Internet search engines, such as Google and A9, maintain a very large database of Web pages and available files. To do this, they devise a program called a web crawler, or spider. This software automatically and continuously surfs and hunts content in the Web. Pages that the spider finds are retrieved and indexed according to text content, giving more weight to titles and paragraph headers. Spiders never stop navigating the web from page to page, to index the relevant content of the Internet. Besides looking at the text of titles and headers, some programs are able to identify default tags and keep a library of these page keywords or key phrases in the index.

When a user connects to the Internet types a query, which is automatically interpreted as keywords, the search engine scans the saved index and creates a list of web pages that is most appropriate to what the user is searching for.

SEO will use all the combined techniques of keyword analysis, smart code, good content literature, link popularity study and website organization to place the subject web page as high as possible in the list of search results in search engines. Web pages displayed on the top of results pages are assumed to get the most attention, and therefore, opportunity for earnings for web businesses and pages with sponsor links.

Search engines usually return a list of results ranking pages according to the number of Internet sites linked to them. Results can be classified as organic, or sponsored links. Sponsored links are shown prominently because their creators or agents paid the search engine. Sponsored links are the main source of income of search engines. “Organic” search results are the lists of actual results from the engines index and are directly related to the keyword typed in the request. One of the more effective techniques of SEO is the creation of a well-organized site map in a website. Since the site’s main page and other content are directly linked to a site map, spiders can more easily move through the website, identify the key words of the content, and index these for a search engine. This is where the SEO sitemap helps the website creator or administrator.

Site maps are usually pages filled with links. These are shown as tables or lists, although lists are generally more effective. Writing code for SEO sitemaps is very easy and simple to format and maintain. These are ideally basic HTML pages with default tags, logical titles and keywords scattered in the Meta description. Introduction areas can contain more of the keywords. The site should have a main heading for every directory.

A simple list layout helps reduce unnecessary tags that might “hide” your keywords. Some spiders give more weight to the following, than text in the normal body of the webpage: heading text, content within link elements, text nearer the top of the page and the text written for a link. Therefore, writing the keywords and links in these areas could somehow move up the web page’s ranking. This goes for SEO sitemaps as well.

Web sites should be designed consistently, so navigation models should follow the flow of the site map. Therefore, the first section in the site map should be the first link in the navigation bar.

In an SEO Sitemap, and most pages, the headings contain title attributes where more key phrases in the site map can be added. Keywords are generally well chosen and written in the body of a webpage. However, in an SEO site map with little text, key words should be added as much as possible. As much as possible, web links should follow web page titles, and must undergo SEO during coding. Care must be exercised not to cram the page with keywords and links, or the page will be interpreted as blatant spamming and not receive any traffic at all.

There is no way to guarantee that a website will be shown in the topmost ranking of “organic” search results for an extended period of time. However, smart and responsible SEO sitemap techniques can be used to place the website high up in the search position. Regular monitoring and adjustment of the SEO Sitemap and search results would ensure that a website is kept near the top ranking and receiving lots of web user traffic.

About the Author
Nicholas Tan has been involved in Article Writing, providing Free Articles, Internet Marketing, SEO, Adwords, & Adsense for more than 5 years and designs and develops websites. Submit your free articles and get your articles noticed! Get your Free Articles here! Submit Articles! Free Articles! We provide free articles and information. Check us out at Free Articles!

How does a search engine work? Two things figure greatly in making search engines work effectively and efficiently: the electronic search spider and the sitemap.

What is a sitemap? A sitemap is basically a page or pages that serve/s as a directory by listing all the links to all documents and files found in a website. It is not merely a random listing of links, but organized in such a way that it gives the web user an idea of how all the information that can be found in the site fits into an outline or framework. It is like viewing the table of contents of a book, or viewing the “concept map” of the site’s content.

What is a spider? In SEO language, spider is not an animal found in your closet. This electronic search spider is actually a bot which collects data and copies content to be stored in the search engine’s database when keywords are fed into the search dialogue box. The spider reads the content of the site and sends another bot to follow the links and copy the content contained in them.

What purpose does a sitemap serve? A sitemap like any other map gives directions to a navigator. It primarily targets search engine spiders so that they are properly directed to your site and to the links where keywords entered in the search dialogue appears. As such, it is actually a useful tool in search engine optimization. A well organized site map would guide the spider to find the information it needs when keywords are entered during a search operation.

As an additional beneficial consequence, sitemaps have proven to be useful even to web users. Since a sitemap displays all the links to information found in a website, it helps the user to search for a particular topic in mind. Many users also use the sitemap to navigate between pages in a site.

What are the benefits of having a sitemap for my website?

