TechPatio » Search Engine Optimization

How to Improve Your SEO with StatCounter Analytics Data

Guest Author — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:38:36 +0000

All website owners who take their SEO seriously have some sort of Web analytics script running on their sites to monitor performance. One of the most feature-rich is StatCounter. This free yet powerful service can provide a ton of valuable data that you can use to refine your SEO strategies.

While it’s impossible to describe every feature here, I will highlight some of the most useful ones. First, let’s consider what you need to know to improve your website SEO. You’ll want answers to questions such as:

Which keywords is my site ranking for?
Which pages are the most popular?
How long do visitors stay on my site?
Who links to my site?
Where do my visitors come from?

Useful SEO Tools in StatCounter

Now here are some of the features in StatCounter that can help you gather the information you need. Assuming you have created a free account and have set up a project (your website), click your project’s name and look on the menu on the left for a list of statistics.

Keyword Analysis and Recent Keyword Activity

These two types of data show the keywords visitors used to find your site. “Keyword Analysis” tallies the total number of visits and the percentage of visits that arrive by way of which keywords. To see visitor activity for a specific keyword, click the magnifying glass next to it.

In “Recent Keyword Activity,” you will see the latest keyword searches made, the search engine used, the page on your site that was found and your ranking for that keyword.

How to Use This Data: Knowing what keywords you rank for is extremely important. Use the results to refine your page titles, headings and meta data. For example, you might try changing a page title to your top keyword. Also, you can use these keywords as ideas for new content.

Popular Pages

This section displays your pages by number of visits. Your most visited page appears at the top. Recorded visits are for a limited period only (anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the amount of traffic you receive– the more traffic, the shorter the period covered). If you want longer coverage, you need to upgrade to a premium StatCounter account. Anyway, this data is important because it tells you which are your “winning” and “losing” page.

How to Use This Data: You can promote your most popular pages even further, or you can try to balance things and get attention to other pages. At some point though, you might want to get rid of your weakest pages. If you get no backlinks, visits or revenue through them, it shouldn’t cause any issues if you deleted them. Just do it gradually. Don’t delete lots of pages at once.

Visit Length and Visitor Paths

“Visit Length” shows you what your average bounce rate is. The lower your bounce rate (that is, the smaller the green slice in the pie in StatCounter), the better. It means visitors stay longer on your site. A bounce rate of about 50% or less is good. 80% or higher is dangerously high. In addition to the bounce rate, you want to look up “Visitor Paths” to find out the navigation path people take through your site. After finding your site, how many pages do they look at? How do they go from one page to another?

How to Use This Data: If you know you have a high bounce rate and visitor paths are short, you need to work on your site design to improve user engagement. This is easier said than done because some niches just have a higher bounce rate on average than others. Things like internal links, multimedia and proper formatting may help.

These are just some of the things you can do with an analytics tool like StatCounter. Remember, SEO is a continuous effort and such a tool will prove to be a big help.

Article contributed by Blog Lady. Visit bloglady.net for more Internet marketing and SEO tips, Facebook login help, WordPress tutorials and more.

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Good SEO Company vs. Bad SEO Company

Guest Author — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:06:50 +0000

Websites needs to rank well if they are to attract quality traffic and in the end increase the visibility of the services or products being offered. With this high demand in achieving high search engine rakings, several companies have emerged that provide Search Engine Optimization aka SEO services. Generally, SEO involves the use of certain strategies such as keywords, link building, and page titles optimization with the main aim of increasing traffic to the website. However, not all SEO companies are genuine as some use dubious ways to get high page rankings only for the website to be penalized later. It is for this reason that businesses or individuals must distinguish between good and bad SEO companies.

Checking their Online Rankings

One easy way of differentiating between a good and bad SEO company is by checking their online reputation. Since they are providing SEO services, their website needs to rank highly for certain keywords and phrases. Make a search for the company using any of the major search engines and find out their rankings. If they rank highly then this likely means that they will use the same techniques they used on their website to ensure yours ranks highly. On the other hand, if the SEO company is not found in the top pages or even in the top 10 search engine results pages, chances are that their methods do not work.

