Visual Guide to Local SEO. 3 Proven Strategies to Succeed in SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used to maximize user traffic to the website. It can be best described as several methods and practices used to improve the way that a website is seen and interpreted by a search engine. On paper, this sounds easy enough, however the concept can actually be quite complicated if not executed correctly.
There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure that the best tactics and practices are applied onto a website to ensure the best results for traffic, rankings, conversions & leads. With Google frequently updating its algorithm, it can be very easy to overlook certain tactics that can help you rank without taking the risky techniques that could result in penalty. There are three basic strategies that will help you succeed in your SEO campaigns. 1) Ongoing Optimization of Your Website2) Updating your website with Fresh, Unique Content3) Building Your Brand Authority 1. 2.
Ensure content on your website is informative, unique and fresh! 3. Blog - SEO, SEM, and Marketing News. When you first heard that content marketing was the surest avenue to bring your business the customers you desire, you were skeptical, but you committed to it. You hired two copywriters, an SEO and a part-time social media manager, dove fervently into Google Analytics, contracted with a conversion-rate-optimization firm, brought on two additional salespeople, redesigned your website and, most important, remained patient, buying into the notion that content marketing is part of the long game.
Now, eight months in, you’re staring at a balance sheet bloated with expenses, and that new business you were expecting is yet to materialize. Before you throw in the towel, understand that you’re not alone. In fact, most businesses will fail or give up content marketing altogether well before it has time to work for them—and that’s assuming what they were doing in the first place had merit. Truth is, the industry hasn’t done a very good job of making two very important things clear: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Negative SEO: Should You Be Worried? If Attacked, What Should You Do? The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
There has been a lot of talk lately about negative SEO. Does it really happen? If so, should you be worried? How do you know whether someone is attempting to attack you with negative SEO? And what should you do to protect yourself? The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the subject, and hopefully to reduce some of the fear exists in this area. What is negative SEO? Negative SEO occurs when someone makes attempt to lower a site's rankings in the search engines. Does negative SEO really work? We know that a site can be penalized or can be suppressed by Google algorithms if they have engaged in manipulative link building. Google is quite adamant that true, effective negative SEO is very rare. And then in 2003, they changed the wording to say, "There is almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking….
" And really, the change made sense. Back to SEO Basics: Why Relevant External Links Matter by Vertical Measures. How To Prove The Value Of SEO Without Drowning In Data. 20+ Metrics for Measuring B2B SEO Performance. August 26, 2014: Last spring, I had the opportunity to instruct a course for MarketingProfs University’s Search Marketing School 2014. My contribution, “10 Measurement Tips for SEO Content” (now live on MarketingProfs University) focuses on key reports and analysis designed to connect SEO-related content marketing efforts with business performance.
While I’ve based my presentation for MarketingProfs on the performance of SEO-related content marketing assets specifically, there is a much greater range of SEO-related benchmarks B2B marketers should consider. The following is a list of 20 performance metrics we recommend that B2B marketing managers use to establish goals and achieve success with their search engine optimization programs.
Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals These performance metrics form the basis for almost every SEO program, even if they only indirectly impact specific B2B business results. Search Engine Optimization Campaign Effectiveness SEO Trend Analysis. Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: HTTPS as a ranking signal. An Exhaustive List of Google's Ranking Factors [Infographic]
More than 1.1 billion people use Google search each month to make 114 billion searches. According to comScore, Google holds 67.6% of the U.S. search engine market share. This means that marketers looking to rank highly in organic search have to worry a great deal about what Google is looking for. With all the talk about optimizing content for search engines, you'd think we'd know by now exactly what Google's ranking algorithm considers when crawling pages on the internet. But we don't, and we can't -- mainly because Google has never publicly listed all of the factors they take into account. What Google has confirmed is that they use about 200 ranking signals when determining organic search page rankings. There are domain factors, page-level factors, site-level factors, backlink factors, user interaction, special algorithm rules, social signals, brand signals, on-site web spam factors, off-page web spam factors ... Whew! Want To Future-Proof Your SEO? 6 Ethical Guidelines To Consider.
Ethical SEO is a popular selling point for agencies and consultants, but what truly constitutes ethical SEO? Following are some guidelines for performing ethical SEO. By sticking to these guidelines, you’ll keep your reputation, your clients, and the search engines happy! 1. Follow The Search Engines’ Guidelines First, the obvious. Webmaster guidelines include: Descriptions of the types of content search engines want to serve in their resultsTechnical recommendations that will make it possible or easier to index a siteQuality guidelines for contentHow to organize a website for better inclusionLaundry lists of optimization and promotion techniques webmasters should not use Webmaster guidelines are not all-inclusive. 2.
Search engine optimization isn’t a cookie-cutter service. An agency or consultant can fill billable hours with lots of SEO best practices. One can optimize title elements, h# elements, alt attributes and keyword use. 3. I am a big proponent of good design and user experience. Want To Future-Proof Your SEO? 6 Ethical Guidelines To Consider. 3 Things Your Social Media Team Should Know About SEO | KoMarketing. June 19, 2014: One of the biggest challenges we hear about in the world of marketing is around the idea of silos. As companies grow, and new people and departments are added, it’s easy to become segmented and communication can become more difficult than it once was. We end up finding the paid team working within the paid team, the communication team working within the communication team, the SEO team…well, you get it.
As businesses (and marketers), we need to make sure we are breaking down these silos to see the bigger picture. We need to understand how each channel works, what is successful, and how we can use this information to enhance our own strategies. Enter search and social. With social now positioned as a legitimate marketing channel with genuine customer (and potential customer) interactions, there’s a lot of great information coming out of the social media department.
We also the need these departments sharing their data with the social media team, including the SEO team. 1. 2. 302 Redirected Links Can Cause Google Manual Actions. A WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster claiming he received a reconsideration request rejection notice and in that notice, Google gave example links. One of the example links includes a link that 302 redirects to his web site. A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect and often thought to not pass proper and full link juice from the URL to the target site. But as many of you know, it may and often does. This webmaster was surprised Google would use links that are redirected in a 302 manner as a bad link towards the site. He wrote: I got a reply to a recon request this morning and one of the example links was a page that didn't actually contain a physical direct link to my site. It contained a URL that included a /goto/[mysite] command which eventually 302 redirected to my site.
So, clearly, you need to dig deep into your link profile and clean out even the URLs being redirects as a 302. Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld. SEO Plus PPC Equals SERP Real Estate, Content Glue & ROI. Most marketers would agree that to be competitive, we do not operate in an either/or environment. It’s not a choice between either SEO or social, or SEO and PPC. It’s a requirement that we understand how these channels work together to impact one another, and a website’s ability to stay afloat in the growing search results. The surge in content marketing, including the focus on organic content and social media as a pair has perhaps taken some focus away from the synergy that SEO and PPC have together.
The numbers don’t lie. Brands are still heavily investing in PPC – and many are doing so rather than adopting strategies that would employ organic and paid search together. In fact, PPC’s ROI is becoming clearer with data from Kenshoo that shows revenue is growing faster than PPC spend YoY in the Americas. And, research coming from The Search Agency shows spend was up on paid search YoY in Q1 2014, with total spend increased by 35 percent. 1. 2. Integrate, Don’t Separate. What Should I Spend More Time On — Technical SEO or Content Marketing? Time is the SEO’s perennial dilemma. There are so many things you could do, but so few things you actually have time to do. The two broadest categories of an SEO’s task are technical SEO, also known as conventional SEO, and content marketing. But what should you invest most of your time in?
