The “To Do” list comes into play after you have implemented formal search engine optimization for your site including generating keywords, composing volumes of content accordant with site design; proper keyword placement within your source code and within your content.

The “To Do” list is comprised of activities you would be well-advised in practicing at various intervals on a daily, bi-monthly and semi-annual basis. It is an SEO maintenance schedule.

The only activity I have failed to include is how to incorporate a good analytics program into your SEO campaign. This is something you’ll want to make reference and follow up at a later date.

Also you will want to explore how to read and assess the data from an analytics program in order that you may make the proper modifications to your site in response to SEO.

You will want to include it as part of your SEO activities after you have had an opportunity to get your feet “good and wet” within the field of search engine optimization.

Right now we are taking “baby steps,” therefore the following SEO “To Do” list is just right for an individual relatively new to SEO practice and procedures:

The following activities need to be scheduled at least once each day:

* Find quality links to place on your site.

You will want to manage this activity as follows:

a. First sign up for a listing under your keyword category within the Open Directory Project (ODP). After you have done so and you have received a listing, review the sites listed within your category.

b. Next, check out the sites listed within your category to determine if any of the sites have a links page.

c. Email the sites’ webmasters where you find provide a links page and ask him or her if they’d be interested in exchanging links. (Make it your goal to swap links with at least one relative quality site each day.)

d. Next you construct a page of relevant content where you place the links provided by those who have been agreeable to an exchange.

Also, in regard to points c above, you may also want to review the links on the relative sites links page to find out if there are sites there which would be beneficial to you as a possible link exchange.

In the “exchange of links,” practice patience if you do not have immediate results—eventually you will receive parties who are interested in “swapping” links.

* Another activity you will want to involve yourself with on a daily basis is creating fresh content.

Make it your goal to write one page of text daily. Articles that are up-to-date and topical as to your theme are essential in the process of successful and on-going optimization.

Write informative articles and avoid anything that is of a more personal nature.

Your articles should appeal to a general audience.

Also, remember since your objective is to please the main search provider Google, lots of quality content is needed.

You will want to make certain you write content over an array of keywords and relative to the theme of your site.

Remember too, if you are lacking as to ideas in this regard, you may always place your site’s theme or topic inside the keyword generator to attain various combinations of keywords used by surfers in order to find information regarding products and/or services within your industry.

Once you have some new combinations of keywords, you may begin composing content and pages that revolve around the keywords of your choosing.

In a year’s time, if you make this one of your daily activities you will end up with hundreds of pages of content.

You will be able to attain a good ranking within the search engines using a variety of keyword combinations.

Additionally by writing such a high volume of quality content and being listed with ODP (Open Directory Project) you may be able to generate a fair amount of reciprocal linking outside of your own efforts.

Therefore your daily activities include two items:

a. Reviewing the ODP (Open Directory Project) for links in your keyword category and requesting exchanges.

(This activity takes place daily after you have been listed with the ODP, also known as the Open Directory Project.)

Make it your goal to eventually acquire one relative link per day.

b. Secondly write one quality article daily, basing your content on a keyword combination after using a keyword generator such as Overture.

(By year’s end, your site should be filled with hundreds of pages of quality content—which is sure to raise your status within the major search providers.

Six Months:

You’ll want to make note on a semi-annual basis is to check and assure you are still listed with all the search engines and directories wherein you originally submitted your site.

If you don’t find yourself not listed, resubmit your site and then make a note and calendar yourself to check submission status once again in six month’s time.

Other SEO scheduled activities:

Lastly, other activities that coincide with your SEO (search optimization activities) and are recommended you do time permitting or as needed include the following:

* Sign up and place relative content as well as a link to your site on social networking sites such as:

*
1. Digg,

*
1. Technorati, and,

*
1. Stumble Upon.

In using the aforementioned sites, you may gain exposure to your site from individuals who are truly interested and thus will be able to provide you with plenty of targeted traffic.

Keep apprised of new developments within your keyword category.

If you are anticipating a new product launch, then build a page early, and have it ready in order that the major search engines have it by the product’s launch date.

In conclusion of the preceding additional items on your SEO “To Do” list:

1. Sign up with the social networking sites and use them as a means to attain traffic to your site:

1. Keep aware of new trends and product launches within your field.

Build pages prior to new product projection dates in order that your new product pages may be submitted early to the search engines and prior to anticipated launch dates.

In Summary:

Follow the basic SEO Guidelines of this e-Book which involves:

1) Researching keywords,

2) Placing keywords in relevant places such as content and Meta tags;

3) Continually create content,

4) Designing text oriented sites that are provide navigational ease for end users;

5) And, subsequently perform SEO maintenance.

By so doing, you will be well on your way to search engine optimization success.

Chapter Twelve Twelve - Your Search Engine Optimization “To Do” List

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

This chapter will broach upon why content is significant in optimizing your site and then will provide to you a generous amount of ideas in how you may continually create quality content.

Again, since “Content is King” on the Internet it is crucially important you read this chapter.

The first part of the chapter addresses the two-part question:

Why is content so important and why do you continually need more of it?

Everything, in the world of optimization is looked at from the search provider’s point of view. Therefore this means when a search inquiry is made, the search engines will seek out the sites that can best answer the user’s query.

The search robots will start the process of responding to the search query by looking for like keywords within the Meta tag portion of the site and within the content of the pages in order to determine the theme of the site.

However, this is not the only areas the search engine robots look: The links are also viewed which are found on the (different) internal pages of the site.

In example, if your main page is about “dogs” and you have links to other pages on your site relative to the “niche” such as “Beagle Dogs,” and “Greyhound Dogs,” then the search engine robots will assume correctly your site is about dogs.

Additionally, when you have a great many pages based on one particular theme your site will rank higher than similar sites with only a few pages.

There is a greater opportunity when your site has a great number of pages that visitors will enter your site by way of the internal pages. The idea here is the more pages on your site based on your site’s theme, the more traffic will be generated.

Other webmasters also hold a site that generates a great deal of quality traffic in high regard.

Now that you have a better idea why content is so important on the “web,” the next part to our two-part question will be addressed and that is:

How do I create more content? Or, what are the various avenues available to me in the building of quality content for my website?

Next, five ways are provided to you, dependant on your product and or service, regarding how you may accomplish the objective of placing informative content upon your site:

• The first idea you may wish to consider relative to creating quality content for your site is:

Composing reviews of your site’s various products or if you offer a service, providing a review of the features and benefits of your service.

• There are three ways you may initiate composition of reviews:

a. The first way applies to affiliate products and/or services. The idea in this regard is rather than just supplying the affiliate link you might consider writing a review regarding the partner company’s product or service.

In your review state how the product or service has benefited you personally or professionally and give a rundown in regard to the product’s or service’s strong points and areas that might present drawbacks for the product’s users.

A review will actually pre-sell your product and/or service and if you list strengths as well as weaknesses the strengths are easier to believe. Plus you will be able to reach a more targeted audience since what you consider a product or service flaw or inconsistency may not be that “big of deal” to the user.

b. If you have your own services or products you could compose your content providing informative background information on what you are offering plus you might ask satisfied and loyal customers to write about their experience in regard to your product or service and company.

• The second way to create content is to provide your reader with some history relative to the products and/or services you offer.

In example, if you have a vacation property located within a certain metropolitan area, you could provide several pages of content devoted to the city’s historical background.

Additionally, if your company is well-established, you might want to include information as to the evolution of your product or historical content in regard to the early beginnings of your company.

Many customers find such information highly interesting and will regard the establishment of your company in a more favorable light when it comes time to make a decision as to a product purchase.

• The third way you may wish to build content is to set up a “Question and Answer Page”.

Initiate this process by setting up a question and answer section within an e-newsletter.

Invite your readers dependant upon your products and/or services, to ask questions and then answer them accordingly. The reason this is a good idea is two-fold:

a. First, you will be able to gain a perspective as to what your customers are thinking;

b. And by supplying the answers, you are producing content which you may use not only in your newsletter but also on your site.

• The fourth way you may wish to consider generating content for your site is by way of an on-line bulletin board.

Bulletin board forums provide your site’s visitors with a means to comment on your products and/or services or related subjects.

Some bulletin boards are highly searchable by the search engines while others are not.

If you believe you have quality content on your bulletin board you can always publish it within one of the main areas” of your site where it will be easily searchable by the primary search providers.

• The fifth way to build content for your site is by using articles created by other individuals.

As I mentioned before if you are a webmaster pressed for time or lack interest in writing, you may always hire the work out.

There are dozens of freelance sites available wherein the writers do not charge a “bundle” for their services.

Now that you have a variety of ideas available in the creation of content: How will you organize all of your content?

You have three options available to you:

a. You could always build a second website full of content and direct visitors to a primary sales site; or,

b. Secondly, you might consider adding a section for articles to your site. I’ve seen this done on many of the technical sites. As webmaster, the archived information has always proved to be quite useful.

c. Lastly, it may be to your advantage to link your new pages of content, internally to the specific products and/or services of which the new content refers.

Building more content, in any of the following manners should serve to increase the flow of quality traffic to your site.

Chapter Eleven - Why Content is such a factor in Increasing Traffic to your Site

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

Many individuals reading this e-book and as I have mentioned in a prior chapter are quite familiar with design fundamentals; however are not as accustomed as to the activity of writing content.

Whether you are an experienced writer or one who has not often engaged in this process I provide within this chapter all types of tips and tricks in order to make your content writing a breeze.

Since content is such an enormous element within a successful SEO campaign, I believe I’d be remiss in not covering it. Therefore, I devote this chapter to all types of tricks and strategies that will allow you to easily write content.

As you may recall on the chapter regarding design, I mentioned it would not be out of reason to write a minimum one-hundred pages of content before you even begin thinking in regard as to putting your site on-line. In other words, you will want plenty of information included on your site that is keyword-rich before it makes its on-line debut.

The following strategies will also ensure your site deserves search engine notice.

The first strategy is to locate the keywords that are relative to your theme. As you may remember we covered how to do this within an earlier chapter of this book.

When writing content on the web, the entirety of your content is based on how users are searching for your products and services; therefore you will need to write your content based on your keywords. In review place the topic of your site into an on-line keyword generator such as Overture. List the top ten ways persons search for your products/services by way of keywords and write articles evolving around these keyword search parameters.

The second step as to composing your content consists of just that: Writing your article.

Initially I would select a minimum of two of the keywords or keyword phrases from the list I compiled when inputting my topic into the keyword generator.

Next, write a very informative article based on the two keywords you have selected. It has been determined if you use “How to” within your article’s title there is a good chance it will be read more often then if you leave these two “magic” words out of the title. Also, do not forget to incorporate your keywords or keyword phrases within your title.

The article should maintain a very informative tone about your product and/or service. If you are unfamiliar with writing articles why not begin by creating an outline of the article you propose to write?

After you have written your outline, condense your text in order that it is simple and easy to understand. Remember to incorporate the keywords you have devised from your keyword list into the body of your content. The next point, herein, will instruct you how to strategically accomplish this activity.

The third step relative to content composition is to place keywords appropriately within the body of your article.

In order to write in such a way so your keywords and keyword phrases fall naturally within your content write as follows:

Think of any type of verbal presentation. What is it that the presenter does first?

Generally, he or she informs the group what it is they wish to talk about or the subject-matter of his or her talk.

Next he or she will proceed in conveying information at hand and ends up summarizing and/or concluding the point of the presentation.

Think of your article in like fashion. The title represents the point of your discussion and the body of the article is similar to the main portion of the verbal presentation. The conclusion is the point in the presentation where you “wrap things up.”

Also, during the conveyance of your information stay (forever) mindful of the keywords or keyword terms that need to be placed where they make sense and sound the best within your content.

By starting your articles in outline form, as suggested within a preceding chapter, you will be better able to manage keyword positioning. However, as I, myself, have been taught, by “sticking” with the format similar to that of a verbal presentation you will be able to place yourself in the strongest position in way of positioning your keywords in all the right places and in a way that sounds natural and in sync with the text.

Keep in mind, outside of density requirements you will need to place your keyword or keyword phrases once within the initial twenty five words of your article and at least one time within the last twenty five words of your content.

And, if I were to summarize keyword placement as presented herein I would do so as follows:

· Place a keyword or keyword phrase in the title of your article;

· Place your keyword once at the beginning and once at the end of your content;

· Write your article as if giving a verbal presentation. If you compose your article in this fashion, your keywords should be distributed naturally throughout your content.

