PumpkinBlush

How important are heading elements to the rankings of webpages by search engines?

2012-01-16T20:52:00.000-08:00

By Bill Slawski

I’ve seen arguments by people who write about and study search engines and SEO very closely, which often appear written up in “SEO Expert Ranking Lists,” that HTML heading elements (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) are very important, arguments that heading elements were once important and are no longer, and arguments that heading elements were never important. Sadly, all of those arguments are likely wrong. Not so much about the importance or lack of, but rather about the reasons for that importance.
It’s possible that a search engine might notice when a word or term or phrase appears near the top of a page, or above a wall of text. It’s also possible that a search engine pays attention when those are shown in larger font sizes, or bolder than the rest of the page text, or in a different font than the remainder of the words on the page. But that prominence and that display isn’t really what a heading element is about. HTML has a font size large attribute and property. There’s also a bold property. Any words on a page near the top of that page might be said to be more prominent than others.
You can use many HTML element attributes and values and/or cascading style sheet properties to make words within different HTML elements bolder and larger, and to transform them to all capitals or a different font or color, or all of those if you want. You can purposefully place certain text at the top of a page to make it appear that the rest of the page is described by those words.

A search engine might see that only a few words are bold on a page, or are italicized, or in a different font or color or larger size and take some kind of meaning from that, perhaps even giving the use of that word or set of terms or phrase a little more weight on that page. And those words could be in a heading element, but they don’t have to be.

Semantic Relationships

When you use a heading element, whether <h1>, or <h2>, or so on down the line, you aren’t just impacting the look and feel of the text within that element, but you are also defining a semantic relationship between those words and the words that follow them. You’re telling visitors, and search engines that the utterings on the page that follow are related to the terms in your heading in a meaningful way, even if you don’t quite understand that, and don’t quite do that right. And many people don’t.
When you use a top level heading, or an <h1>, you’re setting up a semantic relationship between that heading and the remainder of the content on a page, describing what it is about. If you then use a second <h1> on the same page, you’re creating some potential confusion, because someone, or a search engine might see that as the ending of the semantic relationship between the content after the first <h1> and the start of this new <h1>. If instead you use a second level heading element, or an <h2>, you’re continuing the semantic relationship between the top level heading above with that content, but defining an included semantic relationship with the content headed by the second level heading.
Words within heading elements might help a page rank in search engines because they are displayed larger, or bolder, or in different colors than the text they head. I’ve seen the argument that a search engine might give weight to words contained in an HTML heading element because they might presume that the content in that page is being defined by that heading.

Weight of Headings Defined by How Well They Describe a Semantic Relationship?

Heading elements can help a search engine understand the semantics of words on a page a little better. Search engines can go out on the Web and index pages and explore the relationships between terms within headings, and the content they describe within that index. They can look for similar relationships on all the documents within their body of web pages that use the same terms within headings, and see if there might tend to be some kind of co-occurrence of words and phrases and concepts within those matches of headings and content using those headings.
So for instance, you may have a page that uses a top level heading (<h1>) of “Cities in New York,” and the page contains information such as the names of a number of cities in New York State, and information about those cities, and there may be a good number of other pages on the Web that use the same heading, and contain many of the same city names and information and concepts. You may also have another page that uses the top level heading (<h1>) of “Cities in New York” while providing information about New Jersey Cities.
The New York Cities heading with the New Jersey Cities information might not carry as much weight with the search engines as New York headings on other pages that head content about New York Cities.
Are search engines using the semantic relationships between heading elements and the content they head as a ranking signal?
They might be, or they might not be, and that might depend upon how well headings tend to describe the content they head.

Other HTML Elements and Semantic Relationships

There are many other semantic relationships from certain types of HTML elements that search engines are looking at more closely, and have been for a number of years, and a number of those signals seem to be pretty useful. There are patents and papers and even actual services from the search engines that describe and take advantage of those semantic relationships. More on that in my next post.

SEO 2012 – What The Future Holds for Social and Search Optimization by MJTAYLOR on JANUARY 2, 2012

2012-01-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

Before I share my prediction for SEO trends in 2012, it seems reasonable to review myTop 5 SEO Predictions for 2011 – a thread I wrote for v7N – and see if I made the mark for the past year.

Mobile Search SEO will become as important as standard web site search optimization. If the prediction of CNN/Fortune’s Seth Weintraub is correct — that ½ billion smartphones will be sold this coming year – smartphones will surpass computers as a way to access the Internet in 2011.

Smartphones have apparently not yet surpassed PCs as the preferred way to access the Internet, but the trend continues in that direction and the use of mobile for social networking strengthens that momentum. Mobile access is predicted to outpace desktop access by 2014: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/2011-mobile-statistics-stats-facts-marketing-infographic/.

2. Social Networking to Explode. Since Google and Bing confirmed that Twitter and Facebook have an impact on rankings, social media activity is set to increase exponentially.

Not only did the use of social media grow, but social networking held the International stage as a central player in the Arab Spring. Google also made a creditable entry (at last) into the social market with Google+. The introduction of Business Pages on Google+ added SEO value to the mix.

3. Google Places and Reviews will continue to grow in importance. Google

Places will continue to find their way into SERPs and savvy webmasters and SEOs will go beyond optimizing their Google Places for client sites. .. the search-smartest of webmasters will have their site marked up with rdfa “rich snippets” to make sure Google displays reviews in the SERPs where applicable.

In July, 2011, the landscape of Google Places changed significantly when the search giant stopped publishing 3^rd party reviews. At the same time, reviews took a more prominent position – with a second button inviting visitors to create a Review.

4. Duplicate Content - this year’s Mayday algorithm update and the roll out of Caffeine – an update to Google’s infrastructure to make it more flexible – set the stage for more frequent updates to the algorithm. Google will continue to take aim on less valuable content. Expect more intense duplicate content filtering, and expect “self service” links to decrease in value. Focus on unique content of true value.

5. Content & Link Bait to Continue to Reign. Google will continue to get smarter and discern between legitimate link popularity and the sort that is faked by link wheels, 3 way linking and article spinning, to name a few. The ability to create and publish content (King) that attracts links (Queen) will grow in importance. Unsolicited links to fresh, unique content will continue to be the Royal Flush.

The Panda updates certainly took aim at what Google called “content farms” and late in the year Freshness got a boost in the algorithm. Content Rules.

My score: four out five isn’t too bad.

SEO Trends for 2012

So what’s on the SEO Plate as 2012 unfolds?

Google+ - which reached a top ten market share position in social networks in November just months after its introduction – will continue to play an increasing role in Social SEO. The search giant’s social platform seems to have combined the best features of Twitter and Facebook and in some cases gone one better.Some Google+ innovations, such as privacy controls at the time of posting, were quickly adopted by Facebook. True social networking remains the province of Facebook, but professionals – especially in the technology fields and many of the arts, such as photography will continue to find Google+ a more robust alternative to Twitter.

The introduction of Google+ “brand” pages coincided with the new platform’s entrance into the top ten of social sites; some SEOs believe that Google+ will continue to grow – if only slightly – as long as site owners find SEO and traffic value from those pages. Vanity URLs (expec ted this year) should support the trend. Brand pages have also found their way onto Google Results – a “controversial occupation” of search geography.

