How Social Bookmarking Can Generate Traffic For Your Blog

Social bookmarking is a method for internet users to save articles for themselves and to share them with others. If you own a blog, you should definitely utilize the power of social bookmarking.

Social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon) store lists of internet resources that users have found useful by category, tags or randomly. These bookmarked sites and pages can be shared with other people who have similar interests.

These links can also be organized by user defined keywords or tags (called folksonomy). Resources can be rated by users, include email links, have comments added, be sorted by popularity and algorithms that draw inferences from other keyword references and participate in automated notification systems. Read more

The Truth About Search Engine Submission

Some of the most frequently asked questions about search engine optimization are:

Should I submit my site to search engines and directories? Should I submit manually or automatically using a software?

The truth is search engines hate automatic submissions. They get millions of attempted automatic submissions each day and, as a result, go to great lengths to try to stop them – such as requiring passwords and/or fill-in details before the submission is accepted.

As for directories, automatic submission software has been banned by many because it cannot always place links in relevant categories. In addition, whether you hire a directory submitter or use submission software yourself, you are essentially setting your site up for failure. Read more

How To Optimize Your Website For Search Engines

The following is a guide on optimizing your website and improving its rankings on search engine results pages, according to Microsoft’s Small Business Center.

1. Potential site design problems

  • Search engines do a poor job of indexing frames and your site is better off without them.
  • Most search engines cannot or will not list dynamic URLs that contain any of the following: ?, &, %, +, =, cgi-bin, or .cgi.
  • Search engines cannot index splash pages that are made mostly or entirely from Flash. Hyperlinks made with Flash cannot be spidered by the search engines. So, unless you add standard HTML hyperlinks, none of your pages will be spidered.
  • Sites that use Image Maps for navigation run the risk of not being accessible to search engines because the web crawler often gets trapped in the code that makes up the Image Map.
  • Search engines also cannot follow links found in Javascript.
  • Any of the previous three indexing problems can be addressed by creating a site map page using standard HTML links that link to every page and adding a standard HTML link on each page that links back to the site map.

Read more

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords.

Webmasters began optimizing their sites for search engines in the mid-1990s. Site owners realized the importance of having their sites appear at the top of search engine results in order to ensure traffic to their sites. Most web users will not scroll down through pages of results but will visit those sites that appear at the top of the first page of results.

At first, search engines relied only on factors that were within the webmaster’s control and, as a result, they became victims of abuse and manipulation. Webmasters were guilty of including irrelevant keywords on their sites to increase the number of visits to their websites and thereby increase their ad revenue. Read more

How To Set Up A Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign

Here is a basic 5-step guide to setting up your pay per click advertising campaign.

Step 1: Determine your advertising budget and the level of risk you are willing to take.

  • Larger search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo) are less risky as they already have excellent market coverage and typically offer excellent customer service.
  • On the other hand, the larger search engines cost more to achieve a top ranking.

Step 2: Decide which search engines you wish to advertise on.

  • Find out which search engines your competition is advertising on.
  • Do your homework – research each option carefully. Read more

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