Importance of Site Speed in SEO Efforts : A SEO Technique

Importance of Site Speed in SEO Efforts

There are many search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that bloggers and website owners could apply to be able to improve page ranking and make websites known to a wider audience. One of the things you must not overlook when doing SEO is ensuring that your web site has decent site speed. Why is site speed important and what can you do to improve yours?

Poor Load Time Affects Readability

Google includes site speed as one of the so-called “signals” in its page ranking algorithms, although it “doesn't carry as much weight as the relevance of a page.” According to the Google Webmaster Central Blog, there’s currently less than 1% of search queries that are affected by the site speed signal.

Relevance is what drives online users, upon landing on your page, to want to know more about what your website offers, to navigate deeper into your website pages. However, if it takes too much time to load your site, then all the hard work you put in producing relevant content would be wasted. 

Negative Impact for Your Website Ranking

According to an article from Moz.com, poor site speed could negatively hurt your page ranking if your pages take a dreadful amount of time to load. It’s something that could hit you if for instance, your relevancy scores and link metrics are pretty close to that of your competitors’. 

Enhanced User Experience

It’s true that the negative effect of slow site speed to your page ranking is minimal and presents no serious cause of alarm, but you might be missing out on chances of further improving your rank if you don’t optimise the speed of your site.  

Google, as we know, aims to provide the best experience to online users by constantly fine-tuning its search engine results pages—awarding higher ranking to reputable sites and “punishing” those that try to spam online users. Focus on improving your on-site processes, as much as you implement off-site SEO techniques, and you can bet that Google, and your readers, will surely love you.

Improving Site Speed

Smaller websites usually are easier to optimise for site speed. There are many tools you can use for improving site speed, many of them, Google itself provided. To optimise the loading time and response rates of your pages, you may also try the following basic fixes: 

• The problem with your site could be not the site speed itself, but your Internet accessibility. Make sure you have fast internet connection and if that still doesn’t improve the speed by which your pages load, then you need to make some on-site adjustments.
• Combine all of your CSS into an external file and link to it from the <head> section of each page rather than loading it in the HTML of a page.
• Make sure your images are optimised for the web.
• Reduce HTTP Requests so the pages will load faster. Do this by reducing the number of items needed to be loaded for each page such as images, scripts, and style sheets.
• Combines images used in the background into one image, by using CSS sprites.
• Server side caching should be used since it creates an HTML page for a URL.
• Use Gzip to compress the size of the page sent to the browser. It can also reduce the file size by up to 70%.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) system so that users can download information from your site faster. Use services like Amazon CloudFront, which is an affordable type of CDN.
• 301 Redirects force the browser to a new URL. This requires the browser to wait for the HTTP request, slowind down your site. Lessen its use or don’t use it if possible.
• Use webmaster tools for tweaking your site speed such as YSLOW and the HTML suggestions in Google Webmaster Tools.

Several SEO methods such as link-building and content marketing are still considered by many as the most essential when optimising for search engines. If you think it’s especially needed, however, pay special attention to improving your site speed as it can contribute to a generally positive user experience for your website visitors. Overall functionality and the readability of your website will create happier visitors and will attract more guests in the future. 

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This article is contributed by Israel from CompareHero, the leading online portal for financial comparison in Malaysia. 

Top Ways To Choose Keywords For Your Website Or Blog - SEO Tips

Introduction to keywords

A part of successful search engine optimization of web pages is working out what keywords your prospective visitors might type in to a search engine to find your site. Some are more competitive than others - try searching for 'Seo Tips' in Google, there are millions of results! For smaller, optimizing web sites it is better to target less popular keywords and phrases to begin with and aim for success with those.

Each page on your site should have one to three related keyword phrases that are site-specific. For example,say you have a page all about Seo Tips. Good phrases to target on this page would be Search Engine Optimization, seo Techniques, or Best Seo Tips. See what I mean? They're all related, and they're all pointing at the same general content on the page.

