To be honest, I do not think you can beat a good old fashioned SEO campaign, one that is carefully thought out, one that targets your chosen keywords and your carefully designed landing pages.

Simply unbeatable. But all that takes time and there are some times when you just want to bully your way onto page 1 of Google. You might want to test a new product or idea or maybe you have spotted a growing trend and you just want to get on it quick, before the curve has peaked.

Sometimes you might just want to bully your competitors off the page (now you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?). Whatever the reason, here are my top 7 ways of getting ahead of the pack and onto page 1 of Google (for your chosen keyword term):

1. RSS Feeds - Google loves RSS Feeds. Google loves RSS aggregators, such as feedagg.com. Give Google Girl what she wants. Create a RSS feed, submit your RSS feed to as many RSS aggregators as you can find. Make sure that your RSS feeds contain your targeted keyword in the title of the posts.

You can even name the feed as your target keyword.  Within days, sometimes hours, you will often see your feed on page 1 of Google. Of course, this isn’t your page, but that page does contain many links to your page and you know that you now have a far better chance of getting that all important visitor click than the person who previously owned that spot.

2. Blog - Google loves a blog, especially blogger.com, Squidoo and Wordpress. You can add HubPages to that list too. Create a target keyword focused page on your target keyword focused blog, update with a few similar posts, maybe mention the other blogs with a link or two (vary target keyword hyper link a little) and you are almost there. Create at least one RSS feed from each of them and submit them as in 1.

3. Yahoo Answers - Google loves Yahoo Answers. Go in and answer a few related to your target keyword. Why not ask a question about your target keyword? Of course, you need to leave a link to your target site. Be careful! Don’t over commercialize, be helpful, be useful, good things will follow.

4. Forums - Google loves a forum. Especially well populated and active forums. Search for forums related to your targeted keyword. Go in and answer a few questions related to your target keyword. Why not ask a question about your target keyword? Of course, you need to leave a link to your target site. Be careful! Don’t over commercialize, be helpful, be useful, good things will follow.

To read the rest of this article and discover all of the other sexy seo secrets, please register below (it’s free): Top SEO Services

Marketing is a three-syllable word that seems so simple, yet encompasses so much. Marketing is a multi-faceted approach to promoting a product or service. Both traditional and unconventional marketing methods have a place in the small business world. Marketing helps small businesses focus on building their brand and identity.

There are few limitations to marketing options, and the opportunities listed here are just a few that will generally result in a decent ROI (Return On Investment) for most small businesses. That said, do not be afraid to be creative -- no one knows or understands a small business like its owner, so think outside of the box and don't be afraid to experiment.

Identity Continuity

Create continuity between an online website, logos, letterheads, business cards, and packaging. Create an identity that will make your business stand out from the competition, and leave a good initial impression on potential customers. A professional image associated with your company or product will remind customers of their past brand experiences, and will reinforce your product line.

Trade Publications

Niche publications are journals or magazines that focus on a specific market. If your product or service is appropriate for a specific market, then advertising in their trade publications will allow you to immediately drill down and target that very specific audience.

Promotional Items

Branded giveaways have long been used by marketers to attract potential customers. Products that have a long shelf life will help keep your business in the forefront of a customer's mind. Weeks, months, and even years after a product is purchased or service is performed, promotional items will remind the customer of your brand.

Reviews

Solicit product reviews from reputable industry sources, magazine reviewers, bloggers, or industry journalists. Product reviews lend credibility to a product or company.

Keyword Advertising

In order to help your website's search engine ranking, use keyword advertising. Focused and targeted keyword advertising will drive web traffic that has a genuine interest in your product or service.

Niche Directories

Use online niche directories to promote products or services. Visitors who frequent topical directories have a strong interest and are more likely to purchase.

Viral Marking

Once known as "word of mouth" marketing, viral marketing has taken on a life of its own. Encourage product buzz, as well as customers referring customers.

Opt-In Email Marketing

Use email as a marketing tool to notify your existing customers about specials, new products or services, or product releases and updates. While some say email marketing is dead, others say that measured results of email marketing tell a very different story. Opt-in, targeted email marketing works, and produces results when done correctly.

Partnerships / Strategic Relationships

We see large companies leveraging their assets every day, and small online businesses should too! Whether it be as a partner, an affiliate, or a strategic relationship, all of these relationships can benefit small businesses. Businesses can use strategic relationships to penetrate niche markets. Affiliates can expand their reach and tap into the customer bases of similar products. Partners can provide additional value to existing products or services. Determine what types of relationships could be beneficial to your small business.

Online Classifieds

Craigslist is likely the best known online classified system. Classified systems increase visibility and are often overlooked by small businesses. Consider posting classifieds that relate to product or services, and monitor the results.

Sponsorship / Contests

Contests not only encourage customers to have fun, but also generate publicity and draw attention to your company and brand. Sponsor industry events, run contests, or donate prizes to industry contests in order to increase visibility and generate goodwill.

