Programme on Governance in the Arab Region. Amnesty International. The Fund for Global Human Rights. Human Rights Education Association. http://www.arablaws.org/article WASHINGTON – The White House is celebrating Christmas with recycled ornaments, natural materials and, of course, a gingerbread White House. The 390-pound work of culinary art is covered in white chocolate and has a marzipan replica of family dog, Bo. "Reflect, Rejoice, Renew" is the theme for the Obama family's first Christmas in the White House. Previewing the holiday decorations Wednesday, first lady Michelle Obama said the theme was chosen because her family spends the holidays reflecting on its blessings, rejoicing in the company of friends and family, and renewing their commitments to each other and causes they believe in. "I wanted to continue that part of the tradition during our first holiday season at the White House," she said at an event where she also thanked more than 90 volunteers from 24 states who since last weekend logged some 3,400 hours transforming the mansion into a Christmas wonderland. "And this year has been filled with an infinite number of blessings for me and my family," the first lady said. Inspiration for the decorations came from the house itself, with Mrs. Obama choosing traditional decorations to reflect the architecture and color scheme of each room of the Georgian-style mansion. Natural materials such as magnolia, hydrangea, honeysuckle vine and pepper berries decorate trees and wreaths in rooms on the State Floor, along with dried root materials from her vegetable garden on the South Lawn. The centerpiece of it all is in the Blue Room: an 18 1/2-by-13-foot Douglas fir that was delivered last Friday and is lit with environmentally sound LED lights, decorated with huge gold ribbons and bows and more than 650 ornaments from prior administrations, and is tied to the ceiling. The ornaments were sent to local community groups around the country with instructions to decorate them in tribute to a favorite local landmark and return them to the White House. Landmarks honored range from the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore to the Kennedy Space Center and, one of her favorites, the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, the Obama family's hometown. Two 15-foot Fraser fir trees were placed on either side of the main doorway into the Blue Room, and decorated with reflective shimmering glass balls, claret colored beaded glass branches, red bows, gold pine cones and other trimmings. Another highly anticipated part of Christmas at the White House is the gingerbread replica. It took six weeks for executive pastry chef Bill Yosses and his staff to create the 390-pound, 56-by-29-inch white chocolate-covered gingerbread White House, as seen from the South Portico, with green royal icing wreaths adorning its windows. Two new additions to the gingerbread house this year are Mrs. Obama's garden, complete with marzipan vegetables, and a cutout that gives viewers a look inside the gingerbread State Dining Room, with a lit chandelier and furniture made of dark chocolate. More than 50,000 people are expected to attend a total of 28 holiday parties and open houses the White House has scheduled this month. The first such event came Tuesday night in the East Room, honoring the volunteer decorators. "I heard you all partying last night," Mrs. Obama told about a dozen volunteers who attended the preview. "You had a great time." The first lady, festively dressed for the occasion in a bright green, sleeveless dress also announced that White House staffers will collect toys for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve's annual "Toys for Tots" drive. She also announced the launch of the United We Serve "Feed a Neighbor" initiative, a government effort to help communities fight hunger, which has reached its highest levels in nearly 15 years. Visitors to the Web site http://serve.gov can find volunteer opportunities, such as delivering meals to homebound seniors, offering their professional skills at a food pantry or planting a community garden and sharing the produce with neighbors. Mrs. Obama said the Toys for Tots program distributed more than 16.2 million toys to 7.6 million children last year. She said she would personally deliver toys collected at the White House to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., later this month. ___ On the Net: Marine Corps Toys for Tots: http://www.toysfortots.org United We Serve: http://serve.gov http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/White_House_Xmas_theme_Reflect_rejoice_renew.htm 3rd Dec,2009 Link popularity simply means the number of links you have from other web sites. The link from other web page is also known as inbound link or backlinks. Generally, you will get links from other sites when they find your content interesting and of value to their visitors. Over time, the number of links grow will grow as more webmasters get to know about your website. The more external links you have, the higher is your link popularity. This is one of the most important factors in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Beside the number of backlinks, the quality and the relevance of these incoming links will help to improve your page ranking.You can also solicit for links and you may have to link to others before asking for reciprocal link. Be careful with who you link to. Make sure these are sites relevant to the overall theme of your Web site. Build you link partners slowly - the search engines expect the number of backlinks to grow slowly. Using artificial means to increase your link popularity may even get your web site blacklisted. Tips on Getting Inbound Link 1. Use your keywords in the text link. For example, Guide to SEO CopywritingOffers tips of web page copywriting for both human visitors and search engine spiders. 2. Have a variation of text links. Using the example above, you can change the text to "SEO Copywriting Guide". This is to ensure that you have keywords variation for the incoming links so that they appear "natural" to the search engines. 