When launching a new site or revamping an existing one, social media optimization remains the crux, in order to attract an interested demographic and to grow brand awareness and visibility. With these five tips, you can understand and avoid the most common mistakes in this sphere. 

Specifying Domains: This simply means that you should have the favourable option of either http://www.xyz.com or http://xyz.com. Redi­recting the preferable one solves this quickly.

JavaScript and CSS Control: For aspirations of search engine optimization, framework sites that are plug-in heavy have this problem. If cutting down on the script used and the CSS displayed is not feasible, running them through external files will enable faster load times.

Exam­ple: <script type=‘text/relevant-type’ src=‘http:/xyz.com/location-of-relevant-file.js’></script>

Advantages of Sitemap: Using an XML sitemap is hugely beneficial. The tools for this are available online in abundance.

Search engine optimization is achieved by making your pages and website more discoverable as search engines pick them up. It also assigns degrees of importance to different content.

Title Tag Format: While title tags are elements to the page header, they could also be visible at the top, depending on the browser.

It is also the text, which can be clicked as the results appear in an organic search. Not only are they a ranking criterion, but they also influence click-through rates.

Points:

• Title tags should not cross 70 cha­rac­ters, with spaces
• Avoid excessively filling with keywords
• Essential keywords should comprise the start of each title tag

Lac­king or Dupli­cate Desc­rip­tion Tags: Desc­rip­tion tags are visible in search results. They appear below clickable text and are created by search engines, which assign importance, when the tags are not compiled. It is far better to decide for yourself on the information that will be visible to your audience rather than automated decisions, in this case at least.

The possibly worst and most common mistake in search engine optimization functioning is the repeated usage of a description tag across multiple pages. This makes the process redundant and it is better to have blank descriptions for other pages.

Rules of Thumb:

• With spaces, description tags should not exceed 150 characters
• Every page should have a distinct description tag
• These tags should complement title tag keywords.

Gaining an insight into these unpopular mistakes that most websites and businesses make empowers you to succeed, without the impediment of wary operations. Follow these tips and make good on your promise to operate a website with full search engine optimization.

Image courtesy mashable.com

The ranking of a site in Google completely depends on the website copy. If a site is not properly executed then even the most advantageously planned site can be of no use. The role of SEO copywriting is to render content valuable, as readability of the viewers cannot be sacrificed.

If you do not have the budget to engage an SEO copywriter and are bound to do this task yourself, then here are 5 useful tips to follow:

1. Importance of Keywords: The title of the article is one of the most important places where the keyword should be included. It plays a significant role in grabbing the reader’s attention at the very beginning. Your keyword should also be incorporated in the opening paragraph. The opening paragraph is an introduction to the content, so it should also be catchy to draw user interest.
2. Keyword Stuffing: Over incorporating of keywords is called keyword stuffing. When you over use a keywords it leads to repetition, making the SEO copy boring for the readers. To avoid this error, you can read the content naturally to a human. This will help you hear any repetition in the copy.
3. Add Links: Links play a major role in SEO. Good content should provide links for your site as people want to share content that is appropriate, well written and useful.  You can increase your sites ranking by building links that are search engine optimized and are reader-friendly.
4. Meta Tags: Meta tags have enormous ranking value. You can use your title’s keywords in the title. Through meta tags and meta description tags, the webmasters can have constant access to relevant data on your site. But repeating keywords in these tags can be considered spam.
5. Structure of the Text: Well-structured content always catches the reader’s attention, as it makes it easy for them to read the whole content. Make sure that the copy is not too long and is broken into paragraphs and add subtitles.

SEO copywriting is all about making your content not only readable but also persuading visitors to stay on your site, thereby resulting in better rankings and higher ROI.

Image courtesy www.andy-morley.co.uk

SEO is considered as one of the most critical steps for establishing a veritable online presence of a brand. SEO or Search Engine Optimization entails modifying webpages so that they can be readily discovered and indexed by various search engines. Read on to know why SEO is indispensible for digital marketing.

