People have been asking me for some Google SEO tips and hence I was thinking about writing this article for a long time. I sat down; jotted all the vital points and have finally completed it. On-page SEO is now really important after Google Panda update. Old SEO techniques that were used years ago might not be useful now. In fact, they might be harmful for your blogs. Here I am jotting down my two bits –

Domain age – Google prefers Websites that are relatively older and hence I would recommend you to buy older domains for your new projects. Or if you are buying a new one, keep it for at least five years.

Upgrade the blog at regular intervals – It is important that your blog is updated regularly. Google likes sites which are up-to-date. I make sure that all my online properties are updated at least once a week and my blog posts are regularly updated too.

Write for visitors – It is recommended that you publish articles which provide information not for Google but to the visitors. I am not saying that you should ignore the concept of keyword density but your visitors should enjoy reading the article. A high keyword density doesn’t guarantee you a higher ran. Also, you should use LSI keywords.

Press release submission – This is another great way to get powerful backlinks and traffic. But your press releases should be powerful. A press release that is written well will attract a lot of publishers and this will give you a lot of links in turn.

Flash – Flash might look very attractive to you but it is useless from Google’s point of view because Flash can’t be read by Google.

Meta tags – Using meta tags can be effective in SEO. They aren’t so important now but I still use them anyways.
Heading tab – Use heading tags like H1, H2, and H3; they are useful provided you use it in the right way. Heading tags should follow up each other and I don’t use 2 H1 tags. Also, you should put the targeted keyword in heading tags.

Setting sitemaps – Sitemaps are important. For my WordPress blogs, I don’t just set up simple sitemap but also video and image sitemap.  All these sitemaps are then submitted to main search engines. This is really important and shouldn’t be ignored.

Mark out the keywords – Highlight your keyword by making it bold, underlined, and italicized in all your posts.

External links – The external links should be built for almost all the pages of your site and not just for the home page. This will show Google that the post has useful stuff to offer.

Distribution of articles – submitting articles to the article directories are effective but aren’t as powerful as they used to be some time ago. These days, I first publish my articles and then submit them to many article directories. This can be done by some kinda article submitter software too.

Images – You should use images as illustrate your article and it is also good from the SEO point of view. The image should contain a title and description along with the keyword.

There has been much humming of change in Google algorithm for the last two months. And the last few weeks witnessed major change in the ranking system of Google. This will give online companies a fresh start for the competition to land on the first page of Google’s search. The new Google algorithm will track down the low quality websites in the internet and also the content farms. Content farms are termed to those companies which employ full time or part-time writers to create loads of content. This is done to increase revenue of those companies through page views by net readers. As this new Google algorithm is focusing specially over the content farms, the algorithm has been named as The Farmer.

In case my article doesn’t give a hint of a mean to capture page views, I would present the facts about this newly launched Google algorithm. The algorithm has been put into effect from February 2011. Since its launch in February, it has affected approximately 11% to 12% if the search engine queries within US. This factual statement is true enough to show that effectiveness of this algorithm. No news has been released as to when the new algorithm will be affecting search queries in other parts of the world.

The websites that are highly damaged due to this Google algorithm are those which run after absolute monetizing through their content loaded pages. By now several article distribution sites to search for content farm articles. Special scrutiny will be performed by Google on those sites where apart from content abundant ads are posted.

Creating unique and high quality content that will provide handy information to readers is the only route to escape. So start writing and stop copying.

To paraphrase Shakespeare; “To link or not to link, is that even a question?” But the million dollar question is what you should link to in your blog post if you want to go down that road. What sort of link building strategies should you use? The number of outbound links you have and the manner in which you use them is critical. Here are some ways in which link building strategies could be beneficial to you.

Building networks and relationships

Building a niche community helps build a blog up over time. Don’t dismiss the idea of linking to blogs you might be linking to. Your readers and the the community as a whole might appreciate your going the extra mile and the relationship could be more rewarding than you think.

Don’t steal credit

The reason to have outbound links is to prove your facts and to corroborate your own research. Not everything you write will be original, but the least you can do is link back to the source of the information. Let readers know your research has been done and it’s all credible.

