If you have a new site and are desperate to achieve top rankings on the top search engines such as google, reckon again. Most of these search engines will probably not give your new site a high ranking until it has become established. This is where the age of the domain is vital. You can not in reality expect to be placed in a higher search position than a site which has been around for eight years and which has been building up links, during this period. This is where patience is required, you should see your site as something which is going to be online for a long time and hopefully in time, some of the other sites that you are competing with will have dropped out etc.

This is the same attitude that should be applied when building up the number of backward links pointing to your site. Going from only a few, to a few thousand in a small space of time may not be the best thought. Regular increases are in my opinion the way to go and quality is just as vital as quantity. Choose the ways in which you are plotting to obtain your backward links and try to ensure that you obtain roughly the same amount each month, where possible of course. Over a long period of time this strategy is sure to pay dividends and your search engine position should steadily improve. You will then have an authority site, which all new sites will be aspiring to compete with. Like many areas of life we do not really want to wait for our success and want immediate rewards, such as high rankings. On some search engines this may be possible but on most it will require hard work and this type of patience.

The links that you obtain should where possible be from sites which are in a similar industry or subject matter, to your own site. This is a lot simpler said than done but. If your site is very well written, optimised and of use to a large number of people, you may well receive links on other sites without the need to request the link. This is of course exactly what you want and is why it is vital to spend time thinking of how your site is written and presented.

A excellent way of obtaining a link to your site is to write a reference or testimonial to owners of other sites with which you have had dealings with. Offer to write them this testimonial which of course will be of fantastic benefit to them, on the understanding that they will include a link back to your site at the bottom.

I personally concentrate on obtaining one-way links as I believe these to have the most value. One way I do this is by writing articles such as the one you are reading. There are a fantastic number of benefits of writing articles which can be read at most of the article directories such as ezinearticles. I would certainly recommend it to other people who are thinking of starting up a link building campaign.

If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as “Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada – business cards, logos, letterheads”. Your want the business card design to be the most vital key phrase.

There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors have an simple time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to search through multiple pages to find the information they’re looking for won’t be visitors much longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to choose whether or not stay on a site. A clear thought of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by simple navigation to other pages that show further topics in more detail.

The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is for search engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an vital part of search engine optimization. The more relevant your web site’s content is for a specific term, the more likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.

Keyword density is another huge deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more vital keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just on certain pages.

Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not reckon are vital to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There’s nothing incorrect with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.

Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be kept in mind when making web site content.

“The secret to SEO” This is a dull title basically because of the fact that it sounds like a generic get rich theme that we, Americans are subject to on a daily basis. So all you business owners and work from homers must listen to me. THERE’S NO SECRET TO SEO. It’s very basic and I’m sure you have read this in a lot of places; it’s content. But many sources fail to mention that it has to be relevant content. I tell each of my clients the same thing and it has 3 major clauses;

1-    Original Fresh Content
2-    Popularity of your site
3-    Maintenance
4-    Existence

Original and Fresh Content is not as simple as it sounds. We are talking about unique information that will go people to your site. See, the problem with many companies showing up on the top page today is that their pages are optimized for Google with a combination of nonsense sentences and keywords. So, my approach is, why not build a website that really is optimized for humans? When you do this, you are automatically taking care of the optimization for Google. Come on people, we all know that Google has game and they’re increasing their technology every day finding ways to get rid of this “optimization” deal. Google is always on the side of the users and never the advertisers keep that in mind.

Guess what, once you have original and fresh content, people are going to want to visit your site and link to your site. Hey, we just took care of Popularity as well. I’m not saying you do not have to work on the link exchange thing but I promise that it will be minimal. Also you want to stay away from link farms, link exchange offers and paying for links. So I hear that question, how else am I going to bring links to my site? The answer is content. Write articles, submit it to article sites. Prepare a PR, submit it to Prweb.com. Believe me; all these will bring links to your site. All you have to do is, mention your website at the end of these articles and make sure you link to your site with your advertised link text.

