1sTAG

SEO & Social Media

tagadm — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:55:41 +0000

Qualities of a good site

tagadm — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:58:00 +0000

As is known Matt Cutts, the Google’s head of Web Spam team, has been recently discussing webmasters issues in short videos. These videos are in response to the numerous questions that occur in the routine work of the website owners and marketers and are very important and informative for those who want to listen the advices of a Search engine expert. The video below is a little bit more longer and concerns some major points in the construction of a really good site.

The first of the queries is connected with some comments on the sitemaps and more precisely it deals with the question does the updates in sitemaps depend on the page views of a site. What Matt Cutts thinks is that page views are not determinant in this matter. As we know the different pieces of data are updated in sitemaps at different time and frequencies. So most likely updates in sitemaps are not dependent on the page views.
Further in the video Mr. Cutts proceeds with a very interesting and significant topic. It’s about some basic, fundamental recommendations for how to increase the visibility of a website on search engines, including Google. Of course one can find many tips and tricks, some of them associated with white hat SEO techniques, for how to optimize his website for search engines, but the general number one thing that Matt Cutts mentions is the crawlability of the site. “Crawlable” means that the links to and within your website can be discovered and followed by search engine spiders. Most of the people do not bother whether the search engine bots can navigate their site and that is probably one of the biggest mistakes on SEO. So in order to get top ranking and great visibility on Google it’s crucial to make your website easy to be crawled. And if you hesitate about this the easiest thing you can do is to check your website with text only browser like Lynx for instance. If you can get through the entire site without any problems you will be in pretty good shape. If not you must reconsider your site menus and sitemaps.

The other important point in the building of a good site that Matt speaks for is the content. Make sure you write an unique, exclusive, quality, attractive content. Target your audience using as many related keywords and terms and make sure that you’ll draw their attention. Once you’ve made your site crawlable and have created a content which is good and competitive, then in Matt’s opinion you can start thinking about promoting your site. He advises here to think carefully about your potential customers and to make sure that they know about you and about your website.

And last but not the least important is, as the SEO guru calls it, the “hook”. What he meant here is to find something valuable, something that will differentiate your website from the others. That could be some tutorials, videos or newsletters. These are things that will set you apart from the other websites and will assure you that the users will return to your site and will bookmark it.

The next question is really very intriguing and good one. In general it considers the conditions which causes Google to use the DMOZ snippet (the Open Directory Project) when there is already a valid meta description tag on the page. What we must take into account here, as Cutts says, is that the snippet is actually query dependent. It depends on the query that the user typed. That is why in one case the DMOZ snippet is determined to be the better fit for search results and in other case the meta description tag will be appropriate. But you must have in mind that if you do not like the open directory snippet and you want to be sure that it never appears, you can use the meta NOODP tag.

And a little time in explaining what tags should be used – bold or strong and does Google favors one over the other. The truth here is that Google favors the bold tags a little bit more. In fact the difference is so slight, so according Matt it is no worth to worry about it. What really worths here when writing a new copy is the content that will be read and appreciated by the users.

Social is key to SEO

tagadm — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:19:57 +0000

You already know Matt Cutts – the Google’s guy whose voice should pretty much be listened regarding the good SEO practices and the helpful tips about website optimization. In the following video the SEO expert addresses to the internet marketers pointing them some crucial steps that concern not only the search engine optimization but as well as the effective optimization of your site.
What Mr. Cutts stands firmly up for, is that website owners ought to accentuate on the optimization of the site speed and pay attention to the good internal linking and CMS.

However the main question that the interview discusses is “Can Social Media Marketing affect SEO?”. And Matt believes that SMM should be top priority and an important part of the promotion strategy of any online business. It is the social media that helps you to share your unique, great content and thus eventually advancing your SEO and online marketing goals. Further he explained that social media like Facebook, Twitter or Digg are great way to attract people to your site and these people might make a post or link which could subsequently send more visitors, thus increasing your traffic and boosting your page rank.
So finally all facts point that SEO and social media marketing should not be think as versus one another but mutually contributing to each other.

Google Panda – Was hat der deutsche Nutzer davon?

tagadm — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:06:19 +0000

Content vs. Backlinks

tagadm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:30:58 +0000

Recently, in one of his many video interviews, Mr Matt Cutts, SEO Guru und head of research at Google’s search technology, aired a few secrets from the Google Mountview fortress. He was asked:

„What is better? A website with exceptional content and mediocre links or exceptional links and mediocre content“

He gives a very clear answer – Content is king. He is of the opinion that good and interesting content will automatically attract backlinks. We should not be tempted, however, to use Black Hat SEO for Google penalises such sites often with draconian measures. Of course Cutts also makes clear that good content combined with high value links is the optimal solution.

