With the evolving need for advanced online marketing, one must have efficient strategies. In regards to Edmonton SEO, there are two strategies; white hat and black hat. White hat SEO is the use of optimization strategies, techniques, and tactics that emphasize on human audience and not search engines but follow all the search engine policies and rules.

A site that is optimized for search engines but still pays attention to organic ranking and relevancy is considered to be optimized using White Hat SEO practices.

• Making the site easy to navigate
• Providing quality content and services
• Utilizing descriptive and keyword-rich Meta tags

What is the importance of SEO techniques?

To start with, failing to use white hat SEO services may make your site to be banned from search engines. Millions of people visit search engines daily, which increases the chances of your site being discovered. If you are prohibited from using a search engine, imagine what you could miss out on! Worse still, if you are banned, there may be no hope of being re-listed again.

White hat SEO tips

Successful publishers and bloggers have mastered the art of effective white hat SEO practices. Here are a few useful tips:

#1 white hat SEO principle

Avoid sending messages aimed at tricking search engines or editors. Use SEO as service for people who come online to look for content.

#2 white hat SEO

As a person posting content online, ask yourself this: “Did I help my readers understand something better than they did previously?” If the answer is no, refrain from posting the content; and if yes, you can post the information confidently.

#3 white hat principle

It is not advisable to post content that does add value frequently. For instance, if you post ten articles in a week, consider reducing them to three so that you can increase the quality of your content.

#4 white hat principle

When writing news content, ensure that you do it in a way that the previous source failed to do. If you have a website, do not allow your editors to copy and paste work. Let them write the stories in an original way.

#5 white hat principle

Have a standard of journalism that places you ahead of other websites. You can do this by creating posts that add value to your target audience. Do not write on topics that do not interest you simply for SEO purposes.

Over and above everything, avoid doing things purely for search engines. This is the rule that defines companies that do well. Keyword research is essential and should be used. However, always give priority to content. Having a keyword accompany excellent content should be your first consideration. Besides, without appropriate keyword use, those great articles will get lost on the internet.

If you are a publisher, stick to your brand’s reputation by dedicating yourself to publishing quality articles that readers can trust. Remember that search engines still look for keywords for them to be able to define your content. If your content is great, even your ranking will improve as well.

According to TechCrunch, Apple’s iPhone has now surpassed Windows Mobile as a smartphone OS in raw market share.

Of course, looking more closely at the bar graph reveals the real story, which is that platforms like Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile are very much losing steam in the face of the growth of RIM and Apple.

Android, which is in its infancy as a consumer platform, and which had not been particularly well-supported by marketing until the splashy launch of the Droid, has yet to really start rolling, but we suspect it’ll get there sometime in 2010.

If you’re building mobile apps you’ve got to be cautious about picking a platform.  Apple and RIM are clear winners, Android (google) is definitely one to watch… and Palm or Windows Mobile could again be contenders if they affect a turnaround.

The clear trendline to success, though, is embracing the consumer’s purchase decision of a mobile phone.  For Microsoft, twisting the arms of customers via their employers has always been a doomed strategy.  This palpable shift by RIM away from Enterprise sales to the Consumer channel, which has been underway for at least two years, accounts for most of their growth, and of course Apple’s iPhone is a consumer pure-play, although their Exchange compatibility is at least a nod toward the overlords of the IT department.

Mobile technology is a personal choice.  Ignore it at your peril, smartphone vendors.

As we noted last week in our blog, AppSocial was among 20 companies selected to pitch the investors and media attending Vancouver’s Fusion Forum on November 12, 2009.  Fortunately, the company and our CEO Ian Andrew Bell made the grade and were among the 10 finalists chosen by those investors for follow-on meetings and discussions.

AppSocial was also chosen as first runner-up for “Best In Show” by the investors attending the Fusion Forum, the second time in three years that Bell has garnered this award (previously, this was for Something Simpler Systems).  Those winners were announced the evening of November 12.

“It’s an honour to be chosen among such a great group of companies, people and ideas,” said AppSocial CEO Ian Andrew Bell.  “The stiff competition this year bodes well not only for investors but also for the health of the Canadian new media scene.”

The Fusion Forum is an annual investor conference held in Vancouver which invites a selection of qualifying Canadian new media and technology ventures to present their plans to an audience of global investors pursuant to financing.  Organized by New Media BC, and supported by the Canadian National Research Council, and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, the Fusion Forum has an 11-year history of presenting the nation’s best and brightest early stage ventures to the investment audience.

AppSocial has been selected to pitch at the Fusion Forum in Vancouver, Canada on November 12th & 13th.  AppSocial was one of twenty companies selected to showcase for investors from among dozens of applicants in the British Columbia region.  The Forum has invited Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors from across the region and in the US to meet the presenting companies.  From among the 20 presenters, 10 will be invited to private sessions with investors on the 13th of November.

This represents a great step forward and we’re excited to share some (though not all) of our plans with the crowd.

Retrevo announced the results of a study last week that we originally missed.  This is ever-so-slightly off other studies we’ve seen, but is well within the margin of error.  iPhones, and even Blackberries, are quite gender-balanced.

… they followed up that data with the revelation this week that 1 in 3 iPhone users has broken up with a partner via text message or email.  iPhone owners also prefered cool gadgets over a college degree three to one in their potential life partners and that if their partner had out-of-date gadgets, it would be a turnoff. Compared with other cell phone users, iPhone owners are more likely to see themselves as media buffs, extroverts, and intellectuals.

2D Boy, publishers of innovative indie game World of Goo have released the results of their week-long first birthday pricing experiment, where they asked customers to pay exactly as much as they wanted for the game (which is awesome and addictive, by the way) via their web site (which bills thru PayPal).  The company previously estimated that their game had a 90% piracy rate.

The results are revealing:  the cumulative average price paid was $2.03 over the week.  This certainly validates the $1.99 (or more) that many games charge on Apple’s App Store.  More interestingly, the hubbub generated by this “Radiohead Pricing Model” spilled over to sales of their game on another distribution network, Steam, driving them up by 40%.

Pricing a game, application, or other product or service is always very hard… and it takes lots of focus testing and customer interaction to get a sense for how they value a service.  This is made even worse by the fact that your customers aren’t even always honest with you or with themselves.

What’s been overlooked here is that these guys earned $100K in one week, putting their product into the hands of 50,000 users.  That’s amazingly impressive for an indie studio.  No wonder they’re extending the experiment for another week.  Kudos for such a small team that had the courage to break new ground in this area.