Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’

The universal fact that Search engines love text based websites more than the best looking Flash based websites makes it tough for both web designer and website owners to decide on whether it is alright to give in to search engine ranking drop penalty . Flash content is often weighty consisting of images, interactive features, animations, light on text thus confusing the search engines to decide what is in the Flash movie! The condition is worse if the website is built completely using Flash technology as this is devoid of page structure elements, distinctive page titles and internal linking. The situation has been better since 2008 when Google announced the improved search engine Flash indexing hence a ray of hope in making Flash websites search engine friendly.

Main setbacks while working on SEO of Flash Websites :

1. Even the most basic SEO attributes like title tag, img alt attributes, anchor text, headline tags (h1, h2, h3) are not very simple to implement in Flash.

2. Even when your Flash content is organized uniquely according to the topic, importance, and category - search engines fail to see that. That means different kind of content is not on different urls instead everything is on the same url. This makes it impossible to link to unique parts of your Flash content.

3. Search engines do not index the content from outer files to your website called by any of your Flash content. Also they don’t allow the execution of external JavaScript calls which most of the Flash websites are relied upon. This results in a lot of content being not able to get crawled. Example: Dynamically loaded file such as an xml file.

4. Animated text in Flash is often considered as duplicate content by the search engine spiders!

5. Links in Flash are readable but only when they are pointed to HTML pages. Link which takes to a .swf page is not followed by the search engine spider.

Some Tips to Make Flash Websites Search Engine Optimization practice friendly:

Build separate HTML page for each FLASH page and embed related Flash content on every HTML page. This is to ensure that even the search engines will be able to index your content and you get your message across your reader through the user friendly Flash content which is on every page.

1. Use metadata feature for title and description of .swf files even when it is stated of as lesser importance.

2. Adobe Flash Search Engine SDK applications help search engines to extract textual content which includes text and links from .swf files to html file. The tool which comes in handy is swf2html. Even when this does not assure the highest quality results this step will get us the best possible input for Search Engine Optimization process for Flash websites.

3. Making use of Flash Programming: Search engines bots can’t view Flash but they can view primary content in the page such as headings, links and other usual content we can add to an HTML page. To solve the problem in a better way “alternative content” concept could be used. But unfortunately this privilege is being abused to trick the search engines. One of the tactics is:

a) SWFObject

This can be used to provide alternative content to the Flash pages. And is considered as white hat SEO method. But if this is used to disguise the content i.e. showing some different content to the search engine crawlers to manipulate them while the Flash displays something else then those sites will get penalized.

More about Flash Programming for SEO in the next article!

Social media like facebook, twitter, youtube play a huge role in brand promotion for businesses. The question is, how these influence Internet Marketing strategies to get the results cost effectively.

Before the popularity of social media as an Online marketing platform, developing business contacts was a time consuming process. Also keeping in touch with the customer base and keeping in track of current trends and requests was a tough task. Now all these need a professional social media expert for your firm!

In facebook, we can customize a message, add videos, post comments, pictures and can share information selectively with our network and include some quality backlinks! Similarly, many companies when start marketing on facebook also buy ad space for spreading the message. Twitter is another popular business to business marketing tool and companies utilize this platform by announcing positive changes, events, sales promotions, other relevant information etc. There is also a growing trend of using video social media. Commercial clips can be spread through YouTube and video blogs. In general, businesses try to control their online positive image with the social media.

In order to make the complete usage of social media businesses have to deliver the relevant information to their followers on any social network. Four essential tactics to build a reputed profile are given below:

1. Creating a Communication Channel: When you market your business you always target a specific audience and communicate with them. Even with the social media you have to open a conversation regarding your products or services so that your potential customers find it helpful, interesting and worth their time they spend online reading your message. It is important never to try hard selling. Adapt a customer oriented approach.

2. Deliver Quality Content in Your Messages: Content sells! Always deliver attractive copy of your message to your customers. They will keep a track of your messages hence brand recall value will increase.

3. Educate Customers, be a willing Participant in Social Causes: Build trust among your client base, educate them about your products or services. Build the credibility of your communication channel. Your customers will spread the word, will keep faith on your content and will be willing to work with you.

