Tuesday, September 27, 2011

5 Things You Should Know About SEO

5 Things You Should Know About SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Before you start hiring an SEO agency to handle your website’s SEO,

there’s these 5 points for you to think about and know.

There's no single Search Engine Optimization strategy.

SEO defined by wikipedia to be a technique of increasing traffic from Search engines to your website. However, how they accomplish that is one of the biggest issue to cause these controversy.

There's no magic involve in Search Engine Optimization

The effectiveness of a search engine optimization campaign is dependent upon your website structure, site content, keywords, strategy used, and how well-liked your website is. Your site is unable to just rank well for virtually any random keyword. Search engine optimization is not magic. It is logic, problem solving, as well as Web marketing being put together. If your website provides no value towards consumers, it most likely will not rank well.

The White hats and The Black hats

There are 'Search Engine Optimization Analyst’ that accomplish search engine optimization and there are others that does search engine manipulation. Not surprisingly, all is marketed as Search engine optimization. Unethical optimization delivers results at any cost but is usually temporary (in most cases leads to a banned domain name). Ethical optimization opens up the site to the search engines like Google and provides long term benefits.

The Grey Areas

The majority of Search engine optimization companies utilize both ethical and unethical inbound linking strategies.To maximize profits, it is quite common for Search engine optimization companies to purchase bulk links from India, links on spam/scraper web sites, or sell large directory submission packages. It is also common for SEO companies to place huge amounts of the contract into inbound linking to make up for the poor quality of the site optimization.

The No Guarantees Policy

The majority of Search engine optimization companies get paid regardless of whether your site gets rank. Regrettably, this is the case with the industry. The payment made to an SEO agency is considered to be payment for work done, and not the end results of the SEO campaign.
Remember, the last person that's making the decision to rank your websites into the search engines is Google.
What SEO Analyst is able to do, is only 'tell' Google that your website is relevant to a certain 'keyword' and your site is beneficial for consumers that are making enquiries for that certain 'keyword'

If you're interested in SEO Services in Singapore, drop us a call.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

How to Include Meta Description on Blogger

Meta Description, though it doesn't place a huge SEO power at Google but more or less it is still essential.

First, a basic understanding of Meta Description.

The Meta description tag is a brief summary of your page's content.

Here is an example of our blog without a meta description. The search engine would take a snippet of content / words from the page and would use it as a description.
And most of the time it might appear slightly weird because words from your drop down menu might be included. *Example above: FAQ | Contact Us

This second example is our website which we include a meta description.
As we can see here, it is much more readable and it's a valid summarize description for readers to understand what the site is about.

Important Tips:

Meta description plays an essential role if you have the intention to rank better in Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.
Even though meta description does not have that power to greatly affect your SEO. But a Good description could help in attracting viewers and traffic towards your website.

How to Include Meta Description on a Blogger Platform

New Interface

Old Interface

Firstly you need to search for this code <head>

And include this following code right after the <head> for your meta description

<meta content='description here' name='description'/>

Now what this does is making every page on your site having the same description.
Which isn't helpful if you have a whole lot of pages.

In terms of SEO, it's best to have a different description for every pages in your site.
Think of it as a catchphrase for the page. You wouldn't want to have too many pages with the same catchphrase.

Setting Different Meta Description For Different Pages on a Blogger Platform

Same thing, but now we need to define which description should appear on which page.

On a blogger platform creating meta description for pages might... just make the codes get slightly overcrowded

You'll need to create a 'condition code' and put the meta description code in between it.

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://blog.awsgseo.com/"'>

<meta content='description here' name='description'/>

</b:if>

Replace http://blog.awsgseo.com/ with the intended page.

Now to create 2 pages with different meta description

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://blog.awsgseo.com/"'>

<meta content='description here' name='description'/>

</b:if>

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == "http://blog.awsgseo.com/blogpost2.html"'>

<meta content='description here' name='description'/>

</b:if>

This is currently the only method of creating different meta description for different pages on a blogger platform.
As we can see, it can get really over crowded as you start filling in different meta description for different pages.

Note:

Each time you create a new page, you'll have to edit your template and add code for that new page as well.
Do not fill your meta description with a keyword spam (It doesn't help) Remember you are targeting viewers with the meta description.

Related Articles:

Creating different title on a Blogger platform

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Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Importance Of Internal Linking For SEO

In Search Engine Optimization (SEO), one of the most important offpage optimization that's always mentioned is backlinks.
Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are incoming links to a website or web page.
Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website's search engine ranking, popularity and importance.

Today we're going to talk about internal linking.
Before we try to explain what does internal linking (onpage backlinking) and external linking (offpage backlinking) have in common.
Keep this one thing in mind. Google treats every page on your website differently, it simply means, a page is a singular platform on its own.

If you noticed, your homepage (Main page) has a Page Rank of 2, it doesn't mean that other pages in the same website shares the same Page Rank.

In a way of interpretation, every new page created on your site holds the potential of creating backlinks towards your website.
It is more or less equivalent to get a backlink from a Page Rank 0 from an external site.

With that explanation in mind, it kind of interprets on why does having a blog and getting fresh content is beneficial for SEO.

How should internal linking be done?
Before creating internal links. Ask yourself this question.
What keywords or phrases is the page that you are linking to, targeting.
And use that keywords or phrases as an anchor text.

Anchor text;
The anchor text, link label or link text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.

example of creating a hyperlink anchor text:

<a href="http://www.awsgseo.com">SEO Services</a>

The phrase in bold, is the anchor text.

