What is Mean by Backlinks in Seo and Its Advantages

“Backlinks” is one of the most used word in the world of search engine optimization. Many bloggers who have only recently started a blog or a website often struggle to understand what the term “backlink” means. In this post, I hope you offer you an understanding of what backlinks are and why they are essential to SEO and your online success.

Let’s get started:

Backlinks are incoming links to a webpage. When a web page links to any other page, it’s called a backlink. In the past, backlinks were the major metric for the ranking of a web page. A page with a lot of backlinks tends to rank higher with all major search engines, including Google.  Here is a glossary of common terms related to backlinks that you should know:

• Link Juice: When a web page links to any of your articles or your website’s homepage, it passes the link juice. This link juice helps with the ranking of the article, and also improves the domain authority. As a blogger, you can stop passing the link juice by using a nofollow tag.
• Nofollow Link: When a website links to another website, but the link has a nofollow tag, that link does not pass the link juice. Nofollow links are not useful concerning the ranking of a page, as they do not contribute anything.  In general, a webmaster uses the nofollow tag when he is linking out to an unreliable site. Example: Links from comments on other blogs.
• Do-follow link: By default, all the links that you add in a blog post are do-follow links, and these pass the link juice.
• Linking Root Domains: This refers to the number of backlinks coming to your website from a unique domain. Even if a website has linked to your website ten times, it would be considered as the one-linked root domain.
• Low-Quality Links: Low-quality links are links that come from harvested sites, automated sites, spam sites or even porn sites. Such links do far more harm than good. This is one reason you should be careful when buying backlinks.
• Internal Links: Links that are going from one page to another within the same domain are called internal links, and the process itself is referred to as internal linking.
• Anchor Text: Text that is used to hyperlink is called anchor text. Anchor text backlinks work great when you are trying to rank for particular keywords.

Advantages of backlinks in SEO:

Before I talk about the advantages of backlinks, you need to know that much has changed concerning backlinks in the past couple of years. There was a time when even low-quality links helped in ranking a site.  But since Google rolled out its Penguin algorithm, the whole landscape of backlinking has changed.

It is important to have backlinks from quality sites, and the backlinks should be contextual. If, for example, you have a site about fish, and you are creating links from other niche sites, these will be of no use. Your goal should be getting links from authoritative and relevant sites.

Now let’s take a look at why it is important for you to create backlinks to your site:

Improves organic ranking:

Backlinks help in getting better search engine rankings. If any of your content is getting organic links from other sites, that content will naturally rank higher with search engines. Your goal should be to create links to individual posts/pages along with your homepage.

Faster indexing of site:

Backlinks help search engine bots to discover links to your site and to crawl your site effectively. Especially for a new website, it is important to get backlinks as they help in the faster discovery and indexing of your sites.

Referral traffic:

One of the major benefits of backlinks is that they help to get referral traffic. Usually, referral traffic is targeted and has a low bounce rate.

How to start getting backlinks:

So now you understand what the term “backlink” means as it relates to SEO. Now it’s time to learn a few simple techniques for generating backlinks to your site.

One important fact that you need to keep in mind about backlink SEO is that it is not the number of backlinks which matters, but rather the quality of backlinks. If you are using some paid services to get links to your site, you are likely to be penalized by Google Penguin’s algo in the future.

What are some of the ways to get quality backlinks for your blog?

• Write awesome articles.
• Start commenting.
• Submit to web directories.

Write awesome articles

This is the best and most simple way to get backlinks for your blog. Tutorials and top-ten list articles are a couple of good examples of the types of posts that have great potential for getting backlinks from other websites as references. Such articles are based on proper research and practical examples.

Start commenting

Comments are an excellent, easy and free way to get backlinks. Start commenting on dofollow forums, dofollow blogs and also on WordPress blogs using top commentator plugins.

The latest news has suggested that nofollow links don’t matter all that much but start commenting on any blog, and you will benefit with link juice. Commenting helps you to get solid one-way backlinks as well as more traffic and better search engine visibility.

