Search engine results differ for accented and non-accented characters. Multinational companies often face a dilemma when optimising ( http://www.accuracast.com/services/search-engine-optimisation/ ) their website for target audiences in different countries. Most search engines consider both the accented and non-accented versions of the same word when providing search results. However, the order of the results displayed gets affected by the user’s location and settings.
The Official Google Webmaster Central blog recently featured a helpful post about how rank on the search results pages gets adjusted by the algorithm according to visitor settings.
• How search results may differ based on accented characters and languages ( http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-search-results-may-differ-based-on.html )
Language Factors Affecting Search Results
When a visitor searches for words such as ‘Référence’ or ‘Télévision’ that can be written both with and without the accents, Google ( http://www.accuracast.com/services/ppc-management/google-adwords/ ) considers websites with both versions of the word, that is ‘Télévision’ and ‘Television’. The results delivered will then be ordered according to the visitors settings. The main factors that influence this ranking are:
• Browser / system language settings
Google tries to make its search results as relevant as possible to the searchers requirements. Therefore, if the visitor’s browser language ( http://www.accuracast.com/services/multilingual-sem.php ) is Spanish, the search result pages that are also in Spanish will be considered more relevant and ranked higher.
• IP location
Geographical location of the visitor similarly indicates their language preference. Visitors from Italy would therefore see more results in Italian than visitors in Germany for the same search phrase, so long as its means the same.
• Search parameters
If a visitor selects the option to display search results only in a particular language, that will display web pages only in the selected language, irrespective of the accentuation, so long as the word means the same with or without the accent.
• Personalisation:
Visitors with personalised search ( http://www.accuracast.com/seo-weekly/online-marketing-future.php ) enabled will be shown results more relevant to their personalised history. For example, a French searcher in England will still be shown more results in French if he / she is signed in and using Google personalized search.
Optimising For Non-English Languages
When targeting non-english language speakers, the ideal strategy is to develop a fully functional version of the company site ( http://www.accuracast.com/services/search-engine-optimisation/website-development.php ) in that language. French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers, for example, are most comfortable reading sites in their native language, and will prefer to deal with companies that have provided information in the language they understand.
However, many businesses do not have the time nor the resources to create multiple versions of their site to target each non-english-speaking customer segment they sell to. There is no straightforward and easy solution in this case. Inclusion of keywords ( http://www.accuracast.com/services/search-engine-optimisation/keyword-research.php ) with accents in ordinary English content will not help significantly.
A relatively non-expensive solution could be to identify a few important keywords and create pages targeting these keywords. The pages should be written fully in the target language. It is also important to support these specially optimised pages ( http://www.accuracast.com/services/search-engine-optimisation/implementation.php ) with some general information and function pages from the rest of the site. This is important because even if a French, German or Italian speaker did reach your site via a high ranking listing on Google, they wouldn’t be able to use your site if you didn’t provide the supporting pages.
Companies looking to market their products and services in other European languages can contact AccuraCast ( http://www.accuracast.com/contact/ ) for more information about our foreign language SEO and multilingual PPC services.
Other articles to read:
• A look inside the Google algorithm? ( http://www.accuracast.com/seo-weekly/algorithm.php )
• SEO friendly hosting ( http://www.accuracast.com/seo-weekly/seo-hosting.php )
SEO Weekly ( http://www.accuracast.com/seo-weekly/ )

Farhad Divecha
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-optimisation-with-european-languages-53843.html

Search Engine Optimisation News

When it comes to commissioning a new web site, it is important
to ensure that you as the web site owner have considered all the
options. Firstly, is the web site up to the correct standards in
terms of accessibility? OK not every web site will be a perfect
design and open to all web users but there are simple aspects of
design that your design team should consider. Colours are a key
factor for overall visiuals. Are you using a CMS or a template.
Make sure If you are using a template that you have the right to
use the template. There is so much Open source software on the
internet that too many so called designers just change the
relevant parts of the coding to make it there own. When using
any other software you should be aware of how it is created and
what implication it has on your SEO. The design department at
Just Search Ltd recently made the mistake of separating our Web
Design Section from our Search Engine Optimisation Section. The
mistake was not separating the two, the mistake was that we
changed the link from our MAIN navigation that was pointing to a
web design page with a Page rank of 4 to a new site with no page
rank. After discussion within the department we decided that
this could be detrimental to the website and the brand of Just
Search Ltd. We decided to re-attach the previous page of a Page
Rank of 4. Please dont be alarmed as this will be updated, it
has served its purpose but is no longer the standard that Just
Search Ltd would like to represent its design department.

