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Some strange facts about SEO and keywords

July 29, 2012 by

How important are keywords for better search engine rankings of your site?

Well, this is not a quite new question or answer on the relevance of keywords and keyword phrases. In fact this question has been asked and replied millions of times in as many websites and blogs dealing with the subject, especially when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Then what is new or important in this article?

I used to see this kind of SEO questions and tried to understand the replies given by SEO experts and tried to implement them in my own sites. The earliest website that I tried to implement it was setup in 2006. I basically knew nothing about the relevance of keywords or SEO then, excepting that I have to use some such keywords. So, I used some such words in my keywords meta. The site now has about 150 pages, hand-coded using the old style simple HTML and uses no themes or templates, or content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress.

The above said site attracts 500 to 1000 unique page visits per day (keeps on varying) though I have never tried to improve traffic or ranking by link building, internet marketing techniques or any such efforts.

Interestingly, some of the pages that I have meticulously setup after the best possible keyword research rank the lowest compared to other pages that I hurriedly uploaded with some random keywords.

And more interestingly, some pages that I expected to rank low have ranked better than my well-researched pages.

The site itself has somewhat behaved erratically in search results and overall ranking in the past. It has had the highest ranking of Google Page Rank 3 and the lowest of PR 0.

Initially, I used to work hard on improving the SEO, site traffic, and all other aspects of ranking of the site. But, after a year or so I left the idea and just used the site as a tool to understand the changes brought about by changes in Google Algorithms, and other aspects of SEO.

Also I would like to mention that I do not have much control over the contents of the pages, as each page contains free ads submitted by users who seek pen friendship, email friendship, hobbies, etc. For the same reason, the keywords/ keyword phrases for most of the pages are similar because of similar content in almost all pages.

Why do some pages rank better and why does the site gain or lose Google Page Rank?

Some of the reasons I understand for the change in Page Rank and SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are as follows:

  1. The periodic changes in SERPs and the page rank of the site as well as individual pages change mainly based on the change in search engine algorithms, and to some extent depending on how visitors use keywords and phrases to find sites of their choice.
  2. Though I myself tried very little to increase inbound links, users whose ads appear in certain pages do link those pages in their profiles and other features of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Again, these also change; as such links are either deleted or made dead links by the users themselves. These activities do change the ranking of the pages and the site in general.
  3. The pages that had the best keywords/ phrases, other well-planned meta such as title, description, and anchor tags on links and even better internal linking, did not rank well because of poor content (as I said, I do not have much control on content as the pages contain free ads on the same subject submitted by visitors).
  4. The pages that ranked better had better content, the advertisers in those pages had addresses and other little cared for information such as places, street names, and even country names that people search more, but I knew little about.
  5. Political, financial, climatic, and other changes that have nothing to do with my site also change the rankings and other aspects of my site. For example: when there were times when earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and other calamities in some parts of the world, the pages containing names of such places received more visitors than other pages. Similarly, from the beginning of the Arab Spring, people searching for information on Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, etc. brought in more visitors to certain pages that contained references to places or other aspects of these countries, though my site had nothing to do with such events, excepting some people whose personal ads were in those pages.
  6. In recent times Google Panda and Google Penguin knocked many top ranking sites off the first few pages of SERPs. These changes benefited several other sites that came to the top of the SERPs. This alone shows that you, I or anyone else do not have total control on SEO, SERPs or traffic. The sites that suffered also lost heavily in traffic as well as advertising and other revenues.

The above views shall bring forth an important question. You may ask: “Do you mean to say that SEO, keywords, etc. are to be ignored or cannot be implemented for the better ranking of my website/ blog?”

Well, the answer is: No. You have to try your best to use the known aspects of improving SEO of your sites. Those who do better SEO implementation will definitely have better ranking than others who do not care about SEO, keywords, etc.

That being said, however you may try, your ranking and traffic shall keep on fluctuating depending on how search engine algorithms change, as well as how your competitors perform better than you.

