Posts Tagged ‘SEO’
Best Web Presence Optimization Guides and Tips of 2010
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011Web presence optimization (WPO)—using tactics like SEO, PPC, online PR, social media, content marketing and reputation management in a coordinated fashion to maximize your online visibility and business results—is the core theme of this blog. It’s also frequently written about in popular blogs and online publications, though strangely almost no one uses the term. It’s almost like a big game of Taboo, Catch Phrase, Password, or even Red Green’s Possum Lodge Word Game; all of these writers are describing the concept of WPO, but are apparently forbidden by some cosmic rule book from using the actual phrase.
Or maybe it just hasn’t caught on. Yet. Whatever.
But fundamentally, 1) there are now far more online venues than just your website or blog where you and/or your company be found (social media pages and profiles, articles, videos, etc.), and 2) there are more ways for people to search than just Google and Yah-Bing (YouTube is now the second-largest search engine and Facebook SEO is its own emerging discipline). WPO is about capitalizing on these trends, so learn how to integrate your social media, search, SEM, content marketing and other interactive marketing and PR efforts to optimize your web presence here in some of the best articles and blog posts on (shhh! Don’t say those words!) of the past year.
Web Presence Optimization Tips and Tactics (Though They Don’t Call Them That)
4 tips for higher rankings through better links by iMedia Connection
Great content naturally attracts links, but Matt Malden points out ways to go beyond that by blogging, sending a regular email newsletter, using Twitter, social networks, YouTube and other sites to expand your online presence.
Social Media Affecting BtoB Buying Behavior by The Proactive Report
Sally Falkow reports research on new influences in the B2B buying process (e.g., 59% of b2b buyers engage online with peers who have addressed similar challenges; 48% follow industry conversations on the topic; and 37% have posed questions on social networking sites), then emphasizes that your “content must be visible as your prospective customer moves through all the possible sources of content” including social bookmarking sites, forums, blogs, your website and in the industry press.
How to use search to shield your brand from negativity by iMedia Connection
Eric Papczun delves into three key components of online reputation management: SEO (long-term promotion of content in search), paid search (SEM—addresses immediate needs), and social media (message distribution and brand engagement).
Don’t let your social media presence crush your brand’s future by iMedia Connection
Eric Papczun follows up on his post above with more guidance to help “dominate search engine results pages” including leveraging alternate domains, creating a corporate presence on social networking and content-sharing sites, and search-optimizing your press releases. He also lists several tools to help track and monitor your brand reputation online.
Why B2B Marketers Should Leverage Flickr by Search Engine Land
Andy Komack explains why business marketers should use Flickr, the social photo-sharing platform, what types of images to upload (e.g., product photos, diagrams, infographics, trade show pics etc.), and how to leverage Flickr through blogs, articles, Facebook and other tools.
Tools to Include in Your Social Media Marketing Strategy by CompuKol Connection
Michael Cohn supplies an excellent list of “useful and effective tools that will help you create a buzz for your business,” from social networks and photo-sharing sites to wikis and review sites.
Social referrals: How to attract this vital currency by iMedia Connection
Noting that, for an increasing number of websites, “referral traffic is as significant from social networks as it is from search engines, making social the next search,” Liza Hausman details three components of what she terms “an effective on-site social optimization strategy:” social connectivity, the connected experience (e.g., making it as simply as possible for visitors to share your site content across multiple social networks), and social analytics.
The best 159 social websites by Populair
Social media profiles and content promotion are key elements of WPO, and here is an excellent list of social sites across various categories including social networks, answers and knowledge, social travel, local social, social phone apps, business social, events and more.
Social Media and Search
Social Media and Search Optimization Integration by SEO Wizardry
Frequent best-of contributor Pete Hollier details the social media optimization (SMO) process, explains how a corporate website and blog integrate with social bookmarking and social networking, and shows how SMO and SEO efforts support each other.
Titles, Tags & Tweets: the Role of Search in Social Media Marketing by PR-Squared
Todd Defren emphasizes quite properly that when it comes to titles, headings and tags for blog posts or other social media content, descriptive words (i.e., what your audience is likely to be searching for) are far better than “clever” titles. He also advises, “many brands will supplement their blogging with Blogger Relations, YouTube videos, Twitter, Facebook, etc…the content created for one outlet, e.g., a YouTube video, ought to be promoted across any other frequently-used channels. Tweet about the video. Post it to the Facebook Wall. When appropriate, let key bloggers know about it.” Hmm, sounds a lot like WPO.
How search can boost your social media campaigns by iMedia Connection
Vanessa Newkirk shows how insights gained about your prospective customers and the search keywords they use from social media, SEO and SEM efforts can be applied across all of these online marketing activities to make each one more effective.
B2Bs Tap Social to Boost Search by eMarketer
In a recent survey, 44% of B2B marketers said that their social media activities have had a positive effect on search performance for their websites (a figure that is likely much higher in reality, as another 27% respondents admitted they “don’t know” what effect social has on their search results). This makes sense, as SEO success is driven by links, and social media sites can be a rich source of relevant links. The top two goals B2B marketers identified for social media are building brand awareness and increasing website traffic.
How to adapt to the evolving search landscape by iMedia Connection
Jonathan Shapiro shares some thoughtful, strategic insights on how search is evolving, how social media impacts search, how social+SEO+PPC efforts can work in tandem, and how to utilize off-site content, (e.g., YouTube) to enhance your brand presence online.
Why Social Media Is Top Priority for Search Marketers by eMarketer
“Is 2011 set to be the ‘year of Facebook,’ even among search marketers?” That’s the opening question here, and recent research indicates the answer is a clear “yes.” SEO and social media program integration is the top organic search priority, while social media advertising is the paid search priority; at 46%, it’s ranked well ahead of tactics like local search advertising (18%) and mobile search ads (11%).
Online Reputation Management
20 Common LinkedIn Mistakes Online Job Seekers Make by New Grad Life
Though aimed at job seekers, this post provides an excellent checklist for anyone on LinkedIn to review. Among the common mistakes to avoid: not creating a personalized public profile URL, not making your headline (and profile summary, and specialties) searchable by including key search words, not proofreading your profile for typos and grammatical errors (ouch!), not personalizing your invitation-to-connect messages, and more.
5 Ways to Weave LinkedIn Into Your Marketing Mix by TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Noting that LinkedIn has more than 60 million members, including executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies, Michelle Bowles presents five excellent techniques for optimizing your personal marketing through LinkedIn, such as optimizing your profile, leveraging third-party apps such as Slideshare, and promoting your LinkedIn profile through other channels (your blog, email signature and business cards, for example).
Google on Manipulating Search for ORM by Outspoken Media
***** 5 Stars
It can happen—negative commentary about you or your company gets posted online. Maybe it’s valid (e.g. an instance of less-than-optimal product or service delivery; no organization or person is perfect) or maybe not (e.g. a disgruntled ex-employee seeks online revenge), but either way, it’s potentially damaging, particularly if it appears prominently in search results. Rhea Drysdale walks through several steps you can take to push the bad stuff off the front page of Google by creating and promoting positive content—profiles, blog posts, news, favorable reviews, and other items.
Three Overlooked Ways to Improve SEO Results
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010To keep up with changes on the SEO landscape and make sure I’m consistently utilizing the most effective techniques on behalf of clients, I read a lot of articles and blog posts about SEO. Most still focus on the same basic areas:
- • Keyword research
- • On-page optimization (content, headings, meta tags)
- • Links (external and internal)
And to be fair, even with all of the changes in search over the past year, those basics remain vitally important to search success. But here are three areas where many companies aren’t realizing the synergistic benefits of coordination with their SEO efforts:
Blogging: given that less than half of companies—both small businesses and the Fortune 500—actively maintain industry blogs, this is an underutilized area for SEO benefit. While there are several benefits of business blogging beyond SEO, the ability of a blog to enhance an organization’s presence in search is substantial. Blogs are a source of fresh content, which search engines love. It’s easier to incorporate new keyword groups, naturally, in a blog post or series of posts than it is to rewrite sections of a corporate website. And blog content is more likely to attract natural links from other sites than is standard marketing copy, as it’s inherently more interesting.
