Having a search engine friendly is not good enough. You need good web design to fortify your conversion rates.

Knowing how to SEO your web pages to rank high for your targeted keywords and not have a nice design, simple-to-use navigation and layout for your visitors may eventually drive away potential customers.

Here’s the 10 Ways to Design a Good Web Site according to New York Times Gadgetwise blog.

1. Do Lead By Example
2. Do Make The Website Search Engine Friendly
3. Do Your Research
4. Do Test Your Website
5. Don’t Get Flash Drunk
6. Don’t Eliminate All White Space
7. Don’t Make The User Wait
8. Don’t Bounce Around
9. Don’t Clutter The Home Page
10. Don’t Forget About Content

An Example of Good Website Design

It is believed that Amazon.com has spent thousands of man-hours to study and tweak their home page to give visitors the best user experience and maximum revenue. So go study it and see how the 10 ways were implemented.

Is Your Website Design Good Enough?

Out of the 10 ways listed above, beside item 2, the other way that is related to SEO is “Don’t get flash drunk” which is help to ensure the search engine robots can crawl and index your web pages effectively.

The remaining 8 ways concern your website usability issues.

The bottom line is to make your visitors happy and use your website intuitively.

Web Design and Usability

The rest of the 8 ways improve user experience for your human visitors. Good usability can improve your conversion rate.

Now, look at your website and see if you have implemented all the 10 ways of Good Web Design. If not, start revamping your website today to improve your conversion rates and ROI.

One of the most frequently asked questions to the internet marketing coach is… “Which affiliate programs?”.

The Best-selling Internet Marketing Course… Find out more

You want to make money online and you’re are convinced that affiliate marketing is the way to go for you. As an affiliate marketer, you don’t have to worry about inventory and shipping. You probably think what you need to do is to get people to click at your affiliate link and buy. So all you have to do is to select the best selling affiliate marketing programs that would pay you top dollars.

Well, if that’s what you are thinking I can guarantee you that you will not make a cent with any affiliate marketing program. Because thousands of people are thinking like you and lost money in affiliate marketing.

How to Make Affiliate Marketing Works for You

The first step to make money with an affiliate program is not about choosing the right product to sell on your web pages. Rather, to understand what makes people want to click at your affiliate links and buy through your link.

First, you need to know the various ways of generating the right traffic to your web pages.

In order to do that you must agree that “Content is king”. In order publish content that is interesting to your readers, you have to know a little bit about that topic than your readers.

Second, you need to know the merchants you are representing.

Don’t just pick that merchant because she pays the highest commission. More importantly, you have to study the merchant’s sale page and try out the check-out process. Better still, buy and use the product yourself so that you can write convincingly when you recommend the product.

Your task is to match the right products to your site’s visitors. Now, here’s an important tip: keyword research. Knowing the right search terms used by your visitors and giving them what they want is key to being a successful marketer.

These are the some of the best Internet Marketing courses for people new to affiliate marketing. Go check out my affiliate links:

1. Affiliate Marketers Handbook – Teaches you how to become an online publisher and make money with affiliate marketing particularly using Commission Junction affiliate marketing platform.

2. Internet Marketing Coaching – A step-by-step training and support program from experienced Internet marketers.

GeoTargeting means when you are in Singapore and enter www.google.com in the browser’s address bar, you will be re-directed to www.google.com.sg instead.

Here’s an account of this blog being ranked among the top 10 positions for Internet marketing coach in Google.com, Google.com.sg, Google.com.au, Google.ca and etc.

To many webmasters and SEO practitioners, this GeoTargeting feature is a pain-in-the-rear. You now have to optimize your page for each country you are targeting to get that Number 1 position.

Top 10 Internet Marketing Coach in Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, India and…

This blog has done pretty well in terms of Google GeoTargeting. It is ranked in the top 10 for the search terms internet marketing coach in several country-specific Google search e.g. www.google.com, www.google.com.sg, www.google.com.au, www.google.co.id, www.google.ca and etc.