Why choose keywords at all?

A good web page contains information that people are looking for. When you write the page you need to take a step back and think about what search terms or keywords people would enter to find it. Once you have determined those keywords, you need to narrow them down to 3 to 5 main words. Then you can start to write the page, keeping these words in mind while you develop the content.

While writing the web page, you can use search engine optimization techniques to make sure you use your keywords in the right places for search engine success.

How to research keywords

Unfortunately there are no shortcuts - good research will pay off with good results. By entering a search phrase in Google you can see what sort of competition you are up against. The blue bar at the top of the results page might say something like 'Results 1 - 10 of about 4,160,000'. That tells you that the search phrase is fairly competitive.

Also, you will learn a lot about how the search engines work by entering different phrases and seeing where they rank. Try and find combinations of keywords that return pages with poor information. If you can write a solid page of content using those keywords you should be able to rank highly in searches provided you follow the basics of search engine optimisation.

The other major source of research for keywords are your server log files. When a visitor finds your site using a search page, the words they used to find you are entered in your server log files. By looking at this information you can find:

1. keywords to target
2. phrases to target
3. ideas for new pages

As an example, we noticed that people found our site by typing in 'writing email newsletters'. The information we had on the subject was very limited though. We wrote a new page about writing email newsletters, uploaded it to our site and now it pulls in a good number of visitors on its own every day. Keep finding those keywords and keep building new web content around them.

For Choosing the perfect and more beneficial keywords you can use Google Ad-words Tool.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is deemed as immoral procedures employed by search engine optimizers to get websites augmented visibility in search engines. black hat SEO is a widespread phrase acknowledged by search engine optimizers.In order to make certain that the search engines like Yahoo and Google etc are showing desired results to their end users, black hat SEO is always in process by these optimizers.

Most employ Black hat SEO users, who employing techniques to get their websites to roll up in the web pages of search results; normally will not provide you the data you wanted. For instance, if a Webmaster, using a black hat SEO, desires to craft cash with the help of Google Ad-sense, they position some keyword content on a particular webpage anticipating that when somebody comes across that webpage, they will hit on a poster or any ad for the reason that the material on that particular webpage is not valuable. In response, the Webmaster who planted such stuff by using black hat SEO, will earn for that click. Such black hat SEO practice exploited by the Webmaster to trick the hunt engines into thinking that the webpage was related to the rummage around, but outcome is normally poor. This is precisely what, now a day, search engines are attempting to cope with this black hat SEO.

All and sundry looks to be getting results using black hat SEO. Perhaps it’s occasion to seize a few black hat SEO tips to be familiar with the boundaries of optimization and the paybacks of performing in the grey area. Let’s observe what black hat SEO do to dig up traffic:

* To create legitimate doorways and entrances webpage is an enormous black hat SEO technique for link structuring and in fact receiving clients while your website is not standing at superior ranking. Squidoo.com is very influential website with plenty of link juice is a fine case in this point of black hat SEO. This webpage allow you generate web pages on about any topic. Begin by forming a dozen of web pages with exclusive keywords on different theme those counterparts your website and then set an assortment of we blinks to your website on the Squidoo.com web pages you have fashioned. In black hat SEO technique, at this moment, consider of further authoritative websites on which you can locate your writing stuff like WordPress.com Google Base, Blogger, Live space and many more.

* Blog & ping is another popular skill of black hat SEO because this is extremely effortless but a tremendously good way to get indexed prompt. Whenever you put pen to paper a new piece of writing, just visit to Pingoat.com, place the article name and the web link or URL and ping away. Immediately you will be indexed.

* Search engine optimizers often love this ‘Go for the long tail’ black hat SEO way and employ this black hat SEO method in their web pages web sites and assignments because it’s easier to position for a 4 to 6 keyword hunt that has no straight contest and competition than it is to position for a hunt keyword that has millions of results, using black hat SEO.