1. No page would be left unturned Going back to the purpose of sitemaps, having one would mean faster and easier tracking and crawling of spiders all over your site. As a result, search engines would surely get to the view all the pages of your site and not just the pages containing random keywords.
2. Easier navigation for site visitors Once a web user has accessed your sitemap, they need not go back to the search engine page to look for what they need. If what they are looking for is in your site, then they would have an easier and faster way of locating it.
3. Potential advertising value If it so happens that a relevant product or service company reaches your site, then it would be easier for them to see how best they can position themselves in the different pages of your site as a paid page advertisement.
4. Encourage greater traffic to your site If your company website has a sitemap then potential buyers would have an easier time in accessing your latest products and services. Moreover, they would not miss out on any product that might be off future interest to them since the sitemap would display all information found the site.

How are sitemaps formatted? There are at least three major types of sitemaps: indexed, full categorical, and restricted categorical. An indexed site map appears as an alphabetical listing or directory. A full categorical map displays all links classified into categories; while a restricted categorical sitemap displays all links listed in a chosen category at a time. The full and restricted sitemaps are very similar except that the former displays all links in all categories all at once in a page, while the latter focuses only the links under the selected category for easier and less eye-straining viewing.

The most widely used format is the full categorical. Based on the results of a 1999 SURL study on sitemap designs, the full categorical format is most preferred by users since it is easier to search for topics within the site and it allows easier comparison between and among categories.

Some tips in setting up your sitemap

1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage. This is to ensure that the spider starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page would be left unvisited by the spider.
2. Do not go beyond 30 pages for a sitemap. Large websites having 50 or more pages should not go beyond 30 since this adds more pages to the site, and might make search engines think that the sitemap is a link farm. Also, this prevents overcrowding of links which could be tiring to view.
3. Check all the links listed in your sitemap. It can be discouraging when you click on a link only to find out that nothing is displayed. Test your sitemap; click all links in every page to make sure that all links are indeed linked to the right page.
4. Give keyword-rich titles to sitemap links. Keyword-rich titles give your site more advantage in being searched properly under the right category. But be sure to have this sitemap link linked back to the sitemap (e.g. back to sitemap).
5. Provide a short description for the links in the sitemap. Doing so would give readers a better idea of what to find in the link and save them time on surfing.
6. Be consistent in designing your sitemap with the other pages of the site. Employ a recurring design and the same HTML template for all pages to establish identity and build character to your website.

Now that you have learned basic things about sitemaps, maybe it is time for you to build one for your site.

About the Author
Nicholas Tan has been involved in Article Writing, providing Free Articles, Internet Marketing, SEO, Adwords, & Adsense for more than 5 years and designs and develops websites. Submit your free articles and get your articles noticed! Get your Free Articles here! Submit Articles! Free Articles! We provide free articles and information. Check us out at Free Articles!

Lets get one thing out in the open straight away, Google is your friend, and if they aren’t yet then they should be. Google has a huge market share when it comes to searches made on the Internet and you need to be aware of this. Depending on what type of site you have, a large proportion of your visitors (especially first time visitors) will probably come directly from search queries made through Google. The better your site is optimized for various Google search criteria the better it will perform and the more resulting visitors you will have. This point can not be stressed enough, Google plays a huge role in determining how successful your website will ultimately become, make friends with Google in an SEO sense and you will make friends with thousands of potential customers in no time.

One of the things Google likes most is original content, try not to use too much duplicate content in your websites as it will have a negative effect on your rankings. Writing new material isn’t that hard, especially when you are writing about things you know about, keep things fresh and make sure you continue to add new material to your site long after uploading the first version. You don’t necessarily have to delete previous work as the more content you have on your site the better, perhaps an archive section can be used as the home of previous articles and content.

Another good tip is to keep things simple, you might have aspirations for beautiful and creative Flash animations that wow first time visitors but in the long term they tend to be more trouble than they’re worth. In general, website visitors are after tools, resources and information, however impressive your graphics or Flash animations may be, users aren’t on your site for that reason. A case can be made for website designers to include such content but it’s hard to justify for anyone else, especially when it can have a negative effect on SEO. As they currently function, search engines have a hard time recognizing content in Flash form, you may be missing out on valuable searches because search engines can’t ’see’ your content.

When you are writing content for your website, remember to keep in mind what your site is actually about and what type of audience you are trying to attract. There’s no point in writing about recipes if your site is about movie reviews and if that’s too far fetched then you probably don’t want to write about movie star gossip either. The point is that you want to stick to your target market, find your niche (in this case movie reviews) and stick to it. With the Internet so competitive these days it’s a good idea to target just a few keywords and phrases and actively pursue them. Of course your website can be about more than one thing but try not to spread yourself too thin as most of the time you’re better off being very popular in one thing than averagely so in three or four. Being on the first page of Google search results for one key word or phrase will always bring in more traffic than three or four on the second page of results.

