Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts

04 November, 2009

With the increasing global competition nowadays, organizations are now aiming at optimizing their websites in order to create their own customer platform. In some cases organizations out source this work for their convenience. Whether you out source or carry out the optimization yourself, it has its benefits and drawbacks as do all methods. If you optimize on your own it’s cost-effective and helps gain insight. Also, it helps you manage your website the way you desire.

01 November, 2009

SEO consulting is a good option if you are not fully confident about looking for a part of the SEO service like forum posting or article writing. It is a safer choice that can provide you with a lot better insight into the kind of actions you could take to best promote your website or online store. Search Engine Optimization consulting will make sure that you are getting good SEO advice from an SEO expert who has the relevant experience in the SEO field and known the ins and outs of how search engines work. It is a good idea to learn from these SEO professionals at least for the first website you are promoting.

22 October, 2009

Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn't relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.

18 October, 2009

Within this article today, we will look at SEO copywriting services from a couple of different perspectives. Within the first half of this article, we'll help you look at good SEO copywriting services and we will use the second half of this article to show you how to develop good SEO copywriting services.

18 August, 2009

More and more people these days are using websites as a way to help pay their bills. Some people are even using them as their sole source of income! Creating a thriving, successful website isn’t easy and it takes a lot of hard work. One of the keys in making a website successful is to know how to execute SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization” properly.

What is search engine optimization? Simply put, it’s basically the process of increasing and improving the quality and volume of traffic to a specific web page. When someone types a specific search term into a search engine, that search engine begins scanning its internal database, looking for that specific phrase, or “keyword.” Then the search engine returns reference to the web pages that best match the search terms. The higher up in the search results a web page is, the more likely it is to improve its traffic flow.

Search engine optimization is a strategy web designers and SEO specialist use to ensure a web page is one of the first web pages returned on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). SEO really becomes important when the competition for a given product or service is high. You may have the best thing going for consumers but if your search engine placement is low your traffic will suffer. So to give a web page an edge, people employ SEO tactics to place keywords within the content of their pages to improve their chances of getting traffic.

Here are some great guidelines to follow when deciding to implement SEO.

- First choose your keywords or key phrases carefully, keeping in mind that you should select only one, two or three at most for each page you decide to optimize. The keywords/phrase must be relevant to the page and must be terms that people will use to search for your product or service.

- SEO is done on a page by page basis. Each and every page of a website can be optimized but you should concentrate on 1 – 3 pages of your site (more if the site is large). No need to do SEO for an About Us or Contact Us type page.

- If possible select a URL for your site that contains the main keyword/phrase for the Home page of the site. It is difficult to find the perfect URL these days so consider being creative by using dashes (-) in the URL. I.E. ( my-site-is-the-best.com)

- Make full use of Meta Tags. There are three important Meta Tags (Keywords, Description and Title). Search engines use the information defined in these tags to help determine what the page is about. Place the most important keyword/phrase as close to the front of the Meta Tag definition as possible. Keep keywords/phrase to a minimum, using too many keywords will dilute the value.

- Use the keywords/phrases within the content of the page. When you place text on the page, be sure to use the main keyword/phrase often but without excess. Overuse of the keyword/phrase can be deemed spammy by the search engines and make the page hard to read by the visitor.

- Use the keyword/phrase in main headers, Alt Tags of images or graphics on the page and if possible as anchor text links from other pages within the site.

- Something called semantically related words and or synonyms to the keywords can be extremely effective to SERP. For instance, if your main key phrase is “wooden chairs”, words like stool or bench or seat will give additional value to the main keyword/phrase and will aid in boosting your SERP. A very good tool to assist you with the selection of semantically related words can be found at http://labs.google.com/sets. Once you find additional related words use those in the content often but again without excess. Strive to keep the written content on the page natural sounding.

SEO is an extremely powerful technique used for the sole purpose of getting available traffic for a given keyword/phrase to a web page. By careful selection of keywords/phrase and using those words appropriately on a web page, additional free traffic can be obtained. SEO does not guarantee sales success, once a visitor makes it to the website it becomes the responsibility of the site content (text, graphics, layout, etc) to make a sale or conversion. (Woody Longacre)

01 August, 2009

Blogging if used properly in line with primary principles of SEO can be a great method to drive search traffic to your website. Each service you release on your blog can be a keyword rich page ready and waiting to be positioned at the top of Google for the keywords the blog article targets.

