By many people, SEO is considered to be a part of search engine marketing. It is often used when people are describing a process for improving the amount of traffic that goes to a website from various different search engines. Many site owners will engage in using SEO in an attempt to obtain qualified visitors to their site. The quality of these visitors will often be measured by what specific keywords they are using in order to reach the desired result they want, such as making a purchase, or it could just viewing or downloading a particular page on that site. It may be that the visitor just requests some further information, or they sign up to a newsletter.

Search Engine Optimization is a marketing strategy which can often generate a good return for the site. But what must be remembered is that search engines are not actually paid for the traffic they send to a site from a natural (organic) search. Plus, they will regularly change the algorithms that they use for these searches to be carried in an effort to improve the results for people using their search engine. In fact, there is no guarantee that using this system is successful in either the long or short term for any website. Because of this, SEO is often compared to traditional forms of PR (Public Relations), while PPC (Pay per Click) advertising is more closely associated with traditional forms of advertising.

However, even if you do find you have increased traffic to your site because of SEO, if your site is unprepared for this increased traffic, it may in fact be detrimental to your site, as visitors will go away feeling dissatisfied and will not return.

But though SEO can be considered as a marketing tactic which is a law unto itself, it is often considered to part of the bigger picture by many industry experts.

Why use Search Engine Optimization?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as already previously mentioned, is a sub section of search engine marketing.

Unfortunately, with SEO, there are no shortcuts, and if you are looking for a way to get quick and easy results, then this isn’t it. But instead, you will need to carry out some hard work, especially in relation to the actual content of your site.

Also, you will need to have plenty of patience, as results do not happen overnight. So if you are looking to improve the search engine position of your site, you should consider this very early on when looking at using SEO.

However, what are important are the following points:-

Good Content
This is probably the single most important point you should remember when doing SEO, especially if you want your site to be found on the web. Although your site may be technically perfect so that the search engine robots find it, you will find that it will not help if the actual content of your site is not good.

For the content of your site to be good, it should be factually, as well as grammatically correct. But this is not really necessary for every site that is on the web today. However, what is important is that whatever your site is about, the content actually needs to be unique and specific so that it will appeal to people. Moreover, it in fact needs to be particularly appealing to those people looking for information or who want to find your site.

By having good content on your site, visitors will return and eventually these visitors who return are more likely to link to your site. Having lots of inbound links is not only great for your site, but for search engine rankings also. It is even better if those links are from more highly ranked sites than your own.

Also, not only do you need to have good content on your site, you also need to have fresh content also. If you add new content to your site on a regular basis, you are giving your visitors more reasons for returning to it. Because of this, search engine robots will also visit your site more often as soon as they notice that you are updating it regularly. So what this means is that any new content you add, will then be indexed much quicker in the future.

Check your Spelling

If your site is written in English, then you are probably aware of the differences in spelling between American and British English. Where in the UK they will write “colour”, in the USA it is written as “color”, and the same can be said of “optimization” and “optimization”. So if you can, why not set up your machine so that the spell checker is set up as USA English rather than British English. Unfortunately, there are many words between these two languages that are often misspelled, and in fact, the same can be said for many other languages around the world.

Make sure your Page Titles are Descriptive

If you make your page titles as simple, descriptive and relevant as possible, it will make it easier for the search engines to know what each page of your site is about. This will then allow people to scan through the search results they get, and are able to quickly determine if your document contains what they are actually looking for. Also, it should be remembered that the page title is also what is used in order to link to your site from the results provided by the search engines.

As a result of this, it is important to ensure that the title on the page is one of your most important elements of your site. In fact, some people will argue that this the most important part of any site above all other things.

Use of Real Headings

This is where you need to use h1-h6 (header tags) elements for your headings. By using graphics for your headings you are able to use any typeface you want (but search engines will not pay much attention to this). Even if you do use the alt attribute to specify an alternate text for heading images, this is not anywhere near as important as using real text in a heading element.

