There are many things webmasters need to worry about in order to generate the most leads for their website and take their business to the next level. Optimizing your website for search engines is a big part but not everything. A holistic approach to search engine optimization makes it easier to not only get more traffic to your website but convert more leads as well. As a webmaster who’s been in this business for years, I can tell you that playing with link-baits and optimizing your title tags is only a small part of the equation. You can spend days finding the right keywords for your site, but if your site is not optimized for speed and conversion, you are going to have trouble getting anything out of your traffic. If you have no idea what you need to do beyond SEO to get more out of your online venture, you need to take a look at Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets from O’reilly.

The book does cover PPC and SEO a bit but it mainly focuses on teaching you how to optimize your site’s performance and how to increase your conversion rates. What I like about this book is that it focuses on ways you can optimize your website’s code to increase its speed and provide a more convenient experience for your visitors. Here are a few chapters that you should read if you are using web technologies such as AJAX and CSS on your landing pages and beyond:

• CSS Optimization tactics
• AJAX performance optimization
• Server side Optimization tactics
• Client side Optimization tactics

You also learn how to optimize your pay per click campaigns to avoid wasting any money while generating the most leads. What’s more impressive about this book are the case studies that are included. I don’t know about you, but I learn more from case studies than just plain theory. With this book, you actually do get a couple of case studies to chew on. And since the book teaches you what metrics you need to pay attention to, you are going to learn how to deal with various situations after finishing this book up.

Ultimately, Website Optimization is a great book for anyone interested to delving into details of what it takes to get the most out of their traffic. This is not your average everyday book talking about meta tags and simple things like that. This book shows you how professionals get the job done. If you are over those books that tell you the same thing over and over again about how SEO, you are going to be pleasantly surprised how many new tricks you can pick up with this book. A must read book.

You don’t have to be a genius to know how powerful social media sites are today in not only driving traffic to websites but also helping businesses get more exposure for their brands and connect more effectively with their customers. Traditional SEO professionals are also intrigued by social media sites as the “do follow” networks provide them with plenty of opportunities to get one way links back to anywhere they want.

Submitting your sites to top social media sites can not only get more traffic to your site but it can help you climb up the rankings. The only problem is, there are thousands of social networks out there. How do you find time to submit to each of them one by one. The process is not as easy as it seems. You’ve got to create an account, possibly verify your account, and submit your stories once your account is activated. Going through the process once or twice is not that hard but doing it for a large number of sites can be a hassle. That’s where Social Maximizer comes in.

From the creators of Directory Maximizer, Social Maximizer is a brand new service that lets you submit your website to social media sites for 19 cents per entry. Social Maximizer is designed to let you submit your sites to hundreds of social media services with a click of a button. You can also add multiple titles and descriptions for your submissions which is a big plus. You don’t want to just  focus on one anchor text with your SMO efforts.

What I like about Social Maximizer is the fact that it allows me to choose the sites that I want to submit to. So you don’t have to just go with what they are suggesting. You also get progress reports on your submissions on a consistent basis. For 19 cents per submission, that’s a steal if you ask me. The service is evolving, which means you can expect a whole lot of sites to be added to Social Maximizer in the soon future. If you value your time and want to focus more on your core capabilities, Social Maximizer is a great social submission outsourcing service to consider.

Finally, a new book by the legendary Bruce Clay. For those of you not familiar with that name, Bruce is a legend in the SEO industry. His site (bruceclay.com) is one of the best resources that you can find on this topic on the Internet. I learned a lot of things I know today from his website. Search Engine Optimization 10 in 1 book is Bruce’s latest book and has it all as far as SEO is concerned. This is really 10 books all fit into 1. It has everything  to take a newbie from a beginner to a pro fast. The book is designed to give you a solid foundation on what SEO is all about. You’ll learn how search engines work, the mentality you need to succeed in your SEO campaigns, and the tactics you need to implement to gain competitive advantage over your rivals in the SERPs.

