Monday, September 09, 2013

4 Reasons to Spend More on SEO


Google has made dramatic changes in 2013, with the May 22 Penguin update having the biggest impact for small business websites. After some severe reductions in traffic, some webmasters are at least seeing traffic increases in August due, in part, to a Panda softening from Google.

In response, many webmasters are making big shifts in SEO tactics. While long overdue, this is the right move.

Few businesses are looking to move to lower quality SEO services as they now fear Google more than ever. But small businesses run very close to the margin and traditionally resist increasing the SEO budget, regardless of the consequences. Here are four reasons why small business owners should reconsider.


1. Google Asked You To

While many will dismiss this as PR, Google has clearly communicated that they no longer will tolerate SEO tactics that used to work in 2008. Article spinning, keyword stuffing, excessive bookmarks, reborn domains, paid links, thin content, and duplicate content are all not OK.

Even if you haven't received an unnatural link warning, the writing is on the wall. Quality must increase for continued success in SEO. While this message is clearly self-serving for Google, it's important to respect their power in the industry.

2. Recovering From Google Updates is Expensive

There are plenty of websites that have partially recovered from Penguin downgrades, but each case is different. The level of returning traffic varies.

Technical issues on-site are the easiest to fix and should be addressed quickly using Webmaster Tools as the guide. Duplicate content needs to be removed immediately.

Keyword-stuffed titles need to be edited. Thin content, a favorite among many, should be replaced with real content marketing.

Off-site issues, such as bad link building, are particularly hard to fix. It is very ironic that firms now exist to send "link removal request" emails to other firms who were previously retained to build those links.

Small business needs to stop doing bad link building and embrace content marketing. They need to get creative and experiment with newsjacking.

All of these activities cost money. Smart business owners are thinking toward the future and deciding to spend more on SEO now (via higher quality services) to avoid repeating this activity in 2014.

3. SEO Has Merged With Marketing

Many small business webmasters were using a "set-it-and-forget-it" SEO strategy, believing that they need not worry about SEO after hiring a firm. This violates one of the major tenets of business process outsourcing, which is to outsource process and execution, but maintain strict performance monitoring and accountability.

It isn't surprising that many small businesses are feeling buyer's remorse, wishing they had done greater due-diligence in the vendor selection process and better understood the risks associated with SEO.

It should be clear at this point that SEO is no longer a technical exercise and is rapidly merging with marketing and public relations. Smart CEOs recognize the strategic importance of SEO in our digital world. For this reason, they find ways to amplify SEO in allmarketing activities. Ironically, many companies have SEO opportunities they don't harness.

For example, every employee should maintain a "work" Twitter account and share industry news, blog posts and company specials to help spread content. This type of integrated SEO marketing execution is the future, and will draw more budget dollars.

4. SEO ROI Remains High

The data suggests that SEO is still a great investment. This means that small business shouldn't necessarily shop for the cheapest SEO vendor, but consider the return they can make on their money if they spend more:
  • SEO remains a very high ROI activity.
  • The cost-per-lead for SEO is still very attractive.
  • Google has significantly tightened the requirements for high-quality SEO.
  • Integrated marketing strategies have big efficiencies.


Conclusions


All technologies and industries mature, and price-points typically change dramatically along the way. SEO is following the same playbook as most other young industries.

In the last few years we have seen SEO move from infancy to adolescence, with the Google algorithm updates as mileposts. While SEO will become more difficult and expensive to execute, the return on investment remains high for small business. In the end, ROI is more important than the absolute number of a budget line item.

For More Info about  4 Reasons to Spend More on SEO


Friday, September 06, 2013

Great Social Media Content (checklist)

Interested in great social media content for your Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter pages? No? You should, because social endorsements are very valuable and boost your SEO! Yes? Great! Here’s a list of the social media content ideas. Pick the ones that fit your product and target audience:


Product information as social media content

  • FAQs
  • Product videos
    • How To’s
    • Reviews & tests
    • Unpacking and first use
    • Use, maintenance, cleaning, storing, etc.
      (Tip: if you don’t have any content, you might be able to find it on YouTube)
  • Infographics (here’s an example about SEO companies)
  • Testimonials and quotes
  • Top 10′s (Who doesn’t want to know the Top 10 sellers from Tim Horton’s?)
  • Featured facts (Who else uses this product? What is the weirdest thing anyone did with it? Just how incredible is it?)

