A Back Road Loophole For Getting a Top Google Ranking

While everybody wants their site to receive a top 10 ranking in Google, it's just not possible for everyone.

And this is especially true if you've got a brand new site. New sites that have been crawled by the Googlebot are sometimes given a decent ranking in Google for a few days before they plunge to the depths of Neverworld.

What a TEASE that Google is!

The unknowing webmaster thinks they've hit paydirt with an almost instantaneous top 20-30 listing. Then one day - POOF - their site is gone as fast as it arrived.

Now the webmaster has to prove that the site has staying power by getting links from other sites within its niche. Not just any links. Links from sites with a decent PageRank would really do the trick. Getting listed in the infamous Yahoo! or Open Directory would be even better.

That's what the experts constantly tell us. And in fact, it's all 100% true.


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However as the old saying goes... There's more than one way to skin a cat.

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One of the things I teach my readers is that your site doesn't necessarily need a top 10 position in Google in order for you to be successful.

You can get your marketing message listed in Google's top 10 results for your targeted keyword, and still get a ton of traffic to your web site.

Let me explain how it works...

1) You advertise on a specific site. (I'll tell you about this site in a few moments.) This advertisement will promote your web site;

2) Your advertisement get's spidered by the Googlebot.

3) Your advertisement receives a top Google ranking for your targeted keyword.

4) People see your advertisement in Google, and click on to your actual web site.

5) And this has NOTHING to do with placing an AdWords advertisement.

It's a fantastic little loophole that most people don't know about. And I've seen it work consistently for many different niches.


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This loophole works because--

1) Google LOVES itself.

2) Google trusts that expert researchers are going to lead searchers to the
right tools.

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You see Google has an interesting service called Google Answers (http://answers.google.com/answers/).

Users submit specific questions to Google Answers, and specify how much they're willing to pay for the answer. They accept questions on all types of topics ranging from arts and entertainment, business, health, science, and so on.

Google has an arsenal of 500 researchers who answer these questions.

While Google isn't accepting any more researchers, anybody with a Google account can post comments answering questions. People who post comments don't get paid like researchers, but that's not the important part.



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Now here's where it gets juicy--

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I've noticed that Google loves to list questions and answers from Google Answers within their top 10 search results.

For example, somebody posted a query saying that they needed a list of brokers who buy and sell used LED boards. You can view the query here: (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=458689)

I ran a search on Google for the keyphrase "LED boards" and sure enough, this exact query from Google Answers showed up in the #2 position.

Any LED board broker could get a ton a free publicity here.

All they'd have to do is post a comment to this query listing their company as broker of LED boards. You can even list URL's in the comment.

And VOILA your job is done.

Your marketing message is listed in the #2 position under an extremely targeted keyphrase.

It's free, and you didn't have to break a sweat to do it. You simply added some information about your site, and got instant rank.


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Making this technique work for you.

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Google Answers receives many new queries every day.

Your job is to keep an eagle eye out for queries that you can post comments to, referring people back to your site.

But it's important to do a quick check several times a week.

It took less than 2 weeks from the time the LED board question was posted, till it reached the #2 position in Google's main search.

You want to make sure you get prime advertising space before the query get's a top 10 ranking. This way you maximize how much traffic you receive.

10 Minutes to Your Google Sitemap...

Google's calling your name...

Hi, Google here. We want to index your website...

Is anyone there?

This article has a free corresponding online video tutorial that shows you how to summons the magic Googlebot to spider and index every page on your website, and it will only take about 10 minutes of your time.

Go here now to watch exactly what to do, step-by-easy-step...

http://www.gothrive.com/google-sitemap-video.htm

What you have access to with the new Google Sitemaps program is truly a gift from the Google gods. They've offering you a tool that you can use to keep your site constantly indexed and updated in the search engine database. With Google Sitemaps, webmasters can now take charge and make sure that their entire site is crawled and indexed.

One important note to make is that the Google Sitemaps program will not necessarily improve the ranking of your site's pages. It only ensures that Google knows what you've got online for them to look at.

Before reading the following statement, promise yourself that you won't stop reading if you see a term that seems a little scary. OK? Promise? Good. Go ahead and keep reading then.

The format specified by Google for "their" sitemap is XML (extensible markup language). Did I loose you yet? No? Good again.

You do not need to understand how to code XML to participate in the Google Sitemap program. There are plenty of free online tools that will create your XML sitemap for you with no XML knowledge required on your part. More on this in a second.

What information is including in this XML sitemap?

1) The URL for every file on your website.

2) A relative priority rank that you can assign telling Google which pages on your site are most important for them to look at.

3) The date last modified for each page.

