Do you know that most search engine users will never look below the top 10 or 20 results? Search engines return thousands or even millions of results for any query the user types. That’s tremendous competition. If you ever hope to have visitors to your website, you need to optimize your results within search engine rankings, or risk being buried within the millions.

On-Page SEO (search engine optimization) refers to SEO techniques on your web page, usually involving relevant text within the web page and meta tags. The following techniques are some of the most important, with the more influential ones being listed first.

1. Keywords

Everything starts with choosing good keywords for your SEO. After all, SEO is all about “how high your website can rank with your keywords” in search engines. This should be your first step in planning your online business, even before you start building your first web page. Spend at least a few days researching keywords related to your site theme. Try to target relevant words that are not too competitive. Several keyword suggestion tools are available to assist you.

Some sources for these tools are:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

2. High Quality, Unique Content

As Google robots become smarter and the algorithms more efficient, the importance of having unique content increases. Google may penalize pages that appear to duplicate the content of other websites. Your page should focus on your keywords without stuffing them unnaturally into the text and should offer quality information relevant to your site theme. Don’t place your page content within a frame that will be ignored by spiders.

 3. Domain Name

A domain name that features your keyword(s) or at least closely related words will also help boost your rankings. Similarly, your sub-domain names and other inner page URLs should also use words that are relevant to your keywords.

4. H1, H2 Tags

Use H1 and H2 tags properly. Your H1 tag should be near the top of your web page and include your most important keywords. Your second most important level of keywords should be listed in your H2 tag. If you have a third level, place it in an H3 tag. These tags are more important for results in Yahoo! and MSN search engines than Google.

5. Meta Tags

Even though a website can rank #1 at Google without having any meta tags, it is not wise to simply ignore them. Remember too that Google is not the only search engine. Meta tags can be more important factors for other search engines, such as Yahoo! and MSN. Insert your keywords in all meta tags, but don’t repeat the same keyword more than two times. Search engine robots may penalize keyword stuffing or spamming.

Title Tag

The title tag is the most important one, so focus on creating good phrases with each one containing two or three keywords rather than just making a list of keywords.

Keyword Tag

Again, never stuff or repeat your keywords in this tag. Also, do not insert any words that do not appear on the web page.

Description Tag

Write a good description of your website, using your keywords. Because this description appears in search engine result pages, it should appeal to potential visitors and make them want to visit your site.

6. Keyword Density

An old rule of thumb is that your keywords should make up about 3% of  the text on your web page. Search engines today place less emphasis on this factor, but having keyword focused content is still important. Just remember to use your keywords as often as possible, but in a natural way as you create the content of your web page. Use good keyword-rich phrases, because unique combinations of keywords are more important than the simple use of keywords themselves.

7. Alt, Title Tags

Insert your keywords into these tags in the same manner as with meta tags.  Use a keyword-rich sentence or phrase for each of these tags.

8. Inner Linking

Your home page should link to the most important inner pages. Those inner pages should include only links to nearby relevant pages and a link back to the home page. Don’t place links to all of your inner pages on every single page. The reason for this is to maximize PageRank points on your domain page URL (for example, www.yourdomain.com). Your domain page is the most important, so have a link to your domain URL on every page so that it receives any PR points from those pages. Don’t include a link to your “contact us” page on every page because you don’t need to promote your contact page. Another way to control PageRank point flow is through the use of no-follow tags.

More On-Page SEO considerations:

- Remove broken links
- Make Search Engine friendly URL
- Use bold, italic or underline on your keywords
- Adding new pages frequently
- Updating your pages frequently

Avoid these typical On-Page SEO mistakes:

- Keyword spamming
- Domain redirection (although 301 redirection is ok)
- Too many affiliate links
- Linking to link farms
- Excessive cross-linking

In the Internet business, choosing the right payment system is very important. Among the many payment systems which many ecommerce companies offer, popular ones are usually good choices. Since many people are using them, your customers likely already have accounts, and will be more comfortable about using it to do business with you.

Having said that, let’s not forget about the old fashioned credit cards. Credit cards are not just for individual consumers; many companies also prefer using credit cards to purchase products or services via the Internet. There are many different cards offered, with a variety of features, discounts, perks, interest rates, benefits (such as cash back offers), etc. When a consumer applies for a credit card, they should be able to look at a variety of cards and compare the features of each one in order to decide which card is the best for their personal situation.

