Essential SEO Tips for Startups

As a start up business, you will want your company to grow. There are many ways you can achieve this. One of the best ways to do so is to design an amazing website. The website becomes your companies identity in the virtual space. It is not just enough having a good website in place. As a startup company you might require is a few Search Engine Optimization, (SEO) tips. 

SEO is all about getting your business website ranked among the top search results on various available search engines. When customers on the internet type in some key words to search for products or services, the search results should pull up your website. Having the right target audience diverted to your website is one part of the SEO job. It is necessary for you to design your website in such a way that customers do not jump to any other website from yours. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to SEO tips. However, there are a few essential SEO guidelines you can follow. Few of them have been discussed.

Image courtesy of Kromkathog/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do an extensive research on keywords 

The first and the most important step in the entire process is to do an extensive research on the words and phrases that users use to search for stuff on the Internet. Once you are aware of the choice of words that users commonly use, your job is half done. You can work on the keywords researched upon. You can incorporate such keywords in the URL name of your website and in your website content. You can use tools like WordTracker or Keyword Discovery to enhance your keyword search. You can get your hands on paid versions of such tools as they are worth the price you pay for them. 

Create a great website 

This might sound a little strange but it is very important that you create a great website. This is the first step in attracting many visitors to your website. Users visit a website for a purpose. You must design your website in such a way that you gratify the needs of various visitors. This will make them visit your website again and again. Having built a good website, you have high chances of your website showing up on top search results. 

Always use easy and friendly URL’s

Great care must be taken to ensure that the URL’s you create are easy and friendly. A URL which has 3 or more hyphens is looked up as spammy by internet users. So carefully design URL of your website. Easy and friendly URL’s are not difficult to forget. This is yet another advantage of having easy and friendly URL’s. 

Make sure that keywords flow naturally in the content of your website

When you write content for your website, great care must be taken to ensure that the keywords flow rather naturally in the content. You must avoid making your content sound artificial. You must also avoid beating round the bush and exaggerating stuff. Make your content original and authentic. 

Be patient

SEO tips do not generate results overnight. You must have used the right keywords and you can have a good website in place. However, the results can sometimes take months to show. While handling SEO for your startup business, patience is the key. These were just a few of the many SEO tips that you can follow for your startup. There are many more such tips you can use to improve your business. Good luck.

This is a guest post by Lance Goodman of www.dishtvoffer.com, a site that offers savings and current information on Dish TV.

Read More

How Google+ is Effective For Bloggers

Google is like a God for all bloggers because this is the main source of their traffic. Whenever we talk about search engine traffic, we say Google traffic. Whenever we talk about SEO, we say SEO for Google. We have always been running after Google. So to secure good position in Google, why not take some help from Google itself! Google+ is the latest social media giant from Google. And here is how Google+ works in the best way for bloggers.

Do-follow Links

One of the best advantages of using Google+ is that anything shared on Google+ has a do-follow link. Facebook, twitter and others do not provide do-follow links. So whenever you share your content on Google+ you get one of the best do-follow backlinks. Also whenever someone uses a +1 button on your blog, it gives the blog post a do-follow backlink. So sharing your content on Google+ improves the site's backlink SEO.

A Better Social Connection

Google+ has rapidly grown to overcome other social media like facebook and twitter (though not replacing them). Google+ circles are full of like minded people. So sharing a post on Google+ ensures that it reaches to people who are most likely to read your content. 

In case of facebook, today people are addicted to it and usually pass their time on facebook by sharing funny pics and chatting and all these stuff (no offense towards facebook, I personally do like facebook too much,OK?). As far as my experience with Google+ goes, I have seen that Google+ has given my some good quality as well as quantity of readers for my blog. 

As a blogger, I also like to read what other people share on Google+. Connecting to other blogs gives me new and new ideas to blog about. This type of author and reader circle is created on Google+. Daily on Google+ one can get to know more and more about how to blog successfully, just by living actively on Google+.

The +1 Button and Author Information

As I told earlier in this post, the +1 button gives a do-follow backlink to your shared contents. The +1 button is very similar to Facebook's 'Like' feature. 

Another feature that relies on Google+ is the blog's author verification. If you search for something on the net (on Google search), then most of the times, you see a photo of the author along with name just next to the blog's listing in the search result page. This is possible only for those bloggers who own a Google+ account. Most of you would have a Google+ account, right? 

Using your Google+ profile, you can assign an author to the content of your blog. Once the verification is done, you can see your photo next to your blog listing in search engine (as shown above). This increases of the chances of your search listing to be clicked and visited by users.

And many more...

Source: Webilus.fr

Recently Google has introduced Author Rank to decide the quality of content. Google+ is the real weapon in this war. Here is nice article about Author Ranks from itechcode.com.

