How to Optimize Your Website for Free - New Article

Do you need to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to optimize your website properly? Of course not. The SEO companies who make their living from optimization would like you to think it's beyond your ability. But this is simply not the case.

In truth, anyone with a basic ability to edit web pages can optimize a website for better search engine rankings. And that's the topic of a new article I've posted to the website:

Website Optimization - The DIY Approach

The purpose of this tutorial is two-fold. First, I want to explain what it means to optimize a website properly, and how that fits into the broader picture of SEO in general. Secondly, I've given you step-by-step instructions on how to optimize your site, with links to related tutorials.

If you've been wondering what it takes to improve the search engine visibility of your website, and whether or not you need to pay somebody for such services, this article is for you! It will help you understand what's involved with optimizing a website for SEO, and then you'll be able to decide if you need help or not. As always, my position is that you can certainly do it yourself. But you can make your own decision after reading this article.

This lesson is part of our SEO Learning Center, which offers hundreds of tips on search engine optimization, web writing, link building and more. Check it out!

Most Effective Link Building Technique - New Article

Link building is the act of acquiring links from other websites, with the end goal of boosting the search engine ranking of your own website. "Link popularity" refers to the number and quality of inbound links from other websites and blogs to your own site. This is one of things search engines use to evaluate websites (and rank them), so it's an important topic for most webmasters.

But many people go about it all wrong. Many webmasters and rookie SEO people think that effective link building means submitting a site to web directories, swapping links with other webmasters, and other time-wasting techniques. But there's a better and more effective way to go about it.

In a new article posted yesterday, I've given you the secret to effective link building for long-term SEO success. No, it doesn't involve reciprocal links exchanges or directory submissions. You cannot reach your full SEO potential with those techniques. Instead, this new article explains the content of making a website so useful that it naturally attracts links without any proactive efforts on your part.

You can read or download the full article here:
Building Website Link Popularity

I hope you find it helpful. Good luck.

Website Content Development Made Easy

by Brandon Cornett

Are you a webmaster who is often asked to write content for the websites you manage? Maybe you're tasked to develop new content for the company where you work, or for your web design clients?

If so, this article will help you overcome your fear of website content development and tackle the job head on. It will also help you increase the value you provide to clients or employers, because you'll be a "double threat" -- you'll able to create websites and write content for them as well.

3 Tips for Creating Web Content

Entire books have been written on the subject of website content development and web publishing. So instead of tackling the entire subject, I'll focus here on three tips that will help you write web content more quickly and easily (while overcoming your apprehension at the same time).

1. Put Substance Before Style

Let me start by putting your mind at ease, with regard to a common fear people have about writing. When you publish information onto a business website, the content is more important than the form. In other words, you don't have to write like William Faulkner when you develop web content. In fact, it's best if you don't write that way. Sure, you have to write clearly and cleanly, without typos and major grammatical errors. But when it comes to the development of website content, what you say is more important than how you say it.

The best thing you can do when publishing information is to (A) select topics your audience really wants to know about and (B) explain those topics in clear, straightforward manner. Be thorough and helpful with your writing, and you have won half the battle already.

2. Outline Before You Write

The more content you create for your website or blog, the more search engine traffic you'll get. It only makes sense. By expanding the amount of information on your site, you're also increasing your visibility for a broader range of key phrases. Sure, many people will find you by searching a handful of the same phrases (these are your high-traffic keywords). But you can also get a ton of visitors through other keyword searches related to your business -- that is, if you have the kind of web content that matches their search query.

What does an outline have to do with this? Well, it makes the entire process of website content development much easier and more manageable. And this, of course, means you can write more pages and rank for more keywords and phrases. I generally create an outline before I write a single sentence of a new web page, and it's a strategy used by other professional writers as well.

If you only take one lesson away from this article, make it this one -- outlines make the process of web writing much easier for you. And they are simple to create. All you have to do is plan how you want to begin, the key points you want to cover along the way, and how you want to conclude and summarize the piece.

The idea here is to avoid staring at a blank screen on your monitor when it comes time to produce your new web content. If you follow my advice on this point, you won't have to stare at a blank screen (or page) waiting for the ideas to hit you. They'll already be outlined on paper.

3. Turn Off Your Internal Editors

Here's another writer's trick that will simplify the content development process for you. When creating your first draft of a new web page, don't worry about things like spelling, grammar, clarity and coherence. The first time through, focus instead on the ideas you want to express. Capture those in your first draft, and then you can go back through to address the other items in your second draft. The first attempt is all about capturing those ideas before they "float" away. So just write. Don't edit or criticize as you go along ... save that for the second draft.

If, after reading this article, you're still not inclined to create your own website content, keep our online writing services in mind.

