Social Media VS Link Building. What is Better?

Social media has the power of offering better search results without spending money. It is also a place where we can get better results with good ranking. Link building also still works to get great links. Let’s see about both the cases which works better for your search results.

How does Link Building Work

Link building is the process of developing quality links of the website to increase search engine rankings. In link building there are many strategies which can help you to succeed. The most used one will be the advantage for the site to endorse the links and which works there. Many sites ask for the payment to host a link, but others also expect the same favor from you in return.

Social Media SEO Role

Now we all noticed that social media has become very powerful advanced technology in SEO role. Post the messages regularly in Facebook and Twitter so that they spread very fast to customers in just minutes. This is the reason why social media has been used by many members. Search engines understood that social activity is the good indicator for using shares, tweets, likes to offer better ranking.

Link Building VS Social Media Tips

1. It is Better to Use Both

Few people use Link building and social media, it is better to consider both. Link building strategies are much better but with the advantage of social media also you can get better results.

2. Social Media Gets you in Touch with Customers

The popularity of social networking is huge and it reaches the customer very fast as a door for marketing. The traditional link building works with a social media circle and then the quality links will give you the good results.

3. Link Baiting and Influential Social media

Always research the opportunities and be aware of what is trending. Trending can be created through social media campaigns of informative texts and attraction. Try to create image content, from that you can plug in links where you are referring to search engine results page. Impression is your goal where people see you as important and then be remembered. Maximum exposure will end up with the links without doing anything but only using social media properly.

Comparing social media with marketing will have many similarities. People will pass the information with resources like social networks. Quality stands as the main key to your success and avoid negative effects. Link building is made easy with combining both social media and link building. Search engine can do all the results which are relevant to social media. The best thing to get the good results is to work on both to rank high.

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR WEBSITE FROM GOOGLE SEO PENALTIES

     If there is a sudden fall in ranking of your website then Google algorithm changes like Penguin and Panda is updated. When Google changes the search algorithm with rolls out of Google Panda and Penguin updates, penalties are common. To check for Google penalty requires recent analysis to be made. If you guess a Google penalty, first refer the Google algorithm change history in SEOMoz and check when the changes are made and what has caused the problem.

     When you suspect Google penalty, you can check how many number of URLs are indexed for your site. You can use site:yourdomainname.com and search in Google. If no URLs are indexed then there may be a chance of penalty to occur for your website. If Google penalties are severe then your site gets banned and de-indexed.

The following are some of the ways to protect your website from Google SEO Penalties:

1. Audit your Links Monthly:

First check with your back links which are high quality and low quality sites and which sites are actually linking to you. If you find any of your links are from low quality sites you can email them and request for the link to be removed. You can keep the document of the sites which you have emailed and when. This document would be useful when your site gets penalized and have to submit a reconsideration request. You can choose any SEO tool to monitor your back links and perform on a monthly basis.

2. Check your Anchor Density:

High anchor density is one of the factor which leads to penguin penalties. It is important to know the anchor density of your keywords. When new links are generated, anchor density changes. You can generate anchor density report every month. Anchor density for the brand terms increases by 50% but with no penalties. If you find that your density is increasing then builds the brand terms. 

3. Link Ratios: What to Monitor, and What they Matter:

By using ratios you can monitor earned vs. unearned links. Some of the ratios are given below:

Type of Link: Image vs. Text vs. Mentions

Location of Link: Paragraph vs. Link List vs. In Content vs. Sidebar vs. Header

Theme of Domain: Business vs. Computers vs. Reference vs. Portals vs. News

Type of Site: General vs. Blog vs. CMS vs. Link Directory vs. Social Network Sitewide Ratio

Deep Links Ratio

If there are number of links coming to your site from directories then it shows as an imbalance and try to build other links and create natural back link profile.

4. Watch your Webmaster Tools Account:

Some of the site owners do not have Webmaster Tools account and don't monitor it. You can see the links which Google shows in your account and helps you to find the problematic links. You can also identify the low quality links very quickly if you keep tabs on these links. If Googlebot can't access your website then you can see many crawl errors. Before there is loss in rankings and drop in traffic for your site make sure to monitor your webmaster account.

5. Create Google Analytics Alerts:

Google Analytics helps you to know whether your traffic has been decreased or if anything is changed by creating Intelligence Events Alerts.

The following screenshot is the Google Analytics Alert Conditions:

The following are some of the alerts that you can set up:

a. 10% Traffic drop

b. Bounce rate increases by more than 5%

c. Google organic traffic decreased by more than 5%

You must review the site and also back links if there are any problems before resulting in penalties and drop in traffic.

6. Don't Engage in Spammy Link Building:

You can find numerous spammy and low quality links from directories and article sites. 

Some of them used Fiverr gigs for link building and build 10,000 wiki links.

It is not worthy in doing those links which will get you penalized if any algorithm is updated. Fiverr doesn't work for link building. 

You can check for the distribution of TLDs your linking domains have in Open site Explorer tool as shown in the below screenshot: 

7. Build High Quality Links:

Focus on building high quality links to your site and rank well in search engine results.

Focus on building high quality links to your site and rank well in search engine results.

How Google’s Disavow Links Tool Can Remove Penalties

By using Google’s link disavow tool can we remove penalties? Yes, but whereas manual penalties, disavowing links cannot be removed. For removing algorithmic penalties more time is required. Know more about both the methods below.

Disavowing Links: “Don’t Count These Votes!”

When u submit disavow requisition, Google will process that request and tag those links pointing at your site as nofollow tag on them, as if they aren’t indeed pointing at your site for any purposes.

We can say that if links are votes, using the link disavow tool efficiently tells Google that you don’t require that votes calculated, for better or worse, toward your rankings.

This procedure is done automatically, but it still takes weeks until the disavow request is processed.

Removing Algorithmic Penalties

Let talk about situation where we are hit by an algorithmic penalty related to links, such as the Penguin Update. Algorithmic another penalty involves no human inspection at all. Instead, Google computers say that site has done something wrong.

To remove those penalties we should remove that links. In that situation link disavow can help. We use it to correctly disavow bad links that were harm your site.

First we should clean up the links then we have to wait for the disavow request to get processed but it may take more time.

Next step is to wait until next time the Google algorithm hit your site. Even you have used disavow to clean up the links; you have to wait till next Penguin Update hit your site.

For example where you file the disavow request before a Penguin Update, you still might not get clean up because it takes several weeks to get processed. You’ll have to wait for the next update.

Eventually, if you are using this tool, you observe a change but it takes time. You can clean up links by file disavow alone when you hit by algorithmic penalty.

Removing Manual Penalties

In this situation it is much faster than previous if your site were hit by a manual penalty. In this case some human being at Google has examined your site and decided that it deserves a penalty. In effect with all of these cases, you may receive a notice from Google that penalty has occurred.

If it hits bad links, we can remove that links by using disavow tool. Nevertheless, the links can't be removed automatically as it was placed manually. Therefore you have to put a file reconsideration request. This will induce a person at Google to check on your site. By checking link disavow request and if it's enough, manual penalty may be removed.

Two things you have to do are disavow links and file a reconsideration request. And the third import thing you have to do is to make a good effort to remove links not simply using link disavow.

We should keep in mind that manual penalties have expiry dates and Google reminds that after a period of time, the penalty on your site ought to expire certainly. That’s why you may see an improvement in your site even if you do nothing. 

If you do nothing it may leave you subject to an algorithmic penalty in the future. In short, you should take as a warning or you may have to face an algorithmic penalty in future. 

Common Search Engine Optimization Risks:

For Online marketing, SEO has been considered as cost effective and beneficial tool. SEO is backbone to your website. To get high traffic and ranking, it is important to take risks in business. Before taking a risk in business, you should consider whether that risk brings you profit or not and you have to face possible consequences.

    While taking a risk in business you must consider target customers. The more experience you have in SEO field, the fewer problems you may face because you have already faced such problems and solved them. Consider the SEO Strategies that you have implemented in past to develop your business and then cross check which one will work for your current industry.

