Google Images has indexed billions of images. If your image can be found for the right keyword, then you will get targeted visitors to your website.Why images can help you to get more visitorsDepending on the search query, Google displays several images above the regular search results. For example, try this search for German Shepherd Dog:The images can be found at the top of the search results and they are linked with web pages. If someone clicks on the image, the person will be taken to the web page that shows the image.How to optimize your images so that they can be found If you have a website about German Shepherd dogs, then wouldn’t it be great if an image from your website was listed above the regular results? You’d get many additional website visitors then. There are several things that you can do to improve the position of your images in Google Image Search: Use a file name that contains the keywords for which you want to be found. In this example, the file name german-shepherd-dog.jpg would be a good idea. Separate the words with a hyphen. Use a descriptive Image Alt attribute text. It usually makes sense to use the same keywords that have been used for the file name. In this example, the Image Alt Attribute would be “German Shepherd Dog”:<img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog”> In the same way, you should use the Image Title attribute:<img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog” title=”German Shepherd Dog”> The textual content on the web page before and after the image also impacts the position of your image in Google’s Image Search. In this example, the text “German Shepherd Dog” should appear close to the image. Bigger images seem to get featured more often on Google’s first result page. The bigger your image, the easier it is to get at the top of Google’s regular result page. Include the Width and Height attributes in your image tag to show search engines the size of the image:<img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog” title=”German Shepherd Dog” width=”600″ height=”400″> Optimize the rest of your web page for the chosen search term. If the complete web page has been optimized for a keyword then it is easier to get good listings for images that are on the page. Make sure the image you optimize with a keyword is attractive and of good quality. If no-one clicks on the image then you won’t get the traffic boost you’re aiming for. Reprint rights provided by Axandra.com – Visit Axandra.com - Copyright Axandra.com – SEO software

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The short answer is absolutly yes. The Title and Description are contained in Meta Tags located in the header section of each web page. Each of these tags should be specific to the content of the page they represent on the site. That is each page should have its own Title, Keywords or Keyphrases and Description. Title should be no more than 70 characters, and the description 150 characters or less. The Keywords can be up to 10 but it is more practical to use 2 to 3 keywords/keyphrases per page. A common mistake is to have one set of these tags for the entire site. The tags need to match page content for best SEO results, ummm, rather the page content should match and support the information in these tags .

The Title tag may be the single most important aspect of SEO. Your Title should contain your important keywords and those keywords should be as close to the beginning of the Title as possible. Search Engines use the Title tag as the first factor for determining what your site is about. Making it easy for the search engines to figure out what your site is about is what SEO is about.

The Title is also useful to a visitor as it is displayed at the top left hand side of the Browser and on the Browser Tab. The title should be succinct but loaded with your keywords, keeping in mind there is limited display space in the 2 Browser locations mentioned. 

The Description Tag has a lesser value in SEO but on the other hand it has a high value for traffic. The Description is used by most search engines as the text to display in the search results. You should take the time to develop descriptions as an extension of your site marketing. After all it is likely to be the first content or text seen with regard to your site. Think of the Description as a catch all marketing slogan to get searchers to visit your site.

From my experience Page Rank has little to do with the placement of your site within search results.  If you’re thinking PR is what gets your site to the front page then I have a car from New Orleans I want to sell you. Page Rank has little to do with how your keywords perform in search engines. I would like to add however that PR does have some value towards Search Engine Results Placement (SERP) but only in isolated cases.

You see search engines place your search results based on a score derived from your SEO efforts for any given search word or phrase. What this means is that if someone is looking for “hat racks” and your site is SEO’d for “hat racks” you will get a specific score based on the quality of your SEO for that term, let’s say your score is 2.78. Now there could be other sites that sell “hat racks” and they too could have a score of 2.78 for the term. So when there is a tie in search scores, which site gets placed highest in the SERP? This is where a good PR comes in handy. The site with the highest PR gets placed higher than those sites with the same search score but lower PR.

While it is true PR has little to do with SERP of your site it is something that should not be ignored. PR alone is not the factor that will get you front page exposure; however, it does provide a measure of the value of your website. The higher you’re PR the more valuable the site is in terms of actual sale value and increased traffic/sales.

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I have done SEO work on scores of websites. All those websites achieved the goal of better SERP (in most cases 1st and 2nd page placement). However the most common complaint I hear is there is still not enough traffic to the site. After taking the time and effort of doing all the proper things to achieve SEO it turns out that traffic to a site can still be disappointing. While front page exposure on search engines is the main goal of SEO, this by itself, in some cases, does not guarantee enough traffic to achieve success.

