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February 7, 2012

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Building content to add value to your website

February 1, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

The temptation is always there to do something radical when you are designing your website so that
your site looks interesting and rich with information. You will probably want to be quite creative and
make the most of your site but you should first think about what is going to draw in your visitors in
the first place. In order to grow your business and promote your products you must be able to give
people a reason to want to have a look at the web page. Think about what information you are going to
include and what problems you are attempting to offer a solution to. Does your product provide an
answer to common difficulty? If it does, tell people how and why. If you are providing something that
could be of help to people, make this known to people so that they will want to find out more.

Tell people where they can find the information they need
Your site might be full of content that includes articles, for instance, but there is very little point in
having all of this information if your readers can’t find what they are looking for. Make your content
easily accessible so that people can instantly find the information they need rather than simply navigate
away and go elsewhere. If you want to keep people on your site then there are some tricks you can try
to build up your content.

Encourage people to post blogs
One thing you can do is create a blog so that your content is kept constantly fresh, new, and interesting.
Best of all, you are getting other people to post information so that you do not have to. Readers will visit
your site and spend time looking at what other people have written. If you have a constant flow of content
to your site, search engines will pick up on this and you should rank higher in their listings.

Create a page that answers the most commonly asked questions
If your website aims to provide a service and you invite people to get in contact with you if they have any
questions then one really useful tool is to have a ‘frequently asked questions’ page. This can field off any
questions that are asked all the time so that you do not have to spend lots of your time providing the same
answers all the time.

Internet Marketing Packages

Build in links to helpful information
Building in links into your content can help your site rank higher as you are adding value to it. Your visitors
can spend time looking through the helpful links you have on offer which will serve to place you in a favorable
light but also encourage traffic to not only visit your website but spend time there too.

Tell people about yourself
Introduce yourself if you offer a niche service or product that people might be unfamiliar with. People won’t
spend a great deal of time trying to find out about you so if you don’t want them to navigate away, tell them
about yourself and what you do from the outset.

Let your visitors know where they can find other relevant articles
If you have written lots of relevant articles then tell people where they can find them. Again, people will not
try to dig out this information. You need to tell them why it is important and then give them a way to find out
what you have written easily. You can categorise these articles or provide a content listing to make this even
easier for your visitors. Anything that can get people reading will increase the amount of time that your visitors
spend looking through your site.

 

 

Filed Under: Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With:

How to create one-way links that can benefit your business

October 24, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Getting your site to the top of the search engine results pages will get you more visitors to your
site. That is without question. Actually accomplishing this though, will take a little work on your
part so you will need to know how best to do this and save yourself as much time as possible
in the process. Having some one-way links in place that will direct traffic to your site will help
you, but you will first need to know how you can do this and what sites to approach that will
build these links in for you.

Consider a well written press release
Press releases should be your first port of call. They might be a little dearer to use but you can
expect great results. If you have a well-written, high quality press release written for you then you
can expect an increase in your traffic, and to have your site marketed in very specific places, like
sites that are directly related to what you do. The press release will include a link to your site that
will take people straight to it.

Encourage informative sites to refer to you
Getting other sites to use your site as a reference link and include one-way links that take people
straight to you, will boost your ranking in the results pages. You could approach Wikipedia or other
related informational sites and inform them about your site and its content.

Get .edu and .gov sites to link back to you
If you can manage to get educational or authoritative government-related sites to use you as a
reference link or a further-information site then this will give you an increased credibility and
encourage users to visit your site. This will shoot you straight to the top of the pile because not
only do people visit .edu and .gove sites frequently, they also trust their content. If you went to
a school or worked with people that have these websites then encourage them to include a link
to your site.

How about how-to sites?
There are still some worthwhile and credible how-to sites that exist out there so if you can write
a decent and relevant how-to guide for your site then it is possible for it to be included on one of
these websites through a one-way link to you. If you can achieve this then Google should pick you
up straight away so that you appear on the first page of the search engine results.

