SEO FAQ's | SEO Tips

Website Structure FAQ

Do we build a site based on a flat architecture or a vertical architecture?

My answers would be simple. Consider this example will you as a user find it easy to navigate through the Fig 1 or Fig 2.

Websites that are build on flat architectures helps search engine crawlers to crawl large amount of pages rather than crawling for pages that needs to travel through many clicks. Each time a crawler faces click barriers it reduces the amount of content to be taken from each page link. Deep linking pages take much time to get their content indexed by search engine bots and thus take time to rank. My preference is (remaining everything is conducive) to make a flat structure website. The reason would be

1. Fast crawl rate to enable more content per page.
2. Crawlers would be able to detect new pages and updated content easily.
3. Fewer pages would restrict the flow of PageRank and the resultant effect would be to sustain ranking for niche keywords.

Five most important things in html for a site

1. The Title Tag
2. The Meta Description
3. Robots Meta Tag
4. Anchor Text
5. ALT Attribute

What is the difference between local link popularity and global link popularity?

Local link popularity refers to links from sites in a specific topical neighborhood (as identified by algorithms such as Teoma - now used by Ask.com), while global link popularity doesn't discriminate and counts all links from any site on the web.

How do search engines treat content inside an IFrame?

The engines all interpret content in an embedded IFrame as belonging to a separate document from the page displaying the IFrame content. Thus links and content inside IFrames refer to the page they come from, rather than the page they are placed on. For SEO, one of the biggest implications of this is that links inside an IFrame are interpreted as internal links (coming from the site the IFrame content is on) rather than external links (coming from the site embedding the IFrame).

Name twelve unique metrics search engines are suspected to consider when weighting links and how each affects rankings positively or negatively

There are dozens of answers to this question, but some of the most relevant and important would be:

• Anchor text (when it matches queries, it can have a significant positive impact)
• Placement on the page (MSN's research here describes how it may influence rankings)
• PageRank of the linking page (more PR = more good)
• Trust in the linking domain (more trust = ++)
• Link structure in HTML (inside an image, javascript, standard a href, etc.) - although Javascript links are sometimes followed, they appear to provide only a fraction of the link weight that normal links grant. Likewise, links from images (and anchor text in the form of alt text) appears to provide somewhat less weight than standard HTML links.
• Temporal nature of the link (when it appeared, how long it stays on the page for, etc.) - can affect how much weight the link is given and be used to identify patterns that may indicate manipulation
• Use of nofollow
• Relevance of page content to linked-to page (more relevant = better)
• Relevance of site to linked-to page (more relevance = better)
• Text surrounding the link (as the two above)
• Previous link relationships between the domains (if the page/site has already linked to the page/site in the past, it may be given less weight and this may also be used to identify and discount reciprocal linking schemes)
• Hosting relationships (if the domains are hosted on the same IP address, or same c-block of IP addresses, the link may lose some of its weight)
• Registration relationships (if the domains share registration information, it may be interpreted as less editorial and given less weight)
  
  

  Courtesy: SEOMOZ

This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 India License

Read More

Web 2.0 Concepts and Design

What is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a concept which refers to the second generation of web based service- like social platform (MySpace, Friendster), communication tools, wikis and folksonomies etc. It was coined by O’Reilly that refers to a new generation of websites. During surfing the web, these programs help people to communicate and share information with each other online that was not possible in web 1.0 because it was ‘read-only’ web, whereas web 2.0 is extended into ‘read-write’ web.

Google, Amazon, etc. are some examples of web 2.0.

According to Wikipedia-

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

Basically web 2.0 is a web based application that focuses on user experience and collaboration.

Characteristics of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has the following characteristics:

• The entire data is shared through open source code as well as open source content.
• Introduction to different web trends like sharing of articles, blog posting- increasing Web 2.0 applications.
• Web 2.0 delivers web based applications.
• It executes social networking capabilities.
• Using web 2.0 application, the users of different websites are able to interact with the web based application.
• It is more user friendly based on the latest technologies like AJAX.
• It has a vast potential for pioneering web applications.
• It helps to implement social networking capabilities where people can interact with each other.

The tools used here are RSS, Social Bookmarking and AJAX etc which are very powerful and operate faster compared to the previous concepts that were implemented in the earlier arenas.

In traditional web application, when anyone clicks something, he has to wait for the page to load, and thus is time consuming. But in Web 2.0, AJAX has made it most popular because the result comes without wasting time e.g. Google Maps.

Several different business models uses web 2.0 concept. Some of them are-

Ø Web development

Ø Web designing

Ø Search Engine Optimization

Ø E commerce.

The web2.0 is gaining popularity because of it's simplicity and becoming important for marketers. It redefines the market with new opportunities.

Due to the simplicity in web 2.0 concept, various websites are implementing the web 2.0 technologies and are becoming successful. Some of them are:

· YouTube.com : YouTube has gained popularity due to it’s user friendly nature and simple concept. Here people can also share video files among each other worldwide. Due to its popularity, it was sold for over 2 billion dollars to Google.

· MySpace.com: In this website, anyone can create his own profile, friend list and personal homepage. They can share their profile and web page both. In this web site anyone can create the web page by introducing images, text, video, etc.

· Wikipedia: It is a huge and famous encyclopedia available free to online. It is full of resource for everyone that can be updated and edited by anyone.

· Digg.com: Websites like Digg.com is an example of social bookmarking that offers people to create friend lists and share websites, opinions, stories etc globally.

· MySpace.com: As mentioned above, people can also create their own profile, friend list and their own homepage by adding text, images, videos, etc. in this website anyone can share their profile and web page worldwide. It is one of the most visited website viewed online.

Web 2.0 design:

Web 2.0 is designed in a simple way where high contrast colors are used. Colors like green, blues, oranges and pinks are used frequently in web 2.0.

3 basic things are needed to design a Web2.0:

1. Text.
2. Object, and
3. Style

The style of rounded corners in web 2.0 has made it popular globally. The user friendly nature, clever visual design with layout and copywriting will help to go a long way.

Web 2.0 font and color scheme:

Simple clean and rounded font style with pastel or high contrast colors are used in web 2.0.

Read More

Link Building Factors

Link Building Factors:

• Number 1: The traditional mutual linking between sites. This process is termed as two-way linking. However the SEO’s are of the opinion that this strategy of link building has been diminished by Goggle. There is also a belief that the better strategy of building links with sites of relevant content.

• Number 2: The three-way link also known as Triangular linking is the method of linking the site A and site B for a link back from another site. It is a much developed and modern strategy of link building than the two-way method. The Two-way linking is not in practice since they seem to be similar to the one-way linking to Google. However there are Search Engine optimizers who are of the opinion that the Google identifies three-way linking and there is often the risk of penalties.

• Number 3: This is the three-way link method. The SEO offers a link from the site of the SEO or from a different site instead of a link from the site A. The benefit of this type of link building is that there is no need of the outbound links in case of the site A. However the SEO’s are of the opinion that site A might be have to suffer penalties from Google.

• Number 4: The four-way linking is favored by few webmasters. They have the same advantages and disadvantages like the number two and number three methods as discussed above.

• Number 5: Article links: The SEO will provide an informative article with links displayed in the middle or at the end of the article. These articles are provided to the webmasters free of cost as content for their sites in return of the link in the site of the client. There is a belief that the publication of the article on different sites might result into some problem since it has the duplicate content and the links of the articles are also similar. A number of these articles are submitted to “article farms”. It is advisable to offer unique articles on the webmaster but producing many of the unique articles is often expensive.

• Number 6: One-way link is also considered to be effective by few of the SEO’s. Even though these one way links come from the sites having low page rank these are considered to be effective. However SEO’s are of the opinion that one-way link from FFA’s and the directories are considered to be spam by Google. It is essential to find out related sites in order to avoid being marked as spam by Google. However, this method seldom works.

• Number 7: Buying Links - SEO’s prefer buying links with text links along with keywords. It is stated in the guidelines for webmasters that Google does not support buying of links. There is also a method of reporting against the sites that buy links. Few of the SEO’s think that Google creates this fear among people so that people buy Adwords instead of advertising somewhere else. The SEO’s also believe that buying banner ads is better than text links since Google cannot consider them as Spam. If the text based ads are sponsored link then text based ads are not a better idea. Some SEO are of the view that if there is no keyword in the link nothing can be done for reputation. It is also possible to detect reputation from site where the banner is.