A number of websites offer individual cards, and some even offer a variety of cards in order to allow consumers to much more easily shop for a card that offers them the maximum benefits tailored to their personal financial situation. However, this competition means that getting noticed by the search engines is essential for a business to be able to promote itself.

In this post, we would like to review a web page from a credit card company. One method of making sure the website is in the running when relevant keywords are typed in a search engine is to include those keywords in the meta-tags. From an SEO perspective, this website has done a good job of including relevant keywords but not overstuffing by including the terms “credit cards, credit card, credit, creditcards, visa, offers, search, compare, apply, mastercard, low interest, student, instant approval, balance transfer, reward, business, student, cash back.”

The next important step is to increase backlinks so that the results can be returned higher in search engine results. This is done using a variety of methods, the most important of which right now seems to be relevant backlinks from quality finance websites.

In the SEO world, webmasters acknowledge that the content of your website is the core of SEO. According to them, it means that all the other “quick-fix” techniques are secondary. The quality of website content should attract people as well as search engines. Good information and reliable resources must be organized in a unique way. The focus is to provide quality information for the visitors rather than search engine robots though it seems to be the very opposite trend compared to the SEO we are familiar with.

On this particular web page, we can see many kinds of credit cards, total 100, sorted by category. This is a great resource because of the variety of choices. Visitors should be able to find a card perfectly suited to their specific needs. The navigation links and brief description for each credit card is nicely done, making it easy for visitors to check and compare with similar offers. The search function is also provided for visitors to search freely within the site for their chosen keywords. You can visit this credit card website to find your best credit card.

Any webmaster who is into SEO knows keywords are so important. The popular keyword related SEO terms such as keyword tracker, keyword density, keyword optimization, and so on are usually the things many webmaster pay attention to when they SEO.

However, it seems that Google is now more paying attention to key phrases. It’s all about content of website as some of SEO experts have been saying. So, why Google started to do this more aggresively?

It could be a way to check and find more related words other than often over-used “keywords” in webmasters web pages with H1 tag, atl, title, and anchor texts. Keywords are optimized in many websites, so Google had to come up with another ranking factor, though there are many ranking factors exist, besides simple combination of words.

Or it could be a way to encourage webmasters to focus more on content rather than link exchanged keywords. Phrases are longer version of words, so by using this factor, Google is in a way telling us “content is more important than keyword based SEO”.

This is a good news for white hat folks as well as those who have believed in “Content is king”. We shall see how keyphrase emphasis would change the way people SEO.

First Rate is an SEO company, based on Australia since 2001. They have been helping clients increase the returns from their website investments. With solid SEO knowledge and years of experiences, First Rate has created a unique marketing methodology along with supporting software that allows us to implement highly successful internet marketing campaigns.

While there are thousands of SEO companies, First Rate is one of quality SEO companies that understand many aspects of Internet marketing and online business strategies. They are also a member and contributor to the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA), the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) and The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), which was formed to fill the gaps in awareness and understanding of SEM, including educating marketing managers worldwide about what SEM is and how properly implemented SEM programs can provide some of the highest returns on investment possible in the marketing world today.

Here is a list of their Search Engine Optimisation methods that they use to increase your website rank in search engines.

• Homepage optimisation
• Site meta tag optimisation
• Site content optimisation
• Site template optimisation
• Content management system review

According to their typical outcomes, you can expect the followings:

• Site found for a wide range of search phrases
• Increased number of top 10 rankings
• Increased brand exposure
• Increased traffic
• Traffic exhibits high conversion rate
• Large % of traffic is from first time visitors

First Rate also offers other SEM (Search Engine Marketing), including advertisings through search engines such as Adwords or YPN. Contextual advertisings are one of major SEM techniques that you can expect a good result relatively fast. They help you analyze things like:

• Low cost per visit
• Low cost per conversion
• Performance based advertising (CPC)
• Market sets CPC
• Traffic is pre-qualified
• High click-through rates
• High conversion
• Country placement filters
• Language placement filters
• Live creative optimisation
• Real time ad creative control
• Real time placement control
• Real time budget control

Their SEM services also include professional manual submissions to popular search engines and quality web directories. As link building is a core key for high rankings in many search engines, it is very critical to submit your site as many search engines and directories as possible.

