SEO Sunday Presents : What is CTA or Call to Action

For today's SEO Sunday will talk about CTA AKA "Call to Action"

First let's have an introduction about CTA or "Call to Action"

Call to action is a word and/or sentence that commands the user to take a certain action. For example : "Click here", "View More", "Sign up", etc.

It can be not so demanding like : "choose a colour" or "watch this video"


Why are we talking about CTA? 

Well, if you have a website that provides service and you haven't think of putting CTA then your losing money every time a visitor and/or potential customer has visited your website.

Here's an example from one of our website.

Mostly CTA aren't like this one but, we just don't have a lot of time to revamp the web design but, that's not part of the topic so, lets skip that one.

I know a lot of you has question on how and where to place CTA but, well talk about that next week so, stay tuned.

That's all for today, Thank you!

If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday Presents : What is Open Site Explorer?

For today's SEO Sunday will talk about the Moz tool AKA "Open Site Explorer"

First lets have a brief introduction of Open Site Explorer.

As we all know Google still ranks website but, not as it used to be way ages. When that happens Open site explorer is one of the best choice and alternative tool to check your websites standing in Search engines.

Open site explorer is a link analysis tool that works similar to Search Engines. 

Created and develop by SEO firm Moz in 2010 and still updating until today.

DA or Domain authority is your domains authority and/or trustworthiness in Search engines. While, PA or Page authority is the page trustworthiness in Search engines. Though, there's a lot of variations on how they come up with your websites domain authority. What we know about it is that DA is the connections of domains connected with your website meaning if your domain is connected with lots of Domains that has High DA then, sooner or later your domain authority will be higher.

PA on the other hand checks the domains connected through inbound and outbound links that can be found in the page.

You can also check the Top pages. Here's our top page though we can only see of them at the moment but, mostly you can check at least 10 pages per website.

Linking domains

Anchor text and a lot of more. They also offer premium subscription, though we can also show you the free because we haven't subscribed yet, still you can try and see for yourself.

That's all for today, Thank you!

If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday Presents : Importance of having an Image in your blog and/or website?

Images or Pictures is one of the most important part of website design. Though, some part of your website doesn't need to have one. Most of the time, images makes your visitor comfortable on your website.


Going back to our topic, what is the importance of having an image in your blog and/or website? Here's a few reasons why you should an image.

1. Articles and/or blog with images related to the topic increase the amount of visitor.  

2. Readers preferred blog that has image rather than the traditional text base blogs.

3. Images attracts visitors.


In our recent study, we found out that having an image attracts more visitor, over the traditional plain text blog.

We compare 2 blogs with the same content, the difference is that.

Blog with image : Got 128 views 

Blog without image : Has only 65 views 

Even though Blog without image is published a day before Blog with image, the gap between these 2 blogs is enormous.

So what are you waiting for?

That's all for today, Thank you!


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday presents : What is the advantage of having a blog in your website?

What is the advantage of having a blog in your website?

First of all lets talk about what is a blog?

A regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.

That's a definition I copied from Google, for me a blog is an update in your website that share's knowledge, add new content, which is written in an informal style. Unlike articles which requires a thorough and formal words to be written.


So, what is the benefit of having a blog?

1. Boost SERP : Search engines love fresh content. Which is why new websites are overtaking older websites which has more authority, older and/or trusted by search engines.

2. Establish Connections : Having a blog has a lot of benefit and one of them is to establish connections with your target market. Visitors from your website aren't only checking your product or services, they also want to know if you got great reputation, by checking the content in your website which is most likely they will come and see your blogs.

There's a lot of advantages for having a blog in your website but, this two are the main benefits. 

That's all for today, Thank you!


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday presents : What is a UTM?

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is a tracking code that helps marketer found out the results of their marketing campaign.

UTM helps marketers find out if their strategy is working as it used to be or if they need to change the approach.

Sample UTM code : http://d2dseosunday.blogspot.com/?utm_source=Twitter%2BCampaign&utm_medium=linkbuilding%2BOctober&utm_campaign=Twitterlinkbuilding%2BPPC%2Twittercampaign

UTM helps Google Analytics identify where the traffic is coming from by simply implementing a small code in your link.


