Showing posts with label SEO Tips and Tricks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEO Tips and Tricks. Show all posts


A report by the Atlantic shined a light on a new “social media service” which allows users to purchase Google +1′s in bulk.  The site in question, Pluseem, has a variety of different Google+ package sizes, from 50 plusses to 2,000, with the prices ranging from $0.18 – $0.38 per plus.

Of course this is a direct violation of Google’s quality guidelines:

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

The service makes the following claims about their sale of +1's:
  • All +1′s come from people with a Google account that has been verified by phone (Phone Verified Accounts)
  • All +1′s come from real people. No bots are being used!
  • All +1′s are being given by manually going to your website and clicking the +1 button
  • It’s untraceable because the +1′s are being given from different IP’s
  • All +1′s are given dripped over a couple of days so it looks natural

Interestingly, the website in question was sold less than one week ago for $115 (about the price of 1,000 plusses!)   Of course this isn’t the only site out there with promises of gaming social platforms.  With some simple searches, anyone can find a variety of packages that offer similar services. This is also fairly regular on other popular sites like Digg, Facebook and Twitter.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Services Like These

You can absolutely get some quick votes with a product like this … but should you?  Any skilled  internet marketer knows this isn’t good marketing or great SEO; it’s spamming.  Much like links, quality matters immensely for and social product.  On Facebook your EdgeRank will slip if marketing to a non-relevant audience. On LinkedIn’s Today your profession directly affects your likes and shares.  There is no reason why Google would not use quality and relevancy as well with +1′s. By paying for non-relevant users to vote or like your content on a social network you are effectively muddying your message.

In conclusion, will 2,000 votes from random users over a few days help your website?  Probably not. Will  it will hurt your long-term strategy while violating Google’s quality guidelines? Most likely.

When you are very new in SEO, there is a whole lot of conflicting information about what is right and what is wrong. There's a constant battle between which one is more effective.

It's pretty easy to get frustrated at how long it can actually take to achieve a decent ranking in Search Engines. This can lead to taking the wrong advice from the wrong people. I learned by trial and error the SEO mistakes listed below.

Here are some rules that you can follow if and only if you DO NOT want your site to rank in search engines.

1. Build a Flash Only Website

The days of Flash only websites are probably behind us (thank God). Having said this, as a web developer it's surprising how often I'm asked, 'Does that include Flash?'

Search engines cannot read content embedded in Flash files so you shouldn't use Flash to build websites. It's perfectly all right to have a flash feature box or slideshow or something like that so long as the rest of your site is built with HTML.

2. Hide all Your Content in Images

This is another sin of the past, although you do still see it occasionally. If you embed your navigation and page copy in images, search engines will not be able to identify this content. Use text-based navigation and semantic mark-up instead.

3. Use Excessive JavaScript/AJAX

Search Engines do not understand JavaScript/Ajax. If you use too much of this and in particular in your navigation, you're preventing your content being indexed. Use text-based HTML/CSS navigation instead.

4. Copy Someone Else's Content

You're not much of a writer and no one will ever know right? I'm afraid not. Duplicate content is one of the biggest sins you can commit as far as search engines are concerned. Not only do you prevent your site from ranking, but you also impact the site you copied the material from.

You should either write all content yourself or hire somebody else to do it for you.

5. Stuff Your Content with Keywords

Including the same keyword phrase in the Page Title, the Heading, three times in the copy, bolded, in a link and in an image alt tag is an example of keyword stuffing. This is like telling the search engine, 'I'm trying to manipulate you into ranking me higher'. They won't rank you higher, they'll penalize you instead.

Include your keyword phrase, but do it naturally. Write primarily for humans then worry about search engines.

6. Use Automated Directory Submission Software

There are loads of software programs to automate the directory submission process. Don't use them.

First of all directory submissions are not that valuable in terms of PageRank anymore. Secondly you'll end up with thousands of similar Titles and Descriptions that will mark you as a cheater as far as search engines are concerned.

SubmĂ­t to well-established directories, write unique Titles and Descriptions and try to focus on local and niche directories.

7. Participate in Link Exchange Programs

Often you see websites with a 'Links' or 'Resources' page with a list of links a mile long. Often these have no relevance to the content of the site and have been reciprocated on an identical page on the corresponding site.

