The WordsManShip

Category: SEO strategies

  • Innovative and Unique Budget Link Building Tricks – I

    There is this accusation that many entrepreneurs have against Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms. The accusation is that SEO firms are only willing to cater to clients that are willing to dish out mini fortunes for their services. Well, they are partly right. SEO firms do tend to focus on services and packages that have high margins.

    For example, most SEO firms place a lot of emphasis on the more elaborate, complex and complicated technique of social media marketing or even favor the restructuring of the whole website to include SEO terms. SEO packages are made with focus on these components as against the cheaper methods of online marketing like bulk article submission and on page blogging. The reason is simple; Money and profits!

    If you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to take his online business i.e. his website to the next level but has withdrawn from talks with established SEO firms because they asked for too much money, then you would be glad to know that there are ways and means through which you can achieve your goals and not spend obscene amounts of money. Here is a list that should help you significantly.

    1. Submit articles in bulk:
      The most common and popular technique is to submit articles in bulk. Now, you might find yourself questioning the authenticity of this advice; since it is coming from a content and article writing service provider i.e. The WordsManShip. However, you can easily verify how true this suggestion is by going through some other online blogs or articles on cheap SEO link building techniques.

      The technique of using an article writing and submission service to gain important links is one of the oldest and most well tested. The primary reason why submission of SEO articles is seen as a good way to create backlinks is that you can obtain cheap SEO articles of high quality quite easily and submit them on most article websites for free.

    2. Donate your services and look for media recognition:
      The other way to get good backlinks is to donate your services to charitable and nonprofit organizations. Such an act would result in two things. The first would be that you would be helping your own conscience out in the best way possible and the second would be that you might find it easier to gain media coverage this way.

      For example, if you have an online grocery delivery business, then you can simply donate some grocery food items to the local homeless shelter or nonprofit organization and inform the local media about your endeavors. If you do this on a slow media day then it is likely that you would get yourself some nice backlinks in addition to great publicity.

    3. Provide nuggets of your expertise for free:
      Providing bits of your total expertise for free to clients and interested individuals is a way through which you would not only get backlinks but also build a good reputation and display your skills. You can simply have some segment on your website where any individual can ask you a question pertaining to your expertise. Alternatively, you can go to question – answer websites and answer questions on your area of expertise.

    While these three points are the most important for budget link building, there are few more that can be used to further the prospects of an online business. In the second installment of this article, to be released on September 21, 2011, we, being an article writing and submission service, would empower you with three more suggestions.

    Share

  • Plan Your Site’s Web Content with a Good Web Content Company for Effective SEO!

    So you have planned a website for your business and you have some really talented web designers working on your website’s appearance. You get a design that you like and which you feel will reflect your company’s ideology and ‘feel’ perfectly. The website builders start working on getting your site online when you suddenly realise that you would also need content for your site’s pages. ‘Well’, you think, ‘it needs to be done, so let’s hire some writer who will give us what we want’.

    That is exactly what you go and do. You find yourself a writer who gives you content for your pages and your site goes online with much fanfare. At this point, you stop and say, ‘Oh! Now I need to start working on the SEO and make this site show up on Google!’, and that is when you start looking for an SEO company to help your site rise in the rankings.

    What is wrong with the picture?

    I’ll tell you what is wrong. The planning, that’s what’s wrong!

    SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is an integral part of online marketing and business. Most web content companies also offer to optimise your website for search engines, but in order for them to be truly effective, the process needs to start right from the beginning.

    Why, You ask?

    Because now that Google is wising up to the tactics used by a number of so-called SEO specialists, it is changing its tactics for website rankings.

    So now, it is no longer effective to fill up your web pages with keywords. And if you stop to think about it, mindless keyword-rich text on the site is not really helping your business, is it?

    The whole purpose of your site was to grow your business. Business grows with new customers. With relevant content, it is inevitable to find customers coming to your site and staying there! That is what Google is looking for, too.

    There are a number of things that affect a site’s ranking on search engines. High quality web content is just a part of it. While relevant keywords on the page would count, mindless flooding would not. Additionally, not many people are aware of it, but having links on your web pages with relevant anchor text also makes a difference to your search ranking. This becomes a factor when you are planning your web content. Good quality web content companies, like The Wordsmanship, are aware of the need for smart SEO techniques, and the need for them to be built into the site rather than over it.