And most importantly, as the old saying in SEO world goes, content is the king. I have seen sites with very good content, but not even with any meta tags ranking better than sites with meticulously implemented SEO parameters. That is mainly because major search engines including Google have given up over-reliance on keywords, description tags, etc. and give more importance on content, user-friendliness and user-interaction, and other factors.

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to choose a domain name

January 19, 2011 by

In my earlier days of using the internet, I used to wonder why certain domain names were odd or strange as they appeared to me. Certain domain names were too long with unrecognizable words or alphabets, while others were too short with as little as two or three alphabets or numbers that made no sense to me. Some of the domain names were easily memorable and made sense to me. I think it is so in one way or the other for many people.

In the course of time, while reading informative articles on domain names, and the dilemmas I faced while I had to use my own domain names, I learned a lot, and still I am learning. So, I describe below what I could understand on this topic.

In the earlier days of internet, a person who wanted to establish a website on books could easily register a domain name with the word book and any domain extension like com, net, etc. But very soon all the single words that you can find in any or all dictionaries were registered and people had to look for combinations of two or more words. Even these are mostly not available now. So, the trend is to look for one or two words relevant to the site you want to setup and some abbreviated words or derivatives to make up your domain name.

So, the first step in registering a domain name is to make a list of names consisting of different words or permitted alpha-numerical characters that suit your site. Then decide the domain TLD (extension) that suits your site and go to the domain registrar and see if your preferred domain names are already taken or available. Most domain registrars also suggest available alternative domain names. Based on your own list of preferred names and/or suggested alternatives, you can register your domain. But before registering, also read the other criteria you may like to consider before registering your domain name.

As said, you cannot get any single word name, or even some combinations. That means your domain may consist of more than one word or parts of many words. In such cases, it is better to separate them with hyphens (-) rather than using the name as a single string, or separating with underscores. This is important as search engine bots (spiders) and sometimes human beings cannot identify each part of the domain name separately. Separating words with hyphens is especially important if your domain name consists of your main keywords.

While it is difficult to find your favorite domain name, after you settle for a particular name, the question arises as to which Top-Level Domain (TLD) is better than others. The most popular, the most used and preferred one is a .com domain compared to .biz or .us, as I find that most SEO experts are of the opinion that a com domains can rank better than other TLDs. The TLD .edu (mostly used by universities and educational organizations) are rated to have higher credibility in the eyes of search engines. Also the .org TLD is rated by some SEO professionals as better than others.

Filed Under: How-to, SEO Tagged With: , ,

A few tips on writing great content

January 14, 2011 by

I often hear from SEO experts that creating great content for your site or blog is the most important step to attract visitors and improve your site’s visibility on search results. I tried the tips on writing good content on a few sites and found that it helps a lot.

But what is good content? If you search around on SEO sites, you can find various explanations for this question. There can be similar views, conflicting views, some advices may be too technical to understand for beginners, and some of them even can put you into more confusion. Don’t worry about it, as it happens in the learning process. The best way to get over it is to write whatever you want to write in your own style, in the natural flow of your language, and to look for factual and other errors like spelling and grammar.

Once you have done this, look at what you have written to see if it deviates too much from your main topic. If so, remove unwanted lengthy explanations and other things so that the reader’s attention is not diverted from the topic of your headline. Too much of unrelated text makes your content unfocused and irrelevant and it may irritate readers who reached your site searching for a particular topic.

As a next step, you can optimize your article for the relevant keywords or key phrases that your article is about. This normally involves finding out the number of times your niche keyword is repeated and what percentage it constitutes in terms of the total number of words. This can either be done manually by counting, or using a webpage analyzer. This is called finding out the keyword density of your article. Some experts recommend 2% to 5% density, some others even recommend up to 10%. But I personally prefer it below 5%, because, if you overdo it, that will look unnatural for your readers and it will be viewed negatively by search engines.