Enhanced Visibility:   In order to make your brand more visible on the internet, it must be subjected to SEO. As most internet users use search engines to navigate on the web, it is critical that search engine points them to your website. Sans SEO your website would be relegated to the last pages of the search engine results, where generally no one ventures. The main function of SEO is to enable people to easily find your webpage and therefore your brand.

More Credible: Researches have shown that paid advertisements on the internet are often easily overlooked by people. This further makes SEO even more critical for building a brand. Top ranked results on a search engine seem to be much more credible to most internet users. As the listings on the search engines are unpaid, they naturally seem to be more genuine and relevant to the searched query.

Sustenance: SEO can play an instrumental role in sustaining the brand and enhancing its life. SEO or organic traffic is not something that withers in a day or two. A comprehensive SEO can go a long way in maintaining a strong online presence for your Brand.

In the simplest of words, SEO makes your brand more visible to and on search engines.  In the contemporary realm where the virtual world radically influences the real world, no brand can sustain sans SEO.

Image courtesy 123rf.com

When it comes to SEO, the local businesses of a city are still struggling to gain a foothold. The learning, understanding and execution of search engine optimization are sinking in. Unfortunately, there is no crash course to ensure successful SEO applications. The hope is there with the knowledge shared by businesses that have managed to sail through the early storm. The gist of it is listed here:

Blog More: First things first, when one starts with a business, there are no dearth of discursive topics. So, it is better to take the discussion from the conference table to the website. Sport a blog on the site, sharing business ideas and hiccups.

Listing: It is absolutely essential that the business is listed with the search engine. So, with the customer looking for specific requirements in a particular locality, the business should appear as part of the Google search. Also, the business should not miss out on the opportunity of the smartphone applications. With local hub search being introduced to mobiles, the consumer would be looking for ‘you’ just about anywhere, anytime. So, be present.

Bookmark: The next step in luring the web traffic to the website would be through book marking tools. The social bookmarking comes easy with sites like Reddit, Digg etc. By bookmarking the latest content on the blog to these social networking sites, the content will be introduced to the world. This would facilitate for more traffic inflow.

Get Linked: It is important to understand that website submissions should be made to have increased inbound links. This would not be possible if the submission is not done to a relevant website directory. Thus, if your business deals with catering, the links should be placed strategically to food and dining categories. Making sense of business and smart associations with websites help optimize the business the right way.

Tweet: Tweeting about your product and new ventures is a good way to go about optimizing your business. One must know that SEO for a business does not happen over content which is ‘business’ but more when it speaks of/about the business.

Image source: seoservicesgroup.com

As a concept, market automation is broad, dense and extremely channelized. But in a layman’s term, it can be defined as a process that uses technology to get customer feedback, automatically. Think of it as a system that will free you up from the redundant tasks of your business. An automated way of sending business reminders, invitations, notices, applications, promotional gifts and prizes.

However, when it comes to SEO, what is it that marketing automation can do? Businesses clearly understand the importance of generating leads. And, with marketing automation you can get a whole lot of visitor attention to your website. Awesome SEO is a definite advantage of marketing automation. You get those prospective leads without spending anything more than the justified inbound marketing costs.  What are savior tools? Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, enhanced SEO and smart Social Media Marketing tactics.

If you are thinking about the innumerable channels (read: e-mails, direct mail, mobiles etc.) that you would be required to use for marketing automation, focus on the word “automatic” again. One you have created SEO friendly content, everything else from updating to sharing to feedback becomes automated. So, all that you are left with to do is creating quality content.

SEO has come a long way from being the days of simple optimization. Now, it is the foundation of interactive communities and social enterprises. If your SEO is right, your marketing will be incredible. Surely, nothing can beat the broad experience and knowledge of marketing; however, with SEO your business is 5 steps ahead always.

Image Courtesy Search Engine Land (www.searchengineland.com)

The Panda created pandemonium when it was first rolled out in February 24, 2011. Webmasters from around the world were once again reminded that no matter what, Quality will remain the king of content. As content farms all around the world struggled to escape the clutches of the Panda, a number of writings on the internet were banished to some the end of Google listings.

The Panda arrived and conquered; and, SEO never remained the same.