4. Create Links Which Can Travel a Long Way: When you try to include links in your messages do not force the viewers to click on them. Build the content around them such that they will not only read the whole message but also will also spread the video or information in their network without even asking for it. There are more chances that you will get many more followers to your profile page!


All the above said tips will increase the amount of traffic to your website through quality backlinks. Since social media provides steady traffic, this will increase required page visits for your Search Engine Optimization process. You not only get noticed from your target audience, with a well managed social media marketing campaign will also start receiving queries from potential customers who are willing to purchase your services in the future. Trick is that, build an intelligent Internet Marketing plan which can gain profit to your SEO efforts by properly executing it. Perseverance is highly recommended!

We have witnessed the shot in popularity of social media between all age groups in recent years. And it is evident that even Google has gone social!

For Instance Look at its list of Acquisitions:

Being reassured on that let us now dwell more on URL shortening and beyond Social Media.


1. Your Website Traffic Definitely depends more than only on Url Keywords!

Consider our browsing behavior. Mostly we find new sites through search engines. But once finding that - if we are to visit it again, we either bookmark it or enter it directly in the address-bar if we remember the url. There is also auto complete option on our browsers. So featuring a keyword in the url is not a mandatory rule for getting high traffic.


2. Make your Links Manageable and pretty

If your website has affiliate links use, you do not want a messy page there. Url shortening is not only the option but becomes a necessity at this point.


3. Use 301 Redirects!

This is interpreted as moved permanently! Refer what Matt Cutt has explained. If you have to change the file names or move the pages around this is considered as safest option. Also it preserves the link juice for your website.


4. Using Short Urls for Short Term Links

Links on twitter tweets and the ones in SMS marketing are meant for short term visibility. If you are using shortened links on your blog or website where a more descriptive link would drive long term traffic you are doing it all wrong!

There is plenty of url shortening service providers out there. Make use of them well where you need very little SEO effort but as and only when the situation demands.

Internal linking structure or navigational structure which is also termed as site architecture must be intelligently planned in order to be in compliance with guidelines set for better SEO results.


Below are some important points to consider:

1. Accessibility: It is always advisable to keep your web pages away from not more than two links. This will help the search spiders to index your pages easily.


2. Categorize Your Content: Keep a clear navigational menu; this will help spiders as well as human visitors. Categorizing your content into main menu and sub menu will build the relevancy and will boost the value of your website, which is an important aspect of internet marketing. Because, if you fail to convey your message well and in a user friendly way all your efforts will go in vain. Remember, online visitors have an attention span of a goldfish!


3. Don’t Overdo the Linking! : If any of your web page contains links to the same page more than necessary times, this will look like spam. Do not make your visitors wonder. Keep your content short & simple, which requires fewer references.


4. Anchor Text Linking: Use relevant, highly targeted keywords in your internal links. Do not use words like “click here”. Instead, keep your visitors informed on where the links take them. Ex: “Download design templates.”


5. Meta Tags to Guide Search Spiders: By using robots.txt file you can guide bots on which are the important pages and this will remove the chances of indexing duplicate and irrelevant content. This method helps in increasing your ranking.


6. Broken Links Hurt! : Always keep a close look on broken links. It is important that all your web pages are error free. This will ensure the credibility of your site. Imagine the impact on your visitors when they landed on very important page on your website and they find the error message. Ecommerce websites must never fail in this aspect, if not- this sure will hurt their internet marketing strategy.


7. Add no-follow attribute: When you know some pages are not very important for your online marketing purpose, such as terms & condition, privacy policy add a “no follow” attribute! This will direct the bots to not to list those pages to avoid wasting the potential ranking power of your website!


8. Get rid of dangling links: You sure don’t want search bots to crawl nowhere. Make sure there are no such dangling links which prove to be dead ends for both users and bots. In case if you find any, consider optimizing your internal link structure appropriately.


9. Importance of sitemap: Create a text sitemap and an XML sitemap. This will help the search engine spiders to index your web pages again when modifications have been made on your websites.


Finally, build a website which is user & SEO friendly, keeping the above simple tips in mind will surely build the website search engine friendly as well to help you make your Search Engine Optimization campaign successful.