Although this tag does not weigh heavily in search engine ranking algorithms, it remains a powerful element of an effective SEO campaign. As the title tag, Meta description tag will always appear in search results. In general what you see in the search engine ranking pages are the Title tags then the description tag followed by its specified link page. It becomes a very important element to help attract visitors to click the link on your site.

Those who take the time to look through search results, read the titles and descriptions to find sites that are most likely to give them the information they seek are more likely that to be a targeted visitors.

The general rule is that you want every description of your tags to be unique. The description must be maximum 150 characters summary of what visitors can expect to find on this page and this page only. Descriptions for each page must be unique from each other. Be sure to summarize the page in a unique way.

But is not always advisable to put description tag on every page. There are some cases where it would be a better not put description tag. If you are targeting long tail keywords, then do not put meta tags. Description tags would be best use when targeting broader keywords.

An explanation to this is that if you go after long tail phrases in your article or blog post, there is a lot of variations that can come up in a description of 150 characters. If there are no description tags created, search engines will imports from the page snippets based on search made if those long-tail words are on the content.

Earlier this year I was asked to check for companies that runs a PPC campaign, I was able to find a campaign that gives me an error on their destination page. And last week, again I encountered the same problem from a different company. I sent them a email informing them about the problem. And until today, their destination page returns an error.

Now, why do I care? Why did I send them an email?  While PPC is the best tool in an advertiser’s arsenal, it can sometimes prove to be the opposite  and it will cost you a lot of money if it is performed incorrectly. So here are the  15 (out of 27) common PPC mistakes by Saurav Verma that, if avoided, could save you thousands of dollars of advertising budget, and help you optimize your PPC campaign.

1. Running a campaign on default settings: Most businesses are innocent of the fact that default settings are meant to maximize revenue for search engines and not for them. Customizing these settings as per their requirement can assist them in running an efficient campaign.

2. Bidding broad while ignoring phrase and exact match: Running your campaign on broad match (default setting) would help you target a wider keyword spectrum but can potentially deliver less targeted traffic. To derive optimum performance, it is always advisable to use a blend of broad match, phrase match and exact match.

3. Fighting for the numero uno spot: There is no doubt that the #1 position will garner most clicks but PPC is not about volume, it is about maximising ROI. Empirical data show that lower Ad position such as #3, #4, and #5 (featured on top left corner) cost less and deliver better conversion – increased ROI in short.

4. Sending users to your home page: Few advertisers take the time to choose the appropriate destination/landing page. Dismal conversion rate is given in such a scenario because homepage content is too generic to convert visitors into customers. People leave as soon as they land because they cannot find what they came looking for – a loss, both in terms of money and prospective clients.

5. Employing a solitary landing page: Home page is not a suitable landing page, but having one dedicated landing page instead is not the perfect solution either. You would need to have multiple variations of the landing page that are tweaked to be in sync with the Ad copy and offering therein.

6. Lack of landing page relevance: Most PPC campaigns are set such that every Ad and keyword send users to a particular landing page. While there is nothing wrong with the approach itself, it is imperative to ensure that the landing pages are tailored on the basis of keywords that send visitors to that page. Search engines give due importance to the said relevancy and its lack thereof can result in negative implications.

7. Using a single Ad group for all keywords: Putting all keywords under a single Ad group guarantees a low quality score and a decreased level of control. Categorizing sets of closely related keyword under different Ad groups will help you to manage the campaign at a granular level and monitor campaign efficiency rather effectively.
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8. Using generic Ads in individual Ad groups: Using generic Ad for each Ad group is a recipe for sub optimal performance. It is essential to have targeted Ad copies for each individual Ad group. Ad copies that do not entice searchers will result in low click through rate (CTR) and poor Ad performance.

9. Turning a blind eye to geo targeting: Employing geo targeting is a must for businesses that cater to a specific market (based on location and languages), but is equally important for businesses that service global audience. While local businesses can use it to target their focus market, global businesses can use it to deliver customized Ad copies for different sets of global audience.

