Black Hat SEO News

Details what search engine optimization is, how it can help you and provides an introduction to the basics.
Search engine optimization, put simply, is the process of making a site rank higher in the search engines for terms that are appropriate to that site. For example, a site about blue widgets could be made to rank higher when somebody types "blue widgets" in to the search engines.

Many readers of this article will have come across search engine marketing, positioning and ranking articles which have failed to work for them. For this reason many are, understandeably, not made fully aware of what SEO (search engine optimization) can really do. Often, the information they have tried has been from old articles - the most frequent myth is that it's all about the meta tags you choose. When SEO is done with the real working techniques (unlike the meta tags), then people find that the traffic driven is of extremely good quality and highly related to their field.

For example, take our blue widgets site. Everybody coming to the site is actually looking for blue widgets. We're not wasting our time trying to sell blue widgets to people who want to buy red widgets. Your money, or effort, to get search engine traffic is therefore more effectively spent.

To get this traffic involves understanding many things about the search engine. It's beyond the scope of this article to tell you everything (or it would be a book or two!), but to help steer you in the right direction here are a few of the most effective strategies:

1. Pick keywords that are related to your site and which are related to what you want your visitors to do. It must be something that you would search for on the search engines if you wanted to do whatever it is you want your visitors to do. Choose a phrase (e.g. "blue widgets") over a word (e.g. "widgets") and try to find areas where there will be many searches but little competition.

2. Put your keywords/phrase at the beginning of your title tag on your page. Keep your title tag short and to the point.

3. Take advantage of the H1...Hx header tags and put your keyphrase in your headings.

4. Make sure your keyphrase appears in the first few paragraphs. Preferably towards the beginning of the paragraph.

5. Get links. The text that people use to link to you is important, it is best if it includes your keyphrase. Try hard to get links from sites where the kind of people you want to visit your site would be looking.

6. Forget FFAs, Link farms and so on. Not only do the search engines know how to discount those links but they also bring very little targetted traffic.

There's so much more I wish I had space to write, but hopefully this has served as an introduction and eye opener for you.

About the Author

Chris is the owner and administrator of http://www.searchguild.com/ , an enthusiastic and friendly community of people interested in increasing traffic to their web site.

How Virgin Websites Can Generate Immediate Traffic Using PPCAndres Munoz

The following article examines PPC marketing and how to execute this strategy effectively and efficiently.
How Virgin Websites Can Generate Immediate Traffic Using PPC By Andres Munoz

Most if not all-new webmasters are hit with the daunting task of gaining visitors to their websites. With little information at their disposal those new to Internet marketing will sign up with shady companies offering so called safe lists, pop-up exchanges and any other new marketing tactic. The truth is, if webmasters literally require immediate web traffic there are two resources readily available at their disposal.

1) Overture.com 2) Google AdWords

Overture.com is the grandfather of Pay Per Click search engines and still reigns supreme due to their powerful relationships with other search engine results. Overture search listings appear on Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, Lycos and Info Space. Pay Per Click search engines are quite simple to grasp, you basically pay to be ranked. To be listed on Overture.com you need to create an account, deposit an amount of your choosing (there is usually a minimum of $25 a month) and create your listings. The listings consist of titles, descriptions, your web address, keywords, and most importantly, a bid amount. The bid amount is the amount of money that will be deducted from your account every time a visitor clicks on your listing.

The factor determining the bid on a keyword is the amount other webmasters are willing to pay for. In other words if your site is about weight loss and the current bid for weight loss is $0.35 youll need to bid $0.36 to be on top. The trick in conquering the pay per click war is using specific keyword phrases that are relevant to your site. Use single and 2 word keyword phrases that zero in on your target market will attract buyers. The more specific the phrase, the more likely it is that a click will convert into a sale.

There are 4 general rules to remember when using PPC: Tip 1: Since most pay per click search engine services will limit the number of characters you will need to include as many keywords in you headline and body.

Tip 2: As stated before use 2-3 word keywords. You want to target and bid on specific phrases. The more specific the phrase, the more likely it is that a click will convert into a sale.

Tip 3: Don't get involved in bidding wars with other web masters. It simply doesn't pay and you will quick find yourself exhausting your account. Additionally it doesnt really matter if your listing winds up number one or three, your title and description will attract the visitor.

Tip 4: Monitor the effectiveness of your CTR (click through rate). This can easily be accomplished by having each of your search terms click to a different URL and examining your web logs.

By far the fastest way to generate traffic is using Google AdWords. You literally receive same day service using this great service from Google and the $5 minimum deposit make this very cheap for any webmaster. Google AdWords are quite simply ads for your site that appears on the right hand side of normal search results, in addition you can test several ads simultaneously. This allows you to maximize your marketing efforts without losing a lot of money. Google AdWords requires webmasters to pay close attention to the appropriate keywords used in search engines and an equal amount of attention to writing an attention getting ad.

After all its the ad that will attract the lead and its your job to attract that lead to your ad and click into your site.

To successfully use Google AdWords all your efforts will focus on writing an attention getting ad with the focus on the right target audience, highly targeted keywords and selling the benefits and not the features.

Using PPC can be a relatively cheap form of advertising depending on the industry and keywords you wish to choose. There are some keywords that can fetch up to $10! Not too many new webmasters have that type of money to spend on a single click. The biggest pitfall of those attempting to PPC marketing is becoming too broad when choosing the terms you want to bid on. To avoid this PPC killer youll need to research the best keywords that are appropriate to your site. An excellent site specializing in tracking keywords and those of your competitors is http://www.wordtracker.com/

PPC marketing isnt difficult when done correctly even for virgin websites. You simply must do your homework choosing the right keywords and incorporating them into your listing.

=========================================== Copyright (c) 2003 Andres Munoz Andres Munoz is the Editor of MyBiz eZine Newsletter where he writes about the skills needed for successful internet marketing and running an on-line business. To subscribe, visit: http://www.mybusiness-resource.com/ Other articles are available from Andres Munoz in his FREE eBook, "The MyBiz Article Collection" ===========================================

About the Author

Andres Munoz is the owner of Mybusiness-resource.com. Dedicated in helping the home-based entrepreneur in developing a serious web presence, mail order business, home-based business and creating a permanent presence through effective marketing.