SEO Archives - Page 27 of 31

Weekly Update About The Search Industry - Google , Yahoo, Bing. - A Video

View the following video to update yourself about the weekly developments in the Search Industry by

http://www.seroundtable.com/

The topics discussed in the Video are:

•Bing Gets Something Google Can't Get, Facebook Data

•Did Google's Marissa Mayer Get Promoted or Demoted?

•Google Updates Link Reports Before Bing

•Google Improves Parameter Handling For Faceted Navigation Control

•Google Testing Highlighting Search Results On Mouse Over Event?

•Google Testing AdWords At Bottom Agai

•Yahoo Looking To Sell Again? This Time, I'm All For It

•Yahoo Was "Down a Bit" Yesterday Afternoon

•Yahoo Closing More Directories, Now UK Directory

•Surprise: Google's Q3 2010 Earnings Up

•Google Maps Penguins - Peguins For Street Views

•SES Chicago 2010 Live Blog Coverage Schedule

Do I Need To Renew My SEO Contract For An Ongoing SEO Attention For My Site?

We are on the threshold of welcoming 2011 and 2010 has seen some remarkable developments in the search marketing industry with the integration of social media and search reflected in terms of Real Time Search. Anyone who is interested in having a long term search engine presence and valuable online visibility cannot rule out the importance of SEO from their online campaigns.

We offer SEO Packages according to the need and requirement of the client but usually it is the annual plan that we offer, is majority of the time applicable for giving a valuable and qualitative SEO uplift to the SEO inquiries we get . By the end of 6-8 months usually the sites get a good presence on the search engines and by the end of the year the sites start ranking for many of the highly competitive, generic, specific and long term keywords too. When the last annual report is sent to the clients and a final meeting is arranged to explain and demonstrate the stages and achievements of the SEO project , they without fail ask me –

• DO WE NEED TO RENEW THE CONTRACT ?

• IS SEO AN ONGOING PROCESS?

As we all know that the SEO results are achieved gradually and if the norms of the search engines are kept in mind while optimizing the site the rankings do last for a long time in the long run (Well, this is what my experience has taught me) but as we all know that the search engines keep on updating the algorithms and also keep on enhancing the search experience by introducing new technologies , updates and search options as per the changing industry standards and scenario, it is highly essential to keep monitoring , reviewing and tweaking the site to assure or should I say insure the visibility and presence already achieved .

If by the end of the year if your SEO company has been open about the SEO strategies applied by them and has been explaining to you the SEO process stage wise and provided you have been taking a keen interest in it then by the end of the SEO contract I am sure you or your in-house web development staff should be in a position to monitor, tweak and review the site by following the DIY (DO IT YOURSELF) policy .

But, if this is not the case and you don’t want to lose out on the SEO benefits that you have already achieved then it is 100% advisable to renew the SEO contract for monitoring the site from the SEO perspective as SEO is surely an ongoing process as the site needs to be kept in par with the norms and algorithms of the search engines .

Monitoring. Reviewing, Tweaking and constantly working on getting quality inbound links has to be an ongoing activity and only thus you can keep the visibility and presence alive on the search engines in the long run.

The pricing of the renewal for the SEO contract again may vary from company to company and of course from continent to continent . At WebPro we do not believe in the per month pricing model for the first year of the SEO Contract but for the renewal that is from the second year onwards the per month basis of pricing is ideal as this is again fair for the client and the SEO company . But, of course these kind of agreements are project specific and mutually decided upon keeping in mind the mutual benefit and returns.

SEO - 10/12/2010

The Very First Video Doodle On The Google Logo - John Lennon’s 70th Birthday

Today Google' logo is graced by a video . This is a first ever video Doodle and is powered by YouTube. It can be viewed on the Google home page. The video is about of John Lennon's 1971 classic "Imagine"

Google / News / SEO - 10/08/2010

The Use Of Infographics And How To Optimize A Web Page Having Only An Infographic.

Visual presentation of information is a powerful tool. Information graphics, also known as infographics, are a way of presenting information, data, or knowledge with the use of visual tools. Many people are familiar with basic infographics, like weather maps, which have small symbols to indicate areas of low and high pressure, as well as predictions for snow, rain, and sunshine.

Images speak louder than words. One infographic can communicate , help spread an idea and attract attention at a glance. If the graphic was to be represented by words then a certain attention span is required to read and digest the idea but a good colorful info graphic can easily attract attention and convey the message faster. That is the main reason people use slides during workshops and presentations.

Especially when the data is complex and involves jargon and step by step approach a pictoral representation can surely be the best way to convey the idea. Many bloggers have a trend of translating their posts as a graphic for reaching out.

If the blog post has a graphic and textual content there is a possibility of the post being ranked on the search engines under the blog option and also the image option with more viral possibilities and in a way which helps in getting links.

If you have a post where you supposedly have only a graphic to convey the message then in order to get the SEO benefit the titles. Headings, brief explanation, Alt text and preferably hotspots with an image map with important content on the image is very crucial for the SEO of the blog post.

Some Examples Of Infographics On SEO:

Hence in order to have a presence on all the search options it is essential to keep adding fresh content in various forms on the blog like videos, images, text, social media posts, news, discussions, etc. periodically.

SEO - 10/06/2010

Why Blogging Is More Important Than Ever Before And How Can Blogging Help You Maintain The Rankings On The Search Engines?

Fresh content , authority inbound links and social media presence are some of the main aspects of retaining your rankings in the search engines. We all know that all this is easier said than done.

For fresh content you need to keep on updating your site with the latest happenings, developments and the future plans of your company and the future trends of the industry. This infact gives a boost to the inbound links too but again planning for good authority links is a full time exercise in itself. Social media again is about engaging with your followers and sharing content and there by integrating the social link graph to your SEO efforts. If you keep on retweeting links from other sites the SEO benefit from the social media presence to your site will be null.

Hence, it is necessary to host the content on your site and tweet that link and thereby get a platform for voicing your opinion too.

All these aspects – fresh content, social media and the focus on getting links individually may require separate set of skills, focus and plan but in fact are inter connected and interrelated and the main emphasis here is on blogging.

As only blogs can offer you the right platform to host fresh content regularly in the most easy and user-friendly way. If the blog content is unique and on some latest topic then it has the tendency to go viral thereby getting you inbound links and blogs being a social media platform itself it offers the option of creating a community and the possibility of interacting with the visitors via comments. Blogs in addition generate SEO friendly links and make it easy to share and tweet content on other social media sites.

Hence if you have a blog you have the chance of getting ranked in the blogs option of the search engines, have a chance of your social media post being displayed on the updates option of the search engines and also there is possibility of getting the inbound links.

In order to maintain the SERPs and improve upon them having a blog and keeping it updated is of utmost important and if you have good quality posts which have a good social media presence in the form of tweets and retweets then the social link graph surely adds a silver lining to the cloud (In this case your blog) .

SEO - 10/05/2010

Do We Really Need To Redefine SEO?

Whenever there is an update in the algorithms of the search engines or there is an update in some way or the other related to search , the blogosphere gets flooded with posts about what is SEO and why SEO continues to have its existence despite of rankings being affected and the display and presentation of search results being different, instant or real time.

This I think reflects in a great way the lack of awareness about the true meaning of SEO among the people who want to adopt SEO as a part of their online marketing campaigns. This in turn makes the SEO professionals and the companies jittery and they try all the ways and means to start sending messages over the web about what SEO actually means.

The search industry got its true existence because of the search engines and because of the fact that people flock the search engines when they want to find about the local or the global availability of some product or service.

With the improvements in the search results and the incorporation of speed in the display of search results the search behaviors are also changing and people are have diminishing patience to search for more beyond the first page and now it is beyond the first 3-4 results.

In spite of, all these changes and developments in the search scenario I think SEO still continues to have its own original true meaning and existence.

Now, what is the true meaning of SEO or SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. As the term suggests optimization – The best possible way adopted by a site to be visible and found on the search scene.

But, I would like to add to it that it not the visibility on the search engines only but on the web holistically in the best possible ways by means of links, references, comments, videos, news, blog posts, discussions, etc.

For achieving and forging the way ahead for such a presence we need a lot of effort , time, strategy, planning and a quest for a quality web presence which a true SEO will surely try to give to any website that he/she is working on for optimization.

As no search engine gives you a high ranking until you have ethical on-page and off-page optimization which proves that you are popular and recommended by the web world.