4) Anticipated change frequency per URL. This again is a variable that you control.

According to Google, your XML sitemap can include up to 50,000 URL's. If your site is a real monster and has in excess of 50,000 URL's, then you'll need to create a hierarchy of sitemaps with one leading to the next. This way you'll be able to lead Google to all of your pages.

The options for generating and maintaining your Google Sitemap range from complex systems that are highly automated to very simple systems using online sitemap generators that require nothing more than clicking a few buttons.

Google now keeps a list of these 'third party suppliers' of generators on their site. Find them here: http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

The program that's demonstrated in our free video tutorial (http://www.gothrive.com/google-sitemap-video.htm) is found here: http://www.auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp

In a nutshell, here are the steps involved with using online generators:

1) Start the program.
2) Enter your site's URL
3) Click the "Start Crawling" button
4) Customize URL priorities and change frequencies
5) Save the site map to your local hard drive
6) Upload your new Google XML sitemap to your website in the root directory (where your home page resides)
7) Validate your new sitemap
(can be done here: http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/submit-validate-sitemap/)
8) Submit your XML sitemap to Google.

You can access the pages for the Google Sitemap program here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

8 steps in about 10 minutes. That's all there is to it.

One question that you might ask is whether or not you still need an HTML sitemap, and the answer is "Yes, you still need your conventional sitemap". XML sitemaps are not intended for human visitors. To see what I mean, take a look at the two following sitemaps:

HTML sitemap: http://www.gothrive.com/sitemap.html

XML sitemap: http://www.gothrive.com/sitemap.xml

Which version do you prefer? Your visitors will like the HTML and Google prefers XML.

When you add pages or new content to your site and you want Google to go back to have a fresh look, just log in to your Google Sitemaps control panel, select the sitemap to revisit, and click "Resubmit". It's never been easier to get Google to spider and index a website. Don't miss your opportunity to use this tool to your advantage.

5 Ways Google Will Help You With Your Traffic

If you’ve ever had a severe drop in your Google rankings in search results, you may think of Google more of an enemy than an ally.

But if you knew what I do, you’d realize that there are tools provided by the search engine that help you learn more about your traffic, and may even help drive visitors to your site.

Here are five ways that Google provides free traffic assistance.

#1 - Google will Help Your Pages Get Discovered with Google Sitemaps
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

Google Sitemaps is a program that gives you the opportunity to present your site’s pages to Google in XML or text. Google will then come by and spider the pages, getting you indexed faster.

Take note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that your pages will be listed for your favorite keywords, only that discovery will take place a lot faster than with manual submission. Google Sitemaps will also give you some basic site stats if you verify your site, such as the top keywords for discovery, errors it found when crawling, and the types of documents at your site.

If you find compiling your sitemap for Google in the correct format difficult, try the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler Google Sitemap generator. It’s my favorite Sitemap generator, free and easy to use.

#2 - Google Will Talk To You and Your Webmaster In His or Her Native Tongue or Plain English with the Webmaster Section
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The Google Information Page for Webmasters should be your first stop when you want to know more about anything that has to do with your site and its relationship to Google and any of its many flavors of search such as Froogle. Particularly for new site owners or operators, checking this page first has saved many from needless anxiety.

Most of the basic information is in straightforward language, with links to details for geeks like me.

#3 - Google will Tell You What It Knows with Web Page Information

If you type info:yoursite.com into Google, Google will tell show you a page that has your link at the top of the page, with a short description, and the following phrase “Google can show you the following information for this URL”.

This special page compiles several queries about your site including pages that contain your URL (all the pages Google knows of that are linked to you).

#4 - Google will Help You Analyze Your Traffic with Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

After a recent purchase of Urchin Stats, a free online version has been made available, and re-branded as Google Analytics. This cookie-based invisible visitor tracker can give you information that go a bit beyond standard stats such as bounce rates, visitor loyalty, keyword discovery results for a single day, click paths through your site, and page views per visit.

With the ability to analyze your traffic, you can help learn where the holes in your site are, and how to keep them on your site for longer periods of time, as well as better ways to steer a visit towards a specific action, such as a subscription. Results come in flavors for the executive and the search marketer alike.

There’s currently a waiting list to use Google Analytics due to popular demand.

#5 - Google Will Advise On Getting the Most from Your Traffic with Conversion University
http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html

Google Analytics also has two content sections that are available to all, called Conversion University. While the articles are decidedly slanted towards AdWords users, a prudent read yields many clues that can be applied to preparing for visitors who arrive through organic search discovery. One reference area is called “Driving Traffic”, the other “Converting Visitors.”

