What is the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) test?

Well, that’s a good question but if you’ve got this far, I guess you’re already aware of its existence and what it is. Some important points to remember:

• The test is made up of 70 multiple choice questions. Some are simple true or false questions while others have up to 5 choices. The trickiest of these are the questions in which you must select all answers which can apply.
• The test is 90 minutes long. This was something I was slightly worried about before the test but in actual fact it wasn’t a factor at all. You have 1 minute 17 seconds per question but some of the questions are so easy you’ll fly through them leaving you with more time to work on the trickier ones.
• Unlike the AdWords equivalent, the analytics test is open book so you can have several resources open to help you along. I’ve included a handy list below.
• Each sitting costs $50 and you can’t retake the test for 14 days so it’s good news if you pass first time.
• The test can be paused at any time and your answers will be saved. You must complete the test within 5 days of starting.
• The pass mark is 80% so you can afford to get 14 of the 70 questions wrong and still pass.

Before the test

As I mentioned above, the test isn’t painfully difficult but you will need to prepare before signing up and parting with your $50.

The best preparation you can do is to watch all of the Google Analytics IQ Lessons which cover all of the topics and content in the test. The lessons are in video format and vary from 2 to 11 minutes. They are broken down in to the following sections:

First Steps

• Introduction to Google Analytics
• Installing the Google Analytics Tracking Code
• Working with Report Data

Interpreting Reports

• Pageviews, Visits, and Visitors
• Time Metrics
• Traffic Sources
• Content Reports

Fundamentals

• Account Administration
• Campaign Tracking and AdWords Integration
• Analysis Focus – AdWords
• Goals in Google Analytics
• Filters in Google Analytics
• Regex and Google Analytics
• Cookies and Google Analytics
• E-commerce Tracking
• Domains and Subdomains

In-Depth Analysis

• Advanced Segmentation
• Analytics Intelligence
• Internal Site Search
• Event Tracking and Virtual Pageviews
• Additional Customizations

Even if you’re proficient using Google Analytics, I’d suggest watching all of the videos as they give a good outline of what might come up.

Certain topics seemed to crop up a lot during the exam so it’s worth paying particluar attention to the Filters, Cookies and E-commerce sections. I read guides which stressed the importance of Regex to successfully pass the test but I wasn’t asked a single question on this topic.

During the test

As the test is open book, it’s worth having a few tabs open before you kick off. Having an Analytics account (make sure you’re logged in!) open while taking the test is a no-brainer and something I referred to a lot. The Google Analytics IQ lessons will be invaluable as will the Google Analytics Help Center. Jens Sorensen wrote some great test notes which also came in handy during the test (just use ctrl+f). It’s probably also worth having a look at a couple of other posts on his site before you start.

After the test

If you hit the 80% passmark, you’ll see a congratulatory note from Google with a link to your well earned certificate like mine below. You can also share this link with potential employers or clients and choose to show them your score as a percentage.

Have you taken the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ) test? How did you get on?

The Google Analytics Qualification and How to Pass

Overall 12 month SEO strategy for blackjack

As blackjack and related terms are competitive keywords for which to rank highly, a multi-faceted approach would be required. Highly optimised on-site content and a strong social media campaign would be required as well as a presence in other verticals such as image and video through the use of ‘how to’ strategy infographics and video guides.

There is an obvious gap in the blackjack niche for a new authoritative site to attract a high volume of traffic through the use of well written and well presented articles and videos.

Main on-site content: On-site articles would be used to drive long-tail traffic to the site. Keyword research (more detail below) shows that a high demand exists for advice on blackjack strategies and clear information on the rules of the game. Although this content is currently available, there is a dearth of visually appealing articles which are clear and easy to understand.

A downloadable blackjack game and a free online blackjack game would be used to drive traffic, increase registrations, build brand awareness and loyalty and encourage users to revisit the site to play the full game.

Competitors: This keyword spreadsheet shows a range of metrics for the pages currently ranking in the top 10 positions of Google UK for the blackjack and black jack keywords. These metrics can be used as a benchmark for reverse engineering backlink profiles and estimating what is required to rank on page 1 for these keywords. Competitor analysis is shown in more detail below.