Now you are thinking, “That’s it; I have the content and the links, I’m the king of Google”. That would be incorrect. Always remember that while you are doing content and popularity, there are a million competitors doing that and more. So you want to Maintain your content. You want to update it every week so every time Google spiders come to visit your site, they find new useful information. Keep up with daily life and updated news. For example, if you sell farming supplies and the price of grain goes up, you should write an article and place it in your site. Also publish those articles on other articles sites. You can find these sites easily with a “article submit” search on Google.

And the last but not least would be Existence. I don’t want to get all philosophical on you but you have to have some type of existence online. Try to search for your company name on Google and see how many results you get; that’s your existence. You could also name this one “Brand Recognition”. You want to increase that so when somebody searches for farming supplies, they must see your name. You can do this easily by writing articles and Press Releases on a weekly basis. The more you write, the more circulation you will get. If you have a fantastic piece of article or information, buy a list of media outlets such as local and national newspapers, and fax it to them. They just might bite pick it up. Always remember to include your website at the end as a source and you might have yourself a million dollar makin’, traffic gettin’ website, Google top rankin’ website !!!

One methodology that more and more web based business owners are employing when it comes to increasing traffic to an Internet website is the use of keywords within a website and within articles included within the Internet website in question.

Of course, if you are going to use keyword enriched articles or if you are going to include keywords and keyword phrases (with the intent of drawing more traffic to your website) you will want to make certain that you are using keywords and keyword phrases that really will attract more traffic to your web based business venue.

There are now services on the Net that will provide you with a listing of the most well loved keyword searches (on search engines) at any particular point in time. By incorporating these well loved key word phrases, keywords and keyword search terms into your website and into articles appropriately maintained at your website, you will be in a far better position to increase traffic to your website — you will increase the number of potential clients and customers who pay visits to your website business.

Some search engines offer programs which can help a business in developing an overall marketing campaign for a Net based business that includes the use of keyword enriched content and keyword enriched articles that can be included within the confines of an Internet website.

Finally, you might want to consider engaging the help of a professional in your overall plot to develop a meaningful keyword based marketing campaign for your Internet website. A professional, a SEO professional, can help you in developing both website content and articles that include worthwhile and meaningful keywords and keyword phrases — words and phrases specifically designed to increase your ranking on search engines, and thus increase traffic to your website venue. Again, increased traffic generally translates into an increase in revenues and profits for your Internet business enterprise. Of course, you will want to use a reliable and qualified SEO professional to help you in developing your own Internet marketing campaign that incorporates keywords and keyword phrases effectively.

It is yet to see how the site will develop and get ranking because unless it gets ranking for targeted keywords customers may not believe in its services. But CEO Baba says that we are just here to serve clients and we may not have much time to look after our own sites. This seems amusing but since Baba is already known well we can trust that he will have enough clients so can also trust on his words.

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to view my SEO hints and tips e-book on the often forgotten aspects of SEO. This book was written from the collective knowledge and information gathered by Chris Diprose, owner and manager of Kanga Internet. Kanga Internet are located in Melbourne, Australia and they focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Web Development for the Joomla Content Management System (CMS).

With Search Engine Optimization there are lots of unknowns, educated guesses and knowledge gained from personal and associative experience. Google, Yahoo and MSN keep their cards close to their chest when it comes to revealing how their ranking systems really work. They tell the community trickles of information on what things can affect search engine results, how they can be improved and what to do in certain situations, but mostly knowing what to do to achieve excellent results is achieved by studying and hard work. Much alike other SEO consultants I have gathered information from various sources and worked constantly on improving results for customers. I am always looking for new intelligent ways to improve search engine results. I believe in “White Hat” (or more appropriately, “Grey Hat”) principles.

Edition 1 of this e-book is intended for people looking to improve their websites from the ground up. I address SEO design fundamentals; the things you need to consider before embarking on any text and keyword analysis. I hope you find these hints and tips useful.

Delight in the readings herein.
- Chris Diprose

The Website Revelation – What owning a website really means.
As a Web Developer and SEO consultant I deal with many existing website owners who are looking to modify or improve their website. I also deal with many people who are looking to start their web presence with a new website. Through both of these interactions there is often a common theme; a misunderstanding or an attitude. I call this a misconception of reality, as often the reality of what the Internet can really do for the persons business and what they reckon it can do differ massively.

