search engines

Blog Writing 101: How To Satisfy Readers And Deliver Top 10 Google Rankings

by Paul Joseph July 21, 2011 Featured

My name is Ana Hoffman , and if I learned anything after many years of building an online empire, it’s this: the online business industry is a scary place. A place where many a mighty business owner has fallen. Including me. That’s right, I’ve had some online business flops in the past, until one day I realized that my business was only as good as the number of eyes that saw it on a daily basis. That’s why I started the Traffic Generation Cafe blog, focusing on various free traffic generation methods like search engine traffic, social media traffic, networking, as well as how to convert that traffic into subscribers and buyers. In six quick months, my blog grew to be an authority on traffic generation. My blog’s traffic (I was ranked under 15K on Alexa ), reader engagement, and sales showed me that I was on the right track. This might all seem foreign to you. Stick with me and it will soon become second nature. Now let’s get down to business. Content is the main driving force behind any blog’s success. That’s it? That’s the premise for my post? You bet. And if all of us already know that and are putting it into practice back on your blogs, then why are so many blogs still failing? Why are so many blogs not generating even measly amounts of traffic? Why are you here looking for answers or pearls of wisdom to take back to your business? Your content is the single most important driving force that will determine whether your readers stay, share, and convert into buyers or subscribers, period. But that’s not the only thing that matters. Your readers are the ones to determine if your content is up to par, but the search engines, Google in particular, are the ones to decide if your content is good enough to bring you those readers to begin with. So you see, our goal as bloggers should clearly be to always serve two masters: Google and our readers . I can already hear the objections coming in. Isn’t it an oxymoron, you say? Writing personable content that attracts human interest, brings about discussions, connects with the reader on a deep personal level and keyword-stuffed metric-based content that would rank highly on Google? I agree this used to be the case. However, in the new post-Panda world Google tells us louder and more clear than ever: it wants to serve its searchers the kind of content the searchers want to read – unique, beneficial, and productive. When Google sends you organic search engine traffic, it wants to make sure that the search engine visitors are happy with what they find on your blog and don’t come back to Google searching for the same query. Thus, you do your job of delivering superb content right and satisfy the searchers looking for answers, and Google will happily send you even more traffic. Turns out that serving two masters in this particular case goes hand in hand. Killing two birds with one stone – how much more efficient can it get? So let’s take a look at what specifically we, the bloggers, need to pay attention to when writing that new killer post of ours. I am basing my conclusions on this SEOmoz report on search engine ranking factors . If it isn’t the holy grail of search engine rankings and how to draw the most traffic from it, then it’s as close as we can ever get to it. Uniqueness Of Content This might’ve not been as strong of a factor in pre-Panda times. (If you need more information on what on earth I refer to as “ Panda Update “, here’s the most coherent resource on the subject: Finding more high-quality sites in search – and it’d better be since it comes from the official Google blog). According to the above-mentioned SEOmoz report, the collective opinion of 132 SEO experts polled assign the uniqueness of content across the whole site 89 points out of 100 . Unique content was the most original marketing tool back in the 1990s and it’s, once again, taking its well-deserved place as one of the most significant positive indicators of the quality of the entire site. While many bloggers continued to stand firm on the principle of consistently producing unique content, many took the easier