Search engine Optimization can be done in a variety of ways. It’s flexibility and boundaries are almost limitless. There are two popular ways or methods to do SEO and they are called the ‘White hat’ method and the ‘Black hat’ method. You are either of the two or you’re in between. I’d like to keep my posts simple and short so that the newbies in this particular profession would easily understand. For this post, I would focus on the black hat method. First things first, why is it called ‘black hat’? I’m sure all of us have played MMORPG games in our playstation when we were kids. There would always be a ‘black mage’ character somewhere in the game. Black magic is known as the darker side of the arts. It is used to destroy, hurt or kill (compared to white magic). The term ‘black hat’ has been derived from this concept. Why? Because the black hat method is used to hurt some websites (and sometimes even your own) in order for you to gain Google juice. It all used to be legit but then some people started abusing these practices – and now it is generally frowned upon by search engines and the SEO community at large. Now if you get caught using these dark arts of SEO, you run the risk of getting your website banned from the search engines – which will probably hurt because 89% of the people use search engines to explore the internet. If you get banned from the search engines it will also hurt your brand, which you are most probably trying to build. Reputation is vital in the internet these days. That’s why there’s such a thing called ‘Online Reputation Management’ and ‘Search engine reputation management’ – 2 services (which I do provide by the way. Hehe.) Some of the Black hat practices: Keyword Stuffing Keyword stuffing is the art of packing keywords into your site even when it’s not making any sense anymore. It greatly lowers user-friendliness and information reputation and quality of your site in exchange for temporary increase in rankings. But I think Google now detects this one in a matter of days. Invisible Texts Using invisible texts is simply putting some keywords with the same color as your background so that it would be invisible to the site visitors. Doorway Pages Doorway pages are webpages or a collection of webpages that are merely put up as a dummy. This is done for search engine spiders to crawl links and keywords for the main site (which the doorway page would most probably point to). Usually, the users would never see or find these pages. These are just SOME of the practices that a black hat SEO practitioner uses. There are so much more. And even now, new ones are in development.

Today at the PRSA 09 conference, it was a packed room for TopRank CEO (and author of Online Marketing Blog) Lee Odden who gave a presentation on SEO for Public Relations. He started by explaining why SEO is/should be important to PR Professionals. In a 2008 Journalists Use of Search Survey by TopRank, we discovered that 91% of journalists use standard search to fulfill a component of their job whether researching a story or locating a subject matter expert. With journalists writing for more channels and with less resources making your content visible within search is critical. Here are Odden’s 10 SEO Tips: 1. Number one thing to do? Magic answer is that it depends on the problem. However, if you choose one item to tackle make sure your website is crawlable. If the site isn’t crawlable, then really nothing else you do in terms of SEO will matter. 2. Understand and Optimize PR Tactics The content that is likely already being created as part of the PR campaign is low hanging fruit in terms of SEO. Optimize the following content with keyword phrases (or those terms that journalists might be searching) to help your content become more visible: Press Releases Letters to the editor Online Newsroom Media kits Corporate blogs White papers Webinars/demos Newsletters Real world interviews published digitally In addition, Odden introduces the audience to the idea of Micromedia Optimization. Now that tweets and soon status updates are being integrated into the search engines, it’s important to optimize the content regardless of the channel. 3. PPC vs SEO for PR SEO is long term, part of a content process and contingent on content and links over time. PPC is on-demand, pay to play and an alternative to natural listings. If you have something you need to draw attention to right now, PPC is perhaps the more viable option as you can have ads live within minutes. 4. Keyword Research In order to optimize your existing content, a list of keyword phrases needs to be developed. Here’s how you build the list: 1. Brainstorm phrases 2. Import to a keyword research tool –Google Keyword Tool –Google Insights & Trends –WordTracker –Keyword Discovery –SEM Rush

