Cranvas Blog » SEO http://cranvas.com/blog Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:55:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Surviving Panda partII http://cranvas.com/blog/surviving-panda-partii/ http://cranvas.com/blog/surviving-panda-partii/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:55:19 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=376 Post Panda
Your site may be suffering from a Panda penalty incase the following applied to the webpages:
  • The website has too many inbound links with exact target keyword match anchor text
  • The website has engaged in acquiring too many low quality external links with exact keyword match anchor text.
  • The website has the content useless for anyone The design of the website is impairing user experience
  • The webmaster is monetizing website by stuffing excessive adverts at the top of the page
  • The website is filled with pirated content, rip off articles written in horrible language
  • The website has duplicate content issues either through multiple duplicate posts, tags and archives
  • The website has too little natural links from authoritative websites
If yes then how do you go about fixing this?
  • First and foremost work on the content. Make sure you provide information and not just stuff the page with unnaturally fitting keywords.Start updating your website with fresh and reliable content on a regular basis. At the same time rework on pages that have low quality or poor information.
  • Since there is now less emphasis on the value of incoming links (as per the Google algo update), work on a better link profile.” “Try to be as original as you could and place emphasis on production of quality content and links will start coming naturally. Try to vary your anchor text for internal links with naked url and branded url that are perceived natural by the  Google Engine. If possible try to modify the anchor text of your existing links with with naked url address and your brand name. Back out of any link exchange programs and refrain from giving outbound do follow links to other websites. Only allow a summary of your content in RSS feed and don’t be fast in building new links. Don’t link incoming search terms to your blog content but rather just display them as ordinary text under the article content to prove relevance in the eyes of search engine.“
  • Google bots may treat a link towards the top of the page with more value when compared to a link towards the end of the page so article links and guest posting may loose some of their value but not entire.So build new natural links and lower down the number of targeted incoming links.
  • Start a fresh link building campaign, try to acquire as many junk links, naked links, branded links as possible.  Try to create internal links but anchor text should never match the exact targeted keyword. However the old work does not go in vain. Your old links still carry value if you reduce the proportion of keyword targeted anchor text links. The easiest way is to build as many naked and junk links towards the internal pages of your website as possible. These would be:
  • Junk Links - Junk links had virtually no importance in the eyes of Google. These are links that contain general anchor text keywords such as “Click Here”, “Visit the Website”, “I found this website useful” etc. However it seems that Google treats junk links as high authority natural links towards a website.
  • Naked Links -Naked links are search engine friendly links treated well by Google. Usually a naked link has the same anchor text “http://www.mydomian.com/my=page.html”.
  • Brand Links -Brand links contain your brand name in the anchor text.These again would carry value as they are natural links.
  • Latent Semantic Links (LSI Links) - Latent Semantic Links comprise of anchor text synonymous to your targeted keywords. For example if you are targeting “Business Opportunities” than the anchor text you should try to avail is “Viable market for starting a business”, “Business opportunity for young entrepreneurs”, “Business Tips for entrepreneurs”.
  • In addition by adding no follow attribute sections, categories, archives, tags and other areas where low quality content exists will reduce the access to the low quality paages already existing on the site.
  • Be active on social media sites as that is a good indicator that your site provides good information. Contributing to reputed blogs like Businessinsider, Tech Crunch gives valuable backlinks.Getting more likes and shares on Google +, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest gives the signal that the content is useful. Build a personal author profile on Google + and link it with your website so that Google displays author oriented search results. Add an official Google + fan page and a Google + widget so that users can follow your page.
]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/surviving-panda-partii/feed/ 0 Recovering from Panda Part1 http://cranvas.com/blog/recovering-from-panda-part1/ http://cranvas.com/blog/recovering-from-panda-part1/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:57:58 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=358 Recovering from Google Panda
Was your site hit by hit by Panda 3.3?
Panda 3.3 is the latest Google’s Panda algorithm rolled out in February. It specifically targeted unnatural link profiles. It’s not a ranking penalty. It is a loss of ranking due to a decreased value of the inbound links pointing to your site. The inbound links were devalued due to a change in the way Google assesses inbound links. Here’s Google’s statement on what changed:
“Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.”
So what are some of the metrics we can work on so as to regain lost glory:
1.Prevent a  back-button click to Google
The Panda update is about giving the user what they want. Your goal now is to stop the user from a G-bounce back to Google. Understand your user coming from Google. It is far, far better to send them someplace else to get what they need then letting them go back to Google.  A return back to Google to select another result tells Google the searcher’s question wasn’t answered!
2. Avoid the block button to be clicked.
This gives Google signals that the site is delivering irrelevant information. It is a clear, explicit signal to Google that a user was dissatisfied with a search result. Most likely this was a signal that was integrated into Panda 2.
3. Improve your link profile
Shift weightage from just keyword in the anchor text. If too many of your inbound links had “exact match” anchor text, meaning that the anchor text of the links was exactly the keywords you were trying to rank for then this could fit the panda pattern. The value of these links was reduced because of the number of exact match links – so change the exact match anchor text to a varied anchor text.
This also opens up the doors to “Negative SEO” or attack-tactics. It makes it possible to “up” your competitors by building links to their websites with over-optimized exact match anchor text.Check your backlink profile and see if there is an overuse of links linking to your site.
Your link profile should also include your brand name in the anchor text. Providing an anchor text  with your brand name or a variation of the brand name gives Google the cue that the link portfolio has a r variations of it are one signal to Google of a natural link profile.
LSI anchor text are related terms to your target keywords. Google looks for these anchors in backlink profiles as a signal of a natural link profile.
Checklist to avoid the above:
Work on the kind of answers the searcher would want when he enters a keyword in the search box
Make sure they get the answers when they reach the clicked page.
Make the information avaiable above the fold with a clean page layout.
Keep different pages for different keywords.
Do’nt over advertise especially above the fold.
Keep the your site up and responsive.  When your site is down on, your G-bounce rate is 100%.
The link profile should include anchor text with lots of variation, brand-name anchors, LSIs, junk anchors, and naked URL anchors. When you bring the number of exact-match anchors and varied anchors to the same level you will regain some of the value of your links.
Add links from social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Delicious etc
]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/recovering-from-panda-part1/feed/ 0 Fresh Vs Stale – how good is your content? http://cranvas.com/blog/fresh-vs-stale-how-good-is-your-content/ http://cranvas.com/blog/fresh-vs-stale-how-good-is-your-content/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:28:04 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=347