Summary

Overall First Rate is a good SEO company that you can rely on for your SEO campaign. Here are the list of their services:

• Generating qualified leads to sales teams
• Increasing sales for online stores
• Retaining and up-selling customers

Internet marketing methods:

• Search Engine Marketing
  • Search Engine Advertising
  • Search Engine Optimisation
  • Search Engine Submissions
  • Contextual Advertising
• Strategy
  • Online Business Strategy
  • Measurement (Business/Site KPIs)
  • Market Research
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Site Content
• Permission Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • Mobile Marketing
  • Blog Marketing
  • Feed Marketing (RSS, ATOM)
• Performance Marketing
  • Affiliate Marketing
  • ROI Marketing
• Development
  • Site Functionality & Technology
  • Site Usability & Conversion
  • Development Advisor
  • Ecommerce Solution
• Brand Marketing
  • Banner Advertising
  • Email Advertising
  • Online PR (Link Building)

There is probably no online advertising medium that’s more personal or involving than email. People check their email almost everyday. No Internet marketer should take this good old marketing method lightly. Keep in touch with your visitors and potential customers.

Icontact.com offers one of the best email marketing software for anyone who wants to send out email newsletters. With great prices that start at $9.95 per month, you can also get over 300 professionally-designed email templates, surveying, autoresponder, and blogging capability from the same application at no additional charge.

The company currently has over 15,000 customers and 100,000 users. The product is used primarily by small businesses but also has a number of Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Ford, Nissan, Super 8 Motel, and International Paper. iContact is working to change the way businesses and non-profit organizations communicate online by making it really easy to manage all online communications from a single web application.

iContact is an easy to use email marketing, surveying, autoresponder, and blogging tool that allows small businesses, non-profits, and associations to easily communicate online with their customers, prospects, and members. The application allows you to track the opens and clickthroughs on your emails, add a sign-up form to your web site, segment your list, and manage your subscribers. Visit their site and get your message out. Here is a link for overview video link for iContact Email Marketing software.

As many webmasters know, the coming Google pagerank update is around the beginning of August. This is of course a prediction based on the pagerank update cycle, every 100 days.

PageRank update is only predicted as Google does not have specific time schedule. The delay has happened before, the one after BigDaddy effect. However, the delay of 2007 3Q PR update may have a different reason behind the scene.

The rumor has been said that Google might be removing PageRank, in SEO websites and webmaster forums. You can check articles and people’s opinion on this issue:

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014435.html

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3416514.htm

What could this mean to webmasters? Some say it has nothing to do with their Internet businesses, but others say it is significant to their websites. If Google doesn’t update PageRank any more, many would change the way they do SEO now. Of course, PR is just one small factors for ranking high in the Google SERP. Could this be the end of link building SEO and the link selling industry?

Another great bid directory by Mystik Media is Webdirectorylist.com, which is a directory of directories. This niche directory has categories of all sorts of directories and directory related sites.

The displays for submitted links are based on the amount of bid, just like any other bid directory. Top 10 links are shown on the home page with backlink information and Google PageRank.

The most popular category, General Paid Directories or Premium Paid Directories would be the most competitive ones as many other directories would like to be listed in this high promoted directory list site. This resource site is very valuable for directory owners as well. You can find links on web directory scripts, directory templates, or directory submission service links.

Each link listing comes with extra 5 deep links, so that you can expect a total SEO link building for your directory. The detail page shows those 5 deep links along with your directory site stats. Just like Bigweblinks.com, you can check your competitors investment amount at the submit page, which is helpful for you to know what position your link would be.

Features:

• Top 10 links displayed on home page
• Link stats (backlinks, PR)
• 5 Deep links on detail page
• Deep link allowed

Stats:

• Webdirectorylist.com - Directory of directories
• PageRank - 4
• Yahoo! Backlinks - 152,548
• Alexa Rank - 61,214

The hottest trend in Internet directory industry is the concept of link bidding. Bigweblinks.com is probably the fastest growing bid directory among all others. Site has been promoted aggressively since its launch. It actually gained PageRank 7 in one Google update. It’s quite unusual for a new site to achieve such high PR in just few months, almost never heard of.

The directory itself is pretty much similar to any other general directory out there except it lets you keep adding your bid. By adding more bid, you can control your link position. That’s why this kind of directories is often called, “bid for placement” directories. This unique idea is to create competition among the advertisers. Unlike old fashion directories where “first come, first served” rule is expected, Bigweblinks.com gives new submitters a chance to get a position wherever they like their links to be.

