Google announced that it is changing the way it categorizes link data in Webmaster Tools.

“As you know, Webmaster Tools lists links pointing to your site in two separate categories: links coming from other sites, and links from within your site,” says Google Webmaster Trends analyst Susan Moskwa. “Today’s update won’t change your total number of links, but will hopefully present your backlinks in a way that more closely aligns with your idea of which links are actually from your site vs. from other sites.”

For one, subdomains are now counted as internal links, which makes a great deal of sense. Here’s a chart showing how links have changed:

“If you own a site that’s on a subdomain (such as googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com) or in a subfolder (www.google.com/support/webmasters/) and don’t own the root domain, you’ll still only see links from URLs starting with that subdomain or subfolder in your internal links, and all others will be categorized as external links,” says Moskwa. “We’ve made a few backend changes so that these numbers should be even more accurate for you.”

She does note that if you own a root domain, your number of external links may appear to go down.

Google Announces Changes to AdSense Publisher Application Process

Google is making some changes to the AdSense publisher application process. Starting today, the company says, it will be adding a new step to the review process and begin sending notifications at “two key points.”

“After a new application is submitted, we’ll begin with preliminary checks on the site and the applicant’s submitted details,” explains product manager Max Cohen. “If the application passes through this first stage, we’ll notify the applicant by email, grant them account access, and provide them with ad code to place on their submitted site. It’s essential at this stage for the applicant to place the ad code on their site, as the review process can’t be completed until the ad code is implemented.”

“However, live ads won’t immediately appear once the ad code has been placed on the submitted site,” he notes. “Since the application hasn’t been fully approved yet, temporary “blank ads” will be shown instead. These blank ads will blend in with the background of the page, so users won’t see them and the user experience won’t be impacted. As a result, there’s nothing to click on and thus revenue can’t yet be generated. If the applicant logs into their AdSense account at this stage of the review process, they’ll see a reminder that their account is still under review.”

After the ad code is added to the submitted site, Cohen says, a final approval decision will be made, and then the applicant will be notified by email. Approved publishers will see live ads automatically appear in the existing ad units. Google is encouraging them to add more units to their submitted site and to other sites they own.

You might want to keep in mind the things Google looks at when determining content quality, however, before you go plastering too many adds all over your sites. Just a tip.

Effective Social Media Marketing Programs

Like it or not, social media is here to stay. Facebook has over 600 million users worldwide; Twitter claims to have over 200 million and LinkedIn hit 100 million users back in March. Long before Facebook and Bing joined forces in May, both Google and Bing were incorporating social signals into their search results. Social profiles can rank in the search engines, increasing your online brand presence; trending topics on Twitter on complied in the RealTime results section of Google, Bing now shows you which of your friends have “liked” a link and more. There is no denying that social media will have a lasting effect on search marketing and SEO.

But just because social media seems to be heralded as the second coming, it is not the end-all-be-all magic bullet to your online marketing needs. A social networking profile is only as good and as useful as you make it to be. Just like SEO, social media marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing technique. Social media is 24-7, which means you better be an active participant if you want to make any headway. Social networking is all about making connections and establishing relationships. It is not the place to make a sales push. As a critical component of inbound marketing (along with SEO) social media marketing gives you the chance to connect with your consumers on a personal level, monitor your online brand reputation, build your brand presence and more. But you have to be smart about it!

I know that Wikipedia is never supposed to be used as a source, but there is a great list of social networking sites that you should check out. There are hundreds of social networking sites for every kind of niche audience! Which one do you think your consumers use, in addition to the big three?

While these smaller social networking sites may not have the reach or brand recognition of Facebook, that doesn’t mean they don’t have value. Being able to communicate with a very targeted audience is a boon for businesses. The more targeted your audience, the better chance your messaging has of having an impact and prompting action.