But if you are unable to use real text, then look at the various image or flash replacement techniques that are available instead. However, be aware that there may be some risk involved in doing this. As image replacement involves hiding text, it is quite possible that you may be penalized by search engines for doing this. But at present, this kind of risk seems pretty slim.

Ensure that your URL’s are search engine friendly

It is important to use search engine friendly URL’s, as opposed to dynamically generated ones that have a query string (which lets the server know which data to fetch from a database). Unfortunately, there are many search engine robots which have difficulties with this kind of URL and they may well stop at the question mark, and so not actually look at the query string.

By using a search engine friendly URL; you are helping both your ranking and users of your site. Many sites have seen an incredible improvement just because they have changed the URL scheme on it. However, the modification and rewriting of a site’s URL can be a little tricky.

Getting Linked

There is no easy or sustainable way in order to solve this but for one. The really only good way to ensure that your site gets linked is to ensure that it contains good content. For any site on the web, incoming links are very important, especially for Search Engine Optimization. In fact, you may find that this is the hardest part of SEO for you to implement.

But many people have found that incoming links are less important, especially where you have more specific and unique content on your site.

Make it Accessible to All

This is as important as all things previously mentioned. It is important that you make your site accessible to those who are visually impaired, as this will help search engine robots find their way around it also. It is important to remember that Google is blind, so even if you are not bothered whether blind people use your site or not (which we all should be in today’s world); you still need for it to be accessible. What this means is that you should use real headings, paragraphs and lists, and avoid using anything which may interfere with the search engines spiders.

Be Careful when making a Submission

Although this is often overrated, submitting your site to directories and search engines can actually be useful. This is especially important if the site happens to be new and has not as yet been picked up by Google and many of the other search engines that are around.

But if you do want to look at submitting it to some directories, you may want to consider using Yahoo Directory and Open Directory Project and some directories specific to your topic (for example, if you have a blog, try submitting to http://www.blog-search.info). But you will need patience, as it can take several weeks for any submissions to be processed unless you pay for it to be listed.

Do not try to fool the Search Engines

Never use such methods as cloaking, link farms, keyword stuffing, alt text spamming or any other dubious ways. Although they may work for a short time, you not only risk getting your site penalized, but it could actually be banned from search engines altogether.

As search engines like their results to be accurate, they just do not take kindly to people trying to trick them.

Avoid the use of Frames

Although it is possible to provide workarounds that will allow a search engine robot to crawl frame based sites, these will still cause problems for any visitors who find that site through a search engine.

What happens is that when someone follows a link from a search result to a frame based site, they will end up on an orphaned document. This will, in most cases, create confusion for the user, as in many cases, vital parts of the site will be lost, such as navigational links.

Browser Detection – Be Careful

If you have to use some kind of browser detection, then make sure that it does not break when a search engine spider or any other unknown agent comes along. Unfortunately, if the spiders can not get in, then your site will not be found.

Do not waste your time with Meta Tags

You will find that most search engines do not place a great deal of value on the content contained within Meta Tags today. This is because they have been used too much by spammers. So instead, if you need to, use Meta description elements. Although keywords will not hurt, they don’t really help either, so generally it is not worth the effort to use them.

Often there are some search engine sites which will use the content of a Meta description element to describe a site in their search result listings. So whenever possible, make their contents unique and descriptive for every document or page.

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, we have provided a few basic guidelines in relation to SEO. But there is much more that can be done in order to increase your site’s visibility with search engines.

Every great blogging web site starts with a great idea, and you can’t build a successful site that will last without one. There are many great sites aimed at today’s bloggers, and competition for the attention of this growing demographic is fierce. To make your
blogging web site stand out from the pack, you will need to offer something that no other site is currently offering, or you will need to do the same thing that an already popular site does but in a more impressive or valuable way.

One way to discover an ideal model for your blogging web site is to look at the sites that have successfully captured a blogging audience already to determine if you can appropriate some of their strategies to help realize your vision. Of course, you will also need to add
a unique flair to your project in order to stand apart from your competition. Many people agree that the web sites that do the best in today’s market are the sites that have the most personality. The fiercely individual surfers who are bloggers are a demographic that
responds especially strongly to personality, so consider how you can give your site a unique and attractive feeling by lending your own voice and sensibility to your site’s design and content.