The book teaches you how the search engines work. If you want to be successful in this field, you want know exactly how search engines work. What you don’t want to do is leave anything to the divine intervention. You’ll learn what’s important on each search engine and how you can modify your SEO strategy to succeed on these search engines. You also learn how to develop a keyword strategy that will give you a competitive edge over your rivals. Keyword research is more complicated that it sounds. Bruce teaches you how to choose the right keywords that will keep driving your site traffic. You’ll learn how to play chess with your keyword strategy while your rivals are stuck with checkers.

Designing a SEO friendly site is not as simple as it looks. You need a plan for it. You need to pay attention to how you set up your information structure. This book teaches you how to design a website that keeps visitors coming back for more. You also learn how to get links to your website and optimize your internal link structure to maximize your SEO rankings. And it does help that Bruce covers how you can go about optimizing your content management system for search engines as well.

My favorite part of this book is Book VIII. This is where you learn how to sell a SEO plan. If you can’t measure a campaigns success, you can’t possibly justify your SEO campaign in a corporate environment. This book teaches you how to track your campaign’s success for your business or your employer.

The last chapters are dedicated to teaching you local and global SEO. If you own an international business or want to go global, you are going to pick up a lot of nuggets here. If you own a business, you owe it to yourself and your business to try some of these tactics.

Overall, Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is one killer book for anyone interested in the field of SEO. You are going to learn every aspect of search engine optimization in this book, and by the time you are done reading this 750+ page book, you are going to know more about SEO than the majority of folks in your industry. If you have money to buy only one SEO book, this one is a no brainer.

Recently, I had a chance to take a look at Slumdog eMillionaire course that promises to show you how to drive traffic to your website and make a lot of money online. I am not exactly a fan of these courses that promise you  how to make money online. Like many others, I have been burned before, and it has been my policy not to buy too many of these things. To be fair, this course has been highly popular and a lot of folks have already taken advantage of it. I am not planning to write a review for it but rather respond to some of the points made on the website. Here is my take on some of these points:

you should make money first then worry about testing later

This could work for a short period of time, but I am not sure it’s the right approach for the long run. You should make money while testing. Testing helps you make more money as you optimize your landing pages, keywords, and so on and make more money.

you should NOT promote your own site

I do agree with this point somewhat. You shouldn’t over promote your sites on social media sites. You should focus more on creating high quality content than trying to promote low quality content.

testing testing testing will NEVER make you any money ‘ever’

We got to agree to disagree here. Testing has worked out very well for me. In fact, I don’t know how to spend my days if not writing content and testing landing pages and keywords. I do agree that testing is not for everyone. And you can still make money without testing. You can grow your business without testing, but that would be due to your luck than your tactics.

affiliates will send you free traffic without you lifting a finger

I completely agree with this point. These companies that are cutting their affiliate programs during the recession are doing themselves a big disservice.

the headline of your website WILL bring in up to 90% of your TOTAL sales

This may sound crazy, but it’s actually true. Your headline plays a big role in your product’s success and failure if you are selling on the Internet. Now, I can’t say it accounts for 90% of your sales, but it plays a very big part.

Why you should NOT worry about PageRank as ONLY the traffic brings in the money

I couldn’t agree more here. Your PageRank means nothing. It does matter if you want to sell your website, but even that is due to the misconceptions about the importance of your page’s PR. PageRank is an overrated metric and not as reliable as it used to be.

The moral of story here is you can make money online in a short period of time. You may even make a lot of it. But a business should rely on strategies rather than short-term tactics to stay afloat. It’s one thing to have a great month. But wouldn’t you want to have 24 very good months instead of 1 great months and 23 dismal ones? That’s why you should keep testing and looking for new ways to promote your business. Testing does matter! I guess that’s where Slumdog eMillionaire and I have to agree to disagree.

If you have been reading the latest SEO blogs, you have probably realized that article marketing is making a comeback. In reality, article marketing really never left us to begin with. It’s not a tactic that brings you millions of new visitors, but if you need a little push to give your site some momentum, article marketing is the best way to go. I have personally been writing articles for over 4 years now, and I keep going back to it when I need more traffic for my websites.

