Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

5 Essential SEO Tools to Better Manage Your SEO Tasks

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

SEO or search engine optimization is a technique by which the visibility of a website is made prominent in the search engine results. There are many websites which are being developed and hosted almost every day. But they do not become featured at the very first page of Google search. There are certain tools and techniques that are applied so that the rankings of these websites are enhanced in the various search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. The best part about the SEO tools is that one can completely track the things that go on in the website from tracking the traffic to tracking the bounce rate and so on.

Doing SEO manually is quite a daunting task and the results are also farfetched. Therefore it is best to use some SEO tools that will help in faster search engine optimization and give you quicker results. These tools save a lot of time and energy that can be used in other SEO works like analyzing and comparing data from various sources. The greatest advantage of using various SEO tools is that it helps in accelerating the SEO process manifold times. Retrieving and gathering data also becomes much organized with SEO tools. Newer SEO tools are coming up every day and using them are making SEO easier.
There are both on-page and off-page SEO tools that can be easily used to get good search results.
Some off-page search engine optimization tools are as follows:

  • Open Site Explorer – This is one of the best off page optimization tools that can be used. The SEO tool is from SEOmoz and is a very powerful one. The Open Site Explorer is a tool that acts as link popularity checker along with back link analysis too. The tool comes in free as well as paid versions. In the paid version, there are more usability features that you can use for your SEO requirements. The tool also offers a 30 day free trial offer, during which you can test if this tool is really useful for your needs.
  • Link Diagnosis – This is a great SEO tool that helps you to check and analyze the websites’ link profiles. It is a free tool that enables in checking link profiles for not only your website but the website of your competitors’ as well. With the help of this tool, one can see the “no-follow” links, the “good” links as well as the “missing” links.
  • Whitespark Location Citation Finder – This tool proves to be very useful for local SEO. Finding the places of listings has become easier with Whitespark Location Citation Finder. On entering a keyword in their search field, you will be provided with all the citation sources. This tool also comes in free as well as paid versions.

Some of the on-page SEO tools that are highly beneficial are as follows:

  • Link Assistant’s Website Auditor – There is a SEOmoz tool exactly like the Link Assistant’s Website Auditor. This tool helps in doing an on-page optimization and analysis of your website along with the website of your competitor. This wonderful SEO tool is available in free as well as paid versions.
  • SEOmoz On-Page Report Card – As the name says, this tool acts as a report card for while assessing and analyzing the basic elements of a webpage. The tool gives a clear idea on the various ways as how the particular page can be optimized. After analyzing the page, the tools help in upgrading your webpage. However, this tool is only available for professional account holders.

Conversion Rate Optimization Sets Websites High on Revenue Meter

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Conversion rate optimization is what can make a big difference to levels of revenue from your websites. Revenue generates from not only visitors but also their actions commercially known as conversions. You might have numerous arrows in your quiver. If the arrows do not hit the bull’s eye, they are of no use. Likewise, the design and content of a website are the bets to trap visitors and make them take action on the website. If visits to the website do not convert into conversions, the visual and textual display of the website’s landing page needs a professional touch in look and feel.

The following are the USPs of a website’s landing page for conversions and revenue generation:

• Design
• Layout
• Visuals
• Copy or content
• Usability
• Calls to action

Conversion rate optimization is the optimization of these factors that persuade visitors to spring into action on websites. CRO is the latest trick for search engine optimizers, content writers and internet marketers to troubleshoot the problems in websites’ main pages targeted for conversions. Creativity, professionalism and business perspective are what make a success of conversion rate optimization projects. SEO helps fetch traffic and CRO helps build conversions.

What does Conversion rate optimization involve?

• Analysing landing page design
• Analysing landing page content
• Implementing required changes

Webpage Design

A website’s design is a most important factor influencing the action of visitors on the website. The way websites are designed dominates the look of the websites. Design is the very first thing that grabs eyeballs when a website loads and opens. Webpage design also consists of instructions for the visitors on what they need to do on the page. Color schemes, patterns, buttons, layout, etc. are different visit-to-action converting elements of webpage design. It must be professional, if you want it to be perfect. It must be convincing, if you want it to be converting. Professional design helps a website achieve its conversion goals. CRO experts come up with creative design ideas that really do wonders.

