December 29, 2013

How to Audit Website? An Ultimate SEO Audit Guide

If you are doing SEO for website, the first thing is to examine website thoroughly for technical issues. The technical issues should be crawling issues, indexing problems, duplicate pages, broken links etc. Website audit helps to identify what is going wrong and what need to be fixed.

Let’s Get Started

Webmaster Tools and Analytics

When you start the audit process, the first step is to make sure that the website is registered on webmaster tools of major search engines (Google, Bing etc.) and in Google Analytics or other website monitoring tools.

WMT is the easiest way to find out the issues and the general health of the site.

Keyword Analysis:

Using some keyword research tools like ubbersuggest.org to find out appropriate keywords for your website and target it to your website’s Meta tags and content. Then after monitor which keywords doing performing well for your website through Google Analytics.

URL Structure:

URLs describe a website or webpage to both search engines and visitors as well. Keeping them appropriate, compelling, and accurate is the key to position well in search engines.

The URLs need to obey the following rules:

• Make your URLs simpler and easy to remember.
• Make URL shorten as possible. Avoid using stop words, the fewer the words are more value each word receives from a search engine spider.
• Do not use CAPITALS words in URLs.

If your website does not succeed to fulfill these criteria, you may have to change them. If you do, make sure you redirect the old URL to the new URL to maintain any of the link juice streaming to that URL.

Website Meta Data:

1. Title Tag:

When I do an SEO audit, the first things I check is the <title> tag because title tag is the main text that describes a webpage and has the most SEO power of any tag on the page for establishing keyword relevance.

The Title Tag need to obey the following rules:

• Must be unique and not longer than 70 Characters
• If it makes sense, use the target keyword for that page twice.
• Title tags must be written to be descriptive of the content on the page.

2. Description Tag:

Meta description does not help in ranking, but it is extremely important to improve CTR (click through rate). Mata description should be compelling that a searcher will want to click.

The Description Tag need to obey the following rules:

• Meta descriptions on each page be unique and compelling
• Keep meta descriptions between 150 and 160 characters.
• Use the target keyword smartly in description that makes sense.

3. Heading Tags:

The heading tag H1, H2 and H3 are used to represent different sections of webpage content. It has an effect on both the SEO and usability of your website.

The Heading Tag need to obey the following rules:

• Heading tag should only contain text – no images please
• H1 tag is the main heading tag gives users a quick overview of the content.
• Place heading tags for each section that make sense.

Content:

Make sure there is enough content (should have minimum 300 words) across the webpage. Add some more content, if any of the pages don’t. Just add useful & engaging content that fulfill the needs of your real visitors.

Image Optimization:

Having “Alt tag” is must for every image. It describes image to search engines. You can use keyword that is relevant to the image because it has slight impact on search engine ranking. While doing audit, you should also take care of file size, file name and captions.

Rel=Nofollow Tag:

Use the nofollow tag on site wide external links, blog comments and anywhere else where you do not want to lose link juice. Using the nofollow attribute is one of the best ways of ensuring that your outgoing links doesn’t harm your website.

Sitemap:

Sitemap provides search engines spider to index all the pages on a site. Create sitemap and then submit it to search engine’s webmaster tools.

Redirects:

Redirect is a way to send users and search engine to a different URL. 301 redirect (permanent) and 302 redirect (temporary) are two types of redirects.

Duplicate Content:

Search engines don’t like duplicate content if it is sense less, keyword rich and low quality. Google’s panda algorithm especially works for identifying sites with duplicate content. There is one way to deal with is to rewrite the content.

Broken Links:

Broken links, whether internal or outbound, can hurt the usability of a website – which also can hurt SEO efforts. When crawling a website, if search engine spider comes across broken links, it will stop the crawling and indexing process and leave. If the search spider finds too many 404 error pages, it alerts a poor user experience, which decreases the value of the site.

Page Load Time:

Use Google page speed insights to identify solutions for page load speed. If the load time is high, there are a number of actions you can take, such as

• Browser caching
• Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS
• Image optimization
• Minify JavaScript

Incoming Links:

Use some backlink checker tools to extract the data of inbound links. This will allow you to get a good idea of what kind of link-building activity that has been performed on the site.

Check link profiles one by one and search for spammy or low quality links. It may be that certain links are having a bad impact on the website’s capability to rank, and you may need to use the disavow tool.

Social Media Mentions:

Social signals have an effect on website ranking, and it is very important to evaluate the number of mentions the site has. Here are simple ways to increase the chances of acquiring social signals.

• Add social media sharing buttons on the site or on any blog posts
• Create content that is worthy of sharing, and reach out to people to ask for reviews.

Hope, that will help. And don’t forget to bookmark so that you can come back as and when you need to. Leave your comments below, if you have any comments.

December 18, 2013

Step by Step of Launching a New Website: Starter Guide

website launch

Before you go live with a new website, you need to spend time in planning and perform tests at each level to minimize problems and to avoid SEO disaster. The following is the complete website launch guide that I have categorized into TWO:

1. Before the Launch:
2. After the Launch:

Steps are Taken Before the Launch

1. Benchmark Your Current Site Stats

Before launching a new website, benchmark how your site is currently performing in Search Engines. Domain authority, number of paged indexed by search engines, cache date, crawl errors reported in GWT are very important and will allow you to observe essential analytics during the launch process.

benchmark table

You can note down the updated data by creating a table in excel after the launch.

2. Register in Webmaster Tools

You should register the new website with Google Webmaster tools and Bing Webmaster tools, in order to increase the process of being indexed by major search engines -- Google and Bing. By registering the website you can track crawl errors & optimization issues quickly.

3. Canonicalization

Choose the best URL for content when there are several options on a webpage. Following example URLs that most people consider for the same webpage:

http://xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com/index
http://www.xyz.com/home

You have to select domain with www. or without www., because technically all these URLs are different and creates site-wide duplication issue. To fix this issue, you need to pick the preferred URL and redirect (301) all content and links to the preferred domain. Google does not have features to choose which URL is best, just provided that you are reliable with it.

4. Create a 'Coming Soon' Page

Upload a 'coming soon' page on your new domain with some content that explain about you, before you launch a new website. By doing so you allow Search engines to start to crawl and index the new website. Basically you are telling search engines that your site is real and not just parked and this should be finished 7-8 weeks earlier to the website launch.

5. Upload Unique Content to Your New Website

The next step is to write unique content for each web page of your website and upload it. You can use relevant and appealing images that will make your webpage more attractive and understandable.

6. Create Unique Title and Meta Descriptions for Each Page

Create title tags, Meta description and H1 tags for each page and make sure all tags are unique. Using some tool, you can view missing and duplicate metadata as well as short or long metadata to ensure your site is optimized for search engines.

7. Set Up Google Analytics:

Set up Google analytics by placing tracking script before closing tag to monitor website’s traffic. Google Analytics has many important features like event tracking, goal tracking, site search, webmaster tools integration, e-commerce tracking etc.

Steps are Taken after the Launch

1. Check for Broken Links

Check website for broken links using reliable tools like broken link check and fix the broken links that are reported. You can also check GWT for crawl error.