Public Relations (PR): trying to manually build links from high-quality sites is difficult, tedious and time-consuming. But a well-written and optimized press release can generate dozens or even hundreds of links from quality news sites and blogs overnight. First, make sure the press release itself it well-optimized (e.g. keywords used in the title and early in the body copy). Then include text links back to specific pages on your website, e.g. linking a term like records management software back to an informational page devoted to that topic. Finally, use online press release distribution sites to spread your news far and wide.
Social Media: while social media adoption is rapidly increasing, these efforts aren’t always coordinated with SEO or appreciated in terms of search benefits. If a company has a quality Twitter following, its Twitter account is likely to appear in the top five results in branded searches. Links from social bookmarking sites can improve the rank of content-rich pages buried in your site’s navigational structure. The major search engines are increasing incorporating social signals into their search results. And it’s important to recognize that not all search happens on search engines any more; it’s also important to optimize for search within social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.
By getting different teams working together and integrating these efforts with SEO, enterprises can maximize both the direct effects of strong PR and social media activities as well as increasing their visibility to buyers through search.
Is Social Media BS?
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010That was the provocative question raised, and answered, by HubSpot VP of Marketing Mike Volpe in a webinar last Friday. Per Mike’s usual style, the webinar was packed with helpful information but too much for one sitting, and to get through it all Mike talks at about twice the speed of those disclaimers at the end of radio ads. HubSpot has apparently found a way to pump oxygen directly into Mike’s lungs, as he didn’t audibly pause to take a breath for the first 40 minutes of this presentation.
Traditionally, big brands used TV and print advertising, while their smaller counterparts employed direct mail and telemarketing, to reach consumers directly through interruption marketing. When marketing moved online, advertisers shifted efforts to banner ads, pop-ups and email marketing. But caller ID, DVRs and ad blocking software have put consumers in control of the marketing messages they see; traditional interruption marketing is becoming progressively less effective. Mike’s answer is to shift to inbound marketing: think like a publisher, produce valuable and interesting content, share it where people are talking about your industry or the types of problems you solve, and let buyers come to you.
Key point #1: Social media is a critical component of inbound marketing. But it’s only one part. Successful marketers can’t rely solely on social media or treat it as a silo, separate from other marketing activities. It has to be part of the fabric of marketing efforts.
Key point #2: To be successful with social media, you need to change the way you do business. Some—in fact, many—types of marketing activities lend themselves to testing. You can run a small AdWords campaign focused on a single asset to determine whether a bigger campaign is justified. You can test banner advertising on an industry publication site for a month or two before deciding to commit to a longer run. You can send a small delegation to a trade show to evaluate the potential for a big booth next year.
Social media is different, however. It isn’t another channel, it’s a new way of engaging your audience. Trial efforts are doomed to failure because it takes time to attract a following and build trust. You can’t dip your toe in the water, and don’t put an intern in charge of your social media efforts! You have to jump in all the way, and involve your best people: the ones who know your products and services inside and out, and understand the issues your customers face.
Success at inbound marketing requires that social media be integrated with other marketing objectives: branding, content, SEO, research, and lead generation. This diagram from HubSpot illustrates the relationship visually.
Key point #3: A blog should be at the center of social media efforts. Blogging makes you and/or you company more interesting online. Content powers social media success. It adds substance to your Facebook status updates and tweets.
Key point #4: In today’s world, a brand is what consumers say it is. In the old days (pre-2003 or so), brands were carefully crafted by agencies, creatively packaged, and presented to the public via one-way broadcast communications (TV, magazines, direct mail). With the rise of social networks, blogs, forums and review sites, markets now define brands. Companies can enhance (or damage) their brand image based on how they respond. For example, poor customer service? Fix it. Then humbly tell the world what you’ve done. Argument, advertising, or avoidance are all losing strategies.