If you want to create a social networking profile, make sure you have the time and resources to really use that profile! While you could create the profile just to get the link, there is so much more value in building your online community on that site. The purpose of a social networking site is to network! If you don’t have the time, energy or desire to really make a space for yourself on any given social network, what is the point?

As social media matures, companies are realizing that it takes a lot of time and effort to run a successful social media marketing strategy. It’s not enough to have a profile anymore. Time to start using them or risk getting lost in the shuffle.

How to Optimize an Ecommerce Site

An e commerce site could have thousands upon thousands of pages of products. Just look at the online shopping giant Amazon; they probably have millions of product pages. E commerce sites that only sell one kind of product (cameras, shoes, furniture, etc) might have fewer pages overall, but by no means is it a small amount. On-site optimization is the process of going through you site, page by page, and tweaking each page so it is more search engine friendly. Many e-commerce sites fail to fully optimize their site mostly because of how large they are, but it still has to be done. It takes a lot of time, but it is almost always worth the effort.

Here are 3 ways you can better optimize your ecommerce site:

Create unique product descriptions
One of the biggest problems with many e-commerce sites is duplicate content. You might sell a lot of products that are very similar (or came from the same manufacturer) so the product descriptions are very formulaic and repetitive. For instance, a clothing retailer might describe one pair of pants as “Our boot cut jeans are designed to flatter your curves without losing their shape!” and the second style of pants as “Our wide legged trouser jeans are designed to flatter your curves without losing their shape!” It’s the same content, just the product changed. Each product page (boot cut jeans vs. wide legged trouser jeans) has its own URL; it needs unique content. Search engines are known to penalize sites they find guilty of duplicating content.

Simplify your internal linking structure
Most traffic doesn’t come to an e-commerce site through the homepage; they arrive via one of the product pages. You have to make it easy for them to navigate your site regardless of how they got there. You want to minimize the amount of clicks it takes your visitor to get from one page of your site to another. A drop down menu is a great way to help flatten your site structure. That way, if your visitor wants to jump from jeans to blouses, they don’t have to go all the way back to the homepage to do so.

Another way to simplify your linking structure is to recommend product pages to your visitor based on what product they are currently looking at. They might need a new purse to match the dress they are looking at, or maybe a pair of earrings. For instance, Amazon has a “customers who bought this item also bought” section. It’s a good way to keep visitors clicking through your site and filling up their cart.

Include customer reviews
Another major problem with e-commerce sites is that they don’t have a lot of content to begin with. Other than the product description, what else can you say? You need to give the search engines enough content to read so your site will get pulled to match more searches. One way to do this is to include consumer product reviews on the product page. This gives the search engines more content to read and also creates a 3rd party endorsement for your product. People are very social when it comes to shopping online. They want other people’s opinions before they buy. A real consumer review goes a long way in convincing someone to act.

How to- Get the Most Out of Facebook and Twitter Promotions

Once upon a time, you had to use a phone book to find a business’s contact details. Mercifully, those days are behind us. As social media has worked its way into every aspect of our lives, we as a culture have come to expect that our favorite brands — from “Big Gay Ice Cream” trucks to national airlines and fashion houses — are easily accessible on the most popular social networks.

However, it’s no longer enough to simply interact. Consumers are increasingly hungry for promotions, exclusive discounts and giveaways. In fact, recent data suggests that most people who follow brands on Facebook and Twitter both expect and want to receive coupons from these brands.

According to an Ad Age/Ipsos Observer survey of 1,000 participants regarding digital consumption habits, 65% of consumers want the brands they follow to offer coupons. Compare this figure to the percentage of respondents who said they wanted enhanced customer service (42%) and you begin to get a clearer picture of the landscape.

Certainly the Ad Age numbers indicate that the demand for promotions exists, but how effective are Twitter andFacebook promotions in practice? Do they really increase engagement or sales? While no conclusive studies have been done on this exact topic, substantial anecdotal evidence suggests that they do.

