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Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

January 5, 2012 By admin

Well, a New Year has passed and we bid farewell to 2011. It was certainly an exciting year, especially in search and online marketing which saw changes occur at warp speed.

Over the last few weeks of 2011, we took a break to assess the state of search engine optimization and where things were headed going into 2012. We do this in order to help our clients (…and readers of this blog) better understand where they should focus their online marketing efforts.

After reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going, we quickly realized that the lines between different types of search – namely organic, local, mobile and social – are now being blurred more than ever. Rather than web search strictly being the center of activity online, social is increasingly becoming the focus.

According to an exclusive web tutorial from Planet Ocean, web search was the sun and other types of search (…or planets) revolved around it. Now, instead of web search being the sun, social is quickly becoming the center of the universe with other types of search (…or planets) revolving around it.

As we’ve said here many times over the last year, being social is a critical strategy to being successful online – this will become even more critical in the coming year. A cursory review of search results for a variety of terms shows social mentions and engagement alongside traditional webpages.

Social is being aggressively integrated in Bing, who has partnerships with Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Google has basically bet the farm on its new social network Google +.

From these arrangements and others, we can ascertain that social sharing will increasingly integrate with web search. Going forward, social shares or votes will increasingly be the new links.

How many have liked, +1’d or otherwise made a comment regarding content on your site?

So how can I ensure my site continues to rank high in 2012?

Dominating your market online in the new year will require some tried and true methods mixed with some new ways of engaging your audience online.

Since the web has become increasingly social, it’s become increasingly democratized as well. Users will more and more be the driving force in determining which social networking platforms you ultimately adopt.

The key to all of this though is content – as in years past, successful online marketing will be driven by your ability to create reference grade content that helps the reader. In turn, this can lead to true engagement that builds trust and value.

Rather than a few pages earning links, success online will hinge more on how socially engaging your content is.

The more likes, +1s and buzz your content has, the better your business will do.

Besides content itself, freshness will also be a driving factor in maintaining and building high search rankings. It’s increasingly become clear that Google and others are placing a high value on ‘fresh’ content. Just in the last two months, we’ve seen Google make updates to its algorithms to reward sites with fresh content, especially in areas that are always changing.

This update though has sadly penalized some sites with great ‘evergreen’ content that’s been around awhile but still valuable. Repurposing this content will help you get around this ‘freshness’ problem, especially if you experienced a drop in rankings due to this latest update.

Also in 2012, expect to see more firms using social media tools for product development and testing as well as technical support.

What about mobile-based search? Will it continue to grow in 2012?

An emphatic yes!! It’s projected that by 2015, more users in the U.S. will access the Internet through their smartphones or tablets than a regular computer.

Mobile search is deeply tied into local search with over 40% of searches on a mobile device being for something local like a restaurant, doctor’s office or brick and mortar store. According to Google, 44% of searches from a mobile device in the 2011 holiday shopping season were for store locations and last-minute gifts.

With mobile devices, users can seamlessly float between mobile, local and product search as well as their social media activities.

In 2012, it’s imperative that local business establish their presence on places like Bing Local, Google Places, Foursquare and others. Don’t be hesitant to allow reviews – customer reviews give you an opportunity to address grievances and open yourself up to new ways of engaging customers.

So there you have it – things will continue to move at wharp speed in this new year – social and mobile is most certainly revolutionizing how people interact and find things they need.

Stay tuned to our search engine optimization blog as we slice and dice the trends and developments in the search marketing world. Most of all relax and have fun with the possibilities the online sphere will bring in 2012.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part I

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part II

3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Does Google Consider SEO to be Spam?

November 21, 2011 By admin

One question that swirls around out there is whether SEO – short for search engine optimization – is considered to be spam by Google.

A recent video from the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts, tries to answer this question. In short, no it isn’t. According to Cutts, all SEO basically means is making sure your pages are well represented in search results.

There are many legitimate, or ‘white hat,’ tactics SEO pros can use to help your pages rank high, including:

  • Making sure pages are crawlable with good links
  • Using strong keywords in site’s content. Words everyday people will use, not insider industry jargon
  • Constructing a site that’s highly usable and has a design conducive to search engines
  • Making your site loads fast, which is one of many of Google’s search ranking factors
  • Building a good URL structure that’s easy to follow for both users and search engines

Using techniques like these and many others are considered to be okay by Google. Sites that follow these guidelines and build good quality that’s easily crawlable will, over time, see their organic rankings build.

However, there are ‘black hat’ techniques as they’re called that Google frowns upon. Sites who are caught using things like hack sites and keyword stuffing will be penalized severely by Google. Sometimes, these penalties are impossible to recover from.

The goal of Google is to return the best search results as possible for their users. If a searcher isn’t able to find the right information, they will start looking elsewhere for it. As the #1 search engine accounting for over 2/3 of searches online, Google has an interest in making sure it returns sites that are informative and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.

