When your SEO tactic hits a brick wall and you see other sites casually occupying positions above yours with ease; instead of getting flustered, simply delve deeper into the root causes behind the guise and not just react to the effects of a well orchestrated plan. By determining which optimization method is pulling the strings of relevance in search engines, you can craft a suitable counter to overcome competitors and set your own ranking tactics into play.

In many ways SEO is like a game of chess. You have to switch up your game plan based on who you’re up against and different strategies are required to overcome the different types of optimization you’re competing with.

In a word of causes and effects, you can fight phantoms (like a blind puppet) or initiate elaborate strategies (like a puppet master) to orchestrate a series of competitive keyword victories online to determine who acquires a dominant search engine position.

Just like styles make the fight and the rules are the same (8 squares by 8 squares with predetermined rules for each piece), the possibilities are endless as the game progresses.

The only difference between chess and SEO is that  there are only 10 spots in search engines for any given keyword or key phrase combination, and based on how well optimized your site is for each one determines how search engines rank them as preferred destinations for its users.

For example, each website has an ideal method which will provide optimal results. When you determine what that method is and apply it, you have to measure how it fares against the optimization efforts of competitors and the scrutiny of search engine algorithms.

Ten of the Most Common SEO Tactics are:

1. Thousands of sku’s (stock kept units) for ecommerce or products with themed titles.
2. Flat site architecture and links to the homepage and critical landing pages.
3. Lean pages with higher quantities of staggered inbound links from other sites.
4. A vast authority site with deep categories, themes, silos and multiple topics.
5. Redirects from other sites or pages within your website to a consolidated page or folder.
6. A combination static website / blog to provide stability and frequent updates.
7. An RSS based feed aggregator combined with unique content to emulate hub status.
8. The Wikipedia style internal link consolidation method in tandem with selective deep links.
9. The grandfather effect, aging as a result of domain authority.
10. Press releases, media and trusted links.

As you can see above, these are but a few different play book type SEO tactics that can yield top ranking positions. SEO is not as easy as it seems. Sure, anyone can do it, but only those who understand the various layers required appeasing the 200+ metrics that search engines assess are capable of creating consistent top 10 rankings.

Which SEO Method Are You Applying?

Just like someone can use multiple paths and arrive at the same destination, SEO tactics, methods and implementation also falls under this category of events. It’s not always easy to discern which method your competitors are using to produce their respective rankings, but similarly, you can use multiple tactics to produce a series of rankings for multiple keywords in your website.

Top 10 SEO Tactic Elaborated:

SEO Method #1: Dynamically Generated All In Title Theming

Is very popular for ecommerce sites with thousands of sku’s (stock kept units/products) for that produce themed titles and pages based on dynamically generated data. This is common for sites with multiple pages appearing for an umbrella like theme. For example, if your website is about shoes, and your categories are flats, pumps, stiletto or sports, the site theme is still shoes.

Therefore, you could potentially combine the pages titles and meta data with any of the categories mentioned above without penalizing the pages.

The main consideration is having enough unique content to stand apart from the crowd which means either controlling what pages get indexed and pass link flow or using each to sculpt link flow with internal links.

By shifting the title tag, use of contextual links and footer links (with enough content on each product page) you could devour massive segments of keywords pertaining to any of the said categories.

SEO Method#2: Using Flat Site Architecture to Consolidate Link Flow

Using flat site architecture and links to the homepage and critical landing pages. This is the most common default for most shopping carts since it consolidates the most robust type of shared ranking factor in the folder with the most ranking power (the root folder of your domain).

Every time you add a subfolder, sub domain, category or segment to a website, that means you have to provide a sufficient amount of ranking factor either from (a) within the website or (b) from other websites via inbound deep links to provide prominence in search engines.

SEO Method#3: Concentrating Link Equity Across Fewer Pages

Lean pages with higher quantities of staggered inbound links from other sites. This means you choose a keyword, build a stable base of pages such as 20-50 pages of content, then build a higher percentage of inbound links to your core pages only. This functions like a beacon and is a great strategy for root phrases or single or double word competitive rankings.

SEO Method #4: Developing a Robust Authority Site

Developing authority sites takes time, but they are virtually unmatched when mature and contain thousands of content rich pages which all contain hundreds of potential rankings per page. Any two words from any optimized page can return a search query (despite the competitiveness of the keyword). Don’t believe us, just look at how Wikipedia dominates search results as a result of authority status.

SEO Method #5: Using Redirects Optimized Internal Pages or Aged Domains

Online properties sometimes lapse and their registration expires and theses properties have aged backlinks supporting them. This is why people acquire aged domains and redirect them to existing website or pages to add their inherent potency.

Redirects can also be used from cultivating popular internal pages within a website and then redirecting them to a home page or landing page (to pass along the rankings) or make a page with sparse topical content rank for the legacy on page and off page factors for the previously optimized page.

SEO Method #6: Creating an SEO Beacon for Static Pages

Static pages do not share as much link flow with other page and horde it for themselves, which means for more competitive keywords, a landing page close to the root folder is one ideal method for producing a long-term ranking.

When static pages are linked to from dynamic pages or blog posts within the same site, you can produce surges of link flow to give those static pages a boost in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

SEO Method #7: RSS Scrapers and SERP Hijacking

Often you see blogs harvesting RSS feeds from various sites from around the web. Aside from annoying the hell out of the authors who spent their time creating that content, what is the motive of scrapper sites?

Some of such sites are all based on affiliate offers or products or monetize traffic from SERP hijacking (ranking for your keywords and / or posts) with the ultimate objective of gaining enough authority to branch out in a niche after the crawl frequency has established their site as a hub. Remember he who is crawled faster can gain more traffic, and depending on their offer can harvest conversion.

Although it is not a long-term strategy, many still put blogs on auto-pilot to aggregate content and then either redirect the authority they gain (to a homepage or product page) and then promote their own distinct products and services (on the content creators dime).

Definitely a questionable tactic for those morally challenged types. I wouldn’t expect this to pass value for too long after duplicate content filters determine who wrote what first and assign the proper degree of relevance.

SEO Method #8: Using Consolidated Absolute Internal Links

Internal links when harvested properly can yield fantastic results. If the links are absolute (using the entire URL vs. relative site based links such as ../page.html) then those links that contain keyword-rich anchor text can elevate a page within a website with a fraction of inbound links from other sites.

SEO Method #9: Aging Layered Content to Gain Search Engine Trust

Over time each page in a website that has been online long enough can gain a significant degree of trust. That trust can be leveraged by linking from that page to a new page, or just by the virtue of its existence can get your foot in the door for competitive rankings.

Authority is the basis of all rankings, the more you have, the less persuasion required to surpass sites without it. Just consider each page as a time released asset that can be re-harvested time and time again as time progresses.

SEO Method #10: The Power of the Press and Syndication

Even though this is often overlooked as a viable SEO tactic, acquiring editorial links from Press Releases can oftentimes get your site in the spotlight for webmasters from authoritative site to link to you.

Don’t expect much link flow from the press release service site itself, but it’s the individuals the press release influences and which of those individuals decides to link to your site that matter.

Associated press feeds can also get aggregated into do-follow blogs, social media, or other syndicated sources.  Link quality trumps link quantity frequently, so, this method can be used with any of the other tactics above to add an additional layer of SEO to existing metrics in progress.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life. Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us. We don’t write simply for our entertainment. Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

As the world’s population becomes more and more technically advanced, the desire to host one’s own website becomes less of a fantasy and more of a reality.  With easy to install programs such as WampServer readily accessible to all, anyone can quickly set up their own “homegrown” server on a desktop at home.  The problem then becomes a simple matter of DNS servers and domains – how do we get them to point to our newly setup home server?  This is where DynDNS.com steps in – an online service that enables you to create DNS records, register domains, setup mail servers and more.

Levels of DNS services

For those needing DNS services, there are three levels – Dynamic DNS Free, Dynamic DNS Pro, and Custom DNS.

