Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

How Important is Google PageRank - Importance of Google PR

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Impressed by the exaggeration done about Google PageRank (PR), some of my clients and friends ask about the importance of Google PageRank (PR). Rather than giving my personal
opinion about it, I am quoting Google here. These self explanatory replies are by Google/ Google employees.

Google Webmaster Central Help

Best answer - Susan Moskwa (Google Employee) Go to this answer

We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.  :-)

Source: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6a1d6250e26e9e48&hl=en

Google Webmaster Help

Q: My site’s PageRank has gone up / gone down / not changed in months!

A: Don’t worry. In fact, don’t bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s useful for you as a site owner. If you’re looking for metrics, we’d encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business.

Source: http://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq–crawling–indexing—ranking#pagerank

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Posted in Google, Internet Marketing, SEO, Writing | 2 Comments »

Tips for Successful Article Marketing

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Many people use article marketing as a favorable means of marketing. It generates increased targeted traffic to your website which generates a sale for the website. Follow these tips for a successful article marketing campaign:

  1. Many people think that it is the number of articles that is important for successful article marketing. However, it is also important that you maintain quality content for attracting and retaining readers. Use the internet for information to make the articles interesting and have readers coming back for more.

  2. It is better to maintain sweet and short articles. Readers don’t have the patience to sit for too long in front of the computer reading long articles. So keep articles short and to the point to retain readers’ attention.

  3. Introduce variety in your articles. Think of different perspectives that can be used to reach your topics. With various articles, you will be able to target your niche and thus, attract a larger and more interested audience to your site.

  4. Make sure your articles have interesting headings. It is the headline of your article that gives a reason as to whether or not a reader should look at your article. The headings should also be keyword centric and use main keyword there.

  5. It is better to do some research on the best keywords to use in your articles before writing them. These keywords are the words that readers are most likely to use to find the information in your article. However don’t use too many keywords; too many of them make the article look like spam.

  6. It is better to write organized articles with bullets and numbers where possible. This helps in getting your message and point across to readers, and also makes the articles more readable.

  7. Make it a habit of proofreading your articles before publishing them. Bad writing and spelling and grammatical errors give you and your product or service a bad impression both in the eyes of readers and search engines bots.

    After proofreading, have friends and family go through the articles and listen to whatever comments they give. Sometimes a small but trivial improvement is sufficient to make a difference in the presentation of your article.

  8. The best place to place your articles is your website to strengthen the site content and build trust in your visitors. However if you have no website, then you have to make use of the many article directories on the internet. Many people visit these directories; so by publishing your articles in them, with a link to your website, you are sure to see an increase in website traffic.

  9. Include a resource box in your article describing and linking to your website.

  10. Use the help of social media sites, forums and discussions boards by pasting enough of your article to interest readers to click on the link leading to your website.

  11. Link articles of the same subject, to one another. If you have affiliates, let them use your articles for promoting your service or products.

Try these tips and you will soon see an increased traffic to your website and quite a few potential customers amongst these visitors.

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Posted in SEO, Writing, article marketing | 1 Comment »

What are SEO and SEO Specialist?

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science and art of making websites be found on top of the major search engines for the relevant keywords. Achieving high rankings on the top search engine is the best advertising tool on the Web today. The reason is simple: Millions of searches are performed everyday. Thousands of web pages that organically appear closer to the top of those search results essentially get free advertising. It has been called the cheapest and the most effective marketing tool available.
SEO can bring loads of targeted traffic to the site, thereby enabling a stronger customer base, which is an essential component for brand building. It is definitely an investment for the future as it benefits the company for a long time. For insurmountable success and irresistible change in the way your business operates just hire an SEO specialist.

What is an SEO specialist?

An SEO Specialist or Search Engine Optimization Specialist is the one with deep understanding and knowledge about the search engines who has the ability and skills to bring up the sites in the top positions for the targeted keywords by applying various white-hat or ethical methods. An SEO specialist is also termed as an Internet Marketing Specialist, E-marketer, Web-marketer, SEO Consultant, SEO Guru, SEO Wizard, SEO Start or as an SEO Expert.