Sample of Past Work

Good SEO companies need to be proud of their work and thus should have a portfolio of past clients. Enquire about the availability of such a portfolio and try to search for those clients using certain keywords. If the result is positive, then the company knows what it is doing and will ensure your site ranks highly on search engines. On the other hand, SEO companies that are not willing to provide you with a portfolio of their past work are likely to offer substandard service and must be avoided.

SEO process takes time and no company can guaranteefirst page rankings in a couple of days. In most cases, the process of achieving top rankings takes weeks or even months. A good SEO company will make it clear to you the duration in which to expect results. On the other hand, companies that guarantee you top rankings in days or even a week are likely to be scams. Some of these bad SEO companies will even tell you that they have discovered the search engine algorithms that allow them to deliver quicker results. The truth is that search engines never share their algorithms and they keep making regular updates.

Customized SEO Strategy

Websites are different and thus will require different SEO techniques for them to achieve high search engine rankings. A good SEO company knows this and thus ensures that SEO strategies are customized as per the needs of a website. On the other hand, a bad SEO company uses the same strategies for all of its clients. Moreover, a website might require less or more backlinks for it to rank highly for certain keywords. A SEO company that sells 50 backlinks for all of its clients is probably not genuine. This is because a website might need more than just 50 backlinks. With the high number of SEO companies in the market, it is important to carefully researchabout a SEO company before signing up for their services.

Guest article written by: Crystal J. Briscoe is from Exams Expert. Looking for HP0-Y42 exam help? Let’s take advantage of Exams Expert self paced HP0-Y40 training and pass your IT exams on first try.

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SEO – Why Sitemaps are Important

Guest Author — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:01:57 +0000

There are several SEO tactics which can help you optimize your site. One of the tactics that is at times overlooked is sitemaps. As the name suggests, this is a map of your website which shows things such as the sections of your website as well as its structure. Sitemaps make site navigation easier. Therefore, having an up-to-date sitemap is beneficial for search engines as well as your users.

Why is a sitemap necessary?

Besides better visibility by search engines and easier navigation, sitemaps offer many other benefits. They immediately notify search engines of any alterations in your site. You will be able to get any alterations on your site indexed much faster with a sitemap than without one.

When you submit a sitemap to search engines, you will depend less on external links to draw search engines to your blog or site. In addition, sitemaps can come in handy in dealing with messy internal links, such as when you have orphaned pages or broken links that can’t be accessed in any other way.

If your website is relatively new, then sitemaps can play a key role in your success. A sitemap will enable you to submit your website to search engines. Sitemaps can also be very helpful when it comes to classifying your website content.

How to create and submit sitemaps

Creating a sitemap for your website can be done in the following simple steps.

Generate the sitemap
Upload it to the website
Inform Google about it

A site map may be generated in two ways. You could download a free sitemap generator or make use of online generation tools. Though the first method is more complicated, it enables you to have more control. After downloading the package, simply follow the configuration and installation instructions in it. The second method of generating a sitemap is relatively easier. You will find numerous free online generation tools which can be helpful for you.

After generating the sitemap, you should then upload it to your website and inform Google about it. If you don’t have one already, you will need to open a Google Webmaster Tools account where you can add your site.

Guest article written by: Charles Mburugu often writes about social media, technology and blogging tips. Currently, he is writing for Flash templates.

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Why HTML5 is important for SEO?

Guest Author — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:00:02 +0000

Information technology and science is getting improved day by day. The progress and improvement in this field can be proven by hundreds of prominent and popular examples. The HTML5 is also important for the search engine optimization. However, there is a conflict among the experts and professionals about the potential of HTML5 for the search engine optimization.

