If you have ever read forums about SEO, you will probably have come across complaints of SEO killing content on the internet. What people are referring to in making complaints of this nature is the type of websites that have been set up purely for SEO benefit. You have probably come across such sites, even if you haven’t realised it at the time. They’re sites that have headings all over the place stuffed with keywords.

The articles it features often have the keyword repeated in every sentence to the point at which it sounds frankly stupid. But good SEO is good for content.

Here’s how to prevent SEO from killing your content:

• Remember why you set your website up. Remember its goal and make sure that it still fulfils that goal. The SEO should be something you do to your website. It should not be your websites.
• Write for a human reader. Yes, include your keywords. But build them into your content. Do not build your content around a keyword. It’s humans who will read your site!
• Make people want to come back! What’s the point in getting your site to the top of the search engines for any word if your visitors won’t come back? A lot of visitors finding their way to a website with abominably bad content will lead to bad press and no returning readers!
• Keep your content unique. This is great for your readers and it’s great for SEO! Why should someone visit your site to read something when they could visit any one of millions to read something similar? Make your material stand out.
• Make your website informative. The more relevant content you write, the more your keywords will be present and the more easily search engine crawlers will be able to decipher the relevance of your website to the words you are targeting. But, more to the point, the more you are then giving to your readers as well.

The internet is fundamentally for humans – not bots or crawlers. And search engines are designed to help people to find good, relevant information on the topic they are searching. There aren’t many people who particularly appreciate searching something and then spending time sifting through spammy, over keyword-stuffed material. Good content is imperative to the sustainable success of a good SEO campaign!

Robbie Jeffreys is an online marketing expert. For more information visit SEO Manchester.

“Google Sandbox theory” – It is one of the most confusing issues that webmasters have to deal with while trying to optimize their new sites for high search engine rankings. The reason why the “Google Sandbox theory” is confusing is that it is just a theory, and is without official confirmation from Google that it actually exists. Without being able to verify the existence of the Sandbox theory, much less its features, it becomes very hard to devise strategies to combat its effects.

The term “Google Sandbox theory” came into existence around early 2004, when webmasters around the world began to notice a pattern with new websites, whose domain names were registered around this period. The pattern was that new sites, even after being optimized and having lot of quality inbound links, were not ranking well for their selected keywords. Also in few cases new websites (websites that came into existence during early 2004) that ranked highly for certain keywords, were either dropped from the index or ranked extremely low for their optimized keywords.

So what is the Google Sandbox Theory? The Google Sandbox is a filter on the search engine’s algorithm that has a dampening influence on websites. It is a common notion in the industry that the Google Sandbox effect decreases after a certain period of time due to website aging. However this is far from true. Actually, the effects reduce over time not on the basis of website aging, but on link aging.

Link Aging implies the time from when you start acquiring quality links for your website. Thus, if nothing is done, your website may not be released from the Google Sandbox. So it is important to follow the strategies mentioned below to minimize the time spent in the Google Sandbox:

It is beneficial to start the link building process as soon as the website is created and not making the mistake of waiting for the website to be perfect to start this process. The sooner you start the link building process, the sooner your links will age and the sooner you will escape the sandbox.

Try to establish a long term link building plan with specific targets for each week, day or month. It is important to get themed links rather than hundreds of “junk” links. For example contacting 5-20 link partners per day and setting a target of acquiring 30-40 links per week.

Finally the most important factor is to avoid the black hat SEO techniques at all cost, because with the constantly evolving Google’s search algorithm, penalties for breaking the rules may keep you stuck in the Sandbox longer than usual or get banned.

Debbie Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, the leading provider of search engine optimization, social media & online marketing solutions to over 2,000 small businesses. Read my SEO Blog. Follow me on Twitter or call 866-885-6263 for a free consultation.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com, Debbie Everson

Getting your website listed at the top of the search results for a competitive search phrase is a dream for most marketers, but it doesn’t have to be if you’re willing to do what it takes and are consistent with your efforts. This article is going to reveal the techniques you can use to get your site ranked in a very short time.

One of the most important elements to a top listing in Google is doing the proper research. After all you don’t want all your hard work going to waste on a search term that gets no searches each month. Using Google’s free keyword tool that can be found with a quick search on Google is probably the best place to start.