At the end of the day, the process by which your site gets ranked in Google search engine results is a computation of a complex algorithm, which means Google - the search engine - really isn’t capable of being your best friend or your worst enemy.

Meanwhile, Google - the company - also provides access to resources that will help give your site a fighting chance.

Sitemaps - Uncover the Only Quick and Easy Site Submission Strategy

What is the easiest and quickest way to get your site spidered and listed by Google and Yahoo?

This is an enternal question, one that many frustrated SEO specialists and online business owners are still trying to figure out. The trick to answering this question is to find out exactly what Google and Yahoo want you to do to get listed; not what you THINK they want you to do. That being said, the tried and true methods to get your pages indexed and listed by Google and Yahoo have been the following:

1. Blogging and Pinging

2. Submit your website through the standard submission form provided by Yahoo and Google

3. Pay a search engine submission service to do it for you

4. Figure out how to create a Sitemap for each of the engines to get the spiders to come to your site (you still have to manually submit)

These are all decent methods. However, the problems with 3 of these methods are many, and here are just a few:

1. Blog and Ping and submission forms are all slow ways to get listed. Who has that kind of time?

2. Search Engine Submission services can be expensive

3. Using an automated search engine submission service can get you banned, if the search engines think that you are "spamming"

Of all the methods listed above, both Google and Yahoo prefer that you create a sitemap and then submit your site to them. You create a database file that contains information about ALL of your web pages. You then load that file onto your website and then let Google know where that file is. Google is extremely specific about how the database should be submitted, which is in XML format.

By submitting your website in this way, you are cutting down on their overhead by a huge amount. You see, when you submit the old-fashioned way, using the standard submission form we talked about earlier, Google and Yahoo have to convert your information to the database XML format themselves. As you can imagine, this takes time, especially with the zillions of webpages that are submitted daily. So, those sites that are submitted in the manner and format that Google and Yahoo are already using will get their pages spidered faster...do you see the logic here? Using this process, you are enabling them to visit many MORE of your web pages quickly and easy. This is exactly what Google and Yahoo want you to do.

By submitting your sitemap in the preferred format, you will accomplish the following:

1. Save enormous amounts of your valuable time and money.

2. You don't risk getting banned

3. You will get Google and Yahoo to spider the pages of your site faster.

So, if you want to get your site spidered, and therefore listed, faster, you must create and submit the sitemap. In theory, the search engines can list your pages whenever they want. In reality, until you get them to spider your webpages, you will never get them listed!

Joe Borges makes it easy to get your website optimized and listed in all the major search engines. Learn how to build and submit your sitemap quickly and easily by visiting:
http://www.tekretail.com/secretspid.html

The Ten Commandments of Search Engine Optimization

Most of the time when we pitch to a new client we are asked for SEO guarantees. “Your competition has guaranteed top results and submission to 100,000 Search Engines and Directories”. We go all out educating clients that Search Engine Optimization is all about smart work and not just adding random keywords and submitting to every directory possible. I’m writing this article to reach out to the SEO buyers and help them distinguish the crooks from the genuine SEO. I’ve compiled my Search marketing experience over the years in this article. I hope this helps you in selecting your Search Marketing initiative.

Commandment 1: There are no Rank Guarantees. (Period)

Search Engines alone control their indexing and ranking algorithm. Do not try to trick Search Engines. The only way to improve your Search Engine Ranks is by playing by the rules. And the rule is very simple: make it logical. Web content is primarily for the site visitor and not crawlers.

If your Search Engine Optimizer sold you magic “Top rank on google in 10 days flat”. Forget it. There are no short cuts. Top ranking in Search Engines Natural Results will take time. Hard work is imperative especially for the content on your website and the links to your site.


Commandment 2: Ranking is not the end, it’s the means.

Ask yourself what will Top Search Engine Ranks get you? Most businesses are interested in increasing sales on the website or in the least driving qualified traffic. Ranking for the right keywords (keywords used by your target audience) is important. There are SEOs who would try to show case results for keywords that occur only on your website. Beware such gimmicks.


Commandment 3: Know your competition.

“Rank” is relative position and more so in the Search Engine’s natural results. How well you do in the Search Engine Results is a function of how much hard work you have put over competition. Analyze competition’s keywords, links, keyword density and spread. But be sure to never copy your competition.

Commandment 4: Use Search Engine Friendly design.

A search and visitor friendly design is must for any successful website. Your website should be compelling enough for repeat visits by search engines and potential customers. Make sure you have Search Engine friendly urls and avoid those long URLs with query strings (http://mywebsite.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=5&a=z&f=g). You should also make sure that your web designer follows global coding standards like w3c (http://www.w3.org).

