By Looking At This Piec, ease Your Blogging Worriese

Writing a blog is swiftly being one of the primary styles on the web. Lots of people are establishing and creating blog sites for several motives, and a few men and women even get compensated to write down weblogs. Keep reading if you wish to learn more about blogging and all that it has to offer.

Head lines are what readers usually go through very first. They behave like lure. They will "bite" into the blog post too if your bait is good. If your headline is dull, repetitive, predictable and commonplace or just not intriguing at all, your readers may decide to skip the entire thing.

You probably won't have a multitude of readers and comments right away if you are starting your own blog. You should look for show and people them you are present. Some methods to achieve this are with social network sites, like

Twitter and Facebook. Start using these internet sites to speak with folks, not only to submit back links.

It is essential in your weblog which you make oneself be and known apparent. By writing guest posts for other people's blogs, you can do this. You will find that other bloggers are eager to let you post on their blogs, although it may seem a little scary at first. Make sure to get acquainted with their weblog in order to compose very good, helpful content.

Funnel the potency of internet 3.. The internet isn't just textual content any more, so neither of them when your website. Use various sorts of information to boost your blog site blogposts. If you are posting about a trade show in your niche, add a Youtube video of the event so that people can experience it more directly, for instance. Include a Flash product demonstration if you are posting about a new product.

Usually do not forget about the entire world beyond your site. If you don't give yourself time away from your computer, you will become burned out. Plan some free time, from brief hikes, appointments with good friends, or perhaps brief caffeine pauses. Getting a split like this enables you to get back to your site having a clean viewpoint so that you can publish some exceptional articles.

Be authentic and real. It's crucial to never disappear such as you believe you understand every little thing. Display transparency and honesty constantly. Do that always. There's no much better method to show oneself than using a weblog. Prevent putting things off seeking to be ideal; just get and try far better. If you make a mistake, and post something that is incorrect, it is not the end of the world. You happen to be special, and no person can replicate you.

Your knowledge of blogging should now be good enough to the point where you can start up a blog for yourself. Alternatively, improve what you are already doing. You wish to build a website that honestly passions you even though, the final thing for you to do is build a website and speak about a topic that you may have no curiosity about. Do whatever you like and folks will pay attention due to the fact you'll have correct enthusiasm inside your terms.

Get Great Suggestions About Operating a blog On This Site

Writing a blog may be the greatest and latest utilization of technological innovation to boost the internet practical experience for the consumers. Individuals who learn how to weblog successfully can acquire the benefits of elevated income and effectively-well informed customers who be determined by them with regard to their demands. Keep reading to understand a while-examined procedures for producing much better blogs and forums.

An outstanding hint for running a blog is to utilise Word press. This type of system is quite versatile together with the a variety of connect-ins that happen to be utilized in terms of operating a blog. Wordpress blogs has been utilised by more than 12Percent of the zillion in the biggest web sites. It is actually presently the most common CMS used right now.

Be sure that the titles of your own articles or content are incredibly snappy. Visualize that you are currently somebody that is simply exploring the web and also you watch your post amongst a huge number of other people. You ought to be sure that your blog site head line stays out of the relaxation.

Use your blog to build your email list if you are an internet marketer. Whilst putting up primary promoting content inside the website will most likely shut off viewers who visit your website for details, getting an e-mail indication-up container in your blog's sidebar, presents visitors an unobtrusive strategy to get advertising and marketing info on your part if they such as your website.

In order to make scanning easier, make sure that your blog posts are structured well. Utilize listings, header labels, plus more. Remember that the typical viewer is just not gonna desire to go through paragraphs and sentences which are definitely extended. As a result, you ought to make sure they are as brief and to the stage as is possible.

Give readers each feasible approach to comply with and talk about your website. Social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are essential to helping you to spread out your blog site across the web. You can stay connected to your loyal readers and attract new ones, too, by making use of every available avenue of communication.

There are numerous very good operating a blog systems provided with WordPress and Blogger becoming by far the most popular professional services. Both of these are wonderful cost-free systems that permit a person to rapidly setup your blog totally free. Blog writer has the main benefit of enabling professional information in contrast to with Wp you should up grade into a high quality company to article business information. Enable your own purpose for operating a blog become your manual when picking a blogging service.

Be sure to focus on producing fresh and relevant content if you want to build up more traffic to your blog. Viewers who take pleasure in work can come rear to get more. Your site content needs to be nicely-personal, written and authentic.

Possessing energetic commentary on your own weblog is an efficient strategy to sustain visitors. The reason being feedback are information much like blog site posts. Also to see if anyone has left new comments, although readers will revisit your blog not only to read new articles. You are able to promote leaving comments by asking them questions and asking relating to your readers' points of views with your website content articles. Answering feedback also promotes posting comments.