Google+ shares will continue to be part of Google’s track toward personalized

search. If you are logged in, you are more and more likely to see links and comments from your network contacts.
Away From Keywords – toward traffic and conversion. When Google Analytics dropped the keyword referral data from view; it underscored an increasing trend away from tracking “ranking” for query strings. Clients still want it, but personalized search makes it an increasing less important metric. Traffic and conversion becomes more important.
Quality Content Continues to Reign - The Freshness Factor and Panda’s assault on poor content sites means webmasters must continue to update their sites to reflect the latest trends and news in their industry.
Bing will continue to grow in importance. Google lost 5% of its market share to MSN’s revamped search engine this year – and MSN’s ties with Yahoo and Facebook will continue to make the Bing presence larger in desktop search. Google’s increasing mobile presence (more than half of smartphones sold in 2011 were Androids) may mitigate some of that growth, though.
Move over Rich Snippets: Rich Snippets will share the Semantic Web Stage with Schema, a Microdata markup for web pages that is recognized by Google, Bing and Yahoo. Google continues to support Rich Snippets, but the trend is toward the more standardized Schema.
SeoMoz post on Schema with examples and discussion of mixing the languages and vocabulary of the diverse types of markup available:
A full list of the document types: http://schema.org/docs/full.html
Google Help for Schema:http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1211158
Resources for Rich Snippets: http://www.cyber-key.com/cutting-edge-seo-rich-snippets.html.
Anchor text decreases in value? More than one SEO observed recently that the anchor text of new links seemed to immediately push down the rankings for the same query strings. Certainly it makes sense that Google, which has trouble identifying paid links and similar link spam, would see devaluing the anchor text as an easy way to undermine attempts to directly manipulate SERPs. And it goes hand in hand with the this past year’s devaluation of keyword rich
Speech Recognition. This 7^th prediction is not mine, but one I found here:

Speech recognition – Siri, the speech recognition ”assistant” on the latest iPhone, makes people talk with their phones and it’s extremely popular already. In 2012 we will see Apple’s competitors come up with similar tools so that we don’t need to talk to people or type in search queries anymore. Is this the end of SEO as some journalists assume (just like some suggest after every other major change in the search industry)?

No, it just means different kinds of queries, maybe more colloquial or clumsy ones. Maybe more dialogue with your search engine, for example ”I want something to eat”. I can’t imagine people just saying one, two or three word queries in public without looking silly. So they will talk as they do with other people.

How to Take Your SEO to the Next Level by Nick Stamoulis

2011-12-11T07:40:00.001-08:00

So you’ve conducted keyword research, optimized every page of your website, and done some basic link building like setting up business profiles and local profiles and submitted your site to directories. While this is all important you know that that’s just not going to cut it. No matter what industry you are in, the web is a competitive place. Only so many websites can get onto that coveted first search engine results page. So what can you do to really take your SEO up a notch and improve your chances of getting there? Below are 3 tactics to implement right now:

1. Ramp up Your Content Marketing

Content is a huge part of SEO. After all, without content what is there to optimize? Obviously it takes time and resources to create quality content on a regular basis and that’s why many businesses falter in this area. They either don’t have the manpower, the time, or even the skills to do it right. In order to really be effective it’s important to create a blog and submit content to it daily, submit guest blog posts and articles to industry websites, create videos and upload them to video sharing sites, and create other “link bait” materials such as infographics and free whitepapers, guides, or E-books. Content needs to be taken seriously and content writers should be hired or the work should be outsourced to a trusted writer in order to really give your SEO campaign the boost that it needs.

2. Get Active in Social Media

Social media is no longer just a brand building tool. Social media activity is now a search engine algorithm ranking factor. The search engines rank web pages and web content based on trust and social media signals such as Likes, shares, tweets, +1’s and more establish that trust amongst social media users. If content is shared frequently, the search engines take note. Of course, in order to achieve these social signals it’s important to create social media accounts and keep them active. There’s no use in setting up a brand page and then not using it. Use social media to have a conversation with followers and promote content that they will find useful and that they will be willing to share. While the social media “Big 4” (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+) are important, there are numerous niche social networks that shouldn’t be ignored. In addition, social bookmarking sites can also drive traffic to your website and build your brand visibility.

3. Make Connections

A robust link building campaign aims to create links on related web properties across the web. These links can be created by submitting quality content to industry sites and other industry blogs. Of course, in order to be granted access to these sites it’s necessary to build a positive reputation and form relationships with others in the industry or in related industries over time. Take the first step by introducing yourself via social media or initiate a conversation by commenting on one of their blog posts. These relationships are extremely valuable and can lead to new linking and business opportunities over time.

Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing, and he writes a weekly SEO column for Daily Blog Tips. Visit the company website to find more about its services, or call 781-999-1222 to get more information.

7 Strategies To Make Facebook SEO Friendly

2011-12-08T08:42:00.001-08:00

Facebook represents a fantastic marketing opportunity for any business via shares & referrals, however, just like Wordpress and other platform based user sites, it’s critical to incorporate SEO strategies into your Facebook pages in order to get exposure out of them. Here are 7 Facebook SEO strategies to make sure your Face is getting the amount of Book it deserves!

Whether you are setting Facebook up for yourself or for a client it’s important to keep SEO strategies in mind. According to Google, they aren’t actually looking at Facebook “shares” as a separate part of their ranking algorithm, but traffic is traffic.

The number one thing to remember with Facebook shares: Their marketing value resides in the fact that they are coming from a reputable source; from someone known to, and respected by, the person on the other end. This invests the shares with clout and makes them very valuable. Make no mistake, Facebook is a marketing tool but nothing a business puts on their Facebook Wall should ever break that kind of trust. Period.

For businesses, Facebook is a delicate dance between, “be my friend” and “pay me money.” Always difficult, in the Facebook world it is critical to fall on the side of plushy slushy soft sell. This is why SEO strategies for Facebook are important. SEO by its nature lies behind the scenes and therefore customers can’t possibly interpret it as marketing.

1. Choose a Great Facebook Page Name

Back up; choose a great business name. Not too spammy, not too generic. Something descriptive and easy to remember. If it’s too generic Facebook might blacklist the name. Once you have a name, don’t change your page name. Once established, keep it and brand it. Renaming isn’t ever a good idea from an SEO perspective.

2. Facebook URL Names Are Also Important

Facebook now allows vanity names so make sure to add one if you can. The URL won’t exactly be yours but www.facebook.com/justcreativedesign is a lot better than www.facebook.com/11586454. DavesGarden is interesting, theirs is:http://www.facebook.com/davesgardencom. As long as the user name incorporates one of the terms related to your business you now have a URL that is searchable. It’s important to know that Facebook requires 100 fans before you can pick a username, of which you can then do by going to http://facebook.com/username

3. Use Keyword Rich Text to fill out the “About” and “Info” Sections of Your Facebook Page

This will place searchable terms near the top of the Facebook page in the CSS. These are small areas so refine the elevator speech! In addition, make sure to include address information so that the page will pop up on local searches- a favorite of Google’s. In the info section also add links to your website.

4. Make Facebook Picture Descriptions Count

Facebook is a visual medium. Facebook will change titles on photos but descriptions live on. Use keywords as often as possible. Read each description from two angles- once for your customers and once from a computer’s angle. “Jack and Jamie enjoying the Keys on their 40th” could as easily be: “Luxury Florida Keys Bash by Private Jets Charter for Jack and Jamie’s 40th.” Both descriptions are better than “Jack and Jamie at their 40th Party.”

As a side note, give your clients an extra reason to stick with you as a designer by showing them how they can get lots of free advertising if they structure online promotional campaigns properly. For example, Private Jets Charter could offer a Groupon for birthday parties/events, get the event for the couple, encourage them to advertise the party through Private Jets Charter’s website and Facebook page (where everyone can easily get directions to the plane) and then provide/post pics of the party (with permission) afterwards using keyword descriptions. These photos will be strongly shared and each time they are, the words in the photo description, “Private Jets Charter, luxury, Florida Keys” are racking up ranking points.

Moreover, as the designer, you will likely get extra design work out of the process. Great designers always need to show ways in which their creativity in invaluable to their clients. With better and better templates and platforms around it’s critical that designers venture not only into SEO but also into marketing. These are two things that a customer can’t buy ready made or download for free.

Above is an example of descriptive text and URL slipped into Facebook code.

