You have done basic research for your new website, finalized your keyword list and booked a good domain name for your website. What now….?

Now the next main task is to plan different elements you will be using on your website like text, graphics, images, font and more… Let us take it one by one.

Choosing Text Font and Size: Choose fonts that suits best for your audience, for an example if your audience is young age group, you can chose any font with moderate size because they feel it easy to read to any font. If your audience is of older age group, make font size larger as they may find it difficult to read smaller sizes. Keep it simple and do not use fancy fonts until it is very necessary.

I have seen a website which was on the eye diseases topic and the font size was 8, which in my opinion the site users may find hard to read. So understand the need and act accordingly.

Choosing Graphics: Use graphics and images to clear your point but keep it as less as possible otherwise the webpage will become very heavy and other concerns may arise, from SEO point of view. Do not use images and graphics only for the sake of using it. Images which illustrate your point and gives clear message must be used.

Regard your audience, their age group and preferences: if you are targeting younger age group you can use flash or slides to make your point more clear. Similarly videos can be used for making your content better.

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What is image optimization: Image optimization is a process of sizing, naming and presenting an image in a way that it becomes feasible for search engines to find it, extract information from it and categorize it so that it can be presented in the image search results for a relevant query of a user.

There is a user perspective also which I will discuss in a minute.

As present, search engines are unable to read any information in an image or graphic and it will take the technology some time when automated bots such like of Google’s or yahoo’s can read the pattern or layout of an image and extract information from them.

So there are some elements which are used to inform search engines about the details and content of an image. Such elements are image name, image alt tags, image title attribute, image reference tag … and some more

So basically image optimization is done to inform search engines about the content of an image, it has become more important because nearly every search engines have lot of image searches and if your images are well optimized for a particular query of keywords, there are chances of getting a lot of traffic through image search alone.

Just have a look how many options Google offer for image search.

You can search for any type, any size or any color of image, guess how would be they categorizing these images… YES right by using all textual factors related to an image (This is my opinion, as I know with my experience, however actual elements considered is only known by Big G)

Now we will discuss some important points about image optimization.

Using proper name: Use proper and relevant names for your images. Many image capturing devices like digital cameras, webcams, scanners etc name images in their saving terminology like DSC302.jpg or scandl%12.jpg etc. This is an improper way to name images. So the correct way of naming is using relevant keywords. Example if you have an image of olive tree, name it like olive-tree-image.jpeg.

Using Proper Format: There are lots of image formats for images and graphics which are used for formatting images. It is better to keep your images in .JPG format and not in .GIF, as the former is standard for images and latter is the standard for graphics. Further discussion about image format is out of scope of this article and if you need to learn more visit here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats

Using ALT tags: Use proper alt tags which are relevant to your image, do not try to stuff your keywords. Just keep it simple and clear. If you are naming your image as discussed in point 1 above, you can simply keep the alt tag as your image name. But make sure to not use same ALT tag for two or more images on a single page.

Make your images folder accessible to search engines: Make your images folder, the folder where you store your images, accessible to search engines.

Using TITLE attribute: Title attribute add meaning to an image, so use it but here also follow the same old rule, do not stuff keywords and use same title in two or more images on a single page.

Using Image feed: if you have a very large number of images on your website (generally product based websites) then you can also make an image feed just like sitemap and submit it to search engines.

Wherever possible put images in between content.

Keep the number of images on a page to minimum.

While naming the images, in ALT tags and image TITLE attributes used words like pic, picture, photo or image along with the relevant keyword.

User Perspective: The points we have discussed above are mainly for search engines, now we will look some image optimization factors which is related to user experience.

Do not use big and bulky images on a page and it makes the webpage to load slower, which is very irritating from user point of view. An average user will not wait for more than 10-12 seconds for a webpage to load, in this way you are losing a genuine visitor.

The quality of the images used must be above average, do not use distorted or fade images

Always use images which are relevant to the page content.

Do not use scraped images; use your own or use stock images. If you use images from other website without their permission, you will dilute your authority and there are chances to hook in copyright infringement.

Image Optimization Plugins for wordpress: There are plugins available for wordpress users which they can use for optimizing their images. Below are some of them.

SEO Friendly Images

WP Smush.it

You can also try Google Image Labeler

Are some points left behind? Post here to let me know and I will include it in the post..

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If you are not new to internet marketing world, you would probably have heard the most popular saying in the internet marketing world “Content is King” and really it is the ace in a pack of card.

But an ill structured, non-targeted and information less content is similar to a joker between the aces and kings in a pack of card.

So what is essential, the content must be targeted to the audience, in the language the niche speaks and must be valuable.

Below are some points if kept in mind and taken care of, you can prepare very good content for your website, which not only your audience will like but will have high chances to become viral establishing your authority.

Know your targeted audience: The first and very important fact is “know what your audience needs”. I have seen many newbie and intermediate internet marketers and bloggers, who write in a way that resembles that they never tried to know the need of their audience and they write just for the sake of writing. So you please do not try the same and provide valuable inputs.

Basic problems of the audience: Try to find out the basic needs and problems of the audience of the niche you are concerned. Do not bluff and always do your best to solve problems or atleast provide simple steps to find solutions. Heyyyyy……. What does it mean …..? Let me try to give you an example.

For an example: if you do not know clearly about any specific topic, no matter, provide them various links to authority sites, where they can find solutions. Never think that you will loose your visitor forever, no not at all, rather you will gain trust in the eyes of your visitors as well as search engines because doing this you leave a message that you are committed to provide solutions.