In fact, as of this morning, this blog is ranked Number 1 for internet marketing coach in:

• www.google.com.sg (Singapore, my favorite country)
• www.google.com.au (Australia)
• www.google.com.hk (Hong Kong)
• www.google.co.id (Indonesia)
• www.google.com.ph (Philippines)

Many Internet marketers from all over the world are competing for the coveted Number 1 position for internet marketing coach, so my Number 1 position may not hold when you do the search. Anyway, please do and write a comment at the box below.

How to Get Number 1 Ranking

To get that Number 1 ranking in Google, you have to work hard, smart and be very patient with Google. Here’s what I think is the most important… content, relevant content to the search terms you are targeting. Equally important is relevant backlinks. In order to do well in country-specific Google search, you have to first rank well in www.Google.com.

If all these sound unfamiliar to you then you go learn the basic of search engine optimization (SEO). One of the best place to start learning SEO is to read my earlier posts start from Who is Internet Marketing Coach. So far there are less than 20 articles in this blog, so it will take you within an hour to read everything I have done to get top position for this search terms internet marketing coach.

Number 1 SEO Training in Singapore

Alternatively, you may want to attend the SEO Workshop in Singapore which I have been conducting every 2 months since early 2006. Go view the photos at the bottom right of this page. (Photos)

Finally, Fione tweaked her sites’ titles and re-wrote the meta description to regain her #1 position for the keywords internet marketing coach. Well done!

This blog ranking for internet marketing coach has dropped to Number 4, as shown in the screen shot below (click to view large image):

Number 1 Ranking – Just for Ego

I think getting #1 position in Google for this search terms – internet marketing coach – is just for the sake of ego. This is not a keyword with good amount of traffic.

How do I know?

Very simple. Use Google Suggest.

Go to Google Suggest and type in internet marketing, you’ll see a list of suggested search terms. The list consists of:

1. internet marketing center
2. internet marketing forum
3. internet marketing tips
4. internet marketing secrets
5. internet marketing centre
6. internet marketing singapore
7. …

Here’s the screen shot of Google Suggest for internet marketing:

All except internet marketing coach. This shows that it is not a keyphrase which many people search for. In other words, there is not so much traffic and it is not a competitive or even profitable keyword. This is definitely a vanity keyword and it has been a vanity keyword since day 1.

The Internet marketers who are really good in SEO will be found for the search terms internet marketing and not internet marketing coach.

Keyword Research and The Long Tail

Any SEO specialist worthy of his/her salt and competent in keyword research will not be using such an improbable keyword on the home page (unless you are like me doing it as an experiment and for vanity).

Keywords of lesser traffic, such as those found in the Long Tail, are best suited for inner pages. And you want to have as many such pages targeting the Long Tail keywords of your niche as possible.

Be Clear of the Objective of Your Website

Yes, I believe Fione and Harrace should focus on the keywords Internet marketing for the home page and not change it to emphasize the terms – Internet marketing coach – just because a vainpot like me got ahead of your more important site – a leading training organization promoting Internet marketing in Asia.

#1 Ranking is Nothing without Traffic and Conversion

Getting #1 ranking is nothing when there is not much traffic to your site. It is not how high you ranked but how much traffic your website can generate and how well it converts!

I know because my number 1 ranking in Google did not bring me any amount significant traffic over the past 2 months.

Getting top ranking is easy. However finding the right keyword to rank top requires real expertise.

Just for the record, this blog is now ranked Number 1 in Google.com.sg for the search terms internet marketing coach.

In fact, this blog has been ranked No.1 Internet Marketing Coach since early March 2008. I blog about this No.1 ranking at my newer blog – Who’s #1 Internet Marketing Coach

Proof: No.1 Internet Marketing Coach by Google.com.sg

Click at the above thumbnail and see complete picture – proof that this blog has been ranked Number 1 Internet Marketing Coach by Google.

