AdSense Tip 1: Find Best keywords for your content
Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. You can find many free keyword analyzer tools in internet searching the word "free keyword analyzer".
AdSense Tip 2: Improve your keywords
Get keyword suggestions from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance.
AdSense Tip 3: Make content rich websites
This means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.
AdSense Tip 4: Write a new page/blog post every day
This is very important. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site.
AdSense Tip 5: Choose the right AdSense format
The top three AdSense formats are for many webmasters:
336x280 large rectangle
300x250 medium rectangle
160x600 wide skyscraper
Another successful format is the 728x15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.
Use "Allowed site" feature of adsense to protect yourselves.If anyone put adsense codes in their websites you must not worried about it.
AdSense Tip 6: Adsense Color tips
When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well.Google Ads with no background color and no borders will always perform better. Make the border color and background color same as your page background color.
AdSense Tip 7: Position tips
Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines.
For short articles, CTR is best when ads are placed just above the content.
For long articles, CTR will improve if you place ads somewhere in middle of the content or just where the article ends.
Use Text Ads instead of Image Ads as users get more options and the payout is often higher.
Important:Don't places images next to Google ads as that will invite a permanent ban to your AdSense account.
AdSense Tip 8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much
If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.
AdSense Tip 9: Preview Google ads
You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries.
AdSense Tip 10: What not to do with adsense
Don't click on your own ads
Don't ask others to click on your Google ads
Don't manually change AdSense code
Don't place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
Don't employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links
Don't use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)
And also don't refresh your site excessively.
AdSense Tip 11: Use section targeting
Use section targeting to emphasize some content in your page.To know more about section targeting read this article.
AdSense Tip 12: Your Google ads should be visible
Make sure your text ads are visible well to the surfers in all screen formats.
AdSense Tip 13: Use AdSense channels
You can categorize the content of your website into channels and then track your performance. This way you can experiment with different types of ads and see which is performing the best.
AdSense Tip 14: Follow Adsense Programme Polices
Strictly follow the rules mentioned in Adsense policies. You will always earn more monet from Adsense if you do it.
AdSense Tip 15:Never modify the Google Adsense HTML code
If have trouble embedding AdSense code in your Blogger template, read these articles.
AdSense Tip 16: Don't place ads in pop-up windows,error pages,empty pages
You must always remember to not to do it.
AdSense Tip 17: Don't start a "MFA"(made for adsense) web site
You will never make money out these Made for Adsense websites. Instead, write on topics what you are passionate about. Don't waste your money and time searching on high-paying adsense keywords lists.
AdSense Tip 18: Block Low Paying Adsense Ads
Block low paying advertisers with Filters.For more info read this article.
AdSense Tip 19: Adsense For Search
Always select the setting to open Google Adsense search box results in a new browser window, so you won't lose your visitors.
วันอังคารที่ 22 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2555
วันพุธที่ 9 พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. 2555
Google Adsense Alternatives
1 Media.net
Probably of all the ad networks on the list, this is the least known but it is also the best. They offer very innovative solutions, such as content ads, search targeting, web bar, and mobile ads. Media.net is especially good for huge sites with lots of US, UK, and Canada traffic. One of the downsides of Media.net is that the payment is at $100 but for a huge site this should be pocket money.
2 Chitika
Chitika doesn't offer that many types of ads but its main advantage is that the ads it offers are very targeted. The CTR is great because the ads are displayed only when a user comes from a search engine. Its low $10 payout is also good because even if your site is small, or you use only one ad block, most likely you will be getting payments monthly instead of having to wait for them for months.
3 Bidvertiser
Bidvertiser is another (mainly) PPC network, though they started offering a conversion bonus. Its payout is also at $10, which means for a small site it is also an option.
4 Infolinks
Infolinks offers in-text advertising. In-text ads are very unobtrusive compared to the rest and they don't eat space because they are displayed as popups when the user hovers over the hyperlink in the text they are anchored to. In-text ads from Infolinks work surprisingly well, though it varies depending on the niche. However, its payout of $50 isn't very nice, if your site(s) are small because you might have to wait for months to reach it.
5 adBrite
Many webmasters consider adBrite to be the best Google Adsense alternative but since my experience with them isn't as good as my experience with Chitika or Infolinks, it comes as Number 5. adBrite is essentially an ad marketplace, where buyers and sellers can communicate to negotiate the price. This is what makes it different from the rest. However, you need to have a very popular site with a very lucrative demographics in order to make it there because the competition is really huge.
6 Clickbank
If you do not insist on using CPC ads as a Google Adsense alternative but are open to suggestions, then you should try affiliate sales (known also as CPA – Cost Per Action). Clickbank is the Mecca of CPA offers and it should be your first stop. Clickbank offers probably millions of products and choosing what to promote could be the hardest task. However, the rewards you get could be times what you are making with Adsense on a good day.
7 Amazon
Amazon is another CPA ad network that works well for many publishers. It is especially good if you have a tech site because there are lots of cool gadgets there but since they have offers in almost any niche, it is also an option. Their ads are context sensitive and because of this are almost always relevant. However, their terms are very complicated and it will take you a lot of time to get familiar with what commissions you will be getting for your sales.
8 Kontera
Kontera is another in-text network you can consider an alternative to Google Adsense. It is comparable in performance with Infolinks but again, this varies a lot depending on the niche. However, if you are to choose between Kontera and Infolinks, I will definitely pick Infolinks.
