One of the most important ways to get a large amount of traffic (dates from prospects) is securing a top Google search engine ranking.

But unlike what many SEO (search engine optimization) firms will tell you – you just can’t shove your way into a good ranking.

We speak to an Insider to Discover the SEO Strategy He Uses to Get a Top Search Engine Ranking in Google for Every Site He Launches.

One of my biggest blunders as an early Internet entrepreneur was trying to game the system by hiring a SEO firm to optimize my website. The firm convinced me that they could direct 20,000 new impressions to my site and that I would only have to pay the bulk of their fee after getting results. All they needed upfront was $1000 to get started.

I stupidly wrote them a check.

6-months later I had gotten barely a trickle of traffic. Traffic Power’s primary SEO strategy had been rendered obsolete by the latest Google algorithm update. Worse – Google blacklisted every website using Traffic Power’s strategy.

Their clients not only lost their initial payments – they lost thousands as their sites simply stopped showing up on Google. We were lucky – our site was not blacklisted but we did end up $1000 poorer. I felt like an idiot for trusting them.

But it isn’t just small sites that fall into the SEO trap – in January 2006, Google blacklisted BMW’s German website for engaging in black-hat SEO tricks. BMW’s SEO firm apparently created doorway pages for the keyword “used car.” Google wasn’t too happy about this.

Think about it – Google has thousands of the world’s smartest engineers working to make sure their search engine does not get manipulated. Any loopholes you read about will likely be fixed within months. Google isn’t sitting still. Don’t waste your time trying to game Google.

Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.

~ Google Website Guidelines

So How Do You Get Your Site Well Positioned?

Fortunately, there is an ethical way to woo Google Bots and get high search engine placement.

What we’re going to reveal here is a tried and tested 9-month system pioneered by James Glog, the founder of a successful startup in Silicon Valley. James wouldn’t let us reveal his real name, but let’s just say that James is on a first name basis with several engineers in Google and has a solid understanding of how to ethically get a good Google ranking.

The key word here (no pun intended) is being ethical. The philosophy James preaches is not about manipulating search engines. It is about understanding how they work and how to plan your site marketing strategy so that you can seduce search robots to achieve good rankings in a reasonable amount of time.

James Glog helped us prepare a detailed spreadsheet outlining his system. The beauty of this spreadsheet is that it will make sure you hit all the necessary points which arouse the search robots to ensure your site gets good placement.

It won’t happen fast (any SEO specialist who promises you fast results are usually lying through their smiles), but James says you’ll see dramatic results in 9 months.

So here’s what we’re going to reveal in this lesson:

• First, We’ll start this lesson with 11 Best Kept SEO Secrets you need to take to make sure your site is sexy for the Google search robots. If you aren’t following these naughty practices, you should start now.

• After these steps we’ll give you the main item – the Comprehensive SEO Checklist from James a genuine Top SEO Coach. You can download it at the end of this lesson.

This organized list covers every single strategy you need to implement to boost your rankings.

11 Best Kept SEO Secrets to Get a Top Ranking in Any Search Engine

Search engines don’t read information like humans do. They follow specific rules.

Here’s 11 best kept seo secrets you need to know to speak the search robot language.

Best Kept SEO Secret #1 - Optimize Your URLs

If you have not yet picked a domain name for your website, don’t try to go for “mykeyword.com.” Instead, try to pick a name that you want to build your company and/or a brand around.

If you are into online marketing, do you really want to have a site that is called “Online-Marketing-Tips.com” or “Online-Marketing-Guru.com?” How memorable is that?

We decided to call our website MindValley Labs for this same reason – to build on the MindValley brand rather than trying to go for short term SEO gains by using a URL like Top-Conversion-Secrets.com or something similarly cheesy.

Best Kept SEO Secret #2 - Optimize Your Page Title and h1 and h2 Headers

Create a short relevant title (60 characters max). Have the keywords appear first. Adding stuff such as �home page� in the title tag will only decrease your Google ranking.

The headline at the top of your page should use the H1 HTML header. The sub-headline should follow the H2 header. Include your SEO keywords in the headline and sub-headline.

