The Land of the Penguin, Everything is Black and White

• Has anchor text that is an exact match to the anchor text in the majority of your incoming links, particularly if the content that is linking is low-quality content.
• The link comes from an auto-approve, non-moderated blog — again, particularly if the content on that blog is of lower-than-average quality.
• OR, the link comes from a web site that has a significant number of outgoing links and no real traffic to speak of. (BuildMyRank, anyone? BuildMyRank deindexed)

These things seem relatively banal and minor, but if you’re a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) wonk, you’re already wincing. You can see between the lines that most links that may have been the SEO-baseline before Penguin are now out:

• Autoblogs? Nope.
• Site directories that few people use (i.e. a lot of them)?  Useless.
• Even ubiquitous SEO toolbox items like optimizing for a specific keyword on each page got hit
  • now you must spread your keywords around on every page or you’re flirting with the Google sandbox.

Paradigm Shift

The result of the Panda / Penguin double-punch has been profound across the field of SEO. It’s no longer about ranking as high as you can, as quickly as you can. It’s not even about deep research into your competitor’s backlink structure so that you can out-backlink them in an Olympic-style speed-back-linking event.  (If you did SEO a year or more ago, you know exactly what we’re talking about.)

With black-and-white in play, the… Read the rest

SEO wasn’t easy, per se, but it was easier.

The rules were more simple:

• Post decent content.
• Optimize your content for high-traffic, low-competition keywords with selling connotations.
• Don’t use obvious black-hat techniques like link-bombing.
• Build backlinks to your website. The more the better.
• Pack your keywords as dense as Google will let you (about 2% for most niches).

There were obviously details for each of these rules, but by and large, you could become an ‘SEO expert’ in a matter of weeks if you dedicated yourself to learning them. It might take a while to actually optimize a website, but it could actually be done by a single person working just a little overtime full time for a few weeks.

The most difficult parts of ‘old style’ SEO were producing content, some folks even outsourcing to writers off shore, like in India and the Philippines that spoke (or rather wrote) English just well enough to get Google to understand what they intended their topic to be.  You could outsource an article overseas, and while with most of this content any English-speaking human that read it would laugh and click away, the search engine spiders didn’t mind the off syntax, so it worked.

Link-building was largely a matter of using automated systems that could mass-produce backlinks for you and hiring more outsourced link-builders to create those links that couldn’t be automated. SEO companies in the US often did the ‘hard’ work of producing quality content – the pieces that you expected people to read and that you put your company logo on – while they outsourced other content.

Then along came Penguin and before that its older brother Panda, and everything changed.  Since we’re going to focus specifically on the Penguin update next week, let’s do a little bit of ‘in-between’; the time after the mammal but before the bird.

Panda-monium

Google’s Panda update was almost entirely content-centric. The idea was… Read the rest

With Search Engine Optimization the goal is to have your website ranked the highest and receive the most traffic or conversions. Being the most prominent and relevant website is crucial to the success of most businesses. The competing websites that you encounter when performing your SEO may seem like a bad thing, however they can almost always assist you in making better internet marketing decisions. It may seem sneaky to spy on your competitors but it has become a common practice and competitive analysis is a crucial component to website marketing. Knowing who your competitors are and how they are conducting their SEO can provide you with some very valuable marketing data. Below is a short list of how you can benefit from exploring the trends and movements of the top competitors for yours or your client’s website.

Social Media:

Social Media is probably the easiest place to start. Check out what social networking sites that your competitors are using and see which ones would be beneficial to your website. In addition see how they are using these sites to communicate with their audience and what type of content they offer on their social pages. Identifying how your competition is using these platforms is a great way to get an idea of what people like, what they don’t like, what is successful, what isn’t successful, and what you can be doing that they aren’t.

Meta Information:

Although most Meta Data has become extraneous over the past years, the search engines like Read the rest

Search engines determine the relevance of a website associated with a keyword according to its collection of backlinks and the anchor text used within the backlink. The anchor text of a back link is very important when gathering these links because it denotes the subject of the page and helps target your specific audience. One of the ways to acquire a backlink is guest blogging efforts. As we briefly mentioned in our past blog post, guest blogging is when another website hosts one or your articles or when you showcase an article from another blogger.

Why Guest Blogging:

Guest blogging is a great device to drive in traffic to your website and allows you to network with other bloggers from your industry. Besides driving in new traffic and networking with other bloggers, guest blogging also helps with branding and getting your name or company in the spotlight. Guest blogging is also helpful in building your social media profile and gaining more industry experience.

