How To Strengthen Your Base For High Rankings

If you do it right, search engine optimization is not difficult. Do the right things in the right order and your website will get the rankings it deserves. Unfortunately, many webmasters try to run before they can walk.

First things first

Social media can have a positive influence on your rankings. Backlinks are also very important. Both factors, however, won't help your website if your search engine optimization campaign lacks a solid foundation.

The following pyramid shows search engine optimization factors sorted by importance:

1. On-page optimization

Optimizing the content of your web pages is the most important step of each search engine optimization campaign. To show search engines that your website is relevant to a particular topic, optimize as many different pages of your website as possible for as many different keywords as possible.

Search engines must be able to parse your web pages without problems and your keywords should appear in the right places.

Use keywords that are related to your business in your website navigation and link your web pages with meaningful words to make sure that search engines can category your web pages properly.

2. Usability and conversion optimization

High rankings on search engines won't help your website if your website visitors don't convert. Make sure that your web pages are easy to use. Your website visitors should be able to find what they're looking for.

Create user friendly web pages that have a professional and trustworthy design. Add a call to action on all important web pages.

The higher the percentage of website visitors who purchase something on your website, the fewer visitors you need for a successful website.

3. Backlinks

You can start to get backlinks to your website when you're sure that your website has optimized pages and a good conversion rate.

If Google finds several different websites with content that is relevant to a keyword, the web page with the best backlinks will be listed on Google's result page.

Try to get backlinks from related websites. It also helps to include keywords that are related to your business in the links to your site. Quality is much more important than quantity. A few good links from related websites are better than lots of low quality links.

4. Social ranking elements

Social ranking elements such as the number of Facebook Likes, Google +1 clicks or Twitter mentions are the icing on the cake. These elements won't get your website on Google's first result page but they can make the difference between position 1 and 3.

Before you invest your time in social ranking elements, be sure that all other elements are in place.

Google Algorithm Change History

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm up to 500 – 600 times. While most of these changes are minor, every few months Google rolls out a “major” algorithmic update that affect search results in significant ways.

For search marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can help explain changes in rankings and organic website traffic. Below, we've listed the major algorithmic changes that made the biggest impacts on search. Understanding these updates can help with search engine optimization.

Click below for more details

http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change#view-all

Could Guest Posting Be Dead?

Guest posting has long been a killer way to get links, but is it dead?  It’s no secret that the number one way online to get to page one of Google is to get links and lots of them.  Many SEO’s have been frantically submitting guest posts to 100′s of sites in hopes to boost their clients SEO with good links.  But are those links valuable?  We’re going to take a deep dive into guest posting with some expert advice from Matt Cutts of Google today. 

Matt Cutts put together a video today where he addressed guest posting as a way of getting links.  AJ Kohn asked Matt, “What is Google’s view on guest blogging for links?”  Matt Cutts put together the following video to answer that question:

So, to answer the question … No, guest posting is not dead for most people. Matt outlines some very simple principles of guest posting that I think everyone out there should pay attention to.

1. Spinning articles for guest posting will not help. It’s just like and article farm—no rankings—and sometimes negative rankings for this.
2. Writing crappy articles will not help.
3. Writing short articles of 200, 300, and 400 words will not help as much. The longer the better.
4. Having no Google Authorship will not help as much, you need to be known a little better.
5. Quality—it all comes down to quality. Make sure you’re putting time and effort into your posts.

Don’t take anything to extremes is one of my favorite quotes from the video above.

Don’t take anything to extremes is one of my favorite quotes from the video above.  There are a lot of people that outsource their article writing to low quality writers and take credit.  They simply outsource and post up the articles.  This is a no no.  Make sure that you’re putting together or getting real quality in your articles.

He recommends that you write the articles yourself.  If you can’t write them yourself make sure that you pay good money to have them written.  Some of the top places I’ve used to get real quality articles is Blogging.org, Textbroker, and Writer Access though I prefer to write all my articles personally!

Over the past 2 years I have had a very aggressive guest posting strategy for a couple of my projects that has worked very well. I have worked with some of the top sites in many industries to guest post on their sites. These are all top quality posts that bring real value to each and every person reading them.

Not all the blog posts are 100 percent unique and something new, but every post has something unique to me and my experience. All of my posts tend to be 600+ words, bringing real value to the reader. That’s what Google is looking for—quality and real value to the reader.

From this video you can tell that Google does love guest posting, they just want the crappy stuff gone. Stop trying to cut corners and put up spun posts. They aren’t going to help your site and I would imagine that Google is going to start really penalizing sites that do spin articles. Put up good quality guest post on other sites and Google will reward you for them.

Want to know if your article is good enough for Google?

Here’s a great way to know if it will pass the Google test. If you can send that article to your best friend in the industry and he learns something from it, I’m pretty sure Google and Matt Cutts will both agree that it’s a good article. Pretty simple test, but will all your guest posting articles pass this test?

