Saturday, April 18, 2009

How has Social Media Become a Vital SEO Tool?

Post boom of Social Media on the Internet, Search Engine Optimization has left no stone unturned in utilizing and converting this online pleasure into a significant marketing tool.

In the recent past, the term 'social media optimization' has become an integral part of every online marketing strategy. Whether you have an e-business or any form of online presence and you wish to get known in minimum time possible, then social media is a good option.

The effective and regular use of social media helps a business in connecting with its existing as well as potential consumer base.

The rich and interactive elements of social media make it even more popular amongst a wide audience composition. Elements of social media which makes it an effective SEO tool include:

- Networking:
As simple as the concept of making friends for business networking and sharing in our offline day-to-day life, online social media gives us an opportunity of meeting new people, getting business opportunities and also reuniting with previous friends, colleagues etc. This helps in developing better contacts and even maintaining them for future reference.

- Photo Sharing:
With photo sharing, the businesses can showcase their services and also inter-exchange vital images etc. through the online medium. This is handy in maintaining cordial relation with existing clients as well with exchange of informal content.

- Video Sharing:
It is another important tool for building the company profile and establishing its brand name to a wider audience. The audio visual medium of videos has always been a source of attraction and time-effectiveness and hence, is a popular tool on both TV and the internet. With Video-sharing websites like Youtube etc.,their popularity has grown manifold.

- Forum Discussion
It is important that every business plan, strategy or idea is not only implemented effectively but is also conceived in a profitable manner. Generating a buzz or starting a healthy and directional discussion is all a business needs, especially when word-of-mouth remains an evergreen source of information dissemination and improvisation through feedback resources. Forum discussions are popular not only because they are open and call for free expression of thoughts and ideas but also because the businesses can get an initial feedback and response from a diverse user composition.

- Live-Chat sessions
There is nothing better than a one-on-one discussion with a like-minded end user. For businesses it is important that live chat sessions are included in the customer service care and even through their business profiles on various social communities.

- Social Bookmarking
With the stupendous success of bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, Stumble Upon etc., social bookmarking has become a trend of the current generation. Today, we want to share anything and everything that we find worth it on the Internet. We can connect with known and unknown people through these bookmarking communities and share our favorite 'stuff'.

- Social blogging
Blogging was once started as a personal and informal way of expression of thoughts and ideas on the Internet but with the expanse of social media, even blogging has become a mandatory online marketing tool calling for both corporate as well as industry blogs from the businesses' end for better connection and distribution of information.

- Viral Ads
One of the latest social media optimization tools being used by the online marketers are the viral ads. Viral ads are short duration informative videos generally indirectly pointing towards a business or a particular product or service. Generally, these animated viral ads are humorous and indirect.

Monday, March 30, 2009

How Can Keywords Magnify Your Search Engine Ranking?


More often than not, we apply almost every trick of the trade in our bid to shoot up the search engine ranking for our website. But seldom do we remember the importance and relevance of keywords and their frequency in website promotion.


Minus keywords, every website and its content are like any other text on the Internet. You need to magnify the relevance of a site for the end users by the implementation of carefully selected keywords. Once the user types-in the specific keywords on a search engine, the search engine crawlers browse through the Internet, identifying relevant content with the help of the keywords.

Following points should be kept in mind for better visibility with the aid of keywords:

Identify a main keyword/page
Highlighting too many keywords on the single webpage can confuse the search engine from identifying the webpage with a particular theme. Each and every webpage needs to be theme based and relevant to the content and emphasize on one main keywords and two or more secondary keywords. By highlighting one main keyword on a given page, the search engine easily associates the main keyword and the web page.

Optimize Keyword Density on every page
The frequency in which the keywords appear on your website is known as keyword density and is calculated as a percentage w.r.t. to the total word count. Keyword density on a webpage should be adequate enough and comprise of the total of 6-10% of the total word count. Poor highlighting of the keywords (poor keyword density) as well as excessive keyword density is equally harmful for the website promotion. Excessive use of a keyword can lead to spamming of the site labeling it as an artificial site by the search engines.