There are a number of problems with this:

* Reciprocal links are less valuable than one way links.
* Links from pages containing hundreds have no value.
* It looks like you are trying to cheat the search engines.
* It looks unprofessional to users.

Reciprocal links are fine in moderation. Try to only swap links with relevant organizations and try to link from, and get links from inside paragraphs of related text in articles or blogposts.

8. Use the same Page Title and Meta Description Across Your Site

If you do this, you are basically saying that all your webpages are the same. Search engines index webpages and not websites; this is why you should have a unique, accurate Page Title and Meta Description for every page. Include your keywords in the Page Title in particular but don't go crazy with the Meta Description.

9. Focus on the Wrong Keywords

Often when companies hire an SEO they'll tell them they want to rank number one in Google for a 'short-tail', high competition keyword phrase. For instance an accountant might want to rank for the term 'accountant.'

I'm afraid it doesn't really work like that. It takes a while for any site to get off the ground and this is why it is important to focus on 'long-tail' keyword phrases. This is achieved by adding modifiers to the original phrase like 'tax accountant' or 'tax accountant manchester.'

By focusing on less competitive phrases you can get instant traffic while setting yourself up to compete for more competitive phrases in the future.

10. Don't Use Search Engine Friendly URLs

A SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URL is really a human friendly URL. What I mean by this is one that contains actual words and not a list of numbers and symbols.


Non SEF URL: http://www.onlineassistant.co.cc/?page_id=330

The first example contains words that relate to the content of the page as well as what category the page is in. The next example contains the article id which is of little use to anyone.

In this blog post, I'm going to tell you a simple method on how to write a SEO optimized post on your blog. I'm going to make it very simple, and it will help you a lot if you're a beginner in blogging.

If you're an experienced blogger, this info might not be new to you, as you might already been implementing SEO strategies to your blog. Nevertheless, enjoy reading this post too.

I used a very simple plan to SEO optimized my blog posts most of the time, and I can say I've been getting great results from my SEO efforts. I got people calling me to ask about my business. I got partnerships through bloggers who found me on Google. So let me share with you what I did.

1. Pick Your Keyword.

You can search for high demand keywords using Google Keyword Tool. Pick keywords that are more targeted instead of general ones. Example of General Keyword = "Compensation Plan". Example of Targeted Keyword = "Best MLM Compensation Plan In The World".

It is easier to rank for keywords that are more targeted than general keywords. The keyword that you have searched and wanted to use, will be your main keyword.

2. Put Your Keyword In Your URL Post Permalink.

In every blog post, you'll have to insert your blog post permalink.

For example, I'm using 'seo optimized posts' as my permalink. Put only the main keyword you want to optimized. Try not to put the whole title into as the permalink.

3. Insert Your Main Keyword Into Your Title. As Front As Possible.

Put it at the front, then create a attention-grabbing blog post title too. For example, "Best MLM Compensation Plan - Where To Find It?"

4. Adding Main Keyword Into Post Content

Include your main keyword in your first 50-100 words.

Then for the rest of the passage, do not mass-spam your main keyword. It is highly recommended that you only add in 2-3 main keywords in your passage. Add one at the beginning, one at the center, and one nearing the end of the post.

* Mass spamming or repetition your main keyword may get your blog post penalized by Google. You don't need a 100 repetition of your main keyword to get ranked by Google.

* Write for Human first, Spiders second. Insert your main keyword appropriately in your post, and make your post readable. Don't write for the sake of getting page ranked, and forget about the real human reading your post.

5. Link your Main Keyword To A URL.

Do link your main keyword in your blog post at least once to a URL. Of course, you would want to link that keyword to a relevant url of yours. But you may also want to link it out to others' urls.

6. Use All-In-One SEO Plugin.

If you're in WordPress, you would have used this plugin called All-In-One SEO, which helped you a lot to rank your blog post in search engines. There are 3 sections you have to fill in.

7. Publish and Ping

Publish your post, and then Ping it using Ping-o-matic to inform search engines about your latest post. They will then send out their 'spiders' to look for your articles.

Ping every time you publish your blog post too.

Enter Title of your blog post, the URL of your blog post, and RSS feed of your blog.

Then Select all the Ping services, and then Ping It!

That is it!

This is just the basics of writing a SEO Optimized post if you're new to blogging. There are of course many advanced SEO tricks and strategies that can help you optimized your post further. And i will touch on those next time.

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