Google's information retrieval specialist Amit Singhal just wrote a piece on the Google Webmaster blog giving more insights into what a post Panda world will look like.
Indeed, months after the Panda update (Google's largest update to their algorithm in recent memory), SEO's are still scrambling to pinpoint what exactly has changed, and what strategy and tactics to use to remedy penalized sites.
The point is, the update didn't target one specific item, but instead, addresses a range of factors made possible by Google Caffeine and their index infrastructure.
We don't know the exact factors the algorithm update focused on, because Google "doesn't want folks to game our search results."
Below is a list of questions from Amit's post that provides insight into what Google is looking for in terms of quality content. Some of these are qualitative and quantitative, but "if you want to step into Google’s mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we’ve been looking at the issue”.
• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are ...
1) Google Analytics - What Keywords are already getting you SEO traffic?
Login to Google Analytics
Select the site you wish to analyze
Click "Traffic Sources" then "Keywords"
Show: "non-paid"
Select a time period of about the past 6 months
Display 50 rows
Find 5-10 relevant KWs for your business (These are not necessarily the KWs that give you the most traffic)
For this example, I'm using Highly Relevant and will determine our keyword search market share for the following 5 keywords: digital marketing agency, digital marketing agency los angeles, social media marketing los angeles, digital agency los angeles, los angeles seo.
2) Search Google - What do you rank in Google for those KWs?
You can go about this two ways: First of all, you can manually search Google keyword-by-keyword and then manually find your ranking. This is pretty easy to do unless you have lots of keywords you are investigating.
The second way, and my preferred way, is to use a rank checker such as this one by seobook. Although the rank checker is definitely not 100% accurate, I find that it generally puts me in the right place to verify what the rankings for the keywords and domains in question actually are at the time.
You now should have your top keywords and their current rankings in Google.
3) Google External Keyword Tool - How many times are your keywords being searched ...
WordPress is a fantastic tool for amateur bloggers to professional webmasters to build and maintain their websites and blogs. Once you have well written and thoughtful content, how do you share it with the world? Not everyone can afford an internet marketing company, especially if the website is a hobby. Fortunately while there are a few search engine friendly features, there are a few plugins that every blogger can use to raise their search engine profile. The best part is that they are all free!
All in One SEO – This is the most common SEO plugin for WordPress, and for good reason. It quickly and easily allows you to customize your title tags and meta descriptions for each post and page that you create.
Custom Permalinks – This plugin allows you to completely customize the URL of your blog post or page on a case-by-case basis. From an SEO perspective, this means that you have the opportunity to create keyword rich URLs instead of the dynamically created URL that WordPress creates by default.
Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate an XML and .gz sitemap file for your site and automatically update it every time you add new content to the site. The only thing left to do is go to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools and notify them of the URL of your sitemap.
I recently watched an SEOmoz webinar called “The Future of Linkbuilding”, which you can access at SEOmoz’s webinar page. It was a fantastic webinar, and I definitely encourage you to watch it (although you need to sign up for SEO moz Pro to access it) if you’d like to learn more current strategies and techniques to improve your own site’s SEO.
In this webinar, Rand Fishkin, the founder of SEOmoz presented thirty-four creative and technical linkbuilding tips; the recommendations that he made ranged from simple changes to your webiste to more challenging tactics, such as building awesome infographics and visual media.
The purpose of my blog post today is to provide you with three of the more simpler tactics that me mentioned, which anyone can do to improve his or her site’s SEO potential:
1. Build out your “About” page.
By building out your “About” page and including information, such as photos, links to your social network profiles, and in-depth descriptions, you’ll be more likely to convince Google that you have a legitimate website.
On your “About” page, make sure that you feature real human beings (with their photos) and provide good, high-quality content about who you are and what you do. Link to all of your social network profiles and provide real contact information to your website visitors.
Aside from the SEO benefits, a good ...
Getting links for ecommerce websites can be difficult because not a lot of webmasters want to link to a page that sells products.
That said, there are some excellent ways for ecommerce websites to build links.
1. Ask for a link in order emails (and other customer communications).
One of the easiest ways to get a back link is to ask your current customers. This tactic is often overlooked by ecommerce websites, but can bring in great backlinks.
In your communication emails, just add this line:
Do you have a website or blog? Link to us! Just copy and paste this code: Subtly Optimized Anchor Text
2. Using Badges to build links.
If you start to have a popular brand, it is a good idea to use badges similar to the one found on Picnik.
Website owners and bloggers can show off their affiliation with your brand, and at the same time you will get a link back to your site. When using this tactic, make sure not to use specific anchor text or you will get penalized.
3. Internal linking.
People generally neglect internal linking and this one tactic can change the ranking fortune of a site. The act of internal linking is simply linking internal pages to other internal pages. Many pages have great authority, but don't link to other internal pages of a site, which provides a potential opportunity.
Generally deep ...
There really are so many social media platforms and strategies to use these days. You might be thinking, where do I even start? Where should I spend my time so that it’s most effective?
Social media can have a huge impact on your business if you create an effective game plan and have the discipline to execute it day in and day out.
It’s important for your spend the time to prepare your strategy first though – because without the right strategy, you might just be wasting your time on social media. If you don’t have the right message or aren’t engaging people properly, you won’t be getting the most out of the time you spend on social media.
Today, I’m going to explain to you a simple five-step process that you can follow to start building your brand and influence through social media:
Step 1: Determine your brand is and what message you want to promote. Chances are that there are many businesses in your niche that are trying to promote themselves on social media platforms.
Therefore, you need to figure out how you’re going to stand out amongst the masses. You need to take the time to establish a brand for your business that allows your potential consumers to easily identify who you are and what ...
We are pioneers in conversion marketing, meaning it's not just about driving traffic from the search engines and social websites, it's about converting that traffic into sales and leads for your business.
