Webmasters are using different SEO techniques to achieve higher ranking for their site for targeted keywords on all major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN as they are one of the most important thing to drive traffic for a website.

After lot of efforts your site will surely rank well on major search engines. But if the title and description of your article is not attractive and eye catching then it is hard to say that viewer will click the url and go through your site.

So, it is important to choose an attractive and eye catching title and description for your site in search engines so that it force a user to click and go through your site. In this way it is important to know that how search engines create description for your site.

Here you can find some important information about how search engines create description for your site:

How Google creates descriptions for a website:

Google is the preferred search engines for most of web surfers on the web.

As per assumptions, Google use to display the description for a website in search results from the meta description tag if a user search for a page by its URL, or if the searched keywords do not appear within the found page.

If the found web page doesn’t have a meta description tag then Google use the sentence that contains the searched keyword as the description to display in search results.

If a web page is listed in the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) then Google might also use the description that is used in the DMOZ directory.

How Yahoo creates descriptions for a website:

As per assumptions, Yahoo uses only the first part of the meta description to display in search results which is complemented by a text snippet from the searched page that includes the searched keyword.

In absence of meta description on a web page, Yahoo will use the description of the web page from Yahoo’s directory if that particular page is listed in Yahoo directory.

And in case that web page has no meta description and is also not listed in the Yahoo directory, then Yahoo will display sentences from the found web page that contain the searched keywords.

How MSN/Live creates descriptions for a website:

As per assumptions, MSN/Live uses the first sentence that contains the searched keyword as the description to display in search results.

If the searched keyword does not appear on the page, MSN/Live seems to use the first sentence that appears on the page in search results.

MSN/Live will also use the DMOZ directory description in the results, if a website is listed there.

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At a small college a group of incoming freshmen marketing majors gathered for their first class. As the wise, old Professor of Search Engine Marketing made his way to the front of the room, one of the students asked him, “Professor, what is SEO?”

The professor looked over the classroom full of young students and replied, “Let me tell you a story…”

There once were 5 families that lived in a rural valley where the soil was rich, the weather was harsh, and the best apples in the whole world grew wild.

One day at the first home the man of the house said, “My family is hungry. I know there’s an apple tree on the ridge. I’ll go and see if I can get some apples for my family.”

So, the man took a basket, hiked up the ridge until he arrived at the apple tree. He thought, “I’m tired. I will set my basket under the tree and take a nap. Perhaps when I wake up some apples will have fallen into my basket.” So, he set his basket under the tree and fell asleep. When he woke up he found one apple in his basket, which he took home to his family.

He did this day after day, but one apple was not nearly enough to feed his family so they grew hungrier and weaker each day.

At the second home the woman of the house said, “My family is hungry. I know there is an apple tree by the river that looks healthy. I’ll go and see if I can get some apples for my family.”

So, the woman took a basket and a picking stick and walked to the apple tree by the river. She pulled out her picking stick to pluck apples from the tree, but while the tree had seemed health from a distance there were only a few apples on it. (In some versions of the story the tree is full of apples but they are all very high in the tree.) She jumped and reached as high as she could with her stick, but she only got 2 apples, which she took home to her family.

She did this day after day, but 2 apples were not nearly enough to feed her family so they grew hungrier and weaker each day.

At the third house, the man thought, “I know of many apple trees in the valley I will visit each one and see which one has the most apples I can reach with my picking stick.” So, he did. And while he saw some trees that were bigger, and other trees that had more apples, he settled on a small tree that had a good number of tasty apples, which he brought home to her family. They had enough to eat each day but no more.

At the fourth house, the woman thought, “I know of many apple trees in the valley. I too will visit each tree and taste an apple from each to see which one has the most edible apples I can reach with my stick.” So, she did. And while she saw some trees that were bigger, and other trees that had more apples, she too settled on a small tree that had a good number of tasty apples, which he brought home to her family. They had enough to eat that day.