With a limited amount of time, where do you spend it? To put the question more starkly, which one has a better ROI? There’s no question about it — SEO and content marketing are both valuable. The Value of Technical SEO Search engine optimization sets your site up for search engine success. A few years back, if you had a technically optimized site, that was pretty much all you needed. But that doesn’t work anymore. So the fact is, you can’t win top spots in the SERPs by just having your technical SEO in place.
And you need to comply with those standards. I’m going to state it negatively. If you’re doing that technical stuff, then great. How?! Two words: content marketing. The Value of Content Marketing. 4 Critical SEO Metrics For Searcher Happiness and SEO Success - Keylime Toolbox. We launched Keylime Toolbox this week and I’ve already been getting lots of questions about SEO metrics. What data is most valuable to truly understand how your site is performing in unpaid search and to improve that performance? I built Keylime Toolbox for exactly this purpose — to track the SEO metrics that matter most. My approach to success in search has always focused on the audience: what do they need and how well does your site meet those needs?
Ultimately, all of the twists and turns and changes in Google’s algorithms are focused on finding and ranking pages that best answer searcher questions. Yet many commonly tracked SEO metrics just focus on the twists and turns of the algorithms. Tracking Searcher Needs and Searcher Happiness Tracking searcher needs and happiness can be pretty difficult and time consuming, especially in our current world of “not provided” query data (which can make the task impossible in some ways).
What is your target audience searching for? Taking Action 1. 9 Tricks For Local Businesses To Increase Their SERP Click-Through Rate. Sometimes you can move the needle — and dramatically — outside of obsessing and laboring over obtaining improving rankings in search engines. Simply increasing your click-through rates on the organic rankings you’ve already achieved can increase sales and revenue, even without having to do some of the difficult things that could be necessary to inch up the ladder to the next position. Here are 9 tricks to help you do it! (Ripple photo by Roger McLassus. CC BY-SA 3.0) 1. The title is typically shown as the link text for your webpage when displayed in the SERPs. Reinforcing the topic that a consumer is likely searching for will often result in more click-throughs. You’d think this approach would be obvious, but businesses neglect informing people as to what they are all the time — even in their street signage! 2. Your meta description is brief text that’s often selected by search engines for the descriptive snippet appearing under your links in the results. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Russian Search Engine Yandex Now 100% "Not Provided," Blocks Referrer Data. Yandex announced (in Russian) today that they have now went 100% secure, encrypting all search queries, resulting in a huge jump in the [not provided] count. This was first reported by Anna Oshkalo who shared a screen shot of her analytics detailed the bulk of her Yandex keyword data now shows [not set] or [not provided]. Yandex wrote, and I am using Google Translate: In December last year we started an experiment to encrypt text query in the Referrer, which gradually expanded. By February, the share encrypted data has reached 30% of user requests.
Time that has passed since the announcement, made it possible for webmasters to shift to other methods of estimating the user’s interests. From today, we start encrypting referrers at 100% of the flow of requests. Google and Yahoo are fully secure now, with huge not provided counts. Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Top News | Yandex. Navigating the complex but valuable South Korean search market. South Korea is the third largest ecommerce market in APAC. However, the potential value of the market is much greater than this ranking suggests, especially to Western brands and retailers looking to develop in the region. Last year, online sales from foreign ecommerce sites operating in South Korea drove more than £550m (1 trillion Korean won) in sales. This £550m represents approximately 3% of total ecommerce revenue in the country which suggests there is a large opportunity for foreign ecommerce sites. Overall these revenue numbers place South Korea neatly behind Japan and China in terms of the size of market, and opportunity within the region.
While this may not be a surprise to many considering the populations of the two aforementioned countries, there are additional factors that need to be taken into account when surveying potential market opportunities. A high propensity to purchase For China, this figure comes in at $217, while South Korea has a substantially larger figure of $386. 10 Questions to Ask When Creating a Link Building Campaign. One of the most common questions I hear related to link building is, “Where do I start?” Whether in a blog post or a conference presentation, link building experts often focus on specific tactics when giving advice. The message can sometimes come across as, “Here are some things — go do them, and you’ll be set.” But that’s not the case.