The Role SEO Plays for Your Online Business

When it comes to e-commerce, operating and concentrating on the improvement of the website is more or less meaningless if no one on the internet knows that you exist on cyberspace. This is why promotion and marketing are at the heart of e-commerce.

Even the best brands on the internet cannot perform well if they do not keep up their efforts to promote their websites and the product and services they are offering, apart from the activities related to a business. As the consumers are exploring all the shopping options while sitting at home, this rather invites them to take more liberties with their choice and to explore the options, which perhaps they would not have had they been visiting a store in the local market.

That is very much how convenient life has become for an online consumer, and this convenience has only made the competition even fiercer. Even these top brands employ all the SEO techniques to make their websites rank better in the pages for the search engine results for particular keywords, related to their business. If these SEO tools and techniques do work in their favor, it offers them with an immense competitive advantage. But such a certain advantage can only be attained if businesses take timely measures and consult with top-notch SEO services in how to optimize their websites and content for better search engine result rankings.

A SEO service is a team of experts at optimizing websites and their content for a better reach across the audiences active on the internet. The reason why such a service and the concept of SEO itself work so well is that the potential customers narrow down the search themselves by looking up certain keywords. The search engine mechanism presents all the best related sites as a search result within a couple of seconds. A SEO service can use that very mechanism to optimize your website to get your better ranks and more customers.

Local SEM Has Changed, Have You Noticed?

Local SEM or search engine marketing got you confused lately? Things are certainly not the same as they were 2 or 3 years ago? The local search marketing game is changing folks and technology can be blamed on that. Chances are in the next three years it will change even more so don’t get too mad. Just hop on the horse and try to hold on.

Let’s take a look at how the local SEM game has changed over the years:

Local SEM Change#1 – Blogs
Blogs have been around for a number of years but I still see many website owners trying to market themselves locally that still do not understand the concept of a blog. A blog is nothing more than a journal entry of your choice that adds a whole new page to your website. You can structure that post as you wish and with a little savviness that blog post can rank for a variety of search terms in the industry.

Local SEM Change#2 – Social Media
Now wasn’t this a wrench in the gears for some? Who would have thought that communicating on a local level with your audience in front of your computer would make things so difficult for some businesses. It’s still cheaper than a newspaper ad but when you have been doing print advertising for a better part of your life it is tough to walk away from it for some. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks right?

Local SEM Change#3 – Check In Technology
Hold onto your hat folks because this one might make your head spin. You walk into a Starbucks and you click a button to tell everyone you have checked in and now you have a mayor badge? What badge? To make things even worse for some businesses Facebook has stepped into to join the fun with the location check in technology which is going to downright give some business owners a head ache.

Don’t be scared but rather embrace the new changes and find a way to get involved with the new technologies related to your local SEM campaign. Waiting and hoping things will change is never going to happen.

Google Launches Attack On Spam Sites & Content Farms

After receiving a lot of crtisism, over the past few months, regarding the quality of its search content Google has finally decided its time to look into this problem and fix it.

Earlier this week Google announced that they realized that the detoriating quality of search content on its search result page were posing a serious threat to the reputation of the company and that they will be taking action againts spammers.
Matt Cutts said in an interview that the spam content on the English result pages are less than half of what it was five years ago but they have noticed a small but significant rise of spam over the past few months. This certainly correlates with the feedback we recently got back from you, our readers.
Here is Matt’s view of the issue:

Google has been thinking for quite some time about how to deal with content that isn’t obvious spam but is clearly not designed with the best interests of the user in mind. Google needs to be open to ways where we can improve.
Cutts also stated that his team was already on the job and that some changes will be made in the search algorithms to specifically tackle the recent increase in spam results that are showing up on the search result pages.
According to Matt, after the launch of their a new version of Google Caffeine, Google has been indexing a lot more content that include spam and to deal with the spam content they have recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for on-page spam content to rank highly.

The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spam words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments.