Anyhow, it is true that HTML5 is basically useful for the search engine optimization. Definitely, you will be waiting to learn to reason why we are suggesting HTML5 better for search engine optimization so we will include some information about the HTML5 in this article. It is a set of technologies and applications that is useful for the websites. The website holders usually apply certain standards and codes when making the websites. These standards and codes are easy to apply and use but if you are trying them with HTML5 then there will be problems for you. Do you know when it was upgraded? We think the last upgrade was done in 1997 so the latest versions of HTML5 are basically belonging to the old software and application.

HTML5 helps to promote the websites more efficiently:

It is obvious that HTML5 is useful for the websites. There are many factors that change the potential and efficacy of the HTML5 but the main focus should be on the web promotional features. It can help the website holders and bloggers to import the best search engine optimization strategies and practices. The search engine optimization requires simple and compatible web layouts and formats. The HTML5 allows the search engine optimization process to be completed as soon as possible. Because of this reason it is considered best for the search engine optimization.

HTML5 for the best recognition of web content:

The HTML5 is a best protocol to gain best recognition for the web contents. It demands the web developers and designers to choose the specifics codes and standards that are rich in quality and back links. No doubt the quality of web content can increase or decrease the popularity of a website so it is important o keep the web contents quality rich. The back links are producing more utilities and comforts for the online users. The back links are completely supported by the HTML5 that’s why it is best for the search engine optimization. All the experienced search engine optimization experts and professionals understand the importance of quality web contents and back links so using the HTML5 is their first preference.

HTML5 improves the tags of articles, sections, header and footers:

Tags are considered really essential for the good search engine optimization because the search engine match the tags and keywords when searching for the inserted keywords. The HTML5 is popular to bring new tags for articles, sections, headers and footers. It beings new tags for the web pages that is really ideal. The HTML5 allow the web developers and designers to make new segmentation. The web page segmentations enable the users to find the related search and results on separate web pages.

Guest article written by: Crystal J. Briscoe is from Test Certify. Looking for IT exams help? Let’s take advantage of Test Certify self paced E20-816 Exam training and pass your exams on first try.

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Understanding the Importance of SEO for Small Business

Guest Author — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:24:25 +0000

Many people across the world do not know the importance of search engine optimization in small business. This is mainly because some say that small businesses have limited resources hence do not need SEO. On the other hand, a good number of individuals over expects from search engine optimization. They believe that with SEO, one can yield millions of money within a year. All the same SEO still makes up the best advertising niche for businesses online.

Importance of SEO for small business

Similarly, individuals who have experienced disappointments from SEO companies would criticize it a lot because they do not understand the importance of SEO in small businesses. Nonetheless, search engine optimization is an outline of advertising as well as an outline of planned advertisement. On other words, this means that it would only be possible for one to sell products as well as services to individuals who have looked up for ones selected keywords. Importance of search engine optimization in small business is to help it gain popularity among traffic which in return would facilitate the growth of the business hence one should never over expect from it.

It is true to say that advertising as well as marketing do not grow old as human beings do, perhaps, due to the advancements in the current technology, only the perspective would change. Among the best as well as popular ways of gaining attention for ones business online is through advertisements. Moreover, it would be senseless to say that the current generation do not visit internet. This is because, the recent people, are internet friendly, be it doing shopping, surfing the web, chatting with friends as well as playing games.

The main fact about SEO in relation to business is that it makes a business and that it does not necessarily break a business. Moreover search engine optimization does not just facilitate a business’ growth; it is through ones efforts that it works better. This is done through identifying relevant keywords in relation to ones products, ideas as well as services that would enable traffic to access a business. The main part of internet life is search engine hence it must form ones marketing campaign.

Ways of attracting attention online

Writing good articles as well as texts regarding ones products, ideas in addition to services form a website through search engine optimization, another way is through pay per click, Banner advertisements may also be used as well as news articles. Search engine optimization does not only offer affordable prices for small businesses, it also forms the most suitable advertising niche. This means that one will not necessarily sell his products and services to bloggers in addition to googlers, instead, one would sell to people who have adequate information regarding the goods.

