What does Google Instant mean to SEO and your Business?
Sep 22nd
Following the introduction of personalised search results at the turn of the year comes Google’s latest offering – Google Instant. If your business relies on your online presence then this affects you.
What is Google Instant?
For a while now Google has been serving up suggestions for results as you type through ‘Google Suggest’, helping you hit submit quicker to see the results. Google Instant is the next step on from this – delivering the results as you type. As you continue typing, the results displayed will also change accordingly.
The Way Your Customers Search Will Change
Google want to deliver the results to Users as quickly as possible so they continue to use the search engine. As users begin to spend less time formulating their query it is also more likely they will click on the first few results they see. Being on Page 1 and in the top SEO results will be more important than ever. More >
Successful Web Marketing
Aug 23rd
Success.
Everyone wants to get associated with this word. What has web marketing in store for your online business? In selling products and services inside the Internet, there is a procedure that is utilized in order to advance the brands and names for one purpose: to sell. Selling in the Web is different because a website must give concentration on ways to get the attention of users and how they can be baited. Therefore, there are devices that have been formulated to take advantage of the number that gets inside the Internet.
Considering the large population of Internet users, it would be fairly easy to catch them and point them to a certain site. However, these people cannot be manipulated that easy unless there is a common ground for all of them. What is that common ground? The search engines, a tool so widely used and an authority when talking of information gathering. Certainly, the individuals who make use of search engines are scattered all over the globe. Hence, this venue has been considered very viable to give information on your products. SEO is a process in Web marketing that allows your business to be included in the search results. More >
Other Factors to Consider in Assessing SEO Companies
Aug 18th
Unbelievably cheap SEO services can be more expensive. How? There are SEO companies that offer cheap services but actually for a particular SEO strategy only. Meaning, it is not a price for the whole SEO services in a package. You would be paying a lot more once you have signed up a contract with them. This method is obviously a fraudulent strategy you must avoid. There is another case. You are offered with cheap priced services but you are not getting any results. The reason is that they are using spamming method, making everything done through automation such as site submission, link generating, and others. This results to having your site, which you have invested with considerable amount of bucks, being banned from the search engines. Starting another site is costly.
You can also assess the companies’ credibility and reliability by asking tricky questions. Instead of directly asking them like this: “Do you use black hat SEO techniques?” you can ask them with questions like this: “How long will my site rank by automatically submitting my site to search engine directories?” Scammer sites would give you immediate answers as “in a matter of 3 weeks to 1 month.” Another way of knowing that any of your prospect SEO companies to be hired is a scam can be done by knowing the usual case. What is the usual case? Several cases happen in the agreement that takes place between the SEO Company and the SEO client. Let me mention only one: The scam SEO companies would ask what keywords should be used and you want your site to be optimized with. The credible and reliable ones don’t do this because since they are expert, they are the ones that assign best keywords for your site.
Some Useful Tips when doing Web Design
Aug 17th
Information is represented and conveyed in different ways and the Internet has become an important platform for the sharing and receiving data. Web design is just one of the many forms of presenting facts and figures in a creative and comprehensive manner. Because getting web access is relatively cheaper and more convenient so majority of the population today find it extra useful. If you are trying to come up with a website that is supposed to encompass your operations and the identity of your enterprise or organization, here are some basic web design tips that you would find useful. Grids must be excellently laid out. Deciding for column widths and how much space a specific information gets needs to be a product of careful planning. This is because grid systems are vital to the over-all look of your web site. Spacing must be carefully plotted out. No matter how well-written your content or how attractive your images are, when spacing is unbalanced, your web design would still be considered substandard. Design must be consistent and coherent. Aside from serving as media for information and marketing, web designs are works of art as well. It follows that when conceptualizing a web site, design elements such as consistency and coherence are to be considered. Web Marketing Experts maintains a team of web designers that are fully adept at creating a web site that would communicate your company’s identity and market your products or services as well. For superior web design services, contact your Web Marketing Experts.
10 Website Administration Tactics That Encourage Link Building
Aug 16th
The modern, average citizen’s Holy Grail is now ‘passive income’ … getting paid for doing nothing. Except for SEO experts and webmasters, that is – passive linkbuilding is their Holy Grail! Today we’re going to show you how a few simple tactical, procedural and policy changes in how you handle your website can help build the number of ‘passive’ links you get … taking all that tiresome legwork out of SEO.
