SEO: 8 Easy Steps to Rank Better on Search Engines

Search Engine Optimization companies are making a fortune by doing the menial work that is overlooked by many designers. It is ridiculously easy to do most of the work done by most SEO companies, all you have to do is create good habits.

★★★ Digital Marketing Ninja ★★★

There are 8 main points you should focus on:

• Keywords
• URL Text
• Description, Meta tags
• Title tags
• Image Names
• ALT tags
• Content
• Hyperlinks

The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many "keywords" as possible.



Keywords:
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site. Therefore, choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Cloud Transformation Services", I want my site to include the words "Cloud Transformation" as many times as possible.

However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in Los Angeles, I would include "Los Angeles web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you.

The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.


URL Text:
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not use a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn't come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.


Description / Meta tags:
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts. Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.


Title Tags:
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, "don't put anything in the title tags but keywords". Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don't miss out.


Image Names:
As I said before, content doesn't come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of an "iPad running Microsoft office" for your web site offering BYOD solution, don't call it "image009.jpg", call it "ipad_running_microsoft_windows_office.jpg" or "run_microsoft_office_on_ipad.jpg". The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.


ALT tags:
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can't analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content - so always try to use it.


Content:
As every expert will tell you, "Content is the King." Each web page should have at least 350-500 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don't want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can't read the text embedded in images, so this content adds no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.

"Linkbaiting" is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.

You don't have to be an expert content writer to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.


Hyperlinks:
Hyperlinks aka. anchor tags are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:

• Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
• Don't use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
• Make sure that the other page your are linking a keyword phrase to, contains that particular keyword in the title and/or page content.

Keep these 8 aspects in mind when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.



[Follow me on Twitter]

How to increase your website's Google Page Rank

Google PageRank (PR) is a measure from 0 to 10 of how important Google thinks a webpage is. Google's search engine, [www.google.com], uses a variety of methods to determine which pages are displayed first in the results. Though their exact formula is a secret, but there are a few things you can do to improve your positioning. The term for this is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is not a rocket science, just need to focus on certain elements on/off your webpage. Let's be realistic, the following tips may not make your website the first one to appear in the list, but they will definitely help you move up a little in Google search results:

#1: Page Content: Focus on quality over quantity

Most online marketers talk about using blogs to increase the number of pages indexed in Google. And while it still holds true that more pages indexed for a given search term gives you a better chance of achieving a high Google rank, it isn’t enough just to publish text optimized for keywords. The quality of the content is now a key factor.

Since the Panda update, Google has attempted to screen out those publishing high-volume, low-quality content. Now, in the eyes of Google, it’s better to have fewer high-quality pages then lots of low-quality pages.

Blogging is still one of the best ways to move up the search engine rankings as it is a good way to add high-quality information to a website. However, web pages or blog posts offering little of value can now negatively impact a website. Removing these pages might actually help a website move up the rankings or recover from a drop in ranking.

Also, not to mentioned that tuning-up your webpage's meta tags (i.e. title, description, keyword, alt, etc.) will also help gaining a better ranking in search results.
 

#2: Single Word vs. Keyword Phrases

Instead of focusing on a single word, try adding a few words to make a keyword phrase. If you were searching for your own website, what keyword phrase would you type into Google for each page? Would you look for super fast widgets? Would you look for cooking with widgets? It may be helpful to get a different perspective [in fact, a prospect's perspective].

Try to stick to one subject per page, and stick to one keyword phrase per page. That doesn't mean you should write stilted text or use odd phrases. Clear writing is both easier to search and easier to read

#3: Keyword Density

One of the things Google looks for when it catalogs pages is the density of the keyword usage. In other words, how often the keyword occurs. Use natural phrasing. Don't try to trick the search engine by repeating the same word over and over or making text "invisible." Frankly, it doesn't work. In fact, some of that behavior even get your website banned. [Warning!]

#4: Quality Links

Incoming links have always looked good in the eyes of Google. As a result, one way to move a site up the search engine rankings was to generate a high number of incoming links all pointing to a given web page.

Many online marketers suggest that press releases were a good way to generate incoming links because distribution services often generated back-links as articles were placed on various press release syndication websites. This link-building strategy has also changed post-Panda update, as these links are not as highly valued as they once were. However, a well-written press release can still be very effective when picked up and reported by a journalist or major publication.

Bottom-line is: Focus on getting high-quality links from high-quality websites.

#5: Submit Your Site to the Right Directories

Submit your website to the open directory project, if possible. Google considers this directory to be an important link. 

Note: Submit your site to specialized directories. For example, a work at home mother owned business (WAHM) should submit her site to WAHM directories. A site on butterflies should be sent to biology or entomology directories.

Don't get too submission happy, though. Google, in an effort to combat click fraud, often filters out websites linked from link farms, or pages with nothing but links to other websites. This is one reason why free services to register your website may hurt you. Stick to specialized directories and organizations. They're more likely to help and not hurt your rankings.

