SEO Daily Update | SEO News

What’s new with Sitemaps

2012-02-08T03:13:00.000-08:00

What’s new with Sitemaps: Webmaster level: All

Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site. Webmaster Tools’ Sitemaps feature gives you feedback on your submitted Sitemaps, such as how many Sitemap URLs have been indexed, or whether your Sitemaps have any errors. Recently, we’ve added even more information! Let’s check it out:

The Sitemaps page displays details based on content-type. Now statistics from Web, Videos, Images and News are featured prominently. This lets you see how many items of each type were submitted (if any), and for some content types, we also show how many items have been indexed. With these enhancements, the new Sitemaps page replaces the Video Sitemaps Labs feature, which will be retired.

Another improvement is the ability to test a Sitemap. Unlike an actual submission, testing does not submit your Sitemap to Google as it only checks it for errors. Testing requires a live fetch by Googlebot and usually takes a few seconds to complete. Note that the initial testing is not exhaustive and may not detect all issues; for example, errors that can only be identified once the URLs are downloaded are not be caught by the test.

In addition to on-the-spot testing, we’ve got a new way of displaying errors which better exposes what types of issues a Sitemap contains. Instead of repeating the same kind of error many times for one Sitemap, errors and warnings are now grouped, and a few examples are given. Likewise, for Sitemap index files, we’ve aggregated errors and warnings from the child Sitemaps that the Sitemap index encloses. No longer will you need to click through each child Sitemap one by one.

Finally, we’ve changed the way the “Delete” button works. Now, it removes the Sitemap from Webmaster Tools, both from your account and the accounts of the other owners of the site. Be aware that a Sitemap may still be read or processed by Google even if you delete it from Webmaster Tools. For example if you reference a Sitemap in your robots.txt file search engines may still attempt to process the Sitemap. To truly prevent a Sitemap from being processed, remove the file from your server or block it via robots.txt.

For more information on Sitemaps in Webmaster Tools and how Sitemaps work, visit our Help Center. If you have any questions, go to Webmaster Help Forum.

Update to Search Engine Optimization reports

2012-02-08T03:07:00.000-08:00

Update to Search Engine Optimization reports: In October, we made Google Webmaster Tools available to all users in Google Analytics, allowing everyone to surface Google search data in new Search Engine Optimization reports. Starting today, Webmaster Tools will update how they calculate data to make it better match expectations about what a search engine ranking really means.

Based on their research, the answer to the question "What is your rank in search results?" is the first position of a link to your site. Previously we reported the average position of all links to your site. Now your Google Analytics reports will be updated to reflect the first position.

An example calculation

We anticipate that this new method of calculation will more accurately match your expectations about how a link's position in Google Search results should be reported.

How will this affect my Google Analytics data?

This change will affect your Search Engine Optimization reports, when your data in Google Analytics Search Engine Optimization reports will be calculated using the new method. Historical data will not change. Note that the change in calculation means that the Average Position metric will usually stay the same or decrease, corresponding to the same or improved search ranking.

We look forward to providing you a more representative picture of your Google Search data. Please let us know any feedback you have.

How to Write SEO Web Copy That Appeals to Customers and Crawlers

2011-11-11T06:25:00.000-08:00

How to Write SEO Web Copy That Appeals to Customers and Crawlers:

In the analytics-driven, strategically charged world of search, it can sometimes be a little too easy to start feeling like a robot. After all, that’s who reads your text, right? Well…sort of.

Alternatively, it can also be a little too easy to forget about robots and just write for your human visitors, throwing keyword research and SEO strategy out the window. After all, you’re being genuine! And writing from the heart! And people really like that (this is true).

But…writing from the heart doesn’t always boost those elusive organic search engine rankings. And writing for robots isn’t exactly a huge draw for your living, breathing, emotionally-driven customers that don’t have a predictably higher chance of buying designer handbags from you the more (discount designer handbags) times you (best designer handbags) throw a long-tail keyword (designer handbag prices)at them. If only it were that easy!

So how do you write for both people and search engine crawlers?

Write with your target audience in mind. If you really get into the minds of your target audience, you’ll likely find that your content will naturally flow toward the things they’ll be searching for (and finding in your content), and having content with keywords that relate to one another will show search engines that your content is relevant to your niche.

But having a hunch about your customer isn’t enough. You still have to do your research – keyword research, that is. Once you’ve really envisioned everything about your target customer, who they are, what they like and don’t like, the way they speak, any detail you can possibly think of, you want to make sure you further reinforce your SEO relevance by including long-tail keywords in your content.

Notice we use the word including, rather than stuffing.

An unfortunately common misconception about SEO is that the more keywords you can cram into your text, the better. But remember how awkward and, frankly, awful that ‘designer handbag’ sentence was? Site crawlers don’t like that sort of thing either. Not only are you likely to scare away your visitors, but you’re sending the message to search engines that you’re all about the spam, and that’s a quick ticket to sending your site to the bottom of the barrel, authority-wise.

If you can keep a clear picture of your target customer in mind while simultaneously remembering to include relevant, specific keywords throughout your content, you’ll be off to a great start. Focusing on just a few specific terms per page or post will help improve your rankings for those terms, rather than trying to include everything you can think of in every sentence.

By regularly updating your site’s content with a focus on both a particular angle of your content and the needs of your customer, you’ll be able to provide valuable content that:

taps into your customer’s emotions (which also develops trust, a sense of relationship with you and a higher likelihood for purchase and continued visitor loyalty), and

simultaneously shows search engine crawlers that they should pay attention to you.

Hopefully you’ve found these SEO copywriting tips useful and feel better prepared to confidently walk the line between content for your visitors, and keywords for search engines. Now get writing!

Using Social Sign on to Target Content to Customers

2011-10-20T07:50:00.001-07:00

Using Social Sign on to Target Content to Customers:

The term social scientists and sociologist, is very soon going to acquire a new meaning. To jump in the bandwagon and stay ahead in the competition, you too can use it for excellent results. We know that internet really irritates, when it appears to be a cobweb of ID’s and passwords. But by using ‘Social Sign’, you can eliminate this frustration. If you want to create a dedicated fan base or base of registered users, you can use the existing Facebook and twitter accounts for registration.

The idea behind registration

Several surveys and studies claim that registered users are much more proactive and dedicated towards a website or forum. It not only gives them a sense of ownership but also helps them in bringing out the desired changes via several available options and mediums. There are four basic areas where registered users can create value to the brand.

Loyalty

The competition boils down to the fact that who has the most numbers. If Facebook has 600 million users, then it is a testament of the fact that it is the most powerful and popular social networking site on the internet. Loyalty not only as a quality but also as a behavioral trait plays very important role. Registered users are not only much more engaged than your average users, but they can also render the feedback that can make or break a website.

Word of mouth

Loyalty is the first step and the first benchmark. The next step is the ‘Buzz’ that results from word of mouth. To this date, no form of marketing or publicity has been able to replace the importance and impact of word of mouth. In a survey, it is revealed that almost three quarters of many e-commerce websites; that registered users are a big contributor in the brand promotion. It is also important to note that registered users feel a sense of ownership, especially in open networks, where they are allowed to make changes and give suggestions. So for a website like Wikipedia, the user will not only generate content but would also put individual efforts to promote it.

Targeting content

If you have a registered user base, then it is also easier for you to understand their demographics better. By the extensive use of user surveys, questionnaires, you can not only determine their age, location and sex. But through a series of psychographic surveys you can also dwell on their choices. This also allows the e-commerce websites to have better follow up services.

Bottom line

At the end, it all comes down to business. The figures show that 9 out of 10 customers are a registered user. This dedicated following of users plays a big role in making market leaders. All the websites that have a major market share in the e-commerce sector are also the one with the most dedicated followers.

Four Tips for Optimizing Your Twitter Profile for Better Search Engine Performance

2011-10-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

Four Tips for Optimizing Your Twitter Profile for Better Search Engine Performance:

As the search engine giant Google releases new technologies ever so often, the talk about real-time search is now a thing of the past. Google launched real-time search sometime ago, allowing users to search and view updates on major social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. At that time you were able to search for a particular topic or keyword and find out what the buzz was on that topic.

Even though Google has stopped using real-time search for some time now, you will still find them indexing Twitter profiles and tweets as if they were regular pages. Some people may think there’s a secret to this, but only a few companies and persons have started optimizing their twitter profiles for great search engine performance.

By optimizing your profile page you will find that using Twitter will be a great and very effective way for you to build links naturally and increase traffic to your website and best of all, this works for almost all the major search engines.

So just in case you might want to start optimizing your twitter page for a better search engine performance, I have put together a few tips that will help you and your company, build quality links to your website and increase brand awareness.

Creating your Twitter handle

This is just about the most critical of all. Selecting a handle/username is not just about choosing a random name, but it should be something relevant to your brand name or a keyword in your niche.

Your choice of username must be done carefully as this cannot be changed and it will be used in your url when your profile is indexed by the search engines.

Optimize your profile bio

Another thing you should look at is the information contained in your bio. Twitter allows you to use only 160 characters in your profile bio, so you have to make it not only relevant, but interesting so that you could attract users.

This will be very helpful if done right as the search engines will use your profile bio as the description, and we all know how important it is to have a proper description.

Retweetable Tweets that are keyword rich

When thinking about something tweet, always remember to try and make sense with you tweets, while on the other hand staying on topic.

Twitter only allows you a certain amount of characters per tweet so try and make good use of each update by including your keywords in each update. While you would like your updates to be keyword-dense, you should not stuff it with keywords, as this will seem to be a bit spammy and will be a major turn off to your followers.

Links to your twitter profile

Just as links to your website are important, the same thing goes to your profile. Increasing the links to your twitter profile will make it stronger in the search engines. You could start by linking to profile via your website hereby passing on some of your domain authority to it.

Another thing you could do is try an increase your followers, as they too give a link to your profile from theirs, under the list of people they are following.

Twitter should not be used as your main strategy when it comes to your seo link building, but it sure is a start of things to come. Social media is all about the conversation, and the conversation can turn a visitor into a customer, and keep them coming back.

Optimizing Your Google Plus Profile

2011-10-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

Optimizing Your Google Plus Profile:

Google Plus is the latest social network to really catch wind; it is progressing at an increasing rate and is at roughly 50 million users. Facebook is however, on over 800 million users. Googles’ 50 million is not something to be sniffed at, it IS expanding extremely fast and is a contender in the social media world.

Taking into consideration it is a definite possibility that Google plus will dominate social networking, businesses need to think about how they can put set up the equivalent to a Facebook page, and not only that, but how to optimize it.

Google Plus is quite different to Facebook, in terms of rankings, there are things you can do to help you rank for search terms on Google +. I have conducted a case study which can be found on the SEO Positive Blog, this case study shows an provides examples of each factor and how effective they are.

The key points to take away from this study are that the introduction, Employment and Nicknames sections have the highest value. Something that is not mentioned within the study is that you should keep your profile optimization as white hat as possible, that means no keyword stuffing and so on. Remember the Big G created, owns and runs this platform. So if you want to play in their playground, you’re going to have follow their rules.

When we talk about Facebook page optimization, we tend to mean the appearance and usability for our fans… or potential fans. So there are a few things we can do here.

Content

Content is and will always be king, you need to include keywords for the ranking value, but make sure it is all legible and is actually useful information. If you have the rankings but not the content to convert, then all of your optimization efforts have been wasted.

Pictures

Googles’ albums are beautiful, especially when compared to their brother, Facebook. So make sure all your images are high quality and do justice to the platform.

Similar to Facebook, there is a banner section which is called the scrapbook. Unlike Facebook, Google does not randomize the images, which means you can use the banner space as an advert; the banner is also bigger which allows more information to be displayed. This is an area where you or your designers can really get creative and set yourself out from the competition.

Finally, your profile picture has a neat animation, it allows two images to be your display picture, one is set as your default but if you have two and click onto the display picture, it will switch to the second. In Chrome and Safari browsers, the image will actually rotate, which is a cool little animation. Again this is another opportunity you have to get creative with your profile.

Conclusion

These are all of the features Google has to offer right now, it is clear they are trying to keep the platform simple and not overcrowded. There is no doubt that there is more to come, but these are the different features of the network you can hone to your advantage, so make the most of them.

4 Link Building Strategies for “Too Busy for Link Building” Local Businesses

2011-09-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

4 Link Building Strategies for “Too Busy for Link Building” Local Businesses:

More and more small businesses working in a “local” market are waking up to the realities and need for Search Engine Optimization. However, in talking with many of these owners, they are concerned with the importance and on-going nature of link building, and the lack of financial and human resources needed to carry out link building activities.

As link building can account for up to 75% of the success of a SEO program, it is imperative that these businesses find a way to collect links within their limited resource budgets.

Following are 4 creative strategies to help “local” businesses develop on-going link building programs with a minimum long term investment.

1. Blogging for those that don’t have time to blog

Okay – you’ve probably already heard the “content is king” refrain and maybe have already accepted blogging as the powerful link building tool that it is. You may even have come around to the idea that blogging can help a business in the (concrete, pool installation, landscaping, plumbing, accounting, . . .) industry that you are in. However, it still comes down to resources – producing great content and managing a blog takes up valuable time!

The solution is to become a part-time blogger. Instead of running your own blog, work with others in your community that share a common clientele, but are not direct competitors to your business. For example, a plumber could work with an electrician, appliance retailer, interior designer, landscaper, carpenter, flooring retailer, and heating/cooling company to produce a “shared” blog about “Do it Yourself Home Projects”. Together they could produce a blog that would probably appeal to a wider audience then a specialized industry blog could, and it would only require the plumber to produce one article every two months.

Another option would be to find related blogs both at the national and local level and submit content as a guest blogger. This is currently a very common link building strategy among bloggers, but there is no rule saying that you have to have your own blog to be a guest blogger.

2. Produce sharable content

Find a subject within your industry or community that would be of use to customers at multiple businesses. For example, our plumber may write (or hire someone to write) a “Guide to Re-designing your Bathroom” and offer it as a free download from his website. In addition, he can have an attractive button designed and offer it to local electricians, plumbing supply stores, flooring companies, paint stores, etc to put on their websites so that they can offer the guide to their customers.

Essentially, each button then becomes a link to his website – he has traded great content for a valuable link.

Rather than being an article or information, this could be an app or widget that they could use or offer on their website.

3. Send out a “local” press release

Whenever you have something of interest going on within your company – a big project, a new hire, the additions of a new product or service – send out a local press release.

