Site navigation strengthens your website as a whole and puts focus on not only your homepage but also the pages within the website. Search engines are keen towards the page level focus of the pages from within a website. Site navigation gives some kind of structure to the pages of your website. It puts focus on the webpages and guides visitors and search engines so they could navigate your website easily. It is a critical factor in search engine optimization because it ultimately decides user experience and the quality of this user experience. It guides search engines on the structure of your website and gives them the idea of what pages are higher thus more relevant than others.

Explaining the Importance of Site Navigation Further

Here are the top reasons why site navigation is critical in the SEO process:

- To give out the pages’ relationship

A website basically has a lot of pages within it. It is very seldom that we see one website where everything is contained in one page and nothing more. Usually, links are used to help visitors be guided accordingly. Also, some pages may be talking about a topic that the reader would be interested on and usually this page will have a link to another article that is related to the topic and may also interest its reader.

Establishing these relationships is also important so that search engines may be guided accordingly especially when they are ranking your pages. It shows them which pages are related rather than having their algorithms determine these themselves which is not really accurate for that matter.

- To show the pages with more relevance

When we develop our websites, not all pages will be deemed with equal relevance. That is why establishing page relationships is important. The higher the page is in the hierarchy of things indicates the stronger importance you put to it. The links that support it are merely there to provide further info for readers but the main page will always be the most important one.

- Controls User Experience

As was said above, establishing site navigation makes it easier for user to browse through your website and find whatever info they might need. Putting links to the pages of your website where they can get additional information is always a plus not only in the eyes of your customers but for search engines as well.

You can basically improve user experience by planning carefully and strategically the information architecture of your site. An easier to browse and informative website is always the best way to keep customers.

The Importance of Information Architecture

Search engines basically employ set algorithms in ranking websites. You can help your SEO cause by having well-built information architecture in place through proper site navigation techniques. This way you will not be at the mercy of the search engine bots and you would also be polishing your website structure for your visitors’ use. Web developers should always have their customers’ interests in mind.

Google AdSense and Google Analytics are just some of the most common tools web developers use to keep track of how their SEO strategies are faring in the online market. It gives them data on how well their ads are doing in terms of generating the customer traffic and revenues targeted.

Many analysts suggest that linking your AdSense account to your Google Analytics one is very advantageous. This is a very simple trick that most web developers overlook but doing so can provide with additional revenue in your ad placements.

Basic Requirements

To be able to link your AdSense to your Analytics account, a few requirements should be met. These include:

1. You have to have your own Google AdSense account and be registered as an AdSense publisher.
2. You have to have a Google analytics account for all of your sites. They should also host Google ads on them.
3. Although optional, your website has to generate enough traffic and be worth optimizing. This is why most of the developers who link their AdSense with their Analytics accounts are usually the ones who have established their websites for quite some time and are looking to take advantage of linking both accounts for additional revenue.

The Benefits of Integrating Your AdSense and Analytics Accounts

The integration you will make between these two accounts can provide you with extra information which can be valuable in adjusting your strategies with your SEO process. If your website has just been set up, the info provided by the integration may not be as valuable since yours still lack the amount of traffic needed to come up with useful conclusions. This integration is usually beneficial for established sites and can increase customer traffic and AdSense revenue at the same time.

This process can also bring about answers to some simple but important questions with regards to your SEO processes. It can give your specific data on which part of your site generates the most revenue and which parts are outputting dismal results. In this way you can readjust the said parts to be able to make all of them successful in generating revenue. You may have an elaborate plan on paper but sometimes this does not translate into the actual world. The combination of AdSense and Analytics provides you information to be able to guide you accordingly in moving forward with your SEO strategies.

Mobile Value Track is one such tool. With the Internet being used by majority of the people around the world today, devices have sprung up from everywhere to enable users to get connected anytime, anywhere. These web tools allow users to track the clicks that their ads get from mobile devices.

The Mobile Value Track functions the same way for any mobile ads, whether they are WAP mobile ads, regular text or image ads. It also works for majority of handheld devices being used today: iPhones and other devices that are Internet-capable. To be able to use this tool, advertisers just need to add the Mobile Value Track parameter {ifmobile:NewTagName} to the URL destination whenever you are creating a normal text ad. You can simply replace the “NewTagName” in the parameter above with the tag that you want added.

