Direction of SEO in 2013 : Can You Get Higher Rank?

Direction of SEO in 2013 : Can You Get Higher Rank?

It has been reported that in a typical year Google makes as many as 500 minor adjustments to its search engine algorithms.

In 2012 major changes that had huge impact on rankings were seen with the Panda and Penguin updates. Looking ahead to 2013 there are some areas expected to draw greater attention as well.

Some Key Items to Watch and Prepare For!

Though nobody can accurately predict all of the changes that may come about in 2013 there are some prevailing expectations and areas of interest. If you keep some of these in mind as you prepare your strategy for maintaining or attaining high rankings in searches you can be prepared to take advantage of changes as opposed to being negatively impacted by them.

Author Rank 

It is widely expected for Author Rank to assume an ever increasing importance in search rankings.

In simplest term, Google has been and will continue to monitor authors of content all over the web. Based on the reputation of that author (as determined by the strength of sites they have content on and feedback from social media as measured by sharing, tweets, etc.) a ranking will be assigned to them.

A high ranking may well be used to increase the rankings of sites that publish content by that author.
Conversely, have a lot of content from very low ranked authors could have a negative impact on the sites ranking.

As a blogger, your ranking will be determined by the reputation you already have.

Google may use the author rank it has assigned to you based on the content you have already written in the past for your own blog. Based on the way it determines your authority or expertise in given areas or your particular niche your Author rank is very or very low your ranking may well change to reflect that.

If as an author you have attained a good reputation your blog and the content on your blog will reflect that with higher rankings.

To further push this process everything you publish likely will be automatically linked to your Google+ profile. The bottom line is your reputation and the reputation of contributors to your blog will be given considerable weight in determining the search ranking of your site.

Mobile Friendly is a Must

Over 1/3 of internet traffic is estimated to be from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Websites that do not fully support mobile browsers or that are deemed not ‘mobile friendly (non-standard pixel widths as an example) will be hurt in rankings.

In addition, if a search originates from a mobile device it will not appear at all in the search results. A key strategy for on-page SEO will be to ensure your website is mobile compatible. Create Mobile Version Of Website With GinWiz

An Even Greater Role for Social Media

Social media will continue to grow in importance. If you have a website or blog and have not yet fully integrated the major social media outlets such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. then it is time to do so.

More importantly, simply having the logo will not be considered to be integrated- you will need to begin to actively use these outlets to achieve or maintain higher rankings.  If your content and website is popular on social media your rankings will improve. The measure for that popularity will be shares, tweets, +1 , etc. The concept is if people can find it on social media outlets and are looking for it there then the search engines want to make certain it is just as easy to find by people doing related searches.

Co-Citation is Widely Expected to be a Consideration

Co-Citation is a relatively new term in reference to Search Engine Optimization and search rankings. In the past in order to get credited or gain authority and rankings it was required to have a link posted to your website from other websites.

It was by counting these links and the assigned value of the site they came from that a ranking could be determined. This may be changing.

The downside of using only the backlink method of determining influence is that often you do not actually get a link even when something is attributed to you. The example used in a SEOMoz video conference was:

Many sites talk about ‘cell phone ratings’ and ‘Consumer reports’ in the same breath but don’t actually link to ConsumerReport.org.

But Google (getting smarter all the time) is able to figure out that 1) the phrases ‘cell phone rating’ and ‘consumer reports’ often appear close together, and 2) Consumer Reports as a ‘branded phrase’ is highly relevant to Consumerreports.org.

Therefore on a search for ‘cell phone ratings,’ ConsumerReports.org has a high probability of showing up.

As the search engine algorithms get ‘smarter’ they will continue to use and improve on these concepts to make search results more relevant and less likely to be manipulated artificially. In 2013 expect this to be a prevailing theme.

What do you think? Is it hard to get higher ranking in search engine? What will be direction of SEO in 2013? Share with us

An Article by Ammar Ali

Are Your SEO Methods Spammy?

Optimizing your blog for SEO has never been any easier. On the other hand, getting the desired results has never been any harder. The competition is incredibly tough these days and Google, whose trends everyone needs to follow, is quite harsh when it comes to punishing those who are trying to abuse its ranking system.