Matt explains (…correctly in our opinion) how search engine spiders are not smart enough yet to figure out what a site is about all on their own. Therefore, it’s the site owner’s job to ‘help’ the spider learn what your site is about…this at its core is where SEO comes in.  In our experience, basic fundamentals are not addressed.  A good SEO will fix these SEO fundamentals (…listed above), analyze site traffic, ROI and other important factors to keep your site’s rankings consistently high.

With that said, SEO is about building a site Google can crawl and index. If you hire a search engine optimization company to handle your site’s SEO, there shouldn’t be any secret as to what they’re doing. Your SEO should be open about what they’re doing to get your site to the top of search results.

If they’re not, you should go elsewhere for these services. If the SEO firm is employing ‘black hat’ techniques, your site and business will be the one who suffers, not the SEO firm who used the shady tactics.

If your site is penalized for employing nefarious techniques, it will take a long time for you to make up the lost ground. Meanwhile, the SEO firm will have taken a lot of your money and will not suffer the same consequence.

Watch the video below to learn more.

One lesson though to keep in mind in this situation – buyer beware!!

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

July 12, 2011 By admin

Anyone in the business of optimizing websites for search engines knows the importance of links, which Google and other search engines view as a vote of confidence in your site.

Aside from including unique, high-quality, relevant content on an easily crawlable website, link building is perhaps the most important task for building high search engine rankings. In the beginning, you may have to obtain links from sites that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re about. Or, you may have to get links from sites that aren’t very trustworthy.

While this isn’t necessarily your first choice, obtaining links from these kinds of sites certainly won’t hurt your search rankings – they may even help a little bit in fact.

Generally speaking, incoming links (other sites linking to yours) will not get you in trouble. However, outgoing links (you linking to others) can get you in a heap of trouble if they’re not done properly. Linking to sites that have been penalized by Google could result in you getting a penalty.

Before getting into a link-swap with another site, you should consider the following three steps to ensure your site doesn’t get penalized through a bad outgoing link.

1. Search for the site’s domain name in major search engines

If the site in question isn’t listed in Google, Yahoo or Bing, you should stay away from it. If the site is banned, linking to it could lead to your site being banned. But even if the site in question isn’t ‘bad’ in terms of the search engines, linking to a site search engines don’t know about won’t net you any benefit. Therefore, if you can’t find the site in Google, etc., don’t link to it.

2. Find out who else is linking to them

If you’re thinking about linking to another site, you also need to consider who else is linking to them. One tool from Search Engine Guide (Site Strength Indicator) can help you easily determine who’s linking to the site you’re looking at.

Sites with a high number of incoming links will benefit you more if you can get a link from them.

Also, the importance of the other sites linking to the site you’re looking at makes a difference as well. PageRank is one metric Google uses to determine a site’s importance. Those with a higher PageRank will yield more benefit to you.

Whatever you do, do not link to a site with a PageRank of zero. Either the site was penalized or it’s too new to have any PageRank value.

3. Avoid linking to sites that are controversial

Linking to a site that includes what Google considers controversial topics (i.e. gambling, adult, pharmacy, loan/debt sites) will also get you in trouble with the search engines. That’s why it’s important you carefully evaluate each site you consider linking to. Unless you’re in the same industry, Google will penalize you for linking to another site with controversial topics.

Remember, you probably will not be penalized for sites linking to you. But if you link to a site that’s not trustworthy or has been penalized a lot, your rankings and standings in the search engines are likely to suffer.

Related Posts

8 SEO Tricks You Do NOT Want to Use – Avoiding the Google Penalty Box (Part I, Part II)

Private: 50 SEO Ranking Factors You Need to Think About in 2011

8 Ways You Can Safely Sell Links on your Website

5 Steps to Obtaining Organic Links through Blog Comments

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , ,

34 Things You Must Do When Redesigning your Website

April 21, 2011 By admin

Every so often, it’s a good idea to give your organization’s website a fresh new design. Doing so makes your company look active and dedicated to giving your customers the most advanced products and services.

But considering the fact many websites contain hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages, it can be a daunting task regardless of how careful you are. Proper planning helps ensure it all goes smoothly…no or very little planning can turn it all into a big nightmare.

Pages can get mixed up, deleted or otherwise not be available on the new site, which can end up costing your company thousands of dollars.

To avoid this calamity, you need to consider the following factors before, during and after. Continue reading to learn about all of these considerations you need to keep in mind when redesigning your website.

Before doing anything though, you need to get some baseline information and backup your old site just in case something goes awry. Load time, conversion rates, search rankings, bounce rates for your top landing pages and a list of important inbound links is information you need to have in-hand before you even get started.

Once you have all of this, it’s time to start your site re-design. Taking the following 34 steps during this process will ensure it all goes smoothly and you begin reaping the benefit of a new website as quickly as possible.

Prior to New Site Launch

1.       Have the old site available to put back online immediately if something goes wrong.

2.       Retain your existing URL structure if possible so you can minimize impact on search rankings.

3.       Address methods to eliminate duplicate content to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

4.       If you’re unable to keep existing URL structures, have a plan on how you will handle switching to the new file structure, including 301 re-directs, updating links, marketing materials and PPC ads.

5.       Keep a copy of the old site on-hand just in case.

6.       Use a link checker utility like Xenu to scan your new site and find any broken links.

7.       Take a moment to review titles and meta descriptions on your new site.

8.       Before launching, check your new site manually using multiple web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome). Many differences exist between these browsers.

9.       Update XML and HTML sitemaps so search engines can easily crawl your new site.

10.   Verify all web forms and other interactive features are working properly.

11.   Protect your site from competitors and search engines during development. The best way to accomplish this is to develop the site locally and internally to your firm.

12.   Review existing RSS feeds

13.   Verify your new site will work properly with traffic tracking codes like Google AdWords and Google Analytics.

14.   Develop a plan to add current analytics tracking to your new site before launch.

During new site launch

15.   Did you back up your old site? If not, now is your last chance.

16.   Update your .htaccess and robots.txt files so any 301 redirects will work properly.

17.   Be sure AdWords and PPC campaign pages are updated and working properly.

18.   Update payment gateways or other important sites if your server’s IP address changes.

19.   Test all email address and make sure they’re working properly.

20.   Remove any temporary no-index tags, robots.txt and be sure any other robot control tags are updated in case you had something blocked off during the development process.

After new site launch – catching any mistakes

21.   Run your spider/link finder once again to catch any broken links you may have missed.

22.   Test your new site’s load time. Google has claimed load time is now a big ranking factor.

23.   Make double-sure you put tracking codes/scripts on your new pages

24.   Check server logs for any 404 or other server errors.

25.   Look at your Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster accounts to see if the search bots are spotting any errors.

26.   Update any broken inbound links at the source of the link or through a 301 re-direct.

27.   Verify PPC ads are still correct.

28.   Make sure your XML sitemap is up-to-date.

29.   Compare bounce rates for the new site vs. the old one.

30.   Monitor how newly indexed (…or re-indexed) pages are ranking.

31.   Now that your site is live online, test it once again with all web browsers and even a mobile smartphone if you’re able to.

32.   Manually test all web forms and other interactive scripts.

33.   Check where your site is in the search results after the search engines have indexed it once again.

34.   Go to Google and Bing and type “site:yourdomain.com” in the search bar to see if the number of pages indexed has improved over your previous numbers.

Taking these all important steps helps ensure your site transition goes as smoothly as possible. Also, they help you spot any errors and allow you to make those corrections before any negative consequences arise.

Double, perhaps even triple check your site to make sure everything is working properly. If not, you’re certain to suffer devastating setbacks in the search engines as well as eroding good will of your site visitors.

Remember what Thomas Edison once said – “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”

Filed Under: Site Architecture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Harnessing LinkedIn to Market your Business Online

March 25, 2011 By admin

By now, it’s likely you’ve heard of the ‘Facebook for professionals’…LinkedIn itself has seen tremendous growth over the last 2-3 years…with over 80 million users, it’s seen by many professionals as a useful tool to find a job, find workers and even market a business.

Consisting mostly of business-to-business (B2B) type firms, LinkedIn is also increasingly a good tool for B2C firms as well.

While LinkedIn is a valuable social/professional networking tool, it’s mixed with many other social media platforms businesses use. Depending on your firm, LinkedIn is certainly one tool you and your company should consider.

LinkedIn marketing if you will can be broken down into two main levels: profiles and groupslinkedin

Your personal and business profile is there to showcase you and your company to the multitude of LinkedIn members. You can (…and should) have one profile for yourself and one for your company.

(Example – My personal LinkedIn profile is located at http://www.linkedin.com/in/seocopywriting while our SEO Advantage profile is located at http://LinkedIn.seoadvantage.com)

All of your employees should have their own profile setup. And it pays to have a completed profile. Ones looking incomplete will see little activity so be sure you have done everything you can in setting up your profile.

Once you have a profile setup and begin making connections with fellow employees, customers and other professional acquaintances, you can then begin engaging with others in your industry. Frequent status updates, answering others’ questions work to engage potential leads and develop thought leadership.

Posting company announcements, events and new products also work as part of an overall ‘engagement’ strategy you should consider when working with LinkedIn.

Another way to develop this all important thought leadership is to participate in groups on LinkedIn and perhaps start your own if there isn’t much out there on what you do already.  To get a group started, promote it through other social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

And if you’re starting a group, you have to be really proactive is starting conversations. Get people talking to build a larger, more engaged following. After awhile, conversations will start organically on their own and build – but in the beginning you have to be proactive and engaging to build that following.

Beyond this, we invite you to check out some of HubSpot’s resources on LinkedIn. They in fact just started a group for online marketers – there you can a lot of the latest ‘buzz’ on what’s happening.

We’re always developing our social media expertise and use of tools like LinkedIn so check us out and see how we harness this professional networking tool to reach out to other interested professionals – whether they’re in our industry or not.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,
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