Matt Callen’s latest service, MyArticleNetwork, is designed to help you get as much traffic as possible from your articles. He has created his own article submission network to help you gain traffic from distributing your articles on thousands of partner websites. MyArticleNetwork.com allows you to submit multiple versions of your articles to the network and have it posted on network sites in random. You can also track the number of times that your article has been submitted and the backlinks that you have gotten. In other words, you can measure your efforts and find out what articles have worked for you.

Here is how the system works. You have site owners who want to get fresh content on a consistent basis. These guys sign up for the service and agree to publish articles from the network. The authors write articles for the network and have them posted as “guest blog posts” on these sites. Unlike regular article marketing services, you can actually put hyperlinks in the body of your articles, which means there is no need to play with the author box anymore. Not only that, you can even embed YouTube videos in your article.

My Article Network provides you with article spinning feature as well. You obviously have to read the instructions to get this right, but it’s a nice feature to have.

My Article Network is a subscription service. Unlike EzineArticles, your articles are shown throughout the network as long as you are a paying member. But think about it. You are getting your posts distributed on hundreds of websites, and you are no longer limited to the restrictions set forth by most article directories. Now that’s what I call Article Marketing 2.0. As long as you can write killer blog posts, there is no limit to how much traffic you can get with this service.

MyArticleNetwork is currently closed, but you can use this backdoor to register for a free account. And you’ll have access to tutorials to get ready for the big launch in April.

Link building should be on the top of your search engine optimization efforts. Research has shown time and time again that there is a limit to the ranking you can earn without a proper link building campaign. Directories are still a potent way to get one way links back to your web properties. Free and paid directories not only can help you improve your ranking, but they can also bring you targeted traffic.

The problem with submitting to directories is that it usually takes time (to sign up, optimize your anchor text, track results), and a whole lot of effort. If you are running a business, should you really be doing the directory submissions for yourself? The answer is a simple no. A lot of folks recommend using automated software packages to automatically submit to directories (e.g. article announcer).  But these software packages are usually highly inefficient, and they make you do a portion of the work yourself (simply, overrated!).

The lesson I have learned from top SEOs is that you can’t do everything yourself, and you shouldn’t. Having the right partner can help you do more and be more successful. That’s why I went on a mission to find a SEO partner that would take care of my directory submissions for me. That’s where Directory Maximizer comes into play. After playing a few directory submission solutions, I have finally found the one that does everything it is expected to do without asking a huge premium fee.

Directory Maximizer allows you to submit to hundreds of free directories on the fly, and it will cost you only 14 cents per submission. You can also choose to submit to paid directories through the service, and they take care of that for your as well. But before we go any further, let me show you why Directory Maximizer is worth every penny and more.

Once you sign up for a free account on Directory Maximizer, you are going to see the above interface. From your dashboard, you can add your websites and submit them to directories. You can also view reports per site. If you have already submitted your URLs to other directories, you can use the “upload submissions” feature to submit those listings to avoid duplicate submissions. As you can see in the above figure, Directory Maximizer gives you rewards (MX rewards) for every dollar you spend on it (You get 3% back per every dollar). Each $MX dollar is equivalent to $1 that you can use towards future submissions.

Adding a site to Directory Maximizer is easy. All you have to do is provide your URL, your contact name, and your e-mail plus the categories and keywords that you want to use for your listing. You want to make sure you give them a working e-mail as directories send confirmation emails to that e-mail. But the most important feature here is the ability to add multiple title and descriptions for your listings. That allows you to choose up to 5 different anchor texts and descriptions for your listings.

Directory Maximizer also allows you to submit by budget, PR, or the number of directories you want to be listed on. Now, you may be worried about submitting to all directories in one week. After all, Google does get suspicious when you amass links in a short period of time. That’s why I love Directory Maximizer. It allows you to control the speed too (see below).