Keep an email list for local online and paper newspapers, magazines, radio and T.V. stations, and any other businesses or groups it might interest. When something exciting is happening within your business, send an email out to this group to let them know. Include a link back to a website page that was created to provide details about the “exciting news”. This page could then be linked to in an article or blog from one of their sites.

4. Have a contest

Once a year, organize a contest. The goal of the contest will be to produce a list. Either a “top ten” type of list providing acknowledgment to the “top ten Seattle Plumbers”, or a “Best of List” announcing the best plumber, electrician, etc in the area.

Try to promote the contest through your blogging efforts, a local press release, social media platforms, etc. Depending on the size of your area, you can either list everyone in the category, or require contest entrants to be nominated by the general public. Results can be determined by a vote or through selection by a panel of “experts”.

Create a button for winners to advertise the results of the contest. Announce the results through your media and social media platforms and provide the winners with the button that links back to your website.

Time and effort spent on link building can provide a strong payoff in search engine results pages. Hopefully these 4 strategies will allow you to develop links over a period of time for a minimal upfront investment of time and labor.

Please let me know how these strategies work for you. Do you have any other link building strategies that you have had success with?

You're Not an SEO Unless You Read This Post

2011-09-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

I often write about the various jobs, skills and talents that go into optimizing a website for search engines. As the owner of a firm that specializes in website marketing strategy and leader of an awesome team of talented people, I'm quite biased as to the need and value of having such a team working on all the aspects of marketing your website.

Yet, optimizing a site isn't terribly difficult. Anybody can be taught the basics, which many already know and are implementing on their websites right now. But SEO is more than basic implementation of strategies you've read about online or on Twitter. SEO is much bigger the sum of its parts.

There are hundreds of "parts" that can play a role in an effective optimization campaign. Google looks at more than 200 "signals" alone, each with varying degrees of value and necessity. Most people who start out doing SEO soon realize there is a lot to keep up with, and it's better passed on to more capable hands.

So, just who do these capable hands belong to? Well, that depends on who you talk to. Everybody believes there is a certain level of knowledge and know-how that pre-qualifies you as an SEO. Sometimes it's fun to see what certain bottom line "requirements" are. In light of that, I put together this list of things you absolutely, certainly, necessarily or quite possibly need to know in order to qualify as an SEO.

You're not an SEO unless...

...you know HTML code

HTML is pretty much as basic as basic SEO gets. But guess what, you really don't need to know every bit of HTML to SEO a site. Does it help? Absolutely! You do need a considerable amount of HTML knowledge, but don't let anyone tell you that if you can't code an entire site by hand, you're not an SEO.

...you monitor the search engine algorithms.

SEOs need to know what the search engines are doing, but how much "monitoring" is really required? Some SEOs have almost a religious dedication to documenting, analyzing and testing every detail of an algorithm and then doing it all again when Google makes a change. Others take a big picture approach, looking at long-term SEO strategies that are not affected by every algorithm whim. Just because you don't monitor algorithms as much as someone else doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you read search engine patents.

I admire those who can read search engine patents and makes sense of them. These individuals have their pulse on what is possibly coming to a search engine near you. But, only possibly. Not all patents actually result in something being incorporated into the algorithm. They help you keep an eye on a possible future, but not necessarily the destined future. Just because you don't read search engine patents doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you build links.

Every SEO should know how to build links, but some are far better at it than others. Link building is like sales. Some people just have the gift. Every SEO should understand both basic and advanced link-building concepts and their corresponding strategies, but just because you don't do actual link building doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you know analytics.

Analytics is the best way to prove the value of your SEO efforts. But analytics itself isn't SEO. It's simply the reporting method. If you want to know how well your SEO is really doing, you need to learn analytics or, better yet, employ someone who can in order to analyze your website traffic data. But if you can't, that doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you follow search engine guidelines.

The search engine guidelines are just that: guidelines. It's smart to be sure your SEO strategies don't violate any policies that might get your site dinged. On the other hand, some of the guidelines propagated by the search engines are entirely self-serving. Being good at SEO doesn't even require that you know the guidelines, so not knowing them doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you can initiate "black hat" SEO strategies.

In some industries, it's very difficult to get good results unless you invest in black hat SEO strategies. If you're not in those industries, then you don't need to worry about it. And not knowing how to implement these type of strategies certainly doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you're a copywriter.

Copywriting skills are a must... for copywriters, not necessarily SEOs. While SEOs work with copy and should be able to craft a decent sentence and fiddle around with keyword additions into the text, the SEO can pass the job of actual copywriting to a copywriter. Not having the gift of copywriting doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

...you are a conversion optimizer.

Conversion optimization is good for SEO and necessary for a strong marketing campaign, but this isn't, strictly speaking, SEO. I'd definitely want an SEO that understands usability and persuasion before letting them make changes to my site, but not understanding conversion optimization doesn't mean you're not an SEO.

You're not an SEO unless you read this conclusion

All of the factors above help make SEO valuable. But not having any one or two of them doesn't disqualify you from being an SEO any more than not knowing how to weld a pipe precludes you from being a plumber. Valuable, but not strictly necessary.

But make no mistake, these are important, and to the degree a person has knowledge, understanding and skills in these areas is a factor into how valuable they can be as an SEO. Any one of these, however, is not a defining factor. SEOs are often best judged on the results they get. If you don't get results, then you're not an SEO.

An SEO's Bill of Rights

2011-09-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

In an effort to provide clarity between SEOs and their clients, I created a bill of rights for SEO clients. This post covers the bill of rights for the SEOs.

The SEO has a right to...

I.

Receive payment from the client for entire amount contracted.

A contract is a contract. If you change your business model, rethink SEO or decide to invest in other marketing avenues, you still have an obligation to fulfill your end of the SEO agreement. If you really want out, talk to your SEO about a proper buyout of your SEO contract.

II.

Collect payment from the client on-time.

Nobody likes to get paid late for work performed. The SEO is building profits for you, and the least you can do is not put that in jeopardy by delaying payment for work performed. If payments are delayed, even for a couple days, the SEO has a right to charge a late payment fee.

III.

Not to allow the client to place a "hold" on their account.

The SEO has the same obligations to its employees and other clients as the SEO client does to it's employees and customers. SEOs often hire based on the expected income of all accounts, including yours. If you request a hold due to finances or other restructuring, you may be impacting the employment and performance of your SEO firm, which may impact your performance down the road.

IV.

Charge the client for services that fall outside the scope of the contract.

If the SEO client requests work that is above and beyond the strategy outlined in the contract, the client should expect to pay for any additional hours needed to complete that work. SEOs can only do so much with the time and investment they are given. If more is work is requested, more funds are required.

V.

Expect their recommendations get implemented in a timely manner.

SEOs never expect that every recommendation they make will get implemented or implemented perfectly. However, they have a reasonable expectation that any and all recommendations will be be discussed with them by the client and implemented sooner rather than later. The client cannot hold the SEO accountable for success if there are a number of unfulfilled recommendations on the table.

VI.

Not justify every minute spent. (Unless client pays hourly.)

SEO has its highs and lows. Some months require a lot of work and a lot of hours, and other months a lot less. Give the SEO freedom to track hours but not be bound to a certain expectation x hours every month. Let them rest some months and ramp up in others as needed.

VII.

Not spend too much time "reporting" to the client.

Providing the client status updates and information critical to the success of their campaign is expected. However, the client cannot demand so much of the SEO's time providing reports and updates that it eats up a significant chunk of the time need to make the account a success.

VIII.

Revoke deliverable work performed due to client's non-payment.

If SEOs fulfill their end of the contract but the client doesn't pay for work performed, that is theft. The SEO then has a right to undo all work implemented, retract all recommendations and change destinations of links achieved, if necessary, until the client pays in full.

IX.

Suspend client's account if needed.

If the SEO client is not keeping payments up to date, an SEO has the right to suspend work being performed on the client's account. The SEO cannot donate their time or effort into a delinquent client when there are other clients making their payments and in need of work to be done.

X.

Cancel client services.

If the client is a problem and eats up too much time and resources, the SEO has the right to cancel services if warranted. This should only be done if the SEO has delivered on everything the client has paid for to date, and there is no expectation without further payment; otherwise, a refund should be provided.

If clients and SEOs agree on these expectations, there should never be a dissatisfied client! You can also read the historical documents from which this post originated.

Seven (Non-SEO) Tips to Having a Successful SEO Campaign

2011-09-13T05:12:00.000-07:00

Seven (Non-SEO) Tips to Having a Successful SEO Campaign:

by Stoney deGeyter

If you ask people if they want to be successful, almost unanimously, they will say yes. But if you watch what people do, you'll see that they are neither interested in, nor committed to, doing the things that are required to become successful.

Most people look for ways to "succeed" by investing the least amount of effort possible. That's why the lottery makes so much money for the government. One dollar can make you extremely rich. If you're extremely lucky.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking for ways to become successful with the smallest amount of effort. Luck isn't random happenstance; it's being prepared when the right opportunity comes your way! I have a motto I use quite often when I'm not working, "I worked damn hard to be this lazy!" But the key here is that I worked. I didn't just get lucky and get to be lazy because of it - I earned it.

Over the years I've busted my butt to create a successful website marketing strategy firm. It's had it's ups and downs, not to mention countless long nights and weekends. And whenever I start to feel like I can relax, it seems something comes up, and we have a new push to get us to the next level.

Successful SEO can't be done in a vacuum of search engine algorithms, social media and on-page optimization strategies. There is something even more fundamental to being successful at your SEO efforts than the knowledge needed to carry it out. These are foundational issues that, when applied, will help you not only gain the knowledge you need, but the wherewithal to grow in your success, even through difficult and dry times.

Seven steps to making sure your SEO is successful

Daily Growth: SEO requires a constant education on what the search engines are doing, how that might affect your site, and what new strategies you might need to employ. As rapidly as technology changes, your SEO knowledge yesterday won't always carry you through tomorrow.

Value the Process: SEO isn't about the destination (top rankings) but rather the process that brings constant improvement to your site. Every day you should find some ways to improve your site over yesterday's version. Look for new keywords, opportunities for new content and ways to improve the usability and persuasion processes that will increase conversions.

Don't Wait for Inspiration: Inspiration most often comes after you have started doing something. It's the work itself that inspires thoughts, ideas and strategies. If you're stuck in an SEO rut and don't know what to do next, start doing something. Look at the analtyics, read a blog or strike up a conversation with someone about the site you're working on. Do something to get the creative juices flowing.

Be Willing to Pay Now: There is a saying that says you can pay now or pay later, but you will pay. Be willing to invest heavily in SEO, especially in the early stages. In many cases SEO has to be done in large chunks rather than small bites. Be willing to invest in those large chunks of time. They often lead to greater rewards (sooner rather than) later.

Don't Focus on Your Limitations: There is no SEO in the world that can do everything greatly. Sometimes you have to know what you don't know and find qualified people to do what you can't do. Don't get stuck worrying about what you can't do and work with people who can provide strengths that compensate for your weaknesses.

Master Your Time: SEO can often be an endless process. There is always something more that can, and should, be done. In order to get anything accomplished you have to manage your time wisely. Focus on areas that will provide the best results first, then move on to other areas later. Don't get bogged down in the inessentials.

Trade Up, Not Down: When dealing with clients, developers and owners, the SEO often finds they don't get everything they want. Sometimes you have to make concessions. When you can't do everything, then look for trades that bring more value to you. Trade quantity for quality. Trade time for effectiveness. Trade rankings for conversions. You get the drift.

What's good for SEO is good for business

Each of the tips above can be applied to every area of our lives and in business, not just SEO. They are tried and true principles for success in any arena. It's just the application that varies.

SEO requires patience, determination, hard work and sometimes even sacrificing our perfect ideals. Everybody has a different definition of success. Many clients or SEOs look to rankings as the goal when they should be looking at business growth, conversions and profits. Determine what your real goals are and do what it takes to achieve them. Then you'll be successful at SEO!

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Six Linking Strategies for New Site Owners

2011-09-13T05:04:00.000-07:00

Six Linking Strategies for New Site Owners:

Many people believe that the purpose of getting external links is to drive traffic directly from site to site. While this possibility shouldn’t be overlooked, it’s also important to understand that search engines look to the number of links pointing to a site as an indicator of how much “authority” or “trust” they should give the site.

Link popularity helps search engines determine the relevance of your site. They look at not only the number of incoming links you have but also the quality of those links. Just one link from a highly trusted source can be more valuable than 100 links from questionable or low quality sources.

You might have heard about Page Rank; this is Google’s way of assigning a value to the number and quality of incoming links a site has. A higher page rank doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be at the top of the search engine results but it’s higher numbers are a good indicator that your site has been deemed trustworthy and relevant. When looking for links, all other factors being equal, it’s better to be linked from a site with a higher Page Rank.

1. Submit your site to the major directories. A link from one of the key or major directories will give you a big boost in your ranking. These directories are lists of websites organized by category and are maintained by human editors so they have much more weigh with the search engines.

The Open Directory Project (dmoz) is free, however the editors have an enormous backlog and it can take several months for your site to be included. A link from dmoz carries a lot of weight however there is no guarantee that your site will be included.

The Yahoo Directory is another important directory; however it costs $299 to submit a listing with a recurring $299 fee every subsequent year to keep the listing. Being listed in this directory can be a major boost for your site and as there is a 7 day turnaround on submissions, it might be worth it for you to pay the fee to get your site listed in a major directory without delay.

2. Submit your site to other directories focused on your industry or niche. Do a search for organizations and sites related to your field or niche and ask to be included on their member directories. Sometimes this will incur a charge or a membership fee so carefully weigh the potential boost against the cost. Do not pay for an upgraded or premium listing unless you know that the directory is widely used as often they aren’t and the free link is sufficient to get you noticed by the search engines.

3. Ask for reciprocal links from related sites. You’ll want to be careful about this strategy, it works best when you request links from sites that are in a similar niche and have similar traffic and page ranks. Larger sites most likely won’t want to bother and you will give more than you gain from smaller sites.

When asking for the link, be polite and professional and don’t be offended if your request is ignored or declined. Think carefully about where you’ll put the links, you don’t want to send your visitors away from your own site. A good option is to make a page for “resources” or “related sites” and stick your reciprocal links there.

Only request and accept links from sites that are logically related to your own. The search engines will determine your relevance by the kinds of sites that are linking to you as well as the kinds of sites you are link out to, so be picky. Getting reciprocal links can be time consuming and tedious but the results will pay off in time.

