Google Local Makeover: Local '7 Packs' Gone!

Old Google Local Search Result

7-Packs Now 3-Packs

Whether you call it Google Map Listing, Google Places Listing, Google Local Listing, Google Plus Listings, Google My Business Listings, or the Google '7 Pack', the set of seven listings that frequently appear at the top of Google local search results has changed notably in recent weeks.

It was predicted that sooner or later Google will switched to 3-pack from 7-pack layout when google first rolled out 3-pack listing for restaurants, nightlife, entertainment and hotels, back in November 2014 in the US search.

Google has been testing a new local listings format and officially launched the new format a couple of weeks ago. In the language of a Local Search Engine Optimization Expert, the 7-pack is now a 3-pack. The local pack is not just showing fewer business listings, It is also eliminates the address and phone number from individual results and redesigned to fit more with the mobile user interface.

Here is a picture of the new local pack, displaying only three results:

New Google Local Search Result

Exact Addresses Removed

Google has removed specific addresses from their local listings, instead only showing the street name. This requires a searcher to either click through to the website or the map listing in order to get the exact address.

Phone Numbers Removed

Google Searchers will no longer have easy access to the phone number of the business. They now need to click through the listing or get the number from the website. The mobile version (detailed below) doesn’t display the phone number but does have a “Call” option for each listing.

Google+ Links Removed

Google has also removed the Google+ links that we have all become familiar with. Because Google has pushed for local businesses to claim their page officially, this change is pretty interesting.

Business Category Added

The Business Category you choose for your listing is now showing in local search right below your business title. Category is critical to being considered relevant on any given search result and should be chosen carefully.

Store Hours Added

They have also added in store hours, including opening and closing times, depending on the time of day of the search.

Reviews No Longer Labelled “Google Reviews”

Gone are the labels on the reviews listing them as “Google Reviews.” Now they are simply called “reviews” with the number of reviews for each business still included.

No Flyouts

We are used to being able to scroll over local listings to see the local card for the business displayed on the right hand side. This no longer happens, to see the “Card”, you have to click through to the secondary local page.

Why The Change?

According to a Google spokesman: "We are constantly exploring the best way to bring a better search experience to our users. This update provides people with more relevant information, including photos, reviews and prices, for searches that have multiple results for a given location."

Where Clicks Go?

Unlike the previous layout, clicking the business name no longer takes you to the business' website. Instead you are redirected to an new expanded view of the local listings with the selected business' profile highlighted.

It should also be noted that while desktop results provide icon links for directions and the business' website, mobile searches provide a 'click to call' icon instead.

Mobile Google Local Search Result

How it Looks on Mobile?

Mobile also sees the complete address moved, with “Call” being the notable option here.

What Does This Mean for Local Businesses?

Well, that depends on how heavily your business relies on Google Local Listings and where you ranked before the change. If you relied heavily upon your local listings and were ranking fourth or lower, you may see fewer leads.

On the other hand, if your business ranks in the local top three listings, Google has effectively removed four of your nearest competitors and that could earn more clicks, calls, and visits for your business.

This also means that if you’re not in the top 3 listing, then you better start working on your local SEO Contest. I believe the update will now place an even higher emphasis on getting reviews and building out your citation profile.

Summary

If you are entirely relying on Google's local listings to drive traffic to your website, you're doing it wrong anyway. The businesses that are most successful with generating leads from search are those that are ranking well in local as well as organic listings. While Google's local listings used to be an option for those who ranked well, they now represent nothing more than a degraded user experience for your customers and Google's.

8 Ways to Protect Your Site From Google Panda Penalties

Back in February of 2011, Google released a major update to their search results ranking algorithm known as Google Panda Update. The significant algorithm update aimed to lower the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.

As of today, Google released 28 panda algorithm update and last one (Panda 4.2) was July 17, 2015. you can read about all google algorithm update from Moz Google Algorithm Change History Timeline.

If you run a website or blog and want your site stick to the top of Google’s search result, Here’s My Tips to Protect Your Site From Google Panda Penalties. Alternatively, you can read Google's Quality Guidelines.

1. Write Fresh and Quality Content, and Don’t Worry About Length

If you read SEO guides (many of which are outdated SEO Guides), you may find ongoing debate about what will be content length for website pages and blog posts,.

What is The Ideal Content Length?

Actually there are no rules, except opinions. Some experts believe 300 to 500 words work best while others say content should be 1,000+ words.

In my opinion, Making content larger or shorter doesn’t guarantee success or failure; your content should be as long as it takes to deliver the message to your user, and no more.

I've seen many websites ranking higher with a very little amount of text. So don't worry too much about content length, make sure you write fresh and quality content regular basis.

2. Identify Redundant Content and Remove Them

Do a quick check on your website if there's duplicated and outdated information on it. This kinds of content can hurt your website ranking and lead to penalty, now might be a great time to clean it up.

Here are a few tips to Identify Redundant or Obsolete Content.

When review or write content, Ask yourself

• Is this page/post necessary?
• Does the information exist elsewhere?
• Is it still current and relevant?
• Does it do/say something?

3. Create Natural Link Profile

A natural link is a link obtained when a visitor shares your site on his or her own website, blog or other site. Let’s say the purpose of your site is to discuss cleaning services and you writing a article about "carpet cleaning service toronto".

You might link your article to some carpet cleaning mainstream media articles and internal link within your website. What you probably wouldn’t do, however, is link directly to competing sites trying to fill the cleaning niche. In a post-Panda online environment, this is a mistake.

Google Panda is all about Quality and Relevancy. Your site Quality and Relevancy ca be increase by linking to other related sites and content whether they’re your competitor or not. Your readers will surely appreciate it, and hence, The Google will too.

4. Target Natural Keywords

Outdated SEO advice may refer to something like this: select one or two keywords most closely related to page or post and insert them into the content as much as possible. This tactic was really good before panda update, But by panda algorithm Google see right through this, and treat it as a Unethical SEO Practice.