Since SEO is affordable as well as targeted making it remarkably significant for small businesses, especially to individuals that can not pay for running of their ads on random internet sites as well s paying for other expensive advertisements.

Guest article written by: Crystal J. Briscoe is from Self Test Engine. Looking for 70-686 exam help? Let’s take advantage of Self Test Engine self paced 70-640 training and pass your IT exams on first try.

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Why You Should Optimize Your Website Content for SEO

Guest Author — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:00:33 +0000

If you want to get high search engine rankings in search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo etc you will need to optimize your website content. Search engine optimization is all about optimizing a website content to achieve high search engine rankings. SEO is an important part of online success and if you want to rank well in major search engines you will need to apply the various search engine optimization techniques. You can easily improve your site’s search engine listings when you apply SEO techniques.

What Is SEO?

SEO or search engine optimization is the process of making the website content relevant for both users and search engines. When you apply SEO techniques to your website search engine spiders crawl over your website and this helps boost search engine rankings for your keywords.

Your website needs to achieve a high SERP for getting quality traffic from search engines. You should aim to reach the first page of various search engines as people rarely go to the second page of the search results. You will be able to get traffic to your site only if people find your site when they search for information online using the relevant keywords and phrases. SEO companies use various SEO techniques to get high Search Engine Result Position.

Today several website owners and bloggers are implementing search engine optimization techniques to improve their search engine rankings and increase traffic levels for their site. Search engine optimization is an elaborate process which requires a lot of focus and hard work to show results. It is important to understand search engine algorithms to get the best results from a SEO campaign.

One of the most common and effective SEO technique is to build your website content around unique keywords and phrases which have reasonable amount of search volumes but not too much competition. You will need to write articles and post in your website using the keywords for which you want your site to achieve high search engine rankings. This is one of the best ways to increase traffic to your website.

You should also use meta tags to optimize the keywords you are targeting which would enable search engines to easily index your web content. A number of other factors like structure, layout and page rank too contribute to the search engine rankings of your website.

There are several benefits of optimizing your website content using effective SEO techniques. You get free targeted traffic from search engines which can be monetized to improve profit potential of your website.

Guest article written by: Fazal Mayar is a young blogger in the make money online niche. Subscribe to his blog’s RSS FEED for more great posts.

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Affects of Google Plus Pages in SEO

Guest Author — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:32:41 +0000

It has come to many people’s realization that recently, Google plus has increased a lot in relation to its growth. Since the implementation, Google plus has been able to receive millions and millions of users including Facebook as well as an option that enables businesses to have profiles. In the past, it could only host individual user profiles. It forms the greatest opportunity for businesses to advertise on their products, services as well as brands. Its new business pages are of great significance in the search engine optimization.

Common factors as well as search grading

Although it would be difficult to tell now that Google plus can pressurize search grading in the near future, some professionals guess about wherever SEO hard work must be going to. There is a long list of factors that has proof on the fact that Google plus can affect search engine optimization ones recognizes on facebook as well as twitter. The number of likes as well as retweets with a link has an association with how internet page can be indexed in Google.

Google plus as SEO friendly

The better part of Google plus is that it is SEO friendly hence enhancing its page rankings. Ones webpage as well as a blog is normally suggested by friends via Google plus, hence ones webpage may come into view inside the Google outcomes of ones associates on twitter in addition to facebook. Ones webpage can be promoted through media contacts due to the ability of Google to link individual contacts on Facebook in addition to Twitter.

Ones page rankings improve as the websites obtains more visibility. Consequently, it is prudent to acquire more crack hoses while utilizing the Google plus button. The basic requirement for social networking is solitude, expediency, easy integration as well as ease of application. The mentioned factors influences search engine optimization greatly in relation to effort.

Going through the +1 button means that a specific Google is relevant to a keyword on what an individual based his search. As Google is putting emphasis on content that is distributed on social media sites, advanced authentication of writing, article, images as well as video that consists of the presence of +1 clicks, SEO is prepares itself for incase of any change as every click a +1 leads to contribution of Google ranking of ones page. At this point, search engine optimization promises that all client content is shared to all +1 users.

