SEO Articles

How to Generate Quality One way links?

2006-04-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

Jack had an amazing idea & started his online business with a vision of making it big someday. But few years down the line Jack is left wondering as to why his business isn’t turning up the way he expected it to!

Mark thinks that he has a better service than his competitors, but still fails to understand why their Balance Sheet figures are running into millions, while his are still in few thousands!

All these puzzling facts make one doubt himself. But my friend, the problem is not with the idea or the service! The problem lies in the promotion strategies. No matter how good an idea or a service is, it won’t be successful unless you put it to the right people in the right manner. Good Web Promotion can do wonders to an average idea; forget what it can do to a good one. Had Jack & Mark adopted the right kind of Internet Promotion strategy, they would have achieved what they wanted to.

Everyone will agree that today’s Web Promotion is dominated by Search Engines, or to be precise, Google. If your site is in the top thirty, for the right “Keyword”, you can be a winner. But how can one make it to the top & stay there for a long time? (Mind you, in this dynamic world called Internet, sticking to your position is as important as getting there!)

The best way to “optimize” your site is through a new “Organic Method of Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) that Google & other search engines just love, generating “Quality One Way Links”. One can generate quality back links by way of “Directory Submission” & “Article Submission”.

Online directories provide you with quality back links, which is precisely what you are looking for. Apart from this, you need to submit your site to the most appropriate category & with a brief description about your business. Thus, they also send targeted audience your way!

Another way of generating quality targeted audience & one way links is by writing quality articles & submitting them to Article Directories! By writing a quality article, you are not just informing your potential customers about your service, but are also sharing your knowledge with them. Again, Article Directories gives you an opportunity to inform people about yourself & also provide a link to your site. This way, people get to know about you & your site. And if your article provides a visitor what he came looking for, you have most definitely found yourself a new client!

Had Jack written an article about his idea & explained his service to his target audience and submitted his site to Hundreds of Search Engine Friendly Directories, he would have been on “Cloud 9” by now. Had Mark written an article informing his potential customers, how his service is better than his customers & also submitted his site to Online Directories, his Balance Sheet too might have run into Millions.To summarize, when you submit your article or your site to various online directories, this is what you get -

1. You generate hundreds of quality back links to your site.

2. People who search these directories may find your article or your sites description interesting & visit your site. Thus you get large targeted audience.

The end result is that your site satisfies all the criterions set by various search engines to have a favorable Rank. You thus reach high positions in search engines & stay there for a long time!

SEO - Selecting A Domain Name

2006-04-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

Selecting a good domain name is the key factor for attaining a better page ranking. The most commonly used aspect while choosing a domain name is the usage of keyword in the URL. You can take the idea of selecting a domain name that has low competition but with good demand can ultimately help in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

There are many factors to keep in mind while naming your domain. A good domain name should be short and easy to spell by the users. By avoiding long domain name will help the searchers to find your website and also to remember the name much easily. The keyword used in your domain name can be descriptive to help the internet users to memorize.

Make sure to include the domain name that is unique and at the same time keyword rich. Usage of more keywords in your domain name will help in a better ranking which in turn may also help the searchers to find your website. The use of more than two keywords can bring a negative impact, as it can make the domain name lengthier and the chance of misspelling is more. So it better to use a maximum of two keywords. Another drawback is that it can also make your email address long. So it is recommended the use of shorter and catchy domain names.

Among a large number of steps while choosing a domain name, the most important and foremost one is whether you are choosing a free or paid domain. In all these, give consideration to the customer so that your potential users can find your website.

Another important factor to be remembered in domain naming is the use of hyphens (-). If you are using two or more keywords, without separators, as your domain name it can be interesting, but at the same time the search engine may consider it as a single keyword. In this case, it is advised to use hyphen to separate the keywords. But for internet users the domain name without hyphen will be easier to remember and the one with hyphens tend to bring confusion for the users. A main solution for this issue is that you may use hyphened domain name during the registration with a search engine and for online advertising. At the same time go for a domain name which uses no hyphen, so that it may help the people who prefer just keywords during the searching.

Taking these tips into consideration will help you in selecting an excellent domain name for your website. You can register multiple variants for your website at the price of a single domain name. Also, make sure to avoid the use of numbers in your domain name as it may prevent confusion. In place of keywords you can also use some unique brand names for your website.

