It's pretty safe to say that anyone who has a computer has at some point or another used a search engine. Search engines are extremely useful creatures. They have had a major impact on our society, I mean its pretty amazing that you can just go type in anything you want into a search box and get back information about it in about two seconds. Before search engines came along you pretty much had to rely on going to the library to get more information. With that being said the popularity of search has created quite a huge market. The advent of paid advertising has sprung search engines into a multi-billion dollar a year industry, thus creating some pretty stiff competition. Right now we are in the midst of a major war on the internet, with the major players being Yahoo, MSN, Google, and an upcoming strong contender in Ask. So you may ask who is winning this war right now? And why? And who will take the lead in the future? One thing is for sure the reward of being the king of the search mountain will reap billions and billions of dollars annually.
So what are these top gun search engine competing over? The answer is clicks, on the paid advertisements they present every time someone uses their search engine. If you notice when you use Google for example that at the very top of the page and on the right hand side it says sponsored sites. This is where people trying to make money online pay to advertise for their company. These prices range from nickels and dimes per click, all the way up to hundreds of dollars per click, depending on the keyword. So the main objective for a search engine is to get as many people as possible using them to search the internet. Just think about it for a second, the more searches they get, the more chance of people clicking on their paid ads, which is where they make their money. Now of course not everyone is going to click on the paid ads, only a small percentage of the searches they receive ever actually make the search engine money. However, with millions of searches a day it only takes a small percentage to really make a big monetary difference.
So who are the warlords going to battle here? And who is in the lead? The three major competitors are MSN, Google, and Yahoo, and Ask is fighting its way back into the mix of things with some pretty sweet search features.
As of right now Google is in the lead, they receive somewhere in the ballpark of 80% of all search queries on the internet. Google is estimated to gross around 3 billion dollars in 2006, all from just paid advertisement. Now you may ask why is it that Google is so far ahead? Well there are a few reasons. First, Google has the most advanced algorithm, which is the mind boggling mathematical equation that ranks and lists sites depending on the keyword. Trying to understand their algorithm is extremely complicated, Google only hires absolute geniuses to work for them. Second, is the brilliance of Google.com itself, which is their homepage.
Take a look at Google's homepage, all you can do is type your keyword in the search box and hit search. There's really nothing else going on it's pretty clean cut and user friendly, with absolutely no distractions from getting people to do what they want. Which is search
Now take a look at MSN, or Yahoo's homepage. It is just jam packed with all sorts of stuff to do from playing games to reading articles about the news. This stuff is great and all, however it does distract people from typing into the search box and inevitably clicking on a paid ad putting money in their pocket. I believe this is a major part in why Google has such a gigantic lead in the volume of searches they receive compared to the other top guns. .
So I firmly believe that in this case the giant will not be taken down. Even though you see commercials for Yahoo and Ask, you know the ones with the cheesy guy screaming Yahoooo and the monkey that Ask is featuring. The bottom line is Google has the best algorithm right now and their site doesn't distract people from searching, which will yield many more search queries. Who knows though just as Google basically came from no where and took over the market, there may be a new kid on the block that will topple them. However as of now though they are the reigning champions.
July 23, 2010
SEO India : Ridiculously Easy Steps to the Top 10
Search Engine Optimization companies are making a fortune by doing the menial work that is overlooked by many designers. It is ridiculously easy to do most of the work done by most SEO companies, all you have to do is create good habits.
There are 9 main points you should focus on:
• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Heading tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks
The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many "keywords" as possible.
Keywords
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site, this formula is:
Total Words ÷ Keywords= Keyword Density
Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.
Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Web Design", I want my site to include the words "Web Design" as many times as possible.
However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in New Orleans, I would include "New Orleans web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.
URL Text
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not se a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn't come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.
Description Meta tags
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts.
Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.
Title Tags
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, don't put anything in the title tags but keywords. Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don't miss out.
Image Names
As I said before, content doesn't come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of a guy working on a computer for your web design web site, don't call it "some_dude.jpg", call it "web_site_design.jpg". The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.
ALT tags
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can't analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content, use it.
Heading tags
Heading tags are associated with the bold font that leads into a section of text. Like this:
Web Design
Web Design Inc. offers custom web site designs...
Your heading tags should only be keywords, and should be presented in the order that your Meta tags follow.
H1= first meta tag, H2= second meta tag...
Try to utilize all 6 heading tags on each page to ensure maximum page optimization.
Content
As every expert will tell you, "Content is King." Each web page should have at least 350 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don't want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can't read the text embedded in images, so this content ads no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.
Linkbaiting is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.
You don't have to advice or content expert to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:
• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don't use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Use bullets, or some sort of small image that you can attach an ALT tag to, this will ad more importance to the link, and throw in a couple of free keywords for you.
Keep these 9 aspects in mid when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.
There are 9 main points you should focus on:
• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Heading tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks
The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many "keywords" as possible.
Keywords
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site, this formula is:
Total Words ÷ Keywords= Keyword Density
Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.
Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Web Design", I want my site to include the words "Web Design" as many times as possible.
However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in New Orleans, I would include "New Orleans web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.
URL Text
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not se a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn't come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.
Description Meta tags
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts.
Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.
Title Tags
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, don't put anything in the title tags but keywords. Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don't miss out.
Image Names
As I said before, content doesn't come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of a guy working on a computer for your web design web site, don't call it "some_dude.jpg", call it "web_site_design.jpg". The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.
ALT tags
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can't analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content, use it.
Heading tags
Heading tags are associated with the bold font that leads into a section of text. Like this:
Web Design
Web Design Inc. offers custom web site designs...
Your heading tags should only be keywords, and should be presented in the order that your Meta tags follow.
H1= first meta tag, H2= second meta tag...
Try to utilize all 6 heading tags on each page to ensure maximum page optimization.
Content
As every expert will tell you, "Content is King." Each web page should have at least 350 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don't want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can't read the text embedded in images, so this content ads no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.
Linkbaiting is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.
You don't have to advice or content expert to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:
• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don't use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Use bullets, or some sort of small image that you can attach an ALT tag to, this will ad more importance to the link, and throw in a couple of free keywords for you.
Keep these 9 aspects in mid when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.
SEO India : what is social media?
Social media are characterized by the principal of participatory culture. They are media content providers and services that allow for horizontal, or peer to peer, communication, production and distribution of content. In some cases, the platform itself is open to lateral forms of participation. That is, users have input in the structure and affordances, not just the content, of the social media. Cellphone texting to Twitter, YouTube to Seesmic, Facebook to Second Life, Blogging to Newsvine and other social journalism sites…these are all social media that emphasize the relationality among users, rather than a “top-down” one-way distribution channel. The question is whether or not media has always been “social”? Indeed, greater emphasis on user participation, or active consumerism, has emerged in recent years. However, it may be possible to say that consumers have always been active; despite more limited entry points and freedoms, consumers have always “decoded” (to use Stuart Hall’s name for it) media content and reproduced it socially, at will.
July 22, 2010
SEO India : Providing Best SEO services
We will drive targeted search engine traffic to our client's websites through increasing their positioning for search queries that will deliver qualified visitors, and ultimately revenue.We will help you outperform your competitors in the digital marketplace.With 85% of businesses being found online initially through search engines, can you really afford to not take advantage of our quality one way link building techniques to improve your website search engine rankings? Probably not!
There was a time in the early days of the internet, that people had no problem finding the resources that they needed. There were only a few web pages to contend with and so there was a small chance that your site could be lost in the shuffle. Now there are at least 1 million different web pages introduced to web everyday. With these kinds of numbers, it can become real easy to be lost in the shuffle.
This is why the search engine has become so popular. For the average person, it takes all of the complexity out of searching for a new web page. The search engine breaks down the different keyword scenarios of the search term that you are looking for and offers you the best results. Do you really want your site to be lost in the shuffle ?
Why you should choose our SEO Services?
1. We concentrate much more on off-page SEO - Permanent link building. So, our link building services will deliver the best long term result.
2. We have included all services that are suggested by SEO Experts and effective.
3. Our link popularity services are much more affordable than any other SEO Company. Without any compromise in quality.
4. Attractive rate for bulk orders (Min. 5 sites nor services)
5. Submissions by an SEO Expert - providing this service since more than 4 years.
No more worrying about your website ranking. No more spending your money and resources trying to stay on top of PPC list of keywords against other advertiser, bidding, monitoring, hassle, research and the like. And no more wondering if there's a better way to get it all in a better expert way.
There is a better way. We call it Search Engine Optimization by an SEO Expert and it's all about your online business to become successful.
There was a time in the early days of the internet, that people had no problem finding the resources that they needed. There were only a few web pages to contend with and so there was a small chance that your site could be lost in the shuffle. Now there are at least 1 million different web pages introduced to web everyday. With these kinds of numbers, it can become real easy to be lost in the shuffle.
This is why the search engine has become so popular. For the average person, it takes all of the complexity out of searching for a new web page. The search engine breaks down the different keyword scenarios of the search term that you are looking for and offers you the best results. Do you really want your site to be lost in the shuffle ?
Why you should choose our SEO Services?
1. We concentrate much more on off-page SEO - Permanent link building. So, our link building services will deliver the best long term result.
2. We have included all services that are suggested by SEO Experts and effective.
3. Our link popularity services are much more affordable than any other SEO Company. Without any compromise in quality.
4. Attractive rate for bulk orders (Min. 5 sites nor services)
5. Submissions by an SEO Expert - providing this service since more than 4 years.
No more worrying about your website ranking. No more spending your money and resources trying to stay on top of PPC list of keywords against other advertiser, bidding, monitoring, hassle, research and the like. And no more wondering if there's a better way to get it all in a better expert way.
There is a better way. We call it Search Engine Optimization by an SEO Expert and it's all about your online business to become successful.
SEO India : Black Hat Techinque from GOOGLE
1. Hidden text – Create modern CSS based websites with JQuery effects. They often hide large portions of text in layers to display them on click or mouse over for usability reasons. Example: CSS pagination.
2. IP delivery – Offer the proper localized content to those coming from a country specific IP address. Offer the user a choice though. Shopping.com does a great job here.
3. 301 redirects – Redirect outdated pages to the newer versions or your homepage. When moving to a new domain use them of course as well.