It’s important to realize that while these individual tactics are great, they are really part of a much bigger picture: a link building campaign. That’s where we must start. When setting up a link building campaign, here are a few questions to ask. 1. It’s one of the most basic, yet frequently overlooked, questions when it comes to link building: Do you know what your goals are? I often see businesses putting content out there with the idea that it will simply generate links.
What type of links do you want? In order to create and measure a successful campaign, we have to know what a “successful” campaign actually is. 2. 3. Get granular! 4. What do they share? Fetch As Google Is Getting Better, Now Renders Pages As Googlebot Sees Them. B2B SEO Content Marketing and PR: Two Heads Are Better Than One. The Shifting SEO Landscape in 3 Infographics.
The Ultimate Entrepreneur’s SEO Checklist for 2014 - SEW. Getting hreflang Right: Examples and Insights for International SEO. OnlineMarketing : Can I place multiple breadcrumbs... 3wU8pvav7f5?utm_content=buffer0e5da&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter. OnlineMarketing : The average page in the top... How Content Length Affects Rankings and Conversions. Driving PPC And SEO Synergy In Large Enterprises. SEO best practice tips for WordPress. The Best and Worst Thing to Ever Happen to SEO | Innovation Insights. An Introduction to PR Strategy for SEOs. How to Write Brilliant Headlines for SEO, Social & Your Readers. 19 technical SEO considerations you should look at today. Is Chasing AuthorRank A Waste Of Time For SEOs? Best SEO Techniques and Practices for 2014. You Won't Believe What This Company Used as Their Meta Description. LinkedIn's New 'Publishing for All' Raises Duplicate Content Questions. The Future of PageRank: 13 Experts on the Dwindling Value of the Link.
The New SEO Key Performance Indicators. Google Updates Its Page Layout Algorithm To Go After Sites “Top Heavy” With Ads. 11 Technical SEO Elements to Help Your Site Win a SERP Rank Gold Medal. SEO Solicitations Aimed At Google.com. Google. Single Page Websites & SEO. Index Your Content Faster With the Fetch as Google Tool. 4 Steps to Audit Online Content After Hummingbird and "Not Provided" 11 reasons SEO is a science; 14 reasons it's an art.
OnlineMarketing : Search engine guidance for... The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO. Post-Hummingbird Search: An (Almost) A-Z Glossary of Winning at SEO. Content Strategy for an International SEO Campaign. Secrets Of Successful Enterprise SEO Part 1: Operational Planning For SEO. Will Keywords be Replaced by Topics for Some Searches? How to Perform a Complete SEO Audit for Your Website. Basic SEO Tips For Images You Should Know. Post-Hummingbird Search: An (Almost) A-Z Glossary of Winning at SEO. Content Strategy for an International SEO Campaign. Secrets Of Successful Enterprise SEO Part 1: Operational Planning For SEO. How to Create a Prioritized SEO Action Plan. 5 "Foundations" Of SEO That Were Torched In 2013. Hummingbird’s Impact On B2B Sites. Where Search Optimization Fits in The Future of Digital Marketing. 5 "Foundations" Of SEO That Were Torched In 2013. 7 Ways to Make Your Google Search Result Stand Out.
Brand Bias: 70% Of Consumers Look For Known Retailers When Doing Product Searches. The One Thing Non-SEOs Need To Know About SEO. Plus.google. What a Penguin Recovery Looks Like - YouMoz. Google Panda Update 25 Seems To Have Hit. Interflora Is Back: What Did They Fix & How Did They Come Back So Fast? Google Web Page Spam Archive Replay. Google Granted Patent on Invisible Text and Hidden Links. 6 Free Google Docs Every SEO Needs To Have. Google Search in Chrome gets more secure. How Low Can #1 Go? (A Ranking Study) The Surprising Effect of Freshness and Authority on Search Results.