Tag: SEO

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The New Face of SEO Has Three Sides

If you have a website, are a webmaster, or are simply tired of paying per click and want to improve your organic search placement, you’ve got a very hard job ahead of you now that Google has shifted its racking and stacking algorithm that determines who is in what position.

SEO as we’ve known it before is dying. Although for now, there are some strategies that still seem to work, Google is effectively and actively targeting them one by one with filters in their index. This is very bad news for sites that have leaned heavily in code optimization and keyword density for organic placement, but good news for those that have built authority content-rich websites.

I feel that the new face of SEO has a three pronged focus: content, social media, and blogging.

Content

There is a new focus on having quality unique content on your website. Content that is more than a brochure about your services; rather content that explains the why and importance in the broader scheme of what you do. Content you create should be natural and readable. Mention the phrase you want to place for two times on the page and then use synonyms in a natural way. This means that pages should be smaller and really no more than 350 to 400 words long.

Social Media

There is no faster way to build links, share information, and build a community than to participate in social media. Specifically I mean Twitter. It is very important to understand that although there has been a huge push to move businesses into Facebook, Google does not index Facebook updates, but it does index Twitter updates. If you have to choose a place to invest your time and money right now, choose Twitter.

Blogging

Blogging is an easy way to not only build fresh content for your website, improve stickiness, but to build inbound links to your website and on-domain blog in a slow natural way – a way that Google likes. It is not unusual for a website to have several thousand inbound links to blog content after blogging just a year or so.

There are several very important things to remember when you are setting up a blog. Make sure your blog is installed on the same server and using the same domain name as your website. Be consistent in writing to build content and make sure your content is on topic and unique.

If you are interested in having help with any of these needs that reflect the new face of SEO, I invite you to visit our company website to find out more about Twitter, blogging, and website content.

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Tips to Promote Your Website

In continuing with the last several blog posts on tips and tidbits, here are few of my top tips on how you can promote your website.

1. Promote your website with Google AdWords. If you need visibility and leads fast, Google AdWords is the best place to start. I recommend using AdWords for a boost right after you launch your website until you have enough impetus to garner organic placement and start generating activity on your own.

2. Make sure you are blogging. If you want to wean yourself off Google AdWords at some point, it is important to be actively involved in building unique informational content which over time will help you with organic placement and cause the natural building of inbound links.

3. Make sure you are building content on your website in addition to blogging. You’ll need more than blogging to garner placement. Consider doing articles smartly to get inbound links to your website. I don’t mean spin articles, but rather write thoughtful pieces that provide value.  Use social media to promote your articles, archive them on your website and place the articles on just a few article sites.

4. Use social media to promote your website, add value by not just talking about your own services, but make sure to work to create authority in all you do. Link to your site, your article pieces, and blogs as well as try to engage readers.

5.  Move into the wider world. Get active in your market sector on forums to tape into new ideas, thoughts, and share your expertise as well as learn from others. Share your website and yourself to get your name out there.

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Big Brands Violate Traditional SEO Practices and Still Get Organic Placement

Google’s Panda and Penguin updates have turned the web upside down leaving SEO experts struggling to understand the what it takes to now earn top organic placement. In this recent article from Website Magazine (a publication that I really like), some tips are revealed that may help you to update your SEO strategy.

First, it appears that big brands are breaking all the rules and getting or retaining organic placement. There are some important take-aways we can glean from the research done for this article.

1. Size and authority of your website are key for organic placement. A 5 page website will never be able to garner organic placement when competing with larger well placed website. Blogging remains the very best way to quickly build authoritative content for small to medium sized businesses who want to compete with big brands.

2. Facebook shares will impact your organic placement. Twitter activity is down the list to number six for impact, but Facebook social signals remain a key indicator of success in placement on Google. That means not just posting on Facebook but having people share your posts that contain links.

3. The content in the <h1> tag and the volume of content on a page for big brands do not appear to impact organic placement.

“Surprisingly, the data show a negative correlation between these factors and rankings – contradicting traditional SEO theory,” explains Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics’ CTO. “So, not having keywords in headlines or having less text on a page seems to be associated with sites that rank higher.”

That’s interesting news pointing out that authority of a site actually counteracts the keyword density and using keywords in the <h1> tags for big brand sites. However, that does not mean that smaller brands cannot and should not optimize their page code, but do it smarter and in a natural readable format.

4. Too much advertising on a page even for big brands appears to impact organic placement. This is a direct impact from Google’s Panda and Penguin updates. It doesn’t mean you cannot have ads on your page, but need to not have your page all about ads.

In a nutshell, here are the factors Website Magazine says are important. Make sure to read the full article as it is really pretty helpful.

  1. Facebook shares
  2. Number of backlinks
  3. Facebook total
  4. Facebook comments
  5. Facebook likes
  6. Tweets
  7. Percent of no-follow backlinks – interesting this is a factor too!
  8. Keywords in domain name.
  9. Percent of backlinks with keywords – you’ll take a hit for too many with SEO anchor text

 

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There is No Time Machine for Website Placement

I have had a rash of phone calls from prospects telling me that their organic placement has dropped so much after they paid a ton of money for a new website that they want to repost the website they had five years ago to get their old traffic and Google.com placement back. Sorry, but there is no time machine that will take us back to the time you placed highly on Google.com.

A website is not a brochure; you create it once and then hand it out for years. It is a work of art, a puzzle, a tool, a selling machine. It needs care and it needs content updates. What worked three years ago and five years ago certainly does not work now. Even if we could reload a website that performed well five years ago on Google, it would certainly not perform in the same place today.

The Web has changed dramatically in the time that I have been providing professional services and it has significantly changed in the past three years and significantly changed this past year. What is important for website owners to understand is that now the content is crucial for organic placement, but more than that, it cannot just stop at great content.

A well placed website (in the organic search results) needs:

  1. great content that provides features and benefits
  2. content that is informational beyond what you sell and service
  3. regular updates of interesting articles, white papers, and informational updates
  4. social networking work off site on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
  5. a blog that is updated a minimum of three times a week and  deep links to pages in your website

That in a nutshell is a web authority site! A website that is beyond a brochure but provides real help and information for readers not only on services and products that are sold but on topics and ideas. This is no five page website, that’s for sure.

It takes time and money to build and maintain a web authority site, but the rewards can be big. With a site that is well placed organically, you may not need to spend quite so much in advertising to get traffic to your site. The older your authority site is, the more links you will naturally earn which will continue to improve your placement as well. Additionally, the depth of information you have on your website will let prospects know you know your business and are the go-to person for their needs.

What used to work three years ago for organic placement certainly will not work now, but quality content and information-rich web pages will never go out of style. I invite you to visit our “web authority website” and see if we can help you too.