SEO and the Fold

By Halstatt Pires

Most discussions about seo focus on getting into the top 10 of the rankings for a particular keyword phrase. In truth, the discussion should be about the fold.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It means the task and art of getting a site ranked highly under appropriate keyword phrases on Google, Yahoo, MSN and smaller search engines. For example, assume you have a site offering cruise ship booking services. With seo, the goal would be to get the site ranked under keyword phrases like “cruise trips”, “cruise bookings”, “cruise packages” and so on. The exact phrases would be determined by your keyword research.

Whatever the subject of your site, the search engine optimization efforts can lead to some dissatisfaction if you don’t understand something. People will slave over their sites or pay someone like myself to do it for them. The seo effort goes on and on for months. One day, your site pops to number 8 on Google for one of your major keyword phrases. Ah, finally! While you are browsing for your new Ferrari, you happen to notice you aren’t seeing massive sales. Furthermore, your traffic is up, but not as much as you had expected. What is the problem? It all has to do with the fold.

The fold is one of those terms that derive from the short attention span of we humans. Simply put, we tend to be lazy. This applies in a particular way when we search for something on the web. Go ahead and open another window next to this article. Now search for something. Now notice that you can only see three to four of the natural rankings returned by the search engine for your search. These rankings are above the fold. Anything you have to scroll down to see is below the fold.

The seo goal of being in the top 10 is somewhat misleading. Yes, a top 10 ranking will result in more traffic to your site. The real goal, however, should be a ranking above the fold. This means you need to be in the top three to four positions. A vast majority of people searching for something on Google, Yahoo and MSN will not scroll down to look at anything below the top three to four listings. If you can get your site listed above the fold, then it is time to start shopping for your Ferrari!

Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan - providing internet marketing services.

Why 3 Search Engines Are Enough

By Sherif Ramadan

OK, so you're on the internet. You want to find some information about a healthy diet for you cat. Where do you go? Perhaps you remember the URL of a website that might provide this information, but what if it doesn't have exactly what you're looking for? How do you find a website that does?

Surely no one can remember the address to every single website on the internet and your ‘favorites' can only have so many websites before it turns into a massive list of random websites.

That's why almost everybody uses search engines. They provide us with an indexed directory of web pages, images, video, audio, and other various criteria from all over the internet, searchable by keywords or phrases.

So when someone is interested in finding out more about "hybrid automobiles", for example, they would visit one of the many internet search engines on the world-wide-web and enter that particular phrase to find web pages that contain information relevant to the search-term(s) they've used.

If my website contains information about "hybrid automobiles" then a link to my site would be included in that search. This is one way for webmasters to spread the word about their websites. It's estimated that 7 out of 10 people find websites through search engines (the yellow pages of the internet).

This can be a highly beneficial tool for website exposure and generating traffic. The best thing about internet search engines is that they're free! People can both search and submit their websites for free. It's true that some search engines offer paid listings, but even the ones that do still offer free listings.

Some people think they can increase their chances of visibility on search engines by submitting their listings to a large number of search engines. Admittedly, that was one thing I tried myself when failing to generate some serious traffic from my listings.

With great disappointment, though, I didn't succeed. There's one important lesson I learned in search engine submission.

Don't be lured by those web sites that claim to submit your website to thousands of search engines all at once. Today it is far more practical to submit your website to just one or two search engines and generate the same, if not more, traffic as you would with submitting it to one-hundred or two-hundred search engines.

One of the reasons for this is because some search engines have succeeded in bringing more visitors and generating far more traffic to websites than others. Another reason is because a great number of smaller search engines today use the results from other larger search engines. So it is no-longer necessary to have your listings on so many search engines, because there's a good chance that they'll end up there anyway.

So how many are enough? In my opinion submitting your websites to the three major search engines on the internet is more than enough to generate consistent traffic. I have been through a list of the top 500 search engines on the web and I've discovered that most of them are just taking search results from the biggest listings.

I've learned that 70% of the traffic generated by search engines comes from just 3 of the major search players. The number one search engine, of course, being Google. One website I read about was ranking in the lower 100,000 on Alexa and just by submitting their website to Google's search engine they jumped from 100K to the top 10,000 in just a few weeks. The next two, most important, search engines are Yahoo and MSN search. Yahoo still uses some of the results generated by Google, but both have a powerful drive themselves.