The Dynamic DNS Free service allows you to choose up  to five hostnames from their current list of 88 at no charge.  These are perfect for those needing a forwarding account (for when you’re offline or experience downtime) or even configurable MX records for mail routing.

The Dynamic DNS Pro is available at a yearly cost of $15.00.  This service gives you an additional 25 hostnames, access to their premium domains, wildcard capabilities as well as the ability to point CNAME records.

The final DNS service offered is Custom DNS.  For this you will need to have your own domain name hosted at DynDNS.  With Custom DNS you are allowed up to 75 DNS records per domain and there is support for a variety of DNS record types.  The Custom DNS service is available for $29.95 a year per domain name.  The company also offers secondary DNS at $39.95 per year per domain.  There are quite a lot of DNS choices with DynDNS.

Managing your account

To manage your DNS records, DynDNS.com has “My Services” area that enables you to quickly make the changes you need.  Each section is tied in with a corresponding help section (signified by a “?”) should you need assistance.  All of your chosen services are separated into type-specific sections.  Additionally, your account level services are listed with options to add on more items should the need arise.  When working on different sections of your account, you can also click on the preferences button.  This button will take you to an area that allows you to choose whether you wish to set your interface to a novice or expert level, depending upon your technical level.  While not the most efficient design for controlling your records, it does make up for this with the active help links.

Support options

If you do require further assistance in managing your account, DynDNS has a support section in place.  There is an FAQ, tutorials, suggestions for supporting tools and a contact area for the company.  DynDNS.com offers phone support as well.  Regular customer phone support is from 9 am to 5 pm EST Monday through Friday.  If you want the convenience of 24×7×365 support, you can opt to purchase Premier support on a per case basis at $74.95 each.  A pretty hefty price all things considered and it’s probably a better bet to stay with the standard phone support, supplementing this with the other available online options.

Conclusion

All told, DynDNS is a pretty good alternative to hosting with an online web host.  You end up having complete control, can add on services as you need them and have access to support if you end up stumped.  DynDNS is a company to check out if and when you decide to self-host your web site.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life.  Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us.  We don’t write simply for our entertainment.  Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

Truly understanding the SEO process (starting with a goal instead of trying to fix something after the fact) represent two distinct schools of thought.

Having a general understanding of the stages involved in search engine optimization can produce moderate rankings, but just as search engines are constantly retooling their algorithms, in order to keep up with or create immunity to penalties for your website, you need to make constant adjustments, tweaks and fine-tune your website to maximize performance and outperform your competition.

Each page has a different threshold, depending on (1) the competition for the industry or niche (2) the keyword objectives for your pages and ultimately your site and (3) the ranking method you engage.

As a result, you must ensure that (a) your primary objective is to create quality content to raise your organic relevance score (b) work harder (or smarter) than the sites between your website and the websites in the top 10 for that phrase and (c) once you get there, make sure you have countermeasures in place to defend your position.

This is where experience pays off, a seasoned SEO firm is able to produce results deliberately and consistently. They say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and SEO in theory is one thing, yet SEO in application requires a synergistic continuity of objectives as well as tangible benchmarks to decipher progress.

Here are ten proven search engine optimization tactics:

• Domain Level Domination
• Content, Title and Tag Ranking Strategy
• CMS Systems, Topical Relevance and Internal Linking
• Concentration of links to interior pages or deep linking
• A mini-site strategy emphasizing small group of keywords
• 301 Redirect (rolling multiple sites into one)
• Using sub domains with GEO Specific Key phrases as a prefix
• Capping link flow and sculpting page rank and internal links
• Using sitemaps to connect vast sections of larger websites to funnel crawling / indexing
• Using Site Architecture (such as Wikipedia) to acquire competitive rankings

Any or all of these tactics are essentially interchangeable, or can be used in succession:

Domain Level Domination - Who knows how long this aspect of the algorithm will last. Having a keyword rich domain (keywords in your website name) is a proven format for creating relevance and rankings with a fraction of the effort vs. domain names that do not have keywords relative to the theme of the target phrase.

Content, Title and Tag Ranking Strategy – Works wonders for large sites with hundreds or thousands of pages.

