Why are bounce-rates never a perfect Indicator for your website's health

Bounce rate comes under the purview of gateway metrics. Also your bounce rate may not be the perfect indication of the health of your website. 

Traditionally it is incurred that, a visitor who leaves your website has done nothing or learnt nothing from the page and hence your troubles were worth nothing.

"Modern theory dictates that it is possible that the user/visitor got what he/she wanted from the search and happily closed the tab." 

Like for example, you as a visitor visited the page on codemakit.com to know more about bounce rate. Your curiosity or question was fulfilled properly and you will happily move on to another topic like bounce rate calculation or Is your bounce rate normal? and 4 sureshot ways of improving them.

The Reasons

One possibility which cannot be ignored is that the website converted the user’s action but it was not registered by the analytics. 

Another reason why bounce rate does not truly measure your site’s performance is because it fails to address the situation of unloaded page. Suppose your website came up in Google search results for a particular keyword. The visitor clicked on the link and landed on your page, but as luck would have it, the page didn't load (due to n number of conditions including your bandwidth) now the user waits and waits until he/she finally gives up (Find out how to find your page load time and reduce it) so the tab is cancelled (or back is pressed in the browser) and the user goes back to the search engine to find out another alternative. Now in this situation your bounce rate is calculated as the server request which was given but data was not sent in the required time so it will be counted as a bounce. Search engine watch came up with some 20 odd points to reduce bounces .

Similarly another reason is that bounce rate is domain dependent, if your user goes from your domain to another, even if it’s yours, it will be counted as a bounce. For example, you created a spending article and a user lands on it. The visitor reads it with avid interest and finds two more articles of his interest. In enthusiasm he/she decides that your Facebook page is worth liking, so he clicks on the small Facebook logo displayed your site and leaves your page to land on your Facebook page. Theoretically it was a converted action which will be of an advantage to you. But technically it is a bounce and would be calculated as such.

Just in conjunction to the above point one must know that there are several types of codes which if executed would be counted as a bounce. Examples are watching an embedded video from YouTube, or clicking the Facebook page through the activity widget. If you find your bounce rate is exceptionally low and you think it is a mistake, then you must understand that bounce rate might also be low due to the type of your website. Read all about the different bounce rates for different websites like ecommerce, retail, blog, news, podcasts and many more.

One of the mails that I received during last summer asked me a question that left me thoroughly puzzled. The dude had a website to sell Flower Vases. Which had beautiful pictures of flower vases, If the user liked it, he can buy online. The website went public just 3 months ago and he reported that he was now getting about 50 to 60 page views per day and 2-3 sales in a week, but had some serious problems with Google analytics. Now he reported that average page view time neared to less than a second and bounce rate was nearing 97%. Obviously the figures show the really bad shape of his website. But what surprised me even more was that the website was perfectly fine. The design was awesome and functionally also it looked great. So what was the problem? Both of us were perplexed until I found out the article by Kevin Spence. Kevin argues that there are two possible explanations, either the viewer has the reflexes of a cheetah or it is something related to bounce rate.

How it Works?

He explains that time on site measurements work in two phases, 

First is when the visitor enters the site and is logged. Then the visitor moves through the pages to find something he/she likes (This is also logged). 

According to Kevin, the time spent by the user on a website is calculated as the difference of current time during current page view and the time stamp from the previous page view. Now one thing is for sure, when you do this for the first page user lands on, the time calculated would be zero.

In simple words, when you have not visited a previous page of a website and are leaving the page just a after viewing the first page of the website, the time spent on the website would be calculated as zero. In my flower vase friend mentioned above, had a serious flaw which is present in every online sale website. There is a list of products right on the first page itself. If the user wants to know more, he just has to scroll down and the items would load accordingly, In this case if the user does not like the contents during few scrolls, she would just leave. This would be counted as a bounce even if she spent an hour of her life watching the beautiful vases trying to make up her mind for a purchase. It is here that we found that bounce rate is a figure not to be relied upon. Just as Kevin says, "accept bounce rate as a fact of life."

Inspite of these, bounce rate is gaining popularity worldwide because of the ability to correlate the bounce rate with other metrics like conversion rate. But codemakit’s verdict, bounce rate to be used singularly without correlation is a great waste of time because the technology for measuring it is still in an infant stage.

