1. Social Influence on Search Ranking: The influence of social media on search rankings has been proven beyond doubt. While we are yet to get more clarity on the extent of influence, the mass consensus is that social votes (likes, shares, tweets, plus ones etc.) across platforms and may be some platforms like Google Plus in more specific is going to be the next big currency to influence your search rankings. Social media being a manually curated environment doesn’t really favor keyword rich content that is specifically created to feed the search bots. We human beings don’t need keywords to make sense of content, we care for content that adds value to our life, something that we care to share irrespective of the fact whether they have keywords in them or not. So if you want your content to gain traction in social media, you will probably like to go easy on the keywords.
2. Intelligent Search Engines:  One of the main reasons keywords were included in content was to help the search engines identify the topic and establish the content’s relevance to the user’s search query. However, over time search engines have become much smarter in interpreting content and attributing signals from various sources in ascertaining the relevance of the content to user’s query and keywords are not really a necessity any more.
3. Use of Microformats: Most search engines today can read and interpret micro formats. This micro formats go a long way in establishing context and helping search engine bots understand the true meaning of the textual content. This is definitely an additional help that search engines get in understanding content and further reduces the burden on webmasters to use keyword rich content.
4. Removal of Keyword Data from Analytics: Around a year back Google stopped sending the keyword data for all organic search clicks and now they are planning to cut down the same for paid search as well, which basically means your analytics will not have any keyword data. While many consultants have been interpreting this as a signal towards reducing importance of keywords, without going into such speculation let’s look at the practical problem. If we do not know which keyword performs well, how do we know which keyword to optimize for?
5. Mobile Search Gaining Traction: If you look at your analytics I am sure you will see the rising curve of mobile users. Yes, mobile users are increasing day by day and Google is also trying its best to cater to the same.  When a user is surfing on mobile he doesn’t have the time to read long form keyword rich content but they are looking for specific relevant information.  Also with Hummingbird Google is trying to answer questions directly, which needs specific, relevant and well-formatted information.

We are all moving towards a context driven, socially connected smart world and keywords might be a little primitive for the same. This is not to say keywords are redundant, they definitely have their roles to play in few cases (think about extremely narrow niches) but they are no longer the priority.  Write content that adds value to your users, content that is sharable, content that people would love; if keywords are present its ok, if they are not, no worries.

The post Why You Don’t Need Keyword Rich SEO Content Writing appeared first on Adwords Consultant India : DigitalSRC.

Every SEO consultant would vouch for the fact that it is impossible to get good rankings for any competitive keyword till you have developed a solid army of link. So when search rankings are so dependent on links why do we still say Content is King?

Well the fact remains that an able King never has trouble in putting together an army and the case is no different in the world of SEO. Good content automatically generates link ( and if you fret about PR, you will get PR too ).

For one of our company websites we have been working incessantly to improve the search rankings and while we have been building links through various techniques we have always been heavily content centric.

Just 12 days back we launched a viral content. In 12 days , the content got 277 Facebook Likes, 365 Tweets, 3277 Stumbles and 435 Google Plus Ones and a good number of links too. Result : with the recent PR update, the content page now has a PR of 5 – the highest on the website, even more than the home page.

So are you still sticking to the old scale link building or would you rather depend on your king ( content) to build his army of link ?

Related Posts :
Effective Link Building in 2010

How to build Free back links

How to build back links with Google

The post Why Content is King – Though You Can’t Build the Empire without Links appeared first on Adwords Consultant India : DigitalSRC.

1. Irregularity – This is probably the biggest killer so I put this one first. Irregular posting is a surefire way to kill off your blog. You need to make sure you post on a regular basis so that you’re readers can establish some sort of timescale as to when you will be posting. If it’s once a week… stick to that, if it’s once a day… stick to that. But don’t try take on something you can’t handle so you end up losing interest or not being able to keep up. Something mental like 20 posts a day… you might end up running out of ideas so quick that you could not post for a week. Keep your posting regular!

2. Writing for search engines – Another deadly killer. In-fact, you can still get traffic to your blog obviously if you just write good organic text, but the main point here is it will only ever be that. It will be hard to establish any sort of word of mouth, blog to blog kudos or social following unless you are strongly opinionated or an exceptional writer or both. Make sure you write for your readers, not Google.

