Showing posts with label content optimization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label content optimization. Show all posts

3 Simple SEO Tips For People Managing Their Own Websites

Do you manage your own website? If so, working on managing your own SEO can be very time consuming. This is not to say that it can’t be done, but sometimes SEO gets tossed to the side with other things going on in your business. To help you, I have 3 simple SEO tips that will help your efforts to stand out online.

1. Meta Tags

Meta tags are the words that you see at the top of the tab when you open up a page. They are usually the keywords that directly reflect what your business is about, and sometimes what city you are based in. This can also include the Meta Tag Description. Meta Tag Description is a short one or two sentence description that you can add into your website header. I also try to use one or two of the most searched keywords in this description to help with SEO. If you use WordPress, most themes come with preset areas for these descriptions.

SEO Experts Mumbai, Digital Marketing Consultant India - Vivek More

2. Keyword Density

Now that you have these 4 or 5 amazing keywords that you have used in your Meta Tags, you should also be using them on your home page content.  I know some of the keywords can sound sort of funny in regular everyday talk, but it really is important for you to add one or two of the keywords into your home page content for SEO purposes.

3. Copyscape

Now that you have updated your meta tags, meta description, and added keywords to your website, time to check out Copyscape. Every month or so, put your website in to the search box and see if anyone has copied your content. Or, in worst case scenario you have copied someone else’s content. This is a great tool to keep in your back pocket to ensure that someone else isn’t using what you have created.

SEO efforts do not always mean having to pay someone to do it for you. You can get your hands dirty with these three simple steps to get started. If you see your efforts paying off, and you feel that you are spending too much time on SEO, then hire out to get help.

What simple tips do you have for SEO newbies? There is so much to learn about SEO, we could be passing tips and tricks for years!



Article Source: www.steamfeed.com/3-simple-seo-tips-people-managing-websites/

Article Author: Laurie Thompson

Looking Ahead to the SEO Challenges of 2014 


2013 has been a tumultuous year for content marketers and SEO whizzes. The expansion of Penguin and Panda coupled with the launch of Hummingbird has shaken up much of the conventional wisdom regarding SEO marketing and shattered many of the shortcuts and tricks used in years past. With 2014 right around the corner, take a moment to assess the previous year’s efforts and reflect on what changes may still be in the works:

Mobile Technology vs. Massive Content

Google’s constant SEO updates do more than toy with SEO marketers. Ultimately, Google wants to provide the best return link for a user’s question. This goal means that more detailed data reaches the upper echelons of search engine returns. A study done by QuickSprout founder Neil Patel found that copy that ran around 2,000 words consistently landed on the first page of search results and, anecdotally, longer copy generated better leads and more response.

In many ways, the emerging importance of mobile content runs contrary to quality, in-depth content production. Mobile users need short, snappy content that can easily be navigated on a small screen. While full blown recreation of content into smaller bites for mobile users seems time consuming and like unnecessary work, bridging the gap between emerging technology and full screen marketing is a challenge marketers will face in the coming year. SEO marketers in 2014 will need to balance the importance of in-depth content with the short attention span and small screen size of mobile users.





Embrace Google+


While Google has chosen not to disclose the exact system for ranking webpages, the importance of Google+ and Google Authorship became ever more obvious in 2013. The unique URL provided to content published on Google+ creates more backlinks to work with, and the respectability of Google Authorship increases the amount of clicks produced from a search.

Climb of Visual Media

The way Internet users are gathering and sharing information has shifted slightly in the past few years. No longer is straight content enough; instead, sites like Pinterest and Instagram deal in visual content. While this, at first, seems outside the realm of content production, marketers need to continue developing links between content and pictorials.

Topic over Keyword

Hummingbird’s release also coincided with Google’s switch to a 100 percent secure search. SEO marketers who hadn’t responded to the increasing return of “keywords (not provided)” seemed blind-sided as a longer start date was expected. Still, the launch of Hummingbird fully switched all successful SEO marketers into thinking about organic keywords and informative topics rather than trying to punch a keyword into an article 20 times.

In this new year, this switch will only become more prevalent and important. No longer will information-scarce but keyword-rich content be highly regarded. Instead, marketers will need to provide quality content that fully explores the topic without a focus on a specific word.

Guest Blogging Still Rules

Guest blogging has grown from a sometimes hobby of niche blogs to a verified SEO marketing strategy. Despite the time and effort it takes to form relationships and seek out willing participants, guest blogging will continue to grow in 2014. The importance of links for rankings and the positive results seen from expanding an audience makes guest blogging the most straightforward route to search engine success.

While the catch up game has been extensive in 2013, SEO marketers in 2014 can at least rest assured that all search engine updates are moving in a specific, easily defined direction. While past years have required marketers to relearn the game, 2014 should be a year of gentle transitions to get content more in line with the ultimate goal of providing quality information to specific user questions.


Article from: sitepronews

7 Basic SEO Techniques All Webmasters Must Know

Technique #1 – Optimize your title tags

Every page on your website should have its own unique title tag. However, not all title tags are created equally!

From an SEO perspective, a good title tag should:

Be no more than 70 characters (including spaces)
Include both product- or service-related keywords and your company’s brand name
Be both intriguing and informative enough to prompt search engine users to click through to your page (as title tags are typically used in the snipped displayed in the natural search results)
To see what this all looks like in real life, let’s look at a hypothetical example of how this and the following SEO techniques could be put into practice…

Suppose you run an auto body shop in San Francisco, CA. You’ve recently launched a new website which includes a page on your current specials. After conducting your keyword research, you’ve decided to target the phrase “auto body coupon,” along with location modifiers that put your website in front of consumers in your city.

