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.
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SEO SPAM techniques are practices and tactics, which are banned and strictly prohibited by search engines, you may find few websites applying these SPAM techniques and having good positions, it doesn’t mean that search engines have allowed those websites, it may be because those sites are not yet caught, I would like to mention one thing here that I’m writing about these techniques to create awareness in Young SEOs so that they can avoid using them, I would highly recommend everybody to avoid using these SPAM techniques.
List of the SEO SPAM Techniques
- Hidden Text
- Doorway Page
- Hidden Tags
- Useless Meta Tags
- Search Engine Specific Pages
- Redirection
- Keyword Stuffing
- Duplicate Content
- Cloaking / IP Delivery
- Link farming / Un-natural Linking
- Over Optimization
- Mini-Site network
- Blog / Forum Abuse
- Link Exchange / Reciprocal Links
- Excessive CSS Playing
1. Hidden Text
There are two types of hidden text, the first type of hidden text is invisible text to human visitors by keeping text color same as background, the second type of hidden text is text that is hidden behind images or under document layers.
2. Doorway Page
Doorway is one of the oldest SEO SPAM techniques, in this technique web pages are developed keeping search engines in mind, they point to website but they are not linked with website that’s why they are called doorway through which website will be accessed.
3. Hidden Tags
There are plenty of tags used by webmasters to perform variety of functions such as “comment, style, noframe and http-equiv tags”. Unethical SEOs use these tags by inserting keywords to them.
4. Useless Meta Tags
There is a huge list of meta tags but search engine spiders don’t read all, using all meta tags probably won’t make your website penalized but it could badly hurt your website ranking, since all those useless meta tags will occupy initial characters of your web pages and search engines gives lot of importance to initially used web content.
5. Search Engine Specific Pages
Search engine specific pages are multiple but similar documents, specially designed to focus the requirements of various search engines algorithms. This SPAM technique is no longer applicable, today search engines are more intelligent and enough efficient to catch this technique.
6. Redirection
Redirection is a technique in which one page redirects the visitors / search engine spiders to another page or domain, redirection is a SPAM technique and it is usually done through JavaScript or meta refresh tag.
7. Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is 100% SPAM technique, in this technique bunch of keywords are kept at webpage it may be in anchor link, alt tag or at bottom of the webpage.
8. Duplicate Content
There were days, when you can copy content from other website and keep it to yours and even bring good results in search engines, but search engine are getting smarter everyday. It’s even hard to have duplicate content on similar domain these days, search engines are extremely intelligent to recognize either the content is original or copied.
9. Cloaking / IP Delivery
Cloaking is a SPAM technique, in which one set of information is served to search engine spiders and another set of information is served to visitors, it’s mostly done by IP tracking that’s why it’s also called IP Delivery, search engines don’t like webmaster to treat them different than visitors.
10. Link farming / Un-natural Linking
Link farming or un-natural linking is a technique in which webmaster try to have more incoming links pointing to their domain unethically by FFA or link buying. Search engines are very smart these days, they can easily recognize un-natural linking by link monitoring.
11. Over Optimization
After Google’s Florida update, there is a new term called “Over Optimization” introduced to SEO industry, in that update, those websites got penalized which have excessive optimization. There is no criteria to measure search engine optimization efforts either they are balanced or over, but one thing is for sure and that is excessive optimization or implementation of SEO techniques comparatively than your competitors.
12. Mini-Site network
Google gives huge importance to qualified incoming links to any domain that encourages Black-Hat SEOs to create multiple relevant websites pointing back to a central sales website. The primary purpose of those multiple relevant websites is to win Google Trust and get good PR because they can control everything on all these domains, since they belong to same company and behave as mini-site network.
13. Blog / Forum Abuse
Blog / forum abuse is another SPAM technique, in this technique unethical SEOs try to get link back to their domains by posting their links to blogs and forums, it may be through their signature or through their own promotion.
14. Link Exchange / Reciprocal Links
Link exchange is Black-hat technique in which two or more websites exchange their links to influence Google, these links can be two ways and three ways, and this technique is also called reciprocal linking.
15. Excessive CSS Playing
Excessive CSS playing is very hot technique these days, in which webmaster controls website formatting through CSS. Actually search engine likes heading, bold, italic, paragraph, hyperlink, anchor link tags but sometimes utilizing all these tags can spoil the look of the website, that’s why webmaster control formatting through CSS.
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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.
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There is a misconception related to dynamic websites that dynamic websites are not search engine friendly or they can’t have good positions in major search engines. This is absolutely wrong, dynamic websites can have better and more controlled positions in search engines comparatively than static websites.
