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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Search Engine Optimization Companies : Top 10 Questions You Need to Ask
Picking a company to handle your SEO (search engine optimization) is not a task you should take lightly - it’s a big decision. Selecting the right firm could bring your company increased business and great success, while picking the wrong one will be a very expensive mistake - it will cost you money, time, and business.
So to help make it a little easier, here is a list of 10 questions you should ask and things to look for when seeking out an SEO firm :
1. How well does their site rank? The very first thing you should find out about an SEO firm you are looking into is how well their own site is optimized and ranking with search engines. It seems fairly obvious but it can be easily overlooked. Don’t waste time and money on a company that doesn’t even optimize their own website. Not being able to find the company on Google for their own keywords and phrases is a red flag.
2. What will the SEO firm do for YOU? Another thing you want to look into right away is what they plan to do for you specifically, should you sign up with them. Did they evaluate your website? Do they plan to before you sign up? If they don’t offer up what steps they plan to take to optimize your website based on its current standings, don’t give them a second thought. You need a company that is serious about SEO increasing your web traffic. If they can’t explain some of the steps they plan to take and what they have in mind for you, then they can’t give you success and you should not trust them. Anything short of a detailed proposal shouldn’t be considered acceptable.
3. What services are included? Make sure you get a clear and straight forward answer when you ask exactly what you’ll be getting for your money. If this isn’t something you’re familiar with and you don’t understand something they are telling you, don’t be afraid to ask. It’s your company and your money and you need to feel good about the hands you are placing it in. Find out exactly what your money is buying you, what methods they will employ and how they will spend their time on your site.
4. Do they have testimonials and successful case studies? What better way to find out what a company is really about than right from their current paying clients. Seek out customer testimonials - if they aren’t posted on their website, ask if they have some available or if you can contact one of their clients for a reference. Find out how much success the client has seen since signing up with the firm. How many clients do they have currently? Have they lost any clients? If so why?
5. Who are their clients? If you can, see if you can find out some of their current clients and what kind of businesses they are. Chances are, a reputable SEO company will have reputable clients, and visa versa. It’s as simple as that.
6. How will progress be measured? Definitely find out what methods the SEO firm plans to use to measure the results of the changes they make on your site. There are a number of different web analytics methods a firm can use to watch web traffic. Find out what methods and software the company employs. At NewSunSEO, we are proud to use Web Trends. This software allows us to carefully and closely monitor web traffic for all of our clients so we know what keywords are ranking well and which need more optimization. This helps us determine what steps need to be taken and what our next course of action will be.
7. How is progress documented? Once you do sign up and they start to work on optimizing your site, you’ll want to know what progress is being made and you’ll want to see the results. Find out how they plan to show you their success. For example, NSS sends its clients clear and detailed monthly reports comparing historical data to show the increase in web traffic. You should be expecting something similar.
8. Do they do link building? Link building is actually a very important part of SEO and you should look for a firm that plans to incorporate it into the time they spend on your site. It’s not hard to rank well for a keyword that no one is competing for, but what good is that? To rank well for highly competitive phrases and keywords that are most likely to bring you in the best traffic you’ll need some kind of link building campaign. (Note : find out if this is included or an extra fee!)
9. Can they write quality content? High quality copy, (written content) is crucial to your website's optimization and success. Having a good copywriter to rewrite or add content to your pages is a big plus and an asset to have in your corner. The overall goal is to have text that is rich in relevant keywords and phrases and that is also informative and useful to your target audience. Poor copy will hurt your page rank and cut short the time visitors spend on your site. An SEO firm that can supply valuable written content on your pages is really something to look for.
10. Unethical Practices? Over the past few years SEO has gotten a bit of a bad name from firms using unethical methods to try and ‘trick’ search engines and achieve high rankings in a very short period of time. Some of these methods include ‘cloaking’ which is a technique used to show one page to a search engine spider and an entirely different page to an visitor; another method is the use of ‘hidden text’ where text is hidden in the code of the page where a visitor wont see it but the search engine will still index it. One more method is the creation of ‘doorway pages’ which are pages with no purpose other then to rank well with search engines. If you hear any SEO firm talk about any of these methods do not use them for your company, these are unethical methods and eventually your website will suffer the price for their under the table schemes.
So to help make it a little easier, here is a list of 10 questions you should ask and things to look for when seeking out an SEO firm :
1. How well does their site rank? The very first thing you should find out about an SEO firm you are looking into is how well their own site is optimized and ranking with search engines. It seems fairly obvious but it can be easily overlooked. Don’t waste time and money on a company that doesn’t even optimize their own website. Not being able to find the company on Google for their own keywords and phrases is a red flag.
2. What will the SEO firm do for YOU? Another thing you want to look into right away is what they plan to do for you specifically, should you sign up with them. Did they evaluate your website? Do they plan to before you sign up? If they don’t offer up what steps they plan to take to optimize your website based on its current standings, don’t give them a second thought. You need a company that is serious about SEO increasing your web traffic. If they can’t explain some of the steps they plan to take and what they have in mind for you, then they can’t give you success and you should not trust them. Anything short of a detailed proposal shouldn’t be considered acceptable.
3. What services are included? Make sure you get a clear and straight forward answer when you ask exactly what you’ll be getting for your money. If this isn’t something you’re familiar with and you don’t understand something they are telling you, don’t be afraid to ask. It’s your company and your money and you need to feel good about the hands you are placing it in. Find out exactly what your money is buying you, what methods they will employ and how they will spend their time on your site.
4. Do they have testimonials and successful case studies? What better way to find out what a company is really about than right from their current paying clients. Seek out customer testimonials - if they aren’t posted on their website, ask if they have some available or if you can contact one of their clients for a reference. Find out how much success the client has seen since signing up with the firm. How many clients do they have currently? Have they lost any clients? If so why?
5. Who are their clients? If you can, see if you can find out some of their current clients and what kind of businesses they are. Chances are, a reputable SEO company will have reputable clients, and visa versa. It’s as simple as that.
6. How will progress be measured? Definitely find out what methods the SEO firm plans to use to measure the results of the changes they make on your site. There are a number of different web analytics methods a firm can use to watch web traffic. Find out what methods and software the company employs. At NewSunSEO, we are proud to use Web Trends. This software allows us to carefully and closely monitor web traffic for all of our clients so we know what keywords are ranking well and which need more optimization. This helps us determine what steps need to be taken and what our next course of action will be.
7. How is progress documented? Once you do sign up and they start to work on optimizing your site, you’ll want to know what progress is being made and you’ll want to see the results. Find out how they plan to show you their success. For example, NSS sends its clients clear and detailed monthly reports comparing historical data to show the increase in web traffic. You should be expecting something similar.
8. Do they do link building? Link building is actually a very important part of SEO and you should look for a firm that plans to incorporate it into the time they spend on your site. It’s not hard to rank well for a keyword that no one is competing for, but what good is that? To rank well for highly competitive phrases and keywords that are most likely to bring you in the best traffic you’ll need some kind of link building campaign. (Note : find out if this is included or an extra fee!)
9. Can they write quality content? High quality copy, (written content) is crucial to your website's optimization and success. Having a good copywriter to rewrite or add content to your pages is a big plus and an asset to have in your corner. The overall goal is to have text that is rich in relevant keywords and phrases and that is also informative and useful to your target audience. Poor copy will hurt your page rank and cut short the time visitors spend on your site. An SEO firm that can supply valuable written content on your pages is really something to look for.
10. Unethical Practices? Over the past few years SEO has gotten a bit of a bad name from firms using unethical methods to try and ‘trick’ search engines and achieve high rankings in a very short period of time. Some of these methods include ‘cloaking’ which is a technique used to show one page to a search engine spider and an entirely different page to an visitor; another method is the use of ‘hidden text’ where text is hidden in the code of the page where a visitor wont see it but the search engine will still index it. One more method is the creation of ‘doorway pages’ which are pages with no purpose other then to rank well with search engines. If you hear any SEO firm talk about any of these methods do not use them for your company, these are unethical methods and eventually your website will suffer the price for their under the table schemes.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Search Engine Optimization : The Importance of Cascading Style Sheets
When looking to optimize your website, one of the very first things you should do is take a look at your source code. Is it long and unclear? Hard to read and find what you’re looking for? If so, then you probably aren’t using Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, as it’s more commonly referred to.