I do recommend purchasing a good keyword tool once you start to make a little profit as it will greatly increase your chances of finding a keyword phrase that will be easy to rank for. Once you have a keyword phrase you think you could profit from you need to start producing content on your site with that keyword phrase in the title, heading, and throughout the content without stuffing it.

Your next step is getting inbound links from a variety of different sites using your keywords as anchor text in the links you build. One of the easiest places to get incoming links is through article directories like EzineArticles it is also a great place to start getting some traffic to your site. Another great place for links is social bookmarking sites there are thousands of them online.

By consistently building incoming links your site will climb to the top over time. Sometimes you may see it make big jumps in its climb and others it will seem to be stuck. Or it will bounce around for a while until it settles where the search engines feel it should be. The trick to getting it to the top is to not worry too much about where it’s at, but to keep building incoming links on a daily basis as well as adding more content to the site as the days go by.

Jo is not only an expert in article marketing he also has other interests like his latest website that can be found at roundkitchentables.org where you can find information and reviews on the best round kitchen tables you can purchase for your home.

Article Source: Jo_R_Green

I was reviewing my website statistics and noticed a website was referring a lot of traffic, so I clicked on the link and saw it was a political website that looked like mine, and even included my own company logo! 

Obviously this needed to be stoped, but how?

If you use a company like HostGator with CPanel, your protection is built in, on other servers you may have to work a bit to protect yourself from these freeloadeers.

If you aren’t using HostGator or another webhost that uses CPanel, you may need to rename all your images, or simply the logo file names to protect yourself from these freeloaders impacting your reputation (on the other hand, you could simply sue, but the effort really isn’t worth it unless the offender has deep pockets).

Many web editors have find/replace functionaily and FrontPage/Expression Web will update all the links to your image files when you rename them.

If You are using Cpanel, you can do what we did. Go to your control panbel and turn on Hot Link Protection. See the screenshots below to see how easy this solution is (be certain to white list your own websites orshared images will dissapear just like in the screenshots below).

Sample of website ripping images with CPanel Hot Link Protection Off

Same site after Hot Link Protection was turned on

By Jason Saeler
Your-Propeller-head.com

If there is one point I can’t stress enough, it’s Backup your website! I know you have probably heard this before, but have you heard the horror stories? Recently, I have come across a number of scenarios where my clients have found themselves in a world of hurt. Luckily, none of my clients completely lost their sites, but then a two year old copy isn’t always as good a save as you would think. Here are a couple of examples to emphasize the need to back up your website!

Hosting Company Shut down site:

Recently one of my clients missed an email from their hosting company stating that their credit card information needed to be updated. Unlike most companies, this company didn’t provide a grace period. End result; no website. My client then contacted them , and contacted them, and contacted them to no avail. With no recent copy of their website and a company that didn’t want to respond (so that we could pay them to activate the site and get the files back), we were forced to relocate to a new server. Of course since it was my client, I did have copies of her website. The problem is that I hadn’t done any work for her in nearly 2 years and my copies were out of date.

Hosting Company restored a’ old copy of a website,’ erasing the Current Version

”A few weeks ago, I had a client call me because their website wasn’t coming up. I took a look and found that all of the pages had been converted to 0KB files (If your not a propeller head, this means that all the files in the site were replaced with blanks). I called the hosting company and told them to restore the site, two weeks later the site still hadn’t been restored, so I called again. This time I told them to restore a copy a few months old. The hosting company responded with a short impersonal message stating they couldn’t restore the site. Again I ended up placing a two year old site online, in order to get my client back up and running.

I think the point is simple, back up your website. You wouldn’t buy a brand new car and not ensure it, so what possible excuse can someone have for not backing up their own website. If you want to take the chance go ahead and leave it up to fate, but it could be a costly mistake.

By Jason Saeler
Your-Propeller-head.com

Which hosting plan is right for you?

Choosing a hosting plan can be a daunting process for the beginner. With all of the options and hosting companies available, it often takes a Propeller-Head to figure out of the plan that best fits your needs.