5. Use Keywords in Your Facebook Status Updates

Updates provide a great place to include your keywords and increase visibility. This is also the place to drive traffic to your own website. Never forget that one of your primary objectives for having a Facebook page is to drive traffic back to your website where you and not Facebook can take advantage of the traffic.

When you “attach link” FB gives you the opportunity to edit the text by clicking on the box. Include keyword-enriched text as early as possible. (Be aware that FB will channel this link through their own menu bar so this isn’t going to get you a direct link.) Next, include the URL of your website. Third, don’t put everything on Facebook. Instead provide an interesting enticing bit that will make people want to read more and make it clear that they can do this on your website.

6. Use Notes and Discussion Boards On Facebook

The content on both of these is indexable. Notes and the Discussion Boards are indexable and therefore they can make for great SEO. In addition, some people just use Facebook and do almost nothing else online. Using a discussion board gives you a way to reach this group of people. It’s important to note that automatic pull in of blog posts are now being phased out of Facebook.

7. Include Shares & Likes on your websites

Although not directly SEO, you should include Facepage shares and likes into all of your websites. Also, take some time to stay on top of the Facebook Developers news. The developers page is also a great place to come up with new ideas about how to monetize the platform and get the most out of Facebook.

In summary, use Facebook as effectively as you can by paying attention to SEO. Take the time to use the above suggestions and then compare and track the changes in your FB code (Available to anyone for any page by viewing “source code” in your browser). Over time, graph long term changes in your traffic to see if the extra time and energy is really paying off.

How to implement an advanced video SEO strategy

2011-12-02T08:13:00.001-08:00

Online video is now a virtual requirement and one of the best practices for businesses to gain an advantage competitively. Video boosts search engine results, increases stickiness, and improves conversion rates. Smart online video lets businesses reach consumers in real time with what they need to know in the most engaging, informative, and entertaining way possible.

In order to understand the best search engine optimization (SEO) practices, you need to first know the value of video SEO.

The value of video SEO Many of today's online businesses find that gaining market share has more to do with winning a competitor's customers than with expanding the size of the industry. One of the most effective and widely used tools to increase market share is employing comprehensive SEO strategies.

According to an internet-retailer survey conducted in August 2011, 53 percent of e-retailer respondents claimed they would continue to increase their search engine marketing (SEM) spending this year. According to the survey, more than half of the respondents claim that up to 26 percent of the traffic to their sites comes from natural search, and nearly 50 percent claim this percentage has increased during 2010 and 2011.

Video continues to be the fastest-growing format, and by implementing a thorough video SEO strategy, companies can complement their SEM investments, if not decrease them significantly. Simply put, video helps businesses get found online. Companies can increase the value of their videos further by following basic video SEO guidelines, making them more accessible to site visitors, scaling videos to reach long-tail keywords, and automating production to have video available as soon as new products are introduced.

Best practices for implementing video SEOIn a 2009 report, following the introduction of Google's universal search, Forrester Research concluded that video results on Google have a 50 percent better chance of appearing first on result lists than on text-based sites. Video results are more appealing because they include thumbnails that grant more search page real estate. The thumbnail attracts eyes to the results, regardless of the ranking order. In a traditional search of textual results, there was a common tendency to view the results by their organic order -- scanning the page from the upper-left corner, down vertically, and then across -- when a title catches the viewer's attention. Effective video SEO requires a range of guidelines and activities. The goal of these guidelines is to provide as much information about the videos and embed them in a way that provides search bots and crawlers with an understanding of what the video is about. Unlike on textual pages, bots cannot automatically gather this information.

Video for every product: Add as many videos as possible to increase the chances of being discovered. There is a common misperception among businesses that the top 20 percent of the products account for 80 percent of site traffic. However, that's not the case, as seen with a few industry avant-gardes (led by Overstock, Zappos, and HSN Stores) that have video-enabled tens of thousands of their products. Scaling the video repository enables targeting long-tail keywords, which generates significantly more traffic and a more targeted audience.

Keep videos updated: To maximize SEO potential, the content of all videos should keep up with any changes made to the product page content. The challenge with content on business sites is that it's constantly changing -- prices fluctuate, seasonal deals are launched or expire, last-minute offers are added, etc. Automated video solutions can help maintain video-content pace.

On-site video: Many e-commerce businesses are posting videos on their YouTube channels. By neglecting to implement videos on the company's website, they miss out on significant SEO potential. Videos with a unique URL maximize SEO benefits; therefore, we recommend placing each video on its own landing page.

SEO-friendly video URLs: Similar to general web page SEO guidelines, videos embedded on the site should have SEO-friendly or "clean" URLs. Specifically, for video SEO, it is important to include the video format file extension relevant to the video, such as .FLV, .WMV and .AVI.

Video sitemaps: Google rarely indexes videos on its own. It is therefore important to create a complete video sitemap to help Google discover and index each video. Video sitemaps should describe the entire repository of videos embedded in the website.

Properly embed videos: Search bots have short attention spans. They need to identify the video on the page they're scanning within the context it appears.

Avoid browser pop-ups: Embed the video so that it plays on the web page itself and doesn't appear in a browser pop-up. This is important because the embedded video object needs to be available for search engine bots when they crawl the page.
Avoid browser pop-ups: Embed the video so that it plays on the web page itself and doesn't appear in a browser pop-up. This is important because the embedded video object needs to be available for search engine bots when they crawl the page.
Add video metadata: In addition to explicit contextual information, search bots look for metadata that can help them further understand the content of the video and optimize the way the results look on the search results page. The key elements in this metadata are video length, video dimensions, video thumbnail, and video transcript (a written version of the video).

Synchronize video content: To enhance the SEO effect of online videos, it is important that the content of the video matches the content of the page in which it is embedded. Therefore, when embedding a video on a product page, ensure the following:

Provide the video with a descriptive title in accordance
Add keywords to the video in correspondence to the keywords of the web page with the H1 title of that web page.

Some of the best practices prescribed above are quite challenging to maintain with manually produced videos. However, they are possible with automated solutions. The automation of video production today can support best practices by creating videos at scale with quicker-than-ever time to market and dynamic data that is kept current when sites get updated. With relatively little human intervention, online video production can increase a business's competitive advantage, while creating a better shopping experience for the user.

Yaniv Axen is the co-founder and CTO of SundaySky.

SEO Targeting

The Dynamic Duo of Business Blog Marketing: Optimize & Socialize

2011-11-28T16:31:00.001-08:00

Blogs are often rated one of the top content marketing tactics for attracting and engaging customers and eMarketer has reported blogs reach over 50% of the internet audience. But many companies fail to combine two of the most important tools for boosting relevant traffic and reach: Optimization for search engines and for social media.

Most marketers and bloggers understand the basics of a good business blog and the notion of search engine optimization but often focus more on keywords than the customers that are actually searching. Adding keywords to blog posts is a common SEO tactic but developing a blogcontent plan around both search keywords and social topics that represent what customers care about can result in content that is inherently more search, social and customer media friendly.

The Business of Optimizing Social Media

Social Media Optimization involves optimizing social content for topics of interest to both the brand and the communities they seek to engage. SMO also focuses on the ability for social communities to share links and media they find interesting. Links to content shared on social networks and media sites can drive direct traffic to blog content and serve as a signal that search engines use for ranking blog web pages.

Essentially, socialized and optimized blog content can drive traffic through search and those visitors can share that content through social channels, driving even more traffic. Social sharing can also impact better search visibility, providing more relevant visitors that are actively looking.

Search and Social Media Friendly

As Internet marketers have emphasized making websites search engine friendly over the past 10 years, the importance of making websites and blogs social media friendly is also important. Great blog content isn’t really great until it’s consumed and shared, so consider how your customers find information online that is most likely to inspire them to do what you want them to do.