After dinner she thought, “If I only had something to stand on, I could pick more apples in a taller tree.” So, she went to her workshop and made a small step ladder. The next day with the help of her ladder and her picking stick she was able to pick more apples from a slightly bigger tree. Her family had some extra apples they canned for the future.

Each night the woman would go into her workshop and add a little more to her ladder, and each day she was able to pick more and more good apples. After many months she was picking the best apples from one of the biggest tree in the valley and selling the extra apples to the other families in the valley.

At the fifth house the man did all of the things the woman of the fourth house did, but he also picked from many different trees and wrote down in his notebook how many apples he got from each tree each day. If he noticed a tree was bearing less fruit he might stop picking from it. If he noticed another tree had more good fruit at the top he would add to that tree’s ladder. After many months of this he was bringing home more apples than all the families in the valley could eat, so he started shipping extra boxes of apples to markets all around the world.

When he finished the story one of the students asked, “Professor, what does it mean?”

The professor replied, “The apple pickers represent website owners, the apple trees are keywords, and the apples – website visitors.”

The first apple picker who set his basket under the tree and took a nap is like the person who builds a website, doesn’t optimize it for search engines, and hopes people will just drop in.

The second apple picker who chose to pick apples from the tree that looked healthy only to find it had few apples is like the person who builds a website and optimizes the web pages for phrases she thinks will bring visitors. But she neglects to do any keywords research and ends up optimizing her site for phrases that aren’t searched much (or phrases which are out of reach for her site to compete for).

The third apple picker who looked at all the trees in the valley and choose the one with the most fruit he could reach is like the website owner who builds a site, does keyword research, and optimizes the site for good, relevant keywords that his site is able to compete for. They are not the most popular phrases in his field but with on-page optimization he is able to get his site into the top 10 search results and generate sales or leads.

The fourth apple picker who looked at all the trees, chose the one with the most fruit she could reach, and built a ladder in her workshop after dinner so she could get the apples from bigger tress is like the site owner who builds a site, does good keyword research, optimizes her site, and begins building links to her site. He not only receives good results early on, but her number of visitors and sales grow as the number of links to her site grows and she is able to compete for more competitive keywords (bigger trees).

Lastly, the fifth apple picker who looked at all the trees, built a ladder, and tallied the number of apples from each tree each day is like the website owner who does keyword research, on-page optimization of his site, link building, and tracks his search rankings with ranking reports and his website traffic with analytics. He is able to build a successful website that competes for the best search phrases and can adjust as his industry and search marketing trends change.”

From that day forward every student brought an apple for the wise, old professor each day they attended class.

And that’s where we get the tradition of an apple for the teacher. Don’t believe me? Google it.

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Keyword research is the most important part of successful search engine optimization, without this base you may be wasting your time and resources. Related keyword research should be the foundation of your optimization.

Why is Keyword Research Important?
Keyword research calculates which keywords you should be targeting with the SEO. Most people think that they know which keywords they should target. Instinct can be a great resource, but it can also be misleading and is almost always not enough. For example, “search engine optimization” gets an estimated 16,000 searches a day while “search engine marketing” gets an estimated 8,800 searches a day. If your gut tells you to target “search engine marketing”, you may get great rankings, but it would only get you half of the traffic that you could have had if you had targeted and ranked well for “search engine optimization”. There are also keywords that you may not be able to rank well for without a lot of time and significant amount of link building regardless of how well you optimize your site. In addition, there are keywords that other people will use to search for what your site offers that you would never even think of. So, in addition to letting you know which keywords are more popular, the research can also provide new keywords to target.

Optimizing your website without doing keyword research is like trying to pick apples from a tree without first checking to see if there are any apples on it or if the apples are within your reach. You could end up putting in a lot of effort but going home with little fruit from your labor. So it’s a key component of search engine optimization.

What Do I Research?
There are two main aspects to keyword research. The first is popularity, how often are keywords actually searched for. Unfortunately, Google, Yahoo, and MSN don’t share the actual number of searches for specific keywords; however, there are a few tools online which are generally thought to be pretty accurate and Google does offer a free tool that gives the “approximate” number of searches for some keywords. The keyword popularity tools (other than Google’s) use the search data from a number of other smaller search engines along with a few algorithms to predict how many searches are being made for specific keywords. It’s not perfect, but it gives you an idea of which keywords are most popular. Since Google’s figures come from…well…Google, they are probably the most accurate, but even their figures are only estimates and I’ve found that many keywords return a “Not enough data” result. You may wish to use both Google and another keyword popularity tool.

The second aspect to keyword research is competition research. Competition research starts with analyzing your web pages to determine how competitive your site is both in general and for specific keywords. This is sometimes referred to as page strength. I should note that there are really two aspects to page strength, the general strength of a site and the specific strength of a page within the site. For the sake of simplicity, in this article I will use “web page” for both. The next step is to examine the keywords themselves to see how competitive they are. This is sometimes called keyword difficulty. Determining keyword difficulty is done partially by examining how competitive the pages are that rank well for this keyword, though other methods can be helpful as well. This can be tricky for two reasons.
1. No one other than that search engine designers knows how each search engine determines how competitive a site or page is and the search engine folks aren’t talking.

2. Each search engine has a different way of determining how competitive a site or page is. So, even if you could figure out one, it wouldn’t necessarily be so with the other search engines.

Despite these difficulties the search engines do give us some general information about what makes web pages competitive (what determines page strength). I’ll look more into how you determine keyword competition in my next article.

Without good keyword research, your search engine optimization efforts will be like firing a gun into the dark. You may hit something, you may not. You may choose keywords that are not searched for or keywords that are way too competitive for your site at that time. It’s best to know what you need to be targeting.

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Cost effective way to promote business is Viral Marketing. The most efficient and effective manner of spreading the word about your product and services to all corners of online world.

Massive Brand visibility Ensured

Viral advertising is not just a word of mouth promotion technique, it’s a combination which makes the use of websites, social networks, emails and instant messaging. As a result it is also important to own a properly organized and search engine friendly website.

In order to obtain superior results through viral promotion it is important to implement viral techniques that grab the attention of the customers towards your products and services. This can be achieved by providing images, free software and game downloads, file sharing, video clippings, articles, forums, blogs, emails, online games and many more.

By employing this advertising procedure, your online business will be presented with better brand visibility as your website experiences massive traffic. At any stage these visitors could be converted to potential customers of your products.

Economic Means of Business Promotion

The advantages of promoting your services by means of viral techniques are valuable. The significant benefit is that it is possible to get hold of the vast majority of the audience rather easily. Besides, once a campaign is activated it will persist for a long time without demanding substantial additional expenditure and resources. Viral marketing also helps to decrease the overall expenditure involved in advertising your products and services through other media.

Identify the Right Professionals

In order to achieve your online business goals through cost effective viral marketing techniques it is essential to avail the services of a professional SEO firm. These companies are equipped with experienced professionals who are able to offer quality services according to your requirements and budget. Therefore rely on the right service provider. That’s when viral marketing becomes a truly cost effective manner to promote business.

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The answer is Yes… There was a time when internet was just a huge dictionary but then it slowly turned into a biggest market place. The internet has became a war of ground for competitors who were trying to solicit potential customers. This is when SEO was introduced and since then it has been a huge success. One of the most important elements of SEO is Organic SEO.

What is Organic SEO?

Organic search engine optimization is basically a type of SEO for the websites that is having the ability to provide natural results from the top search engines like Google, Yahoo,  MSN etc. What happens is, when a user is on search engine page, they will type a keyword related to search for their requirement. When they are typing the keyword, there are two types of results that will be displayed. One of them is known as a sponsored listing and the other one is organic SEO. As a example: if you type” Switzerland travel guide” which is your keyword phrase then it will open the search results. On your right side will be two listings, which are known as sponsored listings or PPC advertisements. On the main page there will be top ten results of websites with the information related to Switzerland travel guide. These are the part of Organic SEO.