The first step when looking for your hosting company is to consider the following points:

• What kind of support does the hosting company provide?
  • Does the hosting company provide telephone support?
  • Does the hosting company provide alternate methods of support such as e-mail, Instant messenger, or Live Chat?
  • Does the hosting company provide 24X7 year round support (including holidays)
• Does the hosting company use Windows, linux, or both types of servers?
• Does the hosting plan provide FrontPage Extensions?
• Does the hosting plan have stats?
• Can you setup or remove e-mail accounts on your own?
• How much control does the hosting company’s control panel give you over your own website?
• Have you searched the web for negative/positive commentary on the hosting company?

The Second step is to assess which type of hosting system your website needs. there are basically two types of servers; Windows or Unix/Linux (Linux is the more common, open source equivalent of Unix. For the purposes of this article, to avoid confusion, I will only be mentioning Linux from now on.).

The easiest ways to distinguish between the two are cost and programming languages. Windows servers tend to cost a bit more for hosting than Linux servers. If you have a new website or are creating a new website, go with a Linux server, because your options are still open.

If you have an existing website and are thinking about moving to another server, you must weigh several factors in making your decision:

• Is your site currently on a Linux or Windows server?
  • Do the addresses in your browsers URL bar end with PHP (Linux) or ASP (Windows)?
  • Do you have any interactive features that might need to be run on a particular type of server? these might be Tell-A-Friend scripts, User log-in pages, Polls, Quizzes, and so on…?
• Do you have a custom shopping cart, and if so which type of database did the developer use, MDB (Windows), SQL (windows) or MYSQL (Linux)?
• Do you have a MYSQL based Blog or Forum such as WordPress or PHPBB installed on your website?

You may or may not have additional considerations about your website. It’s easiest to ask your web developer which type of server your existing website must be setup on.

The Third Step is to consider the functionality & cost of the hosting plans offered and your specific needs.

• Will you be adding additional domains/websites to your plan?
• Do you want a Blog or Forum hosted in your own website?
• Are the hosting company’s rates reasonable
• Does the hosting plan your looking at provide a website control panel?

Finially the Last Step, read my recomendations:

Hostgator a Linux based Hosting company offers incredible rates, packages, and services. This is the company for you if you want multiple sites at one low cost. The control panel hostgator uses (CPanel) puts the control of your website in your own hands and they are very generous with features.

Hostgator provides three basic plans and several sub plans, so you will find one that meets your needs:

• Web Hosting - This option is ideal if you have a couple of domains, or want to setup a one page sales letter site. With the exception of their Hatchling plan, these account allow for an unlimited number of domains and MYSQL databases. One thing to bear in mind if you have a lot of domains you want to setup, is that these accounts nest the other sites inside of the primary domain; you can have unique e-mail addresses, but not stats, and if you accidentally damage the main domain, you could knock all of them offline.
• Resellers – If you have multiple domains and have been thinking about getting a dedicated server but can’t justify the cost, go with a reseller account. you get all of the benefits of a dedicated server without having to maintain the server itself. Another advantage to the Reseller plans is that each site is completely independant, with unique stats.
• Dedicated Servers – If you have a LOT of sites (Like Tom Antion), go with a dedicated server.

HostGator also offers 24X7 365 Telephone, e-mail and Online Chat Support.

What’s Cpanel?

CPanel is, in this humble Propeller-Head’s Opinion the best website hosting system available on the web (I’ve used quite a few systems over the years). Cpanel lets you take control of your website by allowing you to manage nearly every aspect of your website.

List of most Commonly used Features in Cpanel:

• Mail – Complete mail administration system for users, forwarders, spam filtering, and more.
• Web Mail – 3 interfaces to choose from
• Change password
• Park Domains – Same as a pointer
• Addon Domains – Nest additional websites inside of your main account
• FTP Manager – Manage FTP Users and Accounts
• File Manager – Upload/Maange the files in your website
• Disk Usage – How much space are you using?
• Backup – Quickly download compressed files containing website files, stats, and email or your MYSQL databases.
• Password Protect Directories
• Error pages – Setup a redirect for moved, or removed pages so visitors don’t see 404 errors
• Subdomains – Create a subdomain (subdomain.yoursite.com) complete with stats and e-mail
• MySQL Databases – Add, remove or manage databases
• Redirects – setup redirect for websites, pages, or directories in or outside of your domain.
• FrontPage Extensions – Install, repair, or remove FrontPage support
• Web/FTP Stats – Choose from several options, and programs
• Raw Access Logs – Propeller-head version of stats
• Raw Log Manager – Archive your stats to manage your disk space usage
• Error Log – See which errors your visitors are getting, so you can fix them
• Subdomain Stats – See usage for your subdomains.
• Hotlink protection – prevent other websites from linking to your images and steeling your bandwidth
• Fantastico – Quickly and easily add Free applications to your website (Blogs, Forums, Chat Rooms, Guest books, and more..)

