Since the advent of web a lot has changed in the SEO industry but what has not changed is the importance and credibility of back-links in the determination of website ranking. Webmasters and designers have been employing and using various tools and techniques to get back-links. Some methods include directory submission, article submission, bookmarking, and press releases. Asides webmasters are utilizing various web2.0 portals like hub-pages, Infobarrel and Squidoo lens to get back-links.

Why Back-link is so important

The importance of back-links can be understood with the fact that in 2005 Google patented their Page-rank calculation method to determine the number and strength of back-links so as to provide the most relevant results to their users. In fact back-links are like highways on the basis of which search engine robots find your document or web-pages in the complex and complicated network of web. Consider a city having no highway, how can people communicate within the city? It will be quiet difficult for them to reach to a certain destination. Similarly these back-links are the highways of internet and crawlers reach you through these.

How to get back-links

Getting back-link is the most tedious task a webmaster can face during the whole process of search engine optimization. Link exchanging is the most widely used method to increase the number of back-links for a website. However link-exchanging method is mainly two-way process which Google place less value. One-way link is the best method which Google places more value. In order to get one-way back-link webmasters should create fresh contents and syndicate contents to various article submission directories. Leveraging various web2.0 portals are another way of getting one-way links. Since, these sites are authority sites using their domain extension are something that worth your time and money. Creating web-pages in various web2.0 portals like Hub-pages, Squidoo, blogger are worth considering.

Getting contextual back-links

It is not enough to get backlinks only, but it also matters how you are linked with that website. This is what we call contextual linking. Means the anchor texts that you are linked to should be the keyword you are optimizing your website for. With contextual links you can rank your website high in the search engine. To achieve this webmasters should create a “link to us” page in which they can provide the exact that they other sites to use while linking you. Webmasters should provide the exact java-script so that webmasters can simply copy and paste it to their page and link to you.

Avoid link-farming

Considering the great importance of back-links, webmasters started manipulating and abusing the link building process and start doing link-farming. This is a black hat SEO technique in which webmasters sell and buy links in bulk to improve their search engine ranking. Now Google has started penalizing these sites indulged in such kind of unethical activities. Link farming is now considered as a black-hat SEO and if predicted Google can penalize your site.

Link building through Link-wheel

Link wheel creation is a method in which web-pages are created on various web2.0 portals and are interlinked with each-other and with the home page of the website so as to create a wheel of links. Webmasters usually use hub-pages, Squidoo, blogger and other properties to build web page and then work upon these pages to build the link authority and credibility. However, if predicted Google can penalize for such activities, nonetheless there are various webmasters who still employ these techniques.

Hence we realized that link building is something which is at the heart of the search engine optimization process and webmasters should employ various methods to get authority and one-way backlinks. At the same time webmasters should avoid using black-hat SEO techniques to get backlinks. Doing the same may penalize your website ranking.

Local searches are based on Geo searches. While considering local searches a company considers two important things…

• What matters?
• What points should a company work upon?

These two points are further depended on following factors and you need to do following changes in your SEO strategies.

• Your physical address should list the city where you are located.
• Manually validating your ownership
• A well categorize section for web pages and citation.
• Traditional structured citations for your business like yellow pages and local place aggregators.
• Listing address on the website and making it crawable
• The homepage of your website should have a good page rank.
• Inbound links matters a lot and having a high quality inbound links is always beneficial.
• Never forget to list your company’s phone number on the website and make it follow by crawlers.
• Dominating local searches means you need to put accurate address including local area code. This should be published in Google places landing page.

When you are done with these points, then only you have fulfilled the basic criteria of ranking in local searches. From here you can start optimization.

Keywords are something which is at the heart of search engine optimization and Internet marketing. Keywords are the terms or phrases that your potential customers put in the search text box to find the product or service you want to sell or provide. So, something which is so important has to be used consciously and meticulously. This article is an attempt to tell users how keywords can be placed intelligently in the content of your web page to have a better search engine ranking.

Place your keyword on the title of your content: Title is something which determines the relevancy of your content. It is relevant not only for the search engine but for the visitors too. Because the title of the content is something which users will encounter with first. Once you manage them to attract through appropriate keyword rest of your task will be easy. If, your title is not relevant to what users are looking for then they are not going to stay back to your content.

Try putting the keyword in the beginning of the title: Webmasters should try their best to put keyword in the beginning of the title. This makes it incredibly easier for the search engine robots to judge what your content is about. And at the same time it becomes easier for users to decide it at first glance whether it is the same product or service they are looking for or not.

