Future Searches

A Round up of On-page SEO Factors in 2012

2011 has been an eventful year for all online marketers. We have the Panda, freshness update and some fleeting reference of the Vincent update. And if this is not enough and if I am not wholly wrong, we have some strong signals that 2012 will see the death of links as a signal of rankings. However, the changes are not all about off page optimization. There has been a massive change lurking large over on page optimization process as well. On page optimization is no longer confined to keywords stuffing and all that. What is even more interesting is that Google is now scrapping Meta description as well. But onpage optimization is more than keyword research and meta data writing. Here in this article, we will try to explore some other vital aspects of on page SEO that may have direct impact on ranking in the year to come:

Duplicate Content

Sites with faceted navigations often find that a product page can be accessed via almost infinite number of ways. Since these pages are all basically the alternative versions same page, they will lead to the issue of internal duplicate content. To solve this issue, you need to use rel=“canonical” tag. Set a page as a canonical tag and use this code – <a href=http://www.example.com/rel-canonical.html rel=“canonical”> in the header section of all the other pages. It will solve the issue of internal duplicate content.

How to Make Your Website More User Friendly

With the internet being as popular and wildly competitive as it is, successful websites need to be cleverly designed and user friendly. A user friendly website will attract visitors and keep them coming back for more. If you have a website that could use a little help in becoming more user friendly, the following tips can help.

Set Goals

Before you constructed your website, you should have had a clear idea as to what your website’s purpose was going to be. If you are a site that is informative, remember to keep it that way and avoid adding content that doesn’t pertain to your original purpose. If your site exists to sell a product, make it easy for your visitors to find and purchase that product. You should have goals for your website in the back of your mind at all times. This will help keep your website user friendly and to the point.

The Evolution of SEO

Okay let’s start from the very beginning. For those who are not familiar with the term, SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is a strategy that was developed in the 1990’s by the search engines at that time like Alta Vista, Lycos, AskJeeves and others. When SEO was first starting out, keyword stuffing and use of Meta tags were the norm. Later, backlinks were introduced. A website filled with key phrases and with numerous backlinks would rank higher in the search engine. This was, basically, SEO in a nutshell at that time. It was all about getting your site to show up in search results and at this point in time, there weren’t a whole lot of rules.

Google and SEO

When Google was launched in 1998, the search engine optimization rules changed drastically. Google introduced a new search engine algorithm called Google Bot. Google’s PageRank is not concerned about the number of keywords used or the backlinks. Instead, it focused more on quality over quantity. This means websites with quality backlinks would get higher ranking in the search engine listing than those with random backlinks and overstuffed keywords.

 Google’s ability to crawl and index websites based on quality content and backlinks exposed a number of website issues such as duplicate content, redirects and canonicalization. Consequently, websites that are truly popular and are not relying on tactics such as black on black cloaking, irrelevant meta tags and keyword stuffing emerged at the top of the search engine list.

Secret Content Marketing and Social Media Strategies

For the most powerful and effective marketing strategies you must combine your methods. If you have a social networking account you want to put these buttons on your website or blog. This allows people to friend you or to share your website or blog on whichever social network.

Visitors won’t revisit your page if your content isn’t top quality and informative. So you can’t just leave it up to networking, you must combine your networking efforts with your content marketing efforts.

If you are not sure how to effectively marry the two I can help you out a bit. Continue reading for some strategies that will help you combine social media strategies and content marketing in the most effective way.

• Ensure all the articles you publish are full articles. You can place these articles on websites such as LinkedIn or on your Facebook Fan page.

• Whenever you post an article or write a blog post or answer a question in a discussion forum or make a comment you can benefit from placing your link into it. 

You can link it to your social network page or straight to your website in different ways, you can do a straight headline or with a small paragraph then the link or you can do it in the form of a question. The latter is said to have the best effect for improving click through rate.

3 Often Overlooked Things That Can Actually Harm Your Website

The world of search engine optimization is one that frequently, if not always, causes huge debates. The latter include diverse topics such from the color of the hat people are wearing, Google’s not-so-smooth attempts to give even more exposure to its own services, and the shady tactics employed by several agencies to get short-term results. There are also lesser debates that revolve around particular techniques with groups of people arguing about the effectiveness of these methods and their implications in the long term.

The number of different techniques and steps involved in search engine optimization is indeed huge. Similarly, there are many simple things that anybody can do to make sure a website or blog is properly optimized. Unfortunately, it seems that the simpler things often get overlooked. While people often take extreme measures to build quality links and jump on the social media bandwagon, they unfortunately fail to consider simple things that are probably already harming their website. This article thus lists the five most common such things that you should get around to fixing as soon as possible.

