What is the difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO?

The difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO has to do with the techniques used when trying to improve a website’s search engine ranking.

Black hat SEO refers to techniques and strategies used to get higher search rankings, and breaking search engine rules. Black hat SEO focuses on only search engines and not so much a human audience. Black hat SEO is typically used by those who are looking for a quick return on their site, rather than a long-term investment on their site. Some techniques used in black hat SEO include: keyword stuffing, link farming, hidden texts and links, and blog content spamming. Consequences of black hat SEO can possibly result in your site being banned from a search engine and de-indexed as a penalization for using unethical techniques.

White hat SEO refers to the use of techniques and strategies that target a human audience opposed to a search engine. Techniques that are typically used in white hat SEO include using keywords, and keyword analysis, doing research, rewriting meta tags in order for them to be more relevant, backlinking, link building as well as writing content for human readers. Those who use white hat SEO expect to make a long-term investment on their website, as the results last a long time.

White hat SEO Techniques: 

Quality content; Creating quality content is important because it shows the search engines that your site is unique and appropriate to display. Researching keywords that are both short and long tail and are relevant to your site is necessary to do as well. Be sure to include keywords naturally in headings, link anchor texts and page titles. Furthermore, it is important to add new relevant content regularly. The more content-rich your site is, the better as it will appear to be more valuable to the search engines, human visitors and webmasters who would most likely link to your site. Although creating quality content may be time consuming, it will be well worth it in the long run.

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How To Set Up Google Analytics Tutorial: 3 Essential Steps For The Beginner

Hey there! If you’re looking for a Google Analytics tutorial, you might be interested in my 100% Free Google Analytics Quickstart course – takes you through these steps as well as a few extra tweaks to make sure you’re setup for success! 

So you have yourself a website. Congrats! Getting yourself a website is a huge step in the marketing your business game. You’re thinking: now what? Noooooooooooow – you set up Google Analytics! Why? Because this simple setup will let you see how many people are coming to your website, from where, how long they’re staying and much, much more.

Ready for Google Analytics? If those two words don’t make you want to party – I don’t know what will. Go ahead, grab your party hat, turn up the music, we’re going to super-ify your website with a Google Analytics setup.

(Looking for specific platform advice? Check out my ultimate guide to installing Google Analytics on any website here)

Step 1 – Sign Up!

Simplest of the steps here is to sign up! Head over to www.google.com/analytics:

At this point either sign in with your existing Google account (Have you signed up for Google Apps for Business, perhaps? or do you currently use Google Adwords?) or click ‘Create an Account’ in the upper right.

If you’re not already signed in with a Google-related account, you’ll then see this screen:

Once you’ve signed up for a new account (if you need it), click the “Sign Up” button on the next screen:

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll come to the setup screen:

At the time of this post, Universal Analytics is currently in beta and doesn’t have the same full capabilities as Classic Analytics. I recommend choosing Classic Analytics to start (we can upgrade later once Universal Analytics is out of beta).

For Website Name, you can simply use your URL if you wish.

For Website URL – just type in your website address! Just as Google tells you – www.yourwebsiteadress.com (they’ve already taken care of the http://).

Industry – this one is optional but will let Google Analytics tailor some suggestions for your account for you. I’ve found most of these don’t apply to the clients I most often work with – if you’re having trouble picking one, I recommend “Online Communities.”

Pick your time zone.

For Account Name – feel free to use your company name. You can have/monitor multiple websites in one Analytics Account, so make sure this name will be appropriate if you plan on adding multiple websites.

Data Sharing Settings – completely optional. Select and deselect as you feel comfortable.

Click Get Tracking ID, agree to the pop-up Terms of Service and you’re all set!

Step 2 – Installing Tracking Code

This part can SEEM a little intimidating (I know it’s easy to go deer-in-headlights when anyone starts typing code-like characters) but I PROMISE it’s actually really simple.

Once you’ve signed up, you’ll see the following tracking code setup screen:

If you’re using WordPress to manage your site, simply install the Google Analytics for WordPress Plugin and under Settings, manually enter your UA code (just copy and paste everything after “Tracking ID” from your Google Analytics screen). NOTE: Be sure to copy and paste YOUR specific code and not the one in the above screenshot – each UA code is unique to one Google Account.

