Tuesday, October 26, 2010

How to Write Effective Title Tags for Better Positioning

How to Write Effective Title Tags for Better Positioning
By Asif Iqbal

Title tag is the most important part of your web page, which is normally neglected by most webmasters and designers, in fact there are few SEOs who think optimizing “Title Tag” is worthless. Title tag plays very important role in page optimization and in this article you’ll learn how to optimize it.
What Is The Title Tag?

It’s an HTML tag use as a title or heading of the web page, it shows input text on the blue bar at the web page, it is declared at the beginning of the webpage under head tag.
Example: Your Home Page Title
Why Is The Title Tag Important?

Title tag is the most important tag, almost all search engines evaluate webpage with title tag and check the relevancy with other elements of the page as well, and search engines also present results of a search by displaying webpage titles as links in the first line of each query result.
Tips To Write Effective Page Title:

* Try to place your most important keyword phrase at the beginning of the tag
* Use your primary keyword phrase in the title tag at least once
* Avoid using the same words multiple times
* Use plural form of keyword phrase, specially which includes complete singular word in it (Example: manufacturers)
* Use sentence case for keyword phrase but keep preposition in lower case
* Keep your title tag’s limit under 70 to 90 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
* Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
* Avoid using stopping words such as or, and , with, for, by, etc
* Use unique title tag for each page, since each page has unique content
* Make your title interesting and "compelling" to the reader to convince them why they should click there

About The Author
Asif Iqbal is a Research Analyst, eBusiness & eMarketing Consultant, SEO Specialist, Trainer, Speaker and Author, specializes in eBusiness, eMarketing, SEO, branding and promotion and has trained dozens of qualified SEOs. He can be reached at asif@asif-iqbal.com

How to Write Effective META Description Tag for Better Positioning in Yahoo and Msn

How to Write Effective META Description Tag for Better Positioning in Yahoo and Msn

By Asif Iqbal

Description tag is another useful meta tag which takes prominent place at your web site’s header. There are SEOs who think that there is no worth using this meta tag, but majority of them still agree that this meta tag helps in optimizing websites for Yahoo and Msn, in this article you’ll learn how to effectively utilize it.

What Is The Meta Description Tag?

It’s an HTML tag use to feed description to search engines, it gives description of webpage to search engines, it is declared after title tag of the webpage under head tag.

Example:

Why Is The Description Tag Important?

Description tag is the very important tag, search engines take webpage description through this tag, though search engines don't give any importance to this tag in their ranking algorithms but this tag can lead searchers to motivate and visit your website.

Tips To Write Effective Page Description Tag:

  • Describe your complete webpage in one single line or in a small paragraph
  • Forget about keywords, focus on “call to action” words with respect to page relevancy
  • Avoid covering complete website in one paragraph, try to focus on page
  • Use unique description tag for each page, since each page has unique content
  • Keep your description tag’s limit under 225 to 250 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
  • Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
  • Avoid all capital letter, try to use sentence case
  • Use motivational lines so that your listing will be clicked comparatively better than your competitors
  • Don’t misguide search engine visitors, write what is available there at the page

About The Author

Asif Iqbal is a Research Analyst, eBusiness & eMarketing Consultant, SEO Specialist, Trainer, Speaker and Author, specializes in eBusiness, eMarketing, SEO, branding and promotion and has trained dozens of qualified SEOs. He can be reached at asif@asif-iqbal.com

10 Tips to have Successful Blogging

By Asif Iqbal

Creating a blog is easy but managing a successful blog is something every Blogger wants, a Blogger’s success depends on the amount of audience that Blogger is known to and repeated traffic is the most valuable asset for a Blogger. In this article you’ll get to know ten (10) tips to effectively and successfully manage your blogs and brining your audience back to you.

What is Blog?

Blog is a short word representing "Weblog" and weblog is an online eDiary that is used to display chronological order of postings by one or multiple individuals. It’s an online journal that is regularly updated and accessible publicly to everyone, people can post their comments openly on blogs. It’s basically an interactive media to share thoughts, where author and readers can interact each other on single platform.

Blogger is a person who writes Weblogs, it has become a successful and dynamic profession internally, there are industries OR topic specific bloggers who are equally popular as start.

Tips for Effective and Successful Blogging

There are some very effective blogging tips through which you will be able to entertain your audience and they will keep coming back to your blog, it’s the LOYAL AUDIENCE who is the difference b/w a normal blog and a successful blog.

    1. Purpose of the Blog
    2. Who Your Target Audience Is
    3. Think Big
    4. Keep It Simple Principle
    5. Short And Brief
    6. Informal And Friendly Attitude
    7. Truth And Honesty
    8. Frequency Of Post
    9. Quick Reply To Comments
    10. Don’t Treat Blog Like An Advertisement Or Marketing Campaign

1. Purpose of the Blog

You should be clearly know the purpose of the blog, either you want to make it professional, topic or industry specific, want to project it as story or want to use it for PR of certain company or product. The best think is to write something you are crazy about.

2. Who Your Target Audience Is

Once you know your targeted audience, their interests and their likeness, you can easily facilitate your audience and can reach to comfort zone or your audience.

3. Think Big

You can create a blog easily, it’s free and quick but it requires your valuable time and continuous input. You just can’t have blog for anything. You have to have something new to your readers, so that they keep coming back to your blog and frequency of their visits depends on your input.

4. Keep It Simple Principle

There is no alternate to simplicity, keep your content simple and easy to understand, so that it will have wide range of audience. Find out simple alternate to difficult words, if somehow you have to use technical word, you should explain it.

5. Short And Brief

You should always write short and brief, people normally don’t like to read too much content. You should be very specific and to the point while posting your blog, if you try to irritate your audience they will never come back to your blog.

6. Informal And Friendly Attitude

Your blog should have informal and friendly attitude of writing, so that you can get quick interaction with your audience who will read your blog, you have to have immediate friendship with your audience through your expression of words and tone.

7. Truth And Honesty

You should always blog with honesty and truth, people like to read your original thoughts rather a point of view of someone else, this way you get closer to your audience and your audience tries to communicate with you.

8. Frequency Of Post

You have to have something new to your blog that will get your audience stick to it, if you are able to post thrice or twice a week that will be good frequency to get your audience back to your blog.

9. Quick Reply To Comments

Your audiences want quick reply to their comments, you should ideally reply back same day. You can set email alert on your blog, so that whenever someone post comments, you get an alert in your email and this way you can keep your blog up to day.

10. Don’t Treat Blog Like An Advertisement Or Marketing Campaign

Your blog is not one way communication, it’s a two way communication where your readers will have equal rights to share their comments openly, if you treat your blog like an advertisement, there are chances that you will have negative feedback or your blog will have less attraction to your readers. Today’s readers are smart enough to understand the purpose of the blog, if you want to use your blog for PR, then you have to keep the balance and be true to your audience.

I hope that above mentioned points will help you manage your blog more effectively, and if you still don’t have a blog, I would highly recommend you to create it today and feel free to ask if you have any question or query.

About The Author

Asif Iqbal is a Research Analyst, eBusiness & eMarketing Consultant, SEO Specialist, Trainer, Speaker and Author, specializes in eBusiness, eMarketing, SEO, branding and promotion and has trained dozens of qualified SEOs. He can be reached at asif@asif-iqbal.com