Sharing your challenges as an affiliate can be one of the most valuable things you can do. Image: Flickr / horiavarlan / CC-BY-SA

If you have been doing SEO, web management or social media management for any amount of time, you have likely encountered challenges that someone else has had or will have. While you may not be an expert, sharing your experience is valuable for a variety of reasons.

Problem solving is best done together

As thousands of websites and groups have proven, crowdsourcing is a very effective way to do just about anything. Crowdsourcing allows for the group to combine knowledge, experience and expertise to come up with a solution that works well. Sometimes, it takes the idea or the experience of one person or several people that you have never met to spark another idea in your mind, or vice versa. Problem-solving is best done as a group, and sharing your experiences in websites, SEO and community building can help create a community. By presenting the problems you are having challenges with, using search engine optimization techniques you are already familiar with, you will find others who are having similar problems and may have solved them.

Create a record for yourself

It is likely that you will encounter a variety of challenges that you could solve in one of several ways. You may encounter those problems again when building another website, helping out a potential client or even rebuilding your own website. Create a record for yourself of what problems you encountered, what the potential solutions are, which solutions you chose, and how those solutions worked out. If you share this information publicly or semi-publicly, you will be able to search that record again in the future to make more informed decisions. The time savings alone will be worth the effort you put into it.

The importance of branding yourself

As an affiliate, you will likely own and operate special-topics websites that make use of the best practices in social media, search engine optimization and content. Some of these things you may be more passionate about than others, so focus on those things you like. Creating a separate blog or profile where you share your challenges and solutions can help brand you or your business separate from your affiliate accounts. If you wish to branch out into social media management or search engine optimization services, this back record of your work will be incredibly helpful, because you will be known as a person or brand, not just known by your affiliate sites.

Mobile phones view websites differently, a fact that Google is now accounting for. Image: Flickr / joshuakaufman / CC-BY-SA

Mobile phones now account for a huge amount of traffic on the web. Though Google and other search engines have been serving up different web results for mobile phones for a long while, Google has officially announced that the Googlebot Mobile crawls with a smartphone user agent.

Knowing what mobile agents look for

Mobile phones look for something different than computers and desktop browsers. Websites that have mobile versions tend to be ranked more highly no matter what for mobile phones, because those websites serve up what is required of that mobile browser. Mobile agents look for mobile-friendly websites of some kind. These could be redirects to a mobile site or a flexible HTML5 site.

Every mobile phone is different

There are hundreds of different kinds of mobile phone browsers. You do not need to create a different site for every type of browser. Instead, you should create a mobile site that is easily read by as many different types of mobile browsers as possible. If you find that your website is visited particularly often by one type  of mobile operating system, it could be worth it to create a mobile site for that specific type of browser. It will always be better to create a mobile site of some kind that functions, instead of having no mobile site at all.

You still need discoverable content

While mobile best practices are still under development, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First of all, treat mobile browsers as equal to other types of browsers. Secondarily, you should always make sure your mobile content is included in your site map. Finally, you should have mobile content that can be easily read and easily navigated using a mobile phone.

Mobile made easy

If you are running a website on WordPress, you can create a mobile version of your website easily. There are a multitude of plugins that make WordPress installations mobile-friendly, including Wapple Architect, WP Touch and WordPress Mobile Pack. No matter what plugin you choose, you should always look at your website using a mobile phone emulator to test your website. If you have a magazine-style theme that displays a specially programmed homepage, you may need to program new homepage content.

After you have a mobile website up and running, be sure to check for compatibility with other plugins. Things like WordPress E-Commerce often are not programmed to work with mobile sites, so go through your site with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that all your plugins are displaying or operating correctly.

The best businesses are ones that have repeatable systems; your business deserves no less. Image: Flickr / fcminutti / CC-BY-SA

When facing any large web challenge, be it SEO, a website redesign, or even creating a website from scratch, it can be tempting to just do what works. Before you do something rash, however, keep in mind that you should set up systems, not solutions.

Creating extra work for yourself

In search engine optimization and web design, it is easy to create a lot of work for yourself. Making changes on a few pages may not sound like much work, but when you multiply small changes across dozens, hundreds or even thousands of pages, it can mean days or weeks of work. Nobody gets everything right on the first try, but minimizing this additional work from the outset can save you weeks of your life later on.