Few SEO risks:

Changing your website design: 

Changing website design is a risky job. Website owners are often afraid to change their design because it can harm their website (bad SEO affects). If the design source code goes wrong, it may confuse search engine bots and may lose link juice.

Hiring a Content Writer with no SEO experience:

  In SEO industry, content is the king. Advantage of taking a writer with an SEO experience is that you no need to train them. SEO background content writers can easily understand the importance of target keywords. Hiring a content writer with SEO background will help your business ranking as well as interacting with users and search engines easily.

Hire a social media expert: Most of the people think that they are social media experts because they have social media accounts. If you hire someone who does not understand how social media works for business, you may lose out on time and money.

Avoid SEO Risks like Cloaking and keyword stuffing

Google penalizes or bans the website if you follow black hat SEO strategies. It might be good idea at first, but Google easily finds you. 

You can boost your website by following proper guidelines and waiting patiently for the right traffic. Follow methods which are used by popular websites and to improve your visibility in search results learn how to use target keywords and meta tags. Check how search engine bots work and place required factors in your site to make it easier for bots to index you.

10 Tips for SEO Landing Pages

                 Landing pages are to be optimized perfectly as URLs of these pages will be given in campaigns to drive targeted traffic. When a user clicks on search results then they will be directed to a particular page, so to optimize these landing pages we need to remember following points:

Connect with intent: This means that we have to put forward what a user expects when he clicks our site.

Resolve (initial) user query: It is our responsibility to answer their initial query.

Engage the user: Next step is that we need to send user signals to search engines.

Drive further user engagement: We need to check if there is any necessity of sending additional signals to both user as well as search engines.

         Searcher intent to site content commitment set-up can be named as “CRED”. In all the above circumstances signed in users, search query modification, Chrome browsers, “cookie users” and tool bar data supply large amount of engagement signals to search engines on how users interact on sites. So, we need to obtain most advantageous engagement situations. Following are 10 SEO steps which ensure us to add a bit of “CRED” to our SEO campaigns for making them successful. 

Connecting:

1. Is intent aligned in the primary headlines?

The very first thing any user notices in a site after he enters a page is content structure, headers, bolded elements, headlines etc. In few seconds we need to grab attention of users by immediately connecting with original search query and then we need to make it clear what the entire page is about. Content has to be created by bearing in mind that headlines, graphic headers that are obvious, short, surrounded by adequate white space and it should draw user’s attention.

2. Need to check whether content type is matching with query intent?

As users will not like to spend much time on checking the content whether what they require is present or not, it is a better option to include target queries. Within the short span of time users want to check what they expect is matching with what is present on site. If it is not present they immediately equate to a quick “back click”. Following is the example for the query “best health insurance plans for single men”.

Resolving:

3. Could users be able to answer who, what and why to perform a fast look at above the fold?

In general, users will not go through complete page at first visit but they just look at visual cues and click expectations. So, it is better to make users click through the site and ask following questions:

Is this brand apparent?

Is it noticeable what you do?

Is it clear why they should stick around?

It is our responsibility to make users believe through landing pages that our brand is obvious. By giving clear information to the users we can make them stick around and click also engage them further. Following is the example for the query “flat head screw driver”.

Engaging:

Important engagement options such as add to cart, search for categories and other options help to answer the question clearly on what is their next step. 

4. Is it clear on what is the next step for users to do on the page?

Product pages should offer buttons so that users can easily understand their next step, once they have landed on the page they need. For instance in above example we can see buttons like product description button where they can read briefly about the product and can go on to next step about specifications and so on. But, in some cases too many buttons may also confuse the user.

5. Are there any on-page modification options based on the queries required to modify?

It will be a good option to provide on-page modification options such as search functionality, related products etc. These options help user to switch to next product or category without the need to click back to homepage. Breadcrumbs, side navigation, filters, related prods, color/size selection are all practicable preferences to ease click backs and pick up onsite engagement signals. 