If you still want to submit your website to more of the search engines out there it eventually will bring you extra traffic, but don't expect that it will generate any more traffic than the major players. The important thing is to make sure you've properly optimized your website for search engines and follow the guidelines provided by each of them.

Start with the biggest search engines first and then work your way down the list. Update your websites constantly and make sure your SEO campaign is generating the results you want. Remember getting constant and steady traffic from search engines is a long term process and it requires a lot of work, but it is also very effective in keeping traffic flowing to your website in the long run. Search engines are the leading tool used in finding web pages on the internet. Don't pass up the opportunity to benefit from this tool.

Sherif Ramadan is the founder of Business-Geek.com a website dedicated to providing small businesses with affordable services. If you're struggling with your small business startup or looking for professional business services that won't nickel-and-dime your small business budget, visit us today at http://www.Business-Geek.com to learn more about our services.

Create Your Own E-book Using Google and Ebay

By Liane Bate

Have you been working at an online business for a while now, and thinking of creating a product of your own that you can sell online to make extra money? Well, have I got the solution for you! E-books are becoming one of the most popular selling information products online today, and you can use Google and Ebay to help you create your very own digital product!

If the thought of writing an e-book seems a daunting task to you, it's really not as difficult as it seems. If you are already educated in internet marketing and know what writing original articles can do for your business and search engine ranking, then you are already most of the way there. Even if you know little about internet marketing and just like to write, you have a good chance of creating a good downloadable product that you can sell online.

The trick to writing an e-book that will sell is to know what people's problems are. This doesn't mean you need to be a psychologist! It simply means that you need an awareness of what people are asking for online that they need help with and want to find a solution for. People will buy from you when they know you have defined a problem they are having, and offer a solution to that problem.

What can Google and Ebay do to help you write this problem-defining and problem-solving e-book that will sell like hot cakes you ask? The answer is that Google and Ebay are excellent research tools that you can tap into to find out what people are having problems with. It's very important to use these free tools because if you start writing away about a topic that has little relevance to what people are looking for online then chances are your product won't sell.

Keep in mind too that the other trick to making a best-selling e-book is to know about and love your chosen topic. You will find it much easier to write a lot about a topic you are truly interested in rather than trying to write about something you know nothing about. You want to share your expertise and personal experiences about a topic, not your fake attempt to appeal to people's emotions just so they will buy your product.

So once you find a topic you love and know about, you can go to Ebay and start doing your research. What do I mean by "doing your research"? By this I mean you want to know what people are looking to buy on Ebay. Let's say you love hiking in the mountains. Go to Ebay and type in "hiking", or "hiking boots", or "hiking backpacks", for example. Find out what gets a lot of people's interest, as indicated by the number in the search results. Look at the listings to see what people are bidding on. This will give you an idea if your topic is worth writing an e-book about or not. Do the same in Google by typing in some search terms related to your topic to see if you can find the problems people want answers to, and if you feel you can write a lot about that yourself.

It's very good practice to get into the habit of using a good keyword research tool, such as the one offered at SEO Book. Once you have a good topic, you also want to target the keywords people are searching for in the search engines. With a keyword research tool you will find out which keywords are worth targeting. Most people think to use the keywords with the most searches, however, you want to target keywords that do get searched, but not the most frequently so that you can get to the top of the search engine listings with your effective keywords. These will be keywords searched maybe 5000-10000 times per month or thereabouts in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The great thing about having been involved in internet marketing before is that you have probably already written a few articles to promote your business online. If this is the case, you can compile your articles into an e-book without having to write anything extra! E-books don't have to be long! Or if you write about your experiences and can share your knowledge about your climb to Everest's base camp, then just compile your notes into an e-book with very little extra effort!

Finally, you can use Google and Ebay not only for research purposes, but after you've written your e-book, you can then offer it for sale on Ebay, advertise it using Google Adwords perhaps, watch your e-book rise to the top of the search engine listings, and grin happily as the sales start coming in!

Liane Bate owns a Plug-in Profit Site web business, and is a member of the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs (IAHBE). Visit: http://www.HonestMoneyMaking.com and HonestMoneyMaking.com's Home Business Blog