2. Submit XML Sitemaps

Create xml sitemap for your new website and submit to webmaster tools. You can also include the sitemap in robots.txt file.

3. List Website in Local Listings

Add your new website to local listing directories that will provide backlinks and also help to get local traffic as well. Google+ local page, Yelp, DMOZ, Yell, Get listed are popular sites.

4. Promote Website on Social Media Websites

Promote your new website on popular social media channels such as facebook, twitter, Google+, pinterest etc. Social media is the great resource for referral traffic that helps spread your launch website.

5. Test Your Website Speed

Test you website speed, using Google’s page speed insight tools. Improve your website speed score up to 90 out of 100 by following instructions given.

6. Make Responsive Design for Mobile View

Mobile users are increasing day by day so it is very important to make your website mobile friendly. Responsive design is the best option in place of buying mobile domain.

Thanks Hope it helpful to you.

December 17, 2013

Duplicate Content is not Really Treated as Spam: Google’s Matt Cutts

duplicate content

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a video today about duplicate content and the effects of it within Google’s SERP.

In the video, the question was asked, "Can having duplicate content on your website affect ranking in Google’s search results?" Matt answered that somewhere 25% to 30% of the content on the internet is duplicate.

When Google sees duplicate content it try to group it all together and treated as if it is just one piece of content. Google does not treat duplicate content as spam, but takes all the content and group them into a cluster and shows the best result for the user.

Matt said if you do duplicate content in an abusive deceptive religious or manipulative way, we do reserve the right to take action.

Here is the Video:

December 14, 2013

SEO Changes Should Be Predicted for 2014

prediction for 2014

SEOs, well 2013 the year is going to be end with so more algorithm updates. Google has gifted a new algorithm called Hummingbird this year. Now what about upcoming year 2014! Here I have predicted some points that might be changed in 2014.

1. Rise of Authorship:

I thing authorship is going to become more essential as Google works hard to differentiate the quality good content from the bad. Over the next year, I really think that digital firms take authorship and status into account when recruiting for their team, with candidates who have yet to set up an author profile, authority and following (think tweets, followers, Google+ Circles) falling short.

2. Semantic-Influenced Content

In its 15th birthday, the search giant Google shocked us by introducing a new algorithm called Hummingbird. We all know that the main objective of this new algorithm is on relevance, perfection and better understanding user intent.

I think we are going to see brands start to push out more and more semantic-influenced content in a bid to catch more traffic and SERP in 2014. I think it’s all going to come down to generating more specific, lengthy type content (which furthermore comes back to content mark-up) which response more long-tail detailed search phrases. As sites look to produce more content and pages that answer queries, there’s a chance a lot of doorway-style pages could be produced which do not really content good quality content and that do not provide that much of a purpose.

3. Schema and Data Mark-Up

Google’s been forcing data mark-up on us for a while now – but this year they have really stepped things up with the release of article mark-up and the new structured data markup helper tool, so it seems sensible that they are going to place more focus on it going forwards.

The main thing to keep in mind about data mark-up is that it gives details to Google about what your website is about and what each page is about – and so it helps Google to rank sites more appropriately.

4. The End of Guest Blogging

I think Google finally going to red eye on low quality guest blogging and guest blogging for link building’s benefit. Why? The reason is with a guest blog you do not necessarily earn the link out of merit. It’s no secret that Google thinks you should only get really get links if you have “earned” them – and they have already given us a pretty big sign they are not thrilled with the idea of guest blogging by suggesting you “nofollow” your links in your guest blogs.

I think Google introduce a major Penguin update in the first three months of the year that is going to partly target guest blogging (particularly low quality guest blogging on random sites) – so be alert.

5. More Innovative Link Building:

Thanks to Google Penguin Update, link-building has definitely stepped up a gear with regards to creativeness this season – and I think that is only set to proceed in 2014 as link-building techniques which are currently working well (guest blogging, infographics, superficial content marketing etc.) fall under the glare of Google. I think link-building might drop more in range with creative PR and Bid data next year as brands start to dig into their data more in a bid to present real, interesting, appropriate news and comments that will actually add something to their industry.

So, here is my five SEO prediction for upcoming year 2014. If you think something is missing than write comment or tweet me @searchenginenos

December 11, 2013

What Should Avoid While Doing Guest Blogging?: Google’s Matt Cutts

guest blogging

Recently posted webmaster help video, Google’s Matt Cutts talking about guest blog posts "What should I be aware of if I'm considering guest blogging?"

Matt Advices:

1. Guest Blogging should not be only the part of your link building strategy
2. Do not send thousands of mass emails offering to guest blog
3. Do not use the same article twice
4. Do not change an article over again and recycle it so

In short, avoid low quality, automated, posting the same article on multiple sites, spinning articles and other tactics that not pass editorial value.

Original Video:

December 9, 2013

Avoid Content Stitching: Google’s Matt Cutts

copy paste

In a new webmaster video, Google’s Matt Cutts suggested that “content stitching” is a bad idea.

Avoid copying fragments of articles from multiple sources to create an article that looks more like a compilation of resources instead of an innovative piece, coz this practice is not add value and that is probably going to be higher risk area.

Original Video:

December 8, 2013

Beginner Guide: Best SEO Strategy for Newbie SEOs

seo tips for beginners

If you have a new website chances are that you're trying to get traffic for it and if you're trying to get traffic, you've probably already heard about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you're new to it then SEO can seem extremely complicated and trying to research how to do it yourself can leave you lost in a bunch of technical jargon that makes your brain hurt.

It's not uncommon for beginners to get fed up and think that they need to hire an SEO expert or company in order to show up in the search engines, but that isn't true.

"The experts do a lot of the same things you can do all on your own. Here is the best SEO strategy for entrepreneurs and those just beginning with SEO."

Start With a Good Design

Whether you use a template, pay someone to create your design, or do it yourself, you need to have a good website in the first place. Make sure that your design is attractive, not too busy, and loads quickly. Most importantly, make sure that your site is reliable and not likely to go down without warning or suffers from an overloaded server. This comes from having a good host. Compare some of the best ones here.

What this does is makes sure that people can reach your site and that they will not immediately be turned off. If traffic can't get to your site, of if your guests immediately leave, your site isn't going to rank very high no matter what you do.

Have Good Content

"It's important that your site provides something to the viewers that will make them want to stick around."

These days most businesses are including blogs on their sites that provide related content that people will want to read. Make sure that your site has engaging, well-written, related content and people will not only stick around for awhile, but they will come back.

Make sure that whether you have a blog or not, you are providing updated, intriguing information so that people want to bookmark it. The more that you get returning visitors, the higher your ranking will be in the search engines.

Learn about Meta Data and Keywords

This is where you really start to get into the main part of SEO. Keywords are what the search engine crawlers pay the most attention to when they comb your site. The words that are specified in the meta data and repeated throughout the page will be the ones that will be most likely to turn up in searches related to your content.

Use specific keywords related to your content in the title of it, in any links to it, and within the content. Don't pad the content with just keywords, however. Make sure that it's natural, which should happen anyway if you are keeping your keywords related to the same topic that you're writing about.

Use Links Well

There are three important ways to use your links.