The power of social networking sites
Use the power of social networking to your advantage. People trust their friends and so if one links
to your site, people will follow. Create a page and start creating interest. It will be easy for you to
start to build up the number of people you have that are interested in your site and link to it.

Use your memberships
If you have any professional memberships in place then use them to your advantage. Ask them to
include links to your site for others to visit. If you provide good testimonials for other services then
ask for them to return the favour by including a link to your own site.

Use your own embedded content to create one-way links
If you use embedded software and links to videos etc. then you can build in links back to your own
site. This is a great way to create opportunities for you to manage your own one-way links.

Start to blog on relevant sites
Comment and blog on related sites. Receive Google alerts to tell you when a related site is posted that
is relevant to your keyword or phrase. Have a look at these sites and if you think it is worth it, post a
comment or blog and include a link that will direct people back to your site.

If you can follow these general hints then you should be on track to get your site to not only the first
page of the results, but the top of the search pile too!

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With: ,

Getting your website to the top of search engine results

October 20, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

If you want to rank highly in Google search results and appear on the very first page then you will need
to make sure that you have included quality, credible backlinks in your website. There are actually four
such links you can include, all of which will make your website a stronger candidate for the top listings
so that you will be seen by more people.

Using Informational backlinks
The first of these is the informational backlink that can take the visitor to other pages and sites that link
to the content of your site. So, if you decide to write about ‘who has the site with the most backlinks’ in a
given year, you can link this text with a site that can pull up this information. There are different ways that
you can do this. When you are looking to ‘add sites’ through the link manager you can search for relevant
sites by a keyword, or by searching for a keyword plus resources so that you can locate sites that are
related to the same topic and content as your own website.

Including a Definitional backlink
There is also the definitional backlink and it seems self-explanatory what this might be. If you are discussing
a certain topic or using certain phrases that may require a more lengthy description then you can include links
that will take your site visitor to a definition that will help them understand what you are writing about in greater
detail. To do this, you could create a ‘glossary of terms’ that describes some of the words and phrases you have
used. Here you can include the pages you wish to link with. Those who choose to write about you or what you do
can then also link in with your text and the pages that you have included, which will further strengthen your position.

Why use Referential backlinks?
The referential backlink is one which states the origin of your information if you have stated something as
fact or included some detail that you have taken from another source. To create a need to do this, you will
firstly need to include some information that requires citation. The easiest way to do this is to include statistics
or graphics that need to be referenced. Use your link manager to locate blogs that are relevant to your website
and let them know about your linkable content and references.

The benefits of the Promotional backlink
Lastly, there is the promotional backlink, which works in a way that promotes other websites in return for
their promotion of your own. This doesn’t mean including links to your rivals, though. It means finding sites
that are in a similar industry to yours, so that if you sell clothes, they sell jewellery, for instance. You could
also find bloggers and encourage them to promote your site in return for a link to their blog.

The number of links and linkable content you have in your site, the stronger you will be in the search engine
results. It goes without saying that your ranking correlates with the amount of hits your website will get and
therefore the amount of business you will get too.

Filed Under: Google, Local Search, Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With: , ,

Ranking highly in your target country’s search engine listings

October 18, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

If you have a website that you would like to get to the top of the search engine then there are some
simple rules you can follow that will help you do just that. Obviously what you do is country-specific
so you will need to tailor your website to the Google listing appropriate for your country.

Hopefully you will find the information we have included interesting and useful to you. Maybe you
will even want to share our tips with your friends….

The first thing to think about is where you are going to sell your goods or services. Just as you might
if you were marketing your business in one country and targeting specific groups of people, you should
do the same but on a larger scale. What is different about the country you are going to sell to. Use this
information to help you work on your website. The results that are pulled up in a search listing will differ
by country so you will need to do slightly different things if you want your website to rank highly in
each of them.