This is just another example that Google is upping the SEO game. We, as SEOs, need to be constantly working hard to put out only the best for our clients. Gone are the days where we can put out really crappy information for links. Gone are the days where we can buy 2,000 article submissions for $100. The days are here where we need to step up our game and do as Wil Reynolds said at Mozcon this year: “Real Company Shit” Time to step up our game boys and girls!

Google Panda Update 20 Released

With the 2.4% impacts on English search engine queries and more. Google has come up with his new Panda Update which has named as Google Panda Update 20. Google has confirmed that this update is not just a data update but an algorithm update which has already affected about 2.4% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice.  It seems that there is more about this update which can roll out in 3-4 days as per the comments Google’s Matt Cutts.

He has confirmed that Google Panda update which has been released on 9/27 has lot more to come as it is more than a data update. Not only English search queries have affected but French, Spanish and other also has seen the impact of 0.5% in search queries. It will continue for 3, 4 days more but the sad part is that there are other sites also which has been affected by Panda update but it is elusive which Update has affected it.

Google panda Update Till Date

We’ve had a string of updates since then, as follows, along with the percentage of queries Google said would be impacted:

1. Panda Update 1.0, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
2. Panda Update 2.0, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
3. Panda Update 2.1, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
4. Panda Update 2.2, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
5. Panda Update 2.3, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
6. Panda Update 2.4, Aug. 12, 2011 (6-9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
7. Panda Update 2.5, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
8. Panda Update 3.0, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
9. Panda Update 3.1, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
10. Panda Update 3.2, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
11. Panda Update 3.3, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
12. Panda Update 3.4, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
13. Panda Update 3.5, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
14. Panda Update 3.6, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
15. Panda Update 3.7, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
16. Panda Update 3.8, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
17. Panda Update 3.9, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
18. Panda Update 3.91, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
19. Panda Update 3.92, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
20. Google Panda Update 20 Released, 2.4% Of English Queries Impacted

5 Steps To A Successful SEO Campaign

Is your SEO campaign delivering the results that you expect? Or are your campaigns underperforming? There are several things that you can do to make sure that search engine optimization works for your website.

There can be several reasons why your SEO campaign isn't a success yet:

Step 1: set the right goals

If your website doesn't have many high rankings yet then you cannot expect that Google will display your site on the first result page for keywords such as "mp3" or other very competitive one-word keywords. 

You have to start with more targeted keyphrases first. Optimize your pages for many different keywords with lower competition. The more high rankings your website has for keywords with lower competition, the more likely it is that your website will also get high rankings for more competitive keywords that belong to the same topic. 

It's like running a marathon. You have to run smaller distances first before you can run the full 26 miles and 385 yards.

Step 2: be serious about your success

Search engine optimization isn't set-and-forget. It takes some time to make things happen. Search engine optimization is an investment into your company and it should be treated like that. 

If all you do to 'promote' your website is to submit it to search engines then you won't be successful. You have to invest time and effort into the optimization of your site. Tools can help you to save a lot of this time and effort but you still have to work with your site.

Step 3: focus on the right elements and get the basics right

Some webmasters are obsessed with the length of the title tag. Others submit their website every few days to search engines. Other webmasters insist that a particular part of their website links must use the rel=nofollow attribute. 

You don't have to chase the latest search engine optimization trend. These trend topics usually make the difference between position 8 and position 9. If your website isn't listed on the first result page at all, you have to get the basics right. 

The most important factors that will get your website on Google's first result page are optimized web pages with good content and good backlinks.

Step 4: choose the right keywords

Keywords are very important. If you choose the wrong keywords, you will waste a lot of time and money. 

The best keywords for your website are not the keywords with the biggest search volume. The best keywords also aren't the keywords that will boost your ego and it's also not the "obvious" keywords that will work best for SEO. 

The best keywords for SEO are the keywords that deliver targeted visitors who will buy. It does not matter if a keyword has thousands of searches. If none of the visitors who find your site through that keyword will buy, then this keyword won't do you any good.

Step 5: get the right kind of backlinks

It's not necessary to have thousands of backlinks if you want to get high rankings on Google. Your website just needs the right backlinks. Automatic links from link building schemes don't work. Actually, that kind of links can even get you in trouble with Google. 

You must get the right kind of backlinks to succeed. Use professional link management tools  to get the best possible links to your site.

Search engine optimization can contribute greatly to the success of your website. It's important that you do the right things in the right order and that you focus on the right elements.

Seo Wealth Building: You Have To Do The Right Things

Search engine optimization is very similar to wealth building. If you do the wrong things and listen to the wrong people, you might lose everything and you might be left with nothing. This is a lesson that many people learned after Google's Penguin update.

1. It's important to know that time is a factor

If you are young and invest your first dollars then you won't become a millionaire overnight. It takes some time to build your wealth and if you invest regularly, you will earn more than people who invest only once. If you invest too little, you won't get the same results as people who are serious about building wealth.

Search engine optimization works exactly like that. If your website is young, then it will have only a few rankings. You have to optimize the pages and the backlinks of your website and you have to do it regularly. The more time you invest in optimizing your site, the sooner you will get results.

2. Do first things first

When you start investing, you cannot participate in the big deals that require a lot of money. It's the same with SEO. If your website doesn't have many rankings yet, then it doesn't make sense to target very competitive keywords such as "mp3" or even "credit cards".

The big players in your niche have the high rankings for these keywords and they have several advantages (more backlinks, more visitors, more trusted by Google, etc.).

Start with much targeted keyword phrases that consist of 3-4 words. It is much easier to get high rankings for these keyphrases and you will also get higher conversion rates with very targeted keyphrases.

The more rankings your website has, the easier it will be to get high rankings for more competitive keywords. Then you can start to compete with the big guys for the more general keywords.

3. You have to be careful (the wrong things are very risky!)

There are many people who promise to make you rich overnight. Others promise incredible profits. The more aggressively you invest, the more likely it is that you will lose everything.

It's the same with SEO. If you use aggressive (and often shady) SEO methods then you put your website at risk. Aggressive tactics often deliver great results for a short period. Unfortunately, all of them also lead to massive problems with Google in the long run.

After Google's recent Penguin update, many websites have been banned from Google because they used spammy SEO tactics that promised quick results.

If you see offers like "thousands of backlinks with no work" or "fully automated SEO solution" then you should be very careful. In both finance and SEO, there are many snake-oil salesmen. Don't fall for them.

Getting your website on Google's first result page isn't rocket science. It requires some work but it is possible if you do the right things in the right order. Use search engine optimization methods that are approved by search engines to make sure that your website gets lasting results.

सर्दी-जुकाम से हैं परेशान तो आजमाइए ये नुस्खे रामबाण!

बदलते मौसम में सर्दी-जुकाम जैसी परेशानियां होना एक आम समस्या है।

इस मौसम में ये समस्या होना इस बात को दर्शाता है कि आपके शरीर का इम्यून सिस्टम सही ढंग से काम नहीं कर रहा है, ऐसे में सर्दी-जुकाम को रोकना मुश्किल हो जाता है।

प्रायः हर किसी को मौसम में आए बदलाव के कारण कभी न कभी ये समस्या जरूर होती है। अगर आप भी बदलते मौसम में सर्दी-जुकाम के शिकार हो गए हैं तो ये घरेलू नुस्खे आजमाएं।

- गर्म चने को सूंघने से सर्दी-जुकाम दूर हो जाता है। 

- शहद में अदरक का रस मिलाकर सेवन करने से खांसी ठीक हो जाती है।

- खांसी, जुकाम, सर्दी और नॉर्मल फीवर में तुलसी व अदरक की चाय पीने से लाभ होता है।

- जुकाम होने पर गर्म दूध में छुहारा उबालकर इसमें थोड़ी सी इलायची एवं केसर मिलाकर सेवन करने से जुकाम के रोगाणु खत्म हो जाते हैं।

- गर्म देसी घी में काली मिर्च का चूर्ण मिलाकर रोटी के साथ सेवन करने से जुकाम ठीक हो जाता है।

- गुड़ और कालीमिर्च का चूर्ण मिला लें और उसे चाय की तरह उबालकर पीने से भी जुकाम दूर हो जाता है।

- सरसों के तेल को गुनगना करके छाती, पैर के दोनों तलवों और नाक के चारों तरफ लगाने से भी जुकाम दूर हो जाता है।

- डेढ़ चम्मच की मात्रा में सौंफ पानी के साथ खाकर ऊपर से गर्म दूध पीने से भी जुकाम होने की संभावना कम हो जाती है।

How To Get More Clicks From Rankings That You Already Have

Although the meta description tag doesn't influence the rankings of your web pages much, it can have a major influence on the number of clicks that you get. By attracting more clicks, good meta descriptions can also have a positive influence on your rankings.

What are meta descriptions and why are they still important?

The meta description tag can be found in the HTML code of a web page:

<meta name="description" content="This is the meta description text. If it is relevant, search engines will display it on the search result page.">

Some people think that meta descriptions are not important anymore. However, Google Webmaster Tools shows an alert if a meta description is not unique. That's an indicator that the descriptions still matter.

• Good meta descriptions can attract more clicks and a higher click-through rate.
• A higher click-through rate can have a positive effect on the rankings of the web page.

In other words: good meta descriptions can deliver new customers to your website while contributing to your rankings at the same time.