Even though we have discussed quality as per Panda, before, we shall run a cursory glance through the Panda algorithm once again. Aimed at considerably improving the search result quality, Google Panda, now considers the most shared content as the most qualitative. So instead of the keyword density it will now be the Google Plus count of sharing that will determine your edge over the others. On a wider perspective, the bigger role of the Panda is to bin content that provides poor user experience.

But We aren’t Here to Talk About Another Panda Story!!

We ain’t here to sit back and grumble about how Panda gorged up our entire farm. We are here to resist its impact. So if your site was recently pushed down the ladder by the Panda, it’s time to get your ranking back. How do you do that? Five simple tips:

• Stop using black hat methods
• Optimize usage of coding and linking
• Take design seriously
• Update your content regularly
• Focus on quality

Since the Panda is most likely to attack websites that lack suitable SEO structure and contain too many adverts, it is essential to organize your work prior to making it available over the internet. No website can be “perfect”, but this excuse doesn’t work anymore. The quality standards have been raised significantly. Stop frowning and get down to business.

Image courtesy KISSWebmaster

With Google Panda quality becomes a serious business. For those who still don’t get the basic Panda tactic, it is the new algorithm that automatically lowers the Google ranking of low quality content/ website/business. Seems scary? Watch out!!

Aiming for high quality should be your utmost priority. And also take note of the following points:

1. Don’t Let Ads Lure Away Traffic. Where links and advertisements were considered important for SEO, for making the Panda work for you, it is suggested that you keep links and ads that can supersede your content, to the minimum. The more the ad blocks on your content page, the more will be the drop in your ranking
2. Pay More Heed to Social Media. Sharing is important. Share your content on social media websites and help increase its visibility. Make your content interactive. Make it worthy of being shared by others. This will automatically determine your content’s quality.
3. Improve Brand Indicators. This will help you win some much needed trust. While discussing the technique of improving brand indicators is beyond the scope of this blog, it is important to understand that an increased level of trust comes from high quality and means higher Google ranking.
4. Make it Exclusive: Before you share your content, ask yourself the following:
   1. Is it “Engaging” and will it be shared?
   2. Does the content have a goal and does it reach a conclusion?
   3. Is it complete?

If your answer to all these is a yes then you can take a deep breath and be assured that you haven’t just added to the heap of low-quality content on the internet. The list given above is not comprehensive. It comprises of the simplest ways of dealing with the Panda. If you are sure of the quality, your ratings won’t be adversely impacted.

Even though it may seem like another bottleneck towards achieving quality, Google Panda is, indeed, a way of rewarding excellent quality. Having expressed its wrath against substandard content, the Panda pushes your content on the route of perfection.

Image credit goes to www.berkenboschmarketing.com

With demand for online PR services at its peak, the cost for professional web content writing has gone up further. The basic principle behind outsourcing the job of writing for a company’s website is to maximize traffic to the website. Now there are different categories when it comes to website content, and each has its own price points:

Landing page

To understand the significance of the Landing page, you only have to remind yourself of the cliché, ‘first impression is the last impression’, which pretty much says it all. A landing page may be welcome page or the about us page of a website that talks about the company and its services in brief. Monotony is the tendency of the hour when it comes to writing for such pages. For converting the browsing audience into buyers, the content has to be innovative that catches attention on first contact. This is when the need to spend extra bucks on the website content arises.

Reputed copy and content creation agencies quote a higher price as they have the best writers in business. A lot of research goes into writing for the landing pages that is successful and acts as an effective salesman for your website, thus justifying the expensive fees.

SEO Blogs

There is no dearth of shortcuts to anything and everything, and so to increasing the website traffic. SEO blogs count among the most convenient and effective ways to increase traffic to your website. The conversational blogs give people a reason to visit a website and browse it. Blog writers can target topics based on the study of analytics and success of a particular write-up in the past. They are better attuned to the penchant of the readers, making sure the next click after the blog is the website URL.

Linkbait articles

Now there is not much of a difference between Linkbait articles and SEO blogs, minus the length and viral-ism associated with Linkbait articles. These articles require much more than just a regular write-up or a writer. People entrusted with writing a Linkbait article need to be more innovative in their writing and they have to spend a considerable amount of time while researching and writing these articles. Editing these articles takes even more time than writing. Most content writing companies would charge you per word when it comes to Linkbait articles.