• Number 8: We consider A as the site that we are trying to promote. The best strategy is to create various information sites with relevant content on the different IP C-blocks in order to “take the fall”. If you follow this strategy then site A will receive links from links from other sites like site B, C and D. The sites B, C and D participate in the different linking activities with the purpose of creating Page Rank. This might be considered spam. Junkier information sites will make the chance of site A getting more hit.

• Number 9: You can also build a site naturally. The best way is to create excellent content. It is an easy way to promote a site that is informative but is not ideal for commercial site. However it is pretty time-taking affair.

• Number 10: It is a combination of all the above strategies. However, Google can punish a site for any of the strategy and may not be aware of the strategy.

Is there any other strategy of link building?

You can use interactive gimmicks and unique tools as link building. You can offer content which can be used by other sites. You can use free link back to your own site. For instance, if one of the sites is based on gambling industry and if I come across sites asking for calculator tool for my site. These are done by flash and they look for back links. This has to be something that would be beneficial to other sites but cannot be conveniently replicated.

Read More

Content Writing Jobs in Kolkata

Writing content on web is known as content writer. This is new upcoming profession booming in the market which is must for website content. The role of content on a website varies from online journalism, to a guide or to an IT profession in this world of internet era. You can’t underestimate its importance because content helps to build your business through the website.

A good content writer should follow these rules given below:

• Should optimize web pages for search engines and do a tremendous amount of research work before writing.
• Should edit the documents and web pages published online.
• Should write contents for the web pages.

Content writing can be categorized in several sections:

• Online journalism, which means writing online articles and journals on the web.
• In government sites.
• Corporate sites.
• Small different business sites, etc.

For the best search engine results and to attract clients, content writing is must for your company’s website. To get noticed and to be purchased by visitors, you should optimize your website well and the content should be developed in a remarkable way in the website. Because well balanced content in a website improves the quality which helps to attract clients to the website.

Apart from online journalism, content writers are making their marks in the corporate fields i.e. in IT companies in India.

In IT companies, it plays an important role in the following sections:
• Website content
• Press releases
• Blogging
• Article writing
• Podcasting.

Specially, the opportunity is growing for the companies situated in Kolkata. The new millennium IT is booming here after fulfilling its goal in Mumbai and some southern parts of India. Kolkata is becoming a hub of trade, transportation and financial services due to the dependence of Bangladesh and entire east and north-east states.

Due to its good ecosystem and presence of good quality of education system like Jadavpur University, IIM Kolkata, IIT Kharagpur, ISI etc., BPO’s, MNCs and renowned domestic IT firms are trying to set their companies here creating more and more jobs in various sections. The frequent visits of foreign delegations are increasing day by day.

Thus IT companies are here to fill jobs for ‘Content Writers’ also.
Are you listening?

Read More

Choosing the Right Keyword

We all know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) deals with many aspects of a site but while optimizing a site people generally tend to make mistake selecting the right keyword for the site they are trying to optimize.

The first basic step in optimizing a site starts with proper selection of keyword. If this goes well then you know that 50 percent of your work is done. I am saying so coz even if you rank in the top ten for your targeted keyword in Google it will not help you gain traffic to your site as chosen keyword is an improper selection. So, your first criteria is to choose the best possible keyword that have an comfortable level of competition and would also fetch good visitors to your site.

Now, the question arises how you would actually choose the right keyword for your site. Well, like other people around I will not beat around the bush and directly come to the point. On the first instance I would suggest you to go through your site and understand the theme of it. Analyze what a normal visitor would type in to find similar sites. List down on the number of keywords that you could possibly find out. Check out with your friends and colleagues to give you suggestions. Once you have a list of keywords try to narrow down on the list by eliminating improper and irrelevant keywords.

Once this is over, now try to figure out from the keyword list how many times each keyword is being searched worldwide per month. Once you are convinced about the search rate list down the top 10 keyword as per the search rate. Do not try to optimize your pages for keywords that have high search rate coz it will apparently have high competition. Try to figure out some keywords that will give you fair enough visitors but will have less competition.

Now, when you have selected three to five keywords try to optimize your page keeping in mind that it’s better to optimize a page with twp key phrases.

So, what are you waiting for start your optimizing work. Oops, probably you are waiting for tools that will help you in searching for the search rate for your keywords. Well, I try a combination of tools. I believe none of the tools available provide accurate data but definitely they will help you to approximately guess on the search rate.

