What Does SEO Stand For

Identifying the Linkerati

2009-05-31T06:36:00.000-07:00

Oftentimes, when I describe the concept of linkbait to clients, it’s critical to also describe those folks who are the targets of linkbait - I’ll call them the “Linkerati“. Let’s explore the culture of these most valued of web-dwelling souls:

Bloggers - probably the most targetable and directly influenced folks, bloggers are an excellent source of traffic, links and the spread of your content’s idea virus.

Forum posters - although the links these folks put up don’t often result in great search engine value, the traffic can be positive and the possibility that other likely linkers will come through to visit is also high.

Web News Writers - a rare species, but exceptionally valuable, these folks control the news outlets on the web, including places like C|Net, Wired News, Yahoo! & MSN’s online news portals, etc.

Content Creators - These folks are building or beefing up websites and are seeking valuable resources to link out to. Most frequently, you’ll find them linking to the sites they find valuable in the top 5-10 results at the search engines (another reason why “the rich get richer”)

Resource Editors - Another rare breed, these folks work at government institutions, no-profit organizations and educational establishments and are looking to add content to their pages or directories.

Social Taggers - These folks don’t provide direct links, but if they and their friends at Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit & Furl love you, you’re in for a real treat - thousands of visitors and the opportunity to be in front of hundreds of link-hungry bloggers.

Viral Connectors - The viral crowd doesn’t directly link to you, but by sending out a blast e-mail, posting to an IRC channel or telling their friends about your site over dinner, they’re spreading the word. Some of them can be very powerful, and they’re not demographically distinct - a well-connected grandmother may know people in the media, executives of businesses and other highly placed and valuable minds.

Journalists - Online or offline creators of “news” content, these influencers are among the most valuable of all the linkerati. A reporter for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or the Seattle Weekly all have reach and ability to create links to your site, although it’s often in a second-hand fashion (as some sites don’t directly link out, but many bloggers “pick up” news items and do).

Any others I’m forgetting about?

About The Author

Wahid Qazi is a Research Analyst, eBusiness and eMarketing Consultant, SEO Consultant, SEO Trainer, SEO Speaker and Author, specializes in eBusiness, eMarketing, SEO, branding and promotion and has trained dozens of qualified SEOs. He is a Professional SEO Consultant can be reached at http://www.wahidqazi.com/

Improve Link Popularity and Develop a Successful Link Building Campaign (Part 1)

2009-05-31T06:35:00.002-07:00

Incoming links are like votes in election for your website but it’s not like majority is authority, quality incoming links are considered more valuable than poor links even if you have 1000s. One quality link is equal to 100 poor links, in this article you’ll come to know how to get qualified links which can strengthen your website ranking and also how to build successful link building campaign.

Do you want to waste your hard earn money on getting poor incoming links to your website? Even if you don’t spend money, are you ready to spend your valuable time focusing on those irrelevant incoming links pointing to your website? Choice is yours!

Mistakes You Should Avoid When Link Building

It’s never too late to focus on the right direction to get qualified incoming links. Now look at the mistakes why majority of the people go wrong when they start link building. They misuse their money and valuable time, here is a list of the few major mistakes that you should avoid in link building.

1- Focus on Quantity than Quality: If you are looking for healthy amount of incoming links rather qualified ones, you should focus on getting quality and qualified links. Don’t go for amount, it’s the quality of incoming links that will bring your website at 1st page

2- Link Exchange or Reciprocal Links: Link exchange or reciprocal links should be avoided specially after Google big daddy update

3- Ignorance of Check and Balance for Links: If you don’t check and balance your listings periodically, you may lose your hard gain incoming links

4- Purchase Bulk Links: Search engines become very intelligent these days, you can’t make them fool by purchasing bulk links, because search engine check your incoming links frequency as well with time

5- Paid Links: Paid links can be very healthy but if they are used as a part of the strategy, if you have no idea of how many paid links you are going to have, that can create big upset in your overall link building campaign

Do You Have Categorized and Simplified Database?

In link building campaign, your database is your key to success, it is the backbone of your overall link building strategy. If you have a poor database, which is not categorized and simplified, you can’t be comfortable from your link building strategy.

Try to have categorized and simplified database, make a master database with following mentioned fields.

Important Fields for Master Database for any Link Building Campaign

URL
Direct Link (Direct Link of Submission or Registration)
Industry Type (Show Biz, Construction, Telecommunication…)
Link Type (One Way, Reciprocal, Paid)
Link Style (Anchor link, Title Hyper Link, URL Link, Vote Link)
Link Period (1 Year or Life time)
PageRank (1, 2, 3…10)
Title Limit (Characters Limit)
Description Limit (Characters Limit)
Keywords Limit (Characters Limit)

Let Everything Come to Your Master Database!

Now your master database (structure) is ready, what’s next? You need to make it valuable by inserting data to it, it requires an on-going updates. Don’t let anything go away, if it’s not required right now that’s ok, you might need it for your future projects.

It’s a two part article series, in next part (Part 2) you’ll come to know, how to make a successful link building strategy, linking types, styles and their weights for you link building campaign.

Improve Link Popularity and Develop a Successful Link Building Campaign (Part 2)

2009-05-31T06:35:00.001-07:00

It’s a two part article series, in part 1, I’ve already explained you about mistakes you should avoid in link building, how to categorized your database and create your own master database for link building campaign.

Few Lessons from Your Competitors!

If somehow you are finished with your database and you require more incoming links for your website, you shouldn’t worry about it as far as your competitors are there to guide you. You can easily see how many links are pointing to your competitors from search engines. Google doesn’t show the real figures but you can take it from Yahoo and Msn, now what you have to do is to find out where exactly your competitors are linked and start putting your competitors’ incoming links to your master database with all required fields.
After you finished with all your competitors, don’t waste your time start submitting your website.

Important Aspect of Incoming Links:

Incoming links are evaluated on certain criteria and weight, there are four major aspect of incoming links on the basis of them each links are considered more valuable.

Link Age
Link Text Relevancy
Link Page Relevancy
Link Domain Relevancy

1. Link Age

Link age is one of the factors your website or webpage is going to be tested through, the older the links are the better they will be reliable.

2. Link Text Relevancy

One relevant link is equal to 100 irrelevant links, you better guess how important is the link text relevancy, here relevant link text means the title of the link and very next paragraph after title.

3. Link Page Relevancy

Page relevancy is also very important factor, your pointed links should be placed on the relevant pages. The overall page content should be relevant with your page.

4. Link Domain Relevancy

Link domain relevancy is something that can’t be ignore, if your pointed incoming links are placed on the relevant domain and relevant page they will be highly appreciated and have more weight than your competitors.

Incoming Link Types and Styles:

Link type and style are very important, you should try to maximize their effectives and values in favor of your link building campaign, each link has different value and weight to search engine, and I’ve defined almost all types of incoming links with their styles. I’ve distributed links in five groups with descending order.