When to Guest Blog:

How do you know when you are ready for guest blogging? You should wait until you have established a well written blog and have confidence in your blogging abilities. When you guest blog you should do it on a website that is similar to your own and on one that shares a common audience. It is beneficial to guest post… Read the rest

Recently we have been discussing backlinks and the benefits that they provide for your website. Backlinks are an essential part of the SEO process because they help your site’s search engine visibility and web rank. A backlink, also known as an inbound link is a link on another website that is directed to one of your web pages.

When search engines like Google determine a website’s relevance for an associated keyword, they consider the quantity and quality of inbound links to that site. Inbound links with content related to your site they are thought to be more relevant and a more valuable SEO factor. In short, websites with the most relevant content to your website will produce the best quality inbound links.

High quality links are obtained through a number of different methods, one of which is leaving comments on other blogs. In addition to looking good in the eyes of the search engines, leaving your website’s URL on industry related blogs is a good way to direct new users to your content. For several reasons however leaving blog comments will not always produce the preferred results. The following are explanations why blog comments don’t always help your search engine optimization efforts as well as some of the things you should look for when pursuing blog comment backlinks.

Why Blog Comments Sometimes Don’t Help:

The impact that blog comments have on SEO depend on both the blog’s restrictions and the type of comment that you post. Some of the reasons why the comments that you leave on blogs might not contribute to your SEO are

• If Your Comment Appears As Spam:

Most blogs require that you use a human name when leaving a comment on their posts. The name you use to post is extremely important, having a too common name or using a company name will often be ignored. Sometimes blogs will even state that you must use a real name in order for your comment to be approved, however some do not and feel that it is an implied rule. Some blogs use anti-spam filters that reject… Read the rest

There are a number of ways to build backlinks to your webpages, one of which we mentioned in our previous blog entry, “Reciprocal Linking”. Reciprocal or two way linking is when two websites agree to exchange links with each other. However linking doesn’t always have to be mutual, this type of linking is called one way linking. The following list provides some popular sources and methods of obtaining one way links.

Create Superior Content and Resources:

In addition to creating a visually appealing and easy to use website you will also need to have high quality content or linkbait to draw the attention of visitors. This content is used to influence visitors to link back to your website by sharing your content. When other websites share your content on their website they will typically link back to the original source.

• Create 101 articles that describe the basics of your industry related subject.
• Create Top 10 or 100 lists.
• Lists the top professionals from your industry.
• Create an infographic that displays industry information in an intriguing and exciting way.
• Create free helpful online tools or downloadable software programs.

Start a Blog:

A blog is a handy instrument when it comes to gaining momentum and popularity over the Internet. A Blog has many benefits for example it is an excellent way to reach existing clients and find new ones, it helps establish you as a professional, it builds a following for your website, and it helps gain your respect within… Read the rest

In our last blog entry “Creating Infographics to Build Links and Increase SEO” we briefly touched on the topic of Anchor text. The anchor text is the hyperlink or clickable text that is found on a web page. Using accurate anchor text is essential for good Search Engine Optimization and when used appropriately it can drastically boost your rankings in the search engines. The anchor text provides descriptive and useful information for the page that it links with.

The anchor text enables websites to use cleaner looking text rather than displaying an unpleasant and distracting hyperlink. For example a hyperlink for Internet Beacon.com would look like <a href=”http://www.internetbeacon.com”> Internet Beacon</a> however by using anchor text it would present as Internet Beacon on the page.

The most common mistake when dealing with anchor text is using the dreaded “Click Here” anchor text. Click here not only causes you to miss out on the possible SEO benefits it also neglects to describe the content to the page visitors and the search engine crawl bots. At one time Anchor text was heavily manipulated and was referred to as Google Bombing. Google Bombing used large amounts of anchor text to influence the rank of a link that directed visitors to unrelated content. For example during the 2004 United States presidential election the anchor text of “miserable failure” was linked to the George W. Bush‘s White House biography so many times that when users searched for the terms miserable failure the link to the biography appeared in Google’s search results. However in January, 2007, Google created a new algorithm which reduced the impact of Google bombs but none the less anchor text still remains important in SEO.