9 eBay
If Clickbank, Amazon, and a few other of the top CPA networks don't work for you, you could give eBay a try. Again, your success (or the lack of it) with it varies depending on the niche but you can make some money with it. I wouldn't put eBay ads as my primary source of income because this will waste space I can use for better ads. However, as a secondary or even tertiary advertiser, if you have some free space left, eBay could be given a try.10 LinkShare
You might be surprised to find LinkShare – a relatively unknown company - on the list of Top Adsense alternatives but it is an alternative for real. It has a huge choice of offers and they pay at $1. Maybe it is even better than the rest on this list because if your site isn't huge, you won't have to wait for months (or even years) till you get the paycheck. Linkshare has offers in almost any niche and there you will find many of the best advertisers from all over the world.
I could add many more companies that are also worth trying. The good news is that there are many more Google AdSense alternatives and the fact that they didn't make the Top 10 doesn't mean they are worse. These 10 are my personal favorites and I can tell from experience that they do work. Well, the fact that they work for me doesn't necessarily mean they will work for everybody else. In fact, under some circumstances the companies that didn't make it to the list could be even better alternatives but you won't know this unless you try them. The world doesn't start or end with Google Adsense, though certainly it is one really good ad program.
วันพุธที่ 11 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2555
How to Analyze Your SEO Competitors
Have you ever had the feeling that no matter what you do, you are not successful with search engines? While it is quite possible that you are doing things wrong, one other possible reason for your poor SEO performance is that your competition is really tough. If you are in a very competitive niche, then your competition can be really smashing and you just can't afford not to keep an eye on them.
Well, even if your niche isn't that competitive, you will only win if you know how to monitor your competitors' success and failure. Here are some steps you can do to analyze your SEO competition.
1 Find Who Your SEO Competitors Are
You can't analyze your competitors, if you don't know who they are. In some cases identifying your competitors is very easy – for instance, if you have an offline business and you know your competitors there, just check their sites and you are done.
However, in other cases, identifying your competition isn't that easy. Your competitors could be sites in your niche, sites that rank well for your major keywords, or direct competitors for your long tail keywords, etc. The list of your competitors might be a pretty long one and obviously you can't monitor all of them. Perform a search with Google about your target keywords and make a list of the sites/companies that pop high in the search results. You can consider these to be your main competitors.
2 Visit Your Competitors' Sites and Analyze Them
After you have a list of your competitors – or at least the major ones – the next step is to visit their sites and analyze them. You should be watching if their sites are designed professionally, if they have much content, what the quality of their content is, whether they use static or dynamic URLs, etc. This basic site inspection can give you a lot of information about how professional your competition's Web presence is, hence how likely or unlikely it is search engines to love them.3 Analyze The Keywords Your Competitors Use
Keywords have always been the most important factor for SEO success. This is why you can expect that if your competitors are using keywords properly, their site will rank well in search engines. You might have some difficulty identifying the keywords your competition uses because what you think to be top keywords for your niche, might not be on their list at all. If you don't know which keywords they use, try checking if they use your keywords – this is more than nothing.Alternatively, you can use the Website Keyword Suggestion tool to check which keywords are supposed to do well for their site. While doing the check, you might find many useful keywords you have skipped and start optimizing your site for them.
You should also check the keyword density of your competitors' keywords. The Keyword Desnity Cloud tool will help you get an idea. Also, don't forget to check the location of the keywords – i.e. are there keywords in the headings, metatags, image tags, the URLs, etc.
4 Check the Competition's Backlinks
Backlinks are the other backbone of good SEO rankings. This is why you need to thoroughly examine the backlinks of the competition. Look for their number and origin, anchor text, etc. and you will get a clue how your competition is doing on this front. Very often you might get some backlink ideas for you – i.e. if you see that your competitors have backlinks from popular sites you didn't know about, contact the webmaster of the popular site to see if you can get backlinks from them, too. The tools you can use are free and some of the best are: Backlink Anchor Text Analysis and Backlink Summary.5 Check Other SEO Factors
Keywords and backlinks are important but they aren't everything. In order to get a thorough idea of how your competition is ranking, you need also to check your competitors' Page Ranks in Google and how they perform in Yahoo and Bing. You should also look at the number of indexed pages the sites of your competitors have with search engines.6 Evaluate Your Competition's Presence on Social Media
Social media tend to drive lots of traffic to a site. This is why you can't skip a check how your competitors are doing on social media. Unfortunately, this check is harder to perform. Social bookmarking sites are one of the types of social media and you can start your research from them. Have a look at some of the major social bookmarking sites to see if your competitors have posts there and how popular these posts are.Twitter and Facebook are two other huge sources of traffic. You can browse to see if your major competitors have profiles at these sites but unless you make friends with them, you will never know what exactly they post. Still, if their profiles have publicly available sections, this gives an idea of what they do on Twitter and Facebook.
7 Analyze How Your Competitors Are Using PPC Ads
Many businesses have figured out that using PPC to drive quality traffic is cheaper and more efficient than optimizing to rank well in natural search results. Google Adwords is the preferred choice for PPC but there are also other networks many webmasters will use. One of the best tools, though it is limited to Google Adwords only, is the Analyze Competition tool by Google. It allows to compare how your PPC is doing in comparison to your competitors' campaigns.Monitoring your competition is a never ending task. All the activities listed in this article are quite time consuming but if you don't want to be left clueless about the world around you, you do need to take the time and perform the analysis. Even if you see you can't beat the competition, you will certainly learn from them and this will help you be more efficient in your own SEO efforts.
