New & Interesting Insights Into Google Rankings & Spam f. Tonight's post comes via the Pubcon conference in Las Vegas and is likely of interest to many in the webmaster and search communities. Today, during the Interactive Site Review Session, Google's head of Web Spam, Matt Cutts, along with Vanessa Fox of NinebyBlue and Derrick Wheeler of Microsoft took thorough dives into a number of sites.
The session was well coverd on Twitter, and in live form by Barry Schwartz at SERoundtable. Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox on the Site Review Panel (photo credit: davecolorado.com) A few points in particular stood out and are worthy of coverage: Blocking Internet Archive may be a Negative Signal Matt Cutts noted that spammers very frequently block archive.org from crawling/storing their pages and few reputable sites engage in this. I also presented at Pubcon today - on a panel called Linkfluence: How to Buy Links with Maximum Juice and Minimum Risk (live SERoundtable coverage here) - as the counterpoint speaker (on why not to buy links).
P.s. P.p.s. Four tips for analysing SEO Google Analytics style | Blog | Econ. Having spent time improving your SEO, building natural links and optimising on site elements then I bet you cannot wait to see the results. If you're anything like most people (including yours truly), you'd look at traffic to your site as an indication of how well you've done. Although the end result is higher numbers of visitors to your site due to better ranking, it might be while before your ranking will improve. On the other hand by using Google Analytics it's easier to see short term improvement in your SEO by extracting hidden data gems so it's really a question of knowing where to look. Here are four tips... 1. See improvement in total number of indexed pages. Step 1 - Head to 'All Traffic Sources' in Google Analytics under 'Traffic Sources'. Step 2 - Open the drop down window under 'Show' and select 'Medium': Step 3 - Click on 'Organic' medium and under the 'Dimension' drop down select 'Landing Pages': Step 4 - Result!
2. Step 2 - Result! 3. Step 3 - Result! Step 4- Result! Tips to optimise your video content | Blog. Mobile accounted for 28% of US PPC impressions in Q1 2014: report It’s no great secret that mobile search is becoming increasingly popular and that it will soon become more common than desktop search. However new data from The Search Agency suggests that there’s some way to go before mobile devices challenge desktop’s dominance of paid search.
Its new Q1 2014 report shows that smartphones accounted for 16.9% of ad impressions, compared to 11.1% on tablet and 72% on desktop. While proportionately these are large year-on-year increases of 35% on smartphone and 21% on tablet, it should be noted that desktop ads still account for 72% of search impressions. Read more... 10 interesting digital marketing statistics we saw this week Here are some of the most interesting digital marketing statistics we saw last week. Statistics include Ryanair's SEO woes, customer lifetime value, Pizza Hut's social strategy, email personalisation and another record-breaking month for The Guardian's. Read more... Terrible SEO Advice: Focus on Users, Not Engines. The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
If you've been around the SEO world a while, you've undoubtedly heard the old adage: Do what's right for users and engines will reward you with higher rankings Along with its peer: SEO tactics that focus on engines, rather than users, are manipulative (black/gray hat) and will eventually be discounted or penalized In my opinion, both of these statements are utterly false and tragically misleading. In my view, SEO starts with the user (of course), but cannot ignore the incredible importance of search-engine targeted (and specific) tactics.
When I first considered the issue, I thought that perhaps, years ago, these opinions were more accurate than they are today. (please note: graphs like this are, as always, just my personal opinion) The value of tactics from each set has risen/fallen over time, leading me to the conclusion that this was never good advice. 10 SEO & Social Media Posts To Read Before MIMA Summit - Onl. 2008 MIMA Summit at The Depot UPDATE: We have a winner! Liz Giel was selected by a mysterious voting process contrived within the ranks of the TopRank staff and involving various secretive and hurried Account Managers. Suffice it to say, we appreciate all who ReTweeted, linked and commented. Don’t worry, there will be liveblogging of the event here on Online Marketing Blog and live streaming of several sessions at MIMASummit.org. Congratulations Liz! In just under a week the annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit will be held downtown Minneapolis at the Hilton.
Anyway, TopRank has been asked to participate in the “Migrate” themed event on the topic of search engine optimization and social media convergence. Top SEO and Social Media Marketing Posts from Online Marketing Blog:(by traffic in the past 12 months) 2. 3. 5. 6. 8. 5 Link Building Tips for New Websites (Mar 20th, 2009) – KISS, as in Keep It Simple Stupid. 9. 10. BONUS! Win a Free Pass to the MIMA Summit! A: Nope. 4 R's of SEO: Robots, Ranking, Relevance & Results. Working with small businesses and participating in SEO communities like the one here on SEOmoz, I get to see a lot of SEO mistakes and misconceptions first-hand. These misconceptions are as diverse as the people who practice SEO, but the funny thing is that they almost always fall into one major theme: someone fails to see the forest for the trees. The vast majority of SEO problems come down to narrowly focusing on one area – whether it's trying to get every page indexed, ranking for one keyword, or obsessing over link quantity, I'd say that 80% of bad SEO boils down to missing the big picture.
