Internet and Technology

Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins
As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it.
In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google’s Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google’s ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.
For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site?
Ten years ago it wouldn’t have mattered what Google thought of your site for it wasn’t even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want.
Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic – you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site.
Google doesn’t as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it’s getting close to 70% of U.S. traffic and in some countries it’s up over 90%. But it’s not only the search numbers which makes Google king – it is the prestige and power of the Google brand name. Google has truly permeated into popular culture and the public psyche like no other brand name in history.
Google brings respect and trust into the equation. Web users respect and trust Google to give them a quality answer to their question. That’s why it was rather ironic, that for years webmasters have been asking Google about their ranking system, their algorithm, their practices… for years Google remained for the most part silent. This was mainly to keep at bay, those who would like to “game” the system in order to get high rankings within Google.
Until now that is, maybe it’s just me but doesn’t it appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just couldn’t find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent with it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.
In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others… have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the “burning questions” webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for “Google Webmaster Help | Google Groups” if you will to find these sessions.
Since I run several modest sites on webmaster tools and Internet marketing I am approached by more than a few people who want me to help them build their online site or business. One of the major issues that always comes up somewhere in the process (usually phrased in different ways) is this question:
What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?
Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.
What is Google’s Golden Rule?
Many experts believe it is related to relevancy – the key to getting high rankings is how relevant your content is to the question being asked? Maybe so, but in order to explain it to a would-be webmaster, I had to find the words that would most appropriately sum up Google’s prime directive?
After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue… this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:
“Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site.”
This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the “visitor’s experience” and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product, it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they’re happy, Google is happy. And if everyone’s happy then the kingdom grows.
Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can’t be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.
However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you’re trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.

The Amazing Google Adsense Program is today towering like a Colossus in the Internet. It has helped some smart Internet Marketers to make huge amounts of money, for more help visit towww.google-atm-machine.com. while at the same time it is interesting to note that many new Internet Marketers and Internet Home-Based Business Entrepreneurs are receiving their first pay check from Google AdsenseGoogle Adsense is a program designed by Google that can generate advertising revenue for your website. Relevant Text and Image ads. Targeted to your website content are delivered by Google. Additionally if you place a Google Search Box in your website, relevant text ads. Are displayed when a search request is made by a website visitor. Google will pay you for all valid clicks. Made by your website visitors on the ads. Or search results pages. Another new addition is the Google Adsense Referrals Feature, whereby you can generate additional income by displaying Google’s Referral Buttons on your web pages.You have to apply to Google Adsense by completing an online application form at Once the application is approved, you will be able to participate. You then have to copy and paste a HTML code that is provided by Google Adsense into your web pages. The code creates relevant ads. To the content of the page. When a visitor clicks on it Google pays you.Anyone who has a website can join the Adsense program but not adult and hate sites. You have to comply with Google’s program policies. It is Free to join. Google has a massive advertiser base and they have ads. For more detail go to: www.youradsenseprofits.com.On the ready for all categories of businesses. They also have ads. Ready to match different types of content sites, from a pet store site to that of a highly sophisticated technological site.Google Adsense can be used in many languages. It is also targeted geographically and hence Global business can take advantage of this and webmastersLiving in any part of the world can participate.The obvious answer is to make money from home. It does not cost you anything if you have a website, so why miss the opportunity to make money from home. Google pays you monthly if your earnings reach $100.The Google Adsense checks are a blessing to a large number of newbies with low budgets eager to make money from home. Some webmasters feel that Adsense ads. Can lead their visitors away from their site. This possibility is there but if you have a website with good content they will always come back.The Adsense program is Web related and hence you must have a website to participate. Once your website is ready and the contents optimized, you can submit your application. The Adsense program is not restricted only to high page rank sites as some seem to think.Google approves most of the sites but ensures that they are of acceptable standard. Normally they are approved within 2-3 days. Once approved you can immediately participate in the Adsense program by logging into your accountThe Adsense ads. Can be placed anywhere in your web pages, but there are specific areas in your web pages that are recommended by Google which have been found to generate more clicks.According to Google and our own experience: Ads placed above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold.Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.Ads placed at the top of the page and at the left generally perform better than others.Ads at the bottom of long articles and those that are integrated or merge with the content too perform very well.Of course there are other strategies, such as creating high paying keywordContent pages to suit individual sites and also generating more traffic to your site. These have to be implemented too, to ensure success.The Google Adsense Program has come to stay. It is a great way to earn an additional income for most webmasters and a big income for some who have made the Adsense Program as the main source of income. Which ever way you look at it the Adsense Program is a happy hunting ground for all and these Tips can help you get started.The Amazing Google Adsense Program is today towering like a Colossus in the Internet. It has helped some smart Internet Marketers to make huge amounts of money, for more help visit towww.google-atm-machine.com. while at the same time it is interesting to note that many new Internet Marketers and Internet Home-Based Business Entrepreneurs are receiving their first pay check from Google AdsenseGoogle Adsense is a program designed by Google that can generate advertising revenue for your website. Relevant Text and Image ads. Targeted to your website content are delivered by Google. Additionally if you place a Google Search Box in your website, relevant text ads. Are displayed when a search request is made by a website visitor. Google will pay you for all valid clicks. Made by your website visitors on the ads. Or search results pages. Another new addition is the Google Adsense Referrals Feature, whereby you can generate additional income by displaying Google’s Referral Buttons on your web pages.You have to apply to Google Adsense by completing an online application form at Once the application is approved, you will be able to participate. You then have to copy and paste a HTML code that is provided by Google Adsense into your web pages. The code creates relevant ads. To the content of the page. When a visitor clicks on it Google pays you.Anyone who has a website can join the Adsense program but not adult and hate sites. You have to comply with Google’s program policies. It is Free to join. Google has a massive advertiser base and they have ads. For more detail go to: www.youradsenseprofits.com.On the ready for all categories of businesses. They also have ads. Ready to match different types of content sites, from a pet store site to that of a highly sophisticated technological site.Google Adsense can be used in many languages. It is also targeted geographically and hence Global business can take advantage of this and webmastersLiving in any part of the world can participate.The obvious answer is to make money from home. It does not cost you anything if you have a website, so why miss the opportunity to make money from home. Google pays you monthly if your earnings reach $100.The Google Adsense checks are a blessing to a large number of newbies with low budgets eager to make money from home. Some webmasters feel that Adsense ads. Can lead their visitors away from their site. This possibility is there but if you have a website with good content they will always come back.The Adsense program is Web related and hence you must have a website to participate. Once your website is ready and the contents optimized, you can submit your application. The Adsense program is not restricted only to high page rank sites as some seem to think.Google approves most of the sites but ensures that they are of acceptable standard. Normally they are approved within 2-3 days. Once approved you can immediately participate in the Adsense program by logging into your accountThe Adsense ads. Can be placed anywhere in your web pages, but there are specific areas in your web pages that are recommended by Google which have been found to generate more clicks.According to Google and our own experience: Ads placed above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold.Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.Ads placed at the top of the page and at the left generally perform better than others.Ads at the bottom of long articles and those that are integrated or merge with the content too perform very well.Of course there are other strategies, such as creating high paying keywordContent pages to suit individual sites and also generating more traffic to your site. These have to be implemented too, to ensure success.The Google Adsense Program has come to stay. It is a great way to earn an additional income for most webmasters and a big income for some who have made the Adsense Program as the main source of income. Which ever way you look at it the Adsense Program is a happy hunting ground for all and these Tips can help you get started.www.thegoogleincome.-empire.comwww.yourgoogleincome.com