But still if you’re hell bent on finding out your website’s true bounce rate, have a look at search engine watch’s lengthy article on true bounce rate

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What are Disavow Links and How do I use them?

It is a well-known fact that the quality of a site is judged by the content and the links. Content is controlled by the website owner, but what would you do when you find out that your website is getting visitors from questionable which cause aspersions on the web owners and the website itself. 

How does that happen, you ask? The story goes like this. An anonymous friend of mine used to run a civil engineering blog of his. The blog had everything from structural to transportation to geological engineering articles. All of them were painfully collected by him over the years. 

True Story

As any popular growing website, he too had a number of competitors. But, this one was different. Once during a hot summer day, he witnessed a substantial increase in the number of visitors to his website; on closer inspection he found his average bounce rate increase from 45 to 94 in just three days. Baffled, he tried to find the source of this traffic. He found that the traffic came from a very popular adult video community. When out of curiosity he visited the website, he found that links to his website was displayed in a misleading way. Some erotic photos were linked, pointing towards his website.

Obviously people looking for photos like that, landed on his website but left immediately when they found that it was another one of those dirty tricks that webmasters play to lure traffic towards their website. As a result people stayed on the website for a second or two and left, thereby increasing the bounce rate to such epic proportions. In short, this was an evil scheme hatched by his competitor who had started a similar web blog a few years back. It was speculated that the owner of the adult video/photo community was owned by a friend of his. The events happened 3 years ago and at that time it was difficult to force anyone to take down some content. Had Disavow been there at that time, things would have been much easier. 

The Solution

The page simply states, that if you believe your page is deliberately linked to websites that you do not want to be associated with, you can use this utility by Google. Finally it also goes on to summarize that simply disavowing is not enough, you should take every measure possible to prevent such links.

Had disavow been there for my friend at that time, He would have added the misleading domain in his disavow list and even though users would still come to his website searching for some sensual content, His rank would be protected and he would not be penalized by search engines for getting a back-link from a website containing irrelevant content than his (Read More about Google’s Quality content Guidelines and Blogger's Content Policy)

Google’s Support page clearly states, that it works very hard to ensure that other websites do not affect your website. If you really need to disavow such links, Remember two steps.

First: Try to remove or have it removed all the Spam comments and irrelevant or inappropriate links which can harm your website (See also Tips on comment Moderation). Of-course Google is here to help you, Use its specialized search techniques (Discussed Previously) to your advantage. For Google You should know about its quality guidelines. This can be done by asking the website owner to remove the link through an email, or by filing a complaint with the owner.

Second: Now you should start disavowing links. But mind you! Google’s word of caution says it crystal clear. 

“If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results.”

Disavow backlinks

This is a two-step process. First, you’ll need to download a list of links to your site. Next, you’ll create a file containing only the links you want to disavow, and upload this to Google.

Note: When looking at the links to your site in Webmaster Tools, you may want to verify both the www and the non-vww version of your domain in your Webmaster Tools account. To Google, these are entirely different sites. Take a look at the data for both sites. 

More information can be found at 

Answers to questions which might be common to yours at, Google's Support Pages

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog where it discusses the launch of disavow.
Matt Cutts also Discusses Disavow in the Video Below.

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Why does Wikipedia pages come on the top in Google Search Results

One of the questions posed by many SEO enthusiasts is why does Wikipedia always comes on top of a Google search.

Wikipedia is the one website which is said to help youngsters in their reports, elders in their projects and the savvies to satisfy their cravings. But what makes Google tick? How does a simple content based website soar to a PageRank 8 giant with more than 6 million external links? 

Why does wiki scores when it comes to Google. Another meaningful question comes up, Can Wikipedia sustain its position among the top corporations who play by the money?

A really powerful yet meaningful statement was once made by Jimmy or "Jimbo" Wales the co-founder of Wikipedia on its creation, "The core of Wikipedia is something people really believe in. That is too valuable for the world to screw it up.". So lets hear all about the myths and truths about the web giant which floats on donations...

The Myths

Many answers were found in answers.com and yahoo answers along with several forums to start with. Though the answers surely deserve a face-palm but one must know what the people think too.

Pay me some

So some not so knowledgeable say that Wikipedia pays money to Google to put it on the top. Let me remind you that in my own 7 year journey, I've never  seen a single premium ad for Wikipedia  Let us assume for the sake of it, that it is true if you talk about premium ads, but Wikipedia runs on charity. With no other means of getting money (adverts included), the website cannot even think of premium listings.

