iPhone Application Development
iPad Application Development
Monday, August 9, 2010
Hands On With Apple's New iPhone 4
iPhone Application Development
iPad Application Development
iPad Application Development
The Apple iPhone 4 is everything that a new piece of technology should be: It's innovative, attractive, and ahead of its competition. In comparison, previous iPhone upgrades seem inconsequential--that's how much iPhone 4 brings to the table.
The phone will ship on June 24, priced at $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model (in white or black).
It's noticeably slimmer than the iPhone 3GS, measuring 0.37 inch deep versus the iPhone 3GS's thickness of 0.48 inch (that translates to 24 percent less). The iPhone 4 is also slightly narrower, 2.31 inches to 2.44 inches. The weight stays the same at 4.8 ounces, but the tweaks to the dimensions make the current iPhone 3GS seem downright kludgy in comparison. (See all iPhone 4 specs.)
However, it's the aesthetic design touches that make the iPhone 4 stand out. The overall design screams elegance--from the rounded, individual volume up and down buttons that replace the plastic volume rocker on the iPhone 3GS to the ring/silent switch and the power/sleep button up top. The face and back are made of glass that is specially treated to withstand scratches and oily fingers, according to Apple. The side edging is stainless steel, and doubles as the device's three cellular and wireless antennas.
Like its predecessor, the iPhone 4 has a 3.5-inch display. But the new phone's display doubles the resolution to a 960-by-640-pixel IPS display. At 326 pixels per inch, this is the highest resolution available on a phone to date.
That display truly makes a difference. Whereas the iPhone 3GS's text--in the menus, in apps, or on Web pages--appears thick, fuzzy, and undefined, the iPhone 4's text is razor sharp, even when enlarged (as I tried doing when viewing a PDF).
The new "Retina display"--so named because it surpasses the number of pixels the human retina can process--also greatly improves the sharpness, clarity, and visible detail of images.
In both cases, I'd liken the magnitude of difference to that between a standard-definition 480p DVD and a high-definition 1080p Blu-ray Disc: When you view both on an HDTV, the differences are striking. And once you see them, you can't go back.
The real value of the new display will become evident for people who spend time reading on the iPhone 4. I expect the display will make reading a more pleasurable experience (although, clearly, limits will remain given the inherently modest screen size--modest, at least, as compared with handsets such as the Sprint Evo 4G, which has a 4.3-inch screen, and the much larger 9.7-inch iPad screen).
iBooks also gains a few new features previously unavailable on the iPad. You can now create notes and bookmarks, and see those notes, bookmarks, and highlights in the table of contents. I suspect that the notes remain trapped in line--for example, there's no way to create cheat sheets, summaries, or other such personalized shortcuts that you could then utilize on your computer or elsewhere--but these new functions are a step in the right direction.
The major new feature in iBooks is its native support for PDFs. You'll find tabs for both books and PDFs. Each one gets a bookshelf or list view (your choice). You can add PDFs via e-mail or Safari, and PDFs can sync back to iTunes and to other Apple devices such as the iPad or iPod Touch.
As part of iOS 4, the iPhone 4 gains a bevy of capabilities. One of them--multitasking--feels long overdue, but as with Apple's long-awaited cut-and-paste feature, the company delivers on the promise of making multitasking work smoothly.
Quickly double-tap on the home button to pull up a pane that shows which apps are open. From there, you can swipe horizontally through the apps that the iPhone 4 has retained in either a running or suspended state.
When you find the app you want, you just click on the icon. The app will then resume its activity, and, if written to take advantage of this new feature, it will pick up precisely where you left off. At the very least, reaccessing the app will be faster.
iPhone 4: On the iPhone 4 using iOS 4, the phone jumped quickly and smoothly between the apps, with virtually no pause or hesitation. I left a fully drawn Web page in Safari to go to Photos, navigated to a folder within Photos, and then to a picture in the middle of that folder. When I popped back to Safari, I resumed at the fully drawn Web page, and when I jumped back to Photos, I was looking at the same photo I'd left moments earlier.
iPhone 3GS: That same exercise on the iPhone 3GS required the Web page to draw the first time. To change apps, I had to press the home button to exit Safari. I then went into the Photos app and found my image in its album. To go back to Safari, I pushed the home button to return to the home screen and then clicked on Safari. (On one pass, the page loaded immediately; on another, it did not). I then pressed the home button to return to the home screen, selected Photos again--and found myself back at the top-level list of Photo Albums, as opposed to drilling down to a specific image within a specific folder.
To close an app out of the multitasking bar, you click on the icon and hold. The icons then get a red button with a dash; touch there, and you can close the app.
Equally as elegant as multitasking is Apple's implementation of Folders, an increasingly necessary addition. To add icons into a folder, you simply drag one icon on top of the other to create the folder; the folder automatically gets the name of the category those apps share. Or, if you prefer, you can rename the folder on the spot. You can pack a maximum of 12 apps within a single folder (that gives you three rows of four apps across the home screen). And, thanks to the addition of Folders, you can now add up to a maximum of 2160 apps.
I did not test these features--the lighting at the demo room was a bit funky, and I would have only been able to view the results on the demo device. However, the examples that Apple showcased during its keynote were compelling evidence that these upgrades are indeed worthy ones. These will be among the first features I'll try when I get my hands on a device for our full review.
I didn't fully test the front-facing camera, another addition to the iPhone 4, either. This camera is integral to Apple's FaceTime videophone app, which works only for communicating between two iPhone 4 handsets.
Unlike the previous jump, from the iPhone 3G to the 3GS--which focused on slight performance improvements--the iPhone 4 bolsters the hardware's digital imaging capabilities and its display, making it a comprehensive and measurable upgrade over its predecessor.