Neil Walker Head Of Design and Activation

Neil Walker
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-optimisation-news-2341.html

The world of search engines has evolved over the recent months and still we can’t be 100% sure about flash design. It is still hard to get flash web sites spidered and ranked how we would like using the traditional search engine optimisation techniques. The main problem is that the search engines can’t index the content in the flash code so they have no way of ranking the website accordingly. The reason for this is that they see the flash as a graphic and cannot always read what is inside it. Your online flash designer should consider the following:
Flash pages and movies
The benefits of flash are:

• Great special effects
• Easy for designers to create impressive animations using images and sound
• Interactive applications which are easy to use for visitors
• Flash works across platforms and browsers
• Flash has excellent accuracy for web designers

The main disadvantages of flash design are:

• Initialy there is a massive learning curve involved
• It can have long load time (which is not so much an issue as in the past due to popularity in broadband continuously improving)
• Some firewalls block flash
• Some stats show that more people would prefer not to use flash (although if everyone had used well designed and developed flash as well as running it on broadband I feel this stat would be different)

When it comes to search engine optimising a flash designed web site you are limited to the following:

• Meta tags keyword, description, title and research
• Link building link exchanges, directory submissions, article submissions and press releases

It is best to consider your keywords and see how competitive the market is. If it is not too competitive then you many rank a full flash web site on your chosen keywords but the more competitive the phase the nearer to impossible it gets, although the search engines are improving and may soon be able to read the flash content.

Consider your options?

Consider using flash design for different movies on multiple html pages to give you more pages for visitors to come into your site. This will make it easier for the search engines to pick up content and internal links. This will also give you more pages to concentrate different keywords on helping you to rank in more areas. The downside to doing this is that for every page you create the visitor has to re-download a sometimes large flash file.

The alternetive is to give your visitors the option of viewing a flash or html version so the search engines can read the html version and you can still impress your visitors with the flash version.

To help the search engines index you it is worth considering a half way house and imbedding flash into your html. This gives you a search engine optimised site plus enhanced menus and usability. Obviously you have to consider your internal linking strategy along side this option and try to make navigation which the search engines can read so they can search through your site. Use the flash in places to impress the user but do not hide away your content from the search engines. If you use flash as part of your navigation make sure you add additional text links to allow the search engines to crawl your web site.

Conclusion

If you want to pursue the full flash option then ensure you research your keywords and make your meta data clear and concise for the search engines. Ensure you have an html home page which is keyword optimised with plenty of readable content for the search engines. Offer a text version of your site that search engines can crawl and put all your efforts into your link building strategy.

Jon Harrison
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/flash-and-search-engine-optimisation-best-practise-61280.html

Idea Inception
Know Your Audience
Know your audience and establish the keywords that you will target.
Find out what will interest them and what kind of search patterns they usually have.
Look at studies online for demographic information, and visit other sites, forums or communities that your target audience use.
Keyword Research
Once you have found the keywords your audience will be looking for you can find the optimal key phrases to optimise for, by using research tools such as KeywordDiscovery, Wordtracker, Google AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing data.
Compile lists of the most relevant phrases for your site. These will be used later on to decide the content, TITLE tags and possibly filenames of your web pages.
Grouping of the key phrases in a structured way will help to determine the architecture of your site. Look for descriptive terms like colour, size, model numbers or brand.
Choosing a Domain Name
Try not to use a new domain name. Although Google does not publicly admit that a sandboxing filter exists for new sites, for some reason, new domains can take 9 12 months to be included in the main index for any keyword phrases that are important to them.
Choose the correct TLD for your geographical location as SE’s sometimes localise searches.
Your domain name should be something short and punchy that describes the brand or product and conveys a message such as fun, music, adult or gaming.
Don’t worry about lots of keywords in the domain name. They hold little or know value with the SE’s.
Choosing a host
Make sure your host is in the audience’s geographical location as SE’s may localise their search.