To ensure that you are on the correct path, begin writing. You should carry out the following 4 principles; this will assure that you get the most Search Engine keyword exposure.

First and foremost decide what to publish. Are you going to take pictures or videos? Will you publish a message based on theory or will it cover the actual proof or testing? Are you going to make it easy hearted or is it going to contain serious selective and statistical information? Regardless, think of how to structure it and build it magnetic for online linkerati. Links are essential for high Google ranking and SEO, for this reason, your article must be worthy of reference.

OK now you’ve had time to consider the ideas mentioned above, it is time to do a brief keyword search, after all, there’s little point in placing keywords that aren’t searched for. A great tool to utilize is Google keyword tool for this type of search, only enter a set phrase that’s relevant to what your blogging about. Examine the results and think back, the idea isn’t to focus on high density words, but the long tail low traffic key set of phrases.

When you’ve decided which keywords you want to include in your post, now apply them to your blog text. This offers a great On-Page Optimization pattern. Make certain the keywords are present in your title tag, use the headings in a good way, apply the alt attribute to all the pictures in the post and attempt to bold the keywords in the mail body of text.

A further measure I like to take is to link to your website using keywords as an anchor, not just here sending a few authority back to your website but likewise step-ups the relevancy of the keyword on your website. Adhere to these simple rules; you’ll determine after a few weeks that the search traffic will have doubled. (Roger Glass)

19 July, 2009

First, what are natural links and why have they become so important?

Search engines want to give the users the best possible experience and the most relevant results. In the early SEO days, link building (number of links to your website) was critical to achieving high search rankings. In the future, link building will be just as important, but the way the links are being valued by search engines has evolved.

The new metric for “link value” is based on certain qualitative measures that are becoming more and more critical to long term online business success.

Link Value = [Relevancy + Credibility + Participation + Diversity + Popularity]

Is the site linking to your website?

Relevant – Getting a link from a football ecommerce site for a Pets site is not relevant? Getting a link from the website of a Vet doctor is!

Credible – Getting a link back from a new domain, or a website which offers little or no value, or a website/webpage that just has outbound links or from link farms is of NO value, even if they have decent page rank. Getting links from industry related sites, blogs, local associations or in the communities you participate in (article sites, social sites etc) is considered credible.

Valuing you – Good websites reward users who participate in their community. The more you participate, the better reputation you have and better the link juice passed. Participating in select 10 to 15 article submission sites, and 10 to 15 social bookmarking/ social media sites, and 2 relevant blogs/forums is good. More is not always better.

Diverse – Getting 1000 web directory links is NOT as good as getting diverse 200 links from relevant web directories, article sites, social sites, video submissions sites, blogs, industry related sites, forums, PR sites etc.

Popular – Getting a link from a website that is popular with good traffic is better. This is just common sense. A relevant and popular site = targeted traffic for your site. I am not sure if there is any “link value” worth mention here.

So the number of credible links from relevant and diverse web, user and social communities is one of the important parameters search engines are evaluating while ranking a website/ webpage.

For a moment let’s get back to the title of this blog post “How to Earn Natural Links?”

The operative word in the title is “Earn”. In the new link playground of the future you will have to ‘Earn” the links, and not buy, exchange, barter or trade for them.

While buying, exchanging, bartering for links worked in the past, and your website is not getting penalized for it, sooner or later these links will become obsolete like the dinosaurs. The top search rankings will eventually be dominated by websites that are getting linked-too based on the merit of their content or value they provide.

To earn links you have to create “reference worthy links” by creating content of value that the users will find informative, unique and resourceful. Creating 2 to 3 new blog posts a week, and syndicating and promoting that content across relevant social, web and user communities is a good SEO strategy to build natural links based on merit.

The biggest bonus with creating great content (and making that content visible) is that webmasters around the world like linking to relevant and informative content as it benefits their users. (Nevil Darukhanawala)

05 February, 2009

Finding Traffic

No matter what product you are selling, what program you are marketing, or how you are planning on making your money in the long term, these two methods can easily be used to drum up the traffic and the conversion rates that your website needs to survive.

The first way to find traffic in unlikely places is to contact webmasters of other sites and see if they are interested in sharing links with you. This will help you gain credibility with the search engines and acts as a "free" advertisement. Now, before you go off and ask really well known websites if they will trade links with you, you need to learn a few rules which are mostly common courtesy.