How to optimize your meta descriptions

• Meta descriptions should be unique: each page on your website should have its own meta description.
• Meta descriptions should be relevant: boilerplate meta descriptions won't do your website good. The meta description should be relevant to the content of the page.
• Include a call to action: think of what you want a user to do when they visit your page and then include a call to action in the description. The following verbs might help you: buy, download, shop, browse, download, etc.
• Show your USP: tell your customers what makes you different and highlight this unique proposition in the meta description.

Web searchers have many options on the result page. Offer something special to attract their clicks. The meta description tag is not an immediate ranking factor. If you want to get listed on Google's first result page, optimize the content of your web pages and try to get good backlinks to your site.

Then optimize the meta descriptions of your web pages to make sure that you get as many visitors as possible through your rankings.

Three Things You Can Do To Stay Ahead Of Google's Updates

Google's recent updates have rattled many webmasters. Are your rankings safe? Do you have to worry about Google's next updates? There are three things that you can do to stay ahead of future Google updates.

1. Understand that Google wants the same as you

Google wants to offer web searchers the solution to their problems. Your products and services also solve the problems of your customers. Show Google that your website offers the best solution to a problem.

2. Focus on your visitors and Google will follow

Some webmasters try to create the perfect backlink profile for Google. That's not how you should work. A backlink is a good link if it delivers targeted visitors to your website.
There's only one question that you have to ask to find high quality backlinks: "Can I get good website visitors through this link?"
If the answer is yes, you should try to get the link. Do not worry too much about backlink profiles. If you only create links that are useful for real people, Google will like your links.

3. Diversify

Getting visitors through Google is great, but it should not be your only source. Each new channel that drives visitors to your website will make you less dependent from Google:

• Get listed on Bing and other search engines.
• Get links on related websites that deliver visitors to your site.
• Improve the conversion rate of your web pages and optimize the long-term value of each visitor.
• Develop relationships with companies and people who are related to your business.

Google wants to show high quality sites in the search results. If your website offers compelling content that offers the solution to a problem then Google will give your pages high rankings. Don't try to please Google. Try to please your website visitors.

Offer good content, get backlinks that deliver visitors and offer a valuable website. That will place your business in a secure position.

Google: It Takes Time To Rank A Great Website On Google

In an online discussion, Google's John Mueller said that having a great website is not enough to get high rankings on Google. What do you need to get high Google rankings and what do you have to do?

High rankings take time

If you have a new website, it will take some time until Google fully trusts your site. Even if your website has great content, Google must be sure that your website can be trusted. 

This is what John Mueller wrote in the discussion forum:

"From what I can tell, your site is still fairly new - with most of the content just a few months old, is that correct? In cases like that, it can take a bit of time for search engines to catch up with your content, and to learn to treat it appropriately. It's one thing to have a fantastic website, but search engines generally need a bit more to be able to confirm that, and to rank your site - your content - appropriately."

If your website is several months old, it is still new to Google and Google needs other factors that confirm that your website is great. For example, the number and the quality of the links that point to your website will help your website to get higher rankings.

Automatically created backlinks don't help your website

Many webmasters think that they can get higher rankings on Google by artificially increasing the number of website backlinks through bulk link submitters.

While these tactics did work for some time, Google's Penguin update made sure that this type of link can get your website into trouble. John Mueller strongly recommends to avoid these links:

"If you're engaging in techniques like comment spam, forum profile link-dropping, dropping links in unrelated articles, or just placing it on random websites, then those would be things I'd strongly recommend stopping and cleaning up if you can."

You won't get high rankings on Google if you use spamming tools to promote your website. If you want to get high rankings that last, optimize the content of your web pages to show that your website is relevant to your keywords.

Then make sure that high quality websites link to your site. If you do these things in that order, your website will get high rankings on Google in the shortest possible time. In addition, your rankings will last because they are spam-free.

How To Get High Local Rankings

40 local search marketers around the world participated in a survey to find the most important ranking factors for local search. If you want to get high rankings in Google's local search results the survey can help you.

Why is it important to get good local rankings?

For some keywords (for example "seo ananlysis"), Google shows local results at the top of the search result list. These websites aren't listed at the top because they have good content or good backlinks.

They are listed at the top because they fit to the geographic area of the search query. If keywords that show local results are relevant to your business, it is important to be listed in the local search results.

The five most important factors for local results

According to the survey, the following five factors are the most important factors that influence the overall ranking of a website in Google's local results:

1. The physical address in the city of search
2. Proper category association
3. The proximity of the address to centroid
4. The domain authority of the website
5. The quantity of structured citations on Internet yellow pages websites and data aggregators

It also helps to have the city and the state on the landing page.

The top five factors that have a negative influence on your local rankings

The following factors can have a negative influence on your local rankings:

1. A mis-match of phone numbers across data ecosystems. For example, tracking phone numbers can negatively affect your local rankings.
2. Multiple Google Place pages with the same phone number.
3. Multiple Google Places pages with the same or similar business title and address.
4. A mis-match of the address and/or the phone number on Google Places and the landing page.
5. Including location keywords in categories.