Go for long tailed keyword: If you are new in the field of internet and have launched your website shortly, then using long-tailed keyword is the most preferable option to beat your competitors who are already ranked high in the search engine result page. For, example if you are in the business of second hand computer selling then ranking your website for the keyword “Computer” will be really very tough. If this is the situation webmaster should target long-tailed keywords like “second hand cheap computer” or “used cheap computer”. With this not only you can catch your targeted customers but if search for this keyword is high enough you can beat your competitors for the keyword “computer” too.

Use variety of keywords: There is not only a single keyword that your users use to find your service or product. Since, there are billions of people so all of them might not be using the same keyword. Hence it is imperative to use variety of keywords to optimize your site. For example for the business that we mentioned earlier webmaster should use “cheap computers”, second hand computers”, second hand cheap computers, useful second hand computers

Avoid putting your company name in the title: Title is something which holds utmost importance as far as search engine optimization is concerned. It is the first thing that search engine robots read. Hence it is very important for webmasters to use the keyword they are targeting in the title. This improves your chance of getting indexed quickly and rank highly. Avoid using your company name in the title unless your brand is so popular like Nike, Google, Microsoft etc.

SEO friendly is a broad term and it is not easy to define it, especially in the form of checklist. SEO need skills, knowledge, and easy bang of effective ideas to increase search engine visibility. To make my write up helpful for my readers, I have really tried hard to collect all the information scattered here and there on the web. Collected the entire helpful one and scattered the other.

Checklist for Website structure and Code issues

• Your code should be well structured and should be readable. Prefer using H1to H6 tags, you can also use CSS for visualization.
• Frames and iframes should be avoided
• Use Google site maps in your website
• Prefer creating search engine friendly website URL. It will increase your visibility.
• Static and dynamic pages both have their own importance. So, when you require static pages go for it and when dynamic is required preferred the second one. Your home page should be static and simple HTML pages.
• Avoid clumsy navigation like DHTML dropdowns or Java Rollovers
• Multiple navigation is good option it is search engine friendly too. Try it
• Text-based Navigation menus are user friendly so always go for it. Graphic buttons are heavy; as far as rollover effects are concerned you can easily attain it with CSS.
• CSS and Java Script files should be uploaded in external files and from there you can link with it easily to the main document.
  • Don’t require session IDs from your user (if not necessary) these are not search engine friendly.

In this article I want to cover some very basic tips that one can keep in mind when making strategy for SEO campaign. Please note that good search engine marketing is not just manipulating or fooling search engines. If your thought lie somewhere here, change it immediately. A Good SEO skill is creating authentic and relevant content that justify itself to be found on top not because it is SEO friendly but because it is really helpful to the readers. Once your content is accurate in information, it will surely attract user and the SEO work automatically turns easy.

Going For Keyword Forensic: Have you got my point, no, check it out. A credible keyword research is not about guessing keywords but all is about researching genuine data. Change with the time; don’t go for traditional keyword research better learn keyword forensics. It is actually the recent trend in keywords that are being searched. You will be closer to success, if you follow forensic keyword research.

Your Web Copy Should be Interactive

Remember that the content of your web page should be written in interactive form, this means that you should not inform your reader but talk to them. The writing style should be written in easy English so that the reader get familiarize with the concept easily. The focus of the website should be audience and the appeal should be secondary. A concluding note ‘You’ is better than ‘we’

Content should be written for Audience Not Search engine

The very important point your target is audience not search engine, so write for audience not search engine. So while writing go for the best content, once you have completed with the content you can now move ahead with slight changes to make it optimize. In this way you have balls in your both hand.

Innovation always triggers mass appeal

I don’t say that you should not keep close watch on your competitor but it is not always a good idea of following them. You should also try to do something new be a pioneer so that your competitor follows you. Try not to be gripped with going on competition, but be creative and initiate your own new trends. A concluding note ‘set yourself apart from the competition it is easy and has potential to give you huge advantage.

A Convincing calls to action is needed

Did you know that you can import expression in your writing as well? This can be done by effective writing. Think of how your Web copy reads and ensure the dialog flows smoothly. If your reader is a senior citizen your writing style should be different and if you are writing for newlywed couple, your approach should be different. And ultimately your call of action should be strong enough to convince your reader. Never hope that reader will automatically understand your point, they don’t have time to brainstorm.

Blogging is something which has become one of the most common methods of getting your word out. Initially it was started as a part of fun but due to its popularity and handy approach, brands started using it as one of the most important channel of communication with potential or existing customers. There are many blogging sites available out there which can be used to create a blog for businesses. Each has its own merits and demerits; this article is an attempt to highlight those positive and negative aspects of these blogging sites.