Internal linking is as important towards SEO, and also for your viewers.
It helps viewers to find your page in your website better.
And it also keeps your viewers in your website longer.

So, take your time now and browse through your website. Find the potential of creating an internal linking network and watch your rankings move up a few places in Search Engines.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Search Engine Optimization Singapore

Why we call it Search Engine Optimization Singapore?

Firstly, we're going to only talk about Google. Why? Cause we are really good in SEOs only for Google.
(Hey we are honest.)Once you're rank in Google, you could almost rank in other major search engines.

Before we get to that, let's talk about something simple.
Ever notice when you do searches on Google, the ads showing are mostly only advertisers from Singapore?

Ever wonder why it's always www.google.com.sg? no matter from which system your accessing to Google.
(Well this doesn't work if you're not in Singapore.)

Now with these few simple Questions, let's move on.

It's not about cookies,
Google knows where your accessing the web from, by the ip from your internet service provider. (Unless of course you knew how to use a VPN service. Totally another story)

Now, how would knowing this helps in Search Engine Optimization Singapore?

Think Local.

If let's say your business is only targeting the locals in Singapore. Would you want your site to rank first page, let's say somewhere in India Google?

It totally defeats the purpose of ranking first page, if it's totally on another country's Google.

Why Optimize for Local Search Engines?

It is relevant, (As we mention above)
It is easier. (We're not competing with the whole world, but just locally)

Next is, how? Do we optimize locally?

A Minor tweak towards your SEO Campaign.

Take the perspective of a consumer locally, how would they search for your service or product?

What are the phrases or keywords they will search for?

On Majority base, they will include a local keyword some sort of an 'anchor' word that they'll use in their searches.

Ring any bell?

The word 'Singapore' or the 'area' that they are in, for example, ang mo kio, tampiness, jurong... etc..

By including these 'anchor' words in the keyword phrases that you are targeting, could hugely improve on your visibility towards local searches.

Now let's take a look at the contrast here, on why that 'anchor' word could make the whole difference in your SEO.

If someone in New York was looking for a Dog trainer, they would search for "Dog trainer in New York"

But for someone in Singapore it'll be a whole different story. It might be "Dog trainer in Ang Mo Kio"

The anchor word of "New York" or "Ang Mo Kio" makes a whole big difference in search engine.

Domain Name Registration

This next part, is slightly easier

".com" ".com.sg"

See the difference? You could register a domain name with a ".com.sg" at local web providers. Would cost roughly around 40 - 70 dollars. (last I checked.)

But, let's share a little secret that Local SEO wouldn't want to tell you directly.

".com" and ".com.sg" doesn't make that much of a difference, if your SEO campaign is tweak locally it doesn't matter if your website ends with a ".com"

The benefits of a ".com.sg"

It is slightly easier to Optimize for locally
Consumers know they are at a local website just by looking at the site address.

Summarize on Search Engine Optimization Singapore

Target Keywords Phrases Towards Local Consumer
A ".com.sg" Domain name

*This search optimization tips, is merely towards your on-page SEO

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Search Engine Optimization Tips: Wordpress title tag

The beauty of Wordpress (One of the simplest platform to create a good SEO)

Quote Wikipedia "WordPress is used by over 14% of Alexa Internet's "top 1 million" websites"

Title tags and meta description are 2 of the most important 'tools' that should be used in SEO but almost always are being ignored.

As we can see here, in a search results page on Google.

The one in the red box, is actually the title and the one in blue is the meta description.

The biggest advantages of title and meta description is that, it is not only used to improve your overall SEO but it also can be use to attract viewers towards your website.

Search Engine Optimization Tips:

Keywords that you are targeting must at least appear on your title and your meta description once.
Every page on your website / blog should have a different title and meta description to target different keywords
Do not forget you're attracting viewers to your website and not only Google bots so do make sure both the Title and Meta description are readable and interesting.

When it comes to Wordpress, we're talking about plug-ins. And here's one that I highly recommend to make your search engine optimization easier.

Platinum SEO Pack Plugin

Every new post you create, allows you to have an option to fill in your Title and Description.
This is especially great for those who have little or no idea of HTML.
With this you are ensure that you're able to create a different title tag for every page on your website easily.

You're also able to edit previous / existing post or pages in your site / blog.

The beauty of this is it allows you to create a different title tag from your post title making it possible for you to create an interesting post title but also having a SEO keyword rich title tag.

Download Platinum SEO Pack Plugin

Title Optimization On Blogger Platform

Sunday, September 4, 2011

How To Improve SEO With Title Tweaks On Blogspot

Creating different title on a Blogger platform

requires a slight knowledge of HTML

If you search somewhere below your <head>
You'll find this code <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

With this code, it means every page that you create will have your blog title infront, following by your page title. Which is the blog post title you've created.

The Red Box indicates the title for the post

Now in the search results this won't appear to be captivating especially if you have a long blog title just like the example above.
Due to the limitations on the number of words that's allowed by search engines. Your title on search results might just not appear the way you want it and this isn't quite SEO friendly.

To optimize this you'll need to search somewhere below your

<head>

You're required to replace this code

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index"'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>

What this code means is, other then the homepage, the other pages will have their title as their page title.
Great Search Engine Optimization for your website or blogs.

Title Optimization on Wordpress Platform

Tuesday, September 27, 2011