Once you have a great idea for your site, have pinpointed a special niche that you are well equipped to fill, and have infused the site with personality, the next step is figuring out how to get the word out to bloggers. In the long run, a great idea just isn’t enough to propel
your blogging web site to success. You will need to draft a smart and realistic marketing plan in order to draw readers to your site. Once you hook a blogger, your great content will keep them coming back, but it is vital to get that first glance or your site won’t have a
chance to shine.

Blogging news stories as they unfold is one of the most exciting and controversial applications of technology that bloggers have discovered. One thing that makes the blogosphere so active is the fact that it is possible to update a blog instantaneously, so the news on blogs tends to be more current than the news in the paper, or
on television. Unlike news delivered by these other media, news that appears on blogs does not have to travel through a series of editors and administrators before it reaches the public eye. This has some
advantages, and some distinct disadvantages.

One of the most notable cases of news hitting a blog before appearing in other media took place in July 2005 when terrorism struck London. As passengers were evacuated from a subway car near an explosion, one man took several photographs of the scene with his cellular phone, and within an hour these images were
posted online. First-person accounts of the catastrophe began appearing on blogs soon after these photos appeared, and people all over the world learned about the events in London by reading the words and seeing the photos posted by bloggers.

The fact that these stories and images were being spread directly by individuals operating without the added filter of a reporter helped to make the crisis feel very immediate to people across the globe. When it comes to blogging, news often appears in a very personal context.
This has the potential to be the beginning of an exciting new era of reporting, one that takes “New Journalism” to it’s logical next step by putting the power to shape how the news is written and read directly into the hands of the public.

Many bloggers and cultural commentators who are champions of the weblog movement feel that this growing trend of individuals who getting their news from blogs is a good thing, because it makes the flow of information more democratic. By decentralizing the control of news, blogs allow more voices to enter the field of debate about important current events. However, many people are adamantly opposed to the use of blogs as news outlets, and there are plenty of
good arguments on this side of the debate. Unlike newspapers or television stations, few blogs have fact-checkers, and there is little attention paid to journalistic accountability on many blogs. This can lead to the rapid spread of misinformation, and more than one falsehood has taken the blogosphere by storm. The questions about whether blogging news as it happens is ethical or not are very complicated, but no matter where you stand on the topic of current events blogs you are almost sure to agree that this movement has the potential to revolutionize how modern people get their news.

During Phase 1, we discussed the history and basics of podcasting, including recording and editing your podcast using Audacity. I have produced a screencast showing the steps that was outlined during last weeks show. You will find this screencast on the blog.

This week, in Phase 2, we will be discussing prepping for your podcast. A lot of novice podcasters don’t realize the importance of the pre-show prep in order to insure a quality podcast.

The pre-show prep can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on what your subject matter is for that podcast. Now, obviously, if you have an open forum or open mic style podcast, then your show prep is minimal at best. For the sake of this discussion, I will assume you have a niche topic or subject that you are covering in your podcast.

Let’s take this show as our example. On Podcaster Training, we cover a wide range of topics and subjects. Many can be handled “off the cuff”, however, in the case of the history portion of last weeks episode, that took some research to insure that I was giving you the proper facts.

When prepping for an audio only podcast, the prep time for this show takes normally about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Again, depending on the topic, it can take longer. I begin by creating my show outline which is a top down listing of how the show will play out. This helps me to stay on track and not stray too far off course during the show. Since the outline doesn’t vary much week to week, I mainly have to change the show date and title and the weekly challenge. After that, I begin my blog post for the show notes. This helps me to develop my thoughts and at the same time keeps the show notes as detailed as possible. Even though I don’t read the show notes verbatim, they are there, just like the outline, to keep me on track and on topic.

During the creation of the show notes, I take the necessary time to do my research on my main topic, again, to insure that all the facts are properly introduced.