1. Link to relevant, interesting content that your readers are likely to find valuable. Choose sites that may also be likely to notice and link back to you, but make sure the value to your readers is your most important criteria.
2. Get links to your site on other, similar sites with a good reputation and a lot of traffic. Take a look at this article from Microsoft that talks about link building and how to do it.
3. Link back to other content on your site. If you are using a blog, link to older posts that you think your readers may find interesting. This not only gets them navigating around your site more, but also shows them content they may have never seen before.

Use Social Media

"It has gotten to the point in this day and age that having a presence on social media is almost a requirement for the success of any business, particularly up and coming businesses."

Social media gives you another platform to reach potential business, to relay information, and to interact with your customers. This article by Anita Mirchandani gives some excellent tips for how to build your social media presence.

Not only should you create a strong social media presence, but you should also allow your existing presence to spread out to social media. Include buttons that will allow people to share your site and your content on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Each and every time that someone shares something from your site your business is exposed to each and every one of their hundreds or even thousands of friends. Also make sure that you share new updates and content on your social media accounts each time since this brings more people to it.

Communicate

Visit other sites that are similar or market to the same kind of customer. If you have a blog this is highly important. You want to post regularly on other blogs that you like, make sure to follow them, and get to know the people behind them. These are potential business contacts that can earn you important link backs and positive attention for your business. This will lead to more traffic coming from these similar sites which will, of course, lead to higher rankings in the search engines.

It's That Simple

These are the main bases you need to cover for good SEO. You want to provide something that people want to see which means good content and a good website that performs well. You also want to drive as much traffic both to your website and through it which is where link building, communicating with other businesses and social media comes in.

If you employ these strategies you will begin to see a rise not only in traffic, but in your position on the search engines and you can do all of it without having to pay a lot of money to someone else to do it for you.

Article Author: Allan Watson The Article was Published in thenextwomen.com

The Biggest Myths of SEO Ever Told

SEO has changed a lot; the new algorithms, guidelines, and tools are introduced so quickly. This regularly changing search landscape is rife with gossips and misconceptions – and here I have pointed out the most common myths and assumptions about how SEO works, and debunk them for you so you are not wasting your precious time that simply don’t matter for SEO in 2014. Let’s get began.

Myth #1: Top Position

There are n-numbers of resources that place great importance of websites being the first in SERPs. This is not actually true. Although being the first on the site allows building traffic, it does not guarantee that visitors will want to check out your website. Apart from search engines, there are so many functions that are used to give positions. This means, you need to be careful and consider other methods of advertising like social media, as you wait for search engine ranking to be the best.

Myth #2: Submit Website into Search Engine

In traditional SEO times, search engines had “submission” forms that were part of the optimization process. Webmasters and online marketers would tag their sites and webpages with keyword information, and “submit” them to the search engines. Soon after, a bot would crawl and include those resources in their index. Simple SEO!

Unfortunately, this process did not scale very well, the submissions were often spam and the exercise gradually provided way to simply crawl-based search engines. Since 2001, not only has search engine submission not been needed, but it is actually almost ineffective. The search engines all publicly not that they rarely use “submission” URLs, and that the best exercise is to get links from other sites. This will expose your content to the engines naturally.

Myth #3: Mata Keywords Improve Ranking

I’m so sick and tired of hearing about meta data. Optimizing your meta keywords is a complete pointless. Meta tag keywords help provide data to search engines about a webpage, and back in the day, were actually used by some search engines as ranking factors. But are they still used today? The answer is NO. In fact, Google’s Matt Cutts has made it publicly known that “Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking.

Myth #4: More Links is Better than More Content

This myth can be especially risky if the focus of the link-building techniques is quantity, not quality. Focus on having appropriate and diverse sources that links to relevant pages. When you focus on content, it can be used as website pages, blog posts, lead generation offers and guest posts on other sites -- all things that will bring more links with it over time.

Myth #5: Being a Google Adwords Advertiser Helps Your Organic Rankings

This is one of the oldest misconceptions. Google search and Google AdWords, are completely separated from each other. It is essential for all of them to remain completely independent. Changing your Google AdWords budget will not have any impact on getting your site out of a penalty or change the algorithmic evaluation of your website.

Myth #6: Exact Match Domains Rank Higher

Buying exact match domains for your top keyword and key phrase (i.e. rank higher. “seonews.com”) actually used to work for a little while – until spammers started buying them up for the only objective of providing ads. Now, you can no longer get strong rankings solely based on your domain name.

Myth #7: Anchor Text is Dead

While anchor text may not be as important as it was in the past due to link spam, it is certainly not dead and is still an essential aspect for position.

Myth #8: Google PageRank is Everything

Also incorrect. Google has not updated their PageRank, a public measure of a website’s authority, yet this year. There is actually remours that the search giant is about to totally stop working this evaluate.

Myth #9: H1 Tags are an Important On-Page Element

The H1 is part of your CSS that a designer puts together to reference what font styling and size will be applied to a particular piece of content. This used to be something that was more essential, but search engines are smarter these days, and unfortunately people spammed this to death. So really, it does not matter what header tag you use as long as you present your most important concepts up front and closer to the top of the page. Don’t forget, you are optimizing your page for users first.

Myth #10: Links in Press Releases are Bad

In July 2013, Google has declared that links from press releases were considered “PAID” links and therefore, part of a “LINK SCHEME”. This creates waves of panic through the industry, as many believed they now be punished by Google for placing links in their press release.

However, this turned out to be wrong, while Google says that links in press releases should be “rel=nofollow”, they have also gone on record saying they have “identified a lot of the top Press release sites and ignores the links but does not punish those who are using them.”

Myth #11: XML Sitemaps Help in Rankings

XML sitemaps help search engines to find and index your content faster and more efficiently. But, while they are a best practice, they will not help you get higher positions.

Myth #12: Schema is a Ranking Factor

Schema markup helps search engines to better comprehend your content, whether it is video clip, or a recipe, or other type of content. However, according to Google, it will not improve your SERPs positions.

Myth #13: Hummingbird is a Game Changer

Hummingbird is a Google’s new search engine algorithm that is based on semantic searches – for example, mobile queries that as questions; “Where is the best place to get burger?” When it was rolled out, the SEO community waited with bated breathing for the expected impact on search results – but that impact never occurred. In fact, the change was hardly recognizable.

Myth #14: Update your Home Page Every Time

This is not something that should be done compulsorily. You will not rank a higher position basically by doing this at all periods.

Myth #15: SEO and Social Media Have Nothing In Common

This is never true. SEO and social media platforms work completely well together and with the best social media platform following your website can be ranked higher.

Myth #16: AuthorRank

AuthorRank is a way that Google will rank authored content by an author in search results based on their authority on a particular topic. However, the Authorship rich snippet does not currently have a very wide adoption (only 3.5% of Fortune 100 companies have adopted it) – which is required before AuthorRank can even be rolled out.

Conclusion:

So -- now that you know what the common SEO myths are. Debunking these SEO myths will make you both more effective, and more efficient with your organic search strategy.

