The recent changes in the search ranking algorithm of Google caused so much trouble in the SEO community. The considerable penalty to websites deemed to have poor quality is intended to give users a higher quality experience when performing searches. However, even high quality websites were affected due to contents being considered duplicate or some other reason. We have to accept the fact that change is inevitable. In fact, according to Google, they make an average of one change daily to their search algorithms.

What is the solution you ask? The solution is to be updated with the latest changes and focus on answers and not dwelling on the immensity of the problem. Another solution is to focus on durable elements of SEO. These are SEO elements that will not change regardless of various changes in search algorithms. Here are some of the most basic durable elements of SEO:

Basic On-Page SEO

Follow the basic SEO rules according to the Google Webmaster’s SEO Guide. This guide should be your rulebook when it comes to optimization. Following the guide is a sure way to achieve good rankings. The basic SEO rules include keyword research and including these keywords in the URL, meta tags, titles, etc. Perform a quick study on rankings for particular keyword phrases. Using the right keywords is one of the most basic on-page SEO rules that can help you succeed.

Quality Inbound Links

Inbound links from quality websites are very helpful in increasing your rankings with the top search engine Google. However, keep in mind that the content you have should be relevant to the topic surrounding the link. Relevance is very important in order to have a significant impact on rankings. The best way to encourage quality inbound links is to have high-quality content. This is the reason why content quality is imperative for successful SEO.

User Experience

The main goal of Google is to satisfy its users. This is the reason why it has been on top for a very long time now. This is also why they only want to give high rankings to quality sites. All of their search algorithm changes are intended to give lower rankings to websites with poor quality and to give higher rankings to quality sites. It is as simple as this, if you want to have higher rankings you have to improve the quality of your site. This includes page load speed, contents, navigation and design among many other things.

The search engines are one of the best sources of traffic. More than half of the internet users rely on search engines when looking for website. Thus, having a high search engine ranking is the goal of many sites. Unfortunately, the search engine ranking is not permanent. You may hold the top spot for a certain keyword today and fall to the fifth spot tomorrow. Here are some reasons why your search engine ranking may decline. From here, you should be able to think of the right SEO technique to avoid losing a good ranking.

Your Site Is No Longer New

The search engines especially Google give a special treatment to new sites. For a certain period of time, when your site is relatively new, you will find it enjoying high search engine rankings. The site’s search engine ranking may then decline without proper SEO strategy.

Your Site Wasn’t Able to Prove Its Worth

The new sites get a special privilege of having high rankings but can also be placed in the sandbox after failure to prove its worth. It is much like a punishment. Luckily, SEO techniques can now help you get up again.

Your Site May Have a Broken Link

Links are very important in SEO and broken links are a big problem. You can check your site’s link manually or you can look for a plug-in that regularly checks and detects broken links.

Your Site’s Content Can Be Found Somewhere Else

Having your site’s content published in another site can be a serious problem. The search engines hate duplicated contents. It can also be a problem even if the content is found in two of your site’s pages.

You Have Server Problems

Whether it is your or your host’s fault, server issues can cause your site’s search engine ranking to decline. They can prevent search engines from accessing your site and they usually opt to decrease the ranking when they cannot verify the site’s worthiness.

Your Site Has a Malware

It is best to keep your site clean. A malware in even just one page of your site will cause its search engine ranking and traffic to decline. Google can detect malware and can warn visitors even before they reach your site. The warning is a great discouragement for visitors to continue so expect your traffic from search engines to drop.

The Algorithms Changed

The search engines regularly update and change their algorithms. It is a great way to ensure that the users will get the most relevant search result. Three things can happen when algorithms change. First, your site may increase its ranking. Second, your site may get a decrease in its ranking. Third, the sites linking to your site may get an increase or decrease in search engine ranking affecting your site’s ranking.

