Google Penguin Updates – An Update

                The change that Google have made to make the web search experience more user-friendly has everyone clamoring for new tactics and strategies in SEO.  Although the algorithms are top-secret and has everyone guessing which sites will fall off the ranks- one thing is for sure, the old aggressive strategies are out the window and black hat SEO is not even worth mentioning.

                The latest Penguin Update dubbed as Penguin 2.0 was released on May 22, 2013 and is supposed to be a major update compared to the third and the fourth releases.  This had SEOs and webmasters bracing for what’s coming as Google has always been vague regarding what really is in store.   All they had to say was that this time the new “Spam Fighting” Penguin goes deeper than the original version.

After the scheduled release, the SERP weather stations had their statistics and numbers analysed the impact on the queries were not as major as expected.  However, there is a notable jolt on the ranks for gaming and porn sites- an indication that the updates are doing the job they are meant to do. 

Over-all, Google is doing its best to be true to their promise of getting their search engines to return with results that actually matter to their users.  As for SEOs and Webmasters, the main idea to minimize the Penguin impact is steer clear of the following:

·         Web- spamming

·         Link bombing

·         Keyword Stuffing

·         Over optimization

The key to survival is to focus on building on the trust and authority of your sites and if you have been penalized, do the major clean-up, submit a re-inclusion request or as a last resort use the Google Disavow tool.

For professional SEO services that guarantee transparent and Penguin-friendly optimization, visit this site.

Website Redesign and the New SEO Strategies

For some websites, webpage reconstruction is the only choice to get online traffic, since Google’s Panda updates have been rolling out, these changes are inevitable.  Loss of traffic is usually loss of converted sales.

First place to start doing re-vamp is the landing page.  If you had a good online traffic before Google Panda, and your site took a big hit right after, you will need and overhaul.  Take note of the general rule though, the landing page should be optimized and engaging as well as informative enough for your viewers that they decide to explore your site and not think of clicking back. Somehow, everyone in the SEO world has agreed that keyword stuffing has gone out the window and informative content has taken its place.  Which brings us to the next point – keywords. 

Keywords are still hold great importance but the old strategies such as careful inclusion of keywords and level of keyword density is not a rule anymore.  The best SEO strategy when it comes to keywords is to make use of them naturally; some SEO experts also recommend the use of related keywords and synonyms.  However, the SEO keyword rule regarding the title tags stays so, if it looks natural, go for it.

Next comes other elements on the web page - videos, images, infographics, they are engaging and they can be optimized as well. Be creative in labeling images and videos.  Here is where it is crucial that you, your web developer, your web designer and your SEO service provider are of the same mind set.

Offsite SEO is next step to build up on, and it is best to have a dynamic SEO team who knows how go with the flow.  The past few months have been a whirlwind of changes and those who stayed on top of the SERPs are the ones who had a speedy reaction time.  Just as quality content has taken over, quality backlinks has also taken center stage.  Backlinks coming from featured authors, and likes, shares and tweets from social media sites have brought sites up the SERP ranks.

To sum it all up, the effective SEO strategies revolve around the online user’s intent and behavior.  It is not about beating the search engines but to work alongside them to give the best possible online experience we all have to offer.  Yes, it’s all about marketing and about playing by the rules that the biggest search engines put in place, and those who play nice wins every time

Web Maintenance – Things You Need To Know Before You Sign Up

                Online presence does end with the completion of your website.  It needs to be maintained in order to be effective.  Read on to prepare yourself for the next step.

1.       What do you wish your site to accomplish?  Ultimately as a matter of course, the whole idea is to make profit, but doing business online is complicated and you must take small measured steps that lead to that goal.  Even big companies start small.  So, know your goal, and it should be measurable and it should have a timeline.  These goals will dictate how web maintenance is to be conducted and how much of the service you will need.  The team who will do your web maintenance for you will be able do their job better if you know what you want and what you need.

2.       How much are you willing spend and how much can you afford?  The goal her is to set limits, the budget you have in mind may not give you the level of web maintenance you require.  Most small business owners have not yet grasped the complexities of how e-commerce and online marketing and if you are one of them, it is better to know your limits and priorities before you have a talk with the web maintenance team.

3.       What do you know about web maintenance, web development and online marketing?  If your answer is none, you will be at the mercy of the people you wish to hire for the job.  Being able to put up a business means you are familiar with the saying “knowledge is power”.   Do a little research on a few these terms.  You do not need to be an expert - (I needed to say this because most entrepreneurs have a tendency to be over achievers) research for the sake of knowing and not to take on the enormous task. Read this too for further information.

