I want you to take a quick look at your website and try to see it with search engine eyes. See if you have enough content for the search engines to feed on. 250 to 400 words per page should do you well.

Keep Your Code Clean

It’s time to get your hands dirty. Today, we’re going to look at your
HTML code and see if it’s clean enough for the search engines. If you don’t know HTML then don’t worry. Just read through and get the concept so you can tell your web designer about it.

But why do you need to keep your code clean? The two main reasons for this are:

1. Search engines love it.
2. It’s good practice
3. It makes your page load faster
4. It makes your website easier to maintain

Let’s proceed. Keeping your code clean is easier than you might have thought. It’s just a matter of grouping stuff together and getting rid of “old” coding practice.

Clean-up Item No. 1: Javascript Code

Now that Web 2.0 is getting more and more popular, javascript has become an integral part of just about any website on the internet and it’s good. The problem though is that there are web designers who don’t know how to keep their code clean. All they think about is functionality. While providing good functionality is important, it is also equally important to keep tidy.

The best way to clean-up Javascript code is to put them in a separate file and load into your HTML page with just one line of code. Here’s a quick code example:
<br /> *** OLD CODE ***<br /> <script type="text/javsacript"> function dostuff(param1,param2,param3){ actual code goes here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here } function domorestuff(param1,param2){ actual code goes here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here } </script></p> <p>Now that’s ugly. But if you put those code on a separate file called<br /> “javascript.js”, we can clean up your HTML so that it will only have the following line in it:</p> <p>*** NEW CODE ***<br /> <script type="text/javascript" src="javascript.js"></script>

Pretty sleek huh? Note that you may see similar implementations of the OLD CODE above in webpages generated by Dreamweaver and Frontpage. These tools are great but heck, they do create messy code!

Clean-up Item No. 2: Stylesheets

Stylesheets are pieces of code that define how your webpage will look like. I strongly recommend the use of stylesheets in any web page you create. As with Javascript, Stylesheets can be messy to your HTML page if not implemented properly. Here’s an example:
<br /> *** OLD CODE ***</p> <style type="text/css"> body { margin:0; padding:0; background:#aaaaff; } a { color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } a:hover { text-decoration:none; } </style> <p>In reality, stylesheets can grow longer than that and imagine how messy your HTML page will be with lots and lots of stylesheet code laying around. But if you put all those code in a separate file called “style.css” then you can replace all those code with this line:</p> <p>*** NEW CODE ***</p> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">

By cleaning up your javascript and stylesheet code, you can instantly reduced the size of your webpage which in effect makes it load a lot faster. Furthermore, if you need to edit some changes, you will just have to edit one file and the change affects your entire website. That’s especially useful if you have websites that have hundreds or thousands of pages.

If you’re serious with search engine optimization then it’s important that you keep your code clean. That said, I find it ironic that the following websites don’t have clean code:

* amazon.com
* yahoo.com
* news.google.com

But well, they don’t really have to worry about their traffic do they? As for you, you need traffic and so you need to cover all your bases to enhance your chances in getting top ranks in the search engines.

On the other end of the spectrum, we also have good examples out there such as:

* squidoo.com
* hubpages.com
* digg.com

All three have relatively cleaner code. Only a few stylesheet and
javascript code in their pages.

You see, websites are like newspapers in the sense that they’re both filled with content. But of course websites are more powerful than newspapers. Websites allow people to simply point and click to get to the page that they want to read.

Now, if websites are like newspapers then webpages are like articles. This may sound absurd especially if you’re looking at an online photo gallery where there’s more picture than words but remember that we’re talking about search engine optimization here.

When we said in the title that “A Webpage Is Just An Article”, I was actually referring to the fact that search engines don’t see images. They only see text. If you have a website that’s filled with lots and lots and lots of graphics and only have little text, then what the search engines basically see is an article with very very very little text in it.

I’m not saying that you should stay away from graphics. In fact I encourage you to put interesting graphics on your webpages as they increase the “stickiness” of your website to people. I’m just saying that if you’re serious with search engine optimization then you have to crank up your article writing and start putting in some interesting content for both humans and search engines to read.

When a search engine spider visits your page, what it basically sees is HTML code and text. No fancy graphics and animation. Then just like any newspaper reader, the spider will quickly take a look at the following:

* Your page’s title
* Your header tags
* Your content
* Your links

Compare that to how a person reads a newspaper. A person would look at the following:

* The title of the article
* The headings/sub-headings in the article if any
* The content
* The recommendations if any

See the similarities? Now, unless your webpages look like good articles to the search engines then you won’t have any chance of getting a good ranking in the search engine results page (SERP).