Where to use Anchor Text:

• External links – links from other sites
• Internal links – links on your

… Read the rest

from http://www.seomoz.org/blog/4-essential-seo-infographics, September 2011

Link value or link juice is a term often used in Search Engine Optimization and refers to the amount of value that the search engines like Google attribute to a website or link. Link juice is assigned to web pages and is dispersed throughout a website based on how well your website is optimized. The more links and most importantly the more high quality links a website has directly translates into the more link juice a website is likely to have.

When talking about Links it is important to understand some important fundamentals. Total links quantity indicates the total number of links that your website or webpage possesses. The merit of these links can vary which brings us to the linking source. The linking source describes who is linking to your content and how credible or trustworthy they are. The sites that have a higher rank will pass on more value than those with a lower web rank. Even though the websites with a higher rank may provide more value it is also important to have diversity among your links. It’s ok to have links from lower ranked pages as long as there is a balance between link values.

Another major factor with links is anchor text. The anchor text is the keywords and descriptions other websites use when linking to your content. Accurate anchor text is essential for good SEO. You want something that describes your content well and not something like “Click here”. The visible text for a link or the anchor text should include the source and a short description of the linked… Read the rest

Best Practices for Creating a Domain Name:

• Describe Your Website by Matching Your Domain, Website, and Company Name

A domain name is one of the first elements of a website that visitors see. Matching your domain with your company name will help target your existing as well as potential customers. Having a company and domain that describes your website will also let people know what the website is about and draw in targeted traffic. For example with the domain www.DeliciousPastries.com Delicious Pastries is the company name, website name, domain name, and also highlights Pastries a major descriptive keyword.

• Keep it Short and Readable-

There are several incentives for keeping your Domain name short which include it being easy to type, easy to remember, and easier to travel by word of mouth. A domain name that is longer than 3 words should use hyphens. However a domain name with more than 3 words and hyphens will raise the websites level of spamminess.

• Use Keywords-

Having a keyword in your domain name will help rank not only because it is part of your domain but also because it is the anchor text that others will use to link back to your website.

• Alternative Domain Top Level Domains (TLD)

It’s recommended that you only purchase the .Com version of your domain name. Additionally purchasing lower quality TLD in order to increase traffic is also strongly advised against.

Once you have established a domain name… Read the rest

Keyword Cloud

Having accurate and descriptive keywords however is only the first part of the equation. Once you establish a list of relevant keywords they then need to be strategically placed throughout the website in order to increase traffic. Each individual page of your website should be optimized for one to three unique keywords. Selecting keywords along with the placement of these keywords is crucial in order to increase your website’s visibility and guide targeted traffic directly to your website. Below are the 10 most important positions to consider when performing keyword placement.

Where to Use Keywords:

• Title Tag

It is recommended that you always place your keywords near the beginning of the title tag. Not using your keywords in the website’s title tag can make it extremely difficult to rank for your targeted keywords. Keyword placement in the title tag is thought to be the most important search engine ranking factors, each page title should be unique to that page and optimized for that specific keyword.

• Meta Description Tag

Although the Meta Description Tag seems to play a very little role in the actual search engine ranking it can still be used to influence potential customers to visit your website. Any keywords that your description tag has in common with the search query will appear bolded in the Search engine results page (SERP). Similar to the title tag each page should also have a unique description tag that targets only 1-2 keywords.

• URL

Having your keywords in the URL will further identify your target audience. A URL that includes your keyword can increase… Read the rest

Does SEO still matter? Social media sites have done a great job of connecting businesses with customers. However even with all the advantages that social media has to offer it shouldn’t replace SEO. Instead social media websites should be thought of as a complement to SEO rather than its substitute.

There are many benefits to using social media like attracting new clients, staying in contact with clients, and the ability to build a positive reputation. It’s clear that due to its popularity social media has begun to push other key SEO elements into the background but that doesn’t mean those elements are not still important. As important as Social media is it remains only one portion of the SEO puzzle. The following is a list of reasons why SEO still matters.

1. SEO Finds The People That Want to Find You!

Social networking will put you in front of other social media users but that doesn’t mean they are customers. With SEO you have a better chance of being found by buyers. Social media is often used to communicate with users that are already part of your circle whereas SEO can be used to draw in users to your circle.

2. SEO Provides More Relevance to Customers!

Social media can increase awareness of your company but with Search Engine Optimization you can specifically target customers seeking your product or service. SEO helps you rank for relevant searches which increases the chance of conversion. Additionally each keyword can be optimized to target a different group of consumers.

