Should you worry about Penguin update This year?

In 2012, Google designed a web-spam algorithm and launched it to target websites trying to obtain high rank in Google SERPs by using low quality schemes; this is known as Google Penguin algorithm. By launching Penguin Google declares a war against unnatural links. Hence, from 2012, Google has updated Penguin so many times. There are two players in the battle: Google and Websites using unnatural links. These websites find new ways to cloak their spam work. Similarly, Google comes up with new development every now and then to beat their ways.

Why should we worry about the updates of 2016? 

Though not everybody should worry about Penguin updates, yet there are websites, those are not aware of the risk of web spam affected. For instance, after the launch of Penguin’s first update, Google received many complaints. Many websites that offered free treatment to addicts by directing them to relevant treatment centers lost half of their traffic. Despite requests, no action was taken by Google, and now these websites are nowhere!

What you should do in 2016 

It means, not only websites using unnatural links intentionally beware of updates but also websites that are not using any unnatural links and become target of crap links must also attentive towards their safety because after the collapse of the website, Google will not respond. Surprisingly, sometimes Google treats white hat and black hat SEO with the same stick!

So, you should take your own precautionary steps to meet any possible future destruction of your website. There are some important steps you can take, just take a look.

• You must make sure regarding your links’ duplication across low quality websites. A large number of their existence is a sign of manipulation for Google
• If Google thinks that your links are built intentionally by you, it would never ignore them and in return penalize your website quickly
• Now you will need to consider about every link. In the past, you take links from everywhere as Google ignored low quality links
• Google will sink your website if it has a toxic link profile. Specifically, when your intent is to get a high rank by utilizing low quality links with specific keywords
• If you are managing the links by changing the keyword text, or using rich anchor text at the time of site interlinking and site-wide links, you must be cautious about them in 2016

What types of link can harm your website 

Many types of links can destroy your website in 2016 such as low-quality press releases, PBN (Private Blog Network), SEO friendly low-quality directory links, RSS syndication links if manipulated, article marking links, blog comments’ links.

Some protective measures in 2016 

If you want to protect your website from penalizing, you will need to certain that your web pages are being optimized for every keyword phrase. You will have to increase, to your website, new content. You will require focusing on building natural domain authority. You will have to make efforts to obtain links for inner pages of your website. It will be much better if you get links from real websites.

For more info please visit at http://www.top3.com.sg/

 

How to Improve the Ratings of Website?

Internet provides you a single platform through which you can promote any of your idea, business or any project of your choice. It is very easy to show your presence on internet but the difficult thing is to come in front of eyes of general public in first jump. If you are not available in top list in search engines, you will not get any business even if you have the skills and capabilities of it. If you have not good rankings, you cannot come even the search is according to your website’s name. There are thousands of websites which are live and if you want to get better rankings, you should have a proper plan.

There are some paid methods in the market of search engines through which you get the market attentions like Google Adwords and Yahoo marketing tools but this paid content can be very expensive and cost prohibitive. Your goal should be to achieve the better position in search engines through natural methods and organic traffic. we have some plans for you to make your website popular in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing etc.

First of all, you should have to collect keywords for your website. These keywords contain the words related to your business and relate to your website. There are three to five world long tail keywords and these words normally make a phrase so you can use these words for the popularity of your website. These words will support you when you will have SEO plan.

The content should be original at your website. Copy or stolen content is not allowed on website so write your own keywords for content.

Now there should also be the planning of usage of keywords. You should make your plan in such a way that you have numerous keywords on numerous pages. You should have a try to implement keywords on all pages of your website.

It is very important for you to know about your potential market. if you know about it, you should implement the content mostly related to market so when someone, belonged to your target market, search anything of your area, you will get the results for your business.

It is the duty of website to insist about the latest content on your website. If you are doing so, the visitors will come again and again to view the latest updates at your website. It is also important to run a website for a longer period of time. If you are live for many years, you will have definitely better rank among you and your competitors.

The usage of social media is very important in the present age for making your website popular. Your website should have social media pages like in facebook, twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Pintrest etc. If your social media pages are popular and people like it then your website will definitely be popular and getting the better rankings in near future.

Last but not the least part of this discussion is to submit your website to search engines on regular basis. By doing this activity, search engines will read you properly and give you higher rank. The websites, which are paying exercises, are better than the normal websites.

