Well it appears that Yahoo has rejected the unsolicited bid from the evil empire! In my opinion this is a great day for small businesses. I can imagine nothing worse for the future of the internet than a domination by Microsoft. While Google may have a strangle  hold on the search and advertising business on the internet, they have gotten it the honest way- by commitment to an ever improved service to their user base. They early on developted a corporate strategy of "do no evil" which is about the polar opposite of Microsoft.  Google has gone to the top based upon a free market choice of their services due to the quality they provide their users. Microsoft has historically made it to the top by rolling over competition and forcing their users into  having no choice except what they choose to provide. Their products   typically are  either a rip off of someone else (i.e. Windows) or  promoted by forcing competition out of business   by bundling tactics (i.e. Internet Explorer).

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As is evident from the posting dates, I have been only intermittently  posting to this blog since I launched the site several months ago. I do this as an area of interest to me , and at this point it is not a significant income source for me. I had focused on promotion to achieve a decent pagerank, which I think I have accomplished with a respectable pagerank of 4 in a period of less than 6 months of lmiited effort. Much of my internet  marketing work has   been on other sites that are bringing me a regular stream of income. However, the main things that consume most of my time are my work as a forensic psychologist, my family, and other hobbies. Those always come first in my life, but I think I have developed a plan to allow me to focus more time on this blog.

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Google apparently has been doing another update of  the pagerank visible in  the toolbar. This appears to have been happening over the last couple of days. There are many reports of  people with dramatic drops in page rank happening on sites. I have one old site which I only just began reworking in the past week which has dropped considerably. However, the homepage of this site – BizRave has gone up from a PR 3 to PR4 on this update.  I have some other sites that don't appear to have yet changed up or down. I think things are still in motion, so who knows what will be the final changes. You can watch my video explaining visible pagerank at  http://www.bizrave.com/pagerank-exposed-video/  .

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The single most important thing you can do to try to get your website top search engine rankings is to optimize your choice of keywords. Your choice of keywords should guide every decision you make about building your website, putting content on your website, and marketing your website on the internet. Marketing on the internet is in some ways similar to offline marketing, but in other ways it is quite unique due to it being primarily a search oriented media.  In brief, the amount of exposure you get for your website is more dependent upon keyword research and optimizing your list of keywords than anything else you do.

Keyword research is the  one aspect of building a web business should be the most closely managed project you have. Whether you are a do it yourself type. or outsource some or all of  the marketing of your business on the internet, you must be actively involved in keyword research.  Matching as many search terms as possible that are used by your target customer base is what determines the success of your internet business. You may think that you know what keyword phrases your potential customers use to find businesses such as yours, but more than likely you are wrong more than you are right. In addition you have no idea what the competition for any keyword phrase is going to be without doing the research. WIthout adequate keyword research you are almost destined to be disappointed in the performance of your website.

You start your keyword research by having a clear idea what specific products or services you wish to market,  and understanding exactly who you think would be interested in your offerings. If you skip this step, you might be successful in generating a lot of traffic, but very little would convert to sales and you would waste your time and money. Once you have an idea what you want to promote and to whom it is time to start brainstorming a list of initial keywords of interest to you. Once place to start this process is at Google’s keyword tool. Their tool is free and useful for this initial step.

Once you have a  list of initial keywords, it is time to start expanding the list. Here you want to take the core list of  one or two word phrases you just developed and expand them into many short two to five word phrases that will be the primary target of your keyword optimization efforts. Then you must determine how much competition you have for the keyword phrases of interest to you. You are generally much better off  to initially target a variety of less competitive terms relevant to your business  than to go after the most competitive ones.   If you are serious about your business, you need to invest in software to help you or use one of the online paid keyword research tools. Obviously another option would be to pay someone to do it for you.  This may be the best choice for many business owners that don’t want to become experts in the details of internet marketing. Only you can determine how your time is best spent.

So you have all these keywords now, so what do you do with them?  The keywords are used for all aspects of your internet marketing. You initially use them to plan the content and structure of your site. You want to have pages on your site who’s content is targeted at your primary list of keywords. You want to use links in your site that reflect the keyword terms of interest to you. After you have planned your site around the keywords it is now time to use them outside your site to drive traffic to your site. If you are using paid search advertising, such as Google Adwords, this list will guide your advertising strategy and budget. If you are going for top listings in the natural search results, the list will guide all your efforts to improve your rankings in the search engines. No matter how you intend to promote your site, you must make keyword research your first priority.