Selecting a good business and domain name can draw a good traffic, and makes the entire process of optimization much easier. All you require is a shorter and unique web address that can bring your website among the top listing.

SEO ‘Tools Of The Trade’

2006-04-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

Before you start optimizing your site for search engines, there are some tools that you should arm yourself with. These tools can become your best friends when it comes to SEO, especially when you’re just starting out. The first and most important step in any search engine position campaign is recognizing which keywords you should optimize your site for, and there are several pieces of software that are useful for this, including Wordtracker, Optilink, Zeus, and Agent Web Ranking.

WordTracker's keyword research service is the only one on the Internet that provides a comprehensive database of the most popular keywords in a particular industry. It can help you recognize associated keywords that you may have never thought of. One of the differences between WordTracker and other tools is that it can spot subtle differences, for example singular and plural keywords, or often-misspelled ones, and tell you which versions are more popular.

Optilink has become very popular in a short period of time because of the power it gives you over search engines. Every site that links to you boosts your ranking, especially if its content is relevant to yours. Optilink helps you to come up with strategies to improve your link structure and get a better ranking. Here are some of the things it does:

1. Analyzes the link structures of your top-ranking competitors.

2. Tells you why your competitors rank well, so you can try to copy what they’re doing.

3. Tells you what kind of rankings you can expect if you adopt similar linking strategies.

4. Helps to monitor sites you’ve exchanged links with, to ensure that they’re still linking to you.

Zeus has an excellent way of increasing the link popularity of your site -- by exchanging with other sites that are related to yours, giving you a head start on your SEO. Zeus does the work for you, identifying sites that it thinks you should try to exchange links with. If you look for the sites yourself you’ll often find it’s not worth the time, but an SEO tool like Zeus lets you do it instantly. Once you’ve got links, you can manage and maintain them automatically.

Agent Web Ranking helps you to check your sites rankings – this is good to see how your SEO efforts are working. Many people just optimize and submit, thinking the work is done, but they’re wrong. You need to continuously check your site's rankings, and Agent Web Ranking is a reliable and quick tool for doing this.

The only real problem you might have with any of this software is that search engines can change the way they display their results, breaking the tools until their authors update them. This means that most position reporting software gets outdated very quickly. It’s not that much of an issue, though, as most software is provided on a subscription basis with updates included, rather than bought only once.

If you really want to stay ahead in the SEO industry, you should try as many different tools as you can. By paying attention to what tools others are using and learning how they work, you will have the edge in the SEO market. So get out there, and download these SEO tools of the trade!

10 Quick Things You Can Do Today To Improve Your Search Ranking

2006-04-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

You know all that extra time you have to work on Search Engine Optimization? [A little sarcasm there] Actually, I tried to put together a list of quick things you can do that will help you move a little higher in your Google or Yahoo results.

1. Get listed in more search engines. There are tons of them out there. There are also many free services that will help you get listed. Or just set aside some time to get it done yourself. Here is a free search engine submission site that will let you cycle through the top 100 search engines and get your site submitted.

2. Get listed in more directories. Again, there are a lot of them out there. Look for higher pagerank directories. Improvingrank.com has some listed by pagerank. Look on the left side of the homepage.

3. Clean up your html and check your links. You want the bots to have smooth sailing through your site. Use the tools on W3c.org and have a real person check them over too.

4. Get a few more links to your site. Make them relevant and at least the same pagerank as you.

5. Make your page filenames descriptive and keyword rich. Naming your page new_page_1.html is wasting an opportunity to do some SEO. Use names that describe the content and keep the keywords flowing.

6. Check your Title tags. You can use 90 - 100 characters in the title, so add some keywords. We know Google looks at them, and so do many more search engines.

7. Check your ALT tags. Searchbots can’t see pictures. Make sure you have ALT tags on all of your pictures, and make sure they are descriptive and keyword rich.

8. Rewrite your URL (anchor) tags. Good anchor tags (the text between the http: and /a tags) reinforce the message and key words of your site.

9. Go post in a few forums and put your website in your signature. Forums are a great place to put one way links. And you can help somebody out at the same time.

10. Put together a text based sitemap and put it on your site. There’s a lot of navigation that spiders can’t understand, such as flash, forms, java and javascript. Putting together a text-based sitemap gives the bots a way to navigate around the site.Fifteen minutes every couple of days will make a huge difference in getting your rank higher.

