I make my living improving my websites search engine rankings regularly so I can honestly sit here and tell you there is more bad information about search engine optimization than need be. What if I could tell you that reaching higher rankings is easier than you may think? By working with a variety of websites I have come to learn that top ranked sites all have 5 considerations that are very similar, and not by accident. In this article I will share these common attributes that will help take your website from ranking below page five to competing with the top sites on page one on major search engines.

First consideration. Anchor text of links that point towards your website should include keywords related to the content of your site, search engines use anchor text to determine the content of your website. So now you need to go through all of the links pointing towards your website and check to make sure they are including these keywords in their anchor tags. Here's a quick example:
<a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="www.mywebsite.com">www.mywebsite.com</a>
Second Consideration is using keywords in the title and meta tags. Meta tags are effective in telling the search engines what content to expect when they spider a webpage. This can help your rankings. Keep in mind some major Engines ignore these tags but you still want to use it for the smaller ones that still do read it. Here is an example for a toy car website:
meta name="keywords" content="toy cars, toy car sales, toy car history, prices"
Third consideration is link popularity. This is a simple concept. The more outside websites that have links pointing towards your page, the better your ranking is in search results.
Fourth Consideration is link diversity. If you have 50 links on 5 websites you will have a lower ranking than if you had 50 links on 25 websites. This will represent higher popularity and results in a higher rank. So make sure your getting out there and getting your link on as many websites as possible to increase popularity which will increase rank.

And the final consideration is, MAKE SURE YOU USE A DOMAIN NAME! If you use a sub domain you are going to lose a lot of brownie points with search engines so if you have the means go and buy a domain.
Use this article as a guideline when building and updating your website and you can be confident that your search engine rankings will go up. Remember all of these points that I have covered are equally as important so do not over look any of them and optimize all of these points to maximize your rank and get the best results.

I had someone track me down through a blog today, and ask me how I learnt about SEO, and did I have any certificates to prove how good I was. (I think he doubted me)
Anyway, no. I didn't learn SEO from a school, I learnt it by trial and error, but thought you might be interested to know about my humble beginnings.

I first started learning about SEO almost 10 years ago, before I knew it had a name.
We owned a Stock Photography Bank in New Zealand, and I noticed that if words were repeated on a page several times, that that page was like to appear higher in search engine results, the more times the word was repeated the higher it would appear in search engine results.

Through my interest, and inquistive nature, I realised if the title of the webpage - the bit that shows at on the top bar of your browser - had the same keywords, the page didn't need to have the word repeated so many times and yet it would still appear high, and sometimes higher, in search engines.

Time went on, and I learnt how to read the code that makes up any webpage, and found there were other places that, if the keywords were repeated, that the page would rank even better in search engines.
Through applying what I learnt, and I have to admit making a few mistakes, I managed to get our Stock Photo Bank, ranking right up on page one of Google, often higher than the world's largest stock photo banks like Corbis and Getty.

Once I saw this happening I was hooked. I found out about website statistics, and how to find out how many people were visiting my website, where they were coming from, what browsers they used, even what time of day they visited most, and then noticed how visitors rose at the same time my website started ranking well, and that each change I made that increased our site visablity, increased the amount of visitors. Now I was an utter addict.

I also found that changing the words slightly on every page, I could get the website listing higher for many different search.

Whats this SEO thing?
Somewhere about here, someone told me about SEO, and how it sounded like pretty much like what I was doing.
I joined a few forums, and mailing lists (about 50 different things). And yes, that's what I had been doing. I found though that many of the SEO big wigs were giving people information of how to do things, and the information wasn't true. It sounded good, but from experience I knew better ways of doing it.
I started adding my comments to posts and got a few people's dander up: who was I, an uneducated hick from New Zealand of all places, telling them what to do... I didn't tell anyone what to do, I just suggested different ways.... and when I pointed out the SEO was so new, it was, and still is hard to get an education from anywhere, I was barred from a forum.

I still belong to a few forums, that aren't owned by SEO gurus, but usually withhold my comments now or at least the ones I make on forums. Anyway back then....
I had the coder that kept the photo gallery running, and had him add SEO features, and so were the beginnings of a SEF CMS. I didn't know then 6 years later I would eventually build a Search Engine Friendly, Content Management System.

We started building website for other people. And I applied what I knew to their sites, not realizing others could see the skills I had. Then someone wrote to me, about our stock photo bank, and asked why they always saw it in search engines, for every search they ever did for photos and stock photos. He asked me if i could do the same thing with his site, and offered me $1000.... wow this was cool, getting paid for something I would have done for free!

And so it went, I wouldn't and won't take a job unless I knew I could make a difference, and until recently websites that were database driven were a challenge I couldn't rise to - I didn't know how to edit codes for these sites, as it was very different to sites that where html.