Links: The largest barrier to entry to the online blackjack market is the difficulty to attract high quality links. The solutions to this issue are shown in more detail below, however, the main link building activities would be those carried out through competitor research, widgets, press releases through PR, article submissions, the use of link bait, targeting gambling related blogs for guest blogging opportunities and the purchase of carefully selected advertising spots.

Social media: Twitter, Facebook and Google+ will be used for brand building exercises as well as to promote new content on the site, build relationships with bloggers and find guest blogging opportunities. Quora also has extremely active blackjack and gambling topics which can be leveraged to drive traffic and build brand recognition.

KPIs: After launching the microsite, the following KPIs would be used through analytics software to measure the success of business objectives:

• Revenue
• New registrations
• Non bounce visitors
• Bounce rate
• Average time on site
• Average time playing games

The above metrics would be monitored daily and continually assessed to allow improvement to the site as a whole as well as individual pages.

Keyword research

I used Übersuggest.org to generate keywords related to blackjack and black jack and them imported the list in to Excel where irrelevant keywords (black jack for kids, Black Jack the movie, Black Jack cocktail etc) were then filtered out.

SEMrush.com was used to analyse the pages currently ranking in the top 20 positions on Google UK for the blackjack and black jack keywords. Other keywords for which these pages rank were also added to Excel.

The Google AdWords keyword tool was then used to find exact match local monthly search volume and the data imported to Excel. Once sorted, this gave a list of 450 highly relevant keywords which could be targeted as main and long tail keywords which can be expanded using data from Google Analytics after the launch of the website.

Finally, I added a category to each keyword which largely defined the the website architecture and required landing pages.

This keyword spreadsheet shows the keywords to target together with their relevant search volumes, categories and landing pages.

Main on-site requirements

Site architecture: The basic site architecture is shown below (click for full size) and has been designed so all pages are within two clicks of the homepage ensuring the site is easily crawled. Cross linking on article content will be used to ensure no pages are stuck in silos.

Social media: Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons would be implemented on each page to encourage social sharing and increase brand awareness.

On-site content: Launching the site with 10-20 unique high quality articles of 300-500 words each would give good long tail traffic levels. Keyword research dictates that article topics should be based on blackjack strategy and rules. In addition to articles, the site will launch with 5-10 videos and infographics which would give a quick presence on SERPs, particularly in the video and image verticals.

Loyalty scheme: Aspirational VIP loyalty scheme offers such as discounted deals on hotels, restaurants etc would be used to create PR and generate links.

Affiliates: Affiliate schemes and a one week AdWords campaign would be used from launch to drive traffic for site performance analysis, measure keyword success, CTR and conversion rates. This would give an indication of KPI targets to be set for the next 12 months.

Site reviews: Finally, Trustpilot should be used to encourage customers to leave reviews to build brand awareness, allow the use of rich snippets in the SERPs to increase CTR and boost social media efforts.

Competitor analysis

The pages currently ranking in the top 10 positions on Google UK for the blackjack and black jack keywords are shown below together with a summary for each.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack
Overview – Although not a blackjack gaming site, the link profile and on-site metrics ensures Wikipedia’s blackjack page ranks strongly.
Strengths – Authoritative page. Ideal for those looking for basic information on the rules of blackjack.
Weaknesses – Not relevant for visitors looking to play blackjack.
Quick wins possible – The blackjack strategy chart on the page can be easily redesigned to be more visually appealing and used as link bait.

2. www.777.com/play-blackjack.html
Overview – The page for 777.com’s free blackjack game.
Strengths – High number of inbound links. Strong presence on Google+
Weaknesses – High number of paid links and very few natural links. Poor design, poor calls to action to play the full game. Very thin content on the page could possibly be hit by future algorithm updates. The backlink strategy is dubious and link wheels are used extensively.
Quick wins possible – The use of articles will attract long tail traffic which this page is missing.