Fresh Content

Content is still King but over time content on your webpages needs to be revamped to give a fresher look and feel. In showing up webpages in the SERPS Google does give weightage to content that has been updated frequently. Even making small changes within the existing text especially in important areas like the text above the fold or the headlines helps in  keeping the content fresh. Areas like the navigation, the advertisements etc can remain the same.
If you have added new pages of information to the site and the pages are indexed quickly it adds value to the content and the information being provided on the site. In turn this gets reflected in the search Result Pages.
If you have not updated your site pages for a long time then chances are very likely that when the site is dispalyed in the SERPs the user may bypass the result and click on other results. With the recent algo changes this can be seen as a factor where content on your site can be taken as old content and can effect your ranking on the SERPs.
Last but not the least check the backlink anchor text to your site. What sites are the links coming from. Are these updated frequently. Are the pages still up? A link from a site that has new fresh content has more value than a site with outdated information.
]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/fresh-vs-stale-how-good-is-your-content/feed/ 0 Online Marketing – much ado about nothing http://cranvas.com/blog/online-marketing-much-ado-about-nothing/ http://cranvas.com/blog/online-marketing-much-ado-about-nothing/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:20:23 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=320

Online Marketing would include the strategies and solutions offered to market a product or service via the internet and the mobile phone. This would include services such as blogging, guest postings, article syndication, email marketing, banner advertising as well as Search engine marketing.
In seach engine marketing a website is marketed through search engines by improving the ranking of the site through search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, or pay for inclusion listings in directories.
Email marketing distributes information about your products or services through your email. Some methods empoyed for email marketing are newsletter distribution, mass mailings or special offers and incentives.
Banner advertising allows the placement of advertisements on a website at a cost.
Blog marketing includes posting comments, sharing an opinion, or making announcements on forums. This can be done through hosting a blog of your own or by adding comments and URLs in blogs that are related to your business and what you have to offer online.
Article Marketing includes writing articles and publishing the articles on different online sites that relate to articles.
Where business is no longer constrained by geographical limitations and the target audience can span the entire globe, devising a strategy to drive more traffic to a website and proportionately more sales would be the driving force behind
any online marketing campaign.
]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/online-marketing-much-ado-about-nothing/feed/ 0 Effective LinkBuilding http://cranvas.com/blog/effective-linkbuilding/ http://cranvas.com/blog/effective-linkbuilding/#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:27:25 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=316 Effective Link Building
Links get us Rankings on the SERPs. However what kind of links should you source? What adds value to how Google looks at the links pointing to a site. How many linking root domains are there? What’s the anchor text balance like? What links should you prioritise? How is the competition getting their links? Most important what is the budget you have in mind for high end links for high-level directory submissions, press release distribution, etc?
Here are some really simple ways that you can add valuable links to your site:
Placing content on other websites is a great way of building links, especially if you’re a new website trying to build a reputation from scratch. Find out some good sites in your niche and check if they allow guest posts. See what kind of posts they would like. Write on the topic and send the post. Not only do you get a valuable link back but also add credibility to the information provided. To get a  list of potential sites to post content on visit a community of guest bloggers like: http://myblogguest.com
Blog comments where the comments add additional information to the content posted prove to be a good source of traffic and good links. Make sure that the comment has a do follow so that some link juice is passed on to your site.
Articles that are unique can be spinned across various article sites to get a valuable content link. The important thing is to ensure the information in the article is unique and pertaining to the product or service provided on the website.
Press Releases are a good way to promote a site and get those links. Inexpensive sites like PRWeb offer great access to news directories, as well as conventional magazine editors.
Use high level directory submissions.
Make it easy for your visitors to link to you i.e if they want to.
]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/effective-linkbuilding/feed/ 0 Google Wallet http://cranvas.com/blog/google-wallet/ http://cranvas.com/blog/google-wallet/#comments Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:03:52 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=276 Google Wallet is an Android app that makes your phone your wallet. It stores virtual versions of your existing plastic cards on your phone. Simply tap your phone to pay and redeem offers using near field communication, or NFC. Your phone sends payment, and, at some merchants, offers and loyalty information. All you need to do is your smartphone some credit and tap your phone to pay with the virtual credit cards stored on your Google Wallet. You can then top up the card with additional funds from any of your plastic cards. You’ll pay no fees to top up your Google Prepaid Card as of now. Since the Google Prepaid Card is purely virtual, you won’t get an physical card.
When Google Wallet launches, it will support two kinds of cards:
Citi® MasterCard® credit cards, and
the Google Prepaid Card
Citi MasterCard
It’s easy to set up a Citi MasterCard with Google Wallet. If you already have a card, open Google Wallet and enter your account information. After Citi verifies it, your credit card credentials are stored to a secure microchip on your phone. You can then tap your phone to pay. You can check your citi card as well as apply for one if you do  ot have a citi master card.
Google Prepaid Card
The Google Prepaid Card is a virtual card that you can fund with any of your existing credit cards — no Citi MasterCard required. After you activate the Google Prepaid Card in Google Wallet, you’ll get $10 in your account.

Google Prepaid CardThe Google Prepaid Card is a virtual card that you can fund with any of your existing credit cards — no Citi MasterCard required. After you activate the Google Prepaid Card in Google Wallet, you’ll get $10 in your account.

Google Wallet

]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/google-wallet/feed/ 0 Some Important SEO Terms http://cranvas.com/blog/some-important-seo-terms/ http://cranvas.com/blog/some-important-seo-terms/#comments Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:15:26 +0000 priyanka http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=266 Browser: A Browser is a Software Application used to open search engines and locate as well as display other websites. Some commonly used browsers are internet explorer, firefox, Google Chrome etc.

Search Engine (SE) : Search Engine is a program that opens in any browser and  searches documents for specified keywords entered by the users. Some of the search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista etc.

Keyword: Keyword is defined as the simple words used by the users to search something on the search engine.

Search Engine Result Pages (SERP): Search Engine Result Pages are the output of the search engine when user enters any query on the search engine.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): It is a form of Internet Marketing used to promote websites or products by increasing its visibility and ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization is the process to optimize the websites on the various search engine result pages. SEO is used to increase the ranking of any website in various search engine result pages by promoting that website and increasing its visibility on the internet. SEO is of two types: On Page SEO and Off Page SEO.

Inbound Links: When any other website give link to your site on its page then that is called Inbound link. Traffic comes to your site from other sites through inbound links.

Outbound Links: When your website gives link to any other website then that is called as Outbound links for you. Through outbound links, traffic goes from your site to others site.

Page Rank (PR): It is the measure or numeric value of your page given by the search engine (Google) by using its algorithm that represents the importance of your page on the web.

Keyword Density: The term used to refer how often you used a keyword or keyword phrase in the content of your website.

