Sunday, March 21, 2010

21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

Small businesses are growing more aware of the need to understand and implement at least the basics of search engine optimization. But if you read a variety of small businesses blogs and Web sites, you’ll quickly see that there’s a lot of uncertainty over what makes up “the basics.” Without access to high-level consulting and without a lot of experience knowing what SEO resources can be trusted, there’s also a lot of misinformation about SEO strategies and tactics. This article is the second in a two-part SEO checklist specifically for small business owners and webmasters. Last week, I shared 20 “don’ts.” Naturally, this week addresses the “Do’s”—things to make sure you include whether you’re hiring an SEO company or doing it yourself. Small Business SEO Checklist: The Do’s Small Business SEO Checklist: The Do’s


1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

14. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.
15. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.

16. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

17. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.
18. Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.

19. Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.

20. Take advantage of the tools the search engines give you. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.

21. Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? What if your Google visibility goes away tomorrow? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. In fact, many of the DOs on this list—creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search, etc.—will help you grow an audience of loyal prospects and customers that may help you survive the whims of search engines.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Effectiveness of Link Building Tactics for SEO

  1. Linkbait + Viral Content Creation

    67% very high value
    67%
    8.8% light consensus
  2. Blogging and Engagement with the Blogosphere

    66% high value
    66%
    8.6% light consensus
  3. Classic “Create Valuable Content” Strategies w/o Promotional Marketing

    58% high value
    58%
    12.4% moderate contention
  4. Public Relations (beyond just press release publication)

    56% high value
    56%
    11.7% light consensus
  5. Direct Link Purchases from Individual Sites/Webmasters

    54% moderate value
    54%
    14.2% moderate contention
  6. Widgets and Embeddable Content

    54% moderate value
    54%
    11.1% light consensus
  7. Conferences, Events and In-Person Networking

    54% moderate value
    54%
    11.9% light consensus
  8. User Generated Content (which then incentivizes links to profiles/content/etc.)

    53% moderate value
    53%
    9.9% light consensus
  9. High Trust/Authority Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo!, Lii, etc.)

    52% moderate value
    52%
    10.7% light consensus
  10. Niche Social Media Communities

    51% moderate value
    51%
    11.3% light consensus
  11. Local Link Building (via geographic lists, organizations, portals)

    51% moderate value
    51%
    10.1% light consensus
  12. Social Voting Portals (Digg, Reddit, Mixx, etc.)

    50% moderate value
    50%
    10.4% light consensus
  13. Quizzes + Results Badges

    50% moderate value
    50%
    11.1% light consensus
  14. Social Bookmarking Services (StumbleUpon, Delicious, etc.)

    49% moderate value
    49%
    11.2% light consensus
  15. Contributing to Charities, Non-profits, Events, etc. to Earn Links

    45% moderate value
    45%
    11.6% light consensus
  16. Leveraging Twitter for Link Building

    43% low value
    43%
    11.8% light consensus
  17. Generic Directory Links (BOTW, JoeAnt, Business.com, etc.)

    42% low value
    42%
    9.6% light consensus
  18. Contacting Webmasters or Sites with (Non-Paid) Direct Link Requests

    41% low value
    41%
    14.9% moderate contention
  19. Offline Advertising Branding and Media

    39% low value
    39%
    11.5% light consensus
  20. Press Releases

    39% low value
    39%
    11% light consensus
  21. Long Tail Directory Links (niche directories, small generic directories, etc.)

    39% low value
    39%
    11.5% light consensus
  22. Social Networking Services (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn)

    37% low value
    37%
    8.5% light consensus
  23. Purchasing Links from Link Brokers

    37% low value
    37%
    12.9% moderate contention
  24. Launching & Later, Redirecting Microsites via 301s

    36% low value
    36%
    11.9% light consensus
  25. Buying Old Domains & Placing Links on Them

    36% low value
    36%
    14.5% moderate contention
  26. Buying Old Domains & 301’ing Them

    32% minimal value
    32%
    12.8% moderate contention
  27. Reciprocal Linking (trading links with other sites)

    29% minimal value
    29%
    8.2% light consensus
  28. DoFollow Blog Comments

    29% minimal value
    29%
    9.6% light consensus
  29. Web Advertising (Banners, PPC, etc.)

    25% minimal value
    25%
    10.5% light consensus
  30. Forum Link Building (Signatures, Link Drops, etc.)

    23% very minimal value
    23%
    8.8% light consensus
  31. Automated Blog, Guestbook and Open Form Comment Spam

    10% very minimal value
    10%
    8% light consensus
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Monday, March 8, 2010

Search Marketing Success Stories

Search Engine Optimization covers a huge range of tactics - all of which can bring direct benefit to a website. In this post, I've shared examples of different tactics used at different websites, and the effects that have been seen. If you're considering an SEO campaign for your site, or are trying to persuade someone else to invest in internet marketing, I hope this post will help demonstrate the potential of internet marketing.
The post includes real screen shots from Google Analytics (click any of them to enlarge) but the sites and data have been anonymized.