Once the show notes are compiled and saved (not published yet) I then bring up my MP3 player and pre-load the intro and Wordpress Weekly segment as well as other audio that might be played that night. All audio is then put into the proper sequence to prepare to play.

Once show time comes around, I fire up the chat room, log in on my cell phone and then once that connection is established, I then log in via Skype so that I can broadcast my audio for the show. During the 15 minutes before the actual show time start, I test my audio to insure that everything is functional. If it isn’t, I attempt to correct it and finalize preparation for the show start. During this time too, I try to send a tweet out to let everyone that follows me on Twitter know that I am going live.

So, as you can see, it takes time to prep and a lot of this prep must be done before you even think of hitting the record button. I had some additional prep before my Halloween episode as I put together a special Halloween Intro for the show. Again, this took additional time, however, I accounted for this prior to the show and fit it into my prep schedule.

Obama Turns On IntenseDebate – President elect Obama has recently chosen the third party commenting service IntenseDebate to be the ones to host the discussions section on the Change.gov website. One of the first questions that was asked after launching the platform on the site dealt with the issue of health care. So far, the question has over 2,800 comments and IntenseDebate seems to be working fairly well despite the comment volume. Considering Automattic recently acquired the company, having the next U.S. President using the service sure is a nice way to convince others to use it. - http://change.gov/page/content/discusshealthcare

WordPress Rockstars – The folks behind the site WPZoom.com have created a list of 20 WordPress rockstars to read and follow. Not to gloat but yours truly was included on the list along with some notable others such as Justin Tadlock, Brian Gardner, Alex King and many more. Take this opportunity to visit the post and add those blogs to your feedreader. Although I’ve been labeled a rockstar, I have yet to sign any autographs. - http://www.wpzoom.com/design/20-wordpress-rockstars-to-read-and-follow/

Plugin Of The Week – Screen Grab To WordPress – To change things up a bit, this week I’ll be featuring a FireFox extension rather than a plugin so without further adieu, Screen Grab To WordPress. After installing the extension, you’ll have to configure the URL, username, and password to all your Wordpress blogs an you’re ready to go (just make sure you have XML-RPC remote publishing enabled After installation, click the icon in your Firefox status bar to display SGW’s menu and choose what to capture and where to send it. You can save locally, copy to the clipboard, or post directly to Wordpress. - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8204

Ask Jeff – A few weeks ago, I put out the call for anyone who has a question regarding WordPress whether it be wanting to know if a plugin existed for a particular purpose, a theme, or a technical question, and you delivered. Josh Budde wants to know - What’s the best plugin for podcasting?
Answer: Well, it used to be that Podpress was the absolute best plugin for podcasting with WordPress however, since the release of WordPress 2.6, the plugin has been broken and development on the plugin has apparently ceased to exist. I’ve tried to get in contact with the developer of Podpress but have been unsuccessful. Therefor, based on what I can tell the blubrry WordPress plugin called Powerpress is now what I consider to be the best plugin for podcasting with WordPress.
The plugin contains a ton of features such as the ability to add/modify/remove pocast episodes from blog posts, integrated media player, itunes RSS tags, and most importantly, easy migration from podpress to powerpress. Blubrry was smart in that they saw what happened in the WordPress community and developed the plugin to be a podpress replacement. Outside of powerpress, there is not a lot in terms of plugins that enable podcasting with WordPress as easily as PodPress. So powerpress is your best shot - http://www.blubrry.com/powerpress/

It is very important that you protect yourself from fraud through social security numbers, checks, credit cards, driver’s licenses and more. You never want to throw away anything that has any of personal information on. You will want to follow some of the tips listed throughout this article in order to keep yourself safe from identity theft.

First, you will want to make sure that you keep your bank statements, medical bills, and mail safe from those who are preying on your neighborhood. You will also want to protect yourself from computer fraud by taking the appropriate measures. You will find that shredding all of your personal and private mail is a good way for you to protect yourself. Keep in mind that you can use this paper for several tasks around the house, like for the bedding of your hamster or small pets. You will also want to consider burning some of your papers and mail after you have shredded it in order for you to keep yourself protected. You really should never carry your checkbook, birth certificate, or even your social security card in your wallet or purse. This is just one way of losing it all. Keep in mind that there are alternatives to using checks.