Often it is presumed that by simply owning a domain and having a website built and published on the Internet, thousands of people will magically find the website, visit it and buy their products. “If you build it, they will come” should be removed from the vocabulary as soon as possible if you are to adjust attitudes to the underlying search technology. As a businessman in the real World, it is obvious that it would not happen outside of the Internet ether, so what is so different online? Maybe it was the Technology boom 10 years ago that caused a rift in understanding or maybe the buzz that caused the meteoric rise in the stock prices of Tech Companies, I can hear the thoughts of the small businessman, “surely this can be replicated for my business” – in answer I would say, “well, it is unlikely, but you should be able to achieve some results over time”.

It is most vital when taking on a project like Search Engine Optimization for a website, to know that it is vital to be committed for the long haul. It is no small task and sufficient funds need to be allocated to the project. Delivery deadlines need to be correctly scoped against required changes, in order to meet client expectations. The key points of responsibility to the SEO project are in knowing that there are huge changes near the start and during setup but the changes do not stop after setup, there are a continuous ongoing refinements to the design and system over time. In this regard I find it vital to manage expectations and set realistic long term goals on what a website can be expected to achieve and in what time frames those goals hope to be met.

So what should your goal be when you are delving into SEO for your website? Well, everyone’s goal is exactly the same; improve page rankings, improve page visits and hits and finally gain more sales through the website.

When it comes to SEO and achieving these goals you have to have principles and my main principle is, “Excellent websites get excellent ratings and terrible websites get terrible ratings or none at all.” As time goes on with the improvement of search engine technology and the refinement of search engine results this statement becomes truer and truer. I believe in results through “white hat”(reads; “Grey Hat”) principles and methodologies.

What are “white hat” principles? I guess I would compare it to doing things the honest way and the right way without risk. So develop a excellent site, promote excellent linking, have excellent informative content and keep working on it and then you are on the road to excellent rankings through “White Hat” principles.

So, why should you do things the “white hat” way? Well, search engines do have some kind of understanding, an artificial intelligence. They soon catch on to websites spamming or linking to websites with no relevance and terrible cross linking. It’s about being smart, in for the long term and wanting your business to grow organically, naturally.

So how do I go about improving my site and making it optimized for search engines naturally? Well, that’s why you’re here! So let’s run through few of the things you should be doing in your websites from a fundamental level.

Domain names:

When choosing a domain name, choose one that is relevant to the product or service you are going to provide and that is as simple as possible. There are considerations of branding and product/service provided that should go into this choice. Involvement of marketing personal and product understanding is required but also consultation with your SEO professional is advantageous. In this step I would say, take some time and choose wisely. Keep it simple and simple to remember, often saying it out loud will make it clear whether it can be understood by a simple man.

It is a strongly held belief by many SEO professionals that buying a domain which is older, and that has been around for a while, means it will not be sand boxed by Google. What’s the sandbox effect? Well, it refers to what Google does to a website or domain that is new or is relatively unknown by Google. In many instances Google’s Sandbox effect relegates the new domain to sub-optimal inclusion in search results. Regardless of the sites optimization it lowers the websites relevance and ranking to the term searched upon. If you can use your ancient business domain name, then consider this very vital.

If, but, you are buying a new domain name then keep it relevant to the product or service being sold or offered on the website. Keep it close, relevant and simple. Relevance is primary.

Location specific domain or international domain ( .com or com.au)? Personally I reckon dot com’s are better, mainly because they appeal Internationally but if you want to you can keep it location specific and to your region then consider purchasing all similar higher level domains, yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com.au, if you can.

Choosing a Host:

Quick, reliable and gives you all you that you need and want. Preferably gives a unique IP. Again some SEO professionals believe this can also have a detrimental affect in Google rankings but from my experience it sometimes does and it sometimes doesn’t. I have had some sites come in with high PR rankings on shared IP’s and others when I shifted to a new IP the PR of the site jumped, so this is still a bit of a mystery when it comes to Google rankings. I guess a consideration

Traffic considerations: When choosing your host ensure the plot you are on can be expanded so that any new increases in traffic can be accommodated accordingly.

Site Design:

There are several fundamental things to consider when you are modifying or designing a website.

