Best Ways to Earn Links for Free - SEO Tips

As I discussed in previous post : How to Earn Links for Free so here it continues ....

Best Ways to Earn Links for Free  

There's a better (free) link building strategy to build links to the pages you're attempting to improve search engine rankings for. In attempting to get a Web page to rank, there are a few key factors to consider:

• Anchor Text - One of the most important things search engines take into account in ranking a page is the actual text a linking page uses to talk about your content. So if someone links to our washing machine manufacturer site with the text "latest washing machines", that will help us to rank highly for that keyword phrase, whereas if they had simply used text like "xyz company " to link to our site, we wouldn't enjoy the same ranking advantage for the phrase "latest washing machines".
• Quality of the Linking Page- Another factor taken into account is the quality of the page that is sending the link; search engines allow links from high-quality, trusted pages to count more in boosting rankings than questionable pages and sites.
• Page the Link is Aimed At- Many times, when people talk about your site they'll link to the home page. This makes it difficult for individual pages to achieve high rankings (because it's so difficult for them to generate their own link equity).

Image Courtesy : Elite Strategies

These are all elements we can't control in attempting to get other sites to link to us. We can, however, control all of these elements in linking to our own pages from our own content by.

• Determine what anchor text to use.
• Decide which page to point that anchor text at.
• Ensure that the quality and content of the linking page is high.

Building external links to your site is important, but in focusing more of your efforts on the optimization of these internal links you can build quality in-bound links with rich anchor text to the proper pages, which will provide you with an unparalleled ranking boost for free .

How to Earn Links for Free : SEO Tips

Link earning is an important aspect of content marketing and has been recognized as an effective means to increase the rankings of your website.

Why Link Earning is important?

Some argue that it makes them a bit of confuse over the  transition from the previous approach of link building to link earning.I would like to clarify this confusion by saying that there is a stark difference between earning and demanding.

The current set of visitors never likes to be misguided, instead they like point by point data or content.Link building as a whole, requires unique & relevant content targeting the right traffic. Both goes hand in Hand! In layman terms,Link building is a homogeneous mix of content and the readers.

Earning is definitely an arduous task, as it would require a strategic effort to bring your website to a respectable position but believe me the effort is worth it!

Everybody expects relevant results from Google. Having irrelevant or shady sites ranking in the top of the search results helps neither you, the visitor, nor Google the search engine. This is one reason why Google works hard to improve their algorithms in order to rank those that deserve to be there.

Image Courtesy : cognitiveseo

You could earn links by following:

1. Creating epic content that was so engaging people naturally linked to it in the course of their editorial and online work;
2. Promoting your content so that it gets in front of the right people, who are naturally motivated to share and link to your content;
3. Building relationships that give influencers in your space comfort in the fact that your work is high quality and valuable enough to share.

Earning links still requires a strategic approach, but it’s less about creating artificial structures that result in links or treating links like a numbers game. The focus, as with other areas of SEO, is on quality and value. Still, there’s an active place for building: instead of focusing on building links, focus on building your brand. If you’re creating high quality content that you’re placing in priority outlets, links will naturally follow as a by product of that work.

How to Evaluate the Quality of a Link:

Google’s Penguin update underscored the importance of the quality of your links. Nothing can damage your site’s credibility and rankings faster than sketchy links. As a result, it’s critical to assess the quality of a potential link if you’re working to cultivate those connections. Here’s a quick guide of questions to ask before actively pursuing a link to your site:

• Is the site topically relevant to my content?
• Is the design and organization clean and professional?
• What’s the quality of the content that it publishes?
• Is the site overrun with advertising?
• Does the site have an active community, as evidenced by comments, social media engagement, and mentions?
• What does their incoming link profile look like?
• Is there a clear editorial hand at work developing and selecting content?
• Would I be comfortable associating my brand with this site?

By shifting your focus away from tactics that build links and instead investing in earning them, you’re creating a foundation that help you attract links from the top authorities in your space. One of the best strategies for doing so is through content marketing; in the next chapter, we’ll take a closer look at what you need to know about content marketing and inbound strategies that work.

Continues .....

SEO Tips - Top 10 SEO Blog You Should Refer in 2016

It's been said again and again ,I'll say it again: SEO is something which is constantly changing. One of the best ways to keep up with SEO update is to follow some of the top SEO blogs in the industry.Its not all of them but yes you can stay update by following these blog

What you want to look for in a SEO blog is not only that it covers the latest SEO news, but that it also takes that news and analyses what it means for your brand company or clients. These topics, in addition to other relevant "how-to" articles, videos, and guides, are what make an SEO blog stand out against the rest.

You see where this is going: I found few of the best that really fit this criterion and have great potential for 2015.

Google's Official Blog

The Google Blog. This is obviously a blog that never gets old. It's always updated, it's always correct, and it's always something you should be reading.This blog is purely for the latest news , update on product , events and glimpses of life inside Google.

