We do not know the two hundred secrets of Google, but it absolutely does not mean that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a hunching and guessing game. However, if your SEO menu lacks the vertical column; obviously the SEO tools, than I do not think you are even closer to real SEO optimization. SEO tools are essential for making a logical optimization because even to follow a well-practiced optimization like using keyword rich anchor text and including keywords in title tags, we might find it easy at initial with some reference from SEO articles, but at the end SEO tools becomes crucial and best optimizing means to enhance our website ranking in SERP.

Thus, SEO tools rarely free and costs sometimes more than what we expected, and especially the small business organizations often find themselves in big trouble. Hence, in this post, I will include some of the best SEO tools that have prescribed by many professional SEOs and are Free!

List of 5 Best Free SEO tools for Search Engine Optimization:

Google Webmaster:

Google webmaster is a free SEO tools center for webmasters that provides huge information’s about your websites SEO health. All you need is a Gmail account to reach your SEO backbone. Google webmaster provides you all the information about the website’s backlinks, highly occurred keywords in your content with its variations, crawl errors, HTML suggestions and many more. If you are not aware about this amazing and free SEO tool than I think, you should rush now.

SEOmoz:

SEOmoz is one of the highly reputed SEO software developers in Search Engine Optimization community and it also offers free SEO services for users, but at some extent. SEOmoz requires nothing to use their free tools, but a little sign up process. SEOmoz offers varieties of SEO tools with huge information for optimization, from SEO toolbars to backlinks comparison of yours and competitors website.  However, SEOmoz does not list its every tool in free catalog. Hence, if you wish than you can even upgrade your account.

Open Site Explorer:

Open site explorer is a branch of SEOmoz and it is another effective SEO tool for checking your link popularity and analyzing backlinks. SEOmoz and Open site explorer being same at the root, it enables your access in both websites with same login information. Hence, you don’t have to login twice to use these amazing tools. Furthermore, open site explorer helps you to find out the keywords that your competitor use the most while building links, such information can be best tips for optimizing your
websites against your competitors in your niche.

SEOtoolset:

Bruce Clay is one of the respected figures in the SEO niche and he is also the author of a book called “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies”.  If you want to read and learn something good on SEO than I think this book should do well for you. Besides, if you are looking for a free SEO tool that has no hassle of signing up and allows instant result than Bruce Clay website SEOtoolset can be your ultimate. His website offers free SEO tools focused for both professionals and amateurs because you can even find a tool that helps you generate the source code of any webpage.

Alexa:

If SEOtoolset didn’t satisfied your hunger and you are wondering for any other free SEO tool that needs no signup and can have a trouble free access than I think Alexa can meet your need. Alexa offers great information about websites by simply searching your desired website in the search box and clicking details tab, it can generate you the bouncing rate of the website, top search queries, site backlinks etc. However, if you want to audit your website using this SEO tool than you have to pull little cash from your wallet.

I hope the post on free SEO tools was helpful to all my readers. Will come with something new and better in our next post.

Author: Kiran Bista.                                                                                                                                                           Image Source: I

In our last post, I discussed about some important tips for effective participation in blog competition and as promised, in this post, I will be mentioning the huge benefits that you get from participating yourself in such blog competition. Participating in blog competition is one strong way to create a bridge from your website to your niche and let traffic flow in.

However, it does not necessarily mean that you should win the competition; winning is better if not even your active contribution can help you lot with traffic building and ranking in SERP. As mentioned in our earlier post, there are blogs that often organizes blog competition for blogger’s exposure and traffic building. So, just by participating in such competition frequently can be very SEO effective and increase your conversion i.e. sales, subscription etc.

SEO Benefits of Participating in Blog Competition:

• Exposure:

Exposure is one critical thing for every websites and blogs. So, for earning better exposure in their niche bloggers often work hard in social media websites which brings quality traffic and conversions. Thus, an active participation in blog competition means you are simply standing on the hub of your niche and there are many readers from different blogs and bloggers itself to notice you and your presentation. Your participation can easily earn huge traffic and it is not necessary that you have to win to ripe the fruit of your hard efforts.

• Networking:

Networking is getting more and more crucial everyday and that is the reason why thousands of online businesses are tweeting and digging everywhere. Networking is equally essential for you and if it is about networking with the bloggers in your niche than it becomes must because there are various benefits from effective networking workouts. Your participation in blog competition can help you get noticed in your niche and as a result other bloggers are more likely to welcome you in their network which can remarkably help you to promote your content, drive more traffic more their blog, exchange links and earn better SERP placement.

• Branding:

Branding is essential and one of the hardest promotions in online marketing. However, participating in blog competition can help you lift your brand name among your consumers in your niche. Your active participation can help you be noticed and winning the competition can be the best way to boost your brand name. Therefore, optimize your blog with all your efforts so that winning a position in blog completion can easily boost your brand name and depending on the organizers rule your blogs will be provided with many facilities that are highly SEO effective.

• Blog Image and Trust:

Earning trust from your readers is only possible if your blog’s image is powerful and to make that you need support. So, one best way to earn trust among your readers and visitors is the certification that you earn from participating in blog competitions. Participating in yearly blog competition and winning positions will earn you winner certifications like “Blog of the Year 2011” which gives your visitors your strong image and your dominance in your niche. It also helps to add something valuable in lifting your brand name and drive other bloggers eagerness to guest post in your blog, which is very effective SEO strategy for earning better reputation and traffic.

• Wide Possibilities:

Active participation in blog competition and winning positions can bring you wide possibilities for your blog. Blog competition organizers often include various facilities for winners beside prizes like guest posting opportunities in various blogs in their network, publishing your blog and contents in social media websites etc, which is highly beneficial for earning huge traffic attention and search engine rankings. Hence, I strongly suggest every bloggers to participate in such competition that can lead them to best SEO results.

Author: Kiran Bista.                                                                                                                                                            Image Source: I

Something more important than your page rank is traffic because quality traffic has its direct impact over conversion and conversion is the only reason why the term “SEO” plays an important role in online business promotion. So, it is crucial to build bridges around your page so that the flow of traffic increases to your websites and blog. However, we have discussed so many times about building such bridges via social networking, guest blogging, article syndicating, but it you were not satisfied. Hence, in this post, I will mention one amazing way to generate quality traffic in your blog and build strong network to take over other SEO benefits.

Participating in Blog Competition

Blog is essential for every website to rank well in search engines like Google, and I highly suggest you to have one for better SEO implementation. If you own a blog for your website than you are aware that many blogs in your niche often organizes free blog competition with their sponsors. Such completion is one best way to drive huge traffic to your website and give your website a maximum exposure in your niche. Besides being one competition, you can easily find many and some blogs have weekly competition, so there is huge possibility for your website.

5 Tips for Effective Participation in Blog Competition:

Well, participating in blog competition widely varies from organizers to organizers and their terms and conditions is the best solution for you. Although, some blog completion determines its winner from the votes of your readers and their active participation, whereas, some other wants you to submit an article and promote them. However, I have some effective tips for you to present as a strong candidate for such competition.

• Regularity:

Regularity is the key and it is important that your blog is updated daily with effective content. Participating in competition with a blog that has not been update since last week and contains infrequent posts simply ruins your image. Moreover, the possibility is high that your blog will not even make through the selection. Hence, it is very important that your blog is well updated and promoted.

• Blogging History:

Your blogging history plays a key role for your blog to stand strong in the competition. Participating in such competition with a blogging history of a month or two can be your major drawback. Therefore, it is better to let your blog get mature with quality content. Furthermore, some organizers do mention in their rule that their blog should have at least three or six month’s maturity. Hence, it is always wise go through the rules before jumping in. Some benefits of waiting for appropriate time is— In this period you can collect more quality readers and commenter’s in your blog and promote them in your social media websites and forums because your readers votes counts huge in winning the competition.