4. Throw Away Domains – Create exact match micro sites for short term popular keywords and abandon them when the trend subsides. Something like tigerwoodssexrehab.com
5. Cloaking – Hide the heavy Flash animations from Google, show the text-only version optimized for accessibility and findability.
6. Paid links – Donate for charity, software developers etc. Many of them display links to those who donate.
7. Keyword stuffing – Tags and folksonomy. Keyword stuff but adding several tags or let your users do the dirty work via UGC tagging (folksonomy) every major social site does that.
8. Automatically generated keyword pages – Some shopping search engines create pages from each Google search query and assign the appropriate products to each query. You can do that as well if you have enough content.
9. Mispsellings – Define, correct the misspelled term and/or redirect to the correct version.
10. Scraping – Create mirrors for popular sites. Offer them to the respective webmasters. Most will be glad to pay less.
11. Ad only pages – Create all page ads (interstitials) and show them before users see content like many old media do.
12. Blog spam – Don’t spam yourself! Get spammed! Install a WordPress blog without Akismet spam protection. Then create a few posts about Mesothelioma for example, a very profitable keyword. Then let spammers comment spam it or even add posts (via TDO Mini Forms). Last but not least parse the comments for your keyword and outgoing links. If they contain the keyword publish them and remove the outgoing links of course. Bot user generated content so to say.
13. Duplicate content on multiple domains – Offer your content under a creative Commons License with attribution.
14. Domain grabbing – Buy old authority domains that failed and revive them instead of putting them on sale.
15. Fake news – Create real news on official looking sites for real events. You can even do it in print. Works great for all kinds of activism related topics.
16. Link farm – Create a legit blog network of flagship blogs. A full time pro blogger can manage 3 to 5 high quality blogs by her or himself.
17. New exploits – Find them and report them, blog about them. You break story and thus you get all the attention and links. Dave Naylor is excellent at it.
18. Brand jacking – Write a bad review for a brand that has disappointed you or destroys the planet or set up a brand x sucks page and let consumers voice their concerns.
19. Rogue bots – Spider websites and make their webmasters aware of broken links and other issues. Some people may be thankful enough to link to you.
20. Hidden affiliate links – In fact hiding affiliate links is good for usability and can be even more ethical than showing them. example.com/ref?id=87233683 is far worse than than just example.com. Also unsuspecting Web users will copy your ad to forums etc. which might break their TOS. The only thing you have to do is disclose the affiliate as such. I prefer to use [ad] (on Twitter for example) or [partner-link] elsewhere. This way you can strip the annoying “ref” ids and achieve full disclosure at the same time.
21. Doorway pages – Effectively doorway pages could also be called landing pages. The only difference is that doorway pages are worthless crap while landing pages are streamlined to suffice on their own. Common for both is that they are highly optimized for organic search traffic. So instead of making your doorway pages just a place to get skipped optimize them as landing pages and make the users convert right there.
22. Multiple subdomains – Multiple subdomains for one domain can serve an ethical purpose. Just think blogspot.co or wordpress.com – they create multiple subdomains by UGC. This way they can rank several times for a query. You can offer subdomains to your users as well.
23. Twitter automation – There is nothing wrong with Twitter automation as long as you don’t overdo it. Scheduling and repeating tweets, even automatically tweeting RSS feeds from your or other blogs is perfectly OK as long as the Twitter account has a real person attending it who tweets “manually” as well. Bot accounts can be ethical as well in case they are useful no only for yourself. A bot collecting news about Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake would be perfectly legit if you ask me.
24. Deceptive headlines – Tabloids use them all the time, black hat SEO also do. There are ethical use cases for deceptive headlines though. Satire is one of course and humor simply as well. For instance I could end this list with 24 items and declare this post to a list of 30 items anyways. That would be a good laugh. I’ve done that in the past but in a more humorous post.
25. Google Bowling – The bad thing about Google bowling is that you hurt sites you don’t like. You could reverse that: Reverse Google bowling would mean that you push sites of competitors you like to make those you dislike disappear below. In a way we do that all the time linking out to the competition, the good guys of SEO who then outrank the ugly sites we like a lot less.
26. Invisible links – You’d never used invisible links on your sites did you? You liar! You have. Most free web counters and statistic tools use them. Statcounter is a good example. So when you embed them on your site you use invisible links.
27. Different content for search engines than users – Do you use WordPress? Then you have the nofollow attribute added to your comment links. this way the search engine gets different content than the user. He sees and clicks a link. A search bot sees a no trespass sign instead. In white hat SEO it’s often called PageRank sculpting. Most social media add ons do that by default.
28. Hacking sites – While crackers hack sites security experts warn site owners that they vulnerabilities. Both discover the same issues. Recently I got an email by someone who warned me to update my WordPress installation. That was a grand idea I thought.
29. Slander linkbait – Pulling a Calacanis like “SEO is bullshit” is quite common these days. Why don’t do it the other way around? The anti SEO thing doesn’t work that good anymore unless you are as famous as Robert Scoble. In contrast a post dealing with “100 Reasons to Love SEO Experts” might strike a chord by now.
30. Map spam – Instead of faking multiple addresses all over the place just to appear on Google Maps and Local why don’t you simply create an affiliate network of real life small business owners with shops and offices who, for a small amount of money, are your representatives there? All they need to do is to collect your mail from Google and potential clients.
