When to Use Reciprocal Links in SEO?

Google's algorithm became so sophisticated, it only considered a site's incoming links from other sites in rating quality and relevance. A link to another site was a “vote” for that site. When SEOs and site owners realized that they could simply “trade” votes with reciprocal links and improve each other's standing in the SERPs, reciprocal links became very common.

Not long after that, such links began to be abused. Link farms started cropping up. Some black hat SEOs even built three-way link schemes to hide the quantity of reciprocal links they used to game the system. It didn't take too long for Google to get wise, of course, and now reciprocal links as a rule don't count much, if at all, in the way of rising your site's ranking.

What is Google Bombing?

The complexity of search engines like Google gets confirmed with the diverse suggestions given by SEO specialists and the search results themselves.

The gap between theory and practice gets widened as we see

that "keyword optimization" is not everything....after all. The answer lies in having as many inbound links as possible and ....let's face it...nobody can deny the rationale behind a higher rank for a larger number of inbound links with proper tags to follow suit.

Google's algorithm is perfectly done and the search results

Only reflect the complexity of the whole exercise...and Google

Is where it is....at No 1.

Google Bombin

Can the search engine be blamed for "Google bombing" and what can the search engine do about it? Can the No. 1 search engine do anything in the first place? These questions crop up when a seemingly harmless search for "miserable failure" in the search engine gives an output which you or I won't ever imagine will find a No 1 position at the No 1 search engine.

How to Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research is critical to the process of SEO. Without this component, your efforts to rank well in the major search engines may be mis-directed to the wrong terms and phrases, resulting in rankings that no one will ever see. The process of keyword research involved

several phases:

1.    Brainstorming - Thinking of what your customers/potential visitors would be likely to type in to search engines in an attempt to find the information/services your site offers (including alternate spellings, wordings, synonyms, etc).

2.    Surveying Customers - Surveying past or potential customers is a great way to expand your keyword list to include as many terms and phrases as possible. It can also give you a good idea of what's likely to be the biggest traffic drivers and produce the highest conversion rates.

3.    Applying Data from KW Research Tools - Several tools online (including Wordtracker & Overture - both described below) offer information about the number of times users perform specific searches. Using these tools can offer concrete data about trends in kw selection.

4.    Term Selection - The next step is to create a matrix or chart that analyzes the terms you believe are valuable and compares traffic, relevancy and the likelihood of conversions for each. This will allow you to make the best informed decisions about which terms to target. SEOmoz's KW Difficulty Tool can also aid in choosing terms that will be achievable for the site.

5.    Performance Testing and Analytics - After keyword selection and implementation of targeting, analytics programs (like Indextools and ClickTracks) that measure web traffic, activity and conversions can be used to further refine keyword selection.

The Most Important Factors Search Engines

The Anchor Text of Link - Anchor text describes the visible characters and words that hyperlink to another document or location on the web. For example in the phrase, "CNN is a good source of news, but I actually prefer the BBC's take on events," two unique pieces of anchor text exist - "CNN" is the anchor text pointing to http://www.cnn.com, while "the BBC's take on events" points to http://news.bbc.co.uk. Search engines use this text to help them determine the subject matter of the linked-to document. In the example above, the links would tell the search engine that when users search for "CNN", SEOmoz.org thinks that http://www.cnn.com is a relevant site for the term "CNN" and that http://news.bbc.co.uk is relevant to "the BBC's take on events". If hundreds or thousands of sites think that a particular page is relevant for a given set of terms, that page can manage to rank well even if the terms NEVER appear in the text itself (for example, see the BBC's explanation of why Google ranks certain pages for the term "Miserable Failure").

Global Popularity of the Site - More popular sites, as denoted by the number and power of the links pointing to them, provide more powerful links. Thus, while a link from SEOmoz may be a valuable vote for a site, a link from bbc.co.uk or cnn.com carries far more weight. This is one area where PageRank (assuming it was accurate), could be a good measure, as it's designed to calculate global popularity.

Search Engines Ranking Factors

Popularity of Site in Relevant Communities - In the example above, the weight or power of a site's vote is based on its raw popularity across the web. As search engines became more sophisticated and granular in their approach to link data, they acknowledged the existence of "topical communities"; sites on the same subject that often interlink with one another, referencing documents and providing unique data on a particular topic. Sites in these communities provide more value when they link to a site/page on a relevant subject rather than a site that is largely irrelevant to their topic.