• Design:

Design is another essential part for your competition and gives you an additional point. Creating unique design for your blog and in the same time making it highly user-friendly is the key to your success. Nonetheless, it is also one highly underestimated thing to find in such completion. Thus, give your blog a unique design that simply outstand you from other competitors. Using beautiful themes and SEO friendly designs not only helps you competition, but it also creates excitements among your readers and traffic. However, your blog theme and design should be appropriate to your blog’s subject.

• Readers Support:

Your readers support plays vital role for winning the blog competing because some organizers simply includes voting system and in such critical phase its only your readers and commentators who can help you out. So, it is better to get interconnected with your readers and create more informative and friendly environment in your blog which also encourages other new visitors to add themselves in your blog. Furthermore, in such case simply make your post and tell your readers about the participation, and ask them to support you.

• Blog Activities:

Your blog activities help you through the competition and it is important that your activities are highly readers orientated. Earning quality readers and traffic to your blog is the only way you can make your blog activities more healthy and impressive. One-way for a new visitor to judge a blog and is aliveness is from the recent activities in your blog and often it is the comments and author interaction with his/her readers. Hence, to give a fresh blog activities it becomes crucial for you to encourage more visitors to subscribe to your blog and more important here is your content quality. Thus, provide helpful and quality content to your readers, in addition, making conversations with your readers and sharing ideas can equally help you.

I hope the post was good enough for all my readers. In my next post, I will be mentioning about the benefits of participating in such competition and many more.

Author: Kiran Bista.                                                                                                                                                   Image Source: I & II

We have discussed various aspect of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and on-page optimization is one that I have often mentioned with its benefits and essentiality over search engines and traffic. However, in this post, I will tell you some effective ways to write and optimize your title-tag that is of course, one important part of on-page optimization and SEO.

Title tag is crucial and needs effective SEO optimization because it helps search engines and web visitors to determine your content type for better indexing and relevant approach respectively. Hence, the title tag of your website is key for SERP visibility and ranking. In the SEO world, it is assumed that search engines like Google and Yahoo gives the website’s title tag a great weight than others, but a well SEO optimized title tag is the contain of only 70 characters of your keywords and not more. Thus, it is very important that you mention your primary and secondary keywords within these 70 characters of title tag and your brand name too– if you think it is important. However, branding is essential and I suggest you to use in your title tag.

SEO best practices over title tag optimization include the two simple methods of optimization. In addition, depending on your needs and requirements, you have to choose the best that suits your online business.

The HTML title tag code:

<head>
<title>Your Title</title>
</head>

Title-tag Format 1:

Brand Name – Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword

In the above format, you will place your brand name first and then comes your primary keyword and the secondary. The benefits of using your brand name on the first place are:

ü It helps searchers easily locate your website in the SERP, if your brand name is well known.

ü It helps to create awareness about your brand in your niche and among the web traffic.

ü When search keyword is your brand name, the probability is very high for you to rank on the first page. However, such search is only possible if the searchers are aware of your brand.

Using brand name at the initial of your title-tag is the best use for well-known organization like Nike and Sony because the brand names itself work hundred times better than the primary keyword and the secondary keyword.

Title-tag Format 2:

Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Brand Name

In the above format, the primary keyword is placed first and comes the secondary keyword; we only use the brand name at last. Some benefits of this format are:

ü Placing your primary keyword at initial helps your website to rank better in SERP when the search is performed using the keyword.

ü Secondary keyword is the support of your primary keyword. Hence, it should be closely related to your primary keyword so that it can boost your website when the any keywords close to them are used.

ü Your website is not known or the products. Thus, placing your brand name at the end does not make bigger difference in search. However, using brand name helps creating awareness about your brand and works one strong step for strong brand name creation.

It is highly suggested to use your primary keywords and secondary one in the initial because using brand names that are unknown to your consumers is almost useless. Furthermore, using brand name in the initial part of your keyword creates problems to list your website better in SERP.

Author: Kiran Bista.                                                                                                                                                          Image Source : I