Don’t overdo it

Don’t be a link whore. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Relevant links can certainly help you with SEO and Google, keep the number of links reasonable. Don’t overdo it because beyond a point it seems like spam or an untrustworthy maneuver. If that happens, it’ll do more harm than good.

Credit guest writers and image sources

If you can’t afford to hire a blogger or a photographer, have no fear. Some blogs and photographers will allow you to use their resources (with prior permission, of course). Giving a short bio about them and their work and thanking them is the way to go as a way of appreciating their gesture.

Flesh out your opinion

With any kind of luck, your opinions are based on fact or research. Having an opinion is a good thing, but back it up with facts. Don’t be a rabble rouser that forwards an opinion just because you can. Use links to back up your statements.

You don’t have to always link

Sometimes, linking to something externally can slow down comprehension and understanding of the topic at hand. So don’t be too heavy on the linking and do away with it altogether sometimes. It’s not a rule of blogging that you have to have outbound links every time.

Showcase information

Sometimes, you want to quote more about a particular source or bring together a bunch of diverse opinions under one roof. Link back at times like this since it adds credence to your own post and it is a way to pay respect to the source from whom you got this information in the first place. Don’t be a plagiarist. Linking is not the same thing as plagiarising.

I usually find people have some kind of perception about Google Search Engine SEO and the kind of work they do. Even people say SEO for a blog or a website is useless; this is a misconception because there are large numbers of SEO myths. Regrettably, the myths are spread on the forums and blogs, which is really miserable for new blogger or for a new website. Before spreading these myths, readers don’t even try to do research on it and believe it to be true. These myths can be really harmful and thus I want to share some of the common SEO myths which you might have heard or read somewhere which are definitely not correct.

• Meta Tags for High Ranking:

  I have seen so many good ranked sites with absolutely no Meta tags. So this is a most popular myth that words in your Meta tags must be used on your page. The truth is just opposite. Meta tags were designed to be used for keywords that were not on the page.

• PPC ads will affect your Ranking:

  This just makes me laugh, because PPC ads don’t affect your Google ranking. Neither it lowers your ranking nor does it bring your ranking up.

• You need to have H1 Tag (Header Tag):

  Using H1 tags affect your ranking to very negligible ratio. My own test doesn’t found any drastic changed because

  

  of H1 tag, rather its bit difficult to find out the exact result.

• No need to Update:

  Many people say that you don’t need to update your site to maintain your ranking. In fact, it is recommended that on updating your pages on regular basis helps bots to visit your site to list the changes. If updating if your site is ignored that your rank can easily slip out.

• Duplicate content is harmless:

  It is a pure myth that duplicate content doesn’t affect your page ranking. Content is the most important factor and thus it should be original and unique, otherwise you will lose your loyal readers as well as search engine rank

• Follow Google guidelines:

  Many think that their site will be banned if they don’t follow Google webmaster guidelines. Google guidelines are very easy and very common but don’t do it for search engine. Use only that guideline which you feel appropriate for yourself.

• Keyword stuffing will give you higher rank:

  This is wrong .If you are stuffing keywords or having hidden text on your site, you can get banned from search engines.

• Google sitemap is compulsory:

  Google sitemap is not at all compulsory if you have structured website. If you think that Google sitemap is going to raise your ranking then I would suggest better not to go for that. It’s not bad to have Google sitemap but having just for the sake of high ranking is bad. Your site just needs to be spider friendly. For higher search engine ranking read here.

• Content should have more than 250 words:

  It’s not compulsory to have more than 250 words content .There is no hard and fast rule for SEO. Important point is it should be interesting even with fewer words with uniqueness and proper keywords you can attract search engines. Short article do same for your rank as long articles do. For Writing Skills read here.

• SEO is very simple to learn:

  This is the worst myth. SEO is not a one or two month task. Not everyone can do it. There are many activities involved in SEO job and you have to do it professionally.

To get more good quality SEO Tips Subscribe to this blog and read more about SEO here.