So can I say now that I am the Number 1 Internet Marketing Coach in Singapore ranked by Google?

No, I don’t think so. I am at best just very good at search engine optimization which is my specialization. I am a SEO trainer and I also get paid for giving advice on SEO and search marketing to business and companies in Singapore.

Go search in Google for SEO trainer and you will see that my sites are ranked among the top 3 positions.

No. 1 Internet Marketing Coach in Malaysia and the rest of the World

So who else is the other No.1 Internet Marketing Coach in Malaysia? The clue is in the following video:

And for videos on my SEO training and testimonials by my students, please check out this Youtube channel – Finggle TV

This question: How to get higher PageRank quickly? was posted in the comment of one of my Blogger blogs where I give away free backlinks. Frankly, unless you are an SEO specialist or SEO consultant selling SEO services, you don’t need high PageRank.

It is a myth that having high PageRank will guarantee top listing in search engine results.

However, if you are after PageRank for ego reason then I will show you the shortcut method which I used for this blog.

How Internet Marketing Coach Got PageRank of PR4

I have been studying how to build backlinks and increase PageRank value for sometime. I observed that blog hosted on WordPress.com can get PR3 or higher easily. So I started this blog to try get ranked within Top 10 for the search terms internet marketing coach. This blog shot up to PR4 when Google updated the PageRank.

Shortcut to Getting PageRank Quickly for Free

The one thing that helps this blog to attain PR4 is the backlinks from http://wordpress.com/tag/….

In order to get these backlinks, you will need to categorize each of your posts. You will need to categorize your post according to the WordPress.com tags.

For example, I will put this post under the category of pagerank. When I do this, my blog post will be added to wordpress.com/tag/pagerank which is a PR5 web page. So I will get a PR5 backlink to this post.

And I will also put this post in the category of blogging. The page, wordpress.com/tag/blogging is PR7 and this new post very likely will be spidered by Googlebot within hours.

So, this post will get 2 backlinks with PR5 and PR7. It’s easy, isn’t it?

[Updated on Jan 29, 2009]

How to Ensure Your PageRank Sticks

Here’s another observation after months of monitoring some of my blogs. Your web page’s PageRank will drop if you do not post frequently. The more often you write, the faster your blog gain PagePank and the longer it maintains.

This blog is finally in the top 10 for the search terms internet marketing coach in Google.

I haven’t been updating this blog for nearly a month. It is a pleasant surprise that this blog made it to the top 10 in 4 months and less than 15 posts. I was thinking it may take more than 6 months at the rate that I post to this internet marketing coaching blog.

I think blogging is a very powerful way to get into Google top ranking. And with WordPress.com free blogging platform, you can get your blog rank high for less competitive keywords and drive targeted traffic to your main website. You can use this low-cost technique for your internet marketing business.

Off-page optimization is the process to increase the number of incoming links (backlinks) to your web pages and improve the quality of these incoming links. You want other web pages to “talk about” your web pages and link to your website. Increasing link popularity will improve your search engine listing position so that you website can be found on the Internet.

Link Building: Homepage vs Inner Pages

You want to build links from web pages that share similar topic to your website.

For example, this post is about off-page optimization so I would want links from search engine optimization and search marketing related pages, also pages from websites that are related to internet marketing.

Note that I said “web pages”. Not only you want backlinks to your homepage, you also want links to your inner pages. A ratio of 40/60 will be good i.e. for every 100 backlinks, you want 40 backlinks to your homepage and 60 backlinks to the rest of your inner pages. In fact, the more link to your inner pages the better.

The Quality of Backlinks Determines Your Search Engine Ranking

Quantity of backlinks is important and quality of backlinks is vitally important. There is no point in getting links from unrelated websites or websites deemed by search engines as undesirable e.g. FFA. Google will just ignore these links. In fact, Matt Cutts of Google said that you should not bother about link exchanges.