Text Directly Surrounding the Link - Search engines have been noted to weight the text directly surrounding a link with greater important and relevant than the other text on the page. Thus, a link from inside an on-topic paragraph may carry greater weight than a link in the sidebar or footer.

Subject Matter of the Linking Page - The topical relationship between the subject of a given page and the sites/pages linked to on it may also factor into the value a search engine assigns to that link. Thus, it will be more valuable to have links from pages that are related to the site/pages subject matter than those that have little to do with the topic.

These are only a few of the many factors search engines measure and weight when evaluating links. For a more complete list, see SEOmoz's search engine ranking factors article.

Link metrics are in place so that search engines can find information to trust. In the academic world greater citation meant greater importance, but in a commercial environment, manipulation and conflicting interests interfere with the purity of citation-based measurements. Thus, on the modern WWW, the source, style and context of those citations is vital to ensuring high quality results.

How Search Engines Operate

Search engines have a short list of critical operations that allows them to provide relevant web results when searchers use their system to find information.

1.    Crawling the Web

Search engines run automated programs, called "bots" or "spiders" that use the hyperlink structure of the web to "crawl" the pages and documents that make up the World Wide Web. Estimates are that of the approximately 20 billion existing pages, search engines have crawled between 8 and 10 billion.

2.    Indexing Documents

Once a page has been crawled, it's contents can be "indexed" - stored in a giant database of documents that makes up a search engine's "index". This index needs to be tightly managed, so that requests which must search and sort billions of documents can be completed in fractions of a second.

How Search Engines Operate

3.    Processing Queries

When a request for information comes into the search engine (hundreds of millions do each day), the engine retrieves from its index all the document that match the query. A match is determined if the terms or phrase is found on the page in the manner specified by the user. For example, a search for car and driver magazine at Google returns 8.25 million results, but a search for the same phrase in quotes ("car and driver magazine") returns only 166 thousand results. In the first system, commonly called "Findall" mode, Google returned all documents which had the terms "car" "driver" and "magazine" (they ignore the term "and" because it's not useful to narrowing the results), while in the second search, only those pages with the exact phrase "car and driver magazine" were returned. Other advanced operators (Google has a list of 11) can change which results a search engine will consider a match for a given query.
4.    Ranking Results
Once the search engine has determined which results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a mathematical equation commonly used for sorting) runs calculations on each of the results to determine which is most relevant to the given query. They sort these on the results pages in order from most relevant to least so that users can make a choice about which to select.

Although a search engine's operations are not particularly lengthy, systems like Google, Yahoo!, AskJeeves and MSN are among the most complex, processing-intensive computers in the world, managing millions of calculations each second and funneling demands for information to an enormous group of users.

What is SEO?

SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can vary; some havea highly specialized focus while others take a more broad and general approach. Optimizing a web site for search engines can require looking at so many unique elements that many practitioners of SEO (SEOs) consider themselves to be in the broad field of website optimization (since so many of those elements intertwine).

This guide is designed to describe all areas of SEO - from discovery of the terms and phrases that will generate traffic, to making a site search engine friendly to building the links and marketing the unique value of the site/organization's offerings.

Why does my company/organization/website need SEO?

The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines - Yahoo!, MSN, Google & AskJeeves (although AOL gets nearly 10% of searches, their engine is powered by Google's results). If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search - people who want what you have visiting your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users.

Search queries, the words that users type into the search box which contain terms and phrases best suited to your site carry extraordinary value. Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization's success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue and exposure like no other. Investing in SEO, whether through time or finances, can have an exceptional rate of return.

Why can't the search engines figure out my site without SEO help?



Search engines are always working towards improving their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return increasingly relevant results to users. However, there is and will always be a limit to how search engines can operate. Whereas the right moves can net you thousands of visitors and attention, the wrong moves can hide or bury your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal. In addition to making content available to search engines, SEO can also help boost rankings, so that content that has been found will be placed where searchers will more readily see it. The online environment is becoming increasingly competitive and those companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.

What is the Difference Between SEM and SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are two of the most popular types of website promotion. Using these strategies, companies will greatly increase their chances of being found on the Internet and turning the income findings. In this article we take a look at each strategy and explain what they are and how they differ from each other.

 However, if time is money and the paper is not an object, so there is no faster way to get traffic via the SEM. Paid advertising that appears at the top paid able to bring hundreds of visitors a day, if the demand for those keywords will be there. As I said, you can be on page 100 organically and it does not matter. However, if you're going to get out of SEM, we want to make sure that you get a solid education is the pay-per-click marketing before the deal with the beast. Marketing many have lost their shirts are going on the SEM, because they knew what they were doing.