The fourth task you will need to administer in correlation with creation of your copy is to optimize your web page wherein you are pacing the content.

I know I mentioned previously you’d need to write at minimum 100 pages of copy prior to taking your site live; however, this suggestion is in keeping with the idea you’ve written the bulk of your content and are already on-line.

Therefore when you add more “fresh content” to your site, which you should be doing this on an on-going basis, you will need to place the keywords of which you based your article within the Meta tags portion of your page. The tags may be found within the top portion of the document page.

You will need to place your keywords or keyword phrases within the title tag and the description tag within your source code.

Your initial headline needs to contain your primary keyword and when you place your keyword within the headline, if possible use an h1 tag.

Use a sub-heading for your second keyword. As you may recall early on in this chapter I suggested you select two keywords or keyword phrases from the keyword list you composed after placing your topic within the keyword generator. The keyword or keyword phrases you chose from that list may be positioned within the sub-heading. If possible use an h2 tag and write so your sub-headline is found about half way down within the body of your content.

If you find when using the h1 tag and h2 tags your headlines do not appear as you would like from a formatting perspective, then you will need to make modifications to the document’s style sheet in order that you may create headlines with a smaller size font.

Next take your main keyword and place it inside a text link. The text link needs to internally link to another web page on your site; however to one that has very similar information to the new content you have just composed.

The final step relative to optimizing your page is to give the new page a file name. The file name should include your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

Since all of the steps mentioned are crucial to the creation of well-optimized copy I

will briefly summarize your steps:

a. Attain keywords and keyword phrases through use of a keyword generator such as Overture and based on your article’s topic;

b. Compose your article around your primary and secondary keywords and keyword phrases;

c. Write in a natural style using keywords where they sound appropriate within the text. This is the best manner of keyword distribution of which I am aware;

d. Last, optimize your page placing keywords within the following Meta tags of your source code:

· Description tag;

· Title tag;

· First headline using an h1 tag if at all possible; and

· Sub-heading using an h 2 tag, if possible. If headings do not look as you wish then modify the style sheet in order to create headings with a smaller size font.

· Also, use your primary keyword in a text link that connects to another page on your site where there is information similar to the content you have just composed.

If you will follow all of the steps I’ve outlined for you, your content will be very well-optimized.

The objective is to provide visitors to your site with information that is highly organized and very informative.

Another reason you will need to fully optimize your site is in order that your site’s guests or target audience may easily locate your site.

Chapter Ten - Tips and techniques in order to Create Optimized Copy for Webmasters

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

The true reason SEO exists is due to the fact individuals and businesses compete in getting their site to a top ranking position within the search engines.

It is therefore from the early stages of site creation that SEO procedure is considered and followed.

The following chapter provides you with information on how to organize your project in order that you may build a site relative to SEO rules and procedures.

The first area you’ll need to concentrate your efforts is the preparatory stage of site construction.

One of the key ingredients of successful SEO campaigning is a site that is full of useful and keyword rich content and thus follows the general theme you’ve arrived at for your site.

We’ve already covered keyword research in Chapter Two. Keywords are the primary ways your users will find you. Further we’ve expounded later on in our book as to the importance of keyword research and suggested your web pages evolve around your keywords.

With this in mind, you may now begin the preparatory phase of your site’s construction.

Another important reminder is that on the “net,” content is king; therefore, plenty of content will be needed to be prepared before your site’s design is even initiated. Also, this content needs to be composed prior to your selecting a domain name for the site.

If this sounds a bit like: “putting the cart before the horse,” it isn’t. In fact, you will need to compose your content in order that you may easily incorporate it into your design scheme, writing articles pertinent to each section of the site you propose to construct.

In example, if I were to build a site in regard to “travel planning” herein are areas I may want to write articles. Under the tab entitled “Destinations” I may choose to include regional sub-categories as follows:

1. Metropolitan Vacations; New York

2. Exotic Locales; Morocco

3. Equator; South America, Africa

4. Caribbean, Curacao

Also, when organizing my site’s sub-sections, you may recall within an earlier chapter I advised the search engines prefer it that you do not go any further than three levels deep when you compose your site’s design. This would include the homepage of your site.

Therefore, when creating my tabs under the title: “Metropolitan Vacations”, I may include travel excursions to cities such as: New York, San Francisco and Houston.

From the homepage you are clicking twice: Once on “Metropolitan Vacations” and Second on the City of your choice.

Within the various categories you devise, you may write appropriate content of four hundred to five hundred words in length and in accordance with whatever has been set as your keyword density requirement.

You may start writing content categorically just as if you were daily submitting articles each time adhering to keyword density requirements and thus writing articles incorporating keywords.

It is generally suggested before you even begin to construct the site that you have composed at minimum one hundred pages of article content.

Think of this in theory as if you were putting together any standard book. You certainly would not be able to index, put together the final table of contents, and manufacture for publication if the content that went inside of it did not exist.

Therefore, put together your site, thinking in similar fashion with the tabs being the chapters, and the subject-matter relative to the tab being the sub-titles found within the chapters.

Here is what I mean: “Metropolitan Travel Destinations” equals chapter and “New York Vacations” is a subtitle where in reality “Metropolitan Travel Destinations” is your tab and “New York Travel Vacations” is part of your offerings under this particular tab.

If you need new ideas as to setting up sites and under specific categories, you may always go to Google and type in the words associated with your site’s subject-matter or “niche.” Once you pull up some relative sites you may review the various sites in order to attain ideas how you might like to lay out your own site.

Remember, when starting your site design it is very much like a rough draft of a book: You can always make changes or modifications before you finally decide on how you wish to categorize the products and/or services you are offering.

The second area you’ll want to consider in putting together a successful site is your domain name.

You will want your domain name to provide your site’s visitors with the name of your site.

At this writing, the preferred way to get your domain name recognized by the search engines is by proper “branding.” You needn’t necessarily place the keywords in the domain anymore.

The idea here is as with any company name is to get recognized and acquire a presence on the “net.”

Although your keywords may be part of your domain and many beginning SEO primers recommend you place keywords inside the domain, it is no longer a primary factor with the search engines.

If you wish to market your site by “branding” then in this day and age you are on the right track.

The third area you will wish to consider in making your site a success is how you design your site.

Remember this rule of thumb: Simpler is better. The text content portion of your site should amount to far more than your html code.