If you want to rank for a phrase like “clean my carpet,” you do not need to repeat the term exactly in your website, instead you may use "immaculate my carpet," which will google see similar to “clean my carpet,” If you use “immaculate” instead of “clean,” you'll have opportunity to rank for both phrases.

Why?

Because, Google’s algorithm uses Latent semantic indexing (LSI), which help Google identify patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text. LSI is based on the principle that words that are used in the same contexts tend to have similar meanings.

5. Pay Attention to Website Navigation

It's under google's website design guideline. Improving your website navigation can have a positive impact on your site ranking. No amount of excellent content will be worth anything if your users can’t find their away around your site.

Navigation Best Practice:

• Keep menus consistent and logically arranged.
• Use internal linking whenever appropriate.
• Verify there is text navigation, not JavaScript or Flash navigation that spiders can’t see.
• Make sure you at least have text navigation on the bottom of the page if there aren’t any spiderable navigation links in the top navigation.

6. Avoid the Shortcut Methods

A lot of SEO experts claim that they have short cut method (Usually they keep it secret from their client) to rank higher on SERP.

Shortcut method may works on very short-term basis, But there’s a risk involved in tricky shortcut method.

What and Why?

The problem occurs when google's spider finish analyzing your website and find tricky method that you/your expert implemented to dodge google.

The only way to get rid of it and get your rank back is if you find your SEO expert did or doing any Shortcut Method on your website, abandon the expert and clean your content.

7. Stop Guest Posting

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that Guest posting is an effective and killer way to build authoritative links. But it shouldn’t be the one and only one strategy for your website marketing.

Remember what I already said about Natural Link Profile And a site with a too many links from one source (like guest posts) may penalize your website.

Also, There's a very real risk that Google will belittle links coming from guest posts. There’s too many people guest posting on an industrial-scale and it has footprint.

8. Anchor Text Diversity

The question of Anchor Text Diversity is heavily debated. In the past, experts believed that Anchor Text Optimized Backlinks is the key to dominate in the search rank. Again, Anchor Text Optimized Backlinks doesn’t look Natural Link Profile to user or Google.

Today Anchor Text Diversifying for link is a must. Since Google use Latent semantic indexing, you don't have to worry much about anchor text. Use mix of brand, domain, webmaster name, and keywords as anchor text more often.

Panda actually is less about backlinks, but more about quality and content. I deal with manual penalty removal for my client website, but this is another pair of shoes and has nothing to or with panda or penguin.

Did you receive a manual penalty message within the Google Webmaster Tools? Please leave a comment below.

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Content marketing planning and effective marketing tactics in 2015 [Infographic]

In 2015, it seems that content marketing still reigns supreme when it comes to the most commercially important digital marketing trend. Yet according to following infographic, the biggest challenge content marketers face is measuring content effectiveness, while an overwhelming 56% of marketers don’t have a content marketing strategy!

So, what is the latest Content marketing planning and effective marketing tactics in 2015? Check out this infographic created by Jane Hunt, along with her team at JBH Marketing to summarize the key issues and give examples of what's working and what isn't.

PPC vs SEO : Which One is Better For My Business?

When it comes to increase website traffic through search engine, you have two basic options: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I love SEO and PPC and have been using both Marketing strategies on a mixture of clients for over seven years, yet I'm often asked which one is better. Today I'm going to share their major differences, advantages and disadvantages with you.

Pay Per Click Advertising on Google, Bing and other sites is a quick and easy way to get listed on their search result for the keywords that are related to your website. Unfortunately, PPC is expensive and you can get traffic for free by achieving high rankings in the search engine organic search results.

In Search Engine Optimization, You will need to follow SEO best practices to get higher ranking and display more often in search engine result. It may take time to reach the top of the organic results, but the free, highly targeted traffic will probably prove to be well worth the investment.

What is the difference between PPC and SEO?

Position: Search Engine Optimization focuses on organic search results which are displayed in the main body of the search engine result pages. PPC listings are displayed as the ‘sponsored links’ at the top of the page or on the right hand side column.

Organic search results include all web pages which the search engine determines to be relevant to the user search query, while PPC reflects a targeted Search Engine Marketing Campaign and may show results only in a specific geographic area, time specific, user Operating systems, Carriers and few more.

Promotion Results: With an organic Search Engine Optimization campaign, a new website may take 1 to 18 months to show up on Search Engine Results. However, SEO results in continuous traffic over a longer period of time.

PPC can give an initial boost in traffic and is useful when launching a brand new website which is not yet appearing in organic results or you want create a buzz. However, when you stop the PPC campaign, the traffic stops immediately.

Perception: Organic Search Engine Optimization results in an Search Engine Marketing campaign are seen to be unbiased and have a higher level of credibility. SEO rankings are unpaid and based on the relevance of the webpage to the keyword but with PPC, the more you bid on a given keyword; the higher your advertisement is displayed for that search. The higher the position on the SERP page (Organic or PPC), the more trusted it is by searchers; the more likely it'll get clicks.

Price: With an SEO and/or a PPC campaign, there may be an initial set-up and ongoing fee if you engage an SEO or PPC specialist to create a campaign for your website. With an SEO campaign, there is no cost per individual click or visitor. However, with a PPC campaign, there is an ongoing cost per click or visitor – the greater your budget, the more traffic your website will receive.

But which approach is better for my business? 

It depends on your needs and budget. If you want more traffic fast and are willing to pay for every visitor you get, then PPC might be right for you. But if you're operating on a small budget, it may make more sense to invest time in chasing high search engine rankings through SEO.

In the long term, SEO is better because it delivers long lasting results.

• To achieve high rankings in the search engine organic search results, you have to develop SEO-friendly website, original content, and related authority Links that point to your site. It may take times to get high rankings with SEO. Fortunately, most websites keep their rankings for a long time.
• In the long run, SEO is a much better value than PPC. If you have a business that is meant to stay, SEO is the way to go.