Not everyone gets started with Directory Maximizer in the first place. You may have already used a software package to submit to directories before. By using the “upload submissions” feature, you can make sure you avoid duplicate submissions.

Finally, you may decide that submitting to thousands of free directories is not all you are after. You can use Directory Maximizer to submit to paid directories. That is going to be more expensive, but there are a few decent high PR directories that you probably need to submit your site to improve your PR.

Once you submit your site to Directory Maximizer, you start getting emails back from directories. Some of these directories may ask you to click on a link to verify your submission (so you shouldn’t get rid of those emails right away). You can access your directory stats through the reports section.

Directory Maximizer has worked very well for me. I don’t have to worry about filling out forms or submitting to directories by hand. I just set it and forget it. I do use their rotating anchor text feature to define 5 different listing titles for my sites. Other than that, these guys take care of everything else for me. I do encourage you to sign up for Directory Maximizer and take a look around (see the tutorials and so on). It’s free. I can tell you one thing though: submitting to directories has never been this much fun.

Keyword Elite is one of the top keyword research tools on the market. It has been seemingly around forever. The software may look light on the surface, but it packs a punch and very effective for niche marketers and SEO professionals. After having the chance to finally review the software, here is what I have observed:

The interface is fairly easy to use and is very polished. It does have a nice cool look to it. The software was very easy to install even on my Vista 64 machine. You will need to activate the software the first time. It will remember and checks your info against the server on future tries. The first thing that I saw was “do you want to upgrade” screen. I purchased Keyword Elite a while back, but have not used it for a while as I am on my Mac all the time. But I have just got the latest Parallels software and a Vista 64 machine, which means I can now use Keyword Elite with no trouble. After downloading and installing the latest version (Keyword Elite 1.3 R169), I got in to figure out what is it that makes this software package so popular.

Once you open up Keyword Elite, you are going to get the following menu:

Create Keyword Lists:

After using Keyword-Elite, it’s safe to say that you can build huge lists with this software package. I used the keyword cell phone as my main keyword and used Ask database only to create my keyword list. I choose to go for 100 keywords but you could go as high as 10,000 keywords.

You can use other engines to build huge lists, including WordTracker and Keyword Discovery (need subscription). I also liked how you could manipulate keywords and add things to their beginnings and ends using KE’s interface.

Analyze PPC Listings:

This is the most powerful feature I have seen with Keyword Elite. You can analyze the current listings based on keywords to try to figure out what they are doing right. What I liked about this feature was the wealth of filters available that you can use on your results.

You can also choose which engines you want to look at to analyze the PPC listings. While I am a SEO guy, having the ability to see what other folks are doing in the PPC market allows me to figure out who the big players are and what tactics work for them.

Depending on the number of keywords that you enter, you’ll get the following info and more. You can customize on these columns:

Analyze Keyword Competition:

Now here comes the fun part. Keyword Elite allows you to analyze your competition using your keywords. The results are comprehensive anyway you put it.

Spy On Competition:

Finally, you can get down and dirty by entering a keyword and a domain to spy on your competitor. I personally have not used this feature a lot as I use SpyFu, but nevertheless it’s nice to have it available. This feature does allow you to create Spying projects (something you can’t do with SpyFu). You can then keep tracking your competitors easily to see what they are up to.

Overall, Keyword Elite is very powerful for SEOs and niche marketers. It has some cool features that can save you thousands. In essence, you can:

• Create huge keywords lists in a flash
• Track your competitors without much work
• Enhance its functionality by adding WordTracker, and Keyword Discovery

There are certain things that can be improved. Overall, the interface could be improved to have a better flow. Some items are not intuitive enough and could confuse newbies. The update process can be made easier by allowing folks to download the software without having to waste an extra click. Finally, it’d be great if PDF and .xlsx exports became available in future versions (I am sure they will).

Overall, Keyword Elite is a must have for Adsense, PPC, and Niche marketers. SEOs can get a lot of value from this keyword tool as well, but the main audience seems to be pay per click marketers.

Verdict: 9/10 stars