Most search engine comparison tables will show you usage statistics that are something like this:
64% Google
14% Yahoo
14% MSN
08% AOL, All the Web, and all others combined
Those are simple search engine usage statistics. While they might be accurate as far as how much a search engine is used there is a much bigger picture to consider, especially if you own a business Website.
Let me give you an example. I just met with a local florist last month to help him figure out why his pay-per-click numbers seemed so skewed. Although 70% of his visits came from Google Adsense, only 30% of his sales came from those leads. While MSN only supplied 28% of his traffic, it generated 64% of his sales. That’s almost exactly opposite what you would assume. Why is this?
There are a number of reasons but here are the main ones…
1) MSN is the default search engine on any new Windows installation. With more people aged 55 plus getting new computers, they generally stick with the default home page of MSN.com.
2) MSN is often the preferred choice for many small business owners and working professionals due to the information available at a glance on the MSN.com home page, such as stock info, breaking news, and anything else you want to customize.
3) MSN has a higher number of users in the age specific financial sweet zones of 34 to 54 and 55 plus than Yahoo or Google. MSN also has more income earners between $30K and $100K than Google or Yahoo.
And a bit more generally, Google seems to be the cool place where kids, teens and tweens go for info. That’s perfect if your business caters to this market but if you’re looking for the credit card holder who has better stuff to do than surf the Web and wants to make the purchase and move on, then MSN is a good bet.
So how can you start to benefit in time for the holidays? (And yes. I know Thanksgiving is this week.) Here are your best two bets:
The Pay Per Click Method
You can setup an adCenter account at https://adcenter.microsoft.com/ and start getting targeted traffic right away. The drawback of course, is that you are paying for leads. The upside is that the chances of having kids click on your links just out of curiosity are pretty slim.
Organic Search Engine Optimization
MSN is the easiest search engine of all to get natural search engine ranking on and one of the more famous SEO experts, Dave Kelly, even developed a method specifically to get on top of MSN quickly, called Search Engine Loophole http://www.SELoophole.com ($67.) BTW, I found it also works on Yahoo for quick top 3 results.
So, to summarize, it’s worth it to take a closer look at MSN. While it might not be the most popular in the world, chances are it is popular with those who want to buy what you are selling.

As you may know, the AOL unit at Time Warner has been thrashing around for the last year while trying to find a way to remain relevant. The problem for AOL, of course, is the continually decreasing use of dial-up modems as a method for accessing the Internet. Depending on the study you look act, dial-up modem access now accounts for approximately 40 percent of all Internet users. This number is consistently dropping as DSL and cable Internet access systems become more popular. The resulting struggles at AOL are having an interesting impact on the search engine wars.

Google and MSN are trying to position themselves to dominate online search. The situation boils down as follows: Google is the king, MSN wants to be it. This situation takes on particularly interesting impact when one considers that Google now supplies ads and search results to AOL. In doing so, Google derives roughly 10 percent of its revenues from the AOL relationship.

In the summer of 2005, rumors started that AOL was for sale. MSN and Google were obvious buyers. The only problem was both companies realized AOL was a good short term play, but a terrible long term one given the death of dial-up modem systems. So who would buy AOL and how much would they be willing to pay? Would Google let MSN swipe 10 percent of its business? If so, how high could Google drive up the price of AOL for MSN?

Google Makes Major Mistake

If rumors are to be believed, MSN and Time Warner have reached a deal on the AOL platform. So, how much will MSN pay Time Warner for AOL?

Nothing. Not one penny.

By the end of December 2005, MSN and Time Warner are expected to announce a partnership wherein the two companies will intertwine their Internet units and pursue joint advertising efforts. In turn, Google will be kicked off all AOL listings, to be replaced by MSN or some AOL-MSN mix of search results and advertisements.

The executives at Google are making a major mistake, a critical blunder. Google will lose 10 percent of its business to MSN without MSN being required to expend any resources for the business. The Google Adwords program, the primary revenue source for Google, will no longer be on AOL. Surely Google could have come up with something more enticing to AOL or at least forced MSN to pay some serious cash for the acquisition. Instead, it failed on both accounts.

Google is a great search engine, but this is just one in a number of business mistakes made by the Internet giant. How could it lose 10 percent of its business without making MSN pay for it? If MSN pulls this off, one will wonder who is at the controls at Google and what they could possibly be thinking.

Home Building Blog Journal Article

SEO and Marketing with MSN

Blog Building for the Remodeling and Home Building World

Search Engine Optimization Success

Why MSN Search Optimization Ranking is important.

Being directly involved in the understanding home building and remodeling success forums and blogs is a primary focus for myself. The goal of this article however is to help those looking to improve search engine optimization rankings as well as a primary focus on finding success with blog ranking and show why MSN rankings are important in search engine optimization.

The Blog world for the real estate market real estate market and the home building industry has really taken off and is now an established effective tool for sales and marketing. This is becoming a predominant success force even in the smaller home remodeling industry. The demand for being included in this blog world may be a very significant item for your growth in these fields. Stressed heavily is the high rankings needed on Google and Yahoo commonly known as the power players or the two main forces in rankings on the web. For blogs in the Home Building and real-estate areas I am stressing leaning more in the direction of MSN.

In the Home Building and Home Remodeling areas after researching many blogs (List of resources is after this article ) the evidence strongly is leaning toward successful blog effectiveness being better with MSN!

Why is the MSN Search Engine optimization so important?

MSN has taken a remarkable stride in its search engine optimization by targeting the younger generation including the beginning web site developers. The Microsoft Corporation has a potential marketing power that is starting to take effect. How? One prevailing way is when they included MSN Search into the home version of Windows XP. So those who have purchased a new computer (Younger Couples) are often searching via the MSN Search Engine option.

Who builds and buys homes? Younger Couples! They most likely purposes a computer recently including a Windows XP home package with MSN included.

