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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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3 Big Reasons Why Mobile Friendly Websites are the Future

Jazz up your business with a mobile-friendly website!

If you aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing potential customers… this is what you must be reading on different websites. But have to ever wondered why it is written almost everywhere these days? Why everyone is emphasizing on creating mobile friendly sites? What are the reasons behind such a big change? In this blog, we’ll discuss those big reasons that have made mobile friendly site a must have.

Even Google has recommended to build smartphone-optimized websites through its blog and also discussed about the three different configurations. It;s probably no surprise that the usage of smartphones and Internet has been dramatically increasing over the last few years. And a vast majority of sites are still not responsive, this is why Google came up with some recommendations and why it is necessary of businesses.

Let’s discuss it in detail and following are 3 big reasons why responsive websites are the future:-

1. Mobile Web Browsing is Exploding – A Google report says, “From smartphones and tablets to laptops and TV, 90% of all media interactions today are screen-based. People are learning to achieve their goals using all devices together”. This simply indicates that understanding that mobile browsing is increasing day by day has become an imperative for businesses. Today, people are spending more of their time on mobile devices and always have it withing their arm’s reach. Businesses should take it very seriously that desktops are going to become a thing of past.

Mobile friendly website

2. More Preference to Mobile Optimized Websites – People can visit websites either via the web browsers or their mobile devices, but most users prefer their smart devices these days. Most websites are not optimized for mobile phones and this simply means losing potential customers. As per a research conducted by Google, “Nearly ¾ of mobile users say they’re more likely to revisit mobile-friendly sites.” It means not having a responsive website means losing a big deal of sales.

Mobile responsive site

3. Mobile-friendly Sites Turn Visitors into Customers – If you don’t have a responsive website, you may be losing business. A recent study from Google showed that around 67% of users are more likely to buy from a responsive site and 61% users said that they get frustrated by sites that aren’t mobile-friendly. It simply means that without a mobile optimized website you are just driving your potential customers to your competition. As per the data published by Google, about 75% of users prefer a responsive site.

Mobile Friendly site

I guess, the above three reasons and the research conducted by Google should be enough to understand that how important are mobile-friendly websites.

The complete details on recommendations for a mobile friendly website can be obtained here. You can also conduct Mobile-Friendly Test to know which sites are responsive and vice versa…

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How to Make a Mobile Friendly Website and Attract More Visitors

Build a responsive website and turn your visitors into customers!

Today, people are using their smart devices to find a variety of products and services. Can those people easily access your offerings using their mobile phones and tablets? Think about it…

Having a website is not enough these days, you need to put more efforts to attract more visitors. You should build a website that works well on desktop, tablet and mobile, so that it not only look great, but follow all recommendations by Google that will make it a SEO friendly hub.

According to Google, a mobile-friendly website can offer the users a full mobile experience and make it a big hit among them. In this blog, we will discuss about some tips on how you can convert your traditional website into a mobile-friendly platform. And, here we go:-

  • Recreate a Mobile-friendly Version – This is a simple way to turn your site into a mobile site which ensures that everything on your site load correctly on mobile devices. A variety of tools can help you do the needful and the choice totally depends on what you and your clients want.
  • Make it Responsive – Instead of going for a completely new website, you could choose to convert your traditional one into responsive site. This could be an excellent option for businesses with limited budget and resources. Most companies prefer converting their existing site into a responsive one as they consider it the best investment. Shrink your current website using tools and make an effective mobile-friendly platform for visitors.
  • Share Information Visually – This could be the best way to provide information to the visitors since the screen size of mobile phones is much smaller than the desktops. Do not stuff unnecessary content and emphasize more on including info-graphics and videos as they are supposed to attract more visitors. Make your site practical for a digital ecosystem. Rearrange content into one column or you can hide content on load.
  • Consider Apps, Social Media and Email Marketing – It is a great idea to offer further support to your customers so that they can interact with you freely via social channels. Give a careful consideration to mobile apps depending on the factors like who are your customers and what they want from you. Offer them a quick service in the form of an app so that they can make orders, bookings and reservations on the go.
  • Consider Universal Mobile Design – Mobile phone screens are small and that’s why including mobile navigation options in like a must have. Find out the universal sizes people usually use and you can obtain data easily through Google Analytics. Design your site for a touch as fingers can’t right click or hover. Give enough space for a finger and use buttons to clearly define the link. Drop menus should be designed to provide accurate information.
  • Remember that the mindset of the desktop visitor and a mobile visitor is likely to be different, so design your website accordingly. Evaluate everything properly and look at the latest trends and mobile stats. As discussed on Google’s blog, a mobile-friendly site make visitors more likely to buy a product or service.

    Is your website mobile-friendly? Test it right here

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    How to Make a Solid First Impression with Your Website

    Why are first impressions so important?

    It is said that first impression is the last impression, why so? It matters when you want to build a long term relationship or a long lasting trust. The same goes with a website, a site that has a powerful web presence enjoys more visibility as compared to others. This is only possible if you make a great first impression with your website. However, creating an amazing website that works for you is quite a complex process that requires hard work and creativity.

    It’s no longer enough to have a website, it has to be well-designed, well-developed and well-promoted in order to gain a huge competitive advantage. In this blog post, we’ll discuss about how you can make an amazing first impression with your website and attract more audience. Check it out:-

  • Keep it Simple, Avoid Complex Designs – Don’t let your web designers show their entire talent in a single website as sometimes less is more. Keep in mind that the more you will include in your website, the slower it loads and visitors often have limited time. Keep the layout uncluttered and keep your theme colors simple and coordinated. Simple and functional designs are more liked by people out there.
  • It’s Better Know Your Audience – Your website is a gateway to your offerings and thus, it is important that you know your audience well. Consider the needs of your audience and why they are looking at your site. This will help you present your skills in a better way and offer your visitors what they want. Indulge in proper research before starting with the design and make sure there’s no confusion as to what you want to convey.
  • Don’t Just Go for Design Awards – You want sales, not design awards, so it’s better to focus on relevant content and graphics. Your website, in addition to clean and uncluttered design, must have a compelling offer. You are not alone in the market and there are others too selling the same product or service. It’s better to differentiate yourself by offering something unique and give visitors a reason to visit your website.
  • Make it Search Engine Friendly – Give proper title tags and descriptions to all pages such as home, about, work and contact. This will help search engines to easily find and index your site. The speed of your website also have a big impact on your search engine rankings and try not to overload it with unnecessary videos and images. You can check Page Speed Tool of Google to improve the speed of your site.
  • Keep it Updated – There’s nothing like a fresh content and it is important to keep everything updated to attract more visitors. Keep your blog and gallery updated so that your audience never feel like your website is outdated. If you have a blog, maintain it properly and update it with relevant and engaging content on regular basis.
  • So, now you know how to make a long lasting impression with your website.

    Image Source:

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/MG_9067.JPG/800px-MG_9067.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

    3 Reasons Why Video Marketing is Important For Your Business

    Keep Your Audience Engaged with Amazing Videos!

    Video isn’t for entertainment anymore. It has become an excellent medium to communicate with clients and customers online. You must have noticed that millions of videos are added to the Internet every single day. But why so? What could be the reason that such a large number of videos are added every day to the World Wide Web? The answer is pretty simple – because they are making a huge impact on lives of the people and that’s why online marketing is a big hit.

    Let’s discuss the 3 big reasons why video marketing is important for the success of your business and how it could impact your SEO campaign. And here we go:-

    1. Increases Conversion Rates – Posting videos to YouTube or embedding them into your website pages can increase conversion rates. As per the sources, YouTube is one of the largest search engines in the world and more than 100 hours of video is uploaded to it every minute. Videos uploaded with SEO techniques enjoy far more traffic as compared to normal ones. A video can establish trust with visitors as they can understand the subject better, especially when an owner directly addresses them.

    2. Increases Brand Awareness – Videos are more viral and are more frequently shared via social networks such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Video may spread like a fire and so is your brand name. You have the opportunity to reach larger audience and make them aware about your products and services. Videos are more engaging and easy to understand and that’s why people prefer to share them with their friends.

    3. Improves Rankings with Search Engines – Websites with more informative videos are more likely to be listed by Google. One reason is that Google owns YouTube and that’s why SEO optimized videos rank high. Videos have a certain level of authority just like the quality content. The higher will be the authority, the higher it will rank in search results. Make sure that you have used right keyword for title and tags.

    In the past, just optimizing the content and getting as many back links as possible were the only two areas of focus fir Internet marketers. This is no longer much effective, as video marketing has become a very important part of SEO. If you still aren’t making the best use of videos for promoting your business, it’s like a wake up call for you.

    Make Your Website easy for search engines to understand!

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    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Prototype_Ultrabook_with_Touchscreen.jpg/800px-Prototype_Ultrabook_with_Touchscreen.jpg

    7 Common Mistakes to Avoid in SEO and Make Your Campaign A Big Hit

    Make Your SEO Campaign a Big Hit!

    SEO is the only way to get your website in the top search results and if not managed in a proper way, it could even lead to a huge disaster. When webmasters develop a site, they often ignore the SEO best practices and I must say that this is a terrible mistake. No website is perfect, especially when it is for the first time you build it, but there are ways to make it perfect by avoiding some basic mistakes.

    Fortunately, you’ve got the chance to identify and correct all the mistakes so that you website can start enjoying more traffic and high visibility on search results.

    Here are the 7 common SEO mistakes that you should avoid, as mentioned by Google, and make your site a big hit. Let’s face it:-

    1. Low Quality Content – It not always mean copying from other websites, duplication within your own site could confuse the search engines to decide which content to index. It means existence of same content in more than one web-page within the same or different website. Avoid homepage duplication, duplicate URLs, web-pages with similar content, unplayable content and lack of content marketing.

    2. Blocked JavaScript and CSS – Having blocked JavaScript, CSS and image files is a big mistake that could lead to suboptimal rankings, as mentioned by Google. It’s better to always allow Googlebot access to the JavaScript, CSS as well as image files in order to enjoy optimal indexing.

    3. Using Unreliable SEO Services – Companies promising quick and cheap SEO services often use black hat SEO techniques. These aggressive black hat tactics not at all follow the search engine guidelines which may have a negative impact on the search results. These techniques breaks search engines rules and create a poor user experience which is not at all good for any website. Better to avoid them.

    4. Not Focusing on Keyword Research – It’s easy to get quality content but very difficult to find the traffic-generating keywords. Give time to keyword research as there is no fun of having wrong keywords for your site and wasting your time on getting them on the top results. If you really want to bring traffic to your site, make sure you work on adequate keywords. You can find suitable keywords and build a search network using tools like Keyword Planner.

    5. Inappropriate Meta Titles and Descriptions – Title tags and meta descriptions play a crucial role in indexing the web-pages. It is what search engines use to get a good idea of what the page is all about. The meta title and descriptions should include important keywords so that search engines can get a clear overview of the page’s content. It’s always better to include your brands in the title tag and every page should have its own unique title tag.

    6. Discarding the Old Website Pages Completely – When you create a new site and completely kill the old one, it has a negative impact on your search rankings. Old pages that have already boosted SEO should never be completely deleted. The best way is to redirect pages to new site so they continue to appear even on page upgrades. Make sure that all images, videos and links on these pages are properly reconnected.

    7. Missing Alt Tags – Search engines cannot differentiate between images without its title and Alt tag. So it is very important to enter relevant title and alt tags for each and every image you upload on your website. Give your images meaningful names so that search engines can easily find and differentiate them from others.

    The above mentioned are few SEO mistakes that you should avoid to enjoy better search results. Avoiding these common mistakes is the only way to get your web-pages in top search results and what it all required is your concern and proper research.

    Good luck for your SEO campaign…

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    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/SEO_search_engine_optimization.png