Apparently, Google has also been developing its hacked site detecting ability and is testing some new changes, including one that penalizes websites for copying the content of others without having original content of its own. Sounds pretty good to me!
Google hasn’t forgotten about content farms either – they are firmly in their sights in 2011. Google has introduced two changes in its search algorithm that will block the low-quality sites from showing up with high rankings on the SERPs.

It would appear that Google isn’t going to let anything stand between it and search quality, even if that means taking down thousands of spammers and content farms in the process.

Introduction to Search Engine Marketing and Online Advertising

A search engine helps users find the things they're looking for online. The user types a word or phrase, called a query, into the search engine, which then displays a set of results that are relevant to the query.

Most search engines provide two types of results listings in response to the same user query: organic (also called "natural" or "free") listings, and paid listings (i.e., advertisements). Google keeps these two types of listings separate, and ads are noted by the phrase "Sponsored Links" appearing above them.

Most search engines rank the results within each type of listing -- in other words, they determine in what order to show the listings on the results page -- according to how relevant the result is to the user's query, with the most relevant appearing at the top of the page.

Each search engine calculates relevancy in a different way for each type of result (organic and paid). This is one of the main differences between one search engine and another, and it's a factor in many users' decisions about which search engine to use.

On Google, although both organic and paid results appear in response to the same user query, the results are independent of each other. The ranking of an organic search result has no bearing on the ranking of any ads, and vice versa. This makes it possible for an advertiser to perform well in the paid listings and have an ample online presence, even if their site isn't present in the top organic search results.

In Google's organic results, relevancy to the user's query is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link from site A to a page on site B adds to site B's PageRank.

Google AdWords also uses a combination of factors to rank paid listings, which will be explained in depth later in this lesson.

By(Google.Com) SEOMotion.In

Article Prism Service Best Link Building Strategy

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Today, it is not just the number of links that matters for your website’s success, but it is the quality of the links you have that matters. As the competition is soaring in every industry, conventional link building strategies are not enough to achieve the desired levels of success. That makes it vital that you take one-step further from the rest to be the outlier. Our Article Prism service will help you achieve your online search engine ranking goals faster.

Graphical Representation of Article Prism Service

Learning how to do things on the Internet.

What is The Difference Between HTML Sitemap and XML Sitemap?

There are two types of sitemaps in general; namely HTML (Hyper Text Makeup Language) sitemap and XML (EXtensible Makeup Language) sitemap. Do you want to know the difference between them? If you do, then read on…

What is HTML Sitemap?

HTML sitemap is used to list all hyperlinks of different sections and pages of your blog/website. These hyperlinks are normally listed hierarchically and they may provide description for each link. It is no doubt that adding a HTML sitemap to your blog/website will help your visitors navigate and find information easily. So HTML sitemap is primarily created for humans. Although a HTML sitemap is created for your visitors, indexing bot such as Googlebot might have a better chance to crawl your first-time-missed links again since all the files are well put together in your sitemap page. Check this blog’s sitemap to get a general idea of how a HTML sitemap looks like. You can create your own HTML sitemap from HTML Sitemap Generator here.

What is XML Sitemap?

XML sitemap lists URLs (world wide web addresses) for your blog/website in a special format. See the table below for a XML Sitemap with one single URL:

http://www.yoursite.com/ 2007-12-29 monthly 0.5

It allows webmasters to inform search engines about URLs in your blog/website for easy indexing. XML sitemap is created for search engines but not for humans. Submitting a XML sitemap to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN will not only help your blog/website being indexing quickly and efficiently but also increase your blog/website’s visibilities in search engines as well. For a full version WordPress blog, you can use Google XML Sitemaps plugin to do the trick for you.

Do you have anything to say about this topic? Or any questions?

Have a blog and want to express your thoughts to the world?

Just like in the traditional publishing space there are logical reasons why SEO experts, copywriters, keyword tools and editors exist. Original, relevant and unique content are the keys to the kingdom when it comes to SERP rankings.

