The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet

This free and downloadable document covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Add Google Authorship Markup in WordPress Blog

Google has offered a new feature that allows publishers to add “rich snippet” meta-data to their web material. This is a highly effective as this can help in developing brands more effectively — Google will show author information in search results if metadata has been properly labeled via Authorship Markup.

The main benefit of adding Authorship Markup is that as you publish more content with your name, your picture or logo keeps popping in Google search results. This is one of the ways you can display your personal brand in front of people, and it is not difficult to implement in WordPress. 

Getting Started

There are simple baby steps so there is no need to worry.  It doesn't require getting hands dirty with coding. 

Step 1: Google Plus Page

You need a Google Plus page for this work. If you haven't then Signup for a G+ Page. 

Step 2: Contributor 

It is time to officially inform Google that you are contributor (Author) for a site. Update "Contributor to" to field on your profile. 

Go to your Profile page

Select About Page

Edit Link Section

Add URL of website where you are going to contribute as Author 

Step 3: WordPress User Profile

Log in to your WordPress website. Go to 'Users'. Edit your User profile. Add Google Plus Profile URL in its respective field.

You are done!

Testing Tool

To test, go to Structured Data Testing Tool

If author image appears in preview of testing tool, it means authorship markup is added successfully. It will appear as in Google search result after the page is indexed.

How to Dress for an Interview [infographic]

A Look at the Search Landscape

After several Panda & Penguin updates, search engine marketers are required to work harder to maintain their visibility in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Now they need to leave the traditional tactics; instead they are required to be more effective in organic and as well as paid marketing by knowing the search trends in their target markets. Below is an abstract from the upcoming 2013 Digital Marketer Report:

Five Websites (Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon) taken 20 % of all the searches in 4^th Quarter of 2012.

While top 500 websites taken nearly 50 % of the all search activity. Top 1,000 websites captured nearly 75 %. This indicates a big challenge for marketers to get access to potential customers. 

Marketers involve in paid marketing are also not at ease as top 10 websites captures about 16% of paid clicks. While top 500 occupies 56% of total paid search activity.  

Knowing the targeted customers can help to concentrate on your search engine marketing strategies effectively. 

Tips to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users

It is a thing to note that mobile version of your website is completely different from your traditional website. A visitor coming to your site via mobile is typically looking for a few key pieces of information. The purpose might be getting the right direction, finding phone number of your business or tracking the location of your store. That’s why, it’s important to follow some best practices as you develop your mobile presence.

#1: Plan Layout 

Keep the number of pages to a minimum level as website load slower on mobile and users also don’t bother to click several pages deep on your site. 

Think of mobile users. What a mobile user will look for? Details about your corporate history or PDF of your latest press release! NO….So it is better to make things easier! Instead of creating so many pages with confusing options; simplify site with limited items that people would most like be searching for when they are on the on the go. 

#2: Match the Branding Elements 

Keep the branding elements same like your traditional site. This will reflect and promote your brand essence and users will also feel familiarity with the pages because of the similarity of elements, it is important consideration for your most loyal customers. 

#3 Cleaner & Sophisticated look 

Keep enough padding space around all of the text and buttons to ensure that user may accurately click the button he/she is aiming for. Moreover, reduce the amount of text entry necessary because a big number of people feel difficulty in typing on tiny keyboards. Use of drop-down menus and checklist will work well in this case. 

#4 Say ‘No’ to Flash & Java 

iphones make up about one third of the smart phone market. They do not support Flash. Thus a significant portion of your audience will not be able to access your content if you use Flash. Similarly many phones do not support Java. 

#5 Don’t Use Pop-Up Windows 

Navigating between tabs is difficult in mobiles and can cause bad user experience. It is better to avoid it. 

#6 Allow Access to Full Version of Site 

Make sure to include link that allow the user to return to the full version of the site because there will likely be someone who wants information you have chosen not to display.

Ways to Make Life Hard for SEO Team

While the industry is maturing, SEO still remains a largely misunderstood discipline. There are three main reasons for this:

The search engines keep the details of their ranking algorithms private.

