Top Tips For Good SEO Practice
Author : John Bateman
When it comes to SEO most people have heard of white hat and black hat tactics. White hat tactics are the legitimate ethically correct route of SEO with black hat tactics being the darker path that some choose to follow. So what makes good and bad SEO? Latitude finds out…
Practices to avoid with SEO:
Spamming your page with keywords - One of the oldest tricks in the book is for web marketers to fill their content, header tags, meta descriptions with rich keywords in the bid to try and trick search engine spiders in ranking their page higher. This is immediately apparent to the end user just by the sheer nonsense and meaningless the text reads as. It is less common nowadays as search engine spiders are aware of checking keyword density meaning web marketers have had to limit the number of keywords used and aren’t free to spam like they once did.
Cloaking - In the views of many web marketers, Cloaking is considered to be the worst kind of SEO. Cloaking involves tricking search engine spiders into thinking that a site is highly relevant to the end users search query and when the user clicks on the corresponding link, is taken to an entirely different site with no relevant content on it.
Buying and selling links - Google advises that if you are going to buy links in order to increase traffic to your site, you should only consider buying Nofollow links that will not count as a vote towards the page rank of your site. Buying links and selling links is often seen as a cheap (albeit it not so cheap either) and dirty way to increase your sites popularity. There are dangers to link buying and selling too - Google may penalise the site selling links and lower its importance, causing the value of those links that you have just bought to drop instantly.
Good SEO practice:
Good quality backlinks - As previously mentioned, buying links will generally obstruct your efforts to improve your page rank. In order to make the most out of backlinks link to relevant sites that use ethical SEO practices that will add value to your site and not hinder it.
Up to date and relevant content - It may seem obvious to some, but having a good copywriter and distributing fresh and relevant content will not only help to increase traffic to your site but will also help to create backlinks to your site. Unique, relevant and up to date content should in turn improve the chances of your website ranking higher in the SERP’s.
Relevant and rich keywords in the right places - Make sure you have all the relevant keywords relating to your line of business in all the right segments of a page, this includes in the main content of your page, in the H1 and H2 headings, in any anchor links you may have and also in the meta description.
This will all in turn aid any search engine spiders to know exactly what your site offers and with the right keywords should influence to the search engine to display your website above any competition depending on how well optimised your competitors are.
Latitude is one of the largest and longest-established digital marketing agencies in the UK, with expertise in SEO, PPC, display advertising, social media, conversion analytics and affiliate marketing. Original article is here.
The Importance of Meta Tags in SEO
Author : Melissa Smich
A Meta tag is basically an HTML tag, whose job is to furnish data to search engines (SE) regarding the kind of information present on the webpage. The purpose of a Meta tag is to add information and steer the SE spiders. Meta tags are an important tool to search engine optimize (SEO) a website. However, the magnitude of the role Meta tags will play in improving the ranking of your website depends on the se you are targeting.
Since these tags play an important role in determining search engine rankings of your website, you should be very careful in selecting the appropriate keywords for Meta tags. It is important to use them in your title. SEs go through the text body and the title of the content, and the information there is given more importance than any tag. Thus, make sure that the body of your articles has relevant content.
A Meta tag has 3 different attributes all of which play an important role in determining the search engine ranking of a webpage:
1. Content: The purpose of the content is to provide information in name/value pair.
2. Name: This is one-half of the “name/value pair”. The name could be a keyword, author, copyright, robot or description.
3. Http Equiv: This is also the name in the “name/value” pair attributes. However, the server uses it on the MIME document header before the web browser sends the real HTML document. Commonly used http equiv. includes charset, expires and refresh.
The description and keyword tags play a very important role in SEO of your website using Meta tags. The description tag describes your page to the search engine spiders. The content of description tag is used while displaying a list of websites. The keywords help in easy identification of the page by SE spiders. Since most search engines have limitations on the number of Meta keywords they can view, you should try to make your keywords as exact and concise as possible.
The Meta keyword and description tags were introduced to make using the web easier. However, webmasters have abused these tags to such an extent that, most SEs today have de-emphasized the importance of Meta tags in ranking. Good tags can ensure effective search engine optimization for a website to an extent. For best results, you should use them with other marketing strategies and not in isolation.
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Writing Killer Headlines
Writing good headlines is of prime importance. Once you know that you wonder how to go about it. Here are some rules of thumb. Here is some information on writing headlines that can attract visitor traffic. Even though, writing a good headline is not the only parameter of your success as a writer, but it makes sure that your text would be read by a good percentage of people.
To start with, remember the four Us approach while deciding on headlines. The four Us stand for the following attributes of a headline:
Usefulness- the reader should find it useful
Urgency-It should feel urgent to get the reader want to read it quickly
Uniqueness-it should give the idea that it is somewhat different from the usual content available
Ultra-specific-because the reader does not want to spend time finding a grain in hay.
Sometimes, the reader already has some knowledge about the subject of your text. Try to determine, how he or she feels about the subject already. Knowing that, you can determine what will the reader wants to read and what type of headline can ring a bell in his or her mind. If the headline drives the reader emotionally, your battle is won. Some topics are to general to be read about. Killer headlines can bring visitor traffic to these areas.
You can make your headlines magnetic by following some simple guidelines. It is a good idea to think of a headline first. After a good headline is chosen, come up with relevant content to follow the headline. A headline is promise that you make to the readers that the content that follows the headline would be what the headline says it is. Coming up with headline first also lets you structure your content appropriately.
The headlines you use can either be asking a question or making a promise. Good headlines either focus on the benefits or the reasons. Listings are always a hit.
Cheating works: It is not at all a bad idea to choose previously used headlines by altering the titles slightly. It is hard to get those headlines straight out of your mind. A little peep into the winning and attention grabbing headlines of the past can be very helpful. Many copywriters keep a collection of old newspapers, books and any other material that became popular. These are called swipe files. Some people even put these up for sale. Software is also available for the same. But it is not that useful. Everything needs some brush up and customized for the current scenario.
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