Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Yahoo web analytic tool




As we all are aware of Google Analytics Tool and most of web masters are using Google’s tracking tool to track their site for information regarding visitors. From which country visitor came on site, if he came from which medium he came to site, like, any key phrase search in any search engine or referral, where our link is live.

This is site tracking services of Google. Now same service is going to be live by Yahoo, smarty & dashing search engine. Yes, Yahoo is going to launch Web Analytics Services same like Google Analytics. Still yahoo is also search engine, but not these types of features. Now yahoo has also Site Analytics Feature, so now web masters have new option to use site analytics services. As we were used to use Google Analytics Tool for tracking of site visitors. But Yahoo is another option for us.

So, finally we can wait for of Yahoo Analytics, and will welcome it with our own site tracking work.

Currently yahoo web analytics is available for Small Business customers who host their e-commerce sites on Yahoo, but now it will be live for all web masters.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

16 ways to generate targeted site traffic without search engines

That’s the first question each of us search-addicted webmasters should ask ourselves every morning. While search is really hard to beat in terms of cost-of-traffic and its targeting, don’t leave these other options out of your Web Promotion Playbook. Learn how to thrive on the Internet without having to worry about the unpredictable algorithm changes of search engine algorithms and you’ve created a truly defensible audience.

In no particular order, each of these methods of engaging the Internet will deliver to you targeted, monetizable web traffic:

1. Blogging. There are a hundred good reasons as to why you should be blogging, but in terms of building a web audience, the two best reasons are A) It gives you near immediate time-to-market with your message and B) It’s a great way to put a face behind your message. Popular blog services like Technorati can deliver great traffic. If we take our search engine blinders off, blog search engines are now reaching high enough adoption rates to send over great traffic, too. Ok, search blinders back on. Don’t forget to be an active and valuable commenter on the blogs of other key influencers in your business.

2. Podcasting.
I don’t have any specific stats on podcasting, but just ask yourself, “Do I or anybody I know listen to podcasts?” I’m betting the answer is, “Yes!”, and the number is higher than it was a few years ago. Like blogging, Podcasting is a great way to control your message and bring it to market quickly.

3. Link buying. Search engines turn up their noses at link buying, but I have been buying links long before they were used to juice link popularity scoring. A good link can deliver tons of targeted traffic. Some Wikipedia links deliver way more benefit from their traffic than they ever did from their link authority. See: Text Link Ads.

4. TV Buys.
It turns out TV time really isn’t that expensive in local markets. Check out Spotrunner. You can buy great air time for a whole lot less than you probably expected.

5. Web Directories. This is how the Internet used to be organized and the genesis of Yahoo. While most fly-by-night directories won’t ever send you enough traffic to merit the fee, take a look at Aviva Directory’s List of the Strongest Directories. Work your way down this list and you’ll see targeted traffic.

6. Ad Networks.
One of the things I always try to do is buy ad inventory on any pages that rank above me. Many of the most trafficked sites on the Internet sell ad space or let ad network services like AdBrite or IndustryBrains resell the space. There is gold in some of them hills!

7. Online Forums.
Like web directories, online forums can trace their history back to the earliest days of Internet traffic. But like blogging, it’s a great way to personalize your interaction with your audience while building traffic.

8. Social Media. Aside from search engines, this is the motherload of traffic. Whether you’re building a large Myspace and Facebook presence, establishing yourself as a thoughtleader on linked in, or seeing your content promoted on Digg, Netscape, and Reddit…this is probably the largest yield of any audience building effort

9. Email List Rentals. This is a huge driver of traffic in the B2B and direct marketing worlds. If you can get the right cross section of traffic in a list, it’s very profitable. Just make sure the provider of the list is in compliance with all the laws regarding this activity.

10. Webinars/Video. Webinars just might be the hottest audience building tool in the B2B world. Like podcasting, you can really go the extra mile in personalizing the message and interaction with your audience. Video communities like YouTube are a great source of traffic. What the audience lacks in buying intent, it makes up for in the ability to take your content viral. See: LonelyGirl15.

11. Online Press Releases. Maybe the oldest and most resilient of the traditional media promotional tools, the online version is also effective. You’d be surprised how many news outlets rely on newswires. Take advantage of that through online press release agencies like PRWeb.com.

12. PR Firm. A PR firm won’t pull a rabbit out of a hat, but the good ones are amazingly good at creating inertia behind your product or service. Their Rolodexes will make it easier to do everything else on this list.

13. Event Media Sponsorships. If you are a news blogger…or your site can pass as a news site…this is an amazing source of traffic and branding that most online publishers have overlooked. Just about every major conference, seminar series, or symposium is looking for media sponsorships. You’ll get a valuable link on the event website plus you can market to eventgoers with other materials in the registration bags, booths at the show, and email blasts. The results of doing this in the B2B world are nothing short of amazing.

14. Sponsored Reviews. There are a million bloggers out there who are looking for topics to write about and get paid. The concept of the sponsored review was designed by firms like ReviewMe and PayPerPost to solve this problem. Many of the Technorati Top 100 blogs can send you thousands of visitors.

15. Syndicate Your Content. There are thousands of other businesses out there who are unable or unwilling to create their own content. For example, many Fortune 500’s display third-party content to aid their audience in buying decisions. There are also a ton of article sites with active audiences and/or good traffic. Make sure you require a link back to your original source, though. You know…to establish canonicalization for those search engines we are trying to ignore.

16. Streaking. I may only be halfway joking here because I don’t think I knew about Golden Palace before a dozen of their best Brits went Frank the Tank on various sporting events I had the misfortune of watching. If there’s any chance I can convince just one web marketing team to adopt this strategy, this is me hoping that ends up being the folks who handle Jessica Alba’s online promotion. That is one server crashing I can guarantee.

Source :- http://www.scoreboard-media.com/how-to-generate-targeted-traffic/

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

SEO Interview Questions

Every SEO prefers certain tactics over others, but familiarity with many could indicate a deeper understanding of the industry. And while every SEO doesn't need to have a web developer background, having such skills can help set someone apart from the crowd.

1. Give me a description of your general SEO experience.
2. Can you write HTML code by hand?
3. Could you briefly explain the PageRank algorithm?
4. How you created any SEO tools either from scratch or pieced together from others?
5. What do you think of PageRank?
6. What do you think of using XML sitemaps?
7. What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?
8. What SEO tools do you regularly use?
9. Under what circumstances would you look to exclude pages from search engines using robots.txt vs meta robots tag?
10. What areas do you think are currently the most important in organically ranking a site?
11. Do you have experience in copywriting and can you provide some writing samples?
12. Have you ever had something you've written reach the front-page of Digg? Sphinn? Or be Stumbled?
13. Explain to me what META tags matter in today's world.
14. Explain various steps that you would take to optimize a website?
15. If the company whose site you've been workind for has decided to move all of its content to a new domain, what steps would you take?
16. Rate from 1 to 10, tell me the most important "on page" elements
17. Review the code of past clients/company websites where SEO was performed.
18. What do you think about link buying?
19. What is Latent Semantic Analysis (LSI Indexing)?
20. What is Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval and what roles does it play?
21. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
22. What kind of strategies do you normally implement for backlinks?
23. What role does social media play in an SEO strategy?
24. What things wouldn't you to do increase rankings because the risk of penalty is too high?
25. What's the difference bewtween PageRank and ToolBar PageRank?
26. Why might you want to use nofollow on an internal link?

Analysis

A big part of SEO involves assessing the effectiveness of a campaign both relative to past performance as well as to competiting sites.

1. Are you familiar with web analytics and what packages are your familiar with?
2. From an analytics perspective, what is different between a user from organic search results vs. a type-in user?
3. How do you distinguish the results of your search optimization work from a seasonal change in traffic patterns?
4. How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working?
5. What does competitive analysis mean to you and what techniques do you use?
6. If you've done 6 months of SEO for a site and yet there haven't been any improvements, how would you go about diagnosing the problem?
7. How many target keywords should a site have?
8. How do *you* help a customer decide how to their budget between organic SEO and pay-per-click SEM?
9. You hear a rumor that Google is weighting the HTML LAYER tag very heavily in ranking the relevance of its results - how does this affect your work?
10. Why does Google rank Wikipedia for so many topics?

Monday, October 13, 2008

SEO Tips & Techniques

SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see

Fill in your TAGS.
The two most important tags are Title and Description b/c that’s what is displayed on the search results. Get other sites to LINK to yours: This is one of the most important of the 100 factors Google considers when ranking sites.

Make SEO-friendly URLs.

Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page.

The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing.

Spotlight your search term on the page.
If you want to be found for your keyword(s), make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be at the top as well as peppered throughout your copy. After all content is the KING.

Create great, unique content.
This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally.
Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

Include a site map page.
Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

Build links intelligently.
Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too. Article submission is more effect way for link building.

Use press releases wisely.
Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report.

Create a blog and post often.
Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. This can help you get links. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.

Use social media marketing wisely.
With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site.

Register for free tools.
Use the tools at google.com/webmaster, as well as creating sitemap (XML, HTML & Text).

From the above five SEO techniques, one thing is clear that Google still consider links to be one of the important factors, but not encouraging for link building. Hence, give more importance to your content and try to increase the number of quality links.