Best Kept SEO Secret #3 - Optimize your description and keyword

Add the SEO keywords to the meta tag description. The description should be 200 characters max.

Example: meta name=“description” content=“Enter description here and include keyword phrase”

Add the SEO keywords to the meta tag keywords. Include 5 keyword phrases max.

Example: meta name=“keywords” content=“Enter up to 5 keyword phrases, use a comma to separate keyword phrases”

Note: Yes we realize that some SEO experts say that these meta tags are no longer relevant. But since adding them is so easy to do, we feel it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Best Kept SEO Secret #4 - Optimize your keyword density

Creating a keyword rich content page is a MUST. Be creative, write good content and make frequent use of the keywords you are optimizing for. However, make sure that your keyword density never exceeds 5% for pages with long copy and 10% for pages with little copy. If they do, you might get penalized by the search engines and your ranking will go down.

To find out what the keyword density is on your page use this free Keyword Density Tool.

Best Kept SEO Secret #5 - Spice up your SEO keywords and move them up

Be sure to have your keywords appear at least once in bold, italics, and underlined in the copy. Again, do this once, but don’t over do it!

Text towards the top of the page, such as in the first paragraph, counts for more than text further down the page. So, make sure that your keyword phrase is included towards the top of your page.

Best Kept SEO Secret #6 - Optimize your text links

The anchor text in your text links is one of the MOST important aspects of SEO. It should always include the keywords that you are optimizing for. Here is an example for the keyword phrase “beginner guitar lessons.”

• This is bad: Click Here

The first mistake is that the URL is not optimized and the second mistake is that the anchor text says “Click here.”

• Here is a better way: Beginner Guitar Lessons

Good! The anchor text is now optimized. All links pointing to this page should have the keyword in the anchor text.

• Here is the best way: Beginner Guitar Lessons

Perfect! You now have both your URL and the anchor text optimized.

Best Kept SEO Secret #7 -  Use keyword stemming

Make sure to include all the variations of the keyword that you are optimizing for. Here is an example of keyword stemming. The keyword “optimization” has variations such as “optimal,” “optimize,” and “optimum.” If you include all of the keyword stems (similar words) you can help your search engine ranking.

Here is a free tool to identify all of the similar words and stems for a given keyword: http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/wordcheck/index.php?word=optimization

Best Kept SEO Secret #8 - Optimize image descriptions

Every image can include a description called the “alt text.” Make sure that the alt text describes the image and includes the relevant keywords where appropriate.

Example:<img src=“MyLogo.gif” alt=”Enter keyword description“>

Best Kept SEO Secret #9 - Optimize your site structure

Every “important” page on your site should link to every other “important” page on your site.

Example of good linking structure:

Best Kept SEO Secret #10 - Only go two levels deep

Make sure that your site structure is such that pages are only two levels deep (two clicks away from the home page). This is very important because even if your landing page is deemed to be relevant, the deeper pages are buried in your site the less relevant they are deemed by search engines.

Here is an example of an good site structure that is two levels deep.

www.homepage.com

1 page deep: www.homepage.com/products

2 pages deep: www.homepage.com/products/product1

2 pages deep: www.homepage.com/products/product2

1 page deep: www.homepage.com/services

2 pages deep: www.homepage.com/services/service1

It all has to do with PageRank and the reputation of a site. You want to get backward links that point to your main page to build your PageRank. However, even if your main page has a high PageRank of say 6 then the pages inside your site don’t all have a PageRank of 6. PageRank is not totally passed along.

Best Kept SEO Secret #11 - Add good Outbound Links

From your key content pages, include links to the best and most relevant content sites. Linking to related authority sites shows that you are trying to help users find the best content and will help you with SEO.

The 9-Month SEO Plan Checklist

That’s it – these 11 steps are really all you need to do for basic search engine site optimization. But if you’re really ambitious you can do better than that! Here’s where James Glog’s’ tactical checklist comes into play.

The list we’re going to show you is broken into 4 sections.