So what are some of the spammy methods that are likely to be punished by Google and other search engines?

In this article, we are going to look Are Your SEO Methods Spammy?

Are Your SEO Methods Spammy?

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is one of those things that Google have been warning about for quite some time already – and, as many webmasters and bloggers have already found out, the search engine can indeed punish you very harshly for that tactic. Keyword stuffing is the practice of trying to place as many keywords as humanly possible on a page, no matter whether it makes sense to do so or not.
It goes without saying that overdoing it when it comes to keywords does not bring anything to the readers and visitors of the website – so why should it count for anything in terms of search engine rankings?

5 Best SEO Tips To Use The Keywords Effectively

Avoiding Anchor Texts Over-Optimization

Knowing how to link webpages through the right anchor texts can be very beneficial to the search engine ranking of any given webpage. The thing is, it is not that great to over-optimize things by trying to manufacture keywords and anchor texts that just are not relevant to what the webpage is about.

Think about it as an exercise. If someone had to connect your webpage with a list of anchor texts, what words would he or she choose? It is easy and simply – just don’t forget to go through with those words. The key rule one has to follow here is staying as relevant as possible. Irrelevant keywords and anchor texts simply are not going to get you anywhere.

Duplicate Content

Just a few years ago, copying content and having poorly-written texts on webpages was quite okay. In fact, many webmasters were more than happy with hiring poor copywriters or even with just duplicating content without any shame or regrets. However, those days are gone. These days, trying the very same strategies can lead to a very quick fall of rankings when it comes to search engines.
In all honesty, Google has really stepped upped its efforts in this particular department. Fortunately, it is quite easy to avoid getting punished by Google – all one needs to keep in mind is that quality is worth more than quantity. Hiring good writers is one of the best and most obvious solutions.

Bad Linking Practices

And, finally, let’s also talk about what simply does not work in the world of linking practices. One thing that can really hurt the search engine rankings is the participation in various link schemes. Yes, that’s right – the practice that was considered to be okay a few years ago is not that great anymore. And it is not only about excessive link exchanging – far from it. It is also about trying to create multiple webpages in order to cross-link between them, linking to unrelated and irrelevant sites, and trying to gain additional links in the form of comments with optimized links.
It is also not a good idea to think that you can get anything from the so-called cloaking practice. What you are showing to the users should be exactly what you are showing to the search engine crawlers. So no, trying to show HTML code to the crawler instead of the animation that visitors get to see is not going to get you anywhere either.

Summing Up

At the end of the day, it is clear that it is getting harder and harder to trick Google into thinking that you have a better site than you really do. The best strategy to get a high search engine ranking is to simply focus on the over all quality of the website. Using clean and simple SEO strategies is still a great way to improve search engine rankings, but it is much better to invest one’s time into making your blog better than into trying one’s luck with shady methods.

An Article by Kostas Chiotis

Interesting Benefits of Blogging with exception of Money

Interesting Benefits of Blogging You Should Know About

Blogging is becoming more and more popular day by day and more and more people are trying to get in this business.

Awareness about online money making and blogging is increasing, but still there are many misconceptions about blogging.

One of those misconceptions is the belief that all you can get from blogging is some extra cash and that’s it, but that’s not true.

Benefits of Blogging is still packed with heavy number even if we put the money making fact on a side.

Blogging is a lot more than just making some money and truth be told that those who are blogging for money only are never ever going to succeed.

Yes, You heard it right. If you are blogging just for money you’ll be fail sooner than later!
You can get all the other Benefits of Blogging; you can get one of them or get nothing. It all depends upon one person and that person is you.

Interesting Benefits of Blogging, Other than Making Money:

1. Blogging Improves Your Writing:

The first Benefits of Blogging is Writing.

Writing has a lot of to do with success of a person in this world and blogging just makes you an amazing writer.

You not only learn how to explain something, but you also find out how to keep your words interesting, entertaining and informative at the same time.