Key point #5: Marketers should spend 100% of their time on social media. This was actually addressed as an answer to a question about the appropriate amount of time to allocate to social media activities. Mike’s answer was brilliant: “I spend 100% of my time on social media. But I also spend 100% of my time on SEO, 100% on developing new content, 100% on lead generation, 100% on branding…it’s all one activity, not disconnected efforts.”
Key point #6: Your buyers are now in control. It’s getting increasingly difficult, expensive and ineffective to buy the attention of your market (see the second paragraph above). You have to earn it. Thinking like a publisher and socializer rather than an advertiser enables you to earn that attention. If you don’t earn your buyers’ attention, they’ll stop following you. If your Twitter following starts decreasing or your Facebook fans begin to disappear, it’s time to take a hard look at what you’re doing and make changes.
Compelling Stats
Combining social media with SEO provides 97% more links, on average, back to a web site.
Websites with blogs attract 55% more visitors on average than traditional static websites.
Twitter users who also have blogs have 79% more followers on average than Twitterers who don’t blog (and that figure is even higher—102%—for small businesses that lack the drawing power of a popular brand).
In a recent HubSpot survey, more than 40% of respondents said they had landed new customers or generated revenue from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and/or a company blog.
Takeaways
So what should you do? The presentation included “Practical Tips” at the end of each section, among them:
- • Start a blog about your industry—not your company. Try to make it the premier publication for buyers in your industry.
- • Post blog content to social media, and put social sharing buttons on your content, making it easy for your readers to share as well.
- • Use social media intelligence on your leads. For example, if you generated a lead through LinkedIn, and that buyer appears to be very active there, communicate with him/her through LinkedIn. Don’t force them into a different channel. And watch what they are posting about, questions they ask, etc. to learn more about their needs.
- • Use social media monitoring tools to track your brand mentions, and also those of competitors. What your competitors are saying on social networks can give you a glimpse into their strategies. And what their customers are saying can tell you a lot about their strengths and shortcomings.
- • Follow your target customers. Listen to what they are saying—really listen—before responding. Ask lots of questions.
Which Brings Us To…
Key point #7: Social media is here to stay. Traditionally, all marketing channels have become less effective over time. For example, the first companies to advertise on TV were highly successful with it, but as more and more companies began running commercials, they became less effective. Today, many viewers record their favorite shows and skip through the commercials. Similarly, direct mail was a highly effective channel at first, before it became saturated and the term “junk mail” was coined. Ditto for telemarketing. And email marketing. So why should social media be any different? Because it is the only channel where the user is in control. If a thousand companies start using Twitter as a broadcast platform for 140-character ads, it doesn’t make Twitter any less valuable and no one has to quit—people will simply not follow those companies.
True, the evolution of marketing will continue, perpetually, and eventually it’s likely some new shiny, sparkly thing will come along that grabs everyone’s attention. But the user-control aspect of social media is likely to continue fueling its popularity and growth for a long time to come. Enterprises and marketers who embrace this and focus on earning attention will prevail over those still trying to buy it.
40 (of the) Top SEO Guides, Tips and Resources of 2010 (So Far)
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010Despite constant change on the search landscape—personalization, localization, Caffeine, Google Instant—SEO is not dead, not even close. It is certainly changing though. How can you stay current and adjust? What basic SEO factors and techniques remain important? What common mistakes should you avoid? How do realtime platforms like Twitter affect search results? What trends should you be watching? How do you optimize non-text content such as video? Is duplicate content always bad? What does Matt Cutts have to say about all of this?
Get the answers to these questions and more here in 40 of the best blog posts and articles on SEO strategy, tactics, trends and insights so far in 2010.
Yes, Rand Fishkin and SEOmoz are cited several times here (not surprising for a “best of SEO” post). No, he isn’t paying me. At least not yet.
