What is Social Media Anyway?

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on September 22, 2009 | Comments Off

What is Social Media Anyway?

I consider myself to be a social media enthusiast: I wrote my first programs at the age of 7, had my first web site in 1996, started a web business in 1998, and have been active in social media since the first chat rooms. And I have to constantly remind myself that there are a lot of people out there who no idea what social media are.

So what are they, really?

Social media are new ways to share, collaborate, and create communities.

The amazing thing is that the principles of social media can be applied to *every* area, as long as two prerequisites are fulfilled:
1.      People are willing to share, collaborate and connect (culture)
2.      People have the tools to interact (technology)
Let’s take a look at what sharing, collaborating and creating communities means:

SHARING means telling what you have heard from someone else voicing your opinion about a topic answering a question showing what you have created, maybe even allowing others to use it

COLLABORATING means creating something with others solving a problem with others reaching a goal with others

BUILDING COMMUNITIES means getting in touch with someone recommending someone to connect with someone else creating opportunities for people can interact defining a group of people as part of something bigger invoking a sense of belonging and common purpose between people

All points on the list above were valid for a stone age hunter/gatherer society too. The only thing that differs from our own time is technology,
and the speed, connections, and reach it brings. We’re all still sitting around the campfire, telling stories, sharing knowledge – only the fire
has only gotten bigger and brighter (yes, there is a Billie Joel reference in here).

Social media helps us do all of the above things in new ways. We can share our news and opinions around the world using blogs, tweets, or videos, and give other people the right to build on it. We can react to other people’s news and opinions by commenting or remixing them. We can collaborate with a global community to gather knowledge, create maps, art, or software, or get answers to difficult questions by just asking them online. And we can create communities on social networking platforms, giving people the opportunity to meet (or reunite with) others who they would have never found otherwise.

I am convinced that social media will become an important part of our work and private lives and fundamentally change the world as we know it - whether we want it or not.

Google vs Bing

Posted in: SEO by Jazz on August 21, 2009 | Comments Off

Bada Bing Bada Bing!

So Bing has been getting a lot of momentum/PR and now reports are showing that market share is increasing for Bing. I know of Google and Yahoo users who are switching.

Lets look at few reasons why:

1. Bing is  “decision engine” rather than traditional search engines. Instead of relying on keywords, Bing organizes data in a way designed to increase relevance.

Lets look at some examples:

Say you are interested in food ingredients and searching for nutrition facts . Both Search Engines show results, but Google clutters with News results, products, and even same website some times 2-3 times. Where as Bing is now more cleaner, simple relevant results.

Lets say you want to buy tickets for Disney in Orlando and you search for Disney Tickets Again both engines return some similar websites but Google shows a lot of un-necessary information.

So whats going on:

1. Google started out simple look. That was one reason why we all fell in love with it. Now they are adding and adding. Experimenting but its getting cluttering.

2. We all love google because it gives us the best and relevant results. But whats happening is that if you are searching for tickets, you maybe searching to buy or research tickets. Some how you results that come up, have to help you do that.  If google starts showing sites that dont sell tickets then its wasting your time. So the results side track you and you waste time.

3. Old outdated sites: showing a craigslist or a forum link from 6 months or 2 years which is no longer relevant is no no.

4. While showing News, Products is great, it should not take away from relevant sites. It looks like Google is experimenting and you will see different results as compared day to day, time to time.

I am not ready to switch to Bing yet, all the hype, keeps bringing me back to check it out.

Caffeine google answer to bing

Posted in: SEO by Jazz on August 14, 2009 | Comments Off

We all need Coffee or Tea in the morning to give us a kick by Caffeine. So thats what Google is doing to its search.

Caffeine is a internal code name for  secret upgrade to Google’s search algorithms, one the company says is designed to help users scour the Web faster, while returning more results with greater accuracy and comprehensiveness.

According to a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog, the new upgrades sit “under the hood” of the Google search engine, so most users won’t immediately notice a big difference in their search results.

So you are and will be seeing changes to site results.

So of the recent changes seen with search results

• News results
• Product results

While this is good, it can be terrible for sites with ranking of 8,9,10 as it takes their pages to page 2.

So if you are site with products, you need to get them on google index. Contact me on how to do so.

Jazz

What is a Page Rank

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on | Comments Off

What is a Page Rank / PageRank / Page Ranking / PR ?

Simply put: Search Engines need to know which page/site is better than the other.
They have a mathematical way to do so, which we dont need to get into. Google uses a patented way “PR” to do so.

So each site and its pages have a PR. The higher the better. It starts from 1.
A way to check sites PR is using Google tool bar or websites like prchecker.com

Factors that influence page rank

1. Back links – how many sites back link to the page

Note: any sites such as linkfarms or blackhat sites are discounted. Google understands that you may not be able to control who links to you, but it can remove them from calculation.

