PageTraffic Buzz has created an interesting infographic encapsulating the top Google+ Shortcuts and Tips. One read through and you will find many time saving tips that allow for faster posting and sharing.

Any other shortcuts you came across recently? Do share them here.

Earlier this year in February 2011, Google brought out the Panda update, that affected nearly 12% of Google search results. Since then, Google has been introducing further algorithmic updates, and in November the count reached to Panda 2.5.2. Google recently put into action the Caffeine update too, but it is the Panda that has become the webmasters’ worst nightmare. If the Panda slaps a site, traffic has been known to fall as much as 70-80%. To help site owners deal with the Panda, Google has time and again stated on improving the quality of content on the site, across all pages.

As Google’s Distinguished Engineer (and Head of Anti spam team), Matt Cutts has been quoted, “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low quality sites-sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high quality sites-sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Now you know Google says- “quality content”, but what is it exactly, and that too translated for SEO and Search Marketing industries? Well, the general interpretation of quality content includes factors like article length, internal linking and inbound links to your content and the site’s design. These are the content management tips to save your site from the Panda slap-

1.) Quality Content Ensures Authority and Higher Ranking

The entire purpose of the Panda is to deliver useful, correct and informative and highly relevant content to the searchers. So your content must fit into that category. Brush up on your spellings, grammar and vocabulary when you verify the content on your sites. Make the smart choice by identifying poor content with analytics software. Once you get to know the number of times a page was visited, or bounced from, you can work on the content of the page to ensure the users stay on your page, as they find what they came looking for. You must show the headings, titles etc prominently so that they attract instant user attention are read by people. Improve your pages’ quality to establish your self as an authority on the topic of the page, and to also get a higher PageRank.

2.) Get Rid Of Thin And Irrelevant Content

Thin content is a write up that is poorly researched, factually outdated and does not add to topic or the knowledge that the searcher already possess. So have more quality content, than quantity, as in do not have pages with poor and irrelevant content as the Panda will penalize your site for it. To better your rank, you must add fresh pages with relevant content (relevant to your site and your keywords) that is well researched and highly informative. You must also make modifications to the existing content too.

Write 300 words informative articles that give people current, updated and in-depth information. You can either remove the thin content pages or redirect them to a relevant page with ‘noindex’ tag (this will not affect your PageRank).

3.) Duplicate Content Is Completely Taboo

Get rid of duplicate content on your site pronto. You must carefully review your website, and check for pages with duplicate or similar content. There must be at least 20% to 30% difference in text of every page, and follow this rule wherever you found instances of duplicate content. Take the smart and fast way of removing duplicate content by spotting it using tools like Google Webmaster Tools. Avoid syndicated content too.

4.) Refrain From Keyword Stuffing

You must ensure that every page on your site has the right keyword density. For every page, maintain optimal keyword density of 3-8% in your content. Be very careful when your work on the keywords for every page, and narrow down to 2 to 4 keywords for a page. But since users may search for a thing in many ways, using different phrases, you must support your primary keywords with secondary keywords. Do not try to engage in keyword stuffing, hidden text, or other tactics to pull the search engines in. if initially they might work for you, the same will be detected in a jiffy by the bots and your site will be penalized with no delay.

5.) Indulge In Smart Link Building

Link building is the essence of SEO, and you must understand the trick to link pages of your site to other sites as well as inter-linking the pages of your site. Try to get authority sites to link to your content as this will be seen in very good light by the search engines. Always link to similar sites with a good reputation in your niche and interlink your pages to pages of related content within the site. This will be good not only for the user, but also for the bots. Allow for people to spread your link naturally. Add social media sharing buttons to your articles, so that they have a chance of being shared on a social platform and going viral.

As a parting tip, keep in mind the Content:Ads ratio (the number and size of the ads that appear above the fold on a page). Ensure that there are not too many ads on your site. Do not place all ads next to one another, but space them out nicely on the page. Remember that Google does not like Adheavy or Ad-cluttered pages, and many sites with pages, where ads hid the content below the fold were slapped by the Panda.

You can save your site from the Panda. Follow the guidelines given above and keep your fingers crossed!