Source: http://keepdol.blogspot.com/2010/06/hands-on-with-apples-new-iphone-4.html
Premium Look
I spent some hands-on time with the new handset at the Apple event. I'll start with the visuals: It's stylish. Whereas the iPhone 3GS looks and feels plasticky, the iPhone 4 is svelte and has a premium feel. Surprisingly, it achieves that impression while retaining the same general design, although the edges appear a bit more squared than before.It's noticeably slimmer than the iPhone 3GS, measuring 0.37 inch deep versus the iPhone 3GS's thickness of 0.48 inch (that translates to 24 percent less). The iPhone 4 is also slightly narrower, 2.31 inches to 2.44 inches. The weight stays the same at 4.8 ounces, but the tweaks to the dimensions make the current iPhone 3GS seem downright kludgy in comparison. (See all iPhone 4 specs.)However, it's the aesthetic design touches that make the iPhone 4 stand out. The overall design screams elegance--from the rounded, individual volume up and down buttons that replace the plastic volume rocker on the iPhone 3GS to the ring/silent switch and the power/sleep button up top. The face and back are made of glass that is specially treated to withstand scratches and oily fingers, according to Apple. The side edging is stainless steel, and doubles as the device's three cellular and wireless antennas.
Sharp Display
Of course, the iPhone 4 isn't just about cosmetic enhancements, pleasing as they are. What makes this phone such a technological improvement is what's inside the handset.Like its predecessor, the iPhone 4 has a 3.5-inch display. But the new phone's display doubles the resolution to a 960-by-640-pixel IPS display. At 326 pixels per inch, this is the highest resolution available on a phone to date.
That display truly makes a difference. Whereas the iPhone 3GS's text--in the menus, in apps, or on Web pages--appears thick, fuzzy, and undefined, the iPhone 4's text is razor sharp, even when enlarged (as I tried doing when viewing a PDF).
The new "Retina display"--so named because it surpasses the number of pixels the human retina can process--also greatly improves the sharpness, clarity, and visible detail of images.In both cases, I'd liken the magnitude of difference to that between a standard-definition 480p DVD and a high-definition 1080p Blu-ray Disc: When you view both on an HDTV, the differences are striking. And once you see them, you can't go back.
The real value of the new display will become evident for people who spend time reading on the iPhone 4. I expect the display will make reading a more pleasurable experience (although, clearly, limits will remain given the inherently modest screen size--modest, at least, as compared with handsets such as the Sprint Evo 4G, which has a 4.3-inch screen, and the much larger 9.7-inch iPad screen).
iBooks Goes Mobile
The high-res display, coupled with the addition of iBooks on the iPhone 4 (and with iOS 4 upgrades), makes the iPhone a more relevant e-reader. iBooks retains its structure, appearance, and function from what we've already seen on the Apple iPad; and with this OS's ability to sync the iPad, desktop, and iPhone, readers gain the flexibility to move seamlessly among devices. This capability is available for Amazon's and Barnes and Noble's respective e-readers, as well, but not for other competitors.iBooks also gains a few new features previously unavailable on the iPad. You can now create notes and bookmarks, and see those notes, bookmarks, and highlights in the table of contents. I suspect that the notes remain trapped in line--for example, there's no way to create cheat sheets, summaries, or other such personalized shortcuts that you could then utilize on your computer or elsewhere--but these new functions are a step in the right direction.
The major new feature in iBooks is its native support for PDFs. You'll find tabs for both books and PDFs. Each one gets a bookshelf or list view (your choice). You can add PDFs via e-mail or Safari, and PDFs can sync back to iTunes and to other Apple devices such as the iPad or iPod Touch.iPhone 4: A Computer in Miniature
The iPhone 4 uses Apple's A4 CPU, the same processor powering the Apple iPad. And it runs the newly renamed iOS 4 operating system (which the iPad will also use, starting in the fall).As part of iOS 4, the iPhone 4 gains a bevy of capabilities. One of them--multitasking--feels long overdue, but as with Apple's long-awaited cut-and-paste feature, the company delivers on the promise of making multitasking work smoothly.
Quickly double-tap on the home button to pull up a pane that shows which apps are open. From there, you can swipe horizontally through the apps that the iPhone 4 has retained in either a running or suspended state.
When you find the app you want, you just click on the icon. The app will then resume its activity, and, if written to take advantage of this new feature, it will pick up precisely where you left off. At the very least, reaccessing the app will be faster.
Comparative Use Tests
Let's take the example of the side-by-side tests I did with an iPhone 3GS (running iPhone OS 3.1) and the iPhone 4. I navigated between the Safari Web browser and the Photos application and back again to Safari, and then back again to Photos.iPhone 4: On the iPhone 4 using iOS 4, the phone jumped quickly and smoothly between the apps, with virtually no pause or hesitation. I left a fully drawn Web page in Safari to go to Photos, navigated to a folder within Photos, and then to a picture in the middle of that folder. When I popped back to Safari, I resumed at the fully drawn Web page, and when I jumped back to Photos, I was looking at the same photo I'd left moments earlier.
iPhone 3GS: That same exercise on the iPhone 3GS required the Web page to draw the first time. To change apps, I had to press the home button to exit Safari. I then went into the Photos app and found my image in its album. To go back to Safari, I pushed the home button to return to the home screen and then clicked on Safari. (On one pass, the page loaded immediately; on another, it did not). I then pressed the home button to return to the home screen, selected Photos again--and found myself back at the top-level list of Photo Albums, as opposed to drilling down to a specific image within a specific folder.