way of jumping on the bandwagon of flavor-of-the-month promotion techniques, thus diluting the core principle that goes to the heart of blogging “ Thou shall not produce the kind of content thou wouldn’t want to read yourself “. What would one refer to as “ unique content “? What might be the characteristics both your readers and the search engines are looking to find on your site? In the broadest terms, it’s the kind of content not found on the multitude of other sites . If I see another post on “ 15 Ways to Get Facebook Fans ” or “ How to Guest Post “, I am going to scream. I am not saying you have to invent something new every time you write a post, but a new angle on the old tired topic is in order at the very least. Onsite Duplicate Content: When Google crawls your site and sees that two out of three pages are duplicates of the first one, they will drop those two pages from rankings and will assume your site has a lot less unique content to offer than it actually does. Read Duplicate Content Phantom: Don’t Be Duped, Be Informed for more information and fix whatever issues you might have on your blog. Advertising: Yes, the amount of advertising on your site does matter – both to Google and your readers. The larger your Adsense and other advertisement blocks are, the less space you devote to your content = the less unique content you’ll appear to have. That’s precisely why some sites suffered in Panda update – not because they didn’t have unique content, but because their content to advertising ratio was too low. Freshness Of Content Freshness of content on the site got 75 points out of 100 – the second most significant signal among non-keyword related on-page factors. This signal also happens to have a direct affect on how much traffic your website gets. Want to see your blog traffic double? Double the number of your posts . ( Disclosure: don’t hold me to the exact number. ) That’s exactly what I did at my Traffic Generation Cafe blog back in October and I saw for myself what wonders it did for my traffic generation. I, since then, decided to take a little summer break and cut down to posting only three – four times a week and watched my traffic take a hit. It makes sense, right? The more fresh posts you have, the more reason your readers will have to come back on a regular, even daily basis – provided that you are meeting the threshold of unique content on your site. So if you are currently posting two times per week, try to post at least four times; if you are posting four times, try to publish everyday. It might sound like a lot, but remember: your brain is a muscle and, with due practice, it’ll be spitting out the needed amount of posts in no time. Length Of Content Aha – here comes a surprising factor. It appears that the majority of the 132 SEO experts think that the longer your posts are , the better chance they have to rank higher , thus bringing you more search engine traffic. Length of content on the page got 57 out of 100 . Once again, it makes perfect sense. The longer the post is, the more potential value it will deliver to the readers. So what to do if your primary methods of communication with your readers include videos, audios, cartoons, infographs, etc.? Try to beef it up by including scripts, captions, and explanations. And no, it’s not a concession to Google and other search engines – you’ll be providing a valuable alternative to those readers who still prefer to… well, read. I know, I am one of them, and I always appreciate it when a video is followed by a script. Marketing Takeaway I hate cliches, and I am sure I am not alone on this one, but in this particular case I have to resort to the old and true “ Content is (still) king ” motto. Yes, we all know it, but now we also have reasons to actually do it. And in the end, wouldn’t it be a win-win situation for everybody? Stay tuned for my future posts where we will be discussing why your content is the cornerstone of social media sharing and link building, and how to improve it to get more of both. Ana Hoffman Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: book, business, content, internet, online, reader, search engines, search-engine, seo, small-business, traffic