10 questions to evaluate an SEO by Conversation Marketing
The brilliant and always entertaining Ian Lurie provides an amusing yet practical guide to separating true SEO pros from fakers and wannabes. Example (question #9): “Do you have partnerships with major search engines? If they answer ‘Yes,’ make sure they’re not calling you from prison: They’re a total fraud. Any credible SEO will make a sound like they just choked on a lemon and explain that no one has a partnership with a major search engine.”
SEO Stuff to Think About When Starting a New Website by Pure Visibility
Catherine Juon details five considerations to keep in mind when building a new site, such as keeping your design simple and writing “findable” content. Though nothing here is rocket science, it’s amazing how many sites still fail these tests.
SEO 101 Common Mistakes by David Naylor
Extensive list of common SEO mistakes made in strategy, market research, keyword research, content development, URLs, link building, coding and more. As David puts it, “If you’re a web designer who thinks that ‘good CSS = SEO,’ a writer who thinks that ‘good content = SEO’ or a developer who just thinks ‘SEO = bullshit’ then here are a few pitfalls to bear in mind if you’re considering using SEO as a way to bring your products to market.”
Twitter and Real Time Search by SEO Wizardry
If you spend any time on SEO, you’re aware that even though Twitter uses insidious nofollow links it nevertheless impacts search results. Pete Hollier explains how authority and relevancy on Twitter affects search.
Social Networking Becoming More Important For Google SERPS! by Massachusetts Real Estate
Bill Gassett explains how Google is incorporating social signals into search results. His bottom line: “Having connections, followers, friends at the various social media sites such as Twitter, Friendfeed, and others is going to help your SERP placement!”
5 can’t-miss SEO trends by iMedia Connection
Kevin Ryan details five search trends including the impact of social media, real-time results and rich media content.
How To Name Your Website’s Files by Daily SEO Tip
Naming your files in a more intelligent and strategic fashion than simply products.html or image0498.jpg is not only helpful for SEO but also more intuitive for human visitors. This post explains how to use file naming for both optimization and good, solid web design purposes.
Who knew the humble footer could be so powerful? Here’s a great explanation of how bottom-of-the-page real estate can be capitalized on to improve the user experience, enhance indexing, connect with visitors through social media and more.
What Does Google Social Search Mean for SEO? by Search Engine Watch
John Greer explains how Google utilizes social signals in search, what types of queries are affected and what sources of data are used to adjust results.
3 Skills You Need To Be An SEO by Search Engine Journal
SEO requires more than just geek talent. Danny Wong makes the case for why successful SEOs also need other talents including (perhaps most importantly) patience: “You also need to understand that your rankings in the SERPS will not always change overnight.”
Matt Cutts Interviewed by Eric Enge by Stone Temple Consulting
Eric Enge gets deep into the SEO weeds with Matt Cutts on topics like indexing, PageRank, duplicate content, “crawl budget,” link juice, 301 and 302 redirects, the rel=canonical tag, Session IDs, affiliate links, faceted navigation, HEAD requests, NoFollow and more. It’s great stuff, but don’t even try to read this post before your first coffee or Mountain Dew in the morning.
An Illustrated Guide to Matt Cutts’ Comments on Crawling & Indexation by SEOmoz
For those who found Eric’s post above just a bit too much to get through, Rand Fishkin provides a clever summary in illustrated cartoon format. Kind of like the Classics Illustrated comic book series (for those old enough to remember them). Rand’s post may miss a little of Eric’s detail but it’s much more fun.
How to optimize your site for Google in 2010 by iMedia Connection
Jason Prescott shows how SEO, paid search and social media (including blogging) work together to not only enhance an organization’s web presence but also a lift in click-through rates.
How To Optimize Your Mobile Content by MediaPost Search Insider
Todd Friesen offers five tips for optimizing your site for mobile devices. Considering that one out of five Facebook users accesses the site through their mobile device and 30% of social media users access a social media site “several times a day,” mobile SEO can no longer be ignored.