Why you should try to appear in versions that are specific to the country
If it isn’t immediately obvious to you why you should look to have your website listed in other versions
of Google then lets go through some of the reasons. Google.com takes your IP address to locate you and
direct you to the appropriate version. For instance, if you were based in the UK, then this would be the
Google.co.uk version. If you have a listing through the .com version then this would not appear in the local,
by-country version. If you want to be visible to other countries, and choose which countries these will be
then you need to ensure you are listed in their specific versions.

How to ensure you appear in the search engine results
The next question, is how you can do this. Firstly, make sure you have a domain name that is relevant for
that country. A .co.uk domain would not be appropriate for Germany, for instance, so making sure that you
have the country-specific domain name will help you and give you a greater chance of achieving a higher
ranking. If you cannot get a domain name that is specific to that country then the next thing you can do is
to get an IP address that is local to that country instead. At least this way, Google will recognise the IP address
as based within the country you are trying to market and therefore allow you to list within those search results.

Make the content of your site relevant to that country
Including a postal address on your website that is based in the country you wish to target will help Google to
list you in the relevant search engine results, as will having your address information listed on different pages
of your site. The more information that can be collected from your site to help identify your location the better.

Use the right language
Of course, it goes without saying that your website should be in an appropriate language. There is very little point
having your website in French if you are selling to the Spanish, but more than this, your website should use the
right phraseology. If you are an English speaker based in the US but targeting a UK audience, you should adjust
your spellings and phrasing to suit the market. This is not just a concern in terms of reaching the people you want
to market yourself to, but also in terms of having Google recognise you as a site that is appropriate for the listing
you wish to appear in.If you do the things above, you will dramatically improve your chances of being listed in
Google’s results for a particular country.

Getting to the top of the listings
Once you have appeared in the listing you wish to rank highly in you now need to think about how you will get to
the top of the search. Using the right keywords and in the right density will help you in this regard. Google should
not only recognise you as appropriate for a specific country, but relevant to a particular search. You should ensure
that the content of your website is as relevant as possible in terms of text and using the associated keywords.
Hopefully you will find that by using all of this information you are able to get to the top of the search engine listings
and target the market you are looking to break into!

Filed Under: Google, Local Search, Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With: , ,

SEO Scalability – How to optimize multiple small websites

September 28, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Is your company operating a large number of remote stores, branches or franchises?
It doesn’t matter whether these sub units are steel service centers, insurance agencies
or any other type of sub-businesses; you can experience a large improvement in your
online  performance by generating more organic traffic via the search engines.

Hence, if you have several related websites, scalability of such sites with better search options will provide you
with increased success.

Search engine optimization techniques make it easy to generate natural traffic when one website is involved.
But what about doing so with over a dozen local websites at the same time?

Bear in mind that larger number of businesses in this situation put in place a kind of thin centralized marketing
department structure. While most have already taken these steps, others are not far behind in simplifying the
management of several domains from one centralized department or location.

This strategy incorporates brand establishment and content revisions.

It won’t be long before the dogged effort to achieve brand-protection activities takes you down a road that
involves the following:

  • Single Content Management System (CMS)
  • Structuring a single website design template, as well as navigational structure
  • Saturating each remote website with just one set of fill-in-the-blank content.
    Typically, the blanks would feature local business name,
    including geographical modifiers relevant to areas which the remote location has served.
  • Using a single account (put up for the purpose of enabling cross-domain tracking) to access the web analytic data.

It is good to know that substantial part of the online chaos is now structured into a set of brand supporting websites.
The brand supporting websites would ultimately deliver a specific corporate message. However, organic traffic
generation for the sites would be low – this is bad news.

When content and navigational structure is controlled tightly, SEO results are impacted negatively. We’ve seen
through  Google Panda Update that meagre and duplicate content will not meet the requirements. Again, it
would be almost  impossible to pass link power between and within the websites. So, your content must be
relevant to the audience in a  particular geography before Google and other search engines can deem the
content of your website relevant in that geographical location.