Webpage Title

Writing conversion-rate-influencing headlines or titles for webpages requires a synthesis of creativity and professionalism. The headline of a website’s landing page that is meant for building conversions should be as powerful as a magnet to pique the visitors’ interest. After a page loads, it is the headline of the page where a visitor’s attention goes right to. A page headline should be given a second thought before it is finalized. Then come the copy or content of a website’s landing page.

Webpage Content

If headlines work to catch visitors’ attention, content works to hold it on. Creativity and professionalism should go hand in hand in the content or copy of websites’ landing pages. If the design elements of webpage are instructions for visitors, the page content is an elaboration on the instructions. It must be highly motivating and influencing, clear and comprehensible. CRO experts analyze the content, identify the dull areas and improve them to make the conversion rate soar. Therefore, CRO experts work in close association with content writers.

Thus, conversion rate optimization of a website’s landing page makes sure to set visitors on a smooth ride from headline at the top to call-to-action at the bottom. The magic of CRO is not letting visitors think of what you offer but making them try the offer itself at the first go.

Is SEO for PDFs too? If Yes, Know How to Optimize PDFs

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

PDFs for providing information, offering education material and being used for some other purposes are in vogue. A PDF file is like other online materials such as newsletters, press releases and blog posts. The potential of PDFs as a spectacular displayer of e-content, graphical or textual or both on websites is being extensively utilised for promotional purposes. An optimized PDF posted on a website can make its way to search engine result pages.

SEO tips for optimizing PDFs

Optimized PDFs mean search-engine friendly PDFs. This SEO based promotional trick has hit the jackpot for many search engine optimizers and website owners. If search engines are gold mines, the optimization of online materials ranging from webpage to blog, press release, newsletter and PDF is the process to dig into the mines. SEO for a webpage or a blog post is the same as that for PDFs.

The first important do is making sure the names of PDF files are useful for search in search engines. The file names should contain the search keywords or phrases that searchers are supposed to use for looking for the files across the Web. On strength of popular or much used search phrases or words in the names, the PDF files are sure to be visible in SERPs. For instance, Eparadiseindiaseo.pdf is much search engine friendlier than 1357.pdf.

The title tag of a PDF file is no less important than a webpage’s title tag. Therefore, PDF files’ title tags need the same SEO treatment as that for other online content formats. Keep the character limit for title tags of PDF files equal to that for a webpage’s title tag. Adobe Acrobat comes with a description field.

A description of a PDF file’s content is akin to a webpage’s Meta description in terms of importance. It will get displayed under the title tag in SERPs. The description should be informative to the core and concise. It must be telling the visitors why they should click on the link and what they will get. On Acrobat there are additional fields like ‘Additional Metadata’ to be filled in with to-the-point information. These help PDF files get ranked in some search engines.

Keyword-rich alt tags make webpages with images search engine friendly. The same SEO trick can be employed for images in PDF files. The keyword-driven alt tags for the images that a PDF file contains will make the search engine bots index the website where the PDF file is posted. It is all about onsite SEO for PDFs. What are off-site dos for the same?

Links are the most important among the off-site details of a webpage. Likewise, PDF files can be linked back to websites. It is good for both readers and search engine crawlers. If the visitors host your PDF file on their websites or share the file on social networking sites, the file itself acts as a backlink and drives traffic to the website of yours.

Do you agree or disagree with me? Let me know. Waiting for your response or reply…

Does Your Site Load Fast? No! Know What to Do?

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Google included, long back, the loading speed of websites among the website ranking factors. It is significant because Google distributes ranking to websites according to their loading speed. Site speed is among the usability metrics that help rank webpages. Good loading speed of websites assures of huge customer satisfaction and increases the number of conversions. Websites that load very fast are search engine friendly.

How important is the loading time of a website? It is a vital question from SEO viewpoint. An improvement in the site’s loading speed is sure to enhance the user’s experience. It influences the SEO of sites as well. Pages that take time to load lose their search engine relevancy. Poor loading time a website affects the volume of queries for the site. Slow loading of sites is the despair of many users whereas Google has introduced instant search service to help the users save time.

Reduced the number of HTTP requests – If the number of HTTP requests is as small as possible, webpages will load as fast as possible. Websites that wait for many HTTP requests take a considerable time to load. It is better, if the number of scripts, images and style sheets is reduced.

Combine all CSS – Combine all of the CSS in an external file. Link to the file from the head section of each webpage without loading it in HTML. The external page gets cached and loads faster. Like CSS, JavaScript needs to be handled.

Use CSS sprites – Using CSS sprites to combine all images in the background into only one image helps make webpages load faster. It minimizes the volume of HTTP requests.

Optimize images for the web – If you use Photoshop, you can simply click ‘save for web’ to optimize the formats of images for the web. Images with optimized format make a small file size. Websites with smaller file sizes are fast in loading.

Use Gzip to compress the page content – Many sites use Gzip to compress the pages and their contents in order to reduce the size of files by up to 70%. Browsers uncompress the pages and display their content for the users.

Minimize 301 redirects – If possible, it is better not to use 301 redirects. 301 redirects direct browsers to new URLs. Browsers wait for the comeback of HTTP requests and take time to load those pages.

Using server side caching and a content delivery network is another good way to make webpages load faster.

Google Algorithm – Quality Content vs. Duplicate Content

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Duplicate content is the death of a website. Quality content vs. duplicate content is the ongoing talk of the SEO world after the recent change in Google’s algorithm. Originality of web content is now the focus of Google’s algorithm. Google has implemented new filters to filter out websites or webpages with duplicate content. Google has reprogrammed its algorithm as an attempt to deliver high quality and relevant search results. So, the time has come to check if your website has copied content and think how to fix this search engine spam problem.

Reasons to Write Quality Web Content

• Google will index your site out of thousands on the basis of quality and original content. The site will be deemed as a reliable source of authenticate information. Other sites from the same sphere as yours would like to give links to your website.
• Having links on other quality sites, your site will receive a flow of traffic from there. More traffic means more hits. More hits means higher Google page ranking. Higher page ranking means better image of the site.
• Updating your site with unique content will work to keep the site in the search domain of Google. It will also push up the ranking of the site. Unique content is the only strength of a website to stand out from the crowds.
• If yours is a business website, it will receive more sales leads as a result of original content. If the site is an e-commerce one, unique descriptions for products will make the site visible on search result pages. Duplicating the product descriptions from other sources will bog your e-commerce site down.
• Unique content will fuel the number of subscribers for your business newsletters. Subscribers are on the lookout for interesting and reliable information that they have not found elsewhere in the web world. It will boost up the reputation of the site.
• Ezine publishers look for original content across the web to provide their subscribers with. If you send articles with unique content having a link to your website to them, they will readily accept the articles.
• Avoid making copyright violations. If you use the content of other websites on your website without making changes in it, you will violate the copyright issues. Keep in mind, all content on the web is copyright protected. There is no alternative to writing new and unique content.

Search engine spam is a deceitful art of tricking the search engine spiders into indexing webpages, despite their duplicate content. As a result, search engines return inappropriate search results of poor quality. Search engine spam is practiced by pages with a replica of content on other pages. Many think that creating similar or multiple webpages and staffing them with the same content will get their sites listed on relevant search result pages. But the sites become the victim of their own unethical practice that is search engine spam.

Therefore, Google has restructured its algorithm to value the websites with original content and dump the websites with duplicate content. It is evident from the words of Matt Cutts: “we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”
Follow http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html to know Google’s content guidelines for webmasters.

Check Websites’ Servers & Scripting Technologies for Successful Onsite SEO

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

Onsite optimization and offpage optimization are like soul and life of a SEO campaign for improving the organic ranking of websites in search engines. The former comes first, then the latter. Onsite optimization is an out and out technical do. Implementation of onsite optimization techniques requires in-depth knowledge of web servers as well as scripting technologies. A search engine optimizer should have this knowledge at his command to execute any onsite SEO project successfully. He needs to know whether a website uses Microsoft IIS or Apache. Which scripting technologies, ASP or PHP or Java does the site use? The art of tweaking the site is a most important know for novices in the SEO field.

If you are at home working on Apache web server with PHP and if you don’t have the knowledge of working on Microsoft Windows server with ASP.NET, you had better not accept onsite SEO projects for Windows server based websites. Doing onsite optimization for a website of which scripting technology is beyond your grasp is rather risky. You may damage the internal architecture of the website. You will be held responsible for it. This blog entry is an explanation on how to check the web server and scripting technology of a website.

Two Methods of Checking the Servers of Websites

Among the servers on the Internet, Apache and Microsoft IIS are mostly used. According to the survey by Netcraft in April 2010, 53.93% is the market share earned by the former while Microsoft IIS’ market share is 24.97%. You need to know how to identify the web server of a website. If you are knowledgeable of Apache, you will find it impossible to do URL rewrites or redirects using .htaccess with Microsoft IIS. If you are a Windows server expert, make sure checking if the server of the website which you are going to do onsite SEO for is based on Apache or Microsoft.

One of the quickest methods of checking if a website uses Microsoft IIS or Apache is to test the Apache error .htaccess. This technique is worth trying though it does not always provide the requisite information. Here is how this method works:

  • First step – Go to a web browser in order to determine the type of web server used by www.eparadise-india.com.
  • Second step – Type the URL of the site’s home page + .htaccess in the address bar of the browser. For example, http://www.eparadise-india.com/.htaccess
  • Third step – Examine the results, with a press on the enter key. If the website is Apache-based, it will show a 403 forbidden error as the result, simply because the .htaccess is not publicly accessible. The result will also include information on the exact server of the website.

If you are not satisfied with the results of the first method, try the online application http://web-sniffer.net/ to indentify a website’s server. Here is how to use this online:

  • First step – Type the URL http://web-sniffer.net/ in the browser
  • Second step – Enter the complete homepage URL of the site http://www.eparadise-india.com/ in the ‘HTTP(S)-URL’
  • Third step – Select ‘HTTP/1.1.’ under the HTTP version
  • Fourth step – Select ‘GET’ to set the user agent as ‘Web-Sniffer’
  • Fifth step – Click on ‘Submit’

The results including the website’s server information will appear under the ‘HTTP Response Header’. This online application provides reliable information. Follow the next blog entry on how to identify the scripting technology and language of a dynamic website.

Top Free Blog Directories to Get Your Blog Maximum Exposure

Monday, December 13th, 2010

You can compose a most informative and convincing piece of content out of raw materials from different sources to establish yourself as a brilliant blogger. Though your composition is as precious as diamond or you, don’t keep it hid to all. Rather, get your blog maximum exposure across the World Wide Web.

Like advertisements to market products, blog directories are the right platforms to promote blogs. Having your blog listed in the top blog directories is a good opportunity to fetch traffic from various avenues related to your niche. If the blog is featured in high PR blog directories, it gets noticed among the search engine results on the topic that the blog covers. Almost all the directories work on the same line. I have googled the top free blog directories where you blog needs to be in.

Technorati is a cosmic network of blogs in all fields. This free blog directory allows you to run a frisk for blogs on any subject. It maintains a hierarchy of blogs by assigning a rank to each of them depending on their content quality. It lets you update your blog profile manually or automatically. Technorati is a hub of more than 50 million blogs.

Blog Catalog is a blog directory on the one hand and a social networking on the other. It lets you to create a profile, make friends and update the profile with new content. Whenever the blog site is updated with fresh posts, you can easily notify your friends on Blog Catalog about it.

Blogarama is a colossal platform promoting more than 100,000 blog sites. Simplicity is the mainstay feature of this directory. It is easy to use and therefore, user-friendly. It is a doddle to get your blog listed on this directory. It just requires you to go a few easy steps and you are done.

GlobeofBlogs is a well-organized blog directory where you can make quest for a blog by topic, blog title or blog author. Though it takes you time to get registered and live on the directory, you can be assured of the listing of and views for your blog here, if the content is good and comprehensible.

Super Blog directory is equipped with a high-tech system to categorize the blogs. Navigation through the directory is a pleasing experience. Having the attributes of a professional directory, it allows the other uses to rate your blog site and its content between 1 and 10 stars.

Blog Explosion is not only a blog directory but also a community of bloggers. You can earn credits for your blog and its content from the others in your community. It is among the directories whose blog listings turn up in search engine results.

Online Sources to Fetch Traffic and Build Links for Your Travel Blog

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Movie, music, food and travel are elemental means of entertainment for almost everyone. Digging into the resources of global travel and tourism industry has opened up multiple avenues like travel blogging. Travel blogging is a passion for some, a pleasure for some and a profession for some. Be blogging in this field is your passion, pleasure of profession, you need visitors for your travel blog site and readers for your travel blog posts to make a go of your effort. It does not require you to look for your target visitors or readers, with a lamp in your hand. The Internet is home to many travel forums, travel blog hosts, travel social bookmarks and travel social networking sites where you can promote your travel blog by earning links and fetching traffic from there. Let’s have a go through the brief on top travel social networking platforms, forums and communities –

TripAdvisor is a popular travel social networking website that dishes out advice and information through the comments and opinions of real travelers. It provides platform for graphical advertising and cost-per-click marketing.

Tripwolf is a vast reservoir of travel tips, reviews, opinions and experiences from professional travel writers and travelers like you. It is an online community of travel writers and globetrotters in thousands. Tripwolf is a hub of travel blogs and a travel map focusing on above 400000 locations all around the world. Commenting on the blog posts leaving a link to your travel blog is a tip to get the best of this travel site.

RealTravel is the best online platform for people to network with travelers and share their valuable real-life experiences. It provides suggestions from travel experts that you can get resource for your travel blog from.

Dopplr provides a social networking base for travelers, travel writers and bloggers. Being a member of this travel networking site, you can network with others to exchange tips on different tourist destinations and cuisines of the world with them. Better to be called a travel atlas, it is accessible by mobile phones.

Bootsnall is a community of travelers, a platform for travel writers and a base for travel blog hosting. It is the best online place to access thousands of travel blogs, stories and guides on global destinations at one go. Bootsnall deserves a mention as a good source to build links for your travel blog.

Gusto, a leading online community of globetrotters, is the place to come across several travel websites and blogs. It offers not only tips on traveling but also global travel news. Having membership of this community benefits to get you valuable links for your travel blog.

Exploro, a part of travel social media, aims at providing opportunities for networking with travelers from across the globe, sharing your travel experiences through pictures, videos or write-ups and seeking travel information. Have a profile on this forum and build links to direct visitors to your travel blog.

TripSay is an out and out travel networking platform where you can connect to travel enthusiasts and get into discussions with them on trips to global destinations. It is a social community for travel junkies to document their memorable trips in blogging style. Make the most of it to develop a pool of visitors for your travel blog.

TravelBeen is a prominent travel bookmarking site on the one hand and a good travel search engine on the other. It offers lots of activity for the users. If your travel site or blog provides quality content, submit it to TravelBeen for free. It lets you do bookmarking for your own site or blog. Have a user profile and then, spring into bookmarking.

Reddit’s Travel Section is one of the promising platforms for online travel marketing. A quality writeup, combined with pictures and videos is a great travel marketing tool to build dofollow links from this platform. The more votes for the writeup, the more traffic for your travel site or blog.

World66, TripConnect, Boo, TripShake, Trazzler and GeckoGo are similar other travel networking sites. Build a travel blog of your own and be a travel bookmarker or a travel networker or a travel community member to put the blog in the public eye.