November 29, 2013

OK Google: The New Hotword Voice Search Extension to The Desktop

Google launched the Google Voice Search “OK Google” a hotword extension for chrome. It is available in now beta that you can download directly from the Chrome web store.

It is absolutely hands-free, provided you are already on Google.Com: Just say “OK Google” and then ask your query. This extension sends your question to Google only when it hears the phrase ‘Ok Google.’” If you’re still not comfortable with that, just don’t install the extension.

Here is The Video:

November 28, 2013

Important SEO Task Must Have to Be Completed for Newly Website

seo for new website
There is a number of tasks should be performed to optimize website; here I have covered 7 most important tasks that must be completed for newly website.

1. Register into Webmaster Tools

Verify your website with webmaster tools of popular search engines like Google, Bing etc. The Webmaster tools provides you with detailed reports about your web pages' visibility on search engine. It shows how your website performs in search engine on targeted keywords and also gives information of your website’s search appearance, traffic, index information and Labs etc.
Useful Links:
Google Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools
google webmaster

2. Track, Setup Goals

There are many tools available to track websites – Google analytics is free, easy to set up and a powerful tool that provides very important statistical information about websites and visitors. With Google Analytics, user can track landing page quality and conversions (Goals) which include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page or downloading a particular file.
google analytics

3. Fix Canonical URL Issues

Approx 90% of all websites never do, it fix the www v/s non-www duplicate content issue. Going with either the www or the non-www, will solve the issue of having multiple URLs for the same web page. And also make sure your inner links are going to the “/” and on “index.html” or similar.
How to Fix It:
If the website is built on PHP Add follow code to .htaccess file
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^index.html$ / [R=301,L]
For ASP Sites: Fix through IIS

4. Robots.txt File

It is a simple text file tells search engines what to index. Files like administration files or miscellaneous files that you found on your server, block them from being indexed with robots.txt. It is uploaded in the root of the web site hierarchy with below text.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /folder name/

5. Submit XML Sitemap:

Once your website is completed, create XML sitemap using xml sitemap generation tool and submit directly to the search engines. Each search engine allows you to submit your sitemap from within Webmaster Tools. This will help get your new site crawled faster and make the search engines better able to find ALL of the pages on your website.
google spider with XML sitemaps

6. List your Business in Popular Business Directories

List your website in popular business directories, which benefited by showing up your website in the local results when a user performs a local query. Google, Yahoo and Bing have their own local business centers that allow you to add your business. CitySearch, Hotfrog, Superpages, YelloPages, Yelp are also good options to submit website.

7. Create Social Media Accounts

Social media has been a major player in the digital marketing. Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest are top social media channels generate social signals for your website. Social signals are votes and recommendations generated on the social sites in the form of +1, shares, likes, retweets, pins, etc.

November 26, 2013

The 100 Links Per Page Webmaster Guideline Dropped by Google: Matt Cutts

google links

In a recently released webmaster video, Google’s Matt Cutts talks about the number of links on a page. Google has dropped that that 100-links-per-page webmaster guideline.

The question was asked:

How many links should we have on a page? Is there a limit?

The simple answer is:

There is not a hard rule. Keep it to a reasonable number. No longer a limit of 100.

Matt also said if a site looks to be spammy and has way too many links on a single page - Google reserves the right to take action on the site.

He is cautioning that page rank would be split up amongst the outgoing links. For example, if your site containing the links has a PageRank of 4, and it links out to 100 different pages, they will each get passed a page rank of 4/100 or 0.04. It must be their way of stopping blantant efforts to pass full page rank one site to many.

Here is the Video:

November 22, 2013

When to Use Google Disavow Tool?

disavow tools

In a recently published webmaster video, Matt Cutts Google’s head of search spam team indicate few points of when to use disavow tool. Here the points are mentioned below:

1.  When you get a manual action.
2.  Webmasters won't remove the bad links to your site or want to charge you to remove them.
3.  When you are worried about negative SEO.
4.  When you see links pointing to your site and you do not want to be associated with.
5.  When you saw a bulk link attack and are afraid it might hurt your site.
6.  When you are afraid someone will submit a spam report about you.
7.  When you see your rankings dropped and you think it has to do with an algorithm Google ran, i.e. Penguin algorithm.
8.  Links that cannot remove.

The Question was Asked:

"Should webmasters use the disavow tool, even if it is believed that no penalty has been applied? For example, if we believe 'Negative SEO' has been attempted, or spammy sites we have contacted have not removed links."

Here is the Video:

Changes that People Want to See in Google Webmaster Tools in Future?

Google webmaster tools

Recently Google has rolled out better visibility on website security issues in webmaster tools, including drastically enhanced resources for hacked site help and also looking to up to date with more features.

Here Some Imaginations that What Would People Want To See From Webmaster Tools In Future?

  • Make it easier to claim authorship or do authorship markup.
  • Improved reporting of bugs, errors, spam or problems, so the spam reports would be create faster.
  • Fresher, deeper and more accurate keyword data
  • Alerts when links on site point to an external page and the content of that page changes significantly
  • Tell every page blocked by robots.txt , or at least an extract, with an API for downloading this list
  • Need an option to download the webpages that Google has seen from your site, in situation a tragedy like a hard disk failing or a malware takes down your entire website.
  • Periodic reports with guidance on enhancing places like mobile or page-speed.
  • Help for beginners that are just starting out.
  • To make effectively for Google to tell where content showed up first on the web, send Google “fat Pings” of content before publishing it on the web.
  • Show pages that do not validate.
  • Need to highlight duplicate contents.
  • Display the source pages that link to 404 pages, so you can contact other sites and asked to fix their broken links.
  • Better or faster bulk URL removal
  • Faster refreshing of existing data in GWT
  • Improve robots.txt checker to handle even longer files.
All above are the comments of people that they would like to see in Google Webmaster Tools in next.

November 20, 2013

Commercial Ad of Google Nexus 5: I Do

The Nexus 5 has just become available for purchase, KitKat is out of the bag and we can’t wait to have our hands all over Google’s new phone! We have to stop for a bit and take a breath after all this excitement, and what better way to do it than watching Google’s first commercial for the Nexus 5?

The commercial is simple, It begins with a woman asking Google Now to show her her wedding photos. Does this mean that Google now will work with Google+’s new features? Google Now will probably take the photos automatically categorized by Google+, and through all the happy memories at you.

SEO is Still Alive, Long Live SEO

SEO still alive

Few days ago, one of the Forbes contributor Jayson DeMers published that SEO is dead, by saying that Google could not be manipulated longer.

Yesterday, another Forbes contributor Kelly Clay released an article post titled SEO is not Dead, Long Live SEO. She says that the world of SEO is even simpler and more lucrative that it has ever been. She highlights many important points in her articles.

Even a year ago so much of where you were in search results was a function of your inbound links, but Google has become more sensible to judge link authority, so that part of the equation is not less important. Instead, Google is focusing on nearly 200 page signals. These signals are much more difficult to detect, and therefore, not as obvious to most SEOs.

Black haters are finding new ways to manipulate these signals and arrange the system even more than they used to. These techniques work better than the old techniques of buying of links, or link farming, because there are fewer players.