In the short term, PPC is better because you are forced to improve your website.

• PPC is great because it provides instant results. You will get the first visitors minutes after the launch of your PPC campaign. Unfortunately, you won't get any more visitors as soon as you stop paying.
• If you use paid search marketing, your website will get visitors because you pay for them.

The fact is that, if done correctly, both PPC and SEO can get you on the first page of the search engines for your targeted terms. However, each has its respective advantages and disadvantages as I mentioned above.

Please leave a comment below on which Marketing Strategy you feel is best and why to help continue the debate.

Mozila launched ‘Webmaker’ Android App in Bangla

August 17, 2015 Mozilla launched a new Android app version of Webmaker that focused on participants from three main markets – Bangladesh, India, and Kenya. The new app currently only support Android devices and available in four languages: Bengali, Brazilian Portuguese, English and Indonesian.

The announcement comes as a follow up on the initial Mozilla Webmaker that launched over three years ago, with the goal of hand-tailoring an intuitive and organic web-creating space that would help people "learn and play using the open building blocks of the web."

You can download the  free, open source app from Google Play at mzl.la/webmaker.

Current app is updated version of it beta version. Improved performance and a more optimal user experience, shared projects can now be viewed on any platform (mobile or desktop), and users with poor connectivity will experience better performance while offline. Also, content discovery is now location-based — you can see what others in your community are creating and remixing.

Mozilla Webmaker transforms Web users into Web makers. You can build original content like scrapbooks, photo galleries, memes, comic strips and more. Mozilla built Webmaker to empower first-time smartphone users and mobile-first Web users as active participants on the Web. Too often, individuals around the world experience a “read-only” mobile Web, passively consuming content and unable to actively contribute. But when consumers become creators, they’re introduced to social and economic opportunity. And when everyone can contribute equally, the Web becomes a better place.

Webmaker was designed to give these users a way to create their own presence online. Webmaker also could set the stage for bringing more local content on the Web.

Bangladesh Mozilla Community has made significant contribution to planning and making the Webmaker. Bangladeshi volunteers have worked with Mozilla Webmaker Team for several months to make sure the app User-Friendly, better performance and a more optimal user experience.

In the coming months, the Mozilla will promote Webmaker in Bangladesh as part of a nationwide campaign to Web literacy. Alongside Access-to-Information (program) of Prime Minister's Office, Mozilla will work in Bangladesh aiming to increase the digital efficiency.

IT Security and Fraud Detection Seminar in Dhaka

A seminar about IT Security and Fraud Detection and its proper usages will be held on Thursday, August 27 at BIBM Center.

CTO Forum Bangladesh and Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) will organized the seminar at BIBM Center. The organizers said at a press conference in city’s Farmgate area on Monday afternoon.

They said that so far 700+ online shops exist in bangladesh and Sales of these online shopping sites are gradually increasing everyday. Every online shop at some point face fraud and security issue. According to the organizers, the seminar will uphold different aspects of online shopping, which has earned fame globally.

It will put importance on IT Security and Fraud Detection as it is the top issue in developing this sector, they added.

Visa chief risk (India and South Asia) officer Shivakumar Sriraman will present keynote paper at the seminar to be attended by Bangladesh Bank (BB) deputy governor Nazneen Sultana as chief guest and BIBM director general Dr Towfiq Ahmed Chowdhury as special guest.

Southeast Bank limited deputy managing director SM Mainuddin Chowdhury, CTO Forum Bangladesh president Kamal Kanti Sarkar, its vice president Nawyad Iqbal, EC Shyama Prasad Bepari and Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLS head of IT Dr Izazul Haque, among others, were present at the conference.

To mitigate your online business risk of Security and fraud, you should join the Seminar.

Social Media Tactics to Increase Traffic to Your Website

Are you struggling to control the power of Social Media for your website? are you want to Increase Traffic to Your Website from social media? If the above answer is yes, then I'm writing this post for you.

Why should you care about Social Media?

Because it used by millions of users everyday. Based on Statista data, revealed in March 2015, below are the approximate numbers of active users in different social media sites:

• Facebook – 1,415,000,000 
• LinkedIn – 347,000,000 
• Google+ – 300,000,000 
• Twitter – 288,000,000

Do you know, The population of USA is something like 300,000,000. And all of these social media users are there, just on the other side of your screen!

The days are gone when you could optimize your website and blog every day, increase your audience via email and RSS subscriber and just sit and relax. Although this strategy still works in today, But now it is the era of social media!

The Social Media Sites can help increase your website visitor if you have something worth in your website. Here are some tips for how you can use Social Media to Increase Traffic to Your Website.

So here are Social Media Tactics that you can apply to drive traffic to your websites.

Tactic #1: Did you know that Twitter now has over 316 million monthly active users and 500 million Tweets sent per day? Communicating with customers and posting tweets regularly may increase your website visitor.

Every time you tweet, include the post headline and link back to your website. Also try to include a picture from the post within the tweet, Twitter users love pictures.

Tactic #2: Start a Facebook page for your website. This is a great, additional subscription option for heavy Facebook users, and it can be a means of expanding your platform. I’ve met several new people who “liked” my page and weren’t previously friends with me on Facebook.

Regularly share your content on Facebook. There are some great tools to help make this easier for you. Encourage your readers to do the same by adding a Facebook “like” or “share” button.

Tactic #3: Ask others to promote your blog via social bookmarking sites, such as DIGG, Stumbleupon, Reddit, and others. You may occasionally do this yourself, but be careful of doing it repeatedly, as some sites penalize sites with multiple submissions from the same user.

Tactic #4: Implement social sharing tools on your website. Here is a list of popular social sharing tools that I have tested so far. A few are plugins designed specifically for WordPress, but others can be used on almost any website.

• ShareThis
• Socialize
• AddThis
• AddToAny
• Digg Digg
• GetSocial
• Shareaholic

Tactic #5: The evolution of online feedback and commenting has come a long way; from the old school guestbook to forum and feedback form, and from native platform-dependent commenting systems to today’s social-powered commenting systems that work cross-platform regardless of what Content Management System, Programming Language or Scripts your site is based on.

Use a social-powered commenting tool like Disqus, IntenseDebate, Livefyre or Facebook.

Tactic #6: Write catchy headlines that people will want to share. Most people neglect this by posting well-written articles with crappy, nondescript titles.

Tactic #7: Write compelling content. You might be thinking, “Duh,” but I really mean that. It has to be really good. Like, better than your average blog.

Tactic #8: No matter what social media you are trying to leverage, sharing mediocre information will only hurt you. I’ve learned this the hard way because when I get lazy and share mediocre information, I see that my social traffic drops.

Tactic #9: Whenever you release a tweet or a Facebook post, you can control where you place your link. Place your links near the beginning of your social posts, it'll increase click-throughs-rate.

Tactic #10: Consider creating a hashtag that is short, recognizable by followers, and allows them to easily follow along. If you’re using an existing hashtag, ensure you’re adding value to the conversation.

Tactic #11: Since LinkedIn obtained pulse, It has remained a content publishing platform, but now it features articles from anyone who posts on LinkedIn. This is your opportunity to get your content in front of a large audience and get visitor to your website.

I’m sure that each of you found useful social media tactics in this post. Go ahead, share it, write your ideas and opinions in comments.

Are You Still Practicing Outdated SEO Tactics: 11 Tactics To Avoid!

Last week, I wrote about SEO Best Practice in 2015 and On-Page SEO Checklist, So I think I should write about SEO tactics that don't work anymore. In this article, I'll tell you what outdated SEO tactics don't work and why.

Search Engine like Google always improving their search algorithm to give you the fresh, relevant and authentic result based on your query. Because they don't want to see you unhappy with their search result and don't want to see you switching to others search engine. To keep you happy and serve you the fresh, relevant and authentic result, they managed to develop state of the art search algorithm.

Search engine optimization has changed over the years, are you still practicing outdated and ineffective SEO strategies? outdated tactics you are using actually do nothing to improve our search engine rankings. So, Stop wasting your time on outdated SEO strategies.

To help you save your precious time and money, I'm going to discuss below outdated, ineffective, and obsolete SEO strategies you should stop using right now.

Tactic #1: Meta Descriptions

Some SEO Professional believe that Meta Descriptions help increase search engine ranking, and if you are on that side, my friend I would like remind you an old announcement from Google in back in 2009 that they won’t have an impact on the rankings of a web page algorithmically.

Why?

SEO Experts Opinion About Meta Descriptions

MOZ says…
“Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages (SERPs). These short paragraphs are webmasters opportunity to advertise content to searchers and let them know exactly what the given page has with regard to what they’re looking for.”

Search Engine Land says…
“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.”

The next question you might ask is, Still it matter? Yes, it is important Because, your website meta description provides the best chance of search engines displaying the snippet of text right below your website title and URL. A Descriptive and well-written meta descriptions have been proven to lead to significantly improved click-through rates, And if it's missing Google will show text from your website content.

Tactic #2: Exact Match Keywords

Stuffing Exact Match Keywords in the website do not help increase your website search engine ranking. Keywords do not need to be repeated exactly throughout your website.

If you want to rank for a phrase like “clean my carpet,” you do not need to repeat the term exactly in your website, instead you may use "immaculate my carpet," which will google see similar to “clean my carpet,” If you use “immaculate” instead of “clean,” you'll have opportunity to rank for both phrases.

Why?

Because, Google’s algorithm uses Latent semantic indexing (LSI), which help Google identify patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text. LSI is based on the principle that words that are used in the same contexts tend to have similar meanings.

Tactic #3: Google Authorship

In June 2011, When Google introduced their Authorship Markup, SEO experts were thought that it's the future of search engine optimization, Today it is just another quest of Google.

Why?

August 28, 2014, John Mueller of Google Webmaster Tools announced in a Google+ post that Google will stop showing authorship results in Google Search, and will no longer be tracking data from content using rel=author markup.

Here's few recent article about google authorship published in Search Engine Land and written by SEO expert like Danny Sullivan.

• Authorship Is Dead: Long Live Authorship
• Google Authorship May Be Dead, But Author Rank Is Not
• It’s Over: The Rise & Fall Of Google Authorship For Search Results

The nutshell about Google Authorship is, it won't help your website rank higher in the search.

Tactic #4: More Pages Mean Higher Ranking

Some expert have the opinion that if your website has more pages, It'll get higher organic ranking. More pages with content are good, but creating content just to have more pages will not help you in SEO, You have to Make sure you are focusing your content on quality, not quantity. If your website doesn't have enough good content, It will not rank well and all of those pages you created will not help.

Tactic #5: SEO is All About Good Code, Content, and Links

About 5 years ago, SEO used to be all about Good Code, More Content and Getting Tons of Links. At Present, most of the websites that are ranking really well have a large social following and presence. People argue whether social media directly or indirectly affects search rankings, but either way it does have an impact.

Why?

Think about it, the more popular your website is on the social media, the more eye you will draw to it. The more people see it, the more traffic and backlinks your website will receive. Additionally, social media is a great way to send out content and get the traction you are looking for.

If you want better search engine rankings, don’t just focus on code, content and link building. Also, focus on building up your social profiles. Read how to manage your social media.

Tactic #5: Anchor Text Optimized Backlinks

This is a fat one, the question of anchor text is still heavily debated. In the past, experts found this to be important to dominate in the search rank. However, the search engine like google adjusted their algorithm to prevent manipulating their search result by this tactic.

Why?

Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites presume to be spamming its search results, in particular, those doing so by anchor text optimization or obtaining optimized links through networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings.

Tactic #6: Micro Sites Helps Your SEO

A lot of SEO Professional build Micro Sites (links from web 2.0 sites such as blogger, weebly, tumblr, squidoo or hub pages) these links can be good for website SEO, if you build them perfectly. For instance, a perfect web 2.0 link will have a well written engaging content, one that will help your audience out and engage them to visit your website.

