SEO Best Practices

Top Ten Search Engines

A study of some web sites and my web site revealed that the
below-mentioned search engines make up the top 10 search engines. Though there is nothing new about this, most of us know that Google and Yahoo! account for the maximum volume of traffic. I wanted to analyze the traffic to get an insight into other not so evident stuff:-

Google
Yahoo
Ask
Bing
Altavista
Lycos
AOL

I did not quite drill down to the ten search engines chiefly because 99% of the search was contributed by the above mentioned search engines.So essentially, it is Google and Yahoo that rules supreme. Google accounting for 70 % of the visits.The balance is largely Yahoo, Ask, and Bing. There are a couple of reasons for this. The majority of people I know Google more than they Yahoo! Yahoo! seems to be more of a destination for current news, social networking, flickr etc.It is popular for searching as well, but somehow not as popular as Google.

Another interesting thing i noticed was the depth and length of visit. Yahoo! sent me visitors who stayed on my web site longer and went through many pages.Even though the number of visits were less than Google, the visitors that yahoo!sent me seemed to be more focused and relevant. Believe me, I just scratched the surface, the amount of data that Internet Marketers can use from the data available is amazing!

The other reason is the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, and others. If you are active on the social networking circle, you will find a lot of referrals from these sites.End of the day, it is desirable that you get visits from search engines as well as referrals that way you know you have been successful in promoting your web sites effectively through all the channels.

Finding out which are the top search engines and social networking sites that send you the highest number of visitors is important.It will enable you to focus and optimize your efforts in maximizing traffic from to get more traffic from the search engines and referral sites that have the potential to send relevant traffic your way.

You may also check your search engine ranking on these popular sites and find out how well your site does for your relevant keywords.

Analyzing your search traffic regularly will enable you to achieve results that are in tune with your objective.

Well, you could argue and say, hey I have a website that has unique content, it downloads fast, and I update it often. The content is very useful for visitors.

So why exactly do I need to optimize it? I am offering valuable advice and content, all for free; shouldn’t the search engines give it priority naturally? After all my web site is providing value to the target audience?

I would say yes, it is true you are keeping your commitment of providing a valuable service to your potential customers but…

There are millions and millions of websites out there; exactly with the same objective, who do you think the search engines will prefer?

Think about it. You have created an amazingly beautiful and valuable creation but no one knows how to get there. You will need a little bit of help from everybody to find this creation of yours. You need to help people and search engines to help you.

Just like there are landmarks that tell you which way you are headed, or street signs that tell you that up ahead there is a restaurant etc , you need to find a way to communicate to people and search engines that your web site exists and that it is one gem of a web site! Search engine optimizing your web site does that for you.

Little things like providing an appropriate title to each of your web page, and meta tags…these elements are small but they have an incremental effect on your website’s visibility.

You will need to couple your SEO efforts with What we call in the tradition marketing, word of mouth. It helps tremendously to shout out, tell your friends to check out your web site, request then to refer it. Social networking optimization is another way of providing your web site the required push. Include your URL everywhere, signature lines, your Facebook profiles, LinkedIn, twitter updates…

Search engines have their own algorithms; they have tools that tell them what is being searched and which sites are more popular.

And this is just the beginning.

Is your website new? And are you desperate to get on top of search results?

Indeed it may seem like an uphill task to get your website to rank well in the major search engines when you have just about launched your brand new website.The enormity of the task may just make you desperate enough to try any means to get to the top of search results.

No matter what, I would advise you to be patient and not resort to claims from many operators who wish to convince you to use their software or their services in order to rank within the top ten search results. Sometimes there is a money back guarantee attached to it as well!

Incredible!

I would advise you to not pay heed to any of these tall claims. SEO is not something that can be applied and experienced immediately. Remember the sites that are ranking well have put in a lot of effort to be where they are now.

All is not lost though…and things are not really that desolate for a new web site. If you are launching your website now for a market that is already saturated with exiting established sites, you still have a good chance to gain visibility.

