Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Different SEO Techniques for Success

In the success story of a website, both design and search engine optimization (SEO) play an important role as their work is vital for a favourable online occurance. While designing part helps in grabbing the attention of the users, SEO helps in driving traffic to your site.

Even though both are essential for the success of a website, yet they employ very different techniques and ideas.

Designing Part

Any experienced web designing company, whether based in the UK, the USA or Asia, would keep one objective in common while designing a web site – and that is what is the purpose of the web site and who is it being made for.

In keeping with Web 2.0 trends, a web site today needs to be designed keeping in view the users perspective. It is a user-driven economy on the web now and all web sites must conform to what users want. It is not enough to have an ideal pleasing website design or any attractive animation and flash work on the web site. The website also needs to offer enough engaging inputs to the user through related information, communicating features, user-friendly web design and navigation structure.


SEO Part

If the designer is responsible for making the website look appealing and be user-friendly, it is the job of the SEO experts to make its presence felt amongst its target audience. SEO helps in driving traffic to a website to increase its visibility.

SEO does not only mean placing relevant keywords at the right place. It is a complex and toilsome process involving indexing of pages, directory submissions, link building, talking about the web site in relevant social forums and networking sites and so on.


Which one is more important?

The credit for overall popularity of a website can’t be given singularly to either designers or SEO experts. It is a joint venture and there must be a balance between the two. Without the support of the other, one alone cannot set up the brand indivisuality of an online business without the support of the other.

Suppose, the SEO experts have successfully driven traffic to your site, but what happens if the user doesn’t find the site upto the standard? Again, what’s the use of a good website design if its online presence is significantly low?

The web designers must understand the basics of Search Engine Optimization and on the other hand an SEO expert must realize the importance of designing elements required for branding. It is essential for both to understand and meet the expectations of the web site’s target audience. Users want both search visibility and appealing design and this in turn helps the web site in establishing a strong online presence.

Last but not the least, it is essential to find an affordable web design company which also provides SEO services.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Black Hat SEO vs White Hat SEO

In White Hat SEO techniques, the site content is crafted keeping in consideration the guidelines set forth by the search engines for effective SEO services. They abide by the rules laid down and play it safe. White hat methods are the legal technique of search engine optimization.

Black hat SEO techniques are just the opposite of white hat SEO. Here the rules laid by search engines are not followed, but instead changes are made in the website that can get links to a site. The customer experience is not given much importance. Instead, the concern is only to score better in search engines. It is an illegal method for search engine optimization.


White hat SEO Techniques-

a) Content creation - Every professional SEO consultant knows the importance of good content for a website. Content rich websites are easily crawled upon by the search engine spiders. Content creation should be to the point, meaningful, have relevant keywords, and be informative in nature. Choosing the proper keyword phrase is essential. One must choose specific and relevant keywords and optimize the homepage using those keyword phrases.

b) Site optimization - Effective site optimization leads to better website promotion. It covers all important aspects like Meta tags, titles, content, etc.


c) Reciprocal linking - This type of linking also fetches backlinks to your website and can help generate extra profit. It is advisable to allot reciprocal linking to sites that are related to that of yours in some form or the other.


d) Internal linking - Assigning appropriate and clear internal linking within the sites is equally important. Avoid using visual pictures or logos for internal linking as they cannot be identified by search engine spiders. Use text links at the bottom of the homepage along with a sitemap of your entire website.



Black hat SEO Techniques -

a) Interlinking - There are multiple websites that are interlinked to each other for link popularity. This is a rather difficult tactics to be detected.

b) Hidden text – Some websites incorporates text whose font color blends in with the site background. Such websites are easily caught by their competitors, and the site will get blacklisted.

c) Doorway pages - It is the most dangerous form of inserting a doorway page, simply to target specific keywords or phrases with little or no value to the user.

d) Duplicate sites - Some webmasters create duplicate sites for their original site for website promotion purposes. They think that it would outrank their original website. This is a totally banned practice.

e) Stuffing of keywords – This is the most common black hat SEO technique. Here the webmaster inserts large amounts of keywords or phrases repeatedly without having any relevant meaning. Thus text is extremely uninteresting to read. They are usually placed in smaller fonts at the bottom of the page.

f) Cloaking - This method refers to the use of many black hat SEO techniques simultaneously for submitting varied information to search engines, which are invisible to the visitors. They sometimes go undetectable but can be identified by the competitors, and will result in the banning of the website.


