SEO 101: Web Vultures - Scrapers Come Into Town

Isn't it weird when, while browsing the net, you find yourself sitting in front of your computer, sipping your coffee, and then reading your own content - on a different site, claimed by a different person?

Yes, plagiarism on the net is really shooting up like crazy. And the internet community usually call these web parasites as scrapers.

Web scraping, according to the wikipedia, is a computer software technique of extracting information from websites. Scrapers utilize this method to obtain content from other sites. A scraping site may copy content from one site, or it may syndicate content from numerous other sites that are related to the scraper's web page.

Victims of the scraping trade are usually sites with high page ranks in search engines. These sites are logically vulnerable to these parasitic internet copying attacks since they can easily be found once you search for specific keywords.

Scrapers may use software to do the duplication process, but they may also manually search for sites and copy content without permission or due acknowledgment (there are black hat SEOs or just plain lazy bums who do this for a living).

Once you've found out that your site content has been forged, there are three ways that you could do to stop it.

1. Contact the site owner. IF you can get his phone number, e-mail, or any other possible contact details, write that person a letter or connect with him or her and firmly but politely ask the owner to stop and delete all the plagiarized contents within the site.

2. If the problem still persists, contact the site host or the service provider, report the site and air out your concerns. They usually have customer service or complaint section that can cater to your needs.

3. If the site host or provider is taking a long time to respond, and it the offender still juices out your content, consult a lawyer. Or another option is going to an Information Technology expert.

SEO 101: URL-Making

A uniform Resource Locator, or simply an URL, is one of the most frequent things you see in the internet world. URLs work the same way as our real life addresses because it designates where a site is found in the world wide web. It works more like our real life addresses, that's why it is also popularly known as a web address.

Your URL also has a big impact in search engine optimization, so how do you make the most of your URLs? Create it the right way. Here's how:

1. Make a domain name that best summarizes your site. When a viewer reads your URL, he or she must already have an idea on what your site is about. For example, a person reading the URL www.tolkienianlegend.com will already have this idea, upon seeing the address, that the website is more or less about J.R.R. Tolkien and the contribution that he had given to the world.

2. Make it short. Short and concise is the game in URL making. Shorter URLs are visibly friendly both to users and web crawlers. Plus it would be easy to remember. You would not want to indirectly hinder the spreading of your site to other people like what happens in this scenario:

Girl 1: Oh hey, I found this really nice site about Tolkien.

Girl 2: Really? What's its web address?

Girl 1: www.lambegolmoredalamberontaruithorntirith.com

Girl 2: *nose bleed*

Right? :)

3. Put your keywords in the URL. If you are movie streaming site for example, you can create a domain like www.moviestreamingonline.com. Do not overdo it though. Spamming your keywords in your URL is also a bad idea as you could be directed to spam folders by spam filters. And hey, the address that says www.watchmoviesonlinefreemoviesstreamingdownloadmovie.com is really suspicious both to filters, crawlers, and human users as well. Plus, refer to rule no. 2.

4. Use hyphens as separators. If you really need to partition words in your URL,use a hyphen instead of other signs like asterisks (*), addition signs (+), and the likes.
The hyphen can be universally read by all search engines.

Properly creating your URL can give you a boost towards page rank dominion so go make your URL, and while your at it, make it the right way.

SEO 101: Keywords Can Make or Break You

Keywords play a very important role in the whole search engine optimization process. In fact, your site optimization will bank on selected keywords or keyword phrases in order to effectively rank on the search engine results pages.

What are keywords basically?

Every time you go to a search engine home page like that of Google, Yahoo and MSN, you are given the text box will you will input some words or phrases that corresponds to something that you want to gather information about. These specific words or phrases that you use to find data on the internet are called keywords or keyword phrases.

You see, search engine spiders index information that they crawl upon in the world wide web by categorizing them under relevant keywords. For example, you may have your telephone address book with you, which classifies the list of your contacts alphabetically. Under the letter A you may see the telephone numbers of the Aarons, the Armstrongs, or  the Akobayashis. In the same way, the spiders sort our the different sites by listing them with the keywords that they fall under. For example, if you optimized your site using the keywords: How to Wear Hosiery, then the crawlers would go index them under those keywords or other keywords closely related to it.

Different keywords have different searches or hits everyday. In addition, more sites listed in one keyword category, means more more and more competitors for you. That means you have to choose what keywords you would want to use to optimize your site with. SEOs make sure that the keyword or keyword phrase that they are using receives a good amount of searches per day. They must also make see to it that the keyword they selected will not let them drown in a vast sea of competitors. To achieve this, some SEOs use keyword generation tools to help them find the right keywords to use.

