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Search Engine Optimization is a significant way to measure and improve a webpage’s performance. By now, you are probably familiar with basic SEO techniques such as posting quality content, writing full-length articles, adding meta tags, title tags, etc. In reality, there are many different techniques that help users position their web pages ahead of other websites in search engines. During the initial stages of posting articles, quality and relevant content can draw traffic to one’s website; however, using advanced SEO techniques can help users drive traffic consistently for a long-lasting campaign. This article enumerates some of the advanced SEO tricks that would help bloggers to showcase their web pages to a broad spectrum of internet users.

Utilize Internal Linking

Providing internal links is one the easiest ways to rank higher in the search engines. In fact, internal
links help to popularize the other pages in your website which might have poor visibility through search
engines directly. Linking internally will also help you to list several links from your website in the search
pages, thereby increasing the chances for viewers to visit your contents. In addition, the use of anchor
tags in internal links boosts the search engine rankings as well.

Optimize Your Images

As images visually represent the content of a blog post, they too need proper keywords and tags. In fact,
about one-fifth of the daily users search for images related to their needs. You might have noticed the
name of certain images represented as image 1, image 2, DSC002, etc., which are the default names
assigned by the tools used to photograph them. Such default text should be renamed with words
relevant to your content. Only then, these images will be listed in the top pages of the search engines
when users search with keywords related to the content in your webpage.

Another common mistake that most bloggers commit is the use of blank spaces while naming their
images. A blank space in an image will be displayed as “%20″ which looks awkward, especially in the
address bar. Instead, use special characters like hyphens or plus signs for keyword spacing. If you are using
blogger to post your content, add ‘alt’ and ‘title’ attributes to the image tag through its HTML source
code.

Translate Feature

If you think that majority of the internet users make their searches in the international language, then
you are wrong. In fact, certain sources predict that more than 60 percent of the total users perform
their searches using languages other than English. Translating your content to other languages will open
up your web pages to a broad spectrum of visitors, not to mention there is less competition in foreign
search engines when compared to the conventional ones, thereby making it easier for your webpage to
climb higher in the search list.

Optimize keyword phrases

If you are familiar with the basics of SEO techniques, you should know the significance of keywords and where to include them on your site and in content. However, keyword phrases are mutually important as well.

The use of generalized keywords would drive a lot of traffic; but, as several blogs and web pages use
similar keywords, chances for your page to rise amidst the others are less likely. That’s when keyword
phrases help users to boost their content’s visibility and proceed forward in the ranking system as well.
Most content creators target users who make their searches with one or two words. But, you would be
much more successful if you target users who type 3 to 4 words to make their searches that are very
specific to their needs.

Utilize Free Resources

There are several analyzing programs available over the internet. In fact, some of the best tools are
available for free. To mention a few, Google Analytics & GoogSpy are some of the dedicated online services that collects information
about the popular keywords which are used in a popular search engine. Typing the words related
to a website would bring a list of keywords that the particular website bids on. In fact, users can get
information about the best keywords and keyword phrases that have high conversion rates. There are
several other free applications that would help you learn the practical keywords in use.

Examine Log Files

A casual glance at your server’s log files could provide you useful information about the keywords that are being used to find your website through search engines. If you find unfamiliar keywords in these files, optimizing them in your website will boost traffic further. This process should be done periodically to increase traffic consistently.

The above tips have the potential to help you boost your webpage’s ranking and traffic in search engines. However, don’t expect changes to happen overnight. Keep an eye out for potential areas to optimize your website and improve accordingly. After all, learning and implementing SEO techniques requires time and dedication for successful results.

About the author: Alia Haley is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology, health and parenting. Beside this she is fond of games and gadgets. These days she is busy in writing articles on nokia lumia 800 specifications and Andrew Lauren.

First of all, happy ‘leap’ day to everyone out there, especially those with birthdays today. To make this day even more special, we are going to start offering a free months credit for every person that you refer to LotusJump SEO software. All you have to do is send us an email at support@lotusjump.com (including the name and email address used by your referral to sign up for an account) and we will credit* that amount to your account. If you do not already have an account with us, sign up for a free trial and we will extend it an extra 30 days. Happy link-building!

Sincerely,

Your friends from LotusJump

*Referral bonus only applies to subscribers who continue past any trial phase offered

Millions of businesses throughout the world rely heavily on traffic generated through the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!,  Bing) to generate traffic and sales, which is why the latest Google Panda(monium) update has led to chaos around the web. The update, designed to improve the overall search quality for users, was said to have affected over 12% of website rankings. This figure could be on the rise as newer (but smaller) updates seem to be released monthly.

• Original Content - High-quality, unique content has been (and always will be) the way to go when publishing content on a website. One of the biggest reasons sites were penalized was due to a lack of original, unique content. Spend the necessary time to ensure you don’t violate this website “code of conduct” and strive to have at least 500 words of content on your homepage, as well as the rest of your product/service sub-pages. If you are using content that is found on a different site, be sure to link to it and give credit to the source.
• Relevance - This one may sound like a “no-brainer” but you’d be surprised at how many sites there are that don’t match up the title tags/header tags with the content on the page. For example, if your site has a product page about dog food, make sure that the title tags, meta description, and headline tags contain the words “dog food” (hopefully a little more descriptive than that) in them.
• Backlink Profile -Search engines still rely heavily on a website’s link profile to determine how well the keywords rank. Strive to build a diverse backlink profile - don’t try and build all of your links from the same type of source. If you need help finding relevant places to build links, there are a few quality SEO softwares out there that can help. Also strive to integrate social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) into your business since any mentions of your brand via these mediums can lead to positive outcomes.
• Keyword Density/Variation - Don’t try and abuse or manipulate the system by spamming your keywords throughout your site’s content - search engines grow smarter by the minute and can almost always detect this. Instead, shoot to use your keyword (in different variations) about 2% of the total content. So if you are targeting a search term such as “weight loss pill”, use phrases such as “pill that can assist in weight loss” or “losing weight is a problem we all face. Fortunately, there are pills…”.
• Professionalism - Or in other words, make sure that the written content is grammatically correct without any misspellings, sentence fragments, or run-on sentences. To ensure that your site maintains a high level of professionalism, consider having 2-3 people read over each page of content to check for any of these errors. Yes, search engines can detect grammatical errors and may have an adverse effect on your keyword rankings.
• User-friendliness - Is your site easy to read and navigate, and does it offer insightful information (or helpful links)? High bounce rates are suspected to have a negative effect on rankings, so be sure to provide engaging content that will keep the user on the page for as long as possible with a desire to visit other pages of your site. Broken links are never a good thing. Be sure to update or 301 redirect them to their respective pages.

Keep in mind that having just 1 bad or irrelevant page of content can negatively impact the other pages of your site. Don’t get careless! Take some time to give your website a thorough review or get help from a professional SEO company and make sure you are keeping up to date with the latest SEO practices.

For many e-commerce companies (including us!) it can be difficult and extremely frustrating trying to rank on the first page of Google for our targeted keywords. SEO can take time (months, even years) depending on how fierce the competition is, as well as many other factors that determine where exactly a site will rank in the search engine results pages (SERPS). To help increase the odds in how favorably Google lists our site, here are some SEO techniques (from the SEO experts) that you should consider doing:

1) Content - Make sure the homepage of your website has content (not just images or flash) that contains your targeted keyword(s). Aim to have at least 500 words of unique content, preferably more. Be sure not to keyword spam in the content and a good rule of thumb is to use keywords (and keyword variations) between 1-2% of the total content. Here’s an example to help clarify: If you have 500 words of content on your homepage, don’t use your keywords (and keyword variations) more than 5-10 times.

2) Title Tags - The title tags are very important when it comes to having Google determine what your website and content are all about. It’s extremely criticalto use your most valued keyword(s) in your title tags. A good rule of thumb to follow is to only use your top 2-3 keywords on your homepage title tags. Anything more may be considered spammy and could dilute any link juice allocated towards the keyword rankings. We also recommend that each page of your website have different title tags, and that the title tags relate to the content written. (For those of you who aren’t sure what the title tags are, look at the very top of your computer screen and examine the words written on the dark blue bar - those are your title tags)

3) Article Tasks - The article and content tasks listed in your LotusJump SEO software accounts are the most important tasks - so don’t ignore those! Freshly written articles that are unique and catchy not only help improve your overall SEO keyword rankings, they can also drive direct traffic to your site, especially if the article goes viral. The easiest way to capture a large audience of readers for your articles  is to write about something that is either funny, helpful, controversial, or causes fear, while relating to your product or services. Sure sex sells, but it can also be quite distracting to readers since it won’t relate to the product or service at hand.