Organic SEO can be referred to as a process with the help of which your website can achieve higher natural placements within a search engine result page (SERP). You are probably thinking why it is always search engine specific. This is because search engine whether Yahoo or Google expect website pages to be configured in such a manner that it is easier for the search engine bots or web spiders to crawl through these pages and index them properly. This will definitely help in bettering your website page ranking.

Now the question is how can organic SEO be enhanced? SEO or search engine optimization can be enhanced using different methods but the most common and effective method is focusing on your website page content, keyword density, and effective link building. Content as we all know is an integral part of any website because graphics never talk as loud as content do. So when you are introducing content on your website, it should be relevant, informative, and keyword driven. When using keywords, you need to be cautious regarding the type of keywords you choose. If your website is selling camping gear then the keywords will include: camping gear, winter camping gear, cheap camping gear, discount camping gear, camping gear outlet, camping gear store, and camping hiking gear. You can find the right keyword for your business or website from Google Adwords.

Once you have the keywords, the next important aspect is keyword density, which basically relates to the number of times you use that particular keyword. This is an important aspect of organic SEO because you can’t use it less than required or more than required. Last but not the least is link building. Link building can be in two forms: you can link from your blogs, forums, article directory to your website or you can build reciprocal linking with other sites.

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Press releases are great to get some good targeted traffic to your site. But finding something news worth and writing out a press release can be hard at times. If  you follow some easy steps, you can turn an article or blog entry into a press release.

Create a more newsworthy headline

Headlines for a press release need to be more news worthy then a blog entry. Fortunately you can fix this easily. Take this entry for example. If I were going to use it for a press release I could just change the title to “Leif Presents some easy ways to Convert an Article into a Press Release.”

Write a short summary about the article

In the standard press release format a short, 1 – 3 sentence summary should follow the title. It should summarize the entire article and also make the topic seem important.

Write an interesting lead sentence

The first sentence in a press release is always more of a second summary then a lead sentence. With press releases the summary often gets ignored so it’s important to present your main points in both the summary and lead sentence.

Write a first paragraph discussing the importance of the topic

Instead of using your old first paragraph in your press release you should write something that talks about the importance of the topic. So, if you were using an article on converting an article into a press release you would want to discuss why press releases are important and how they help develop links.

Slightly revise your content to avoid duplicate content filters

Whenever you reuse content that has already been posted on your own site or blog you want to make sure it won’t be flagged as duplicate content. I usually go through the article and try to completely rewrite one sentence per paragraph. But you can revise whatever you want as long as the new version is significantly different then the original.

Write an about your company or website section

Press releases always include an about the author section at the end. This is a great place to include a call to action and a website that potential customers can check out.

Add your contact information to the end

This is different then the contact information in number 9. At the end of a press release there always needs to be a media contact that editors can reach in case there is a problem with the release.

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Offpage SEO is a combination of all the things that can help you to rank your website well in the search engines.

•    Factors which are not located ON your Web site pages
•    There are many functions involved in Offpage SEO that if you do correctly, can help you to get your site ranked well in Search Engines.

Offpage website optimization includes the following factors:

Which websites that link to your page?
How many other websites link to your competitor?
The Google page rank of the websites that link to yours
The page titles of the websites linking to yours
The anchor text used in the linking to you
The number and type of links linking to the website that’s linking to you
The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
Are the websites linking to you deemed as an authority website by Google?

Essentially, what you want to do is study the top ranked website for your chosen keyword. You need to do exactly what they are doing – only better. Obviously, these top ranked websites are doing something right, so learn from them and then take it a step further. Google looks at all the factors mentioned above – and then some, so make sure that you study the competition in order to rank better than they do.