3. www.blackjack.co.uk
Overview – Not a blackjack gaming site however the exact keyword match domain ensures the page ranks.
Strengths – Exact keyword match domain. Weaknesses – Not relevant for visitors looking to play blackjack.

4. www.hitorstand.net
Overview – A blackjack information page which also offers a free training game
Strengths – Decent amount of content on the page. Long domain history means the page has attracted some good natural links. Good directory listings (dmoz.org, Yahoo Directory etc). Stronger presence on Facebook than other competing pages.
Weaknesses – Very poor design, not user friendly. No keyword in URL.
Quick wins possible – The poor design of the page means a new site will be able to easily improve visitor experience. Can approach sites currently linking to this page to link to the new page instead.

5. www.blackjack.org
Overview – Part of the PokerCompany.com group. the page acts as an affiliate referral site.
Strengths – Good on-site content in terms of articles, guides, rules and news. Fresh content added to the site regularly. Exact keyword match domain. High number of inbound links.
Weaknesses – Poor design. Poor social media presence. High number of paid links. No games on site.
Quick wins possible – Site is difficult to navigate. User experience can easily be improved.

6. www.intercasino.co.uk/games/blackjack.shtml
Overview – InterCasino’s blackjack page offering 9 different game variations, downloadable games as well as strategy and rules content.
Strengths – Good amount of text on page. Good calls to action to play and download the game. High number of inbound links.
Weaknesses – Some low quality links indicate a poor linking strategy in the past. High percentage of exact anchor text. No presence on social media.
Quick wins possible – High number of links provides valuable data which can be leveraged for link building.

7. www.addictinggames.com/puzzle-games/blackjack.jsp
Overview – Simple page on the Addicting Games site for playing a free blackjack game.
Strengths – Very simple to use. Features user generated content on the page in the form of reviews. Well optimised internal links from a high authority domain.
Weaknesses – Lots of links from sites with duplicate content issues means these links are likely to have been devalued. No paid version of the game. No strategy or rules pages.
Quick wins possible – The use of articles focused on strategy and rules will attract a good level of long-tail keywords which this page is missing.

8. www.blackjackinfo.com
Overview – Information site to give strategy and advice. Also features a free game and strategy trainer as well as a store to buy related products.
Strengths – Good level of unique content on a variety of topics. Good social media presence.
Weaknesses – Poor design. Very low number of exact keyword match anchor text links. Quick wins possible – Twitter followers can be targeted. Better presented articles, infographics and video will steal traffic away from this site, particularly for long tail terms.

9. www.888.com/blackjack
Overview – 888.com’s blackjack page offering a downloadable game and an instant play version.
Strengths – High domain authority is easily leveraged to pass link juice to the page.
Weaknesses – No blackjack articles featured. Very few natural links.
Quick wins possible – High quality content will help steal traffic away from this page.

10. www.casino.com/blackjack
Overview – Casino.com’s blackjack page offering a simple free version as well as a full version.
Strengths – Very simple free game with good calls to action to play the full version. Also features content on the rules of blackjack together with ‘how to’ guides. Very strong domain authority is easily leveraged to pass link juice to the page. Very good anchor text variation.
Weaknesses – Relatively low number of inbound links. Poor social media presence. Quick wins possible – High number of bought links means linking sites can be targeted for advertising spots.

Data driven methods to outrank these pages

This spreadsheet reveals clear metrics of the pages currently ranking in the top 10 positions on Google UK. Using these metrics shows that Google does not give a great deal of weight to social metrics for these keywords. Therefore, the focus on launch would be on building a high number of links. Social media would not be worked on extensively until month 3.

The backlink profiles of these sites suggest that a high volume of links, rather than a smaller number of high quality links is required to rank well.

Link building plan

To achieve the desired results, the link building campaign for the targeted keywords would need to be multi-faceted. A large number of links from a diverse set of domains would be required. The high number of keyword rich anchor text links indicates Google allows significant optimisation in this niche. The methods for achieving these links have been broken down and explained in further detail below.

Competitor’s links: Competitor research has resulted in a large amount of data which can be leveraged for link building. The research also shows a high number of paid links which can be further analysed to select sites to target for links.

