Although the H1 tags haven’t changed much since their inception, their value has increased due to the massive level of competitive among websites. Heading tags are often used as a base for a search engine’s crawler. The presence of a clearly visible H1 tag acts as an arrow that points toward the most important part of your site.

The value of a good H1 tag is determined by the power of the keyword it is associated with. We all know that search engine crawlers have a long standing grudge against keyword stuffing. The same rule of maintaining the quality of the content applies to heading tags just as well as the rest of the on page content. Therefore, making sure that you use a valuable keyword on the H1 tag along with some supporting content is a good way to make sure that the crawlers crawl your way.

Many people have expressed concern about how the H1 tags are not as effective these days. In reality, they are still just as effective as ever, only if you know how to strike the perfect balance between keywords and content. Aside from H1 tags, H2 and H3 tags are also important when it comes to increasing the SEO value of your on-page content. Once again, people tend to take this the wrong way and scatter heading tags all over the page. The right way to do this would be to have the main title as an H1 while the H2 and H3 tags can break down the main topic into separate segments.

The recurring rule of SEO is to make sure that you market your website with keywords without being a flashing arrow. The same guideline applies for just about every single one of your SEO tricks, including the heading tag usage.

Yahoo Site Explorer is among the very few genuine backlink checkers that offered their services completely free of charge without even requiring registration. While most backlink checkers will simply offer rounded figures of the actual number of backlinks or simply settle on a random round number, Site Explorer offered accurate results. However, when it comes to the backlink source sites, Yahoo only displayed a maximum limit of 1000 links. Then again, unless you are planning to examine each and every backlink, it’s not a major disadvantage. In addition, Site Explorer also offered plenty of assistance when it comes to categorizing the backlinks according to the landing page. All this was offered in an easy to use format to allow anyone to make use of the service.

In general, a backlink checker is essential to keep an eye on the links that they invested time and resources on to build. For instance, if you are an SEO services provider, it is important to keep track on the amount of backlinks obtained by a particular client when work started and how the amount changes as the link building continues. The main use of these tools is the ability to keep an eye on active links as well as any lost links without resorting to time consuming, manual means. In other words, a backlink checker takes a great deal of work off your shoulders.

Now that Yahoo Site Explorer has closed, it is necessary for SEO professionals to find something that is just as good to maintain operations as before. It is highly recommended that you should try your hand at a paid backlink checker for results that are similar to Site Explorer’s.

Long tail SEO is the art of utilising key-phrases that tend to be more specific and longer to attract people with genuine intentions to purchase whatever it is that you are selling on your website. Take the word ‘shoes’ for example. This is definitely the first word on the list of potential keywords when you layout your SEO strategy. However, it also happens to be the most competitive and least effective at generating specific sales. It is highly unlikely that someone who is looking for a specific type of shoe will type the term ‘shoes’ in to the search engine. So, why not give them what they are looking for? Say, ‘Faux leather peep toe platform pumps’. Although this may seem unnaturally long and a bit tricky to work in to the content, phrases like this are definitely capable of attracting genuine customers (who are looking for the exact item) who will make purchases.

In addition, long tail SEO has the ability to make your website more visible to customers who ate geographically closer. If you are a business that works online as well as offline (such as a clothing store or an antique store), it is best to settle on some keywords that specify the store’s location as well. This could encourage your offline clients to physically visit the store and well, bring you some revenue.

However, taking on more competitive and general keywords is the way to go if you are intent on getting more visits. The ideal SEO strategy would be to pay attention to a few short keywords as well as to select some specific, long ones to focus on your popular products or services. Although SEO is defined as a practice that generates web visits, the idea behind attracting visits is ultimately, making sales: and long tail SEO does just that without beating about the bush.

As per the announcement issued by Bradley Horowitz, VP of Google +, the shutting down of Google Buzz is one step of a series of modifications made to the search engine and associated services. For instance, Google Labs, a platform that directly connects Google’s engineers with users, will also be shut down. In addition, Google Desktop, Aardvark and Google Maps API for Flash will also be shutting down as a result of this ‘spring clean’.

According to speculation, Buzz is being shut down as a result of users not giving enough attention. In other words, Google Buzz didn’t generate enough ‘buzz’ to survive the guillotine. According to Horowitz, Google is trying to devote more time and attention to the improvement of features such as Google +.

However, Google Buzz is a feature that battled all sorts of complicated feedback from users as well as legal action from The Federal Trade Commission the due to its privacy issues. According to experts, Google is quite serious about giving the 800 million user strong Facebook. Therefore, the ‘weeding’ of anything (even something that Google has spent years agonizing over) that might get in the way of its success is positively logical. Horowitz further declared that Google Buzz will not be missed by many as most of its users have switched to Google +. In his own words, Google will be focusing their efforts on projects that ‘will have the most impact to the most users’.

For the users who will be impacted with Google Buzz’s retirement, there is a way to download all Buzz data with the aid of Google Takeout. In addition, all the data from your Google Buzz will be archived under the ‘Buzz’ menu item on your Google + profile.

The links have been given a size boost to match the main title. This is definitely a good thing if you are at the top of the search list as it will inevitably draw attention and keep it there. Plus, it takes away the need to go in to the website to find a particular page. Most users are not all too happy to actually visit a site and navigate through to find a page they want. The theory that is put to use with the all new and improved sitelinks is to draw, no demand, attention to the pages of the site that a user might want to visit.

However, the appearance of the sitelinks depends mainly on the URL structure of your site.  Although the appearance has been changed, the generation and ranking is done with the aid of the traditional algorithm.

Have you noticed different pages of the same website, ranking on different spots on the Google result page? Sometimes, a user could end up at the same site, by clicking on several different results.  With the update, a user can easily identify that the top result is located on a separate domain in comparison to those that are ranked below it.

According to Google, this is done mainly as a move to provide the best services to web users. But that doesn’t mean that SEO professionals and website owners can sit back and relax. They have to work their best to make sure that the correct sitelinks are presented while the incorrect ones are demoted. However, if your website is easy to navigate and is easily visible, it will inevitably draw in more traffic.

One of the features in Google + allows users to recommend websites to those who are in their network. Just like Facebook and all other social networking platforms, a lot of personal information will be shared among members. From birthdates, working place information all the way to interests and preferences, Google + will also store this information in a user’s profile. In addition, there is a feature called Google Sparks on the platform. This is where all the information about a particular individual’s interest will be kept.

Remember Facebook’s targeted advertising campaigns that took a huge chunk out of Google’s Adsense revenue? Well, apparently, Google is fighting back.The Google Circles and the Google Sparks concepts will allow users to be categorized. This means that a person’s interests, history, activities, friends and the websites that they like will be a part of the equation to deliver them advertisements and direct them to websites that they are more likely to visit.

According to one blogger, the web links posted on Google + will act as a vote for a particular website. The more ‘votes’ a website may have, the higher the rank will be raised. However, just to make things extra difficult to us, SEO Companies, Google has decided to monitor a user’s credibility to cast votes on a particular website. This means that when a particular user has added things like Fashion, LOL cats and Baking casts a vote on a website that deals with Business Communication and Networking, the vote will not be counted as a credible. Google will make an assumption about a person’s ability to vote on a certain website by taking their interests in to account.

The verdict? Google + will definitely have an impact on Search Engine Optimization. Although the effects may not be immediate, they will definitely start to show as the platform takes root.

The first step of understand that Google is not at war with website owners. It is a search engine and the job of a search engine is to offer relevant results for search terms entered by web surfers. Since some websites are trying to sneak their way in to the rankings by mentioning these search terms, or keywords, without the creation of coherent content that someone can make sense of. So, the first step of making sure that the next Panda Update doesn’t kick you out of the rankings is to make your content valuable and useful.

But on-page content is not the only thing Google is keeping a close watch on. Websites cannot beat the massive competition for the top spots solely with the aid of on page content. Inbound links from external sources also generate a sizeable portion of the traffic generated by a website. One of the most effective ways of generating inbound links is by posting articles on article directories. As directed by the latest Panda update, certain article directories have been labelled with the undesirable ‘content farm’ title and were dishonoured. The reason for this is the fact that most of these directories are a breeding ground for poorly written articles stuffed with keywords and uploaded with the sole purpose of exploiting the directories’ popularity. In the end, the blacklisting of these popular article directories affects the rankings of those who have posted the sub-standard articles.

Of the quality of your content is not an issue, you may think that algorithm updates are irrelevant. In reality, it is important to keep updated and adjust when the need presents itself during a major change. However, the wisest choice is to continue researching, reading and testing to find effective and legitimate methods to boost your rankings as time goes by. Bear in mind that Google is evolving with time and is thinking of providing a satisfactory web searching experience for its users. To be truly successful as an SEO services provider or a website owner, you need to think beyond climbing the ranking lists.

