Search Engine Optimization Tips | SEO Tips and Tricks | Search Engine Updates | SEO News

SEO Pyramid

2010-03-09T01:53:00.000-08:00

Meta Tags and Search Engine Optimization

2010-03-01T23:52:00.000-08:00

Here are some other tips for your site’s page titles:

Each page on your site should have a unique page title and be focused on different keywords. If all your pages have a page title that is too similar then your site could get caught in the Google duplicate content filter.
Make the keywords in your title a little different then the keyword in the meta description. For instance, if you place bad credit home loans in your title, use loans for bad credit in your meta description.
To maximize click through rates, always capitalize the first letter of each word in your page title. Don’t use all caps or all lower case.
Do not repeat the same keyword twice in the title.
Try to use semantic related keywords in your title. This will help with Google Latent Semantic Indexing. For instance, a semantic related word to loans, is finance. Don’t use loans twice in the title.
The page title should focus on the same keywords as the anchored internal links to the page. So if your page is primarily about bad credit home loans, then the internal links on your site should use the anchored text bad credit home loans.
For WordPress blogs the All In One SEO plugin has custom page title management to help you place a unique title on every page.

How to Optimize a Flash Website ???

2010-02-25T22:57:00.000-08:00

Ways to optimize Flash based websites,

Give Metadata:

It is useful to enter in metadata in Flash websites. The Meta title. Meta description and keywords much contain the significant keywords. The use of keywords is useful for the search engines.

Meta title tag – The meta title consist of the relevant keywords that gives an idea of the website and the web page.
Meta description tag- The meta description tag consist of the description of the website through the use of right key words.
Meta keyword tag- The keywords that are used in the web page are entered in the meta keywords tag.

Build separate pages with definite keywords:

Usually, Flash website consist of a single web page wherein full details of the company, products, services etc. are given. It becomes very difficult for the search engines to catch the topic of the web page. It is, therefore, suitable to employ separate pages with the right keywords that describes the website company, product, services more effectively.

Employ Macromedia Software Developer (SDK):

The Search Engine SDK comprise of an application named as swf2html. It extracts links and text from a Flash file and then places the data into an HTML file. If necessary, content must be thoroughly checked and also the replica has to be replaced. Proper use of this kit helps in optimizing Flash websites.

Off Page Optimization:

Effective off page optimization is the key to optimize full Flash websites. The more flexible linking strategy paves way for successful search engine optimization of Flash websites.

Employ the anchor text in a proper way. The anchor text must consist of the significant keywords.
Inbound links are very useful in optimizing websites. The more the number of inbound links from quality websites the more the chances of better optimization.
Make use of the one way link strategy.
Comment on the other related blog posts (not Spam comment), it will help to increase popularity.
Giving out press releases about the workings of the website from time to time
Another source of linking building is through submission of articles of the websites in various article directories and important websites.
Create and maintain separate blog under the main domain or sub domain. It is very helpful tool for optimize Flash based website.
RSS feed has also become a significant source of linking strategy. If you maintain a blog then you can syndicate blog contents as an RSS feed to the web world.
A full Flash website must register in various forums. It may post and comment on topics which will eventually help in optimizing websites.
Another way is through submission of contents in directories. However, in the recent times this has become an obsolete process.

Is optimising your images important for your competitors?

2010-02-23T02:53:00.000-08:00

When you upload an image, do you optimse it? Do your competitors? Do a search in Google Images to find those sites that are optimising their images. Do they match the organic SEO SERP listings? There are essentially three way to optmise your images. The first is to name the image with one of your keywords, e.g. dog-grooming-services.jpg.
Next, add appropiate alt test, i.e. img src=”dog-grooming-services.jpg” alt=”The Best Dog Grooming Service Baltimore”.
And the thrid way is to link your image to a relavant page, e.g. a href=”http://www.dog-grooming.com” img src=”dog-grooming-services.jpg” alt=”The Best Dog Grooming Service Baltimore”

Are your competitors using your keyword in their bodytext?

2010-02-23T02:48:00.000-08:00

This may seem a little strange – surely a competitor has to have the keyword in body of their text in order to get a decent ranking? Actually I’ve come across many examples of websites getting very good ranking primarily on their meta data and backlink profile. You can use the Google Operator allintext to check for competitors that have your keyword in the text of a page, .e.g allintext: dog grooming services

Do your competitors use your keyword in their Title Tags?

2010-02-23T02:42:00.000-08:00

The title has long been seen as one of the more important meta tags used by the search engines when determining relevancy. To check if your competitor has your keyword phrase in their title tag, go to Google and type in intitle:keyword phrase site:www.competitordomain.com. This will show you if your competitor has any title tags with the keyword in them. There are varitions on this, e.g. allintitle:keyword1 keyword2 site:www.competitordomain.com. This will look for both keywords in the title tag. These commands, i.e. intitle, allintitle are called Google Operators.

4 R’s of SEO: Robots, Ranking, Relevance & Results

2010-01-28T23:51:00.000-08:00

Which are the four big R’s in SEO? , What do they stand for? Are they really important for Website SEO? Well the answer is yes. This is because the performance of any website is vastly dependent on these terms. So let’s refresh these terms one by one.

1) Robots

As lotto commercial says “you can’t win, if you can’t play”. Same stands true for SEO. If you want to get you site index or crawl by any search engine, you must get attention of net surfers to your site. Get Quality inbounds Links, make quality contents, maintain robot.txt properly and work to get citations (through social media, for example).