Analysis of broken links on competitor sites can also be carried out to attract links. For example, www.777.com has several 404 pages which can be easily discovered using Open Site Explorer. If similar content exits on the new microsite, the webmaster can be contacted to repoint the link. If no suitable content exists, it can be created using the Way Back Machine.

Widgets: A visually appealing and easy to use widget could be created. An example widget would be a blackjack odds calculator which can be embedded on sites with a link pointing to the playblackjackonline.co.uk domain. Keyword rich anchor text would be used with the widget.

Press releases: Once the site is launched PR sites will be targeted. Sites which accept gambling related press releases such as PRWeb.com can be used to build links with keyword rich anchor text.

Article submissions: Although this technique is outdated in most niches, a quick and relatively easy way to build the required high link volume is through the submission of articles through sites such as ezinearticles.com. As Google also allows high anchor text optimisation in this niche, this method can be used effectively.

Guest blogging: Using advanced Google searches such as intitle and inurl, guest blogging opportunities can be quickly found. Relationships built through social media activity can also be leveraged for guest blogging opportunities.

Link bait: The use of graphical link bait in the blackjack niche is very poor. A well designed and easy to understand blackjack information strategy infographic would be created. The infographic can also be distributed through sites such as visual.ly who provide a link back the source site.

High quality directories: The site would be submitted to high quality directories such as Dmoz and the Yahoo! Directory. Other gaming specific directories can also be targeted.

Anchor text variation: Although several of the pages currently ranking in the top 10 positions on Google UK have exact anchor text over for over 50% of their links, a broader variation of anchor text will be used to protect against future algorithm updates. Links would be built using anchor text with a variation of exact match, partial match, brand and URL.

Link building velocity: Majestic SEO analysis of two pages currently ranking in the top 10 positions shows sporadic link building activity which is a good indication that these pages can be outranked. Aggressive link building activity can be adopted on launch which would then be supplemented through on-going link building activities as explained above.

Summary

It is clear that there is a space in the blackjack niche for a well designed authoritative website offering the game itself as well as articles, videos and infographics. The closest site to this currently is www.blackjackinfo.com although this site is poorly designed and offers a poor user experience.

Keyword research shows that a demand exists for high quality blackjack related content which would drive traffic to the site. The research also dictated the structure of the site so landing pages can be optimised for targeted keywords.

Most competing sites have no significant content strategies to attract long tail traffic and act as link bait. Nor do they engage well in social media with the exception of Facebook shares on a couple of the pages.

The link building activity of competing sites is sporadic which indicates relatively quick progress can be made if the correct link building activities are implemented.

It seems that the largest SEO difference in these competitive niches is the high percentage of exact match anchor text allowed by Google, even post Penguin. The number of spammy links used by some of the highly ranking sites is also surprising. It will be interesting to see if any future updates of Penguin penalise these sites.

SEO For Competitive Keywords

Search in Klingon, Pirate and more

Klingon might not be recognised as an official language by the UN but that doesn’t stop you using it as a search engine. Other languages on offer are Pirate, Pig Latin and strangest of all, Elmer Fudd!

Google calculator tricks

The Google calculator can be useful to convert units of measurement or doing simple maths equations. Slightly less useful are the tricks it’ll do for you. It can tell you the number of horns on a unicorn and even give a nod to Douglas Adams if you ask it the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Meet the ninja

This is a geeky throwback to the days of Konami games on gthe Nintendo NES. In Google Reader enter the Konami Code up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A to see the ninja pop up in your sidebar.

Recursion, recursion, recursion…

The “Did you mean:” function helps us with misspellings but some word loving Googler wanted to show off his hilarious sense of humour by adding a “Did you mean: Recursion” link when searching for recursion. The fun must never stop at the Googleplex…

Ascii art

I love a bit of ASCII art and someone at Google clearly does too. Searching for Ascii art will give you a lo-tech version of the Google logo.

Go kayaking

Carrying out a search for directions on Google Maps from Tokyo to San Francisco will encourage you to jump in your kayak and paddle for a little over 6,000 km.