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Implement a Bidirectional Lead Generation Strategy

by Paul Joseph July 20, 2011 Featured

Effectively generating leads is critical for most young businesses and entrepreneurs and the ability to execute in this area can often be a significant factor in the business successfully getting past the startup stage. One way that we can improve the probability of consistently producing quality leads is to implement a bidirectional lead generation strategy. Bidirectional? It can be common for businesses to only have one main process in place for generating leads.  For example, a business may only have a strategy in place to produce leads by cold calling.  And it is certainly good to at least be investing in one method or process to produce leads, but it can also be advantageous to implement a bidirectional strategy when focused building a business. A bidirectional lead gen strategy is a strategy that focuses on creating processes to produce leads from both outbound and inbound methods.  In this context, outbound refers to activities that proactively reach out to prospects to generate leads and inbound refers to activities that create a lure to draw in prospects so that they end up contacting the business. Outbound Lead Generation The more traditional ways of generating leads fall under the outbound lead gen methods category.  These involve activities to proactively reach out to connect with prospects to attempt to trigger interest and create leads. Cold calling: The most common method for generating leads is cold calling.  This is the simple act of having sales resources pick up the phone and make calls against a cold list of target prospects with the goal of creating interest and finding opportunities. Cold walking: Not to be confused with door-to-door sales, cold walking is similar to cold calling except it takes place in person.  This would involve stopping by an office or business where a target prospect is located and asking to speak with the target contact in person versus over the phone. Direct mail: Direct mail is act of producing marketing and advertising materials and sending them to prospects through the physical mail system.  This is one way to reach prospects but research shows that the response rate is very low. Email marketing: Email marketing is the new form of direct mail as it is a way to blast messages and promotions to prospects to stay in contact and create leads.  This is method can have a similar response rate as direct mail but able to be done at a fraction of the cost. Inbound Lead Generation With advancements in web-based technologies, we now have options to implement inbound lead generation activities.  These are where we use web-based systems and post information in places so that prospects come to you.  Below is a summary of two key inbound methods: Social media: Social media refers to all of the different web-based and mobile technologies that enable individuals and businesses to network and communicate amongst each other.  These tools provide great platforms for entrepreneurs to connect with prospects and to passively post and share information.  When done correctly, using social media can be a method to draw in prospects so that they contact you resulting in lead generation. Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization is the activity of building out or improving a business’ website so it is valued and recognized by search engines.  There are very specific things you can do to improve the value that search engines place on your site and get it ranked better than your competitors, which means you will come up higher on your prospect’s web searches.  This will increase the level of targeted traffic that comes to your site and will have a direct improvement on your inbound lead generation. Creating bidirectional traffic for your businesses lead generation, you can improve results and ensure your business will get to the next level.  Do you have a bidirectional lead gen strategy?  Share your comments below! Michael Halper is Founder and CEO of Launch Pad Solutions, LLC, a sales consulting and outsourcing firm that helps businesses to take off and get to the next level. Read more about Michael here .

Tagged as: business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, management, phone, sales, search engines, social

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How Entrepreneurs Adapt To Change

by Paul Joseph June 14, 2011 Featured

Nostalgia is a wistful yearning for the past, an almost childish desire to have the world unchanged, constant, secure as it once used to be. It’s an emotion most of us feel for different things – but that can be deadly and dangerous for an entrepreneur to feel about business. Because change is constant in a business environment. Being willing, even eager, to embrace and adapt to change is a serious competitive edge for any entrepreneur. Welcoming trend shifts, positioning yourself to stay on top of them, and striving to remain ahead of your competition are all functions of such readiness to change. The changes you’re forced to face, accept and adapt to may be big or small. For this very column I’m writing for Yaro’s blog, I have a plan and outline of topics to cover. But after reading Yaro’s interesting insights into how he is planning to change his blog profit model , I changed my schedule to write this post! Some changes are major and serious. They can have a significant impact on your business – and there’s no saying if it will be positive or negative. If you read the comments on Yaro’s post , you’ll see how mixed the reactions are. Can you imagine being in his shoes, wondering what to do next? There’s income at risk, an audience who may leave, a brand that could become diluted. . . and maybe more at stake. Yet embracing change, trying new things and growing in some ways are mandatory choices every entrepreneur must make . My mentor Jay Abraham says about business, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying!” So stagnation, or a wishful longing for ‘constancy’, is the kiss of death for your business ventures. Let’s look at why and how you change, and maybe it will encourage you to make those changes more confidently and securely. Evolution Depending upon how long ago you started your entrepreneurial journey, you may look back and wonder at how far you’ve come. Not just by way of business growth, but how much you personally have changed, improved, grown. That’s evolution. It’s what sets apart the more seasoned business owner from the raw greenhorn. And because everyone of us evolves, we internally drive certain changes in our business and related pursuits. These are some of those factors that will power change in your business: More Knowledge And Experience When I started my Internet infopreneur voyage , I didn’t even know if writing was my strong suit. It was a carefree step taken into an exciting new Web based world that was just opening its doors to new citizens. By constant practice and incremental improvement, I grew better at expressing my thoughts, opinions and feelings in writing. This led to more people reading what I had to say. Some of them were publishers of bigger websites, and it led to my being invited to write for them. Watching how a large infopreneur business like About.com was run gave precious insights that could be used in building and growing a smaller operation. And that’s how my own information business started. As my knowledge and experience grew, I made changes more swiftly, effectively and confidently. Some of them worked. Others didn’t. By weeding out the ‘losers’ and keeping (and scaling) the ‘winners’, my infopreneur business grew over 15 years to where it is today – raising enough money to fund 78 heart operations for under-privileged children with congenital heart defects . Investment Capital When setting out to launch my online business, I had to bootstrap my way and set a limit on expenses. So I decided they would always be less than my earnings! Now, looking back, that was probably not a smart decision. But way back when I had zero experience as a business owner, and not even a vague concept of what it takes to build and run an online business, this sounded like a reasonable approach, and so I followed it. My very first purchase was a $19 ebook, “Make Your Site Sell” by Dr. Ken Evoy , and it came after I had spent two YEARS as an information marketer. What I learned in it literally tripled my income, and that funded many more purchases, each of which grew my results to a higher level. More recently, I worked on a new project to develop 50 niche websites, all at once. Without a budget to spend on outsourcing content creation, buying domains and web hosting, and marketing the sites to rank well on search engines, this project would have been a non-starter. Sometimes having money available to throw at a project changes the scale, scope and nature of what you can attempt. Changing Needs And Goals In an earlier post, we discussed the purpose of your business – and how that purpose evolves over time. Your own needs and goals from your business are changing all the time. And five years from now, you’ll most probably find that the targets you set yourself today are completely different from what you want then. In 2001, when I launched my first foray into