Each new page on your website should also feature a descriptive title. This is one of the easiest things to fix on your website but often one of the things that is most likely to be over looked. Don’t just write ‘Home’ as the name of your home page, use a sentence or a series of keywords to describe exactly what you offer and what searches you want to be associated with. Try not to repeat words and don’t go overboard with the length, 50 to 70 characters should be plenty.

Now that you’ve optimized your own site it’s time to get busy getting your name and plenty of backlinks on others. One of Google’s fundamental principles is that sites with a large number of backlinks are perceived as being more popular (and therefore better) than others. The specific search criteria used plays a large role but if you want your website to truly do well then you need backlinks on other sites, especially ones related to what you offer. Directories are a great place to start due to the wide variety of categories and ease of use. From here you can email owners of related but perhaps not competing sites to see if they can give you a backlink, they might say no but it doesn’t hurt to ask, especially if you can offer something in return.

These are all simple ideas that can have a major effect on the number of visitors you have to your website. Give them a go and see what happens, many site owners have quality websites that are simply lacking some fundamental search engine optimization techniques. Do your best to stand out from the pack in the increasing competitive Internet market, follow some basic tips and you will build a large customer base in no time.

About the Author

Rene Smith is an SEO expert who runs a variety of popular websites. Find more useful SEO articles and information or add and submit your site URL to his free website directory.

There are so many websites on the internet nowadays, so if you want a great website that stands out from the crowd, you are going to have to have brilliant web design incorporated into it.

A website that is badly designed will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. If you want a website that is remembered for the right reasons, you are going to have to have a design that makes your website unique.

Your web design is the first thing that people notice when they arrive at your website. If you have an untidy website with bad graphics and terrible navigation, you are going to lose your readers and viewers right from the start. That is why web design is important in the process of creating a successful website. Whether it is a personal website or one that you intend to use for business purposes, it needs to be well designed and well maintained.

If you can grab the reader’s attention by graphics that are relevant and useful, text that is of a very high quality, colors and layouts that are easy on the eye, then you are half way there! Research has shown that more people buy from websites that are designed professionally and look trustworthy, rather than quickly made and with badly thought out designs.

So, you can see how important your web design really is now. There are many ways to improve your web design, both for free and by hiring someone else to do it for you. Which you choose will depend on your budget and your time frame. A busy web designer may not be able to fit you in for months.

How you layout your website is also very important. You may have lots of great content on your website that people would love to read, but what if they can’t find it? If you haven’t clearly and easily laid out your website in the web design process, your readers won’t be able to find any other pages. This could be disastrous if you are selling some kind of service or product.

All in all the web design aspect is only a small part of getting your website up and running, however, it is very important. When you are designing your website, remember to make it easy to navigate, concise and clear.

If you are not familiar with web design and all the aspects that go into creating a website, it may be worth your while looking for a professional web designer or a pre made template. Web designers come with different price tags all depending on where you get them from and what you need doing.

If you want a relatively simple design you will be looking at a fairly cheap price. If you are looking for a complex website with many features you can expect to pay a fair amount of money for it. A good designer will include you all throughout the process. You will be able to approve the website as many times as required.

Ready-made templates are great if you don’t have the budget for a professional designer and don’t have the time to learn how to create one from scratch. There are many free ones that you find on the Internet or ones that you can buy for a small amount of money.

If you want to build web sites that are truly free, you are going to have to carefully evaluate free web site hosting services before signing up. Special considerations to keep in mind when shopping for web hosting providers include:

Reliability You can build web sites all day long, but no one will ever see them if your web host isn’t reliable. To find out how reliable a free website hosting company is, you should ask about expected downtimes, traffic limitations, and customer service procedures. You should also ask what type of message will be displayed if the web site is disabled for any reason.

Bandwidth The amount of bandwidth you have determines how long it will take for your pages to load. To keep costs low, many web hosting providers offer limited bandwidth. The problem with this is that your pages can take ten seconds or more to load. That’s just enough time for a user to get frustrated and seek out another web site. If your free website hosting account comes with limited bandwidth, you need to be prepared for the possibility of missing out on customer sales.

Unwanted Ads Free website hosting services are notorious for placing unwanted ads on customer web sites. This means that you will have pop-ups and other annoying advertisements on your site that you cannot remove. These ads might become very irritating for you and even more so for your customers, who may choose not to visit as a result.

Other Limitations If you want to build web sites that include pictures, icons, and large amounts of text, you may want to look for web hosting providers that will allow you to build these kinds of web sites. Some free website hosting services will place limitations on what you can and can’t do. For example, you may be barred from using pictures or more than five web pages.