Send Google in to a spin

There are quite a few things you can do to make your search results do odd things. Asking Google to do a barrel roll was big news on social networks a couple of months ago but you can also make it tilt, go askew or even enforce gravity.

MentalPlex

Google used MentalPlex as an April Fools joke back in 2000. It explains a new way of searching using mind power alone. The geeks even gave it a FAQ page.

Nag a ram

You’ll see another word joke from Mountain View if you carry out a search for anagram.

The StreetView geeks

The boffins who created StreetView lined up to be photographed by the Google car as it passed. One of them even dressed up as the StreetView Pegman. See it for yourself here.

The many faces of Pegman

The Pegman is the little dragable  guy who shows up in the bottom right hand corner of Google Maps. In certain places he takes on some interesting personas including a lego man in LegoLand and a penguin in a part of the South Pole.

Google Earth oddities

There’s a multitude of strange things to see on Google Earth such as the FireFox logo crop circle but this one of KFC’s Colonel Sanders is just finger lickin’ weird.

Google Doodles

These aren’t really Easter eggs but the Google Doodle has become so popular that they now have their own searchable archive.

Google’s Easter eggs

For Chrome users this is really simple. Just follow these steps and you’ll be up and running in no time.

1. Open up Chrome, click the settings wrench and select Preferences/Settings

2. On the Basics page, click Manage Search Engines under the Search section. This will show a list of all search engines available to Chrome.

3. Scroll to the Other search engines section at the bottom and enter the following in the 3 fields:

• Google UK non personalised (This is the name of your search engine and will show up in your search bar when searching)
• Google UK NP (This is the keyword for your search engine)
• http://www.google.co.uk/search?pws=0&gl=uk&q=%s (This is the important part which removes personalisation and sets the locality of your search)

The pws=0 part removes personalisation while the rest is to set the locality. This example is for the UK but can easily be changed to fr (France), es (Spain) etc. See Google’s full list of country codes.

4. You can now choose to set your new search engine as default so you see non personalised results each time you search.

Now, whenever you search you’ll see non personalised results, giving you a clearer idea of your site’s ‘true’ ranking.

Get non personalised Google results

This post explains the process I use to identify potential reviewers and the outreach email I send to get a positive response. It’s a time consuming process but I’ve seen a great success rate using these methods.

Finding the right bloggers to target

This is probably the most important part of the entire process. You’re looking to find an authoritative site which is highly relevant to your product and that the blogger would be interested in writing a review. Sticking something like blue widgets inurl:review in to Google will give you a good place to start. Turn on your SEOmoz toolbar SERP overlay to quickly give you an idea of site authority.

Once you’ve identified several potential blogs, the next part is to look carefully at the type of content the blogger has on their site. Do they seem like the kind of person who would be interested in your product? Does their bio or about page give you an idea of the kind of thing they like? You’ll quickly discover that your product isn’t suitable for all the bloggers on your list and you should be left with just a few targets.

Getting the outreach email right

Bear in mind that authoritative bloggers who write good content probably receive product review requests on a daily basis. You need to ensure that your email stands out and that it’s easy for the blogger to accept your request. The trick here is to show the benefit to the blogger of reviewing your product while giving them nothing to do in terms of research. Definitely don’t just give them a link to your product page and expect them to do the work. More than likely they won’t and your email will end up in the trash.

This is the outreach email I use (although I personalise it for every blogger). Keep as short and as friendly as possible.

Hi RECIPIENT’S NAME,

I work at YOURDOMAIN.CO.UK and thought I’d drop you a quick line to ask if you’d be interested in reviewing PRODUCT NAME on sale in our online shop as it may be of interest to your blog readers. ADD SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU HAVE READ THEIR BLOG AND WHY YOU THINK IT WOULD BE BENEFICIAL TO THEIR READERS.

ADD SOME DETAILS ABOUT THE PRODUCT AND WHY IT IS UNIQUE. Obviously, we wouldn’t expect you to the return the PRODUCT NAME.

I have attached a few images of the PRODUCT NAME for your interest.

If you think this is something that your readers would be interested in, please let me know and I will arrange to post out the PRODUCT NAME to you as soon as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Using this technique has given me several high authority links with a very high success rate. I’d be interested in hearing what techniques others use to get product reviews.

Product reviews and outreach for deep links

For me, this problem has become one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. It allows me to be creative and build good, solid relationships which can be a whole lot more rewarding than creating the usual link bait or targeting blogs on which we can write guest posts.

Here are a few methods I use. Feel free to add to them. I’d be interested in hearing your suggestions.

• eBook distribution - Very often eCommerce sites have fantastic original content already on the site. This can be used to create an eBook relatively easily and very cheaply. Make sure the content links back to key landing pages. It’s important that some time is spent presenting the content effectively. Distributing the eBook can be done through your own site as well as eBook directories. Some eBook directories are better than others so discretion needs to be used here.
• Video product reviews – Do you sell products which would benefit from video demonstrations and ‘how to’ guides? You almost certainly do! This is a great way of distributing content and building links. It can be done really cheaply these days too. Submitting the videos to sites like YouTube and Vimeo can boost your product pages’ search rankings. Video sites also help generate relevant and organic traffic to the shop as YouTube and Vimeo videos can rank well (mostly for long tail keywords).
• Submit your product feeds to shopping engines - There are so many shopping engines out there that you can easily submit your feed to. Most industries even have a specific shopping engine which will drive highly relevant traffic to your site. This is great stuff – these visitors are ready to buy!
• Product reviews from industry specific bloggers - Speak to your buying team and send some high profile bloggers products to review. This is a win-win situation – the blogger gets some great content for their site and you get a link back to your product or category page.
• Links from affiliates - Put your affiliates to work! If they sell your products they should be happy to show it. Give them a badge to place on their website which links back to you. You can control the code so you know where the link goes and what the Alt text says.
• Links from associated websites - Most online retailers have business partners or other sites they’ve created. Make the most of these sites and create a link to specific pages. You don’t need site wide links – just create a couple of highly relevant links to the right pages and move on.
• Contact suppliers and manufacturers for links - Work with your buying team. Ask them who would be open to this kind of suggestion. I’ve found that even suppliers and manufacturers who sell the same products through their site are happy to provide links.

All of these link building methods are really cheap (if not free) to put in to action and apply to virtually any eCommerce site.

Happy linking!

Link building for eCommerce

• A Really Great Writing Tip For Your Blog Content Network from MarkRushworth.com
• The best kept Secret in the SEOMoz Toolset from SEOMoz.org.
• Link Building: The Ingredients of Link Juice from SEOhatch.com
• rel=”author” and rel=”me” in WordPress From Yoast.com

If you think I’ve missed anything of note, leave a comment or Tweet me.

This week’s top SEO posts

I’ll be using Google UK for the examples below.

If I search for the term red jeans (hey, I’m a snazzy dresser), Google will return pages with the words ‘red’ and ‘jeans’ on them, in the title text or used in anchor text which links to the page. The words don’t need to be near each other. At the time of writing, Google returned 23,800,000 results. Yowzers! Let’s introduce some basic search techniques and get more advanced as we go on.

• red or jeans - returns pages which have either word on them, in the title text or in anchor text which links to the page. 233,000,000 pages returned.
• red and jeans - returns pages which have both words in them (but not necessarily together or in the same order), in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 233,000,000 pages returned.
• “red jeans” - returns pages which have both words together in the same order in them, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 1,160,000 pages returned.
• red -jeans – returns pages which have the word red but NOT the word jeans in them, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 4,370,000,000 pages returned.
• red ~jeans – returns pages which have the word red and synonyms of the word jeans (for example clothing) in them, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 182,000,000 pages returned.
• jeans (red OR green) - returns pages which have the word jeans and either the words red or green on them, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 284,000,000 pages returned.
• jeans (red AND green) - returns pages which have the word jeans and both the words red and green (but not necessarily together or in the same order) on them, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 17,800,000 pages returned.
• jeans (red AND green -blue) - returns pages which have the word jeans and both the words red and green (but not necessarily together or in the same order), but NOT the word blue on them in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 2,670,000 pages returned.