* Keyword stuffing is one tactic that you don’t see much of anymore, but you do occasionally see websites that in the footer have many keywords for their industry listed. This is a less obvious way to go about it as in the past it was literally just list a your keywords many times after the original content of your site. Keyword stuffed sites didn’t provide a good user experience, so Google cracked the whip and started punishing sites that did this so that other sites that are more user friendly could rank higher.

* Invisible text is a lot like keyword stuffing but less obvious to the user. Companies utilizing this method would put text in the background of websites and make the text the same color so that no one would know there was content there unless they looked at the code. Websites would have a white background with white font and it made the text invisible. As far as Google views it now it’s spam and will not give you any benefit.

What Is White Hat SEO?

White hat SEO is the exact contradictory to black hat search engine optimization. When it comes to rousing traffic to your websites, white hat SEO system pursue the search engine course of action narrowly whilst simultaneously, searching for options to catch higher page grade. Accordingly, it is broadly professed as the leading mean of internet marketing as compared to the black hat. Since, basically there are two SEO approaches as in black and white hat SEO. This piece of writing will be centering on white hat SEO.

White hat SEO method can be incredibly successful and they are as well good for your web pages in the long-standing than any other positive traffic driving means. White hat SEO can lift up your website throughout the search results grade devoid of having a harmful consequence on the value of your business and website.

Compared to black hat, white hat SEO yields steady and slow but enduring results. Thus when choosing which part you should follow, you have to regard a better picture. Apart from online promoters, those working white hat SEO consist of software developers and programmers in computer safety. As their job name means, their employment, is to upload organize & order along with protection between computer networks. It is equivalent to police preserving law & order. It is essential to assist search engines to place the content that they are hunting for when it is there on your website. By and large, white hat SEO looks after your status in internet and online businesses. If you exercise it in good manner, it will be to your benefit. People will start in on looking further at your webpage and products once it turns into matching in trustworthiness and excellence. You will also initiate to make their belief and additional dealing for yourself with this white hat SEO.

Albeit utilizing of certain dishonest methods has cause the hunt engines to decrease their reliance on Meta characters, it is still important to make proper use of this feature with the help of white hat SEO. The white hat SEO acts a vital role in the way search engines search for the top websites. It is also very essential to guarantee that you decide for the right heading and titles for your website’s page using white hat SEO. It will be regarded as envoy of the website’s content.

Use of effective keywords is also a significant white hat SEO technique. An assortment of related phrases and keywords should be employed in an ordinary run all over to your web contents. Using keywords is similar to entering into a search container, for the people who are trying to find your website. White hat SEO method will enlarge the probability that they will uncover your website. Particular multi-word search expressions, also identified as long end keywords, are the mainly helpful. You must aim two to three phrases or keywords on every page of your business website, and make sure that you also employ them in the most vital division of your page, for example in headings, titles as well as Meta descriptions. This is white hat SEO.

Link Building Techniques – Direct and Indirect

There are many ways to get inbound links. A few links to your site from reputed, high quality, authority sites are much more valuable to a search engine than hundreds of low quality links. I’d advise you to not to participate in an automated link exchange program as you’ll be automatically exchanging links with all sorts of low quality and unrelated sites. Here are some seo tips for direct link building:

1.        Directory Submission

Even those who are new to search engine optimization know that a directory submission is one of the easiest ways to build links. Directory submission involves submitting details of your website including titles and descriptions about your product/service to online directories. This helps to get links with relevant anchor texts placed under relevant categories. There are many free and paid directories available online. All you have to do is submit your link and add details about it. You will get links form relevant categories in these directories.

Tip: Try avoiding automated submissions or submission softwares as most directories have a ‘Captcha’ code which can be verified only by a human being.

2.        Article Submission

Article submission involves writing articles related to the theme of your site and submitting to article directories. By doing this, you will get permanent one-way links from these directories. In addition to that, your article will be put under the most relevant category as well. Now only will you be getting a link, you will also be reaching out to more people. Visitors of that article site will get to know about your site and may even link to you if they think you are an authority figure and like your site.