วันจันทร์ที่ 2 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2555
HTML 5 and SEO
HTML 5 is still in the making but for any SEO expert, who tries to look ahead, some knowledge about HTML 5 and how it will impact SEO is not unnecessary information. It is true that the changes and the new concepts in HTML 5 will impact Web developers and designers much more than SEO experts but still it is far from the truth to say that HTML 5 will not mean changes in the Organic SEO policy.
What's New in HTML 5?
HTML 5 follows the way the Net evolved in the last years and includes many useful tags and elements. At first glance, it might look as if HTML 5 is going in the direction of a programming language (i.e. PHP) but actually this is not so – it is still an XML–based presentation language. The new tags and elements might make HTML 5 look more complex but this is only at first glance.
HTML 5 is not very different from HTML 4. One of the basic ideas in the development of HTML 5 was to ensure backward compatibility and because of that HTML 5 is not a complete revamp of the HTML specification. So, if you had worries that you will have to start learning it from scratch, these worries are groundless.
How the Changes in HTML 5 Will Affect SEO?
As a SEO expert, you are most likely interested mainly in those changes in the HTML 5 specification, which will affect your work. Here are some of them:
Improved page segmentation. Search engines are getting smarter and there are many reasons to believe that even now they are applying page segmentation. Basically, page segmentation means that a page is divided into several separate parts (i.e. main content, menus, headers, footers, links sections, etc.) and these parts are treated as separate entries. At present, there is no way for a Web master to tell search engines how to segment a page but this is bound to change in HTML 5.
A new <article> tag. The new <article> tag is probably the best addition from a SEO point of view. The <article> tag allows to mark separate entries in an online publication, such as a blog or a magazine. It is expected that when articles are marked with the <article> tag, this will make the HTML code cleaner because it will reduce the need to use <div> tags. Also, probably search engines will put more weight on the text inside the <article> tag as compared to the contents on the other parts of the page.
A new <section> tag. The new <section> tag can be used to identify separate sections on a page, chapter, book. The advantage is that each section can have its separate HTML heading. As with the <article> tag, it can be presumed that search engines will pay more attention to the contents of separate sections. For instance, if the words of a search string are found in one section, this implies higher relevance as compared to when these words are found all across the page or in separate sections.
A new <header> tag. The new <header> tag (which is different from the head element) is a blessing for SEO experts because it gives a lot of flexibility. The <header> tag is very similar to the <H1> tag but the difference is that it can contain a lot of stuff, such as H1, H2, H3 elements, whole paragraphs of text, hard–coded links (and this is really precious for SEO), and any other kind of info you feel relevant to include.
A new <footer> tag. The <footer> tag might not be as useful as the <header> one but still it allows to include important information there and it can be used for SEO purposes as well. The <header> and <footer> tags can be used many times on one page – i.e. you can have a separate header/footer for each section and this gives really a lot of flexibility.
A new <nav> tag. Navigation is one of the important factors for SEO and everything that eases navigation is welcome. The new <nav> tag can be used to identify a collection of links to other pages.
As you see, the new tags follow the common structure of a standard page and each of the parts (i.e. header, footer, main section) has a separate tag. The tags we described here, are just some (but certainly not all) of the new tags in HTML 5, which will affect SEO in some way. For instance, <audio>, <video> or <dialogue> tags are also part of the HTML 5 standard and they will allow to further separate the content into the adequate categories. There are many other tags but they are of relatively lower importance and that is why they are not discussed.
For now HTML 5 is still far in the future. When more pages become HTML 5–compliant, search engines will pay more attention to HTML 5. Only then it will be possible to know how exactly search engines will treat HTML 5 pages. The mass adoption of HTML 5 won't happen soon and it is a safe bet to say that for now you can keep to HTML 4 and have no concerns. Additionally, it will take some time for browsers to adjust to HTML 5, which further delays the moment when HTML 5 will be everywhere.
However, once HTML 5 is accepted and put to use, it will be the dominating standard for the years to come and that is why you might want to keep an eye on what other web masters are doing, just to make sure that you will not miss the moment when HTML 5 becomes the defacto standard.
HTML 5 follows the way the Net evolved in the last years and includes many useful tags and elements. At first glance, it might look as if HTML 5 is going in the direction of a programming language (i.e. PHP) but actually this is not so – it is still an XML–based presentation language. The new tags and elements might make HTML 5 look more complex but this is only at first glance.
HTML 5 is not very different from HTML 4. One of the basic ideas in the development of HTML 5 was to ensure backward compatibility and because of that HTML 5 is not a complete revamp of the HTML specification. So, if you had worries that you will have to start learning it from scratch, these worries are groundless.
How the Changes in HTML 5 Will Affect SEO?
As a SEO expert, you are most likely interested mainly in those changes in the HTML 5 specification, which will affect your work. Here are some of them:
Improved page segmentation. Search engines are getting smarter and there are many reasons to believe that even now they are applying page segmentation. Basically, page segmentation means that a page is divided into several separate parts (i.e. main content, menus, headers, footers, links sections, etc.) and these parts are treated as separate entries. At present, there is no way for a Web master to tell search engines how to segment a page but this is bound to change in HTML 5.
A new <article> tag. The new <article> tag is probably the best addition from a SEO point of view. The <article> tag allows to mark separate entries in an online publication, such as a blog or a magazine. It is expected that when articles are marked with the <article> tag, this will make the HTML code cleaner because it will reduce the need to use <div> tags. Also, probably search engines will put more weight on the text inside the <article> tag as compared to the contents on the other parts of the page.
