If you are still in the planning stages of your website and you haven’t even got your domain name in the bag yet, now is the time to make sure you pick one that won’t embarrass you at a later date.

An Appropriate Domain Name

We all know that all the good ones have gone – allegedly – but it’s still important to make sure that the one you do finally decide on is easy to read, easy to understand and doesn’t need to be spelt out when you say it out loud to someone.

Here are a few good ways to see whether you have chosen the right domain name:

• Write it down – complete with the http:// bit – on a piece of paper. This sounds a bit mad but if you can see what your domain name looks like written down you’ll get an idea of whether it will work or not

• Tell a few other trusted people what domain name you are thinking of using. If you get comments like ‘Huh?’ or ‘Say that again?’ or ‘Can you spell that?’ then it might be worth having a rethink

• Try it with and without hyphens if you have more than one word in your suggested URL. Hyphens can be a pain but a longer URL can look totally confusing without them

Think About Keywords

In the end it’s just as much a matter of personal taste as it is anything else. You will have to live with your choice so make sure it’s a good one. You also need to ensure you think about keywords – don’t go for an obscure title that won’t help you in the search engines just because it sounds good. Put traffic flow first – you won’t get many visitors without it.

Ok? So go and choose a great domain name – and then grab it before someone else does.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

It’s not always true that you can never have too much of a good thing. In terms of keyword density, more isn’t always better.  Keyword density refers to how many times a keyword appears in a page. If you’ve got 2% keyword density, the word would appear 2 times per 100 words.

Don’t Wear A Black Hat With SEO

The search engines want to see relevant keywords peppered through your online content but black hat tactics like keyword masking as well as keywords stuffing won’t do you any favours with search engines or with human visitors.

You want to find the perfect blend of human readability and search engine friendliness in your website and here are a few ways you can do that without going overkill on the keyword stuffing which many experts say shouldn’t exceed 5%. Some actually suggest more like 2% keyword density and others believe that the content will simply speak for itself and that you should take into account synonyms and breaking up key phrases in order to do the trick.

Balancing Keywords and Content Quality

Read your written piece and look for your keywords. Are they in the beginning of the article so that a search engine can quickly see what the article is about?

1. Are they in the headers and the titles?
2. Do you have related keywords in your content as well?

The key to a great blend of keyword density and human readability is to look at your article first and foremost from a human perspective and secondly look at it from the perspective of the search engines.

Your human readers do need to come first in internet marketing of any type. Over stuffing will turn people off so that even if the search engines make you number one in the results for all your desired targeted words and phrases, you still won’t have much luck because you won’t convert visitors into customers.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Page rank can be something of an obsession with internet marketers of all shapes and sizes. It’s easy to understand why, because the search engine ranking of your site will strongly influence how well you do in the results whenever someone looks up a keyword or phrase which links to your website.

How Important is my PR?

While it is important to keep an eye on it to see how well your site is performing, it shouldn’t turn into something you end up checking twice a day every day. Your search engine ranking changes over time (hopefully for the better) and it does so as a result of what you do to change and develop your site – not as a result of you watching it like you would watch a plant that is starting to grow.

It’s good to develop routines when you start any new internet business, as routines help you to develop good habits and ensure that nothing important gets missed as part of your day-to- day progress. You can check various parts of your business and see how they are doing, and where some extra effort is required you can then look into how best to do that.

Website Development - An Ongoing Effort

As you develop your business and learn more about keywords and SEO and how to make sure that people (and the robots and spiders that Google, Yahoo and others use) find your site, you should find that your website naturally starts to perform better. You’ll also learn tips and tricks along this journey. It takes time for any website to start figuring in the search engine rankings at all, let alone to perform well. No website gets to the coveted number one spot overnight, so be sure you don’t ask for too much when it comes to monitoring the progress of your site. It’s important to realise as well that once you’ve achieved the results you’re hoping for, you’ll have to work to keep yourself from being dethroned.

They say the best things in life are worth working for, and achieving a higher search engine ranking is a learning process that will bear plenty of fruit.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008