For popularity and dominance, you website should have proper SEO which will give you results in few months which will definitely pay off at the end. This pay off will definitely be better than your expected returns from your website.

Knowledge graph Tips for your brand

If you want to use a free billboard on search results of Google, you should use Knowledge Graph. When customers search for a specific brand, the Knowledge Graph of a company dominates search results.

Knowledge Graph

When a query of search comprises of a notable entity such as a celebrity or a famous brand, a Knowledge Graph panel is displayed by Google by displaying links and information to related content. The Knowledge Graph can be positive and negative for a company because it may link to owned content or it may link to different site or even competitors. Knowledge Graph is an inseparable part of Google search results; hence, a company cannot get rid of it in its branded search results. Therefore, it is essential for every ecommerce site to understand the right optimization method regarding its presence in the Knowledge Graph.

Hence, an optimized Knowledge Graph presence can minimize and offset the links’ appearance away from brand-owned content. After understanding the importance of the Knowledge Graph, you must know how to optimize the Knowledge Graph. Following are some tips that can help you in the optimization.

Your Logos

For optimizing your logos, you can use two methods. After specifying, the image showed in the Knowledge Graph and then influence it so that the link can take the users/searchers after their click on it in the Knowledge Graph. In the home page of your official website, identify your official logo by using Schema org’s organization markup. Google’s official logo guidelines are very helpful for your developers.

Contact numbers of the company

For consumers, your contact numbers are very important; therefore, they want to know about them. If you place your contact numbers in the similar Schema.org Organization markup, the consumers can have an easy access to them. If they do not find them easily, they can get frustrated. If your organization is wise enough, it can hire a person to answer the calls of shoppers. Many types of phone numbers that you can provide such as technical and customer support, and billing and credit card support. Clearly, displaying several contact numbers on Google will help to stay longer on the panel.

Social Profile Links

In Google’s profiles section, Google supports seven social profiles such as Myspace, LinkedIn, You Tube, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Instagram. However, it displays only five of them. You just need to specify the five profiles along with Google+, the social profile logos work simultaneously as distracting away from contents that your brand do not own and as links to your brand owned content.

Google+

The most important factor of all your efforts towards Knowledge Graph panel is Google+ SEO. Your company must have an official Google+ account.

Wrap up

This is an ongoing and continuous battle. For the survival of your business, your online survival is very important. Keep in mind, your every effort goes towards conversion and ROI. For best ROI visit our official website http://www.top3.com.sg/

Trending Designing Typographies

Defining typography trends is quite tricky, what with all the new, rich technologies, font production and increased consumer needs. Some of the best trending typographies are used by web designer Singapore experts. These include the following though they are not limited to the same.

Delicate Scripts

Unlike majority of script fonts in the market that have imperfections, delicate strips are a new, growing trend that comes with some of the most beautiful specimen. They are characterized by crazy, delicate and beautiful ligatures.

Handwritten Fonts

While this trend has been around for some time, it just reached its peak recently. Often used with decorative headers, this typography is not suitable for the corporate world though it is a great choice for providing an artistic vibe to any business that prides itself as creative. The beauty in this lies in flexibility as it provides endless options.

Whether you prefer calligraphy or chicken scratch, you can use your personality trait to portray the message you desire. With this typography, you give your web design Singapore a personal touch. If you are not good at drawing, hire professionals to do it on your behalf.

Beautiful Imperfections

This typography is ranked among the most fashionable in 2015. It keeps alive the grain paper and has vintage effects which are guaranteed to make it a success. It also comes with existing fonts and multi-style families that make it very impressive.

Letterpress-style Typographies

This style translates into one of two things. First, there is the subtle inset effect which makes it appear like it has been pressed in, more like type paper that is set into paper through letterpress.

The second is known as ‘lock-up’ typography which is a retro design where the text is fitted into one center, and a justified column where there are different fonts and point sizes matched and mixed to create the effect of a poster that has been designed on an old school letterpress.

Brandon Grotesque

Top3.com.sg just got better with Brandon Grotesque. The font is beautiful and warm, inspired by a sans-serif geometric style. Modern websites use this font and it is available in different weights which aids in creating visual hierarchy. Additionally, it is modern, legible and clean.