2. IP delivery – Offer the proper localized content to those coming from a country specific IP address. Offer the user a choice though. Shopping.com does a great job here.
3. 301 redirects – Redirect outdated pages to the newer versions or your homepage. When moving to a new domain use them of course as well.
4. Throw Away Domains – Create exact match micro sites for short term popular keywords and abandon them when the trend subsides. Something like tigerwoodssexrehab.com
5. Cloaking – Hide the heavy Flash animations from Google, show the text-only version optimized for accessibility and findability.
6. Paid links – Donate for charity, software developers etc. Many of them display links to those who donate.
7. Keyword stuffing – Tags and folksonomy. Keyword stuff but adding several tags or let your users do the dirty work via UGC tagging (folksonomy) every major social site does that.
8. Automatically generated keyword pages – Some shopping search engines create pages from each Google search query and assign the appropriate products to each query. You can do that as well if you have enough content.
9. Mispsellings – Define, correct the misspelled term and/or redirect to the correct version.
10. Scraping – Create mirrors for popular sites. Offer them to the respective webmasters. Most will be glad to pay less.
11. Ad only pages – Create all page ads (interstitials) and show them before users see content like many old media do.
12. Blog spam – Don’t spam yourself! Get spammed! Install a WordPress blog without Akismet spam protection. Then create a few posts about Mesothelioma for example, a very profitable keyword. Then let spammers comment spam it or even add posts (via TDO Mini Forms). Last but not least parse the comments for your keyword and outgoing links. If they contain the keyword publish them and remove the outgoing links of course. Bot user generated content so to say.
13. Duplicate content on multiple domains – Offer your content under a creative Commons License with attribution.
14. Domain grabbing – Buy old authority domains that failed and revive them instead of putting them on sale.
15. Fake news – Create real news on official looking sites for real events. You can even do it in print. Works great for all kinds of activism related topics.
16. Link farm – Create a legit blog network of flagship blogs. A full time pro blogger can manage 3 to 5 high quality blogs by her or himself.
17. New exploits – Find them and report them, blog about them. You break story and thus you get all the attention and links. Dave Naylor is excellent at it.
18. Brand jacking – Write a bad review for a brand that has disappointed you or destroys the planet or set up a brand x sucks page and let consumers voice their concerns.
19. Rogue bots – Spider websites and make their webmasters aware of broken links and other issues. Some people may be thankful enough to link to you.
20. Hidden affiliate links – In fact hiding affiliate links is good for usability and can be even more ethical than showing them. example.com/ref?id=87233683 is far worse than than just example.com. Also unsuspecting Web users will copy your ad to forums etc. which might break their TOS. The only thing you have to do is disclose the affiliate as such. I prefer to use [ad] (on Twitter for example) or [partner-link] elsewhere. This way you can strip the annoying “ref” ids and achieve full disclosure at the same time.
21. Doorway pages – Effectively doorway pages could also be called landing pages. The only difference is that doorway pages are worthless crap while landing pages are streamlined to suffice on their own. Common for both is that they are highly optimized for organic search traffic. So instead of making your doorway pages just a place to get skipped optimize them as landing pages and make the users convert right there.
22. Multiple subdomains – Multiple subdomains for one domain can serve an ethical purpose. Just think blogspot.co or wordpress.com – they create multiple subdomains by UGC. This way they can rank several times for a query. You can offer subdomains to your users as well.
23. Twitter automation – There is nothing wrong with Twitter automation as long as you don’t overdo it. Scheduling and repeating tweets, even automatically tweeting RSS feeds from your or other blogs is perfectly OK as long as the Twitter account has a real person attending it who tweets “manually” as well. Bot accounts can be ethical as well in case they are useful no only for yourself. A bot collecting news about Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake would be perfectly legit if you ask me.
24. Deceptive headlines – Tabloids use them all the time, black hat SEO also do. There are ethical use cases for deceptive headlines though. Satire is one of course and humor simply as well. For instance I could end this list with 24 items and declare this post to a list of 30 items anyways. That would be a good laugh. I’ve done that in the past but in a more humorous post.
25. Google Bowling – The bad thing about Google bowling is that you hurt sites you don’t like. You could reverse that: Reverse Google bowling would mean that you push sites of competitors you like to make those you dislike disappear below. In a way we do that all the time linking out to the competition, the good guys of SEO who then outrank the ugly sites we like a lot less.
26. Invisible links – You’d never used invisible links on your sites did you? You liar! You have. Most free web counters and statistic tools use them. Statcounter is a good example. So when you embed them on your site you use invisible links.
27. Different content for search engines than users – Do you use WordPress? Then you have the nofollow attribute added to your comment links. this way the search engine gets different content than the user. He sees and clicks a link. A search bot sees a no trespass sign instead. In white hat SEO it’s often called PageRank sculpting. Most social media add ons do that by default.
28. Hacking sites – While crackers hack sites security experts warn site owners that they vulnerabilities. Both discover the same issues. Recently I got an email by someone who warned me to update my WordPress installation. That was a grand idea I thought.
29. Slander linkbait – Pulling a Calacanis like “SEO is bullshit” is quite common these days. Why don’t do it the other way around? The anti SEO thing doesn’t work that good anymore unless you are as famous as Robert Scoble. In contrast a post dealing with “100 Reasons to Love SEO Experts” might strike a chord by now.