Why?

A poorly written micro site will be filled with garbage content that has usually been created by a content spinner or a low paid outsourced worker. These contents don’t do anything to help your website SEO at all and usually considerate as duplicate content. Once search engine find out these duplicate content, means your rankings will drop significantly, don’t let anyone build these kind of content for your website.

Tactic #7: Higher Ranking Means More Traffic

There are some Statistics about search ranking placement and click-through rates, ranking is no longer a factor.

Certainly, more people will see your listing, but it doesn’t mean you will get more clicks. I attribute this to user behavior and awareness of search engine optimization tricks.

Why?

Because today's internet surfer is intelligent than ever, They will be aware of the business, product or service but their knowledge and experience will force them to continue searching for the best business, service or most relevant product.

Advanced Web Ranking has a CTR Study Running, Where they present fresh data on the click-through-rate from Google’s organic search results. The data is taken from Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries reports from large accounts. Check it out here.

Tactic #8: Link Exchanges

This used to be a huge one.
If you handle link exchanges properly it can help, if you are doing it with websites in your niche and providing each other value. But there’s a risk involved in behind and interestingly this all works on very short-term basis! How? Let me Explain.

Why?

The problem occurs when you/your SEO “Experts” start exchanging links with Link Firm. This break Google Link schemes, and search engine webmaster guidelines. It may even increase your website ranking and traffic for a short amount of time, but just wait a few days, then your website ranking will drop down dramatically and your website will never rank again.

If you find that your SEO firm is doing link exchanges from websites that aren’t related to yours, get rid of them and find someone who knows what they are doing.

Tactic #9: Low Price Gig

Do you know, some SEO firms outsource all of their SEO work to Low Price Gig sites like Fiverr, SEOClerks, aDollarSEO, ETC. They purchase SEO services for only $1 - $5, and sadly they get exactly what they pay for.

Why?

This kind of sites are infamous in the SEO world and for good reason, they can't deliver ranking or related traffic within $5. They can only bring you bot traffic from China and North Korea.

If you find out that your SEO Specialist/firm is outsourcing your SEO work to these kinds of site, abandon them right now and find someone who works personally in his client project.

Tactic #10: PBN Means SEO Authority

This is another fat one, Another myth is believing that Private Blog Links that you/your SEO professional own link back to your main site will help build SEO Authority. Incorrect! That’s like voting for yourself in an election a hundred times — that still counts as one vote.

Why?

Because most of the PBN built with one hosting account and same domain registrar data, meaning all sites live on the same IP address and same registrant name/organization. The search engine like google's algorithm check C Class IP and has full access to the WHOIS database. So if you get 10 links from a PBN, google may count 10 links as only one link. And if you have 'too many' backlink pointing from one PBN, then google may think the blog network as a link firm and penalize your website.

Tactic #11: Guaranteed First Page Rankings

I see these all the time (I also get a lot of emails from SEO agencies), Many SEO Companies offering “Guaranteed top 10 search engine rankings” and “Guarantee first page Rankings”.

Do they really deliver what they offer?

Well, they might deliver the result for a couple of keywords, or it might be for ten or more keywords depending on the keyword competition. They can only deliver if the keyword competition is very low otherwise not.

Why?

No one can give you a number one or top 10 ranking guarantee because there is no such thing in SEO. Neither you nor they control search engine search result. I'd say, don’t listen to them, most of them are scammers and thieves. Be aware of this kind of agencies/companies.

Conclusion

If you’re new to SEO or a seasoned SEO professional, it’s important to understand the common outdated, ineffective, and obsolete SEO strategies.

These outdated methods will have you implementing ineffective SEO tactics or even tactics that can hurt your SEO efforts.

Understanding the latest SEO Tactics will improve your internet marketing strategy and increase user awareness when searching for information about your business, product or service.

How to Increase the Domain Authority of Your Site: Infographic

The concept of Domain Authority was started by Moz (Previously known as SEO Moz) and represents the best prediction for how a website will perform in search engine rankings. It is calculated by combining all of Moz's other link metrics—linking root domains, number of total links, MozRank, MozTrust, etc.—into a single score.

It is one of the most important Phrase known to SEOs. The greater your DA, the more likely you are to have strong traffic and high rank.

Want to know How to Increase the Domain Authority of Your Site? Well, the Infographic Explain it all.

7 Best Free Tools for Creating Infographics Online

Internet Surfers today are incredibly visual. Most of them would rather look at a graphics than read an entire article or report. Fortunately, there are now ways to fit just as much information into n graphic as there would normally be in a text article.

For all the importance we place on text, it's an undeniable fact that graphics is processed in the brain faster than words. Henceforward the rise of the infographic which, at its best, transforms complex information into graphics that are both easy to grasp and visually appealing. No wonder magazine readers and web visitors love them.

The days are gone where you need an entire graphics team to create them. If you have information to present, there are tools for creating infographics and charts that help you to visually bring it to life.

Here's a list of Best Free Tools for Creating Infographics.

Canva (canva.com)

Canva is filled with options, whether you are working on a project for work, personal, or social media. Each new project comes with a template for the project you choose to work on. With the dimensions done for you, you can focus your attention on creating beautiful designs in seconds.

Easel.ly (easel.ly)

Easel.ly has Very basic design layouts and assets. You can drag artwork onto the canvas, and move around or add different elements as needed. New charts feature allows some basic editable charts in your design and Easy downloads for JPG and PDF versions.

Piktochart (piktochart.com)

Piktochart is one of the best looking programs on this list. This grid-based infographics tool features pre-designed themes that you can customize with text, colors, and various shapes and design elements. Pictochart offers a free version with 7 different themes, along with pro versions that have more than 100 themes and don’t include any Piktochart branding.

