Writing A Press Release For Maximum Web Visibility

The Search Landscape is Changing

The Web Search landscape is constantly changing. One of the hottest trends that emerged at the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference was the fact that people are refining their searches – they’re using the subcategories on the search engines like images, maps and, most of all, the news tab.

Online News More Popular Than Newspapers

Mainstream print media is not enjoying this shift in media consumption - the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported this week that newspaper readership is down another few percent, while the news engines and news websites continue to attract more readers. Yahoo! News now has the largest online news audience in the world.

Most People Read Their News On the Web

Online ad revenue earnings online are rising steadily too. The advertisers know where the news audience is. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project more than 75 percent of all web users read their news online.

Optimizing Press Releases - One of Top Three SEO Trends

A new 285 page report just out from Marketing Sherpa, Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, identifies optimizing press releases for Yahoo! News, AOL News, Google News and other news engines and sites as one of the top three SEO trends for 2006. Online press releases make a great response device for the search-using public, says the report.

Writing a Press Release - Ten Reasons Why Press Releases Are Important

• More and more people are using online news sources to find information on products, services, companies and ideas. Most news stories and press releases are read by the public looking for data.
• A correctly optimized online news release can get you to the top of page one for your chosen keywords in the news engines within 24 hours.
• If there is a relevant and timely news result on a keyword, both Yahoo and Google are displaying this news item above the number one organic position in web search.
• You reach your target audience directly – no reporters or editors to filter your message.
• You know that when someone reads your news release they are interested in that subject – they asked for it by keyword.
• Online releases can be tracked – for the first time you can get statistics of how many times your press release was accessed or downloaded. With the proper web analytics in place you can track click throughs to your website too.
• The article will get picked up and published on other relevant sites increasing the number of people who see your content and visit your site.
• If your article has been correctly optimized, it will have keyword links in it. Every time your article appears on another website it builds more relevant inbound links to your site, which positively affects your search rankings.
• Optimized online press releases migrate from the news search to the web search within a week or so and they can show up in the web search on your keywords.
• If you add the releases to your website and put them into an RSS feed you increase your visibility. Soon your articles will be showing up in news aggregators, Yahoo News and Google Blogsearch.

How to Use CSS for Search Engine Optimization

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a language that permits Web designers to attach styles such as spacing, color, font, etc. to HTML documents. Cascading style sheets are similar to a template, permitting Web developers to label styles for an HTML element and then apply it to the number of Web pages required. Thus, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are collections of formatting rules, which control the appearance of content in a Web page. With CSS styles you have great flexibility and control of the exact page appearance; from precise positioning of the layout to specific fonts and styles.

There are many benefits of using CSS. Maintenance of a Web site made with CSS is much easier compared to the ones which are table based. Aside from being able to make extensive changes with one CSS file, the code it generates makes it simpler to update. With CSS, when you decide to craft a change, you simply alter the style and that element is updated automatically anywhere it appears in the site, saving you an enormous amount of time. Without CSS you'd have edit each page independently. CSS generally requires less code compared to a table based layout, making your code lighter, cleaner and easier to maintain.

Cascading Style Sheets Benefits and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Another major benefit of CSS is that it makes your Web site SEO friendly. The reason behind this is simple. Search engines spiders are actually lethargic. They don't go through the bundles of HTML code to get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables make HTML code cumbersome, and thus reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use external CSS files to determine the design attributes, the HTML code will be clean and will create better search engine rankings. With some knowledge of CSS you can change the code without destroying the visual layout. For instance, you could easily make the main content of your site to show up above the header or navigation menu in the code of your Web site; this will help to show search engine crawlers the importance of your content. I personally saw a huge boost in rankings in fully functional CSS Web sites. When I look at someone’s Web site that was built using old school HTML code with tags such as: TABLES, TD, TR, FONT and so on, I convert that site to a CSS layout. There are many tools on the Internet that shows the actual code over text ratio weight of your site. Modern search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN love light-weighted Web sites. They want to see your content; the text, not the code. With CSS everything is possible. You can place excessive code into an external file, thus leaving the actual page clean and simple.

Web Site Accessibility

CSS makes your Web site more accessible. By 2008, it's estimated that one-third of the world’s population will be using hand held devices to access theInternet. It's important that your site is accessible to them also. You can make an additional CSS document particularly for handheld devices like cell phones, which will be called up in place of the regular CSS document; which is not achievable with a tabular layout. CSS benefits accessibility chiefly by separating document structure from presentation.

