What is SEO

[byron_spy]

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

The acronym "SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign.

Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Feel free to read more about SEO/ Search Engine Optimization here


Yougottohaveit Web Designers and SEO
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Getting traffic to any website is the most important task of a web master. Getting this traffic repeatedly is the key if you want your website to rank so you can reap the benefits. We have listed below, the top 10 internet marketing techniques that will get you website traffic.

Optimize your site for search engines

Search engines are the greatest way to attract traffic and SEO is the most powerful way to attract free traffic from search engines. One needs to do their homework and optimize the website to rank for certain keywords.

Frequently update the contents of your website

We all know by now that ‘content is king’, so the obvious approach would be to add in as many articles in your niche as possible. For SEO, this is great, as each article will be optimized for certain keywords pertaining to that article and this will positively affect your rankings. If your content is good and frequently updated you will not only build a loyal audience of recurring visitors, who will often come to see what is new, but search engines will also love your site.

Get Links to your site from similar websites

This is a good way of getting free traffic from other websites within your niche. It is also very good for SEO especially if you manage to get links without the famous ‘nofollow attribute’. But even if the links are nofollow (i.e. they are useless for SEO), they still help to get traffic to your site. Coupled with this, you will need to do some research and get a list of sites within your niche where you could get backlinks from.

Social Bookmarking

Take advantage of social bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, etc.) as these sites offer an abundance of quality free traffic.

Social Networks: Facebook and Twitter

Social networks are also a way to get traffic for free. If you are popular on networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, the traffic you get from there can easily surpass the traffic from Google and other search engines. It is true that building a large network of targeted followers on Twitter and supporters on Facebook takes a lot of time and effort but generally the results are worth it.

Create a free product or service

When creating a free product or offering a free service it must pertain to your niche market and in doing so – when this product or service becomes popular and people start visiting your site, chances are that they will visit the other sections of the site as well.

Free online promotion

Any free online promotion is welcome, so don’t neglect it. There are many ways to promote your site for free and some of the most popular ones include free classified ads, submissions to directories, inclusion in various listings, etc. It is true that not all free ways to promote your site work well but if you select the right websites (highly ranked) to promote your site for free, this can also result in tons of traffic.

Use Viral content

Viral content is called so because it spreads like a virus – i.e. when users like your content, they send it to their friends, post it on various sites, and promote it for free in many different ways. Viral content distributes on its own and your only task is to create it and submit it to a couple of popular sites. After that users pick it and distribute it for you. Viral content can be a hot video or a presentation but it can also be a good old article or an image.

Leave your URL behind

URLs in forum signatures for example are also a way to get traffic for free. There are forums that get millions of visitors a day, and if you are a popular user on such a forum then you can use this to get traffic to your website. When you post on forums and people like your posts, they tend to click the link to your website from your signature. Another way to leave your link behind is via blogs. This seamless process also applies to blogging.

Offline promotion

Offline promotion is frequently forgotten but it is also a way to get traffic for free. Yes, computers are everywhere and many people spend more time online than offline but still life hasn’t moved completely on the Web. Offline promotion is also very powerful and if you know how to use it, this can also bring you many visitors. Some of the traditional offline ways to promote your site include printing its URL on your company’s business cards and souvenirs or sticking it on your company vehicles. You can also start selling T-shirts and other merchandise with your logo and this way make your brand more popular. Getting traffic for free is a vast topic and it is not possible to list all the methods. However, if you know the most important ways (listed above) and you apply them properly, it is guaranteed that you will be able to get lots of traffic for free.

This was taken from my website http://www.yougottohaveit.co.za/What%20is%20SEO.html

[Chatmaster]

So what is your opinion about the duplicate content filter?

[byron_spy]

So what is your opinion about the duplicate content filter?

Duplicate Content has become a huge topic of discussion lately, thanks to the new filters that search engines have implemented. This article will help you understand why you might be caught in the filter, and ways to avoid it. We'll also show you how you can determine if your pages have duplicate content, and what to do to fix it.

Search engine spam is any deceitful attempts to deliberately trick the search engine into returning inappropriate, redundant, or poor-quality search results. Many times this behavior is seen in pages that are exact replicas of other pages which are created to receive better results in the search engine. Many people assume that creating multiple or similar copies of the same page will either increase their chances of getting listed in search engines or help them get multiple listings, due to the presence of more keywords.

In order to make a search more relevant to a user, search engines use a filter that removes the duplicate content pages from the search results, and the spam along with it. Unfortunately, good, hardworking webmasters have fallen prey to the filters imposed by the search engines that remove duplicate content. It is those webmasters who unknowingly spam the search engines, when there are some things they can do to avoid being filtered out. In order for you to truly understand the concepts you can implement to avoid the duplicate content filter, you need to know how this filter works.

All my SEO techniques are white hat none of my domains have been blocked so I would not say that I am creating duplications rather repeating quality contents

[Chatmaster]

Good answer

[byron_spy]

Good answer

Thank you

[BryanCasson]

You should always be the originator of your content. If you copy or rewrite your copy there is a good chance your copy will not have the value that new out-of-the-box article will have. With Google's canonical tag you can be sure that you will always get full "fresh content" credit for that article. Google has now implemented the new "faming" update so websites that copy even the smallest bit of information will not receive much benefit. EZarticles just took a huge 80% drop in traffic because of this update.... come up with original content worth reading.... It is ok to resource information but write your own opinion about the topic to keep it unique.

[basati]

Good and Quality Content Brings Good Traffic. Thats how google works.

[techfreakd]

nice information to share for all SEO members.

[JohnSilver]

You should always be the originator of your content. If you copy or rewrite your copy there is a good chance your copy will not have the value that new out-of-the-box article will have. With Google's canonical tag you can be sure that you will always get full "fresh content" credit for that article. Google has now implemented the new "faming" update so websites that copy even the smallest bit of information will not receive much benefit. EZarticles just took a huge 80% drop in traffic because of this update.... come up with original content worth reading.... It is ok to resource information but write your own opinion about the topic to keep it unique.

some of us are not as creative to write our own content and rely on existing content like EZarticles

[abc2bee]

I make use of SEO LinkVine to get articles.