Use HTML tags for highlighting keywords
There are many HTML tags which are useful in not only highlighting text but also aid in better identification of keywords by the search engine crawlers. There are HTML tags which tell the search engine about the importance of a text along with highlighting the text (heading) in bold. Therefore, it is essential that the keyword should appear only once in the heading which is highlighted by HTML tags. In other words, search engines keep a close watch on the HTML tagging for crawling to the important keywords or phrases on a site.

The Nitty-Gritty of Keyword Density


If you have a website then you are sure to face stiff competition in the online game. With herds of websites cropping with every passing day, you need to stay ahead with well-optimized content. For an SEO-friendly website, the use of Keyword-dense content has become indispensable.


Keyword density is the frequency of appearance of selected keywords on the respective web page. It gives an indication that whether a website is rich in keywords or lacks the adequate number of keywords and its frequency. It is calculated with respect to the total word count of a web page to that of the frequency of the selected keywords.

In both the aforesaid cases, it becomes necessary that we understand the pros and cons of excessive and insufficient use of keywords for SEO purpose. It can backfire in both the cases for effective promotion of the website. If there is excessive repetition of the keywords then there are chances that your site can be labeled as a spam site by the search engines and hence be rejected on the listings.

Generally, the keyword density for a keyword on a web page is 3-5%, i.e., the keywords will be repeated 2-5 times on a given web page, depending on the number of keywords used. This factor remains constant for all the pages of a website and not for a particular web page of the site.

The keyword density needs to be balanced in the given content since the deficiency and its excess has subsequent drawbacks. Therefore, try to calculate the keyword density of the selected keywords prior to web submission of any content.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

7 Easy Steps to Efficiently Optimize your Website’s Page Rank


With the expansive boom of the online domain, website has become a perquisite for gaining wider reach and recognition for any business. But merely having a website will not serve any cause in efficiently promoting your company through your website. Your website is the face of your business, your work in the online medium and hence, it should be promoted accordingly.


1) Target Audience

The receiver in a communication process holds the key to the success of the process on a whole. In every two-way communication, we need to identify our target audience before seeking their attention or satisfactory response to any call for action.
It is a vital and primary step to know ‘who is your audience’ and what purpose with the website serve for him. Unless and until, you understand the audience structure, composition and their needs, you won't be able to create a unidirectional and beneficial website for a larger consumer base.
With demographic identification of the target audience, the next step involves the targeting the audience within a specific geographical region/language.

2) Keyword Research
Before laying foundation for you website, it is essential that we research for the right keywords and the right words which are necessary for creating an SEO-friendly site which can be easily crawled by the search engines. These keywords are like markers identified by the search engines for identifying the website and listing it on search result pages.

3) SEO-friendly site structure
In order to enable easy crawling of your website by the search engines and to increase the spiderability of your website, ensure that it has an SEO-friendly structure. Most of the highly flashy and well-designed and are unable to gain top ranking in search results majorly because of their poor compatibility with Search engines. Therefore, review your website w.r.t. the SEO structure and an easy SEO-friendly layout. Remember that maximum traffic is generated through the search engines and not through any sleek or highly impressive design.

4) Regular search engine submission
Search engine optimization is not always an automated process and requires manual submission of pages to various search engines and directories on the Internet. This is essential in increasing the site’s visibility and traffic inflow.

5) Relevancy Internal Linking
Good internal linking within a website is also essential in terms of search engine crawling and human visitors too. A well-structured having a smooth flow in the linking and flawless navigation makes it easier for the end user as well as the search engines to browse the website and extract relevant information without much delay or hiccups. This is a sure shot way of not only promoting the main pages of your website but also the well-optimized internal pages.

6) PPC Campaigns
PPC or Pay per click advertising have become revolutionary in changing the face of search engine marketing through increased user traffic and conversion rates for a particular website. Through this technique, one is required to pay a specific amount every time someone is directed to their website by clicking on an ad he had placed on search engine result pages
By paying a nominal fee, a good flow of traffic is directed to your website.

7) Efficient Link Building
Through relevant and effective link building, a website can be promoted by utilization of good page ranking of other popular websites. You need to link to websites which are popular and top ranker websites on search engine result pages and subsequently, increase your website’s page rank and search engine listing.