Their intuitive user interface is where Piktochart truly excels. All the tools you need to create are laid out intelligently, making your new job as a “designer” so much easier.

One of the coolest aspects of this program is that they show how versatile infographics are for different projects. Whether you’re creating for a classroom, office, website, or social media setting - Piktochart gives you the heads up on how to use infographics effectively.

Infogr.am (infogr.am)

Infogr.am has got the best charts. For illustrating data, there are more than 30 different types of charts to choose from. Anything from bubble charts and tree maps to simple pie charts.

You can use Infogr.am to create infographics from scratch, or you can import existing CSV or XLS files to simplify the process. The site also includes built-in sharing and embedding features so that you can make sure your graphics end up in the right place.

Vizualize (vizualize.me)

Vizualize.me is one of these services, an app which allows you to produce an infographic style resume. You start by filling in the sections present in the app (things like education and skills), then choose a theme and save. It’s a simple and straightforward service with some fun customization options and pretty cool results. Stick with me after the jump to see the kind of things you can create with Visualize.me.

Venngage (venngage.com)

Venngage tool developed by the team from Visual.ly – an online dataviz sharing community, which aims to make reports easier for analysts who don’t want to install expensive software. There’s a free demo mode with most functionality, but the Professional version offers export options and the ability to publish documents privately. It also allows you to use connections to Social Media analytics with some standard report templates set up.

Visme (visme.co)

If you’re looking for a way to bring visual content to life, then Visme could be the answer. Formerly known as Easy Web Content Presenter, the free browser-based tool allows marketers to easily create a range of visuals, including Web and mobile animations, Presentations, Infographics, Banner ads Graphs, and charts Product demos.



Which Infographic design tools have you tried? Which tools are your favorites? Post in the comments.

What are the Best Keyword Rank Checker Today?

Keyword Rank Tracking is an Essential part of every Online Marketing Campaign. It's especially important to all SEO Professional who work on Search Engine Optimization Project. Rank Tracker retrieves search engine rankings for pages and keywords, Some tools also track selected rankings over time to see which efforts are making the most impact on your SEO Campaign and show you the ranking changes.

Now, there are  a lot of free and paid rank checker out there that help SEO Professionals to track keyword rankings. Some tools that work great at certain tasks but terrible at others. Before Writing this post, I did a lot of Research to bring you the Best Keyword Rank Checker for your SEO Project.

Moz Pro

In the Moz Pro plan, you can run up to five different campaigns at the same time. Because Moz limits the number of keywords you can track per campaign to 60, that totals 300 keywords you can track overall five campaigns, which can be limiting if you're running campaigns with different themes or that span multiple verticals. Rank tracking is thorough, though, with competitive analysis baked right in; you can see where you rank for your top keywords as well as where your top competitors rank.

Price: Moz Pricing Plan Start From $99 to $499 /month and the also offer a 30-day free trial.

SEMrush

SEMrush's Pro version offers keyword suggestion and keyword rank tracking. Using SEMrush, you can track up to 500 keywords over five campaigns. The tools available for keyword research can display a keyword's search volume and help you gauge how well a keyword will perform on your site. The phrase match report will show you keywords related to prime keywords that can also help drive traffic to your site, but they may be less competitive, so it will be more possible to rank with them.

Price: $69.95 – $549.95 / month

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking allows you to closely monitor your keyword's performance and Rank Tracking from three different search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You can easily sort your keyword information to see how each of these search engines views your keywords. This is useful because, while you may be hitting all of Google's targets, you may be weak in Bing's search results and missing key traffic flows from them.

Price: $49 – $499 / month, also offer FREE 30 day trial on all plans..

Ahrefs

Ahref's provides estimated keywords ranking data for keyword sets on both Google and Bing/Yahoo in multiple countries (US, UK, AU, DE, FR, ES, IT, BR, RU). The tool shows following information:

• Position 
• Keyword 
• CPC 
• Estimated cost 
• Ranking URL 
• Global search volume A
• dvertiser competition 
• Last date checked 
• Rating (estimated visitors per month based on assumed traffic distribution)

Price: $79 – $1,299 / month, and the also offer a free NEWBIE plan.

Link-Assistant Rank Tracker

Link-Assistant Rank Tracker Feature:

• Automatically check your search engine rankings.
• Show if your site moved up or down in search results: Every time you check your keywords search engine rankings, Rank Tracker will conveniently show you the ranking difference so you can easily see if your site has moved up slipped for whatever reason.
• Collect data from 456 different search engines: Rank Tracker supports 456 international and local search engines so you can track your rankings using the ones that matter most to you. The currently supported SEs include Google, Yahoo! and Bing with their localized versions plus hundreds of others!

Price: Free – $124 - $299 / month (one time cost – this is desktop software)

WebCEO

WebCEO Rank Tracker Feature:

370+ Global & Local Search Engines Rank Checking: You'll be able to check keyword rankings on more than 370 global and local search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Goo, Voila, Seznam, Rediff, and more.

Search Engine Mobile Rankings vs. Desktop Search Results: Set Web CEO Rank Tracker to monitor both desktop and mobile rankings: go to settings and add the mobile versions of every search engine that you target.

Automated Rank Checks on Schedule: Automate your rank checks with Web CEO: have them monitored quarterly, monthly, weekly.

Email Alerts about Website Ranking Changes: Set email alerts regarding website ranking changes that occur above configured levels. You can be notified if one of your keywords left the top positions, a keyword lost more than a specified number of positions, your competitors' positions improved, etc.

YouTube Rank Checker: You can add YouTube.com as a standalone search engine in your WebCEO Rank Checker settings and start tracking your YouTube rankings.

Competitor Ranking Analysis: See if your competitors have better search engine rankings for the keywords that you target. Just add the URLs of competing websites in the Competitor section of the WebCEO Rank Checker settings.

Price: $75 – $375/ month (Discounts available), also offer a limited free plan.

AuthorityLabs

What Does Authority Labs Do?