By building a good blogging circle on Google+ one can get a large audience and +1s from Google+ which in turn also increase site rankings, pagerank and what not!

From Google+ one can connect to other top bloggers to learn tips about blogging, and get new ideas for blogging. Google+ gives new bloggers a platform to share their content with the best available audience.

Google+ is the social media which has the least spamming content. Google+ is more authentic and business-like compared to facebook and twitter.

Maybe there is still more that I missed out. Let me know from your comments!

Read More

Best Places To Find Free Images For Your Blog

Images are a must for a good quality article to impress its readers. Images bring alive the real content in a blog. Images make a blog life-like. Without images, a blog is just incomplete and boring. Images play a crucial role to increase reader engagement to blog posts and with the right images, one can attract a large audience.

Whenever we write any post, we always like to add a relevant photo to it or we add screenshots for reference in tutorials. Photos get easily attracted to the blog's visitors. So using high quality is a must to make our audience stick to our blog. With the right graphical strategies, one can increase their reader's count by a large number. There are many sites that provide high quality images at a very low price, but for someone who blogs at zero expense or as a hobby blogger, I have included the best 2 sites where you can find high quality images for free.

Image courtesy of adamr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1. Free Digital Photos

Whenever I kept searching for free photo sites, I never came through this name. But few months ago, when I was reading an article on some blog, I found a very nice image with a credit given to Free Digital Photos and so I went to the site. And I found a really large collection of good-enough quality images which can be used for free. The site only requires you to give a credit link back to their site wherever the photo is used. The images found at Free Digital Photos are of ideal quality for blogs and even I prefer using images from this site.

2. Flickr

Another good site (that we all know about) which provides high quality images for free is Flickr. Though not all images on Flickr can be used for free. There are many pictures with a copyright on them and we cannot use them without special license from its owner. But Flickr also has a large collection of creative common images as well as attribution images that have certain limitations but can be used for free. Some of the limitations are that the images can only be used on non-commercial sites, or you have to provide a link back to the owner of the photo, but these limitations vary from image to image. Overall, you can find many images on Flickr that can be used for free.

Is there any other nice site that I am missing? Comment and let me know!

Read More

Feedburner is NOT closing on 20 Oct 2012

Hope you got the title in one sight only. Recently a misunderstood news went viral on the net that said about feedburner to be closed on 20 October 2012. But don't worry, this best ever service is NOT going to close any sooner. Let us discuss the real story behind all this misunderstanding.

The Real Story:

The ZERO Glitch:

From the last few (a little more than few) days, if you had noticed then you would have seen that feedburner kept showing zero subscribers and all stats are '0'. Same is the case with every feedburner user. See my screenshot below.

Actually, feedburner is just facing a glitch and according to feedburner status blog, they are currently working on it. See the 'known issues' post on feedburner status blog here. This glitch led to many misunderstanding that maybe Google is going to abandon feedburner. But, well this issue would be solved in a short time (I guess so!)

The feedburner API is going to close...But not feedburner.

According to Google Developers Feedburner page, The Google Feedburner APIs have been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011 will be shut down on October 20, 2012.

But the API is just a part of the whole program. Yes, this API shutdown would prove harmful to some third-party applications that make use of it, but as far as I know, this has nothing to do with us bloggers. So it is true that they shutting feedburner API, but it would not harm us as they are not closing feedburner service. The program would continue to run perfectly once the 'zero' subscribers glitch is solved.

And if Google decides to really stop any of its services, then they would surely announce it to its millions of users before executing a shutdown. So there is no need to worry about your feed or its subscribers...

Read More

Apple vs Google: Clash of the OS Titans

Jelly Bean is Google’s attempt to vie against the iOS 6 but can it really outrun Apple and be a match for its finesse? This issue can best be tackled comparing the two operating systems in terms of the features they have to offer. In order to place both equally before the court we will be comparing the similar features in both OSes.

The Last OS standing

Google Now Voice Search is Google’s response to Apple’s all-hearing virtual assistant Siri, which has been the center of several security related and other discussions. Apart from being depriving Google Now of a name, Google has not really made an attempt to personify this tool as Apple has with Siri. Even though the feminine voice of this search feature might tickle your fancy but its going to be only a tease compared to the mechanical sounding Siri, as it does not engage the user like Siri does. As it usually is the case with voice recognition, neither of the tools are always accurate. While Siri is connected to Wolfram Alpha, Google takes pride in its own search engine and both are useful in finding quick information. However, Siri’s greater precision and much better presentation put the ball in Apple’s court.