Design & Content
Basic Principles
Design for the users not the SE’s in mind.
Talking naturally about the sites subject matter will identify what your keywords and phrases should be.
Write unique, quality content for your visitors. This is the most valuable way to get back links.
Take your list of key phrases and choose a few different ones for every page, ensuring that your site includes the words your audience will be searching for within it.
Structuring Your Site
Categorise your site architecture and navigation based on your keyword research. Lay out your site so that people will find the products they’re looking for. Are they looking for a price, size or a particular brand?
Your keyword research will show you that people are looking for your product in many different ways. Your job is to make sure that your site’s navigation showcases the various ways of searching. Make sure you have links to the price, size and brand pages.
Design the site with a clear hierarchy.
Try not to have folders too deep. The closer a folder or page is to the root of your site the more relevant it is.
TITLE and Meta Tags
Title tags are critical because they’re given a lot of weight with every search engine.
Your main target key phrase should be used in the TITLE tag of the home page. If your site is about Widgets then the TITLE should be something like “Get the best Widgets from the Widget Specialists”
oSub key phrases will be the names, and therefore the titles, of your sub pages i.e. “Blue Widgets” or “Large Widgets” would be sub directories or pages of “Widgets”.
The META description should be an extension (but not exact copy) of the keywords used in the TITLE tag i.e. “Get the very best in Widget design from the worlds leading online Widgets supplier. Specialising in Blue and Large widgets”
Try not to use punctuation or stop words (and, or, in, of etc.) in the TITLE tag as these are often ignored by the SE’s.
Try not to use the domain name in the TITLE as it uses up characters that could better me used for a call to action or more keywords.
Page Content
The first copy on the page should be an extension of the META description and be as close to the opening BODY tag, within the source code, as possible, without comprising the user experience.
Your keywords should appear as many times as possible on the page without it becoming nonsense for the human reader.
Your target key phrase should appear in H1 tags.
oSub key phrases on the same page should appear in H2, H3 tags and so on.
Search engines make a decision on the topic of the page based on the first 250 words. Try and make those words as relevant as possible.
Use keyword kerning. Use variations of your keywords in the body of the content. If your subject matter is “Racing” then talk about “Racing” but also “Races” you have entered and a particular “Race” you might be looking forward to.
Bold some of your keywords or phrases as this carries more weight with the search engines.
Some SEO’s believe a few keywords at the end of the page, say in a copyright statement or disclaimer, can aid the SE in determining the topic as it leaves the page. Bare in mind this must be useful to the user.
Don’t duplicate content. If all that changes on a group of pages is a few details then consider merging the information into one page.
Check your keyword density and ensure that it is approximately the same ratio as your competitors.
The content should make your site link-worthy. If your site is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link to it without even asking and therefore increasing your rankings.
Page Graphics
Try to use text instead of images or flash where possible. Search engines don’t (this may change in the future) read the text in images or flash files.
If using AJAX make sure the initial load of the application contains the optimised elements such as TITLE and headers and is also reachable from a fixed address.
Where images are used make sure the ALT attribute of the IMAGE SRC tag is used to describe the image. Even if there is no description then ALT=”" is still necessary.
Linking
Using meaningful anchor text. Avoid non specific anchor text like “Click Here” as this tells the SE’s nothing about what is at the other end of the link.
Try and use the same keywords in the anchor text as is used in TITLE tag of landing page.
Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
Make sure none of your links are broken.
Consider using key phrases as folder or filenames i.e. www.example.com/widgets/blue.html or www.example.com/blue-widgets.html Avoid using the underscore character or spaces as these aren’t interpreted correctly by the spiders.
Only link out to trusted sources that will be relevant and useful to your audience.
Use the TITLE attribute of the HREF tag to describe where the link is going.
If using dropdown menus or search forms to navigate provide alternative methods i.e. text links, to find the same information.
Use the REL=”NOFOLLOW” attribute of the HREF tag to prevent the crawlers from accessing irrelevant/non useful information.
Try not to have over 100 links on one page.
Technical
If using dynamic URL’s implement a URL rewrite technology such as MOD Rewrite. This will make your query strings search engine friendly and get them indexed. Parameters like “&id=” may be ignored by the likes of Google.
Check which type of URL rewriting your server and programming languages support.
If using a content management system make sure the software exports the content to HTML pages so that the SE’s can crawl them.
Use the robots.txt file to tell the crawlers which pages and directories they can access and to make sure important content isn’t being blocked.
Try not to use frames or iFrames. Keep the content on the page.
Don’t use session id’s or other tracking id’s. These appear to the crawlers as unique URL’s when in fact they point to the same page, possibly resulting in an incomplete indexing of the site or worse, penalisation for supplicate content.
URL canonical issues. Make sure your server is configured so that users and crawlers are redirected to the http://www.example.com version of your site. Allowing users to access your site by either the http://example.com or the http://www.example.com version of your URL may result in the SE’s indexing both versions and thus penalising for duplicate content.
If you are using JavaScript consider placing it in an external .JS file.
Place your CSS in an external style sheet.
Validate your mark up language with a free validation service such as the W3C Validator.
Launch
Get back-links. The most valuable thing to get links is to write unique, quality content for your audience.
Submit to relevant, industry specific and trusted directories. Make sure all the relevant sites that should know about your site are aware that you are now online.
Submit to http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
Submit a site map to Google Sitemaps. Google Sitemaps uses your sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase their coverage of your web pages.
Consider a Pay Per Click campaign to get the ball rolling. Not only will this give your site exposure to you audience but people may link to you naturally.
Post Launch
Use tracking software such as Google Analytics or WebTrends to analyse where your traffic is coming from and which pages are receiving the most traffic.
Keep validating your mark up language to ensure it complies with W3C Recommendations and other standards.
Use a Broken Link Checker to make sure all your links a kept in tact.
If you have to move pages make sure you use the appropriate server response codes. Don’t use 302 response codes for pages that have moved as this tells the crawler that the page has only moved temporarily. Use the 301 response code instead.
Link Equity. Try not to change URL’s or titles of pages especially with deep linked pages. Historical value of a page is of great importance to the SE’s. If you have to move a page then make sure you use the appropriate redirect response code.
Good Practice Guidelines
Failure to comply with any or all of these guidelines will significantly increase your chances of exclusion from the search engines.