Can Google’s filters catch low quality links that are part of SEO campaign’s link wheels? While link wheels are often used to spam and build thin affiliate websites, they can also be very helpful when done correctly. For instance, links in the “wheel” can have web properties that back the main website. Below are some details on what link wheels are and how one should and should not use them for SEO.

What Are Link Wheels?

The link wheels are web properties that are relevant to each other. These web properties are used mainly for interlinking and building links that point to one’s money site. They have been part of SEO strategies for so long.

The link wheels are very useful in creating illusion that a site is an authority in a particular niche. Link wheel efforts are almost always rewarding because Google and other major search engines love informative sites. Having relevant and useful sites linking to your main site is a great way to mimic organic process. While the process of making link wheel looks spammy and the way it is used seems to be a way to manipulate search engine rankings, they have benefited a lot of website owners for the past years. If done properly, link wheels can certainly avoid getting caught by Google and other search engine filters. Thus, link wheels can be beneficial for a longer period of time.

How to Create Link Wheels?

To ensure that your link wheels will not be caught by search engine filters, it is very important to know what you should not do. Avoiding these mistakes will also make the result of your SEO efforts last longer if not forever.

First, do not copy and paste existing web contents especially the ones that are from Google News or article directories. Google and other search engines can easily detect plagiarism. Make sure to come up with original contents where you will put links. Second, use varying anchor texts in each site that links to your money site.

Third, do not link all the web properties (i.e. 10 micro-sites) together with just one link. Have each micro-site linked to your main site (either directly or through another micro-site) and an external resource.

Fourth, do not use free publishing sites. Make sure that you publish in your own domain, where you have a control in almost everything. Your domain should also be attractive to your target market. Avoid misleading domain name. It should be related to your site, business, niche, etc.

Fifth, do not publish content and links and forget about them. Make sure that you update every site that links to your money site.

Google +1 was launched in mid-2011. A lot of individuals including search engine optimizers and owners of online business have varying thoughts about it. Some believe that it can help in improving search engine ranking while others simply don’t. Below are some details on how Google +1 can affect online business and SEO based on already-known features.

On Search Engine Ranking

Google +1 can highly affect the rankings in Google. This big search engine will start to consider the clicks on +1 buttons, which will surely affect how the websites will show in search results.

On the other hand, some internet marketers and SEO experts have seen the flaws of Google +1. However, Google have already dealt with abuse and spam issues in the past. It will not take long for it to learn and disregard +1 spam networks that do not even have real or natural-looking profiles.

Google +1 will definitely serve as a ranking signal, which is mainly used for improving the overall search quality. While some individuals find these ranking signals from social networks problematic because search engines have difficulty in analyzing them, Google +1 proves to be somewhat different from tweets and Facebook likes.

At present, it is too early to determine how exactly Google +1 will affect the organic search engine rankings and SEO but there is one thing that is quite certain. The websites with Google +1 buttons on their pages will surely get better chances of having higher ranking in Google’s search result because +1 clicks will surely be counted as a plus point on your site’s importance. Simply put, Google +1 will affect Google’s ranking of websites in search results.

On Online Business

With Google +1 affecting Google’s way of ranking the websites, the online businesses that will utilize Google +1 will surely get more chances in getting top spots in Google search results. However, the favorable results are guaranteed because a lot of website owners and SEO experts know this fact. Using Google +1 buttons have already been part of optimization strategies of webmasters. There is also a pressure of being creative in including Google +1 on optimization strategies.

On the other hand, webmasters should not focus mainly on Google +1. It is just part of the Web and there are many other search engines (i.e. Yahoo) that you need to please. Nonetheless, you cannot deny the fact that Google is one of the biggest and getting a high ranking in this search engine is a big plus and great chances to be found by many consumers.

A lot of website owners rely on SEO companies and consultants. However, many of them have been burned with empty or misleading promises. It is not good to lose trust on all companies because there are trustworthy companies out there. You just need to identify the bad ones and run away from them as fast as you could. Below are ways to identify a bad SEO company.