Raleway

This is yet another elegant font by Google which was available in just one weight but was expanded to 9 weight families. The font is inspired by geometric sans-serif and can be used in different kinds of web designs since it has great personality. It is also popular among professional web design Singapore experts because of its beauty and appeal.

5 Reasons Why Your Small Business NEEDS SEO in Singapore

Singapore is one of the most competitive business environments in the world. We’re going to show you why your small business needs SEO to reach its full potential.

Whilst employing an SEO company in Singapore is a significant investment, you’re about to find out why this is the best investment you could ever make.

1. High ROI

No other form of marketing can get you this sort of Return on Investment (ROI). Yes, it can take time for it to work, but with the right SEO Company in Singapore, you can ensure higher levels of traffic than you thought previously possible.

2. SEO Continues to Work

It’s wrong to believe SEO has died off. This view is promoted by people who were stopped in their tracks by Google’s algorithm changes.

Any SEO company in Singapore doing things by the book will continue to get the same great results they were before. The key to success is to stick to ethical and organic SEO. Don’t work with someone who uses grey or black hat SEO techniques.

 

 

3. Your Competition is Doing It

As already mentioned, Singapore is an incredibly competitive business community. It’s only a tiny part of the world, but the amount of small businesses number in the thousands. Your competition invests in SEO, so why aren’t you?
The fact is Facebook marketing and other forms of advertising will never match SEO. The internet is the future, and physical advertising is in full decline.

A series of viral posts can send your business into the stratosphere overnight. How many other advertisements can accomplish the same thing?

4. Mobile Searches

More and more people are browsing the internet on the go. Mobile devices represent more searches than all desktop searches in Singapore. There are no signs this is going to change anytime soon.

SEO at a local level enables people to find your company in the city they live in. Local SEO is something Google has placed a great amount of emphasis on in recent years.

 

 

5. Everyone Looks for You Online

How often does someone open a magazine or a phonebook to search for a business?

Not often. They pick up Google and they type in a search query instead. Without proper SEO, no customer will ever find you. That leaves you in a situation where you have to make do with the trickle of users who happen to come across you by accident.

Remember, SEO is your most accessible advertising tool as a small business. Don’t let it go to waste!

Visit Top3.com.sg for more details about SEO.

How the Knowledge Graph Will Affect Marketing in Future

The Google Knowledge Graph was introduced in 2012, bringing a revolution in the way search had been conducted until that time. Today, three years on, much more emphasis is being placed on the Knowledge Graph, and the importance of offering not only relevant, but also factual content to users in response to queries.

When you type a query on Google, usually that query can be interpreted in more than one way. The Knowledge Graph is the tool that Google algorithms use to try and decipher what meaning could be most suited for the query. For instance, if you search for the word “Ford”, are you referring to ‘a shallow crossing in water’ or ‘the motor company’?

Using the Knowledge Graph (K.G.), Google attaches semantic meaning according to the phrasing of the query – to understand that a user is looking for something with real-life connotations and connections, rather than just a string of words in their dictionary form. Essentially, the K.G. was intended to transform Google into a knowledge engine, rather than just an information engine.

Reduction in spamming

Perhaps the most important contribution of the K.G. so far has been to nab and de-index spam sites. Previously, some sites were set up for the sole purpose of spammy link building, such that one site would have hundreds of outgoing unrelated links, joined together by content that makes no sense.

While the introduction of Penguin dealt with the bulk of these, the K.G. takes analysis a step further by enabling the algorithm to be able to carry out relationship analysis for all content related to and in your site, to determine relevance for any query posted on the search engine.

Last year, Google patented another search criterion known as the “Knowledge Based Trust” factor. This weighs the factuality of content on any site by weighing known facts within the site against the known facts in the K.G. and other accepted sources like Wikipedia. The criterion attaches a higher score to sites with fewer false facts.

Going forward, it seems that sites will have to pay extra attention to the truth of SEO, content associated with their sites i.e. content in the site, in guest forums as well as related sites that link back to one’s site. Offering high quality, relevant and factual content, which offers the highest user value, will be pivotal to staying on top of SERPs.

Information building

Aside from having related content, all information should be geared towards establishing relationships between what you do/sell and the content that you post. These should logically make sense. Google populates its SERPs based on the relevance of relationships between content on specific pages, content in a site as a whole and the semantic meaning of a query.

Search marketers would therefore do well to ensure consistency in the content published both on-site and off-site, as well as for links associated with each site – with emphasis on relevance, quality and truthfulness/factuality.

Guide to Designing Mobile Site Graphics

Awesome mobile website graphic design is as a result of basing the creative process on a solid foundation – the principles and best practices of graphic design. A successful web designer on desktop can completely miss the most important elements when designing for mobile devices. Hence, it’s not only about considering how creative one is.

Beyond that, graphic design is an art built on scientific principles which must be adhered to for ultimate success. It starts with getting the basics right, since that’s the way you will capture, and create a lasting impression on your audience. Below are key things to bear in mind when designing graphics for mobile apps or websites.

 

1. Organization of graphic elements

Just like desktop sites, elements for mobile sites must be properly arranged to make sure they are easily digestible for the user. This means that you must not overload the eye with too much detail, but the Web Design Singapore should have all key elements required for successful communication with a mobile visitor.

Sizes and densities must be proportionately placed and balanced to prevent the site from looking cluttered. In addition, overloading elements will affect the page-load speed of the mobile site, which can drive away consumers. Sometimes, minimalism might be the perfect option to achieve the desired effect.

2. Color

Selection of color is just as important on mobile as it is for desktop design, perhaps more so. With minimal space, color can be applied to convey certain meanings, eliminating the need for text/other elements to that effect. Use warm colors like red, orange and yellow to induce dynamic positivity and cool colors like green, purple and blue to induce a feeling of steadfastness and contentment.

Apart from choice, consistency is important to ensure that color works into the general feel of the website. The choice of color should project consistency and clarity of all graphic design elements. The level of consistency works into the sub consciousness of the users and enables them to more effectively draw relations from content.

3. Readability

Great graphic design is about maintaining the readability of the page/site. This means paying attention to factors like interline spacing, font, brightness, font size, background color, among others, all of which affect how readable content will be. Content that is illegible on mobile devices because it’s too small, or having to scroll multiple pages because fonts are unnecessarily enlarged, are two sure ways to take away from user experience.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, graphics in web mobile design are about achieving balance through careful application of web design and graphic design principles. For more Details visit Top3.com.sg.

Advanced Link Building Techniques That Truly Work

You may think you know all there is about link building, but like everything else in life, there’s always room for growth and further improvement. If you’ve tried all the classic techniques and find yourself at a loss for how to progress your link building strategy, below are a few techniques you can explore:

In-house efforts

1. Internal linking

Start by ensuring your internal linking structure is solid before sourcing external links.

2. Contests

Everybody likes to receive recognition for effort. Hence, by creating a “Best of” online list, you can win over a few links from winners in your contests.

3. Fix 404s

Find out whether there are any inbound links that result in 404 errors, possibly because the pages have been deleted or moved. Establish 301 redirects for such links and their corresponding value to a relevant page that currently exists on the site.

4. Roundups

Establish yourself as the authority for the best periodic roundups e.g. weekly or monthly. It’s a simple way to offer great content and earn inbound links.

5. Petitions

If there’s an issue in your field that you feel strongly about, maybe you can start a petition and link and be linked to others in your field to generate huge SEO Singapore value as well as publicity

6. TYNT Plugin

This plugin will automatically add a backlink to your site for all content that is copy-pasted from your site onto another site. This secures links for your site from websites that would have used your content without attributing to the source.

Technical efforts

1. Competitor research

Your competitor’s link profile can give you ideas on where to target you’re linking effort if you’re running out of prospects. Use tools like Ahrefs, Majestic SEO and Open Site Explorer to look into their profile and draw inspiration for future work.

2. Monitor partners

Most tools for link-building offer the option of monitoring sites that have linked to your pages. Keep an eye on the list, identify any removals and contact the webmasters to find out why it was removed and what you can do to have it reactivated.

3. Link-on-link building

Basically, you build second and third-tier links to prime inbound links, which strengthens the impact of the latter on the site’s average performance.

4. Content updates

Identify external sites with related, but outdated, information. These sites should be related to your field and have good ranking authority. Contact their webmasters and offer to write updated content for them to post in exchange for linking back to you.

5. Deep linking

Don’t just focus on building links to your landing pages; rather, find opportunities to directly link to pages located deeper in your site navigation. This increases the number of pages in your site that are relevant for queries related to your keywords, which would improve your organic rankings.

Tips on improving your website load speed

In 2010, Google announced that loading speed of websites would be factored in into search rankings. This meant that websites with slow load speed would be ranked lower.

So why did Google decide to include website load speed as a criteria?

The answer is simple. The Internet as we know now is constantly evolving at an incredibly fast speed. From a consumer’s standpoint, we always demand for fast and efficient services and we get impatient whenever they fail to deliver. A prime example would have to queue and wait in line for food. We become dissatisfied and head straight for the exit if the wait is too long. The same goes for loading a website. If loading a website takes too long, we will just move on to the next one.

In the digital sphere, websites with slow load speed suffer because they experience a higher rate of failure in engaging and retaining users on their websites. Users lose interest and patience when they have to wait for more than a few seconds for the webpage to load. This lack of ability to engage them will cost you your rank in your SEO Singapore campaign and ultimately, your business suffers.

Website load speed affects your conversion rates as well. You are not going to achieve a high rate of conversion if your potential clients have to sit through a whole lot of waiting time just to load your page. No one has time for that, even if it’s just a difference of a mere few seconds.

There are many reasons that contribute to slow load speed. One of the most common reasons is your host. The reliability of your host is important, and its quality is usually directly proportionate to the amount you spend getting your host. The cheaper the host, the more unreliable it is in the long run.

People are generally impressed with websites that have a high load speeds, even if they are not consciously aware of it. Compare a website of higher load speed against one with a low load speed. If both websites provide the same services, which would you choose? You will definitely choose the one with faster load speed, because it serves an indication of the company’s efficiency. Bear in mind that every impression of your company counts.

In such cases, you should not concern yourself with content marketing to establish a successful SEO campaign. Instead, you should be focusing on improving and enhancing the user experience on your website. Your website load speed is as equally important as your content marketing strategy if you want to drive up your search rank.

There are various ways to improve your website load speed to enhance your user experience as well.

Invest in a reliable host. You might think that a cheaper host will save you on your initial cost. However, if you look at it in the long run, a cheaper but unreliable host will cost you more than in just monetary terms. It will cost you your rank and your client’s confidence in you. Hence, invest in a reliable host to save you from all the unnecessary hassle in the future.

Decrease HTTP requests. Majority of the load time originates from downloading different components of the websites, such as, images, Flash, scripts, style sheets, etc. Each component has an individual HTTP request made, thus the more components you have on your website, the longer the load time. Therefore, if possible, reduce these HTTP requests. Combine style sheets into one, use CSS instead of images, organise your components to maximise efficiency. Also, put your CSS and Javascript at the bottom of the page as they will hinder progressive rendering of your website.

Utilise your cache system. Caching your pages will facilitate faster load speed. With the enabling of caching, browsers will be able to automatically load your components like CSS, Javascripts, images, etc. without having to download them all over again.

Optimise your images. Choose the correct file format for each image. Incorrect file format slows down loading time. JEPG should be your first option as some browsers may not be able to support PNG fully. Try to keep your images as small as they can be and keep them compressed for your site. Do not make it any larger than they need to be.

As much as possible, choose CSS sprites over images. You can combine your images into CSS sprites. CSS sprites acts like one large image made out of all your other images. Using CSS sprites speed up your website; instead of loading 10 images, the browser loads only one image.

Compress Javascipt, HTML, CSS. Another way to speed up your website’s loading time is to compress Javascript, HTML and CSS. Softwares like YUI or minifier are great at compressing. Use them to compress and rid yourself of unwanted or unnecessary codes to speed up your loading time.

In conclusion, website load speed should not be ignored, even if it is not as major a component to your SEO campaign as your content marketing strategy. Website load speed seeks to enhance the user experience for your website, building trust and confidence by impressing them with the website’s flawless and short page load time.

Think of it as a complement to your SEO campaign’s content marketing strategy. It is near impossible to interest your potential clients to your website if they leave your website because of slow load speed. Your content marketing strategy will not be successful if you fail to engage users to spend time on your website.

Utilise Negative Keywords into Your SEO Campaigns for Budget Saving

In SEO campaigns it is always important to appear top on the search engines. Appearing top on search engines benefits your business because it means you’re your site traffic and clicks leading to your website is high. However, these don’t necessarily translate into higher conversion rates and revenue.

These clicks and traffic are unfiltered, which means there’s an equal chance of getting as many clicks from potential customers compared to irrelevant ones. Higher clicks, however, do translate into higher costs (cost-per-click), especially if your campaign includes the pay-per-click option (PPC) and you spend a bulk of your money paying for irrelevant clicks. How then, can you lower your costs and increase relevant traffic and clicks?

The answer is simple. Adopt the use of negative keywords in your campaign.

What are negative keywords?

To begin, we must first understand the meaning of negative keywords and the part they play in SEO campaigns and SEO services. Negative keywords in a SEO Singapore serve to restrict the appearance of your advertisements only to people who are specifically searching for the products or services that you offer.They prevent your advertisements from being triggered by specific words or phrases.

For example, when you add the word ‘budget’ as your negative word to your campaign, AdWords will automatically prevent your advertisement from appearing on any searches with the keyword ‘budget’.

How do negative keywords work?

Let’s say your company designs websites. Potential customers would probably search for ‘website designing’ or ‘web design company’. These are the keywords you would want to bid for in your AdWords campaign.

What you do not want is to appear in any searches with keywords like ‘free web designing’ or ‘free website templates’. These searchers are probably not your potential customers. Hence, you would want to include them as negative keywords as part of your campaign in other to eliminate these unwanted and irrelevant audiences.

Benefits of utilising negative keywords

Imagine trying to get to your destination but finding a sea of people in your path. With negative keywords, you would be able to reach your targeted audience quickly and efficiently without having to first go through irrelevant searches.

These restrictions are beneficial especially if you are on a tight budget. Including negative keywords in campaigns increases your Return on Investment (ROI), Click-Through Rate (CTR) and reduces your mean Cost-per-Click (CPC). Here are some of the benefits from utilising negative keywords:

• Reaches Highly Targeted Customers. With negative keywords, your advertisement will only be shown to potential customers. Irrelevant searches are eliminated in the process.

• Reduces Costs. The Average CPC is lowered because irrelevant traffic is eliminated through negative keywords, hence you do not need to pay for traffic that will not translate into revenue.

• Better Click-Through Rates (CTR). The probability of irrelevant clicks decreases with negative keywords blocking irrelevant audiences. When your advertisement only appears to the target audience, it results in higher chances of getting relevant clicks.

• Increase in Conversion Rates. You’ll definitely experience improved conversion rates because your clicks are mostly from relevant and potential customers.

• Improvement in Quality Score (QS).QS of your keywords will improve when you add in negative keywords as they increase the relevancy between the searches and the keywords.

What should I keep in mind?

While you might be convinced now that using negative keywords is a really good idea to cut costs and reach out to only potential customers, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:

• Be mindful of the usage of negative keywords. You might think that the more negative keywords you include, the better your potential clientele pool becomes. However, bear in mind that the more restrictions you place on your keywords, the fewer customers you will reach. Hence, a healthy balance is always the way to go.

• Your negative keywords should not clash with your campaign keywords. It is important that your negative keywords do no overlap with your campaign keywords. Your ads would not be able to reach out to your potential customers and might not even appear on search engines if they overlap with your campaign keywords.

• Negative keywords are not entirely fool proof. If your negative keywords consist of more than one word, your ads might still appear on searches that contain only one of your negative keywords. For example, you include the negative keyword term ‘free design’ into the list. There is still a possibility that your ad will appear on searches like ‘cheap web design’ or ‘free website’. However, if the search contains more than one negative keyword your ad would definitely not appear. Hence, if someone searches for ‘free website design’, rest assured that your ad will definitely not appear.

The use of negative keywords is increasingly becoming more popular with the increase in online marketing and the use of SEO Singapore campaigns to boost businesses. They serve the purpose of filtering unwanted audiences and lowers campaign costs for you.

Ultimately, instead of adopting various campaigns to try to increase your traffic flow and business revenue, including negative keywords in your campaign can achieve the same results as well. Comparatively, using negative keywords is definitely the cheaper, easier and more efficient alternative.