How to insert an RSS Button to Your Blogger Blog

To understand how RSS works in plain English, here is a video by the Common Craft Show, showing how important it is to have an RSS feed to your site or your blog:

Now that you have known how the necessity of having an RSS feed for the convenience of your blog viewers, you may want to put an RSS button to your Blogger blog so that your viewers can conveniently subscribe to your feeds.

Here is how to do it:

1. First, search for an RSS button icon. Make sure that you are not impeding any legal right by using that icon. Try searching for free for use RSS buttons.

2. Upload it to an image host. There are a lot of popular image hosting sites on the web now. If you don't know any, try searching the internet for one.

3. Once you have uploaded your image, copy the "direct link" of your image URL.

4. RSS feeds are usually place in the most conspicuous places of your blogs so that your readers could easily spot it. Try putting it on the upper right or upper left corner of your blog.

5. Go to the Page Elements portion of your blog, located by clicking the Design tab of your blog account. Click the Add a Gadget box.

6. A window will then appear. Choose the JavaScript/Html option.

6. Retype the code that you see in the following image, replacing the my blogsite address with your webpage adress. Place it in the content text box. On the other hand, Write RSS Feed or any description of the link that you want in the title box.

7. Click save.

8. Preview your blog.

SEO 101: Beef Up Your Content

As the old adage says: Content is King.

It still is. That is why if you are planning to construct a page that you would want the entire internet world to see, you might as well create one that would make them stick around fro more. Like a good restaurant which entices patrons with their quality dish and service, a good web site is one which holds quality content that is worth your time and effort to read.

When you write good content, you are, in a way, also indirectly providing good service to any one who may stumble upon your site. People come to the internet to look for information because it has a seemingly infinite databank of resources. Letting your visitor be disappointed by some gramatically hideous, out of the world,  automatically generated articles displayed on the page will just tarnish the your reputation or your company or product name.

So how would you write good content?

First thing first: Write it yourself.

If you are endorsing a product, point out the advantages of the perks of your commodity but do not overexaggerate it to the point that your inflating your product's purpose. State clearly what your product is for, how much it costs, its buying, delivery or shipping instructions, and why your customer needs to buy it. A little story regarding how your product was made would not hurt too.

If you are writing a personal blog, you can take the challenge of picking a random topic and relate it to the theme that your blog is categorized for. You can even ask kids for one. You'll never know what you'll get.

The important thing is, don't be a copycat.

What if you don't know how to write?

You could buy any instructional material on creative writing or writing effectively. You can also enroll in copy writing courses if your grammar isn't really an eye candy. Or if you are working on a strict budget, search the net. I'm sure there are valuable resources there that will teach you how to write decently - and the good news is, they are usually free.

Once you have quality content rolling, you'll get an influx of loyal followers that will even subscribe to you, or keep tabs fo your recent updates. Content is King. And it will continue to be for a very long time.

SEO 101: SEO in New-Bee Language - A Beginner's Guide

There is a huge circus pandemonium going on regarding this SEO industry. With all the seasoned SEo specialists domineering the "game field", is there any way that neophyte aspirants could even up in this playing field?

Why use the internet for my personal and business needs?

The world wide web is the only place up to date that gathers different people from different walks of life. This the rendezvous of millions of users each day, coming from varying places around the globe. The internet is like a deep ocean teeming with fish of diverse origins and species. Now think of yourself as a fisherman, how can you get those voluminous number of fish inside your net?

What is SEO - and don't get technical!

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms, SEO is simply the method of optimizing a site to be able to at least enter the top ten ranking or page one in the search engine. Examples of search engines are sites like Googl, Yahoo, or MSN, which provides users a homepage for researching information that can be found in the web.

Why would I want to rank in those pages?

If you are using the internet as ground to promote a business, a product, a site, or yourself, your main goal is to direct as many possible visitors to your page for them to know what you are proposing or endorsing. In our present generation, the users of the internet rely on the search engines to find information located somewhere out there in the vast database of the online sphere. After typing keywords in the text box and hitting the search tab, the engine will then give you a list of webpages that are relevant to your search. The webpages in the top ten list or the first page of the result often get more clicks which means more visitors and more chances to actually introduce your product or concept to somebody.

Where do I start from here?

Now this is what SEO 101 New-bee guide is for. By knowing and understanding the concepts behing Search Engine Optimzation, you can start to promote your web page online and also begin to competitively rank in th Search Engine pages. More SEO 101 New-bee Guide are coming up made especially for SEO beginners like you.