If you are competitive, aggressive promoter, you would want to make sure what position you can get as you suggest a link to Bigweblinks.com. At the submit page, you can check the top 10 link bidders and their investment amount. You can also encourage your visitors to contribute to your site listing in Bigweblinks.com in order to increase your link position. This means that contributions can be made by anyone, not just you. You can grab an HTML code for this, and place it at your site to encourage your visitors to “vote”, of course each vote is $5.00.

Features:

• Top 10 links displayed on home page
• Link stats (backlinks, PR)
• 5 Deep links on detail page
• Deep link allowed

Stats:

• Bigweblinks.com - Bid Directory
• PageRank - 7
• Yahoo! Backlinks - 1,140,409
• Alexa Rank - 23,179

Whenever you talk about popular web directories, you will always hear about Dmoz. It’s probably because of its size, the biggest directory in the world. Of course, Yahoo! directory is even more well known and popular among virtually all Internet users. Even though Alivedirectory.com is relatively new web directory in the Internet among those well established directories, it has become one of the most powerful human directories in terms of SEO values.

Webmasters who visit web directories regularly are usually looking for quality backlinks as they are always interested in Internet marketing, especially SEO via directory submissions. The focus on web directories today is really all about SEO. Sometimes though people seem to forget about traffic. Of course, top quality directories do deliver traffic as they are also ranked high in Goole SERP. This is the real deal when you submit your link to a top class directory. After all, your ROI is based on actual visitors to your website.

Increasing PageRank itself is one of the most important thing when you SEO. It’s not all about SEO, but as an important factor, you should then focus on quality backlinks. The key is to get a link from website that has high PR. Or to be more specific, get a link from a web page that has high PR. Alivedirectory has numerous PR5 inner pages. It is hard to even find directories with inner page PR5. This is the reason alivedirectory is one of the most important directories for SEO. The benefit from them could be even better than Dmoz as you can submit your deep links up to 5 of them.

One unique thing in alivedirectory you can find is that they include foreign language sites under regional category. This is rather rare as many directories based in the U.S. do not want foreign sites. Alivedirectory seems to have a wider vision for visitors and international webmasters. This is another strong factor that the directory is world-wide strong. In fact, in many local Google search engines, you can find alivedirectory.com listed in top 10 with one of the most competitive keyword “web directory”.

Features:

• Daily listing on home page
• Regular with 3 additional links
• Featured with 5 additional links
• Payment options - yearly or one time fee
• Deep link is allowed

Stats:

Alivedirectory.com - General directory

PageRank - 6

Backlinks in Yahoo! - 1,883,925

Alexa Rank - 16,420

Directory of directories are great resource sites for submitters. You can simply go through the list and submit your link to the listed directories.

Often, directory of directories maintain the quality of the list, as you can see in directorycritic.com or info.vilesilencer.com, probably the most popular directory resource sites. Both are so popular directory resource sites that many directory owners rely on them as they want to be listed their directories, and this has been one of their favorite promotion methods, especially for a new directory, whether paid or free, to have a good start. You can expect a good traffic from those directory of directories.

While there are other directory of directories where directory owners would like to submit their links to, most of them function as just like any other niche directories. Most of them simply offer listing services, usually you need to pay for the review fee, and that’s all they do. This is the reason directorycritic.com and info.vilesilencer.com are more popular among all directory of directories sites. They offer the listing for reciprocal link, which is cost free, and maintain the quality of the list.

However, this new directory of directories, Budget-Directories.com is offering a similar service for free. First of all, as long as your paid directory meets the guidelines, you can list your directory for free, not even a reciprocal is needed. The uniqueness of this directory of directories is that visitors can find affordable paid directories with ease. Each link is sorted by its domain PR.

Features:

The list of budget directories are made with a focus on;

• PR
• Inner page PR
• One time fee regular link price
• Quality of directories

Additional lists:

• List of affordable blog link services
• Limited time offers from directories

In addition to the budget directories, the site also has a category link for special limited time offers from various directories. Since promotional offers are usually “budget”, so the announcement of such offers suit the purpose of this directory.
Also, check out the list of affordable blog link services. This is a great resource for those who like contextual blog links. Bulk link purchases for those who want to increase link popularity are great for your budget link building campaign.