Same is the irony with the homepage of your website. It is the window to your website’s content. It has to be spectacular as it can be a defining element, a fine line between the success and failure of your online business (website). With so much clutter present over the web, you need to be creative and create a homepage copy that compels the visitor to stay on your site and converts into a customer of the products or services that you are offering.

With shrinking attention spans, one has to do it all in a blink of an eye or be prepared to face the negative consequences. Time on site is the maker or the destroyer of the online business. And homepage is the front wheel of your online cart. You get it right and half the battle would be near to the victory. Here are the 5 elements that can strengthen this crucial wheel and run your website in the precarious online space.

1.     Visually appealing theme

The text, images or the videos play their part but their positioning has to be right. The overall designing of the homepage makes the visitor stay for long or compel him to leave it in a moment. Your homepage needs to be visitor friendly. The visitor should get contented while landing on your website’s homepage. It need not be very loud. The proverb “simplicity is the best policy” holds ground in the online business as well.

2.     Look at your competitor’s work

What’s the harm in it? You have nothing to lose and will only gain in the process. This is commonplace in every business, irrespective of the medium through which it operates. You take an idea as to what is making your competitor sail smoothly and then make your own personal advancements. Remember, it’s not always the unique idea. Facebook was not the first social networking site. There were plenty of them in the market. Mark Zuckerberg just added some fresh elements to the existing business of Social Media and made billions in no time.

3.     Scanning effect

As the attention time of the visitor is very small, your homepage should be like a scanner for the visitor. He should be able to go through the major highlights of your businessin a very short span of time. Use bulleted points, headers, sub-headers, bold and italics features to highlight the main components that the visitor would be looking for. An effective “call-to-action” can enhance your conversion rates.

4.     Nothing can beat loyalty, it’s inevitable

Irrespective of the time, place and type of business, loyalty will prevail. It has been the core element of any successful business since the beginning of time and will continue to be for the ages to come. What you promise on your homepage of your site, make sure you deliver the same. Loyalty lost is visitor lost and henceforth a loss of a potential customer. Don’t use fake claims like ‘cheapest’, ‘fastest’, et cetera. Simply offer what you can actually provide. This loyalty towards the visitor will fetch you more business than using fake claims. Don’t aim for the short term gains that will not take you through the tough times ahead. Be prepared for a long journey with integrity and trustworthiness in your kitties.

5.     Optimization is the ultimate charm

The pitch is ready, players are out, the game is about to begin, but there is no audience. Just imagine – a disaster. First and foremost, the people should be aware of the event only then a section of them goes ahead and buy the tickets. Same goes for your homepage. Get it Search Engine Optimized. At least let the prospective customers reach you. Thereafter it will be decided whether they are buying you or not. Don’t hesitate in spending some bucks on hiring professional SEOs and make your homepage link reach out to the online audience.

What’s the bottom line? Your homepage copy has to deliver on 3 major aspects – engaging, trustworthy and useful. A powerful homepage copy comprising of the above discussed elements can be the traffic generator for your entire website. Don’t just make efforts. Make efforts that will make your website a celebrity, a brand for the online customer that he/she will always look up to.

What is Google penguin update?

Penguin is the latest update put-forward by Google. The update was released by Google on 24^th April 2012. The update is meant at punishing and hammering those webmasters who were indulged in unfair link building practices.  Unfair link building practices include keyword stuffing, link exchanging, dis-proportionate use of money keywords, getting links from low quality and unrelated sites. As a whole we can say that anything that can let Google think that you are manipulating Google’s ranking algorithm, Penguin may hit your website.

Possible Factors that can Trigger Penguin

Though there are many hidden factors that Google use to determine if you are indulging in unfair link practices. However, here we are boiling down to some important and well-known factors that webmasters should avoid doing:

Dis-proportionate amount of Anchor texts: First and foremost thing that webmasters need to do is analyzing the Anchor text portfolio of the website.  If more than 60% of your anchor texts are from money keyword there is something to bother about.  It has been  seen that websites that had more that 60% of their links acquired through money making keywords they were hit hard by Google.

The best way to eliminate any possibility of being hit by penguin webmasters need to maintain a fair balance between branded keywords, money keywords and other general keywords. For example if you are in the arena of content writing then “content writing service” or content writing firm could be the most possible keyword that webmasters want to target however they want to take into consideration that if your anchor text distribution is in extremely inclined towards an end Google may deem it un-natural and you may be punished for this. Hence, other anchor texts like www.yourbrand.com, click here, bet content writing firm, affordable content writing service, buy contents are some of the keywords that we can target.

Percentage of links coming from the Related Niche: Gone are those days when link matter now after penguin it will be the site that will matter. If you have managed to get links from websites and blogs that were not at all related to your website there is a need to reconsider your strategy. As per Penguin update Google will look at the nature of the sites from where you’re getting links.  A fair mix of unrelated and related niche would be a better option to go for however,  webmasters need to consider that the percentage of links from authority and niche sites would be appreciated and applauded by Google.

