Thursday, April 26, 2007

Keywords And How To Use Them To Ensure Search Engine Visitors

What are keywords and why are they so important in optimizing your website for Search Engine Marketing?

Keywords, basically, are the words or phrases that are most associated with the subject of your business. These are the terms that people will most likely use to search for information about the topic of your website. Since the goal is to Make Money Online, you need to be sure you are picking the correct Keywords for your site so that people will be taken to you when they search rather than your competition.

For example, your website is dedicated to the general subject of “cat care." The keywords that are applicable for your business should be:

  • cat care
  • care cat
  • care of a cat
  • cat care clinic
  • cat care society
  • care of my cat
  • take care of my cat
  • take care of a cat
  • cat health care
  • to take care of a cat
  • how to take care of a cat
  • care for a cat
  • care of cat
  • care for cat
  • care of your cat
  • to care for a cat
  • how to care for a cat
  • taking care of a cat
  • cat dental care
  • persian cat care

There are more, most definitely, but these examples should give you a good idea on how to come up with the most effective keywords for your online business.

You could manually think of 1000s of applicable keywords, but such would be a brain buster. Instead, check out the tools found on the following websites:

  • https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox
  • http://www.inventory.overture.com
  • http://www.goodkeywords.com

The features on these sites will give you a lot of suggestions for possible keywords which you can use. Once you have selected your keywords, it’s time to put them to good use. The following are the things that you should do with them.

Populate your website’s content with the keywords. Try to insert 2 to 4 keywords per 100 words. This will give you a 2 to 4 percent density level, which many experts believe is the optimal amount of keywords to attract the attention of the search engine spiders without compromising the logical integrity of your content.

Remember, just because you use the keywords in your content, doesn't mean that the readability of your content should be sacrificed. Always keep in mind that you have to keep your content informative.

Insert the keywords in your meta tags. Meta tags are HTML codes that help the search engine spiders to identify your web pages. Simply include the following tag in your source code:

<META name="keywords" content="(place your keywords here with each term separated by a comma)">

Meta tags should also be present for your title, with the use of the tag <title> , as well as your headlines, with the use of the tag <h1>, <h2>, <h3> and so on and so forth.

Here’s an example of a title tag for your source code:

<title>An Introduction To Cat Care</title>

And here’s an example of a headline tags:

<body>
   <h1>Why Should You Care For Your Cat?</h1>
   (the appropriate part of your content goes here)
   <h2>How To Start Caring or Your Cat</h2>
   (the appropriate part of your content goes here)
</body>

Use your keywords in your ALT tags. ALT tags is the alternative text that appears every time the mouse cursor passes over an image. It is advisable that you have a working knowledge of HTML for this, though most HTML editors like Microsoft Front Page and Macromedia Dreamweaver have features that will make this easier.

It is important to note how search engine spiders read your website. Once they have pinpointed your page, courtesy of the meta tags in your source code, the search engine spiders will read your content from the uppermost left part of the page going to the extreme right, and back left in the next line, much like how a web surfer will view your site.

It is therefore essential that the uppermost left portion of your webpage contains your keywords. This can be done by including the said keywords in your title.

Your first paragraph is critical. Make sure to include your keywords in the very first sentence, and also try to mention your keywords at least twice in the rest of the paragraph. Succeeding paragraphs need only mention your keywords at least once.

Divide your content into paragraphs, and introduce a shift in subtopic with a sub-headline. The sub-headline should also include your keywords.

Lastly, about the bottommost right portion of a web page, many people are actually having a hard time figuring out how to include the keywords in this section. Here’s a simple trick. The bottommost right portion of a page is usually reserved for your copyright notice. In our running example of a business involved with cat care, where “cat care" are the primary keywords, you could use the copyright format below:

© 2007 cat care

That should do it, right?

No! Now that you have your page set-up, you need to make sure that the search engine can find it. The best way of going about this would be to use Text Link Advertising services.

These sort of services will match you up with people who are willing to write an article, or place a link to your site using the Keywords you specify. This will help the search engines find you, and help them realize that other people recognize your site for whatever keywords are used in the links

Posted by Brandon Schenz at 9:51 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Threats pertain to OSU cheerleaders

You get one crazy person the spotlight like at Virgina Tech, and others come out of the woodwork to get their own piece of the action. I know that bad news gets the ratings, but if we didn't give them so much coverage would they do these sorts of things? Are we responsible for inducing these people activities because we are so engrossed with the negative side of the news? Just some things to think about during the next tragedy.