Landing Page: It refers to any page that opens after clicking on any link or advertisement.

Static Website: A website or a web page whose content is fixed and does not change. It can be changed only if changes are done manually.

Dynamic Website: The websites whose content is not fixed and keeps on changing as per the selection of the user.

Back link: The term referred to the links that are coming on your website from another website. Back links directly affects the page rank of your website.

SEO Firm

]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/some-important-seo-terms/feed/ 0 The Importance of SEO – Use Professional SEO Services http://cranvas.com/blog/the-importance-of-seo-%e2%80%93-use-professional-seo-services-2/ http://cranvas.com/blog/the-importance-of-seo-%e2%80%93-use-professional-seo-services-2/#comments Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:55:22 +0000 priyanka http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=254 In this technological era, internet has taken place almost in every house of this world. Even the common people are using internet from their mobile phones, computers, and laptops for searching even the small thing. So Internet has become the most popular media to get information, to buy and to sell products and services. For this, the website must appear among the top in the search engine result pages to attract visitors. Just to make a good website is not the end of the task; you have to promote that website to become more web visibly, to increase the internet traffic and to come at the top of the search engine result pages. Professional SEO Services will help you to achieve this. So if any business or company really wants to grow in this highly competitive digital marketing world, they should reach to the more customers through internet. That’s why; the new and existing firms are taking the help of Professional SEO Services to stay ahead from their competitors.

SEO Firm

Professional SEO Services

As today people prefer internet to find out information about products and services, and to buy products online. So more and more companies are turning to the internet to promote and advertise their new products and services. But if your website is present somewhere on the internet but not among the top positions in the search engine result pages then what is the use of making it, because it’s not approaching by the right users to view your products and services to buy them. So your website must be among the top positions to let the traffic come and increase your business. To achieve this, optimize your website.

SEO is Search Engine Optimization, an internet marketing technique to optimize your site. It is the technique to popularize your site and spread it on the internet to make your website more web visibly. It also helps to increase your internet traffic and also list your website at the top rankings in various search engines. Online marketing is the most effective effort when all other available channels are used to market your product. Search engine marketing is the first step towards e-marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is divided in two types of optimization. These are:

1.)   On Page Optimization

2.)   Off Page Optimization

On Page Optimization deals with the optimization that are done on the page of the website. All the changes are visible on the website. It include various services like fresh and relevant content placement, content optimization, Keyword Research and Analysis, Page Specific Meta Tag Creation (like Title Tag, Alt Tag, Anchor Text Tag, Description ), Keyword Density, Implementation of 301 Permanent Redirect, Creation of Proper Internal Linking Structure, Submission of XML Sitemap etc. It is advisable to do the on page optimization before setting the off page SEO campaign. And also try to update your website’s content regularly as soon as possible.

Off Page Optimization deals with the optimization that are done outside the website to increase traffic and to improve website‘s ranking in various search engines. Off page optimization includes various services like: Link Building, Blog Comments, Directory Submission, Article Writing, Article Submission, Social Bookmarking, Press Release Submission, Forum Posting, Business Listings, and Social Media Optimization. The links (links to other sites and incoming links to your website) generated through off page techniques are very helpful to attract more traffic to your site and also to increase search engine rankings.

You can set your SEO Campaign with the desired services you want to take. Hire some good SEO firm to work for your website and make your site more valuable.

]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/the-importance-of-seo-%e2%80%93-use-professional-seo-services-2/feed/ 0 Professional SEO Services – Make your site more searchable http://cranvas.com/blog/professional-seo-services-%e2%80%93-make-your-site-more-searchable/ http://cranvas.com/blog/professional-seo-services-%e2%80%93-make-your-site-more-searchable/#comments Fri, 27 May 2011 12:57:21 +0000 Sanjana http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=247 Do you really require professional seo services now that your website has been launched?

When looking for seo services what criterion should you keep in mind when short listing a professional seo service company? When there is so much hype on black hat techniques how can you distinguish between what techniques are correct and what can get your site black listed on Google and other Search engines.

Just keep it simple

The methods require to rank high on Google may be complex but the path is pretty simple. When selecting a seo service company just check carefully if some of the basic guidelines mentioned below are being followed to attain the goal for high ranking:

Site Structure

The first thing any professional seo service company will do is analyze the existing site structure in terms of user behaviour as well as search engine spiders. The site structure should be optimized so that spiders can crawl content on the site and easily access all the information pages on the site.