Summary:
Online business is extremely, competitive what with a million companies out there. That is why in order to get dedicated, more and relevant customers to your site, you must hire a competent SEO company. A good digital media company understands the functionality of internet marketing, inside out. They know that to succeed in their endeavors, they need to work on two basic principles- get relevant traffic and to make sure that the traffic converts to leads and sales. So, a good SEO company will aid you in climbing the search engine rankings, only if it is in touch with the latest

• - Trends
• - Technologies
• - Tools

being applied in the world of internet marketing.

For you to filter between the hundreds of claims of ‘I am the best!’, you must know about the basic characteristics of a good digital media company, to separate them from the rest-

Latest Techniques:
The field of online marketing is expanding and so are the techniques of SEO. A good SEO company is constantly on the watch for the latest changes and updates in search engine optimization techniques. They quickly study the new techniques and then apply them to suit the client’s needs. They explore each and every nuance of SEO, and not just On-page SEO. Simply running a keyword campaign is not of much help in the changed scenario. The inexperienced SEO companies rely on outdated or simplified tools that fail to generate accurate key word and phrases, which is why, the  search results do not improve as expected. A competent SEO firm will not only do a much better job of identifying the keywords, but also will do expert placement of the same on a website to achieve results. Search engines are getting smarter, and so should your techniques.

Professional Team:
This is one very essential characteristic of a good SEO company- they work on their team. They encourage their employees to conduct research to stay on top of the algorithms that Google and other search engines employ. They train their people continuously. An expert company puts a lot of emphasis on staff training- for the new SEO tools and digital media tricks that have entered the market. The company does not hesitate in investing in the technology and tools needed to maximize effectiveness.  Good SEO firms employ many people ranging from link builders to copywriters to web designers. They let each employee hone their skills so that they deliver better results, while building a holistic SEO campaign.

Plans And Strategies:
A good SEO firm will take every client differently, and will provide them customized solutions for their online business. They take the time to learn about their client’s needs and goals- so that they can provide customized plans after consulting with them. An SEO company, not concerned about the individual goals is most likely to disappoint you in the long term. They will work on an effective SEO campaign, that will follow the well thought of strategy created beforehand. They will also study your competitor’s strategy and then formulate a more powerful one for your business.

Ethical Methodology
A good and respectable and most importantly professional SEO firm will never employ black hat techniques. They will never use invisible text, doorway pages and spamming to improve your search engine results placement. The above mentioned techniques are prohibited by the major search engines; and with the strict monitoring by search engines, being caught using these SEO techniques may lead to your site being penalised or even banned.

That is why an expert SEO company will use SEO methods, that are the latest and are approved by Search engines. The firm will focus on making your site search engine friendly by focus on broadly-

• •    Keyword focused relevant content – An SEO firm that looks after its client’s ranking will make sure that the client’s site has relevant content, that is high quality and is constantly refreshed.
• •    Link Building – a good firm will work on building quality Internal and external links. Well placed URLs can help improve the rankings a lot.
• •    Optimizing a client’s site – Removing duplicate content. Optimising title tags and many other extremely important nuances of SEO, are taken up with a refreshing approach by a competent SEO firm.

They will make sure that your ranking is improved steadily, and that the results are sustainable. So your site will have increased visibility, improved brand awareness, better sales and a competitive edge over the competition.

Honest and Realistic Commitments:
This is the primary characteristic of a good SEO company. It always offers realistic commitments, rather than making big commitments and faltering at the end. It will work on getting you a sustained and gradual improve in search engine results. The results on your investments will show in some time. If the firm has plenty of examples to show you about their success with other businesses online, then you are at the right place. However, you must also ask for references.

Timely Execution, Monthly Reports and Complete Support:
Now, if an SEO firm timely executes the plans and achieves the targets, then you are in the hands of the experts. If the company is carrying out its plans in a timely manner, then it is worth investing in. Moreover, they provide you with detailed monthly reports, so that you know where you are with your campaign. Also, a professional and expert SEO firm will provide you any support whatsoever related to your sites search engine performance.

