The following Livebinder is a collection of marketing tips that I found when I discovered Michael Wong's website on free marketing tools.  I put them together in this livebinder for future reference and I'll probably put together another one with his other useful tips.  This is volume 1.  To view the web blogs just click on the tabs above.

Feel free to save this livebinder in your livebinder account for your own collection.

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I show you how to optimize your web pages by moving your JavaScript code out of the all-important top portion of the HTML file.

JavaScripts are usually placed in between the <HEAD%26gt; section of a page, which pushes your body text containing your important keyword phrases further down the page.

This can affect the number of keywords that search engine spiders index. It could also makes your keywords less relevant because they appear lower on the page.

The solution is to move the JavaScript code away from the top portion of the HTML file. In fact, I will show you two solutions to resolving this problem.

1. The first solution is to move the JavaScript code into a separate file and link to this file from the HTML file.

This is the preferred solution because it:

Once you have move the JavaScript code to the new file, add the following code to the <HEAD%26gt;... </HEAD%26gt; portion of the HTML file:

You may replace "file-name" with any file name you like.

Please note that external JavaScript files cannot contain any HTML tags. They must contain only JavaScript code.

Some servers may not recognize the ".js" file type. If that is the case with your server, contact your web hosting company and ask them to add the following line to the "mime.types" file in the server's config directory, and then restart the server.

2. The second solution is even simply. All you have to do is move the JavaScript code to the very bottom of the HTML file, below the </HTML%26gt; tag.

Yes! It really does work! Although it is considered good programming practice to include your JavaScript within the <HEAD%26gt; portion of a HTML file, it isn't necessary.

That's it! Simple isn't it? I highly recommend you use either of these two solutions to optimizing your web pages that contain JavaScript code.

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I discuss ten controversial search engine optimization techniques that should be used with caution, or even avoided altogether.

In general, search engines ignore duplicate pages. In extreme cases, they may ban a site.

Search engines consider the use of text that is the same color as the background color as spam. So stay clear of using invisible text.

Hardly any, if any, of the major search engines index comment tags, so don't waste time adding them for optimization purposes.

Keywords in hidden value tags are considered spam by all of the major search engines, so don't waste time with this practice.

Very few search engines index the content of <style%26gt; tags, so do not waste anytime on this technique.

Search engines consider link farms and link exchange programs as spam, as they have only one purpose - to artificially inflate a site's link popularity, by exchanging links with other participants.

Do not confuse link farms and link exchange programs with reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is the exchange of links with individual sites, and certainly an accepted technique for improving your site's link popularity.

I recommend adding text descriptions to link pages and site maps. Some search engines, such as AltaVista, have been known to kick out links only pages.

In general, meta refresh tags set for under 30 seconds are considered as spam by search engines. As such, most search engine optimizers use JavaScript redirects.

Having said that, I recently read an article that said the Fast and Inktomi search engines recommend using meta refresh tags, instead of JavaScript redirects.

Are you confused? I certainly am!

So to be on the safe side, I suggest sticking with JavaScript redirects, until there is conclusive proof that search engines accept meta refresh tags.

Many of the major search engines consider tiny text (i.e. font size 1) as spam. Some use of tiny text is fine. Search engines don't like web pages that use a lot of tiny text. The reason is because some webmasters have used it to fool search engines by "hiding" dozens of keywords in a web page.

Cloaking is the practice of serving search engine optimized pages to search engine spiders, while at the same time serving un-optimized pages to site visitors.

Cloaking is one of the most controversial strategies in search engine optimization. Major search engines publicly state that they consider all cloaking to be spam. However, many professional search engine optimizers have been using cloaking for years, with much success.

Until there is conclusive proof that search engines do indeed ban sites that use cloaking, I suggest you take care if you decide to use cloaking.

If you want more in-depth information on these and other search engine optimization strategies, read my Search Engine Optimization Guide.