Kelly says SEO is not dead by saying that there are still lots of people doing SEO and changing results. It may be harder to put up a total “splog” and rank, but the need to affect results between even local competitors means there is still a huge market for SEOs and it will be a long time before SEO dies, if ever.

November 19, 2013

SEO Tips: Better No Meta Description than a Duplicate Meta Description said Matt Cutts

meta description

In a recently published webmaster video, Google's Matt Cutts emphasizes the importance of a well written Meta Description.

Matt Said it is better to NOT have a Meta Description on a page than to give it a duplicate description shared by another page(s) on your site. Matt also suggested Google Webmaster tools to check out any potential issues with content on your pages, including duplication of Meta descriptions.

November 18, 2013

Link Building: Is Blog Commenting Bad for SEO?

Blog Comment

Any link building technique that designed to manipulate website ranking comes with a threat that they will consider as a part of link scheme and a violation of Google’s webmaster Guidelines. If you are an SEO that you know that violating the guidelines can cause very bad issues.

Here the question comes for SEO professionals, what to do. The logical answer is to play safe and avoid any link building that may come with a penalty.

Matt Cutts: Blog Commenting is Fine for Link Building, But Use Your Real Name...

In the recent video of Google's Matt Cutts, he says while leaving blog comments and links to a site is not directly spam, it is something that can be abused. Matt also advices to use real name while commenting. Don’t use comment completely for commercial marketing objective, it can make leaving comments look spam and senseless and Google can consider it a link scheme.

For example, imaging about your own blog, where "Pritesh Chauhan" comments something informative. That will make it through all of the checks. What about if I modified my name to "SEO Professional In India" or "Pritesh SEO"? It makes no sense.

Comment On The Blogs Naturally...

Matt Cutts also covers the idea of what is and is not the manipulation with leaving comments on blogs. Basically, you can comment as often as you like, but do it naturally, means without using any kind of automated tools, as those violate the link scheme rules.

Blog Comment is a great way for link building, drives more visitors on a site you like, and enhance your own visibility, Just do it the right way, and you should have no issue of a penalty.

Original Video of Matt Cutts...


November 13, 2013

SEO Guide: How to Stay on the Right Side of Google's Hummingbird

Google Hummingbird

Hummingbird was formed to cater for ‘long tail’ search queries; the existence of which is set to escalate over the coming years. The changes to the way that Google is used has come about as a direct result of users becoming more and more comfortable using search engines, alongside the emergence of voice activated technology – particularly the imminent release of Google Glass. Users now use search terms which are longer, and more conversational, than before. Queries tend to be more question-like, rather than solely keyword focused. Google Hummingbird seeks to understand the intent of their search engine users, which will result in more precise results being returned. By grasping the objective of searches which contain words such as, ‘who, what, where, how, why, when’ Google aims to answer the questions posed by their users more efficiently.

Hummingbird also aims to return search results which have a geographical context to the user’s location, particularly queries done via a mobile device. Searching for terms such as ‘five star hotel’ will now return results which are based on their relevance to your location, whereas before these results would have been returned based on their dominance towards keywords. By having a greater understanding on who its users are and the variety of ways that Google is used on different devices, Google aims to provide a more effective ‘answer engine’ for its users. This falls in line with Google’s continual endeavor to return search results which are right for each user, first time around.

How to Stay on the Right Side:

It’s certain that this latest update offers big benefits for local businesses in particular. Yet, each time an algorithm is tweaked, changed or updated, businesses everywhere worry that this will mean an automatic drop in site visitors. To stay on Hummingbird’s good side, businesses should be mindful of Google’s longstanding advice: “we encourage original, high-quality content, since that’s what’s best for web users.”

Taking Google’s advice on board and putting these guidelines into action within your site will ensure that your SERP (search engine results page) rank remains staunch. A technically reliable, well optimised site has always resulted in SEO/SERP success.

Here are Some Key Points To Remember When Considering How ‘SEO Friendly’ Your Site Is: 

1) Content

The case for on-site, quality content has never been more important. Fresh, regularly updated content always does well with Google. Plus, adding content provides you with the best opportunity to answer the questions posed by search engine users that may relate to your products of services.

2) Technology

To push your search engine ranking higher, a technically robust site is a necessity. A number of technical factors are taken into consideration – including site speed – which any expert developer will be well aware of.

3) Social signals

A strong social media presence is synonymous with a strong search engine ranking position – including likes, followers, shares and retweets with content that is shared on Google+ having the most positive impact. Don’t forget, social media activity is important, but content that is shared by other social media users will offer the most SEO benefit.

4) Backlinks 

Backlinks to your site from other appropriate, credible websites are vital for high ranking positions within Google. It’s also equally important that the words used to link to your site are relevant. Emphasis should be placed on linking deeper into your site – rather than always to your hompage.

By focusing on improving these factors, businesses will enjoy an improved SERP within Google.

Expelling the myths of SEO

The most important part of grasping SEO is to understand that SEO is not a skill that can only be mastered by a chosen few experts. An algorithm is a programme, defunct of any opinion, bias or partiality. For real SEO success, site optimization should be done in a considered and structured manner to have the greatest effect, while taking into consideration any advice offered by Google.

New updates auctioned by Google are nothing to fear, if anything, by keeping up to speed with the latest advancements you have the benefit of outsmarting competition and increasing your search engine position.

By Mercurytide

November 12, 2013

Simple SEO Tip For Small Businesses: Local Citations

SEO Local Citations

If you’re running a small business, especially a small business with a local focus like dentistry, self storage, legal, or accounting services, and have looked into running a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, chances are you’ve run into the term “citations” or “web citations.” Nobody wants to look like a fool, and upon hearing the term you may have thought, “Citations? What the heck are those? Well, better just nod my head and act like I know what this web geek guy is talking about.” To make you feel better, allow me to confess that I run an online marketing firm, and I thought the same thing the first time I heard about citations from one of my employees.

What Is A Citation?

It’s not Google’s version of a speeding ticket. The kind of citation I’m talking about is a good thing. Loosely defined, any time someone mentions your company on their website, that’s a citation. You might also call it a reference, shout out, or mention, but in SEO-speak it’s a citation. Is it a citation even if there isn’t a link to your business? Yes. What if it’s just the name and nothing else? Well, yes, you could still call it a citation, although a citation is more effective if it’s not just the name of your company with a logo link, but the company name accompanied by a phone number, address, or other identifying information that tells search engines exactly who you are. For example, my firm is named “MWI,” which is a rather generic name that is shared by perhaps hundreds of other companies around the world (we even ran into a few in Asia when we decided to open a branch office in Hong Kong). Unless the name of my firm is accompanied by a link, phone number, address, or other identifying information it’s difficult for Google or any other search engines to know if that citation belongs to my firm or one of the other MWIs in the world.

Some examples of citations might include a listing on an online phone directory or the member page of a chamber of commerce or other industry association. If your business sponsors a charity and they list you as a sponsor on their website, or you make a presentation at a local college and they list you and your company to promote the event, those are also citations.

As Nyagoslav Zhekov says on a Whitespark blog post, even a phone number by itself could potentially be a citation that search engines would pick up on, inasmuch as it can be matched to a particular company.

Why Are Citations Good?

Citations are good for business regardless of any effect they have on your online marketing. Anytime someone mentions your business on their website they’re bringing attention to you and providing you with exposure to potential customer or clients. But when it comes to SEO there is an added dimension in that Google and other search engines pay attention to citations, and the more citations you have, all other things being equal, the better your website will rank on those search engines for searches related to what you do and where you are geographically located, which will bring you more web traffic, and more web traffic means more customers.

Citations are especially important for businesses that operate within a limited geographic range, like a certain city, because it is in part by citations that Google can determine that a certain business is active within a certain city and not the one next door. Through the effective use of citations and other SEO tactics a small company can outflank a large company on the search engines because it can prove itself to be more relevant to local search results than a national firm that must focus on a very broad market.

In fact, some small businesses that don’t even have websites can benefit from a little SEO know-how when it comes to citations. As pointed out at getlisted.org, “Citations are particularly important in less-competitive niches (like plumbing or electrical) where many service providers don’t have websites themselves. Without much other information, the search engines rely heavily on whatever information they can find!”

How Do I Get Citations?

Benjamin Beck of LocalStampede, a Utah-based online marketing firm, has created the best resource I have yet to see on how to get citations for local businesses. Much of it will seem like common sense, but most of your competitors are not doing these things, or if they are, they’re doing 2 or 3 of them, rather than 20 or 30. All of Beck’s suggestions are great, but one of my favorites is sponsoring charities that list sponsors on their websites. Beck says, “There are a lot of great charities out there that could use business support. To find the right charity for your business check out Charity Navigator. You can use the advanced search to find specific type of charities within your zip code. Be sure to check out the charities websites to see if they cite their business sponsors, some of them do not.”

Let this also be a hint to charities that they might gather more SEO-savvy sponsors if they provide those sponsors with citations. It costs the charity nothing and benefits sponsors by giving them exposure and SEO benefits. What’s not to love? To see how simple this is, check out the website for Arizona Brainfood, a charity that provides needy schoolchildren with proper food and nutrition. Notice that they prominently placed a “Sponsors” link in the main navigation at the top of the site, as well as creating a box for sponsors under the right-hand side of the main image. Their sponsors page shows logos of all their sponsors, and these logos link to the respective sponsor websites. Is this the best form of citation? Perhaps not, they might be more effective for the sponsors were they accompanied by some identifying text for each company, or if Arizona Brainfood even provided an entire page for each sponsor, but my gut tells me that having a mix of citations is healthy, and a linked logo here and there is just fine.

One citation-gathering suggestion I would add to Beck’s list is business partnerships. For example, my firm has a subsidiary that provides websites for small self storage companies. We are currently integrating the websites we provide with a major software vendor in the self storage industry. When the time is right, we’ll approach that vendor to try and become an official partner and get a citation on their website. Not only do we hope this will drive traffic to our website, but we’ll get the SEO benefit as well. And we, of course, will also list that vendor on our website as a partner, since it adds to our product’s credibility and usefulness. Thus our vendor also benefits. Note: To anyone who might cry “That’s a reciprocal link! You can’t do that! Bad!” I’d point them to Tom Roberts’ comments in a discussion on legitimate reciprocal links over at Moz.

Getting citations is not difficult, but may take some time. It will require that you send emails, make phone calls, and in many cases invest significant time developing relationships. But like any business strategy, if it were easy everyone would do it, and it wouldn’t be a strategy at all. If you invest the time, you’ll see the payoff, definitely in terms of your SEO results, but in many offline ways as well.

What citations have worked best for your small business? What creative means have you found to get more citations? Let us know in the comments.

Author Joshua Steimle from Forbes

Revelation about Social Signals & Google’s Hummingbird

Google previously had major technical limitations with regard to the use of social signals as a ranking factor. With Hummingbird, Google now has the infrastructure to better process social signals (among other things).

This might explain why the study I recently shared showed that Google+ share links did not impact ranking – but it may also hint that the day when Google Plus does impact rankings is just around the corner.

One of the great analogies that Danny drew during the HOA was the way voting worked in the early days of the United States. In order to vote, you had to be a white male that owned a substantial amount of property. Not really a democracy at all.

Over time, people of other races, those with less wealth, and women all obtained the right to vote. The country progressed over time to become one where, in principle, every citizen 18 or older has the right to vote.

Will This Democracy Happen With Search?

Simple answer: Yes and No. (Okay, I guess that was not a simple answer.) Let’s look at the landscape in a bit more detail.

Historically, SEO Has Been Driven By Links

This is the equivalent of the rich, white male landowners having the ability to vote and no one else. On the Web, to implement a link, you need to own a website. Even though that is not necessarily a huge investment compared to owning land, it is still some level of investment, and much more so than opening a social media account.

Google Will Use Social Signals As A Ranking Factor In The Future

To re-summarize my opening paragraphs, this suggests two things:

  1. Google is not using social signals now (or not using them extensively)
  2. They certainly intend to use them in the future

We Live In A World Of Spam:

That’s just a reality. Some types of votes simply need to be discounted altogether. Related to this is the notion that you can’t vote for yourself. Anything you do that is voting for yourself should simply not count. You don’t get to do that.

The Vote Of A Subject-Matter Expert Should Count For More:

If you have someone who is a widely recognized expert on a given topic, and they think someone has created great content for that topic, their opinion should count for more than someone who hasn’t got a clue. The link-based algo has always operated this way. It will also be this way with social signals.

Remember that links were the first form of social proof. It was just a way for people (in this metaphor, the rich, white male landowners) to vote for the best content. In the original Google algorithm, PageRank was an indicator of who the Subject-Matter Experts were, and higher PageRank links counted more than lower PageRank ones did. This also evolved over time, and relevancy became a big factor.

In the world of social media, Subject-Matter Experts can be recognized by the way their relevant content is cited, shared, +1′ed, etc.

Social Votes Require Less Effort & Commitment

While you can view the world in which only website owners get to vote (because only they can implement links) as not being truly democratic, the reality is that “voting” for content using links requires more effort and more commitment than sharing content socially does.


social signal and commitments

Putting aside crappy sites that have no authority, website publishers have a brand reputation to protect. If they link to a spammy affiliate site, their reputation with their own target audience will suffer. The same is true of a social media presence, but the difference is that a share on a social media site is often gone in minutes, whereas the link on a website is a static object (until removed).

In either scenario, there is a pretty good incentive to not link to really bad crap, but the real issue is the gray area. How much review will you put into qualifying a piece of content before sharing it via social media? If it looks pretty good, but you are running out of time and want to shove it out there, do you ever not spend that extra few minutes checking it out? Does the desire to be one of the first to share it override that last bit of caution? There are many scenarios that can influence caution and diligence.

The point is that there are gray areas, and the lower risk associated with a less-than-stellar share is low. On a website, the brand and reputation risk with a marginal linking decision is higher.

How Will This Shake Out?