4. Write articles or guest posts for other sites. Article marketing is a time honored way of getting attention and links to your site. You can either go with an established articles site such as ezine articles or approach individual site/blog owners and offer them free, relevant content for their sites in exchange for a link to your site including a description of what you do (Myblogguest is the most convenient and effective way to do this). It’s best to place articles with a variety of sources as the search engines prefer a variety of links rather than several from just one source.

Providing content to other sites not only provides you with valuable backlinks but will also increase your visibility and authority within your niche.

5. Send out press releases. News releases aren’t just a good way to send out information about what is going on with your business; it’s also a good way to get links. Your news story will remain in online databases for several months, complete with your link. There is also the possibility that other sites will write about your release, providing another link. There are several online press release services such as PR Web that can distribute your release online and help you get those backlinks.

6. Use social bookmarking sites. While many bookmarking sites use a no-follow attribute to try and keep the levels of spam down, it’s still a worth your while to encourage your visitors to bookmark your pages if they find them useful or entertaining. The more votes your page receives; the more people will check it out and increase its popularity. On some sites, the no-follow attribute is removed from your link after it’s reached a certain number of upvotes.

The more your page is viewed, the more chances you have that somebody will link it on another site such as a blog or mention it on a social networking site.

7. Develop a free resource. A great way to encourage people to organically link to your page is to provide a free, useful resource. It can take time and money to develop a resource like an eBook or calculator but you’ll be paid back with an increase in traffic and links. Your resource should be relevant to the purpose of your site and you should be sure to make it easy for visitors to explore other areas of your site from the resource page. It’s no good giving away free resources if there is no way to gain conversions from it.

It’s important to remember that linking strategies take time. In fact, getting too many links too fast is a warning sign to most search engines and they might delay indexing your site for awhile if they get suspicious that you’re engaging in fishy behavior. Slow and steady link building will give you better results in the long term so be patient and don’t try to do too much all at once.

Jacob Maslow has been selling online for close to 10 years. His main clients include a news site as well as a web site that sells allergy bedding.

A Bad Website Can Ruin Your SEO

2011-09-13T05:03:00.003-07:00

A Bad Website Can Ruin Your SEO:

The basic function of SEO is to help position your website well in the search engines’ results pages in order to drive more targeted traffic through to your site. This is done through a variety of off-site SEO activities including social media marketing, link building, content marketing and more. A great off-site SEO campaign will develop a strong link portfolio that uses a variety of quality sources to drive traffic. But the best white hat link building campaign in the world won’t help your SEO if your site doesn’t match up.

Here are 5 factors on your site that could be hindering your SEO success:

Ads, ads, ads…ads

As a site owner, you have every right to monetize your site. But there is a point where your site becomes more of a giant banner ad than an actual site. A lot of ads can make your site look very spammy and push out any quality content you may have.

Broken links

There is nothing more frustrating for a site visitor than running into a 404 error at every turn. Broken links not only detract from the overall user-experience (which will send your visitors out as fast as they came in), but you could also incur a penalty from the search engines because of them. If you delete an old page, make sure you redirect any links that pointed to it towards another, related page. This is especially important if you launch a new site. New domains have little established trust with the search engines and it could take years to rebuild that link portfolio. Don’t let those links go to waste!

Slow load time

Google willingly admits that site speed and page load time is incredibly important factor in their ranking algorithm. Visitors aren’t willing to sit there and wait for your site to load. Advancements in technology have trained users to expect instantaneous results online, so patience runs thin. If it takes more than a few seconds to load, most visitors won’t bother to stick around to find out what your site have to offer.

Too much fluff

Visitors to your site want to find the information they are looking for and they want to find it right away. Believe or not, there is no word count minimum or maximum you have to abide by when writing webpage content. Don’t stuff your pages with fluff just to make it look like you’re actually saying something. Visitors don’t care! They don’t want to dig for the information they want/need. Keep it simple and straightforward.

Outdated information

Let’s say you ran a Christmas BOGO special for your e-commerce site. Guess what? It’s summer. Do you still have information about that Christmas special on your site? It makes you look like a lazy site owner and could even call your trust factor into question. If you can’t be bothered to update your website with the correct information, why should visitor bother sticking around?

There are numerous other factors that could be hampering the success of your SEO that actually have nothing to do with your off-site SEO activities. That is why it is so important to make sure you have a fully optimized site before beginning your link building campaign. While links are the bread and butter of SEO, it doesn’t matter how many quality links you have pointing towards your site is your site can’t convert. Make sure that your site is worthy of your SEO!

About the Author – Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing a full service SEO and social media marketing company. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis share his knowledge by posting daily SEO articles to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 140,000 opt-in subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com

Harness Google Places for Local Targeting

2011-09-13T05:03:00.002-07:00

Harness Google Places for Local Targeting:

As Google continues to beef up its online product offerings – Google+, Google Places, and now a hotel-specific search, review and referral system being rolled out – opportunities for small businesses to use cost-efficient local advertising and highly tailored, location specific search engine marketing are better than ever. And in many cases, these advanced SEM techniques will be offering potential customers a valued service just by delivering information.

Some sources suggest that of the roughly two million Google searches conducted every minute, over 400,000 include local keywords. That means 20 percent of searches are already attempting to target local businesses. So those that effectively craft their ads and SEM campaigns to tap into Google places and this huge targeted mass of searches stand to gain exposure to a potential customer group with a far higher likelihood of conversion. This location-specific search targeting is generally a huge boon for small businesses because searchers that use location-based search terms are usually more motivated to become customers, and because it tends to be less expensive to conduct an SEO or PPC campaign that focuses on these less competitive keyword phrases. Google places increases the impact of that advantage.

Listing a business with Google places is free. If you own a business with a local store front, it should be listed on Google places. Combined with the fact that paid advertisements made through Google Places will generally be placed higher than other local localized websites, this makes Google places a very powerful tool if harnessed correctly and used optimally. That’s where SEM experts’ services come into play. The business listing can be optimized to return the listing on searches with the highest probability of conversion, which itself must be determined. Is it more important to show up on searches for a nearby landmark or place of entertainment, or to have a strong ranking with more general local keywords such as the zip code? Furthermore, the SEO of the actual website that the listing and potential Google Places ad link to affects how high those components are ranked.

And because Google Places is essentially a ranking system designed to compete with Yelp, getting good ratings and linkbacks from customers will improve the likelihood that searchers will see the listing. This means that when conducted in concert with a social media campaign, as well as an SEO or perhaps PPC campaign, Google Places optimization can have a significant impact not just on website traffic but foot traffic as well.

Ryan Michael Farrell is a search engine optimization professional and marketing and technology blogger who enjoys a good hike, a glass of fine wine, 80′s punk rock music and search engine marketing

Identifying and Avoiding Wasteful Search Marketing Approaches

2011-09-13T05:03:00.001-07:00

Identifying and Avoiding Wasteful Search Marketing Approaches:

Smaller companies have smaller search marketing budgets, generally. Yet unsurprisingly, there’s a plethora of information and warnings about the risks and likely frustrations that will result from “low-budget SEO providers.”

Obviously, every type of SEO firm has an interest in discrediting other approaches to SEO, whether they are large firms that cost more and put more human hours into a campaign but which disparage user-directed PPC and SEO software, or smaller SEO companies taking shots at more expensive competitors by arguing that advanced algorithm-bots are just as good and far less costly to clients. But all this debate aside, small companies that need to gain exposure and web traffic still have to make do with smaller budgets. There are budget-friendly options that more than one search engine advertising company offer, campaign options that find ways to decrease costs without sacrificing the quality of service that is most important to these smaller companies.

One of the biggest ways to keep any SEO or PPC campaign from getting too expensive is to make very careful choices about which keyword phrases to target. Bidding on competitive ad words can reach several dollars per click. Without performance marketing strategies in place, the risk of that kind of price tag is very high. Similarly, optimizing a website for saturated keywords requires a great deal of extra effort to get enough back links and appropriate keyword density to carve out a decent search ranking for that phrase. Often called “Ego Online Marketing,” these mistakes are an easy way to blow a budget and the extra expense is often not even necessary, as more specific, niche keywords will be less expensive and have a higher conversion rate and target interested searchers more effectively.

Another strategy that higher quality search marketing firms should offer is to devise PPC and SEO techniques within a predetermined budget. That could mean bidding on a specific set of ad words but pulling the ad after a predetermined total cost is reached each month, limiting the number of man-hours spent analyzing and optimizing keyword selection, or just focusing on one specific SEM goal at a time, such as driving paid search traffic for one keyword phrase.

The most cost-efficient online search advertising campaigns bundle SEO and PPC strategies in synergistic ways to generate traffic and boost exposure in both the short- and long-term. But a willingness to set goals, compartmentalize strategies based on how they impact progress towards those goals, and to work with the SEM firm to prioritize the most important strategies based on the goal-setting is essential to stay within budget, and when done with careful attention to detail and thoughtfulness, budget-friendly SEM is entirely possible and effective.

Ryan Farrell is a los angeles based search engine advertising professional who also write articles about technology and marketing…ya know….just for kicks

4 Important Blog Commenting Manners

2011-09-13T05:03:00.000-07:00

4 Important Blog Commenting Manners:

Commenting on blogs is a great way to network and promote your own site. However, many blog commenters use this great means for personal gains such as spamming to endorse their non-niche related products and gain traffic from other blog commenters.

Today, blog owners are becoming wiser and stricter when it comes to moderating their blogs. Some dispatch these spammers by simply kicking and blocking them on their blog, and some resolve this by reporting the spammer by sending its URL and IP address in a formal complaint to higher authorities like Google and Yahoo! (or to the blog platform/ provider of the spammer) that may result to serious cyber criminal offense.

Here are some commenting manners to avoid such horrendous things:

Introduce yourself first and use a real name

If you are a first-time commenter on a blog, do introduce yourself first. Commenting without proper introduction is like spamming, too. In addition, some bloggers do not entertain anonymous comments and give no time to those who comment with fake and nonsense Web names. Pseudonyms in blogs are so last century, so it would be better if you use your real name. If you are still uncomfortable commenting with your real name, your company and blog name will do.

Do not use keywords in your comment name

Just last year, SEO practitioners had classified link dropping (or anchor linking) as a form of spamming because a lot of SEO companies and online sellers used it for over-promoting their companies and services.

Today, as these companies and online sellers find ways to use blog commenting for self-advertising, SEO experts have started banning comment name optimization (or putting links on comment names) by disabling links in their entire comment section. However, not all bloggers are as computer knowledgeable as this other bloggers and have the ability to do it on their sites. As a responsible commenter, avoid using keywords and links in your comment name to avoid being kicked out or blocked by blog owners.

Comment with relevance

Being funny and comical in comments is fine, but being overly nonsense and gibberish is not. Always remember to comment with relevance to the post’s topic and never start a conversation that would lead to nothing.

Always comment with a goal to contribute something beneficial to the conversation and to the entire blog. Do not waste your time writing cliché posts like “Great Post!” and “Nice Post!” because no one loves those on their blogs. On the other hand, do not get too emotional or excessively personal. If no one agrees with your idea, then move on!

Treat other blogs as you would your own blog; respect the blog owner and other commenters.

In addition, always treat other blogs as you want yours to be treated; adhere to the blogger’s rules and always practice civility by respecting the other participating commenter’s idea.

Warner writes about SEO, Blogging, and Web Development and works with Endless Rise. Endless Rise provides SEO services to SEO Resellers Only. You can become an become an seo reseller today with no cost or obligation.

Don’t Over Fertilize Your Website

2011-09-13T05:02:00.002-07:00

Don’t Over Fertilize Your Website:

When I started my online marketing career, I like most, wanted it to jump start into action. Everyone wants to make a million overnight—right? The problem with that, I soon found, is that when I attempted to take short cuts, and rush the growth of my site, and manipulate my web traffic, my sales boomed for a short period, and then fizzled.

The difference, I decided was like that of a gardener who plants a garden and fertilizes it with a passion, overdoing it in every way, just because they can’t wait to see that first bloom. Mother Nature be damned! They want flowers, (or fruits, or vegetables) and they want them now!

They get them, and they feel like they’ve accomplished some grand trick on nature. But right before their eyes that trick soon turns on them, and their garden fizzles out: burned by the very nutrient giving fertilizers that should have created strong, vibrant plants when done right.

Determination and Perseverance Prevails

If you have ever seen a rocky mountainside, in picture or person, and wondered how trees somehow managed to grow on top of thick, heavy rock, you might think that’s a trick on nature too. It’s not. That took time, and lots of heavy persistence on the part of the tree. It is a testament to how determination and perseverance will win out in a war that seems severely slanted toward the opponent.

When developing my web traffic, I decided I had to be like that tree: Determined and persistent. My online strategy was to make sure I applied the proper amounts of “fertilizer”, and never allow myself to give into the impulse of getting it “now.”

Too many beginning Internet marketers think it is a field for “get rich quick” schemes. Those things rarely work, and if they do, they are doomed to be like the over-fertilized garden that sprouts big displays for a moment in time, and then droops and wilts.

As you study the methods on how to increase your business online, you’ll be tempted by many over-blown promises of instant success. Be critical when examining those methods. Many are destructive, and most will fail without ever showing any success. Their main goal is to make money for the person marketing their method.

Produce What Consumers Need

If you create a website that delivers value added content for your visitors, you will be building a strong online presence that excites them, and makes them want more.

When I create a site to showcase family camping tents, I will give my readers the best information they can find on how to select the right size, and what to look for in an eight person tent, or other large size family tent. Doing that takes a little more time than simply slapping up a haphazard glossy page with a few words of description, but I look at is as the fertilizer that will create strong consumer loyalty.

Develop Off-Page SEO That Counts

When you are “fertilizing” your website, you have to remember to pay attention to the off-site crop as well. Those pages that generate in-bound links and search engine results need to offer the same quality as your website itself. There are two main reasons to make sure your off-page SEO is cared for and nurtured the same as your site.

The first reason is the new SEO market. With search engines developing strong methods of eliminating content farms and link bait sites, you need to prove your site is relevant, and the material that leads to it is as well.

The other reason is, those articles actually achieve search engine rankings, too. New marketers often forget that point. You want to treat the people that read those articles as if they were your website visitors, because they may well be, and you want them to click on the links too—they are your market.

Don’t Stop At First Bloom

Finally, the last mistake I’ve seen new marketers make is stopping the moment their website shows some signs of success. You can never stop working the “garden” of your online ground. When my web traffic is at its peak, I don’t sit back and rake it in, I get started on creating new content to replace the old so my site continues to interest and draw visitors in.

