Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

Optimizing your site is definitely a necessity, but overdoing it will hurt your site. All this talk on SEO dying is hogwash. If it were, then there would be no search engines. SEO is not dying.

The issue that some people are hurt over is the fact that they actually have to write great content AND engage with others out on the social networks. Come on, this should have been a no brainer a long time ago. If you have gone shopping, been a business owner of a store, or actually have worked in the retail or service industry, it takes engagement.

It works the same online. People could care less about who you are unless you show them that you care about what they want to know. This still applies even in the case that you are a blogger who makes money off of advertising, sponsored reviews, and such. You still have to connect with others, and share your articles on the social networks as well as others. Its a give and take relationship… I know, such a cliché, but it is true.

You want people to trust you, right? You want to build an authority in your niche? You want to make money, right? (At least for those reading this and are building a business with their site.)

Then you know what you need to do – get social! It is a necessary investment.

What is a 404 page? It is a page that tells your visitors when they go to a specific page that it no longer exists.

Using a custom page for this is a benefit, especially to search engines like Google. The search engines index websites and all of their pages, including the 404 page.

One way is to redirect, but this is not highly encourageable. You could make a redirect, but the search engine (ex. Google) would index the page and your site when searched could read “Page not found” instead of your homepage. In doing this procedure, you could accidentally have the search engine alter the indexing by removing non-existent pages. So, in other words, that same re-direct could get your homepage de-indexed by accident.

The other way, is the custom page. You can do this through your content management (ex. CMS software like WordPress) or your regular html pages. Instead of just posting “404, page not found” or “you have reached this page out of error”, here are some suggestions:

1. Make your page informative. You can add “Sorry, this page does not exist”, but do not stop there. Add a way to contact you whether it be an email address posted or a contact form.
2. Add a few special links to the page that might interest your visitors. Four or five links might be nice.
3. Conform your page to match your site. A plain 404 is an annoyance to deal with already and having little information will make the visitor give up and go elsewhere.
4. Make sure to add your sidebar/ navigation to the page. It is as usefull as the special interest links and widens the possibilities that your visitor will stay and surf your site.
5. Verify that your 404 page actually returns a 404 error. You can do this by using Google Webmaster Tools.

I know, I know, it really sucks! All that effort you put into optimizing your site for search engines might actually come back to bite you in the butt. At SWSW 2012 (South by Southwest conference), Matt Cutts, and several others spoke about search engine optimization in their panel “Dear Google & Bing: Help Me Rank Better!”

I have been talking about not over-optimizing for some time. So, perhaps I need to first address how people do over-optimize on SEO.

• Heavy Keyword density in articles. You may want to keep your keyword density under 1.4%, which is normally 3 or 4 times within a 400 to 500 word article.
• Too many link exchanges, especially with links not relevant to their site’s content. Blogrolls are fine, but are they all going out to sites that have no relevancy to your site? It is important to make sure that you create a specific relevant list for your sitewide blog roll, and maybe a separate page with links to other sites. Giving all your friends some link juice might not be a great idea.
• Unintelligible heavy keyword density throughout site. The biggest thing I see is writing specifically for the search engine, especially for local optimization. For example, “your keyword, your city” is used constantly throughout each article. Perhaps try “Your keyword in your city.” This makes far more sense grammatically. Write for humans!
• Too many links above the fold that have no strong conversion (weak content). If you are linking to pages that may not have content that you are trying to rank for or that your visitors have no interest in visiting, it might be a good idea to pull the link from the top.
• Too many ads, even if they are relevant to their site above the fold (this includes text links.)
• Too many scripts. Sometimes those extra SEO scripts in those plugins might be slowing your site down. Better yet, maybe you have quite a few plugins installed to your site that are injecting a lot of code to execute and slow your site down. Keep it simple.
• A slow site. It might be your host. It might be a website with heavy graphics. It might be too many plugins loading to make your site work. Site speed is important to a lot of people. 4 seconds or faster is a good rule of thumbs when aiming to have a faster site.

The search engines ARE gearing more toward social search engines where people who are visiting your site, liking, sharing, and recommending your site will rank you better than that site that is over-optimized and not socially connected. While for some, this might suck, it really levels the playing field with people honestly ranking locally or globally and actually engaging with others.

Oh, and as the panel at SXSW 2012 covered- you are NOT guaranteed top ranking just because you optimized. There are many SEO companies that guarantee top ranking and they should not be, especially if your site is usually a very popular and competitive niche.

It is okay to write with keyword density in mind and some optimizing. However, it is better to be natural, keep it simple, and of course, share and engage with your readers.

What do you do when you optimize your site for SEO?

