Abhishek Bakshi

Tag: search engine optimization

  • Improve Your Online Business With Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Summary:
    So youíve got that wonderful work-at-home online business up and running. Youíve got a dynamite website with easy to use navigation, a slew of well written, entertaining and pertinent articles, and more revenue-generating links than you can handle. But for some reason, the hits just arenít coming and your business isnít making as much money as you deserve. How do you turn a struggling online business into a profitable online business?

    The first thing you have to ask yourse…

    So youíve got that wonderful work-at-home online business up and running. Youíve got a dynamite website with easy to use navigation, a slew of well written, entertaining and pertinent articles, and more revenue-generating links than you can handle. But for some reason, the hits just arenít coming and your business isnít making as much money as you deserve. How do you turn a struggling online business into a profitable online business?

    The first thing you have to ask yourself is, ëHow are people hearing about my site?í In an Internet dominated by search engines like Google and Yahoo, high search engine ranking is a must. Why? Most search engines show ten results per page, ranked in order, and most users never make it past the first page. That means that if your website is going to be found, it needs to be top 10. But how? How!? Take a look at the title of this article. Thatís right. Through search engine optimization. SEO is a simple concept. Use the words that people will probably enter into search engines strategically in the content of your website. This article is using a couple of SEO keywords, like Online Business or Search Engine Optimization, the very subjects people might search for if looking for an article like this. See how easy it is? Two more keywords without interrupting the flow of the article!

    Using search engine optimization effectively may mean redesigning most of the content on your website. When youíre doing that try to keep in mind these Six Commandments of SEO.

    THOU SHALT KNOW THINE ENEMIES

    Knowing what keywords to use is the most important part of SEO. This means research. Lots of research. Start off by trying to find your site on various search engines. Chances are you wonít, at least not on the first page. Write down the top 10 results you do get. These sites are your competition. Try a few different combinations of search terms. Are there any sites that appear more than once? Check those out. What keywords or phrases are used over and over? What are the titles of pages? What is the content about? What is the web address? These are potential keywords Record them. These will be the basis for your own search engine optimization.

    THOU SHALT NOT USE KEYWORDS WANTONLY

    Keywords should be thought of as compliments; the more you give, the less meaning they have. By the same token, not giving enough wonít get you noticed. Use them wisely. Find that happy ratio of keywords to normal. A general rule of thumb in search engine optimization is 2.5-4% of your content should be keywords; no more, no less.

    THOU SHALT MAKE SURE ALL CONTENT IS SENSIBLE

    Donít fall SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION into the tempting ONLINE BUSINESS trap of SEARCH ENGINES using keywords randomly SEO in order to increase your search engine rank. Tough to read, wasnít it? Kinda made you want to scream and tear your hair out? Content above keywords. If your articles are so keyword rich that they donít make sense, users wonít return and youíll lose repeat revenue. All the search engine optimization in the world is useless if your users donít stay on the site long enough to put cash in your pocket. Search engines pick up on this tricks anyway. Besides, itís just plain dirty fighting.

    THOU SHALT VARY KEYWORD USAGE

    So youíve done your research and have a list of 25 keywords you want to use in your site. Each article has a primary keyword or two. Unfortunately, every article on the site is using the same two keywords. What about the other 23? Donít let yourself be tempted by the ease of using the same words over and over. Write articles about all 25 keywords. You spent all that time researching them, now use them! And just because one article is about one keyword doesnít mean you canít use other keywords in the article. Use the non-primary keywords like salt sprinkled over the entire site.

    THOU SHALT UPDATE

    Getting that number one search engine rank was hard. It took hours of work, and now that youíve reached the pinnacle itís time to sit back and reap the benefits. Right?

    WRONG!

    How long do you think that number one ranking will last? You know your competitors got mad when you beat them and are redesigning their sites right now. Right now, I say! Eventually theyíll pull ahead of you again, unless you manage to stay ahead in the game. Update your site constantly with new keyword rich content to make sure that youíre on the cutting edge and can keep that number one ranking.

    NEVER FORGET: THOU ART NOT ALONE

    Search engine optimization can seem like a daunting task at first, and maybe it is. But never forget that there are people out there willing and able to help you; it is, after all, how they make a living. Some writers specialize in SEO and there are websites available that do most of the research grunt work just waiting to hear from you. So no matter how daunting a task it may seem, donít ever give up on search engine optimization. In an internet where everything depends on page hits, your search engine rank can never be too high.