2. You Find Your Voice:

We keep trying to find the best for ourselves like the best job, best friend, best car and best wife, but most of us never try to find the best in ourselves.

Right?

Blogging makes you realize the voice that you have and that you are not worthless.

3. You Learn To Express Yourself:

Many people struggle in life not because they don’t have passion or desire to work hard, but because they fail to tell others about it because they don’t know how to express themselves.

Blogging teaches you how to talk in a way that impresses the people.

4. It Makes You Famous:

Don’t you want to get interviewed by some other blog owners?

Don’t you want to become famous?

Blogging can make you.

As the time passes, more and more people hear your name and you begin to become popular slowly and slowly while not realizing what you are getting.

And, when you realize that, you” have say thanks to blogging. ;)

Want To Become A Famous Blogger? Then Read This!

5. Blogging Saves You From Wasting Your Time:

Do you waste more time on social network?

Might be..

You know

It is so easy to get distracted online and waste countless hours doing nothing. This has lead to destruction of lives for many people.

But blogging saves you from becoming addicted to anything useless online and keeps you busy in doing what is better doing and that is blogging.

6. You Invest Into Your Future:

It doesn’t matter your blog is making money at this time or not while you are working at it, you are investing in your future.

This is because one day your blog will return the favor.

Why You Should Invest More Money On Your Blog?

7. Blogging Boosts Your Confidence:

I like this Benefits of Blogging most.

Confidence is really an essential piece of any human being and we need confidence in almost all fields of life.

We need confidence for dealing with people, for telling everyone what we want and to succeed as well.
Hence, if you have lack of confidence, blogging will make you confident like you have never imagined and destroys all the roadblocks in your life that were standing just because you didn’t possess enough confidence.

So these where some Benefits of Blogging except money.

Money is not everything but without it you can’t have anything.

Do you blog just for money? Did I missed any other Benefits of Blogging?

An Article by Ammar Ali

Tips for Getting Great Results for Your Blog

Tips for Getting Great Results for Your Blog

Let’s face it…
We’ve all been deceived.
Once upon a time, we looked at blogging and thought, “Oh, I can do that. Writing a few posts a week? Piece of cake.” From the outside, it looks so simple, so easy, so fun, and so we rushed off to start a blog of our own.

But then we get a rude awakening:
This stuff is complicated. Blogging isn’t so much about writing blog posts as juggling dozens of little odds and ends, all of them important, all of them demanding your attention, and all of them requiring you to learn something.
And it’s easy to drop the ball, so to speak, or even all of them. Not because you want to neglect anything, but because it’s too much to keep track of.
What you really need is a checklist of sorts – an itemized breakdown of everything you need to do to transform your blog and dazzle your readers. That way, you can stop trying to handle everything all at once and just go through it one step at a time.
So, that’s what I created for you. Here are 58 things you need to do, along with some links to help you learn how to do them well.
Enjoy.

