Increase Your Blog Traffic
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Web 2.0 on September 24th, 2010
There is no such thing as too much traffic to your blog. Whether you are trying to make a living by blogging or if you simply want to get a specific message out to the readers, a large amount of blog traffic is ideal. Here are some proven things you can do to help increase traffic.
Using Keywords
First you want to use keywords throughout your blog article. Doing so will not only draw readers to your blog but it will also bring in individuals who are interested in the topic areas which your blog covers.
Blog Commenting
Leaving posts and commenting on other related blogs is a good way to generate more traffic to your own blog. If you are adding quality content and constructive feedback in your comments users will click your link to view your blog. You will be generating backlinks and also increasing your reputation within your related field.
Keep Your Blog up to Date
People aren’t going to repeat their visit if they don’t see new and dynamic material. You want to keep your blog fresh on a daily basis so people keep coming back to read what you have to say. Also you want your blog to have a point to it not just some randomness with any real meaning or point behind it.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us just to name a few can be great sources of traffic. If you can get on the homepage of any of these sites you will get thousands of visitors and a whole lot of potential new readers. Make sure to place social bookmark buttons within your posts in order to have people place a vote for your content. Again it comes down to providing valuable and appealing content to have the best chance at getting exposure for your article on these sites.
Integrating Twitter
You can automate things to let your twitter followers know when you have added new content. The goal here is the same as the social bookmarking sites, the more value you provide to people the more likely it is that they will follow your recommendations.
Those are just a few of the techniques you can use to start bringing in more traffic to your blog. All you need is to allocate just a minimal amount of time each day to feel the effect over time.
Getting Traffic from Facebook
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Web 2.0 on September 17th, 2010
Facebook may not be the only social networking site out there but it is by far the most popular. In addition to keeping in touch with friends, Facebook can be a very valuable business networking tool. You can drive tons of targeted traffic to your site without any cost to your marketing budget. Facebook has currently more than 500 million active users. Many marketers believe it is only a matter of time for the traffic from sites such as Facebook and Twitter to surpass the traffic that their site receives from Google.
Getting started with your profile is the first step. Make sure to make it interesting by adding enough background information about yourself and your abilities. Also be sure to keep your profile public, so anyone that has an interest in your profile can join your network. You can build more interest by adding photos, videos of you and/or your product or service. The more valuable information the more attention and friends you will receive.
The next step after creating an interesting and informative profile is to build up your network. You should first start by inviting your family, friends and other acquaintances to be a part of your network. This will also open you up to each of their networks. It is also wise to seek out people in related fields and that have similar interests as yours. Always be approachable and helpful and do not spam because that will only have a negative impact on your campaign.
Dynamic content is what will drive people to your profile. If you post regularly and share new thoughts, ideas and opinions the traffic on your profile will increase. The more active you are on others profiles and groups the more traffic that will get back to your profile and from their website.
Being the administrator of a group can boost your traffic and network tremendously. You start discussions or introduce any products or services that you might have. Your group is also like your very own mailing list as you can send messages to everyone in it. The best thing about the group is that you are getting targeted visitors.
Follow these basic tips and you will see a steady flow of traffic you’re your profile going to your website. Facebook is always changing and growing. There will always be new options and possibilities to help increase traffic. Just like anything else on the internet you need to evolve and stay ahead of the curve by being observant and also testing to see what works and what doesn’t.
Google Instant and its Effect on SEO
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Web 2.0 on September 10th, 2010
This past Wednesday Google introduced Google Instant to the world. From the first letter you type it fires back in real time instant search results, hence the name. Google points out that their main goal comes down to improving speed. They typically return search results in milliseconds, but it takes several seconds for the user to type a query. With predictive search and instant results, you can often get the answer you want much faster. Many of the results you will see flashing by will have images for a more vivid display to your search. This new update is certain to change the way people interact with the world’s biggest search engine. But what is less clear is how it will affect search engine optimization and search traffic referrals to Websites.
