How to avoid the SEO link building scam

Link building isn’t easy. It takes time and effort to research and create the links that will make a difference to your ranking. And it’s not the number of links that matter, it’s the quality of those links. Much better to have one link from a respected site than 1000 inbounds from spammy free-for-all directories.

There are however any number of companies who do sell link building services. Some are very good but most are a waste of time. What’s worse is the way they market their services, fail to deliver and scam you out of a wodge of cash.

Three that have come to my attention are FirstFound, Linkbuilding.net and It’s Cold Outside. They have a convincing sales pitch but behind all the fine words are a bunch of serfs churning out some very dodgy links.

So how do they do their link building?

One common method used by link building companies is to set up a whole bunch of microsites and use them as link farms. This can get you penalised by the search engines. Use a link checking site like linkdiagnosis.com to discover what they have done. I did this for one client and discovered a link for jewellery in a blog post on heart disease. The actual post had over 70 links to a bunch of unrelated sites.

Another link building method is to add a so called ‘resource layer’. This is essentially a bunch of links to sites in their portfolio. Often not relevant to your content, these links do nothing for your reputation and are likely ignored by the search engines. So make sure they haven’t slipped in a set of irrelevant links to your site.

A more recent scam is ‘social bookmarking’ and related activities. It’s all a big con that the search engines have got wise to. The idea behind social bookmarking was to make public those sites you recommended. But like all good ideas the SEO scammers now flood the bookmarking sites making all those links just about worthless.

Directory submission is another waste of time and particularly favoured by the SEO companies in India. The search engines have regular purges on directory links, you will know when it happens because everybody relying on these links for their ranking complains that their websites have fallen off the ranking perch.

Forum spam is another game played by the link builders. There are a number of methods employed the most common being the new member asking a question to which another new member replies with a handy link to the site they are promoting. These post invariably get deleted within an hour or two so it’s a pointless exercise.

Blog commenting is another waste of time. Most blogs have no-follow links in their comments so those that do allow the links to be followed are spammed to death.

There are many more ways there scammers will link build for you. Not one of their methods is any good and just about everyone who has been caught out has seen their ranking drop like a stone.

It’s a life sentence you can’t escape

If you do get caught then it’s a real bugger to extract yourself from the mire. There appears to be a minimum 12 month contract that requires all sorts of hoops to jump through in order to cancel. And even those that have been successful in cancelling the contract have still found money being taken from their account.

Those unable to get out have seen their ranking drop because of the link building and it has proved almost impossible to track down which links have been created. One company selling cleaning products discovered a link on an Asian sex-change website!

Best advice if you are caught by the snake oil salesman, contact your local trading standards, they quite like investigating this sort of thing.

Don’t get fooled again

The moral of this story, don’t employ any ‘SEO’ company who promises wondrous results on Google. If they don’t even consider optimizing your site then it means they are going to use their automated link building machine. And Google hates this.

So when FirstFound or It’s cold Outside ring you up, just ask them where your site is ranking at present. They won’t know the answer because they have just been given a company name and a phone number to call. It’s a scam.

And if you don’t believe me, here are a few forum threads:

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=69774

http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?p=61314

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=747055

Prachar is the owner of IndSEO, A India based search engine marketing firm offering a variety of SEO related services including reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing, website conversion metrics and mobile phone application development. Please contact Prachar@ymail.com to learn more

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How to make the googlebot love your website!

The Googlebot is a very sophisticated computer program. It is a search engine spider that scours the Internet and inspects web sites in order to have them ranked according to Google’s standards. It’s “job” is to look at your web page, make a few notes and then report back to Google, who in turn give your page a ranking.

In this article I’m going to tell you a little about how to attract the Googlebot to your website and how to make sure it’s happy with what it finds. Think of it like this: The Googlebot needs love too.

1] Read Google's Webmaster Guidelines: Most of Google’s algorithms (search rules) are really secret; we can only guess what they are. Their guidelines are very simple and precise, however. Following their guidelines can’t “hurt” your site's ranking and Googlebot will “enjoy” its time with your website. Disregarding their guidelines can and probably will hurt you and your website in the long run.

2] Make the links in your site text links: Google says: "Make a site with a clear hierarchy (structure) and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link."

The native language of the Googlebot is text; this is not to say that you cannot make your site really pretty and fill it with lashings of Java Script and Flash but you MUST have regular text and standard text links. Usually you can achieve the desired effect by having extra navigation menus based on standard text links.

3] Give every page a complete and meaningful title: This is also directly from Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Have a look at Rule #1.

The "title" tag is supported by every web creation tool out there, and goes in the header of a web page. Make sure your title is not just a list of keywords and that it is related to the actual content of the page. Google can and will check that, before deciding on your page's 'relevance' and fate...

4] DO NOT place important text inside images: Google says: "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Googlebot doesn't recognize text contained in images."

It is very tempting to create images with text inside them, for the very simple reason that you are not limited to the very few font options that basic HTML allows. Also, different browsers tend to display things differently nowadays, so it is much easier to create a text image, which will be shown consistently and not worry about styles, operating systems, etc. Unfortunately, the Googlebot doesn’t like this one bit...

5] Use descriptive "ALT" tags: The "ALT" tag is used as a text alternative for images and image links and was designed so that text browsers do not just display a generic 'Image' for every picture link you might have. If all your links say 'Image', how would a potential visitor know what they are?

Make sure that the text description is meaningful and accurate. If the "ALT" tag only says "display", that is what Googlebot will see and index. If the tag says something like "example of a tradeshow display design", that is certainly more useful to the information-hungry Googlebot.

6] Use meaningful descriptions for links: Whether you use picture links or text links, please use meaningful text inside your tags so that Googlebot can associate that text with that link.

In other words, if you intend to put a link to a set of sample coffee mugs promos, say something like "link to samples of Y.O.U.R. branded coffee mugs", not just "coffee mugs", or even worse, "click here for pictures". Never use link text like "read more" or "go here" or "download it", "click here", "don't click here". Googlebot will not understand what you mean...

7] Use a "description" tag for every page: Include a "meta name="description" content="[insert your site's description here]" tag in your page header to summarize your site. Use a meaningful one or two sentence description and certainly do not keyword spam.

Even better, include descriptive text on the site's front page where users can actually read it. It is this text will appear as the description for your site in Google results.

You should place more important content higher in the page than less important content in a page. The Googlebot does categorize text on a page based on it's position, text at the bottom of a page is considered less relevant.

8] Use robots.txt: Google says: "Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled."

This almost ancient and very standard mechanism for directing well-behaved robots like the Googlebot will allow you to specify places where the robot is not welcome, for whatever the reason. You might want to keep the robot away from your cgi-bin directory and other places you maybe don't want available to the entire Googling population of the world. Remember this is a guideline, not a barrier; robots that are not programmed to comply will ignore it. So, use the robots.txt to guide the noble Googlebot but not for any real security enhancing reason.

9] Make a sitemap: Google says: "Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages."

A site map is just a page on your website where you guide your users through the structure of your site. The most basic form of sitemap is a page that lists all of your pages, with a brief description and a link - ALL TEXT, of course; the Googlebot cannot read sitemaps that are not in plain text. When you make the sitemap, follow all the rules above and don't forget that the purpose of the sitemap is to guide your human visitor.

10] Google Webmaster Tools: You should also check out Google Webmaster Tools 101, a great way to find out why Google is or is not listing your website in its search results.

Contact us for your SEO / SEM needs.

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10 Lies Freelance Copywriters Like to Tell You

Could it really be possible that some freelance writers would lie to you, saying whatever it takes to snag your business, justify their exorbitant fees, and turn you into a submissive client who does whatever they tell you?

Well… yeah.

It’s sad, but in the years I’ve been in the business, I’ve seen companies burned, stung, robbed, and strung out by unethical copywriters who couldn’t care less about them. To them, you’re just a walking ATM machine, and they lay awake at night, figuring out how to press all your buttons.

I know because my clients have told me. Sometimes, they tell me because the lie worked, and they’re thinking about taking their business away from my firm, but lots of times, it’s the opposite. They know it’s a lie, but they just can’t figure out how.

As much as some freelance copywriters would like to believe it, business owners aren’t stupid. You know when someone isn’t being straight with you. Maybe you just need someone to verify it, and so that’s what I’d like to do.

