Listing in Directories is one way of building links and can bring value to the site provided we make sure that the directories are credible and have authority in the eyes of the Search Engines. Google is said to prefer Directories that are human edited and that have very specific categories for listings ( e.g.Yahoo Directory).

Here are some points to keep in mind:

1. Does the Directory have a good Page Rank?
If the Directory has a low PageRank, it probably does hold much authority with Google.

2. Are Category Pages Indexed? To be more specific, is the category page you wish to be listed in indexed in Google?
If the category page that you wish to be listed in is not indexed in Google, then the page has no power to improve your site’s link popularity, because Google does not know about it, it cannot recognize that it is linking to you.

3. How Many Sites Are You Sharing the Link Juice Wealth With?
In most cases, an interior directory category page will contain ten listings – maybe twenty at the most.If the directory has too many listings on the same page, it may not be worth getting listed on there unless it is a proven source of traffic.

4. Does the Directory Add the NOFOLLOW Attribute To Its Listings?
If you are submitting to a directory to help improve your site’s link popularity and they are adding the nofollow attribute to outgoing links, it is not going to help you. Unless you are expecting to get some traffic from the directory, avoid it.

5. Will the Directory Send You Any Traffic?
It is worthwhile to keep a track of the traffice being received from a directory to decide whether it is reliable source of traffic for your website.

It is estimated that more people will be accessing Internet information via a mobile device than a personal computer by the year 2013 (that’s not very far away, folks). As we know, most standard websites do not render well on a smartphone screen due to the smaller screen size, or use of incompatible plug-ins (such as flash). As many businesses opt for a mobile website to complement their standard website, one wonders what this means for keyword optimization and search trends? Do smartphone users search the same way desktop searchers do?

Interestingly enough, mobile search is used and rendered very different from a desktop search. Here are my Top 5 reasons why this is so:

• Mobile search is highly geared toward local information. Statistically 9 out of 10 smartphone searches result in an action. Chances are, if you are looking for for something on your phone’s browser (like a food, a museum, or a bike repair shop) it is because you want to purchase, find, or visit the searched item. Desktop searches tend to be less action oriented overall and more information oriented in nature. Because of this pages like Google Local Listings are positioned to rank higher than pages that are not locally oriented. Domains with geo-targeted keywords will also rank well in this system.
• Google has 97% of the mobile search market share, and their algorithm is different for mobile devices than desktops.
• Smartphone screen size is much smaller than a PC’s screen size, so it will be even more important to snag the top few spots on a mobile search in order to be on the first page.
• Site loading speed becomes critical in a mobile search. A site that takes too long to load when on-the-go information is needed quickly, will lead to higher bounce rates than a standard desktop site search.
• Android users are always logged in to Google on their mobile system.  This means that Android users will always be served personalized results more often than folks searching on a PC who may not have logged in. This will obviously change as more and more people begin to use Google+ or who search when logged into their Google accounts.  Most users aren’t aware if they are logged in or not, and personalized results definitely have an impact on what you will see in your search results.

These are key points to keep in mind when conducting a search on either platform, and even more important to keep in mind when positioning yourself and your business for the future, whether or not you have a mobile website. Keeping a claimed and optimized local listing has always been an important piece in your overall SEO strategy. But now, it seems as if listings such as Google Places and Bing Local could have even more impact on your search results in the future.

Do domains with keywords included help with getting better results?

Generally Keywords in the domain can help get better results, it has been seen that the ones that seem to be the best are those with an exact match to the targeted keyterm. Also, more often than not, .com domains seem to have an advantage over other domains.

However search engines are reported to be laying less and less emphasis on keywords in domain names as this has been misused by spammers registering hundreds of “long-tail” domains to rank them for exact match and also because it’s now nearly impossible to obtain any “exact match” domains that wouldn’t be too long or irrelevant.

Howver, if it is possible, getting an exact match domain or a domain with relevant keywords in it is definitely helpful.

I had my domain for many years, but I purchased a better one recently.Should I start optimizing the website for the new domain?

If your domain has been around for a while, it will surely have gained equity in the eyes of the Search Engines. This is very valuable as it is a slow process to get the SEsto recognize your site as authoritative and credible.

It also depends on the age of the domain you have recently purchased, if it is an established domain with an exact match to your target terms, then it would be beneficial to work on getting this domain to be the main one. If not, then it might be better to let the new domain gain credibility with Google and the other SEs .

Some reasons to re-optimize your website :

Your site has enjoyed great rankings for several years but you’ve now lost your top or first page listings.

Your website statistics show a big drop in the number of people visiting your site.

Your site was optimized a long time ago, the keywords you originally used to gain high rankings no longer work.

Your site has undergone a redesign or moved to a different platform.

Your competitors seem to be achieving top rankings, you need to market your site to improve rankings.

Your business has changed it’s focus and the priority Keyterms have changed.

Your location has changed or you have new offices and you need to update your optimization accordingly.

Strategies to keep in mind while re-optimizing your Website to Increase Rankings and Traffic

1.Look at the keywords generating the most visits. Are they currently included in your Title tags and content? Use keyword research tools to find related keywords that can be added to your web pages. Create extra web pages that target high priority keywords.

2.Do searches for your top priority keywords and find the competing sites that are showing up at the top of the first page. Analyze these competitor websites for title tags, web copy plus the quantity and quality of their backlnks.

