Web 2.0 Design Articles and Tutorials

SEO or search engine optimisation is vital for high rankings on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo. However, being dependent on search engine rankings and search engine marketing for your traffic have some shortcomings:

* There are only ten Top 10 positions for any keyword. This when you are competing with thousands and even millions of pages for these few postions.
* Many web designers, even professional web designers, are not familiar with SEO techniques.
* Search engines differ in their criteria to rank web sites and web pages, which means that optimising for one may work against you for another.
* Search engines tend to change their criteria regularly to prevent the manipulation of rankings. This means that you need to constantly be on the lookout and up to date with the latest techniques and issues.

Some basic techniques that stood the test of time are:

* Keyword focused TITLE and META tags
* Keyword focused content on your web pages (keyword density)
* Strategic use of ALT tags, H1-H6 tags, Bold tags, descriptive links, etc.
* Link popularity or inbound and outbound links links, i.e. links to your web site from other sites

But this may not be enough.

Why do you want high search engine rankings?
Primarily to get targeted traffic to your web site, isn’t it?

So, what can you do to overcome these shortcomings?

There are a number of options available to you to reduce your dependence on SEO and search engine rankings and to generate targeted web site traffic

Pay for performance onsite advertising:
Pay for perfomance advertising (a.k.a. PPC, Pay Per Click, Cost Per Action) means that you only pay for actual traffic sent to your site

* Advertise on Google and on related content web sites with Google Adwords.
* Advertise on Yahoo, Alta Vista and affiliated sites with Yahoo! Search Marketing - UK and Yahoo! Sponsored Search - USA. (Pay for performance advertising)
* Advertise on MSN and affiliated web sites through Microsoft adCenter (Pay for performance advertising)
* Onsite advertising with Miva UK PPC and MIVA US PPC

Niche Market Directories:
Niche or taget market directories are available for almost every type of market and you should be able to find suitable directories for you market.

* List you web site on niche market directories targeting your market. These directories often have both FREE and paid listing options available. The advantage of paid listings is that they provide more exposure to your web site than the free listings

Local/Regional Search Engines:

* List your web site on your local or regional search engines. Due to smaller numbers and often less sofisticated ranking systems, it is often easier to rank well on these local search engines.

Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing means that you pay other web site owners for business they send to you. This can be either payment for sales, payment for leads or payment for traffic, depending on how you set it up.

Some affiliate program managers who will help you set up your affiliate program:

* Share-a-sale (USA/Global)
* Linkshare (USA)
* Linkconnector (USA/Global)
* Affiliate Future (U.K.)
* Traffic Synergy (South Africa)
* Offerforge (South Africa)
* ClixGalore (Australia/Global)

Search engine marketing remains the most important means of web site marketing for most web sites and you should do all you can to improve the search engine optimisation of your web site.

However, do not ignore the alternative online marketing options available.

Jens du Plessis is an Internet marketing consultant helping small to medium size businesses, especially those new to Internet marketing, use the Internet more effectively. Find out more at http://directoriespromarketing.com