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Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks – Learn how to increase visibility in Search Engines – Part 27 – The importance and the need of Directory Submission – Points to be aware of (contd..)

ashish — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:48:48 +0000

In previous posts (Directory Submission for SEO Optimization), we have covered the importance of how directory submission can help in SEO optimization and improve the rankings of your site. However, not everything is in black and white; there is a lot of stuff that you need to consider before jumping on the Directory Submission point and putting a lot of effort and money in this area. Here are some of them:
- Find out the most important ones that will benefit you. There are a lot of directories available on the internet, with many of them not having any significant rankings. For directories which are well reputed and ranked by search engines, there are enough benefits to ensure that you should spend the required time and effort to get directory submission. However, for those directories that are not so well know or have very low page rankings, you need to consider whether it is worth the effort to spend the time and money (especially when you have a limited amount of both)
- Watch out for the ‘nofollow’ tag. If a site has a nofollow tag, then it ensures that the search engines really do not consider this link as passing any link love, and as a result, if you are looking for a value of incoming links, then you are out of luck. However, for specialist directories where people go looking for relevant sites, it may still be beneficial in terms of getting site visitors. So, since most people have a certain amount of effort and costs budgeted, avoid such directories where there is no link love to be gained.
- Google and some other search engines are careful of people who seek to try to game search engines through gaining a lot of links from directories at the same time. As a result, when you use software to get submission into a number of directories at the same time, this may raise a flag with Google and other search engines. It now seems more relevant to use manual search submission.
- When you post to directories that seem to resemble link farms rather than theme based directories, the search engines do not really give too much credence to these directories. Look for directories where there is a clear demarcation of these theme based folders and criteria, or directories that are subject specific, and these in turn will add much more value to your site when a link exists from these sites.
- Do an evaluation of these directories on sites such as Alexa, and figure out whether these directories are not posting content that could be prejudicial to you. For example, if you have sites that are family based, and the directory where you are posting also includes porn sites or abusive sites, it can have a prejudicial effect on the rankings of your site.

Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks – Learn how to increase visibility in Search Engines – Part 26 – The importance and the need of Directory Submission (contd..)

ashish — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:47:58 +0000

In the previous post (Directory Submission and SEO), I had talked about the importance of Directory (and Directory Submission) for the purpose of SEO. So, it is clear that it is beneficial to do Directory Submission if you want to increase you search engines ranking. In this post, I will put more points about how to ensure that you are doing this in the best possible way.
- One huge advantage that you get if you submit your site to directories is that you are putting your site in a location where people are actually searching for the same thing. I have a couple of photo blogs such as this one (Ashish’s Photos) and I was looking at doing some Directory addition for this post. I added it to a couple of directories, and was a bit surprised when I checked the logs, since I found that in the first week after, I was seeing additional traffic in the range of 3-4% (which is not bad when you consider that doing this for many more directories will result in a good increase in traffic)
- You can find topical web directories as well, more focused on special subjects. For example, if you have a site that is about movies, you will be able to find directories that are focused on movies (or even specific movie types or genres that you may be looking at), and also at one level higher (such as entertainment). Links from such focused directories are valuable (if the directory has a good reputation). In fact, when you compare the effort needed for web directories vs. the effort needed for link exchanges or link farms, web directory submission seems to be the better thing to do.
- As you might imagine, there are a number of such directories, with the most important ones such as DMOZ, Google Directory, Yahoo Directory, AllTop, Best of the Web, etc, all being fairly well-known. However, there are a number of directories that you will need to find through other means and will still be useful to you in terms of search engine optimization. Some of the tools for finding such directories are:
1. Search Engine Watch (link)
2. Directory Critic (link)
3. SEO Friendly Directory (link)
4. UK top list (link)
5. Top web directories (link)

Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks – Learn how to increase visibility in Search Engines – Part 1

ashish — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:54:37 +0000

What is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is called ? And more important, is this another Three Letter Acronym, or is this something important that you should know about ?
Well, Search Engine Optimization is important for everybody who wants more visitors to their site / blog through search engines, and given that for a large number of blogs, their visitors come through search engines, it makes a lot of sense to try and ensure that your blog comes up high in search engine rankings. You would have heard of people stuffing their site with keywords, with meta tags, using keywords in their page with the same color as the background so that they rank higher, and so on. Well, if you were upto date with SEO techniques, you would have learnt that many of these are liable to get you penalized rather than promoted in search engine rankings. After all, as a technique to game a search engine ranking becomes widely known, the engineers at the Search Engine stop the utilization of that technique, and in many cases, consider the sites using them to be unfairly trying to game the search engines and penalize them. Search engines get their credibility based on the accuracy of their search results, and look upon the misuse of such techniques pretty unfavorably.
If all this is true, then how does Search Engine Optimization work ? Well, the fact is that the operative word is “unfairly”; there are a number of techniques that are pretty okay by search engines and which a lot of site creators do not know enough about in terms of optimizations. So, for example if you have a site that has is linked to by other sites, search engines consider that a good think. But wait, if you go out and buy such links and these links are coming from places that search engines (such as Google or Yahoo search) know have low credibility, such links can hurt you.
What does all this mean ? Well, all this means that you need to be more attentive to the ongoing study of Search Engine Optimization, about what things work, and what things do not. In the next many posts, I will be laying out some of the techniques used (primarily with respect to blogs built on either WordPress or Blogger, but some of the techniques will be relevant to other blogs as well).
As a parting shot, here is something that is a quick solution, and works for a large number of blogs (but not for the Blogger platform). It is a tool called “All in One SEO Pack”, and can be found on this page (link).
Here are some details from the page:

Some features:
Advanced Canonical URLs
Fine tune Page Navigational Links
Built-in API so other plugins/themes can access and extend functionality
ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites
Nonce Security
Support for CMS-style WordPress installations
Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
Generates META tags automatically
Avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs

Benefits of creating a Facebook Group for your blog / site promotion

ashish — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:08:20 +0000

It has always been said that if you want to promote a blog or site on Facebook, then you should create a Facebook Fan Page (read these posts on how to optimize using Facebook – article1, article2), however, also consider the advantages that a Facebook Group can bring to your efforts. Here are some important points about a Facebook Group:
1. A group is a very good way to promote your blog / site, since you can add your blog name, logo, and interests in the design of the Facebook Group. Further, you can even add information about what your blog is all about, what are its unique points, and so on.
2. There are a huge number of users on Facebpook, and many of them spend enough time on Facebook that promoting your interests on Facebook is of critical importance to your blog promotion
3. You can actually use other Facebook Groups to get a lot more information on your chosen subject, as well as find out how successful groups get more users. Find other groups on the same subject, join them, and learn about the discussions and promotion tactics that happen on these groups; and learn from them.
4. A Facebook Group slightly reduces the concept of this being a marketing strategy, since it seems to make this a discussion forum. As a result, members are more likely to get interested in topics of discussion, and even though a large number of the posts will not have much interest in visiting your site, you will still get more visitors, and more people who are your readers in some way.
5. Updates are automatically sent to the Group members, ensuring a wide degree of proliferation of the content, and ensuring that new content added to the Group gets a wide dispersal as more members get added
6. There are some very successful Facebook Groups that have a large number of users and which have done incredibly well to promote their interests, with some incremental benefits to the image of the creator (and the associated site)
7. You can have a lot of analytics to measure the performance of your Group, what makes it successful, what makes it a failure, and so on. This analysis helps you make the required decisions and further steps needed.
8. Facebook Groups get added to the Search from within Facebook, and a larger number of people can find your group as the group becomes more active, this enabling even more users to find the Group and so on.
9. You can search for people on Facebook who have similar interests, and invite them to your Group. A large number of them will refuse, but there will be many who are interested, and will view your site, and if interested, will join.
10. If you get an active set of people in your Group, and they are able to associate with your site / blog, then that is a level of viral marketing that people pay huge amounts of money to get, and the benefits you get through this are incredible.

Find out some details of creating / maintenance in the Facebook Group Help at this page (link).

How to promote your Blog on Facebook – Some tips

ashish — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:38:51 +0000

Facebook is turning out to be a great tool for promoting your blog. Well, you might consider as to why Facebook ?
- Facebook has a growing number of users who spend a huge amount of time on the application
- If you create a Facebook Fan Page for your blog (click to learn how), your posts are also searchable
- Typically, the structure of a Facebook Fan Page is that your users can start to generate content on their own and post that on the Facebook Fan Page, increasing the amount of content you have (but this takes time, and needs a number of users)
- When combined with other blog promotion strategies such as using Twitter, allowing your users to easily subscribe, and many others, using Facebook increases the potential of your blog finding more users

Now that you are convinced (hopefully) about using a Facebook Fan Page, how can you increase the promotions you do via your Facebook Fan Page:
1. Mention your Facebook Fan Page in your posts at the end, and as your signature on emails
2. Use a Facebook Fan Box to send your blog viewers to your Facebook Fan Page (click to learn)
3. Ensure that your blog is automatically posted to your Fan Page (click to learn)
4. Don’t only depend on your own blog posts. Post other articles from other sites that are relevant (don’t steal – link to the actual article and put a small teaser on top). If the site owner sees you doing this, they will appreciate your not stealing, and in fact, promoting their content.
5. Post a link to your Fan Page in your Profile, so that your friends get a chance to find your Fan Page
6. Automatically link your Fan Page to your Twitter account so that any update on your Fan Page gets published to your Twitter account (click to learn)
7. Run an Ad campaign on Facebook, it is not very expensive and can get you a large number of Fans who would not have otherwise found your Blog
8. Add a logo. A logo, if interesting, gives a brand value to your Fan Page, and can differentiate your page from other pages
9. Add detailed information to the info tab. Many people go to the info tab, and if they find some interesting information, it can enhance their opinion of the Fan Page and give a higher chance of becoming loyal readers.
10. Write a blog post about your new Facebook Fan Page. This gives your readers the knowledge that they can also connect to you on Facebook.

(contd..)