SEO Off-Page : Link Building Tips and Techniques

SEO Off-Page Optimization : Tips and Techniques to get quality back links

Friends after having a detailed explanation about overall SEO  and On-Page Optimization tips  and techniques, here we are going to talk about Off-Page SEO and it's techniques.

What is Off Page SEO or Link Building?

Different webmasters have different prospective about Off-Page SEO techniques. Off-Page SEO optimization also know as link building is a technique used to promote your website on different channels present online. 

This techniques is used to build authority and popularity of your website and also to get back links from different high authority websites.

SEO off-page is all about how many quality and relevant back links you can have for your website. Based on quality and relevancy search engines defines priority for your website and provides you position on search engines result pages.

Why to Do Link Building?

This is one very important question which almost every webmaster will have in their mind. Off-page activity or link building is required because search engine robots or crawlers cannot come to know automatically that there is a new page or website present online which they have to store in their database.

To inform search engines we need to place or submit our links on such websites where crawlers are already crawling.

Types of Link Building

There are three ways of link building :

1. Three Way Link Building (No More Recommended)
2. Two Way Link Building (No More Recommended)
3. One Way Link Building

Three Way Link Building 

Historically when search engines started giving preference to number of links pointing back to any website and considering it one of the important factor for ranking, webmasters used to take illegal ways to get backlinks.

Three way links were where webmasters used to link there network websites with each other. This way getting a back link was very easy without any actual effort required. Google specifically looks for natural links, so Google started neglecting such kind of back links.

Google strictly says no to three way linking as this way webmasters who are having a good network online will gain more and their bad quality website will get ranking.

Two Way Backlinks

Two way back links are those where one website links to another and gets a link back from other website as well. 

Webmasters used to do this by having a link page on the site and asking other websites to link them and giving a link back from their link page. 

Google again don't promote such activity as webmaster misuses this process and exchange links with other websites without any actual effort putting in.

One Way Backlink

One way back linking is the preferred method by all the search engines. This is the way where webmasters have to put effort to get back links from other website. This may be through content syndication, liking or sharing.

Before Penguin and Panda updates there were many methods of getting back links for a website but after these updates getting a back link for websites has become very difficult.

Methods to get quality back links for website

1. Directory Submission 
2. Article Writing
3. Blog Writing
4. Blog Commenting
5. Forum Commenting
6. Question Answer Sites
7. Classifieds
8. .gov, .edu, .coc websites back links 

All the above methods are considered to be traditional methods of getting back links. These methods are still important from link building point of view.

1. Social Bookmarking
2. Link Wheel
3. Web 2.0 Properties Creation
4. Video Optimization
5. Guest Blogging
6. Info-graphics
7. Social Media Sharing
8. Asset Optimization ( Press Release, PDF's, Documents, Presentations, White Papers) 

Above are some of the new ways to create back links for your site.

Most important factor while doing link building activity for any site is to remember about relevancy and quality. 

How to measure quality of back link

There are few measurement criteria to check quality back link

• High Page Rank ( PR should be at least 4 or above)
• High Domain Authority
• High Page Authority
• Relevant
• Domain should not be a parked domain ( no activity from a long time)
• No Spamming

Is Paid Back Linking a Good Exercise?

There are different views about paid back linking. As per Google paid linking is absolutely fine till the time link provider is not giving a DO Follow Back Link . If a paid link is NO Follow Back Link  it is absolutely fine to have them.

But it should also be kept in mind that paid links should be minimum and more focus should remain around natural back links.

On - Page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) : All you would like to know about

On-Page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) : Tips & Best Practices

We had a detailed explanation about SEO and different parameter of SEO in last post "All you want to know about SEO". Today we will be talking about On - Page SEO.

There are different standard factors of On-Page SEO :

1. Web Content
2. URL Structure 
3. Title Tag
4. Meta Description
5. Meta Keywords ( Not Important from Google point of view, but some search engines still give preference to meta keywords)
6. Alt Tags (Image Tags)
7. Heading Tags
8. Title Attribute
9. Sitemap.html
10. Sitemap.xml
11. Robots.txt

Here we will be discussing each and every point in a detailed manner.

Content Writing

Web Content

As we all know that "Content is King" in digital world. We all need to be very particular about how we write our web copy content. 