Sitemaps are important because they allow the search engines like Google and Yahoo! to index your entire site and leave it available for other internet users to find. A sitemap is defined:

A site map (or sitemap) is a representation of the architecture of a web site. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion.
From Wikipedia. Original definition by Peter Morville, Information Architecture on the World Wide Web, Feb 1998, pp:58

A sitemap allows search engines to crawl your site more efficiently and index fresh material from any website. If a webmaster has move or deleted material, the search engine would recognize and change the search engine results to reflect the website change. Although having a sitemap eliminates most of the work that a webmasters takes in submitting a website to search, it does not totally eradicate the effort.
Sitemaps accepted by search engines are general coded in XML format, not HTML. However, a webmaster may create a sitemap structure with HTML for their visitors. For WordPress users, this can be easily done with the installation of Dagon Design Sitemap Generator. (Of course there are plenty of other sitemap plugins too.) Currently, the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator plugin is not an accepted sitemap, however, there is a great plugin that Google recognizes, which is the Google XML Sitemaps plug-in. Once one or both of the plug-ins mentioned have been installed, it is best to go to Google Webmaster Tools to inform them where to find the sitemap.

Sitemaps are not another new fad as they have been around for years. It was not until 2006, that search engine moguls like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN got together to create the guidelines behind a proper sitemap. Since then, sitemaps have been used as a vital technique for search engine optimization. Why? Well, as said earlier in the article, a sitemap would tell the search engine how fresh the content of a page is on any website and post it so internet users can find information they need. Sitemaps would recognize new material and direct crawlers to the information for indexing.

Outside Related Links:

• Sitemaps XML format – Sitemaps.org
• Major Search Engines Unite to Support a Common Mechanism for Website Submission

Do you have a sitemap for your site? Any other benefits you can think of when having a sitemap for your site?

A lot of times when I go to my WordPress administrator panel, I look at the trackbacks. Sometimes it may be someone referenced a post in twitter, or another person’s blog.

According to Wikipedia,

A trackback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents.

Same can be said of pingbacks. Pingbacks are more of a request to alert sites that you linked to them. It is different at the trackback is not what you send like a pingback, but what you received- an acknowledgement of sorts. In pingbacks there is no content sent, but only an alert. For a better understanding, you can read about it in the Managing Comments section at the WordPress Codex.

This can be great SEO for you and other bloggers who bounce ideas back and forth over similar topics. While you could definitely use the person’s comment system, in blogging about the conversation and sharing your point while including a reference to the original source will allow your visitors to not just respond to you, but also possibly respond to another.

I find that a lot of times when I have written articles filled with opinion based on another’s article, that I often receive feedback. It is in no way an underhanded tactic. As said, it is a way to share the conversation with other people and encourage more interaction on a topic. This is one way to use trackbacks successfully.

However, it can also backfire and seem like an underhanded and obvious search engine optimization tactic if I were to just blab out a bunch of related subject links without tying them together with valuable thoughts. I would just have to make my site some type of robot that published random stories within a certain niche.

Although posting frequently can create more possible pingbacks, it could prove tiresome and also look to be a desperate SEO tactic. The point is to try to entice quality trackbacks. Those will be sites that have people who are looking to give more feedback on a particular subject if the original article only says so much.

Above all, make sure to give appropriate anchor links when credit original sources. Sometimes listing the article’s full name or specific keywords will do, but if those keywords are quite vague. For example, when I blog about Google webmaster tools, I put ‘Google’ in front, instead of just ‘webmaster tools’. Webmaster tools can be quite vague as there are plenty of sites – in fact millons listed in Google when searching for webmaster tools. Although the link it listed at the top, with ‘webmaster tools’ only the first 2 listings on the first page list what I am exactly looking for while the other lists more relevant links.

Do you like to use pingbacks and trackbacks? How do you use this linking method successfully? Got any pointers?

Google+ quite recently launched a new feature called Google+ brand pages. This was quite similar to the Facebook pages. The feature also provided certain other perks to the companies as their profile could be searched directly from the Google search bar by adding a ‘+’ before the brand name. Also, the brands can use the Google+ brand badge, which can be put up at the main site to directly connect to the brand page.

Though these are still early days, these brand pages have already had some impact on the search engine’s result pages. Here is quick look at how companies have used these brand pages and how it has affected their internet marketing campaign.

Brands present on Google+

Brightedge recently conducted a research and found out that the number of companies present on Google+ through brand pages was 77 in December 2011 and this number has increased from 61 in November 2011. The number of people who add these brand pages circles has also been increasing considerable at the rate of 50% per month. As of December 2011, there were 222,000 people who had added at least a single brand to their pages.

The picture is a bit bleak when you compare it with Facebook but that is due to the fact that Google+ has not had enough time in the market. When all the top brands were compared on both Facebook and Google+ it was found that Facebook brands had 300 million fans, and the same brands on Google+ had 148,000 people who had added these brands to their circles. There were a few companies like Google, IBM, and Vodafone that were not present on Facebook but had their page on Google+.