10. Not segregating content from search: Most advertisers are unaware that PPC campaign can be split into ‘search network’ and ‘content network’. By running separate campaigns for both the networks, you can track and analyze both the campaigns better. Historically, search network perform better than content network but if you wish to tap both of them, it is advisable to run separate tailored campaigns for each one of them.

11. Bidding identically on search and content network: The AdWords platform allows you to set different bids for search and content network respectively. In most cases, you can bid lower on the content network and still manage to get a significant number of impressions and good click through rate (CTR).

12. Unattractive Ad copy: Searchers will click on your Ad only if your Ad copy is enticing enough to elicit a click. Every time you are about to write an Ad copy, you should check the Ad copies of your competitors and then write Ads that are both unique and relevant.

13. Ad copy without keywords: While keyword stuffing is not what you should be doing, a complete absence of keywords in Ad copy is not healthy either. While writing Ad copies you would need to embed your targeted keywords in Ad title and description. This will increase Ad relevance and deliver better CTR.

14. Failing to bid on your brand name: Assuming that prospective clients will remember your website URL if they remember your company name is foolishness. Many people will search for your company name to navigate to your website, and since brand terms cost less and have the best conversion rate, we see no reason why you shouldn’t be bidding on them.

15. Avoiding competitor’s brand keywords: Many advertisers fail to fully capitalize on brand keywords by failing to bid on their competitor’s company name or brand keywords. Searchers looking for your competitors may well become your customers if they can find you for your competitors’ keywords.

Note: Make sure you read AdWords Trademark Policies to stay clear of any trouble.

16. Lack or absence of appropriate testing: You will be amazed by the kind of improvement you can achieve, both in terms of CTR and conversion rate, by doing simple tests such as A-B split testing.

Writing a few variations of the same Ad and testing their performance can have a huge impact on CTR. Employing the best performing Ad copy can significantly bring down the cost per click. In addition to this, it is imperative to test landingpages to check their conversion potential. Having a good CTR would be worthless if your landing page fails to convert visitors into customers. Not to forget that testing Ad positions and their corresponding ROI is equally important.

17. Testing too many parameters at once: While testing is important, but going overboard can prove to be counterproductive. In other words, testing too much at once will not produce the desired results.
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It is always advisable to test one variable at a time and limit the number of variables to be tested. Suppose you wanted to test 3 different titles, along with 3 different first lines and 3 different second lines. If you test one variable at a time, you would end up testing 27 different Ad copies in total. It will not only consume time but money and is therefore not recommended. Testing three variations of the same Ad copy for performance is a much better option, especially in the case of limited budget and time.

18. No or suboptimal tracking: Performance tracking is paramount and its importance cannot be stressed any more than it already has been. Without performance tracking, you could be wasting a lot of money.

You can easily track visitors coming to your PPC landing page and associate these visits to exact keywords and Ad copies that produced each visit. You can also track if any of these visitors performed the desired action (conversion). There is an abundance of web analytic software that can help you track visitors, and at the same time are easy to install and use.

Targeting keywords and utilizing Ad copies that convert better can help achieve a better return on investment – the ultimate goal behind any marketing campaign.

19. Measuring the wrong KPIs: Which one would you rather prefer; a 10% CTR with 2% conversion rate or a 5% CTR with 3% conversion rate. Simple calculation would reveal that with 1000 impressions, $1 cost per click (CPC) and $50 value per conversion, option 2 ($75 earned for $50 spent) is better than option 1 ($100 earned for $100 spent).

Measuring the correct performance metrics is the most crucial contributing factor to the success of your PPC campaign. Getting it wrong is not an option.

20. Confusing CTR for conversion: Taking click through rate (CTR) for conversions is where many of us go wrong. While CTR is a key performance metric, it is not an absolute performance metric. We say this because high CTR does not guarantee an increase in conversion rate.

High CTR can be easily achieved by bidding for high search volume keywords and using trigger words like “Free” in the Ad copy. Looking solely at CTR is a false indication that an Ad is performing better.

21. Building a big fat list of ineffective keywords: While setting up a PPC campaign, many of us get tempted into adding as many keywords as possible without sparing a though to its usefulness. Building a long list of irrelevant and generic keywords would not serve any revenue goal.