3. Lack of effort – This is obviously… well, obvious. But alot of people do it. Sometimes you can start to build some traffic and you think you can just start riding that traffic and you become sloppy. Or sometimes the opposite, you’ll get no traffic so you’ll become annoyed and just do wild or sloppy posts. Make sure you always keep up your post quality to entice your readers and keep your blog a fresh quality source.

4. Not citing sources – Sometimes you can just do this accidentally, you can forget to credit people. Make sure you always give credit when due to make sure nobody thinks you are a content duplicator. Also, if you are a content duplicator… DON’T BE!. It’s one of the most annoying things ever and in the end, will get you nowhere, remember to cite your sources if you ever happen to ‘borrow’ something.

5. Lack of creativity – Try and be as fresh as you can be. Obviously if you are in a saturated market it can be hard to come out with constant fresh posts, but that’s where personality comes in. Don’t be afraid to be yourself and give your opinions in your posts and be as creative as possible, people get fed up of reading the same stuff. Stand out from the crowd by pushing your creative intelligence to the limit.

6. Bad grammar – Generally this wont kill a blog off but I think it can harm the perspective your readers have on you. Good grammar and spelling will help make your blog and you seem more professional so… just use the spellcheck. Is it really that hard?

7. Swearing – I actually swear alot in real life but this isn’t a good thing for a public blog. I mean… it all depends on who your audience is and if you can get away with it but generally I would avoid swearing alot as you could kill off alot of ‘easily offended’ people. Which like it or not, could be good potential readers.

8. Lack of opinion – This is similar to the creativity point but I think it should be said again. Bloggers with strong opinions succeed, why? because there are alot of people who agree with them! obviously there are also alot of people who don’t agree with them. But what do they usually do? argue! which creates? more comments, which creates? better blog! So let your true opinion come out in your posts and don’t worry about who you’re pleasing, there will be enough people out there who agree with you.

9. No marketing – Try and market your blog as best you can. I mean, even if you are absolutely BROKE, no money to market what so ever. Marketing can still be done. Think about it – social networking, forums, friends, viral marketing. There’s lots of ways to get your blog seriously noticed without money and I think your brain can conjure up a smart enough way to do it. So do it!

10. No branding – Another big killer. Without a brand, or something unique, a logo, tagline or something to identify your blog in a unique way. It’s unlikely that you will stand out in people’s mind. As I instantly think of a branded blog I think of Shoemoney because his blog is branded so well, I immediately think of the big S logo. It’s class. Do something to help readers identify your blog and stand out from the saturated, ad covered blogs they come across every other day.

The End!

Source: Here

The post 10 Ways to Fail at Blogging appeared first on Adwords Consultant India : DigitalSRC.

It has been said time and again that a “good content” for web is one that is meant for users and not for the search engines. While I agree to this statement whole heartedly, I also believe that even on the web, depending on the purpose of use, content should take its form and structure.

If we take an analytical approach towards the various type of web content, we can probably classify them into few major groups.
a) Content for general business websites
b) Content that is specifically meant for distribution as free website content.
c) Blogs

This is just a broad classification that makes me work out an easy way to determine the type of content I want to produce for a website, however, this can be further broken down into sub categories and I am sure there will be many people on the web who might not even like this categorization of web content.

Now, for all these different types of web content, the requirement is very different and the content needs to be structured keeping these in mind. but the common factor always remains the same – develope your website content for your VISITORS.

a) Content for General Business Websites: For this type of websites the content needs to provide enough information about the business, its products / services and at the same time have the pitch to sale its product / service or whatever their conversion goal might be. Here there is no harm even if you are putting up a direct sales pitch. However, it should be kept in mind, that if your site content is all about the sales pitch people would probably not make a purchase from you. If you can provide useful information about your products/services that are not directly related to the sales pitch but would actually educate your prospective customers about the usage, maintenance and various other aspects of your product/service that would help to establish an authority status for your website and people would have more confidence to make purchases from you. Also, this type of informative web site content works as ideal weapon to get some Free backlinks.