Ol Reciprocal way

Some have even discussed the possibility of reciprocal links shared between Google and wiki. Which seems thoroughly far-fetched as google itself seems to be against reciprocal links. But can it be true? Of course not! The pages at Wikipedia are always written, moderated and maintained by general public.

Business hotshots

Some forums suggested big-shots pay Wikipedia to generate articles on their business which is finally paid to get links. This again leads to a fallacy because they just have 400 servers and 95 to 100 people in staff. In short the number 5 site serves 454 million different people every month – with billions and billions of page views. Even after all this, the web giant is merely holding its ends together let alone buy links to get on the top. Haven't you seen the donation requests by its founders? People can still donate at the keep wiki free campaign.

The Truths

Among the illogical and flawed reasons explained by the seemingly less knowledgeable webmaster community, people seem to forget the reason which lies right in-front of them, proper and legal search engine optimization techniques. The following are the techniques and methodologies adopted by the Wikimedia community which automatically leads Wikipedia right up to the doorways of great SERPs.

Profound content system

This is the one thing that slaps in the face of every two cent critic who says ‘pages at wiki are basically a collection of copied statements from various websites’. It is quite evident from the studies that content on the pages at wiki are never copied, instead just the idea and the logic is represented in a more tasteful and detailed manner. To find more about ways Wikipedia can copy, take a look at the list at SEOmoz.

In short the system of User Generated Content can be very well seen in its true form. It is however increasingly evident that its all the other way-round  People actually copy the complete text from wiki to impress superiors with their report. There are cases when people try to prevent others from copying from their website (There are methods however to get around it). But never has anybody seen Wikipedia done something so far.

Update Frequency

It is a very known fact that search bots for different search engines visit websites according to the frequency of updation. In short more a page is updated the more will it be visited by Google search bots to keep the Google directory updated. The system was very well explained in previous articles. The following are the revision history for two separate pages present in Wikipedia.

The same methodology of updation is followed by several webmasters to make sure that their blog/website stays up all the time. The philosopy of updation is followed even in the backrooms of codemakit.com. After writing quality content this is next big thing a website must do.

Detailed and deep linking

When a search engine bot finds out a hyperlink, The bot visits the page its linked to. This is noted in the directory. If the said page again contains a link which has not been yet been included in the directory, required steps are taken. Wikipedia's attempt at helping search engines refresh their directories is often rewarded with higher SERPs. 

Psychology

Wiki pages are often regarded as ones that affect the psychology of the users by brainwashing them with huge information and innumerable hyperlinks. This finally leads the users to believe that every thing that exists on a wiki page is ‘Sanatan’ Truth, which is one of the reasons why Wikipedia pages are the ones that are always cited in reports and briefs. This repercussion however gives rise to another good thing, the users in lieu of their belief spend higher time on the page than any other website. 

The psychological technique however is arguably the side effect of its profound content and moderation systems mixed with an inherent need for betterment and detail by the moderators and contributors. There are several other psychological methods which can help webmasters pull the user’s focus. It is discussed in detail at a previous article on the Psychology of SEO.

Keyword and domain Authority

One of the main reasons for higher SERPs for different terms is because of its keyword and domain authority.

Lets not pull facts out of thin air and see some example for domain authority.

The following page for SEO (website)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

It is pretty clear that wiki has won the round for domain as well as keyword authority. Not many pages would have such clear cut separations for different terms.

Exceptional linking system

According to Majestic SEO, the Wikipedia domain has about 50,713 referring domains and an impressive 6,611,255 external back-links. Two very important link based terms come under purview. These terms are in use by Majestic SEO to determine the authority and importance of the said website. 

Citation flow which is the number of citations to a particular URL or domain stands at 70 which certainly speak for itself. The trust flow which is the number of clicks from a set of trusted websites.

Brilliant use of NoFollow

Wiki has one side which is untouched and unseen by many. Let us look at the selfish side of Wikipedia and the people behind it. Here are some of the examples.

HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/HUBBLE_SPACE_TELESCOPE

Total Links: 1732

Internal Links: 1545

Out-Going Links: 187

No-Follows: 188

HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/GODDARD_SPACE_FLIGHT_CENTER

Total Links: 445

Internal Links: 407

Out-Going Links: 38

No-Follows: 38

HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/TROPICAL_SAVANNA_CLIMATE

Total Links: 167

Internal Links: 165

Out-Going Links: 2

No-Follows: 1

The above are 3 different cases of tree different Wikipedia pages. As is quite evident from the above, nearly every outgoing link is a NoFollow.

“Wiki has been famous for using and throwing links, I was on the top of the world when I saw a link towards my website from Wikipedia  The disheartening news came to me afterwards when I found out that it was peppered with a  NoFollow link.” says a frustrated anonymous webmaster.

The above cases have been observed in many occasions. Here the editing and the references are given in such a way that the link juice does not flow off. This methodology has been used by webmasters over the decades to improve the pagerank. The same Nofollow has been used by bloggers in their blog comments to take care of comment spammers. However, for Wikipedia even if the editing is done honestly, then the moderators or proofreaders will convert the innocent looking link into a NoFollow. Such usage opens up possibilities of users going directly to the website from wiki itself, but limits the possibility of the website getting higher links because of an increase in the PageRank or domain authority. In short the excellent use of NoFollow wherever required helps wiki to float above others in the rat race.

Back-links in Overwhelming numbers

Here another usage of the psychological technique comes into play. Webmasters and enthusiasts keep on quoting Wikipedia for different subjects in the process of making the article more and more authentic. Its their way of saying "See! didn't I tell ya! its on Wikipedia too, go check it out." Now multiply this attitude to the millions of bloggers and webmasters and you'll get a jaw dropping number. \

According to data from Majestic SEO from checkpagerank, Wikipedia has 862,698,514 External Back-links, 2,749,595 Referring Domains, 2,144,395 Back-links from educational websites and 314,508 Back-links from government websites out of which, acquiring later two in such numbers is a feat in itself.

Therefore authenticating the statement from my friend Samuel Johnson, who used to say "Next time you feel like pointing finger at the content giant; try matching their numbers and then we'll talk."

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Enslave and Control Search Engines to your wishes

Find out answers to some of the most pressing questions in the mind of all webmasters, like How do you know if your site has just been crawled? or What do you do to keep your site regularly crawled or How to force search engines to crawl your website more often?

Imagine a situation where you do not need to fret in the morning worrying about how your articles fared among the visitors, the search engines treat your website with respect and honor. Wonder how it would feel like. Now imagine another aggressive situation where all the search engines are in your pocket and because of it, the visitors worship your website.

The only way this is going to happen is when your learn how the search engines function. For example, when you know how your car functions, you can always modify it to run faster. SO when you understand how the search engines function you can always modify your site to function better and give better returns.

How do you know if your site has just been crawled? 

There are certain indications to remind you that your site has just been crawled. But the most definitive indication is a sharp increase in the visitor statistics as shown in the graph(from an actual blog). Though your case might not be as aggressive as given here, but you get the point. You must find out this particular peak in your case and find out the frequency. Now time your articles accordingly to get maximum viewership. To change the frequency of crawling, you must have to change the frequency of posting on your blog or the frequency of updation of your website. A previous article explains pretty clearly how you can create a perfect schedule for your blog posts and in a week and also when should you post/update in a day to get the maximum visitors.

What do you do to keep your site crawled regularly? 

The only answer to this question is by updating your website regularly. Post more frequently and you’ll get your site crawled frequently. But you must remember, as omnipresent and omnipotent Google appears to be, Not all pages appear in a Google search results. To phrase it properly, not all pages are indexed in Google’s records. The reasons vary much but you can appeal against Google’s decision by submitting it manually through your Google webmaster account. The only limitation is that you can submit only 500 links through your webmaster account. The above was to have your webpage crawled, but what should you do to save your webpage from being crawled? The answer is a robots.txt file. Since the Google-bots are automated, a robots.txt file is checked first before a bot enters the site for the crawling process. So through a directive in your file you can prevent the Google-bots from entering in the particular webpage thus avoiding any crawl process. 

How to force Google to crawl your website more frequently?