Flash:

Flash is has been well loved for a few years now and I truly believe it has its place. It is a fantastic way of showing many products or services in a small area, has fantastic visual impact if done properly and can set a excellent friendly tone to the website visitor. Having said that, I also despise flash; it can be an absolute nightmare when it comes to search engine optimization.

What you should know about flash; it cannot be read by a search engine as the search engine cannot read the text or the images contained within it nor can it interpret what is in the pictures being shown.

When it comes to flash I would suggest, not making your whole website flash. If you are designing a new website and you want to use flash then use it in high impact areas to capture the attention of your intended audience but use it sparingly. It is vital to ensure that as much text content(to a maximum discussed in my next book, generally 300-500 characters) is available on the webpage and in simple HTML.

Frames:

Many older websites were designed with frames. Frames are where the main home page is really a frameset page that includes several other pages into it. This makes the page hard to index in search engines and should be avoided. While Google do now index framed sites, it is vital to note that most of the other top search engines still cannot follow frame links. They only see the frameset page and ignore the rest of the inner frames. This presents an SEO problem to us because it is highly likely those inner pages contain our content keywords.

Nowadays this is not really a huge issue as it is so uncommon for a designer to really use frames but the simplest way to resolve the issue would be to enforce a no use policy on frames.

Page Layout:

According to research the Googlebot trawls web pages from left to right and top to bottom. So given this small tidbit of information it is clear that you should be putting our most valuable keywords and information on the left and near the top. Of course this is a blanket statement and does not take into account design principles and beautification. Just keep it in mind during design of page layout. Position your go relevant keywords to the left of the page and near the top.

Excellent HTML Coding:

A lot of HTML generator programs out there bloat HTML to the point it is 3-4 times larger than what it would be if you hand coded it. Keep it simple, use a text editor, edit your HTML the ancient school way; until there is a HTML generator tool worthy of use. If you can’t code HTML then do a search on the Internet and find a decent, free, e-book and learn how to do it.

Javascript:

This is very well loved among many web development professionals for menu’s, popups, scollers etc etc. It would be my suggestion to use simple plain HTML menu’s or as small Javascript as possible in web pages. There are many small JavaScript menu’s out there that are slim on JavaScript code to reduce this issue and make it nearly negligible. Don’t over clutter your site with JavaScript as it increases page size, page load times and the search engines won’t know it.

Image Sizes:

Keep them small and use only what you need to. This is essential for decreasing page loading times and getting information onto the users screen as soon as possible.

Overall page size and loading:

The overall page size is an vital factor. It should load quickly and be easily trawled. If you have followed the HTML hand coding, used minimal javascript, used simple table layouts and excellent image sizing then you should be fine. There is much evidence that supports the fact that Google and probably the other search engines also, do not like to scan huge files, so keeping your overall HTML page size below 25k is my suggestion.

Dynamic URL’s & page/file names:

Dynamic pages are roadblocks to high search engine positioning. Especially those that end in “?” or “&”. In a dynamic site, variables are passed to the URL and the page is generated dynamically, often from information stored in a database as is the case with many e-commerce sites. Normal .html pages are static – they are hard-coded, their information does not change, and there are no “?” or “&” characters in the URL.

Pages with dynamic URLs are present in several engines, notably Google and AltaVista, even though publicly AltaVista claims their spider does not crawl dynamic URLs. To a spider a “?” represents a sea of endless possibilities – some pages can automatically generate a potentially massive number of URLs, trapping the spider in a virtually infinite loop.

As a general rule, search engines will not properly index documents that:
• contain a “?” or “&”
• End in the following document types: .cfm, .asp, .shtml, .php, .stm, .jsp, .cgi, .pl
• Could potentially generate a large number of URLs.
To avoid complications, consider making static pages whenever possible, perhaps using the database to update the pages, not to generate them on the glide.

Slightly Off Topic Thoughts:

The topics covered here are not considered completely SEO topics but in terms of overall objective – increasing sales, this section is very vital. Take these things on board, consider them, consult with your designer and marketing team. Make educated and informed choices on these topics when considering your audience and what your website objectives are.

Screen Size:

Over 65% of all screens in the World are set to run at the 1024×768 resolution. Of the remaining percentage, 13% are running at 800×600, 20% running at larger sizes and 2% are unknown. So this affects the way you design. It would be my suggestion to always design for the smallest user to visit your site, but often I find 800×600 restrictive so I tend to design for slightly larger. Not large enough to make an 800×600 user mad but large enough to make it look excellent on larger screens also. I weigh up my target users, my intended amount of content and find some pleased medium. I generally design for 1000×620 as this is the perfect amount of real estate for a 1024×768 user when they have the browser top bar and status bar and Windows taskbar.

colors and themes:

One vital aspect of marketing – selling – is the use of color. Meanings are attached to colors in the same way meanings are attached to words.

• Gold is the color of wealth and prosperity.
• White is the color of pure innocence and cleanliness.
• Pink is the color of femininity and softness.
• Green is the color of natural things and freshness.
• Red is the color of danger and stress.
• Blue is the color the calmness, intelligence. The majority of the World selects blue as a favorite color. It often represents “trust”

Use of color to establish an image or a brand is common in the marketing community, yet when you visit the websites of many search engine optimization professional’s, it’s obvious that color significance plays no part in their own web optimization. Some of the colors I found on SEO websites:
• Baby Blue, a color which implies weakness.
• Red, a color which implies risk, or danger.
• Orange a color which implies a cheerful “levity”. Orange is one of Americans’ least favorite colors.

Although color selection is off topic for SEO I would consider it a very vital factor in what SEO is trying to achieve, in the end, for your website – selling more product, making loyalty to your brand and customer impact. color research is something you should seriously consider. In summary of color choices I would suggest studying and learning more about your customers, researching color choices and their relevance to your underlying products and making informed choices on these in collaboration. If in doubt then I suggest sticking to safe and trusted colors within safe eye pleasing designs.

Gifs for logos & jpgs for pictures:

Ensure you are using gifs for logos and background placements and jpgs for photos on your website. This helps reduce size and improve clarity of the web site overall.

Browser:

It is vitally vital to ensure your web page works in both IE, Firefox and Opera. Testing other browsers is also an advantage but these are the main three in use nowadays (2007). I reckon quoting stats on the browser breakdown are irrelevant as you need it work in all browsers. W3C cross browser compliance is fantastic for this.

So, this brings us to the end of Volume 1: Fundamentals of SEO Web Design. There are many things to consider when designing a website or modifying a web site to make it more SEO friendly. Clearly I have a few more volumes left in SEO for websites.

If you’ve been following the latest Internet marketing trends like I have, then you’ve certainly heard of them.

What’s this new marketing tool I’m taking about that every Serious marketer should have in place?

BLOGS! …(A.K.A. Web-Log).

Now, just for those of you who aren’t quite sure what a BLOG is, here’s a quick definition:

A BLOG(A.K.A. Web-Log) is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating(usually on a daily to weekly basis) a blog is called “Blogging” and someone who keeps a Blog is a “Blogger”.

There you have it, quick and to the point.

If you want to read up more about “Blogs”, here’s a link to an article I wrote earlier that goes more in depth.

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/blogsexplained.htm

Okay. For the rest of this article I want to focus on how ONE can $$Profit$$ from having there own Blog.

I’m going to list three ways that I reckon are the Best and most Powerful ways to get the most out of your Blog.

So, with that said, let’s go to Profit Tactic #1.

Profit Tactic #1. Writing “Articles”.

Writing “Articles” are a very Powerful way to profit from your Blog.

There are many reasons why “Articles” are valuable to your Blog, but, for the purpose of this article I’m going to give you the most vital part, and that’s your “Resource Box” at the end of your article.

Your “Resource Box” is like a classified ad and holds critical information about You, your websites and what you have to offer them after they’ve read your article.

The links within your “Resource Box” could lead to your own Product or Service you have to offer, or they could lead to a Affiliate Product related to the content of your article.

This is a fantastic way to give them something of “Value”, which is the information within the article, and a fantastic way to get them to take action by way of getting them to click on one of the links within your “Resource Box”.

That’s “Profit Tactic #1″.

Profit Tactic #2. Writing “Product Reviews”.