Clush Directory - Another Web Directory to Avoid

From time to time, we use the SEO blog to either recommend certain services or to steer you away from them. Web directories often fall into this realm, and that's what I'm writing about today. Specifically, I'd like to share my experiences with the Clush directory and why I feel you should avoid using them at all costs.

My problems can be summed up quite easily. The folks who own the Clush directory do not respond to customer emails, and they have no interest in fixing their own billing errors.

I made the mistake of listing a website in the Clush directory last year. Actually, I listed nearly a dozen websites with them. I began to email them several months ago with billing questions. Nobody responded. So I called the number that is listed (but practically hidden) on their website and got voicemail.

Recently, I was charged for the renewal of a subpage ... for a listing that is no longer included in their directory. I have emailed them about it several times but (as usual) nobody feels the need to respond to my queries, or to correct the erroneous charge. So now I will have to go through the trouble of disputing the charge with my credit card company.

Here's what really blows me away. I had fully intended to renew all of my website listings on an annual basis. And I would have done so, had they simply responded to my emails and resolved this issue. But they chose to throw my business away (and prompt webmaster warnings like this one) because they are too lazy to respond to my emails.

But this isn't about me. This is about you. I hate to see other webmasters experience the same headaches and hassles that I've had. So, based on my own personal experience, I strongly recommend you avoid using the Clush web directory.

An Invitation to Clush - Add a Response

I'm a reasonable guy. So if the people who own this directory would care to respond, I will gladly post that response right here on the blog. Of course, I won't be holding my breath.

SEO Marketing Program for Hard Economic Times

by Brandon Cornett

The U.S. economy is in the worse shape it's been in for many years. Consumers are spending less, banks are lending less, and major financial institutions are falling down like dominoes.

But as a business owner, you can't just throw in the towel. You have to push forward through these troubled times. At the same time, you have to be conservative. You need to find ways to bring in business while spending less on your marketing program each month. This is where I often sing the praises of search engine optimization / SEO marketing programs ... and with good reason.

About 90% of my business comes from people who find my website online, and then go on to contact me. Many of my clients enjoy similar levels of Internet success, because I've educated them on the subject. How do we bring in steady streams of new business through the Internet? Simple. We realize the value of search engine visibility, and we work hard to achieve it through SEO marketing techniques.

I define Internet visibility as the ease with which people can find you online. It directly corresponds to website traffic, which in turn corresponds to web-based leads, inquiries and sales. You can increase your Internet visibility in several ways, but search engine optimization is the brass ring in this department.

Doing More With Less - How SEO Marketing Helps

Now more than ever, it's important to squeeze as much success from your marketing program as possible. You have to be responsible with your budget and focus on techniques that bring maximum results in relation to the investment you make. SEO marketing is the perfect solution for reducing your marketing budget, especially if you handle it yourself. And let me be the first to tell you -- you can handle much of the program yourself, even if you have no Internet marketing experience. I've even created an SEO Learning Center for this very purpose.

An SEO marketing program is like a gift that keeps on giving. With other forms of marketing, your exposure stops as soon as your payments stop. Take magazine ads for example. The moment you stop renewing your ad spot, the publisher will pull your advertisement. Goodbye exposure. The same goes for TV advertising, radio, newspapers, the phone book ... even pay-per-click search marketing.

With SEO, however, the results are long lasting. Yes, it takes a lot of time and energy to achieve top rankings. But those rankings will remain for a long time, and with a minimal amount of program "maintenance."

Recession-Proof Marketing Strategy

Let me give you a prime example of what I'm talking about. One of my past clients worked in the real estate industry. She realized the value of Internet visibility years ago, so she began a concentrated effort to improve her web presence. Naturally, I helped with the SEO marketing side of things. One of her close competitors relied more heavily on direct mail marketing and TV advertising, both of which can be quite expensive over time.

When the housing market began to slow down along with the economy, my client's competitor could no longer afford to spend as much on her paid advertising campaigns. So her marketing program and her exposure basically dried up.

My client, on the other hand, had been working hard on her web presence and her search engine visibility. So when tough economic times hit, she was perfectly positioned to "coast" right along. She didn't have to spend a bunch of money on paid advertising -- she had a steady stream of business leads coming in through her website. Low-cost marketing at its best! But none of this would have been possible without the SEO program she started several years ago.

What Ants Know About SEO

It reminds me of Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper, which is basically a lesson in proper preparation. In that story, the carefree grasshopper played all through the summer, while the industrious ant worked hard to store food for the winter. When the winter came, the grasshopper was ill prepared for it. The lesson is simple. It is best to prepare for the days of necessity before those days come.

If, down the road, you would like to have a perpetual marketing system that requires a minimal investment of time and money, then you must be like the industrious ant here in the present. By starting an SEO marketing program now, you will enjoy a steady stream of business later on.