Bad Practices

Some bad SEO companies can easily be identified through the bad practices that they advertise. Some bad practices that you need to avoid are automated writing, doorway pages, link buying, cloaking, and link farm (inclusion in a network of sites). Some may even call these as innovative techniques. Whether they are just misinformed or do this to fool you on purpose, there is no better thing to do than to avoid them.

Unbelievable Claims

Bad companies that are not trustworthy often claim unbelievable results. Some examples of unbelievable claims are the guaranteed top position in search engine results pages or submission to thousands of search engines.

Know the Company

You can do an online research about the company and the people behind it. Take a look at the company’s website. Some bad companies have photos of blue-eyed and blonde people who look very professional (this does not mean that such kind of picture automatically means that the company is a bad one). Call the SEO company that you want to hire and ask for a personal meeting. You’ll know if the people in the photos are the ones who will serve you or if they are really located in California or in Florida as they stated in their website.

You may also observe their online reputation. The company may claim to be an ethical one. You’ll be surprised to see that this company’s site in paid link directories or sharing a contact page with three other companies.

You should also determine the company’s SEO experience. Come up with a tricky question. You can ask about an outdated optimization technique like the page rank sculpting or make up your own (make sure it sounds like real).

You should also ask about the techniques that they will implement in case you hire them. Many companies will not automatically share with you every bit of detail but they should if you will ask. Run away from a company that does not disclose information that you ought to know.

What is a QR code? It stands for quick response code and looks like a matrix barcode that is two-dimensional. This code is a mix of black modules in a white background enclosed in a square. Using QR codes can lead you directly to a website without the need for search engines. This is the reason why SEO marketers are concerned if such quick response codes can actually disrupt their search engine marketing or SEM strategies.

The US Postal Service Offer

In the past months namely July and August, the US Postal Service has released a discounted offer to mailers all around the country. They will cut 3% of postage fees if the mailer includes a QR code in their promotional mails. Well, 3% isn’t that big of a deal with smaller mailers but to the larger mailers out there, they will be saving tens of thousands of dollars sending catalogues to different recipients. This discount offer is one of the ways the US Postal Service can maintain their presence in the modern times.

Actually, the mailer is in a win-win situation here even if you count what he has to spend on when printing the QR code on the promotional catalogues. For one, the QR code and the incremental ink is free. The only thing the mailer will be paying for is the printing changes on the catalogue. The offer may be over but this will not stop companies from printing the QR code on their promotional mail as they have already seen its benefits.

Quick Response Codes are Lightning Fast

How do you search for something in the internet? Just like millions of users out there, you use the search engine. This is called “search-as-navigation” brand queries. Recipients of catalogues without QR codes will use this type of query to search for the brand online. Through this process, websites use SEO techniques to gain higher ranks in search engine results.

What is the problem now? If the searcher simply uses the “QR-as-navigation” to be immediately directed to the website or brand they are looking for, then all the efforts of SEO marketers will be put to waste. No longer is competing for top search engine rank results important because internet searchers will be directed to the website instantly. There is no need to open your mobile search engine to type and search for the brand. Simply open your QR reader application and scan the code and it will take you there.

The best way to go about this predicament is if websites integrate the use of QR codes in their promotional offerings too. But if the online store is purely internet based, I’m afraid their SEO strategies will be disrupted very soon.

One isn’t sure if this is a really beneficial thing for all SEO experts out there but more likely, it will be for the good of all SEO marketers who uses Google. Recently, Google’s Chrome 13 has been released and it is continuing to lead the browser pack with its loyal users.

The Release of Chrome 13

Google Chrome has just released its latest version called the Chrome 13. It has three new features that Chrome users will enjoy. The first is called Instant Pages. Instant Pages pre-loads content from Google websites; it predicts (with confidence) the pages you are highly likely to visit. The next feature is called Print Preview and this is applicable to Windows and Linux users. The feature is very simple; it allows the user to preview the page and document from the browser before printing. This feature automatically pops-up the moment you push the ‘Print’ button. The Print Preview features uses Chrome PDF viewer. And the last feature is called the Omnibar. The Omnibar helps users access previously visited sites faster and easier. Google says this bar has gotten a lot smarter this time around.

Browser and Search Loyalty

While the Google Chrome 13 features are worth looking into, it is not what studies are concerned about. Currently, Google Chrome holds 22% share in the U.K. and this big number can be attributed to the loyal Google search engine users. Another study shows that this browser and search loyalty affects search engine traffic too. 97% of Google Chrome users are using Google while Internet Explorer users are coming from Yahoo, Bing or AOL. A second study from Chitika confirms this strong correlation. People are most likely to use the search engine from the same company that made their browser.

How can this benefit SEO experts?

With the new Google Chrome browser and news that it’s gaining fairground all over the world, this just means that more and more people will be using Google as their search engine. SEO marketers around the world are most familiar with how Google works as it is the most used and popular search engine right now. Simply put, the more internet users using Google as their search engine, the more successful your marketing campaign will be. So yes, this browser and search loyalty is actually beneficial for SEO marketers and hopefully, this will continue on for the coming years.

In making a company’s website successful, website owners are giving primary importance to SEO experts to drive traffic to their website. The company’s IT department is out of the game in this one. But, what most website owners do not realize is that their website can be a lot more successful if the IT Department and SEO experts work together. Two heads are always better than one and it will certainly do wonders for a website.

The TEAM Approach

Both fields may have a different area of expertise but this doesn’t mean that they can’t find a common ground. There is one approach to break this barrier and the Forrester Research calls it the TEAM Approach.

T is for Transparency. To help the IT group learn about what SEO is all about, you should take initiative to educate them. Tell them why search engine optimization is very important in an online business website and share your plans. You must mention any thoughts on how IT can contribute to the website. If this relationship works out, the company’s website will be unbeatable.

E is for Embedded Groups. Working in groups is not just fun but it produces better results than working alone. This is a result of great minds working together towards a common goal. If you have a certain project that you believe the IT can help you with, you should spend some time with the IT group. The end-result will be a lot better.

A is for Alignment. You are working for the same company and your goals and objectives should be aligned. There is no point in keeping the IT group in the dark as they can contribute to financial success too. They just have to know where to place themselves and understand the mechanics of search engine optimization.

M is for Management Buy-in. SEO marketers should realize that an IT group can form an integral part of a company’s overall marketing strategy. Results for search engine optimization like traffic, conversation rate, revenue reports can be used to come up with a financial model that can help create a successful management buy-in.

Strengthening the Relationship

As you can see, taking in the IT group in your marketing efforts can do wonders for your company’s website. But there are still other ways where you can strengthen your relationship with the IT Department. Take a look at these 5 steps:

Step 1: Educate and Invest-Don’t mistake the IT’s lack of initiative to help you as being stubborn, it is simply a lack of awareness on what search engine experts like you are doing. Right now, you need to strengthen the relationship through educating and investing on your IT group. Educate them on your goals and objectives. At the same time, train them with the different methods of SEO.

Step 2: Make a Business Case-The business case you will come up with is not only important for the company’s management buy-in but for the company’s IT group as well. With the reduced budgets of companies, it is critical to show the financial benefits of your marketing efforts. You must tell the IT group about the financial side of your job as well.

Step 3: Include Search Engine Optimization Practices and Guidelines-When educating IT groups about search engine optimization, it is best to include the best practices in your site development guide. This will help the IT people understand the techniques, tools and processes better.

Step 4: Share Tools-The IT group will easily understand the tools you make because they probably know how to create one in the first place. Share them the tools you use and how it translates to results. You’ll never know how the IT department can help you further with this.

Step 5: Translate Jargon-Don’t talk to the IT group using SEO jargon. Rather, make sure you use words that are easier for them to understand. This will make the communication lines clearer.