If you're like most online webmasters, then you have probably
read one article after the other about search engine
optimization. Most of them rehash the same old information and
you end up wading through tons of fluff. However, this isn't one
of those articles. Listed below are 7 advanced SEO tips that you
won't find on every digital corner.

7 Advanced SEO Tactics
By Kim Roach

If you're like most online webmasters, then you have probably read one article after the other about search engine optimization. Most of them rehash the same old information and you end up wading through tons of fluff.

Advertisement However, this isn't one of those articles. Listed below are 7
advanced SEO tips that you won't find on every digital corner.

1. Syndicating Articles that Link to Your Sitemap

As you probably know, syndicating articles is one of the best
methods for obtaining one-way backlinks.

They are also valuable pieces of search engine bait because
search engine crawlers are frequent visitors to many
high-profile article directories. If you want to get the spiders
quickly crawling your site, simply submit an informative article
to a site like ezinearticles.com (http://www.ezinearticles.com),
goarticles.com (http://www.goarticles.com), or articlecity.com
(http://www.articlecity.com).

However, there's another article marketing strategy that isn't
mentioned much in marketing circles. This tactic can get the
crawlers searching deeper into your site and indexing more of
your pages. Simply link to your sitemap within the resource box.
This will send the spiders straight to a content buffet where
they can quickly slurp up all of your pages.

2. Translating Your Website Into Other Languages

Are you marketing in just one language? If so, you are missing
out on 64.8% of your marketing potential. This is because 64.8%
of the world is surfing the internet in a language other than
English. By becoming a multilingual marketer, you immediately
open up a stream of new markets. Google alone crawls web pages
in 35 different languages.

One of the best ways to attract worldwide traffic is to
translate your site and register it with both English and
foreign-language search engines and directories. If you are a
seasoned SEO, you'll be happy to hear that the competition in
foreign search engines is much less than in those of the United
States.

In addition, online foreign language markets are currently
growing at a much faster rate than English speaking markets.

You have the opportunity to tap into this market while it's in
an exponential growth phase.

3. ROR Sitemaps

As you probably know, sitemaps are important for making sure
your site can be completely spidered and indexed by the search
engines. Unfortunately, many of these sitemaps are specific to
one search engine or another. For this reason, there have been
a number of Google and Yahoo site map generators produced in
recent years.

However, there is an alternative that is even more exciting.
These are ROR sitemaps and they are readable by all search
engines, not just by Google or Yahoo.

ROR is an exciting new sitemap tool that uses XML feeds to
describe your website. These sitemaps are structured feeds that
enable search engines to complement text search with structured
information to better interpret the meaning of your site. With
a ROR sitemap, search engines can better understand your
products, services, images, newsletters, articles, podcasts,
and anything else that you want to describe.

For example, if you are selling products, a ROR file enables you
to document your product names, descriptions, prices, images,
availability, affiliate programs, and any other relevant
information. Search engine crawlers like the Googlebot have an
enormous job to do. It's time we start helping them to better
understand our content.

To start generating your own ROR sitemap, go to
http://www.rorweb.com/rormap.htm

4. Keyword Phrases that Convert

Selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important
aspect of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately, many webmasters
target the wrong keywords. Too many of us target very general
keywords like "real estate" or "internet marketing". Although
these terms get lots of visitors, it is unlikely that you will
be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type
of traffic produces very low conversion rates because it does
not target prospects.

You will be much more successful, if you target keyword phrases
that are 3-4 words long. These terms are much less competitive
and have been proven to convert much better than keywords that
are 1 to 2 words long.

Who do you think is more likely to buy; someone who goes to
Google and searches for "ipod" or someone who searches for
"4gb black ipod nano"? Obviously, the person who searches for
a more specific phrase is much closer to making a buying
decision.

5. GoogSpy

Would you like to get an in-depth view of how your competitors
run their business? Well, you can do exactly that with an online
service known as GoogSpy. GoogSpy is a free research tool that
will tell you what keywords your competitors are bidding on.

This tool tracks over 500,000 keywords every day from Google
and then loads this goldmine of information into the GoogSpy.com
database. Using this tool, you can browse by company or by
search term.

This tool is extremely powerful. Unfortunately, many people take
it for granted. This service basically hands you a business
strategy on a silver platter. Maybe we should just keep this one
to ourselves and enjoy the benefits of being one step ahead of
our competition.

For example, let's say you wanted to do some in-depth research
on Overstock.com, one of the largest companies online. You would
simply go to googspy.com and type in overstock.com. You will
then be shown thousands of words that this company bids on.
These keywords are proven profit generators. Research like this
would normally cost thousands of dollars, but they are providing
it free of charge.

If you want to find keywords with high conversion rates, simply
type in words such as buy and purchase. You will be shown
keyword phrases that are bid on that include the words buy or
purchase. These are very lucrative keyword phrases because the
person who types in "buy sony playstation 2" knows exactly what
they want. They're not just looking around, they are in buying
mode. These are the type of keywords you want to bid on. Using
GoogSpy, you can uncover these hidden gems in seconds.

Other high-converting keyword phrases include brand names and
product names. Type in the keyword "camera" and you will find
thousands of different brands and product names for cameras.
These keywords are some of the best keywords because of their
high conversion rate.

To uncover your own profit-producing keywords, go to
http://www.googspy.com.

6. Internal Links Within Content

The navigation of your site is a crucial element of your search
engine optimization campaign. Each link within your navigational
structure should correlate with a keyphrase that you are trying
to rank for.

However, you can also include internal links within your
content. For example, let's say you have written an article
about online marketing. Within the article are a number of
keyword phrases. Some of these phrases include "link popularity"
and "web site traffic". If you have other articles within your
site that pertain to these topics, then you should definitely
link those keyword phrases to those articles. By doing this, you
can increase the link popularity of other pages within the same
site.

There are very few sites that take advantage of this
optimization technique. By doing this, you enable the search
engines to find and index much more of your site. These internal
links also contribute to a higher ranking because of the anchor
text that is used.

Many people only think of inbound links from outside websites
when trying to raise their link popularity. However, the
internal link structure is also a major ranking factor.

7. Using Your Log Files for SEO

Your server logs reveal very important information about your
site. If you learn to use them properly, they can quickly help
to maximize your site's traffic and conversion rates.

One of the most valuable pieces of information found in your log
files are search phrases. The log files will tell you exactly
which keywords people are using to find your website.

Once you have optimized a page, the log files will tell you
how people are finding that page and what keywords they are
searching for to get there. If you find that people are using
keywords that you hadn't thought of to get to a certain page,
it would probably be in your best interest to further optimize
that page for those keywords.

You might also want to create a new page optimized for that
particular term. This is especially true if a new page would
enable you to serve better information on the phrase being
searched for.

In addition, by looking at how your site is found organically,
you can determine whether the same keyword phrases belong in
your paid search campaigns. Only choose the ones that are highly
relevant. You will find that these keyword phrases have the best
conversion rate.

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Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews
(http://www.sitepronews.com) & SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com)
newsletters.

This article may be freely distributed without modification and
provided that the copyright notice and author information remain
intact.

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