Monday, March 25, 2013

How To Know If Your Website Is Under Optimized

The past several years have been very dynamic when it comes to how websites compete with each other. The visibility and popularity of a particular website highly depends on how search engine friendly it is. This is the reason why the trend has been how to optimize websites for search engines so that they can be easily seen, making them land in the top search results for particular search keywords and key phrases.

While some website owners prefer to get the services of an SEO company in the Philippines, there are some who choose to undergo SEOtraining in the Philippines so that they can handle the search engine optimization of their websites themselves. No matter how you want to have your site optimized, it is very important that you at least know whether your website is under optimized or not. Below are some of the identifying characteristics of an under optimized website.
  • Low quality content. Ask yourself, will you go to your own site for its content? If your answer is no, then it is time to make an overhaul and start putting high quality articles that people will really visit and read. Make sure that your content is well written, highly relevant, and unique.
 
  • Visually unpleasing. Look at your website. Is the design visually pleasing to you? If the colors, fonts, borders, images, and other design aspects do not go well together to form a cohesive, well designed website, then make a visual overhaul of it. Feel free to consult with a web design artist and if you want search engines to index your website, limit your use of Flash and JavaScript.
  • Not user friendly. Sometimes even if your website is visually pleasing and you have unique, high quality content, you can still lose visitors if your website is difficult to navigate. Make sure that your visitors can easily maneuver their way around your website. Use clear categories and make a site map available for your visitors. Everything that your website has to offer should be easily accessible so that your visitors do not need to browse through several pages just to find what they are looking for.
  • Broken links. Always check all the links that you have in your website are in perfect working condition. If not, fix all broken links or redirect the links to a page that will not confuse your visitor. 

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

DOS AND DONTS: Safe Link Building Tips For 2013


With the Google Panda and Penguin updates, the method in which links were built and earned took a major turn over the last couple of years. For the year 2013, one word rules – that is quality. Below are some of the DOs and DONTs when acquiring backlinks.


DOs.
  • Guest blogging. A way to build your brand and for people to visit you is to do guest blogging. Choose blogs that have high Google ranks. Study their topics closely so you’d know the fastest technique to get your post accepted. Stick to your niche. Be expert on the field.
  • Content Creation. Quality over quantity. The type of copy that you put out there could make your business stand out from the rest. Always build fresh and innovative content strategies. Use up-to-date infographics and pin it on Pinterest. If you’re local, create SEO training materials to target professionals in the Philippines. Upload them to Slideshare and link it back to your website for more info.
  • Social media. With Google putting on more weight to your presence in the social media scene, being active is a guaranteed to boost ranking. Create profiles and business pages. Add your site on each so you can easily be reached. Join communities. Let the word-of-mouth coupled with social signals take care of everything. 


DONTs.
  • Directory links. Gone were the days when you suggest your website for inclusion to hundreds of directories that offer two-way link building services. You can still continue this practice but be very particular. Opt for PR 7 or 8 and those with good authority in Google.
  • Blog comments. Most of the blogs have nofollow attribute thus, the old system of commenting, leaving your keyword on the comments has become obsolete as well. More often than not, the ones with links on it are often ignored by readers if not rejected by the blog owner itself. You can still proceed on keeping this strat but learn to put a limit into it.
  • Article submission. One of the hardest hit with the change of Google algorithm are the article submission sites. Duplicate content is a big NO. The search engine giant has even warned against spinning as it offers low quality content. Hence, scratch this off your list. You may still submit one or selected two but be sure to really work on imparting great info for search engines to credit it as a link.