1. Title Anchor Links: Title anchor links are area or content focus incoming links on any particular page

2. Title Hyper Links: Title hyper links are those links where the actual linking area is title

3. Description Text Links: Description text links are those links where the actual linking area is description

4. URL Links: URL links are those links where the actual linking area is their website addresses or URLs

5. Static Links: Static links are placed on plain SEO friendly pages that have plain URLs, they are considered very important links

6. Dynamic Links: Dynamic links are placed on dynamically generated pages and considered to be less important

7. One Way Links: One way links can be either dynamic or static but they will be only incoming links, they won’t be linked with your domain

8. Reciprocal Links: Reciprocal links can be either dynamic or static but they will be linked with your domain, if you don’t put their links to your website, they won’t put your link at their website

9. Vote/Rank Base Links: These types of links vary with their reputation, people gives votes or ranks to links and on the basis of those votes/ranks their link position vary

10. Lifetime Links: Lifetime links are those links which will be active for life time as long as the domain is there

11. Periodical Links: Periodical links are those links which will be active for certain period (such as 1 year or 2 years) after that they will be no more, usually these types of links are paid links

12. Same Window Open Links: Same window open links are those links which open in the same window or they refresh themselves

13. Blank Window Open Link: Blank window open links are those links which bring you to blank windows and open the pointed links on them

All these link types and styles have different meanings and values to search engines, being an SEO you should try to utilize your best available resource and try to focus on the right direction rather getting just links coming to your page.

I hope this article will help you in developing a successful link building campaign, since I’ve tried to explain almost all types of links with their values and weight according to search engine.

Manual Vs Automated Submission! Which one is the best

2009-05-31T06:32:00.002-07:00

We all know how important link popularity is for better rankings in top search engine like google, yahoo and msn! In this article you’ll come to know the linking types and brief comparisons of manual submission and automated submissions.

Comparisons of Automated and Manual Submissions:

Automated Submissions	Manual Submissions
Can’t recognize PR of the Search Engine / Direct-ories/ Sites	Manually You can observe real PR of the Search Engine/Directories/Sites
Can’t recognize Type of the links	Links Type is easily recognizable
Will leave few input fields empty or wrong filled	Will never leave any required field empty
Will fail to recognize necessaries fields	Will easily recognize necessaries fields
Can’t recognize Title, Description Limits	Manually Title and Description Limits can be seen and can be utilized those limits very well
Can’t recognize which format keywords should be supplied, either with commas or with spaces	Can easily read either in which format keywords are required to supply
It’s Fast	It’s slow but very correct
Unreliable	It’s 99.99% reliable
Can’t make multiple compositions according to situations	Manually you can compose multiple titles and descriptions to maximize the benefits of submissions
Can’t read text over images, these days search engine and directories have started putting a image with text to filter automated and manual submissions	Text over images at the time of submission can be easily seen in manual submission and successfully proceeded to submission
Majority of the search engines and directories in their database is not validated and checked	Manually you can update the search engines and directories and can have record as well
They are limit to their database, they normally don’t have search criteria defined to update their database	Manually you have no limit, the more you search the more you’ll come know about search engines
They can’t reply to the validated mail and can’t validate the submissions	Manually you can validate your mail sent at the time of submission from search engine or directories
Wrong data input to fields, sometimes company names or contact person are supplied to title	Manually you have very less chances of wrongly filled data in required fields at the time of submissions

After looking at the comparisons, you can easily know why manual submissions are considered to be good and recommended by professional SEOs. Don’t look at the shortcomings and a little ease in automated submission, these shortcomings and little comfort can be a nightmare. Submissions are a very important part of link building campaigns, and if your submissions are made correctly they can play huge rule in link building. Try to submit manually so that you can get the maximum benefits out of it.

More links VS More Valuable Links?

Effective manual submissions can be very useful increasing link value, automated submission can create only more incoming links but effective manual submissions can give those links more value.

A professional submitter should always take care of few things, which can give his/her submissions more value.

Take Care of These Elements When Submitting…

Should know the type of the link, going to be visible after submission
Should know the limits of title and description
Should create multiple titles and descriptions according to limits
Should check and re-check those submitted links periodically
Always keep passwords and ids save for future updates

How Reliable Google Keyword Tool is? Is it there to Guide or Misguide?

2009-05-31T06:32:00.001-07:00

Google is great! We all know that and except it by all means, whatever Google produces it’s 100% successful tool / product, “adwords keyword tool” is one of the tools that Google has launched, there are some confusions related to this tool, how reliable this tool is? Is this tool for organic searches too? I’ll elaborate them and explain my personal experience with it.

What is Google Keyword Tool?

After the successful launch of Google adwords in 2000, Google realizes the need of a keyword tool that will help PPC advertisers to build or refine their keyword lists and review keywords popularities and performances information in advance before going live, that’s why Google has launched its “Google Keyword Tool”

Keyword Tool Features like “Site related keywords, Keywords Performance Statistics, Synonyms, Cost and Estimated Ad Positions” are available in Google keyword tool.

Why Google Shows Junk Keywords by its Keyword Tool?

Google will be in a better position to answer this question, as far as my little knowledge is concern, Google has global audience and when it comes to serve everybody you have all types of inputs, same thing happens with Google, it welcomes everybody and is prepared to serve in its style, there is nothing bad in it, but Google makes this kind of information available through Google Keyword Tool, as a result we get to see some rubbish or junk keywords.

Google Never says Keyword Tool is for Organic Search

Google never gives any statement related to reliability of its keyword tool and using Google keyword tool for organic is not a good idea, since we’ve practical experience of plenty of keywords, which bring thousands of visitors to our website from Google but Google gives no hint related to those keywords, in fact when we searched those keywords, few have no suggestions, and few have very less volume of searches.

Why Google Doesn’t Show Great Keyword? Is Google Cheating?

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Is Google ready to share its own information with world? That’s really one of the concerning point for all of us, what’s hurting Google to show its information? Is Google afraid of Yahoo or Msn?

Google must be having very useful and exact information related to keywords, keywords search frequency, quality, audience type, behavior and keywords effectiveness, since Google is biggest search engine in the world, and it shares more than 57% of overall search engine visitors. We get to have very useful information from our small sites, you can have an idea of the information Google has related to world.

Google is Unable to Share its Real Information

Even though Google is not afraid of Yahoo, Msn and Ask but somehow they are healthy competitors, as smart player Google will never let its competitor know what kind of traffic is there at Google? What are the most searched keywords? Which keywords are costly? This type of information is very critical and if Yahoo or Msn has this information, with no time they can give Google a very tough time. We all know Microsoft has been trying very hard to get close to Google and Microsoft has the capability to do that.

Google privacy is its success! I don’t say that Google is cheating us, it’s not giving rubbish data at all, but Google mixes the rubbish with quality data together and it never shows its most searched keywords.

Optimizing Wrong Keyword or Phrase for Right Website with all Your Efforts

2009-05-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

Keywords are gateways through which your website is going to be visited from search engines users, those visitors can be filtered by keywords. Every single keyword or phrase has its target audience, in fact you can evaluate your visitors through keywords such as your visitor’s mind set, psychology, type, age group, interest and intension. If you have selected wrong keywords for your website, it could hurt your eBusiness badly.

What is a Keyword or Phrase?

A keyword or phrase is a single or group of words which is used to construct a search statement to find information by search engine users. It was popularized during the early days of search engine development, as it was not possible to ask natural language questions and find the desired sites.

Keywords are Gateway of Your eBusiness!

It really doesn’t matter how good your SEO Practices are? Or how good your SEO Strategy is? If you are failed to get right kind of traffic at your website. Keywords are the gateway for any website on internet, and with wrong keywords success can never be achieved.

Wrong Keyword or Phrase

There can be many definitions of wrong keywords, such as a wrong keyword or phrase is a keyword or phrase which is irrelevant with services or products of website, which has poor conversion of visitors into paying customers, and which is failed to bring targeted and focused traffic to website.

Wrong Keywords are not Bad Keywords

Wrong keywords are invaluable keywords for any website, they don’t have any worth for website, whereas bad keywords are those which are not searched or hardly searched by search engine users.

Why Waste Quality Time on Wrong Keywords?

Selecting wrong keyword or phrase is the biggest mistake for any SEO campaign, even if you have achieved top ranking on those wrong keywords, it will be waste of your energy and efforts. All your efforts are going to lead you no where if you have a wrong direction, keywords set directions for your efforts, selecting them in quick time will end up giving you nothing. Time is the real money, keywords can be updated anytime but what to do with the time spent on promoting wrong keywords, it’s just wasted. One can get frustrated if doesn’t have desirable results specially in the initial stage for any website, that’s why it doesn’t matter how much time you spent on selecting keywords but make sure that you select the best keywords.

Why Wrong Keywords are selected?

Majority of wrong keywords have good search counts, because they are comparatively search better than specific keywords, that’s why they get selected sometimes by website owner or by SEOs. But results come up after the first quarter or session when they failed to boast sales or right kind of traffic. It’s not the traffic that makes a keyword or phrase wrong it’s the conversion that makes it wrong.

Keywords Lead Your Website to Success!

These are the keywords which lead your website a successful eBusiness or eCommerce business, they can lead you to hell too, you have to be very careful selecting them, after all you or your assigned marketers are going to put their all efforts to bring your website on top of those keywords.

Specific and Focused Keywords will pay you!

Why get crazy of traffic and ask for everything, for example if you provide search engine optimization services then you should select keywords like “seo services, search engine optimization services, seo outsourcing, seo outsourcing”. And you should avoid selecting keywords like “seo or search engine optimizer”, because people typing “seo or search engine optimizer” may be searching for freelance seo or searching for definition of seo and won’t be interested in your services, they will come to your website and go without making any purchase.

Top 7 Fundamentals for Google Optimization! Google SEO Tips and Techniques by Expert!

2009-05-31T06:30:00.001-07:00

Who doesn’t want to get Top Ranking Positions in Google? 1st Page Placement in Google is NOT difficult, you need to follow Google Optimization Guidelines, and this Article has Summary of the Seven Fundamentals for Google Optimization.

Google optimization is about following Google guidelines, Google likes ethical SEO practices, those SEO practices which are to help website owners as well as Google and it has published guidelines for SEOs here: http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/seo.html

Top 7 Fundamentals for Google Optimization

Fresh and Original Content
Clean and Validated Code
Easy and Accessible Navigation
Good Interlinking of Web pages
Healthy and Relevant Incoming Links
Domain Age and Registered Period For
Same Contacts at Site and Domain Registration

Fresh and Original Content

Google love fresh and original content on web page, selectable content/text copy of your web page, google can’t read content on images or at pics but if your website is completely based on images so there’s a solution for you, you can use your slogan on ALT tags.

e.g.; “

Clean and Validated Code

Clean and validate code helps google to crawl deeply, try to put content at the beginning of your web page, ignore nesting, javascript or comments, in fact try to shorten the text format with the help of external CSS.

Easy and Accessible Navigation

Text or image base navigation helps google to read, google bot can’t read javascript, dhtml, flash base navigation, try to avoid using these practices which google doesn’t like. Keep your navigation at top or left side of the web pages, make sure to add a sitemap page which will guide web surfers and web bots to read each and every page of your website, if you have huge website then make sure to add at least all main categories’ links at sitemap page.

Good Interlinking of Web pages

Web links are like roads and streets at website, make sure all website’s internal links are text base or image base, with relevant content.

Healthy and Relevant Incoming Links

Google likes referred websites, specially referred from quality and relevant resources. The more referrer links the more top rankings. Here one thing should be remembered that one relevant incoming links is better than hundred irrelevant links.

Domain Age and Registered Period For

Google started keeping new registered domains in sandbox since April 2004, in sandbox almost all new domains kept on probationary period for 6 to 8 months, in some cases for longer period, Sandbox domains don’t get good rankings.

Google also likes to rank better to those domains which are registered for longer period like for 5 or 10 years, because whoever registered domains for longer period shows how much s/he is serious with her/his business and most probably won’t do SPAM with those domains.

Same Contacts at Site and Domain Registration

Google likes true businessmen and a true businessman doesn’t misguide his website visitors, google likes those websites which have physical mailing address to their contact pages and google compares it with that physical mailing address which is used in domain registering.

Jaggar Updates and Solutions! Always better efforts from Google!

2009-05-31T06:29:00.002-07:00

Three Pronged Google’s Jaggar Update was the scariest of all Google Updates so far, it’s the longest period update and affected almost all websites specially those on competitive keyword or phrase. Majority of SEOs and Website Owners dislike this update, since they had to change their strategies.

I personally like google not only because of its volume and popularity but for its continual efforts to improve and maintain search engine quality of results. In search, google always comes with new and innovative ideas. Here is a latest updates that google does recently, it’s another step toward better results.

Here is a list of elements in Jaggar Update:

Reciprocal Link Exchange (RLE) Abuse
CSS SPAM
Blog SPAM
Redirect Domains or Pages
Pirate Sites or Matter
Inbound Links (IBL) Repetition
Outbound Link (OBL) Irrelevancy
Top Domain PR Weight
Keyword Stuffing in Alt Tags
Hidden Text

Reciprocal Link Exchange (RLE) Abuse: is cross linking between two or more websites for building link popularity, it doesn’t matter the websites are relevant or not, they are cross linked just to improve their PG. NO more cross linking now, jaggar update has really treated RLE website badly. Bulk link renting, link farming, FFA linking and irrelevant linking are also the type of RLE abuse.

Solution: Stop RLE link building strategy. Build one way linking through partnership programs, directories relevant category listings and relevant industry portal registrations.

CSS SPAM: is that CSS, which is created for misleading search bots and visitors, playing with CSS and deceiving search engine bots is NO more worth at least with google bot, webmaster use CSS to invisible text with website visitors, invisible text or near to invisible text by any mean is SPAM.

Solution: Use CSS for better formatting not to deceive search engine bots.

Blog SPAM: is that blog which is not updated and created specially to promote website.

Solution: Make blogs and maintain them regularly, try to use your blogs as guideline or help to your business rather just promotions.

Redirect Domains or Pages: are those domains or pages which are used to forward visitors somewhere else it could be in same domain or different domain.

Solution: Don’t redirect your domain or pages unless you have restructured or updated your website. Use 301 a permanent director, if you have restructured or updated your website.

Pirate Sites or Matter: are copied sites or matter from somewhere without permission, it could be from same domain as well then it will be mirror copy that’s also SPAM.

Solution: If you can’t manage to keep fresh content then there are free content distribution websites available which provide fresh content free of cost, use content from there.

Inbound Links (IBL) Repetition: IB links are links pointing the same domain pages. If one page is linked with too many times by different positions and with different or multiple keyword or phrase, it’s considered to be SPAM practice.

Solution: One or two multiple links (one could be text based and another could be image based link) are OK to same page, don’t go beyond the limit.

Outbound Links (OBL) Irrelevancy: is linking with irrelevant websites or categories, it’s wastage of time and money to be linked with irrelevant websites.

Solution: Find relevant category related to your website and ask for placements both paid and free directories and portals available with plenty of categories.

Top Domain PR Weight: is the index or default page exists in root directory, when you type www.mydomain.com this page comes to show its content, google has started considering this page’s PR only, rest of the pages got very less consideration to google now.

Solution: Register your top domain in directories, portals to get maximum incoming links to your top domain and keep fresh content at top domain as well.

Keyword Stuffing in Alt Tags: is considered SPAM, this is a technique in which keyword or phrases are put in atl tags without considering that they are relevant or not.

Solution: Put relevant keyword or phrase in alt tags if keyword or phrase doesn’t suite then don’t try to put it forcefully.

Hidden Text: is invisible text that is kept to feed search engine rather to show website visitors. In this technique text color is kept same as back ground color, as a result text cannot be seen by human visitors.

Solution: Don’t use this technique, if you have applied it, remove it as soon as possible. Instead of keeping your text hidden, make everything visible to visitor and try to use keyword or phrase in caption, heading, sub-heading, bold or linked.

Google Morning! Google Afternoon! Google Evening! Google Everywhere!

2009-05-31T06:29:00.001-07:00

Why and how much Google is Getting Important, either you are Businessman, Doctor, Engineer, Software Professional, SEO or Housewife, you tend to google every time. Google is more or less an integral part of our online life now. Google has become the biggest brand on internet, it’s still a seven year old kid and has surpassed young and healthy fellows like Microsoft and Yahoo!

Google Means the World!

Google means everything for almost everybody, you ask from it, it’ll serve you with the best. Google People intent to capture all World’s Information at one single platform, one can guess how big they aim to be! Thought Google hasn’t get 10% of its Goal but still it’s the Biggest Online Database. It serves to everybody including Businessmen, Visitors, Professionals and Competitors as well.

To Visitors: Google is their Genie, which can serve them anything they want without spending any penny.
To Business Owners and Advertisers: Google is their God father, which provides them immense quality traffic every moment.
To Competitors: Google is their Teacher, which sets new Trends, it’s competitors try to follow the same way as it does, try to learn from Google.

Google Loyalty!

Google is basically a Search Engine that has built enormous Loyalty with its Visitors through its consistent quality, reliability, innovation and simplicity. Whatever Google is going to experiment, people already trust that it’s going to be big and very reliable. That’s why thousands of people get dependent on Google.

Google to Follow!

Well, it’s not easy to follow Google’s way, because Google always believes on Research and Innovations, how can it be restricted to Search only? It had started Testing and Launching New Services and Tools for better user Experiences. Its BETA Launched Services and Tools got Mega Success and surprised big players like Microsoft and Yahoo!

Secret of Google Success!

David C. Drummond, Google’s Vice President, Corporate Development, according to him there are four factors as the key to Google’s success:

Technology: Along with its innovative approach to page ranking, Google is a purpose-built hardware company, building all its own servers from components it buys directly for their manufacturers. According to Drummond, Google now operates the world’s largest distributed computer system.
Business Model Innovation: By perfecting the nature of targeted ads, Google not only has created a highly effective revenue generator, it has produced what it hopes to be a better experience for its users. It is Google’s goal to make their targeted ads at least as relevant and useful to users as the search results themselves.
Brand: According to Drummond, a European study recently determined Google to be the number one most recognized worldwide brand. Indeed, Google has become a verb (”I can’t wait to get home and Google him”) which poses real challenges to a company seeking to protect the strength of its mark.
Focus on the User Experience: Product decisions at Google are driven by optimizing for the user experience first and for revenue second. The folks at Google firmly believe that the better the user experience, the more easily money will follow.

Google Info

The Google name was chosen to represent the gigantic amount of material available on the Web. It comes from “googol” the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
For more http://www.google.com/intl/en/about.html

Google History

Google was created by two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In 1996, they developed BackRub, a search engine that analyzed the “Back Links” the number of web links that pointed to that page. With an investment from Andy Bechtolsheim, a Sun founder, and others, Google Inc. was founded in September 7, 1998.
For more http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Google Tools and Services

Google has launched dozen of Desktop and Web Tools and Services, though majority of services and tools are still beta but they are very effective, here is a list of google tools and services http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Getting Top Positions about More Hits? Thanks to Google Alert!

2009-05-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

How many of you think this way? Let me repeat my question, is getting top positions about more hits to your website? I guess all will answer in YES, but the truth is a bitter reality, thanks to “Google alert”.

Getting King’s place doesn’t mean more Money!

In the same manner getting top positions doesn’t mean more hits to your website, when a website comes at top place in search engine, what it shows? It has three things to show, page title, description and website address. Site title and description help searchers to motivate (to visit) or reluctant (to leave).

Hard to justify with different Industries every time

It takes years to understand one business properly, how can one expect from SEOs should understand all industries? YES, SEOs understand their JOB very well, most SEOs understand the common sense of business.

To Understand clients’ industry/business and its term is just like giving them the best outcomes, it will not only help to communicate with Clients but this way SEOs can help them in correct direction.

Why to Thanks Google Alert!

Google Alert is a very effective utility of Google, it tells us about which websites are hits with search keyword phrase/s, it really helped me knowing the fact that not all top ranked website/s are hits, it’s about the best description tag that turns searchers to click on that website/s, it doesn’t matter where website/s ranked, you can experience it by yourself, http://www.google.com/alert is a free service, create your alerts and whenever you get alerts, try to search with those mentioned keyword phrases and see the position of the hit website/s.

How important is Description Tag?

Description tag can turn searchers to be visitors, so you can guess how important description tag is! Bringing websites to top positions require a lot of things including healthy content, good link popularity, easy navigation, logical site structure, clean html and relevant title/description tags.

SEO efforts are not just to bring websites to top, bringing website to Top is just one of the elements of SEO efforts. A SEO involvement is the 2nd heaviest involvement than website owner.

Understanding Clients Business…

Understand clients target audience and market
Select the best keyword phrases according to product/services, keeping target audience in mind
Focus on the most relevant keyword phrases
Re-check all keywords by “Reverse Engineering Process“, either the selected keyword phrases give the exact traffic your clients require or not
Write “Title”, title belongs to keywords, try to include relevant keyword phrase within the limit of 60 to 70 Characters
Write “Description Tag“, description tag is very important bringing traffic and converting visitors into customers, it belongs to products and services, write is according to products and services, it has to be central idea of the page and site

Motivate SE Searchers!

Searchers are never the less important than Visitors, it’s easy to motivate visitors than searchers, a visitor visit a page but a searcher view collectively not more than four lines of title, description and website address.

Do you know?

Who your searchers are…
What they must be looking for…
What description your website is showing off after search…
On Which page your searchers are directed…

If you still miss some answers of above mentioned questions, you should be able to find out all, after knowing all answers, you can easily motivate your searchers to hit your website.

List Of Internet Domain Extensions

2009-05-31T06:26:00.002-07:00

The most common question is “What do the different extensions mean?” The newest web extensions are explained below. . . select a particular domain extension that you would like to learn more about from the list below.
Extensions are categories of Internet domain names. There are several of them to choose from:

* .com represents the word “commercial,” and is the most widely used extension in the world. Most businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet.

* .net represents the word “network,” and is most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet Websites.

* .org represents the word “organization,” and is primarily used by non-profits groups or trade associations.

* .biz is used for small business Web sites.

* .info is for credible resource Web sites and signifies a “resource” web site. It’s the most popular extension beyond .com, .net and .org.

* .mobi (short for “mobile”) is reserved for Web sites built for easy viewing on mobile devices.

* .us is for American Web sites and is the newest extension. It has the largest amount of available names in inventory.

* .cc was originally the country code for Coco’s Keeling Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .bz was originally designated as the country code for Belize, but is now commonly used by small business who can’t get the name they want using the .biz extension. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .tv is for rich content/multi-media Web sites, commonly used within the entertainment or media industry.

* .vg is the country code for the British Virgin Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .ws was originally designated as the country code for Western Samoa, but is now commonly used as an acronym for “Web sites.” It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .name is the only domain extension specifically designed for personal use. It is commonly used for easy to remember e-mail addresses and personal web sites that display photos or personal information about an individual.

* .co.uk is the country code for United Kingdom. The .co portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .org.uk is the country code for United Kingdom. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an organization. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .me.uk is the country code for United Kingdom. The .me portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an individual. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .de is the country code for Germany. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country. If you are not a resident and citizen of Germany, the Administrative Contact for this domain name registration will automatically be assigned Network Solutions’ German proxy contact information.

* .eu is the country code for the European Union. Registration of .eu domain names requires registrants to meet one of the three eligibility requirements: have a registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the European Community; have an organization established within the European Community without prejudice to the application of national law; or be a natural person resident within the European Community. Alternatively, you can secure the use of a .eu domain name by using Network Solutions .EU Registration Service. Network Solutions Europe, LLC is the registrar for all .eu domain names. Click here for more information.

* .be is the country code for Belgium. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .cn is the country code for China. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .com.cn is the country code for China. The .com portion of the extension indicates the domain is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .net.cn is the country code for China. The .net portion of the extension represents the word “network”, and is generally used by internet infrastructure providers. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .org.cn is the country code for China. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain is for an organization. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .cn Regional names. There are 34 regional .cn extensions available, for example, .bj.cn. The .bj portion of the extension represents Beijing and the .cn represents China. These extensions may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .tw is the country code for Taiwan. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .com.tw is the country code for Taiwan. The .com portion of the extension indicates the domain is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .org.tw is the country code for Taiwan. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain is for an organization. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

* .at is the country code for Austria. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .com.mx is the country code for Mexico. The .com portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .co.nz is the country code for New Zealand. The .co portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .net.nz is the country code for New Zealand. The .net portion of the extension represents the word “network”, and is generally used by internet infrastructure providers. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .org.nz is the country code for New Zealand. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an organization. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .gs is the country code for the South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .tc is the country code for the Turks & Caicos Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .ms is the country code for Montserrat. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

* .fm is the country code for Federated States of Micronesia, but is commonly used for FM radio.

* .am is the country code for Armenia, but commonly used for AM radio.

* .la is the country extension for Laos, but also used for Los Angeles, Louisiana or Latin America.

* .us.com is an alternate domain for the United States

* .uk.com is an alternate domain for the United Kingdom

* .eu.com is an alternate domain for the European Union

* .de.com is an alternate domain for Germany

List Of Domain Extensions

2009-05-31T06:26:00.001-07:00

.com represents the word “commercial,” and is the most widely used extension in the world. Most businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet.

.net represents the word “network,” and is most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. This is why “Dr. Bill Bailey.NET” is called “.NET” since we are a web site hosting service. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet Websites.

.org represents the word “organization,” and is primarily used by non-profits groups or trade associations.

.biz is used for small business Web sites.

.info is for credible resource Web sites and signifies a “resource” web site. It’s the most popular extension beyond .com, .net and .org.

.mobi (short for “mobile”) is reserved for Web sites built for easy viewing on mobile devices.

.us is for American Web sites and is the newest extension. It has the largest amount of available names in inventory.

.cc was originally the country code for Coco’s Keeling Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.bz was originally designated as the country code for Belize, but is now commonly used by small business who can’t get the name they want using the .biz extension. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.tv is for rich content/multi-media Web sites, commonly used within the entertainment or media industry.

.vg is the coutry code for the British Virgin Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registred by anyone, from any country.

.ws was originally designated as the country code for Western Samoa, but is now commonly used as an acronym for “Web sites.” It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.name is the only domain extension specifically designed for personal use. It is commonly used for easy to remember e-mail addresses and personal web sites that display photos or personal information about an individual.

.co.uk is the country code for United Kingdom. The .co portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.org.uk is the country code for United Kingdom. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an organization. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.me.uk is the country code for United Kingdom. The .me portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an individual. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.de is the country code for Germany. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country. If you are not a resident and citizen of Germany, the Administrative Contact for this domain name registration will automatically be assigned Network Solutions’ German proxy contact information.

.eu is the country code for the European Union. Registration of .eu domain names requires registrants to meet one of the three eligibility requirements: have a registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the European Community; have an organization established within the European Community without prejudice to the application of national law; or be a natural person resident within the European Community. Alternatively, you can secure the use of a .eu domain name by using Network Solutions .EU Registration Service. Network Solutions Europe, LLC is the registrar for all .eu domain names.

.be is the country code for Belgium. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.cn is the country code for China. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.com.cn is the country code for China. The .com portion of the extension indicates the domain is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.net.cn is the country code for China. The .net portion of the extension represents the word “network”, and is generally used by internet infrastructure providers. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.org.cn is the country code for China. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain is for an organization. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.cn Regional names. There are 34 regional .cn extensions available, for example, .bj.cn. The .bj portion of the extension represents Beijing and the .cn represents China. These extensions may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.tw is the country code for Taiwan. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.com.tw is the country code for Taiwan. The .com portion of the extension indicates the domain is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.

.org.tw is the country code for Taiwan. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain is for an organization. It may be registered by businesses, organizations and sole proprietorships from any country.
.at is the country code for Austria. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.com.mx is the country code for Mexico. The .com portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.co.nz is the country code for New Zealand. The .co portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.net.nz is the country code for New Zealand. The .net portion of the extension represents the word “network”, and is generally used by internet infrastructure providers. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.org.nz is the country code for New Zealand. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an organization. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.gs is the country code for the South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.tc is the country code for the Turks & Caicos Islands. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

.ms is the country code for Montserrat. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

List of Domain Names

2009-05-31T06:25:00.000-07:00

The list below contains the English country name and name of the generic top level domains according to IANA’s list. The link takes you to the registry of the TLD. Please note that Norid is only administering the .no top level domain.

Please give us a notice if you have corrections or supplements to the list.

Generic top level domains (gTLD)

.aero Aviation
.asia Asia
.biz Business Organizations
.cat Catalan language and culture
.com Commercial
.coop Co-Operative Organizations
.edu Education
.gov US Government
.info Open TLD
.int International Organizations
.jobs Jobs
.mil US Dept of Defense
.mobi Mobile devices
.museum Museums
.name Personal
.net Networks
.org Organizations
.pro Credentialed professionals and related entities
.tel Publishing of contact data
.travel Travelling

Country code top level domains (ccTLD)

Sorted by country code – sort by country name.

.ac Ascension Island
.ad Andorra
.ae United Arab Emirates
.af Afghanistan
.ag Antigua and Barbuda
.ai Anguilla
.al Albania
.am Armenia
.an Netherlands Antilles
.ao Angola
.aq Antarctica
.ar Argentina
.as American Samoa
.at Austria
.au Australia
.aw Aruba
.ax Åland Islands
.az Azerbaijan

.ba Bosnia and Herzegovina
.bb Barbados
.bd Bangladesh
.be Belgium
.bf Burkina Faso
.bg Bulgaria
.bh Bahrain
.bi Burundi
.bj Benin
.bm Bermuda
.bn Brunei Darussalam
.bo Bolivia
.br Brazil
.bs Bahamas
.bt Bhutan
.bv Bouvet Island
.bw Botswana
.by Belarus
.bz Belize

.ca Canada
.cc Cocos (Keeling) Islands
.cd Congo, Democratic republic of the (former Zaire)
.cf Central African Republic
.cg Congo, Republic of
.ch Switzerland
.ci Côte d’Ivoire
.ck Cook Islands
.cl Chile
.cm Cameroon
.cn China
.co Colombia
.cr Costa Rica
.cs Czechoslovakia (former – non-existing)
.cu Cuba
.cv Cape Verde
.cx Christmas Island
.cy Cyprus
.cz Czech Republic

.de Germany
.dj Djibouti
.dk Denmark
.dm Dominica
.do Dominican Republic
.dz Algeria

.ec Ecuador
.ee Estonia
.eg Egypt
.eh Western Sahara
.er Eritrea
.es Spain
.et Ethiopia
.eu European Union

.fi Finland
.fj Fiji
.fk Falkland Islands
.fm Micronesia
.fo Faroe Islands
.fr France

.ga Gabon
.gb United Kingdom
.gd Grenada
.ge Georgia
.gf French Guiana
.gg Guernsey
.gh Ghana
.gi Gibraltar
.gl Greenland
.gm Gambia
.gn Guinea
.gp Guadeloupe
.gq Equatorial Guinea
.gr Greece
.gs South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
.gt Guatemala
.gu Guam
.gw Guinea-Bissau
.gy Guyana

.hk Hong Kong
.hm Heard and McDonald Islands
.hn Honduras
.hr Croatia
.ht Haiti
.hu Hungary

.id Indonesia
.ie Ireland
.il Israel
.im Isle of Man
.in India
.io British Indian Ocean Territory
.iq Iraq
.ir Iran
.is Iceland
.it Italia

.je Jersey
.jm Jamaica
.jo Jordan
.jp Japan

.ke Kenya
.kg Kyrgyzstan
.kh Cambodia
.ki Kiribati
.km Comoros
.kn Saint Kitts and Nevis
.kp Korea, Democratic Peoples Republic of
.kr Korea, Republic of
.kw Kuwait
.ky Cayman Islands
.kz Kazakhstan

.la Lao People’s Democratic Republic
.lb Lebanon
.lc Saint Lucia
.li Liechtenstein
.lk Sri Lanka
.lr Liberia
.ls Lesotho
.lt Lithuania
.lu Luxembourg
.lv Latvia
.ly Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

.ma Morocco
.mc Monaco
.md Moldova
.me Montenegro
.mg Madagascar
.mh Marshall Islands
.mk Macedonia
.ml Mali
.mm Myanmar
.mn Mongolia
.mo Macau
.mp Northern Mariana Islands
.mq Martinique
.mr Mauritania
.ms Montserrat
.mt Malta
.mu Mauritius
.mv Maldives
.mw Malawi
.mx Mexico
.my Malaysia
.mz Mozambique

.na Namibia
.nc New Caledonia
.ne Niger
.nf Norfolk Island
.ng Nigeria
.ni Nicaragua
.nl The Netherlands
.no Norway
.np Nepal
.nr Nauru
.nu Niue
.nz New Zealand

.om Oman

.pa Panama
.pe Peru
.pf French Polynesia
.pg Papua New Guinea
.ph Philippines
.pk Pakistan
.pl Poland
.pm St. Pierre and Miquelon
.pn Pitcairn
.pr Puerto Rico
.ps Palestine
.pt Portugal
.pw Palau
.py Paraguay

.qa Qatar

.re Reunion
.ro Romania
.rs Serbia
.ru Russia
.rw Rwanda

.sa Saudi Arabia
.sb Solomon Islands
.sc Seychelles
.sd Sudan
.se Sweden
.sg Singapore
.sh St. Helena
.si Slovenia
.sj Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
.sk Slovakia
.sl Sierra Leone
.sm San Marino
.sn Senegal
.so Somalia
.sr Surinam
.st Sao Tome and Principe
.su USSR (former)
.sv El Salvador
.sy Syrian Arab Republic
.sz Swaziland

.tc The Turks and Caicos Islands
.td Chad
.tf French Southern Territories
.tg Togo
.th Thailand
.tj Tajikistan
.tk Tokelau
.tl Timor-Leste
.tm Turkmenistan
.tn Tunisia
.to Tonga
.tp East Timor
.tr Turkey
.tt Trinidad and Tobago
.tv Tuvalu
.tw Taiwan
.tz Tanzania

.ua Ukraine
.ug Uganda
.uk United Kingdom
.um United States Minor Outlying Islands
.us United States
.uy Uruguay
.uz Uzbekistan

.va Holy See (Vatican City State)
.vc Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
.ve Venezuela
.vg Virgin Islands British
.vi Virgin Islands U.S
.vn Vietnam
.vu Vanuatu

.wf Wallis and Futuna Islands
.ws Samoa

No Domain Extension Found

.ye Yemen
.yt Mayotte
.yu Yugoslavia

.za South Africa
.zm Zambia
.zr Zaire (non-existent, see Congo)
.zw Zimbabwe

Importance of Website Domain Name in Search Engine Optimization

2009-05-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

Website domain can play very important role in your SEO campaign, search engines take very valuable information through your domain name. You can be credible, authentic, more reliable, and more valuable for search engines. You’ll come to know how effectively you can take benefit from your domain name.

Why to have Keywords Specific Domain Name

Keywords specific domains, or keywords in domain names are highly valuable to search engines, such as www.d4dating.net where “Dating” is a keywords, but I would always recommend to have brand specific “easy to remember” domains, you can’t have a single keyword or phrase for a website, can you? Then why to have a keyword specific domain name? You can always keep keywords specific files or directories to support your SEO work and be flexible with domain name, since domain name is going to be your online identity and your direct traffic will heavily depend on your domain.

Is Your Website Domain Easy to Remember?

Website domain name is as important as the identity for any brand. There are more than 100 million registered website domains in the world, how many website domains one can remember? Selection of most appropriate domain name for your website is one of the very important aspects of building your image on internet. Why I say most appropriate domain name is just because finding best domain name will be one of the most difficult tasks.
Strategy to Select Best Domain for Your Website

There are three ways through which you can select most appropriate domain name.

Company Name Based: Example www.hostingheap.com where “Hosting Heap” is company’s name
Catchy Title Based: Example www.alwaysidea.com where “Always Idea” is title
Keywords Based: Example www.d4dating.net where “Dating” is a keyword phrase.

Whenever you will select domain, keep these elements in mind and try to select a domain which can help you in search engine positioning and also in online branding.

Google takes Old Domains as Gold!

Google gives more importance to older domains comparatively than newly registered domains, the older the domain better the chances of getting good rankings in Google. Here one thing should be kept in mind that the domain registration details should not be refreshed or updated frequently, if you update or change domain registration information, then there is a chance that Google will consider your domain as new, since there are people who have made it very profitable business, they registered domains and sell them.

Avoid Being Suspect, Get Credibility by Your Domain Name!

Search engine have become very smart, they can track server statistics, domain whois info and compare these information with the available contact information at your website, if information doesn’t match they can give you poor rank or no rank. That’s why it is always advisable that you have same information at website and at domain registration, don’t try to update server information too often or else search engine can take that modification as a change in ownership and your domain becomes fresh once again.

One Year Domain Registration vs Multiple Years Domain Registration

Normally people register their domains for one year even though there is a possibility of registering domains on monthly basis by domain registration companies. Recently the trend has changed now smart businessmen are registering their domains for multiple years, why this change occurred? Why people are investing more money on domain registration?
Newly registered domains are just like infant babies to Google, they have almost zero reliability, credibility factor from their domain registration, there is only one way for those infant babies is that they get themselves registered for multiple years, if they want to be credible and reliable to Google eyes. Google has been always a logical company and there is a logic behind this credibility factor, those websites which are registered for one year or few months can adopt black hat SEO techniques or they can be involved in any short term activity to bring quick ranking, it’s just because they have invested very less amount of money

How Search Engines Treat Sub Domains

Search engines give equal importance to sub domains as they give to domains but there are website which are excessively using sub domains for their promotion. This indicates that very soon search engines will have strict policy related to sub domains.

Domain Name Tips

Try to select “easy to remember” domain name, after all we all need to increase direct traffic rather hoping from search engines
If you’ve already taken domain, try to have keywords specific files or directories
Register your domain name for multiple years (five or ten years)
Mention your contact details clearly at your website
Keep the same contact information at website and at domain registrant
Don’t mess with sub domains but it’s always good to have few relevant sub domains
Take care of Canonical URLs
Avoid geographical/country specific domain, unless your target market is specific
.com is still the most popular domains in search engines and in people
Don’t modify domain information, it can refresh your domain’s age according to search engine

SEO Copy Writing Techniques - Why Content is Still King (Part 2)

2009-05-31T06:23:00.001-07:00

It’s a two parts article series, in part 1, I’ve already explained you about “What is SEO Copy Writing? Why Content is Still King? How to Balance Copy Writing Keeping Users and Search Engines in Mind? Who should I Write for Search Engines OR for Visitors? And Well Targeted Written Content is more valuable”

How to Develop a Successful SEO Copy Writing Strategy

There are five very important elements to develop a successful SEO copy writing strategy, a certain amount of content at website need to be updated periodically.

Research the best keywords for your business / services
Analyze the content of your competitors
Logical distribution of selected keywords through out website
Writing for those selected keywords
On going fresh content

All these elements are very important and need healthy amount of time, there can’t be a standard because each strategy is unique and different. The more you study the better you’ll be able to produce.

Dos and Don’ts of Writing

When it comes to write for your website, you need to have your target audience in mind rather to facilitate search engines, respect your site visitors and educate them about your offered products or services. There is a list of dos and don’ts of writing for search engine.

Dos

Try to use keywords in upper top 2000 characters including code
Start paragraph with keywords
Start sentence with keywords
Use keywords in headings and sub headings
Use keywords in bullets or as numbered
Keep textual alternate navigation at bottom
Have a breadcrumb at complete website and try to include keywords in it wherever possible

Don’ts

Avoid using keywords at images or pictures
Avoid using keywords in deep paragraph, since deeper use of keywords will have lesser value to search engines
Avoid using pronoun for replacing important keywords, since pronouns won’t be of any value to search engines
Don’t have link title for text based links
Avoid keeping duplicate content on different pages of same website
Never use copied OR pirated content at your website

SEO Copy Writing Techniques

Search the relevant words (keywords) which are searched the most : Finding right keywords which correctly represent your company/products/services as well as they should be searched
Try to focus on the words (keywords) when writing : Whenever write, keep focusing on keywords, try to repeat keywords but keeping the visitors in mind, your copy should be written for your visitors
Unique/Original Content : Writing original and unique content is one of the most important aspect of your successful copywriting, the moment you upload your content try to make your content crawled by search engines, so that you can have the copy rights of that content, since search engines will take that content original which they crawled first, if your original content is copied and search engines have crawled that copied content first they may find your content as pirated, that’s why it’s very important to make your content authorized and copy right by search engines
Fresh Content : Search engines give a lot of value to fresh content, since more frequently updates make your website more attractive to site visitors
Focused and Relevant : Focused and relevant content is highly appreciated by search engines comparatively to those sites which are scatter or not focused
Selectable and Visible Content : Search engines can’t read text over images, they also dislike hidden text, they can easily read selectable and visible content at website
Proper Formatting Techniques : Search engines are able to recognize text formatting such as headings, sub headings, emphasis words, slogans, tag line, paragraph title, picture title…
Short and Compiled : Short and complied content is always liked by site visitors as well as search engines, but as far as the quality of the content is concern it should not be compromised on the length of the content
Keyword Utilization : Keywords should be used in “Title, Description, Headings, Sub-Headings, Bullets, Numbered, Bold, Italic, Underline, Hyperlinks, Anchor links, Alt Attributes, Link Titles, Table Names, Picture Names, File Names, Directories Names”
Keywords Specific/Topical Writing Technique : SEO Friendly copying writing is a topical writing where keywords should be treated as topics, and writer should write about that topic, so that search engines can get attracted towards that topic / keywords

Now you know what it takes to write for website, you might be one step closer to improve your search engine rankings. You just need to follow the all mentioned guidelines that are listed in this article, if you have any question or want to have a personal training, write to me at Wahid@wahidqazi.com

SEO Copy Writing Techniques - Why Content is Still King (Part 1)

2009-05-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

Writing is very specialized skill, it has different styles when it comes to different medias such as paper, television and web/internet, creative writers have no boundaries, no rules to write… but when it comes to get reward of their written material in search engines, they have to adopt certain guidelines, certain rules with standards so that their written stuff can get decent number of audience.

What is SEO Copy Writing?

SEO copywriting is nothing but just a topical writing where content writers always write for topics / sub-topics and those topics or sub-topics are called Keyword Phrases. There are some other techniques with this, which are kept in mind when writing for search engines, but whatever they write is topical as a result search engines can easily understand them and give them the most valuable positions. There is a proper procedure & technique for SEO Copy Writing which will be discussed later on in this article.

Why Content is Still King?

There is a very obvious answer to this question, content is still king because content is the major source of conveying message to search engine. Search engines read the content and then realize the importance of the content, they their-self understand the purpose of the website and then compare it with other related websites in their database, on the basis of your website’s content your website is given some rank in search engines, it could be at 1st page and could be at 100th page. There are plenty of other elements but content is one of the very important aspect of your website optimization, whenever writing for your website, keep in mind that your website is going to be evaluated not only by human but search engine’s bots as well.

How to Balance Copy Writing Keeping Users and Search Engines in Mind

Website copy can be liked and disliked at the same time by different human readers, there are plenty of external things that effect on human mind when reading such as mood, time, easy & flowery language and interests. But to search engines it’s entirely a different thing, they are built on artificial intelligence that’s why it doesn’t matter how difficult the words are, how boring the topic is, they have to read your written content time and mood can’t stop them.

I would never recommend writing for search engines, in fact search engines will never like it. Search engines have a very clear policy and that is “whatever is important for human readers is also important for search engines” that’s why always try to facilitate your readers but there is a simple guideline for search engines by following that you can make sure to balance your well written copy writing for both Human readers and Search Engines.

Who should I Write for Search Engines OR for Visitors?

Another very interesting question, there are many content writers who are worried to either write for search engines OR for website visitors? The answer is very simple, search engines don’t like them to feed, that’s why focusing on search engines is only a waste of time. But you can’t ignore search engines, since search engines are based on pre-defined algorithm (artificial intelligence) and they are compelled on certain things, such if your website code is not search engine friendly then search engines will be finding difficulty to read and understand website content. Content writers should focus on writing for website visitors but keeping search engines standards in mind, so that their content will have good impact on search engines.

Well Targeted Written Content is more valuable

Whatever you are going to write, search the right term to use, it may happen that your written content will get good rankings on certain keyword phrase but what if that keyword phrase is not searchable in search engines. That’s why you make sure that your written content should be well targeted, to search most searched keyword phrase in search engines, and you can use WordTracker or Keyword Discovery

It’s a two part article series, in next part (Part 2) you’ll come to know, SEO Copy Writing Techniques, Does and Don’ts of Writing, How to Develop a Successful SEO Copy Writing Strategy.

Quick SEO Guide! 12 Steps of Search Engine Optimization Process

2009-05-31T06:17:00.000-07:00

There are just 12 simple steps to follow basic Search Engine Optimization for SEO starters, expertise and in-depth knowledge of these steps can take you to the expert level as well, this article has just an overview of the basic SEO.

1. Research and select appropriate keywords to target
2. Effective page Title Tags
3. Effective and optimized META Description Tag
4. Effective and optimized META Keywords Tag
5. Integrate search keywords within Website copy
6. Web design elements to avoid ensuring your site is search engine compatible
7. Effective Alt Image attributes
8. Effective and optimized text navigation menus
9. Link titles and anchor link effectively
10. Set up search engine friendly site architecture
11. Creation of search engine friendly sitemap
12. Robots.txt and its META tag

1. Research and select appropriate keywords to target

* Collect the business terms
* Check keywords relevancy with industry and conversion
* Check competition
* Check count on word tracker and Overture
* Make estimate traffic chart using Google Adwords
* Distribution of keywords on the basis of their weight

2. Effective page Title Tags

Title tag is the most important tag, almost all search engines evaluate webpage with title tag and check the relevancy with other elements of the page as well, and search engines also present results of a search by displaying webpage titles as links in the first line of each query result.

3. Effective and optimized META Description Tag

Description tag is the very important tag, search engines take webpage description through this tag, though search engines don’t give any importance to this tag in their ranking algorithms but this tag can lead searchers to motivate and visit your website.

4. Effective and optimized META Keywords Tag

Keywords tag has lost its value, search engines keep getting smarter, they have set their own criterion to identify web pages with their relevancies, they take each word as “keyword phrase” that is presented at webpage and they keep those words in priorities with their densities. There is no harm in utilizing this tag for marginally better results.

5. Integrate search keywords within Website copy

Since a very early stage of search engine revolution, search engines were able to evaluate website with relevance to their content, though they were not very efficient and intelligent like they are these days, but they were able to read the content at website and content still plays very important role in top ranking positions.

6. Web design elements to avoid ensuring your site is search engine compatible

Usually a website is designed keeping few elements in mind such as user friendliness, attractive design, beautiful flash animation, easy navigation, client specific or functionality oriented. In fact all these elements are very useful and important but what benefit is your web site if it has no visitors, search engine compatible websites are designed and developed keeping search engine policies and algorithms in mind, which enable websites to be easily crawled and understood by search engines.

7. Effective Alt Image attributes

Alternate text commonly referred to as Alt, is a text description that can be added to the HTML tag that displays an image. The ALT text is displayed by the browser when the cursor is moved over the picture. If pictures are turned off in the browser, the Alt text is automatically displayed instead.

8. Effective and optimized text navigation menus

Navigation is a very important part of any website; it gives guidelines to website visitors and directs them to relevant part of the website.

9. Link titles and anchor link effectively

Link title is displayed text by the browser when cursor is moved over the link.
An Anchor link is a little different from a hyperlink, a hyperlink directs to a complete webpage but anchor link directs to a specific area of a particular webpage, it may be at same page or different page or even at different domain.

10. Set up search engine friendly site architecture

A Website’s information architecture can greatly affect on its search engine visibility. Specific page elements, such as the site navigation scheme, and design technologies, such as CSS and JavaScript, can interfere with search engines ability to spider a site.

11. Creation of search engine friendly sitemap

A site map helps visitors navigate large, complicated sites by showing its entire structure. It is also used as a master diagram of the Web site for Web designers.

12. Robots.txt and its META tag

Robots.txt is a file placed on your server to guide the various search engine spiders not to crawl or index certain sections or pages of your site. You can use it to prevent indexing totally, prevent certain areas of your site from being indexes or to issue individual indexing instructions to specific search engines.

About The Author

Wahid Qazi is a Research Analyst, eBusiness and eMarketing Consultant, SEO Consultant, SEO Trainer, SEO Speaker and Author, specializes in eBusiness, eMarketing, SEO, branding and promotion and has trained dozens of qualified SEOs. He is a Professional SEO Consultant can be reached at http://www.wahidqazi.com/

10 Tips to have Successful Blogging

2009-05-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

Creating a blog is easy but managing a successful blog is something every Blogger wants, a Blogger’s success depends on the amount of audience that Blogger is known to and repeated traffic is the most valuable asset for a Blogger. In this article you’ll get to know ten (10) tips to effectively and successfully manage your blogs and brining your audience back to you.

What is Blog?

Blog is a short word representing “Weblog” and weblog is an online eDiary that is used to display chronological order of postings by one or multiple individuals. It’s an online journal that is regularly updated and accessible publicly to everyone, people can post their comments openly on blogs. It’s basically an interactive media to share thoughts, where author and readers can interact each other on single platform.

Blogger is a person who writes Weblogs, it has become a successful and dynamic profession internally, there are industries OR topic specific bloggers who are equally popular as start.

Tips for Effective and Successful Blogging

There are some very effective blogging tips through which you will be able to entertain your audience and they will keep coming back to your blog, it’s the LOYAL AUDIENCE who is the difference b/w a normal blog and a successful blog.

Purpose of the Blog
Who Your Target Audience Is
Think Big
Keep It Simple Principle
Short And Brief
Informal And Friendly Attitude
Truth And Honesty
Frequency Of Post
Quick Reply To Comments
Don’t Treat Blog Like An Advertisement Or Marketing Campaign

1. Purpose of the Blog

You should be clearly know the purpose of the blog, either you want to make it professional, topic or industry specific, want to project it as story or want to use it for PR of certain company or product. The best think is to write something you are crazy about.

2. Who Your Target Audience Is

Once you know your targeted audience, their interests and their likeness, you can easily facilitate your audience and can reach to comfort zone or your audience.

3. Think Big

You can create a blog easily, it’s free and quick but it requires your valuable time and continuous input. You just can’t have blog for anything. You have to have something new to your readers, so that they keep coming back to your blog and frequency of their visits depends on your input.

4. Keep It Simple Principle

There is no alternate to simplicity, keep your content simple and easy to understand, so that it will have wide range of audience. Find out simple alternate to difficult words, if somehow you have to use technical word, you should explain it.

5. Short And Brief

You should always write short and brief, people normally don’t like to read too much content. You should be very specific and to the point while posting your blog, if you try to irritate your audience they will never come back to your blog.

6. Informal And Friendly Attitude

Your blog should have informal and friendly attitude of writing, so that you can get quick interaction with your audience who will read your blog, you have to have immediate friendship with your audience through your expression of words and tone.

7. Truth And Honesty

You should always blog with honesty and truth, people like to read your original thoughts rather a point of view of someone else, this way you get closer to your audience and your audience tries to communicate with you.

8. Frequency Of Post

You have to have something new to your blog that will get your audience stick to it, if you are able to post thrice or twice a week that will be good frequency to get your audience back to your blog.

9. Quick Reply To Comments

Your audiences want quick reply to their comments, you should ideally reply back same day. You can set email alert on your blog, so that whenever someone post comments, you get an alert in your email and this way you can keep your blog up to day.

10. Don’t Treat Blog Like An Advertisement Or Marketing Campaign

Your blog is not one way communication, it’s a two way communication where your readers will have equal rights to share their comments openly, if you treat your blog like an advertisement, there are chances that you will have negative feedback or your blog will have less attraction to your readers. Today’s readers are smart enough to understand the purpose of the blog, if you want to use your blog for PR, then you have to keep the balance and be true to your audience.

I hope that above mentioned points will help you manage your blog more effectively, and if you still don’t have a blog, I would highly recommend you to create it today and feel free to ask if you have any question or query.