To close an app out of the multitasking bar, you click on the icon and hold. The icons then get a red button with a dash; touch there, and you can close the app.Equally as elegant as multitasking is Apple's implementation of Folders, an increasingly necessary addition. To add icons into a folder, you simply drag one icon on top of the other to create the folder; the folder automatically gets the name of the category those apps share. Or, if you prefer, you can rename the folder on the spot. You can pack a maximum of 12 apps within a single folder (that gives you three rows of four apps across the home screen). And, thanks to the addition of Folders, you can now add up to a maximum of 2160 apps.
Dramatic Camera Boost
The iPhone 4 brings much-desired camera and video recording advances, as well. The primary camera on the back bumps up from 3 megapixels to 5 megapixels, while retaining the same pixel size (which can further improve image quality). The camera also gains an LED flash, a backlit sensor, and an integrated 5X zoom. The camera now lets you shoot in high-def, at 720p, 30 frames per second; in addition, video gains the tap-to-focus feature already available on the camera.I did not test these features--the lighting at the demo room was a bit funky, and I would have only been able to view the results on the demo device. However, the examples that Apple showcased during its keynote were compelling evidence that these upgrades are indeed worthy ones. These will be among the first features I'll try when I get my hands on a device for our full review.
I didn't fully test the front-facing camera, another addition to the iPhone 4, either. This camera is integral to Apple's FaceTime videophone app, which works only for communicating between two iPhone 4 handsets.
iPhone: Upgrade?
From my early look at the iPhone 4, this handset appears to be a must-have for anyone with an original iPhone or iPhone 3G (the former won't get the iOS 4 upgrade at all, while the 3G won't support some features). And people who have an iPhone 3GS will find this a worthy upgrade, too.Unlike the previous jump, from the iPhone 3G to the 3GS--which focused on slight performance improvements--the iPhone 4 bolsters the hardware's digital imaging capabilities and its display, making it a comprehensive and measurable upgrade over its predecessor.
Source: http://keepdol.blogspot.com/2010/06/hands-on-with-apples-new-iphone-4.html
7 Answers to News SEO Questions You Should Know
SEO Services India
SEO Company India
Recently I was invited to give a basics webinar on optimizing news content for search. The intersection of search and PR/communications are obviously something quite familiar and while I’ve done several such presentations with our client PRWeb, I had not done one with Search Engine Watch before.The outcome exceeded all expectations thanks to the excellent promotions by PRWeb and SEW plus Mike Grehan’s smooth handling of moderator duties amidst technical difficulties. Over 7,000 people registered, there were over 400 questions and 650 Tweets using the #prweb hash tag during the webinar.
The way it goes with many webinars when you’re invited by an organization to participate, is that the topic and title/description are determined beforehand. The speaker adapts themselves to that. This presentation content focused on optimizing writing for the web with a particular emphasis on optimizing content common to public relations.
As promised, I’ve sorted the bulk of the questions out and will present several here along with my responses. I hope they are useful.
If I’m not currently optimizing my site and I have a limited budget, where do I start?
The first thing any marketing activity needs to start with include setting goals, understanding your audience and the market. The lowest cost method of outsourcing that kind of activity where search engine optimization is concerned, would be to hire a consultant or agency to do an audit.
An SEO audit represents the initial evaluation and research along with recommendations to be implemented by the client. Typically this involves: competitive research, keyword research, web site code/template evaluation, content optimization recommendations, link building research and recommendations, tips on content creation/promotion/repurposing and to varying degrees, social media recommendations. Web analytics, monitoring and ranking tools are also often recommended.
An audit does not take the place of consulting since it’s an evaluation and recommendation, not implementation and guidance on an ongoing basis. It is however, a cost effective start. Here are a few resources:
- Top 3 Tactics To Improve Search Engine Rankings
- Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
- Do’s and Don’ts of On-Page SEO for Public Relations
- 5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010
There are two parts to the answer for this question. First, the reference to “blog software’s domain” sounds as though the blog is hosted with a third party service such as blogger.com or typepad.com. Example: yourblog.blogspot.com or yourblog.typepad.com
My advice is to avoid using third party hosting services for your blog. If you’re too invested in such a service or have other reasons for using them and cannot use something like WordPress installed on the server where your web site is hosted, then use domain aliasing options so that your blog URL is part of your company domain name or a domain name that you own. Example: yourblog.com or yourblog.companydomainname.com. This puts you in a position of more control since the blog content lives under a domain name you own vs a domain like blogspot.com, which is owned by Google.
While links from your blog/newsroom hosted on a blogspot.com to your company web site do count as inbound links, there’s not as much value from many links to your site from one other site vs many links to your site from many other relevant web sites.
Which leads us to the second part answer to where the newsroom should be hosted. My preference is to host the newsroom either as a sub-domain or a sub-directory of the main company web address. Example: newsroom.redcross.org or in the case of TopRank, it’s toprankmarketing.com/newsroom/
The links that you attract from other relevant web sites to your newsroom pages will build PageRank back to the rest of your web site. This is more true with the subdirectory than the subdomain. Also, keeping your newsroom address as part of your company web site address is useful for branding and user experience.
Some advice on subdomains and subdirectories from Matt Cutts of Google and here’s a good post discussing the SEO pros/cons.
Should you post press releases on your own website (before distribution)? How do search engines deal with the duplicate content issue in this case?
If you’re a publicly traded company, publishing financial announcements need to happen on the wires first, or at least at the same time as publishing the press release on your own web site. For other companies not constrained by such requirements, posting a release to your own site first is fine.
As for dealing with duplicate content when your press release is published on your own site as well as on the wire service, it’s a pretty common situation. In fact, it’s often a goal for companies that distribute their releases through a newswire service to get as many other sites to copy and republish the release as possible. If the release is properly optimized, each time another web site with a unique domain name publishes a copy, it creates a link back to whatever web page on your corporate site you’re trying to draw attention to. This sends more traffic and can affect the search ranking of the destination page.
A long standing problem with situations where the same content is hosted on different domain names has been debated and worried about by many, many webmasters. Search engines like Google don’t like to show multiple copies of the same content in the same search results. It’s not a good user experience. Therefore, when duplicate copies of the same content are detected, Google likes to pick a canonical version and only show that one.
Duplication with press releases is quite common because of distribution on wire services and to influence search engines to rank a certain version of your press release, there are a few steps you can take. One piece of advice many webmasters try to follow is to publish the release on your own site so Google crawls it there first. However, if there are more links to another version of the same release hosted elsewhere, the other copy might be perceived as deserving to rank in search results instead.
For more tips on how to deal with duplicate content in a press release situation, watch this video interview with Adam Lasnik of Google that I took at SES London. Adam offers advice on making sure copies of your content attribute the source and all link back to the original to provide Google information about what version is canonical.
Is it useful to submit Press Releases to Social Media sites in addition to submitting to PRWeb.com?
Deciding what to share on social media sites should take into account what types of content members of the social community are best responding to. Press Releases are often formal marketing communications, not exactly conversational. As you understand the community you’re trying to reach with the press release, you should know whether it’s appropriate to share a press release with them in a social media setting.
The big mistake many marketers and PR professionals make is to register with a variety of social network, news and bookmarking sites and then self submit, vote and rate their own press releases without having ever participated in the community. With no network paying attention to what you’re sharing, few will ever notice the press release. If you do have a network on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and others, then you will know first hand whether it would be acceptable to the community to share content in a press release format.
Outside of social media news release, your best bet to take advantage of social media distribution of a press release would be to make it easy for the press release to be saved, shared and submitted by interested readers. You can do this with widgets or plugins offered by ShareThis and similar services. Many wire services already support those features as well. Additionally, you should monitor pickups of the release on the social web.
If you see someone submit or share a release you’ve sent out on a social media site, reach out and thank them, answer any questions and show interest. That can generate interest from others in the community. One tip I recommend is to write a blog post version of the press release and share that content with social media communities. Then include a link to the full press release within the blog post for people that want more information.
What you should not do is treat social media sites as a place to dump press release content thinking it will get a lot of exposure because there are many members of the community. Here are some additional newsroom SEO tactics.
What is a good Social Media approach for a company which generates little in the way of genuinely newsworthy material?
Companies that say they have nothing “newsworthy” to publish are more common than you might think. There may be deeper issues to deal with than a social media strategy if there’s nothing new, innovative or unique to talk about. A good social media marketing program cannot fix a broken business.
A business exists to make money fulfilling unmet customer needs. A perspective to consider would be to take the focus off the company and put it on the customer. Use social web participation as a way to better listen with and connect with customers to find opportunities to serve them better. Develop relationships with influentials and encourage feedback. Innovation can certainly come from a customer base as can the spread of a great idea. Focus on connecting with customers and helping customers connect with each other in a social context and there may be more newsworthy material than you ever expected.
Here are a few useful resources on Social Media and PR:
- Improve Public Relations with SEO & Social Media
- Why Use Social Media For Public Relations
- 3 Steps for Effectively Using Social Media For PR
There are no more “shady” SEO people than there are “shady” clients. Professionals that provide effective SEO consulting are reputable, experienced and in my experience, probably more talented than most traditional marketers you’ve ever worked with. People doing shady things in the name of SEO are NOT professionals and the absence of that word, professionals, in the question is the problem.
Picking a good consultant or agency means doing homework. Know your market, set goals, understand your competition in search and start asking for referrals from others who have hired SEO companies. Word of mouth is powerful both for companies that need to hire good SEOs and for good SEOs to attract business. Our agency, TopRankMarketing.com for example, has relied mostly on word of mouth to attract new business since 2001. We also get a lot of new business from search itself (practice what you preach) and from networking on and offline.
Here are a few resources on hiring a SEO and one on “shady” SEO:
- How to Hire a SEO Firm – According to Google
- 5 Tips on Hiring and Getting the Most Value from SEO Consultants
- Dear Fox News: SEO Is Not Search Engine Scamming (Unless You’re Scamming Yourself)
“Can you use article spinning software to publish Press Releases? Or is there an Press Release spinning software to create many press releases based on one press release? Other words, is there a difference between article marketing and press releases?”
Article spinning software for press releases? Demand for shortcuts, silver bullets and “we want everything now” helps create the shady side of SEO as opportunists take advantage. Automatically generating garbage pages in press release format will help NO ONE.
That’s it for this round of questions. I’ll post another round next week. Thank you to PRWeb and Search Engine Watch for having me participate on the webinar. What are your questions about optimizing news content?
Source: http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/02/news-seo-tips/
Why do you need a good SEO consultant?
SEO Services India
SEO Company India
So what can be a good SEO consultant for your company? SEO consultants optimize your content by using the right keywords so that, instead of buried on the third page of the results of a search in the search, you can see your website and your presence on the Web on the first page. In general, we will consider the results of current research on the first page and are too lazy to go to the third or fourth page, go to the knockouts and services listed therein Check. So, from the perspective of the business, it certainly makes sense for you on the first page of search engine results. It increases the visibility, more people and then click the increased traffic. It is very important to you find the right SEO consultant or SEO company. There was some SEO consultants who have made their business customers to more elderly should be in shady ways blacklisted and blocked from all search engines later. There is therefore a need for some due diligence before recruiting SEO consultant. Them questions honestly. Will they provide weekly updates on the classification and analysis of? Can you guarantee that your site can on the front page of at least a few keywords? You can not expect to be on the first page with all your keywords. A SEO consultant readiness, a full list of results provide s pricing model. Some companies and professionals offer do not include SEO services, while other e-mail marketing, blogs, podcasts, video links, etc. An SEO consultant will begin to make changes to your content. He will try to make it search engine friendly, more accessible so that search engines can spider and trackers to the site and content. It will review and adjust the site architecture. follow-HTML validation, and could not change URLs, source code, meta tags, etc. This will ensure that you have a good strategy since the affected outreach programs. A comprehensive analysis of the site will then follow, which would be followed by a simple report of the grounds. The baseline report provides analysis of key words are required to lead the movement. It will ensure that your brand presence and visibility, and traffic gets.