You don’t have to beat your competitors in every single category – just in enough of them to weigh more heavily in your favor. For instance, if your competitor has 100 links to their site from other sites, find out the page rank of these other sites. If they are all have a 0 or a 1 Google page ranking, then it’s going to be pretty easy for you to beat that. You won’t need 100 links to your site, just a few actually – BUT from pages with a much higher page ranking!

Begin by typing your keyword into Google and take note of the #1 result. Study that webpage for a while – check their own Google page rank, etc.

Now we want to check the links TO this #1 ranked site. Go back to google and enter in the search box the following: link:www.SITE (where SITE = the url of the site you are studying). This will return a list of all the sites that are linking TO your competitors website. From here you will want to check the page rankings of those sites and the anchor text that is used to link to your competitor.

This entire process can be very time consuming, but is necessary to properly optimize your own website to rank above your competition. Once you have completed your research you will know exactly what you need to do to get your own page ranked higher on the search engines.

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This is what happening with the people who are using facebook all around the world: facebook disables the accounts of users who’s submissions are suspicious. Usually as it sounds, suspicious, often means just using the facebook too much. Usually they are warning people and gives them the second chance to change themselves and sometimes they just terminate the account suddenly and permanently. Most of time they turn back the disabled accounts, automatically after a cool down or after sending them the humble request to the facebook authorities. But sometimes they just ban the account and forget it.

Facebook has not sharply outlined about what bad behavior looks like that leads for getting account disabled, and this is the most important reason which makes people confused, angry or  desperate when they gets the message ACCOUNT DISABLED. I have tried to list the most common reasons on  “why the facebook accounts are disabled?” to help people avoiding their accounts to be disabled by facebook. Remember, this list is not surely complete and as the policies will be keeping changing according to the time, we will have to live with a bit uncertainty when using Facebook.

Here are the reasons that will get you kicked off facebook:

•    You didn’t use your real name
Don’t try to use a nickname (or initials)in lieu of the name on your birth certificate, because Facebook will find you and spit you out.

•    You joined too many groups
Remember that the maximum limit is 200 groups per user. More than that just looks desperate, don’t you think?

•    You posted too many messages on a wall or in a group
Even one of my close friend  had his account disabled–in his case for “excessive evangelism.”

•    You posted in too many groups, too many user’s walls
You may be axed for being too verbose in too many places. That’s what spammers do, silly. On Facebook it is better–or at least safer–to be seen than heard.

•    You friended too many people
Not so long ago this was a prime cause of disabled accounts, but Facebook has instituted a maximum of 5000 friends that should protect you from yourself.

•    Your school/organization affiliation is doubtful
The overlords are sometimes not very trusting, and they may accuse you of not graduating from Harvard (or Plum Senior High School). The impertinence! Better have your diploma ready.

•    You’re poking too many people
We’ve heard this from multiple sources, and it’s easy enough to avoid. Save the pokes for people you *really* like, as mum always said. But beware the odd FB app that pokes on your behalf.

•    For advertising your app on wall posts
The line between spam and self-promotion is a thin one, but let it be known that pimping your shiny new Facebook app is definitely considered SPAM.

•    Using duplicate text in multiple messages
Some people paste a generic welcome message into friend requests to save time. DON’T DO THIS! It makes you look like a spammer. (Ironically, pro spammers are probably randomizing their messages to avoid this trap)

•    You are a cow, dog, or library
Being a real person is not enough, you must be a homo sapien. Accounts have been deleted for cows, dogs and libraries.

•    You are under eighteen years old
According to one report a user’s account was suspended when they suspected her of being under 18. She was required to enter a work email address to prove her maturity, at which point her account was reinstated. [note: other users have pointed out that being under 18 is fine if you're part of a High School group, though underage home schoolers have been told to bugger off]

•    You wrote offensive content
Reports of “sudden death” on accounts have been reported by users who were told they had posted offensive content, but were not provided details of the offense.

•    You scraped information off Facebook
They have a zero tolerance policy for page scraping (i.e. pulling content off their web pages via a script). Unfortunately, they don’t have a reliable way of proving it’s you who’s doing the scraping (IP matching is probably as good as they can get), so you may find this a difficult charge to defend yourself against.