The Basics

1. Move to self-hosted WordPress, if you haven’t already. Yes, you can build a popular blog on WordPress.com or Blogger.com, but there are lots of reasons to move your blog to your own host, including having more control and looking more professional. (Note from Jon: for newbie bloggers, I recommend Hostgator (aff). If your blog is already gaining some traction, Synthesis is a good premium option.)
2. Are you in the right niche? If you make it too narrow you’ll struggle to build a large audience. Make it too wide, and you’ll find it really hard to stand out.
3. Rework your tagline. Your tagline needs to tell your readers who the blog is for, what it offers them and what makes it special (think unique selling proposition – USP). Clear is always better than clever.
4. Set up Akismet. It’s a plug-in that helps you eliminate comment spam. Most hosts include it by default, but you still need to set it up and get it going.
5. Schedule regular backups. You never know when your blog might get hacked, and the best defense is scheduling regular backups using a plug-in like BackWPup.
6. Create an ideal reader profile. If you know who your target audience is and write every post with them in mind, your results will improve significantly!
7. Develop a basic Editorial Calendar. Jot down the type of posts (list, interview, reader question, personal, epic, etc.) and fill in post ideas. This is fairly simple to do, and it keeps your content regular and flowing.
Improving your blog’s usability
8. Showcase a clutter-free design. Nothing sends your readers running faster than being greeted by a cluttered, tacky or spammy feel. Make a great first impression by with a stunning, clean and professional design and improve your website trust factor instantaneously.
9. Link to the archives. We would all like to believe our readers browse through the archives of our blog, but the reality is, they don’t. You need to remind them. In every new post, try to link to at least three or four old posts, sending your readers back in time to read your best work.
10. Display a list of your most popular posts. Showcase your best work and impress the heck out of first time visitors.
11. Position your opt-in form in a prominent position. People often hide their subscription form and then complain that nobody subscribes. Make it very easy for people to find your sign-up form. Top right on your sidebar or just above your main navigation bar are two good places.
12. Create a contact page. As soon as you start getting traffic, some of your readers will want to get in touch with you, so create a contact page and use a plug-in like Contact Form 7 to make getting in touch with you easy.
13. Show your social media profiles. Encourage visitors to connect with you on social media. This builds trust and deepens the connection.
14. Perfect your About Me page. This is the most frequently visited page of your blog after your home page. It also has the longest shelf life. It’s worth really looking at how others have done it, and then to make yours as professional and well thought out as possible. You certainly don’t want people bouncing off this page. They need to subscribe to updates then and there.
15. Have clear guidelines for guest posting. If you want to attract quality posts from other bloggers, have a section with detailed advice on the requirements and the process.
16. Add a sign up form after every post. Remind your readers that they should sign up to get your latest updates and special offers. People are distracted. They have tons on their minds. If you don’t remind them to sign up and make it very simple, they won’t do so.
Integrating Social Media
17. Display social share buttons. Again… If you don’t make it simple for people to recommend or share your work, chances are absolutely zero that they’ll do so. Make it really easy for them to participate.
18. Focus on and master one social platform. Instead of trying to be everywhere, attempt to do one well. Excellent results on one social network trumps mediocre results on five.
19. Schedule promotions for your own posts. Sign up for a free Hootsuite account and pre-schedule Tweets or Facebook updates.
About your content…
20. Maintain an idea file. Always be on the lookout for new ideas for getting inspired to write. And have someplace where you can easily record them to refer back to later.  Use Evernote as an online catch-all for writing ideas.
21. Maintain a decent posting frequency. Posting every day is a silly strategy and you need to follow the 80-20 rule. Spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% promoting it.
22. Conduct surveys. At one point or the other, you’ll be struck by writer’s block. Ask your audience what they want to read about. They might surprise you.
23. Learn from the best. I don’t care what anyone says, content is still king. Make sure your content doesn’t suck. Otherwise, your subscriber count might be stuck on single digits — indefinitely.
24. Hone in your headline writing skills. You need to make your audience curious, and you always need to spell out the benefit of them reading the post. Make prospective readers and subscribers think: I have to read that, right now!
25. Start every post with an irresistible introduction. Draw your reader down into the rest of the post. Get them from one sentence to the next, working their way through your post. If people aren’t even reading, none of the other good benefits will come.
26. Make your writing screen-friendly. Take a step back and see how your writing looks — visually. Pretty it up by adding sub-headings, bulleted points, numbered lists, images and lots of white space. Make it easy on the eyes.
27. Incorporate effective communication principles in your writing. Clarity, conciseness, and connection: they make the world go round.
28. Show off your personality. Develop your personal writing voice. Dare to be a little different. Don’t try and sound like everyone else. This will help you seem less boring.
29. Tell stories. Captivate your audience instantly.
30. Add a call to action to every post. What do you want your reader to do? Give it a powerful ending. If you inspire people to act, they will see results and love you for encouraging them.
31. Create link bait. Give people reasons to link to you… Epic posts. Huge list posts. Interviews. Reviews of other (popular!) bloggers’ work and products. One successful link bait post can bring you traffic and subscribers for years.
32. SEO friendly content. Write for humans first, and they’ll make sure that your content ranks well for search engines. Win win.
33. Engage with your community. Aim to increase the number of comments on your posts every time you write one.
34. Have fun with content syndication. Submit your content to various content syndication sites like Alltop. These sites can be good sources of targeted and engaged readers.
35. Be consistent in your guest posting strategy. You don’t have a strategy, you say? How on earth do you plan to grow your list? If you can’t get people to come over to you, it only makes sense to go where they are. Devise a strategy.