Cutts is a voice worth listening to. He is, de facto, the unofficial spokesman for Google, an organisation which does not like to divulge information about its search technology. So he knows what he is talking about. It was no one other than Mr Cutts who official stated in his blog that Google bots are not interested in our SEO work on “keyword tags” – a total waste of time! Google has developed such successful and sophisticated technology which can analyse and parse text with frightening precision. Keyword meta-tag analysis is nothing more than primitive and belongs to antiquity in search technologies.

There is really nothing very surprising about the statements of the Google guru.
Yet I am not comppletely convinced. We all know great website with fantastic content – often the work of academics who have no time to work on getting backlinks to their sites. The content is hard to find in the first ten page of Google for the keywords used. The fact is that even the most refined algorithms for search engines are not the perfect solution.. But at the end of the day Google has no choice but to regard backlinks as the measure of all things in terms of quality. Another method – human evaluation of more than four billion pages? – could prove to be “mission impossible”!

Success factor – Link camouflage

tagadm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:27:58 +0000

The issue of links exerts a decisive influence on the successful operation of professional websites. When links from other websites are integrated into a web page, the search engines such as Google and Yahoo view these principally as positive. The background to the idea is that the attractive contents of websites are linked to. Links increase organically the traffic to this website.

To integrate links from other websites in one’s own pages, there are two methods. Links are connections which maintain in a natural way websites which have good content and are well managed. As linking also increases the value of one’s own site, links to successful sites are popular on one’s own page. Usually the linking takes place through reciprocal links. This method requires both time and effort. Such links, however, are regarded as permanent and serious.

The second, much faster method to generate links is to buy them from link farms. Here one can purchase any number of links to one’s own site. This method takes less time but requires the webmaster paying particular attention to the quality of the purchased links. Search engines increasingly dislike the practice of buying links. If one uses purchased links, one should make every attempt to camouflage them.
If one has useful links, two further decisions must be made. One concerns optimal positioning of the link on the web page and the other concerns how the links should be worded.

Physical positioning of links should draw the attention of the visitor and should be “clicked”. This produces significant traffic and under circumstances a click commission for the webmaster. Where are links positioned most effectively? A random and content-void massing of links is a deterrent. Search engines adopt a very restrictive policy to such meaningless advertising measures and the corresponding sites achieve only low rankings. This is exactly the opposite to what the webmaster wants to achieve. Another stumbling block is “bad neighbourhoods” . In practical terms this signifies the following underlying thought: dubious, content-void and purchased links from link farms are bad and to be combatted from the perspective of Google and Co. One should avoid creating this unprofessional impression as they result directly in negative rankings. Before purchasing or exchanging links one should take a serious look at them in the light of these criteria.

Close attention should be paid to texting of the links

The ideal target is to give the links as neutral and objective appearance as possible – link camouflage. If the links are contextually embedded and add to the content , this increases the click rate considerably. It is also easier to place keywords close to the link position. Editorial texts confer from the point of view of the user, for the main part, objective content. If links are placed here, this approach emphasises the credibility of these links. This is all the more so the case the closer the webmaster’s own content overlaps with that behind the links. High link topical relevance increase usefulness for the user and promote higher ranking. uft.

If one integrates topic-relevant links in keyword optimised text with highly informative and therefore useful content, then a lot has been achieved. The positioning of links should also take into consideration sub-pages to give added importance to the site. One should also insert graphic links. A picture says more than a thousand words.

For the users links can be visible or hidden, i.e. not immediately visible. An intensive working task is camouflaging purely advertising links, the affiliate and partner links. These links produce a click yield for webmasters and are disliked by users. To avoid serving the direct linking address on a silver plate to the user there are a number of camouflaging workarounds which can be used. Search engines have difficulty in identifying links using php scripts, the so-called http header redirect. This link is encoded and does not inform the user intentionally about the actual content behind the link.