User generated content (UGC) for social media

  • Polls, surveys, and quizzes (people love to interact with the brand they like)
  • Images and video (customers using your product, celebrating the results, or even putting it in a blender)
  • Contests (here’s another tip: share the results and a winner’s testimonial as well!)
  • Thank You’s to your customers (e.g. when reaching a new level on Fiverr, reaching 1.000 Likes on Facebook, etc.)
  • Thank You’s from your customers (a bit more informal than testimonials)
  • Customer feedback can be a great way to engage loyal customers (e.g. players provide input on game development)

Provide service to leverage social media

  • Discounts, special offers and coupons
  • Updated blogposts (e.g. when Facebook changes their interface)
  • How To’s (such as videos, manuals, screencasts, guidelines, forum help, etc.)
  • Checklists (here’s our PPC and SEO checklists)
  • White papers

Business information for your social media

  • Presentations and screencasts (these are movies of presentations)
  • News (e.g. events, results, product development, new features, go-lives, conferences, etc.)
  • Awards (as long as they matter to your audience – not everyone is interested in ISO-certifications)
  • Employee information (who are your customers dealing with?)
  • Interviews (with clients, suppliers, experts, the board, etc.)
  • Podcasts (as above, but with content that’s often updated)
  • Images (of events, new HQ, concept art, etc.)
  • Charity (How did your organisation make a difference?)

Great social media content is authentic!

Pick the topics that will interest your audience. Some content works better in some markets, but counterproductive in others. Use appropriate language and geotargeting if possible.
When it comes to good social media content, quality and relevance are key. Be authentic, be interesting and be concise. Once you’ve picked the content you want to push in your social channels, you should create a publishing calendar. Make sure you know where to find quality content, or that it knows how to find you.



Thursday, September 05, 2013

5 reasons why the US won’t go to war with Syria

Drums of war are beating loud, matched in turn by the high-decibel resistance of objectors, conscientious and otherwise. In the midst of this cacophony, Mr Obama is going to Capitol Hill to seek permission to bomb Syria. He is unlikely to get it. He is also unlikely to take any serious action against Syria without such license.

Contrary to the many who view the strikes as imminent and inevitable, Damascus will be spared that dreaded shower of Cruise missiles. Here are five reasons why Obama will lose the fight for the right to fight.

One, unreliable and unlikely allies. Left standing virtually alone on the international stage, Obama has been forced to look for friends in all the wrong places. The support of prominent Republicans like Senator John McCain and and House Speaker John Boehner has been tomtomed as signs of a likely victory in Congress — when the reality is a bit more complicated.

McCain’s investment in winning this vote is best summed up by photos of him playing poker on his iPhone during a Senate committee hearing on the proposed intervention. As for Boehner, sure he supports the resolution, but isn’t planning to lift a finger to help it along.


“While most top congressional leaders have vowed to back President Barack Obama in seeking authority to launch missile strikes, there’s little evidence that they can — or even want to — help him round up the rank-and file-Republicans he’ll need to win a vote in the House,” reports Politico.com,.

Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman said that he “expects the White House to provide answers to members’ questions and take the lead on any whipping effort.” Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whose aides and allies run the whip process, isn’t yet in favor of Obama’s request for military authority in Syria. Several lawmakers and aides who have been canvassing support say that nearly 80 percent of the House Republican Conference is, to some degree, opposed to launching strikes in Syria. Informal counts by Obama allies show that support in Congress for Obama’s plans is in the low dozens.

This is hardly surprising since the Republicans gain little by supporting Obama, irrespective of their opinions on the wisdom of military action. If the strikes are successful, Obama will receive all the glory. But if the strikes turn into a military nightmare, they will share in the blame, and will have to answer to the unhappy Republican voters in their local districts. Better to find reasons — and there are many — to block the resolution, and leave Obama to act alone if he must.

Two, the ghosts of Iraq. The debacle may have not prevented the Obama administration from doubling down in Afghanistan or striking Libya, but it has left behind an electoral legacy in the United States. No politician wants another “Iraq vote” on his record. The 2002 congressional vote to authorise military action in Iraq turned into a political albatross for members of Congress and presidential hopefuls, who were forced to justify their support for George Bush’s greatest act of hubris. A reason perhaps why the two potential Republican presidential hopefuls, Rand Paul and Marc Rubio, voted against the recent Senate committee resolution.

“That vote has haunted several Senators for years, and many have said they wish they would have voted differently,” notes MSNBC.com. And the specter of Iraq looms larger than ever with the 2014 midterm elections round the corner. USA Today reports:

Whatever the outcome of the vote, Syria could be an issue in key Senate races next year, when Republicans hope to wrest six seats away from Democrats and take control of the chamber. “If (a war in Syria) gets complicated, then it could become a problem for everybody,” says Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report.

The picture in the House of Representatives — where all seats are up for grabs next year — is bleaker still:

That opposition is evident throughout the ranks of the Democratic and Republican caucuses — and among their constituents — who haven’t yet, and may never, draw the conclusion that the horror of Assad using chemical weapons is a matter of urgent U.S. national security. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) tweeted Tuesday that “constituents who have contacted my office by phone or mail oppose action in Syria 523-4 so far.” Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who is libertarian, said on Twitter that four of about 200 constituents he encountered support action in Syria.

As Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told Xinhua, “If you’re not sure which way your political future is going, the ‘no’ vote is the safe one.”

Three, John Kerry. “[A]t this point, the overwhelming narrative is that authorizing military action in Syria will be one of the toughest sells of Obama’s time in the White House,” notes Politico And the White House has chosen precisely the wrong salesman to make their case.

“Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack,” Kerry said in an address to the State Department. “And I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment.” But he didn’t point out the other big difference between making the case for Syria versus Iraq: Colin Powell.

Kerry possesses neither the gravitas nor the credibility of a Powell thanks to his unfortunate record on the electoral stump as a presidential candidate in the 2004 elections. In one of his more infamous moments of equivocation, he scrambled to explain his vote for an $87 billion supplemental appropriation for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, sayingq “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.”

Kerry’s own fumbling alongwith the vicious Swift Boat attacks helped the Bush campaign to successfully paint the Democrat as an unreliable flip-flopper. His word may carry some weight with his fellow Senators, but will hold little water with their voters — who, as poll numbers consistently show, remain far from persuaded of the wisdom of yet another military intervention.

Four, permission to do, um, what? Kerry’s penchant for self-goals was evident in his testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations committee where he managed to flip-flop on exactly what kind of action the Congress was authorising. First he demanded a broad resolution that would permit the White House to do pretty much anything, including putting boots on the ground:

In the event Syria imploded, for instance, or in the event there was a threat of a chemical weapons cache falling into the hands of al-Nusra or someone else, and it was clearly in the interests of our allies and all of us — the British, the French and others — to prevent those weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of the worst elements, I don’t want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to a president of the United States to secure our country.

Faced with a series of anxious follow-ups from committee members, he retreated in haste, saying:

This authorization does not contemplate and should not have any allowance for any troop on the ground. I just want to make that absolutely clear. You know, what I was doing was hypothesizing about a potential; it might occur at some point in time, but not in this authorization, in no way, be crystal clear. There’s no problem in our having the language that has zero capacity for American troops on the ground within the authorization the president is asking for.

Right. Confusion reigns over what the Obama administration intends to do, and how far it is willing to go to do so. It is one reason the President has failed entirely to persuade the American people. The ambivalence — and resultant skittishness — will only increase as various factions in Congress pitch in with their versions of the resolution.

