Search Engine Optimization is an incredibly important part of running a successful website. The field of SEO is one that changes rapidly, and because of this it can be incredibly confusing for beginners. There are a lot of scammers operating in the search engine optimization world, and if you are not an expert webmaster it can be hard to tell the good guys from the scammers and black-hat SEOs. Here are a few tips to help you avoid the most common rip-off merchants.
Find Your Own Aberdeen SEO Company
Do not, under any circumstances, use an SEO firm that contacts you out of the blue. It doesn’t matter whether they email you or send you a letter in the post, you should not use them. Blanket advertisements are not a hallmark of a good SEO company. After all, if an SEO company were any good, they would rank well in the search results themselves, and have plenty of customers coming their way through Google, wouldn’t they? Spam emails, and letters sent to companies whose addresses they have pulled from domain name registration databases, are marks of a company that is desperate for customers.
Be Wary Of Ranking Guarantees
Another thing that no reputable SEO firm will do is promise to get you a specific ranking in a given time frame. If a company promises to get you on the front page for “XYZ keyword” within a certain time, they are making promises that they might not be able to keep. There is absolutely no way to guarantee that you will make it on the front page. Well, no way other than to buy your way into the paid search results, but those results don’t count. Organic search results are fluid. Google’s ranking algorithm is a mystery to everyone other than Google themselves. SEO pros have reverse engineered most of the algorithm, and know enough to understand what Google likes and what they don’t like, but you are competing against other webmasters, and you have no way of knowing what SEO work those webmasters are doing.
A good SEO firm will promise to improve your rankings, and they will try to get you to the front page, but they can only try. Don’t ask your SEO company to guarantee a specific ranking, and don’t trust a company that makes that promise without prompting. Be realistic in your expectations.
Don’t Use Black Hat Techniques
Black hat techniques, such as buying links, using automated link building tools, or using networks of blogs set up only for link building, are incredibly dangerous forms of SEO. Google is committed to cleaning up the quality of their search results, and they are clamping down on black hat techniques quite pro-actively. You may get away with some of those techniques today, but when Google catches them your rankings will suffer.
A good SEO firm will help you get sustainable results. SEO is not a one-off effort, and you will need to continue link building and improving your site design. Be consistent, and create good content, and the results will come.
How I SEO
Hint and tips for SEO peeps
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Search Engine Optimization 101
There was a day when all a business needed to do was advertise his or her company in the yellow pages and they would have a packed store. In those days, the yellow pages were like a new technology, it was the Internet of this day. It allowed consumers to search the paper and find businesses.
We know now that the yellow pages and newspapers are all passe. Print media marketing is almost a dead media. No one runs to the yellow pages or newspaper in the middle of the night when they have a plumbing emergency, they hop on Google and call the first company they find that offers the service they need.
Search Engine Optimization is how YOU become the company that they find first. Literally do this test, type the name of your industry into Google and note if you find your companies name. If you are a plumber in NYC, then Google, "plumber NYC."
Take note of all the companies that you do find on that page.
If you did not see your name on that first page of Google, you are losing out on a lot of money. Those companies that you did find are the ones who will get the business of the people who search Google to find services.
This applies for any business, not just plumbing because Google is the tool that everyone uses when they are looking for anything.
So what exactly is Search Engine Optimization? Well, search engine optimization is a list of techniques that help a website rank highly on Google. The higher your site is ranked, the more it is found by potential customers.
Simply having a site is not good enough. What good is a site that no one can find? The guy who is on page 3 is not going to get the same amount of customers as the guy on page.
Google is pretty much a popularity contest, where all the people who are on the first page are the cool kids and everyone on page 2 and beyond are the freaks and geeks.
But the Internet is created by nerds and in a strike of irony it is the nerds who decide what is popular on Google. Nerd owned and ran Search Engine Optimization companies fight it out to make their clients part of the cool kids and this is a never ending war. Someone is always vying for the number one spot, this is why the companies who sit and number one continue to do business with search engine optimization companies so that they can stay at number one.
As you can see, Google is a battle field and there is a contest war that determines who is ranked on the first page. The spoils of victory of this war are more customers and more money. Even once you are at the top of Google the battle continues - and that's why you need to recruit the help of a seasoned SEO consultant. This was is fault with search engine optimization which is set of processes and techniques that help sites rank well on Google.
Thursday, 11 April 2013
You Need to Keep Up With Your Link Building Exercise Because ...
Many startup businesses look at their website link building efforts in a curious way. It's something they hate to do, but they'll put up with it for a short time until their website gets a little bit of momentum. It's like you're always waiting for the time that they can finally stop bothering with this tiresome old link building exercise.
But you know what - you don't ever stop with the website link building exercise. The Internet is a dynamic place. There's always someone or the other doing something or the other to try to get Google's attention. It's a place where you have to keep running to get ahead; and keep running even to stay where you are not go backwards.
The thing is, Google only thinks that you deserve a spot at the top if you constantly seem relevant to other people. If other people seem to constantly think that you matter enough for them to post links to you, only then do you exist for Google. Stop investing in this website link building exercise even for a short time, and the slide will begin.
Still not convinced that you need to invest in this? Look at everything that can be yours should you decide to get with the program.
Now it's quite likely that even if you are ranking at the top, that you're only doing that for a couple of your main keywords. Never do you rank at the top for everything that your website is targeted at, without trying very hard. In other words, you can always get better. And you should - because for every small business, the higher up they are, the more profits they make.
If you do find that you are ranking well for the keywords that you are targeting yourself at, that's no reason to stop with the link building. Try to find more keywords to rank for. And anyway, if you don't keep working at this, the people who are behind you in the search engine rankings really are working hard at this too. They're going to dance past you any minute.
When you do work hard and get your links, you may be disappointed to know that those links aren't forever. A lot of these little blogs and websites that you get links from often shut down, or they take away those pages altogether. You don't want to depend on the things you already links that you already have. They aren't a given.
And finally, your best reason to keep at it - Google may change its algorithms tomorrow and you could lose your top spot. The only permanent thing that you can't ever take for granted with search engine rankings is that back links buy you authority. Should some algorithm change in Google lose you your top spot, you don't want to scramble then they get more back links so that you can get back up.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Titles to Titillate Humans and Search Engines: Crafting Page Titles for Great SEO Results
The role the title plays in SEO is an important one. Keywords that appear inside a page's title tag are heavily weighted, having a much greater impact on your search engine results page ranking than keywords which appear in ordinary text. This makes it vitally important to devote a few minutes' extra thought to your titles when you set up a new page. When you craft your titles with care, you'll have a definite leg up on the competition; consider the example here - for a leading Aberdeen SEO Consultant
Length is, of course, something to consider carefully when you title a new page. There is only so much room on the search engine results page, and you want to present an informative and enticing title to potential visitors. On the other hand, automated search engine indexers will pick up keywords even if they're buried at the end of a long title. Take this article's title as an example: the keyword "SEO" appears towards the end, where it might be cut off on the results page. The portion before the colon, though, is sure to appear and, hopefully, entice visitors.
If you put together a longer title, you'll be tempted to pack plenty of keywords into it. Exercise some restraint here. Repetition is not necessarily a good thing, as a ratio of too many keywords to too little other text may raise flags with search engines. You also want to avoid splitting your SEO attention among too many keywords on a single page. As a general guideline, restrict your titles to no more than two keywords each, and never use a keyword more than twice in a single title.
When you consider your website as a whole, it's very important to maintain variety in your titles. Don't use the same title for multiple pages! Taken to the extreme, this can also set off warning bells. More importantly, though, repeated titles represent wasted opportunities. By using unique titles, you have a chance to address many different keywords and approach them from many different angles. If you do find pages that share identical titles, make a note of it and spend a little time thinking up a fresh one.
You shouldn't let SEO be your only concern when you craft your titles. You must strike a balance between writing for the search engines and writing for real people. Although pushing a page high up on the results page is a great accomplishment, it won't have much of an impact if nobody is interested in clicking on the link. Think of SEO as just one facet of your overall marketing task. Make sure that your titles are not only well-optimized but also well-crafted.
The best titles for attracting human attention on the results page are those that stand out. Unusual words, unique phrasing, and a strong, personal voice are all assets you want to use in your titles. Think of your title as the opening line you'd use when you want to tell someone a great story. Also, remember that a summary of your page will appear beneath its link, drawn from the meta tag. Make sure this writing works with your title, giving the potential visitor a little more information while further enticing him or her to click on your link.
Putting a bit of extra effort into creating your page titles can really pay off. With practice, you'll be able to assemble inventive, interesting titles that are also well-optimized with ease. Once you master the art of pleasing both human visitors and the programs search engines use to rank your pages, you'll start to see a dramatic improvement in both page ranking and click-through rates.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Becoming More Visible In Search Engine Results
Search engine optimization is something that you're going to need to get into if you want your site to get more visitors. It's kind of difficult to know where to start with it, and that's where this guide comes into play. Read through the following text and you should have a good idea of what SEO can do for you.
Figure out what keywords you're going to use in your content. The easiest way to get some keywords that your site will be using is to imagine that you're the person who wants to find your site. Think about what they're going to be typing in to locate your site. Another thing you can try is to just look up someone with a site similar to yours. Look over their page and see what kinds of wording they use. There are tools out there that help you figure out useful keywords, so be on the lookout for those as well.
One thing that you really have to look out for is using keywords too much. There is a specific density that you should aim for and you should never go over it. The main reason for this is because if you're not careful and overuse keywords, the search engine's software will flag you site and that can hurt the ranking of your site. Look for software that allows you to see what your keyword density is. This kind of software can be found with a quick web search, so look for it and figure out your keyword density before making your site live.
Don't just write content for a search engine and not for the people that are going to be reading the site. You want people to be interested in your site and to search for it the next time they fire up a search engine. If you just make a bunch of posts that make no sense, you're going to have a hard time keeping people interested enough to look for you on a search engine. Your content needs to make sense and it should always be fresh so that it does well in the rankings.
Don't just think that you can update your site every once in a while and do well with SEO. Your content needs to be fresh all of the time. This doesn't mean that you should update every couple of hours, but you want to keep things on your site updated every week or so. This is so that search engine software has something new to add to their results, and so that people don't get bored with your site. You want people to tell other people about how great your site is, so keep them occupied with updates.
Using what you have learned here should get you to where you want to be in the search engine results. If you take the above tips into consideration when making your SEO plans, you should have no trouble succeeding. Good luck and try your best and you will do great!
Monday, 1 April 2013
SEO Advice That Can Make Your Site Succeed
If a website is something that you own, then you probably are wanting to learn what you can do to drive traffic to it. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is something that will help you out quite a bit. Use the below guide to help you get started.
When you're crating a URL for your site, make sure that it has a keyword or two in it. You want this to be the way you make any URL for a page on your site. This way, when someone searches for your site there is that much more of a chance that your site will come up. You should also be sure that your site's description has some keywords in it within your code. Even image descriptions can have keywords, so don't be afraid to use them in multiple places.
Do some research on the keywords that you're going to be using. Type into a search engine what you think people are going to be typing in to look for a site similar to yours. You want to make sure that you're going to be using keywords that not too many other people are already using. It also shouldn't be something that's very obscure with barely any results. Find something that is right in the middle and you shouldn't have any problems with your keywords.
Always add content to your site that is fresh and unique too. You don't want to just create content that has a bunch of random text in it. Avoid stuffing too many keywords into your content too so that you don't end up going over the threshold that search engines have set up for keyword density. If you need any help figuring out what a proper keyword density will be, just search for it online. There are also tools you can use that will tell you what the keyword density is in your text, so be sure that you use something like that to make sure you're under the limit.
Try getting into social media if you want to do well with SEO. Social media sites are the most popular kind of site out there right now. Millions of people use these sites daily, and they are free to use usually. The best thing about a social media site is that they're generally the first thing that pops up when you search for something. Get yourself familiar with social media and build up a network. Once you do this you can use your social media site to interact with your network and you can start sharing links that go back to your main page.
There are a lot of things to do when you're first starting out with SEO. If this sounds like something you're still interested in, then you should work on getting things started. Come up with a plan on how you're going to use SEO, and make sure you get things started soon so that you can have a head start on the competition.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Getting Started With Social Media Marketing
Launching an efficient social media marketing campaign will help you improve the way you interact with your audience. This article is filled with useful tips that will help you started with your social media marketing campaign.
Create official profiles for your brand. Choose the networks you want to use very carefully; you need to sign up for the networks your customers use on a daily basis. The networks you decide to use will influence the image you are creating for your brand. If you are not sure which networks you should join, ask your customers to answer to surveys about the networks they use and how likely they would be to subscribe to your social media updates.
Let your audience know about your social media marketing campaign by connecting it with your main website or blog. If you use a popular social network, you will have the option to add a box to your homepage or your blog to display a link to your profile as well as your latest updates. Add some sharing buttons to your articles to help readers share your content with their friends and do not hesitate to mention your social media marketing campaign in your blog articles or your emails.
Share quality content with your subscribers. Your campaign will be considered as valuable and interesting if you share links to informative content or educational articles. If you want to share shorter updates, write a daily tip or ask a question to your subscribers and give them a chance to express their opinion in the comments. Share pictures and videos regularly since this content is easier to notice for your subscribers, especially if they get a lot of updates from their friends and family.
Communicate with your subscribers. You should not hesitate to encourage your audience to share or comment on your updates, for instance by asking people their opinion on a topic or asking them to share an update to show their support for a cause. You could also use social media as a platform for customer service. Let people know they can send questions, comments and complaints about your products on social media. This is actually an excellent way of showing to everyone that you have excellent customer service policies.
It is important that you set some goals for your social media marketing campaign. Plan on getting more subscribers, drawing more visitors to your website or generating more sales. You need to define what a successful campaign is for you and find ways to quantify this success. If your results are not satisfying, you will have to review the strategies you use and communicate with your customers to get some feedback on your campaign. Always look for new ways to improve your campaign, even if you get good results.
You should have a better idea of how you can get started with social media marketing, but there is still a lot to learn on this topic. Take the time to do more research on social media and on your audience before you get started.
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