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Spammy Tactics to Avoid When Running a Blog

Article Written by : Merchant Account Central

Google is always hunting for sites that it can classify as spammy. Although there is no direct confirmation, there are is both an automated and manual review of websites before they are marked as spammy. Sites flagged in the automated review are then queued for manual review if there is some uncertainty. Websites are then notified via Webmaster Tools (now known as Search Console) and then allowed to ask for reconsideration after fixing whatever issues. Here are some known tactics to avoid getting slapped by Google with a penalty:

Sidebar Links

Links to other websites from the sidebar are now frowned upon. Especially if the link is to an internal page and not to website domain. Google first de-emphasized the link juice from these links and now uses them as a signal to detect spammy websites. What worked as link exchanges in the past is now something to be avoided.

Footer Links

Even footer links are frowned upon. It is believed that certain themes were created for the sole purpose of getting backlinks to other domains. Sitewide footer links with keyword based anchor text will also appear spammy.

In Content Links

Articles on blogs always tend to have links within the text body. However too many external links that are marked as dofollow can also cause problems. The best is to either go nofollow or mix up the links so as not to appear overly spammy. Preferably link to high authority sites along with lower ones in order to avoid issues.

Three important web design principles

The design of the basic elements of your website is more important than you might believe. Website design is more than just making an good looking website. There are element level design principles that i followed will make the website more pleasant and easier to use. Here are three of those principles:

Visual hierarchy

This is one of the most important principles in good web page design. It decides the order in which the human eye perceives what it is seeing. A good example would be the “add to cart” or “buy it now” buttons on online shopping sites which use size and/or color to indicate hierarchy.

Choices

Another important principle to follow is Hick’s law. It states that each additional choice increases the time required to make a decision. This is the same problem many faced with ordering at a restaurant and having too many options to choose from. Reduce the amount of elements on a webpage along with as many filtering options as possible.

Size

Just like the above, there is another called Fitt’s law which stipulates that the time required to move to a target is a function of the distance to and the size of the target. Which means that he larger and closer the object, the sooner it can be clicked. A good example of this is in some music players, the play button is larger than the rest to make it easier and faster to play.

 

Free ways to boost your website’s SEO

Many website owners do no SEO at all. This is generally due to the misconceptions that anything SEO related is expensive and time consuming. This is simply not true. While it may be expensive for large businesses, for smaller sized businesses there are several strategies that are free that can be done by anyone:

Find keywords that are related to your niche and optimize your content by including the phrases in the headline and content.

Remove any duplicate content. You can get this information from the Google search console, which you should sign up for if you have not done so already.

Find any missing pages and broken links. 404 not found errors are bad for SEO so use a program like Xenu and look for broken links.

Using the keyword from point one, rewrite your title tags so they are under 70 characters and unique.

Although a lot of SEO experts do not consider it important, make sure to write a good meta description. It does not help SEO directly but a good description will lead to more click throughs.

Make sure all your url’s have proper slugs. Fix any url’s that have numbers or unrelated bits of text.

Update your blog often. It does not have to be every day, but consistency is important.

Links help rankings and some of the best links are internal. Link from your articles to other internal articles.

Optimize images so that page loads faster and the filenames and tags are relevant

Digital Ad Agency Positives

Any business that wants to be competitive and successful in the modern age should recruit the assistance of a reputable digital advertising agency. These agencies can do so much for businesses that want to increase awareness of their available services and products.

A digital ad agency can be beneficial for businesses that are interested in target marketing. A business that has an advertisement up on a website that may receive heavy traffic from its target audience members may reap serious benefits. Digital advertising often zeros in on people who may be looking for the exact services and products a certain business offers, for example. It can be an excellent form of marketing for businesses who don’t want to “waste” views of their advertisements on people who aren’t part of their desired audiences.

Working with a digital agency can also be great for businesses that thrive on customer feedback and communication. The Internet makes communication between businesses and customers easy and streamlined. It also often makes communication between businesses and potential customers simple and uncomplicated. Digital advertising is also helpful because it gives businesses the chance to assess statistics and surveys to tweak and adjust their campaigns.

Digital agencies can be helpful because they provide businesses with access to significant numbers of people. If a business would like to promote its specialties to as many people as possible, the online advertising path is probably optimal. Businesses that want increased traffic and increased profits can often benefit dramatically from working with digital ad firms.