3. Make sure you are NOT getting link from a page that has been banned by Google and/or Yahoo. To avoid being in the bad neighbourhood, use Google toolbar to check the PR rating of the web page. If the PR rating is grey out or zero, do not reciprocate the link. 4. Contribute articles. Allow others to use you articles for publication on their websites and make sure you include a resource box with link to your website. You can hire writers at Elance and Rentacoder to have the articles written professionally. window.google_render_ad(); http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/szzx4y488s.htm 19th Nov,2008 Keyword density is a measure of how many times your targeted keyword or keyphrase is being used in the content of your web page. By repeating your important keyword, your increase the prominence of those words to the search engines. This will help the search engines to identify your target keyword and rank the web page accordingly. However, there is a penalty if you keyword stuff or use the same keyword too many times in an unnatural way. Repeating identical keywords or phrases for more than 3 times in the body of the the page may actually damage than good as far as the search engine algorithm is concerned. Instead, use words with similar meaning - just like when you write naturally. Search engines are smart enough to recognise words with similar meaning and variations such as man, men, male, boy, boys, masculine and etc. In each page, focus on one or two keywords but not more than three keywords so that it is apparent to the search engine what your page is about. Keyword Positioning As much as possible, use the keyword or keyphrase in the heading of the page, in the first sentence of the first paragraph and near the bottom of the page. As a rule of thumb, your most important keywords - the exact phrase should not be repeated for more than 2% of the total word count. If you have a 500 words page, keep the keywords count to less than 10 times. window.google_render_ad(); http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/l0960k4r8q.htm 19th Nov,2008 Search engines generally list web pages that contain relevant textual content. So write more text content and avoid excessive graphics. And search engines love unique content. The text on your web page must contain your targeted keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your web site. You can write your own content or hire a writer to create the content. If you copy content already found on the internet, the search engines can tell and your web page will be penalized for duplicated content. How much to Write Aim to have between 250 to 500 words on each page, but if this is not possible due to your web page layout and design then write at least 50 carefully chosen words. Use short sentences and as many paragraph as possible. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format. window.google_render_ad(); http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/v0ofp3605v.htm 19th Nov,2008 In the early days of the internet, the Keyword Meta Tag was the most important information used by some early search engines to determine relevance hence ranking. However, that was the past. Now, the keyword tag is ignored by most search engines due to the abuse. So it doesn't matter if you use the keyword meta tag or not. However, if you do include, do remember be careful not to repeat any word and include only your most important keywords - those that you actually use in the content.  The meta tag that you should be concerned about is the Meta Description Tag. Here's how the meta tag looks like when you view source: The words in the description will be used by the search algorithm to have a snapshot of your web page. Furthermore, major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN Search results are displaying this description when you used the keywords here. This is important because a well written description will attract the search to click and come to your web site. This small but important detail is often overlooked by most webmasters and web designers. window.google_render_ad(); http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/cx0o90228c.htm 19th Nov,2008 The title tag carries more weight than any other HTML tags as far as on-page SEO is concerned. In HTML source, look for Title Tag: Title of web page consisting keywords near the top of the file. Visually, it appears at the top of the browser window. All the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN Search place emphasis on the words that appear in the title tag. The spiders use these words to determine what the rest of your page is about. The title bar should consist of words that describe your page and should include the most important keywords or phrases.You should check all the title tags of your web pages. Each title bar should be unique and decriptive. I usually use between three to ten words in the title tag to indicate what the page is about. Unique title tag is liken to the numbering of each unit in a building - imagine the confusion when you walking into an apartment block with same number at every unit! Tip when writing your Title Tag Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other. As the text within the title tag will be used in the listing of your Web site in the search engine results, it is important that your title bar sounds interesting enough for searcher to click at it. window.google_render_ad(); http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/p8rjq8anpc.htm 19th Nov,2008  In order for your web page to rank near the top in the search engine results listing, you must to know how to write search engine friendly content. In other words, your web copy has to be search engine optimized(SEO). That's when your can SEO copywriting tips to improve your web page search engine's ranking. However, your writing must be writtern for your human visitors and then optimized to please the search engine robots aka spiders or crawlers. It is this dual-purpose which makes the task of SEO copywriting more difficult than traditional web copywriting. Search Engine Ranking and Targeted Traffic You want