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Importance of Keywords:
Keywords are possibly the most important aspect of your SEO efforts. While the success and popularity of your website will depend on other factors in the design of your website too, such as images, video and flash content, all these factors come into play once your site actually attracts traffic. This in turn is not possible until you make it possible for internet surfers to find your site. Search engines, when deciding which search results to display, will analyse only text. Therefore it is the words that you use on your webpages, and the places in which you use them, that are the most important aspects of your website design.

Selecting the Right Keywords:
Given the immense importance of keywords, the selection of the right keywords is the most crucial aspect of designing a website. Once you manage to select the right keywords that will match the search queries of most internet users, only then comes the problem of inserting them into the right places. Here are a few tips on selecting the right keywords:
•    Avoid single words like the plague: Most of us as users never go for single words when searching for something in a search engine. It is illogical to expect other users to do this. Go for multi word phrases for the best chances of matching users’ search strings. Also, single word terms are far too broad in meaning and will give you poor quality traffic – not the target market you want to aim at.
•    Avoid very competitive phrases: Competitive phrases are phrases that are commonly used by many websites as keywords. Using very competitive keywords will reduce your chances of being the one site among hundreds that will land on the first page.
•    Do not use unique or technical phrases: Users will usually type everyday language into search engines. Use such terms as your keywords and phrases, instead of going for very unique sounding terms that will be typed by very few people and hence give you very low traffic.
•    Select short phrases that describe exactly what you are offering: Making sure that your keywords describe your product/service exactly is very important, because only then will you get the highest quality, targeted traffic on your website. This is one way to sift out low quality traffic.

Where to Insert Keywords:
SEO using keywords is not simply about the number of keywords inserted; it is more about putting the right words in strategic places. Keywords should be inserted mostly in the following places:
•    All headings
•    Page titles
•    First paragraph
•    The URL (and especially the domain name)
•    Bolded and italicized portions of text
Finally, just remember this: it is important to ensure that your content is keyword rich, but do not get carried away and stuff your text full of keywords that are oddly placed as this is very irritating when a user is trying to look for helpful, relevant content. The importance of keywords cannot be underestimated.

What it Really Means:
Organic search engine optimization may sound like some exotic, terribly advanced way of optimizing web pages, but actually, it is just something that’s been around as long as anyone can remember. The term “organic” simply refers to being found naturally in a search engine, without having to pay to show up in the results. When you type a search string into Google, for instance, you usually see a list of sites, sorted by relevance, and near the top or the sides of the page, there are “sponsored links” to websites. These sponsored links are to those sites that have actually paid Google to be included in their results, while the remaining ones are those that automatically show up: the latter exemplifies organic SEO.

Which is Better?
According to most internet experts, going organic is really the best option for a website owner. There are several reasons for this, the two key ones being summarized as follows:

• Organically optimized results are clicked on more often: People will click more often on organic results compared to sponsored links, because being selected by a search engine naturally means that your content was relevant enough that the search engine chose you for the top place. Paying to be there means your content is so run of the mill that your site would never show up at the top if you hadn’t paid for it to!

• It is cheaper: Paying to be included in site listings is expensive and does not give you the ROI (Return on Investment) that you deserve. So many websites are competing for the same placement that you end up paying a lot to be there. On the other hand, investing in organic SEO for your site’s pages will give you top place in all search engines at once and unlike paid listings, you don’t have to pay every time somebody clicks on your link!

How to Ensure Organic Content Optimization on Your Site:
So now that you know the benefits of organic SEO, how do you optimize you site content to show up in organic search results? Here’s a very brief overview.
The key is to make sure that the content on your site is good enough and relevant enough that search engines automatically pull up your site in the search results. Doing this by stuffing your content pointlessly with keywords and tags is bad for the reputation of your site. People who visit once will come back and also market your site to others if and only if you have included lots of helpful content, and if you update constantly. That is the one and only one way of ensuring that search engines keep pulling up your site and that you keep getting great traffic.
The time and effort you spend in giving your site organically optimized content is considerable, but it will be well rewarded when your site ranks among the top ten in virtually any search engine!

Any business manager or entrepreneur who has only recently come to view online marketing as a “serious” channel for product promotion has surely come across the frustratingly frequent use of the terms SEO and SEM. These are two terms that are frequently thrown around yet rarely explained in conversations, in magazine articles, or on internet blogs and websites. This article will attempt to familiarize you, in brief, with the general idea of Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.

The concept of Search Engine Marketing evolved near the turn of the millennium with the introduction of powerful search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Search Engine Marketing, or SEM as it is better known, is defined by the New York Times as “the practice of buying paid search listings”.
Examples of Search Engine Marketing include pay per click programs such as Google AdWords, which associates the keywords in search strings with the websites of its clients. When the user enters a particular search string, then along with the search results, the clients’ advertisements are displayed. The idea behind it is to direct the clients’ traffic towards their websites. However, SEM is often misinterpreted as being synonymous with pay per click advertising, whereas this is in reality only one aspect of it. For instance, a key aspect of SEM is Search Engine Optimization, according to Danny Sullivan who proposed the term in 2001.
You need to differentiate between SEO and SEM – since they are not the same thing. SEO is basically the techniques used to optimize your site for search engines, making them appear in the top few search results by the engine. SEO is achieved by heavily optimizing your site with keywords and by building an intricately connected linking structure. On the other hand, SEM is achieved by using search engines for advertising purposes.
To ensure effective search engine marketing, therefore, it is imperative that you understand fully the range of activities covered by the term, master each one independently, and ensure their full and optimum use as part of your online marketing strategy.
You placed in search results via SEM by paid placement, contextual advertising and paid inclusion.