Why and How to Improve Search Engine Rankings with Offsite Optimization

So, you call yourself an SEO expert, thinking you know everything it takes to improve your website’s ranking? What about what’s not on your website? While onsite optimization is a valuable tool to have at your disposal, even more important is what’s not on your website. Offsite optimization plays just as important technique for your website’s strength, page rank and online reputation. Here’s how to know what exactly the difference is between onsite and offsite optimization and how to leverage your company’s website to its full capacity and potential.

What’s the Difference, Anyways?

Onsite SEO is for most people, the primary focus of their online visibility strategy. Concentrate on onsite SEO and allow it to be 80% of the optimization work you do, with the remaining 20% for offline optimization. Online optimization takes the form of headings (subtitles, titles, etc.), internal links, title of the page, and content of the page. While onsite optimization is everything within your actual website, offsite optimization is everything outside of your website. Offsite optimization includes the various advertising and marketing techniques for your website such as posting a blog article as a guest blogger (including links back to your website), social bookmarking, article submissions and press releases.

10 Ways to promote your eCommerce website

When you hear the word promotion, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Promotion is a word to describe a marketing activity with the objective of informing, influencing, and persuading people to make a repeat business (for former clients) or make purchasing decisions (for new clients). Once you create a website, it definitely makes sense if you exert more effort in promoting it. Here are the 10 ways to promote your eCommerce Website.

Email Campaigns

Build a list of emails and send a promotional email to invite everyone to have a look at your eCommerce Website. You may want to give away little freebies and prizes too.

Press Releases

Writing or having people to write a Press Release for you is one of the best things you can do to promote your website. Press Releases are distributed to your chosen media list or to journalists.

Google Plus Pages for Businesses

Initially, business websites and brands were not allowed to use Google Plus. But now, the long wait is over. Google has finally released its Google Plus Pages where businesses, brands, and companies are very much welcome to put up pages from Google Plus. When you are building a Google Plus page for local business, you actually can add your phone number and other information related to your business. You can add contacts, share photos, links, videos, and everything promotional to your page.

The Risk of Over-Advertising

The idea of monetizing a website appeals to most web builders, bloggers, and business owners. From conception to launch plans are made on how to profit from the hard work and valuable content placed upon the pages. However many make the fatal mistake of over-advertising on their site. This is one of the common causes for websites to go under. The risk of over-advertising is much greater than the benefits of multiple affiliate links and banners. Here are a few reasons why you should consider moderate advertising.

It’s all about the fans
There is a reason you are prepared to monetize your site. You have noticed the increase in traffic and an ever growing fan base. Littering your page with flashing ads from various and irrelevant affiliates will only drive away traffic rather than keeping them on your site. Choosing your advertising carefully will allow you to hand tailor your affiliates for the traffic and niche that made your site popular. Sometimes less is more and this goes for advertising as well. Keeping moderate and well placed ads can help keep your visitors interested in your sites content while still offering the products or services you want.

Analytics packages and SEO

Five Basics to Monitor Using Website Analytics

If you’re new to using an analytics package on your website you may find the sheer number of measurements and statistics at your fingertips a little daunting. Below I’ve explained 5 basic areas that any good analytics package will cover and how the information gleaned from them can be used to further improve your site.

1) Keyword Analysis

An analytics package will allow you to assess, without much effort, the keywords sending traffic to your site, a crucial piece of information for any SEO plan.
This keyword report will break down where this keyword came from – e.g. Google – and how people performed who used this keyword. With aspects such as bounce rate (people that immediately left your website) and transaction information (how many keyword visits lead to a sale), you can quickly paint a picture of what is driving your business.
This allows you to determine which keywords are not pulling their weight, or if there’s a term you hadn’t targeted that’s performing really well. With a little bit of additional targeting, that missed keyword might turn into a goldmine of potential.

Optimizing For Trending Topics

What are Trending Topics?

 A key aspect of marketing is taking ‘the next big thing’ and harnessing its appeal. Trending Topics are the popular subjects, recent news stories and current events that everybody is talking and writing about. Finding and harnessing these topics is an excellent search engine optimization tactic. Trending Topics are a fantastic way to optimize website traffic towards those who are searching for those current topics.

There are typically two different categories of Trending Topics: Short-term and long-term. Short-term trending topics are news stories that will not remain popular for a long amount of time. A prime example of a short-term trending topic would be celebrity news and gossip. A subject such as a celebrity marriage may be a Trending Topic one week but irrelevant and forgotten the next. Long-term trending topics are sustainable issues that have both staying power and growing potential. An example of a long-term Trending Topic is the current ‘green’ trend. A few years ago it was a specialist subject of minimal popularity now it is a huge trend that will continue to grow.

How to find Trending Topics