviews

Interview people who have friends. Their friends will link to the interview you place on your website. Or, if people like you, give interviews and make sure the interviewer includes a link to your website on the interview page.

Professional Organizations

Do you belong to the AMA, the MRI or the BBQ? Most professional organizations have websites. They may already include your name and address - ask them to include a link to your website.

Free Hosted Doorway Pages

Create a two or three page doorway site on Geocities. Include your keywords in the page titles. Include several links to your real website with your keywords in the anchor text. Provide doorway pages with limited number of links from dubious sources.

Awards

Selling widgets? Have a Best Widget Resource Site Award. Give the award to every widget resource site on the Internet. Get them all to link to you. Schweeet!

Contests

Have a contest. Create publicity. Get links. Even better if you can tick off a pompous windbag. More publicity.

Friends

Seventeenth-century English author John Donne said, “No man is an island”. I really have no idea how that ties into this discussion, but I am sure you know people. Friends, family, people who think you are friends - these folks may have websites, and you may be able to force them into linking to your website. Who knows; it’s worth a try.

Organic Links – Link Worthy Content

Organic means natural. In SEO, an organic link is a free link. In this article, organic is used in reference to links which are not paid for.

Each website is different, one effective strategy is to create link-worthy content such as an original and legitimately insightful article, and then promote that article via Pay Per Click services such as Adwords. If the article is genuinely useful, the chances are that you will reap a wealth of links after just a few weeks of pay per click promotion.

Blog Communities
http://www.mybloglog.com/7
http://www.bumpzee.com/5
http://www.blogcatalog.com/7
http://www.fuelmyblog.com/6
http://www.spicypage.com/4

RSS Feed Directories
http://www.search4rss.com/5
http://www.syndic8.com/5 http://www.rssmicro.com/5
http://www.rssbuffet.com/5
http://www.rssfeeds.com/5 http://www.feedsfarm.com/5
http://www.feeds4all.com/5
http://www.feedboy.com/4
http://www.feedage.com/4
http://www.jordomedia.com/3

Free blog directory submission sites
http://www.globeofblogs.com/register.php
http://blogstreet.com/bsibin/add.cgi
http://www.blogarama.com/add-a-site/
http://www.readablog.com/AddFeed.aspx
http://www.blogdigger.com/add.jsp
http://portal.eatonweb.com/register/ (quick sign up first)
http://blo.gs/ping.php
http://www.hirank.com/semantic-indexing-project/census/index.html
http://www.britblog.com/register/index.php http://www.bloogz.com/man_en/add_your_url.php
http://boingboing.net/suggest.html
http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/add.php
http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html
http://www.blog-search.com/blog-submission.html (quick sign up first)
http://www.blogflux.com/add.php (quick sign up first)
http://blogintro.com/submit/
http://findingblog.com/add_blog.php?cat=
http://www.iblogbusiness.com/add.html (business only)
http://www.blogburst.com/blogger/join.html
http://www.rss-network.com/submitrss.php
http://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm
http://www.postami.com/rss.finder/submit_feed.php
http://www.2rss.com/index.php
http://www.feedsee.com/submit.html
http://www.feedsfarm.com/a.html
http://www.plazoo.com/en/addrss.asp
http://www.feed24.com/?c=add
http://feeds2read.net/Suggest-A-Feed
http://www.nfeeds.com/submit.php
http://free-rss.page2go2.com/rss-add.html
http://www.feedooyoo.com/ref.htm
http://www.goldenfeed.com/AddFeed.aspx
http://www.rssmicro.com/?m=fs#theForm
http://www.feeddirectory.us/directory/submitrss.php
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://www.rssmotron.com/feed_submission.php
http://www.feedbase.net/Add.php
http://www.morenews.be/voegbrontoe.php
http://www.daytimenews.com/submit-rss-feed.aspx