Tip: Try to keep to original articles you write yourself, the search engines can find out if the article is copied from somewhere! You’ll want to stay away from software programs designed to produce articles one after the other with little difference.

3.       Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking lets you store, organize and manage your sites of interest on a  public bookmarking site, instead of on your computer. As long as you’re logged on to the Internet, you can access and share these bookmarks from anywhere in the world. Once you bookmark with social bookmarking sites and people find your content exciting, they will save it and share it with others. Your bookmark moves to the front pages of the category or site and you’ll soon see the increase in traffic.

While some social bookmarking sites may not give you search engine friendly links, the traffic and visibility you get from these sites could result in other sites linking to you.

Tip: Participate in your social bookmarking community’s activities by posting your comments and giving suggestions. This will increase your social bookmarking credibility and help make you visible in the social bookmarking community you participate in.

4.        Forum Posting

Forum posting means visiting online forums that have topics related to your site and participating in the discussions. People usually visit forums to hold discussions with other like-minded people. Forums give you an opportunity to build relationships and build your credibility but if you start promoting your link too much and contribute little, you’ll be considered a spammer and you might be at risk of getting banned from the forum.

Tip: When you post a comment, include your link in your signature.

5.       Guest Posting in Other Blogs

Guest posting in blogs is one of the best ways to build your brand and site popularity. You get a much wider audience and get links from really powerful sites. It is also a great way to build contacts in your industry. The traffic and exposure you receive is great compared to what you can usually generate from a new site. You can get backlinks, get new readers, get offers from other blogs and increase your traffic with this.

Tip: Study the blog you want to write an article for and see what kind of articles have been successful there. Write on topics similar to the ones that have been appreciated. If you do not do your research properly, you might end up writing on topics that are of no interest to their readers… you might just end up wasting your time.

6.        Press Releases

Some people think submitting press releases is a boring old way of trying to optimize your site. However, if the release is written well, the search engine optimized press release can prove to be one of the most effective ways to deliver news of events taking place within your company or industry. Press Releases are also picked up by Google faster. Usually you’ll find press releases on top of the search engines faster than the usual articles.

Tip: Don’t use complicated jargons, but simple language that people can connect with and search engines will decipher easily.

7.      Social Networking Sites

An active Social Networking campaign such as using platforms like Twitter, Facebook  and Linkedin can serve you well in driving traffic. Sometimes, the links are ‘No follow’ but the exposure and interaction you gain with potential customers is extremely valuable. If they like what you are discussing and find your information or products interesting they can help spread your word for you. As of now, FIFA’s profile on Twitter has over 178,555 followers. Even the Facebook fan page for popular potato chip brand Pringles stands out mostly for its great use of video.

Tip: Social media marketing is all about subtlety. Try not to market yourself so much that it turns people off. Give lots of information and inject your product or service details into it.

So that’s that! These are just some of the basics under off-page optimization and link building. If you have something to add or would like to disagree with some of the points, leave your comments in the form below!

What is a Search Engine ?

Basically, a search engine is a software program that searches for sites based on the words that you designate as search terms. Search engines look through their own databases of information in order to find what it is that you are looking for.The term "search engine" often is used interchangeably. Search engines automatically create web site listings by using spiders that "crawl" web pages, index their information, and optimally follows that site's links to other pages. Spiders return to already-crawled sites on a pretty regular basis in order to check for updates or changes, and everything that these spiders find goes into the search engine database. 

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ?

Whenever you enter a query in a search engine and hit 'enter' you get a list of web results that contain that query term. Users normally tend to visit websites that are at the top of this list as they perceive those to be more relevant to the query. If you have ever wondered why some of these websites rank better than the others then you must know that it is because of a powerful web marketing technique called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural," or un-paid, search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.