Nine common SEO campaign mistakes by Econsultancy
In this cleverly written and creatively illustrated post, Jaamit Durrani details common SEO mistakes such as over-reliance on the home page and ignoring long tail key phrases. One minor quibble: SEO isn’t a “campaign,” it’s a continual effort.
30 SEO Problems & the Tools to Solve Them (Part 2 of 2) by SEOmoz
***** 5 Stars
It’s Rand Fishkin again (what a shock), this time presenting an outstanding list of SEO concerns and tools to deal with them, such as using GSiteCrawler or Xenu to identify crawl errors, and Backtweets to measure tweet activity to a URL across multiple URL shortener platforms.
Google Experts Answer your SEO Questions by Digital Inspiration
Wondering how to get more of your site’s pages into Google’s index? Or how useful article submission sites really are for improving your site’s search ranking? Amit Agarwal publishes a highly informative, straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth interview with several members of Google’s search quality team that answers these questions and many more.
Video SEO: YouTube Optimization and Universal Search Video Ranking Factors & Signals by The Fire Horse Trail
Terry Van Horne offers a detailed, step-by-step guide to “the nuts and bolts of video optimization.”
9 Expert SEO Tips for Small Businesses by Small Business Trends
Anita Campbell picks the brains of nine SEO experts including Aaron Wall, Matt McGee and Debra Mastaler for their best tips optimizing small business websites.
SEO vs. SEF by ClickZ
The prolific Mark Jackson explains how to use keyword research, content, information architecture and blogging to turn a search-engine-friendly (SEF) website into one that is truly optimized.
Whiteboard Interview – Google’s Matt Cutts on Redirects, Trust + More by The Daily SEO Blog
Scott Willoughby recaps an interview (video + notes) of Matt Cutts by Rand Fishkin, covering topics ranging from 503 status codes and PageRank to displaying geo-specific content based on user IP and chaining redirects (which is bad).
How a 3 Month Old Website Received 958,373 Visits from Google by ViperChill
Normally a title like this would trigger my mental spam alert, but this is from Glen Allsop, so it’s legit. He describes how to use the fact that 20-25% of Google searches every single day are brand new and combine it with event news and trending topics (from Google Trends) to capitalize on these high volume, low competition searches to potentially generate large amounts of search traffic.
10 ways to screw up your SEO by iMedia Connection
Dave McAnally outlines 10 ways that companies often sub-optimize their web presence, such as managing social media activities independently from search, confusing real-world competitors with true competition in search, and implementing a CMS without applying best practices in SEO.
The Beginner’s Guide to SEO by SEOmoz
***** 5 Stars
Must reading for anyone involved in SEO. This is an extensive but rich guide to optimizing websites, written in clear language, covering everything from how search engines work and the basics of search-friendly web design to common SEO myths and using metrics to track SEO results.
Ecommerce SEO Checklist by SEO Scoop
Rebecca Wright provides a concise nine-item checklist for optimizing keywords, code, content, images and links. Though written with ecommerce sites in mind, this is a good basic checklist for any site.
Matt Cutts Movie Marathon by SEOmoz
“Dr. Pete” Meyers presents his 10 favorite Matt Cutts YouTube videos, addressing topics like the importance of the meta keywords tag (per Matt: “I wouldn’t spend even 0 minutes on it, personally”), the impact of dofollow comments on blogs (moderate comments!) and an admission by Matt that “Good content is necessary, but not sufficient” (with a more detailed explanation in his video).
Learn How Google Works: in Gory Detail by PPC Blog
***** 5 Stars
This phenomenally popular infographic (5,756 tweets as of the time of this writing) precisely what happens between the time you post content to the web and the moment someone first finds it on a Google Search. It also includes trivia like the fact that Google has 36 data centers worldwide that cost up to $600 million each.
25 Ethical Tips That Will Skyrocket Your Search Engine Rankings by The YOUmoz Blog
An outstanding compendium of SEO tips from internal linking and optimized page titles to writing quality blog comments as part of a link-building effort and avoiding Javascript links (or at least duplicating them with HTML links in the page footer).
Why Duplicate Content Is Good For You by Search Engine Journal
Huh? Doesn’t duplicate content (almost) rank up with their with link buying as an SEO no-no? Not necessarily. John Hargrave presents a case study on how a great piece of content, duplicated word-for-word on a popular website, went “megaviral” boosting search engine rank and traffic for both the original and duplicated content site.
How to Optimize Your Site for Search by Inc. Magazine
An excellent primer for those fairly new to SEO and helpful review for experienced pros, this article covers the basics from keyword research and placement to link seeding.
9 Steps to Diagnosing Lost Search Engine Traffic by High Rankings Advisor
A sudden drop in search traffic can cause heartburn for any website owner. Instead of reaching for the Prevacid, check out this post where Jill Whalen outlines a nine-step process for determining the cause of the decline and then rectifying it. One familiar example: “Review and filter out ‘brand’ traffic. Most websites get a lot of Google traffic from people who’ve typed some version of the name of their company as their search query…If you receive fewer visitors for your brand, this could be caused by a decrease in marketing and advertising.”
Prioritize and Summarize – Final Step of the 8-Step SEO Strategy by The Daily SEO Blog
The finale of a 10,000-word, eight post series on SEO strategy from defining your target audience and identifying their needs through prioritizing efforts and presenting your action plan.
SEO: The Road To Strategy by MediaPost Search Insider
Gord Hotchkiss muses about how a truly effective SEO strategy needs to reflect overall corporate strategy, noting that “SEO tactics that are grounded in the day-to-day business and the strategic objectives of the company will always outperform the ‘links for hire’ and ghostwriter content creation that still flourishes in this business. Is it easy? Hell no. Is it worth it? I believe so.”
6 Ways to Learn SEO by SEOmoz
Rand Fishkin (geez, this guy almost needs his own “best of” post) defines six levels of SEO knowledge, then walks through six training methods (e.g., free online guides, published books, conferences) and explains who can benefit most from each method and a ballpark estimate of the time required.
The On-Page SEO Cheatsheet by Conversation Marketing
Ian Lurie supplies a handy two-page (what a human visitors sees and what a search engine sees) PDF cheat sheet for on-page SEO tactics, from proper placement of in-text links and inclusion of image alt tags to use of external Javascript files and good semantic markup. A lot of great info packed into a compact document.
The Challenges of Measuring SEO Success, Part 2 by Search Engine Watch
Ray “Catfish” Comstock explores the impact of personalization and localization on search results and advises SEOs to focus on average rank per Google Webmaster tools and optimize for “share of voice” rather with than an obsessive focus on top search spots.
How to measure SEO for maximum impact by iMedia Connection
***** 5 Stars
Don’t let the title fool you into thinking this is just a post about analytics. John Faris describes in concise yet comprehensive fashion how to create actionable search ranking reports then act on the data to increase productive traffic through content gap analysis, behavioral keyword targeted, competitive link analysis and other tactics.
Whiteboard Friday – The Biggest SEO Mistakes SEOmoz Has Ever Made by SEOmoz
Rand Fishkin (again!) confesses via Danny Dover to five SEO mistakes his group has made over the years. #2 is indeed a bad one. #3 still seems like a good idea, especially if it improves the human user experience.
A Minimalist Guide to SEO: Get It Done in 6 Simple Steps by KISSmetrics
For those without a lot of SEO experience, a small website and a tight budget, James Chartrand prescribes six basic SEO tactics that can help improve search rankings and traffic.
aimClear’s 2009 Daily Training Link Library by aimClear
And finally…if the resources above aren’t enough to sate your appetite for SEO knowledge, grab a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair. Marty Weintraub shares his team’s “list of over 1,500 search industry articles, ideas, tweets, tool reviews, notes, snippets and snark” they use to stay current on SEO practices and trends. This is a remarkable list of resources from experts like David Harry, Rand Fishkin (what a shock), Jill Whalen and Debra Mastaler.