Things you should keep in mind

A few things are important to keep in mind when you start setting up systems. First of all, URLs are and will continue to be important in search engine optimization. Set up your URLs so they can be easily read and easily expanded upon in the future. You should also build an XML sitemap that you update and check on a regular basis; if you plan on changing these URLs, then the sitemap can help save you from losing search engine power attached to those links. You should also keep in mind that the solutions you come up with are likely going to be the solutions you will be using for a while, so test and re-test before you settle on a final answer.

The best systems are flexible

Websites change and grow over time, and it can be impossible to guess where that growth may happen. That growth will generally show itself when you run into questions about how to do something or how to expand the functionality of your site. If someone asks for something to be added or wants to do something different than what your website is built for, then consider how your current systems could handle them. If your systems cannot, then consider setting up something else.

For example

As a matter of example, imagine that you have started up an affiliate blog about cameras. You may currently be the only person working on the blog, so you are handling writing, editing, advertising and link building. Think ahead, though. If your blog grows, then how would you expand your work? Create both editor and writer users on the blog. Write out how you decide on advertising, so you could hand that piece off to someone else. Consider how you choose topics and how you would describe that to someone else. When do you decide to add a new category? How about which video sharing service to use? Create systems from your solutions.

Redirecting your pages should be done with careful consideration. Image: Flickr / philliecasablanca / CC-BY

Over time, websites can grow, change focus or change entirely. If you are heading up a major change to a website, you will have to determine how to handle the inevitable broken links that this re-organization will cause.

Decoding the numbers of a website

When you’re readjusting a website, you will encounter several different types of codes. First of all, a 404 code is a “page not found” error, which is essentially a dead-end. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect, which tells search engines and visitors that the page has moved for good. A 302 redirect is temporary, and tells search engines and visitors that it is essentially a placeholder.

Should you redirect?

The first thing to consider is whether you should redirect a page. A creatively built 404 page that directs visitors to a search or to what they may have been looking for can help significantly. A page that is going to be permanently out of date should be redirected to page that has similar content to what visitors thought they would be getting when they clicked the link. A page that will be out of commission for only a short amount of time, however, may be better served with a note telling when it will again be valid.

Deciding how to redirect

You should have a distinct plan before you start redirecting pages on your website. If you do not have a plan that includes how and why pages will be redirected, you may end up having to re-do the work in the future. If you are simply moving a website to a new URL, all of your redirects should be the 301 type. If you are moving select pages of your website, consider carefully whether you should redirect to a new page or something more permanent, like a super category page.

Knowing where the power flows

Search engines and visitors view redirects very differently. A search engine views 301 redirects as a note to re-index the site with the new URL; visitors rarely see much of a difference other than the URL. A 404 is a dead page that search engines and visitors often consider a dead end. A 302 temporary redirect helps visitors but does not help search engines.

In the end, plan for your reorganization or redirects, decide how to do them carefully and implement with thought.

Remixing content will always be a better decision than ripping it off. Image: Flickr / stc4blues / CC-BY

The internet can be a funny place when it comes to the ownership of content. Remixing and commenting is almost always a good idea, but straight-up ripping off an idea or content has negative social, search engine and site ranking effects. Remixing content is can be a great idea, but be careful to never rip it off.

What constitutes ripping off

When you copy and paste content directly from one website onto your own, you are ripping it off. When you take the idea or opinion of someone else and present it as your own idea, then you are ripping it off. The more difficult situations are where the author has been “significantly inspired” by someone else’s ideas. A good rule of thumb is that if the idea or text or photo or video is not expressly offered for credit-free sharing, you should credit it.

Copying content from one place to another creates duplicate content. Duplicate content damages your search engine optimization efforts.

Taking inspiration

If you find an idea or a piece of content you love and want to share, you have several options. First, you can take the inspiration from that post. Find the main point of the post, or the thing about it that you love (or hate). Include the original content, then post your thoughts about that piece of content. Not only will the link to the original content provide an opportunity for linkbuilding, it allows for opportunities for others to find and comment on your posts. Some of the most popular pieces of content online are remixes of or responses to original content. Some popular social networks, including Pinterest, are social networks based entirely on commenting on and sharing content that others create.

Crediting your inspiration

If you’re not taking a specific piece of inspiration from someone else’s content, then you should still credit the posts, blogs or information online that may have inspired your post. Providing that credit, either in line with your content or at the end of your post, provide authority and viability to your ideas. By crediting how an idea was created, you will be showing the respect to other content creators that is essential for building good relationships online.

Being a content creator online is about creating content that is readable, easy to share and provides useful information. Crediting your inspiration is a big part of that.