Though website content should always be for the human visitors, these business websites can not really ignore the search engines, as they are the major traffic drivers. So it is also important to optimize the content for the search engines with proper keywords. But, you should be careful not to mar the readability of the content with excessive use of keywords ( keyword stuffing ).

b) Content For Distribution as free Website Content: While creating this type of content, always remember, no one wants to read your advertisement. If you really want to get some link love by distributing free content, write something USEFUL. Yes, that is the key to write good free website content for distribution purpose. Make your articles informative, useful and detailed. Try to add some unique information. If you know your domain well enough this should not be a problem at all. Also, if you can add a tinge of humor that would just be fantastic.

For most of these articles, it is advisable that you also write a summary, so that it is easier for anyone to understand your article and decide to publish it on their website, even without having to go through the whole article. Try to make this summary and the Title of the article as interesting as possible because this is what is going to sale your article to the people looking for free website content.

c) Blogs: Probably the most important source of website content in today’s perspective. While it is extremely difficult to add particular characteristics to content for blogs ( because of their varied nature and purpose) it has often bee observed that blog content that are written with a personal touch and in a communicative style so as to engage the users is often the most favored option. In addition, the more useful and unique your blog content is the better it is.

Some General Characteristics of Good Website Content

• Write your website content with human visitors in mind – not the search engines.
• Use proper grammar and spellings. (keep your target audience in mind, spellings are very different In UK and US English standards )
• Provide useful information
• Unique content ( borrow concepts but do not steal content )
• Write in easy to understand language
• Make your titles interesting – Try to have your keyword in your title
• Break down entire content into smaller paragraphs.
• Try to put your main points in bulleted lists – it helps your readers!
• Add keywords in your content wherever applicable – BUT do not overdo!
• Use call to actions wherever applicable.

While I am not really anywhere close to being an expert in web content writing, with my years of experience I have seen these points to be very effective in improving the overall quality of a website. I am sure there might be loads of other factors that also contributes to good web content. Feel free to put your inputs in the comments.

The post Web Content Writing – Characteristics of Good Website Content? appeared first on Adwords Consultant India : DigitalSRC.

1. Content
2. Links

Yes, while, SMO or social media optimization is all about increasing the linkability of your website , all of us who have had a love-hate relationship with the search engines do know that one thing that search engines love without an exception is links. So Links are important for BOTH !

Now, if you would notice the two-point list that I have mentioned above mentions “Content” as point (a) and “links” as (b) – that was intentional! Because – you get links only and only if you have good content. So CONTENT comes first !Also, I would like to point out that while creating your content for SMO, make sure you put a Title that grabs the attention.It has been observed that articles and write ups with attractive titles and lists ( top 10, top 50, last 5 etc) gets bookmarked more easily.

For proper SEO success you need to have good optimized content on your website but for SMO its not just enough to have good content – you need to increase the linkability of the content.Provide your visitors with easy to link options. They are actually trying to help you by linking to your content so why not help them to help you by making your pages easy to link. A great tool for creating social bookmarks can be found at Social Bookmarks to enhance SMO effort

Now, when we talk about links, we all know

1. Search engines love links – the more inbound links you have, the better it is for you.
2. Social Media Optimization increases the linkability of your content and efficient SMO can get you huge number of links.

Keeping this two points in mind, we can easily derive that SMO can actually work as an effective tool for successful SEO. As an additional bonus, the type of links that a site gets through Social media optimization also drives loads of traffic unlike the exchanged links dug deep inside some links.html or linkpartners.php page, that are often a part of typical SEO process.

While there are people discussing if SMO is going to replace SEO, besides, being a great traffic source, SMO can actually be the means to successful SEO.SMO demands good content and those good content is going to get linked. Now once, you have got content and you have got enough links to that content – do you think you need much more for SEO success ? yes, you need to add the salt, pepper and seasonings to serve just the perfect dish that those BIg three ( Google, Yahoo, MSN ) would love but the foundation to your SEO success has already been laid by your SMO initiatives.

The post SEO and SMO – The Common Factors appeared first on Adwords Consultant India : DigitalSRC.