SEO, the HTML Source Code and Competition

You have a business, and ever since you started the SEO campaign, business has been good and most of your business enquiries have been coming via your website. You are getting professional SEO support and an ongoing SEO program takes care of all your SEO work.They have optimized your website and now it attracts a fairly good quantity of relevant incoming traffic which has been resulting in good business enquiries and sales. Now, suppose you have other competitors for your business in your region and would like to know if your competitors also have an SEO campaign going on with their website. As you are ignorant on this issue it has been making you anxious. They have always been your stiff competitors so you can't just call them up and ask about it! So what do you do?

Ok, if you want to find out about your competitors are also optimizing their website it is a very simple process to find it out. It is not necessary for you to send some one out to spy on your competitors to get this information because it will only take you a few minutes to find out and confirm this information online. All you need to do is just go to your competitor's website and check on its HTML source Code!

This is how one should go about it. Go to the concerned web site's homepage on the browser and click on "view" and choose "source" and the HTML source code page opens up. If you are using Internet Explorer 2.x, right-click on the web page, and then click View Source. To view the HTML source code for a web page that contains frames, right- click the web page in a frame, and then choose "view source". Looking at this page you will be able to get the required information.

On this HTML source code page, just see if there are main keywords in the header tags KEYWORDS , the title tags , and in the image alt tags KEYWORDS . These are always located near the top of the source code. Also if the content on the webpage has been optimized for the search engines, you will find that the text on the web page contains a minimal repeated use of the keyword. These clues are more than enough to confirm the fact that your competitor is also smart enough to have gone for website optimization. (Now you have another new area of competition and must outsmart him)

The author of this article is Ricci Mathew of Outsource Strategies International (OSI), a US based company that offers services in Search Engine Optimization, SEM, PPC advertising for clients across the US.

How to Get Number 1 Rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN Using Video Hosting Sites

The other day, I did a test to see how fast my videos would be found in the search engines and to see how well they would rank for the keywords I was optimizing my videos for.

The results were outstanding and should bring hope to anyone who feels that getting a #1 or top 10 listing on the major search engines is out of reach. Everyone can get top listings, with videos

The process was very simple. I filmed a video, submitted and tagged my video, and 13 hours later, I was in the #1 spot. Then, 24 hours later that same video on different video networks occupied spots 1, 2 and 3 on Google.

So, how easy is it to do? Very easy, just follow these steps and you'll be getting #1 listings on Google, MSN and Yahoo in no time flat.

First - Create your video. Use a video camera or digital video camera and get the digital file on to you computer so you can manipulate it in a video editing program. If you don't have a video camera, no problem, all you need is a microphone and an audio recording program like Audacity, and you can create an mp3 audio file with 30 seconds to 5 minutes of audio, and convert that audio to video. Don't worry, that's easy too, I'll tell you how in the next steps.

Second - Edit the video file to have the look, feel, URL's and production values you like. If you made an audio file, put that audio file into the video editing software. Most PC's come with Windows Movie Maker, which is free, and you can drop the Mp3 audio in there and place, random Digital pictures throughout the length of the audio file to create the "video" images that go along with your audio.

Third - Upload the finished video file, which should be in wmv format to a video submission host, called Tubemogul. At Tubemogul, you can upload unlimited videos, and then have those videos uploaded automatically to some of the more popular video hosting sites on the internet like Youtube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, Metacafe, Revver, and some other popular one.

Let me say that Tubemogul is also MORE than just a video posting service, they are MUCH more. They can track all the video views you get DAILY on EACH video hosting site. They'll provide charts and other track meta data, that is very important to marketers to daily track stats across all the video sites. And remember, it's all free to do this.

Fourth & Final Step - Push your videos out to the video hosting sites and let Tubemogul do the work for you. But a key element is, you want people to find your videos. The search engines find videos, not based on the content said inside them, but by the tags and descriptions about them. Tagging is the single most important element of getting traffic to other websites, based on what your video is tagged for.

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The Importance of Market Research

Marketing is a versatile, competitive world, and when developing your marketing plan, odds are you will not get it right the first time. You need time to learn about the demographics, geography, and psycho graphics of your customers before your marketing can really be effective. That is why it is important to not stick with your first plan, as you will need to change it frequently for one reason or another.

A good phrase to live by in marketing is, "Learn from your mistakes." Sometimes testing happens naturally. Some of your marketing campaigns will fail, but instead of getting discouraged, analyze what went wrong. Maybe you advertised through the wrong medium, or to the wrong demographic. Collect all the mistakes you have made and really look at them; do not try to forget or ignore them, you have to face your mistakes if you want to be successful.

If you hate making mistakes and want to get it right the first time, there is a way, and that is market research. However, full on market research is incredibly expensive and small businesses cannot afford it, but light end market research is possible. Basically, you just have to look at the demographic of your competitors and make that your demographic. It's not that easy, though. Demographics may vary between businesses of the same nature, and that is where testing comes in. You need to test if that demographic works for you, and if it does not, you need to test another demographic.

You should not spend a lot of money on market tests. The purpose, after all, is to find the medium and demographic through which you should advertise or market. For example, if you have a website, you might want to try out banner advertising. Don't spend a lot of money at first, only spend a little and see the ROI. If the conversion is good, you know you will want to keep advertising through that medium. Executing so many marketing tests is time-consuming and costly, but it all pays off when you finally develop an effective, recyclable marketing campaign.

How to Get Number 1 Rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN Using Video Hosting Sites

Proper tagging elements include coming up with a TITLE for the Video, a DESCRIPTION, and TAGS or KEYWORDS. Let me say a little about each area.

The TITLE tag is the #1 most important tag. It's the one the search engines will display in the search results. If someone searches for "free home based business dvd" in a search engine, and you are offering a free home based business dvd, you want your website to come up, as well as your video. So tag your Title well, with up to 3 phrase or keywords you are hoping to be found by. As a marketer, you can find out what are the most popular keywords by simply looking at Google's Trends website. Search for Google trends and they tell you what is hot right now in search.

The DESCRIPTION tag is the #2 most important tag. I always recommend, if you are plugging a website or are marketing something, put the URL as the first thing people see in the description slot, follow by a logical telling of what the video is about, being mindful of good keywords and phrasing. Make sure the URL begins with http:// in the front, as some movie hosting sites will turn it into an active an hyperlink, while sometimes they won't. I dunno why they work sometimes, and then not work others.

The TAGS are simply the keywords and phrases to plug your video with. Don't be stingy with your tagging. Get em all in there so you might be found, but try to be a relevant to the video and do not tag spam!

Finally - Make sure all your login and pw info is stored correctly in Tubemogul so that your videos will post correctly to the video hosting sites, and then push the button that makes this machine come alive and within hours, you'll see your videos posted in their appropriate places in your accounts. I love using tools which can easily automated task one used to have to do by themselves.

Do a quick Google search, using the title of your video and see how fast Google has indexed that video. When I did this last time, within 24 hours, I had the top 3 listings for the keywords I wanted to be found and listed with.

So, making a video or using audio and pictures to make a video is really simple. Once you have your video made, upload it to Tubemogul, tag it and post it and within hours your videos will be all over the search engines bringing you free leads and traffic daily.