• One of the ways is with the use of internal and external links. Those are also to be used in two different methods, by harboring links or by hosted links on external websites. Internal links on your websites will provide incentives to search engines to crawl the website more frequently so as to index more links. However for the case of frequency of crawling, more preferable than internal links are external links. Google values external links because it considers it (External links) as a source of new links increasing the overall directory strength of the web giant. It also considers external links as another method of value addition to the hyperlinks.
• Another higher priority method is by hosting your link on some other website. When a link of your website is found on another website Google values it as a recommendation for your website to be crawled further. Your link status can be very well found out using your Google websmaster tools. Some web experts claim that your website server must also be fast. For those of you who have hosted their own website on your own hardware, it is better to upgrade and render your site fast enough.
• Another method is sitemaps, A Site-Map is basically a way of telling the search engines how you want your website to be crawled. Personally, I’ve had some bitter experiences with site maps and my views are shared with several others. I would not recommend using site-maps even though it can be called as a possible solution to the web crawl scenario.

Last but not the least, the only sure-shot way of ensuring frequent visits by Google is by frequent updation of your content.

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Potato Blogger and Lazy Blogger Syndrome

Potato and Lazy Blogger syndrome are urban blogger conditions very commonly discussed yet very difficult to diagnose. The symptoms are evasive and so are the solutions. So, how do you know if you’re a potato blogger? There are several theories stating the obvious but first you must understand the premise. The widely accepted definition of a potato blogger is hereby presented: 

A potato blogger is one who presents copied or banal content taken from other websites and presenting in his own words.

And as you may have guessed, there is a slight difference between a potato blogger and a Lazy blogger.

Lazy blogger	Potato Blogger
The blogger is uninterested in the whole blogging scenario, He finds the task of managing the Blog tedious and unworthy of his time	A potato blogger is never uninterested in the management of his blog; He is just uninterested in the generation of new ideas.
Does not post the articles regularly and If posts at all, deteriorated articles are often encountered.	Tries to post as regularly as he can. Even if that means a deteriorated article.
Does not reply to the comments or moderate them(removal of spam comments) and does not experiment.	Replies to the comments with full enthusiasm and vigor. Also moderates the comments with equal force and experiments.
Lack of research in the articles.	Lack of sufficient research
No engagement in social media	Enthusiastic social media intereaction
Blog may die after some days	Blog will struggle for some days
The source of blog visitors will diminish	No change in the blog visitor source

Lets Get you out of this mess.

People find that goal setting is one of the things that stops you from falling in the endless vicous spiral. One technique which has received nice reviews is the Pomodoro Technique. It is a method of time management developed by Francesco Cirillo, the technique consists of dividing the complete work in intervals of 25 minutes each. The Five steps as outlined in wikipidea are

1. Fix on the goal/task at hand
2. Set a timer on 25 minutes
3. Start the work
4. Stop when the timer rings
5. Take a break before starting the cycle again

Often people are bogged down with the quantum of work. They are so mismanaged in their own ways that they forget their own style and adopt time saving but treacherous ways to solve their problems. It can be either way round too, some people are perfectionists. When the person finds that the work at hand needs to much attention, he first forestalls and then abandons the task altogether.

So what to do to get you back on the track?

Ready set, Go!

Try the pomodoro technique but this time set the time limit to 10minutes only. Force yourself into the action and even if you repeat just three cycles of pomodoro with what you do not like, you will make considerable progress. For Example, You do not feel like researching then writing for a topic. Do one thing, sit for 10 minutes, and for the first cycle, spend the time researching on the topic in question, then take a break. In the next cycle take down the research, assimilate the points and start writing, even if you don’t feel like it, even if you feel like you’re gonna retch right now. But, if you love your creation and do not want to see it die, you will have to bear the pain.

Kill all the Distracting Elements

Is your room alignment or the furniture orientation distracting you? Or are you distracted by the sounds of blaring horns coming from your window? Or is it your own housemates? Think about it, remove the distractions, keep something that will help you soothe your mind and help your concentrate. Switch off your television, remove the headphones and start blogging. You will feel how it clears your mind.

Where’s the Motivation?

Bloggers often find it difficult to keep them motivated during times of depression. This is because at such times, the blogger does not spend nice amount of time to his blog, the blog suffers and certain dreadful things happen, that too all at once. First your visitor count will drop, then your bounce rate will increase, then comes the number of unique visitors and then at last the image of the blog. All these things together force the blogger to go into a vicious spiral which he cannot escape. In these times a blogger must find inspiration as well as motivation. Look at other blogs, see how the’re doing. Find out the PageRanks of your competitors. Find out their style, read your comments be motivated, love your creation once again.