Five, Obama the unhappy warrior. He incautiously drew that red line in the sand, and now has to put his arsenal where his mouth was back in August, 2012, when he promised “enormous consequences” if Syrian President Assad used chemical weapons. Obama did his best to ignore small-scale chemical attacks for a year until ghastly video footage of dead babies left him with little face-saving choice. Syria’s defiance has now been framed as “a defining test,” as Time magazine puts it, of America’s reputation and might.

But as the same cover story makes clear, this US President has little appetite for intervention in the Middle East, having laid low through the Arab Spring, and struck against Libya only when European allies stepped forward. Above all, Obama is a man of great caution, a quality that is both his great weakness and virtue. The decision to seek a congressional vote — “overriding all his top national security advisers” — is likely motivated by a desire to avoid being rushed headlong into battle. As Amy Davidson writes in the New Yorker:

This may be the first sensible step that Obama has taken in the Syrian crisis, and may prove to be one of the better ones of his Presidency—even if he loses the vote, as could happen. Politically, he may have just saved his second term from being consumed by Benghazi-like recriminations and spared himself Congressional mendacity about what they all might have done. It will likely divide the G.O.P. Although he said that he didn’t really, truly need to ask Congress for permission, he is doing so. Presidents—including Obama, in his decision to ignore the War Powers Act in Libya despite its clear application—have abandoned even the pretense that they need to seek Congressional approval.

However, a president who seeks approval when he doesn’t need it is unlikely to ignore the outcome of Congressional vote. When he loses in Congress — as he likely will — Obama will have take it on the jaw, as the price of being “the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy,” as he describes it.

If Congress is loath to make history as being the first to deny a sitting president the authority to wage war, the resultant brouhaha will end instead in a whimper, as in a one-time authorisation for a single strike that will achieve little, either in symbolic or military terms. And that may constitute a greater defeat for Obama, who will spend the rest of the term as a lame-duck president both abroad and at home.

Read more at: 5 reasons why the us wont go to war with syria


Drums of war are beating loud, matched in turn by the high-decibel resistance of objectors, conscientious and otherwise. In the midst of this cacophony, Mr Obama is going to Capitol Hill to seek permission to bomb Syria. He is unlikely to get it. He is also unlikely to take any serious action against Syria without such license.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/world/5-reasons-why-the-us-wont-go-to-war-with-syria-1087359.html?utm_source=ref_article

Google May Be Updating Their Algorithm But They Won’t Confirm It

In short, many SEOs and webmasters were complaining that their rankings in the Google search results have declined drastically. In addition, many sent me images of their analytics, showing a clear significant drop in traffic from the Google organic source.

I asked Google about both these updates, and for each one, they said they have “nothing to announce.” Meaning, they won’t confirm if there was or was not an update.

We can confirm that the various search results monitoring tools, such as Mozcast, SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Algoroo all showed volatility on August 21st. Since the September 4th chatter began this morning, we will have to wait for tomorrow to see if the tools show activity for today (the tools are about 24 hours delayed).

Although, there are hundreds of comments on the August 21st post and well over fifty comments on the September 4th post in less than seven hours.

Google does not always confirm updates but we think you should be aware that on August 21st and September 4th, there was enough noise to report to you that Google may have done some sort of algorithmic update.



Wednesday, September 04, 2013

10 Ways Google+ Will Improve Your SEO

There are still people that argue for a wait and see strategy before using Google Plus. They will often point to lower numbers of people using Google Plus. These people fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Google Plus and the way it can improve your SEO results, even if none of your clients actually use Google Plus itself.

There are ten ways that Google Plus will improve your SEO:

1. Google Plus content is treated by Google just like any other page on the web. Google Plus content will be efficiently indexed by Google, it will gain page rank and appear in Google’s search results.  With two thirds of searches in the US taking place on Google you want your content indexed and searchable in this way.