Writing content for web is completely different from article writing, blog writing or any other style of content writing. 

Writing for Web:

Writing for web is different then writing for any other properties like news paper, magazine etc. Web Content always should be responsive, interactive, informative and detailed descriptive for the product or service offered by your website. 

Web content should be always written keeping users in mind and should include keywords which a user can generally search for. 

Identically web content should not be more then  250 words and should written in different paragraphs ( each paragraph having a different heading). Also it should be taken care that uses of keywords should be limited ( 3% to 4%). 

"Google and other search engines always look for fresh and quality content, so it should be kept in mind that there should not be any copied content on your webpages."

URL Structure:

URL structure is another important factor for search engine ranking. Most of the search engines prefer URL's which contain targeted keyword in the URL structure.

There are basically two kind of URL's 

- Dynamic URL

- Static URL

Dynamic URL's are the one which are system generated. These URL's will be mainly seen for E-Commerce portals where products are listed in database and whenever a query is generated for specific product, it's product ID is added to URL with special characters like ?,&,#,= .

"Previously Google was not considering dynamic URL's SEO friendly as it was not able to read and understand special characters but now Google has started ranking dynamic URL's as well."

As per Search Engine Land Google say, in bold, “avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static.” But Google also admitted that “static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates.” However, Google said “dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.” 

Statatic URL's are the one which contains proper folder structure and page name and creates a user friendly URL. Static URL's are considered to be more SEO friendly as they are easy to understand for users and search engine crawlers both.

Dynamic URL's can always be converted to static URL using 301 redirection. 

Title Tag

Title Tag is basically used to define what individual pages are talking about. Title tag is one of the critical factor for every web page as Google and other search engines provides top level priority to it. 

Title tag should contain at max four keywords separated by , or | . Top priority keyword should be placed at first place while writing title.

Ideal limit for a title tag should be 65 to 70 characters, as Google display limit of title in search results is around that. But it should also be kept in mind that a message should be completely conveyed through it and should have some call to action, which can motivate users to click on particular URL.

Title tag should be unique for each page.

Meta Description 

Meta description is a short description about the page. It should contain product specification, or service details present on this and should have a call to action which can provoke user to check the page. 

Ideally a message which you want to convey to your audience should be written with in the limit of 150 characters as Google can not display more characters then that in search results. Your audience will be able to see only 150 characters and they will take their action based on that.

Unique meta description should be written for individual pages, which creates a differentiation between them.

Only thing to note is that there should not be a unnecessary repetition of keywords. 

Meta Keywords

Meta keywords are no more useful for higher search engine ranking on Google. It is absolutely fine we we don't include them on our page. But since there are other search engines who considers meta keywords as one of the ranking factor, you should always include them. 

Ideal length of meta keywords is also 150 characters where different variations of targeted keywords can be included.

Alt Tags

Alt tags or image tags are used to define an image for search engines. For every image present on your webpage there should be an Alt tag as it tells search engine what that image is talking about. 

It should be kept in mind that images should be named properly before using it on webpage, should not leave image names as image1.jpeg, image2.jpeg etc. Naming images helps search engines to identify images. 

Also it should be taken care that images used should be in .jpeg or .jpg format as they are lighter in weight.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are basically used to tell search engines about the important topics on a particular web page. There are six different heading tags starting from H1 till H6. H1 is provided to highest and most important heading of the page.

It should be taken care that heading tags include your keyword and it should not be way too long.

Title Attribute

Title attributes are assigned with hyperlinks present on website. Hyperlinks informs search engines what that hyperlink is about.

You can check title attribute by moving mouse over hyperlink (if present).

Sitemap.html

Sitemap.html is a file which contains all the links present on website (hyperlink format) arranged as per the folder structure. 

This is an another page present on website where user can check for all the available pages on the site and navigate around.

Sitemap.html is also helpful from search engines point of view as it one of the good way for internal linking, which is considered to be good from SEO point of view.

Sitemap.xml

Sitemap.xml file is created for search engine crawlers. This file is uploaded on root folder of website ( on server where website is hosted) and then verified through Google Webmaster. 

Sitemap.xml file is not directly visible to users. It contains all the URL's of website which works like a single destination for search engine crawlers to crawl all the pages present on the site. Crawlers don't have to navigate through the site to find the links present there.

