Abhishek Bakshi

Tag: search engine optimization

  • Crash Course SEO

    Summary:
    There is one thing I have learned after a week of fulltime crash course on SEO – It is very easy to learn but it takes a lot of work.

    There is one thing I have learned after a week of fulltime crash course on SEO – It is very easy to learn but it takes a lot of work.

    Last June the first Philippine SEO Contest was announced to the public and the contest was open to everyone, both SEO experts and amateurs. More than 70 entries were submitted and the contest will end on September 29th. The winners will be determined by the Google Philippines Search Engine Results Page.

    All contestants did everything they can to get it to the top. Both White Hat and Black Hat SEO techniques are involved in the contest and the SEO community

    Aaron Wall made a comment on this SEO Contests with regards to comment spamming and this raised a concern with the rest of the SEO community worldwide. Somehow this contest is becoming to look like spamming contest to some and the contestants are now changing their strategy to prevent their site from being eventually banned.

    So what does it take to be on the top spot? Below are the general SEO techniques most of the contestants have done for the first month of this competition.

    1. On-Page Optimization – The entry sites are being designed to make it as Google friendly as possible. Good Site Navigation, 5 to 7% Keyword Density, inserting Meta Tags, using Google Site Maps and implementing Google Adwords are among the most common techniques being implemented on these sites. Many are using WordPress because it is easy to build and it is known to be SEO friendly.

    2. Link Building – The entry sites are submitted on almost all forums, blogs and directories out there. Even though some sites are totally unrelated to the entry site, many are still linking their sites there because of the site’s high Google PageRank and Backlinks is the Google’s top priority in ranking websites.

    3. Articles – Articles are submitted to feeders and article sites. Some have violated copyright laws by using articles made by other people and made it as their own. Many SEO’s agree that article writing helps the site’s ranking a lot and many have submitted several articles just to get their site noticed.

    4. Black Hat – Unfortunately, black hat techniques are being used. Spam blogging, duplicate sites and other unfriendly techniques are being used to get their site to the top. I could not blame them because most of the SEO contestants have no actual experience in SEO before this contest and they are still learning the difference between ethical and unethical SEO.

    In the end, only Google-friendly sites will remain on the top spot and black hatters will most likely be banned in Google in the awards night.

    So what is the lesson here? For the 30 days, I have learned that SEO is not very hard to learn, but for a site to be on the top spot, it would need a lot of work and it takes time.

    To learn more about this SEO Contest, please visit this site: <a href=”http://isulongseoph.offshoreoutsourcingphilippines.com”>Learn SEO Philippines</a>

  • Inbound Links to Your Website for SEO

    Summary:
    Getting in-bound links to your site is one of the most important things you can do for generating traffic to your site:

    Getting in-bound links to your site is one of the most important things you can do for generating traffic to your site:

    * It helps to get your site listed in the search engine.

    * It helps to boost your position in the search engine.

    * It helps to build small streams of traffic to your site.

    Links to your site are normally given by also giving a link from your site to the other one. These are called reciprocal links or link swaps. And naturally there are a few services available to automate the link somehow.

    Some of these services will automatically add the link to your site and the other site once your link request is approved (through some software to be installed on your site).

    Some will simply point you to sites which do use link swaps and who are interested in hearing from you.

    Some will also check that the link to your site remains in place, and email you if it disappears. It’s then up to you to either contact the owner of that site to find out why the link has vanished, or to remove the reciprocal link on your site.

    But there is one thing they do not do, and which you need to watch for:

    How would a visitor to the other site FIND the link back to your site?

    Because you can be sure that if a human visitor cannot find it, then it’s unlikely that a search engine will.

    Let me give you an example: Andrew was using the service at LinkMetro.com to get links to one of his sites. Someone had a site on a related topic, and they requested a link back to Andrew’s. He checked the link back to his site, and everything looked OK. The other site had requested a link back to their homepage (rather than another specific page), so Andrew checked out that home page.

    What did he find?

    * No links to the “link directory”.

    * No link to a “related sites” page.

    * No link to a “resources” page.

    It seemed that the link directory on that other site was not linked from the home page of that site.

    The other site was requesting inbound links back to its home page, but effectively hiding the return link from the search engines and from website visitors. And that makes the link back to Andrew’s site useless – it’s like that link doesn’t even exist.

    So next time you get asked for a reciprocal link, check the route that people and search engines would use to get from that site over to yours. You might be surprised what you find.

  • 3 Key Off-Page Search Engine Optimization Methods

    Summary

    If you are not into the nerve-wracking tasks of on-page SEO, here the three major ways to accomplish off-page SEO.

    On-page search engine optimization is definitely one of the key methods if a website owner would like to improve the results for his or her website’s searchability. However, on-page SEO often entails technical skills. Why? Not a lot of people are HTML enthusiasts. This is often what needs to be tweaked to do an excellent job in optimizing web pages.