2. Your Google Plus posts allow you capture SERP real estate as they appear on Google search page results, thus your audience may find your Google Plus content through a standard Google search.

3. Google Plus content stays around, gains page rank, gives page rank and appears in search results over a long period. It appears Google Plus posts can retain ranking indefinitely with some posts over a year old still top of search result pages. Compare this to the 14 minutes of life a standard tweet is estimated to have.

4. Google Plus authorship provides you with a higher visual profile in search results.  By validating your Google Plus profile with sites where you publish, you will enable your image to appear next to the search results and attract greater visual attention on search pages. To manually claim authorship on a page you just use a rel=author tag linked to your Google Plus profile such as 'by Steve Rayson'.

5. The use of Google authorship is closely tied to content authority. Google is keen to give a higher profile to authoritative content in search results. If an author posts interesting content which is shared and receives plus ones, this will potentially lead to higher authority. There is growing evidence that Google+ authorship improves your authority and search performance. Mark Traphagen argues that “over a broad sample of bloggers with G+ profiles, those who use Google authorship tend to average a full Page Rank higher than those who do not.”

6. Google Plus authorship and the Google Plus social layer provides a wide range of social signals that may improve the social media optimisation (SMO) of your content and SEO. This is not as simple as the number of followers, people in your circles or number of Plus Ones. What appears to be far more important is the interaction between you and your content and others of a high authority. Thus if a high authority person shares your content this will improve your own authority.

7. Social signals from platforms such as Google Plus will become more important in determining search results. Joshua Berg has called this the social media optimisation (SMO) of SEO. He has explained that “social signals provide a much better way of filtering out the noise and improving the quality of search results” and “this is a trend that will continue because it is a much better way of understanding what people really want, which is one of Google’s founding principles.”

8. The featured link in a Google Plus post will pass page rank to the page to which it links. Note there is a no follow for links included in the body of a Google Plus post, you must use the featured link. If you connect a Google Plus page to your website this will increase the relevancy of your website content and support your search ranking

9. Links from regular websites to Google Plus content can also pass page rank authority in the other direction back to your Google Plus posts and pages.

10. Finally, the use of hashtags in Google Plus connects every post to a search on the platform.

You are simply losing out in terms of SEO if you are not using Google Plus effectively. Hopefully, the ten reasons outlined above will make you look again at Google Plus and reconsider your social media optimisation strategies for SEO.



9 Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Marketing

LinkedIn is known as a networking and recruitment site; however, the unique nature of LinkedIn makes it a very attractive platform for B2B marketers. For example, a Hubspot research study found that more companies had acquired a customer through LinkedIn than any other social media channel. There are now over 225m registered LinkedIn members, including 77m in the US and 50m in Europe.

In my view LinkedIn should be a cornerstone platform in any B2B marketing strategy. Below are 9 ways you can use LinkedIn to improve your B2B marketing.

1. Actively use your company page

You probably already have a company page on LinkedIn, if not, you should create one.  The company page is more than a nice visual page with banners. The company page allows you to:
  • produce targeted status updates
  • display slide presentation content
  • promote your services and products
  • create brand ambassadors from your employees
  • customise your company page for specific audiences
  • build an audience of followers
 HP has attracted over 1 million LinkedIn followers and are a good case study of how to leverage followers and extend your marketing reach. See the HP LinkedIn marketing case study for more details.

2. Join Groups

Where do your customers hang out? Join groups where your customers are present and try to be a helpful member of the group and respond to questions. This takes time so don’t spread yourself too thin.

3. Share content that adds value

As with all of your content marketing, share all forms of interesting content and make sure it will be valuable to people in your industry. Share content regularly and vary your content, including pictures, videos and links.

4. Encourage your friends and colleagues to share and like content

People can be reluctant to be the first to comment in a discussion but once you have a discussion going it can be hard to stop people. One simple way to get things going is to encourage your friends and colleagues to share your content and to comment on it. Another way to engage your audience is to ask questions when you post content. A number of studies have found more interaction when the post starts with a question.

5. Listen and participate

Make sure you listen and participate in the groups you have decide to focus on. This is essential if it is your own group, see next item, but it also important if you want to actively participate in other groups.

6. Set up your own Group

Setting up your own group on LinkedIn can:
  • help establish you as a thought leader in your industry
  • enable you as moderator to develop a very focused group without the spam that can afflict many groups on LinkedIn
  • highlight and showcase your own content as you wish
  • be a more select group as you can control membership
  • develop relationships through interactions
  • potentially generate interest and enquiries about your services
 If you establish a Group remember it is your responsibility to lead it. Post regular content, encourage discussions and comment on discussions. It is hard work and takes time but it is your responsibility.

ProjectManager.com is a great case study of how to build a LinkedIn Group.

7. Ask for recommendations

It may seem obvious but ask people to recommend you or your company on LinkedIn. Recommendations are still one of the most powerful ways to establish your credibility.

8. Use LinkedIn Services

The LinkedIn sales solutions team a mine of useful information and advice. There are many paid services from premium membership to ads which may help you. Many people use Google Ads but LinkedIn ads can be equally as effective as LinkedIn allows you to focus on people rather than keywords. You can decide the level of executive you want to target in specific industries and sectors, you can place an ad directly on their pages.

9. Monitor your performance

As part of your LinkedIn strategy you should set yourself performance targets. The targets to monitor might include:
  • the number of followers of your company
  • the number of people joining your group
  • how often your posts are shared
  • the level of engagement through comments, discussions and polls
  • number of  click throughs to your website or landing pages from LinkedIn
  • number of leads, track where your leads come from and be sure to have a lead category for LinkedIn in your CRM
  • conversions achieved
With the purchase of Pulse and Slideshare, LinkedIn is going to grow in importance as a marketing platform. Take your time now to fine tune your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

For More Info about  9 Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Marketing


Tuesday, September 03, 2013

55 Quick SEO Tips

Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem. 

1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.
Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned. 

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.

21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.

26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.

28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.

29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.

31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.

32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.

36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.

39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.

40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.

41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar

42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.

43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.

47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.

48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.

54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.

55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.


For More Info about SEO Tips

Friday, August 30, 2013

Seo tools

Search Engine Optimization with SEO Administrator

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the most cost-effective form of Internet marketing. Search engine promotion campaigns are shown to deliver the highest ROI, compared to all other types of on-line and off-line marketing. Far from being a simple task, SEO employs a combination of techniques that allow you to dominate search engine result pages. These techniques are based on careful studies that differ from site to site.  

SEO Administrator is a set of seo tools that helps you to find the answers you need and to tune-up your site to obtain high positions in search engines. SEO Administrator includes all the seo tools you need for precise analysis and successful positioning.  

"Ranking monitor"
module. The biggest factor in attracting visitors to your web site is a high position in the lists returned from search engines. This is the search engine rank. Monitoring and tracking of your site's search engine rank is a fundamental and ongoing part of your website optimization task.

A manual check of search engine ranks can be laborious, especially if there you have many keywords and your site has not yet made it into the magical "first ten" of the search engine results. Seo Administrator will help you by doing all the difficult and routine work for you.  

"Link popularity checker" module. A large number of quality sites with links referring back to your own website (inbound links) is a guarantee of high positions in search reports. Almost all the search engines use this link popularity parameter in their ranking algorithms. 

The databases from various search engines are mainly similar to each other, but each one will have some unique links not present in the others.

Seo Administrator link popularity software checks inbound links across a number of search engines and then composes a unified and comprehensive inbound links list without duplicates.  

Two more parameters are displayed for every inbound link - PageRank of the referrer and anchor text.

"Site indexation tool" module. Before a site appears in search reports it has to be indexed by a search engine. Indexation of your web site means that the site pages have been visited by a search engine, analyzed and the information included in the search engine database. If a page is not indexed, it means that the search engine cannot know about it and consequently will never display information from it.  

Most of the search engines allow you to examine the indexed pages list with the help of special language operators. Seo Administrator allows you to check site indexation in Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.

As Seo Administrator checks site indexation it also obtains the Google PageRank value of each checked page. It is very useful to get the PageRank at the site indexation stage, especially when analyzing complex and large sites.

"Log-analyzer" module. Every request to your site is handled by the server and an appropriate record is saved in the log-file. A great deal of information about your website visitors can be extracted from the records in the server log file so long as they can be put into an understandable format. When analyzing log-files Seo Administrator will extract the following statistics:
· Number of unique visitors of your site.
· Number of page views.
· Number of entries originating from search engines.
· Keywords used by visitors to find your site.
· Referrers, the web resources which forwarded visitors to your site.
· Geography, countries of visitors as derived from IP addresses.
· Frequent visitor paths within your site (Click paths).
· Search engines robots visits

The "PageRank analyzer" module is designed to automatically analyze a large number of web sites and the following parameters are obtained for every site on the list: · Google PageRank;
· The number of inbound links, according to various search engines;
· The Site presence in the DMOZ and Yahoo catalogues;
· The Web page's TITLE text.  

"Keywords suggestion tool" module. Selection and use of relevant keywords and keyphrases is an important task for anybody carrying out web site optimization and promotion. Large numbers of visitors alone is not the primary aim, it is important to attract targeted visitors by appropriate choice of keywords. It is important to define keywords and phrases which properly correspond to the topic of the site and which are actually used by the audience you wish to target. 

The Seo Administrator Keywords suggestion tool will help you choose the best possible keyword combinations for your site by: · Giving recommendations for the specified phrases.
· Estimating their competition rate.

"HTML analyzer" module. The HTML analyzer tool analyses on-line and local HTML web pages. It allows you to dissect html text in the same way that a search engine would do it. Html analyzer may be used in several ways:
· By monitoring keyword density and keyword weight while building and optimizing the site.
· Detailed analyses of your competitors' sites to obtain optimal keywords and keyphrases.
· To ensure that your web pages are well designed and the HTML code is correctly formed.

For More Info about Seo tools

9 Things We Should Never Stop Doing in Link Building

A couple of months ago, I went on a little rant. (It happens sometimes; I’m looking into it.) I was overwhelmed by the responses that little column generated, with others picking up my rally cry to eliminate super shady link building practices.

But commenters were also quick to point out that there is a lot of focus these days on what not to do. “We know (or should know) what not to do, but when left with only those options, you’re peppered with client requests to bulk up link building efforts.”

He’s so right. It seems as though for every 15 articles there are about what not to do in link building, there are only a handful talking about legitimate link building tactics. So, here are 9 things we should never, ever stop doing in link building.

1. Helping People First Before Asking Them To Help You

If “treat others the way you want others to treat you” is the golden rule for society, “help others before asking them to help you” should be the golden rule for link building. Instead of finding the influencers and asking them to promote your content, first ask them if there’s anything that you can do for them. If there is, you’ve just made a connection with someone — and when the time comes that you have something that’s right up their ally, they’ll be more inclined to help you out.

2. Telling Great Stories

We all have that friend who, when they talk, compels you to hang on every word they say — not necessarily because it’s the most exciting story, but because the way they tell it is captivating. That’s what you need to look for in a writer. Storytelling is a critical part of link building. People share a good story. They link to a good story. Learn how to tell a good story.

3. Long-Tail Passive Link Building

Active link building is when you go out and manually do outreach to build a link. Passive link building is finding the things that people are searching for, building content around that, and letting that attract links. For example:


Use Ubersuggest to find questions that people are asking about your industry. Instead of just typing in my keyword, I’ll add a superlative in there:

Select all, click “Get” to the right, copy and paste all keywords into excel, and alphabetically sort to see which query shows up the most. This is the one that Google most often recommends in its instant search. This is my content.


