SEO Basic Tips

Penguin 2.0 really took the SEO world by storm. More than a month after implementation, people are still focused on it. That's well and good. Search engine optimisation experts should really be concerned about their sites' link profile, the focus of this round of Google updates. But then again, they shouldn't forget about their pages' content, or specifically, their on-page SEO.

When we say on-page SEO, we are talking about the optimisation done within a website so its pages rank high in the search engines. Here, we need to focus on three elements: title, URL and content.When it comes to page titles, we need to remember that this appears in several places, such as the user's browser tab and the search engine results page. It is one of the first things seen by search engine spiders. So, it has to be descriptive of what's on the page. It should contain the site name, page name and a keyword or two. The title should be limited to 60 characters only.

The URL, on the other hand, should also describe what the page is about. For example, you have a winery in NSW. A page that talks about the winery can be named wineryNSW.html. In the same way, if you want to talk about the history of your winery, your URL should be named and organised optimally. This is a factor too. The history page about the winery can be named history.html, but it should be a page within the wineryNSW folder.

And then we have content; this is the most important aspect of on-page search engine optimisation.Your content should be helpful and informative. It is important to not think about search engine spiders when you do content. Many make the mistake of focusing on keywords, and they end creating spam content. Write naturally, and about people actually search about.

The relevance of your content is also important. Let's say that you want to write about tips on keeping whales as pets. No one keeps whales as pets so no one will search for your content. The search engines will not rank your content high for "whales" and "pets" separately neither. You should write about something that people will want to know about. That's the supply and demand side of SEO.

When you do write about something people will read, your page becomes linkable. It is relevant enough to be read, shared and even reposted. This is plus points in on-page SEO.With all this, plus the usual details (meta text and alternative text on images), you are all set to optimise your website.

SEO Expert To Optimize Your Website

SEO companies are a dime a dozen but true experts need to be sniffed out from the sea of specialists. Search engine optimization is not a task for beginners or people with no interest in finer details. It takes time to master and a good understand of what search engines want. So if there's a website you need optimized, leave it to the experts.

All SEO companies lure customers with claims of being the best. Weighing them based on certain criteria is, therefore, necessary to root out the good from the mediocre. Here's what you need to do to find an SEO company that can deliver exactly what you need.

Hit up a search engine

An SEO service that's truly among the best will be listed on the first page of a search engine's results. If a company can't get itself to appear there you can't expect it to do the same for your website. Those that are featured on the first page will charge heftier rates for their services but you can be guaranteed good work that's value for your money.

Ask around

If you know someone who uses an SEO service for their business, ask them where their website ranks. Don't opt for companies that only manage to get clients listed on the second or third pages. Internet users rarely check pages beyond the first so you'll only end up wasting money.

Check companies' websites

A peek into a company's website will tell you how professional it is. Good companies have tastefully designed sites, easy navigation, no annoying ads placed where you can't avoid clicking them and an overall sense of order. You can take the help of someone you know who has some knowledge about websites to gain insight.

Check case studies

A case study is detailed information about a project. A trusted company will provide in-depth insight about its projects, the names of clients and how they've helped them rank high. You can cross check the information by running a quick search to see if they do indeed rank on the first page.

How recognizable are they?

Successful services are associated with well-known authorities. For example, a company that's made its mark will have worked with recognizable clients. The more accreditations they have, the likelier they are to be legitimate and noteworthy.

Check the career section

Some companies list career opportunities on their websites and a check will reveal what sort of candidates they're looking for. A search for highly qualified personnel with years of experience indicates that the company doesn't settle for second best which means those working on your site are among the best in their field.

Progressiveness

A progressive company is one which utilizes the latest SEO techniques and stays up-to-date on current trends. To gauge if a company meets industry standards, you'll have to cross check its services which means having some knowledge about SEO yourself. The internet is a great place to know what's new and SEO forums are perfect places to gain insight.

Cost

You can get cheap SEO packages or very expensive deals. What's important is getting return on investment. It's a bad idea to opt for low cost if a company can't deliver its promise. So if you have to choose between one that offers very low rates for tall claims and another which charges a higher price for more realistic claims, go for the latter.

What Is SEO And How Does It Work?

The internet is similar to the earth where like people, the number of websites is steadily growing. And also like crowds, it's difficult to stand out from the rest unless it has unique qualities (read, relevant content). The technique used to make websites stand out is called search engine optimization or SEO. You may have come across it in your search of how to make a website 'pop'.

Let's say you own and manage a website that caters to DIY plumbing repair techniques. The content is well written with step-by-step guides given by experienced plumbers, the layout is attractive, images are placed appropriately and you've included helpful links to other similar websites. But, when you run a quick search on a search engine, you find that you aren't listed anywhere on the first page, let alone the top five. What are you doing wrong? Or more precisely, what aren't you doing right?

There are unique SEO techniques used by popular and high-ranking websites, the secrets of which we may never know. But all these techniques fall within the realm of what is possible to achieve using standard SEO methods.

Before moving to specifics, know that there are techniques not acceptable or legal in cyberspace that could get a website removed or an IP address banned. Known as unethical techniques they try to trick search engines to zero in on a site to generate traffic.

Link analysis

Link analysis refers to other websites linking back to a particular page or site. For example, your DIY plumbing website may have attracted the attention of other sites or you can make use of social media sites to link back to it. The more sites that link back, the better the chance of your site being ranked among the top 10 hits.

You can also make link exchanges by including links to other sites on your site in exchange for them doing the same with yours. Do make sure that you do this only with trusted sites that contain similar material to what yours does.

Keywords

Keywords means the use of specific words in relation to what a website or webpage is about. For example, you want DIYers to visit your site and check out the tips and tricks listed for plumbing repair. Including something like 'DIY plumbing repair techniques' on the title of the page as well as the words 'DIY, 'plumbing' and 'repair' in headers and text bodies will lure spiders/crawlers (search engine programs) to zone into your site.

Meta tags

Meta tags work behind the scenes to present a webpage in a readable and attractive format. They're part of HTML codes which form the backbone of many successful websites. These tags contain keywords that alert a search engine to their presence.

What you should understand about meta tags is that over the years, unscrupulous webmasters have used them to stuff in keywords to generate abnormally high traffic to websites that contain no relevant information to a user's query. As such, many search engines skim through meta tags and those found to contain too many keywords are flagged as spam. Therefore, if keywords are included in meta tags, they must follow strategic placement and be used only when necessary.

These are three of the basic techniques used to generate traffic to a website and increase its rankings on search engines. If the effort is too much or you find yourself becoming confused, contact an SEO consultant to help optimize your website.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

In this writing, I will be pointing out some very important search engine optimization techniques or SEO tactics which, if they are well implemented, will surely bring you a decent number of visitors to your site through organic searches. Each of the named step needs to be done the right way if you want to succeed in your quest for traffic.


On-page SEO Techniques

On-page SEO techniques are often dependent on the structure of the website to be implemented properly. Some site layouts might push you to put aside some of the techniques that can be used for on-page optimization for others. However, the essential tips that I will cover here are the ones that could be used almost all the time. Let's dive in now...

Niche Keywords Research

One of the most important aspects and basis of Search Engine Optimization is 'Keyword Research'. This is the first step that needs done to help focus on the right target (keywords). Since many keywords that we might be interested in are most of the time competitive ones, it is therefore better to select and target achievable keywords or keyword phrases which have low competition. Moreover, using long tail keyword phrases are the best way to achieve SEO success.

Site Content Optimization Techniques

Search Engine Optimization techniques are not just about keywords but relate to everything done on the website as well. Provided that you already have a good and cleanly coded website, your content or article on each page should be unique and optimized as per your selected keyword phrase for the page to rank well in the search engines. It is recommended to target only one keyword phrase per page. It is also important that your selected keyword phrase appears one to three times across the page including at least once as a header (h1, h2 etc... ). You don't need to stuff keywords all around your page if you don't want to be penalized by search engines.

Meta Title, Keywords and Description

Based on your selected keywords after your researches, it is crucial to include the keyword phrase in your page meta title, meta keywords and meta description so that the three are related. Moreover, your main page title (header) should also contain your targeted keyword and the other headings, other related keywords. Adding an external link to a related authority page will also be helpful. As a rule of thumb, don't forget to have your keywords in the page URL.

What about off-page SEO tactics?

Should off-page search engine optimization techniques be added to the effort?

My answer is yes and no! Actually it will all depends on how your keyword research and on-page SEO were done. If your on-page techniques were employed correctly, you then don't really have to bother about off-page. However, you can still try to build some very relevant backlinks from authority websites to help give importance to your page and make some use of social medias to help drive even more traffic to your pages but if on-page is done properly, this will be largely enough to beat your competitors in terms of search engine ranking.

Search Engine Optimization a Must for Your Website

The most effective and fruitful thing one can do for their website is to optimize it. You must have heard now and then that it is essential to implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques for your website, and would have wondered what exactly it is. In simple terms, SEO can be explained as the list of web results comprising the query term, whenever a user types a query in any search engine and presses 'enter'.

Generally, the users tend to visit only the websites displayed on the top of this list, as they are perceived to be more relevant to the query. Now, the question which comes to mind is why are there only specific websites which are on the first page at the top. This is because of the very popular web marketing technique of SEO which helps search engines to find and rank the sites higher than the other millions of sites associated with the query; ultimately in generating traffic from search engines. In today's world when numerous new websites are added to the internet each day, SEO becomes a necessity else your website will be lost, serving no purpose. If you wish to grow your business faster, SEO will help you in assuring that your website stands at the top when compared to your competitors' websites. It will help you in sorting of specific keywords from your website on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and BING.

SEO involves three important steps which include website research, then on-page optimization and lastly off-page optimization. Therefore, to start the SEO process in the first step it is important to initially do an extensive research and analysis, not only of your website but also of your competitors from the industry. This will give you an understanding of what is existing and what else is lacking in your website. Another aspect of research includes the keywords, on which you want to optimize your website, searching proper keywords is very important so the decision of choosing keywords should be done after looking deep into the local and global searches, and Google and Alexa ranking. The next step for SEO is done on-page optimization for your website. After research of website conversions, finding the ranks of website, number of pages indexed and find out the links, making a complete website assessment. Keeping all these points in mind you need to incorporate proper keyword at the right place, other than keywords including meta tags, sitemap, robots.txt can be of a great help if you are seeking effective on-page optimization of your website.