becoming a serious information marketer and built a portfolio of infoproducts, my goal was to be able to fund one heart operation from business profits. Ten years later, as I detailed in my book “47 Hearts – How to live your dreams, with passion, purpose and persistence” , this goal has grown to funding 47 operations every year. Your goals and purpose will be different. But they will also change. Your personal choices will not be constant. You may get married or divorced, have kids or change jobs, move to another country or find a new passion. And your priorities will shift. Your business goal posts will move to fit the new realities. Adaptation All of these are ‘internal’ factors, determined by what happens to you and therefore impacts your business. But you and your business do not exist in splendid isolation. You’re a part of a complex, interactive and ever-shifting universe, and external factors influence your decisions in a major way too. Your success – even survival – depends upon how well you can adapt to them. These are some of the issues that may force you to adapt and modify what you’re currently doing: Technology Every online entrepreneur is affected by technology. We love it, because technology streamlines and fuels most of our daily activity. We fear it, because it changes so rapidly, often leaving the older versions in the dust. Sometimes today’s technology fades a little in significance. At other times, it gets totally decimated by new developments. If you run an online business that is rooted in old technology, change is forced upon you – becoming a ‘do or die’ situation. Competition While it may not be true of some niches, the explosive and continuous growth of Web usage has led to growing competition in many areas. Where there used to be five competitors, there are now 50 – or even 500. Where only novices were competing against other beginners, today there are established behemoth business giants entering (or getting entrenched) in the online marketplace. Smart entrepreneurs will always adapt and compete efficiently. It may be through re-defining the market they target, or re-positioning their offer to be more attractive and appealing, or even by re-aligning and partnering with the bigger competitor with deeper pockets. Regardless of how you adapt, competition forces you to start changing. The status quo just got a lot more shaky and uncertain! Customer Demands Sometimes it’s better NOT to know how the future will be! Way back when I started, my naive goal was to build an automated information marketing system, grow it to hit an income target of $X, and then let it run on auto-pilot, while I used the revenue to fund my non-profit project upon which I would concentrate all my resources. If I had known how things would turn out, I might never have started! Sure, my information business has grown. But not automatically. Not in a way that can run hands-free. And not so that I can totally walk away from it and focus exclusively on other things. That’s because my clients’ needs are changing, shifting, moving with the marketplace. To stay viable, competitive and useful, what I do for them must change to mirror their new requirements. And your customers are the same. What they wanted three years back is different from what they want today. If you only keep offering them the “same old”, they’re going somewhere else for what it is they want now! Business Environment One more factor that thrusts unwelcome change upon entrepreneurs is the broader shift in a business environment. If you’ve been in your online business for over ten years, you’ll recall the ‘dot bomb’ catastrophe of 2000, and how the ridiculous “freebies for eyeballs” concept imploded spectacularly. Even if you launched your online business three years back, you’ve weathered the rough seas of a global recession that has eaten badly into the profitability and sales of many information marketers, forcing many to close doors or move into other ventures. So How To Deal With Change? Simple. Accept it. Evolve. Adapt. Yaro’s excellent post shares some of the ways he adapted to these changes . Curiously enough, about a year earlier I went through nearly all the same steps – selling off unused domain names, whittling down my Aweber database, selling off unproductive or stale projects, streamlining Web hosting (I had six different services, some with more than two accounts!), canceling paid subscriptions and more. A few years back, after seeing the shenanigans going on in the ‘make money online IM’ space and no longer wanting to be associated with them, I chose to re-brand myself as an ‘Internet infopreneur’ instead of ‘Internet marketer’ – and that helped a lot in changing perception. The exact steps you’ll take will depend upon you, your business and your attitude towards change. But taking those steps is no longer an option – it has become a necessity. Remember: If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying! Dr. Mani Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: business, daily, environment, internet, online, personal, project, search engines, small-business