Net10.Net a Windows based hosting company has been consistently reliable over the years. I setup my first site on their servers in in 2001 and in that period of time have experienced less than 5 hours of downtime. They offer two stats packages to choose from (Urchin or WebTrends) and have built in spam filters on the mail servers (there is even a downloadable tool for managing your spam quickly and easily). In addition to high marks on reliability, Net10.Net gets an A for Speed. At this time, net10 hasn’t implemented their control panel system, so you need to contact them for modifications to your account (which they always do quickly) such as password protected directories or setting up a database. You do however have a full control panel for your websites e-mail accounts and spam filtering.

By Jason Saeler
Your-Propeller-head.com

I listened to Tom Antion’s Blogging cd (you can read about it on his Blog) and decided to give them a shot. Initially, I tried BlogSpot.com, as it was free and I thought at the time the easiest way to go. Turns out I was wrong. Now don’t get me wrong, it was free and it was extremely easy to setup, but it wasn’t the easiest way to go.

I use a hosting system called CPanel on a number of my website solutions (when I want more control of the website, but don’t want to be calling the hosting company all the time). I was just browsing through my control panel options one day and discovered that it could install a blog for me in less than 3 minutes! It actually came with four different blogs, but I went with Word Press since Tom mentioned it on his CD. The installation script for my Blog, and a lot of other cool applications, was hidden in an option of the CPanel called Fantastico, and it is!

Here is how it worked:

• Logged into control panel
• Clicked on Fantastico
• Selected Word Press from the menu on the left
• Clicked new installation
• Chose Username, Password, selected the directory to install to, and a few additional items
• Clicked Finish Setup

That was all she wrote, My CPanel built the database and installed the files into my website. It didn’t customize the blog for me, which is why it is green and not my typical Orange/Blue combo, but I have time to do that later.

Why would I want the Blog in my website instead of on Blog Spot?
This is a tricky one, as I can see a positive reason to use both WordPress on my website and BlogSpot hosted on the Blog Spot servers. The reason I decided to place the Blog on my website, is that I want my website to get credit for the content and not Blog Spot. If I had the blog hosted on the Blog Spot servers, the search engines would view the content as belonging to the Blog Spot domain name and not mine. On the other hand, if I used the Blog Spot servers, my blog would get established quicker, because of the Blog Spot domain and linking from other sources related to Blog Spot.

Here is a simple example:
Possible URL for Blog Spot - myblog.blogspot.com
Actual URL for my Website – your-propeller-head.com/seblog

Note how blog spot adds a sub-domain for your blog, but is still part of Blog Spot. Then look at the global Presence URL where the Blog is an actual directory.

In the finial evaluation, I decided it would be better in the long run to build traffic to the Blog manually, and let all that extra content add to the content of my own domain name and help my rankings in the search engines.

If you need a hosting company that supports CPanel, so that you can setup your own Blog as quickly and easily as I did, check out the following company. Hostgator is very offer plenty of bandwidth, unlimited number of domains, excellent storage capacity, unlimited number of databases, etc. Hostgator

By Jason Saeler
Your-Propeller-head.com

Every internet marketer will tell you that you need to have video on your website. Many of them even tell you you need this application or that piece of hardware to do it. The problem is you can get a lot of contradictory information on what to use and why.

After talking to several clients who are trudging through this video software and hardware jungle, I decided it’s time to give a few simple tips to help navigate the video jungle.

What type of camera is needed to make your own video’s?

This is an area where you will find most marketers will be selling you something that makes them a commission; so will I. But what makes your propeller-head different is that I will also tell you that you probably don’t need a specialized video camera.