Mar Considerations when using shared hosting

Shared hosting is by far the most popular hosting option. Every host has has them in multiple packages. They are popular because they are extremely cheap and are adequate for the majority of users. There are however some issues with using a shared hosting package that users should be aware of:

Unlimited does not mean unlimited

Shared hosting packages promise unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth etc but when exceed, the hosting company will cite some minutiae in the agreement to suspend your site. An example of this is when a site on a shared host gets some viral social media traffic. That spike of traffic will most definitely get your site suspended. In this example it could be for extreme levels of CPU usage.

Package changes

As your site grows, you will most likely want to change packages. One thing to look out for are package change charges. Some hosting services charge for any package or feature change. Please note that every package change will incur a charge.

Features

Some features are only available on certain packages. These features, such as static ip’s are only available on the more expensive options. These are the incentives hosts use to encourage users to jump to a higher package.

Before you sign up for a shared hosting package, breakdown all the features etc that you will need and then choose. Take the feature example I used above, static ip’s. In order to setup and install an SSL certificate, the website needs a static IP. If you package does not get one, or does not support it as an addon, then you will need to upgrade. That will incur a charge. You will then get charged for the static ip. Plan ahead and get charged once for the package you need.

 

The Advantage of Using a CMS

A CMS, short for Content Management System, is a complete system that allows you to run a website or a blog with very little programming knowledge. Some example of well known CMS’s are WordPress and Drupal. Here are a few advantages of using a CMS:

Easy Installation

Most web hosting providers have direct one click installation support for most CMS. There will be some form quick install option in the control panel. From there select the CMS and within minutes it will be installed and ready for use.

Easy Customization

Most basic customization on a CMS is very easy. If the look and feel are not to your liking, there are plenty of commercial and free themes which can be applied. Themes cover everything from page structures to fonts and colors. In some cases all you need to do is upload a logo and everything else can be selected from the theme panel.

Advanced customization is also easier than developing your own website. In this respect, there are thousands of tutorials online on how to customize your theme in ways that it does not currently support.

Security

A CMS is maintained by a group of developers. One of the aspects of maintaining these is to ensure that security vulnerabilities are addressed. By using a popular CMS, you guarantee that security issues will be addreseds and will only involve installing an update.

4 Things to Consider When Looking For The Right Web Designer

If you’re looking to design or remodel your site, it won’t be difficult to find a slew of designers to help you finish your site.

But they’re not going to have the same skills and talents – that’s for sure.

Of course, this also depends on your budget and the particular expertise that you are looking for.

Here are 4 things to consider when looking for the right designer:

1: Check design communities

Designers are members at online communities that you can easily find. Since some of them run contests, you can find designs of winners down to individual components. Also, you can find contact information if you so wish.

2: Check your own network

Your business and professional contacts can also help you find designers especially if they’ve hired an excellent one in the past. Get recommendations from people you trust. If this doesn’t work, then look for designers at LinkedIn member groups by asking for referrals.

3: Look for designers at niche job boards

Job boards like Behance, 99Designs and Dribbble will help you find a number of designers. You will also find their resumes and portfolios at your disposal. Some of them will direct to their site to authenticate their design. In this way, you can compare people’s work side-by-side.

4: Narrow the list and check for references

Once you have made a list of candidates then narrow it down to three and then check for references. Make sure that the designer responds when necessary, excellent with deadlines and will complete the project, no matter what.

3 Tips to Build a Better Government Website

It goes without saying that citizens of any country expect engagement with the government to be just as those in the private sector.

This is why the way government agencies deliver information and services is vital as it can lead to a lack of trust, thanks to the dissatisfaction caused.

Without a doubt, this only happens by excellent website design. Here are 3 tips to build a better government website:

1: Administer user surveys

Instead of building the website from the “inside out”, take the “outside in” approach. The latter takes the user perspective into mind instead of just the agency’s needs. An extensive survey will establish what users want to accomplish when they visit the site. When you understand user goals, the tasks that they want to accomplish and audience preference, informed decisions can be made, in terms of website design.

2: Review web analytics

You can glean a large amount of information from web analytics. Some of these include content value, user behavior, the types of devices used as well as the entrance and exit points. By understanding user goals from these metrics, agencies will be able to build a better website as a result. Web analytics will also help you detect opportunities for subscriptions, form submissions and downloads and so on and so forth.

4: Responsive web design is a must

A common expectation of citizens from their government agencies is the access to high-quality government information and services at any given point and from any device too. Instead of creating separate websites, have one that will respond to a user’s preferences and will adjust accordingly to orientation, screensize and platform of the device. In other words, look at usineresponsive design.