Using every available tool is important. Image: Flickr / ann-dabney / CC-BY

Google provides one of the most popular and most full-featured analytics programs available on the web, Google Analytics. More and more data is being blocked from Analytics, and only a Webmaster Tools account will provide the data.

The move to secure searching

As browsers, search engines and other web tools move toward more secure browsing, less and less information is being passed along to analytics tools of any kind. Logged in Google users are automatically opted out of passing along keyword data; Firefox has announced plans to cut out that same data. Google’s secure searching options also block that data from being passed along. The reason is that, combined, the IP data and keyword data together can lead back to individuals, revealing searching patterns. Secure browsing protects users from sharing personally identifiable information in these searches.

Why these keywords are important

The keyword data that secure searching blocks can be incredibly important information for anyone concerned with how their website is functioning. Keyword data can show the effectiveness (or not) of search engine optimization efforts. Keyword data can also help you target future blog posts. Keywords are the beating heart of effective search engine optimization, and that keyword data is important.

Getting your keyword data

Though the keyword data from secure searches is blocked from Analytics, there are still ways to access the depersonalized data. Google Keyword Tools, which provides services for Adwords customers, provides general search volume data on particular keywords, as well as suggesting related keywords. Keyword Tools is a tool that any good content creator should be using to inform their future searches anyway. Google Webmaster Tools is a tool that provides depersonalized search data that comes to your website. You can download this information and make use of it, even if you cannot combine it with funnel actions that Analytics may provide.

The other uses for tools

Google Webmaster Tools, along with Bing Webmaster Tools, provides a bevy of tools for website owners. The tools help webmasters optimize their websites to work within the best practices and procedures. Not signing up your website for webmaster tools is forgoing tools custom-built to help you optimize with the best possible information. Even if you do not use Webmaster Tools right away, getting your website hooked into the tools will provide a longer history of data from your website if and when you decide to utilize that data.

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Search Engine Land
Web Pro News

Google Places listings are valuable, but turning them off could help your listing. Image: Flickr / leyla_arsan / CC-BY-SA

Google Places and Google Maps have a simple goal: to help customers find what they are looking for. As the services have developed, Google has refined Places in the same way it has refined all other services, and now your business model matters.

The old model: local is everything

Previously, Google Places and Google Maps focused entirely on the local availability of products and services. Local search results and local listings meant that businesses that did not have a local location were at a disadvantage. This meant many businesses created multiple local listings in an effort to show up in local search results, even when addresses did not necessarily actually serve customers.

The problem with the old model

This model that focused entirely on local ended up causing consequences that Google engineers did not like. Many local pages ended up duplicating content because the address or city names were the only differences. This old model was also sending customers to locations that did not necessarily offer the products and services they were looking for.

The new Maps: turn off your address

In the new Google Maps, there is a feature that allows businesses to turn off the display of their local address. Google encourages businesses to use this option if the customer is not supposed to actually go to the business. Not turning off your address listing could even harm your listing. According to the Google Places Help Files:

What are my options when defining a service area?
Don’t receive customers at your location? Serve customers at their location? Select the “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing” option within your dashboard — if you don’t hide your address, your listing may be removed from Google Maps.

Addresses do still mean something

Though Google is cutting local addresses out of some listings, that does not mean you can run a business entirely without an address. As an affiliate or a business that does not have a physical location, there are a multitude of ways to utilize location-based services to help build your businesses. In the end, you need a blend of styles and a variety of search engine optimization efforts. You should make sure you have location-based information for your business, but you should not focus solely on businesses addresses.

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SEOMoz

Putting lipstick on a thin website may lead to short-term results, but over-optimizing a thin site will end up in search penalties. Image: Flickr / lori_greig/ CC-BY

As a part of the continuing push toward quality content reigning online, Google has announced plans to penalize “over-optimized” websites. This is the latest step in Google’s effort to completely overhaul the search algorithm.

Focusing on content

As with almost every change that has been made to Google search results lately, this most recent rearranging of search results will focus entirely on quality of content. In a discussion at SXSW, Google engineer Matt Cutts discussed the plans to “level the playing field” for “all those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO versus those making great content and great sites.” This is a big part of Google’s other stated goals to change ranking results on the basis of semantic search, search that focuses on how humans think and interact with the web.

Who will be affected

Will this latest algorithm update affect your website? Early estimates are that somewhere between 5 and 20 percent of websites will be directly affected by the algorithm update. Most estimates say that the Panda 2.2 update, one of the biggest changes in the Google algorithm, affected about 12 percent of all search results. Your website will likely be affected, it is just a matter of how much or how little.