A Cascading Style Sheet is a method used to give web designers more control over the style of each page - allowing them to customize each paragraph, title, header, or bulleted list. CSS gives you the ability to specify font, size, and color of anything you want without having to repeatedly insert specific lines of code.
Using Cascading Style Sheets is crucial to your website’s optimization. Here are a few reasons why :
1. Using regular HTML codes to define things like font tags can be very cumbersome. It inserts extra unnecessary code into the source code of your website-therefore diluting your keyword density to search engines. Search engine spiders won’t just read the content that shows up on your site, they read every single line of code. You don’t want to pollute your source code with excessive HTML.
2. CSS gets the same result as the basic HTML you’re used to- only it does it better! Instead of placing the style tags in the actual code, it is placed in an external file. A simple and brief statement is placed in the source code to call to that external file where all your bulky style codes are laid out. This leaves your page clean and simple.
3. The use of Cascading Style Sheets will also allow browsers to read and load your webpage very rapidly. This is good for search engines- spiders want to read through your website as fast as they possibly can. With CSS, you can have all the effects you want without slowing down the search engine spiders you are striving to impress.
4. Converting old HTML layouts to CSS can typically cut anywhere from 25 to 50 percent off file sizes. They give you the added benefit of simplified, adaptable structure and the separation of code in a presentation. CSS gives you total freedom- you can group rules together to save additional space and name cases whatever you wish.
5. There is nothing you can do in HTML that you can’t do with CSS. In fact, CSS gives you even more customized control than any other method. Cascading Style Sheets go far beyond HTML control, allowing you to assign background colors or images to any HTML element rather than just the body. It also allows you to add borders to any element you choose.
6. One of the most instantly rewarding benefits of Cascading Style Sheets is that they are a huge time saver. Code it once and never again! Let’s say for example, your site is coded with HTML; the header on each one of your sites pages is written in blue text. One day you decide you want to change the look and feel of your site and you want to change the headers from blue font to a bold black. With HTML, you will have to go to each page and physically change each header. Depending on the size of your site, that could be very time consuming. If you had used CSS, then you would simply open that external file, change the header tag color from blue to black and you’re done! That one change will automatically update every header without you having to manually change each one.
The benefits of CSS are simply too much to ignore. Basically put…Cascading style sheets will help your website be more efficient and rank better with search engines. To a search engine, a website that is coded in CSS says several things about your company: you embrace forward technology and that your content is modern, up-to-date and relevant. Using CSS is THE MOST SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY way to create a web site TODAY! It is like candy to Search Engine Spiders. It will ensure that the spiders come back to your website more than your competitors that still use tables. If everything was the same between two websites, except one used a table based layout and the other used CSS layout, the CSS web site will always rank higher in the Search Engines.
Full CSS gives you the best possible foundation to go forward with doing Search Engine Optimization for your website.
A Cascading Style Sheet is a method used to give web designers more control over the style of each page - allowing them to customize each paragraph, title, header, or bulleted list. CSS gives you the ability to specify font, size, and color of anything you want without having to repeatedly insert specific lines of code.
Using Cascading Style Sheets is crucial to your website’s optimization. Here are a few reasons why :
1. Using regular HTML codes to define things like font tags can be very cumbersome. It inserts extra unnecessary code into the source code of your website-therefore diluting your keyword density to search engines. Search engine spiders won’t just read the content that shows up on your site, they read every single line of code. You don’t want to pollute your source code with excessive HTML.
2. CSS gets the same result as the basic HTML you’re used to- only it does it better! Instead of placing the style tags in the actual code, it is placed in an external file. A simple and brief statement is placed in the source code to call to that external file where all your bulky style codes are laid out. This leaves your page clean and simple.
3. The use of Cascading Style Sheets will also allow browsers to read and load your webpage very rapidly. This is good for search engines- spiders want to read through your website as fast as they possibly can. With CSS, you can have all the effects you want without slowing down the search engine spiders you are striving to impress.
4. Converting old HTML layouts to CSS can typically cut anywhere from 25 to 50 percent off file sizes. They give you the added benefit of simplified, adaptable structure and the separation of code in a presentation. CSS gives you total freedom- you can group rules together to save additional space and name cases whatever you wish.
5. There is nothing you can do in HTML that you can’t do with CSS. In fact, CSS gives you even more customized control than any other method. Cascading Style Sheets go far beyond HTML control, allowing you to assign background colors or images to any HTML element rather than just the body. It also allows you to add borders to any element you choose.
6. One of the most instantly rewarding benefits of Cascading Style Sheets is that they are a huge time saver. Code it once and never again! Let’s say for example, your site is coded with HTML; the header on each one of your sites pages is written in blue text. One day you decide you want to change the look and feel of your site and you want to change the headers from blue font to a bold black. With HTML, you will have to go to each page and physically change each header. Depending on the size of your site, that could be very time consuming. If you had used CSS, then you would simply open that external file, change the header tag color from blue to black and you’re done! That one change will automatically update every header without you having to manually change each one.
The benefits of CSS are simply too much to ignore. Basically put…Cascading style sheets will help your website be more efficient and rank better with search engines. To a search engine, a website that is coded in CSS says several things about your company: you embrace forward technology and that your content is modern, up-to-date and relevant. Using CSS is THE MOST SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY way to create a web site TODAY! It is like candy to Search Engine Spiders. It will ensure that the spiders come back to your website more than your competitors that still use tables. If everything was the same between two websites, except one used a table based layout and the other used CSS layout, the CSS web site will always rank higher in the Search Engines.
Full CSS gives you the best possible foundation to go forward with doing Search Engine Optimization for your website.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Blogging : What’s It All About And Why Is It Good For Search Engine Rankings?
What is a Blog?
“Weblogs” shortened to “Blogs” are web based publications consisting primarily of periodic articles and web links submitted by someone. Blogging is a way of collecting links to web pages and sharing thoughts and ideas with people online. They are personal web pages, sometimes produced every few minutes and sometimes just once in a while. It all depends on the author and what she or he wants to express.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject. Others function as more personal online diaries. They are the product of their owners' imaginations, interests and wit, and it's probably this personal touch which has made them so popular, especially for political issues. It has become very popular and is now a huge Internet phenomenon- with millions of bloggers worldwide.
Blogs became increasingly mainstream as political consultants, news services and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Even politicians not actively campaigning began to Blog to form bonds with constituents. Some Blogs have covered major news such as the December 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
The true power of blogging comes from its interactivity with visitors and other blogs. As an author, you can allow your web visitors to comment on your entries, which then are published along side or in a separate window of your entry. Your visitors who either comment on your blog or make a comment about your blog on their blog, have a name, email address, website – an identity.
There are so many types of Blogs, (the names can go on forever and are quite funny), so there’s a lot of ways to personalize your own. There’s Media Blogs called Vlogs, which are composed of videos. There’s Blogs that just display links called Linklogs. A Photoblog is comprised of photos. Basically a Blog can consist of anything- whether it is videos, recipes, restaurant reviews, links, photos, music, art, etc.
Why Is Blogging Good For Search Engine Optimization?
If you produce a website, your website will score higher in Google rankings (search engine results) if your site is a blog. Google rewards sites for rapidly changing content and links outbound and inbound from other sites, which is the nature of blogs. As you find other blogs that you like to read, you link to them on your blog site. And as others find your blog interesting, they link to you as well. All of this helps build a community of those who share a common interest in each other’s content.
“Weblogs” shortened to “Blogs” are web based publications consisting primarily of periodic articles and web links submitted by someone. Blogging is a way of collecting links to web pages and sharing thoughts and ideas with people online. They are personal web pages, sometimes produced every few minutes and sometimes just once in a while. It all depends on the author and what she or he wants to express.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject. Others function as more personal online diaries. They are the product of their owners' imaginations, interests and wit, and it's probably this personal touch which has made them so popular, especially for political issues. It has become very popular and is now a huge Internet phenomenon- with millions of bloggers worldwide.
Blogs became increasingly mainstream as political consultants, news services and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Even politicians not actively campaigning began to Blog to form bonds with constituents. Some Blogs have covered major news such as the December 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
The true power of blogging comes from its interactivity with visitors and other blogs. As an author, you can allow your web visitors to comment on your entries, which then are published along side or in a separate window of your entry. Your visitors who either comment on your blog or make a comment about your blog on their blog, have a name, email address, website – an identity.