Tips and Tools:

Test your index with Google’s site: command.
Check crawl ability with tools like Crawl Test and Xenu’s Link Sleuth.
Register for webmaster tools with Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
Create an effective XML sitemap.
Understand that indexing isn’t all-or-none.

2) Ranking

All website owners want to be at #1 in search engine results. All SEO efforts are hence mostly centered on this factor. But is ranking really that important? Answer is yes. However SEO is not just high ranking or it is only about ranking. I must say ranking is an element of big picture. Ranking helps to generate traffic and increases exposure in search engines.

Tips and Tools:

Sign out of Google and turn off personalization to check rankings.
Monitor regularly with rank-tracking tools, such as SEO’s Rank Tracker.
Get long-tail data from Webmaster Tools’ Top search queries report.

3) Relevance

Relevance means “relevant traffic” which is based on ranking and keywords. As, I would like to see only those visitors who are genuinely interested in my website. SEO helps to boost my business through business sites. For this it is important that I keep my website content, business keyword and business promotion in relevant areas. Generally, people face two kinds of problems:

(1) What they think to be popular isn’t always popular.

(2) What’s popular may not be relevant or drive click-through.

Tips and Tools

Estimate traffic volume with Google’s search-based keyword tool.
Use web analytics to track organic traffic by engine, keywords, etc.
Set up a limited PPC campaign to test traffic volume and relevance.

4) Results

SEO is a long term process and its result changes from time to time. You have to focus on each step and goals to move ahead in your SEO campaigns. Traffic and rank are only valuable if it gives measurable results, otherwise it will just cost you more efforts in terms of money, time and labor.

Tips and Tools

Set up conversion/goal tracking in your analytics software.
Track your conversion “funnel” – the steps it takes a visitor to reach your goal.

Top Three Social Networks in the top 10 markets

2010-01-12T05:25:00.000-08:00

SEO Tips # 11 : Design is linkbait

2010-01-08T02:05:00.000-08:00

This is great news for designers. Much of the life of an SEO is focused around baiting links from the link-giving portion of the web. The amazing thing is that this portion of the web loves great looking websites. Great design improves credibility and the user experience.

If you design great sites, use services like The CSS Gallery List to get your site submitted to CSS showcases across the web, or at least do it by hand.

SEO Tips # 10 : Keep Navigation at the left

2010-01-08T01:53:00.000-08:00

Create a Navigation tab and place the navigation links on that section. Keep the navigation links to the vital pages of your website on the left of the web page as search engine robots generally start crawling your website from the top left corner of the website and also it is very much convenient for the web users.

SEO Tips # 9 : Avoid JavaScript

2010-01-08T01:48:00.000-08:00

Try to avoid excessive use of JavaScript or any other scripting language on your web page. Search Engine robots as per their algorithm do not read JavaScript codes and use of these codes increases the load time of websites which annoys the user. As a result of which you may lose your potential customer.

SEO Tips # 8 : Avoid Excessive use of Images

2010-01-08T01:41:00.000-08:00

Avoid use of unnecessary images on the website as they increase the load time of the website and make the website bulky. Do not overuse graphics on the web page.

SEO Tips # 7: Plot Out Your Site First

2010-01-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

It is very vital in SEO to design your site perfectly before you publish it on the Net. Keep in mind the on-site and off-site SEO you implement on it will not be enough to guarantee success; in truth, you need to make sure that your online page is pleasing enough to your visitors that will merit regular hits from them.

Such is the case; it is advisable that you plot out the physical attributes of your site before you implement SEO on it. Choose a excellent design and theme for your site, and plot out a layout for all of its content. Keep in mind that you need to have a working site that is pleasing to the eyes of your visitors, as well as providing a excellent layout the makes all its areas accessible lacking turning your site upside down to find what they want.

SEO Tips # 6 : SEO isn’t static, it changes all the time

2010-01-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

This means that the SEO strategies you tried three months ago might not be as cutting edge today as they once were. SEO is always changing, to the point where many websites provide daily updates on the latest changes and fixes. While it’s not the best idea to devote massive amounts of time each day to following the minor changes, checking things out every week is a wise idea for keeping updated.

SEO Tips # 5 : SEO isn’t always a numbers game

2010-01-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

This is one idea that gets passed over far too easily in the SEO community. With numbers dominating most online worlds, it’s easy to think that SEO is purely mathematical. It’s not. While big numbers and many links will bring you to the top of the search rankings, it’s not the only way there. When you’re committed and passionate about what you do, you’ll quickly see your rankings rise as others give you exposure without your involvement.

Tools For Online Reputation Management (ORM)

2009-12-22T02:59:00.000-08:00

Blog Monitoring

http://www.backtype.com/
http://www.blogpulse.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/
http://technorati.com/

Twitter Monitoring

http://monitter.com/
http://tweetbeep.com/
http://www.socialoomph.com/
http://search.twitter.com/

Link Monitoring

http://backtweets.com/
http://wholinkstome.com/

Other Tools

http://www.google.com/alerts
http://www.boardtracker.com/
http://monitorthis.info/
http://www.naymz.com/
http://www.purewiretrust.org/
http://www.yasni.com/
http://www.buzzding.com/home/
http://socialmention.com/
http://www.samepoint.com/
http://www.123people.com/
http://www.steprep.com/
http://www.watchthatpage.com/
http://usernamecheck.com/

Paid Tools

http://www.brandseye.com/
http://www.naymz.com/
http://www.reputationdefender.com/myreputation
http://www.trackur.com/

SEO Tips # 4 : Use SEO friendly URLs

2009-12-14T03:48:00.000-08:00

This is most important when you begin using a server-side programming language such as PHP to create web pages. If you use techniques like this: " http://www.example.com/index.php?p=about ", then there needs to be some changes. Search engines really don’t like URL’s like this and sometimes won’t even follow them. Using apache mod rewrites, you can easily rewrite your URL’s to be more SEO friendly. The link above could be changed to look like " http://www.example.com/about.html " or " http://www.example.com/about/ ". Either one of these URL’s would make the search engine much happier and they don’t even require any changes to your current pages (other than changing your links to match the new URL format) ...

SEO Tips # 3 : Ensure that your website is accessible

2009-12-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

Ensure that your website is safe for screen readers and uses shortcut keys. This does help your SEO, but more importantly it helps your users. There are many other techniques to increase the accessibilty and usability of your website. Another example would be to use buttons that can increase and decrease the font sizes on your site. Just because you can read the font at 0.8em doesn’t mean the next guy can. Alternate stylsheets are also a very big priority. If you have a website with a dark background and light text, this can hurt the eyes of some users. You should always have an alternate stylesheet for these users even if it just a minimalistic black and white stylesheet. If you don’t offer this option, it could easily drive users away from your website.

SEO Tips # 2 : Organize your Title tag. Search engines look at titles in order from specific to general.

2009-12-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

Most people type out their title tag like this: " Site name > Page title " or something similar. This will in fact drive less traffic to your website in the case of an informative website. If you have pages with tutorials or blog posts, you will want the more specific title of the page to be first so that it will rank higher when people search for those keywords.

SEO Tips # 1 : Place keywords everywhere except the keywords meta tag

2009-12-10T23:47:00.000-08:00

Say what? Yeah, that’s right. Only Yahoo! uses the keyword meta tag now. Not a single other search engine does. Honestly, Yahoo! is so easy to rank high on, there’s no reason to even use keywords anymore. Instead, place your keywords in places that truly matter. The URL is quite possible the best place to put your keywords. If you can’t manage to get keywords in your URL, place them in your title tag, description meta tag, and/or your header tags (preferably your H1.)

Basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Checklist

2009-12-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

· On-Page Content:

More content on a page the better but use at least 300 words, content should contain relevant keywords, but do not overdue it.

· Search Friendly URL’s:

Avoid dynamic URL’s, URL’s should contain keywords when relevant and have a consistent flow, use hyphens instead of underscores.

For example: example.com/music/artist/artist-name.php

· Robots.txt:

A robots.txt file should be used to tell search engine crawlers what content you do not want crawled.

· Title Tag Optimization:

Avoid continuous repetition, limit yourself to no more than 120 characters, order keywords by importance.

· Meta Keywords:

Don’t use more than a dozen keywords, keywords should revolve around page content, avoid continuous repetition.

· Header Tags:

Use keywords in header tags (h1, h2) to show importance and theme of a page were h1 is the most relevant keyword, h2 is the next…etc.

· Meta Description:

Don’t use more than 225 characters, avoid continuous repetition of keywords, describe content on page.

· XML Sitemap:

Submit directly to search engines.

· Images:

Image file name should describe what image is (e.g. cape-cod-beach.jpg), use image ALT tags for relevant keywords.

· Redirects:

Use 301 redirect on old / unused domains.

· Code:

Avoid heavy use of JavaScript, I-Frames, AJAX and other non-SEO friendly code.

· Domain:

When possible use a domain that has a search engine presence and contains relevant keywords.

· Linking:

Linking, both internal and inbound, are core to SEO success. Develop a comprehensive linking strategy that focuses on cross-linking within a website, within a network of websites and from external relevant websites. Link using keywords related to the page within the anchor text. In regards to inbound links it is quality over quantity.

What Does 301,401 and 404 mean????

2009-12-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

201 -Response was created succesfully.
202 - Response was accepted.
301 - Resource has moved permanently from this location. (this redirection is normally done within the server software, not in the coding on the server)
302 - Resource has been moved, this is seen as a temporary redirect (nornally done in server code)
304 - The resource is not modifed and neither is the path to it, normally seen by search engines when you use any proxy.
307 - Resource has been moved but only temporarily (normally done in server code)
404 - Page Not Found or resource not found.
400 - this is a bad request.
401 - Access Denied - the client cannot access the resource because of credentials given.
403 - This means the client cannot access the resource as it is forbidden to do so, normally caused by either a file error or IP restriction problem, or if your lucky just too users accessing your website at one time.
406 - client browser does not support server MIME type, can occur dut to old browsers.
500 - Internal server error - probably an error in the website code.

Tips for PPC Online Advertising campaign

2009-11-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

Below are some important things to consider when planning on PPC Online Advertising campaign,

1. Know your product very well. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right effectively – a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your Ppc Online Advertising campaign – if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right targeted keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some effective keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

- Discount offers

- Testimonials

- Celebrity/famous endorsers

- Money-back guarantees

- Free trials or sample offers

- Freebies

- Reverse psychology

- Major benefits (”Lose weight”)

- Direct instructions (”Click here”)

7. Maintain a high quality & professional-looking website. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple – designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

What is Online Reputation Management (ORM)

2009-11-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

Online Reputation Management (ORM), may be defined as the process of monitoring a brand online, effectively dealing with any adverse or negative publicity and also pro-actively protecting the brand via conversation channels. ORM, in other words, is being watchful about the status of the brand and the adverse comments reviewers make about the brand and taking prompt steps to mitigate any damage that could potentially endanger its standing in the market.

