SEO 101 - Basic Optimization Techniques. Believe it or not, basic SEO is all about common sense and simplicity. The purpose of search engine optimization is to make a website as search engine friendly as possible. It's really not that difficult. SEO 101 doesn't require specialized knowledge of algorithms, programming or taxonomy but it does require a basic understanding of how search engines work. For the purposes of brevity this piece starts with a few assumptions. There are two aspects of search engines to consider before jumping in.
In the simplest terms, search engines collect data about a unique website by sending an electronic spider to visit the site and copy its content which is stored in the search engine's database. Knowing the spiders and how they read information on a site is the technical end of basic SEO. As spiders follow links and record everything in their paths, one can safely assume that if a link to a site exists, a spider will find that site. The description meta tag is also fairly important. How to do Keyword Research for Local Sites with AdWords Traffic Data. 7 Reasons Why Nixing Branded Keywords Is Not The Fix For CPC Inflation. “If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” While this classic parenting question is cliché, it makes a good point. And it’s one that search marketers could also learn from. Especially those who are thinking about eliminating brand keyword phrases from their paid search campaigns just because their competitors are doing it.
The Role Of CPC Inflation In Retail Unfortunately, this mindset is common in the retail space where the search landscape grows more complex and crowded every day. According to a recent SEMPO report, search marketing investment is slated to grow to $19.3 billion dollars this year. That’s an increase of 16% — the largest increase since before the recession. But with growth comes competition, which leads to bidding wars and CPC inflation. This is especially true for retailers with large, complex accounts with millions of keywords. 7 Reasons To Keep Investing In Your Brand Keywords Let me be clear — shutting off Brand keywords for savings is not the answer! 30 SEO Bookmarklets to Save You Time. We all work hard at the SEO process - analyzing sites, gathering data, researching potential problems and identifying the solutions.
Today's post is on how to work smarter and faster using bookmarklets for SEO. No matter your browser, these plug-and-play links will let you get your job done faster and easier, and look like a pro in front of bosses and clients. The list isn't completely comprehensive, but it covers 95%+ of the SEO data points I retrieve on a monthly basis and a few extras I don't personally use that may be valuable to others.
It also has a section at the end on how to make your own bookmarklets for any site, tool or service you use. To employ, just click and drag the bookmarklet links from this blog post into your sidebar or bookmarks folder and rename to whatever you'd like. I've divided the post up into sections so you can quickly grab the items you care about. SEO Bookmarklets Sections: Just follow the instructions from this highly "meta" image :-) Backlink Data Queries. SEO in Emerging Markets is Hot! Andrew Shotland May 26th, 2011 15 Comments Earlier this week I spent a few days in Barbados as a guest of Global Directories where, along with Randy Orth & Vince Graziano of EM4B, we ran a local online marketing seminar for about 200 Barbadian businesses.
As I went through my talk about how to get ranked for searches like “Barbados car rental” it occurred to me that emerging markets like Barbados are really interesting opportunities SEO-wise. It’s basically still 2005 down there: 1. Many SMBs still don’t have websites and those that have them have pretty bad ones (ok maybe it’s like 2011 in that respect) 2. There is still confusion between SEO and SEM (ok still 2011) 3. You may recall that a few months ago I discovered that Google misplaced Jamaica and that Google Places did not appear in a number of countries.
If anyone wants to get into a Caribbean SEO and hot sauce venture, let me know. Tags: International SEO · Local Search. How To Improve Organic Search Results With A Simple Site Audit. Having a search engine friendly website, a site with no barriers to the search engines is critical to success within “organic” search engine results.
Here are some relatively simple SEO Site Review/Audit steps that should help you flush out the most important site wide issues within a small to mid size website. A SEO site review or audit should be conducted periodically; for example, a few weeks to months after a website is redesigned or after a major update, to allow enough time for the site to be fully re-indexed. Anytime organic search engine traffic takes a significant drop a SEO site review might help you determine the cause. You should also consider a site review if one hasn’t been conducted within the last couple of years, in order to incorporate new developments with the major search engines.
Finally, a SEO review or audit should be considered during site redesign planning to flush out any issues with the current website that should be addressed in the new design. Improve Your Link Prospecting With Reductive Queries. When we search for websites to link to us, we often use inputs on Google in order to return results such as “KEYWORD resources”, “KEYWORD links” , or simply just “KEYWORD”. The problem with this process is that what we input is not what we are looking for.
There is a fundamental disconnect between what SEOs frequently input into search engines for link prospecting and what results they actually want to see when they hit enter. The difference between “KEYWORD” inputs and what we actually want as SEOs, can be summarized as follows: Input: KEYWORDActual desired result: KEYWORD pages that will link back to my site These are frequently not the same thing.
The reason is that Google doesn’t care that you want a link back to your site – Google cares about returning the results that are most relevant for your search query. Very often, keywords that are relevant for “KEYWORD” are not the same ones that will ever link back to your site. Common Business Website Structures Example queries: -.edu-.gov. Google News: Too Much Formatting Can't Prevent Articles From Being Indexed. Last Minute Holiday SEO Tactics.