No doubt they can drive large volume of traffic but such visitors would leave just as quickly as they arrive because they will not find what they came looking form. You would need to tailor the keyword list to be in sync with your offerings.

22. Failing to leverage dynamic keyword insertion: Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) can work like a magic if done right and catapult the click through rate. Dynamic keyword insertion helps you to show searchers the relational relevance between their searched term and your Ad.

If you were to search for “hotel in Seychelles” and find an Ad exactly matching you query, you are mostly like to think “Wow they have exactly what I want” and click on the Ad. It increases the likelihood of click and conversion.

23. Wasting money on negative keywords: Google and other search engines allow you to run a search query report which allows you to see all keywords that triggered an Ad. If you are running Ads on broad match, it is imperative you scrutinize the search query report and prepare a list of keywords that are triggering your Ads but are not relevant. You will then add them to the negative keyword list to stop your Ad appearing for irrelevant searches.

You don’t want to be attracting irrelevant visitors to your landing page especially when you are paying money to get them there.

24. Overlooking seasonal aspects: Targeting keywords and adapting Ad copies to match the seasonal fervour is a less practiced but highly effective strategy. Christmas special, summer bonanza, etc. Ads not only stand out from the rest but are also known to trigger higher CTR and generate more sales.
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Seasonal PPC management can contribute significantly to the campaign’s quarterly results if not monthly.

25. Filtering out non performing networks: Every search engine, be it Google, Yahoo or Bing (formerly know as MSN), has their own network if websites to which they distribute your Ads. However, not all of these websites would send quality traffic your way and the only way of knowing it is analyzing the placement performance report.

This report will help you to single out and block non performing/spam websites in the network. Additionally, it can used to select best performing websites and you can run a targeted CPM campaign.

26. Under utilizing valuable online space to display number: This one is controversial and people may be equally divided in their opinion on whether or not to do it. Generally, people are not too tempted to call till they have found a bit about you and the only way of doing it is checking out the landing page. If this be the case then, displaying your contact number in the Ad copy is a waste of valuable space which can be utilized better.

However, this particular facet may work both ways and needs to be tested on a case by case basis.

27. Ignoring day parting: If you can afford to run your PPC campaign 24/7, this is not for you. However, most of us run on a budget and therefore day parting is a great way to effectively manage your budget.

These are the fundamentals and basics of successful PPC campaign. Avoid these mistakes and your campaigns will be successful.

Here are  reasons why to use keyword rich domain name and why it will  improve your overall online success and your search engine rankings.

Niche Relationship with website

A keyword-rich domain name is the best way to show your visitors that your website and your niche are related. You have to appear as relevant and closely associated to your niche in order to show up in search results for queries related to it. You can give yourself an extra boost in that direction by including a primary keyword in your domain name, and you’ll have a much easier time supporting your website with the niche you are targeting.

Customer Recall

Some people seem to forget that your domain name is basically a signpost for your business. If you were a traditional brick and mortar business you would have a sign out on the road telling people who you are and what you offer. For the online business, this is what your domain name does so by  including keywords will make it serve as a signpost, alerting people about what you do and what you offer.

Helps in recruiting visitors

An important part of online business development is recruiting visitors to your website. After all, no matter how great your website is and no matter how great your company or your product is, if people don’t get a chance to see for themselves then they will never know and you’ll never earn any money. But with a keyword rich domain name you are going to be actively recruiting people to your website by showcasing what you have to offer and what they can expect to see once they click on your link.

The primary reason for the difference in ranking algorithms is that Google owns the patent on Page Rank (PR), named after Google's founder Larry Page. As a result of owning this patent, other search engines need to place more emphasis on different optimization factors including website URL, keyword density and so on.

 
What are the greatest differences in search engine algorithms?

Google places a significant amount of emphasis on inbound links to your website. The value of these inbound links are measured based on their Google PR. The more links you receive from high Google PR web pages, the better your search result placements will be for a given keyword or search term.

Yahoo places emphasis on website URLs, meta tags, and keyword density. These factors can be analyzed on any website with a limited amount of effort, allowing Yahoo to quickly and easily rank websites properly.

