When Seo Meets User Experience
SEO gets a lot of talk and attention these days Everyone seems to understand the importance of high search engine rankings, everyone seems to be optimizing their sites or investing into SEO services and SEO software And there’s no denying that SEO is crucial for any business big or small that wants to succeed online However this laser focus on search engine optimization often makes webmasters and business owners forget about one critical thing - user experience . .User experience is the second set of wheels that spin a website to success If you only do SEO you’re driving a two-wheeled car which won’t take you far But as soon as you start thinking about the ways to optimize your website for human visitors not just search engine bots you’ll find out that SEO and UE (user experience) go well together Here are some tips you can take away and apply to your website to make it more search engine and user friendly . . .Use Short Logical URLs . .There are a number of reasons why logical (and preferably short) URLs are better then extremely long ones with multiple parameters An URL that reads logical and conveys a meaning like www somesite com/sport-cars html is a) more likely to rank for the keywords contained in it b) is more likely to be clicked because users understand what the page they will be taken to is about c) is more likely to be linked to Now compare it to something as awkward as this: www somesite com/index php?u_id=321&sid=3ec32444 5356hdfgssdfg45 would you click or share such link? . .Revise the URLs on your website and see how you can improve them . .Keyword-Driven Navigation . .We seem to understand the importance of keyword research perfectly well We target the right keywords that speak the language of the searchers because they won’t find our website otherwise Yet as soon as the visitor gets on our website he’s supposed to guess what exactly we mean by the names of our categories and site sections . .It’s a much better idea to stick with the logic we use when picking the keywords and use the same names for all the navigation on the site First, because this way the users will easily find the info they are looking for, second, because this will give us an extra boost in the search results . .Fix Broken Links . .No one likes broken links: your visitors don’t like them, search engine spiders don’t like them and I’m pretty much sure you don’t like them too Have you checked your site for broken links yet? Then it’s high time you did . .Create Sitemaps . .Having a sitemap of your site that you can feed to the search engine crawlers to make sure all of your web pages will get indexed is an important task on every SEO’s checklist But it’s an even better idea to create two sitemaps: one for the search engine bots and one for your visitors There sure are pages you want to show your visitors and hide from search engine bots and vice versa . .Customize 404 Error Pages . .Whenever your users get redirected to a non-existent page they get a 404 Page Not Found Message You can customize this page to add some navigational links that will take the users to the pages they seek or will help them return to a relevant section of your website . .These simple tips will help you add some points to the user experience and SEO rating of your site Try to plan your all your SEO activities with the same approach keeping your users in mind and seeking ways to improve their experience on your website .
Source: www.rsstnx.com
Black Hat Seo Popular Techniques
SEO is considered as one of the most popular form of search engine marketing (SEM) used by webmasters Because of its popularity and effectiveness in bringing traffic to a website, many webmasters have come to abuse the effectiveness of SEO by using techniques set to violate search engine guidelines These techniques are called black hat SEO Synonymous to white hat SEO, black hat SEO are forms of techniques used to provide faster result, but may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing Some forms of techniques used for black hat SEO has been ineffective since search engines frequently change their algorithm to minimize the use and effectiveness of black hat seo technique But some techniques are still used today Forms of popular black hat SEO techniques used until today include: . .Hidden text . . .Disguising keywords and phrases by making them the same color as the background, using a tiny font size, or hiding them within HTML code such as “no frame” sections, ALT attributes, zero-width/height DIVs, and “no script” sections However, hidden text is not always spamdexing: it can also be used to enhance accessibility People screening websites for a search-engine company might temporarily or permanently block an entire website for having invisible text on some webpages . .According to SEO Philippines specialists, Google has taken steps to prevent this by parsing the colour of text as it indexes it and checking to see if it is similar to or the same colour as the background, giving those pages much lower rankings . .Using Scraper Sites . .A scraper site is a website that copies all of its content from other websites using web scraping No part of a scraper site is original A search engine is not a scraper site: sites such as Yahoo and Google gather content from other websites and index it so that the index can be searched with keywords Search engines then display snippets of the original site content in response to a user’s search In the last few years, and due to the advent of the Google Adsense web advertising program, scraper sites have proliferated at an amazing rate for spamming search engines Open content sites such as Wikipedia are a common source of material for scraper sites . .Scrapers tend to be associated with link farms and are sometimes perceived as the same thing, when multiple scrapers link to the same target site A frequent target victim site might be accused of link-farm participation, due to the artificial pattern of incoming links to a victim website, linked from multiple scraper sites . .Spam Blogs or Splogs . .Spam blogs, sometimes referred to by the neologism splogs, are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed . .Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen from other websites According to SEO Philippines specialists, these blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites There is frequent confusion between the terms “splog” and “spam in blogs” Splogs are blogs where the articles are fake, and are only created for search engine spamming . .Blog Spamming . .Blog spamming or spam in blogs is a form of spamdexing It is done by automatically posting random comments or promoting commercial services to blogs, wikis, guestbooks, or other publicly accessible online discussion boards Any web application that accepts and displays hyperlinks submitted by visitors may be a target Adding links that point to the spammer’s web site artificially increases the site’s search engine ranking An increased ranking often results in the spammer’s commercial site being listed ahead of other sites for certain searches, increasing the number of potential visitors and paying customers . .Cookie Stuffing . .Cookie stuffing or cookie dropping is when a user visits a website, and in turn from that visit receives a third-party cookie from an entirely different website It involves placing an affiliate tracking cookie on a website visitor’s computer without their knowledge, which will then generate revenue for the person doing the cookie stuffing According to the SEO Philippines specialist, income is generated when the affected user visits the target affiliate site and either creates an account or makes a purchase, depending on the terms of the affiliate agreement This not only generates fraudulent affiliate sales, but also has the potential to overwrite legitimate affiliates’ cookies, essentially stealing their legitimately earned commissions .
Source: www.rsstnx.com
The Five Most Common Seo Mistakes
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of improving a site’s ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN’s Bing Many companies try to improve their sites’ rankings with basic techniques such as keyword rich copy and link exchanges Some techniques (like link exchanges) are minimally useful, not useful or actually hurt site rankings Others are effective, but can’t overcome common mistakes GILL Media is an SEO firm that provides complete marketing solutions After years of working with businesses, they’ve identified the following five most common SEO mistakes These are errors that GILL Media’ developers often have to fix to help clients hit the coveted first page of search results . .SEO Mistake #1: Image Headers . . .Search engine spiders can only read text and Meta data Image recognition is in its infancy Unfortunately, many sites persist in using images for headers Search engines can’t read pictures of words Even if you have a big, clear image banner that clearly says "welcome to my home page" the spider just reads the file name of your jpeg or gif Switch to real text headers or use them in addition to image banners Otherwise, search engines can’t clearly associate your site with keywords and categories Spiders assign weight to text headers using the H1, H2 and H3 tags, so make sure your header text accurately represents the site . .SEO Mistake #2: An SEO Unfriendly CMS . .Joomla, WordPress and other content management systems (CMS) can make it very easy to add and change site content - but it can interfere with your SEO efforts, too For example, if your CMS automatically sets up your headers, URLs and page titles you can’t adjust them to fit your target keywords Some CMS offer "SEO friendly" items that automatically pick your keywords, but these don’t work very well either Either go with a pure web design from the ground up or customize your CMS to let you choose every title, header and piece of Meta information An SEO that never creates a page more than one layer deep is also highly recommended because search spiders index sites more easily when they don’t have to crawl through too many subfolders . .SEO Mistake #3: Blank Titles . .Page titles (as listed in the top bar of your browser) are perhaps the single most important Meta information field on your entire page The title becomes the text for the page’s search engine link, and is given significant weight by search engines when they associate pages with specific keywords If your page’s title is blank or uses default information it will almost always rank behind a site with any title If your site has a title that incorporates your keywords you greatly increase your changes of ranking higher . .SEO Mistake #4: Other Blank Meta Data . .Titles are only one piece of Meta data Meta keywords are not as important as they were, but are still useful - they can act as "tie breakers" between two sites with similar authority levels Meta descriptions often appear in search results Image alt tags are invaluable; search engines can’t see pictures, so they rely on you to describe them Leave any of these blank and you’re not doing everything you can to improve your site’s rank . .SEO Mistake #5: No Target Pages . .Don’t try to improve rank for every single web page, and don’t use a "cookie cutter" approach for every page on your site You don’t want your privacy policy or user login pages to rank and when they do, they use up site authority that should be channeled to pages that are designed to attract new visitors Each site only has a limited amount of authority to spread around, so you don’t want to waste it on pages that don’t drive business Use commands such as robots txt and nofollow tags to exclude pages that aren’t meant to generate new business and pick a few pages to be your specific SEO targets Give each one its own focus and strategy .
Source: www.rsstnx.com