The main point being driven home is that Google plus has a possibility of increasing ones rankings due to the probabilities that ones WebPage can be given usual endorsement from all users, this is what makes up the main point that Google checks while it ranks pages. Nonetheless, one should comprehend that it should be merely be pat of Google algorithm. Additionally, high rankings in relation to ones webpage contributes a lot to driving more traffic to ones website hence more sites that offers search engine optimization receives more visitors. Not to forget mentioning that content also matters a lot when looking for traffic.

Guest article written by: Crystal J. Briscoe is from Self Test Engine. Looking for 000-603 exam help? Let’s take advantage of Self Test Engine self paced E20-390 training and pass your IT exams on first try.

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How to Select an SEO Company

Guest Author — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:24:32 +0000

When your site fails to rank well despite of all your individual SEO efforts, you might want to consider hiring the services of a SEO company. However, there are many SEO companies that are unreliable. You can lower the risk of hiring a dubious SEO company if you know what to look for. When you have a significant understanding of SEO, you can judge whether a company’s goals are realistic and their promises credible.

The following are some things to consider when selecting a SEO company.

1. Do they promise a #1 ranking?

If they promise this, then there is reason to question their competency. When it comes to search engines, a #1 ranking is never guaranteed. This is the case even for keywords that are not very competitive.

2. Ask business partners and friends for recommendations

Word of mouth recommendation is vital for establishing a company’s credibility.

3. Inquire in forums

There are numerous credible webmaster forums where you can get recommendations for SEO companies. However, keep in mind that not all people who post in forums are honest. Therefore, their positive or negative views need to be taken with a pinch of salt. You will not always get reliable information from forums.

4. Google the company

If the company has a reputation as a scam, you are likely to get information about this online. However, absence of negative publicity doesn’t automatically imply that the firm is credible, nor do negative opinions don’t necessarily imply that it is a scam.

5. Ask for samples of previously optimized sites

The best proof of a company’s competence is happy customers. Ask the SEO Company to show you references from clients and examples of previously optimized sites. If your request is declined on the basis of confidentiality, then the credibility of the company is questionable.

6. Find out the page rank of their website

If the company is not able to optimize their own website to achieve a good PR (over 4), hiring them is not advisable.

7. Automated submissions

If the company uses automated submissions, avoid them like the plague. Search engines can ban your site for using automated submissions.

8. Black hat SEO tactics

If the company uses black hat SEO tactics, don’t have anything to do with them.

9. Source of back links

Back links are crucial for success in SEO. However, if they come from sites such as link farms, they can be very harmful. Make sure the SEO company only gets links from credible sites.

10. How much are they charging?

Just because a company charges much does not guarantee a better SEO job. On the other hand, you need to be cautious of companies who charge peanuts for their services.

Guest article written by: ZK is the co-founder of Internet Marketing Blog where accomplished writers and bloggers share their tips, strategies and stories. Follow him on Twitter at @webtrafficroi.

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What Does Google Analytics Tell You About Your Site

Guest Author — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:22:30 +0000

Google Analytics is a wonderful tool for any webmaster, but what many of us may be ignoring might just be the most important part of Analytics. Tracking site search can hold valuable information about your site and the searchers that use your site. Many of us overlook this data in favour of the easier to understand metrics like, Visits, page views and bounce rates.

The problem with this data is that it doesn’t really tell you very much and the bounce rate is the only one that can hold any value. It’s clear to see if you have a high bounce and if this is the case you will need to figure out why. Is there something wrong with your landing pages or the keywords being use to get to these landing pages? Your bounce rate tells you that you could have a problem but it doesn’t do any more than this, it’s then up to you to use this data to figure out where the issues lie.

If your sites bounce rate can provide you with this level of insight into how well your site is preforming, where problems lie. Then knowing about the data in your site search can offer you even more of an insight.