So, consider this a back-to-basics post – one that I hope will be educational to newbies and pros alike. Effective SEO requires us to see the big picture, and I'm calling that picture the 4 R's: Robots, Ranking, Relevance, and Results. For each of the 4 R's, I'll provide some tips and tools for how to measure your progress in that area. Tips and Tools: Test your index with Google's site: command. 100+ Search Engine Marketing Resources. TopRank’s Rather Large List of Search Marketing Resources How do new marketers learn SEO and Pay Per Click? How do professionals stay current with search marketing tactics considering the sheer volume of social media distraction? Last month we ran a poll of Online Marketing Blog readers to discover preferences for learning and staying up to date with current search engine marketing strategies and tactics. Below are the top categories selected by readers. Search Engine Marketing Blogs SEO/SEM Blog Aggregators: Testing Tactics on Your Own Web Sites Search Engine Marketing Forums Paid Subscription SEM Communities Search Engine Marketing Webinars Search Marketing White Papers, Research, Special Reports SEO & SEM Email Newsletters Online Groups for Search Marketers (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning) Facebook: SEOFacebook: PPCLinkedIn: SEOLinkedIn: PPCNing: SEONing: PPC The Big SEM Conferences SEM Consultant/Agency Advice Print Magazines Offline Networking Groups or Meetups Books on Search Marketing.
Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. Recently we received some questions about how Google uses (or more accurately, doesn't use) the "keywords" meta tag in ranking web search results. Suppose you have two website owners, Alice and Bob. Alice runs a company called AliceCo and Bob runs BobCo. One day while looking at Bob's site, Alice notices that Bob has copied some of the words that she uses in her "keywords" meta tag. Even more interesting, Bob has added the words "AliceCo" to his "keywords" meta tag. Should Alice be concerned? At least for Google's web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Q: Does Google ever use the "keywords" meta tag in its web search ranking?
A: In a word, no. Q: Why doesn't Google use the keywords meta tag? A: About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called "off-page" factors such as the links pointing to a web page. Q: Does this mean that Google ignores all meta tags? A: No, Google does support several other meta tags. 10 Valuable, Actionable, Take-Aways From the SEOmoz Pro Training. The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. Whitespark is an Edmonton Search Engine Optimization and Web Design Company in Canada Having recently returned from the SEOmoz Pro Training Seminar Series, I wanted to recap a few of the things I learned, and create a list of actionable items that I need to start implementing in my SEO business.
I'm writing this for my own reference, but figure that I might as well write it as a YouMoz post as it could be useful for those of you who couldn't attend. Of course, what I found valuable and actionable may be different from what other attendees found valuable, so if you attended the seminar it would be great if you could share your top take-aways in the comments. Take-Away #1 - Ask For A Link In Order Emails (And Other Customer Communications) Tom Critchlow suggested asking for a link in your order emails.
Do you have a website or blog? Does Google Like It When You're Fresh? Warning: This post contains tactics that may be considered black-hat. SEOmoz does not condone these practices. I have simply done something dumb to my own website to prevent you from doing something dumber to yours. If you believe the rumors, we all now live in something called the real-time web. The once steady trickle of user-generated content became a torrent, and search engines face the difficult task of drinking from a fire hose without drowning. Freshness seems important, but what signals does Google use to determine freshness? 1. My plan started out simple: manipulate a URL on my blog and rename it to use a date-based format (as some blogs do by default). ...became something like this...
I chose a blog post that was recent enough to still be archived and spidered but not so recent or popular that it was likely to attract new inbound links. 2. 3. How To Integrate SEO Into Your Business. The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz. One thing that you'll hear over and over again in the SEO industry is "make sure that you embed SEO in your business". I know I've said it a lot at conferences and in client meetings but what does it actually mean? Well this post is chock full of tips to help you actually embed SEO in your business.
Since I've not long come back from the Seattle SEOmoz Pro Training Seminar (which was totally awesome by the way! Thank SEOmoz) I'm still in tip-based mode so this post is going to be written mainly in bullet points! If you don't have an online business but instead work for an SEO agency then be sure to skip straight to the part where I talk about how to sell SEO services which help your clients embed SEO in their business.
How to Embed SEO in your business... ...if you have an ecommerce website ...if you have a content website ...if you have a physical presence. HOW TO: Use Twitter’s Advanced Search Features. There's an astonishing amount of information to be gleaned from mining the amazing real-time stream of information Twitter provides. Twitter search is an extremely powerful way of turning up some of those answers. Even using only plain text queries can turn up lots of valuable information about what people are talking about right now. But you can go even deeper than plain text queries. They're not too well publicized, so it's all too easy to forget they even exist. We wanted to jog your memories and highlight a few of the cool advanced operators that can help you turn up sometimes surprising results.
Twitter's Advanced Search Interface For folks who prefer the easy-to-use web form approach to advanced search, head on over to Twitter's Advanced Search interface. You can also look for tweets in certain locations, and set a range of how many miles to include in the search radius. Advanced Search Operators Check out the full list of operators. Saved Searches Search Widgets. How to Use SEO & PPC Keyword Data to Maximum Effect | WordSt. In the last installment of this keyword series, we talked about how sharing information between paid and natural search marketing campaigns could leverage shared data to improve the results of both channels. We used the following graphic to illustrate the process of sharing information amongst PPC and SEO campaigns: The graphic above makes a lot of sense in the event that you’re: Launching a new siteLaunching a new product/product line/offeringAttempting to target a new keyword vertical This cross-channel thinking can certainly be applied by anyone engaging in search marketing, but for our purposes we’ll focus on the process surrounding any of the above.
Step 1: Test Your Keywords with PPC First you want to generate a list of keywords. Google’s keyword tool and others can give you a rough sense of the total traffic for a keyword. Step 2: Target Your Successful PPC Keywords Via SEO weddingbirthdaychocolatevanillaetc. Step 3: Take a Look Back at Your Logs. Your Keywords: The PPC and SEO Gold Mine in Your Own Backyard : Your own keyword analytics data is the most valuable marketing asset of your company.
No, I'm not just making a ridiculous claim to get your attention. The data contained in the keyword report from your Web-analytics application—which tells you how people are finding your site through paid and organic search—is much more valuable than traditional marketing data, such as customer surveys and demographics. Surveys and customer personas still have a place in online marketing, but keywords are a far more effective targeting vehicle, for several reasons: They're more accurate: Keywords are the precise way that customers use to look for the products and services in your industry; as such, they reveal specific desires and pain points. They provide more insight: With accurate data, you can calculate the return on investment for different keyword niches, which, in turn, provides insight into many other areas, such as determining which customer segmentations to pursue and in what order.
Digital: After Microsoft-Yahoo, SEO Isn't Only About Google. How Domains and URLs Relate to Search Engine Optimization - SEO. Place Keywords within URLs and Filenames As URLs are typically one of the first things read by a search engine using keywords within them is one of the most consequential SEO details.
Maintain Your Website If your website is hosted on a server that constantly crashes, or if you have pages that are blocked or no longer exist make sure you take the proper measures to maintain your website. When a search engine comes to index your website you want it up and running at its peak. Keeping your website maintained is the best way to do so. Use A Sitemap Sitemaps are perhaps one of the quickest ways for search engines to find all of the pages within your website. Large Website Rank Well Search engines thrive on large websites, therefore the more pages you have the better rankings you will tend to see.
Older the Better The longer your domain has been around the better. Use a Constant Theme Leave Files Near Root Directory Research When to Use A Separate Domains, Subdomain, or Subfolder Keep URLs Short. SEO - Search Engine Optimization | Read SEOmoz, Rank Better. What are the most important SEO factors today? | Blog | Econsult. Search Engine Ranking Factors. What is Digital Asset Optimization? Best SEO Courses online | leilimckinley.com. Online SEO Training Program & Community : SEO Book.com. SEO Basics - a knol by aaron wall. How Much Money is a Top Google Ranking Worth to Your Business? Google Mídia Kit. Search Engine Marketing & PPC Agency.
20 SEO Tips That Every Web Developer Should Follo. Feedmil.com - real-time feed search. The Ultimate List of Basic SEO Resources for a Kick-Ass Start. Companies that Spend on Search Are Frustrated. How To: SEO, PPC, Link Building & More. A Guide to Google Analytics and Useful Tools | Developer's. Perform Better With AdSense: The Ultimate Round-Up | Developer&# The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips. PageRank sculpting. Altruik. 5 dicas para fugir dos charlatões do SEO - INFO Professional. Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success. Search Engine Marketing solutions by Contextured | Contextured - Using Online News to Drive SEO | Online Marketing Blog. Online Consumers Most Receptive to Ads in Evening. 6 Social Search Engines to Start 2009 | Online Marketing Blog. The World's Search Innovators - Netpointers. Nivea. 33 Free Tools to Make Your Website Better | FutureNow's Gro. Search Marketing Fact Pack 2008 - Advertising Age - DataCenter:
14 free tools that reveal why people abandon your website | Conv.