Lots of discussions have recently been running concerning the recently introduced Google Authorship. It’s important to understand what Google Authorship is and how it affects your web page’s position on the search engine’s result pages, as well as the Google CTR (click through rate).

What is Google Authorship?

This is a method that Google introduced to give authors the chance to identify themselves as the real owners of a given piece of content. Using the “rel author” markup, you can associate a web page that you have authored with your G+ profile. Author information containing your name, image and G+ information will then start appearing on the Google search engine result pages that contain your web page as one of the search result.

How to implement Google Authorship on your websites

This is a simple process that only takes a few minutes. All you will need is a Google + profile. This is how to do it:

• Log into G+ and go to your profile
• Click on the Edit Profile button
• On the About tab, go to Contributor To link and add the URL of your website, set the permission as public and save
• While still on your profile, copy your profile id (a 21 digit number you will find within the URL in the address bar of your browser)
• In the following html code, replace “your-code” with your profile ID <a href=”https://plus.google.com/your-code?rel=author”>Add to the circle</a>
• Paste the html code with your profile ID in the header section of your website and wait for some time (about 24 hours) for your Google Authorship to start appearing on Googles SERPs

Benefits of Google Authorship to SEO and CTR

Improves Google SEO

Before the implementation of Google Authorship, the sites listed at the top of the SERPs are seen as most relevant and useful, without the ability for users to differentiate which sites are actually the most credible or trustworthy sources of information.  Google Authorship makes it easier for authentic and credible sites to be found.  Additionally, given the rapidly growing social media trends, Google Authorship is making search more social by putting a face and name to the website.

Increases in Google CTR

It is logical that readers are more likely to click on content that has its authorship known than on that which does not. The presence of a profile picture on Google Authorship also helps readers to easily identify your content. So if you have established yourself as an authority in your field, the click through rates even on the other pieces that you have authored will be increased.

Win, win, win?

Sure, there’s a clear objective from Google to build up its Google+ network using Google Authorship, but… so what?  This is a beneficial relationship for 1) people searching on Google and getting better access to relevant, credible content 2) content-based websites trying to rank on Google and 3) Google itself.  It’s an excellent opportunity for smaller blogs with excellent original content, but low rankings in the search engines to gain exposure for themselves in the SERPs and worth taking advantage of!

Posted May 21st 2012 to Blogging,Google SEO,Internet Marketing,SEO • Comments (1)

There are many ways through which you can generate traffic to your business website, but by far blogging is among the best methods to do it for free. Just by sharing your thoughts regularly through a blog, you can start increasing your fan base within a targeted niche and give your products and services massive exposure.

Here are some steps on how to increase your website traffic through blogging:

1.    Install blog software on your website through your hosting control panel. If you have your own domain name and web hosting provider, it is easy to install a third party blog platform on your website. This may sound a little bit technical but it is not. For example, if you are using Hostgator for your web hosting, there is an option for you to install a WordPress blog on your site for free. The WordPress blog will then be hosted on a dedicated folder within your website, and you can smoothly guide your online visitors to the blog through your home page.

2.    Start posting valuable content on your blog. Initially, after your blog is created, what you need to do is publish some content on it to get the ball rolling. The recommended amount is at least three to five blog posts before you start promoting your blog. You have the liberty to do the actual writing on your own, or you can outsource the entire project to an experienced blogger who understands your niche or industry. Make sure that you prioritize writing for your audience instead of the search engines.

3.    Bookmark and share your blog posts on social sites. After your blog has its initial set of blog posts, start generating some traffic by sharing your blog post links on social networking and bookmarking sites. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Linked In, are just some of the big social networking platforms where you can easily reach people when you post. When you socially bookmark your blog posts, you will not just be able to spread the word to hundreds of people, but you will also be able to alert the search engines regarding your fresh content.

4.    Give your blog readers an easy way to subscribe. When you promote and maintain a blog, your goal is not just to gain one-time readers. Rather, your aim is to generate subscribers who will regularly visit each time you post new content. Readers can subscribe through your blog’s RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication feeds). These are simple widgets naturally built within your blog that gives readers easy access to your most recent content either through their online browser or email address.

5.    Exchange guest posts with other bloggers within your niche. If you want to gain a bigger share of the pie of internet traffic within your specific industry, team up with bloggers in your niche for guest posting agreements. The easiest way to do this is to contact those bloggers via email or telephone and try to negotiate the terms on how you can make a guest post on their blog and promote your website links. Looking for guest posting prospects on an on-going basis is a great way to increase your traffic and become an authority in your niche as well.

On the other hand, if you do not have your own website yet, you can still start a blog by opening an account in WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, or any other free blogging platform.

Posted May 11th 2012 to Blogging,Internet Marketing • Comments (1)

If there is a part of search engine optimization that is crucial in today’s era, then that part is SEO link building. Experienced experts in search engine optimization will tell you that many of the sites that have high rankings on Google and other search engines are there because they have many credible websites linking to them.

Of course search engine crawlers still look at other factors including the use of keywords within the text in your pages and the contents of your website’s Meta tags, but getting links to your site remains of the most important determinants of where you will appear in the SERPs (search engine result pages). This is because search engines interpret the fact that other sites are linking to yours to mean that your site contains very useful information, which is what Google and its counterparts have always wanted to give their users.

So, how do you do SEO link building for your website?  Simply put, create great content for your website and others will link to it, and you won’t even have to ask them to do so. This is actually the best and the only acceptable method by search engines. The problem is that it is not as easy as it may sound. Developing that great content will require lots of work and time, and it would probably take even more time before other website owners start discovering your content and linking to it.

This difficulty has led to website owners seeking other ways of getting the desired links. There are basically two approaches that you can use:

1)       You can choose to do it yourself

2)      You can pay someone else or a company to do it for you.

Let’s start by looking at how you can do it yourself.  There are actually more ways of doing this than we can discuss in this article. The most popular techniques include article marketing, blog marketing, social bookmarking, creating Squidoo lenses, use of directories and posting in forums. The basic idea behind these techniques is to create content, comments or posts that contain information related to what your website is about and posting them in the respective areas, with links to the website you are marketing. These techniques work to some extent but as search engine algorithms change, they may stop considering these links as powerful since they are not merit based.

Having discovered how important quality back links are to websites rankings, there are many companies that sell link building services. You can use the services of these companies in your SEO link building without much struggle.  There are several companies that offer backlink services and you should be careful in choosing the companies since some of them will use link spam techniques which once detected by search engines will hurt your ranking. Members of IMReportCard love the trusted service like LinkVana, which builds powerful link wheels around your site using high PR sites in the wheels.  The links that are created in the wheels are permanent back links to your site!

IMRC members also get access to an exclusive 30 day free trial of LinkVana, which is an excellent way to get started with your link building strategy.  You can sign up for the Free LinkVana trial here.

Another great option is SEnuke X which is an automated tool that helps your build backlinks on autopilot.  SEnuke X offers a FREE 14 Day Trial which is definitely worth checking out!

In conclusion, it is clear that SEO link building in 2012 calls for a creative approach. There is also no doubt that great content on your website is crucial if you are to get merit based links, which Google and other major search engines deem to be most credible.

Posted May 08th 2012 to SEO • Comments (1)

Tweaking or adjusting some important factors in your website can dramatically increase your search engine rankings and traffic. However, lots of internet entrepreneurs overlook, underestimate or ignore the power of on-page search engine optimization. As a result, they are not able to maximize the results that they can get from increased organic web traffic.

A popular misconception about on-page search engine optimization is that it is a difficult and extremely technical thing to do. However, the truth is that the concept or principle behind it is much simpler than it really is. The following tips and step-by-step guidelines will help you adjust on-page website factors to dramatically improve your organic traffic:

1.    Strategically place industry competitive keywords in your page title and meta tags. This requires you to include the keywords you want to rank for within the page title of your website. In the page title alone, it is possible for you to target at least three to five keyword phrases. However, you should be wary of repeating the keyword phrases too often. Avoid repeating individual words more than once or twice, as it will look like spam to the search engines.

The meta tags section of your website is where you should place a longer list of keywords that you want to rank for in the search engines. Make sure that the keywords you list in this section are relevant to the content of your website.

2.    Create a sitemap. A sitemap is a separate page that lists down all the links and pages that your website has. The links and pages are arranged in hierarchical order and clearly show which page links to the next. Creating a sitemap is extremely important if you want to increase your online rankings because search engines crawl this to determine the structure of your site and internal linking factors. Sites with a better structure and clearer hierarchy of webpages tend to have higher search engine rankings than those who do not have any sitemap at all.

3.    Make your navigation bar links keyword-rich and SEO friendly. Instead of using common words in your navigation bar such as “Home”, “About Us”, or “Contact Us”, try to include your keywords. For example if you are in the weight loss niche, try navigation bar headings such as “Weight Loss Home”, “About Our Weight Loss Team”, or “Contact A Dieting Expert”. On the other hand, try not to overdo this as it may be bad for your rankings and traffic if done in a spammy way. Another good strategy would be to use generic, common terms within the home page, then use keyword rich navigation bar titles on your site’s subpages.

4.    Let keywords occur naturally in your website copy. In the past, SEO practitioners simply included their targeted keyword phrases repeatedly within the body of their website content in order to optimize their sites for the search engines. Today, this method does not work as effectively as before. What you should do to get the search engines to love you is to let your keyword phrases occur naturally within your site’s sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes the individual words of a keyword phrase must be spread out and diluted all throughout the sentences and paragraphs to make it all look more natural.

Adjusting important elements within your website may seem a bit difficult at first, but its long term results are worth it. Constantly tweaking your site, or outsourcing the task to an on-page SEO professional, is well worth the time, money and effort you invest because you’ll get much more targeted traffic in the long run.