Make sure that you keep all your personal information, personal. You will want to make sure that you protect yourself from fraud by not having your social security number written on your checks or anything else. It is only common sense in some cases, but you will find that common sense is one of the best ways of protecting yourself from identity theft.

If only you had a way to get your creative juices flowing again, but how? Private Label Rights Articles, that’s how! With PLR or Private Label Rights Articles, you can have a pre-written article that you can take and make some changes and call it your own! Sounds easy, doesn’t it! It is!

Where do you go to get PLR Articles, you ask? You can search Google or Yahoo and maybe find something you are looking for, however, the best way is to go to a trusted source and get your articles and start using them today. One such source is PLR Week. At PLR Week, you will find new, fresh articles, eBooks and software, all PLR material, ready to download. Prices are low so you don’t have to spend a lot to get started and the best part is, once ANY article set, eBook or software package has been sold 10 times, it is pulled from the inventory. This will help to eliminate competition and to insure that you aren’t purchasing materials that have been “on the shelves” for a while and already being used by bunches of others looking to do what you are doing. If you don’t find what you are looking for, drop them a line and request certain niches or articles be added. New articles, eBooks and software packages are being added several times a week to build up the inventory.

Now, once you have located the articles you want, the first thing you need to do, is unpack or unzipped the article pack and take a look at the articles, one at a time. Find one that you want to start with and open it in Notepad or Wordpad, even Microsoft Word or OpenOffice, and then READ the article word for word to insure that the spelling and grammar is correct.

Next, start at the top and go line by line. Re-write each line using words that you normally use when writing and after each paragraph, add additional comments before moving on to the next. In this way, by the time you get to the end of the article, it is something you have put some time and effort into, instead of copying and pasting. On that note, you may find some article to your liking already, so make sure they are complete to your standards and then save your article to a new file.

By this time, you should have already added your personal touches along with embedded links, check the spelling and grammar and now you can use this article as a new blog post.

When using Private Label Rights Articles, you do not have to credit anyone but yourself for the article. It is important that you take the time with each article to add your own personal touches and in this way, your PLR Article will jump start those creative juices and in no time, you will be back writing once again!

Now, PLR Week is just now launching it’s web site with new and fresh materials. So, how this already be a trusted source? Easy…PLR Week is another web site owned by GraiteSites Services, the main company behind site like the one you are on right now! GraiteSites Services also operates The Personal Publisher eBookStore and offers more than 200 eBooks and software packages, most with Master Resell Rights, for just $2.00 each!

Along with the eBookStores, GraiteSites Services also has low cost domain names and hosting available. So, if you are looking to get a new domain name or find great hosting services, GraiteSites is there to help you!

You have to consider that everyone is at risk for identity theft.

When it comes to the thief, you will find that it is mostly for them to gain social status or just obtain a lot of nice things. You will also find that it could be someone who is skilled and well educated or it could be someone who is just trying to get by. You will find that anyone could run a scam like this.

Most of the time these criminals are caught, but this is because they are simply not good at it or because they learned the trade from another criminal.

As for the use of credit cards and so on, you will notice that there is some protection now from identity theft, however, you will still need to prove who purchased what. You will fraud is often done for the simplest purchases, because no one would ever suspect it to be fraud.

How, could you know if you a victim? A lot of thieves will look for the easiest targets. You will also find that these victims are also targets that take little to no effort. Often, thieves will have a real, day job.

Thieves often look for those who wouldn’t expect identity theft. It is mostly the elderly that become prime targets.

You will want to keep in mind that you should never talk to those over the phone about your personal information. It could be a scam. Often they will pretend to be working for a charity or they will ask you to pay for something that you apparently have won. You will want to use your head in situations like these.

Keep in mind that it is not just the elderly who become victims, but it could simply be someone who you know that is trying to pull a fast one. You will need to educate yourself on identity theft more so that you can keep yourself safe.