Finally, you may be disabled for no clear reason at all. One Australian member reported this staggering experience:

“I was blocked for a little while because I was ‘misusing certain features of the site’ Naturally I closely examined their conditions of use etc for some insight as to what I must have done wrong. I couldn’t for the life of me find anything…

“Upon request for clarification I was told that they were not at liberty to divulge which features or of course any thresholds of use. Then they warned me not to do it again or I would be banned permanently without recourse to reinstatement.”

You have been warned. Remember that the hand of justice is swift and merciless.

I’m living in fear

If you find your account disabled for one of these (or other) reasons there is only one resource: you must email Facebook at one or all of these addresses:

- disabled@facebook.com
- appeals@facebook.com
- info@facebook.com

Related Post: Why my Orkut account is Disabled?

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As we all know, Google’s Adsense is one of the bests program designed to earn money online, the only thing is we need to understand that Google is a company that cannot be messed around with.

We should take care that we do not abuse the system in order to make a quick money. Many website owners break the rules of Adsense terms and conditions and get banned.

If you are pretty serious about making money from Adsense, make sure you follow all the rules and regulations to avoid yourself from getting banned. I have listed some important points that you should not even think of doing them.

•    Never click on your own Ads. I think this is one of the biggest reasons why Adsense accounts get disabled. This seems obvious, but it’s surprising how many people actually do that intentionally. If you think by clicking on your own ads, you can fool Google, you are highly mistaken.

Google has got its own proprietary technology to find out if the publisher has clicked on his own ads. And once they know that, your account is in jeopardy.

Google wants to protect the investment of its advertisers, and it will never tolerate any false clicks. So make sure you do not make this foolish mistake.

•    Never tell others to click on your own Ads. I often see click-swapping on Adsense forums. Its kind of you-click-on-my-ad-and-i-will-click-on-yours. Never ever do this.

If you want a strong Adsense business, stay away from trouble. Don’t ask even your friends, relatives or employees to click on your ads. Do not provide any kind of an incentive to anyone for clicking on your ads.

I feel one good way to protect yourself is not to disclose your website’s domain to anyone. Keep it to yourself and you are safe!

•    Never modify Google’s AdSense code. This is against Google’s policy. Just use the code as-is. Don’t play around with it at all.

•    Never put pictures next to your Adsense Ads. This is a relatively new policy. When i started with Adsense, this rule did not exist. Moreover, what Google actually wanted with this policy was never very clear. Nor did Google do a good job of clearly defining what is allowed and what is not.

Even i had put some pretty images next to my Ads, and achieved excellent CTR. But here is a rule of thumb. If you are in doubt, ALWAYS play safe. When this policy was enforced, i did not waste a moment removing images that were next to my my Ads. After all, I love my Adsense account, too!

My suggestion: If you have images next to your adsense ads, remove them immediately!

•    Never title your Ads the wrong way. You are not allowed to label your Ads with messages like “Click Here”, “Related Links” or anything else that misleads people into thinking that it is not an Advertisement.

You are however allowed to mention “Advertisements” or “Sponsored Links”, because your ads are actually Advertisements. And Google is OK with that. If you want, you may prefer not to put any label at all.

•    Never put Adsense on pages that do not have enough content. Yeah, this is something that web-masters may not be aware of. But Google allows Adsense only on pages with good content.

Therefore it is not advisable to put ads on Thank You pages, subscription pages etc. Make doubly sure that you have Ads only on pages with good content.

This also means that you should not put your ads on sites with junk content. Any site that doesn’t really add value to the visitor is considered to be a junk site

•    Never put Adsense on sites that have got prohibitive content. Make sure you do not have Ads on sites that have got anything to do with drugs, pornography, hatred, gambling etc.

Again, this is self explanatory, but some people simply don’t understand!

•    Never create multiple Google Adsense Accounts. Google allows you to have only 1 personal account and 1 business account. Google links these two accounts.