So note a point in your mind that always keep the requirement of your audience handy before you write content. You can get a feel about their requirements by visiting different forums and blogs in your niche.

There are two very common things which will appear in your mind when you start writing (how I know it? Because I have also traversed the same route before I started to know all this) first is “what I am going to write is well known among my niche” and the second is “what I am going to write is not known by anyone” …..   Both these doubts are just myths. So never think of all this and always try to provide real solutions for the problems (problems doesn’t means to provide medication, it means to be informative on the subject you write.)

Age group, demographic factors: Age and demographic factors must be kept in mind while preparing content. Why? Because a concept which a teenager can understand in a simple way, an old age person cannot. So you need to find other ways to make the person understand.

So understand the demographics of your audience.

Targets of the niche: Targets in other words we can call “needs” must be kept in mind. Got confused….? No need to …..! A target of the niche means what your audience prefers – text, video or audio. So provide them with the solution which they can easily use.

Use easy ways to create content: use the most informative and easy way to create content. Content never means only chunk of text, it may be in many other forms e-book, audio, video, music. Slide show presentations.

Gone are the days when technology had limited capabilities and exposure, we are now living in such a world where technology has made every form of media feasible to common audience.

It is better to create a 10 minute audio or 15 minutes video, than to create 150 pages of content of text. The aim should be to give you message clearly to your audience. Also keep in mind your audience age group and their preferences.

So always think that which type of content would be most suitable on the topic you want to convey as well as your audience would like to read and then prepare yourself in the same manner.

Apply these points as I discussed with you in this post and you will realize that you were missing a lot in preparing content for your audience.

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A website is nothing if it does not receives traffic, no matter how good it is or how valuable services and products it offer. So traffic is lifeline of any online business, not only online but off line business also need traffic, suppose you have a mega store but no visitors. So what’s the profit in it if there are no buyers?

Now back to our topic and that is traffic generation for your website.

The best way to generate targeted traffic to your website is search engine optimization and for that you need lot of relevant links.

Today we will discuss two easy and effective way to attract targeted traffic to your website, if done right.

Forums posting: Forum posting is an easy way to generate backlinks and traffic. My suggestion for all of you is to join at least 5 forums related to your niche and actively participate in discussions. Provide solution of the problems which members are discussing about.

Join 5 forums and use one forum for one hour a day. That means you visit each forum once a week.

If you will actively participate in forums you will be benefited in several ways.

You will get relevant Backlinks to your website, through signature links or links in the posts.

With time members will take you as an authority on the subject and will listen to your words. You can use your reputation for pre selling some offers, but please make sure you never try to hard sell, because people like to choose and not to be forced to buy some thing and never refer any poor quality product because it will diminish your authority

Forums act as a platform for people of single mental orientation who discuss a core subject. In this way you can get ideas for preparing content for your website. Pay attention to details and try to extract about the topics people are talking about and prepare your content for the same. In this way you can develop a lot of content for your website, which in turn will give you more authority over the subject, better rankings and traffic.

Blog commenting: blog comments are another tool for getting backlinks and direct traffic. Find your niche relevant blogs, you can simply do it by Googling “your keywords” inurl:blog . Find a relevant post read it and try to extract the information it provides and then you can comment on the post. Remember never try to spam them, as the comments will never get approved

Think in this way, you have a blog with good traffic and authority and some one posts a comment like “hello nice information” with a link to his website, will you like to approve the comment… NO you won’t, so when you are not ready to approve someone’s creepy comment why would others do the same.

So contribute some valuable and useful content to the post and the chances of getting approved will be the maximum.

Many of you will be concerned that many blogs add nofollow tags to the links in comment. Do no worry, nofollow links are still crawled and counted but their link juice transfer power is less. You can read more about nofollow links here at: Off Page Elements: Alternative ways of link building

So starting using forum posting and blog comments today for your link building and traffic campaigns and if you will do it right, you will see good rankings and surge in traffic in coming weeks.

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The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) is a global non-profit organization serving the search engine marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it.

Their aim and  purpose is to provide a foundation for industry growth through building stronger relationships, fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research, and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing.

Recently SEMPO has conducted a survey of salary of SEM professionals, below are some key points

How the survey was conducted:

Twenty-two question survey (written responses included in some parts of the survey), Survey was sent to all SEMPO members through email, Information analysis and commentary provided by TMP Directional Marketing

How many in-house SEO/SEM Professionals Participated:

Over 600 in-house SEO/SEM professionals from the USA and Canada during the 2nd quarter of this year

Key Findings:

Most respondents state they report to a Director or Vice President and 39% of respondents had 1-3 people reporting to them. Most who participated in the survey work for companies with less than 1,000 employees.

Salary:

Individual with 1-3 yrs relevant experience – US$ 40k to 80k
Senior Manager – US$ 70k to $120k
Vice President (Large SEM campaigns) – US$160k to $250k.

Core Task of SEM Professionals:

Most survey respondents are working to improve ROI from search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns – but within the same budgets.

Advertising Budget:

SEM budgets are mostly below $50K or above $250K with few in the in-between area.

New Avenues:

Search engine marketers are increasingly engaged in related activities such as organic search engine optimization, social media, email marketing, affiliate marketing and other forms of advertising campaigns.

Please visit www.sempo.org for more information.

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