Here’s the common methods to get backlinks are:

1. Solicit links from partners’ websites
2. Directory Submission
3. Article Submission

For more information on link building and linking strategies please read these articles:

• 5 Simple Steps to Link Building
• How To Get Links Without Asking

On-page SEO or search engine optimization refers to changes that you can make on your web page to increase the chances of it being displayed in the top 30 results for a particular search term or search phrase.

Many people think that SEO is something complicated and difficult to implement. However, like many things in life, SEO is common sense – your job is to provide what the search engines want.

On-page optimization is quite simple and relatively easy to do. Let me show you some simple tactics that will help you to get your web pages visible in the search engines by focusing on 2 very important on-page factors.

• HTML Tags
• Textual Content

Search Engines Love Text

Search engines want fresh, unique content – textual content. Because, text can be interpreted by simple algorithm whereas technology to interpret pictures, video and music is too expensive and require excessive computing power.

Search engines love text. Textual content is known to be the “spider food”.

If you want the search engine spiders to crawl your website every day, make sure that you have plenty of good textual content and keep your website fresh by adding unique content several times a day.

HTML Optimization

Once upon a time, all you need to do to get into top ranking was to add the tag. Please do not worry too much about this meta tag now. Google, Yahoo, Live(MSN) and Ask simply ignore this meta tag when it comes to search engine ranking algorithm.

The important tags are the <title> tag and the <meta name=”description” …> tag.

Put your keywords in the title and the description. The search engines display this information in their search engine result. Keywords in within these 2 tags are considered in the search engine result ranking algorithm.

Another HTML tag which is also important is alt=”…” of the <img> tag. Whenever appropriate, you should describe your image with your keywords.

For example,
<img src=”image.jpg” alt=”Internet Marketing Coach photo dated Jun 12, 2006″ />

Content Optimization

Content optimization, also known as SEO copywriting, determine the relevancy of the web page to the keywords you;re targeting.

These are the important factors to consider for content optimization:

1. Keyword position
2. Keyword density
3. Keyword highlight

The rule is to position your keywords in the first sentence of the first paragraph. You also want use it again in the body of the content and finally near the end of the page.

As for keyword density, 10% is good for most search engines. For specific search engine, for example, Google tends to favor lesser than 10%. On the other hand, Yahoo tends to favor pages with density greater than 10%.

Highlighting your keywords will help the search engines realize that the words are important. However, do not highlight your keywords more than 3 times. You can use <h3> tag, <strong> tag and <em> tag to highlight your keywords.

Follow these SEO tips and you will see result pretty soon. As you can seen, I have followed the above tips in writing this post!

How often do Googlebot and Yahoo Slurp visit your blog?

Do you know you can train these Googlebot and Yahoo Slurp crawlers to come to your blog at regular interval?

It’s simple. Update your blog with fresh unique content at regular interval e.g. one new post everyday or every other day. In this way, you are training the search engine spiders to come visit your blog at regular intervals. And you will find that the search engine spiders will come to your blog everyday.

Get Your Website Indexed by Google & Yahoo in less than 48 Hours

Do you have a new website which you want to be indexed by search engines e.g. Google and Yahoo quickly?

Blogging can help you get your new website indexed quickly. If you are not a frequent blogger, then make sure you start updating your blog a couple of times a day with fresh content for a week or so. After you’ve trained the spiders to visit your blog at least once a day, add a post about your new website and link it! You will find that your new website get indexed within the next 48 hours.

Directory Submission to Kickstart Search Engines Indexing

What if your blog is brand new?

Use directory submission. Here’s how you can kickstart the spidering of your blog.

Write as many posts as possible when you first started tp blog. The more content you have the better. Then, submit your blog to Technorati and other directories.

Don’t know where to find these directories to submit your blog?

Go visit Free Directory Submission Blog now.

You’ll find a list of search engines friendly web directories that accept free submission and also submit your blog at Free Directory Submission Blog. The search engine spiders will visit your new blog via the link you submitted at these web directories.