A Better Business Blog Strategy

To get more out of the opportunity to improve online discovery of business blog content, here are a few key questions to ask for an “Optimize and Socialize” blog strategy:

Who is the blog intended to influence? Prospects, customers, employees, industry analysts, reporters, bloggers.
What content will your blog offer that will meet target audience needs?
How will addressing those customer needs and telling the brand story manifest as a blog content plan?
What search keywords and social topics are relevant to your target audience?
Where does your blog content fit in the customer lifecycle of communication with the brand?
If the blog content is properly optimized and socialized, how will it influence (directly or indirectly) measurable business outcomes?

Interest In Your Blog Is Related to Your Blog’s Interest in Readers

One of the reasons business blogs fail as being optimized and socialized, is that their content tends to be very brand-centric. Most business blog posts talk about the brand, it’s products and services without a lot of consideration for customer perspectives and language.

A self-centered business blogging approach tends to push ideas out, hoping to get a reaction in the form of search engine rankings, fans, friends and followers. Many SEO centric blogs share these characteristics.

The problem with a mostly brand content focus is that there usually isn’t as much sharing, engagement or direct influence on business outcomes because the content is all about the brand, vs. empathizing with customers and the language customers use.

To Be Great, Your Business Blog Must Participate

Conversely, a search and social optimized business blog develops and participates in social communities online, offline, internally and externally. To do that, blog editors need to figure out where the great ideas and stories are in the company.

All this said, it’s not enough simply to have an optimized and socialized blog content plan that aligns brand solutions and ideas with those of your target audience. To tap into a high quality stream of customer-centric content ideas for your business blog, it’s essential to engage relevant social communities. Ask them questions, crowdsource content ideas, give those who participate recognition and repeat.

By shining a light on the awesome within your community, you’ll provide the fuel of positive reinforcement to motivate fans and customers to partake in both content creation and promotion.

Walk the talk by telling your brand stories and those of your community. Lead by example and your community will start to tell your stories for you. And so will their friends, and their friends’ friends. That’s the benefit of optimizing your business blog beyond search to include social media, networks and communities.

There’s No Such Thing as “Gray Hat” SEO

2011-11-25T11:24:00.001-08:00

If you’ve been in the SEO field more than five minutes, you’ve likely become familiar with the informal “Black Hat”/”White Hat” classification system for SEO techniques. White Hat methods involve creating useful, original methodologies and content for humans, and then presenting that content so that search engines can find it and show it to whoever’s looking for it. Black Hat techniques involve deceiving users and search engines in order to achieve rankings without providing long-term value and potentially causing the client harm.

Then there’s a third category of techniques that don’t fall easily into either the “white” or “black” category. They seem to exist at the borderline between the two, an ethical gray area, so they’re referred to as “Gray Hat.” The problem with Gray Hat techniques, however, is that they don’t exist.

This is not to say that there are no gray areas when it comes to SEO ethics. It’s ethics, after all. What I mean is that when applied to individual SEO techniques, the label “Gray Hat” is not only inaccurate, but also gives false legitimacy to those “borderline” techniques by situating them halfway between the extremes of black and white.

Of course, I have to define “Gray Hat” if I want to argue it doesn’t exist. But everyone seems to have a different idea of what exactly it is. I found several slightly overlapping definitions:

Techniques that are somewhat deceptive yet not specifically disallowed by search engines’ published guidelines – but may someday be.
Black Hat techniques used for legitimate, non-deceptive purposes, or techniques whose legitimacy depends entirely on the intent of the webmaster.
Techniques that search engines disapprove of, but won’t (or can’t) penalize your site for using.
In a 2008 newsletter article, The Case for White Hat SEO, Bruce Clay estimated that “about 80% of the people who are Gray Hats are just undereducated in the White Hat way of doing SEO.
John Andrews defines Gray Hat as “techniques which remain ill-defined by all that published material coming out of Google, and for which reasonable people … could disagree on how the tactics support or contrast with the ‘spirit’ of Google’s published guidelines.”

Part of the confusion, I think, results from the fact that we’re talking about both the letter and the spirit of search engines’ published guidelines, so there are two different questions we should ask about any particular SEO strategy:

Does it follow search engines’ published rules and guidelines?
Is it intended to deceive search engines and/or users?

We can use these questions to generate following matrix:

		Does it follow search engines’ published rules and guidelines?
		Yes	No
Is it intended to deceive search engines and/or users?	No	White Hat	“Undereducated” White Hat
Is it intended to deceive search engines and/or users?	Yes	Gray Hat	Black Hat

We can see that techniques termed “Gray Hat” are distinct from the “undereducated” White Hat tactics mentioned by Bruce – techniques that violate search engines’ published guidelines only because the webmaster didn’t know any better.

What about the rest of “Gray Hat”? Below are some techniques commonly referred to as Gray Hat, but if we look closely we find that there’s less gray area that we think.

Non-malicious cloaking: Say your site advertises a brand of alcohol, so you give visitors a popup that verifies they’re 21 before letting them in. But you want to allow Googlebot unfettered access, so you present the robot with a version of the page without the popup. This is sometimes a Black Hat technique used for a White Hat purpose: what’s important is the intention. There’s no intention to deceive anyone, so this is White Hat.

Buying an expired domain and 301 redirecting all the incoming “link juice” to your own site:The argument for classifying this as “Gray Hat” is that Google won’t penalize you if it catches you – it’ll just discount those redirected links. But even if you don’t risk a penalty, this technique is still deceptive and misrepresents your site’s popularity on the Web.

Article spinning: This involves replacing words or phrases of an article to make it seem like original content. This is considered Gray Hat because it’s harder to detect and takes more effort than simply publishing duplicate content everywhere. But it’s still a shortcut to rankings using deception.

The second two examples above are attempts to deceive search engines and achieve rankings while doing less work and creating nothing useful. Is this really a gray area? Aren’t those techniques just a weaker form of Black Hat?

I think so.

I believe the SEO community should ditch the “Gray Hat” label and call those techniques something along the lines of “weak” Black Hat, as opposed to the “strong” Black Hat of malicious cloaking, link farms, scraped content, etc.

That said, the matrix above may now look like this:

		Does it follow the search engines’ published rules and guidelines?
		Yes	No
Is it intended to deceive search engines and/or users?	No	White Hat	“Undereducated” White Hat
Is it intended to deceive search engines and/or users?	Yes	“Weak” Black Hat	“Strong” Black Hat

Of course, gray areas still exist. And reasonable people can still disagree about which techniques are White Hat and which more closely resemble “weak” Black Hat. But because the term “Gray Hat” is inaccurate, misleading and ultimately unnecessary, we should stop referring to it as a category of SEO techniques.

May Design Speaks For Itself

2011-11-21T05:02:00.001-08:00

io, you think a designer has got nothing with SEO. To some extent, it may be but I must say, SEO has got something to do with the design and structure of the website for sure. As Google is changing its metrics and shifting focus on visitors’ loyalty, loading time, average time on website and more such minute issues, it is becoming a necessity for designer to come with a design that looks good and feel good too so that visitors find a homely atmosphere to spend more time in the website which will have a direct bearing on the visibility of the website in Google’s SERP. In simple English, modern website needs to be simple yet highly powerful to accommodate future changes depending on the algo shuffle.

Here we are going to share some characteristics of a great website that can help it make SEO protected and algo proof, at least, we can fancy so:

Make it Simple: Search is a complex thing but Google is always trying to make things simple for users and so, it is your duty as a designer to make your website simple. However, I am not asking you to deny your creative streak all the time. No certainly, what I am asking is to make the entire thing looks aesthetically pleasing to look at. Try to reduce the use of bells and whistles like heavy images, loads of JavaScript applications, heavy flash files etc, as they can kill the design besides adversely affecting the online visibility of the website to some extent.

