Online Marketing SEO Blog by SEO Consultant Farhan Fawzer

Farhan Fawzer

December 15, 2012

Google algorithm updates 2012

I’m writing this post while having my morning coffee and breakfast waiting for me on the table.

As we SEOs know through out this year Google had been changing and updating their search algorithm frequently with a few major updates effecting many businesses worldwide.

Last Thursday, as usual when going through the Google Analytics I was able to notice something different, it was the rankings of one of my websites was back.

Thanks to Barry Schwartz for the update about the change and Mozcast Update.

Farhan Fawzer

December 9, 2012

The days we used to simply add our target keywords to the websites title and meta tags and expect search engines to rank us on top for those search terms are long gone. There are much more and the best part is that every new technique that are deployed by SEO specialists in order to rank well for keywords, sooner or later gets discovered by Google.

People think SEO is dead but the day SEO will is the day Search Engines no longer exist.

2013 is just around the corner and with a lot going on in the past few months in the SEO industry, updates including panda, penguin & EMD to name a few. Some of the important aspects to focus on include:

1. Forget about Search Engines and focus on potential visitors to your website.

2. Onsite optimisation with users in mind keep it relative and relevant – Do not stuff keywords or copy content.

3. Do not submit link to FFA (Free For All) directories and try to have links only from reputable and related sources.

4. Try to use keyword variations and not exact keywords when linking back.

5. Build a reputable brand first before targeting high competitive keywords.

6. Keep a close eye on CTR (Click Through Rate) on Google Analytics to identify your best performing pages and keep improving.

7. Build a reputable Author bio on Google+ profile

8. Create Google+ business for your business/brand (It is as important as having a website for a business)

9. Get involved in Googleplus communities

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team would agree with me as Google take steps to improve the quality of search, to give users a better search experience, it is our responsibility, not to spam as responsible SEOs.

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!

Farhan Fawzer

December 7, 2012

How to visit Google.com instead of Google.lk

Just a quick tip for those of you who struggle to visit Google.com and get redirected to Google.lk or Google.(your country TLD).

As I’d seen some people in Sri Lanka including a few friends find it weird as they type in Google.com in their browser address bar and they land in Google.lk . This mainly happens because Google redirects you to your local search to find more relevant and closer results to your query.

If you want to override this and use Google.com for your search you have 2 options.

1. Click the button on your bottom right which says Google.com

2. Simply type www.google.com/ncr which will take you directly to Google.com

Appreciate your comments on which one you’d prefer more to use.

Farhan Fawzer

November 6, 2012

Disavow Link Tool Is It Worth The Wait

Recently SEO’s & website owners were devastated by the major updates by Google, targeting low quality links, poor content and excessive ads which threw some of the site rankings out of the window.

Then Google comes up with Disavow links tool to help remove bad links, used to notify Google about links to your site that you have tried removing by writing to webmasters but failed.

Now, your site has been hit by Penguin and you’ve lost your top traffic generating keywords ranking on Google. we’ve seen lots of SEO’s triying different things to recover, changing the site structure, redesign, onsite tweaks.

Then, Google comes up with Disavow Link tool, most people started to submit their bad backlinks and are waiting with the hope that they will gain all their golden keywords back.

Lets assume a site that have about 1000 spammy links.

Use ahrfs or open site explore to get all the links to your site
Contact the webmaster’s or site owners of the linking site
After giving a considerable amount of time re check if the links have been removed
Go to Disavow Links Tool and submit your request ( As per Google it will take several weeks for the proccess)
Submit reconsideration request (There is no guarentee that the site will be reconsidered)

Is the time & resources taken to go through all these process worth or would you just get a new domain and start building using safe SEO methods.

Farhan Fawzer

October 22, 2012

Looking for online jobs?

The world has changed so much that making money online has hit most parts of Sri Lanka by now. Working from home and online jobs are on the rise. A news paper magazine which had a tiny little advertisement for internet marketing jobs a couple of years back has now more than 5 or 6 full pages of “data entry jobs” and “online money making” ads. Some of the ads are very attractive in terms of how much you could earn. The question is can you really make so much of money online?

The answer is “YES” and “NO”

Yes, because nothing is impossible and the people who make millions on the internet today are people like you and me. On the other hand not really everyone can go right to the top.

Lets look at what exactly is expected by people who get attracted by these news paper ads about internet jobs.