 
How you can optimize your website for both Google and Yahoo!

The challenge all website owners face is making the most of their optimization efforts. When thinking about search engine optimization, you need to cover all the bases. To do so, pay particular attention to the following guidelines.

 
Keyword Targeted URL. If your website URL doesn't contain your keywords, consider purchasing a new one or creating a new page off of your root directory (ex: marketingscoop.com/internetmarketing.htm). Having your keywords in the URL helps improve both your Yahoo and Google search results. Yahoo weighs the website address as an important ranking factor. Google values a keyword rich URL when third party websites place a link to your site using nothing but a web address.

 
Meta Tags. Although not as important as they once were, Yahoo still uses meta tags to help align search engine rankings and appropriate website pages. Make sure that your meta tags are complete and include your keyword phrases in the title, description, and keyword tags.

 
Keyword Density Between 6 – 8%. Although much has been written about the importance of keyword density remaining between 2 – 3%, Yahoo looks for sites with keyword densities as high as 8%. Don't be afraid to include your keywords throughout your webpage content. Make sure however, that your keyword density is not more than 8%.

 
Link Building. This is the most important factor for increasing Google search result placements. Develop a link building campaign and give other sites a reason to link to your site. This may include free downloads, tools, or other valuable resources.

About the Author: Michael Fleischner is a marketing expert with more than 12 years of Internet marketing experience. Learn how to improve search engine rankings with his latest ebook, The Webmasters Book of Secrets at http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com.

The running consensus is that a webmaster shouldn't expect to get all of their pages crawled and indexed, but there are ways to increase the number.

PageRank

It depends a lot on PageRank. The higher your PageRank the more pages that will be indexed. PageRank isn't a blanket number for all your pages. Each page has its own PageRank. A high PageRank gives the Googlebot more of a reason to return. Matt Cutts confirms, too, that a higher PageRank means a deeper crawl.

 
Links

Give the Googlebot something to follow. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden as the trust is already established. Internal links can help, too. Link to important pages from your homepage. On content pages link to relevant content on other pages.

 
Sitemap

A lot of buzz around this one. Some report that a clear, well-structured Sitemap helped get all of their pages indexed. Google's Webmaster guidelines recommends submitting a Sitemap file, too:Tell us all about your pages by submitting a Sitemap file; help us learn which pages are most important to you and how often those pages change.That page has other advice for improving crawlability, like fixing violations and validating robots.txt.

Some recommend having a Sitemap for every category or section of a site.

 
Speed

A recent O'Reilly report indicated that page load time and the ease with which the Googlebot can crawl a page may affect how many pages are indexed. The logic is that the faster the Googlebot can crawl, the greater number of pages that can be indexed.This could involve simplifying the structures and/or navigation of the site. The spiders have difficulty with Flash and Ajax. A text version should be added in those instances. Google's crawl caching proxy Matt Cutts provides diagrams of how

Google's crawl caching proxy at his blog

This was part of the Big Daddy update to make the engine faster. Any one of three indexes may crawl a site and send the information to a remote server, which is accessed by the remaining indexes (like the blog index or the AdSense index) instead of the bots for those indexes physically visiting your site. They will all use the mirror instead. Verify Verify the site with Google using the Webmaster tools.

 
Content, content, content

Make sure content is original. If a verbatim copy of another page, the Googlebot may skip it. Update frequently. This will keep the content fresh. Pages with an older timestamp might be viewed as static, outdated, or already indexed.

 
Staggered launch

Launching a huge number of pages at once could send off spam signals. In one forum, it is suggested that a webmaster launch a maximum of 5,000 pages per week.

 
Size matters

If you want tens of millions of pages indexed, your site will probably have to be on an Amazon.com or Microsoft.com level.

 
Know how your site is found, and tell Google

Find the top queries that lead to your site and remember that anchor text helps in links. Use Google's tools to see which of your pages are indexed, and if there are violations of some kind. Specify your preferred domain so Google knows what to index.

The best reason to use organic SEO is that it is a low-cost method to promote your website. It can take up to three to six months to see the full results of optimizing your website, especially if you are only using organic optimization. The plus to an organic approach is that once you optimize your pages, the main part of the work is done. You may tweak your keywords and text here and there, but unless you completely re-design your pages, you have what you need in place to begin drawing in targeted traffic. Continue checking your ranking status and reading your log statistics, especially for new keywords visitors are using to find your website.

When using free submissions, expect a three to six month wait before seeing most of the long term results showing in the search engine listings. If you build on a link popularity program and have links pointing back to your website, the search engine robots will find your website through the links, eliminating the need for free submissions. Look at it this way: you pay once for basic optimization and over time the results improve to optimum level. You don't have to keep paying for this service because, unless search engine databases drops your free submission pages (which is not often these days), you will be visible and present to the search engine users when they search on your targeted keyword phrases. Over time you should see a progression in your ranking, depending on how competitive your keyword phrases are.

The best reason to use organic SEO is that it is a low-cost method to promote your website. It can take up to three to six months to see the full results of optimizing your website, especially if you are only using organic optimization. The plus to an organic seo approach is that once you optimize your pages, the main part of the work is done. You may tweak your keywords and text here and there, but unless you completely re-design your pages, you have what you need in place to begin drawing in targeted traffic. Continue checking your ranking status and reading your log statistics, especially for new keywords visitors are using to find your website.
When using free submissions, expect a three to six month wait before seeing most of the long term results showing in the search engine listings. If you build on a link popularity program and have links pointing back to your website, the search engine robots will find your website through the links, eliminating the need for free submissions. Look at it this way: you pay once for basic optimization and over time the results improve to optimum level. You don't have to keep paying for this organic seo service because, unless search engine databases drops your free submission pages (which is not often these days), you will be visible and present to the search engine users when they search on your targeted keyword phrases. Over time you should see a progression in your ranking, depending on how competitive your keyword phrases are.

By: Daria Goetsch

If you want to have a successful web site and if you want to get high rankings on search engines then your web site must have the right factors. Here are the top 5 factors for successful web sites in 2007:

Success factor #1: Accessibility

Search engines must be able to access your web pages. If search engines cannot parse your web pages then they will ignore your site and you won't get good rankings.

Make sure that your web server doesn't return an error code when search engine spiders visit your web pages. If your server returns an error code, search engines won't index your site.

The correct code should be "200 OK". You can check the status code that your web server returns to search engines with IBP's search engine spider simulator (free).

In addition, make sure that the HTML code of your web pages doesn't contain errors that prevent search engines from indexing your site.

The content of your web pages must make sense to search engines. Don't use images or Flash to present the main content of your web pages. Use IBP's Top 10 Web Page Optimizer to find out if your web pages present the right information to search engines.

Success factor #2: Site and information architecture

Your web site should have a good site architecture to make sure that it is not just a collection of random web pages. The pages of your web site should be related and they should show search engines that your web site is relevant to a special topic.

This is very important because most major search engines seem to use latent semantic indexing in their ranking algorithms.

Your site should also have a good information architecture so that search engines and web surfers know where they are within your site on any page of your site.

Success factor #3: The right keywords

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps that determines whether your SEO campaign is a success or not.

It's best to focus on 2 or 3 word keywords for search engine optimization. One word keywords are less likely to convert to a sale and they are also much more competitive.

Use IBP's powerful keyword tools to find the keywords that will work best with your site.

Success factor #4: Content

Web sites that only offer articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other web sites will have a hard time to get good search engine rankings.

Try to create unique and trustworthy content that separates your web site from the others.

Write about things you know. If you're an expert in a special field, write as much as possible about that field to make sure that your web site becomes the best resource for that topic.

Success factor #5: Inbound links

Without good inbound links, it is impossible to get high rankings on major search engines. You should get as many links as possible from related web sites. The more targeted the link, the more it will help your search engine rankings.

Search engine optimization can be tricky because a small error in one factor can destroy all of your other efforts. Take a look at the checklists in our free search engine optimization eBook to find out how your web site can get top rankings on Google, Yahoo and other major search engines.