Tag: SEO

Posted on

Social Bookmarking Not My Favorite Way to Boost SEO

I do like social bookmarking for some clients as a way to build one way inbound links, but I feel that there are better ways for other clients. Social bookmarking works great to build links for website and blog content that is timely, well written, and a hot web topic.

For the majority of business sites that focus on their own services, more mundane topics (although they could be of interest to a specific audience), social bookmarking may simply be too much trouble for the results that it generates. One big caveat is that if you have a well developed social bookmarking profile and many followers, you may have much better success than just opening an account and starting to bookmark away.

I find that if you are going to really invest time in building links a faster more sure way is to write article pieces and syndicate them on newsletter and content sites for others to grab while keeping in your bio block and link information. Even better is to see if you can guest write for a professional organization in your industry. The key here however is that any article you provide must be informational in nature and not focused on your own particular services.

Do I feel that social bookmarking has a place? Yes, absolutely, but it is labor intensive and best used for certain topics, content, and specific clients.

Posted on

SEO As We Have Known It Is Dead

Yes it is true, with the advent of personalized search where everyone sees a different search results page based on their accumulated search history and social media site interaction, search engine optimization as we have known it over the years is dead.

In fact, it is so dead that we have dropped our subscription to WordTracker and removed SEO services from our website. Yes, that means it is really dead. There is no more keyword stuffing, over optimization, or special code massaging that provide organic search placement. Now it is about building content that is focused on your services and building “web authority”.

In fact, with personalized search the keyword research tools that we previously used to assist in identification of good keywords to cover and niches to target have all pretty much gone away. WordTracker used to be one of the best, but is now in my eyes simply a keyword discovery tool and the AdWords tool does a pretty good job at that for free.

So what’s the key now to good organic placement? Well, first it is important to know that what I see in the top ten will not be what you see and so on and so on. There are some results that Google seems to show consistently for all  search users, but it is not as it was where if you were in the number three position, we all saw you at number three. Those days are long gone.

What we recommend now for organic placement is that make sure your website works for you and focuses tightly on your products and services. Using brainstorming techniques and results from your website analytics program to identify your keyword targets, build content and backlinks activity, get blogging, do quarterly press releases, and do a white paper or feature article once or twice a year. If you are not active in Facebook now, make sure you have a Facebook Fan Page in the next six months. All these things working together for you build your site and insulate you from organic placement drops that sometime previously popular SEO tactics, when they fall from favor, may bring.

You can still place organically, but not using the same tactics that we used to use before. That’s for sure!

Posted on

Web Authority – How Do You Built It?

Web authority with search engines is built based on authoritative content that is unique and informative. The content you create for an authority site should not only clearly and transparently detail your services, but should provide more in-depth informational content on topics that dovetail with your service offerings.

Search engines reward large content-rich websites with organic search placement. This depth of content is not built over night, but should be considered a work in progress with new pages added on a monthly basis. For new websites we recommend that a client start with a minimum of 25 pages of content and immediately start blogging three days a week on site launch.

Over time as your website grows, you naturally establish authority on your selected topic as you build keyword density. For many websites, in a year or less, they will start to see good organic improvement. Continue that process for years and your website can grow to over several thousand pages of interesting unique informational content that is targeted around your service offerings. Not only does this make a better website for readers, but search engines reward these sites with better organic placement.

Posted on

How Do I Get in Google’s Top 10 Results?

Boy, that is the million dollar question isn’t it? How do I get in the top 10 Google.com search results? First, not every website realistically can get there. Sometimes the competition for the top spots is so fierce that a new website simply can’t break in.

This is particularly true with new small websites of under 10 pages in most business sectors. The key to garnering top organic placement, or at least improved organic search placement (that is placement you don’t pay for), is to create a plan and then work your plan.

These are the things that I know will help improve organic search placement:

  1. Make sure your content is original and is keyword dense but readable.
  2. Create a strategy to add new pages to your website every month.
  3. Get blogging on your domain. (ie www.yourdomain.com/blog not blog.yourdomain.com and certainly not on Blogspot or WordPress.com)
  4. Work on creating value for readers. Provide free information not just about your services. Give in-depth knowledge on topics and show your expertise.
  5. Make sure your home page is not all images or Flash. You’ve got to have content!

For some websites you have to work your plan to build web authority. Suddenly it seems that you hit a tipping point and start to get placement. In some cases you must lower your expectations and work to own smaller local markets before you move to the state and then national level if you can even move to a higher level.

Additionally, there are some markets that are really tough to own, take real estate for example. A five page website, no mater how pretty or optimized, will ever bump a national firm out of top Google placement. However that site may be able to place for city and county searches organically.

When it comes to moving up in the organic results, you have to take a long range view. You’ve got to be doing everything right over time to really see progress in your placement on the search engines.