Target Your Target Terms

Remember that post about building a page with perfect keyword targeting? SEOmoz wasn't kidding around.
A website that sells homewares had issues with site structure and on-page targeting. Their category level pages were at subdomains such as
  • http://kitchenequipment.sitename.com
or
  • http://livingrooms.sitename.com
whilst each sub-category was back on the main subdomain at:
  • www.sitename.com/find_product2.asp?url1=living+room&url2=rugs+and+carpets
Category and sub-category pages had a distinct lack of semantic HTML or term targeting.
Getting appropriate H1 tags onto each page was a quick job, improving title tag structure took a bit longer, clean & friendly URLs and internal links with appropriate anchor text were also added.
The site saw ranking improvements across the board, which brought new traffic through head, mid and long tail terms. Can you guess when the changes were made? ;-)

Getting sorted in Google Local

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of ranking factors for Local Search, dead simple tactics, etc, it's important to get the basics right. A large chain of restaurants created a 'bulk upload' file with the correct data for each one of their locations. After uploading the file, they applied for it to be reviewed and 'whitelisted'. Local data that's been uploaded by the business owner and whitelisted is treated as authoritatively as locations that have been manually verified by postcard.
Despite various issues (Google's best practice guidelines still aren't quite the best solution in some cases) the traffic generated by visibility in Local Search has been significant and valuable. (The uploads were verified in late November when the traffic begins its steady rise.)

Architecture of Change

A current affairs magazine wanted to get more from their website. Because of falling advertising revenue, the publication was at risk of being closed down. They'd seen some growth from SEO already, but wanted to prove that the website had greater value.
Although the site had a good brand and some great content, it suffered from similar problems to many news-type websites, including badly archived content, duplicate issues and a CMS that hampered keyword targeting or promoting individual articles. Recommendations were made to improve the site's architecture and migrate to the new structure.
The effect of the changes was immediate growth which took the organic traffic to 257% in three months. A month later, the magazine's owner explained that the falling revenue from print advertising meant that they couldn't continue to lose money publishing the mag, and closed it down.

Hook, Line, Sinker

An office cleaning company wanted to improve the profile of their site through SEO. Amongst other tactics, a member of staff spent a day writing a 'linkbait' post to publish on their blog. This generated huge amounts of traffic from social media sites (dwarfing their regular daily visitors) and was subsequently linked to from dozens of sites. This post, along with other content published on the site to attract links, helped the site grow in strength and authority, and it now ranks position 3 for 'office cleaning' in their country.

Paid In Full

This is SEOmoz, but I'd like to share a graph from a PPC colleague working on a site that sells scooters. They were initially bidding on very broad terms (scooter, scooters, buy a scooter, etc) but the campaign was adjusted to target more long tail terms, including descriptions, specifications, etc.
Over a period of around six weeks, the cost per click was reduced by 30% and the more targeted traffic converted increasingly well - this allowed the site owners to increase their ad budget and generated more sales than their paid search campaign ever had before. If you're new to SEOmoz and this post has inspired you to get involved in search marketing for your site, do browse the site for the PRO & free SEO guides and the SEO blog. If you're a regular, do share any stories you're particularly proud of in the comments

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Keywords Research for Online SEO Applications

Keywords Research for Online SEO Applications Have you ever wondered why that really good looking website that you thought had all the perfect information on it to get tons of traffic doesn’t rank anywhere near well on the search engines? Sure it’s great looking, but who can tell if they can’t find it? And how about your web site? Are you working hard hard on your web site SEO (search engine optimization) to improve your search engine rankings and conversions, but doing that manually yourself turns out to be too confusing? There are many online SEO (search engine optimization) applications which can help you analyze and measure your web site’s rankings and conversions potential. Even if nobody knows the exact algorithms that the search engines use, they still can be very helpful if you are not afraid to use your intelligence and common sense. If you would do a search with search engines to find such kind of applications, which keyphrase would you type in the search engines search box to find them? Please help giving your vote in the poll below. For more Details SEO Company India, SEO SERVICES India , SEO Services Bangalore, SEO Company Bangalore

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Advance LInk Building Tips - How to Productize Link Acquisition and Dominate Your Niche -

Strategic Link Building: How to Productize Link Acquisition and Dominate Your Niche

This week, despite still being seriously under the weather (see this week's sad WB Friday), I flew down to SMX West to speak on the Link Building Strategies panel. Although I'd wanted to put more work in and deliver a better presentation, I received some very kind words afterward and requests from folks to share the deck via the blog. Before I embed the actual deck, though, I need to provide some context (as this isn't a wholly self-explanatory presentation).