In the first ten years or so of the Internet the best way of getting traffic to a website was by doing On-Page & Off-Page (minus Social Media Marketing) SEO. However it is starting to look like 1st page on Google doesn’t cut the mustard like it use to. So what’s the deal? I still know that being on the 1st page of search engines is a huge benefit but why isn’t it bringing  the tons of traffic we all envision?

Hears my speculative guess. “Social Media“

There is so much social media activity going on these days that people no longer have to depend on search engines to find what they are looking for. By being involved in Twitter, FaceBook, Squidoo, LinkedIn, etc. one has access to thousands of links and other forms of information that lead to what they might be looking for. Instead of using a search engine, people find their way to products, services, and information VIA the social network.

What do you think?  Is there still value in SEO for the search engines. Will social media take over so completely that search engines become fossils of the Internet? Is Social Media networking more valuable to a website then search engine results placement? Should we coin a new term (SMO) – Social Media Optimization?

Jump on board lets hear what you have to say.

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Most search engines, especially Google, Yahoo and Bing,  use website content as an important factor in determining search engine rankings. Adding fresh and related content to your website is an important search engine optimization (SEO) tactic which will help your ranking. The internet is full of free article services that allow you instant access to thousands of relevant articles for your website. You can control which articles are added, according to category, keywords and subject matter. Take a few minutes once a week or at least monthly to add some fresh content to your site. Search engines and visitors alike will reward you for your effort.

If you’re like most of us, you get emails from SEO Companies promising to get Top-10 Search Engine placement for your website. Consider for a moment, if these people could truly and honestly deliver on that promise, they wouldn’t have to advertise. Word would get out and website owners would come running with wallets open. But the fact is they are advertising for your business and people are not running to them for Top-10 placement.

Top SEO companies (if they were any good) should themselves be ranked very high for terms like “Search Engine Optimization”, “Internet SEO’ and “SEO”. Next time you get an email guaranteeing Top-10 placement; do a search for “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO to see how highly that company ranks for those terms. Chances are high that you won’t find them anywhere in the search results. No one can honestly deliver a Top-10 position for every site using legitimate SEO techniques. Any SEO company that makes such a bold guarantee typically will do a number of things designed to trick the search engines into ranking you higher for your keywords.

The problem with tricking search engines, especially Google, is that those techniques will work for a short while, but they will certainly stop working at some point. Deliberately tricking the search engines to gain search engine ranking is called ‘Black Hat” and is considered fraudulent and punishable by death (no just kidding on that).

When Google redesigns or updates their search algorithms (their formulas) for ranking websites — it’s called the “Google Dance” — millions of websites get new page rankings. The reason Google (or Yahoo or Bing) takes the time, energy and expense to redesign their algorithms is specifically to get rid of those websites who have managed to trick the system and rank well by using shady or underhanded tactics.

If you’re in a big hurry to rank high in the search engines, go try one of those Black Hat SEO companies. If they are at all effective, you will get ranked well quickly. But as soon as Google “Dances”, you’ll see your page rank fall like the 1929 stock market.

But that’s not even the bad part about using Black Hat tactics. The worst part is that Google will de-list any site from their index that they think intentionally used tricks to gain position or page ranking. That means that they aren’t going to list your site any more until you jump through a few Google hoops and prove you’re going to play by the rules.

People with high ranking, long lasting, successful sites, achieved that status by implementing “White Hat” or legitamate SEO techniques. These people would not dare touch a Black Hat technique. They have real businesses to run, with real employees and families to support, and they aren’t about to risk having the traffic to their website shut down for the sake of a quicker ride to the top. You should feel the same way. I hope you’re wearing a white hat, if not good luck.

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More and more people these days are using websites as a way to help pay their bills. Some people are even using them as their sole source of income! Creating a thriving, successful website isn’t easy and it takes a lot of hard work. One of the keys in making a website successful is to know how to execute SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization” properly.

What is search engine optimization? Simply put, it’s basically the process of increasing and improving the quality and volume of traffic to a specific web page. When someone types a specific search term into a search engine, that search engine begins scanning its internal database, looking for that specific phrase, or “keyword.” Then the search engine returns reference to the web pages that best match the search terms. The higher up in the search results a web page is, the more likely it is to improve its traffic flow.

Search engine optimization is a strategy web designers and SEO specialist use to ensure a web page is one of the first web pages returned on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). SEO really becomes important when the competition for a given product or service is high. You may have the best thing going for consumers but if your search engine placement is low your traffic will suffer. So to give a web page an edge, people employ SEO tactics to place keywords within the content of their pages to improve their chances of getting traffic.

Here are 7 essential tips to follow when deciding to implement SEO.