You can also redirect your potential customers, who use mobile devices, to a separate mobile optimized website of your ad. This can be done by adding the Mobile Track parameter to your page’s URL. It is important to note that you need to have your site mobile optimized for this function to work.

Another option for web advertisers would be to use third party tracking tags. Google says that to do this you will have to insert a certain tag to your URL destination. You can now track the clicks that your ads are getting and this will help you gauge your ads’ performance in the SERPs.

The broad match modifier is a feature that can be found in the Google AdWords tool for SEO. It enables users to create keywords that will have a greater impact in the search engine results pages. It helps SEO practitioners focus their strategies on specific keywords rather than on a broader phrase or group of words. Enabling the broad match modifier in your SEO campaign will result in more clicks and conversions for your targeted keywords. It will also come at an attractive ROI, better than the usual match modifier.

To enable this setting to function, users must put a plus (+) symbol in front of their targeted keyword/s in the broad match search. If you want two keywords to be modified then you can put plus symbols in front of all the words you are targeting. For example, if you are targeting the keywords home accessories, you should put plus symbols preceding these words (i.e. +home accessories, +home +accessories, home +accessories) to enable the broad modifier setting. The words should also appear in its correct form on the user’s searches, or as a close variant.

Close variants, as defined by Google, include misspelled words (i.e. hmoe), singular or plural form of the words, abbreviations, acronyms and even stemmings (words +
-ing). Synonyms and related words are not considered close variants. Web developers, though, advise SEO practitioners to proceed with caution as the broad match modifier can have positive and negative impacts to SEO campaigns if not properly used.

If exact match keywords are being used in a campaign, then the broad match modifier can be 100% helpful. However, if you mainly use broad match keywords/phrases in your campaign, then the broad match modifier can do the opposite and come up with negative impacts. Google advises developers to maintain two sets of keywords for their campaign to cater to both systems.

The broad match modifier setting is available to Google AdWords users all over the world, in most languages that Google is available in. Updates and further announcements will be posted by the Google team in the official AdWords blog.

Effects of a Hacked Website

Being hacked poses a serious threat to your company in numerous ways. Most notable of these threats are:

• It can bring down your search engine rankings.

We in the SEO world know how hard it is to establish authority in the Internet and attain high page rankings. One attack from an Internet hacker can cause all of your years of hard work to go down the drain. Search engines are apathetic when it comes to these situations.

Google and other search engines are quick to point out websites that are hosting malware or have been hacked. This will instantly bring your page rankings down unless you remedy your situation immediately and make your site malware-free. Aside from this, the loss of rankings also result in loss of customer traffic since users will be forewarned that your website is hosting some malicious software and that their PCs may get infected in the process.

• Profit loss

If no visitors go to your website then you can expect that no revenue will be generated. You can also expect all of the advertisers in your site will be pulling out their investments since your site is not a revenue-generator for the time being.

• Customers will be more skeptical of your site

There are some times when search engines forget to label your website hacked or carrying malicious software. If this happens, you would still not dodge the axe since your infected site could steal personal information, addresses, and bank account numbers, affecting the trustworthiness of your website.

• You are held entirely liable for the damages that will be incurred.

This is especially so for websites that hosts their customers’ personal information. If your site gets hacked, you would be held liable for all the damages resulting from that hacking.

The reputation that your company had will also be affected and you may lose some of your loyal customers in the process.

How to Detect Different Types of Hacks and Avoid them

The most common types of hacker attack, according to the “The Web Hacking Incident Database 2009,” include:

1. SQL Database Injection

This is primarily caused by the lack of validation with regards to user input especially if a website uses web forms or URL query IDs. Sometimes hackers can provide poisoned queries to your website that will further compromise your site.

Another cause for this is poor database design and improper security privileges in your website. Some hackers use apps and add-ons in attacking your website. As you develop your website, make sure that apps and add-ons are not given access to your root database and that their overall access is kept at a minimum.

2. Content Spoofing

Content spoofing according to “The Web Hacking Incident Database 2009″ accounts for around 10% of all web hacks. Spoofing happens when a hacker “impersonates” your website and uses it to obtain confidential information such as passwords to your customers. Personal information like credit card numbers and social security numbers are one of the things targeted by content spoofing.