What initial SEO efforts are necessary?

Your focus at the beginning should be on the onsite factors such as choosing keywords, creating XML site
maps and robots. txt files, setting up viable webmaster tools, structuring and incorporating your SEO on-site
plans such as content  modifications, meta tags and internal link structure, and fixing issues related to
canonical codes.

The first strategy is to split your websites into groups that are manageable. A fewer number of sites should
make up the first  group, while the last group should contain most of the sites. The creation of the groups
should hinge on the following:  business rotation, available labour and the performance of the websites.

Subsequently, after a few months into the project, you can start testing the original notion regarding the
most traffic  generating keyword, which is also capable of converting at the highest rate. You can accomplish
this using an outcome  from the first SEO efforts especially from the first group.

There are other things involved as well, but the content here is a great way to kick off.

 

Filed Under: Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO Tools Tagged With: , , ,

Google’s official statement warns on pagerank obsession

August 31, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

A good number of webmasters are very much concerned about the PageRank that Google’s toolbar displays. Focusing on this value is not quite prudent enough. Few years back, there was an official statement by Google, pointing out clearly that webmasters should pay attention to other things that count more, instead of getting obsessed with pageRank.

Here’s what Google has to say about PageRank:

“For some years now, the Webmaster Central has continuously told webmasters not to place all their attention on PageRanks as the yardstick for measuring the success of one’s website.

Even if PageRank made Google – distinct as a search engine in 1998 when it was founded, we certainly had a good number of opportunities to bump up and upgrade our systems of ranking over the past decade. PageRank has now stopped being (has it really been?) the all-in-all of ranking.

The publicly visible PR is not the same as the number used by our algorithm for ranking. It is not sensible bothering about a number that is at most three steps taken off from your real goal; meanwhile, it is possible for you to measure what you want to achieve directly.”

If PageRank does not really count, what counts then?

In order to ascertain a website’s position on search results, Google employs a wide range of factors. According to Google’s recent blog, there are three key examples of metrics that count:

  1. Conversion Rate: This refers to the percentage of your site’s visitors that translate to actual clients.
  2. Click-through Rate: Out of the number of times your website was displayed in the search results page, how many times did people click on it?
  3. Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of visitors to your website who do not stay on your site a moment longer.

In addition to these top three examples, there are other things that would help you generate enhanced outcome with your search engine listings.

Plan and Set Realistic Goals

It could be that what you want is more than a high PageRank. Your passion is to generate income with your website. You desire to get more leads, more people signing up for your newsletter…and such things.

Tips on Achieving Your Goal

  • Select the proper keywords: The most important aspect of keyword is to have it get the targeted visitors to your site – visitors that would convert to buyers.
  • Rank high for these targeted keywords: note that what is important is to rank high for the right keywords, not PageRank.
  • Generate quality backlinks: your website will benefit severally when you generate quality backlinks. One, traffic will pour directly via the links. Also, the position of your site in Google will improve significantly.

 

 

Filed Under: Featured Articles, Google, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engines Tagged With: , ,

Get higher search ranking – Optimize your internal links

August 29, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

One might not achieve the desired higher ranking on Google search pages
without having planned and optimized the ‘content’ of their webpages very
meticulously. Basically, you need to work on the titles of your webpages,
the contents they carry, as well as the backlinks from other websites.

Often, webmasters tend to overlook the internal link structure
of a website;the internal link structure plays a vital role in any
website’s overall ranking.

Why You Should Pay Attention to Your Website’s Internal Link Structure
Links from external websites count more than the internal links. However, internal links are important aspects of generating signals in search engine algorithms. In the eyes of search engines, links are as good as votes. When you focus on optimizing your site’s link structure, you can create a clear path for the search engines to access the important pages of your site and also reveal the keywords you desire to rank high on.

What You Should Do

  • Your optimization should start from the main navigation of your website
    The navigational links that are visible on every page of your website are the major navigations on your site. The most important aspect of your website navigation is the main navigation. 

    Typically, it includes a “Home” link – e.g. linked business logo image. It also includes links pointing to the major sections of your site.

    Don’t meddle with JavaScript and Flash Menus. A good number of search engines would often bypass such web pages in the course of indexing. A better way to design your website navigation is to use CSS as well as standard HTML.

    Don’t fail to incorporate your top prioritized keywords onto links in your main navigation.

  • Ensure that the initial link on the page is the correct link
    It appears that the first link on a webpage is the only one that Google considers. Look at it this way; if Webpage A links to Webpage B with “more info” as the anchor text on top of the page, and uses another anchor text ‘buy golf items’ at the bottom of the page, Google is most likely to use only the first anchor text on top of the page. 

    Therefore, if you link to another page more than once, ensure that the first link on top of the page features your most important keyword – the one you desire to achieve a high rank on.

  • Breadcrumb navigation may be excellent for sub-webpages
    Breadcrumb navigation can be highly beneficial to sub-pages. Usually, sub web pages are not often linked from the main navigation of the website. 

    Search engines find it easy to place your sub webpages into the appropriate context when you incorporate breadcrumb navigation links.

You can show visitors and search engines the exact location of a webpage by using breadcrumb navigation links.  Don’t forget to incorporate descriptive as well as keyword-rich phrases in your site’s breadcrumb navigation – for example: Golf bag > Golf shoes > Buy golf items.

 

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Positioning, Search Engines Tagged With: , ,

Top factors for attaining high search engine ranking

August 3, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Pay attention to the information I am providing here; this is based on my several years of experience in providing search engine ranking services. There are lots of disinformation out there regarding SEO.

Do you know that all it takes to rank higher is not far from your reach?

I have offered SEO and ranking services and advice to both big and small businesses. During these years, I’ve come to discover something essential; the sites that rank high usually share some common traits.

The anchor texts of the inbound links to your site
Using the anchor text from sites that link to your site, Google as well as other search engines are able to ascertain the theme of your site and determine what is best for your website in terms of ranking. Therefore, check that other sites are linking to you with both the keywords in your anchor text and URL – email them to this effect and ask them to update your link. Place your high priority keywords in the link.

Keywords featured in your title and meta tags
Meta tags have not stopped being part of the influencing factors to your rankings. Although they are no longer very weighty, meta tags work very well when it comes to placing your page in the right category. Meta tags also help to identify what search engines are likely to look out for in the course of spidering the pages. Ensure that your keywords are featured on your tags, and that the tags are well constructed.

What about the diversity of domains linking to your site?
A lot of search engines are not just concerned about how many sites link to your site, but on their diversities as well. This is the way to judge how popular your site is; this technique is quite helpful when it comes to enhancing your ranking.

Link popularity
Link popularity can be likened to Page Rank; the topic had been a subject of discussion in search engine forums for a while. There are several factors at work to assess the quality of webpages from external sources. The more popular and recognized the pages are, the more value their links add to your website.

Also, the root domain is one of the ranking factors. No doubts, you can employ dedicated pages or sub-domain to generate keywords in your URL; however, the best bait is still to have them in your root domain.

Finally, you have to continually be on the lookout for better ways of carrying out SEO campaigns to get the best result.

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Positioning Tagged With: , ,

Straight from google: Techniques for optimizing your website

July 27, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

The SEO tips and techniques featured in this article were culled from the live chat that Google’s Matt Cutts granted on YouTube.

Tip One: All hope for regaining ranking is not lost for penalized websites
A big company’s website was penalized due to excess paid links featured on their site. The company which is JC Penney did a lot of work to fix the issues and filed a formal request for another chance afterwards. Well, it may interest you that filing a formal reconsideration request was possible for the company in question because of its size. Well, a small company may go down the drain when such issue arises. Therefore, it is better to play safe by using only endorsed or safe link generation techniques.

Tip Two: Google’s Panda is being considered by Google for more language options
The target of Google’s Panda update is content farms (also known as article directories) as well as poor quality sites. Well, it is not as though these types of website are as common in multiple languages. However, Google is set to bring out the Panda update to multiple languages when the testing period is over.

Tip Three: A Ranking Signal to Look out for is Data from Blocked Sites
It is possible for people searching through Google to block sites in search result. When sufficient number of users block a particular website, this is a signal that the blocked site is of poor quality.

Tip Four: When pointing links to your own website, do not use the nofollow attribute
This rule which was rolled out by Google’s Matt Cutt also applies to links to privacy policy on your website. The nofollow attribute should be employed for external links that are not completely reliable. The reputation of a site could be dented by the site you link to.

Tip Five: Another ranking signal is going to be Google’s + 1
Presently, Google’s + 1 is the answer provided by Google to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button.  In no distant time, Google is likely to offer this feature to those who own websites. The feature would also become a ranking signal.

Tip Six: Your site’s IP address can be a determining factor for its ranking
If you desire to rank high on Google, your chances would be high if the site features a French IP address.

Tip Seven: Prevent duplicate content by employing the canonical tag and 301 redirects
These tools would help you keep off from duplicate content issues, especially when you have the same content in several URLs on your site.

Finally, you can use Top10 Optimizer to get direction on how to acquire SEO skills to optimize your webpages for Google ranking.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation Tagged With: , , , ,

Is search engine advertising a lucrative investment?

July 6, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Now owned by Yahoo, Overture created pay for performance (P4P) basically. They foresaw increase in online shopping, that online buying activities would skyrocket dramatically and that advertising had the potential of getting massive as a result.

Without visibility, web visitors may not get to your site to buy and may not also be part of your list. One of the great ways to increase sales as well as traffic is to place ads that are capable of directing people to your website. The service mentioned earlier, which is now in Yahoo’s ownership enables companies or sites’ ads to be visible based on the keywords that a visitor is using to search.

Your List Building Activities Get Better with More Visitors
A company that desires to generate more traffic to its site can take advantage of this service. More traffic promises more viewing of your site and increased possibility of actual purchase after the visitors must have benefited from the information featured on your site. It would eventually also result in more potential buyers joining your list. It is relatively quicker as well as easier to build your list when you have more traffic. There’s hope that a good number of those in your list may eventually become loyal customers as you follow them up tactfully.

Every business needs high volume traffic to survive, especially traffic that has high potential of translating to actual patronage of your business’s offerings. So, services such as Yahoo Overture – P4P (Pay for Performance) is a great way to make your site visible to targeted traffic.

How Does this Service Work?
If you are conversant with Google Adwords, you would easily understand how Yahoo Overture works. It is simply the use of search-based keywords to put up an ad on relevant websites. The choice of keywords by the surfer would determine the results that would be displayed. You will get to see ads on the result page’s right side when you carry out a search. The paid ads are featured at the top of the ads. The position is exactly what the company or site paid for the listing of their choice keyphrase or keyword.

For instance, if your business offers Dell Computers for sale and computer accessories, you would need to select relevant keywords that would cause your ad to come up when a web visitor searches with related keywords such as “Dell Computers” or “computer accessories.

When leveraging this service, you may not bother much about site content optimization for visibility on search engine results. However, don’t take chances, spread your traffic generation tentacles and do not solely depend on one technique. In essence, embark on other techniques that improve your ranking on search engine results.

Anyway, Yahoo Overture is capable of getting your site listed on search engine’s first result page, but it all depends on the competitive nature of the keywords you chose and the kind of budget you have for the service. Well, ensure that you are not generous with your budget using this service, until you see it working for you. Let me say that search engine optimization still remains the best way to get highly visible to web visitors.

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Positioning, Search Engines Tagged With: , ,
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