Quick 5 Steps to Change or Install a Custom WordPress Theme

To give your blog the look and feel of your website or to simply just change the look of your WordPress site or blog you may need to change the theme. There are several WordPress theme aggregators or WordPress theme submission directories which offer both free and premium WordPress themes. So if you don’t have any ready-to-use theme just Google the term “free wordpress themes” to find a list of those directories. Browse and download the theme of your choice (comes as a .zip  file).

Now you have the WP theme ready at your hand and here is how you can install it quickly –

Step 1: Login to your WP Admin panel using the administrative username and password.

Step 2: From the left navigation menu under the Appearance, click on Themes.

Step 3: Now select the Install Themes tab (located just beside Manage Themes) and click on the Upload option.

Step 4: You should find an option to choose the theme related ZIP file from your hard drive. Select that file and click on the Install Now button.

Step 5: A page should be displayed with the message “Theme installed successfully”. Click on the Activate option if you wish to apply the theme now or just return to the theme page to use it later.

Please note that the above options may slightly vary depending on the version of your WordPress.

Hope this quick manual will help you to change or install a new WP theme easily.

Google’s Top 10 Flop Products

Let me specify first that I really love Google and appreciate their continuous effort to make our daily life easier. But what Google touches not turns into gold always! Here are few of the flop products of Google which they have either retired or scheduled to shut down soon. 1. Web Accelerator: Back in the year 2008 Google has retired that program. The aim of that program was to speed up the page load time by storing cached copy of the frequently visited pages and by means of data compression, pre-fetching of the content. With the emergence of high speed internet connection throughout the World people no longer need such kind of program and thus Google shuts it down.

2. Answers:

Google tried to compete with the Yahoo Answer by making a similar kind of thing. But unlike Yahoo Answers, Google Answers was not free and it seems to be the main reason of the failure. While askers can get a quick solution through Yahoo community for free why they might pay for it – seems to be the prime reason of the failure.

3. Google Base:

It’s my favorite Google flops! The concept is quite similar like online classified sites. As of September, 2010 that product is promoted to Google Merchant Center. But as there are a huge number of free local and international sites which supports similar features like this – so there is nothing exciting!

4. Power Meter:

I’m quite sure that many people even have not heard about it. Google discontinued that program since 24th June, 2011. The main aim of that software was to show electricity usage in real time and create an awareness of how much energy they use.

5. Google Sets:

It’s appears quite complicated and I’m not very sure why I need to make a set for any practical usage. Thank God Google shuts it down from 5th September, 2011.

6. Google Squared:

Another complicated search product which discontinued along with the Sets from 5th September. Wish to thank Google again for their wise decision to discontinue it.

7. Buzz:

Buzz is a social networking service integrated with Gmail service allowing users to share updates, photos, videos and more at once. It lets users make conversations about things they find interesting. It was released on February 9, 2010. It’s scheduled for discontinuation by end of 2011.

8. Jaiku:

Jaiku is a social networking, micro-blogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter. People are well engaged in twitter so it is expected that most of us are not looking for another similar program. Thanks again that Google decided to shut down it on January 15, 2012.

9. Labs:

A website demonstrating and testing new Google projects. Google Labs closed on October 17, 2011.

10. Wave:

There was a huge buzz about that service but it was another super flop program that calls back so quickly. I still have no idea what it was intended to do after accepting a wave invitation.

What’s next? I guess Google Plus would be on the next list. I forgot when I last opened it after signing up and browsing for merely 15 minutes. Oh yes, I logged another time there to add few friends to my circle and to accept few invitations. Though I still have not enough chance to review it thoroughly but have not seen anything more interesting or much different than Facebook community.

I would love to hear from you all – comment your review on that topic.

Does Google recognise “nofollow” links?

First of all, in short the answer is “Yes, Google recognises nofollow links and can pass trust vote”! Now let me give a short introduction about nofollow links for those who are new to it. Nofollow is a link attribute used to instruct search engine crawlers to not follow that link. By default, search engines follow all links found in a webpage. But if you want to prevent search engines to not follow or crawl some links for preventing to pass link juice then you can do so by using rel=”nofollow” attribute.