These 10 SEO tips will help you maximize the impact of your website in order to increase engagement among consumers and keep visitors coming back for more. Search engine optimization (SEO), often associated with change and fluidity, continues to mutate at a frenetic pace. The SEO techniques that were once considered best practices are now things of the past. Search rankings have an important role in determining the popularity of your business. Only if your website has visitors will you be able to increase your sales and get a high marketing return on investment (ROI). Thankfully, there are many effective tactics that can lead to higher visibility and increased search friendliness. SEO is an essential part of your online presence. Using the right SEO techniques can increase the ranking and visibility of your website. If your business is somewhere near the top of the search results, then more users will click on your page and see what your product or service is all about. So, how can you make your Web design SEO-friendly to position yourself higher on search result pages? Here are some of the best SEO techniques for Web design that will maximize the impact of your website. 1. SEO-Friendly URL You need to make sure that the URL of your site is SEO-friendly. Only use keywords that are relevant to your business and relate to it in some way. Avoid using long URLs, and if possible separate terms using hyphens. The URL should give people an idea about your business. 2. Optimized Images To get a better rank in the search results, optimize your images along with the text on your website. Avoid using large images on your website. Keep the image size from 30 to 100 KB with a resolution of 72 dpi. Large images make your site load slower. When you are creating an alt image text, make sure that you use keywords in graphics, header images, logo images, and buttons on each page. 3. Responsive Web Design Designing for multiple devices, aka responsive design, is what Google recommends. This type of design allows your website to perform optimally on multiple devices. From an SEO perspective, a responsive website has a single URL for both the mobile and the main site, which means that you will have to drive links to a single URL instead of two. This is an easy way to increase your external backlink count. 4. Quick Navigation When you design your website, make sure the navigation is not difficult. Let users experience an easier navigation when they land on your website so that they can easily find what they are looking for. Place the navigation bar either at the top or along the left margin of the page.

When most people think about structuring a website for search engine optimization, they immediately think of developers. You don’t have to be a developer to master SEO. It doesn’t take much technical skill; you just need to understand the basic elements of SEO and how to incorporate them into your posts. In other words, while developers are essential when it comes to troubleshooting, site performance and much, much more, structuring your blog for SEO is one thing you can get started on right away. Even if you do eventually decide to put some of these tasks in your developers’ hands, you need to know how to direct them on SEO best practices when structuring a blog. Fortunately, it’s easy to implement once you know how it all works. Even the best blogs can go unnoticed if they don’t have proper SEO in place to help them rank on a search engine results page (SERP). You want your website to show up so that people will find the site while searching, click on the URL and hopefully continue to return. SEO helps people find your blog in the first place, so once you have great content ready to go, your next step is structuring it with SEO in mind.

Do you find yourself complaining that your SEO writing clients are cheap and not paying you what you’re worth? Here’s a reality check. It’s not your clients’ fault that you’re getting paid peanuts. It’s yours. I know, I know – I’m being harsh. But I’m doing it in a loving way. When you’re a freelance SEO writer, you are responsible for your business’ success. If you find yourself begging to be paid $50 for a 500 word post, you need to change your marketing process, pronto. Here’s how to do it: – Quit doing what you’ve done before. If you know that marketing yourself on Elance and Odesk is going to get you low-paying gigs, quit relying on them as primary revenue sources. Chances are, the dollar amounts aren’t going to get any better. Instead, create a marketing plan and stick with it. That probably means creeping out of your comfort zone. That’s OK. It’s good for you. – Pull yourself out of the “I’m doing this for experience” trap. Sure, it’s OK to charge super-low rates when you’re first starting out. After that, you need to do important things like eat and pay your rent. If you think your writing isn’t worth it, your prospects won’t either (and they won’t pay you the fee you want.) – Take things off the table . Can your prospect pay for some – but not all – of your proposed deliverables? Take something away until you can reach their price point. That way, you’re not discounting your prices – and your prospect gets (almost all) of what they need. – Find a niche and establish your expertise. Pam Foster – who specializes in pet copywriting – is a great example of someone who has found a profitable niche. She’s the recognized go-to expert within the pet industry (and she can charge for that expertise accordingly.) – Learn to say “no.” Does a new prospect want you to do everything for 50 percent less than your stated price? Just say no. Nicely. Practice saying “no” in front of a mirror if needed. Remember, your prospect’s budget issue is not your problem. – Gather testimonials and case studies. That way, you can prove how you’ve boosted your clients’ bottom lines. You’re selling your value and how you’ll help your clients – so the more documentation you have to back that up, the better. – Is your niche not making money? Find another one. You may love to work with small business clients – but if they can’t pay your bills, it’s time to let them go. – Talk to someone who “gets it.” This could be a friend, a mentor or another freelance writer. Explain why you’re raising your rates – and share all the reasons why doing so freaks you out. It’s amazing how less scary something gets when it’s out in the open. – Learn to say “goodbye” to low-paying clients. Yes, even if you love them. It’s scary to let existing clients go (I’ve been there many times.) But sometimes, we have to let things go to make space for better things in our lives (like better paying clients!)

