Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing technique that involves optimizing websites and web pages to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for targeted keywords. SEO has become a crucial part of digital marketing, as it helps businesses to increase their online visibility, drive more traffic to their websites, and generate leads and sales.
Sri Lanka has been experiencing significant growth in the digital marketing industry over the past few years. Many businesses in Sri Lanka have recognized the importance of SEO in improving their online presence, and as a result, there has been a high demand for SEO services in Sri Lanka. In this article, we will discuss the importance of SEO in Sri Lanka, the benefits of SEO services, and the role of SEO experts and specialists in Sri Lanka.
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Importance of SEO in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has a rapidly growing economy, and many businesses are looking to expand their customer base and reach new markets. With the increasing use of the internet and the widespread availability of smartphones, consumers are now searching for products and services online. Therefore, having a strong online presence has become critical for businesses to succeed in Sri Lanka.
SEO plays a crucial role in helping businesses to increase their online visibility and attract more customers. By optimizing their websites for search engines, businesses can rank higher in SERPs and be more easily found by potential customers. This can lead to increased website traffic, more leads and sales, and improved brand awareness and credibility.
Moreover, SEO can help businesses to target specific audiences by optimizing their websites for relevant keywords. For example, a business selling luxury watches in Colombo can optimize its website for keywords such as “luxury watches in Colombo” or “high-end watches in Sri Lanka.” By doing so, the business can attract more targeted traffic to its website and increase its chances of converting visitors into customers.
Benefits of SEO services in Sri Lanka
SEO services can provide many benefits to businesses in Sri Lanka. Some of the key benefits of SEO services are:
- Increased online visibility: SEO can help businesses to rank higher in SERPs, making them more visible to potential customers who are searching for products or services related to their business.
- More website traffic: By increasing their online visibility, businesses can attract more website traffic, which can lead to more leads, sales, and revenue.
- Improved user experience: SEO involves optimizing websites for both search engines and users, which can lead to a better user experience for visitors to the website.
- Competitive advantage: Businesses that invest in SEO can gain a competitive advantage over their competitors who are not investing in SEO.
- Cost-effective: SEO can be a cost-effective marketing strategy, as it can provide long-term benefits without requiring a significant investment in advertising or other forms of marketing.
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SEO Expert in Sri Lanka
An SEO expert is a professional who specializes in optimizing websites for search engines. SEO experts have a deep understanding of how search engines work and can help businesses to improve their online visibility, attract more traffic to their websites, and generate leads and sales.
In Sri Lanka, there are many SEO experts who can provide high-quality SEO services to businesses. These experts have a strong understanding of the local market and can help businesses to target specific audiences and achieve their marketing goals.
However there are only a few experts with more than a decade of SEO experience and exposure.
SEO experts in Sri Lanka can provide a wide range of services, including:
- Keyword research: SEO experts can help businesses to identify relevant keywords that can be targeted to improve their online visibility.
- On-page optimization: SEO experts can optimize the content and structure of a website to make it more search engine-friendly and improve its rankings in SERPs.
- Off-page optimization: SEO experts can help businesses to build high-quality backlinks to their website, which can improve their rankings and increase their online visibility.
If you need SEO services in Sri Lanka Call or WhatsApp me or fill up the simple contact me form and submit.
Latest updates on SEO
June 15, 2014Online Marketing / SEO / SEO TipsIf you work in SEO you are familiar with the jerks that have given you a bad name. Con-men with laptops have already given many of your clients SEO complexes that you now have to work through.
Companies that market online are going to be targets for these slimy sales men. For every real SEO webslinger you are likely to find a baker’s dozen selling snake oil, promising they can make the crippled walk and the blind see.
Unfortunately it is impossible to punch every single one of them in the face. This being so, my goal in this blog is to give a couple of hints as to how to tell the difference between a qualified technician and a quality conman.
One of the easiest indicators that someone selling SEO is in fact selling snake oil is how you get approached.
An SEO cold call is often a good indication that something’s up. Be more worried if they promise instant results. They might just tell you that they can get you a spot on Google’s first page right away. Often this means they set up a pay per click program. Pay Per Click is a sponsored listing. You get on the first page because you pay to be there. Once the money dries up your ranking disappears as well.
Also beware if your so-called SEO expert talks about a secret method that only they know and then refuse to divulge details. Guess what….people know how they get the caramel into Caramilk bars. In the world of the web there are no secrets, there are just people who do their research and keep up to date on the newest techniques. If they won’t tell you what they do, it probably isn’t worth hearing in the first place.
Another good indication that things are not on the up and up is when you are guaranteed results. The only way anyone can guarantee anything in this business is if they are investing in useless keywords or they are making promises they do not intend to keep.
Another easy way to find the slimy salesman is if they focus exclusively on your Google ranking. This is a tricky one because the actual SEO experts will also talk about rankings, because getting on that first page of results is in fact quite important, but how you get there influences how long you stay there.
Another good indication that you’re dealing with a grifter is if they sell themselves as practicing only offsite or onsite optimisation. You need both. If they approach you and tell you they can make you rich and only talk about content optimisation, keyword research and visibility analysis, take a second look. You should be equally suspicious if they tell you that their process is entirely based on links. Once more, repeat after me… SEO involves both offsite and onsite optimisation or it won’t provide long lasting results. [...]
December 15, 2012Google / SEOI’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. [...]
September 3, 2013GoogleIn recent times we have seen regular algorithm updates by Google, in order to serve the users with the best possible results for their search query. The continuous and unconfirmed updates have made webmasters and SEO’s jobs very hard.
However, it is not likely that Google is going to make it any easier to rank higher on their search engine, meanwhile Google’s Matt Cutts and the web spam team are taking spammers very seriously.
We all know and most of us do get emails (especially SEO quotes) from various individuals and SEO companies promising higher rankings on Google, even Matt Cutts of Google received such an email, which states:
I was on your website www.google.com and wanted to shoot you a quick note. I think I can make a few changes (aesthetically and/or SEO – wise) to make your site convert more visitors into leads and to get it placed higher in the organic search results, for a few of the select terms.
This is NOT like one of those foreign emails you probably get in your inbox every day. Just to be upfront I have 3 agents that work with me for development /SEO.
I would just need to know which (if not both) services you’re open to checking out information about, either web design or SEO. Would you be open to seeing more brief info / quote for what I would like to accomplish?
Regards,
XXXXXX XXXXX
And another email:
I would like to extend our knowledge to your audience in the form of a uest post . This post will be written by a college educated writer fluent in English.
To recap we will provide 100% original guest post with statical data and studies from professional writers.
Matt’s rule of thumb: if someone sends you an email with an SEO offer out of the blue, be skeptical. [...]
July 10, 2011SEO Sri Lanka / SEO TipsNow, this comes from back in 2011.
1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.
2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.
4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.
5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.
9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.
10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.
11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if https://farhanonline.com is your preference, then http://farhanonline.com should redirect to it.
12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to https://farhanonline.com and internal links go to https://farhanonline.com/index.html.
Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.
13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.
14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.
15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.
16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.
17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.
18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.
19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.
21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.
22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.
23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.
24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.
25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.
26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.
27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.
28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.
29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.
30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.
31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.
32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.
33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.
34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.
35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.
36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!
37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.
38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.
39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.
40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.
41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar
42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.
43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.
44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.
45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.
46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.
47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.
48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.
49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.
52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.
53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.
54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.
55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site. [...]
April 10, 2011Search Engine OptimisationGoogle trends gives you a quick insight of how certain searches have been made on Google over the past.
This is a very important tool if you’re targeting a particular country or city for a product or service. You can find out how much that particular product or service have been searched via Google.
As an example I’d like to share with you the recent earthquake which struck Japan. Follow the link bellow and check out how the line has shot up when you enter words “earthquake Japan” into Google trends. This proves that Google trends results are very much accurate and can be counted on.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=earthquake+japan&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2011&sort=0
Happy blogging and comeback soon for more tips an updates [...]
July 25, 2012Robots TextRobots txt is one of the most important elements that you should always check when it comes to onsite SEO.
I recently came across a website which had its homepage (the most important page of any website) blocked by mistake. This is somewhat similar to inviting someone to a party and closing the main door when they arrive.
So check your websites right now if your site is blocked for search engine spiders.
Go to your browser and type http://www.example.com/robots.txt (replace example with your domain)
See if you have a file which says:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
If it looks like the above then you are in trouble.
User-agent: * means it applies to all robots
Disallow:/ instructs the robot not to visit any of the pages on the site.
However all robots do not go according to robots text some ignore but Google usually follows robots text strictly. It is safe to use the below which will allow all robots to visit your website.
User-agent: *
Disallow:
You can use robots text to exclude pages such as logins etc from getting indexed or robots visiting them. Find out all about how to use robots text visit www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html [...]
December 9, 2016Adwords / Online Marketing / PPCAre you a business in Sri Lanka looking for leads and business opportunities?
Here’s an ideal opportunity to unleash your potential, Google Adwords is a perfect platform to reach out to your potential clients.