A letter mailed to The Columbus Dispatch is among those being reviewed as part of an FBI investigation into a series of threatening letters that complain ESPN and ABC crews have exploited cheerleaders, WNBA players and WTA Tour players, the newspaper reported Thursday.

The FBI offered a $5,000 reward Tuesday for help finding the mailer of dozens of the letters - some containing a potentially harmful insecticide - to national networks, their local affiliates, and people throughout the West and Midwest. Recipients also included people associated with the athletic department at Ohio State University, and university athletic departments in Michigan and Arizona.

The letter sent to The Dispatch, bearing a Seattle postmark, says a television producer "will cause 88 people to be assaulted and shot at. One for each time shown on TV, one for each second shown and 10 for each shot during a 30 second timeout."

The FBI is working to determine whether the letter mailed to the newspaper matches the other letters, The Dispatch reported.

"We're trying to seek the public's assistance and are hoping they recognize some of the verbiage contained in the letter," said Harry Trombitas of the FBI's Columbus office.

The writer or writers of the other letters complained that television crews have exploited cheerleaders and other female athletes through certain camera angles, even though those angles were rarely shown on the air.

The author of a letter sent in December 2006 mentions Ohio State cheerleaders in a complaint that networks unfairly favor more modestly dressed cheerleading squads.

"For the last 6 years, Ohio State cheerleaders have received more TV time than any other Division 1A cheer squad on ESPN, because they wear long sleeved red/white outfits. If they wore sleeveless outfits, they would not get ANY TV time. So, we are fed up with this constant exploitation," the author wrote.

Ohio State cheerleading coach Judy Bunting said she has been advised not to comment.

The initial batch of letters was postmarked in Portland, Ore., and delivered in September 2004. Subsequent batches of letters were delivered between November 2006 and February, mostly with postmarks from Seattle, but some also were sent from Chicago, the FBI said.

The FBI declined to identify the kind of insecticide contained in some of the letters but said there were no reports of injuries.

Ohio State police chief Paul Denton said cheerleaders, coaches and athletic department officials were alerted after letters arrived at the university more than a year ago. The university also forwarded information to the FBI, he said.

University officials did not issue a campus-wide alert.

"We didn't deem it a specific or credible threat," Denton said. "It sounds like it would be directed at folks who are in the media."

At least one of the letters sent to athletic staff members at Ohio State contained a substance that "was tested and found not to be lethal," spokesman Steve Snapp said. He didn't know whether the substance was an insecticide.

Posted by Brandon Schenz at 9:45 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Monday, April 23, 2007

Global Health Management

Today I'd like to share with you some of the more recent articles that have come out in the medical journals. I really enjoy keeping up with the cutting edge research. I'm always affirmed when newly released studies support what I've been recommending on my website. So let's take a quick look at 3 recent studies and hear what they have to say about Optimal Health.

What's In the News

Chao, A, Thun, MJ, et al. "Meat Consumption and Risk of Colorectal Cancer"; Journal of the American Medical Association, January 12, 2005--Vol 293, No. 2

These researchers observed nearly 150,000 participants, documenting their red meat intake and comparing it to their frequency of colorectal cancers. They found that high consumption of red meat over a prolonged period of time leads to an increased risk of cancers that occur closer to the rectum. It appears that the high iron content of red meat causes a damaging "cytotoxic" effect on the cell.

This is yet another reason to consider decreasing our intake of red meat and increasing our consumption of the good fats found in cold-water fish, nuts, and certain vegetables and legumes. Again, it is a matter of balance. Red meat consumed in moderate amounts did not correlate with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. So feel free to enjoy a nice steak on occasion, but remember that eating a lot of red meat and processed meat not only increases your risk of heart disease, but also your risk of colorectal cancer.

Larsson SC, Bergkvist L, Wolk A. "Magnesium Intake in Relation to Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Women"; Journal of the American Medical Association, January 5, 2005--Vol 293, No. 1

Larsson, Bergkvist and Wolk conducted a large population-based study of over 60,000 Swedish women to investigate how the consumption of magnesium affects the risk of developing colorectal cancer. They found a direct correlation: The higher the intake of magnesium, the lower the risk of developing colorectal cancers.

Magnesium supplementation reduces the risk of colon cancers in animal experiments. Magnesium is also essential for the stability of normal cell function and for DNA repair. It is also critical for maintaining the antioxidant status of the cell. Animals deficient in magnesium display an increased susceptibility to oxidative stress. Magnesium has also been shown to improve insulin sensitivity among healthy subjects and also among patients with diabetes. When you take all of this into consideration, you can see why its recommended supplementing your diet with 400 to 800 mg of magnesium each and every day.

