4 Principles to Drive SEO Success 4 Principles to Drive SEO Success I’ve been lately asked to give some tips, especially to new SEOs, to enhance their skills. Although I already presented in MozCon last year best practices and guidelines to effectively manage SEO projects, I would like to share some principles –instead of specific tips–, that when followed together I’ve found they create the foundation of a great SEO work, providing consistent, long-term value to clients that can be applicable to any SEO project and differentiate exceptional SEO specialists. I have no doubt that most of you already know and follow them in one way or another but I have also seen how these principles are unfortunately diluted in our busy daily SEO life. Here are these 4 principles to enhance your SEO value and ultimately, achieve SEO success. 1. Have you ever proposed to build a “useful resource or tool” or an “attractive piece of content” to your clients just to realize that they already had developed it and you had no idea? 2. 3. 4.
Google Search in Chrome gets more secure Today, when users are signed in to Google, Chrome sends their searches from the Chrome address bar (“omnibox”) over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Starting with Chrome 25 (currently in the Dev and Beta channels), we’re doing the same thing for Chrome omnibox searches performed by users who aren’t signed in to Google. Serving content over SSL provides users with a more secure and private search experience. It helps ensure that malicious actors who might intercept people’s internet traffic can’t see their queries. Users shouldn’t notice any changes.
6 Ways to Get Others to Write Your Content - YouMoz Over the last year, we've seen a lot of algorithm updates from Google that emphasized the importance of having unique content on a website. Being able to create quality content is often a problem many businesses face. The following is a list of ways that I’ve seen companies use to get others to create great content for them. #1 Allow Guest Posts Idea A popular way to get content for your site is to hire a content writer or freelancer to write the content for you. If your website has some decent domain authority, you should have no problem finding writers ready, willing, and able to provide content for your website. Pro Tip: Establish clear guest post guidelines for your site that outline what you are looking for in a post and what you will not allow. #2 Conduct a Survey Source: Great content can come from analyzing data gathered from surveys. Example Pro Tip: Learn how to write effective survey questions. a.) b.)
How Low Can #1 Go? (A Ranking Study) In the days of 10 blue links, getting a #1 ranking on Google was the ultimate goal. As advertising becomes more prominent, local and vertical results become more complex, and Knowledge Graph and other rich SERP features become more prevalent, though, a #1 ranking isn’t always what it used to be. We’ve seen a lot of anecdotes over the past year or two, but I thought it was time to ask the question – where, on average, does a #1 Google ranking appear on the page? Visualizing 10,000 #1 Rankings I’ll dig into the methodology in a minute, but let’s cut right to the chase – we measured the vertical (Y) position of the #1 organic ranking across 10,000 keywords during business hours (roughly 10am-5pm ET) on Wednesday, February 12th. Embed this image: <div style="width:604px;"><div><a target="_blank" href=" width="600" height="1037" alt="How Low Can #1 Go?" The Big “Winners” 2nd Runner-Up: “Myrtle Beach Weather” (Y=869) The Basic Methodology
30 Specialist (and Super Smart) Search Engines Google is widely (and rightly) recognised as the mother of all search engines. But, if you need to drill down your searches by more specific details, do you trust Google to give you what you need every single time? Here’s a collection of 3o vertical search engines which you should have up your sleeve when you need some specialist power. Flights / Travel 1. SkyScanner.net – The leading flights search engine, providing information about all carriers to help you find the best deal. 2. 3. 4. 5. Images 7. 8. People 9. Forums 11. Music 12. Audio and Video 16. Resources 18. Domain names 20. Icons 22. Private search 25. Similar websites 26. All-rounders 27. While some of these are better alternatives to Google and the other major engines, for the most part, the big boys do it incredibly (incredibly, incredibly) well. olly via shutterstock
Google Granted Patent on Invisible Text and Hidden Links As long as there have been search engines, there have been people trying to take advantage of them to try to get pages to rank higher in search engines. It’s not unusual to see within many SEO site audits a section on negative practices that a search engine might frown upon, and Google lists a number of those practices in their Webmaster Guidelines. Linked from the Guidelines is a Google page on Hidden Text and Links, where Google tells us to wary about doing things such as: Using white text on a white backgroundLocating text behind an imageUsing CSS to position text off-screenSetting the font size to 0Hiding a link by only linking one small character—for example, a hyphen in the middle of a paragraph Those are some of the same examples described in a patent granted to Google today at the USPTO: Systems and methods for detecting hidden text and hidden links Invented by Fritz Schneider and Matt Cutts Assigned to Google US Patent 8,392,823 Granted March 5, 2013 Filed: August 25, 2009
17 Things You Should Stop Doing to Your Websites We see dozens of guides and tutorials on how we should make our websites better to rank, convert, and perform. On the other hand, there’s so much wrong-doing, it can be easier for you to STOP doing some things to get better results with your online presence. Below I’ve outlined the 17 most popular “sins” I’ve identified on my customers’ websites within the last 2 years. 1. I do realize, some “boring niche” companies find it pretty hard to create a content strategy and produce fascinating content on a regular basis… But it’s not an excuse for publishing something-of-no-use to anyone. 2. Yes, you got me right – there’s not much sense in stealing stock images. Image credit Sorry, I don’t believe these guys :) Dozens of studies and experiments prove that users are more attracted by amateur pictures that look true-to-life, though they can miss a polished glamorous look. 3. I’ve seen it everywhere – an interesting post with great points and a dozen of user comments that are left unnoticed. 4.
Interflora Is Back: What Did They Fix & How Did They Come Back So Fast? Interflora got penalized only 2 weeks ago, right after Valentine’s day with a huge coverage in the media and also a some-what indirect statement from Google’s Matt Cutts himself about Advertorials also counting as paid links if they pass Page Rank (i.e. do not have NOFOLLOW tags on them). Now, just this past Sunday, a week before Mother’s day in UK, they are already back for most of their rankings. Many wonder how that recovery was possible so quick and we’ll look at what was changed and what was cleaned up. More Than Advertorials As we could see in the Interflora Deep Dive Analysis the 100 or so Advertorials where not the only bad links in the mix, albeit Google specifically “reminded” about paid links in Advertorials being bad as well. Interflora actually had more than 70% of their links as toxic or suspicious according to Link Detox. They had a lot of free blogs with simply one page on it, carrying a money keyword like i.e. Link Removal & Disavows and in this (broken) contact form:
All about the Title Tag for Search Engine Optimization By Jill Whalen What Is a Title Tag? The title tag has been – and probably will always be – one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. In fact, fixing just the title tags of your pages can often generate quick and appreciable differences to your rankings. And because the words in the title tag are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP), changing them may result in more clickthroughs. Search Engines and Title Tags Title tags are definitely one of the "big three" as far as the algorithmic weight given to them by search engines; they are equally as important as your visible text copy and the links pointing to your pages – perhaps even more so. Do Company Names Belong in the Title Tag? The answer is a resounding YES! This doesn't mean that you should put *just* your company name in the title tag. Title Tags Should Contain Specific Keyword Phrases Using our Dallas accountant example, you might create a title tag like this one: