Hi there Tony here, now I know for many of you just starting out in the internet marketing or information publishing business some of the terminology can be pretty daunting and there’s so much to take in, so what I aim to do here is debunk a couple that you’ll come across frequently, both of which are key to your understanding of being successful online, so here goes – page rank, SEO, title, meta and alt tags – blimey complicated stuff, not really read on.

Now believe me  I know what information overload is like so although I’ve listed four here we’re going to take it steady – 

Information Overload – How to Handle It

Last weekend we attended an open day at one of the universities my daughter has had an offer from. Now these days for our kids its all about “getting to Uni” and the traumas of “getting the grades” – just so much pressure at such a relatively young age, far too much in my opinion, but there you go.

But what I’m getting to is just the amount of ‘information overload’ delivered on an open day like that – there’s the courses, accommodation choices, tuition fees, facilities on campus, timetable for making applications, grants available (or not) – I tell you by lunchtime my head was spinning like a top, and my wife Sam wasn’t much better.

But then during the afternoon session the Admissions Director gave a brief but very clear presentation along with a lady covering finance & grants, both with very clear handouts and suddenly there’s a glimpse of clarity, I sat back and thought “excellent I can now take the handout home, sit down quietly and go through it point by point”.

So the moral here is don’t panic take it step by step, understanding one point at a time before moving on to the next one – it’s the only way. Oh yes by the way I can’t believe my little girl will be “off to Uni” later this year – it seems no time since she was a little girl running around the garden – Just shows age is catching up with me! Anyway here we go ….

What Is Page Rank & Why’s It Important?

All website owners aim at achieving a good page rank. Page ranking is the position of a website on the rank of returned search results. There are ways to make sure you rank high on the search when a query is entered This system is known as search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization refers to the steps you need to take in order to place your website high on the search engine ranking for the terms and keywords visitors are searching for within the niche or subject matter of your site. In internet marketing terms it’s the holy grail – so don’t overlook it!

To achieve a good search engine ranking result, keywords have to be properly utilized and strategically placed on your site and the content you have both on your site and within the marketing methods you use to promote your site on the Internet and offline as well.

Step 1 – Domain Choice

If you are trying to SEO your website which you simply must be doing, you have to start by selecting a domain name that contains you keywords for your niche, most especially an exact match keyword if you can. For example if your niche is “French cookies”, your domain URL should be something like http://www.frenchcookies.com.

Now don’t sweat this point because it can be tricky to get a good domain in a competitive niche, so don’t beat yourself up over it – but do try, so it might be www.beautifulfrenchcookies.com  – get my drift?

Step 2 – Hosting

When you have been able to select a suitable domain name that matches as close as possible to your niche and your keywords, the next step is to host your domain.  I’d certainly recommend you do not choose a free hosting service, yes I know when your strapped for cash it looks attractive but honestly if your taking your online business seriously you need a proper paid-for hosting account – take a look at Hostgator, that’s who I use and its been great for the 5 years Ive been with them.

I’ll cover more in future posts

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Tony