View source for User:Achoicenotanecho/tips

==Non-Profits and Internet Fundraising==
Non-profits often need to do fundraising to support their missions and one of the things this resource will provide is resources on how to do online fundraising.  In addition, the resource provided here will show you how to successfully bring web traffic to a website which often very important to both non-profit and for profit organizations.    And although I do show how to raise revenues though the sale of items in this resource (many non-profits sell times to do fundraising),  I do think that non-profits fail to recognize that a lot of money can be raised via fundraising on the internet.  For example, in the United States, President Obama and his supporters, had a distinct advantage over his presidential race opponent John McCain due to his much better use of the internet when it came to fundraising. And of course gaining internet traffic can bring more visitors to a website which can certainly increase and organization's fundraising ability.  

According here are some resources on internet fundraising:

Excellent Online article on internet fundraising: [http://www.fundraising123.org/files/NP911021908.pdf Online Fundraising Basics]

===Excellent Books on Internet Fundraising===

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0787960454&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Fundraising on the Internet: The ePhilanthropyFoundation.org's Guide to Success Online]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1889102059&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising Thousands (If Not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars With Email]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0470481323&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Fundraising When Money Is Tight: A Strategic and Practical Guide to Surviving Tough Times and Thriving in the Future]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0470120770&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr People to People Fundraising]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0471691887&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Nonprofit Internet Strategies: Best Practices for Marketing, Communications, and Fundraising Success]

The first resource I provided you stated the doing both non-internet and internet fundraising is important.  According I wish to provide you an excellent book relating to both non-internet and internet fundraising:

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0787960896&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Relationship Fundraising: A Donor Based Approach to the Business of Raising Money]

==Content is Still King - step by step instructions on how to create it == 
There is a maxim that experts in gaining internet traffic and high search engine rankings use and the maxim is: "Content is king".  The maxim is very valid because it is usually very hard to get inbound links from other websites for a webpage if the content is mediocre (it is especially hard to get quality/authority links and these are very important links to get). Too many people try hard to get inbound links from other websites without first creating excellent content.  This is a poor long term strategy plus it only increases the amount of total effort to have a high traffic creating article.  It is much easier to do the front end work of creating a quality article rather than hope doing a lot of subsequent promotional and inbound link building work (asking other websites to link to your article) will make up for a webpages quality deficiency. 

The first rule of having quality content is "know thy stuff".  Accordingly, I am going to give you some tips on how to do effective research for your webpages and do it very efficiently.

I realize that "knowing thy stuff" might sound like too much work for some people and therefore not worth doing well.  In other words, when it comes to "knowing thy stuff" the enemy of excellent website might be merely good website.  However, it has been my experience that creating excellent material in terms of accuracy is worth the trouble as often times people quickly dismiss material that contains some errant material.  In other words, your website's reputation can sometimes be only as strong as its weakest link.  Wise King Solomon said, "Dead flies make a perfumer's oil stink, so a little foolishness is weightier than wisdom and honor." - Ecclesiastes 10:1 (NASB version).  I do think Thomas Edison  made an important point that can be applied to creating excellent and accurate information on a website: "Most people don't recognize opportunity when it comes, because it's usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work." 
===Know thy stuff===

====Quick internet research tips to find great content====
I do think the knowing how to use search engines properly is an important skill to have that is quite fast and easy to develop.

Here are some excellent resources on how to use Google more efficiently:

*[http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/1264/12-Quick-Tips-To-Search-Google-Like-An-Expert.aspx 12 Quick Tips to use Google Like an Expert]

*[http://www.mapelli.info/tips/ultimate-google-search-tips-guide Google Search Tips]

*[http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html Google Cheat Sheet]

*[http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134479 Google Basic Help]

====Step by Step Tutorial on How to Use the Google Advanced Search Option====
Here is an excellent resource provided by a library that is a step by step tutorial on how to use the Google Advance Search Option:

*[http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/vl/google/googlcont.htm Internet Research Using Google Advanced Search]

==Using Yahoo and other Search Engines to Find Good but Less Popular Internet Material==
Although I find the Google search engine to be a helpful took, using the Yahoo search engine can help you quickly find good material which is less popular on the internet and thus has less inbound links (Google uses inbound links as a criteria for ranking high more prominently than many search engines).  In addition, you can support your favorite non-profit organizations using the [http://www.goodsearch.com/ Goodsearch service].  Please be aware that when you use Goodsearch, the search results are generally more skewed to websites which have a more politically conservative nature (at least that is what I have found in my limited experience using the Goodsearch option). 

Although Google has a much bigger market share of the internet market than its various competitors and you definitely want to have your internet material rank high at Google, I do think that it can be helpful doing internet research to not put all your eggs in the Google basket.

I have also found that the [http://www.cuil.com/ Cuil] search engine can produce relevant results and therefore good results. However, although this statement is based on very limited data I did find that this search engine might be more skewed towards websites which have a more politically liberal nature as I found that a well known conservative website (and a fairly well known conservative website) search results could not be found by me even when I searched for the organization's name (I will admit that I did not do an exhaustive search for the organizations' names). I am not sure if the Cuil search engine is doing this as a result of censorship or as the result of what I consider incompetence.  Nonetheless, in a independent test it was found to be a search engine which provides very relevant search results (see: [http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?sample=16&qprid=38&qpcustom=Cuil Cuil Stumbles on Launch, but Beats Google in Key Relevancy Metric])

==Finding Excellent Material Can Create Publicity and Inbound Links to Your Website Material==
Later in this resource, the importance of inbound links to a webpage and website will be discussed. In addition, the importance of the concept of "link baiting" which is getting free inbound links by creating helpful and/or controversial material.

Uncovering unpleasant facts for a certain segment or segment of a population can create a lot of inbound links. ''' I created an article which received about 4,000 inbound links (inbound links are links from other websites) to a webpage in a short time using this method and it ranks well in the search engines as a result for a very competitive search.'''  In addition, I received 1,000 inbound links to a webpage using this same method and rank high for another competitive search. 

Here are two quotes I wish to share with you:

*"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

*"Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit." - Edwin R. Murrow

Exposing unpleasant truths to some people is a time tested method of gaining publicity.  It can also make a society better as the work of investigative journalists (muckrackers) attest. In the internet age it can create a lot of inbound links plus put you on the internet map.  For example, Matt Drudge put his website on the map by uncovering the Monica Lewinski scandal.

==Increase the Chance of Finding Great Content by Searching Material For Other English Countries==
I am not a librarian but I can tell you that I have easily found some absolutely great information by using more than one Google for English speaking countries. Using more than one Google optimizes the probability that you find quality internet information that will rank high for the search engines. I believe that using other English speaking countries Google search websites was a key tactic I used to find a piece of information as far as making one of my most popular articles on the internet as popular as it is (ranked #2 by Google out of 103,500,000 million articles).  I am an American and I found a key piece of information for my popular article at Google New Zealand. To find articles for a specific country when you are at the Google for a specific country (for example, [http://www.google.co.uk/ Google UK]), you need to click the option below the Google search box where that enables you to see only webpages from the country in question. 

Here are those countries: 

*[http://www.google.com/ Google] (If you are outside the USA I would suggest using [http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/websites/google.com/google-usa.htm Google USA])

*[http://www.google.ca/ Google Canada]

*[http://www.google.co.uk/ Google UK]

*[http://www.google.com.au/ Google Australia]

*[http://www.google.ie/ Google Ireland]

*[http://www.google.co.nz/ Google New Zealand].

In addition, although I believe that today's academia often spouts a lot of nonsense due to false ideologies, I will certainly ackknowledge that there certainly still is quality work being done at universities and colleges.  Accordingly, you can also use [http://scholar.google.com/ Google scholar] to find relevant material for a webpage's content.

==Material on Doing Research==
====Efficient and Effective Library Research====
Due to rapid advancements in information storage and retrieval, today's libraries are a grat resource when it comes to being a more knowledgeable writer and to do research more effeciently. 

Two excellent books on doing library research are the following:

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0195189981&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr The Oxford Guide to Library Research]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0691138575&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr The Elements of Library Research: What Every Student Needs to Know]

====Expanding the reach of material available to you via libraries====
If you live in a small town or medium city town but want to have access to the full range of library materials, you can do so through the two services below which in the vast majority of cases are both free:

- Interlibrary loan is a service where if your library does not have a library resource (for example, a book or article), then you can borrow the resource from another library outside your geographic area.  Everytime I have requested a book from this service, I specified that I was not willing to be charged.  In all cases, I obtained what I wanted for free.

- [http://www.worldcat.org/ Worldcat] is a free global catalog of library collections that will help you find what you want in a library nearest you.

==Great Aids to helping you have content with better spelling, grammar, usage, and style==
If you want your writing to have credibility obviously you don't want poorly written content detracting from your messages impact.  Recently, there have been big improvements when it comes to software programs that help you with spelling, grammar, usage, and style.

Here are two programs that help you with your content's spelling, grammar, usage, and style:

*[http://www.whitesmoke.com/ Whitesmoke English writing software]

*[http://www.stylewriter-usa.com/ StyleWriter Style and Usage checker]

Here are two classic books on writing well and one of them was recommended to me recently by my university college English professor (looking back he was one of the best professors I had although he was the toughest as well which I did not appreciate at the time!):

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=020530902X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Elements of Style by William Strunk]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0060891548&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr On Writing Well by William Zinsser]



==How do People Evaluate a Website's Credibility? ==
Credibility is important for both non-profit and for profit websites.  For example, what is the point of a for profit website getting a lot of internet traffic if the visitors have a low sales conversion rate due to the website being perceived as a low credibility website? 

Stanford University did a large study which evaluated how people evaluate a website's credibility:

*[http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/pdfs/stanfordPTL.pdf How do People Evaluate a Website's Credibility?]

==Effective Copywriting==
Copywriting is the discipline which involves the words that are used to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. If you are a non-profit which heavily relies on internet product sales you definitely need to be good at copywriting to make product sales.

Here are some books I recommend when it comes to copywriting:

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0805078045&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr The Copywriter's Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0071467858&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Words that Sell]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0071418539&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr More Words that Sell]

Here is a book that is highly rated by Amazon users and is specifically geared to electronic medium:

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0495411175&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Copywriting for the Electronic Media: A Practical Guide]

==Getting Search Engine Rankings - In House SEO Versus Using SEO Experts==
I do think that organizations need to understand the principles of search engine optimization (getting to the top of the search engine results).  I say this because the best consumers are the most informed consumers.  And unfortunately there are a lot of search engine optimization (SEO) "experts" who do not know what they are doing.  In addition, many SEO experts do not achieve excellent results due to the fact that there clients resists their advice (this is especially true for large organizations).  

With the above in mind, here is a fairly well known study on the merit of doing in house search engine optimization (SEO) versus hiring experts:

"MarketingSherpa's released their 2nd Annual Search Marketing Survey with 3,271 marketers participating.

This new report includes new statistics on clicks, costs and conversions as well as information on SEM test effectiveness. There's some pretty compelling data regarding outsourcing your SEO as well. For SEO, overall site traffic lift six months after optimization was:

*Agency optimized 110% increase
*In-house optimized 38% increase" [http://toprank.blogspot.com/2005/09/agency-seo-beats-in-house-seo.html]

In light of the above information, I suggest that non-profits look over the material on [http://www.wikichristian.org/index.php/User:Theologian/sandbox2#Non-Profits_and_Internet_Fundraising non-profits and internet fundraising given previously].
==SEO Goals==
I do think that it is very important to set objectives, goals, and projected timeline for activities as far as search engine optimization. Otherwise, it is easy to drift and achieve little.  Hopefully, the material directly above gives some guidance (the information on in house vs. expert SEO consultant efforts).  

Here are two excellent resources:

*[http://www.sandiego.edu/csl/casa/pdf_folder/skill_building/org_development/setting.pdf Setting Organizational Goals]

*[http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/str_plan/str_plan.htm Strategic Planning (in nonprofit or for-profit organizations)]

==Should You Encourage Your Supporters TO Have Websites and Blogs?  ==

In the next section, I will mention a program/package that enables non technical people to have websites.  It is endorsed by some universities/colleges.  However, before I do this, I wish to explain why I believe that some organizations should encourage their supporters to have their own websites and blogs.

===Why You Should Encourage Your Supporters to Have Blogs and Websites===
'''KEY POINT:'''  If you have a lot of supporters and your organization is a non-profit associated with a particular cause, I would recommend suggesting supporters to have websites and blogs as well and to have these websites and blogs link to your organizations website.  I would also suggest providing them this resource.  If your organization is cause based, some of your supporters probably post on forums and other places on the internet.   Also, if you have zealous supporters posting in fairly non popular forums or in general forums, this is less productive than a focused blog on a particular subject.  Google does look at the topical relevance of a particular site or forum.  I suppose an alternative is to have your supporters be more active as far as creating articles for your website but an argument for telling your supporters how they can easily have their own website or blog and then link to your websites is that they will have more freedom in terms of what they write (and you will not have to review it) plus there is the convenience factor.  If their material is hosted at their website or blog, the can more easily make revisions.  

I believe that the best strategy is combination of having your supporters write articles for your website, but at the same time encouraging them to have their own blogs and websites also due to the freedom of expression and convenience factor.  Plus I generally think people are sometimes more enthusiastic if they have their own personal website or blog and the proliferation of blogs on the internet tells me that I am correct in suggesting that a mix of having supporters write articles for your website plus encouraging them to have their own websites is a wise strategy.  

In addition,  if there are more websites out there, then negative actions done by search engines or governments against one particular website is less harmful as a cause does not have all its eggs in just a few baskets.  I also believe that the various website and blog owners for a particular cause can share with each other tips and what they have found works on getting search engine rankings.  In other words, sometimes if you have an abundance of counselors there is victory.  I think the issue of having your supporters have websites and blogs can be important when you are seeking link partners or finding it difficult finding strong websites to link to you.  

I created an internet article that gets about 800-1,000 views a day and a handful of topically related blogs definitely helped me reach my top ranking for this article. I have another article that gets about 600-800 views a day and getting the leading blogger of this subject to mention my article definitely helped.

==Average Non-Technical People Creating Websites or blogs to Spread Christianity ==

===Encourage Your Supporters to Have Websites===

I created this resource to help Christian website owners gain more internet traffic so they could more effectively reach greater number of people in regards to refuting false worldviews and so they could reach more people with information on why Christianity is true.  However, I quickly came to realize via some non-technical Christian friends of mine that there were people who don't know how to create websites that were interested in using the internet to spread Christianity and other information, but felt that creating a website would be too difficult for them to learn within a reasonable amount of time or too difficult for them to learn period. 

However, with that being said there is a company that offers a package designed for the non-technical person which has enabled people to create excellent websites.  I think this is important for Christendom to know about because if there are more Christian websites and they link to each other Christendom will be stronger on the internet.  Several colleges are using the package that they offer.  If you want to market their package, the companies affiliate marketing package is located [http://affiliates.sitesell.com/victory4.html HERE.]  If you do not want to market their package and merely wish to buy it you can purchase it [http://proof.sitesell.com/victory4.html HERE.]  One of the reasons why this company being successful is because it offers a way to build websites without knowing HTML and DreamWeaver AND they also have tools and information on how to bring web traffic into your website.  Of course, this is very important. What is the point of having a snazzy looking website if nobody is going to it?  Christian ministries, non-profits, and Christian business often market products and services on their websites. [http://affiliates.sitesell.com/victory4.html SiteBuildit] does teach people how to increase their prospect conversion rates by teaching the people the concept of pre-selling.  Of course,  [http://affiliates.sitesell.com/victory4.html SiteBuildit] teaching people the concept of pre-selling can be  important - especially for commercial enterprises obviously.  If a lot of people go to a page on your website that markets a good or service and they rarely or never purchase you could lose out on a lot of revenue over time.    

If you already have a website and know how to create successful websites as far as how to build them using various software tools (Dreamwweaver, HTML, etc. ) then the above resource will not provide you as much value or may not be for you.  However, for the newbie who is not technically adept and does not know how to bring web traffic into a website I think their package can be a good package for some people.

==Your Organization's Blog and Blogging Tips and Resources ==

Blogs definitely play a part in terms of getting your website ranked high by the search engines.  Hosting your blog on a different domain from your main site is a bad idea.   A blog on your domain can attract links,  publicity, help make you a trusted site with the search engines, and increase your search rankings.


Here are two books I would recommend for your supporters:

I hate the whole concept of the Dummies books and with that pet peeve of mine being stated here is a book on blogging for beginners that I recommend as it is highly ranked by Amazon books: [http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0470230177&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Blogging for Dummies]

A leading blog on professional blogging is the website ProBlogger.  I recommend a popular book put out by ProBlogger called [http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0470246677&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income].  

The ProBlogger website can found here: http://www.problogger.net/

As far as getting your blog higher up in the search engine rankings here is an excellent resource: [http://www.seobook.com/4515-blog-262-custom.html Bloggers Guide to SEO]

Other specific tips on launching a blog and getting More Web Traffic to a will be covered later as I think it is better if you read the material after this section before I give you some more blogging tips.

===SEO Blog Optimization E-Book===
Matt Cutts is a Google employee who works for their Search Quality group. Mr. Cutt is well known for providing the public with information on how to gain more web visibility via the Google search engine. 

In 2007, in an interview Mr. Cutts spoke highly of the blog platform Wordpress as far as its ability to rank high at the search engines.

Steve Wiideman is a search engine optimization expert who formerly worked with Disney as far as their search engine optimization efforts.  I have read some of his material and he provides some excellent advice.  Based on the material I have read of Mr. Wiideman, I would recommend his purchasing his e-book entitled [http://sites.google.com/site/seoblogoptimization/ SEO Blog Optimization].

Mr. Wiideman's e-book SEO Blog Optimization is a [http://sites.google.com/site/seoblogoptimization/ downloadable e-book and video] which focuses on how to optimize Wordpress for higher positioning In search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

==Other help as far as creating articles that will bring the most traffic to a website==

There is a saying among the people in the business of getting web traffic to a website that content is king.  This is certainly true and more will be discussed about creating quality content shortly.

If you have a VERY weak website in terms of ranking high at the the search engines for various searches,  then your best search engine optimization (SEO) tactic to use is the tactic of getting more websites to link to you which will be explained later.  If you have a weak website in terms of web traffic, your best strategy in in regards to building web traffic in most cases is to use a long-tail keyword strategy.  A keyword is a word or phrase that people commonly put in the Google search box or other search engine boxes in order to find relevant articles.   A long tail keyword is a keyword that is less popular but over time it gets significant traffic.  The reason why the long-tail keyword strategy is best for a weaker website is that a weaker website has a harder time competing for popular searches. Since a large amount of web web traffic for a search goes to the top 5 to top 7 ranking websites for a search it is therefore better to be a big fish in small less popular search then be a sardine (low ranking site) for a popular search. Only 3% of people ever look beyond the first 30 results of a search engine query.

The reason why keywords are so important is that the search engines drive a tremendous amount of targeted traffic to a website.  If you create an article not using keywords or at least linkbait material (Link bait material is either extremely useful information, extremely interesting material, or very controversial material. I will explain the concept of linkbait material later), you are creating an article for which there is no demand.  Creating articles that do not incorporate the principle of keywords or linkbait is often like stocking your car lot with 3 wheel vehicles when very, very, very few people want three wheeled vehicles. 

Here is a general article on keywords: http://www.softnik.com/download/kwprimer.pdf

Here are two popular software tools (both have a free trial membership) to find the long-tail keywords and popular keywords but there are FREE options of this software given below (which likrly are not as full featured as their paid counterparts):

1. Wordtracker has a free trial membership: [http://affiliate.wordtracker.com/r/699/a/157758/l/hp4kv6 Free Trial membership of Wordtracker]

2.  [http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/ Keyword Discovery]


A SEO expert that I highly respect told me that he doesn't believe that Wordtracker and Keyword discovery are good investments relative to their free counterparts (I give some of the free counterparts in this resource).  So you might want to sign up for the free trial and then make your own decision after using the free counterparts.


Keywords are a '''VERY'''  important concept in terms of bringing web traffic to a website and the well known SEO expert Aaron Wall who runs the website [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] wrote a book on this subject that you can obtain [http://www.wordtracker.com/offers/kickass/ HERE.]


Good YouTube Videos on Keyword Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACYy0CpuOoE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6hSheejtcU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8EunNaWSPY&feature=related


I also recommend going to the website [http://www.pjatr.com/t/Qj1BR0FEPUFFSERHPUNFQg SEOMOZ] and purchasing their article called The Professional's Keyword Research Guide which is a 75-page guide on keyword research.  When you go to that webpage at [http://www.pjatr.com/t/Qj1BR0FEPUFFSERHPUNFQg SEOMOZ] click on the top menu bar called "search engine guides".  


Here are some articles on the long-tail keyword strategy :

http://www.searchengineguide.com/matt-bailey/keyword-strategies-the-long-tail.php

http://www.doshdosh.com/how-to-target-long-tail-keywords-increase-search-traffic/

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/three-good-reasons-to-target-long-tail-keywords/

http://www.marketinghub.info/long-tail-versus-short-tail-keywords/


I cannot stress this enough, the article title should be a Google keyword or keywords (phrase).  The main keyword or keywords that the article is titled with should be used somewhat liberally throughout the article but it shouldn't be forced so it is very unnatural writing or the article will be penalized. SEO experts call a page which uses the keywords too much as over optimizing a webpage for a keyword.  

Commercial websites are very interested in keyword conversion rates.  In other words, what is the percentage of people who go to a webpage of a website and wind up purchasing something while at the website. 

Here are two articles on keyword conversion rates:

http://www.seoxy.com/conversion/How-Keyword-Length-Affects-Conversion-Rates.php

http://www.melbourneitdbs.com/news.php?year=2005&month=03


Although I definitely believe in doing thorough keyword analysis, to do initial keyword analysis as I am web surfing I often use [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox].   I suggest downloading [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] now if you can and I give instructions in the next paragraph.  I also use [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] to do link building and it comes in very handy.  

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] If you don't have the FireFox browser I would recommend downloading it now as it enables you to use important SEO tools plus it is a more safe and secure browser than Explorer.   You can download the FireFox browser [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ HERE].   Please watch the short video on [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] and please definitely download it as it is a great free tool that I use all the time.  I would only use this tool when doing SEO work (You can turn the software on and off by clicking the SEO FireFox icon at the buttom right corner of your computer screen) and I would adjust the settings so only the most important info appears automatically, PageRank (PR), age of website, total links to website listed by Yahoo (Y links), total edu page links listed by yahoo (Y! edu page links), and DMOZ.   I personally have good luck with Google not temporarily shutting me off for access to Google (Google only does it for about an hour or two) when I put a 2 second delay but you might have to play around with this.  If the first option to download the SEO FireFox software doesn't give you a fully functional piece of software like it did for me.  Use the second option.  I had to use the second option and perhaps you should use the second option first.  
*[http://www.seoquake.com/ SEO Quake] (please get this although admitedly I never use it now that I have SEO FireFox.  Again, only use when doing SEO work.

