How to Get Traffic From Social Bookmarking Sites

What makes you log into social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon? Most of the people will answer that it is to share, organize and manage bookmarks of content that interests them. What would someone in the SEO world answer? Obviously, that they invite many visitors to his/her listing in these sites. How do they manage that? It's not magic. Just get your site on the front page of any of these bookmarking sites and you'll be amazed by the number of visitors you get. Let's check out some of the ways in which you can use bookmarking sites to increase your traffic.

• Give a catchy headline - Needless to say, the first thing that any reader would see in your site content is its headline. So, it needs to be crispy, short and attention grabbing. There are a few things that you could do to get this done. For one, start it off with a strong action oriented verb. Adding "how to" can also invite readers. Avoid articles. For example, take the headlines "The three steps to put an elephant inside a refrigerator", "How to put an elephant in a refrigerator in three steps" and "Put an elephant inside a refrigerator in just three steps". Obviously, the second and third would attract more readers.

• Add a meaningful description - Your description has to be related to what you say in the content. You can exaggerate to some amount but never lie. Also, avoid long sentences where you go on and on about what you intend to say. Remember that some of the bookmarking sites even have set limitations in the number of characters.

• Make the first paragraph captivating - You might have caught the attention of the readers with your headline and description. But the first paragraph helps you retain that attention. The headline and description that you provided have already given an idea of your content to the readers. And that's the reason they are in your page. A first paragraph, which normally is the introduction, poorly written can make your visitors leave your site even before they come to the real matter.

• Create relevant and original content - Content is king. Yes, here too. Its not search engines alone that give importance to good content. Bookmarking sites also place high priority for quality content. Make sure that your content provides the required and relevant information for the readers. Never post junk to cheat them. It can in fact get your site banned.

• Use English language - This is not to sound linguistically biased but the reality is most readers follow English than any other language. Exotic languages like the ones that have non-latin alphabets have the disadvantage of being legible to only a selected group of people. Languages like French, German and Italian might be more common; still the fact is they are not English. If you really need to submit content in any language other than English, submit it in bookmarking sites meant for that particular language.

• Insert your keywords - Keywords matter here too. After all, just like search engines here too people give the keywords to find what they need. Insert them not only in your body content but also in your headlines as well as descriptions.

• Confirm the facts before submitting - Never fail to countercheck the facts that you provide in your content. Finding yourself wrong in any of the details given can make you look silly and ignorant. Adding to this your site will lose its credibility. Consider yourself in the readers' shoes. If you find anything wrong in a website you visit, will you ever go back to it again? Well, the same point applies here. Get all the right information. If needed, get it checked by a subject expert before submitting.

• Proofread your content before submitting - Grammatical or spelling errors can make you end up look really dumb. It could be either a mistake from you or a typo. But ultimately the reader would think your language is poor. So proofread the content carefully and correct all the mistakes before submitting.

• Submit your link in the right category - If you are looking for information on weight loss you are definitely not going to check the sites on beauty or skin care. Obviously, the only common point among these topics is that they all apply to the human body. So if your content is on weight loss make sure that you submit your content in the health and fitness or other similar category instead of that which is only vaguely connected.

• Submit articles in article directories - If you have been optimising your website for search engines, you are of course familiar with the practice of submitting articles in article directories for more viewability. This can help in the case of bookmarking websites too. Links from article directories can be a good source of more traffic, provided the content is good.

• Avoid old news and boring topics - Sometimes, however good your content is, it might be some information that has been dealt with by many people before. Or the topic that would interest none. Imagine some content on creating good content for SEO. The topic has been so much written upon that most of the readers would overlook the content, even if it is first-rate and perfectly error-free.

• Include related articles - Adding related articles to your site can glue your readers to your site even if they reached there following another piece of information. If they like your content they may end up not only reading the other content in your site but also returning for more later.

• Provide RSS feeds and newsletter subscription options - If your site is interesting and relevant, visitors would like to hear more from you. Providing options for RSS feeds and newsletter subscriptions let them return to your site more often. Hence, provide these options at easily visible places in your site.

• Be friendly and courteous - Online presence is not possible without support. You cannot singlehandedly manage your social bookmarking without the cooperation from others who do the same thing. Similarly, keeping a friendly and courteous approach to all can be really helpful. Reply to the comments that you receive, be it negative or positive. Be amiable when you do that. Drop in comments for others in the bookmarking sites.

• Help the users to bookmark your site - Users spend very small amount of time in a website. Within that short time you need to your point across and impress them. If you want them to bookmark your site, a little bit of help from your side wouldn't hurt. After all, the benefit from that is yours, right? Hence, provide the bookmarking button where it is easily seen.

• Timely submission - When you make it to the front page of a social bookmarking site you are not going to be there forever. Its 24 hours that you get to be there. So, if you submit your link when half the population, who is your target audience, is sleeping, by the time they check in you would've reached on the 10th page. Hence, submit the link when your readers are awake. However, this is problematic if you aim for a global audience. You cannot, after all, wait for readers in all parts of the world to be awake at the same time.

