Search engine optimization is a much-debated topic and there is a lot of different on the net. Let's cut through the muck and discuss things you should and shouldn't pursue to get high rankings.

Before blasting into the subject, we need to define optimization. It simply refers to the manipulation of a site to gain top rankings on the three search engines that dominate the search traffic on the net - Yahoo, Google and MSN. If you do a search on Google, the optimized listings are found in the large section on the left hand side of the page. These are often referred to as organic rankings since you don't pay for placement. Of course, you manipulated the page for optimization, but we will stick with organic as a name.

The first optimization tip is the most basic and the one many people screw up. Pick the correct keywords for your site! The correct keywords are not what you personally think based on your knowledge of your service or product. They are not the phrases returned in the Overture inventory tool. The only place you will find the exact keyword phrases you should use are in Wordtracker. The site gives you an analytical tool that provides the exact keyword phrases being used by your prospects, how often they are being used and which are easiest to get high rankings on. It costs a whopping $8 for a single session, but you will want to get a year subscription so you can pick up different cycles of keywords. Your prospects will search for different things in summer compared to winter.

The second thing to consider is the isolation keyword strategy. Many people will try to cram as many keywords into a page as possible. The accepted standard is 10 to 15 words. This is an old approach that works, but it will take much longer to get high rankings. Instead, you should develop a list of as many keyword phrases as possible. A single page should be made for each keyword phrase. You should never have to pick one keyword phrase instead of another for your site. Instead, you should make individual pages for each phrase.

A major third optimization tip is interlinking. The links from one page of your site to another matter a lot. When you create a link, make sure the link is the anchor text for the page the prospect will be going to. Anchor text is simply the keyword phrase on that page.

Turning to things you should avoid in optimization, well, there are a lot. Do not put your site name in your meta title, the search engines will list you high without it. Do not skimp on text, you need at least 250 words per page. Do not put database parameters in your urls because spiders have problems reading them. Stay away from flash as much as possible for the same reason. Stick to a single subject per page, to wit, do not wonder around like a drunken web designer! For the love of God, do not use frames. Finally, keep your html code streamlined so search engines can read it with ease.

The list of things to do and avoid is nearly endless. Follow these simple steps, however, and you will see marked improvement in your rankings.

You need to do enough exercise to keep your site properly indexed with search engine.i am providing some tricks that can help you in improving page relevancy. as perhaps you know that only Google page rank is not important for search engine ranking-Page relevancy also important.if you can do some exercise than you can improve your traffic.

[1]. Your Web pages with content should be interested in reading. As content is king for search engines content in your site should be both unique and interesting.this can improve your impression. [2]. Content should be highly focused with keyword phrases. rather than phrases that are too general and competitive Specially when there is more competition.

 [3]. Optimize your Web pages for at least three to five keywords at a time You should optimize your page for minimum three keywords-for three keywords your page should be highly relevant.for that you need to choose better keywords,choosing keywords is not a game of guessing.it is one science.Write your site's content using the keywords for which users search, and you'll literally be speaking the same language as your visitors. Useful sites:-Nichebot.com and Wordtracker.com

 [4]. Use regionally specific keywords, when applicable. if your target is regional than try to choose keywords that are regional. Example:-you can choose 'loans in new york' rather than just 'loan in USA' that's why you will get highly targeted visitors and improve your visitor to sales ratio

 [5]. Use the most commonly used variations of your keywords, with keyword research Don't choose keywords that are highly competitive(specially when your page rank is low.) You can choose their synonyms etc.as per i said you need to do some research work for that.also consider some variation that can occur due to typing mistake etc..

 [6]. Each optimized page should contain a unique title. It will some time meaningless if you will choose same title pages more than one.title tags are very important and perhaps you know that searcg engine give lots of weight to title if title of your page will different. than you can get more traffic for more keywords.this is important.

 [7].Use multiple keywords in your title tags when appropriate. Choose better title for every page using synonyms etc..so that you will probably also get traffic for that keywords too.but don't go overboard.

 [8].Most important keywords appearing above the fold and throughout each optimized page. First few lines are very important for search engine page relevancy.so write that with special care and using your all main keywords.also include your keywords in other part of page too.

 [9]. Using keywords in hypertext links, whenever possible. if you will use keywords in hypertext links than your page which you link will improve its page relevancy automatically

 [10]. Each optimized page contain a unique meta-tag description. Some search engines still give more weight to meta tags so like title meta tag should be different for each page if possible.

 [11]. Each optimized page contain a unique meta-tag keyword list. Like meta tags you should also change meta tags wherever possible.and that keywords should also include in page body.

 [12]. Place common misspellings of your keywords within your meta-tag keywords. Many people using this system to get traffic you can use misspellings in youe meta details and can drive traffic. due to typing mistakes of searchers

 [13].your graphic images should contain descriptive keywords within the alternative text attribute, when appropriate. Google also decide relevancy through name of icons,images etc..so try to include your keywords in it.

 [14]. If you are submitting pages to non-U.S. search engines. write your pages in the appropriate language if you will not do it.it may possible that in international search engines your rank will down.

If you are still looking for news using "normal" search engines, stop doing it! You'll find the services below to be a much better way to search for the latest news stories from hundreds of sources on the web. These services provide exceptionally good results for current event searching, because they crawl only news sites and revisit these sites several times per day. Thus, the results are usually focused and timely.

Google News
http://news.google.com/

Provides the ability to keyword search across thousands of news sources found through crawling the web, while also providing the ability to browse categories of news where headlines are assembled automatically. Winner for Best News Search Engine from Search Engine Watch in 2002. (Review: Google News Search Leaps Ahead, Oct. 2, 2002)

Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/

Similar to Google News, you can keyword search across thousands of news sources found by Yahoo's news crawling partner, Moreover, as well as stories fed by major wire services and news partners. Yahoo Full Coverage lets you browse categories of news, where articles and resources have been hand-assembled by Yahoo editors. Second-place winner for Best News Search Engine from Search Engine Watch in 2002. (Review: A Closer Look At Yahoo News, July 30, 2003)

AllTheWeb News
http://www.alltheweb.com/?cat=news

This Overture-owned service lets you keyword search against content gathered from news sites across the web. Advanced news search page allows narrowing news sources to particular categories, such as sports or technology. Honorable mention winner for Best News Search Engine from Search Engine Watch in 2002.

AltaVista News
http://news.altavista.com/

This Overture-owned service lets you keyword search against news content found by sister-search engine AllTheWeb (above) and content supplied by major news partners such as the New York Times. Drop-down options under the search box make it easy to narrow results by news topic, world region or to some major news sources. Basic news headline browsing by category is also offered. Honorable mention winner for Best News Search Engine from Search Engine Watch in 2002.

Daypop
http://www.daypop.com/

Daypop lets you keyword search through content it finds from crawling thousands of news sites throughout each day. You can also search through weblog content or information from RSS feeds. Honorable mention winner for Best News Search Engine from Search Engine Watch in 2002. (Review: Behind the Scenes at the Daypop Search Engine, Sept. 10, 2003)

Other Choices

Ananova
http://www.ananova.com/

News search engine that provides coverage from about hundreds of different sources. It also features a "virtual newscaster" called Ananova.

Columbia Newsblaster
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/nlp/newsblaster/

Experimental system that automatically assembles a page showing the day's news, based on information it finds from crawling the web. (Review: Newsblaster: An Automatic Weblogger, March 6, 2002)

Net2one
http://www.net2one.com/

Provides ability to keyword search through news content from across the web or have information sent to you on a regular basis -- but only for those who pay for the service. The free guest account functionality is so limited that it's not worth the time signing up for it. If you aren't going to be a paying member, another news search engine will serve you better.

Newsknife.com
http://www.newsknife.com

Not a news search engine but instead a news rating service. Newsknife measures how well various news sites, including automated ones like Google News, appear to be performing.

NewsNow
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/

Search headlines gathered from news sources around the world. Each listing also has a country flag icon to indicate the national origin of the report. You can browse newsfeeds that organize headlines into categories such as animal welfare and celebrity gossip.

NewsTrawler
http://www.newstrawler.com/

News meta search site that allows you to send a query to one or more news sites from one location. Hundreds of sites are listed, by country and by category.

NewsTrove.com
http://www.newstrove.com/

Keyword search or browse categories for news content from across the web.

Rocketinfo
http://www.rocketnews.com

Keyword search against news and weblog content gathered from across the web. Desktop software sold by Rocketinfo provides additional features, such as the ability search against more resources and to save searches. Formerly known as RocketNews. Past honorable mention winner for Best News Search Engine from Search Engine Watch. (Review: A Multifaceted Online News and Blog Search Tool, Jan. 27, 2004)

World News Network
http://www.wn.com/

Draws from hundreds of online news sources in 20 languages. Presents stories grouped into more than 500 subject and geographical categories. (Review: A Different Look at World News, Jan. 6, 2003)

News Hubs

DailyEarth.com
http://dailyearth.com/

A guide to newspaper web sites and news search resources around the world. Formerly known as NewspaperDirectory.com.

HeadlineSpot
http://www.headlinespot.com/

Links to hundreds of sources of news and information, organized in categories. Major categories include news by subject, news by region, media type, opinion pages, and so on. Other categories point to resources helpful to news junkies. These include links to cool tools, resources for journalists, kids and teachers, and a category that takes you behind the news.

Kiosken
http://www.esperanto.se/kiosk/engindex.html

A guide to newspaper web sites around the world.

NewsDirectory
http://www.newsdirectory.com/

Easy access to thousands of news sources, including newspapers, magazines and television stations worldwide.

RSS News Feeds & Blog Search Engines

Blogdex
http://blogdex.media.mit.edu/

Long-standing services that leverages blog links for discovery purposes. Think of it as a "buzz index" according to blogs, where the goal is to show you which links anywhere on the web are currently getting the most references from bloggers. (Review: RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content, April 2, 2003)

Blogdigger
http://www.blogdigger.com/

While it's called Blogdigger, this service also includes some non-blog content, as it is based on searching through RSS feeds. Feeds are either submitted or found via the Weblogs.com site.

Blogging Headline News
http://blogging-news.info

This news site samples 12,000 RSS feeds, selecting about 5,000 posts three-times a day to feature in about 130 different categories. It's designed to be an online blogging magazine. You can also keyword search for material.

BlogStreet
http://www.blogstreet.com/

A wonderful blog discovery and investigation tool that allows you to view information about a blog, such as other blogs that seem to be related to it, people linking to its entries, how it ranks in the blogging world, and much more. There's also a range of RSS tools, such as the ability to create an RSS feed for any blog (or ordinary web site) that lacks one. The site also contains a directory of existing RSS feeds that have been submitted to it or discovered. In addition, BlogStreet operates Info Aggregator, an outstanding software-free service lets you subscribe to RSS feeds and have posts delivered via email. You can also keyword search through blog and RSS posts.

CRAYON (CReAte Your Own Newspaper)
http://www.crayon.net/

This service doesn't use RSS feeds, but the concept of tailoring news to what you want is the same. To create your own newspaper, simply sign up for a free account and select the sources you want to include. There are hundreds of online newspapers to choose from. You can also include specialized sources, with topics including politics, business, weather, religion, sports and so on.

Fagan Finder: Weblogs, Journals, & RSS
http://www.faganfinder.com/blogs/

Superb all-in-one search page that lets you easily search a variety of blog/RSS search engines, plus provides related links on the subject.

Feedster
http://www.feedster.com/

Feedster lets you search against content distributed via RSS. That means it's essentially a blog search engine for many people, since so many blog entries are distributed via RSS. However, some non-blog newsfeeds are also included. Feedster's Images feature is designed to present a visual look at that day's blogging world. Feedster was originally known as Roogle when launched in March 2003 and absorbed the formerly separate RSS Search service in June 2003. (Review: Feedster, July 1, 2003)

NewsIsFree
http://www.newsisfree.com

A long-standing major directory of RSS feeds. It organizes thousands of news feeds -- what it calls "news channels" -- into categories. You can browse the categories to find feeds of interest or do a search for feeds that mention your keywords in their titles and descriptions.

Syndic8.com
http://www.syndic8.com/

Another major directory of RSS feeds. It lets you look through thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted or which have been added by volunteers to its collection. In other words, it's an Open Directory for RSS feeds.

Technorati
http://www.technorati.com/

Technorati is a great service. Plug in the URL of any web page, and you can quickly see what bloggers are saying about it by using the "Link Cosmos" feature. The Breaking News feature assembles top headlines automatically -- but these headlines come from blogs, rather than traditional news sources. A similar Current Events feature is also offered. Technorati's Top 100 also offers an "A-List" of popular blogs based on linkage patterns.

Magazine & Periodicals Searching

HighBeam
Access to reference material, research information, periodical literature and more. Searching is free. You pay to view material you find. Previously called eLibrary and Researchville.

FindArticles.com
http://www.findarticles.com/

Let's you search through articles from over 300 sources, dating back to 1998, and view them for free. You can narrow your search to specific magazine categories, such as "Automotive," using a drop down option next to the search box. You can also search within a particular publication by using the "View Publications by Name" link, which appears below the search box. Find the name of the magazine you are interested in, click on its name, and the search box that appears searches against only that publication's content. (Review: A Free Deep Content Search Engine, Mar. 21, 2002). You can also access the same information from LookSmart, the owner of FindArticles, by clicking on the "Articles" tab at LookSmart.

MagPortal
http://www.magportal.com/

Allows you to find magazine articles, plus you can order results by date or publisher. Articles can also be found by browsing a directory structure.

Specialty & Regional News Search Engines

Corante
http://www.corante.com

If you are after technology news, this service aims to deliver top articles each day in different areas. Stories are reviewed and classified by human editors.

iMenta
http://www.imente.com

Headlines from Spanish news sources. Requires payment to use.

Paperball
http://paperball.fireball.de/

Produced by the German Fireball search service, Paperball lets you search for German news.

News Search Articles

Google Alert Automatically Tracks Your Favorite Topics
SearchDay, Jan. 22, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3301451

Google Alert lets you automate the process of running regular queries, sending you an email whenever any new content is added to the Google database.

Today's Newspapers Around the World
SearchDay, Jan. 20, 2004
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3300851

Want to see what today's print version of your favorite newspaper looks like online? Two services offer reproductions of dozens of newspapers from around the world.

Rocketnews Will Soon Offer New Search Features
ResourceShelf.com, Nov. 21, 2003
http://www.resourceshelf.com/archives/2003_11_01_resourceshelf_archive.html#106936775292562581

New options are coming to the Rocketnews news search service, such as headline title searching and the ability to go back in articles for six months.

Dont panic yet, human news editors. Google News settles in.
Newsknife, November 2003
http://www.newsknife.com/features/google_news_trend.html

After monitoring Google News for nearly a year, Newsknife determines it's very good, but human compiled news sites still have an edge.

Google News Finally Makes the Grade
Online Journalism Review, Aug. 28, 2003
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1062114819.php

Google News is now to be rated among news generation sites such as the LA Times and the Guardian -- and will rank pretty well among the others, too. A look at the addition and how news sites get ranked in general.

Battle of the blog
News.com, Aug. 4, 2003
http://news.com.com/2009-1032_3-5059006.html

Covers the rivalry over RSS formats that exist. Danny Sullivan offers longer comments on this article and the debate in the August 2003 edition of the Search Engine Report.

Q&A with Krishna Bharat of Google News
Google.com, July 2003
http://www.google.com/googlefriends/morejul03.html#qa

This is from Google's "Google Friends" newsletter and a short, good read for more insight into how Google News operates.

Google Toolbar 'BlogThis' Rankles Rivals
InternetNews.com, June 27, 2003
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2228651

The latest version of the Google Toolbar makes it easy to blog a page you are visiting. The functionality only works with Google's Blogger.com service, and free accounts are suggested, if you don't have an account. Those from competing blogging tools aren't pleased that the toolbar doesn't interact with their services.

Monitoring Web Pages 24 Hours a Day
SearchDay, April 9, 2003
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2178631

If you regularly visit web pages looking for new or updated information, you'll save countless hours by automating the process with software that tracks changes for you -- even while you sleep.

RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content
The Search Engine Update, April 2, 2003
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175281

RSS allows blogs, news sites and other sources an easy way to distribute their content. The article below explains how RSS can be a great way for anyone to receive customized news information from growing number of sources, plus it examines ways to search and explore RSS and blog-oriented content.

Loving Each Other More: Search Engines & Blogs
The Search Engine Report, April 2, 2003
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175261

Explores the timely content that blogs provide, work they can do to make themselves more search engine friendly and some thoughts on what search engines might do on their end.

Making An RSS Feed
The Search Engine Report, April 2, 2003
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175271

RSS is a method of distributing links to content in your web site that you'd like others to use. In other words, it's a mechanism to "syndicate" your content. It can be an easy way to draw attention to your material, bringing you some traffic and perhaps a little net fame, depending on how good your information is.

Paid Content Trend Is Dangerous
Editor & Publisher, Jan. 27, 2003
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1804448

If news sites begin pulling content behind barriers, it may reduce the usefulness of news search engines. A look at the potential problems, especially from a news publisher's point of view.

 

In Google SEO (search engine optimazation), you, the webmaster, wage war with Googlebot, Google's listing spider. Only this war has no weapons. Instead it is your content veruses the army of Googlebot's other sites to rank.

To win this war there are things the webmaster must do, and things the webmaster must not do, should he stand a chance in winning the war and claiming a position on the top 20 results of Google.

There are many things a webmaster must do to take the edge of Googlebot. First and foremost, create the website. Let it be something unique, or better than the rest. Add pages on top of pages of content. You could put articles, information, anything. With one exception. It MUST be relevant to your website. After you have about 10 pages worth of content, get some links to your site. Submit to directories, loads of them. Try to submit to directories without a reciporical link requirenment. Also use word-of-mouth advertising to get a view visitors. As soon as you have some links, some visitors, and loads of content, hit your view visitors with a boom. Offer rewards for who could refer the most members, or who could submit the most articles, or anything to promote your site. Also remember to squeese in possible keywords in your content, and DO NOT forget meta tags, they are the key to SEO.

You may have noticed, I never mentioned when to submit your site to Google, that's the thing, don't. If google picks up your site before you submit it, you get a way better rank. Now you have come up with a very good SEO website. Now you need to make sure not to blow it. Whatever you do, DON'T:

1: Have link exchanges with non-relevant sites, this will hurt you.

2: Do not cheat. Cheating is placing "invisible" keywords on your site. (white text on white background) Googlebot picks it up, and boom, no more rank on Google.

3: If you find the need to submit your site, do it, ONCE. If you submit twice then say goodbye to your rank.

That's all and good luck with the SEO. With this, good keywords, and minimal compition, you will have a rank in Google

What are mini ads you might ask? Chances are you have seen them on one of your favorite sites, in emails or at that forum you like to visit. They are small, non-intrusive ads that do get notice from people whether they are looking for something or not. Usually scattered through different places on websites, for one reason or another they seem to catch a persons eye. Especially when people are just browsing. They seem to create an interest in oneself to click and find out more about your website. The best thing yet is that anyone can create them for their site and it only takes a few minutes of your time!

There are many different types of mini ads. They come in different sizes, different locations of websites as well as different formats. Ok, I'll tell you what a mini ad is. It is a version of a text link to your website, that even though very subtle in ways does effectively help market your website. Now think back to some of the sites you visit and the text links on their website. How many times have you clicked different ones you have seen? I know I have clicked alot. Probably we don't even notice half the time what we are doing but not meaning to we read a text link and we think"sounds interesting" or "I wonder what their site is like". As soon as this thought enters our mind we click the link. Its a funny thing.

Some of the best ways to get advertising is through these links. They are usually free and very inexpensive to obtain. Another benefit of them is they only take a few minutes to set up. Here are some free examples of getting text links for your website:

-Posting in forums on others posts and leaving your signature
-Submitting free articles and leaving your signature with the url in it at the bottom of the article.
-Sending out(not spam though) or replying back to emails with your url in your signature
-Exchanging or purchases links on other quality related websites.
-Submitting to directories related to your website.

All of these ideas are usually free and easy to do. They will help get new visitors to your website as well as helping to increase your page rank in google. So get out there and get going on it. Its simple, cheap and best of all doesn't take alot of time to do.