Google removes (+) search operator

Hello Everyone,

It has been a while since the last post and I had been very very busy on a brand new SEO project on a tourism website of my own. I also have been working on getting my own SEO website and blog which you might see live by mid November.

There had been plenty of things happening around as far as SEO’s are concerned and specially the changes Google had been making, including the PR checkers not working as a result of an update to the link (which is resolved now lasted a couple of days). The panda update which sent some sites down the drain by taking off up to 35 to 40% of the site visits. Launch of a new tab called Search Engine Optimization on Google Analytics and the list goes on.

Read more at SEO Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Holiday Destinations

Sri Lanka is a very beautiful island situated in the Indian ocean and south of India. It is known for the beautiful beaches and friendly people. So being a Sri Lankan myself I thought of adding a bit of information about some of our most beautiful Holiday Destinations. Also you can always find this from the source at http://www.tourslk.com/travel-destinations.html

Negombo

A famous fishing village North of Colombo, with a Dutch built canal. The canal itself is a hive of activity with fishermen traveling up and down in their gaily painted boats. On the shore of the canal you will find many homes and churches and many species of birds, including spectacular Kingfishers.

Kandy

Situated at an elevation of 488 meters, Kandy is rich in tradition and is the spiritual home of Sri Lanka. Perhaps best known for it’s Dalada Maligawa, the temple that houses the tooth relic of Buddha, Kandy is also a popular stop during July / August. During this time the city takes on a carnival atmosphere for the annual perahera, when the tooth relic is paraded around the city in a procession that includes, among others, approximately more than 100 elephants, traditional dancers and drummers.

Galle

One of the most interesting cities in Sri Lanka. It use to be our major national port until the late 19th century. Galle is famous for its well preserved 17th century Dutch built Fort, The journey to Galle is along the palm fringed southern coastal belt passing Hikkaduwa with it’s incredibly beautiful Coral Gardens and exotic tropical fish as well as Ambalangoda, famous for it’s Mask makers and another interesting place to visit is the Turtle Hatchery.

Read more at Sri Lanka Travel Blog

Is tourism in Sri Lanka booming?

After the end of the 30 odd years long war in Sri Lanka, it was expected to have huge boost in the tourism sector.

Now its been a couple of years after the war and most high security zones are free for the public. Are we having enough of tourists coming down to Sri Lanka or is it that the country has just gotten from bad to worse.

I have seen plenty of websites and promotions going around targeting tourists around the world.

I came across a pretty nice website Sri Lanka Holiday tours which offers customized tour packages to Sri Lanka.

What really impressed me is how well Search Engine Optimized the site is, even though it is a basic HTML website.

Read more at SEO Sri Lanka

Japanese earthquake and Google trends

Google 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.

Read more at SEO Sri Lanka

Google Search Operators

Many of you who use Google as your preferred search engine might find the following operators useful, efficient and most of all “time-saving”.

You do not need special training to search for the contact number of a leading local bank or the website of a supermarket in town on Google. It’s as simple as just typing in the name of the bank or supermarket and hitting the search button, which will return your required information instantly.

What if you are looking for a particular product of which the name is only half known or not so popular?

On such instances it is not so easy as just typing those words (only if you remember). It may take you hours to find the exact piece of information you are after. Time is precious and you cannot afford to spend hours searching for something which you require immediately.

This is when using search operators comes handy, it is efficient and will save you time, effort and resources. If you find this information useful please email or share this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit. You can also use the print option to get a printout for yourself.

Read more at SEO Sri Lanka

Optimizing your home page

As you might have heard the saying you never have a second chance to make a first impression, and that the first impression is made within 7 seconds of meeting someone. When it comes to a visiting website it’s even faster than that.

So what does the home page or a landing page of your website say about your website? Does it immediately grab the attention of your readers and make them focus and concentrate on your contents? Or does it do nothing at all and drive them away to another page? Does it load quickly allowing them to see what’s in store for them? Or does it take several seconds to load, making them lose their patience once the page finally arrives?

Your Landing Page Has 7 to 11 Seconds

That’s all you need to impress your reader and get them to stay on your site. Even for the faster sites, 2 to 3 of those seconds are spent downloading the page. So that leaves you 4 to 8 seconds to get your message across and let them navigate through your pages.

There are a many different strategies to make your landing page memorable and keep them clicking.

• Navigation Home Pages
  Navigation front pages have a lot of information in a small space. They act like a portal to the rest of the site packing in the places your readers can go.If you have a website with a lot of information, a navigation front page may be the way to go. Often readers do not come to the front page of large sites looking for specific information, they are looking for the “route” to the information they want. While you could argue that having that information right on the front page would be good, for a large site this isn’t feasible. If your readers already know the site is large, they don’t expect to find the information on the front page, so even when it’s there, they don’t see it.
• Information Home Pages
  Websites with one specific purpose, an informative front page gets that purpose right out where the reader expects it.Sites that are focused around a goal, such as selling something, or displaying designs, or publishing a family photo album are well suited for an Information Front Page. Make that goal the central part of the page. Engage the readers by showing them an overview of the goal and then drawing them in to the details and extra information that supports that goal.

Read more at SEO Sri Lanka

Page Rank Update From Google

Have you Webmasters and SEO‘s noticed a sudden dance in your rankings and unusual activity on Google lately?  There was a change in Google Search for number of competition,  A keyword which had over 8 million competition on SERP (Search Engine Result Page) dropped to around 5 million while one of our sites ranking for that keyword suddenly jumped up over 120 positions to the top 3.

It has been the  longest awaited Page Rank update ever since last April. Many websites of Page Rank 0 has been promoted to 1. Many web masters across the globe have been waiting for this change for a long time.

Our clients have been very much relieved as they had their website PR increase,  If your website’s PR went up too! Congratulations, all your SEO efforts and experiments have paid off and you deserve it.

Proud to be the first blog to report on Google PR (Page Rank) update in Sri Lanka.

Happy SEO

Farhan Fawzer