There are many controversial search engine optimization techniques. There are people who despise the use of certain techniques, such as cloaking. But the fact of the matter is that there are no right or wrong ways to optimize a web page.

What might be considered as spam by one search engine may be accepted by another. What works today may be banned tomorrow.

The art and science of marketing is about testing to see what works and what doesn't. I recommend taking the same approach with search engine optimization. After all, it is just another form of marketing.

You may also like to read my article, "Seven Illegal Search Engine Optimization Techniques." In this article I discuss seven illegal, or almost illegal, search engine optimization and related techniques.

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I show you how to optimize a web page for the Ask Jeeves search engine in 6 easy steps.

The six simple steps are:

That's it! That wasn't so tough was it? ;o)

Do you want to know what questions people are asking in the search engines?

Visit the Overture Search Term Suggestion tool. Search for keywords that questions usually start with, such as, "what, when, where, why, who, and how."

You may find popular questions with very low bids, if at all.

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article, I show you how the Yahoo! Directory ranks its listings, so you can use this knowledge to get higher rankings.

First you must understand that Yahoo! is a web directory, NOT a search engine.

So what is the difference?

Well, search engines, such as Google, index web pages by sending a spider or crawler out to the web to find, crawl and index web pages.

When a spider finds a web page, it will typically index the contents of the page's TITLE tag, the body text and sometimes the META tags.

A search engine will use the contents of the TITLE tag as the link title in the search results. The description for a link may consist of the contents of the META description tag, or excerpts from the body text.

On the other hand a web directory, such as the Yahoo! Directory, does not use spiders to find, crawl and index web pages. Instead it relies on web site owners to submit their web sites for indexing.

Here's the important part... so listen carefully! ;o)

The Yahoo! Directory will ONLY use the information submitted via its How to Suggest Your Site submission form to create the directory listing title and description. Did you catch that?

The 4 ranking factors are:

The submission is then reviewed by a human reviewer to ensure the information submitted is appropriate. Quite often a site reviewer will edit the submitted information to fit its own editorial guidelines.

Yahoo! NEVER sends out spiders to gather information from your web site. So no amount of optimization to your web pages will have any effect on your Yahoo! Directory listing's rankings.

What this means is that the fate of your site's ranking in the Yahoo! Directory is dependent on the information you submit in its site submission form.

In addition, once your site has been accepted into the Yahoo! Directory, you are stuck with the listing title, description and ranking.

Unless there is an error in the listing title or description, or your site has changed completely, Yahoo! will NOT entertain any changes to the listing. This is straight from the horses mouth.

If your listing has an error on it, you can make a change request using Yahoo!'s How to Suggest a Change to Your Yahoo! Listing form.

Don't forget that Yahoo! charges an annually recurring fee of $299, for as long as you want your listing in their directory. For adult web sites, the fee is a whopping $600!

This is why it is essential that you get it right when you submit your site to the Yahoo! Directory. Because once you've made your submission, you have to live with your Yahoo! Directory listing for years to come.

With the Yahoo! Directory being the most popular directory on the Web, the results could play a major part on the success of your web site.

I hope that has cleared up the confusion that optimizing your web site can improve your Yahoo! directory listing rankings. It won't!

You may like to read my Search Engine Optimization Guide, entitled "Search Engine Optimization Strategies."

Remember, you only have one shot at getting your Yahoo! submission right!

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I show you how to select the best category when submitting to a web directory, to give your site every chance of achieving top rankings for the keywords you want to target.

Selecting the right category when submitting to a web directory can mean the difference between achieving top rankings and being lost in oblivion.

Don't think that by paying for your submission, it guarantees top rankings. It doesn't! The only guarantee you will get is for a review within a certain time limit. If you don't select the right category, you might as well just be throwing your money out the window.

Here's how you should find the best category to submit to, in order to give your site every chance of achieving top rankings for the keywords you want to target.

Go to the web directory's home page and enter in the exact keyword phrase you're targeting in the search box.

Let's use the Yahoo! directory as an example. A search for, "cheap Web hosting" returns this page of results:

Take a look at the category link directly underneath the #1 listing, where it says:

The majority of the top listings are placed under this category. This tells you that Yahoo! considers this particular category as the most relevant for the keyword phrase we searched for.

Click on the "Web Site Hosting > Directories" category link. This will take you to the sub-category in the Yahoo! directory.

On the next page, take a look at the border at the top of the page that stretches across the screen, directly underneath the banner. It's in yellow. This indicates that the category is classified as commercial. Non-commercial categories are in blue.

You will also find the listing that you clicked on located somewhere down the page.

There you have it. That's how you select the best category when submitting to a web directory. You can use a similar technique when submitting to other web directories.

For example, to submit to the LookSmart Directory, find the best category in MSN Search. The reason for this is because MSN search results include LookSmart listings and sends more traffic than LookSmart itself.

The same is true for the Open Directory Project index. In this instance, use the Google Directory.

Good luck with your web directory submissions!

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I show you how to justify a search engine optimization budget to your VP of Marketing, CFO, President, or CEO.

If you're a marketing manager, I'm sure you use all the weapons at your disposal to achieve your sales and profit targets.

Every banner advertising, direct email advertising, lead generation, magazine advertising campaign requires a proposal to justify the investment.

But what about search engine optimization? How do you justify the investment to your VP of Marketing, CFO, President, or CEO. And how do you quantify the value of search engine traffic?

Well, first take a look at these statistics.

Jul 05 2000: Forrester Research reported that over 80 percent of Internet users reach sites through search engines.

This means if your Web site doesn't attract 80 percent of your visitors from search engines, you're losing out on a lot of search engine traffic.

Feb 14 2001: A study from NPD Group found that search listings are more effective than standard banner or button advertisements when it comes to brand recall, favorable opinion rating and inspiring purchases.

In unaided recall, search listings outperformed banners and buttons by three to one, and more than twice as many people gave a more favorable opinion of companies in the top three search positions than those featured in ads.

The study also found that 55 percent of online purchases were made on sites found through search listings, while a mere 9 percent were on sites found through banner ads.

Again, if your sales from search engine traffic accounts for less than 55 percent of your total sales, you are missing out on a lot of potential customers.

So how do you justify the investment of either outsourcing your search engine optimization campaigns or employing a search engine optimization specialist to do it in-house?

Well, let me speak from my own experience.

I managed the search engine optimization for my old company's Web site, www.iBoost.com. I spent a month optimizing over a thousand web pages.

The result was that in total I obtained over 2,000 top 30 rankings in the major search engines and web directories.

This helped grow the site traffic by 33%, which translated to an extra 400,000 visitors and 8 million page views a month.

Based on those figures, one top 30 position generated on average 200 visitors a month, or 2,400 visitors over the course of a year.

The initial optimization campaign was actually carried out back in October of 2000. But the web pages still command somewhere in the region of 1,800 to 2,000 top 30 positions.

So your rankings never really disappear from the index, once you have established your positions. They may move up or down the index, but they don't usually drop off the top rankings completely, for no apparent reason.

Before the online ad market softened, my old company could command up to $25 per thousand banner impressions. So, the extra 8 million monthly page views could have generated as much as $200,000 in revenue, per month.

Since my company didn't sell any products or services on the web site, I can only imagine how much revenue could have be generated by the extra 400,000 monthly visitors.

Some search engine optimization firms charge on a pay-for-performance basis. For example, one search engine optimization company used to charge $85 for a top 10 ranking. You may have come across this company.

A top 10 ranking would almost definitely produce more click throughs than a top 30 ranking. If we use the figure of 200 monthly visitors for a top 10 ranking at a cost of $85, the cost of each visitor would be 42 cents.