Now that we have concluded to include MSN at the top of our search engine success strategies, the focus of this article is how to get top optimization with the search engine optimization force of MSN.

There are many elements to cover which will take Time, Understanding, and Planning To Do It, To Do It, To Do It, Right Job!

Sorry. I Have a Silly Song from the 80’s I believe in my head. If you know the title or the author can you let us know? articlesbase@remodelingsuccess.com

http://www.brandsconstruction.com/Blogb2/index.php

has other contact information.

What Can Help Us Shed Light and Find Success at Proper Search Engine Optimization?

When planning optimization for search engines and especially your MSN search rankings, consider placing heavy emphasis on using page success techniques. Similar to the Yahoo search engine, MSN appears to favor on page content. This means if you have good content your rankings will improve. Keywords and keyword density is important in your quest of improvement and building your MSN Search Engine Rankings.

Paying close attention to your choice of URLs, page titles, and web site descriptions all appear to be very important when desiring understanding of building high search engine optimizations.

Incoming link anchor text is also something to pay close attention to . Building a keyword rich anchor text provides a solid foundation for your search engine results. Good anchor text building will pay off with all the major search engines. Mixing up the anchor text is good for your success as over use of any one keyword phrase may cause suspicion and lower your rankings. Splitting your anchor text between a few phrases will help to provide you success in your search engine placement for more than one search term. This Variety may benefit you and even give you success including extra traffic from areas you did not expect!

MSN KEY IS KEYWORDS

Include Forums and Blogs

Forums and Blogs are also credited on MSN and if you choose to add a blog to your site this inclusion will add to your success of search engine optimization. Keywords are important to MSN so be sure to explore the best ways for your keyword placement techniques and you will find success. While the use of keywords on your pages is important remember it is of equal importance to use your keywords on your page title and in your website URL.

MSN is likely to reward up to triple the keyword density preferred by Google. To achieve search engine success optimization success involves finding the best balance between Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

If you are in the home building, real estate, or remodeling trade industry and looking to build your own website or blogging forum be sure to find ways to include your keywords into your Title Tags. MSN along with Google and Yahoo prefer a separate and Unique Title Tag fore every page on your website. Listing keyword after keyword after keyword will get you discounted for spam techniques so be sure to avoid this for your best search engine optimization.

Google gives little value to meta tags while Yahoo and MSN place solid value on the use meta tags. Provide unique meta tags for every page. A common mistake is using the same meta tags for all the web pages. Using four to five of the most important tags only may help your search engine optimization. If three keyword tags cover the topic this is better yet. The three to five keyword use has been considered and generally is the best practice.

This policy has had talk of changing due to the frequent use of larger search phrases. If you are aware of recent changes with the big three of Google, Yahoo, and MSN in regards to the number of tags recommended to use please let me know. Until this happens the three to five keyword range is recommended.

Remember the main Focus of MSN is your on page content. Do not Forget about your Off Page Optimization. When your off page content is in sync with your on page content this is when things fall into place and your search optimization becomes a success.

What is Off Page Content? Link Anchor text for incoming web sites should be here to ensure success. With MSN although link anchors are not as important as they are to Google, the link anchor text is more important to MSN than the links themselves. Keyword phrases included in your anchor text is more important than the keyword anchors themselves.

The Summary Of the Matter:

MSN will reward frequent keyword use if you are careful not to get carried away where you reach the level of spam. Paying close attention to your Page Titles, your Meta Tags, Page Descriptions, and your Keyword Density as well as using your keywords in your page URLs are all very important for your search engine optimization success.

In addition to this the use of keyword rich anchor text for incoming links is another search engine strategy that must be utilized correctly, and is a solid factor that will hold some weight for each of the big three as we mentioned of Google, Yahoo and MSN.

If you are in the Home Building or Home Remodeling field you may find more success when you apply your focus on finding the best optimization with MSN rather than Google or Yahoo. Younger couples are those who are building homes and remodeling and often browse with originally Windows XP packaging on their Home computers from Microsoft.

Blog Article Source

http://www.HomePlansForFree.com

http://www.brandsconstruction.com/WordPress/

3. Other Google AdWords Strategies

     Google AdWords Ad Positioning

    Although the profit margin on the product or service offered is a large factor, tests have proved that the first ad position on the first page is, generally, not the most profitable. Yes, it gets the most clicks, but it’s often a spontaneous action by the surfer before studying the ad. Sometimes the surfer is merely browsing the subject and is not ready to buy (commonly known as “tyre-kickers”).

    Tests show that the further down the page an ad is, or, occasionally, even on the second page, the greater is its conversion rate. The surfer has taken the time to read the ad carefully because he is ready to buy. Furthermore, the clicks are fewer; so, your overall pay-per-click bill is less than for a higher-positioned ad. The downside is that the click-through rate (CTR) of the lower-positioned ads is lower, which affects your Quality Score adversely and raises your cost per click.

    A happy medium is to aim for positions 4 to 6 on Google’s first page. (You can use the “Show Estimated Ad Position” and “Estimated Avg CPC” columns in the on-line Google AdWords Keyword Tool to determine the cost-per-click to bid for each of of your exact match keyword phrases, and then you can set those bids accordingly. These figures can, however, be notoriously inaccurate. Always check your keyword phrases’ positions afterwards in the ‘Avg Pos’ column on the Ad Group’s ‘Keywords’ index tab or by testing with a search on the main keyword phrases.)

    “Google Search” ads, “Content Network” ads, “Search Network”/”Search Partners” ads, “Placement” ads

    You can specify different maximum bid amounts for these various types of advertising. Because the quality of their traffic tends to be lower, bids for the Content Network (“entire network” option) and Search Network (Search Partners) (see Tactics > Search Network) should be kept lower and be more tightly controlled than those for Google Search traffic and the Content Network (“Placement ads” option). In the early stages of a new Google AdWords campaign, it is advisable to go with only Google Search traffic and switch other options off, to help you to control costs. Once you’ve discovered the keywords that produce the highest return on investment (ROI), you can enable other options for those keywords to see what results they produce.

    If you find that a Google Search traffic campaign is too competitive, don’t just abandon Google AdWords altogether; try a Content Network Placement ad (see Tactics > Placement Ads), bidding either CPC or CPM (q.v.).

    Testing and Tracking

    Ad Variations

    Despite what you may think of your copywriting prowess, you will not write the perfect ad at the first attempt. You may need ten attempts before you find the best formula. Although you may hazard a reasonable guess at the advertisement text that would attract visitors, the ONLY way to KNOW what ad text achieves the highest click-through rate (CTR) is split-test two ads simultaneously.

