However much we might emphasize the importance of SEO the truth is that people are right when they say that content is still king.

Nowadays, with the advent of blogs, website content has become easier and easier to generate resulting in more and more pages out there about every conceivable topic on earth. It is true that though emphasis is still placed in content this makes it even harder to come up with content that will stand out above (or at list distinctly) from the others. This is a problem because as we all know for a website to be truly successful in its niche it has to have content that will make visitors keep on coming back and even refer the page, whether via links or spoken word, to others. Without great content no amount of SEO will seal you and your website’s reputation.

The funny thing is that right now the general tack people take in order to get their websites to have the content they want is usually by adding a blog to their site. Now there is nothing wrong with blogs. If there were I wouldn’t be writing this blog entry. ^_^ In fact blogs are great especially if you simply want to share your hobby or passion. Blogs are also very good for generating fresh content on a more regular basis. It would be sheer folly to change your homepage’s content daily (unless your website is a news aggregator or is based on some dynamic concept) because it is important for your visitors (especially if you have an online business) to become familiarised with your website in order to help them locate the information they need fast each time they visit the site. Blogs are a good solution for giving your visitors fresher and more updated content. However, you shouldn’t rely on the blog to set your site apart from others in your field. Ok so there are some people out there who are so good that their blogs have become meccas for people in their own field. In search we have Matt Cutts, randfish, William Slawski, etc. But the point is that not everyone churn out as many excellent posts as frequently as they could.

So what’s my point?

My point is simply this if you wish for your website to be known for offering great content do not rely on your blog at once to do that. Instead it is better to consolidate your knowledge into one great resource and then put that up as your main content. It will take a whole lot more effort to come out with such content but in the end if you are able to come out with something that can be considered as one of the classic contents in your field then that will seal the fate of both you and your site. Do continue blogging but take time to publish the really useful resource. In the end your site will rise because of that one single page (or it can be pages if it’s really long…and it will be long if you take on an exhaustive approach to whatever it is you plan to write about) but your blog will not become irrelevant since it will be where people will check for updates. If you lack the time to do this you can just keep on blogging but do not be surprised if even if your blog does well enough, you don’t end up among the ranks of gurus in your field.

More and more companies have started using YouTube as a tool for internet marketing. The people who don’t about YouTube: YouTube – Broadcast Yourself is a video uploading site over the internet for free and people can view it for free. The service was earlier started by some other firm but later the popularity of this site increased that Google purchased it for 1.65 billion dollars. After the increasing popularity of YouTube some people stopped using Televisions and started using YouTube on daily Basis.

So as it is free and a large number of people are involved in watching the videos the businessmen too this opportunity to tell people about their products.

Just by using a Handy Camera shot scenes you can upload a ten minute movie easily in YouTube and those people may come and search. If you can edit your video, you can also embed your URL somewhere unobtrusively on the video.

It is very easy to increase the popularity of your video on YouTube. The more people visiting your video the more popular your website becomes and the nearer the video goes to the top i.e. the front page. Once you have uploaded you video on you tube be you get a code from it which you can use to upload the same videos in your blogs or websites. If your blog gets around 300 visitors everyday then out of that at least 200 might see the video. You can also increase the views by putting the video link in your email signatures and on all the websites you have.

Then there is a cascading effect. The more people watch it, the higher the video moves, the higher the video moves, more are the views it gets…and so on.

In order to get decent view just make sure you video is interesting and worth watching. If you produce a lousy video it could adversely affect your marketing efforts and people may start relating you with the bad video they watch. And also be careful about the copyright violations you may inadvertently commit. Produce your own videos; don’t record them from other sources.

Your landing page is the first-most glimpse your visitor gets of your website. In most of the cases, your home page, or your index page is your landing page, but if you are running an online advertising campaign such as Adwords, it is crucial that you have specially dedicated landing pages for your advertising campaigns for individual search terms. Have a lousy or ill-planned landing page and your visitors will leave your website within a few seconds, no matter what valuable service or product your other pages provide, or talk about. So in that sense, your landing page has the power to make or break your online business.

Listed below are a few steps you can take to create perfect or near-to-perfect landing pages.

1) Define the purpose of your landing page

You need to know exactly what your landing page needs to achieve. Should it:
• Prompt people to subscribe to your newsletter?
• Contact you for more details?
• Explore your website further?
• Buy a product or a service present on your landing page?
• Join your affiliate program?

Once you have a clear picture you can create your landing page with greater degree of lucidity and purpose. You can write the copy accordingly.

2) Write convincing copy on your landing page

What you write on your landing page is what you want to convey to your visitors. Keep it succinct, and be honest: honesty shows through your message. Talk to your visitors as if you are welcoming them into your office or shop. Don’t load them with information, but be titillating enough to prompt them to explore further or get in touch with you to know more about what you can do for them.

3) Keep the distractions away from your landing page

Don’t put too many bells and whistles on your landing page. Remember that the visitor is not there to be amused by you; he or she is there to do business. So keep the graphics, animations and JavaScript tricks to the minimum. Some even suggest to do away with your main navigation bar, but I don’t recommend that.

4) create an accessible, easily navigable landing page

Create a landing page that is totally accessible. There are thousands of surfers with special needs. If they come to your website through your advertising link and then have to leave because they cannot access your website with their browsing tools it will be a big waste both in terms of lost advertising money and good will. Put all the relevant links there so that they can easily be referred to make a purchase decision.

5) Display your contact information prominently on your landing page

On your landing page, make it very easy to contact you so that people don’t leave your website just because they cannot figure out how to get in touch with you. Prominently display your contact form and your phone numbers on your landing page.

6) Finally, keep testing your landing page

You can never create the perfect landing page just like that. You need to try different formats and copies to finalize a landing page that generate maximum results for you. Many online advertising programs such as Adwords let you try out different pages for single ad campaigns so that you can make out what works for you and what not.

Every major search engine lets you search for images and many times you must have noticed how you end up on a website while searching for an image. If your website has lots of images then your images too can be good source of quality traffic. In this post I’m going to list a few ways to leverage your images for traffic from search engines.
Give Proper Names To Your Images

It’s always better to name an image as “web-design-services.gif” than “image3098.gif” because the name helps the search engines index it for the search term. Use all your primary keywords as the names of your image, but try to keep everything contextual. Don’t name an image as “rose.jpg” if it shows a crocodile (unless of course the croc’s name is Rose).

Use Appropriate Text In The Alt Attributes

The alt attribute of the IMG tag has been in use for a long time. It makes a good anchor text if you use your images as links. A great way of using your keywords in the alt attribute is:

It’s not necessary that you only use the ALT attribute when you use an image as a hyperlink; you can use the ALT attribute when you use the IMG tag to display an image on your web page.

Use Your Relevant Text around Your Image

Use your keyword-rich content around your images. This helps the search engines figure out what the image conveys. Of course it goes without saying that don’t mislead the search engines by using all sorts of wrong keywords.

Remove Image Restrictions

Try not to display your images dynamically through JavaScript because then the search engines cannot access them. Also, make sure your robot.txt file is not stopping the crawlers from accessing your images folder because some robot.txt files do that.

So these are a few steps you can take to derive relevant traffic from search engines using images.