Making The Best Use Of Search Engine Optimizing Software

2006-04-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

If you own an online business, you know the importance and advantage to be seen on search engines like google, yahoo, MSN and lycos. Today, search engines generate most of the traffic (Customers) that will come to your site and buy your services, software products or e-materials. No matter what the nature of the business is, you need to spend money on optimizing and preparing your web site for the visit of spiders. Spiders are the robots that index your site to the database of the search engine.Why spend thousands of dollars on search engine optimization, when you can do it yourself? Yes it is true. By using technology and some good reading, you can raise your site to the top most ranking in the matter of days. The cost is nominal and will not go above $150. Search engine optimizing software will not only save you money but it will also allow you to do things the easy way through the various wizards. Almost all the work for you is done by the software allowing you to spend time with the site itself.One such software is Web Position Gold. With features like automatic submitter, reports and traffic analysis, it is a gem of a software program for any serious business owner or web master.Let us take a close look at some of its features. The most important feature of this software is the Submitter. It is a real time saver. You just select the web pages or files, and search engines you want to submit and it does all the submitting while you do something else. It even keeps track of everything to make sure you don't span the search engines and that all the pages are submitted.The search engine ranking reporter is another feature you will love. Running reports using thousands of keywords at a time is no problem. Keywords are very important in the search engine industry. These words are used by your visitors to reach your site. So it is important to run popular reports on what words are best for your business and this software does it for you. It also includes a handy feature where you can spy on your competitors.With all the above features the software still offers more. The Page Critic supplies expert, custom-tailored advice on how to optimize each of your new or existing web pages. Page Generator creates optimized web pages based on keywords and details you enter about your business. Upload Manager remembers all the optimized Web pages you created, changed, or added. Scheduler activates the Reporter daily, weekly, or monthly to automatically check your web site's rankings. Add an excellent and qualified customer care team that answers e mails within hours and provides a toll free number web position gold is a serious requirement for any business that is serious about its online presence.We know that a web site cannot succeed without proper search engine optimization. However, an expert will charge a lot of money and learn about your business before he starts work. Search engine optimizing software gives you the opportunity to do that work at a fraction of the cost. Not only is the cost factor important, but you are the best judge of your company hence you can use that power to stay on top with all the repetitive work done by the optimization software.

Do-It-Yourself SEO

2006-04-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

Does the whole idea of Internet marketing intimidate you? Are you thinking of hiring a professional? Well, we’ve got great news for you. It’s really not difficult to do search engine optimization (SEO) yourself – you can save hundreds of dollars, and get the same results as the professionals do. You will probably get better results from highly qualified professionals, but you should definitely perform these do-it-yourself actions first. Once you’ve done some of this kind of work it will be easier to determine if a professional is worth his/her salt.Basic SEO is very simple and easy – all it takes is the willingness to put in the work. Once you know the ropes, it’s not that difficult though it can be time consuming. The content of your website the focus of what SEO is all about. Here are the top points to think about when you’re doing it yourself.1. You will start by registering a domain name, which should reflect what your site about. Keep it short, as long as it’s somehow related to your site. Being more specific can help. You could choose to name the page after one of your products or services, for example. Another method is to get a sub domain of a popular domain. This will generally help you get indexed more quickly though it will not appear quite as professional to your visitors. There is a trade of here, sub domains are quicker (and generally cheaper), but domain names are more memorable, and, in the long run, better for your indexing.2. The next thing you should look at is your page’s title (i.e. the HTML title tag), which is critical in letting search engines see what the page is about, and is the first item looked at by search engines to determine your relevance. You should put your most important keywords in your title tags – you don’t need to worry about singular or plural forms as search engines account for these changes in most cases. Whatever you do, don't call your home page ‘Home’ – make the title a mini-description of the page.3. The two primary meta tags aren’t as important as they used to be, but the description tag is still used by some search engines to display information about your website to users and help them decide whether they’ve found what they are looking for. Not all search engines bother with this, though most will put some bearing on it (even if it is minuscule).For very short descriptions the alt tag can be used. Alt tags let you describe an image or graphic file – they’re the pop-up descriptions that appear when you hover your mouse over a graphic, or when the graphic can’t be downloaded for whatever reason.Text within comment tags is never displayed on the page – it is used by coders and designers to remind them of what that part of the page is for. Some coders used to put lots of keywords in the comment tags, so that they would be seen by search engines but not users, but search engines have now stopped paying attention to any text that isn’t seen by the user. Keep this in mind when trying to post invisible text (i.e. white text on a white background). This kind of behavior can get you banned from a search engine.4. Having keyword density in all of your content is good, but keep in mind that each search engine has its own requirements when it comes to how many times that a keyword or phrase should be in the content for the page to be relevant. Somewhere between 5 and 8 percent is a roughly optimal level – but this isn’t always possible, and you shouldn’t force it. Don’t overdo it, or the search engines might mark you down.5. Many search engines judge web page importance on the number and quality of incoming links from other sites. You should link to some related sites, but not too many. Don’t overdo incoming links either, and keep them related your site’s content. It’s also good to get sites to use your keywords as the text of these links.If you follow the advice above, you can do it yourself and do fine. SEO, if done right, can keep you on top for as long as you want to be.