Source: http://seo-consultantsseoexperts.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-do-you-need-good-seo-consultant.html
SEO Company India
Of course you can without a good SEO consultant to do. This is what your guts tell you, running. After careful consideration, you choose the channels of internet marketing and open in order to reach your customers and clients better. You expect that your Web presence to be noticed, but if you are sure that you are in the amount of content and data that are available, feel lost. Your voice on your site seems to be buried in the noise and the amount of traffic leads and requests that you wait is nowhere to be seen. This is exactly why you need an SEO consultant or SEO company or organization, you can offer your customers and with who you optimize your presence on the Web, so your voice can make guide heard about the disorder.
Source: http://seo-consultantsseoexperts.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-do-you-need-good-seo-consultant.html
Increase Your Onsite SEO in Simple Ways
SEO Services India
SEO Company India
Whilst looking through a number of websites and peeking at other web designers websites it came to my attention how many people are not even doing the very basics of onsite SEO.
I am great believer that if your onsite SEO is upto scratch your well on the way to the battle that is search engine rankings.
There are thousands of web designers some are very good with knowledge in most areas of website design, some are very good at the design but know little about the correct way to structure a website and simple ways to promote it, I was quite surprised how many website owners were never informed of little simple things they could do them self to improve their website rankings.
This is what triggered the idea to write this simple blog that hopefully will help others increase their website ranking and move a bit further up the search engine ladder.
If you are a web designer this will also help you if you have limited knowledge of onsite SEO.
Point 1 – Choosing your keywords
Ok so you have a new website and want to quickly start getting traffic and making money from your new site, will this happen, well it’s quite unlikely without the correct promotion, the best way to get straight to the top of google is Adwords but without advanced knowledge of Adwords this can be very very expensive with less income that your profit margin.
One simple way to gain higher results is by choosing your keywords cleverly.
Think of your website like this, imagine the largest forest in the world, now double it, yes its pretty big, possibly 25 million trees or more some very mature and towering above the rest, now imagine your website in the middle of all this forest, and ask someone to go and find it, unless they know exactly where it is (Domain Name) its not likely they are going to find it.
There’s a simple way to reduce the size of this, many people aim for the big keywords straight away, lets use Kitchens as an example, 27,700,000 results highly unlikely your going to get up to the top of Google quickly, so the first tip is to reduce this and aim for a less competitive keyword or more importantly key phrase, you can instantly cut the amount of results down to under 1.8million results by targeting affordable kitchens, you can also use Google keyword tool to get keyword ideas and see how many searches each month and also the competition on the keyword, I personally look at the number of results returned for a keyword search in Google.
Ok so you now found your key phrase your going to start with, the reason I say aim for a less competitive key phrase is to try to gain higher results quicker and start progressing with a few orders, really impress with them and before you know it people will start to recommend you, maybe link to your website, write reviews, (Ask happy customers to do this for you) before you know it your website will start to gain credibility in the search engines in preparation of moving onto more competitive keywords.
Point 2 – Correct Meta Tags the Basics
Its amazing how many people fail on this simple point, meta tags are important, the Meta Title is one of the first thing search engines look at, but don’t make the mistake of trying to cram lots of keywords into it. Using our Example of Kitchens see the 2 samples below.
WRONG – Company Name, kitchens, modern kitchens, white kitchens, pine kitchens, usa kitchens, quality kitchens
There are 3 main issues with a title like this, one is over usage of one keyword and the other is its far too long and messy
CORRECT EXAMPLE – Affordable Kitchens | Quality UK Kitchen Supplier | Company Name
Many people make the mistake of adding the company name first, unless people will be searching for it there is not much point of making it the start of your meta title short simple meta titles will be much more effective.
Meta descriptions are what display in the search results, don’t make the common mistake of writing just for keywords, and remember this is what people will read in the search engine so at the same time as getting your keyword in there make sure it will attract clicks.
Example: Affordable kitchens from Quality USA Supplier, Company Name supply quality affordable kitchens to the public and trade with exceptional customer service.
Remember don’t over do it with the keywords.
Meta Keywords – Not really too important as Google stopped taking them into account a while ago however some search engines still use them so add a few but again don’t repeat to many times something short simple will do. EXAMPLE; affordable kitchens, kitchens, UK Supplier, White, Pine, Gloss try to use keywords that are also featured in the page or they will have no effect.
TIP: Make sure all the meta descriptions are unique to the page across your website, search engines wont rank a page if it has duplicate meta tags.
Point 3 – The Code
Ok now you have your meta descriptions sorted, have a look at the website code reducing the code in the page will help, check css styles and javascript or in external files where possible, use XHTML coding where possible, by keeping to code to a minimum you will increase the code to text ratio, this is probably something you will only be able to achieve if you are a confident website designer but you should be able to ask your web designer to advise on this.
There are many coding techniques that help the ranking of a website, correct usage of Header tags are one of them.