    Although changing just a single word can make a difference, do not split-test two ads that resemble each other that closely; Split-test two radically different ads. (Switch off Google’s option to show the better-performing ad more often than the other, as that would distort the test results.) After between 20 and 50 clicks it should become apparent which of the two ads is out-performing the other. Then replace the inferior ad with another and split-test again. Repeat this process again and again, each time reducing the textual differences between the two ads until you arrive at the one that performs best of all.

    To track the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads, go to your Google AdWords campaign web page, click on the Campaign name; click on the Ad Group name; click the ‘Ad Variations’ index tab; check the ‘CTR’ column.

    Always keep all the Ad Variations that you create, to check that you don’t repeat any inadvertently.

    Landing Pages

    Split-test your landing pages in a similar way, to discover which style, layout, text, call to action, etc. achieves the highest conversion rate. To track the conversion rates of your web pages for various keywords, go to your Google AdWords campaign web page and click on the ‘Conversion Tracking’ item on the ‘Campaign Management’ index tab.

    Always save all the landing pages that you create, to check that you don’t repeat any inadvertently.

    Keywords

    After a new campaign has been running for about a month, check the click-through rate (CTR) of all the keyword phrases in each Ad Group on its ‘Keywords’ index tab. Click the ‘CTR’ column header to sort the keyword phrases, mark the checkbox of all keyword phrases with a CTR of less than 0.5% and either ‘Pause’ or ‘Delete’ them. (If you have many keywords, it’d probably be quicker to do this in your specialist AdWords software tool and upload the keyword list to your Google AdWords campaign again.)

    0.5% is considered the benchmark of a poorly performing keyword. Such keywords cause your ad to be displayed but, for some reason, the people using the keyword in their search terms don’t connect it mentally with your ad, and don’t click on it. If several keywords have a low click-through rate (CTR), the overall click-through rate (CTR) of your whole Ad Group is reduced and its Quality Score will be affected adversely. Eventually, this Ad Group’s lower Quality Score will also affect the Quality Score of your entire Google AdWords campaign.

    This check should be performed weekly thereafter.

    If you really want to use those poorly performing keywords, remove them from the Ad Group and create a new Ad Group for them, or even a new campaign, so that they don’t affect your overall Quality Score.

    The Bottom Line

    Great importance is attached to the click-through rate (CTR), but, to put it in perspective, it is only a means to an end. A high click-through rate (CTR) does not make you a millionaire in itself; It’s revenue that counts. Your revenue is determined by the successful interaction between keywords, Ad Variation and landing page, all three working in harmony together.

    Maximum CPC Bid

    Don’t be afraid to bid higher than necessary for keywords in a new Google AdWords campaign during the first few days. This will establish your campaign with Google and, as your click-through rate (CTR) rises, your maximum CPC bid amount to achieve the same ad position will fall dramatically. Then you lower your bids and check again the next day. Repeat this process until your bids are minimized. You do this for all the keyword phrases in the Ad Group. If there are too many keywords to deal with manually, invest in specialist software to calculate the bids for you.

      CPC or CPM?

     Google ‘Content Network’ advertising (see Tactics > Content Network) gives you the option to specify your keywords’ maximum bids as cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) (“M” is the Roman numeral for 1,000, “mille” in Latin). CPM can be useful if the Quality Score is low or the cost per click (CPC) is high. If you opt to pay for impressions rather than for clicks, Google couldn’t care less about Quality Score or click-through rate (CTR) or even relevance; You simply pay each time your ad appears. Of course, it’s still in your interest to ensure that you follow the advice about relevance already given.

    It’s your responsibility to track the performance of your CPM ads, because Google doesn’t do it for you. Obviously, you won’t want to keep paying for ads that don’t convert. Moreover, you’ll still have to bid high enough to get your ad to be displayed in the desired position within an ad unit on an AdSense publisher’s web page, or even at all, and that cost could be quite high on a good-quality, popular web site that you choose for a ‘Placement’ ad (see Tactics > Placement Ads).

     Keywords

    Unless you have a six-figure annual budget and would be happy with a mere 10% return on investment (ROI), don’t bother bidding for popular 1-word keywords, such as “mortgage”. The competition for most single-word keywords is fierce, unless the niche is very esoteric. Moreover, searches on single words are made most frequently by people who are simply not ready to spend their money; they are merely investigating the market, gathering information; in other words, they are “tyre-kickers”. 1-word keywords would probably bankrupt you very quickly.

    2-word keywords are a better bet, but they can still command a high cost per click in competitive markets, surfers who search on them may still not be ready to buy, although they’re getting there.

    Keyword phrases of three words and up are known as “long-tail” keywords. (Note that the word “keyword” in pay-per-click advertising can mean a phrase of more than one actual word, e.g., “New York”. A “keyword phrase” consists of more than one “keyword”.)

    3-word keyword phrases have the highest conversion rate, according to tests. People who type three words as a search term have usually done their investigations, know exactly what they want, and are now ready to buy.

    4-word keyword phrases fare slightly less well, perhaps because the searcher may indeed be ready to buy, but is comparing prices for a very specific item, or is doing some academic research.

    Don’t understimate the power of negative keywords! If you sell tulips, you don’t want your ad to appear when someone searches on the term “grow tulips”. Although they may not click on your ad, it’d be an unnecessary impression, and its click-through rate (CTR) would suffer. Specify “grow” as a negative keyword. (Of course, if your Ad Group contains only exact match keyword phrases, there’s no point in specifying negative keywords.)

     Landing Page

    Relevance is covered above, and is by far the most important attribute of a landing page. Here is some advice about other ways to encourage Google to enhance your Ad Group’s Quality Score.

    Google values “real” web sites more highly than mere single-page “mini-sites”. The robot checks for links to other web pages, particularly a ’site map’ page and ‘privacy policy’ and ‘contact us’ pages. A ‘terms of use’ and an ‘about us’ page may also help. Hyphenate these page names as the file names, e.g., ‘privacy-policy.html’. Place the links to these pages at the very bottom of your landing page, in the footer, using as small a font as a human would consider reasonable. You want to reduce the risk as much as possible that your visitor will click away from your landing page.

    Minimize the landing page’s load time. It is believed that Google uses this as an element in its Quality Score algorithm. Keep images and JavaScript to a minimum. They weigh the page down. (Google cannot follow JavaScript links anyway.)

     How to Attract Visitors

    What makes a person click on your ad instead of someone else’s? The answer is the same as to the question why a person clicks the ‘Buy’ button on your sales page: good copywriting. That’s a separate subject, but, suffice it to say here that your ad must be not only relevant, but also compelling. Imagine that you are the searcher, looking to buy a product or service like yours. Look at other ads offering something similar. What attracts you to one and not another? Ask your friends and colleagues what they think.

    You have only a 25-character headline and two description lines of 35 characters each. Don’t squander them on waffling about your company. The consumer couldn’t care less about you or your company. The consumer has a problem to be solved, a need to be satisfied, a desire to be fulfilled. So, mention the problem, the need, the desire. And, most important, tell the consumer that the solution, what he needs, what he wants is only a click away. Tell him to “Get Help Now” or to “Find It Here”. That’s the ‘call to action’.

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult,
Hard, And Easy]

Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster
can create a Sitemap of their site and submit it for indexing by
Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site
constantly indexed and updated in Google.

The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps.

In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML
generated file on your site that will transmit or send any
updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup
Language)is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the
orange XML logo on many web sites and its often associated with
Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their
content.

Today RSS is known mostly as ‘Really Simple Syndication’ but its
original acronym stood for ‘Rich Site Summary’. XML is only
simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content
to all interested parties.

And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating
Sitemaps, Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of
the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the
Googlebot’s job!

This is a ‘Good’ thing! With the steady influx of new web sites
growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a
challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps,
websmasters can now take charge and make sure their site is
crawled and indexed.

Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON’T improve your
rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other
sites in Google for top positions. But with Sitemaps you can
make sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by
Google.

There are some other big advantages of using Google’s Sitemaps -
mainly you have control over a few key variables, attributes or
tags. To explain this as simply as possible, your XML powered
sitemap file will have this simple code for each page of your
site:

http://www.yoursite.com/ 1.0 2005-07-03T16:18:09+00:00 daily

Along with ‘urlset’ tags at the beginning and end of your code,
and an XML version indication – that’s basically your XML file!
File size will depend on the number of webpages you have.

Taking a closer look at this XML file:

location – http://www.yoursite.com – name of your webpage

priority – you set the priority you want Google to place on that
page in your site. You can prioritize your pages: 0.0 being the
least, 1.0 being the highest, 0.5 is in the middle. This is ONLY
relative to your site. It will not affect your rankings. Why is
this important? You have certain pages on your site that are
more important than others, (home page, high profit page, opt-in
page, etc.) by placing high priority on these pages, you will
increase their importance in Google.

last modified – when you last modified that page, this timestamp
allows crawlers to avoid recrawling pages that haven’t changed.

change frequency – you can tell Google how often you change that
particular page. Never, weekly, daily, hourly, and so on – if
you frequently update your page this could be extremely
important.

Why do I need a XML Generator?

In order for this XML sitemap file on your site to be constantly
updated, you need a Generator that will spider your site, list
all the urls and automatically feed them to Google. Thus
constantly updating your site in Google’s massive index or
database. Keep in mind, Google also gives you the option of
submitting a simple text file with all your URLs.

Now there is already a flood of these generators popping up!
Different ways of generating your XML powered sitemap file. More
are probably appearing as you read this. For your convenience,
three ways to generate your XML Sitemaps file are listed below:

Difficult – Google’s Python Generator

That’s a relative term, if you know your server like the back of
your hand and installing scripts doesn’t scare the bejesus out
of you, you’re probably smiling at the word difficult. Google
supplies a link to a generator which you can download and set up
on your server. It will cough up your sitemap XML file and
automatically feed it to Google. Google XML Generator

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-

generator.html

In order for this Generator to work, Python version 2.2 must be
installed on your web server – many servers don’t have this. If
you know what you’re doing, this will probably be a good choice.

You don’t need a Google Account to use Sitemaps but it’s
encouraged because you can track your sitemap’s progress and
view diagnostic information. If you already have another Google
Account gmail, Google Alerts, etc. just use that one to sign in
and follow directions from there.

To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request, issue your request
to the following URL:

www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

Hard – A PHP Code Generator

This is a php generator that you can place on your server. This
generator will spider your site, and produce your XML sitemap
file. Download the phpSitemapNG and upload it to your server.
Run the generator to get your XML sitemap file and send it to
Google. PHP Generator http://enarion.net/google/

Again, this is only hard to do if you don’t know your way around
PHP files or scripts.

Easy – Free Online Generator

These Generators are popping up everywhere, and Google now keeps
a list of these ‘third party suppliers’ of generators on their
site. Find them here: http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

One of the easiest to use is http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and
you can index up to 500 pages with this online Generator very
quickly and it will give you the sitemap XML file Google needs
to index your site. It will go into your site, spider it and
index all your pages into an XML sitemap of your site. You can
download this file, Compressed or Non- compressed and make minor
changes such as setting the priority, changing frequency, etc.

Then upload this file to your site as sitemap.xml to the root
directory of your server i.e. where you have your homepage. Then
notify Google Sitemaps of your XML file and you’re in business.

Of course, the only drawback, if you constantly add pages to
your site you will need to also add these pages to your XML
sitemap file. This won’t be much of a problem unless you’re
daily adding pages to your site – then you will need something
like the PHP or Python generator to do all this for you
automatically.

Google is still the major search engine on the web so getting
your pages indexed and updated quickly is the major reason to
use Google Sitemaps. If you want your site to remain competitive
it’s probably the wisest route to take.

Google’s sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched
a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared
war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide
the best search service in the world… and if you thought you
cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out … guess
again.

Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and
artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing
of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on December
31, 2003. On March 31, 2005 is was available online for the
first time.

The filing unquestionable provides SEO’s with valuable insight
into Google’s tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms
that Google’s information retrieval is based on historical data.

What exactly do these changes mean to you? Your credibility and
reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has
defined their patent abstract as follows:

A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of
history data associated with the document. The system may
generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on
the one or more types of history data.

Google’s patent specification reveals a significant amount of
information both old and new about the possible ways Google can
(and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the
ranking of your site in the SERPs.

Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or
conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other.

Here’s how Google scores your web pages.

In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the
ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the
frequency of page or site updates. What’s new and interesting is
what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a
web page.

For example, if a stale page continues to procure incoming
links, it will still be considered fresh, even if the page
header (Last-Modified: tells when the file was most recently
modified) hasn’t changed and the content is not updated or
‘stale’.

According to their patent filing Google records and scores the
following web page changes to determine freshness.

·The frequency of all web page changes ·The actual amount of the
change itself… whether it is a substantial change redundant or
superfluous ·Changes in keyword distribution or density ·The
actual number of new web pages that link to a web page ·The
change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link
to a web page) ·The numbers of new links to low trust web sites
(for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having
too many affiliate links on one web page).

Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the
patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web
pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with
multiple affiliate links.

Developing your web page augments for page freshness.

Now I’m not suggesting that it’s always beneficial or advisable
to change the content of your web pages regularly, but it is
very important to keep your pages fresh regularly and that may
not necessarily mean a content change.

Google states that decayed or stale results might be desirable
for information that doesn’t necessarily need updating, while
fresh content is good for results that require it.

How do you unravel that statement and differentiate between the
two types of content?