Part 1A tells you HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE – THINGS TO DO
Part 1B tells you HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE – THINGS TO AVOID

Part 2A tells you HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR LINKS – THINGS TO DO
Part 2B tells you HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR LINKS – THINGS TO AVOID

It’s that simple.  Ready for that boost in traffic?

Download the spreadsheet in HTML Format or in an Excel File and get started!

By Vishen M Lakhiani and Mike Reining
Founders, MindValley Labs & Respected  Search Engine Marketing Experts

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David, No not the Naked One, spilled the beans about Barack Obama 2.0 . Those of us who may have been worried that the President’s and our own obsession with the  new Social Media may not be so kosher - the good news is that Pope Benedict XVI said at Friday’s Event marking the World Day of Communication that the new technologies were “gifts for foster friendships and understanding“, but warned that they can also  “isolate some people and marginalize others”.

With the Pope’s blessing in place, we can therefore legitimately proceed to sharpen and hone our social media skills and deploy the likes of FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter to foster friendships and understanding and advance our business and politcal objectives.

In pursuing that goal, you might find the post below from Guy Kawasaki of Alltop.com very useful. He reminds us that in social media the correct indicator of success is not the size of followers  but the number of retweets that you are able to generate. Find below the informative post of Guy Kawasaki on the Open Forum.

——————————————————————-

How to Get Retweeted - Guy Kawasaki

Twitter is fast establishing itself as the social media platform of choice. Forget imitation as the sincerest form of flattery—it’s as twentieth century as ripping off interfaces, songs, photos, and books. Today, the sincerest form of flattery is retweeting—the process of forwarding someone else’s tweet to your followers on Twitter. (I assume that you know about Twitter. If you don’t, take a minute and read this description at Answers.com.)

The reason that retweeting is so flattering is that every time people do it, they are putting their reputation on the line. If their followers don’t like the retweet, their reputation is reduced. So whenever someone retweets your tweet, they are expressing confidence that what you’ve tweeted is interesting and good. Thus, the best measure of someone’s quality as a Twitter user is not the number of followers but the amount of retweets.

Luckily, there are several sites that measure retweeting: Retweetist and Dan Zarrella’s Most Retweeted. (On both lists, ignore Garymccafrey because that’s a scheme to increase followers and nothing to do with quality retweeting.) These two lists provide a very good proxy for who’s worth following on Twitter. Do notice the Grand-Canyon size difference between these lists of people who are most retweeted and the people who have the most followers at TwitterCounter.

Hopefully I’ve convinced you that frequent retweets is a salient goal. The question becomes:

“What do I need to do to get retweeted?” Allow me to digress.

I was once asked at a blogging conference what my SEO strategy was (search engine optimization—that is, how to get Google to put your stuff higher in search results). I must have been “on” that day because I said, “Write good shiitake.” (Actually, I used a shorter word than “shiitake,” but I can’t post it here.) The answer to getting retweeted is just about the same: tweet good shiitake, and here’s how:

1. Answer the right question.. There are pockets of Twitter users who want to bond with small group of people and learn the answer to the original Twitter question: “What are you doing?” These are the the folks that enjoy tweets that say, “My cat just rolled over” and “The line at Starbucks is long.” The question you should answer if you want retweets is “What’s interesting?” for your group of followers. For example, the story that Taiwanese scientists bred glow-in-the-dark pigs is a lot more interesting than what your cat is doing and therefore a lot more likely to get retweeted.
2. Tweet about Twitter. Twitter users love to read about Twitter—anything about Twitter: how to use it better, lists of companies on Twitter, lists of CEOs on Twitter, what some analyst thinks of Twitter, what’s wrong with Twitter, list of Firefox plugins for Twitter, the top ten ugliest avatars—you name it. If you find a blog post or new item about Twitter, tweet it, and it will probably get retweeted.
3. Explain how to do something. Whether it’s roast a turkey, hot wire a car, take away an assailant’s gun, kiss a woman, polish silverware, or hack a road sign, the words “How to” and “The art of” are magical terms on Twitter and bound to get any tweet starting with them retweeted. This is because anything starting with these terms is likely to be educational. Power tip: use Lifehacks.alltop and GTD.alltop.
4. Break news. Ironically, you shouldn’t assume that everyone instantly knows that a plane landed in the Hudson just because you do. You could probably follow the Twitter newsbot of CNN (@cnngrk), retweet its tweets, and get retweeted. Still, what’s the challenge in that? It would be better to find news from niche topics that you are passionate about whether is science (first frozen water found on Mars), fashion, psychology, pets, or politics. If in doubt, tweet it. Most tweets are noise, so yours will probably stand out.
5. Provide the bizarre. Sometimes it scares me, but tweets about bizarre stuff works. For example, could you resist reading and then retweeting a story about robbers who were caught after using women’s thong underwear to cover their faces? Believe it or not, stuff like this gets retweeted.
6. Provide links. There mere existence of a link in your tweet enhances its credibility. Essentially, it’s saying: “This isn’t something I made up or wish; I actually have a verifiable, outside source.” I realize that this is stretching the point, but links are pretty irresistible and get more so as you increase your credibility. The goal is that the link takes people to something that’s enlightening or entertaining, and they thank you by retweeting it. For example, the neuroscience of social conformity.

Finally, there are two tips from Dan Zarrella in “The Science of ReTweets” (this posting inspired me to write this in the first place). First, don’t hesitate to ask people to retweet your tweet. “Please” is a powerful word no matter who you are. Second, tweet from approximately 9:00 am to 2:00 pm Pacific time. My interpretation of Dan’s recommendation is that the West Coast is now up and at work and the East Coast is eating lunch at their desks so that they are checking Twitter.

———-
How to Get Retweeted

This Guy Kawasaki Article was originally published on the 18th February 2009 in Open Forum under the heading How To Get Retweeted.

Follow Local Wellness Coaches on Twitter

video management, video solution, video streaming

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In my December 10, 2008 post I explored the Social Media Lessons for Personal and Business Wellness that one could draw from the 2008 US Presidential Race.  At that time I was unaware of an interview conducted by Ericka, The Technology Goddess with David Bullock on the same subject as well as the book Barack Obama 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Business GuideBook which is now available in Bookstores.

Like Michael Angelo’s famous namesake to the right, David is known for telling the naked truth about SEO, conversions and split-testing and is a firm believer of letting the facts speak for themselves. He is a well respected authority in internet marketing circles and serves amongst others on the Stompernet Faculty.

In view of the positive response received on the earlier post, I find it only fair to follow up and share his expert insights from this interview conducted by Ericka, the Technology Goddess on this subject.

David relates in this interview and on his Blog that he and Brent Leary had been working on a project outlining, studying and  providing expert commentary on the outstanding strategic and tactical use of social media by the Obama campaign through Barack20.com during the 2008 US Presidential Race.

As he explains, “The goal of our work was to extract the components that could be deployed for business development in four major areas:

• Social Media Platforms
• Using Multimedia with Social Media
• Multichannel Marketing
• Social Media Synergy

Go here to read Davids Bullocks Full Account & listen to the Interview with Ericka the Technology Goddess on: Barack Obama Social Media Expert Project

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Do you or does someone you love suffer from panic attacks?

Here’s how to tell…
…you feel dizzy…
…there is a tightness in your throat and chest…
…you’re short of breath…
…your heart is racing…
…your mind is full of worry and dark, unwanted thoughts.

If so, you’re not alone.

Some people can suffer anxiety and panic attacks in almost any situation. Others find that their anxiety is triggered by particular events such as driving, public speaking, crowded areas, etc.

The number of people who suffer from panic attacks is at an all time high… …and modern medicine is CLUELESS on how stop the attacks.

Deep breathing doesn’t work.
Positive affirmations don’t work.
Time consuming 30 step programs don’t work.
Expensive doctor and therapy visits don’t work.

But there is a solution…

Get it Here - It’s called Panic Away.