Nine days ago when Google released Panda 4.0 — which aims to filter out “thin” content from top rankings — we focused our attention on the big Winners & Losers charts, Since then, some have noted that press releases may have also been hit big time. Using SearchMetrics, I looked at the top Press Release sites and checked if they lost any SEO visibility on a large scale since Panda 4.0 hit, and PRWeb.com, PR Newswire, BusinessWire and PRLog all seem to have lost significant rankings in Google. PRNewsWire.com seems to have shown a significant drop in SEO visibility, dropping ~63% after Panda 4.0 was released: PRWeb.com, another major press release distribution web site, also saw a huge drop, ~71%: BusinessWire.com saw a ~60% drop after Panda: PRLog.org saw a big drop in mid 2013 but then another dip right after this past Panda update: Sean Malseed from SEER Interactive used SEM Rush metrics to document a lot of the same patterns I documented with SearchMetrics data. They also documented specific cases, of specific press releases that recently ranked well and now are no longer on the first page. As we said in the Winners and Losers report, lists like this aren’t perfect. The sites above may have had gains and drops for other reasons; less visibility this week because last week they were visible for different news stories, for example. It’s also worth remembering that this is a sample of search terms. The only way to really know if any update has hurt or helped you is to look at your search-driven traffic from Google, rather than particular rankings or lists like this, which have become popular after Google updates. If you’ve seen a significant increase, you’ve probably been rewarded by it. A big decrease? Then you were probably hit.

Everything You Need In A Manhattan Beach SEO Company The city of Manhattan Beach takes a lot of the characteristics from the other Manhattan, like the legendary home prices. If you want to compete in this affluent seaside market, you need a strong marketing plan, both online and offline. The world of business is changing at a faster rate each day. With more and more business and customer acquisition being done online, you can’t do business without a solid online presence. If your web presence is not where you want it to be, then you need the help of a reputable Manhattan Beach SEO Company to turn that around. Quality Manhattan Beach SEO Services Universal Positions is a leading Manhattan Beach internet marketing company , specializing in helping local businesses reach high ranking in major search engines. We take a multi-faceted approach to your online marketing needs, working with you to devise a plan that will get results. Customized Manhattan Beach SEO Services You aren’t just another company that we are trying to rank higher on Google. We understand that each company has unique needs, which is why we do a deep dive into every firm before beginning our Manhattan Beach SEO service. This analysis looks at your industry and competitors to find high value search engine terms and help you rank above your competition on them. Website Optimization From A Leading Manhattan Beach SEO Company In order to get you ranking higher, the first step is to make sure that your website is optimized correctly. We will work with you to optimize both the content and the code to make it more attractive for search engines. We will also assess your content and make sure that it is helping your ranking. The Top SEO Firm Is Also A Manhattan Beach Design Company Many businesses put off a major webpage redesign for too long. If you are looking to us to redesign your online presence, now is the perfect time to redesign your online brand as well. Our top-notch Manhattan Beach web design team will work with you to create a website that you can be proud of for years to come. Let The Leading Manhattan Beach SEO Company Help You Build Your Brand Having a beautiful website that has been optimized for search engines is important, but you also need to have a wide reaching brand image to improve credibility with search engines whenever possible. We use a variety of tested, proprietary strategies to market your business to potential customers and drive them to your site. Our external brand building knowledge is one of the things that sets us apart as the best SEO company Manhattan Beach