Google instant has already caused some in the SEO services industry to panic, thinking it will make SEO “irrelevant”. While it’s too early to properly predict the impact it will have, a few things spring to mind. Searching on Google will be a much faster process for the end user, and they now might be even less likely to click through to the 2nd page of results. The end user will also have the ability to quickly adjust their search terms on the fly, which could either prove to be good or bad for website owners. It would also seem that the top three rankings in the search results will be of even more value because that is what the user is seeing as they are typing in their keyword.
Having millions of Google users getting sidetracked into viewing websites more randomly could boost Google’s revenue. This would happen as more users would click on a wider variety of sites carrying Google ads.
The bottom line is that the end user’s search behavior will change. A good SEO company should be able to understand and study the evolution of this change and adjust accordingly. The best SEO companies recognize, evolve and prosper when changes happen.
Tips for Basic SEO
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Web 2.0 on September 9th, 2010
As a small business owner, you realize what it takes to get to the top. You need a fantastic product or service, a successful marketing strategy, and a nice website that gets noticed. It is no secret that in order to get your website to the top of the major search engines such as Google, you will need to implement different forms of internet marketing and search engine optimization. There is only so much a person can do on their own, that is where finding a quality SEO company that provides quality SEO services comes in.
Over 90% of on-line traffic is generated via the major search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing. So in order to get any piece of that traffic your website must be visible on these search engines.
Mapping out a plan for your website marketing entails dedication. Bear in mind, search engine optimization is an extended-time period strategy. Outcomes do not occur overnight. So, be sure to have a plan in place to commit one to 2 hours every day to your search engine optimization efforts.
Content is king. Make sure that it’s informative and consists of text that your users will wish to read. As a small business proprietor, you’ve got an advantage over the bigger corporations with the ability to connect with the user. Focus on writing your content to the end user and not the search engines. Users will not appreciate reading something that isn’t properly-written, stuffed with keywords, and just isn’t relevant to what they are searching for. Content is very critical to your SEO plan.
You should also check to make certain your website is correctly optimized. Once your keyword density is optimal, then overview your Meta tags. Quite simply, a Meta tag is a hidden tag that’s embedded within the head of your HTML document. Most search engines like Google aren’t going to use Meta tags as the sole important item to getting you ranked higher however they’ll certainly assist in boosting your rankings.
Another item that most business owners fail to recognize is the importance of gradual web page or web site loading speed. Google just lately introduced that it will use website loading pace as another consideration to determining page ranks. A smart search engine optimization plan should definitely include a review of your website’s loading speed.
Lastly, know methods to build your do-observe links. Be creative and search for quality backlinks. The more hyperlinks, the higher you’ll get ranked.
Search engine optimization is not something you can do in a short time period. Learning the basics will help if you are looking for an SEO company to tackle your internet marketing services. With some basic knowledge you will select the best SEO services for your website.
Protect Blog Content with WordPress Plug-in
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Web 2.0 on July 30th, 2010
With the rise of blogging and online article writing content theft has become a rising
problem. If you have been blogging regularly over a period of time you have probably
had to deal with the problem of stolen content. Bloggers and content writers spend a lot
of time in creating material for internet users to consume and then without much effort at
all “copy cats” come along and just copy and paste the content without any permission or
citation.
Luckily there are some things you can do to help fight against content theft. There is a
plug-in developed for WordPress so that no one can simply copy and paste your content
in there blog or website. What this plug-in will do is disable the selection of texts and
disable the right click option on your blog.
The content protection is just a basic copy protect plug-in, if somebody wants to go
ahead and copy your content they can go to the source of the blog and easily copy it
from there. So how do you find out if your content is being stolen? You can usually find
unique text phrases in your textual content. There will usually be several long phrases or
complete sentences that are unique to your writing. If you copy and paste these unique
word groupings with quotation marks into a search engine, you can find other sites that
have used these unique word groupings. You can also slip a made-up word or phrase into
the code with a hidden HTML comment, you can then search for that made-up word or
phrase. You’re almost guaranteed that if any search results show up, you’ve been ripped
off. Another option is to include a transparent GIF image in your code. You will need to
use the absolute path to the image so it’s called from your site to the content thief’s site.
If they copy and paste from your source code you can then use your server’s log files, if
your host makes them available to you, so you can see what sites are calling that image
from your server. When you find that you will find the “copycat”.
Download : wp-protectcontent
1. Upload `wp-protectcontent.php` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Go to **Settings** and then **WP-ProtectContent** to configure and
enable.
Algorithm
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Company News on April 25th, 2010
Algorithm
An algorithm is a formula that search engines use in order to rank website. Algorithms contain dozens to hundreds of ranking factors in order to determine the popularity of websites in a particular order. Some of the factors that Google looks at are on site and off site optimization. Being that they are way to long to list here I will go into them in another posting.
At the moment Google seems to favor inbound links from certain websites / authority sites. Google’s whole view on importance of a particular page has and always will have a major factor in inbound links pointing to ones website. The more “popular” and credible a website is, the more importance / weight / rank boost it will give your website. Before you can start building links to your site it is a MUST that you should take care of your on site SEO efforts first. A sloppy website will not be ranked as well as a fine tuned website. Site structure, domain age, coding errors, broken links and meta tags are just some of the factors that Google looks at when ranking every and any website.
Content is king and most likely will always be king. The whole purpose of Google is to provide their users “important” websites for their search and in Google’s eyes an important website is obviously not spammy and has relevant content, no tricky practices (redirects and such) and a site that has fresh content on a regular basis. Google likes to make webmasters work for their rankings as they should, and by doing so they are trying to ensure quality websites to their users. If Google did not do this the internet would be full of more crap than it already is.
Google periodically changes certain aspects / variables of their algorithm but it my opinion it will always be based on a majority of site structure (clean site), quality back links and GREAT content.
In order to keep ensuring their users the best sites when searching a particular query it is important for every search engine or search function to apply a algorithm that will provide the best results to the user.
So remember, if you are looking to find out what Google’s algorithm is exactly, you never will. Just make sure to read up on Google’s current favorite ranking factors and apply them to your site, but be careful from over doing it and trying tricky methods that may get your site penalized or even banned! Then you can kiss all of your web marketing efforts, time and money down the drain for some time, until you figure out a way to get your site re-indexed back in the Google results. (Request for site review). Hint: See Google webmaster tools if you get banned.
Chronis Tsempelis
MarketRaise Corp.
Pay Per Click
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Company News on April 25th, 2010
Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click advertising is text based advertising on search engines or content networks which means that any webmaster can bid on a number of keywords that are related to their industry. This can be very effective if utilized correctly because it is instant exposure for any website.
Some advantages of Pay Per Click are that it takes 5 minutes to setup your campaign and you can have your ad displaying on the same day as you setup your account. You can easily monitor your clicks and your conversions with most pay per click software such as Google Ad Words. Another great benefit of Google ad words is that they allow webmasters to display their campaigns on their content network which means that your ad will not only show up on the search pages but also on other webmasters websites that are running Google Ad Sense on their website which leads to mare targeted ad placement which should return a higher conversion and click through ratio to your website.
Some disadvantages of pay per click are that it can be very costly and that most people do not even acknowledge the ads on the right hand side of the search engine while conducting a search. Also there is a factor of click fraud to be considered as well while doing pay per click. Who is to say that your competitors aren’t clicking on your account and costing you money for bogus hits to your website that you have to end up paying for.
It is said that Google and most other pay per click networks wont count multiple hits from the same IP but if someone is using an anonymous IP or a proxy that they can still click out your daily budget and cost you money for fake hits to your website.