3. SEO Enhances The Conversion Process!

As mentioned, SEO focuses more on increasing the chances of conversion. SEO focuses on streamlining the conversion process. Every step from targeting, attracting, landing, and retaining a customer is planned out to achieve the best results. SEO optimizes not only keywords but the site’s architecture, calls to action,… Read the rest

from http://www.google.com/logos/logos11-2.html, July 2011

The Panda version 2.2 updates are thought to be the source behind the recent fluctuation in search listings and PageRank. Whether you experienced this change back in February or the new update is finally catching up with you, Google Panda seems to be impacting a tremendous number of websites and site owners across the Internet.

Although it is commonly called the Panda Algorithm, Google Panda is more of an individual Ranking factor rather than an entire new algorithm.  Google uses a number of different factors when assigning a rank to a website.  These factors  are continually tweaked in order to provide the best user experience and return the most relevant search results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) focuses on these evolving factors in an effort to increase site traffic and conversion rates. Although Google makes these adjustments to its ranking algorithm on a regular basis they usually go unnoticed or cause minor changes for most websites.  However there have been a few major exceptions similar to the Google Panda update such as the Mayday Update of last year and the Vince Update in 2009.

How does Google Panda work? Google Panda acts as a filter to identify low quality pages. According to Matt Cutts the Panda Filter is not running all the time. Instead Panda performs periodic scans that occur during each of the new releases for Panda. So far there have been four Panda releases meaning that websites listed on Google have be subject… Read the rest

Exactly one week ago on June 1, 2011 Google announced that they are now offering the +1 button to website developers to place on their own content. On the day of the announcement the +1 buttons started appearing on major websites like Bestbuy.com, TheHuffingtonPost.com, and Nordstrom.com. After only a week the button now appears on large and small websites all across the Internet. Websites can display the button and enable people to recommend their website, blog or even individual products. Already the Google +1 feature seems to have a solid foundation but it continues to work towards being as widely used as its Facebook counterpart. From what we can tell here at Internet Beacon, the Google +1 button is being used frequently on the search results page but doesn’t quite yet have the exposure necessary to properly compete with the Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons that are on individual websites. In time this could change drastically, after all the button is only a week old.

It makes sense that Google would eventually assign some sort of values to this feature where the more plus ones a website has would equal a rank better, however it is still unclear how this development will affect SEO and the Google website ranking algorithm. Google could determine that sites who utilize their social media metric are more trustworthy or valuable sources, or perhaps they will maintain the plus one feature strictly as a social device… Read the rest

It remains unclear whether or not Google will further expand this sample testing or even continue in the same direction once they acquire usability feedback. Due to the limited testing being fairly recent no real results have been released other than the initial feedback from users that the new page is ugly or that it looks better, which really depends only on the users taste and not the designs usefulness.

 

From Google, May 2011

For the users that were not selected to participate in the new search results page trial you can view the changes at Google’s New Search Interface. As you can see from the screen capture it seems that Google has eliminated or scaled down the amount of information provided for each search result. The text has also decreased in size and appears cleaner with more white space. The older results page features a darker blue, green, and purple text color whereas the new page showcases brighter but muted pastel colors. The new colors go a long way to make the page look prettier but don’t offer the same contrast as the old page and instead can make it harder for some users to view because the bright on white color scheme. In addition there is also less page identification because the page title is no longer underlined.

Whenever there is a change with Google we have to ask how will this impact Search Engine Optimization? The main concern with this trial SERP is with the increase in white space between search results. Although the page certainly looks cleaner, the insertion of more space creates less room for search results and presents less page information. Due to this spacing more results are being pushed below the fold and unless… Read the rest

Does code validation really matter and if so to whom does it matter to, a website visitor, a search engine, both? Not everyone thinks that code validations are all that important and feel that search engines do not consider validation when ranking a website. Regardless of the impact that code validation has on a websites ranking, both sides of this discussion can agree that code validation is useful for a number of other reasons.

 

http://validator.w3.org/

Code validation is the process of inspecting and amending the code or your web documents. This is done by comparing the code to formal standards like those established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is the main international standards organization for the Internet. This organization offers a markup validation service to check HTML documents for errors and ensures that they are in accordance with their standards. To fully validate a websites code two separate assessments need to be performed, one for the HTML or XHTML and another for the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Although a number of programs like XHTML-CSS offer code validation services that are based on the standards set forth by the W3C it might be best to use the actual html validator and css validator provided by the World Wide Web Consortium.