2. How many  sites you link to.
So try not to link out to too many sites.

Detailed Explanation – http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

How Important is SEO Today

Posted in: SEO by naba on August 10, 2009 | Comments Off

The advent of Google and other search engine giants like Yahoo and MSN has changed the Internet forever. What was used to be a mere library of information, is now a hot selling marketplace with millions competing for the top ten ranking positions in search engine result pages (SERPs). A slight variant or drop in your keyword ranking position can keep you away from thousands of potential visitors. In order to address your keywords ranking challenges and to keep your website visible in the search engines it is very essential to take SEO (Search Engine Optimization) help.

SEO is an important process driven website optimization technique intended to give maximum visibility in major search engines through high ranking keywords. It enables you to receive more traffic and finally more conversions, thus fulfilling your business objective. Effective SEO implementations require careful and continuous planning and detail up-to-date understanding of the search engine algorithm, including the rules and regulations specific to each search engine.

A typical SEO process consists of the following important on- page and off- page optimization steps:

• Website Analysis: Website analysis is the first step to any strategic SEO approach. This step involves end to end analysis of client’s website performance (past and present, the contents and navigation structure, current keyword rankings if any, and all the factors that directly or indirectly affect the search engines guidelines for SEO friendly websites.

• Keyword Assessment: Keywords form the core part of any SEO plan. The entire SEO process revolves around the targeted keywords. So it is top concern for the SEO team to analyze, and identify the right keywords to ensure successful SEO campaign.

• Copy Writing: Unless the content you are providing is search engine friendly and consist the targeted keywords your SEO goal remains incomplete. While writing contents for SEO one should be very careful in maintaining a clean keyword reach and meaningful copy. The copy should reflect the interest of both the search engine and readers. Search engines should able to index it cleanly, while readers should find the contents interesting and worth reading.

• Meta Tag Writing: Meta Tags help search engine to better understand the intent of the projected page. While creating Meta tags one should be very careful in selecting the right contents and keywords. Also one should strictly adhere to the specifications laid out for Meta Tags by each search engines. Though some search engines stop supporting Meta tags now a days, but Meta tags namely the description tag, keywords tag, robots tag etc still find an important place n major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

• HTML code refining: Search engines give more importance to pages with clean HTML codes that comply with the standards set by W3 consortium. While creating the HTML codes one should be very careful about the syntax used, versions, DTD (Document Type Declaration), broken links etc.

• Directory Submission: Submitting your website to relevant, SEO friendly directories is a vital SEO step in enhancing the visibility. A good ethical way to do it is to follow ethical, manual submission process.

• Link Building: Link building is one of the most important, continuous off-page optimization steps. There are various ways to approach a successful link building campaign like one-way linking, two-way linking, and three-way linking.

• Tracking and Maintenance: Tracking SEO performance and improving the same periodically is very important to meet the strategic SEO goals. Comparing performance reports through Google Analytics and other advanced tracking tools will help identify necessary changes and modification for improved performance level.

Where to place BLOG for SEO?

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on July 31, 2009 | 3 Comments

One of the questions that comes up is, what is better ?

1. Using free service and putting your blog on Blogspot, WordPress, Live or Yahoo blog?
vs
2. Creating a blog on new domain
vs
3. putting blog on blog.yourdomain.com
vs
4.  http://www.yourdomain.com/blog

Putting your blog on free service or another domain is mistake you dont want to do. It maybe a good way to start, but one day when you want to move to a better solution (#4 above) you will be sorry.

Idea to have a blog for SEO is to put fresh content on your website and get additional traffic and higher rankings. The best solution is #4, this way you have new content for search engines keeping them happy, you have long long words and words to show you are traffic matter expert and your ranking gets better for your domain.

Google Shuffle: search for same keywords yield different results – Why?

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on July 23, 2009 | 1 Comment

Have you ever wondered or come across your site ranking at different ranks for the same keyword search?

Shuffle in SEO terms can be defined as: same keyword search from same or different place yielding different results.
Further, same searches at different time of day may yield different results from same location/computer.

That can be attributed to mathematical algorithms that maybe considering many other factors such as your past searching history, searches happening at that time etc. All of these are speculations, Google and other search engines are secretive and ever changing.

Whats important to keep in mind is not to  be addicted and get carried away with your ranking or minor fluctutaions, but rather focus more on conversion once users come to your site and sales while keeping the most important factor for rankings: backlinks from quality high ranked websites.