Using Google Adwords you can show your Ads to users who use Google to look for products or services related to yours. Having a very well optimized Ad and landing page can convert those users into paying customers.
Yes, We offer $45 worth advertising free when you sign up with us for Google Adwords campaign.
So why wait, contact us now.
*This is a limited offer
[...]
October 28, 2010Search Engine OptimisationHow important are domains when it comes to search engine optimization. Choosing the right domain can play a major role when it comes to optimizing your website for high competitive keywords. Best advice is to have at least one keyword as part of your domain.
As part of the algorithms of search engines, domains are also given a considerable amount of weight on search engine results pages. There are over 200 algorithms used by Google to rank a particular website. Over using keywords on domains can have your website penalized for spamming.
However, hyphens on domains are used to separate two words which is also fine with search engines but this might lead some returning users to end up on your competitor’s website.
e.i Instead of typing www.my-website.com it is very much possible that users type www.mywebsite.com
So next time when you choose a domain for your website watch out folks.
Happy SEO [...]
September 25, 2014Search Engine Optimisation / search engine optimization / SEOIf effective SEO is a concern of yours (and it should be!) there are many things to avoid when building a website, many of which will have a very serious impact on whether someone can ever find your site using a search engine. Some of these are simple fixes, and some not so simple.
Boy… where do I start! There are so many… hmmmm… Here goes, and be advised that these are not in definitive order.
1. Not having sufficient on page content. This is amazingly common. The causes could be a variety of things. Pages built in Flash, text buried in graphics or design that doesn’t allow for the use of many words. But, the effect is the same. Google needs to find the words on the page in order to assign relevance to your website when compiling the search results. While lack of content can potentially be offset through other means, for the most part, you have to show Google and your customers what you are all about. And that means words.
2. Not developing a website with SEO in mind. Jeez, I wish I had a buck for every website owner that came to me for SEO services for their brand new, swanky website after it had already been built with a host of problems. Potential problems are many and varied, from having insufficient text (as in the above), excessive and clunky coding which hampers indexing, excessive java script, or poorly designed pages with high bounce rates, etc. I even saw a site once that was built in such a way that you couldn’t implement H Tags! The truth is, many programmers/developers just don’t know the requirements of the search engines.
3. Inappropriate use of keywords. Keyword selection is really where you separate the wheat from the chaff. It is crucial more now than ever before that you select the keywords that accurately describe you and have the potential to lead to a high conversion rate.
Essentially this is because of two overall factors:
I. the SEO landscape is starting to get pretty crowded out there. Unless you have a super powerful website, it is very difficult to compete for a wide range of keywords. You are better off focusing your energy on those that will give you the best shot at highly targeted traffic.
II. Google is now looking at how effective your site is at retaining search traffic. If you start attracting unfocused visitors who immediately bounce away, Google will start to drop you down the SERPs. Google likes happy searchers… 😉
4. Not devoting enough (or any) attention to linking. As has been the case for a long time now, Google looks at how interconnected you are with a community of similar websites. It uses this to guage how “legitimate” and valuable your site is… figuring that if many similar websites are linking with you, you must be good. Though this has been the case for a long time, it is shocking how many websites devote little attention to this. And, given Google’s recent changes, this is even more important than ever.
5. Lastly, only doing part of the job. Google looks at a huge array of factors when positioning a website in its SERPs. optimisation means looking at as many of these factors as possible, and making the changes required. I’ve seen countless “SEOed” sites that only went part of the way. Good content, but no links… good Page Titles, but no supporting content… matching Titles and content, but crappy keyword selection… and the list goes on. These days, if you only do half a job you may as well kiss your investment goodbye.
So… like I said, these SEO mistakes aren’t in any particular order, but addressing them is crucial to success. Oh yeah… and one more thing: do yourself a favour and consult an expert 😉 [...]
April 1, 2015Mobile / Search Engine Optimisation / SEO / SEO TipsAs most you may know by now and expect the next major Algorithm update to roll out by Google by around the 21st April week.
Let’s take a closer look at what Google’s trying to accomplish by rolling out this update.
This is Google’s much awaited step towards providing primarily mobile friendly sites in mobile search.
The update will impact mobile search results globally in all languages, and Google says it will have a “significant” impact.
To make sure your site is mobile friendly or not on Google’s mobile search results, run your site through the mobile-friendly testing tool. If you get through, you have nothing to worry about.
There are many websites in Sri Lanka that are not Mobile friendly and needs immediate action in order to keep up to speed with Google. [...]