Next, I constantly use the free Google toolbar for Firefox to do SEO which you can get [http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/ HERE].  It is very convenient to do many non-SEO task too.     

An exception to the Google Keyword principle is linkbait material which will be covered later in this resource.  A quick definition of linkbait material is material that is super helpful, VERY interesting, or material which is very controversial or upsetting to some people.   For example, I created an article on a very popular subject.   I then did some good research on a two very relevant but VERY irksome sub topics which were related to the main topic (keyword).  The sub topics were on very relevant matters in terms of their implications but they were on topics very irritating to some people. these sub topic articles were on topics which normally people would rarely if never do searches on and by incorporating some of this material in my main article  via two sub articles (linked to the main article) that covered these two sub topics separately,  it catapulted my ranking for the main subject which is a very popular search.  I actually featured a string of very irksome topics within my main article and had sub articles covering this topics but I know that the two very irksome topics caused the most consternation.  Essentially, what happened is that the bloggers talked about the string of irksome topics due to some people inflating the view counts of the sub articles dealing with the string of irksome topics.  My main article got free publicity all over the world because of this.  I even came across some fairly well known Russian mentioning my material although I had to have a Russian speaker tell me what he wrote.  


I recommended taking a quick tour of [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] because it will help you "think like a search engine".  Below are two articles that I recommend reading at [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] as far as writing for the search engines: 


'''WRITING PAGES FOR SEO'''

In the old school SEO you used to use the keywords very often.  Now Google uses a more semantic approach.  I highly recommend reading this article at : [http://www.seobook.com/archives/001668.shtml Search Engine Friendly Copywriting - What Does 'Write Naturally' Mean for SEO?]


Here is another article at [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] and again please do not be concerned if you do not understand all the jargon yet:

*[http://www.seobook.com/relevancy/ How search engines work]


Here is some free software that generates semantically related words to your keywords on various pages: 

*[http://www.gorank.com/seotools/ontology/index.php?keywords=seo GoRank Semantic word generator]
*[http://labs.google.com/sets Google Sets]
*[https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Google Keyword tool]

==Additional Important Suggestions==

Now if your website is strong enough you can start going after the more popular searches. How do you know if your website is strong enough? Well if your website is somewhere between weak and strong and cannot decide if you are ready to go after the popular searches, I am willing to do a quick analysis of your website so you can follow the appropriate tactic in terms of pursuing popular keywords or pursuing long-tail keywords. 

Now if you know you have a sufficiently strong website then here are some tips on ranking high for a popular search terms: 

1. The article should have a very broad audience.  For example, an article about the Apostle Paul is going to going to have more broad appeal than an article about a local pastor (No disrespect intended for the fine individuals who serve as local pastors).  '''One of the keys to getting your article to the top of the search engines is the amount of GLOBAL links to your articles.'''  Now given that a very large percentage of English speaking internet users are Americans it is suicide to be anti-American in your article.   At the same time, you want English speakers from England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and India, and other countries to link to your articles.  A way to optimize global links to your articles is to have the weight of your articles mention American events and American experts the most but also cite experts from England, New Zealand, Australia, and even non-English speaking countries where translations are available.  In addition, mention other notable events/trends/statistics etc  in other continents nations as well - '''particularly English speaking countries as these will be your main audience'''.  There are a lot of Americans who do want to know about the rest of the world although there is certainly Americans who do not really care unfortunately.  I generally stick to talking about the Western World in my articles as I think this will gain the most English speaking readers.  However, recently I found some good information on Google South Africa that applied to the Western world and to South Africa.  

It has been my experience that if you create a high ranking article at Google USA that it has the greatest effect on the other English speaking Google rankings.  I believe this is due to Google USA having the greatest amount of users compared to the other English speaking Google search sites (Google UK, Google Canada, etc).  Also, I have found  that if you cite highly ranked articles at Google USA,  Google UK and Google Canada it is certainly not going to hurt your article search engine rankings in Google USA and will likely help! 

Here are some Google websites for English speakers:

Google USA for American residents:  http://www.google.com   About 300,000,000 people live in the USA

Google UK: http://www.google.co.uk/ About 60,587,300 people (to do research for your articles click the option too see only pages from the UK.  On the other hand if you live outside the UK to see how well your article ranks in the UK do not pick the option to see only articles from the UK). 

Google Canada: http://www.google.ca/ about 31,613,000 people (to do research for your articles click the option to see only pages from Canada)

Google Australia: http://www.google.com.au/ About 21,000,000 people (to do research for your articlesclick option to see only for pages from Australia) 

Google Ireland: http://www.google.ie/ about 4,156,119 people (to do research for your articles, click option to see only pages from Ireland) 

Google New Zealand: http://www.google.co.nz/ About 4,200,000 people(to do research for your articlesclick option to see only pages from Ireland) 



For various reasons people from Finland often can speak English.  About 60% of people in Finland state they know English.  Therefore, your material in English can reach people from Finland.  There are some English language websites which get a significant portion of their web traffic from Finland (say 6%). However, Finland is generally better to keep in mind on how well you rank at their Google than doing research.    

With the above being said about Finland, here are some other relevant Google service websites that have English content and audiences:


Google South Africa:  http://www.google.co.za/ Not sure how many English speakers

Google India: http://www.google.co.in/ Not sure how many English speakers

http://www.google.fi/  Google Finland  About 5,000,00 people


'''Effect of English language articles at various countries: 
'''

Generally speaking I try to target my articles for Google America and because Google America has so many English speakers it tends to have an effect on the other Google website countries I have found.  I have found for example that a highly ranked article say in New Zealand with an New Zealand URL which was a very good article did not rank well in the USA Google.  Generally speaking, while I may once in a while see some UK URL based articles, generally speaking UK URL based articles tend to not rank as well in the USA.  In other words, USA URL based articles tend to have a greater influence in the world.  I have found that USA and UK URLs tend to have the most effect on other English speaking Googles.  Perhaps, an implication of this is that English speaking ministries both in and out of the USA should use USA URL's so they have more worldwide effect but I have not done enough research on this to make an definite recommendations (of course, a downside of such a strategy is that if freedom is restricted in the USA then English speaking Christendom would have all its eggs in the USA internet basket which could prove to be unwise).    I do have a theory though that I want to share.  My theory is that when your article ranks well at Google USA but say it does not rank well at Google UK the best course of action is to do two things.  Get your article to rank higher at Google USA and also get more UK URL websites to link to your article.  Of course, the same would apply for other English countries but given that the UK has the second largest audience of English speakers I am more concerned about the UK than other countries.  I also theorize that if you can get your Google UK ranking to be higher that this will help you rank higher at Google USA and also Google Canada, Google Australia, Google Ireland, Google New Zealand, etc. 

I suspect that the reason why Google USA URL articles have more of a worldwide effect on other English speaking countries Google search sites is because nationalism is a potent force in the modern world.  I suspect that people often prefer to see articles from their own "hometeam" and because there are so many English speaking Americans that American URLs have a greater effect than articles on other English speaking URL countries.  Of course, I don't work for Google so it is only a guess. :)  

However, as i stated earlier, I believe the '''most important''' factor in getting your article to be top ranked by the search engines is by having high quality relevant content.  By searching other English speaking countries articles you increase your chances of gaining a top search engine ranked article through superior research in terms of your articles content.   

2. Again, the primary goal should be creating quality content.  People are often much more likely to link to quality content than low quality content and inbound links are very important to gaining top Google rankings.  Also, Google clocks how much time readers spend in an article and this partly determines your google ranking.  Quality content encourages people to keep reading.  Do NOT make any claims you do not reasonably support in the article.  Readers will often blow off such an article and not read the rest of the article when they read such a claim or claims.   This will reduce the amount of time they spend in your article and your Google rank will needlessly suffer.  Plus people will often not be as likely to link to such articles which will greatly hurt your search engine rankings.   Also, nothing will infuriate the opponents of an article more than an article than does not make unreasonable claims.  This will create internet buzz/publicity for your article. Also cite your sources and do so via footnotes rather than bibliographies which are much less user friendly.  Please keep in mind that Google ranks the links that you link to in an article.  Obviously it is better to cite an authoratative website than Joe's blog.
  
3.  Have a strong opening that makes a reader curious to know more and put the most relevant and interesting information at the top of the article and try to make a orderly progression to the article.  Remember Google clocks the amount of time people spend in an article in regards to how it ranks an article.

4. Handle some of the more important objections to a position (for example, pro-life) when it is reasonable to do so.  Avoid petty objections.  

5. If appropriate, make reasonable concessions regarding a position (and again, while providing reasonable rebuttals of objections if possible ) and when writing about a person or movement point out the foibles of people when it is appropriate to do so as it is better they find out about these from the article  than from other websites (obviously you do not want to major on the minors and talk about a parking ticket the person received).  Gaining readers trust is vitally important and trust has to be earned.  The Bible often points out the notable foibles of its main individuals and so should the article you are writing or helping to write.
  
6. As of November 30, 2007 the company http://www.google.com had about 78% percent of the market share for search engine traffic. (see: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=4 ).  If it is realistic given a cost/benefit analysis, set a goal that you or your team are going to reach the top 3 Google results for a web search because the top 3 Google rankings get the most web traffic.  At the very least you or your team want to be in the top 4-7 results.  I think an appropriate nickname for the Apostle Paul is the nickname "all out Paul" due to his zeal.  You want to have Apostle Paul like fire in your belly when you shoot for top Google rankings.  
 
7. Once you or your team pick an article topic find out what words or phrases people often or fairly often type in Google to search for information on a topic.  These words and phrases are called Google keywords.  A list of Google keywords is located here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal 

8. Use the list of Google keywords associated with the title of the article in your article in a reasonable way (see: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) as this is very important.   Do not "stuff' these words into the article but use the most natural keywords and do it in a reasonable way.  An example of Google keyword stuffing would be having an article on "Communism" and having the following "sentence": 
Karl Marx socialist party marxism Soviet Union Karl Marx.   The previous "sentence" was made up entirely of Google keywords and Google will heavily penalize for such gimicks.  

9. Create sub articles which the main article links to and have these articles be Google keywords although certainly not all of the sub articles have to be google keywords  (for example, you might cite an expert and have a short article on this expert).  Having relevant, quality, and interesting content is key and don't be afraid to create sections in your article or sub articles attached to your main article that are not Google keyword related.  The Google keywords merely tell you what the public is aware of and has a demand in knowing more about.  If you or your team uncover relevant and interesting information that the public doesn't know about this will drive traffic to your article so again don't be afraid to create non-Google keyword material in your article or non Google keyword subarticles that are linked to your main article.  

In regards to the Google keyword sub articles,  link these articles to the main article which you or your team are focused on making a Google top contender.  The sub Google keyword(s) articles often are very popular and create traffic for your main article.  Also, the main article creates traffic for your sub Google keyword articles.  This creates a "vicious circle effect" in terms of creating webtraffic to the articles.  You or your team might have to be a little patient as the Google web crawlers will likely find the main Google keyword article before it finds your sub Google keyword(s) articles.  Please keep the use of Google keywords reasonable and natural in the article.  The programmers of Google are not of low intelligence and I would think an article that uses every single Google keyword might be suspicious plus it would be very time consuming to create quality articles for a myriad of google keywords.  Also, this is would be likely gimicky and you might not be really focusing on creating relevant and quality information.  Again relevancy and quality are of prime importance and should not be subordinated to the over use of Google keywords that may not be relevant to your article.  You or your team can also look at the Google keywords for these sub keyword articles so these rank highly (again see: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ).  When appropriate also look up the Google keywords for these sub Google keyword articles.  For example, if you are writing an article on Communism you would create an article with the google keywords "Karl Marx" and look up the Google keywords for Karl Marx (again see: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ). 

10.  When you are creating Google keyword articles the Google keywords associated with a topic that are often but not always found here  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal is not all the Google keywords associated with a topic.  So say for example, if you go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal  you type in "widgets" you may NOT see that "widgets and wodgets" is a keyword phrase but if you type in "widgets and wodgets" you may see that "widgets and wodgets" is in fact a Google keyword phrase.  If you download the program SEO FireFox which is located [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html here] it does offer a nice keyword tool that will be located directly below the Google search box when you do searches. 

11. Don't create a Google Keyword sub article until its ready.  It is better to wait until you do further research and write a good Google sub keyword article rather than disappoint your readers with something of low quality.  The same applies to your non-keyword articles but don't be afraid to create short bios of various people you cite. Keep the reputation of your article strong.

12. When creating sub Google keyword articles it is vitally important that these articles are not 17% or more similar to your main Google keywords articles or 17% or more similar to other articles on your website.  Google heavily filters out/penalizes articles that are too similar (see:  http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html and http://www.searchenginejournal.com/duplicate-content-penalty-how-to-lose-google-ranking-fast/1886/ ).  '''This is a very important point and should not be neglected.''' 


'''Here is a website to check how similar the articles created are to other webpages''' so you avoid the duplicate content penalty: http://www.webconfs.com/duplicate-content-filter-article-1.php


13. It is perfectly acceptable to use information in other articles and to quote them.  However, do not make the main Google keyword article or the sub Google keyword articles 17% or more similar to the sources used (see step #8 above). Again this is a very important issue.

14. In relation to conservative articles or articles on conservative websites, do not rely on the press or blogs or internet forums to generate traffic for an article unless you plan on posting on some of the big blogs or forums.  If a topical area has very prominent blogs or forums and you post on them it can provide a boost for your articles and create internet buzz. If the article is an issue article post on both liberal and conservative blogs.  However, this step should only be used to kick start an already good article as may only create a short term effect.   Kick starting an article can be important because once the targeted audiences are initially reached word of mouth can sustain an article.  Also, given that the majority of the press is liberal it is wishful thinking to believe the liberal press will be of much help for conservative articles or articles at a conservative website.  If it happens that is great but consider that icing on the cake.  Often the blogs find out about an article because it has a fairly high profile via the search engines which are generating traffic for the article.  

15.  One excellent key to getting a top ranked search engine article is to have unique information in your article.  As mentioned earlier by searching Google New Zealand I was able to find some key information in relation to an article that was not widely known in English speaking countries although it was a top ranked article in New Zealand for the topic.  In addition, by doing other research using both internet and print sources I was able to create unique content in the article.  If you create some unique material in your article people will be more likely to cite your article with a link.  

16. Incorporate pictures in the article as this gives the article a professional appearance  

Here are some sources for finding pictures that are public domain pictures or may have generous copyright conditions:

Creative Commons pictures:

*[http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ Creative Commons]

*[http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_identify_public_domain_creative_commons_photos_flickr.html How to identify public domain photos on Flickr (this article maybe too simplied and please see the various types of licenses in the link above)]

Other sources of pictures:

http://www.pdphoto.org

http://www.usa.gov/

http://digital.nypl.org/mmpco/index.cfm

http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/

NASA and USGS photos 

http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/_use.htm


Here is the Google and Yahoo search function for finding copyrighted and public domain pictures:

http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi

http://www.yahoo.com/ (look at the top center of the page )

Pictures and SEO:

When I created some of the most popular articles on the internet for various hot button social issues I knew absolutely nothing about search engine optimization (SEO) for images/pictures on a website.  So please do not worry if you do not understand the pieces of advice in the articles below on search engine optimization and images on your webpages as some of the advice is somewhat technical.   However, since SEO is a largely a game of inches gained rather than knockout blows here are some articles on SEO and images:

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626884

http://www.marketposition.com/blog/archives/2006/12/seo_for_images.html  

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2008/03/30/using-images-in-seo/

http://www.naturalsearchblog.com/archives/2006/03/22/need-more-traffic-try-image-search-optimization/

http://www.phoenixrealm.com/image-rank-factors/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/03/12/formatting-images-for-seo/

http://www.blogohblog.com/tips-to-speed-up-your-blog/

http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/image-file-size.php

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/category/photo-optimization/

http://seofuture.blogspot.com/2007/03/optimize-image-for-search-engine.html


17. Put links to your articles on webpages on the website that the article resides on when it makes sense to do so.  Your key articles should be accessible within 3 clicks on your main page.  

18. Have a proofreader or proofreaders look over your article.  I have been told there is a woman who will do this for free for conservative websites and I am going to try to contact her. 

19. Call or email other websites that are related to the website article and have them link to the main article and/or sub articles associated with the article. Often this can make a big difference although I would not rely on it.  Wait until your article is of good quality before you do this.

20. Here is an email I received from a internet search engine expert regarding the above 17 steps: Your blueprint looks good.  I would add that it is important for Google to view your site as authoritative and as a hub – that is done by externals links with keyword phrase you are targeting as anchor text.  For instance if you are writing an article on “Darwin’s theory of evolution” – have links to high-authority websites – like http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com with the anchor text being something like “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution” or “Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution” or “Theory of Evolution.”  It is important to occasionally vary the anchor text to external articles or you will receive an over-optimization penalty. 

21. Periodically look at the talk pages for the article and incorporate reasonable suggestions.  Also, if you post links to your articles in internet forums or blogs you can get useful feedback. 


Here is an interesting article for those who are interested in creating an article which gets a lot of internet traffic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-little-piece-of-the-google-algorithm-revealed
http://proof.sitesell.com/victory4.html

==Article length==
There does seem to be debate on how long an article can be and still rank well.  The gentleman who trained me states you should not go over 70K for an article.  One reason for this advice is the many people still use dialup internet service.  If your article is very long it will take long to load and some people with dialup who click on your article will give up if the page takes too long to load.  However, there is a way around this and it will be explained below.

Generally speaking it is harder to rank well for very short stubby articles.  

However, I do rank well for two very competitive searches on social issues and my articles take throw everything but the kitchen sink at them approach.  So the articles are long in length.  I also well cite my material and pick good sources.  Those articles took a lot of work to do though.  I also am not sure how many people read much of the longest of those articles I created as I do not have the data as I hosted the material at a website I do not own.  In general people do hava a habit of skimming and reading internet articles by reading the title sections they are interested in and then reading those sections. However, the articles in question do get a lot of clicks on the articlea as I have access to the webpage counters.  By the way,  one of the reasons I took a throw everything at them but the kitchen sink approach is that I wanted to create a one stop shopping approach as far as the relevant information plus I figured a throw everything at them but the kitchen sink approach would get a lot of publicity and the article would rank high at the search engines. At the time I wrote those articles my knowledge of search engine optimization was much more limited but I did have good research skills compared to most people.

SEO expert Aaron Wall of [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] states the page length should be optimized for the user experience.  Aaron Wall states at [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] that "Since Google's relevancy algorithms are looking more for natural writing, the value of having small hyper-focused pages is not as good as it once was...good copy gets just as much traffic for long tail keywords you didn't intend on optimizing for."
===Way to Avoid Your Article Appearing Too long or Taking Too Long to Load===
There is a way to avoid your appearing too long when initially looking at the page.  Also, you can avoid the article/webpage from taking too long to load for dialup internet surfers.  In other words, you can have your article be more than 70K if you wish.   You do this by creating a landing page with no more than 70K of material and then you have a tab on the bottom saying "Explore More Now!" or something similar like this article does:

http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

==A word of warning==
If any of the websites I cited recommend using a submission service or submission software to submit your website to the search engines don't do it.  Doing this could get your website banned by search engines. I believe that submitting your websites to various search engines is a complete waste of time.  Please read: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/search-engine-optimisation/submit-search-engines.shtml

==Getting Links to your website==
A very important part of getting your website to rank higher for the search engines is getting more website to link to you.  About 65% of getting your webpage to rank high for Google is determined by the amount and types of links that link to you.  The other 35% is determined by on-page factors (keyword frequency/density, etc. etc. ).  

==General Overview About Websites Linking to your website or article==
http://www.marketleap.com/help/seo101/linkpopularity.htm

==Internet Publicity, Viral Buzz, and Viral Marketing Resources==
===Viral Marketing===
The website http://www.marketingterms.com/ states the following regarding viral marketing:

"Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message....


Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth quickly fizzles."[http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/]

Social networks on the internet can help pass along marketing messages.   


http://www.copyblogger.com/how-to-get-huge-viral-buzz-for-your-start-up/

http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-mine-blogosphere-podcast-with.html

http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/2007/05/5-rules-of-social-media-optimization.html

http://goviral.com/viralradar.php

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/viral-marketing-tricks/

http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/documents/Viral_Marketing.pdf

http://www.dfj.com/cgi-bin/artman/publish/steve_tim_may97.shtml

http://www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mm_viral

http://www.webinknow.com/2008/01/the-new-rules-o.html

http://marketing.about.com/od/viralmarketing/Viral_Marketing.htm

http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/viralmarketing.htm
===Internet Publicity===
Eric Ward is a highly paid internet consultant who specializes in link building. Mr. Ward definitely does use internet publicity to get his clients to rank higher at the search engines as can be seen here: http://www.ericward.com/content-publicity-plan.html

According, I do highly recommend buying this book which I recently purchased and I am very impressed with (I am guessing it is currently the best book on the subject and he does mention Eric Ward's name in the acknowledgements page of his book): 

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0471105805&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Complete Guide to Internet Publicity: Creating and Launching Successful Online Campaigns]  '''BUY THIS BOOK - IT IS AWESOME''' (It does awesome advice on gaining internet publicity, but its advice that SEO is not worth the investment is rather dated and extremely poor advice.  At the same time, internet publicity can gain a lot of inbound links and I highly recommend getting internet publicity)

===Internet Press Releases===
My friend who is an SEO consultant definitely uses internet press releases.  Currently on the internet, there are both paid and unpaid internet press release websites (I am guessing the free press release websites are advertisement supported). 

Here is a good article on internet press releases: 

*[http://mashable.com/2008/11/04/how-to-make-press-releases-seo-friendly/ 10 Ways to Make Press Releases More SEO Friendly]

I suggest for most websites spacing out the press releases (One press release for the first month and then 2 per month subsequently until you achieve your desired results).

===Books on how to Reach People through Viral Marketing, Blogs, Press Releases, etc===

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0470113456&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0471105805&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Complete Guide to Internet Publicity: Creating and Launching Successful Online Campaigns]  '''BUY THIS BOOK - IT IS AWESOME''' (It does awesome advice on gaining internet publicity, but its advice that SEO is not worth the investment is rather dated and extremely poor advice.  At the same time, internet publicity can gain a lot of inbound links and I highly recommend getting internet publicity)

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0910627576&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr How to Use the Internet to Advertise, Promote and Market Your Business or Website with Little or No Money]

==Selling Informational Products on the Internet==

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1600370934&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider's Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet!]