Writing “Product Reviews” is a fantastic way to profit from your Blog simply because they allow you to Soft-Sell your potential customer by way of giving them your personal opinion on the product you are recommending and then providing them with a link if they wish to look into it further, instead of throwing a Sales Pitch at them.

Nobody likes to be sold, but, offering them your insight on a Product and/or Service that could help solve the problem they’re dealing with is yet another fantastic way to profit from your Blog and make you look like a Hero.

That’s “Profit Tactic #2″.

Profit Tactic #3. “Text Ad” Programs.

“Text Ad Programs” like Affiliate Power Ads or Google Adsense are yet Another fantastic way to profit from your Blog.

I’ve listed these two “Text Ad” programs for a reason, One is a Pay-Per-Click(Google Adsense) and shows related ads to the content on that particular webpage and the other one(Affiliate Power Ads) makes You up to $60 to $100 dollars in commissions on a single click.

Here are the links for you to check them out further if you wish.

Google Adsense –

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/googleads.htm

Affiliate Power Ads –

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/powerads.htm

They are both FREE to join and only take you minutes to set-up depending on your experience.

Here’s an example of how mine looks if you were to set-up your Blog through Blogger.com — http://www.blogger.com with both of these programs. http://theiwe.blogspot.com

The fantastic thing is… they’ll be showed on every page of your Blog when you make a post.

I also provided a link below that shows you How-To set this up “Step-By-Step”, making it Simple for you to get started.

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/help.htm

Now, I’m sure there are many other ways to $$Profit$$ from your Blog, but these ones in my mind are the most Powerful.

Well… there you have it, “3 POWERFUL Ways To Profit From Your BLOG… Starting TODAY!”.

If you haven’t started a BLOG, maybe it’s time you considered it since NOW you have some incentive.

I truly hope this article helped you realize the $$Profit$$ potential your Blog could have and how you can start incorporating it… Starting TODAY!

Designing a website is a complex process involving many elements. But if a professional undertakes this work it becomes very simple for you. There are many professionals who will do the work for you for a certain amount of fee. It is advisable to leave the designing part to a professional. Before embarking on designing the website make sure that you know what exactly you are looking for. This will help you in giving a clear picture of your requirements to the pro.

Hiring a pro to do your work is a fantastic way of going about designing a website. Choose on a theme. It may be anything a color, a photograph, a logo or an image. Make use of it throughout the website. Keep a constant tab on the progress of the work done on your website. Your website must be very appealing and visually pleasing for the visitors. Take note that your site contains images and visuals which moves, flashes and talks to visitors online. This is a sure shot way of grabbing attention. Ensure that the contents in your site are regularly updated.

Have plenty of templates in your website. Templates are cheap and look very excellent in a website. A photograph speaks a thousand words. Add proper photographs in the right places. Photo editor can be used to make the required alterations in the photographs. You must take note that the photographs used in the site complements with the goods in which your company is dealing. Make use of proper color coordination to make your site visually appealing.

Include a site map in your website. Using site map is the surest way of keeping a website organized. Your website must be easily accessible to the visitors. With so much of competition in this field no one will go for a time consuming search to get what they are looking for. Make sure everything is properly showed in the proper places. Another vital factor which you must take note of is the target audience of your site. This is vital in determining the look of your site.

It is vital look after your site properly. Check regularly to see if the information in your site is regularly updated or not. Test out to see if the links in your site are properly working or not. There is nothing more annoying than broken links to a visitor of a website.

Designing a search engine friendly website is not hard. Some of the elements you should implement in your design may even seem like plain common sense. You may be surprised, but, to learn how many people don’t follow these simple rules and make websites that search engines find hard to read.

First of all, the text should be in a simple font. The fancy cursive like scripts may look pretty, but they aren’t very simple for the eye to scan. Neither are they simple for the search engine to read. This means keeping the font basic, the color plain, and the size normal. Black, 12 point, Times New Roman, Courier, or Arial are preferred. The actual text is not where you want to draw the attention. Instead, the subject that the text conveys should be in the spotlight.

Furthermore, arrange your text naturally just as you would on the page. Use proper paragraphs and bullet points as well as other devices to break up the text into bite size pieces. Take it simple when using capital letters, bold faced print, and exclamation points. Using as much text as possible (at least 250 words but no more than 750 words) will help search engines not only find you but rank you as an expert in the field and place you closer to the top of the list.