What it can tell you

The first thing that Analytics site search will tell you is the amount of your traffic that actually use your search function. Usually anywhere between 15 and 30% will use the search function. It doesn’t matter if you site is easy to navigate and the information they are looking for is right in front of them, there is still a good chance they will use your search.

Analytics will store the search terms and phrases that people used on your site, but did you have the content that they were looking for? If so; was it really the right content for them and if not can you add something that will help to answer these questions in the future?

Even if you think that you have the right content that you believe will answer their questions, looking at what pages they viewed after they searched will tell you for definite if that really is the case. There are usually 3 outcomes here, (1) they stayed on the page for a couple of minutes, (2) they bounced back to the search results page to try and find another more suitable search result or (3) the left your site straight after they viewed the suggested page.

Out of these 3 possible outcomes, only one is advantageous to your site and that is the first one where they stayed on this page, presumably to consume the content on this page.

Bouncing back to the search results page will usually mean that your site may not be displaying the most relevant results for a given search. Which will mean you will need to review what search results are being returned and if they can be improved.

If they leave your site completely it’s often the worst outcome possible and will usually mean that your content did a terrible job of answering their question and instead of giving your site another chance, they decided to look elsewhere for an answer.

As you can see, monitoring your sites bounce rate only really begins to scratch of the surface of how well your site is doing. If you want truly actionable metrics and data then it is time to start looking at what is stored in Google Analytics site search.

This is a guest post by Neil Jones who is head of marketing for eMobileScan, one of Europes largest online retailers of handheld computers and barcode scanners, including the Motorola MC70 and LS2208.

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Off Page Search Engine Optimization

Guest Author — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 07:54:16 +0000

You can make use of other’s websites to promote and attract traffic towards yours. The category of SEO in which you tries to drive traffic from external websites is known as Off Page Search Engine Optimization. Here are a few commonly used Off Page SEO techniques.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are a great method to promote your website. You can get hundreds to millions of users grab the latest happening on your website by using feeds provided by social networking sites. Most commonly used sites in this category include Facebook and Twitter.

Forum Postings

Try to find do-follow forums in a niche related to your website. Then post on these forums with either a link within the posts or a link in the signature. Make sure the forum is a do-follow one.

Directory Submission

Thousands of free as well as paid web-directories are online. Post your website to at least all the free web-directories and if your budget permits, go for the paid web-directories.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are a great method of generating traffic to you. Apart from the backlinks, you can get some genuine traffic from these social bookmarking websites as well.

Link Exchanging

It’s always good to make friends. Try to develop healthy relationships with your competitors. You can do link exchanging with other websites by placing their links on your website and asking them to backlink to your website as well.

Exploit Video Uploading

Video uploading sites can be used in different ways to drive traffic. You can upload demos, tutorials and promos on websites like YouTube. The more people view the video, the more people will get to know about your website. You can place a link in the description to your website. Another technique you can opt is to upload a part of some interesting video and ask the visitors to come and view your website to see the remaining part.

Article Directory Submission

Write articles and submit them to different article directories. You can place link to your website within the article or in the author information. If you are placing same article on different directories, try to spin it and avoid content duplication.

Answering Services

Some websites like Yahoo Answers and Wiki Answers, let people post questions and others to answer them. You can reply to different questions on these websites and place a backlink to your website while making an answer.

Volunteer Works

It’s not necessary to always place a backlink everywhere. A customer knowing the brand name of your website may also like to visit your website. Upload some pictures, slides or PDF files on sharing sites branded with your website name. If the viewer finds the information useful, he might come to see your website for more such material. For example, if you have a website containing Medifast and Nutrisystem coupons, you could create a document related to it and upload it on a document viewing site.

Guest article written by: Saksham is a professional blogger and a writer and writes about blogging and SEO. He also blogs for diet and weight loss program sites that offer newest Medifast promo coupon and discount code for Nutrisystem.

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