Content spoofing can also directly attack your website by producing duplicate content. It will bring your page rankings down and help you lose the trust that your customers have in your website.

Some ways with which you can fight content spoofing is to educate your customers about the various things that would determine whether they are dealing with an authentic website or not. From your site’s web protocols to examining the SSL certificates, users should be aware of how to prevent hackers especially if you are a merchant website hosting significant and confidential customer information.

You can also register your website’s domain as a trademark, this way no other hacker or web developer can use your domain but you. At least this gives you some protection against people who will try to use your domain for their own purposes.

Prevention is Better than Cure

So many clever ways have already been thought of by various Internet hackers just to retrieve information from websites. Being wary is just the first step of protecting yourself against these hackers.

It is advantageous to educate yourself and your customers about the various ways with which you can avoid the inconvenience of being hacked. Hacking is something that will be present as technology progresses. There is no better protection than a little education.

Here are some tips on how to properly setup your websites to hasten up your climb through the search engine rankings:

- Keep in mind, load time is important.

In setting up your website, it is important that the content becomes visible immediately for your readers. Besides, this is the part of your site that the visitor will be looking for. Visitors may go away if they don’t see your pages’ content immediately.

- Moderate the comments on you websites.

Adding a comments section in your pages is advantageous in numerous ways. For one, it enhances your visitors’ experience and makes them feel that they are involved and engaged when they visit your page. But since you are actually giving your visitors free reins to comment, some hacks may take advantage of this and flood your comments section with spam messages and links.

As a developer, it is your duty to constantly check and prevent this from happening. Several webmaster tools are available for you to use to clean your comments section of these annoying messages.

- Optimize your URLs.

When using Wordpress, this is automatically done. You can edit your URLs so they can feature your keywords in them. This makes for additional points in the eyes of the search engine crawlers.

- Place important info on top of your content.

If your site does not really load that fast, you can remedy this by putting some of the most important points you are presenting at the top of your pages. This way, your visitors will see them immediately. It also works for customers who do not use PCs but instead are using smaller screens in browsing your web page.

- Update Wordpress.

If you are using Wordress as CMS for your websites, constantly updating will ensure that your site is protected from hacks and malware.

- Do not embed keywords in images.

As much as possible, you want your keywords or phrases to be present within the content of your pages and not on the pictures or other tools you use. Web crawlers will not be able to see these most of the time and you would have wasted the opportunity for the keywords to be used.

- Provide related links.

As much as possible, make these links internal. Present content suggestions to your visitors and ensure that these can be readily seen. This increases visitor engagement and will increase the time that they will spend browsing your site.

For all the available tips that any web master can do, the most important things to remember will still be to make your website visitor-friendly. Engage them so they will spend more time in your site. Place good ads. Make your site lively. SEO may be long but the whole affair doesn’t mean you can’t have fun while doing it.

Enter social media and the quick boost it provides to startup and established websites.

The Emergence of the Social Media Platform

One of the most important tools to emerge today is the use of social media platforms for a variety of causes, may it be for profit or not. Facebook and Twitter spearhead this movement and both sites have already had substantial influence in the world today.

There used to be a time when social networking sites are not included in the search engine results pages of most search engines out there. But through the years, SERPs have already considered updates coming from social networking sites as part of their searches. Several companies have used these social networking sites to further connect with their target customers. Aside from this, non-profit organization and advocacy groups utilize them in spreading their advocacy to a wider range of audience.

Taking Advantage of Social Networking

Web developers have found several ways to ramp up their rankings by using social media as one of their tools. Here are some ways to take advantage of social networking sites for your SEO processes:

1. Have as many friends as you can

The whole point of social networking is networking! Establishing a connection with your customers is what it’s all about. Facebook and Twitter are great platforms that specifically make this job easy for any web developer and company.

In the realm of search engine optimization, more followers or contacts mean that your webpages have more authority. The difference between a social networking account and an actual website is that social networking accounts are usually judged by the number of followers that it has whereas websites are primarily judged through the quality of the links that point to it.

Having as many “friends” as you can increases the relevancy that search engines will put to your webpage. It may also be the simplest and most obvious gauge of how successful your web marketing is going so far.