*[http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=puttinglinkso-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000SBZ984&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with books, E-Books and Information Products ]

==Highly Suggest Getting these Non-Free Articles on Linking and Other Important Subjects==
SEOmoz is a Seattle-based SEO company and it serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide. SEOMOZ provides education, tools, resources and paid services.  

I think the most important resource that SEOMOZ provides is their main SEO articles that are designed for beginners.  I suggest signing up for the SEOMOZ program for a month and copying their articles which are labeled beginner and essentials articles.  The cost for a month's membership is $49.  I was able to help solve a very big problem a client of mine had through a small article I found at SEOMOZ.  

As far as their tools, I like rank checker which is a free tool.  I also like their keyword difficulty tool which is not a free tool.  I only used their Juicy link finder tool once but it did give me a excellent lead to a keyword category through one of the links it listed.  I don't like their Trifecta tool.  

Please go to this link to go to the SEOMOZ website:

*[http://www.pntrs.com/t/Qj1BR0FFPUFFSERHPUNFQg SEOmoz offers professional, step-by-step guides that will teach you strategies and tactics necessary to improve your site's traffic.]
==Importance of Getting High Search Engine Rankings==
Here are two resources which mention the traffic distribution based on search engine rankings:

*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xvia4VucB8 Study on search engine rankings for natural search results]

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-rank-355-custom.html Traffic distribution by Google ranking] (I would look at the entire page's material)


As you may recall, in most cases websites receive a majority of their web traffic from less popular searches called long tail searches.[http://www.searchengineguide.com/matt-bailey/keyword-strategies-the-long-tail.php]   So an effective strategy is to rank high for the less competitive searches and then have those articles feed traffic into the popular keyword searches for the category.  Plus have the popular keyword phrase feed traffic into the less popular keywords related to the the popular keywords.   By doing this you created a symbiotic relationship between your webpages for popular keywords and for the less popular keywords in terms of their keyword ranking.  You can use Aaron Wall's [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] to find some of the associated searches for a more popular search.

=="Link Baiting"==

I realize that the term "link baiting" is rather uncouth sounding and it conjures up that the notion that you are engaging in unpalatable methods to gain web traffic. However, please do not avoid using this powerful technique to gain web traffic merely due to its name.  Link baiting is merely creating content that is very useful to people (for example, a medical organization or life insurance company might create a internet longevity calculator with longevity tips) or that challenges people's ideas in such a way that it causes discussion across the internet and linking to your website.  There are other methods of link baiting as well. I believe this is an important concept so I have provided multiple links.

A Guide to Link Bait:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyt7hIqQa8I

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/link-baiting-effective-link-building/2797/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/09/19/an-introduction-to-linkbaiting/

http://www.jimwestergren.com/link-bait/

http://performancing.com/promotion/links/the-art-of-linkbaiting

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3623287

http://www.lunametrics.com/emarketing/search-engine-optimization/what-is-link-bait.php

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2007/12/link_baiting_96.html

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/004349.html

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-ninjas-vs-bait-pirates

==Politics + Religion - Muckracking Material - Bad News Travels Like Wildfire, Good News Travels Slow==
Whenever you write excellent material against the beliefs of a segment of the population, you will likely find that the words of Johnny Cash song entitled [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDT2XsGgL0 Bad News] will ring true. Johnny Cash's song states that "Bad news travels like wildfire, Good news travels slow."  

So what are the implications of this phenomena from a SEO point of view?  The implications are that if you have an accurate hard hitting article the opponents of your article will likely create inbound links to your webpage far more rabidly and abundantly.  After this occurs, you simply get high [http://www.googlearticles.com/google-search/google-pagerank-defined/ Google Pagerank] webpages articles that are contexually related that agree with you on the topic to link to your webpage (this is covered more in the link building section of this resource).

Another tip is if you are writing against X in an article, then it is a good idea to post in the top forums and blogs of X's supporters.  Google does look at the topical relevance of the inbound links to an article in terms of getting top rankings so if you want to rank high for X then posting in Y's supporters who are against X will be less effective.  At the same time, if a unrelated forum or blog does have a particular post or thread on a keyword or topic your trying to rank high for at the search engines, posting to it will have some good effect.  Some blogs ask for a name and email address when posting.  If a blog ask for a name and email address, each person has to decide for himself whether or not to use a pen name.  I will say, however, that blogs sometimes do ask for name and email address but they don't ask for "Your name".  :)    If your privacy is a concern when it comes to posting in X's forums and blogs then I suggest using free or for pay IP blocking software solutions like [http://www.anonymizer.com/ Anonymizer], [http://proxy.org/ Proxy.org], [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2464 Foxyproxy], and [http://www.torproject.org/ Tor]. I don't pretend to be an expert on Proxies so I recommend going to the free [http://proxy.org/forum/index.html Proxy.org forum].  Here is a YouTube video called [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SxgpMjWdos What is a Proxy?].

==Link Building vs. Link Baiting==
Link Building (called link Ninja in a below article) is where you ask other websites to link to you and the advantage is that you can directly ask key websites to link to you.  Also, you can control better what anchor text links are from websites linking to you.  For example, if you have a canary article you want the hypertext that links to you to have the word canary in it.  When link building you want to vary the anchor text to keep the search engines happy.  So on some websites you might have the word "canary" when link building but on other websites you have the words "canary article" or "excellent canary article".  I am just starting out as far as link building and I am being conservative and just doing a handful of links of high Google PageRank value (please install the Google toolbar here: http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/index.html ) that are an exact match (for example, canary).  If you use a combination of link baiting and link building this should be less of an issue. I plan on learning more about this issue.  My guess is that you don't want to have a very compressed time period where you are adding links with anchor text that exactly matches your Google keyword (for example, canary) or the search engines will frown upon this (you don't want to get the search engines mad at you).  In addition, I am guessing that perhaps a good rule of thumb is to look at a fair amount of the high search engine ranked websites for a particular keyword and then use [http://www.pjatr.com/t/RD9JQ0dIP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI SEO Spyglass] to see what anchor text percentages are for the websites that link to them and then somewhat mimic these webpages in terms of the anchor text for the websites that link to you so you are not penalized by the search engines.  I am guessing that for anchor text that does not match the keyword you are trying to rank high for that you want to have many  variations of the anchor text that do not exactly match your keyword.  As far as using comparative analysis using [http://www.pjatr.com/t/RD9JQ0dIP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI SEO Spyglass] I suppose that Google could penalize all the top rated websites for a search term but I think this would be unlikely.  The issue of anchor text is expanded on in a subsequent section of this webpage which deals with a natural link profile. 

Here are some articles on the issue of linking building versus link baiting:

http://www.jimboykin.com/link-bait-alone-wont-do-it-you-need-link-ninjas/

http://www.jimboykin.com/expert-link-building-can-be-fun/

Please watch this YouTube video as it will give you very important information regarding the value of various links which link to a webpage at your website: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xvia4VucB8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xvia4VucB8]

All other things remaining equal, when link building you want to have the websites link to you from webpages at the site that is linking to you that have the highest Google PageRank if they are gracious enough to do so or it makes sense for them to do so to help offer quality and relevant material on a particular webpage of their website (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank ).  Too see what the Google PageRank for a website is you can install the Google Toolbar to your computer (see: http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/index.html ).

Various types of websites to get links from:

1. Get links from the top Google ranked websites for your search term or similar search terms

2. Post links at topic related forums.  Of course, I would recommend making reasonable post. The web is a social medium and people are less likely to click a link if your surrounding text is poor. in other words, don't go into a forum and create a discussion thread stating: Hey, check out this article on X!  Astute people will see this merely as spam (an advertisement) and not an attempt to inform. You can create a informative form letter type thread starter post and post it at different forums.  A downside to this is that some people hop around different forums or do Google searches on your post. 

3. Post links at topic related blogs.  Again, here are some resources for posting at blogs:

Use the search box at http://technorati.com/ to find recent blog postings for various topics.

Here are some additional resources and tips:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/20-essential-blog-directories-to-submit-your-blog-to/5998/

http://blogsearch.google.com/

http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/

If you are entering into a blog discussion with your link do attempt to read or skim what other people put in the surrounding discussion.  Otherwise, you will seem to be butting in the conversation. 


Since .edu domain websites carry more weight at the search engines you can do an advanced Google search to find .edu domain blogs that will give you more weight when you post to them.  I would not overdo this and try to put a whole lot of edu blog post in a short time and this will later be explained in the natural link profile section of this resource. 

Here is how you do it:

1. First got to http://www.google.com/

2. Then click on advanced search which is here: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Now supposing you wanted blogs related to atheism at edu domain websites.  

You would put the words atheism at Find web pages that have...

all these words:  atheism

Then you would put the word blog at one of the three boxes here:

one or more of these words: blog

Now some edu blogs will allow anyone to post to them but some insist that you have a special log on.
I would not overdue this edu blog technique and I believe you will see why when you read the material on having a natural link profile for your website/blog and the articles associated with your website/blog.

===HTML BLOGS Links VS NON-HTML Blog Links===
Some blogs insists that you use HTML coding to put in a link and other blogs won't allow you to use HTML.  Often you can use a preview button to test out your post.

Here is how you do HTML type links:

HTML

Let us say you wanted to have the hypertext for the link be the words Jesus is God so when they clicked the words Jesus is God in a sentence it would go to your website. Here is how you would do it using HTML coding:

Christian state that 
<a href="http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/">Jesus is God.</a>


Here is another example which would would the hypertext link "Is Jesus God?"

<a href="http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/">Is Jesus God?</a>


Now if a blog does not allow HTML you can simply post the following at a blog:

John, I think you raised a good point.  And the central issue here is the issue of whether Jesus Christ is God.  I think the following resource will be helpful in answering the question of whether or not Jesus is God: 
http://www.whoisjesus-really.com
===Library Links===
As noted earlier Eric Ward is a highly respected internet expert who specializes in link building in order to raise his clients search engine rankings.  

According to Mr. Ward links from libraries are authoritative links which can be very beneficial in terms of raising your search engine rankings as can be seen in this article: [http://www.ericward.com/bestpractices/2008/11/revenge-of-librarians-dont-hate-me-for.html Revenge of the Librarians - Don't Hate me for Being Right] 

I have a friend who is an SEO expert and I very much respect his work.  He told me about a website resource which cost $200 a month to subscribe to and I was very much impressed with the training videos that I saw at that website.  One of the short video series at that website dealt with the best ways of gaining good library links.  I could kick myself now for not watching the series -especially since I believe an inward voice was telling me to watch that short video series. My SEO friend made me promise to never reveal to others that website so I have to respect his wishes in this matter.  However, if you decide after reading Eric Ward's article above that you want me subscribe to that service and learn the best ways of getting library links so I can teach you, please send me a check for $200 and I would be glad to do so.  :)   I do intend to subscribe to that website eventually on my own but there are other priorities I want to attend to first.  I am sorry but I cannot give you an estimated time when I will be subscribing to that subscription website.

===Post a comment search and link building===
I just watched a YouTube video and linkbuilding and it gave a good tip on link building as far as finding high Google PageRank blog posts: 

Here it is:  

1.  Go to Google or another search engine.

2. Type the word or phrase you want to rank high for the search engines followed by the following text:  "post a comment".  

Here is an example using the keyword dogs:  http://www.google.com/search?q=dogs+%22post+a+comment%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS293US293&aq=t
===Links from DMOZ and Best of the Web articles and main pages===
Getting your website or web articles listed in [http://www.dmoz.org/ DMOZ] and [http://botw.org/ Best of the Web] can be influential in terms of getting higher search engine rankings. [http://www.dmoz.org/ DMOZ] has an official policy that they prefer or require you to have only one submission to their website.  The rule appears to be poorly enforced (at lest in the past at a bare minimum) though and some websites have a lot of DMOZ entries.  I am guessing that within reason you should be able to have more than one submission.  For example, I am guessing that it would be reasonable for Subways to have a listing under food service establishments plus also have a listing under franchises.  It appears as if DMOZ wants volunteer editors who are unbiased so I suggest that if you apply to DMOZ you do not divulge any information that might lead them to believe you are biased.  I would think submitting your own website as a volunteer editor would be a big mistake. If do apply to be a volunteer editor say you are applying to be a volunteer because you think it is important that internet users have internet directories that can lead them to high quality resources, etc. etc.  And of course, it goes without saying that if you volunteer to be a DMOZ editor then you choose only high quality articles and websites to be submitted. When making a submission to DMOZ it is important that there be an editor for the category you are submitting to or it could take many years before the submission is put into DMOZ.

I have found that getting inbound links from [http://www.dmoz.org/ DMOZ] and [http://botw.org/ Best of the Web] articles and the main pages of these websites can be very good in terms of getting your articles ranked high by the search engines.

==Submitting Articles to Article Directories==
One way to have your webpages rank higher at the search engines is to submit articles to articles directories that link to your webpages. I have heard that there are software programs called "article spinners" which can create different versions of your articles so you do not have your articles filtered out of the search engines due to duplicate content filtering.  I have heard mixed messages regarding the effectiveness of article spinners.  I am looking into this matter via a friend who is an SEO.  

Here is an article I read on the best article directories to submit your articles to:

*[http://www.reviewbooth.com/link-building/best-article-directories/ Top 10: The Best Article Directories For SEO]

==Natural Link Profile==
Having a natural link profile is an important issue.  I am also guessing that as time goes on it will become a more important issue.

Here are some resources regarding having a natural link profile for a website of webpage:

http://yoast.com/click-here-to-read-all-about-a-natural-link-profile/

http://indexedcontent.com/featured/building-a-natural-link-profile/

http://www.jenniferslegg.com/2008/04/28/creating-natural-link-profile/

http://www.imjuk.com/2008/03/natural-vs-unnatural-link-profiles-in-link-development/

http://www.seo-scientist.com/natural-link-building.html

'''IMPORTANT NOTE''':  My SEO experience so far has been mainly caused based internet material.  With that being said, I think the best and easiest way to obtain a natural link profile which is effective for obtaining top searches is to use a mixture of link baiting, publicity,  and link building. 

'''A quick note''':  If you do link building try not to have all the links appear on the same place at the various websites.   Inferior link builders often get all their links to be placed on the footers of the various webpages.  You want to vary the locations of where your links are placed.

==Links, Search Engines, and Context - Link Reputation==
Some of the things that modern search engines measure in relation to your website pages are the following:

1.  keyword density/Frequency 

2.  The type and number of links pointing to your webpage.  Keeping in mind the issue of a natural link profile mentioned above another thing that is important is to consider the page reputation of the link that is pointing to your webpage. 

Again, please watch this YouTube video as it will give you very important information regarding the value of various links which link to a webpage at your website: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xvia4VucB8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xvia4VucB8]  

Here is are two articles on link reputation which is the reputation of the page that is linking to you: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/whats-your-link-reputation/  and  http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Link-Reputation-and-Your-Website.html   A key point in these articles is that Google and other search engines look at the context of the page linking to you.  In other words, if a webpage having a very high [http://www.googlearticles.com/google-search/google-pagerank-defined/ Google Pagerank] (lots of strong webpages linking to it) links to you may not necessarily help you rank high for the search clams if the webpage focuses on zebras (text on page is regarding zebras and zebra related sites linking to that page).  I am guessing if you have lots of high [http://www.googlearticles.com/google-search/google-pagerank-defined/ Google Pagerank] unrelated articles to your webpage that this could cause you to have a unnatural link profile.  In addition, all other things remaining equal strong websites that are OLD websites carry more weight than new websites that link to you. Of course, the best possible situation is if you can get a old contextually relevant webpage with a high Google PageRank to link to you (high PageRank very roughly means that lots of webpages link to it and/or several webpages linking to the page that have many webpages linking to it).  

Recently, I ranked very high for an extremely competitive search.  One of the things I did was create an excellent article and them I emailed or call the owners of the websites or webpages that were in www.dmoz.org for this topic and I got a high percentage of them to link to me.  Since www.dmoz.org is highly regarded by the search engines, I believe this is definitely one of the factors that got me to rank high for this search term.  I would also recommend contacting related websites that were in http://botw.org/ and get them to also link to your webpage since this website is also influential in regards to search engine rankings.

In addition, one way links are stronger than reciprocal links.  So ideally try to get websites to link to you without you linking back to them.

What if an authoratative topical webpage refuses to link to you?  Well one thing you can do is to use the [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] and  [http://www.link-assistant.com/go/?get=seoguy777&app=sg SEO Spyglass] programs to get the key webpages that link to them to link to you. Sometimes these webpages will not link to you.  No problem.  Get the key webpages that link to them to link to you.   Well what if these webpages refuse to link to you?  Well I have not carried it out this far yet but you certainly can get the key webpages that link to these webpages to link to you.  In other words, aggressively go after the supporting links of your competitors.

==Pacing your Link Building==
Since your websites link popularity depends on the quality as well as the number of incoming links, one of the errors rookies make is to use link building to get hundreds or thousands of incoming to their brand new websites very quickly through link building. Again, remember the information on natural link profile.  

Personally, I have gotten a thousand or even two thousand links pointing to a specific web article within a matter of a week on a website that was less than 2 years old but not brand new and my Google ranking for the article increased.  However, I did this primarily through link baiting so evidently Google considered the inbound links to the website article to natural links.  I am guessing that incoming links though link baiting look very natural and merely come though the social processes of the internet.   I also am guessing that Google considers the fact that websites often go though periodic ebbs and flows depending on whether or not they are in the spotlight regarding various matters. 

However, when you do LINK BUILDING you need to increase your natural link profile link building gradually, depending on how many links your site has been getting. This means if a site usually gets 20 new links a week, don't build 150 inbound links to it suddenly. Instead, increase the number of backlinks you get slowly but surely, by 5 or 15 links a week.  Have a schedule for your link growth and attempt keep that schedule and build your links to develop a more natural link profile.  Also, when calculating the rate that you have historically been building links in the past, please consider inbound links that are sitewide links from other websites to be just one link.   A sitewide link is a link that is on every page of a website or blog that is linking to your website.

==Important Link Building Tips From SEO Expert Aaron Wall==

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-linkbuilding-247-custom.html Important Link Building Tips]

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-linkbuilding-247-custom.html Word of Caution for Newbies and Reciprocal Link Software]

==Your Secret Weapon to Getting One Way Links to Your Website==
One the reasons why I created this resource is that I wanted to rank higher for a couple of topics which I felt Christendom should rank high for.  How did this resource help me?  Well, one way links to your website or web article are more powerful in terms of Google boosting powerful than link exchanges between websites.  Google does not treat link exchanges as being as important as one way links because they are "mutual admiration societies".   So using the Whois function on the free [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] software program I can call or at least email the website owners and I tell them I have an excellent article that fits with the content of their website that I think they would want to share with their readers plus I will send them a lot of free resources from some of the top experts on how to get to the top of the search engine rankings if they decide they like my web article and decide to link to me.  I tell then tell them that once they link to me it makes sense to give them this material as I want their website to gain as much web traffic as possible since they are linking to my material. 

I do feel that the person touch can be important when trying to get important one way links to your website.  I do try to compliment a website owner about his site when I telephone him.  


Here is an important thing to keep in mind about reciprocal linking:

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-linkbuilding-247-custom.html Word of Caution About Reciprocal Link Building]

I do feel that the person touch can be important when trying to get important one way links to your website.  I do try to compliment a website owner about his site when I telephone him and do it at the beginning of the call.  For important links,  if I send out an email to a webmaster or web owner although I developed a quick and to the point link request form letter, I do use the persons name if possible plus I try to say something very quick about their site that lets them know I did read something at their website and liked it.

'''IMPORTANT NOTE''':  I am not advocating avoiding reciprocal linking.  I think often the key to success in SEO is moderation unless of course you are watering down your websites quality material with inferior material!  :)

==Link Popularity Check==
I have found that a good and reliable way to see how many webpages link to your webpage relative to other pages is by using SEO Firefox which is a free program and you can get it here: [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SEO FireFox]


Here is a website that will tell you how many links your website has: http://www.urltrends.com/


http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/  (this website is sort of flaky when it comes to telling you how many links your URL or website has as far as what it shows at any given time.  Perhaps this is due to a website being up or down though as the website I was mainly interested in had technical problems when I used this tool.  However, it does seem to provide reliable access to the Google and Yahoo links that it does show.  For example, it might say your URL only has 257 yahoo links when it actually has 1,202 yahoo links.  However, the 257 links it does show will likely be accessible when you click on Yahoo or Google links.  One good thing is you can use this tool to see links your competitor has and then get them to link to you.

A more reliable checker of how many links a URL has is by using this program: http://www.seoquake.com/   However, it often only shows the number of Google and Yahoo links when you do your first search using a search engine and then on a later search during a internet session it will show zeros for these as far as a search for your article using a search engine.  Also, you can click on the number given for the Google or yahoo links and then it will give you the specific links that are listed.   Using the "who is" function you can find the telephone number or email for a website administrator and then ask him/her to link to you.

Here is a link for Yahoo explorer to see how many links they have linking to your webpage and just put the URL with the standard http:// prefix before your website's URL if appropriate:  https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites

==Free SEO Videos by SEO expert Aaron Wall==
Here are some free videos by SEO expert Aaron Wall:

[http://www.seobook.com/4515-9-3-31.html Free Videos by SEO expert Aaron Wall]

==Popular SEO Blog by SEO Expert Aaron Wall==
Here is a popular SEO blog by SEO expert Aaron Wall that is reported to get over a million views a month:

[http://www.seobook.com/4515-6-3-26.html Aaron Wall's SEO blog]
==SEO and Website Architecture==

Website architecture is very foundational to SEO.  

Here are some good resources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cFGY5PLgUw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxRXFXw8g3w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV4J-Z9-dbQ

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagerank-sculpting-parsing-the-value-and-potential-benefits-of-sculpting-pr-with-nofollow

==Importance of On Page Ranking Factors==
Previously I stated that Google off page factors (the amount and character of links that link to your website or article account for 65% of the Google ranking algorithm.  One could easily get the impression that on-page factors are far less important.  Well I have found that for non-profit articles that on page factors can be not fully optimized and still do very well.  I am sure if you are competing to make money with a website rather than rank high for a social issue or religious issue that the competition is going to be more fierce.  On the other hand, there are some religious related keywords that are highly competitive.  For example, I am betting that it is hard to rank #2 for the keyword Jesus or Jesus Christ.  If you want to rank high for the most popular keywords having to do with a particular large religion or philosophy the search is likely to be very competitive (Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, Atheism, etc.) so if you want to rank beyond the top 5 rankings or sometimes near the top ranking you want to really know your onpage optimization well or you must compensate by having extremely good content and very hard hitting and accurate linkbait that gets the opposition mad and they wind up linking to you to express their outrage to others (I compensated this way to get top 5 search ranking for extremely/very competitive keywords having on a social issue and also two others having to do with very popular worldviews in terms of their web presence). 