Driving

6. Are ‘next clicks’ consistent?

By watching user interaction on a per query basis, website owners can easily spot consistencies or insufficiency in matching of search intent to site content. If we provide with “next clicks” from landing page to core information page that user expects then user will have good experience which indirectly helps us with better potential rank ability.

7. Can they share what they have found on the site?

With the requirement of audience vs. social media, sharing of a page is different than a click through to a social page, and it should be an important button on most landing pages. Social signals play a vital role in demonstrating to users as well as search engines an approval of content.

8. Ultimately can users find the banana?

Users need to find what they require from obvious choices. That is they should not be confused that is even though if there are images or tabs but if there is no link then it just mystify the user. Below image clearly illustrates it, one with red marks are given links while green one are not linked.

Measurement

9. Have you segmented traffic by topics?

Google analytics helps us in analyzing segmented traffic to query topics. Custom segments allow us to keep an eye on performance across keyword query topics, understand topic traffic and conversion trends, and influence this data to discover the key landing pages for each topic.

10. Are you tracking first click queries for optimized pages?

Though in general the page we optimize will be a focus for the keyword queries we are expecting, custom segments by topic also suggest up approaching into challenging pages, prominence opportunities to merge similar pages, justifying potential thin content issues and improving topic significance on combined pages.

Landing pages have been historically important in seeking improved conversion rates by paid search marketers. It is essential to ensure that SEO landing pages will have CRED which bring success to SEO.

Which Page is Canonical?

Generally every site have several pages with same set of products, a "Canonical Page" is the "preferred version of a set of pages with highly similar content". We are all still in a confusion that which page is a canonical page? Here we discuss about some common cases about canonical pages.

We generally think that a page is a physical file containing any of static or PHP or script code. But to a crawler, a page is nothing but any unique URL. One file may contain thousands of URLs and that each URL is a page for a crawler.

Let's take an example, in this example how many pages does a crawler crawls?

(A) “Static” Site · www.example.com/ · www.example.com/store · www.example.com/about · www.example.com/contact

(B) PHP-based Site · www.example.com/index.php · www.example.com/store.php · www.example.com/about.php · www.example.com/contact.php

(C) Single-template Site · www.example.com/index.php?page=home · www.example.com/index.php?page=store · www.example.com/index.php?page=about · www.example.com/index.php?page=contact

The answer for the above question is "All", because for Google it doesn't matter about extensions, index.php or root pages. Google crawls all the above because all are unique URLs.

Let's see some other cases:

1. Tracking URLs: Many people are still using URL parameters to track visitors. Irrespective of the parameter and the purpose it is used for, it creates a duplicate page. For example:

· www.example.com/store.php?session=1234

· www.example.com/store.php?affiliate=5678

In this example, the session id and affiliate id creates a copy pages. In this case, the canonical URL is simply www.example.com/store.php

2. Dynamic URLs: 

Let's take some blog post URLs.

· www.example.com/blog/1234

· www.example.com/blog.php?id=1234

· www.example.com/blog.php?id=1234&comments=on

In the above example, it doesn't matter about the parameters or folders. So in this case if we use the canonical link to the blog, we are reducing our total blog into one page. So in this case the canonical URL must be like this www.example.com/blog/this-is-a-blog-post

3. The Home Page: Generally home pages spin a lot of variations. Commonly home page creates problems because it is the most internal and external linking page. For example:

· www.example.com

· www.example.com/

· www.example.com/default.html

· www.example.com/index.php

In this case the canonical URL would be mostly like this http://www.example.com/

4. Product Pages: Product pages are same as blog post pages as in case 2. For products also we use a lot of variations, including,

· www.example.com/store.php?id=1234

· www.example.com/store/1234

· www.example.com/store/this-is-a-product

If you have the URL like #3 then use the same URL as the canonical or if you don't have #3 then use #2 or if you don't have #2 then use #1 as canonical URL.

Like this we have lots of cases. All we need to know for canonical links is just we have to understand the architecture and crawl paths of the site. Before you add a bunch of canonical tags, first make sure that you understand the website and its crawl paths.