Seo Articles and Blogs

How to Blog?

2012-01-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

Blog is one of the most useful tool that has come in recent times. The weblog as the blog is called is a short of personal diary and is an account of one's experience. The blog do contain information articles and news items as well.

The blogsite is an interactive platform and is easy to use. For example you have to first create and account with the service provider. One such service provider is blogspot for which you need gmail to create and account.

You can either type the url or search in google using keyword "blogspot".

The Url is http://www.blogger.com

Another way is to click on the right side of the Google search result page. There is sign in written on the top right click on sign in. Once you sign you can add blogger services to your account. Going through the URL is best for first timer.

Once you are at the blogger interface look for options. Select the New Post option or Write a Post option to enter the platform. Here you can type in whatever you wish to write and from the options on the top you can add photographs and use the editor to format your text. You can also add a link to the sites which are relevant to your content and add information to it. You add too many links your blog will become a spam blog hence be very careful. Write for the users. Once your entry is complete you can click on the publish button to publish your entry.

Other options: While you are writing an entry you can frequently use the save button to save your work. Your entry will be saved a draft. Once it is complete you can publish it.

There is an option for adding keywords on the right side of the writing surface. You can add keywords that describe your contents. Similarly you can location search to add the position on which your write is based. These will help the search engines place your blog better on SERPs.

Preserve the user name and password that you have created to open and account with the blogger.

Social Networking make most of it

2012-01-14T01:29:00.001-08:00

Social Networking has created a new paradigm amongst the humans to interact with each other. The sites offer a platform to meet and mingle. The online communities engage within with each other in order to converse on topics close to their heart.

Social websites offer diverse benefits apart from friend connect. If utilized properly using social media utilities the platform can yield rich dividends. One can promote one's profession and business with effective usage. It is a smart strategy which costs little.

Using social media and useful content one can promote himself or herself in topic related circles. This is where one can highlight one's objective already having popularized one's skill using the social media.

Facebook has already shown how potent a tool it can be for promoting one's objective and goals. Making a large member base helps one to target more potential clients, advertise one's wares, find buyers - the benefits as limitless.

Publishing content is the key to success. Content were social media has been used effectively. There are a large number of networking website where one can promote oneself effectively. Most of the sites are free but membership fee has to be paid in some niche website which cater to a specific topic. Before paying for membership one should utilize the free option in order to get the feel of how strong the platform is.

Incorporate Social Bookmarking in Seo

2012-01-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

Albeit social bookmarking is for storing your favorite sites, blogs, article and social media you can benefit your seo exercise through it. The bookmarking websites are not just hanging place anymore. The sites offer a search capability that makes you website or content accessible to reader. They can be found by another user. You can make your link private if you do not wish others to access them. but keeping it public is a good choice if you wish to proliferate your content on web.

The most important gain is that your word spreads and your article is indexed faster by search engine. If you look at your browser you will find a bookmarking tab use it and you will know quickly what it is. This tab helps you to bookmark your favorite websites and blogs hence you do not have to search them every time.

The professional bookmarking sites offer much greater features and when you submit the link to them use tags that describe your content. There is an option to place the link is a related category do it. This way all your related links will be marked topic wise. This will increase the search potential of your links and hence the exposure. Backlink benefit is less through these sites as they are no follow but nevertheless do not ignore these sites in Internet marketing campaigns.

Another benefit you get is connectivity with like minded people who begin to read your bookmarked content. They enroll as you friend or fan and have access to your bookmarks. Thus you get a constant readership of your content articles and blog entries.

Metrics that fetch gain

2012-01-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

I was reading one of the blog entries on Google Web master Blog and it rightly advises one to concentrate on the following metrics.

Conversion Rate: Every website has a goal or set of goals. When the visitor fulfills this objective then it is a successful conversion. A conversion could be inquiry generation, newsletter sign up, joining a mailing list or making a purchase. Information transmission could be another purpose which if good should increase viewership. Hence the number visitors who convert from the total number of monthly visitors is your conversion rate. The higher the ratio the better it is for your site.

The conversion rate depends highly on trust creation on your website and brand building. The contents also speak a lot and so do your images. I prefer active images on many instance. The website is a composite unit hence all the factors should be looked into and enhanced with passage of time.

Bounce Rate: Is simply visitors not spending reasonable time on site neither moving from on page to another. Visitor spend time on your site if they find it informative or useful in relation to your query. Another reason could be improper focus of your contents. Do not target irrelevant search terms or less important search terms. If your travel site targets Khajuraho and not enough data is there for the visitor he will immediately leave your site increasing your bounce rate.

Make your content interesting and add suitable images. Your content has to be highly relevant to the topic of the site.