You can also define frequency of crawling over here.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt file is created to inform search engine crawlers that which pages on website they are allowed to crawl and which they are not. 

This file is a .txt file uploaded at the root level or web folder. 

Overall we have covered most of the important On-Page SEO factors. Will keep posting about online marketing in future.

Penguin 2.1 Update - Another Spam Filtering Update by Google

Google Penguin Update 2.1 

Google's head of search spam Matt Cutt announced a latest release of Penguin update 2.1 on 4th of Oct 2013. It is said to be believe that this second generation update is going to effect almost 1% of search queries. 

Still there are lot's of talks happening around this latest update, but nothing has been officially announced that what are the actual changes and how they are going to effect the search queries.

Penguin 2.0 version was released on 22nd of May 2013 which effected almost 2.3% of English queries. After the launch of penguin 2.0 Matt Cutt said that it was fourth launch related to penguin but Google claimed it to be penguin 2.0 release as it was a algorithm change not just a data refresh.

First Google penguin algorithm was launched in April 2012 which was focused on reducing the spamming activity on internet. Later Google release two different versions of algorithm in May and October of 2012.

As per webpronews.com Google's comment on initial launch of algorithm was "The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics."

All you want to know about SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimization : Tips & Tehniques

SEO always has been a misery for all the webmaster, as it  is complicated to define the right techniques for right way of doing SEO. Every Single SEO experts have their own way of defining SEO techniques.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization (Organic and Natural results ) is an online marketing technique to get higher search engine visibility in different search engines. 

Search Engine Optimization

Why an Industry requires SEO for their online business?

Their are many statistics, figures and articles available online who defines the importance of SEO for any online business. This is an important aspect of marketing to reach out the targeted audience present online who are looking for your business services and products.

Important facts why SEO for my website :

• Almost 85% to 90% users click on organic results 
• Conversion rate for a user is more through higher search engine visibility in organic results
• Users trust organic results more than paid results
• SEO results stays for longer terms in comparison to paid results
• Credibility is always higher for organic results 

Why SEO

After knowing the importance of SEO, it is required to understand how to do SEO in correct manner.

Types of SEO :

SEO is broadly divided in two main category 

• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO       
  

But here we will understand SEO in four different ways

• Technical SEO
• Architectural SEO
• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO

 Technical SEO : 

There are many technical factors which are considered to be very important from SEO point of view. A webmaster should always take care of :

1. Website/Webpage load time 
2. Redirection 
3. HTML and CSS errors
4. Coding Issues 
5. Error Page

1. Website/Webpage load time : Website or webpage load time plays important role in SEO. Search engines do consider how quickly webpages load for users on different internet speeds.

Check your webpage speed

2. Redirection : There are two different redirection 301 redirection and 302 redirection. 301 redirection is permanent redirection which is used when a page has to be moved permanently to another page. 302 redirection is temporary redirection used to move one page to another in temporary way.

Proper redirection are very important as this way websites does not loose their targeted audience.

3. HTML & CSS Errors: Search engines do look for a bug free and error free coded website. Check your website errors @ W3C Validation 

4. Coding Issues: There should be no error in code. Errors can be like broken links, missing links or too much use of scripts, external functions calling or any other sort of other coding errors.

5. Error Page (404): Webmaster should always create a 404 error page for their website, so that if users look for a non existing page they should visit that page. This way webmasters can ensure of not losing their targeted audience.

Architectural SEO:

There are few below points for architectural SEO:

1. Web folder structure & naming

2. Proper navigation 

3. Use of breadcrumb

 1. Web folder structure and naming : Webmasters should ensure that they should have a properly named folder structure and all the pages should be stored under respective web folders. i.e there should be a proper hierarchy defined for webpages which helps users and search engines in understanding of website.

 2. Proper Navigation : There should be a proper navigational structure present on website, which should be easy to understand and helps users to navigate through the site. There should not any issue where users are not able to find a way to reach a particular page on the site.

3. Use of Breadcrumb: Search engines have started giving preference to breadcrumbs. Breadcrumb is a kind of navigation panel for users and search engines, which shows the users journey on the website.