Dansinger ML, Gleason JA, et al. "Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets for Weight Loss and Heart Disease Risk Reduction"; Journal of the American Medical Association, January 5, 2005--Vol. 293, No.1

We are a diet crazed society, spending over $30 billion on diets and diet programs each and every year in the US alone. There are over 1,000 diet books on the market, and yet there is little to no evidence that diets help us lose weight or improve our health.

In this study, four different diets were evaluated over a 12-month period of time to observe their effectiveness to produce weight loss and decrease the risk of heart disease. They investigated the Atkins, the Zone, Weight Watchers, and Ornish diets. There were some interesting findings that this study revealed:

  1. Weight loss was only modest, showing that approximately 25% of the participants experienced a 5% weight loss and 10% of the participants experienced a 10% weight loss. This means that 65% of the participants did not experience any weight loss or had weight gain. There was no significant difference in the amount of weight loss between any of the diets.
  2. The adherence rate was very low throughout all of the diets, especially the Atkins and the Ornish diets, which were felt to be too severe. Approximately 25% of the participants sustained a mean adherence rate of about 60%. In other words, 75% of the participants quit the diets and the remaining 25% stayed with the diets less than 60% of the time.
  3. Cardiac risk factors were modestly improved in those individuals who adhered to their particular diets. LDL cholesterol levels decreased modestly in all groups except the Atkins diet group. All diets increased the HDL (except the Ornish group) and lowered the triglyceride levels. Blood pressure, fasting blood sugar, and insulin levels were decreased in the short-term but failed to show significant improvement at one year in all the groups, especially the Atkins group.
  4. Adherence to the diet program, not the diet program itself, determined the amount of weight lost and the improvement in the cardiac risk factors. The individuals who adhered to their program had the best results regardless of which diet they were assigned. This leads one to conclude that programs that strongly support their participants as far as adhering to the program may be more important than the program itself.

Diets simply do not work. Medical research continues to show that traditional diet programs are failures. In this current study, for example, 65% of the participants gained back all of the weight they lost in less than a year. Research shows that approximately 99% of those who go on a diet will gain the weight back in two years. That's the bad news.

The good news is that a balanced approach to food, nutritional supplements, and exercise can make major improvements to your physical and mental well being. When accompanied by support, regular evaluations, continuing education, and ongoing encouragement, these efforts can lead to healthy lifestyles that have lasting, positive impacts.

If you or someone you care about is ready to see their life changed for the better and for the long haul, check out the program and products at http://www.mannatech.com.

Posted by Brandon Schenz at 4:06 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Dad denies offering son for sale

I blogged about this story before, but there is an update that makes me question it. Was he trying to sell his son, or was he "pan handling" to get money so that he could care for him? I'm not sure now, but I do know that if he was begging there are better areas to do it in.

Did Jason W. McCarthy try to sell his 2-year-old son to a woman in a Walgreen’s parking lot last month? Or, is it just a big misunderstanding?

McCarthy, 30, jailed for nearly a month on charges of child endangering, loitering in aid of a drug offense and a probation violation, is saying the woman is mistaken.

She misheard what he said, McCarthy’s lawyer said this morning in court.

"The only thing he did was ask for money for him and his child to get gas and food," defense attorney Cynthia Brandenberg said when McCarthy appeared for a brief hearing in municipal court.

Bethann Abel, the 29-year-old woman who called police on McCarthy, told a different story to police, city prosecutor LaRhonda Carson said.

"Her allegation is that he said to her, ‘Will you give me money for my son?’" Carson told Judge Mark Wall.

The two sides will square off at trial on Thursday. In the meantime, McCarthy remains jailed in lieu of $5,500 bail.

The Middletown man was arrested after a series of events that started at 1 a.m. March 26 when police received a call about a suspicious man in Walgreen’s parking lot on South Breiel Boulevard.

Abel told officers McCarthy approached her in the parking lot while she sat in her car. He was carrying the toddler and offered the boy for sale, she said according to the police report said.

Another officer linked McCarthy to the case after they found a red car that Abel had described and saw McCarthy talking to a person on a bike in an area known for drug trafficking. McCarthy told officers he was talking to a person about getting his car fixed.

Police found the child was in the back seat of the red car nearby with a woman, Amy Magruder, 34, of Middletown, in the driver seat.

Abel was not in court today and could not be reached later for comment. McCarthy’s son is in the custody of Butler County Children Services.

Posted by Brandon Schenz at 4:05 PM 0 comments Links to this post
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