Recently I met a coder, who is now working for me regularly, that will add coding to database driven website, opening up a whole new world be me, so now I can do SEO on any website I'm presented with.
To date I have done SEO on over different 40 websites, and am currently working on 7 sites, I have a personal limit of 10 sites at a time, as I like to give each site the time it deserves.

I now have 4 people working for me, doing the more time consuming aspects of SEO's like directory submissions, and finding linking partners, but I always do the important work myself as I like to know exactly what's going on.

I understand that people coming to me for my services are in need of help, and often wonder if the investment I'm asking them to make will be worthwhile, when I know they have tried so many other things, and are dubious about this working. The least I can do is make sure it works, and the only way to do that is to do the work myself.

I have noticed that other people I employ to work for me, just don't have the instinct or gut feelings that are needed to be an SEO, and while they are happy to do the work, they just can't see how important it is, that any payment they may get must bring results to the person that paid them.

My goal with SEO is to earn $2000USD a month, and with up to 10 smaller business paying me $200 a month on average, this is obtainable. Sure I should charge more than what I do, but to be quite honest, I don't want to earn that $2000 and more from just one big company, but at the rate I should charge, I would only be working 20 hours a month.

I live on the computer, so could do 20 hours work in one sitting, what would I do for the rest of the month? I'd far rather help out 10 smaller businesses, and work for less, and give those 10 clients more results than they expect.

Getting consistent affiliate sales is very important as this ensures that there is good cash flow in the affiliate marketing business. There are many strategies that are available on the internet and you will have to make sure that you are using the right strategies so that you can get results in your business. Here are the 5 effective strategies that you can use to get more sales:

Strategy #1 - Focus On Preselling Of The Affiliate Product
As you will be promoting as an affiliate, it is important that your role is to presell the product. You must not be doing any hard selling of the product as you should leave all the selling to the merchant's sales letter. You will be recommending the product to your customer as a friend as you are educating them on the benefits of the product. Your customers will feel that you are not trying to hard sell them and those who clicks on your affiliate link will be genuinely interested in your offer.

Strategy #2 - Focus On Promoting Lead Product With Better Sales Conversion
You will be driving consistent traffic to your squeeze page and your subscribers will be viewing your lead product once they join your list. You will want to make sure that you are promoting the product which has good sales conversion so that you will be able to get the maximum profits from the traffic that you drive to your website. A product which can gives you a 1% better in sales conversions will means that you will get double more sales if you drive the same number of traffic to your offer.

Strategy #3 - Focus On Communicating With Your Subscribers
Once the subscribers join your list, you will want to make sure that you follow up with them and communicate with them consistently so that you build a good relationship with your subscribers. When they get to understand you better and they know that you are interested in helping them, they will respond to your future email better. Give them good values and focus on helping them as much as possible.
Here are the 3 simple strategies that you can use to get more affiliate profits. Each of these strategies will greatly helps to improve your affiliate sales if you apply them. So start taking action today to get more affiliate sales to your bank account.

The affiliate marketing business model can be simply defined as a partnership between the merchant and the promoter where the promoter will get a certain percentage of the net sale as commission when the promoter is able to refer a customer to purchase the merchant's product. This is very useful when the newbies have just started this business and they do not have their own product. They will be able to start this business fast by promoting other people's product.

The list building model on the other hand can be simply defined as a process where you will be collecting a group of customer's details using a professional autoresponder and following up with them consistently over a period of time with information or resources that they are interested in.

From the above definition, it will be a very powerful strategy if we combine the affiliate marketing strategy with the list building strategy. As you will be able to start the business fast by promoting other people's product, you will be able to build your own list at the same time while you are making some sales. The easiest approach is to have a simple squeeze page where the main purpose is to get the visitors details.
When you have the squeeze page, you will be using the list building to build your list and you will be redirecting your subscribers to your affiliate link once they join your list. This ensures that there is the first point of promoting the product to them. Even if they do not purchase the product, you will still be able to follow up with them through email as you have their contact details.

This is very powerful as most of the sales come from the following up emails with the subscribers. The main reason is because the subscribers will have already received several emails from you and they are more familiar with you. People will only purchase products from someone that they can trust and you will want to make sure that you are the person that they can trust. Do put in the effort to build a good relationship with them and you will be richly rewarded.

If you want to work from home in Australia,  there are many great options for people who are skilled with information technology, content creation, marketing, or financial trading. But even in the age of the internet, every economy still needs people who can make quality, tangible goods that can be sold. At root, this is what all finance and profit are based upon: Somewhere, somebody is making something valuable.

This simple fact is easy to forget, which is why so many people have given up on making tangible products and have focused all their energies on web-based business. That's why now is the perfect time to create your own product line from home. By going against the trend, you can fill a niche that has been underserved since the rise of the internet.

But if it seems like I'm bad-mouthing the internet, think again. Once you create your own product line, the internet is going to make it possible for you to reach millions more customers than would've been possible a couple of decades ago. With this plan, you'll combine old-fashioned manufacturing with 21st century sales and promotion to create a business whose profit potential is limitless.