4) Link Exchanges - If you have business partners who own websites, it would be a good idea to ask them to link to your website, preferably with 1 of your keywords as anchor text. This can provide a nice boost to your keyword rankings, especially if they provide a link to you on the homepage of their site. You can offer to do the same for them to help increase their likelihood of doing so.

5) Blog - If your business still doesn’t have a company blog, now would be a good time to get one. By creating a company blog, you can generate a new source of traffic and easily direct them to your company’s website. The nice thing about this type of online traffic is that it should be highly qualified, which should translate into higher conversion rates. Aside from providing an additional stream of visitors, blogs can also help improve keyword rankings through fresh content and imbedding links throughout the content.

* If anyone has their own suggestions or methods for improving keywords rankings, feel free to share them in the comments.

A special thanks to BarStoolsandChairs.com for letting us get to know you a little better on this week’s Friday Spotlight.  BarStoolsandChairs.com specializes in custom upholstered commercial furniture - take a look at their site, their stuff is pretty awesome!

1. What was the inspiration behind your company?We come from a background in commercial furniture.  We believe that commercial furniture is far superior to residential furniture.  We decided to team up with manufactures of commercial furniture and sell it online to the general public.  We offer items like custom logo bar stools and floor mounted bar stools that can be hard to find for the typical residential consumer.

2. What company achievement are you most proud of?
We sold 500 logo bar stools to a manufacturer of high end acoustic guitars.  I am really into music so it was a real treat working with one of America’s greatest guitar companies.

3. Why do you think internet marketing for your business is so important?
About 80% of our order come over the Internet.  We don’t believe in waiting for people to come to our website.  We do everything we can to make sure that we are found when people are looking.  Without Intenet maketing, we would have no customers.

4. Would you like to share a creative marketing tip for other small business owners?
I have found that creating blogs and linking blog entries to the products in my retail site really helps my organic rankings.

Thanks BarStoolsandChairs.com for letting us spotlight you this week! Leave a comment if you think you’re worthy of a Friday spotlight, and tell us why!

While there is some controversy over whether Facebook is an effective way to build awareness, market, and interact with your target market, it’s definitely a cost-effective marketing option you may want to consider.  As with any other social media platforms, there are some obvious and some not-so-obvious do’s and don’ts when it comes to having a business on Facebook.  While the following tips won’t apply to everyone, they’re worth considering and, if applicable, applying to your own business practices on Facebook

• Remember, your Facebook page should be reserved for talking about your business, products and services. Avoid mixing your personal life with business on your business Facebook page – it’s just not professional.
• If you’re going to do it, do it right. Your Facebook page should be a way for you to interact with current and potential clients. If you’re not regularly checking and updating your page, you probably shouldn’t have made it to begin with.
• Facebook can be a great way to assist in your company’s online reputation management. Facebook pages and profiles are now indexed and tend to rank highly in the search engines, so the chance of your business’ Facebook page ranking on your business name and keywords are pretty good.
  
• Keep your Facebook page clean. Don’t join irrelevant, potentially offensive, questionably or controversial groups. You never know who many be looking at your profile and you don’t want to run the risk of putting your company in a negative due to a group that you’re associated with.
• Participate in the conversation. Remember, there are a handful of your current and potential customers that spend a good amount of time on Facebook. The fact that you’re there and interacting with them will impress them. Build relationships carefully and strategically and you’ll most likely see these individuals drive new traffic to your actual site.

A special thanks to Qualtrics Online Survey Software for today’s Tuesday Tip!

If you haven’t heard of Squidoo or created your own Squidoo lens, do so today!  For those not familiar with Squidoo, this site is the brainchild of world famous marketer Seth Godin, the father of both Permission and Viral Marketing and former CMO of Coke USA.   Squidoo is a a FREE social networking site that encourages you to market yourself as you build lenses about your business, special interests, etc.  Lenses are interactive, and can contain Flickr photos, Google maps, blogs, Amazon items, eBay auctions, YouTube videos, polls, slideshows, and other links.  If you keep your Squidoo lens updated and and loaded with great content you’ll probably see traffic to your lens increase and maybe even make a few bucks off of the items that you can choose to advertise on your lens.  Over time your Squidoo lens can achieve Page Rank and we’ve even seen some lenses rank on the first page of Google for their keywords.  You can check out our Squidoo lens or make your own Squidoo lens today!

Want to get your brilliant marketing tip published? Leave a comment with your tip and we’ll consider publishing it with a link to your website in future Tuesday Tip editions!

A special thanks to WISEOZ.com for today’s Tuesday Tip.  WISEOZ is a free contest-based social community where people win prizes, collaborate, socialize, and connect through moderated play-as-you-please games called “WiseWits”.

Last week we talked about how social media is for everyone and this week we’d like to highlight how WiseOz has successfully used social media as a way to market their company.

WISEOZ has accounts on several of the big hitting social community sites and we do what we can to push our content out to those sites as frequent as possible. Everytime we release a new clue or award a winner, we Twitter. Everytime we publish a new WiseWit, we blog and bulletin it to MySpace and Facebook and dig it to Digg. Additionally, we have a SHARE feature on our WiseWit pages that easily allows users to do the same. We’ve gotten many new members from this approach and it keeps viral engine running.

Figuring out your own social media schedule may seem like a daunting task, but the benefits will far outweigh the hassle!  Start by joining all of the major social media networks and start building your profiles one by one.  As you familiarize yourself with each one, you feel more comfortable putting yourself out there and getting involved.

Leave a comment with your tip and we’ll consider publishing it with a link to your website in future Tuesday Tip editions!

The following 5 Steps explain how to create your own optimized subpage for a keyword of your choice.

Step 1: Choose your keyword phrase
Determine a keyword phrase that your target audience would consistently search to find the products/services offered on your website.

Step 2: Create a page for your selected keyword phrase
Have your webmaster create a new page with your existing website theme. Make sure it has any necessary calls-to-action.

Step 3: Make sure that it’s optimized for your keyword phrase
To do this, you’ll want to make sure that your keyword phrase is found in most, or all, of the following places:

• In the URL String (i.e. www.yoursite.com/your-keyword-phrase)
• In the Title Tag of the page
• In the Meta Description of the page
• In the Meta Keywords of the page
• In the Copy on the page, multiple times where appropriate
• In Bold, where appropriate
• In the Alt Tag of relevant images on the page

(A more in-depth look at these factors will be treated in next week’s post, “on-page optimization tips“.)

Step 4: Link to the optimized page from your homepage
This will pass some of the existing authority of your homepage to your newly-created, optimized page.

Step 5: Build links to the optimized page
This step is crucial to get maximum results from your efforts. It also happens to be the most difficult. Luckily, this is where the LotusJump SEO Software provides its most significant value. LotusJump simplifies the off-page optimization process by aggregating customized linkbuilding tasks and dropping them directly into your personalized account, complete with tips and instructions. No software makes linkbuilding more effective or efficient than LotusJump.

Want your website to become a top online resource for a certain keyword phrase?

Try building a page on your website specifically for it!

An optimized landing page is a tried and true PPC principle, but not many people have recognized its value for organic SEO as well. If you know that a certain keyword will drive traffic to your site, why not give that keyword its very own page? To illustrate the point, let’s imagine you’re a search engine trying to return the most relevant result for the search term “safe baby crib,” which would you pick–Result A, B or C?

Result A:

URL: www.cribs-r-us.com
Title Tag: Cribs R Us, Online Baby Crib Store, Largest Baby Crib Selection
Meta Description: “Your online resource for the largest selection of baby cribs!”
Opening sentence: “Welcome to Cribs R Us - Browse our huge inventory of different kinds of baby cribs”

Result B:

URL: www.crib-factory.com/baby-cribs
Title Tag: Browse our Cribs - Cute Baby Cribs, Safe Baby Cribs, Sturdy Baby Cribs
Meta Description: “We offer many kinds of cribs–cute baby cribs, safe baby cribs, etc”
Opening sentence: “View the images below to learn about our many types of baby cribs.”

Result C:

URL: www.cribs-r-us.com/safe-baby-crib
Title Tag: Safe Baby Crib, Safety Crib | Cribs R Us
Meta Description: “Consider our safe baby crib product line for your infant’s needs”
Opening sentence: “Sleep well knowing you’ve purchased one of the following safe baby cribs from Cribs-R-Us.com”

If you were picking the result based on on-page SEO factors alone, Option C would be chosen as the most relevant result due to the prominence (not density, mind you) of the keyword phrase on the page. Check back for next week’s post on how to create your own optimized subpage.