In this article I will be talking about Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) and its importance to SEO.

What is Latent Semantic indexing?

Latent Semantic Indexing aka LSI is a form of indexing that the search engines use.It  is a technique of  analyzing, listing or categorizing certain keywords or phrases in the contents of various websites in such a way that they have contextually and conceptually the same or related intent and meaning despite the different words used in them.

The explanation above may sound a little long winded, in short it means using different variations of your keywords. So for SEO you would use search engine optimisation – Search engines – Onsite – offsite – ranking factors and so on.

As you can see the keywords above are all related to SEO. In the past if you wanted to rank for the keyword SEO then you would use that very keyword a number of times on your website. The search engines have now evolved and this no longer works.

So using synonyms of your keywords is the way ahead and the way in which the major search engines such as Google advise us to layout our text.

In the same way a LSI structure of contents is required then so is a LSI structure of anchor text. SO instead of creating a number of backlinks pointing to your website with the keyword SEO for example, you would rather use variations of your keywords as in the example above.

Optimising your text and webpages in this LSI form and also using the LSI structure for your anchor text will ensure that you do not get pulled up from spam and it will also help you to rank for many more keywords.

To drive certain keywords up in the rankings then I would advise to build more backlinks with that keyword as the anchor text however, do not forget to vary your anchor text along the way. I would also suggest using your domain url as a backlink alone as if your website was to get pulled up for human review then it will not be striking that all of your backlinks are anchor text backlinks which can be a sign of spam.

No related posts.

What is article marketing?

Article marketing is a form of composing an article and then submitting it to a number of article directory sites in order for visitors/searchers to read. In short article directory sites have a massive volume of searchers looking for new articles to read and to syndicate.

We will come over to the benefits it has on SEO in a moment, but first lets just take a look at what other benefits article marketing can bring you.

• When you write an article then you are actively playing a role within your niche which shows that you are an expert in this area.
• On every article that you write you will have an author box where by you can write a small paragraph about your services, product and company – so it helps with brand awareness.
• Many of these article directories have 1000's of visitors looking for information all of the time – so you will have access to many of these visitors and be able to get your word out to many more people.
• If for example you sell products then dont forget that before someone buys a product many look for reviews or guides and tips. If you was to write a guide or a review for your products then you will also attract the many customers that look for advise before they search for the actual product.
• If someone was to read your article then they will have much more trust in buying from you – provided that you have a good quality article.
• Articles give you the ability to show your expertise and share your vast knowledge

The benefit of article marketing for SEO

If the above mentioned part of article marketing benefits still isnt enough to convince you to start using this technique then maybe knowing the benefits that it can have for your seo campaign will.

• Article directory sites such as ezine articles and goarticles are authority sites. When you post an article on these sites then you will also get a couple of backlinks for your website. These backlinks are quality links which are important to any seo campaign.
• On many occasions you will notice that articles placed on directory sites tend to rank much higher in the search engines therefore allowing you very quick exposure.
• Article directory backlinks are also very important in seo as they provide a different backlink theme. What I mean here is the backlink will be coming from an article site as opposed to a bookmark – profile backlink – blog comment etc. A variety of different themed backlinks are very important in the same way that different class c ip backlinks are also important.
• Webmasters browse article directory sites and if they find an on topic quality article then they will syndicate it to their blogs or article sites – This means even more backlinks for your site.

So as you can see article marketing benefits a business in many ways.

Look out for the up and coming article on how to write quality contents which is optimised for your keywords

No related posts.

is using Social media in a SEO strategy important?

There are many ways to look at this and whatever the way, you always come back to the conclusion that using social media is a big benefit.

Today, using social media is even more important then it ever was

Let us have a look at how social media can benefit your business

From an SEO perspective

Search engines love new contents and information. Search engine robots are always hungry to crawl new contents. Social media sites are being filled with new contents every single day, even this very moment- whether it be single posts – comments – lenses or even pages – there is always something new.

Due to the amount of fresh contents being published on social media sites – many search engine robots crawl these sites on a regular bases – if you ask me then social media sites have 100's of robots crawling 100's of pages every minute. (dependant on the social media site of course )

As a result of the new contents and the many people linking back to these sites – they have gained much authority and have excellent page rank.  So using these social media sites – if it be facebook – myspace – blogger – squidoo, hubpages or another then there is no doubt that they will help your seo strategy a great deal.

Personally I can not see a seo strategy being complete without the use of social media. So when you paste your backlinks on these sites then you are getting an authority backlink pointing to you site thus passing authority and trust to your site.

What we need to realize is that one part of SEO consists of obtaining backlinks. We need to ensure we get a variety of backlinks from a variety of sites. Now im not only referring to backlinks from different urls but also website themes.

So for example – get backlinks by bookmarking your site – by submitting articles – by rss feed promotion- by social media – forum postings and even blog comments to name a few. These are different themed backlinks. This is very important as if tomorrow google or another search engine was to devalue a single theme then at least you have created your backlinks from a variety of themes.

A little while back when google devalued many directory backlinks alot of webmasters suffered the consequences – the reason was because they depended on directory submissions as the only or main form of their backlinks strategy, the results were devastating – sites which ranked on page 1 lost position and went to page 2, 3 and even further down the SERPS

I hope this makes sense. if not then feel free to comment and I will clarify.