Not bad. But don't forget that once you achieve a top position, little effort is required to maintain that position. So, in reality, it could generate as many as 2,400 visitors in a year. At $85 for a top ranking, this equates to just 3.5 cents for each visitor coming from a top 10 listing.

Analyze your log files. How many visitors do your top 30 search engine positions bring in each month? Now multiply the average of number of monthly visitors these search terms bring in by 12. This is your average return-on-investment of each top position for a whole year.

So for example, let's say you get 20 top 30 positions, and they bring in an average of 200 visitors a month.

	Top 30 Positions	20
		X
	Visitors	200
		X
	Months	12
		---
	Total Visitors	48,000

Now if you set a budget to acquire 20 extra top 30 positions, you would increase your search engine traffic by 48,000 visitors.

If we take the rate of $85 for each top 10 position that Coastal Site charges, 20 top positions would set you back $1,700.

How much does it cost you to acquire a visitor at present? Probably somewhere in the 25-50 cent range.

Top positions in pay-per-click search engines, such as Overture, cost as much as $5 to $6 a visitor. According to Overture, the average price its advertisers paid for a visitor was 30 cents, during the second quarter of 2002.

Based on our calculations above, the cost of acquiring a search engine visitor is as low as 12% of what it costs to acquire a visitor at Overture.

As you can see, search engine optimization clearly produces an excellent return-on-investment.

Don't forget that search engine positioning is effective, because the traffic is very targeted. Prospects who find your site through search engines are actively looking for information on products and services just like yours.

Just like other forms of marketing and advertising, search engine optimization requires persistence and a lot of testing.

The optimization process is complex and time-consuming. You're trying to align your Web pages with the ranking algorithms of the search engines, while at the same time trying to out-smart your competitor's optimizers.

But the fact remains, search engine optimization is cost effective, and should not be ignored.

Now go convince your VP of Marketing, CFO, President, and CEO of this fact! ;o)

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I show you how to find link exchange partners to improve your link popularity rating, which in turn will improve your search engine rankings.

Search engine optimization experts agree that link popularity is now considered by most search engines to be one of, if not, the most important factors that determines a site's ranking in the search engines.

If you're not sure what your site's link popularity rating is, then use this link popularity check tool to check your link popularity rating in the top search engines.

Let's say we have two identical sites. One has thousands of targeted sites linking to it. The other only has a few incoming links. It's virtually guaranteed that the site with thousands of incoming links will rank higher than the other site.

So how do you find reciprocal link partners?

First, you need to work out what type of web sites would link to your site. Here are some examples of sites and the types of sites that would link to them.

	Your Site:		Links From:
	Pet store		Pet lovers' sites
	Site design service		Webmaster sites
	Travel site		Local guides
	PC store		Software/hardware review sites
	Music store		Music fan sites

As you can see, you're looking for sites that are on the same subject matter, but not necessarily similar.

So now you know what sites to look for, how do you find these sites?

There are basically two methods:

In the following examples, we'll use "pet lovers'" sites as the type of sites we're looking for.

1. Find targeted sites in the web directories, such as Yahoo!, LookSmart, or the Open Directory Project.

Go to a directory's home page and search with the keywords, "pet lover." Then click on the category the top listings belong to. The sites listed in these and related categories are the types of sites you need to contact.

If the category has a resources or directories sub-category, then try the sites in those categories first. Resources typically offer links to sites on the same subject.

2. Use the search engines to find sites that link to your competitors' web sites.

Using the search engines is probably a more efficient method of find reciprocal link partners, than searching the directories.

Go to your favorite search engine, such as Google, and search for any of the following keyword phrases:

Don't forget to include the quotation marks to narrow your search.

Also try replacing the ".html" with other file extensions, such as ".htm," ".shtm," ".shtml," ".cfm," and ".php."

Now make a list of the sites. Then create a links or resources page and add links to the sites on that page.