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What Drives You To Do What You Do?

by Paul Joseph April 5, 2011 Featured

Every morning, we wake up and get ready to do some things. Often those things revolve around our job, our business or our hobbies. Day after day, week after week, year after year, we do them. Why? What drives you to do what you do? Sometimes it is necessity. Sometimes it is passion. Even curiosity, compulsion or coercion. But when you take a closer look, it becomes obvious that all this is driven by something more abstract, that is unique and special to the human state. And that is… Your Purpose. What Is Purpose? Some define it narrowly as being like a goal or target, a point to aim for and reach in whatever you do. A purpose is indeed like that, in one sense – yet different. It is more. It has wider implications. It has higher meaning. It has greater impact. From a broader perspective, it is the axle around which the wheel of your life revolves – and without which it will spin out of control and meander aimlessly away into a meaningless void. Because “purpose” is your essential “reason why” . It is your motivating force, your invigorating energy, your inner fuel that fires your engines. Purpose is what drives you to do what you already do – and want to keep doing. And that’s a good reason for every entrepreneur to introspect from time to time upon what their purpose is. It isn’t always glaringly obvious, but shows up when you take the effort to look for it and give it a clearer shape and form. How exactly is ‘purpose’ different from other things that are similar – like ‘goals’ and ‘targets’? There are at least four ways your purpose is unique. Your Purpose Goes Deeper Let’s take an example that many readers are familiar with – making money. It’s one of the reasons we became entrepreneurs, if not the only (or most important) one. Perhaps you set out with a goal to reach. Was it a million dollars? Or ten? Or a more modest figure that meets all your income needs? Whatever that number was, that was your goal. Your purpose, however, is the reason why you chose that figure. It could be that you felt it will leave you financially independent or debt free. You may have set that target because you wanted to earn enough to meet all your household needs, or to finance the dreams you had for your children and loved ones. Maybe you calculated what it costs to buy a house, afford college, take an annual vacation, travel around the world…whatever. That deeper ‘why’ is your purpose. Your Purpose Will Evolve No matter how high, impossible and unreachable your goals and targets seem today, sooner or later you’ll reach them. Now let’s say everything went well with your endeavor and your business grew by leaps and bounds to hit that goal in just 5 years. Great news, right? So what do you do next? Do you retire or sell off your business, and holiday the rest of your life? Sure, some people do that. But many continue – because by then, their purpose has evolved . What started out as merely bringing in enough income to meet your family’s basic needs now grows into wanting to provide them with small luxuries, to save up enough for future security, to extend their advantages and comforts in multiple other ways. Your purpose is essentially the same – to provide for yourself and your family. But it has also evolved to do it better, on a larger scale, in many new ways. Your Purpose Will Expand And Extend When I first started writing, it was more as an escape from becoming a mono-maniac, obsessed with only one facet of my life (as many medical doctors are). I wanted to do something outside of my professional work. So I wrote. When I realized that I was good at it, that purpose expanded to an idea of writing for money – and using that money to fund a dream project , and help children with congenital heart defects who could not afford treatment. My purpose expanded, and my writing now took on interesting new directions and form. Years later, I had another ‘Aha’ moment while reading a book by Seth Godin called ‘Linchpin’ , when I saw how my writing, and the purpose-driven information business that grew up around it was itself serving to inspire many more people to do something like it with their business and skills! It is this extension of the purpose of my writing that led me to pen this column every week – because it gives me a chance to share this with a large audience that Yaro Starak has grown over years. Your Purpose Will Endure A final distinction between a ‘goal’ or a ‘target’ and your deeper ‘purpose’ is that the latter will last longer . Once you’ve reached it, a goal or target becomes moot. No matter how high you set the bar, you will jump over it at some point in your future. I was reading a fascinating article about Google co-founder Larry Page in FAST COMPANY magazine. Now, by any financial yardstick, we can agree that Page has no monetary reasons to continue to want to work, right? Well, he’s still as passionate as ever for things he wants to accomplish through Google. And many of them have little or nothing to do with ‘search engines’, or even making more money. Guy Kawasaki’s fascinating book “The Art of the Start” (which I believe every entrepreneur should read at least once), taught me one powerful lesson: Make Meaning, Not Money. As a young adult, I had a plaque on my desk where Charlie Brown says: “Don’t forget, money isn’t everything.” In smaller print, beside it, were Lucy’s words: “But don’t forget to make a lot of it before talking such nonsense!” My point is that sometimes it takes money to make meaning. But recognizing and being constantly aware of that meaning is important – and in my opinion, even vital – for the success and growth of any enterprise, even profit-centric business ventures. That’s why I advise my mentorees to always tap into two powerful forces – passion and purpose – in everything they do or plan in their online business. These two have provided me with a competitive edge that has sustained my Internet based efforts for 15 years, in a niche where the average attrition rate over three years is 97% or higher. Passion is powerful. Purpose is enduring. Together, they can help you move mountains. Or build another Google. And make meaning while you do. Dr. Mani Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

Tagged as: book, business, entrepreneur, online, opinion, search engines, young

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7 of the Biggest SEO Mistakes Most People don’t Know they’re Making

by Paul Joseph March 21, 2011 Featured

It’s been said that the first page of search engine results is the most highly coveted real estate on the Internet. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of websites exist for the same keywords, but only around 10 can appear on page one for a given search. Perhaps even more infuriating is that there is no way to pay for a front page listing, and no definitive guide for getting there every time — you just have to figure out how to rank well on your own, which can be pretty scary for a new business without much SEO experience. Thankfully, you don’t need to pay an expensive consultant, or trust the mystified “secrets” of SEO charlatans promising to reveal “Google’s top-secret algorithm” at an exorbitant price. The following tips for avoiding big SEO mistakes can put your website on the path to the top. Furthermore, so few website owners take the time to address all of these issues that simply correcting them all will put you lightyears ahead of the competition. Not Writing Content for the Human Reader High keyword density (the number of times a keyword appears in your content) is no longer a deciding factor in search ranking. In the past, it was common to stuff your website content with the keyword you wanted to rank for, and begin to see results. Today, this misguided strategy not only doesn’t work, but could begin to hurt your ranking. Why? Because search engines have gotten smarter. Search engines, especially Google, now use Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms to analyze the text on a website and determine if it sounds the way a person would naturally write. In other words, Google can tell if you purposely filling your content with awkwardly placed keywords in an attempt to game the system and rank high. Don’t focus on having your main keywords appear as many times as possible, strive instead to create quality content written for a human reader, and you will be rewarded by the search bots. Ignoring HTML Errors It’s a fact — Google’s ranking algorithm hates HTML errors. Having errors on your page will count against you and could cause your rank to fall significantly, even if many other of your on-page factors are good. Unfortunately, website owners may not even know if their site contains errors, because web browsers don’t always show problems when you view a page. A great way to find and correct HTML problems is to make use of the free W3C HTML compliance checking tool . Simply input your website address and the tool will scan your page for errors and report back how many problems there are, and where in the code they exist. This makes it easy to find and fix any issues you may have before beginning your full-forced SEO push. Not Checking URL Canonicalization Have you ever noticed that there are two ways you can type in a website address? You could type “www . YourWebsite . com,” or you could simply type “YourWebsite . com.” While both of these URLs may resolve to the same website, they are actually different website addresses in the eyes of the search engines. As you build out your website, publish content and seek inbound links, your link total will actually get split in half, as some bloggers will type your URL with the “www” prefix, and others will leave it off. The solution is to tell the search engines to group both URLs together using a 301 redirect from one to the other. This is called URL canonicalization, and it can double your search engine power when done properly. It does not matter which URL — “www . YourWebsite . com” or “YourWebsite . com” you choose to redirect to the other, all that matters is that the redirect is a 301 (or permanent redirect). Any other redirect type will not work. Reciprocal Linking You have probably wondered how you will go about getting links from other bloggers and thought about offering an exchange — “You link to me and I’ll link to you, and we will both benefit.” Logical as this may seem, it won’t help your search ranking one bit. This strategy is known as reciprocal linking (two sites that link to each other), and is ignored by Google. When you link to a site that is linking to you, the links cancel each other out, and neither site gets the SEO benefit. Putting Important Content in AJAX AJAX is a great tool for making your website very pretty and user-friendly, and is a common staple of today’s Internet. If you put the wrong content in AJAX, however, it can negatively effect your SEO efforts. AJAX works by reaching into a server and pulling content out to display on demand, without having to refresh the web page. This means that this content is not readily available for search engine bots to scan, and will be skipped entirely when the they index your website. Imagine if 70% of your homepage was done in AJAX (not uncommon these days), and most of your important, descriptive content was containing within this framework. That would mean that almost all of your website would go unseen by the search engines, making you look irrelevant to all of your keywords. Avoid this problem by making sure you have your most important content in actual, on-page text. AJAX is great for some jobs, but don’t over-use it or your site will be invisible to Google’s ranking system. Using Keywords in the Wrong Context Google now looks as much at the text surrounding the keyword as they do the keyword itself. This is an attempt to determine the overall theme of a website — essentially asking “what is this site mostly about?” Therefore, if you’re trying to rank for a keyword such as “health insurance policy,” but your website publishes a lot of content about movie reviews to get traffic flowing in, Google will take notice that your target keyword appears in an irrelevant place. In the above example, the search engine will scan all of the content on your website in an attempt to theme it, and will deduce that it’s a “movie review” website. Therefore, if every movie review ends with a quick blurb about getting your “free health insurance quote,” it will devalue that keyword placement as irrelevant to the rest of the website. Additionally, inbound links from totally irrelevant sources are valued less than those from relevant websites. Make sure that your website is themed around the keywords you’re aiming to rank for to make the most of your written content. Focusing too Much on On-Page Factors While on-page factors — the elements of your website that you can control — such as HTML errors and keyword context are important to SEO, they are only a small part of a much bigger picture. Think about it — if there was a recipe you could follow to make your site rank on the first page, the search engine results would be a joke. They would be dominated not by the best, most relevant and helpful websites, but by whatever businesses cracked the mystery code and slid their site onto page one. Needless to say, this is antithetical to the search engine philosophy. To solve this problem, search engines now rank a site largely based on the number of other sites that link to it. The idea here is that if other people find your website helpful or entertaining enough to recommend that their visitors check it out, it must be worthwhile. Therefore, it must be stressed that the majority of your SEO efforts should be spent seeking inbound links, not endlessly tweaking your own website. On-page optimization should be thought of a quick prerequisite to getting links, and quickly taken care of early on. About the Author: Jerrimie Allen is a freelance writer for Invesp. Invesp helps businesses improve their online revenue, reduce customer acquisition cost, and provide their visitors with a better user experience through landing page optimization .

Tagged as: code, entrepreneur, internet, real-estate, search, search engines, seo, time, words

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