Getting back to why it is important to validate your code regardless of how it impacts the page rank, of the many reasons for validation there are 6 fundamental reasons why it should be done.

Debugging and Maintenance:

HTML and CSS validation works similarly to a spell checker by locating errors found throughout your web documents. During the validation process errors are identified and documented so that a user can easily fix them.

Learning and Prevention:

As the validation process identifies common errors you can learn from your mistake and therefore prevent the errors from reoccurring in your other web documents. At the very least you will gain the knowledge and experience from previously solving that certain error.

 … Read the rest

Search Engines recognize that if all the sites on the Internet knew the characteristics that they use, then every site would be able to rank higher. Providing this information would make it too easy for website and go against their main goal which is to provide users with the most relevant and useful search results. Clearly expressing the measurements that are used to rank a website would prevent a relevant site from standing out amongst the other results and could potentially place a higher rank on a page that is worst or is less relevant to a user.

Search Engines use both on-the page as well as off-page elements to assign a rank. On-page factors usually focus on internal site structure including keyword use and internal linking where as an off-page aspect considers who you link to, how you link to them, and the popularity or relevance of your links. Some of the factors that are known or thought to be important to ranking well in search engines include:

• Keyword in the pages Title Tag.
• Appropriate and descriptive anchor text of Inbound Links.
• Global Link Popularity of Site.
• Age of domain.
• Link Popularity or equity within the internal link Structure.
• Relevance of an inbound link to the site and the text surrounding that link.
• Keyword use throughout the body copy.
• The popularity or authority of the website providing an inbound link.

With that being said, one of the major factors that search engines do directly distinguish as being harmful to a Websites rank is Duplicate Content. Duplicate Content is best described as a portion or a complete copy of text that is found in multiple locations either within your own site or shared between your site and another site entirely.

So,… Read the rest

The advances of mobile devices has made tremendous progress however many sites that are not optimized for the mobile web often get lost in translation and present a less than desirable user experience. Due to the quick advancements and development it is probably only a matter of time till mobile browsing can offer an experience equal to that of regular Internet browsing. So, another important question to consider would be is the benefit of mobile optimizing worth the effort or would it make more sense to wait a year or two until mobile browsing possess the same technology and capabilities of traditional Internet browsing?

Most of the time if a user is accessing your website from a mobile device there is a higher urgency to make a purchase or perform a critical action such as finding directions to your brick and mortar store or acquire some kind of contact or customer support. I think it is clear that depending on the type of business and the needs of the customers it is probably worth the effort or at the very least wouldn’t hurt to make your website a mobile companion. The following are suggestions to assist you in making your website more compatible with the mobile web environment as opposed to creating an additional website solely for mobile users.

• Test your sites mobile compatibility

Before you make any adjustments to your site you should first test it and see if any changes are necessary. To do this you can navigate to your site on any mobile device or download mobile browsers like Opera or Skweezer. These programs will give you an approximation of how your website

… Read the rest

A site’s speed is only one of the many factors that search engines utilize in their website ranking algorithm. Search engines employ ranking algorithms in order to assign a page rank to a website and to ensure that a search returns with the best and most relevant results. The following are options that site owners can apply to their sites in order to reduce the time it takes for their website to load. Reducing a sites load time or increasing a sites speed will generate better customer responses as well as appeal more to search ranking algorithms.

Before attempting the following suggestions you should try out these free tools to see how your site measures up. Pingdom Load Time Test is an easy tool that allows you to assess the speed or your website. The program GTmtrix analyzes site speed, provides a grade for your website and generates a list of potential problems that they recommend that you fix. These are just two of the many free tools available to measure the performance of your website. Upon completion of these tests, if you are unsatisfied with your websites performance we recommend implementing the following changes.

Compress your Website:

Website data compression converts all of a website’s text elements that are written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into bundles. After the compression process is complete websites no longer have to send and recognize each individual file. Transmitting text information using data packs allows people and search engines to access the site information quicker making website compression a top priority when… Read the rest

There are over thirteen thousand plug-ins available for the WordPress software making it extremely easy to tailor it to your specific uses.  The following are some useful SEO plug-ins that the WordPress open source community has provided.

