Social Networking In the Light Of SEO

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut, etc are very popular now a day. The growing popularity of internet has converted the world into a global village and people are now very interested to know what is happening in the other part of the world. There are lots of direct benefits of these social networking sites like you can learn and understand other cultures and customs and even you can improve your profession track record with the help of these sites.

But you know there are some indirect benefits of these sites as well. Today, these sites are the powerful resources of quality backlinks and you can make your site or blog popular within a reasonable course of the time. In SEO, social networking is considered as an essential because it can generate organic as well as inorganic traffic on your website.

When you share the link of your website/blog through these sites, other people come to know that this actually exists somewhere within the web. They came across to your link, read it and if they like it they will also share it from their own social networking platform. It works like a continuous chain and your site/blog gains a wide popularity easily. But it generates only inorganic traffic.

As everybody knows that social networking sites have excellent page rakings and bots love these sites. Hence placing your links in these sites generates quality backlinks for you that help a lot in generating organic traffic and increasing the page raking.  Additionally, if someone places your link in his own web page with good ranking you will get some more quality backlinks easily. And of course! All these things come free of cost.

Along with these sites you can also utilize other quite beneficial buzz sites like Google Buzz, Yahoo Buzz, etc. Social bookmarking is another good technique to increase the page ranking. Bookmarking with Digg, Delicious, Stumble, and other popular social bookmarking tools leaves a great impact on your page ranking while bots crawl the web page.

But for doing so, you might have a wider social network across the web. 

Dofollow and Nofollow backlinks defined

While working on SEO projects you might need to know about backlinks. In fact, most people get confused when it comes to Dofollow and Nofollow links. It’s necessary to figure out the difference between both types of backlinks and learn their importance. So that you can utilize Dofollow and Nofollow links where ever necessary and increase the page ranking of your website. So, here we go!!

In fact, Dofollow and Nofollow words are for search bots not for visitors. These links are purely SEO elements. The type decides if search bots should follow the links given on your site or not. If you allow search engines to follow the URL on webpage while crawling then your blog or website is Dofollow. Interestingly, you don’t have to do anything special to make your blog or website Dofollow. If you need to make your blog Nofollow then just insert this html code attribute into hyperlink - “rel = “nofollow”” and bots will not follow the link.

Now, the question is how you can check if the blog or website is Dofollow or Nofollow. For this, you should check the source code of that particular webpage and analyze the attributes. If you are posting your links at Nofollow pages then this type of backlinks don’t worth too much and it’s the wasting of your time if you are doing so for boosting the rank of your website or blog because search engine doesn’t count these links while deciding the rank.

Therefore, Dofollow links are quite beneficial for link building projects. And you should find the Dofollow blogs for posting comments. 

Importance of Content in SEO

Fresh and quality content always drives more traffic to your website. Fresh content attracts more readers and also the search bots. Therefore, relevant and frequent content update is a key of success in SEO. If you regularly update your site then there are more chances that the bots will return on your site soon. Failing in doing so may decrease your current position in search rankings. Thus no matter what your site is all about, placing relevant RSS feeds, news feeds and blogs in your site is a good idea. It will keep your site regularly updated.

How to add fresh and regular content on your site

Optimizing journalism, communication, magazine etc sites for search engines is really very easier as compared to other product based site. Because there is a natural flow of fresh content to these sites that is not true for other ordinary sites. For media related sites you just have to optimize the content according to SEO. 

If you are hiring a writer to write the content for your site then ask for a good balance between information and advertising. Readers come to a site for having some valuable information and if there is just promotional content there visitor will never get back to you. Even for product oriented contents you should go for different content every time. 

For ordinary and product based sites you can add contextual news reel section or blog section on your website. It will keep your site continuously updated thus you will not lose your current ranking. It’s better to have a message or event corner where you can post recent activities of your company. It will keep the interest of visitors. 

Additionally, RSS feeds are quite beneficial source of fresh content. It’s like a syndicate marketing and gaining popularity today. Just try out relative RSS syndicate on your website. 

Puffing up the significant terms

Give extra importance to significant terms by making them bold or italics. While a search-bot crawl your web page then it searches for bold or emphasize terms thus check the relevancy. So use <b> as well as <i> tag with important pieces of content. But the excessive amount of emphasized or bold content may be considered as spamming by search robots so try to avoid it. You can use these tags in headings. 

Duplicate Content 

Today duplicate content is a prime concern before webmasters because many webmasters are using such content. Therefore, check the content for duplicity before posting it on your website. Also don’t use free articles as it is but make some changes so that it can pass search engine filters. While using free content, keep in mind that the content may be used by any other webmaster. 

