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Why You Should Stop Link Building

Posted by on March 21, 2014

The past year has brought about many changes in search engine optimization. Many SEO practices have turned out to be not so good for a website’s rankings and there are also emerging practices that are slowly being incorporated into SEO strategies.

Among the old SEO practices that have seen huge changes in the past year is the practice of link building. Gone are the days when the goal is to get as many back links as you can and getting link building services just to boost the number of links to your website. Although there are a few companies and specialists who have stopped this practice altogether, there are still some who just lessened this practice or made variations to it.

For those who have decided to stop link building altogether, below are some of their common reasons for doing so.

  • Earn links instead. Many of those who have stopped link building reason out that they will earn the links through other SEO practices and strategies, which they reason to be the best way to get links anyway. There are other ways you can successfully earn links to your website. Any of these may not be as fast as the old ways of link building, but what it can accomplish for you is a more solid Google ‘reputation’. The best way to earn these links is to establish your site as an authority in your niche by posting high quality relevant content.
  • Can potentially hurt your site. Many websites have been penalized by Google for bad link building practices. In fact, when the link building changes brought about by Google’s Penguin were put in place, a lot of websites got penalized for their link building even if the links were acquired years before. Using this as an example, then you can never be sure when a particular link building scheme will be ‘caught’ by Google. Anyone who has undergone SEO training in the Philippines knows that links are not to be bought so the only way to earn it that would be approved by Google is by naturally earning it.
  • Has a very low return. With the old style of link building, you would often need to do a lot before you can even have visible results. Compared to the number of links you need to get for a low success rate, earning links from high quality websites is the better way of optimizing your site.
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SEO On Blogs: Ten Secrets To Blog Content Optimization

Posted by on March 17, 2014

Search engines like Google love fresh and new content. As they aim to give their users the most relevant and latest results, their crawlers are always on a lookout for new pages on the web to discover and include in their indices.

How To Optimize Blog Content

Contents on a blog attract not just user traffic but those of the search engine spiders as well. Learn the secrets to optimizing your entries. Here are ten tricks to show you how.

1.       It’s all about quality, relevance and uniqueness. Keep them original. Pick trending topics in your industry and breaking news within your niche and you are guaranteed to reach SEO rankings in no time. Make sure that the knowledge you impart is useful and timely. Aim for write-ups that answer common questions or solve people’s problems. Avoid spinning articles for the purpose of quantity.

2.       Maximize snippets. Snippets are excerpts that describe your entire article. These brief descriptions are visible on the SERP. The more compelling and attention-grabbing they are, the higher the chance that visitors will click on the link, arrive at your site, and read the full entry.

3.       Use eye-catching titles. Your title is the first thing that grabs the users’ attention. Make it descriptive so that your audience need not second guess what the post is all about. Avoid over-optimization and inserting awkward words just for boost SEO score.

4.       Apply proper keyword placement and variation. The trick is positioning your key terms near your images to emphasize its importance. Employ varied anchor texts for maximum outcome.

5.       Keep the length standard. Ideal number of words range from 400 to 600. Make them concise and spot on.

6.       Integrate various media types on your posts. Do not be limited with just text. Upload original photos. Create video tutorials. Insert images, videos, infographic and podcasts to impress an interactive content.

7.       Take notice of timing and frequency. The secret lies on posting regularly – 3 to 4 times per week and timing them in where majority of your readers are online. As you do this, the opportunity to get your write-up shared tends to go a little higher too.

8.       Allow reverse guest posting. Coordinate with influential bloggers in your field and invite them to write something for your blog. The variety of tone on your posts not only charms new readers but it also increases your credibility as a good resource.

9.       Be mindful of errors. This pertains to wrong spelling, punctuation, capitalization and grammar. Keep your content error-free.

10.   Use categories and tags. A tag makes it easier for your visitors and search engines to find a specific topic of interest. Hence, do not forget to include this at the end of each post.

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SEO On Blogs: Five (5) Basic Tips On Blog Search Engine Optimization

Posted by on March 11, 2014

Blogging is one of the best methods to improve SEO performance. As each blog post becomes a new page, it then provides fresher and newer content on the website which is exactly what Google wants. Integrating a weblog then is a marketing technique that most businesses apply on their sites.

How To Optimize Your Blog For Search Engines

Optimize your pages to improve SEO ranking. Here is a quick guide to show you how.

1.       Keywords. Choosing your keyword set is one of the critical keys to make the optimization work. The terms must be targeted and niche-related, diverse, placed strategically in the content, and fully applied on the most important elements of a blog:

  • Blog title and description
  • Meta data – meta title and description
  • Content – post title, headlines, sub-headlines, headers, sections, introductory sentence, concluding paragraph all with varied anchor texts
  • Images via alt tags
  • Permalink URLs

2.       On-page. These factors are equally important to send favorable signals to the search engine bots.

  • Theme. This comprises of having a neat design that has easy and smooth navigational structure and clean CSS and HTML codes.
  • Loading Speed. The quick speed in which the page loads usually equates to good user experience. Hence, install plugins that will output optimal results.
  • Sitemap. A sitemap is a full map of all your posts, pages and archives. Generating one regularly and submitting it to Google helps the spiders to index your posts better.

3.       Links. This pertains to both internal and external links.

  • Internal. There shouldn’t be any broken link anywhere on the website.
  • External or Inbound. Increased traffic is one of the benefits of SEO and one way to improve the number of visitors coming to your weblog is through building relevant baclinks in a natural way.

 4.       Social Media. Google is looking to social media mentions as an indicator of an article’s authority and relevance. Thus, having profiles in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and other major social networking sites plays a huge role in getting your content spread out over the web. Adding share buttons at the end of each post makes a big difference as well.

 5.       Mobile-friendly. In today’s age where almost everyone is on mobile, it has become a necessity to ensure that your articles are accessible on smartphones and tablets too. It is then advised to either create a mobile-version of your entire site, blog included, or go for responsive web design.

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How Hootsuite Can Boost Your SEO Efforts

Posted by on March 11, 2014

Search engine optimization has gone far beyond getting as many links as you can for your website. With the many changes brought by the Google Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird, SEO strategies have evolved as well.

The focus nowadays is on quality content – as it should be. Although quality content has always been emphasized as the more permanent tool for optimizing your website, some SEO specialists worked around this with spammy content, keyword stuffing, and other black hat SEO strategies. With the changes that Google has made on its search algorithm, the spotlight is back on building good reputation within your site’s niche.

Here is where social media comes into play. Social media’s rise in popularity has made it a powerful medium for marketing. Somehow, it has also found a way to affect search engine optimization. Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management programs. If you are more oriented towards SEO rather than social media marketing, is it worth your time to use Hootsuite? Below are some ways in which you can use Hootsuite to boost your SEO efforts.

  • Post to your Google+ business page. Google’s own social network, Google+, is quickly rising to be a serious challenger to becoming the most popular social network. Many businesses will benefit with a well-optimized Google+ business page especially with the increased importance of Google authorship. Hootsuite is a great application that can help make it easier for you to manage your Google+ business page. Hootsuite has the capability of posting to Google+ business pages so that you can quickly and conveniently post across all your social media accounts.
  • Post a link to your website through Twitter or Facebook. Two of the most popular social media networks are Twitter and Facebook. Hootsuite helps you utilize these social networks in promoting any content that you want to leverage on your website. This strategy has been proven to deliver significant traffic to web pages being linked to.
  • Get analytics reports. When you post links to your site through your social media accounts, you can then get insight on what works and what does not for your social media audience. Hootsuite has built in analytics reports that provide a lot of data into which posts are being clicked through, which posts are getting noticed, how many comments and shares particular posts are getting, and many more. These may not seem important at first, but the data from these reports will provide information on the topics that your target audience likes and what would stimulate high engagement.
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SEO in 2014: Four (4) Benefits of Reverse Guest Blogging

Posted by on February 26, 2014

In the world of SEO, inbound link is an important determining factor to rank on Google. Having a number of quality backlinks can signify how popular a website is and for the search giant, it can serve as a signal that the site is an authority resource hence worth looking at by searchers around the globe.