Who can be a Qualified SEO Specialist?

A qualified SEO specialist must have his website top ranked for the competitive keywords. He must be knowledgeable about both the black hat (unethical/ bad) and white hat (ethical/ good) methods of SEO, but still use only white or organic methods. He must be a true professional, not just work on assumptions or just the very basic knowledge. He must have updated and up-to-date knowledge and must prove his work experience. He definitely should have many years of experience and must be capable to achieve the desired results by bringing the targeted traffic and top ranking for the targeted keywords in variety of industries.

Overall Fee and Timeline for a Successful SEO Project

The fee structure and the timeline vary with different jobs depending upon the keywords competition, site age, SEO Specialist’s experience and other factors. One cannot expect the results overnight and it takes time to show up in the search engines. So with all this in mind the SEO specialist estimates and determines a feasible and affordable fee according to the timeline. The most imperative point to remember, though, is the need for SEO services for the success in a business operation.

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100 Advantages of Blogging - Why You Should Blog?

Friday, January 2nd, 2009
  1. Use blogging as a tool to be kept updated and in the latest developments and products of your field.
  2. Blogging helps in adding fresh relevant content to website which search engines like.
  3. You can build up your business creditability with the help of blogging.
  4. A blog is a great tool to help increase your customer base.
  5. Get free and fresh content with the help of comments that are made in blogs. This can be like User-generated content or UGC.
  6. Create and establish a brand and brand awareness with blogs.
  7. Help build trust between you and your readers and customers through blogs.
  8. Enhance your website effectively and cheaply with the help of a blog.
  9. Blogs are an easy way to establish two way communication and social interaction.
  10. There is a higher and better chance of getting viral over social media sites with the help of a blog.
  11. People generally consider reading a blog much better because of their non promotional tone and informative nature.
  12. Blogs give you an easy way of approving comments before posting as against to social media sites where you have very little or no control at all.
  13. Create more targeted traffic to your websites through search engines using blogs.
  14. Blogs help to save time as visitors find many answers to their questions there.
  15. Rumors about a business can be clarified through a blog.
  16. With a blog, you not only become famous, but also gain power which you had never experienced.
  17. Blogs have a huge part in SEO. Blogs are loved by Google and other Search Engines.
  18. With the help of a blog, the Google PR of your site is enhanced.
  19. Blogs are a great means of increasing potential traffic to your site.
  20. Develop free PR for your business with a blog.
  21. Blogs are great for creating returning targeted traffic.
  22. The interactive nature of blogs makes people choose blogs over websites for links.
  23. Remember that blogs consist mainly of text; and in SEO, text is king.
  24. The comments posted on your blogs can give you better business ideas and tricks for your business.
  25. Use blogs to express your thoughts. You can also use the blog to exercise your freedom of speech.
  26. You can share whatever knowledge you have using a blog.
  27. You will be considered an expert in your field because of a blog.
  28. Use the help of RSS and links in getting targeted traffic to your blog.
  29. Maintain public relations and relations with the media through your blog.
  30. When compared to normal website pages, spiders tend to crawl blog posts more frequently.
  31. Blog is a great means of creating a buzz or voice of mouth advertising.
  32. Use the blog as a foundation for the content of a book.
  33. Develop your business with the help of your blog.
  34. Remain connected with people 24/7 with a blog.
  35. You get new visitors and potential clients with the help of blogs.
  36. Blogs are helpful and beneficial to the community.
  37. Blogs are used to share company news.
  38. Blogs are used as a communication link between employers and employees.
  39. Blogs indicate that you are an easily approachable entity.
  40. Keep in touch with industry leaders through blogs.