===A Powerful Example of the Power of On Page Search Engine Optimization Ranking Factors===

On page search engine factors can be very powerful because not too many people know them well so you can blow the competition out of the water before the race even begins.  For example, there is a webpage designed by the gentleman who is training me in search engine optimization and the search gets a respectable amount of searches per day - 275 by the three major search engines. My friend's article ranks #2 right after Wikipedia for this search (Wikipedia is extremely tough to compete with for any given search).  

Unfortunately, although I give many on-page factors that search engines use to rank web pages, teaching people on page optimization is beyond the scope of this resource as their is a lot to learn. If you need professional help my name is Ken and I work with a SEO veteran with a lot of experience to do SEO work and you can reach me at kendemyerATgmailDOT.com

==SEO and Hosting Company Server Speed and Reliability==
The search engines want your customers to have an enjoyable experience on the web and want your website to load sufficiently fast and reliably and will penalize your rankings if you have a slow and unreliable loading of your website webpages.  Here is an article on that subject: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/016901.html  The article says a superfast loading webpage probably doesn't increase your search engine rankings, but a slow one can.   I am not sure if that is true.  There are a lot of people who still have dialup and they may well prefer superfast loading pages.   I can tell you that I have DSL and I very much prefer very fast loading pages. :)  Now it makes sense if you make your visitors experience more pleasurable they are going to be more likely to revisit your website.  

If you have a lot of web traffic to your website I recommend using the hosting company http://www.datapipe.com  and you can see here they are a reliable and fast hosting company:

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/11/19/datapipe_and_rackspace_are_the_most_reliable_hosting_companies_in_october_2007.html

http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/Hosters

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/07/08/most_reliable_and_fastest_hosting_company_sites_during_june.html



==Free SEO Software - Keyword Research Tools==
*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox has an excellent Keyword Tracker (Once you install SEO Firefox look at the KW Research Link below your search engines search box] 
*[http://www.submitexpress.com/keytracker.php Submit Express Keyword tracker]
*[http://affiliate.wordtracker.com/r/699/a/157758/l/v42ax8 Free Keyword tool by Wordtracker]
*[http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html Keyword Discovery Tool]
*[http://www.selfseo.com/keyword_suggestion_tool.php SelfSEO Keyword Suggestion Tool]

==Free Semantic Related Words to Your Keywords Software ==
You do not want to overuse your keyword(s) or keyword phrase(s) on a webpage although I do give them definite prominence (in the copy and in the section titles.  You obviously don't want all of your section titles to have your keyword)  but not over prominence.  You also want to have semantically related words to your keywords on your webpages as these likely have Google rank boosting power.  



Since these are important SEO tools I am going to mention these tools again. Here is some free software that generates semantically related words to your keywords on various pages: 

*[http://www.gorank.com/seotools/ontology/index.php?keywords=seo GoRank Semantic word generator]
*[http://labs.google.com/sets Google Sets]
*[https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Google Keyword tool]

==Pulling Web Traffic from the websites of your key competitors ==
Two very helpful free tools for pulling web traffic from your competitors are [http://www.semrush.com/ SEM Rush] and http://spyfu.com/ which help you discover the keywords your competitor rank high for.  The results are not always accurate for these two tools and perhaps it is because they are lagging indicators.  Be sure to confirm the Google ranks for the results you receive from these websites.  These websites also have a pay for results option which will reveal more keyword results for your competitors.


==Online SEO Training==
===Online SEO Training Classes===

'''Aaron Wall Online Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Training Program'''

Aaron Wall offers online training classes for SEO and internet marketing and his material has been endorsed by the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania which is one of the top business schools in the United States.  In addition, Aaron Wall has appeared in the major media like the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes, CNN, CNBC, etc.  

You can sign up here for his classes: [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html Aaron Wall's SEO Training Courses]

One of the nice things about Aaron Wall's classes is that he teaches you internet marketing as well as the technical aspects of search engine optimization.  Most of the success that I had on the internet initially came from understanding marketing.  Content is still key when it comes to SEO.  

Aaron Wall offers excellent resources.  I LOVE his SEO FireFox software program which is offered for free [http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html HERE] !!! A small word of caution though. Although I have not personally participated in the SEO forum at Aaron Wall's website I suspect that some of the people there may be knowledgeable.  However, do not take as gospel truth everything you read by the forum participants because unfortunately there is a great plentitude of people in the SEO community who do NOT know what they are doing.  While the signal to noise ratio (good advice to bad advice) is much likely better than at most forums at Aaron Wall's website, I would not put a lot of stock in what you read at SEO forums on the internet. I am writing this word of caution because the gentleman who has provided me with SEO training has told me to not put any stock in what you read at SEO forums on the internet as most participants don't know really what they are doing in terms of their SEO knowledge.  In other words, they have not truly rigorously tested their advice to see if it is sound.

'''Search Engine College Online Search Engine Optimization Training Program'''

Another program for learning SEO is [http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=240_1_tlid_17 Search Engine College]  SEO College offers self paced online SEO training classes. The training packages for [http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=240_1_tlid_17 Search Engine College]  start at $145 and go up to $1,195.  You can find out about the packages being offered by SEO College [http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=240_1_tlid_17 HERE].

'''DMA and SEMPO Online Search Engine Optimization Training Programs'''

I have heard good things about the [http://www.the-dma.org/seminars/searchcertification/ DMA search engine optimization program] and the [http://www.sempoinstitute.com/ SEMPO Institute Training search engine optimization] training programs as well.

==Other Free SEO Software Tools==

Again,  I highly recommend downloading SEO FireFox. 

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-8-3-28.html SE0 Firefox] If you don't have the FireFox browser I would recommend downloading it now as it enables you to use important SEO tools plus it is a more safe and secure browser than Explorer.   You can download the FireFox browser [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ HERE].  Please watch the short video and please get this. I would only use this tool when doing SEO work (You can turn the software on and off by clicking the SEO FireFox icon at the buttom right corner of your computer screen) and I would adjust the settings so only the most important info appears automatically, PageRank (PR), age of website, total links to website listed by Yahoo (Y links), total edu page links listed by yahoo (Y! edu page links), and DMOZ.   I personally have good luck with Google not temporarily shutting me off for access to Google (Google only does it for about an hour or two) when I put a 2 second delay but you might have to play around with this.  If the first option to download the SEO FireFox software doesn't give you a fully functional piece of software like it did for me.  Use the second option.  I had to use the second option and perhaps you should use the second option first. 

*[http://www.seobook.com/4515-seotoolbar-356-custom.html SeoToolbar]  This is an awesome free piece of SEO software.  Please make sure you download it. 
 
*[http://www.seoquake.com/ SEO Quake] (please get this although admitedly I never use it now that I have SEO FireFox.  Again, only use when doing SEO work. 

*[http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/ Google Toolbar] I constantly use the free Google toolbar for Firefox which you can download [http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/ HERE]    It is also very convenient for non-SEO task. 

*[http://www.pjatr.com/t/RD9JQ0dIP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI SEO Spyglass] (they offer a free limited function version of this for pay software package and I would recommend looking over the free version at the very least.  I used the free version of this software package to help get me to the top of a extremely competitive search term.  It is definitely one of my favorite SEO software packages.  The paid version is only $87 and well worth the investment as it does so much more than the free version. 

*[http://www.webceo.com/cgi-bin/go/clickthru.cgi?id=seoman777 WEBCEO] (please do not use the search engine submission feature of WEB SEO )

*[https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=websiteoptimizer&continue=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fanalytics%2Fsiteopt%2F%3Fet%3Dreset%26hl%3Den&hl=en Website Optimizer by Google] 

Here is a YouTube Video on Website Optimizer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03b08HihCJI

*[http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html Touchgraph] Explore connections between websites for various keywords. Do not take the connections listed as been an exhaustive set of links between the major and fairly major players for a keyword search.  I rank well very well for a very competitive term and I know the software is missing some links to my website and the main website article for the keyword.  In addition, the software is also missing some a key websites I am linking to in my main article for the subject as well linking that is happening on less popular articles at the website my material is hosted at.  


Other free SEO software solutions:

*[http://tools.seobook.com/ Free Search Engine Optimization Tools]
*[http://www.seomoz.org/ SeoMoz.org Seo Tools]
*[http://www.linkvendor.com/ Link Vendor Free SEO Tools]
*[http://seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html 136 SEO Tools] (some worked for me and others did not)
*[http://www.webuildpages.com/tools/ Free Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Tools]
*[http://www.socialseo.com/the-top-15-free-seo-tools.html TOP 15 SEO Tools]
*[http://www.seo-expert-blog.com/blog/ultimate-collection-of-free-seo-tools  Ultimate Collection of Free SEO Tools]
*[http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/tools/ BeanStalk Free SEO Tools] Link Suggestion tools looks poor but others tools look good
*[http://www.devppl.com/msnbetarankings.php MSN Rank Checker]

==Free Demo SEO Software That is Semi Functional but not Fully Functional ==

I do very much like the SEO Spyglass product and recommend buying the program.   I would also recommend downloading the free version of the Website Auditor program as it offers some help on on-page SEO optimization.  I have not used the Website Auditor program to know how much I like it though. 

*[http://www.pjatr.com/t/RD9JQ0dIP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI SEO SpyGlass]

Since the SEO Spyglass in an excellent product you might want to check out these packages as well by the same company:

*[http://www.gopjn.com/t/RD9JQ0dLP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI WebSite Auditor]  (has help with on page factors)

*[http://www.gopjn.com/t/RD9JQ0dGP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI Rank Tracker]

*[http://www.gopjn.com/t/RD9JQ0dFP0NHSkZJP0NESkJI Link Assistant]

==Other SEO Software That is also Worth Investing In==
*[http://sites.google.com/site/seoeliteseoelite/seo-elite SEO Elite]

You can try the following software out somewhat by using the free demo software that is semi functional: 

*[http://www.webceo.com/cgi-bin/go/clickthru.cgi?id=seoman777 WEBCEO] (please do not use the search engine submission feature of WEB SEO )

==Link Building Wiki==

Unlike many wikis, only Administrators can post to the Link building wiki.  From what I have read so far it looks like an excellent resource. 

[http://www.linkbuildingwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page Link Building Wiki]

==Social Media Optimization==

Social media optimization (SMO) is a method of creating web traffic and publicity through social media and online communities.  SMO involves such things as getting high trafffic  bloggers, the blogging community as whole, and topical bloggers to blog about you.  SMO also uses such things as video sharing, photo sharing websites, social bookmarking websites, RSS feeds, social news buttons, etc. 

SMO can play a part for specific search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns or the overall SEO strategy for a website. The relationship between SMO and SEO is explained in the resources below.  

Here is a general overview of SMO: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_optimization Social media optimization]

If you decide to use YouTube in your social media optimization efforts, there is a software package called [http://www.TubeToolbox.com/?RefId=A0119 Tube Toolbox] which my friend uses and he is very pleased with it. [http://www.TubeToolbox.com/?RefId=A0119 Tube Toolbox] automates the tasks of friend invites, YouTube messages, YouTube comments, and sharing videos at YouTube.  When using the software it is important that you [http://sites.google.com/site/youtubesoftware/ follow my guidelines for using the software so you will have a harmonious relationship with YouTube as far as your use of the software]. 