There are several ways to build links. Writing guest blogs is one of them.

Why Do Reverse Guest Blogging

While guest blogging mainly comprises of you looking for relevant sites to post your content to, it’s exactly the opposite for reverse guest blogging. With the latter, you’re not on the hunt for weblogs anymore. You’re on a lookout for great bloggers instead.

Regardless if you are an SEO company, a food and beverage firm or telecommunications agency, find out the reasons why you should add this to your strategy for guaranteed SEO

rankings.

1.       You are basically in control. You get to pick who will write on your weblog. All you need to do is find the blogger and offer him or her a space on your website to publish a write-up. Contrary to the usual way where after spending hours on looking for a great blog to submit your article to you are left wondering whether they’ll accept or decline, this method is entirely different. It involves less work on your end. The blogger does all the writing, and more often than not, so does the promotion as well.

2.       Your web traffic and backlinks get boosted. An experienced writer has his own set of following and fans. As he blogs on your site, his loyal audience will most likely check it out which can translate to an increase in your traffic. It can also improve your visibility, link-wise, once the write-up is shared on the top social networks.

3.       You promote good partnership. When you reach out to or in contact with someone who will regularly publish his or her works on your blog, it signifies that you value his skills and enjoy his craft. This promotes good will and strong relationship in the future.

4.       You provide fresh ideas to your readers as well as regular articles to Google. Everyone wants something new once in a while. Doing this will give them a fresh intake about a certain topic you haven’t blogged about yet. It will also catch the attention of the search engine bots as you frequently post on your weblog.

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SEO : Everything You Need To Know

Posted by on January 14, 2014

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of publishing content that will rank well in search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. When a user types a keyword in a search engine it will display the first 10 results in that page. If your business or site ranked on top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), this means that you’re able to market your business well.

SEO comprises of 9 steps namely market research, keyword research, on-page optimization, site structure, link building, brand building, viral marketing, adjusting, and staying up to date. All of these things are part of the process that helps you land in one of the top spots in the SERP.  You can learn about all of these through SEO training in the Philippines. You can also get some SEO consulting services.

Capitalize on SEO. This will help you reach a wide market by knowing how to use the right words that get in the radar of search engines.

image from: http://www.seodirect.org/

image from: http://www.seodirect.org/

How to get ahead in SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) has now evolved to a more refined science. Google, for example, not only considers keywords but also the relevance and uniqueness of the content. Here are some ways to get the most out of SEO:

Publish new content regularly. This will keep the interest in your site. It also shows your knowledge and authority in your field.

Insert multimedia. Adding photos and videos to your site is a big plus. It widens your reach because you’re not limited to keywords only. When users search for images they can be directed to your site, too!

Ensure quality content. Search engines like Google do back links that means that your content can be linked to other related sites. Original and relevant content is given more importance now.

Creating buzz through SEO takes work. It takes consistency and quality all the time.

SEO for Small Business

Competition is stiff in almost any business. You need to find strategic ways to make your business stand out from the rest. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO will ensure that your brand will be easy to find and accessible in different search engines without the steep cost compared to advertising.

Since your business website should connect to your current and potential customers, it should be readily accessible when your brand name is being searched. Landing on the first page of the results page can mean a lot to your business. A survey showed that 90% of users do not go to the next page of the results page.

Small businesses benefit greatly from SEO. It’s an investment that gives you substantial results at a minimum cost. There are many SEO companies that provide you this service efficiently.

Also, take a look with these SEO trends and predictions that will hopefully help you have a SEO success for 2014.

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Local SEO: Five (5) Critical Mistakes To Avoid On Local SEO

Posted by on January 8, 2014

The criteria for ranking on local search results slightly differ from how it is done on global searches. While the former primarily focuses on targeting the local population using geographically-related phrases, the latter on the other hand, is designed to reach wider audience on a worldwide scale. Nevertheless, both have common goals in mind: to generate leads, traffic and hopefully have it converted into sales later on.