What are you among the two?

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4 Sureshot Ways of Improving your Bounce Rate

First of all, what is bounce? In the language of web development, bounce refers to a situation when a visitor comes or lands on your webpage reads/glances at your content, closes the webpage and supposedly moves over to another webpage. 

Now let me tell you, you sincerely do not want people bouncing off your website. This would refute all your plans of making money through ads; Worse, the posts you've written before will go to vain because your potential high valued visitor has flown away and so all the toiling you've done in inserting internal links in your page will go to vain.

Stay Stay Stay,

One of the best ways of improving bounce rate of any blog is by increasing the amount of time a visitor stays on the webpage. When the visitor stays longer he has the incentive to look at the links laid out by the developer and not close the tab and look for something else. Visit blogs and learn how to keep your visitors longer at your website.

Links anyone?

In the previous Para we saw how visitors can be hooked to the site by using internal links. But what are the ways by which you can show internal links on your blogs?

1. Blogger blogs usually have a popular posts widget in them, which is something you can use to your advantage. Wordpress blogs have awesome plugins which can also be utilized.
2. It would help your visitors to know what you’ve actually done during the previous months. So, some bloggers even include an archive section which might contain links month wise or year wise.
3. Labels do help your visitors to look for similar content written by the author on the subject. Another attraction for the visitors to gain knowledge and the webmaster to gain loyalty.
4. Not all articles are one pagers some have to be written in series, like for an example take a look at the following series by codemakit. Good news for Wordpress users, there is an article series plugin for the same.

The good old content

Content is the king, nearly every blogger would agree. Codemakit has talked a lot about useful content and content writing tips, so that would not be discussed here. But since the point is worth noting, so it is here.

Keywords man!!!

Whenever a visitor see your website on the Google search engine listings for a particular search item, he clicks on your link and enters with the hopes that you’re giving what he needs. But, if you have not reviewed your keywords, then your website is plunging in the doom, no matter what you do. When a visitor fails to achieve his quest from your website, he is bound to leave.

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5 types of About Us pages for Web Developers

Presenting thorough analysis on the five main types of About us/me pages for web design blogs. 

The following are the different types – 'The Large company type’, ‘The funny man type’, ‘Veterans’, ‘Minimalists’ and the ‘Timeliners’. Read and find out which category you fall in.

The websites given as example in the article are properly linked with their respective about pages. You are free to visit for a better experience.

The Large Web Company type

A classic example of a large web company is sitepronews or webpronews or even web design ledger (WDL). These websites’ ‘about page’ blares out loud, “You can try and ignore me, but I am WAY TOO big to be ignored.” The webpage starts with an ‘ignore-us’ type paragraph sans any links or large font headings, but then comes the blacksuit-sunglasses type language about the organization and its incorporation. All of this in a typical office like background in addition to a hefty contact information. But again there are exceptions of course, some of the companies do have a story to share, a tale to tell that too in a person to person language, don’t believe me, take a look at the ‘A list apart’ about page or sitepoint(close enough).

The Funny-man Type

You can even try the style adopted by coding horror, the ‘about page’ is written in simple first person peppered with small gimmicks using strike outs in some places. Needless to say it helps the visitor stick to the page and read it to the end. After the usual introduction with me and myself, the article takes the shape of a timeline about the author.

Though the about page must end here but, the page goes on and becomes a question and answer session.  The author, Jeff Atwood then explains why he chose to blog, how he does blog and why does he give such weird names to his creations. As a whole the, complete page is beautified with photos and images of website and logos and of course a smart photo of the author. He did not forget the ‘contact us’ phrase and has disabled the comments section.

Do not be misled by the term funny. Funny in this context might not always mean something hilarious, but something which touches your heart and makes an emotional connection with the author. An example is smileycat.com,

The Veteran Type

This type of ‘About Page’ always works well with veterans, who have been in the business for quite some time before (take Amit Agrawal for example). They have many-a-times touched the levels of greatness. The page starts with a life-sized picture of the veteran blogger probably pictured with a professional photographer. Then the text starts with the qualifications of the blogger, where he’s from and what he did before blogging.

To pull the audience in the loyalty circle, this page brags (in a positive way) about the achievements of the author. The works or projects undertaken by the author (like some website tools programmed by the author) which will help the reader to develop a connection, so that a moment comes when the user thinks (Oh so he’s the creator of the tool, he’s so awesome). Obviously the last part will contain contact information along with a small social media widgets like Facebook like box or twitter feed. You might use some vector social media icons so that when the visitor clicks on it, he is taken to the author’s social media presence.