  • All Link Types and SEO

    Summary
    This article covers a much discussed topic in the SEO community. Also, clients and often site owners come up with questions about what links to get, and how to get them. Note that I will not consider reciprocal links here, because of better alternatives, and because their effectiveness only applies to a small number of sites, who use them under 10% of their overall link ratio. I will review the main types you want to get for your site.

    This article covers a much discussed topic in the SEO community. Also, clients and often site owners come up with questions about what links to get, and how to get them. Note that I will not consider reciprocal links here, because of better alternatives, and because their effectiveness only applies to a small number of sites, who use them under 10% of their overall link ratio. I will review the main types you want to get for your site.

    The natural one-way links.
    This one is solely based in good content and resources. This is the safest method of link building available as far as search engines, which look at the ìintentî of links. But it is also the slowest. If your site is new, then as part of its launch, submit it to niche web directories. Start with a few highly trusted directories, but do not have more than 10-15% of your overall links coming from them. Don’t overlook industry-specific directories that may be paid or unpaid. These usually send highly qualified traffic and can be a real bargain. Directories will get you site many natural one-way links, at a natural speed of growth. This combination of type and speed is very beneficial. Look for sites that would benefit from offering users your content.

    Linkbaiting, or link bait.
    This one is not easy, and involves creativity. But it is worth every effort. Linkbaiting refers to content, videos, images or anything on your site that is created with the intention of increasing links to it. It is highly effective in getting links, probably the cheapest too, based on the cost of the ìbaitî you use, has no negative effects from the search engines, at least not for the moment, since all links generated look natural. When complemented by social bookmarking, the networks associated with these links will add even more value to them.

    Paying for links, or paid links.
    These links can have great short-term search benefits. These are good mainly for sites that have tons of pages with content, and have been well established online for years. In addition, these sites also have tons of natural links to them, again because they had been well established online for years. These are not recommended for new sites. Look for sites that are highly on topic with yours, and in complementary niches. A very important factor in the evaluation of these links, like any other, is age. And the latest ìGoogle Slapî effect were sites fall pass the top 30 in the listings, is affecting primarily those which do heavy link buying.

    Bad links and their effects.
    Outbound links play a big role in the way search engines determine who your ìneighborhoodî is. Bad neighborhoods will affect your search engine rankings. Things like FFA (Free For All) link pages, links farms, etc, fall in this category. Note that this has nothing to do with your pages going into the supplemental index. That is not the kind of penalty these links cause for your site. And the amount of bad links considered is a big one. A small amount of them would not trigger a penalty, but make sure that your site is not related in any way to those link patterns.

  • 5 Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

    Summary

    Effective SEO may seem difficult at first, but using little tricks that require little or no programming knowledge, could make a huge impact on your website’s keyword ranking.

    The lifeblood of any website/ecommerce business is traffic, and every webmaster knows the best type of traffic is natural, organic search engine traffic. There are two very important reasons for this: (1) it is extremely targeted, and (2) It is FREE! The hard part is getting top ranking for your sites keywords… or is it? The purpose of this article is to provide a few simple, effective, and most important, search engine friendly strategies to help boost your websites’ ranking and ultimately your traffic.

    1. We will start with the Meta Tags. I know you have already heard of, and are probably currently using meta tags on your site. This is great. I just want to make sure you are using them effectively. We will only go over 2 tags: the “title” tag, and the “description” tag. We will not go over the “keywords” tag, as the major search engines have placed less and less weight on this one, and some would argue this tag has no weight at all. I still use this tag however, as I feel there is some merit and no drawbacks to using this tag.

    I have found it effective to use similar text in the “title” and “description” tags, and to place your keywords prominently in these tags (near the beginning and more than once). I have seen sites with “sitename.com”, “New Page 1”, or “Welcome to my site” in the “title” tag, which really does not help in their quest for higher rankings for their particular keyword. Also, try not to use words such as “and”, “or”, or “the” in these tags.

    **Important note about your keywords. Search engines evaluate keyword prominence, keyword weight, and keyword density when determining a site’s ranking. All three are calculated individually for the page, the title tag, the description tag, as well as other areas on a page. Keyword prominence means how close the keyword is to the beginning of your page. Keyword weight refers to how many times a particular keyword or phrase can be found on the page. Keyword density is the ratio of the keyword to the other words on the page. You do not want the keyword weight or density to be too high, as this can appear to the search engine as “keyword stuffing” and most search engines penalize sites that stuff their keywords.