And after 7 years online, panic away has become a leading drug
free treatment of panic attacks and general anxiety…

“I actually haven’t had a panic attack since I have read your
book, it truly does work.” -Jerry Fischer, Denver, USA

“…it not only worked but it took away all my general anxiety
and panic attacks because of your program.” –Tanya Ajayi

Panic attacks become self-perpetuating, because the fear of
having a panic attack will actually BRING ON another attack.

Panic Away works by teaching a technique that breaks the cycle of
anxiety and returns you to normal everyday living.

To get results, there is no need to regress into the past and
find out why you had your initial panic attack.

You just need to be willing to break out of the anxiety cycle.

Get it Here - It’s called Panic Away.

If you’re not sure if you could benefit from Panic Away, let me
ask if you’ve experienced any of the following…

–A bodily sensation that disturbs you (racing heart, tingling,
fear, perspiring profusely for no reason, shortness of breath,
tightness in chest or throat, etc.)

–A mental worry or repetitive anxious thought that lasts for
more than a few seconds.

–Fear of an everyday situation like eating out, speaking in
public or driving.

There are many different manifestations of anxiety, but no matter
what type of anxiety you have, this course can help you.

Its results are fast.

You can read the entire course in a few hours and be implementing
the technique by the end of today.

Get it Here - It’s called Panic Away.

P.S. What’s it worth to you to never feel anxious again?

To never be afraid to do something, or go somewhere?

What’s it worth to have your life back?

Read the stories here of people who have done exactly that…

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Image via Wikipedia

“Fit over 40” is the surprise look I got from my colleague sharing the ride back home from work. I have been engrossed in this book for the past ten minutes since I got onto the subway till my neighbour asked: “What the hell are you reading - that’s so interesting? he asked and added.. Mmm..quickly reading some juicy novel about a naughty blonde, before getting back home…lol”.

I passed on the book to make the point that it was not that kind of literature and said, “Fit over 40“. It is a Book and audio package about the fitness secrets of an over 40 guy who at his tender age sports six packs that will make  Sylvestor Stallone and Arnold Swarzenneger look like Sunday school boys. The amazing part is that he only trains 40 minutes per day.

“Holy Mo… fit over 40… is that possible?”, he asked?

“I don’t know” … I answsered. ” I am into the third week of a daily 40 minute workout with my local fit over 40 local personal fitness coach at our local gym“. I admitted that my personal fitness trainer was a “She” and She was blond and had an out of this world heavenly shape”.

He teased me… saying: “Sonny, I am sure you cooked up this naughty idea”. No I said ” I swear to God, both the fit over 40 book and the blonde fit over 40 local fitness coach were suggested by wife”.

I thought to myself, that maybe she thought the only way to motivate me to accept the torturing daily fitness training routine would be to have a young local blond as personal fitness trainer. At the time, I admit that I thought it was cruel of her, especially knowing the potency problems I have due to the combined effects of being overweight, diabetic and challenges with cardio vascular tension. But my pride was challenged and i could not say no.

The book and Audio is actually so good that you don’t need a fit over 40 personal fitness coach. It starts out at the beginning with easy loosening up routines - no aerobic fitness stuff, no weight lifting workouts. That helped. The program builds up incrementally and before you know you are actually looking forward to it every day. These days I even take the staircase at work.

I would most probably not have been there without the local blonde fit over 40  personal fitness coach. I am scared my wife might one night discover that I have started dreaming about our training sessions and have perfectly memorized her every body movement as she explaines the exercise routines. Damn it… I hate to admit it but I wake up ready in the morning and my wife is noticing the change.

So I must thank my my wife, the fit over 40 book and my blonde local personal fitnes coach for getting me back into a lifestyle wellness health and fitness routine. The combination was lethal. I now agree that there is no reason to be out of shape, pudgy, fat, obese or out of form and to renounce any of live’s pleasures because you are over fourty. Having gone so far down the road I pledged never to get myself back in that coach potato dog hole again.

By Local Fit Over 40 Personal Fitness Coach

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States, counties and cities across the United States are devoting more resources to meeting the critical public health challenges through local wellness policies addressing the escalating public health risks due to rising  teenage obesity,  diabetes, coronary and heart diseases related healthcare costs.