1. Create authority posts as linkbait
In a discussion of building links passively, linkbaiting should always be the first tactic. The easiest way for most companies to do this is to create ‘authority posts’. These are blog posts or articles that aim to be the ultimate authority on a subject. They assume no prior knowledge, and are very comprehensive. They take a while to write, but are well worth it in SEO terms!
2. Add a Share button
People will be able to instantly Digg your content, or post it to their Facebook profile.
3. Be responsive
This is a tactical strategy for SEO success – it seems a little indirect, but it works on the principle that every person you annoy is another person that won’t link to you! Make it a policy to always respond to emails promptly, and to respond to blog comments regularly.
4. Publish great content on weekdays
More people are on the net on weekdays; make sure that is when your content is fresh and showing up at the top of time-ordered Google and Technorati searches for best SEO effect.
5. Cut the fluff
There’s a lot of fluff on the net. People aren’t as dense as they sometimes look! You don’t need to explain everything twice, and if you do, they’ll just read something else.
6. Edit and spellcheck your content
Content that looks professional is MUCH more likely to get search engine optimisation love in the form of links.
7. Write for beginners
The net is a big place, and most of the people that stumble across your articles will be beginners. Write for these guys, or you’ll be ignoring your biggest potential linking audience.
8. Be friendly!
This actually goes hand in hand with ‘Being responsive’ above. Friends are actually pretty easy to make on the net, where you have a pool of a couple of billion people to talk to. Go the extra mile with people … the more friends you have, the better your SEO campaigns will work.
9. Look for feedback
Add options to leave feedback to various pages around your site, and run a pop-up survey every so often. Make it short … don’t make people regret helping you! It will give you lots of clues as to what directions would benefit your SEO strategy most.
10. Answer questions
There are thousands of people who need information on Yahoo Answers, Googel Groups, Wikianswers, etc. Some of them will be asking questions in your field. Give a thorough answer to questions in your niche, but also leave your link in case they want more info, and to help your SEO team.
How Web Marketing Can Help
Aug 16th
A certified SEO company, such as Web Marketing Experts, can formulate web marketing tactics to strengthen your presence in the Internet. Identify the strong points of your company and its objectives so that these elements can be combined with web marketing procedures to promote your company online.
It is necessary to acknowledge that there is a multitude of web promotion services that can assist in boosting your web presence. In line with this, your web marketing consultant must be able to suggest the most excellent mix of marketing solutions to for your website. Some of these web marketing campaigns may include:
Ignoring SEO Information
Aug 15th
There is a massive amount of information on the net about SEO and web marketing. That is because everybody involved in the industry knows that fresh content is a must for good rankings, and so will blog and write articles often. Unfortunately, the ‘not so good’ SEO practitioners write just as many articles as the true experts.
So how can you tell the difference – how do you know whose SEO advice to listen to? Here is a quick checklist to help you sort the wheat from the chaff.
Do they walk the talk?
Is the SEO company you’re getting advice from listed in the top 10 results for one of their core keywords? If not, they probably aren’t using the right strategies … and won’t be able to give you the right ones either!
Ask in person
If its appropriate, ask a question about SEO in person. You can do this via phone, but a better way to do this is at industry events and conferences. Information on a blog can be a bit one-sided; the process of conversation will help you work towards a better understanding of SEO, quicker.
Check their references
Most SEO companies list their major clients. Check on Google how the clients rank for some keywords you would expect to be important to them – if they don’t show up in the top thirty, there’s a chance their SEO might not be so hot!
Search engines aren’t always the best people to ask
Many companies refer to Matt Cutts (of Google’s) blog. It seems like inside information – but in reality, Google has its own agenda. It wants the best quality and most relevant sites to rank at the top for a search … and they won’t necessarily feel that’s your site. Their company goals are not the same as yours.
Listen to your test results
With your webmaster’s help, listen mostly to the results of tests set up to check on your SEO health. When something improves, pay attention … listen!
Linkbaiting Campaigns for SEO – How to Choose Your Bait
Aug 14th
Viral content is the new king of the net … but unlike real viruses, it is surprisingly hard to ‘catch’ the idea of how to create it! Once you understand the idea of viral ‘hooks’, though, you’ve created a nice fertile breeding ground for that viral content to multiply within your mind. Then it will ultimately be published on your blogs, earning you lots of links and SEO success. Today we explain the hooks that all viral content has, to help you re-create them for your own SEO work.
There are 7 main hooks that are used in linkbaiting content for SEO:
- A news hook
- A resource hook
- A humour hook
- A contrary hook
- An attack hook
- An ego hook
- An incentive hook
If you’ve spent much time reading blogs, you’ll probably be able to think of a few examples of each that you’ve read. Here are a couple of notes on creating each, for your own SEO purposes.
A news hook
MUST be very fresh. If you aren’t constantly on the net, looking out for breaking and trending stories, and if you aren’t able to add a fresh perspective to a story, you shouldn’t try to publish this sort of linkbaiting content. You’ll also need a decent readership to make use of these stories for SEO.
A resource hook
These are the easiest type for most businesses to create, and the great thing about resource-based linkbait content is that as long as you follow a few basic best-pratcices when you create it, the amount of exposure you get will be almost directly proportional to the amount of work you put in. Create a better resource, get more links and SEO-love. Your resource can be an authority list, a tool, a walk-through or a guide.
A humour hook
These can be difficult for corporate sites to pull off. Humour inevitably offends some people … unless there are pets or children involved! Keep these posts relevant to your business, and run them past everybody at the company for a negative reaction. If you find a single one, keep looking.
A contrary hook
Disagree with a popular opinion, or one popular person’s opinion on something. However, you’ll need to be tactful – otherwise you’ll gain SEO success, but lose respect.
An attack hook
Also known as ‘being controversial’. This works well for some, but be aware that people will constantly be wondering when you’ll attack them, if you make it a habit.
An ego hook
Stroke the ego of somebody you want a link from, by asking them for an interview, or giving them an award. A great way to get those single, valuable authority links.
An incentive hook
Offer samples or prizes in exchange for links, or run a content with an awesome prize to encourage links to flow naturally – great for SEO.
5 Important Questions About Link Building Answered
Aug 11th
Much like building a house, when you are trying to build a link popularity profile for SEO purposes, speed isn’t the only determinant of success. A house that goes up fast, but falls down around the owner’s ears is obviously pretty useless! So today we’re shelving the ‘more and faster is better’ approach, and looking at the ‘other’ things you need to know about link building best practices.
Speed of link acquisition
One very important caveat to the advice you’ll read about gaining links is that faster is not better … in fact, gaining links too fast can get you kicked off the search engines, and destroy your search engine optimisation campaign thus far. Your links should be built:
- Slowly at first – perhaps 2-3 links per day in the first month
- Faster as the site ages
- Faster as your Pagerank increases
Mirroring external with internal growth
It is also important to mirror any link popularity growth you make externally with internal linking for the health of your SEO campaign. There are several options for creating a platform for constantly updated, fresh content:
- Having an on-site blog, where you can cross-link both to pages of the main site and to earlier blog posts
- Having a News or Press section of the website
- Create a Local Events section if appropriate to your niche
- Create a ‘What’s New’ page; especially useful for e-commerce sites.
This internal growth helps re-assure the search engines that your outside link popularity growth is natural, and also provides a greater variety of content that people may want to link to without any encouragement … doing your SEO work for you!
Choose your anchor text carefully
The anchor text for your links was at one stage a couple of years ago, the major factor in Google’s site ranking algorithm. It has since been downgraded – but it is still very important for your search engine optimisation to control your anchor text to reflect your most important keywords – those with the best mix of high popularity and low competition.
Balance between one-way and reciprocal links
When you link to a site, then they link to you, that link has less weighting in the Google algorithm than if the link was one-way. However, one of the major link building strategies in a long term campaign is to link out to other pages … so how do you reconcile this dilemma? The same way you do every other difficult decision … with compromise. Dammit! Link out – but be selective about it. Don’t bother linking to Wikipedia all the time, they won’t link back – select other sites and bloggers that are likely to notice and return the linking favour.
Link building can actually be a little tricky … but there are always SEO experts around to help you!