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Generating backlinks is still an important part of SEO. In this post, we highlight some of the strategies that you can use to enhance your SEO efforts.
One of the biggest contributions to my ongoing success with backlinking is my commitment to studying others on a daily basis. I watch competitors, industry experts, industry leaders and some of the best marketers in the country to better gauge what does and doesn’t work.
Here are 4 obvious but often overlooked back linking strategies that you should consider...
Companies rely on PR firms for a variety of services and consulting ranging from strategy and message development to media relations and social media outreach to monitoring and reporting. Product launches, press conferences, event management and promotion, reputation and crisis management, media training, investor relations and of course content creation are all services provided by different PR agencies.
Press releases are most often at the top of the list of public relations content along with reports, white papers, newsletters, case studies, corporate website pages, newsrooms, blog posts, short form social media content and media from images to audio to video. To suggest that overly optimized press releases and other content will bring down the PR industry is simply a sensational headline.
It’s true, there are a lot of changes happening in the PR world right now and one area in particular that’s worth exploring risks and rewards involves the shift to native ads or as Google calls it, “commerce journalism”. I talked with Cara Posey about this recently and will likely post more about it here. But back to this business of optimized press releases killing PR agencies. Really?...
What you should spend most your time on when working on your web marketing strategy based on average return on investment (ROI). Hint: It's NOT Social Media...
So how do you decide which web marketing strategy to work on to attain the most fruitful retail website possible? The sexy new trend is social media marketing, so that means you should do that, right?
WRONG!
In this eMarketer article (and the graph above), the complicated decision of “what do I do?” is made easy and backed by real data.It’s crystal clear. You need to work on getting traffic to your website through the search engines. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are the #1 referral traffic source for retail websites (35%). Social media ranks fifth out of six (2.4%)! You definitely want a piece of that pie. Here’s how…
Neal Cabage is only the most recent writer to use the words “SEO is dead” in a headline. His article joins a long line of other articles and even a tongue-in-cheek website dedicated to the topic; see here, here, here, and here.
There are also many well-worded refutations of the idea that SEO is dead, of which Danny Sullivan’s 2009 post is a prime example. Most articles with that headline or a variation thereof are actually writers trying to stir up some controversy so they can then explain why SEO in fact is not dead.
Whatever the reason, the phrase has become cliché and tired, and I say that with this post, let us never see the words “SEO” and “dead” in a headline ever again. Let’s move on. But first, this final explanation of why SEO is not dead, and will never die....
... Content marketing has killed SEO; Content marketing overtakes SEO. The word "versus" often appears between these two purported rivals. Shoot me now. Or, wait just a minute and shoot me after you’ve read (and have disagreed with) my strong point of view on the hyper-hyped topic du jour that’s come to be a showdown between content marketing and SEO....
With recent changes like Google’s Penguin 2.0 algorithm update, SEO and search marketing are moving rapidly from search-focused ranking tactics to a more holistic, content-focused practice. And as digital takes over the marketplace, PR is expanding beyond churning out press releases to sparking, engaging in and steering conversations about brands.Today’s PR is also today’s search marketing: a mix of audience research, content creation and promotion is the best way to raise brand awareness. The goal for both SEO and PR is to reach the right people, with the right messages, at the right time....
SEO has always been the biggest, baddest, and most powerful ship in the online marketing ocean, but is this ship sinking? You’ve probably heard the cliche “SEO is dead” at some point, but is this an accurate statement? Did SEO really die? Well if SEO died, then someone forgot to send out the invitation for the funeral, and today alone, there have been more SEO sightings than Elvis, Bigfoot, and UFO’s combined.
In fact, just search Google for “SEO is dead”. Notice how none of the results returned for this query are for websites who actually claim that SEO is dead? Instead, it’s articles written by people in the SEO field who argue against these claims. Hmm, imagine that? Why aren’t the naysayers’ articles ranking for this query? This isn’t a coincidence. It’s just one of the many examples of proof that the SEO ship is not sinking, it’s never taken on water, and the penguins on that iceberg ahead are an SEO’s best friend....
SEO enthusiasts and online marketers alike are abuzz over the unveiling of Penguin 2.0, a new generation of algorithms that specifically target web spam. The previous Penguin update simply checked out a site’s home page, whereas this new generation takes a deeper look within the subpages and considers smaller details. This means that it’s getting harder to disguise spam, and fresh content is a must.
So what’s changed? Penguin 2.0 essentially aims to locate sites that serve as an authoritative voice on a subject, thus providing these pages with a boost in the rankings. The new algorithms punish “black hat SEO” which refers to unethical or unsavory tactics that a site may use to try to boost its Google ranking. This may include buying links, scraping content from other webpages, or overloading the site with keywords and ads.How do I stay in favor with Google?
This is pretty simple: if your site is creating regular, unique content that considers the reader, you will do well in Google’s index. It’s also important that this content has some substance to it, and is high quality. Quickly throwing an article or blog together doesn’t count; providing the reader with useful information does....
While 'creating great content' is important, it's not enough. Promotion is critical to content marketing success. In this post, Paul May shows you how to improve your content promotion. NEWSFLASH! Despite what you’ve read, your “epic content” isn’t going to magically go viral seconds after you click the publish button. There is no content marketing fairy. Like it or not, you’re going to have to work hard to promote your content. I mean really hard. “Well, Hi Paul….Bad Start to the Day?” Why the rant? Well, Cyrus Shepard wrote a fantastic “blueprint for ranking” post recently on the Moz blog (one of the best posts of the year, IMO). I found myself nodding in agreement throughout it…until I got to the end and read this: “This blueprint contains 25 steps to rank your content, but only the last three address link building. Why so few? Because 90% of your effort should go into creating great content, and 10% into link building.” In fairness to Cyrus, there’s more nuance to his thoughts than this quote conveys, but this fits into a theme that seems to be gaining momentum in some circles. I first saw Rand propose this at a Distilled conference I attended last year. The presentation was titled “F*** Link Building, Content Marketing FTW!” I’m paraphrasing, but in this presentation he said something to the effect of: “I have this awesome link building tool…you should totally get it. Every time I use it, I get links from 400 unique domains. It’s called the publish button.”...
Attracting buyers to your site through SEO is becoming harder, thanks to search ranking getting way smarter and more and more personalized to the searcher. So the question for B2B marketers is: How can you measure rank accurately if you know it’s going to be different for each person – based on where they are, their search history, and their activity on various Google apps? For example, factors like your location if you have location services on (eg. by using Google Maps) and usage history (Google uses hints to your location even if you have disabled location services by looking at your past searches) can directly impact your search results. For many marketers keeping up with SEO best practices is hard and confusing. But there are some things you can do that do work. In fact, Google look favorably upon them (hint: they are NOT dodgy link buying tactics)….
Considering that the average b2b website gets about 40% of traffic from organic search, with some sites getting as much as two-thirds of all visits via search engines, effective search engine optimization (SEO) remains a vital strategy. But precisely what constitutes “best practices” in SEO is a continually (and lately, rapidly) moving target. Yesterday’s on-page optimization and link building tactics—even those used with the best, non-manipulative intentions—may get a site penalized in search rankings today for being “over-optimized.” (You can’t be too rich or too thin, but apparently you can be too optimized.) So what’s a marketing manager, PR professional or SEO specialist to do? Keep up with SEO trends and changes. Optimize off-site content (for example, on YouTube and other social platforms). Use effective SEO tools and marketing metrics. Create link-worthy content. Use social signals to boost rankings. Learn how to do all of that and then some here in more than three dozen of the best SEO guides and tips from the past year....
It's now been one week since Google Penguin 2.0 went live. Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts promised the new generation of Penguin would go deeper, and it seems to have lived up to that promise. Here are some early findings from sites hit by Penguin....
Understanding the complexity of how your social media efforts affect search ranking is vital for you to know how to use social networking to your advantage.... It’s time marketers and brand owners realize the immense impact social media has on their search ranking. The way marketers and content creators use social media and social networking has always been focused on building a huge following, but it goes much deeper than that. Today search engines incorporate influence into their search result rankings, and social media has an ever increasing part in that. If you want to make sure your search ranking is as good as it can be, this is going to help you. I could probably go on all day long about exactly how social media affects your search ranking, and what you need to understand and think about when you start promoting and marketing your services, content or website. But I am not going to bore you to death with all the technicalities that go into it all. This is more about how you can improve your search ranking with a few adjustments and a little bit of understanding of how it all works....
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Every 24 hours, 2 million unique blog posts are published. In light of this statistic, the quest to claim the #1 spot on Google’s search results for key terms in your industry suddenly seems harder than ever, doesn’t it?
Google’s search algorithm uses myriad different factors, known as “signals,” to determine quality of content. The factors and their relative weights are all a closely-guarded secret, but you’ll be pleased to know that content creators aren’t completely left out in the cold. It’s critical to not just acknowledge Google’s quality guidelines, but to also make them an integral part of how you approach the production of web content.
What Are the Quality Guidelines? Matt Cutts and the rest of the web-spam team offer webmaster guidelines, with a stated intention to “help Google find, index, and rank your site.” The site covers technical and user experience tips before delving into content quality, with a clear caveat that the guidelines aren’t intended to be comprehensive. It’s definitely in your brand’s best interest to avoid using deceptive principles just because they’re not illustrated on the list, and uphold “the spirit of the basic principles.” There’s no substitute for reading the guidelines, but the points consist primarily of the following...
Setting up any sort of Ecommerce store isn’t easy because there are so many things to consider.Filters versus categories isn’t usually the first thing on a company or Webmasters mind, but eventually this dilemma is going to hit him/her in the face and leave a lot of questions.