#6: Social Sharing and Social Search

Social networking sites can be a good way to promote a site, but not all of them will affect your rank directly. Digg and Del.icio.us are social linking sites that could potentially have the most impact. 

Do not forget that efforts made on SEO take 3-6 months in order to show their ideal results. Therefore, patience is the key [do not keep modifying the page every day or week]. Ignore spam and websites that offer to submit your website to hundreds of search engines. At best these are wastes of time or money and at worst they can actually hurt your ranking.

Good Luck!

[Follow me on Twitter]

How Does a Search Engine Work?

As many of us are only too aware, the internet is an extensively large resource which allows us to tap into information covering every subject under the sun. Since its beginnings, the internet has grown to such a scale that it was recorded in 2007 that the World Wide Web held over 29.7 billion pages. In order to find what we’re looking for amongst that many pages, we need to rely on search engines. But how do search engines work and accurately give us the results we’re looking for?

As the Internet is an extremely popular resource-one of which is being used frequently by businesses all over the world, it is possible that this number has increased by millions more within the past three years. Now, in order to come up in the search rankings, your website must utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

How Do Search Engines Work?

For those who are looking to obtain information, no matter what subject they may be searching for, there is the advantage that there are hundreds of millions pages to help them find what they need. Unfortunately, this adds as a disadvantage that there are hundreds of millions of pages which are mostly titled in regards to the author; this then throws up the issue to the user of which pages they need to read when looking up about a particular subject. This is where Internet search engines come into play.

Search engines are specially designed sites on the World Wide Web of which their main purpose is to help web users find information which is stored on other websites. Each search engine site will work in a way which differs to the other, but they all perform the same three basic tasks which are:

• Searching through the internet or specified areas within the web, based on important keywords
• Creating an index of the keywords they are searching for and where they find them within the web; and
• Allowing web users to search for words or a combination of words that have been found within the index

In its beginnings, search engines were able to hold an index of a few hundred thousand pages and would typically receive around 2,000 queries a day. Today, the most popular search engines can index hundreds of millions of pages and will respond to tens of millions of queries each day.

Before the World Wide Web was truly established as the most visible part of the Internet, search engines were already in place in order to help users find information. Using different programs such as “gopher”, these programs would keep an index of the files which were stored on servers connected to the Internet, and would reduce the amount of time it took to find programs on the web.

In order for a search engine to identify where a file or document is, it must firstly find it for you on the web. In order to do this, a search engine will employ a specific software robot known as spiders, to build lists of the different words which are found on various websites.

When these spiders build these lists, this is known as Web crawling. For a list to be filled with useful words, a search engine’s spider will be required to look at a wide variety of pages in huge quantities, but how exactly does a spider begin its list building on the web?

The beginning of the list building will usually start by listing all heavily used servers and the most popular pages on the web which are related to your chosen words. The spider will start with the most popular site, indexing the words on the pages within this site, following every link which is found within the particular site. Whilst doing this, the spider will travel quickly through the Internet, identifying the most widely visited areas of the web.

This is why a website needs to be built to be navigated easily by both humans and spiders. Utilizing Search Engine Optimization on your website will communicate to the spider if a page is important or contains valuable information.

One of the most widely used search engine sites in the world is Google, which is perceived as being one of the most intelligent search engines on the World Wide Web. Within Google, the site uses multiple spiders, sometimes up to three at a time and each spider has the capability to keep up to 300 connections to different web pages at all times.

At its most capable period, Google is able to use four spiders, with over 100 pages per second being crawled through. This can result in around 600 kilobytes of data being found every second. Being able to keep this system working effectively means that Google’s system needed to be built so that it could feed the required information to the spiders.

When Google’s search engine looks at a web page, it will look at two main characteristics: the words which are on each page, and where on these pages that the words are found. In order for the owner of the site to be able to show up high in search engine results, they can use specific words within their webpage titles, subtitles and meta tags.

Meta tags allow the website owners to choose specific keywords for each indexed page. This is extremely beneficial in the case that words on each page have double or triple meanings as the meta tags can easily guide the search engines in the right direction of selection.

However, it is important that web owners do not rely on these tags as if you include meta tags which have no relevance to the content which appears on the site, this could severely damage your search engine results or not include your site within the results at all.

With these developments in Internet technology, the World Wide Web has opened up new possibilities to businesses that are looking to sell products or services both locally and online by carefully and thoughtfully selecting the correct content, titles and meta tags within each page.

Not only does this allow for businesses to take full advantage of the great benefits which stem from using the internet, thus search engine sites for the growth of their business, but in today’s society, it also helps to keep up with competitors and display yourself as a reputable and professional business.