Your new website competition will be immense and it will certainly be a challenging task to produce results immediately. But with time, patience, and the correct SEO techniques everything is possible.

(image taken from fivegulf.com)

There are disadvantages and believe it or not advantages of working on Search engine optimizing a brand new site.

Let me sum up the disadvantages first-

1. If your web site caters to an already over saturated market, it will indeed be a tough task to rank…but not impossible.

2. Making the website visible to the online audience through SEO efforts is a time taking process.

3. Your competition is already many steps ahead with thousands of incoming links and decent rankings.

4. And you are going to have to start with a PR 0.

Now for the Advantages of a brand new web site-

1. You can learn from others mistakes and successes.

2. You have the advantage of loads of data at the click of your mouse. Study your competitors websites, do a thorough research.

3. Run a short campaign on Google Adwords, find out which keywords work for you.

4.Your biggest advantage is the Social media, searchers no longer depend upon search engines for their answers, you can create attractive videos and upload it on to youtube and other popular video sites. Facebook, Linkedin and many other social networking sites offer various ways of promoting products and services  as well.

5. More importantly, just do things a little differently from what is already there in your competitors websites. Offer something of value for free.

In summary,  do not give up easily, give your efforts time. Use content that is original and is of value to your visitors.

Mix your online marketing efforts with paid and organic marketing so that you get results faster.

Wish you all the best and see you at the top!

The SEO basics for small businesses are just the same for any global business, barring a few focused changes. The below-mentioned SEO best practices can help small business owners attract visitors to their websites: -

1. SEO for Web page title optimization; you can check out this post that I wrote specifically for SEO title optimization. When optimizing a business that has a local presence, it might be a good idea to mention the name of the place that the business caters to.

2. SEO for Description Meta tag title; you can check out this post that I wrote specifically for the SEO description meta tag optimization. Since description allows 2-3 lines of descriptive text, make sure you define your business, the market it caters to etc. Any unique items etc, your USP should get clearly defined here.

3. You can check out my post on SEO tips for an overall optimization effort.

4. You can consider submitting your website to directories, especially local directories. Here is another post that I wrote on search directory submission that might help.

5. Submitting your website details like postal address phone number, URL to Google and Yahoo local will certainly ensure that your site will show up on searching.

6. Get linked: You can check out my earlier post on “Linking for users”. This will help you get an idea of who to link with.

7. Find out who your competitors link to and who links to them. This will help you zero in on a list of potential websites who might want to link to your website.

8. Search for websites that are very popular local destinations; it might be a good idea to write to them requesting them to add your business to their website; it might be of value to their target audience.

9. Register with Google Web analytics, it will give you a lot of valuable data. You can optimize your web site even more once you have an idea about the visitors.

10. You could try out Google AdWords for a short time, just experiment, if it does not work out, you can turn it off. Just keep your budget moderate so that you do not end up spending a whole lot of dollars without any returns. AdWords helps if you want to reach your audience instantly and you have offers that have special discounts, seasonal discounts etc.

This is not an exhaustive list, but this will certainly get you started. This list of SEO optimization is affordable for Small business owners. One suggetion would be to keep looking for ways by which they can have coverage through all the local directories, blogs, portals etc. Practicing local business SEO is key, and will most definitely help your SEO efforts.

Internet marketing is an umbrella term that includes all the ways and means by which you can promote your products and services online.

For most businesses it is now imperative to have an online presence. Any business (corporate or small business owner) whether already established or in the introductory stage needs to have a strong Internet marketing strategy. With more and more people using the internet every day, marketers cannot ignore this space any longer.

Today searchers do not only rely on search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing, they discuss, ask and find out through their social networking circles. Where a tweet can evoke thousands of responses, can marketers ignore the fact that they need a strong Internet Marketing strategy? Each and every business needs to have a presence in the social networking circles so that they can answer and reach out to potential customers instantly.