Our last post was all about On Page SEO. Today we are going to cover the other half of the equation – Off Page SEO

Why is Off Page SEO Important?

Off page SEO is the other half of the equation. It’s also the half that you have less control over. Off Page SEO is basically a popularity contest. How many sites are linking to you and what type of sites are linking to you. There is no point having a few dweeby sites linking to you when really you are after the star quarterback linking to you, plus the entire cheerleaders who were always popular at school! These are sites such as .edu, .gov or sites with a high Page Rank. We’ll talk about these more in a later post.

So now we know it’s a popularity contest, let’s look at some of the ways we can increase your search engine popularity. Check out this video below to get some good tips

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is so important to your online business. Once you know how to implement SEO strategies you will see your organic traffic explode.

There are two elements to SEO, On Page SEO and Off Page SEO. Today we’ll focus on what happens ON your page.

How to Apply On Page SEO to your site

You should be doing this to every page of your website or your blog

• Rank on ONE relevant keyword in your copy or text (article, blog post, webpage)

• That one keyword should be in your title (of the article or blog post)

• The keyword should also be BOLDED once in the text

• The Keyword should be ITALICIZED once in the text

• The keyword should be LINKED once in the text. (For a blog post using wordpress – Highlight your relevant keyword to be linked, and within wordpress hit the chain/link button. This will bring up an edit box where you can add your URL. The keyword will then be underlined in the copy). It’s best to do an internet link, either to the same page (same URL) or to another page or your blog or website that is relevant. You may also link to a relevant external site however this should be used sparingly or at least to high ranking sites like government sites or Wikipedia for example.

• Meta Title: Include the keyword in the title (title box)

• Meta Description: Include 12-15 words in a sentence format which will have your keyword at the beginning of the description

• Meta Tags: 3-5 keywords related to your article / blogpost. (Always include your actual keyword as one of these tags, and then another 4 relevant keywords)

• Add an image and add your keyword to that image (In image description)

Here’s a little video we shot down in Sydney Harbour on On Page SEO

Search engine optimisation relies on on page links and back links. We need both for a top ranking in google. Lets look at ways we can achieve backlinks effectively and easily.

So how do i get back links if i am not an internet marketer (yet!)

Well, there are three main ways… Find relevant sites and posting comments on these sites. The three main places to go to post these comments would be blogs, forums and Web 2.0 web pages.

When placing comments on blogs make sure you follow the simple rules…
1) The blog must be relevant to your site
2) Only comment if you have something relevant to say about the blog
3) Add genuine value to their site when leaving a comment. Add something that will give useful information for the blog writer or reader. Obviously the better the quality the more chance it will get read and therefore your URL signature after your comment may also get clicked on. (Also some people still manually approve their comments, so if it is spammy or not of use then your comment will not even get approved)

When adding comments to forums firstly follow the same rules as with blogs. Find relevant forum posts to comment on.  The one main difference is that sometimes you may need to register and then you may have to conduct a number of forum comments before you are allowed to leave a forum signature (your URL) . Again try and be genuine or you will not get noticed.

Now in addition to finding blogs and forums to post comments on you can also look at Web 2.0 websites (such as Squidoo lenses or HubPages) Some of these websites may not provide you with a backlink (if they have a no follow attribute ticked) but you still may increase traffic generation this way. The same rules apply as with blogs with relevancy, genuine comments and interest to add value.

In all cases look for opportunities to comment on that are relevant for you and your site. It will come across as more genuine when you comment. And look for high ranking, high value sites where possible.

What is Search Engine Optimisation is a popular question for any person starting out on the internet. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process for ranking number 1 in the search engines for a keyword. This is one of your key tasks as an internet marketer to master. This will save you money, bring you more traffic, and all for free!

When performing SEO on your site you must ensure you observe the correct rules set down by the search engines. This is named ‘White Hat’ (opposite of ‘Black Hat’ SEO)

What are the fundamentals Of Search Engine Optimisation?

The objective as we have said is to rank on page one of the search engine. There are a couple of main things we need to consider to ensure this occurs…

1. Onpage Optimisation – These are changes you can physically make to your website and your website code to ensure that your site ranks well. A few examples would be

• Add your relevant keyword into the title
• Ensure your keyword is at the beginning of your meta description
• Bold your keyword during the post/webpage
• Italicize your keyword during the post/webpage
• Underline your keyword during the post/webpage
• Link back to the page via the keyword during the post/webpage
• Tag your pictures with your keyword during the post/webpage
• Approx 5 keywords in the tags

2. Offpage Optimisation – These are things that are not on your own website that you can work on to ensure your website ranks well. A few examples would be

• Linking (Relevant external and internal links)
• URL signature
• Forum commenting
• Social media

There are many different strategies you can do to ensure you rank well. Most do involve ensuring you follow the formula for success.

Now when someone says to you What is Search Engine Optimisation you can give a definitive response and explain it!