Put your content on your blog and promote it. Build your internal links with that anchor text, send to your social channels and maybe even create a YouTube video. Watch Twitter searches to see if anyone is asking for recommendations, in this case, the best gun for self/home defense, and point them to your content. That will get your more than just one link.

4. Providing Better Content Than Resource Listings

When it comes to sources for links, .gov, .edu and .org sites are the big whales. They’re also notorious for not updating their resource listings, which means outdated content and a great opportunity for you to capitalize on someone else’s laziness.

Find the places where the sites link out to third parties. Advanced search queries can help get a first list, for example [inurl:.edu intitle:resources]. Include your keyword for a more targeted list, and “resources” can also be replaced with “useful” for Useful Links.

Once you find them, update the outdated and include it on your site. Then, start building relationships with the webmasters of those sites.

5.  Finding Brand Name/Logo Mentions Without Links

Nothing irks me more than when a site mentions a client and doesn’t link back on their brand name. Fresh Web Explorer is a great way to keep track of this in real time, but you can just as easily set up Google Alerts for your company name and track to see when people are talking about you.

For your logo, do a Google Image search of your logo to find all the other sites that have your logo on them. Typing “company + logo” will work and search for ALTs, but searching for the actual image itself will also provide a ton of opportunities.

6. Interviewing Experts

Even the most selfless person wants to feel important. Any easy way to do that is by finding the influencers and experts in your industry and reaching out to them to get their opinion/advice/thoughts on something “because they are so well-respected.” Works every time.

Follerwonk is one of the easiest ways to find these people. Search Twitter bios for your keyword — I like to include writer or blogger in the query to get the people who create content for the industry. You can also analyze your competitors to see who they’re following and who’s following them.


Once you find these people, start building relationships with them. When the interview goes up on your blog, send them an email that it’s posted, and more likely than not, they’ll share it with their followers, too.

7. Be Interviewed

Along the same lines, make sure key staff members are open to being interviewed for any press mentions. Watch HARO for any queries that fit your industry, and set up Google Alerts with “keyword + call for speakers”  to see when you could get your client to speak at a local event. Both of those things will also come with a link.

8. Volunteering/Sponsoring In The Local Community

Everything may be online these days, but people still do get out of their houses and do stuff in their community. And when they do, guess where they talk about it? Online. (It’s a vicious cycle, really.)

Find events or clubs in your local community that have a tie to your industry, and reach out to see if there’s anything that you can do help promote, sponsor or volunteer at the event. Typically, these types of things will list sponsors on their websites, and that means a link back.

You could even take it a step further: if you do something “out-of-the-box” at the event, you could easily get picked up for press mentions. For example: If you’re sponsoring a local 5K, go out to the event and set up a table after the race with “post-race survival kits.” Or, for every participant, donate $1 to a local charity.

9. Work With High Schools And Colleges

High schools and colleges are always looking for industry professionals to come out and speak to their students about career opportunities in that field. Reach out to those that are in your area, and offer your insight or time. In addition, find student clubs or organizations related to your industry, and offer to speak at their next meeting. They’ll usually put this announcement on the college’s website.

You and I both know that Google’s guidelines could change at any moment, so what we “shouldn’t stop doing” now may certainly be something we “should never do again” a year later. But, given the push search engines are making to eliminate spammers and those who manipulate the algorithm, these tactics could be timeless. I’ll revisit a year later and see where we’re at, but what do you think? What are other timeless link building tactics?



Friday, August 23, 2013

Page Speed Ranking Factor Not More Important On Mobile Search

In a recent video answer, Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts said that page speed is not any more important in terms of a ranking factor for mobile search than it is for desktop search.

 Matt Cutts said:

It is not that in mobile, we apply that [page speed ranking factor] any more or less than desktop search

But Matt Cutts did say that Google knows mobile users expect faster loading pages, and Google will continue to look into that. If it makes sense for them to tweak their algorithms just for mobile search, Google reserves the right to do so.

Here is the video:


I would not be surprised if Google does indeed make page speed a more important factor for mobile search in the future.