The target audience today is much more equipped at researching and finding out almost anything that they want to know. So whether your target market is local or international, there needs to be an Internet marketing strategy that will address the needs of the population that you are targeting.

Along with the offline marketing plan, the strategy of any marketer should be to include various aspects of Internet Marketing. Just like a cook who mixes certain ingredients in a certain proportion to cook a meal to perfection, the same way marketers need to include Search engine optimization, Search engine Marketing, Social networking, etc in their Internet Marketing strategy in the right proportion. Not all products and services require the same level of SEO (Search engine optimization) or SEM (Search Engine marketing) and it is up to marketers to strategize and form an Internet marketing plan that will be a right mix of all the components that form part of the Internet Marketing Umbrella.

For an effective internet marketing strategy, the objective has to be very clear.

Are we promoting a product that needs eyeballs instantly or can we gradually build that kind of audience?

Do we have a target date by which we would require people to register for an event or is it mostly open ended?

The answers to these and many such questions will provide the Internet marketing solutions and will form the basis of the strategy;

Whether to have an extensive SEO for the web site to begin with or to start with basics and keep working on SEO, while extensively using SEM so that the audience gets to know about the products/ services from day 1.

Internet marketing / website marketing and how it is planned and what strategies are used to promote products and services on the Internet are very important for any business to succeed online.

In my next few posts, I will take up:- the various components of Internet Marketing (web marketing), discuss ways in which businesses can draw up strategies depending upon their requirement, the best practices of Internet marketing, and how much of role does SEO have in it.

Best SEO Practices ?

Well, this web site is about the best SEO practices, but do we really have a list that will give you a complete insight into SEO and the best practices that are followed by professionals all over the world?

The answer is yes, there is…but you may not find a list that will give you a list of all the best practices,  the thing is; you are never done. There is no list that will say- follow these seo practices and you will rank well.

In truth there are quite a few things that a SEO professional will do by default to prepare your web site for search engines and visitors and to ensure that your site is not black listed by the search engines and social networking sites. But what after the initial set of “to dos”? Once you are through with optimizing the web site with the appropriate mata tags, content, navigation, design, load time, submissions to search directories  etc…. What after that?

Do you just wait around for the search engines to make your site popular or do you continue to work on other aspects of SEO (Search engine optimization)?

Any new product, when it is launched, requires a lot of promotions through newspaper ads, internet, billboards, TV ads,  radio etc. Agreed that initially the promotion effort is huge but does it completely stop after people get to know about it and start using the product?

The answer is NO. Big established brands still advertise and advertise a lot. With the markets getting more and more  competitive, there is every need of reaching your message again and again to your potential customers. Customers have a  short attention span and if you do not keep reminding them that you are around they will forget you. Not only do you need to remind your loyal customers about your products and services, you also need to attract potential customers.

The same thing applies to websites and blogs. If you do not continue with your effort in enhancing your online presence  through SEO, your site will not retain a decent position (SEO positioning) in search engines. Search engines are continuously upgrading their algorithms to provide us more and more accurate results. They have started paying attention to social networking sites and  their ability to draw the masses. With Social networking sites playing a huge part in everybody’s life today, can we ignore  the fact that we need to have a strong presence through any online vehicle that is available today?

SEO best practices today, is a dynamic list, the essentials remain the same but it has expanded to include best practices  for any online way of promoting your products and services.

SEO is truly a creative mix of everything, from designing a web page to spreading your message across to  potential customers through search engines, social networking sites such as Twitter, facebook… All the steps that you  take, from the inital web page creation to increasing your visibility across all forms of online promotion, forms part of  the SEO best practices “to dos”. Make a note of all the activities you do to take your website from the initial not so popular to the popular path and this will form your SEO best practices. The traffic that your web site will attract after implementing SEO through the best practices of SEO, is immense.

Tweet…tweet…A little birdie told me about this…

Twitter from when it was launched, has captured the attention of almost everyone. When it started, I had my apprehensions about it.