With retirement looming in the near future, Bruce set out to use his background in agriculture to develop the website http://hubzz.net. On his site he features in-depth, quality reviews of many products and informative guides like how to find the best family tent for the money . You can visit Bruce at his blog http://rocketrider.net.

Guest Commenting Rocks

2011-09-13T05:02:00.001-07:00

Guest Commenting Rocks:

Guest commenting can have a great effect on your blog. Your traffic will surly start to increase. Not only will you experience an increase in traffic, but targeted traffic! Targeted traffic is more than likely interested in your topic or what you have to offer. This is a good thing. When you start to comment on the blogs of others, your traffic will increase because of 3 gateways:

Direct Traffic. You comment on a blog and the site owner or guest readers will click on your link and be directed back to your blog.

Word Of Mouth. People may start to talk about what they saw on your page and recommend your blog to others. Is this rare in the beginning? Yes. If your content is truly remarkable, then you have a better chance with this.

Better SEO Ranks. Your links are being indexed by search engines. The more comments you leave, the higher you can climb in the Search Engines. Is it a small incline? Yes. But, by doing this more and more, you will bypass those who did the same thing, but gave up.

I want to share with you how you can start commenting on blogs and increasing traffic like a pro! I will share with you the secrets that I use. These methods are simple to understand, but if you aren’t using them, you could be wasting your time! I also have an incredibly value-filled video that I have made for the sake of this post. Listen to every word I say from start to finish, and should definitely be on your way to dominate blog-commenting!

Search For Many Blogs

You must first find blogs to comment on. SEOquake is a free tool that you simply must be using. Before you even comment on a blog, this simple program will show you the Alexa score (traffic rank). You can determine whether or not you want to comment on this blog. This is going to save you a massive amount of time and effort. Be sure to only search for and comment on blogs that have a similar topic as your own.

If you start commenting on blogs that do not relate to your niche, then you are driving non-targeted traffic back to your site and confusing Google in the process. Google will lower your organic rankings because it will be unsure as to what your blog is actually about.

Things to remember:

Some back-links are stronger than others. By commenting on a blog that has an authoritative site, your back-link will be stronger in the eyes of Google.

By commenting on a high trafficked site, you can draw in more traffic that if you were to comment on a low trafficked site.

Search and comment on only similar blogs

Start Following Blogs

Following blogs is a simple process – there are many ways this can be done. I feel feel that the Google RSS Reader is the easiest. I have a Gmail account and this is tied right in. When you have found a similar blog, look for the RSS button. Almost every blog has this.

This should open up a new page allowing you to chose your method. If the button is nowhere to be found; type in www.theirsite.com/feed. This usually opens up the feed window – allowing you to follow them.

Be The First To Comment

It’s a race to 1st place! Most blogs are designed to display the first comment right under the article, in first place. So if you comment first, you will be right below the article. Your comment, link, and avatar will be on display. The closer your information is to the very bottom of the article, the better your chances are of being discovered. Remember:

Be sure to check your RSS feed as much as you can. Try to comment first!

Great Avatar Picture

Looks matter! The likelihood of being clicked on increases with better looking photos. If you don’t have a Gravatar yet, go to Gravatar.com and you can upload one there. Tips:

People like meeting new people – so show a picture of yourself. Let people know that you aren’t hiding behind a fake name and a cheesy photo of a dolphin.

Smile. People like people who are happy. If you are frowning or look creepy in your photo – be prepared to be avoided.

Display a striking image. Try to avoid whites and yellows as most site backgrounds are white.

CommentLuv Is Good

CommentLuv is a plugin for a WordPress blog. After leaving a comment it displays your latest blog post. Sometimes you are able to choose from a list of your 10 most recent. If you haven’t installed it on your own blog, be sure to do so. Hints:

Whenever posting a comment – take note of the topic. Always leave behind your own blog post that is most similar. People are already on that site because they are interested in that topic, so the closer your post is to the topic of discussion, the better your chance of being clicked.

Be A Friendly Blogger

If you are going to start commenting like there is no tomorrow, you must be friendly while doing it. If you do not fully agree with that particular post – either leave and don’t comment, or simply explain why you feel the way you feel. You can loose your reputation real fast when you start posting with anger. Blogging is about building friendships as well as relationships. When you start commenting on the blogs of others, the hope is that they will return the favor over on your site. Things to remember

Always be friendly. Your goal is to build relationships through the web.

Actually read the post and comment about the post. If there was a twist somewhere, and you missed it, they will know that you didn’t read all or any of the post. This is not good when you are trying to build relationships.

Say more than “Awesome Post”. Nobody likes this. Always read the entire article and comment on it. Never change the topic.

Always keep these steps and tips in your mind as you are commenting all over the web. Repeat this process daily for best results. The more comments you write, the more back-links you will receive. Your site traffic will start to increase in a relatively short period of time! And if you have high quality material that people are actually interested in, you should have a great retention rate as well! Best of luck and happy commenting!

Brock is the current CEO of Worldline Marketing and owner of How to Sponsor. The company focuses on assisting average people earn a healthy income working from home. He enjoys traveling, hiking, and meeting new people. Feel free to add him through social media!

Do You Want Social Friends or Business Leads?

2011-09-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

Do You Want Social Friends or Business Leads?:

Social media marketing is a great way to humanize your brand and connect with your target audience in an unobtrusive and personal way. A strong and loyal social network can help spread your messaging strategy and defend your brand from online trolls, not to mention drive sales. But a lot of companies are approaching social media marketing from the wrong angle. It’s not just about how many Fans or Followers you have, or how many people Like your content on a daily basis. In the end, social media marketing should help drive traffic to your site and increase your conversion rate.

Why Likes don’t matter

When social media marketing first burst onto the scene, the only real tangible way to measure your campaign success was to see how many connections your company could create. The Facebook Like was the end-all-be-all benchmark of success. However, as social media has matured, the Like isn’t worth nearly as much as once believed. For instance, many companies will offer a promotional deal via Facebook, where users can get a sample of a new product or discount code if they Like the company. But how many of those users are actually interested in building a rapport with your brand and how many are just doing it to get free stuff? Many companies see a quick decline in the number of Likes they have once the promotion is over. The simple truth is that a Like doesn’t mean a consumer is actually interested in what you have to say.

Facebook Shares are much more valuable to a company. When someone Shares your content by posting it to their Facebook wall, they are broadcasting to their network that this content is valuable in some way. Peer recommendation is a powerful marketing tool that can help push your content in front of a wider audience. The more frequently a piece of content is Shared, Tweeted, posted and so forth, the more trust that content has with the search engines as well.

Social is the path, not the destination

Social networking sites are a great place to interact with current and potential customers. It’s an even playing field where large brands are expected to play by the same rules as the consumer. Getting a user to click through to your social profile means you have something that they want, but don’t just let them stay there. Social profiles should be looked at as yet one more gateway to your main site. If you are going to post blog posts to your Facebook page, don’t publish the whole post. Leave a teaser snippet that captures your audiences’ attention and them pulls them through to the actual blog. Invite visitors to check out you latest products on their respective product pages, allow them to sign up for your company newsletter and more.

Don’t push traffic away

If one of the goals of a social networking site is to drive traffic through to the main site, than why to do many website ask visitors to head back to those same social sites? While you want to be able to connect with your audience on a social media site, do you really need to have a huge “Like Us on Facebook” button taking up valuable webpage real-estate? Once someone has arrived to your site, you should be focused on getting them to convert, not following you on Twitter. Getting social connections is a secondary goal of your website.

About the Author – Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing a Boston based SEO firm that offers white hat SEO link building solutions. With over 12 years of Internet marketing experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal.

Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com

Google Killed Surfing

2011-09-13T05:01:00.002-07:00

Google Killed Surfing:

People are always talking about how the growth of Google and its automated search index has killed off all the other search engines and directories. It is mostly considered a problem of reduced choice and less competition. However, Google has actually changed the way we used the Internet.

In the days before search engines people used to surf the web. Also the phrase is still used today its meaning has changed. To surf the web used to mean finding an interesting new website, usually by first visiting your favorite web directory, and then following the links on those pages to other interesting websites on a similar subject.

This method of navigating the web may seem extremely inefficient today but 15 years ago it was the only way to get around the web.

The Invention of Google PageRank

Because in the good old days of the Internet webmasters used to link freely to other websites that they liked and trusts, Larry Page decided to use this rule as a fundamental part of his PageRank mechanism which allowed him to start building a automatically indexed search engine.

The idea being that each link would be followed by Googlebot much in the same way that a human surfs the web. If some sites or pages get linked to more, i.e. if Googlebot lands on the same page more than once, then it is assumed that this must be a good page, so it gets ranked higher.

Even after Google search started to become popular people would still surf the web as the search results really only provided a clue as to which pages were best to look at. More often than not you would have to crawl through the first few pages of results in Google before finding anything really useful, so when you found a good site you stayed there and let that webmaster then guide you further.

The Rise of Spamming and Selling Links

A major spin off of the rapid development of the PageRank mechanism for ranking pages was that people soon realised that to get their sites to rank well they needed to get links on related websites that are already popular. So this gave rise to more and more requests to webmasters for a link on a “blogroll” (although blogs came a little afterwards), or in the footer or on the home page of the site.

To start with this did not affect the results too much but as more webmasters realised that they could game the system link asquisition turned into an arms race. Suddenly every webmaster and then SEO (who was the first SEO I wonder?) was trying to get links faster than their competitors. This lead to all manner of spamming for links, although in the pre-Web 2.0 days spamming was less common as many of the good sites were still static html pages.

However, as some webmasters realised that their pages were in high demand they started charging people to place links. Google made an effort to stop this practice by introducing the nofollow tag, but no all webmasters wish to adopt this practice. Some feel that it is just a method introduced by Google to workaround the flaws in its algo, and so prefer not to pander to Google’s suggestions.

The End of Web Surfing

Google continues to improve its search engine algorithm which means that more often than ever people are finding good pages direct from Google search. Although many bloggers still share lists of similar sites on their blogrolls and many people in the web community link to their websites when discussing articles on blogs, the bulk of new referrals for most sites is still coming from Google.

So, you may remember the day you used to surf the web, just as I do. For kids growing up with the Internet the concept of surfing is alien to them. Now it is all about sharing and tweeting. Maybe one day search will be driven by social media interaction and not html links. If this happens then maybe the idea of surfing will survive.

Jon Wade has been surfing the web since 1992 when first gained Internet access while studying at university. He has recently turned from web user to web provider and built a few websites based on his hobbies where he talks about losing weight, a subject which conflicts somewhat with his love of making healthy burgers. Above all he loves not working for an international bank and instead working from home and being close to his family.

Back to Basics: Seven Simple Sources for One-Way SEO Backlinks!

2011-09-13T05:01:00.001-07:00

Back to Basics: Seven Simple Sources for One-Way SEO Backlinks!:

SEO can be mainly split into two key areas, which both must be looked into if you want to get anywhere with the search engines. Firstly there is the onsite SEO, where the website is looked at from a technical perspective in terms of how ell built it is and how good the content is on it. A lot of technical people can get on these easily but struggle on the second SEO technique, which is offsite link building.

Other websites need to mention and cite yours in order for them to send you some authority. Think of it as reputation. If Google visits a site and sees they are referencing yours, they will send you some power for the keywords and themes around that link. This is the basic principle why you should link build. Posting links on Twitter and Facebook with a URL shortener might not work though, because these websites are ‘no follow’ meaning power is not passed onto the link destination. But where do good one-way links come from?

Directory submissions – There are few good articles directories nowadays, but some of them are still worth the effort. Make sure the directory you are submitting to is unique-content-rich!

Article marketing (don’t confuse with guest blogging!) – This is a broad way to get links, and includes writing of articles that you can publish on other people’s sites with your website as a link.

Blog commenting – Commenting on other people’s blog posts can be a good way to get links. Comment naturally though, by reading the post and having a good comment to say. You can drop a link in the post here or through your name when you submit the comment to be moderated.

Forum links – Similar to blog commenting, you can post your website on forums to get a little bit of power. Users on profiles will sometimes have your website as a link in their profile signature meaning your link can be seeded over a large number of pages on a website. Of course, a link should not be your priority: get involved and network! Add value to the community to avoid being called a spammer!

Homepage links – These are getting links directly on homepages of other websites on their blog roll, footer, or sponsored link section. Don’t overdo with these: homepage links make Google think you are a spammer

Social bookmarks – Join some social bookmarking websites and submit your articles, website and blog posts (don’t spam!). Submit other people’s articles as well to add value to the social network, don’t just link-drop.

Web 2.0 properties – These are like platforms you can create to put links wherever you want. Websites such as WordPress, Blogger and Squidoo are great places to make websites and pages where you can link to your site. Don’t forget a presence on Twitter and Facebook too as every little helps.

Remember a mix of anchor text when getting your links because it needs to look natural to Google. Don’ spam out your site with thousands of bad links with the same anchor text. I hope you have found some of these link sources useful, and good luck getting to page 1!

Steve runs nowtweet.it, a URL Shortener for Twitter that ranks nicely in Google through a mix of onsite and offsite techniques. He is a professional SEO and you can find him on Twitter @hybridoriental.

Low-Hanging Fruit: How To Identify Keywords That Just Need A Little Help

2011-09-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

Low-Hanging Fruit: How To Identify Keywords That Just Need A Little Help:

Want to find traffic-converting keywords that your website is already ranking relatively well for, but can rank even better for with just a small push in the right direction?

1.) Go into Google Analytics, select “Keywords” under Traffic Sources, view only “non-paid” keywords, and filter out keywords that don’t convert or convert poorly by your website’s standards. Furthermore, filter out keywords that have too few visits to weed out really low search volume keywords.

In the example below, we chose > 0% for our conversion rate minimum and our minimum amount of visits as 10. Our conversion rate bottom is likely on the low side (only requiring 1 conversion) and our visits minimum might be a bit on the high side – every website will have their own “sweet spot” depending on the amount and quality of their visitors.

2.) Export the output of the above exercise to a CSV file and run all of the keywords through rank checking software to obtain your website’s rank for each keyword and the landing page that is ranking. With a program such as Rank Checker, you can export the results of the rank check to another CSV file, which you can then merge with your original analytics CSV file that will become your master spreadsheet.

3.) Sort the data in your Excel document by rank and throw out all of the keywords for which you rank #1. Now you have a solid list of converting keywords that require a bit of link building and/or on-site optimization, all sorted by rank.

4.) Run the keyword list through the Google Keyword Tool to obtain the search volume for each keyword. You may need to do this more than once if you have a long list, since the tool only allows you to run 100 keywords at a time. Export these results to a CSV file and merge it into your master spreadsheet.

