Avoid the Black Hat Techniques for SEO

In the domain of online marketing, black hat is a term that refers to cheating and manipulating search engines for better and higher rankings. These techniques are frequently used by many online marketing ‘experts’ to improve the visibility of their websites in online search results. It goes without saying that reputed search engines are getting wise to these unnatural and unethical techniques. Nevertheless, these practices continue to loom large. Here a few black hat techniques that a real SEO professional should stay away from:

Doorway Pages: These are simple HTML pages that are customized with a few chosen keywords and phrases, programmed to be visible only to specific search engines and their spiders. Doorway pages are typically named after the specific keyword being targeted and once the user reaches the doorway page, he/she will be directed to the ‘real’ or actual website which may not even be related to original keyword. The result? – A poor impression of the ‘actual’ website.

Link Spamming: A common black hat technique, link spamming is simply a way of creating inks that direct users to the websites of your choice. This is done with the help of automated software. The software is devised to access unprotected blogs through anonymous web proxies and leave links in their comments. With a link on several blogs and online forums, you may be able to direct some traffic to your website but if these links are left on blogs unrelated to your site, they will either be ignored or will tarnish your online reputation.

Keyword Stuffing: Some of the naïve SEO 'experts' still feel that this can work and do wonders for their websites! Using a website as the dumping ground for as many keywords as possible is categorically a black hat technique. It is naive to use keywords ad nauseam because even if search engine crawlers get duped and do make the website visible in their results, the actual visitors will quickly move away from the website when they find banal or useless content (unrelated to their search).

Invisible Text: This is about using text that is of the same color as the background page of website. This makes it possible to place many keywords on a page and attract more crawlers. However, popular search engines including Google have become wise to this technique and tend to ignore the sites while publishing results.

Do these and other black hat techniques work at all? They certainly do BUT only for people who are interested in short term gains and then a long lasting damage to the repute of their website and business! 

If you would like to learn about our SEO Services please contact us!

Labels: search engine optimization

Web Analytics Tools for Media Websites

Choosing the right web analytics tool is very important for website owners who want to know what exactly do online visitors read on their portals and also to know the reasons for which a user abandons a website. For those who want to expand their web content to make it more interesting and engaging for audience, there are tools that can be directly used to gauge the efficacies of websites. The results through these tools also help to tap into new revenue sources

Here are three web analytics tools that media websites can use:

Coremetrics: With its numerous tracking features, Coremetrics is a good web analytics solution for media sites as also for other business websites, though you need to pay for the service. This tool will help you to:

• Compare your website statistics and reports directly with those of your competitors
• Monitor your business pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter
• Track smartphone users who access your mobile website
• Evaluate the success of your videos on YouTube and your own websites

HitsLink: Some well known users of this web analytics tool include WSJ.com, The New York Times, Forbes.com and CNN. The real time results that you can track through HitsLink are especially useful along with the instant alerts that you get when your traffic spikes. So, if your tweet about a news story gets you online attention, you can also tweet some related content to continue the buzz! Like Coremetrics, this is a paid service but does get you good value for money.

Google Analytics: This is certainly the best alternative for business owners who cannot afford to spend monetarily on web analytics tools! Even though it is free, Google Analytics can give you many of the reports that you get on paid web analytics tools.

If you are a little tech savvy, you can add codes to track the stats more important to you – from visitors’ ages to their income groups. You simply need to set some customizable goals for your website and Google Analytics tracks your progress. The only bummer is that stats are not real time. However tracking multiple websites and monitoring social media activity for free is not really a bad deal!

Once you start comprehending the strengths and weaknesses of your website using these tools, it obviously becomes easier to manage and manipulate them for more traffic and revenue. 

If you seek professional help for these, feel free to contact us.

Focus on Targeted Website Traffic is Important

For a business that invests in search engine optimization, the value proposition must be relevant to the target market. For this the market comprising target customers needs to be carefully and clearly defined. This is even more important for a business that also sells it products and services online - it needs to ensure that there is well defined targeted website traffic. Often, enterprises have to refocus and revisit their targeting, especially when it was not clearly identified at a time when the business website was initially launched.

To attract targeted website traffic the content on the web portal must be relevant to target customers. Indeed it is not only the content but the color, graphics and special effects that give a certain feel to the website must be focused on the tastes and preferences of target audience. While a web portal selling comic books or toys may have bright colors and jazzy animation, the one that pertains to services offered by a lawyers’ firm needs to have subtle and mature theme.

When it comes to web content, to ensure search engine optimization for targeted website traffic, choice of relevant content and optimum keywords is very important. These catch the attention of search engine users and compel them to visit a website. Obviously, such content can be developed only when the tastes and preferences of end consumer are understood well.   

While outlining the targeted website traffic for your brand, it is important to do it in a way that makes your audience believe that you are talking specifically to them. To ensure that your online marketing campaign is a success, you must know the preferences of target audience inside out and for this you have to work through a good market analysis. Here are a few questions that must be a part of your market research:

• Who are your end customers?
• Where are they located?
• What do they think about your products and services?
• What do you want them to think about your products and services?
• How do you plan to attract them to your brand?
• Who else is competing in the market for the attention and loyalty of your potential customers?

When you have the right answers to these questions, you can create content that really brings target audience on your websites and social media pages. If you seek professional help for these, feel free to contact us.