Add Freshness: Would you ever like to revisit a website, where change never occurs? Definitely not because there will be nothing new to explore. The same thing is applicable with search engine bot. Bot is likely to visit a website where changes are made fast and thick. However, I am not suggesting you to change the entire structure of the website every week. Just suggesting you that you should add a dynamic field at the least in the home page so that it keeps getting refresh and thereby giving enough reasons to search engine bot to crawl your website frequently and frequent crawl will lead to better online visibility. This is the reason why news sites are being crawl so frequently because the dynamic nature of their template.

Reduce Boilerplate template: Boilerplate template as you all know it is a combination of ‘elements designed to be used over and over’. So not that much great for the health of a website, and therefore, it makes perfect sense to reduce its over usage expect some exceptional cases. It might look good from designing point of view but it is a pointless addition from search engines perspective. For example, if a page contains only boilerplate templates and nothing else, it deserves to be delisted from SERP because it is showing information from other pages and has nothing of its own. Better get rid of this practice.

Reduce Loading Time: Since loading time is going to be the next big factor in the SEO industry, you should make it a point that your template score at least 75 when tested in Google Online page Speed tool. Try to club images in a single image via CSS Sprite, make some tweaks in the .htaccess file etc in short go for every minute thing that can make your website fast, really fast. Whenever possible, try to preload elements by using rel=”prerender”
or ‘prefetch’ elements but make sure that it makes sense and in tune with the user’s behavior. Take a pledge that you will never use large images unnecessarily and never use flash when it is not absolutely needed. And bingo! You will have your share of success.

Michael Evans is a passionate writer and he has been writing for Site2You which is the best business website builder. He has written different article on web design, online marketing and SEO. He is equally enthusiastic about latest gadgets.

Boise SEO Company that Delivers Results

2011-11-20T08:23:00.001-08:00

Looking for products and services moved a long way from print ads to web marketing sites. If you have a company, maybe you have seen somebody suggesting that you get it online. How? Well, apart from having your own website for your company, its better if you come up with Search engine optimization services that will help you a lot in becoming more visible for visitors. Your corporation in Boise for instance, might drive potential clients from other cities if your website may be easily seen in search engine.

Before you think about your internet presence – recognize how page ranking works. Of course, there will be competitors in the process so it’s vital to have Search engine optimization services that works (at least allowing you to show up on the first page of the search engine – such as Bing, Google, or Yahoo). It will undergo some methods that might have not heard before (as long as it’s legit), so doing it by yourself won’t be a smart move. Let the experts do this stuff for you and focus more on your services and products.

Another thing that you have to think about is that SEO isn’t the single thing that means something. These days, optimizing for Google Places is also a smart move – this gets you ahead of the regular websites! In addition to that, this approach is extremely helpful for local-based corporations (such as your boutique or store in Boise) that will drive more targeted consumers to your internet site. Boise SEO company Power Marketing Consultants knows this issue to create an effective SEO strategy.

Having your website appear on page one is ideal, but it does not mean that you will be able to get what you desire. Of course, competitors in the same industry will always try to top you off from the list – so, how do you make a difference? Your plumbing organization in Boise for example, will most likely have competitors – your target consumers will always check everyone out and see to it that they get the best deal! The catch: You need a strategic plan to turn targeted traffic into consumers.

SEO will certainly increase web traffic and might increase sales in the process – but never guarantees it. Thus, the only way to get the most out of your Search engine optimization services is to build a web marketing strategy that works! If you’re looking for Search engine optimization services, you also have to check out whether you can also get some doze of strategic marketing plans.

Mobile App SEO and Opportunities

2011-11-18T02:40:00.001-08:00

A Recent infographic from Nielsen that focuses on Social Local and Mobile (SoLoMo) had a few interesting sound bites. One of that jumped out at me is that of smartphone users two-thirds of these users time is spent in apps. It doesn’t say how much of this is spent on Angry Birds, but it does illustrate how important apps are to mobile users today, and if apps are where the action is in mobile, it is likely where search will start to take place.

As a search strategist this tells me there is likely an opportunity for many companies to tap into a greater user base through apps, and in app optimziation. Further it tells me that over time we will likely see different types of SEOs. There will be the traditional optimizations for Google and Bing, but we will likely see the rise of SEO app optimizers as well.

This will come in 3 forms:

Optimizing apps to be discovered in market places to try and maximize installs.
Optimize in app content to capitalize on valued apps in particular segments
Web content optimization for apps that operate as a view through to the traditional web.

App Optimization

If two-thirds of mobile users spend time on apps then it makes sense to want to optimize apps to increase downloads. Hopefully your app has value and gets used frequently as well, and then it gets rated. From some top level investigation there seems to be a couple factors at play in how the iTunes store works for search. They look at:

1) App name

2) Company name

3) Volume of downloads

4) App quality ratings

5) Number of ratings for the app

6) App description

An example I ran is “analytics” The fact that “Snake & Ladder” shows up on this search can only be explained based on a combination of the company name “Travancore Analytics Pvt.Ltd” and the volume of downloads/ratings.

Over time I can see the value directly to app installs as there is a correlation to revenue for most companies. More importantly apps that lead the space can become deeper windows to search.

Optimizing in App Content

Some apps have propriety data sources or have created unique ways to interact with content that the traditional web has not allowed for. Mobile devices provide so many different ways to search besides limited text. And the type of content we can search for from apps and perhaps the web will change. The multiple ways mobile devices provide to search include: audio sensory (Shazam, Siri, etc.), optical (Google Goggles, SnapTell, etc.), geo location/time awareness (Movie apps, Yelp, etc.). Each of these search types will have new and different ways to optimize. Does your site provide geo-specific data as micro formats? Are your product images registered and identifiable in image search engines? Audio search means having text that is clear and concise as users learn to navigate with voice.

Apps typically provide very specific services and allow a user to complete a very specific and specialized task. When we say content is king for the web today, for mobile apps it will be usefulness will reign supreme (ok maybe that doesn’t have the same ring), but apps that enable users to successfully and quickly complete tasks will be apps that are used the most frequently.

Web Content Optimization

Some apps pull data through RSS or other feeds. Think about apps for product comparison. Think about apps for real-estate or movies. Many of these apps lease or pull content from specific sources. Optimizing content in apps can again impact the opportunity and revenue value to a company or individual. Because this is still such a niche place identifying a couple data sources used across multiple apps can make a big impact across a lot of smaller apps.

Further targeting a couple key apps that use common data and understanding how they interpret that common data can also be another strategic approach to optimizing content. Different niches will likely have different approaches and it can be either shot gun data or sniper like accuracy to a specific app.

The Very Near Future

Each of these spaces is new, unevolved, and ripe for opportunity. I can see a great potential for spam across each space, and how this is dealt with will likely determine the success of different forms of mobile search and more likely the success or failure of some or many apps, but more importantly in the mobile space I suspect we will see a variety of verticals within it where SEOs can focus and provide added value and opportunity.

Sources:

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/infographic-the-most-valuable-digital-consumers/

HTML 5 and What it Means to SEO

2011-11-16T03:57:00.001-08:00

Seemingly every single day, HTML 5 is being more and more talked about as it becomes near to completion. Something often brought up as a concern is what is HTML 5, and what is it going to do for my SEO. Whether we like it or not, sooner or later HTML 5 will replace the present version of HTML, so sooner or later we will have to use it, and we will have to optimize our sites accordingly if we want to stay on top of the rankings. Although you may not want to hear this, if you chose to ignore the future of HTML 5, you will also be refusing to perform the best SEO practices.

So first what is HTML 5? There has been a lot of talk about how HTML 5 will be geared towards a programming language, but in practice HTML 5 will still be an XML based presentation language. In fact HTML 5 is designed in a way that it will be backward compatible to HTML 4, its predecessor. Because of this HTML 5 opens a lot of doors, and will still be very important for SEO. It still coincides with basic web design practices. HTML, CSS, and Javascript all working together to provide for a fully functional website.