·         Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

·         Search Engine Result Pages (SERP)

·         Pay Per Click (PPC)

·         Blogs and Keywords

·         Web Analytics

4.       Are you prepared for the change and do you have the ability to let go and trust someone else to take the reins? “Know thyself “, Socrates once said, and it is a philosophy that many use for empower and change lives. It is too much for this article but in order to drive a point, it needs to be pointed out.  Most entrepreneurs are driven and when it comes to expectations from the web maintenance crew, you need to understand who you are and who they are. It is important to let them do their job because that is what they are good at.  Once you understand this when you sign up for their services, it becomes a partnership.

Click here to know more about web site maintenance and how it can help your online business grow.

SEO Services – Putting Small Businesses on the Sydney Map

Small businesses in Sydney have seen how digital marketing can give them great boost in sales, most especially in using budget friendly SEO campaigns to let their target market know more about their business and what they have to offer.

Why SEO?

You have finally put up your own small concept store, offering interesting products that you have developed, designed and produced for a specific market you are aware exists, after all that market is you. But the foot traffic you expected did not arrive and basically only a few knows who or what you are selling. What could you have been missing?  Chances are, you have forgotten one of the most popular media wherein you should advertise.  The marketing tri-media gods (print, TV and radio) is no longer the power of three but rather the three is lorded over by the One which is the internet. The internet itself is a world of its own but elements from the old marketing media are still used but are presented to the internet audience. Of all the marketing campaigns, SEO is the most affordable and while the results are not guaranteed, it is effective enough that even big companies use SEO as one of their marketing strategies.

SEO in Sydney

Sydney’s businesses are in a very fortunate position when it comes to the internet marketing front.  Sydney SEO’s such as PHRISKWEB offer marketing which are streamlined to fit the marketing goals and needs of local businesses, Furthermore, they are receptive to suggestions, driven and the strategies are transparent and dynamic.

It is important for a small business Sydney to be able to work with SEO services that are conscious of the trends and are equipped to make a company’s online presence sustainable and provide online customers the kind of online experience that are looking for. 

Most SEO campaigns include the marketing package which includes Web Design and Development.  It is better to have one servicing company to provide all of these services.  This makes sense because in most cases the whole team should work in synch with one another and it is rare to find the right chemistry between the different fields of work.

Most successful small businesses in Sydney have been benefiting from online marketing campaigns and it serves the general population of consumers well.  There is enough healthy competition between similar small businesses that each of them strive to be better than the other giving their target market the best that each can offer.

SEO, Link Wheels and Internet Marketing

 

The Internet and the World Wide Web gave businesses around the globe a new set of challenges in marketing and advertising.  Flashing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) otherwise known as the web address and an email address is enough to give you a boost.  As for the web content, a little GIF and static homepage will do the trick, submit your URL to the search engines and hope they’d be nice enough to put you on their list of results – preferably on the first page.

After three short decades, the information super high way has turned into a highly technical and effective marketing platform alongside print and TV media ads.  And the URL means nothing unless it is favored by the gods, aka the search engines, which then brings us to the strategy called Search Engine Optimization or SEO – which is incidentally the same acronym for Search Engine Optimizer, the doer of the deed. 

SEO  is a set of off-page techniques that SEO’ers employ to improve the chances of a client’s website to land on the first page of the Search Engine Result Page also known as SERP.  It is only one of many internet marketing strategies available. Each one these strategies take different approaches and fulfills different marketing goals.  The SEO strategy is focused mainly on generating internet traffic for a commercial website by optimizing the site so that it earns a favorable spot on the result pages of search engines.

SEO is built on the premise that the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing among others, look for relevant sites based on keywords and links.  Therefore,   Search Engine Optimization in a nutshell is making use of keywords or key phrases.  Keywords and key phrases are derived from the most common words that internet users type in the search box. The SEO then creates relevant pages with keyword rich content that links to the client’s web page.

Links are basically directional guides or arrows.  The more arrows that point to the webpage, the more relevant it becomes in relation to the keywords which the search engine is looking for.  This brings us then to the link wheel. The term is rather self-explanatory.  The link wheel is like a bicycle spoke wheel where the tires represent the continuous link between several web 2.0 pages (wordpress, blogger, live journal) and the spokes are the directional links from the pages pointing to the hub which represents your target page.  Needless to say, that hub is the client’s webpage.  This is the simplest type of link wheel, and to make it more complex, more link wheels are created using the pages on the “tires” as hubs.

To learn more about SEO and what it can do to your business, visit Phriskweb at