An excellent example of this methodology is the roller coaster
ride seasonal results might experience in Google’s SERPs based
on the actual season of the year.

A page related to winter clothing may rank higher in the winter
than the summer… and the geographical area the end user is
searching from will now likely be considered and factored into
the search results.

Likewise, specific vacation destinations might rank higher in
the SERPs in certain geographic regions during specific seasons
of the year. Google can monitor and score pages by recording
click through rate changes by season.

Google is no stranger to fighting Spam and is taking serious new
measures to crack down on offenders like never before.

Section 0128 of Googles patent filing claims that you shouldn’t
change the focus of multiple pages at once.

Here’s a quote from their rationale:

“A significant change over time in the set of topics associated
with a document may indicate that the document has changed
owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor
text, etc., are no longer reliable.

Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam.
For example, if a particular document is associated with a set
of one or more topics over what may be considered a ’stable’
period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of
topics associated with the document, this may be an indication
that the document has been taken over as a ‘doorway’ document.

Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the
original topics associated with the document. If one or more of
these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the
relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text,
or other data associated the document.”

Unfortunately, this means that Google’s sandbox phenomenon
and/or the aging delay may apply to your web site if you change
too many of your web pages at once.

From the case studies I’ve conducted it’s more likely the rule
and not the exception.

What does all this mean to you?

Keep your pages themed, relevant and most importantly
consistent. You have to establish reliability! The days of
spamming Google are drawing to an end.

If you require multi page content changes implement the changes
in segments over time. Continue to use your original keywords on
each page you change to maintain theme consistency.

You can easily make significant content changes by implementing
lateral keywords to support and reinforce your vertical
keyword(s) and phrases. This will also help eliminate keyword
stuffing.

Make sure you determine if the keywords you’re using require
static or fresh search results and update your web site content
accordingly. On this point RSS feeds may play a more valuable
and strategic role than ever before in keeping pages fresh and
at the top of the SERPs.

The bottom line here is webmasters must look ahead, plan and
mange their domains more tightly than ever before or risk
plummeting in the SERPs.

Does Google use your domain name to determine the ranking of
your site?

Google’s patent references specific types of ‘information
relating to how a document is hosted within a computer network’
that can directly influence the ranking of a specific web site.
This is Google’s way of determining the legitimacy of your
domain name.

Therefore, the credibility of your host has never been more
important to ranking well in Google’s SERP’s.

Google states they may check the information of a name server in
multiple ways.

Bad name servers might host known spam sites, adult and/or
doorway domains. If you’re hosted on a known bad name server
your rankings will undoubtedly suffer… if you’re not blacklisted
entirely.

What I found particularly interesting is the criteria that
Google may consider in determining the value of a domain or
identifying it as a spam domain; According to their patent,
Google may now record the following information:

·The length of the domain registration… is it greater than one
year or less than one year?

·The address of the web site owner. Possibly for returning
higher relevancy local search results and attaching
accountability to the domain. ·The admin and the technical
contact info. This info is often changed several times or
completely falsified on spam domains; again this check is for
consistency! ·The stability of your host and their IP range… is
your IP range associated with spam?

Google’s rationale for domain registration is based on the
premise that valuable domains are often secured many years in
advance while domains used for spam are rarely secured for more
than a year.

If in doubt about a host’s integrity I recommend checking their
mail server at www.dnsstuff.com to see if they’re in the spam
database. Watch for red flags!

If your mail server is listed you may have a problem ranking
well in Google!

Securing a reputable host can and will go a long way in
promoting your web site to Google.

The simplest strategy may be registering your domain several
years in advance with a reputable provider thereby demonstrating
longevity and accountability to Google. Google wants to see that
you’re serious about your site and not a flash in the pan spam
shop.

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1604302-10294265

Googles Aging Delay has teeth… and they’re taking a bite out of
spam!

It’s no big secret that Google relies heavily on links when it
comes to ranking web sites.

According to their patent filing, Google may record the
discovery date of a link and link changes over time.

In addition to volume, quality & the anchor text of links,
Google’s patent illustrates possible ways how Google might use
historical information to further determine the value of links.

For example, the life span of a link and the speed at which a
new web site gets links.

“Burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine
spam”.

This is the first concrete evidence that Google may penalize
sites for rapid link acquisition. Whether the “burst growth”
rule applies to high trust/authorative sites and directory
listings remains unknown. I personally haven’t experienced this
phenomenon. What’s clear for certain though is the inevitable
end to results orientated link farming.

I would point out here that regardless of whether burst link
growth will be tolerated for authorative sites or authorative
link acquisition, webmasters will have to get smarter and work
harder to secure authorative links as their counterparts become
reluctant to exchange links with low trust sites. Now Page Rank
really has value!

Relevant content swaps may be a nice alternative to the standard
link exchange and allow you some control of the link page
elements.

So what else does Google consider in determining the aging delay?

·The anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded,
thus establishing the countdown period of the aging delay.
·Links with a long-term life span may be more valuable than
links with a short life span. ·The appearance and disappearance
of a links over time. ·Growth rates of links as well as the link
growth of independent peer pages. Again, this suggests that
rapid link acquisition and the quality of peer pages are
monitored ·Anchor text over a given period of time for keyword
consistency. ·Inbound links from fresh pages… might be
considered more important than links from stale pages. ·Google
doesn’t expect that new web sites have a large number of links
so purchasing large numbers of brokered links will likely hurt
you more than help you. Google indicates that it is better for
link growth to remain constant and naturally paced. In addition,
the anchor text should be varied as much as possible. ·New web
sites should not acquire too many new links; it’ll be tolerated
if the links are from trusted sites but it may be considered
spam.

So how do you build your link popularity / Page Rank and avoid
penalties?

When it comes to linking, you should clearly avoid the hocus
pocus or magic bullet linking schemes. If you participate in
quick fix link exchange scams, use automated link exchange
software or buy hundreds of links at once, chances are Google
will interpret your efforts as a spam attempt and act
accordingly.

Don’t get caught in this trap… the recovery period could be
substantial since your host and IP range are also considered!

When you exchange links with other web sites, do it slowly and
consistently.

Develop a link management and maintenance program. Schedule
regular times every week to build the links to your site and
vary the anchor text that points to your site.

Obviously, the links to your site should utilize your keywords.
To avoid repetition use lateral keywords and keyword phrases in
the anchor text since Google wants to see varied anchor text!

Your sites click through rate may now monitored through
bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files.

It’s no big secret that Google has always been suspected of
rewarding sites with higher click through rates (very similar to
what Google does with their AdWords program) so it shouldn’t
come as a great surprise that Google still considers site
stickiness and CTR tracking in their criterion.