Labels: search engine optimization

Finding the Right Website Plugin

Not every business owner knows what a website plugin is, but the fact of the matter is that any successful website needs to have plugins. A plugin is an embedded code that runs a more advanced program than what is normally allowed by regular HTML. Software to read the code must be installed on the computer, and there is the risk that the viewer might not be able to see the plugin right away, but plugins greatly enhance the functionality of any website on the Internet. Without plugins, playing videos and games in a web browser would not work, displaying applications like scheduling calendar programs would be impossible and creating and playing photo slideshows on a website would be extremely difficult.

A person who manages a website might decide to include extra material, such as a video or a scrolling box where visitors can post comments, by using website plugins. This type of functionality does not have an existing command in HTML, so it must be programmed by the user or done with special software purchased from a commercial provider. Many plugins exist; but if you don't know what you're doing with them, it's best to leave plugins to an expert.

Plugins make a website look much professional and greatly enhance the visitors' perception and experience. They are great for the content of a website and allow the owner to offer special services and embed certain types of files that do not have to be downloaded. Plugins are also essential for advertisement.

In fact, advertising on Facebook is mostly done with plugins. Java and other coding languages are what allows an ad to play a video file or perform some other complex action to grab attention. Choosing the right service will allow for creative marketing, and the specialization needed to play a video or special message that will catch the customer's eye.

No matter what you use plugins for; they are an extremely crucial aspect of any website. If you need help with plugins, we are here for you, so feel free to contact us at any time!

JJ Web Services Provides a Full-Service Line of Real Estate Websites for Agents

JJ Web Services offers a full-service line of real estate websites for agents. From purchasing and setting up a domain name for one or many sites, to hosting and designing the websites through RealtySoft, JJ Web Services has you covered. We can also provide SEO services to help get the site noticed. We do everything in our power to help bring in and impress your clients.

RealtySoft real estate websites for agents offer an attractive, easy to manage way to set up real estate websites for agents, brokerage companies and property management companies. They are also ideal for creating hyper-local websites focusing on one city or neighborhood, and for creating information single-property websites. If you choose the IDXPro option, visitors can even book showings directly from your real estate website. This makes it easy for a client to share the listing with their friends and family with the built-in social media features.

Each website is fully customizable, with hundreds of design options and a WYSIWYG editor and drag-and-drag layout that makes changing the look of the site easy. You can upload your own images to your website, or choose from over 2000 high-quality stock images that are provided. All websites come with your choice of IDX integration to help visitors browse area properties. Other included features that are necessary for a successful real estate website include mortgage calculators, customizable lead capture forms, and professionally-written content for buyers and sellers. Built-in web gadgets make it easy to add local features like weather, property showcases and photo galleries, and RSS feeds of local or real estate news and blog posts.

Our real estate websites offer the option to include RealtySoft's other tools to enhance both your website and your productivity levels. RealtySoft CRM is a fully-featured Customer Relationship Management tool that helps you organize contact info and actions needed for prospects and clients. It includes a contact database with integrated email, lead management, calendar and task scheduling, an activities tracker, automated drip marketing campaigns, a document upload area, and a built-in RSS reader. Another productivity add-on is PRINTS, which allows you to print property fliers, postcard, newsletters, and more from your own computer. Either of these would be a valuable addition to a real estate website package for a busy agent.

Finding Reliable Real Estate Websites for Agents

If you work in real estate, you know how important it is to always be competitive. Having a strong web presence that is both effective and easy to manage will help you get the leads you want. Finding reliable real estate websites for agents can be a challenge. Between the sheer number of sites offering you their services and the time it takes to do your job, how can you find the site that will give you what you want with the least bit of hassle?

JJ Web Services provides high quality, custom design real estate websites for busy real estate professionals. We also offer webmaster services for the RealtySoft platform.

RealtySoft is an industry leading web provider specifically for real estate agents. You'll find that the services provided are great for anyone looking for simplicity while also desiring the ability to customize. Having a service team available at all times is important. RealtySoft's team is responsive and will help you create a great site, even if you have no prior experience in web design.

Unlike other real estate websites for agents, you'll also have access to marketing tools that will bring more traffic to your site. This is crucial to getting the leads you want. Increased internet exposure with a professional looking website will translate into closed deals.

Website Plugins and website upgrades make you a player

The World Wide Web is making business a little bit easier every day.  A website can sell itself- the pictures, the information, the goods all of these things will help create a buzz and show off your professionalism.  Website plugins, such as scrolling advertisements can be added to your website to up your monetary intake per month and enhance your professionalism by promoting related companies with stature and they’re own web presence.  By showing other vendors your association with larger companies or popular companies, vendors will want to compete on your site for the space as well.  

Items such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube icons can all be added to a website to enhance your viewer’s participation in your respective media groups.  The more people enjoy and use all of your items, the more known your site and company will become, and in turn the popularity of your products and service will enhance.  With these augmentations of your website plugins, the better off your overall business will become.  With new fads of social media and the ever elusive advertising that appears on almost every website, business and how it is promoted is changing towards online media and television and moving away from catalogs and print advertisements.

With the addition of a website advertisements , and other website plugins, you can take your business and move them forward in the direction of new business ventures in this technologically advanced world.  Business is truly evolving into a technological force and your website has to demonstrate who you are and what you are all about.  Websites are the new age version of a business card, so you need them to look good and do what people expect them to do.  The most popular companies normally have great websites, because many people do research on their own before going to a store.  You need your website to have these add-ons and popular website plugins to compete with companies that you are at business war with.  You have the ability to be the best and have the best, and with a little work and knowledge you can possess the tools and skills to be the best at what your company does.