A new <section> tag. The new <section> tag can be used to identify separate sections on a page, chapter, book. The advantage is that each section can have its separate HTML heading. As with the <article> tag, it can be presumed that search engines will pay more attention to the contents of separate sections. For instance, if the words of a search string are found in one section, this implies higher relevance as compared to when these words are found all across the page or in separate sections.
A new <header> tag. The new <header> tag (which is different from the head element) is a blessing for SEO experts because it gives a lot of flexibility. The <header> tag is very similar to the <H1> tag but the difference is that it can contain a lot of stuff, such as H1, H2, H3 elements, whole paragraphs of text, hard–coded links (and this is really precious for SEO), and any other kind of info you feel relevant to include.
A new <footer> tag. The <footer> tag might not be as useful as the <header> one but still it allows to include important information there and it can be used for SEO purposes as well. The <header> and <footer> tags can be used many times on one page – i.e. you can have a separate header/footer for each section and this gives really a lot of flexibility.
A new <nav> tag. Navigation is one of the important factors for SEO and everything that eases navigation is welcome. The new <nav> tag can be used to identify a collection of links to other pages.
As you see, the new tags follow the common structure of a standard page and each of the parts (i.e. header, footer, main section) has a separate tag. The tags we described here, are just some (but certainly not all) of the new tags in HTML 5, which will affect SEO in some way. For instance, <audio>, <video> or <dialogue> tags are also part of the HTML 5 standard and they will allow to further separate the content into the adequate categories. There are many other tags but they are of relatively lower importance and that is why they are not discussed.
For now HTML 5 is still far in the future. When more pages become HTML 5–compliant, search engines will pay more attention to HTML 5. Only then it will be possible to know how exactly search engines will treat HTML 5 pages. The mass adoption of HTML 5 won't happen soon and it is a safe bet to say that for now you can keep to HTML 4 and have no concerns. Additionally, it will take some time for browsers to adjust to HTML 5, which further delays the moment when HTML 5 will be everywhere.
However, once HTML 5 is accepted and put to use, it will be the dominating standard for the years to come and that is why you might want to keep an eye on what other web masters are doing, just to make sure that you will not miss the moment when HTML 5 becomes the defacto standard.
วันพุธที่ 21 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2555
SEO Musts for Local Business
The Internet might be global in nature, but if your business is local, it makes no sense to concentrate on global reach, when your customers live in your city, or even in your neighborhood. For local businesses getting a global reach is a waste of resources. Instead, you should concentrate on the local community. You might be asking how you can do it, when the Web is global and Google doesn't classify sites according to their location. Here is how you can go local with SEO:
1 Use your location in your keywords.
The first trick is to use your location in your keywords. For example, if you are in London and you sell car insurance, your most important keyphrase should be “car insurance London” because this keyphrase contains your business and your location and will drive people who are looking for car insurance in London in particular.
2 Use your location in metatags
Metatags matter for search engines and you shouldn't miss to include your location, together with your other keywords in the metatags of the pages of your site. Of course, you must have your location in the keywords you use in the body text because otherwise it is a bit suspicious when your body text doesn't have your location as a keyword but your tags are stuffed with it.
3 Use your location in your body text
Keywords in the body text count a lot and you can't afford to skip them. If your web copy is optimized for “car insurance” only, this won't help you rank well with “car insurance London”, so make sure that your location is part of your keywords.
4 Take advantage of Google Places and Yahoo Local
Google Places and Yahoo Local are great places to submit to because they will include you in their listings for a particular location.
5 Create backlinks with your location as anchor text
It could be a bit tricky to get organic backlinks with your location as anchor text because some keywords with location don't sound very natural – for instance, “car insurance London” isn't grammatically correct and you will hardly get an organic inline link with it but you can use it in the Name field to comment on blogs. If the blog is dofollow, you will still get a backlink with anchor text that helps for SEO.
6 Get included in local search engine
Global search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo can bring you lots of traffic but depending on your location, local search engines might be the real golden mine. A local search engine could mean a search engine for the area (though it is not very likely to have regional search engines) or more likely for your country. For instance, Baidu is a great option, if you are selling on the Chinese market.
7 Get listed in local directories
In addition to local search engines, you need to try your luck with local directories, too. You might think that nobody reads directory listings but this isn't exactly so. For instance, Yellow Pages are one of the first places where people look when searching for a local vendor for a particular product.
8 Run locally-targeted ad campaigns
One of the most efficient ways to drive targeted, local traffic to your site is with the help of locally-targeted ad campaigns. PPC ads and classifieds are the two options that work best – at least for most webmasters.
9 Do occasional checks of your keywords
Occasionally checking the current search volume of your keywords is a good idea because shifts in search volumes are quite typical. Needless to say, if people don't search for “car insurance London” anymore because they have started using other search phrases and you continue to optimize for “car insurance London”, this is a waste of time and money. Also, keep an eye on the keywords your competitors use – this will give you clue which keywords work and which don't.
10 Use social media
Social media can drive more traffic to a site than search engines and for local search this is also true. Facebook, Twitter, and the other social networking sites have a great sales potential because you can promote your business for free and reach exactly the people you need. Local groups on social sites are especially valuable because the participants there are mainly from the region you are interested in.