• Tracking keywords daily 
• Tracking Google, Bing, and Yahoo SERPs 
• Viewing estimated search volume (via a bar graph) for your tracked keywords 
• Selecting a location all the way down to the zip code 
• Viewing daily ranking charts for a selected keyword 
• Exporting PDF reports for monthly, weekly, quarterly, *since added* date, and/or daily 
• Comparison reports Comparing rankings against a competitor 
• Sharing a public URL with a client for their project 
• Exporting one domain or an entire account history in CSV format as part of a backup process 
• Producing white label reports

Price: $75 – $99/ month (Discounts available), also offer a limited free plan.

Raven Tools

Raven's Rank Tracker lets you view average keyword ranking data that comes directly from Google and Bing. You have access to Impressions and Click Through Rates (CTRs), helping you to target high value keywords for a quicker SEO win. You'll be able to show clients progress over time as you work your way through the best keyword choices based on conversion potential.

Price: $99 – $249 / month, and offer a 30 day limited free plan.

Traffic Travis

Traffic Travis keyword ranking reports allow you to see how your site is progressing using graphs and charts. These reports can be viewed online or exported as CSV and PDF files.

Price: $97 / year, also offer a free plan.

Market Samurai

Market Samurai's rank tracker allows you to view your site's keyword progress as graphs, which clearly show increases and decreases in traffic. It also stores historical data on your keywords and your URLs so you can continuously view their progression. After viewing your reports, you can export data about any of your keywords as a CSV, where you can analyze it using Excel.

Price: One Time Fee $149 and also offer a free limited edition.

Positionly

Positionly Track your keywords ranking results on the local or global market, depending on your needs. You can track everything in the most popular search engines - Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.

Analyze your progress on a daily basis and understand how rankings affect your growth.

Price: Plan starts from $16 - $84/month, has a 14-day free trial.

SERPs

International keyword rankings: SERPs Check keyword rankings positions in Google or Yahoo from over 100 country and language combinations. SERPs free rank checker can lookup rankings in dozens of countries. Use it to spot check keyword rankings anytime.

Mobile keyword rankings: Select mobile or desktop rankings. If mobile is selected, SERPs also highlight if Google is showing the "Mobile-friendly" tag next to a URL. If you want to track mobile rankings at a larger scale, read more about our mobile rank tracking solution.

Local keyword rank checker: See rankings from specific cities or zip codes. Check one keyword in a hundred different cities.

SERP checker: SERPs tool will return the top 250 SERP results for any given keyword if the site field is left blank. That way you can see what sites rank in the top 250 for any SERP.

Price: Plan starts From $497 - $1,997 / month and a Full Featured 30-Day Trial.

RankWatch

RankWatch Rank Checker calculates all your keyword rankings accurately and in an instant, whether you have 50 or 50,000 keywords, we will display your current rank, highest rank and Initial rank along with search volumes in top 100 serps.Trackers Track your site rankings on 177 search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and more using Rankwatch Rank Checker.

Price: Plan starts From $29 - $449 / month and a 14 days free trail.

SERP Scan

SERP Scan Automatically Generates Search Engine Ranking Reports Clients want proof that search engine optimization works for them. Increased rankings are the best way to prove to your clients that your hard work—and their money—is making a positive impact and return on investment for their business. SERP Scan also offer Local Rank Tracking and YouTube Rank Tracking.

Price: Plan starts From $99.99 - $399.99 / month with 30-day money back guarantee.

RankScanner

RankScanner Keep track of your search engine rankings through time, and quickly get an idea of which SEO tactics work the best.

RankScanner Track up to 500 keywords per domain, for an unlimited number of websites. Even monitor your competitors' SEO rankings as well.

Price: Plan starts From 9€ - 49€ /month and FREE for Up to 30 Keywords.







What Keyword Ranking Tools do you use? please drop your recommendation in the comments and I'll add in this list.

About Internet.org

84% of the population who are not experiencing the virtue of internet - Internet.org is a joint initiative of Facebook and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

It has been criticized for violating net neutrality and favoring Facebook's own services over its competitor. Until April 2015, Internet.org users could access (for free) only a few websites, and Facebook's role as the gatekeeper in determining what websites were in that list was criticized for violating net neutrality. In May 2015, Facebook announced that the Internet.org Platform would be opened to websites that met its criteria.

Internet.org Participants: 

Below is a selective history of launch dates, Country and participating mobile networks:

July 2014: Zambia
October 2014: Tanzania
November 2014: Kenya
January 2015: Colombia
January 2015: Ghana, with Airtel
10 February 2015: India with Reliance Communications
18 March 2015: Philippines with Smart Communications
31 March 2015: Guatemala with Tigo
20 April 2015: Indonesia with Indosat
10 May 2015: Bangladesh with Robi
13 May 2015: Malawi with TNM and Airtel
28 May 2015: Pakistan with Telenor Pakistan
5 June 2015: Senegal with Tigo
19 June 2015: Bolivia with VIVA
1 July 2015: South Africa with Cell C

Internet.org FAQ

Is Facebook app on my mobile also free of charge: Facebook browsing from internet.org is free of charge, but the Facebook app is not free.

Internet.org app: Currently only android app for internet.org is available which can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

How will I know if I am clicking on an external link and will be charged?: When you click on an external link a pop-up will appear informing you are going to be charged. If you click ‘Continue’ you will be taken to the next page where you will be given a choice to buy an internet pack, use existing internet pack or browse on pay per use.

This pop-up will still appear even when the subscriber has an existing pack.

About internet.org packs: Internet.org pack can also be used for browsing on other websites.

If subscriber purchase internet.org pack more than once, the volume will accumulate and the validity will increase to the validity of the newly purchased pack.

Internet.org packs can only be purchased through internet.org platform or app. Packs cannot be purchased through USSD or self-care.

If I browse the sites of internet.org by writing the URL in the address bar in the browser, will it be free?: No, the sites of internet.org are only free when subscriber browse on them through internet.org platform or app.