#1WordPress: WordPress is one of the most robust blogging site or content management available out there. Due to variety in themes,plugins, flexibility and support it stands out of the crowd. One of the most important feature of WordPress is that not only is it free but its open-source blogging software allow you to blog for free on wordPress.com domain but you can install and integrate it on your own website using your own domain. WordPress has emerged as one of the most popular and user friendly blogging platform. Besides these, its peculiar feature is that to operate a WordPress effectively so one need not have to be an expert in coding. It is very handy to optimize your blog’s pages for search engines.

#2Google Blogger: Though blogger is not a much robust as WordPress due to various themes and plug-ins, nonetheless when it comes to simplicity it is the best one.  Since it is owned by Google you can create as many blogs as possible using your single Google account. Its peculiarity is its next blog button which helps blog owners gets more traffic. Just like other blogs, you can monetize your blog by placing AdSence ads. For this all you need is an AdSence account from Google and you can start earning money right away.

#3TypePad: It is another important blogging site that has received tremendous reputation in last few years. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that once you have a type blog you don’t have to optimize it for search engine ranking as it will be done automatically by the company. Besides, it also provides a very useful anti-spam comment feature. But, the only unfortunate thing is that it is not free and users need to pay a fee of $8.95 per month. Besides it doesn’t allow creating more than 3 blogs.

#4Movable Type: It’s an open source blogging platform which is written in PERL. Like WordPress it also offers a free self-hosted option. Unlike Typepad users can create as many blogs as they want without any fee.

#6LiveJournal: The blogging platform was initially owned by Six Apart which is written in PERL. The most distinguishing feature of this is unique community feel and social networking features. While the negative thing about this is that users are mandated to display advertise on their blog even if you have a premium account. If you want to run an advertising-free blog you will have to upgrade your account with $20 per year.

#8Xanga: Initially Xanga was started as music and movie sharing site but after some time after its inception it evolved as a full-fledged blogging platform. Though it is free but with premium account you can get more publishing facilities and design options. One of the most important feature of this blogging platform is it domain mapping which allows you to hide your domain details.

One unique feature of the Textpattern CMS is the textile tool which, dubbed the “human Web text generator,” converts text input into valid XHTML. Textpattern was designed specifically for people who do not have a strong knowledge of HTML is another free, easy to use CMS that is relatively little-known. Similar to WordPress and Movable Type, Textpattern is built with PHP and MySQL. A wide variety of plugins and templates are available through the open source community. One unique feature of the Textpattern CMS is the textile tool which, dubbed the “human Web text generator,” converts text input into valid XHTML. Textpattern was designed specifically for people who do not have a strong knowledge of HTML.

Search engine optimization is something which is at the heart of today’s businesses. You can’t be a successful businessman unless and until you have a proper visibility in the digital space. These days, businesses are leveraging services of various SEO companies to have an effective online visibility so that they can concentrate much on their core niche.

I am sure you too have, had hired SEO companies to rank your blog or website high in the search engine result page. But, there is a common problem that most of the SEO service providers face with the clients they work with. And that is the consistence interference from the client side. While signing the contract, service providers are assured that as long as there are visible results they will have complete freedom to work as they please. However, as soon as they start working on the project, the client starts indicating and dictating their terms about how the task should be accomplished. Not only it disrupt the whole rhythm of the work rather the site adversely get affected. This is an article which can guide you how to be a proper SEO client.

Judge the efficiency and credibility of the company before signing the contract: It is well known that an experienced and efficient SEO company can rank your website well in the SERPs, but at the same time an inexperienced and inefficient SEO company can penalize your website. Thus, it is very critical that you should choose a SEO company which is credible, authentic experienced and efficient. But, this should be done prior to hiring a SEO company. Ask your service provider about the roadmap of the work that they will be doing. Get details about what procedures and techniques they will be employing to achieve the goal. What time frame they need to achieve the goal. Be assured about the tools and techniques they will be using during their whole process. If necessary hire an expert who can judge the knowledge and depth of the company as far as SEO is concerned. Be assured completely and then sign the agreement.

Stop interfering with the professional’s job at every step: Search engine optimization is not a straight forward process which can be achieved simply with the help of single method. Rather it is sophisticated and complex process which involves various techniques, tools and methods. Putting simply, the whole SEO work can be done on three different platforms one is on-page second is off-page and third is social media. With the advent of panda update it has not remained confined to website optimization rather it is a web-strategist. What so ever you will be doing on the web, search engines will rank you according to them. It is not possible to elucidate and describe each end every detail of the process that a SEO company is going to do because it needs a lot of technical and subject expertise. Once you have signed the deal be passionate and see what they are doing and frequent interference could hamper their work efficiency.