It’s ironic for me, a freelance copywriter, to be writing on the lies told within our field – but who better to reveal their lies than someone who’s right in the thick of it?

And here’s why: they make the honest ones look bad. Plenty of copywriters operate with full integrity, but when we have to struggle with a reputation given us by less ethical writers… well, it’s time to fight back.

Here are 10 of the most common lies copywriters like to tell. Take a look, so you’ll be ready:

1. “Every project is unique and I can’t quote you until I know more.”

Every project is unique, true, but top copywriters wouldn’t be where they are today if they didn’t have a good idea of ballpark rates and averages. Most top copywriters display their rates in plain view – they have nothing to hide.

Anytime you see this line, you can be sure that you’re dealing with either an inexperienced writer who isn’t sure of what to charge or a sleaze who is out to charge an arbitrary rate based on how much they think they can squeeze you. Either way, you can do better.

2. “I need to know your budget before I can quote.”

Why? So you can take all of it?

Writers who ask for your budget before giving you a quote are usually trying to figure out how much you can afford, or who want to push you just over your budget so they can get more out of you.

The good writers? They’ll either try to find a solution that fits or say they’ll be there to help when you do have the money saved up.

And they’ll never ask you for your budget.

3. “I’m qualified, because I have a degree in English literature.”

While having a degree is nice, those English lit degrees aren’t any measure of quality copywriting. They’re actually pretty useless where copywriting is concerned, because the field has far more to do with sales and marketing than with literature. Truth be told, most top copywriters don’t even have degrees.

Degrees don’t matter. Results do. The good copywriters aren’t going to show you their credentials; they’re going to show you what they’ve achieved for other clients, and they’ll tell you about the results they can get for your business.

4. “I had to quote high because of the time I’ll need to write this.”

Want to know a dirty little secret?

Top copywriters produce fantastic copy in minutes. The actual writing doesn’t take much time at all, and no copywriter worth his or her salt charges on an hourly basis. High rates are high because of the writer’s skills, experience, reputation and ability to get results. Good copywriters charge that much because they’re that good, not because they’re that slow.

A writer who justifies high rates with high hours is trying to make you think he or she is slaving away for days. It might be true, it might not, but the bottom line for you is that you expect results, and a copywriter whining about time doesn’t help you get them.

5. “Your email hit my spam folder.”

This time-stalling trick isn’t just used by copywriters – it’s the perfect excuse for anyone who wants to avoid dealing with you, for whatever reason. Maybe they’re running behind and can’t deliver on time. Maybe they don’t feel like making changes you’ve requested.

Whatever the reason for wanting to stall, the spam folder provides an easy excuse. Your communication disappears as if it never existed, and by the time the copywriter says, “Oops, I’m sorry,” it’s just too late.

The good copywriters? They know business, and they know that regular spam checkups is just part of the routine – no one’s email gets lost.

6. “I’m booked, so I can only squeeze you in if you pay a rush fee.”

This is pure psychological manipulation, and it works very nicely. A perception of being in demand makes you want the copywriter more, thanks to the magic of social proof.

The really in-demand copywriters don’t play these games. They don’t squeeze anyone, because they don’t need to. They have plenty of work, they’re not interested in filling up their plate, and they can afford to tell you that you have to wait your turn. Which you should do – it saves you money, and the results are worth it.

7. “You get what you pay for.”

Yeah, maybe, if we’re discussing cars. But when it comes to freelance copywriting, there’s no such yardstick. You’ll find high-priced, poor-quality copywriters ready to take advantage of you and you’ll find just as many low-priced, fantastic copywriters ready to get you results.

Unscrupulous freelancers use this “get what you pay for” routine to elevate themselves and make you feel cheap. This influences you to hire them to show you aren’t a skinflint Scrooge.

But real copywriters? They simply point you to substantial portfolios and testimonials that prove they’re worth every penny. They don’t need to make you feel bad, and they don’t want to.

8. “All you need to make sales is great copy.”

That’s just silly. If great copy was all we needed to make sales, we could do away with websites, marketing campaigns, driving traffic, providing good customer service – there’s just no need!

Uh… no.

The best copy in the world won’t do anything for your sales if you don’t have a clear plan, tools, resources, tactics and strategies in place to draw in potential customers, convey trust and credibility and get their eyes on the page so they start to read. It’s just one piece of a successful business.

9. “This copy will sell anyone.”

Any copywriter worth his QWERTY knows this is a crock. You can’t write copy targeting “anyone” – good copy is crafted to reach specific people with specific problems. It’s laser focused on the ideal customer, and it repels anyone else.

Unscrupulous writers won’t ask questions about your target market, and the result is that they won’t sell much to anyone at all, including your ideal customer. They’ll miss all the crucial elements of good copy, like hitting the right pain point, addressing concerns, providing convincing benefits and drawing in your ideal customer to a sale.

10. “I know what I’m doing, and if you’re smart, you’ll trust me.”

This is meant to position them as an authority, but as anyone knows, people who feel the need to point out they know what they’re doing probably don’t know what they’re doing at all. And frankly, if you weren’t worried before, the statement “trust me” certainly raises an important question in your head: “Can I?”

The answer is… probably not.

Self-confidence in skills and knowledge is something that’s easily communicated and nearly tangible. You don’t have to be told – you can clearly see the copywriter knows exactly what he or she is doing without that person even saying a word.

Does a copywriter asking you to trust them guarantee they are shady?

No, but it’s another red flag. None of the lies we’ve covered here are enough by themselves to condemn anyone, but put several of them together, and it should set off warning bells. The slimiest copywriters use each of these lies intentionally, and having a collection to watch for, it should be easy for you to spot them.

Prachar is the owner of IndSEO, A India based search engine marketing firm offering a variety of SEO related services including reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing, website conversion metrics and mobile phone application development. Please contact Prachar@ymail.com to learn more

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Plus One! Google Adds Another Match Type - IndSEO

Google's latest targeting feature is the release of the new modified broad match. This new match type gives targeting results that are in between phrase match and the original broad match, but is more closely related to phrase match.


As many advertisers know, broad match can be quite risky, and sometimes not produce the most desirable ROI's. Modified broad match can help advertisers get more impressions and show for more variations than phrase match; however, reduce the number of unwanted irrelevant impressions associated with standard broad match.

The new match type is annotated with a + sign in front of the word that is to be modified. It's important to note that if you are currently using mostly broad match keywords, switching to modified broad match will most likely significantly reduce impressions.

Here is an example of how this match type works:

Regular Broad Match: Buy Makeup
Matching Examples: Buy Cosmetics, Cheap Makeup,

Modified Broad Match: +Buy +Makeup,
Matching Examples: Buy Maekpu, Buy loreal makeup

As you can see above, modified broad match will match you to misspellings, spelling variations, singular/plural variations, and stemmings (e.g., "floor/flooring", "Italy/Italian"); however, not to synonyms as regular broad match does.

If you are going to modify more than one word in the phrase, make sure you put a space in front of the plus symbol.

Correct Annotation:
+Buy +Makeup

Incorrect Annotation:
+Buy+Makeup

If you do not put a space, Google will ignore the plus symbol and treat the keyword as standard broad match!

Here is Google's official announcement of this new match type.

Here at ROI we look at modified broad match as another tool to have more control over your keywords, and squeeze more value out of your advertising dollar. Also, if you are currently only running your keywords in phrase & exact match, then using modified broad match is a great way to increase traffic without having to worry about the increased risk of irrelevant traffic incurred by many broad match searches. This feature is currently available to all advertisers in the US & Canada.

Prachar is the owner of IndSEO, A India based search engine marketing firm offering a variety of SEO related services including reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing, website conversion metrics and mobile phone application development. Please contact Prachar@ymail.com to learn more

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5 ways to give your website an SEO boost! - IndSEO

Search Engine Optimization is not an easy task. It takes a lot of time and work in order to make a real difference. This article is just to give you a jumping off point and to give you some ideas to improve the SEO on your website.

1. Search engines love text. Make sure your web pages are optimized using keywords & phrases specific to your business in the content of the page. Avoid keyword stuffing (having a large number of keywords all over your page). Your site will be penalized by Google for this. Keyword density should be somewhere between 3%-5%. The way to figure this out is:

Keyword Density Percentage = Number of Primary Keywords / Total Word Count x 100

2. Build links to your site. You can submit your business info to many directories online. Get a listing on internet yellow pages. Yellowpages.com, yellowbook.com & dexknows.com are some examples of the internet yellow page directories. There are several other websites you can get listed on as well including- dmoz.org, local chamber of commerce website & yahoo.dir. These are a great place to start.

3. Optimize your Title Tag using keywords specific to that page. Your Title Tag is the first (and often only) line of text a person will read when click on a search result. 65 characters is all you have to work with. Make them count! This helps with you On-Page SEO.

If your company is well-known, using your company name as your title is the best course of action. However, for the rest of us, using descriptive words would be better. Examples of this are: “Real Estate – Ann Arbor, MI” using place name in order to rank higher within local SEO or using your business name after the description, helping to brand your business “Internet Marketing Company | Indigo Media Consulting”.

4. Blog! Blogs are an excellent way to drive traffic to your website. You can sign up on websites such as blogger.com for free or you can add a blog sub-domain ex. blog.yourcompanyname.com or www.yourcompanyname.com/blog.

5. The Description Meta Tag sits directly below your title tag on a search engine result page. 150 characters is all you have to describe your business. Make them count! The Description tag is another area that will help with On-Page SEO.

The best way to use this space is to give a brief idea of what your company is about. If you are a Real Estate company (sticking with the theme), it’s important to build trust with your clients. Information about how long you’ve been in business is a great way to make people feel comfortable. It may be a client that is looking for Commercial Real Estate..you don’t want to limit yourself to just Commercial but entering Commercial | Residential | Lot or Land, would be a great way to get all 3 services and not take up as much space describing them all.

Prachar is the owner of IndSEO, A India based search engine marketing firm offering a variety of SEO related services including reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing, website conversion metrics and mobile phone application development. Please contact Prachar@ymail.com to learn more

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Twitter Marketing for Business - by IndSEO

This article is on Twitter Tools. There are many tools available that enable you to track, organize & schedule (among other things).

HootSuite – There are so many things you can do with this application, its ridiculous. From importing your Twitter lists, adding columns to multi-task, and the ability to schedule tweets make it an indispensable tool. You have the ability to integrate other Social Media as well such as Facebook.

Twaitter – Like HootSuite and TweetDeck, this is another great tool that has a lot of stuff going on. Scheduling tweets, following feeds, translating and soon will have statistics integrated into the application.

TweetDeck – Desktop, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch…Download it to any of these. TweetDeck has the ability to work with additional Social Media sites as well such as Foursquare, Google Buzz, Facebook, MySpace, & LinkedIn. Manage conversations, avoid spam, create, share, organize, schedule…the list goes on and on. If you don’t have this applcation, you should. Download it now!

TwitPic – If you’re thinking this application has something to do with using pictures, you’re completely wrong! Ok, kidding. You can upload pictures and post them with your tweets. This can be a pretty effective business tool. Pictures say a 1000 words and Twitter only let’s you have 140 characters. You do the math.

Twitterific – This Twitter client is for the Apple lover’s. It works specifically with the Mac and iPhone. The neat thing about Twitterific for the iPhone is it keeps a time line, allowing your followers to see where you are.

TwitterCounter – This application shows you the rate of your Twitter growth. Basically, it graphs out the growth of your following, which is pretty cool. In the last 3 months, my Twitter following has grown over 300. I love my Tweeple! (Yes, thats a real word to describe Twitter followers.)

TweetStats – TweetStats is another one of those pretty obvious Twitter apps. It graphs out your tweet timeline, tweet density, who you reply to, etc. Its a colorful site and recommend using it.

Chirpstats (formally Twitterless) – Ever wonder who stops following you? Here’s how you find out!

Twellow – This is like the Twitter version of the Yellow Pages. Use it to help find other Twitterer’s that are in similar industries.

TweetBeep – If you are familiar with Google Alerts, this works the same way but for Twitter. You can use this application to find out if people are talking about your company, you & specific keywords.

Trendistic – Find out the current Twitter trends, see who is talking about them and use this information to start conversations.

Collecta – Quite interesting. Use Collecta to make real-time searches to retrieve stories, comments, videos, photos & updates. It’s a search engine for Twitter.

If you haven’t heard about many of these sites, you have a lot of catching up to do. Each of these are extremely powerful in their own ways. Now, if only we could get someone to make a Super Twitter to cover all of the functionality of the above listed sites.

Although they don’t have it yet, there is a website that combines every Twitter app you can think of and many I’m sure you never knew existed. It’s called oneforty.com. If you haven’t already, check it out!

Want to integrate Social Media into your marketing plan? Visit us today to get started.

Prachar is the owner of IndSEO, A Indian based search engine marketing firm offering a variety of SEO related services including reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing, website conversion metrics and mobile phone application development. Please contact Prachar@ymail.com to learn more

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Increase Your Onsite SEO in Few Simple Ways by IndSEO

Whilst looking through a number of websites and peeking at other web designers websites it came to my attention how many people are not even doing the very basics of onsite SEO.

I am great believer that if your onsite SEO is upto scratch your well on the way to the battle that is search engine rankings.

There are thousands of web designers some are very good with knowledge in most areas of website design, some are very good at the design but know little about the correct way to structure a website and simple ways to promote it, I was quite surprised how many website owners were never informed of little simple things they could do them self to improve their website rankings.

This is what triggered the idea to write this simple blog that hopefully will help others increase their website ranking and move a bit further up the search engine ladder.

If you are a web designer this will also help you if you have limited knowledge of onsite SEO.

Point 1 – Choosing your keywords

Ok so you have a new website and want to quickly start getting traffic and making money from your new site, will this happen, well it’s quite unlikely without the correct promotion, the best way to get straight to the top of google is Adwords but without advanced knowledge of Adwords this can be very very expensive with less income that your profit margin.

One simple way to gain higher results is by choosing your keywords cleverly.

Think of your website like this, imagine the largest forest in the world, now double it, yes its pretty big, possibly 25 million trees or more some very mature and towering above the rest, now imagine your website in the middle of all this forest, and ask someone to go and find it, unless they know exactly where it is (Domain Name) its not likely they are going to find it.

There’s a simple way to reduce the size of this, many people aim for the big keywords straight away, lets use Kitchens as an example, 27,700,000 results highly unlikely your going to get up to the top of Google quickly, so the first tip is to reduce this and aim for a less competitive keyword or more importantly key phrase, you can instantly cut the amount of results down to under 1.8million results by targeting affordable kitchens, you can also use Google keyword tool to get keyword ideas and see how many searches each month and also the competition on the keyword, I personally look at the number of results returned for a keyword search in Google.

Ok so you now found your key phrase your going to start with, the reason I say aim for a less competitive key phrase is to try to gain higher results quicker and start progressing with a few orders, really impress with them and before you know it people will start to recommend you, maybe link to your website, write reviews, (Ask happy customers to do this for you) before you know it your website will start to gain credibility in the search engines in preparation of moving onto more competitive keywords.

Point 2 – Correct Meta Tags the Basics

Its amazing how many people fail on this simple point, meta tags are important, the Meta Title is one of the first thing search engines look at, but don’t make the mistake of trying to cram lots of keywords into it. Using our Example of Kitchens see the 2 samples below.

WRONG – Company Name, kitchens, modern kitchens, white kitchens, pine kitchens, usa kitchens, quality kitchens

There are 3 main issues with a title like this, one is over usage of one keyword and the other is its far too long and messy

CORRECT EXAMPLE – Affordable Kitchens | Quality UK Kitchen Supplier | Company Name

Many people make the mistake of adding the company name first, unless people will be searching for it there is not much point of making it the start of your meta title short simple meta titles will be much more effective.
Meta descriptions are what display in the search results, don’t make the common mistake of writing just for keywords, and remember this is what people will read in the search engine so at the same time as getting your keyword in there make sure it will attract clicks.

Example: Affordable kitchens from Quality USA Supplier, Company Name supply quality affordable kitchens to the public and trade with exceptional customer service.

Remember don’t over do it with the keywords.

Meta Keywords – Not really too important as Google stopped taking them into account a while ago however some search engines still use them so add a few but again don’t repeat to many times something short simple will do. EXAMPLE; affordable kitchens, kitchens, UK Supplier, White, Pine, Gloss try to use keywords that are also featured in the page or they will have no effect.

TIP: Make sure all the meta descriptions are unique to the page across your website, search engines wont rank a page if it has duplicate meta tags.