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27894767/Strategic-Link-Building

Link building has, classically, been a tactic slapped on to a marketing campaign or website post-launch. I believe that those companies/sites that treat link acquisition as an afterthought, rather than building it into the product, will always lose out to those who treat link building strategically. In the deck below, I walk through a number of examples of sites, primarily startups, that have done this. These include:

Twitter - every user of Twitter has an incentive to link to their profile so more people will follow them. This is also true of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, DeviantArt, Etsy & others.

Vimeo - nearly everyone who uses Vimeo appreciates the beautiful aesthetic they've created. The embeddable versions of Vimeo videos look and feel more professional and high quality than nearly any other player, hence they get embedded (a lot). This embed action automatically drives links back to the video on Vimeo's site, Vimeo's homepage and the user's profile, all with targeted anchor text.

Urbanspoon - not only do they give badges to restaurants like Yelp and have started an online reservations system like OpenTable, Urbanspoon also features reviews from bloggers and foodies, who are then incentivized to promote their inclusion on the site.

Last.fm - the widgets users embed on their site to share their favorite music automatically creates links back to the service.

SurveyMonkey - a truly viral product (anyone who's surveyed is automatically exposed to the site), SurveyMonkey is inherently link acquisitive through the product. In order to use the service, you need to link to SurveyMonkey's site, where your form is hosted.

Scribd - just look at the embed and the link below; 'nuff said.

Miibeian.gov.cn - possibly the greatest link building strategy ever devised. The Chinese government requires that all websites in the country link to this site in order to operate legally; not too shabby, eh?
Here's the deck:

As you can see, I've put in a shameless plug for Open Site Explorer at the end. If you haven't seen the new features launched yesterday, you're missing out. Tons of the data is completely free, and top pages is just about the easiest way to find traffic and link opportunities ever built (not that I'm biased or anything). :-)

Look forward to your comments about the presentation and the concept of productizing link acquisition into a site.

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

SEO Process Flow, How We start Optimization Process for a website.

1. Consultation

We understand your requirement and the key areas of your business to understand the thrust areas of your website which will help us guide your campaign in the right direction.
Understanding the website structure, navigation and content requirements if any.
Analyzing the Current status of the website on search engines.

2. Competitive Analysis

Based on the above information we do a competitive analysis to understand our competition so that we know:
What is the competition we are dealing with.
Analyze their current strategies and keywords

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3. Keyword research and target list preparation

Success of search engine marketing largely depends on selecting the right keywords. With the above harvested information and Software tools ( which guide us in the most used search engine terms by visitors) we prepare a list of targeted keywords, and finalize on them on mutual basis.

4. Website Optimization and Content Editing

It's time to get down to the nitty-gritty and start utilizing them within the web pages.
Applying the proposed website structure in terms of links and dynamics for better search engine indexing.
Creating meta tags in tune with the prepared keyword list (Title, keywords, Description), after identifying the pages and their target keywords.
HTML Code optimizing which includes setting up your home page W3C Compliant, and adding headings, image alt tags and hyperlinks.
HTML Code Clean up and optimization
Editing and copy writing the content to make on page relevancy in terms of targeted theme
5. Search Engine Submission

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Manual submission of the website to different search engines with a focus on the most popular engines, such as Google, AOL, MSN, AltaVista, All The Web, Yahoo! and DMOZ.org.
SEO Activities -

1. Keyword Analysis
2. On Page Optimization
3. Unique Title Tag for Each Page.
4. Unique Keyword Meta Tags
5. Meta tags keywords and description, should be entirely unique on every page.
6. Description Meta Tags:
7. Personally, I like putting the product/service description that appears on the related page in Meta description tag.
8. This will ensure unique content on each product/service page.
9. Robots.txt
10. Sitemap.xml
11. Google Webmaster Central login and sitemap submission and same for Yahoo, Bing.
12. Adding Alt Text to Images and Text Links
13. Bread Crumb for Easy Navigation.
14. One fixed Bottom Navigation for better Crawling.
15. Using targeted keywords in right order and density for each page.
16. Adding your address in bottom of your page. Help you to rank better in Local listing and Maps.
17. HTML Validation.

Off Page Optimization/Link Building

1. Social Media Marketing
2. Bookmarking
3. Social Networking.
4. Directory Submission.
5. Local Listings of your Business.
6. Business Listings in leading Business Directory.
7. Yellow Pages Submission.
8. Classifieds Submission.
9. Press Release.
10. Online Reviews.
11. Articles
12. Link Submission by competitor Link Analysis.

Next I will come up with one by one services and details about SEO techniques.

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Monday, July 6, 2009

Inroduction of SEO Service Provider Company in Bangalore, SEO and Internet Marketing Consultant in Bangalore, India

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I will be updating more details about the SEO Services and Search Marketing Industry



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