Gone are the days where people look up local services in the Yellow Pages. Gone are the days where local businesses ranked in order of the size of their advertising budgets. Even locals now use the search engines to look up information on local businesses. Using search engine optimization will lift your website to the top of the first page or search engine results for a fraction of the cost of Yellow Pages advertising.


[Follow me on Twitter]

Do You Have a Successful Social Media Strategy?

Did you know that more than 65% of business owners plan to use social media even more in 2012 to help grow their business?

Every business will have a different social media strategy. While the basics remain the same, there are different methods that can be used depending on what your niche is. When you develop your social media strategy, always remember to:

1.     Create and understand your goals
It is important to pre determine what you want to get out of your social media efforts. Your first step is to always engage the user and work on building your following. The end result should always be to either increase sales, increase branding, or build your database.

2.     Stay engaged in the conversation
Before investing a lot of time and resources into social media, it’s a mandatory to engage and stay engaged with your followers. Relationships will build and your brand will spread.

3.     Design a Content Plan
Pre-determine what your content and what your aim will be, and design alike. How many messages do you want to send out every day? These are the types of details that should be outlined in your social media strategy. You never want to bombard the user with messages, so it is recommended to keep it limited and always put thought into your posts.

4.     Employ the “free give-away” tactic
This is a great technique for brand awareness and to build your following quickly. Everyone wants something for free, and they are willing to “follow” you or “like” your content to have a chance to win something. You can also use the free giveaway in other advertising you may do.

5.     Use an Analytics program
As you build followings on the various social networks, you will also see an increase in traffic to your website. If you are doing other forms of advertising like Pay Per Click (PPC), it can become more difficult to determine what’s bringing you the results and what’s dead in the water. Using an analytics program will streamline the process and make it tons easier to see where your traffic is coming from…it will show you what is working and what is not. Analytics can save you time as well as money.

As you can see, there is a lot that can go into ones social media strategy. Developing your strategy should not be taken lightly. You need to take everything into account here and the number one recommendation is to do research!

Even a simple Google search can give you insight and help you develop your marketing strategy and plan. It is also recommended to employ some type of A/B Split Testing so that you can see what pages and graphics give you the best conversions.

The most important thing to remember when you’re developing your social media strategy is your goal. If your goal is to build your following, employ relationship building techniques and if you’re trying to sell a product, run a promotion!

Hot Tip:
If you use Facebook, the Events feature is great to broadcast a promotion! You can send out an event invitation to all of your fans with your promotion simply by clicking Event!

Good Luck!

[Follow me on Twitter]

7 Ways to Turn Your Blog into a Must Visit Destination

If you are a blogger I am going to say something here that you might balk at!

Getting traffic and prospective customers to your blog isn’t that difficult!

There, I said it. Do you agree or are you one of those in the camp that constantly struggles when it comes to knowing the exact methods of how to increase blog traffic?

In this post you will learn 8 ways to drive new visitors to your blog, but (and this is a big BUT!), you have to be consistent, thorough, unrelenting and committed to your blogging or else your blog will simply be the next ghost town.

This is a multipronged approach that includes both online and offline marketing efforts, some paid and some free. You can use these techniques to master the art of increasing traffic and bumping up conversion rates.

1. Organic Search

Google still is, and for a long time will be, the main traffic driver on the web. In order to benefit from Google’s generosity of sharing their customers, as that is essentially what search traffic is, you have to play by the search engine’s rules. Therefore getting your site to rank high remains an important way to drive traffic. Search engine optimisation is a critical strategy to drive organic search results.

 2. External Links

Your website is an island a vast ocean that is the internet. In order to attract more traffic you need to build more bridges for people to come visit. These bridges are what are known as links and links play a vital role in determining the credibility of your website to the search engines.

One thing to mention here is that not all links are equal. If your site discussed pony trekking then a link from a cake baking article is not really a valid citation. If your theme is eighteen wheel trucks and you have a link from Barbie dolls, again that’s not valid. You want to make sure that the site where the link comes from is a good match for what your blog discusses.

The next three items on the list are paid methods of attracting more traffic to your blog, which if you know your conversion rate and you have a monetisation strategy then these will work for you. If you are still getting started then until you master the art of tracking and conversion which is a different topic altogether then you might want to skip to number 6.

3. PPC Advertising

Paid keywords, such as Google Adwords, have proven themselves to be cost effective methods for driving targeted traffic to your site. Although cost can be prohibitive for many niches, providing you know your conversion rates and are constantly testing and tweaking, adwords is a way to drive instant targeted traffic to your site.

Google offers a lot of resources to help small business owners learn everything from the basics of using adwords to mastering advanced user strategies and tips. Google Adwords Small Business Center

 4. Affiliate Traffic.

Affiliate traffic is when you pay a third party a referral fee for getting targeted traffic to your site. Affiliates use their own online marketing techniques, methods and internet real estate to advertise your product or service and send the traffic to your site. You may not want to take on this task until you are more established as affiliates want to know expected conversions in return for their investment.