• First choose your keywords or key phrases carefully, keeping in mind that you should select only one, two or three at most for each page you decide to optimize. The keywords/phrase must be relevant to the page and must be terms that people will use to search for your product or service.
• SEO is done on a page by page basis. Each and every page of a website can be optimized but you should concentrate on 1 – 3 pages of your site (more if the site is large). No need to do SEO for an About Us or Contact Us type page.
• If possible select a URL for your site that contains the main keyword/phrase for the Home page of the site. It is difficult to find the perfect URL these days so consider being creative by using dashes (-) in the URL. I.E. ( my-site-is-the-best.com)
• Make full use of Meta Tags. There are three important Meta Tags (Keywords, Description and Title). Search engines use the information defined in these tags to help determine what the page is about. Place the most important keyword/phrase as close to the front of the Meta Tag definition as possible. Keep keywords/phrase to a minimum, using too many keywords will dilute the value.
• Use the keywords/phrases within the content of the page. When you place text on the page, be sure to use the main keyword/phrase often but without excess. Overuse of the keyword/phrase can be deemed spammy by the search engines and make the page hard to read by the visitor.
• Use the keyword/phrase in main headers, Alt Tags of images or graphics on the page and if possible as anchor text links from other pages within the site.
• Something called semantically related words and or synonyms to the keywords can be extremely effective to SERP. For instance, if your main key phrase is “wooden chairs”, words like stool or bench or seat will give additional value to the main keyword/phrase and will aid in boosting your SERP. A very good tool to assist you with the selection of semantically related words can be found at http://labs.google.com/sets. Once you find additional related words use those in the content often but again without excess. Strive to keep the written content on the page natural sounding.

SEO is an extremely powerful technique used for the sole purpose of getting available traffic for a given keyword/phrase to a web page. By careful selection of keywords/phrase and using those words appropriately on a web page, additional free traffic can be obtained.  SEO does not guarantee sales success, once a visitor makes it to the website it becomes the responsibility of the site content (text, graphics, layout, etc) to make a sale or conversion.

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Getting listed on Google’s first result page is the goal of any search engine optimization campaign. If you have taken the time to find the best keywords for your website, you probably have a very long list with many keywords. That automatically leads to the following question:

For how many keywords should you optimize a page?

The answer to this question is simple: one. A single web page should not be optimized for more than one keyword. Of course, that keyword can consist of several words, for example “buy inexpensive golf shoes”.

If you have optimized one of your web pages for that keyword (it’s actually a key phrase) then you should not optimize the same page for other keywords.

It’s much better if a web page is highly relevant to one keyword than somewhat relevant to many search terms. If you concentrate on one keyword per page then it is much more likely that your web page will get a top listing on Google for that keyword.

If you also want to get high rankings for your other keywords such as “brown golf shoes”, “golf shop” or “golf equipment” then you should optimize other pages of your website for these keywords.

You will get the best possible results if you optimize different pages of your website for different but related keywords.

How to optimize a web page for your chosen keyword

When you optimize a web page for a keyword, it’s important that the right elements of your web page contain the keyword in the right frequency. The easiest way to optimize a web page for a keyword is to use IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer.

The Top 10 Optimizer in the brand new IBP version 11 has been improved and it will tell you in plain English how to change your web pages. Just follow the instructions and your web page will be perfectly optimized for Google (or Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine that you choose).

In addition to the elements of your web page, the Top 10 Optimizer will also tell you if you have to work on the links to your website and how exactly you should change the links so that your website can get a page one ranking on Google.

Optimize for one key phrase, get high rankings for many keywords

You should always optimize your web pages for a very targeted keyword that consists of many words. A keyword that consists of many words is called “key phrase”. This has several advantages:

1. It’s much easier to get high rankings for targeted key phrases because the competition is not as fierce as the competition for one word key words.
2. Key phrases attract much more targeted website visitors. People who   search for “golf” might be interested in magazines, clubs or even a car. People who search for “buy inexpensive golf shoes” are looking for inexpensive golf shoes and they are ready to buy.
3. By optimizing your web page for a key phrase, you automatically optimize your web page for the parts of that key phrase. For example, your web page will automatically be optimized for “golf shoes”, “inexpensive golf shoes” and other keywords if you optimize your page for “buy inexpensive golf shoes”.

Optimize one web page for one keyword and optimize as many pages of your website as possible for different but related keywords. In this example, optimize different pages of your website for “buy inexpensive golf shoes”, “find the perfect golf club”, “country club”, “golf sport information”, “golf carts”, etc.

The more pages you optimize, the better. If many pages of your website have been optimized for many related keywords then your website will look relevant to the topic of your keywords (in this example: “golf”). If search engines think that your website is relevant to a special topic then it will be easier to get high rankings for the individual keywords.

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