Now we all know that nofollow links don’t pass any link juice or anchor text across the link. Ok, let’s come to the point – so does it make any sense to build “nofollow” links as far as SEO is concerned? Here are why it’s definitely makes sense to build nofollow links as a part of your entire link building efforts –

Recognisable to all search engines including Google -

If you give a closure look to the link section after logging to your Google Webmaster Tools account, you should find that Google is counting links from the web pages with nofollow attribute! I guess you already have a Twitter and Facebook account and you promote your site through these platforms and you know links from Twitter, Facebook are all marked with the nofollow attribute automatically. BUT you would see that Google Webmaster Tools is displaying the incoming links from the web pages with nofollow attribute including Facebook, Twitter, nofollow blogs, article aggregators etc. So, should there be any further doubt on that topic?

Trust vote -

By now, you should be agree that Google and other leading search engines can detect all your incoming links irrespective of the link attribute. So eventually if the search engines detect that you have a link from a highly relevant page then that passes a hidden trust vote to your site. The thing matters here is that search engines know about your site’s link source and link source from a authority domain or relevant page passes trust vote regardless of the link attribute.

Natural link structure -

Nofollow links are an absolute must to make your total link structure natural to the eyes of search engines. If you focus to build only “dofollow” (or links without the “nofollow” attribute) links that would be suspicious to the search engines. So you just need to maintain a balance between followed and not followed links for best SEO benefits.

So, some nofollow links are valuable as well for SEO – PROVED

Google Geo Targeting – Things You Must Know

If the scope of your business is limited to one or more specific geographic areas then you would probably like to target some particular areas through the location targeting option available in Google AdWords.  But fail to understand this important feature available in AdWords you risk the success of your entire local advertising campaign. In this post we are going to discuss why setting up local AdWords campaign is so difficult and needs thorough knowledge about the geo targeting black hole. How Google Geo Targeting Works

You can target visitors mainly in 2 ways as discussed below –

1. Area Names – You can just select the countries, regions or the city names you wish to target.
2. Custom Targeting – You can target the required area you wish to cover from a particular given location. For example, if you have a restaurant you may be want to target 50 miles radius from your restaurant’s location point. Covering an area other than circle shape is also possible. You can even exclude areas within your target.

Sounds great, isn’t it? Let’s now discuss how Google determines to show the ads based on the target area specified.

1. By Domain extension – Searchers using a country specific Google domain will view the ads targeted to that country.
2. By Language – Search Keyword language that matches with the Google Preference Setting language given by the advertiser.
3. By IP address – Whenever you connect to the internet you are assigned a unique IP address assigned by your ISP. Google can track your location through your IP and show you ads targeted to that area.
4. By Query Parsing – Query that matches with your ad and targeted keywords in the campaign.

Now you understand how Google geo targeting works and how Google determines which ads to show in response to a query. But is that all you just need to know to run a successful campaign? Not at all – there are some pitfalls you may be probably unaware or not thought before. To get the best ROI from your AdWords campaign you must need to ensure that you are not getting unnecessary clicks and impressions. So what are those Geo targeting problems that can just drain your money? Let’s see -

Geo Targeting Problems

Have you ever thought that your ads can be visible to different countries other than the country name you specified in your campaign? Yes, this can happen if searchers use a Google search domain dedicated to that particular country you have targeted. For example, if you target UK, then your ads would be displayed if someone searches using google.co.uk – regardless of the searcher’s actual physical location or country.

Your ads can also be visible to the users located in different countries or areas rather than the areas you actually target depending on your target language and the searched domain used. For example, if you target France and specify French as your target language, then your ad would be displayed if someone searches using any French term you specified in your target keyword list – regardless of the searcher’s actual physical location or country.

IP address plays a major role in city or custom area targeting. For example, if you wish to target the New York City and 50 km. around the New York City – you would probably expect that you will get visitors only from that particular area, right? But eventually this is not 100% true, and there are big chances that you lose potential visitors and/or get unnecessary traffic beyond that area! Why? Because it depends on the IP address assigned by the ISPs covered a large area. So even visitors located around 200 miles away from New York can be treated as visits from that area and also visitors actually located inside that area can be treated as outsiders.

Now you can understand that how improper AdWords campaign management can ruin your money or how you can lose potential customers. Hope this post will help you to setup your campaign cleverly.