Content Relevancy the main ranking factor:

Viewing all those updates and filters it has now become evident that content has emerged as one of the primary and important ranking signal. The statement holds true not only for your website only but it is also important for sites that you are getting link from.

Hence as a conclusion we can say that search engine optimization has become more challenging and demanding than ever. All those previous techniques of link building like bulk bookmarking, forum posting, link exchanging are not going to work anymore and content-oriented Seo is something that search engines are looking for. So, the best way to pass Google Penguin update is to create unique, informative and appealing content that could value to your users and not the search engines.

Let’s Get Down to Basics

Blogs are websites where articles, commentaries, images, videos, etc. may be posted.  A common feature of this type of site is that it allows visitors to add content, although these can be moderated by the blog administrator.

Being a website, a blog thrives on “hits”, and without people visiting the site, it is likely to be relegated to “internet oblivion”.  So before one thinks of increasing blog subscription, the issue of having a sufficient number of visitors should be dealt with first.  For this reason, the importance of SEO should not be undermined.

Those who already have a popular website may attach their blog to this and take advantage of the existing site’s popularity.  This approach has been known to quickly improve page rank and blog traffic.  However, a credibility issue may ensue, since the association may be construed as bias.

The bottom line is that some form of SEO will have to be implemented for your blog to stand out and generate the desired traffic.

Now That You Have Them, How Do You Keep Them?

Especially when it comes to corporate and organizational blogs, it is not enough that the desired number of “hits” is obtained.  There has to be a way of retaining these visitors so that they will continue patronizing your site, and this is where subscription comes in.  In the process you will have to promote your site so that visitors will realize its value and subscribe.  And these are some of the things that can be done:

1. The visitor should be made aware that subscription is an option, and a desirable alternative at that.  There has to be an invitation to subscribe that is properly worded and effectively placed within the site.  Oftentimes, it is necessary to spell out the benefits of subscribing, and you may even go to the extent of offering a freebie.  Remember, you are promoting the blog.
2. Consistently produce quality content.  This is an effective SEO technique and one good way of increasing blog subscription.  After all, why bother with a blog that contains mostly trash in the first place?  And make sure that the issues remain relevant.
3. Incorporate a feature box.  This is known to improve subscription rate significantly.  However, some technical know-how is required since codes are involved.  If you do not have the necessary skills, you will have to invest and outsource the task.  But if you are after a significant increase in subscription, this is money well spent.
4. Keep the atmosphere friendly.  Imposing your thoughts is a surefire way of losing visitors.  Blogs are popular because of the two-way communication it provides, and not so much as to its propaganda value.

Needless to say, a blog is a potent marketing and communication tool provided it is properly executed and maintained.  And one way of improving its effectiveness is through subscription.

Janine Fields is a professional photographer, who is presently maintaining a personal photo blog and a business blog for her studio.  She sees blogging as an effective way of sharing her work as well as promoting her business.

The problem is that people and companies are so interested in getting their website and content to the top of a search engines results that they forget the fundamentals.  They are so busy making sure that keywords are in place and their preferred search phrases are primed in their website that they forget to engage the reader.  The headline is what makes the viewer read the website.  It is what makes a viewer click the link.  If the headlines do not engage the relevant readers, then it doesn’t matter where your web content is ranked.

Repetition……again

The curse of SEO optimized web content is that it is giving birth to a hate among website user.  How sick are you of reading the same thing three times.  Where a search engine optimized page has simply stuck the needed keywords into a sentence and then “spun” it to say the same thing again in a different way.  Here is an example, where clearly the writer has had to fit in the keywords, “cheap hotels”, “discount hotel” and “cheaper hotels”.

“ Find cheap hotels on our page now.  We have the cheaper hotels online and waiting.  Our discount hotels are cheaper than any other site.  If you are looking for cheap hotels then look no more.” Ha ha ha  what a dilemma

That paragraph could have just said, “Our website advertises cheap hotels”, but because it has been SEO optimized to the hilt, that first paragraph on the website is just a waste.  A complete waste of a reader’s time and attention, and so many people are getting so sick of it that they will just click off the site, because they assume (rightly) that the rest of the site is full of the same filler.

Bad grammar, broken English and bad sentence syntax

Commercial SEO writing is being bought cheaply.  Articles, web content and blogs (and loads more by the way) are being outsourced to companies whom are charging very little but giving back poor quality.  People are buying web content and articles for as little as $1 per 500 words.  The content will have the keywords in, but the only people who can afford to live on $1 per 500 words are in developing countries where English is not their first language.  Their content quality, language and grammar skills are unlikely to be as good as a native person’s skills.  They are also less likely to be well educated; as well educated people would charge more.  This means that web copy is optimized but stuffed full of poor sentence structure, bad grammar and broken English.  The content is often of a poorer quality and less likely to be read in full by the viewer.

Link spamming

Back links are good, but too many back links and the search engine will start to exclude and rank lower.  This is thanks to the changes that are making link farms (pages set up just to create links to others) obsolete.  Creating too many links to other websites is also starting to work against websites, as it is regarded as spending more time on links than content, and is hence getting pages ranked lower.