In this case, a good title tag could be:

“Auto Body Coupons and Discounts | Frank's Auto - San Francisco, CA”
In addition, as you’re crafting your title tags, avoid “keyword stuffing” these important fields. Title tags that are no more than a string of all your website’s target keywords (in this example, something like “Auto Body Coupons, Auto Body Discounts, Auto Body Savings”) frustrate visitors and can lead to over-optimization penalties by the search engines.

Technique #2 – Create compelling meta descriptions
Along with your title tags, the section of every page on your website should contain a customized meta description. These brief page summaries should be no more than 150-160 characters long and should include at least one mention of your page’s target keyword phrase.

Following our previous example, your meta description could read something like this:

“Need quality auto body repair work done at a discount price? Check out the latest auto body coupon codes from Frank's Auto of San Francisco, CA.”
While meta descriptions don’t hold nearly the SEO weight that they used to, their presence in the snippets found on search engine results pages plays an important role in your site’s overall click-through rate (CTR). By writing your meta descriptions in a way that captures search users’ attention, you’ll increase the number of visitors who choose to click on your listing compared to your competitors’.



Technique #3 – Utilize keyword-rich headings
Both the title tag and meta description should be included in the section of every page on your website – but what about the rest of your page’s content?

When it comes to your pages’ body text, one of the best things you can do to improve your overall SEO value is to include <h2> and heading tags containing your target keyword phrases in your content. Not only do the search engines place added weight on the words found in these particular tags, the visual relief they provide to your website’s readers will help them to move more efficiently through your site’s content.

Technique #4 – Add ALT tags to your images
If you choose to add images to your web pages, make sure to add ALT tags to them as well.

ALT tags originally came about to provide visually impaired website visitors using text-to-speech devises with additional information about the content on their screens. And though this initial purpose is still valid, the content found in these fields is also important when it comes to SEO.

Again, you shouldn’t “stuff” your ALT tag full of target keywords and keyword variations. Instead, use your ALT tags to clearly and accurately describe your website’s images, working in keyword phrases as they occur naturally.

Technique #5 – Create a sitemap
In the world of SEO, the search engines’ indexing programs – commonly referred to as “spiders” – play the important role of analyzing new websites (or new content added to existing websites) and adding their content to the lists of pages that can be displayed in response to user queries.

As a result, facilitating the easy movement of these spider programs throughout your own site is an important part of optimizing your content for natural search traffic.

One of the best things you can do to help the spiders index your website is to create a sitemap – a page listing links to all the other pages on your site. There are plenty of different automated tools that can generate these important pages for you, though you can always create a sitemap by hand if your site is small.

Technique #6 – Build internal links between pages

Another way to help the search engine spiders to catalogue all of your site’s pages is to create internal links that connect your different pieces of content.

As an example, instead of simply linking to your “Contact” or “About Us” page from your navigation bar, consider adding text links to these pages from within the body content found on your home page. Doing so is a great way to help your visitors find the information they’re looking for, in addition to providing a major SEO boost to your site’s content.

Technique #7 – Update your site regularly
One final SEO technique you’ll want to implement is to update your site periodically. Because the search engines’ top priority is serving up the results that will best meet their users’ needs, they prefer to share websites that contain the latest, most up-to-date information. In addition, the more content you post to your site, the more keywords your website will include – increasing your odds of generating search engine traffic.

The easiest way to make regular updating a part of your SEO strategy is to create a company blog or news section. Either one of these tools will help you to connect with your readers, while also appeasing the search engines’ desire for fresh content.

Unfortunately, implementing these seven basic SEO techniques on your website alone isn’t enough to guarantee that your site will reach the coveted top spot in the search engine results pages for your chosen keyword phrases overnight. Realistically, SEO is a process that takes time to deliver results – though many new webmasters find this frustrating.

Instead of getting overwhelmed by the number of different SEO techniques out there, start with these seven basics. Over time and with continued commitment to pleasing both your readers and the search engines, you will start to see results!

New Social Media Tool - Google +1 and Search Engine Rankings



Google has launched the new application called Google +1 very recently. If you have seen carefully, there is a +1 sign next to each search result in Google search results page. In this article, let’s take a look at this new tool on how it works, what are its effects on PageRank, are Google+1 and Search Engine Rankings related to each other, and how you can use it on your website.


Basically +1 is acts same as that of “Like” button on FaceBook or “Follow” on Twitter. But the effects of +1 are different from other two, as Google is basically a search engine as well as social media and blogging platform too. With +1 launched, Google is trying to strengthen its position in social media sector. As far its working is concerned, it will add one vote to the search result, website or blogpost, if a user presses on +1 sign next to it. When more number of people press +1, means vote for your website, it will be more trustworthy for Google.


Adding the Google+1 button to your own website is very easy. You have to copy-paste the following code on your website’s homepage and it will start working instantaneously. You need to place inside the <head> or just above the </body> tag of the webpage.


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<!– Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render –>


<g:plusone size="tall"></g:plusone>


Now comes the important question. Are Google +1 and Search Engine Rankings connected to each other in any way? Whether +1 also affects the Google PageRank of a website, is still not very clear. Some people say that it affects not directly but indirectly somewhere down the line. Whereas others claim that the PageRank is not at all affected by this new tool. However, there is good news for PPC marketers as +1 is going to be a permanent addiction in the Google AdWords. The anti-spam mechanism is already in place and if someone tries to vote more times to his or her own website to improve score, the website can be penalized.


According to some experts Google +1 is going to work in phases. During the first phase, Google will collect all the information for analysis and then during next phase, it will try to provide more personalized experience for searching and ranking operations