What’s interesting though is Google is interested in tracking
the behavior of web surfers through bookmarks, cache, favorites,
and temporary files (most likely with the Google toolbar and/or
the Google desktop search tool). Google’s Patent filing
indicates Google might track the following information: ·Click
through rates are monitored for changes in seasonality, fast
increases, or other spike traffic in addition to increase or
decrease trends. ·The volume of searches over time is recorded
and monitored for increases. ·The information regarding a web
page’s rankings are recorded and monitored for changes. ·Click
through rates are monitored to find out if stale or fresh web
pages are preferred for a search query. ·The traffic to a web
page is recorded and monitored for changes… like Alexa. ·User
behavior may be monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites,
and temporary files. ·Bookmarks and favorites could be monitored
for both additions and deletions, and; ·The overall user
behavior for trends and changes.

Since Google is capable of tracking the click-through rates to
your web site, you should make sure that your web pages have
attractive titles and utilize calls to action so that web
surfers click on them in the search results.

It’s also important to keep your visitors there so make your web
pages interesting enough so that web surfers stay some time on
your web site. It might also help if your web site visitors
added your web site to their bookmarks.

As you can see, Google’s new ranking criterion has evolved far
beyond the reliance of criteria that can be readily or easily
manipulated. One thing is for certain with Google, whatever
direction search innovation is going; you can trust Google to be
pioneering the way and setting new standards

Last month I submitted an application to Google to be considered for their AdSense program. After confirming my e-mail address, almost immediately I was invited to place ads on my website.
Within hours I began to accumulate some data on pageviews and click-throughs and could see what my month-to-date total was. I was impressed.

The JavaScript Code
When your website is approved, you’ll receive your own publisher number and the appropriate JavaScript code to paste onto your webpages.
When your page is displayed, here’s the process that Google probably goes through in showing the ads:

1. A visitor’s web browser requests a page on your site.
2. This activates the JavaScript code on the page, sending the URL of the requested webpage to Google’s database.
3. Google looks up in its database the most prominent keywords or keyphrases for that webpage.
4. Then Google searches for the highest paying ads that match these keywords
5. Google places the appropriate ads on your webpage for your visitor to see — all in seconds. Pretty nifty.

How Much Does Google AdSense Pay?
As a publisher, you share in the revenue that Google receives from its PPC ads. Google, however, hasn’t announced a formula for sharing revenue with publishers in its Terms and Conditions document. Google’s audacity to ask publishers to enter into a blind agreement is one measure of publishers’ hunger for advertising dollars — whatever dollars — and an indication of the trust Google experiences in today’s marketplace.

So what is the revenue split? We aren’t told, though the actual amounts are proportional to the market value of keywords that describe your content.

This gives me some idea of possible gross revenue for my site. I am not at liberty to disclose the average click-through rate and average PPC payment per click on my site, though that information is made available to me daily and cumulatively.

In talking to well-known marketers, I hear guesses of a publisher’s share ranging from 25% to 60%. For all we know Google could be striking different deals with different sites, especially those over 20 million pageviews per month that have greater clout in the marketplace. I would guess the publisher’s share to be as much as 50% of the gross PPC revenue — though I could be way off. None of us has enough information to make an accurate judgment and Google isn’t talking.

What the Godfather gives, we bow and accept gratefully without any questions for fear he might put out a contract on our websites.
Here are the factors that contribute to the amount of money you can make on your site:

1. PPC value of the predominant keywords on your website. “Life insurance” for example, would be high. “Fish tank filters” would be low.
2. Amount of traffic you generate to your web pages.
3. Prominence of the Google ads
4. Click-through rate for the ads that appear.
5. The unknown revenue share that Google is paying.

Business-focused sites will do very well with Google AdSense, but information sites that don’t contain high-paying keywords won’t receive nearly as much.

Will They Accept My Site?
Google AdSense tells us that the following sites are not acceptable: sites with excessive profanity; hate, violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against any individual, group, or organization; hacking/cracking content; drugs and drug paraphernalia; pornography; gambling or casino-related; content; incentives of any kind for users to click on ads; excessive advertising; other content-targeted and/or text-based ads on the pages displaying AdWords ads; pop-ups that interfere with site navigation or are for downloads; and ads that mimic AdWords ads or appear to be associated with AdWords ads on your site. Google says it will monitor sites that are showing their ads and suspend sites that don’t abide by their rules.

Does a person from Google look at a site before deciding to accept it into the program?
If it’s a new site with little traffic, a human surely views the site. Don’t submit a site that isn’t ready for prime time, has “under construction” signs, or looks tacky. It’s a lot easier to get your site ready first, than try to convince Google to re-examine a rejected site. On the other hand, if your site has lots of incoming links and is generously spidered by Google already, you might receive approval within minutes after confirming your e-mail address.
Once you are approved, you can login and get HTML to paste into your webpages.

The Automatic Ad Agency
If you’ve ever worked with ad agencies or tried to solicit individual advertisers to place ads on your site, then Google AdSense will feel like a breath of fresh air. Google handles the entire relationship with advertisers. There are no run dates for publishers to schedule, no banners to install, no invoicing, no reporting. Just apply, paste in the JavaScript code, and Google’s “automatic advertising agency” works for you day and night finding willing advertisers, taking orders, and matching appropriate advertisers with your site.

Problems for Publishers
That doesn’t mean, however, that Google AdSense is problem-free. As I mentioned above, Google’s unwillingness to specify revenue share percentages doesn’t bode well. Sure, Google is just feeling its way in uncharted territory and has to stay profitable when the inevitable competition arises. I don’t think publishers should get too confident in Google’s current largesse. What Google gives, Google can take away — either as a result of economic squeezes or greed.

A more mundane problem is finding inappropriate ads appearing on your webpages. Fortunately, this is much easier to fix. You can filter out any ads you find from competitors or that you find distasteful. (I had to exclude some ads for cheapo e-mail addresses to spam with.) Just list the advertiser’s domain name under Advanced Options | Site Filter List.

What do you do when the ad just doesn’t seem to correspond to the content on your webpage?
Adding the appropriate keywords or keyphrases to the title tag, Meta description tag, and headlines should help Google do a better job of matching ads with your content.

Problems for Advertisers
Advertisers who use Google AdWords have the choice of limiting their ad to show only on the Google search engine, but you can choose whether campaigns also appear on the network of search sites, the network of content sites, or both.

Google AdSense on content sites gives advertisers a new opportunity. Previously, their revenues were limited by the click-throughs that could be generated on Google’s search engine and search partner sites. Now the pool of appropriate content sites is greatly widened, offering greater traffic and more sales. But their is a price for this greatly increased ad coverage — potentially lower responsiveness for the same cost per click.

