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7 Common Mistakes on Local Websites and How to Avoid Them

Avoid tiny mistakes and make your SEO strategies a big hit!

Having a good website for your business is like a must have as it helps in spreading the word about your products and services. As everyone is now turning to the Internet, a sophisticated looking website has become a necessity even for a small business. But what about those mistakes on local websites that may hamper your SEO plans or promotional strategies?

Well! The best strategies won’t work if the basic foundation of your website is not up-to-the-mark. So, I have compiled a list of 7 common mistakes most business people make with their website and hopefully this will help you sort out a few issues. Lets have a look at the list:-

1. Over Keyword Concentrations – To attract a larger audience, over stuffing the main keywords is not at all good for your website. You can combine some product-specific keywords with main keywords, but you shouldn’t make repetitions. Over stuffing may make your web page an obvious SEO content, which will prevent search engines from counting your landing pages for high rankings.

2. Focusing Just on Your Brand – Many business owners feel like concentrating more on their brand will make them acquire a better position in the World Wide Web. If you too think that way, just give a thought that your competitors are also selling the similar product or service. Give more emphasize to what differentiate you from others and this will help you offer more than just a brand.

3. Focusing Just on Your Product – You have a website and selling some products or services, and your competitors are also doing the same thing. Concentrating just on your product is another common mistake that may narrow your website’s reach. It’s better to talk about your business, your vision, your mission and what sets you apart. This way you can have an edge over your competitors and your website will be more SEO friendly.

4. Underestimating Local Search Ranking Factors – As the complexity of search search results has increased, following the same traditional SEO path may not let you enjoy all the benefits of your website. It is important to set your local optimization elements appropriately and having a good knowledge of overall ranking factors.

5. Not Making a Mobile Friendly Site – Whether you are a small business owner or run an entire chain, it is important to give a better thought to your website. Today, the convenience of smartphones is leading to rise in the mobile phone usage and most people prefer using their phones for an online search. As discussed on a site, having a not mobile friendly site means that you may loose your potential customers. Creating a site that adjusts itself according to the size of the smartphone or tablet could be a perfect solution.

6. Not Measuring Statistics – It is not necessary that web users always use the same keywords or key phrases to search a particular product. So it is crucial to check your statistics and make required changes. Have a close look at clickthroughs for your PPC ads and measure how long your users are staying on each landing page. A well-designed SEO campaign will help you watch statistics, create high-quality content and choose the appropriate keywords.

7. Not Having Unique Meta Tags and Descriptions – Having just your company name as the title for every page could lead to low search rankings. Make sure that the meta tags and meta descriptions are unique and descriptive. The web pages could focus on more specific keywords like your product and services that are popular queries. Meta description should be relevant and should include significant keywords.

Give your business a boost by avoiding the above mentioned common mistakes…

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Yahoo Attempting to Replace Google for Search Dominance

Yahoo and Mozilla just announced a partnership where Yahoo will succeed Google’s search engine on Firefox’s web browser in the United States.

Yahoo Inc hit a deal with Mozilla Corp, the maker of Firefox, to replace Google as the default search engine on the Firefox Web Browser in the US. According to Yahoo, the move aims to boost its flagging search market share. Starting in December, Firefox will use Yahoo as its default search engine in the US on desktop and mobile. The partnership is set to last five years and based on a revenue sharing agreement and includes some ‘guarantees’.

The new search experience is going to feature “a modern, clean and immersive design that reflects the hard work from the Mozilla team. No financial terms has been disclosed and it is not clear how the deal will affect the existing arrangement of Yahoo with Microsoft Corp. Microsoft’s Bing search engine currently powered Yahoo’s web search capabilities. The partnership will generate a ‘share gain’ for Yahoo, as disclosed by chief executive Marissa Mayer.

Mayer said, “It is one of largest independently-directed search share opportunities available in the market.” It means that users of the Firefox browser in the United States will automatically be routed to search results on Yahoo’s website at the time they type a query. The Mozilla Foundation has long made most of its revenue through its search partnership with Google. That contract is going with Google is going to expire this year. Looks like Yahoo made an interesting offer that Mozilla couldn’t trash or perhaps Google decided to walk away from the deal.

Yahoo said it has refurbished the look of its search engine, making more use of photos and graphics, for the new partnership. The Web search results will go on to be powered by Microsoft. This partnership will definitely give Yahoo and Microsoft a stronger online presence. While Firefox usage has declined over the last few years, the platform still accounts for at least 15% of the United States browser market.

We’ll have to wait to watch whether this partnership will be a boon for Firefox users or not.

Have something to add to the story? Feel free to give your opinion…

Google Updated Webmaster Guidelines: Know What Can Harm Your Rankings

Google have updated Webmaster guidelines and following them will help Google find, index and rank your website. It is specifically pointed that blocking JavaScript and CSS files may have a negative impact on your indexing and search rankings in Google.

Google strongly stimulate people to pay very close attention to the updated Webmaster guidelines. The tech giant has updated its indexing system which will function more like a modern browser. It gave precise advice on allowing Googlebot to access the CSS, JavaScript and image files that a website uses. According to the giant, disallowing crawling of JavaScript or CSS files in your website’s robots.txt have a negative impact on your search rankings.

The technical Webmaster guidelines specifies that low quality guest blogging may be considered no or little original content by Google. The tech giant has restricted some guest blog networks in order to make their search results more accurate. Some webmasters attempts to attract more visitors to their site by creating pages with too many words but no authentic content. Google will penalize such domains that try to rank highly by displaying scraped pages that don’t add required value to users.

Design & Content Guidelines

The design and content guidelines emphasize to make a website with a clear hierarchy and text links where every page should be accessible from at least one static text link. A website should include a site map and if it has a very large number of links, breaking it into multiple pages can be a good idea. Create a well-designed, useful and information-rich website that clearly and accurately describes your product.

Try to use more text instead of images to describe important content, names, or links. This is because the Google crawler does not recognize text contained in images. Your title elements and ALT attributes should be accurate and descriptive.

Technical Guidelines

If you want your website to be on the top of search results, allow all of its assents, like CSS and JavaScript files, to be crawled. Your web server should support the If-Modified-Since HTTP header as it allows your server to tell Google if the content has changed since your site was last crawled. Supporting this features also saves you overhead and bandwidth.

Using the robots.txt file on your web server tells crawlers which directories can be crawled and which cannot be. The advertisements on your site should not affect search engine rankings. The pages and links created by content management system should be easy to crawl. It is important to test your website to make sure that it appears accurately in different browsers.

Monitor the performance of your site and optimize load times. Fast websites are more liked and visited by users and improve the quality of the web. The tech giant strongly recommends you to monitor site performance using different tools on a regular basis.

The quality guidelines are all about deceptive and manipulative behavior. It specifies that make your site keeping users in mind, not the search engines. Do not trick search engine to improve the ranking if your site.

The rule of thumb is make your website valuable, unique and more engaging. If your site stands out from others in the same field, half the work is done.

How to Incorporate Google Analytics Into Your WordPress Sites

Identify Your Quality Visitors and Make More Profits!

Do you want to track your site easily and always stay up to date? Of course, all business people wants to enjoy the latest features in Google Analytics.

As per the sources, Google Analytics allows you to see when and how you get the most traffic on your website and which posts are attracting the audience. As discussed on the site, it also allows the users to keep a sound track of frequent commentors. I must say that it is an outstanding way to keep a very good track of our sites and know about the visitors.

For those who want to integrate Google Analytics into their WordPress sites, I have compiled a guide on how they can use the tool and the features. Here’s how to start with it:-

  1. Sign up for Google Analytics and create a new ‘property’. Doing this will get you a Tracking ID.
  2. Back to WordPress.com and go to the ‘My Sites’ screen and select a site with WordPress.com Business.
  3. Go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Analytics’ and enter the Tracking ID issued to you earlier and save the changes.
  4. Now your site will get connected to Google Analytics and it will start setting data to Google.
  5. Be patient as it could take some time to show the data in your reports on Google Analytics.

A little about Google Analytics…

As discussed on the site, Google Analytics is a free service that offers the users the opportunity to check traffic on their website through built-in Stats feature. It helps the corporate people build their audience by showing the full customer picture across websites and social tools, ads and videos, tablets and smartphones. The main idea is to help the users analyze quality visitor traffic and know more about them.

The tools like Traffic Sources and Visitor Flow help business people track the exact customer path such as how they reach a particular website and what devices they use to do so. If you’re a blogger, Google Analytics could be an answers to all your problems. With this, you can better understand who visits your site, what they search on your website, time to visit your site, sources they used to reach your site and lot more.

So keep tracking your visitors and build a quality audience for your website.

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5 Simple Ways to Boost Your Online Presence

Enhance Your Online Presence and Attract New Customers!

Making your business known in the virtual world is a vital part of attracting new customers and retaining then existing ones, no matter the industry in which your business operates. By improving your online presence, you can make the best use of your resources and reach millions of possible customers around the world. With the availability of Internet, the options available to you are just unlimited and you just have to play smart.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss about 5 simple ways how you can improve your online presence and build a strong brand in the virtual world. Check them out:-

1. Improve Ranking with Search Engine Marketing – Having a website is not enough, you have to put some extra efforts to generate more traffic and conversion success. Search Engine Marketing play a vital role here which is a collection of techniques that help sites build a strong online presence through better search engine rankings.

2. Make Connections First, Sales Later – If it is for the first time you have entered the World Wide Web, it’s better to develop online connections first, not trying sales. Use social media networks for Internet marketing and reach as much potential audience as possible. Make a strong network via submitting articles, maintaining a blog, and news for users.

3. Exchange Links with Partner Sites – Link exchange networking means adding links to and from sites that are high in traffic and popular. This will help you reach more and more people and adds another location for them to find you. More importantly, links from established websites can be very beneficial to your search engine popularity.

4. Provide High Quality and Relevant Content – Give your visitors a reason to come back and this is where quality and relevant content comes in. Make a blog and link it to your site so that you can provide fresh content to your visitors each time they visit your site. You can also make use of deep linking or consider using internal links and site maps.

5. Be Responsive – Today, a large number of people use their mobile phones to search for different products and services. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you are losing a large portion of potential customers. A mobile-optimized website can help your brand reach more and more people and build a strong presence in the online world.

If your business relied on leads from your website, it’s very important to build a strong online presence as it is your brand. Online branding is more important for those who deal in services and don’t have a tangible product that visitors can look at. So, it become essential to provide relevant and complete information about the service.

Image Source:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/SEO-image-large.png/800px-SEO-image-large.png

5 WordPress SEO Questions Answered – To Make Your Rankings Even Better

You have questions about WordPress SEO?

WordPress is very popular these days, of the many other content management systems and web publishing platforms. Websites, web shops and blogs: all these can run effectively on WordPress as it is the only platform which offer versatility and simplicity. This platform does not require intensive knowledge of coding and website design. It’s a simple blogging system that requires you to be creative to use this free and open-source tool well.

As per the sources, nearly 25% of the world’s top 10 million websites run on WordPress. But being a simple blogging tool, it also attracts you to ignore some important elements of SEO that may hinder the performance of your website and your business. This piece of writing will address 5 WordPress SEO questions to make things easier for you to understand and apply.

Have a look at these questions and answers and you may get some assistance with your SEO campaign:-

Question #1: WordPress is SEO Optimized as mentioned on different Themes sites, Plugin sites and SEO agencies. Is that True?

NO, WordPress is not ‘Search Engine Optimized’, it is ‘Search Engine Friendly’ – and there is a huge difference in these two. For best results, you will still have to work on the SEO part and include high quality content to your website. Just creating a website using WordPress does not guarantee top rank on search engine. WordPress is just like the body of a car, where the content works as the engine and SEO strategies and other important parts.

Question #2: Which WordPress Hosting solution is better for my business?

Choosing a WordPress hosting platform depends on factors like ease of installation, web server management and cost. If you have the appropriate resources, you can go for a virtual private server manage things yourself. If resources are limited, go for managed hosting solution and let the hosting company manage things for you. I would suggest to keep following things in mind: support for Plugins, backup & restore, reputation, expertise in WordPress, malware assistance and 24/7 customer support.

Question #3: Which SEO Plugin is best for my website? Will using free WordPress themes will affect SEO?

Either you can choose All in One SEO Pack or WordPress SEO by Yoast. While making a choice between these two, remember that you may need additional plugins for better SEO results. Before deciding on which plugin to use, consider some important points such as compatibility, usage, support, and future development. When it comes to using free themes, many of them could be great choices, while other may hurt your SEO. Choose themes carefully, making sure it follow Google guidelines and SEO best practices.

Question #4: I don’t need an SEO expert once I have installed a WordPress SEO plugin, Right?

Installing an SEO plugin doesn’t mean that you don’t require an expert help because SEO is a continuous process and guidelines keeps on changing from time to time. No single Plugin can cover all the elements related to SEO and hence you need a specialist helping you in the more complex and comprehensive phase. An expert will let you know when to upgrade WordPress, when to add new Plugin, when to update content and more. A specialist can also assist you in running periodic SEO audits so you have a better idea in which direction your campaign is going.

Question #5: Adding a post to more than one WordPress categories is good for my SEO campaign. Right?

Well, you have the option to assign your posts different categories. But assigning different categories to the same post means you have duplicate content which is not good for a website. It’s better to avoid assigning tow or three categories to the same post as only the original one will be indexed.

For more information and answers to your queries, visit here

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Why Parallax Websites Lack Hold in Designing World

Why some web designing trends just fade away?

Much like fashion trends, web designing and development too goes through different phases and there are certain trends and techniques that rule the market every year. A trend that is a big hot today might loose its control in the coming months or even weeks. Parallax is a one of those examples whose trend has faded away with time. While it was one of the most popular and interesting design trends and there was a time when a majority of new sites were parallax.

The animated GIFs, the independently moving elements, the multiplane camera effect, 3D depth and that’s parallax happening. It was all about creating the illusion of depth in a 2D, just like we see objects moving in real life. More and more sites were transitioning to parallax for producing powerful pages and offering the right user experience. No wonder these websites were very good at conversion.

Instead of such a great popularity of parallax design, what could be the reasons that the so called web design trend has faded. In this piece of writing, we’ll try to explore some reasons on why parallax websites lacks hold in the web designing world. Let’s go:-

  • It Hurts the Search Engine Rankings – Well, when any website is developed in HTML5 or jQuery for solving the purpose of parallax scrolling, basically the entire content is on one page. In such a case, the SEO people won’t be able to provide separate meta title and descriptions for each page, thus affecting the search engine ranking of the website. The SEO people will have to work on a single URL, instead of a unique URL for each page which means no or very less scope for Search Engine Optimization.
  • Parallax Websites Load Too Slow – Parallax uses jQuery or Javascript which makes the site load really slow and that is one of the most disturbing factors. If any website fails to load fast, it have the chances to lose visitors as people on the Internet have limited time. Generally speaking, parallax is known for producing eye candy designs, but not well known for speed. This simple means that no matter how appealing your site is, you are sacrificing on visitors.
  • Parallax are Not Mobile Friendly – Parallax doesn’t really work on mobile devices, as they are visual-heavy sites only. The compatibility of parallax websites with mobile devices and various browsers gets hampered greatly because of their nature. This all makes them a less compatible and a bad option for mobile devices especially when the whole world is going mobile.
  • These are three but major cons of parallax websites and after-all design trends come and go. There are only a handful of sites working with parallax today as it’s not actually an e-commerce trend. I believe that designers are working hard to keep up with the flow.

    Kudos to web designers and developers that embrace innovative experiences and bring to us the most user-friendly design while keeping up with the latest trends.

    For more web designing trends, keep in touch with us!

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    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Web_Designing_Company_in_Chennai.jpg

    7 Reasons Why Blogging is Important For Your Business

    Share Useful Information and Get More Visitors!

    If you have a website, chances are you’ll be confused if blogging is worth the effort. Let me tell you a simple solution to this – Yes! Blogging is an effective and inexpensive way to boost your marketing efforts and drive more traffic to your site by engaging them through useful content. You can also go through the Google guidelines for bloggers to get a decent overview of how to effectively create and use blogs.

    Here, we’ll discuss 7 reasons why blogging is important for your business:-

    1. Helps in Search Engine Optimization – All search engines give more weightage to fresh content and blog is the only way you can provide new information to the readers. By blogging on a regular basis, you give search engines like Google a reason to index your pages and increase your visibility on search engine results pages (SERP).

    2. Helps in Deriving More Traffic – Audience want fresh information and you can do this only by blogging. When you share your blog via social media channels, you’re simply building a niche for your content. Once your audience know you, they will search you on the web and ultimately your website will enjoy more visitors. Isn’t it an easy way to attract visitors?

    3. Helps in Brand Awareness – Blogging is just like an outlet where you can showcase your expertise and how much knowledge you have about the field. A blog is a simple way to share your expertise with global audience and build credibility. It helps in making people aware about your business and gain their trust by providing useful information on topics of interest.

    4. Helps in Leads Generation – You can pair your blog with any gated content such as an E-book where the reader has to provide some basic information like name and email address. This way you are generating leads which gives you contact information for a potential customer. This will also increase credibility and you have the chances to convert a reader into customer.

    5. Helps in Developing Better Customer Relations – A blog is your source to connect with your readers directly and deepen the connection. Your clients are able to get to know more about your business and your offerings. You can enjoy long-term relationships with your clients by providing them fresh content and source of information.

    6. Helps in Building Leadership – Whether you run a small or large business, blogging can help you become industry leader. By posting blogs that connect with your audience you are building credibility which leads to building leadership in the industry. If you really want to stand out of the crowd, offer something unique from your competitors.

    7. Helps in Building Strong Web Presence – A blog offers you the opportunity to share any information on social media platforms such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and more. It is just like a free marketing where people from different places link to your blog post via different social media channels. This way you are developing a strong presence with the World Wide Web.

    According to a source, 61% of global Internet users prefer searching for a product and service online. 57% of businesses who have a blog reported enjoying more customers from their blog, the source revealed. A lot of business people believe that maintaining a blog on regular basis is useful for their business and help in deriving traffic to their website. Isn’t it surprising that a blog can bring traffic to your site. But it’s right, and it can attract more prospective customers to your site resulting in brand recognition and more sales.

    Image Source:

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Blog_%281%29.jpg

    5 Social Media Trends That Should Never be Ignored

    Change the Way You Do Business!

    Social networking platforms and smart devices are changing the way that marketers do business. It has become like a must have for your business to optimize a social media marketing strategy as now there is a need to adapt the change. Staying on the top of trends will help your brand build more awareness and your business will grow at a more fast speed. Even Google recommends to specify your social profiles to search engine.

    Here are 5 social media trends that will rule 2015 and give your business a new direction:-

    1. Integrate SEO, Content and Social Media – Social media marketing greatly depends on how content is created and shared via different platforms. Content creation and online marketing have direct impact for your SEO campaign as these are like three pillars of digital marketing. If integrated in a proper way, these three can increase visibility, improve brand awareness and garner customers.

    2. Social Media Act as a Brand Builder – Building you unique identity can help your business grow at a fast speed. Social media channels should be appropriately managed taking into account a brand-oriented approach. A strong brand image means more visitors to your website ad improved sales. Make sure to update all profiles and information on regular basis as people love to read latest content.

    3. Social and Mobile Unite – With everything going digital, the wearable gadgets are ready to reshape the customer experience. Companies can make the best use of these smart gadgets via sharing, likes, notifications, and more. Today, smart devices are like social channels that can be used to reach more and more audience. Make the best use of such things to stand out of crowd.

    4. The Popularity of Videos and Images – The increasing popularity if infographics cannot be ignored as people like to watch more images and videos. As you are busy with social media marketing, make sure to include enough images and videos explaining your product or services. Share them on as much social channels as possible, so that it could reach hundreds of people across the web.

    5. Maintaining and Sharing Blogs – Blogs are the main part of websites now as there are many benefits you can enjoy embedding in into your website. It helps in backlinking, incorporating fresh content, focusing on keywords, and popularity of a website. You can use images and videos to make your blog more interesting and interactive. This will improve search rankings of your site.

    While traditional marketing is still effective, your business need something extra in the form of a social media marketing. Why? Because only great content could be ineffective without proper sharing on social networks. These channels help understand your customer base, build engagement and retain them for a long time.

    So, what are you waiting for? Think about it and give your business the best possible marketing strategy and take it to new heights.

    Image Source:

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Social_Media_Marketing.jpg