30. Map spam – Instead of faking multiple addresses all over the place just to appear on Google Maps and Local why don’t you simply create an affiliate network of real life small business owners with shops and offices who, for a small amount of money, are your representatives there? All they need to do is to collect your mail from Google and potential clients.
SEO India : Choosing a SEO Company
After you have been dealing for some time with SEO on your own, you discover that no matter how hard you try, your site does not rank well or that your site ranks well but optimizing it for search engines takes all your time and all your other tasks lag behind. If this is the case with you, maybe it is better to consider hiring a SEO company to do the work for you. With so many SEO companies out there, you can't complain that you have no choice. Or is it just the opposite – so many companies but few reliable?
It is stretching the truth to say that there are no reliable SEO companies. Yes, there might be many scam SEO companies but if you know what to look for when selecting a SEO company, the risk of hiring fraudsters is reduced. It is much better if you yourself have a substantial knowledge of SEO and can easily decide if they promise you the starts in the sky or their goals are realistic but even if you are not quite familiar with SEO practices, here is a list with some points to watch for when choosing a SEO company:
Do they promise to guarantee #1 ranking? If they do, you have a serious reason to doubt their competencies. As the Google SEO selection tips say, no one can guarantee a #1 ranking in Google. This is true even for not so competitive words.
Get recommendation from friends, business partners, etc. Word of mouth is very important for the credibility of a company.
Ask in forums. There are many reputable Web master forums, so if you can't find somebody who can recommend you a SEO company right away, consider asking in Web master forums. However, beware that not all forum posters are honest people, so take their opinion (no matter if positive or negative) with a grain of salt. Forums are not such a reliable source of information as in-person contact.
Google the company name. If the company is a known fraudster, chances are that you will find a lot of information about it on the Web. However, lack of negative publicity does not mean automatically that the company is great, nor do some subjective negative opinions mean that the company is a scammer.
Ask for examples of sites they have optimized. Happy customers are the best form of promotion, so feel free to ask your potential SEO company about sites they have optimized and references from clients. If you get a rejection because of confidentiality reasons, this must ring a bell about the credibility of the SEO company - former customers are not supposed to be a secret.
Check the PR of their own site. If they can't optimize their site well enough to get a good PR (over 4-5), they are not worth hiring.
Ask them what keywords their site ranks for. Similarly to the page rank factor, if they don't rank well for the keywords of their choice, they are hardly as professional as they are pretending to be.
Do they use automated submissions? If they do, stay away from them. Automated submissions can get you banned from search engines.
Do they use any black hat SEO tricks? You need to know in advance what black hat SEO is in order to judge them, so getting familiar with the most important black hat SEO tricks is worth before you go and start cross-examining them.
Where do they collect backlinks from? Backlinks are very, very important for SEO success but if they come from link farms and other similar sites, this can cause a lot of trouble. So, make sure the SEO firm collects links from reputable sites only.
Get some personal impressions, if possible. Gut instinct and impressions from meetings are also a way to judge a company, though sometimes it is not difficult to get mislead, so use this approach with caution.
High price does not guarantee high quality. If you are eager to pay more, this does not mean that you will get more. Just because a firm costs more DOES NOT make them better SEO's. There are many reasons for high prices and high quality is only one of them. For instance, the company might work inefficiently and this is the reason for their ridiculously high costs, not the quality of their work.
Cheap is more expensive. This is also true. If you think you can pay peanuts for a professional SEO campaign, then you need to think again. Professional SEO companies offer realistic prices.
Use tricky questions. Using tricky questions is a double-edged sword, especially if you are not an expert. But there are several easy questions that can help you.
For instance, you might ask them how many search engines they will automatically submit your site to. If they are scammers, they will try to impress you with big numbers. But in this case, the best answer would be "no automatic submissions".
Another tricky question is to ask them if they will place in you top 10 for some competitive keywords of your choice. The trap here is that it is them, not you, who chooses the words that are best for your site. It is not that probable that they will choose exactly the same words as you suggest, so if they tell you that you just give them the words and they push you to the top, tell them “Goodbye”.
Do they offer subscription services? SEO is a constant process and if you want to rank well and keep on like that, efforts are necessary all the time. Because of this, it is better to select a company that includes post-optimization maintenance, than get a company that pushes your site to the top and then leaves you in the wild on your own.
We tried to mention some of the most important issues in selecting a SEO company. Of course, there are many other factors to consider and each case is different, so give it some thought, before you sign the contract for hiring a SEO company.
It is stretching the truth to say that there are no reliable SEO companies. Yes, there might be many scam SEO companies but if you know what to look for when selecting a SEO company, the risk of hiring fraudsters is reduced. It is much better if you yourself have a substantial knowledge of SEO and can easily decide if they promise you the starts in the sky or their goals are realistic but even if you are not quite familiar with SEO practices, here is a list with some points to watch for when choosing a SEO company:
Do they promise to guarantee #1 ranking? If they do, you have a serious reason to doubt their competencies. As the Google SEO selection tips say, no one can guarantee a #1 ranking in Google. This is true even for not so competitive words.
Get recommendation from friends, business partners, etc. Word of mouth is very important for the credibility of a company.
Ask in forums. There are many reputable Web master forums, so if you can't find somebody who can recommend you a SEO company right away, consider asking in Web master forums. However, beware that not all forum posters are honest people, so take their opinion (no matter if positive or negative) with a grain of salt. Forums are not such a reliable source of information as in-person contact.
Google the company name. If the company is a known fraudster, chances are that you will find a lot of information about it on the Web. However, lack of negative publicity does not mean automatically that the company is great, nor do some subjective negative opinions mean that the company is a scammer.
Ask for examples of sites they have optimized. Happy customers are the best form of promotion, so feel free to ask your potential SEO company about sites they have optimized and references from clients. If you get a rejection because of confidentiality reasons, this must ring a bell about the credibility of the SEO company - former customers are not supposed to be a secret.
Check the PR of their own site. If they can't optimize their site well enough to get a good PR (over 4-5), they are not worth hiring.
Ask them what keywords their site ranks for. Similarly to the page rank factor, if they don't rank well for the keywords of their choice, they are hardly as professional as they are pretending to be.
Do they use automated submissions? If they do, stay away from them. Automated submissions can get you banned from search engines.
Do they use any black hat SEO tricks? You need to know in advance what black hat SEO is in order to judge them, so getting familiar with the most important black hat SEO tricks is worth before you go and start cross-examining them.
Where do they collect backlinks from? Backlinks are very, very important for SEO success but if they come from link farms and other similar sites, this can cause a lot of trouble. So, make sure the SEO firm collects links from reputable sites only.
Get some personal impressions, if possible. Gut instinct and impressions from meetings are also a way to judge a company, though sometimes it is not difficult to get mislead, so use this approach with caution.
High price does not guarantee high quality. If you are eager to pay more, this does not mean that you will get more. Just because a firm costs more DOES NOT make them better SEO's. There are many reasons for high prices and high quality is only one of them. For instance, the company might work inefficiently and this is the reason for their ridiculously high costs, not the quality of their work.
Cheap is more expensive. This is also true. If you think you can pay peanuts for a professional SEO campaign, then you need to think again. Professional SEO companies offer realistic prices.
Use tricky questions. Using tricky questions is a double-edged sword, especially if you are not an expert. But there are several easy questions that can help you.
For instance, you might ask them how many search engines they will automatically submit your site to. If they are scammers, they will try to impress you with big numbers. But in this case, the best answer would be "no automatic submissions".
Another tricky question is to ask them if they will place in you top 10 for some competitive keywords of your choice. The trap here is that it is them, not you, who chooses the words that are best for your site. It is not that probable that they will choose exactly the same words as you suggest, so if they tell you that you just give them the words and they push you to the top, tell them “Goodbye”.
Do they offer subscription services? SEO is a constant process and if you want to rank well and keep on like that, efforts are necessary all the time. Because of this, it is better to select a company that includes post-optimization maintenance, than get a company that pushes your site to the top and then leaves you in the wild on your own.
We tried to mention some of the most important issues in selecting a SEO company. Of course, there are many other factors to consider and each case is different, so give it some thought, before you sign the contract for hiring a SEO company.
March 22, 2010
10 Easy Tips to Consider in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Keyword being the weapon of your success in SEO, use those keywords that are directly related or targeted to your business theme.
- Take care not to over crowd your site’s content with keywords and use keywords throughout the content rather than concentrating it at the beginning or at the end.
- Back-link or inbound link is important, so build links with potential partners that can generate profit to your site.
- Choose good title and Meta tags- Good title makes good move on page optimization, and suitable, targeted, theme based, precise keywords and phrases in Meta tags help spiders find your web pages more easily.
- Design your site that clearly represent your business and make an easy navigation based on your keyword research.
- Make web pages that are easy to load. Don’t make pages with large images, if images are necessary; make a thumbnail of it and link it with full image page so that you can add more pages and text in it which spiders love to crawl.
- Make your web pages content rich with keywords and phrases that hit your business. Add more contents that give precise information about your services and products.
- Offer something unique than general contents i.e. add more articles at least one per month and update your contents regularly and add new resources.
- Add more content to your website but never make it duplicate by copying other’s work. Duplicate content is easily detected by search engine and make your website unqualified for ranking and kicked it off completely from search engine.
- Take advice of trusted advisor or Search Engine Optimization Company for site optimization and marketing your website rather being duped by false promise maker.
February 19, 2010
SEO Freelance, SEO Freelancer Services India
Do you want to increase natural organic free traffic to your website? Do you want your website to come on the first page of Google? Do you want the increase your website presence, bring targeted visitors to your site and boost your online business and sales? OR are you sick of paying those expensive Pay-Per-Click bills charged by Search Engine without any ROI?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility and presence of your website to search engines for relevant keywords and phrases that helps you to get more traffic and hence more sales and business. Successful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) improves the quality and bandwidth of traffic to a website due to higher rankings in Search Engines Result Pages also called as SERPs.
There are a lot of benefits if your website is ranking on the first page of Google. Approx. 92% of internet users don’t look further than the first two pages of search engine results. Traffic from search engines is considered to be the most valuable kind of traffic as it is comprised of qualified visitors actively looking for a product, service information or solution.
No Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign is 100% without SEO. Since the purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to make the site better for both search engines and users many people find it will be suffice on its own. Even if you are willing to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.
About Myself: I work freelance for many clients and companies based in USA, UK and Australia. I specialize in Search Engine Optimization (Freelance SEO), PPC, Email marketing and general online marketing which I have been doing for over Six years.
Link Building India
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility and presence of your website to search engines for relevant keywords and phrases that helps you to get more traffic and hence more sales and business. Successful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) improves the quality and bandwidth of traffic to a website due to higher rankings in Search Engines Result Pages also called as SERPs.
There are a lot of benefits if your website is ranking on the first page of Google. Approx. 92% of internet users don’t look further than the first two pages of search engine results. Traffic from search engines is considered to be the most valuable kind of traffic as it is comprised of qualified visitors actively looking for a product, service information or solution.
No Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign is 100% without SEO. Since the purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to make the site better for both search engines and users many people find it will be suffice on its own. Even if you are willing to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.
About Myself: I work freelance for many clients and companies based in USA, UK and Australia. I specialize in Search Engine Optimization (Freelance SEO), PPC, Email marketing and general online marketing which I have been doing for over Six years.
Link Building India
Google Buzz Information
Google Buzz is a social networking and messaging tool from Google, designed to integrate into the company's web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in "conversations" and visible in the user's inbox.
Buzz allows users to choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a group of friends each time they post. Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, YouTube, Blogger, and Twitter are currently integrated. The creation of Buzz was seen by industry analysts as an attempt by Google to compete with social networking websites like Facebook and microblogging services like Twitter. Buzz also includes several interface and interaction elements from other Google products (e.g. Google Reader) such as the ability to "like" a post.
Google executive Sergey Brin said that by offering social communications, Buzz would help bridge the gap between work and leisure, but the service and its rollout have been strongly criticized for taking insufficient account of privacy concerns.
Link Building India
Buzz allows users to choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a group of friends each time they post. Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, YouTube, Blogger, and Twitter are currently integrated. The creation of Buzz was seen by industry analysts as an attempt by Google to compete with social networking websites like Facebook and microblogging services like Twitter. Buzz also includes several interface and interaction elements from other Google products (e.g. Google Reader) such as the ability to "like" a post.
Google executive Sergey Brin said that by offering social communications, Buzz would help bridge the gap between work and leisure, but the service and its rollout have been strongly criticized for taking insufficient account of privacy concerns.
Link Building India
November 20, 2009
What Is SEO and Why Optimize?
Link building India :- SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION - An Introduction
You spent a good deal, worked hard for many days and nights and built a great website, but alas! it doesn't get enough visitors. There are millions upon millions of pages of web content out there and your website is totally lost in the shuffle, like the proverbial needle in a haystack. When search engines ignore your site, your site becomes non-existent in the cyber world. The real problem with your website is that it failed to harness the most cost-effective and powerful Internet marketing strategy: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)!
Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site appear at the top of search engine results for your domain-specific keywords and phrases. The higher your website ranks in the results of Google, Yahoo, MSN etc., the greater the chance that your site will be visited by many, which in turn would skyrocket your sales.
Simply put, Search Engine Optimization is about making your website visible on search engines. Its commercial purpose is to be the first to hit a customer base effectively.
Why Search Engine Optimize
Everyday, millions of people search the web to find out what they look for. If your website doesn't come up top in the results, you lose your business to your competitors. SEO is important not only because it brings lots of visitors to your website, but also because it helps to increase the return on investment, if harnessed properly. Say for example, you have a website that sells mobile phones online. Optimizing the site for targeted keywords like 'low cost mobile phones' would bring it to the top results on popular search engines. This would in turn bring prospective customers to your site, which would result in higher sales.
However, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that requires patience, careful planning, and a long-term approach. Don't worry, here are 4 easy steps that will help you get started with optimizing your website.
4 Easy Steps to get started with Search Engine Optimization
a) Create traffic targeted content
Identify the keywords, i.e., words or phrases using which your potential customers will search the web. Example, if you are a hair salon, they will probably search using the keywords "hair cut", "hairstyle", etc. After identifying and gathering a set of keywords, categorize them under various themes and write web contents on those themes. That is, under the "hairstyle" theme, you can put keywords such as hairstyles, crew cut, long cut, short cut, curly cut, layered cut, etc. Using a Keyword Suggestion tool, you can see how many people search for a certain keyword. Any keyword for which the number of listings is less and the number of searches is more gives you a better chance of ranking higher than keywords for which the listings are more and the searches are less. Once you got the right keyword, use it appropriately in the page so that the page appeals to both the visitors and the Search Engines.
HTML tags such as title tags and meta tags also play a role in ranking top on search engines. These tags must contain only relevant keywords. Neither fill these tags with keywords that don't appear in the content nor leave them empty.
b) Make your pages Search Engine Ready
Check if your pages are search engine ready, i.e., are they crawlable by search engine spiders, is there something in them that will make the Search Engine neglect the page or give it a lower ranking.
To make your pages search engine ready
* Your website content must be readable. For the sake of appearing top on the search engines, do not make the content clumsy by repeatedly using the keywords. These kinds of clumsy sites may get top rank, but won't get readers.