Avoid flashing text and cutesy graphics at all costs. Not only are they distracting and amateurish, but search engines read graphics and pictures like blank space. Blank space doesn’t boost page rankings. Make sure that every page utilizes text and specific key words associated with the product or information that you are utilizing to pull in targeted traffic. Text is the focus as far as search engines are concerned. Graphics are for the customer, and each one should sell an aspect of your product and carry meaning. But if search engine friendly design is your goal, take careful consideration of your text.

Another thing to avoid in making a solidly SE friendly website design is spam. This can show up in your site in the form of hidden text in the HTML code. Instead, make sure that your HTML code includes Meta Tags. These aren’t the huge hook to catch the attention of search engines that they once were, but they do help. And every small bit adds up to a higher page ranking!

Another element of search engine friendly web design and, possibly the most vital, is the layout of your site. Unwieldy navigation with dead end links on your site does not just annoy the potential customer, but it confuses search engines, as well. Confusing search engines is no way to boost your rankings, your traffic, or your sales. Use a sitemap if you need to and make sure that the hierarchy of pages makes sense. Use a Google sitemap if you have a large site, and make sure that your navigation tools are concise and specific – no creative misnomers or questionable graphics.

Though the elements of search engine friendly web design emphasize simplicity and therefore come across as simplistic, ignoring them will not only turn off customers but search engines as well. Make your web site search engine friendly and watch your traffic increase exponentially in no time.

1) http://www.alexaranking.com . It displays multiple domains instead of one. Therefore, you can have instant traffic results from Alexa Rankings instead of typing and search each time separately.

2) http://www.xml-sitemaps.com . Sitemaps are extremely vital for websites because they help search engines crawl and index them. This is a free xml sitemap generator.

3) http://www.123promotion.co.uk/directorymanager . You can track your submissions to various web directories and you can also visit regularly to see new directories added to the list. You just tick the appropriate submission boxes when you submitted your website. It’s very simple to use it.

4) http://www.123promotion.co.uk/ppc/index.php. This is a very powerful tool. It displays, based on the Overture and Wordtracker keyword search tools, similar data, including search figures from the previous month. It also adds statistics for average searches per hour, day, week, projected figures for the next 12 months and then also a figure to see how searches may look in 3 years from now.

5) http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density . This keyword density tool is useful for helping webmasters/SEO’s achieve their optimum keyword density for a set of key terms/keywords. This tool will analyze your chosen URL and return a table of keyword density values for one, two, or three word key terms.

6) http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keyWait.asp . This is another Brilliant Resource. When you enter the appropriate URL and keyword, it will show Pagerank and Back links pages for the Top 10 websites.

7) http://www.123promotion.co.uk/tools/robotstxtgenerator.php . You can make a free robots.txt file with this resource. So, you will be able to direct the search engines to follow the pages structure of your website and also direct the search engines not to follow and crawl specific web pages of your website you don’t want to be crawled.

All you have to do is filling the fields and when the robots.txt file is made you upload it to your root of your web server.

http://www.nichebot.com . This website displays keyword data using Wordtracker and Google search results. You just enter the keyword and press the button.

9) http://www.webconfs.com/domain-stats.php . You Enter the domain and get: domain age, number of pages indexed, and number of backlinks. The statistics include Alexa Taffic Rank, Age of the domains, Yahoo WebRank, Dmoz listings, count of backlinks and number of pages indexed in Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn etc.

It will help you figure out why some of your competitors are ranking better than you.

10) http://comparesearchengines.dogpile.com . Shows top results from 3 search engines. This tool helps you get all kind of statistics of your competitor’s domains.

11) http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm . This verification tool checks to see if your site is in the top three pages of a search engine result for a specific keyword. You enter your URL/Keyword and it displays top 30 for 11 Search Engines.

12) http://www.related-pages.com/adWordsKeywords.aspx. This tool generates a list of possible keyword combinations based on lists of keywords that you provide.

You enter a list of terms, one per line or separated by commas. This is very effective for Google Adwords and Overture.