Making Sure Your SEO Is Legal

It is too bad the internet is swamped with content that is often written very poorly or fake with no answers or even suggestions of where to go for information. Search engine optimization is very valuable, but if done wrong, can lead to penalties from Google and other search engines.

Securing Your SEO

When doing a search for a term it is always important to be able to spot well written content, and content that is poorly done. Make sure have fresh accurate information that will make potential clients and visitors want to take the time to review your website. Key words that are up to date will help your rankings in all the major search engine terms. Write articles and blogs that are your words, not words that have been duplicated. Search engines finding duplicated content will penalize your website severely for violating those terms. Your own content will also save you lots of time and your reputation if you get busted for having someone’s terminology. Take the time to do the research on what you are writing about, and be sure your information is correct. It will save you so much time in the long run putting in the effort.

Newest SEO Developments

If you plan on taking on the SEO challenge, there are some recent developments that are a must to know. Your content must be high quality or you are not going to stand much of a chance to get your website up the ranks. Content that is copied, stolen, or reused will get your site punished and you might have a hard time finding it amongst the ranks again. Google is one of the top search engine contenders that is not messing around when it comes to fixing this problem with bad content. Your best bet is to either do your SEO yourself or hire a reputable company that has excellent references and can back up their services.

Taking your time with this complex skill is something you cannot get away with. Proper key wording, tagging, and content will keep you safe, legal, and prospering. Finally, if you’re still worried, contact your Arlington lawyer for more help.

SEO for Charities

Most webmasters and search engine optimizers would believe that doing internet marketing and SEO for a nonprofit or a charity would be the same as any other client, and for the most part they would be correct. The site needs to be aged, have a lot of content, fresh updates, proper on-page SEO, and have a lot of strong and relevant backlinks. One key thing that a lot of SEO firms overlook is the people-oriented side of things on the hunt for strong backlinks.

Anyone that has ever done SEO for industries like pharmaceuticals, gambling, or warez knows that links are a lot harder to come by because webmasters for other sites do not want to link to these types of sites for fear of getting penalties for linking to bad neighborhoods. This in turn leads these types of industries to need to go out and fetch links in a more grey/blackhat manner generally.

Well, with charities the effect is quite the opposite and compounded. People love charities and nonprofit organizations much more than general business and ecommerce websites, so they are much more obliged to link to them. I have seen countless organizations such as United Way leverage their strong interpersonal relationships with webmasters to build up their backlink portfolio. To use Ghandi’s famous quote, “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” applies directly to charities looking to grow their search engine rankings. They have tons of fan sites and tons of supporters who have blogs and websites of their own, and if they are donating to your cause then a majority of them certainly would have no problem sending you a little link love as well if you ask for it.

Search Engine Optimization Basics

Search Engine Optimization refers to techniques employed in web development and marketing that enhance a sites ability to get listed by search engines. The most popular search engines are the most sought after for higher rankings. Google, Bing and Yahoo are leading search engines. Each uses different criteria to quantify which sites get listed and in what order they appear. Higher rankings translate to more visits to a web site.

SEO can be a daunting task for any business owner.  If you don’t want to do it yourself consider hiring a seo services company.  If you want to try it yourself or get a little knowledge about what a company would do for you, please keep reading.

All SEO techniques do not take place within the confines of the source code behind a page. Some outside factors contribute to a sites ranking as well. Other sites can help improve the site ranking of a website simply by linking to it from within their site. A link or “mention” from an outside source speaks to the credibility of a website and thus helps it grow in the rankings.

Off site things to consider when trying improving your site rankings are:

Site Health-Consider, the amount of outgoing links a site that links you has, too many is not a good thing. Also look into the quality of the links, what types of sites are they?

Link Building- Getting a link from a competitor is not easy but it is possible either a link exchange or if possible a one way link will benefit your sites ranking

Anchor Text – Good quality links from other sites will improve your page ranking most especially for competitive keywords.

Site Targeting - Research your competitive sites and seek out links from the top one hundred sites that link to them.

Competitors – Keep an eye on your competitors, educate yourself by researching their site to find out more about how their page ranks.

On site areas to consider when trying to improve your page ranking include:

Tags – Don’t forget basic HTML formatting, tags should be utilized correctly.

Key Words – Another often forgotten element of website optimization. Make sure you use your keywords in the text of your website. Use alternate similar words and synonyms to help increase your chances of ranking with them too.

Link structure – Be aware of page depth, too many clicks to a website, devalue that site in the eyes of a search engine. Also be sure to use internal links in the structure of your website, linking to the major areas of your site internally will help increase the chances that a search engine will pick up on the page. Be sure to use keywords as anchor text, for validity.

This post brought to you by Axxoo SEO.  Axxoo Specializes in Toronto SEO.

On-Site SEO that Works

There is a ton of misinformation on the web about which SEO techniques work and which don’t.  As always, you should read with caution and test for yourself.

The #1 rule for on-site is SEO is relevance.  Make sure that the site or page you are trying to rank is relevant and useful for the visitors that click on your primary keyword.  A clean, straight to the point site will be appreciated by your visitors.  Use custom web design techniques which enhance the subject matter, don’t go over-the-top with flash, moving graphics, or anything distracting.

Start at the top.  The title of your page should feature your primary keywords and tell visitors and search engines what the focus of your page/site is.  Once you have attracted traffic to your site, they should instantly be able to see content which directly addresses the keywords you’ve placed in your title.  Article, video, or post headers should feature the keywords.

You can’t cram a ton of info onto your homepage, so include excepts with links to back pages that expand on the subject matter of the keywords.  According to Web Design Richmond you should keep the focus of the page simple and concise.  Function over form.

You want to make your site as clean and crisp as possible.  Even though most people have fast connections such as cable or satellite internet you don’t want to miss out on vital new consumers that are still kick’n it old school with dial-up.

Finally, make sure your link structure is easy to follow and intutive for finding information on your site.

For most legitimate web sites, the above steps will be all the on-site SEO necessary.  If you have a particularly large site, consider a site map.  For most though, they are unnecessary.  Keep it simple, stay focused, and above all – be useful!

How To Write A Blog Post Like A Pro

Everyone has a blog these days. My dad (just turned sixty last month) has three. He has his business blog, his personal blog and he’s got a twitter blog where he’s writing a novel at 140 character installments six days a week. ??So what makes your blog special, and how do you write a snappy, eye-catching, engaging blog post every time?

Journalism 101

Seriously, if you want to write a blog and you’ve not taken a basic course in journalistic writing, do so. You’ll discover ‘The Inverted Pyramid’ and a semester’s worth of other concepts that can be applied directly to your blog. A creative writing course would be nice, too, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Most important are the 5 W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why. Here’s a crash course.

Who are you Writing For?

It’s a simple question, sure, but it can have a difficult answer. Who will be reading your blog post? Are you writing for ten year olds or twenty-something’s? Do you intend to be read by colleagues, fans, friends, employers, locals, internationals, or bi-lingual’s?

Having a targeted demographic will help you to picture your audience while you’re writing your blog. It will help you to choose a tone, vocabulary, and topic that will appeal to them, as well as be understood by them. More important than knowing what you’ll be saying is knowing who you’ll be saying it to.

What Will You Be Writing About?

This one is pretty simple, really: “What is this blog post about?” If your blog is designed to share your adventures with friends and family while you’re teaching English in South Korea, your topic is already decided. If it’s more of a soap-box upon which you champion a political stance and ideology, you might have a little more work cut out for you in coming up with a topic.

When Will This Be Posted?

It’s at this point that I have to confess that I’ve modified the journalistic “5 W’s,” in order to better meet my own needs. The original ‘When’ refers to “When did the event happen?” That doesn’t work well in an overall guide for writing blogs. So instead I’ve chosen “When Will This Be Posted.”

You need to decide whether or not you’ll be posting immediately, delaying the publishing date, or even implying that it has been posted weeks prior to the day you actually wrote it. Knowing this while you’re writing allows you to maintain continuity with other posts you may have written. If it’s an article about Halloween posted in April, you might want to explain why.

Where Will This Be Seen?

You know your audience, your topic and your time, now know your stage. Does your blog have any recurring themes, concepts or standards you have to adhere to? Is it moderated by an outside censor or is it governed by your own good judgment?

Second to deciding who will be reading it, knowing where it will be read will help you to craft an appropriate tone and vocabulary. These are key components of the ‘voice’ of your piece.

Why Are You Writing?

I’m not getting metaphysical on you. If you’re an artist, poet, or novelist, you could be writing to express yourself, or gain exposure. If you’re an activist you could be writing this blog to engender awareness and provide a voice to the voiceless. If you’re a fan you could simply be pointing out why United is better than City (over and over and over again), or if you’re a freelance writer you could simply be trying to build a good name and reputation for yourself while sharing useful and hard-earned knowledge as a guest poster on quality websites.

Having an honest answer for this final ‘W’ enables you to write your post with purpose and drive. Your readers’ time is too precious to waste with unclear thoughts and ramblings. Make sure you always know why you’re writing, and why it matters to your reader.

and “How.”

Like the five vowels ending in ‘and sometimes Y,’ our 5 W’s end with a “How.”

The concepts above aren’t a magic key to always writing good blog posts, but it’s how you start. It’s an easy to remember mnemonic device for building a foundation before you type every blog post. I take the time before I sit down to actually write out the five W’s and then build my article on top of them. That’s how I do it.

Jake Walker is a freelance writer and has been working on the web on and off for the last 10 years. An avid blogger he has had many posts featured on major social networks and other news portal websites. He currently works as a search engine optimization consultant with the other smart people at SEOP.com