    Think of it this way… you would make a better house if you planned everything on paper and then executed it, instead of making a big box and then trying to figure out how to give it a solid foundation and where to knock out holes for windows and doors!

    Well planned content from a good web content company at the planning stage will also ensure that your site’s design remains true to its form. While using ‘Lorem Ipsum’ to fill out text spaces might seem appropriate initially, once the web content is inserted in there, you will realise that the appearance of the page changes.

    By hiring a web content company for your site’s SEO right at the beginning of the planning stage, you ensure not only good quality web content that is relevant for your website, but you also help your website look nicer!

    Share

  • 5 Ways in Which You, As a Client, Can Ensure High Quality Web Content

    A lot of people don’t realise it, but SEO or search engine optimisation is not something that happens after the site is up and running. The content on the pages of your site can also be optimised for search engines. This gives your site a fundamental advantage which will continue to push it up even if you aren’t doing anything extra. However, this means that your web content needs to be optimised while your site is being built, not after. If you do decide to go ahead and get your site’s content optimised, here are some tips that would help you get the best result.

    1)      Find a Web Content Company that delivers high quality content: If you search through web content companies online, you will find plenty of sites where you will be promised the earth and the moon and everything in between. Try and do some background checks before you take their word and hire them.

    Your research could be as simple as going through their site thoroughly to see the quality of content they have put on their own site. You could go through their blogs and see how they write there. You could even contact old clients to find out what they thought about the company’s performance.

    Whatever you do, don’t just pick a company because they say they are good. It might take you a little longer, but it would be worth it.

    2)      Know exactly what you want from them: If you want a web content company to do the content for your website, it would be helpful to have a sitemap prepared and a basic idea of how long the text in those pages would be.

    Knowing what you want is not limited to knowing the number of pages you want content for, or what the length of the content should be. You should also have a general idea of the kind of keywords you would want optimised. While the specific keywords and SEO strategy would be the web content company’s department, if you come prepared with your research, you would be less likely to get anything less than the best quality.

    If you have everything planned on your end, it makes it that much easier for the web content writer to produce quality content that is appropriate for you. When you know what you want, the web content writers waste less time in trying to figure out your needs. This saves you time, and ultimately money, and you get your work done faster and better.

    3)      Give your Inputs: Let’s be honest. Web content writers and companies providing web content services know their business, but they are not exactly experts in your business. Do not hesitate to give your inputs and feedback if you feel the direction they are taking is not what you want for your company or website.

    Because you know more about your clients, you would know if the web content is appropriate for them or not. If you let the web content company know that, the content would be modified to your liking.

    I put this as a separate point even though this is essentially an extension of the previous point because a lot of clients feel that after having given the brief, they should not interfere in the writing process. I cannot stress enough that while the web content writers know more about writing, you know more about your clients and your business. Let them know if you feel what they are providing you is not what you need.

    4)      Take their Inputs: I know it sounds like a contradiction to the previous point, but it is just as important to take the inputs given to you by the web content company. While your brand image and company website is your department, Search Engine Optimisation and SEO strategies are the web content company’s forte. Be open to their suggestions and ideas. Always be open to discussions and be ready to change your mind if the argument is convincing enough.

    5)      Be involved in the Process:  It is always better to check at every stage than to get the finished product and realise that it is not what you expected. Once the complete content is delivered to you, getting it done again will cost you more. This is why is makes more sense to have the web content company send you initial drafts for approval so that both of you can agree upon the direction of the content. This way the company will be able to provide you with web content that is of the quality you want while having had the benefit of your knowledge of your business.

    Share

  • Mistakes That Clients Make in Keyword Selection – Part II

    The first part of the ‘Mistakes That Clients Make in Keyword Selection’ contained three points that focused on keyword selection in terms of the popularity of the keywords, the competition that they put up and the specificity that they have been chosen for. In this article, we will be focusing on other less significant but equally common mistakes that people make when selecting their keywords that they give to their professional article writing service providers.