Tools to Track Your Online Reputation

Set up alerts and feeds to catch every mention of your name, company, brand, employees, domain, etc. You want to get notification before a problem escalates or enters the top search results. There are hundreds of tools that can help you manage your online reputation, but as a small business owner or individual, the following are the most comprehensive and user-friendly solutions we’ve found.

Feed Reader

Set up a feed reader to help you view the custom feeds you’ll be tracking for your keyword phrases. Your reader can be as simple as a gadget on your iGoogle home page or a full feed service like Google Reader.

Google Alerts

Set up Google Alerts for free to track Web results, news, blogs, video and groups. Subscribe via email or through a feed.

Yahoo Alerts

Set up Yahoo Alerts for free to track news by keyword, stocks, local news, feeds and more. Receive notifications via email, Yahoo Messenger or mobile.

Twitter Search

Formerly known as Summize, Twitter Search makes it simple to search Twitter for any mentions of a particular keyword phrase. There is also an array of advanced search parameters that let you search by location, sentiment, dates, links, a particular person and more. Subscribe to the feed for your search results.

Technorati

Search Technorati to find mentions of your blog or specific keywords across other blogs. Subscribe to the search results feed and get notified of new mentions.

BackType

One of the most robust comment solutions is BackType. With it, you can claim your comments on blogs, find comments that mention a particular keyword, view all conversations from a particular post or article and subscribe to those conversations.

Social Mention

Social Mention is similar to Google Alerts, but specifically tailored for social media. Since Google Alerts can be buggy, Social Mention helps catch immediate conversations around a specific keyword. Subscribe to the feed, get email alerts or download the Excel file.

BoardReader

Track conversations across forums and message boards with BoardReader. You can refine results by date, from a particular domain and by relevance.

Q&A Tracking

If anyone is asking questions about you, your company or a particular keyword, you can track those on certain Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. Do an advanced search for a particular keyword and then subscribe to the RSS feed at the bottom of the page to allow you to keep track of future mentions.

Trackur

Trackur pulls keyword mentions from a variety of sources, not just Google Alerts, but its biggest use comes from the ability to save, sort, tag, share and subscribe to particular feeds. It costs less than $20 a month and is perfect for small businesses.

Tips for Social Media Marketing Success

2009-11-20T01:42:00.000-08:00

Spend at least as much time listening as you do broadcasting.
It’s called “social media” for a reason. Be prepared to interact consistently.
You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard. Focus on the game of engagement and the traffic will come.
Losing followers is okay, measure the engagement level of who is still here to see how you are doing.
Have a goal, measure results, measurement provides feedback and improvement.
The internet has always been about helping people connect to people.
Pay it forward. Help, teach. guide and be patient with people new to the scene.
Study people who are credible with the type of clients you want to attract. Model their strategy.
Marketers aren’t always synonymous with community builders, traffic and followers isn’t always equal to credibility.
If you’re an old school e-mail marketer or pitch artist, there’s some habits you will need to unlearn.
Before you start your campaign define your market and their pains.
Everyone and every company gets off message once in a while. Refocus and learn from it.
Leaders of large “Tribes” need to have thick skin and a tolerance for noise.
Continually tweak and update your Linkedin profile, your network will be notified.
Social media is changing so quickly that if you stop too long to smell the roses you’ll be out of touch.
Try a new platform each month, video blogging, FaceBook, tumblr etc. Curiosity can lead to great discoveries.
You can’t make a robot network for you at a party, why do you think they can do it for you on the web?
Some un-follows are strategic. People want to know if you’re really listening.
You can’t please everyone. But know who you are trying to connect with. Get in sync with your audience.
http://www.ping.fm updates FaceBook, Brightkite, Twitter, tumblr and Linkedin statuses all at once.

Black Hat SEO Tricks You Must Not Do!!!

2009-11-18T05:01:00.000-08:00

Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN take black hat SEO very seriously and penalize people and sites involved in this. The below points should be avoided and must not be done at any cost,

Cloaking : Fooling search engines is known as cloaking. It means showing something to your visitors while showing something else to the search engines is known as cloaking.

Duplicate Contents : Few sites make duplicate contents all over their site. This means they post same contents on more than one page. They follow this SEO trick just to improve their alexa rank. But remember, search engines ban these sites. Never ever post or use same contents twice.

Auto Generated Contents : Never ever use scripts or softwares to write for you. This is even worse than having duplicate contents. Generally we copy and post someone’s contents in our blog. But there are few scripts and softwares available that can rewrite the copied contents. They make few changes here and there and make them look like a new one. But search engines are pretty smart in pointing them.

Adding Keywords not Related to Your Contents : Meta Keywords are like the address of your home. It tells the search engines what is your post about. And hence meta words play a very vital role in search engine indexing. Few people use the same keyword many times thinking that search engines will put more importance into it. But the search engines don’t think in the way you do. Never use same keyword more than once.