 

What To Avoid Committing When Doing Local SEO

Learn which critical mistakes to avoid while performing this marketing strategy. Here are five (5) of them.

 1.       Absence of and inconsistency in NAP information. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone Number. Whether you are doing your usual link building services, making directory submissions or simply putting out your details on numerous avenues around the web, it is critical to be consistent with your NAP at all times. Be certain that it is present on your website namely: your homepage, About Us, Contact Us and other important pages. Make sure that when you do citations and Google Places listing, you are using the same info all throughout.

 2.       Inaccurate data. It will certainly hurt your credibility if you provide erroneous address and phone or contact number whenever you do your SEO strategies. It will create a negative impact to your reputation and may be a big contributor to making your current and future consumers lose trust in your brand. Prevent this from happening by ensuring that all your information on the web is accurate and true.

 3.       Too much optimization. Regardless if you are an SEO company who handles multiple clients or a local restaurateur who wants to have his restaurant known within the vicinity, keep in mind that keyword stuffing on the business name, description and citations will do more harm than good. This will get you nowhere near the top of the results and in fact, may become a huge factor for you to get blocked by Google.

 4.       Incorrect category listings. If you are hoping to get more customers by getting yourself listed in several categories, you are in for a big mistake. Precision is another key to good rankings so stick to only one category and make sure that it is the correct one.

5.       Multiple Google Places landing pages. Forget about setting up multiple profiles in hope to influence the local SEO algorithm or to boost your position in the SERP. Remove unnecessary copies to avoid getting penalized.

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What Do Google’s Different Birds Mean?

Posted by on January 8, 2014

For the longest time, Google has been the most popular search engine on the Internet. More people use Google whenever they need to search for something online and this has been recognized by a lot of website owners by aiming to reach the top of search engine results. This brought about search engine optimization or SEO for websites, which is simply the process of making your website search engine-friendly so that you get listed among the top search results for your targeted keywords.

On Google’s part, the aim is to provide the most relevant search results to its users and Google does this by continually updating its search algorithm. The three latest Google releases are named after birds and they all target various aspects in SEO. Whether you provide SEO consulting services or are just a regular website owner, knowing about what these Google birds are will help you get a better idea of the kind of SEO in the Philippines and everywhere else that everyone should be aiming for.

Google Panda

This Google update was initially released in February 2011 and then several updates were released over the next months and the following year. The Panda aims to push up high quality websites and to filter out websites that have duplicate and low quality content. The Google Panda heralded the decrease in importance of old ranking factors such as PageRank. The most recent Panda update was rolled out last July 2013.

Google Penguin

The next Google bird to take flight is the Penguin, first announced in April 2012. The targets of this update are websites that resort to black hat SEO tactics especially to get links from other websites. Aside from this, Google intended to penalize websites that violate their Webmaster Guidelines. The last Penguin update was released on October 2013.

Google Hummingbird

This latest Google bird rolled out a month before it was announced on September 2013. According to Google, the Hummingbird is not a mere update but a totally new algorithm altogether. The Hummingbird aims to be more human-friendly in terms of searches, which means that instead of handling searches by keywords or a just a few words, searches can now be done with naturally-worded questions.

All of the Google birds discussed above prove that there is no single or simple way that websites are ranked in search results. PageRank continues to be used; the Hummingbird, particularly, looks at this along with other factors. Google’s search algorithms have become more complicated over the years but the goal remains thess same – to provide relevant and high quality search results to users.

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Local SEO: Seven (7) Helpful Tips To Rank On Local Search Results

Posted by on December 3, 2013

Local SEO is an online marketing technique that increases the visibility of businesses for geographically-related searches on search engines. Implementing this strategy is essential for the following reasons:

  • 1 in 3 searches on Google is a local search
  • 4 in 10 people do a local search everyday
  • 70% of online searchers will use local search to find offline businesses

 

How To Rank On Local Search Results

Here is a primer on how to dominate search results locally. Learn how to boost your ranking with these seven (7) helpful tips.