Commandment 5: Select Keywords that are worth.

You must research the keywords before targeting. There are tools that give you good idea of keyword’s search potential for example (http://www.wordtracker.com/, http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/, https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox ). It is important to know the number of searches for a keyword in the last month, last 6 months and last year. You should also find out the number of web pages that are targeting the keyword. It is advisable to start a campaign with keywords with moderate competition and high number of search.



Commandment 6: Write Great content.

Even if your website site is technically perfect for search engine robots, it won’t do you any good unless you also fill it with Great content. Great is contextual and has editorial value. Great content brings repeat visits and increases the chance of conversion. Great content is factual and appeals to the target audience. The web page should have desired action embedded in the content.
You must ensure that the content is fresh. Keep adding and editing the content regularly.

Commandment 7: Use good hyper linking strategy.

Hyperlinks make the content accessible and contextual. You must hyperlink in the right context within the website and to the other websites. Good links are appreciated by the Search Engines and by the visitors. No one likes to be taken to a mall selling “Macintosh” when shopping for “apples”.


Commandment 8: Write relevant and original Meta content.

Meta content is like business cards. Just as your business card tells who you are and what you do Meta content tells the Search Engines the relevance and context of a web page. Resist the temptation to include everything in the Meta content, but make it detailed. Confused? The idea is to include only what is relevant to the page in the Meta Content but include everything that is relevant.

Commandment 9: Acquire Relevant Links.

The Links you acquire are the roads to your web page for Search Engine Bots and visitors. Good links increase your webpage’s equity on the World Wide Web and bad link make a dent to the equity and credibility. Be selective in reciprocal linking. Both reciprocal and one way links work, if you are prudent in selecting the links. Submit your website to the relevant sections in relevant directories.

Commandment 10: Consult experts, if you need to.

If you have the competence there are two ways to learn. Learning from one’s own mistakes and learning form other’s experience. You could choose either. If you have the time and can wait for the online dollars do it yourself. If you want to get started now it may be useful to consult the experts.

Search Engine Metrics… Organic Search vs. Paid Placement

Let me preface this report by citing advertisers in 2004 have spent 4 Billion dollars on search engine marketing according to (SEMPO) the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

Website marketers cited Search engine positioning was the top method to drive traffic to their sites (66%), followed by email marketing (54%). Source: Direct Marketing Association. Accordingly, the most cost effective way to market your web site online is to obtain several top 10-search engine rankings in the major search engines for your keywords.

According to a recent Jupiter Research Survey, searching on the search engines is one of the main uses of the Internet among 79% of users. Source: September 2002 Jupiter Research Survey. So that being the case, whatever your promoting you’ll want to make sure it can be found on the first page of the search engines results page.

The reason is numerically simple. An Iprospect Survey in 2002 reported that 78% of web users abandon their search if the first 3 pages don't provide an answer to their question, and 28% don’t scroll past the 2nd page of results. Source: Media Post article reporting results of Spring 2002 IProspect survey.

Combine those facts with the Internets explosive growth rate of 1.8 Million people worldwide going online every week for the very first time, Source: Official Guide To Internet Promotion and you can soon appreciate what a top 10 ranking can mean to you.
Google receives approximately 39.4% of all search engine traffic. Yahoo receives approximately 30.4%. They’re simply the largest search engines being utilized online today.

Bringing up the rear is MSN at 29.6%, and AOL 15.5% then Ask Jeeves with 8.5%. Source: Nielsen//NetRatings January 2004

How much traffic is that? Well, Google and its partner sites were reporting a whopping 250 million searches a day in February 2003.

Overture and its partners were reporting over 167 million searches per day. Inktomi reported 80 million followed by LookSmart with 45 million per day.

FindWhat reported 33 million while Ask Jeeves reported 20 million, Alta Vista reported 18 million and finally Fast reported 12 Million searches per day. Source: Searchenginewatch.com 2004.

With all said, you can easily see how your search engine rankings are directly proportional to the traffic your web site receives, and your site traffic is directly related to your potential to profit online.

Oh, and in case your wondering how much money is spent online; a recent Forrester Research Report indicated that online spending reached $95,700,000,000 million in 2003!
That's a cool 95.7 billion dollars. Projected online spending is estimated to grow to $229 billion in 2008! A whopping 139% increase in online spending! Source: Forrester Research

Now with these facts in mind I’m confident you can clearly see what a top 10-search engine ranking can mean for your bottom line. Although it does leave a question unanswered in my mind, what has a higher ROI… organic search engine optimization or paid search?

