This is a guest post by WebGuru India. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

If you are associated with website design or SEO industry, updating yourself about the latest trends is critical. Update yourself about the latest search changes, introduced by Google. These can include greater emphasis on original content and comprehensive indexing.

Industries, such as SEO and website design undergo changes regularly. This means that as an SEO services expert or a website designer, you have to update yourself consistently about the latest changes. In recent times, Google announced 10 search modifications. These changes included a mix of crawling, algorithmic, and user interface updates.

Parked domain detection and better long-tail indexing are also included in the declared changes. In addition, Google has decided to write a fresh post with algorithm changes every month. We discuss these changes in details.

1. ‘Related query results refinements’- This change will restrict high ranking of similar results, provided the original search contained a word that was not considered by the alternate query. Let us assume that you are searching for ‘high quality blue widgets’. In such a situation, Google will not display a page that contains the term ‘blue widgets’.

2. ‘More comprehensive indexing’- Google is placing more emphasis on long-tail optimization.

3. ‘Layout on tablets’- Those using tablets will notice certain modifications in layout and color that will increase usability of Google.

4. ‘Original content’- Google is placing more importance on original content. Now, it has implemented new signals for helping users pick out the original one, out of two same posts. In other words, Google has opted for scraper-counter measures.

5. ‘Image result freshness’- Google can now pick out new images for queries more quickly.

6. ‘New parked domain classifier’- Google can now sense parked domains quickly. Therefore, chances are less that parked domains will be displayed in SERP.

7. ‘Fresher and more complete blog search results’- Google has introduced a deeper and faster indexing system for blog content. This means that if your blog contains original content and good information, it is more likely to come up in the SERP. In other words, your blog will be considered more valuable.

8. ‘More autocomplete predictions’- The autocomplete prediction of Google is now quicker and more enhanced.

9. ‘Live results for Major League Soccer and the Canadian Football League’- Performs what it declares.

10. ‘Top result selection code rewrite’- This code deals with additional processing on the higher set of results. For instance, the code makes sure that Google does not display excessive results from a single site.

We think that most of these changes are useful for site owners and users. However, few changes, such as ‘Live results for Major League Soccer and the Canadian Football League’ will not be useful for most people.

WebGuru India is a website design company based in India, offering high-quality and cost-effective website design and website development solutions to people worldwide. The company has authored several articles on web design, Flash design, brochure design, logo design, graphic design, corporate identity design, SEO services etc, providing updated information on technological developments and advancements.

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This is a guest post. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Aren’t pandas cute? Of course they are – as long as they’re not the kind of panda that Google unleashed upon the Internet on February 24th, 2011. The effect of this panda has come to be known as the “Panda Slap“, and with good reason. Just ask the people of OneWayFurniture.com how vicious a panda slap can be. Many sites that provided inbound links to the e-tailer were slapped by Google’s Panda update, and this significantly impacted the organic Google traffic that OneWayFurniture enjoyed.

OneWayFurniture made three huge changes as a result of the Panda slap:

• Revamped their pages to load faster in browsers. (Google considers page load speed a ranking factor.)
• Hired professional copywriters to write product descriptions with SEO in mind instead of their previous tactic of copying and pasting the descriptions that product manufacturers used on their respective sites (thus removing duplicate content).
• Replaced the SEO firm that brought low quality inbound links with a new firm that promised high quality links.

The changes OneWayFurniture made will not work for every site affected negatively by the Panda update, so first answer the question:

How Can I Tell if I Have Been Panda-Slapped?

Method One

Log in to Google Analytics. Under the Traffic Sources tab, pick non-paid, then click Search Engines, then Google. Below the Site Usage tab, click Keyword, then Country/Territory, and type in United States. Click the Go button to the right of the data field and pray you do not see a sharp drop in traffic on or immediately after any of these 2011 dates:

• February 24th
• April 11th
• May 10th
• June 16th
• July 23rd

Those dates are when Panda and its updates were released.

Method Two

Use “advanced segments” to see the same data. Create a new segment and configure it so that the condition for Medium matches exactly “organic,” the condition for Country/Territory matches exactly “United States,” and the condition for Source contains “Google.” This method segments visitors by organic Google traffic from the US, and also allows you to view Panda’s effect on a page-by-page basis.