While its possible to buy links, trade links, purchase a great domain name or use social media to boost awareness of your blog no greater long term tool can trump original relevant content.

It is a known fact of human nature that we all get topic ideas from other sources (very few people have such brilliant minds they can create one topic after another without ever reading somebody else’s work) but how do you prove to the search engines your content is really unique and avoid getting penalized for duplicate content?

Blogging is a LOT of work and the more popular your blog becomes the more work is involved. In fact, it seems impossible to imagine how much work really goes into a successful blog before you begin. Every day becomes more demanding with writing articles, creating topics, learning about monetization, managing subscriptions, coding etc. Some would call us superheroes, others call us nerds but whatever the title is bloggers spend much more time at the computer working than simply playing video games.

(I do not expect your spouse to think you have a real job but its ok – others bloggers will)

The following TIPS are MUST-Do’s before you publish any article online if you want a real attempt at breaking into Google’s highly coveted first page.

1)Research Keywords

Think about the title of your next article and research keywords using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Make sure there is some exact search for the main topic article. It’s not necessary to go after the big words like car insurance right away since the competition is extremely tough but at least try to find a term with some kind of exact match and incorporate an article around that keyword.

2) Google Your Topic

Once you have a topic chosen do a Google search and take a look at the SERP results. If the fist page of results contains nothing but super premium brand names it might be worth considering alternative keywords with less competition. Think about the odds of a new blog outranking CNN and the Wall Street Journal right away.

3) Write your Article

While its acceptable to take ideas from another article it is never ok to copy and paste an article and simply add a few lines. You need to focus on originality here and find your own words to explain a topic. There are 100’s of lists around topics such as cheap car insurance or how to save money but it’s still possible to tell people how to find deals in your own words. It may take time at first but eventually you will get a rhythm going.

4) CopyScape Everything

CopyScape is the most popular online plagiarism tool which can quickly tell you whether or not your article contains duplicate content already on the web. This is highly important and you have to remember:

“Duplicate content is NOT original content”

While certain words will always be included from one similar topic to another its important your article as a whole is unique. CopyScape is smart enough to (a) tell you how much of your content matches existing content on the web and (b) who you possibly stole it from. You can also create a private index which is very useful for running articles through your own published content for a duplication check. Not all pages are indexed right away and having a private index can help you triple check your work.

After these 4 steps you now have a pretty original article ready to go but what about the SEObenefit? Imagine writing an original book at this stage. Would you simply hand the book over to a publisher and expect them to publish it as is?

5) Apply and Learn about on page SEO

This is where relevant image choosing, tags and SEO comes in. If you are using a content management system like Joomla or WordPress then look at plug-ins like ScribeSEO where you can get automatic feedback about your SEO score within your CMS control panel in just a few seconds.

It is also a really good idea at this stage to try and get a grip on SEO as if you keep blogging I promise one day you will come back and redo all the pages with SEO information you only wish you knew back then.

We all want to be millionaires blogging from home but the days of just putting up content and hoping people will come are gone. Every article you post must be treated as a contribution to the world of original relevant content we live and search engines are building.

Traffic Exchange Programs is best for SEO

For the success of any website the most vital thing is the number of unique traffic that gets inside the site every day. The more the number of traffic is, the more value it gets from different search engines. A returning traffic adds and additional set of value to the website. Traffic is the most vital thing for the overall success of any site related to any niche. At the end of the day search engine gives importance to that site only which has huge traffic inflow. Traffic shows how popular a site it, and thus based on that Google page rank is also determined. Ultimately this all means high ranking in Google SERP and better ROI for the website’s owner.

A newly established business association moving its first baby step into the domain of online business, must have a good amount of quality traffic for creating a mark of its own. A huge amount of traffic inflow into a particular website tells that they are on the very edge of gaining success. A website with such a position often gets to the top of search engines, and stays over there for quite a long time making them the ultimate hit among targeted clientele base. A very reasonably priced, easy and problem-free way to earn massive traffic is through the usage of traffic exchange program. To start with the procedure of drawing out the benefits from this whole process you must register with an authentic provider. At the starting phase of the process do give your correct name, valid email and website address for which you are thinking about having this traffic.

While going through a free website traffic exchange the whole amounts of time used in seconds is being figured by an automatic counter. The moment automated task is finished by it the person going through different web pages of the site, has to move towards the very next website for further browsing. They in general handle a complete credit system with ease. A person more often than not gets expensive credit for spending time on a specific site put under the scheme of traffic exchange. The entire targeted website draws out huge amount of profit out of it. The procedure has a lot of other scope along with it. The very moment when some other member of the exchange arrives in the scene for going through your website your own credit gets reduced, from the total amount that you have gained.

Start exchange this very moment and know about some of the most important tips on how to take benefit out of an exchange efficiently. Primarily for this whole process, you have to spend good amount of time in different websites to add to your own credit. In the early stage, try to carry on doing so for at least two months. There lies also the option of advertising your traffic exchange . The whole process attains the desired result only when you pick up the right approach to do it.

Link Trundle

Establishing link wheels to one’s money site with various high performance web 2.0 property sites like Squidoo Lens, HubPages, Blogger or WordPress has become the order of the day because these sites have gained the stature of authority sites that are easily picked up by the major search engines. There are lots of advancements taking place in the way links are established between the money site and the authority sites. Where a few opt for a traditional closed link wheel, it is slowly giving place to clients asking for not closing the link wheel at all.

We at JB Source perfectly understand the way in which Link Wheels affect your business and hence are in an extremely comfortable position to execute whatever you have in mind. At the same time, our SEO consultants can also advice on which method would be ideal for your kind of business as they are constantly updated with the emerging techniques in establishing link wheels.

At JB Source, we offer Link Wheel services in five different packages so that you could choose the one that fits right for your kind of business. If you are unsure about how the entire thing would work positively for your business, you may try our Starter package and witness the positive results for yourself. You will get a detailed submission report of what all has been done and a Unique C class IP, username and password are provided.

Link Trundle Key Features :

We leverage the power of high performance based web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, HubPages, Blogger, and WordPress so as to build backlinks directed to your money site. Search Engines values these sites very high and when content related to your website is posted on the web 2.0 sites it can rank high in the search results. Through link wheel, you could get links from powerful sites to your money site which is the major crux of the entire link wheel strategy.

In any link wheel scenario, each and every web 2.0 property site is linked to the money site (your website) and also to one another so as to form a closed loop. By doing so, the link juice passes to your site as well as each and every web 2.0 property sites that are linked thereby enhancing the power of both the sides. We also take advantage of social bookmarking in order to bookmark the authority sites so that the chances of getting good page ranks are strengthened further.

We further focus on creating link wheels with the authority sites and link them to your main money site so that your website is present all over the web in the relevant niche and ranks high in the search. At JBSource, we perfectly understand that creating good link wheels is indeed a powerful technique that would boost your website ranking and helps you reach your target audience.

We provide only unique content for each and every submission that is made on the web 2.0 property sites and not any kind of spun articles.

Using Twitter to your Maximum Advantage

In 2010, over 100 million users joined Twitter. It was by far the fastest growing social media channel last year...the idea of Twitter and its micro-blogging platform certainly will be an important tool going forward.

Likely you've seen Twitter in a lot of places over the last couple of years - reality shows, sporting events and other venues people look to for up-to-the-minute information are just a few. The quick micro-blogging platform of Twitter is also used by many political dissidents in countries where traditional media is heavily restricted.

In addition to these wonderful applications, many large companies and small businesses are harnessing the power of micro-blogging and Twitter to interact with customers online.