CTR or Click Through Rate: This simply means how often your website is chosen from among the search results every time the page is downloaded on the browser. To improve your CTR look at two things:
Your Title Tag
Meta Description

All the metric can be analyzed in the analytical tool offered by Google.

With experience you can learn to tune in your title and meta without loosing your rankings. The views expressed here are my own.

Page Rank What it is?

2012-01-06T05:39:00.000-08:00

Contrary to belief PageRank does not refer to the web page it is named after Larry Page the co-founder of Google Inc. along with Sergey Brin.

PageRank is analysis of links pointing to a website the value is derived from the weight of set of documents that contain the link. It is a complex algorithm which contains many other factors as well. The links on the WWW pointing to a webpage are seen as votes for that page. Hence if a link from page A points to a page B it is passing a vote to it. But the whole webgraph comes into the picture when according a rank.

The PageRank metrics of all pages that link to a webpage are taken into consideration. The pages are ranked from 0 to 10 of which the highest rank 10 is assigned to the most authoritative site. It is believed that page rank does not influence the position on the SERPs since ranking on SERPs depends upon the response to the query. What that means that how relevant is the webpage for the query.

The rank is how Google looks at the webpage or website. It is also a value system on the WWW especially for those seeking backlinks and those interested in a link exchange scheme. To the average visitor this ranking system is unknown but for some it creates trust and authority. The actual ranking system has not been disclosed.

The PageRank is subject to manipulation this can happen by participating in dubious link schemes and paid text links. Being a trade secret it is difficult to know how the leading search company determines to penalize as website.

The rank as shown by the Google Toolbar is only a rough guide to what the search company actually has determined. Google updates the rank of the website only few times a year. For greater information read the Google Web Master Central Blog. One of the blog entry advises web master not to look at this ranking system as sole mertic for the success of a website.

In short this system is just one of the factors in rankings on SERPs. One need not be much concerned with it. I use this system more as a yardstick in order to create a more authoritative website. What matters on the search side is relevance.

Schema what it is?

2012-01-06T03:29:00.000-08:00

Schema are html tags that are recognized by all three major search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing. These tags are in reality guide to content pages for search engine and help improve search quality. On Page markup help the search engines to better understand the contents or topics especially in case of large data base driven sites or sites using CMS.

Almost all web masters understand the importance of H1 tag that specify the importance of a particular topic related to the page. But deeper meaning is not delivered by the H1 tag alone.

Hence people may understand the meaning of the word or semantics. But the search engine may not understand the exact meaning often. Hence specifying you web page content using microdata and vocabulary will help in getting better indexing on SERPs.

The HTML tags here simply provide greater and exact meaning of the keyword or web page contents to the search engine. For better understand please click on the link below:

http://schema.org/docs/gs.html#microdata_why

The Schema website offers good information as to the importance of microdata and how to include tags using the vocabulary. .

Is your site being crawled

2012-01-04T21:13:00.000-08:00

In the initial stages it is very important that the search engine bots have access to your your contents. Website design should incorporate simple programming and server side includes. Frames and Flash do not work best albeit google bots can now fetch and retrieve readable data from such sites.

Another issue is between http:// and www version of your site. This can be corrected simply by using the webmaster tools and verifying the site. There is an option for which version you prefer set you site to www version since it is more widespread. If you do not do this than you will not get full benefits of promotion if you linking to www version.

Problem with your website's crawling can be detected in the webmaster tools as well. Use the function fetch as Google bot. There are other functions and parameters that can be set according to your preference. There can be several issues at your hosting site one that needs mention is server load which can result in time outs and lack of connectivity. One also needs to renew the domain in time. It is better to renew your domain for more than three years which will make your website more stable on the net.

You have to choose your web hosting carefully. The site retrieval should be quick and it should be protected against malware and virus. If your website is hosted on server with large number of spammy sites then chances of action being taken on whole lot increases.

Using the Google webmaster tools to safe guard your site performance should be a regular activity.

Sound Link Architecture

2012-01-02T19:15:00.000-08:00

Lot many on page factors are taken into account for ranking purpose. A sound link architecture benefits not only in search engine optimization but in the site usage. When the visitors are easily able to find what they are looking for then the site has a good architectural back bone. Most often web designers are not able to understand the importance of pages hence this should be more of a teamwork along with the owner, content writer and the seo. .

I consider site architecture as the next important step after content creation has taken place. I normally create a three tier architecture keeping the most important pages in the root directory. The second tier pages would link to a topic specific directory and another set to pages would link to directory of related topic on site. Example wildlife and birding. This way effective silos are created which helps in ranking on SERPS.

The articles will come in the third tier linked to topic specific pages only. Hence birding articles would only be linked to birding specific pages and same manner for pages covering wildlife topic.