How to implement UTM in your links?

Google is so helpful to share a UTM builder check out this tool.

1. Add your websites URL
2. Source (e.g. Twitter, Google Adwords, Pinterest, FB)
3. Medium (CPC, Banner, Email, Social Media)
4. Term (Probably the anchortext you have used)
5. Content (To differentiate ads)
6. Name (Product, Promo code or slogan)

Then generate the URL and that's it you can use that link to track your campaign.


That's all for today, Thank you

If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday presents : What is a link?

What is a link?

In dictionary, link is a relationship between two things or situations, especially where one thing affects the other.

In SEO, a link is usually a text and/or image that connects a website to another page or website.

Usually links are highlighted, bold, or italic to stand out among the websites content. 


Why is it important?

No one can really tell you the importance and/or value of a link with regards to Search Engine Optimisation, but, with years of experience and thousands of testing. We can say that having a link in your website, will affect your websites rank in Search Engine.


The best example for that will be : Link juice.

Link juices for someone who haven't heard about it before, is a page or websites authority, trust, and relevance in search engine. A website and/or page authority is set by Search Engine that allows website to gain higher place in the search engine results page "SERP". Link juice can be only transferred by simply having a link in that page, not just a simple link, but, a Do-follow link.

Do-follow link is a type of link that shares the website and/or page authority to other pages or websites. How does it work?

For example : ABC website has an authority of 100 and you as a user would like to have a bit of that. Now, you make a link in ABC website going to your website. But, ABC website only allows a no-follow link.


No-follow link is a type of link that tells search engine to not follow the link. 

After, several communication you have a deal with ABC website that allows you to have a do-follow link in their website. Now, the 100 authority that ABC website has will be shared to the page and/or website that you link to it. 

Though, it's not as simple as that because the juice that will be spilled in your website will only be affected when some of ABC websites visitors consider your link as relevant, and drives visitor to your website.

More importantly you can't measure how great it is to have some connections with big brands in your market. A friendly reminder never underestimate the power of link.

That's all for today, Thank you

If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday presents : How do you get penalised by Google?

For this weeks topic let's talk about how do you get penalized by Google?

Have you ever seen a website that is number 1 last week then all of a sudden it is gone and you can't find it anymore? That's an example of a Google penalty.

There's a lot of ways wherein you get penalized by Google but, for now lets talk about the top 3.



First excessive links / link spamming 

Link spamming is a great way to rank your website before... and if that's your strategy at this time - sad to say you will really have a hard time ranking your website. though link building can't be measured for its effectiveness still some SEO guys from black and white hat department are still investing their time implementing this strategy as it was one of the best ways to gain visitor, get some link juice from authoritative website, and gain trust from Google.


Second Keyword and/or HTags stuffing 

Keyword stuffing is also one of the ancient technique to improved your rank in Google's SERP result... Hard to say it doesn't going to work like that anymore, because Google doesn't just look at your website content and relevancy with just a single keyword but, it looks at your website in a lot of ways. For example if a user search for "Jokes". 

Google may check your IP and look for the best websites in that country or place. 

The device you are using, if your using a mobile then the result may differ on desktop, tablet, mobile. and so on and so forth.

Last scraped content and/or duplicate content

Scraping content isn't all a bad thing just make sure that you add a "rel=canonical" tag or just get the summary then, create your own original piece based from the content you scraped. 

Duplicating someone's work may put your website at a really-really bad position. Just few months ago, one of my friend tried to reproduce, copy someone's work and you know what happened? My friend's website doesn't get anything from doing that but, the hard time of getting his websites content indexed by Google. It's been a couple of months now and he learns the lesson that duplicating someone's work won't get you anywhere other than the last page number of Google's page result.


That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday presents : "Google's Mobile Friendly Update"

Last year, April 21, 2015, Google has released a significant update that targets websites that are mobile-friendly to rank well in Google's new Mobile search results other than website who don't. 

There are a lot of names for this update some called it mobilegeddon, mobilepocalypse, or mobocalypse.

Just before the year end Google has released a new update called AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). AMP is an update that will let website's to load 4x faster than the traditional html optimisation. 