Most experts will tell you to create unique content. But what is unique content? It simply means that you have to write content that is different from other sites and other web pages. There is good reason why so much of emphasis is placed on unique content. If you have the same stuff others have on their sites why should anyone visit your site? The other important aspect is that if your content is not unique, search engines may find it copies of what others create and you can be penalized for that.

Also it is important to create as much good content as you can and post as often as you can. Write new ideas and suggestions every time. Do not repeat what you have already written. It is not to say that you can write only one article on one topic. But whenever you write on the same topic, give fresh ideas and findings on the topic. Also write on topics relevant to your site so that it will improve your rankings.

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to manage bounce rate

January 12, 2011 by

Before going into the question about managing bounce rates of your blog or site, it will be better to understand what bounce rate is, especially for those who are new to it, or those who really never cared about bounce rates.

One of the sources that explains bounce rate is the Wikipedia article on bounce rate, which I read quite some time back and find it remains more or less the same now. Anyway, it explains bounce rate as ‘a term used in web site traffic analysis… It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site…’ and gives the formula for calculating bounce rate as:

‘Bounce rate = total number of visits viewing only one page / total number of visits’.

According to Google, ‘Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.’ Google also advises as to how you can minimize bounce rates by ‘tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run’.

I feel the above advice is not practical, as you can only know which landing pages have high or low bounce rates only after quite some time. At that stage, how can you re-do the landing page to match each keyword and ad that you run, unless you want to rewrite the entire page or post? It may be practical for small static sites that are used for selling your products or services. For larger sites, you have to engage SEO professionals who may optimize the whole site for you. Moreover Google does not specify what high bounce rate is and what low or desirable bounce rate is.

Wikipedia quotes ‘Google Analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik’ as having stated, “My own personal observation is that it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying. I stress that this is my personal analysis…”

A more practical and insightful advice can be found if you read the article, What Is High, Normal And Low Bounce Rates? by Daniel Scocco, the founder of DailyBlogTips, who writes, ‘If you don’t have many ads on your blog and your priority is to grow your traffic and audience, then your bounce rate should be between 40% and 70%…’ Scocco also opines that ‘if you have exceptionally engaging content and a very user friendly design’ you can get your bounce rate below the 40%.

Bounce rate is one of the few metrics that caught my attention when I started my first website way back in 2006, a friendship and dating site offering free services. Then, it was my pet project and I was hell-bound to improve its performance. I had enough time to sign up for e-mail newsletters, visit top SEO forums, and read articles. I tried to follow all the tricks and hacks offered by top-level SEO professionals. But the site’s bounce rate always hovered around 50% to 60%, and it continues to do so. After sometime, I stopped worrying about bounce rate.

I started some blogs initially as a support for my main site. But I also experimented with all sorts of SEO tips and tried them on a few blogs. And I have placed AdSense ads in my blogs and sites. Also, I continued to monitor bounce rate, though I stopped doing anything to reduce high bounce rates.

Recently, that is a few months back, I noticed in my Google Analytics account that one of my blogs showed bounce rates as low as less than 1%, and another showed a bounce rate around 7%. However, though it surprised me, it did not give me any reason to celebrate, as my other metrics, including earnings from them, remained the same.

I think, the very low bounce rate might be because of the change in the algorithms used by Google, and they keep on changing, though you can never know what changed, and why.

In view of the above, though I endorse the highly researched opinions of Daniel Scocco, personally I feel that a bounce rate between 50% to 70% is not bad, as long as your Return on Investment (ROI), and other targets are good. Also, I feel a very low bounce rate, though desirable, cannot get you anything extra, including an improved page rank, though, low bounce rate is a very good indicator of how much your visitors are interested in your site, and how many pages they visit.

If you have your own experiences and observations about bounce rate, feel free to use the comment box and share it with our visitors.

Filed Under: How-to, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

How to beat the low-traffic syndrome?

January 6, 2011 by

Well, traffic is the life-force of any blog or site. It is especially so if you are a blogger and started blogging with dreams of building up a blog that is visited by a lot of people who are interested in the unique content that you create. Your enthusiasm may last a few days till you are hit by the biggest dampener of your blogging spirit – very low traffic or almost no visitors on certain days.

It happens because of a few things. First and foremost, it takes a few days for your blog to be indexed by search engines that sent the bulk of traffic to most sites. Even if you submit your blog or site to search engines this may happen. Links exchanges and other means of link building also help, though link exchanges are not counted by search engines like Google for your link popularity computation. Commenting on other blogs and sites helps a lot, but mostly in the form of clicks from visitors to those blogs who find your views interesting. The maximum benefits from the SEO point of view comes when your links are picked up by other blogs and quoted to show some important views expressed by you, or to recommend your blog otherwise. However, all these take time. But you have to continue link building, and keep updating your blog with new compelling fresh and unique content.

Posting some content every day, many times a day, or at least as frequently as you can, helps in many ways, because, as soon as you post something, search engines are alerted and your blog is crawled and indexed. A regular practice like this can boost your traffic in a very short duration of time. When more visitors come in, it provides a psychological boost to your enthusiasm to blog more and more.

Reading inspirational and motivating posts in other blogs and authentic sources like WordPress can motivate you and lift your sagging spirits. Today I read such an article published by WordPress.com titled Challenge for 2011: Want to blog more often? and that made me write this post. It is really inspiring because it gives you tips to think and concentrate on ideas to blog about.

Filed Under: Blogging, How-to, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to optimize photos for your site

December 26, 2010 by
The Blue Planet Eath, Photo taken by Apollo 17 crew

Photo of the earth showing Africa, Arabian Peninsula, etc

Look at the photo here. It is the famous photograph of the Earth named “The Blue Marble” taken on December 7, 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17 spacecraft en-route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometers (18,000 statute miles) from the earth showing Africa, Antarctica, Madagascar, the Arabian Peninsula, etc. (This photo is in the public domain because it was created by NASA, and you can download it and use it for yourself).

The photo you see here is optimized for a post like this. It is just 20.2 KB, measuring 250 x 250 pixels. The original photo from which it is optimized is of the resolution‎ of 3,000 x 3,002 pixels (file size: 6.21 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg). As you perhaps know, such large size photos can fill up your server storage very fast and you may need to upgrade your hosting account.

If you are having very small storage for your hosting account, the problem will be more acute if your site or blog calls for frequent use of photos. This is just one aspect of using photos for sites and blogs.

The biggest problem, in my opinion, is increased page load time because of photos and images, though other factors can also increase it. Some blog hosting applications automatically reduce the pixels and file size to suit your page. Some others do not. So, you have to check up from the application that you are using. But whatever the application that you are using, it may just reduce the pixels to suit your page, and not the size (in KB, MB, etc.).

Now click HERE to see the original photo of 6.21 MB, a huge photo of very large dimension. Note the time it takes to load on your browser. There is yet another version of the same photo of 18.32 MB. And there are even other photos that are of even 100 MB. Such heavy photos and images can even crash your browser.

Another question regarding photos and images for optimum use with blogs and static websites is about the types of photos/ images such as jpg, png, gif, etc. The best is to use jpg or png images, as gif or old fashioned bmp images are of huge file sizes, even if their measurement in pixels may suit your page layout. So, before uploading convert them to jpg or png images.

A word of caution: DO NOT CONVERT animated gif images. To create the animation images several frames of the image taken in motion or created otherwise are used. If you convert them, the file size will be reduced, but only one frame will show up and it will lose its animation effect.

A faster loading page will keep your visitors and customers happy about visiting your site. If your page is very slow, the visitor may not be patient enough to wait till your page is loaded. In that case, the visitor will hit the back button and it will increase your bounce rate which is bad from the point of view of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is especially so if you have several photos on the same page.

