Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Matt Cutts Talks Geo Tags and Webmaster Tools


Google’s Matt Cutts frequently posts useful tips for webmasters on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel. The short clips generally offer valuable nuggets of info that can have an impact on your site’s performance in Google.

In these videos, Matt always answers questions submitted by users, and in a recent one he answers the question: “How do meta geo tags influence search results?”

How To Find A Good Web Host?

How To Find A Good Web Host?
Usually when someone contacts me online, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is this: “How do I find a good web host?” or “Which web host do you use?”
This is one of those essential things you will need in order to earn that online income. You will need a web site and you will need a web host – somewhere to place that web site.

Sure there are countless marketers who work without a site but most have at least one main site which acts as their online calling card; where people can find them on the web. Of course, you can always use the social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter… but that’s like operating your office out of Starbucks!

Instead, a well designed site is just more professional and business like. It also means you’re serious about your online business.

Picking a good web host is not easy. I have had numerous different web hosts over the years. Most of them have been very good and served their purpose, but I have had some bad experiences too – what long term webmaster or marketer hasn’t? Something always goes wrong eventually, especially if you have a lot of sites and many different web hosts.

Sometimes having a web host can be downright scary. Several years ago, the web host that I had my main site on was first sold and then went bankrupt. One day your site is running fine and the next day the web host is completely gone. Shut down. Your site and all your files completely gone. Vanished. Your host can’t be reached. Total blackout!

Fortunately, I had my site backed up on several systems and since that experience I always back my sites up on several computers and I go even further by copying them onto DVDs should those computers crash. If you have a site, I always suggest you back up your site files and make it redundant. The very worst can happen to you.

Overall quality and good 24/7 support should be your first objectives in choosing a good web host. You want a site that’s fast, easy to use, rarely down and has good support that you can reach at all times, should something go wrong.

You need to check exactly what features your web host is offering and for what price:

- How much storage space?
- Daily traffic limit or transfer?
- Email system? How many accounts…
- What type of server Linux or Windows?
- How many other sites will be sharing your IP address?
- Do You need SSL or a secure site?
- Are sites/files backed up? How often?
- What are the support hours?
- And of course the Price?

But don’t always try to get the cheapest price hosting, keep in mind, you always get what you pay for. A cheap web host won’t save you money if it’s a poor service and your site is always going down. So don’t always pick the cheapest web host.

Match up your hosting service with the type of site you will be running; a simple HTML site will have or make simple demands on your hosting service. So a shared hosting service may be quite adequate to meet your hosting needs. For SEO reasons, you should always check the location of your site, I have found which country your site is hosted in, plays a role in your rankings, especially in Google.

However, if you have a site that’s extremely interactive with forums, discussion groups, get large bursts of traffic or you’re running a lot of server-side scripts and programs – then you may need a more robust hosting service to meet your needs.

In this case, you might need a dedicated server to handle just your site. Many web hosts offer this service and it’s worth looking into if you have a site with extreme amounts of traffic or if you’re running forums, affiliate programs, email services… from your site. Most of my own sites are very simple and I have them on many different web hosts. Mainly because of my own experiences, I just don’t want to have all my sites on one host… the old “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” reasoning.

At the moment I am quite pleased with all my web hosts… many of my sites are on GoDaddy and I find them OK for simple sites like mine. I also find it convenient because they are also a domain registry so I can easily use them to buy my domains. Although many experts suggest you should always keep your domain registration separate from your hosting service because if your host should suddenly vanish, it is only a simple matter of moving your site to a different host. If your host controls your domain, this can be a major problem. Always keep control of your domain in your own hands, but you probably already knew that.

Another web host I use is Bluehost which is very good, can’t remember the last time my site was down. They are very popular with around a million sites and my only concern is that they may become too popular and their services will be spread too thin. However, I have had very few problems with them and you can always reach their support.

I also have a site with Ken Evoy’s SBI (Site Build It), but I created that one mainly to get access to the enormous resources connected with SBI. It is slightly more expensive than some of the ones listed above, but SBI is an overall online marketing system that in my opinion can’t be equaled on the web. Well, perhaps the Warriors group could give them a run for their money, but it’s the community of like-minded webmasters with SBI which makes it special. They are always ready and willing to help you out, doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced pro or a complete newcomer. Several years ago, I took a very close first-hand look at the hosting service provided by SBI. You can find my opinions/review on SBI located in the resource box below.

There are countless webhosts you can choose from when picking a web host. But do your homework, check around to the different forums and see how everyone is rating the web hosts they are using. First-hand experiences are the best judge of whether or not a web host is good and reliable.

Although moving a site from one web host to another can be a real pain, especially if you have a large scale site, but if you’re not totally satisfied with a web host and are having serious problems – simply change your hosting. Just make sure you’re not going from bad to worst.

Still, finding a good quality web host will be a major chore, no matter how you look at it.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, nothing beats checking with your friends and fellow webmasters you trust. Ask them which hosts they’re using and if they’re satisfied with it. Nothing beats first-hand experiences when it comes to choosing a web host. Just make sure you’re comparing oranges to oranges, that is: make sure you have similar site requirements as your webmaster friends. If you both have similar type sites, then finding a good quality web host can be as easy as having a friendly chat over a cup of coffee.

About the Author: Titus Hoskins is a full-time professional online marketer who has numerous niche websites. Here’s a review of Ken Evoy’s popular marketing/hosting system: Site Build It Review For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools.