Anything that can be deemed as artificial inflating rankings is known as spamming the search engines.
Design your site for your audience not the search engines. If it doesn’t help your audience then it’s probably not a good idea.
Avoid tricks. The more a ‘trick’ is discussed, the more certain you are that the search engines know about it. Be very wary of any technique that the search engines wouldn’t like, because if you can read about it, you can bet they have too. As soon as anything is more often abused than used, the search engines will stop paying attention to it and may even penalise.
Don’t participate in link exchange programmes or any PageRank purchasing schemes.
Don’t use automated software that submits to search engines, directories, forums or blogs.
Don’t steal other peoples content. Duplicate content is frowned upon by the SE’s and may get you excluded.
Don’t get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites.
Don’t link to off topic sites.
Don’t stuff your pages with either irrelevant or relevant keywords.
Don’t stuff your folder or filenames with either irrelevant or relevant keywords.
Don’t stuff your domain name with either irrelevant or relevant keywords.
Don’t use cloaking, page jacking or any other dubious redirecting methods.
Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. If you are building an affiliate site make sure there is some original, interesting and unique content for your audience.
Don’t waste effort looking for loopholes you can exploit. Spend your time on understanding the current technologies and where they are heading.

Chris Phillips
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-optimisation-guidelines-for-web-masters-70755.html

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the meat and potatoes of businesses hoping to make it on the internet, but did you realise that SEO can also be the key to wildly increasing the number of international school recruiters who see your eResume?

Let’s face it, the reality of job-hunting in the 21st Century is that digital is the way to go… We search for jobs online, we submit our resumes online, are interviewed via Skype over the internet and accept contracts that are delivered electronically too.

In this article I want to clue you in to a little known technique that is crucial when you are submitting your resume to a website or an electronic database, use keywords. Simple isn’t it? But very few of your competitors know about this, and that’s to your direct benefit because optimising your resume for the search terms recruiters will be using to find you will put your resume smack in the middle of their desk.

Here’s what to do:

Include specific education related nouns in your resume because keywords are noun-based. Some examples are: classroom management, curriculum design, student motivation, student assessment, student organisation, class project, extra curricular activity.

Include specific subject related nouns in your resume.

Include qualification specific nouns in your resume.

Include experience specific nouns in your resume. Some examples are: GCSE teaching experience, examination board marking, moderating experience. Remember to include terms that would be of interest to a British, American or IB school if that’s where you experience lies or that’s where you want to go.

Look at job descriptions and job advertisements for ideas of keywords. Imagine that you’re the recruiter and make a list of keywords you’d use when searching a database for someone with your qualifications.

Attempt to position these keywords towards the top of your resume.

Here’s what not to do:

Lose sight of the fact that you’re preparing your resume to attract the interest of a human being.

Check that your resume is attractive, well-laid out and reads well.

Over use any single keyword or phrase as this can result in that keyword or phrase being disregarded.

The pros and cons of posting your resume online:

At the end of the day, international recruiters are busy people who don’t spend hours trawling the internet in an attempt to find staff. Therefore, submitting your resume to resume bulletin boards is going to be a waste of time.

So why go to the effort of optimising your resume for online use? There are a number of industry specific websites on the internet where international school vacancies are posted. If you submit your resume to these sites, there’s a reasonable chance that recruiters may run a quick search when they’re posting the job adverts, provided the advertisement is not being posted by a personal assistant. And so, submitting an optimised resume will pay off in this situation.

Also, one of the services the international teaching job fair organisers offer schools’ recruiters is the ability to search a database of candidates’ resumes. To search the databases the recruiters enter subject specific, qualification specific and, experience specific keywords.

At the very least this exercise will result in you identifying areas in your experience and qualifications that will attract recruiters. You can then use these either when you optimise you resume ready to post online, or you can use them when you write your cover letter to catch the eye of recruiters who ‘skim’ the majority of cover letters prior to deleting them.

Good luck on your job-hunt!

Kelly Blackwell
http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/utilise-search-engine-optimisation-techniques-to-get-a-teaching-job-abroad-209877.html

Some statistics for Manchester, concerning online shopping, according to some analysts: Almost 52% of the local population who bought merchandise online, first searched for suitable sellers using search engines, in Manchester. Almost 85% of the total population searches, with an intention to buy something online, using search engines. Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the technique of using keywords / key phrases related to a website to market the website using search engines that operate on such keywords and key phrases.

SEO also ensures that the site places in the results, during a search. There are two types of SEO techniques, ethical or white hat SEO techniques and unethical of black hat SEO techniques. White hat techniques are more concerned with the overall value that the site has to offer to its visitors in terms of general user experience and retention. While the Black hat SEO techniques usually involve link farming, link spamming, search engine spamming, etc. There is no clear cut demarcation between the two techniques.

Most Search Engine Optimisation techniques involve writing and posting original content, that is readable by the search engines. Usually the content is written with specific key words or key phrases that deal with what the web page is about, these key words or phrases are repeated and the content is filled up to some extent with them. Basic Optimisation techniques may just make your web site visible and out in to the recognized part of the search engine world. Profound Search engine Optimisation techniques are used from the initial web design phase and continue even after the targeted traffic is achieved. Before this is done, your business and what part of it will be online, needs to be researcher, leading to a thorough keyword analysis phase, which involves finding and using keywords or key phrases related, relevant and important to your business.

William Amerson
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-optimisation-manchester-174447.html

Search engine optimisation is all about achieving a top ten ranking on the major search engines. This is a fiercely-contended task and to stand a chance of succeeding you need an internet marketing agency or SEO Consultants that can implement an online marketing strategy that will deliver not only traffic, but targeted traffic to get the results you require.

In highly-competitive industries such as recruitment, travel and insurance etc, you would not succeed without a comprehensive search engine marketing strategy.

Using only proven, ethical methods, an SEO consultant will bring targeted traffic to your web site and generate leads or sales for your business and with over 75% of the internet’s searches coming from Google, Yahoo and MSN, your business cannot afford to miss out on the vast numbers of potential customers looking for your product or service.

One of the key elements for a rock solid internet marketing plan is good quality content focused on your business and it’s industry. Literally the more quality and unique content there is on your site, the better off your site will be, in terms of rankings.

Another major factor for your marketing plan is the coding and search engine optimisation of your site. Whether you have an html, dynamic or a flash-based website, there are important steps that your SEO consultants should take to ensure your site is search engine ready.

Flash web design may look good but are notoriously poor for top ten search engine rankings, thankfully there are steps you can take to still get your site listed and ranked on the major search engines. The same applies to dynamic web sites that are written in programming languages such as PHP, ASP and .NET.

Once your site is search engine optimised, your internet marketing strategy will start to work and you can start to work on one of the other more important factors that search engines look for, which is the trust factor of your site. This can be achieved by partnering with other web sites that are regarded as trusted and have a good rank on the search engines already.

After performing all of these steps, your internet marketing agency or SEO consultants will have your site well under way to achieving a top ten search engine ranking.

Copyright Utopia Solutions

Lee Smith
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/search-engine-optimisation-the-top-ten-ranking-guide-78654.html

In the world of modern online business search engine optimisation is an increasingly important element of any marketing strategy. For those without specialist knowledge the optimisation process can be a proverbial minefield; that is why it is always advisable to utilise the services of SEO professionals. It is only the professionals who have the expertise to top the search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN. As a business owner it is advisable to gain at least a basic knowledge of optimisation to ensure that conversations with the SEO specialist are effective and understandable. Hopefully the following information will give the reader some vital information that will assist in choosing the right SEO company.

Most important is to recognise the effect that web development and site design can have in the optimisation process. Part of this will be learning the effect that code has on a website and how changes to this code will affect the aesthetics of a website as well as its rankings. In the early stages of creating a website, having an optimisation focus can be advisable as it saves work in the long run. Of vital importance is to include content on your website that is unique and relevant to the products and services that are being presented. By taking this approach it is possible to create the right building blocks for your search engine optimisation company to achieve high rankings.

Keywords are often bandied around whenever discussing the optimisation of a site. The selection of these keywords is an essential procedure that can have beneficial as well as detrimental effects. The keywords will be included in the page content as well the off page information such as Meta tags and heading titles. Selecting these keywords however can be difficult it is often a balance between choosing words that are popular enough to be searched for by users, but not so popular that results will be next to impossible to achieve. For instance if a company sold music players then ‘MP3 Player’ may be a suitable term, however if the site is new it is likely that a terms such as ‘handheld music player’ would be more suitable as competition for this term would be considerably less. At this stage it is always advisable to take notice of your SEO specialist as they have the knowledge to produce a suitable list of keywords.

The choice of search engine optimisation company can be difficult. There are some in the industry who pursue untrustworthy tactics that in the long term will actually harm your rankings. That said; there are a large number of operators who pursue ethical forms of SEO that will comply with search engine rules to achieve greater rankings. A side point is that if a company ever promises number one positions it is probably worth avoiding their services, in the majority of cases this type of sales tactic has no real worth and can be considered subterfuge.

When selecting a company there are a number of methods that are advisable. First and foremost, recommendations from friends, family or business associates are advisable; that is as long as you can trust the word of the person giving you the recommendation. Additionally internet forums can be used to find a company although be careful, some posts will be clearly partisan and hence taking an objective approach is advisable. Finally there is the direct route, try typing something like ‘search engine optimisation’ into Google, any company that is in the top ten will most likely be worth using.

Hopefully this advice will help those with a less than extensive knowledge of SEO to choose a company that will be able to pursue an effective and ethical optimisation strategy. Get this choice right and you should be able to achieve those rankings and attract more online business.

Thomas Pretty
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/embarking-on-the-search-engine-optimisation-journey-557535.html

Companies have and are increasingly moving their marketing budgets to internet marketing and search engine optimisation. The main reason for this is natural progression due to people using the internet more and more every year.

Due to the large increase of broadband users last year and the predicted increase over the next 5-10 years people are taking search engine optimisation and internet marketing more seriously and spending more money on it. The main cause of this is the competition between the big broadband suppliers driving down the price. With more people having fast internet access it allows them to spend more time on the internet going from site to site in minutes seeing dozens of sites. It is also proven that most of the users go through search engines to find their results so it is important to have your site visible there.

Offline marketing is becoming less effective due to several reasons. One of the reasons is the over use of telesales, this has happened over years which has meant that they are less effective now as people are less willing to listen to what the sales person has to offer. People are also purchasing more online so are not going to stores and shops, which means that no matter how much you advertise for a store offline it is losing sales to online websites.

The older more traditional techniques like using leaflets, newspaper advertisements, billboards etc are becoming less affecting due to; people not reading them and reading online newspapers, people not seeing the billboards due to not going near the shops and purchasing online and putting the leaflets straight in the bin with out reading them due to so many irrelevant ones.

As more and more sites go online and the more complex the search engines get, it is harder and harder to rank on the big search engines which also means more time and money has to be put into getting high rankings. However, this pays off as there are more users so you should see more sales for your money. Companies are realising this and concentrating on gaining and not losing trade to online competition.

Search engine optimisation has developed over the years in line with the development of the search engines. This means more research has to be done by the search engine optimisation consultants to allow them to provide the best results for their clients. This can only be done by people investing more money into it and this would only be provided if their where customers to purchase goods and services to make it worth while. So this shows that people are moving their marketing priorities to online.

Some companies split their budget in different ways for their internet marketing and one way is to pay search engine optimisation consultants to deal with it for you. This is affective when using the correct company and you will see results but the problem is there are a lot of con artists also offering the service. The other option is to employ an in house search engine optimisation consultant which will run things from inside the company. A lot of companies have chosen to do this as this allows them to keep control. The problem with this is that the in house consultant may soon get out of date with their techniques if they don’t get enough time to do their research.

Jon Harrison
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/marketing-budgets-move-from-offline-marketing-to-internet-marketing-and-search-engine-optimisation-89498.html

1.What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of preparing a web site in order to achieve search engine rankings that drive traffic to your site. SEO is an ongoing process beginning with the initial optimisation of the site, monthly maintenance of the site, regular evaluation of search results and adjustments to the site.

2. What good is having a web site if it is not being seen?
90% of Internet buyers are turning to search engines to find the products they want. Google alone conducts over 150 million searches a day. In fact, for more details visit to www.the20seotools.com recent studies show that purchasers are about 12 times more likely to buy your products or services after finding your site through a search engine than all other traditional advertising methods combined (including trade shows, print ads, direct mail, radio, and even television)… at a fraction of the cost! Why? Simply put, when a consumer finds you through a search engine they are ready to buy. With traditional forms of media, you are broadcasting a message hoping to reach the right consumer at the right time.

As searchers generally only explore the first two pages in the search results, achieving high rankings on the search engines will make an enormous difference in the amount of visitor traffic your site receives.

3. Why doesn’t my web site rank very well in the search engines?
Having your web site rank high in the search engines is a science and the rules for search engine optimisation (SEO) are always changing.

Here are some reasons why you may be having poor ranking:

Incorrect usage of the TITLE tag or no TITLE tag content.
Too many occurrences of the same word in a page (spamming).
Missing H1 and H2 heading tag content.
Missing ALT tag content in your graphic links.
No meaningful content in the first 250 characters on each page.
Less than 200 words per page.
Very few pages on your website.
No links from other web sites to your web site (link popularity).

4. How does the Search Engine find websites?
There are two ways a search engine can find a website to add to its database. The first and most direct method is to accept submissions from web site designers and optimisers. Most search engines have a “submit your URL” section inviting submissions from Internet users.

The second, and least obvious method of finding websites is to send a “spider” to follow each and every link on, for more details visit to www.offline-promotion.com off, and through a website. New URLs encountered by the spider will be added to the database. In this way, some search engines will grow very rapidly.

5. How long does it take for SEO results to kick in?
The amount of time required to see results of search engine optimisation work range anywhere from 2 weeks to a few months. This is dependent on how often search engines update their index and subsequently re-rank sites. The Google Dance for example is almost a spectator sport among the SEO community.

6. What is my site ranking dependent on?
Site ranking tends to be “cumulative” and is dependent on the following factors:

The specific keyword phrases (search terms) that have been targeted
The overall competitiveness of your industry – how many players are there
Whether you are targeting a regional, national, or international market
How well ranking is monitored and the site tweaked over time for SEO improvement
The progress of your inbound linking campaign
Number of competitor sites achieving new ranking themselves.

micky
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/what-is-search-engine-optimisation-seo-725724.html