Firstly, do not even bother asking a site that is far more popular than yours to trade links with you. They won't do it, so don't even ask. If you are unsure of whether or not a site is more popular than yours, simply check the Alexa data for all websites or the Technorati data if you are exchanging links with a blog.

Secondly, mind your manners when you are asking to trade links with another webmaster. Think of this as a business deal and act accordingly. Do not use slang in your email to him or her, and use proper etiquette.

Also, explain what you are selling, why you want to exchange links with the webmaster you are corresponding with, and how you think it could benefit both of your sites. A clear and concise letter is often what can help seal the deal in a partnership such as this.

Another great, and mostly unused, way to drive traffic to your site is to offer an affiliate program. Affiliate programs are perfect for those of you with sales, retail, or marketing websites. You should fully take advantage of creating an affiliate program if your business website warrants it.

For those of you who are unaware, an affiliate program is simply a program that you run as a webmaster which allows other websites to link back to products on your website. If a person purchases a product from your website by using an affiliate's link, the affiliate gets a small percentage of the purchase.

This type of program makes you happy because you got the money from the sale. It makes your affiliate happy because he or she got money for doing practically nothing aside from placing a link on his site. And it makes the customers happy because they ended up with the item they wanted.

While these are just two different ways to drive traffic to your business website, there are many more techniques which you should consider using. A quick search on your favorite search engine can turn up countless resources for information for those of you looking to establish your own online business.

Furthermore, it may be in your interest to check out some books relating to online businesses, search engine optimization, and some of the other topics discussed in this article. Good luck with your business.

24 December, 2008

Traffic exchange is a way to expose your site to traffic by visiting others sites. When I started my home based business work one of the strategies I have learned to promote my web site and bring a slightly traffic to my site was traffic exchange.

A traffic exchange is a model of web site on the Internet, which provides a service for webmasters to exchange of traffic. It is equivalent to the auto surf concept with the exception that usually traffic exchanges operate a manual rotation, because if they use auto rotation, then they are actually auto surf. If traffic exchanges mean money, they never promise a certain profit over a certain time but rather truly focus on the advertising, generally structured in a way that income will exceed what they promise to pay out.

Usually, a traffic exchange site receives submissions of web sites. They sign up for traffic exchange networks. The person who submitted the website then has to browse other member sites on the exchange program to earn credits, which allow their sites to be viewed by other members through the surf system. This increases the number of visitors to all the sites involved.

Exchanges generally enforce a 2 to 1 or 4 to 1 credit ratio, a quantity that denotes the proportional amount or magnitude of one quantity relative to another, meaning members earn 0.5 or 0.25 in credit for visiting one member site, and each credit is translated to one page view for them. However, this ratio can often be upgraded to better ratios such as 1 to 1.

In theory, website owners would visit other sites through the exchanges surf system and thus channel more traffic back to their own sites. As the casual watchers are all website owners or businessmen, it is possible that some of them might hopefully find particular member sites interesting and thus make note of them on their own sites, sending more traffic their way.

Almost all traffic exchange programs are free, although many of them offer special features to paid members and offer credits for purchase. It goes to depend on its budget.

Almost all traffic exchange programs actively urge users to build their own referral networks, which would in turn help the referrers accumulate more credits. For example, when a referred member receives credits through browsing, the referrer would get a small portion of the credits earned. It can be a good way to get more traffic.

In practice, traffic exchange programs are largely used by home based business work owners or marketers who either want free advertising or use the exchange programs for low budget advertisement campaigns.

The utility of at least some of these programs is doubtful, as many people simply forget sites once the time limit is up as they are only interested in promoting their own site. Also, a small number of users may simply purchase credits because of their typically low price.

How much traffic you get will depend on how long you spend visiting other sites. It will take time to get some results. On average I found that you could get about 50 visits in return for about a hour surfing.

One used way to successfully use a traffic exchange is setting up a landing page to advertise and specifically to catch the rapt attention of markets. It may bring a better valued response from the visitors, because you have got 30 seconds or less to grab their attention.

At least, I have used Fire Fox to make traffic exchange work. It is easy to use and I have working better to this browser.

22 December, 2008

Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word. Traffic. Every article you will find about making your site or company successful would always include the importance of generating traffic.

So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing to a successful internet based business company. Aside from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your company’s internal organization well taken core of, it would be time to get to the nitty gritty of things, generating traffic.

If you already have a site and you want think that you're not getting the traffic that you're supposed to be getting, then its time to reconsider. If you are contending in these very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.