How does it work?  

For example, you have a separate mobile website designed for mobile users when you apply amp to that mobile site it will load 4x faster than the traditional mobile website designed that you did.

Though the update is still ongoing other websites has already applied it as it will help them and their users, specially news website like cnn.

Sample AMP website result :

That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday Presents : What is a Social Media?

What is Social Media?

Well if you say Social Media, it's a common term that has been use by everyone nowadays. But, what really is Social Media?

Social is a term that refers to interacting with other people either by talking, sharing information, and in return the other person interacts with you.

Media is like the gateway or instrument of communication: for example TV, Radio, Newspaper, Telephone, Cellphone, Internet.

By combining Social + Media the meaning of Social Media will be an interaction between people with or without seeing each other with the use of an instrument of communication.

An example of Social Media will be Friendster, You seriously That's the first one that I used in way back 20's, where I communicate with my friends. But, let's focus with the most common Social Media right now and that is Facebook.

Facebook, one of the remarkable and famous social media website designed and owned by Mark Zuckerberg and colleagues.


How are we going to take advantage of Social Media's like Facebook?

The answer will be "Targeting your Audience" if you're using Facebook for

just personal use, then your driving it the wrong way. You can easily use Facebook to find leads, potential customers, transactions and many more. 

Here's top 10 reasons why people are using facebook?

Because Facebook works as an RSS reader for news.

RSS reader is a tool that sends you an update usually for fresh news, by using Facebook as an RSS reader you won't have to visit facebook daily just to find trending news around the world.

Because it's required to log in to other websites.

Yes, Facebook is mostly used by other websites to register so it's a must to have one.

Because you can use it to build a professional profile.

With the help of facebook you can build your character and get in touch with the world's professional and companies preferred to background check their potential employees before hiring them.

Because you can use it to share photos easily.

Facebook has bought Instagram, a photo-sharing app which you can post updates and can easily share it with your Facebook profile in just a click a way.

Because Facebook offers free video messaging.

Just recently, Facebook has launched its new update called Facebook Live wherein you can go Live wherever you want and your friend who has the app installed on their devices will receive an update that you are showing live video feeds. 

Because it’s an easy way of organizing events.

These ones not popular but, you can actually create poll or set events and easily share it with your friends.

Because Facebook groups are better than bulletin boards.

Though its being used by spammers, you can easily create groups about your friends, and collaborate in a manner that everything is organised and esily accessible to everyone.

Because it’s the easiest method for remembering birthdays.

Everyday I received an email of who's having birthday though some of my friends use fake birth-dates in their account

Because it offers a simple way of spreading awful opinions.

In return you will get bashed so easily, so be careful of sharing your thoughts and opinions.

Because it’s better than Google+.
Google Plus is a social media website launched by Google and they're both great but honestly, I'll go with Facebook.


That's all for today, Thank you

If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday Presents : What is a Website Directory (Link Directory)?

What is a web directory or link directory?

Just to clarify web directory isn't a search engine and it doesn't display results based on keyword instead it uses category and sub categories to organize websites. 

Mostly websites with website links that displays its result in category will be or considered as a web directory.

Sample web directory : https://www.dmoz.org/

Does having my site listed in a web directory will / may affect my rank in google?

Unfortunately, having your website listed in a web directory may not affect your websites rank in Google but, its a great source of link. Though you will need to have a thorough research if that website isn't banned/penalized by Google. 

The sad part about it is that most web directories are getting banned/penalized due to the fact that google considers these websites as link farm and some has violated Googles rule.


The good thing is that having your website listed in a web directory may increase your websites traffic. Though no one can say how much traffic from visitors and potential lead that it can drive to your website. For me you can always give it a try and let's see how much it will benefit you. 


That's all for today, Thank you

If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you. 

SEO Sunday Presents : How to properly optimise your websites URLs

How to optimise URLs

First of all what is a URL?

URL is the acronym for Uniform Resource Locator a web address to specify a websites address in the world wide web (WWW).

What is the advantage of optimising your URLs?

For example: I owned an ecommerce website that sells motor parts, now if you don't have a good url structure. Search engine and Human visitors will have a hard time navigating or locating the product they need or want and that will be a lost of potential customer.