Combining the social and search elements

When Facebook launched the Open Graph, its main aim was to combine sites, search and social networks. Google is trying to do the same thing by incorporating various features of its social networking platform into its other services. Many of the brands have realized that Google in fact may offer them something completely different in terms of internet marketing as it has control over internet search like no other company.

The impact is visible already, as a lot of Google+ brand pages have started coming up in the search engine result pages because of search engine optimization. One such example is T-mobile. This gives companies an extra incentive to join Google+ and spend more time on making the brand pages. The move also makes a lot of sense when you consider the fact that 34% of Facebook’s traffic comes from Google, Bing and Yahoo searches.

Legal aspects

Some people are of the opinion that by including the brand pages in search engines Google is acting a bit like Microsoft when they included Internet Explorer in Windows during the 90′s. In fact, two US senators have asked the Federal trade Commission (FTC) to carry out an investigation on Google as they believe the company is taking unfair advantage of the dominant position it has on the web today.

What are your thoughts on Google+ Brand Pages?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of enhancing the visibility of a website. There will be more visitors to your website if your site tops in the search engine listings. In order to make your website top in the search results, it is important that you write attractive and relevant content and incorporate the right keywords in the content. Here are a few tips that will assist you to strategically place the keywords in your piece.

The headline

Place the keywords in the headlines because the search engines look for the headlines to classify a piece. Simple, straightforward headlines with keywords can easily grab the attention of readers too.

Place them in the first paragraph 

If possible try to place the keywords in the very first paragraph itself. If relevant keywords appear in the first paragraph, your piece will be easily picked up by the search engine. Make sure your first paragraph is well-written in order to fetch the attention of the readers.

Subheads

Another place to incorporate the keywords is the subheads of the article. Search engine do not scan the text word by word. They tend to pick up the articles that have keywords in their subheads. Moreover, bolded headlines assist the search engines to spot the keywords easily as they make the search engines to stay on a particular page for a longer period of time. So, if you can place the keywords in the bolded subheads, your piece will be top in the search rankings.

Since the search engine scan the pages, looking for the keywords, it is not good to have a dense web copy. Break the piece using subheads and keep the paragraphs relatively short. Such pieces are easy to read too.

If you can write humorous and catchy subheads, you can easily make your site rank in the search list and can grab the attention of the readers.

The final paragraph

The main keywords should appear in the last paragraph of the piece too. If possible try to place them in the last sentence of the piece. Your piece will have more visibility if the keywords are located in the last paragraph too.

Website body

The keywords should be present in the body of the article. If you can, try to place them after every 100 words, depending on your keyword density. When you place the keywords, make sure that the sentences make perfect sense.

URL

Try to position your keywords in the URL of your website. Use hyphens to separate the text in the URL.  Do not use underscores to separate the text.

If you can find the right keywords and place them in your articles well, your website will easily top in the search list. It is important to have fresh content too as the search engines tend to pick up fresh pieces. The readers too will be interested to read fresh articles. Make your piece new, entertaining and informative to attract the readers.

In a matter of a few years, search engine optimization has grown into a big industry. Many articles and blogs are written dedicated to spreading knowledge about SEO, and covering aspects like identifying the right keywords, social media marketing and link building. Yet there is one aspect that is not very well looked into- how do you know the value of a link? Since building inbound links will be a critical part of your SEO strategy, this is a question that cannot be ignored.

The basic rule of thumb in finding out whether to link from a certain site or not depends on the potential of that site to deliver relevant visitors through the link. Relevant sites with high traffic will not only send you targeted traffic, they will also prove to be more valuable in terms of improving your search engine ranking for certain keywords. Here are a few factors that determine whether a site will prove to be useful or not.

Geographical location

The geographical location of the site you are linking on will be a factor worth considering. For instance, if you run a hardware store in the UK and want to build links to draw traffic to your site, then linking from a site that is also UK based would be a better idea.

Audience of the site

You create a link on another website in the hope that the link will draw enough amount of traffic to your site. So you must make sure that the site on which you are creating a link must have some sort of following in terms of visitors. You can find visitor figures of certain sites in the “about us” pages. Most websites these days also have plugins from social media sites like Facebook where people can “like” a particular page. Such figures will also let you know the following of the website.

Thematic similarity of the site

This is one of the most important factors that an SEO firm must consider while executing a campaign. Before you create a link on a particular site, you must make sure that the site deals with themes that are relevant to yours thematically. For instance, if you deal in computer equipment, creating links at an electronic equipment based site will drive more traffic to your site than linking from a site that deals with apparel. Regional relevance and thematic relevance are factors that go hand in hand in link building.

Reliability of Page Rank

Another useful piece of advice would be not to rely heavily on tools like PageRank to judge whether a link is good or not. In most cases, they may not be up to date or the number can be inflated.

Along with all these factors, you should also consider the reputation of the site, its age, and its authority in the field. And do not forget that simply building inbound links is not enough to make your online business a success. You should also ensure that you offer the users real value through your products and a great user experience on your site.