There are so many types of Blogs, (the names can go on forever and are quite funny), so there’s a lot of ways to personalize your own. There’s Media Blogs called Vlogs, which are composed of videos. There’s Blogs that just display links called Linklogs. A Photoblog is comprised of photos. Basically a Blog can consist of anything- whether it is videos, recipes, restaurant reviews, links, photos, music, art, etc.
Why Is Blogging Good For Search Engine Optimization?
If you produce a website, your website will score higher in Google rankings (search engine results) if your site is a blog. Google rewards sites for rapidly changing content and links outbound and inbound from other sites, which is the nature of blogs. As you find other blogs that you like to read, you link to them on your blog site. And as others find your blog interesting, they link to you as well. All of this helps build a community of those who share a common interest in each other’s content.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Search Engine Optimization : The Importance Of Link Building
Link Building is hugely important to your SEO campaign. The practice of link building is simply getting other websites to link back to yours. Despite how very important it is though, most webmasters don’t have a genuine link building campaign because it’s typically a very lengthy task to perform. But don’t let this be a reason you don’t do at least some link building for your website. You’d be doing your company a huge disservice by overlooking this vital Search Engine Optimization step.
Here is a brief list of legitimately important reasons and tips on pursing link building :
1. Google is the number one search engine people use when searching for any given topic or service. That being said, Google ranks much more favorably for sites with relevant and informative backlinks. When you have other sites who are relevant and rank well with Google (and other search engines) linking to you, it increases your page rank as well, and in turn makes it more likely your target audience will find you.
2. Content and Links work hand in hand! One is no use without the other. You may have award winning content on your site that anyone would find useful, but if they can’t find it, it’s useless. And links that go to a site without quality information are just as pointless. Make sure not to do one without the other. First you need content, THEN link building. Other sites will be much more likely to link to you if they find your site to be informative and helpful. They will not want to be affiliated with you if they feel it will annoy or hurt the relationship they have with their current website visitors.
3. The quality of backlinks depends on the relevancy of the page you are linking to. In other words, it is only a valuable link if the site you are linking to is in the same family of websites as yours is. You want the site to be rich in helpful and genuine content. Spam-like or irrelevant sites will not help your page rank, in face, it could hurt it. So while Link Building is important, the quality of the sites you select is what determines the amount of success your campaign will have.
4. The online community is a very active one, and it will do your company well to tap into it. Writing blogs and taking part in online forums is a great way to get involved with a group that is in the same theme as your website. Finding a forum where people are asking questions about something relevant to what you do is a Link Building gold mine! You can answer their questions and provide a link to your site for more helpful information. (This may also put you a little more in touch with what your client market is thinking) Blogs are also very useful, they give you an opportunity to talk about what you do and link back to your site, and if other bloggers find your article informative, they may repost it and link back to you as well. A link is born!
5. The more link building you do, the more inbound traffic will come your way, making it even easier to get people to link you. Before you know it people may be asking you to link to them! It can seem like an uphill battle at first, but as you go, it gets easier and you’ll enjoy the benefits with search engines like Google and Yahoo when they give you page one ranks!
6. Guaranteeing a successful Link Building Campaign isn’t easy, and taking shortcuts can get you penalized by the ever so important search engines we are trying to impress. It’s recommended to seek an experienced professional who knows how to effectively run such a campaign. That way you are free to spend your time doing other things for your company.
So in closing, the backbone of Search Engine Marketing is regularly updating and creating high quality and compelling content for your site and continuing to build links to that content. When done properly, it will do wonders for your web traffic.
Here is a brief list of legitimately important reasons and tips on pursing link building :
1. Google is the number one search engine people use when searching for any given topic or service. That being said, Google ranks much more favorably for sites with relevant and informative backlinks. When you have other sites who are relevant and rank well with Google (and other search engines) linking to you, it increases your page rank as well, and in turn makes it more likely your target audience will find you.
2. Content and Links work hand in hand! One is no use without the other. You may have award winning content on your site that anyone would find useful, but if they can’t find it, it’s useless. And links that go to a site without quality information are just as pointless. Make sure not to do one without the other. First you need content, THEN link building. Other sites will be much more likely to link to you if they find your site to be informative and helpful. They will not want to be affiliated with you if they feel it will annoy or hurt the relationship they have with their current website visitors.