Way back in 2000 also SEO meant to achieve a quality web presence and now in 2010 also it has the same basic connotation with added value of additional search options as the web has grown multifold since its early days.

Though SEO is also referred to as advertising but it has a different twist to it than PPC, banner ads, affiliate marketing, etc. As the benefit of SEO does take time to accrue but goes on escalating with time . But, for other marketing methods the benefit stops or discontinues to flow when you stop paying.

I am not against any other marketing methods like PPC, banner ads, affiliate marketing, etc. but they have to be incorporated at the right time of the web journey of the website and then stopped or reduced . But SEO is such a method which starts with day one of your website and gradually goes on becoming richer and goes on adding value to your website and the effort of tuning your website in accordance to the search engine algorithms goes on continuously.

Currently, the SEO blogs mention that we need to change the definition of SEO, but I think that we need to understand and put forward the true meaning of SEO. AS the definition of SEO has not changed but its true meaning has got blurred by the shining reflections of the other media of marketing.

If SEO loses its importance and existence then the search engines will lose their true meaning for ranking websites keeping the quality web parameters in mind as they will become a platform for just displaying Ads. Only those search engines will survive in the long run which can rank quality searches and help people find what they are looking for on the search engines. Else search engines will be the domain of those corporates who can spend more for visibility.

Recently, we have seen what Yahoo faced by giving too much importance to banner ads. The same fate can be faced by search engines who will give more importance to paid search than organic search.

A proper balance of display of paid and organic search is needed from the search engines and the same balance is needed by the search marketers depening on the need of the website.

But what is of utmost importance is that the SEOs need to educate the clients regarding the differences between paid and organic search and also spread awareness about the same.

Let us make the web better and focus on quality rather than make it a money making machine only for some. As the SEO techniques offer a global platform and equal platform for SMEs who have limited budgets and is one of the best web presence stategies for SMEs.

SEO - 09/22/2010

The Impact Of Google Instant On Search , Searchers (The Users) And SEO

By now the whole SEO fraternity and the web industry knows that Google had a press conference yesterday wherein they announced the launch of Google Instant which aims at making the search experience more fast , fluid and fun.

Google Instant Launch Event

The 3 main components around which Google instant revolves are :

Instant results,
Predictions
Scroll to search.

Google Instant has an impact on the display of search results, the searcher and of course the SEO industry. Let us first talk about the searcher as the search industry cannot exist without him.

Google Instant churns out predictions for what the searcher may be searching depending on the most likely terms possible which are smarter offering a suggestion to the searcher as he keys in every character. Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help to guide the searcher. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

In short people who are not sure about the query they want to search they get the suggestions as he/she types but this time along with the display of SERPs changing accordingly and instantly without hitting the ‘ENTER” key. The arrow keys are to be used to make selections.

What is important to note is the speed with which it all takes place. Its fast and really fast. Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search. Google claimed yesterday that in just an hour that Google Instant has been up it has already saved 36,542 hours of our time. Well if time is money then it surely has added that much productivity potential also to every industry as search is a vital aspect for research and knowledge for each and every industry.

Marissa Mayer of Google who presented this concept stated that Google Instant isn't search as you type, it's search before you type. She even mentioned in an interview that Google Instant is to search what power steering is to a car and it surely helps people with slow typing speeds.

Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search

With Google Instant

Before Google Instant

Google Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the following browsers: Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8. Please note, users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. Google will continue to add new domains and languages over the next several months. Google Instant is not yet available on mobile, but Google plans to release it soon.

Last but not the least the impact on the SEO industry. SEO has its bread and butter coming from search so it is highly important to know and analyze the impact of Google Instant on SEO.

Google Instant Should Make The SEO Industry Flourish Rather Than Perish.

Whenever there is any new technology or update released related to search people keep on making predictions and statement like SEO is dead but as Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land tweeted during the launch of Google Instant –

The Tweet- “ironically, SEO keeps living despite "SEO is dead" predictions that keep dying over the years. there's been plenty’

Yes, SEO cannot be dead because as long as there is search people will work on their website to make them rank higher. Hence SEO and Search go hand in hand. With Google Instant the need and importance of SEO remains the same or infact is much enhanced as people would like to see their websites rank for all the possible predictions related to their terms and would surely be ranked in the first 3 of page 1. This should make the SEO industry flourish rather than perish. So SEO is not dead but has become more exciting and challenging.