5.) Add any other decision-helping metrics you’d like in order to assist you with prioritizing these keywords. I’m partial to the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Score in order to give me an idea of the level of competition I’ll be facing for each keyword. SEOmoz also has a pretty exhaustive list of places to get keyword research data.

The more information you can import on to your master spreadsheet, the better of a tool it will become for selecting keywords.

Some keywords on this list might be too competitive to have success with easily, and some might be so long-tail that they may not be worth your time, but there should be a big chunk in the middle that are fairly non-competitive, but certainly worth going after as a handful of high quality links and a few on-page tweaks would probably do the trick.

6.) Prioritize your keywords with concern to traffic, competition, conversion performance, and your current rank.

7.) Get started! Optimize your website, create targeted content, and build high quality links.

Anthony Mangia is the President and CEO of Mangia Marketing, an NYC SEO Company. He has more than 5 years of experience helping companies, both small and large, achieve their SEO, Paid Search, Social Media, and Affiliate Marketing goals. Follow him on Twitter at @Aignam.

SEO & Content Freshness – Case Study

2011-09-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

SEO & Content Freshness – Case Study:

Every SEO specialist knows that content freshness is extremely important for the success of any SEO project. Search engines favor pages with lots of new content published every day and tend to rank higher websites containing fresh text and pages. Everyone knows that, but is it really true? And what about all the old and obsolete content that is still available on websites? Is it totally discarded by Google?

I will present you some data researched while analyzing traffic sources and landing pages for one of our projects – www.morusek.pl. This is a classifieds website with at least a hundred ads published every day. Such a website should be much affected by all the freshness-recognition algorithms because of its high content turnover and plenty of obsolete data (old ads are being kept on the website).

Landing page lifecycle

The first interesting phenomenon that can be observed for time-sensitive pages (ads and offers) is what I called “landing page lifecycle”. Once submitted, every ad first gets a considerable traffic boost. Every new page quickly reaches good rankings in Google and starts driving organic traffic. However, after 1-2 weeks it begins loosing the visits. Eventually, only a small portion of old landing pages remain (10-15% of traffic).

You can see the example below (it shows the sum of search engine traffic landed on 333 pages created at the end of May 2011):

What is interesting, this phenomenon is very similar, no matter which set of landing pages and dates you select. In each case the traffic first increases and then decreases to the level of 10-15% of its maximum value.

This shows that indeed, the fresh content is promoted by Google. New pages submitted most recently are ranked well within SERPs and bring much traffic. Once ads get stale, there’s a decrease in the traffic they bring.

Content age vs. organic traffic

On the other hand, out of any portion of landing pages you choose, some manage to bring the traffic even after several months. Of course, the amounts are not significant – it’s only one tenth of the initial traffic, but if the website has thousands of such obsolete pages, the traffic may sum up to huge values.

Below, you will see the average monthly number of organic visits for every ad details page with respect to their age. The data is grouped for 2000 ads:

And again, we can see, that the majority of traffic is brought by most recent content. For ads aged 70+ days the traffic is much lower. However, on the other hand, landing pages up to 2 months of age bring only 1/3 of the whole traffic. The remaining – 2/3 is driven by pages that are older than 2 months. What is more, traffic is brought even by pages that were created 12 or even more months ago.

Similar conclusions can be drawn, if you take a look at the chart below. It shows the percentage of ads that bring any traffic with regards to their age.

Out of most recent pages 40%-50% bring at least one visit. So for every two landing pages that are created, one brings some organic traffic. The older the landing pages, the less of them bring any traffic from search engines. But again, we can see that even for ads that were submitted more than a year ago, almost 20% are still ranked well on SERPs and drive some visits to the website.

Conclusions

The conclusion is that indeed, the fresh content is important for SEO. Google promotes new pages and lets them gain more traffic. However, we should not forget about the old content, which still, regardless of its age, still can bring significant traffic to the website.

About Bluerank

Bluerank is a Polish search engine marketing agency providing SEO and PPC services, including mobile SEO services, monetizing search, usability of search, research and analytical projects as well as comprehensive SEM strategies for the companies from all over the world.

Contact

Jacek Tkaczuk [Group SEO Manager at Bluerank] 90-613 Lodz, ul. Gdanska 80 e-mail: j.tkaczuk@bluerank.pl | www.bluerank.com

SEO to do in Half an Hour

2011-07-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

SEO to do in Half an Hour: "

A good SEO is proactive, we’ll plan our days and campaigns in advance and know exactly what we’re doing from one day to the next. Whether we’re a freelance and have several different clients or we’re in house and only have to focus on one or two websites we’re usually pretty organised. So what happens when you suddenly find yourself with a spare half an hour?

Maybe a meeting has cancelled at the last minute or you’re waiting on development before you can get on with your next task, or maybe it’s just tipping down with rain and you don’t feel like going out for your lunch break.

Here are 5 things you can do to help your SEO next time you have half an hour to fill.

Blog

You probably blog quite regularly as part of your ongoing SEO anyway but we all have those days when the creative juices aren’t flowing as well as they should be or those little interruptions just make it impossible to actually get anything done.

You don’t have to spend your spare half an hour writing a new post but having a list of potential titles with some bullet points on what they’d include will come in very handy. Personally I have dozens of articles and existing blog posts bookmarked that I want to write about and I never seem to get round to organising them.

The next time you’re stuck or you’re just not getting anywhere as fast as you’d like to you have your trusty list ready to give you a hand.

Competitor analysis

This is something we should be doing all the time but it often gets pushed to the back of the to do list, after all you can spend hours doing competitor analysis but it’s not necessarily going to result in a link or any increase in rankings.

Depending on what keywords you’re optimising for new competitors are going to be popping up all the time and although you’re keeping an eye on the main competitors and the big players in your industry you can’t afford to forget about the little guys, that lapse in judgment could mean the difference between position one and position two or the difference between position ten and position eleven.

Make sure you always know when the three websites below you for your main target key terms give their SEO a big push, or go on an aggressive link building campaign or are just adding new content to their site so you can react accordingly.

Add new content

We all know how much Google loves fresh new content, that’s why we spend so much time and effort blogging but how much effort do you put in updating the actual site?

Keep on top of you keyword research, if people are searching for how to guides in your industry or are looking for FAQ’s about a product or service you offer make sure you’ve got that content there.

Your spare half an hour might not be long enough to get a really good quality page up and indexed but it’s certainly long enough to get the idea down on paper and bullet point the key bits of information this new page needs to offer.

Flick through the forums

Forums are great places to hang out and get new ideas, they’re the best place to be if there’s a noticeable algorithm update and you’ll hear about any problems or issues in them first.

Every SEO has their favourite forum of the place they like to hang out to find the juiciest links (or the not so ethical techniques that are still working) but if you have a spare half an hour have a mooch about in a forum you wouldn’t usually visit and you never know, you might pick up some valuable information you wouldn’t otherwise have found.

Test that new tool

Along with useful or interesting blog posts, useful looking and interesting looking tools are another common one to bookmark and again, nine times out of ten you never actually get round to giving those tool a fair experiment unless you keep hearing people talking about them.

Go through those bookmarked tools and pick some that you can spend a few minutes looking into, even if they don’t prove to be beneficial to your work at least you’ve got them crossed off your ‘to be read’ list.

Jessica is an SEO for Solopress printing and has found many cleaver tricks to increase site rankings using the methods above."

Why Conversion Rate is an Important Metric for Your Site

2011-07-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

Why Conversion Rate is an Important Metric for Your Site: "

Imagine you own a shoe store. It is a small property with four or five isles of shoes. You employ a few salespeople. It costs money to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running. You had to purchase the registers and computers, and the shoes are paid for before they’re even sold.

Most customers come in, look around and then thank you and leave, having not bought anything. What does this mean? Your shoe store has a low conversion rate.

What Is Conversion Rate?

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who come into a store, physical or virtual, and buy something. Everyone that walks into a store is “just looking around,” but a few people actually take out their wallets and make a purchase.

Simply put, conversion rate is sales rate.

Why Is Conversion Rate Important?

When it comes to a website, where the isles are in the computer and the customers are invisible, conversion rate is crucial. It tells you how many people are actually doing what you want them to do.

Conversion rate is one of the most important metrics, a measurement of a website’s efficiency. It is a way of gauging how many visitors complete an action you have set for them. That action can be filling out a survey, signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product.

Whatever you would like your visitors to do, conversion rate is the best way to determine if they are successfully doing it.

Improving Conversion Rate

Just like with a physical store, improving a website’s conversion rate requires a few simple adjustments.

Catchy headline: The headline of a webpage is like the headline of a newspaper article: the catchier it is, the more likely people are to stop and pay attention to it. Write a headline that captures the essence of the webpage in just a few small, powerful words.

Free gift: If you offer your visitors something free, you initiate the supplier-buyer relationship. You are telling them that you appreciate their interest and would like to reward them for it.

Call-to-action: If you want your visitors to be converted, they need to know how to do it. Give clear directions that explain what needs to be done. If a form needs to be filled out, simply state, “Fill out the information below for a free estimate.”

You can’t force a visitor to do something they don’t want to do. But if you pay attention to the information above, you can seduce, entice and persuade them with proper website metrics.

Eric Wyatt writes on internet marketing and social media, specifically on conversion optimization and landing page optimization.

Cost Structures of PPC vs SEO Marketing

2011-07-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

Cost Structures of PPC vs SEO Marketing: "

Comparisons between pay per click and search engine optimization as online marketing techniques can get very specific and advocates on each side even become heated about the question of which strategy is better. The practical, if boring evaluation of PPC vs. SEO marketing is that they each have their own value and weaknesses, but are best when used in concert as part of a performance marketing campaign at the hands of a skilled and diverse online marketing firm. So that’s a different conversation. But one worthwhile way to think about the comparison is in terms of the cost structure of each approach and where the risks of each are.

PPC pricing is relatively straight forward and comes in a few forms. On major search engines, advertisers bid on a rate for their desired PPC ad keywords. This can make advertising in a competitive industry where specific keywords have lot of congestion more expensive. PPC ads on content websites are usually sold at a flat rate. This makes the cost less variable. In each case, ad hosts implement some set of algorithms across their platforms to attempt to show the keyword ad only to a targeted group. However, one major drawback of PPC advertising is that these hosts have no incentive to make sure the targeting is specific enough to increase conversions, as they are only concerned with increasing click through rates so that they can generate their income.

Beyond the ability to only pay for actual site visits from clicks, the other major benefit of PPC models is that they are easily adaptable so they can be continually optimized based on performance. This means there is less of an up-front investment risk, and continued attention and investment is almost sure to improve effectiveness as keyword targeting and copy get streamlined and more accurate. This process of optimization makes PPC more expensive because it adds the cost of the human labor needed to analyze PPC data and make informed adjustments. In the PPC vs SEO discussion, this is one of the ways that the two methods are relatively similar; constant monitoring, analyzing, and adapting are standard and essential for a campaign to achieve maximum effectiveness.

SEO is a far more labor intensive and uses a broader range of activities, all to improve a site’s ranking on “organic” or “natural” searches for the target keyword phrase. The general approach to doing this includes redoing a site’s site map so that it is more accessible to search engines’ web crawler bots, making it easier for them to index accurately, improving the keyword density on that site, and increasing inbound links to the site from other quality websites. However, there are also a number of other things that must be done now, as indexing algorithms are becoming more complicated in an effort on the part of the search engine companies to make it more difficult to manipulate the results. As such, there are a number of different payment schemes that range from hourly rates to project-based consulting to contract services, and the prices vary widely depending on the online marketing firm, the ranking desired, and the design of the campaign.

This is a big difference in the PPC vs SEO debate, because it tends to mean that the client bears all the risk by paying upfront, and unless the deal is results-based, which it rarely is, there is no guarantee of a specific performance or search ranking. The point that should be obvious is that the strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches mean that they pair well together, and work best when combined and coordinated as part of a broader search engine marketing campaign, but that may do little to settle the debate about which is better.

Ryan Michael Farrell is a Los Angeles based search engine optimization specialist who blogs about tech and marketing and specializes in Website Copywriting
"

How Committing to Your Blog Boosts SEO

2011-07-26T07:13:00.001-07:00

How Committing to Your Blog Boosts SEO: "

Every start-up tries to create a blog in hopes that it will be their gateway to becoming the next thought leader of their particular vertical. Writers spend hours writing posts to only become discouraged that their blog is receiving trivial amounts of page views.

In spite of low page views, continually writing on the blog without extended defunct periods can pay off in the long run for search engine optimization. Here are some of the reasons SeatGeek

committing to their blog:

Internal Linking:

When you create new pages of content every week, it allows you to maximize your internal linking opportunities. One popular tactic is to create a “related” pages section that you can suggest to your readers if they are interested in reading more. Internal linking also helps reduce bounce rates.

Targeting Long-Tail Keywords:

While people trust more in search engine’s capability to direct them to the best result, users are searching for more specific and longer queries, giving marketers a greater opportunity to target specific searches via their blog posts.

Content for Social Media:

Adding new blog content to your site can give you ideas of what to share with your Twitter followers and Facebook fans. Having a dedicated following on your social media presence can drive tremendous traffic and conversions. Recent studies say the optimal number of tweets/day is fifteen.

Testing for Larger Rollouts:

If you’re trying to rollout a new title tag for every page on your site, first try it with a blog post written about a certain topic and see if it ranks higher than your existing pages. By doing this, you can hedge against ineffective mass changes to your site.

People Will Link to Thought Provoking Content:

This is the aspirational situation for your blog. It contains has novel information that a particular industry will find informative and interesting. From their social media platforms, people may RT the post, or from their websites, people may link to your own article in reference of a set of facts.

Ankit Mehta does keyword centric SEO at SeatGeek, an event-ticket search engine based in New York, New York. Feel free to reach out to him via email at ankit(at)seatgeek(dot)com
"

Google Panda: Writing Original Content is More Important Than Ever

2011-07-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Google Panda: Writing Original Content is More Important Than Ever: "

Google is not a fan of plagiarism and so are the original-content loving writers and readers all over the net. No one wants their ideas, words and works copied by others then passed off by the plagiarists as theirs. This is why Google made a commitment to further improve their search algorithm. Enter: Google Panda.

Webmasters are now looking over their shoulders more than ever. They can no longer get away with copying other writers’ content then publish them in their websites as original works. Google sent out Panda also known as Farmer to stop content farmers from continuing their dirty copycat game.

It is a fact that the web is populated by what is termed as “content farms.” These are pages containing text that may be relevant to a searcher’s query but when the searcher views the page, it’s all fluff and copied material. With Google Panda’s new algorithm, Google is able to identify which sites and pages are of low-quality and not relevant to the search at all.

Google Panda’s latest update targets not only large websites that get more traffic and have more links but also the smaller websites. The company only wants high-quality results when responding to a query and not a list of low-quality websites and pages. In the past, some websites received high rankings even if their sites only contained fluff and plagiarized material.

So what does this mean for website owners? It’s time to really get serious and produce only original content. With Google Panda patrolling the web, website owners must focus on putting out content that is unique to its site yet relevant to its target audience. Website content should not only be informative and useful but it should contain information that is true and well researched, not well copied.

If you are a website owner who produces a lot of content-based pages, check the keyword strategy of your site and make sure whatever you put out aligns with this strategy. Make it your goal to create content that your website visitors can share in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social media channels.

Remember, when you start writing content for your website, the quality of what you put out is more important than the quantity of articles found in your site. Google’s goal keeps the searcher’s positive web experience in mind. It wants the searcher to only find sites with relevant, original and trustworthy content. If you have made it a habit to copy other people work, beware! There’s a Panda watching!

Darren writes on many topics including technology, free people search, social media and social networks.

Improved handling of URLs with parameters

2011-07-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

Improved handling of URLs with parameters: "Webmaster level: Advanced

You may have noticed that the Parameter Handling feature disappeared from the Site configuration > Settings section of Webmaster Tools. Fear not; you can now find it under its new name, URL Parameters! Along with renaming it, we refreshed and improved the feature. We hope you’ll find it even more useful. Configuration of URL parameters made in the old version of the feature will be automatically visible in the new version. Before we reveal all the cool things you can do with URL parameters now, let us remind you (or introduce, if you are new to this feature) of the purpose of this feature and when it may come in handy.

When to use
URL Parameters helps you control which URLs on your site should be crawled by Googlebot, depending on the parameters that appear in these URLs. This functionality provides a simple way to prevent crawling duplicate content on your site. Now, your site can be crawled more effectively, reducing your bandwidth usage and likely allowing more unique content from your site to be indexed. If you suspect that Googlebot's crawl coverage of the content on your site could be improved, using this feature can be a good idea. But with great power comes great responsibility! You should only use this feature if you're sure about the behavior of URL parameters on your site. Otherwise you might mistakenly prevent some URLs from being crawled, making their content no longer accessible to Googlebot.

A lot more to do
Okay, let’s talk about what’s new and improved. To begin with, in addition to assigning a crawl action to an individual parameter, you can now also describe the behavior of the parameter. You start by telling us whether or not the parameter changes the content of the page. If the parameter doesn’t affect the page’s content then your work is done; Googlebot will choose URLs with a representative value of this parameter and will crawl the URLs with this value. Since the parameter doesn’t change the content, any value chosen is equally good. However, if the parameter does change the content of a page, you can now assign one of four possible ways for Google to crawl URLs with this parameter:

Let Googlebot decide
Every URL
Only crawl URLs with value=x
No URLs

We also added the ability to provide your own specific value to be used, with the “Only URLs with value=x” option; you’re no longer restricted to the list of values that we provide. Optionally, you can also tell us exactly what the parameter does--whether it sorts, paginates, determines content, etc. One last improvement is that for every parameter, we’ll try to show you a sample of example URLs from your site that Googlebot crawled which contain that particular parameter.

Of the four crawl options listed above, “No URLs” is new and deserves special attention. This option is the most restrictive and, for any given URL, takes precedence over settings of other parameters in that URL. This means that if the URL contains a parameter that is set to the “No URLs” option, this URL will never be crawled, even if other parameters in the URL are set to “Every URL.” You should be careful when using this option. The second most restrictive setting is “Only URLs with value=x.”

Feature in use
Now let’s do something fun and exercise our brains on an example.

- - -

Once upon a time there was an online store, fairyclothes.example.com. The store’s website used parameters in its URLs, and the same content could be reached through multiple URLs. One day the store owner noticed, that too many redundant URLs could be preventing Googlebot from crawling the site thoroughly. So he sent his assistant CuriousQuestionAsker to The GreatWebWizard to get advice on using the URL parameters feature to reduce the duplicate content crawled by Googlebot. The Great WebWizard was famous for his wisdom. He looked at the URL parameters and proposed the following configuration:

Parameter name	Effect on content?	What should Googlebot crawl?
trackingId	None	One representative URL
sortOrder	Sorts	Only URLs with value = ‘lowToHigh’
sortBy	Sorts	Only URLs with value = ‘price’
filterByColor	Narrows	No URLs
itemId	Specifies	Every URL
page	Paginates	Every URL

The CuriousQuestionAsker couldn’t avoid his nature and started asking questions:

CuriousQuestionAsker: You’ve instructed Googlebot to choose a representative URL for trackingId (value to be chosen by Googlebot). Why not select the Only URLs with value=x option and choose the value myself?
Great WebWizard: While crawling the web Googlebot encountered the following URLs that link to your site:

fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?trackingId=aaa123
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?trackingId=aaa124
fairyclothes.example.com/trousers/?trackingId=aaa125

Imagine that you were to tell Googebot to only crawl URLs where “trackingId=aaa125”. In that case Googlebot would not crawl URLs 1 and 2 as neither of them has the value aaa125 for trackingId. Their content would neither be crawled nor indexed and none of your inventory of fine skirts would show up in Google’s search results. No, for this case choosing a representative URL is the way to go. Why? Because that tells Googlebot that when it encounters two URLs on the web that differ only in this parameter (as URLs 1 and 2 above do) then it only needs to crawl one of them (either will do) and it will still get all the content. In the example above two URLs will be crawled; either 1 & 3, or 2 & 3. Not a single skirt or trouser will be lost.

CuriousQuestionAsker: What about the sortOrder parameter? I don’t care if the items are listed in ascending or descending order. Why not let Google select a representative value?
Great WebWizard: As Googlebot continues to crawl it may find the following URLs:

fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&sortBy=price&sortOrder=’lowToHigh’
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&sortBy=price&sortOrder=’highToLow’
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&sortBy=price&sortOrder=’lowToHigh’
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&sortBy=price&sortOrder=’ highToLow’

Notice how the first pair of URLs (1 & 2) differs only in the value of the sortOrder parameter as do URLs in the second pair (3 & 4). However, URLs 1 and 2 will produce different content: the first showing the least expensive of your skirts while the second showing the priciest. That should be your first hint that using a single representative value is not a good choice for this situation. Moreover, if you let Googlebot choose a single representative from among a set of URLs that differ only in their sortOrder parameter it might choose a different value each time. In the example above, from the first pair of URLs, URL 1 might be chosen (sortOrder=’lowToHigh’). Whereas from the second pair URL 4 might be picked (sortOrder=’ highToLow’). If that were to happen Googlebot would crawl only the least expensive skirts (twice):

fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&sortBy=price&sortOrder=’lowToHigh’
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&sortBy=price&sortOrder=’ highToLow’

Your most expensive skirts would not be crawled at all! When dealing with sorting parameters consistency is key. Always sort the same way.

CuriousQuestionAsker: How about the sortBy value?
Great WebWizard: This is very similar to the sortOrder attribute. You want the crawled URLs of your listing to be sorted consistently throughout all the pages, otherwise some of the items may not be visible to Googlebot. However, you should be careful which value you choose. If you sell books as well as shoes in your store, it would be better not to select the value ‘title’ since URLs pointing to shoes never contain ‘sortBy=title’, so they will not be crawled. Likewise setting ‘sortBy=size’ works well for crawling shoes, but not for crawling books. Keep in mind that parameters configuration has influence throughout the whole site.

CuriousQuestionAsker: Why not crawl URLs with parameter filterByColor?
Great WebWizard: Imagine that you have a three-page list of skirts. Some of the skirts are blue, some of them are red and others are green.

fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=3

This list is filterable. When a user selects a color, she gets two pages of blue skirts:

fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=1&flterByColor=blue
fairyclothes.example.com/skirts/?page=2&flterByColor=blue

They seem like new pages (the set of items are different from all other pages), but there is actually no new content on them, since all the blue skirts were already included in the original three pages. There’s no need to crawl URLs that narrow the content by color, since the content served on those URLs was already crawled. There is one important thing to notice here: before you disallow some URLs from being crawled by selecting the “No URLs” option, make sure that Googlebot can access the content in another way. Considering our example, Googlebot needs to be able to find the first three links on your site, and there should be no settings that prevent crawling them.

- - -

If your site has URL parameters that are potentially creating duplicate content issues then you should check out the new URL Parameters feature in Webmaster Tools. Let us know what you think or if you have any questions post them to the Webmaster Help Forum.

Written by Kamila Primke, Software Engineer, Webmaster Tools Team

Google Latest Updates - Introducing Google The +1 Button

2011-04-28T01:51:00.000-07:00

What’s something people use more than Facebook? Google Search of course! And thanks to Google’s new Plus 1 Button, Google Search just got a whole lot more social.

When reading an enjoyable article or laughing at an online video, people can share it with the world through Facebook, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, etc. via buttons/badges usually found in tucked away in the corner of the webpage you’re viewing. Google has now taken this concept and applied it directly to their search results page, allowing users to get recommendations for the things that interest them, right when they want it. (Compare with Facebook’s “like” function.)

What this means for your business is that your online social following just got wider. And if your business doesn’t have a strong social media presence, this new feature only makes it more imperative that you do. Now that customers can view a business’s Plus 1 rating directly in the search results page of the most popular search engine in the world, they can help boost your business’s site traffic and brand and product awareness with a single click.

Businesses that take the time to exploit Google Plus 1 stand to gain a leg-up over competitors, because let’s face it, it’s easier to find what you’re looking for when a friend has already found it and given their imprimatur. Perhaps more so than Facebook, 1 not only builds customer loyalty, but ultimately has the potential to draw in new customers as well.

For example, you own a small law firm and you’ve done everything you’re supposed to concerning social media. You have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account, but inconclusive or lackluster social media marketing numbers leaves you wanting. The reason? Probably not too many people turn to Facebook when seeking out an attorney—they do, however, turn to Google Search for help. This is why businesses should take Plus 1 seriously and leverage it to its full potential.

Google Plus 1 is currently in the beta phase of its release, but you can test it out to see how it might benefit your business. Go to: http://www.google.com/+1/button/

Source

HTML5 Elements For SEO Helps

2011-04-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

The release of HTML5 is still quite a long way off with W3C announcing that May 2011 will be the final call for the specification and a final release expected by 2014. When HTML5 is finally released it will replace HTML 4.01 as the standard on the web and will feature many new elements and discontinue a number of older and outdated elements still current in HTML 4.01.

The good news for web developers is that HTML5 will be backward compatible with HTML4, so you won’t need to code your website from scratch to meet the new standards. Here we will take a look at some of the new elements featured in HTML5 and the possible impact and benefits they could have on SEO.

Article Element

The article element can be used to represent a self-contained composition in a document that is independently distributable or reusable, e.g. in syndication.

In other words, if you own a blog and have written a cracking piece of content for it, you’ll want to make use of the article element as Google will no doubt attach greater weight to syndicated content, much as they do now with blog posts. Of course the article element isn’t just limited to blog posts, and could also be used for newspaper articles, forum posts, user generated content, etc. On the flip side, web pages that are low on content may well see a negative effect in their SERPs positions as HTML5 comes into wide spread use.

Section Element

The section element represents a generic section of a website. So for instance, if your website is using a jQuery / JavaScript tabbed slider, the section element could be used to define each slide.

You could also find yourself splitting your homepage into sections. It’s important to note that the section element is not a container element and should not be used to style your page layout. In much the same way as the article element, the section element is a way for search engines to quickly identify the important information on your website and developers and SEOs to identify the page copy that really matters.

Navigational Element

The nav element will be used to represent a section with navigational links. The nav element doesn’t need to be overused and should only be used where there is a major blocks of navigation links.

For example; the nav element will not be necessary where there are links in the page footer. The nav element will help search engines to formally identify the navigation links on a web page. This will help search engines to identify the most important pages on your website, but also to give navigation link less weight compared to a contextual link.

Header Element

The header element is used to define a grouping of elements that make up the heading or navigational aids of a website. This will usually consist of a hgroup or h1 – h6 element but it’s not a pre-requisite.

The header element can also be used to wrap a search form, any branding or logos, or a section element’s table of contents. When compared to the article and section elements, the content within a header element will likely have less weight in the eyes of search engines.

Footer Element

At face value the footer element looks simple enough, however it’s usage in development are not as clean cut. Typically, a footer contains information about its section, such as the author and copyright data, and links to relevant documents and its parent page. However, the footer element doesn’t necessarily have to appear at the bottom of a page.

For instance, if you have a ‘back’ button at the top and bottom of a long article, the footer element could be used to represent the articles ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element. In much the same way at the header element, it is thought that the content in a footer element will hold less weight in the eyes of search engines.

Aside Element

The aside element can be used to section content on the page that could be considered as separate from that of the main page content. For example advertisements such as skyscraper banners, groups of navigational elements or pull quotes would be wrapped in the aside tags. It is still unclear how the aside element will be interpreted in the eyes of a search engine.

W3C actually state in their documentation that it could be used to contain advertisements, in which case search engines would no doubt completely ignore the content. However, if used for pull quotes, the aside element could be used to add emphasis to the main page content.

Source

SEO Tips For Designers, Developers and Managers

2011-04-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

SEO on your own site is straightforward, at least in terms of the politics. SEO'ing a site that a team works on is another matter.

You will come up against barriers. These barriers are often put up by designers, developers, copywriters and management. Frustrating as it is for the SEO, this is the reality of working on a site alongside other people, all of whom have agendas and requirements that may differ markedly from your own.

So how do you navigate this space? How do you ensure your SEO objectives can be met when other people may be resistant to change, or openly try to block you? In this post, we'll take a high-level, conceptual look at the challenges the SEO faces when working on a client site, and talking-points to help explore and clarify concepts.

1. Why Are We Doing SEO At All?

SEO is a pain.

It's complicated. It gets in the way, particularly when it comes to design. Why do we need headings and a lot of text when a picture tells a story? SEO appears to be an arbitrary, dark art with little in the way of fixed rules, and the client probably doesn't care about it anyway.

The thing is - if SEO is done well, a client may throw a whole lot more money at the site in future. Everyone likes to build on success, and that means more business, and more exposure, for everyone involved. On the internet, traffic = success. Traffic = money. A site that few people see, no matter how well executed, will likely fail, just like a site that fails to engage and convert visitors will fail. The client may not know they want SEO now, but you can be certain they'll be asking questions about it after launch.

If SEO is done poorly, the site may not be seen by as many people as it otherwise would. What use is a beautiful design that is seldom seen? What use is great code that is seldom used?

The value proposition of SEO is that it helps get a site seen. It's a powerful marketing channel, because most people use search engines to navigate the web. Sites that deliver what the search engines want stand to gain a lot more traffic than sites that do not undertake SEO. If your competitors are undertaking SEO, this puts your work at a competitive disadvantage. Their site will be seen more often by search visitors. Their web agencies will likely get more business as clients see greater returns on their investment.

That's why we do SEO. To be seen.

Of course, a site can be seen by other means. Word-of-mouth, social media, links, brand awareness, and offline advertising. A site doesn't need SEO, but given that it is a relatively easy win in terms of cheap traffic acquisition, the extra effort involved is negligible compared to the upside benefits. It's like being given a choice of having a shop located on main street vs a location way out in the desert. Much the same effort involved in building, but significantly different traffic potential.

2. SEO Is A Design Element

Just as copywriters require space to insert paragraphs and headings, SEO's require space to do their thing.

If you're a designer, an SEO will likely provide you with a list of their requirements. These requirements need not be onerous, any more so than leaving space for copy is considered onerous.

There are two key aspects where SEO needs to integrate with design. One aspect is the requirement for machine readable text, provided in a format the search engines are able to read, and derive meaning. Search engines "think" mostly in terms of words, not pictures. Make design allowances for copy that includes lot of headings and sub-headings, a technique which also dovetails nicely with usability.

The other key aspect is crawl-ability. A search engine sends out a spider, a piece of code that grabs the source code of your website, and dumps it back in a database. It skips from page to page, following links. If a page doesn't have a link to it, or no crawlable link to it, it is invisible to the search engines. There are various means of making a site easy to crawl, but one straightforward way is to use a site map, linked to from each page on the site. Similarly, you should ensure your site navigation is crawlable, which means using standard hyperlinks, as opposed to scripted/executable links. If you must use scripted links, try and replicate the navigation elsewhere on the page in non-scripted form, or within the body of the text.

For most sites, that's pretty much it when it comes to design considerations. In summary, the inclusion of machine readable text, and a means for a spider to crawl easily from page to page.

An SEO may also wish to specify a page hierarchy and structural issues, where some pages are given more prominent positions than others. Of course, this needs to be weighed against navigation considerations for visitors who arrive at the site via other means.

3. SEO For Developers

Like design, there are two key areas of integration.

One is tagging. SEO's will want to specify title tags, and some meta tags. These need to be unique for each page on the site, as each page is an entry page as far as a search engine is concerned. A search visitor will not necessarily arrive at the home page first.

The title tag appears in search results as a click able link, so serves a valuable marketing function. When search visitors consider which link to click, they'll use the title tag and snippet to influence their decision.

The second aspect concerns URL's. Ideally, a URL should contain descriptive words, as opposed to numbers and random letters. For example, acme.com/widgets/red-widgets.htm is good, whilst acme.com/w/12345678&tnr.php is less so. The more often the keyword appears, the more likely it will be "bolded" on a search results page, and is therefore more likely to attract a click. It's also easier for the search engine to determine meaning if a URL is descriptive as opposed to cryptic. For an in-depth look at technical considerations, see "SEO For Designers".

One workaround if the database needs unique codes is to translation at the URL level, using URL rewriting.

4. SEO Is A Marketing Strategy

The on-page requirements, as dealt with above, are half the picture.

In order to rank well, a page needs to have links from external sites. The higher quality those sites, the more chances your pages have of ranking well. The SEO will look to identify linking possibilities, and point these links to various internal pages on the site.

It can be difficult, near impossible, to get high quality links to brochure-style advertising pages. Links tend to be directed at pages that have reference value. This is a strategic decision that needs to weighed during site conception. Obviously, few sites strive, or want to be, Wikipedia, however there are various ways to incorporate reference information into commercial sites where the primary purpose of the site is not the publication of reference information.

For example, include a blog, a news feed, publish the e-mail newsletter to the site, and/or incorporate a reference section within the site. It doesn't matter if this section isn't viewed by visitors who navigate directly to the site. It provides a means to get a lot of information-rich content into the site without disrupting design and other commercial imperatives. Think of it as a "mini-site" within a site.

Not every page needs to be for the purposes of SEO. SEO can be sectioned off, although this is often less ideal than more holistic integration throughout the site.

5. Strategic Factors For Managers

Concept, design and development can screw-up SEO.

Poor integration can result in loss of potential traffic. This traffic will go to competitors. The longer a site doesn't use an SEO strategy, the harder it is to ever catch the competition, as a head-start in link building is difficult to counter.

If your aim, or your clients aim, is to attract as much targeted traffic as possible - as most site owners do - then SEO integration must be taken as seriously as design, development, copy and other media. It may influence your choice of CMS. It may influence your strategic approach in terms of how and what type of information you publish.

Whilst SEO can be bolted-on afterwards, this is a costly and less-effective way of doing SEO, much like re-designing a site is costly and less effective than getting it right in the planning stage. If SEO is integrated in the planning stage, it is reasonably straightforward.

The time to incorporate SEO is during site conception. SEO is a text publishing strategy. Design and development will need to make minor changes to the way they approach a site build. Doing this retrospectively, whilst not impossible, is more difficult, and therefore more costly.

Coda: Flash Workarounds For SEO

There are various workarounds to existing search-unfriendly design, but I'd advise to avoid the problem in the first place.

Flash, whilst a useful tool for embedding within sites, should be avoided for the entire site. Flash is a graphics/animation format, whereas search - and the web in general - is primarily a text format. If you build an entire site using Flash, then your competitors will overtake you in terms of search visitors. The formats simply do not gel.

One work around is strategic - split the site in two. Use Flash as a brochure site, and create a hub site that is text based. Consider including a "printable" version of the site, which will give the search engines some text to digest. Whilst there are technical and strategic ways around Flash, they are often clumsy and tedious.

Source

Google Algorithm Update Casualties

2011-03-03T22:43:00.000-08:00

Last week, launched a major update to its , which was positioned as one that would go after content farms. While some sites that are often attached to that label were in fact hurt by the update, some other sites that aren’t generally considered content farms became casualties as well.

Was your site impacted by ’s update? For better or worse? Let us know.

Now, it’s important to note that did not come out and use the phrase “content farm” when it announced the update, but the company used language similar to what it has used in the past when talking about content farms. In a nutshell, the was supposed to be aimed at reducing rankings for lower quality content. Those who found their rankings impacted negatively are not thrilled with having their content deemed as such, and some of the sites that were apparently devalued, do raise some eyebrows.

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Take, for example, Cult of Mac. This is a tech blog that covers Apple news. It is often linked to by other sources, and frequently appears on Techmeme as a source. A lot of Apple enthusiasts visit the site on a regular basis for updates. Leander Kahney, the site’s editor and publisher, wrote a scathing post about ’s update, proclaiming, “We’ve become a civilian casualty in the war against content farms...Why us? We have no idea. The changes has made to its system are secret. What makes it worse is that ’s tinkering seems to have actually improved Demand Media’s page rank, while killing ours...We’re a blog, so we aggregate news stories like everyone else. But our posts are 100% original and we do a ton of original reporting...”

“We can go toe-to-toe with any other tech news site out there,” he wrote. “We break a ton of stuff. Go take a look at MacRumors, which is very good at giving credit, and see how often we're cited as the source of stories...Yes, we report other's stories, just like Engadget, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Wired, Daring Fireball and everyone else. That's the news business on the Web. It's a flow, a conversation...The question is whether we add value -- figure out what it means, if a rumor is credible, what the historical context is. We do that and we do it well. Plus we give clear credit where credit is due (unlike the original content stealers like Engadget and Mashable. Try to figure out what stories they ripped off from us).” Note: those accusations appear to have been removed from the post.

Even PRNewswire, the press release distribution service was devalued by ’s update. Kahney also defended that site, after a commenter on his post mentioned it. He said, “...and for your information, PR newswire isn't a content farm either. It published press releases for thousands of companies. Crappy spam websites pull releases from its RSS feeds and republish it as pretend content -- which may be why it was down ranked by .”

Helpful SEO Content Is The Biggest Influence On Rankings

2011-02-14T20:36:00.000-08:00

As much as things have changed in SEO, especially over the past two years, some things remain a constant. Content in all of its forms is what will drive you to success.

Now, months later, this content still hasn't been created, their traffic has been dead on the vine since last May, and now their investor may back out.

Know what else? They are an affiliate website, and are only concerned with getting a huge number of folks to fill out their lead form, which exists on pretty much every page. Oh, and this lead form exists in a frame in their website and contains a div name listing the name of the company that they are affiliated with.

What should be Content Strategies?

At this point, I'm still merely discussing textual content within the core of your website. What about the other content?

Blog Content:

Does your target audience ask questions and/or research products on the search engines? Chances are, yes, they do. Your blog is a wonderful opportunity for you to create helpful/resourceful (linkable) content that answers questions that your target audience is asking. Creating this content in a search engine friendly manner -- meaning, you should do a little keyword research, (perhaps even use WordTracker's Keyword Questions Tool), and make sure that your blog is set up for permalinks, where the title/URL and header are in sync with one another -- you can be well on your way to creating some solid content that will benefit your website, in many ways.

Facebook Content:

Think about your audience here. Do you have a Facebook profile for your business? Do you have shareable content on your website, and a Share and/or Like button, so that you're allowing your content to be easily shared? Are you writing unique content for Facebook? Do you have a unique editorial calendar for what you intend to promote on Facebook? A "strategy" of only self-promotion doesn't work here.

Twitter Content:

If you're using Twitter as a way to only self-promote, then, just as with Facebook, you're doing this all wrong. You need to create helpful content (sound familiar?). By virtue of doing that, long enough, you'll earn the right to self-promote on occasion. Remember, if nothing else:

it's not about what you get, it's about what you give.

Synergy of Blog/Facebook/Twitter:

You should think about strategically slicing or stacking your content on the above. For example, you could write a blog post, plan a supporting discussion/question for Twitter, and a poll on Facebook. Slice and dice the topic in the best format for each channel and try to lead people to the other channels, getting them to engage on multiple levels.

Image Content:

Simple stuff. Are you titling/using alt text on images appropriately? See Google's Best Practices for Image Optimization here. Do you have an image sitemap set up with the search engines? Again, Google provides some solid guidance, here.

Video Content:

Are you set up on YouTube? Are you developing helpful content here? Back in the day, your only option was to host your own videos. Now you can use video sharing sites such as YouTube to "cast your net." Because search engines can't watch your video, they rely on adjacent text content near the embedded video on your site as well as the videos file-name/title/descriptions/tags on the video-sharing site. If you choose to use a video-sharing site such as YouTube, go the extra mile and add unique keyword-rich content near the video on your site and don't skimp on the video description. Be creative, add a link back to the corresponding page on your site to form relevance with the search engines, and add a transcription of the video for a breadth of content in the video description.

Press Release Content:

Are you publishing press releases when important things happen with your business? Perhaps a new product launch or significant client win? Post this on your website (you do have a section for press releases on your website, right?) and distribute to known press release distribution services.

Article Content:

Perhaps you have content that doesn't necessary fit the "blog" section, but also isn't a press release? Perhaps you have white papers, etc., that are worthy of inclusion on your website? This is just another way of generating helpful content for your target audience.

FAQ Content:

This can sometimes be a gray area with blogs, in that you are addressing core questions that your audience might have. Frequently asked questions, however, can address questions that your audience may have about your particular products and/or services. You'd rather have your audience find the answers on your website, rather than another website that you don't control.

Review Content (User-Generated Content):

For many resource-strapped organizations, or those e-commerce websites with thousands of pages, this may be the only solution to getting some quality, unique content on a multitude of pages.

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Bing Are Copying Their Search Results

2011-02-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

Google have taken a pop at a rival search engine, Microsoft’s Bing, accusing them of cheating by copying their search results.

In reaction, Bing have strongly denied Google’s claims, saying they use “multiple signals and approaches” to compile their search results list and refute any accusations of copying and have instead accused Google of “spy-novelesque stunts.”

However a Google employee has created an online blog explaining how the investigation was conducted. According to the blog, Google engineers input a hundred fake nonsensical search queries and also phoney results. Google claims that within a matter of weeks, Bing were indexing the search queries and false results.

Bing have hit back at Google’s accusations, saying the investigation’s findings do not prove Bing have cheated. Instead the accused search engine says Google’s findings show “we learn from customers who are willing to share data with us” which they argue is the same strategy Google employs while compiling their results.

Instead of showing Bing up as cheats, Google’s alleged evidence may only prove that Bing are capable of picking up on trends quickly by indexing results for the dummy queries as they noted an increase of searches for this topic.

Bing have batted aside Google’s cheating claim calling it a “creative tactic” by a competitor to dent their reputation.

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Improve Google Rankings With Existing Backlinks

2011-02-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

Getting links to your website is one of the largest and one of the most difficult tasks to do if you want to get high rankings on Google.

If you want to improve your site's ranking in Google, it is often easier to improve the existing back links to your site.

1) Fix the links pointing to your old domain name

If you have changed your domain name in the past, it is likely that some people still link to your old domain name.

Links to the old domain be directed to your new domain with a 301 to ensure that the links and visitors who come to these blogs are not lost.

Unfortunately, through 301 redirects backlinks do not pass the full power link to your website.

For this reason, please contact webmasters link to your old domain name and ask them to link to your new domain. This will increase the effect of the links on the ranking of your site.

2) pages correct broken links on your site

Check your stats with a link to all links that go to a non-existent (404) page of your site to an existing page on your site so that visitors are not lost.

As above, it is even better to contact the webmasters who link to non-existent pages and ask them to edit links.

3) try to improve the anchor texts

When you contact other webmasters to tell them to point to your old domain name or a broken link on your website, you can also suggest new anchor text for your links (anchor text are words of a text link pointing to your website).

If links to your website are the words you want to get high rankings in the anchor text, your chances of getting a higher position for those keywords.

4) The results of other relevant sites

It may seem strange to an opinion, but it can help your ranking: when you contact a webmaster and ask for a link, you can also suggest other sites linked to yours.

If the site that links to your site links to other sites related to your subject site, it is more likely that search engines find your website relevant to the subject.

5) Check the links and navigation on your site

If you want to see some pages of your website in Google search results, the pages must be linked to their own web pages. If a web page that is hidden in the navigation bar of your web site, is less likely that this page is a good position in Google results.

SEO Factors : Can Reduce Your Search Results

2011-01-31T21:25:00.001-08:00

Code

1) Lack of designed 404 page
2) Number of links a page is from homepage
3) Server calls, images, JavaScript, database calls (affects speed of website)
4) Badly done redirects
5) Duplicate title/keywords
6) Redirect through refresh meta tags
7) Dynamic pages
8) Links with "?" in them
9) Use of frames
10) Use of cookies
11) Excessive cross linking
12) Cloaking
13) Excessive use of graphics
14) JavaScript navigation (Googlebot can't run JavaScript)
15) Comment spamming
16) Use of display none within CSS
17) Use of -9999px within CSS
18) Use of absolute positioning
19) Use of tables
20) Use of the
Copy

26) Hidden content or font colors within 0 percent of background color RBG value
27) Poison words
28) Keyword stuffing
29) Doorway pages
30) Keyword saturation
31) Use of words relating to porn
32) Saying anything remotely negative about Google
33) Duplicate content on site. Google is "understanding" about ecommerce sites that have duplicate content for multiple products -- it will pick one at random and dump the rest, but you won't be penalized

Site

34) Over-optimization. If you match what Google is looking for too well, Google will assume you did it just to get better listings and you'll be penalized. Google considers tuning your site for better listings unethical
35) Linking between all the domains hosted on same IP
36) Multiple redirects
37) Multiple domains to the same website (different country variations are acceptable, but not multiple totally different domains, for example newcars.com, sportscars.com, and fastcars.com pointing at the same site)
38) IP address (many are blacklisted for spamming)
39) Whether the site has been previously de-indexed due to malpractice
40) Domain IP neighbors (if they have a bad reputation)

Links

41) Participation in link schemes
42) Link to a bad neighborhood
43) Traffic buying
44) Link buying
45) Being linked to by a site Google dislikes (you'll be punished by association)

Behavior

46) Automatically playing audio or video
47) Unsecured payment gateways
48) Percentage of SERP click-throughs that return to SERP page in a short time (sort of bounce rate)
49) Google staff finds your site doesn't match what is in the Google cache

Google Algorithm Updates 2011

2011-01-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

Google updated its search algorithm this week to help reduce webspam in its search results.

These changes were made in response to increased criticism of Google and its search engine results. The criticism has been partly inspired by the emergence of newer forms of webspam alongside traditional webspam (pages that consist of lots of keywords and phrases without context or meaning that “cheat” their way up to higher search ranks).

The latest webspam outbreaks commonly come from content farms and sites that syndicate content. Earlier this month, Stack Overflow‘s Jeff Atwood pointed out that in the last year, some content syndicators have routinely began outranking Stack Overflow on Google. In other words, the syndicates are outranking the originals.

In Stack Overflow‘s case, the problem was bad enough that a community member built a Google Chrome extension designed to redirect to Stack Overflow from spammier syndicates.

Matt Cutts, principle engineer at Google and head of the webspam team, responded to some of the criticism in a blog post and said Google would be “evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.” On his personal blog, Cutts confirmed that those changes have indeed gone into effect.

More: Algorithm Updates

The Techniques For Obtaining Any Link

2011-01-24T17:57:00.000-08:00

Getting a link from a website is very reluctant not always easy, and even go to the "yes" seems almost impossible. How to get people to link to your must be organic and should be natural. People should want to link to you because your site is really helpful and have something useful to offer. Keep reading if you want to learn some seo techniques you can use to communicate with other website owners to make a link to you.

1. Evidence (Testimonial)

Testimonials are very important because that's the other site owners know if your site is really good or not. What about the testimony, however, is that today many testimonials are anonymous. Most people do not trust anonymous witnesses and always wonder if you have written or had someone else write for you. If you can publish stories like the real person, his name and title and what the company they represent would be great. Thus, the evidence is real and people doubt the least.

2. Social ties (Social Connection)

The social bond is to build a relationship with your target. You can use the popular social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter to build a strong relationship with the objective you have in mind. Become a part of the community of his destiny, sharing in conversation or even the retweet. You can also comment on their blogs and involve various types of conversations. This will give you an opinion, and this eventually will help you get what you want to link both.

3. Print (The Press)

Use the press to impress. It's a very clever idea. For example, anywhere if you get an interview for a blog or a radio or is it a good idea to include your objective, and even talk about their business a little. It will make a strong impression on them and will more than likely make you this link. It is possible that the target will not be linking to you after having read or heard the interview, but you can always contact them and remind them that you mentioned in an interview somewhere. This is a selfless act, in their eyes, and is a good technique to use, especially if this link is very important to you.

Incorporate these 3 seo techniques into your strategy and you have absolutely no problem doing some of the toughest links. If you have the right evidence to build a strong social framework and to show respect to the performance of your audience by speaking in public, you will certainly achieve great results.

For More: obtaining any link

What Does This Mean And SEM Marketing Jobs?

2011-01-24T01:12:00.000-08:00

If you are not the kind of marketing company with a universal denominator zero, the lowest common denominator, can not focus exclusively on Google. It has no business sense from a standpoint of risk of putting all your eggs in one basket for promotion to the search engine. Sales and marketing sense dictates that you should diversify your marketing efforts to maximize return on investment and its success will be based on their target markets and how the different search engines used by users within their own key demographic.

Diversification of marketing search engine competitors (and other marketing channels) is essential to overall business success. SEM pinning all its success, Google has a very short-term strategy, which is unable to reverse the long-term stability and profitability. More than that, forget Bing and to a lesser extent, other search engines as a means Blekko you are cutting the road, which may be converting more value and sales of hard sell.

The best practice is, therefore, look at what each specific search engine and the weight of its resources and campaigns accordingly. Given the frequent changes and developments in the search space, the distribution of their effort is the coverage is only effective against the risk of changes in user behavior fickle, and you may be able to take advantage of the way Target markets include Internet use in practice.

For More : SEO Tips

Google PR Update : Latest SEO Update – January 20 2011

2011-01-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

Google PR Update on the followings dates

January 20 2011

At Recently, Google has updated its toolbar PR (Page Rank) for all websites today on January 20 2011. My SEO Tips blog website has increase from PR0 to PR1 and I also show for many website is also Change in Google PR.

April 03 2010

As expected, Google has updated its toolbar PR ranking for all websites today on April 03 2010. There was no change recorded for this website but many of my new website that were just launched have now got atleast PR1. .

December 30, 2009
Google had updated its Google tool-bar page rank on December 30th 2009. Most of our websites have gained PR and this website is PR2 now. Even though PR has lost its weight (importance) in ranking of websites but still it feels good to check PR of your websites going up and down. And it definitely is a measure of quality of your website and it still have some control over ranking of websites.

I actually have a PR4 website that does not rank well fo remain keywords. Thus showing that PR is not everything.

We will update this page wen next update happens.. till then keep working on improving your websites by adding quality content.

October 30th 2009

After 2 months long wait, the Google PR update has finally taken place and is visible now on October 30th 2009. There was alot of speculation of google updating its PR in September, then in October and finally its happened now. Some people had starting thingking that PR won’t update now on but thats proved un-true.

Many of my websites have gained a PR, check your’s now !

The Top SEO Strategies For Update 2011

2011-01-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

The start of 2011 didn't ring in shiny new strategies that will shock the online marketing world. However, specific tactics that emerged in 2010 will have a larger affect on the success of 2011 marketing campaigns.

SEO.com, an SEO firm, identifies the top nine strategies in 2011.

1. Video Marketing :–

Boyd Norwood, SEO.com's director of SEO, has been doing tests on visitors that come from video sites like Youtube, Vimeo and other sites. So far, the results have been surprising.

"The conversion rate of visitors from Youtube was about 20 percent higher than from the search engines, Video will continue to be big in 2011."

2. Social Impact :–

2010 was the year social media threw its weight around and affected search rankings. This will likely become more prevalent in the coming year. To increase rankings, SEO specialists will need to understand how to create valuable, shareable content and how to spread the word through various social sites.

3. Blogging :–

Blogging continues to be an effective tool for thought leadership, link bait, and a way to leverage social media to drive website traffic and leads. Guest blogging benefits both the guest and the host. The host will get fresh content on its site while the guest blogger will received a link from the host. Both sides will be able to use each other’s resources to help share the blog and spread it online. It's a win-win for both involved.

4. Conversion Optimization :–

While this is not technically part of SEO, conversion optimization, the process of turning more visitors into paying customers, will determine the success of any SEO campaign. It will become even more valuable in the coming year as more become aware of the practice that tests different designs, call to actions and other details to find what converts the most website visitors into leads and sales.

5. Search Marketing :–

With 90 percent of shoppers searching Google before they head out the door, local Internet marketing and Google Maps are a must for any business trying to get people into their doors.

6. Mobile SEO :–

With abundant smartphones, apps, widgets, location-based marketing through social media, discounts, coupons, QR codes, image and audio searches, and text message (SMS) marketing, mobile is poised to reach the big time. eMarketer's "2011 Marketing Trends Survey" says 35 percent of businesses worldwide plan on increasing their mobile marketing spend. Performics projects that mobile search clicks could be greater than 16 percent of all Google search clicks.

7. PPC :–

This older Internet marketing strategy is still a key element of search marketing. PPC creates awareness and produces qualified traffic and leads. eMarketer's survey says 41 percent of companies plan to increase both their search engine optimization and PPC spend in 2011.

8. Email Marketing :–

This old standby has made a strong comeback. eMarketer says 65 percent of businesses plan on increasing spending on e-mail marketing this year, which beats out the forecasted social media spend by 8 percent. Adage also reported that e-mail marketing provides a higher conversion rate than social media.

9. Content Marketing :–

Content marketing increases SEO through natural link building, establishes thought leadership, makes companies more interesting on social media, and drives traffic and leads.

Firefox Extension for SEO Helps

2011-01-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

Constructive market research data precise into Google's and Yahoo!'s search results, including the following data close to each search result.

* PR: (PageRank in Google):
an expected evaluate of global link power

* Age:
age pull from Archive.org, shows the first time a page was indexed by Archive.org's spider. The assumption is that if Archive.org found a page so did many of the most important search engines.

* Links:
(link domain in Yahoo!) shows estimate of the total number of links point at domain.

* .edu Link:
(.edu linkdomain in Yahoo!) shows a approximation of the total number of .edu links point at a domain.

* .edu Page Link:
(.edu link in Yahoo!) shows a estimate of the total number of .edu links point at a specific page

* .gov Link:
(.gov link domain in Yahoo!) shows a estimate of the total number of .gov links point at a domain.

* Page Links:
(links in Yahoo!) shows a estimate of the total number of links point at a page

* del.icio.us:
number of times a URL has been bookmarked on Del.icio.us

* Technorati:
an estimation of the total number of links to a site from blogs

* Alexa:
rank based on website traffic.

* Cached:
(Show site in Google Crowler) shows how many pages from a site are indexed in Google

* dmoz:
searches the Google Directory to count the total number of pages from a site that are listed in DMOZ, and the total number of pages listed in DMOZ that reference that URL.

* Bloglines:
shows you how many people are subscribed to a particular blog via Bloglines.

* dir.yahoo.com:
is a site listed in the Yahoo! Directory or not.

* WhoIs:
makes it easy to look up the whois data for any site

Quality Content For Blog Writing

2011-01-13T01:59:00.000-08:00

Have you gone to write a blog and found yourself suffering from blogger’s block? Sometimes it can be difficult to find the time to create content for a blog. When developing your content, be sure to apply these tactics.

Effective Targeting

The first and foremost rule for creating effective content for a business blog is to completely understand why you are Blogging. Be sure to have a thorough understanding of your ideal customer’s (your reader’s) profile in addition to your core message as it relates to your business. When you have a clear idea about who you are writing for, it is much easier to write. This allows your blog posts to be on target and have a purpose. This will also keep you from meandering off into subjects that may be irrelevant to your target audience.

Readers Need or Want

It makes good practice to always write content with your reader audience in mind. Write a blog as if you are answering a question “what is in it for them?” Readers are constantly asking themselves whether a blog is worth their time to read and you want your blog to be “yes” to that question. You’re more likely to keep readers interested if you take the approach of speaking as if “walking in their shoes.” Be sure to address readers’ major concerns and/or issues. If you don’t know what they are, be sure to ask!

Often Edit

I see many blog posts that start off with generic lead in sentences such as, “Earlier in the week, the other day, I was thinking about…” A blog post should not be thought of as writing an essay and it is definitely not poetry. When writing a blog, be sure to get to the point quickly. Follow the simple rule we all learned in school “KISS = Keep It Short and Sweet!” This means you can actually write less and say more. Start off with writing short declarative sentences and omit all unnecessary words.

Keyword Focused Headlines

Write compelling headlines using strategic keywords that pertain to and are relevant to your topic. Keywords are often touted as “gold” by search engine optimization experts who charge a lot of money for their services.
Begin by putting yourself in the shoes of your ideal reader. If the reader was searching Google for information or solutions to a problem, would he or she find you? Compile a list of all the key words or phrases the reader may use to search for you, your business, and solutions. Think of the keywords and key phrases that you want to use frequently in your blog. When writing a headline for a blog post, use these keywords. These key words will alert the search engines, as well as your reader about what’s important in the post.

Strong First Sentences

Optimize the first paragraph by using the same keywords used in the post headline. Make your point right away, instead of leading into it. Use clear keywords for search engine optimization in your first sentence of the first paragraph. Secondly, summarize them again before you close the blog post. Make it a habit of always closing by asking readers for their comments.

Keep Blogs Short

When writing, try to keep the paragraphs short. Each paragraph should be one or two sentences at most, and then break for a new paragraph. White space can be your friend. Often, one sentence can be as effective as a paragraph. Create lots of white space between paragraphs in your blog.

Remember, most readers are in a hurry and like to scan their content. Computer screen text is harder to read than text on paper. Make it as easy as possible for readers to grasp your message quickly.

Use Bullet Lists

Use bullet points as much as possible. This makes posting much easier:

• to scan
• to read
• to understand
• to retain

Research indicates that readers prefer blogs to be easily digestible and summarized for them. It’s easier for readers to remember a message if you’ve given the message in a list of three to five items. Many online writing experts recommend keeping a bulleted list to an odd number of bullet points.

SEO Daily Update

2010-12-24T02:46:00.001-08:00

SEO Daily Update