Some veterans also use a YouTube video on themselves. Which is no biggie for them as they’re the holy grail of their field but it can be used as a tool to inspire the amateur bloggers to either like the page’s Facebook page or twitter feeds or even better, subscribe to the blog’s feed itself.

Minimalists

Some about pages are minimalist, like take shailan’s for an example, the guy is an expert in wordpress plugins but the about page is nothing like its usual blog post. The page, prepped with links is simple and just informs the visitors about what it does before ending with a ‘contact me’ phrase. Taking henry’s example, though he has taken a lot of space on the about page with his oversized fonts and beautiful pictures of his creations, but still hasn’t given a lot of information about himself. Though there is a link to his complete portfolio in the about page but you do not expect the user to scroll up and down in frenzy looking for his portfolio. Another example is ‘tutorial Blog’.

The Timeliners or The Timeline lovers

There are some people who love history, who love answering questions like how did this start? How did this come to life? They have been in the game for long but they’re not veterans. They rely on a timeline divided by years, months etc. to pronounce their achievements and milestones in their or their creation’s life. They’re the bubbly archivers who want to impress the readers by the sheer presence and many a times they succeed. For an example, you might want to take a look at chriscoyier’s about page. A  very good idea, if you decide to go for it, would be to create a javascript based timeline which opens up in front of the user while hovering on it (use your imagination!!!). Another very unique type of about page is of 37signals. The website contains a mixture of timeliners and the funnyman type. It is a fun to read.

Can you find some type other than the given

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The SEO and Content Guide, Free Ebook

The copy of SEO and Content Guide, consists of 7 different topics, 

The pdf is a 16 page report on Search Engine Optimization and Content improvement Techniques. 

A complete technical narrative on the Basics of SEO in addition to new and time tested ways to perfect your content. It is filled with ways on how to improve your keywords, keyword phrases, RSS feeds, internal and External links, Upgradation of your pages etc. The eBook is by Mohit Jain, Read more about him.

You just need to fill in the following form and you'll be good to go. A link to the pdf will be available to you once you submit the form.

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What comes after writing Quality content?

It is indispensable to write content that is brief and dense.  As is always said, a good quality content is like buying a car, if you've done your research, you’ll reap its benefits for years to come. 

But one question must have been bugging the minds of people who already have shining medals of honor on their websites, with contents filled with keywords and densely packed information. What do you do now? 

The obvious answer is keep on writing great content and you’ll be rewarded with visitors, But I beg to differ; what if there is still something remaining? What if I tell you, this is not the last stop or even better, there is no last stop?

Guest blogging

After writing many articles on a subject, a time comes when you become an authority on the subject, Now it is time to help other bloggers. There are websites like, sitepronews.com or webpronews.com, who allow bloggers and enthusiasts to write articles for them. The bloggers are then rewarded by a link back from such respected and highly venerable websites. This helps you a lot if you need fast growth.

Modifying and adding Keywords

When writing posts, bloggers often face situation known as writer’s block and they limit their writings, as a result keywords do not come to mind and certain well deserved keywords slip out. When reviewing the article again, you view it from second person’s eye and you find the keywords and the labels you’re missing.

Update your previous Articles

Yes, there is no last stop for webmasters who want quality content. The definition of quality content itself means content which contains quality. An article might be outdated after a few months and an outdated article is not quality content. It is just a mixture of words and cleverly placed sentences which had value in the past but is now just a history. So the main idea here is that you should never stop updating. I would quote a very famous saying we had in our institute, ‘When you stop growing, you start dying’. Unless you start updating your previous articles, they will always face danger of being marked outdated. What do you mean by updating? Here is a list:

1. Correcting grammatical errors you might have created in your starting phases.
2. Removing excess images from your article
3. Linking and citing External websites
4. Linking your own webpages or Intralinking
5. Add more value to your article
6. Correct SEO faults if possible
7. Remove pages giving error messages

Market your previous posts on social networks

Some of the best and the most read bloggers use this technique. Here, they dig out an article written quite a long time ago and read comments, take suggestions and update the article. This article is again posted on social networking websites (like pinterest, foursquare, facebook and others) as a new article. The viewers at the social media platforms, see the article and mistake it as new, thereby applauding the blogger’s dedication. The search engines reward the website because it is updated, the viewers  reward the website and the blogger by visiting and clicking on ads and the blogger rewards himself a piece of cake from the refrigerator because he is happy, So it’s a win-win-win situation.