Google instant has not affected the rankings. The basics of the search are the same. So for whatever terms your site has been ranking it continues to rank for them on those SERPs. But, in the long run there is a possibility of the search behavior changing.

When the searcher gets the predictions and results at the speed of thought his patience to scroll down to other lower results and going to the next page for searching may diminish. Of course only time will tell and this will solely depend on the quality of the search results on page 1 especially the first 5 . If Google keeps on ranking Wikipedia and other such websites for initial rankings people will be forced to scroll down but that may have an adverse effect on Google and people may shift to using Bing for a traditional kind of search experience.

Well only time will tell what will be the actual impact of Google Instant on the search behavior but it surely will result in smart search and thereby saving a lot of time and thereby reducing disguised employment.

Google / SEO - 09/09/2010

What Is Landing Page Optimization And Why Is It Important ?

A landing page is the page on which the visitor to your website lands on or views as a result of clicking on the link available to your website from various sources.

A visitor can reach your website via various resources. It depends entirely on the footprints that your website has created on the web.

The major sources, from where the visitor can arrive at your website or your online office/store are:

• Search Engines
SEO
PPC

• Direct Visits

By Directly keying in your website address for a HTTP request

•Referrals

           Banner Ads
         Social Media Sites
           Affiliate Advertising
           Directory Listings
           Various Articles where your website has a mention
          Email Signature Links
          Others

As you can see that from whatever source he lands up on the specific URL of the page if the page has the relevant content and gives more information about what he read at the source point then the interest level of the visitor will get enhanced which can get converted to an enquiry for further details. If the site is an ecommerce site it even has a possibility of a direct conversion i.e he may buy the product online.

So, the landing page content enhances the interest level but there are many other subtle factors which work in the background for the positive influence of the page on the visitor. Firstly when the visitor lands on a relevant link of your website if the design is clutter free and has a balance of images and content and the readability and navigation has an easy flow then that interest level gets retained for a longer time increasing the time spent on the site and also reduces the bounce rate.

Hence, when we talk about landing page optimization, we are in the sense referring to the harnessing of all these factors like web design, color combo., ease of navigation , quality content and the right first impression because in this kind of optimization we are catering to the psychology of the visitor and trying to finalize a sale. Unlike the SEO where you have to keep the search engine robots in mind while the optimization process so that the targeted market can be reached.
So ,SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about the marketing of your product on search engines and Landing Page Optimization is all about ensuring that the marketing effort gets converted to sales on your website. Your landing page is your efficient salesman online , making your potential customers feel welcome.

In order to acheive success online a holistic efficiency is required on all spheres marketing, sales, accounts (your online payment gateway) , delivery of the product and order tracking.

SEO - 09/07/2010

How To Price An SEO Campaign

Every company has got its own pricing policies and especially when it comes to SEO many times the SEO companies and the clients who want to avail of these services are not sure of deciding upon the way the whole SEO campaign should be priced.

Any pricing for any service should be fair to the service provider as well to the client.

Normally, many SEO companies charge on per month basis and I have seen the demand for this mode of payment internationally also.

But, according to me, charging the client on a per month basis for an SEO campaign is not correct at all. As, when we consider an SEO project we know that

• The results will take time to be reflected on the search engines.

• It has to be a yearly project .( If proper results and search engine presence is needed).

• The rankings for some long tail keywords or which are location specific may start showing results in 2-3 months but for the specific keywords for which the site is being optimized might take at least 10-12 months.

• The SEO efforts (On-Page and Off-Page) put shall start from the very first day after the initial analysis of the site.

• No SEO can say that the Meta tags shall be put on the first month and then in the second month the sitemap.xml file shall be submitted. What I mean to say every SEO project needs to be given an overall tuning and that starts from day one.

In short it is just not possible to break up the work on a monthly basis and charge on a monthly basis if you are looking at a complete SEO campaign and search engine presence. Such a mode of payment does not do any justice to both the parties.

The best way is to split the payment into two installments of 50% each. i.e you charge 50% when the SEO contract is signed and the balance when the rankings start appearing in the search engines i.e usually after 3-4 months. The installments can be split into 2 or 3 depending on the mutual convenience of both the parties.