If you’re NOT using WordPress, installing the code is still pretty easy. Google walks you through it beginning with “What are you tracking?” Most likely you are tracking a single domain. From there scroll down and:

1. Copy the code Google displays for you (it includes your unique UA code).
2. Paste EXACTLY THAT before the ending tag in your HTML code.
   QUICK TIP: Just do a search within the code to find this tag – “Ctrl+F” on a PC or “Command+F” on a Mac. In the Find box, type “</head>” (minus quotes)
3. Save. As Google says, Most websites re-use one file for common content, so it’s likely that you won’t have to place the code snippet on every single page of your website.
4. and Done! Wait for Google to recognize the installed code (can take a few hours to one day). When everything is installed correctly – “Tracking Status” will read “Receiving Data.”

Step 3 – Add a Second Admin User

Your Google Analytics account is actually now set up and will start tracking data in the next 24 hours – this last step is just a bonus recommendation. By default, the address you signed up for is an admin user for Google Analytics (you have access to do everything in the account). I recommend setting up a second admin user with an unrelated Gmail address (free to sign up).

Why? Because as you may have experienced, Google is great with help forums but not so great at one-on-one customer service. You can’t really call anyone at Google if you lose access to your Analytics email account or something else goes funky. The data won’t be lost but you won’t be able to log in and see it [googling "can't access google analytics" will show you how many people have had this dreaded problem]. Having a second unrelated email address signed up with your account means having a back-up plan.

You can actually add users either at the Account level or Property level in Google Analytics. For our purposes, we’ll add someone at the account level.

So here’s how (super easy):

1. When signed into Google Analytics, click on the Admin button on the orange bar 
   
2. Make sure you’re at the Account level and not Property or Profile. How to check this? Under the bolded Account name (in my screenshot, “Liz Test”), you should see “Account ID” versus “Property ID”. Not there? Quickest way to get there is to click the first account name after the “Account list” in the blue text at the very top of the screen – that should take you to your Accounts.
3. Click the Users tab.
4. Click +New User.
5. On the next screen, fill out the email address (remember an unrelated Gmail address works) and select “Administrator” as the role.
6. Check ‘notify this user by email’
7. Select all of your profiles and click ‘add’ to give this user access.
8. Click the blue Add User button.
9. Log out of Analytics and try logging in with your second-user address. Did it work? Great! You’re done. If not – log in with your primary account info again and make sure the email address was entered correctly.

Here’s a screenshot of this step:

And done! You now have a Google Analytics Account set up and back-up administrative access in place. Enjoy finding out more about your visitors and what online marketing efforts (visitor source) are working for you!

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear about how this blog post helped you.

If you liked this Analytics setup guide, great! Use the social sharing buttons at the top of this post to give this post some sharing love.

Article Source: http://www.lizlockard.com/how-to-set-up-google-analytics-3-essential-steps-for-the-beginner/

What is SERP?

A search engine results page (SERP) is the listing of results returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of items with titles, a reference to the full version, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned, or to the set of all links returned for a search query.

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serp

Why does your website need SEO?

The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines - Google, Bing andYahoo!. Although social media and other types of traffic can generate visits to your website, search engines are the primary method of navigation for most Internet users. This is true whether your site provides content, services, products, information or just about anything else.

Search engines are unique in that they provided targeted traffic - people looking for what you offer.Search engines are the roadways that makes this happen. If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search.

Search queries, the words that users type into the search box, carry extraordinary value. Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization's success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other channel of marketing. Investing in SEO, whether through time or finances, can have an exceptional rate of return compared to other types of marketing and promotion.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a web site in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines. There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand.

Search Engine Optimization isn't just about "engines." It's about making your site better for people too. At Moz we believe these principles go hand in hand.

This guide is designed to describe all areas of SEO - from discovery of the terms and phrases (keywords) that generate traffic, to making a site search engine friendly, to building the links and marketing the unique value of the site/organization's offerings. Don't worry, if you are confused about this stuff, you are not alone.

Read More: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo