What to Do When Your SEO Tactic Doesn't Work. Marios Alexandrou | June 13, 2012 | 6 Comments inShare59 A three-step process for winding down a tactic. Years ago, before the likes of Twitter and Facebook stepped to the front of the stage, blogging was all the rage. People saw that successful bloggers attracted audiences that were often greater than what the typical commercial site could attract. This observation led many SEOs to start recommending to their clients that they create a blog of their own. The promise being that if you build a blog the traffic will follow. What most people ignored was that a blog should add value to a site and be used to engage potential and existing customers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying things out. Confirm Assumptions First of all, don't start with an assumption that you haven't verified. Understand the History Second, find out the history of the tactic. Prepare an Alternative Third, before you go in with a recommendation to end something, be sure to have a replacement idea to present. Why 'The Atlantic' No Longer Cares About SEO. The number of online news consumers has grown consistently over the past half-decade, yet not every publication has gotten the same lift as The Atlantic, whose web audience has catapulted from approximately 500,000 to 13.4 million monthly visitors since taking down its paywall in early 2008. As we've explored previously, there are many factors that have contributed to The Atlantic's online success: assigning a number of well-known columnists, like James Fallows and Andrew Sullivan (now of The Daily Beast), to begin writing original pieces for TheAtlantic.com; launching and staffing two new online news properties, TheAtlanticWire.com and TheAtlanticCities.com; and building up its digital ad offerings to support those hires.
Furthermore, The Atlantic is adapting its editorial strategy to the shifting landscape of online news consumption, namely, to capitalize on the growing importance of social networks, rather than search engines, as sources of traffic. And what kind of headlines do well? SEO DIY: Optimize Your Startup's Website Yourself. Anyone who pays attention to the world of search engine optimization knows that maximizing your company's search results on Google and other search engines is not something you can do with a quick pin here and a hasty status update there.
It's a full-time job. But if you're working to build a startup, you've already got a full-time job - or two or three. So should you hire an expert to run your SEO campaigns? The short answer is yes. What If You're Not Famous? "If you're a bootstrapped startup, which most startups are, and you don't have huge resources, you can do it yourself," says Nick Stamoulis, founder of SEO company Brick Marketing and editor of Search Engine Optimization Journal.
Stamoulis says a lot of startups have approached his company to ask about help, only to blanch at the price of a full-scale program. They're better off saving their money, working on their own to achieve some traction and only then breaking off some cash to get to the next level. Don't Wear a Black Hat.
10 Ways to Optimize Your Ecommerce Site for Google Search. Ecommerce websites have several inherent qualities — shallow copy, duplicate content and a large product catalog — that make it challenging to achieve a high Google ranking. But there are some best practices you can employ, in addition to traditional SEO techniques, to help your ecommerce site gain traction on Google. It's relatively simple: The more that you pay attention to the pitfalls of search, the more you can benefit from search.
While there's no "magic cure" for poor search results — the true science behind Google algorithms is a mystery — paying attention to the little things can ensure that you're safeguarding against ecommerce search issues. Here are 10 ways that you can shape up your site for optimum search attention. Do you have a successful strategy to rise through the rankings in Google? 1. Thanks to Panda, the latest update to the Google algorithm, content does not only have to be unique, but it also must have a level of quality. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Bonus! How Google's +1 Button Affects SEO. 4 Ways to Boost Your SEO With Google+ If you use Google regularly — and who doesn't? — you've probably noticed that the company has been using various ways to coerce you to join Google+, its incipient social network. The plugs have been pretty overt and include a call-to-action on Google's homepage and automatic G+ registration for new Gmail accounts. For businesses, the sell has been more subtle.
Since Google integrated Google+ results into search under its Google Plus Your World initiative in January, the word has gotten out that lack of a Google+ presence could affect organic search results. The upshot: If you don't have a Google+ page, your placement for various search terms will suffer. Companies that specialize in search engine optimization are used to rapid change, but this is something different. 1. Unwrapping Google's gift is pretty easy: Just set up a Google+ account for your business. 2. This part is a bit trickier. Don't get desperate, though. 3. 4. Will all this improve your SEO? 2011: The Year Google & Bing Took Away From SEOs & Publishers. A Guide to SEO Salaries By Market [INFOGRAPHIC] Sometimes finding your dream job is like an Easter egg hunt: It's not only how you look for jobs, but also where you look for them. It seems like common sense, but in order to hedge your bets and ultimately nab a high-profile gig, it's all about location, location, location.
This handy map, researched and developed by Onward Search ranks the cities where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) positions are most clustered and breaks down average salary ranges by rank, from entry-level to the big boss. It's unsurprising that the mantle for most available SEO gigs is New York City (with L.A. and San Francisco hot on its heels), but smaller markets like Atlanta are also willing to pay comparable salaries for top-notch talent. Are you hungry for a position in the SEO world?
Check out the infographic below to find the prime locales for getting your feet wet (or a leg up) in the job of your dreams. Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. Google's Matt Cutts: Good Content Trumps SEO. This is a message that can't possibly be repeated often enough: Good content trumps SEO. Don't believe me? Fair enough, but how about the head of Google's webspam team? In a short video today on Google's Webmaster Central Channel, Cutts answers a question about SEO practices and whether "poor" sites with bad SEO are penalized by Google.
Reassuringly, no. "Even if you do brain-dead stupid things and shoot yourself in the foot, but have good content, we still want to return it," says Cutts. So if you're planning that 2012 site budget, you might want to think twice about hiring that SEO expert and find a content expert instead. Google Adds More Social SEO With +1'd News Articles. Google News now highlights +1'd articles from people in your Google+ circles in its Spotlight section. Friends' faces and Google+ profiles are displayed next to the link, just like in Google's social search results. Earlier this month, Google News added the same feature for authors, showing Google+ info under their headlines.
While today's new social features are limited to the Spotlight section, it adds another way in which Google News can personalize content for logged-in users using their social data. Google is rolling out these kinds of Google+ features across all its Web properties. Yesterday, Google converted Google Chat to be based on G+ circles rather than email addresses. Earlier this month, the +1 button came to image search. YouTube and Google Reader have both gotten complete G+ makeovers, though YouTube's hasn't rolled out yet. Google Web search has treated public G+ posts as search results since soon after the social network launched. 6 Best Practices for Modern SEO. Erin Everhart is the director of web and social media marketing at the digital marketing and web design company, 352 Media Group.
Connect with her on Twitter @erinever. Google’s search results aren’t what they used to be. Need proof? Just look at its results page. No longer solely comprised of traditional, organic site matches, Google now lists local maps, images, videos and social cues as well — and it’s affecting more than just what you see. If you rely heavily on search engines for pageviews and sales, as many businesses do, Google search results will drastically affect how your customers find you. 1. There’s a good probability that a large chunk of the Google searches you perform will display Google Places listings – and consumers are taking notice. If your business relies on local listings, concentrate on scoring a seat at Google Places. Citations: Ensure that your correct business information is listed in as many (reputable) sources as possible around the Internet. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.