Video browsing through internet.org: Videos are not available through internet.org. On Facebook and Messenger, video upload will not be charged, but download (or watching) is chargeable, however, you can purchase internet pack to access the video.

Google Is Hiring An Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization

Google is Hiring An Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization, based on a recent job posting on the Google Careers portal.

The Google job listing is for a “Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization.” The description of the job makes it clear that this is about Online marketing:

As a Program Manager for Technical SEO, you will work with cross-functional teams across Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Engineering and more to help drive organic traffic and business growth. You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites.

The Technical SEO manager will be required to work with many different departments within Google including marketing, sales, product development and engineering. "You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites," the job description reads.

The responsibilities include:

1. Architect, design, develop and maintain innovative, engaging and informative sites for a worldwide audience. 
2. Maintain and develop the web code to ensure quality, content and readability by search engines. 
3. Keep pace with SEO, search engine and internet marketing industry trends and developments and report changes as needed. 
4. Advise, collaborate with, and synthesize feedback from Marketing, Product and Engineering partners to push for technical SEO best practices.

The qualifications include:

1. BA/BS degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent practical experience. 
2. 4 years of experience developing websites and applications with SQL, HTML5, and XML. 
3. 2 years of SEO experience. 
4. Experience with Google App Engine, Google Custom Search, Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics and experience creating and maintaining project schedules using project management systems. 
5. Experience working with back-end SEO elements such as .htaccess, robots.txt, metadata and site speed optimization to optimize website performance. 
6. Experience in quantifying marketing impact and SEO performance and strong understanding of technical SEO (sitemaps, crawl budget, canonicalization, etc.). 
7. Knowledge of one or more of the following: Java, C/C++, or Python. 
8. Excellent problem solving and analytical skills with the ability to dig extensively into metrics and analytics.

For many working at Google is a dream job, and for those search engine optimisation experts who have always fancied a look behind the curtain, this could prove the ideal opportunity to get right to the root of the science of search. Well, that’s probably a given if Google needs help ranking itself in its own search engine.

Fundamentals of Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries.

Websites need to work across multiple devices, screen sizes, and browsing contexts. Web designs need to be responsive to these variables, providing an optimal viewing experience for each scenario.

This article covers Fundamentals of Responsive Web Design like screen density, fluid grids, and responsive images, as well as actual design strategies that guide you from website mock-up to testing.

Rule of Thumb:

Configure the Viewport: 

A viewport controls how a webpage is displayed on a mobile device. Without a viewport, mobile devices will render the page at a typical desktop screen width, scaled to fit the screen. Setting a viewport gives control over the page's width and scaling on different devices.

Pages optimized to display well on mobile devices should include a meta viewport in the head of the document specifying width=device-width, initial-scale=1.

Designing for multiple screen:

Designing web sites to fit multiple resolution screen size is a very important web design principle.

Most browsers in mobile devices scale down webpages to make them fit the viewport. Since we want to rearrange stuff with CSS3 media queries instead ,we prevent this by using a simple meta tag that tells the browser to use the device width without any scaling. This is the meta tag that goes in the <head>.

You can use Modernizr to add support for CSS3 in older browsers, and at the same time get HTML5 support and other stuff such as feature detection with media queries and conditional resource loading. Or – to only add support for media queries – you can include this script in the <head>.

Media Queries for Standard Devices:

A major component of responsive design is creating the right experience for the right device. With a gazillion different devices on the market, this can be a tall task. We've rounded up media queries that can be used to target designs for many standard and popular devices that is certainly worth a read.

If you're looking for a comprehensive list of media queries, this repository is a good resource.

Use fluid grids:

Grids provide structure to your website, while using relative units can provide fluidity to that structure. Fluid grids are defined using a maximum width for the design; whereas the grid contained therein, is defined using relative widths and/or heights, instead of pixels. This allows the widths and heights to adjust accordingly in relation to the parent container. In other words, as the size of the screen your website is being viewed on gets smaller or larger, your site will adjust accordingly.

Build Responsive forms:

Don’t hide forms on smaller devices anymore. Making a responsive form is essential to meeting mobile user expectations.

Optimizing site performance:

Website visitors expect the same type of experience on their mobile device as they do on their computers.

So now, not only do you have to think about how a website performs in various computer web browsers, you also have to think about optimizing a website for the many types of mobile devices. This is where responsive web design comes into play. Responsive web design (RWD) involves creating a site that adjusts depending on what type of device is doing the viewing. The text can be scaled down, to offer only the main text and images.

It’s important to note, though, that just because a site has responsive web design and looks good on a certain device, it does not necessarily mean that it will load faster. And just because it loads faster on a mobile device, does not mean a visitor or customer will stay on it longer.

Ways to Optimize Your Website

• Get a dedicated server
• Use a CDN
• Compress images and text

Creating flexible HTML Layout:

I've been thinking a lot about screen resolution lately and how the use of fluid width websites is the best way to accommodate all visitors screen resolutions. The alternative, static width websites, have to make a choice. You can optimize for 800px width, the lowest common denominator, and give up the use of several hundred pixels of width for users with larger screens. Or, you can optimize for 1024px and just make your 800px visitors horizontal scroll. Anything wider than 1024px is too much for static width sites, in my opinion.

I think the best possible scenario is to make a fluid width site that accomodates everyone. Here is what I think would be the "Perfect" fluid width layout:

• Works in all major browsers 
• Shrinks to 780px This accommodates users with 800x600 resolution, with no horizontal scroll! 
• Grows to 1260px This accommodates users with 1280x768 resolution and everything in between. 
• This accommodates 90%+ of all internet users. You could easily make this layout grow larger, but be mindful of how line-length affects readability. Nobody wants to read a line of text 1980px long. 
• Sidebars are of "equal height" to the main content 
• Page content is centered for users with even higher resolutions.

Testing responsive design:

There are plenty of responsive design testing tools in the internet, you can try Google's mobile-friendly design testing tool.