There is a lot of bad information and misperceptions that are presented as SEO wisdom online.

The algorithms search engines use are frequently changing.

As a consequence of this landscape, it takes real working experience to develop strong SEO skills – you can’t get them without it. Making changes and seeing what works and what doesn’t is simply a must. Even if your SEO team (or SEO agency) has that experience, there are a number of things that you can do to make life difficult for your SEO team...READ MORE

Taking a Driving License

Having a driving license is so important while you are driving on the road. It is something which gives you assurance that you will not be in any serious trouble if you have hit someone accidently. 

There are two ways to get a driving license. One is getting it by going through all the procedure and other is short-cut. Our system has made it very discouraging process for a common man. Long queues, documentation, complicated procedure, several visits and bad driving test system have forced people to adopt some kind of short-cut. 

There are three main steps to acquire a driving license. 

1. Learning License 

The first step is to obtain a learning license. It is easiest one as compared to other two. Get copy of you ID card and reach at DSP licensing office. Your patience will be tested here. So be mentally prepared to stand in queues for long time. If you are ‘Poond’ (flirt) by nature then you should be happy; longer queues, more will be the opportunity to stare at lady WardensJ. 

2. Documentation 

Few documents required including a medical certificate. From here you start spending money. If you look to get signed your medical certificate by an M.B.B.S doctor yourself then probably you will get tired of all this and cancel the program of getting a license. But there is an easy way of getting it signed. Spend Rs.100 and you will get your form signed within 5 minutes. 

3. Driving Test 

This is the most difficult phase for those who are looking to get license through procedural ways. Here your knowledge about signals and driving skills will be tested. Don’t think you can pass this stage without any reference or spending some money. It seems that licensing staff aims at failing maximum people so that they come through some agent next time. This fills their pockets as well. If you have hired any agent then no worries you will get your license even if you are fail. Otherwise you will keep going for test after each 42 days. 

Don’t drive fast!

Making AJAX Website Crawlable

Many people want to build website using AJAX principles but are afraid of not being crawled by search engines. Through AJAX, particular section of webpage alters without refreshing the entire page. It exchanges data between browser and server without reloading the page. Despite having these functionalities, it is still not favored by search engines.

WHY?????

Data present over Ajax pages behaves like being temporary in nature. That’s why search engines don’t like to crawl it. 

As it is dynamic in nature so it is not practical for crawlers to index such data that is not available while crawling.

Ajax is purely JavaScript and search engines discourage JavaScript.

It is also not supported by sitemaps.

This issue is prevailing from the very beginning of implementation of Ajax for the development of websites but my interest into it developed when I came across a project on Scriptlance. A web owner was very annoyed because Google was not considering his pages for crawling.

His pages were linked this way

Google was viewing only 1 page of his website while he has more pages to show.

What’s Solution?????

This is what I learned from spending few hours on research. A little JavaScript function that’s part of ‘HTML5 History API’ called window.history.pushState () can make our Ajax lives easier. It changes the path of the URL that appears in the user's address bar. Until now, that's not been possible.

Look at this page http://html5.gingerhost.com/

On clicking cities on the top navigation, you'll be able to see that only the main content is being loaded in with each click; the page navigation. 

Other than Ajax this much fast speed of loading page is not viewable so far at least by me.

All Your Favorite Content at One Place

It was my second day in search of some sort of tool through which I may get updates about my favorite content. Tried few techniques but couldn’t find the ultimate solution. Bookmarking was a good option but it still requires manually checking of each individual blog for updates. Email subscription was another available option but in vain as all blogs haven’t option of email subscription. Finally my search ended when I came across Google Reader. 

If you find yourself repeatedly visiting a website to check for updates, or if you just stumble across a page you want to keep track of, you can easily subscribe to it in Google Reader.

Log In to Google Reader with your Gmail Account, Click on Subscribe and paste the URL which you want to track.

You will start getting updates whenever something is posted on your favorite Blog. Interface is very convenient and handy. 

If you want to create and manage all your favorite content at one place then give a try to Google Reader. You will find it useful.