Difference Between SEM and SEO

Search Engine Marketing - SEM is a way to promote a website and generate revenue and sales through targeted ad placements and search ads on relevant websites. SEM is different from SEO, because it focuses on generating income through the engine, instead of raising the research findings at the site of a particular company.

While SEO and SEM have separate goals and involve very different methodologies, they complement one another and must both be part of any successful internet marketing campaign.

Let's start with the SEO, which means search engine optimization. This actually refers to a practice that takes in and out of the tactics page to get your site placed higher SERP. Page tactic would be to use keywords, anchor text, meta tags, and so on, in order to get your site ranked. Off page tactics would be to write articles to get backlinks, using video and other Web 2.0 features to get your site placed higher SERP. In short, SEO.

Search Engine Optimization - SEO discussing is important to distinguish between the two segments: on page SEO and off page SEO. On page SEO includes all the changes can be made, in particular Web site to confirm its placement in search results. This involves many factors, but some of the most important are: to ensure that the content is keyword rich, filling all the meta keywords tag correctly, to keep the content fresh, and follow the instructions to search for. The results of the investments have a significant impact of these factors on the page, but go beyond the use of a keyword or violates the policy, otherwise it will lead to sanctions, which sent plunging the results on your site.

Off-page SEO can be defined as all efforts to generate new links to your site. This may be accompanied by constructive comments on a blog article, post, social media, work, press releases, link trading, and many other aspects. If these connections are determined by the search engines have a certain quality, but also contribute to the search results for pages.

What suggestions, starting with the first SEO. If you're on a tight budget, many beginning as a marketer, this is the way in which you want to go. You can actually get a good position, without ever spending a dime on advertising. Optimization of the site, as far as possible, you can write articles, press releases, sending, so that the video, bookmarks, and to get backlinks, you can easily conquer the toughest niches. If money is tight and time is not a problem, this is the way to go.

More Information about SEO And SEM to visit   Expert SEO India.

How Do I Build the Perfectly Optimized Page?

If you're in SEO, you probably hear this question a lot. Sadly, there's no cut and dry answer, but there are sets of best practices we can draw from and sharpen to help get close. In this blog post, I'm going to share our top recommendations for achieving on-page, keyword-targeting "perfection," or, at least, close to it. Some of these are backed by data points, correlation studies and extensive testing while others are simply gut-feelings based on experience. As with all things SEO, we recommend constant testing and refinement, though this knowledge can help you kick-start the process.

The Percectly Optimized, Keyword Targeted Page

Keyword Targeted Page

HTML Head Tags

    Title - the most important of on-page keyword elements, the page title should preferably employ the keyword term/phrase as the first word(s). In our correlation data studies, the following graph emerged:

    Importance of Query in Title
    Clearly, using the keyword term/phrase as the very first words in the page title has the highest correlation with high rankings, and subsequent positions correlate nearly flawlessly to lower rankings.

    Meta Description - although not used for "rankings" by any of the major engines, the meta description is an important place to use the target term/phrase due to the "bolding" that occurs in the visual snippet of the search results. Usage has also been shown to help boost click-through rate, thus increasing the traffic derived from any ranking position.

    Meta Keywords - Yahoo! is unique among the search engines in recording and utilizing the meta keyword tag for discovery, though not technically for rankings. However, with Microsoft's Bing set to take over Yahoo! Search, the last remaining reason to employ the tag is now gone. That, combined with the danger of using keywords there for competitive research means that at SEOmoz, we never recommend employing the tag.

    Meta Robots - although not necessary, this tag should be sure NOT to contain any directives that could potentially disallow access by the engines.

    Rel="Canonical" - the larger and more complex a site (and the larger/more complex the organization working on it), the more we advise employing the canonical URL tag to prevent any potential duplicates or unintentional, appended URL strings from creating a problem for the engines and splitting up potential link juice.

    Other Meta Tags - meta tags like those offered by the DCMI or FGDC seem compelling, but currently provide no benefit for SEO with the major engines and thus, add unnecessary complexity and download time.

URL:

    Length - Shorter URLs appear to perform better in the search results and are more likely to be copied/pasted by other sites, shared and linked-to.

    Keyword Location - The closer the targeted keyword(s) are to the domain name, the better. Thus, site.com/keyword outperforms site.com/folder/subfolder/keyword and is the most recommended method of optimization (though this is certainly not a massive rankings benefit)

    Subdomains vs. Pages - As we've talked about previously on the blog, despite the slight URL benefit that subdomains keyword usage has over subfolders or pages, the engines' link popularity assignment algorithms tilt the balance in favor of subfolders/pages rather than subdomains.

    Word Separators - Hyphens are still the king of keyword separators in URLs, and despite promises that underscores will be given equal credit, the inconsistency with other methods make the hyphen a clear choice. NOTE: This should not apply to root domain names, where separating words with hyphens is almost never recommended (e.g. pinkgrapefruit.com is a far better choice than pink-grapefruit.com).

Body Tags

    Number of Keyword Repetitions - It's impossible to pinpoint the exact, optimal number of times to employ a keyword term/phrase on the page, but this simple rule has served us well for a long time - "2-3X on short pages, 4-6X on longer ones and never more than makes sense in the context of the copy." The added benefit of another instance of a term is so miniscule that it seems unwise to ever be aggressive with this metric.

    Keyword Density - A complete myth as an algorithmic component, keyword density nonetheless pervades even very sharp SEO minds. While it's true that more usage of a keyword term/phrase can potentially improve targeting/ranking, there's no doubt that keyword density has never been the formula by which this relevance was measured.

    Keyword Usage Variations - Long suspected to influence search engine rankings (though never studied in a depth of detail that's convincing to me), the theory that varied keyword usage throughout a page can help with content optimization and optimization nevertheless is worth a small amount of effort.
 We recommend employing at least one or two variations of a term and potentially splitting up keyword phrases and using them in body copy as well or instead.

    H1 Headline - The H1 tag has long been thought to have great importance in on-page optimization. Recent correlation data from our studies, however, has shown that it has a very low correlation with high rankings (close to zero, in fact). While this is compelling evidence, correlation is not causation and for semantic and SEO reasons, we still advise proper use of the H1 tag as the headline of the page and, preferrably, employment of the targeted keyword term/phrase.

    H2/H3/H4/Hx - Even lower in importance than the H1, our recommendation is to apply only if required. These tags appears to carry little to no SEO value.

    Alt Attribute - Surprisingly, the alt attribute, long thought to carry little SEO weight, was shown to have quite a robust correlation with high rankings in our studies. Thus, we strongly advise the use of a graphic image/photo/illustration on important keyword-targeted pages with the term/phrase employed in the alt attribute of the img tag.

    Image Filename - Since image traffic can be a substantive source of visits and image filenames appear to be valuable for this as well as natural web search, we suggest using the keyword term/phrase as the name of the image file employed on the page.

    Bold/Strong - Using a keyword in bold/strong appears to carry a very, very tiny amount of SEO weight, and thus it's suggested as a best practice to use the targeted term/phrase at least once in bold, though a very minor one.

    Italtic/Emphasized - Surprisingly, italic/emphasized text appears to have a similar to slightly higher correlation with high rankings than bold/strong and thus, we suggest its use on the targeted keyword term/phrase in the text.

    Internal Link Anchors - No testing has yet found that internal anchors are picked up/counted by the engines.
    HTML Comments - As above, it appears the engines ignore text in comments.

What is Web Analytics?

Analytics is defined by the Web Analytics Association as “the objective tracking, collection, measurement, reporting and analysis of quantitative Internet data to optimize websites and marketing initiatives.” In short, it’s how you determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, gather the data you need to fine-tune your site and ultimately maximize your return on investment (ROI). Every single discipline of Internet marketing relies heavily on analytics.

Framework for Web Analytics Graphic

Why Analytics Matters to You

Web analytics allows you to access valuable information undreamed of by pre-Internet marketers:

    Target Your Audience. See who your typical customers are and how they get to your site. Age, gender and other factors influence how people interact with your website.
    Check Your Conversion Path. Measure the loss between any two steps on the way to conversion. You will need this data in order to perform Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
    Maximize Your Return on Investment. Evaluate the effectiveness of your various marketing methods. Are your pay-per-click keywords paying off? Have you optimized your site for the right search terms? What kind of boost are you getting from your social media marketing strategy?

Web Analytics Tools

There are two basic methods for collecting analytics data:

    Log files: Your server already produces this data, which capture every detail of a user’s interaction with your site. Various free and paid analytics services can interpret the data for you, or you can outsource it to an analytics company.

    Page tagging: Also known as “Web bugs,” this method gathers data via the user’s browser rather than your server. Page tagging requires signing up for an analytics service and adding JavaScript tags to each page on your site, and tends to be more accurate than log files.

Log files and page tagging each have distinct advantages and disadvantages for analytics strategies.

An Ongoing Process
The Internet changes quickly, so a successful Web analytics strategy must include a continuous improvement program (CIP) in order to stay ahead of your competition.

    Key Performance Indicators (KPI): Create a set of measurable factors you use to gauge your success so you can consistently chart your site’s long-term performance.
    Testing: Test changes to your site and use this data to make continuous improvements.
    Consistency: Controlled testing will allow you to more accurately predict what effect changes will have on the site.

In this section, you’ll find analytics tutorials and tools from analytics experts, as well as information on training and services offered by analytics professionals. Check our blog for regular updates on new developments in Web analytics.

Pay Per Click Management Services

Pay Per Click (PPC) refers to to the ads that appear within and alongside organic listings
on a search engine results page (SERP). The cost for having ads appear on a SERP is based upon two things: cost-per-click (CPC) and keywords. The CPC is determined by the cost of individual keywords, which exist as part of a larger bidding system. Some keywords are more expensive than other, which is why PPC keyword research is essential for identifying certain target keywords.

Bruce Clay, Inc. is a PPC company that understands how vital a role pay per click ads can play in search engine marketing. Our PPC experts provide wide-ranging PPC services as part of ongoing Internet advertising. Some of our PPC strategies include the creation and optimization of ads, management of your daily ad budget, analytics analysis and monthly reporting.

How to do Pay Per Click (PPC)

Developing PPC Strategy

Internet marketing can change rapidly and often. Because pay-per-click advertising requires daily adjustments, Bruce Clay, Inc.'s PPC professionals will assess individual needs and continually monitor the bidding process and placement of keywords. Bruce Clay, Inc.’s PPC experts manage advertising campaigns and have the ability to make changes quickly, especially when controlling price and placement and improving ad copy. This is why PPC management services we provide are founded upon agility and rapid response to the campaigns.

All comprehensive Search Engine Marketing campaigns should contain PPC advertising. Effectively implementing PPC strategies is an essential function to Internet marketing optimization, and if done correctly, can pay its dividends in brand advertising, CTR, and most importantly, conversions. Nevertheless, PPC services offer the ability to control how much you want to spend and where you want to be ranked.

In theory, higher bids will ensure PPC ads appear higher in the paid listings, but Google also takes into account not only the bid price, but also how well a PPC ad performs with click through rate (CTR) and bounce rate. Thus, it is the opinion of our PPC professionals that it's strategically important to support a sponsored listing with engaging ad copy, relevant site content, and targeted industry-specific keywords.


PPC Campaign Strategy

An effective PPC strategy can also help with keyword research in a search engine optimization campaign as well. This allows words to be tested live for their conversion rates in paid listings. Choose the keywords that perform best and ensure their placement in an SEO campaign to achieve optimal search engine rankings. Consider using PPC services alongside SEO because the majority of companies that employ both typically report very positive results.

It is important to keep mind that as your competition employs more PPC strategies as part of their Internet marketing campaigns, the competition will only become more fierce. Optimizing with Bruce Clay, Inc.’s PPC services to increase and solidify CTR and conversions is essential to staying one step ahead of the competition and ensuring business remains strong.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) includes On and Off-Page Optimization and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) that helps search engines find you. Studio1c specializes in promoting websites to increase their visibility in SERPs (Search Engine ResultPages) via:

Directory Submissions: Submitting your site URL to the relevant categories of popular directories like DMOZ, Best of the Web, etc can help you to get valuable back links.

Article Submission: An easy way to get link juice via back links is to submit unique articles to various popular article submission sites like EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleDashboard.com, iSnare.com, and ArticlesBase.com.

Forum: Set up your account on some popular forums, build your credibility there and soon you will be allowed to add your site URL in your signature, which will act as a backlink and help to lure your avid followers to your site.

Blogging: Whether you have a blog of your own or want to write as a contributing blogger for some popular blogging sites, this can prove to be an effective way of making people take notice of what you have to offer. RSS Feed generation and submission also help to keep your avid readers interested in your updates and news even when they don’t have the time to actually visit the site.

Social Bookmarking and Q and A Postings: You can also further your SEO interests by posting question and answers on Yahoo Answers, and via social bookmarking.

Social Networking: Networking on various social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are the newest buzz in SEO tactics, which webmasters are using with a zeal. You too can join the bandwagon after some careful planning.