On of the biggest topics for HTML 5 is that it will replace Flash. While there is definitely a possibility of this, at this point this is not the case, nor is it forecasted in any way. Don’t listen to everything Steve Jobs tells you. This is important because Flash is not as easily identifiable to Google when indexed. Sometimes Flash may not be indexed at all. However, Google can index Flash, which is a common misconception. It even shows you how to have your Flash indexed on Google’s developers page. The thing about HTML 5 is, that indexing for your site will become a lot easier, rendering SEO more effective. At this point, HTML 5 should not replace Flash. In fact they should be used together.

HTML 5 has a few key problems with replacing Flash at this moment. First, it typically doesn’t work as fast, and users will use much more of their computer processor, when running. The second problem is that HTML 5 isn’t recognized the same way for every browser, and some of the tags will not be recognized at all. This will result in you eventually having to revert to using Flash. For a highly interactive site it is still common practice to use Flash development. But for simple things like fade in and out, or simple interactions HTML 5 might be more appropriate for SEO.

Some great features of HTML 5 include the easily indexable tags that it will include. First and foremost HTML 5 will improve page segmentation. The way that it will do this is “footer”, “header”, and even “nav” tags. This will prove to be very helpful for SEO. One interesting tag in particular is the “article” tag. An article tag will prove to

be effective for identifying key content which may hold backlinks to various sites, and can be very important forlink building services. Improving the page segmentation will help Google and other search engines, easily index your site when complex functions are running.

HTML 5 will prove to very important for SEO. Not only will things like video and audio be much simpler to use with tags, but page segmentation will make your site a much more indexable webpage. This is key for SEO, and certainly will play a big part in web development in the upcoming years. It is important to understand that not all things have been solved by HTML. If you want a highly interactive site that runs smooth, you still might want to use some Flash plug ins. The most important thing to do is stay on top of HTML 5, you do not want to be playing catch up a year from now, losing out on money, and potential customers.

This article was written by Stephen Jackson. Stephen is a web designer who also uses SEO tactics for the best results.

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SEO Software: Is It Worth the Money?

2011-11-15T13:37:00.001-08:00

When I search for “SEO software,” Google comes back with 40,000,000 results. Even if only 1% of those results are unique SEO software product pages, that leaves me with 400,000 SEO software options to choose from! Some of those options can be downright expensive too. A while back, I had been considering giving an SEO software like SEOMoz or Link-Assistant a try, but I always found myself unable to pull the trigger and actually make the final purchase. I just couldn’t justify the cost of SEO software for my company.

As an SEO Professional—

Let’s take a step back for a second and lay the ground rules for what constitutes an SEO professional. I’m going to cast a wide net and just say it applies to anyone who calls themselves an SEO expert/guru/mogul/maven/consultant/freelancer/etc. It will also apply to those that work in SEO firms/agencies/companies/business/corporation/etc but don’t get a fancy New Age title.

I have had the opportunity to test and review some really great SEO software tools over the course of my 12 years in the industry—I’ve also come across some pretty bad ones. Most of them make running a link audit or ranking report or a competitive analysis (one of the favorite tasks of any SEO professional) a breeze. I just drop in whatever URLs I need data on; let the software chug and POOF, out comes a shiny report for my client that looks very impressive. I know the data is reliable, which helps guide my decisions for the SEO campaign. Whenever I need an update on what is going on with that particular client’s site, I just boot up the software and wait for the finished report to download. The software does the heavy lifting, the client is pleased and I look good—what more could an SEO professional want?

Here is where you have to get into cost-benefit analysis. I run a small SEO agency. We have a good amount of long term clients and I’m hustling as best as I can to drum up new business, but I’m not pulling in 3 new clients every week. And as much as I would like to see growth like that, I doubt that’ll happen any time soon. So those big time consuming projects that SEO software is great for aren’t cluttering up my calendar. I might have to run a link audit or two every month, but do those two link audit justify the price tag that comes with a good SEO software tool?

If I owned a larger SEO company that had hundreds of clients and dozens of account managers I might be singing a different tune. With so many reports to crank out every month, SEO software tools must seem like a God send. It helps account managers automate some of the easy, yet time consuming tasks associated with SEO and lets them focus on link building, content marketing and social media marketing for their clients. Whatever it costs each month is well worth the price.

I would love to hear from other SEO professionals about their experiences with SEO software. Was it worth the cost?

As a marketing professional—

Again, let’s take a step back and define “marketing professional.” This can be the marketing manager/director/assistant/etc. of any sized company in any industry. They might work in PR, advertising, brand management or any other form of marketing that isn’t SEO. They could be a one man marketing team for a small company or the head of a 5 person (minus SEO) marketing team. Is SEO software worth the cost to them?

I can see the pro-software argument. SEO software is great for DIY marketers, it keep SEO in-house without having to hire another full-time employee, it might be cheaper than hiring an agency and so forth. Yet a common problem I’ve run into with many consulting clients over the years is that they mistake an SEO tool, like software, for actual SEO knowledge. Microsoft Word is a tool, but it doesn’t do you much good if you don’t know how to write. I feel that SEO software works the same way. The SEO software might come up with a list of 10 on-site SEO recommendations, but if a marketing professional doesn’t have the knowledge as to how to actually implement those changes what good are the recommendations? Even if they do implement the changes, if they don’t understand why it’s important for SEO they are missing important information.

Marketing professionals also have to account for the learning curve when using SEO software. Even the most user-friendly interface ever created takes a little getting used to. Do you as the marketing manager of a mid-sized company have the time to spend an hour a day learning how to fully utilize this new software? I think about how confused some site owners are with Google Analytics and all the ways data can be interpreted there. SEO software is going to spit out the same data in a different format, but that doesn’t mean you’ll automatically know what it means and what to do with it. If you are unable to fully leverage what the SEO software can do for you, is it worth the cost?

I would also love to hear from marketing professionals about their experiences with SEO software. Was it worth the cost?

FILED UNDER: SEO, SPOTLIGHT, TOOLS

Written By:

Nick Stamoulis | Search Engine Optimization Journal |@NickStamoulis

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of social SEO solutions firm Brick Marketing. With over 12 years of industry SEO experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips in his blog and the Brick Marketing internet marketing blog and often publishes helpful SEO white papers

Smart SEO tactics for small businesses

2011-11-14T19:45:00.001-08:00

Good small business websites build brands and bring in customers. In order for this to happen, people to actually visit, and for that to happen, a website needs to be designed around the principles of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

SEO, put simply, is how to make it easier for web users to come across your website when searching on Google, Bing, or any popular search engine. We’re not talking about Googling "Jerry’s Taco Kingdom" and seeing if you actually find Jerry’s website (if that’s not happening, then Jerry has other problems to worry about). If Jerry has effective SEO, then a web search for simply "tacos", "Mexican food" or "restaurants with tortillas" ought to bring up his site as an early result, thus bringing hungry new visitors to his page.

Why is SEO so crucial for a new, small business? With the right design, a SEO-friendly page can become more than just a helpful information source about your company; it can be a cost-effective, precisely targeted marketing tool, able to generate as much (or more) brand awareness as a mailing campaign or a television ad. Traditional advertising can certainly be effective, but it’s a blanket approach. For all of the eyeballs you’re paying to reach, you’re very likely spending money communicating with people who have no interest in your product. By comparison, anybody who arrives at Jerry’s Taco Kingdom by searching for "tacos" online is almost definitely already interested in them.

There are a number of potential ways to boost your site’s SEO -- caveat being "potential". Google, Bing, and Yahoo securely guard their search algorithms, so nobody knows just exactly what factors will boost you to the top of the results page. That being said, there are a number of tactics that can certainly knock you down several steps, which leads us to a list of do’s and don’ts:

Do:

1. Design for your target customer. When putting together the actual meat and potatoes of your site, you’ll want to make sure you’ve checked off a number of basic tasks -- ensuring the site appears properly in different browsers and complies with modern W3C standards, making sure all your images are linked properly, double-checking that viewing your site doesn’t lead to seizures in small children, etc.

When populating the body and tags with SEO-geared keywords, though, you may want to try being more specific than usual. To return to the above example with Jerry’s Taco Kingdom, the obvious keyword to include would be "taco". Even with tacos being as delicious as they are, Jerry will be competing with thousands of other sites in the always popular taco market, and his page may have a tough time getting bites -- yes, we went there.

So, what if Jerry tries to cast a narrower net? Perhaps the Taco Kingdom is one of only a few taco joints in his hometown of Wichita. Jerry might include keywords like "Kansas Tacos" or "Wichita Mexican Food". He’ll face less competition in those searches, and he is also more likely to get customers searching from the area his business serves.

2. Earn the Internet’s trust. It may sound like a Catch-22, but in order to get visitors to your site, you’ll want to prove you’ve been getting visitors to your site. As unfair as it might seem, SEO experts agree that a large portion of your SEO is based on things that occur outside of your website. It’s one thing for Jerry to claim that his site is the premier source for taco-based news and gossip, but if everyone else starts saying it by linking to his site, visiting his site and including his site in their social networks, the search engines will take notice.

The important factor in this step is patience: you can have your own content optimized perfectly on day one, but boosting your site’s trustworthiness will take at least a few months. Don’t try to jump the queue by paying sites to link back to you, either (see Don't suggestion #1).

3. Consider a blogging approach. You might think writing a blog might take far more effort than you’re prepared to devote to your website, but it’s no secret that writing fresh content is powerful for your SEO. Before you start putting together a plan for dozens of blog posts, it’s important to consider your approach. Do you want to run your own blog or would you rather contribute an article to another blog?

Doing the former will help you build up keyword-rich content that your users might find your site through. Be sure to use keywords effectively if you do that. When you contribute to other blogs with your unique expertise, the backlinks generated through those posts can be even more effective in building your SEO "juice". Of course, if you’re ambitious, you can do both and cover all your blogging bases. The important thing is to decide what you can handle and stick to your plan.

Don’t:

1. Don’t try to game the system. Your website needs to be genuine, full of user-friendly, original, and honest content. The general rule of thumb is to create your site for your visitors, not the search engines. Have you ever browsed a site and discovered, hidden at the bottom via invisible text, several paragraphs full of nothing but keywords? This is done in an effort to catch the eye of automated sitecrawling programs, which regularly scan the web on behalf of the major search engines to try and catalog the millions of sites that make up the Internet.

However, getting caught at this kind of tactic is a surefire way to get your site yanked out of the search listings altogether. The same goes for plagiarized content, inaccurate content or other methods meant to appeal to robots and not users. Fill your page with valuable content that an actual human would want to read, and you’re well on your way.

2. Don’t forget to track your progress. Like anything you want to see change. You need to track your progress and see if you’re getting closer to reaching your goals. With websites, this means setting up a package like Google Analytics and monitoring how people get to your site and if it’s happening how you expected.

3. Don’t set your expectations too high. Doing your own SEO strategy is a learning process. Unfortunately, you can’t see your results right away. It can take weeks or months for your tactics to play out and earn you the results you’re looking for. The good news is that with patience and practice with the items shown above, you’ll get to where you want to get with SEO.

Photo Credit: Marynchenko Oleksandr/Shutterstock

Matt Shampine is co-founder of New York-based startup Onepager. Prior to Onepager, Shampine co-founded design agency Simande, where his responsibilities included business development, client relations and project management. He is also co-founded and currently runs website We Are NY Tech, where he profiles one person a day from the New York tech community and moderates the job board.

SEO For E-Commerce

2011-11-12T06:03:00.001-08:00

SEO for E-commerce Sites

by MICHELLE LOWERY on 11/09/2011 · 1 COMMENT | INTERNET MARKETING CONFERENCES

Good morning, Vegas! Now that Lisa got you revved up with fantastic keynote coverage, let’s get into some more SEO, shall we? Different types of sites need different tactics to make them do what you want them to. For e-commerce sites, it’s all about conversions and sales. How can SEO help? It isn’t a magic bullet, but applied correctly, it can definitely boost results. Rob Snell and Ethan Giffin will tell you how.

Ethan Giffin introduces himself and starts things off. His presentation is very well organized with great slides that offer step-by-step instructions, so I’m going to take those down for you. Not very conversational, but it’s a lot of great info I don’t want you to miss out on. Here we go.

10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign

Create a Baseline Report

What’s in it?

Verify Webmaster Tools account
Submit your XML sitemap
Spider the site (Integrity or Xenu)
Look for existing crawl errors
Total pages in index vs. sitemap vs. spider
Initial rank check (Raven Tools)

What’s the percentage of the pages on your site Google has found? If a large percentage is missing, you can bet it’s a lack of content, or just crappy content.

Avoid Canned Descriptions

No manufacturer descriptions! He searched for a Linksys router, entered the first sentence of the manufacturer description, and came back with more than 24,000 exact matches.

Perform an Audit

Create a content map
Make pages sure 1 to 1
Unique page titles and meta tags
Define your URLs
Set your canonical tags
Robots.txt
Data imports can get messy!

Create an internal Linking Strategy

Don’t use view or more
Create links to other products within descriptions
Create links within cat descriptions
Don’t repeat same navigation on all pages

Optimize Your Site Templates

The great thing about e-commerce sites is the ability to optimize your templates to get tail traffic. What to optimize?

Review product and category templates
No missing elements!
Use modifier words with your images such as buy, discount, etc.
Include microformats on product pages

Use Indexable Reviews

Don’t use Power Reviews Express
Use Internal Review Engines if you can set followup
If not use power reviews standard or non- javascript based tool

Those little micro things are what’s goint to set you apart from every else.

Create Sexy Brand Pages

How can you outbrand the brand?

Panda loves brands
Make your pages better than the manufacturer!
Create unique content
Videos, etc.

Set Up Your 301 Redirects

Keep the same URL if you can
If not, 301 every page based on your content map
Check your server headers; a lot of great tools out there to do that
Confirm any redirects done programmatically; test and test these, because you may find huge holes; you have to take it to another level and research this.

Monitor Your Load Speed

We know this affects rankings and conversion rates, which will affect your bottom line.

Can sink your SEO
Directly affects conversion rates
Lowers AdWords Quality score
Limits ability to diagnose errors
Check your site with Pingdom and Yslow

Things that can help:

Turn on compression
Remove unneeded code and files
CDN hosting
Use Google jQuery scripts
Caching
Track server errors and performance (NewRelic)

Do a Post-Launch Review

You need to come back and reconcile everything.

Submit new sitemap
Spider the site again
Look for new crawl errors
Total pages in index vs. sitemap vs. spider
Weekly rank check (Raven Tools)
Hold breath [I can't condone this one, or be held responsible if you actually do it. ;-)]

Moderator Stephanie Leffler introduces Rob Snell who is going to give us a presentation called E-commerce SEO* is Dead (And I don’t feel too good myself)
But his SEO stands for “search engine optimism.” [Does that seem like an oxymoron to anyone else? ;-)]

Matt Cutts said SEO is NOT dead, so he’s not going to go off on a rant about how unfair some of the changes are. He’s here for the little guy. His site sells supplies for hunting dogs, and it’s a family company. They got $10 million in additional sales by making some basic changes and creating content.

Why should you listen to him?

When it comes to SEO, he’s generated $50 million for his family’s sites over the course of his career. Almost all sales come from search marketing, but everything stems from people looking to buy wha tthey sell, and because of SEO they can find their site, and buy what they want.