By now you should already have strong grip on how the search engines work and what is that they want. That means that it’s time for you to start honing your SEO skills.

I’ll teach you how you can write quality content on any topic within minutes. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a good writer, if you follow these instructions you’ll be just fine.

Ready???

Method #1: The Dreamer’s Method

Step 1. Think of a General Topic. It can be anything. It can be about love, health, games or whatever.

Step 2. Based on your General Topic, think of an experience in your life that somehow relates to it. Relive it that memory in your head. If you can’t recall any experiences then just think of another topic.

Step 3. Think of a Title. Make it short and interesting.

Step 4. Transform your memories into writing. Just keep on writing and don’t worry about the grammar for now. Just type it and try to keep your sentences simple. Also try to avoid too much detail.

Step 5. Read what you’ve typed and correct your grammar. Don’t be too picky about it. If you have the correct grammar then you’re fine.

That’s it! Simple as that. While this method may not work for “academic” articles, it does work in some instances.

Method #2: The Teacher’s Method

Step 1. Think of a General Topic that you’re familiar with. For example – math.

Step 2. Think of a Particular Process in that Topic that you think you can teach. For example, mental math tricks

Step 3. Think of a title. A title that starts with “How To” works well.

Step 4. Start describing the process in writing – in this case mental math tricks.

Step 5. Re-read your article and fix any errors you find.

Simple? If it works for others, then it will work for you.

LAZINESS

1. No one would make even a single cent if he’s lazy, ya know. If you think that setting up a blog, stuffing some ads on it and leaving it alone would make you any money, then you’re definitely wrong my friend. Success will only come if you exert effort and concentrate on your tasks.

2. You grew up in the world of instant gratification and as a result you are not willing to put the hard work and effort required to start and run a business online, even though starting a money making business online is much easier than a brick and mortar business it is still too much work for you.

You’re doing the wrong thing.

3. You may be very hardworking, but if you’re doing the wrong thing, then you won’t make any money! If you create a site for kids and place ad spots that are for sale (meaning they’re not CPC/CPM ads), then don’t expect any revenue. Kids don’t have credit cards or PayPal accounts!

4. You believe what you read on sales pages.
Those are sales pages and they are designed to make you buy the membership or the software. If you use the product to the fullest you might just make the tens of thousands of dollars they mention that are possible on the sales page. Reality is most people will not make that money, but you can still earn a decent income online but because you won’t make the 6 figures right away you quit.

5. You limit yourself to one source of income.
This is probably one of the most common reasons why people don’t make any money online. They either stick to AdSense and hope for a lot of clicks, or try to sell one product that’s not really attractive. Why not try to mix and match stuff? Do a little bit of affiliate marketing, put some CPC ads on your site, and at the same time, sell your ad spaces on an internet marketplace.

6. You are cheap
Ever hear of a business person starting a brick and mortar business for free? Why should an online business be any different? Sure online businesses have far less start up costs and overhead costs than a traditional business, but they still have costs. As soon as a cost comes up for your online business, like $8 per month for a hosting account for your website, you run away in search of the “free” opportunity.

7. You believe those free e-books saying you can make $1,000 in an hour. While making thousands of dollars in an hour is not impossible, the methods presented by those e-books don’t usually work. The e-books are just full of crap, and you can’t really expect to make tons of money in an hour especially if you’re still new to the internet marketing world! Just remember this: “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” and you won’t be wasting any more time in subscribing to those worthless newsletters/reading those e-books.

8. You are a scatter brain
There are so many distractions online, from email to IMs to videos that you have a hard time paying attention to your business and actually making money. Focus and you will succeed, focus on nothing and you will fail. Decide what you want to do, make money or watch another stupid video about someone’s cat chasing a red laser up a wall.

9. You expect to earn big money without spending a dime. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t make money with free blogs or the like, but do you think you can make $1,000 (or more) a month without having promotion expenses? Sure, you can tell your friends about your site and it can actually get featured in social bookmarking sites if the content is great, but you can’t go so far without really spending.

Still not convinced? Okay, let’s say you’re that good in writing articles and in promoting your stuff. Well, you still have to spend for your website’s development to attract more visitors! You need unique features and a probably great design to really stand out and make big money. Don’t tell me you’d settle for a very plain site which has a white background and uses Times New Roman as the font.

And if it wasn’t obvious yet, Time = Money, so if you say you just used up your time and didn’t spend a cent, you still invested TIME, which can be considered as MONEY. Hope that’s clear!

10.You want results in a nanosecond
Again this is the age of instant gratification and without it you get bored or frustrated. If you don’t see a check in the mail or a “you made a sale” email within nanoseconds of joining a program you are thinking about quitting. Results take time, put in the effort to build your business and you will see results put no time in and get no results – it is that simple.