Timing is essential, that’s an old adage known to everyone. But with generating traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone. Never think of today and tomorrow as a starting point for making your site traffic laden, it should always have been yesterday.

To help you out in generating more traffic for your site, here are some seven surefire ways to increase your traffic starting from yesterday.

1) Invest in good advertising with search engines

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture provide great advertising schemes that are very truly popular and assures great traffic. Although with this surefire way to increase your traffic would cost some money. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so because Adwords and Overture is the top surefire way to increase your traffic.

You could see for yourself the success this search engine advertising methods have reaped rewards for so many companies. Lots of site feature these advertising system and many have signed on to reap the benefits. Do not be left behind. Every penny is worth it with using Google and Yahoo’s advertising.

2) Exchange or Trade Links with other sites

With exchanging links with other sites, both of you will benefit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your sites traffic. When one site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one site generates. The efforts are doubly beneficial because it would seem like both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

3) Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any costs or if ever low costs only. This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky; you can attach your company’s name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an interesting article or a gossip or buzz. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many people.

4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content

Search engines look for certain keywords that they would show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking in high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

5) Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site

Submit articles to sites that would contain the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and car parts. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

6) Join forums and form online communities

Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.

7) Lastly, Offer newsletters.

If many people know what you are about and your existence is shared with many others, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic.

In the mean time, Good Luck on your journey to success…

27 October, 2008

The best role of business online is that of interdependency. We’ve all heard the old saying, “No man is an island.” When it comes to online business this is especially true.

If a business owner who takes their business into the online world determines they will be self reliant and never accept the help of anyone then that individual will not be in business long enough to change their minds.

It is accepted fact that the greatest tool for long-term exposure to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without it potential customers can’t find you. It is unreasonable to expect that you can adequately develop a website without optimizing your website for the best possible search engine ranking.

Search engines also place a high value on sites that have links placed on existing sites. These ‘backlinks’ demonstrate to search engines that others trust your site. By placing your link on their website these other businesses indicate a trust and recommendation for your site.

In effect the two strategies listed above rely exclusively on what others can do for you when it comes to your online business.

Shirley Temple once proclaimed in her movie Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, “I’m very self-reliant.” American westerns are filled with lines dealing with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and holding down the fort. Many of us have grown up to believe if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves.

This thinking is in opposition to the rules associated with an online business.

The online world can only exist because people share. Individuals share technology, but the also share links, reviews, blogs, forums and a wide range of other marketing strategies that find a commingling of interdependency.

In online business you are as dependent on others as they may be on you. Unlike the word ‘dependent’, the term interdependent indicates a mutual dependency. In other words you are depending on others to help provide links back to your site while they are equally dependent on you (or others) for the success of their business.

Have you really taken a proactive approach to networking? It’s possible you are reading this today and you’ve never considered asking someone else to place a link to your site on his or her online business site.

It can feel awkward depending on others to achieve online success especially if you’ve been lead to believe reliance on others is also a sign of imposing on their otherwise brilliant generosity.

I suppose it could be a deep-seated sense of pride that makes it hard to consider the need to ask others for help. However, the truth is depending on others is really what has made the Internet possible. The growth of this online world is comprised of a link of computers, networks and servers that are connected in a way that provides the maximum benefit for all.

Building an online business can feel a bit like trying to build a house of cards. Without the ability to rely on the other ‘cards’ around you it is virtually impossible to build.

Interdependence. This is the essence of online business.

10 October, 2008

Organic SEO is the process of optimising a website to increase its rankings in unpaid search engine listings. The aims of organic SEO strategies and techniques are to improve company's brand visibility, attract larger and better targeted volumes of search engine users and finally to expand market share. In other words, it refers to manual page optimization which is opposite to automatic submittal and page alteration. It is completely different from the general Search Engine Optimization which is an automated way of optimising the ranking of the particular website.

Both organic SEO and the general search engine optimization have their importance. They are simultaneously used these days. The general search engine optimization basically follows the concept of pay per click advertisement. It is known to all that organic search listings and general search listings are mostly used by search engine browsers. Many search engine optimization companies prefer organic SEO and are using paid searchers more regularly for various businesses.

While planning a website for organic SEO can take months, however it is crucial to work hard as well as try to make the website to be unique from others. Many good and successful organic listings consist of key words or phrases which are unlikely to find on the other sites. The most important technique is to arrange the words carefully and in a planned manner. Just framing a long list of ineffective words would only move consumers away. The words should be used in a meaningful and subtle manner from the point of view of a great content writer.

