SEO for Blogger at the Ready, Set, Blog 2.0

One more time, I was invited to an event where I have to share something with my blogger friends. This time its not about blogging or social media  but about the profession that I've been doing for almost a decade.

I have seen the participant's excitement when I enter the room. It was not too formal gathering so nothing to worry about. However, I was thinking of how can I explain to them in layman's term about the technicalities of they requested topic.

During the event, there are also a series of talks coming from other colleagues in the blogosphere. Blogging 101 and Digital Marketing was discussed by Larawan at Kape, Blogging as a Business is one, How to Elevate Your Blog from Wazzup Pilipinas and lot more.

There are also raffles and games. A picka-picka was serve and the day was full of a learning and fun activities.

I talk about SEO for bloggers and I am sharing you my slide here. Please check it out below.

Seo for bloggers from Marites "Zheyme" Manahan

Ready, Set, Blog 2.0 is a project of Annesheyday in partnership with SELAH GARDEN HOTEL. Ought to know more about blogging, digital marketing and SEO for bloggers!! Also know how to elevate your blog!!! Our utmost appreciation to Bravo Food Supplement for Men as our major sponsor. Our deepest gratitude to our sponsors:

#EstiaraPhilippines, #HydsCustomizedCakesandCatering, #MusicMuseumph,
#RomuloCafe, #Romulocafeph, #TheThinkingCapMarketing, #JramsCoffeeBistroPastries, #GangnamWingsph, #JingMonisSalon,#HopInnPhilippines, #SocialMediaIntelligenceandPublications, #TanduayAthletics,#Herbalifeph, #Allianz, #GaiusPensionInn, #BravoFoodSupplementforment, #OliveNailandBodySpa, #annesheyday, #readysetblog2018

I hope you like it! If you questions you can comment it below and I will try to answer it as soon as I can.

Photo grab from John Cueto and Leo, Thanks!

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Test Your Knowledge In SEO... Take The SEO Quiz!

Have you ever wonder how far have you been in the field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Have you tried to test your knowledge in this field? I tried these SEO quiz for fun and I'm so glad to be on the track in SEO. Got a good score in three different quiz from basic seo quiz to expert seo quiz which I got 90%. Today, let me share you some of the SEO quiz, that you can try answering and learn the levels of your expertise in search engine optimization. You can test your self, do it with your colleague or the whole team. 

Are you ready to show what you know about Search Engine Optimization? These SEO Quizes will not take more than 20 minutes of your time.

Try the Techfrog SEO Basic Quiz below and check out your answer after.
Also, you can try the Business News Daily SEO Quiz. It was fun and if you did not get a good score, you can take the quiz again and again.

And if you think you the ins and outs of SEO then try the SEO Expert Quiz of moz.com it has 50 question and will only take you 15 minutes to do it and let this game begin!

Share to me your score in the comments below and let's discuss some pointers and tips about search engine optimization.

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Is Your Website A Mobile-Friendly?

Have you seen the latest news about confirming of Google that they will favor mobile-friendly websites in their search results?

Oh well, the updates are up on their blog, and you can check it out here; Google Webmaster Central - Blog Post 

Excited with their important announcement? Wait a minute...

Apparently, this mobile-friendliness is somewhat important in ranking signal. As a matter of fact, many people are talking about this for almost two years. Soon, it will become a bigger factor and websites that were not capable of mobile responsiveness will actually be penalized in rankings. 

Google is very clear in their intentions and gave us time to adjust. However, those websites that are not mobile friendly are going to be left behind and if your website is one of these, I'm telling you to be prepared! 

Well, if you are on Wordpress you don't have to worry much because most of Wordpress themes are already responsive. However, there is nothing wrong if you check your sites to be safe. You can run a mobile friendly test right now with your Google webmaster tool:

Run A Mobile Friendly Test Now! 

If your website is not a mobile friendly, there are helpful instuctions in Google Webmaster Tool to make your site a mobile friendly. You just have to pick the options that will describe on how you created your website and simply follow the step by step guide. 

There is still more time. So, no worries! 

Below are the gists of two important #WebmasterNews announcement;

1. Google will be expanding the use of mobile friendliness as a ranking signal starting April 21 of this year. It means that there will be more #mobilefriendly sites in their search results from that day.

2. Google will be started to use the information from indexed apps as their factor in ranking for signed-in users with installed apps. 

If you like my post and find it informative, why don't you share your thoughts and opinion about it in the comment box below.