How do you optimise your URL?

Create a simple or clear and friendly URL

For example in our website if you want to check the news of July 3 here's what it looks like: 

http://day2dayh.blogspot.com/2016/07/day-to-day-headaches-july-3-2016.html

We have the Domain name / Year / Month - July - 7 / Title of the post


And here's an example of a complicated URL:

https://sample.com/forum/#!topic/sites/lf7Zeiw3-jU 

Whereas you can't even identify the thread or topic with this kind of URL.



Make use of breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are links that allow users to track whether where we're they inside your website. 

For example you have a very large ecommerce website putting breadcrumbs will allow users to check and see where they are here's a sample of breadcrumbs.

That's all for today, Thank you



If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents : How to properly optimise your websites image

Why would you optimise the images on your website?

Why? It's because images are part of your website and most of this elements inside your website will define whether your website is the most relevant for the users querry. 

Have you ever tried to search your company logo or image found in your website in Google?

If you do, did it show? Is it the first image? Or is it somewhere at the bottom? Or no results at all?

That's the main reason why we should optimise are images, because images are one of the key elements that can drive traffic to your website.



Here are some of the few tips I learned on how properly optimise an image.

Name your images in simple but descriptively plain English

Why? It's because most of the time user's will search for images according to their perspective. 
For example: I found a motorcycle accessory placed in the back of a motorcycle.

As for someone who do not know the name of the product your not going to search for motorcycle right? Instead you're going to search for "rear motorcycle accessory" and that's how the user's will be able to find your product. 


Reduce the file sizes of your images

Why? Images are one of the key factor for a websites page speed and most users will move or check other websites, if they get tired of waiting for your website to load in their browser. A user may move from other websites once a single page / home page loads for more than 5 secs.

You can either compress the image, lower its quality or change its file size to maximise space.

Use alt tags

An alt tag : stance for alternative text, why would you use an alt tag. For example you have this picture of a motorcycle though desktop users can easily view the image it will be hard for mobile users to see what's in there. But, if you used an alt tag the image will be changed in your tag of choice.

Note: it's important to use a simple but descriptively plain English to help your users see what's the missing image in your website.


That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us : Aldrin.Aguilus@yahoo.com and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: Google Update "Pirate"

Google Update Pirate

First what is Google update pirate? 

Google update pirate is an update first introduced in the month of August year 2012 its primary purpose is to prevent websites that has copyright infringement reports to rank well in Google's search results.

Usually websites that has been reported from copying works or content of other websites are its primary target though there's not much update on when will be the next update. 

Websites that has been captured before, may escape when they improve or if the accusation is prove "false positives".


That's all for today, Thank you



If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: Google Update "Penguin"

Google Update Penguin 

An update launched on April 2012, its primary

responsibility is to take down websites that are doing illegal or spamming links to other websites specially authoritative websites. 

Link Building is one of the best ways to gain the top spot before, but, then everything changed when Penguin was introduced though building links isn't illegal or might hurt your website once you've done it well and normal. By not doing anything stupid like posting your back links to 100 websites in 1 day.


That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: Google Update "Pigeon"

What is Google update Pigeon?

Among the Google update Pigeon is the one responsible for local searches. A

new algorithm introduced by Google on July 24, 2014, exclusive for English results, but, later on launched in every Language.

It has changed the way marketers think of keywords and this update is one of the best. Although there are several problems after its launching still it has shown a significant role in the Google Updates.


That's all for today, Thank you



If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: Google Update "Panda"

Google Update Panda

What is the Google update Panda?

In February 2011, Google released an updated named after an Animal Panda. Panda is the one that’s responsible for checking website content by filtering every website that has poor content but takes the top spot in Google’s SERP.  

Back in the days, website owners don’t care of their content is well written they simply write contents then let the SEO guys do their job to put it on top. 

However, when panda is introduced a lot of websites has been hit but, they are not automatically removed from Google they we’re just labeled as “False Positive.

As of January 12, 2016 Google has included panda in its core update meaning the update itself doesn’t need to be changed or just needs a minimal change in the future.  

The last confirmed update is Panda 4.2.

Good bye Panda, We will miss you!


That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: On-Page and Off-Page SEO

On page and off page SEO

First let’s discuss about On-page SEO. This kind of SEO people focuses on the website overall performance for example content, keyword, web master, web site design, speed and etc. They are the ones who are responsible if there’s an update in the website.

Second Off-page SEO, this kind of SEO focuses on the marketing side: like link building, guest blogging, local marketing and any other methods that is part of marketing.

What’s more important?

Both kind of SEO are important because you can’t market a website that isn’t fully completed while having a website won’t get your anywhere and you’re just wasting your time building the website if it doesn’t have any visitor at all. 

That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: White Hat SEO

White hat SEO

White Hat SEO is a nomenclature that refers to the use of strategies, techniques, and tactics that focuses with the human audience instead of search engines.

This kind of SEO doesn’t mainly focuses with search engines, however, instead they focus with relevance and organic ranking. Sample white hat strategies are using back linking and link building with the use of guest blog and writing content for that centre on human readers.

This kind of approach has a longer time to take effect, but it’s worthwhile.


That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: The Black Hat Warriors

The Black Hat Warriors

The Black Hat Warriors or what I’m talking about is the Black Hat SEO. It refers to a set of practice that would increase a site or page visibility that violates the search engines terms of service.

Usually these bad guys will make a simple SEO strategy example: link building to make more than 100 or even thousands of links in a single day or stuffing keywords in their sites meta tags or content.

Why use Black Hat?

Have your ever encountered an advertisement button with a caption “You are our 1^st visitor, you win 1 million, Bla, Bla, Bla” then you click and after that you will be prompt to enter your info.

They’re not just into the traffic or the result of search engines, their primary mission is to gain potential customers, buyers, leads and/or prospects.

And yes! It’s illegal and the risk is too high because when you get caught, your website might face a permanent search engine banned. They don’t care, it’s a lot easier to buy a new domain create a simple template then continue with the plan.

Are they still there?

Yes, since the rise of websites. Search engine and black hat warriors never stop fighting trying to outwit and outplay one another but, it’s great! Because you can’t convince someone to believe that you have great security unless thousands of people are trying to break it.

Thank you

Reference:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/Black_Hat_SEO.html

http://www.wordstream.com/black-hat-seo

http://www.blackhatseo.com/

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/f1-black-hat-seo/


That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

SEO Sunday Presents: The Beginning of SEO

The Beginning of SEO

In the beginning, no one in the world has ever thought that a new trend will rise but everything has changed when Tim Berners Lee launched the world’s first website. 

Link: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html way back August 6, 1991.  Still up and running until today.

After that more and more websites have come out and crowded the internet. That was when a search platform like Excite changed how information was catalogued in 1993. It has made a huge difference making it easier to find information based on keywords within the website.

In 1994 came a major competitor from which Yahoo emerged and 3 years after Google was founded.

There came the first known SEO’s whose primary goal was to make their website number 1 on search engines by spamming keywords, backlinks, and excessive html tags. This guy’s AKA “Black Hat SEO” has learned to take advantage of the current situation since search engine updates will take months to complete making their tricks available at the given time.

Google saw the opportunity and created rules and regulations that would help search engine and user to find more quality and relevant content based on their query.  

Though there are rules and regulations, everyone seems to tolerate since it won’t affect their website and they’re not getting what they deserve.  Google knew about it and what they did is to penalise these websites for misbehaving by deindexing the website from their database: a penalty that would only be forgiven by paying for the cause and promising not to do it again “Trust me you don’t want to know how long it will take to earn that trust and you have to start from the bottom again”. This move has hit a lot of top websites and brand around the globe. That ended the era of the “Black Hat Warriors”.

Today everyone has their own tricks and techniques on how they can maximise or optimise your website but I’m telling you it’s not just content, though content plays a key role. You have to do a little backlink, business listing and other SEO strategies to make your website standout in your industry.

That's all for today, Thank you


If you have some questions, suggestions or things that you want to share or discuss just comment them here or email us and we will be more than happy to help you.

Reference:

http://searchengineland.com/evolution-seo-trends-25-years-223424

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/worlds-first-website_n_1747476.html