1. Get your business on Google through Google Places. Getting listed on Google Places is one of the factors that guarantee SEO rankings locally. This is a way to let Google know anything and everything about your business. It is critical then to optimize your page here:

  • Use product, service or location-based keywords in the business title and description.
  • Choose an accurate category listing.
  • Fill out both required and optional text fields.
  • Upload images of your office.

2.       Create a Google+  Local Page. Google+ Local is quite similar to the regular Google+ pages in a sense that you can create and manage circles, start and join hangouts, and share diverse content like posts and photos. The only difference is that it allows your customers to easily connect with you more. For instance, if you’re a digital company that offers SEO in Cebu and nearby areas, a map that features your physical address, local phone number and hours of operation is included. Apply these strategies:

  • Get your page verified.
  • Complete and optimize your profile.
  • Work on getting more Google +1’s.
  • Upload videos with high-quality content.
  • Encourage good reviews from customers and top reviewers in your niche.

3.       Be consistent on your NAP. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number. The presence of NAP on your Google+ Local or Places page isn’t enough. You have to maintain consistency and ensure that they are all the same including the ones provided on your website.

4.       Claim your citations. Get listed on search engines and social media – Google, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, and Foursquare. Look into directories where you can get your business added locally.

 5.       Work towards getting third-party online reviews. Local-wise, the quality, velocity and diversity of review signals can greatly influence your performance.

  • Select review sites that have high-domain popularity and Google search ranking and high authority inbound links pointing to them.
  • Obtain high customer ratings and positive reviews at a consistent rate.

6.       Acquire authoritative backlinks. The quality and authority of your backlinks are still big indicators to rank well on Google locally. Hence, attract links from local and national newspapers, local relevant and influential websites, high profile bloggers and professional industry associations.

7.       Take advantage of the social media and mobile-related signals.

  • Gain mentions of your brand via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other networks.
  • Promote content shares, comments and likes.
  • Encourage check-ins from mobile social networking apps such as Facebook and Foursquare.
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Youtube Marketing: Four (4) Ways To Get Your YouTube Videos Rank On Google

Posted by on November 12, 2013

The SERP (Search Engine Results Page) of Google has long evolved from merely showing organic and paid results to dynamic elements ranging from direct answers, image and video results to in-depth articles, news and related searches. As an example, try typing “how to tie a tie” on Google.com. The list includes a website detailing the knots, a Youtube result with instructions, some images and at the bottom, an Android App at Google Play Store.

 

how-to-tie-a-tie

 

 

How To Make Your Youtube Videos Rank On Google

Needless to say, using videos to market a website is a tool that every business owner can take advantage of. Learn how to make them rank on the SERP. Here are four (4) ways to show you how.

 

1. Pick the right keywords.

Just like how SEO companies and enthusiasts practice keyword research on websites, the same goes for videos. Pick the best terms that users will most likely type on Youtube search bar. For instance, suppose you are a newly-launched web development company who wants to establish brand awareness. Focus on creating helpful and viral videographics such as ultimate guide on how to increase website speed, web design trends for 2014 or reviews of the top 3 web hosting sites. Upload it on Youtube.com and lean towards the top phrases that will make your media easier to find.

 

2. Optimize your page and channel.

Any SEO consulting service will tell you that optimization is a must to be on the first page of Google.com. Similar routine applies to both webpages and videopages. Insert the keyword on the title and description. Choose the correct category and maximize the tags option. Have your whole video transcribed and convert the transcription into captions or descriptions.

 

3. Get likes and comments.

Another secret to ranking well basically lies on the ratings, shares, comments, channel views and subscribers. Since Youtube integrated its commenting system with Google+ profiles, the chance to have a lively debate is better than ever. Interact within the community and reply to popular niche videos. By default, all comments in Youtube.com are posted on the commenter’s respective Google+ profiles so do not miss this opportunity. Encourage discussions on your video page. You can also create a playlist to boost your views. Add annotations to make them subscribe to your channel or to direct them to one of your content.

 

4. Build quality backlinks.

Embed it on your company blog, hold a contest, cross-promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest and submit to top social bookmarking sites.

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