This is based on allinurl, allintitle, allintext and allinanchor relevance. Ideally, each page represents a percentage of the overall topical relevance required to qualify your website and pages for a high ranking search engine position.

100 pages about a topic on your website (even if sparsely mentioned or unified with footer links) is more than enough to outperform a competing website with just a few pages on the topic.

This strategy works wonders for extremely competitive keywords (like each page is a piece of the puzzle that supports the overall ranking). E-commerce websites with optimized meta tags and titles use this tactic often due to the high number of stock kept units.

CMS Systems, Topical Relevance and Internal Linking – This is typically implemented by bloggers (who have the capacity to dedicate time and energy to developing each category over time).

Most CMS systems convert categories into relevant and structured subfolder with SEO friendly naming conventions that systematically organize link flow and distribution of link weight evenly to sub pages.  We posted about some different SEO Friendly naming schemes last month in Tech Tips & Solutions from Solutions For Life.

As a result, by internal linking your pages (with relevant keywords) you can emphasize which pages have more alignment and rankings for specific keywords in the SERPs. In other words, you can sculpt which pages appear first based on how you link within the content management system.

Concentration of links to interior pages or deep linking – The previous tactic touched on this lightly, but when combined with building external links to specific pages (via deep linking) search engines calculate the synergy and pure relevance and award a page with higher positioning when the ratios are perfected.

For example, a top 10 ranking can be produced from 100 internal links to a page and 25 external links to a page using a specific range of inbound anchor text from other websites.

A Mini-Site Strategy Emphasizing Small Group of Keywords – Just as implied, create a website based on a very specific range of keywords, build ten pages of related keywords under each topic or landing page, link up from the sub pages to the landing page (with keyword-rich anchor text) and dial in the external links for competitive rankings. This strategy still works well vs. creating a site with multiple topics.

Using 301 Redirects for SEO – Many sites, like homes.com or like.com employ this tactic to increase rankings for their content, both employed thousands of redirects from sites that were acquired (or devoured) for the sake of creating an authority site. There are multiple uses for 301 redirects that can be used internally, however in this reference, it was regarding other sites outside of the target domain.

Using Sub Domains with GEO Specific Key phrases – This strategy takes tons of links to gain expression, as each sub domain is essentially ranks like another site. HP for example has 50 subdomains and you can see that when conducting searches how many in fact are just extensions of their main domain hp.com.

For a juggernaut such as that, it is a valid strategy for SEO defense as well as market domination, but it takes time, energy and resources to implement and is not suggested for smaller organizations unless you have the time and energy to dedicate to the process.

Capping Link Flow and Sculpting Page Rank and Internal Links – Essentially, using the pages you have as a resource. Limiting outbound link juice from escaping by only using relevant anchor text and keeping the quality and quantity of links from page to page maximized through the use of no-follow, java script to exclude links from being crawled) and synchronizing the anchor text from Page A to the topic of Page B (which is the optimal target page).

Using Sitemaps – Using html or xml sitemaps are a great way to ensure that all of your pages are being crawled. The more pages indexed, the more ranking potential your entire site can share with itself and search engines (granted there is enough link weight to distribute).

Using Site Architecture for SEO - In short, by carefully structuring your topics, categories and content, then combining is with impeccable co-citation of anchor text you can create the wikipedia effect (the ability to rank for multiple topics). Every time a keyword appears in your site, it is linked to the target page all about that keyword. Cross reference this with every keyword you want to rank for, go through the entire site and internally link this way and you will note that your site will require less external links to rank competitively for those phrases.

To gain true expression for this tactic, you still require focused external links going to the internal pages via deep linking, by the whole site can produce double rankings for the keyword in question (as long as the linking still incorporates a spine with a sitemap or homepage to reinforce relevance).

Obviously entire volumes could be written on any of the topics above, but instead of talking about it, I have to get back to work and implement strategies like this combined with dozens of others for our own site and our clients to fine tune results.

e.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life. Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us. We don’t write simply for our entertainment. Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

I know I have posted many times about SEO, and you are probably tired of hearing about it, but SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can make or break a web site.  One of the most crucial things you can do as part of SEO is finding out what keywords and phrases are best suited for your site.   The higher up in rankings your particular set of keywords and phrases are in search engines, the more likely your site will be viewed by potential customers.

Look at the other guy

One of the simplest ways to determine which keywords are right for your web site is by checking out the competition.  This is not to say you should copy your competition’s keywords and phrases but rather see what they are using to get a good feel for what is best for your site.  Go to a competitor’s web site and look at the source code for the first page.  While quickly falling from use, within the header, you’ll see a meta tag named keywords.  The content of this tag will show you keywords used by this site.  Also, looking at the first few paragraphs of the front page should also so keywords and phrases that may be similar to what you would place for your web site.

List it out

Start making your list of words and phrases that you feel mostly relate to your web site.  For example, if your web site is all about coffee, coffee products and the sale of coffee, an obvious first choice would be “coffee.”  From here you can expand on your list by including such words as “coffee beans,” “coffee mugs,” “coffee maker,” and so on.  These words will then all be placed within your web site in specific areas.

Placement is everything

While meta tag usage is still viable (though being phased out), careful placement of your keywords and phrases within the first few paragraphs of your web site entry page is more critical.  Search engine spiders will not only look at the meta tags but also the site itself.  It’s important to realize the first few paragraphs can be the most important and you should also keep in mind that if you overfill the paragraphs with your keywords or phrases, many search engines will catch this and bypass your site in indexing.  Other areas to place your keywords include the title of the page, anchored text areas, even page names.  Careful placement throughout your web site will help further your positioning with search engine indexing.

Different words – same meaning

The next thing to do is to investigate synonyms – not every one puts in the same word that has close to the same meaning.  This may not work in our case of a coffee web site (when someone is looking for coffee, that’s what they will type in a search engine) but can work for sites that offer services rather than products or items.  If your web site offers web hosting, instead of “bandwidth” you might opt for “site transfer” as an alternate keyword phrase.

Standing out in a crowd

Finally, look at your site and see what you may offer that your competitors do not.  If your coffee web site offers specialty machines such as an espresso maker or coffee recipe books, these are things that are just waiting to be incorporated into your keywords and phrases.  These are the words that will enable your website to stand out from the pack.  A person simply looking for some great coffee recipes may happen upon your site as it has been listed with the keyword phrase “coffee recipes”.  A visitor can then become a customer.  Don’t overlook anything – a comparison between your site and your competitor’s sites can help you find these little differences.

Wrap up

Finding and implementing keywords and phrases within your web site really isn’t too difficult.  The difficulty really lays in how you place your keywords and in how you can differentiate you site from all the others vying for top spots in the search engines.  Research and good luck!

This is one of those posts where I’m truly excited to be writing. I get to tell you when Windows 7 will be on store shelves! According to input from customers and partners we’ve made a lot of progress with Windows 7.

Our milestone-to-milestone approach for Windows 7 is built on a great deal of feedback from customers and testers. This has been pivotal to the development of Windows 7.

I blogged a few weeks ago that it’s looking like we’ll have Windows 7 ready in time for the holidays.

Since then we’ve made enough progress to feel really good about announcing today that Windows 7 will be in stores beginning October 22nd.

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to see Windows 7 sitting on store shelves!

Some people may not be able to wait for Windows 7 to arrive before having to order a new PC (like parents who are sending their sons or daughters off to school who need of a PC to take with them). Fortunately, there is no need to wait. Soon, customers will be able to take advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program. This program enables participating retailers and OEMs to offer a special deal to upgrade to Windows 7 for customers purchasing a qualifying PC. I’ll be doing another blog post about this program with a date and more details when we get closer to availability.

Obviously, Release To Manufacturing (RTM) is an important milestone on the path to GA. We anticipate that we’ll be able to make the RTM code for Windows 7 available to our partners sometime in the 2^nd half of July. We also expect to be able to make RTM code for Windows Server 2008 R2 available to our partners in this time frame as well.

Google offers a lot of great services you can incorporate into your web site.  One such service that is sure to help out any web site owner in creative means of support communication is to offer Google Voice.

