There are many great web designers out there, and some of these designers pride themselves on their great designs. Visually of course, a great look and feel is an important part of a Website, but unfortunately, many Websites don’t rank well with Search Engines because of this very fact. Many designers get carried away with Flash, complicated table layouts and images, making their Website load slowly or hard to read. Often designers forget or don’t know the workings of a web page or a Website as a whole.

In the past, Search Engines were not as evolved as they are now. There are a number of constantly changing Algorithms now in place to determine whether you make the cut. Realistically, you would need a professional SEO company to optimize and maintain your Website properly if you want to follow all the Tech specks that Search Engines use, but to keep it simple, here are some basic SEO tips and questions to consider when building a Website:

1. Optimize the size of the web page to the fullest. Resizing the images to their correct dimensions and getting them reduced in file size as much as possible is important, because the more KB a Website has to load, the slower it is. Ideally, a visitor wants to get in to your Website and get the information that they came for as fast as possible. If the Website takes long to load, visitors will get discouraged and leave. Achieving a balance of a great design and a fast loading time is crucial to Search Engine success. There are a number of Websites that will test your loading time using different speeds. Usually these services are free. Do a search for one. It is definitely worth your time.

2. Too much optimization can hurt you.. Some elements are important to properly optimize a web page. An example of these include: Metatags with a well written Title, relevant strategically placed H1 and H2 Tags, ALT Tags, Comments, and obviously keyword rich content are to name a few. Key fact to keep in mind though, over doing it can actually hurt the Website. There needs to be a balance of real content and optimization. When unsure, less is always better.

3. Is the Website using web safe colors and fonts? Fonts and colors often make a web page more attractive. This becomes a problem when designers use fonts that are not available on the visitor’s computer. The font then defaults to the closest web safe font available. The result is often unpredictable and a visual mess. The same applies to colors. Colors look different on different monitors, and unless a web-safe color is used, it will vary on different monitors.

4. Is the content “Readable” by the Search Engines? To display the content exactly how the designers plan it, they often turn valuable content into images. Remember, Search Engines cannot read images. An ALT description can and should be used for images, but it does not substitute for great HTML content. If possible, always opt for using HTML content and ALWAYS, write the content for the readers, not the Search Engines.

5. Design with screen resolution in mind. Screen Resolution is a setting on individual computers that people set according to their preference. Screen resolutions can vary. Here are some common settings that people use: 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1152 x 870. When designing a Website, you would want to stay somewhere in the middle of the range. If you must go beyond that, try to fit at least the important parts of your Website into that valuable space. The last thing you want the visitor to do is scroll horizontally to read your content.

There are a lot more intricacies to why a Website succeeds or fails out there, and different Search Engines are constantly evolving and changing their review criteria. If you speak to 10 different SEO professionals, they will most likely give you 10 different interpretations of what it takes to be a truly Search Engine friendly Website. Chances are they are all correct. It’s hard to keep up, but one thing seems to be a definite constant. Keep all the SEO pointers in mind from the start when designing a Website, and definitely design with your visitors in mind. You do that, and it will save you a lot of time and heartache later on, and the Search Engines will love you.

Affiliate marketers are always looking for ideas on how to get free traffic sources. They know how valuable this can be but also understand is not a quick response process. They know that to turn a quick profit they have to go to PPC (Pay Per Click) traffic.

At the same time, they shy away from it as the costs involved could represent a big expenditure on their businesses. PPC traffic costs for known keywords are not cheap any more and so most people tend to lose money on it.

If you stick to these core principles you will be able to create campaign after campaign, expanding your wealth accordingly.

1. Use desperate keywords
Do not pick generic information keywords. Keywords like “free information on (keyword)” , “No cost (keyword)”, do not guarantee a purchase but a gathering information search activity.

Instead, go for words like “comparison”, “buy”, “review”, etc. Also, use model numbers, book names and name of authors to get the best results.

These are the usual keywords people type in when they are ready or close to the purchasing cycle so you should concentrate on them for a better return on your PPC investment.

2. Testing and tracking for best results
Once you know where your money is being spent on advertising, you will be able to make changes that will greatly contribute to better returns of your money. Which clicks turned into sales and which ads get the most clicks and sales are only some of the methods used to gain control of your PPC campaigns.

If you do not have enough information on it, you will be running your PPC advertising department blind. You will also be paying for clicks which do not produce any sales.

Interested people that click into converted sales is what PPC is all about. And that is where the money is.

3. Spy you successful competitors
This is the best way to cover yourself against high costs and risks on your online advertising.

How often are they running their ads? What message are they using on their ads? Are they promoting other affiliate products?

These are some of the factors to look for when spying on your competitors. They are already spending their money so get some advanced knowledge by spying on them on a proper way.

Once you have those three points covered, you should be able to get ahead on the PPC business game and you will seriously minimize the costs and risks of online advertising.

Do not forget to duplicate your efforts on additional campaigns once you have a winner. That is the right way of doing PPC advertising.