The holiday season is underway, and unfortunately many of us have waited for the last minute to attend to our SEO for the season. SEO for the holiday season really is best done in August, September or October. But what if you didn’t get to it this year? Is it too late? Not necessarily. There are some things you can do. Go get some blog links. What’s the best way to get blog links (without cheating)? Make title and content changes on key pages. You can also check Compete.com to see what keywords are providing the best results for your competition. Eliminate duplicate content problems. Duplicate content hurts the indexation of pages on your site, because the search engines spend time crawling redundant pages that they will later simply filter out. Check for issues in your Webmaster tools accounts. Reclaim invalid links. This is a sure sign that someone tried to link to your site but got the URL wrong.
Implement an XML Sitemaps file. XML Sitemaps are a way to address this issue head on. Meta Robots Tag 101: Blocking Spiders, Cached Pages & More. Last week, I covered a new command for the meta robots tag — one to prevent search engines from using Yahoo titles and descriptions. In doing that, a number of questions came up about the meta robots tag syntax itself. Google Webmaster Central has now posted “Using the robots meta tag,” providing some clarity from Google.
In addition, both Yahoo and Microsoft have also sent me information on using the tag. I’ll run through what everyone says below, complete with charts for easy at-a-glance comparisons. The meta robots tag was an open standard created over a decade ago and designed initially to allow page authors to prevent page indexing. Over the years, various search engines have added additional support to the tag. Let me start off by saying that if you DO want your pages in search engines, then DO NOT use the tag. You do NOT need to use either form if you DO want your pages in the search engines. See the “noindex” value? What if you don’t want links followed? Voila! Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing. I generally enjoy John Gruber’s writings, but today he’s dishing out SEO advice about HTML title tags. Some of it is bad advice. So with respect, here’s how I’d suggest you write page titles in a way that can please search engines and humans alike. What Is An HTML Title Tag?
Let me go back to the basics. For example, here’s the title tag for the Search Engine Land article I wrote earlier this year, Some SEO Advice For Bill Gates: The <TITLE> tag appears within the <HEAD> section of a web page. How Is An HTML Title Tag Used? Every page can have an HTML title tag, but how that tag is used can vary.
Chrome is also shown in the illustration above. Title Tags Versus Headlines The HTML title tag is often used by many blogging systems and other content management software as the main headline for a web page. You can see how the HTML title tag is also being used as the main headline on the page. This is common, but it is not required. Title Tags For Bookmarking Here’s another example at Digg: Avoid: Blockquote, cite and q Tag and SEO – Complete HTML Reference Guide for SEO. By Traian Neacsu Published on: October 20, 2010 Last modified: July 7, 2011 Internet Marketing , Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tags: blockquote , cite , q , SEO , tag <blockquote><cite> and <q> tags have to do with citations within your web pages.
They are used by those webmasters and SEO who want to play fair with search engines (indicating where they borrowed content from) and with the authors from which the content was borrowed (passing link juice). Well, we all know that things are not going like these nowadays, content scrappers and site cloners are spreading like wildfire, RSS syndication, blog farming and splogs are shitty tactics for long term results.
Definition and usage The <blockquote> tag defines a long quotation; <q> defines an inline, short citation and <cite> contains a citation or a reference to other sources (according to W3.org ). Keep in mind that <cite> can be both an html element AND an attribute. Example: <cite>Pitstop Media Inc</cite> is an awesome SEO company :) SEO advice: url canonicalization. (I got my power back!) Before I start collecting feedback on the Bigdaddy data center, I want to talk a little bit about canonicalization, www vs. non-www, redirects, duplicate urls, 302 “hijacking,” etc. so that we’re all on the same page.
Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway? A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls: www.example.comexample.com/www.example.com/index.htmlexample.com/home.asp But technically all of these urls are different. Q: So how do I make sure that Google picks the url that I want? Q: Is there anything else I can do? Q: If I want to get rid of domain.com but keep www.domain.com, should I use the url removal tool to remove domain.com? Q: So when you say www vs. non-www, you’re talking about a type of canonicalization. A Link Building Blueprint: Utility Linking. Almost every SEO I know spent the better part of last week discussing recent changes Google made to its ranking algorithm. This update hit some webmasters hard while others went unscathed, and results still seem to be settling out.
Nothing I’m working on was impacted (knock wood) probably because I tend to use a wide variety of linking tactics over a broad spectrum of sites. I think it makes a lot of sense to diversify my linking efforts, if any of my partner sites are dinged in an update, I’ll be fine since I have a lot of additional links out there working for me. This week’s blueprint tactic is known as “utility linking”, it’s a great way to increase your backlinks and help insulate your pages from algo shifts. (Previous article: A Link Building Blueprint: The Foundation.) The basic premise behind utility linking is simple: using various pre-set phrases plus your keywords, you find sites to add your content to.
Sounds pretty straightforward right? Begin With Simple Link Searches. 14 Differences Between Mobile Search & Desktop Search Results. When you write a monthly column on how mobile impacts search and social, it can be easy to forget that most businesses still aren’t thinking about mobile as something that impacts them today, and aren’t really planning for a future in which most of our online activity will take place on mobile devices. For the few businesses that are taking advantage of mobile today, and not waiting until doing so is mission critical, it might not seem like much of a problem, especially when the competition has yet to catch up.
Yet, when I talk to providers of the tools we all use and ask them about features to track the impact of mobile on search and social revenue, I often hear that the market isn’t yet asking for these innovations. Without the ability to measure how mobile impacts SEO and social, such as the mobile volumes available now in the Google Keyword Tool and in Webmaster Tools, it’s difficult for anyone to take advantage of mobile traffic, whether you want to or not.
Evaluating SEO Vendors. Many marketers like to outsource search engine marketing (SEM). They say it's worth paying an expert to optimize your site correctly because your traffic will increase faster, and you get a good return on the investment. The dilemma is knowing who to hire. There are a number of reputable providers out there but there's also some you should avoid. MarketingSherpa's Buyer's Guide to Search Engine Optimization & Positioning Services names 24 reputable firms and is profiling 25 more. Another resource is SEOPros.org, with information and articles on what to expect from search engine optimization services. There are a number of important issues to explore when evaluating SEO vendors. SEO Services DefinedServices can be categorized into four areas: site analysis and optimization, manual submission process, offsite optimization, and monthly reporting.
Site Analysis and Optimization Directory Compliance Review: Directories like Yahoo! Monthly Reports How many years of SEM experience do you have? Public Relations: Link Building On Steroids. Caution: This starts as a mean spirited post, but there is some humility forthcoming, please persevere through the rant. The following is a rough recollection of a conversation I had with a PR professional recently about BusinessWire’s press release services that come chock-a-block full of SEO promises: Her: “You need to switch your wire service to get more SEO out of your press releases.”Me: “Really, how much SEO are we getting from our press releases now?” Her: “Well, I don’t really know how this stuff works, but you should be doing keyword research to make sure Google can find your content. The tool does that for you.”Me: “So, as a PR professional, you are suggesting that we need a special tool to write things that people are interested in reading?”
Her: (the irony starting to settle in) “Well, . . . the tool puts links to your website in your press releases which will then go all over the web and you’ll get all these links pointing back to your site. Exclusive Embargoes Embrace PR. How To Hire A Great In-House Search Engine Marketer (Or Not) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the Fence Industry. What’s the Secret to Video SEO? A PPC Marketer’s Code Of Conduct. A Post-Click Marketing Heuristic. 7 Google Quality Score PPC Myths. The One Minute Paid Search Account Diagnosis. How To Use Search Funnels To Find A Competitive Advantage. Pay per impression and pay per click advertising.
Questioning Paid Search Benchmarks. Report: Click Fraud Rate Drops to 19.1% In Q4 2010. Why Affiliate Direct Linking Activity Has Doubled. A Display Ad FAQ For Paid Search Marketers. New Wave Of Paid Search Tools Coming: Q&A With BoostCTR’s David Greenbaum. How A $5 CPM Is Really Only Worth $1. Report: Bing & Yahoo Not Competing Well Against Google In Paid Search.
How To Fight PPC Campaign Brain Fatigue. 6 Steps To Higher Converting Traffic From Shopping Search Engines. The Importance Of Measuring Mobile Impact On Offline Conversions For Small Businesses. 5 Common PPC Optimisation Mistakes. Local Search Ranking Factors | Local SEO Best Practices for Google, Bing, Yahoo. Local Search: Fish Where The Other Fishermen Aren’t. Three Important Online Trends For Local Business. How To Rank Nationally With Local Links. Local Search Tools For the SMB and Professional. 5 Tips To Get Your Local Business Online In 2011. Loci 2010 – Matt McGee. GetListed Birmingham. Looking Ahead: What’s Next In The Evolution Of Local Search? Testimonials as Reviews – A View from the Field. 8 Necessary SEO Steps During A Website Redesign. Clickability & Search Engine Friendly Web Design. Why FeedBurner Is Killing Your SEO Strategy. 7 Tips To Use Paid Search To Unite Brands During A Merger.
Dominate Top 10 Search Results – Two Positions in the Top 10. 7 Things To Teach Your Children About Conversion. 3 Issues To Consider Before Focusing On More Traffic. Calling All Information Architects! Get With The SEO Program. Top 5 Ways To Use Search For Branding. Simple Tips For Writing An SEO Style Guide. SEO Firm : Directory Submission Link Building Service with Article submission.
Link Building Tips For One Way Links. How To Win Enemies & Influence People By Turning Controversy Into Links.