The H1 tag is the next big place to get your keywords, I recommend getting the H1 tag as close to the start of your website code as possible, again don’t cram it with keywords or waste it on something like Welcome to my website.
Sample H1 Tag might be: Affordable Kitchens from Company Name.
You can also use other tags further down your page for titles of various sections these are H2, H3 tags again you can use these wisely with your keywords.
Ok so you got meta covered and header tags, another very obvious one but so many people miss it is correct alt tags on images, search engines can’t read the content of an image so you need to give it an alt tag, again you will need a bit of HTML knowledge to do this but make sure each image on your website has a ALT tag, use the keywords but don’t use the same one over and over, use variations, search engines are very clever now and understand different variation and meanings to the keywords so use them wisely.
Link Titles: I’m sure you have seen before when you hover over a link in a web page it comes up with a little description of the landing page, this is called a title tag, again very simple to add with html knowledge, this will increase the credibility of the link whilst also adding strength to the keywords of your website. Remember use short descriptions, for example the Home Page link, don’t just title it ‘Home’ use ‘Affordable Kitchens Home Page’.
These are a few basic techniques to better coding for on-site SEO, now we will look at page content.
Point 4 – the Content
By far the best way to have quality content is to get a professional to write it, but we all know sometimes budgets don’t stretch to this so when writing your content think about it for a while and come up with some drafts, take into consideration the following.
You want to get your keywords in but not too often it starts to read wrong, remember your not just writing for search engines you also need to impress your website visitors.
A web page with 2 images and one paragraph of content won’t have great effect, the more content you have the better try to add as many good content rich sections as possible, don’t just write for search engines write to attract your visitors too.
Highlighting keywords and linking, this is another good technique but again don’t over do it, if you have a paragraph which has the words affordable kitchens then make it bold text and link it to the page in your website that has more information remembering to add your link title.
Finishing the web page with your keywords, this is something I have always considered important, you started your web page with the keyword in the meta title, you added it in the H1 Tag, now the search engine spider has reached the bottom of the web page so make it the last thing it sees too. At the end of the website footer, add the key phrase again – example footer might be. Copyright: Company Name, Affordable Kitchens UK link the words affordable kitchens uk back to the domain name of your website.
Point 5 – Using Google and Sitemaps
Depending on your website you can use free tools from Google for monitoring and promoting your website and products, the first step is to setup a Google webmaster account you will need to add your website and add a bit of HTML code to your web page or load a html file to your server to verify the site. From here once your website is indexed you can monitor a number of things, from sitemaps to errors found by the search engine spider when processing your website, once you have setup your webmaster account create an XML Sitemap, there are a number of free websites that will do this for you I recommend this one xml-sitemaps.com. Copy the code and save it as an xml file and load to your server, follow the instructions in Google webmasters to verify the sitemap, this will not only tell Google about your website but it will tell them about all the pages in your site.
Google Analytics – This is a great tool to monitor the website traffic, conversions if you are using adwords for ecommerce websites, keywords people used to find your website plus many more great monitoring features, signup and follow the instructions, make sure you add the analytics code to all the pages you want to track.
Google Base – If you have an ecommerce website Google base (or Shopping) is a free service, more on this topic can be found in this Blog, this is a great way to quickly get traffic if your products are competitive prices.
Ok so you have now followed the basics of onsite SEO, the next step is to start getting your links out there, a number of great social websites are now available that cost nothing to use so make the most of them, forums, social networks are all free great ways to get your website out there, more on this will come in another blog for off site Search Engine Optimisation but here are a few sites that will get your started. Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, MySpace, UK Business Forums, A1 Business Forums.
Source: http://indseo.blogspot.com/2010/07/increase-your-onsite-seo-in-few-simple.html
SEO Company India
Whilst looking through a number of websites and peeking at other web designers websites it came to my attention how many people are not even doing the very basics of onsite SEO.
I am great believer that if your onsite SEO is upto scratch your well on the way to the battle that is search engine rankings.
There are thousands of web designers some are very good with knowledge in most areas of website design, some are very good at the design but know little about the correct way to structure a website and simple ways to promote it, I was quite surprised how many website owners were never informed of little simple things they could do them self to improve their website rankings.
This is what triggered the idea to write this simple blog that hopefully will help others increase their website ranking and move a bit further up the search engine ladder.
If you are a web designer this will also help you if you have limited knowledge of onsite SEO.
Point 1 – Choosing your keywords
Ok so you have a new website and want to quickly start getting traffic and making money from your new site, will this happen, well it’s quite unlikely without the correct promotion, the best way to get straight to the top of google is Adwords but without advanced knowledge of Adwords this can be very very expensive with less income that your profit margin.
One simple way to gain higher results is by choosing your keywords cleverly.
Think of your website like this, imagine the largest forest in the world, now double it, yes its pretty big, possibly 25 million trees or more some very mature and towering above the rest, now imagine your website in the middle of all this forest, and ask someone to go and find it, unless they know exactly where it is (Domain Name) its not likely they are going to find it.
There’s a simple way to reduce the size of this, many people aim for the big keywords straight away, lets use Kitchens as an example, 27,700,000 results highly unlikely your going to get up to the top of Google quickly, so the first tip is to reduce this and aim for a less competitive keyword or more importantly key phrase, you can instantly cut the amount of results down to under 1.8million results by targeting affordable kitchens, you can also use Google keyword tool to get keyword ideas and see how many searches each month and also the competition on the keyword, I personally look at the number of results returned for a keyword search in Google.
Ok so you now found your key phrase your going to start with, the reason I say aim for a less competitive key phrase is to try to gain higher results quicker and start progressing with a few orders, really impress with them and before you know it people will start to recommend you, maybe link to your website, write reviews, (Ask happy customers to do this for you) before you know it your website will start to gain credibility in the search engines in preparation of moving onto more competitive keywords.