So what is the delay? Once you get all these above points done, go ahead and befriend all those bookmarking sites and get your site prepared for a huge number of visitors.

The Web Clinic search engine optimisation service helps to increase the visitors' traffic from a search engine to your websites through improvisation and updation of the on-page and off-page factors of the website, which influence its ranking in the search engines. For more details visit our SEO Services.

Internal Linking – An important factor in On-Page optimisation

Often, when SEO professionals enthusiastically talk about link building they focus on the benefits of inbound links. In the rush of that enthusiasm what they ignore usually is the value and advantage of internal linking structure that actually bring a few worthy benefits. Internal links are those that connect one page in a website to its other pages. When a website gets indexed first by the search engines only the home page normally gets indexed. The remaining pages get indexed in time. A well-laid out linking structure can help the inner pages get indexed fast. Internal linking is more important for e-commerce sites that have so many product pages with corresponding keywords.

Let’s check out a few of the benefits of properly implemented internal linking in a website from an SEO point of view.

• Better ranking
Internal linking helps the search engines delve more into your website’s inner pages. They help search engines find the pages easily and index them, which in turn help in better ranking.

• Easy navigation
An internally well-linked website helps the users reach the page they want easily. Also, they can help users reach other related content that they might be interested in. In the case of business websites, this can be very valuable as you can provide the links of related products on the page that the visitors are checking for.

• Good reputation
If the users go back and forth in site without finding what they find they would soon get fed up and leave your site. A good website is that which provides its visitors the information they are looking faster. With all the pages linked properly and a detailed sitemap visitors would love to return to a website more and more.

Internal linking makes up just one of the many factors of SEO but it can actually get your website good ranking and more visitors. It is never too late to implement a good internal linking in a website. If you haven’t done it till now you could do it and watch your site improve its rankings.

Hiring a good Search engine optimisation (SEO) service to optimise your website is no simple task. The Web Clinic - SEO experts UK, assures you is to bring your website to the front from where it already is in all major search engines through work of superior quality.

Multilingual SEO - Some of Its Do's and Don'ts

If you think that your international business requires just one standard website that is in English, you are still living a decade back. The world is now much smaller, and if you don't cater to a country in its own language chances are you'll lose out on a large share of customers. And that is a major reason for the concept of multilingual SEO. This is something you probably know if you have been into e-commerce for some time.

It is believed that over 70% of the world's online population do not use English while browsing the Internet. And that is quite a lot of people! And today most of the shopping starts with someone typing a few keywords in a search engine and searching the product. So, if you have set up your website in English thinking that would suffice you couldn't be more wrong. About 95% of your customers could be using their own language while browsing like French, Spanish, German, Chinese, etc. Unless you tell them to buy in their own tongue they might never be convinced to buy from you.

So is it enough that you get your website done and translate it to different languages and rest assured that now customers all over the world would come to you? Again, wrong! Just translating the content in your website using a tool and providing that in other websites can harm you than help. There are certain aspects of multilingual SEO that you need to give special attention to while getting the website translated into different languages.

Here are a few do's and don't s of SEO that could be of help to you.

Dos

• Look beyond Google

It is true that about 70% of the Internet users prefer Google to all other search engines. However, if you wish to establish your brand across the globe you need to satisfy the remaining 30% as well. Meaning, you need to submit your website to other local search engines also that are extremely prominent, sometimes more than Google, in different countries.

• Remember the cultural diversity in the online behaviour

Online behaviour of people differs everywhere. It is important therefore to do more research on it and plan accordingly. The difference exists everywhere including spelling, vocabulary, punctuation, syntax, slang, and many more aspects. Even in the case of same language used in different countries, like US English and UK English, there are differences in the keywords people use to find what they need. For example, while people in the UK would search for "football" people in the US would look for "soccer".

• Have country specific domains

When the localized versions of your website have localized domains that end in that particular country code, the rankings of your keywords improve significantly. Creating and maintaining such a website might require more investment of course. However, considering the revenue the website would bring this investment would be worth it in the long run.

• Know your local competitors

Competition is ubiquitous. If you have a website for a particular country it is as important to know your competitors there as knowing your competitors in your own country for your main website. Studying them could not only help you learn what they have done right and why they are successful in that particular region but also not to repeat what they have done wrong.

• Build links that are local

Link building, as you know, is important to SEO. However, in the case of SEO for a particular country too quality incoming links can boost the ranking and increase the number of visitors. It will also increase the ranking in the local search engines as well as the local versions of Google like Google.co.uk or Google.co.in.

Don'ts

• Translate keywords directly

You might be translating your keywords using the best translation tool but that is just not enough. The nuances and subtleties of a language is understood completely only by a native speaker of that language. Hence, when it comes to the translation of your keywords as well as the website content use a person who understand and speaks that language fluently, if possible by the native speaker of that language.

• Have multilingual content on a single page

Google's webmaster blog has mentioned that it's a bad idea to mix language on a single page as this can confuse the Googlebot and the users. If you are targeting a local audience other than your main one, it is better to have a local version of your website with local content.