Hide Texts : Never ever hide your keywords. This can be done by making the text and background colour same. In SEO term it’s called keyword stuffing or fontmatching. Few people also make small fonts which can’t be read and put their keywords there. But search engine robots are scripted well to find them.

Title Stacking : Be specific. Do not use more than one title per page. Few people use more than one titles per page to get higher ranking in search results. But this is the most stupid idea ever.

Doorway Pages : Doorway pages are the entrance pages to your site. Search engine Bots will come once, will fall in your trick, will ban you and will never get back to your site for indexing. So, it’s better to be genuine. Do not show something and then present another thing. Beware of those affiliate pages and be cautious while doing business with them. A lot of affiliates use doorway pages which might land you in trouble.

Tips for Affiliate Marketing on Blogs

2009-11-17T03:02:00.000-08:00

· Consider your Audience – Start with your reader when considering what to promote. Relevancy is key.

· Genuine Recommendations and personal endorsements always work best – Recommendations of things you personally genuinely like are always best.

· Link to Quality Products – The better the products that you recommend the more your readers will thank you for suggesting it.

· Contextual Deep Links work Best – In general you’ll have more luck promoting a product from within a post than on a sidebar

· Consider positioning of links – links/banners that are in parts of your post/blog that where readers look work best (top of posts for example)

· Traffic levels are Important – The more eyeballs your promotion gets the better

· Diversify without Clutter – Some products work better for some audiences than others – so promoting a variety of products can be good – promoting too many is of course not good.

· Be Transparent – Don’t try to trick people into clicking your links. Don’t put (affiliate) next to any affiliate link but in the end found readers were just annoyed by it or didn’t understand what it meant. Use site-wide disclaimers to talk about it.

· Combine with other Revenue Streams – Every blog is different, some will work better than others with affiliate marketing while others will work better with advertising. However I find on many blogs advertising and affiliate marketing can work well in tandem.

· Track results – If you don’t have some way of working out how your promotions are converting you could be wasting your time.

The Most Important SEO Ranking Factors

2009-11-16T04:17:00.000-08:00

Based on this report surveyed by SEOmoz, the following are the most important ranking factor for SEO.

Top 5 SEO Ranking Factors
Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links 73%
External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links) 71%
Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains) 67%
Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag 66%
Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.) 66%
Top 5 SEO Negative Ranking Factors
Cloaking with Malicious/Manipulative Intent 68%
Link Acquisition from Known Link Brokers/Sellers 56%
Links from the Page to Web Spam Sites/Pages 51%
Cloaking by User Agent 51%
Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility 51%
Overall Ranking Algorithm

24%
Trust/Authority of the Host Domain
22%
Link Popularity of the Specific Page
20%
Anchor Text of External Links to the Page
15%
On-Page Keyword Usage
7%
Visitor/Traffic & Click-Through Data
6%
Social Graph Metrics
5%
Registration & Hosting Data

Search Engine (SEO) Glossary

2009-11-12T06:12:00.000-08:00

Google Bombing

Google bombing happens when a group of sites join to link to an unflattering page about a company such that this page rises to the top of the search results in Google.

Google Bot

This is the spider or the crawler of Google which crawls web sites monthly. Googlebot will visit and index pages on a daily basis and mark that page in its search results as being fresh.

Google Dance

"Google dance" is a term made to refer to updating Goolge’s servers which takes place once a month.

Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting allows you to aim your ads to precise positions and languages. For every Ad Words campaign, you can pick the countries or provinces and the language(s) to utilize for your ad campaign. That specifically chosen ads will materialize only to clients positioned in those areas and who have opted for one of those languages as their predilection.

Keyword popularity

The number of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a particular period of time.

Keyword prominence

The prominence of a given keyword in the HTML source code of a web page is the keyword prominence.

Pagejacking

This is the process of stealing web page content which ranks high, from another site and copying it on your site inorder to increase the page’s rank. Pagejacking is strongly discouraged by search engines.

ROI

ROI or return on investment is the key measure to determine a site’s performance.

Tips to Optimize Your Pay per Click (PPC) Campaign

2009-11-11T05:20:00.000-08:00

Send traffic to a specific page on your site:

So often we see PPC campaigns where the search term is very detailed but when the keyword is clicked, the visitor is brought to the website homepage. This is such a waste. Landing page optimization is very important. For example, say you own a sock store and someone search for 'red socks'. Instead of sending him to your homepage, send the customer to the product specific page that matches the keyword. In this case, the 'red socks' category page.

Poor sales copy on your adverts:

Your PPC advert is like a headline on an article. It must capture the reader's attention or he will move on to something else. Be sure to continually test two adverts and always change the poorest performing one with another new headline. This process of continual improvement can produce dramatic results.

Targeting too many keyword terms with one advert:

You need to make sure that your PPC adverts tie back very closely to the search term being used. If you take the time to group your keywords into smaller closely connected groups with a very relevant advert you will get better results.

Not tracking which keywords produce the best conversion:

Sometimes more expensive keywords can give a better conversion rate than cheaper ones, or vice versa. The point is that unless you track conversions, you cannot be sure exactly where to focus your PPC budget.

Optimizing landing pages:

When you send traffic to a landing page you should ensure that you are split testing and optimizing your landing page. Improving sales copy and adding on page conversion items such as video can greatly improve your conversions. This can be the difference between poor or mediocre campaign and a top performing campaign.