Basics Of Search Engine Optitimization (SEO)

2006-04-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Have you heard stories about legendary online entrepreneurs who hit it big after getting a #1 rank in several popular search engines? You probably wondered what it would take for you to achieve that elusive #1 spot in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in ensuring that your business gets the best possible search engine ranking, which can lead to increased sales for your online company.What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?Search engine optimization is the process of modifying web page content and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags (title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags), as well as the internal (links between pages on the same site) and external (links between pages on different sites) link structure of a web site.Impact of High Search Engine Rank on SalesInternet market research estimates that between 70% and 90% of online shoppers use search engines to find a specific product or service. Let's examine factors that influence sales to see how effective search engine optimization can boost your revenues.Three metrics are required to forecast online sales: the average ticket, the conversion rate, and the amount of web site traffic:* The average ticket is the amount of money spent by a customer on a typical transaction. Computer and electronics stores have high average tickets (hundreds or thousands of dollars), while bookstores have low average tickets (tens of dollars).* Web Site traffic is measured by the number of site visitors, typically expressed as the number of page views per month.* Conversion rate is the number of sales divided by the number of page views per month, expressed as a percentage.Let's look at an example. The Ultimate Taupe Widget (UTW) store has an average ticket of $25, a conversion rate of 2%, and gets 5,000 page views per month. The estimated monthly sales are $2,500 ($25 average ticket * 0.02 conversion rate expressed as a decimal * 5,000 page views per month). Achieving a high search engine rank will increase the number of page views, and therefore increase sales. In this example, if traffic doubles to 10,000 page views a month, UTW's monthly sales should (approximately) double as well (to $5,000).Keep in mind that a high search engine rank will produce a measurable increase in traffic only if there is significant marketplace interest in taupe widgets and your web site appears in the first thirty search engine results.However, search engine optimization is not going to produce measurable results if there is very little demand for taupe widgets. The #1 spot in search engine result pages is not particularly impressive if only two people search for "taupe widgets" each month. Role of Keywords in Search Engine OptimizationKeywords are words or phrases users provide to search engines to locate information. Search engines examine page content to determine whether a specific page is relevant for a particular search word or phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the cornerstones of search engine optimization.Each keyword is characterized by supply (number of search engine result pages) and demand (number of searches). The easiest way to improve search engine rank is to select keywords that have favorable supply-demand characteristics; that is, ones with a relatively high demand and a relatively low supply. It is much more difficult to improve the search engine position of a page on a high supply, competitive keyword.Good keywords must be relevant to your product line, as well as your line of business. A #1 rank for "navy widgets" is worthless if you sell taupe widgets exclusively. A potential customer will find your page, quickly discover that you don't sell any navy widgets, and promptly go elsewhere. In effect, the conversion rate for irrelevant search engine hits is very close to zero.Using Keywords EffectivelyChoosing a set of target keywords is the first step in search engine optimization. The second step is using them in the body, title, headings, and meta-tags of a page.Include the target keywords in the text of the page. Don't overdo it, though --- the keywords should fit smoothly into the surrounding text. Search engines use several techniques to detect excessive keyword density, or too many keywords stuffed into very little supporting text, and will reduce the rank accordingly. A page has too many keywords if they interfere with the general flow of the text on a page and appear to be glaringly out of placeThe title tag should contain information that describes the page. Unless you operate a multi-national conglomerate that is already a household name, your company's name is not a descriptive title. Most search engines use the title tag as the first line of your listing in the search engine result pages. Strive to make your title tag say "click me" to a prospective customer. "Superior taupe widgets - 50% off every day" is a good page title, while "Ultimate Taupe Widgets, Inc." is not.Incorporate keywords into the headings on the page, as well as into emphasized sections (bold or large text). Even though search engines are de-emphasizing descriptive meta-tags, include keywords in them nevertheless. The description meta-tag should have an accurate description of your page, and the keywords meta-tag should contain a set of keywords (separated by commas) that list key concepts mentioned on the page.Understanding the basics of search engine optimization is an important first step in creating an optimized, well-positioned web site.