3. The quality of backlinks depends on the relevancy of the page you are linking to. In other words, it is only a valuable link if the site you are linking to is in the same family of websites as yours is. You want the site to be rich in helpful and genuine content. Spam-like or irrelevant sites will not help your page rank, in face, it could hurt it. So while Link Building is important, the quality of the sites you select is what determines the amount of success your campaign will have.
4. The online community is a very active one, and it will do your company well to tap into it. Writing blogs and taking part in online forums is a great way to get involved with a group that is in the same theme as your website. Finding a forum where people are asking questions about something relevant to what you do is a Link Building gold mine! You can answer their questions and provide a link to your site for more helpful information. (This may also put you a little more in touch with what your client market is thinking) Blogs are also very useful, they give you an opportunity to talk about what you do and link back to your site, and if other bloggers find your article informative, they may repost it and link back to you as well. A link is born!
5. The more link building you do, the more inbound traffic will come your way, making it even easier to get people to link you. Before you know it people may be asking you to link to them! It can seem like an uphill battle at first, but as you go, it gets easier and you’ll enjoy the benefits with search engines like Google and Yahoo when they give you page one ranks!
6. Guaranteeing a successful Link Building Campaign isn’t easy, and taking shortcuts can get you penalized by the ever so important search engines we are trying to impress. It’s recommended to seek an experienced professional who knows how to effectively run such a campaign. That way you are free to spend your time doing other things for your company.
So in closing, the backbone of Search Engine Marketing is regularly updating and creating high quality and compelling content for your site and continuing to build links to that content. When done properly, it will do wonders for your web traffic.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Social Bookmarking : Why It Helps SEO
Using Social Bookmarking sites are a really great way to promote your website or Blog. They are becoming one of the best marketing tools today, especially since they have very useful tools and features that users can utilize to improve their search engine optimization.
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social Bookmarking allows users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. This enables Internet users to access and add their favorite bookmarks from any computer. Personalized, informal tags are used to organize bookmarks instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders. These sites measure the popularity of a given website as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system. So you can see what bookmarks are favorites to a lot of people. Learning new things is easy and effortless with social bookmarking sites. Everything on these sites is someone's favorite -- they've already done the work of finding it, so all you have to do is look! Some common bookmarking websites are Digg, del.icio.us, Furl, Technorati, Blinklist, Reddit, and Spurl.
Why would I want/need to be Socially Bookmarked?
There are lots of uses to social bookmarking- such as sharing your favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and anyone else. Groups can create a shared account to collect and organize bookmarks that are useful to the entire group. For example, if you’re planning a group vacation, you all can collect bookmarks and review what everyone else finds. Creating wish lists on social bookmarking sites is also a great idea to get the word out to people you know. Make a birthday list by shopping online, saving your “wishes” as a bookmark and tell your friends/family to check it out from their computers!! Whatever the use for sharing information, social bookmarking can save a lot of your time. And today, time is so precious!
Why is Social Bookmarking good for SEO?
Due to the immense popularity of social bookmarking websites, being on their front-page, you are increasing your traffic to your website. In the long run, the numerous inbound links to your site will increase and regard you as a link reference, thus you have increased your link popularity and efficiently increased your rank. Between your high traffic and increased link popularity, social bookmarking websites use this method as their media platform with a viral marketing campaign to their advantage by doubling it with link baits. You win in more than one way!
Overall, social bookmarking is a great way to increase traffic and potential customers to your website. Just keep in mind, in order to be successful in social bookmarking, you must provide content that has value and worth bookmarking!
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social Bookmarking allows users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. This enables Internet users to access and add their favorite bookmarks from any computer. Personalized, informal tags are used to organize bookmarks instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders. These sites measure the popularity of a given website as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system. So you can see what bookmarks are favorites to a lot of people. Learning new things is easy and effortless with social bookmarking sites. Everything on these sites is someone's favorite -- they've already done the work of finding it, so all you have to do is look! Some common bookmarking websites are Digg, del.icio.us, Furl, Technorati, Blinklist, Reddit, and Spurl.
Why would I want/need to be Socially Bookmarked?
There are lots of uses to social bookmarking- such as sharing your favorites with friends, family, coworkers, and anyone else. Groups can create a shared account to collect and organize bookmarks that are useful to the entire group. For example, if you’re planning a group vacation, you all can collect bookmarks and review what everyone else finds. Creating wish lists on social bookmarking sites is also a great idea to get the word out to people you know. Make a birthday list by shopping online, saving your “wishes” as a bookmark and tell your friends/family to check it out from their computers!! Whatever the use for sharing information, social bookmarking can save a lot of your time. And today, time is so precious!
Why is Social Bookmarking good for SEO?
Due to the immense popularity of social bookmarking websites, being on their front-page, you are increasing your traffic to your website. In the long run, the numerous inbound links to your site will increase and regard you as a link reference, thus you have increased your link popularity and efficiently increased your rank. Between your high traffic and increased link popularity, social bookmarking websites use this method as their media platform with a viral marketing campaign to their advantage by doubling it with link baits. You win in more than one way!
Overall, social bookmarking is a great way to increase traffic and potential customers to your website. Just keep in mind, in order to be successful in social bookmarking, you must provide content that has value and worth bookmarking!
Monday, February 25, 2008
SEO : Get Your Ducks In A Row
Optimizing your website properly will help your business become successful - gaining more traffic and optimally, more income. What’s the secret? Here’s a riddle … “quack, quack”.
Successful businesses don’t just “wing it” and hope the world comes knocking at their door offering them wads of money and outrageous gifts. Now that would be silly. Even the field of dreams had to be built first. So let’s build your SEO success . . .
Did you guess the riddle? Get your ducks in a row. There are certain aspects of SEO that must be done in order to succeed at SEO. See? We’re never too old for games. After all, if your ducks aren’t lined up, they may wind up looking like a hodgepodge gaggle of geese and no one wants to be part of a gaggle. I know I don’t.
Duck 1: Keywords - Before you do anything, you must take time to consider what exactly are you offering to this great big world of ours. Then put it in words. Keywords to be precise. These are the words someone who’s looking for you might use to describe your business or service, before they even know about you.
Duck 2: Optimize your web pages with these keywords. Not just one or two pages, but all of them. Search engines put all your pages into context so you need to display that your entire site is relevant to the topic. If you want to get targeted visitors from search engines, you must optimize your web pages for search engines.
Duck 3: Submit to search engines and internet directories. More than 80% of all Internet users find new web sites through search engines, so submitting your site to the major players will always help your SEO rankings.
Duck 4: Links from other websites. Even though this is the 4th duck, by all means, it’s not the least important. High search engine rankings are always the result of optimized web pages and good incoming links. So, find other websites that relate to yours and link up!
Getting the best Search Engine Optimization results requires you to go from Duck 1 to Duck 4. Take the right steps in the right order and you will be giving yourself a gold star sticker for a job well done!
Successful businesses don’t just “wing it” and hope the world comes knocking at their door offering them wads of money and outrageous gifts. Now that would be silly. Even the field of dreams had to be built first. So let’s build your SEO success . . .
Did you guess the riddle? Get your ducks in a row. There are certain aspects of SEO that must be done in order to succeed at SEO. See? We’re never too old for games. After all, if your ducks aren’t lined up, they may wind up looking like a hodgepodge gaggle of geese and no one wants to be part of a gaggle. I know I don’t.
Duck 1: Keywords - Before you do anything, you must take time to consider what exactly are you offering to this great big world of ours. Then put it in words. Keywords to be precise. These are the words someone who’s looking for you might use to describe your business or service, before they even know about you.
Duck 2: Optimize your web pages with these keywords. Not just one or two pages, but all of them. Search engines put all your pages into context so you need to display that your entire site is relevant to the topic. If you want to get targeted visitors from search engines, you must optimize your web pages for search engines.
Duck 3: Submit to search engines and internet directories. More than 80% of all Internet users find new web sites through search engines, so submitting your site to the major players will always help your SEO rankings.
Duck 4: Links from other websites. Even though this is the 4th duck, by all means, it’s not the least important. High search engine rankings are always the result of optimized web pages and good incoming links. So, find other websites that relate to yours and link up!
Getting the best Search Engine Optimization results requires you to go from Duck 1 to Duck 4. Take the right steps in the right order and you will be giving yourself a gold star sticker for a job well done!
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