Canonicalization is a process where a search engine picks up the best URL when there are several options floating about cyber space. This could result in the popularity of a web page to go down. Since the incoming traffic that is supposed to go to a single URL now gets split up between two URLs. While sometimes, this might be nothing more complicated than one web page loading with the “www.” And the other loading without it, other, more extreme cases could result in more serious errors where two identical copies of your website ranks on two far apart pages on the search engine.

It is a complicated issue, but when it comes to SEO, you can’t really afford to have identical copies of your website on different rungs on the rankings ladder. So, in order to prevent search engines from making odd decisions about your website, you need to employ a few precautions to make sure that viewers are headed the right way. A ‘301 redirection’ is the most effective method to let the search engine know what your preferred URL to be directed is. This involves in the setting up of a .htaccess file in your domain root file to permanently redirect visitors to your preferred version of the URL.

Depending on the particular environment of your web, you can employ one of the many methods available to set up a 301 redirection. You will have the ability to set up the redirection using PHP, classic ASP, ColdFusion, ASP.NET or Perl. If your website has been subjected to canonicalization, it’s not the end of the world, simply employ a viable redirecting mechanism and you will be up and running in next to no time.

However, although there are other methods of redirecting to your favoured URL, they are to be avoided like the plague. The reason for me to say this is the fact that, methods such as Javascript and META refresh have been in use to obscure and disguise malicious redirection for quite a while. It is best to stick to legitimate methods rather than to experiment with fishy techniques (which could result in your website getting kicked out of the ranking lists for good. Believe me, it has happened.)

Rule no. 1

For a piece of content to be considered as effective ‘link bait’ material it has to be original, out-of-the-box and on top of it all, interesting. In other words, the content has to be extraordinary.

Rule no. 2

Articles posted on blogs are a great way to start. If the topic is interesting and the writing style is engaging, you may have a winner on your hands. Articles on controversial topics and articles featuring tips and tutorials are also great sellers. As for lists, people love lists: they are instantly attracted to anything that starts with “top #…” If the title doesn’t seem to be working, you might be violating rule no. 1.

Rule no. 3

Apart from gifts, people also love free stuff. Gifts, giveaways and freebies always have a strange sort of power over the wayward internet user. But try to be genuine and actually deliver what you preach. Or you will be plastered with the undesirable ‘scammer’ status.

Rule no. 4

Providing entertainment always works. Whether it comes in the form of a funny video, funny article or even an out of the box infographic, people will share it if it entertains them.

Rule no. 5

Create interaction opportunities.  You could also create polls and surveys based on the most current news to tempt net goers to interact. If they find the topic interesting and worth their time, they will definitely share it with their friends, thus generating traffic for you.

Rule no. 6

If you can’t come up with something original in any of these categories, why not try posting news? News is freely available all over the internet, posting your opinion on one of the latest news stories is oftentimes enough to create considerable traffic. Being the first to cover a certain news item will definitely be an effective method of link baiting.

Like I said before, link building is like fishing. But only better, as the fish you bait on the internet, will bring in a swarm of their friends along with them.

One of the most popular SEO techniques is the strategic utilization of keywords. If you glance at the top of any website that seems to be doing well on the internet, you may have noticed keywords related to the content of the site. This is definitely a do, as title tags with keywords help search engines to index websites and to bring more visitors in as a result. Placing the relevant keywords within the site content is also a good idea. But, make sure to keep the keyword below three percent to avoid looking like spam and a victim of the dreaded ‘keyword stuffing’ which will only harm the reputation of your site.

The next thing is to make sure that your content is relevant to your website. If you are not gifted with the ability of writing something out of nothing, look for a copywriter with experience in SEO techniques and keyword placement to do the job for you. Well written content that is relevant to the main purpose of your site and the product or service you are marketing will increase visitors and make sure that they leave happy. But, make sure that the content is not copied or plagiarized as you will get flagged for stealing another’s work. Investing on the services of a copywriter is not as extravagantly expensive as you think and it will make your site more valuable to a visitor.

Ever heard of fashion dos and don’ts? Some styles look great on mannequins and on runway models but just seem too flashy to take up on everyday wear. Well, it is pretty much the same with the appearance of a website. Flash animation and interactive artwork is very pleasing to the eye but not so pleasing to slow internet connections and search engines. If you are investing on flash animation, make sure to keep it to a minimum as it will not do much to index your site as search engine software does not read the flash in your site.

The bottom line is, keeping your website simple classy and to the point will ensure indexing on search engines and keep your visitors coming back for more.