2006-04-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

There are five simple tasks that you need to do daily to keep your site on top. Here they are:

1. You need to start off by managing your links. This involves making sure that none of your current links are dead, and you should also check if there are any sites linking to you that you don’t know about. If your site consists of a large number of links you should make sure that they aren’t getting out of control and get rid of anything that is no longer relevant. Also make sure that your links are sufficiently labelled to reflect the page that they link to.

2. Re-order your links, putting the best ones first. And putting them into categories if you have a high number of links. If you have a links page with 25+ links it is a good idea to turn it into a directory of some sort. This can even help you in getting more links to your site in exchange for back links on the directory that you have created. Also check the sites that you link to and make sure that any back links that are due to you are still there as you don’t have much reason to keep a link if you aren’t getting the backlink that you deserve (if the back link was, indeed, negotiated when you placed the link onto your site).

3. Process link request emails. Whenever you receive requests for a link exchange, respond quickly. Not every mail you receive will be a good one, and you should make sure to check any site that wants you to link to it. If you are declining a link request let the web master know why. Perhaps you have an incite that they do not have. They may be able to fix a few things and then become excellent link partners in the future. It is common curtesy to inform the web master as to whether or not you are willing to exchange links within two or three days of receiving a request. Web masters will be even more impressed if you send them a personalized message regarding your approval or disapproval of the link exchange.

4. Check link exchange forums. This is a similar aspect to the above except that in this case it is more difficult to keep track of all of the people who can potentially request links from your site. There is a lot of spam on these sorts of things as well as many really terrible and useless sites. If you encounter such a site or forum member, inform them of your problem with what they are doing and report them to a moderator/administrator if they do not correct their behavior in a suitable manor. It is important that these kinds of forums be kept clean or a search engine may consider it a link farm more than an exchange service.

5. Finally, you should check each feature of your website, to make sure it’s still working properly. The dynamic content that you will probably include at some point must be delivered properly. Any messages that are generated on the fly must not be generated at misopportune times. The difference between a quality dynamic site and a subpar dynamic site is that in a quality dynamic site all content is delivered at the right time and everything seems static and planned out.

Take your time with your website and make sure that you do everything you can for it each day. Keep adding anything new that you find, because updating regularly will keep search engines coming back to spider more often. Updates are crucial and if you can follow the patterns here of insuring quality and precision, you will probably be able to come up with other ways that you can insure your visitors satisfaction and your increased traffic, link count, and search engine listings.

Never agree to link to someone’s site without asking for a link in exchange, unless they offer to pay you – even then, you should think twice. All your incoming and outgoing links need to be related to your site’s content for you to be ranked high in the search engines.

Basic Link Checks.

Some sites use robots.txt to stop search engines from indexing their links pages, in the mistaken belief that outbound links will count against them. To check, just retype their URL with robots.txt on the end (for example, http://www.website.com/robots.txt). If you see a page that says ‘Disallow’ and has the URL of their links page, then they’re not letting spiders index that page. Don’t exchange links with that site.

You should also check to see if the website is being ‘cloaked’, and report it to the search engines if it is. You don’t want to get involved with these people – better to have them banned and out of the way.

Does the site offering you a link have PageRank? Even if they do, you should look at how it drops between the front page and the links page. Be aware that new pages take a while to get ranked, so PR0 doesn’t necessarily mean a site that will never have any PageRank.