While you've probably heard of many companies like Best Buy, Pepsi and others successfully using Twitter, you're probably a little confused as to how you can make it work for you. If you're not too familiar with social media, it may be a little intimidating.

No need to worry though, Twitter, micro-blogging and social media in general are meant to be fun!

To accomplish this, the first thing you need to consider is the content of your 'tweets.' Don't make them all about you and your business - that's the quickest way to get people to lose interest.

Provide interesting content that's helpful and entertaining and don't simply use the platform to toot your own horn. Examples of content include new blog posts, company news, new products, special discounts and so forth.

Besides providing this informative content, be sure you deliver it in a personable way. Give your content and the 'tweets' announcing it some personality. If people see your content as boring, they will think your company is boring.

Next are your followers as well as the people you follow on Twitter. When becoming a follower of someone else, be sure it makes sense for you and your company...it's pretty likely they will follow you back at some point, especially if you engage with them.

As far as your followers, quality beats quantity every time.

Having a large number of followers who never engage with you is not at all beneficial. It's much better to have a smaller number of followers who engage with you regularly. Success should be measured by the quality of your relationships on Twitter, not necessarily the quantity.

But besides being a great tool to spread content around and interact with customers and colleagues, Twitter is also being used as a technical support/customer service venue. In addition to interacting with prospective customers, many companies are using the micro-blogging tool to help customers after the sale as well.

That's certainly an innovative way to harness the power of micro-blogging. Of course, each business is different so you have to decide what works for you and what doesn't.

No matter how you ultimately decide how best to use Twitter to market your business online, be sure you provide valuable content or advice and give people a reason to follow you.

Keyword Effectiveness - Observing Big Differences In Little Keywords

There are all kinds of keywords being used by people daily, in their search for information. Most professional search engine marketers learn early in their career, that all keywords are not the same. Some keywords are highly competitive while others are less competitive, which often seems as though fewer people are searching for them. But then there are some keywords that are really hardly being searched for at all. Some of the most ideal phrases are those that relate to a product or service but are being fairly often used by a specific audience of searchers, but at the same time have low competition.

Let's put it another way. Phrases which have a low number of competing pages, but also are phrases that are actually being used often by searchers, represent a nice "window of opportunity." The reason these keywords are appealing is because you can gain significant advantage (with little or no competition) while only performing mild optimization.

Result: High visibility on major search engines without the stress of competing with millions of pages.

Of course you can go after more competitive phrases once you know how, but the point is that you have to work a little harder if you are competing with 40,000,000 pages as opposed to say 400 pages or maybe just 40 pages. In a minute I'm going to give you 8 tips to help you think more deeply about your keyword research in Wordtracker.

But first, for the purposes of this article, I want to talk about some of the tiny differences in keyword combinations that can make an enormous difference in the end result. This article focuses on the use of Wordtracker and observes a few comparisons between phrases to demonstrate some major advantages in just choosing the best keyword terms.

Rule 1: Wordtracker uses a KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)

A KEI Value of 100 may represent a good keyword phrase.

A KEI Value of 400 usually represents a much better high use/low competition "window of opportunity."

The higher the KEI value usually represents a much bigger window. The assumption is that the higher the KEI the better. But notice that I use the word "usually." KEI is not perfect, but it is a simple mathematical equation and it does reveal interesting opportunities. The question for most people, is how to tap into these high KEI keyword phrases without spending hours of research. In a minute, we'll talk about the new Wordtracker Academy, but first let's just give you some sets of examples of phrases and how they stack up with similar but slightly different phrases.

BIG differences in little keywords:

1. "Download Free Knitting Patterns" has a KEI value of 419.0
2. "Easy Knitting Patterns Free" has a much greater KEI value of 2140.5

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1. "purchase watercolor paintings" KEI 002.7 (Very weak)
2. "Watercolor prints to Purchase" KEI 705.0 (Excellent improvement)
3. "watercolor paintings southwest" KEI 2916.0 (still better yet)

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1. "dropship affiliates" KEI 256.0 (fair window)
2. "dropshipping affiliates business" KEI 512.0 (much better)
3. "dropship affiliates business" KEI 1600.0 (better still)

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1. "sales ability tests" KEI 475.4
2. "sales management tests" KEI 680.3
3. "sales competency tests" KEI 1176.0

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1. "no soliciting signs" KEI 0.325 (very weak)
2. "no soliciting signs custom" KEI 4230.0 (much better)

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These were just a few observations I made recently on the KEI Observation Deck

Now what I have not shown you are the other details such as the compete number or the 24 hour count or how many times each phrase was searched in the last 60 days. For these details, you can visit Wordtracker and log in to the members area for yourself.

Do you ever feel like you are running out of ideas when you are working in Wordtracker? From my point of view, I think that often, the challenge is that we simply do not think laterally enough about our visitors.

8 Keyword Research Tips to help you think deeper thoughts and explore those true niche areas:

1. Why not start at the top, instead of the middle?
Did you know that in addition to their top 1000 keyword Report in Wordtracker's member area, that you can actually buy a list of the top 20,000 keywords? For that matter, they sell you the top 100,000 or top 500,000.
The top 20,000 report sells for just $129 but is worth it's weight in gold.
http://www.wordtracker.com/reports.html

2. Wordtracker's recent new design includes a training area.
Did you know Wordtracker has opened a new training area on their Web site which has tips and articles and resources that you may not have known about? Watch this area continue to grow in the future.
http://www.wordtracker.com/academy.html

3. Magic in 3 minutes - listen to audio tips for free
Have you listened to my series of Wordtracker Magic audio tips? These are short little 3 minute recordings where I teach you how to tap into Wordtracker's hottest windows of opportunity in just minutes. The audio tips are free and you can listen in right on your computer.
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/audiomagic.html

4. Behaviors Vs. Keywords
Have you thought about exploring "search behaviors" instead of just "researching keywords?" I explain the difference in my e-book Wordtracker Magic at http://www.wordtracker-magic.com

5. Opening up the niche
Just when you think you're running low on ideas, don't forget to plug that keyword you're investigating into a tool like http://www.Thesaurus.com and watch for more synonyms you can explore.

6. Reverse approach
If you feel challenged because the keyword you're researching has no potential, try a reverse approach and explore your audience's searching behavior first to see what they want, then create that quality content that they're looking for. Wordtracker is a powerful window on the world.

7. Are you mixed up in a muddle of industry jargon?
Every so often, Wordtracker may reveal unusual letters, short forms that at first appear like a mess. Realize that many searchers do search with short forms or even worse. Often they'll search using their own industry jargon. Why not make the most of it? Use a tool like http://www.acronymfinder.com to reveal the possible meaning of those nonsense phrases. For example, we all assume the term SEO means Search Engine Optimizer, right? Did you know it actually has over 21 different meanings? Try plugging any acronym or short form into acronym finder and see all of the possibilities. It can be an eye opener.

8. Observe Those Big differences in little words
Remember that there really are big differences in little tiny words that make up your keyword phrase. Learn to explore and dig through Wordtracker's awesome database and follow some of these tips and you won't need anyone to tell you about it once you strike those golden search trends. You'll know by the traffic coming to your pages.

Remember that you can work in Wordtracker for a long time and never discover it all or see it all. The reason is because their main database of (350 million plus queries) is being updated every week on a rolling 8 week cycle. In other words, there are always fresh trends waiting to be discovered, if you'll just change your thinking to a little wider scope.

You can look up these and other examples on our KEI Observation Deck, where we post dozens of high KEI observations each week for examples of what is easily found using Wordtracker's system.

For those needing extra help to understand how to get the very best out of your keyword research, be sure to check out the recent area called Wordtracker Academy. It contains tutorials, articles and other Wordtracker resources.