Best SEO Link Building Guides, Tips and Tools of 2010 (So Far)
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010Optimizing a website by incorporating keywords into page titles, headlines, text, page URLs, image alt tags and internal links will help improve the position of a site in the search engines—but it’s only half the battle. As one of the posts linked below notes, “In Search Engine Optimization, things that are happening OFF of your site can be just as important (if not more so) than things happening ON your website.” Search engines look at on-site factors to determine relevance, but at external links to gauge authority.
So how do you get more links, without resorting to spammy or questionable tactics? Find out here in some of the best blog posts and articles about SEO link building of 2010 so far.
Nine Tools for Your Link-Building Toolkit by ClickZ
Julie Batten offers nine key elements to include in a link-building toolkit–such as lists of targeted keywords and directories–to make link-building efforts more efficient and productive.
5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Page Rank via LinkedIn by VibeLog
In this brief but useful post, Jessica Nielsen explains five ways, such as crafting a relevant “professional headline,” to use LinkedIn to improve your company site’s Pagerank.
Raiding Your Competitor’s Backlinks by Internet Marketing for Business Owners
How to quickly find and replicate backlinks to competitor’s site to improve your site’s search engine ranking.
71 Technical Factors For Backlink Analysis (From 30 Link Building Experts) – Part 2 by Search Engine Land
For those who have waaaay too much time to spend on link building, Garrett French walks through the URL, on-page and sitewide factors to use in backlink profile analysis. Includes helpful commentary from a range of SEO experts like Eric Enge and Aaron Wall.
The 30-minute-a-day link building plan by iMedia Connection
Another piece from Garret French, this one outlining his recommended link building plan, starting with linkable asset identification: “common linkable assets include webinars, job listing pages, PDFs, blogs, forums, subject matter experts, deals, news, a community participant, contests, podcasts, and free tools.”
Top 100+ Link Building Resources by Vertical Measures Blog
An extensive list of blogs, tools, forums and other resources to assist with link building knowledge and tactics.
Simple tips for improving your website’s links by iMedia Connection
Ramsay Crooks presents guidelines for building quality links as well as low-value link building tactics to avoid.
Another Big Roundup of Link Tools by Search Engine Land
The always brilliant Debra Mastaler presents a helpful list of backlink analysis tools plus mini-reviews of several “non-standard, outside of the box link tools like Smarter Search.
Ultimate Guide to Link Building by Agent SEO
Jacob Stoops provides an excellent tutorial, beginning with explaining the process and importance of link building then stepping through different tactics and key sites of different types (directories, social bookmarking, article submission, etc.).
Build Links Backwards by Search Engine Journal
Rather than begging for links or hoping your content will appeal to a publisher, Jennifer Van Iderstyne suggests throwing the process into reverse — contacting great sites (blogs, educators, news sites, associations) and asking what type of content they would be interested in linking to.
SEO & Social Media Track: Show Me The Links: Real Life Link Building by Bruce Clay
In this guest post, Dana Lookadoo engagingly live-blogs a session from SMX Seattle featuring tips from several link building experts including Roger Montii (use target searching, don’t rely solely on competitor backlinks), Arnie Kuenn (targeted email requests, content development and promotion), Chris Bennett (infographics), Debra Mastaler (content syndication, guest blogging) and more.
The Art (or Science) of Building Links by Search Engine Watch
In her first post for SEW, Nichola Stott compares link building to expanding one’s professional network: factors like reputation, connections and relevance all matter in both realms.
Google’s Recommendations for Organic Linkbuilding by 10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Strategy Blog
In this short post, Marc Purtell shares Google’s recommendations for organic link building, which basically come down to: produce quality content.
Case Study: I Listened to Google and I Failed by Graywolf’s SEO Blog
This case study puts Google’s linking advice (see post above) to the test. Is great content really all you need?