The tools I would recommend are:

1. Good Keywords
2. Overture
3. Wordtracker
4. Google Adword Tool


So, head start with your optimizing work and let me know about your success rate.

Read More

Link Building and SEO

Link are they really a factor for Ranking

People all over the world vary in their opinion about Link building and so do I. Many say that building link is one of the main factors for ranking well for competitive keywords. Others disagree and say that it depends a lot on the site

Confused?

Let’s take example to suggest what actually Link Building is?

It started off long back when Google implemented the Pagerank concept in the Search Algorithm. Webmasters all over the world started misusing them for their own benefit. Concepts like Link Farms and bad neighborhood came into effect. Thanks to Google that took evasive measures to tackle this kind of spam through their numerous updates.

But then the question comes are Links really useful?

Link Building for Google

With my experience I can say that it is really tough to make your way to the top ten in Google for competitive keywords. Google considers Link as a vote of trust. But then you have to actually pick quality links. Editorial links are the preferred ones but even links given out by other sites are appreciated. Link bought through any kind of network or Paid Links are the typical links that can harm you in the process and the effect may vary from poor performance to getting banned from Google.

Link Building for Yahoo and MSN

For Yahoo and MSN the case is different. If you have proper structure with great navigation, content, and few to no links, then you have good chance to rank for fairly competitive keywords.

It is not that I am saying so with no real life examples. I have personally faced this for more than one issue when I have ranked my site for fairly competitive keywords in Yahoo and MSN with in few months. As for Google it may vary from 6 to 7 months depending on the work you do for your site.

Important Point to remember while Link Building

1. Do not link out to bad neighborhood site
2. Always check the link provided to you.
3. Before giving a link out to any site think how it would help your site visitors.
4. Getting a link from related site is much more appreciated.
5. Check the Anchor Text and the position of the link.
6. Check the Anchor Text of the link pointing out to the site linking to you.
7. Prefer directories for best one way links
8. Editorial links are preferred ahead of other links.

In my next post, I will discuss about the misconceptions aboutPageRank.

Read More

Basic SEO Tips

People round the world target three major search engine Google, Yahoo and MSN. The main idea is to drive in maximum traffic through these Search Engines. But how do you actually get to rank on all the three.

The page should be properly structured along with quality content. By quality content I mean content which should be unique and should contain targeted keywords distributes according to the need of the page. But this does not mean that you should start spamming the page with keyword spamming.

The navigation of the page should be user friendly with no flashy images or javascript buttons. And even if they are used then it should be kept in mind that the noscript tag should be used for search engine bots to crawl the links.

The images should have proper Alt Attributes to explain the image and not just put in long list of keywords to fool the Search Engines. Remember that Search Engine are smarter.

Build quality links to you pages. This will help gain trust in the eyes of the Search Engines. Links build on the basis of quality content or editorial links stands out. Otherwise you deal with link farms and link building partners and get banned by Search Engines in the near future.

Make sure that your site is submitted to quality directories. By quality directories I mean quality and they are very few. Do not submit to directories that ask for a reciprocal link back. Also, make sure you learn the pros and cons before submitting to a particular category.

Now to sum up the main points that affect the Search Engines I have listed them down in point wise to make a better understanding.

On Page Optimization

Title Tag – Should be compact and should only contain targeted keywords. It is one of the main criteria’s so should be handles effectively. Do not try to spam the page title with lots of keywords or repetitive keywords. You should always try to limit your keywords in the title to less than three.

Meta Description – Another important tag that helps search engines to denote the content of the page.

Meta Keywords – This should actually contain the targeted keywords and the keywords used in the page. Should not be huge list of keywords or occurrence of keywords. Remember GOOGLE, google, GoOgLe all them gives the same result. Try it out at Google.

Heading Tag – It is equally important as rest of the tags. Should be considered as the heading of the content and should be generated down the order.

Image Alt Attribute – Provide this tag for each of the image used in the site. This should depict the content of the image.


Off Page Optimization

Link Building – As discussed by Matt Cuts. Editorial links are always preferred. But quality links gathered through unique content on the site is also favorable.

Anchor Text – Anchor Text is another very important factor. The anchor text should be very well chalked out according to the need of the optimization plan.

Page Targeting – It is always considered to be of utmost importance that you should try to target two to maximum three keywords per page. This way you can target most keywords to your site rather than targeting 10 keywords per page.

Read More