5. Paid Banner Advertising

Banners are perhaps the oldest form of advertising on the internet. They act much like billboards in real life. You place a banner in an area of high traffic and when some someone shows interest in what you are offering then they click through and are taken immediately to your site or landing page.

6. Content

If you don’t have any content then there is no reason for people to check out your site. They’ll hit back on their browser and move on.

Quality content is absolutely fundamental to the success of your blog. Having bad content is like inviting people to a party and then telling them that there is no food or drink. People get disgruntled and leave.
Give people a strong reason to visit but more importantly to stay, subscribe and share. If you don’t have the content then this will not happen, so prior to inviting people and certainly before attempting any of the paid advertising methods make sure there is plenty of juicy content for people to find.

7. Email Newsletters.

When you have gone through all the hard work of attracting people to your site then you want to be in a position to take that relationship to the next level. For some that may be buying your product or service or joining your membership program, but whatever it is you want to get people to subscribe to your email list.
People who have subscribed to your email list have shown an interest in what you do and what you talk about. They have expressed a desire to learn more about you and these are the most valuable type of blog readers.

When you publish a new blog you can send your subscribers an email to let them know you have new content for them to consume. If you make the email compelling enough then you will automatically have a flood of traffic to your blog.

As stated at the beginning, knowing how to increase blog traffic is not difficult! There is a multitude of ways to promote your blog both online and offline; what is important is that you produce top quality content, be consistent, thorough and unrelenting.

Good Luck!

[Follow me on Twitter]

5 Tips to Help You Get More Website Traffic

There are a wide range of ways to get more traffic to your website and a lot of the things you can do are actually quite simple. So much of the time, individuals seem to think that getting their name out there is a long and tough process but it truly is just something that take patience and consistency. Once you have the basics down, all of these things we are about to discuss are going to become second nature to you so it won’t feel like work at all.

Search Engine Optimization

While focusing on what search engines are looking for is important, the rules are always changing and it can prove to be quite difficult to keep up. Typically, the most important thing to remember is to stay organized. Make your website easy to navigate and properly title and file your information. Always add keywords, not only so search engines can find things easier but so your audience can as well. Focus more on those who are going to be visiting your site than search engines. Go to Google, Bing and Yahoo for the latest Search Engine Optimization tips to brush up on the latest changes and you should be all set.

Offer Your Audience Something Unique

In order to be a successful website owner, you must offer something that people are looking for. Whether that is content such as tips on how to keep your garden thriving, or services; make sure you are giving your audience something that they are looking for. One great way to see if a site like yours has already been created is to use the Google Keyword Tool. This tool allows you to type in keywords or key phrases and get a glimpse into just how much competition you are up against on the web. If you can find a way to tweak your niche or field so that you have a smaller number of competitors, then you are making the whole process that much easier for yourself.

Social Networking: An Easy Way to Get Attention

Social Networking Sites are extremely popular these days. They are a great platform not only for personal use but business use as well. Twitter and Facebook are two of the most commonly used options. Twitter makes it simple to connect with people by posting 160 character snippets, while Facebook allows you to create Fan Pages for your website which allows people to easily find you. Facebook advertising is an amazing way to target only the people you want to; whether it be by age group, or likes and interests.

Other sites to consider using are Stumble Upon, Digg, Delicious and Pinterest. These are all fantastic ways to get your name out there and allow more people access to what it is you have to offer. Every time you make a change or have something special going on with your website, it is a good idea to post the news to all of these websites.

Show Consistency and Simplicity

Consistency is important when it comes to running any website. Update your content on a regular basis and post content that is of high quality. You want to focus on both quality and quantity with your website. Do not ever throw information together, because your visitors are going to be able to pick up on this. Show them that you care about what you are doing and that is going to shine through your work. If you feel rushed on a regular basis, then do what you can to adjust your schedule so you have time to truly focus on the task at hand and not begin to feel overwhelmed or as though you just have to post something even when you don’t have much to say.

When it comes to your website’s design, keep it simple; yet interesting. People who come to your site are typically going to be in a hurry and if they cannot easily find their way around within the first few seconds of stopping by; it is very likely that they will move on to the next website. Put special attention on your organization such as the links on your main page and make it easy for people to see where they need to go to contact you in case they have any questions.

Guest Posting

Check out websites similar to yours and show your expertise. Comment on forums, blogs and websites that are related to your niche and give advice. If you’re able to, have a link to your website in your signature so people that see your high quality information and are interested are able to find out what it is you do.

Getting people to come to your website naturally is the best way to get traffic and maintain it. What you are looking for is repeat visitors. These are those who are going to bring you in the most business; not only their own business but the business of their friends and family members.

Good Luck!

[Follow me on Twitter]