What about internal linking of your site?...

Link building strategies change with time depending on the search engines behaviors. Sometime back, if you had asked for some tips on link building activities for your website, he/she would have probably told you to get loads of external links (probably relevant), might have told you about site wide linking and sometimes about directory submissions. These days, one of the biggest things every webmaster/SEO-expert owns something called as “internal-linking” in his magic toolbox.

How important is it?

More than you think. It is one of the best strategies to keep the visitors on your site. Also, it can serve as an important link-baiting activity, since it allows you to attract more page views. It is like lighting two candles with one flame: increasing the usability and increasing the search rankings at the same time.

Adding of links (that are relevant to the user and in context) to the content of a site provides another way you can lead/direct your visitor to some destination page.

Usability studies have shown that users are more likely to click on a link in the text of a page instead of those on a navigation bar—Why? –Because it feels more natural.

People have gone lengths to even say that internal site linking is one of the ways to get Google site links (not necessarily, but one of the important factors to get site links).

So how do you go about it?

Individual choice really, you start perusing the content of the site and find the relevant ways you can link from one text on a page to another page/post on your site/blog. Further, you if you are using Wordpress for your site/blog, you might want to check out plug-ins like Crosslinker and Insights.

Moreover, if you are linking to other posts, it simply means that your site is not a random pieces of information joined together, instead, it means that your content has meaning and that your entire site information is coherent.

Be Careful:

• Avoid out of context link
• Avoid this post kind of links
• Avoid too many links

Google search–Back with a “Bang”...

After some speculations over the last few about whether new search engine launches like Bing will have any affect on the search engine market share of Google, the answer is out—Google is gaining search engine market share again. China’s Baidu is a new entrant in the list and ranks at number 3 with a 7% share. Those who (pleasantly) fear that Google will become a monopoly in search market can breath easy, because that is what it looks like.

Online search market has sprung up 41% since last year with more than 113 billion searches conducted in July. The results show that each person who has access to the Internet, on an average conducted 103.3 searches in a month.

Bing is unable to increase its market share in spite of billions of dollars spent on its marketing. Microsoft has also launched Bing Visual search, which is a more interactive search in which you can search for something and get images for the same. But it remains to be same if it can compete with Google search + Google image search combination.

In the latest release, a Forbes study says that the best way to generate conversions is through SEO. No wonder, when people are using Google, it makes sense to optimize the websites for the same. Don’t you dare CTRL T!!

Hyperlinks in SERP descriptions-Yet another google...

Another Google plane just whiffed over my hair—The ever-changing Google search algorithm is giving sleepless nights to webmasters. But eureka, we searched for “limitations of Google analytics”…and I defied Archimedes principle…I did not jump out of the bath tub, because I wasn’t sleeping in one, but my eyes surely popped out and hit the computer screen.

Have a peek yourself

A hyperlink on limitations has surely crossed another border to provide users with more meaningful glance at the SERPs without entering the page. For a moment, the link appeared to be part of the site links, but there you go! As of now, we do not see if Google intends to have hyperlinks in the description for other sites (since we only see them happening for Wikipedia). Since we all believe –No, we know that Google plays it fair, it means that depending  on how Google decides to induct the hyperlinks in the text description—we might have something to look forward to.

So are they:

• Trying bringing more important links in purview of users?
• Trying to highlight some common important dictionary terms?

More comments are needed….

Directory submission philosophy...

You might wonder why lot of SEO services companies offer directory submission services. Majority of the search engines find you, is there still something useful about directory submissions? I had this doubt very early in my SEO ventures; not my fault, I did not come across something that could tell me the right things.

Philosophy: If you think directories aren’t useful, then you probably don’t know how to use them

Still useful? How?

• Directories can help to increase page rank and referrals.
• More links, so more chances of getting traffic
• Good directories are always valued by Google and other search engines

Philosophy: Best directories are selective—you can’t even bribe them!

Avoid very generic directories with lots of categories. Also, it is advisable to avoid directories that ask for reciprocal links. If you search around and find the directories useful for submission, you might come across few hundreds, and again, which one to submit to and not to, will be a question mark. There are few standard  “trusted” directories to which we can submit our case. Few of them are:

• DMOZ
• Best of the Web
• WOW directory
• Yahoo
• Blog search
• Bloggapedia for blogs

But again, our philosophy of being selective has to be kept in mind.

So apart from that how do you select a directory for submission. How do you find them?

An interesting tool called Web directory search can come in handy for such analysis.

The tool saves lot of time spent on searching for directories and also the time wasted on filling lengthy profiles in the blog directories, only to know that they are paid ones, or require some kind of reciprocal linking. Also, the tool gives you control over the regions for which you want the directories, so if your target audience is India, then you are better of submitting to the best directories that fall under that region.

Philosophy: localizing and narrowing your directories increases karma.

Like changing times, mantras change for time. Directories are no different and they too change over time. A Juicy link today may become dry after a year because of changes within the directory. But instead of canceling the link, nurture your link and renew it if it is possible.

Exit philosophy: Beauty lies in the eye of beholder…take your beautiful links out and show them around some gorgeous directories.

SEO in 5 minutes...

So you want to get into SEO and you have got no clue, what will you do? Raise your hands and give an excuse, or manage something quickly before you can spend some more time and learn the details of the trade? Business competency lies in venturing out into new areas, so if a client wants to give you business, would you want to stay away from it? (Unless the client is offering you a SEO project and you are into selling Dog-food). So, next time when you are in a business meeting and the client is talking about outsourcing the SEO project to someone; it would be better if you can quickly chip in, instead of dismissing the talks and thoughts because your IT off shoring department doesn’t have the required capability.

So you hear the word SEO—it is not the name of an intergalactic carrier—coming back to earth, it is much much simpler than that. Search engine optimization.

“What the hells is that?” you ask. Simple—If you have a website, and you want that website to be found out when people search for something on the web using search engines, then these [optimization] procedures can help (yes, it doesn’t mean that you can just have a website without relevant information and make it popular among people).

So you have got a web page? And what do you intend to market on that page? Think about it, find more about it using some search engine, and please write it down. With some hit and trial, you should end up with a pretty good title for the thing that you are trying to sell or market. Since you already know what you are selling, you might also want to write down a good description of your services using the help of a good writer.

Now it is time to get some dirty work done—if you see lot of things on the page that do not make sense, make little sense, or there are some supposedly flashy things which can be either improved or can be done without, then please do so. We are told that such things are not good for “optimization”—yeah, whatever the hell that might be. But, lets not be bothered by words here, looking at it (the site) closely, chances are that you might be convinced that such [irrelevant] things were after all hampering the usability of the website and also distracting the users. Believe me, you have already done few things that people on the SEO planet call “ optmizae proceduarae thy on-paiger”.

So do you know any other company that is also selling Dog food? Do they own a website? Try to share link with them. Is company too fussy about the dog-links? Simply go to a discussion center on the web where people currently are fighting about which dog-food is best for their dogs. Join the group discussion, throw a piece of advice, and provide your company address. Congratulations—you don’t know what you have done!!

This article is not a replacement for the huge information base related to SEO, but if you are just looking to know what is this so called helluva-SEO, then I hope it answered few of the questions. The other side of 5 minutes… to be continued