I have only my speculation to offer you, but I’ve never been shy about that! I don’t believe it will look like this:

As I noted above, the investment people have in voting (sharing, +1s, comments) via social media is simply different than it is when you implement a link on a website. For that reason, they will be used in a somewhat different way. I think a better view of the way it will work is like this:

The point of the two diagrams is that I believe the method of filtering of social signals will be entirely different. I don’t think you will simply add social votes to link votes and be done with it. In all cases, there will be weighting based on the authority of the person/brand/publisher “voting” for content.

One part that is missing from the charts, though, is that the different signals could possibly impact rankings in quite different ways. You could even imagine links affecting ranking in certain types of scenarios, and social signals having no impact in those scenarios, and vice versa.




Summary

Both links and social signals are forms of social proof, but they have different aspects to how they work and what is involved. For that reason, I expect there will be differences in how they are applied by Google. Regardless, building your reputation across many platforms and getting lots of different types of social proof signals is the heart of online marketing these days.

For larger businesses, this operates at a large scale. For smaller businesses, this may focus on a niche market or a local market. Either way, the game is the same. Establish your reputation as a leader within the market space in which you reside. That is ultimately the goal. And, it appears that at long last Google is about to start counting those Google+ signals for something.


Author: Eric Enge from SearchEngineLand.Com

November 8, 2013

How the Google Zoo Has Forever Changed SEO Copywriting

google panda, penguine, hummingbird
Google's Zoo: Hummingbird, Panda & Penguine
As far back as I can remember (circa 1999), search engine copywriters have been told to use keywords as often as possible.  According to most, proper optimization of a page involved things like writing for keyword density ratios, including keyphrases in every file name, every page name and every tag… at least once.

The common way of thinking for a decade or longer was the more keywords you could work into a page, the better your rankings would be.  Early on in the life of Google, that was pretty much true.  But, since the release of all the animals in the Google zoo (Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird), SEO copywriting has made a 180-degree shift.

How Did We Get Here?

It’s no accident that website owners and copywriters were taught to incorporate keyphrases into their text frequently.  Search engines are text machines. They can’t see pictures or listen to podcasts.  In effect, search engines are deaf and blind.  The only thing that guides them is text, and that includes the words in file names, page names, image tags, meta tags and page copy.

Because of the level of technology Google had in the early days, it depended on exact-matching of the words in a search query to the words on and behind the page (in the HTML code, for example).

A Panda on the Loose:

Several years ago, however, Google began to make significant changes with the Panda update.  In the name of quality, the Big G began to police things like trust elements, duplicate content, originality and value. Article directories and ecommerce sites that used manufacturer-provided content took huge hits, while others scrambled to make sure their content met Google’s new standards.

Penguin Freezes Out Over-Optimization:

Around a year later, Google unleashed the Penguin update. Unnatural linking practices and the over-optimization of web pages were added to the list of things which website owners needed to be wary.  That frequently meant reducing the number of times a keyphrase was used and increasing the use of synonyms.

The Hummingbird Algorithm Takes Flight:

Most recently, Google announced their entirely new ranking algorithm called Hummingbird, which had actually been running for approximately one month without the general population knowing it.  One of the major highlights of Hummingbird revolves around spoken searches and conversational searches.

Essentially, Hummingbird is better at recognizing and understanding how spoken search queries and typed search queries could mean the same things.  (Again… synonyms.)

When you combine the impact of all three updates, you begin to see that Google is no longer interested in blindly matching keyword for keyword.  Rather, they want to understand better what the searcher is trying to achieve, so they can deliver the most accurate results.

What You Should Do Now

Whether you’re just starting to write copy for your website, or your existing text is several years old, here are my suggestions:

Need to STOP...

-  Shoving keywords into every place possible.
-  Trying so hard to optimize the page. (Google doesn’t need that much help anymore.)
-  Focusing on formulas and densities.
-  Optimizing for one or two keyphrases.

Need to START...

-  Using exact-match keyphrases sparingly.
-  Using individual keywords.
-  Writing naturally with a sprinkling of keywords.
-  Placing keyphrases and keywords where they make sense, not where you think the search engine wants them to go.
-  Incorporating synonyms in addition to your chosen keyphrases.

By making some simple adjustments to your copy, you could quickly get up to date with Google’s three-year campaign to improve search quality. Providing better copy and content for your visitors will give you a win-win with search rankings, too.

Author: Karon Thackston from sitepronews

November 1, 2013

How to Create Your Brand's Online Presence?

Brand
Image Credit: michaelhartzell.com
Once you decide you want to work for yourself, you will need to determine your both your brand, and how you will market your brand online. Below you will find steps to get you started.

Determine Your Strengths

Create a diagram of skills you possess. Use a diagramming web tool to help generate a chart.

  1.     Determine the general topic of your best skills. This will be the main topic of your diagram.
  2.     Narrow the general topic down to specific skills. Draw lines from the main topic to these topics.
  3.     Break down these skill sets into personal rankings. Draw lines from the specific topics to these rankings. List ranking keywords like: expert, strong, good, fair, and poor.

Review your diagram to determine which skills you marked as “strong” or “expert.” These will be the skills you want to use for your professional offerings. Before you settle on these areas it is good to further your research. Start your research by asking yourself questions like:

  1.     What strengths do I have that not many others have? (These are the skills you want to bank on.)
  2.     What strengths do I have that stand out compared to others in the field?
  3.     What is the market need for my skills?
  4.     Are these skills I can do online?

To find the answer to these questions you need to do online research through search engines, websites, and social networking tools. If you are not sure of how your skills compare in the market, do search queries and keyword analysis. Use words that maximize your search query. Determine keywords that help break down the topic search further.

Do search queries for people who have:

  •     written articles on the topic
  •     developed well-established websites (study the features, fonts, images, content, colors, social interactions, business models, missions, services, etc.)
  •     a strong social networking business model and voice

Read message boards and articles, and ask peers on social media. Use tools like the following to help with your social search.

  •     Quora
  •     LinkedIn Groups
  •     Google+ Handouts

Make an ordered list of your findings and break your key areas down into sections of importance. Study your findings and determine your market and brand.

After you have determined the skills that you want to turn into your professional offerings, there are few more vital steps you should take to find your brand online.

Decide Your Voice and Style:

Ask yourself questions like:

  1.     Am I informative?
  2.     Am I creative?
  3.     Do I have a sense of humor?
  4.     Am I analytical?
  5.     What is my tone (Conversational, academic, etc.?)
  6.     Who will my audience or clients be?

Your voice sets your tone. Your tone effects how your online branding is perceived: your writing, your client interactions, your social networking, and your overall brand marketing.

Decide Your Visual Style

Ask yourself questions like:

  •     Do I like clean white spaces?
  •     Do I like color? If so, which colors?
  •     What images do I like?
  •     What fonts do I like?
  •     What type of web pages do I like?
  •     How can I apply my skills to visually market my brand?
  •     Is my visual style compatible with online digital displays?

Use the answers from your online branding research to create your brand. Once you do this, use tools to measure your brand’s effectiveness. As you move forward with your online brand development, these tools will help you analyze your brand so you can tweak it as needed.

By: Beth Crumpler from wahm.com

How to Track the Success and Failure of Your SEO Campaign?