Use Negative Keywords:

If you are using the Broad or Phrase match functionality in your PPC campaigns then you can run the risk of your ads showing for keywords which are not relevant to your business. This means that you are wasting money, either with irrelevant clicks or with a reduced click thru rate which indirectly affects the performance of your campaign. You need to regularly review your adwords statistics and reports in order to identify which irrelevant phrases are costing you unnecessary money. You then need to add these phrases as negative keywords.

Incorporate local business ads:

Be sure to include locally targeted search terms to target local customers. Often these keywords are relatively cheap and it will allow you to pick up local customers. Maybe consider driving the traffic from these ads to a special offer page for local people, to make your campaign even more relevant.

Fundamentals for Google Optimization

2009-11-09T01:23:00.000-08:00

Listed out are the Top 7 Fundamentals for Google Optimization,

Fresh and Original Content

Clean and Validated Code

Easy and Accessible Navigation

Good Interlinking of Web pages

Healthy and Relevant Incoming Links

Domain Age and Registered Period For

Same Contacts at Site and Domain Registration

Best SEO Software and Tools

2009-11-06T00:31:00.000-08:00

Listed below are the best SEO Softwares and Tools,

· IBP Promoter

· SEOElite

· Web CEO

· SEO Toolkit

· SEO Studio

· Addweb Promoter

· Weblink SEO

· SEO Administrator

· Solo SEO

Basic Tips For Video Optimization (Video SEO)

2009-11-05T23:16:00.000-08:00

If you plan to upload a video to both your site and video distribution sites like YouTube, be sure to post it to your site first. That way you can get links through the embed codes where possible.

Use your targeted keywords in the video’s file name, title, and in the tags where it is appropriate.

Build links to the video both internally and externally. Video, like any other content on the Web, will be judged by the same link standards.

Create a video sitemap for any videos on your site to make it easier for search engines to find all the video content.

Tweeting, bookmarking, and mentioning the video on social media sites are great ways to gather links.

Create useful content that your visitors will want to link to. This will help to build natural links and encourage comments which also influence search engine rankings.

Use a video distribution service such as TubeMogul or Traffic Geyser to spread the video quickly across the Internet. These services can save you a lot of time.

Common SEO Mistakes

2009-11-04T23:23:00.000-08:00

Following are some of the common SEO mistakes happened while optimizing a Website, care to be taken to avoid those mistakes,

Using the same keyword more than twice in a Title tag.

High keyword densities.

Not having a Valid XML Sitemap.

URL’s not containing any keywords.

Using H1 tags more than once on a single page.

Not giving each page unique Meta data.

Using the same anchor text in all links.

Putting analytics code at the beginning of your body content.

Not using accurate image descriptions.

Not having a 301 redirect setup.

Lack of keywords in the content.

Concentrating too much on Meta tags.

A Flash Website without a HTML alternative.

Keyword Spamming and Stuffing.

Picking a Poor Content Management System.

Use Crawler Unfriendly Development Methods.

Not Investing in Site Promotion.

How To Optimize A Dynamic Website ?????

2009-11-04T06:21:00.000-08:00

These are the steps to be followed while optimizing a dynamic website,

Study large websites in your industry and get tips from them. For Eg: if you’re developing a e-commerce store, it is good to analyze websites like amazon.com and ebay.com.
Create search engine friendly URLs with the help of URL re-writing techniques. You can also use some plug-in applications that will change your existing dynamic URLs into static ones.
If your site is large, implement a caching mechanism to improve performance. Fast-loading websites help visitors stay longer and are easy for search engines to crawl.
Dynamically create a Google sitemap and update it. Submit your sitemap feeds to Google, yahoo and msn.
Avoid using session IDs in the URL, especially when user has not logged in.
If you do need to include parameters in URLs, limit them to two or three and limit the number of characters per parameter to about ten or fewer.
If you sell products, considering submitting your feeds to Google Base and automate the submission process.
Use social media optimization (SMO) techniques like RSS feeds and third party tools like sharethis or addthis where necessary. This will help your site visitors to share your site information with their friends easily.
Add a blog to your website, and highlight important aspects of your website. Show case new features, new items or specials in your posts. Leave room for each post to breath by posting only 2 or 3 posts per week.
Create communities around your website in various social networking platforms like facebook, myspace, etc.

SEO Tips for E-Commerce Websites

2009-11-04T06:11:00.000-08:00

The following tips are guidelines for building an SEO friendly e-commerce site,

1) Always use alt tags in your header images because your header is one of the first things the spiders encounter. You may also consider adapting the alternative text on the logo to match the title tag of each page.

2) Always include your stores phone number on every page. This is a common sense tip that sometimes gets overlooked. Adding you phone number will also help your credibility.

3) Use leftside navigation. Most people are familiar with this standard form of navigation and it also acts as a site map for search engines to crawl through. Make sure to use either text links or images with alt tags otherwise they will be invisible to the search engine.

4) Give each product at least a short description (the longer the better) other than just a name and price. Search engines depend on text to determine what products you are selling.

5) Keep your layout consistent from page to page.

6) Use breadcrumb trails on the product pages to aid navigation and SE spiders.

7) Take time to create title and meta tags. Use them to differentiate your self from your competition (make them catchy) and provide effective descriptions in searches.

What is RSS Feed?

2009-11-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication and also sometimes Rich Site Summary. The word syndication indicates that the content, which may be in form of blogs, articles, news headlines, audio or videos, is submitted to several recipients in form of web feed formats. An RSS document is, in fact, called a feed or a web feed. It is like article syndication where the same article is submitted to several article directories for publication.