Newslettermarketing – is it all for the waste paper basket?

tagadm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:22:27 +0000

In most email programs the Inbox is located not far from the recycle box. As a result many newsletters sent for marketing purposes land right in the recycle box or get caught by the spam filter. Newsletter marketing is a good alternative for on-going marketing concepts.
Reaching interested target groups is so quick and easy. The later may later become customers. The idea is fantastic but often problems crop up in the whole activity.
It is admittedly so very useful to use existing customer lists and to build upon this potential. Newsletter subscribers have already stated an interest in purchasing and the existing clients are already willing to purchase, Thus it is not just search engine optimization but also email marketing is an effective method of online marketing. The companythat neglects this is wasting important resources.
Using simple rules one can have a positive impact on the clients. Important pre-requisite, however, is that one really pays attention to them. Whoever wants to use email and newsletter marketing must ensure that the newsletter is sent only to existing subscribers. There exist laws protecting Internet users form receiving unwanted newsletters. Existing clients who have subscribed to a newsletter can be quickly and easily informed about product innovation or special promotional activities. This arouses interest and one is retained in the client’s head.

A good and memorable title is important when sending newsletters. Many already fail at this stage. If the title is not interesting enough, the mail remains unopened. Whoever overcomes this barrier has succeeded.

For years many American companies and now the number in Europe is increasing of those who incorporate the client’s name. Empty phrases and the usual impersonal forms of address are simply too impersonal and not really touch the client.
The content should be presented and summarised as precisely as possible in the first two sentences. In order to hold the attention of the client, it is important to use a captivating initial sentence. One should always focus on the essentials, whoever fails to get to the point will not gain new clients.
In addition to ensure proper spelling one should pay attention one should ensure that each reader can open and read the email. This can become a problem if the user only allows text and not html format in emails.
In conclusion, it is a matter of courtesy not to spam and irritate clients with spam. One should always allow for a cerainperiod of time to pass between newsletters.

The Failure of SEO and the GEO Problem

tagadm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:20:54 +0000

Search engine optimization is a popular area. Not least because we all know that those listed at the top of the search engine rankings with Google and Co. get the most visitors. The fact that many fail in optimizing their websites although investing a lot of time and ambition, shows that search engine optimization is a science in itself.
Intelligent search engine systems recognise mistakes and are merciless in filtering out. This is why it is important to know and pay attention to a number of basic things.

The content problem

On the one hand we have the content problem for the content of a page will never in itself be so significant that it will bring external links or recommendations. The next issue is CMS. Content management systems rarely meet SEO requirements. Competition also plays an important role because not just the company but its competitors constantly work on optimizing their SEO activities.. In addition, SEO is only successful when one reaches position one and after this usually follows a deadly stagnation. When Google does a refresh the page usually drops in ranking. This could have been avoided through constant SEO activities.

The story is the same with the related topic of Geo targeting

This is of particular importance for the flexible opportunity of updating news. This means that fresh news items or even daily news content can be published and that the latter can be harmonized with the existing content of the website. Geo targeting is a tool which is particularly important for regional news. As a user in Cologne is not particularly interesting is what happened in a Munich suburb, geo-targeting is an excellent means of identifying the region where the user is located who visits a particular page. Geo location uses the IP address in this. As IP addresses are usually assigned on a regional basis and the computer can recognise the region where the user visiting a particular page is located. On the basis of this information suitable news content can be broadcast to the corresponding region. For this reason it is so important to make us of differentiated geo targeting. Whoever thinks in a supra-regional manner will be found and acknowledged. This also has a popsitive impact on the search engine ranking.

Linkjuice loss through 301 redirect

tagadm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:18:08 +0000

Many programmers have extensive knowledge of redirecting websites. Yet how effective is this really? One of them is the standard 301 redirect. The webmaster faces the hurdle that as soon as a certain number of URLs change, he must redirect everything. To ensure this does not end in virtual chaos there are some important facts which require urgent attention.
Redirecting using 301 and 302 are not in principle identical. It does mean, however, that with each 301 redirect valuable link juice is lost. How can this be prevented?
A number of professional programmers have already looked at this issue. In general, search engines are often overtaxed with a 301 redirect. Google is best at dealing with it. Bing and Yahoo, on the other hand, often have problems with this.
As soon as a 301 redirect comes into play the traffic in both these search engines sinks significantly. In the case of Google the issue of redirection is usually not problematic.
How much link juice is really lost through a 301 redirect from a root page is not always the same. A practical example would be if one would like to place an article on the root page but this is also indexed as an alias or homepage. In this case one must simply use a 301 redirect to link the index with the homepage. However, this is not always possible and much more sophisticated processes are necessary through which as a percentage a greater amount of link juice gets lost than planned. According to experts, this is usually a fictitious value which is hard to measure in real figures and facts.
But it is a fact that the loss of link juice through a 301 redirect can be significant. Professional web specialists advise not to make successive rows of 301 redirects. This results in a major loss of link juice which has extremely disadvantageous effects on search engine rankings.
Well placed domains which have existed for years have good link juice. This can be lost through making changes which is a complete waste. For this reason one should organise and plan well a switch or 301 redirect in order to continue to benefit from the already existing link juice.