11. You lack focus. One day you’re so energetic and you’re promoting your new site. The next day you’re being so lazy to update your website and you think of quitting. If you’re like that, then don’t expect to make money. You should focus on your task and your goal if you really want to succeed in your endeavors.

12. You believe your family and “friends”
The moment you started your online business or joined a program online you told your friends and family. They told you that it was a scam and that you had just been had. You believe them, listen to them, and quit. You then look at your friends and family and say to yourself, hey they have 9-5 jobs and hate it they must know what they are talking about, I should follow their lead and not create my own path to success.

13. You’re not open to new ideas. This is a big hindrance to success. If you just stick to what you know and what you want, then you’d probably be left behind with $0 in your pocket. Try out new techniques, experiment, and learn! Always consider new ideas. There’s nothing to lose anyway…

Now, think deeply. Are you not making money online because of one of the reasons stated above? Well, I guess it’s time for you to focus, be more creative, and be open-minded. I guess that’s it for now guys. Gotta go. See ya later!

14. You think it is a scam
When you joined an online program or purchased training material to learn how to make money online you heard a voice in the back of your head that told you it was all a scam (maybe the voice was one of a friend or family) and you believed that voice. As a result you never really gave the program or information your full attention, read it with your guard up and didn’t follow it because it was a scam. Then told everyone else that it was a scam because you made no money with it, meanwhile those that followed the program go about quietly making their money following the exact same advice you discarded as a scam.

The are endless opportunities to make money online, unfortunately if you see in you one or all of the personal characteristics above then none of that money will make it to your bank account.

In SEO terms, a spider (also called a bot) is a little piece of software that the search engines run to crawl (hence the name spider) the websites on the internet. It does this in two ways:

1. By checking out what new websites were submitted to the search engine’s “add url” form.

2. By following links from other websites.

Most SEO agree, that search engines somehow add websites to their index at a faster rate if it was found via method number 2. The logic to this is that if an old website links to a new website then the new website must have some good content in it. Of course this is not always true but it works.

When a search engine spider pays your website a visit, it immediately gets to work and wastes no time chatting around. It first sends a copy of your website to the search engine database for later analysis.

After doing that, it immediately checks out all the links in your website.
The links I’m referring to are the HTML links that you have all over your
site.

Note: that search engine spiders with the possible exception of Google will only follow HTML links. Links found in Flash animations are not crawled at the moment again.

So, back to the spider. Each time it finds a link on your site, it pays that a visit as well. If it finds that the page has changed, it immediately sends the new copy over to the search engines for re-analysis. This brings us to the next point.

Search engine spiders will always come back to your website but there’s no regularity to it. There is however a tried and tested way to keep them coming back more often and that is to update your website regularly. This means that it is very important to keep your website fresh and updated
because…

SPIDERS DON’T WANT ROTTEN FOOD!

Yes, if a spider revisits your page and don’t see any changes, it takes note of it and reschedules for a next visit. If your website is still unchanged when the spider revisits, then it lowers the frequency of its revisit.

Updating your website once or twice a week should keep the spiders interested with what “food” you have to offer them. They’re like gods that have to be pleased with fresh virgins regularly so you might as well just give them that.

What I want you to do now is go to your blog and freshen it up a bit. Add some new content to it. After that, I’d also want you to create an “update schedule” for you to follow.

Now that you know what search engines want, how they work and how to feed those critters, I mean spiders, you’re quite ready to hone in your skills.

So, how do search engines work? Here’s how it works:

1. Search engine discovers your website either via its submission form or a link from another website

2. Search engine sends its spider over to your website to check it out. Spider then saves a copy of your website in the search engine database

3. Spider continues to crawl all the pages in your website and saves them as well.

4. Search engine goes through its database of newly spidered websites and analyzes its content. If it thinks it’s not spam then it adds it to the search index. At this time, it also calculates a few things about your website such as the number of inbound links and the number of indexed pages. These plus some others are factored into the computation of your website’s ranking for a particular keyword.

5. Now that your website is already in the index, it can already be searched. When someone makes a search on the search engine, it quickly goes through all the websites in its database containing the keyword searched.

6. After retrieving the matching websites, it then determines the rank of each of the retrieved websites based on keyword placement, keyword density, inbound links, outbound links, number of pages indexed and a few other factors that we don’t know of.

7. After determining the rank of each website, it then returns them to the user.

Ok, that’s not really exact and I don’t think there will ever be an exact explanation of how the search engines work but that’s pretty much the general idea. Based on those steps, we can easily determine the important factors that affects a website’s ranking. They are:

1. Keyword placement – where keywords are placed

2. Keyword density – how many keywords are there

3. Inbound links – how many sites link to it

4. Outbound links – how many sites it links to

5. The number of pages indexed for a domain

Keep those in mind as I will be mentioning them a lot in the upcoming
days.

Analyze your Website

Take a look at your website and try to determine the 5 factors listed above. While you’re at it, you can make a search on Google and analyze the websites as well.

You can determine the number of inbound links in Google by typing link:domain.com in the search bar. That command will return all the websites linking to domain.com.

There are many search engines out there but throughout this series, we will only be focusing our energies on the top 3. They are Google, Yahoo and MSN Live. Getting a good ranking on either of this three can result into tons of traffic to your website.

So what do they want? These three use different algorithms to determine who goes on page 1 but they have one common liking and that’s good content.

No, they don’t want those meta keywords tag and they don’t give much weight on meta description tags as well. Why? Because those tags are hidden from the eyes of the people. You see, Good content for search engines are content that they think will actually benefit human beings. This means that thinking of SEO as beating the search engines is down-right wrong.

I know that sucks because not so many people like writing their own content. Most aspiring SEOs want a quick andautomated way to rank well in the search engines. If you think that way, I tell you one thing – STOP THINKING THAT WAY because it ain’t working.

But what if you can’t write good content? Honestly, that’s the lamest excuse that one can ever make and I hear it all the time. You can write good content. You may not come up with an article that will win the Pulitzer Prize but you can write content that someone somewhere on the internet will be willing to read.

Content is King! It always has been and straying away from that path will only lead you to frustration and disaster.

Now, should we get rid of automation? No, of course not! In fact, in the coming days, I’ll show you how to automate a few things but still, good quality content still tops and that’s why I still keep writing my own stuff.

Write your own Content.

I don’t care what you want to write about. Just write and post it on your blog. That should get you going.

Always remember – content is king and good quality content is what the search engines want.

My simple way of sharing the things i’ve learned and experienced from making a blog and the benefits are here for free.

The most common question or (FAQ) frequently ask question is, why are people making a blog? Spending countless hours in their computers creating the stuff? The answer is a 6 letter word called PROFIT.

There are so many definitions for the word BLOGGING. Search engine will provide thousands of result for that. In simple arithmetic, blogging equals business.

What you have read is just an appetizer to our main blog purpose, so here goes.

The Basic of Blogging

1. How to Start a Simple Blog

2. Advance Blogging Tips

3. Tips and Techniques

4. Monitizing your Blog

5. Search Engine Optimization

With these simple tips and techniques, sooner or later you will be a master of your craft.

Search Engine Optimization means your site can be rank in search engines. Search engine is the number one source of visitors or traffic. There are plenty of SEO tutorial sites in the net. All you have to do is sign up and you will be receiving daily tutorials and tips.

SEO sites are almost the same by nature. These experts were beating each other in searches. Compare their style and techniques to derived your own. They do not exposed everything they know.

Per experience, search engines traffic is the most likely PPC (pay click click) prospect. They will not stop searching until they have found the desired result. However, being rank higher by search engines is the most difficult aspect of SEO.
Tags and labels are form part of your SEO keywords, you must have a tag and labels in all your post.

Forums is another source of traffic, involve yourself in forums and start threads that later points to your site. Just include your site link in your profile signature. In that way, forum members who view your profile will most likely tend to visit your site. Do not put your direct link in forums, please note that direct links posting in improper way can be classified as spams.

Traffic from your social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Tagged, Multiply, or Twitter. You can directly invite your friends to visit your site from these network sites.

Don’t be tired reading SEO helpful tips and tutorials from other sites. Google adsense have their own SEO tips. Explore all the available resources from adsense optimization and analytic page.

If you are a wordpress blogger, just download and activate adsense plugins in your admin panel. Recommended plugin is the Smart Ads. Click the check box for automatic insertion of adsense ad unit before or after your post. This means that an ad unit will be included automatically in each and every post. The advantage of doing this is Smart Ads will not display excess ads unit in your blog. Allowable adsense unit per page are:

-Maximum of 3 Text and Image Ads units
-Maximum of 2 Text Links Ad Unit
-and 2 adsense unit for search.

Advance option is embedding directly to your post your desired adsense unit. Log in to your adsense account, go to manage ad in your dashboard and select the ad unit you want to insert in your blog.

Be careful in dealing with your adsense, read and comprehend all the google adsense Terms and Conditions.

Adsense Channels

Manage your adsense channels to track and monitor your performing ad unit.

Integrate your adsense account to google analytic for complete statistics of your site. This can also enchance your adsense performance.