Geo Location and Search Engine Rankings

Source: googlewebmastercentral: As part of Google’s goal to make the web faster, we uploaded several video tips about optimizing the speed of your website. Check out the tutorials page to view the tutorials and associated videos.
Matt Cutts answered a new question each day from the Grab Bag:
And during Adam Lasnik’s visit to India, he was interviewed by Webmaster Help Forum guide Jayan Tharayil about issues related to webmasters in India. We have the full three-part interview right here.
Matt Cutts Answers: “Could you confirm whether the geographic location of the web host has any significant ranking factors for organic SEO?”

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

SEO Trends 2009


If you know anything about the fundamentals of search engine optimization ( SEO Tips ), you will know that the experts’ opinions on what to do, what is now considered redundant and recommendations of the absolutely necessary elements you must put in place on your website, change with mind-spinning frequency.

However, the bigger trends in search engine optimisation are easier to keep up with and most seem to be here to stay, as business owners become more attuned to just how important SEO is to their success.

SEO Trends 2009 And Beyond

The industry and ‘bigger picture’ trends have become relatively easy to identify as the SEO world becomes more established - increased awareness of SEO in general being the first major trend.

Search engine optimisation used to be an exclusive world, with only those practising it really knowing what it entailed and how it boosted a website’s visitor stats.

Now, most people know what it means, and most business owners are aware of just how important the internet is and how SEO can help them gain more customers.

The next major trend and one which is definitely here to stay, is the rise and rise of Google - they have dominated the world of search engine optimisation for years, and their lead over competitors such as Yahoo and MSN is only getting bigger.

When Google speaks, SEO consultants listen and if your business is not being found on Google, it’s almost certain it’s not being found at all - around 70% of user searches are done using Google.

SEO tools and automated processes are becoming an important part of the reporting of website results - individuals are focusing on developing these tools for companies to buy, who may be struggling to find or afford a good search engine optimisation agency. Such tools can offer good basic data, but it’s worth remembering that it’s still what you do with the data that’s important.

Dipping into the actual technicalities of good SEO practice, good content has been king for a while and remains so.

As a business owner, if you write, or employ an SEO copywriter to write good quality articles and press releases, this will benefit your search results hugely, encourages links to and from your website - and links are extremely important as the ‘currency’ of good quality SEO.

Finally, a trend clear to all - not just those operating in the search engine optimisation world - is the rise and rise of social networking sites.

Facebook and now Twitter are educating people to communicate in a whole different way, and business owners should be engaging these people in order to develop a whole new audience.

Keep Up With SEO - Your Business Will Benefit

There are many more trends in search engine optimisation, too many to mention here, but one thing remains clear - business owners small and large cannot afford to ignore SEO and must become well-versed in good SEO practice if they want to keep up with the ever-changing world of consumer web behaviour.

Author: Harvey McEwan



Sunday, July 5, 2009

5 Most Common Link Building Mistakes

After getting to know that link popularity is the most important factor that search engines consider when deciding your Pagerank, almost everyone has taken to posting their back links all over the internet. However, gaining credible link popularity that increases your page rank is really not as easy as it sounds and most people who do not know much about how Pagerank works keep creating text links that are either useless, or even harmful for their webpage. In order to make link popularity work for you, it is important to avoid the most common link building mistakes.

  1. Creating Links On Unrelated Pages.
    Search engines nowadays are smart enough to decipher whether your link is relevant to the users of the webpage that they are placed on or not. So if you are putting the text links of your webpages which are related to cooking on websites that deal with high end electronic goods, wrestling or real estate, you can be sure that these links will be trashed by the search engine, doing zilch for your Pagerank. So create links on sites that have related content. For example, if you have a cooking related website, placing links on home improvement, restaurant, recipe and kitchen equipment sites will be helpful.
  2. Creating Text Links That Proclaim,"Click Here".
    Google search engine spiders use the text on your hyperlink to determine what your website is all about and this plays an important role in determining both your Pagerank as well as your search engine rankings. By putting hyperlinks that simply say " click here for more information" or "know more here", you are telling the search engines that your website is about clicking and knowing more and that is where you will be ranked high instead of getting high search engine rankings for your own domain. Make it a point to use relevant keywords in your text links.
  3. Creating Links On High Pagerank Pages That Already Have Hundreds Of Links.
    Yes, it is true that the higher the PR of a page linking to you, the higher will be the value assigned to the link by the search engines and the greater will be your page rank. This is because the value or points that you get from a page that links back to you is determined by the formula — page rank of linking page / number of links on that page. But it is equally important to pay attention to the denominator of the formula, since a highly ranked page with lots of back links may end up giving you lower value than a page with lower rank but lesser links.
  4. Placing Links On Dynamic Pages.
    Web pages that are generated dynamically take ages to get indexed, and in all probability, a text link on such a page will never help in increasing your page rank. Identify dynamic pages by URLs with special symbols in them (&,? etcetera) and save your time by not posting any text links to your site on such pages.
  5. Creating Links On Pages That SE Spiders Cannot Crawl On.
    The whole point of building link popularity for increasing page rank is to make your site accessible to search engine spiders. However, search engine bots have not become smart enough to read pages generated by Flash or JavaScript. They are also unable to read text links placed within frames, so it is a complete waste of time creating back links on sites that are either Flash generated or framed, since these links would be totally ignored by search engine spiders.