• Blindly start a local website without analysis

Sometimes people create a localised website without adequately analysing the keywords that the targeted audience is typing in the search engines. For example, if you are an online book store people would be entering the title of the book in English rather than its translation. In such cases, you wouldn't need localised version of your website.

When it comes to multilingual SEO a lot depends on the amount of research you do and the common sense and knack you apply. One point is certain - an effectively created and maintained website in a foreign language can connect you to its audience and thus make your brand popular there.

The Web Clinic is armed with the latest search engine optimisation techniques and skilled, experienced SEO experts in organic search engine optimisation. Your website is safe in our hands, until and after the completion of its journey to the top.

A few SEO Criteria for choosing a domain name

Contrary to what Shakespeare said, “what’s in a name?”, in SEO community a name, a domain name, matters a lot. Ironically, many people who want their website to be in the front pages of the search engines are unaware of the importance of the domain name of their website. Which is why it is no surprise that SEO experts spend a lot of time convincing their clients why one domain name is better than others.

So why don’t your save yourself some time and find a domain name that is SEO friendly, before consulting an SEO expert? Here are a few tips that can help you in that.

• Age of the domain
If you are familiar with Google’s sandbox that filters every new website from reaching the front pages, you’d know that a new domain name will remain away from the visibility span of visitors at least for some time. This means that if the domain is older you have better chance of being ranked by the search engines.

• Exact keyword name
If your main keyword is “rent conference room”, no other domain name would be better than “rentconferenceroom.com”. If the domain name and your keyword are one and the same there are more chances for your site than a website with the same keyword but different domain name like rent-conference-room.com. And, if you cannot get exact keyword you could at least get a keyword-rich name like the hyphenated one given here. Something is better than nothing, after all.

• Domain names with .com
This is an oft repeated fact. Websites with .com names take a place ahead of the .net or .org or names with country codes. As .com is most popular and trusted by human visitors search engines follow the suit. They too prefer the .com domain names.

• Scope for branding
As Google is said to have updated its algorithm to give weight to brand names, we know that a domain name with a brandable name can take the website to the front. A brandable name would have just one or two words so that customers can remember it, type it easily and recommend it easily to others. This would mean a short name with one possible spelling that visitors can remember and relevant to the topic it deals with.

• Avoid slangs, number substitutions and technical jargons
Slangs are normally limited to a particular locality or place. Moreover, it is not as impressive as a real word. Similarly, replacing words like “for” and “to” with numerals “4” and “2” can be quite confusing and lead the visitors to wrong sites. Also, when you add jargons related to your website topic, though jargon names are easy to get, make sure they are common enough for all visitors to understand and remember.

The Web Clinic is armed with the latest search engine optimisation techniques and skilled, experienced SEO experts in organic search engine optimisation. Your website is safe in our hands, until and after the completion of its journey to the top.

Local search – None above Google

Imagine you want to buy a wedding gown, and shopping for that perfect gown has been your headache since the day you decided to get married. Let’s get over with the bad news first: nothing less than perfect would do as you don’t get married every day. Now the good news: you don’t have to walk around shop after shop searching for the gown you want. Because, that is what local online search is meant for. It brings before you all the latest designs and styles in wedding gowns in the shops in your locality without your keeping a step outside the house.

And this is not the case of wedding gowns alone. Be it real estate, herbal spas, health clubs or dental clinics, the importance of local search is in ascendance since some time. Of course, one of the main reasons for this that the users have grown smarter, using key phrases that include three or four words instead of just one or two. However, from the perspective of sales and conversion, local search has seen a tremendous growth compared to the traditional search. In fact, it has helped online marketing move to offline purchase so much that many businesses have found their business goal through their Internet marketing tactics more than anything else.

This takes us to our next point: which search engine helps in local search most? Or, let’s put it in a different way. Which search engine is preferred by searchers most? You’d have guessed by now: Google. A recent study of the popularity of search engines has shown that Google is the chosen one for more than 90% of users in most of the countries except a few like China and Russia.

Why is Google preferred to others by so many users? Well, the answer lies in the search engine itself, especially its new Jazz interface. When you search for say, “restaurant London”, along with the local search results you get another option “Nearby” that gives you refining options where you can add custom location or choose the location that Google provides. This lets you find a result at the exact place you want.

However, this is not the only support from Google. The Google local business search and Google Maps are not new to you. Google can pull links and information that are connected to a particular location and bring it before you along with its map. Creating your own account in the local business centre ensures that your website is placed in the search results when searched with the place name.

As the search activity is getting handier and easier with applications like mobile phones and ipads, day to day task searches are done more and more from these applications than a desktop and or even a laptop. To assure that your business and your website is listed on top in the local search results Google plays a critical role. In fact, with Google, the whole of the business world is just next door.

The Web Clinic is armed with the latest search engine optimisation techniques and skilled, experienced SEO experts in organic search engine optimisation. Your website is safe in our hands, until and after the completion of its journey to the top.