  41. Use blogs in educational marketing, where you show how your services and products can be used to solve customers’ problems.
  42. Blogs maintain convenient internal communication to share information in a company.
  43. Find out more about your customers and clients’ needs through blogs.
  44. Use blogs to create an online community.
  45. Blogs provide easy communication with clients.
  46. Talent is easily found with the help of blogs.
  47. Blogs are used for getting back links.
  48. Use blogs for getting internal links.
  49. Blogs are regularly indexed by Google.
  50. Use blogs to get free links from blog directories.
  51. Develop easy and efficient deep linking with blogs.
  52. Share any ideas you have on a blog.
  53. Use blogs to solve problems.
  54. Blogs are used for marketing because of its low overheads.
  55. The navigation on blogs is text based, and search engine friendly.
  56. The non promotion tone of blogs makes them very easy to link. This makes blogs highly linkable.
  57. Use blogs to generate quick feedbacks.
  58. A blog is a really great promotional tool.
  59. Use blogs to convey authority.
  60. You can easily target variety of keywords using blog.
  61. Search engines find blogs easy to crawl.
  62. Use a blog to let people and clients to get to know you better.
  63. The RSS feeds of blogs help in efficient link building.
  64. Blogs indicate that you are open, and don’t hide from anyone.
  65. Use a blog to increase membership and opt-in lists.
  66. Blogs are great for educating and informing people about specific topics
  67. You can learn time management and discipline through a blog.
  68. Find new partners and experience better networking through blogs
  69. Use a blog as a platform for announcing new products and services.
  70. Use blogs to reply to queries.
  71. Both cultural and geographical borders are overcome through blogging.
  72. The long tail keywords in blogs help you get top rankings as blog are mostly hosted on very reliable domains. Blogging give you an excellent platform to target long tail keywords and get top ranking.
  73. Generate a niche appeal using a blog.
  74. Blogs bring about a more personal connection between yourself and your clients.
  75. A blog helps you find jobs and clients quickly.
  76. A blog can be easily integrated into a market plan.
  77. Get to meet new visitors and buyers through guest blogging.
  78. A blog offers increased lead generation opportunities.
  79. Learn current trends through blogging.
  80. A blog means low cost, better communication.
  81. With a blog, you experience reduced emails, calls and inquiries.
  82. You can also boost your social life with a blog.
  83. Flexibility is an important feature of blogs.
  84. The easy web publishing solutions make blogs much easier to set up and maintain than websites.
  85. Blogs provide a punctual and important means of sharing information with an audience.
  86. With the help of a blog, you can increase your writing, debating and analytical skills.
  87. Use a blog to generate money with Adsense and Affiliate marketing.
  88. A blog is a great and easy publishing tool.
  89. With a blog, you can introduce a human voice or element in a company.
  90. Blogs provide a great medium for opportunities and to use as a research tool.
  91. You can increase the number of your loyal customers with blogs as it helps you get close with customers.
  92. With a blog, you become different from your competition. This is because the medium tends to approach you if you have a blog and not the competitor who does not have a blog.
  93. Blogs offer different and varies means of spreading ideas.
  94. Blogs are considered a great means of relational marketing. This is because once you post honest and heart felt blogs, you instill trust and respect in prospective customers.
  95. Manage your online reputation by using a blog to answer any negative remarks made about you by a competitor. In other words, blogs help you stop rumors from spreading.
  96. With a blog, you can easily create more pages which is great for search engines that rank pages and not sites. With a blog, you need not bother about the fitting in of the new pages with design.
  97. You can use a blog for recording all your past experiences and thus, start a sort of history about yourself.
  98. Blogging is fun. Blogging is something everyone enjoys doing.
  99. It has been proven that blogging offers some medical and psychological benefits like better memory and sleep and fast healing after a surgery.
  100. After creating quality posts like this one, you develop a feeling of satisfaction.