The way a site is structured, affects the way search engine spiders crawl the site and that in turn affects the site rankings. If your navigation appears higher in the code of your web page than the content then it is given a higher priority. The goal is to make the core sections of your page appear higher in the code than the portions that are not critical to the optimization of each page. All the site optimizations should ensure that the site structure should be such that spiders “read” the content before the navigation.

Site Relevancy

Relevancy is with reference to the information provided on a webpage with respect to a topic. If your entire site is about mortgages for example, you’re going to find it easier to rank for related phrases.

Content Optimization
Content in header tags as well as bold, italic, anchor text and other formatting options all add value to the text. A professional seo services company should be optimizing the body content of a webpage in addition to the basic title and Meta tag optimization.

Keyword Optimization density

Optimize your content with right targeted keywords. Keyword density is the proportion of the number of times the targeted keywords are used on the webpage with respect to the total number of words on the page. The optimal keyword density generally seems to hover around the 3 to 5% range.

Code Optimization

A website’s code needs to be as light as possible since long loading times for the user translates to long loading times for search engines especially Google. Small corrections such as choosing Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to design your website keeps the code light by keeping all of the style properties in one place, allowing for less code repetition, and also making it easier to add new content. These and other parameters should be a part of optimization.

Link bait and Link Building

Most professional seo services include link baiting to attract back links to the site. Link baiting basically creating bait (this can take the form of the form of tools, contests, humorous stories or cartoons or something as simple as a blog) so that other sites naturally link to the webpage offering the bait. You basically create something that naturally attracts backlinks by getting people to talk about it, discussing it on forums, blog about it; post it on delicious, Furl, Digg, Shoutwire and get backlinks from these Web 2.0 sites. It also helps in attracting lot of visitors.

Link baiting is an ongoing process and most seo firm would use different methods for marketing your link bait: Press releases, articles, blog feeds, etc.

All the online marketing and advertising efforts should target at making the website informative for the visitor and search engine crawler. So that it will get you the top rankings for your chosen or site targeted keywords.

]]> http://cranvas.com/blog/professional-seo-services-%e2%80%93-make-your-site-more-searchable/feed/ 0 Surviving Google Panda http://cranvas.com/blog/surviving-google-panda/ http://cranvas.com/blog/surviving-google-panda/#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 04:58:05 +0000 Sabinder http://cranvas.com/blog/?p=231
The February 24th Google algorithm change hit more sites than expected. Referred to as the Farmers algorithm or more commonly as “Google Panda”, the major update by Google on how it ranks sites has affected 12% of search results and reduced the number of visitors landing on a site via organic search.
This has forced a number of sites to revisit the pages that were ranking and reassess the same. The focus here is to continue to provide value to the users. The value of a page is assessed by by assessing the quality of backlinks to a page as well the user experience on the page . In other words the algorithm is also checking the quality of your links and the people visiting your site as well as the bounce rate on the site.
What contributes to a good user experience ?
  • Can visitors easily find their way around?
  • Is it obvious what topic each page is about?
  • Is the content original or is it aggregated from other sources?
  • Do the number and placement of the ads serve as a deterrent to accessing content?
  • When looking objectively at the site, is the primary focus the user need or the business goal?
  • Is the content on the page authoritative and valuable? Does it answer the query  better than other pages on the web?
  • If some of the pages on the site are very high quality and engaging, are other pages on the site not as high quality? (Google has stated that enough low quality content on a site can reduce the entire site’s rankings, not just the low quality pages.)
Sites like J.C. Penney and Overstock.com, which relied on low quality content farms were adversely affected by the Panda update. By combining the standard evaluation system with evaluations from outside testers, Raters were asked questions like: “Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit cardnumber? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?”. In other words the content created for your site should also be trustworthy and most of all authoritative.
So if you have a site that serves original content, has information such as research, in-depth reports, case studies and does not host low quality links then you are in the safezone.
In addition there are some efforts that you can still make:
  • If you have not installed Google Webmaster tools – then do this immediately as you will often see the links that Google can see.
  • Remove low quality links.
  • Use blogs, whitepapers, webinars, infographics, and other high quality content to leverage for link building and to attract natural, organic links. Some content marketing strategies that you can adopt to get quality links:  Social media, article postings, events, E-newsletters, Case studies, white papers, Videos, Webinars, Print magazine
In a nutshell keep content original, continue to add external links just focus on quality over quantity and most important be active within social networks to get those all important natural links.
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