The problems

You’ve created a great web site.  All of your products and services are easily accessible on the web and you are starting to get quite a few customers.  As the web is global, many of your customers may be from halfway around the world.  Certainly you can’t be up twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.  So, how do you ensure you can help those customers who may be awake when you aren’t?  What if you have a land line and a cell phone and you need customers to be able to reach you no matter where you are and without having to publish yet another number?  While on the go, how do you easily listen to messages left by your existing or prospective customers?

The solution

All of these questions can be answered with one simple service – Google Voice.  This service packs quite a lot of features all into one neat little online package.  You utilize one number for all your numbers, thereby allowing customers the ability to reach you at one number.  Google Voice allows you to choose the number (including area code) you’d like to use as your official Google phone number.  Once this is set, you can then set your preferences according to how and when you want to be contacted.  You can opt to enable call screening and choose between screening unknown callers or blocked calls, completely block unwanted callers and even listen in on the call prior to deciding whether or not to take the call.  To even further configure how you receive phone calls, you can have the service set to ring specific phones based on who is calling – a family member is calling, route it to your land line or even route your teenager’s calls directly to their phone line.  This alone is perfect for those who have had to incorporate their business into their own home and eliminate the need for yet another phone line specifically for business.

Voice mail and transcribing

When it comes to the voice mail part of the service, Google Voice doesn’t skimp.  Not only can you listen to your voice mails online but you can also opt to read the transcribed voice mails online.  At the moment, the transcribing process is still a bit shaky as the voice recognition software does make some mistakes due to softly spoken or misunderstood/non-standard words.  However, this will improve over time and with usage.  Another fun feature added to this is personalized greetings.  You can vary your greetings to callers based on criteria you put in place.  This means you can have one friendly greeting for family and friends, another for business calls and yet another for unknown callers.  A very handy feature to help split your calls as needed.

Putting it all together

How do you incorporate this into your web site?  Simply log in, click on your settings and then select “Call Widgets.”  Once at the Call Widget screen, click on “Add a new Call Widget.”  Create a new Call Widget is a quick process.  You create a name for your new widget, select which numbers you would like for the widget to contact, choose your greeting and then decide whether you’d like for call presentation to be on (this announces the caller’s name and gives answering options).  Select “Save Changes” and, at the next screen, you’ll have a small piece of Flash coding to copy and paste into your web site where ever you wish to have the widget available.  Now you have a quick and easy way for your customers to contact you without even having to give out your new Google Voice number.

Conclusion

Google Voice offers some fantastic bundled up features all in one package when it comes to a unique voice mail service.  With its easy to use program and fun options, Google Voice is an excellent and simple way to add not only the perfect way for your customers to be able to reach you easily but also allows you to do so all without having to publish out a brand new number.

At this time, Google Voice is by invitation only.  You can request your invitation at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/.  It should also be noted that this service is only available in the U.S. at this time.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life. Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us. We don’t write simply for our entertainment. Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

With the huge number of shopping carts and e-commerce solutions available to web site owners, it’s nice to know that you can simplify your choices down to some very easy to use tools available at PayPal.  As millions already have PayPal accounts, what better way is there to offer a quick payment method than through PayPal?

Get set with a business account

The very first thing that must be done is setting up a business account with PayPal.  To do this, log into PayPal under your personal account, click on “Upgrade Account” (located in the “Enhance Your Account” box), select “Upgrade Now,” choose Business account and then press continue.  You will need to fill out your business information at this point, select continue and you will be set as a business account.

Choosing the right solution

Once your business account is all set, it’s a matter of choosing which PayPal solution works best for your web site.  When looking under “Merchant Services,” you will see four basic choices – a “Buy Now” button, an “Add to Cart” button, an invoice solution and a virtual terminal solution.  All of these choices are geared to specific levels of e-commerce.

Simple site

If you have a very simple site that has just a few items for sale, your best option is the “Buy Now” Button.  With this option selected, you select what you are selling (product, service, subscription, etc.), whether you wish to allow your customers the option of purchasing more than one item (this will enable the “Add to Cart” button), the name of the product or service and an assigned identification number (optional).  You’ll also enter the price of the item, shipping options, and tax information.  A very nice additional option to the button is being able to customize the button.  You can opt to add in a drop-down menu or a text field.  While this is one of the simplest options available on PayPal, don’t think it’s without some extra features.  You can track your inventory and even add in a special instructions area for your customers.  All in all, the “Buy Now” button is very simple and very handy.

Service-oriented site

For those online businesses that specialize in services rather than products, the invoice solution is the best choice.  Using either a brand new standard template or one that you have created and saved, you’ll be presented with a page allowing you to enter your business information, your customer’s information and all your invoice information.  The page is very easy to use and is outlined much like a regular paper invoice.  There are columns set in place for quantity, item Ids, description and unit price.  You can also choose whether or not specific items are taxable.  Add in your shipping and tax percentage and you have a completed invoice that PayPal will automatically email for you.  PayPal’s invoice solution takes the headache out of written invoices.

More robust solution

Lastly, if you have a rather extensive site with many products or services, you’re best to choose PayPal’s virtual terminal solution.  The virtual terminal works just like the credit card swipe machines used at retail stores.  You will need to sign up for the service and once in place, it’s a matter of allowing your customers to order by phone, fax or mail with their credit card.  Once you have received the order, you input the order information into the PayPal virtual terminal.  PayPal does all the work behind the transaction, ensures you are paid and the customer is charged appropriately.  There are fees involved but they are the same as the regular per-transaction prices charged for any major credit card.

Conclusion

It can be a confusing and daunting task to try to mesh together e-commerce solutions and your online web site.  Fortunately, PayPal has a few services available to make that task a much easier one.  You can spend more time adding products and services to your site and less time worrying about the payment process.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life.  Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us.  We don’t write simply for our entertainment.  Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

One of the most important things you can do in ensuring your web site is successful is creating a sound SEO strategy.  Not only will an SEO strategy help you keep on track of things you need to implement for SEO but it will also enable you to properly promote your web site and its content.  Done correctly, you’ll be able to spend more time on your actual web site rather than the implementation of SEO.

To-Do List

There are a few steps in creating your SEO strategy.  The first of these is to create your plan.  An effective way to write your plan is with a to-do list.  This to-do list should map out your tasks and the goals you would like to achieve.  Once you’ve accomplished each task or goal, you simply tick it off. A good example of a plan or to-do list would be to first list your main goals.  Then under each goal, list out the tasks you need to complete in order to complete the intended goal.  You may decide that a primary goal is concerning your web site’s search engine placement.  Another good goal is increasing the traffic to your web site.

With your to-do list created, you can fine tune and add additional tasks for each listed goal. Some good examples would be to research which search engines are the top ones utilized and then finding out how their submission guidelines work.  You could also list researching your keywords and phrases as a task, finding the correct places to incorporate your keywords and phrase and then locating a site or program that will enable you to easily track your website. This last task is another crucial part of a good SEO strategy – how to analyze your site.

Analyze

Analyzing sites and programs abound on the internet but one of the better ones to use (and without cost) is Google Webmaster Tools.  It offers sitemap creation, views of the top keywords used to locate your site and where these words positioned you within Google, backlinks (links that are to your site from other sites) and much more.  Google Webmaster Tools will allow you to makes changes to your SEO strategy based on what appears to work well and what doesn’t.  Keeping up with changes, sitemap resubmissions and eventually garnering more backlinks from web sites are all part of ensuring your site sits high in the rankings and a good analyzing tool will make these tasks easier in the long run.

Monitor

Lastly, the best SEO strategy you can implement is constant monitoring.  Again, you can opt to use Google Webmaster Tools for this particular task or one of many other sites and programs available.  It’s a bit of a “lather, rinse, repeat” kind of attitude that needs to be incorporated into your plan.  Doing all the research, the keyword placement, the backlink requests won’t amount to anything if it is only done once.  It needs to be constantly monitored, constantly changed and this simply is no easy task without a good plan in place.  In choosing your analyzing program or site, you will need to keep this in mind.

Final Word

The success of your SEO strategy is deeply tied in with your entire SEO campaign and, as such, is one of the key items that will ensure the success of your site.  In a nutshell, create a good goal plan in the form of a to-do list, give each goal the tasks needed to complete the goal, analyze your site and efforts and vigilantly monitor your SEO campaign.  You will soon see a marked improvement in your web site statistics.

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I hope you have enjoyed the posts that we continue to provide here at Solutions For Life.  Our goal is to continually educate our users on the technology around us.  We don’t write simply for our entertainment.  Nope, our goal is to educate us all how to connect to the world around you…

Sincerely,

Ben Adams

SENIOR IT CONSULTANT

As more websites come online in today’s technologically advanced world, s we are asked more and more what makes a website work? Is it in the web design; is it in the website graphics; or does it come down to good SEO practice; or even Internet Marketing?  What truly makes a website appealing to viewers and customers?

Well the answer is not in any one of these areas, it’s in all of these a great web design with nice clean graphics married together with good solid on page SEO techniques and off page SEO techniques means you are really heading in the right direction. Then you have the option of working on solid Internet marketing methods, email marketing getting your product or service known is half the battle.

The days of “If I build a website, they will come” are long forgotten and over. The fact of the matter is customers will not come to your website if they can not find it. Then comes the million dollar question do I pay for my clicks using a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign like Google Adwords or do you employ the services of an Search Engine Optimization company (SEO) like www.websitepromotion.net.au? Either way will get you found but remember once you become a payer of clicks you will become for ever reliant upon this method for you traffic.

The facts are clear and simple if you employ the services of an Internet Marketing company, they can set you straight on the facts and dispel all the myths and best inform you on how to make your website work especially on design, call to action, and the right keyword target. So often I get clients that say to me they want to be found for ridiculous single keywords. The fact is you will have more chance of doing business by using localized keyword targeting your area and subjects relating to your speciality.  If you are selling rare dogs, don’t just have a keyword for those dogs in the US.  Use the name of your breed in your area. This will at least increase business in your area.

Everyday we are emailed and answer phone calls from people that are at the end of the road we soon set them straight on what makes and good website great.

When you hire a professional SEO Firm  to optimize your website, naturally you expect results. You expect your rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages) to improve, your traffic to improve and subsequently your sales or leads, meaning your ROI (return on investment) to also improve.

But how long should this take? How long before your investment in SEO starts to yield results and your site starts to move up the rankings?

First off, this depends on a number of factors:

The competitiveness of your industry
As with any form of business, if your industry is very competitive online then you’ll have to do more, and wait longer, to see any results. If your industry is in finance, personal injury, medical or adult then you’re competing with some very large companies with even larger marketing budgets. You won’t be able to set up a loans company and compete online without a sizable investment in your SEO.

Your starting point
Where your website is starting from is also a factor. If you have a ten year old website with hundreds of links and indexed content then you’re starting with an advantage over the person who sets up a new domain from scratch. An established website will always have the advantage over a new one, so you need to keep that in mind.

Your budget
The level of SEO required by a website varies, and if the budget is small then sacrifices have to be made. Sacrifices such as slower link building, fewer content articles or no development of website tools will slow down an SEO campaign.

Previous SEO, whether bad or good
This can be a huge factor in the success of your SEO. If you have had SEO before from an SEO company then you could be in a strong position from which to move forward, or you could be in the weakest position of all, having just been found out by Google for spam, link buying or duplicate content. If you’ve had SEO before, you should tell your new SEO company immediately to save any time and mistakes down the line.

Your expectations
This is again important to clarify before any SEO campaign can begin. If you believe that your SEO company can get you on the first page of Google for any phrase then you’ll be disappointed. Your SEO company should advise of what is possible and what is not at the outset, that way you won’t feel let down in the long run.

As for the original question, how long should SEO take before you see results; you could see your rankings improve to the point that you have first page listings in a matter of days or it could take more than a year. Ask your SEO company for realistic projections for their work, they should be able to tell you.