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Keywords in a Domain Name - The Catalyst of SEO Process

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Having keywords in the domain names plays the same role as a catalyst does in a chemical reaction. Although, in the modern SEO, just the keywords in the domain names is not all about the SEO. It merely means that the keywords in a domain name, make the SEO process happen at much faster rate than under the normal circumstances. One would still need to strictly follow the routine SEO practices in order to get the maximum out of the SEO process. If it was just the domain name that matters then having a successful SEO would simply meant choosing a keyword rich domain name. But, in that case the spammers would have had a great time. It is very tricky to design a site that both search engines and the customers are going to like. Choosing the right domain name for the website name is no exception. searchenginewatch.com , searchengineguide.com, seochat.com, seo-usa.org, seo-london.com, seo.com, are good search engine-friendly domain names which all have the keyword rich domain names with great branding value. These all are also ranked on the first page of Google for their very competitive keywords selection. Having said the keywords in the domain names work as a catalyst in the SEO process, their benefits are indirect. Below is a brief description of some of the major indirect benefits:Benefits of Keyword Rich Domain Names:

  1. SEO friendly Inbound Links

Links play an important role in the SEO and having the anchor text containing your keywords is what everyone wants. Domain names with keywords tend to create SEO friendly inbound links as many people link to your website through your domain name.

Other than domain names, use keywords in titles, filenames, logos and taglines because many people will link to you using these elements as well.

  1. Better Click Through Rate (CTR)

Keywords in a domain name lets you get a better Click Through Rate (CTR) because when people conduct a search, Google tends to highlight the words found in the domain names which match the search query. So these domain names tend to build up the confidence of the searcher that they are on the right track, and thus give your site a better CTR.

  1. Instant and Clear Definition of Business

Another benefit of having a keyword rich domain is that it defines your business clearly. However while choosing the keywords for your domain name, it is advised not to use very long domain names as it only hurts your SEO visibility and the brand name. In my opinion, three words with two hyphens is the maximum in a domain name one should go for. www.seo-consultant-specialist.com is an seo friendly domain name with good branding value but online-seo-consultant-specialist-expert.com looks like a spam.

  1. Search Engine’s Favor

Search engines assume that sites having keywords in a domain name are more relevant, so they generally put them on the top of a search return. So, if you use keywords in your domain names, and follow other SEO techniques you will definitely get an edge over other domains in search results. Who Should not use the Keyword-Rich Domain Names: The domain names of existing companies are better off when the company’s name is used in the domain name than a keyword describing it. Like Nike gets better traffic with a domain name with Nike.com, and not BestSportsShoes.com. This is obvious because people would know and refer to these shoes more with Nike, than the best sports shoes and tend to use the brand name when conducting searches. Same would be the case with other existing top brand websites. Hyphenated Vs. Underscored Domain Names: It is always better to register both the hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of domain names to safeguard the brand. The competitors may grab the other version and get it registered in their name if only one version was registered. It is generally better to use hyphens instead of underscores for separating words in the URLs. This is not only due to the fact that Google recommends it, but also the underscores are harder to read as the URLs are mostly underlined. It would be interesting to read Matt Cutts Blog about Dashes Vs. Hyphens .

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Selecting an SEO Specialist

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the buzzword over the internet and an SEO specialist is someone who helps in keeping the buzzword alive. In more technical terms, an SEO Specialist is someone who has acquired in-depth understanding and knowledge regarding the functioning of various search engines and has the ability to use this knowledge to your advantage. What SEO specialists can do is that they can use their experience and expertise to get your website on the top most positions for various targeted keywords through application of various methods. The SEO specialist is more often than not is also referred to as the Internet Marketing Specialist, Web-marketer, E-marketer, SEO Expert, SEO Guru, or even SEO Consultant.

There are different aspects that you should consider while searching for or choosing an SEO Specialist for improving the overall internet ranking and visibility of your business. The various aspects are:

· An SEO specialist should have a reputation or a good amount of experience in handling optimization of web sites successfully. The specialist should have a record of dealing with different types of design features as well as development languages. Always make it a point to ask for client references and check their portfolio.

· The SEO specialist will be completely and single-handedly responsible for the way your site will be displayed on various search engines as well as directories. You need to gauge how good the SEO expert is and how much visibility he/she can offer you on various search engines so that you can get high targeted traffic as well as have a good ROI.

· The goal of every search engine marketing/SEM campaign is long-term results that are sustainable as well as effective. This basically means that your SEO specialist should avoid using anything that most search engines will consider as spam.