The Popular Names in SEO industry 

Search Engine Land.“Search Engine Land is a must read hub for news and information about search engine marketing, optimization and how search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live.com and Ask.com work for searchers” Arguably the most popular SEO blog around, this one seems to have it all. It is always the first to break news, and you'll find that they have several articles on one subject, so all of your questions can be answered right on this blog. You'll find that most of the writers are the same each day, but the topics definitely have good variety.

Search Engine Watch.“A guide to search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Forums, reviews, articles, ratings, and frequent newsletters.”This is also one of the main blogs out there on the web for SEO. While Search Engine Land is typically the first to break news and get it out there, Search Engine Watch still covers the news and always seems to publish just a little bit more frequently and add just a little bit more information. In other words, reading both is beneficial.

Search Engine Journal. This blog thrives on guest contributors, so you're always getting different topics and different voices. It still covers news like the other two main websites, but this one seems to have a little bit more fun with videos, great comments, and some of the most detailed content around.

Moz. Moz has been in the SEO game since 2004, publishing some of the best guides available for beginners. They also publish quite a bit of advanced material and keep things very detailed, so just about any small business can benefit. They don't report SEO news quite as much as the others, but they delve into popular topics frequently.

The Blogs Not to Miss

KISSmetrics.This is a cool blog because it puts a focus on data & metrics and is incredibly thorough . Although they do cover other subjects besides just SEO, they publish frequently enough that there is almost always a few articles each week that can help your SEO efforts. If you're looking for content that is detailed and covers every angle of a topic, this is your blog.

HigherVisibility. This is one of those SEO blogs that focuses quite a bit on the "what it means to you" aspects of everything SEO. It doesn't just tell you the news and what it might mean, but it actually gives you steps and tools to put something in place to take action on your website. In other words, it's one of the best out there if you're really looking for useful advice about improving your SEO.

SEMRush. SEMRush is a company that does more than just blog (they offer one of the best SEO site audit tools on the market), so they really know their stuff. You'll see guest authors on this blog occasionally and it's always updated with the latest information. Like HigherVisibility, there is a lot of advice found here that you can really take and put into practice.

HubSpot. The greatest thing about this blog is the way it's written. The articles have a conversational tone and have done a good job "humanizing" the content to make it easy to understand. The Marketing Blog is where you're going to find your SEO advice, but HubSpot also has blogs covering other topics (sales, academy, web design, etc.) that I recommend checking out.

Mattcuts.com. This blog is belongs to former web spam Team Head .This blog contains post related to technology , gadget & SEO.

ShoutMeLoud This blog is about blogging tips and technology, its popular one among  all the bloggers however you can get very helpful tips regarding SEO and Word Press.

Google AdWords - what is changing and what is not on Google desktop search results.

Last Friday, February 19, 2016, Google confirmed that search results pages on desktop will no longer show text ads in the right sidebar. Instead, as many as four text ads will display above the organic search result, and three text ads on the bottom of the page .

Image Courtesy : sriconsultancy

What Exactly Is Changing?

All of the changes confirmed on Friday pertain to desktop search results on Google.com and Google search partners.

There are a few elements included in the changes to desktop results:

• No text ads will be served on the right rail of the search results on desktop.
• Google will serve four text ads instead of three in the mainline area above the organic listings for more “highly commercial queries” (More on that below).
• Three text ads will show at the bottom of the SERPs.
• The total number of text ads that can appear on a SERP will shrink from as many as 11 to a maximum of seven.
• Product listing ad blocks and Knowledge Panels (sometimes with ads, as tests continue in these spaces) will show in the right rail on relevant queries.

Google AdWords - Google To Stop Showing ads on Right Side of Desktop Search Result Page

Google has announced a couple of changes related to its desktop search results. The strategy is to remove ads from the right side of its desktop search results, and places ads only at the top and/or bottom of the page. The company also made separate amendments for the additional ads -- ‘ highly Commercial queries’ which is reduced to three, which was earlier four, in the upper section of the search results. This would involve searches like “hotels in New York City” or “car insurance” and the like.

The move is the conclusion of the test that began in 2010. A Google spokesperson has confirmed to Search Engine Land that the change is now rolling out to all searches in all languages worldwide.

The google official statement in this regards clearly states “We’ve been testing this layout for a long time, so some people might see it on a very small number of commercial queries. We’ll continue to make tweaks, but this is designed for highly commercial queries where the layout is able to provide more relevant results for people searching and better performance for advertisers.”

Exit Rate Vs Bounce Rate - Google Analytics

At a glance

To understand the difference between Exit Rate and Bounce Rate for a particular page, keep the following points in mind:

1. For all pageviews to the page,Exit Rate is the percentage that were the last in the session.
2. For all sessions that start with the page, Bounce Rate is the percentage that were the only one of the session.
3. Bounce Rate for a page is based only on sessions that start with that page. 

In depth

Let's clarify this last point with a simple example. Your site has pages A through C, and only one session per day exists, with the following pageview order:

• Monday: Page A > Page B > Page C
• Tuesday: Page B > Page A > Page C
• Wednesday: Page A > exit

The Content report for Page A would show 3 pageviews and a 50% bounce rate.  You might have guessed that the Bounce Rate would be 33%, but the Tuesday pageview granted to Page A is not considered in its Bounce Rate calculation. Consider that a bounce is the notion of a session with only one interaction from the user, and the session-centric analysis answers a simple yes/no question: "Did this session contain more than one pageview?" If the answer to that question is "no," then it's important to consider which page was involved in the bounce.  If the answer is "yes," then it only matters that the initial page in the session lead to other pageviews.  For that reason, bounce rate for a page is only meaningful when it initiates the session.

Now let's extend this example to explore the Exit rate and Bounce rate metrics for a series of single-session days on your site.

• Monday: Page B > Page A > Page C
• Tuesday:  Page B > Exit
• Wednesday:  Page A > Page C > Page B
• Thursday:  Page C > Exit
• Friday: Page B > Page C > Page A

The % Exit and Bounce Rate calculations are:

Exit Rate:

• Page A: 33% (3 of 5 sessions included Page A)
• Page B: 50% (4 of 5 sessions included Page B)
• Page C: 50% (4 of 5 sessions included Page C)

Bounce Rate:

• Page A: 0% (one session began with Page A, but that was not a single-page session, so it has no Bounce Rate)
• Page B: 33% (Bounce Rate is less than Exit Rate, because 3 sessions started with Page B, with one leading to a bounce)
• Page C: 100% (one session started with Page C, and it lead to a bounce)

SEO Meta tags That really Matters & Considered by Google.

What Are Meta Tags?

Meta tags are used to provide the description of any web content to search engines with information about their sites.Meta tags are always added to the <head> section of your HTML page.

Do Meta Tags Help SEO?

Yes of course,proper use of Meta tags can helps web-masters to rank there webpage including its help in many other ways.

Does Google Use What Is In Meta Tags For Ranking Pages?

Not exactly but somehow Google cares about the the meta descriptions & title tags for ranking.

What Do Meta Tags Do in SEO?

Meta tags are those text which can be readable by search engine and same will be listed in the SERP.

Do Meta Tags control my search snippet listing in Google?

Yes,mostly for meta description However Google pick or make its own relevant and preferred snippet best suited for that web page in SERP.

Can I force My Meta Description To Be Used By Google?

No, But you can optimize them of consider yours.Like

• Ask Google to index by doing “Fetch as Google” 
• Optimize and re-write again (Relevant description) 
• Double check your website for duplicate meta description ,Remove if any.

"Google’s generation of page titles and descriptions (or “snippets”) is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page as well as references to it that appear on the web. The goal of the snippet and title is to best represent and describe each result and explain how it relates to the user’s query". GOOGLE

How To Write Meta Tags? 

See,Writing proper and meaningful meta tags which describes your web page accurately in short, Like in Title it should define the page is about in 50-70 Character where descriptions should be of 150-160 character. In short it should be complete and filled as possible you can.

What Are The Important Meta tags?

List of meta tags that Google understand and considers in SERP are :

• Meta Descriptions 
• Meta Title 
• Meta Robots
• Meta sitelinks search box
• Meta No translation
• Meta Site Verification 
• Meta charset attribute

These are the tags which can be understand by Google robots however you can use more meta tags if they are important for your website.

Meta Description SEO Best Practices ?

The Meta description tag is used to summarize a web page,the same description which is around 160 characters (Ideal length)will be displayed by search engines in their SERP,which is extremely helpful in gaining the attention of users which will result a better click through rate from Search engine result page.

For Example look at Google`s own meta description

<meta name=”description” content=”Search the world’s information, including web pages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.“>

On bing.com

On Yahoo.com

On Google.com

Can Pages Still Rank High Without a Meta Description?

Yes, But its recommended by Google that using meta description of web page is good practice and quality description will be displayed in SERP.

What Does Google Say about Meta Descriptions?

“The description attribute within the <meta> tag is a good way to provide a concise,human-readable summary of each page’s content.Google will sometimes use the meta description of a page in search results snippets, if we think it gives users a more accurate description than would be possible purely from the on page content.Accurate meta descriptions can help improve your click through; here are some guidelines for properly using the meta description.”Google

Can You Control What Message Appears in The Google Search Snippet?

No.

Does Every Page Need a Meta Description?

Yes for better CTR & proper indexing its good to have unique meta description.

for more please refer :https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

Does Google Use The Meta Description When Ranking A Page?

Not exactly but Google’s reasons are somewhat mysterious,but their actions speak loudly:meta keywords don’t much matter any more,but meta descriptions most certainly matters.For more https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description.

What all Robots Meta Tag SEO Best Practices?

Google understands the following robots meta tag values :

• NOINDEX – prevents the page from being indexed.
• NOFOLLOW – prevents Google-bot from following any links on the page.
• NOARCHIVE – This tag only removes the “Cached” link for the page.
• NOSNIPPET – Prevents a description from appearing below the page in the search results, as well as prevents caching of the page.
• NOODP – blocks the Open Directory Project description of the page from being used in the description that appears below the page in the search results.
• NONE – equivalent to “NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”.

For more on.. Robots Exclusion Protocol