3. Find related keywords and include these within your web pages to increase web traffic.

5. Incoming links to your website help your web page rankings increase. Link building is a task that must be done regularly to stay ahead of your competitors. Boost the number of backlinks across your webpages so they can achieve better rankings.

6. Look for high quality local directories and review sites where you can register your website and increase visibilty for your business.

7. Optimize and verify your Google Places and Bing and Yahoo Local listings.

According to a new study, your #1 ranking in organic search accounts for an 18.2% click through rate on Google, and a 9.66% click through rate on Bing.  For the combined click through rate of the top 10 results (page 1 on the SERPs) you get 52% for Google and 26% for Bing. This is a dramatic decrease when compared to similar studies done not too long ago that showed the top ten organic search results would garner anywhere from 63% to almost 90% of the click throughs. Overall, the data suggests trend has been on the decline, but why? (more…)

If you have a website, chances are you are being contacted by Webmasters asking you to exchange links with them. You know that you should choose only Relevant Links as far as possible, but what are relevant links and how do you pick them?

Here are some questions and tips that may be helpful:

1.Do I want to associate my business with this particular site? Is it a credible site with good authority?
It is a simple question to answer and this should form the basis of your decision making process. If you think you will be dealing with a good quality website then the chances are others will feel the same and possibly the search engines too.

2. Is the site focused on a topic that is relevant to the information on your site?
A link from a relevant website to your site is the preferred choice as it can help reinforce your website theme and potentially send some useful traffic your way.

3. How many existing links does the page have?
When your link is being placed on another website, you ideally want that page to contain as few outbound links as possible, if there are a high number of links on a page, the value of each link out is weakened. However if you are working with a ‘ high authority website’ ( sites that are typically non-profit like .edu, .gov, news sites and other resource based sites) an exchange can still be worthwhile.

4. What is the Page Rank of the site on Google?
Typically the higher the page rank, the more important a site is perceived to be. A link from a Pr 5 page is often seen as a more powerful link than one from a Pr1 page. However, Google’s Page Rank is only meant to be a rough guide and should not be the only criterion.

5. Is the links page being read by search engines?
It is important that the page your link is on can be found and read by search engines. The page should be no more than 2-3 clicks away from the homepage. you should check to see that the site is not broken and that it is being regularly crawled and indexed by the Search Engine spiders.

As an ambitious new optimizer, I was eager to try anything to improve a client’s results. I had made the mistake of taking action before doing the research many times, and have learned many hard lessons as a result.

One such lesson involved an idea regarding linking out to other very powerful sites from within an important page of my client’s site.

I was told once that links from .edu and .org sites were very powerful at determining the authority and trustworthiness of a site by search engines. My logic was “well if links from .edu’s and .org’s are very powerful, links to them should be somewhat powerful, right?” . So I proceeded to place multitudes of links to universities and associations my clients attended or were members of on their bio pages. I thought this would convey a sense of authority and qualification to the user.  What it ended up doing was weakening the accumulated link juice their bio pages had acquired by sending it out to the outside, relatively unrelated (at least by search engine algorithms) web sites. The hard lesson came when I noticed either a zero effect to a drop in the client’s results as a result of linking out to all of the .edu and .org links from their bio pages.

Below is a visual representation of what I am talking about, taken from one of SEO Moz’s Whiteboard Friday posts. They use “nofollow” links to illustrate their point. My preference would be not linking at all to the sites labeled “useless” and “boring”

Bottom line
If you are going to link from your client’s bio page to a university, or association, do so only if that person is profiled or mentioned on that specific page within that site. If they are not listed on those sites, and the client still insists, then implement a “nofollow” link to avoid passing valuable accumulated link juice.

Keywords and key phrases need to be selected much before building a website. In fact, you should think about keywords and phrases even before you choose a domain name.
It is a known fact that having a key word relevant domain name can be helpful to your website’s rankings with the Search Engines.
It is very important to name your website as close to the your targeted keywords and phrases as possible.
By choosing your keywords and phrases well in advance, you will also be able to design your site with an advantage as you can include key terms in your page URLs and ensure that the site’s architecture and navigation highlights the key phrases for your business.
Choosing target keywords and phrases in advance also enhances your competitive analysis and allows you to focus on the important points while writing your website’s content.
You can define your internal and external links and maximize the value from anchor text.

On May 17, 2011, Microsoft rolled out new features on BING.  The search engine will now display personalized results based on recommendations from friends on Facebook making online searching more social.  With over 500 million active users, Facebook is the most popular social network.  With Facebook and Bing teaming up for a more social and trusted search, how will this effect results?

Bing search results will be determined by if the user is concurrently logged into Facebook.  Before search results were created by links and facts.  But Vice Presidents of Microsoft said, “We think it’s’ time to change that!”  In the past, search was solely focused on math and algorithms, but now, it is even better, with a focus on math, algorithms, and opinions and preferences from people you trust.  Business, brands, and shared links that are “liked” by friends will appear in results.

BING is focusing on the “Friend Effect.”  Research has indicated that over 90% of people reach out to their friends and family for advice in decision making.  And 80% of people wait to make a decision until they get an approval from a friend or family member.  There is a trust factor that outweighs facts to help people feel more confident and comfortable with their decisions.  So why not give users results based on what trusted friends and families say.

How do you do this?  IT’S EASY!  Just sign into Facebook and start searching!

BING has been attempting to build a dominating search engine since June of 2009.  Will Microsoft overhaul Google with this credible attempt and lure traffic away?  Will Facebook take over the search engine world? I think YES!!!!!!!