Submit to web directories

Submitting your blog to web directories is another of the easy ways to get backlinks. With that said, this method is not very popular these days, because finding a legal web directory is not easy. You must especially avoid those web directories that ask you to create a backlink to their website to get their website into a directory.

Also important – if you are using any automatic direct submission tactics, stop doing so right away.  Automatic website submission will cause your blog to appear to be spam, and it can cost you a lot in terms of your page rank or even cause the complete removal of your blog from the search engines.

I hope this article will help you to understand the basics of backlinks in SEO, and why you should start working on getting backlinks for your blog.

Do you currently work on getting backlinks for your blog?  Tell us about your experiences in the comments section below.

If you find the information in this post useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

How to Increase blog Traffic via Social Media

How to Increase blog Traffic via Social Media

There are many ways to increase blog traffic with social media marketing, but to get the best results, you need to learn how to use social media marketing like the experts do.

There are many books by social media marketing experts that you can read to learn about the topic which are written by a variety of experienced pros. To get you started, here are some of the basic tricks of the trade.

Follow these tips, and you'll see traffic to your blog from social media sites increase.

1. Diversify the Content You Share

If you want to increase blog traffic via social media, then you need to understand a very important rule that experienced social media marketers abide by. You must publish and share morecontent that is not self-promotional than content that is self-promotional.

Social media marketers typically follow the 80-20 rule, which says that at least 80% of the content you publish and share on social media should not be self-promotional. No more than 20% of the content you publish and share should be self-promotional. Following this rule will give your social media activities a good balance that won't turn off your followers.

Bottom-line, you don't want people to think all you do is advertise your own content all the time.

2. Be Social and Increase Traffic

Yes, the word "social" is in the phrase social media marketing, so it makes sense that in order to be successful in using social media marketing to boost blog traffic, you need to be social.

That means you need to respond to people who reach out to you via social media, and you need to initiate engagement by reaching out to other people, too. Don't just broadcast. Engage!

3. Stay Organized and Learn How to Prioritize

Social media can be overwhelming, so it's important that you prioritize your activities by getting organized. There are many social media management tools that can help you do both. Try HootSuite or TweetDeck to streamline your tasks. Both offer free accounts that are suitable for bloggers.

4. Maintain Your Sources

Develop lists of influencers and sources that you like to curate content from and create Twitter lists to help you follow them more efficiently. Set up a free Feedly account to manage your blog subscriptions.

If you use a social media management tool like Sprout Social, you can even import your Feedly feeds into your account to make sharing via your social media profiles even easier (and quicker).

5. Stay Visible in Social Media

If you don't stay active on social media, people will forget you quickly. However, it's impossible to run a blog, take care of your personal life, do your day job, and stay active on social media 24x7. You have to sleep!

Fortunately, there are many tools that you can use to schedule social media updates and sharing when you're not at your computer, tablet, or smartphone. Try Buffer, HootSuite, TweetDeck, and other social media scheduling and management tools to see which works best for you (and has a price tag you can afford). Remember, many of these tools are free, or at least, they offer a free account option with limited features. For bloggers, those limited features are usually adequate.

It's important to note that you shouldn't just schedule content to publish on your social media profiles. You still need to be social, and you do need to post real-time content, too. No one wants to follow a robot.

Source:www.about.com

Alexa.com Pro Membership Upgrade Review-Is it Really Worth

Alexa.com Pro Membership Upgrade Review-Is it Really Worth

Every Blogger/Web Master know the importance of Alexa Rank to drive more advertisers to their websites/blogs these days.For a profitable blogging you must have a good Alexa Rank.Alexa has a pro upgrade since many years but recently they are encouraging many bloggers to upgrade for Pro Membership to take full advantage of accurate site metrics and good Alexa Rank.

To test the Alexa Pro features I stepped forward and upgraded for PRO.I think I am one of the very few people on the whole internet who dared and stepped forward to upgrade for pro membership.But after few days I realized that upgrading for pro is not a good option for me  because there was a huge drop in my alexa rank recently.However it was fixed later after contacting with alexa support.

What is Alexa Pro? 

As you know Alexa is owned by Amazon which ranks every website based on some of their ranking algorithms.Alexa Pro is upgrade to alexa free membership.Which costs $9.99 per month.They are also offering one month free trial for new customers.Pro members can have some advantages over free members like Certified site metrics,Custom Logo,Custom Ranking system which we will be discussing in details further in the article.

Some Unique Features for Alexa Pro Members:

Once you upgrade for Alea Pro Membership they offer some new features like Certified Site Metrics,Custom Logo,Two Dofollow Links with Targeted keywords on your Alexa Info Page and monthly site audits.

If you are upgrading for pro with an intention to increase alexa rank then it doesn’t show fruitful results in all cases but it helps for some.

Who Should Upgrade to Alexa PRO?

If your blog is Tech Niche or Internet Marketing niche and already has a good alexa rank then I strictly recommend you not to upgrade for alexa pro.

After you have upgraded for pro you will be given a piece of code to install on to your blog/website.This code tracks the number of visitors your website gets.Generally alexa calculates the number of visitors a website gets on the basis of toolbar information.But once you upgraded for pro they measure your number of visitors accurately and rank your blog on the basis of those visitors.For high traffic blogs this is a good thing but for blogs with low traffic pro membership results are very much negative.

• If your site has less traffic and has an awesome alexa rank then stay away.Never upgrade to alexa pro.
• If your site is getting high traffic like 50,000 to 100,000 visitors per day still has a low alexa rank then I strongly recommend you to upgrade to alexa pro.

My Final Conclusion:

Alexa pro upgrade shows fruitful results for high traffic blogs which are having low alexa rank but its not at all recommended to upgrade for pro if your blog already has a good alexa rank, instead follow the tips which I already wrote on how to increase alexa rank.

9 Tips To Reduce Blogger Blog Load Time

9 Tips To Reduce Blogger Blog Load Time

Loading time of a blog is really an important factor in SEO’s prospective. Every webmaster should care for his/her blog’s loading time because now a days major search engines specially Google consider load time as a ranking factor. Beside this, visitors also don’t like slow loading sites. They will surely press back button and go to another place for the information they are searching for. It will also increase bounce rate that affects the blog ranking. So, Today in this post, I’ll share my own way on how to reduce load time in Blogger Blog. Below are some very important tips that you can use to optimize your blog load speed.

Tips To Reduce Blog Load Time

1# Avoid JavaScript

JavaScript makes page loading speed slow. Try to remove unnecessary JavaScript codes from your blog. Don’t link to external sites for storing your JavaScript codes whilst you can save them inside your blogger blog. You can save your all JavaScript codes in your template above </head> by using the code below

<script type=’text/javascript’>
//<![CDATA[
Paste Your JavaScript Code Here//]]>
</script>

Just replace the bolded text with the JavaScript code you want to store in your template.

2# Widgets and Social Media Buttons

Widgets and social media buttons are really very important but use of too many social media buttons and unnecessary widgets can slower your blog. Try to remove widgets that are not really necessary for your blog and use social media buttons wisely.

3# Give Proper Dimensions To Images

Always give proper height and width to the images you are using in your posts, because it help the browsers to load the image quickly. To give height and width attribute to your images use below code.

<img width=”” height=”” src=”URL Of Image” /> 

4# Don’t Use An Image As A Background

If your blog template have image as a background, then remove it. A background image is responsible for slow loading speed. Always use background colors not an image. To remove background image simply search below code and remove it from your template.

body { background: #B3B3B3 url(http://abc.com/background-image.jpg);

The code will surely be different in your template. To remove background image, search this type of code in your template and simply remove the text which looks like the bold text.