    1. Plural keywords vs. singular keywords:
      Many clients try to use plurals for their products because they are viewing the search patterns through their entrepreneurial glasses. You may refer to your products in plural but the buyer does not. Therefore, the buyer does not search for weight loss supplements; he searches for weight loss supplement because he only has to buy one.

      Moreover, while Google does a fairly good job of keeping plural and singular expressions of words in the same basket, the results still tend to differ sometimes. The trend is that a singular keyword is bound to be a part of the results even if the end user uses plural expression in the search field. It is also worth mentioning that the best article writing services automatically include plurals of the keyword that you have given them.

    2. Contextual mistakes:
      Everything in the pond boils down to the context. The carnivore fish only sees other fish; the herbivore fish only sees plankton and the plankton do not have anything to see. Context is everything when it comes to keyword selection for your high quality article writing service.

      If you have a website that provides people with marketing campaigns that involve moving billboards and posters then you cannot use the term mobile marketing, even though that is what it is called. The reason for this is that mobile marketing invariably leads a person to think that the marketing will be done on mobile phones. Furthermore, as mobile phones are more popular than moving trucks with billboards on them, it just means that you need to use a different approach.

    3. Review your strategy and selections:
      This is a mistake that the majority of website owners make when using even the best article writing service providers. Most of the times clients pick certain keywords and keep giving them to high quality article writing services without even bothering to see if the strategy is working or not. Reviewing keywords is one of the most critical steps of keyword selection.

      You should ideally go through your keyword list on an annual basis to see which one worked and which one should be scrapped. Make lists of keywords that have been great successes, keywords that have been abject failures and keywords that have been mediocre but you think have potential. In addition to this, you should look to add new keywords to this list every year also. In fact, you should also try to rope in your professional article writing service to help you with this. If you review your keywords then you would be refining your SEO strategy to a cutting edge…just like a swordfish.

    Share

  • Mistakes That Clients Make in Keyword Selection–Part I

    Google is gradually becoming more ruthless in weeding out all the negative elements in the SEO industry by making its algorithms more content based. However, while this is of great help to the end user and each and every professional article writing service, it has also made the whole process of SEO more intensive. Take for example the aspect of keyword selection. One of the biggest problems that we have noted with our clients is with their selection of keywords.

    The choice of keywords is one of the most crucial aspects of any SEO campaign and regardless of whether you have a high quality article writing services or the best article writing service, if your keyword selection is unsatisfactory then it would not be as successful as it can be. Here is a list of all the keyword mistakes that people make.

    1. Small fish, big pond or big fish, small pond:
      Most of our clients have this philosophy of aiming for keywords that are already seeing a lot of demand from services or product providers. This translates into the small fish, big pond syndrome. It is not really a good place to be because unless you are devoting a lot of resources i.e. using the best article writing service and posting, at least, ten articles daily, the big fish will swallow the small fish i.e. you.

      If your resources are limited then you are better off aiming for keywords that do not have a lot of competition and can be optimized easily. Being the big fish in a small pond is better because you will get more conversions.

    2. Competition and its strengths:
      If there is a shark in your waters and you are a lowly individual piranha then you cannot expect to compete with it. However, if you do not analyze the shark and its strengths then you can just as easily keep going for the same target audience and failing each and every time. The idea is to know what you are up against when it comes to a single keyword.

      Once you have selected the keyword, you should check which of your competitors are using it and evaluate their capabilities and strength. You should look at their size, the kind of back links they have already created and even the high quality article writing service that they are using. For example, if you are a new company and your competitors have been in the market for some time, then you cannot realistically hope to compete with them.

    3. Dive deep for the best morsels:
      Keeping with the fish terminology, the deeper you dive the better food you will find. What this means is that your keyword selection needs to be extremely extensive and focused. The deeper you research into your keywords and the more specific you are with your selection, the better your results will be, once you get a professional article writing service to use it for you.

      A simple example of this would be the comparison between computers, personal computers and P4 personal computers. As you have already surmised, long tail is better than single word keywords because you will target better audience this way.

    Share

  • Content Trapping: The Road to Web Dorado

    When it comes to strategies for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there is little place for the adjective ‘best’. With SEO strategies (especially for web content writing), there are right strategies and better ones. While there are a myriad of SEO strategies, the right strategy is the one that actually works for you and a better one is what can propel your business from its current standing to having greater traffic and expanded business.

    Content Trap is one such strategy which if done right can help your boost your traffic in a short period of time. It is described as a system comprising of content based manipulative link building tactics (whatever that means). But a heads up though, in spite of a big pay-off, anyone who employs this method will come to know that it’s a demanding and laborious process. I will try to break it down for you into simple, comprehensible steps.

    Identifying Low-competition Key-words that will lead straight to your site

    Identify at least ten long-tail keywords related to your site. The length of these key-words may stretch to around 3-6 words. You can use tools like Google Ad-keywords or Traffic Travis to identify these key-words. A certain variety in the key-words will increase the scope for your pages to gain visibility. This will also be useful when you get to the last step of the process. The idea of getting moderately competitive key-words for your site will get search engines to lead them straight to your page. This way, any search related to such key-words will directly channel the targeted audience to your page. Thus your site will feature at the higher end of the page ranking to such a search.

    Prioritise your Key-words and configure your Top pages accordingly

    Key-words with greater degree of search should figure higher up your list. Configuring your pages to feature the given key-word more prominently will elevate your standing in the search results. This step would entail; including the key-words in the URL, anchor text as well as the body of content. Stick to an appropriate key-word density (say, 1-2%) so that it doesn’t seem like the key-words have been stuffed in the page superfluously. The refined search criterion of search engines absolutely abhors such tactics.

    Generating adequate links for the Key-words

    Once the site has been configured for optimized visibility during searches, it is important that the site generates enough do-follow links for the selected key-words. This can mostly be in the form of Do-follow anchor text-links. The site moderators can try posting the links on blog comments (which permit such links) or spread them through Guest Blogs at popular sites (if they have any). Submitting your links to reliable feed directories will result in high quality back-links.

    Submitting articles based on each Key-word.

    While the above steps were meticulous in nature, this step is just plain back breaking drudgery.  There also lies a conundrum with this step. If you have a series of key-words that are closely similar to each other, you may dispose of this task early and attain a quick spike in your traffic but will end up recycling the same material thereby diluting the quality of the content and needless to say attenuating the linkability of the pages. On the other hand, having eclectic key-words will take up your time in writing the articles but will ensure a wide variety of content (all related to the same subject of course). The latter method in spite of the slow start is bound to ensure return visits and garnering a stable traffic. Thereafter, all you need to do is submit these articles to popular article directories for syndication and in a short period you will notice a gradual rise in your page traffic as well as page rankings.

    Do remember to stick to the tips of capitalizing on traffic spikes and maintaining a stable traffic.

    Share

  • The Quest for Consistent Growth in Traffic

    Generating internet traffic and achieving a consistent growth in it is the primary objective of most web-based business services, namely online content writing services and SEO content services. Attaining a stable traffic is how websites generate leads to their businesses. The more traffic the website generates, the more it expands in its business be it the sale of products and services or the simple propagation of ideas and ideologies.

    While websites use many methods to amplify their traffic, the site can attain sustained growth only through return visits and by gaining the loyalty of the audience who explore the contents the site has to offer. The given list of measures might shed some light on the secrets behind maintaining a stable traffic.

    Consistent delivery of high quality content

    While it’s not really a secret, but constantly generating content highly worth linking is a strategy which apart from being a principle is the most assured form of improving a site’s reputation and popularity. What more, you might also attract a generic audience apart from the loyal base of niche audience that you were originally targeting. The ability of the content to attract an audience would be deeply affected by the;

    – Amount of information available on the topic

    – The design of the site

    – The tone and approach of the writer while dispensing the information (which may vary according to the gravity of the subject, though our staff while staying loyal to being objective does believe in the saying ‘Leave ‘em laughing’).

    Networking with other bloggers and affluent people in your target niche

    The approval and endorsement of notable peers can have a marked effect on the loyalty of the audience. Linking out to the popular and affluent netizens in your own sphere will increase your visibility amongst the niche. Notifying as well as attracting other well known web personalities will help raise the activity and prominence of the site. Reaching out to bloggers by staying active on their blog with relevant and intelligent comments (added emphasis on Intelligent) will help you make them explore your own content. This can also help you forge a relationship with them and eventually may lead to them to endorsing and linking your page. As good bedside manners, it helps to thank the sites that have contributed in raising your traffic and even return the favour sometime.

    Identifying popular pages and increasing their linking
    One should constantly monitor the popularity of the site and keep a tab on which pages are high up in the page rankings in the keyword search and improve the internal links leading to the pages. Staying active on the forums available in the page and improving the content will also raise the prominence of the as well as increasing the activity on the page.

    Most websites tend to market their homepage more than the high utility pages but owners should focus more on the pages with greater linkability. Setting up support pages can be another added measure to channel links to the popular content in your site.

    Constantly updating your site

    While the above steps may encourage audiences to make a second visit to your page, only new content that is worth their while will assure a repeated visit. The moderators should keep themselves active on the forums of their page so as to keep the existing crowd active on your page.

    Share

  • Content farms: An obituary

    It started with Google’s Caffeine and the Mayday programs and then in 2011, Google Panda stomped its way to hammering the last nails on the coffin. Content farms masquerading as efficient databases with the help of the vacuous art of Article Spinning are meeting a steep fall from grace in their SERP rankings as search engines (Not only Google) wised up to their rank hogging tricks.

    There used to be a time when websites simply used to stuff their domains with a more than adequate amount of key words. This was the time when search engines conducted linear searches to yield a search result which was arranged as per its popularity and certain relevance irrespective of the nature and quality of the content as compared to each other. And that’s about all that search engines used to do. Such a system was not hard to get around. The methods were labour intensive but it yielded efficient results. Websites at that time were well capable of outsmarting the fledgling Search engines of yesteryear which were yet to become the industrious content quality predators that they are now.

    This was usually done by hiring a vast hoard of content writers who would replicate the content originally produced and thus not only expand the size of the website but also help the website don a property of seeming to have a vast reserve of data on a subject. This also helped in getting more clicks and visits since one article would simply lead to another. Besides, by having a plethora of articles similar in structure, there was a chance that at least one page would procure vast traffic and in turn simply lead the readers to explore other articles present in the domain. Of course, considering it’s the internet, few methods steadily stand the test of time and Article spinning became just one of the few tricks to cultivating what became infamously termed as “Content Farms”, a breed of websites which industriously produced an assembly line of articles which were notoriously similar in content.

    While Search engines steadily trod the path to discovering how the worth of a page can be gauged aside from the familiar and outdated criteria of popularity, dotcom intelligentsia everywhere invented new and evolved tricks of Search Engine Optimization. They found radical new ways to set-up content farms as well as earning a steady wage from them. Yes, there were sites that supplied reliable and original content, but these content farms prospered as well. Until now that is.

    Many must be acquainted with the news of drop in the SERP and traffic of 12% of all sites since the launch of the Google Panda algorithm (a majority of which were E-Commerce sites). Considering the formation of 4.5 mn URL’s every month (as measured in 2011) as well as taking into account the billion pages already in existence, an unfathomable number of sites have been affected and the rest 88% are just surviving, I’m guessing. Although one has to concede that the truly productive sites must have had a hyperbolic spike in their traffic.

    While the Panda has rendered nothing short of a sucker punch, I’m supremely confident (in it’s obviousness) that the Search engine gods are yet to unleash their Kraken. Google being the sovereign of Search engines will lead the witch hunt for Content farms, and websites will have no other options but to elevate the quality and variety of content unless they want to be weeded out by yet another monstrosity of a rolling update in its algorithm that Google unleashes every other month on the web-world.

    Content Farms aren’t dead yet, but their condition is nothing if not terminal.

    Share

  • Google Panda; Scourge of the SEO world

    It was inevitable and had to come to this sooner or later. While it’s a cliché that necessity is the mother of invention, Clichés are clichés for a reason. As bloggers and web based businesses vamped up their domains for greater SERP’s with extensive link-building tactics, search engines had to come up with programs that would meticulously judge the inherent worth of the content and provide a comparatively coherent search result as opposed to previous search criterions which ranked highly marketed sites way up above the sites providing worthy content.

    It is an unsaid convention that if Google doesn’t notice you, chances are no one else will either. Calling a spade a spade, Google is the demi-god amongst search engines and other search engines (even the highly efficient ones like Alexa or Technorati) have but a fraction of the same traffic that Google boasts of. And Google being the ocean of innovation that it is, came up with Google Panda. Readers who are yet to discover the weight of phenomenon that is Google Panda can concur from the first paragraph that it has something to do with the providing a content heavy search result and downgrade advertisement sites in the page rankings.

    To the technical cognoscenti, it’s a search algorithm added to the list of search criterion that Google already has and will filter content based on the worth of the data provided. (Just out of sheer curiosity; why did Google decide to christen an upgrade and spread the word around? Marketing, perhaps?).

    Months after its release, a string of rolling updates (Version 2.3 was recently unveiled) followed, thereby notching up its efficiency. The saving grace maybe that the updates have be conformed to take into account the popularity of the site as well as the audiences feed signals.

    This turns around the rules of SEO quite significantly (which will also be discussed later in subsequent blog entries). Plain link-building just doesn’t suffice anymore. It is now essential that the site has some worthy and significant content to boast of (not just mass-text, but also quality content). While the existing techniques for SEO may still apply, the emphasis on the content heavy pages with extensive data on the given subject will increase the value of the domain and this is what radically alters the traffic pattern. This was well exhibited by the drop in traffic in-flux of almost 12 percent of all sites.

    This will give an edge to Web-content writing services and other content providing business setups. But the update does have specific targets and instantly downgrades low-quality websites and reduces spams (which is called for, considering the generation of 4.5 mn URL’s per month in 2011). But, taking note of the 12 percent which has been affected, it will be easy to find a lot of sites affected by the update. I’m sure one can also notice certain homogeneity in such sites.

    My guess is that most of the “12 percent” will mostly consist of sites with poor usability and structure as well as sites which are designed specifically for advertising and have poor product pages. I don’t believe one need mention that most of these sites will have uniformly low quality content, in which case it was just a matter of time until they got depreciated in their rankings.

    For the rest, it is essential that they elevate the worth of their content unless they be relegated to SERP purgatory. Ye be warned, This Panda has claws!

    Share

  • Scouring for Good Back-links

    While there may not be a definitive process to get good back-links (making them all the more difficult to find) which will significantly raise the popularity and prominence of your page in the search results, there are a few steps that one can follow to ensure that your posts catch the attention of the right kind of audience. Such back-links will up the traffic and page ranking of the site as well encourage further linking thereby increasing the number of back-links to your page. Such back-links in addition to targeting a generic audience will catch the fancy the niche audience that your website specifically caters to. Most of the following tips can help you find as well as determine which all sites you can devote your time for efficient link building and extension of your network.

    Before one figures out how to get worthy back-links, one has to know where to find them. The easiest way would be to search for sites popular amongst the same kind of audience that you are seeking to attract. You can conduct this search in your standard search engines itself.  This way, you can also find the various avenues your competitors in the field are active in. Employing Do-follow search engines to find your niche audience can also be helpful.

    Keeping a tab on your competition and constantly monitoring their moves will yield ideas about where you can get your links from. Tools like the ones provided by Google  can be of great assistance in this process. Another trick which might pay off suitably would be to try getting links from your competitor’s external links.

    After finding such links, it is also crucial to judge the worth of these pages and posts. You would not want go through all this work just to get pages with mediocre content. The popularity of the page is important when it comes to linking and its page rank should at the very least be north of four, especially with the keyword search. The site should also constantly keep updating itself at regular intervals. This is irrespective of how highly the page is ranked. If the content is more than three or four months old, it loses its relevance significantly and may not guarantee the same level of exposure you desire get from the link.

    The number of external links given in the page will also determine the value of the link. Any page which might contain more than 25 or 30 external links is not worth getting linked to. In-content links on the other hand bring in a lot more traffic and reach out to the audience you are looking for much more easily.

    One can also check whether the linking pages and blogs permit do-follow attribute links on their comment section. If they don’t, then one can try guest blog posting or try getting linked to the page as a resource (predicated on whether your content has a lot more information on the subject than the linking page).

    Share