Monday, February 28, 2011

Off Page Search Engine Optimisation

SEO experts have suggested that a greater percentage of search engine optimization has to be done off the page because several search engines such as Google determine the importance of website based on the number of links that come from external websites.

On-page optimization is now considered easier and hence, many webmasters use on-page optimization exhaustively. To improve search engine results, search engines now emphasize on off-page factors. Google has its own patented page rank algorithm which concentrates more on off-page factors while determining page rank of a website. However, this off-page optimization has been in discussion from 1994.

Off-page optimization of website is achieved using sources outside the website. To improve search engine indexing for certain keywords, webmasters should try to relate their website from external pages.

Increasing page rank by improving search engine indexing can be done using search engine optimization. Off-page optimization technique involves link building strategy. Any webmaster interested in showing his website in the top pages of Google search engine should look for off-page optimization to increase search engine ranking.

To get your website included in long term search engine profile, you need to perform off page optimization. Every website owner is looking for a place in search engine result pages. Search engines determine your website ranking for specific keywords depending on authority. Authority is determined by search engines not only by the contents present in your website. Inbound links and outbound links related to links to and from your website are also considered while determining your website's authority. Moreover, authority of websites to which your website is affiliated is also calculated to establish authority of your website.

Off-page search engine optimization in the present world wants you to spread words about your website as much as possible. This means that your website content has to be socialized. This can be done by providing your site contents through RSS feeds. Establishing your website by means of news and media also brings more links to your website. As your website content is available in several places like news, aggregators, blogs, and media companies, it will get more links from the outside. Authority of website also develops because of the availability of website in many places.

Social bookmarking websites are considered very important for off-page SEO. Many social bookmarking websites such as Digg, del.icio.ous, Stumble Upon, etc are very popular. These websites have high authority established by search engines. As you can easily post your website content on the social bookmarking website using blog posts, you can get quality back links to your website effectively. To get deep inbound links, your website viewers can be encouraged to use bookmarking websites throughout your website. Inturn, you get your contents added to their bookmark, which is beneficial for off page SEO.

You must try to include your links to leading directories in your niche. Search engine algorithms consider the source of links to your website. Just by increasing the number of links to your website, you cannot expect great results. The links should come from those places that are relevant to your own website. Search engines can identify the difference between relevant and irrelevant links. When links come form websites with keywords similar to your niche, they are valued high by the search engines. On the other hand, if you get so many links from other websites that are not related to your website, they are not well acknowledged by search engines.

Using all off page SEO techniques, you will develop a circle of profiles that improves authority which inturn increases profile ranking, generating more authority and the process continues. Various off page SEO tactics such as peer-to-peer promotion, link building, advertising, and internet marketing have to be followed all together to achieve desired results.

When you are taking efforts to achieve off page SEO, you have to concentrate more on relevance. You should match SEO techniques with the requirements of your website viewers. With usage of optimization techniques, your search engine ranking will improve. This will definitely bring more visitors to your website. If you don't exploit increased traffic to your website, you end up with wasting your efforts. Internet users will not be satisfied if they don't get what they want from your website.

Your optimization techniques should aim at exhibiting the relevance of your website with keywords. The website must contain high quality content and information that fascinates people interested in your niche. A professionally designed website will only benefit from professionally planned and executed off page SEO.

Your website must contain internal links and the anchor text used is very important. Don't waste this space by providing irrelevant text like click here or go here. Use keywords and key phrases as anchor text. The text you use at different places must be different. Alternatively, you can also use contextual qualifiers that are related to your website. While trying to include keyword phrases, take care that you avoid explicit repetitions that disrupt the flow of the contents.

Following is a short and useful list of sources that you can exploit for increasing number of inbound links:

Themed portals – Article directories such as ezine and discussion forums related to your website niche.

Press releases – Many news websites like BBC allow external websites to post content and links. You can exploit this feature to include new and fresh information related to your website. As these media websites have many readers, your website will be visited by more number of people. Further, search engines will crawl popular websites very often.

Organization websites – Several nonprofit organization websites encourage many people to become a member and promote their website. You can join as many websites as possible as long as they are related to your website content.

Discussion forums – The discussion forums are places that get more traffic everyday. In the signature, you can include your website link and participate in interesting discussions.

Affiliate program – If you have a profitable business, start an affiliate program for your website, and invite many affiliates to join hands with you. This way, you can quickly increase website authority, as the affiliates will happily promote your website if you provide them rewards.

RSS feeds – Internet users will be interested in subscribing to your RSS feeds if you present information in the format they like.

Advertising – Many popular internet directories allow you to publish your links at a fixed cost.

PPC campaigns – To establish relevance of your website with keywords, participate in PPC campaigns to publish your website links in several blogs and websites that are unreachable otherwise.


Source: http://www.opseo.co.uk

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Types of SEO

There are a few well noted types of SEO services but there is no solid rule to comply with. Some can cost much in a span of a year. While there are some SEO services that are very affordable and considered as effective way to do web promotions. This is where sites are submitted to various leading search engines and directories. This can give you instant promotion since it is a cheap way of doing SEO but it can never be always that effective.