To Conclude: Remember that an experienced and reputed SEO company will hardly or never go in for aggressive marketing and self-promotion. They do not need that. They have built a long standing reputation, which gets them clients. They are excellent in communicating with their clients and also deliver results that were required of them.

So, keep all these factors in mind when you go looking for SEO services.

One best way of increasing the back links to the site is to submit to as many web directories as possible. Many web directories accept the submissions free of charge. Each site contains a title, small description and also the link in each listing. These listings are placed under categories and sub categories which becomes easy for finding information under different categories.

Basically, there are two benefits of submitting the site in directories. The first benefit it offers is that it increases the traffic on your site. The reason for increasing the traffic is that when a user searches some information on a particular topic then they go through different directories. So, if your site is submitted under some category, he will definitely visit your site to find the relevant information. The second reason is that it helps in improving the ranking of the site in search engines. When the search engine robots search for the relevant information, every link placed in the directories will help to increase the search engine placement. continue

Websites are designed to solve customer’s queries and doubts. Therefore, for every website, it is very important to select the appropriate keywords so as to target a large number of audiences at once. Keyword Phrases are included in the content as it is the best On-Page factor that helps in promoting any website. These keywords should represent what people are actually looking for. They are used by every website to attract more customers thereby appearing on top in the search engine index. This helps in promoting the website and in generating more opportunities for the company.

For this purpose, a proper keyword research is required by the SEO specialist. It is the main task of the SEO Consultant to upgrade and update the content of his website frequently by using appropriate keywords. The keywords selected should hold valuable information that is relevant for the customer. Infusing any irrelevant keyword into the content would actually lead to lowering the website’s chances to appear in the search engine and if this process continues, then it is sure that the website would not appear at all in the search index. continue

The debate might still be raging. But we all know, outsourcing is here to stay.  The world is flat and its more true than ever before, Thomas Friedman would nod quite forcefully there.

However, outsourcing can make either good or bad business sense, depending on your offshore partner. Having been in the business for nearly eight years now, I have seen both sides of it. There are some who continue to outsource with success while there are many companies who are left with burnt fingers and bad experiences only. continue

An SEO is generally hired by firms to optimize a firm’s value in the market. The task of an SEO is to make sure that the organization for which he is working keeps getting new business. People are now-a-days switching to the web media to resolve their queries. This is why the websites are competing with other websites to attract more business for themselves. This is the major task assigned to the SEO.

A thorough background check of the consultant needs to be done before making any decision of hiring them or not. He needs to have full experience of how to optimize the content of the website with appropriate keywords, phrases, Meta tags, etc so that the site keeps appearing frequently in the search engines. This is done to attract business for the clients of the company. Therefore, it is very important for a company to hire the right kind of person who can carry out the task efficiently. Otherwise the company would suffer unnecessarily.
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Every business wishes to grow and flourish in the market. There is a new trend of hiring SEO firms for optimizing the content so as to increase their visibility on the Web. The reason behind using online business is because people prefer to refer to search engines to solve their queries. Therefore, the race between websites is to appear on top to enjoy more traffic. The SEO consultants analyze your website properly and then modify it wherever there is a need so as to appear easily in major search engines. This can only be done by using proper keywords which is created by a ranking index for every search term used by the end users.

With hundreds of sites available in the Internet, finding a SEO firm is not difficult but getting an expert becomes difficult by choosing from so many sites available on the Internet. Before going in depth of the different firms offering SEO services, it is necessary for you to understand the requirements of your business. For instance if you want good traffic for your site, you will choose the firm accordingly. This will help you to choose the best among the rest of the firms. Therefore, the following considerations needs to be kept in mind while choosing SEO services for your site. continue

No follow links is used by the web masters to block some links by stating no follow in the HTML tags so to avoid from appearing in search engines. These are specifically designed to lower down the chances of spam comments on blogs.

Commenting on the blogs is an effective way to get more links to the site. This leads to an increase in the search engine placement on the Internet. There are unfair practices which are going around by commenting irrelevant comments on other blogs. This method is followed by various spammers to fool the search engines and to appear on top of search results. The fact behind these comments is that they doesn’t hold any relevance to the subject. Nowadays, blogging software’s have set ups especially designed to find out the spams out of the comments posted on the blog. continue