After you've done that, link to that page from your home page. If you have hundreds of links, split the pages into different sub-categories. When you're done, upload the pages to your server.

Now contact each site by informing them that you have linked to their site and request a link in return. Don't forget to be polite and inform them of the benefits of exchanging links.

Some sites, such as web directories, will not require a reciprocal link. So simply submit your link.

The most important tip I can give you with regards to reciprocal linking is to only exchange links with targeted sites. I highly recommend that you don't exchange links with sites that bear no relation with your site. If you link to poor-quality or spam sites, it could affect your search engine rankings.

Under no circumstances should you link to, or add links from, link farms. Link farms are considered as spam sites in the eyes of the search engines.

If you want to save time and effort, you could use a reciprocal link management tool, such as Arelis. It will help you find and contact link exchange partners.

Good luck with improving your link popularity!

How Keyword Density, Frequency, Prominence And Proximity Affects Search Engine Rankings

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article, I explain the difference between keyword density, frequency, prominence and proximity, and how they affect search engine rankings.

Keyword Density

Keyword density refers to the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a web page.

The preferred keyword density ratio varies from search engine to search engine. In general, I recommend using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%.

You may like to use this real-time keyword analysis tool to help you optimize a web page's keyword density ratio.

Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page.

The theory is that the more times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page, the more relevance a search engine is likely to give the page for a search with those keywords.

In general, I recommend that you ensure that the most important keyword or keyword phrase is the most frequently use keywords in a web page.

But be careful not to abuse the system by repeating the same keyword or keyword phrases over and over again.

Keyword Prominence

Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a web page.

The general recommendation is to place important keywords at, or near, the start of a web page, sentence, TITLE or META tag.

Keyword Proximity

Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

For example:

How Keyword Density Affects Search Engine Rankings

How Keyword Density Affects Rankings In Search Engine

Using the example above, if someone searched for "search engine rankings," a web page containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second.

The reason is because the keywords are placed closer together. This is assuming that everything else is equal, of course.

You may like to read my article, "How To Find Out What Keywords Your Customers Are Searching With." In this article I show you how to capture your most targeted visitors with the search engines by discovering what keywords they search with.

Michael Wong is the editor of GoDefy.com - the world's first online marketing comparison shopping search engine and Mike's Marketing Tools. Michael is also the author of the leading Search Engine Optimization Guide and numerous marketing tips. Visit his web sites at http://www.goDefy.com & http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com

Are Yahoo! Sponsor Listings Worth The Investment?

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I discuss a real-life case study of my marketing experiment with a Yahoo! Sponsor Listing to reveal whether it was worth the investment.

A Yahoo! Sponsor Listing is a commercial web site that has paid for an enhanced listing within the "Sponsor Listings" box in certain categories of the Yahoo Web directory.

You must already be listed in the Yahoo! directory, before you can purchase a Sponsor Listing. Unless you're already listed, you will have to pay $299 ($600 for adult web sites) to have your site reviewed and indexed.

A Sponsor Listing costs $25-$300 per month for each category, for each individual web site.

I submitted one of my sites to the "Search Engine Optimization" category. Yahoo! charged me $100 per month for that particular category.

The following listing was displayed within the "Sponsor Listings" box at the top of the page:

My listing was added on March 27, 2002. In the following 15 days, I've received a grand total of, wait for it...

38 click throughs!

Shock! Horror! So, what figure was you expecting? 2000?

By the end of the campaign, I ended up with about 76 click throughs for the month. At a cost of $100 per month for the listing, I end up paying $1.31 per visitor.

That was simply too rich for my blood. I'm used to paying 16 cents per visitor at the Overture pay per click search engine.

So, I decided to cancel my Sponsor Listing, after only one month. But, I'm sure some of the other listings are profiting from their Sponsor Listing.

My listing was promoting low-cost books, which offers a small profit margin.

Other listings in the same category were for optimization services which charge hundreds, even thousands of dollars, per client. The higher profit margin would certainly justify the cost, assuming they convert the visitors into customers.

There are a number of possible reasons why my Sponsor Listing received so few clicks.

Maybe the listing title and description wasn't tempting enough to attract click throughs. Unfortunately, there's little I can do about that, as Yahoo! will not change a listing, unless there is an error in it.

The large number of competing listings may also have contributed to the lack of click throughs.

Placement of sites within the "Sponsor Listings" box is random and rotates every time the page is reloaded. Since there were 21 Sponsor Listings in total in the category, my listing only showed up once every four to five times the page was loaded.

So, all in all, it wasn't a worthwhile investment for me.

But it could prove worthwhile for you, if you're selling a product or service that has a much higher profit margin.

Visit Yahoo! for more information on Yahoo! Sponsor Listings.

Michael Wong is the editor of GoDefy.com - the world's first online marketing comparison shopping search engine and Mike's Marketing Tools. Michael is also the author of the leading Search Engine Optimization Guide and numerous marketing tips. Visit his web sites at http://www.goDefy.com & http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com

Last Update: Monday, July 30, 2007.

In this article I show you why most guaranteed top ranking packages offered by search engine optimization companies aren't really what they're made out to be.

There are literally hundreds of search engine optimization companies online. They're all trying to outdo everyone else with special offers and guarantees. My favorite gimmick has to be the guaranteed top rankings offer.

Have you seen search engine optimization companies guarantee top rankings in the following top search engines?

So, what's the catch? Aha! You know there must be one, right?

Well, let me explain.

Many of the top search engines are powered by other search engines.

Therefore, if the search engine optimization company achieves a top ranking in one search engine, then they would almost certainly achieve a similar ranking in other search engines that are powered by the same search engine.

For example, Google powers Yahoo! (web page), AOL and Netscape.

So, if a search engine optimization company achieves a top ten ranking in Google, then you would expect to also get a top ten ranking in the search results it powers.

Another example is Inktomi powered search engines. Inktomi provides search results for MSN and HotBot (#12 onwards).

So a top ranking in one Inktomi powered search engine would almost always be duplicated across the other Inktomi powered search engines.

Note that it isn't always the case that a #1 ranking in one Inktomi powered search engine means you also get #1 rankings in all the other Inktomi powered search engines.

The search engines usually add some their own special filter to distinguish their search results from other Inktomi powered search engines.

Here is a table of where each of the top search engines get their search results from.

Search Engine	Main Results	Paid Results	Back-Up Results	Web Directory
AllTheWeb	AllTheWeb	Overture	-	ODP
AltaVista	AltaVista	AltaVista	-	LookSmart
AOL	Google	Google	-	ODP
Ask Jeeves	Ask Jeeves	Google	Teoma	ODP
Excite	AllTheWeb Ask Jeeves Google Inktomi	About FindWhat LookSmart Overture	-	ODP
Google	Google	Google	-	ODP
HotBot	Direct Hit	Overture	Inktomi	ODP
iWon	Google	Overture	-	-
LookSmart	LookSmart	LookSmart	Inktomi	-
Lycos	AllTheWeb	Overture	-	ODP
MSN	LookSmart	Overture	Inktomi	LookSmart
Netscape	Google	Google	-	ODP
ODP	ODP	-	-	ODP
Overture	-	Overture	Inktomi	-
Teoma	Teoma	Google	-	-
Yahoo!	Yahoo!	Overture	Google	Yahoo!

Well, before you sign up with a search engine optimization company, work out what the X number of guaranteed top rankings really means.

For example, a search engine optimization company could easily count a top ranking in Google, Yahoo! (Web pages), AOL and Netscape as four top rankings, when really it's only one.

So, don't be fooled into accepting four top rankings, when it's really only one. To be totally frank, no one can guarantee top organic rankings, except the search engines themselves. And they're not going to offer that anytime soon.