The single most important thing you can do to try to get your website top search engine rankings is to optimize your choice of keywords. Your choice of keywords should guide every decision you make about building your website, putting content on your website, and marketing your website on the internet. Marketing on the internet is in some ways similar to offline marketing, but in other ways it is quite unique due to it being primarily a search oriented media.  In brief, the amount of exposure you get for your website is more dependent upon keyword research and optimizing your list of keywords than anything else you do.

Keyword research is the  one aspect of building a web business should be the most closely managed project you have. Whether you are a do it yourself type. or outsource some or all of  the marketing of your business on the internet, you must be actively involved in keyword research.  Matching as many search terms as possible that are used by your target customer base is what determines the success of your internet business. You may think that you know what keyword phrases your potential customers use to find businesses such as yours, but more than likely you are wrong more than you are right. In addition you have no idea what the competition for any keyword phrase is going to be without doing the research. WIthout adequate keyword research you are almost destined to be disappointed in the performance of your website.

You start your keyword research by having a clear idea what specific products or services you wish to market,  and understanding exactly who you think would be interested in your offerings. If you skip this step, you might be successful in generating a lot of traffic, but very little would convert to sales and you would waste your time and money. Once you have an idea what you want to promote and to whom it is time to start brainstorming a list of initial keywords of interest to you. Once place to start this process is at Google’s keyword tool. Their tool is free and useful for this initial step.

Once you have a  list of initial keywords, it is time to start expanding the list. Here you want to take the core list of  one or two word phrases you just developed and expand them into many short two to five word phrases that will be the primary target of your keyword optimization efforts. Then you must determine how much competition you have for the keyword phrases of interest to you. You are generally much better off  to initially target a variety of less competitive terms relevant to your business  than to go after the most competitive ones.   If you are serious about your business, you need to invest in software to help you or use one of the online paid keyword research tools. Obviously another option would be to pay someone to do it for you.  This may be the best choice for many business owners that don’t want to become experts in the details of internet marketing. Only you can determine how your time is best spent.

So you have all these keywords now, so what do you do with them?  The keywords are used for all aspects of your internet marketing. You initially use them to plan the content and structure of your site. You want to have pages on your site who’s content is targeted at your primary list of keywords. You want to use links in your site that reflect the keyword terms of interest to you. After you have planned your site around the keywords it is now time to use them outside your site to drive traffic to your site. If you are using paid search advertising, such as Google Adwords, this list will guide your advertising strategy and budget. If you are going for top listings in the natural search results, the list will guide all your efforts to improve your rankings in the search engines. No matter how you intend to promote your site, you must make keyword research your first priority.

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Before the internet was widely available, the technique of article marketing was widely practiced. A seller published articles about subjects that were related to his product. Those articles were interesting enough to be reprinted by others, providing the seller with more exposure for his product. This strategy has been adapted to the internet, where it has become an effective web site marketing strategy.

An excellent way to utilize article marketing on the Internet is to employ the services of a search engine marketing company. These firms increase the effectiveness of the copy on your site by using key words which cause search engine spiders to target your site, thus increasing its traffic ranking. As a result, other sites will increasingly discover and post your copy, which will increase traffic–and sales–yet further.

A range of services may be offered by a search engine marketing firm. Through their expertise and experience, they can assist business owners in determining the best search keywords, as the most popular may not always be the most suitable. Such firms have their finger on the pulse when it comes to knowing how search engines gather and analyze information, and can share this expertise with their clients.

Some sites may have good copy but the content may not be tweaked for search engine optimization. Some sites may not have good content. In both cases the search engine marketing firm may be able to help. In the first case, the firm helps by tweaking content for search engine optimization. In the second case, these firms staff people who can create new, interesting content that can be interesting enough to be republished, get linked back and attract web spiders that are looking for specific content. Even the owner's style can be duplicated.

Website marketing like all marketing depends on letting customers know who you are and what you offer. Online, the only way to do that is to have traffic, and traffic comes from being likely to appear on a search engine when someone looks for a related topic. Choosing the right search engine marketing firm will maximize your visibility and hence your traffic and traffic is the secret to profit.

The really great thing is that you no longer need to be an expert writer or marketer to make a go of an online business. Simply hiring the right marketing firm with strong internet business experience and expertise already know what makes a site noticed and will do what it takes to put your sites in front of more people.

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After a very long  wait Google is finally doing a pagerank export update today!

If you have websites today is the day to check your pagerank in the Google toolbar or  by other means. There is an update happening right now. As is usual many sites go up and many sites go down in visible pagerank.  While pagerank is only one factor that determines where one of your web pages shows up in the Google searches, it is a good overal indication of the success of your efforts to promote your pages on the search engines. For an explanation of page rank  I suggest that you have a look a the short video I made to explain  Google PageRank . I also have a brief article which will help you undestand how to increase pagerank .