To conclude, all reliable and genuine search engine optimization companies practice White hat SEO techniques that have long-term positive outcomes. Black hat SEO can fetch quick results at the start, but when detected, it leads to the blacklisting of your website.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

How to Get Better Search Results

Though search engines are fantastic, they often give too much information than what searchers are actually looking for. They are so good that a simple one-word search would display 20,000 pages!

If you're an average researcher who needs ideas on how to use the power of search engines to your best advantage, you've come to the right place. This guide will give you tips and techniques on how to search for better result.

To illustrate, let's do a search at Google.com.


Exact Phrase

· Open Google.com in your browser.

· Type "Chevrolet Optra Magnum" in the search box, then click search. Alternatively, you can press Enter on your keyboard. Enclose the phrase in double quotes. This will tell the search engine to look for the pages that matches the exact phrase.

Google.com will search for the phrase found inside the quotes and will display all pages that contains the exact phrase Chevrolet Optra Magnum in the site's title or description.

Synonyms

If your search terms have synonyms, you might also want them to include in your search results. You can do that by putting the tilde character (~) before the search term.

Typing ~mobile plans in the search box will return sites that talks about or contains 'mobile plans', 'cellular plans', 'cellphone plans' in their pages.

Excluded Words

Say for example you want to search for 'silver jewelry'. Typing in 'silver jewelry' in the search box would give web pages that contains the word 'silver jewelry' on it.

If you want to filter your search results so that sites related to gold won't be displayed, use the (-) operator. This will exclude all sites related to gold jewelry.

Multiple Words

The OR operator will return web sites that contain multiple words in your search term. For example, typing 'Chevrolet Optra Discounts or Offers' in the search box will show pages with the word 'Chevrolet Optra' and either 'Discounts' or 'Offers'.

If you will incorporate these simple, basic tips in your searches, you'll be a much better and informed searcher than most Web users. Your searches will be more specific you don't have to waste time looking for irrelevant information deep in the results pages.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Organic SEO vs CPC ads

The advantages of optimizing your site for organic search engine's result in performance rather to pay for PPC campaigns :

1. If you high for organic results, it is ranked (usually) long lasting. So, at this time / money you spend to help you move the ranks, while the PPC campaign is relatively constant over the money is spent and again.

2. Click on organic results is more especially for a very well educated crowd of more than paid results. The more educated your chances, they reduce to click on the ad are a possibility. If you are selling for a high school, you should buy CPC ads. If you are selling to engineers or professors, because you think that's where the volume of SEO is a need to think more about.

3. Organic clicks and also the paid clicks convert. But on an average conversion remains 4.2% vs 3.6% for paid.

4. Reports say that in the b2b environment, less than 1/4th of b2b buyers go for a paid listings in their first try at accessing information.

5. Many consider of Google as a company for searches, but I think of them as a modern media firm with an ultra-efficient mechanism for selling advertisements that work particularly well in the long tail. Like other media companies, Google benefits from efficient pricing of advertising. As more and more niche companies start to advertise on Google, their prices will become more efficient and their rates will become less and less attractive relative to other media outlets.


Organic SEO versus benefits of buying CPC ads :

1. It is fast. You can be up and running with paid ads the very same day you are inspired to move.

2. You can experiment cheaply. The good thing about advertising on Google is that you don't have to create a huge budget for advertising, you can throw as little money as you want, experiment efficiently, get the ratios where you want, and then expand.

3. You can send the clicks to custom landing pages crafted for just the words you bought. This should dramatically increase the conversion rates relative to organic results that more often than not land on your home page.

There are benefits from both sides, so I suggest going for both CPC ads as well as organic seo . To get maximum benefit, I recommend optimizing around some keywords for organic results and buy other keywords.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

SEO Tips - What Barack Obama Can Teach You About SEO

Finally the US Presidential Election came to an end today and we congratulate Barack Obama on becoming the president. Here are a few tips that Obama’s political campaign can teach about search engine optimization:

1) Never be over confident : Uphold some modesty and keep in mind that it doesnt matter how good things look for you now, there is much more work to continue.

2) Don’t keep all your targeted terms in one basket : Barack Obama knew that to win an election meant campaigning in a multi-tiered fashion. You can’t target just one region. You must keep hold on every segment of your market in terms that they can understand.

3) Begin early : It has been since 2 years Barack Obama campaigning for it. For Online, age is a factor. Start up early and hold a top position.