All-in-one SEO plug-ins such as WordPress SEO and SEO Scribe are designed to perform overall multiple SEO tasks that include optimizing content faster, providing great keywords, maintaining reader engagement, constructing quality links and increasing traffic! Most of the all in one SEO plug-ins operate similarly and perform similar functions.  The following are among the most utilized all-in-one SEO WordPress plug-ins:

• All in one SEO pack
• Platinum SEO pack
• SEO Scribe
• SEO Ultimate
• WordPress SEO

Below is a list of related, individual plug-ins that can be helpful in improving your blog or website’s Search Engine Optimization and enhancing Social Media Marketing:

… Read the rest

Basically online advertising sets out to attract customers by using the Internet, with websites and search engines as their medium. The Pay per Click (PPC) advertising model is where a host is compensated each time the promoter’s advertisement is clicked. The Cost per Click (CPC) is the actual amount that is paid out by the advertiser to either the search engine or website owner for each click that occurs. Websites that utilize this type of advertising will often present an advertisement or text link, when there is a common term between the websites keyword query and the advertiser’s keyword list. In other words, when a website has related information to the advertiser, a link will be displayed either on the side or above or in line with the website’s original content depending on the website. There are a couple different variations of pay per click online advertising which include Cost per Mille (CPM ), Cost per Visitor (CPV), Cost per Lead (CPL), Cost per Click (CPC), and Cost per Action (CPA).

When performing a search at a search engine you may have noticed that the results return with sponsored links. The sponsored links appear at the top or sides and the advertisers pay to be in these sponsored links sections. Each time a visitor accesses the site through this link, money is paid to the search engine through a prepaid account with that search engine. In order to achieve a sponsored link location websites, advertisers place bids for the amount of money they are prepared to pay per click. Since there are multiple link positions available, the highest bid is placed at the top, the next highest is placed second and so on. In addition to the websites being able to determine how much they pay per click they can also specify how much they are willing spend per day. When the maximum amount of money reserved to pay for the position is met the advertising link is… Read the rest

With SEO some primary goals include creating good content, increasing viewer usability, and promoting a website’s popularity, however there are certain practices out there that we avoid. These avoided practices are orchestrated to quickly or prematurely inflate rankings and take advantage of the factors that search engines utilize when ranking sites. These techniques are often referred to as Black Hat Techniques.

While folks assume there are benefits of using such techniques, there are also major downsides. After using Black Hat techniques a website may temporarily hold a high rank, it will most likely not last very long. Some of the other immediate negative consequences include a site being banned, having penalties against it, and could result in web pages being wiped of their search rank value.

Although search engines devote resources and effort to putting a stop to these methods some still exist. Search engines have worked consistently to ensure that white hat methods remain dominant and discourage the use of black hat tactics.

There are quite a few SEO methods out there that can inadvertently land a website in the search engine dog house. Whether a site is flagged, given the penalties, banned, or you just want to know what to avoid here is a brief list of some of the Black Hat SEO methods to avoid as they could cause issues for a web site.

• Cloaking

Cloaking is used to deceive the search engines, what a user sees is different compared to what a search engine robot (bot) would find. Although a site that is utilizing a cloaking technique is open to a penalty, or could be banned there are a few acceptable cloaking techniques called White Hat Cloaking.

• Manipulative Linking

Manipulative linking occurs in various forms and exploits search engine link popularity. A common method is using link farms, which is where a group of sites hyperlink to all other sites in the group and the process is generally automated. Some other examples of manipulative linking include self-referential links, paid link programs, and low quality directory links.

• Keyword Stuffing

Keyword Stuffing is easily discovered by… Read the rest

In order to grow the popularity of your website, generate awareness, and increase traffic from search engines it is important to perform link building and analysis.  So how do you know the value of a link? Although search engines keep the majority of their ranking factors private, some of the clearer and more notable factors include the following.

1. Global Reach: If you want to have a link from a website to your website (a backlink), does that website have quality backlinks to other quality websites, in other words does that website have importance, reach, and scope.  Nothing is more impressive than having a well know and hard hitting website in your corner!
2. Community Merit: Equally important to websites with global reach are topic specific links that hold merit and commonality to the website on a topic level.  Web sites that are in the same business or cover similar topics and industries can provide a stable ranking foundation.
3. Anchor Text: Using anchor text is both important on inbound links to your website and navigational links within your website. A well built website can rank higher by using keywords in their anchor text. This anchor text should both describe the link and be a representation of the general content on the target page. It is additionally helpful to use keywords in the anchor text of links guiding traffic to your website.  The more onsite and offsite links to your web page and within your website, with the pertinent keywords, the potentially higher credible rank.
4. Trust Rank: With the estimate that more

… Read the rest

Why should our Online Business Activity be any different?