11 Ask for reviews and testimonials
Client reviews and testimonials are a classical business instrument and these are like letters of recommendation for your business. However, as far as SEO is concerned, they could have another role. There are review sites, where you can publish such reviews and testimonials (or ask your clients to do it) and this will drive business to you. Some of these sites are Yelp and Merchant Circle but it is quite probable that there are regional or national review sites you can also post at.
12 Create separate pages for your different locations
When you have business in several locations, this makes the task a bit more difficult because you can't possibly optimize for all of them – you can't have a keyphrase such as “car insurance London, Berlin, Paris, New York”. In this case the solution is to create separate pages for your different locations. If your locations span the globe, you can also create different sites on different, country-specific domains (i.e. uk.co for GB, .de for Germany, etc.) but this is only reasonable to do, if your business is truly multinational. Otherwise, just a separate page for each of your locations will do.
These simple tips how to optimize your site for local searches are a must, if you rely on the local market. Maybe you are already doing some of them and you know what works for you and what doesn't. Anyway, if you haven't tried them all, try them now and see if this will have a positive impact on your rankings (and your business) or not.
1 Use your location in your keywords.
The first trick is to use your location in your keywords. For example, if you are in London and you sell car insurance, your most important keyphrase should be “car insurance London” because this keyphrase contains your business and your location and will drive people who are looking for car insurance in London in particular.
2 Use your location in metatags
Metatags matter for search engines and you shouldn't miss to include your location, together with your other keywords in the metatags of the pages of your site. Of course, you must have your location in the keywords you use in the body text because otherwise it is a bit suspicious when your body text doesn't have your location as a keyword but your tags are stuffed with it.
3 Use your location in your body text
Keywords in the body text count a lot and you can't afford to skip them. If your web copy is optimized for “car insurance” only, this won't help you rank well with “car insurance London”, so make sure that your location is part of your keywords.
4 Take advantage of Google Places and Yahoo Local
Google Places and Yahoo Local are great places to submit to because they will include you in their listings for a particular location.
5 Create backlinks with your location as anchor text
It could be a bit tricky to get organic backlinks with your location as anchor text because some keywords with location don't sound very natural – for instance, “car insurance London” isn't grammatically correct and you will hardly get an organic inline link with it but you can use it in the Name field to comment on blogs. If the blog is dofollow, you will still get a backlink with anchor text that helps for SEO.
6 Get included in local search engine
Global search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo can bring you lots of traffic but depending on your location, local search engines might be the real golden mine. A local search engine could mean a search engine for the area (though it is not very likely to have regional search engines) or more likely for your country. For instance, Baidu is a great option, if you are selling on the Chinese market.
7 Get listed in local directories
In addition to local search engines, you need to try your luck with local directories, too. You might think that nobody reads directory listings but this isn't exactly so. For instance, Yellow Pages are one of the first places where people look when searching for a local vendor for a particular product.
8 Run locally-targeted ad campaigns
One of the most efficient ways to drive targeted, local traffic to your site is with the help of locally-targeted ad campaigns. PPC ads and classifieds are the two options that work best – at least for most webmasters.
9 Do occasional checks of your keywords
Occasionally checking the current search volume of your keywords is a good idea because shifts in search volumes are quite typical. Needless to say, if people don't search for “car insurance London” anymore because they have started using other search phrases and you continue to optimize for “car insurance London”, this is a waste of time and money. Also, keep an eye on the keywords your competitors use – this will give you clue which keywords work and which don't.
10 Use social media
Social media can drive more traffic to a site than search engines and for local search this is also true. Facebook, Twitter, and the other social networking sites have a great sales potential because you can promote your business for free and reach exactly the people you need. Local groups on social sites are especially valuable because the participants there are mainly from the region you are interested in.
11 Ask for reviews and testimonials
Client reviews and testimonials are a classical business instrument and these are like letters of recommendation for your business. However, as far as SEO is concerned, they could have another role. There are review sites, where you can publish such reviews and testimonials (or ask your clients to do it) and this will drive business to you. Some of these sites are Yelp and Merchant Circle but it is quite probable that there are regional or national review sites you can also post at.
12 Create separate pages for your different locations
When you have business in several locations, this makes the task a bit more difficult because you can't possibly optimize for all of them – you can't have a keyphrase such as “car insurance London, Berlin, Paris, New York”. In this case the solution is to create separate pages for your different locations. If your locations span the globe, you can also create different sites on different, country-specific domains (i.e. uk.co for GB, .de for Germany, etc.) but this is only reasonable to do, if your business is truly multinational. Otherwise, just a separate page for each of your locations will do.
These simple tips how to optimize your site for local searches are a must, if you rely on the local market. Maybe you are already doing some of them and you know what works for you and what doesn't. Anyway, if you haven't tried them all, try them now and see if this will have a positive impact on your rankings (and your business) or not.
วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 8 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2555
How to Pick an SEO Friendly Designer
A Web designer is one of the persons without whom it is not possible to create a site. However, when SEO is concerned, Web designers can be really painful to deal with. While there are many Web designers, who are SEO-proficient, it is still not an exception to stumble upon design geniuses, who are focused only on the graphic aspect of the site. For them SEO is none of their business and they couldn't care less for something as unimportant as good rankings with search engines. Needless to say, if you hire such a designer, don't expect that your site will rank well with search engines.
If you will do SEO on your own, then you might not care a lot about the SEO skills of your Web designer but still there are design issues as we'll see next, which can affect your rankings very badly. When he or she designs the site against SEO rules, then it is not possible to fix this with SEO tricks.