Its other full form, Rich Site Summary indicates that usually the feed is submitted in form of a summarized text. The whole process of submission of content takes place automatically.

Google Page Rank (PR) Update - October 2009

2009-10-30T04:26:00.000-07:00

Google PR update for October 2009 is here. This Google page rank update was being awaited since mid September 2009 however this time Google waited a bit longer. In this update many new websites having almost no PR got a good jump. The sad part is that many existing ones didn’t get any promotion as expected. however we must not jump to any conclusion right now. The last time a PR update was followed by another partial one affecting only some blogs and websites.

You guy have to keep in mind is that PR is not all that affects your SERP. There are many other factors too. For example it is very usual to see a PR 3 site being listed above a PR 7 site if the PR 3 source is an authority in the specific niche.

How was this PR update for you friends?

List of Keyword Analysis Tools

2009-10-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

Keyword Suggestion
Keyword Selector Tool (inventory.overture.com)
Keyword Suggestion tool (searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca) NEW
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion (tools.seobook.com)
Word Tracker (wordtrackerkeywords.net)
Keyword Advisor (ebrandmarketing.com.au)
Keyword Suggestion (keyworddiscovery.com)
Keyword Suggestion 2 (freekeywords.wordtracker.com)

Keyword Density
Keyword Density Analyzer (webjectives.com)
Keyword Difficulty Check
Difficulty Check (www.seologs.com)
Keyword Tracking Tools
http://www.tools4google.com/search-google-position/keyword_tracking.php
http://seoserp.com/web_tools/google_keyword_position_tracker.asp

Overview of Search Engine Marketing

2009-10-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Optimizing your website for the search engines is only one option for generating traffic for your website. Another option is to advertise on a search engine.

When advertising on a search engine, you pay for an advertisement to appear when a person searches for a particular keyword or phrase, relevant to your website. There are three common models search engines use for charging for advertisements- in fact; these models are common across all forms of online advertising:

Pay-Per-Impression (CPM)

In the Pay-Per-Impression model you are charged every time one of your advertisements is ‘served up’ to a viewer. With this model you are usually charged per 1000 impressions. The amount you are charged per 1000 impressions is called your Cost Per Impression or CPM. This model is the hardest to control, as you don’t know how many people will click on your advertisements, and then purchase products or services, or even make enquiries (although you will able to forecast this accurately after you have some historical results).

Pay-Per-Click (CPC)

With this model, you are charged for each click your ad listing receives. The amount you pay per click is called your Cost Per Click or CPC. Pay-per-click advertising is a lot more attractive than pay-per-impression advertising as you can manage your costs a lot easier- you only pay for visitors that have clicked-through to your website.

Pay-Per-Acquisition (CPA)

Pay-per-acquisition advertising is the best of the lot! In this model you pay only when someone purchases something from your website. You pay ‘a commission’ for a new customer! The amount you pay is called your Cost-Per-Acquisition or CPA. This method of charging is very common in affiliate programs, which we discuss later in this module.

How to Avoid Google Sandbox ?????

2009-10-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

Follow these steps to be away from the Google Sandbox Effect,

Build quality and most importantly, unique content.
Get more trusted links.
Build links slowly (no more than 10 each week).
Only add links that can be considered fully natural.
Don’t get only links pointing towards your home page but also deep links.
Don’t panic and don’t use Black or Grey methods.
Don’t use search engine auto submit tools.
Do not race into a link building strategy.
Respect 301 redirects.
Purchase an SSL Certificate and use it.
Host your website on a Dedicated IP.
Buy old or expired domains.
Host on a well- established host .
Concentrate on less popular keywords.
Rely more on non-Google ways to increase traffic.

SEO Quotes

2009-10-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

Websites don't link to other websites. People point to other people's work. (Lyndon Antcliff, Cornwall SEO)

It doesn't matter if a link is paid for or not. Important is if the end product looks like a paid link or not. (Patrick Altoft, Branded3)

Crawling is not a guarantee you're indexed. (Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz)

Wrong settings in a robots.txt could delay Google search indexing on your website. (Luisella Mazza, Google)

Don't worry too much about duplicate content. (Luisella Mazza, Google)

Does an affiliate marketing program cause a traffic drop? No, but pure affiliate sites are unlikely to rank. (Luisella Mazza, Google)

Key Steps For A Profitable PPC Campaign

2009-10-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

Know your target market and product.
Set a budget.
Choose targeted keywords.
Bid intelligently.
Write quality advertisements.
Have a professional landing page.
Analyze the results.

What is the Google Sandbox?

2009-10-26T00:29:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia describes the Sandbox:

The Sandbox Effect is the theory that websites with newly-registered domains or domains with frequent ownership or nameserver changes are placed in a sandbox (holding area) in the indexes of Google until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence. Webmasters have noticed that their site will only show for keywords that are not competitive.

How to Calculate Keyword Density ???

2009-10-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a formula you can use to calculate keyword density for your content :

Take the total number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on the page and divide it by the total number of words on the page. Then multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

Let’s say you have a 500 words article and your keyword phrase appears 8 times.

8/500 = 0.016

0.016 x 100 = 1.6 percent keyword density.

