The Key to Keywords

For a long time I thought I understoond how to integrate Keywords into my site design only to find out that I didn't have a clue! MY SEO (search engine optimization) skills were put to the test when I decided to ad google adsense content to my site. Adsense always you to generate site revenue by included relevant ads onto your site. Its a great concept, but if you don't take the time to figure out your keywords, you will end up with a bunch of random ads on your site that no one will click on, which is what happened to me.

I unproductiviely used adsense for a few months. I simply didn't understand how you tell the adsense tool, what your keywords were. Initially I assumed there was alittle textbox on your account that you simply plugged your keywords into, but google has far more sophisticated technology than that. Once I started actually READING about the adsense program, (now understanding that doing your research can help to triple your progress) I came to learn that the adsence program scans your site for frequently used buzz words (keywords) and displays ads that reflect those terms. But if you uses words that are simply not common among advertisers, google adsense is still going to generate generic advertisements, so when developing keywords they must be popular among online users and advertisers.

Once I learned the adsense basics, I figured I was one the right track with keywords like "African American" on my site. And yet someone my assumption did not match with google's ad selections. Upon printing and reviewing my pages, I came to some starteling relevations. The biggest was that I was using keywords at all! I assumed I was because my site was all about African American content, but once I reviewed each page excluding images and iframes I came to see that my actually text was limited and lacked any real keywords at all. No words, not even "African American" were consecutively used on my pages, which meant that google was picking up any catch phrases from my content.

After my shocking revelation, I started spending more time on the textual components of both my sites and blogs, AND I was became aware of how often I used a particular term and how relevant that term was to my content. Like I said google adsense is a sophisticated tool if you try to plug in irrelevant keywords or saturate your site with keywords google with figure it out and you will be penalized. Those google designers are smart!

Today my keywords are on point and my clicks are too! Of course my web traffic could always be better, but I'm working on it. There are actually a bunch of keyword tips and tricks that even I haven't figured out yet. You just have to see what works for your site and do RESEARCH! There is a ton of information online, so design and read @ the same time.

Google Publisher Tools

If you are interesting in generator more traffic to your site I would highly recommend reviewing googles list of publisher tools.

With Google's suite of publisher tools, you can focus on creating your content while they help with everything else, from smart analytics to driving traffic to your site.

Lessons in Web Development: Google Site Maps

As a sistah with an interesting in online entrepreneurship, I've spent a great deal of my time trying to figure out how to move up in the google ranks. Though I have a lot of good webpages on my site (www.msoyonline.com) , only a small percentage of my pages are indexed in google. Most of my stuff get's lost in cyber space, because I'm stuck doing the same old things - submitting links to a hundred search engines and sending one or two emails.

My marketing skills are improving, but it's taken alot to teach this old dogs new tricks. Truth be told, my online marketing has improved over the last year. In a few months my web traffic went up 150% because of a renewed committment to research and planning. Google, the big wigs of search engines, is of course on the top of my affiliates list. I've been going in circles trying to figure out how the google machine works, all the while ignoring some of the key strategies I dismiss everyday.

Sitemaps is the biggest key of them all. A sitemap is basically a file that lists all the web pages of your site. Google scans your website as best it can, but having a file that actually tells it where all your files are, is a great help. Moreover, in your site map you include how frequently you update your site, so google knows how often to come back and scan your site again. Best of all it's free. I just finished my site map and I have to say it's quite easy. All you need to do is find a website that will scan your site and create an xml file for you that meets all of google's protocol. Google has a list of such sites, so there is no need to search for them. Once you create a google sitemap account and upload your sitemap, you just have to sit back and let googles robots do the rest. I'm confident my ranking will go up once I put a few more marketing strategies in place.

As for the rest of my black online entrepreneurs out there, don't sleep on the fine details of search engine optimization. Make sure your page tags are straight, your headers look clean, and your on top of the lates SEO Technology. If you can't afford to buy a bunch of books - which I cant, sit in the bookstore, the library, or search the web. Don't just put up a site and hope it get's noticed. It's taken me 5 years to realize that's the stupid way to be seen. If you can learn from my mistake, you save your self a whole lot of wasted time in the game of Online Marketing.

For more details:

• Review Google's Site map program
• Check out yahoo's site map program
• Read this great article: Search Engine Inclusion with Google and Yahoo sitemaps
• Xml-sitemaps is a good online program to create google friendly sitemaps

Adding Black RSS Feeds to your Site

Multiple Shades of You Online (www.msoyonline.com) now offers an extensive listing of Black RSS Feeds . Now you can read the latest articles from Essence Magazine to Black Conscious News, with a variety of other great African American publications mixed in between. Black RSS Feeds on msoy is powered by the Library of Urban RSS Feeds Generator, which is an Urban Web tool offered by Urban Dynamics. Web developers looking for black articles and sticky content, use this easy tool to add sticky content to their websites. To find out more about the the Library of Urban RSS Feeds, visit Urban Dynamics Web Tools.

The Black Times

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