When we say that you need to hire a SEO-friendly designer, we presume that you are a SEO pro and you know SEO but if you aren't, then have a look at the SEO Tutorial and the SEO Checklist. If you have no idea about SEO, then you will hardly be able to select a SEO-friendly designer because you won't know what to look for.
One of the ultimate tests if a designer is SEO-friendly or not is to look at his or her past sites – are they done professionally, especially in the SEO department. If their past sites don't exhibit blatant SEO mistakes, such as the ones we'll list in a second and they rank well, this is a recommendation that this person is worth hiring. Anyway, after you look at past sites, ask the designer if he or she did the SEO for their past sites because in some cases it might be that the client himself or herself has done a lot to optimize the site and this is why the site ranks well.
Here is a checklist of common web design sins that will make your site a SEO disaster. If you notice any or all of the following in the past sites your would-be designer has created, just move to the next designer. These SEO-unfriendly design elements are absolute sins and unless the client made them do it, no designer who would use the below techniques deserves your attention:
1 Rely heavily on Flash
Many designers still believe that Flash is the next best thing after sliced bread. While Flash can be very artistic and make a site look cool (and load forever in the browser), heavily Flash-ed sites are disaster in terms of SEO. Simple HTML sites rank better with search engines and as we point out in Optimizing Flash Sites, if the use of Flash is a must, then an HTML version of the same page is more than mandatory.
2 No internal links, or very few links
Internal links are backlinks and they are very important. Of course, this doesn't mean that all the text on a page must be hyperlinked to all the other pages on the site but if there are only a couple of internal links a page, this is a missed chance to get backlinks.
3 Images, not text for anchors
This is another frequent mistake many designers make. Anchor text is vital in SEO and when your links lack anchor text, this is bad. It is true that for menu items and other page elements, it is much easier to use an image than text because with text you can never be sure it will display correctly on users' screens, but since this is impacting your site's rankings in a negative way, you should sacrifice beauty for functionality.
4 Messy code and tons of code
If you have no idea about HTML, then it might be impossible for you to judge if a site's code is messy and if the amount of code is excessive but cleanness of code is an important criterion for SEO. When the code is messy, it might not be spiderable at all and this can literally exclude your site from search engines because they won't be able to index it.
5 Excessive use of (SEO non-friendly) JavaScript
Similarly to Flash, search engines don't love JavaScript, especially tons of it. Actually, the worst with JavaScript is that if not coded properly, it is quite possible that because of the use of JavaScript your pages (or parts of them) are not spiderable, which automatically means that they won't be indexed.
6 Overoptimized sites
Overoptimized sites aren't better than under-optimized. In fact, they could be much worse because when you keyword stuff and use other techniques (even when they are not Black Hat SEO) to artificially inflate the rankings of the site, this could get you banned from search engines and this is the worst that can happen to a site.
7 Dynamic and other SEO non-friendly URLs
Well, maybe dynamic URLs is not exactly a design issue but if you are getting a turn-key site - i.e. it is not up to you to upload and configure it and to create the links inside - then dynamic URLs are bad and you have to ask the designer/developer not to use them. You can rewrite dynamic and other SEO non-friendly URLs on your own but actually this means to make dramatic changes to the site and this is hardly the point of hiring a designer.
These points are very important and this is why you need to follow them, when you are choosing a SEO-friendly designer. Some of the items on the list are so bad for SEO (i.e. Flash, JavaScript) that even if the site is a design masterpiece and you promote it heavily, you will still be unable to get decent rankings. SEO-friendliness of design is a necessity, not a whim and you shouldn't settle for a SEO-unfriendly designs – this can be really expensive!
When we say that you need to hire a SEO-friendly designer, we presume that you are a SEO pro and you know SEO but if you aren't, then have a look at the SEO Tutorial and the SEO Checklist. If you have no idea about SEO, then you will hardly be able to select a SEO-friendly designer because you won't know what to look for.
One of the ultimate tests if a designer is SEO-friendly or not is to look at his or her past sites – are they done professionally, especially in the SEO department. If their past sites don't exhibit blatant SEO mistakes, such as the ones we'll list in a second and they rank well, this is a recommendation that this person is worth hiring. Anyway, after you look at past sites, ask the designer if he or she did the SEO for their past sites because in some cases it might be that the client himself or herself has done a lot to optimize the site and this is why the site ranks well.
Here is a checklist of common web design sins that will make your site a SEO disaster. If you notice any or all of the following in the past sites your would-be designer has created, just move to the next designer. These SEO-unfriendly design elements are absolute sins and unless the client made them do it, no designer who would use the below techniques deserves your attention:
1 Rely heavily on Flash
Many designers still believe that Flash is the next best thing after sliced bread. While Flash can be very artistic and make a site look cool (and load forever in the browser), heavily Flash-ed sites are disaster in terms of SEO. Simple HTML sites rank better with search engines and as we point out in Optimizing Flash Sites, if the use of Flash is a must, then an HTML version of the same page is more than mandatory.
2 No internal links, or very few links
Internal links are backlinks and they are very important. Of course, this doesn't mean that all the text on a page must be hyperlinked to all the other pages on the site but if there are only a couple of internal links a page, this is a missed chance to get backlinks.
3 Images, not text for anchors
This is another frequent mistake many designers make. Anchor text is vital in SEO and when your links lack anchor text, this is bad. It is true that for menu items and other page elements, it is much easier to use an image than text because with text you can never be sure it will display correctly on users' screens, but since this is impacting your site's rankings in a negative way, you should sacrifice beauty for functionality.