2. Use Meta Tags and URLs to your advantage

Meta tags and URLs are most of the time automatically generated by the social networking sites you are signing up for. But many of these sites allow their users to have a go and customize their tags and URLs to their liking.

For example, Twitter usually creates their users’ URL by using the user’s name and chosen username. The bio submitted by the user usually becomes his accounts’ description tag.

Facebook has now also allowed their users to edit their URLs according to their liking. Using your username, company name or keywords related to your industry in your URL will make it easier to be found by search engines and post them in their results pages.

3. Produce new content regularly

Content is still the heart of search engine optimization. Without great and unique content, your search engine strategies will all be considered moot. Even in social media platforms, new content is basically the foundation that will keep your customer coming.

A caveat: no-follow tags are now the norm in social networking websites. Nonetheless, it seems that search engines are keener towards posting new content in these social networking sites in their SERPs. Quick to recognize the potential, many web developers have been using their social media accounts to post links to newly published content. Posting content here also gives your followers the opportunity to easily repost and link to your content in their other sites, like their blogs.

4. Make your updates count

Making updates with regards to new products, promos and other news usually make up most of the time we spend on social networking sites. Besides, these are probably the easiest avenues to connect with customers and followers. So why not make even your everyday updates count in the eyes of search engines?

In Twitter, 140-characters serve as the maximum length of a tweet. The title tags are usually comprised of around 42 characters which include the first 30 characters of the tweet and then the username of the one posting. Positioning your keywords within these limits is a very advantageous albeit subtle way of doing SEO.

In Facebook, on the other hand, keeping your status messages and updates related to the line of your company’s work or the industry you are in is the way to go. Building theme for your Facebook page is the whole point here which makes it easier for search engines to index your account in the SERPs.

5. Post links

Going back to the traditional way of search engine optimization, links always count. Keep in mind that search engines have a keen eye for inbound links. Posting links of your social networking accounts to your actual website can help bolster your search engine rankings. It also serves as a guide to your customers so they can log in and connect to your social networking accounts.

The SEO Game

Social Media websites are great tools not only for search engine optimization but for communication as a whole. Because of the far reach that these social networking websites have, it is only imperative that businesses use them for their advantage. But always keep in mind that SEO has always been a game of quality content and link building, never forget the basics of the game.

While Google still holds the lead in terms of overall market share, Yahoo! has been making adjustments and has since been performing strongly against its competition.

Google and Yahoo!’s Differences

Though both are playing in the same field, lots of differences set Google apart from Yahoo! and vice versa. For web developers, it is especially important to take note of the differences between the two search engines’ criteria when it comes to ranking websites and giving relevance to web pages. Here are some of the differences between the two:

1. Number of backlinks on the website

For Yahoo!, it focuses more on the actual quantity of backlinks a webpage has. There are some websites that have a massive amount of backlinks that rank high in Yahoo! SERPs but whose rank in Google is abysmal.

The difference is that Google’s focus is more directed towards the quality of the backlinks involved. They take note of the IP domains and protocols used by the sites linking back to you. If they see that several links come from just one domain then they usually disregarded it in their counts.

2. The issue of using multiple domains for backlinks

Furthering the issue discussed above, Google has a very keen eye with regards to websites using multiple domains that relatively have the similar content as backlinks. They stress this fully on their SEO policy and guidelines.

Though Yahoo! seems to have a softer eye towards the said issue, the company has also stated that duplicate and mirror domains are prohibited in their search engine rankings. In general, creating multiple domains with similar content is never a good SEO strategy.

3. On link relevance

The quality of links is what’s most important for Google. No matter how many backlinks your website might have, if it’s not quality then you might as well throw away your hopes of getting higher page rankings. Yahoo! also puts weight on the quality of backlinks present in your site but they also focus more on the quantity involved. This makes Google stricter that Yahoo! in terms of link relevance in the SEO process.

4. On SEO

The differences with regards to the basic onsite SEO techniques between the two search engines is pretty much zero.

If you are thinking of ways with which to maximize your presence in both search engines, you will have to take note that Google has the larger market share at the end of the day. Plus the focus that Google gives on the actual quality of links means that their guidelines will be pretty much applicable to Yahoo! and the other lesser known search engines. The SEO process is still a pretty complicated endeavor to do. Being guided accordingly is a must for every web developer out there.