From a Business brand awareness perspective

Using social media allows you to gain access to many people on a personal bases- by using the right techniques and tactics you are able to launch massive brand awareness campaigns –

These brand awareness campaigns have allowed many small businesses to compete with massive blue chip organisations who got the majority of their brand awareness through television – radio and many more advertising techniques. These techniques are extremely expensive. Using social media sites for brand awareness is a great inexpensive and efficient way.

If you need help for your brand awareness or any SEO aspect for your business then feel free to contact us and see how we can help. SEO services

No related posts.

How to speed up your website using Gzip compression

As mentioned on another post regarding the Google caffeine update and the new websites load time ranking factor. its very important to try and optimise your websites loading speed.

There are a few ways of getting this done and will try and explain.

The first way is possible if your server supports mod_gzip or mod_deflate

On one of my sites I  use a hostgator shared server which doesnt support this. However their dedicated and VPS servers do.

if your server does support this then you can add some coding to your .htaccess file which will enable the compression for you. 

Our job here will be to configure the server so that it will return zip content should the users browser support this.

On Apache servers this can be done by adding the following code to the .htaccess file


# compress all text & html:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml

# Or, compress certain file types by extension:
<Files *.html>
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
</Files>


If for some reason you can not change your .htaccess file or your server does not support mod_gzip or mod_deflate then you can change your HTML files to PHP files and then add the following code at the top of the page


<?php if (substr_count($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip')) ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); else ob_start(); ?>


With this code you are sort of setting up your own server – you are telling it to accept the encoding and return a gzip file otherwise the regular version.

Its as simple as that. I would recommend trying to use the .htaccess way if possible but if not then change to php. The results are great and can reduce your page size by 70%.

A few things that you will need to consider when doing this.

Firstly when you rename your files from .HTML to .PHP then you will need to update all internal links to point to these pages. From a SEO perspective this would mean that your url has changed and any backlinks pointing to the old .HTML pages will return a 404 not found error. This ultimately means that the backlinks you created will be pointing to a place that does not exist and your new url will have no backlinks pointing to it. You can however do a server side redirect but from previous experience its not very effective – still better to do it then not.

One thing that I would recommend is to create future websites using the PHP extension and not HTML

Once you have added the coding to your PHP file or have enabled server side compression then you should go and check it has worked.

You can do this by

Online:-going to www.whatsmyip.org/http_compression and entering your url

Through your browser:- if you have the web developers toolbar then you can go to information>view document size and see if the size has reduced

Here are a few useful pics that I found which should explain how Gzip compression works – Any questions then please feel free to post

Related posts:

1. Google caffeine update – site load time speed – webmaster

I have made a general guide for small businesses and webmasters – sort of like a checklist and should they be followed then it will be of much use.

Commitment

SEO isnt a one time procedure – it isnt something that your gonna do for 1 month then leave it , its an ongoing strategy and the search engines algorithms change regularly so the techniques that you use today may not work tomorrow – seo requires a long term comitment. So be prepared to commit yourself to the process.

Patience

Search engine optimisation requires patience – it isnt a change your going to see over night – results can take the better part of a few months to see, this is especially true for the newer domains.

Keyword research

Do your keyword research from the very start. You can use free tools like the google keyword tool – look for high searched keywords and lower competition levels.

Build a great website

Every one wants to be on the first page of Google – Have a look at the first 10 sites – will yours fit in. Design a good website and make it look proffessional – Aim hi

Optimise your pages

Every one knows that onsite optimisation is only about 10% of the whole search engine optimisation procedure, but do they know how important it is? Just having an optimised page title can secure you a position on page one rather then page 10 – concentrate on your

• title
• meta descriptions
• meta keywords
• headings
• alt text
• keyword saturation and usage
• internal linking

Build Backlinks

Link back to your website using anchor text backlinks. Use your keywords to link back to your sites pages which have already been optimised for those keywords. Try to get high page rank backlinks – this will pass authority to your site.

Blogg and forum commenting

Play an active role in your niche and look for quality blogs and forums – answer questions and be helpful – post backlinks to your website through your signitures and drive quality traffic.

use Web 2.0 websites

Use web 2.0 sites and social media networks to publish hubs and lenses which interlink with each other and point back to your site. your social media networks such as squidoo – hubpages – the blogger etc have their own search engines in which your pages will be found driving more targeted traffic – Google also loves social media.

Article submissions

Write quality articles on your niche subject and publish through article directories such as ezine and go articles – become an expert in your field and let your article readers feel confident in buying from you. drive quality traffic from your articles and get quality backlinks from your authors bio box.

Free tools

Make use of the free tools provided by google such as the google webmaster tools and the google analytics tools – the google trends tool is also a good tool to use for keeping up with global trends.

Create unique and quality contents

Create your own unique content rather then copy someone elses work and pasting it on your site. Google looks down on duplicated contents and penalises websites for this. With quality contents your writting with your visitors in mind who will stay loyal and become returning visitors – this builds trust and will reduce your bounce rate.

There are many more techniques and the list can go on but sticking to the parts mentioned above alone will make sure that your SEO approach is correct and will get you to the top page.

please feel free to add to the list with your comments. your comments are welcomed

Related posts:

1. SEO tips for Bing rankings
2. backlinking techniques ensure long term rankings
3. Social media and SEO