4 Messy code and tons of code
If you have no idea about HTML, then it might be impossible for you to judge if a site's code is messy and if the amount of code is excessive but cleanness of code is an important criterion for SEO. When the code is messy, it might not be spiderable at all and this can literally exclude your site from search engines because they won't be able to index it.
5 Excessive use of (SEO non-friendly) JavaScript
Similarly to Flash, search engines don't love JavaScript, especially tons of it. Actually, the worst with JavaScript is that if not coded properly, it is quite possible that because of the use of JavaScript your pages (or parts of them) are not spiderable, which automatically means that they won't be indexed.
6 Overoptimized sites
Overoptimized sites aren't better than under-optimized. In fact, they could be much worse because when you keyword stuff and use other techniques (even when they are not Black Hat SEO) to artificially inflate the rankings of the site, this could get you banned from search engines and this is the worst that can happen to a site.
7 Dynamic and other SEO non-friendly URLs
Well, maybe dynamic URLs is not exactly a design issue but if you are getting a turn-key site - i.e. it is not up to you to upload and configure it and to create the links inside - then dynamic URLs are bad and you have to ask the designer/developer not to use them. You can rewrite dynamic and other SEO non-friendly URLs on your own but actually this means to make dramatic changes to the site and this is hardly the point of hiring a designer.
These points are very important and this is why you need to follow them, when you are choosing a SEO-friendly designer. Some of the items on the list are so bad for SEO (i.e. Flash, JavaScript) that even if the site is a design masterpiece and you promote it heavily, you will still be unable to get decent rankings. SEO-friendliness of design is a necessity, not a whim and you shouldn't settle for a SEO-unfriendly designs – this can be really expensive!
วันอังคารที่ 14 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2555
How to Boost your SEO with Google Adwords
Many advertisers use Google AdWords as their major PPC network. However, in addition to using AdWords for getting paid traffic to your site, it can also be used for SEO. Here are some ideas how you can use AdWords for SEO.
1 For Keyword Research
The most valuable use of AdWords for SEO is to research keywords. Keywords are the basis of any SEO campaign and even if you are an expert in your niche, you should always research keywords simply because users frequently search for quite unexpected keywords and keyphrases you as an expert will never think of. Needless to say, what matters most for high rankings is which keywords your target audience is searching for, not which keywords you as an expert think are most popular in a particular niche.
In order to find what users are searching for, you need a keyword research tool. It is true that there are many special (free and paid) keyword research tools but Google AdWords Keyword Tool is light years ahead of them all.
It is simple to use AdWords to research keywords. You can either enter the URL of your site or put in some seed keywords, the tool will then automatically generate a whole bunch of suggested keywords. Look at the results and shortlist all the keywords that seem relevent and have a decent global search volume.
You may want to rank well for ALL the generated keywords, but its best to focus all your efforts on a selected few. The idea now is to find keywords that are relatively easy to optimize and yet have a decent search volume. These would be the keywords with the least compitetion in Google. Go to Google.com and enter each of your short listed keywords (one at a time). It is best if you search for the exact phrase, so surround your keyword with double quotes. Note how many web results there are for each of the phrases. Now that you have collected the 'Number of web results' for each keyword, calculate competition ratio by divding it's 'Global search volume' by the 'Number of web results'. The keywords with the higher ratios are the easier ones to optimize.
You can now start a SEO campaign for your keywords however you'll see next, it might be much wiser to start an AdWords campaign instead.
2 To Ensure that the Keywords You Have Picked Convert Well
After you have picked your keywords, you need to verify if these keywords really work for you – i.e. if they convert properly. No matter how precise you've been when picking your keywords, if you don't test them in practice, you can never know for sure if they work well or don't. You can pick lucrative keywords with high global search volume and low levels of competition and still end nowhere.
For instance, for this website - webconfs.com we could try optimizing for the keyword "Search Engine Optimization". It could take a year or so with a LOT of effort to reach the first page on Google for "Search Engine Optimization” and still one can never be sure this will happen.
However, let's pretend that this happens – We manage to top Google for "Search Engine Optimization” after a year of hard SEO work. To our greatest disappointment, even the first place for "Search Engine Optimization” on Google did'nt bring the expected results because the bounce rate for this particular keyword turned out to be very high. Since we do not provide SEO Services a lot of people reaching us via "Search Engine Optimization" may NOT be getting what they're looking for. Instead, lesser popular keywords, such as "SEO Tips” or "SEO Guide” might have lower bounce rates and may actually perform better than "Search Engine Optimization” did for us.
The result is not surprising but the price paid is. If we had launched an AdWords campaign, it would have saved a lot of trouble. We could have spent $20-50 on AdWords for "Search Engine Optimization” and it would have taken us a week or less to figure that the bounce rate for this keyword is very high and it makes no sense to do organic SEO for it. These $20-50 on AdWords would have spared a year of wasted SEO efforts.
3 For Getting a Better CTR with Your Existing Rankings
In addition to keyword research, AdWords is a valuable tool for getting a better CTR (Click Thru Rate) with your existing rankings. You might rank well for a given keyword, get a lot of traffic, and still be unable to monetize this traffic because your CTR is low. The reasons for this might be various but inadequate title and description could be a very possible reason.
AdWords can also help you get better CTR with your existing rankings. For instance, if you run ad AdWords campaign and you are satisfied with the conversion/performance, you might want to keep changing your ad title and description until you feel you have reached the maximum CTR for your keywords.
Sure, it might take you a couple of tries till you find the winning combination of a title and a description and you might even lower your CTR in the process but once you find this magical combination of a title and description, just copy them as the title and description for your page in order to maximize your organic search CTR as well.
4 For Geographic Targeting
One more good use of AdWords for SEO is geotargeting. If you bid on traffic from many geographic locations, you can use Google Analytics to compare how different locations convert. It is quite natural to have significant discrepancies in the conversions for the same keyword among the countries.
When you go to Google Analytics and see which countries are converting best, you can invest more effort in them. For instance, you can create local pages for these countries or target the geo-specific keywords with exceptionally good conversion rates.
AdWords is a really valuable tool not only for advertisers. It started as a tool for advertisers but its use is not restricted to them alone. For many publishers and SEO experts AdWords is the most valuable tool because even a moderate AdWords campaign can give you valuable insights and save you a lot of time and money to optimize for words, which don't work for you.
1 For Keyword Research
The most valuable use of AdWords for SEO is to research keywords. Keywords are the basis of any SEO campaign and even if you are an expert in your niche, you should always research keywords simply because users frequently search for quite unexpected keywords and keyphrases you as an expert will never think of. Needless to say, what matters most for high rankings is which keywords your target audience is searching for, not which keywords you as an expert think are most popular in a particular niche.
In order to find what users are searching for, you need a keyword research tool. It is true that there are many special (free and paid) keyword research tools but Google AdWords Keyword Tool is light years ahead of them all.
It is simple to use AdWords to research keywords. You can either enter the URL of your site or put in some seed keywords, the tool will then automatically generate a whole bunch of suggested keywords. Look at the results and shortlist all the keywords that seem relevent and have a decent global search volume.
You may want to rank well for ALL the generated keywords, but its best to focus all your efforts on a selected few. The idea now is to find keywords that are relatively easy to optimize and yet have a decent search volume. These would be the keywords with the least compitetion in Google. Go to Google.com and enter each of your short listed keywords (one at a time). It is best if you search for the exact phrase, so surround your keyword with double quotes. Note how many web results there are for each of the phrases. Now that you have collected the 'Number of web results' for each keyword, calculate competition ratio by divding it's 'Global search volume' by the 'Number of web results'. The keywords with the higher ratios are the easier ones to optimize.
You can now start a SEO campaign for your keywords however you'll see next, it might be much wiser to start an AdWords campaign instead.
2 To Ensure that the Keywords You Have Picked Convert Well
After you have picked your keywords, you need to verify if these keywords really work for you – i.e. if they convert properly. No matter how precise you've been when picking your keywords, if you don't test them in practice, you can never know for sure if they work well or don't. You can pick lucrative keywords with high global search volume and low levels of competition and still end nowhere.
For instance, for this website - webconfs.com we could try optimizing for the keyword "Search Engine Optimization". It could take a year or so with a LOT of effort to reach the first page on Google for "Search Engine Optimization” and still one can never be sure this will happen.
However, let's pretend that this happens – We manage to top Google for "Search Engine Optimization” after a year of hard SEO work. To our greatest disappointment, even the first place for "Search Engine Optimization” on Google did'nt bring the expected results because the bounce rate for this particular keyword turned out to be very high. Since we do not provide SEO Services a lot of people reaching us via "Search Engine Optimization" may NOT be getting what they're looking for. Instead, lesser popular keywords, such as "SEO Tips” or "SEO Guide” might have lower bounce rates and may actually perform better than "Search Engine Optimization” did for us.
The result is not surprising but the price paid is. If we had launched an AdWords campaign, it would have saved a lot of trouble. We could have spent $20-50 on AdWords for "Search Engine Optimization” and it would have taken us a week or less to figure that the bounce rate for this keyword is very high and it makes no sense to do organic SEO for it. These $20-50 on AdWords would have spared a year of wasted SEO efforts.
3 For Getting a Better CTR with Your Existing Rankings
In addition to keyword research, AdWords is a valuable tool for getting a better CTR (Click Thru Rate) with your existing rankings. You might rank well for a given keyword, get a lot of traffic, and still be unable to monetize this traffic because your CTR is low. The reasons for this might be various but inadequate title and description could be a very possible reason.
AdWords can also help you get better CTR with your existing rankings. For instance, if you run ad AdWords campaign and you are satisfied with the conversion/performance, you might want to keep changing your ad title and description until you feel you have reached the maximum CTR for your keywords.
Sure, it might take you a couple of tries till you find the winning combination of a title and a description and you might even lower your CTR in the process but once you find this magical combination of a title and description, just copy them as the title and description for your page in order to maximize your organic search CTR as well.
4 For Geographic Targeting
One more good use of AdWords for SEO is geotargeting. If you bid on traffic from many geographic locations, you can use Google Analytics to compare how different locations convert. It is quite natural to have significant discrepancies in the conversions for the same keyword among the countries.
When you go to Google Analytics and see which countries are converting best, you can invest more effort in them. For instance, you can create local pages for these countries or target the geo-specific keywords with exceptionally good conversion rates.
AdWords is a really valuable tool not only for advertisers. It started as a tool for advertisers but its use is not restricted to them alone. For many publishers and SEO experts AdWords is the most valuable tool because even a moderate AdWords campaign can give you valuable insights and save you a lot of time and money to optimize for words, which don't work for you.
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