What is a dynamic website?
A dynamic website is database driven website in which parts of the content are generated by Server Side Programs/ Middle Tier.
Dynamic webpage doesn’t physically exist as a file/document on (hosting) server, unless the request comes for a webpage. The request contains parameters, user identities, date & time, context etc.
Problems with Dynamic Websites according to Search Engines
This is true that search engines are not good at reading dynamic web pages, but there is always a solution for any problem, first you need to understand that why search engines are unable to read dynamically generated websites? What hurts them not to read dynamic web pages?
- Dynamic webpage doesn’t physically exit on server
- Dynamic website has complex URLs such as “ http://www.wahidqazi.com?name=value&blabla%blabla@session_id@2226897&blabla=77
- Search engine bots/crawlers usually have difficulty in reading these characters “?”, “=”, “@”, “%”, “$”, “*”, “&”, “!” in URLs
- Search engine usually considers dynamic website as group of never ending links
- Search engine bots/crawlers might get stuck in an infinite loop, specially if the dynamic webpage has session id
Tips to Optimize Dynamic Websites
Now you know what hurts search engine bots/crawlers to index your website? What you need to know is that how you can keep your valuable website indexed by search engines, the more your web pages are indexed the better your website will impress search engines
- Create an HTML sitemap with 100 text links or less. If you have more than 100 links, break the sitemap into more than one web pages
- Google Sitemap will also be an advantage, specially if your website is big and dynamic
- Get inbound links deep into your website from other relevant websites such as directories, classified directories, vertical industrial portals
- Convert dynamic web pages into static web pages with the help of URL re-writing techniques
- You can use some plug-in applications that will change your existing dynamic URLs into static ones, specially for shopping carts there are plenty of applications available
- Avoid using session IDs in the URL, specially when user has not logged in
- If you do need to include parameters, limit it to two and limit the number of characters per parameter to ten or less
- If you do have small dynamic website and enough time you can apply this technique. Just right click on page by page of you website, copy the source code and create new static page with .htm or .html extensions
URL Rewriting Techniques and Tools
A rewrite engine is a piece of web server software application that is used to modify URLs before fetching the requested items for a variety of purposes.
Rewrite Engine for Apache HTTP server:
Apache HTTP server has a rewrite engine called mod_rewrite, which has been described as “the Swiss Army knife of URL manipulation”
Rewrite engines for Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS):
- IISRewrite from Qwerksoft
- ISAPI_Rewrite from isapirewrite.com
- URL Replacer from Motobit
- Ionic’s ISAPI Rewrite Filter (IIRF) (open source) from Ionic Shade
Rewrite HttpModule for Microsoft ASP.NET:
- URLRewriting.NET
Rewrite engine for Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Servlet container servers:
- Apache Tomcat, Resin, Orion etc)
- HttpRedirectFilter (open source)
- UrlRewriteFilter (open source) – allows you to rewrite URLs before they get to your Servlets, JSP’s, Struts etc
- URL Rewriter (open source – LGPL) – URL Rewriter is a tool for rewriting URLs in Java Servlets. It is similar to mod_rewrite
Conclusion:
Dynamic websites are not impossible to optimize, it’s just a small fine tune that you need to keep in mind when developing a dynamic website, if you can understand the problems search engine bots/ crawlers have to face when crawling your website, you can better prepare your website, so that search engine bots/crawlers can easily index your valuable website.
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Title tag is the most important part of your web page, which is normally neglected by most webmasters and designers, in fact there are few SEOs who think optimizing “Title Tag” is worthless. Title tag plays very important role in page optimization and in this article you’ll learn how to optimize it.
What Is The Title Tag?
It’s an HTML tag use as a title or heading of the web page, it shows input text on the blue bar at the web page, it is declared at the beginning of the webpage under head tag.
Example: <title>Your Home Page Title</title>
Why Is The Title Tag Important?
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.
Tips To Write Effective Page Title:
- Try to place your most important keyword phrase at the beginning of the tag
- Use your primary keyword phrase in the title tag at least once
- Avoid using the same words multiple times
- Use plural form of keyword phrase, specially which includes complete singular word in it (Example: manufacturers)
- Use sentence case for keyword phrase but keep preposition in lower case
- Keep your title tag’s limit under 70 to 90 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
- Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
- Avoid using stopping words such as or, and , with, for, by, etc
- Use unique title tag for each page, since each page has unique content
- Make your title interesting and “compelling” to the reader to convince them why they should click there
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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.
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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?
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