4) Newcomers can beat old veterans : First it was Hillary Clinton then it was John McCain. Just because the other guys have more experience doesn’t mean that the guy with new ideas can’t come out on top.

5) Don’t spend all your time in areas you know you’re going to win : You must target the swing states - that is, there are segments of the marketplace that can go your way or move closer to your competition. Focus on those segments and make a strong case for yourself.

6) Build up a team that covers up for your weaknesses : Obama selected Biden which made a big difference. All Obama where lacked, was in experience which was make up by his running mate. Build up your team in a similar manner and lead ahead.

7) Be positive : It doesnt matter what the enemy throws at you, stay positive and be focused. Always have a ray of hope.

8) Change : Make sure that if you offer change that it is change we need.

Remember, SEO is not a zero sum game. Barack Obama has lessons to teach us all - about Search Engine Optimizations and about life.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Web Hosting Service – Deciding Factors

Online presence has become a way to improve your customers list and earn more prospective clients from all over the world. But, one wrong move can ruin your entire future. If you choose the wrong web host – you will end up with a bad status and wastage of money. So, make sure to inquire and put forward all the necessary queries attached to your website in front of your hosting company.

1. Technical Support: When you go for a web host, the first thing which is very important is the technical support system. This technical support system should be available 24/7 for a website. You can make inquiries like – How well-equipped is the support team? Are they enough members to manage the site and customers? Is there any additional charge for this support system? Once, this is sorted out with satisfactory answers, you can move on to the next aspect which is security.

2. Security: Security in any form should be of top-quality and servers with proper backup along with storing data in remote places where recovery shall be easy. Firewalls should be well-incorporated. If your web host is providing all these features then you can be sure your site is never going to suffer from any crisis like identity or data theft or failure of power. You can always request for a few company names that are on their servers to check and know their opinion on the provider’s services. You should always opt for a host that features many websites on its servers which is a proof that the security system is indeed good.

3. Space: Space is the next concerning factor after security. The storage or space for your website on which it is going to be hosted on should be enough for the site. The space that the company presents you with shows the potential of your website can expand further. A normal website uses space anything ranging from 20-30MB. Also, keep in mind it is always better if more megabytes (MB) are available so that incase your site expands in the near future, you will have the extra space. If you get 100MB it is indeed a good bet.

4. Domain Name: Domain name is very important for a business to prosper. Incase you don’t have a domain name as yet then do find out a few things before you finalize the hosting company like - Does the hosting company take care of the registration process on the Internet? What is the time period for the completion of this process? And is there any additional cost for this purpose? Even before finalizing out domain name for your website, one must go for a search engine friendly domain name. As if you are going for a cars in india website, the keyword car and india must be engaged in the domain name. Or if going for a astrology website, then keywords astrology and horoscope must be considered while selecting a domain name for better search results.

5. If your site is on the planning stages then you need a web design to get it running. There are ways to get it going.
* Get a web designer to make the entire site
* Get a web design template which is cheap compared to any other option but changes cannot be made much


6. E-mailing: E-mailing is an important aspect as it shows the interaction the website has with its customers. There are basically two types of emailing – POP3 which is joined to the domain name and can easily downloaded to applications like Outlook. Second one is an email can be sent to the domain email ids which will further go on to another email id. You can put forward a certain number questions like these – What is the amount of e-mail ids provided in the plan and the price for additional emailing options?

7. SEO Services: Putting your website on search engines like Yahoo and Google can indeed get you more success. Find out from your services provider if SEO services is included in your plan and how does it perform its task and does a team manage the site for such purposes.

The remaining three factors which need to be looked into are – price, competition and contract. Are there any costs which might later on surface? Is there any contract which binds you to the company? What extra features are provided by the company to outshine their competitors?

Once, all your queries are answered then no need to think twice. Just go for the deal!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Blogger Related Post widget

Adding a Related Posts widget to your blog is probably the best way to make your visitors stay longer and visit more than one page.

First of all, make sure to backup your template. You never know what might go wrong.

Then go to Template -> Edit HTML and paste the following code into the page header:




Save it, and then click the Expand Widget Template checkbox.

Scroll down and find this code :


Change the above code to:


Save it, and now go to Template -> Page Elements and add a new HTML/Javascript widget.
Add the following code to it:


Save it, and then click the Expand Widget Template checkbox.
Find the HTML widget just entered and place it after the main widget.
Then change code in the widget code to :


Its all done now.
Check out your Related Posts now!!