What is SEO Friendly Web Design

SEO friendly website design is no rocket science. There is a methodical way to go about doing it. It is like constructing a new building with a solid foundation. While designing a site it is important to keep in mind the constituents of a professional web design. Creating a website that is appealing and search engine friendly, is perhaps one of the hardest parts about SEO web design. Though more web designers or web design companies claim to offer professional web design services for their clients few achieve success.

While designers love beautiful websites, SEOs love optimized content and code. Having a well-designed website is vital in today’s competitive business world. However, if a website design isn’t search engine friendly, it basically defeats the core objective of having a website. SEO and beautiful design elements can co-exist. All you need to do is to follow the checklist to make your website attractive as well as a money making machines:

Hope these tips will help you to construct your web pages SEO friendly from the very beginning. So, stay ahead in the race in conversion rates with beautiful looking and SEO friendly website.

Want to add anything extra with that check list – please feel free to do so by commenting right here.

Top 5 On-page Elements that Should Contain Your Targeted Keywords

Search engines rank web pages and not websites, so you need to make every targeted page of your site search engine friendly. Every page should have its own targeted keywords and that page should be optimized for those keywords. So here are the top elements of a page where you should place your targeted keywords –

Page Title – Title tag is the single most important tag for SEO and it must contain your exact targeted keywords. Title tag has the highest influence to rank a particular page and should be unique based on the context of a page. So make sure that every targeted page of your site got unique SEO friendly title tag.

Heading – Heading tags are another important element of a page that influence your ranking. So your page headings such as H1, H2 or H3 should have meaningful description and contain your targeted keywords.

Body Content – “Content is the king” – that’s a well known quote of SEO. Relevancy of a page for some particular targeted keywords directly relates to the content of that page. Keyword weight of your body content should be 3% to 5% as a general practice. Keyword weight is calculated as – [{(Number of words in the keyword phrase x Keyword frequency) / Total words} x 100]. So make sure your content is developed by keeping SEO in mind.

Internal Links – Anchor text links among different pages within your website influence relevancy of the linked page for the linked text. For example, if we link our onpage optimization service page with the anchor “on page optimization services” – this will increase link relevancy of that page with that term and eventually increase rankability of that landing page.

Meta Description – Though Meta Description tag doesn’t have any direct impact to rank a page but it still often influences CTR (Click Through Ratio) of a page when it qualifies to rank on SERP.  If written properly, Meta description appears on SERP just below your page title. If you include the search terms or keywords in Meta Description those would be bold by search engines in SERP.

We understand there are several other onpage elements that directly or indirectly influence the performance of a page. Share your view by commenting – we would love to hear from you.

5 Tips to Write a SEO Friendly Press Release

Distributing a newsworthy article or press release is the most inexpensive but a must method for online brand marketing. There are plenty of free press release aggregators available which has great distribution network. From SEO perspective, a good amount of one way links can be generated quickly and ethically through the press release distribution efforts. Also sometimes, a well written press release ranks top of organic search result even for very competitive keywords.

So, quality of the press release is one of the major factors to get the desired distribution results and great SEO exposure. Here are top five points you should consider to develop a great press release -

1. Make keyword research – You should have the topic and keywords in your mind before you start writing. After picking the topic do some quick keyword research and pick 2 or 3 keywords. If you have already given some keywords you can ignore that step.
2. Keywords in Headline – Try to use your atleast your primary targeted keyword in the headline of the press release. Headline of your press release will actually act as the title tag for most of the published release and is the single most important thing which can influence ranking in SERP.
3. First line or First 200 characters must be catchy – After ensuring to rank your press release higher by placing your targeted keyword in headline – concentrate to write first 150 – 200 characters of the press release body with your keywords and try to make it catchy enough. This part will act as the Meta Description and will appear in SERP as the description of your press release link. Placing your keywords in that part will make those terms in bold when searched and making it catchy will attract searchers to click on your link from the results.
4. Include http:// portion of the URL to make the link clickable in body – There are some major press release aggregators which will not allow making you anchor text links. So try to place atleast one URL reference in your news release and don’t forget to include the http:// part and make that link clickable.
5. Be Newsworthy – At last but not least, try to be newsworthy to make it fit for what it has been intended for.  This will make your release interesting to read and eventually increase approval rate in press release aggregators.