If your content is found stolen, duplicate, or spam then search engines will ban your site and it will not appear in search results. You should also check your website for duplicity time to time. Use copyscape for the purpose because it offers the most accurate results.

Learning the Links in SEO

Links are what which associate the web and make it a large interconnected virtual world. Naturally, if you like any page then the page gets linked with your site and vice versa. The process is a natural way of link building. But from SEO point of view, you have to go for backlinks and outbound links in order to increase the relevancy of your webpage with concerned keyword. In the terms of link building quality as well as quantity both are important.

Inbound Links (Backlinks)

The links that are directed to your site are called backlinks. Backlinks are considered as the most important element in SEO campaign. They represent your popularity in web space. But some backlinks are harmful as well. Having backlinks from contextual and reliable source can increase the ranking drastically but if you have backlinks from bad sources or 0 page rank web pages then it worth nothing. Don’t purchase the links from Link Farms or any other source.

Directory submissions, blog comments, forum postings, article submissions are the most frequently used and free of cost methods to get quality backlinks. But be sure about the page ranking and reliability of the source. You can also go for link exchange but this method is also not very reliable. You never know when another party would violate the rules and get banned or in which context your backlinks are placed or your backlinks are still there.

Outbound Links

Just the vice versa of backlinks. When you place a link that redirects to any other site then it is called outbound link. Just like in the case of backlinks, outbound links should also redirect to a good ranking page. Means you should always go for quality outbound links.

Internal Links

Internal links redirect to any other page from your own website. In the context of internal links, don’t use images for link building but use text (especially keywords) for internal linking. As search robots can only see text hence try to avoid images or other designer stuffs. But in case you don’t have other options, always give description within <alt> tag for that designer widget like buttons, images, flash, etc.

Anchor texting

Putting the URLs within keywords is anchor texting. Links from anchor text have more value than simply putting the URLs alone somewhere in the web. Especially for backlinks anchor texting is very important. But always take the text into account before anchor texting for backlinks. Relevant keywords, contextual keywords or main keywords are the best for using in anchor text.

So, always check your backlinks if they have anchor text. An anchor text associated with inappropriate keyword may distract the visitors; like if your backlink is associated with “the worst site” then it’s not good for your site. Also the content where the anchor text is should be contextual.

The things that should be avoided

·         Never go with link farms.

·         Try to avoid exchanging the links.

·         And outbound links from spammers should be avoided.

There should be a good balance between inbound and outbound links. You should try to get at least 10 times more backlinks as compared to outbound links. But the links referring to news websites or RSS feeds are good as they offer fresh and unique content.

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Optimizing your webpage for keywords

Optimizing your webpage for keywords don’t require to be focused on desired traffic only but keywords need to relate your website as well. As everybody knows, keywords are the most important and primary element of any SEO campaign therefore one should also consider the quality aspect along with the quantity. Placing keywords in domain name, headings, titles etc. drives more sophisticated results as compared to having keywords in lower paragraphs.  

Here are some keyword optimization tips:

Keyword Optimization for URLs

URL is the first impression on your targeted audience and search engines. Having precise keywords on URLs is a good strategy while optimizing your page for keywords. Use precise keywords in place of wide-range keywords. Just for example – if you are selling some children foods then having “child food”, “children food”, “baby foods”, etc are relatively better as compared to simple “food”, “foods” etc.

But don’t make URLs just the bin of keywords. It’s true that you can have up to 4 or 5 keywords in URL but practically it’s not good. Your URL may be quite lengthy for the visitors to memorize thus you may lose some potential visitors. Try to make it balanced. Additionally, think more than one URL for your site as it may be possible that someone has already taken the domain name you consider.

Keyword Optimization for Page Titles

Titling the pages on your site is another good strategy for keyword optimization as <title> tag is visible on almost every search engine including Google as well. Well, programming languages like HTML, XML etc doesn’t make it necessary to write something here and you can leave it blank but from SEO point of view it is necessary. Insert one or two keywords in title as well. Here you can put the keywords in a sensible order like <title>Baby food products – Choose your favorite</title>.

Keyword Optimization for Headings

Having frequent headings may not be a good practice as per literature but it’s good in SEO. Try to break your content into different headings and try to insert some keywords in headings as well. Technically, you can insert as many keywords as you want in headings but it must make some sense. Also, while making headings think about the heading type. If it is <h1> tag then it means larger fonts and you should not go for the two or three line sentence for it. Just try to keep it compact.

Keyword Density

Now the time for content. Keyword density should be overall 3 to 5% for the prime keyword and in between 1to 2% for each of the rest keywords. Keyword density formulates the content relevancy with the topic. Having 4 or 5 sub keywords is good. Don’t go for a big number of keywords because then your content will be over stuffed with keywords and may be considered as spam. The ideal keyword density is 2 to 3%.

Finding the best suitable keywords for your site

Keyword research is an essential while optimizing your website for various search engines. You should have a clear idea on which term(s) you should target. Don’t bother with numerous keywords but focusing on selected and more specific keywords is a good idea. Here is a general idea about different types of keywords:

Wide-range Keywords

Wide-range keywords are the ones that are frequently searched. Because of the nature of these keywords they are very short and have a broad range. Just consider you are supplying food products- then “food”, “food supply”, “food supplier” etc will be wide-range keywords. Having No#1 rank for any of wide-range keywords, specific to your site, is very hard but it will turn very high volume traffic to your site.

Precise Keywords

Precise keywords make the search quite narrow and targeted. These keywords may have additional information associated with wide-range keywords like adjectives, particular place, etc. Since you will find relatively lower competition for these keywords, having good search engine rankings for these keywords is a bit easier. Just take above example into consideration, here the “Baby food products”, “Healthy food products”, “Food products for pets” etc. would be the precise keywords. But these keywords attract a low volume of traffic on your online portal.

More Precise or Unique Keywords

Unique keywords relate to a particular brand or company and meant of big brands only. If anyone searches about a particular brand like “Microsoft”, “Google” etc then obviously it is not for everyone. Hence, if you are a reseller then you can utilize these keywords easily. But it will turn only a specific search stream on your website.

Short listing

Don’t be over optimistic and never go for large number of keywords. It will make the process more typical and complex. Just pick up the 3 to 5 best suitable keywords and focus your SEO campaign on these keywords. Following the strategy will make the process fast and more specific.

Some good keyword research tools are available and you can utilize them for free. Google Adword is the best among these tools. 

The Panda Update from Google blows search engine results in UK

The recent step from Google hits the current search engine ranking of various websites in UK. Ciao, one the most favorite site from Microsoft is hurt badly with the new algorithm applied by Google. The site offers the cost comparisons as well as reviews.

Well, same goes true with other such sites which offer product reviews, comparisons and gift vouchers but since Google and Microsoft are close competitors, this update is considered as to keep the letter low profile. While Google says that the recent search engine update, Panda, is aimed to provide better and quality results to its users. 

Actually in last November, other sites from Microsoft – Ciao, Foundem and ejustice.fr – reported that Google is playing unfair game with them and drowned their real search engine rankings under the unsponsored search results by unfair means. But Microsoft didn’t come into front. 

According to Google spokesperson, recently updated Panda algorithm has come into effect for decreasing the visibility of websites which provide duplicate content and are full of advertisement. But this move has affected various sites badly. Ciao has lost about 90% of its visibility in search engine results after the update. Other major victims are Qype, ehow, about.com, Tech Radar, and play.com.

On the other hand, some websites received drastically improved search engine visibility. Most of them are related to journalism and media industry like Tech Crunch, Mirror.co.uk and Metro.co.uk.

Knock the Spider’s Head with efficient Internet Marketing Strategies

Nowadays, web has emerged as a great revenue generating tool. Does not matter what are you selling but if your web presence is not upbeat then definitely you are losing the potential customers. Here the term ‘Internet Marketing’ becomes significant and for a successful business entrepreneur efficient internet marketing is quite essential today.

Lots of strategies for internet marketing are available and it’s not tough to find out a professional service provider for the purpose. Looks great! But it’s not as simple as it looks. In fact, as an owner of online business you might know how to promote your product online?

Start with the basics – examine the technical details of your website. You can take the help of a professional SEO expert as well. Remember, avoiding SEO would prevent your site to be on the first page of any popular search engine therefore take the services of white hat SEO in order to make your site search engine friendly.

Now, it’s the time to promote your product or in other words your website’s link so that you can attract reasonable number of visitors at your online store. Aiming at good number of visitors needs much more proficient link building techniques.

Link building means posting your link at popular online places which have more than average page ranking. Social networking, blog posting, forum posting, directory submission are some of the most common link building methods. Also, you can exchange your link with others – Post their links on your site and in turn they will post your link on their websites. Continuously update your website so that it would always remain fresh and robots can find it easily.

Summing up, at the end every internet marketing strategy ends up at the visibility of your website to popular search engines. There are some other strategies as well such as email marketing but they are not as efficient and result oriented.