Your website architecture should place contents in hierarchy they are meant to be in. One need to surmise how the visitor would move through the contents. Visitors do not spend much time on the website if they have difficulty on reaching the right content. Hence the site should have relational pages which are well linked to main page this is not well defined in sites with door way pages. The relational pages should be linked with more content which is highly relevant through web page, pdf files or doc file etc.

Some highly relevant but deep linked pages could be crossed linked if you presume that after reading this page the visitor would like to refer a related page.

Bounce Rate: Part II

2011-07-23T05:43:00.000-07:00

The search methodology is in continuous state of evolution something more popularly referred as updates. These are algorithm changes that search companies regularly exercise. This is done in order to refine results on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Like a good library which keeps the best book in the front or visible range of the readers search engines too wish to show the best websites first.

What is the best website is a matter or personal judgement hence those which are visited the most and read the most have a better chance of rankings. The search engines determine this using their programs and public/editorial appraisal or vote (Back link). The SE cannot dig a site out of the blue hence both options are taken into consideration and the results are constantly being re-evaluated.

The bounce rate is one of the indicator and a crucial one. All this is in response to the search query please remember. Hence there is a common sense approach to increase the visitors interest on your site. Something we do in our business restaurants, office, shops, malls etc.

"In response to a search query" this is very important, it means your site should be extremely focused to your topic or sub topics. If you create a web site on Indian tea than your topics should be on tea, green tea, black tea, organic tea, Darjeeling tea, Assam tea, etc. Hence the content should elaborate tea and each type of tea which are sub topics. To decrease bounce rate a good website owner would desire unique contents on all pages, good graphics and links that point to related contents but not covered by your website. You can provide links to site with related content outside using "nofollow" or create pages placed lower down in the hierarchy but quite visible. The latter option is much better.

The website promotion should concentrate on main and sub topics for inviting visitors that are seeking what you are offering. The temptation to increase traffic on search terms that are not well covered by your contents should be completely avoided. Ex. Do not optimize on Chinese tea if your website does not cover it. Chinese tea may be referred in your contents but elaborate description is not there. Hence visitors seeking Chinese Tea will not wait on your site and this will increase your bounce rate.

Not only contents all attributes of the website should be looked into. A bad architecture will surely turn the visitor away. Bad graphics , baudy color shceme, bad formatting are turn offs.

By virtue of programs the site may come up on topics not completely covered by your website. But if you concentrate on focused the incidence would be less. Think how you can engage the visitor on site and also make him move to related pages - Contents, graphics, utility, further information, sound design, pleasing colors, friendly architecture etc.

Bounce Rate Perspective

2011-07-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

Bounce rate is an important element of on page seo now. I was going through my client's analytic and discovered a new perspective. Good websites are made with with in depth focus on the topic. The promotion on SERPs is always keeping in mind the main offering.

The content creation takes place in relation to the offerings. I will not go very deep here but remember while content is added many references creep in even though there is just a mention of that. And reference or slight mention of the person/place/technology/institutions are a must even though there is no elaborate content available on site.

A well optimized sites brings traffic on focused terms. And if the contents are interesting or meaningful and the user is looking for them then he will stay on your site and pages and read. This will increase the chances of conversion and there be low bounce rate.

A well optimized site also responds to phrases related to what has been referred on the site in main page, relational pages, site blogs etc. Since there is no appreciable content on referred attribute the bounce rate is going to be naturally high. This is definitely negative for you website ranking on result pages. What can be done please read on my next blog.

Understanding Canonicalization and its role in Seo

2011-07-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Though seo is content driven, it is useful to understand some technical tools and their uses in optimization especially in on page optimization.

Canonicalization deals with web content having multiple url issue. In search engine optimization an operator rel=”canonical” is used to point out the real page and make other pages irrelevant. This normally happens with undefined www version and non www version of domain name causing lots of confusion.

Example:

http://xyz.com

http://www.xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com/

The problem can also be caused if session ID is not blocked. This is called parameter handling. There is an option for this in webmaster tools use that. Best is to:

Set your preffered domain.

Specify canonical relationship :

This should be included in the section of the non camonical web page.

Preffered URLs can also be indicated to search engines using XML Site Map.

Specify Canonical in the http header.

Link: http://www.example.com/downloads/xyz.com; rel="canonical"

Adding 301 redirect is also a good idea to control the confusing factor and direct the search engine to the right page. Please do not remove the non www version using the removal tool Check with your hosting service how this 301 can be set. In Apache .httaccess is used to execute this job for other servers check with the hosting service.

World of Online Advertisement

2011-07-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

With the increasing popularity of Internet the social media has become a major source of traffic generation. It is the Ad interface which has become a boon for businesses. Businesses big or small advertise using this media and get loads of publicity and trade.