Track SEO Campaign
Image Credit: startrankingnow.com
As you make changes to your organic SEO strategy via keywords or on-site updates, it can be challenging to know whether you efforts are actually generating positive results. Because organic SEO can take weeks and months to show tangible movement in your search engine rankings, it is essential to know how to accurately track successes and failures as early as possible. Educating yourself about the key metrics that point to the overall health of your SEO efforts can save tremendous time, money, and headaches.

Accurate measurement of any SEO campaign varies significantly based on the actual business focus and its key objectives. There are, however, a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that quickly reveal the effectiveness of any SEO strategy. Read on for detailed tips on how to become an expert at reading your SEO analytics.

The KPI Trifecta:

Within hours or days of an SEO campaign launch, start paying attention to the following KPI’s:

-  Rankings
-  Traffic
-  Conversions

These metrics point to the overall success of your campaign, and any movement within them after an SEO launch can start indicating long term expectations of success or failure.

Never Underestimate the Power of Keywords:

There’s no understating it; keywords are a critical KPI. Correct selection and utilization of keywords can help manifest a page one Google listing, which studies show can garner you up to 92 percent of the potential traffic. Your first step is to meticulously select your perfect keywords. Then, after integrating them into your site, social media profiles, and marketing materials, start measuring their impact. Here’s how to break it down:

Let’s pretend you’re tracking a total of 10 keywords. Two of your choices are landing you on Google’s first page. The other 8 need additional optimization. You’ll need to examine your on-site and off-site strategies to find ways to improve these results. Or you may determine that those particular keywords are too competitive, and/or not applicable enough to your website to bring you the results you’re after.

Tracking Traffic:

Understanding the power of your keywords involves far more than monitoring rankings. The impact of keywords on traffic is also essential. Always measure the quality of traffic you’re getting, and, of course, the volume. Remember that landing on the first page of Google for any search results is meaningless if the traffic you’re generating doesn’t convert.

To determine how your keywords are affecting your traffic, watch the metric that measures the amount of your traffic that is generated from organic search. Your individual business and SEO targets will help you determine how much volume can be expected. As an example, if you’ve launched a national campaign, you’ll obviously expect more volume than if you’ve targeted a smaller geographic region.

So how do you quantify the quality of your website traffic? Pay attention to key website metrics like bounce rates and pages per visit. Bounce rate is really the biggie – if you’re getting a double digit bounce percentage, or if you notice it increasing after a campaign launch, it’s a safe assumption that your traffic quality has diminished.

How Good is Your Website at Converting Visitors?

Cash is still king, and conversions are the easiest way to measure how successful your marketing and website efforts actually are. Don’t assume that conversions are black and white by definition, however, as this too can be a multifaceted metric.

Here’s an example: Many SEO campaigns have the goal to increase overall leads. Remember that conversions aren’t just tracked via the web, but also through any other communication channel, like phone calls, appointment or quote requests, and related correspondence. If all your business does is sell tangible goods, a conversion is a sale. Most sites, however, have diversification with conversions, so make sure you’re considering the big picture.

Additionally, as you know, marketing is not always a real-time action. Since not all of your traffic will be ready to commit after the first visit, measure conversions by other metrics like newsletter sign-ups, social media fandom, media downloads, and any other action that indicates engagement. All of these point to a sincerely interested visitor, and could certainly equate to revenues in the very near future.

How to Quantify Your ROI:

Because conversions can be abstract and, in essence, without revenue out of the gate, it’s a super smart strategy to map out the value of a conversion before you launch any related campaigns. This is obviously very unique to your business, and you may also have cost structure tiers to help determine actual ROI too.

Always factor in the customer’s lifetime value as you consider ROI. This equates to the expected profits you can receive per converted customer over their life long relationship with your business. Limiting your calculations to a single transaction conversion is a narrow focus and won’t reveal your actual ROI.

It’s obvious that tracking SEO campaign success is not necessarily a cut and dry process, but if you rely solely on something like search rankings, you’ll be missing a good portion of the story your metrics are telling you.

What other metrics do you use to accurate track the success of your SEO tactics? And how soon do you start watching your analytics after a new campaign is launched?

Source: www.sitepronews.com

October 25, 2013

Search and Social Will Not Be Separate Marketing Endeavors in 2014

Social Signals Significance in Search
Image Credit: techi.com
If you do a search on Google for “search marketing” and compare it to a search for “social marketing”, you’ll see that there are pretty much no similarities. The two disciplines have been separated for a long time and companies usually focus on one or the other (though it seems like everyone offers a little of both). As 2014 draws nearer, the need to keep these two disciplines separate is starting to fade.

In fact, talking about them separately is starting to become a huge mistake.

Search is getting more social. Anyone who is watching the way that Google and Bing present their results and determine rankings on keywords can see this. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (not to mention Google+, which is trying to seamlessly tie in search with social) are all becoming more prominent in search while continuing to improve their own internal search engines. These two facts are pushing us towards a collision course where search marketing and social marketing are becoming the same overall concept.

It is already a best practice to consolidate strategies around a singular overarching goal. That has been the case for years, even before the rise of social and the true harnessing of search. The change that is happening today and looking to intersect completely in 2014 is geared more around the activities that are required to make both sing properly for a business.

Search is Looking to Social:

All that one has to do to truly see the importance of social signals from a search engine optimization perspective is to look at the most recent Search Engine Ranking Factors analysis from Moz. As you can see in the image above, three of the top are social. One may think that it’s a small portion compared to the number of factors, but with the majority at the top of the list having to do with inbound linking, it’s clear that those are all individual portions of the same basic factor.

In other words, if you break it all down properly, you’ll understand that page authority is #1, Google +1s are #2, inbound links are #3, and Facebook sharing is #4. Page authority is an abstraction of the following three plus the domain authority itself, so the actual actions that are at the top of the list would look like this:

1. Get Google +1s
2. Get inbound links
3. Get Facebook shares

Two of the top three ranking factors that one can act upon to improve rankings in Google are social signals according to the survey that gets the opinions of the best of the best in search marketing. That’s significant.

Social is a Part of Search:

It’s hard to do a search on either Google or Bing that does not pop up something from a social perspective. Bing recently integrated Pinterest directly into their image listings. Google+ pages are instantly added to any search where a business is associated.

Searching for companies by name will yield the company website first followed by a flurry of social and review sites. If the Facebook and/or Twitter accounts are active, they’re almost certainly listed on the front page of search results.

Taking it a step further, most social sites are working their own variations of internal search engines to make content on the sites themselves easier to find. Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are constantly tweaking their search engines to show more, more, and more.

What it All Means:

There can no longer be two separate strategies for search and social. To try to separate them is like trying to serve portions of a meal at different times. Instead of giving them spaghetti and meatballs, you would be serving the spaghetti noodles first, then bringing out the sauce and meatballs on a separate plate when they were done with their noodles. It’s an odd analogy, but that’s really what many businesses and marketing agencies are doing with search and social.

The strategies must be unified. It has worked okay in 2012 and 2013 but as we draw near to 2014, the distances between the two disciplines must be removed. We cannot treat them as two different disciplines. They should be worked together with an overall strategy that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

Source: http://www.techi.com/2013/10/search-and-social-will-not-be-separate-marketing-endeavors-in-2014/