Also, your pages should “validate” easily and be useful in all types of browsers.

Here is an insight: The html code needs to be structurally sound and quite simplistic in nature.

The search engines’ robotic spiders will respond by absorbing far more of your site’s content if you assure your html code is simple.

Also, as I’ve alluded to at the beginning of this eBook stay clear of graphics such as Flash, Java, or DOM.

If you absolutely must have a scripting language on your site, then create an external file for it.

Search engines detest JavaScript therefore there is little reason to employ it within you design scheme.

Another item to keep in mind as to site design: Do not clutter up the cleanliness of your site by incorporating into it a host of non-relevant links.

Individuals surfing the net nowadays are looking for simplicity when navigating about your site: Therefore stay apprised of this concept.

Also, your site should load quickly provide an almost instant response to any request. There shouldn’t be even the slightest delay.

Remember this: your site should respond to any request within three to four seconds—after that, any further delay will cost you ten percent of your audience for each additional second. This is why site design must be simple with great ease of navigation.

The fourth area you need to adhere to in designing your site according to SEO is to keep the size of your pages small.

My recommendation is to keep your page under 15K if you can manage it. The best or preferred page size is between 5k and 10k.

The smaller page sizes, it has been found work quite well for the search engines as well as for individuals surfing the net.

The fifth rule to adhere to as to site design is to compose at minimum one page of content per day comprised of 250 to 500 words.

If you have developed a mild case of “writer’s block” relative to your content, I suggest you use the Overture Keyword selector tool and find a set of keywords relative to your subject-matter.

In this way, as suggested in a preceding chapter, you may compose content that revolves around your keywords and insert keywords according to density requirements.

The sixth rule of which to adhere as to your site construction involves keyword positioning and density.

In review, you must use your keyword once in the following areas of your site:

1. The title tag;

2. The description tag;

3. The heading;

4. The URL;

5. Once within BOLD;

6. Once within Italics:

7. Once high on the webpage.

The best keyword density ration is at minimum five percent and maximum ten percent for the entirety of your site.

Assure your composition is well-written and spell-checked for accuracy. This is extremely important as the search engines use a feature known as auto-correction during their searches.

In other words, the view here is that there is absolutely no reason for a site to be “riddled” with misspellings.

The seventh SEO site design rule is to link to at minimum one relevant and quality site.

Also make certain you use your keywords within the link text as it makes all the difference in the world as to successful site optimization.

The eighth SEO site design rule involves internal linking standards.

You will want to link to related topics across your site.

In example, if your page is about Travel in China assure it links to vacation packages in the region.

It is extremely important when pleasing Google as to page rank that you design your site including in the design on-topic internal linking. In so doing, you are sharing the value of your page rank across your site.

The idea here is you do not want one page producing one-hundred referrals per day; rather, you want twenty-five pages that produce one-hundred daily referrals.

You do not want one page outperforming the rest of the pages on your site: This will be out of bounds as far as Google’s Page Rank value.

Should you find a page outperforming your other pages, you’ll need to balance things out a bit by moving it to other pages on your site.

The ninth activity you’ll need to employ in creating a successful site is to properly get your site on-line.

One thing you will want to steer clear is any type of virtual hosting. Choose a hosting plan with an IP address.

Also assure your site can be easily “crawled” by the major search engine spiders. In order to do so, make certain the following is in place relative to the design of your site:

1. All your site’s pages should be internally linked to at least one other page located within your site;

2. The pages should not be more than two levels deep—that is from the root page. In this regard, remember to vertically link your topic back to your root.

3. The menu should be linked to your website’s primary pages.

Do not place your site on-line until it is up to your precise standards as far as quality.

You need to “tweak” and perfect your site before it makes an on-line appearance.

It is a good idea to attain a listing within the Open Directory Project (ODP) as this will definitely increase your Page Rank with Google.

Also if you have the revenue available, it will be helpful if you submit to Yahoo! and Looksmart in order to attain a higher page ranking.

The tenth rule of which to adhere as to the success of your site is to submit your site to Google, AltaVista, WiseNut, Direct Hit, HotBot and Fast.

Submit your site to each of the search engines once and follow-up as to submission in six months. This has been debatable amongst webmasters whether submission is necessary in regard to SEO. However, if it makes you feel more confident to do so then I advise you go ahead and do it.

The eleventh rule in establishing a successful site is to install a good tracker on your site.

Do not settle for an inferior graphic counter.

Your host should support in-bound referrals. If your hosting company will not do so then you will need to seek out one that will provide you with this support.

In conclusion, attain a quality tracker. The tracker should be based upon referral log files.

The twelfth rule in establishing a successful site is to learn to assess the results found within log files.

The way you assess the results found within the log files is as follows:

After sixty days you will begin to notice a few referrals of places you’ve been listed.

Look at the keywords individuals are using in order to find your site. Once you “spot” something out of the ordinary, construct a page around these “new” keyword combinations.

In example, if your site is about lemons and individuals are looking you up using “lemons citrus fruit” then build a webpage around these keywords.

Remember keeping the search engines and users happy is what successful site design and implementation (according to optimization standards) is all about.

Chapter Nine - How to Establish a Successful Site in One Year

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

This chapter explores SEO strategies and provides information presented in a different fashion of content that was previously provided in previous chapters. Also new information meant to further enhance the beginner’s overall learning experience is added to the review information.

It is very “good reading” and the new information will provide the further ideas and techniques in order to get the new SEO strategist on track.

The first portion of this discussion of which I’d like to apprise you is SEO is not a complex process although there are many technical acronyms and terms that may appear somewhat intimidating to the beginner.

Such acronyms and terms include: SEM, SERPs, Vertical Search and the like. Regardless of their technical constitution, the activities behind such terms and acronyms are fairly simple in nature and as long as one stays quite organized and follows a specific order in application, implementation of SEO should be relatively easy.

By definition and one I find most practical, SEO is assuring your site is listed in the top tier of all the “respectable” search engines—that being MSN, Yahoo! and Google. This is accomplished by placing your keywords in the appropriate places on your site.

In other words, the objective here is when a search user performs a keyword search within a search engine relative to the theme or subject-matter of your site, your site will display at the top of the search engines.

Herein I provide you with nine recognized SEO strategies in order that your website may attain a listing at the beginning portion of the established search providers.

The first strategy is to recognize quality content is the primary key as to SEO success.

It is crucial you keep in mind that content plays the most important role in optimization practice. As was “stressed” in a previous chapter, many times individuals who are primarily educated to design sites do not realize the high significance of producing keyword rich content on his or her site.

Therefore, in order to stay “ahead of the pack” make the composition of high quality content interspersed with the appropriate amount of keywords and keyword phrases a top priority.

Herein is a new way to view search engines if you wish to get along with them: Search engines are businesses too; and like any business that promotes a product and/or service; they are interested in delivering a quality product. The product they are providing the end-user is information.

Therefore, the more targeted and relevant the solution in response to the consumer’s inquiry, the more widely used will be the search engine.

They generate revenue from a variety of associated services; however, in order to generate this coordinate income they must deliver a quality product in relation to any searches performed on their site.

Not only do you help the search engines as to their “quest” of providing the best search solution for their end-users in optimizing your site, you also help yourself.

In conclusion to the above text, placing high end quality content upon your site becomes most imperative.

The second strategy relative to SEO success is recognizing the critical importance of keywords.

It is crucial you become familiar with how keywords work on the Internet.

Eventually, you’ll find it is helpful to know how many searches are performed relative to your particular keywords.

A site you may wish to use later on, after you’ve given your optimization a chance to make a difference as far as visitors to your site is a good analytics tool such as Wordtracker.

Again, as I’ve mentioned within the previous chapter, do not use this tool until you have given your initial SEO application a reasonable chance. There is no such thing as a fast fix in relation to any SEO campaign.

I suggest you leave your site alone after initiating SEO for a period of two months minimum before employing the use of any analytic tools or making modifications.

When you are designing your web pages I strongly recommend you base your site design around the keywords you’ve chosen.

Also, make it a practice of linking to the other pages on your site. It is a good idea to back link to your interior pages in addition to your homepage. Assure you link to other quality sites or sites that are considered popular.

Remember the more targeted your keywords the more likely you’ll be able to convert your site’s visitors into consumers.

Stay with a particular “niche” and keep your keyword phrase as “narrow” as possible. This will provide you with the greatest opportunity as to conversion. In example, “Alaska Travel” is much more “narrow” than the topic of “Travel” and “Fairbanks Alaska Travel” is even “narrower.”

The third strategy you need to be apprised relative to SEO success is how the design of your site and other elements (on your page) will be significant when it comes time for the search engines to index your site.

The main thing I’d recommend here is to make certain all pages of your site are well-optimized.

The first area of which you’ll need to be concerned is to make certain all of your site’s pages may be accessed from your homepage. This will be an indicator of your site’s navigational ease when it comes time for the robotic search engines to evaluate it.

Also, I think it’s important that pages are no more than three layers deep from your site’s primary page and relative to another discussion within a preceding chapter place a sitemap or maps on your site. The sitemap should provide a listing of all your site’s primary pages. This technique is sure to “please” the search engines.

The factors that need to be addressed as far as proper SEO is to assure that all your Meta tags are appropriately optimized with the inclusion of your keywords. Further, a title tag should contain approximately sixty-five characters while a description tag should be comprised of one-hundred sixty characters.

The title and description will be the initial impression the visitor attains of your site; therefore, the title must be appropriate to your site and your description must be written in such a way that it “encourages” your target audience to click on your link.

It also makes a great deal of sense to make certain the keywords are the same within your title and your URL.

Other strategies to use in this regard are as follows:

1. Place your primary keyword within the name of your Domain (although nowadays not absolutely essential);

2. Separate various elements of your title by way of what is termed as a pike. A pike looks like this: /.

3. Another suggestion and a most useful strategy is to include your main keyword within the first twenty-five words of your article’s content as well as the last twenty-five (words).

4. A tactic a good many webmasters employ, and the fourth suggestion presented herein is to assure you make it your primary responsibility to always please the major search provider: Google. You will want to do so because this is the search provider that will send you the most traffic. I’m not recommending you ignore the other search companies such as MSN or Yahoo!—it’s just that Google is the primary search provider of all search providers.

Ways in which you may make your site more “Google friendly” include the following tactics:

1. Use the Google webmaster tools when perfecting your site and content according to SEO standards;

2. Make use of “Google Alerts” in order to keep well-informed as to your targeted keywords; and,

3. Also use “Google Alerts” in relation to link-building (comments) for the new pages you’ve constructed and thus being indexed by Google.

The fourth strategy for SEO success is to not forget link building is a terrific way to increase your rankings within the search engines.

When linking to your site the idea here is to link to other websites that are good accompaniments to your “niche” site.

Also, assure your “anchor text” contains your keywords. The “anchor text” is the portion of your site that is a “clickable” link.

You’ll need to link to sites that provide their readers with quality content; ease of navigation; and are reasonably “well-visited,” and appropriate as being relevant to your site.

In other words, linking to poorly managed or a site supplying little relevance to your website is not advisable.

The fifth strategy for SEO success and which I highly recommend to the SEO “newbie” is to use article marketing as a means of attaining quality back links to your site.

One very well-known way to attain quality back links amongst SEO consultants is by use of article marketing.

The idea here is to write relative and information-packed articles that compliment your site’s theme supplying your site’s link within the resource box where you write the article.

Articles are generally written five-hundred to seven-hundred words in length.

The following sites offer a means for this type of distribution:

1. SubmitYourArticle.com;

2. EzineArticles.com;

3. The phantomwriters.com, plus others.

Another suggestion is not to neglect “blogging” as a way to direct targeted traffic to your site. You may use this attribute when distributing your articles.

Articles should also be considered a means of pre-selling your site. Always keep the preceding point in mind whenever you write complimentary articles relative to your site.

Also you may wish to use sites such as Squidoo as a way to attract traffic to your site.

The sixth strategy relevant to SEO success is to consider using traffic hubs.

The traffic hubs of which I refer are entire portions of your site devoted to one sub-category of your central theme.

In example, if you have a site “All About Travel”, one area may be focused specifically on vacations.

The area promoting vacations would provide numerous pages providing information as to various vacation packages and destinations. Additionally, the section should be rich in keywords.

The traffic hub is somewhat the same as a sub-domain. It is best if you use this approach to format it using a directory (style) as follows: Your domain name/vacation_travel.

Another way you could present the following site is rather than using the underscore you may use a hyphen.

The seventh strategy to employ and relative to SEO success is to use WordPress software as to your “blogging” efforts.

WordPress blog software offers easy on-site installation even if you possess absolutely no experience in this area.

The search engines are quite favorable as to this friendly blog application.

The content you add is presented within a well-structured environment and the software also allows for keyword tagging of the blog’s content.

It is suggested you place one WordPress software application on each of your sites wherein you assume the role of webmaster.

The WordPress software application allows you to attract to your site the major search engines in order that you may more easily have your site indexed.

Other free blog applications you may consider using on your site include:

1. Bloglines; and

2. Blogger—an application owned by search provider Google.

The eighth SEO strategy is to make use of what is termed as social-bookmarking sites.

These on-line sites are becoming more and more significant and include some of the following site locations:

1. My Space:

2. Twitter, and

3. Facebook.

Other media (news) sites include:

1. Technorati;

2. Digg

3. SlashDot, among others.

The idea here is to place your content into a respectable variety of social networking and news media sites if you wish to enhance SEO as to what is also termed as Web 2.0 sites.

In order to do so, join a variety of sites and use them to your fullest advantage.

One thing you should do, once you gain a good understanding of SEO is to incorporate social bookmark buttons on all your web pages as a convenience for your site’s visitors. In this way your site’s audience may easily bookmark pages.

There are a couple options you may wish to try as to the installation of social bookmark buttons:

1. WordPress software offers a plug-in in this regard; or,

2. You may wish to try Addthis.com which is a free service that will allow you to place a button on each of the pages of your site.

Lastly, the ninth SEO success strategy is to develop a very organized detailed plan relative to optimization.

Such forethought as to SEO planning is often neglected. In other words, it is best to become thoroughly knowledgeable in optimization strategies and the advantages provided as to your site.

Following are three ways to organize and effectively mange your SEO program:

1. Once again, it is important the content you compose is relevant to your site’s theme or niche area.

2. Second, you site must be recognized as providing authoritative information in regard to your subject-matter or “niche.” Search engines tend to rank sites higher when they present an authoritative position as to the information presented (on the site). It is also preferable you accordingly link to other sites also considered experts in your “niche” area. The objective here is to eventually make your site the one everyone turns to when making a decision within your industry. In order to accomplish this objective informative quality content must be supplied on the site.

3. Your SEO work should “encourage” higher rates of conversion. You are striving for the end result as being: your visitors becoming consumers. If your site is dedicated to any form of on-line marketing and/or sales, your rate of conversion will be of the utmost importance. Creating quality content and supplying effective markup should prove some what instrumental in converting your site’s visitors into paying clients.

In conclusion of SEO strategy nine: Three items remain of crucial importance when assuring SEO success—those being

1. Relevance of content as to site theme;

2. Content as to the site’s particular “niche” providing your reader with an Authoritative “voice”;

3. And last, providing markup with proper keywords as well as content that is keyword rich with a site that provides its users navigational ease with the objective being to more easily convert visitors into members, buyers or continuing prospects and/or visitors.

In summation, the three critical factors are: Relevance, Authority, and Conversion: all instrumental as to your SEO success.

And in conclusions of this chapter, the following SEO tactics have been suggested—briefly they are:

1. Provide your site with keyword rich quality content;

2. Use keywords to attain higher search engine rankings;

3. Design your site according to proper SEO standards and procedures including insertion of keywords into Meta tags; creating web pages that are easy to navigate and access including sitemaps for even greater navigational ease;

4. Focus the main portion of your SEO efforts in pleasing the main search provider Google:

5. Attain back links from other relevant high quality sites;

6. Use article marketing as a means of receiving traffic to your website;

7. Use traffic hubs within your site;

8. Use WordPress blog software on your site;

9. Make use of social bookmark and news media sites in order to increase the volume of traffic to your site; and,

10. Devise an organized SEO plan, assuring your site lends an authoritative voice as to the subject-matter of your site, your content is relevant to your site’s “niche” or theme, and your site is optimized and designed in order that prospects convert to buyers, members or continual and loyal visitors.

Chapter Eight - Basic SEO Strategies for all Beginners

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

This chapter is also another very critical chapter within this book as a common mistake that may be made by many on-line beginners especially relative to SEO theory is expecting too much and too soon.

The best I can provide as to the preceding is do not try experimenting with new variations of keywords or invoking other strategies involving your markup or content until the SEO work you’ve performed has had a chance to “take hold.”

There is no “immediate gratification” involved with SEO success—that is why many webmasters during the interim period employ such techniques as using PPC or paid-per-click advertising. PPC is a technique that provides the webmaster with immediate traffic to his or her website.

As you progress with your practice of SEO you may wish to use such tools as an analytics program in order to chart the performance of your site or sites; however, for the time-being it is best, after initiating visually appealing markup and supplying keyword-rich content to allow for a waiting period of at minimum two months in order to determine how you should manage based upon results.

If you can provide a bit of patience, I believe you’ll find what I’ve already provided to you herein has been the “bulk” of your SEO work. The only other item which you’ll want to use at a later date and as I’ve previously stated is an analytics tool; and thus implementing modifications in response to your site’s performance.

The next chapter delves into tactics and strategies you may wish to employ in order to become more successful as to your total optimization success.

Chapter Seven - Learning Patience as to SEO

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

I believe, in the beginning, you should become familiar with as many situations and terms associated with SEO, historically, and otherwise.

This will put you in the position of appearing to have possessed quite a bit of knowledge over time even if you are just getting started.

One area that “fits the bill” as to “historical technical reference” is the dynamic URL. The dynamic URL was a trend during 2005. Things have changed and today the search engine robots do not view the dynamic URL as favorable.

We will briefly touch upon this subject as it isn’t anything you need to absorb right away; however, you may want to reference it at a later stage.

In developing your website, of course it is crucially important you be highly organized.

We may begin this discussion by again referencing “travel planning”: the topic which was included within our code in previous chapters.

Let’s envision that we would like to address travel planning on three levels: personal, business, and vacation. If this was organized in segments our URLs would appear something as follows:

/guides/travel/a-personal-guide-travel-planning

/guides/travel/a-business-guide-travel-planning

/guides/travel/a-vacation-guide-travel-planning

Just so you are aware, a great many sites are constructing URLs in this fashion; therefore, keep in the “back of your mind,” as webmaster that you also learn how to construct these kinds of URLs. In fact, I’ve seen this technique employed on many of the sites wherein I normally submit content.

Sites where this type of URL construction occurs are considered data-base driven. Data-base driven is just another term for dynamic.

In order to set up a URL of this order you’ll need to use MOD-rewrite to generate the URL in a visually appealing manner.

This isn’t something you want to involve yourself at this point; however, a subject you may wish to explore as your career progresses and at a (much) later date.

Keep it on your “To Do” list for future exploration.

Chapter Six - How to Steer Clear of the Dynamic URL

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

We are going to approach this chapter as to what you should not do or avoid when practicing true SEO procedures.

Be aware that the entire objective of SEO is to make your site easy to find by the search engines and the end-user.

We will broach upon areas to avoid pertinent to the design of your site as well as how you compose your markup.

The first rule significant to your design is to avoid using a Splash Page.

Not only are splash pages bad as to the optimizing of your site, they are no longer very popular.

If you are in the beginning stages of site design then certainly do not use them. A Splash Page is totally lacking in keyword content and therefore is not a strong preference of the search engines.

Also, to more astute visitors to your site, they will appear dated as they are not generally used and have not been used for quite some time.

The second rule significant to site design is how you reference your CSS and JavaScript.

The best advice is to reference this type of code on an external level.

Your site’s visitors will not be able to see this portion of your site; however, the search engines will be able to “view” it.

Depending on your level of experience you may reference your CSS or JavaScript within a separate file.

If you prefer not to reference the code within another or separate file, the following code may be produced in order to comment on either CSS or Java Coding:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

<!- -

. . .

// - ->

</script>

<style type=”text/css”>

<!- -

. . .

// - ->

</style>

The third design rule and one you must strictly adhere is “do not try tricking the robotic search engines.”

For those of you who are unfamiliar as to how some webmasters try pulling this off, here is how it is done:

Generally such (web) masters of deceit will try placing key phrases within the hidden portion of his or her source code. This may include over-stuffing keywords into the title and alt tags or attributes.

Additionally, he or she may overwhelm the <Meta> tag portion of their code with keywords.

The robots are built to recognize such excesses as everything is worked out as to the evaluation of your keywords in the ranking of your site on a very mathematical level.

Following is a very simple description in how a search engine robot will evaluate your site in order to determine ranking:

1. When the robot initially visits your site it will evaluate all of your code and content. Their view is “text” only. Once they have appraised the entirety of your content, the content is placed inside of what is termed as a “tag cloud.”
2. Next, keywords found within elements possessing more weight with the search engines are included in the assessment. In example, as you may recall in Chapter Four regarding the subject of “visually appealing markup,” I alluded to the importance of placing keywords within the hidden elements of your code. The primary attributes included the heading tags such as <h1>, <h2> and other tags: <strong>, <b>, <em> and <i>. Should the robots find keywords within this portion of your site, in theory you should be able to attain a more significant ranking with Google and other major search providers.
3. Next the search engine robots look at the relevancy of the keywords as to the theme of your site. This is a strong reason why conducting proper keyword research is important as we’ve already illustrated in Chapter Two.
4. Last, as far as a simple description, keyword density relative to content is checked. Here again, as conveyed to you within a previous chapter, you do not want to overstuff your content with keywords; therefore, keyword density requirements must be followed to the letter.

There is a good deal more involved in the process; however, the above description provides you with some idea how the search engines process your site’s content and code relative to the keywords you provide.

The fourth rule as to the design of your site is to use text as opposed to graphics.

This rule isn’t implying you avoid pictorials, it merely means you should not make the title portion of your site or any of the attributes associated with navigation images.

In order to “please” the search engines it is best to use text. Additionally, browsers that are text based are generally better for the end-user. This is due to the fact that there are some individuals still using Internet providers supplying connections that are not high speed.

The best way to use text and still incorporate a graphic while practicing SEO is to place your text within a heading tag and provide an image using CSS.

The fifth rule you’ll need to employ in order to rank better with the search engines is to use sitemaps.

Although, this isn’t an area of avoidance as to the design of your site or in how you produce code, it certainly is worth mentioning as it will make you much more viable within the rankings of the search engines.

In fact, this is one area many webmasters admittedly fail to include when putting together their site but one you should never ignore.

Following are four sitemaps you may wish to include on your site and how they may be helpful to you:

The first site map is HTML. This map of your site is constructed for visitors.

Additionally, it is also possible to use an RSS or XML sitemap as long as you apply a style sheet to it. You will need to incorporate the style sheet to either one of these sitemap choices in order that your visitor may read it.

The XML choice is used in coordination with Google; and the former sitemap (RSS) is used in conjunction with Yahoo! Site Explorer. TXT is the former sitemap used for Yahoo!

Additionally, it is also possible to submit RSS and XML feeds to the Microsoft search engines if you wish to do so. Keep in mind there are a great many social sites that allow you to submit feeds.

If this seems a bit overwhelming, you may “opt” to create all the sitemaps I mentioned simultaneously. All that is needed is to download the tool: phpSitemapNG. After download is complete, the sitemap tool is installed upon your website. Thereafter you may create all four sitemaps mentioned above.

If you are unclear as to what precisely is a sitemap I suggest you visit several sites and look for the area “labeled” sitemap. Generally, I find this link at the bottom of the site’s page. You’ll discover I believe that the sitemap makes the site more navigationally friendly which greatly assists in your ranking with the search engines.

In conclusion of this chapter, you’ve been able to learn a bit in relation to the following topics:

1. Avoid Splash Pages. They are not advisable when it comes to proper optimization of your site. This is due to their high level graphic nature as well as their lack of text. Plus, individuals designing new sites nowadays no longer use them.
2. It’s advisable you reference any CSS or JavaScript on an external basis or within a separate file. The robotic search engines will, thus, view your site more favorably.
3. Do not get smart and try “tricking” the search engines. The robotics designed within the search engines are intelligent enough to recognize “deceiving” practices such as over-stuffing of keywords and keyword phrases inside the hidden portion of your source code and will not view it to your advantage.
4. Use text within the title portion and navigational elements of your site as opposed to graphics. This will prove more beneficial to you as to higher rankings within the search engines.
5. Create a sitemap or maps to appear more navigationally friendly to the search engines. An easy way to construct four sitemaps at one time, particularly if you are a novice, is to download and install the following “helpful” tool onto your website. phpSitemapNG. Once you download this tool you’ll be able to create the following sitemaps: XML, RSS, TXT, and HTML.

Chapter Five - How to Make Fast Friends with the Search Engines

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

You need to understand that part of good SEO practice is composing markup that provides visual appeal relative to the search engines as well as visitors to your site.

The following tags are listed as to priority given by the search engines:

1.    <h1> . . . <h6>

2.    <strong>, <b>

3.    <em>, <i>

You will want to assure you highlight your primary keyword(s) or keyword phrases in at least two of the three tags I’ve referenced above.

Also, be aware the search engines will place greater emphasis as to these tags and the insertion of your keywords therein, than in any other area of your site.

It is vitally important you place your keywords inside your heading tags as the search engines will most definitely look at this area.

The second area where it becomes imperative you insert your keywords is the area known as the “hidden markup area.”  In order to clarify further, the “hidden markup area” is the area of your site’s source code that your visitors do not see.  The only way visitors to your site would ever see this portion of your site is if he or she were actually looking at your code; which is highly unlikely.

The tags where you will want to make sure you place keywords relative to SEO standards are as follows:

1.    Alt <tag>;

2.    Title <tag>;

Also included with the above tags would be the attributes of <img> and <a> tags.

Following is an example:

<img src=”/img/planning/itinerary. jpg alt=”Vacation Planning Itinerary”/>
<a href=”a-beginning-guide-vacation-planning/”
Title=”A Beginning Guide:  Vacation Planning”> vacation planning guide </a>

As you can see from the above illustration keywords originally derived from the example used in chapter two and relative to travel planning are found within the title tag as well as the alt tag.

Notice also that keywords are also included within the text for the link which differs from our title.

Additionally, once all of this slowly starts to “sink in” for some of the more novice level readers, you may wish to take the following tip into consideration for future reference:

If you are producing code as to an external website and wish that Google not rank it assure you apply the element of REL and also the target attribute.  The latter of course would depend on your Doc Type.

Following is the code if you wish Google not to place any additional consideration as to an external link’s rank:

<a href=http://www.google.com
Title=”Google.com” rel=”nofollow” target=_blank”>
Google</a>

This code is not essential if you wish Google to give the external link weight as to the rankings.

All in all this chapter covered two essential areas as to markup.

As a side note:  If you are experiencing any anxiety as to this instruction, I highly advise you to visit your local library and read the first few chapters of a book devoted to HTML code.

You will discover the more you analyze such code the easier it becomes to understand as it is sequentially logical in nature.

I digress slightly.

Reviewing the areas covered within this chapter and relative to visually appealing
markup we have touched upon the following:

1.    We reviewed the importance of certain tags and the inclusion of keywords within at least two of the three following tags:  <h1> . . . <h6>, <strong>, <b>, <em>, and <i>.  It is especially important to place your keywords and keyword phrases inside your heading tags.  Also you should place keywords within at least one other tag besides a heading tag.

2.    The second important area where you need to place keywords is within the “hidden markup” of your source code.  Tags wherein keywords should be inserted include the following:  The title tag, and the alt tag.  Other areas you may wish to place keywords are within your <img> and <a> tags.  At minimum level, your keywords need to be placed within the title and alt tags.

3.    I apprised you of a coding tip wherein you may not wish Google to rank an external link or linkage going to another site.  Do not develop “test anxiety” as to this advice:  Just keep it in the back of your mind, once all of this starts making a great deal more sense.  Additionally, relative to your experience with HTML, I recommended you find a book on HTML at the local library and read several chapters.  I would suggest you acquire a good grasp for the basics of HTML coding.

4.    Lastly we reviewed the structural format in accordance with the code.  I believe you will easily discover the structural integrity is quite sound and makes a good deal of logical sense.  Thus, if you are not familiar with it already, it will eventually be relatively easy to understand and apply.

Chapter Four - Producing Markup that is visually appealing to your Site’s Visitors and the Search Engines

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks

It cannot be stated enough. When you are performing any on-line activity, it is extremely crucial you understand the significance of content.

Content is also a key ingredient relative to SEO strategy and procedure.

Ever since I have been on the Internet, which I must admit is sometime now, I have heard it proclaimed again and again: “Content is King.” This simply means continual writing or composition of content is vitally important to the “financial health” and/or rankings with the search engines.

Once you have completed your keyword research and placed your primary keyword terms within your code, you will need to additionally add your keywords to your content.

If you are strictly a web designer, this concept at first may be difficult for you to absorb. This is due to the fact that as a web designer you’ve been instructed to place emphasis on the design of the site. Therefore, it’s understandable how you may not place this on your top priority list; however, fresh content still needs to be included on your site and on a “continual” basis.

In other e-Books I’ve written, I’ve suggested if lack of time was a factor in producing content, the web designer may employ a content writer familiar with SEO. This may be necessary as I’ve indicated prior within the text of this chapter, “content is king” on the “net.”

Once again, you will need to “lace” your keywords within the content of your article. You don’t want to overstuff your article with keywords or undermine your efforts by not placing them in your content enough.

The advice I’ve always been given is just to write on a natural level about your topic and your keywords should generally show up within the article’s content the right amount of times. Also be cognizant as to your keywords when composing your content.

A good way to check and see if you’ve inserted primary keywords enough times ifs by way of keyword density.

In example, if you have a five hundred word article and your keyword density requirement is one to two percent this tells me at minimum you need to insert your keyword five times within the body of the article and at maximum ten times.

I recently wrote some articles where the client sought this amount of keyword density. In regard to this requirement, keywords were placed in the title, and two sub-headings as well as at least two more times within the body of the content.

The articles were required to be 400 to 500 words in length; thus, since the keywords was inserted at least five times within each article, the keyword density requirement of one to two percent was met.

In example, using a five hundred word maximum with a one-percent minimum keyword density requirement the simple equation is as follows:

500 words x .01 = five insertions.

The next chapter covers creating markup that is visually appealing. Once again, you are provided more information on using tags in conjunction with your keywords.

It is vitally important you understand tags as well as composing quality copy in relation to your keywords if you wish to be successful with SEO practice and procedure.

Chapter Three - Understanding the Importance of Content

From: Search Engine Optimization for Internet Beginners By Mike Crooks