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13 Ways To Build A Lasting Client-SEO Marketing Company Relationship

Being receptive to listening to someone else's perspective is highly valued which makes both parties’ relationship more efficient, profitable and lasting. To better improve this, here are a couple of advices that will help you build a better relationship with your seo provider.

Be Honest - Be honest about what was done. It's unusual to find someone who hasn't performed few questionable marketing once. A great client explains what they've done so their provider can figure out how to fix and deal with it faster.

Don't Blame Links When Something Goes Wrong - Don't blame links if your SEO service provider has built one for you and you end-up messing up their robots.txt file.

Sudden URL Changes - Don't change URLs without informing your SEO service provider on this matter. If you've given some targets to work with and they suddenly 404ed, that's embarrassing. Webmasters get cranky when you have to go back requesting for a change.

Share Access to Webmaster Tools, Social Media Networking sites and Analytics - If your SEO provider doesn't know what's happening, it's difficult to complete a good job. It's significantly easier if they can start immediately instead of waiting for you to come back from your week long getaway.

Answer Questions - Answering questions doesn’t mean being nosey. SEO’s asks because it affects their work.

Listen to Risk Advices - If your provider says that your linking structure is risky, it probably is. A good company won’t risk its reputation just for money.

Don't Share Someone Else's Confidential Information - It’s just plain etiquette. Clearly, you don’t want your trade secret being leaked.

Say what you really want - Don't start out asking for services and then make your provider run all around and eventually admit that you want something totally different. Get straight to the point to avoid spending valuable time.

Ask Why a Service Costs and how it works - It's best to explain pricing now than receive complaints about it later.

Be reasonable regarding Client Examples - Don't panic when your service provider can't provide examples you prefer when you're deciding if they're the ideal fit. Iron-clad nondisclosure agreements exist for a reason.

If your provider is unable to present you client examples but are willing to work for you under the condition of a refund if you're not satisfied, either accept that offer or move on instead of sending rude emails about lack of professionalism.

Master Link Builders Knows More Than Just Building Links - If you're asked to promote your new content socially to gather attention, take that advice. Don't just think that because you can't connect social to links instantly, it implies that the advice is ineffective.

Don't Focus and compare What Your Competitors Are Doing - Don't constantly suggest what your competitor is doing that breaches Google's guidelines and ask your SEO's why they don't mirror it. That’s black hat and a no-no!

To begin with, your site isn't the same as their site. What's more, if you build a copied profile, you’re violating the rules and regulations of Google, and that's not a good thing.

Do not do unto others what you don't want them do unto you.

Don't always ask service for free - I doubt you'd find a decent SEO who gives way too much freebies. If you did find one, be suspicious!

If you're paying them for their expertise, then acknowledge that relationship. Understand that most SEO marketing companies really wish to accomplish an excellent job for you. The more they know, the better they can perform.

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Know The Google Hummingbird With Its Wings of Change

Google, on the day of its 15th Hummingbird search algorithm, named precisely because of its fast and precise search capabilities. This new update from Google is believed to revolutionize the way online search engine optimization works, because unlike the Panda and Penguin updates, Hummingbird replaces the entire core algorithm completely, but still retaining some of its previously working features. 

What’s more is that it affects 90% of the searches across the globe, giving it more influence on how search is conducted using this search engine. A lot of debates have been around of how this could affect search marketing, since this algorithm is operating with the semantic search concept, which primarily gives more attention to the intent of the person’s search rather than focusing on the terms/keywords the person used.

Basically, Google aims to address users with more complex searches with the new algorithm, especially now that voice search is becoming more and more available in smart phones and computers alike. People who use the voice search often make more complicated searches because they use natural language. This is far more difficult than just typing a query where you just enter keywords. That’s why Hummingbird ranks websites using its encyclopedia which houses more than 570 million concepts complete with relations among them, otherwise known as the Knowledge Graph. 

This powerful database correlates facts and data on the searches, which in turn allows voice searchers to query additional information without having to repeat the query; instead, referencing terms such as pronouns could be related to the previous search. Also, the knowledge Graph displays information about specific searches (like prominent people and historical figures) directly in the Google Site, along with other related data such as age, height and date of birth in its search results. Another feature is the comparison tool, which allows the results page to display a table comparing various general terms like food, dogs and others. This could be good in e-commerce if Google decides to extend this tool to specific products like computers, phones or even establishments such as restaurants. 
  
The use of the Knowledge Graph in the Hummingbird update just stresses the search engine company’s desire in  achieving better relevance as opposed to the Caffeine update which stressed on website indexing and crawling for faster results. This pretty much eliminates the “black hat” search engine marketing solution methods offered by dubious SEO companies, which have been Google’s master plan ever since.

Google has always been trying to find ways to improve the quality of their searches, using semantic search, natural language processing and their powerful Knowledge graph in its Hummingbird update. This feature alone makes the algorithm understand longer and more complex queries by applying concepts underlying the searched words as well as the relationship between them. This leads ultimately to a better communication—a natural conversation between the search engine and the person using it, no matter what device they’re using. While many SEO companies worry about what search engine marketing campaign strategies to use with this all-new algorithm coming out, Google assures that as long as “white hat” SEO strategies are used, there’s nothing to worry about.

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Driving More Trafic To Your Website

It always says that driving traffic to your website through organic way may benefit your website for a long run. You don't need to hire a marketing agency to do that for you or make your videos to be viral. Below are some tips that you can use to grow the volume of your visitors.

Use Twitter

I doesn't mean that you need to get a  huge followers but the key there is the quality of your post and the consistency.

Use Facebook

Whatever your products or services that you offer, it is better that you are visible to Facebook. As we all know Facebook has a millions of users, you can tap real people there that can be your postential customer.

Use Blogging

One effective form of driving traffic to your site is to blog. Let people know about your product or services by mean of blogging. Give them more information they need like why they have to choose you or why you can be helpful to them.

Use SEO or Link Builders

You can hire SEO or Link Builders that will help you to do all the optimization stuff for your website. They can help you generate more click with their techniques and proper online promotions.

Use Content Aggregators

Like doing link building, sharing links to this sites will be helpful to drive traffic. Some of examples are Digg, Technorati and StumbleUpon. Make your site as content aggregator as possible.

Driving traffic is not like a speeding car in a highway but making sure that it has a quality and done properly. Create your own strategy that can be effective for your website. 

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Things You Can Do With Penguin 2.1

Early this month, the release of Penguin 2.1, also known as Penguin 5 hits more practitioner of Black-hat SEO as well as those who malpractice the SEO. It's updates focuses on the manipulative and unnatural links. It's affects 2.3% of English-US queries.

What are the reason for penalty?


- Links from not relevant sites.

- Links from low quality sites.

- Paid links.

- Overly optimized links using anchor text like exact match anchor text.


What will be the next strategy for Penguin 2.1?


1. Know what to look for, focus more with great links, relevant and do not acquire more links.

2. Do some site link audit for your website, follow the disavow process.

3. Do not use exact match anchor text in your link building.

4. Get positive feedbacks from your customer, use their testimonials in your Business listing.

5. use your social media follower in twitter and G+.

6. Start optimizing your images, use alt tags and so on.

7. Use Schema.org optimization in your website.

I would say that you can start building your links and connect with the authority sites,poor links coming from other submission site may do harm you. 

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What Kind Of Content You Think Will Work For You?

Content Marketing is one of the underrated before Panda, and Penguin comes. Do not limit your border line with your imagination. You have to create a plan on how to make your content marketing strategy will attract your audience. 

There are lots of ways that we can do to be able to optimize our websites/blog site. As we diversified our contents, we are can express more in creating the best one that will suits to our taste. 


In this article, I will tell you what types of content that you can use and share in different formats. There are 4 types of contents that may work best for you, and these are the following; 

Text Content - is rich text contents in form of blog post, guest Blog Post, PR Quotations, Blog Reviews, Guides, White papers, e-books and Press Releases. 

Visual Content - is in form of Infographics which is very popular today, Images and Presentations that we share in different social publishing sites. 

Social Content - is the content that includes Facebook Polls, Google hangouts, twitter Chats, and Webinars. This kind of content is very interactive and requires participation.

Audio and Video Content - is also very popular today. It includes Podcasts and Interviews with industry experts, Video News Releases, Product Guides, and Optin Videos that can easily share online. 

There are websites, which happened to be very social and used audio and video content to get the attention of their target audience while other prepare to have the text and visual content. Which of this four content that you think will work best for you? You can share to us your thoughts by giving us a comment below. 

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App Store Optimization (ASO) the new SEO?

Since the creation of Smart phones, access to the Internet became possible. Responsive web design was also introduced just recently. Responsive design is a web design approach aimed at creating and modifying smart phones as well as for tablets to provide optimal viewing experience, more like trying the best to replicate the same website as seen on the desktop format by applying layouts. These layouts were customized to adopt a wide range of smart phones and tablets and to provide quality applications and viewing experience. 