You know that writing a blog is really a talent which can be used and cultivated within a purposeful approach to produce self-confidence within your clients and visitors. Setting up a partnership with individuals you work with can be accomplished using the effective and simple writing a blog methods figured out in this article. Utilize them to your benefit and initiate nowadays.

Empower Your Blog: Here's Helpful Tips And Tricks

If you're a passionate individual who has something to say and who wants an avenue to say it, blogging might be right up your alley. Unlike Facebook, Twitter and other social media mediums, blogging gives you an entire website to do with whatever you see fit. Check out this article for some tips on how you can build a successful blog.

Make sure the amount of time between each of your blog posts is similar. This helps readers know when you'll be posting your next post. On the other hand, if you post two blog entries two days apart, then don't post another post for a week, people will get out of the habit of reading your blog.

Remember not to overuse keywords, plug-in, images and ads. If you do, your blog could get removed from the major search engines, negating all the hard work you've done so far. Instead, write in a conversational tone that flows naturally.

Don't forget to add social media sharing links on your blog. This will ensure that people can share your blog on their profiles for free. Doing this can increase your traffic by quite a bit. It will keep increasing if the content's good because people can tell their friends which puts you on multiple pages at once.

Harness the power of web 3.0. The web isn't just text anymore, so neither should your blog. Use many different types of content to enhance your blog posts. For instance, if you are posting about a trade show in your niche, add a Youtube video of the event so that people can experience it more directly. If you are posting about a new product, include a Flash product demonstration.

Update your blog as often as possible to give regular readers more reasons to return. Great blogs generally default to posting at least once a day at minimum. If you are having trouble with this, you may want to have a lot of content already written before your blog goes live. This can help to provide you with interesting content to post on days or weeks when you're not feeling quite as motivated to write.

You can have an excellent blog that would target an audience and bring in many readers, but without a great domain name you have nothing. Keep the domain name for your blog simple yet direct and effective. Think about your target niche, and choose the appropriate domain name for your blog as if you were thinking hard about a great title.

Be sure to link to yourself. Do not be so shy about what it is that you write, and don't rely on others to find you. Try linking to yourself as often as possible. This is known as interlinking, and is great for SEO. Its biggest advantage is helping boost your content's awareness.

As long as you're serious about building a blog, the tips you have read here, can help you accomplish your goal. Blogs are low-cost and easy to set up, but you should still follow a few set formulas to accomplish the task. Pay attention to these tips and put them to action how they're written.

Perplexed By E-mail Marketing? Assistance Is Right here!

The best way to construct achievement with any web site you're considering creating or already have set up is to obtain into e-mail marketing. You need to have this instrument offered that will help you to be able to use a number of strategies to have the achievement you wish to obtain one time.

When giving a electronic mail in your marketing plan, will not make use of a informal typeface. You desire consumers to adopt your merchandise or organization significantly, and they also will most likely not achieve that having an rare typeface. Select a typeface that is known, including Occasions Roman Numeral, Arial or Verdana.

Make sure you have permission to send them if you want your email marketing messages to be successful. The potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves if you do not have permission from your recipients.

You need to have their permission, before you put someone on your email marketing list. You will be responsible for sending spam and there will be many complaints if you don't have their permission. If they get wind of what you're doing, your email provider may even dissolve your account. Protect against that from going on by asking for that individuals join your checklist.

Involve a great deal of beneficial information and facts in your communications. Don't just load them on top of specifics of your product or service. Involve things which will genuinely aid your prospects. Existing particular content articles or info that is certainly exclusive towards the electronic mail rather than your blog. Incorporate special deals through your organization, also. Give greetings for getaways or even a custom made information for birthday celebrations for example.

Steer clear of mailing a couple of advertising e mail weekly. Your clients are hectic and don't wish to be swamped by way too many communications. If they see them too frequently, wasting all of your efforts, over time, they will start to "tune out" your email messages.

If you make it easy for customers to unsubscribe, your email marketing campaign will be more effective. People will tend to trust you more if you make them feel as if they are in control, though this may seem paradoxical. Submit the unsubscribe weblink within an clear position to allow them to think it is effortlessly.

Test your messages thoroughly before you send them, to get the best results from your email marketing campaign. Will not just variety up a simple blast and message it all out to the client checklist without the need of examining it meticulously initial. Review it in several e mail applications and so on distinct websites to ensure it is going to exhibit effectively for all.

To utilize e-mail marketing to construct self confidence with your products and company, prevent transforming your e-mails into gimmicks. By using irritating tactics like writing all in caps or incorporating symbols like dollar signs, don't tarnish the professionalism of your image. Most significantly, by no means chat to your clients or make grossly overstated guarantees regarding your merchandise.

Making use of all the details that you simply figured out you can now begin advertising via e mail and practice it in ways that can assist you be successful. Just be sure that you are usually implementing oneself, once you continue to be good and use your self then you definitely in a natural way obtain achievement with such as e-mail marketing.

Improve Outcomes With Outstanding E-mail Marketing Recommendations

You may have already used many of the marketing techniques out there if you are running a successful business. But when you haven't applied an e-mail marketing strategy, you may be passing up on better achievement. Below are a few efficient ways to promote your organization by means of e mail, in order to abandon no rock unturned within your pursuit of superiority.

Make sure you have permission to send them if you want your email marketing messages to be successful. The potential consequences can range from being added to spam filters all the way up to getting blacklisted by Internet service providers themselves if you do not have permission from your recipients.

Whilst on-line marketing is crucial, don't neglect the opportunity market your subscriber list off the internet. To create equally new clients and prospects, seek out any option easy to spread the word. Some good the opportunity to construct your company is available at network occasions, trade events, meetings and native get-togethers.

Make sure to proofread them, before you send out emails. Make sure that your publications and email messages have no faults. Just before concept submission, examination e mail themes which means you be sure that every the words and factors arrive with your desired way. Twice-examine your backlinks to be certain men and women can gain access to your site.

A message marketing plan wants a testing and design stage, exactly like everything else. Consider setting up time ensuring that your emails work through all methods employed for combating spammy, from articles filtration system to impression preventing and java-set of scripts suppression. not and blindly ever know if they are even seen.

Submit a edition of the e-newsletter with animation and graphics in your web site. Then give your subscriber list a ordinary written text variation from the e-newsletter by using a hyperlink to the world wide web edition. This maintains your e-mail not so difficult to prevent them from getting diverted for the junk directory along with inspiring your clients to see your web site.

The better quantity of alternatives you allow your customers, the more affect your e-mail marketing will have on the revenue. Permit customers to select thetype and number, and regularity in the information they acquire by you, and permit them to choose away from disclosing a number of sorts of details. As soon as your clients truly feel they are considerably in command of the method, they are far more happy.

Passive feedback, as well, although try to enhance your campaigns for email marketing with not just active feedback. Productive responses is precisely what you will anticipate: wondering readers views by means of studies or questionnaires. Indirect opinions can be a distinct point, entirely. Unaggressive opinions is composed of the monitoring and tools tactics you make use of to determine what backlinks get the most click throughs and to ascertain the wide open prices of your respective email messages.

Simply being the very best implies employing each of the methods and tools available to construct your business. You have a good chance of being the best if you use the tips laid out in this article. Be sure to begin using these to art an e-mail advertising campaign you may be pleased with.

Precisely Why SEO Should Be A Key Part Of Any Marketing And Advertising Budget

For many small company owners it can sometimes be easy to ignore the advantage of getting the help of an search engine optimization company and passing it all off as too expensive. The problem is that on many occasions people often compare the cost of professional seo solutions, to those of needless costs which couldn't be further from reality.

Along with statistics suggesting that about 80% of prospects search the internet, with the idea to obtain more information about the best places to spend their cash, or being a first choice to discover the business or products they're looking for, the need to get your local company Web site rank in the very first page of Google, Bing or Yahoo is pretty obvious. What most people don't know is that this does not happen by chance. It requires time and a lot of expertise to get your blog post reach the top that is where a SEO expert enters.

At this point let us get a reality check. Advertising really helps to keep your business alive. Without new clients you might as well close the doors for good. With this in mind, promoting your site should comprise of a substantial proportion of your advertising and marketing budget, and here's why:

If you market making use of conventional methods you simply cannot focus on buyers who are just searching for what you really are offering, therefore the promotions are ignored by a lot of people who tend to be exposed to it. Compare that to staying positioned for any specific keyword or key phrases related to your goods and services and location, like "Portugal property for sale" and you can note that men and women looking for an actual service, within an exact place, and they are very likely to pay for the service. You simply can not compare this highly targeted buyer acquisition to any other kind of advertising.

One more thing to consider is the life long client worth of a single consumer to your company. One customer could suggest a a small fortune for your bottom line and if you offer great service they may recommend other customers which if they're currently on the web linked with a bunch of their close friends, family members and client base is far more likely to happen, so his or her true worth in this case is difficult to calculate. If you add additional superior conversion as well as monetization strategies to your website, like subscriber list and purchasers, techniques for present clients, you are able to increase the worth of each client even more.

So consider how many customers your site will have to usher through your gate to pay for the price of Search engine optimization expert services and you will possibly discover that it's less than you think. For the majority of marketplaces, a site positioned in the first web page in the various search engines will bring many times more revenue from new customers than the cost of search engine services.

Whenever you perform a sensible calculation of how much value a single client is to your online business and then take a look at the number of new customers you are able to bring straight into the sales funnel by enjoying your website ranking in the first page of various search engines, you will quickly understand that what you thought had been an expense is in fact an asset. Using an seo consultant to manage your website promotions really is a vital element of today's customer acquisition strategies, producing an affordable SEO company outstanding value for money, compared to other forms of advertising.

Pay Per Click Vs. Search Engine Optimization: Which is the better way to market?

PPC and SEO are known as the two avenues for online search marketing. They are particular options around which industries keep growing. Whether pay per click or search engine optimization is the more attractive method largely depends on the kind of marketing plan you want to run.
PPC Melbourne - sponsored links and success.

A PPC campaign, like SEO, offers both pluses and minuses. If you want to produce a direct impact and commence making interest as soon as possible, PPC is the way to do that.

Rather than making comprehensive improvements to your site as well as its content in an effort to contend with other websites in the organic search results, PPC actually allows you to buy a high Google rank.

Google Adwords Melbourne

A Google Adwords PPC campaign enables you to take control of your campaign in real time, address specific areas and control your funding. Where SEO is essentially about up front investment and organic results which often take time to develop and build, PPC is far more direct and targeted.

SEO services Melbourne

Search engine optimization is definitely the much slower burning of these foremost Marketing solutions. With PPC, you have to pay each time somebody visits your website from your subsidized links. Search engine optimization, conversely, is free in this respect.

You do not pay for people to go to your site via paid links, but you do have to invest in optimising your site in order to fight for a high position in the organic Google results.

Search engine optimization is good for sustained online marketing campaigns, but it is essentially the far more challenging beast which is trickier to monitor and control. A PPC campaign is normally simple and fast to start, straightforward to keep track of and easy to control.

PPC is mostly about achieving a substantial amount of visibility in a short time. SEO is about maintained, quality visibility over a longer time frame. Both have their uses and can be extremely effective when used in the right way.

The Top SEO Tips for Websites

SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It is the name for many different techniques to increase Internet traffic numbers. There are numerous techniques for achieving this, some are less time consuming than others. To give a brief introduction to what SEO is, it is basically how to increase your presence on search engines which should send you more traffic. Featuring as the top result for certain keywords is frequently the goal for SEO efforts.

It is important to make sure your website is search engine optimized already - use targeted meta keys and meta descriptions to enable search engines to spider your website more effectively. This only needs to be done once, once it has been set up you do not have to do it another time. If you write about music, write a description, a title and keywords targeting the subject area. This is the information which is shown in search engine results.

Secondly, it is very important to write good content. Plagiarizing content from other sources will get you marked down by search engines. Search engines are now highly intelligent. Their goal is to offer the best content to users so showing duplicate content is not in their interest. Thus, if you plagiarize content you will be penalized and marked down in the search rankings.

Once you have optimized your website correctly and written good, original content, the next step is to build links. The number of inbound links your site has is one of the most important ways a search engine determines how good your website is. I.e., if your website has more links than another, search engines will rank you higher and you will get more traffic. If you write good content that is keyword rich then this will happen naturally but it can be a long process. However, to see faster results you may want to try some of the following techniques.

Firstly, write original article and submit them to article directories. Sometimes it can be difficult for the articles to be accepted as they must be reviewed by reviewers. But, for every article you get accepted, you will also get a couple of links. Search engines really like this. SEO is kind of like a game - trying to get good links from good places.

You are also able to manually build links to your website by posting and commenting on blogs and forums. Some forum admins and blog owners will allow dofollow links. Dofollow is the colloquial name for links that search engines will take notice of, in contrast to nofollow links. Nofollow was created because online marketers would spam/pay for links which meant you could dishonestly increase traffic. Nofollow means search engines will ignore the link which means you will not get any SEO benefit from it. Try to find some blogs that allow you to link to your site. This is beneficial because it gives your website SEO benefits and also increases the blog awareness and allows you to network with the blogosphere. The comments should be genuine. Writing something along the lines of: "please visit my homepage" will likely not get approved and you will have wasted time. You should always be a helpful.

Online book marking websites are also a good way for increasing your SEO. You should not spam your website too much though as admins for the sites will likely block your website from being added. But as with directories, book marking your website will get you a link from a high quality site. Well established websites have greater weight given to them by search engines. Effectively you will get more SEO benefit from an established site than a new site. In other words, having a dofollow link from a really popular social book marking website is worth much more SEO-wise compared to a link from a small website.

One last tip is to submit your site to online directories. They can be a bit troublesome to setup but if you can get a link from a directory it will improve your search engine rankings. Many of the directories are well established. However, submitting your site to a directory can be confusing because there are normally different submission options. There tends to be different payment options. Generally they will be: paid for, free with reciprocal links and free. If you can pay for links (although they can be quite costly) then you will see your website fast tracked into the directory. A free link may take months to be approved (as there is often a long waiting list for websites to be accepted). Reciprocal links are not necessarily beneficial for your SEO (these aren't given credence like one-way links). These may be beneficial for referring traffic but for SEO purposes these are not as useful.

The hints above should help your search engine rankings and improve your traffic. However you should also definitely be using services to monitor and report your SEO efforts and Internet traffic. You will then be able to compare the impact of different strategies and areas which you need to focus on more.

Help Your Site improve by Properly Managing Links

Link building is probably the most time-consuming task of an SEO. Nevertheless it’s perhaps one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Today we take a look at the various techniques that can be used to create and manage inbound links.

Note: I’m aware that link building isn’t exactly related to web design. But because we want to create a complete SEO Session, we have no choice but to include it.

---

Let’s Back up a Little

In the very first article of this Session – An Introduction to SEO – we learned how search engines work. One of the factors that search engines use in their algorithm are links. Search engines see a link to a website as a vote for that website; the more links (or votes) you get, the higher the page will rank.
It’s important to know that not all links have the same effect. Links from trustworthy sites with a high authority are more valuable than links from less established websites.
That’s why link building is an important part of search engine optimization. Links can vastly improve the performance of your website in the search results.

---

Things to Consider When Building Links

Of course there are a few things you should keep in mind when you’re building links. As we’ve said before: not all links are created equally.

Domain Diversity

Is it better to get ten links from one domain, or one link from ten domains (presuming that all domains have the same authority)? In this case I would suggest to go for the single link on ten different domains.
Google’s algorithm analyses the domain diversity of inbound links to determine the PageRank of a page. For this reason it’s a good idea to build links from a wide variety of domains. Getting five links from one domain will not help you rank five times as much as a single link from that domain.

Page Context

On a related note; site context also plays a role in the valuation of links. Links from pages about a similar topic to your site are more valuable.
For example: if you sell furniture online, a link from an interior design website will help you more than a link from an unrelated site (for example a pet shop). Context is key.

External vs. Internal Links

There are two types of links: internal and external. Internal links come from the same domain (for example from the ‘about’ page to the ‘clients’ page) while external links come from different domains.
Internal links have some SEO value, but external links are much more important. External links pass more link juice than internal links.

Link Position

Search engines have a pretty good idea about the various elements of a page (body, footer, sidebars, etc.). Based on the location of the link, they might allocate more value to it.
That’s why links in the main content of a page are more valuable than links in a sidebar or footer. Why? Because these links are probably related to the content of the page, thus making them more relevant for visitors.

Anchor Text

The anchor text is the text that is used to link to a web page (usually in blue and underlined). The keyword used in an anchor text can help the underlying page rank for that keyword. So instead of using ‘this page’ or ‘click here’ as an anchor text, use a meaningful keyword.
As with most SEO-related practices, it’s best not to overdo this. The goal is to create a natural link profile for your site (not everyone links with a keyword, so you need to add some diversity).

---

Link Building Tactics

There are several techniques that can be used to build links. These techniques can be divided into two major categories: natural link building and manual link building.
We talk about natural link building when someone links to your site without your intervention. This is usually the case if you create informative or newsworthy articles. As we’ve said before: quality content will automatically attract more links.
However, the chances are that you need to put some effort into your link building. Manual link building is acheived via outreach to other webmasters. Usually you give something in return for a link to your site.
To get you started and make your link building a little bit easier, we’ve collected some link building techniques that can help you:

Natural Link Building

Natural link building is all about creating valuable content that solves a visitor’s problem.
The challenge is producing unique content on the web. You’ll find information about virtually any topic online – from knitting tutorials to a review of the latest smartphone. So that leaves us with two tactics: either create a more comprehensive source of information or be the first to break a new story.
Choosing a different content type can also help you get links. Some content types tend to attract links naturally, such as infographics, comics or quizzes.
If possible you can develop a tool that can be useful for your visitors. If it can solve a problem you’ll quickly get a lot of fresh links. Joost de Valk, better known as Yoast, has developed several popular WordPress plugins which earned him links from almost 3000 different domains.

Something that is done frequently in the design industry is the creation of freebies. By giving away free icon packs, textures, code snippets… you can easily attract links.
But there are plenty of creative solutions to attract links too. Romain Brasair, for example, turned his 404 page into a real eye-catcher. And even e-commerce sites can attract a lot of links by thinking outside the box. HEMA, a Dutch retail chain, created a Rube Goldberg machine in their online shop.

Manual Link Building

The first step of manual link building is finding relevant websites. As we’ve said before; it’s best to get links from relevant, authoritative domains.
Finding these can be a bit tricky. However, there are several tools that can help you, such as the Mozbar browser plugin (Chrome / Firefox). This plugin displays the Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) in the SERPs.

These metrics can help identify potential websites to contact. As you can see in the example above: the first and last website would be really interesting to get a link from.
Now comes the hard part: contacting the webmaster. Finding a contact form or e-mail address shouldn’t be a problem. Convincing him/her to add a link to your site is a different story. That’s why it’s customary to give something in return.

Writers often provide the webmaster with a guest article in return for a link. This benefits both parties: the host has fresh content for his readers while the SEO has a link. The author usually gets free publicity in the form of an author box at the end of the article.

---

Editor’s note: I have a serious dislike for people approaching me with article ideas when their primary motive is link building! Ninety-nine percent of these article concepts are weak (sometimes plagiarized) attempts at getting the author’s domain linked to from tutsplus.com. Kevin’s said it before during this session, but it’s worth saying again: quality content is more than ever recognized as being important – that’s what you need to be creating!

Don’t expect a reply if you send me an email like this..

---

Alternatively you could help webmasters solve problems. Notify them of broken links or code-errors. You can even help them with other aspects of their site, for example by designing a new header image.
If you’re selling a product or a service you might do a giveaway. Contact a website and tell the webmaster that he can test the product / service or give it away for free to his readers (in return for a link of course).
You can even sponsor a local event or sports team. These events or teams usually have a ‘partners’ page where they link to all their sponsors.

---

Managing Your Link Profile

If you have a suspicious link profile you might get a penalty from Google. This means that your page can disappear from the search results completely. To prevent this we need to make manage our links.

Nofollow Tag

The nofollow tag tells search engines not to follow a link. This means that no PageRank is transferred to the underlying page.
You might remember the nofollow tag from our Robots.txt article. If we use the nofollow tag in the robots meta tag, Google will ignore all outgoing links on that page. However, we can also add this tag to an individual link:

001	<a href="http://website.com" rel="nofollow">Website</a>

Google wants webmasters to add this nofollow tag to paid links. Paid links are a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Besides paid links this tag can be useful for comment sections. There are plenty of spammers out there who want to build links via comments. To discourage these practices it’s best to add a nofollow tag to comment URLs.
When it comes to link building: if you were able to add a link to an external page, make sure it’s a follow-link (i.e. there’s no nofollow tag). Otherwise it won’t help you rank.

Disavow Tool

The Disavow Tool is a brand new tool that was released at the end of 2012. It can be used to remove links that point to your website. Remove is perhaps a bad choice of words – it tells Google to ignore certain links that point to your site.
This tool can be used to recover from Google’s Penguin update. Some webmasters have received an ‘unnatural link warning’ in Google Webmaster Tools due to a high amount of low quality links pointing to their site (something the Penguin update is looking for). Websites with a suspicious link profile were affected by this, often to their surprise. James Farmer from WPMU was hit by this update because he had a link in the footer of the WordPress themes he released.
Thankfully you can use the Disavow Tool to clean up your link profile. Here’s how it works:

1. First you need to go to this Webmaster Tools page (you can only use this tool if you are registered as the ‘owner’ of the domain).
2. Select the correct domain and click the ‘disavow links’ button.
3. Select the link file (more info below) and hit the ‘submit’ button.

You need to upload a text file with a list of bad links. For example:

001 002 003 004

#contacted website owner to remove link, no response http://website.com/page-name.html #multiple bad links from domain domain:website.com

It’s best to add a comment (#) to every URL. It can be useful if someone from Google evaluates the disavow file. URLs need to be placed on a separate line. You can add the URL of a single page or ignore links from an entire domain (be careful with this!).
How do you know which links to remove when you get an unnatural link warning? Matt Cutts explains in this Google Webmasters video.

---

A Note About Social Shares

What about links from Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other social media? Do social shares have an impact on your performance in the search results?
Actually, we’re still trying to figure out the effect of social shares. Multiple studies have shown that the importance of social shares is increasing. They might – and probably will – play a big role in the future.
However, classic links are still more important than social links. Social shares don’t have the same value as links from web pages because they are rather volatile.
That being said, social shares can still be extremely valuable. I’m sure some of you will get the majority of their visitors from social media. Social shares can improve your online visibility and in turn improve the chance of gaining natural links from other websites.

---

Resources

To end this article I’d like to share two useful resources:
The first is a collection of Link Building Strategies from Point Blank SEO. Jon Cooper has compiled a huge list of tried and tested link building techniques. You can filter the list by time to execute and dependencies.
The second resource is a list of email templates. If you need some ideas for your email to contact webmasters, this list can be a great starting point. You’ll find templates for a wide variety of questions.

---

Conclusion

Link building is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization. If you want to grow your site and attract more visitors, you should start building quality links. Some links will be created automatically, but most links require some effort from your side. In case you need to clean up your link profile you can use the nofollow tag or Google’s Disavow Tool.

SEO FAQ

Thanks everybody Today’s post about SEO.So far we’ve answered several SEO-related questions in this Session. however it’s a good idea to bundle some important questions, add some new ones and create an SEO FAQ. Can’t find the answer to your questions? Post a comment and we’ll try to help you.

---

To help you quickly find the way between sections, here’s a break of what’s covered:

• SEO Basics
• Search Engine Result Pages
• Domains
• Content
• URLs
• Links
• Additional Questions Submitted by Readers

---

SEO Basics

How do search engines work?

Search engines aim to build an index of all web pages via crawlers. These bots follow links (href and src) and index the files they encounter. When you enter a search query, search engines retrieve the most relevant web pages from their index and sort them based on several ranking factors.

What is black-hat / white-hat SEO?

White-hat SEO refers to techniques which search engines recommend as part of good design. They produce long-term results. Black-hat SEO involves techniques that are disapproved of by search engines. These can get your site penalized or ultimately banned from the index.

Which SEO tactics are considered black-hat?

There are several techniques that are considered black-hat, such as:

• Keyword stuffing: packing long lists of keywords on your site. The content usually has little or no value.
• Cloaking: serving different content to crawlers and visitors.
• Hidden text: hiding keyword-rich text in the background or off-screen.
• Doorway pages: pages created specifically for crawlers.

Which factors affect the ranking of my pages?

There are more than 200 factors which are used to determine the relevancy of your pages. We don’t know all of them, but research has identified several important elements:

• Backlinks: a link to a site is seen as a vote for that site. The more links a page gets, the better. Links from domains with a high authority are more valuable.
• On-page factors: such as the title of the page, formatting, content, images and so on.
• Domain age: as a rule of thumb; older is better.
• Update frequency: frequently posting new articles or updating pages generally has a positive effect.

What is Google Panda / Penguin?

Google Panda and Penguin are updates to Google’s search engine ranking algorithm. The Panda update was first released in 2011 to improve the visibility of high-quality sites. Google Penguin was announced in April 2012 and penalized websites which used Black-hat SEO techniques.

---

Search Engine Result Pages

Why isn’t my site showing up in the search results?

This is probably one of the most common SEO-related questions. There are several causes which might prevent your site from showing up in the search results.

First of all you should perform a site: search in Google (e.g.: site:webdesign.tutsplus.com) to see if it has been indexed yet. If you see a list of pages, your site has been crawled and indexed by Google. If you see the following message it has not yet been indexed or it might have been removed from the index by violating Google’s Guidelines.

If your site did show up, you probably need to work on your site authority. Publish unique content that solves visitors’ needs and try to earn links from relevant, authoritative domains.

How can I remove a page from Google’s index?

You can prevent a page from being indexed by Google with the help of the robots.txt file or robots meta tag. If you want to remove a page that has already been indexed, you can do this via Webmaster Tools > Optimization > Remove URLs.

Can password protected pages get indexed?

No, search engines can not crawl the content on password protected pages, hence they can not be indexed.

Can search engines index pages that are served via an https-connection?

Google can index https-pages (PayPal’s homepage is indexed as a https-version for example).

Warning: this can sometimes be the cause of duplicate content if both http and https versions are indexed.

Does traffic affect my ranking?

Short answer: no.

Why not? Because the amount of traffic a page receives is not a ranking factor. Yes, high traffic websites are usually correlated with high rankings, but the high ranking is not a direct consequence of traffic. Search engines don’t know how much traffic a website gets. They know how much they sent to a website, but they don’t know how much direct or referral traffic it may get, so they have incomplete data. And if you’re using Google Analytics on your site, Google can’t use this data due to privacy concerns.

So traffic doesn’t affect your ranking. Your link profile, content, domain authority, etc. affect your ranking. This will in turn improve the amount of visitors you get.

Why do my search results differ from my friend/colleague/wife/husband…?

Sometimes you might see different search results than someone else. This is due to search personalization. Search personalization is based on your search history and is tracked via your Google+ profile or cookies. For this reason SERPs might sometimes look a little bit different.

Don’t worry though, search personalization can be disabled.

How do I get my new site indexed?

It’s impossible to appear in the search results if search engines don’t know your site exists, hence why a lot of people ask how they can get their new site crawled and indexed. There are several things you can do:

• Create an XML Sitemap and submit it via Google / Bing Webmaster Tools. This is an easy way of informing search engines about the pages you have already published.
• Create some backlinks to your site. Crawlers discover new pages by following links. Doing some basic link building can help your new site get indexed.
• You can submit your site to Google. Some people argue that this method has become obsolete, but it can’t harm your site and only takes a few seconds. So wouldn’t you do that? Use Google’s webmaster tools to submit your new site.

When should I begin seeing improvements in my rankings?

This is a rather tough question to answer. Improvements can be seen after a few days, weeks or even months. There are several factors to consider, such as the previous state of the website, the amount and type of changes, crawl rate, keyword competitiveness and so on. SEO is usually a long term strategy that can take several months.

How do I get my profile picture in search results?

You need to implement authorship information to display your profile image (via Google+). This article details you how to do this.

On a related note: how do I get star ratings and thumbnails in search results?

These are called rich snippets. They are automatically generated by search engines when you implement structured data, such as Microdata, Microformats or RFDa. More info can be found in a previous article.

Does a Google +1 affect rankings?

Yes, but only marginally. Because +1 is a relative new ranking signal, Google is still learning how it affects search quality.

---

Domains

Do domain extensions matter?

Country-specific domain extensions (.de, .fr, .it…) can help you rank for local searches in your country. There is no ranking benefit of choosing a certain generic domain extensions (.com, .net, .org…).

Should I invest in exact-match domains?

Exact-match domains are, as the name suggests, domain names that match a certain keyword or phrase. For example: if you want to rank for the term ‘rare baseball cards’, you could buy the domain rarebaseballcards.com (exact match domain).

This type of domain used to be really powerful in the past. However, in September last year an algorithm update was released that reduces low-quality exact-match domains in search results. I suggest choosing a short domain name which is easy to remember.

I just migrated my site to a new domain. When it comes to SEO, what should I pay attention to?

The most important aspect of a site migration is URL redirection. Use a 301-redirect to send visitors from the old pages to the new. You can notify Google of a site migration via Webmaster Tools (Configuration > Change of address)

Content

Should I optimize my page for the singular or plural of my keyword?

When you write naturally, you automatically use both forms in your text. Remember that it’s important to provide your readers with quality content. Text that has been over-optimized for a single keyword (without variations, synonyms, etc), will not be pleasant to read. Visitors come first, search engines second!

What is long tail traffic?

Long tail traffic comes from very specific keywords. So instead of ‘photoshop tutorial’ (short tail keyword), you get traffic from ‘photoshop tutorial for photo manipulation’ (long tail). Long tail traffic has less competition than traffic from short tail keywords.

Which meta tags should I use?

The meta keywords tag has become redundant, so you don’t have to add it. The meta-description tag on the other hand, is still be useful to convince people to visit a page.

What is search engine friendly design?

Search engines have trouble reading certain content types (images, video’s, flash…). A search engine friendly design is a website that can easily be crawled and indexed.

Does content length matter?

Search engines prefer longer pieces of content (usually +300 words). But that doesn’t mean shorter articles can’t perform well. It’s better to focus on the quality of your content than on content length

How can I optimize images?

There are three ways to optimize an image:
File-name: choose a descriptive file name instead of a random string of words and numbers.
Alt-tag: add an alt-tag with a short description to your image.
File size: find a balance between file size and quality for improved loading times.

What is duplicate content?

Duplicate content is exactly what you think it is: two pages which have identical content. In this case Google rarely shows both pages in the search results, so duplicate content can be problematic.Duplicate content can be created intentionally (for example the print version of a page) or accidentally (because of URL parameters, inconsistent linking, etc.).

URLs

Should I use absolute or relative URLs for internal linking?

For example:
Absolute URL: http://website.com/blog/page.html
Relative URL: /blog/page.html
Relative URLs exclude the root domain of the site. When it comes to SEO, it’s best to use absolute URLs.

How should I split words in a URL?

It’s best to use hyphens (-). Using other punctuation marks, such as underscores (_) and plus signs (+) might confuse search engines. Using no separators at all should also be avoided.

Should I use subdomains or subfolders?

It’s best to use subfolders. This can facilitate the correct indexation of your pages by search engines. If you have several, non-related products, you can use subdomains.

Can Google index dynamic URLs?

Google has come a long way when it comes to handling dynamic URLs. Most of the time they will interpret the various parameters correctly. However, you can help Google with this task via Google Webmaster Tools.
For more information on creating SEO friendly URLs, take a look at our article on the subject.

Links

Are reciprocal links bad?

No, reciprocal links aren’t bad. However, one-way incoming links seem to be more valuable.

What is a link farm?

A link farm is a massive network of sites with a single purpose: linking to other websites. These types of links are considered to be a form of spam.

What is a nofollow link?

Nofollow is a link attribute that tells search engines not to pass any PageRank to the linked page. This means that a nofollow link will not improve your ranking.Nofollow is a link attribute that tells search engines not to pass any PageRank to the linked page. This means that a nofollow link will not improve your ranking.

Someone wants to pay me to place a link to his site on my site. Should I do this?

The practice of buying links to improve the ranking of a page goes against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This is no surprise because you’re basically manipulating Google’s algorithm. That’s why these tactics are considered black-hat. Worst case scenario is a penalty for your site. But in reality it’s pretty hard for Google to discover paid links. Nevertheless it’s best to be careful.

What is link bait?

Link bait is content that is created to naturally attract links. These are usually controversial pieces of content that automatically generate a viral effect. For example ‘The Inconvenient Truth About SEO’ by Paul Boag, where he argues that SEO is redundant. The article attracted a high number links from popular websites.

Can other websites damage my site?

In theory, competitors can harm your website by building a high volume of low quality links to it, or links from malicious websites. Google developed a tool to counter these practices, called the Disavow Tool. The Disavow Tool allows you to tell Google which links to ‘ignore’.

What is negative SEO?

Same answer as above: low-quality links to a site that damage a site’s ranking. These links have a detrimental effect and have therefore earned the name “negative SEO”.