What counts as over optimization

What constitutes over-optimization will be the question of the day when this update goes live. There are some obvious answers: a site that has hundreds or thousands of links from obviously dummy websites will likely be considered over-optimized. Sites that focus on a single keyword and use that single keyword in every title, post, page, link and image will also likely be penalized. Matt Cutts has previously discussed that “over-optimization” is often read by Google as “spammy.” As with all Google updates, there is no way to know exactly what the algorithm weighs, but generally if you are concerned that your site is too thin, too spammy, or too optimized, it may be a good idea to step back and focus on useful content, instead of optimization.

Looking to social signals

Though it has not been explicitly discussed yet, Google does consider social signals heavily in search results, especially with the Search Plus Your World update. Google’s Analytics tools are being updated to map social signals and social interaction more heavily, and this increased tracking will likely play into the new updates as well.

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Search Engine Land
Tek Goblin

Localized search results will be appearing much more often, now that the Venice update has gone live. Image: SEOMoz

Generally, a Google algorithm change causes a mighty uproar, for better or for worse, in the marketing and SEO community. The latest update to the Almighty Algorithm, however, is one that has gone relatively under-discussed, despite its large implications.

The basics of Google Venice

The Google Venice update, which rolled out this week, is technically one of the smaller updates that Google has put in place. These small updates happen fairly regularly and do not usually make a huge impact on search results. The Google Venice update is one that triggers local results when broad search terms are entered into the search. For example, terms such as “autos” or “carpets” will trigger a localization result. This not only provides local Places data, it also changes the first search engine results page. According to the Google search page, this update relies on older ranking factors to determine these placements; this means that if you have previously ranked your website for “bicycles Spokane,” then a search for “bicycles” localized to Spokane will likely show your page as a top-10 result.

Crafting your response to Venice

The Google Venice update is one that can be relatively easily responded to, because it is based almost entirely on previous ranking factors. This means pages or businesses that are listed with a Google Places entry, plenty of high-quality inbound links, specific location-based meta information and quality content will rank much more easily. If you are not a location-specific business, Venice will be slightly more difficult to respond to. Current algorithms and ranking factors do not consider the fact that these changes require heavily localized pages for businesses that do not necessarily need that localization. Keep in mind, however, that Venice will only localize one-third to one-half of the SERP, so a well-optimized site still has a chance of appearing on the first page.

Venice with Search Plus Your World

One of the other reasons Venice has not made as big an impact as it could have is that Search Plus Your World recently rolled out. SPYW is an algorithm update that very heavily weights social signals and personal connections in search results. This means that these factors are as important as localization factors. In short, these two algorithm changes, together, mean that a site that focuses on a single marketing or SEO strategy is doomed to lose traffic. Instead, a widely varied marketing strategy that includes plenty of useful content, social sharing, local options and well-built links will have a better chance of ranking well in search results.

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SEOMoz
Coast Digital

A marketing plan should be a living document that provides direction. Image: Flickr / orangeacid / CC-BY

It doesn’t matter what product or service you are selling, selling it can be hard work. A marketing plan can help you focus your efforts and make the best use of successes.

Why you need a marketing plan

A marketing plan does not need to be a complex document that includes hundreds of pages. A marketing plan is simply an outline of how you intend on traveling from point A to point B. Point A is where you currently are as a business or brand. Point B is where you want to be. Not only will this provide a direction for your editorial calendar, but it can help prevent you going off-track, distracted by a new idea or something shiny. A marketing plan is a guide to work within, not a road you have to follow exactly.

The basics of a marketing plan

At their most basic, marketing plans include just a few pieces of information. First, you should include short, medium and long-term overarching goals that outline what you are working toward.

Second, your marketing plan needs to outline every step of the marketing funnel. Start with what the conversion step will be and work backward. A funnel should have at least three steps. The first step is when someone comes to your website or finds your brand. The second step is when that person asks for more information or does more research. The final step is conversion, however you may define that conversion.

In addition to defining your funnels, your marketing plan should outline all of the different ways you will work toward getting people in to your website or to your store. This could be social networking, blogging, networking events — it could be just about anything. However you plan on bringing people in, you should have a plan for how you intend on interacting through that medium.

Marketing plans need to be living documents

Once you have finally put all of your work into writing a marketing plan, you should not file it away. Instead, a marketing plan needs to be a living document that you constantly refer to and edit, updating to include what succeeds. Make a schedule to check in on your marketing plan on a regular basis, and use it to provide direction to everything from your blogging efforts to which events you choose to go to.