· Your SEO specialist needs to have complete knowledge of what are the ranking criteria of the most popular or top search engines is and what type of deals they have in place?

· Last but not the least, one of the most important aspects is that the SEO Specialist should be able to use all the different methods of mix the various methods of search engine optimization so that you can get the maximum benefit. The various methods he can incorporate include:

a) Keyword driven content: Finding the top keywords and implementation in your web copy and the links.

b) Navigation: Ensuring that your website has an easy to understand navigation and optimized layout.

c) Tags: Meta Tags, Image Alt Tags and individualized Titles are important for ranking purposes. The SEO expert should be able to ensure that it is embedded into the code.

d) Code: The cleaner, error free, smaller your website code is the more easily it will be identified by search engines and it will also make your website look good.

e) Sitemap: Sitemap is like a guide of the various pages on your website and will help search engines and visitors to locate the different pages of your website.

f) Link Popularity: He should be able to link your website with other relevant websites of good repute.

g) Social Media Marketing: A relatively new concept, it is an integral part of SEO. Always ensure that the SEO Specialist you are speaking with is familiar with the various platforms where Social media marketing can be implemented.

h) PPC: The SEO specialist should be able to guide you through an effective PPC campaign so that you can get maximum traffic to your website and generate revenue

i) Others: The other methods he can use include Affiliate Marketing, Buzz Marketing, Article submissions, Press Releases and Viral Marketing.

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Outsourcing to Pakistan - Information Technology inlcuding SEO

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

With tremendous improvement in communication technologies like telecommunication and internet, Pakistan offers virtual globalization of highly skilled human capital to the world.

There are always other options to outsource to other countries like China, Russia Philippine and some of the Eastern European countries e.g. Romania, Ukraine and Poland but these choices are marked up with poor English skills, lack of exposure to Western business culture, shaky foreign relations and immaturity of processes all pose risks.

No other economy can match Pakistan’s labor pool of educated English-speaking workers. No other economy can match Pakistan’s scalability, reliability and low-cost environment.


The rapid growth of the sector is largely due to foreign IT firms setting up operations in Pakistan in a bid to reduce costs and raise profits.

Pakistan’s Advantages

1. Western experience: Executives at IT firms in Pakistan often have worked and gone to school in the U.S., which is Pakistan’s largest export market. The willingness of Pakistanis to return home from the West stands in marked contrast to most Indians who arrive for school or work in the West and never look back.

2. Professionalism and integrity: The personal integrity of Pakistani managers is easy to identify and appreciate, especially by Westerners with business experience elsewhere in the region.

3. Higher labor availability: Fewer holidays in Pakistan means less slippage in staff availability compared to India. IT firms in India are advised to hire a diverse workforce so that members of one community can enjoy important festivals while members of other communities cover the phones and keep production going.

4. Good accents: Pakistan’s official language is English. Language skills and accents provide Pakistan with a major advantage over all other Asian outsourcing destinations.

5. Low cost talent pool: Escalating turnover rates are one of the Indian outsourcing industry’s dirty secrets. In comparison, Pakistan’s top-tier talent pool is largely untapped and turnover rates are less than 20 percent.

Pakistan offered Services Types

ITO - Information Technology Outsourcing

BPO - Business Process Outsourcing covers things like running call centers, processing insurance claims.

Software R&D - Offshore Software Development

Search Engine Optimization- that is to apply SEO tactics to achieve top search engine placement and increased traffic to your website. This branch of outsourcing is relatively new to Pakistan as SEO Industry is still in its initial stages here. The top SEO Consultants and Specialists are working hard to convince the world that Pakistan is a good place to outsource SEO and web marketing work as well. With the growth of SEO industry, there are many quality content writers, link-builders and other people related to SEO industry directly or indirectly.

In short Pakistan is proud about her ability to outshine India in outsourcing. According to some International think tanks, that makes Pakistan an able partner for India’s overflowing outsourcing work.The experts claim that eventually India and Pakistan will team up together to provide the South Asian hub for outsourcing. Pakistan can easily serve as subcontractors to India’s unending contracts from all over the world.

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