A simple yet profound thought says that the success of a blog depends on how it is optimized. Another, intriguing school contemplates that just like business; blogs too have a human side to them. It puts forth the idea that it is the softer side of a blog that decided its fate.

Supporters of the “business is human” philosophy argue that one of the main purposes of a blog, be it personal or corporate, is to initiate connection. Until THAT has been done, there will not be any returns. Long-term profit is a distant dream until you have achieved the first milestone, which is to “build a community”.

Why Build a Community?

 They talk about creating and increasing lists rather than about building relations. Why not endeavour towards creating communities (read: forums, common interest groups, knowledge-centres) instead. Even if it’s virtual it is still a world operated by REAL people. Behind every post, tweet or comment there are beings that put some effort and emotion in creating them. Should they be treated as a tool of sales propagation, the business will definitely loose its vision from myopia.

Because It Matters

 Not just for SEO purposes but for a human-touch too. You need to comment, reply or like every other post, because it matters to the entire blog community. The purpose of a blog is to generate interest and brew-up conversation. Don’t kill the rendezvous by not participating. Connect with the content. Take it forward.

What’s The Catch??

 You will be surprised to know, but the human approach to blogging supersedes the results of “spreadsheet marketing”. The plus point is that with this approach you won’t have to spend much time on SEOing your posts; and, still keep your community running.

Social media is unanimously hailed as one of the most powerful tools for online marketing in the contemporary landscape. The reason being that the average internet user is much more active and involved than ever before.  SMO or Social Media Optimization is not just another  gambit for Social Media Marketing but rather a prerequisite for the same. In defining terms, SMO is remodeling content and structure of a website to enhance the website’s presence across various social media platforms. The term SMO came in vogue as early as 2006 and its dimensions have undergone many shifts in the past few years.

1.    Optimizing Content: Content is the backbone of any SMO stratagem. While the focus has always been on the linking of content to various social platforms, generating “shareable” content is also critical. “Shareable” content is something that people may actually want to share on their own premise. Generating content that appeals to your key demographics is the main challenge here as SMO is not just about linking; it’s about liking, tweeting, digging, stumbling, pinning and much more.

2.    Making Sharing Easy and Universal: It is not a secret now that tagging and bookmarking tabs are just not enough.

•    As multiple social platforms are on the rise, provisions must be made to hoist your content across each of them. Various social media buttons must be incorporated with your website to facilitate ready sharing of your content.

•    There are various channels which can help your content traverse the web and ultimately bring more visitors to your site. Video sharing sites and document sharing sites like Slideshare, Scribd can increase the accessibility of your content.

3.    Engage: SMO only works if it triggers a genuine discourse among the audience. The key here is to encourage your audience to propagate your content.

•    Rewarding people for sharing your content is a viable option but it is essential to ensure that your content is propagated in the right channels.

•    Creating social media handles such as Facebook pages is almost a given. But the need is to be proactive on these handles and readily addressing each and every feedback.

•    Banking on the content based on trending topics is recommended. People’s interest and predilections keep shifting with time. Hence, it is prudent to keep your content in sync with the current and the new.

4.    SEO Integration: SMO ultimately is aimed at getting more and more unique visitors to your website but sadly it cannot work in seclusion. Before getting on with SMO, it is essential to lay down the ground work with a SEO campaign.

5.    Going Viral: For new websites, a viral campaign can get the ball rolling. Your overall SMO strategy must accommodate some viral campaigns as social media is especially conducive to viral phenomena.

6.    Gaming: Social Media Gaming is the new element added to the mix of SMO. Games of the likes of Farmville, Mafia Wars generate high user involvement as well as user interaction. Apparently, they also serve as nifty tools to gain brand association and building brand image.

The potential of Social Media Optimization is beyond limits as it presents a host of opportunities and an ample scope for innovation and creativity. SMO has emerged as one of the major tools in the marketing mix as it enables to capture the attention of the key demographics on favorable terms while propagating a more credible message.