On-Page SEO: 

On-Page SEO consists of many important factors 

1. Domain Name
2. URL Structure & Naming
3. Meta Tags - Title, Description & Keywords
4. Web Content
5. Image Tags
6. Heading Tags
7. Title Attribute
8. Sitemap.html & sitemap.xml file
9. robots.txt file

1. Domain Name : While thinking of a website development, first think which should come in mind for webmaster is the right selection of domain name. if domain name includes targeted business or industry main keyword, it is always said to be good from SEO point of view.

2. URL Structure and Naming : URL naming part we have already covered by doing a proper web folder structure.

Previously search engines were not able to read special characters like @, & ? + = in a dynamic URL, due to which redirection were required to change a dynamic URL into a static URL.

 For example in above image we can see that a dynamic URL got ranking in search results.

3. Mata tags : Titla, Description are very much important for each page, as it clearly defines what each page is talking about. We need to define them effectively so that a proper message can be transferred to users and search engine crawlers  that what they will get when they come to particular page.

Meta keywords used to play an important role in search engine rankings, but Google has stopped giving priority to that. If a webmaster is targeting Google, then he does not have to worry about meta keywords. But it is not harmful to use meta keywords as there are other search engines as well, who do consider keywords as part of their ranking algorithm.

4. Web Content: Content is king online. 

Every search engine looks for fresh, quality and user engaging content. So if you have a very good and quality content written on your website keeping user engagement and interest in mind, you should not be much worry about getting higher search engine visibility.

5. Image Tags : Image tags or Alt tags are attributes assigned with each image present on a webpage. Webmasters should always name all the images properly present on their website and they should try and keep image small in size so that webpage does not become to heavy.

6. Heading Tags: There are six different heading tags present from H1, H2, H3 to H6.

7. Title Attribute : These attributes are basically assigned with links present on webpages. Title attribute helps search engines to know what that link is going to talk about.

8. Sitemap.html and Sitemap.xml file : Both the sitemap are made to make search engines and users journey easy on website.

Sitemap.html file is one stop for users where they can see all the web URL's present on that site. This file also helps from internal link point of view and search engines can easily navigate through the site.

Sitemap.xml file is especially created for search engine crawlers. With this file crawlers come to know about all the links present on website and also the frequency at which they have to revisit the page.

9. Robots.txt : Robots.txt file is created for search engine crawlers to define what all pages they are allowed to crawl or not.

Off-Page SEO: 

With Google algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda, off page activities or link building activities have become very complicated.

Main idea for link building is now to focus on quality and relevancy not on quantity. 

Also user generated content or to be particular social media participation has started playing a big role in search engine rankings.

Best Off-Page techniques :

1. Social networking platforms sharing 
2. Content distribution or syndication on high quality Article Sites, Blogs
3. Social Bookmarking
4. Forum Participation
5. Asset Optimization - Document Sharing, PDF Sharing, PPT Sharing, Press Release, Videos etc
6. Guest Blogging
7. Classifieds
8. Directory Submission - Now a days not much priority is given to these sites

Off-page or link building activities differs as per the industries as it completely depends where exactly your audience is present.

US Government shut down Impact on Online Industry

Government Shut Down Impact on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A shut down of US Government as impacted many US .gov sites where we can easily see a message being populated “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.”

What exactly does US Government shutdown mean?

As per Wikipedia "On October 1, 2013, the United States federal government entered a shutdown suspending discretionary services deemed "non-excepted" by the Anti-deficiency Act. Because of the government's failure to enact regular appropriations or a continuing resolution for the 2014 fiscal year, appropriations have lapsed and about 800,000 federal employees were indefinitely furloughed without pay, while another 1.3 million "excepted" employees were required to report to work indefinitely without pay until a budget is passed."

US government has experience similar situation in year 1995-96.

But as we all know that this situation is not a permanent one and one day all issues will be resolved. Once US government is on track all the .gov sites will again start providing useful and informative information to audience looking for that.

Again for .gov websites there is one issue that once those sites are back it will take time to get crawled and indexed by search engines like Bing and Google.

For such sites, there can be two different solutions :

1) Place a 404 Page : .gov sites should place a 404 error page having a message stating "Page you are looking for is not available" 

2) 302 Redirection : .gov sites can place 302 temporary redirection as well, which will redirect users to home page or error message page.

By implementing above two methods webmasters can ensure that previous URL's will remain the same and they will not lose their audience. 

Get more information on Search Engine Land .