Increases Download Speed of Your Website

CSS code downloads faster than tables. Browsers read through tables twice prior to exhibiting their contents; first to work out their structure and then to determine their content. Moreover, tables are shown on the screen as a whole, no part of the table will be displayed until the entire table is downloaded and rendered. Tables support the use of spaced images to assist with positioning. CSS generally requires less code than tables. All layout code can be placed in an external CSS document, which will be called up just once and then stored on the user’s computer; while the table layout stored in each HTML document must be loaded up each time a new page downloads. Also with CSS, you can manage the order of the items downloaded. You have the control to make the content appear prior to images, which tend to load slower than text.

Cross Browser Compatibility

To summarize, CSS makes your Web sites load faster, it saves on time and labor, links can be more attractive and dynamic, and you can add rollovers without using JavaScript. Currently all the major browsers ( Firefox, Explorer and Netscape) recognize CSS.

How Can I Use Search Engine Optimization Marketing to Promote My Business?

Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are two important ways to promote your business to online customers. SEO requires making your site search engine-friendly, and SEM involves targeting potential customers by purchasing relevant keyword ads on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Alta Vista.

SEO: There are many ways to optimize your site so that search engines will list your site higher in their rankings. Start with the following:

• Links from other sites: Search engine spiders move from site to site across the Internet by following hyperlinks. The more high quality and high trafficked sites you have pointing to your site, the more important the search engine will think you are. Make sure to register your site with directories such as yahoo and the open Directory Project.
• Internal links: Make sure your site is well-organized and easy to navigate. A site map will help visitors — and spiders — navigate your site.
• Meta tags: Meta tags are hidden HTML directions for Web browsers or search engines. They include important information such as the title of each page, relevant keywords describing site content, and the description of the site that shows up when a search engine returns a search. Make sure your meta tags accurately describe your content.
• Keywords: Consider likely words or phrases that users might type into search engines to find your site. Make sure your content contains those words or phrases, and include them in your title portions of your site and in relevant content.
• Search engine optimizers: Businesses often enlist the help of optimizers who specialize in improving the visibility of their clients' sites. Among other things, they'll register your site with major search engines, list it in the appropriate directory, write optimized content for your site, and recommend changes to your site architecture.

SEM: The more targeted your advertising, the higher your "conversion rate." Conversion rate refers to the percentage of ads that actually convert to sales or some other desired action (such as registration). One way to ensure that your prospective customers are qualified is to buy ads according to specific search engine keywords that a user might submit. For example, if you're selling a Minolta 60X digital camera, buying the keyword ad "Minolta 60X digital camera" will most likely give you better results than buying the keyword "camera."

Some terms get bid up quickly — for instance, you'll pay a lot more for a technology keyword than a knitting keyword. SEM, however, has a higher conversion rate than other online marketing methods, so it can still be a cost-effective route to take.

Make sure that you have compelling ad copy luring people to your site. Provide a call to action to prospective customers to encourage them to click on your link. Also, make sure that you send prospective customers to a targeted page on your site. Your home page will convert fewer customers than a page describing the exact service that you promote in your keyword ad.

You generally pay for keyword ads on a cost per click (CPC) basis. Review the keywords you've purchased to ensure you're getting a good return on your investment. If not, try a different word or phrase. You can also try different ad copy or landing pages on your site to see what's more attractive to prospective customers.

Companies offering CPC programs include Google, Yahoo (Overture), AskJeeves, FindWhat, Kanoodle, Industry Brains and LookSmart.

Once you've exhausted your SEO and SEM options, there are a couple of other routes that will produce results. You can put together an online ad campaign by either buying advertising on sites that appeal to your demographic or trading ads with other sites. In addition, you can send out email newsletters. Encourage customers to provide their email addresses so you can contact them with useful information and promotions.

INCREASE PROFIT USING SEM!

Benefits of search engines

• Search Engines outperform all other media in driving visitors to websites with 85% of Internet users citing search engines as the primary method to find websites.
  
• Traffic from search engines is the most valuable kind of traffic as it is comprised of qualified visitors actively looking for a product, service information or solution.
  
• Search engines work for you non-stop 24/7.

Why do you need Search Engine Marketing?

• 93% of users don’t look further than the first 2 pages of search results. Most prefer to use another search engine rather than click past the first 10 results. How can your business succeed if you’re not found there?
  
• 33% of users believe companies found in the top search results are a major brand in their specific product/service category. SEM raises your online profile and builds brand awareness.
  
• SEM has been proven to yield a higher Return On Investment in terms of generating more traffic to your website, qualified sales leads and customer acquisitions than any other marketing channel. Please enquire for relevant examples.

SEO Glossary Terms

Adwords- Google's Pay-Per-Click program.

Algorithms- An SEO Term meaning a proprietary set of rules that search engines utilize to rank searches on their index pages for users' queries. The algorithms are proprietary secrets of search enigne companies to keep websites from cheating to get top results for search queries.

Alt Tags- These are textual attributes given to web graphics.

Anchor text- refers to the visible text for a hyperlink; the visible link text given to a link that points to another website or web page.

Austin Update- refers to Google's complex algorithmic changes in Jan. 2004 that saw many websites disappearing from the search engine result pages (SERP). The update upended free subdomains and sites with spam-type links pointing back.

Back Links - are links that point back to a website; also known as inbound links.

Banned- An SEO term used when a site has been removed from a search engine's index due to terms of violations.

Black Hat SEO is generally referred to as search engine optimization that abuses and goes against the terms of servic set forth by each inidividual search engine's policy.

Blind Ads- also called "banner blindness"- A Search Engine Optimzation term that refers to how users may see banner ads or flashing ads by just naturally ignoring them. Generally Banner Ads that are vague in content and ask users to sign up or click through for some enticing benefit. Many of these ads are seen through free email accounts that internet users procure.

Blog- short for weblog that is a journal or newsletter that is regularly updated and often reflects the personality of the author.

Bot- Abbreviation for a robot or spider that scans the web. Bots are geared toward different functions from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.

Broken or Dead Link- a link that does not actually point to a web page on the internet.

Clickthrough Rate- Also known as CTR, refers to the number of people who view a link versus the number of people who actually click on that link; the rate is represented in a percentage.

Cloaking- Cloaking is presenting a page to a search engine spider that is not what a human sees. The technique is abused by spammers for keyword stuffing. Cloaking is a violation of the Terms Of Service of search engines and may lead to banning.

Conversion- an action where a user buys a product, fills out a form or signs up for a newsletter for example. Analytical software can help determine visitor's actions within a website to increase performance for a more productive ROI.

Conversion Cost- a term representing the total cost of adverstising or investment divided by the number of sales conducted during the advertising campaign. An example would be 10 sales where $1,000 spent on the campaign would result in $100/ sale.

Clustering- techniques search engines use to report more than one web page from a single domain in a results query; this prevents single domains from dominating an entire results page.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)- This is the figure used to determine how much an advertiser pays when a potential buyer cliks on the ad to be taken to the advertiser's site.

Crawlers- the search engine bots that crawl web pages for indexing.

De-listing- is when a web page or domain is removed from a search engines index; usually occurs because of a violation of a search engines' TOS.

Directory- an organized collection of internet sites; some directories are related to specific topics called niche directories.

Drill Down- refers to clicking through categories and subcategories to get to specific topics.

Dynamic Pages- refer to web pages that change on a regular basis versus static pages that rarely change or add content. Users actions or selections may change the page with content delivered from a database.

Everflux- a Google term that refers to its algorithm adjusted in small increments, on a daily/regular basis versus major algorithmic changes where sites may be upended across the spectrum of natural topics/searches.

FFA- stands for free-for-all; these are websites that are primarily just stuffed with any links, with no categories or content structure and offering little to no value by search engines.

Florida Update- referes to a big change in Google's algorithm in Nov. 2003.

Frames- an html tag that allows for multiple web pages to be displayed simultaneously. Most search engines cannot properly index pages with frames which does not compliment search engine optimization.

Google Bombing- An SEO term meaning a technique used to influence keywords or keyword phrases. This can happen when several sites use consistent anchor text when referencing a particular subject. One of the most famous examples was when "miserable failure" was linked to President George Bush. Google claims it has fixed this technique and it is no longer valid.

Googlebot- Google's spider that crawls web pages and indexes them.

Google Supplemental Results Pages- Google maintains several search databases. Some are specialty databases such as blogs, news services, etc., however the main two databases are the primary databases and the supplemental databases. The determination to these databases responsibilities' is that primary results are always returned alone unless few results are available in which supplemental results will also be returned.

Heading or Header Tag- An html tag for headings and subheadings where up to 6 headings are allowed on a page. The search engines consider them important when keywords are contained in the (sub)headings.

Hidden Text- is text that is not visible to humans but is visible to search engines. Most often the text is cloaked from view by assuming the same color as the web page.

Hit- a hit is often confused with page views or visitors but it is the number of requests on a server. For example, a web page with 3 images would deliver 4 hits, one for the webpage and 3 for the images.

ICANN - the description on their sites states that it, "is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols. Computers use these identifiers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability."

Inbound Link (IBL)- An SEO term that refers to a link on another page (b) that points to another web page (a); web page "a" has an inbound link while web page "b" has an outbound link. Also called inbound links or IBL's.

Indexable- the ability for web pages to be indexed by the search engines. Locked .pdf files and text within graphics are examples of content not able to be indexed.

Java Script- a relativley simple programming script that is not search engine optimization friendly.

Keyword- An SEO Term meaning a single descriptive word entered into a search engine query.

Keyword Phrase - An SEO Term, meaning a set of multiple words entered into a search engine for a query.

Keyword Stuffing- is when search engine optimizers overuse keywords heoping to get better placement in the search results.

Latent Semantic Indexing-

Link Farms- websites that have a huge amount of unorganized links and are designed to get as many links as possible without regard to the quality of site and what it offers human visitors.

Link Popularity - SEO term that refers to the number of inbound links and the quality of those links as far as page ranking (PR).

Link Swapping (Reciprocol Links)- Refers to one website exchanging links with another website.

Link Validator- a program that scans a website for broken links then generates a report.

Log File- Each website has a log file that is stored on the server that has various information such as search terms that internet users entered into search engines to get to the site, other websites that brought traffic to the site, inbound links a user followed, how much time the user spent on pages, unique visitors, visitor geographic locations, etc.

Long Tail Phrases- An SEO term that refers to less commonly used keyword phrases that clients may target in order to have quicker success in SERPs, however, the targeted traffic would naturally not be as great using broader keyword phrases. This phrase has its origination in statistics from the Bell Curve statistical model.

Made-for-Adsense (MFA)- A term that refers to websites that are made to simply bring in traffic that will be directed to click on Adsense ads to deliver pay to the web owner. These sites usually have no user value but are highly optimized on-page and off-page for search engines.

Manual Submission- refers to submitting a site to a directory mannually, by hand, versus submissions using software programs.

Meta Description- one or two sentences hidden within the html code describing the webpage.

Meta Keywords- the sets of individual keywords or keyword phrases grouped by commas that are relevant to the webpage and hidden with the html coding.

Meta Search Engine - A search engine that retrieves indexed pages from other search engines such as Google and Yahoo then presents them to users with their own proprietary algorithms versus Google's or Yahoo's algorithms.

Meta Tag- An html tag that is entered within the head of a webpage that describes the content of the webpage. Many webmasters have abused this tag which search engines used to help index the page properly along with keyword descriptions; it is becoming less important as far as SERP's.

Negative SEO- a black hat technique that uses bad text links with negative connatations linking back to a competitors site, linking competitors to link farms and free-for-all sites, etc.

Off-page Ranking- An SEO term that refers to factors considered by the search engines when ranking a web page such as number of backlinks, quality of backlinks, actual linking text, etc.

On-page Ranking- An SEO term that refers to factors considered by search engines to rank a web page such as number of inbound links, outbound links, text headings, quality of content, unique content, number of worded text, etc.

Ontology- a search engine term that refers specifically to a file that defines relationships between words.

OutBound Link- is when web page "a" links to web page "b" then web page "a" is said to have an outbound link and "b" has an 'inbound link' from "a".

Page Rank (PR)- A Google term given to a particular web page. That factor is now updated often if not daily and given a ranking score upon a multitude of variables known mostly to Google. The primary factor of PR is link popularity.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)- an advertising term where advertisers only pay for the ad if a user clicks the ad which takes the user to the advertiser.

Query- a word or group of words entered into a search engine's search box.

Ranking- refers to the position of a webpage when a query is entered into a search engine. An example would be "SEO" entered into a search engine with a site listed in the fourth position' the site would be considered to rank 4th for that particular keyword or phrase.

Robot- refers to the search engine mechanisms that crawl sites to index information.

Robots.txt- An SEO term that refers to a simple notepad file where webmasters ask the bots or search engine spiders which pages they may access and index within a website.

ROI- means 'return of investment' where the return comes from an investment of cash value or labor or a combination of both.

Score- web pages are assigned scores while the "best", most relevant page should fall into the top of the search results and is assigned a score while the other pages are scored in reference to the top listing and are listed in scored order.

SEM- Search Engine Marketing which SEO is a smaller or separate part.

SEO - SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which is a technique to have web pages rank as high as possible using on-page optimization and off-page optimization.

Search Engine Result Page (SERP)- Refers to the page(s) of the search results.

Spam- An SEO term that is referred to in the search engine world of manipulating search engine results in order to achieve a higher position. Several techniques may be used such as keyword stuffing, useless content generated by software with keywords stuffed in the document, etc. This violates Terms of Service of search engines and will generally get sites banned.

Spamdexing- refers to a cross between spamming and indexing where blackhat SEOers attempt to get listed high in the SERPs.

Spiders- Spiders are search engine robots or bots that crawl web pages on sites to index them and gather the content on the site.

Splash Pages- An introductory, beginning page on a website that generally uses Flash or another type of heavy graphics that usually has little value in SEO and can easily have no value to search engines but esthetic value to human visitors.

Splog-

Three-way Linking- An SEO term that refers to a technique used to deceive the search engines where one site links to the second site who links to a third site which in turn links back to the first site. A technique not endorsed by SEO Metro.

Upperfold-- refers to the viewable text on a folded newspaper; the upper half of a newspaper.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)- an internet address such as http://www.seo-metro.com/search-engine-optimization.html where the http is the access protocol, the domain name seo-metro.com and the file name or resource, in this case search-engine-optimization.html whith html as the file extension.

Yahoo! Slurp- Yahoo!'s bot that crawls web pages for later indexing and in the end, search results.

Search Engine Techniques

Our SEO team use ethical, effective and proven methods to attain top 10 rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Our flexible methodology and proven SEO Optimization techniques ensures customized SEO Marketing Strategy for your unique requirements.

We are currently offering professional SEO services that help you to increase your Search Engine Rankings for your sites. These services are proven to increase the search engine rankings and thus, we highly recommend Webmasters to take a look at our offer and choose the most suitable package for your site.

White Hat SEO Techniques:

Want To improve a Web page's position in a SERP .First let us see how search engines work. Search engines categorize Web pages based on keywords-important terms that are relevant to the content of the page.

Keywords aren't the only important factor search engines take into account when generating SERPs. Just because a site uses keywords well doesn't mean it's one of the best resources on the Web. To determine the quality of a Web page, most automated search engines use link analysis. Link analysis means the search engine looks to see how many other Web pages link to the page in question.

We provide the best SEO optimization techniques.

On-Page Optimization:

On-page Optimization is a technique that makes a webpage more search engine friendly. By doing so search engines will be able to send targeted or relevant traffic to a webpage, thereby increasing it’s effectiveness.

The On-page optimization techniques are

• Keyword research
• Competitor Analysis
• Meta Tag Composition
• Content Optimization
• Anchor Text Links
• Creation of Sitemap
• Creation of Google Analytics Coding
• Site Validation.

Off-Page Optimization:

Off-page Optimization involves the strategies that are usually employed off the pages of a website to optimize it. The process often relates to external issues that are usually not under the control of a website owner. It often deals with link building, such as the quality and quantity of pages linking to one's website.

Off-page Optimization includes a wide range of techniques that are absolutely essential to push a website among top ranking sites once the pages of a website are optimized. The following are some of the important techniques often employed in off- page SEO: Web Directory Submission (General Directories and Topic Specific Directories); Article Submission; Press Releases; Blog writing and posting, blog commenting; Forum posting and commenting; Social networking and Social Book Marking; Affiliate marketing; RSS Feeds.

With the help of these techniques you can make your website a Search Engine friendly and get good rankings in search engine ranking page.

Search Engine Optimization Structure

SEO PROCESS:
Search Engine Optimization Process engages a series of comprehensive procedures and analysis to ensure that a website is customized so as to achieve the higher ranking levels in all the major search engines. The following steps are vital in creating a website successfully in the near and long term.

Step 1. Initial SEO consultation:

• Basic understanding of your requirements to enable us to concentrate on the key words of your site and guide your SEO campaign in the accurate direction.
• Structural analysis of the website, its navigation and its content.
• Examining the existing rankings of the website on all the major search engines.

Step 2. Online competitor analysis:

• Analyze the exact online competitors that we have to face.
• Understand the strategies that competitors have adopted and making use of this information to design your website.

Step 3. Keyword analysis and research:

• Identifying and defining keywords is an essential step towards a successful SEO.
• Selecting the best suited keywords that are relevant to the business requirements.

Step 4.Website optimization:

• A thorough content analysis is done. Changes are made that are search engine friendly while retaining its original meaning.
• HTML code clean up is a process where we remove the entire redundant html codes and simultaneously fix all the errors.
• Implement the proposed architecture for a website in terms of Links.
• Developing meta tags based on the analysis of the keywords combining the title, description and keywords.

Step 5. Search engine submission.

• Manual submission of the website to the major search engines is our prime focus, such as Google, AOL, MSN, AltaVista, Yahoo and DMO.org.

Step 6. Link building campaigns:

• An extensive research work is done by our dedicated team to identify appropriate sites.
• A one to one basis dialogue is established.
• Link progress and confirmation reports are sent on a regular basis.
• According to the plan we provide guaranteed quality reciprocal links every month.