If your website doesn't have a crawlable version of your name, address and phone number on the landing pages, Google might not also give your website high rankings.

Getting high rankings on Google is important if you want to get more customers and more sales. 

An Introduction To SEO Infographic

A basic info-graphic on an introduction to SEO basics

You and I know what they say, A picture is worth a thousand words right?

So today I am not going to talk about SEO or write an article about it. I am sharing with you an info-graphic about what SEO is and basically how it compares to other forms of Search Engine Marketing.

SEO Infographic

Link Building And A Natural Backlink Profile: Can These Two Go Together

Much has been said about the importance of a natural backlink profile since Google released the Penguin algorithm update. Is it possible to actively build links and still have a natural backlink profile?

Real link building is more important than ever

The importance of link building hasn't decreased with Google's Penguin update. Actually, link building has become more important than before. The difference is that link spamming doesn't work anymore.
Blasting your link to thousands of sites and fully automated backlink networks have lost their power. Given the fact that these links never were useful to real Internet users, it's remarkable that Google took so long to devaluate that type of backlinks.

Link building is not about manipulating search rankings (surprise)

Higher search engine rankings are a natural by-product if you build links correctly. The main purpose of link building (and SEO in general) is to get targeted visitors to your website.
Backlinks can help you with the following:

1. backlinks can increase the search engine rankings of your site
2. backlinks can help you to get targeted visitors
3. backlinks can help your company reputation

If you focus your link building activities on 2 and 3 then 1 will come naturally.

Link building can lead to a natural backlink profile

The reason why some people think that link building leads to an unnatural backlink profile is that they confuse link building with link spamming. SEO is not spamming and the whole SEO industry has suffered a lot from people using the term 'SEO' to sell their spamming products.

The key to a natural backlink profile is a simple question: "Could the link exist without asking for it?" Many people just don't link to your site because they don't know it or because they don't have the time to research links about a topic.

Help these people who would naturally link to your site by informing them about linkworthy content on your site that is related to their site. Asking the right people for the right reason often leads to much better results than the scattershot approach that is used by many companies.

For the foreseeable future, good backlinks will remain the most important factor in Google's ranking algorithms.

Negative SEO: does it really exist

After Google's recent Penguin update, much has been written about negative SEO. Does it really exist and can it be used to hurt your website? What can you do to avoid problems?

What is negative SEO?

 

Negative SEO refers to tactics that companies use to manipulate the organic Google rankings of their competitors. Google's Penguin update penalized websites that used spammy links to get higher rankings.

 

If low quality links really hurt the Google rankings of a website, then one of your competitors could submit your site to paid link networks and your Google rankings would drop. That's what negative SEO is about.

 

Other things that your competitors could do:

• duplicate your website content on spammy sites
• use known spam link generators to link to your site
• fake business reviews so they don’t appear natural
• etc.

Does negative SEO work?

 

This is a very controversial topic among SEO experts. Some think that negative SEO is not possible, others are sure that it is possible to harm the Google rankings of a competitor.

 

Instead of penalizing websites that have backlinks from spammy sites, Google could simply ignore the spammy links. People who try to promote their sites with these links would waste their time and other website owners wouldn't be hurt.

 

Google could also introduce a robots.txt command that tells Google that certain links should be ignored. It's hard to believe that Google's engineers would make it possible to harm other websites if there was an easier solution that would prevent this.

 

What can you do to prevent problems?

 

If you want to make sure that your website doesn't get penalized by Google, do the following:

• Do not use spam methods to promote your websites. If Google ignores these methods, you're wasting your time. If Google penalizes these methods, you will damage your website rankings.
• If you find fake reviews of your website, ask the website that publishes the reviews to remove the fake reviews.
• Use white-hat SEO methods to promote your website. If you show Google that your website is a high quality website, then your web pages will get high rankings.
• Make sure that your website is not too dependent on Google. You should also get visitors through other sources (online ads, offline ads, links on other websites, etc.).

Negative SEO is highly unethical and one can only hope that Google doesn't allow other people to damage your rankings. To improve your rankings, focus on the factors that you can influence and optimize your web pages so that they get high rankings on Google.

 

Organize your web page titles in 6 easy steps

With all the hype about Google's latest algorithm updates, it is easy to forget about the basics that are needed to get high rankings. Before you work on the links to your site, your web page basics must be right.

For example, the title tag has a very big influence on the search engine positions of a web page. In addition, the title tag is very important because it is the first thing that people see in the search results. There are several things that you can do to optimize your web page titles.

Step 1: check the HTML code of your web pages

It's astonishing how many pages have more than one title tag in the code. If your pages have more than one title tag, they will confuse search engine robots. The tags might not be read at all or, even worse, search engines might interpret this as a spamming attempt.

