Look at links on your page. "Website Specials" should appear as link text 3-6 times. Those links can also do with an additional 'title' attribute with terms mentioned too.

<a title="Website Specials of Month" href=website_specials.htm>Website Specials</a>

You also want terms to be mentioned as close to end of page as possible. One idea is to have a footer with a link to an about-us page.

<a title="About ACME Website Specials" href=about_acme_website_specials.htm>About ACME Website Specials</a>
</body> </html> 

Now for a list of Don'ts

• Don't bother optimising a page that redirects.Don't use robots.txt or meta tags to impede search engine access to optimised pages.
• Don't use same colour text and background.
• Don't spam keywords with immediate repeats.
• Don't force any text to appear at 4px or under.Don't use frames, if you HAVE to, your serps are going to hurt in some engines.
• Don't fill your pages up with internal scripts. Where possible, use links to external scripts.

Actively seek external, one-way, incoming links with targeted key terms as anchor text.

Don't trust automatic linking software. It's far, far too easy to get listed in link-farms and dodgy directories when using automatic submission software. You want to ensure that you have a certain level of control over who and how your site gets linked. The most valuable links you can get are from highly (Google PR) ranked sites that are related to your optimised page content. (If you haven't submitted your site to http://dmoz.org, then do it now.)

Each time you submit a form or email for a link, keep a record. Part of a good SEO campaign is backlink management and you'll be glad you have records of all applications sent out when maintenance time comes round. When asked for a "Title" of your site, give your search term, e.g. "Website Specials", if possible. The title in most cases is anchor text for link. Remember, external links with your key terms in anchor text are most valuable. Be sure that site you are submitting to will give you a direct link, not a redirect link. You can tell by mousing over some example links and looking at status bar. If you see your domain name, go for it. If their domain name shows up with bunch of other values tacked on end, give site a miss.

When searching for link candidates, it's wise to have a Google toolbar installed on your browser. If there's one available for your browser, install it. If your worried about your privacy from Google's IE toolbar, install Firefox and get Google toolbar extension installed. Your main objective is to get a link on as many pages that have a Google PR of 4+. Totally avoid unranked pages and steer well clear of pages that register as a gray bar in IE's Google toolbar. This is an indicator of a site being "black-listed" for exploiting search engines.

Directories, directories and more directories. This is a good place to start. Many directories will give you a free link without need to reciprocate. Do a Google search for directory + 'your business category'. Here's a list of some high ranking directories: http://www.bestcatalog.net/seo_tips/directories.htm. Start at top and work your way down.Free Classifieds! Search for sites that allow you to post free or cheap classifieds with basic html enabled. Get your key terms in classified ad as anchor text for link to your optimised web page.

Discussion Forums! Start hunting for discussion forums with high ranking Google PR's. The forums must allow for links in your account signature. When making sig, be sure your key terms are anchor text for link/s to your site. Once registered, start posting your little heart out and be sure to enable your signature to be attached to your post. Each post = 1 external link. Join a dozen or so forums and those links will start piling up.

Press Releases! Do you think you have something newsworthy to say? Then write up a news story and be sure to include a link (don't forget keywords = anchor text) in body or by-line. Submit article to related sites in exchange for prominent links. Submit to all major web news sites. Each website that publishes article is another incoming, one-way link with your key terms as guiding light.

Do backlink searches on your competitors. Back link searches are search criteria which asks for sites linking to a page that do not include page's domain. For example, at Google a back link search for www.acmehosting.com would be link:www.acmehosting.com -site:acmehosting.com. Duplicate your competitors efforts and get your site linked where ever they've managed to.

On a finishing note, there's one important thing to realise about Google SERPs, "Sandbox" effect. It's theorised that Google filters new domain names out of all searches except for their own domain name for a period of 6-9 months depending on popularity of site's targeted key-words. Google PR rank and SERPs are inter-related but are not same thing. Your site can enjoy a Google PR of 7 yet still be sandboxed and appear nowhere in results for your targeted key terms. The only thing you can do is work on your external linkage and optimise more pages of your site. The hard work will pay off on steady incoming traffic and high ranks at MSN and Yahoo etc. When Google finally releases your domain, then you'll enjoy similar SERPs to other majors and reliable, incoming qualified traffic.

Mark Senden is an Australian professional within the commercial art and display service industry. His services are sub-contracted to multimedia studios in Australia, UK and USA. He is currently working in Brisbane, Web Site Design and Promotion at v2Media.

That's MSN and Yahoo, but what about Google?

The real big Question: What will Google do with RSS? How will they use it?

The key may lie in Tags!

Tags is another application of RSS/Blog you should be preparing your site for.

Tags have hit radar lately because Technorati, which indexes 4.5 million blogs, started sorting blog posts by using tags.

They have created a folksonomy, drawing tags from different sources, mainly Flickr.com which sorts or groups pictures and from del.icio.us -- where you create a tag when you bookmark a page.

Or if your blogging software supports categories -- this will be recognized by Technorati as a tag.

If you want to create a 'tag' it's very simple; just place this code in your blog:

<*a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Computers" rel="nofollow" rel="tag">Computers<*/a> (remove asterisks in actual code)

and you will have created a tag for computers.

These are really keywords for blogs and you should take advantage of them to bring targeted traffic to your site or blog.

Webpages can even be designed around these tags and RSS Feeds. Directly deliver or pull all this content onto an RSS Supersite. Say you have a website on 'notebook computers'! You could pull RSS Feeds on all different brands, all product review materials, all company information or updates, etc. and build a content rich RSS Supersite.

You could even compile this Supersite into an RSS Feed and deliver it to all your interested prospects. Might make a very effective marketing system!

Information runs net, RSS Feeds is now most efficient way to deliver that information. It's nature of beast; blogs and RSS Feeds are more 'on topic' than webpages. They deliver highly concentrated 100 proof content.

They're closer to spider!

You get your content without graphics, add-ons, website follies...it's closer to heart of matter. RSS delivers pure content. It's original acronym stood for rich site summary. Give me what spider sees and leave frills behind!

Right now, webmasters can, for lack of a better word -- 'turbo-charge' their sites with these RSS Feeds. You can add daily updated targeted content for your site. Should make any decent SEO smile.

Right now, webmasters should be positioning their sites for RSS. Those who jump first will get a leg up on their competition to say least. For any online business, a strategic tactic or move should be considering or planning their RSS strategies at this moment. Get your site into position.

For MSN example is just one application of RSS that's coming into view.

But watch out ... this gorilla is just hitting fan... on horizon there are endless streams of applications for RSS. Keep your eye on cursor... don't let RSS get too far from your radar.

The one who figures out real potential of RSS will be 'King of Hill' for a little while until something else comes along.

Titus Hoskins Copyright © 2005