There are also some other companies which offer monthly maintenance SEO services to their clients. They report the details and progress of the site on a monthly basis and the cost charged differed depending on which country the client is coming from. What is rendered are for the needs of the management and the other types of services and reports that the client would need in particular. This type is ideal for those businesses that have just started and in dire need of getting their websites to be pushed for promotion.

The next type of SEO services involves consultancy when you want to upgrade or put into the next level the promotional strategy of your business. With this, you can get the advice of the seo consultants who are known as experts in the field, some of them also offering SEO services. You can easily discuss with them all your questions and problems to be able to have a smooth flow of work and advice for your website. You can pay them for an hourly rate or maybe give a partial pay and the rest of the payment once the project has reached its completion. There are also some others who charge depending on the description of the SEO services you might be requiring them to do or give consultation for; whether it would just be about keywords, navigational structure, page optimizations and other activities for internet marketing.

And of course, who cannot forget outsourcing? This is the last type of SEO services which suggests for you to outsource people who would do your promotions task who are also known to be web experts. The cost differs vastly too in this scenario, especially when it comes to quality and the credibility of the SEO service provider. You can get the service of experts at link building who offer very affordable rates or settle for directory submissions. This last type can also come in a consultancy form.

As you choose your way through this list, the last decision of which to settle for still greatly depends on what will successfully suit or fit your needs and the demands of your business. You can even ask your consultant first to refer to you the kind of promotional activities that he thinks your business would require. Just remember that when you put your investment in SEO, anything can still happen. This is especially true especially when a lot of leading search engines unceasingly change their algorithms and rules every once in a while.

More: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Olive_Joy_Villegas

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Five SEO Tips for Driving Search Engine Traffic

There are many misconceptions about search engine optimization (SEO) that have sprung up over the years, says Jill Whalen, CEO and founder of High Rankings, that make it difficult for those in charge of online traffic to know exactly how to optimize their Web sites correctly. Here Whalen shares five on-page tactics that professional SEO companies use to drive the most targeted search engine traffic possible to their clients' Web sites.

Do your keyword research. Keyword research is the cornerstone of everything you do in search marketing. Optimizing for keyword phrases that nobody is searching for is truly a waste of time. With today's numerous keyword research tools at our disposal, there's no excuse for optimizing for the wrong keywords. Try Google's free Keyword Tool for starters; if you have multiple Web sites or product types, paid subscription tools such as  Keyboard Discovery and/or Wordtracker are well worth the price.

Redo your Web site architecture. You'll want to ensure that the most popular areas of your site (ideally the pages you optimize) are featured in the main navigation that's on every page of the site. The search engines rightly assume that the most important stuff on your site is in your main navigation, and therefore give extra weighting to those pages in their ranking formulas.

Think of it this way — the pages contained in your main navigation are linked to from every single page of your site. That's a powerful way of building up the internal link popularity of those pages, which is a key ingredient to SEO success. Use this to your advantage by optimizing them for the most highly searched upon, competitive phrases, and save your deeper pages for the more "long-tail" type phrases.

Choose which keyword phrases belong on which pages. Armed with your researched keyword phrase lists, go through the key pages of your site and choose three to six phrases that apply to each page. Many people believe they should optimize each page for only one keyword phrase, but nothing reads as poorly as a page that has only one keyword phrase as its focus.

Ideally, you'll want to use different sets of keywords for each page, but some overlap is fine. Avoid targeting any one keyword phrase on every page of your site — you gain no advantage in doing so. After all, the search engines will only show two pages at most from your site for any search query, so the idea is to show up for as many different phrases as possible. This works out nicely as no two people search in the same manner. You may use certain words to describe your product, but your prospects may use very different ones.

Use keyword-rich title tags, meta descriptions, marketing copy. Using the keyword phrases you chose for each page, write or re-write the visible marketing copy so that it uses those phrases naturally. This may sound easier said than done, but it's actually quite simple . just think more descriptively when you write.

In other words, instead of using generic phrases such as "our software" or "our company," edit the copy so that you mention what type of software or company (e.g., marketing management software or project management software company). You can almost always work in keyword phrases in a natural manner when you do this. This is so powerful, in fact, that if you do nothing else after reading this article but go back to your current web site copy and make those changes, you may start gaining targeted traffic for those keyword phrases within a few weeks.

Measure success from targeted traffic and conversions. SEOs have traditionally measured success by tracking the rankings in the search engines for various keyword phrases. However, due to numerous factors such as personalized search, geo-targeted search and multiple search engine datacenters, no two searches will show the same results.

In fact, it's common to do a Google search using a particular phrase in the morning, then perform the same search in the afternoon and see different results. Rankings are simply not a good measure of success. All the #1 rankings in the world won't mean a thing if a) you're the only one seeing those rankings b) you're ranked for keyword phrases nobody is searching on or c) the rankings bring Web site traffic, but not from people interested in what you are selling. The fact of the matter is that rankings do not help your bottom line. Today, SEO success is measured by how much targeted traffic is delivered, and more importantly how much of that traffic converts from visitors to buyers.

Following these five tactics will undoubtedly take some time and hard work. SEO is not a quick-fix endeavor. However, this type of investment in your Web site's infrastructure will pay high dividends later as your targeted traffic increases, ultimately leading to additional leads and sales. A professional SEO campaign is a long-term proposition that often provides an extremely high return on investment . so be sure you get it right.

Source from:http://www.webopedia.com