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SEO has a long history. It’s simply not something new. And before it became this technical, it was merely a matter of content, which is the main focus of White Hat (or sometimes known as organic) SEO. When SEO was yet unconscious, content was almost everything. And right now, content is still one of the main driving factors when it comes to SEO. When content mattered most ‘Content is King’ as they say. And SEO will not argue with that statement. Content may still well be king even up until now but what’s a king without the queen and their subjects?All the other factors that a Google spider verifies such as meta tags, image alt text, keyword density, backlinks and whatnot are just as important. White hat SEO focuses mainly on content – basically on how user-friendly and information-packed your content is. When your content is good, people will buzz about it in Twitter, Facebook and all the other social media tools and online tools that are available to the internet users today – which will, in turn, drive traffic to your website. White hat SEO is the way to play it safe. It obliges in all of the terms of agreement of social media, it implements good, clean, Google-approved strategies in order to gain higher page rank and get better search engine visibility. Compared to it’s counterpart, which is black hat SEO, the white hat method will ensure your brand’s reputation in the web. If you are aware of your online reputation and brand then you will probably choose the white hat method. The only thing about being a white hat practitioner is that it takes longer for clients to see your results. Businesses pay for fast, easy-come results. They don’t pay for slow, time-consuming processes which will have them wait for them to see the results (which is exactly what white hat is all about!) Yes, it will take time – a lot of time. My SEO services have a minimum contract of 6 months (yes, I’m a white-hat practitioner, and yes, I am paid per month) for you to start seeing the results. That’s how long it takes for you to just see the results of the white hat method. But it’s also much cheaper than the black hat method even if the black hat method is quicker to get your page rank up.

What does freelance mean? Freelance means that we do not work for a company, unless hired, instead we work for ourselves. We then hire ourselves out to people who need us to do our job, whether it be a company or an individual. How, and why, did you become a freelance SEO Consultant? This is a choice we made to be freelancers instead of holding down a job. This gives us the freedom to work our own hours and choose our own clients. This means we do not get a steady income, but we depend on the work and payments we get from our clients. This also means we do not have a companies reputation to hide behind, we only have our own. It also means that we have the flexibility in our schedule to go places and do things, when and where we want, and don't have to answer to anyone. This is a freedom we wanted and so we chose this route, as it fit us the best at the time. What does SEO mean? SEO means search engine optimization. This means we will use the search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to get your website up to the top of these pages. This also means we will get you to the top for social media and other pages as well. In order to do that we need to use specific keywords and phrases that is specially created for your company. What does a SEO freelancer India do? As a freelance SEO India professional we do the same things a normal SEO company would do. That includes working up keywords and phrases for websites. This means we sit down with you, or your company, and find out exactly what it is you are looking for. We also find out in more detail what your company does, and how we can improve things. We will take a look at your website, both on-site and off-site, to help improve the content, as well as the HTML code. We will set up all the SEO background work and start working on the keywords and phrases that need to be input to the search engines. Also a part of SEO is working on social media. For this part we will take your website and put it on numerous social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter. We will also search out websites, blogs, and directories that are similar in nature to yours, and will try to negotiate linking up, and submitting your information to these sites. We will also look at other sites and see what information we can glean from them, such as keywords and phrases, that may not have occurred to us, and use that to better your website.