Newsletters

Communication is critical to all businesses, and small businesses are no exception. Be sure to establish a communication channel with customers and potential customers. Newsletters are a very popular communication channel for software developers.

RSS

RSS is growing in popularity. It is an alternative communication channel that has the benefit of reaching a larger audience through syndication. Supplement and enhance email and newsletter campaigns by providing an RSS channel for their content.

Forums / Newsgroups

Participation in newsgroups and forums will result in building credibility. Business relationships will often result from online dialogue in industry forums and newsgroups. Actively participate and always behave in a professional manner.

Forum / Email Signatures

All forum posts and emails you send should contain a "signature" that advertises your business name, tag line, and URL.

Blogs

Blogging and posting comments on blogs can result in an increase in web links and traffic. Socialization and engaging others with well thought out comments can establish a business reputation and generate product interest.

Videos

YouTube is a boon to business. If you are creative, consider compiling an educational or humorous video. YouTube is a huge distribution channel and can generate product or industry interest.

Press Releases

The avenue to inexpensive press! Write a press release to promote new products or services and reap the benefits with media attention.

Article Syndication

Writing articles can help lend credibility to your product line and improve your business reputation.

Local Newspapers

Contact local newspapers and pitch a unique story to them. Publicity is free and can generate discussions and interest.

Consider exploring alternative channels for advertising and marketing. Keep in mind that advertising need not be costly; creative marketers can often find inexpensive avenues that will result in a great return.

About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

Everyone knows that Google's search engine works according to very complex algorithms that are constantly being tweaked and I recognize one of the biggest online challenges is figuring out how Google views your site and what you can do to improve search engine visibility.

Google Webmaster Tools gives you a small taste of the information Google crawlers find on your site and ways to improve your traffic by diagnosing and fixing search issues. With Google's free site diagnostic tools, you get a unique look into what information Google uses when crawling and indexing your site for its search engine.

• Determine which pages on your site may cause problems for Google crawlers and how to fix them.
• Learn where your traffic is coming from, which sites link to yours and top search terms people use to find your site.
• Read through free articles in Google's extensive Webmaster Help Center for SEO tips, not to mention insight into Google's search engine!

Submitting your Blogger or BlogSpot blog site to Google Webmaster Tools will enable Google to find, index, and rank your site. For those who are new to this, you may go to the official Google Webmaster Tools site to create a new webmaster profile.

Once you got a webmaster profile setup, you'll be asked to verify your site. There're two ways to verify your site. You can either add a meta tag or just upload an HTML file. However, adding meta tag is the only way for you to verify your blog site as Blogger or BlogSpot does not allow you to upload a HTML file at the moment. Just follow the instruction to add the generated meta tag to verify your blog site. I'm not gonna show here. I'm sure you know how to do it!

After your blog site has been verified, you'll need to add a sitemap to your webmaster profile. By adding a sitemap, you'll be providing Google with more details and information about your Blog. With this, Google will crawl your site, report information on any errors in the sitemaps tab, and index your blog site at a faster rate. Click the “Add a Sitemap” link and this will take you to another screen where you should choose the type “Add General Web Sitemap”. The only way to add a sitemap is to use either of the following 2 sitemap file URLs:

http://yourname.blogspot.com/rss.xml

or

http://yourname.blogspot.com/atom.xml

For Blogger or BlogSpot Feeds That Has Been Redirected to FeedBurner

Though you can easily redirect Blogger or BlogSpot feeds to FeedBurner now, this has a side effect - you will see some warnings if you submit the default Blogger or BlogSpot sitemap file (yourname.blogspot.com/rss.xml or yourname.blogspot.com/atom.xml) to Google Webmaster Tools. See screenshot attached below.




This is because the Blogger or BlogSpot generated rss.xml or atom.xml you've submitted to Google Webmaster Tools Sitemaps is actually redirecting to the FeedBurner feed and that causes invalid XML errors.

Fortunately there's a simple fix. Just delete the existing sitemaps and submit a new General Web Sitemap that has either of the following 2 sitemap file URLs:

http://yourname.blogspot.com/rss.xml?redirect=false

or

http://yourname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false

You should now see your sitemaps console with the correct setting with no warnings anymore. See screenshot attached below.




However, Blogger or BlogSpot users who wanted to submit a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools have always had some disadvantages. Since we can't publish a real sitemap to the domain we're using we had to settle for only submitting a partial sitemap by using our default site feeds which only contain the last 25 posts. Fortunately, there's a trick that lets you submit your entire Blogger or BlogSpot blog site to Google Webmaster Tools. Thanks to Kirk @ phydeaux3 for this useful tip.

Previously the root-level Blogger or BlogSpot feeds did not accept any query parameters, but when Blogger or BlogSpot added the redirect=false one, they also seemed to open up those feeds to all the known Blogger or BlogSpot query parameters. And that's how you can submit more than the standard 25 posts. First off, figure out how many posts you have by going to Blogger or BlogSpot Edit Post page and select only published posts, it'll tell you how many total posts you have. Then you can use the max-results and start-index parameters to expand the number of results obtained, and to submit more than one map if needed.

Note: Currently Blogger or BlogSpot limits the max-results to 500 entries. This has gone up and down a couple of times so it could change. As of right now the upper limit appears to be 500. But 100 was the limit at one time.

I'm going to use the max limit of 100 in my examples, you can use more if that's what you want. So to get the first set of 100 posts the URL I'd submit would be:

rss.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

or

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

Then, if I've more than 100 posts (I currently have 105) I can create another sitemap with the URL:

rss.xml?redirect=false&start-index=101&max-results=100

or

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=101&max-results=100

If you notice, just increase the start-index number by the amount of results you're getting. So the first sitemap started at 1, and returned 100 results, the second sitemap would use the start-index of 101 (100+1). Now that should automatically cover me for the next 95 posts. If I had more than 200 posts, just create another sitemap with the start-index of 201 (you get the idea). Google Webmaster Tools will automatically download the sitemaps (usually about once a day) and if I've made a new post it should get added to the mix.

Having said all that, two last things. One, I don't really think all of this helps any (if at all). Blogger or BlogSpot blogs aren't that difficult to crawl and Google will probably crawl your blog just as well with or without a sitemap of any kind. Two, if you really wanted to create a non-feed sitemap with some sort of sitemap generating tool, then according to this recent post at Google Webmaster Central Blog, you could upload a sitemap for Blogger or BlogSpot through another verified site like maybe Google Pages?

Currently 500 is the max post (as Kirk states), but to be on the safe side, stick to 100. I hope you find this post useful.

Article from Web Designer

Here we show you how mastering Google can help get visitors motoring in the direction of your website.

1. Getting Started : One of the most common ways to find links is to simply ask Google. Open up www.google.com. Do a search for your desired keywords, for example ‘web designer’. Navigate to the naturally listed top sites to see whether they allow you to summit a link.
2. An alternative route : You can be a bit specific about links. Open up www.google.com. Type in your niche, for example ‘custom web designers scotland’, and include either ‘+links’ or ‘+links or + sites’ at the end of your keywords. Google will look for sites that contain references to each.
3. Web CEO useful tools : If you are optimizing websites youself, a helpful piece of software is Web CEO. Available to download for free, the search engine optimization (SEO) software offers loads of great features including detailed site-tracking statistic, as well as how to find link partners.
4. Download Web CEO : To get your copy of this software, visit www.webceo.com. The program also offers a free training programme that you can use to advance your optimization skilss further. As the sites states, there is no expiry date and there are no forms to fill out. Once downloaded, set up a new account.
5. Setting up Web CEO : To begin, select File and then New Site. In the New Site Wizard, enter your websites details and description and then click Next. After double-checking your details on the next screen, click Finish. This now gives you access to all of the tools Web CEO has to offer.
6. Find links in Web CEO : Load Web CEO and select Find Link Partners from under the Promote Your Site heading. Select the website from the list provided in the Project Selector, or select New Site. Then click OK followed by Configure. Now you’ll be able to select which engines you wish to check for links.
7. Search engines : Select the Add keywords tab followed by Add. To download keywords used in your site, click ‘Get keywords from site’. Your website will appear in the screen then click OK twice. Click Find New Partners and list of potential linking partners will be produced.
8. Requesting links : A large number of websites offers a standard form to you to request a link, whereas others might ask you email them. When you have found the websites suitable for your site to link to, find the page on which they offer links to other sites.
9. Link Request Form : Under Title, enter a specific title relating to your product/service, remembering to include your relevant keywords. You can go into more detail in the Description box; including more keywords will help increase your relevance for Google’s natural listing.
10. Keep your email safe : Select category from the drop-down list that best describes your product/service, then enter your contact name and email address. Ensure that the company displays a statement which states your email address will not be passed on to any third parties who may distribute it.
11. Directory linking : Directory linking is great way to source links to your website. A directory is a website that houses links to other sites and places them in an organized order. This makes it easier for people to find what they are looking for. Ask Google to find directories to summit to for your industry.
12. Finding directories : Navigate to the Google search box. Following on the keywords example that we have been using, you would type ‘directory + web designer’ into the search box and click Search. This will return a list of directories from which it could be useful to get links.
13. An alternate route : There is also a handy list with many of directories in it and information on each of them. The directory list is also split into sections for different industries to make it easier to search through. Firstly, navigate to http://info.vilesilencer.com and click the Excel Download link.
14. Save for future reference : Click Save to save the list to your PC so you can refer back to it at a later date. The great benefit with directory linking is great way of building quality, inward non-reciprocal links to your websites.