Image credit

However, Siri fails to expand the search results once information is delivered, whereas Google Now put forth the Google search results as well which gives the user way more convenience in terms of search options. Siri also has an edge with regards to its ease of access in terms of various features and apps. For example, one can update Facebook statuses and tweets using Siri and also command it to open a particular app from a number of apps, which would be difficult to locate otherwise. While it might have a hard time finding apps with odd names, these features accompanied by better appearance give Apple Siri quite an advantage over Google now.

Apple has a brand Maps app too, which is much nicer looking in its 3D satellite view compared to Google maps, nevertheless, the set of features that Google offers, through years of dedication to this realm, is still unparalleled and exceeds Apple’s Maps app by light years. Apple is also unable to provide a street view incase the user needs to navigate by address whereas Jelly Bean had much more up its sleeve as one can create customized routes, define mapping layers and also locate friends who sign up for it. One of the most important advances from Google is offline map viewing whereby you can select a region for which Map data is downloaded and it can be viewed where there is no internet connectivity. This can come off as a great aid to users trying to locate a point in a remote area or a region struck by a natural calamity where internet links are down.

So…who bites the dust?

There are several other features in which Jelly Bean and iOS 6 compare, each one having their individual highs and lows. Apple has accommodated for notifications later than Google but the way they have integrated them, pushing notifications to the lock screen, brings great ease to maneuvering interactions. Jelly Bean on the other hand is much easier to use when it comes to social media as the OS has a separate drop down list for this and one can choose according to his/her discretion, despite Google’s redundant promotion of Google+. Similarly for browsers, there are some features for both Chrome and Safari that make them unique and user friendly. Chrome offers unified search along with URL field whereas Safari comes out with a read it later features called Reading List which helps it maintain its edge.

It seems like Apple is leading the OS race so far as most of its features have seeped into our beings to the degree that they are deemed necessary, however, Google is right behind in terms of its developments. The future looks promising for both the OSes.

About the Guest Author:

Beth Janick's work in the field of spy apps such as iphone spy, spyware on android etc. has been getting a lot of attraction of late. Her articles on spy on blackberry have gotten a lot of attention and continue to wow her readers.

Read More

The Best Practices In Blog Commenting

Social media sites are a lazy person’s dream. When you like something, all you need to do is go ‘like’ it or post a smiley or a one word comment. But if you are a blogger or a reader, comments on other blogs are a good way to drive traffic to your own site and if your comment is positive, your comments will make someone’s day. 

Nothing engages like conversation, as every blogger knows but even in online conversation, there are certain rules of engagement you should keep in mind. Yes, there is a commenting etiquette to be followed that constitute best practices in blog commenting.

Also read: Blog Commenting Safely Even After Penguin

Image courtesy of jscreationzs/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For starters, read through the entire post before you think about saying something. Nothing is more confusing and off putting than a half-baked comment. Once you create such an impression, even if you do have something relevant to say the next time, chances are, it may not be taken seriously. Read without bias and then comment. 

Don’t think one word or line is enough to do the trick. If your aim is to create awareness of your own presence and to come across as a person who is in the know of things, do write at least a few lines. This is especially important from the blog owner’s point of view who is hoping to engage in a discussion. Your comments will start off the debate and both of you can learn and grow. But that does not mean your comment reads like an essay. Strike a balance and for that, practice what you want to say in short spaces. 

Don’t post a comment under the ‘anonymous’ option. Most bloggers disable that option anyway, insisting on a user name but even if they do, the chances of an unknown comment, even if positive, being taken seriously are rather slim. People want to see a face behind the name and even if you’re commenting on behalf of your organization, do use your name. 

Another way to create interest in who you are is to link your comments to other pages. These links could be to your Twitter handle or your LinkedIn account. Please remember not to add links to your comments. This comes across as a blatant form of self- promotion that will not please the blogger too much. Linking your social media site profile is a good way for your circle there to get where you’re coming from. 

Comment often but not too often so as to become a nuisance. Once you’ve identified blogs you like, ensure that you comment on the content on a daily basis. You would want to anyway, seeing how it is content you like. This will help the blogger identify you as a serious presence and that will go a long way in creating good will. 

Read other comments to get more from the process. Other comments are interesting when you need new perspective on a topic. Comments are usually left by interested people and so you can stay updated about industry trends and innovations. Don’t use your comments to engage in angry exchanges with other bloggers. Offensive language that insults a group, gender or race will score you no brownie points with others and you run the risk of being blacklisted by an entire group. So keep your comments clean and relevant to ensure popularity. 

Blog commenting is a great way to get in touch with readers and keep in touch with trends and happenings. Follow best practices to ensure meaningful online presence.

About the Guest Author:

Robin Mckenzie has been writing articles related to Technology News, Gadget Reviews and How To's. Also, he does guest posting for Buycenturylink.com, a site that offers great savings and up-to-date information on consumers broadband internet and cable. Visit centurylink.com or you can click here.

Read More