A Couple of Things to Look For There are a couple of things to consider when acquiring a hosting company that offers cheap web site hosting. An affordable web site that is worth investing in has two main attributes: there are no hidden fees and there are enough quality features to keep your web site running smoothly. When comparing hosting companies or looking for cheap web site hosting, it is imperative that you keep these two attributes in mind.

No Hidden Fees A web site hosting plan you can afford will have free or low cost set-up fees and reasonable annual or monthly maintenance fees. Hosting companies should make you aware of these fees right away and should also make you aware of any hidden costs that you might not be considering. Unfortunately not every cheap web site hosting company does this. In fact, some of them purposely try to be sneaky and trick you into buying into a seemingly affordable web site hosting package that will become more expensive as time goes on. This is why you should always ask hosting companies detailed questions about what you will be expected to pay.

Quality Features Cheap web site hosting companies offer many of the same features that expensive web site hosting companies do, but not all companies have plans that are comparable. To make sure you get a plan that keeps your site up and running smoothly, you will need to consider specific hosting features like storage space, down time, customer support, and tech support when making comparisons. If you shop carefully, there is no reason why you can’t get an affordable web site hosting plan with all of the quality features you require.

About the Author
Cliff Posey, This article is provided by Websites That Succeed were you can get free website help.

Sadly the list of failures is not just limited to individuals who attempt to carry out their own SEO campaigns. It includes companies and so-called experts who are paid to carry out an SEO campaign for a client and end up totally failing to achieve what they set out to do.

Here are the three most common reasons for failure. By studying and understanding them a webmaster can start their next SEO campaign with better odds because they already understand some of the things that commonly tend to go wrong.

a) Assuming That All Businesses and Industries Are the Same There is a common belief that if somebody succeeds in the SEO of a certain business in a certain specific industry, they will automatically succeed in any industry and any business.

This has to be the most common reason for failure .Especially where the webmaster hires some affordable SEO expert that has had success in some other niche industry.

The truth is that one business is often very different from another and quite often the effort required to get a certain web site at the top of search engine rankings is very different from the effort required to get another different site to the same level. Different categories have different levels of competition. For more details visit to www.greatseosecrets.com .There are certain categories where the competition is so stiff and the number of competing web sites so numerous that it is virtually impossible to carry out any successful SEO campaign without adjusting the focus and niche target market of that particular enterprise.

The temptation is just too big to hand over your web site to some “SEO expert” and expect them to work some SEO magic with no input from you. You should resist that temptation because the chances of such an arrangement working are really so slim that the odds are heavily stacked against you succeeding.

b) A Failure To Decide What Particular Niche To Focus On Many webmasters tend to forget that they are competing in the world market and that the only way they can ever hope to be successful is by carefully selecting some narrow niche that the others have ignored but which they are very well suited to covering.

There is no way that you can be all things to all people, and especially not in a fiercely competitive world market. This correct focus on a narrow niche is what will quite often make or break an SEO effort. If you opt to hire some expert, they will usually be anxious to get your business and will hardly spend any time studying your industry prior to your committing yourself to their services. And by the time you commit there is no turning back, whatever the difficulties that they encounter.

You do not expect some SEO expert to learn all the knowledge you have accumulated over many years’ involvement in a certain industry in just a few days. And that is precisely where the problem starts. There is no way that a successful SEO campaign can be executed without adequate information.

A webmaster that carries out their own SEO campaign is also doomed to failure if they have not decided on what niche to focus their efforts on.

c) A Failure To Closely And Constantly Monitor Keyword Popularity There is no way of avoiding the appropriate keyword phrases for your site in any successful SEO campaign. The big mistake many webmasters or blog owners make is to do their keyword research once and then forget all about it. Keyword phrases are changing in popularity all the time with some reducing in polarity while others increase in leaps and bounds. There is no way you can possibly stay informed without constantly and regularly monitoring keyword popularity .For more information logon to www.offline-promotion.com. Even more important you will not be able to come across the new keyword phrase opportunities that emerge all the time.

If you decide to hire some SEO expert, they will start from a position of weakness if they are not aware of what has transpired over the last few months and even years concerning popular keyword phrases. How will they be able to accurately judge on the best direction to take in their campaign?

Conclusion You will have realized that SEO campaigns are very intimate affairs that require lots of information and research over a long period of time to be highly successful. And even if you are bringing some expert onboard to carry out your SEO campaign for you, it is absolutely important that they have enough information to start with. Both from their previous experiences that you should know about and analyze and ask questions about before you reveal anything about the subject matter of your web site. You too should be gathering as much information as possible, all the time.

About the Author
GOVIND SINGH FROM INDIA

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