When people use a search engine, they are looking for answers or solutions to click on. But when they are reading the text of a content site, they aren’t in the same searching, clicking mode. They’ve already found what they were searching for and are now trying to absorb it. This will affect the click-through rate, but also the likelihood that these users will complete a transaction.

Publishers are rejoicing today. But what if three months from now advertisers come to the conclusion that content sites are less responsive and routinely exclude them from their advertising coverage? Or refuse to pay the same prices for content sites that they do for search engine exposure? It’s too soon to tell.

Implications of Google AdSense
One thing is certain: Google AdSense is changing the way websites are being monetized.
AdSense “rewards you for creating sites rich in high-quality, focused content … the sort of sites that make the Net a better place.” Google is going to grab a whole lot of business away from those who try to ‘make crime pay’ — no need for nasty tricks, useless marketing gambits, in-your-face ads, etc.

Instead, Google is rewarding those who ‘make grime pay’” — that is, those willing to do the hard work to produce quality, focused content.

Thought for today:
Should you apply to put Google AdSense on your website? If your site seems appropriate, yes, by all means do so. Google AdSense represents a significant opportunity for content publishers to monetize their content. And so long as this partnership benefits both publishers and advertisers who pay the bills, this could be the start of a new and brighter future for both.

What is a Google Sitemap?

A Google Sitemap is a very simple XML document that lists all the pages in your website, but the Google Sitemaps program is actually much more important than that. In fact, the Sitemaps program provides a little peek inside Google’s mind – and it can tell you a lot about what Google thinks of your website!

Why Should You Use Google Sitemaps?

Until Google Sitemaps was released in the summer of 2005, optimizing a site for Google was a guessing game at best. A website’s page might be deleted from the index, and the Webmaster had no idea why. Alternatively, a site’s content could be scanned, but because of the peculiarities of the algorithm, the only pages that would rank well might be the “About Us” page, or the company’s press releases.

As webmasters we were at the whim of Googlebot, the seemingly arbitrary algorithmic kingmaker that could make or break a website overnight through shifts in search engine positioning. There was no way to communicate with Google about a website – either to understand what was wrong with it, or to tell Google when something had been updated.

That all changed about a year ago when Google released Sitemaps, but the program really became useful in February of 2006 when Google updated it with a couple new tools.

So, what exactly is the Google Sitemaps program, and how can you use it to improve the position of your website? Well, there are essentially two reasons to use Google Sitemaps:

Sitemaps provide you with a way to tell Google valuable information about your website

You can use Sitemaps to learn what Google thinks about your website

What You Can Tell Google About Your Site

Believe it or not, Google is concerned about making sure webmasters have a way of communicating information that is important about their sites. Although Googlebot does a pretty decent job of finding and cataloging web pages, it has very little ability to rate the relative importance of one page versus another. After all, many important pages on the Internet are not properly “optimized”, and many of the people who couldn’t care less about spending their time on linking campaigns create some of the best content.

Therefore, Google gives you the ability to tell them on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 how important a given page is relative to all the others. Using this system, you might tell Google that your home page is a 1.0, each of your product sections is a 0.8, and each of your individual product pages is a 0.5. Pages like your company’s address and contact information might only rate a 0.2.

You can also tell Google how often your pages are updated and the date that each page was last modified. For example your home page might be updated every day, while a particular product page might only be updated on an annual basis.

What Google Can Tell You About Your Site

Having the ability to tell Google all this information is important, but you don’t even need to create a sitemap file in order to enjoy some of the perks of having a Google Sitemaps account.

That’s because even without a Sitemap file, you can still learn about any errors that Googlebot has found on your website. As you probably know, your site doesn’t have to be “broken” for a robot to have trouble crawling it’s pages. Google Sitemaps will tell you about pages it was unable to crawl and links it was unable to follow. Therefore, you can see where these problems are and fix them before your pages get deleted from the index.

You can also get information on the types of searches people are using to find your website. Of course, most website analytics tools will give this information to you anyway, but if the tool you use doesn’t have this feature, then it’s always nice to get it for free from Google.

But the best part of the Sitemaps program is the Page analysis section that was added in February of 2006. This page gives you two lists of words. The first list contains the words that Googlebot associates with your website based on content on your site. The second list contains words that Googlebot has found linking to your site!

Unfortunately, Google limits the number of words in each list to 20. As a consequence, the inbound links column is partly wasted by words such as “http”, “www”, and “com” – terms that apply equally to all websites (hey Google, how about suppressing those terms from the report?). That said, this list does provide you with a way to judge the effectiveness of your offsite optimization efforts.

When you compare these two lists, you can get an understanding of what Google thinks your website is about. If the words on your Site Content column are not really what you want Googlebot to think about your site, then you know you need to tweak your website’s copy to make it more focused on your core competency.

If, on the other hand your inbound links don’t contain any keywords that you want to rank well for, then perhaps you should focus your efforts in that direction.

Above all else, you really want these two lists to agree. You want your inbound linked words to match up to the site content words. This means that Google has a clear understanding of the focus of your website.

Additional Benefits of the Sitemaps Program

Google has even started notifying Sitemaps-participating Webmasters if they are breaking any of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This can be very valuable information if your site suddenly becomes de-listed on Google and you don’t know why.

Only Sitemaps participants can get this information, and it is only provided at Google’s discretion. In fact, Google will NOT notify you if you are creating worthless websites that offer no original content, or if you are creating thousands of doorway pages that are redirecting to other web sites. Google doesn’t want to give the sp@ammers any clues as to how to improve their techniques.

How Do You Get Started with Google Site Maps?

The first thing you must do is obtain a Google Account. If you already have a Gmail, Adsense, or Adwords account, then you are all set. If not, you can register an account by visiting the Google Accounts page (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount).

Building your sitemap file is pretty easy to do if you are familiar with XML, and if you aren’t you can always use a third-party tool such as the ones that are listed on Google’s website (http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html). Google also has a “Sitemap Generator” that you can download and install on your server, but unless you are fairly adept at managing Python scripts, you should probably stick to the third-party tools.

At any rate, once you have your Google Account and your Sitemap file built, the rest is very easy. All you have to do is:

Log into your account (http://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview)

Type your website’s URL into the “Add Site” box and click on “OK”

Click on the Manage Sites link for the website you are adding, and add your sitemap file to your account.

Google Sitemaps – An Excellent SEO Tool

Google Sitemaps help Googlebot quickly find new content on your website. They allow you to tell Google what’s important, what’s new, and what changes often. The tools provided to webmasters through the program can play a vital role in helping you understand how the search engines (especially Google) view your website.

Using this information you can dramatically improve the position of your website and quickly clear up any issues Google finds. You can also use the tools provided by Google to gauge the effectiveness of your off-site optimization efforts so you can better focus your time and energy on activities that bring you the most success.