Best Sites For Guest Posting

Despite the many changes that the Google Panda and Penguin has brought about to how websites are optimized, no one can deny the fact that SEO is continues to be a popularity game. How that popularity is measured is what changes. Hence, links to your website and mentions of your website remains to be important.

 

While bad SEO practices are being discouraged and are actually targeted by numerous Google updates, guest posting remains to be a good way for your website to earn some SEO brownie points. While some website owners partner with an SEO company to do this for them for some supposedly guaranteed SEO results, there are some who are more hands-on when it comes to promoting their websites.

If you belong to the more hands-on website owners, it pays to know the best places online where you can try to guest post. Below are some of these sites. Be warned though, that it can be quite difficult to get featured in many of the sites listed below.

• Mashable. A site where you can find articles or posts about almost anything, Mashable is a great site to get noticed while providing an excellent PageRank of 8. Sharing of posts through various social media networks is very easy with Mashable so that you can easily promote your guest post too.
  
  
  
  
  
• SmashingMagazine. For websites that are in the design, graphics, and coding niches, SmashingMagazine is where you should try to guest post. Not only will you be able to reach a large audience, this site will also provide an excellent SEO juice with its PageRank of 7.
  
  
  
  
  
• Technorati. With a very wide variety of topics such as lifestyle, sports, business, entertainment, technology, social media, and politics, Technorati is the “It” site to be featured in no matter what topic or niche your site may be in. Its PageRank of 8 is not the single reason why you would want to guest post here because its very high traffic is another one.
  
  
  
• CopyBlogger. With a PageRank of 6, CopyBlogger is definitely a good place to guest post on. Its focus is on content marketing, email marketing, copywriting, and internet marketing, so if your site is related to any of these topics, CopyBlogger is a good site to aspire for.
   
  
  
• ReadWriteWeb. If your website’s focus is in technology, then ReadWrite’s PageRank of 7 is an excellent reason to guest post on this website. It is also quite easy to share your post with the many social network buttons available on each post, allowing you to promote your post to your own social media network.
  

A Guide To Post-Penguin Linking

The way people do search engine optimization has changed so much over the years. This is mainly because of the many updates that Google has likewise done to its search algorithm to address bad SEO practices. The most recent Google update that has made huge impacts on how websites are ranked is the Penguin 2.0. Because of the frequent updates, a website owner will need to have frequent SEO consulting services to keep up with the changes.

If you are one of those who are undergoing SEO training in the Philippines, you should be aware of how the Penguin 2.0 has changed how SEO is done. Among the changes brought about by the Penguin is how linking is done to increase a website’s rankings. Below is a guide on what not to do when trying to get links for your website.

• Paying another website to link to your website. Google does not allow buying links, so paying another website to link to your website is not the way to get links. Do not be tempted even if another website has a high page rank because Google will penalize your website if you do.

• Using hidden links. Some websites put links that are hidden or cannot be seen by the typical site visitor. This is not allowable with Google and can also get you penalized.

• Having broken links. It is important to fix all broken links because it can be detected by Google and might cause you to lose page ranking.

• Excessive use of anchor text. Years back, many websites are optimized for targeted keywords which are often repeatedly used as anchor text when linking to the website. Unfortunately, this could get you penalized by Google because it is indicative of links that are not natural and organic. So make sure that the anchor texts used to link to your website are varied.

• Getting links from bad websites. Not all links are good for your website. Websites which may be considered bad or spammy by Google are not the best websites to get links from. If Google penalizes a website linking to your site, your website’s rankings may also get adversely affected.

• Linking to bad websites. Aside from getting penalized by getting links from bad websites, Google also looks at the websites that you are linking to. If a particular website is spammy and uses black hat SEO, then your site will get the same treatment from Google.

Why Become An SEO Expert And How To Become One

Search engine optimization has now become a very big and important industry thanks to the Internet and the need to get to the top of search engine result pages. This industry has given birth to a new career – the SEO expert.

If you are someone who spends a lot of time on the Internet and would like to pursue a relatively new career that involves the Internet, below are some reasons why you might want to pursue becoming an SEO expert.

·         Huge potential. Since SEO is a relatively new field, the potential for growth and development is still very good. With more and more website owners now understanding the importance and need for guaranteed SEO, your potential clientele as an SEO expert is very promising.

·         Flexible. Whether you start your own practice or you work for an SEO company, the hours of work is often very flexible. This will allow you to take on several projects at the same time or even hold a different job. You can even choose to work in an actual office or work from the comforts of your home.

·         Dynamic. If you are the type who craves to have changes and excitement, then being an SEO expert is a good option. New developments happen frequently in the field of SEO and Google releases frequent updates to its search algorithm.

·         Resources. There are tons of resources online on search engine optimization. You will never lack in references and you are sure to find anything that you need help with. This makes it easy even for SEO beginners to find their way in becoming more knowledgeable about different SEO strategies and techniques.

If you are now thinking of becoming an SEO expert, the question that comes next is how do you become one? The first thing you will need to do is to get yourself educated on search engine optimization. It does not matter whether you get formal SEO training or you choose to self-study with the help of all the resources that can be found online. The important thing is that you learn as much as you can about SEO. 

Next, you will have to decide whether you want to work for an SEO company or you want to offer your services as a freelancer. If you want to work for a company, you will have to start contacting them to apply. If you prefer to do freelance, you will have to plan your marketing strategy on how to get your first clients.

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. 

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.

[DO IT YOURSELF] Five (5) Ways To Keep Yourself Up-To-Date With SEO Trends Online

Keeping up with the latest trend in the SEO industry can be taxing to both marketing professional and freelance enthusiasts especially if they don’t know where to get started. Below are five (5) ways to resolve this challenge:

1. Subscribe to feeds and alerts. You can start by subscribing to the top SEO blogs’ RSS: Google official blog, SEOMoz, SEOBook, SearchEngineLand, and SearchEngineJournal to name a few. Visit Inbound.org – a community-managed website that collates high-quality, most-talked-about internet marketing articles around the web. Setup Google Alerts to monitor what’s happening out there.

2. Follow SEO Gurus and personalities. Add the following to your Google+ circles: Matt Cutts (head of Google’s webspam team), Rand Fishkin (CEO and founder of SEOMoz) and Danny Sullivan (Editor of SearchEngineLand). Find them on Twitter:  Aaron Wall (Founder/CEO of SEOBook), Barry Schwartz (CEO of RustyBrick and Founder of SearchEngineRoundTable) and Bill Slawski (SEO blogger at SEOByTheSea).

3. Be active on SEO discussion sites. Become a member of WarriorForum, Webmasterworld, or DigitalPoint. Join SEO groups in Facebook and LinkedIn. Not only will you be updated with what’s hot and what-knots but you get to meet different people from various SEO company in the Philippines and around the globe.

4. Attend SEO seminars online. You don’t need to enlist yourself to SEO training in the Philippines or even abroad just to be aware of the latest trend. You can do that even in the comfort of your own office or home. Some seminar-giving bodies upload the event highlights on video sharing sites like on their Youtube/Metacafe channels. Watch or download them. More often than not, the presentation and documents used can also be found on Slideshare and Scribd. Be sure to check these out as well.

5. Do not forget Pinterest. As graphic marketing continues to make its way to the top of the list, knowing which SEO-related infographic went viral is an effective way to gain SEO knowledge.