Guidelines for Content writing for Web/Blog

Posted in: Content Writing by Jazz on | 1 Comment

This is for all of the content Guys

These are some principles that apply to any /all content on the web. Even for those of you who will be writing Blogs every month

• Writing Style  should be Informal- relaxed, personal, friendly, conversational, Informational pages can have a more formal tone- Objective, factual
• Use active voice whenever possible – especially for instructions/labels that support user actions
• Use the second person (you) to set a friendly informal tone
• Use Contractions (can’t, won’t) for a conversational tone
• Word choice- strive for simplicity in terminology, avoid abbreviations, acronyms and Jargon
• For word selection take the following into consideration- Connotation- elderly Vs senior citizens,
• Avoid words with unspecific or multiple definitions – good, some, soon, everyone
• Ensure the tone remains consistent through out the site since it reflects the branding
• Write to facilitate quick scanning
• Sentence length- 8-20 words
• Sentence Variety- add interest by varying the traditional subject and verb sequence about every 5th-6th sentece
• Bulleted lists to make it easy to skim a written passage for relevant content
• Numbered list for sequences/instructions
• Use the inverted Pyramid writing style- helps users get to the point by quickly scanning headlines. Present conclusions at the top and put details at the end of the page or on a separate page

Headlines and titles-

• Identify content of a section-macro level description 40-60 characters.
• Put important words first that make sense even when truncated.
• Emphasize actions or decisions
• Help Guide readers
• Include subtitles to help guide readers done the pyramid
• They should help users comprehend even when displayed out of context
• Use “hooks” to get the readers attention

Quotations –

• Questions- “ How do you turn lookers into buyers”
• Unusual Statements- “How to lose ecommerce customers?
• Comparisons- “What works, and what flops, in a E commerce webite”

Links

• Underline only Links- give them the best affordance or “click-ability”
• Link Text – Cue users if this is a different destination- “New Window”
• The text should be clear and understandable

Some facts from Usability studies-

• Line length refers to the number of characters per line.
• If line length is too long, reading speed decrease- eye gets lost returning to the next line.
• Line length of 5.5 inches was read faster then that of 1.8 inches – eyes have to move more to return to the next line
• Young and older readers prefer shorter line lengths– optimal  line length is seven words per line
• Ideal line length is 55 characters per line (column format) for Readability
• Although some studies show that 100 characters per line are better for reading speed
• Trade off here is Readability Vs reading speed

You can also explore the “Readability Tool” – Ms Word – Tools>> Options>Spelling and Grammar Tab>>Turn on the readability statistics

What is bounce rate?

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on | Comments Off

A bounce occurs when a web site visitor leaves a page or a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs.
There is no industry-standard minimum or maximum time by which a visitor must leave in order for a bounce to occur. Rather, this is determined by the session timeout of the analytics tracking software.

A visitor can bounce by:

• Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
• Closing an open window or tab
• Typing a new URL
• Clicking the “Back” button to leave the site
• Session timeout

The Bounce Rate for a single page is the number of visitors who enter the site at a page and leave within the specified timeout period without viewing another page, divided by the total number of visitors who entered the site at that page. In contrast, the Bounce Rate for a web site is the number of web site visitors who visit only a single page of a web site per session divided by the total number of web site visits.

Bounce rates can be used to help determine the effectiveness or performance of an entry page. An entry page with a low bounce rate means that the page effectively causes visitors to view more pages and continue on deeper into the web site.

Google.com analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik has stated: “It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying.”

What is SEO?

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on | Comments Off

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of creating Web pages that will rank high in search engine returns. SEO is accomplished by optimizing certain sections or “elements” in the HTML coding of each page. These sections are specifically read by search engines and, depending on the level of optimization, can create a greater likelihood of free referral traffic.

There are several methods and opinions about how a web page should be optimized, and much will depend on the type of site, its content, purpose and competition, if relevant. But in general search engine optimization relies heavily on the proper use of keywords and keyphrases that describe the site’s content.

Keywords should first appear is in the TITLE section of the page’s source code. They should also appear in the META description section where the page is accurately described by repeating the keywords. The META keywords section will also contain keywords or keyphrases describing the site’s product, services or content.

Ideally, the source code for each subsequent page in the site will also have its own unique keywords listed. Each page title should use one or more of these unique keywords for maximum search engine optimization.

Since SEO relies so heavily on keywords, the most important keywords and keyphrases should be used liberally in the first two paragraphs of the content of each page, then sprinkled throughout the body. The last paragraph of every page should also be keyword rich. A suggested rule of thumb is to reach for keyword density between 5-15%. Judgment must be used to invoke keywords liberally without getting too repetitive. It may also help to use bold or italics on a keyword or two, but avoid doing this to excess.

Another important placement for keywords is in the H1 and H2 header fields of each page. The most important keywords or keyphrases should be found here.

Other tricks for helping search engine optimization or SEO are naming image files and anchors with keywords. Anchors, also called crosslinks, are references to other pages within the site.

Finally providing links to and from external sites, called backlinks is also important, as search engine spider bots navigate by links. The text in your page that points to external links can contain keywords too.

Tutors for search engine optimization are available online for those willing to optimize their own sites. There are also many SEO companies that will provide the service at a cost. Some caution should be used in securing a contractor to make sure that what is being promised is feasible, realistic and cost-effective.

Whether performing your own search engine optimization or hiring a contractor, with the billions of web pages on the Internet and the hundreds or even thousands of “hits” that can be returned from any single online search, SEO is a necessity for anyone looking to benefit from search engine traffic.