At its worst, Panda can affect online retail sales significantly. Say you run a website that sells Christmas decorations and accessories – call it ChristmasExpress.org for argument’s sake – and one of your many high quality affiliates is HalloweenExpress.com. People can purchase cheap costumes at HalloweenExpress and similar affiliates, while your site, ChristmasExpress.org, contains several videos detailing how to create unique holiday decorations (in addition to selling products.) Everything was working out splendidly until – BAM – those affiliates are Panda-slapped for whatever reason, reducing referral traffic to the point that your sales are falling.

While your affiliates work out their Panda issues, you can sell an e-book or create a mailing list to try compensating for the lost revenue. But what can you do when it’s your site that is Panda-slapped?

Use a Spreadsheet to Help Visualize Potential Problems

In an interview with Wired magazine, Google engineers Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts gave a few hints about dealing with Panda. It’s important to realize that Panda was largely aimed at removing “low quality” sites from the Google SERPs. So, try building a spreadsheet and listing the types of pages on your site in columns – blog posts, product pages, gateway pages, articles (low quality), articles (high quality), guest posts (low quality), guest posts (high quality), forum pages, etc.

The next columns to add should address different on-page factors, such as:

• Few or moderate number of ads
• Several ads
• Little or medium duplicate content
• Most or all duplicate content
• Short or medium articles
• Long articles
• Few or no images
• Image-heavy
• Percentage drop in organic US Google traffic

You’ll use this spreadsheet to…

Test, Re-Test and Adapt

Reduce the percentage of pages containing low quality posts by replacing the content with higher quality writing, or eliminate those pages altogether. In cases where ad-laden pages suffer a greater Panda slap (drop in Google traffic) than pages that display fewer ads, consider shifting the ads amongst relevant pages. On the other hand, if pages with few or no ads fare worse than pages with more ads, then the ads are probably not the cause, so look for duplicate or lower quality content.

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This is a guest post. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Companies offering SEO services are increasing in number now that websites are being created for the purpose of generating revenues. The goal of a SEO Company USA is to get high rankings for its clients with the major search engines. Such a company achieves this by optimizing websites and shaking off competitors who have similar websites so as to attain a top search engine position.

As more and more people go online in search of goods and services, businesses are now creating websites in a bid to attract this new audience of potential clients to their products and services, now that the internet offers a cost-effective way of reaching out to target audiences. A professional SEO company will therefore never go out of business simply because more and more investors will want to take advantage of the quality SEO services offered by these professional companies to ensure that potential clients will find them online. Let us see some of the trends that SEO service providers are using currently to be able to improve these rankings.

A professional SEO Company evaluates the web content of a client and is able to know the reasons that are hindering the visibility of the website from a search engine’s point of view. A trend that has become a favorite for companies offering SEO services is the use of keywords; this is a tried and tested technique that has been used effectively in improving website rankings.

A professional SEO Company may also rewrite the web content so that it can optimize the website for the search engine. Other trends that these service providers use include writing contents like articles, blogs and press releases that promote a clients’ websites. These contents are submitted to article directories and social sites where they can be easily accessed by potential clients who’ll then read about the products and services on offers. Using the links provided in these promotional materials, the customers will have an easy access to the particular websites.

SEO services do not come cheap.  However, a professional SEO Company can always come up with a SEO solution tailor-made for each and every business to enable it achieve high search engine rankings regardless of size.  These service providers are always researching on the most current trends so that they can continue to offer unmatched, high quality services to their clients.  SEO services have in the recent past become important for optimizing websites and these services will only get more popular into the future.

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This is a guest post by Amelia Von Wolffersdorff. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Whether you are new to the field of search engine optimization, or you are a professional in the web industry, you will no doubt find a conference that fits your needs from the following list. All of these U.S. conferences feature professionals from the industry who offer their own insights and experiences pertaining to search and web marketing.

1. eMetrics: Marketing Optimization Summit: This San Jose, California, conference features seminars on current tools and techniques as well as the best practices and lessons learned by professionals in the digital marketing industry. Speakers include marketing executives, authors, consultants, CEOs, and other experienced and engaging individuals. In addition, this conference offers face-to-face networking opportunities for its attendees.