In conclusion pay per click can be very effective especially when combined with organic optimization but I would be very careful when it comes to monitoring your hits and conversions. Obviously it isn’t worth the money if you are spending $1,000 per day and you are not getting a ROI (return on investment). If you are monitoring your campaign carefully daily and replacing non performing keywords and you are getting a ROI then it is obviously worth it. Point of the story is that it can be very effective for some and completely worthless for others so when considering using pay per click be aware of these factors and monitor your campaign very carefully in order to ensure you get the most out of it and your precious advertising dollars do not go to waste.
Chronis Tsempelis
MarketRaise Corp.
Google Caffeine: Part 1
Posted by Tom Krimitsos in Company News on April 25th, 2010
Google Caffeine: Part 1
Being that Google is going to be undergoing some drastic changes yet again it would be a good idea for webmasters to take certain precautions when it comes to SEO. Some of the latest criteria that Google will be looking at is site speed / load time, clean coding, avoid table nesting, optimize your scripts and or flash if you are using any. Also if you are using a CMS that is considered t be “heavy” you should avoid it because Google doesn’t like to have to waste time crawling and indexing because that obviously costs more time and money. If you make Googles life easier most likely they will not penalize you in one way or another. On page content will also play a much bigger role in Googles new algorithm and also social bookmarking as well. So if you are an SEO or a webmaster, make sure to adapt to this new criteria if you want to stay ahead or even hang in there with your competitors. You can call Google “Darwin of the Internet” For all websites must adapt because they will be eaten and they will not evolve.
And Yes like many out there have said already, this is official news, Google has stopped testing of their new algo and will be settling it in permanently sooner or later so beware and adapt if you want to survive and or keep surviving in the SEO game!
Chronis Tsempelis
MarketRaise Corp.
How to do Video Optimization?
Video optimization from the perspective of your business or even as an individual, is to enable more viewers to find your videos in search engines, when you put them in some of the video sharing sites or your own website. It’s an emerging trend to watch videos on any topic. Videos help capture audiences attention, they make the businesses get little more creative. Capturing attention of the people in turn helps building brand name.
The major goal of video optimization is generating brand awareness. Therefore to add some brand value while optimizing your video, whether you post them on your site or video sharing sites is very essential. You can follow the simple steps mentioned below:-
- Add a short screen at the beginning or end of video that has your logo and url or a watermark throughout the video with you brand name. This will let the people know where the video came from and they have a url to go to after they finish watching the video. It’s important especially in the video sharing sites so that your audiences are sent to your website.
- Using keywords when adding the video (in title, description, tags). That way when people search the keywords related to your video you get better results. This way when people search keywords related to videos or your industry, your video ranks first. Put your keywords in title and description, those are key places to put them.
- If you are using the video in your website remember to use the keywords on the page itself. Within the content, and also the title of the other tags of the text in the page. This makes the job of search engines easy, to locate your video. If it’s in your website, do write in brief about what the video is about, describing it.
- While, adding videos make use of key term rather than keywords. For e.g. while searching for videos on SEO Company for New York, people may precisely mention SEO Company New York. This will help your audiences reach your video first.
- Though this sounds repetitive but make sure to have html content around the video on your website. Lots of search engines have the ability to read these videos but not to a greater extent. So, to be on the safer side put some content around the video that describes the video and use keywords to what similar is in the video. This way the search engines know what the video is about and they can help to rank your website through those keywords.
- Emphasize mainly on words related to video and business. You have to understand what keywords your customers will think of while searching for your product, what type of words that person might use while searching on the internet. The exact key terms should be repeating it. While doing this remember not to fill in the key terms without purpose in an awkward manner as this will ruin your effort to sell your product. Use the talent of jelling things.
Consumer centric businesses tend to capture more attention, as it gives a sense of involvement to people to watch video of any business or organization. People watch videos not only related to business but also for pleasure, maybe while shopping online or searching for certain products. By showcasing your websites url, at the end of showing your video, you can generate people to come to your website directly. It’s about people to recognize your brand and also about generating traffic and the video sharing sites help get you exactly that- traffic.