After you have done on-page you should proceed to off-page optimization which is not a one-time process but a continuous process unlike on-page. For raising your website ranking off-page activities are done which include article submission, directory submission, classified submission, blog posting, forum discussion, press release, blog commenting, social bookmarking (dig, delicious, reddit, Stumbleupon) and social media promotion (Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn). The submissions help in building a strong back links for your website which not only assist in search engine ranking but also will drive in traffic from the sites where submissions are done.

SEO makes sure that your websites appear in the search results when the keyword is entered by the user. SEO technique ensures that you are on the right path of web presence. Optimization of the website is essential today and every entrepreneur should do it to get his website ranking in the top ten positions and to ascertain that the audience can reach its website and products with ease. It can be very profitable for you as the people spend most of their time on the internet and want the desired product and service with a click.

Effective SEO Services In 2013

Since April 2012 when Google dropped the Penguin hammer there have been many more changes in SEO. Many thousands of  SEO companies have closed their virtual doors and many, many more SEO professionals have lost their jobs as Google has claimed more revenue from the internet and stripped websites of their ability to rank in the SERPs.

Unfortunately, even the SEO companies that have survived the devastating effects of the Penguin update have failed to move with the times.

As Google has introduced more and more convoluted rules to their algorithm, these changes have removed ordinary SEO company's ability to rank websites. Although this is unfortunate for these companies there is a much more alarming fact that is often not discussed.Not only are these SEO companies unable to rank their client's websites but the SEO techniques they are using are actually hurting their clients in the Google SERPs.

With search engine optimization services being offered that are based on over optimized anchor ratios many of their client's sites are literally millimetres away from being slapped by a penguin penalty. And, unfortunately it is becoming more evident with each passing day that non big brand names cannot and will never recover from a penguin penalty.

However, their clients are not aware of this.

Sadly for business owners, who are trying to build their online presence, finding a good SEO company that can actually produce results is becoming more and more difficult.

Foreign based SEO companies often make outlandish claims and will even go as far as to use others company's results as examples of what they can achieve or by using examples of rankings they have achieved for completely uncompetitive terms that are financially unviable from a business perspective.

Search Engine Optimization companies, especially offshore based SEO agencies that use workers with inferior English language skills, are quite content to take on clients whom they then fail to rank, so they lose those clients and then simply take on more.

SEO clients have become a disposal and recyclable asset in the business plan of many SEO companies.It is time that SEO companies were held responsible for their actions and I urge every potential SEO client to do their due diligence when they consider which SEO services to use.Be sure that the SEO Company knows what they are talking about. Ask them about the Penguin update. Drill into their knowledge of Panda and ask them for examples of keywords that they have ranked websites for.

Also ensure that the company supplied you with an exact match count of the searches performed for the keywords they have ranked.Many SEO companies show their success ranking sites for keywords that get less than 200 hits per month. This is useless.

Hire a Pro SEO Service for Your Social Media Optimization

If you have a business website, you would want to use every means you can to get visitors to your site in order for you to make sales. The only way to achieve this is by effectively marketing your site on the media using modern tools. This can be a difficult task to undertake because of all the complexities involved. You therefore need to hire a professional SEO service to market your website on your behalf as you focus on growing your business's productivity. The services that SEO companies offer include social media optimization (SMO), video creation and video submission among others. Let's take a closer look.

Social media optimization or SMO basically means using social media and platforms to spread word about your business. It's the online version of word of mouth advertising and has proven immensely effective in promoting products and services because most people are more likely to trust their friend's recommendation than an advertisement on traditional media such as TV or print ads.

Social media optimization allows you to build personal relationships and trust with your target customers online and this makes it possible to indirectly market your services or products through conversations that they have on the social platforms. The SMO services provided by SEO companies help in creating awareness for your brand as more people see your business name and other details such as your contacts, link to your website, logo, etc. You stand to benefit from the trust emanating from natural relationships and connections that develop on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Professional SEO companies also offer the video submission service. It's no secret that people enjoy taking videos and spend hours at a time watching them online because in addition to passing a message, they are entertaining. However, it's not just any video that goes viral on the internet. It has to be interesting. So if you are thinking about using a video to launch your product, you need to use a professional SEO service to successfully undertake your video submission. A video submission is especially useful when you need to demonstrate how your new product works without having to write a long explanation. But you need to keep in mind that videos usually complement other forms of advertising.

But what if I don't know anything about creating videos? You don't have to worry about that either. The same SEO Company can provide you with a video creation service. You probably have neither the time nor the expertise to create interesting videos for your target audience. So why not have a professional to the video creation for you? Make sure that you choose a company that has been doing video creation for years so that you benefit from its extensive experience. This highly increases the chances of your video being shared across social networks and ultimately directing traffic to your site. It is only by choosing the best SEO service that you can be sure that your website will attract a lot of visitors thus translating into sales.