The following list is especially useful for SEO research. If you want to carry out some competitor research for example, these are a great place to start.

• intitle:red jeans – returns pages which use the word red in the title text and also have the word jeans on the page, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 4,980,000 pages returned.
• allintitle:red jeans - returns pages which use the words red and jeans in the title text. 64,500 pages returned.
• inurl:red jeans - returns pages which have the word red in their URL and also have the word jeans on the page, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 3,990,000 pages returned.
• allinurl:red jeans - returns pages which have the words red and jeans in their URL. 75,100 pages returned.
• inanchor:red jeans - returns pages which use the word red in the anchor text pointing to them and also have the word jeans on the page, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 194,000,000 pages returned.
• allinanchor:red jeans - returns pages which use the words red and jeans in the anchor text pointing to them. 1,150,000 pages returned.
• jeans site:bbc.co.uk - returns pages from only the bbc.co.uk site which have the word jeans on the page, in the title text or in anchor text which points to the page. 29,600 pages returned.
• intitle:jeans site:bbc.co.uk - returns pages from only the bbc.co.uk site which have the word jeans in the title text. 256 pages returned.

Using these searches (or a combination of them) can be a great way to find the information you’re looking for more quickly and accurately. They are also extremely effective for SEO. If I’m looking for guest blogging opportunities on SEO based blogs for example, I can carry out a search for SEO “intitle:blog” “guest post”. This will return a large number of blogs which accept guest blogging so after a bit more research on the blogs and their owners, I can approach them about making a contribution to their site. Nice!

Google search operators and search tricks for SEO

After installing and activating the plugin, you’ll see a new ‘Backup’ link in the Tools area of WordPress admin. Give it a click and you’ll be presented with a list of easy to understand options. If you’ve never backed up your website before (tut tut), I’d recommend heading straight to the Backup Options area. Just select what you want to backup and enter an email address where you’d like your files to be sent.

Next you should set up a regular scheduled backup. I backup my site on a weekly basis and have the files emailed to my Yahoo email account. This is to protect me if my hosting company goes pop and I lose my emails as well as my website. Once you’ve entered your details, click the Schedule Backup button and you’re done!

Completely backup your WordPress website

All in One SEO

This SEO plugin is not quite as sophisticated as the WordPress SEO plugin (see below) but still has some pretty handy features. It allows you to write custom title, description and keywords tags for each post or page.

Scribe SEO

This is a paid subscription service that I use every time I write a new post or page. Once your content is written, it analyses elements such as the title tag, description tag and content to tell you how keyword focused your content is and makes suggestions about improving your post from an SEO perspective.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a XML sitemap, helping search engines to better index your site. It notifies the big 4 search engines every time a new post or page is added to your site.

Google Analytics for WordPress

This plugin, written by Joost de Valk, is the best way to integrate Google Analytics in to your site. It features asynchronous tracking, custom variables, Google Analytics API integration, E-Commerce integration and Event tracking.

WP Minify, WordPress Gzip Compression and WP Super Cache

With Google’s announcement that site speed is a ranking factor last year, attention needs to be paid to the performance of WordPress based sites. I used these plugins on my site to reduce page load times from 11.73 seconds to just 3.66 seconds and wrote about it on my post, Speed up WordPress to improve rankings.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator

Yep, this is a sitemap generator but not just another XML sitemap generator, this plugin makes an HTML sitemap which is one of the most important things you can do to make your website more crawlable by search engines. You create a new page, insert the code shorthand and the plugin populates the page with your posts and pages. It also updates the sitemap as you add new posts or pages.

WordPress SEO

This is another excellent plugin by Joost de Valk of Google Analytics for WordPress fame. It pretty much does everything that most of the other WordPress plugins on this page do but in one package. Here”s a breakdown of its features:

• Post titles and meta descriptions
• Robots Meta configuration
• Canonical
• Breadcrumbs
• Permalink clean up
• XML Sitemaps
• RSS enhancements
• Edit your robots.txt and .htaccess
• Clean up head section

SEO plugins for WordPress