2. Online Marketing Summit is a three-day event that occurs in over ten major U.S. cities each year. This conference offers three tracks, allowing beginner, intermediate, and expert-level practitioners to find seminars that suit their needs. Topics covered range from website usability and social media strategies, to website conversion and field marketing, to web marketing and eCommerce. Seminars and discussions are integrated with keynote speakers.

3. PubCon : Best suited for those with professional to expert experience, the PubCon conference covers topics such as search, net marketing, affiliates, and domainers. Pubcon spans four days and features 200 different speakers who are experts in the latest web technologies. This conference is located in a different U.S. city each year.

4. Search Engine Strategies is a search and social marketing event held in major cities around the United States. Designed for marketers and search engine optimization professionals, this conference teaches its attendees important points, including how to increase traffic via organic listings, how to avoid “spam” penalties, and how to improve the user experience.

5. Search Exchange: Internet Marketing Conference: Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, this conference features two keynote speakers who discuss pay per click advertising and social media marketing. In addition, other professionals in the industry participate in panel discussions on search engine optimization, web analytics, and more.

6. SearchFest is Portland, Oregon’s premier search engine marketing conference, focusing on marketing education and networking. Topics covered include social media marketing, advanced search engine optimization, local search, analytics, and paid search marketing. This conference offers several learning tracks and features speakers, workshops, and panels.

7. Search Inside Summit, a three-day conference located in Florida, presents speakers from the search industry who offer their insight on search marketing and new technology. Most of the speakers are executives who have experience developing search strategies and search budgets for their companies. This conference boasts a limited number of attendees so as to foster a more intimate, discussion-filled atmosphere.

8. Search Marketing Expo West: This conference is ideal for individuals in areas of corporate or marketing management, or members of a marketing or IT/Web staff. Topics raised at this conference center around current trends in search engines, including issues surrounding Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

9. SunCity SEOcon, a conference for online marketers located in Phoenix, Arizona, offers two days of training and networking events. Attendees will hear tips and secrets from experienced online marketers. This conference boasts a laid-back atmosphere in a very sunny setting.

10. Web Usability Week, located in San Francisco, offers six days of speakers, panels, and discussions on topics ranging from writing for the web to navigation design to web usability to social features on mainstream websites to brands and customers. Speakers are executives and other individuals from the web industry.

Amelia Von Wolffersdorff is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on online degrees from accredited colleges for Guide to Online Schools.

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It is important to make sure that your website or ecommerce store has all of its SEO ducks in a row.  We talk to many visitors about their SEO efforts and usually find simple things to fix.  There are a lot of times where there are simple fixes that can improve your overall website optimization.  We have found that there are many shopping carts or websites that do not have their headings properly formatted with HTML.

Sample H1 Heading

While there are many ways to format headings, it is important for SEO purposes to use the designated heading tags.  The easiest way to format headings is to use your CSS file to differentiate the colors and font size among other things.  Webmasters and designers should remember that you can format your heading tags in your css file as well and it would be the best way to handle any headings.  Heading tags range from H1 to H6 and the size of the heading usually gets smaller as the number gets bigger.  H1 is the biggest heading and H6 is the smallest.

H1 Heading

H2 Heading

H3 Heading

H4 Heading

H5 Heading

H6 Heading

Search Engines understand the H tags and give them the proper weight in their algorithm.   Every webpage on your website or your ecommerce store should have an H1 tag to designate the most important information.  Make sure your ecommerce shopping cart product pages use the H1 tag properly.  Most should have the title of the product formatted with the H1 tag.  This will tell search engines that the title of your product is of the most importance on the page.  You can have other important aspects use different heading tags, but make sure you do not have multiple tags of the same weight.  You do not want more than one of each as that makes it look confusing and search engine spiders might not like it.

To create your heading tags, all you need to do is create format within your CSS file and then call it in your html files.   If you are using an ecommerce shopping cart, make sure that your provider has used the heading tags in a proper manner or even at all.  There have been many providers that just format the headings in the css file, but they are not the proper heading tags that search engines love.  This is such a simple fix that every website and ecommerce store should be implementing it.  Change the look and feel of each heading tag to suit your needs and to match your overall website design.  Headings are important, so make sure they you format them properly with the correct tags.

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