Point 3 – The Code

Ok now you have your meta descriptions sorted, have a look at the website code reducing the code in the page will help, check css styles and javascript or in external files where possible, use XHTML coding where possible, by keeping to code to a minimum you will increase the code to text ratio, this is probably something you will only be able to achieve if you are a confident website designer but you should be able to ask your web designer to advise on this.

There are many coding techniques that help the ranking of a website, correct usage of Header tags are one of them.

The H1 tag is the next big place to get your keywords, I recommend getting the H1 tag as close to the start of your website code as possible, again don’t cram it with keywords or waste it on something like Welcome to my website.

Sample H1 Tag might be: Affordable Kitchens from Company Name.

You can also use other tags further down your page for titles of various sections these are H2, H3 tags again you can use these wisely with your keywords.

Ok so you got meta covered and header tags, another very obvious one but so many people miss it is correct alt tags on images, search engines can’t read the content of an image so you need to give it an alt tag, again you will need a bit of HTML knowledge to do this but make sure each image on your website has a ALT tag, use the keywords but don’t use the same one over and over, use variations, search engines are very clever now and understand different variation and meanings to the keywords so use them wisely.

Link Titles: I’m sure you have seen before when you hover over a link in a web page it comes up with a little description of the landing page, this is called a title tag, again very simple to add with html knowledge, this will increase the credibility of the link whilst also adding strength to the keywords of your website. Remember use short descriptions, for example the Home Page link, don’t just title it ‘Home’ use ‘Affordable Kitchens Home Page’.

These are a few basic techniques to better coding for on-site SEO, now we will look at page content.

Point 4 – the Content

By far the best way to have quality content is to get a professional to write it, but we all know sometimes budgets don’t stretch to this so when writing your content think about it for a while and come up with some drafts, take into consideration the following.

You want to get your keywords in but not too often it starts to read wrong, remember your not just writing for search engines you also need to impress your website visitors.

A web page with 2 images and one paragraph of content won’t have great effect, the more content you have the better try to add as many good content rich sections as possible, don’t just write for search engines write to attract your visitors too.
Highlighting keywords and linking, this is another good technique but again don’t over do it, if you have a paragraph which has the words affordable kitchens then make it bold text and link it to the page in your website that has more information remembering to add your link title.

Finishing the web page with your keywords, this is something I have always considered important, you started your web page with the keyword in the meta title, you added it in the H1 Tag, now the search engine spider has reached the bottom of the web page so make it the last thing it sees too. At the end of the website footer, add the key phrase again – example footer might be. Copyright: Company Name, Affordable Kitchens UK link the words affordable kitchens uk back to the domain name of your website.

Point 5 – Using Google and Sitemaps

Depending on your website you can use free tools from Google for monitoring and promoting your website and products, the first step is to setup a Google webmaster account you will need to add your website and add a bit of HTML code to your web page or load a html file to your server to verify the site. From here once your website is indexed you can monitor a number of things, from sitemaps to errors found by the search engine spider when processing your website, once you have setup your webmaster account create an XML Sitemap, there are a number of free websites that will do this for you I recommend this one xml-sitemaps.com. Copy the code and save it as an xml file and load to your server, follow the instructions in Google webmasters to verify the sitemap, this will not only tell Google about your website but it will tell them about all the pages in your site.

Google Analytics – This is a great tool to monitor the website traffic, conversions if you are using adwords for ecommerce websites, keywords people used to find your website plus many more great monitoring features, signup and follow the instructions, make sure you add the analytics code to all the pages you want to track.

Google Base – If you have an ecommerce website Google base (or Shopping) is a free service, more on this topic can be found in this Blog, this is a great way to quickly get traffic if your products are competitive prices.

Ok so you have now followed the basics of onsite SEO, the next step is to start getting your links out there, a number of great social websites are now available that cost nothing to use so make the most of them, forums, social networks are all free great ways to get your website out there, more on this will come in another blog for off site Search Engine Optimisation but here are a few sites that will get your started. Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, MySpace, UK Business Forums, A1 Business Forums.

Good luck with your website design and search engine optimisation and I hope you found this blog helpful, if you would like any help or advice on web design or search engine optimisation feel free to contact us at prachar@ymail.com

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