Today, the increased use of flash menus, frames, and other navigation aids is at distinct odds with search engine optimization strategies. Unfortunately, most search engine spiders are not capable of following links in frames. In a similar way, flash or javascript menus can easily cause a search engine spider to stop crawling your site. As may be expected, if the spider sees only one page, it may well conclude that your site does not deserve a ranking in the top ten for a specific keyword.

When designing your website, you will have to consider how your viewers will navigate the site, as well as the search engines. Typically, web designers will make an alternate page without frames or other complex data for the search engine to navigate. Fortunately, the spider will still index the page that you want your viewers to see.

Aside from this, it is also crucial to make sure that all of your links work. For the most part, once a search engine spider lands on a broken link, it will stop crawling the site. Even if you have not yet created content for a specific page, you can at least create a page that says the site is under construction. Depending on your preferences, you may simply want to wait and add the links once you have written the content for it. With a little bit of attention to detail, you can make your site easy to navigate for both search engines and human visitors. As may be expected, a simple format will always have the advantage over one that is too elaborate or confusing.

There are many different strategies for how you can increase the traffic that your website gets. Increasing website traffic though isn’t rocket science, and there are no magic tricks that are going to instantly turn your site into a powerhouse. Instead, you have to use a combination of many different tried and true strategies that combined can offer significant, incremental and long term increases in your website traffic.

Onsite SEO

Onsite search engine optimization refers to everything you do to help get your website listed prominently in the search engines directly on your own pages. This starts from the beginning of your online business when you hopefully pick a domain name with appropriate keywords and phrases in it. It continues as you develop page names with keywords, use keywords in your content, your internal links, your META tags and so on.

The most important thing is researching the correct keywords that you should be targeting. Some may be popular but may be dominated by strong competition. Others you may be able to easily get the number 1 spot for but they are rarely used by actual searchers. Therefore you need to research which keywords offer the best combination of popularity and weaker competition, allowing your site to quickly jump to the top of the list.

Offsite SEO

Offsite search engine optimization refers to everything you do to help increase your website’s SEO elsewhere on the Internet. This includes:

* Social networking: With social networking you can distribute your content to members of various communities, hopefully building your presence, increasing your direct traffic and building up incoming links in the process.

* Article marketing: The main benefit of article marketing is that for every article you create you can include links in the resource box to your own website. This helps your search engine standing greatly. If you take the time write high quality articles and to do so frequently, you’ll also build up a reputation as a knowledgeable member of your community and a trusted source of information.

* Video marketing: Video marketing is the new wave of article marketing, basically capitalizing on the same benefits but through the means of the creation of videos. An added benefit is how much more engaging and interactive your content can be when presented in video form.

* Forums and blogs: Posting on forums and leaving comments on blogs is one way to help get your website noticed by other people and other websites within the community. If you make intelligent and thoughtful comments people will respect what you have to say and will visit your website or reach out to you when in need.

* PPC Campaigns: PPC advertising isn’t technically SEO, it’s actually SEM or search engine marketing since it’s a paid form of promotion. Still, it can be an extremely powerful tool to have to help increase your site’s presence and traffic.

The right combination of all of the above strategies will lead to great boost in the amount of website traffic that you see and enjoy. Not everything works for all businesses or markets, so always be sure to evaluate your strategies and campaigns for effectiveness.

If you’re planning to use LinkedIn to find job opportunities, optimizing your profile will help you stand out. But did you know that you can also use LinkedIn to improve the SEO of your website or blog?

Here’s how it works: if high ranking websites link to your website, it will improve your website’s page rank, so you’ll appear higher in organic Google searches. LinkedIn profiles have a fairly high Google Page Rank, so if have good profile SEO and link your website to it, your website’s SEO will also improve. I’m not claiming that your page rank will shoot through the roof (you need many, many backlinks for that to happen), but it will help a bit, and if more people click on your LinkedIn profile, they may also click on your website.

These are four simple ways to optimize your profile and your website at once.

1. Create your own permalink

View your profile, and change the custom URL. Change it to your full name, your company name, or targeted keywords if they are still available. You might only want to use the company name if you own the company or know you’re there for the long-haul.

You can gear your LinkedIn permalink toward your website or blog. For example, if dianafreedman had already been taken, I might have chosen dianasocialmedia, dianafreedmanweb20, or dianaustandout. Something that incorporates name + keywords or name + company.

2. Link to your websites using anchor text

Linking to your websites will not only give Linkedin users more insight about you, but you’ll also be improving your websites’ SEO. Anchor text links that contains relevant keywords is something Google looks for when ranking your website. So by using your name, site title, and/or relevant keywords will actually improve your site’s SEO since LinkedIn is already ranked so high.

Instead of listing websites as “My Company” or “My Blog,” choose “Other” so you can choose the name of the link. Make sure that your website links appear on your public profile.

3. Modify your headline

Your headline is the tagline that appears right under your name in LinkedIn searches and on your profile. Instead of just writing your position, include more information about what you do, using keyword-rich descriptions. If you work for a company, put that name in the headline.

My headline before: Product Associate

My headline now: Product Associate, Social Media at TripAdvisor & Web 2.0 Blogger

4. Use keywords throughout your profile

There are several other places you can use keywords: summary, job descriptions, and interests. Make your descriptions are concise and keyword-rich (without overdoing it). Also put keywords in your job title; instead of just including the title, include the department or team. For example, my job title is Product Associate, and I’m on the social media team, so my job title on Linkedin is “Product Associate, Social Media.” At my last internship, I was a Design Assistant on the motion graphics team. Before, I just wrote “Design Assistant,” but after revamping my profile for SEO, it now says “Design Assistant, Motion Graphics.”

Several strategies make up a good search engine marketing (SEM) campaign. These strategies may vary in popularity within the ever changing internet landscape, but they will always work to increase website ranking through effective website marketing. As new trends like Twitter and Facebook appear, valuable new tactics emerge to help you achieve the rankings you desire.

This article looks at five website marketing methods you can integrate into your search engine marketing efforts today. Use this blueprint to reach your target audience so they visit your website and increase your sales through these five strategies.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing (SEM), also known as search engine optimisation (SEO), is an effective website marketing strategy used for years. Through SEM, you drive visitors to your website by optimising your website to rank competitively in the major search engines for your most important keywords. Whether selling retail products, offering a service, or just trying to generate leads, search engine marketing can help you reach motivated people ready to make a purchase.

The effectiveness of this search engine marketing strategy matches its complexity as the organic algorithms of the search engines change constantly. While staying up to date does take time and effort, the incredible benefits and increased website ranking provided by these website marketing strategies are worth the effort.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing

Google AdWords is probably the best known example of pay per click (PPC) marketing. This search engine marketing strategy offers enormous potential because it delivers a reliable and predictable return on investment. If you implement PPC carefully with an eye on every detail, it is a powerful tool. By constantly focusing on cost per click, click-through rates, and backend conversions, PPC just might be one of the most important website marketing strategies. However, if you don’t diligently watch your PPC campaigns, you may find it wastes more money that it produces.

Social Media

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media websites have millions of members. Every member possesses a circle of influence within their personal network on these websites. You can utilize social media in your marketing campaign to reach inside these circles of influence and their networks.

Today, businesses in all industries allocate some of their website marketing efforts to social networking. You can not only reach your target audience with social media, but you can also control your marketing messages and lure them to your website as it positions your website in front of people who may not use the search engines.

Social Bookmarking

The predecessor to social media, social bookmarking is still a viable website marketing strategy as personal networks ‘tag’ websites to share them with others. Tagging can result in hundreds of visitors heading to your website, especially if the person sharing has a large following. If you have compelling web copywriting and content on your website, you can also gain inbound links as more people visit and share your website with others. These types of links add huge value to your search engine marketing campaign.

Blogging

Business blogs have become an excellent tool for all industries. Blogs offer an ideal platform for informing your audience with a human voice. In addition, Google and the other search engines provide blogs with higher organic rankings when you add new content regularly. Blogging offers an easy and seamless way to boost your website ranking.

While these five website marketing strategies are easy and work well in today’s internet world, new search engine marketing strategies will likely appear soon. Some will fade away quickly while others will remain popular. Don’t wait for what’s on the horizon, implement these five strategies now to ensure the success of your website and business.

Ask yourself the following questions.

Do you know a little bit about search engine optimization (SEO)?

Do you know how to build relevant back-links to a website?

Do you know the basics of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising?

If you answered yes, why not start your own Search Engine Marketing business?  It’s not as hard as you think.  You probably think it requires advanced skills and specialized knowledge that you just don’t have, right?  Well that’s simply not true.  You can become an SEM expert with basic website knowledge and skills.

There are many opportunities that exist for people with online marketing and web development skills.  You see, the majority of search engine experts only do business with large clients that have huge amounts of money to throw around.  As a result, local mom and pop shops get neglected by these search engine marketing experts.

That’s where you come in.  With your basic knowledge of building websites and online marketing, you can connect with local small businesses in your area and give them something they DESPERATELY want – an online presence.

The fact is, most small businesses don’t know the first thing about building websites.  To them, building a website or marketing online sounds like a complete headache and seems far too complicated.  These are people from a different generation.  They have built their brick and mortar store off of their trade or skill that they acquired through back-breaking labor and hard work.  They aren’t “technology-savvy” like the current generation of young adults.

The younger generation has grown up on the internet.  Building WordPress blogs or social networking is something they are comfortably familiar with.  There are also many young internet entrepreneurs using their knowledge to build serious income very quickly.

If you love the internet, are familiar with social networking, back-linking, and writing ad copy, then becoming a SEM professional may be the career path that’s right for you.

Search engine marketing beginners should start with the search network and stay away from content network until they are more familiar with the whole system of paid search marketing. Here is why beginners should stick to search network for a time being and stay away from content.

Click Fraud

Google is very trustworthy for sure, especially AdWords. However, we cannot say the same thing for all of their AdSense publishers. Since there are so many of them, surely there are some who attempt fraud to earn money by fooling both Google and their advertisers which include both you and I.

Misleading Ad Placement

Some AdSense publishers make their ads look like navigation links in an attempt to blend their ads with their content. They also come up with some silly tactics to confuse or trick visitors into clicking ads. When people are tricked into clicking on ads, they would take no action when they land on a new page.

Inconsistent Traffic Quality

The traffic quality on the content network can be very inconsistent. Also, the higher pay out keywords are much more prone to click fraud. This is why you are advised to separate search and content in order to pay a much lower price for content network.

Run Placement Reports

If you want to place your ads on content network, you must track your conversions. You must also run placement reports so that you can exclude sites that do not convert well for you or sites that get lots of impressions with little or zero clicks.