All you need to know about meta tags in SEO

Meta tags are one of the useful elements of a website that provides the information about a web page to the search engines and website visitors.
We put these tags in the <head> section of an HTML document.

Alt tag -

Alt tags are used to describe the images to people with visual impairments. Search engines can't see images but can read with the help of Alt attribute.

Canonical tag -

Canonical Tag helps webmasters to solve www and non-www duplicate content. If there are two identical pieces of content then you must include a canonical tag which contains the original published content.

The Canonical Tag will look like
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://example.com/” />

H1 – H6 tags -

H1 to H6 heading tags are used to define priorities of subheadings in your content to Google and other search engines.

Nofollow -

Nofollow is a useful HTML tag that tells robots not to index the page having Nofollow tag.

Add rel=“nofollow” to the link that you do not want to crawl by the search engines.

Title tag -

Title tag is used to describe the information about a web page for the search engines and website users.

You can write your own title tag inside the <head> area of your site’s HTML:

<head>
<title>Example Title</title>
</head>

Google's Mobile Friendly Update Now Live?

It seems like after waiting 24 hours, Google may have just started to change the mobile search results to factor in the mobile friendly update.  Read More

App Indexing Will Now Affect Google Ranking

Google has improved its app search feature on Android by adding install buttons in search results; the improved search function will also affect Android search rankings, according to the official Google blog.  Read More

Google "Mobilegeddon" Has Officially Arrived

Today marks "Mobilegeddon" - as Google's new update has been frequently called since the search giant announced its new algorithm back in February - which means that mobile-friendliness is officially a huge factor in search rankings. Read More

Some Useful Tips for Better Optimization of Your Websites

If you have a website for your business, the success of your online business depends on the successful use of the techniques of Search Engine Optimization. With the increase of Internet use worldwide, your online marketing plans play a key role in making your company successful. To get a top position in the Internet, your website must follow certain SEO techniques to beat the competition.

Unique content: Write exclusive and precise content which attracts user at the very first glance. Regularly update content information to improve the ranking of the page. An effective content displays your webpage in top results of a search engine.

Keywords: Keywords play an important role in search engine optimization. Keep the keywords that are more attractive and easier to use. Choosing the right keyword and density of keywords will affect your website ranking. You must place the keywords in special places such as page titles, URLs and file names.

Backlinks: A website with many backlinks is said to be well optimized. But make sure that the connection comes from a trusted site. Take the help of business partners to post your link on their website to increase the number of backlinks. Besides backlinks increases the number of inbound links as well.

Use Social Media: Publish your content with the help of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google +. This is the best and latest technology to advertise your website. Always use unique and fresh content. 

Guest Blogging: Blog is the place to interact with the customers by sharing your views and thoughts. Respond to the user queries through comments to solve their problem. It is the best place to explore your ideas.

Htaccess File and Its Uses

Htaccess file is a configuration file that is used in the Apache-based web servers to control various functions of the server. htaccess provides a way to configure the details of your website without having to modify the server configuration files.

You can create the htaccess file in a text editor and then upload it to your site via an FTP client. It's an incredibly useful feature that allows webmasters to control many aspects of their work sites. You can redirect 301 pages, change extensions pages, rewrite urls for better keyword ranking presence, password protect directories, redirect Error Document 404 and more.

Mod_Rewrite:  One of the most useful facets of the .htaccess file is mod_rewrite. You can use the space in the .htaccess file to designate and alter how URLs and web pages on your sites are displayed to your users.

Custom Error Pages: The .htaccess file allows you to create custom error pages to provide more information to the site visitor than the default server error page. Some of the most common errors are:

• 400 Bad Request
• 401 Authorization Required
• 403 Forbidden Page
• 404 File not Found
• 500 Internal Error

Htaccess is also extremely sensitive. A semicolon missing, wrong letter or extra backslash can ruin everything. So you need to make sure that what you write is correct 100%.

Infographics and their use in SEO

Infographics is a graphical representation of information, data or knowledge. Infographic is a quick and easy way to learn about a subject without a ton of heavy reading. Infographics are used these days to characterize the complex as signs, maps, technical texts and many more with ease and efficiency.

Why should use infographics for SEO?

• Large amounts of data can be easily represented in an attractive way.

• Make a good effect on the mind of the user, so that it is possible for the user to re-examine and recommend the site.

• Infographics are more likely than simple text.

• Publisher that use infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those who do not use infographics.

Benefits of Using infographics for SEO

Infographic plays an important role in SEO as it gives readers a richer experience and also contributes indirectly to obtain a better ranking of web pages - Indirectly, because the search engines cannot read graphics and videos. 

• Using Infographic is a good strategy, since it is not affected by the search algorithm updates.

• The dazzling images attract the attention of social media users and stimulate the intention to share more content.

• Get advantages of image directories to host the infographic with a link to your website is another great example of the benefits of using computer graphics.

But too many graphics that consume large bandwidth will negatively impact search engine ranking of your website. Do not forget also that when it comes to graphics, the search engines are just blind and dumb to it.

What is sitemap, Robots.txt and RSS?

Sitemap: 

A Sitemap is a file that lists URLs for a site. The Sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. It allows webmasters to include more information about URL like when it was last updated and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site. Site Files are limited to 50,000 URLs and 10 megabytes per map. Google first introduced Sitemaps 0.84 in June 2005. In November 2006 Google, MSN and Yahoo announced joint support for the Sitemaps protocol. 

RSS: 

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format that provides information about regularly changing web content such as latest news headlines, blog entries, audio and video. An RSS document includes summarized text, Meta data such as publishing dates and authorship. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites. RSS can be read using software called an RSS reader, feed reader or aggregator. News aggregator or RSS reader software allows you to capture RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.

Robots.txt File:

Robots.txt is a convention to prevent cooperating web crawlers and other web robots from accessing all or part of a website which is otherwise publicly viewable. Web site owners use the robots.txt file to give instructions about their site to web robots.

It works like this: If a robot wants to visits a Web site URL, say http://www.site.com. Then it firsts checks for http://www.site.com/robots.txt and finds: 

User-agent: *

Disallow: /

The "User-agent: *" means this section applies to all robots. The "Disallow: /" tells the robot to not visit the site pages.
There are two important considerations when using robots.txt:
• Robots can ignore your robots.txt. Especially malware robots that scan the web for security vulnerabilities, and email address harvesters used by spammers will pay no attention.
• The robots.txt file is a file in the public domain. Anyone can see what sections of your server do not want robots to use.