If you already have a quality digital camera, or even a moderately priced one – chances are that you can already take motion video with it. Here is how to tell:

1. Go online (search for specifications on your make and model camera) or look at your owners manual. See if the camera can take at least 30 frames per second (fps) at a resolution (screen size) of 640 X 480, and verify the format the camera saves the video in.
2. Make certain you have enough memory on your camera. A two gigabyte memory card can record approximately 20 minutes of AVI, or MOV formatted video – 40 minutes of MPG or WMV video.
3. Check if your camera can sit on a tripod. There are two basics types of tripod one is a clip on style and the other a screw on type. In order to tell if your camera will be compatible with a tripod, look at the base for the screw hole or an outdented foot (sort of like a plateau on the base of the camera).

If your own camera doesn’t meet the above criteria, you will need something that does. You can either buy a midrange digital camera that does, or a stand alone video camera. The benefit of the mid range digital camera is that it serves two functions, still shots and video.

If you have a digital camera and don’t feel a need for a new one, you can purchase a stand alone video camera. We recommend the affordable Flip Camera.

Benefits of the Flip Video Camera:

• Records for 60 minutes
• Includes Flip Video Editing software
• Available for around $120 from Amazon.com

Click Here for more information.

In addition to the camera you will also need a tripod. I recommend that you have both a mini tripod and a full sized tripod. You can find affordable tripods in your local Target, Wallmart or online at Amazon.com.

Mini Tripods:

• Flip Video Tripod for Flip Ultra and Mino Camcorders – Approximately $23.00
• Sunpak 620-786 Mini-Spider Tripod – Approximately $3.00
• Caselogic PVT-3 Mini Tripod (Black) – Approximately $4.00
• Sunpak Mini-PRO Plus Table Tripod with 3-Way Pan Head & Pan Handle – Black Anodized Finish (extends to 12.2″) – Approximately $22.00

Full Sized Tripods:

• Celestron Photo / Video Tripod - Approximately $42.00
• Sper Scientific – Field Tripod – Approximately $29.00

What type of software is needed to make your own video’s?

• Sony Vegas Video Studio Platinum Pro Pack - Approximately $86
• Sony Vegas Video Studio Platinum – Approximately $69
• FLV Producer Used to create web ready vidoes in the Flash Video Format (FLV) – Approximately $99
• FTP software or website editing software – Video training guide on downloading and installing a free FTP program $14.95

by Scott A. Hodge

Fiscal Fact No. 119

America’s political leadership is finally waking up to the fact that the tax rates businesses face in the U.S. are way out of step with our major economic competitors. Last year, for example, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel proposed cutting the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent. While a 5 percentage point cut in the federal corporate tax rate may sound significant, it may not be sufficient to meaningfully improve the competitiveness of the United States.

Currently, the average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.3 percent, second among OECD countries to Japan’s combined rate of 39.5 percent.¹ Lowering the federal rate to 30.5 percent would only lower the U.S.’s ranking to fifth highest among industrialized countries.

Read the full article

Signs are a very common type of marketing. Everywhere we go we see signs. Billboards, car stickers and a whole lot more! This is a great way to get your product or company seen by millions. Outside advertising, such as this, is a cost effective way of getting your product noticed.

Everywhere you go you will see signs and advertisements, billboards on the highway and bumper stickers on the backs of cars. These become so common that sometimes we don’t really realize we are looking at them. But the message still sinks in; we read them and remember and a really good sign can really get the point across.

Larger Signs

Billboards and large signs are everywhere and they do not have to be as expensive as they once were. You can find, make or buy very affordable billboards and signs to use to market your company or product.

If you are a little cautious about this method you can always rent the space for a short period of time to test the waters. This is also a good idea if you are not sure of the most effective location for your sign. With a little trial and error you can make sure you have the best sign in the best place.

Bumper Stickers and Posters

Cheap and effective, what more could you want? Try handing out stickers to customers or in a public place, you will be surprised how many people will display your sticker and give you free advertising. Smaller sized posters are also a lot cheaper to produce and can therefore be used in greater quantities to capture a wider audience.

Moveable Advertising

The most common type of moveable advertising is clothing, although pens, umbrellas and mouse mats are equally effective. By giving out these gifts you will encourage customers to advertise your product as they go about their daily business.

This type of advertising can be done relatively cheaply and with excellent results. Never underestimate the power of outside advertising.

Scott F. Geld is the owner of Marketing Blaster, Inc. , a pay-per-click traffic source that repeatedly beats the major search engines in conversion ratio and ROI.