Here are some websites which explain what social media optimization is and how to use it to gain more web trafic:

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630690

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/a-comparison-of-seo-and-smo.html

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014603.html

http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/social-media/seo-vs-smo/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrFXyFhspNY&feature=related Whiteboard Friday - Why Your Viral Content Isn't Working (VIDEO) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaY2m8Aeh6U  (Important video about being familiar with the culture of a major social media place)  

http://www.seo-scoop.com/2008/06/30/seo-vs-smo-traffic-quality-test/

http://www.vanseodesign.com/blog/social-media/social-media-optimization/

http://www.zeroonezero.com/design/index.php/search-engine-marketing-and-optimization/1474/

http://www.doshdosh.com/beginners-guide-to-social-news-sites/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-answers-sites/7233/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/69260/SEO-vs-SMO-A-Graphical-Analysis

http://www.seobook.com/4515-linkbuilding-247-custom.html

http://social-media-optimization.com/

http://www.britopian.com/2007/01/27/treating-social-media-optimization-as-another-distribution-channel/

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/SEO_vs_SMO.html

http://www.steve-olson.com/one-huge-reason-reddit-is-better-than-digg/  (websites with controversial content)

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/why-reddit-stumbleupon-are-better-than-digg/

http://www.doshdosh.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-stumbleupon-how-to-build-massive-traffic-to-your-website-and-monetize-it/

http://www.bloggingtips.com/2008/07/26/5-things-you-shouldn%E2%80%99t-do-when-using-any-social-site/

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2008/04/28/seo-or-social-media-which-is-more-important/

==Free White Label Social Media Solutions For Websites==
You are probably asking yourself the question what is a private label Social Media Solution?  Well think of it as your own Facebook dedicated and designed for website users.  The company OneSite which provides a free private label social media solution for existing websites states that the communities created by white label social media solutions can provide a 30%-70% increase in website traffic for existing websites. Now 30-70% increase in web traffic  sounds kind of high but there does seem to be a very quick growth of private label social media software being used.  

These free white label social social media solutions typically offer the following for free:

- message boards

- widgets (Widgets are pieces of embeddable code that can be found on one site, and embedded in another website that can be used to promote your website or blog.  They are one of things that are used to do "viral marketing" on the web)

- blogs

- free video upload tools

- a host of community / member building and interaction tools


One of the additional nice things about free private social media solutions for websites is that you can strategically place user-generated content beside content produced by your staff.  



'''Good News About White Label Social Media Solutions For Websites''' 

It's free!  Why? Because it is supported by advertisements which the hosting/software company provides!

Here is the best article I have found on Free White Label Social Media Solutions For Websites:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/24/9-ways-to-build-your-own-social-network/


===Ning===

It appears as if the leader in providing Free White Label Social Media Solutions is http://www.ning.com/  

'''Below are some good videos about Ning and the President of Ning:'''

Gina Bianchini shows off Ning

http://uk.intruders.tv/Gina-Bianchini-shows-off-Ning-com_a132.html

The video below has some horrible music but it does do a good job of giving Ning's features (please feel free to turn off your computer's speakers :)   ):

http://networkcreators.ning.com/profile/gina

Ning Demo Video:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/27/ning-demo-video/

YouTube video on Ning and the company co-owner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6yYB9arL0o


==URL Tips==
You want to avoid a main URL with a lot of dashes.  One dash at most.  For example, you don't want a website with the main URL being the following:  http://www.cars-compact-red.com 

Also, you want your file name in your URL to be relevant keywords and not merely numbers. For example, if you were writing an article on peacocks you would have the following URL at your website:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/Peacocks   

You would not want to have the following URL for a peacock article: http://www.yourwebsite.com/18393

Also, keep your main URL short and sweet.  This is bad main URL: 

http://www.YouDefintelyDoNotWantToHaveAnURLLikeThisForYourWebsite.com


Although this article is dated as it recommends more than one dash in the URL domain name it does appear to offer some good advice:

"The second part of the URL - the filename - is fairly easy to get SEO-ed. Using the same method you used with the domain name, you can create a keyword rich filename. Just add in the keywords the web page is focused on, separate them with a dash, and you're good to go.

One important thing to note is that you can over-SEO a URL, either causing a search engine to put up a red flag in regards to your site, or diluting the power of your keywords. The trick is not to use too many words in the domain name or the file name. This will keep the importance of your keywords from diminishing since they won't have to share significance with other, less important keywords." [http://www.impliedbydesign.com/articles/three-search-engine-optimization-tips-for-urls-the-seo-firms-wont-tell-you.html]

Here are two other good resource on URLs:

http://www.seobook.com/do-you-need-use-url-rewriting

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3628292

==SEO Ranking Factors Rated by Experts==
The SEO firm SEOMOZ put together a listing of the top SEO ranking factors that was put together by many of the top SEO experts and it can be can be found here:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ranking-factors-version-2-released

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

==YouTube Videos On SEO and Website Marketing Tips==

How to Start an Internet Business - Video 1 of 10 (watch all 10 vieeos as I think it is well done)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEU_Nw_3Qms

12 Search Engine Marketing Campaign Mistakes To Avoid 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUpcecRIiAU&feature=related

SEO - Title Tags, Anchor Text,  Duplicate Title Tag Problems, Total Amount of Link Authority, Strength of Domain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwCcD-J9eY

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Everybody Wants to Rule The SERPs 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdhtU-n-le4

Whiteboard Friday - Chasing Your Tail 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cclbcUJ7HUc

How to Use Social Bookmarking: Building Traffic & Your List 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGbMx0JTWFc&feature=related

Whiteboard Friday - Wiki-Wiki-Wiki WHACK! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSi60Zj6JXU&feature=related

Endrunning the search engines
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSEjKBprrHs&feature=related

Whiteboard Friday - The Juice is Loose 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ_XlhdzPVU&feature=related

Whiteboard Friday - Every Blog Has Its Way 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWLZX3LZHuM

==Putting Videos on your Webpages Made Easier ==
I have noticed that webpages done by professionals often have videos.  It must be because people like watching videos on webpages.  I know I do!  Therefore, from a SEO standpoint it should help because having video content that people want should drive up the demand for your webpages.  

There is a product which makes it easier to put up videos on your website.   It is endorsed by a Church in Minnesota that has a website and can be found below:

*[http://sites.google.com/site/webvideosorg/ Easy Web Video]

==More Tips on Launching a Blog and Getting the Most Web Traffic to a Blog==

Here are some tips on how to get more web traffic to a blog:

21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch
http://www.avivadirectory.com/successful-blog-launch/

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tactics-to-increase-blog-traffic

Search Engine Optimization for Blogs - SEO
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/08/15/search-engine-optimization-for-blogs/

20 Essential Blog Directories to Submit Your Blog To
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/20-essential-blog-directories-to-submit-your-blog-to/5998/

Blogging tips (directories are important for SEO if done right, ignore what he states)
http://www.thetlog.net/the-blogging-tips-series/

Bloggers and the Law
http://www.avivadirectory.com/blogger-law/

3 Things To Check Before Submitting Your Post To StumbleUpon
http://www.bloggingtips.com/2008/07/05/3-things-to-check-before-submitting-your-post-to-stumbleupon/

==Value of persistance==
Many people are quitters.  Being persistent gives you tremendous advantages over your competition.  I will never forget my first attempt at ranking high for a very competitive search term.  For about 2 or maybe three weeks I ranked in the Google #11 position (generally speaking most people set their Google viewing to see 10 search results at a time.  Although my article jumped a few times past the #11 position it would fairly quickly drop to the #11 position.  However, I now rank #5 position for this search last time I checked.  And I am expecting some specific good things to happen so I do expect to rank a solid 5 or higher in the near future.  

Please remember what the famous football coach Vince Lombardi said about his football games.  Coach Lombardi said he never lost a football game and that he merely ran out of time sometimes.  A nice thing about SEO is that the game doesn't end quickly like a game of football.  And once you learn SEO sufficiently, you should be able to hold your Google positions with not a lot of additional effort and merely some maintenance effort that is not very intense at all.  Often top rated articles even for competitive searches seem to have inertia in regards to keeping their top rankings for various searches.  However,  I was recently able to rank #2 for a very competitive social hot button issue as far as a search engine search so even sites with inertia can often be passed with sufficient determination.

==Thinking like a search engine - Easy or Hard?  ==
SEO in layman's terms is how to rank high at the search engines for various searches.  I do think that SEO is not rocket science and once you learn it sufficiently it can make a very big increase in your web traffic.  And of course, hiring an expert in SEO can make a very dramatic increase in your web traffic.     

Even if you are brand new to the concept of SEO, I highly recommend taking a tour of the website [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] written by the well know search engine optimization expert Aaron Wall and please do not be concerned if you do not understand all the terminology yet because you will learn a lot from this webpage I provided.  I believe it is important to be familiar with [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] because it will help make you "think like a search engine"  which is important if you want to rank high for the search engines. Thinking like a search engine is not that difficult to understand once you understand some of the basic concepts.   If you have some time now I would recommend taking a quick tour of [http://www.seobook.com/4515.html SEO Book] and I think you will be impressed with the quality of the material.  An important principle that Aaron Wall teaches is that the internet is a social medium and that you have to emotionally engage your readers.  In other words, bland webmasters often have a more difficult time.   Mr. Wall argues that getting web traffic is often a matter of engaging or enraging!  Aaron Wall also teaches that if you want long term success on the internet that mere gimics are not enough to rank high for competitive searches.
==Affiliate Marketing ==

Affiliate marketing is currently becoming a big thing in the business world.  You can have people sell your products and services using their websites and blogs and pay them only when a sales is made.   Affiliate marketing is where an organization has people sign up to be marketers of their goods and services at their websites and/or through affiliate network websites which have their own affiliates.  These affiliates put text links/banner/graphics at other websites/blogs and if people buy things within a specified period of time, they get a commission (most affiliate marketing programs are pay for performance [pay for actual sales] rather than pay per click).  Having a knowledge of affiliate marketing can help you better promote your website and your website's store products.  Many Christian ministries offer books, tapes, etc) that educate their readers.  An excellent company that will run an affiliate marketing program to sell your organization products/services is [http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=46&u=302406&m=47&urllink=&afftrack= ShareASale].  [http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=46&u=302406&m=47&urllink=&afftrack= ShareASale] is one of the bigger companies and they have won many awards from a popular affiliate forum which annually rates affiliate marketing network companies.
===Affiliate Marketing Training=== 

'''Affiliate Classroom'''

In 2008, Anik Singal is a finalist for Business Week's entrepreneur of the year. Anik runs an excellent and inexpensive affiliate marketing training class called Affiliate Classroom.  Although there is certainly people earning excellent incomes in affiliate marketing and Anik has an excellent school make sure you read the income disclaimer button material at the bottom of the page :) : [http://www.amclassroom.com/cmd.php?af=858155 Affiliate Classroom].  In all seriousness,  Anik was nominated to be the entrepreneur for 2008 and you can read about him [http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0908_2008_entrepreneurs/5.htm Here]

Companies can have an outside affiliate management company program run the program or you they can  install affiliate marketing software for their websites. 
===Affiliate Marketing Software=== 

The following affiliate marketing software was recommended to me should you wish to run your own program:  [http://www.idevdirect.com/13320.html IDevAffiliate]

==How to Optimize Local Organization/Church Profiles for Free Local Directories==

Here is an excellent article on this subject:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-optimize-local-business-profiles-for-free-local-directories/6739/