* Add only relevant keywords: Do not stuff the website content, title tag, and meta tags with too many keywords. The keywords that are provided in the title and meta tags must appear in the website content.
* Do not add invisible text: Most of the search engines find them out and ban those sites.
c)Submit your site to Search Engines.
Now that you have made your site search engine ready, start submitting it to the popular search engines. That way, they know your site exists. Some search engines may require periodical submission. If you find the submission process tough, get a Site Submission tool available on the web. (More on Submitting to Search Engines)
d)Track your performance
Often times, people complain that their position in search engines has gone down. We must not forget that Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process for reasons like, Search Engines changing their algorithm frequently, new sites coming up for the same keywords as yours, your watch sites (competitor sites) optimizing themselves for search engines and so on. Thus, it is important you keep track of where you rank for each of your keywords in the most important search engines and constantly modify the content so that search engines know that your page is active. This enhances your rank on the search results.
Conclusion
Although Search Engine Optimization seems to be so complicated at the outset, it really is a simple and interesting process that you will enjoy doing yourself. Search Engine Optimization is the most cost-effective, easy to implement Internet marketing strategy that can get you more traffic and in effect more revenue. So go ahead, start optimizing your site. Happy Search Engine Optimizing...
link Building India
You spent a good deal, worked hard for many days and nights and built a great website, but alas! it doesn't get enough visitors. There are millions upon millions of pages of web content out there and your website is totally lost in the shuffle, like the proverbial needle in a haystack. When search engines ignore your site, your site becomes non-existent in the cyber world. The real problem with your website is that it failed to harness the most cost-effective and powerful Internet marketing strategy: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)!
Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site appear at the top of search engine results for your domain-specific keywords and phrases. The higher your website ranks in the results of Google, Yahoo, MSN etc., the greater the chance that your site will be visited by many, which in turn would skyrocket your sales.
Simply put, Search Engine Optimization is about making your website visible on search engines. Its commercial purpose is to be the first to hit a customer base effectively.
Why Search Engine Optimize
Everyday, millions of people search the web to find out what they look for. If your website doesn't come up top in the results, you lose your business to your competitors. SEO is important not only because it brings lots of visitors to your website, but also because it helps to increase the return on investment, if harnessed properly. Say for example, you have a website that sells mobile phones online. Optimizing the site for targeted keywords like 'low cost mobile phones' would bring it to the top results on popular search engines. This would in turn bring prospective customers to your site, which would result in higher sales.
However, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that requires patience, careful planning, and a long-term approach. Don't worry, here are 4 easy steps that will help you get started with optimizing your website.
4 Easy Steps to get started with Search Engine Optimization
a) Create traffic targeted content
Identify the keywords, i.e., words or phrases using which your potential customers will search the web. Example, if you are a hair salon, they will probably search using the keywords "hair cut", "hairstyle", etc. After identifying and gathering a set of keywords, categorize them under various themes and write web contents on those themes. That is, under the "hairstyle" theme, you can put keywords such as hairstyles, crew cut, long cut, short cut, curly cut, layered cut, etc. Using a Keyword Suggestion tool, you can see how many people search for a certain keyword. Any keyword for which the number of listings is less and the number of searches is more gives you a better chance of ranking higher than keywords for which the listings are more and the searches are less. Once you got the right keyword, use it appropriately in the page so that the page appeals to both the visitors and the Search Engines.
HTML tags such as title tags and meta tags also play a role in ranking top on search engines. These tags must contain only relevant keywords. Neither fill these tags with keywords that don't appear in the content nor leave them empty.
b) Make your pages Search Engine Ready
Check if your pages are search engine ready, i.e., are they crawlable by search engine spiders, is there something in them that will make the Search Engine neglect the page or give it a lower ranking.
To make your pages search engine ready
* Your website content must be readable. For the sake of appearing top on the search engines, do not make the content clumsy by repeatedly using the keywords. These kinds of clumsy sites may get top rank, but won't get readers.
* Add only relevant keywords: Do not stuff the website content, title tag, and meta tags with too many keywords. The keywords that are provided in the title and meta tags must appear in the website content.
* Do not add invisible text: Most of the search engines find them out and ban those sites.
c)Submit your site to Search Engines.
Now that you have made your site search engine ready, start submitting it to the popular search engines. That way, they know your site exists. Some search engines may require periodical submission. If you find the submission process tough, get a Site Submission tool available on the web. (More on Submitting to Search Engines)
d)Track your performance
Often times, people complain that their position in search engines has gone down. We must not forget that Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process for reasons like, Search Engines changing their algorithm frequently, new sites coming up for the same keywords as yours, your watch sites (competitor sites) optimizing themselves for search engines and so on. Thus, it is important you keep track of where you rank for each of your keywords in the most important search engines and constantly modify the content so that search engines know that your page is active. This enhances your rank on the search results.
Conclusion
Although Search Engine Optimization seems to be so complicated at the outset, it really is a simple and interesting process that you will enjoy doing yourself. Search Engine Optimization is the most cost-effective, easy to implement Internet marketing strategy that can get you more traffic and in effect more revenue. So go ahead, start optimizing your site. Happy Search Engine Optimizing...
link Building India
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