So, it is wise to reduce the page load time because of images. The best way to do the photo optimization is to use Photoshop tools. In Photoshop open the image and click on the “image” tab and then click on “image size”. A dialog box will open in which you can type in either the desired width or height of the optimized photo you want. Then click OK and go to the File Menu. In File Menu, click on “Save for web” option. A dialog box will open in which you can save for Low/ Medium/ High/ Maximum resolutions. Choose the Medium or Low resolution only, and save as image only (do not go for the HTML option, as it saves as an HTML file).

If you do not have Adobe Photoshop installed in your computer, you can download Picasa, a free photo editing software from Google http://picasa.google.com and use, though it works differently, and not a replacement for Adobe Photoshop.

Filed Under: How-to, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Selecting the right WordPress theme for your blog

December 22, 2010 by

What kind of theme do you want to install in your blog? Unless you are a seasoned WordPress professional, or at least know the basics of how WordPress works, installing the right theme or template for your blog can pose some problems. To solve this problem, there are a few things you can do.

WordPress offers a variety of themes that you can download or install in your blogs or sites. These are pre-designed WordPress approved themes that are optimized from the point of view of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and available in various designs and requirements of the blogger or webmaster. Most of the themes can be customized to your satisfaction, but of course limited by the parameters set by the theme designer and the requirements of WordPress specifications. So you may end up with the result that you may not have all the required widgets or gadgets, pluggins and other features. If that is the case, deactivate the theme and select another theme and repeat the process of customizing.

The second alternative is to look for the themes of your choice. Make a search on the internet and you can find many thousands of themes that suit your needs. Try some of them and most probably you will get the right theme and designs that suits all your needs. These are about installing FREE WordPress themes.

If the above steps are not suitable for you, you may have to go for the alternatives of contacting some PREMIUM theme sellers to whom you have to pay the price they charge for their designs. The advantage with this option is that you will get the technical and other supports from the theme designer or the theme seller for successful installation and customization of your WordPress themes.

If the above option is not for you, you have to hire the services of a custom theme designer who will do all that you like for the look and feel plus the optimum functioning of your blog or site for the price that they quote for their services.

If you want to be your own master of everything that has to be performed on your site or blog, I will recommend that you experiment with the free themes available from WordPress, and in case of difficulties in customizing, you can always go to the WordPress forum from where many WordPress experts and experienced members shall guide you through the process of installing the right theme for WordPress your site or blog.

Filed Under: Themes Tagged With: , , , ,

Hello world!

December 20, 2010 by

Welcome to Tech-Sharing Blog! This is my first post after setting up my own self-hosted blog, if it can be called so. In the strict sense, a self-hosted blog is one that is hosted on one’s own server, apart from having its own domain name. But this is a blog hosted using hired shared hosting services.

Also, this cannot be said to be my first attempt to blog on WordPress platform, because about two years back, I opened a free account for a free blog with WordPresss.com but left it as it is, and spent my time on many other FREE blogging services, both learning about blogging and many other aspects associated with it. Mostly I used the services of Blogger, the easiest FREE blogging service, provided by Google, where I have some blogs already running. Though I thought of migrating to my own WordPress blog with my work already in my Blogger blogs, after thinking over some other future prospects, I left them to run there for some more time, or forever, I do not know right now.

This blog is setup with a one-click setup process from the control panel of my hosting service provider. After I decided to setup my own WordPress blog, I searched around to understand the best way to set this up, but the more I read about professional blog setup services, I got into more confusion with some of them describing it as a tough job that takes a lot of time and effort. I was inclined to hire professional help, as I am short of time. So, I contacted some professional services too. But, I am yet to receive even a quote, maybe, because those pros could be overburdened with work. So, I got impatient and took a plunge, buying a domain and hosting facility, followed by this one-click WordPress installation. I hope to customize this blog soon, or, maybe I may hire someone for the job.

So, welcome back, and see the changes, and if you too are a beginner, or an experienced blogger trying WordPress for the first time, my experiments with this wonderful blogging software may help you.

I also look forward to receiving guidance and suggestions from experienced WP professionals. Also, I want to exchange many things with fellow bloggers including marketing and business ideas, apart from technology.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,