He talks about revenue. He says back home in Mississippi, that means a double wide. Revenue is more important than rankings or clicks. You’re looking at the money. It’s also more important than links. You’re not going to get revenue without links, but the revenue is more important.

Why should you not listen to him?

He’s not a high-level SEO. He’s a retailer. You need to listen to the other SEOs here, but he can at least share his personal experience and you can maybe take something away from that.

Traffic’s important, but he wants high-value clicks. When traffic drops, you must convert more! Let’s do a SERPs reality check. He saw a lot of retailers get whacked by Panda, but it didn’t touch his sites at all. He had some clients who lost 70% of their traffic and 50% of their revenue to Panda. So what’s changed over the last year?

Organic is pushed down on the page, below the fold. Google is a business, so they’re focusing on the things that are making them money: premium ads, brands listings, etc.

He recommends a report by Jakob Nielsen called 2011 E-Commerce User Experience. There are enough best practices in it to radically change your business. One thing revealed in the report is that shoppers click ads. You’re going to have to pay. SEO isn’t free. Sometimes it’s just cheaper to pay for the traffic, so get your wallet out.

The authority knob is turned way up. Exact match domains and authority domains rank. He saw a search result for an exact match domain on “dog collars,” and the description said “under construction.” One manufacturer just offers a pdf version of their catalog, so they’re being outranked by other sites that have optimized content. [That manufacturer isn't optimizing their pdf content. See the coverage of SEO Hot Topics and Trends and read Stephan Spencer's segment on this.]

Any longtail brand search shows three or four links from the brand site whether or not they’re relevant. [He's referring to sitelinks.] So now what? It is what it is. We have to do what we can as a small company to compete with the bigger companies.

SEO Tips

Be a brand.
Don’t not be a brand.
If you’re not a brand, get your wallet out, because you’re going to have to pay.
Track what matters. Compare year over year. E-commerce is cyclical. This is a long-term game.
Track your SEO revenue by individual, organic landing pages. Prioritize what pages to work on, link to, worry about.
Track SEO revenue by keyword buckets. Take all phrases containing a single word. Example bucket: cheap, and you can come up with cheap dog collars, cheap dog supplies, cheap dog vests, etc.

There’s one keyword term that they don’t care about because they don’t sell them—dog boxes, what you put in the back of your pickup to carry your bird dogs in. So what they did instead was create a page with the relevant keywords that links to the ten retailers they recommend who do carry dog boxes. They’re adding value to their site even though they don’t sell that particular item.

10 Common SEO Mistakes Many Retailers Make

No original product content – If you use a manufacturer data feed, you’re not adding any value. You need to add value to your site.
Thin category page text – If you just have a list of thumbnails, Google’s not going to like that
Same template on thousands of pages – His template is actually based on hierarchy, where you are on the site
Really big boilerplate text – Some people have thousands of words of just boilerplate text. Do you know how much content you have to write to offset that? You want extremely light boilerplate.
Same nav links on every single page – Google discounts navigation links. You want your links embedded in your product descriptions.
Writing unique content but giving it away – If you write unique content, firewall it from your feed, or it will create duplicate content, and they’ll outrank you
Great unique content buried on pages not in the index – Make sure the page you’re pimping out is actually in the index before you spend a lot of time building it up
Unique content hidden from spiders – Google can read javascript, but HTML is better.
Multiple pages on the same domain with the same content – Duplicate content is duplicate content, no matter where it appears.
Competing against your own original content with multiple subdomains – If you provide your feed to your own search company and they put it on your category page, you’re going to mess up your rankings

Rob concludes by emphasizing this: The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Figure out what your focus is, and focus on it. The main thing is to keep revenue up. Focus on the revenue, not the traffic.

And that’s it! If you have an e-commerce site, you have some work to do!

Tagged as: ethan giffin, pubcon, rob snell, stephanie leffler

About the Author

Michelle Lowery is the Operations Manager of Outspoken Media. She's usually pretty quiet on Twitter because she's usually writing.

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SEO's On The Rise

2011-11-11T11:15:00.001-08:00

This morning Jeff Preston, Disney’s SEO manager, Topher Kohan, the SEO coordinator for CNN, and Alex Bennert, an in-house SEO for the Wall Street Journal, will speak to an audience of several thousand people at PubCon on the topic of enterprise level in-house SEO. Having managed the SEO for some of the world’s most recognizable brands, each of these individuals can speak authoritatively on the subject. They are about to get started.

Speaker’s Backgrounds:
Bennert has worked with the Wall Street Journal and its properties for a little over three years. Prior to her time at WSJ she worked for an agency and several smaller companies.
Prior to working for Disney, Preton worked for an agency in Japan. After realizing Disney was not executing SEO well, Preston applied for and was hired to manage the SEO for the Disney.com flagship site as well as The Disney Channel, Disney movies, and several other Disney properties.
Kohan manages CNN.com, CNN Mexico, and several other CNN properties and his background includes working for small companies, the CDC, and several other companies.

What was your number one success?Bennert: Moving to first click free – allows user to read one article for free, implementation of canonicalization tag across the whole site, and having the newsfeed sitemap on demand rather than incrementally.
Preston: Learning how to optimize a dynamic flash site that was being fed by a CSS – the site has to be fun since it is geared towards children.
Kohan: Election 2008 – he updated election data in real-time with cutting edge online reporting, but it was all in AJAX, which presented a problem for the bots. However, every piece of text was replicated so the search engines could process it correctly and drive organic traffic. 29% of total traffic that evening came from organic search on election night.

What was your number one “oops” moment and how did you correct it?Bennert: When she first started at the WSJ she approached every group (i.e. IT, Executive Team, Editorial, IM) with the same message. Over time, she learned to tailor her message to each individual audience.
Preston: He will get super-generic terms (i.e. Cars) that correspond to movies or shows and sometimes he will have difficulty getting the site to rank for the generic term. He also has learned to give people the benefit of the doubt if they don’t complete a task — sometimes their superior has reassigned them to other tasks.
Kohan: The 2010 Midterm was a disaster for him. He felt like his team would execute well without much direction and they did not. They did not rank for simple election terms – 2008 pages were ranking over the current pages. It taught him no matter how small the event is put 100% into it.

One for in-house SEOs?Bennert: Go to more meetings than you need to attend – they will get used to having you around and you will learn which meetings are essential. It is good to know everybody. The product cycle should include SEO and you should have the opportunity to review the product requirement document.
Preston: The bigger your organization gets, the more difficult it is to make the meetings of the other teams (PR, Marketing, IT, etc.) meetings. It is important to be involved with the other teams and make the majority of the meetings. It is during these times that you can educate people on what you do and make yourself indispensable.
Kohan: Manage the SEO appearance of your company – educate the people you work with. You don’t want to chase the algorithm you want to make exceptional/well-coded content the search engines will not be a problem. When you start as an in-house SEO, you are the enemy – you are making more work for them. Educate the journalists that you can bring them 500,000 more readers to their article and all of a sudden they don’t mind the extra work you are asking them to do.

Preston: If you were working on the agency side, how would you switch to in-house?Kohan: Don’t go work for a top-tier organization initially. Cut your teeth on a smaller site, which will make your life much easier. Also, be your own advocate — give monthly updates that are specific to each team. These updates (reports) should “toot your own horn” and sell the continuation of SEO within the organization.
Bennert: The first thing to learn in an enterprise organization is patience. Things do not happen quickly at the enterprise level. Also, you may still be working with limited resources so tackle things a little bit at a time. Know everything about your IT department — buy them drinks, give them birthday gifts, and engage with them. These people can help you.
Preston (answering his own question): Celebrate your wins — If there is a big SEO lift, publicly thank the departments that helped you out. If you do this, they will be more likely to bail you out when you need them in the future.