How to Earn Passive Income from Blogs with Infolinks and Amazon Associates

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Monetization of blog is a bandwagon in the blogosphere. A blog with search engine friendly features can make passive income for its owner. Google AsSense is not the one and only option to monetize blogs. Amazon Associates and Infolinks are two other potential means to make passive income through your blog. Most of the bloggers know that the best approach to spinning money from a blog is to use Google AdSense. However, if you want to maximize your income from a blog, try the before-mentioned means f passive income.

Passive income, an antonym of active income is a kind of income that you can pocket without much hard work. You need not be at work to make passive income from your blog. Passive income though smaller in amount than active income is a great boost with long-term effects to your financial condition. So what, it works slow and takes time to pay off. A passive income blog does not require you to abide by the ‘no work, no pay’ policy. This blog is an illustration of how to make an impressive passive income from your blog, with Infolinks and Amazon Associates.

A diamond fascinates all, only when it dazzles. Likewise, a blog fetches readers if it features quality content. The content quality and quantity of a blog is not to be sniffed at. It is an important consideration for passive income. Evaluate the status of your blog content in terms of quality and quantity, before you go crazy with Amazon Associates and Infolinks. Check the following requirements for passive income, with your blog –

The age of your blog - If the blog is merely a month old, be in no hurry for being an Amazon associate or an Infolink publisher. Take time to stuff the blog with quality content and practise organic search engine optimization to get traffic. No shortcut is there. Optimize the blog with keyword-centric rich content.

At the initial stage, you have to work hard and put in efforts in order to build a large readership and a huge visitor base for your blog. Besides dedication and commitment on your part, what it requires more are quality content and search engine optimization, both of wich will get you lots of traffic. Keep updating the blog with posts on relevant and popular topics.

The type of your blog – Is your blog really content-oriented or text-based? Some bloggers are not serious about the originality and quantity of their blog content. Blog posts with strenght of 500 words are considered standard for passive income. Keep in mind that Amazon Associates and Infolinks prefer to work with content or text-based blogs. They hardly favor the blogs, full of images and videos. Only original blog content can help you become a publisher with Amazon Associates and Infolinks for passive income.

Follow the next blog in this series to get the details about how to spring into activity for passive blog income with Infolinks and Amazon Associates.

Advantages of SEO over PPC

Monday, November 8th, 2010

SEO offers more benefits than PPC. SEO service has several advantages over PPC advertising. PPC is mere online advertising but SEO is a complete marketing and promotion package. Here is a detailed discussion on the pros of SEO and cons of PPC for business websites – SEO vs PPC

  • PPC does not help improve the position of websites in the search result pages. Though a PPC ad appears at the top or one side of the search result pages. But SEO does it easily.
  • A recent survey reveals that SEO drives many times more visitors than PPC advertising to websites. 3 out of 4 visitors trust the position of a website in the organic search result listing than that in the PPC listing.
  • PPC does not help optimize websites or make them search engine friendly. SEO optimizes the whole website and makes it searchable, crawlable as well as indexable.
  • Websites should have optimized page content through SEO before they are marketed through PPC advertising. Without SEO, PPC is less effective.
  • SEO service earns you more business leads than a PPC advertising campaign because SEO generates lots of views for your website.
  • Several keywords drive more traffic and build more conversions than one keyword. SEO targets more keywords at a time than a PPC ad can.
  • SEO helps improves the brand value of a website and the online reputation of its owner. PPC advertising earns only clicks for websites.
  • A PPC ad works as long as you pay for it. Your site disappears from the PPC listing and you lose traffic when you stop paying. Once your website gains a good position in the regular search listing, it will continually receives organic traffic.
  • PPC advertising is more competitive and expensive than SEO service. SEO is affordable and profitable.
  • PPC advertising is a bidding war. It favors website owners with big budgets. But SEO is available also for small budget websites.
  • SEO is multidimensional in function. Therefore, its result is greater and more satisfactory than that of PPC advertising.