Confront the SEO expert only when projected targets are not achieved: But, this does not mean that that you don’t even to look at the results. Quantification of the SEO task is something which is very important, without which all is a waste. Do interfere but only when they are not meeting your expectation and goals. First give them enough time that was in the agreement and then ask about the result.

Let the SEO professional take care of keyword research and other key tasks: Keyword research is something which is very important in the whole process of search engine optimization. You might have come across hundreds of keywords for your business but not all of them are relevant and it is not fare to optimize your website for each keyword that is present over the web.

Hence, in a nutshell we can say that no doubt you are the boss but SEO is a process which requires a lot of freedom and creativity which can be achieved if you are co-operative with your service providers.

Backlinks are the backbone for higher ranking. Actually search engine find you and your document through these back-links only. Back-links are like highways or roads which connect one city with another. If you can’t maintain your highways properly, Google will not be able to find your content or website in the perplexing network of World Wide Web. More is the number of back-links higher is the chance for your site being indexed. So, we have reached to the point where all of us unanimously believe that inbound links are indispensable for better ranking. But what about Outbound links or external links? Are not they good for a website? And if so, then how will any website get back-link? Because then nobody will want to link to other site.

So, with this article we have come up with two different schools of thought about getting outbound links and then with our own experience about it which we have gathered from our past experience. So, let’s start with the school which believes that outbound linking is not good for higher ranking:

We don’t want to pass our link juice to other website: We have managed to get this much back-links after putting a lot of effort in years and each outbound link will leak a small fraction of our page rank to these sites. Why should I give credit to other pages at the cost of our reputation? Hence it is better not to give link to any other website.

We don’t want visitors to leave our site: If I put link of some other website which is more resourceful and worth reading than mine, it might be possible that my visitors will leave the page and stay there. Why should I let my users go anywhere else?

Why should I make the path smooth for our competitor:

If I link to my competitor with each link they will be getting an inbound link and my website an outbound link. It may improve the ranking of my competitor which I don’t want. Nobody wants to help their competition. By linking you are elevating them in the rankings for your keyword.

So, these are the questions that any webmaster may wonder while linking to some other website. And we are sure as a webmaster you might have also wondered once in a while. But there is another school which ruled these out and considers outbound links worth getting. Now, let’s see what they have to say about outbound links.

Automatic outreach: As a webmaster you might have spent a lot of your time sending personal mails to companies and webmaster requesting them to exchange links. But if you link back to someone they can see you in their analytic report and as a courtesy that may link you back. Besides, If your content is enough appealing they may tweet it to their followers. So, by linking back not only you get a back link but you also develop a relationship with that webmaster giving your website more outreach. Hence, outbound link that you put is actually an opportunity for outreach and get your word out. And it is as simple as putting a snippet of code in your editor.

It will add contextual signals to your content: If you are submitting your website to Google, it is a clear indication that you want Google to read and interpret your page appropriately. And for this, contextual signals play a big role. With these Google interpret what your page is all about and at what keyword it should be returned. For example if you want to sell “second hand car” and you got some references or informative content which you deem is worth reading for people who want to buy second hand car. You simply put the link of the content to your site. Now whenever Google will search something related to this product, your this link will tell Google, hey! This article is about second hand car, so you should index it. This is what contextual signal is all about.

Establish you as an authority in your niche: Let us suppose you have got a book which is very informative and worth reading but it doesn’t have any Bibliography, what will be your stand about that book? There will be a doubt about the credibility and authority of the information because you don’t know from where the author has gathered so much information. Giving a link is just like putting a bibliography on the book. Link is the bibliography of electronic document which tells readers that your content is authentic, credible and trustworthy.

Our Opinion: After conducting various successful SEO campaigns we have seen that there is a significant co-relation between the number of external links on a page and higher ranking. The figure comes somewhere about 0.05. It may seem negligible considering one single metrics but if all metrics and ranking factors are considered simultaneously it may give us a significant figure. This matters a lot. However, the co-relation doesn’t prove that getting outbound link will improve your search engine ranking, but it does prove that getting outbound link doesn’t hurt your search engine ranking. And this point is worth considering because if you can build personal relationships and increase your social interaction with various brands simply by putting a snippet of code into your page and that too without affecting your search engine ranking then there is nothing better that this to get brand awareness.