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Your web site marketing strategy is the essential factor that determines the success or  failure of a business web site. This is true whether your web site is an extension of  an offline business,  or you run an completely online business. Web site marketing is unlike any marketing you may have done using other media. However,  marketing your web site on the internet shares many common core marketing foundations that underly your marketing efforts regardless of the media you use. I am  a strong believer that for a small business, all marketing  should be based on the old direct marketing mantra of attention, interest, desire, and action.  In this article I am going to discuss those aspects in terms of how they crucial in marketing your website on the internet.

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Without a doubt Google  provides some of the best free webmaster tools on the internet.  Most webmasters are not even aware of the great tools that Google provides them. Even worse, some are aware that they exist but have never bothered to check them out. If you are one of the webmasters who fails to take advantage of the free tools that Google offers, you are at a serious disadvantage to those who do. The very fist thing you need to do is become a registered user with Google to get access to any of their tools. The next thing you need to do is to get an Adwords account with them. Even if you don’t think you will run any Adwords ads in the near future, you need the account to use some of  their most powerful tools.

Most people are aware that Google offers a free keyword suggestion tool that can help you find keywords that are relevant to your business. Keyword research is fundamental to almost every aspect of internet business. If you fail to pay attention to this very basic aspect of internet marketing then you are almost certain to struggle in your business. The keyword suggestion tool can be found easily by doing a search for “Google keyword suggestion” and going to the google page at the top of the search results.

The next very powerful tool is their site analytics software. You need an Adwords account for this one, but it is an amazing tool that tracks visitors to your site. This tool allows you see a wealth of data about how they found you and whether they are converting to customers and/or leads on your site. Similar software costs hundreds of dollars and is not nearly as user friendly and powerful. Using this software is an absolute must for any serious webmaster.

Last, but by no means least, is their suite of tools appropriately call webmaster tools. This is a collection of tools to allow you to find out many things such as how many  pages you have in their index, any problems with your pages,  and most importantly a very detailed list of the pages on the internet that link to you.  This list is the heart of understanding why you do, or do not, rank for search terms of interest to you. In my opinion this is the most valuable tool that Google could have ever created and is a relatively recent addition to their offerings.  Simply said, it rocks!

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 Understanding Google pagerank is essential for small business owners who wish to promote their services on the internet. Google pagerank is the most widely known measures of the popularity of a webpage and is directly related to search results in google. I have prepared a short video to help you understand page rank and how you can determine the page rank of any of your webpages or those of your competitors. Understanding pagerank is crucial to monitoring the success of your interent marketing efforts.

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Many business owners and internet marketing professionals are looking for the fastest way to increase page rank.  In may  respects this is the quest for the holy grail of internet marketing. For those who may not know, page rank is a number assigned by Google according to their secret algorithm that is believed  to be highly relevant to how high a page is placed in the search results. I am here to tell you that the page rank number you can see is certainly not everything when it comes to the ranking  in search results.

In order to see the page rank of a particular web page you must either use a web browser that can display page rank data or go to a site where you can enter the url of a page and get it’s page rank. The problem is that the number you see is always out of date and reflects the last time the public display of  the page rank algorithm was updated. There can be a lag of many months since the last update. So in truth the page rank as used by Google is not accurately reflected in the numbers you can see in many cases.

Despite these problems, page rank is the most visible aspect we have to understand how Google ranks pages in the search results. Please note I said ranks pages, not sites! Each page stands on it’s own to a great extent, though there is some belief that it may be considered in the context of the reputation of the whole site. At the least the page rank of any page can be affected by the page rank of other pages on that site which link to it.

So there is a very simple answer to the question of how to increase page rank rapidly. However, you must first understand what most people think is the basis of page rank. Page rank is in many ways  a popularity contest on the internet. It believed to be based upon the number of links to your page and the popularity of the pages that link to you. In other words the more links, or votes, you get to your site the better in general. The higher the page rank of  the pages that link to you, the more valuable they are to your page rank.

So here is the answer to how to increase page rank rapidly. You have to get as many good quality links to your page that are relevant to the content of your page as you can. It is just that simple. There are many ways to get links including, reciprocal linking  with other sites, posting on blogs and forums, article marketing, and press releases just to name a few.  I believe the most effective is to write articles and submit them to directories for publication distribution.

I will cover each of these methods in some more detail in future articles.

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