Many web site owners want to have between 1.5 and 2.0 percent keyword density for their content. Trying to stuff the content with a high keyword density means that you run the risk of having your content look “spammy,” and that is something you want to avoid.

List of Off-Page SEO Strategies to Build Online Reputation

2009-10-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

1. Participating in Social Networking Sites.

2. Participating in Answering Sites.

3. Blogging.

4. Forum Postings.

5. Article Submission.

6. Press Release Promotion.

7. Classified Ads Submissions.

8. Search Engine Submission.

9. Themed Directory Submission.

10. Social Bookmarking.

11. Link Exchange.

12. Photo Sharing.

13. Power Point Presentation Sharing.

14. Document Sharing.

15. Video Promotions.

16. Local Listings & Yellow Pages.

17. Business Directories Submissions.

18. Social Shopping Network (For Ecommerce websites).

19. RSS Directories Submission.

20. Blog and Forum Comments.

21. Blog Directory Submission.

22. Widget / Gadget Development.

23. PPC Ad Campaign.

SEO vs SMO

2009-10-01T03:25:00.000-07:00

SEO vs SMO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SMO (Social Media Optimization) are two powerful techniques to make a website popular in cyberspace and establish a strong brand presence for the company or business.

While SEO seeks to enhance the website’s ranking in search results, SMO aims to establish a strong presence on the social media. Both the processes are extremely effective in attracting visitor traffic and making the website popular on the internet. However, the question comes… Can both the processes co-exist?

Let us run down a comparison between the two optimization techniques…

Mode of Popularization

SEO relies heavily on link building. In fact, the number of inbound links to a website is what determines its popularity and subsequent ranking in the search results. More the number of links, more are the chances that the website gets ranked in the top slots of the results’ page.

SMO on the other hand, relies on voting. When you share content on social media platforms, users there have an option to vote for it and share it further. If your content is unique enough, more and more people will vote for it and spread it out further. This further increases its popularity with the search engines.

On Page Elements

SEO depends on on page elements like title tags, headers, image titles, alt tags, bold text and keyword density of the content. This is because search engine crawlers place increased importance on these elements and if you have placed relevant keywords within them, it could enhance your search engine rankings.

SMO in turn depends on tagging. The tags that you use for your content are of extreme importance because users use these tags to read through information on social media websites. On social media websites, users are more interested in reading new information and not searching for something in particular.

Titles of Content

SEO requires you to use your relevant keywords within the title of your content. This is because search engine crawlers place increased importance on the titles which would further increase the relevancy of the content.

SMO requires you to write crisp and interesting titles in order to grab attention of users and prompt them to click through. You don’t need to include keywords as much as you need to make it interesting.

Readers & Audiences

SEO content, though it needs to be relevant for the users, also needs to cater to search engine crawlers. This means SEO content has an audience of human users as well as search engine crawlers and it needs to fulfill requirements of both the segments. The prime purpose of the content should be to rank well in the SERPs.

SMO content is purely for human users. Even if you don’t include your keywords in it, you need to make sure it is interesting enough to lure users to click through. It would further establish your reputation as an industry professional.

Analysis

SEO results needs to be analyzed to determine the relevant keywords and to figure out what changes have made an impact on the ranking of the website in search engine results.

SMO analysis is required to determine what kind of content gets popular among the audiences.

So much for the comparisons. The trick is to run both SEO and SMO activities simultaneously and make both of them work to enhance the credibility of your website. SEO in conjugation with SMO can bring substantial visitor traffic and take your website to successful heights.

5 Most Effective SEO Optimization and Website Ranking Tips

2009-09-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Follow the tips given below to achieve your online marketing goals,

Valuable Content for SEO Optimization.
User-friendly Website Design for SEO Optimization.
Keyword Research and Placement for SEO Optimization.
Keeping Track of the Search Engine Algorithms.
Article Submission for SEO Optimization.

Online SEO Tools - Part II

2009-09-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

On-Site Analysis Online SEO Tools

On-page Keyword Prominence Research Tools

Page Size and Load Time Checkers

Additional Site Diagnostics Tools

Search Related Online Tools

Keyword Rank Checking Tools

Tools that Compare Different Search Engine Results

Website Traffic and Demographics Report

Online SEO Tools - Part I

2009-09-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

Backlink Analyzing Online SEO Tools

Keyword Research and Brainstorming Tools

Domain Name Online Tools

Twitter traffic-driving strategies!!!!!

2009-08-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the traffic-driving strategies:

Create a tool/application and promote your profile alongside it.
Buy a banner ad to target tech-savvy audiences, link it to your profile.
Use Twitter as a tool for tech/customer support.
Organize a contest through your Twitter profile
Include links to your profile in email/forum signatures.
Evangelize Twitter on your blog/other blogs and include a link to your profile.
Connect your blog and other social media profiles to your Twitter page.
Learn to pitch Twitter influencers with articles relevant to their interest
Explicitly ask another user to recommend your profile or exchange recommendations.

Simple SEO tips for bloggers

2009-08-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

· Use your primary keyword in your blog domain.

· Use your primary keyphrase in the title of your posts.

· Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post.

· Use your keywords in the anchor text of links.

· Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily.

· Get backlinks from other blogs.

· Update your blog frequently.

· Stick with your blog.

Good Linking Structure !!!!!!

2009-08-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

This diagram shows you good linking structure

List Of SEO Forums

2009-08-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

Top Rated SEO Forums:

The Big SEO Forum List: