Search Engine Optimization Trends to Watch in 2013

SEO and Search Marketing in general have both seen many changes in the past 24 months. As a webmaster or digital marketer, you are surely familiar with the two major algorithm updates, Panda and Penguin, which Google introduced in February 2011 and April 2012, respectively.

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Both of these major changes were not events, but rather the beginning of a new way to rank websites. Both Panda and Penguin undergo “refreshes” on a regular basis, monthly in the case of Panda.

As a refresher, the two updates were

focused on the following:

    Panda: The quality of content on a website itself
    Penguin: The quality of (i.e. lack of manipulation) of off-page authority metrics such as links

See the common thread? Quality, not quantity. Google is working hard to improve the quality of their SERPs. This is imperative to their ongoing success. This is also why the updates will keep coming.

Web marketers and SEOs have invested countless hours in reacting, adjusting strategies and adopting new ways of managing their online presence. The majority of us have finally accommodated the impact of these two mischievous little zoo creatures.

2013 is under way, and we have already seen the first Panda refresh of the year. Rest assured that Google has more up its sleeves. Let’s take a few moments to consider where they might focus their attention between now and December.
SEO Hot Points in 2013

Although Google rarely gives advanced notice of major updates, it has been very consistent in its overall SEO guidance over the past couple of years. It is adamant about avoiding shortcuts and earning rankings through hard work.

Content alone won’t cut it, though. There are several areas that all web owners need to keep in mind to maximize their online exposure potential.

Source  http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/search-engine-optimization-trends-to-watch-in-2013-019573.php

Quick and Effective SEO Tips

When you’re attempting to build up the ranking and popularity of your website, it’s all about the search engine optimization tactics you’re implementing. Whether you’re going with paid advertising, organic methods, or a mixture of the two, proper SEO is what’s going to ultimately earn you a high-ranking site. Without a site that’s ranked well in its respective niche, you’re most likely not going to receive enough traffic to survive in a competitive market.

The code of your website (the HTML) needs to be clean, neat and tidy if you want it to be scanned well by the bots! This point is highly emphasized because a lot of start-up web designers do not check that their code is clean. They simply pack things in via a drag-and-drop menu, only occasionally tweaking the actual code.

This is a very bad way to go. You need to get in there and clean up your code, making it very neat and fluid if you want the robots to scan it properly.

When you’re tinkering around with the code to clean it up, you should also use this opportunity to add certain keywords inside of your title and header tags. This is something that’s ridiculously easy to do, even if you are a rookie with HTML. The main thing to focus on is that you actually close the end of your tags. Copy and paste your code into a Word doc or Notepad beforehand, save a copy of the code just in case you mess up, and take your time adding the right tags in the main copy.

Quick and Effective SEO Tips image seoOne of the most underrated ways to build up your site’s rankings is to have a good internal linking structure. For instance, you want to use keywords and links on your homepage to redirect readers to other pages of your site, and vice versa. However, these links have to be clean. They cannot negatively affect the flow of your site’s navigation, and they cannot be jumbled up inside of your HTML. Take your time and create a clean linking structure.

Adding related images to your website is great for eye appeal. Users visiting your site will appreciate good-looking, relevant pictures. But search engine bots appreciate different captions and tags inside of your HTML. To do this, simply open up your page, view the HTML, find the photo tags, and add in different keywords and captions. These will not show on the photo itself; instead, they will be robot fodder for the bots crawling over your content to rank it.

Despite the explosion of smaller, more personal social sites on today’s web, content is still king, and all content should still contain a lot of relevant keywords. Just make sure to perform keyword research before posting any content. List your keywords in the proper context and near the top of the content, in the first few sentences, in the headers, etc. This small measure will improve your rankings.

SEO is still the best way to go if you want to improve your rankings. Use the methods listed above and you can ensure that your site ranks well in its niche.

Source  http://www.business2community.com/seo/quick-and-effective-seo-tips-0396150