Talks of standard procedures in search engine optimization has been going around the Internet lately. Many SEO experts have their opinions and own ideas that standardizing SEO will probably continue to be a arguable topic among search engine marketers and SEO specialists. Standard SEO is, after all, a rather complicated subject in the field where white, gray, and black hat techniques exist.

Here’s an interesting debate among some SEO experts on why we need SEO standards or not:

Jill Whalen of Search Engine Land takes the lead in discussing why SEO standards are not needed. She enumerated four reasons for her stand, all pointing to the conclusion that search engine optimization is flexible to one’s business and marketing needs, thus no standard can be ultimately decided on.

Other SEO experts disagreed. Lisa Barone of Bruce Clay, Inc. specifically addressed Jill Whalen’s concerns on not needing SEO standards. Lisa Barone has expressed her view that SEO standards are needed to rope in all internet marketers on proper SEO techniques and concentrates on educating everyone on the developments of SEO.

This debate is showing no sign of an end, at least not for now. SEO is still in a young age where internet marketers are still building on and developing techniques. People are still tinkering on the internet to see what gets a high ranking and what can boost sales. There is the opinion that there is still a long way to go before SEO is clearly defined and SEO experts can finally draw a clear line around standard SEO.

If your website does not rank high, here’s what you can do to improve search engine rankings, engage visitors and convert more sales.

1. Align the site with your objectives

Have your business objectives and goals changed since you launched your website? If so, then you need to revisit your website’s content to ensure it supports your current business needs.

2. Remove useless items

Every item on your website competes for your visitors’ attention, reducing the impact of your key message. Is that welcome message necessary? Are some of those buttons redundant? Scrutinize every element to help deliver a strong message and eliminate distractions.

3. Update your information

Keep time-sensitive information on your website up to date. If you don’t have adequate resources, keep time-sensitive information to a minimum.

4. Edit your web copy for consistency

Businesses often have different people adding web copy at different times, which leads to inconsistencies. Review your copy from start to finish with a keen eye on spelling, format, style, narration, tense, flow and so on.

5. Split text blocks into scannable chunks

Massive blocks of text discourage visitors from exploring your website. Break up web copy with relevant headlines, subheads, bullet points and short, one-topic paragraphs. Your visitors will thank you by spending more time on your site.

6. Review fonts

Check your fonts to ensure consistent size, style and spacing. Consider using a style sheet. Fonts optimal for the Web include Arial, Courier, Georgia, Time New Roman and Verdana.

7. Add new web copy

Add relevant web copy frequently to satisfy visitors and search engines alike. Improve search engine rankings and give your visitors a reason to keep coming back.

8. Refresh your graphics

Renew your image with new graphics, charts and photos. Many are royalty free. Type in terms like “clip art,” “graphics,” and “free photos” into your favorite search engine and you’re on your way.

9. Make your graphics search engine friendly

Give your images tags with keywords to help improve search engine rankings.

10. Consider your color theme

Go over your colors to ensure they are a part of or at least complement your logo and brand. Dump backgrounds that make it difficult to read web copy.

11. Extinguish flashing content

Flashing content irritates visitors and turns them away. It’s one step away from announcing, “Congratulations! You’re the 1,000,000th visitor! Click here to claim prize!” If you want it to make a point, do so with compelling web copy, placement, font size or color.

12. Speed it up

Your pages should load fast. Don’t make your visitors wait 30 seconds or so just to watch your logo spin around. How many times have you retreated from a site while waiting for its intro to load? Relevant web copy is much more likely to grab the attention of a potential client.

13. Re-evaluate PDFs

Are you guilty of throwing PDFs onto your website to save time? PDFs are designed for print, not the Web. Unless it’s an e-book or a form, offer the information as a webpage and give your visitor the option of viewing it as a PDF.

14. Leave music to the DJs

Don’t blast music at your visitors. It slows access to your site and can cheapen your presentation. If music is required, hand over the controls to your visitor by making it optional.

15. Repair or delete broken links

Check all your links and be quick to repair or delete any that bring your visitors to the ‘404 file not found’ message. If a section is under construction, take it offline.

Looks like Google Docs have another use! We can create live polls and quizzes with Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Live polls and quizzes can be used by online businesses to encourage more response and interaction from the online community. In this video, Chris Pirillo guides us in using Google Docs and Spreadsheets to create live polls and quizzes.

In this video, you will learn how to get your website indexed in Google in 48 hrs.

Social Network Marketing are definitely in and fun. With the whole online community accessible in the social networks, it is only expected that internet marketers want to use the social networks as their medium to tapping into potential customers and subscribers. But unlike the users, internet marketers have to follow 7 rules to effectively market themselves in the social networks.

Like any other advertising strategy, advertising with banner ads isn’t always the best path in promoting your online products and services. There are considerations that need to be taken into account for this.

For one thing, you need to prioritize your goal in advertising online. Most obviously, the goal would be to generate leads that could turn to sales and conversions, and get a return. But that would generally be the long-term objective of advertising. With banner ads, you have to be more specific in your goals. For example, your goal in advertising with banner ads stems to branding. With branding purposes, you need to customize your banner ads in a way that the goal of branding is accomplished, like designing it in a certain way with the company’s logo very visible.

Finance and money is also a concern in banner advertising. Is using the banners going to be effective for you to make sales and profit? Remember that online banner ads has been under fire for some time because of its low response rate from customers. In general, banner ads aren’t a good way to generate sales leads. But provided you have a very confident marketing campaign using the banner ads, the ads would surely give a most profitable return.

Money and return flows differently with branding as your goal. In branding, your only purpose in using the banner ads is to expose and make known your brand, recognize your logo, and realize your company message. In banner advertising branding, it is not necessary for the user to click on your logo or ad. With branding, a user can become a sales lead by becoming acquainted with your brand and opting to make business with you.

No matter the goal of using banner ads, it cannot be dismissed that there is still a critical aspect to designing and messaging the banner ads properly. The design and message is important, both to entice your customers to click it and to catch the users attention and introduce him or her to your business. Factors like colors, images, environment, and location of the ad is important in advertising with banner ads.

Autoresponders are a great way to build an email list and generate free traffic from a subscriber base. Learn about autoresponders how it is important to create traffic to your site.

Learn about some methodologies on how to expose your business online through internet marketing and this explains about search engine optimization making your website on top of search engines through best contents, keywords, links and other marketing strategies.

Learn about a powerful way for businesses to get themselves on Google. Sage discussed the process of getting your business listed.

In this video, learn about the benefits of online social networks discussed by the Co-founders of social networking sites Jaiku, Twitter and Dopplr.