Step 2: use your keywords in your web page titles

Use the most relevant keywords at the beginning of your web page titles. Many people only scan the beginning of the titles so make sure that the beginning of the title tag contains the right words.

Step 3: make the titles clear, predictable and irresistible

The readers of your web page titles should know what your web page is about and the title should lead to a page that meets the expectations of the searcher.

The web page title is the first thing that people see in the search results. Make sure that the wording of your web page titles is appealing, emotional and irresistible.

Step 4: keep the titles short

Although there is no official limit, you should keep the length of your web page titles below 70 characters. The reason for that is that most search engines truncate the titles after 65-70 characters on the search result pages.

Step 5: remove unnecessary words

Words such as "homepage", "Index" and your company name usually don't help your search engine rankings. Remove these words from the title tags of your web pages. Your title tags will become more relevant to the actual keywords then.

Step 6: use unique title tags

Don't use the same title tags on more than one page. Each page should have a unique title tag that reflects the content of the web page. In general, optimize different pages of your website for different keywords. The more pages of your website you optimize the better.

The title tags of your web pages are only one factor that influences the position of your web pages in Google's search results.

Google releases two new ranking algorithm updates

It seems that Google releases a new ranking algorithm update every week. Last week, Google’s Matt Cutts announced that there is another algorithm update that targets web spam. What does this mean for your rankings and how must you react?

Google doesn't like web spam

“In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content.While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.”

Things that Google considers spam

Google’s announcement shows two examples. The first example is a page that is stuffed with hundreds of keywords in a comma separated list.

Google doesn’t want that type of pages in the search results. The second example is a page that has normal text. However, the text contains keyword optimized links that are totally unrelated to the surrounding text.

Other things that Google considers spam are linking schemes, misleading redirects or purposeful duplicate content.

Google says that the right kind of SEO is fine

Many people confuse search engine optimization with spamming. Spamming and SEO are two totally different things. Google’s latest announcement also contains a statement about “white hat” SEO:

"Effective search engine optimization can make a site more crawlable and make individual pages more accessible and easier to find. [...]

 'White hat' search engine optimizer often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines."

How to react to Google's latest ranking algorithm

Google released two algorithm updates: a Panda update on April, 19th and the update explained above on April, 24th. If your web page rankings dropped on April, 19th, then you have to improve the quality of your web pages.

If your page rankings dropped on April, 24th, then you have to remove all spam elements from your web pages. If you think that your website was flagged by mistake, you can inform Google through this form.

Only use white-hat SEO methods if you want to be on the safe side

Use shady SEO methods and Google might penalize your website. If you want to be on the safe side, only use white-hat SEO methods.

Duplicate Content vs Content Syndication

Just a few days ago, I receive an email from a reader about the concern of duplicate content issue when using press release. I think this is one of the myth in SEO or in general marketing context.

What Is Duplicate Content?

First of all, we need to understand the definition of duplicate content and why it happens. When Google refers to duplicate content issue, they mean the same content that can be accessed via different URL in the same domain. For example, you have a page with unique that is about dog training, i.e. YourDomain.com/Dog-Training, this page can also be accessed via multiple URLs because of session id or you have created multiple page with different design for split testing purpose, such as via YourDomain.com/Dog-Training.html, YourDomain.com/Dog-Training1.html, then this could post a duplicate content issue.

If you submitted your very same post to the article directories, this is NOT a duplicate content issue but content syndication.  There are a lot of misunderstanding about content syndication versus duplicate content. Of of the most common way that you might see is that your blog posts were scrapped and posted on some other blogs via RSS. There are a lot of content scrapping software that are able to scrap content easily and get posted automatically to the blog to generate content. Most of them will provide a link back to the original source to acknowledge the author. 

Content Syndication 

This is the situation where you have the same piece of content showing up in multiple websites with different URLs and this is not considered as duplicate content. Similarly, you can also submit the same article to multiple article directories or using software like Article Marketing Robot for mass distribution of your article. This content syndication will result in multiple backlinks to your website and direct traffic to your site because you have increased the exposure of your website.

Another good example is press release. Most of the reputable press release sites will get a lot of syndication from other news agency and blogs, therefore resulting in massive exposure of the single press release. That’s one of the reason why press release can be extremely powerful to generate buzz for product launch and any kind of event. 

Unlimited Traffic And Backlinks? 

Now, hopefully you understand clearly the difference of duplicate content and content syndication. You might be wondering do you need just 1 piece of content to get unlimited traffic and backlinks since you can “syndicate to a tons of sites”? The answer is NO.Although technically you can submit your article to as many sites as possible, the chances for all those sites to get indexed by Google is slim. Please note that there is no penalty from Google and that’s just how Google will treat the excessive syndicated content as supplemental index database, as shown below:

Having said that, you still be able to gain the benefit of having direct traffic from the sites you submitted to. If you would like to gain the backlinks that are indexed by Google, you need to provide unique content.

I hope this post clears out the myth of duplicate content vs content syndication. As usual, leave me your comment below to share your thoughts on duplicate content, content syndication or any questions you have.

Have you received a Google Webmaster notice

During the last few weeks, Google sent many webmaster notification messages about unnatural links. If you have received such a message, here's what you have to do to make sure that your website doesn't get penalized.

What is this Google unnatural links message?

Google has sent the following message to many webmasters:

"Dear site owner or webmaster of example.com.

We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. 

Sincerely,

Google Search Quality Team"

What will happen when you get such a message?

Webmasters who received such a message observed that many sites were penalized 3-4 weeks after the message. The penalty is for the keywords that are included in the unnatural links. If most of the links that point to the website are unnatural links then the whole website might be penalized.

What are unnatural links?

There are several backlink types that Google finds unnatural:

1. Public backlink networks: Google doesn't like fully automated or paid backlink networks. If you participate in a backlink network that can be joined by anyone (even for a fee) then it is very likely that Google has already penalized the network or that the network is a target for the near future. If you can find the backlink network, Google's engineers can find it, too.
   
   
2. Private backlink networks: Some SEO agencies have private backlink networks. Google probably has the technology to detect these networks without creating accounts.
   
   
3. Paid sidebar links: if your website has too many backlinks from the sidebars of other websites, Google might find them unnatural.
   
   
4. Over-optimized anchor text: if the links to your website all use exactly the same anchor text, it is likely that Google might reconsider the rankings of the linked pages.
   
   
5. Fake forum and social media links: some tools create fake forum and social media site accounts to get backlinks to your website. Chances are that Google can detect that type of link.

What should you do?

If you used one of the methods above to get backlinks to your website, try to get rid of these links as quickly as possible.

The formula to high rankings on Google is very easy:

Good content + good backlinks + no spam = high rankings

Optimize the content of your web pages to make sure that Google and other search engines know what your website is about. Then get good backlinks to show search engines that your website can be trusted. 

Google has become more aggressive regarding spammy backlinks. In the past, a website might get high rankings for several months until Google detected the site. Now it seems that the it takes a maximum of 3 months until Google detects the spammers.

Do not fall for SEO solutions that promise quick and easy backlinks. It doesn't make sense to get high rankings for 2-3 months just to get penalized after that time. If you are serious about your business, you have to use strategies that deliver high rankings that will stay, even if it takes longer to get these rankings in the short term.

Top 5 Sure Shot ways To Increase Web Traffic

Every online entrepreneur, has an earnest desire to make his/her  content go viral all over the net. Unfortunately, most of their web pages end up biting the dust in the next few pages of Google SERP. Even the best designed websites constantly struggle to achieve high rankings. Many wonder, what are the causes for such a narrow defeat? Obviously it is a complex mix of poor internet marketing strategy along with weak execution. Let us now explore the top 5 ways to increase web traffic so that you can pull your site out of the oblivion and bring it to the first page of Google.

1. Don't work on the desired keyword, work on the correct keyword : If you want to rank high, don't go by instincts, go by reports, go by research. Use Google's adwords keyword tool to find rankable keywords. The ones, which have decent monthly search volume and are less competitive. The way to achieve this objective is to first perform a keyword research in an extensive manner. Also determine your current ranking for the same. Then develop a strategy (on page and off page) to bring it up the order. Always stick to your theme and niche while making any further moves.


2. Guest Posts : I remember reading a controversial post on youmoz where in the author said the only strategy you ever need to bring your site up or to increase traffic is to write 2 high quality, lengthy articles on each of your selected keyword . One for your own site and other for posting as guest post. The one on your site will make you strong from the on page factors point of view and the guest post will give you high quality backlinks for the same. I would agree to a greater extent with this strategy provided one does it on a consistent and aggressive manner. This is a sure shot way of increasing your web traffic.
   
   
3. Social Networking Sites have taken the online world by storm in the last couple of years. They are one of the strong source to help you increase web traffic in a significant manner. All you need to is to interact with the users of such site in a constructive and helpful manner. Popular social networking sites like facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. gives you easy access to several thousands of people and you need to do your best to establish a rapport with them. Creating trust this way will help you in the long run to boost your sales. In other words, social networking sites act as catalyst to increase web traffic to your website.
   
   
4. Video Marketing is another sure shot way to increase web traffic to your site. Reason being, videos consumes 50% of the time of online viewers. Videos are addictive, improves overall brand recall, are more viral in nature as compared to text, image or audio. YouTube which is owned by Google has an impressive track record of capturing 80% of the views of the online video audience. The point to be noted here is, the name and the description that you give to your video has to be eye catching. Many a times, such a small thing alone is responsible as a deciding factor for your viewer to click on your link or not. Since there is a huge avalanche of available videos, you need to get your title and description correct. Make it catchy but not misleading and watch the traffic grow impressively.
   
   
5. Last but not the least, one of the tried and tested way of increasing traffic is to go for PPC or Pay per click. Here also you are supposed to do extensive keyword research to figure out which keywords can bring high traffic. However, it is strongly recommended that you better approach a PPC expert to get proper training before venturing out yourself or better outsource it to a ppc specialist , else you may end up wasting a lot of hard earned money.

So these are the top 5 most effective ways to drive traffic to your website. In addition to it, you need to design your page in such a manner that is able to capture the email addresses of your targeted customers easily. This is must for building up your list so that you can have repeat sales. An auto-responder will make your task much easier by enabling you to keep in touch with your customers by sending them exciting offers/mailers on a regular basis. You just need to imbibe these tips to increase web traffic and you will succeed without fail.

How To React To Google's Over-Optimization Filter

In the News: Google announces another Panda update, paid blog networks don't work anymore, you might have to hide your location on Google Places, how Bing removes junk from the result pages and more.

Last week, Matt Cutts, head of Google's anti-spam team, announced that Google is working on a penalty for over-optimized websites. What does this announcement mean to your website and how should you react to this announcement?

Here's what Matt Cutts said in detail:

"We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over-optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make Google Bot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now."

Does this mean that you shouldn't optimize your web pages anymore?

This announcement is aimed at people who are trying to push the limits too far. Of course, it is perfectly okay to add your keywords on your web page and it is also perfectly okay to exchange links with other websites.

Actually, all of these methods can have a very positive influence on the Google rankings of your website. The problem starts when these elements are overused. This usually happens when you use fully automated tools and services to promote your website.

For example, it is likely that the following SEO methods will get your website in trouble:

• automated link exchange networks that add your link to hundreds on other websites
• tools that automatically create fake forum accounts and comments with a link to your site
• tools that automatically create keyword rich web pages for you on your website
• participating in paid link schemes

Fully automated solutions always mean spam when it comes to SEO

Google wants to show high quality web pages in the search results. Web pages that have been created automatically cannot have the same quality as a web page that has been created by a human editor. Fully automated solutions lead to low quality links and content that is not helpful to the average web surfers. Businesses that "optimized" their websites with these methods are the ones who will be hit by the new ranking filter. If you see the words "fully automated" and "hundreds" or "thousands" in one sentence that you can be sure that the advertised product or service is spamming and your website will get in trouble if you promote it with these methods.

Don't panic and create a symbiotic relationship with search engines

If you haven't used the spam methods described above to promote your website, then your Google rankings won't be in trouble. Optimizing your web pages remains very important because you have to show Google and other search engines that your website is relevant to a particular keyword and that your website has a high quality.

Secure your Google rankings by using white-hat SEO tools

Optimizing your web pages is important but you have to make sure that you play by the rules. If you do it correctly, search engine optimization leads to lasting high rankings, more customers and more sales. If you're pushing the limits too far, your website will get in trouble sooner or later. If you want to get lasting results, only use white-hat SEO methods.

How To Judge The Quality Of A Backlinks

You want lasting results when you build links to your website. It does not make sense to invest your time in search engine optimization methods that are just a flash-in-the-pan.

Note: PageRank is not so important 

How do you judge the quality of a website? What is a good website and from which web pages should you get links?

1. The PageRank of a website is not that important

Many webmasters only want to get backlinks from pages with a particular PageRank. While you can use this method, it is usually a waste of time and it makes link building more difficult than it really is. 

If a website has an overall high quality then it does not matter if the page with the link to your website has a low Google PageRank:

• If a high quality website adds a new page, the new page will have an initial PageRank of zero. Nevertheless, the page can still be very good.

• A page that has a PageRank of zero today can have a high PageRank tomorrow.

If only pages with a high PageRank had a chance, it wouldn't be possible to get new pages in Google’s result page. Experience shows that new pages appear in Google’s results every day.

In addition, the PageRank that Google publicly displays is not the actual PageRank that Google uses in its algorithm and the PageRank value can be manipulated.

2. Common sense leads to lasting results

You do not need special metrics to judge the quality of a web page. When you find a web page that could link to your site, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the linking page look good to the average web surfer?
• Does the page have interesting content?
• Is the content somewhat related to my website?
• Does it make sense if the web page links to your site?

If you can answer all questions with “yes” then you should try to get a backlink from that page. It doesn’t matter if that page has a low PageRank.

3. Give Google what they want and your website will succeed

Google tries to imitate common sense with its algorithm. If you use common sense to build your links and follow the tips above, you make sure that the backlinks to your website will count in all future updates of Google’s algorithm.