Communicate with your fellow bloggers,

Communication is the key to success in blogging. Talking to your visitors, commenters and even blog mates is important. Collaborate and communicate within bloggers in your community. When you do so, you’ll find even more ideas and more methods to improve your blog.

For More information, try out codemakit's The SEO and content Guide e-book in pdf.

This was all about,

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The perils of keyword stuffing

Keyword Stuffing according to Google webmaster is the

"Practice of loading a webpage with keywords to change the site's ranking in Google search results."

Here is an example of keyword Stuffing.

Assume you've arrived at a website to buy a laptop. You encounter the following message,

The message might seem harmless to some at the moment, but let me tell you, The message is a glaring  mistake of many developers looking for higher ranks in Google's books. 

Let us look at the message here. To the end user it might look like, the message writer suffers from some obsessive compulsive disorder, which compels him to keep on repeating the words, "best laptop". So obsessed is he with the phrase that he cannot write a single sentence without mentioning the phrase. But to Google's bots, the scenario is all different. Google bots armed with their ever evolving algorithm will catch the word and come to the conclusion that, the writer is a smart person ( who knows the working of a search engine) trying to trick him to register the phrase "Best Laptop" as the particular keyword the website offers. So whenever the Google users search the keyword "Best Laptop", The particular website might be ranked higher in the search results.

Such techniques adopted by developers are known as Black Hat SEO techniques, which may or may not (Mostly may not) book you visitors.The catch here is that, however hard you might try to hide your keyword stuffing endeavors, you would always be caught. Thanks to the constant updates in Google's algorithm (Panda update, Penguin Update). So If you have not been caught until now, your time is not far.

This was about

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What to do for higher blog visitors (Green Alert : Third Priority)

You must have read all about, what should you do for higher site visitors and what must you do so that those bots do not shy away from your website, but love it. 

But you still cannot declare openly, that you've tried all that exists. No, not until you've read the following article. Now you might have read all about keywords and SEO in the last article, Now its time to go a little further. 

You may or may not have read the previous Articles to this series (Red Alert : First Priority and Yellow Alert : Second Priority), 

Now its time for the third and final article, i.e. Green alert, third priority.

Hyper Hyperlinking
You might have noticed now the importance of hyperlinks for the vitality of your blog. Now when you write a new post, link some words in the post to your previous posts, not only this, try linking words to sources other than your own website and Google will repay you when its bots visit your website (see how does Google rank your website).

Indirect approach to social networks
Same strategy applies to your social-network. Don't shy about what will people think, try and popularize your older posts through pictures, sneak peak at some writings, etc. Also try and make friends with bloggers on social networks, watch and learn their tricks. Not only social networks but also forums, and answering websites like answers.com, yahoo answers.

Use other blogs for reading
For better content, identify authoritative blogs and web sites for newer ideas and content, but remember never copy. Plagiarism will be dealt with, very seriously by leading search engines. Also format your previous posts written months ago, with newer formatting schemes followed by you in the present. For free publicity find websites that release press information on net.

PR with your potential Visitors
Regarding visitors, more your contact with them the better, Ask for feedback for your blog in forums, threads and social networks. Help visitors on other websites and point them to your blog if you think that your post will help them genuinely. Interact with them through social networks and through forms (for that Google forms are better than others) either . Show your presence by commenting on blogs (other than yours). not only this, but also respond to comments on your blogs and be sure to thank people for their generous comments. Also remove spam from the comments as they do not depict a good picture of your blog environment.

Be Omnipresent
increase connections by creating a name for your blog by signing up at different places and offering services, like YouTube, Flickr, Photobucket etc.

For More information on SEO tactics and content improvement, try out codemakit's 'The SEO and content Guide' free e-book in pdf.

Other Articles in the series

What to do for higher blog Visitors? (Red Alert : First Priority)

What to do for higher blog Visitors? (Yellow Alert : Second Priority)

What to do for higher blog Visitors? (Green Alert : Third Priority)

Higher Blog Visitors Series Finale

This was all about

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