A great thing about Google is, it gives webmasters all the help they need to get their websites into Google's index. There's a nice tool available in Google Webmaster Tools called 'Fetch as GoogleBot'. This tool, as we discussed in our SEO Tips for start-ups, can be a great help diagnosing errors and getting a website in Google's index faster. A robots.txt file is used for crawling efficiency, and...
The navigation buttons or links that are displayed at the bottom of each comment section in BlogSpot blogs enable visitors to switch between new and old posts or move from one post page to another ordered by date and time. These buttons become less of use when number of comments increase too much. Normally readers do not even observe the navigation deep down and this results in loss of precious pageviews....
If you have any interest in the web-development industry, you will find that there are countless entries on the internet about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - from so-and-so hot SEO tactics to the best SEO practices, and so on. There are also tonnes of blogs and websites like Search Engine Land, SEOmoz etc that provide SEO tools, guides, tips, and more. But can you learn all about SEO from these...
Post Contributed by Hassam Ahmad Awan, a Gold Star MBT contributor and senior co-author. You can catch him always on his blog Bloggingehow Its a pleasure for me to share one of a Blogger tweak that we managed to implement on BloggingeHow.com recently that makes sure that every author's image is shown up beside their post titles, both on home and post pages. The dynamic tweak enables...
Have you ever considered grabbing more control over your AdSense ads through, say the AdSense Ad review center? The Ad review Center is a really powerful tool that lets you tweak the settings, and control ads that appear in your site's ad units. Following a set of changes and improvements from Google earlier this year, that gave this useful tool even more power and reliability, Google has now introduced...
Blogging has become very popular, and has become a 'hot' way of earning money online. But while so many people make a fortune at blogging, a lot of others get discouraged, and quit blogging. The major reason for this is, some people just don't know how to avoid some pitfalls that accompany the field. There's a lot more to blogging than just writing and earning money in return. Take a look at the top...
We often hear and use the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with regards to blogging / website designing, and getting content on Google. But what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear this word? A lot of people picture link building and other such practices, which kind of limits their imagination and their field. But comparing its actual meaning to the way it is used today, do you...
Google rolls out its algorithmic updates on a regular basis now. And it impacts a lot of websites positively, as well as negatively. Although the negative effect might be because of shady practices or spam action, it could also be a mistake, for which Google offers webmasters an option to file a reconsideration report. So if you think your website has been unduly penalized, or maybe if there's a misconception...
LiveJournal is a great free resource for people who want to keep a log or a diary of sorts of theirs online, or share their life experiences with their friends and family. It allows people to make posts, and then cross-post and share on their social media profiles. Hence, these journals have all the markings of a blog. But for people who started off with LiveJournal, but aren't satisfied with...
Campaign tags, also known as URL parameters, are a way of telling apart different variables, such as a visitor's source, or affiliate id, or something similar. Hence, they are used for tracking purposes. These tags or parameters change the URL, even if they might point to the same content. For example www.example.com and www.example.com?ref=1234, both might point to the same webpage. So the important...
Blogger is a very widely used publishing platform, mostly because its strength lies in its simplicity and ease of use. It is quite easy to use, and is recommended for beginner bloggers who are looking for a quick and easy way to create a presence for themselves online. For bloggers who have created a WordPress blog, but are at a loss to maintain or modify it, they have a great option in Blogger. They...
Are site-wide backlinks good or bad for your website? People are often confused by the question, and most are under the impression that the more the backlinks to a website, the better, no matter whether they are from the same, or a different domain. And judging from a crawler's point of view, it seems logical, since crawlers crawl each link on a page, and then follow the link to...
We have previously discussed about the different screen size available out there, and how to optimize your website for better experience on smartphones and Tablets. Since the evolution of the internet and the advancement in display technology, the number of pixels has been increasing, from the small VGA display to the current ultra-HD 2048 x 1600 display. So webmasters have been trying forever to...
By far, the most popular method of acquiring links among webmasters is guest blogging. People write for other websites in exchange for links to their own websites. This not only gives people a backlink, it also gives them a small increase in traffic, hence making it a favorite among bloggers. But sometimes, it seems a bit too easy, as anyone can pick up content from the internet and submit a guest...
Mobile devices such as Smartphones, and especially Tablets, are now fast becoming more and more popular, and although nowhere near replacing desktops, they do seem to be gaining up on browser statistics. Now, they have more than 10% of the share, with Tablets almost as much being used as smartphones. This makes optimizing websites for mobile devices all the more important. But tablet users now don't...
Previously, we have talked about a new feature released by Facebook recently called Facebook Offers. This feature lets you promote your brand by offering people rewards for visiting your website or your brand's physical location. Simple creating an offer, however, is just a start. To make it work, you have to utilize the maximum potential of your audience by designing a successful offer, and...
Are you thinking about launching a new website, or maybe a service or an online store? If yes, then chances are that you might want to take the initial phase of setting up a domain and website a bit more seriously than you'd ordinarily do. Ever opened a webpage, only to find that it is no where to be found on the internet? That's because there's nothing on that domain at present. Worse still...
So, Google PageRank has been updated again this week, just as expected. And so far, the update does not seem to be a major one - but then again, give it some time. The last update took place in August 2012, and the one before that on May 2012. So it's pretty obvious that Google is now rolling out these updates quarterly, i.e. after every three months. So the next update is expected in the first...
Google is always constantly trying to expand its influence by introducing new features, while trying at the same time to improve upon those of its products that are popular. Hence we've seen a plethora of new tools and features being introduced across the Google-sphere in the recent past. And yesterday, we were talking about this same thing that why Google cuts down on some of its products to...
Google is one of the most successful internet company, and it's scope is so wide now that almost every internet user uses at least one product from Google. And Google continues to expand and create new products. But in the process, it has been pulling the plug on some products as well. Take iGoogle, for example. Or Google Video or Google Talk Chatback. There's a whole plethora of products that Google...
Yesterday, we talked about a latest marketing and advertising feature introduced by Facebook called Facebook Offers. Facebook Offers let you promote your brand or products by giving out rewards to people who visit your website or your brand's physical location (office, store etc). These rewards can be anything, from an ebook to a small gift hamper to an entry into a lucky draw for a larger prize....
Facebook has just recently launched a new feature for brand pages: Page offers. Page offers are basically rewards for your audience or customers who can claim them by visiting your store or online website, and also share with their friends. Not only does this engage your current customers or audience on a new level, it also extends the reach of your service or brand. Offers require a budget to run,...
One of the greatest influence in the online word is the power of the written word. People, especially bloggers mostly make use of writing to convey their message to their readers. But have you ever thought of using images, or videos to do the same? Of course, a lot of people use videos and images on their blogs or websites. But how about presenting your awesome blog posts in the form of a video? Maybe...
As we have previously discussed, Google recently launched a Disavow Links Tool. Using this tool, bloggers and webmasters can 'disavow', or disinherit some selected incoming links to their websites, so that Google won't consider those links when evaluating the website. The idea is to prevent spam-backlinking, that can bring down a website's ranking, because Google considers the quality of the backlinks...
So the U.S presidential race is a full swing, and expectations are high as the election day arrives. Different people have different ways of keeping track of the race, and so do many websites which provide varying data on who has the most support. But every term (four years), more and more people are looking for reliable sources of information on the voting process and their ballots. Google has now...
Making sub-domains on a domain has now become pretty popular, and many bloggers are now using sub-domains to create custom pages, such as contact and about pages. Although they look professional (and classy :P), they raise a concern. Usually, they are not part of a theme or template, and are custom designed. So some of the on-page SEO elements might be present. And Google Panda and Penguin is said...