to optimize your pages for high search engine rankings so as to attract targeted visitor to your web site. Your objective is to get visitors who are likely to buy a product or subscibe to a service to come so that you can offer them your recommendations. The first thing you must do to be successful in internet business - is to get lots of targeted traffic. Your Web Page in the Eyes of the Search Engine's Spiders You need to understand what you see on this page is very different from what a search engine spider sees. The search engine see that raw form as in HTML - you can see how it looks like by clicking at the View > Source at top of this browser window. More SEO Tips There are a few things in your web page that you must make right before the search engines will even add your web page into their databases. Here's the 4 most important factors that affects your SEO ranking: http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/ns3ucchj2j.htm 19th Nov,2008 SEO Copywriting, or to give it its full name, search engine optimization copywriting or search engine copywriting, is the technique of writing the viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms. As well as the viewable text, SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text. The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called "doorway pages") that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques. Practitioners of the search engine copywriting method recommend around 250 viewable words per page, with one, or at most two, targeted search terms strategically placed within the text and other on-page elements. SEO Copywriting strengths One thing that can be said about search engine optimization copywriting is that works for suitable websites and for suitable search terms (see below). SEO Copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines, although no page can do equally well in all engines. It is sometimes said by practioners of search engine optimization copywriting, that the method tends to maintain its rankings as the engines tweak and change their algorithms, whereas other methods produce less stable rankings. This can't be true. If 2 pages are in the top 10 search results; one getting there by the SEO copywriting method and the other by different search engine optimization techniques, they are both there because they match the engine's criteria (algorithm) quite well. When the criteria is changed, the match that each of them had is necessarily changed. The matches could become closer to, or further from, the engine's criteria. Whether each page goes up or down in the results depends on what changes have been made to the engine's criteria. It is a matter of chance, and not a matter of whether SEO copywriting was used or not. SEO Copywriting weaknesses ·  Competitive search terms The technique only works for search terms that are not particularly competitive. Competitive search terms are those where many people are trying very hard to gain the top rankings for their sites. Casino, sex, insurance, health and hotels sites are among the most competitive, and there are many other topics where people fight for rankings. For medium to highly competitive search terms, other, more vigorous, methods are needed. ·  Suitable sites Not all websites are suitable for SEO Copywriting. Many simply don't have sufficient text on their pages, and adding text would spoil the design or nature of the sites. Also, some sites that do have sufficient text sometimes don't want to be forced into changing what is written on the pages, just for the sake of the search engines. ·  Cost, and the limitation of targeted search terms SEO Copywriting is a time-consuming process, and professional SEO copywriters are not cheap, therefore the cost of each page is significant. Since each page can target only one or two search terms, it would usually require a good number of pages to be made-over in order to target all the required search terms. ·  Tied to a copywriter What happens when a website owner finds it necessary to alter the text on a page that has been worked on by a professional SEO copywriter? It can't be done without either ruining the costly SEO work and, with it, the page's rankings, or re-hiring a professional copywriter to redo the work once the changes have been made. ·  Slipping in the rankings If a page is successfully optimized by SEO Copywriting, and is ranked in the top 10 search results for its targeted search term, then the optimization was worth the cost. But what happens when someone else decides to optimize a page from a different website for the same search term? If their optimization technique is successful, and the page gets into the top 10, the #10 page will slip to #11 - and off the first page of results. Then suppose another website does the same thing...and another...and another. Sooner or later, the successful page will slip from the first page of search results. As soon as people decide to optimize their pages for the chosen search terms, existing top 10 pages are on the way down. Then what? If the sliding pages were professionally SEO copywritten, there is nothing else that the technique can do for them, or if it can, the whole costly copywriting process must be redone. Adding one or two instances of the target search terms isn't merely a case of typing them in somewhere, because the final text still needs to read well for the site visitors. Again, the website owner is tied to a copywriter. Summary SEO Copywriting is good when:- there are not many search terms to target the search terms are on the low to middle end of competitiveness money isn't a problem, or if it is your own website you don't mind the text on your pages being frozen (if money does matter) Otherwise, 'search engine friendly' techniques should always be done as a first measure, and real search engine optimization should be done for the search terms for which 'search engine friendly' techniques are unsuccessful. NOTE: Competitive search terms are not necessarily those where millions of results are returned. They are those where people are competing hard for the top positions. There's a big