For businesses, the online realm can be of great help, or a big blow. Everything that is found about your company on the Internet will be seen by everyone and can stay there for good. When you search for your company in Google, whether you use your domain name, company name or your own name as the owner, you will always want positive stuff about you and your company showing up in results pages rather than negative ones that may ruin you.

It will not help your company if you find a lot of negative things about your business online, such as blog or forum posts from disgruntled employees or customers, news articles that say negative reviews about your business (probably written by your competitors), or private information about your company’s executives that are just plain embarrassing. If there are a lot of sites that say negative things about your company that can ruin its reputation, you’re in trouble, especially if it’s in the first pages of search engines. People will probably see things written about your company, and it will be a deciding factor whether or not people will continue to do business with you and if you can still attract new customers.

Your company’s success largely depends on your reputation and branding. Not only you have to spread your positive brand image to people in the physical realm, but also you have to invest great effort to market your company online. Being successful online means making sure that you can control what is being said about your business on the Internet. Customers must be presented with the good stuff when they search you online.

There are several ways to protect your company’s image online. You can engage in monitoring the things people say about your company on the Internet and in taking defensive SEO initiatives to influence the results that appear in search engines when people look for your brand. Also, defend your brand by responding immediately and properly when negative stuff start appearing online.

There are websites all over the web that specialize in helping individuals and/or businesses manage their reputations and brand. Some of these rep companies even go so far as to manage the names of some top executives of big businesses online. As far as reputations go, managing them is all a part of the grand scheme of SEO and link building.

Monitoring your brand today has become relatively easier thanks to the development of several tools, aside from the rep management companies, that are catered into doing just that: monitor your brand. This way, you can do the rep management yourself and see what users and customers are saying about your product, service or the whole company.

This also presents a great opportunity for your link building campaign. If you find something like a nice review or criticism of your company, you can directly contact the websites involved in order for you to get links from them. These are the most natural links you can get to aid in your link building plans. Taking advantage of them may be the most sensible step you can take in your link building campaign.

Here are some recommended tools that can help you monitor your brand and find those precious link building opportunities around the Internet:

• Trackur

Andy Beal developed Trackur as a full-fledged, brand monitoring service. Users can usually avail of Trackur’s free version and have one of their search queries saved and monitored regularly. The results give you info about certain keywords and phrases you are following about your brand. Trackur is always updated and gives its users info from sources like news sites, blogs, and Twitter updates.

• Replyz

Replyz is a real-time search engine. It delivers the latest results and answers to queries from those who want to learn something about a particular topic or trend. Using this service, customers are given real-time streams about hot keywords and phrases that may be helpful to their link building strategies.

Not only that, Replyz automatically updates you whenever there’s a question posted that is related to the keywords you are monitoring. It updates your dashboard and you can directly answer them there also. By reaching out to these customers, you can establish an instant relationship and may even snag some valuable links along the way.

• Openbook, Google Alerts, and Social Mention

The first two basically offers the same service albeit on vastly different scales. Openbook is basically a service you can use to search and monitor your brand in Facebook. With Openbook, you can establish links by inviting and being confirmed by people. Once you’ve entered an individual’s circle of friends, then this will present a massive opportunity for you to market your brand to them.

Google Alerts, on the other hand, is more catered to the whole Internet. Google Alerts basically updates the users about the latest info and news about his particular brand or the other keywords and phrases being followed. The brand mentions and reviews that Google Alerts provide are valuable to any company’s link building campaigns.

Lastly, Social Mention is very much like Google Alerts. The only difference is that this service is more catered specifically to social media. The websites that Social Mention monitors include Identica, Twitter, YouTube, Delicious, Photobucket, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, and other networking sites.

• Whos Talkin

Whos Talking is somewhat a complimentary service to the likes of Social Mention. Whos Talkin searches blogs, news feeds, networks, videos, images, forums, and tags for relevant info with regards to the brand or keywords you are monitoring.

Not only does this service provide you with link building opportunities, it also enables you to gauge the competition ad see how they are doing in your market. You can make adjustments according to what your competition is doing and stay always ahead of the game.