    1. Place your navigational links (and JavaScript) at the right or at the bottom, but not on the left, of the page. When the search engines “read” your site, they read from the top left to the bottom right. Search engines place an emphasis on the first 100 words or text on the site. You do not want these words to be navigational links or Javascript. Ideally, you want to have your heading tags with your keywords in the beginning of your page. This being said, placing your links/JavaScript on the right or bottom of your page ensures the search engine spiders get to the text first, giving more weight to what’s important on your page.
    2. Place alt tags on all of your images. Search engine spiders cannot “read” pictures or images. The only way a spider knows what an image is about is by reading the alt tag. This is also another chance to place more of your keywords in your HTML, improving your page’s keyword weight/density. Alt tags are easy to make and they can make a big difference in your sites keyword ranking. A simple alt tag looks like this: alt=”put your keyword phrase here.” Search engines separately calculate keyword prominence, density, and weight in alt tags as well, so optimize your tags.
    3. Place your keywords at the bottom of your page. Just as search engines place more weight on the first words of your page, they also do the same to the last words. The general thinking is this, if your site is about a certain subject, then the main points, or keywords, should, appear at the beginning, be spread throughout the page, and be prominent at the conclusion. But if you have all of your navigational links and JavaScript at the bottom, your relevant page text could end well before the HTML does. An easy way to have your keywords at the bottom of your page is to include them in the copyright information. For example, if you have a dog food website, you could have something like this at the very bottom of the page:

    copyright 2005 yoursite.com
    World’s best dog food

    Search engines are not (as of this writing), penalizing sites using this technique, and it wouldn’t really make much sense for them to do so.

    1. The Anchor Text of your links. Anchor text is the actual linking text on a site. It is what the user clicks on to navigate to that particular site or page. If a search engine finds many links to your site using the term “dog food”, then the search engine concludes your site is about “dog food”. This is overlooked quite often, but it seems to have a very large impact on your search engine rankings for a particular keyword. Your anchor text needs to be the keyword or phrase you are trying to target. Try to avoid anchor text such as “Click Here” or “yoursite.com”

    Also, if you’re running a reciprocal link campaign, be sure to use variations of your text. If an engine notices every link to your site is identical, it could place less weight on these links or potentially penalize your site. This is because search engines generally give more weight to “naturally occurring” links, and less to “reciprocal link exchange campaigns”. Using different, but relevant anchor text can dramatically affect your targeted keyword rankings, by making your links appear more natural.

    Effective SEO may seem difficult at first, but as you have read above, little tricks that require little or no programming knowledge, can make a huge impact on your website’s keyword ranking.

  • 4 Tips For Raising Your Search Engine Rankings

    Summary

    Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a web site that needs more traffic. If your web site doesnít have a good position in the rankings then it will be hard to find.

    Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a web site that needs more traffic. If your web site doesnít have a good position in the rankings then it will be hard to find.

    Since most searchers click on the first few results, you need to make sure that your web site is ranked highly enough so that people can easily find it on the first page of search engine results. Although no search engine optimization company can guarantee a high rankings for your site permanently, often times hiring a web marketing company will pay off many times over. For those of you doing it yourself or those of you that want to ensure your marketing company is doing a good job, here are some tips for raising the search engine rankings of your web site.

    1. Content

    Content is an important factor in high search engine rankings. Make sure that you have plenty of content throughout your site with your target keywords in the articles. Itís also worth doing a search for web sites similar to yours and taking a look at their articles for ideas. Keywords are an important factor and they should be used throughout the content of your website.

    1. Web Site URL

    Your web siteís URL can help you rank higher with the search engines if it contains your keywords. However, donít think that naming your site after your keywords will always help your rankings ñ you need to do more than just that. But still, it is one of the factors in improving a search engine ranking.

    1. Search Terms

    Search terms should be written out in text, instead of graphics. If you use pictures, be sure to give them alt tags. If you want a good rank in search engines then these things that may seem small should be considered, as search engines can read the text but not the graphics.

    1. Page Title

    The title of your page is very important, and if you choose the title properly then it can surely make a big difference in search engine ranking. Terms such ëfree article on safe children’s toysí, or ëcontact the children’s toy expert todayí are good to use as titles on pages containing such content. The titles themselves are very specific to the page and also may not have much competition being as specific as they are. The title area is the most important place to include your keyword phrases, so make sure that you utilize it.

    Master these four tips and you’ll be on your way to getting free traffic. Look for other tips to keep your site moving up.