Duplicate content

There is a temptation to duplicate yours or other peoples content when it comes to make a web copy more search engine optimised.  The big search engines are penalizing sites for this, and it will actually work against a site.  Original and frequently updated websites are better ranked.

This is all distilled into one mantra – good copy sells!

Headlines that don’t sell 

The problem is that people and companies are so interested in getting their website and content to the top of a search engines results that they forget the fundamentals.  They are so busy making sure that keywords are in place and their preferred search phrases are primed in their website that they forget to engage the reader.  The headline is what makes the viewer read the website.  It is what makes a viewer click the link.  If the headlines do not engage the relevant readers, then it doesn’t matter where your web content is ranked. 

Repetition……again 

The curse of SEO optimized web content is that it is giving birth to a hate among website user.  How sick are you of reading the same thing three times.  Where a search engine optimized page has simply stuck the needed keywords into a sentence and then “spun” it to say the same thing again in a different way.  Here is an example, where clearly the writer has had to fit in the keywords, “cheap hotels”, “discount hotel” and “cheaper hotels”. 

           “ Find cheap hotels on our page now.  We have the cheaper hotels online and waiting.  Our discount hotels are cheaper than any other site.  If you are looking for cheap hotels then look no more.” Ha ha ha  what a dilemma

That paragraph could have just said, “Our website advertises cheap hotels”, but because it has been SEO optimized to the hilt, that first paragraph on the website is just a waste.  A complete waste of a reader’s time and attention, and so many people are getting so sick of it that they will just click off the site, because they assume (rightly) that the rest of the site is full of the same filler. 

Bad grammar, broken English and bad sentence syntax 

Commercial SEO writing is being bought cheaply.  Articles, web content and blogs (and loads more by the way) are being outsourced to companies whom are charging very little but giving back poor quality.  People are buying web content and articles for as little as $1 per 500 words.  The content will have the keywords in, but the only people who can afford to live on $1 per 500 words are in developing countries where English is not their first language.  Their content quality, language and grammar skills are unlikely to be as good as a native person’s skills.  They are also less likely to be well educated; as well educated people would charge more.  This means that web copy is optimized but stuffed full of poor sentence structure, bad grammar and broken English.  The content is often of a poorer quality and less likely to be read in full by the viewer. 

Link spamming 

Back links are good, but too many back links and the search engine will start to exclude and rank lower.  This is thanks to the changes that are making link farms (pages set up just to create links to others) obsolete.  Creating too many links to other websites is also starting to work against websites, as it is regarded as spending more time on links than content, and is hence getting pages ranked lower. 

Duplicate content 

There is a temptation to duplicate yours or other peoples content when it comes to make a web copy more search engine optimised.  The big search engines are penalizing sites for this, and it will actually work against a site.  Original and frequently updated websites are better ranked. 

This is all distilled into one mantra – good copy sells!

Let’s first get a simple definition of both, so that we can clearly mark out the difference between them:

Plagiarism, broadly, is taking the work of somebody else, in some sphere, and trying to pass it off as one’s own. That is, misleading others so as to convince them that the work in question is from yourself rather than its originator. This covers taking an original work, and, even as altering its specific words and phrases, preserving its gist such as to express the idea as one’s own.

Copyright Infringement, on the other hand, is using the work of somebody else – be it a group of words, a phrase, or a whole passage – in a context that one isn’t authorised to use it in, for example, making somebody else’s music available online for free without having permission to do so. Copyright (and its relevant law(s)) does not cover the idea, but the expression of a given idea; i.e. its form.

As mentioned, the two often go hand-in-hand, because in plagiarising something with commercial ends in mind (or merely plagiarising whilst preserving the original work), one is also often committing copyright infringement. Conversely, they are separate things, as with the case of illegal file sharing, whereby the sharer does not purport to be the creator of the work (indeed, they wish to express that this is the work of X artist) – and so copyright infringement has been committed, but no plagiarism. Plagiarism can also be committed, for example by passing off the content/work of an academic paper (which isn’t usually subject to copyright) as one’s own when one did not produce it.

Copyright also differs slightly in its categorisations from country to country, whereas plagiarism is generally recognised as referring to the same thing worldwide. In the UK, copyright is an automatic right. When somebody produces a written, drawn or photographic piece of work, they automatically have copyright over it. This means, in practise, that they are protected from this work from being reproduced (in any context) without their permission (this act being known as ‘Copyright Infringement’), and furthermore, are free to exploit this work for their own profit. This is the right of the originator.

Material protected by Copyright is automatically afforded this status upon creation. Although many people are keen to use a Copyright symbol: ©, this is not necessary and does not alter the rights in any way. If one does not possess the Copyright to a given work, they are not free to reproduce it in any form without express permission from the Copyright holder – doing this is Copyright Infringement.

It should be noted that some works being used without permission do not result in Copyright Infringement. “Creative Commons” material is that which the author has allowed to be shared, free of charge (but with a reference to the originator). Using this without permission is fine, but using this without a citation is still plagiarism.