If the budget is a constraint for the client but search engine presence is what the client wants to start off with then the company can have packages suited to give a start by local search, only basic on-page optimization services which can be comparatively low priced but with definite results and later on there can be an option of upgrading these packages to the yearly plan by the client.

This kind of pricing is fair to both the parties i.e the SEO services provider and the client. Moreover, the SEO project gets a complete holistic approach by both the parties. The client also is mentally prepared that the SEO results are not going to be achieved in a jiffy, it will take time and this makes him develop the patience for it.

SEO - 08/27/2010

What Is All This Link Building About, Why are all the Webmasters And SEOs Falling In Link Love?

Before we discuss and understand about why everyone having a website today wants to get as many inbound links to their site, let us understand why , when and how all this importance to inbound links started.

We know that when any technology or algorithm becomes open and more and more people gain knowledge about it there is a tendency in general to use it or misuse it. If it is used in the right perspective then, it achieves the purpose for which it was built. But, when it is misused by the miscreants then it is a major matter of concern and needs to be restricted ASAP.

Way back Google announced a PageRank technology to display quality search results as the webmasters were misusing the keyword tag extensively and there was a lot of black hat which was affecting the quality of results on the search engines.

According to Google the Page Rank is defined as follows:

• PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance.

Find detailed information here: http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html

As mentioned above in the PageRank definition every link to your page is like a vote, a recommendation you make to the visitor coming to your site and thereby generating an online WOM for the linked site confirming your faith in the services and information offered by that company.

This is a very important and valuable opinion you give to your website visitors and in a way you vouch for it. Hence these links you give to other sites and the links your website gets were given importance by Google to determine the online standing of a company and business and hence the websites having a good inbound linking are considered to have higher popularity and given a higher PageRank .

The PageRank refelects how popular the webpage is online and thereby no doubt many times it is ranked high in the SERPs but let me tell you I have seen pages with ZERO PageRank also on Page 1 rankings of Google.

Inadequate SEO knowledge makes the SEO run after links. As a result there is a whole industry of Link Building which has come up and there are companies whose main service is to provide you links. Though there can be quality and innovative methods of getting links to your site as a continuous marketing effort but usually it gets limited to the easy way out by many to buy links from link farms or exchange links.

I am of the opinion that the term 'link building' itself is an incorrect term. Links do not have to be built but they should get built naturally in the process as your website starts getting a wider web presence and preference. The inbound links are something that your website earns by virtue of the quality foot prints it creates on the web as you reach out to more and more people by being focused on the valuable services and information offered by your website.

Buying a link is like telling someone that I shall pay you for speaking well about me. Now, how far is that ethical? How long will such a WOM last for your company’s credibility or in this matter keep your rankings high in SERPs? I am sure you have the answer . These short term solutions may give immediate results but will not ensure a long term web presence which should be the goal of any online marketing campaign. SEO has the possibility of achieving this if the SEO approach is ethical and as per the norms of the search engines.

I would like to emphasize here that yes having good quality links from authority and reputed sites and topical sites is essential and important but the way you achieve them is the main focus of this discussion.

To start with try to earn every link to your site as a result of unique, quality content and information on your site.

Yes, CONTENT is still the uncrowned king of the web since the first website went online and shall always remain inspite of millions websites coming on the web regularly.

Apart from a good qualitative site in all respects other genuine methods of gaining natural inbound links as your website goes from one milestone to another are as follows:

• Focus all your efforts on making the site informative, qualitative and content rich to get links automatically.
• Do not neglect the On-Page Optimization Basics and just go after links. (Very important from the SEO perspective)
• Participate in social media networks for discussions and sharing of information and mention links to the relevant pages to your website. (It need not be the Home Page always)• People are sharing links on the social media like never before and whenever you tweet a link you are sharing it with so many people who are connected to your followers which again has the possibility and probability of gaining exponential reach. This in turn again offers a lot of scope for gaining unbiased genuine links.
• Have a social book marking button on your website.
• Make RSS feeds available on your website.
• Issue Press Releases periodically.

Create a whole ambience and atmosphere around your website which shall make websites link to the site you want. In a way ensuring that you don’t have to run after links but they instead walk up to your site and acheive the true purpose of the PageRank Technology by Google.

I think that it is the responsibility of every web developer, SEO and any one even remotely related to uploading and affecting the content on the web to add value to it in its own little way.

Google / SEO - 08/21/2010