Point 2 – Correct Meta Tags the Basics
Its amazing how many people fail on this simple point, meta tags are important, the Meta Title is one of the first thing search engines look at, but don’t make the mistake of trying to cram lots of keywords into it. Using our Example of Kitchens see the 2 samples below.
WRONG – Company Name, kitchens, modern kitchens, white kitchens, pine kitchens, usa kitchens, quality kitchens
There are 3 main issues with a title like this, one is over usage of one keyword and the other is its far too long and messy
CORRECT EXAMPLE – Affordable Kitchens | Quality UK Kitchen Supplier | Company Name
Many people make the mistake of adding the company name first, unless people will be searching for it there is not much point of making it the start of your meta title short simple meta titles will be much more effective.
Meta descriptions are what display in the search results, don’t make the common mistake of writing just for keywords, and remember this is what people will read in the search engine so at the same time as getting your keyword in there make sure it will attract clicks.
Example: Affordable kitchens from Quality USA Supplier, Company Name supply quality affordable kitchens to the public and trade with exceptional customer service.
Remember don’t over do it with the keywords.
Meta Keywords – Not really too important as Google stopped taking them into account a while ago however some search engines still use them so add a few but again don’t repeat to many times something short simple will do. EXAMPLE; affordable kitchens, kitchens, UK Supplier, White, Pine, Gloss try to use keywords that are also featured in the page or they will have no effect.
TIP: Make sure all the meta descriptions are unique to the page across your website, search engines wont rank a page if it has duplicate meta tags.
Point 3 – The Code
Ok now you have your meta descriptions sorted, have a look at the website code reducing the code in the page will help, check css styles and javascript or in external files where possible, use XHTML coding where possible, by keeping to code to a minimum you will increase the code to text ratio, this is probably something you will only be able to achieve if you are a confident website designer but you should be able to ask your web designer to advise on this.
There are many coding techniques that help the ranking of a website, correct usage of Header tags are one of them.
The H1 tag is the next big place to get your keywords, I recommend getting the H1 tag as close to the start of your website code as possible, again don’t cram it with keywords or waste it on something like Welcome to my website.
Sample H1 Tag might be: Affordable Kitchens from Company Name.
You can also use other tags further down your page for titles of various sections these are H2, H3 tags again you can use these wisely with your keywords.
Ok so you got meta covered and header tags, another very obvious one but so many people miss it is correct alt tags on images, search engines can’t read the content of an image so you need to give it an alt tag, again you will need a bit of HTML knowledge to do this but make sure each image on your website has a ALT tag, use the keywords but don’t use the same one over and over, use variations, search engines are very clever now and understand different variation and meanings to the keywords so use them wisely.
Link Titles: I’m sure you have seen before when you hover over a link in a web page it comes up with a little description of the landing page, this is called a title tag, again very simple to add with html knowledge, this will increase the credibility of the link whilst also adding strength to the keywords of your website. Remember use short descriptions, for example the Home Page link, don’t just title it ‘Home’ use ‘Affordable Kitchens Home Page’.
These are a few basic techniques to better coding for on-site SEO, now we will look at page content.
Point 4 – the Content
By far the best way to have quality content is to get a professional to write it, but we all know sometimes budgets don’t stretch to this so when writing your content think about it for a while and come up with some drafts, take into consideration the following.
You want to get your keywords in but not too often it starts to read wrong, remember your not just writing for search engines you also need to impress your website visitors.
A web page with 2 images and one paragraph of content won’t have great effect, the more content you have the better try to add as many good content rich sections as possible, don’t just write for search engines write to attract your visitors too.
Highlighting keywords and linking, this is another good technique but again don’t over do it, if you have a paragraph which has the words affordable kitchens then make it bold text and link it to the page in your website that has more information remembering to add your link title.
Finishing the web page with your keywords, this is something I have always considered important, you started your web page with the keyword in the meta title, you added it in the H1 Tag, now the search engine spider has reached the bottom of the web page so make it the last thing it sees too. At the end of the website footer, add the key phrase again – example footer might be. Copyright: Company Name, Affordable Kitchens UK link the words affordable kitchens uk back to the domain name of your website.
Point 5 – Using Google and Sitemaps
Depending on your website you can use free tools from Google for monitoring and promoting your website and products, the first step is to setup a Google webmaster account you will need to add your website and add a bit of HTML code to your web page or load a html file to your server to verify the site. From here once your website is indexed you can monitor a number of things, from sitemaps to errors found by the search engine spider when processing your website, once you have setup your webmaster account create an XML Sitemap, there are a number of free websites that will do this for you I recommend this one xml-sitemaps.com. Copy the code and save it as an xml file and load to your server, follow the instructions in Google webmasters to verify the sitemap, this will not only tell Google about your website but it will tell them about all the pages in your site.
Google Analytics – This is a great tool to monitor the website traffic, conversions if you are using adwords for ecommerce websites, keywords people used to find your website plus many more great monitoring features, signup and follow the instructions, make sure you add the analytics code to all the pages you want to track.
Google Base – If you have an ecommerce website Google base (or Shopping) is a free service, more on this topic can be found in this Blog, this is a great way to quickly get traffic if your products are competitive prices.
Ok so you have now followed the basics of onsite SEO, the next step is to start getting your links out there, a number of great social websites are now available that cost nothing to use so make the most of them, forums, social networks are all free great ways to get your website out there, more on this will come in another blog for off site Search Engine Optimisation but here are a few sites that will get your started. Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, MySpace, UK Business Forums, A1 Business Forums.
Source: http://indseo.blogspot.com/2010/07/increase-your-onsite-seo-in-few-simple.html
Ten SEO Content Writing Tips
SEO Services India
SEO Company India
Writing is as much as an art form as it is a skill, but that doesn't mean that you can't write content that is powerful and helps to improve your company's ranking with the major search engines. There are certain elements which can help your website content, blog posts, articles submitted to online directories and other online content increase your rankings and move your business forward. Here are ten things to look for:
1. Content Matters: No matter what you write, keep in mind that it has the potential to reach a large audience and be beneficial to your company beyond any SEO benefits. Blogs, articles and on-site content are a chance to link your company to useful, interesting information about your industry. Well-written copy about intriguing topics is also more likely to be linked and shared by outsiders -- increasing your page rank as well.
2. Write Compelling Headings: The titles of your articles and webpages are important -- they are among the first things that can grab the reader's attention. Instead of using a boring, generic heading, make sure that your heading is interesting while clearly explaining the content. Working a keyword into the heading is also a good idea.
3. Stay on Topic: It's easy to write around a topic and begin drifting into tangents that are unrelated to your topic. Keep in mind that this is business writing and not a personal blog! While it's OK to have some personality in your writing, your focus should always be on the topic you are writing about.
4. Ideal Keyword Length and Density: For website content and off-site articles for directory submission, content could be 300 to 1,000 words in length. The length of your article will largely be determined by the number of keywords you are using: you should use a keyword for every 50 to 100 words of content.
5. Don't Stack Keywords: Some people cram all of their articles' keywords into one section at the beginning of the article - often as part of a list. This looks unprofessional since all of your linked keywords will be running together on the page. Spread your keywords evenly throughout the article so they look more organic.
6. Add Keywords to the Bio: Whether you are writing a story for a magazine or submitting an article to an online directory, there will be an opportunity for you to add your biographical information. This is valuable real estate and another chance for optimization. Make sure that you include one keyword in your bio.
7. Write and Tag Hierarchically: Using the appropriate tags for your content will show Google and other search engines that it is professional and well-structured, leading to higher placements. Make sure you use the h1 tag for titles and the h2 tag for subheadings, etc. You should also apply this concept to your writing, putting the most compelling information up front.
8. Use META Descriptions: Making sure that your articles have META descriptions -- 150 character descriptions of the content -- that have keywords included. Including META descriptions is a great way to get Google to recognize your content and give it greater value.
9. Write Original Content: Search engines will punish sites that publish duplicate content that already exists online. Make sure that your content is fresh and original instead of just "copying and pasting" content from existing sources.
10. Choose Relevant Images: Having eye-catching images that are relevant to your content will grab the reader's attention. You can use Creative Commons search tools like the one found at http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/creative-commons-image-search.htm to find intriguing images that are free to use without risking copyright infringement.
Source:http://my-seo-news.blogspot.com/2010/06/submit-express-newsletter-72-ten-seo.html
SEO Company India
Writing is as much as an art form as it is a skill, but that doesn't mean that you can't write content that is powerful and helps to improve your company's ranking with the major search engines. There are certain elements which can help your website content, blog posts, articles submitted to online directories and other online content increase your rankings and move your business forward. Here are ten things to look for:
1. Content Matters: No matter what you write, keep in mind that it has the potential to reach a large audience and be beneficial to your company beyond any SEO benefits. Blogs, articles and on-site content are a chance to link your company to useful, interesting information about your industry. Well-written copy about intriguing topics is also more likely to be linked and shared by outsiders -- increasing your page rank as well.
2. Write Compelling Headings: The titles of your articles and webpages are important -- they are among the first things that can grab the reader's attention. Instead of using a boring, generic heading, make sure that your heading is interesting while clearly explaining the content. Working a keyword into the heading is also a good idea.
3. Stay on Topic: It's easy to write around a topic and begin drifting into tangents that are unrelated to your topic. Keep in mind that this is business writing and not a personal blog! While it's OK to have some personality in your writing, your focus should always be on the topic you are writing about.
4. Ideal Keyword Length and Density: For website content and off-site articles for directory submission, content could be 300 to 1,000 words in length. The length of your article will largely be determined by the number of keywords you are using: you should use a keyword for every 50 to 100 words of content.
5. Don't Stack Keywords: Some people cram all of their articles' keywords into one section at the beginning of the article - often as part of a list. This looks unprofessional since all of your linked keywords will be running together on the page. Spread your keywords evenly throughout the article so they look more organic.
6. Add Keywords to the Bio: Whether you are writing a story for a magazine or submitting an article to an online directory, there will be an opportunity for you to add your biographical information. This is valuable real estate and another chance for optimization. Make sure that you include one keyword in your bio.
7. Write and Tag Hierarchically: Using the appropriate tags for your content will show Google and other search engines that it is professional and well-structured, leading to higher placements. Make sure you use the h1 tag for titles and the h2 tag for subheadings, etc. You should also apply this concept to your writing, putting the most compelling information up front.
8. Use META Descriptions: Making sure that your articles have META descriptions -- 150 character descriptions of the content -- that have keywords included. Including META descriptions is a great way to get Google to recognize your content and give it greater value.
9. Write Original Content: Search engines will punish sites that publish duplicate content that already exists online. Make sure that your content is fresh and original instead of just "copying and pasting" content from existing sources.
10. Choose Relevant Images: Having eye-catching images that are relevant to your content will grab the reader's attention. You can use Creative Commons search tools like the one found at http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/creative-commons-image-search.htm to find intriguing images that are free to use without risking copyright infringement.
Source:http://my-seo-news.blogspot.com/2010/06/submit-express-newsletter-72-ten-seo.html
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