difference. Copywriting Tutorial This article is about SEO copywriting and not about copywriting in general. Copywriting is a specialized field, which has the ability to make a website successful - or not. Those of us without that skill can flounder along or we can enlist the help of one of the best in the business. This copywriting tutorial is the best that I've found on the web, and I thoroughly recommend reading it. SEO copywriting and normal copywriting don't always mix very well, but it is worth taking the time to integrate them as far as is possible. After all, SEO copywriting will help to bring people from the search engines to the website but, if the website fails to sell itself or its products to those people, there isn't much point in them coming. http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/z546l9fc2r.htm 19th Nov,2008 SEO Copywriting, or to give it its full name, search engine optimization copywriting or search engine copywriting, is the technique of writing the viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly in the search engines for the targeted search terms. As well as the viewable text, SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text. The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called "doorway pages") that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques. Practitioners of the search engine copywriting method recommend around 250 viewable words per page, with one, or at most two, targeted search terms strategically placed within the text and other on-page elements. SEO Copywriting strengthsOne thing that can be said about search engine optimization copywriting is that works for suitable websites and for suitable search terms (see below). SEO Copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines, although no page can do equally well in all engines. It is sometimes said by practioners of search engine optimization copywriting, that the method tends to maintain its rankings as the engines tweak and change their algorithms, whereas other methods produce less stable rankings. This can't be true. If 2 pages are in the top 10 search results; one getting there by the SEO copywriting method and the other by different search engine optimization techniques, they are both there because they match the engine's criteria (algorithm) quite well. When the criteria is changed, the match that each of them had is necessarily changed. The matches could become closer to, or further from, the engine's criteria. Whether each page goes up or down in the results depends on what changes have been made to the engine's criteria. It is a matter of chance, and not a matter of whether SEO copywriting was used or not. SEO Copywriting weaknesses Competitive search terms The technique only works for search terms that are not particularly competitive. Competitive search terms are those where many people are trying very hard to gain the top rankings for their sites. Casino, sex, insurance, health and hotels sites are among the most competitive, and there are many other topics where people fight for rankings. For medium to highly competitive search terms, other, more vigorous, methods are needed. Suitable sites Not all websites are suitable for SEO Copywriting. Many simply don't have sufficient text on their pages, and adding text would spoil the design or nature of the sites. Also, some sites that do have sufficient text sometimes don't want to be forced into changing what is written on the pages, just for the sake of the search engines. Cost, and the limitation of targeted search terms SEO Copywriting is a time-consuming process, and professional SEO copywriters are not cheap, therefore the cost of each page is significant. Since each page can target only one or two search terms, it would usually require a good number of pages to be made-over in order to target all the required search terms. Tied to a copywriter What happens when a website owner finds it necessary to alter the text on a page that has been worked on by a professional SEO copywriter? It can't be done without either ruining the costly SEO work and, with it, the page's rankings, or re-hiring a professional copywriter to redo the work once the changes have been made. Slipping in the rankings If a page is successfully optimized by SEO Copywriting, and is ranked in the top 10 search results for its targeted search term, then the optimization was worth the cost. But what happens when someone else decides to optimize a page from a different website for the same search term? If their optimization technique is successful, and the page gets into the top 10, the #10 page will slip to #11 - and off the first page of results. Then suppose another website does the same thing...and another...and another. Sooner or later, the successful page will slip from the first page of search results. As soon as people decide to optimize their pages for the chosen search terms, existing top 10 pages are on the way down. Then what? If the sliding pages were professionally SEO copywritten, there is nothing else that the technique can do for them, or if it can, the whole costly copywriting process must be redone. Adding one or two instances of the target search terms isn't merely a case of typing them in somewhere, because the final text still needs to read well for the site visitors. Again, the website owner is tied to a copywriter. SummarySEO Copywriting is good when:- there are not many search terms to target the search terms are on the low to middle end of competitiveness money isn't a problem, or if it is your own website you don't mind the text on your pages being frozen (if money does matter) Otherwise, 'search engine friendly' techniques should always be done as a first measure, and real search engine optimization should be done for the search terms for which 'search engine friendly' techniques are unsuccessful. NOTE: Competitive search terms are not necessarily those where millions of results are returned. They are those where people are competing hard for the top positions. There's a big difference. http://www.arablaws.org/article/Article/SEO_Copywriting.htm 27th Sep,2008