If you own a business there are certain basic recommendations for daily online activity that could help generate more clients.  The Internet is a powerful resource for any business and neglecting to utilize all that it offers is silly.  Every business can be conducting some kind of daily activity online.  Not sure how to fully utilize the Internet for your business? The following are minimal suggestions for your company’s daily Internet practices.

1. Visit Some Social Networking Websites:

Submit some postings to multiple sites and gain a following in the online community.  Use this online activity to share some knowledge and build a reputation for your business.  By improving the brand of your business on Facebook, you’re able to market your company and have the opportunity to acquire profitable insights from others. It’s free, except for your time, so take advantage of the free advertising that websites like Facebook and Twitter offer.  In addition using these social networking sites gives you another medium to allow you to be more accessible to your customers and gain valuable feedback. See more information about how Twitter Can Benefit Your Business.

2. Write a Blog:

Establishing a blog for your business is a great way to branch out and grow your web presence.  A blog is another way to obtain customer interaction as well as communicating important messages to your clients.  Additionally, mention your blog articles on Social Media websites like Twitter and Facebook and have more potential clients visit your website. For more on how blogs can help a business check out Having a Blog Helps!

3. Check The Analytics Of Your Website:

It is important to understand how visitors use your website.  Before you can successfully solve any problems and market your site. You should have a good understanding of what’s going on, who is visiting it, how often, how they are getting there, as well as the tons of other website statistics

… Read the rest

Search Engine Optimization at its root is the process of increasing exposure to a website by enhancing the sites relevance and importance in the eyes of search engines. In order to gain this exposure or reach more customers the process of SEO sets out to make a website more rank worthy.  The higher that a website is ranked on a search engine the more likely people are to access it.

A search engine has four main purposes that include Crawling, Indexing, Ranking, and Providing Results.  The World Wide Web is a massive network where everything is connected through linking.  A search engine navigates or crawls through the network locating web pages, images, or video files using mechanized devices called crawlers or spiders.  These devices are launched, scouring the Internet, reading pieces of code from websites.  The pieces of information copied by a crawler allow the searched location to be indexed or saved on one of their massive databases.  Search Engine companies have data centers that hold the databases located all around the world in order to quickly recall the information upon request of the user.

In those first two tasks the search engine sought out and returned only the relevant pages.  After searching and indexing, the next duty of the search engine is to calculate the indexed webpage’s relevance and determine its ranking.  From here it assigns an importance which usually comes from the quantity and quality of the information as well as the webpage’s popularity. In addition there are many other ranking factors and various search engines value each factor differently. Once a rank is designated the page is then ready to be displayed for a user to access. Although all that is visible to us when performing a search are our search terms going in and the search results coming out, while behind-the-scenes there is a tremendous amount of action and effort going on to provide us with the information that we request.

According to Google these are some tips to get a better webpage ranking with them.

1. Good webpage Content!
2. Design the pages for users and not for the search engines.
3. Don’t use cloaking (presenting different information to the search engine than

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Blogging has been around for sometime now but it was only recently that people had noticed the level of importance and beneficial properties that it offers.   Blogs are basically online interactive journals that span any number of topics.   Some blogs are personal, detailing the actions of an individual and some are organization blogs which usually cover topics and events associated with that organization.   Disregarding whether it is used as a personal or professional outlet, a blog is a handy instrument that can be used to gain momentum and popularity over the Internet.   So a Blog can be a channel for you to express your ideas as well as drive up the success of your business!

So what are the Benefits Of Having A Blog?

Web Presence!

1. A blog is an excellent way to reach out to your existing clients and gain more along the way.
2. A quick way to supply news, promotions, ideas, or other information to your audience!
3. Offers an effective way to provide customer service and support to your customers!
4. A blog helps establish you as a professional.
5. Help you build a following and gain respect within your industry and blogging community!
6. Efficiently increases traffic to your site!   Search engines like, actually love blogs and the keywords found in your blog entries attract more customers to your site looking for information about those keywords.
7. Allows for you to obtain rapid feedback from blog participants.
8. Writing a blog also makes your company more approachable! People will have an easier time communicating with you because you are on a more personal level.

Are you convinced that you should have a blog?

These tips might Help with Creating and Managing a Blog.

• Choose a time to

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