Traffic-Steigerung fuer die eigene Page

tagadm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:15:25 +0000

Hoher Traffic

ist der Grundstein für jede Website. Dieser kann aber nur durch interessante Inhalte gewährleistet werden. Bevor man mit dem Schreiben der Artikel beginnt, muss genau feststehen, welche Produkte oder welches Thema auf der jeweiligen Page behandelt wird. Anhand dieser Feststellung können die dazugehörigen Suchbegriffe und auch die Keywörter herausgesucht werden. Natürlich macht es wenig Sinn, wenn die Keywörter nur aneinander gekettet in einen sehr unübersichtlichen Text gepackt werden. Die Keywörter sind zwar für die Erhöhung des Traffics wichtig, dennoch werden sie alleine keine sehr vielversprechende Erhöhung bringen. Die Texte bringen sicherlich den ersten kleinen Fortschritt und zeigen zusätzlichen Traffic. Ist man jedoch mit dem Erfolg der Artikel nicht so ganz zufrieden, gibt es weitere Möglichkeiten den Traffic zu erhöhen. Gesagt werden muss jedoch auch, dass ein erhöhter Traffic nicht immer eine höhere Conversion Rate mit sich bringt.

Bloggen

Eine gute Möglichkeit bieten Kontakte zu anderen Shops und Blogger. Dort können Gastartikel veröffentlicht werden, die mit dem Link der eigenen Homepage versehen sind. Einige Zeilen über die eigene Seite machen neugierig und steigern den Traffic.. Der Link wird verbreitet und erreicht auf diese Art und Weise mehr Menschen.

soziale Netzwerke

Hilfreich sind hierfür auch soziale Netzwerke, wie zum Beispiel Xing, LinkedIn, Facebook oder Twitter. Kontakte können geknüpft werden und sind für die eigene Seite sehr nützlich. Das Aufgreifen interessanter Themen in diesen Netzwerken erhöht den Bekanntheitsfaktor. Beteiligt man sich zusätzlich an vielen Diskussionen und Unterhaltungen wird dies auf der eigenen Seite Früchte tragen. Beide Methoden wirken noch besser, wenn man sich für einen neuen Bereich interessiert, der im Internet nur wenig vertreten ist. Fachmann für Außergewöhnliches und Neues zieht Menschen an und bringt auch genügend neuen Gesprächsstoff für die eigene Seite mit.

Werbebanner

Steht einem etwas mehr Geld zur Verfügung, so können auch ausgefallene Werbebanner auf anderen Seiten untergebracht werden. Sind diese sehr ansprechend, kommen die Kunden von ganz alleine.

Angebote im neuen Shop, Gewinnspiele und für außergewöhnliche Seiten eine verrückte Aktion bei eBay können zusätzliche Besucher anziehen. Diese Varianten müssen jedoch gut geplant und strukturiert werden. Sind sie das nicht, kann das Vorhaben schnell nach hinten losgehen und die Besucher vertreiben. Nur ernst gemeinte Angebote und umsetzbare Geschenke bringen die gewünschte Erhöhung. Zusätzlich eignen sich für so eine Werbekampagne auch kleine Give-away. Diese werden zum Beispiel bei einer Bestellung beigelegt und bringen so positive Resonanz für die eigene Seite. Diese Produkte müssen eine angemessene Qualität vorweisen, sodass sich der Kunde als König fühlt.

expired Domains

Jeder Seiteninhaber kann von ausgelaufenen Domains profitieren. Diese können gekauft und selbst genutzt werden. Der Vorteil hierbei liegt bei den Besuchern. Der Traffic, der bislang auf dieser Seite vorhanden ist, wird für die eigene Seite genutzt, wenn man die gekauften Domains richtig einsetzt. Dabei sollte man jedoch beim Kauf darauf achten, dass der bisherige Traffic stimmt. Hat die Seite nur wenig Traffic, so macht der Kauf keinen Sinn.

Werden diese grundlegenden Dinge beachtet, wird auch der Traffic der Seite etwas steigen. Dies hängt natürlich etwas vom Thema der Page und der Qualität der Texte ab. Die dafür investierte Zeit sollte ebenfalls nicht zu knapp bemessen sein. Nur so ist ein erhöhter Website Traffic möglich.