To get started, follow these steps.
1. Brainstorm: Make a list of products you could potentially create. If you have any special talents, start with those. Some examples of products that people have had success with are clothing, jewelry, pottery, buttons, posters, bumper stickers, greeting cards, toys, and office supplies. If you can, come up with ideas that are original but also likely to appeal to a large number of people.

2. Narrow it down: Pick your top five or ten choices, and do some internet research. If there are already hundreds of successful websites selling a product, then you may want to rule out that option. If you're sure that one of your products is very useful or in high demand but there aren't a lot of people already selling it, consider going with that one.

3. Start Making Things: Turn off the computer, and start manufacturing your profitable products. This will be the most time-consuming part of the process, as it should be. You may have to research techniques for making your product, and you may have to practice before perfecting it. But try to create a solid foundation of stock that you can start selling.

4. Create a Website: If you want to work from home in Australia by selling your own product line but have never created a website, you still have plenty of options. There are many services out there that will help you with everything you need, from web design to payment options. If you have web design skills, all the better, but there are countless services ready to help you with this.

5. Promote Your Product: There are many possibilities for promoting your website online. Add plenty of keyword-rich content to your site, and sign up for services that can help move you up in the Google search rankings. For subtler strategies, start with article marketing, where you create content that is targeted to your ideal customers, and go from there. The more targeted traffic you can draw to your website, the more product you will sell.

The following are 5 ways that an Internet marketing newbie can make some easy money to get a good foot-hold started in this industry. Here is a description of 5 of the most common ways to do it.
Affiliate Marketing: Creating your own products is not the only way to make money online. One of the most common and most successful ways to make money online, especially in the beginning, is by selling other peoples' products. This is known as affiliate marketing and consists of you promoting and selling other Internet marketers' products and making a percentage off each sale.

Article Marketing: This path consists of writing three to five articles a day and submitting them for sale on online article directories. This can make money in one of two ways. It can either make you money as a freelance writer where people will pay you per word, or more commonly, the articles are used to drive traffic your web page and get buyers to purchase whatever products you are trying to sell.

Blogging: This is one of the most effective ways to make money in the beginning with ad sales and affiliate links on your blogs . All you have to do is pick a market that you have some basic knowledge of, write articles, and post them on the blog. This is also a great way to build trust among the people looking at your page so when you do start on your own products, you will be well known and more likely to make sales.
Social Networking: This is another way to drive massive amount of traffic to either your blogs or product pages. One of the best uses for this, much like blogging, is to provide a level of trust and to build friendships in the industry.

Info Product Creation: This consists of finding a niche you are comfortable with and writing reports and e-books to provide solutions to common problems within the niche. Not only does this let you write about something that you are passionate about, it is also a great way to make a bundle of money as well.
I advise choosing one or more of these methods that sounds interesting and researching it further to get started. The best route for the newbie to take is to read some examples online and then do the most important thing you can do: Take Action! Get out there and make some money!

Let's talk about making money with CPA offers. Why? Well, they happen to be one of the best, easiest and FASTEST ways to make real money online, for any real skill or experience level. And you can start pretty much immediately, once you understand how simple they really are to convert into cash.
Now, understand this before we begin: Lots of people have lots of different "definitions" of what the acronym CPA stands for. Let's just call it "cost per action" for simplicity sake, and not care too much how smart we sound, or how much "knowledge" we have about the right sorts of "names" to drop when discussing this stuff, ok?

The EASIEST way to Monetize CPA offers is This:
Put up a review blog and just go to one of the many different networks that specialize in these offers and pick a few of the good ones. DON'T be scared off by the "guru speak".Yes, some networks are harder to get accepted to these days (mostly due to affiliate fraud problems) but there are PLENTY of solid networks, with super solid offers out there to choose from, that will accept you.

Take 10 products and give yourself a 10 day window. Write 10 reviews of the products you want to promote and stick them on the blog. Don't lie. Use VERBIAGE that reflects what other credible people are saying about the products, if you haven't tried them yourself. (which in all likelihood, if you're just getting started, you won't have) Don't make up fake "personalities" and create these fake blogs, either. They are being shut down...and people are being prosecuted for doing it. Just create 10 reviews, of 10 real products and post them on your blog.

Change the reviews a wee bit, and submit them to EzineArticles dot com. It's free, and very powerful. Use your resource box to build a nice incoming link, for the PRODUCT name, specifically, on each review revision you submit. Pick the appropriate category, and you are off to the races.
(in the interest of time and space....there is only so much I can squeeze in here...but the above is ALL you need to make one or two sales a day, and pay outs with most CPA offers, especially the "free trial" variety are from 35 bucks a pop and UP)

The key is getting traffic from the directories, AND organic search (which you will if your articles are unique) and ultimately, PPC as well when you're ready to reinvest your profits...and that's when things REALLY get fun!