Organic SEO is also known as natural organic SEO. SEO experts advise online companies to carry the work of advertisements through this procedure. It saves a lot of money in comparison to pay per click advertisements. The general search engine optimization is completely based on the company's advertising budget, however organic search engine optimization places the website in the search engines on the basis of relevancy of subject matter given by the client. As the online advertising cost is increasing upwards, we often find remorseful debates happening between the pay per click advertising agencies and the online companies.

08 October, 2008

To achieve success in your online business your website needs to be promoted. This calls for the need of search engine optimization which is a process of updating your website so that traffic is generated to your site by the search engines. Moreover the search engine ranking also increases. Directory submission is one of the search engine methods.It is a process of submitting your sites URL. It is a compilation of domain names in a categorized way to provide unique information. Through directory submission your website gets the much needed exposure which otherwise would get lost among the millions of website. It brings maximum visibility thereby enhancing the sales of your product & services. It is the most considerable way of building links. A directory is a site which contains links on several categories & sub categories of various other website.

  • Directory submission could be done manually or through automated services.
  • Manual directory submission- It does not just involve the submission of forms, but many other steps like selection of directories, website URL, a valid email account, filling of directory submission form & to check directory listing approval. Manual submission of forms ensures quick as well as definite submission. Though it is a time consuming, labor intensive process it is a better mode of submission & forming one way inbound links than the automated ones because they could be considered as spam.
  • Automated directory submission- With so many websites getting listed in the directories everyday it becomes very difficult & stressful to go through them & check for quality by manual directory submission. Moreover being simple, easy & less time consuming it does automatic checking & early submission.

Benefits of directory submission:

  • It provides with rapid affordable way to get increased link popularity. With the increasing number of back links the search engine ranking of your website also increases thus bringing targeted traffic to your website.
  • Through directory submission keyword relevancy also increases.
  • By using business name in the anchor text along with the targeted keywords, the site owners can increase the brand name consciousness.
  • There would be regular indexing of your website since they would be located by the search engine crawlers.
  • Web directories give a platform to build web promotional partners.

15 August, 2008

The SEO paradigm shift has already started kicking in. As search engine algorithms evolve, more weight is placed on trust-based factors and topical-relevance forcing marketers to sharpen up or lose their edge. Keyword density, perfect anchor text alignment and sheer volume of link equity will not cut it any more.

Mainstream Media Engagement

If marketers are working with brands that have an established off or online presence they already have a key advantage. Mainstream media and B2B publications with established trust will likely link to your website, and stimulate others to do the same through simply discussing your operations, strategies, successes and failures. This is a foot-print that's hard to manipulate. Gaining mainstream coverage can (usually) only come with an established brand presence or exciting angle. If SEO clients don't have this in place, chances are that they will be swimming against the tide.

Topical Expertise

While engaging with the wider media is important, becoming a topical expert on your field is important too. If you gain topical coverage, you will most likely gain column inches to discuss topical issues when they come up. Search engines use this linkage data to establish your trust and (in the case of topical coverage) your authority on a subject area.

Content Strategies

Gaining media coverage has lots to do with business decisions made at board-level, but gaining media coverage, and in turn editorial citations, can be pulled off through effective content strategies and relationship building. If you're already immersed in your local community it's that much easier. Publishing studies, writing a blog, and making effective software tools relevant to your industry can all help if the content hits the spot. But, if you're getting started, you might have to send emails and make phone calls to get the ball rolling. Social media can also play an important role here, if done effectively.

Link Buying

It wasn't that long ago that Google dropped to toolbar pagerank of websites selling links. This, contrary to what some people think, hasn't killed the effectiveness of link buying. It has just changed the game. Now, buy-side companies should stay clear of websites that have an obvious link-selling footprint, and they should ensure that their links are placed within content too. The most cautious of link buyers will also ensure they are not given a link that would raise an SEOs eyebrows. This means perfect anchor text, and linking to a strange page, at a strange time, shouldn't be on the menu.

On-page Relevancy Factors

With publishing strategies being more frequently used to gain link equity, ensuring the effective flow of link equity up-stream to your most important pages can play a vital role in the success or failure of your SEO strategy. Using keyword permutations, derivatives and synonyms within website copy and meta data also helps to drive relevance for a main keyword set and help clients to tackle a wider keyword basket.