Hope that post would be somewhat helpful to get good outcome from your efforts. For all of the content writers and internet marketers out there – which tips would you add to this list?

Why You Should Revise Your Keywords from Time to Time?

Finding a list of keywords that can bring targeted and convertible visitors to your website is always a challenge. You have to be a mind reader to incorporate the search terms that your customers might use to look for your products or services. There are several free and paid tools available to build your keyword list but the point we wish to concentrate is that – is it a one time job for your website?  Would it be enough to build your keyword list once and then continue with web promotion for months and even years with the same list?

No way! People used to make search using different terms from time to time. So, search trend, search volume etc. varies after some time span. You need to follow current search trends and can’t rely only on “once popular search terms”. Keyword revision is important for all commercial websites selling some services or products.  So, if you are targeting some old-school keywords for years, most possibly you are losing a vast amount of traffic.

Fortunately there is a service called SEO Audit – that analyzes your SEO efforts and determines the actions needed to be performed. The prime most important aspect of the SEO audit service is to revise your keywords by analyzing current search trend, landing pages etc. and then determining the factors and strategy you need to execute to achieve the desired result.

So if you are not getting enough leads from your website you need a thorough SEO audit by starting from the keyword revision.

Get Noticed With Powerful Press Release

Press Releases do help your brand marketing campaigns on the Internet a lot. It not only gives your business web exposure but also creates web saturation. Since Press Releases have the chances of getting picked up by multiple media outlets, it drags the attention at a product or service quickly and eventually bring traffic to a site.

Internet has grown and expanded to a social environment with the ultimate goal of personalization for each use. With the rising popularity of blogs and RSS readers, the user is now becoming more selective to what they want to see. This is a fact every marketer should embrace. Therefore, from a search marketing perspective, it is wise to target your audience and deliver your message selectively rather than spending thousands to reach all. The trick here is to make use of press releases in the correct way to draw attention to your site. Furthermore, press releases have greater credibility among all the other brand marketing methods. While reading a press release, readers hardly feel that they are reading some disguised advertisement about a product. Online visitors trust credible sources like editors, columnists, and reviewers about the authenticity of any write up. A well written press release by a noted columnists and submitted to a proper channel to publish can get the most amount of readers possible.

Press release with a very impressive and eye catching headlines is sure to grab attention and compel people to read it. So bag the power of press releases distribution service and grab more eye balls.

A Love Letter to My Love, My Life & My Valentine Google

Dearest Google,

I know you will read this letter sometime as you always look for fresh content. So I think, it’s the best time and place to let you know that I’m crazy about you.

I think, you already heard my name! Anyway, let me introduce myself again just for your easy reference. My name is SERP Consultancy and I provide complete internet marketing solutions to my clients. I know, you are well aware of many websites who provide same/similar kind of services and will not be impressed just with this.

Do you know when I first saw you I really lost my control panel. I stopped communicating with other search engines and my eyes were fixed on you. I was caught in the Web of your beauty. I never had a bit of drink or byte of my cookies from the time you last crawled me. My updated XML sitemap is ready only for you. My host space is filled only with your favorite content and I avoided all those things that you have difficulties to keep in your index.

I know some old websites are still in your mind! Do you have any bitter experience on trusting something new? Google, please give me a single chance and I promise I will not disappoint you.

I have tried to make that letter as lengthy as possible – because you think content as your king. Please don’t put my love in your sandbox. Do give me permanent position in your web index. Don’t be shy to show my love on top of SERP if someone makes a search with the keywords relevant to me.

Yours spider-friendly,
SERP-Consultancy.com

P.S: I know you hate duplicate content and put those in trash. Still beware if someone represents a duplicate copy of this letter.

« Previous Entries

Recent Posts

• Quick 5 Steps to Change or Install a Custom WordPress Theme
• Google’s Top 10 Flop Products
• Does Google recognise “nofollow” links?
• Google Geo Targeting – Things You Must Know
• What is SEO Friendly Web Design
• Top 5 On-page Elements that Should Contain Your Targeted Keywords
• 5 Tips to Write a SEO Friendly Press Release
• Why You Should Revise Your Keywords from Time to Time?
• Get Noticed With Powerful Press Release
• A Love Letter to My Love, My Life & My Valentine Google

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