4 Principles to Drive SEO Success 4 Principles to Drive SEO Success I’ve been lately asked to give some tips, especially to new SEOs, to enhance their skills. Although I already presented in MozCon last year best practices and guidelines to effectively manage SEO projects, I would like to share some principles –instead of specific tips–, that when followed together I’ve found they create the foundation of a great SEO work, providing consistent, long-term value to clients that can be applicable to any SEO project and differentiate exceptional SEO specialists. I have no doubt that most of you already know and follow them in one way or another but I have also seen how these principles are unfortunately diluted in our busy daily SEO life. Here are these 4 principles to enhance your SEO value and ultimately, achieve SEO success. 1. Have you ever proposed to build a “useful resource or tool” or an “attractive piece of content” to your clients just to realize that they already had developed it and you had no idea? 2. 3. 4.
6 Ways to Get Others to Write Your Content - YouMoz Over the last year, we've seen a lot of algorithm updates from Google that emphasized the importance of having unique content on a website. Being able to create quality content is often a problem many businesses face. The following is a list of ways that I’ve seen companies use to get others to create great content for them. #1 Allow Guest Posts Idea A popular way to get content for your site is to hire a content writer or freelancer to write the content for you. If your website has some decent domain authority, you should have no problem finding writers ready, willing, and able to provide content for your website. Pro Tip: Establish clear guest post guidelines for your site that outline what you are looking for in a post and what you will not allow. #2 Conduct a Survey Source: Great content can come from analyzing data gathered from surveys. Example Pro Tip: Learn how to write effective survey questions. a.) b.)
30 Specialist (and Super Smart) Search Engines Google is widely (and rightly) recognised as the mother of all search engines. But, if you need to drill down your searches by more specific details, do you trust Google to give you what you need every single time? Here’s a collection of 3o vertical search engines which you should have up your sleeve when you need some specialist power. Flights / Travel 1. SkyScanner.net – The leading flights search engine, providing information about all carriers to help you find the best deal. 2. 3. 4. 5. Images 7. 8. People 9. Forums 11. Music 12. Audio and Video 16. Resources 18. Domain names 20. Icons 22. Private search 25. Similar websites 26. All-rounders 27. While some of these are better alternatives to Google and the other major engines, for the most part, the big boys do it incredibly (incredibly, incredibly) well. olly via shutterstock
17 Things You Should Stop Doing to Your Websites We see dozens of guides and tutorials on how we should make our websites better to rank, convert, and perform. On the other hand, there’s so much wrong-doing, it can be easier for you to STOP doing some things to get better results with your online presence. Below I’ve outlined the 17 most popular “sins” I’ve identified on my customers’ websites within the last 2 years. 1. I do realize, some “boring niche” companies find it pretty hard to create a content strategy and produce fascinating content on a regular basis… But it’s not an excuse for publishing something-of-no-use to anyone. 2. Yes, you got me right – there’s not much sense in stealing stock images. Image credit Sorry, I don’t believe these guys :) Dozens of studies and experiments prove that users are more attracted by amateur pictures that look true-to-life, though they can miss a polished glamorous look. 3. I’ve seen it everywhere – an interesting post with great points and a dozen of user comments that are left unnoticed. 4.
All about the Title Tag for Search Engine Optimization By Jill Whalen What Is a Title Tag? The title tag has been – and probably will always be – one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. In fact, fixing just the title tags of your pages can often generate quick and appreciable differences to your rankings. And because the words in the title tag are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP), changing them may result in more clickthroughs. Search Engines and Title Tags Title tags are definitely one of the "big three" as far as the algorithmic weight given to them by search engines; they are equally as important as your visible text copy and the links pointing to your pages – perhaps even more so. Do Company Names Belong in the Title Tag? The answer is a resounding YES! This doesn't mean that you should put *just* your company name in the title tag. Title Tags Should Contain Specific Keyword Phrases Using our Dallas accountant example, you might create a title tag like this one:
15 Title Tag Optimization Guidelines For Usability and SEO The HTML title tag defines the name of a web page and should be used to describe content of that page in a concise way. Thus, what is placed between the opening and closing HTML title tag is extremely important for both usability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In this post I will discuss proven title tag optimization guidelines that you can use to create the ultimate title tag: one that is both human and search engine friendly – a title that will help in driving quality traffic to your web site. Title Tag Optimization: Why is it important? Title tag optimization is important because the content of the title tag is used by: Web browsers: To label the web browser’s tab(s) (Older browsers used to display the title of the web page in the browser’s window title) Web browsers display the page name in their tab by retrieving the contents of the title tag of the web site being viewed Search engines: As the clickable headline for listings on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) Conclusion
Backlink Analyzer - Backlink Analysis Tool Analyze the Backlinks of your Website This Backlink Analyzer is a very powerful weapon in your SEO arsenal. The Backlink Analysis Tool allows you to analyze the incoming links of a particular page, evaluate the link quality, analyze the Link Building Strategy of your competitors and improve your Rankings. Backlink Analysis Report & Statistics Use this Backlink Analyzer to scan the links of a specific page and get the important statistics in Pie Charts & Graphs. The Incoming Links of the Page The PageRank & WebzyRank values The Domain Authority Internal & External Links and Followed & No-Followed Links Various Statistics about the Backlink Type & Link Quality Detailed Anchor Text Analysis Moreover, a complete Text Analysis is performed on the anchortext of the links in order to help you evaluate your current Link Building strategy and find out for which keywords you are more likely to achieve high rankings. Finally, the tool provides a full analysis of the backlinks including:
Google AuthorRank: Fact or Fiction One of the challenges with Internet marketing is that the landscape is always changing. Social networks come and go, new trends gain traction, and there's always a Google algorithm change looming. Already this year we've talked about how Facebook is implementing their own internal search called Graph Search, and mentioned how Google's encryption of keywords used in search is wreaking havoc with search engine marketers and website owners. Now, we have the rumors of Google AuthorRank to deal with and wonder how that is going to affect search engine rankings. Google has long denied that authorship credit will affect result rankings in search engines, leading many to wonder if it was even real. Mark Traphagen was astute enough to notice this quote within a book announcement from TechCrunch from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt: That sounds like not only is Google AuthorRank real, it's coming soon to a theatre near you. What is Google Authorship and AuthorRank? Why is Google AuthorRank Important?
How Search Works - Google Tells All In an ongoing effort to enlighten us and fight spam, Google tells all today in an infographic entitled How Search Works that was released just moments ago. They tell the story of Google Search and how they deal with everything from your clicks to scammers. They start off by telling us that Google is searching and indexing 30 trilling individual pages each day. And it’s growing each and every day with the increased number of sites helping Google find them better online. It then uses programs and formulas to deliver the bests results humanly possible as we search the internet. They then pull the rankings and display them to us. Google states “Our algorithms are constantly changing. Google is always looking to eliminate spam. Interesting to note that in the 800 seconds it took me to read their infographic, 32 Million searches were performed. Managing Editor John Rampton is an entrepreneur, full-time computer nerd, and PPC expert.