Although many don’t realize it, it’s incredibly important to understand the difference between the two for SEO reasons. If you’re starting an ecommerce store, you have to ask yourself: Would this page be better filed as a category or in a filter if I want the best SEO results?...
Use great SEO on your website and blog and use social media. The important thing to learn is the difference between the two and why you need both.
As business owners, you’ve been told over and over you need to use great SEO on your website and blog, but you also need to pay attention to social media management. The important thing to learn is the difference between the two and why you need both.To quote Rand Fishkin of Moz, ”Effective SEO will land a searcher on your website or blog.” For example, if you sell the best potato chips in Cleveland, you want to use SEO keywords that use those words: “the best potato chips in Cleveland.”SEO is invisible—at least it should appear that way. It is the labels, tags, meta descriptions, and keywords you use on websites and blog posts to help search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! find your website.
The definition of social media is pretty simple. It is creating accounts on sites such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest, and then posting to those sites. Be social....
Discover how Google+ can help your SEO rankings. We've got the tips and tricks you need to get your company noticed.Is your business on Google+? If not, it should be. This social network carries a lot of potential for your company to win you new customers. For example, Jeffalytics recently tested its influence by creating four websites with varying G+ usage. One had no Google+ presence, and it did the poorest in terms of search-ability. The website with the strongest G+ presence, on the other hand, ended up ranking as the 8th result for its target keyword....
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Alice Stevert
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Late last week, it was discovered that Google had quietly updated their ranking article help document to reflect changes that they have made in their messages
If you are handling SEO, or website optimization on your own, ensure that you are making the most of the experience and take advantage of the numerous free tools available. These tools are all available at no charge and make it much easier to handle all aspects of website optimization, from choosing keywords to analyzing the competition and boosting your rank within the search engines. While there are literally hundreds of tools available at no cost, the following 5 are among the best that you will find....
Keyword research is anything but exciting. In fact, trying to do it after a satisfying dinner and glass of wine is more likely to end with your forehead on your keyboard than a list of low-competition, high-value phrases.Unfortunately, the research has to be done. Without knowing which keywords people are searching for, it’s difficult to target the phrases that will draw search traffic to your site. That traffic is the lifeblood of your business.
Whether you’re running a blog, operating an ecommerce site, or trying to position yourself as a thought leader in your niche, it begins with targeted traffic.And for that, you need the right keywords.There are lots of ways to perform keyword research. On one extreme, you can devote months to the task, drilling down into every iteration of every phrase you can imagine. Or you can do some “quick and dirty” research, using a few tools available online. There’s definitely a place for both approaches. But today, we’ll focus on the latter one. Read on for 3 quick ways to find out what type of content your audience is searching for....
A lot of search engine optimization professionals are incorporating PR tactics into their optimization strategies these days, and there’s a very good reason for this trend: the search engines are placing premiums on authentic earned media.The very nature of earned media has evolved, however. In addition to pick up in the mainstream media, earned media credibility also occurs when content generates social shares and develops high-quality website traffic.
So, as we are writing press releases and other content intended for online publication, it’s a good idea to be thinking about how to encourage social sharing and to keep readers on the website page posting your content. And to achieve these objectives, first and foremost, it’s crucial to attract readers are truly interested in the message topic....
Heard this one before? “If you create great content you will find a large audience.” It’s nonsense. Or at the very least, it’s idealistic. It’s like if you make great music you’ll become a rock star. The number of great bands that are painfully undiscovered is, well, painful. You need to create something great and be discovered. In my articles I tend to focus on the “create something great” half of the formula. Today I’ll focus on the “be discovered” part, which is largely a mechanical exercise you may not understand—or have never considered....
Startups rely on robust web traffic to drive sales and stay top-of-mind with prospects. We asked 13 founders which SEO tools have helped give their own websites a boost. What an excellent list and resource for any small biz, PR or marketing pro....
SEO itself has always been somewhat of a barrier to entry for online success. In other words, for a new person it’s so complex that it takes a long time to understand all the little things that search engines, Google specifically, are asking for. Time, capital, and energy are necessary to rank pages on the world’s most popular search engine. Having said that, I found it necessary to compile a list of 200 ranking factors. As you’re reading it, make a list of the things you need to implement into your marketing strategy. Remember, this is all white hat and I would never recommend you participate in spammy or black hat techniques. I can tell you business owner after owner who struggled in the major updates in the past year and a half. They were toying with the dark side and Google caught onto them....
I particularly enjoyed Jayson DeMers’ article on the 3 pillars of SEO in 2013 – and I especially add my vote of emphasis to his pillar #3 – Making Friends, Engaging and Sharing Content.... I would go so far as to maintain that public relations, in the form of quality content, is the New SEO. And I’m increasingly less alone in this idea and goal. But for the sake of discussion, if we can accept at least in philosophy that PR is increasingly becoming SEO’s strongest vehicle and anchor, how can companies take best advantage of PR’s SEO role? Here are my ideas (with help from a couple of resident experts) for the 15 Steps to Power SEO.....
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