But with time, I realized what a wonderful application this was!
Without being verbose about anything, you can spread your message on Twitter.

One message (140 characters) may or may not make a whole lot of sense but a combination of many messages may begin to make sense and you can understand what the other person is tweeting about.

SEO and Twitter may not be directly related but they certainly compliment each other. With Google publishing real time results, individual tweets are bound to get noticed on search engines. They are finding place alongside blogs and websites.

In essence, the holistic approach towards promoting your products and services online, is by far the best approach. Having a twitter account is a need for any business today. Not only can you reach out to your followers real time, your products/ services get noticed real time. When you tweet on twitter not only does it reach your followers, your tweet might show  up on Google!

Twitter should be part of your Internet marketing (SEO) strategy since it  is another powerful way to reach out to a wider audience.Try to follow as many individuals/companies as relevant to your business. Not only will you find what the latest buzz is, you can participate and get your share of attention.

It might be worthwhile to choose a user name and account name that is relevant to your business. A good descriptive profile helps a lot. When you tweet, you might consider including keywords relevant for your business and include a URL too.

The more the followers the better as it helps establish authority, but make sure they are relevant to your business.

Start by checking out the twitter directories such as wefollow.com, twittercounter.com…You can search for new friends or people to follow in these directories. These twitter directories list out twitter users in relevant categories. I will take up twitter directories in detail in my next article.

If you already have a twitter account keep tweeting. If you don’t have an account,  start today, it really is one great application. And you will find a lot of benefit flowing in… maybe not immediately but with time you might find an improvement in your search engine ranking.

Similar to the seo best practices, if your updates and followers are relevant and have some amount of authority, you will reap the benefits from your twitter account too.

Happy Tweeting.

I was recently asked this question.
Though often talked about, I thought it still might be a good idea to write about authoritative sites and what they mean in terms of online marketing/ SEO.

—»Simply put, an authoritative site (or an authority site) is a site that has an authority over a subject or upon various topics.

• Who decides the authority factor?

»I would say, an authoritative site’s performance, in terms of unique content, user experience, among other things, is the deciding factor.An authoritative site does not happen in one day. It takes a lot of effort and time to get to that stage.

Say, you have a question or a query or you wish to know about something, what do you do?

Besides asking people or checking out books for information, usually we Google our query or keyword/ keyphrase, or use any other search engine, and click on the most likely site from among the list of sites that show up on the SERPs.

Perhaps, the web page you click on the first time does not answer your query, what do you do?

You go to the next best page and so on…till you get your answer. Not only does the answer have to satisfy you, it would definitely help, if you can get some more relevant information from that site.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could stumble upon a website that offers just that! A website that is a mine of information and has extensive information on almost every relevant topic that you can think of!

The site would also reference other relevant sites, in case you wish to find out more about subjects related to it. That is what I call a complete site. Not only does it quench the visitor’s thirst for information but it also referes the visitor to other relevant sites. I would not want to lose such a site and would most definitely bookmark this site for future reference. The user experience combined with the extensive precious correct information is what makes a site authoritative.

Some of the most popular authoritative sites are -

Wikipedia, About,  and many edu domain sites. What is common between them? They have original unique content and about thousands and thousands of pages of unique content. They are referred by thousand of sites. They are any searchers delight and they fulfill almost every requirement. They are user friendly, they have interactive sections such as forums, blogs etc. Almost all of these websites have been in existence for years and they do not have any spamming background.

If terms of SEO or Internet marketing, it is really beneficial to get a link from these sites. A one way backlink from authority sites will definitely help your site get noticed by users and search engines, and increase traffic to your site. But these sites are extremely choosy. They maintain high standards and do not compromise on any factors.

If your website boasts of unique content that gets updated very often and has good traffic, you might get links from various sources and with time from authoritative site. Just keep up the hard work. Who knows, some day your site might warrant the same amount of respect as the ‘authoritative sites’ and become an authority too!