Search engine optimization is something which has become very important for businesses and companies to say their words out. However there has been a lot of doubt about what are the best possible ways to rank a website high in the search engine result page. With this article we have come up with some tricks and tips which may help webmasters get their desired results. So let’s start….

Extensive Keyword Research

The whole web depends on keywords. Keywords or key-phrases are text or series of texts that users put into the browser’s search text box to find their product or services online. Hence it is imperative that webmasters should target appropriate keyword on their website to get more conversion.

It is an intelligent way to do keyword research right at the beginning of the web site designing. There are various tools available out there which webmasters can use to find the most searched keywords or keyword phrases. Webmasters should use the best possible tools to perform keyword research for their products or services. Webmasters should think in terms of users and should avoid using technical jargon which is not at all used by users.

Original and Optimized Content

There is another saying in search engine arena that “Content is king”. Search engines are fond of fresh, new and authentic content. The more fresh, authentic and relevant content you have more likely you are going to be ranked high in the search engine result page. Webmasters should emphasize more on producing user appealing contents rather than wasting their precious time and effort in fancy graphics and flashes.

Web Page Optimization

After keywords and content it is the turn of web page optimization. It is the process in which HTML coding of the web-pages is optimized so that search engines can index your pages frequently and you get higher ranking in search engine result page. Webmasters should realize that web-page optimization or on-page optimization is not a one-day process nor is it something that can be achieved in a very short span of time. In contrast it is continuous and time taking process which requires a lot of patience and effort.

Article syndication

These days the best and the most natural way of building back-links are creating fresh and appealing contents and then syndicating those articles to various article submission directories like Google knoll, Ezinearticle, article base, article alley article market and so on. Publishing contents on these article submission directories not only give you a new back-link rather your potential customers can reach you directly through the contextual links that you provide in the author’s resource box.

 Social bookmarking

With the advent of Google Panda, social media and social bookmarking sites are being recognized more by search engines. To leverage this to its fullest webmasters should syndicate their posts and articles on various bookmarking sites like dig.com, reddit.com, stumbleupon.com and various others. Since these bookmarking sites have real users, it is the best possible way to make your content viral.

Moreover, SEO is something which gives best output when many campaigns are undertaken simultaneously. Each one of the campaigns work individually but give collective result to your search engine ranking process and ensure a better ranking in search engine result page.

Saying straight away Domain diversity is getting back-links from different websites and sources or in other words we can say that domain diversity refers to the number of links coming from a variety of root domains to the main site.

Your browser may not support display of this image.For example let’s consider you have two back-links say A and B for your website. Now you can have these two links from same website or from two different sources. As far as search engines are considered they prefer links from lots of different sources. In the aforementioned situation it is better to have one from site 1 and another from site2 than to have both from either one of them.

Domain diversity is an important SEO factor and a key metric that helps a site achieve high ranking in search engine result page. But to achieve this is one of the most daunting tasks. With this article we have come up with some points which can help you in achieving this domain diversity, so here we go!

Include appealing and interesting content on the website: Getting back-link is one of the most tedious and daunting task available in the field of search engine optimization. You can get either one-way links or reciprocal link. But to have one-way link is the best method of link building and getting domain diversity. Webmasters want to make appealing and interesting content which is worth reading, sharing and linking. Every website owner wants to link to website that have some informative content for their readers as well. If you can crate appealing content webmasters may want to link to.

Ensure the anchor text in the link contains keyword phrase that describe the nature of your website: Google places more importance to links when the anchor text in the link contains the keyword that suits the nature of the page gaining the link. However it is very difficult to achieve this because there may be various sites which link with the keyword they want. However a well planned strategy can help you come a long way. For this try to include a page with your desired script which you want other webmasters to use while link to your website.

Consolidate links to a single site: It is appreciable if webmasters can concentrate and consolidate their maximum links to a single domain rather than diluting it by building various micro sites. For example you can have your blog and website in two different ways. You can have it either in the way http://www.mywebsite.com/blog or http://www.mywebsite.com and then another separate domain like http://www.myblog.com for your blog. In former one all the metrics and signals are going to reside in the same domain giving you a robust domain diversity while in the latter case you are diluting your link strength by creating various domains. Hence it is very important to concentrate your efforts on building inks on a single domain rather than diluting it by creating multiple domains.

Try to put keywords in URLs you post in various platforms. You might be using various web 2.0 platforms like blogging sites, Twitter, Facebook, Hubpages, Squidoo and Tumbler to either write content or commenting. Try to put keywords in every URL that describes best your website and content. You single tweet may be shared to various other websites or web2.0platforms so ensure that the URL has the same keyword. It will give you an effective domain diversity approach.