Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog |
| Posted: 27 Jan 2012 10:23 AM PST
Google's search quality guidelines plainly warn all users: "Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware." If malware in your website is the result of successful hacking activity, it can be hard to prove it isn't you and Google will want to get you out of the results quickly and may not give you time to find the problem. No search engine wants to direct people to a hacked site because it compromises their credibility. If you aren't on the search indexes, you're basically nowhere. If however you are monitoring your site regularly and detect malware early, it will not cause as much damage to your websites or your visitors. Google can actually help you, since they have the most effective tools for detecting hacked in malware on your website. In this type of situation, Google is your ally – they want to get rid of as much malware as they can as much as you do so that more sites and users don't become infected. To get started, visit http://www.google.com/, and type in site: yourdomain.com (using your domain name where it says yourdomain). Use your domain name only, and don't include www. so you will get the maximum number of indexed pages. Follow this step EXACTLY! Google will then produce a list consisting of all of the indexed pages on your website. If you have a lot of pages, change the default view to 100 instead of 10 results per page (you can do this in "Advanced search" under "Need more tools") to help speed the process up a little bit. Next, choose "repeat the search with the omitted results included" to display hidden results that you otherwise wouldn't be aware of. If you see anything that says "This site may harm your computer." it means that Google found malware hosted on that URL. This means you have been hacked by someone who managed to slip some malware onto your site. This isn't good news, but once you know it is there you can start to repair the damage it has done. That is good news. Go to your Google Webmasters account and then go to "Labs" in the dashboard. Once you are there, choose "Malware details." If you get the response "Google has not detected any malware on this site," then there has not been a hack and you are in the clear – almost. New methods employed by hackers include planting links in the site pointing to spammy websites or malware domains. If link building is being done that you or your SEO are not responsible for, be suspicious! Links from unknown origins are not your friend and should be removed just to be safe. Tools are available to check external links, however, and you can also utilize your server logs to find out if unknown IP addresses are accessing restricted pages. To do this, log in to your hosting account and copy and paste the access log into an Excel file or OpenOffice Calc. Once that step is accomplished, create filters to eliminate your own IP address and find URLs containing the word "admin". If you find any and they return a 404 (not found) or a 301 header that indicates a failed hacking attempt. That means your security measures are working, but also that breaches have been attempted so you may want to beef things up. A "200 OK" status may indicate a successful hacking attempt. Use server logs to trace where the hacker visited other restricted pages in your domain, and block them. If you fail to do this, they will backdoor you to death with hacks. To protect yourself, enable logs for admin pages, update your web software, and sanitize user input. Also, use captcha to defeat malware bots planting links via comments or any openly available area. Once that is done, disable unneeded PHP functions, and use strong passwords and SSL. Never under any circumstances should you use the default passwords, and never store your passwords anywhere online. Scan your website regularly as described, and act fast if you think you've been hacked. it is better to be vigilant than a victim! |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:20 AM PST
A niche is simply put a corner of the market where there is a shortage of supply versus demand. The best way for you to track down highly searched topics is by using a program that will show you what people are looking for, and as importantly, how they are looking for it. Google offers tools that are helpful in this area, albeit a bit imperfect. When you add modifiers like how, buy, fix and online to your niche keywords, you will find out what people need and how they are looking for it. Refining your search will help you attain the best keywords and key phrases to target. The niche you choose should be ready to be monetized – meaning you can jump right in and begin converting. To do this, you either need strong affiliates or an established advertising base. Once you have found a site or two with good commission rates, you can check how much actual search there is for your keywords. Don't hesitate to take some cues from your competition. The greater the number of results you see, the greater the demand is – and that is what you want! You can use the Adwords tool to generate similar terms and figure out how to use long tail keywords in addition to your major ones. This is not popular with everyone, but Adwords can be a great jumping off point is used correctly. There should be at least 500 different possibilities for optimization, with additional spin-offs. That sounds like a huge number, but in actuality it is very focused. The more options you have for optimization, the greater chance you have to end up on the front page of the SERPs for one or more of your keyword phrases. Think of it this way – ranking for two keywords is nice – ranking for 200 derivatives is exceptional! You can also use Google tools to determine potential pay-per-click amounts from advertisers. If you can draw traffic that makes you attractive to advertisers, you should monetize your site and take advantage of the extra income. Just make sure the ads are relevant, pay sufficiently for your valuable space, and do not overwhelm your own content. Develop strong content and a linking campaign to match it. SEO will get far, a linking campaign can take you farther and to the next level. Figure out who your best customers are and target them effectively. Soon your niche site will be up and business will be booming! It takes some work, but a reputable SEO company can help take a lot of the guesswork out of it and have ou up and running in no time. |
| Posted: 25 Jan 2012 09:58 AM PST
Keywords You must do extensive research to find not only which keywords are good bets for traffic, but which ones you actually have a chance of ranking for. Chasing the long tail is the proven way to get rankings and drive traffic to your site. If you cannot compete with the major sites on broad terms, you have to refine your strategy to see where they are weak and where you can gain an advantage – and then you have to exploit that! Titles and Meta Tags After you identify your keywords that are likely to get you the best results, you need to ensure your website is correctly formatted and that all the proper elements like H1, H2 etc have been incorporated into each web page. Any images on your site have to be tagged and keyword rich text should be surrounding them. Images can provide great search results when properly tagged so don't ignore them. Content Your content should be informative, captivating, well written, and free from typos – and of course, keyword optimized according to your prior research. One of the biggest thongs to remember is that it has to be reader friendly – meaning it flows well and makes sense. If it reads spammy, you won't keep a reader for long. There should be a balance between the relevance of the content and the keyword density. Avoid any black hat tricks you may read about because eventually you will get caught and penalized heavily. The SERPs are unforgiving about balck hat SEO. Links Categorize the links on your web pages for ease of use by visitors. You have essential and non essential links to deal with. Non essential links include the no-follow property inserted into the <a href=>. This keeps you from bleeding out PageRank, or having paid ads show up as links that are causing you trouble. Distribute your links evenly across all of your pages. There is no sense or value to wasting them all on the home page. Deep linking is preferable than having fifty links all pointing to your one landing page! Olan ahead and this won't be a problem. Site Map A site map not only helps the search engines index of all your web pages, but helps in even distribution of links across the site. It should be user friendly as well with a link to it from the bottom of every page. This is non-negotiable – a good well laid out site map is an absolute necessity in any SEO plan. Once you have begun your site the right way, keeping it easy to navigate and indexed by search engines should be easy. Don't cut corners, and you won't have to go back and redo stuff later on. The saying do it right and you only have to do it once surely applies to SEO planning. |
Have you been hacked? Is there malware on your site that you may not even be aware of that is decreasing your ability to convert and potentially putting you and your customers information at risk? Hopefully, you are safe, but hacking is an activity that occurs everyday and hackers are skilled at hiding what they do. You need to monitor your site for malware not only to protect yourself and customers, but your standing with the SERPS.
Choosing the right niche may not seem very complicated, but it is a cornerstone of success. Finding the right niche that will provide you with productive results depends on two main factors – a product or service, and finding the right audience to target for that product or service.
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