•    Never try to fool Google by creating different accounts under different names: As long as you do not get caught, its fine. But if Google traces these accounts as being used by the same person, all your accounts are in danger of being suspended.

•    Never enlist your site in any kind of auto-surf or traffic exchange programs. Again, this is against Google’s TOS. So stay clear of it.

•    Never exceed the amount of ads you can display on a page. Currently Google only allows 3 Ad blocks, 3 Link units and 2 referral buttons to be put on one page.I personally feel Google has allowed more than what is required.

So, i don’t know why would you ever want more than this!

•    Never reveal your Adsense Data. Google doesn’t allow public display of your CTR, Impressions, eCPM etc on forums, eBooks, websites or any other publicly viewable media.

But Google doesn’t have any objection if you mention how much you earn from Adsense.

Never stay outdated!!! Google’s policies are constantly changing. It will help if you know what changes are taking place in the world of Adsense so that you can update your sites if required.

If you get banned by Adsense for whatever reason you cannot give the excuse that you were “not aware” of the policy. This will not be of much help. So know the waters that you tread on!

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Every business needs to be monitored for how it is fairing. Monitoring is the main concept behind every suggestion boxes, exit surveys, customer feedback forms and many other devise. Without feedback form from the customer, revenue, monitoring inventory, expenses and  other benchmarks, a quick slide down or a slippery slope can be taken by a  business, without the owner ever seeing it coming or being able to stop the slide.

Webmasters should also be monitoring on their websites. Most of the points can be classified as traffic related or server performance related. Here is the list of my points, which will be helpful to monitor your website.

Monitoring website traffic

Traffic totals. You want to know how much traffic you are generating. If the line on the graph is heading down, you know you have to find out why.

Referrers. It’s not enough just to know how many visitors you are getting. You need to know where they are coming from. I discovered I was getting a lot of visitors from Linkedin. They were all being funneled into my Article on “Free Internet Marketing Methods That is Blogging”. Suddenly I knew I should get more links from other social bookmarking sites. Valuable information.

Searches: Much to my surprise, my site started getting a ridiculous number of hits from the search for ” Blogging “. It just so happens I wrote a humor column on free Internet marketing methods . I was surprised to see it getting so much traffic for such a generic, competitive search term. If that had been a term of a little more relevance for me, this information would have lead me to properly optimize the page and get even more traffic.

Pages viewed per visit: If people visit only one page per visit, you have some work to convince them to visit more pages, like those that make you money.

Pages visited: So you threw up on your site something cool as an add-on. How were you to know that other webmasters would link to it and send a whole bunch of traffic your way? Well, now you know, so add some copy to the page to pull visitors into the rest of your site.

Monitoring website performance

Forms: Are they all functioning? A good website monitoring service can keep tabs on them for you. The last thing you want is to have lost hundreds or thousands of subscribers because a sign-up form stopped functioning

Shopping carts: Slow and complicated shopping carts are responsible for an estimated $25 billion in lost sales. Make sure yours is functioning properly. A good website monitoring service can watch this for you, too.

Download speed: Clear your cache and test your pages. Hmm. Maybe those images are a bit large. Time to compress them, or even remove some. Remember that some people are on a much slower connection than you are. I use a satellite connection sometimes, but when I don’t, my connection speed is 28K.

Server speed: Are there problems with server speed? Maybe not where you are, but on the other side of the world. Global website monitoring can alert you to a transatlantic connection problem, so you can take it up with your web hosting service.

Server accessibility: All the web hosts promise 99% accessibility. But is that for real? Who monitors them? By one estimate, 75% of inaccessibility is not on the hosting server, but rather on the Internet’s backbone network and in global routing. A global website monitoring service can help identify the problem, so that you can work with your web hosting company to resolve it before too many sales are lost.

Fun: If you are not having fun, audition for that drummer position in the local band. There is no point spending your life doing something that bores you. Webmastering should be fun.

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