The whole exercise of advertisement, traffic generation and creating a presence on major search engines is known as Internet Marketing. Many call it Online Marketing or eMarketing but the process remains the same.

Two most powerful platforms for Ads online are Google Ad words and Face Book. Other forms are banners, affiliate marketing, you tube and podcasts, videos and other social media modes that emerge every now and then.

Most productive platforms are till this date Ad words and Face Book. These are easy to use and can be handled by customers themselves. The first step is to open an account and then design an ad on the interface itself. Registering with Google will enable you to list your company in Google Places and have access to webmaster tools for constant site analysis. You can also use the analytic for free which is highly effective. The text advertisement so created is circulated all over Google result pages or the Face Book site on targeted search terms. The text should be highly effective in inviting visitors and converting them into potential customers. Hence taking professional help from content writers and search engine optimizers is not a bad idea.

These interfaces accord tremendous adaptability, niche and navigation. Hence the advertiser can control various aspects like deeply analyzed search terms, geo targeting and costs. The cost can be distributed on daily basis and a budget created as per the client’s desire.

Sometimes professional help is required in choosing keywords, geo targeting etc. Your seo service should be able to help you in choosing the right search terms. It is assumed that if you are publishing ads online you may also be into search engine optimization of your website.

In the initial stage it is proper to organize small campaign. With greater experience you can go in for big campaigns if your budget allows. The return in many cases are very high but poorly organized campaigns will fail.

Title and Meta Tags - Onpage optimization

2011-07-02T04:54:00.000-07:00

One of the major constitutents of on page optimization are the title and meta tags. There have been lot of assumptions as to the quantum of importance the search engines give to the above attributes. But this is uneccessary since these are vital elements and tell the search engines and users as to what the site is about.

How much importance these elements deliver as far as ranking are concerned depend upon overall factors. By implementing proper title tag and meta tags you are helping the site attain good position on SERPs on targeted search terms.

These tags do not deliver miraculous results, hence use them to inform the users and search engines about what content to should expect. The users read these tags and then decide to click on the site link hence write them very carefully.

The overall rankings come from comprehensive exercise and not by these tags alone. Building a good site is a key to success and seo is a process used for indexing and positioning the site please remember.

While implementing tags keep the character length of the title to a certain limit and do not stuff keywords. In later stages you can add the company name well. This will be a good brand building exercise. This applies to meta tags as well. Write decently keeping user in mind. Impress him for quick response and justify by what you deliver on the website.

Panda Update - Google Algorithms

2011-06-30T04:29:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with Panda the animal the update refers to the man behind recent algorithmic changes. The update is named after Navneet Panda the chief architect of recent changes. This way best seo practices have been further strengthened.

As I have been always saying the impetus on SERPs lies on quality site building. This does not mean standard optimization practices have been done away with. The paradigm has changed, it is good quality site first. A website for users and not overtly manipulated for search engines.

Look deeper into the site especially the design part like download speed, user friendliness, contents etc. Scraper sites or those made for Ads were completely wiped out leaving few that offer good information. Those who relied on content picked up from other sites by intent and habit have suffered the most. The sites have been pushed down deep or eliminated from the SERPs. The Panda update has pushed the seo professional more towards understanding web design and contents though he may not be a designer.

Dig deeper in the analytic in order to discover how visitors treat your site. Do they find information they are seeking and easily? This depends upon content creation and link architecture and your analytic will display the time spent on your website. This is called the bounce rate and it tells the search engines how much time has been spent on site - the more the merrier.

Updates - Algorithmic changes

2011-05-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

In reality it is a constant process - the change or updates the word we are most familiar with. There was a recent update by Goog;e that caused a lot of noise. But than search engines are constantly evolving and changes are evident.

The search engines are trying to place the most relevant and interesting results up on the result pages. Ths mean lot of quality inspection, lot of content parameters and consideration of factors which help in qualitative analysis of an interface. If your site is on the worng side of the guidelines you will suffer.

Unlike earlier on page factors are being greater weightage and hence site building is now a professional job. cheap web designing and neglected approach means you website will fail online. Some of the articles I have bookmarked here will help you understand my point better.

Basics of Social Networking - Internet

2011-05-20T19:44:00.001-07:00

Basics of Social Networking - Internet: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Social Networking: What it is? - Internet

2011-05-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Social Networking: What it is? - Internet: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Seo is a process - Search Engines - SE Optimization

2011-05-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Seo is a process - Search Engines - SE Optimization: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Hiring professionals for your website?

2011-05-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hiring professionals for your website?: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Link Building - Is That All?

2011-05-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

Link Building - Is That All?: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Back Again

2011-05-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

I am back again will start publishing new entries hope you enjoy. I will be writing about seo especially on off page, on page optimization, website promotion and more.