    What if a geek friend already did the on-page optimization and now you want to know how you can contribute to the “search engine goodness” of your website? Off-page optimization is the next step. And the results you will have to pine for are one-way backlinks. Why? This is how many of the major search engines such Google, Yahoo! and MSN rank websites. The more backlinks from relevant sites with good page rank, the merrier.

    So how exactly do you gather backlinks? It’s not an easy task but it’s definitely less nerve-wracking than HTML if you are not the techie type. Here are some off-page SEO tips:

    1. Article Marketing

    Quality content has been discovered to be real king. Everyone is hungry for fresh and quality info and providing it will make backlinks go pouring in. It helps a lot to be a keen writer to be successful on this endeavor. Also, practise the proper way of using a resource box. It should only include a website that contains information relevant to the article you submit to article directories.

    1. Forum Participation

    Look for forums that are relevant to your website’s content and keep on sharing information that will be indispensable for the members of the forums. Your signature or that tag-along message at the last part of each of your posts is what will work for your off-page SEO campaign. Keep it simple and make sure that it conveys something about your website. Learn how to hyperlink to make it easy for the people who want to visit your site.

    1. Blogging

    Blogs or web logs are now the most popular weapons of SEO experts. Aside from being easy-to-update, they don’t require a too formal tone, which is what many readers are into. Informal dialog which can be accomplished through readers leaving comments and the blog author replying to the comments is what also keeps blogs fresh and search engine friendly. Maintaining a blog that’s again relevant to your website’s content will keep the search engines in touch with your site. Don’t forget to have a link on your main website from your blog.

    The secret to be successful in carrying out these off-page SEO methods is to be consistent. Submitting quality articles to websites at least two to three times a week and regularly producing content for your personalized blog is a surefire way to make your website stand out. Forum participation should also be something done more frequently since it will not only help you up your website’s popularity with the search engines but also make you learn new stuff from other forum members’ participation. Also, if you discover that you don’t enjoy these stuff, there’s always a plan B – hire someone to do them for you!

    Note: This article may be freely reproduced as long as the AUTHOR’S resource box at the bottom of this article is included and all links must be Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.

  • An Introduction Primer to SEO

    Summary
    The Internet provides the best place to market your business, ideas, services and products, provided your web page is optimized to be search engine friendly and geared towards attracting traffic. Websites compete with millions of other sites to gain a good ranking position with search engines and if your site is not Search Engine Optimized (SEO), you may just as well give up the domain.

    What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

    It can be defined as the process by which a siteís rankings in the search engines are increased for the keywords it is optimized for. Good SEO keeps both the user and the search engine in mind. Things that look beautiful on your site may have a negative influence on your siteís ranking. Good content ensures return visits. Keyword enriched content ensures that people will find your site.

    How many people do you know who actually look at the fourth or tenth page of a search engineís results page? Most people only look at the first ten to twenty search results. SEO can get your site ranked in the first bundle of results.

    Aspects of SEO: Content

    The web is indexed with keywords. The user types in a keyword string, exact phrase or a single keyword to find a relevant page. Information specialists make use of advanced searching techniques to find deep web content such as information imbedded in databases or dictionaries, but the average user thinks of the first thing associated with his query and types it in. That is why broad keywords on your site will not generate enough traffic because many thousands of pages have that exact keyword. You need specific keywords and keyword phrases.

    There must be enough content on the page. Too little information guarantees that the keywords cannot be repeated enough without keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is where there are too many of the same keyword on a page. Search engines will rank your page lower if they see your page as stuffed.

    Keyword density must be balanced with their relation to the rest of the page. This means that your main keywords must appear in certain areas of the page. They must preferably stand out from the rest of the text. There are a number of ways to do this but it is a new topic.

    SEO: Meta Tags

    There cannot be enough emphasis on Meta tags. Meta tags are in the invisible part of your page. It forms part of the source code. This is where the Title, Description, and Keywords, are placed for the search engines. Most engines will not be able to find your site if a Meta Tag is not present. This area is very important because this is where you place your main keywords and the description of your site. Once again, the relation to the title, description and content becomes important. Donít stuff this area with long descriptions since the search engines will throw your page out if the description is too long, or the keywords repeated three or more times. Keep a balance.

    You must write a robot.txt file for the spiders to exclude certain parts of your page. The reason is that most of them cannot read Java, and CGI scripts. There are a number of extensions to pages that will lead to exclusion from search engines.

    Other SEO factors that also influence the way your page will indexed:

    – ALT, TITLE, and AUTHOR tags.

    – Number and quality of links to your site.

    – Links from your site.

    – Sitemap for search engines.

    – Names of links to your other pages.

    – Color and total number of links

    These are just a few of the online and offline factors that influence your ranking. SEO is needed to make your page visible on the Internet where you have to compete with other sites.