Forming strong connections

36. Follow blogs in your niche. Your blog is not an island. You can’t do it alone. You have to find your tribe and become a part of it. Find your people or remain invisible.
37. Comment on other bloggers’ posts. Be strategic about it. Be smart. Know what you want to gain from your efforts. If you said traffic only, you’re in the doghouse. Quality connections are just as important.
38. Reach out to A-list bloggers via email. Keep it short and tell them why you appreciate their work. Ask how you can help them (not the other way around).
39. Follow them on social media. No brainer.
40. Link to them. Duh!
41. Interview them. Ask them to answer a few questions on a topic they’re passionate about. When they’re committed advocates for some cause, it’s hard for them to say no.
42. Ask for a guest post. Only after you’ve developed a meaningful connection with them and know their blog and audience intimately, pitch them a great idea. But be sure to do your homework first.
43. Ask them to share a post published on your own blog. Only after your guest post has done really well, or you have guest posted multiple times. Only when your post is your best work, and will really resonate with their audience. There aren’t any exceptions.

Monetization

44. Build your email list. First, attract the right kind of traffic to your blog. Then impress them with your savvy, knowledgeability and generosity, and guess what? They’ll subscribe.
45. Offer a subscribe incentive. Give new subscribers free access to an ebook or report they can’t refuse. Make it super useful. Make it a killer. Give them something they’ll want to read (not something you think they should read).
46. Do consultations. The best way to find out what your readers want to buy is to get on the telephone and do some good old-fashioned consulting. Listen to their problems, and then try out different solutions. Soon, you’ll find a common problem and a solution that seems to work for everybody. That’s when you know you have promising product idea.
47. Create a hire me page. You’re running a business, so start acting like you are. Add a hire me page for all to see. Don’t be shy about this. Use your blog to build your business.
48. Get and display testimonials. Back up what you offer by positive feedback from past and present customers.
49. Be careful with advertising. Only display ads on your blog if the income is too good to refuse. If you do, keep the ads relevant to your audience.
50. Consider affiliate marketing. When you’ve reached the point where you actually have a substantial list, it might make sense to recommend quality products that will solve some of your audience’s problems.
51. Venture into creating your own products and running continuity programs. Multiple income streams… The name of the game.
Developing a success mindset
52. Find mentors. Even the self-appointed ones who have no clue that they’ve taken this role work fine.
53. Invest in your online business education. Coaching, classes, courses, training, events, ebooks — whatever works for you. Keep doing it.
54. Shift strategies — evolve. It’s OK to change things as you grow. Your blog isn’t static. It’s constantly evolving, just like you are.
55. Be persistent — and consistent. You don’t have a choice.
56. Celebrate your wins. A few Facebook likes. A couple of retweets. A comment here and there. A guest post invitation by a popular blogger. 70 email subscribers in a day. Orders pouring in. Being completely booked out… You get the drift. Celebrate your positive moments to keep yourself motivated.
57. Thank your advocates and fans. You’re here today because of them. Don’t forget that.
58. Have fun! Be unforgettable.
And that’s a wrap!
I know, it’s a long, long list, but there’s also a bit of a silver lining at the end of the rainbow here. The good news?
You don’t have to juggle forever
Yes, blogging is a lot of work. Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, it’s overwhelming.
But it gets easier.
As you check off the items above, you’ll slowly have less and less to do. One by one, you’ll be snatching balls out of the air and putting them down forever.
Sure, there are a few types of tasks like creating great content and forming strong connections that you’ll always be doing, but you can check off at least half of the items on this list once and for all, never having to worry about them again. Or at least, not for a while.
And the best part?
You now have links to all the resources you need to help you do it. So, get to work, start checking those babies off, and make 2013 the year when you become a blogging superstar!

By: Marya Jan