The 2004 US Congress Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act requires for example  that all school districts with a federally-funded school meals program develop and implement a local wellness policy that addresses these public healthcare challenges through nutrition and physical activity components starting from the 2006-2007 school year. Thus all state educational departments require local education agencies to spearhead and implement these local wellness policy programs.

The Pensylvania Education Department thus issued a directive requiring state Schools since 2006 to complete and implement their Local Wellness Policies no later than the first day of the school year. The question on everyone’s mind  is - how many schools in each state, county and city  have local wellness policies in place and what are local education agencies doing to ensure that they are effectively implemented to achieve the stated health goals.

The obligatory national legal requirement has spurned to creation of civic groups like the National Alliance for nutrition and Activity (NANA) to help develop model local wellness policies checklist, Factsheets and step by step implementation guidelines to assist schools in meeting the requirement. The NANA  work group benefits from the membership, participation and contributions of more than 50 top health, physical activity, nutrition, and education professionals from a variety of national and state organizations in the United states.

Schools, counties and cities across the nation are testing programs through events aimed at meeting the implementation requirement of health promotion policy. One such example is that of the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland and the Charles County Commissioners who launched in 2006 a Bike to Work/Wellness Event to celebrate clean air month targeting both children as well as adult local community audiences.

Other examples  include the case of Donna Douglas, best known as Elly May Clampett from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” who presented in August last year an inspirational health and wellness talk to a 400 listener audience at the Abilene Civic Center, urging them not to retire, but to refine — and, if necessary, retread — and to get on with life challenge.

Local wellness policies are by no means limited to health care, health promotion, womens health, mental health, nutrition and  fitness activities at schools, colleges, clinics and hospitals. They extend to other public health issues like local community wellness events, local land use policy, local clean air policies and growing local vegetables  as shown for the following examples.

California has played a pioneer role in formulating and implementing State and Local Net Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Programs.  The Assembly Bill (AB) 1493 requiring the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to develop and adopt the nation’s first greenhouse gas emission standards for automobiles was in fact signed into law on July 22, 2002, by the then  Governor Gray Davis. The pioneer local clean air regulations, resisted for long time by the Bush administration have recently been given a boost by the go-ahead to state authorities by Obama administration to develop and coordinate such policies with the federal agencies. California regulations serve as reference model for other states and local authorities following the same route.

GROW LOCAL initiatives from Tacoma in Seattle to Boulder Colorada are bring to the forefront initiatives aimed at increasing food that is produced locally and to support farmers that use natural bio-intensive farming methods. The aim is also to get local communities involved in growing at least a portion of their own food needs as part of the local wellness policy program. The added benefit of such local wellness policies is that is that will help over time to adjust our local food supply system to a more energy-constrained model as transportation, packaging and storage logistics from remote locations is reduced to the bare essentials.

The welcome new development is that these grow local citizen initiatives are attracting more and more women aware of it impact on womens health as well as the fact state and local authority are putting the money where their mouths are through increased public funding and incentives.

Assessment Studies regarding the effectiveness of Local Wellness Policies are conducted across the country by states, counties and cities to test and fine tune the impact of the implementation of the provided checklists and documentation indicate opportunities for local wellness coaches.

The preliminary conclusions show that schools, colleges and universities, hospitals as well as county and local city agencies lack the number of human resources needed to effectively cope on their own with the local wellness challenges. It is therefore recommended that these agencies be authorized to outsource the publicly funded local wellness policy implementation to local wellness coaching partners to help implement the policy goals.

The question is - How ready Is your local coaching practice to cash in on the coaching opportunities arising from the publicly funded  Local Wellness Policy initiatives?

Recommened Local Wellness Policy PDF’s

Local Wellness Policy Factsheet Model Local Wellness Policy - Making it Happen in Michigan
Local Wellness Policy Checklist
Developing a Local Wellness Policy

Grow Local & Eat Local Communities

Grow Local Tacoma

Grow Local Tacoma: “Getting Started”

Seattle P-Patch Community Gardens

Eat Local Washington

Local Harvest

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