According to SEMPO’s key analysis, the U.S. & Canadian SEM Industry Size Estimate by tactic in 2004, organic SEO accounted for 12% of the market share or $492,057,200 while Paid Placement accounted for $3,341,878,176 or 81.8%.

Interestingly, 9 out of 10 respondents are actively engaged in organic SEM marketing programs accounting for 89% of the respondent advertisers. This trend can be contributed to the average cost of popular keywords continuing to escalate.

If the escalation continues to rise it could make paid search engine advertising exponentially cost prohibitive for all but the largest advertisers… the 900lb gorillas!

Simply put, ROI is outpacing inflation: SEMPO’s key analysis indicates advertisers could afford to pay on average 33% more for their keywords and remain profitable, while they say prices have gone up 26% on average in the last 12 months. That’s leaves a 7% advertising margin to maintain current profits for 2006!

SEMPO’s data also noted that advertisers will get smarter about managing their paid placement programs before they cut back on spending.

This is also consistent with a report released by Nielsen/NetRatings indicating that the growing demand for search engine advertising is outstripping the supply of currently available advertising space.

These findings seem to indicate the inventory of keywords is approaching a critical demand problem however; most advertisers felt they still have some degree of price flexibility in their paid placement programs before they will reach the threshold of diminishing returns.

Is there any wonder why organic search engine positioning has gained popularity for online marketers in 2004? Could it be higher (ROI) return on investments?

SEMPO also cites that 43% of advertiser respondents have shifted their budgets away from other marketing programs for Organic SEO.

So what does it all mean? Let the numbers speak for themselves.

Organic SEO is undeniably gaining favor over the lower ROI paid advertising. This is evidenced by virtue of the fact that paid advertising is becoming less profitable.

Although paid advertising will continue to hold a large portion of the market share, as paid advertising returns diminish and keyword costs soar my early 2006 forecast is for the materialization of a progressive organic SEO market trend to facilitate the need for advertising space.

What is Pay Per Call? How does it work?

Pay Per Call is the next wave of advertising on the Internet. Similar to a Pay – Per –Click advertising. Pay Per Call has a lot more to offer and a wider audience in mind. The Pay-Per Call (PP-Call) is geared towards small businesses that do not have a web presence on the internet. However, this form of advertising can be used by all types of business or services offered on the net.

Advertisers create an ad similar to a Pay-Per-Click (PP-Click) ad. Advertisers choose key terms in which they would like to appear under. They also choose their geographical location (local, regional or national) Pricing starts at $2 and can exceed $20. The ad itself consists of a headline and 2 additional lines of text, (including a URL if the company has one). Surfers then call the toll free number shown in the ad. After the surfer calls the number, the call is forwarded to the actual business phone. Seems pretty basic doesn’t it? But, I had a few questions I needed answered so I contacted Ingenio and spoke to them about their service.

My first question regarded calls placed after business hours. If my business phones are manned Monday – Friday, 9 to 5, will calls still come in after 5pm on Friday? The answer is that currently there is no automated scheduling that will turn your ads on or off at a specified time. However, you can go in manually and pause your account so that your ads are not shown during non-business hours. The automated scheduling is in the process of being implemented but there is currently no set date for this to take effect. Of course, you can place your business hours in the ad as well but this may take up valuable space that could be better utilized describing products or services. Businesses that have a call center for after hours calls are effectively 24 hour businesses, so this should not be an issue for them.

My next question concerned wrong numbers and short calls. We have all done it. We see one number and dial another. Or, we see something and on impulse we reach for the phone, and then change our mind ten seconds after dialing. So, does the advertiser pay for these types of calls? Is there a time limit a person needs to be on the phone for? There answer is yes. The calls need to last at least ten seconds. This should be more than enough time to establish that a wrong number as been dialed. I also wondered about people trying to beat the system. The trouble with PP-Click is that people may dial and occupy a salesperson with no intent other than to try and boost their revenue off the ads placed on their site. Ingenio has taken this into account. They can track calls that come in through their system. Any numbers seen abusing it can be blocked. Hopefully, this will discourage any type of scam to boost profits on sites that sponsors these ads.

I was also interested to know about ads that did provide a URL. Was there an additional charge levied when someone clicked on the ad? Fortunately, there is not. If a business sells over the net as well, they could certainly use this to their advantage. Of course, one of the main advantages to this type of advertising is that it caters to potential customers that do not, for whatever reason, like to make purchases online. Overall PP-Call may be worth its weight in gold. At least the potential is there. Will it surpass PP-Click as far as the preferred method of advertising? Probably, not. It does however give advertises who couldn’t advertise on the net before a reason to start. Maybe then they will see the importance of having a web presence on the Internet.