Take a look at how many links are on the page already. There shouldn’t be more than 20 links – if the site breaks this rule, don’t even consider it. Plenty of webmasters collect links, thinking they’re helping their rankings, but it just has the effect of making them look like link farms. Many of them don’t even involve linking to the big spam industries, like casinos and adult content. There’s no point in having a link from a site that takes links from just anyone.

Search Engine Optimization Glossary

2006-04-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

Algorithm. A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the pages contained within its index in response to a particular query. No search engine reveals exactly how its algorithm works, to protect itself both from competitors and from those who wish to spam the search engine.Back links. These are links to a website from external sources, including other web pages, directories, and advertising.Banned. When pages are removed from a search engine's index because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming, or violating one of the search engine’s other rules.Click-through rate. How many people clicked on a link, as a percentage of the total number of people that saw the link.Cloaking. The act of serving content to search engine spiders that is different to what normal visitors would see. Search engines will ban you if they find you doing this.Contextual links. Contextual links are displayed on web pages when the content on the page indicates to an ad server that the page is a good match for specific keywords or phrases.Conversion rate. The percentage of visitors to a website who buy something.Cost per click (CPC). A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their website.Cost per mille (CPM). A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times an ad is seen, regardless of how many people actually click through. The ‘mille’ refers to one thousand viewings of the ad.Crawler. A component of a search engine that gathers listings by automatically ‘crawling’ the web, following links to understand how pages are connected.De-listing. This is when pages are removed from a search engine’s index, usually because they haven’t been updated for a long time.Directories. A type of search engine where listings are gathered by humans, rather than by automated web crawlers.Doorway page. A web page created in the hope of improving another page’s ranking in a search engine’s listings. Doorway pages don’t give much information to the people viewing them.Graphical inventory. Banners and other ads that appear depending on the keywords a page contains. This includes pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.Index. The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query.Landing page. The web page that a visitor reaches after clicking your search engine listing.Link popularity. A count of how ‘popular’ a page is based on the number of other pages that link to it.Link. A link is text that you can click on to go to another website, or another page on the same website.Listings. The information that appears on a search engine's results page in response to a search.Meta-search engine. A search engine that returns listings from two or more other search engines, instead of using its own index.Meta tags. Tags placed in a web page’s code that pass information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.Meta description tag. This meta tag allows pages to provide descriptions to search engines.Meta keywords tag. Allows authors to add text to a page to help with the search engine ranking process.Meta robots tag. Allows page authors to keep some web pages from being indexed by search engines. Similar to a robots.txt file.Natural listings. The listings that search engines do not sell. Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine believes it is important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Note that paid inclusion listings are still treated as natural listings by many search engines.Outbound links. Links on one website that lead to other websites.Paid inclusion. An advertising program where pages are guaranteed to be spidered and included in a search engine's index in exchange for payment.PPC. Pay-per-click – means the same as cost per click (CPC).Paid listings. Listings that search engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs.Pay-for-performance. A term popularized by some search engines as a synonym for pay-per-click. It stresses to advertisers that they are only paying for ads that "perform" in terms of delivering traffic, as opposed to CPM-based ads, where ads cost money even if no-one clicks on them.Paid placement. An advertising program where listings appear in response to particular search terms, with higher rankings typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers.Rank. The order in which web pages are listed in search engine results.Reciprocal link. A ‘link exchange’ in which two sites link to each other.Results page. The page that appears after a user enters their search terms.Robots.txt. A file used to keep web pages from being indexed by search engines.Search engine. A service designed to allow users to search the web, or another database of information.Search engine marketing (SEM). Marketing a website using search engines, whether you’re improving your ranking in natural listings, purchasing paid listings or some combination of the two.Search engine optimization (SEO). Altering a website so that it ranks higher in the search engines.Search terms. The words a searcher enters into a search engine's search box.Shopping search. Shopping search engines allow shoppers to search the web for products and their prices.Spam. Any search engine marketing method that a search engine decides is detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant search results.Spider. See crawler.Submission. The act of sending a URL to a search engine, for inclusion in its index.XML feeds. A process in which information about a page is fed to the index without using a crawler, for example using RSS.The best advice is to follow a good search engine promotion system. Keep track of when you submit your sites and how soon they’re indexed -- checking once a week is sufficient.Ranking systems can be confusing and there are often complex factors involved, but you do not need to be an expert in the field to achieve top results. Take a chance – after all, you have nothing to lose.