The goals of App Store Optimization (ASO) are:

1. To be found on the first pages.

2. To rank higher against competitors.

3. To rank higher via keywords.

4. To rank higher in Google semantic search for Applications.

Like in the old days of SEO, multiple platforms are needed to optimize, although ASO this time has separate app versions for each of them. The largest one would be Apple App store, Android Market, Blackberry App world, Samsung App store and other alternatives. Although young, it is the new future for SEO so here are some basic ranking methods.

App Store Ranking Factors

• App Name – the name of apps here are categorized alphabetically so that means that the closer the name of the app to A means it gets more noticed.

• Publisher’s App name – keyword rich app names are much more helpful like TORO games, TORO map, TORO Food Search much better.

• Keywords – everybody knows that the most 

• keyword rich content gets the most notice.

Most Popular ranking factors as observed are closely similar to Website ranking factors.  

Adapting to ASO won’t be that hard. The good side about this is that by learning and applying this new trend, it can help your e-business boom and bloom.

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Top 10 On-page Optimization To Be Consider

There are lots of articles on the web who suggested things to do if you like to rank well in the search engines like Google. Doing the proffer on-page optimization is one way of to rank. Below are the top 10 factors to be consider when doing the on-page optimization.

1. Meta Content

Provide, timeless, hottest and intriguing title and descriptions in your content.

2. URL Optimization

Create a more descriptive, precise and easily understandable url's to easily read by the visitors and it helps search engine identify what your page is all about. Don't use URL with a lot of special characters and numbers.

3. Duplicate Content

Make sure that you don't have a duplicate content. Re-write, Re-phrase wording in every page. Panda doesn't like duplicate content.

4. Pages Content

Update your pages and add unique content on it. Make a long content, so that you can add more keywords related in your content. 

5. Rich Snippets

Implement rich snippets in your article. Add reviews (1-5 stars), picture of the author or the product, video thumbnails and music.

6. Comment Box

Apply comment section in your post. Encourage your readers to leave comments, weather they like 
the article or not. Sometimes a provocative content can help to start conversation or you can even 
start it by commenting first.

7. Website Performance

Plugins, optimized CSS and Compress images can help your sites to improve. Reducing load on  server will help your site to load fast. It can also help you increase conversions and visitors traffic.

8. .XML Sitemaps

Creating .xml sitemaps helps search engine to crawl your website. Submit sitemaps in Google Webmaster Tool or simply add plugins that will automatically generate it. You can even include images and video in your sitemaps.

9. Products and/or Categories 

Use your Homepage for your Products and/or categories. E-commerce website is a good example.

10. Internal Linking

Share your index page link juices in all your pages by linking other post or pages to the inner page of  your website. Make sure that its related to one another. Offering popular or related content within your website can help increase the page views.

We love to hear your feedback and If you find this article to be helpful hit us a comment or share this to your friends. 

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The Most Effective SEO Work Flow

Need to have high website ranking and don't know how to start, why not try this simple but most effective work flow in optimizing a website. 

Most SEO's are doing the following steps;

Keyword Analysis

Finding the right keywords and key phrases for you website can make your website promotion campaign more easy. Keep in mind that it should describe the business, product or services. It has searches and low in 
competition. 

Use keyword tool or keyword tracker that will help you decide which relevant keywords are fit for your website.

Content Optimization

Before getting into off-site optimization, a website should be presentable and search engine friendly. Using the keywords wisely in every element of the website's page is what we call on-page optimization. They should be topically related (the keyword and the page).

Creating website structure

Cleaning up the coding and start organizing the website's structure to get the maximum effect. Making sure that the website is working properly before start promoting. Checking the websites performance that 
includes broken links, HTML code errors, duplicate content, 404 and other server response errors, pages who are not index, missing or too long metadata and all other site issues that can interfere the rankings.

Creating list of possible backlink sites

In here the off-page optimization starts. The website needs a lots of backlinks. It should be thematically related source, well established and trusted site by the search engines, and allows using keywords by making a anchor text.

The quickest and reliable way to find good links is to check the competitors' link source.

Creating a network of quality links

Having incoming links pointing to the website. Sometimes exchanging links is useful. Creating a link partner by requesting and explaining to other website's owner why you need to have and how their website would benefit.

Monitor you ranking over time 

Checking the website position in search engines regularly is the easiest way to know if you SEO efforts are bringing good results. Manually checking as well as automated checking can give an idea if you have progress over time.

Doing SEO is a non-stop process and search engine algorithm changes every time. A particular website can't get an instant ranks overnight. It takes time to get a good ranking and traffic.  Now that you have a better idea of what effective SEO work flows need to be done in able to get quality ranking and online reputation.

Photo Courtesy of: flyingcricket.com

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