5# Reduce Advertisement On Blog

Advertisement banners are coded with JavaScript. As I already told you in tip no 1 that too much use of JavaScript make blog loading speed slower. So please use limited advertisements on your blog.

6# Limited Number Of Posts At Home Page

Try to show only 4-5 posts at your Homepage because if you use too many posts to show at Homepage then it will take more time to load. Fast loading Homepage keeps your visitors happy and they will stay at your blog for long time. If you don’t know how to set number of posts on Homepage then see the screenshot below.

7# Always Use Quality Blogger Templates

Most of newbie bloggers do this mistake. They upload any template that attracts them. There are lot of templates available on the internet but most of them are improper scripted. Using of those templates make job tough for search engine spiders to crawl your blog. Choose theme wisely for your blog which should be designed by professionals.

8# Use Read More Link To Summarize Blog Posts At Homepage

Always summarize your blog post for Homepage by using a read more link. It has two benefits:

• Improve Blog Load Time.
• Increase Page views and Reduce Bounce Rate.

9# Eliminate External Links

Eliminate all unnecessary external links from your blog. One common example for this is using stat counters. You can use Google Analytics instead of stat counter widgets to check your website traffic status.

How To Check Blog Load Speed?

There are lot of tools available on the internet which can be used to check your blog load time. Here I am listing two famous tools.

• Google PageSpeed Insight
• Pingdom Tools

Just open the link and type your blog address like this.

http://www.your-blog-address.blogspot.com/

Feedback!

These are 9 Tips that you can apply to improve your blog loading speed. If you are aware with more tips that can help to reduce load time in blogger blogs, then please share them with me through comments. Your help will be appreciated.

Thanks to Ankit Kumar Singla

How To Submit Blogger Sitemap To Google Webmaster Tools

How To Submit Blogger Sitemap To Google Webmaster Tools

To be successful in your blogging career you must have to generate decent organictraffic to your blog. By the term “organic traffic” I mean the traffic which comes to your blog through search engines like Google. If you are a new blogger then you should be aware with the Google Webmaster Tools. This is a great tool which is provided by Google itself. It is useful for bloggers and webmasters to get their blog or website index by the Google and it also help to improve our blog’s crawling rate.

You just need to verify your blog ownership in Google Webmaster Tools and then submit a simple sitemap. It is very important to submit blogger sitemap to Google in terms of SEO which tells Google about your blog and its content. Whenever you update your blog with new posts, your sitemap helps to index them easily in search engines. This is what we are gonna discuss in this post. Let see how to add blogger sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.

Submit Blogger Sitemap To Google Webmaster Tools

Below are some easy steps you have to go through in terms to submit your blogspot blog sitemap.

• Sign in to Google Webmaster Tools.
• Click on the blog title for which you want to add sitemap.
• Click on Sitemaps button as shown below.

• At the top right corner of the page, press Add/Test sitemap button.

• Once you click the button, a small box will appear as shown in the screenshot below.
• 
  
  

• Add the below code in the text field.

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

This is the sitemap code for your blogger blog which you need to add.

• Press “Submit Sitemap” button.
• Refresh the page.

Congratulation! You have finished the process of submitting your blog sitemap.

Note: The above sitemap will work for 500 posts only. If you have more than 500 posts published in your blog, then you have to add one more sitemap. Whole procedure will be same but at this time you have to add this code.

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500

The sitemap which we submit to Google Webmaster Tools is a XML sitemap which is used by search engines to find our content easily. There is HTML sitemap too which is for our blog readers. We should add sitemap page to our blog so that our readers can easily view all of our blog posts at the single location. It’ll be easy for them to read post which they want to. If you don’t know how to add a sitemap page in blogger, then here is a tutorial for you.

• Read: How to Create HTML Sitemap Page in Blogger?

Comments

This was the step by step guide on how to add blogger sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools. If you found it worth reading, then please share it with your social media friends. If you have any feedback, suggestion or any query then feel free to comment below this post. Your comments will be answered as soon as time allows. Happy Blogging! 

How to Improve Keywords Ranking in Google

How to Improve Keywords Ranking in Google

Writing content for blog is not enough to rank well in search engines like Google. We need some special care to make our blog SEO friendly. Then it will rank awesomely in all major search engines. In my previous posts, I shared some Off page SEO Tips that are beneficial to improve keywords position in search results. As you may already know that we must focus on On Page and Off Page SEO Techniques both to make our blog SEO friendly and search engines lovable. That’s why today I bring some tips that will help you to rank well in search results. Hope you guys like to read these tips.

Improve Keywords Position in Search Results

There are many things that we must care during blogging. Read below points and try to follow them to improve your blog traffic through search engines.

1# Optimize Post Titles

During writing new post for your blog, always tries to use SEO friendly post titles because this is the first thing that decides your ranking in search results.

Include your main and targeted keyword in your post title. If you are a blogger use then read below tutorial to optimize your post titles.

• Read: Show Post Title Before Blog Title in Blogger

2# Add Keywords to Content

Provide best quality content in your blog and add some keywords into it at prominent places that fits there.

Keyword density should be kept in mind to make content for SEO friendly. Use at most 2% or 3% keywords in your content.

For example if you have 500 words in your article, then you can use your keyword 10 to 15 times.

• Must Check: How To Add Keywords in Blogger Posts For Optimization?

3# Add Keywords to Images

Images not only use to make blog posts more attractive. They can also be used as an extra place to put keywords into it.

There are some image optimization tips that you must know to optimize your images. Read below tutorial to know about this topic in details.

4# Add Keyword Rich Labels

Labels are used to categorize blog posts. They also used by related posts widget to show related posts under every post. But if you used them correctly then you can take its benefit to improve your keywords ranking in Google.

Always add a keyword rich label name to every post you publish on your blog because it is also a best place to put keywords.

If you have already added some labels without adding keywords into it then don’t worry, you can rename it also.

The above 4 tips are for On-Page SEO, now continue reading for some Off-page SEO Tips. These tips are also beneficial to improve keywords ranking in search results.

5# Use Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging is the best method to gain high quality keyword rich dofollow backlinks. If you don’t know about importance of backlinks in search rankings then let me tell you that quality backlinks are very important for every blog or website to improve search rankings.

Use guest blogging to increase number of keyword rich backlinks of your blog. Write high quality content and submit it to other blogs under your niche. It will also help to increase your blog page views and readers.

• Read: Effective Guest Blogging Tips

6# Blog Commenting

You might think that why waste time to leave comments on other’s blog. This is the big mistake that newbie bloggers do.

You should participate in the conversation on other blog’s by leaving a valuable comment. It will not only introduce you and your blog into the blog-o-sphere but also you will get quality backlinks for your blog.

Don’t waste your time to leave comments on random blogs. You must targetKeywordLuv and CommentLuv enabled blogs to gain dofollow backlinks. If you don’t have any idea about that then read below tutorial.

7# Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is the part of Off-Page SEO Techniques. It helps a lot to improve keywords ranking in Google.

I have published a post on How To Do Social Bookmarking in SEO but it must do with proper care. Misuse of this can ruin your blog ranking too.

There are some tips and suggestions for those bloggers who want to participate in social bookmarking to increase their rankings in search results.

8# Directory Submissions

As same as social bookmarking, directory submission with care can also help blog owners to make their blog popular in search results.

There are also some points for directory submission that you must know to take proper benefits of your hard work.

Please read below tutorial to know what you should know before doing directory submission for your blog.

Final Words!

These were the top 8 tips to improve keywords ranking in Google. I tried my best to share all the working methods here.

If I miss something then please let me know through comments and if you know other tips and tricks to improve ranking in Google then please share them with me. Thanks! Happy Blogging!

Thanks to Ankit Kumar Singla